Chapter 103 - Just A Kid (Patreon)

Jiran and Niya flew side by side over a dense forest that swept across the northwestern regions of the Finlest Empire. Each was held aloft by the strength of their manabody—a malleable extension of the soul wall. Their auras pulled them forward by pushing and pulling on the framework which permeated the air—a nearly undetectable web-like structure of density that existed around and inside of all things. Jiran slowed his flight enough for Niya to keep pace with him, enjoying the moment of relative peace after the frantic rush of the last few days.

Niya glanced at him occasionally, the slight movement easily spotted by his aura’s ever-present observations. She held her side, a grimace crossing her lips now and then from the pain of unhealed injuries. “How much mana do you have left?” She grumbled.

“Enough to heal you, but then I might not be able to deal with a tier six if one stumbles into us,” He smiled with a wink.

She snorted, then cringed from the sudden movement before snapping at him. “When did you get so paranoid? You know how rare tier six beasts are! There’s no way we would run into one out here. Heal me already, you stingy jerk.”

“Nope, not happening. You’re a big strong woman, I’m sure you’ll be fine. It’s just a few cracked ribs and a bit of bruising. Besides, we’ll find something to eat soon enough, then, you’ll have plenty of mana to show off your healing technique.”

“Cracked my ass! They’re completely shattered. Bully,” She grumped before letting the matter rest.

They slowly flew southeast for several minutes before finding their first kill—a tier four beast that looked like a deer, except for the dozen needle-sharp horns jutting from its head and neck like a porcupine. Hovering over it, Jiran slammed his aura on top of the beast. The considerable weight of his tier four body added to the control he learned from the Aahmhra, pinning the beast helplessly to the ground. The creature mewled, thrashing as best it could.

Jiran used his emotions to connect with the manapool in his chest. The energy inside raced to do his bidding. As it passed through his flesh, it empowered his bones and muscles before seeping out of his hand. He elongated the mana into a razor-sharp blade of Coating that easily separated the beast's head.

He gutted the creature, draining its offal before hoisting it into the air. The invisible blade retracted, the mana pulled back into his chest. Not bothering with a campfire, he activated the automated version of his Shaping skill. With his high level in the skill, his mana flowed effortlessly, once more exiting his hand. This time, when the mana passed his skin, it morphed from unaspected energy into a geyser of elemental flame that danced to his will. Blazing heat curled around the beast, filling the air with the scents of sizzling fur, skin, and meat.

“What the inferno’s tits are you doing?! At least skin it first, and your fire is way too hot. You're charring the meat! Tier four is already going to taste like crap, no need to make it so much worse.”

“Oops. I just tiered and haven't had a chance to adjust my imaging yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, making your techniques less powerful so you don’t blow yourself up…”

Niya gave him a cold look with squinted eyes and her mouth in a hard line, “That’s not a thing. I can understand adjusting your techniques so you don’t hurt lower-tier people, but you just said ‘blowing yourself up,’ like that's somehow normal. It’s not! How many times have you done that?”

Suddenly Jiran was unable to meet her eyes as he scratched the back of his head with an awkward laugh. “Ahhh, once or twice, I think.” Niya squinted at him, easily seeing through his facade.

“Why am I surprised? You’ve always been… different. So, are you tier six then? Your movements are pretty consistent with mine. How did you adjust so quickly to moving, but not your techniques?”

“Nope, I’m not tier six yet.”

“What?! You’re only tier five? How was your ice so strong then? That tier six was completely helpless inside of it and even Markhiss could barely get through it. Oh! Is it an acclamation making your elements stronger? How did you get it? Is it repeatable?” Her eyes blazed with hunger as she advanced on him—her injuries momentarily forgotten under the potential of knowledge and power.

“Nope, nothing like that. Just regular old ice,” Jiran’s aura tightened on the beast before ripping it in half. He levitated one of the halves to Niya before sitting down and tearing off chunks of meat to stuff into his mouth. He frowned at the taste. It wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever eaten, but after a few of Olive’s seasoned meals, he was beginning to come around to the idea that properly cooked and seasoned food might actually be the way to go.

