Transcendence, page 35
part #6 of The Beginning After The End Series
The old artificer barely managed to wait until we reached one of the empty rooms used for meetings by nobles or military leaders. “Out with it, boy!” Gideon gushed as soon as Alanis closed the door behind us. “And is it all right for the elf to be hearing this?”
My elven attendant cast a disapproving gaze toward Gideon at his overly-casual address, but said nothing.
The old artificer fidgeted in his seat in anticipation, much like an excited child waiting for a present. Taking a closer look at him, it was hard to imagine I’d known this old grandpa for more than ten years. The wrinkles between his brows and around his mouth had deepened in that time, no doubt because of how much time he spent frowning or scowling in frustration.
“Everyone’s going to know sooner or later, and she’s apparently my personal attendant, starting today, so it’s better to have her informed, right?” I asked, turning to Alanis.
“Part of my job is to lessen other burdens while you focus on training, so yes, it would be helpful for me to stay informed,” she said, her pink-and-blue eyes seeming to change shades.
“More training? How much more can you train after being personally taught by gods? Asuras, I mean,” he pondered, rubbing his stubbly chin.
“There’s always room for more training,” I said, dismissing the thought. “But getting back on topic, what’s the current state of the mines where we excavated the fuel source for our ships?”
Gideon’s eyes lit up. “Oh, the combustium mines? There are five major sites still being excavated.”
I raised a brow. “Combustium?”
“I made up the name myself,” the artificer grinned. “You told me I’d need a mineral with set characteristics capable of fueling the steam engine we designed—I think you called it coal? Anyway, of all the minerals currently known, which aren’t many, only one of them produced the amount of energy needed to efficiently power an entire ship. The characteristics are a bit different from the ‘coal’ you mentioned, so I decided to name it something else. Anyway, this stuff is amazing. Ten pounds of combustium can power an entire ship for about a dozen miles at full speed!”
“That’s great to hear,” I said, cutting Gideon off. Afraid he’d go further off on this tangent, I got straight to the point. “What I have planned involves using coa—combustium for a different mode of transportation; specifically, a ship that’ll be used to travel over land.”
“A landship?”
I nodded. “Except I was thinking of calling it a train.”
“‘Train’?” Gideon echoed incredulously. “From what poor mana beast’s ass did you pull a name like that?”
“Do you want the blueprints or not?” I scoffed.
Gideon raised his arms placatingly. “Train it is.”
The old artificer quickly set up a small workspace, practically dumping an entire lab out of the dimension ring he wore on his thumb. Once he was ready, I started to walk him through the design. While Gideon caught on quickly to how the train would work, it still took a few hours to explain the details of how the railways and stops functioned. I didn’t realize how much time had passed until my stomach suddenly twisted and grumbled in hunger.
“I think I covered everything you need to get started,” I said, scanning the designs and specifications on the large parchment we had hung on the back wall of the meeting room.
“This is going to change everything,” Gideon muttered, more to himself than to Alanis or me. “The rivers are going to be a pain in the ass if we want to connect Blackbend City to Kalberk or Eksire, but with a few water and earth mages—”
“Let’s focus on the railway from Blackbend to the Wall,” I interrupted. “Of course, creating railways to other major cities will be important, but first we need to create a secure route for supplies heading to the Grand Mountains if we want our troops there to survive.”
“Of course, but this…” Gideon paused for a second as he scrutinized the large map of Dicathen we had rolled out on the table. “We’ll be able to form new major cities with this.”
I respected Gideon for his boundless vision, but it was frustrating having to keep him on track. However, his last statement piqued my curiosity.
“What do you mean by forming new major cities?” I asked, looking over the map.
To my surprise, Alanis, who had been dead silent up until now, spoke. “I think what Artificer Gideon means is that, until now, the locations of cities in all three kingdoms were determined by where we found or excavated teleportation gates. If this idea comes to fruition, a secure mode of transportation that can carry mass supplies and goods in addition to people—even if it’s not nearly as fast as the gates, it will allow us to build major cities in any location.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Gideon said approvingly.
