EG Book 7 Chapter 21 (Patreon)

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

Chapter two of two for today! Even with the lack of writing this week, I’m hopeful I can finish the draft this month.

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

The next two weeks passed quickly. I finally finished updating every one of my Core Runes, and my gathering speed increased enormously. Of course, that only offset the rapid increase in Aether requirements to advance in the Seed Core stage. The first layer took me half an hour of continuous gathering to create. The second, after updating another Core Rune, took thirty three minutes. The third, forty minutes. I was only gathering to advance a single layer once a day, as the wave of Aether that each one created left me feeling sore and bloated afterwards.

At this point, Sia started to gather with me. With the second to last Core Rune completed, and Sia’s assistance increasing the speed of my gathering, it still took thirty seven minutes for the fourth layer. Sia hopped off my shoulder and flapped over to his perch after finishing. “I still have hundreds of layers to add to my Core to advance,” I said, panting as I stood and stretched. “How much longer will it take to advance in Foundation, or Light guide me, Complete Core?”

“Each layer does help you gather faster, but you are right. It will eventually take you days to advance a single layer,” Sia said. “There is a reason that the fastest advancement through Core I know of was eight years, and they only reached the end of Complete Core and stopped.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“The City Lord of (Name from Chaos Rising). His family is extremely wealthy,” Sia started.

“Yeah, on the backs of their people,” I interjected, “That rotten fish was the one trying to make a profit off the Beast Wave we stopped. Gah, I hate that city.”

“True. He bought his way to the top of Core, spending nearly all of his time gathering and using extreme amounts of pills, Beast Cores, and other supplements. He never tried to advance because he knew he would die in the Tribulation. Too many impurities, too many short lines. He would be found wanting such that the Tribulation would destroy him.” I snorted and we went to get food.

Other than gathering, I focused on sharing the Legacy with the others, and we all learned new techniques. Jon and I both found good wide-spread damage techniques. His was a field of sharp snowflakes that cut apart anything inside and mine a storm cloud that blasted Lightning over its surface. “If the Harpies come again,” he growled, “I will be ready for them.”

“We will be,” I said. Everyone else learned at least one new technique, and we trained incessantly. Being Core made it so much easier to fit everything into my schedule, since I only needed two or so hours a night. Along with the pills I made for everyone’s gathering assistance, I also worked on mass producing Affinity Powders. I still owed Librarian Narwan a few hundred of them, but my ability to focus on multiple items and channel five different Aether techniques at once, along with the awesome new mortar and pestle sets he got me, let me make ten at once. I created over a thousand sets before we found land, firmly meeting my debt with my master and giving me a lot of extra to sell.

Three days prior to finding land, Aleks advanced to Seed Core, which seemed to set off a ripple effect that brought everyone else up over the next two days. Pills, powders, elixirs, Beast Cores, all had been consumed in quantities that even Aleks didn’t normally get to use. The Soul Strengthening gatherers of the four nations had truly paid me a fair price for the knowledge I sold them. Even Sam was able to advance to Circulation Condensation, Librarian Narwan’s treatments having fixed her foundation enough for her to advance, finally.

We finally found the Craesti peninsula after three weeks and a day of traveling. “Land ho!” I shouted, seeing the beach. “We’re home!”

“Well, sort of,” Jamila said, sitting with me on watch. “We still have to find the ruins, and then get back to Craesti.”

“So, which way to the ruins?” I asked.

Jamila shrugged, “You would have to ask Knight Kaminski or Aleks. I am not very good at navigation.”

“East,” Knight Kaminski said, appearing next to me in a similar vein to Librarian Narwan. “We will head east until we reach the point of the peninsula. If we have not reached the ruins by then, we will turn back and retread our journey and head west from here.”

“Got it!” I said. “We’ll turn to the left once we reach the coast. I can’t wait! I wonder what we’ll find? Maybe another source of Geist?”

“It would be good to be able to temper with it,” Jamila told me. “I have only made a little progress at gathering Geist.”

“Prince Gunther did invite us all to the Weltreich to train,” I said. “They have a tower of Geist there, so we’ll be able to advance with that.”

“Your method works, it is just slow,” Jamila said.

We chatted for another twenty minutes before turning east to follow the coastline. Forty minutes later, Jamila pointed, “There’s the temporary fort we built! We’re almost there!”