Niya took a tentative bite and gagged, nearly spitting it out. She glared at him before forcing herself to chew and swallow. “How can you eat lower-tier meat with a straight face? The lack of density is… foul.”

“Tastes fine to me,” Jiran grinned—teeth full of bloody meat that was rapidly dissolving into density. “How did Uncle Micah raise you to be so whiny? Last I saw—"

The bone Niya was holding snapped like a twig. The fury that marred her face caused him to pause mid-sentence. When she didn’t say anything, he grew concerned. “Did something happen to Uncle? Is he okay? I was told he was fine!” Jiran’s heart raced as the density flooding into his stomach suddenly felt like a fist of solid rock punching his guts.

Noticing his panic and feeling terrible for causing it, Niya quickly shook her head. “Father was fine the last time I saw him. He just didn’t get much of a chance to raise me. Sorry, I guess I’m a little touchy after everything that’s happened today.”

“Uncle Micah didn’t raise you? What does that mean?”

Niya blew a raspberry, leaning back against a tree that creaked from her weight. She took another bite, her eyes going distant as she battled with her past. “I’ve been with Silence for a couple seasons now. If I had mentioned family or friends to them, they would have found everyone I cared about and taken them as leverage to use against me. I learned to keep my mouth shut. I’m not used to sharing, okay? I haven’t seen you in a year and we just met, what, an hour ago? Look, I can’t… I need a little more time before I’m ready to talk about my shitty past. Why don’t you tell me what happened to you first?”

Seeing the pain-etched lines on her face, Jiran nodded, having no issues putting his curiosity aside to spare her feelings, “Sure, what do you want to know?”

“Lenton told me about you getting sucked into the portal and that he knew you were alive. That’s all I know though. What took you so long?” With the floodgates open, Niya’s words poured out, laced with long-repressed emotions. "You vanishing like that really screwed up my life, you know? I blamed you for a long time, until I was old enough to understand. I was just a kid and things got really hard for me. Now you show up out of nowhere and it feels like you think you never left. But you did, you’ve been gone for half my life. I don’t know anything about you anymore and you don’t know anything about me. I’m trying to be normal with you, like we used to be, but it’s killing me. Just tell me why, why didn’t you come back?”

By the end, tears were threatening to fall as she clamped her jaw so tightly it creaked. Jiran’s chest hurt like he’d been stabbed. He couldn’t begin to understand the pain his absence must have caused her. She implied she had been alone with Samris and Lenton, possibly against her will, and apparently unable to even see her father. He realized she probably wasn’t allowed to see anyone for a long time, since she knew his method of claiming density, which if released, could have ended the empire. They definitely would have wanted to keep her from spreading the information for fear of it reaching Palolla Le’Sanctum and Lorodarand Le’Sanctum—the two nearly-insane emperors who controlled the Church of the Voice.

Jiran formed a bubble of aura around them and firmed it enough to trap sound. Her brows raised slightly at the precaution but she didn’t say anything else as she gave him time to collect his thoughts.

“That white room we found back at the temple, the portal I was sucked into took me to one just like it. It was the start of a testing ground. I was pitted against beasts above my tier and when I beat them all, Madra put me to sleep while I ascended,” Jiran’s tale elicited enough surprise that Niya forgot how gross their meal was, she chewed idly—no longer gagging.

“Madra put me to sleep for the entire year. I’ve only been awake for a little over a moon. To me, the last time I saw you feels like a few weeks ago and certainly not seven seasons.”

Niya stopped moving completely as her brain desperately tried to wrap around the impossibility of his story. She shook her head and her nostrils flared. Knowing she was about to blow up at him, Jiran decided to give her a little proof. He formed a strong membrane over his aura and tapped the gate leading into his soul. The rings of the gate spun before opening and he coaxed out a single, minuscule dollop of Madra’s mana. The energy raced along the everpresent pathway of aura that connected with his soulwall through the old injury in his neck where his unique ability—foresight—came from.

