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Where do you wish to start?
It was a good feature for sure, and something he had been working on during the past week. However, Jasper wasn't really happy with how it looked. He sighed and picked The Infinite Plains. That would be the area where the orks roamed.
With Celeste and Martin taking care of the Dwarves and Drows, the developers only had a few more places to fix before they were done with the first iteration of bugfixing. A'kastin had been locked in since Celeste had brought it to a point where it was a great starting location. It was still being iterated upon, but the AI would always bring it back to its current state with a ruler that had some power but was under pressure from all sides, while the people did not have enough resources.
That left Jasper and Riez to fix the orkish culture and ensure there weren't any bugs on The Infinite Plains.
To no surprise, Riez and Jasper landed on what could only be described as open plains. However, what was surprising was the colour of the world around them. Large swaths of grass surrounded them, but the grass was a crimson red, yellow, and orange, as if it was autumn and the whole world was just waiting for the grass to shed its leaves, as if it were some kind of tree.
Jasper felt his Ominscholar power pour information into his brain, and the relief of being told what was happening was immense.
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Omniscient Scholar
Type: Constant effect
Energy usage: None
Full effect: You know anything that has been written in a book, though this is mostly limited to non-fiction books unless the fiction has roots in reality.
Scrolls count as books. A book has to be stored and maintained by living beings to count as being under this effect. You are not able to obtain what is assumed to be lost knowledge through this ability.
Instantly, Jasper knew that this was a special type of grass that populated the plains and that it was known as Firegrass, mostly due to its spicy nature and not because it was actually especially flammable. It was a surprisingly rare alchemical component, not because it was hard to find but because any major caravans harvesting the resource would often end up accosted by orks.
Riez gave a whistle, and Jasper looked over at her, seeing that she wasn't in her gremlin form but rather resembling her real-world self. Her shirt and vest highlighted her long orange hair and baggy pants, all in white or brown, making her almost blend into the environment. She was also wearing gloves despite the shirt having short sleeves.
"This place is amazing. I swear, the realism of these Deep Dive games always catches me off-guard," Riez said with a gasp.
Jasper barely recognised the feeling anymore, but as Riez enjoyed the experience, he savoured her glee as she kicked up a tuft of grass, and then he savoured the sight of her falling over when the grass didn't budge. He knew that she was being silly. Her divine body would have allowed her to keep her balance if she wanted to. But it was good that she was enjoying the experience.
"I need to set some things up before we get going. I realised that I have been an idiot and not prepared myself in any way when going into this world. I will not make the same mistake. We have 10 days, and I intend to spend the first day setting up some Ur-spells." Jasper explained while rolling each shoulder in turn as if he was warming up for some major athletic exercise.
Riez groaned loudly. "I know that as the God of knowledge, you are bound to be a dum-dum, but why do you have to spend the first day just doing boring stuff? Don't be a dum-dum-dum." Her eyes were pleading.
Jasper sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and pushing up his glasses in the same motion. It was a very familiar, calming action that he had missed when he was out of the game.
The God of magic waited for her to act like an adult, but that seemed like a lost cause, so he just dismissed her. "I don't expect you to stay around here. I expect you to scout things out while I prep. You have the sneaky deception powers, so you can definitely use them as you see fit. Find any bugs so we can annihilate them, and if you see the opportunity for a good game mechanic, note it down in the virtual pad you have access to through your HUD." He wandered through the grass as he talked, trying to find a good place to begin the rituals.
When Jasper didn't hear a response from Riez, he turned around and burst out laughing. A smoke cloud shaped like the trickster started dissipating as soon as he looked at it. It didn't take his Knowledge Domain to inform Jasper that Riez had used her Alacrity Domain to slip away quickly and her Deception Domain to create the illusion of smoke particles dispersing.
With the intern occupied, Jasper let a flame inferno scorch the ground around him, burning away the grass so that he could start his rituals.
The God's plan was actually fairly simple. He needed Ur-spells to be able to go toe-to-toe with most other gods, and casting those was expensive and hurt if done during combat. However, that was due to him trying to cast them instantly every time. He had other options. He just hadn't had the time to set things up properly, at least not until now.
The problem with the Ur-spells was that they were designed to be too powerful for this world. They effectively damaged the world around them and forced changes to the entire realm. It shouldn't have been something that was cast at all. However, they simply proved too powerful not to have access to it.
