Fan Man!
There was one Trait that refused to be sucked away, no matter how many minutes passed and how much Health was syphoned off: World Slider. It was his very first Trait, and its description alluded to some kind of divine interference, though he hadn’t heard anything about Lady Luck since.
This meant that his Luck remained at -20. Interestingly, that was the one stat that couldn’t be affected by the Sucker Status Effect.
Elijah decided to stop wondering about such things when the second lance lambasted his sloth with pain. He couldn’t keep lying around all day. Sure, he may be trapped beneath what seemed to be a several-ton spider carcass, but that was no excuse.
When he actually started to try and dig himself out, he discovered he wasn’t trapped at all. The soft, airy soil of this land of dust may have been a pain in the arse to traverse, but in this instance, it was actually quite helpful.
Nothing was broken, and burrowing out was easy; there were even enough gaps between the hair-like particles that breathing wasn’t an issue.
Once he was out, Elijah set straight to work following the current once more. This time, however, he didn’t avoid the dens of spiders, beetles, and other creepy crawlies but instead made sure to visit any in his way.
Most of the time, he would try to ambush the insects, but these were predators in their own right, and it was difficult. Even so, the fights that turned into bloody, brutal affairs were still worth his time, as he gained more time each time he sucked out the blood of another.
He only got a bonus to Health, Stamina, and Mana once per monstrous bug, but that was just enough to keep him alive as the teen continued his trek across the dusty desert.
He withdrew his swordfish sword from the eye socket of another spider. This was the fifth such monster he had slain, and he had learnt of a weakness, an obvious one but still. If he plunged his weapon through the eye, up to the hilt, he could pierce their brain.
To kill the beast that lay dead before him, he had thrown a splinter onto the web and then waited for the arachnid to investigate whilst perched atop an overhanging dust cliff.
As soon as it had poked its head out, he had plunged down onto it. Taking advantage of the thing's weak spot, he killed it instantly.
The sword came out with a wet shlop, and despite his revulsion, Elijah closed his eyes tight and let the goop drop onto his tongue.
That was enough, and, just as before, a notification appeared.
Status Effect Update: You Suck!
You have sucked the power out of another in the domain of the Great Power Vacuum. The Vacuum approves. You receive a temporary bonus: +30 to Health, Mana, and Stamina. All other effects remain the same.
The reprieve he got was less than with his first kill, but that was to be expected. This beast was far smaller than his first. It was not much bigger than him.
Up until this point, he might not have bothered diverting from his course to kill it, but as the mana stream in the sky became ever stronger, the number and size of the insects seemed to lessen.
Elijah didn’t like it. Whatever the source of this vacuum was, it was either scaring away or eating the other predators.
The teen worried he wouldn't be able to do enough life-saving murder to get close to whatever it was. His fears, as it transpired, were unfounded.
Making his way to the peak of another dust dune, Elijah saw, for the first time, something other than a desert of dust.
The floating river of glowing light swelled massively ahead as tributaries joined it from all seven cardinal directions, creating a delta of wind mana. It started to swoop down from the sky to the ground. The delta coalesced around a clearing, a pit several Elijahs deep, that was completely devoid of dust.
The teen peered over the edge, and saw something he had not yet seen. The true floor of this domain. It looked like it was made of resin-set canvas. It had the regular weave and pattern of the painting supply, though its colour was more brown than white, and a shiny, polished layer seemed to sit atop it.
Elijah wondered how this pit hadn’t collapsed; the walls were sheer, and dust wasn’t known for its structural integrity. He got his answer not a second later.
His weight on the edge of the precipice caused some of it to fall into the dustless zone. The second it passed the invisible, circular line, something the teen had assumed to be a fan, spinning at the centre of the mana convergence, moved.
It was fast, almost too fast for Elijah to see as it sprouted a human body, legs, and arms and jumped around, plunging its fan head into the dust. It was big, about eight feet in height. The second the grey fluff came in contact with the fan blades, they simply vanished.
