Chapter 260. What I Need (Patreon)

[ playing a bit of catch up; releasing the next chap in a minute ]

Ash’s pale eyelashes are almost transparent in the glow of the ethereal skylights. “Maria, do you feel your Sun affinity rising within you?”

“I–” she says, frowning. “Honestly, no.”

He nods. “We’ll work on that. You’re a bit different from Ian in that you’re no newcomer to being a practitioner. You’re past the point of rapid initial growth–or should be, though Crystal informed me of something interesting regarding your Sun affinity.”

Crystal really couldn’t keep her mouth shut, Maria transmits.

Ash looks at her expectantly, waiting for Maria to confirm or deny his words. When she just stares politely back, he rolls his eyes. “You recently awakened your Sun affinity.” He says it as a statement of fact.

“Debatably,” Maria replies. “I was able to call on my Sun affinity before, though little more than scraps of power. I could heat a cup of tea well enough.”

Ash begins to pluck the petals from the violet blossom, scattering them over the meadow. “Does your home world have a standardized way of measuring affinity?”

Maria and I share a look. “Yes,” she replies. “We have devices called potentioreaders that measure affinity as a percent. The higher the better, stopping at the asymptote of 100%.”

“What was your Sun affinity reading for most of your life?”

“Around twenty percent. High enough that I should’ve been able to develop the affinity, but I never could.”

“What changed?”

Maria’s eyes grow steely. I sense her gaze flitting to me. “My son died.”

“So an emotional episode,” Ash says, devoid of sympathy. “Regardless, your Sun affinity still has significant room to grow, and I’ll be interested in whether that growth will come quickly.” His eyes fall on me. “As for Dunai… I have high expectations.”

I swallow. I know that I’m still in the period of rapid growth after awakening an affinity, but in all of Eternity, I know I’m not unique. “Others have awakened affinities environments with dilated time.”

“Dilation is irrelevant. How long have you been a practitioner, relative to your own perception of time?”

I do some mental math. I spend a bit over four years in the Infinity Loop. Add another three and a half months between leaving the loop and Ari’s arrival. And since joining Karanos, though only a bit over a month has passed from Euryphel’s perspective, it’s been at least half a year for me.

“Just about five years,” I reply.

He nods. “Then we don’t have any time to waste.”

I thought the time of rapid improvement was tied to the passage of time in the real world, irrespective of dilation? I say to Maria.

That was an unconfirmed experimental assumption, Maria admits. Due to the cost of running the Infinity Loop, nobody spent more than a few years in it, and none of the experimental subjects would have been a practitioner for more than five years when combining the time inside and outside the loop.

“I thought the initial period of rapid advancement was only for the first five years? I should already be past that point, if just barely.”

Ash bites his lip, his two incisors clearly visible. He looks skyward. “It’s a wonderful coincidence that you’re still within your initial rapid advancement period, if just barely. It’s the will of Eternity at work.” He blinks. “I’ll draft up a curriculum, one for each of you.” He waves his hand and a small, black device appears in the air. It creates a wall of projected light before Ash. By just looking at the projection, words appear over its surface, though they’re in an illegible script. The words stream forth as though printed, rapidly filling the projection surface. Suddenly, a vertical line appears and cuts the projection in half.

Another black orb floats forth that’s identical to the first, summoned by some hidden void storage device on Ash’s body. It cuts away one of the text columns and heads over to Maria; the original orb brings its text column to me.

“The orbs will dictate the curricula for you,” Ash says. “But the first instruction you’ll need to follow is the same: go to a place where the ethereal flows concentrate. I happen to know where the Sun and Beginning ethereal flows are most intense, and will lead you there.”

As we follow him through the temperate forest, I realize that this rift is far bigger than the one that Euryphel and I visited in the Jermal Trench. Perhaps it has to do with this rift’s stability. The Jermal Trench rift was unstable, which was partly why Euryphel only suggested we hide there as a last resort. Contrastingly, Ash said this rift is so stable that it’s persisted for a very long time.

When we reach a bleached plateau overlooking a desert canyon filled with bones so old they no longer hold Death energy, Ash bids Maria a temporary farewell. “Work on developing your affinity here,” he instructs. “Listen to the curriculum from beginning to end, it’ll explain what you should be doing. I’ll check back when night falls.”

Maria stands on the flat slab of desert rock. Sounds like we’re being separated.

Probably not for too long. Besides, we can always communicate over our bond.

Ash leads me away in the opposite direction. Eventually he stops before a crystalline spherical structure that reminds me of the inside of a geode. The clear crystal almost looks like glass. Splinters of white and golden light shine from within, as though the skylights above have been trapped like bugs in amber.

“Go inside,” Ash says. “You should listen to your curriculum when I’m with Maria, but for now listen to me directly. Hold yourself aloft at the center of the crystal using your practice.”

Doing so is easy, but Ash’s brow twitches in disapproval. He navigates the uneven crystal floor and jerks my body a few inches to the left with his hands. “The center, Ian. Perfection is important.”

Unlike him, I don’t have a Beginning affinity to help the accuracy of my eyeball measurements. Tamping down on my annoyance, I give him my full attention. “What now?”

“Now, I force the energy of Beginning through you so you can feel it. Since Beginning is an internal affinity, externalizing it is only possible when sitting at the confluence of ethereal Beginning, as you are now. With this method, your Beginning affinity will be artificially increased past the threshold you’d need to awaken it.”

