Chương 206: Chapter 227: Meditations pt 1

"What are those?" Kimothy asked, gesturing.

"Books," I said, with my voice carrying my discontent.

"But not useful ones." I had hoped for some way to preemptively protect myself from a legal attack, assault by paperwork. But this was a very complicated subject and I was quickly out of my depth. If Nathan turned his attention to the sort of methods that Freg and Herry had embraced, I was going to be in deep shit. And I was not going to be able to comprehensively protect myself anytime soon. I needed an expert, not just a few books.

"I'm gonna be returning these to the library, it'll only take a minute." Kimothy had left his dorm for the vacation, and was staying at a hostel in Cliffside. Rather than bring him back on-campus to eat at the dining hall I met him at a cafe in the morning to get some breakfast before we began our expedition. I was basking in the sunlight, as I usually did, putting more time into tilting my face skyward than I did into eating my meal. Frosted scones and strawberries, breakfast of champions.

The stack of books loomed like an accusation but I tried to ignore them.

"And what is our itinerary?" he asked eagerly.

"It's a full day with stops only for meal breaks," I advised him.

"We won't be doing any kind of sightseeing." I pulled a card from my clutch, and read it off.

"We will be visiting, in order: Jade, Tin, Eagle, Aurora, Lion, Coal, Sand, Horse, Fungus, Obsidian, Oyster, Ivy, and Alligator." He was counting on his fingers.

"Thirteen," he said, shaking his head in wonder.

"I'm going to run out of mana just trying all those!"

"Don't feel pressured to use them all right away," I said.

"Take a few days to cycle through them and really get a feel for them. I've got a mana potion but I'd rather not use it for something trivial." His eyes popped wide.

"Where the hell did you get a mana potion?!" he squeaked. He's funny when he's surprised.

"My contacts in the Adventurer's Guild," I reminded him.

"You've got plenty money saved up still, right? I can get you the name of my guy, see if he can equip you too." He scoffed.

"Nuh uh. You're not gonna sucker me with that line, I've done my research. Everyone knows newbie adventurers either end up rich or dead. Experienced adventurers break even. Top-echelon adventurers are always in debt. Equipping for expeditions takes up more and more of your winnings until you're questing just to pay off your preparation costs."

"While that is broadly true," I admitted, "it doesn't have to be true." He buttered his toast.

"Says the princess who is obscenely wealthy before she ever got her Guild license."

"I had some money but I wasn't really wealthy," I protested.

"In fact, I used the Uchislowi funds to cover my expenses for a long spell while I was waiting for some investments to mature." He didn't say anything. He arched an eyebrow with an amused expression and bit into his toast. In context he was making it eloquently clear just how weak my argument really was. Okay, 'I used this fortune to tide me over while I waited to earn another fortune' is not evidence that I have a relatable and typical financial situation.

"Fine," I said, exasperated, rolling my eyes.

"Yes, I don't worry about money. No, it's true that supplying adventuring gear is never going to threaten my budget. But, um, I might suggest you look into it anyway. It might be really advantageous in the future."

"In the dangerous, violent future that you've seen for us all?" he prompted.

"Sorry. But yes. But, that future would happen with or without my predictions." I did wince, it was uncomfortable. He clearly did not want to think that I was preparing him and the others to serve as powerful pawns and soldiers for me when the wars break out, but we all understand that my patterns of behavior are not especially discreet. I told everyone in that Uchislowi expedition that there would be wars and monsters we need to be prepared for.

And even Kimothy, who does not follow politics, understands that I'm showing some high ambitions. A lot of my love interests see themselves as partners, friends, comrades, or more-than-friends. I think Kimothy is the only one who might understand that ultimately his role here is a tool to be used or a weapon to be wielded. He is not happy about it but I don't think he holds it against me. At least, I believe not. He's more emotionally complicated than most of them are.

