Aster Fall, Ch 3: On the High Road (Patreon)

The road stretched ahead of them across the Storm Plains. It wasn’t much more than a beaten cart track that somehow resisted the encroachment of time and grass. Whatever had gone into its construction, there was something about it that endured, like the western provinces themselves.

His gaze pierced back through the miles toward Cliff’s End. The low mountain that marked the village was just barely visible across the plains. The rolling hills were covered in a mist of purple mana that ran with storm sparks, little dancing lights like embers from a fire that danced along the top of the grasses.

An elemental storm would soon roll through the plains, marking out the event that gave them their name. These sparks were purple-white, which meant it would be a lightning storm. If the mana flow was too intense, it would be dangerous.

The best thing to do was to find a lightning oak grove and settle down in it for a while, to wait for the storm to pass. Sheltering among trees of the same element created a sort of shield, where the storm’s energy either flowed into them or skipped past.

Earth or Wood-variant trees would work almost as well.

It was a little past noon, but from the density of mana in the air, it was hard to tell. It was like being inside a cloud. He didn’t have any trouble seeing through it, but it did make everything seem a bit darker.

Even regular humans were able to see the mana at this point, since it was condensing so much. He'd watched many similar storms form from the walls of the village when he was growing up.

They looked almost like rain clouds, but they followed different paths across the terrain, the same ones as the mana rivers. Those, he hadn't been able to see before.

The position of Cliff’s End up on its mountain meant that it avoided most of these storms. They tended to split around it, even though the mountain wasn’t that high. It made him curious about what that mountain was made from.

He shook his head as he turned back to the front, keeping Altey balanced in front of him. It was fortunate that his mother and sister didn't mind his new appearance too much. They were just happy that he'd returned.

It was a small price to pay.

He glanced at his status sheet, which summarized the changes over the last couple of months.

Sam Hastern

Level: 45

General Experience: 3,163,070 / 3,437,500

Class Experience: 3,139,540 / 3,437,500

Class: Battlefield Reclaimer

Subclass: The Scion of the Crystal Flame

Race: Outsider (Aster Fall)

Health: 400

Aura: 88
Mana: 88

STR: 20 (21 with Spear of Umbral Flame)

CON: 40 (41 with Spear of Umbral Flame)

AGI: 20 (21 with Spear of Umbral Flame)

WIS: 46 (52 with Staff of Withering Stasis)

INT: 88 (94 with Staff of Withering Stasis)

AUR: 88

CHA: 30

Professions:

• Enchanter, Level 23.
• Smith, Level 14.
• Essence Scribe, Level 21.

With his Charisma at 30, he was better looking than when he left, and many of his original human features were obvious. The low attribute had been hampering that at first, when it had only been at 4.

He was still Sam and his family recognized him. His features were more devilish now, but angular and handsome. His slit-pupiled eyes were sharp and intelligent, often flaring with crystal blue light.

The horns that curled up on either side of his temples were more regular as well and about six inches high. They were thick and gnarled at the base, and then rose gradually to a sharp point. His increased Constitution had the effect of strengthening them along with the rest of his bones and skin.

Constitution had enhanced the talons on his hands as well, making them even sharper and harder, but he seemed to have an innate awareness of how to keep them out of the way, so that they didn’t scratch Altey or anything he was working on.

The enhanced Charisma had made his long ears a bit sharper and his hair had grown darker, more of a midnight black. It was still strange to look in a mirror, but it didn’t shock him as much as it had before.

From the feel of it, he’d reached a sort of natural plateau in Charisma now. Adding more didn’t feel like it would dramatically change his features again, not unless it was an extreme amount. What it did instead was add an increasing force of personality to his actions and his essence.

Overall, he looked like an intellectual, scholarly demon, rather than the frightening and skeletal version of himself from when he first transformed. The improved attributes had smoothed everything out.

As for his professions, he’d just entered the Advanced stage for Enchanter and Essence Scribe. The skills weren’t strictly limited to the tiers, since he’d been able to make Advanced items a few times before reaching Level 20 in each, but it was an overall marker of his progress.

“It looks like a storm is approaching,” he called out to his father. “Should we find a grove to camp in early today?”

“Already looking,” Jeric laughed as he called back over his shoulder. His mood was good.

“There’s a lightning grove about half an hour from here,” Aemilia said after a few minutes, her eyes shaded with mana as she searched the distance. “We can head there.”

Krana, who was riding behind Sam, just smiled. She was watching all around them as much as possible, as well as helping Aemilia with practice. She was pleased with how quickly the new Seer was progressing.

At the moment, her main challenge was mana. She didn’t have a lot, since her primary class hadn’t leveled up yet. Once they found a good campsite, she was going to have to start writing down some of the things she saw.

Every level, a Historian got +1 Wisdom and +1 Intelligence, which happened to be the same as a Seer. That was one reason the classes were such a good combination. It shouldn’t take her too long to get through the first ten or so levels.

Then she’d be much more effective in a fight too, if something came up.

