Elemental Gatherers Book 4 - Chapter Two (Patreon)

“It is time,” she said. She’d already directed Vaya and Jamila to go join the rest of our group. I followed her up the stairs, with Ma and Pa falling in behind me. I saw the king walking up on the other side, surrounded by guards who split up to cover every entrance to the stage. 

“Come forward,” King Craesti called, and I obediently walked to stand in front of him. He directed me to his side, and looked out over the small crowd. “Today, we convene to honor a number of people who acted above and beyond what would be expected of them. In front here, you will find the students of Azyl Academy and Zelec Academy. Both groups of students, mostly first-tiers in the beginning of their training, rushed to help others and assisted the guards in evacuating citizens from danger. Honor them.” He raised his hands over his head and clapped. The crowd behind them did the same, cheering on my friends. 

He continued his speech after the crowd quieted. “They will be invited to a reception this afternoon, where they will receive appropriate rewards for their service. One other student of Azyl Academy deserves special honor. Kupiec Aiden, kneel before me.” I stepped out and kneeled in front of him. He put his hand on my shoulder. “AIden risked his life, and that of his Bond, to seek out Ourselves with knowledge and deductions about the great Beast that threatened our kingdom. His observations are what allowed us to defeat the creature. Without his efforts, many more people would have died. Kupiec Aiden, I give you Our thanks, and raise you to the rank of Knight. Henceforth, you are Sir Kupiec Aiden, and you have Our favor. Rise, Sir Aiden.”

I stood to my feet, flushing from the weight of thousands of people’s cheers. I bowed to the people, then the king said, “Go to your friends. You will be coming to the dinner this evening, where everyone will be rewarded. We will talk more then.” I bowed to him this time, and then went back to my parents. Pa clapped my shoulders. Headmaster Glav walked us down to the rest of the Azyl Academy students. The king spoke more on the recovery efforts, and then he turned and walked away. We waited for another few minutes, before an announcer directed us to disperse. Ma and Pa told me they’d see me at the reception, but they had some meetings to discuss what they had to do because they were Knights now. 

We all loaded back into the carriage to ride back to the hotel. “Ma’am,” I started, “Uh, was that supposed to be that short? And why was that done outside?”

“Ah, yes, you wouldn’t know,” she said. “Yes, it was supposed to be short. The king is incredibly busy, and to spare even this much time is another sign for how high he regards you.”

“She is right,”  Xiao said, “Even my father would only get a short meeting with him, similar to the length of this presentation, if he came to speak with him without being called.”

“Thank you, Xiao,” the Headmaster said. “The presentation was done outside because tradition calls for all elevations to the nobility, or within the nobility, to be done in full view of the Elements and the public. The reception tonight will be longer and inside the Tower. You will be required to dance with many, many, young noble ladies. It is a good thing that I am here, or you would probably be betrothed by the end of the night!” She finished the last statement with a laugh. 

I laughed nervously. “Uh, required?” I asked. 

“Not specifically, no,” Bet said from behind me. “But a lot of young women will seek you out, and refusing to dance at least once will insult the family of the young woman who asks. Hiding will not be effective either.”

“Come on, just suck it up,” Xiao said, grumpy for some reason. 

“It is not like dancing is a punishment!” Jon laughed at me. 

I glared at my friends, then Jamila flicked my ear. “Ow,” I whined at her, “Humph. I see how it is, ganging up on the hero.” I made a pouting face that had most of the carriage in stitches. I spent the rest of the ride back looking out the window, lost in thought. What does this mean? I’m a noble now, and so are Ma and Pa. Low level nobles, but still. I guess I should’ve expected it, since everyone who reaches Complete Core gets a noble title and I definitely have to reach that, at least. Is the Jellyfish of Doom the level of enemy I’m going to have to fight? Will they be stronger? There used to be ten gods of this realm, and eight of them perished to save it. Do I have to get that strong, or stronger? How is that possible? 

I apparently got so deep into existential angst that I was hyperventilating. Vaya wrapped her arms around my shoulders and said, “You are not alone. We will stand with you and by your side.” I hugged her back.

“Thanks,” I whispered back to her. We arrived back at the inn shortly after that.

“Everyone, go change into some training gear and get your training weapons. If you have weapons without the training Inscription, wear those and pack your training gear,” Headmaster Glav said. “Quickly now.” We rushed out of the carriage to change. 

