Loopshard

Adam felt he’d gotten quite proficient with casting Heart Lance and Beckoning Crimson after practising with both spells for about two hours until it got dark. Beckoning consumed all of his Mana every time he cast it though, which was not ideal, but he’d stumbled onto something game-changing after weaving a construct based on the spell patterns with his Spidersilk Needle.

On his right arm was something that looked like a vambrace made out of red-tinged golden thread. If he nudged his Mana-infused blood trapped inside, it would summon a ball of silk and blood in his palm, which would fire off a pressurised beam of blood when he closed his hand over it. Preparing the spell like this was similar to Sylvia’s scrolls, but didn’t require him to hold anything and invoke the spell verbally.

The woven construct for Beckoning Crimson was quite different though, because it would trigger as soon as enough Mana-infused blood was inside it, so he kept it at 90% capacity where it wrapped around his torso like a belt.

The normal spell pattern was similar to Blink, since it required him to hold a double-helix ring that orbited his torso, centred on his heart. But its main spell component required him to weave a ball of blood around him that he then had to fling outwards, expanding it as it moved. Any blood the expanding ball touched was pulled back to him, healing his missing Health before turning into a flexible armour on top of his body. Expanding the ball consumed as much Mana as he let it, but because of his Mana being halved due to the Prince’s Gambit Sigil, its reach was only about 8 metres, unless he used the woven spidersilk construct.

However, the doubled capacity created by the sigil was more than enough to compensate for this, since it allowed him to wield 40 litres in each of his separate spells, though the diameters of the floating balls was only slightly bigger than before, despite the volume doubling.

He’d also gotten a new idea about how to utilise his flesh magic to store excess blood, inspired by seeing Sarah carrying loot in a repurposed vat sack. After creating a few such vats around him in the Player house and harvesting dozens of dummies for their blood and flesh, he was able to store an insane amount of material on him. It wasn’t exactly something that would be feasible to set up inside a Stage, but he was hoping the Challenge Stone would allow him to bring his spells with him into the arena where he’d fight the Nwetrou worshipper. There was no sense in approaching such a person with honour, and a sudden attack of overwhelming strength was guaranteed to make his success a foregone conclusion.

The biggest change caused by his increased capacity, aside from letting him create some seriously powerful flesh-shaped constructs, was that it made Princely Raiment absolutely absurd. Instead of growing half a metre in height, Adam grew two, forcing the Player House to expand upwards to accommodate him. Aside from making him bigger, it also completely encased him, even his head, where a brutal helmet with a crown on top appeared. In terms of size, he was not far off from the Slothling Ogre, but compared to that creature, Adam was several times faster and stronger, because the way the power of his transformation scaled wasn’t linear with the volume of material that covered him.

With a single step in his monstrous form, Adam could move across the length of the house, and his punches broke the floorboards under him with the sheer pressure they generated.

Having Brawler would be so absurd for this transformation, but being able to weave spells and wear them is genuinely so much more powerful.