Even though the drop of Madra’s mana was small in comparison to the vast nebula of the stuff crammed into his soul, it was far more mana than both of them could hold in their manapools together. The wild energy soon coated his aura, its existence causing the ground to quake and stones to rise into the air. Trees shook, sending leaves falling around them. The air crackled as the fabric of reality groaned to contain the impossible might of that single drop.

Jiran flicked his aura, throwing the mana into the distance. When it collided with the ground, it snapped and hissed as it ate into the dirt like a massive puddle of acid. It was his turn for fury to paint his face as he seethed from being chosen to carry the weight of restarting the nodes. Niya shook with fear from the impossible power she sensed within Madra’s mana. She looked at him with wide eyes as though he was a beast about to tear out her throat.

Jiran breathed deeply, forcing himself to a semblance of calm before he continued, “She stole half my life. She took me from you and everyone else. All so she could cram my soul full of her poisonous mana.”

Niya looked like she wanted to ask a million questions but her mouth just opened and closed continually as words failed to form.

“After I woke up, I needed to understand why she chose me. I discovered that Madra is sick, maybe even dying. She sent me to an island where I had to turn on this ancient machine that had been turned off by someone so powerful I can’t even fathom their strength. The island was destroyed, its inhabitants forced into exile because of my actions,” Jiran took a deep breath, then pressed on, needing to get past the memory that still burned within him, fueling his desire to ascend.

“I helped them escape, and then ascended again. As soon as I did, I came to find you,” He finished with a sigh, leaning back against his aura as he continued to eat. He watched Niya’s every twitch, waiting impatiently for her response.

After what felt like three eternities, she finally spoke, “So, this girl we’re going to check on must be one of those people you screwed over, huh?” Jiran spit out a mouthful of meat causing Niya to throw her head back and laugh. “Gotcha! Gah, that felt good. I was getting tired of your smug ass smiles.” She slapped her knee, wincing in pain at the movement. “No wonder you keep acting like a kid, you practically are one!”

“You believe me? Just like that? And what do you mean acting like a kid?”

“You just burned the crap out of our lunch after failing to even skin it. Oh, don’t look at me like that, there's other stuff too. It’s hard to explain though, you’re a bit… off somehow. Ahh, never mind! I’ll tell you when I figure it out. Anyway, that’s one crazy story. You should sell it to the bards in Skorahda, make a pretty coin,” She paused, her face warping with a scowl before she asked in a low voice, “Why you? Why did Madra do all that stuff to you?”

Jiran sighed, meeting her eyes, “For the same reason Samris and Lenton were interested in me. Also, the same reason I was denless after my Tiering Day. My soul has a hole in it. Madra was able to use that to stuff me full of her mana. My guess is she’d been looking for someone who had my condition and was also a strong enough fighter to survive. Wouldn’t want to invest so much in a weakling who couldn’t get the job done,” Jiran spat.

“That… makes sense,” Niya nodded awkwardly, sensing the pain in his words. She takes a deep breath before releasing it slowly with puffed-out cheeks. The conversation turned to uncomfortable silence as they both ate, contemplating each other’s stories. Niya closed her eyes and Jiran’s aura sensed a flash of mana moving through her, healing more of her injuries. She sighed contentedly, relaxing against the tree she had been resting on.

Jiran quirked a brow when she unbuckled the remnants of a shattered vambrace. She held a piece of bone from their meal up to it. After passing her mana through the bone, it turned to white dust that flitted through the air and nestled into the damaged portions of the metal. The dust turned green as it changed before his eyes into hard metal. A moment later, the vambrace was whole and shiny as new.

“Cool! Was that forming? I haven’t had a chance to test it yet.”

Niya’s mouth twisted as she looked at him like he had said the most insane thing yet. “What do you mean you haven—” She sprang to her feet in a blur of movement that would have made anyone lower-tier than her dizzy. “You said you just tiered, you meant… T-then what you did to those…” She paced back and forth while shaking her head frantically and mumbling to herself. Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks before yelling at the top of her lungs. “You’re only tier four?!”