[Book 1 Completed] Industrial Mage: Modernizing a Magical World [Kingdom Building LitRPG]
B2 | Chapter 48 – A New Threat?

Theodore's consciousness crawled back to him like a wounded animal seeking shelter. It was slow and painful, and everything felt wrong. He hadn't felt this way after learning a skill, ever. Not even when his body had been fundamentally altered due to getting a Body Familiar. Or maybe it was due to it being a Body Familiar that altered his body instead of a skill.

The first thing he noticed when he came to be was that he wasn't in his chair anymore. Hell, he wasn't even human anymore.

His body was a pool of slime.

Theodore reverted to his human form. This time, for whatever reason, the procedure was nauseating. He'd mostly gotten accustomed to shifting into slime and back, so it shouldn't have been nauseating, but for some reason it was.

When it was over, Theodore found himself naked on his workshop floor, gasping like he'd just run a marathon. His skin felt too tight, like he'd put on clothes that were a size too small. Everything ached in ways he didn't have words for.

Clothes appeared on Theodore's body, and he forced himself to stand. When he had... melted, the chair had fallen down. After righting it back in place, he sagged back down on the chair.

His system screen materialized with a thought.

Name: Theodore Lockheart

Race: Human

—Rank: F

—Level: 18

Class: Runic Mage

—Rank: Apprentice

—Level: 3

Skills: Basic Magic Script (Lvl 11), Elemental Mastery (Lvl 8), Myriad Tongue (Lvl 1), Basic Rune Creation (Lvl 20), Swordsmanship (Novice) (Lvl 21), Arcane Awareness (Lvl 11), True Perception (Lvl 0), Psionic Resistance (Lvl 14), Healing Touch (Lvl. 13), Mana Bolt (Lvl. 9), Mana Shield (Lvl. 20), Mana Reinforcement (Lvl. 6), Mana Control (Lvl. 13), Rune Inscription (Lvl. 5), Mana Convergence (Lvl. 5), Slime Control (Lvl. 2), Cloning (Lvl. 0)

Innate Abilities: Sever

Familiar: Opie (Soul Viper) – Lvl 4

Titles: The Unveiled, Aether Forged, Arachnid Bane, Light Touched

There it was.

[Cloning]. It was there, but at level zero. But it was real, and a part of him now in ways that made his skin crawl if he thought about it too hard. At last! He had the skill! He was quite joyful.

He could now finally begin the journey toward becoming what he had always dreamed of becoming—

A workaholic.

He shook his head at the bad joke and looked inward. The knowledge had settled into his mind like sediment in still water.

He understood the skill. In theory, anyway.

New runes added themselves into his repertoire along with the skill itself. They swirled in his mind like schools of glowing fish—dozens, perhaps hundreds. Symbols that seemed to bend reality around their very existence, runes that described ideas he had never seen before.

Excitement was virtually tingling through his [Rune Inscription] skill. The possibilities were endless.

But first, he needed to test the skill itself. Everything else was far, far away for now.

Theodore got to his feet. While he was unconscious, his mana stores had regenerated to full/ The knowledge ingrained in his consciousness told him that [Cloning] would likely exhaust him and he would then need even more mana to sustain the clone.

There's no need in waiting. It is preferable to study the skill's limitations in a controlled setting now rather than during a battle.

He closed his eyes and reached for [Cloning].

With the eagerness of a barely leashed hound finally being allowed to hunt, the skill reacted and latched onto his mana. Theodore felt his mana start to flow, but it wasn't the regulated streams he was accustomed to; instead, it was a huge torrent that left him gasping. He couldn't moderate it at all; it was furious, overwhelming, it was aggressive, wanting more.

Much of his mana just disappeared. Instead of being gradually depleted like other skills, it tore away in a single, crushing pull that left him reeling.

And then that stolen mana descended around him like an oppressive mountain.

The air itself appeared to thicken, growing viscous and heavy with the amount of mana that was present and congregating. At the center of it all, he sensed the mana gathering into a form that reflected his own physical structure.

The resulting form was clearly human, yet also unmistakably a slime. His looks, his height, his physique. With sickening precision, every scar, callus, and flaw was reproduced. Theodore found himself looking into his own eyes for a minute, eyes that reflected back the same astonishment and confusion he experienced.

Then the psychic backlash hit.

His brain felt like it was splitting in two. Actually splitting, his consciousness was literally dividing along lines that weren't meant to exist. All of a sudden, he was feeling two different bodies at once: the cool air on his skin and his clone's skin, seeing the workshop from his perspective while also seeing it from the clone's perspective.

It wasn't so much a clone as it was him being in two places at once.

The dual awareness was agony.

This kind of multi-source input was simply too much for his mind to process, and it rebelled violently against the overload.

Blood spurted from his nose in thick and the taste of copper flooded his mouth as his vision went white around the edges. Distantly, he sensed the clone's bewilderment and fear, or was it his own feelings? He was no longer able to tell. But those emotions fed back into his own consciousness and amplified the chaos tenfold.

The psychic link broke with an almost audible snap, and the clone vanished back into raw mana after perhaps three seconds.

Theodore was not even aware that he had fallen. He was a puddle once more after being standing for a moment with his brain burning from the dual consciousness. The barrage of sensations his mind was unable to absorb caused his human form to simply collapse, losing its ability to remain coherent.

He lay there—if 'lay' was the right word for what slime did—writhing in liquid agony. Every part of his amorphous form pulsed with phantom pain, like his nervous system was trying to exist in a body that no longer had nerves to feel with.

Gradually, mercifully, the pain began to fade.

Theodore forced himself back into human form, though it took longer this time. His body felt reluctant to hold its shape. When he finally managed it, he found himself crouched on the workshop floor.

What the fuck was that?

The skill had worked, technically. He'd created a clone. For all of three seconds, he'd had a perfect duplicate standing right there in front of him. However, the experience had been torture—an agony of pure, unadulterated pain that left him with no desire to try [Cloning] ever again.

Why had he been assaulted with so much sensory input? It was like his consciousness had been stretched between two bodies without any kind of filter or buffer.

This skill wasn't meant for normal humans.

Of course it wasn't. How could it be? Humans were designed to inhabit a single body, to process sensory input from one set of eyes, one nervous system. The very concept of maintaining multiple forms simultaneously went against everything evolution had hardwired into his species.

So what was he supposed to do with a skill he couldn't use?

Clicking his tongue, he looked at the notifications he'd gotten:

[Cloning] has leveled up! – Lvl 0 > Lvl 1!

[Cloning] has leveled up! – Lvl 1 > Lvl 2!

[Psionic Resistance] has leveled up! – Lvl 14 > Lvl 18!

With a mixture of frustration and bitter amusement, Theodore gazed at the notifications. It was enough to level his [Psionic Resistance] by that much? Goodness. Not to mention [Cloning]. After a single, three-second try that had almost destroyed his psyche, the skill had advanced two levels. The system was either attempting to tell him something, or it had a sick sense of humor.

Perhaps as the skill leveled, it would get easier to control? Perhaps higher levels might offer some sort of consciousness partitioning or mental filtering that would make dual awareness tolerable?

Or perhaps he needed an entirely different strategy. An additional ability that could manage the mental strain of managing several bodies. Did skills like that even exist?

Theodore let out a sigh. He had gotten what he wanted. However, what use was power that he was unable to control? If a weapon injured him more than his enemies, what good was it?

Still, giving up wasn't an option. He had deadlines to meet and projects to complete. He needed every advantage he could get for whatever lay ahead in the capital and the tournament, which was calling. If he could master it, [Cloning] might be the thing that saved his life in a hostile political context.

After all, he could always leave his main body in someplace safe and let his clone die off without consequences.

More training, then. Lots more training.

He had work to do.

***

Verrin POV

"You know why I'm here. Don't act surprised, Einar." Verrin said, leveling a stare at the Artificer Guild's guildmaster of the Holden branch.

"The debt," Einar muttered.

"The debt, Guildmaster."

Einar didn't look up. "I know why you're here, Verrin."

Verrin allowed himself a small sneer. The man looked exhausted. Good. He toyed with the hilt of his cane as his companion, a lean, sharp-faced clerk, stepped beside him.

"Lord Karstein expects full repayment by month's end," Verrin said.

"The end of the month?" Einar finally raised his head. "That's impossible. We haven't had a commission in—"

"Not our concern," the clerk cut in. "The loan was extended in good faith."

"Good faith," Einar muttered. "We're artisans, not coin-pullers. We've bled for this guild."

Verrin chuckled. "And now it bleeds dry. I suggest stitching up before you drown in it."

"There's no way we can repay it all in time. You know that."

"Oh, I do," Verrin said lightly. "But Lord Karstein is not interested in excuses. He wants what's owed."

"Holden can't support work like ours. You know that too."

"And yet, Holden grows," Verrin said, stepping closer. "That brat Theodore's leadership has seen to that. Surprisingly. Even you should appreciate that. But once you default, well… others will decide how to best make use of your premises."

"You mean seize everything."

"I mean protect the Guild's legacy by transferring it to those more… capable."

"Vultures," Einar said in despair.

"Call us what you like. Your debt doesn't care. You knew what you were signing up for; the terms were fair. My lord has been lenient with you as well. Think of this as a warning. We'll be back," Verrin said. "And I suggest you find coin before then."

With a nod, he turned and left.

As the door shut behind them, Verrin smiled.

"They'll never repay it," the clerk muttered.

"No. And then we get our prize. The Artificers Guild becomes an asset, not a relic of the past. Lord Karstein gets his foothold in Holden, and by extension, we do as well. Holden's been growing rapidly, and we, the Merchants' Guild, need to step up our game if we want to earn a profit here now that we've dealt with the whole fiasco with that bastard of a [Merchant Lord] we had."

After all, they'd already started expansion, so establishing some footholds in Holden seemed like a good thing to do.

"Oh, by the way, master. Lord Karstein's son is already here," the clerk noted. "We should meet up. Lord Karstein said to see to him and make sure he doesn't cause any trouble."

Verrin clicked his tongue in annoyance when he heard that. Lord Karstein's son was a menace, and Verrin didn't like interacting with the bastard.

***

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