Ch186-Tools Of The Trade (Patreon)

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Ch186-Tools Of The Trade

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Mora’s friend, Aleri, was a bird.

Kind of.

He was a cross between a raven, eagle, falcon, hawk, owl, bat, woodpecker, and possibly a handful of felines. He was completely black, his dark yellow beak had a slight downwards curve, his claws looked like they belonged to a cat, and he had two giant eyeballs on either side of his head, which gave him the appearance that he was smaller than he actually was.

He had 3 sets of wings, the very top ones were the longest and they became small as they reached his tail. Which, similar to Mora and the other chimeras, contained an extendable stinger. When Sylver touched him, he found that his feathers had a very strange, almost furry, texture to them.

[Shade (Unique) Raised!]

[Shade (Unique)] has received the name [Aleri]
[Evolution Available!]

Aleri moved fast enough that Sylver struggled to see him as he flapped his wings, and disappeared down the tunnel towards a celebrating Mora.

The next chimera looked like a giant sea urchin. The spikes were as thin as needles, but according to Bruno, could be extended up to 9 meters. Sylver found where the head was, and he unfolded the hedgehog-like corpse and saw something that looked like a very small lizard, curled up inside its protective needle barrier.

[Shade (Unique) Raised!]

“I’m going to call you…” Sylver stared at the lizard with spikes sticking out of its back.

With the way the skin out of which the spikes were coming out became squashed together, it almost looked like an ugly turtle.

“Spike?” Bruno offered, and Sylver shook his head.

“Spring’s name starts with S, I need a letter I haven’t used yet,” Sylver explained, as he continued staring at the creature and just like Bruno couldn’t think of a better name than Spike.

“It’s fine, I’ll come up with something later,” Sylver said, as the lizard slithered down into Sylver’s shadow.

There were 2 more chimeras, not including the ones that Sylver simply didn’t have enough of an affinity towards to raise as shades.

Bruno had more, that Sylver could hypothetically take, but they were useless without their wild magic.

Despite both of them sharing the word “magic”, there was a difference between “wild magic” and “magic physiology.”

Wild magic, is magic that is possessed by creatures that are attuned enough with the world’s primal energy, that they have the same access to it that sorcerers do. When a monster uses wild magic, it isn’t actually casting anything, the monster simply wishes for a certain thing to happen, and the mana inside and surrounding them bends itself to fulfill their desire.

An example of wild magic is Mora’s strings.

Specifically, the way she can manipulate them, enhance their strength, nullify magic, and how she can feel the things the strings are touching. Her air manipulation and fire breathing ability also fall into the category of wild magic.

An example of magic physiology is Mora’s ability to alter her body shape. Her ability to split her head into 4 pieces, her ability to split her legs into 2, extend them, and that she can hide her 6 sets of eyes.

Although technically, it could be argued that her strings are produced and controlled due to her magic physiology, there wasn’t a very clear line drawn between the two.

The point was, Sylver’s shades retained their magic physiology, but not their wild magic. Will’s wings were long, but nowhere near long enough for the amount of weight Sylver had had the shade carry. Similarly, Ulvic’s head should be four times bigger to account for the amount of force he can exert when biting something.

The reason for this was that a monster’s magic physiology was limited only to itself, and to its body. Whereas wild magic, like normal magic, extended outside the creature’s body, like a spell.

These rules didn’t apply to “people,” but a similar example is a skeleton being able to move without having any muscles, a dwarf being able to hold extremely hot things with his bare hands, a fairy’s ability to fly, as well as any other monster or creature that didn’t make sense if you removed magic from the equation.

The problem with having a magic physiology is that it requires mana to function.

A really easy way to kill a skeleton is to drain its mana, it will just become a pile of immovable bones. The same can be done with a lead dagger, if someone shot Will with lead while he was flying, even if the shot is the size of a needle, Will would immediately start falling down due to his magic physiology being nullified.

The same was true for Sylver, except he had built his body with being attacked by lead and silver in mind. If he were affected by lead, his “lungs” would close up, so he didn’t get torn apart by the sudden uncontrollable compressed oxygen.