The teen was just about able to scramble back from the edge before he met the same fate. That thing was weird but powerful. Elijah thought fighting might not be smart.
He would look around some more. Upon coming here, he had learnt that there were other rivers of mana; perhaps they would lead to a more accessible exit.
If that was not the case, he could always come back after killing a bunch more insects. He only had 15 minutes of Health, and if this fight did turn out to be unavoidable, he’d prefer to at least have 20.
As he was backing away from the edge of the arena, he was spotted by the black-bodied, plasticy, fan person. It pointed a sharpened finger at him, and he pointed at himself dumbly, as if to say, “Me?”
Before the teen knew what was happening, one of those rivers of wind mana had been redirected towards him, and he was sucked off his feet and into the polished circle.
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It seemed this creature, whatever it was, wasn’t just going to let him leave. Elijah debated trying to escape, but the walls were taller than he was, and this thing had already proven it could just suck him right back in.
Strangely though, it wasn’t attacking him. The fan man just stood there, continuing to point. It was only then that he realised he was still in the middle of the mana stream, except it had stopped pulling him.
Placing a hand outside the ring, it was instantly dragged back in with the force of a flood. For some reason, however, the mana couldn’t affect him when he was inside the circle.
Perhaps it was the Great Power Vacuum ensuring this would be a fair fight. Elijah didn’t know, and it didn't matter; he would use the opportunity to learn more about his opponent.
He used Identify.
Identify:
Level: 26
Monster: Fan Head
Description: This is a monster created by the Great Power Vacuum to test aspiring power vacuums. Its blades are deadly, its plastic unmeltable, but defeating it will gain you the Great Power Vacuum’s favour.
The monster finally figured out it wasn’t just going to be able to pull the human into its blades with wind mana and launched towards him. The blades of its head spun and pulled it through the air, giving the teen minimal time to react.
He felt slow without the boost his Attributes usually gave him. But that didn’t stop the young man from rolling out of the way. Contesting those fan blades directly seemed foolish.
He lashed out with his sword mid-tumble, scoring a line along the fan man’s plastic ribs. There was no blood, and the creature didn’t react, so he doubted it could feel pain. If this came down to a battle of attrition, he didn’t think he could win.
As the Fan Head buzzed around the arena, circling back round to face him, talon-like fingers outstretched, Elijah was reminded of just how little time he had to end this match. A spike of pain lacerated his insides as his Health dropped from 150 to 140. He should have been used to the sensation by now, but he wasn’t.
The distraction cost him. His roll turned into a tumble, and one of the monster’s spike-like fingers skewered him through the foot. That wasn’t an end to it, however. He remained attached to the fan man as he continued to be pulled around the clearing by his impaled appendage.
The teen wailed and screamed as he struggled to pull himself off the black, pokey finger. He felt like one of those idiots in cowboy films being dragged around by the stirrups. He never realised how much scraping against the ground like that hurt.
Friction burns were beginning to form on his naked side, but that paled in comparison to the pain in his foot. He could feel it as the hole the monster had created began to tear. If he didn’t do something, it would rip off, and he’d be left with a mangled stump.
For the monster’s part, it didn’t even seem to realise it had a passenger. It continued its looping arc, turning back around to face the human once more.
Only when it saw? Felt? Smelt? However it detected stuff didn’t matter. When it turned back around and found that Elijah wasn’t present, only then did it notice something was wrong.
The Fan Head stopped, planting its feet back on the ground and standing upright. It turned its bladed head about, looking for the human.
When it lifted its hand to scratch its hub, it found something dangling off one of its fingers. The human gave it a wincing, upside-down smile and waved. The monster, confused, waved back with its free hand.
A blood blade shot out of Elijah’s hand as the world was plunged into near darkness. It wasn’t like before. True, the teen hadn’t learnt to cast more than one spell at once, and he stopped glowing as soon as the attack was released, but he had managed to imbue the blood blade with some light mana.