"Now," I continued, "I've got some good news. And that is that I did not have enough time to scout each of the temples closely and set up my portal waypoints."

"We're gonna be flying?" he said eagerly, dusting crumbs off his hands. I grinned back.

"Not only are we going to be flying, but we're on a tight schedule so we're gonna have to fly fast." It probably stands to reason that he's the type to be eager for high-speed maneuvers. After all, there's just something about sorcerers that makes us want to fly. Others that I thought might be excited about it always seemed to be bored, annoyed, or terrified. Tiviti lives for life-and-death battle, Licard is a veteran adventurer, Thumper is just awesome, and none of them want to go along airborne.

A few coins paid for breakfast, and then I needed to go drop off my books. Outside the building, he and I rose ourselves gently into the sky. Sorcerers are not common, but people do know of them, and when they see people flying they usually know what's up. But even still, it's best to move at a slower pace near other people so as not to startle them. I don't pick up significant speeds until we're at least roof-high. He rose on a pillar of boiling fog, I rose on a platform of clean clear air.

And then I wrapped us both in a bubble of cradling wind, and started us moving. By himself, Kimothy's flight was faster than mine. A higher Strength overall for his magic, but I would definitely win at arm-wrestling. But we were not just flying using regular methods of propulsion. We accelerated, and then I brought lightning essence to bear. And even that did not make us move lightning fast, that's hundreds of times the speed of sound. If I keep leveling up I might get there some day.

But borrowing even a sliver of lightning's essence lets us move a hell of a lot faster than any other sorcerers out there. We moved due east, following the Fissuring. Kimothy whooped the whole time like I had brought him on the best roller-coaster on this planet, which I probably did. Levin energy changed the way we moved, added a stuttering jagged movement, no smooth sweeps and swoops.

When I added lightning to my flight it was almost a strobe effect, the world comes in flickers and flashes but you can feel the speed in every fiber of the body. We did not stop at the cave. For a camera-flash instant we saw the entrance from a distance, then close enough to make it out, then for a split second we were at the mouth of it, passing the wooden scaffolding that people climbed to get at this cave. We shot through the cave following the winding way, the tunnel only led one direction.

The flight guided itself, I was only aware during the strobe moments but when the speed kicked in and rushed us there was some part of my intention that was still guiding us, kept us from hitting the walls. Though the cavern wormed and roiled as it went, we followed it faithfully and safely. And, we followed it for a long time. We traveled deep, we could feel the air pressure dragging at us, the heat building up in the stale passage.

The temple of jade was not a place easily traveled to, few sorcerers were willing to spend days wandering the dark. Few of them had the attuned senses to navigate this place, or a fraction of our speed. It was geographically near the capitol, but it was in low demand just because it was so inconvenient to reach. Also, there was not much ventilation and it was hard for groups to come through. This deep, you could feel the difference in air pressure.

Fortunately I'm feeling it as a resistance against the sealed bubble I've got us inside, rather than a pressure on our lungs or surfactant. I've learned (after the fact!) how dangerous my first trip to the caves of the Blind was. Forcing my way up their tunnel and into an underwater cave with an amateur improvised airlock device was not a great idea and I had really not taken enough precautions.

It was fortunate for me that even then I was somewhat more durable than run-of-the-mill humans, and also that I turned myself over to a healer very shortly afterwards. So now I'm a lot more careful about maintaining a constant air pressure. Especially since we're coming right back up in an hour or so. Kimothy has gone quiet, he can't see a thing around us. He can detect fog and geese and capybara, all of which are quite absent here.

So to him we were racing across the open landscape and then into a tunnel and now we've been zooming in the dark with a distinct sensation of speed and descent, but the darkness around us is total in a way that is hard to describe. Until all at once it is relieved, we have found a large chamber marbled in green and white, with candles glowing in alcoves to light the area up.

"Whoa," Kimothy said, as we finally came to a stop.

"This is something else."

"More than it seems," I told him.