His heart would redirect the blood so the pressure decreased, his muscles would loosen so they wouldn’t break his bones, and a few other miscellaneous safety valves would get triggered.

That would keep Sylver going for an estimated 40 minutes. If during that time he succeeded in getting the lead removed from his person, everything would kick back into action, as if nothing had happened.

If not…

To stop itself from getting shredded apart under its own force and pressures, Sylver’s body would effectively devolve into a backup heart, lung, something close to a kidney and stomach combo, and his physical capabilities would become nonexistent. Sylver’s body was too large for what was inside of it, he hadn’t tested it, but if he was forced to shut it down all the way, he was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to walk.

If you compared Sylver to a ship, getting touched by lead would be like sail ripping apart. There would be a couple of minutes where the ship continued to sail due to its momentum, but if the sail isn’t repaired, it would eventually stop.

Sylver’s contingency for that was his smaller body inside his body. It would be extremely painful, wasteful, and probably disgusting, but in the worst-case scenario, Sylver could “molt” out of his outer shell. The body inside his chest, the one with the needle, the runes, and the indestructible ribcage, wasn’t directly connected to the larger body’s blood flow or flesh.

So even if Sylver, for some reason, had to drink a lead-laced poison, and the lead got into his bloodstream and spread out to every inch of his body, all he’d have to do is make a hole, and slide his armless, legless, basically headless, torso out, and then run away.

He already had a replacement on standby inside his workshop, the thing just needed a couple of months to mature. But it was a last resort, Sylver could still use magic thanks to the fact he used his soul to cast, but it would be humiliating in a way he struggled to comprehend.

He’d still do it.

If the choice is dying honorably and surviving while humiliating yourself, Sylver had picked the latter every single time.

Not to mention, he never really humiliated himself. It wasn’t like anyone who ever saw him crawl away like a pathetic worm ever lived to tell people about it.

[Shade (Unique) Raised!]

The next chimera Sylver raised was a very small rat/ferret looking monster, barely bigger than Sylver’s fist. Its rat-like tail looked as if it was woven together from a hundred pink strings. Sylver pinched the corpse’s tail and caused it to unravel.

Bruno explained that it was essentially a slime core, and once it had access to a compatible liquid, it would be able to manipulate it. In short, Sylver had a liquid golem, whether that liquid was limited to water, or if acid, poison, blood, or something even deadlier could be used, was to be seen.

“Welcome to the team Cory,” Sylver said at the small rodent.

[Shade (Unique)] has received the name [Cory]
[Evolution Available!]

The small rodent looked around, then wiped its nose with its two tiny hands, and unceremoniously disappeared into Sylver’s shadow.

“Cory the slime core. What about Nelly the needle shell?” Bruno offered.

He didn’t even sound judgemental, he sounded like he knew firsthand how difficult it was to name something.

“Nelly… No, it’s too… too gentle…” Sylver said in an attempt to explain that the name didn’t feel right.

Bruno leaned down as the spike-covered reptile materialized in front of them, and alternated from looking at Sylver to looking at Bruno.

“Barb?” Bruno offered after a short pause.

“Barb… No, doesn’t quite slide off the tongue… Roxan? Roxan the reptile?” Sylver said.

“How is Roxan less gentle than Nelly?” Bruno asked.

“Because it is,” Sylver said.

“What about Roxy? Cory and Roxy, and you name the next one something that ends with xy,” Bruno said, as he gestured at the remaining chimera Sylver was already in the process of raising.

“Not Roxy, it’s too common of a name… How does Uri sound?” Sylver offered, and Bruno made a sound.

“Uri the urchin. What about the wolf? Ulvic?” Bruno asked as Sylver clicked his tongue.

“Right… No, look, Ulvic is for when I’m chasing something, whereas Uri will probably be used in situations where I’m on the defensive. Honestly, I just like the name. It’s short, simple, and to the point,” Sylver said with a faint smile.

The joke seemed to go over his head as Bruno shrugged his shoulders and walked over to the next chimera.