“What class do you think I’ll get?” Altey spoke up with a grin, tilting her head back to look into Sam’s hood. Even now, he was riding with it up and with his amulet active. It was a brief effort of will to drop the effect for her, as he reached out to control the flow of mana through the amulet, but it let her see his face.

She grinned as she saw his horns.

“You’ll be a wonderful spell caster of some type,” Sam told her with a grin. “But if not, we’ll just get you a good subclass and everything will work out. When we get to Highfold, we’ll have to find you a school that can help.”

“I’d rather stay with you,” Altey frowned at him, reaching up to poke at one of his horns. It felt odd, like someone tapping his knuckles. “You can teach me how to be an Enchanter.”

“The world is very big and maybe you’ll be something even better than an Enchanter,” Sam laughed back at her. “How do you know until you try? A school will help teach you all sorts of things that I don’t know, to give you the best chance to succeed no matter what class you get.”

“Those things can’t be that important,” Altey pouted. “What if someone bullies me?”

Sam looked down at Altey and gave her a quick flash of his fangs as he grinned again.

“Who would be able to bully you?! Tell them your big brother will come and punch them.”

Inwardly, however, the question made him turn his mind back to the wand that he’d taken from Nelgen. When they stopped in a bit, he’d work on converting it for her. That way, she’d always have a weapon on hand.

His thoughts on bullies were similar to his view of beasts. If they didn’t bother you, ignore them. If they did, then crush them.

He’d need to make her that defensive amulet too, and the message amulet to call him if there were any trouble...and to get strong enough to destroy anything in the city that bothered her. Sam’s eyes flared with cerulean crystal light as he looked down at her and grinned.

She’d be the best protected student in the entire city by the time he was done.

Maybe Lesat could go with her. That should keep most of the trouble away.

Runes flowed through his mind as he turned his attention back to the models that were always present there. He continued to add touches to them, working to incorporate each new insight that he had.

---

The lightning oak grove that Aemilia had chosen was much larger than the one they’d stayed in the night before, practically a forest of its own. As they settled down into their campsite, the trees around them swayed in the wind, violet-white sparks flickering wildly from the tips of the leaves.

The approaching elemental storm was charging the area with mana, and the trees here soaked it up, creating a null space that was safe to camp in. The Storm Plains were a difficult area to live in, but if you knew the patterns, it was possible to survive.

Outside the grove, lightning began to rain down onto the plains, exploding across the grasses and stones as the mana clouds grew darker. The wind whipped through the trees, blowing against Sam’s face as he looked out at it.

The plain was a black and violet cloud of churning mana as the ground was torn apart. If they’d been out in it, it was possible to survive, but it wouldn’t have been pleasant. They would have needed to dig a quick cave into a hill, one with some large stones farther up the slope to attract the lightning.

Staying in the grove was easier.

He’d grown up on the Storm Plains. He knew the weather and the feel of the mana here. The lands were desolate, but in their own way they were full of life thriving on the edge.

He reached out to where lightning sparks were fluttering around a branch and touched it, letting them flow across his hand. Ripples of crystal flame rose up from his palm, dancing around the sparks.

He shook his head. His body was filled with his own essence and if he held his concentration in the right way, the lightning here flowed over the surface of his skin. He hadn’t been able to do that before.

Out in the storm, he could hear the faint song of natural runes, like a particular pitch of mana that vibrated in his bones and along his meridians. His eyes traced the pattern of the winds, feeling for it, before he slowly shook his head.

Time.

Perhaps if he had a dozen years, he could meditate on the meaning of the Storm Plains and make the runes here his own.

He gave the storm a last look before he turned away, heading back to the campfire. When the chores were done and everyone was studying, he settled down and began pulling items from the dimensional pockets in his vest. He was wearing it like a tunic over his shirt, which made it easy to access.

In a couple of minutes, he set up a quick workshop with his materials, including the ice bolt wand from Nelgen. On one side of the table, there were two Level 25 monster cores, some water lizard horns, and some rough chunks of silver.

He’d purchased the silver in Ebonfar, for less than it would have cost as coins, but the quality was lower. In a pack to one side, he also had more than two dozen crystal spheres filled with Earth mana. He’d barely used his supply of those.

Near the campfire, Altey was sitting between her parents, talking animatedly about the storm out past the trees. She’d never been outside in one before, so it was new to her.

His talons tapped on the table as he looked at everything, and then he picked up the ice wand, turning it over in his hands as he let his essence flow into it. The wand turned translucent and the runes of the enchantment began to gleam in his eyes.

His sister hadn’t had her Class Day yet, so she didn’t have active skills, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t use the wand. It just wouldn’t be as easy for her. If he had to guess, his sister’s attributes at the moment were somewhere between 4 and 10, except perhaps for Charisma. She was cute, so that was at least a 12.

He chuckled to himself as he turned the wand over, examining it.

She probably only had about four or five mana, which wasn’t much. Even if she concentrated as hard as possible, it was unlikely she would be able to use more than a point or two of it.

He would need to change the enchantment on this so that it didn’t require her to do more than activate it with a thread of mana. The easiest thing to do would be to imbed a core, which could be used to store mana.

