<Suffocate> was a little bit tricky. <Embers> didn't take a whole lot of control, unless Teresa was trying to use the spell like a shotgun. <Sturdy Outer Shell> was technically a spell, though it was more of a tank class spell than anything. That one was pretty straight forward too, however she did need to use a lot of effort to concentrate the actual 'sturdy' aspect of the spell into a focused area. If she wanted to prioritise her fists, that took a lot of effort into controlling the Mana, if she was even powering the skill with Mana. Still, that was more of a brute force type of control, where she tried to concentrate her Mana into a location with as much force as possible, not needing to worry about precision.

Now, using <Suffocate>, it was much more tricky. Teresa was glad her <Mana Control> was as high as it was at level 19, as her new spell could very easily break. When she activated her new skill, it created a flat two dimensional plane that coated the surface of her palms. She was able to expand and shrink that plane at will, and she could also push it out into three dimensions when she was ready.

As soon as she made some sort of shape with the spell, it began to siphon the air out from within at a rapid pace. Making the shape was already difficult, there was a limited number of vertices she could assign to the shape and a limited amount of volume the shape could contain. So making a small cube with no air wasn't too hard, but making a sphere was practically impossible.

If any of the edges of the shape overlapped or intersected incorrectly, the entire spell would collapse and air would behave normally. If Teresa tried to make a shape too large, air would begin to leak in. If she used too many vertices, air would leak in. If she failed to supply a consistent stream of Mana to coat the surface area of the shape using the skill coating her palm to transform the Mana into the correct attunement, then air would leak in.

In other words, there were a lot of ways to mess up the spell, and not a lot of ways to fix a broken version of <Suffocate>. It was easier to start over with the spell than it was to change a shape into something else without breaking anything. It was like using a 3D modeling software, except if she made a bad shape it would crash the program and she'd have to restart. Teresa had only ever touched such software briefly in college, so she didn't have a lot of practice to call upon.

At the moment, <Suffocate> was only level 0. Just by tinkering around a bit she had managed to get it up to 70% experience, but Teresa wouldn't be surprised if it was one of those skills that required use in combat to actually level up.

While Teresa and Ezio had used a cubic meter as a reference point, Teresa herself was not actually sure how large she could make a shape. It didn't create a complete vacuum, at least not at level 0, but it certainly did something. It was the difference between breathing normally at sea level versus breathing on top of a particularly tall mountain. The skill wouldn't be killing anyone as it currently stood, but that's why she asked Ezio if it was alright for her to take out a Portal real fast.

It was a bit of a tricky situation. On the one hand, they finally got the chance to loot Avatars from Chernobyl. There were a lot of people present, some of them had to be able to make use of the scraps left behind. Even if they didn't know how to use any of the scraps themselves, someone back home might. This meant they had some time to kill before advancing deeper into the Contaminated Zone.

On the other hand, destroying a Radioactive Portal might alert Chernobyl to their position. This had been Teresa's main concern, but surprisingly Ezio and Nikolas had seemed unfazed by that idea.

"Our position is already revealed. This might mess with the information that Chernobyl does have, if it doesn't already have drones watching us right now. If you take out a Radioactive Portal now, then it might think we're making camp here for the day." Ezio said.

"If there are drones that can hide in the clouds with bombs ready to be dropped, then it stands to reason that there are likely also drones capable of hiding and spying on us. I think we should operate under the assumption every move we make is already known to our enemy. Go level <Suffocate>, we're going to need it. Just make sure you don't do anything too risky, and bring your party with you in case of an Avatar attack." Nikolas had said. "We'll get others on healer duty for now, you have a new job, air defense."

With that, Teresa not only had permission to hunt nearby monsters, but was actively encouraged to do so. With <Monster Hunt>, she would have no problem finding something.

"So are you guys betting they'll be robots, golems, or both?" Preston asked as the party began to track down a Radioactive Portal.

"What's the difference?" Teresa asked.

"Robots are science based, so stuff we had pre-System. You know, wires, electricity, motors, whatever. Golems are magic based, so like a machine entirely made of rock." He explained.

"If you think about it, robots are still mostly made of rock." Sarah countered.

"Okay, sure, but you get the point."