[Shade (Unique)] has received the name [Uri]
[Evolution Available!]

The next chimera appeared to be a very simple snake. It was about as thick as Sylver’s wrist and was barely 2 meters long.

But, on its back, it had 6 scales that were a darker shade than its dark green body. Sylver very gently picked one of the scales, and using his mana, pulled out a small creature that looked like a squashed beetle. The square scale was the beetle’s abdomen, and once Sylver pulled them apart, they revealed a pair of very shiny wings.

“1 soul, 7 bodies,” Bruno said proudly.

“They’re not,” Sylver murmured as he focused on the 7 creatures and realized that Bruno was half right.

“What?”

Sylver pointed at the snake’s head. “This is the mother, and these are the children,” Sylver explained, as he then gestured at the small beetle in his hand. “Having said that, they also seem to be some kind of parasites… It’s rare to see 2 souls that are this similar… Let alone 7…” Sylver mumbled, as she found what he was looking for and finished raising them.

[Shade (Unique) Raised!]

Sylver waited a beat for 6 more notifications, but none came.

“That’s very interesting… I don’t think they are children, but the souls are too similar for them not to be related…” Sylver mumbled to himself.

“Clones? Self-replication?” Bruno offered.

“So these beetles will grow up to become snakes with beetles growing on their back?” Sylver asked, as the 6 beetle-like insects in question crawled out of the holes on the snake's back and flew around Sylver’s head in a neat circle.

“I did mention that this is more art than science, right?” Bruno asked.

“No, you said it used to be more art than science,” Sylver corrected, as the snake slithered up Sylver’s arm and wrapped itself around his torso.

Sylver noticed it when he tried to pet its head, the 6 flying beetles felt as if they were still in her back. Sylver ordered them to fly away, down the tunnels, and regardless of the distance, it felt like they were still inside the snake’s back.

Sylver gained a small increase in mana as he ordered the beetles to destroy themselves. And as he had suspected, they didn’t need to be caught and brought back by Spring to be healed, their souls, and therefore their bodies appeared within the holes on the snake’s back.

“Might be good for recognizance. Could be used to trigger traps,” Bruno offered, as Sylver summoned one of Lola’s explosives into his hand. He gently pinched some of the sticky clay-like explosive and rolled it into a small ball between his fingers. He gave the ball to the nearest beetle.

It flew towards the wall, and as it collided with the wall, Sylver sent a spark through the snake, through the beetle, and detonated it. After the smoke dissipated, there was a large hole in the stone wall.

“They’re small enough that people might not notice them. I knew an entomancer that had small fireflies that would position themselves on the nape of the neck and would then explode. With this I could have them lodge the explosive into an ear, or up a nose, or have them swarm into the person’s mouth,” Sylver said, as Bruno looked at him with a growing smile on his face.

Sylver discovered that Bruno’s one soul idea might have been more right than wrong because Sylver couldn’t get the beetles to split into 2. What he had to do instead was split the snake into two separate snakes, one of which was empty, and the other had 6 untouched beetle scales.

“Any thoughts on a name?” Sylver asked.

“A name?” Bruno asked.

“They’re a package deal. I think I know how to get them to separate, but I’ll wait to see if something changes first. What about…”

…

“You’re trying to think of a two-syllable word, one syllable for the snake, and the other for the beetles, right?” Bruno said after a good 30 seconds had passed.

“I’ve got nothing. I mean, I’ve got something, but it’s so bad I’m not even going to say it out loud,” Sylver said, as the 6 beetles returned to their respective holes on the snake's back, as the snake slithered into Sylver’s shadow.

“Me too,” Bruno said.

Sylver stood up and his robe fluttered to brush the dirt that had collected on his knees from crouching.

As they walked towards Mora Sylver summoned his 3 new shades, and watched how they moved.

The rat/ferret initially just walked on the floor, but with every passing moment, Sylver could see something shimmering enveloping her body. At first, her pitch-black fur just appeared wet, but her steps became longer as the water extended out of her feet and made each step longer. In the end, Cory was just floating in a sphere of water and used the water to slither along the floor.