“Can you go get Aleks and Knight Kaminski?” I asked.

“Sure,” Jamila said, then ran inside. A few moments later, she returned with Aleks, then Knight Kaminski appeared next to me.

“We are almost there,” Aleks said. “This is exciting.”

The rest of the crew slowly trickled out to see the land. Everyone started to chatter, pointing out at the forest, and then at the beginnings of ruins. Tiny broken down walls and clear areas of the jungle revealed where houses, roads, and businesses used to be.

“There,” Jon pointed at a larger area that had only a few small trees in it, “I swear that used to be a warehouse. That would make that,” he pointed at an area of slightly less dense trees, “the main road in and out of the city. At least, in this direction.”

“Cool,” I said. “Should we set down to investigate here?”

“No,” Aleks said. “Up ahead there was a large area of partially intact ruins. We should land there.”

“Got it,” I said, pushing us ahead as fast as I could. It wasn’t that fast, the Skysurfer yet again showing that it was designed for comfort and carrying capacity over speed, as we puttered along over the slowly increasing density of ruins.

“Drop!” Knight Kaminski yelled suddenly. I immediately released the hover enchantment on the Skysurfer, letting gravity pull us downward.

A bar of a disturbingly gray Aether shot through where we were flying before I let us fall. The Aether made my skin tingle. “Who shot at us!” I screamed as I piloted us towards the ground, We corkscrewed through the air, and four more beams of Aether rose to meet us.

“I will block!” Knight Kaminski yelled, “They do not know how many of us there are, or how strong we are. Aiden, bring us down, then store your Portable Home. Do not store the Skysurfer. I want them to think they brought me down, and I was alone. Now, dive!”

The urgency in her voice drove me to turn us nearly perpendicular to the ground. The training we’d undergone throughout the journey revealed its worth, as everyone was able to hold themselves steady even with the Skysurfer at eighty degrees to the ground. When we were three meters from the ground, I desperately pulled up, and we slammed into the ground with the Skysurfer parallel to it.

Everyone except Knight Kaminski fell down, collapsing under the impact of the Skysurfer and beach to roll across its surface. Groans rose from the prone group. “Get up!” Knight Kaminski yelled, and I struggled to my feet. “Go, I will draw them off.”

“Who attacked us?” Lilianna asked.

“I do not know,” Knight Kaminski answered, “but they were proficient in Death Aether, so they are not anyone to play around with. Get into the jungle and hide yourselves. I will draw off pursuit. I will return to the crash site after two hours. Be ready to ambush those that are tracking me.

“We will,” I said. “Come on.” I struggled to my feet and ran towards the closest trees. Everyone else staggered to their feet, recovering from the impact with the sand. The Skysurfer itself was embedded in the dirt at a thirty degree angle.

“Pull the Portable Home into your ring,” Knight Kaminski commanded.

I reached back and tapped the shack-sized structure, sucking it into my ring and taking up half of the available space. After that, we all ran towards the tree line. Knight Kaminski sent a massive bar of Fire Aether through the woods, and I heard a dozen creatures screaming in agony as they burned. “You are weak and pathetic!” Knight Kaminski yelled, then she bolted in the opposite direction we had run. “I will murder you all for attacking me!” She sent another absolutely massive blast through the jungle, disrupting any trail we could have made.

She’s protecting us while attracting all the attention of our enemies upon her. Light, I hope I can be as brave if the time comes for me, I thought. We ran for a few minutes, avoiding plants as much as we could. A tree thudded to the ground somewhere behind us. “Hold up!” I whispered loudly before extending my (Name) stealth technique, the one Headmaster Glav had given me, over everyone that wasn’t already covered in some type of stealth technique and then hissed, “Be still!”

Lampart, Bridget, Zimnodlot, and Hanna had each hidden themselves, and Sia had shrunk down and landed on my shoulder to basically counts as part of me for the technique.

Jon shifted, and I grunted. I was already straining to use it on nine targets rather than one, and every motion made my center twitch as the Aether drain increased.

After a few minutes, Lampart said to us all, “You can release the techniques. The nearest Naga have departed.”

“Naga!” I thought, then dropped the technique. My right leg hurt from the surge of Aether I’d used, but I could feel it healing in real time. “What are the Naga doing here?”

“I do not know,” Vaya said, “but it cannot be good.”