A phosphorescent line appeared on the monster, leading from the centre of its chest up and through its head. Where it struck the plastic of the body, Elijah’s blood carved a deep groove. Where it struck the still fan blades, it caused a crack.
Enraged at the sudden attack, the monster tried to spin up once more, intent on feeding this midget to his blades. As soon as the propellers got up to speed, however, there was a great shattering sound, and one of the blades went flying off.
The monster was blasted backwards by the sudden explosion of its head. Elijah used the opportunity to finally unhook himself from the finger. While the broken Fan Head was still reeling, he slink-limped off into the darkness.
Unfortunately, the lack of light only seemed to impede him. The giant plastic monster got back to its feet with a broken, buzzing roar that caused the teen to shiver unconsciously.
He watched the monster with its glowing blood stripe as it began sprinting towards him, its long, slender legs producing more speed than should be possible. Its fan could no longer spin, and it had become groundbound.
It was harder for Elijah to dodge with his injured foot, but he still managed it, coming back up with a slash of his sword that was caught by sharpened fingers. The teen wasn’t done, however.
Now that there was a source of light, he changed the focus of his magical attention. Making the liquid mana in his blood replicate the flowing patterns of water mana, he began to dance.
The monster's attacks were powerful but large and over-exaggerated. It tore up the plasticky, canvas-like floor with disturbing ease, but no matter what it did, it couldn’t hurt Elijah.
It swung down, and the teen twirled aside. It lunged forward, and he bent over backwards, only to spring back up and plunge his sword deep into its chest. The creature didn’t have any organs, so it wasn’t really hurt.
The weapon wouldn’t come out, and the monster tried to use this to its advantage. It kicked up at the teen, but Elijah backflipped away, surrendering his weapon without hesitation.
No matter what the monster did, it couldn’t touch the boy; he was just too slippery. Each flail attack led to a counterattack. The strikes were weak compared to the monster's own blows, but the damage was adding up.
Elijah weaved around in a trance, following the path of water, the path of least resistance. At some point he was able to swing around the Fan Head and retrieve his weapon. He then thrust it several times into the shoulder whenever there was an opportunity.
Although the monster lacked joints, it eventually lost so much plastic that the limb ceased to function. With an effective plan, Elijah pressed on. The world became a blur as he sank deeper into the water mana.
Each slash contained the nature of water, and before he knew it, he was standing over the disabled body of the monster, his blade dripping and a great slash having cleaved his foe in twain. Elijah didn’t even know what had happened.
You have defeated a Lv 26 Fan Head:
More Xp is awarded for defeating an opponent of a higher level. 1072 Xp awarded. Xp automatically placed in escrow, US 2.7.1.
His joy was momentary, however, as all at once, a wave of exhaustion hit him, and his head felt like it had split in two. The water dance had gone on for less than a minute, but his Mana and Stamina were completely drained.
He collapsed. A hole opened in the floor beneath him, and he fell out of the domain of the Vacuum, landing on the same green carpet he had started on. The Vrooming carried on past him as he looked back and got his first, fleeting glance at the Great Power Vacuum in its entirety.
Seven trunks, a body the size of a mountain, all made of reflective stainless steel, and wheels the size of houses were all that he saw before the world ended and he was presented with the usual message.
Congratulations!
You have completed the Trial of Evolution 1: Power Vacuum
Grade: A
Objectives:
- Become the greatest predator in the Great Power Vacuum’s domain: ?
- Defeat Fan Head: ?
- Suck the power out of at least 10 other monsters: ?
Rewards:
You have earned the right to Evolve from a Power Vacuum into 1 of 1 Power Vacuum Evolutions:
- Ultimate Sucker
- Roomba Rova
- Clean Killer
- Abhorrent to Nature
- Not A Fan
Choose Now!
patrons: