Deep in meditation, Alex pondered two Soul Flames. Floating above one of his hands was the mote of energy that represented Spark. Above the other was the black and white fire of the Night King. Pressure emanated off the two souls, pushing his palms apart and fighting desperately not to be combined.
Alex still wasn't sure how compatible the two of them were. Their shadow powers definitely aligned, but Spark was much more of a movement focused monster than the Night King was.
Based on the way Harmonious Evoluion works, if I combine Spark and the Night King, the Echo Wraith's mobility and the king's tankiness will probably both get heavily damaged as they get averaged down to a lower level.
In exchange, their shadow powers should complement each other pretty much perfectly. So that means mixing these two will probably get me a more magically focused version of Spark that's less mobile than he is and easier to kill than the King was.
Alex pondered the combination for several minutes. He was pretty sure that tradeoff was worth it. Spark wasn't as mobile as Glint in the first place, and the Night King's defenses hadn't been its most important stat.
When Princess reached Adept, Alex was confident she'd be even harder to kill than the Night King had been.
And if that was the case… combining the king and Spark was a worthwhile risk. He wouldn't be giving up any stats that were so important that the monster would become completely useless.
The combination has a chance of failing since they've got a lot of differences — but that's a risk I'm willing to take. I believe in you, Spark. For entirely self-motivated and optimistic reasons.
His decision was made.
Though… I wonder. Can I use Harmonious Evolution with Qi?
He tried to reach for the ball of warm energy, but almost instantly, he could feel something was wrong. It was hard to put it to words, but he just instinctively felt that the ability did not mesh.
Qi burned powerfully and quickly. If he injected it into the combination, all it would do was negatively impact the final result and destabilize the monsters he was putting together. It was definitely worth testing to make sure his fears were correct, but not on a combination as important as this one.
Alex set his jaw and pressed his hands together. Pressure drove back against him as the Soul Flames redoubled their efforts to remain separate. He pushed harder.
Slowly, his hands started to grow closer. The pressure continued to ramp as the flames bucked and crackled. They tried to slip past his fingers and dart back to their original positions. He didn't let them.
Crackles of Rift energy arced through the air as the two flames grew closer together. The smell of ozone prickled in Alex's nostrils and arcs of lightning snapped and popped between the flames.
They both started to glow with a brilliant white magic. The world started to fade and Alex squeezed his eyes shut to keep himself from getting blinded. He could still see the bright light even through his closed eyelids.
His skin warmed as the air around him rose in temperature. Flashes of purple broke through the white piercing into his eyelids and a dull, buzzing roar filled his ears. Alex clenched his teeth and pushed himself even harder.
With a roar, he brought his hands together.
The Soul Flames collided with a brilliant crack and a roar of pressure. All the light vanished, sucked away from his soul, and he opened his eyes once more to find a churning orb of purplish-black energy whirling in the air before him.
It was around ten feet in diameter. Energy poured out from it in waves of pressure, sending ripples across the surface of the dark lake at the base of his soul. Flashes of energy from within illuminated the shadow of a figure trapped within the energy.
Alex could only catch glimpses of it. A gauntlet clad in purple crackling lightning. A spiked shoulder pad, a black helm with a T-shaped opening for the eyes and mouth. Loud grinding noises and metallic crunches echoed out from within the orb of magic.
He could do nothing but watch on with trepidation, hands raised to protect his face from the rolling waves of power, as he waited to see the results of his combination. Alex grit his teeth, unable to still the pounding of his heart in his chest.
This can't be healthy for me. It's like playing a slot machine every time I combine my monsters… but damn if it isn't fun.
Finally, as if it could feel his thoughts, the waves of pressure started to lessen. The energy driving into Alex weakened and then vanished all together as the orb started to fade.
Then, with a final pop, it vanished entirely.
There was a splash as two sabatons landed on the watery surface of Alex's soul, followed by another two as a pair of gauntlets drove down after them. The final motes of rift energy flowed away to reveal the rest of Spark's new form.
A hollow suit of black knight's armor knelt before Alex. Pulsating strands of purple energy ran throughout it like veins, visible through gaps in the metal plates and pulsing where the monster's eyes should have been.
The armor was sleek and smooth, and though the figure it made was humanoid, Spark crouched down on all four limbs like a dog. Pools of shadow rippled where its limbs touched the ground, partially obscuring its form. It twitched, almost as if impatient, but waited for a command.
Shimmering letters carved through the air above the monster's hunched back.
The Knight Wraith (Initiate 3)
Alex's spine prickled.
Whoa. There's something really creepy about a hollow suit of armor crouching like that.