"I want to say both because that would make the most sense, but they seem more robot than golem." Jake said.

"But how are they being controlled?" Sarah asked. "Are they all their own individual machines capable of running without supervision, or does it require something at Chernobyl itself to control everything? If so, I doubt that's science based. That would require satellites and radio towers or something."

"Is there a word for both?" Teresa asked. "I think it's a mixture of science and magic. Tracks, guns, armor plating, that's all science for sure. Have we ever seen a gun turret run out of ammo? That might be magic, some people can make ammo for their ranged weapons with Mana. Then you have to consider the wiring, are they wired? If so, how did Chernobyl even produce these things?"

"I don't think there's really a word for both." Preston admitted. "Magitek? Artefacts? I think I've heard both before."

"Artefacts refer to stuff that was made with a purpose, I'm not sure it applies here." Sarah said. "That or just high scale magic items. Really it depends on the game you're playing."

The group continued discussing the otherwise meaningless subject while travelling. Thankfully, Radioactive Portals weren't particularly rare, and they were able to track down a Portal in minutes.

<Illuminate Ghast Portal (F+) [Attuned: Radiation] : lv 62>

Teresa shared her screen while she and her party watched the monsters with interest. Glowing blue squid skulls with a transparent hue to them hovered above the ground, long wavy arms reaching out with hands attached to the ends that grasped at anything solid, only to phase right through.

"These are creepy as fuck, couldn't they just be like Minecraft Ghasts or something?" Teresa said as she shared her screen. "Instead they gotta be squid skull eldritch horrors, why is this a recurring theme?"

"Squid don't have skulls, but if they did I imagine they'd look like that." Preston corrected.

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"So how do we fight them?" Jake asked as he watched the creatures. "They don't seem very solid, you know? Like that one is trying to claw at the ground but its hand keeps passing straight through it, how would we kill these guys? I'm not sure we can stab it, and I'm not sure what it can even do to us."

"Magic maybe?" Teresa asked. "Maybe they shoot fireballs. I kind of hope so, I want to learn how to throw a fireball."

"Why? Don't you have <Embers>?" Sarah asked.

"It's not the same, a fireball would be its own thing."

"Okay but <Embers> is better, isn't it?"

"I dunno, maybe, but I want my fireball."

"Normally I'd be all for these conversations but I don't think this is the time to get distracted with stuff like that." Jake interjected, stopping the conversation before it got too off the rails. "Teresa needs to level up <Suffocate>, that's all that matters right now. We don't even have to destroy the Portal if we don't want to, we don't have to clear all of them out. We just need her skill to get stronger, so let's plan that out."

Damn, unfortunately Jake was right. Teresa could put off fireballs for another day, even if they would be totally badass. It's not like these things were even guaranteed to shoot fireballs, that was something for another time.

"So how do I kill them?" Teresa asked.

"I think magic is your best bet, but you need to make sure you use <Suffocate> while you're at it." Preston answered.

"Yeah, but how will I use <Suffocate>? These guys don't have lungs, I can see their insides and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of organs." Teresa replied. She also couldn't see a Monster Core in any of them, but that was a mystery for another time.

"They seem pretty ethereal, maybe you can control their movements with a vacuum." Sarah offered. "You ever play Luigi's Mansion?"

"Can't say I have."

"Okay, well you've seen Ghostbusters right?"

"Yeah."

"So maybe do something like that, except instead of a ghost busting laser beam thingy you just catch them with a vacuum and finish them off with <Embers>."

"I can't make a complete vacuum, but I can try." Teresa said.

"If you need help we'll target the Portal from a distance and make a run for it, this is a pretty high level Portal. You sure you're up to do this solo?"

"I hit level 56 from the Avatars, I probably could have gotten to 57 if I got to actually participate normally. I wanna make up for that, and I think I'll be able to manage just fine against these guys." Teresa replied. "We are on a bit of a time crunch here, so if you don't mind I'm gonna skip the part where we watch them for a while."