A thought struck me as I was entering the inn, I haven’t seen Librarian Narwan since the ride to the ceremony. Where did he go? Or, I pushed a massive burst of Aether into the Divine Senses Technique. Immediately, I was overwhelmed with data, but I’d been training and adapted within a second to the deluge. 

Dirt on the door became visible, I could smell everything cooking in the kitchen, and hear the laughter of children over a block away. Along with the extra powerful senses, though, I gained an additional sense of intuition, and it was screaming at me. I quickly formed the most advanced form of Granite Skin, Iron Bones, pausing before crossing the doorway to get it fully active. 

Vaya bumped into my back when I stopped, looked at me funny, then shrugged with a smile. I glared at her before rushing into the tavern. A flare of Aether lashed out at me, shattering my technique but not injuring me in the slightest. “Excellent technique,” Librarian Narwan said. “You need to get it up faster still. Keep your sensing technique up more, you should have sensed me before you got out of the carriage. I’ll be watching you.” He vanished after saying his piece. 

Mlody was watching from the side, obviously terrified of the eccentric old man. When he vanished, he relaxed, which showed me she wasn’t nearly terrified enough of him. She turned to me and bowed low. I quickly turned my eyes away, as her shirt was pretty low-cut. “Sir Knight, it is an honor to have you staying here,” she said sincerely. 

“Uh, thanks?” I said confusedly. “You really don’t,” I started to say, when Vaya smacked my shoulder. I looked over at her, and saw her, Bet, and Ming all shaking their heads at me. “Thank you,” I finished saying to her. “I don’t think we have time for a meal now. We need to change.” 

“Of course Sir,” she said, then moved to open the door to the stairs. She smiled brightly at me this time. We walked past, Jon and Xiao nearly bursting into laughter at my confusion. Nicky was fuming behind me, but I did my best to ignore him. 

Once we got out of earshot I turned to Jon and asked, “What was that about?”

“Dude, she was totally into you,” Jon said, snickering at me. “Especially now that you are a Knight. You are the most eligible bachelor in the capital right now.”

“She is not thinking she has a chance at being your wife,” Xiao said. “A concubine to a Knight, or any other noble, though, is a possibility. That could help her attain a better life for herself and her family.” The look of horror on my face made him burst out laughing. It did earn me a smile from Jamila, though. 

“Uh, let’s just go change,” I said, changing the subject very smoothly. I then continued my smoothness by sprinting up the stairs as fast as I could, even going so far as to activate Gusting Northern Wind and nearly running into the ceiling of the second floor. Different culture, I can deal, I thought, then realized, nope, still super weird. Gah! Not thinking about it now. 

Upon reaching my room, I was tempted to lock Jon out. I didn’t, but man was I tempted. I changed as quickly as I could, putting on a tight t-shirt and a loose pair of light pants that would let me move. Jon came in just as I was pulling up my pants.

“Aiden, you really should not let them get to you,” he said. “It just makes you more fun to tease.”

“Uh huh, them,” I said, scowling at my friend, “not someone else, say, standing in this room?”

“I just tease you because I am jealous,” he laughed at me.

“I’ll tell Bridget,” I threatened.

“Uh, I will not do it again?” He said hurriedly. 

“Good, now get dressed! I want to hit something, and that might be you if you’re not fast enough,” I growled at him, before putting my mid-Condensation level trisula onto my belt and throwing my other set into a bag. On a whim, I packed a dozen gathering powders, recharge powders, and healing powders. Just in case, I thought, remembering the attack. 

It took about ten minutes for everyone to get ready, after which we all piled back into the carriage. I felt like I was back in the orphanage, with all the kids filling up a fifteen passenger van to go to a local park. It was one of the few things most of us enjoyed that the caretakers would let us do. I shook myself out of my reverie, I turned to my friends once we were all loaded up. “So, what type of training should we focus on?” I asked the group.

“We should do some team versus team sparring,” Xiao said excitedly. “That will let us limber up and get used to working with each other. Well, for those of us who have new team members.”

“Wait to decide until you see the training area,” Headmaster Glav cautioned. “You will have a few hours to train, then we must be back to get ready for the reception.”