My eyes are wide at the implications of his words. He’s planning to give me a Beginning affinity today? In a single afternoon?

He scrutinizes my expression, then rubs his jaw. “I think you’re misunderstanding something about this process. This rift is attuned to Sun, Beginning, End, and Remorse. I have the first three already, so let’s say that I want to develop a Remorse affinity while in this rift. The first factor to consider is the rule of attunement. The more affinities a practitioner is attuned to, the harder it becomes to attune to others. Obtaining a second affinity isn’t particularly difficult, relatively speaking. Attaining a third? Almost impossible. A fourth?” He chuckles dryly. “It took me a very, very long time to finally gain my fourth affinity. And all of that was without the advantage of being within the first five years of rapid advancement, a boon received upon awakening an affinity.”

He runs his hand along a section of crystal, his eyes tracing the splinter of gold along its length. “For me to gain a Remorse affinity would take more than time, more than external assistance from another expert, more than the special energy provided by a rift. Without very specific preparations, I could try for a million years without seeing any progress.” He taps the crystal and meets my gaze. “Do you understand?”

I nod.

“But there’s something worth noting about gaining affinities. When you gain a new affinity within five years of gaining another, the initial period of rapid advancement extends, though the amount of extension varies. Most practitioners with two affinities awaken both of them around the same time. In this case, the rapid advancement period stays around five years. But wait until the very end of the first awakening before developing another affinity, and I’ve seen the rapid advancement period nearly double.”

“It sounds like you’ve conducted these kinds of experiments before,” I observe, the reality of the current situation not yet sinking in.

He gives me a small, cold smile. “That research was easier to conduct before I ascended, when I had a sample size of millions under my control. There is one thing I can’t neglect to say. When you’re trying to gain a new affinity, you’re changing the soul and the body. If you die before you awaken the affinity, it won’t matter how close you came to gaining it–all progress will be lost, and you’ll have to start over.” He draws in close enough for me to smell the sweetness on his breath. “Do you understand?”

I just stare at him for a moment, overwhelmed by the oppressive energy he’s exuding. “I understand. No dying.”

“No dying,” he repeats, leaning back.

Maria, I think I know why Ash killed Karanos repeatedly, I say. If Karanos interrupted Ash during a critical moment, it’s possible Ash might have died, which doesn’t sound serious, but... She doesn’t respond. Maria?

Nothing.

I can still feel her over our bond, like I can feel other decemantic constructs, but our channel of communication is broken.

“Thankfully, you’re in the hands of a capable Life practitioner,” Ash continues.

“I’m usually quite proficient at keeping myself alive,” I retort, trying not to let my inner panic at not being able to talk to Maria show on my face.

He snorts. “You might find yourself a bit preoccupied. There’s a reason why mortals don’t awaken more than two affinities, even when they have access to rifts.”

How ominous. Sighing, I decide to be direct. “Ancient Ash, is there a reason why my connection to my lich is impeded?”

“Communication is a distraction,” he says. “I need your absolute focus.” Suddenly, an array becomes visible around us like a spiral staircase, unfamiliar runes spanning the interior of the crystal structure in three dimensions.

“When did you–?”

“I keep arrays around me at all times,” Ash says, cutting me off. “I can activate or deactivate them at will with only End practitioners noticing. Maria needs to learn to do the same. It’s at the end of her curriculum, but with grit, she’ll proceed that far.”

He holds up his hands. They glow intensely from within with red energy. His brow furrows, but after a few moments, a new kind of energy condenses on his palms and along his fingers, thin spindles of energy.

“Look at that,” he murmurs. “Distilled Beginning. Isn’t it remarkable?”

I’m not sure what to make of it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was holding spun sugar.

“Now stay perfectly still, at the center of the crystal,” he commands. “Beginning is a rigid affinity. It likes rules and laws, order and symmetry.” He holds his hands out to me. “Grab a piece of Beginning.”

My hand almost seems to move against my will, compelled by Ash’s presence. My instincts scream at me to not touch the Beginning energy, the same way they’d protest if I tried to touch an open flame or a piece of dry ice.

You don’t have a choice, I remind myself. You aren’t good enough as you are. Part of me knows that isn’t true, but that’s the rational part. The nexus of my being that’s ruled by fear and emotion considers my inferiority as indelible law. You can’t defeat Achemiss or save the people you love from soul corruption.

Your best will never be enough.

My index finger touches the Beginning spindle.

The world fades to white.

The pain is so sharp and strong it’s almost like pleasure, a rapture of being consumed by sensation, overwhelmed beyond comprehension. It’s entirely mental, else I would’ve already reacted by cutting off my nerve endings. It’s like the kind of pain I would receive from Remorse practitioners, an agony that pierces straight into the mind like a wicked spike.

Suddenly the pain stops and I gasp, disoriented. I wheeze and cough for a few seconds before regaining my senses.

Ash is in front of me, his feet planted on two uneven sections of crystal. Hovering at the center of the geode-like sphere, my head is situated a bit higher than his. He looks up at me and smiles.

“Crystallized beginning,” he says. “How was it?”

“Terrible,” I reply frankly as I reach out my hand toward his palms.

Ash gives me a dark chuckle. “And yet you’re going back for more.”

I grit my teeth. “I’ve been accused of lacking ambition, of not having a clear path. But I know what I need to do what I want.”

“You need power,” Ash breathes, his rainbow eyes hypnotic.

“Yes.” And I touch the spindle again.