"Have fun!" Preston called out as Teresa began making her way towards the Portal. Another unfortunate aspect of <Suffocate> was that moving while using the skill was also incredibly complicated. The shape she made to drain air was fixed in place globally except at her palms. So if she wanted to move around with <Suffocate> active, she would have to constantly move the spell with her manually. The farther away a vertex was, the harder it was to move. This meant she would have to stand her ground to effectively use the spell, but that shouldn't be too bad.

If <Suffocate> could do what she was hoping, then this would be a piece of cake.

In her right hand, Teresa activated <Suffocate> while her left hand activated <Embers>. She also activated <Retaliate> with a slow consumption rate on her HP for the buff. There was still a lot to figure out with that skill as well with how it worked on damage that wasn't self inflicted, but <Suffocate> was what she would be focusing on for now.

First things first, Teresa began to weave a long and narrow cube of depressurized air. The prism shot out from her hand as she tried to keep it condensed. Something with a base of a square centimeter could have a much larger height with the same volume than something with a base the size of her entire palm. She just wanted to see how it would affect the creatures anyways.

Air was siphoned out of the narrow prism even as it expanded, depressurizing the interior until the skill reached its limit on air pressure. As the low pressure prism reached a ghast over 100 meters away, Teresa felt pretty happy with the volume of her spell.

The end of the prism began to overlap with the Ghast's body, causing it to shriek out in pain. The prism sucked the air out from within, also causing the ethereal blue substance of the Ghast to be gradually displaced. Her spell was slowly injuring her opponent, as if a surgeon cut someone open by just pushing flesh to the side until it tore.

The swarm of Ghasts all began to shriek together, resulting in an ear splitting pitch that could probably kill a normal person on its own. The idea of muting their screech with <Suffocate> crossed Teresa's mind, but the skill wasn't powerful enough to do that quite yet.

Instead, Teresa began to create a branch-like structure from the rectangular prism of depressurized air. More prisms shot out from its sides, stabbing into multiple Ghasts as it displaced air and ethereal substance alike.

Until it completely broke.

The spell collapsed on itself and air was swiftly returned to normal pressure as Teresa overextended her new skill, reaching the limits of its volume. The Ghasts were already upon her, and the first in line swung an ethereal fist right at her.

Teresa slipped beneath the punch and blasted shotgun <Embers> into the Ghast, blasting its body apart and killing the creature quickly. The flames generated by the spell seemed to cancel out with the ethereal flesh, causing her spell to vanish alongside the dead monster.

She began using <Suffocate> again, but before she could properly draw out a shape another Ghast was upon her. It tried to grab her, but its hand went straight through Teresa. While initially Teresa was relieved the Ghasts couldn't actually affect her, her stomach began to churn as her internal flesh morphed as well.

<Embers> continuously shot out and cleared the area immediately around her while <Facilitated Restoration> took care of the catastrophic organ failure occurring in her gut. Teresa could easily eliminate the army of Ghasts with just <Embers>, but that wasn't her goal.

Instead of giving in and calling it quits early, she created a thin wall of depressurized air in front of her, allowing the Ghasts to fly into the harming spell themselves.

As soon as a Ghast crossed the wall, its body began to morph in turn. The hollow holes where eyes would typically be present widened as the monster was disfigured from the encounter with the magical wall, causing it to convulse in the air flailing its creepy arms wildly.

Multiple Ghasts passed through with the same result, the weaker ones getting torn to ribbons as they practically disintegrated against the gradually improving barrier.

Teresa got multiple notifications as her skill leveled up and as she killed monsters, using <Embers> to finish off any that got past <Suffocate>. The Ghasts stopped charging recklessly and began to maneuver around her, but as her skill leveled up so did her ability to control the skill.

Skill Level Up!

Skill Level Up!

Skill Level Up!

<Suffocate: lv 2>

Type: General

Type: Elemental Magic

Channel Mana to your palm and convert it into air-based Elemental Mana that can be used to lower air pressure in a small volume..

----->

<Suffocate: lv 3>

Type: Elemental Magic

Channel Mana to your palm and convert it into air-based Elemental Mana that can be used to lower air pressure in a small volume. Gain a minor boost to damage output when used against ethereal opponents.

Who knew using a level 0 skill against level 62 monsters would give so much experience? The answer was Teresa, her smile only growing wider as she hit level 57 amidst the shrieking monsters.

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