Beau had been feeling like he had a lot of catching up to do when he first joined this group of strange people who seemed to follow Eli but also not follow him. He was having a hard time getting the dynamic down so that he could see where he fit in. But now, in the middle of fighting the strongest monster he had ever seen, he had acted to help Cody without thinking. And on top of that, it resulted in him taking a hit of lava that he was sure would kill him, but he felt a drive to survive and keep fighting for Cody and Stevens, he was starting to consider them friends. And when he was about to pass out from the pain of being cooked inside his own skill, he realized that he needed to survive for himself too, so he could see who was as a man.
Until the end of the world, Beau had been an addendum to his father, the wannabe mobster. He had never been Beau to all the people he knew, he was 'Mickey Money's kid', and he hated it. First of all, who names themselves 'Money'? And secondly, his dad wasn't even really a mobster, he just acted like one and was good at fighting so he could scare people into paying protection money. The main reason he got away with it was that his cousin was the sheriff and their small town didn't have any other law enforcement. Even after he had turned twenty years old, it didn't stop, in some ways it got worse. Beau was tall and stocky so every thought he could fight like his dad and just left him alone. So he ran away, which is when he met Chris and that whole thing happened.
Now, however, was time for him to force who he was at his core out into the world. Pushing past the mind-scarring pain to focus on the magic of his skill, he had a crazy idea, lava was also stone for the most part, he should be able to use it. Then he started laughing as he incorporated the lava into his stone that wrapped around his body, he could feel how the magic was changing and how the skill was changing as well. The pain was still there but at much more manageable levels, he kept his focus and moved the heat to the outside of the stone on him as it all mixed together and spread around him evenly. When it settled he knew he had some system windows to sort through but now was not the time.
Turning back to the fight, he saw Cody struggling to keep the monster at bay and Stevens was using wind to keep it off balance and disrupt its rhythm as well as taking pot-shots at its eyes to keep it distracted. Stevens was standing only a few feet away from Beau now which only made sense if he was putting himself between the monster and Beau. This made Beau smile all the more and he decided that he would end this fight before he dealt with his mostly melted skin which was now fused to his rock armor in some places. He leaped over Stevens' head and charged right at the side of the monster, yelling while running wasn't the best for sneak attacks but it hurt to run and a war-cry sounded better than actual crying. The monster saw him coming and used a large amount of magic to push Cody back so it could face off with Beau.
Beau knew this wasn't going to be fancy or look like a cool action movie like he always enjoyed imagining himself since magic became real, but it should get the job done. Just before he impacted the monster he jumped high into the air, but right as he left the ground a tendril of lava left his armor at his hand and looped around the monster's neck as it tilted its head back to try and bite at him after he jumped. The lava, acting like an actual rope, went taught and he used it to pull himself straight down on the monsters head, caving in one side and an explosion of steam from its blood vaporizing pressed out making it hard to see anything and hurting Beau's eyes which were looking out holes in the armor.
Cody was the first to arrive and broke one of its front legs with his shield then stuck his sword through its undamaged eye. The monster was far easier to hit with a pile of lava standing on its face. Stevens came up next and in true Stevens fashion, puked up his tea and bread from earlier. It was a gruesome sight but they had defeated this monster on their own.
Cody was still catching his breath, but managed to wheeze out, "What level?"
Stevens, having not done any physical fighting answered, "81"
Beau was so shocked his armor skill faltered for a minute, but before he could say anything, Cody spoke again, "That beats our old record by like 5 levels, that's progress," He said and they fist-bumped each other.
"Wait," Beau said in a half panic, "How are we not dead, 81 is too high, I'm only level 61," He paused and checked his level, "well 62 now, and you guys are in the low 70's right?" they nodded in response, not sure why he was so worked up. "10 levels difference should be harder than this, right?"
"Harder?" They both said in surprise, "We could barely hurt that thing, if you hadn't gone all 'lava golem' on it, it would have taken us another hour to kill it."
They looted it, just getting system credits, and Beau again spoke up with incredulity. "The monster was worth 16 thousand credits split 3 ways? We need to fight more," he paused while doing some math in his head, "like 11 more." The other two rolled their eyes since they knew he would be passing out as soon as the adrenaline wore off.
Eli felt that the others fight was over so he could relax about that, he had not hit this monster once yet, just working on dodge timing, balance, stance and his light magic skill, it was almost to 10 and he wanted to see if this level 83 gecko beetle thing could push him over the top. He was making contact with his cudgel, but holding back enough so that he didn't damage its exoskeleton shell. He never disengaged with the monster, he would find a way to dodge, or he would take the hit, from his magical self examinations, he knew that vitality's health regeneration and resistance's toughness needed to be trained like a skill. The healing and toughness were like muscle memory, the more he did them the stronger they got.