Feeling stiff, I stretched my arms and back. “Glad to see my ideas changing the course of history.”
“Boy, saying something like that so flippantly to a renowned artificer… I should just hand over my brown robe and take up a new hobby.” Gideon grumbled helplessly. “I’ve always had a knack for fishing.”
“You can’t retire just yet,” I smirked, heading to the door. “You’re in charge of pitching this idea to the Council at their next meeting.”
“Me? As much as I love the limelight, why are you letting me take credit for this?” Gideon asked.
“It’ll be easier to garner the Council’s support if the idea comes from a ‘renowned artificer.’ We’ll need their help if you want to get a team of capable conjurers, and some merchants or adventurers familiar with the area, to help map out the best route from Blackbend to the Wall,” I answered, mentally checking off some of the things we’d need. “Anyway, I’m starving. I’m going to go see what I can scavenge from the food hall.”
“I can have the chef prepare a balanced meal and deliver it to your room,” Alanis suggested.
I waved my hand in dismissal. “It’s okay. No reason to trouble the chef just for me.”
“Wait! How soon are you going back out to the field?” Gideon asked.
I looked over my shoulder at him. “I’m staying for a couple of months. I’ll mostly be down in the training space, but I’ll stop by to check in and see how you’re doing, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The old artificer scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I’m honored, but that’s not what why I asked. Emily’s been working on a few things that need to be tested.”
“You’re asking a general to be your test dummy?” I asked, still smirking.
“Relax, O Great One. I promise they’ll be helpful to you as well. I looked over them myself—although I don’t like to admit it, if the artifact works, it’ll change the way both conjurers and augmenters train.”
I shifted my gaze to Alanis, who also showed a degree of curiosity. “Well, you’ll have to convince my training attendant.”
The old artificer laughed gruffly as I walked out the doors. Behind me I could hear him muttering to himself, “The kid’s come a long way.”
Chapter 42
Alacryan Glimpse
With my stomach filled with leftovers and Alanis, my training attendant, dismissed for the night, I retrieved Sylvie from Ellie and returned to my room.
“Are you ready?” I asked my bond, who had been waiting on the bed while I’d taken a shower.
“So. What is it you’re so excited about?” she replied, fidgeting in her fox form.
It hadn’t been easy to keep my thoughts away from the “loot” I’d gotten fighting Uto, but I had wanted to surprise Sylvie. I had distracted myself by thinking random thoughts and numbers on our way back to confuse her.
After making sure the door was locked and activating both earth and wind perception spells, I finally withdrew the two obsidian horns from my ring.
My bond’s sharp eyes widened as she gazed at the black crystals that had once been embedded in the retainer’s skull. “Don’t tell me…”
“Yup,” I said excitedly. “They’re Uto’s horns.”
“Why?” she asked, confused.
Realizing she had never heard the full story, I summarized everything that had happened after she’d been knocked out while saving me from Uto’s last attack.
By the time I had finished my story, Sylvie’s vulpine face was twisted with a mixture of emotions.
“It’s scary to think how easily we could’ve been killed,” she said after a long pause.
I nodded. “I couldn’t do anything when Seris showed up. But if she hadn’t, I’m not sure we would’ve been able to defeat Uto.”
“It seems like as we grow stronger, so do our enemies,” she sighed. Her gaze shifted back to the two horns on the bed. “So these horns supposedly contain vast amounts of mana that you can extract? Is it really safe to trust the Scythe?”
“Considering that the asuras are forbidden by the treaty from helping us anymore, and that Seris could have killed me on the spot if she’d wanted to, I don’t think it’s too much of a risk.”
Sylvie thought for a moment, and pawed at the horns. Each one was the size of her head. “Well… if they help you get into white core, it’ll certainly help us.”
