Ruho walked outside through the heavy wooden door, the morning sun hitting his bare chest and making him squint. The plateau stretched out before him, still a battlefield from yesterday's carnage. The Gigantosuchus corpse lay where it had fallen, now completely picked clean by the blood hounds and other scavengers. What remained was mostly bones massive, white bones that gleamed in the sunlight, stripped of every ounce of meat and connective tissue. The skeleton was still impressive, a hundred-foot framework of prehistoric predator, but it was hollow now. Empty.
Blood hound corpses littered the area around it, some partially eaten by other scavengers, some just rotting in the sun. The smell was getting worse as decomposition set in, a sweet-sick odor that made Ruho's nose wrinkle.
He grimaced and walked past the carnage, giving the Gigantosuchus skeleton a wide berth. His bare feet found relatively clean stone, and he positioned himself in an open area away from the worst of the death.
"Okay," he said, looking around. "Let's test this Launched Splinter ability. How does it actually work?"
"Simple mechanics," Azirel explained. "You've got two options. Option one: pick up any piece of wood you can easily lift. stick, branch, plank, whatever, and launch it at speeds between sixty and three hundred miles per hour. That costs ten mana points per throw. Option two: generate your own splinter from pure mana, which gives you a standardized foot-long projectile. That costs thirty mana points."
Ruho processed that information. "So the generated ones are stronger but cost triple the mana?"
"The generated ones are more consistent," Azirel clarified. "They're always the same size, same density, same aerodynamic properties. Found wood varies. could be rotten, could be crooked, could shatter on impact. But yeah, triple the cost."
"Okay," Ruho said, looking around for a target. His eyes landed on a large boulder maybe thirty yards away—roughly six feet tall, weathered granite with a flat face. Perfect. "That'll work."
He walked around the plateau, searching for suitable ammunition. There—a broken branch from one of the trees at the plateau's edge, maybe two feet long and an inch thick. Not too heavy, easy to grip. He picked it up, testing its weight.
"Twenty mana for two throws with found wood," he muttered, doing the math. "Or thirty for one generated splinter. Let's try the cheap option first."
He walked back to his position, twenty yards from the boulder. Far enough that he'd have to actually aim, close enough that he shouldn't miss completely. He held the stick in his right hand, trying to remember how baseball pitchers stood. Sideways stance, weight on his back foot, ready to transfer forward.
"How do I activate it?" he asked.
"Just throw while thinking about the skill," Azirel said. "The magic does the rest. It'll take the stick from your hand and launch it at whatever speed you're intuitively aiming for."
Ruho wound up like he was throwing a fastball, focused on the boulder, thought about Launched Splinter, and threw.
The stick left his hand and—
CRACK!
It exploded into splinters mid-flight, the wood unable to handle the sudden acceleration. Fragments scattered across the plateau, none of them reaching the boulder.
"Well, shit," Ruho said, staring at his empty hand.
"That was rotten wood," Azirel observed. "Structural integrity couldn't handle three hundred miles per hour. Told you found wood varies."
Ruho went to find another stick. This time he was more selective, a fresher branch, still with some flexibility, less likely to just disintegrate. He got back into position, wound up, and threw again.
This stick made it further. It rocketed toward the boulder at incredible speed, crossing twenty yards in a fraction of a second, and—
SNAP!
It shattered on impact with the granite, exploding into pieces that went flying in different directions. Ruho jogged over to check the boulder. Completely fine. Not even a mark. The stick had broken, the rock was unscathed.
"If only I could test this on something fleshy," Ruho muttered, running his hand over the unmarked stone. "Something that would actually show damage instead of just destroying the projectile."
"You could use one of the blood hound corpses," Azirel suggested.
"They're rotting and disgusting," Ruho said. "I'm not touching those. Let me try the generated splinter. Maybe that'll be stronger."
He walked back to his twenty-yard mark, held out his right hand, and concentrated. He thought about the skill, about creating a splinter from pure mana. He felt the energy drain from him—thirty points, leaving him with 170, and something materialized in his palm.
A foot-long spike of solid wood, perfectly straight, sharpened to a wicked point at one end. It felt real, substantial, with weight and texture like actual wood but somehow more uniform. Perfect.
Ruho got into his throwing stance again, wound up, and launched the generated splinter at the boulder.
This time it worked.
The spike shot forward like a bullet, crossing the distance in a blur, and THUNK, it stuck into the granite. Actually penetrated maybe an inch deep, the wooden spike embedded in solid rock.
"YES!" Ruho pumped his fist. "That's what I'm talking about!"
He ran over to examine it. The generated splinter had punched into the boulder's surface, creating a small crater around the impact point. The wood hadn't shattered. it was still intact, still solid, just now permanently lodged in stone.
"That's actually pretty good," Azirel admitted. "For a 'mid ability,' it's got some punch."
Ruho tried to pull the splinter out but it was stuck fast. He gave up and stepped back. "Can I level this up? Make it stronger? Longer projectiles? Higher speeds?"
"No," Azirel said. "Skills don't level up like RPG games. This isn't a video game, it's reality. Well, fantasy reality. The point is, what you got is what you got. You might be able to push more mana into it for slightly better results, but the splinter will always be a foot long. Always the same speed range. That's your baseline."
"Aww man," Ruho's enthusiasm deflated. "I was hoping I could train it or something. Make it more powerful over time."
"Your mana capacity can increase," Azirel offered. "Which means more shots before you run out. And you could get better at aiming. But the skill itself? Static. No progression."
Ruho sighed and looked at his hands. He had 170 mana left after that one generated splinter. Five more shots with generated ammo, or seventeen shots with found wood. Not a lot for fighting five hundred pirates.
He thought about the Patron skill. About the ability to summon legendary warriors to fight for him for sixty seconds. That was his real trump card, the legendary-tier ability that could change everything.
But Lu Bu's warning echoed in his mind. "If I am not the first one you choose to fight for you, I will kill you the next time I see you."
The seven-and-a-half-foot warrior with muscles that could crush stone and a reputation for being the strongest fighter of his era. That Lu Bu. Threatening to murder Ruho if he didn't get first pick.
"Shit," Ruho muttered. "I can't even test the Patron skill without pissing off Lu Bu."
"Probably for the best," Azirel said. "Save it for when you actually need it. Sixty seconds goes fast in combat. You want to use it strategically, not waste it on a test run."
And the Killing Intent skill—that was purely defensive. Passive sensing of when things wanted to kill him, and an emergency adrenaline boost when he was about to die. No way to test it without actually putting himself in mortal danger, which seemed counterproductive when he was trying to prepare for mortal danger.
Ruho stood on his plateau, surrounded by death, wearing torn cargo pants and nothing else, with three abilities he barely understood and pirates approaching from the south.
"You know what?" he said, turning back toward his castle. "I think that's enough testing for now. I'm going inside before something else tries to kill me."
"Probably wise," Azirel agreed. "You've got planning to do anyway. Those pirates aren't going to defend against themselves."
Ruho walked back across the plateau, past the Gigantosuchus skeleton and the rotting blood hounds, through the heavy wooden door, and into the relative safety of his empty, oversized, torture-chamber-equipped castle.
He had two days, maybe less, before everything went to hell again.
He needed a plan. A real plan. Something better than "throw sticks at five hundred armed pirates and hope for the best."
But right now, standing in his entrance hall that still smelled like death, he had absolutely no idea what that plan should be.