It took him a moment to realize what it was. The movements the suit made were wrong. Even though it was humanoid, no part of it moved in conjunction with the others. It was like a jittery mess of energy and metal.
"The night — wait. Night. Knight? Is that a pun?" Alex squinted at the monster's name. "Did you name yourself?"
Spark didn't respond.
"Are you intelligent? Attempt to show me if you have any internal thought of your own." Alex had no plans of changing his habit of checking his monsters' intelligence. But this test, just like all the previous ones, proved fruitless. The Knight Wraith did not respond to him. It just remained in place, twitching, awaiting a command.
"Stand up," Alex said.
Spark rose. Tendrils of shadow clung to his hands, stretching taut. At his full height, the knight stood at nearly 7 feet tall. It almost seemed as if the shadows connected to the monster were trying to pull him back down to the ground.
"Go to a natural position," Alex ordered.
The Knight Wraith sank back down and rested the knuckles of his gauntlets on the ground, letting shadow swallow them once more.
Well, he's certainly intimidating. I have no idea if the combination worked, though.
"Show me what you can do," Alex said. "How have your abilities changed, Spark?"
That was a slightly complex command, but before Alex could rectify it to something more specific, Spark moved. The shadows beneath him rose up and he shifted to the side, leaving a shadow where he'd been a moment before.
Arcs of dim purple energy danced through its form, occasionally illuminating its eyes with a flash of magenta before they faded to black once more. A small frown of concentration pulled across Alex's lips.
Something was different about the shadow.
Then the shadow twitched.
Alex's eyes went wide as it rose to its feet to stand before him, moving as easily as a normal figure would. Spark rose beside it, the strands of darkness that had pulled at his limbs now gone.
"You can control your shadow?" Alex asked in awe. "Can it attack?"
The shadow extended a hand toward Alex. He reached out. His fingers met cold metal, and a thrill of delight ran across Alex's back.
Spark could form a clone that could fight alongside him. That was an enormous improvement over the Echo Wraith's previous ability, which had only left a stationary shadow behind. The only remaining question was if he could still —
Color snaped into life where the shadow had been as Spark swapped places with it.
Alex let out a delighted laugh. "Yes! Brilliant!"
Even if nothing else had changed, he'd literally just doubled Spark's combat power in his base form, but that wasn't even addressing the enormous benefit that came from being able to move the shadow around freely instead of leaving it in one spot.
And that means I should be able to get the same ability when he dies. This is perfect. It looks like Spark lost the ability to fly from the combination and he's clearly not as fast as he used to be, but this is absolutely worth it.
"You," Alex informed the hunched monstrosity of a knight, "are beautiful."
His complements fell on deaf ears. Spark's purple eyes flickered as he waited for a command.
Alex grinned and waved his hand. Spark vanished into his Spatial Mirror, leaving him alone in his soul once more. His new combination had been a resounding success — and it had also clarified a few things on Monster Mash for him in the process.
When he combined a very tanky monster with a normal one, their stats would average out. The same went for any stat — so it would have been a very bad idea to put a monster whose main trait was speed together with anything other than another very fast monster. If he did, it would lose what made it strong.
But when he combined two monsters that were both very good at their main ability, such as shadow manipulation, the shadow manipulation would grow stronger while the other stats would average out — or in some cases, grow worse.
Alex smiled to himself. He was starting to really understand how his class worked — and his monsters were steadily growing into a terrifying threat. Even though he'd been backed up by Claire and Derek, the three of them had managed to take out a Mirrorlands boss monster at Adept tier.
With a thought, he summoned Princess. Speaking of getting stronger, he'd gathered quite a few souls during the dungeon they'd just run through. There was no point just holding onto them. He'd given Glint quite the power boost already, but Princess was up next.
Alex fed every single one of the souls to the maw on Princess' stomach. They vanished into her like she was a massive vacuum, and he'd completely run out of souls within just minutes.
Princess going to be a real menace when she evolves.
He dismissed her with a thought, then let out a satisfied sigh as he let his gaze travel over his soul. A churning mass of molten blue mist spun above his marble basin, waiting to be distilled into power. The dungeon had given him quite a bit of power, even for his current rank.
I can't wait to test out how much stronger we are when we get back to 274-50. We're already more than caught up to the majority of the Outworlders. Once we get this town set up and I figure out how to use the Attribute Gems…
Alex's grin grew wider. He was quite looking forward to the future. There were going to be a lot of people gunning for his throat because of the Town Token, and he welcomed the challenge.
But first — he had some energy to gather and cash in. He'd promised himself that he'd use the next bit of power he got to advance his Mind Palace.
Time to see if I can pull up that door beneath the lake. It's about time I figure out what it does.