Uri on the other hand preferred the ceiling. She rolled on it since the tips of her needles were somehow able to stick to the stony surface without puncturing it. Just to show off, she allowed herself to fall, and then used her needles to “walk.” Similar to an actual sea urchin, she could move them around somewhat.

The snake and beetle combo were the oddest. Initially, the snake just slithered on the floor, like your normal snake. But then, the 6 scales on her back opened up, and 6 pairs of wings were sticking out of the holes. It took her a few tries, but eventually, the snake was airborne and was slowly being flown down the tunnel ahead of Sylver and Bruno.

“Bit of a shame you couldn’t use so many. I thought you would have gained a perk to have your undead cast magic or use a skill they had in life, or something,” Bruno lightly complained.

Sylver had a lot of choices when it came to shades. But at the moment, there wasn't any point in raising them, especially, the really interesting ones. They were already dead, their corpses were perfectly preserved, and their souls weren’t blissfully contained within their bodies.

“I’m very happy anyway, Bruno. Thank you,” Sylver said, as he looked at the man’s warm eyes and suddenly had an idea. It seemed strange that he hadn’t thought of it earlier.

***

Once they were out of the tunnel Sylver and Bruno joined Tera in watching Mora’s attempts to catch Aleri, who was fast enough that he was a blur, and, had the maneuverability of a hummingbird.

The 6 winged shade was moving at right angles and somehow was able to completely ignore Mora’s small vortexes coming from the grid of strings she had created. Sylver focused on her for a while and could see that her hooves were sliding up her legs as if they were sleeves, and the small quickly moving claws hidden inside were just short of visible.

“She’s going to need a bit of training,” Sylver said mostly to himself, and partially to Spring, who added a couple of lines of notes into Morana’s training plan.

“Aleri is one, how many did you get?” Tera asked excitedly, as Sylver gestured towards the bright green grass in front of them.

Uri materialized first, followed by the snake, who sat on top of Uri completely unharmed, followed by Cory, who sat on top of the snake.

“Just 3?” Tera asked, in a somehow insultingly disappointed tone of voice.

“4 counting Aleri,” Sylver said.

“What about the giant octopus?” Tera asked.

“What would I even use a giant octopus for? Do you know how much attention a giant octopus would attract? These are so much better, Aleri on his own can just carry a dagger and slash someone’s throat open before they even notice him,” Sylver said, with a gesture at the bird in question that just did 5 loop de loops in a second.

The trio just stared at the bird for an unknown length of time, and only stopped when Tera got tired of standing and tried to sit down. A spider with an awkwardly large abdomen appeared nearby, and Tera was helped by Bruno to get onto it.

“I should go, I’ll see you two at my house soon,” Sylver said, as he mentally nudged Morana to stop playing and gather up her threads.

Sylver got a nudge back, that she had some kind of plan to catch Aleri and wanted him to wait for a bit. Sylver debated leaving her here until he left Arda, and in the end, realized he didn’t have anything even remotely close at his house to call a stable.

He left the Morana where she was, left her Aleri to carry on playing with, and left Bruno’s underground farm cave.

***

“Soaked in neutral twice filtered mana infused oils,” Ciege explained, as he started wiping the daggers and then checked the mirror polish one last time.

“Thank you, and sorry for having to rush you on this,” Sylver said, as Ciege placed the first dagger onto the leather-covered table, and started wiping dry the next.

Most blacksmith apprentices were lucky to get a sack filled with wood shavings to use as a pillow, the idea of an apprentice having his own room, not to mention his own workshop, was preposterous.

And yet, Ciege had both, not to mention his workshop was better equipped than a majority of “professional” blacksmiths.

Even if this workshop wasn’t technically Ciege’s, as he described it, it basically was. Salgok had realized very early on that Ciege had the skill and the talent, and while he would never be a dwarven blacksmith, he could be a masterful human blacksmith. All he needed was time and experience.

“Can I ask you something?” Ciege asked.

“Of course.”

Ciege focused on polishing the blade and looked at Sylver’s reflection.

“How hard is it to become a mage?” Ciege asked.