“We need to find Knight Kaminski,” Milenna said. “She might need our help.” “First, we need to figure out if we can help,” I said. “We need more information about our enemies. Lampart, did the Naga take the Skysurfer?”

“Knight Kaminski did something to it to prevent them from moving it,” Lampart told me. “Two were attempting to steal it, but were unable to.”

“I can track them,” Bridget said, “Especially with Lampart and Sia’s help.”

Sia leapt off my shoulder to one of the low-hanging branches, “Then let us go.”

“Be careful,” I told him. He chirped, and I felt his amusement through our Bond. With a flap of his wings, he was suddenly well above the treetops, still in his smallest size. Somehow, he’d turned his feathers to a dark blue color, making him harder to see. There were a dozen other birds off in the distance, helping to camouflage him.

“Follow slowly,” Bridget said before she ran off back the way we came.

“We will wait a few minutes to let you get ahead,” Jon said after her.

After a few minutes, I said, “that should be enough,” and moved after her at a walk while keeping my Aether sense and Sight on their highest settings. The dense Aether of the Zaboj Swamp tried to hide what was around me, but I was able to focus through the haze. Dozens of trees glowed in my Sight, though they were all on the weaker end. I was still amazed at how many Aether plants were available here on the edge of Craesti.

We moved carefully through the swamp, retracing our stumpy path until I reached a massive clearing that hadn’t been there before. Over a hundred trees were laying shattered on the ground, the leftovers from Knight Kaminski’s attack. The Skysurfer rested in the distance, untouched by our attackers.

I scanned the open space, but the Fire and Air Aether that went into her technique screened everything around. I had to shut off, as much as I could anyway, my Aether Sight. Even without it, though, I could see nothing beyond the tiny fires left over from the explosion. “Anyone see any Naga?” I asked.

“No,” came a short chorus.

“I’m going to grab the Skysurfer,” I said. “Do you see where Bridget went?”

“Over there,” Lilianna said, pointing to our right. I looked to see a fallen tree had an arrow carved into it. It was just three quick slashes, but it was enough to point the way.

“Go, I’ll catch up,” I said before taking off towards my flying device. A film of Aether coated it, but when I touched it, the Aether surged over me and vanished. With a flick of my Aether, the Skysurfer shrank to the size of a surfboard and then it vanished into my ring. I turned and sprinted after the others.

Vaya had reached the edge of the cleared area and paused, waiting for me to catch up. “There,” she said, gesturing at another mark. “They went that way. Come on.”

We spread out, keeping at least two of us in sight at all times, while trailing after Bridget and Lampart. I could feel Sia above us, and he fed me information on the moving Beasts around us. There were dozens of level two and three Beasts hiding in burrows or the branches of trees, but we ignored them and they cowered away from us. Even with our control of our aura’s, the lower leveled Beasts knew we were beyond them, and they shivered in their homes until we passed.

“Sia, do you see anything?” I asked.

“There are at least a dozen Naga in the forest,” Sia told me. “And there are weird movements that make me think of the (zombies) we saw from the last Naga. Be careful down there.”

“Do not blow your cover unless we call,” I told him, “having you as a source of information is worth some minor injuries on our part.” I felt his disapproval but I didn’t care. “I’m serious. We need to know what is going around us more than we need you to fight for us. If we are truly in danger, I’ll scream for help, and you can berate me later. Right now, it is better to know where the Naga are, where their forces are, than it is to have you fight our battles for us. We can beat the few Naga we encounter.” I paused for a second, “Do you know where Knight Kaminski is?”

“She left a few burning clearings behind her,” Sia said, projecting a vision of holes cut out of the forest to our left, “but I do not see any indications of where she is now. The ruins are ahead, and at least a dozen Naga are exploring the nearer edges.”

“Light blind it,” I cursed, “So how many total do you see?”

“Um,” he said, a feeling of focus echoing through our bond, “at least thirty. Only a few are close enough that I can feel their strength. Those are high-Condensation tier, with one at Seed Core. Her scales are a deeper green than the others. That may be an indicator, as several others with similar coloring are hiding their power. I cannot get close enough to break a veil without giving away my own.”

“Do not,” I told him severely, “we will simply assume that every Naga with darker coloring is stronger than we are, and avoid them if we can.”

“Watch out!” Sia sent, and the underbrush in front of me parted. A (zombie) stumbled out of it, saw me, and warbled loudly to its brethren.