“Uh, ma’am,” Jamila started, “Are you going to advise us on what would be good training? Are the other team advisors going to be there?”

Headmaster Glav looked at her, then smiled and nodded. “Good,” she said. “Yes, I will give you some advice once we get there. We will be here to help you and guide you. I will not give too much advice today, though. Tomorrow, you will all find out more about the tournament, and then my words will not be as restricted as now.”

“Thank you,” Jamila replied. The promise of advice, i.e. commands, from Headmaster Glav cut off that conversation, so I took the time to think through my techniques again. I was trying to optimize them for my body and fighting style, rather than the more generic forms I learned from the memory stones. I was focused on the Wrath of the Lightning Herald, which was an awesome and pretentious name, that I usually just shortened to Wrath in my head. The massive lightning bolt that I shot out from it was cool, but with some tweaks I thought I could make it more Aether efficient.

“You are adorable when you mumble to yourself,” Vaya whispered from beside me. “But you might want to tone it down with the other language.”

“Oh,” I said, startled. I thought back and realized I had been talking about programming and how it compared to Inscription and techniques under my breath. “Uh, I’ll explain later. Might be useful.”

“Here we are kids,” Counselor Sila said, appearing at the carriage’s doorway. “Up and out, we’ve got a lot of work to do.” We hopped out of the vehicle in front of a massive curved building. Man, that looks like the Coliseum! So cool! I thought, gazing up at the imposing architecture. We walked in through a large archway, which was lined with marble columns. On each column was carved scenes of two people duking it out. The sheer scale of it awed me. 

This was compounded once we reached the end of the tunnel through the wall. We were about half-way up the stands of an arena, but were at least fifty meters above the floor. It sank deep into the ground. The floor was circular, with a diameter of at least a kilometer. One entire half of the field contained the obstacle course from hell. Walls, ropes, rope ladders, towers, water pits, sand, it had it all. I couldn’t wait to start running through it!

“My advice, run the first obstacle course,” Headmaster Glav said. “There are five in there, increasing in difficulty. Learn how to deal with the obstacles quickly and efficiently, as a team. Ming, your team is first. The others will practice techniques or gather until you are a third of the way through.”

“Your times to completion will be compared,” Counselor Sila said. “Best time gets desert after the reception.” Instantly, I saw nearly every guy tighten up. Yup, get us to compete by using food. Good plan, I thought with a laugh. Bet was just shaking her head at us. Ming and Xiao ran down to the floor of the arena, nearly dragging their compatriots to the start of the course. When they reached there, I saw a flash of light from the other side. There was another group of people entering in another entrance. They wore similar clothes to us, though their pants were all solid red rather than the green we wore.

“Stop gawking at your competitors,” Librarian Narwan said from right behind me. At least this time I wasn’t the only one to jump. He gestured at my team, and we hurried to follow him to the base of the arena. “You will be learning the basics of external techniques now. You have all learned at least one, such as your Wrath of the Lightning Herald Aiden,” he gestured at me. “Staying at only a single technique, or what you can be taught, leaves you vulnerable. There will always be situations that you are not trained for, where your abilities are countered by an intelligent opponent. To survive, to win, you must be able to craft your own techniques.” 

He gestured, and a quick series of runes played out in the air in front of him. Five runes formed, collapsed into one, and a bolt of magma flew out to splash a dozen meters away. It was formed and landed in less than a second. I’d barely been able to process that there were five separate runes. “That was a spur-of-the-moment creation. Eventually, you will be able to do that just as quickly. Do not expect it to be easy or quick. Now, you all made little Elemental balls when you first advanced. Turn them into a projectile and hit a target.” 

With a gesture, a dozen metal person-shaped targets popped out of the ground. They were staggered, with two only two meters away, while the farthest one was nearly twenty meters away. I shrugged and started working through the runes in Wrath of the Lightning Herald, forming them quickly and efficiently. Before I released it, though, I used one finger to try and sculpt a small sequence of Fire, Point, and Forward, but lost control of my first technique and was blown backwards. 

Librarian Narwan walked over to where I was laying on the ground. “If you are going to ignore me, at least do so smartly,” he said, shaking his head. “That was a good idea, but you need to practice free writing runes if you want to do that. Repeat your sequence fifty times. You have ten minutes, after which I will be applying more motivation.” I scrambled to my feet, the smile he gave when he emphasized motivation made my skin crawl. I hurried over to stand about a meter away from one of the targets, and started to draw out the runes. 