I picked up one of the horns. “This will be enough for me. You extract the other one.”
My bond opened her mouth, ready to argue, but I cut her off. “You said you’re still undergoing the awakening process that Lord Indrath insisted on. I know you’ve been constantly extracting ambient mana, which is why you’ve been sleeping more. I’m sure extracting mana from Uto’s horn will help quicken that process.”
“To be honest, I haven’t been trying too hard to hasten the awakening process,” Sylvie replied. “I’m afraid that, when I awaken as a full asura, I won’t be able to assist you anymore.”
“You nearly died in that last fight, Sylv,” I said, putting my hand on her small head. “Besides, your mother cast a pretty powerful spell before you were born to conceal you. It’s why even in your draconic form, no one was able to tell you were an asura.”
“Grandfather mentioned that, but as I get stronger, it’s going to be harder to hide what I am,” Sylvie replied bitterly.
A wave of grief flooded my mind, and I could feel the bits and pieces of the story Lord Indrath had told Sylvie about her mother.
“I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen when you get strong enough to awaken, but we’ll overcome that hurdle once we get there,” I comforted her.
“We always do,” she agreed with a smile.
Holding the black horn gingerly in my hands, I glanced at Sylvie. “So… should we start now?”
Sylvie placed a paw on the horn in front of her. “I don’t see why not.”
After repositioning myself more comfortably, I took a deep breath. I started slow, probing the insides of the horn with a thread of my mana.
With elixirs, the contents of a container would be distributed upon contact with a mage’s purified mana. With the horns, however, there was no noticeable reaction even after I searched deeper.
Minutes trickled by, but I found no sign of anything stored within Uto’s horns. I was beginning to consider the possibility that the mana might have dispersed when the horns were severed from the retainer’s head, when suddenly an indescribable force pulled at my very mind.
Unlike any elixir—or any thing, for that matter—I’d used in the past, this seemed to be sucking my consciousness in.
I felt a surge of panic as I realized I was blacking out.
Quite literally. A shroud of shadow spread, obscuring my vision and all my other senses, until there was nothing but darkness.
Calm down, Arthur. You’re still safely inside your room.
But that didn’t help me at all. The fact that my mind had been forced into a certain state and was vulnerable scared me. Coming to this world, I was born with a new body—new physical features that took me years to adjust to—but my mind had been the same through both lives. My brain—at least, the parts of it responsible for my memories and personality—had been mine throughout my years as both Grey and Arthur.
Right now, though, my consciousness was completely at the mercy of whatever force had dragged me into… wherever I was.
I was surrounded in darkness, but it wasn’t pitch black. The shadows around me warped and stirred, like various shades of dark ink. It was a surreal feeling—perceiving something without a body. Somehow, I could feel the force around me, slithering in the darkness, but I didn’t have a physical form.
After what felt like hours of floating mindlessly in the sea of darkness, the force surrounding me slowly began shifting. This was different from the erratic, chaotic movements it had made up until now; the shadows felt like they were being pulled away. The obsidian veil slowly began lifting, and what it revealed wasn’t the view of my own room I had been expecting.
No. I was standing in front of an unfamiliar man, inside an extravagant cathedral with a vaulted ceiling, beautiful stained glass, and endless rows of pews packed with observers practically glowing in reverence. The man, who appeared no older than my father, wore a ceremonial robe and was kneeling in front of me in respect.
“Speak,” I snapped impatiently—but the voice that came out wasn’t mine. It was Uto’s. Even the word I had uttered wasn’t my own choice.
“I, Karnal of Blood Vale, tier seven mage, humbly come before you to seek your guidance,” the man stated, his gaze lowered so I could only see the crown of his short ash-brown hair.
A feeling of annoyance bubbled up in ‘me,’ but was replaced with resignation.
The voice that had replaced my own spoke with restrained courtesy. “Vale… While your line is thin of Vritra blood, your ancestors have served us well. Remove your robe.”