“It depends on your definition of what a mage is. Are you asking about Benjamin, or someone else?” Sylver responded.

Ciege was quiet once again and spoke only after he was done drying the dagger.

“If we go by your definition. If I Ben decided to become a mage, how long would it take?” Ciege asked.

Sylver refrained from rolling his eyes and instead sat down on the available seat and spoke with a thoughtful voice.

“If we go by the “a mage is someone who can cast a spell” definition, 4 or 5 years, depending on how driven he is, how much talent he has, and how good his master is. I know warriors and other classes have skills or perks that use mana, but those don’t really count as a “spell” and therefore I don’t consider them to be magic,” Sylver offered, and could both see and feel that Ciege wasn’t happy with his answer.

“How dangerous is it?” Ciege asked.

“How dangerous is it to train to be a mage?” Sylver clarified.

Ciege nodded.

“Extremely dangerous. Even if you have the talent for it, you’re still one false move away from turning your spell on yourself… Can I be frank with you?” Sylver asked.

Even though Ciege gestured for him to go ahead, Sylver waited a couple of seconds to think his next words over.

“I’m not the best person to ask when it comes to raising children. But to sum up an extremely long and boring monologue, I think that if Ben really wants to learn magic, even if it’s dangerous, you should let him do it. You should support him in every way you can, because what is the alternative?” Sylver asked.

“Forcing him to stay home and make him into a blacksmith,” Ciege answered.

“I’m surprised you’re even having this conversation with me. Do you not remember how you threw all caution to the wind to do something you wanted above all else? You were prepared to ruin the world, as long as you got what you wanted. Now, I very much hope your son is never in the same position you were in, but he is your son.

“He’s going to have your drive to chase after his dream, even if it’s suicide. You’re not going to stop him. At best you’ll force him to run away to do everything on his own, without your help,” Sylver offered, as Ciege wiped another dagger clean.

“I don’t… I don’t know… I’ve always wanted a son to pass everything on to. If he’s out there, he isn’t here, learning from me, following in my footsteps,” Ciege explained. There was an odd note in his voice like he understood how bad what he said sounded, but at the same time, thought he was right when he said it.

Sylver shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s very easy for me to get attached to people Ciege. I don’t know how or why, but that’s the truth. But if I say what I want to say, you’re not going to react well to it… Imagine this. You never came back, and Yeva was forced to work for her father, and she hates it. She cries herself to sleep every night and dreads waking up in the morning. In this hypothetical, what do you think I would do?” Sylver asked.

Despite his village boy appearance, Ciege was a very intelligent young man, and he knew what Sylver was getting at before he had even finished speaking.

“I know you well enough to know you mean well when you say things like this. So in your eyes, it would be right to take Ben away from us if it meant he might be happy?” Ciege asked as he finished rubbing another dagger dry, and he placed it alongside the others in front of Sylver.

“I think that sometimes people have to do things. Either to survive or because it’s necessary for their goal. I know better than most what it’s like to do what you have to, as opposed to what you want to. But I also think that if you’re not moving towards your goal, you’re wasting your time,” Sylver said, as Ciege turned away for a bit to change his oil-soaked cloth for a fresh clean one.

“If you came here, in say, 20 years, and saw that Ben wasn’t happy being a blacksmith, but we were happy that he was here, safe. You would steal him from us so that he could get himself killed somewhere out there, right?” Ciege asked.

“I like Ben. He looked me in the eye and wasn’t afraid of me. And even before my eyes became this way, you can’t imagine how rare that was. So, yes. If I come around in 20 years, and I see an adult I will likely consider a close friend by that point in time, unenthusiastically swinging his blacksmithing hammer, I very much might “steal him away,” from you.

“I would prefer that he died chasing after his dream, rather than lived a long life and died of old age, full of quiet regret,” Sylver explained, as Ciege finished drying another dagger and placed it down onto the desk.

Ciege spent the remainder of the time it took to dry Sylver’s daggers in deep in thought. Sylver left after hugging the man goodbye and reminded him about the meeting at his house.

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