The Archmetamagician: The Weave Collapses Again

Anser no longer chose Ability Score Improvement for his feat. Instead, he selected one that was notoriously difficult for members of other classes to master.

...

[Mage Slayer]: General Feat.

Ability Score Improvement: Increase your Strength score by 1, to a maximum of 20.

Concentration Breaker: Your extensive experience fighting spellcasters has taught you their weaknesses and given you exceptional skill at disrupting their concentration.

Whenever you deal damage to a creature that is currently concentrating on a spell, that creature has disadvantage on the Saving Throw it makes to maintain concentration.

Steadfast Mind: Years of battling all kinds of magical effects have strengthened your will, forming a powerful layer of protection around your soul.

When you fail an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma Saving Throw, you can choose to succeed instead. This ability recharges after one day.

...

It was an exceptionally rare feat—even Stoll hadn’t mastered it.

Since he couldn’t learn it by imitation, Anser had no choice but to master it himself.

Ever since the appearance of the Chosen, the number of spellcasters he had to fight had skyrocketed, and the difficulty of those battles had increased dramatically.

Mage Slayer would be more accurately named Spellcaster Slayer, since it was effective against any spellcaster. Not only did it make it much easier to break an enemy’s concentration, but it also granted an additional layer of soul protection.

For example, when fighting Lolth’s Chosen, even if he failed his Saving Throw, this protection would ensure he wouldn’t be controlled.

That was extremely important.

In a one-on-one fight, it wasn’t too bad. But in a chaotic melee, getting surrounded and then mind-controlled usually meant getting injured—or even killed.

Next came the three spells.

The Evocation spell granted by Arcane Resonance could be selected as either an innate Sorcerer spell or a Wizard spell.

The former would become part of his sorcerous bloodline and be cast instinctively.

The latter would be a standard Wizard spell, perfectly aligned with the arcane system and complete with a full spell model.

He chose the Wizard version without hesitation. His bloodline already provided plenty of spells. Expanding his arcane knowledge was far more worthwhile, and it could also earn him additional academic contribution points.

For the spell itself, he selected Lightning Bolt.

It unleashed a bolt of lightning 100 feet (30 meters) long and 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide. Creatures that failed a Dexterity Saving Throw took 8d6 (8–48) lightning damage, while those who succeeded took only half damage.

Despite its name, Lightning Bolt wasn’t a thin line. It resembled a gigantic flat blade of light. Like a ray, it couldn’t be swept sideways, so its area of effect was limited to that narrow strip.

Fortunately, it traveled so quickly that dodging it was extremely difficult.

The other two spell choices offered a much wider range of options, many with highly tempting effects.

For example, Galder’s Tower could construct a fully furnished tower in just ten minutes.

At 3rd level, it created a two-story tower. At 7th level, it became six stories tall. It lasted for an entire day, and every additional casting extended its duration by another day.

If maintained continuously for a full year, it became a permanent tower.

Quite a few wizard towers had been built that way.

However, considering that the current environment was anything but peaceful, he ultimately chose Haste and Sending.

Haste was the classic 3rd-level Transmutation spell. Like Slow, it manipulated the flow of time experienced by its target.

It doubled the target’s speed, granted a +2 bonus to Armor Class, gave advantage on Dexterity Saving Throws, and accelerated attacks, dashes, disengages, hiding, and other actions. Its base duration was one minute.

The description alone made it obvious how powerful the buff was.

It was as though everyone else were moving in slow motion while your own reactions and speed had doubled. Many attacks became effortless to evade. While your opponent swung twice, you could strike four times.

Haste was also useful for spellcasters, but most people’s minds and spell control couldn’t keep up with such a drastic change in speed, so its effectiveness varied from person to person.

However, the spell had one major drawback—it consumed an enormous amount of stamina. If the exertion became too great, the target could be left briefly fatigued or even incapacitated once the spell ended.

It was much like an ordinary person sprinting a hundred meters at full speed—they needed a moment afterward to catch their breath.

Sending was a 3rd-level Divination spell.

It allowed you to send a message of up to 25 words to a creature you had met before or knew of.

The target would hear your message in its mind, understand its meaning perfectly, and could immediately reply in the same manner with a single message.

Sending could cross any distance, even the boundaries between planes. However, if the target wasn’t on the same plane as the caster, there was a very small chance the message would fail to reach them.

It was an incredibly practical spell. Before anything went wrong with the Weave, it had been indispensable for the intelligence networks of every major power.

’It feels just like text messaging on a cellphone. If only I had a few billion more spells and a bit more arcane knowledge, I could probably build a smartphone from scratch.’