Slipping into something similar to a martial arts trance as he danced with this monster, he let his mind wander around the stats themselves. Aside from strength and intelligence, the other stats did multiple things, so was there a way to know how your stat points you spent affected these other attributes. Were some people who invested in reaction gaining it differently than others, like more perception instead of more agility, or did it just bring everything up evenly. If he had to guess, based on his observations, its different for each person. Bethany and Audrey were both Reaction based fighters but, for Bethany she gained more of the physical parts of reaction like agility and it seemed like Audrey gained more of the perception parts of it. He could ponder this for hours but the monster was starting to get wise to him and he was starting to take damage he couldn't ignore. With one last cast of his light's purification boost, he started making his hits count, but they weren't doing as much as he thought they should.
It turned out that the monster's hard shell was using magic to dampen his hits; he could feel the magic being used up right as he made contact with the shell. Two options came to mind, one, just keep hitting it until the monster ran out of magic to support the skill, which felt like a water skill, or he could try to overload it. Hitting it hard enough so that the absorb skill couldn't handle it would certainly be more satisfying, but he was training his skills not trying to end fights as fast as possible. In the end he went with a mix of the two plans and was slowly increasing the power of his hits. The dance between them continued and they were both starting to slow down, it had been about 45 minutes and with injuries on both piling up and just regular exhaustion hitting them both, Eli just wanted to end the fight.
He dodged the monster's massive three pronged horn, turning the dodge into a spin that helped him get momentum on his next hit that he added some extra magic into, the beetle had to use all of its remaining magic to keep its shell from breaking. With its magic empty, it collapsed to the ground and Eli finished it off with three more swings that included his smash skill. Hoping that now that he could spare his attention to the skill, he would notice if it had been upgraded, so he cast his lights purification buff skill on himself again and it was different he could feel it. However he could not feel how it was different, he was pretty sure it was different though, not being able to figure it out he headed toward the other guys to see how they were healing.
Eli walked up and saw Cody and Stevens nerding out about some kind of new magic something or other, with Beau passed out next to them covered in burns that were slowly healing. "What happened to him?" He asked.
"Got sprayed with lava while wearing his rock suit," Cody said.
"Rock suit?" Eli asked.
"Yeah his skill that covers him in stone, it's kind of like armor but also kind of like he is possessing a rock golem," Stevens explained.
"So… if he got lava on it, why didn't he just dismiss the spell? Wouldn't the rocks just dissipate and the lava would fall to the ground?" Eli asked.
"It's not conjured like your weapon or my shield, it pulls in nearby rocks to use, and I think some of them melted to his skin." Cody tried to explain.
"Wait, you conjure your shield?" Stevens asked.
"I've told you this, it's what I used one of my tokens on, it gave me an order magic ability to conjure a shield that won't bend or dissolve. It sounds nice until you break your arm because your shield has no give," Cody said sullenly.
"Can you change what you summon based on what you picture when summoning it?" Eli asked, hoping he could help him.
"Nope, I suspect that if I had an order node I might be able to though."
Eli kicked the ground in frustration, "how long has he been out?"
"Half an hour or so, you think we should move him?" Stevens asked, half hoping he could sit down longer and half hoping they could have a more comfortable resting place.
"You two go straight north of here and find a place to rest just inside the tree line, ill watch him and we will meet you when he wakes." Eli said. Neither of them had the energy to argue with Eli so they just started walking. It was another 2 hours before Beau woke up, he hadn't healed very much in that time, and Eli was starting to get worried, but with him waking up he could ask him about it.
"You gonna make it?" Eli asked in a joking tone, "because I would hate to have to explain your death to Lucy."
"What?" Beau said, sitting up surprisingly fast. "Did she say something about me?"
"Well…" Eli paused, faking a contemplative expression, "She didn't 'not' say anything about you."
"Ass!"
"Sorry, just wanted to make sure you were ok, you aren't healing very quickly and I was getting worried." Eli said, expressing genuine concern this time.
"It's fine, I'm fine, changing and upgrading that skill on the fly like that caused damage down to my soul. That is healing before my body it seems. Where are the others?"
"They are setting up a base camp for us back toward the tree line north of here."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot"
"Does magic change who we are? I've always been kind of lost, and I was hoping that magic would reveal who I am, but it isn't helping all that much."
"I'm not sure I'm the one you want to talk to about this, I'm pretty sure I'm not human and probably just as lost as you. At least not all human, it's complicated. However, if you want an answer I'll say that I think that we are what we do, not what we are capable of doing. Let's get you to the camp and you can think about it some more. If you want to talk more I'll do what I can to help." Eli said with his best fake smile, he was not comfortable with people thinking he had answers. Everything he had accomplished so far he rather tripped and fell into, or the system pushed him, not really what he would consider wise actions.