He was going to stack his Magic Domain powers to such a degree that what he was about to do was probably considered a bug on its own. The first step of his plan was his power, "The Excellent Pause". It allowed him to commit Energy to pause the casting of a spell, and while he had restricted it to fireballs and other powerful combat spells, there wasn't any limit as far as he could tell, meaning that he could push Ur-spells into it. That would allow him to cast prepared Ur-spells without invoking the rituals that would tear the world apart.
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The Excellent Pause
Type: Activated Ability
Energy usage: Varies.
Full effect: When you cast an Ur-spell or mortal magic, you may commit Energy just before it is triggered. The spell is then suspended and may be released as an action at any time thereafter, with the committed Energy returning at the next loading screen. You may suspend more than one spell if you're willing to commit the Energy to each, but releasing requires your attention.
The downside was obvious, though. He would be limiting his overall Energy, something that he only had 7 of, thanks to giving up the Endurance Domain.
However, the idea was to combine this power with the powers that allowed him to cast Ur-spells. The first one was particularly important.
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Deified Ur-mage
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: You have been initiated into the Way of the Deified Ur-mage, the humblest level of Ur-magic, albeit still one beyond all but the mightiest mortal wizards.
You may choose four spells to master as part of this learning and may learn more as you find them. You do not need to spend Energy to remember these four spells, however, if you want to cast any other spells of the Deified Ur-mage, then you need to spend one Energy to learn it temporarily and one Energy to cast it.
Here, the most crucial part was that he would be allowed to access any other spells that he wanted from the Ur-spell list. All of them were very powerful, and if he prepared them, he could have an arsenal of mighty magic that he wouldn't normally have access to. The price of 1 Energy for just knowing the spell was fair, and to mitigate it, he would have to combine it with his other powers. The next piece of the puzzle was the power granted to him through the Supreme Ur-mage.
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Supreme Ur-mage
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: You have been initiated into the way of the Supreme Ur-mage, the second tier of Ur-magic.
You master three spells of this tier as part of this learning, which you do not need to spend Energy to remember. You may learn more as you find them. When casting Ur-magic you may spend a day to cast the spell without spending any Energy.
While this was definitely a good idea, he would need to spend a week if he wanted to have seven spells ready for whatever opponent came for him. However, that would leave him with none left. As such, he would have to use the last power in the line of Ur-magic powers. The Unbound Ur-mage power.
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Unbound Ur-mage
Type: Constant
Energy usage: N/A
Full effect: You have been initiated into the way of the Unbound Ur-mage, the deepest degree of Ur-magic.
You master two spells of this tier as part of this learning, which you do not need to spend Energy to remember. You may learn more as you find them. When casting Ur-magic you may spend a minute to cast the spell without taking any damage.
Now, this was where things got spicy. The true limit of the Ur-magic was the damage that they caused to cast. With this last power, which had required the previous two tiers, he could now stack them all. He had given himself a single day, mostly to ensure he still got something from the session.
Jasper took a deep breath and invoked his divine powers. Sigils sprawled underneath him, being carved into the ground, but Jasper's Energy ensured that the slow spread of the ancient power was contained and any strands of wild mana were looped back into the spell.
It was strange to cast the spell without being torn apart. It was still deeply uncomfortable as Energy poured in and out of him following the spell diagram, but it wasn't as bad as having to cast the spell in combat. The game wouldn't and couldn't emulate pain, but it could and regularly did emulate great discomfort, and one of the biggest discomforts Jasper had experienced so far was being torn apart on the atomic level, all thanks to casting an ur-spell
Jasper unleashed the first ring of Ur-magic, and the sigils that made up the engine of the world appeared on the ground, shaking the world, or maybe it was just Jasper. However, nothing broke, which was already a success. It was like Jasper was trapped in a heat haze. All around him, the air shimmered as it tried to collide with something so fundamental that it was repulsed.
The second ring was unleashed, allowing Jasper to feel the power course through him. The veils of the world parted, and a glimpse between planes would have sent mortals screaming. It was only thanks to Jasper's powers and divine Energy, that the parting of the veils didn't become a tear in reality. An achievement he was quite proud of.
As the third ring unfurled, something in the darkness beyond moved. Jasper recognised it as if it were trying to link to the plane. It was something his wife had created. The Whirlpool of Souls was a system that sorted dead souls, and it was a construction made from pure death. It had the power to kill a god, and by the looks of things, an ur-spell from the unbound tier had caught its attention. If it was cast in combat without these preparations, the link probably couldn't be prevented and the structure of death would likely kill the entire world.
Before the Whirlpool of Souls could connect to the rift that Jasper had created, he unleashed his spell.