A higher-quality core might have been able to even regenerate mana over time, but the ones he had right now were not that good. He’d have to charge it for her, or perhaps she could learn how to do it herself, at a point or so an hour.

If she did, then when she received her class, she was likely to get a few meditation and mana control skills as soon as the World Law assessed her abilities. That would be good for her.

Right now, the wand had a basic enchantment. There was quite a bit of unused space on it. He just needed to surround it in a more advanced rune pattern and imbed the core.

He’d figured out the basics of imbedding cores from some items he’d seen in Ebonfar, but this would be the first time he did it himself. If it worked, he’d use the other core as the base material for a shielding amulet.

Crystal flames flowed out of his hand, swirling around the wand as he poured his aura into it, searching through it for flaws as he began to purify it further. Whoever had done it the first time had low standards.

He needed to overwrite the signature of their enchantment and make it his own, purify it a bit more, and then he could get started.

Sam began to hum. Crystal flames swirled around him and the wand, twisting into curling patterns as he tested out concepts.

A moment later, a stick of chalk appeared in his free hand and he began to sketch on the table, holding the wand with the other as he glanced at it.

---

As day turned into night, the elemental storm continued to lash against the plains with no sign of stopping. The lightning sparks on the trees grew brighter as the canopy started to glow, brightening as it absorbed more energy.

After several hours had passed, there were violet, blue, and white arcs leaping from leaf to leaf, playing between the branches. It was eerie and mystical, like a swarm of faeries were waging war in the forest.

It was well past sunset, but it was almost as bright as day.

The wand in front of Sam bore little resemblance to the artifact that it had once been. It had been a white metal wand with a crystal on one end, the sort of bland artifact that apprentices made in large quantities.

Now, it was something different. The monster core was fused into the material a few inches from the end, giving it a spherical bulge. The color had changed from white to light blue and there was a runic pattern in a double spiral around it that looked similar to lightning bolts.

The new runes gleamed with icy light, especially three prominent symbols for ice, slow, and mana.

The ice and slow runes dictated the effects that Sam had intensified in the wand, but the mana rune was the most important. If she concentrated and poured her mana into that point, it would help her connect to the wand. She could then turn her mana into an attack.

At the base of the wand above the monster core, there was a charge rune, which would allow Altey to infuse her mana into it, if she had any to spare. More likely, Sam or one of their parents would end up doing that.

The binding pattern that held it together was the same Expert-level one that he’d borrowed from the original illusion amulet Krana had drawn for him, but a slightly reduced version. It would help to bind the core to the wand and improve the overall efficiency.

He had ended up erasing most of the original enchantment and redoing it, altering it to fit his personal standards. Once upon a time, that sort of thing would have been difficult, but after so many months of intensive enchanting, it had become almost second nature.

The lines of the new enchantment were gleaming with crystal blue essence, which roiled inside them like an ocean of flames trying to burn away the material, but it was well contained.

Sam tapped the activation rune, watching as the lines of mana began to surge.

The first rune began to gleam with energy as it absorbed the essence he’d poured into it. Unlike the temporary enchantments he’d made, this time he felt the aura he’d poured into the runes swirling faster, heading through the pattern to the monster core.

The runes came to life one after the other, etching themselves more deeply into the material until the entire wand was covered in a web of light. Then the enchantment intensified, rising off the surface until it floated above the wand.

Mana and aura flared through the wand, spreading out evenly across the entire pattern, and then the enchantment collapsed inward. The core was the eye of a whirlwind at the base. It absorbed all of the energy and then spun it back out, redistributing it evenly through the runes.

The wand gleamed on the table, the tiny runes on it etched in an icy blue light. A moment later, a notification appeared, along with a sparkling surge of experience that danced along his nerves.

Wand of Slow Freeze (Advanced)

[Enchantment of Slow Freeze: Creates an ice bolt that does initial impact damage and then covers the target in a layer of ice, slowing its movements. Charges: 20. Duration: Permanent.]

Congratulations, Enchanter. You have crafted an Advanced Enchantment.

You gain 2,500 Class experience. (100% contribution from Enchanter)

Class Experience: 3,142,040 / 3,437,500

Sam waved away the notification with a shake of his head, focusing his attention on the wand as he tilted it from side to side. It would take something like 120 similar items if he wanted to reach the next level through enchanting, so he’d started ignoring the experience numbers.

It was better to just focus on the sense of progress from crafting and the surge of experience itself. Each point was more than he had before.

A small smile played across his features as he turned toward the campfire, searching for Altey. He was looking forward to her reaction.

Unfortunately, she was asleep already, tucked away in the blankets of her tent.

Sam sighed as he tucked the wand away in his pouch. He’d been so focused that he’d forgotten about that. He’d give it to her when she woke up.

He didn’t need a lot of sleep anymore, another side effect of Constitution. Four hours was usually enough.

Currently, Lesat was the only other one awake. Sam gave him a nod. It was almost time for his own watch, so he might as well stay awake. 

Lightning sparks danced through the canopy as the storm roared across the plains.