Karnal bowed deeper in gratitude before slipping out of his black ceremonial robe. He then turned around to show me his back. There was an engraving down his spine—it seemed to be three separate imprints, by the spacing.
A thin figure standing off to the side, its face covered by a loose hood, took a step toward me and read aloud from a book, “One mark upon awakening, and two crests: one earned for an act of valor and another unlocked through mastery of initial mark.”
Unceremoniously, I nodded and told him to dress.
Still kneeling with his back to me, Karnal put his robe back on before turning to face me. His gaze was still lowered, which seemed to bore ‘me.’ I was aware of the thoughts of the person I was inhabiting; they seeped into me, revealing his inner feelings. He—I—seemed to be vaguely impressed that the lesser in front of me had managed to unlock a crest by mastering the mark he had been given, but the fact that both crests were of defensive magic dampened ‘my’ mood.
“For your loyalty to the nation of Vechor and excellence in the last battle against the nation of Sehz-Clar, I—Uto, retainer of Kiros Vritra—grant your entry into the Obsidian Vault for the chance to earn an emblem.”
The crowd that had gathered to watch the mundane spectacle burst into applause and cheering. The man kneeling in front of me allowed himself to shed a single tear before he rose to his feet and finally met my eyes. He raised his right fist over his heart and held his left palm over his sternum in a traditional salute. “For the glory of Vechor and Alacrya. For the Vritra!”
“For the glory of Vechor and Alacrya. For the Vritra!” the audience behind him roared in unison.
The scene distorted, and I found myself sitting back on my bed. An umbral, haze-like substance was spilling out of the horn I held, and was being sucked into the center of my right palm—where Wren Kain had embedded the acclorite.
I quickly dropped the horn, moving my hand as far away from it as possible. I took a moment to inspect my mana core; to my dismay, there was no sign of my core improving even a shred.
“Damn it,” I grumbled. I had wanted the mana from Uto’s horn to be absorbed by my core, but instead it had been siphoned into the acclorite.
Just like Wren Kain had warned, the gem was capable of altering, depending on the changes in my body, my actions and even thoughts. The acclorite was constantly feeding off the mana inside me, constantly molding its eventual form—so to say that the introduction of Uto’s mana to the gem filled me with unease was an understatement.
What’s done is done. I didn’t like the idea of my future weapon resembling Uto’s powers, but at this point, anything that hastened the process would help.
Turning to Sylvie, I wasn’t surprised to find her still absorbing the contents of the horn, and unlike me, she seemed to be having an easy enough time absorbing the foreign mana. What did surprise me was the fact that the sun was already coming up.
I had spent the entire night reliving one of Uto’s memories—which led me to the question: What did that memory even mean?
The actual event occurring in the memory wasn’t very cryptic, but there had been so many unknown terms thrown around that it felt overwhelming.
I knew from overhearing the word ‘blood’ inside the cavern in Darv that it was most likely their term for family, but other words—like mark, crest, and emblem—flew over my head. I knew what they meant in the context of my own world, but they had used them as if they meant something else entirely. These marks or crests—whatever they were—were apparently either earned or unlocked. Or was that only the case for the person kneeling?
But when Uto declared that the person—Karnal—would be granted a chance to earn an ‘emblem,’ everyone had seemed to be ecstatic. Ignoring the ominous name of Obsidian Vault— which frankly sounded like some storybook warlock’s evil lair where he held his stolen treasures—the man himself had clearly been proud. This meant that even the chance to earn an emblem was a big deal.
Another series of questions that came to mind pertained to the mention of Vechor—a nation presumably at war with Sehz-Clar, another nation. From the salute, I could extrapolate that the nation of Vechor was part of Alacrya. And assuming that the asuras were correct that Epheotus, Alacrya and Dicathen were the only three continents in this world, that would mean Sehz-Clar was another nation in Alacrya.