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Directed Convulsion of Law
Tier: Unbound Ur-magic (3rd tier)
Full effect: The processes of natural law bow to you. Once cast, you can immunize yourself and up to a half-dozen allies from particular natural laws, material objects, or natural phenomena.
You could absolve yourself of gravity, for example, and fly or exempt yourself from acknowledging a stone wall and walk through it. This lasts for up to an hour.
With his power to store it, the spell compressed, becoming a small sphere of constantly changing power that hovered behind Jasper's head.
In front of Jasper, the rift closed, and he saw the strand from the Whirlpool retract back into the main construct.
Around him, the earth was crisp as if it had been burning, but everything seemed to be fine.
He had lost two Energy for preparing that spell. He had lost one for the day for casting it in only an hour without taking any damage. And he had dedicated one to keep it stored. He would recover the lost Energy in time, and he would regain the Energy when he used the Ur-spell.
Jasper continued, this time only going to tier two. While scorched by his fire earlier, the ground underneath him might as well have been salted at this point as he poured divine Energy through it to a point where nothing could live.
Soon, he invoked a new ur-spell Sign of Avulsive Banishment. It condensed into a small pearl behind his head, shifting hues as the light hit it.
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Sign of Avulsive Banishment
Tier: Supreme Ur-magic (2nd tier)
Full effect: Smite a creature not of this world. Instantly dealing them 1d20 damage per caster Rank and returning them to the realm from which they originated. Beings stronger than you gets a check to resist the effect of being sent back. This can target up to one small army, as long as none of its members are stronger than you.
Again, he lost Energy, though it was to be expected, and this time, things weren't being strained in the same way since he didn't go to the unbound tier, but only the supreme tier. It still cost the same amount of Energy as before, though.
Jasper took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. He invested one point into knowing a new Ur-spell, at least for a short while, and then one more point into casting it without having to damage himself or the world.
When he finally finished casting The Grinding Teeth of God, he dedicated one more Energy to pausing the casting, and the spell solidified into a pearl behind his head, though this one had multitudes of mouths and maws all over it, clearly craving to devour whatever was put in front of it.
Jasper inspected the spell he had considered too extreme to use last time. He thought that this was a good middle-ground.
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The Grinding Teeth of God
Tier: Unbound Ur-magic (3rd tier)
Full effect: You drag the fabric of reality into the teeth of the celestial gears that support it, churning every solid object in the area of effect into a fine powder.
The spell affects an area up to thirty meters in diameter centred on a point within the caster’s sight. Living creatures that keep moving can pull away from the grinding gears and suffer only 33% of their max life in damage for each round they remain in the area of effect.
Immobile objects are chewed to dust within ten rounds, whereupon the spell ends. Only the very strongest supernatural substances are capable of resisting this spell. If such an artifact or object gets caught in the area of effect, the celestial engines will bind up and shatter.
That did leave him with no Energy for the rest of the day, but that was fine, he would be spending the rest of the day, casting a fourth spell, this time for free, only using his concentration.
The day turned to night, and the heavens shifted above Jasper. As dawn came, he was trembling with exhaustion, not something he was used to, thanks to the previous Endurance Domain. But he got 4 Energy back as the sun crested the horizon. The remaining 3 were still bound in his divine power, holding back the spells. He would get that back when he unleashed them.
A couple of hours later he finished the spell, allowing him to cast Palace of the Sorcerer-Prince.
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Palace of the Sorcerer-Prince
Tier: Unbound Ur-magic (3rd tier)
Full effect: With but a single use of this invocation, you call forth a luxuriantly-appointed tower or similar structure, one capable of housing up to a hundred inhabitants in comfort. The palace is appointed with dozens of conjured servitors, concubines, and laborers, albeit none are capable of fighting. The tower is sealed against entry by anyone, save you and your chosen guests. However, siege weapons or powerful magic can break through the walls and steel-hard windows of tinted glass.
The tower naturally creates sufficient food, drink, and other common necessities to serve a hundred guests indefinitely. If taken from the tower, however, these amenities crumble away in moments. So too, the servitors, if they are forced to leave its walls.
The palace may be dispelled at the caster’s whim. Any foreign objects or persons left within the tower when dispelled will appear on the ground where it once stood. However, the caster’s personal possessions may be left stored within whatever timeless pocket realm the tower goes to when it is dispelled. You may have only one palace standing at any one time.
The magic turned into a pearl, though this one had a small castle on top of it.
This left him with three Energy for the rest of the nine days he had left. He smiled and was about to find out where Riez had gone, but as soon as he tried to take a step, his body screamed in exhaustion, and he collapsed, snoozing before he even hit the ground.