"The two types of jade have very different compositions and structures and form in very different environments. This place is basically a unique composite of those conditions, one vein of ore forced to intrude on another. I'll leave out the fascinating geology information and we can get started on the essence."

Kimothy does not have my fascination with the science behind these things, but he was absolutely entranced with this room, carved out of a massive block of minerals, white and green, parts of it almost transparent and some parts almost stony. He folded his legs to meditate, and I hung close by. I concentrated on filtering the air without disrupting our pressure, it took more concentration than most would suspect.

At first I did not detect anything, until I detached my own soul from my left hand and extended my bare essence into the room. My affinity maxed out in seconds, and I was instantly aware of the magical essence that flooded this place. Kimothy was managing to sieve it into himself, straining it through the crude matter of the physical form and the enigmatic labyrinth of the mind.

The meditative state helped to loosen the soul from the body so it could be accessed more readily, and to calm and smooth the thoughts so that the essence can pass through unobstructed. With all his efforts and experience, Kimothy was able to filter in particles of power, achingly slowly, in this place that was choking-thick with the essence. I truly did not ever anticipate what a blessing the Untethered Essence status was until I saw someone else trying to navigate an essence temple.

Just like the capybara springs, Kimothy was trying to eke sand through an oilcloth for scraps of his potential, and I could see sweat stand on his forehead as he tried to make himself open to the experience, attuning himself to the ontological and proverbial nature of a mythical mineral. While he struggled to contort himself into a configuration that would welcome the touch of absolute essence, I tinkered with it.

I don't have any burning need to conjure or curve the stuff right now, but jade is known for inducing spiritual and emotional balance and healing. I'm hoping that channeling jade can help me regulate my emotions in a healthy way without muddling my thinking process, and also increase my durability at the same time. I channel the jade and examine it, really let myself get introspective.

The feedback loop kicks in immediately What I should have expected but did not expect was that jade makes it very easy to meditate and self-assess. But self-assessing your ability to self-assess is actually pretty counterproductive unless you want to fall into a recurring loop of tautological introspection. I tapped my skin. It was indeed harder, clacking like stone. It also had a pleasing sheen to it, warmer than my usual coloration.

The reason we came here first was geographic convenience, but now I'm already glad we started here. In time, Kimothy shook himself to alertness, blinking his eyes. One of the game mechanics that seems to translate straight across: meditation takes an hour, and whatever results you get in that hour is final. And after the hour you can feel the essence close itself to you. So, I don't need to time him with a stopwatch, his senses are probably more accurate than mine at measuring time down here.

And I gathered five experience points from the temple run quest. If I can get 5XP from each temple, then Kimothy will be one of my most lucrative love interests.

"Got it?" I asked him. He nodded.

"It's... interesting. I like how it feels."

"We'll compare notes while we eat. In the meantime, we're headed for Anquarry." I opened the portal because flying for five minutes in the dark is quite enough without doing it twice. Out of the portal and into thin air, we took off flying again, fast. If we're going to clear all thirteen destinations in one day, we do not waste time. The temple of tin was not another mine, barely. It was the center of a ruined ancient city in the wilderness that apparently used to be the site of a major tin mine,.

and established the temple there, and maintained its role even after the mine ran dry, the economy crumbled and the city was abandoned. Kimothy meditated while I pulled out my various pages of paperwork and added some more notes. I'm not really interested in tin for its own sake, but he needs a metal and I'm tired of tin showing up as a blank spot in my senses. It comes up way too often. We went to Wanfarrun for the Eagle Temple, it was home to some of the only mountains on the continent, such as they were.

A passive petrified tree on a mountain slope resonated with eagle energy, and the inhospitable location kept it clear of tourists. That's a major consideration today: I did not want to fuss with any of the local tourist boards, regulatory agencies, magister guilds or aristocratic tax collectors maintaining a schedule and appointments like the Temple of Fire does. So we're exclusively focusing on "first-come-first-served" temples, just show up and put in your time.