Anser’s imagination ran wild as he matched the effects of various spells with technological inventions from his previous life. The more he thought about it, the more potential he saw.

[Feat: Mage Slayer; Wizard Spells: Lightning Bolt, Haste, Sending. Confirm?]

”Confirm!”

The next instant, a torrential flood of knowledge and insight engulfed him. His extraordinary intellect operated at full capacity, effortlessly digesting and absorbing it all.

He was no longer the Sorcerer who knew only how to use spells without understanding their underlying principles. His knowledge system had steadily matured. Low-level spells from the same school now allowed him to infer others by analogy, and he could even hold his own in academic discussions with Wizards without feeling out of his depth.

As the starlight of the Celestial Ritual Array faded away, Anser slowly opened his eyes, their gaze deeper than before.

He brought up his Character Sheet.

His Magic Power had increased again, reaching 291.

His Strength had reached the human limit of 20, allowing him to multiclass into a third class.

Glancing at his experience pool, he found 729 experience points remaining—more than enough to raise his new class to level 2.

The Strength-based classes were Barbarian, Fighter, and Paladin. Barbarians were naturally incompatible with spellcasting, since they couldn’t cast spells while raging.

’Fighter.’

That had been his goal from the very beginning.

He summoned the twenty-sided die, selected the Multiclassing symbol, chose Fighter, and watched his experience points drain away.

The visions around him vanished in an instant.

Anser’s mind jolted.

In a daze, he found himself transformed into a seasoned warrior, proficient with countless weapons, charging fearlessly across the battlefield, fighting through bloodshed, and staring death in the face.

Fighters danced upon the edge of a blade. They lived alongside death. They neither feared facing it nor shrank from struggling against it.

Heaven is on the left. Warriors march to the right.

Like Paladins, a Fighter’s greatest divine armament was also their will.

When the body reached its limits, it was willpower that carried them through the encirclement.

...

[Class Obtained: Level 2 Fighter]

Primary Ability: Strength or Dexterity.

Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Acrobatics.

Weapon Proficiencies: Simple and Martial Weapons.

Armor Training: Light Armor, Medium Armor, Heavy Armor, and Shields.

You gain the following class features:

[Fighting Style]

[Second Wind]

[Weapon Mastery]

[Action Surge]

[Tactical Mind]

You gain one new feat.

...

’Huh? Arcane Resonance didn’t trigger? Is it because Fighters don’t have Spellcasting, so there was nothing for it to resonate with?’

Anser recalled that when he became a level 4 Paladin, Arcane Resonance had only granted him a 1st-level spell. That seemed to confirm his guess.

Still, it wasn’t a big deal.

For Fighting Style, he chose Archery, granting a +2 bonus to Attack Rolls made with ranged weapons. It also applied to the arcane arrows fired by the Arcanefire Longbow.

...

[Second Wind]: You can draw upon your limited reserves of stamina and endurance to recover Hit Points, restoring 1d10 + your Fighter level. Currently, that meant 3–12 Hit Points, usable twice per day.

...

For Weapon Mastery, he selected the Lance, Greataxe, and Warhammer. He was already planning to learn the longbow by imitation, so he deliberately chose three less common weapons instead.

...

[Action Surge]: You can briefly push yourself beyond the limits of mortal flesh, dramatically increasing your speed and unleashing additional attacks in rapid succession.

...

This was the Fighter’s signature ability—the reason they were known for making multiple attacks. Their movements came like surging waves, leaving opponents overwhelmed.

...

[Tactical Mind]: Both on and off the battlefield, you can apply your tactical thinking. By expending Second Wind, you can enhance an Ability Check, bringing the result closer to success.

...

This feature strengthened a Fighter’s resilience, allowing them to unleash their body’s hidden potential at critical moments to accomplish feats that would otherwise be impossible—such as making an impossible dodge or resisting powerful magic.

For his new feat, he chose Ability Score Improvement, raising his Wisdom to 18.

Stoll possessed a great many feats—more than enough for Anser to keep learning from him for quite some time.

Anser stretched lazily.

His bones and joints crackled all over, and a pleasant sense of comfort spread through his body. His control over every muscle and limb had improved dramatically.

’I like Fighters.’

Fighters had many class features, but aside from Second Wind, nearly all of them were passive abilities.

They were simple and straightforward—they activated automatically whenever the situation called for them, requiring almost no extra thought.

He was multiclassing into more and more classes, but a person’s mental energy was limited.

Sometimes, simpler was better.

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