The first time fizzled, the spacing between them too much to let the Aether flow. The second blew my hand backwards when I overcompensated and put them too close together. Over and over again, I drew the runes and pushed Aether into them. Small burn marks covered the torso of the target, scattered apart as I wasn’t good at aiming it yet. After a few minutes, I’d successfully sent ten fireballs out. If I don’t hurry up, I’m going to get motivated. Which is plenty of motivation to hurry up! I thought, then started to push Aether into my nerve meridians, giving myself extra speed and reaction time, before also enhancing the brain meridian. Under those conditions, I focused on using both hands. Two at the same time is easier than drawing different runes. 

Mimicking motion between each side, I drew the first set imperfectly, but not enough that it failed entirely. Again and again I worked, not paying attention to anything else, until I got it perfect five times in a row with both hands. As the fifth burst hit, I threw my hands up in celebration. “Yeah, got it!” I said excitedly. 

“Excellent job,” Librarian Narwan said from beside me. 

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

“Took you fifteen minutes to meet my demands, though,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “So, hmm, what would be a good punishment, hmm,” he mumbled to himself. The rest of my team was looking at me worriedly. “Ah! I know. It is just about your turn in the obstacle course. You are forbidden from using techniques during this run. Yes, excellent, good. Better work hard if you want that dessert!” He cackled after the last word. 

I kept expecting him to disappear as he stood off to the side laughing, but he didn’t move. It was pretty awkward. Turning to the rest of my team, I said, “Well, I guess we should keep practicing.” Jon was glaring at me, his expression saying we were going to have words this evening. Well, unless I distracted him from it. I shrugged at him, then gestured at the target.

Okay, so I can scribe them in the air with my finger, but I should be able to do it from anywhere. Let’s try to write the runes in front of my face. See if I can target the blast with my eyes or something. A splash of water on my face woke me up from the first attempt, after it blew up in my face. I’d decided to use Lightning instead of Fire, hoping that my high Affinity would lessen any blow. 

“Do not do that again,” Vaya said from next to me. “I was not able to save your left eyebrow. So you look funny.” She sniggered at me.

“Well, then I should do it at least once more. Need my face to be symmetric right?” I joked, only to get a slap on the chest. “Fine, fine, I won’t do that again.”

“It might be smarter to use a closed fist or palm,” Librarian Narwan said. “When first learning to write mentally. You simply need a part of your body to be within range to write it.”

“How far away can we write from ourselves?” Bridget asked. 

“It is different for each person. I believe that it depends on Affinity with the Aether you are using, the number of meridians that you have, several specific meridians can increase it as well. Over time, your range will increase. Hmm, I have been wanting to research this. All of you, try to write as far away from your finger as you can. Hehe, yes, my own research assistants.” Okay, yup, he’s nuts. But awesome, but nuts. 

I held my fist up and to the right, like I was going to fist bump someone, and mentally drew an Ice rune. I kept my enhancements going, trying to watch as the Aether formed the runes and control the distance. The first try fizzled, instead of exploding, which was a win in my book. Can you connect the runes? I thought. You know, like cursive? I asked the question aloud.

“Yes,” Librarian Narwan said. “Each rune has a connection point. That will limit the series that you can create, though.”

“Is there a benefit?” Jon asked, seemingly frustrated.

“Connecting the runes makes it easier to control,” he explained. “You limit your ability, but you make it easier. Eventually, you will all develop an instinctive feel for how to space and set up runes. If you connect them, though, that will not develop, and you will forever be limited. Choose.” He looked at us. “Keep going, more data.”

I wrote Ice, Point, Forward, then kept writing forward until I couldn’t anymore. The farther away the rune was from my hand, the mushier the Aether felt. After the fifth Forward rune, only fifty centimeters from my fist, I couldn’t make it form accurately enough to make a rune. I shrugged and put my fist down. Holding the runes that were there got harder, but they didn’t fall apart.

“Good! Yes, you can maintain a rune after writing it from a much larger distance,” Librarian Narwan said. “Fifty centimeters, that was much greater than I expected. Excellent! Do it again.” We kept practicing for another twenty minutes, then Ming came stumbling over.