Which means that we're largely focusing on out-of-the-way temples that are not being actively sought after for some very good reason or another. After Eagles, we headed northeast for the next stop. It might have been faster to portal up to the spot that Tiviti and I had used earlier, but not by much. In a tricky knot of geography, the Ward Wall of Wanfarrun doubled back on itself and the flashing magical barrier breached certain atmospheric boundaries, causing a near-constant aurora borealis.

And that was where the temple spawned. It's not as famous as the Temple of Light, but it should serve many of the same functions. Kimothy and I were also both very disappointed that this schedule did not allow for scenic tourism, because it was really quite lovely from inside of a heated air-regulated bubble. Most Temples stood in positions of strength for their essence, but this next one is an exception. The Lion Temple, in Greifir, is the site where the last pride of lions in Hearstwhile was hunted to extinction.

Some arrogant jackass Kinghand had come here specifically to end a species so her name would live forever: very reasonably nobody chose to record her name. But while lions do not exist here, they thrive in imagery, art and legend, the people here refuse to forget about the powerful creatures. And the Temple here is dedicated to their memory as well as their power and pride. The essence we absorb here is a great and haughty thing, it refused to let itself be mourned or mournful.

After a brief break for a picnic lunch of dried meats and fresh fruits, we kept to our schedule. We kept moving east into Bismoque to collect the affinity for coal, which I'm excited about for the value that's going to have in my foundry project. Right now my terracotta workers are trucking along, tirelessly fabricating iron rails all day and night.

But I have a strong suspicion that I can conjure a huge amount of coal, and have them burn it for heat, and when I unsummon it should get rid of the soot clouds and creosote but leave the iron forged. Kimothy did not have a particular need for this one yet, but he worked to absorb it anyway just because having it gave him more options for the rest of his life. After all, who knows where our roads will take us? Besides me, I mean.

Due north to the shoreline brought us to the Temple of Sand, and I've never heard of two temples being this close together. A nice coincidence that I'm going to make the most of, conserving our tight schedule. This temple is actually pretty easy to get to and not that inhospitable, in the summer these beaches are pretty popular. So anyone who ever wants to get Sand Essence as an affinity obviously shows up in the summertime. Winter break gives us the whole place to ourselves.

From there we took a portal far to the east, the rolling plains of Jangale, to find the temple dedicated to the horse. At long last, I'm going to master that affinity and- And the Horse said no.

"What?" I blurted out, with my left hand hanging dead at my side to expose that portion of my personal essence, melding my soul's boundaries with the flood of gathered horse essence that pooled in this remote region. Once some settlement was here, probably dedicated to horses and equestrian events. Now it's just a bunch of exposed foundations interrupting a lot of grazing land.

"You can't just... refuse!" And the very nature of all that is Horse shook its head as if my voice were just a fly, and refused me again. I was given back my memories of distrustful looks, of flinching hands. My sudden movements and magical saddle-summoning evoked a strong nervousness from the horse. How my adoration for Edyll the warhorse was faked and manipulative.

"Oh come on, it wasn't like that!" I protested.

"I do like horses. And yes I was only pretending that time but that was for the rider's benefit, not Edyll!" The Cavalry Guard horse that I had patted to slow down the monarchs' exit just to get the last word. Why was that my judge and arbiter for this essence? The vastness and pure nature of the horse knew that all I wanted was the bridle and the reins, to control the essence and use it for my own needs. And that was only a portion of what it is to be Horse.

The tamed breeds that pull carriages and plows are not the totality. I have a portion of that essence, that is all that I have earned. And I stood there, my mouth open, as the essence was closed to me.

"You can't do that!" I protested, arguing against the nature of magic itself as if it was taking my coat from the coat check and not rewriting the rules of magic right in my face.

"Shh," Kimothy muttered.

"Concentrating."