Usually, the world would be drenched in wisps. They flew everywhere, sometimes colliding with the ground or solid objects and bouncing back, a few times going through. Gathering chambers created one-directional barriers that allowed the wisps to go into the chamber but not come out of it. Eventually, the density would grow to ridiculous amounts, allowing an Arch access to hours of energy in mere minutes.
Earth was one such world. Only when thousands of Archs converged into a single location did the wisp density drop. But it seldom reached the lows they were experiencing in the Puffbloom Islands. Even with Cotton and Candy leading two groups of puffblooms to and from the nearby islands, there was only so much Ether they could ferry back and forth; These nearby islands needed their own group of puffblooms to move to the other islands and so on.
Robert knew he couldn't rebuild an ecosystem on his own. Starved for essence, the three humans and Freddy needed to rely on their natural regeneration. Their stars spontaneously created Ether at a slow pace. It took days of abstinence from spending essence to fill one's essence pool. Contrast that with the couple of hours needed to achieve the same result with passive gathering or the few minutes in a gathering chamber and one began to understand what they were going through.
Not to mention Noah had spent most of his own essence forging Amanda's cursed item. Which he still needed to give her. Doing that became especially troublesome now that Damien's lingering curse drained Amanda of her lifeforce and essence. Noah gave him instructions to only give the item to her when she was fully recovered. Robert felt relieved for not triggering the curse in himself but also guilty for experiencing such relief.
After giving it some thought, he made sure Amanda was fine and that Freddy would get him if anything went wrong. With that reassurance, he decided to do something useful with his time while they waited for Amanda to recover. Robert went back to the workshop. Robert had already read the Whispering Crystals volumes one through three. They had the schematics for a plethora of enchanted crystals, including one for gathering chamber shields. He needed fourteen of them. Opening the volume two, he flipped to the gathering array section. On the book's complexity scale of zero to twenty, this sat at a comfortable nine.
He had one success case of learning a rune circuit with wooden blocks so he did exactly that. Robert went to the liminal void with the books, a set of tools, and a pile of wooden blocks. He spent weeks training the runes on the wood, confident that he not only had the gist of the circuit engraving but also switching from carving wood to carving the crystal.
Back to the real-world workshop, he started by cutting several slabs of crystal in the shape he needed. This circuit required both sides of the plates, one to let wisps through and absorb the specified types of wisps to power the barrier, and the other side to repel the wisps and keep them from leaving. Since he needed fourteen plates, he cut three times that amount, hoping he could keep his failure ratio to only sixty-six percent.
He decided to let the barrier absorb Wind wisps. It would ruin the gathering enchantment for Freddy and the puffblooms (which was an interesting band name) but for the three humans, it would be perfect. Not to mention the predominance of Wind among the wisps, which would make sure the enchantment would run at maximum efficiency even in this Ether-starved island.
But before he started to waste crystal, he stopped to check the circuits again. Something bothered him. Even if he botched all the forty-two plates he cut and got everything right on the fourth try, it was still too cheap.
Portable gathering chambers cost millions of dollars. If someone with a thousand slime cores and eight months of training could do a rudimentary one, why was it so expensive?
He got the answer in a footnote at the end of the theoretical chapter on crystal plate arrays that created a boundary around a volume of space. They weren't portable. You needed to drain all the essence from the plates to safely deactivate the array. These self-powering arrays were the worst because they would constantly harvest more essence to keep working.
But the book didn't mention any control circuits. If only he could turn the absorption feature on and off...
He looked at the cut plates. Then at the dwindling number of raw slabs on the rack. Noah used a fuck-ton of them to make Amanda's item. Would it be okay to use even more? Robert stood up and decided to do the right thing. He sent Noah a silent message as he walked out of the workshop and approached Noah's apartment.
"I want to make a gathering chamber. How many slabs can I use?"
The teacher appeared in the window. "All of them!" He said. "Go for broke!"
The island was dead silent. Shouting would carry one's voice miles away.
"Is there any way I can deactivate the wards to store them?" Robert asked.
"Make a second set without the automatic power. Bind the two, plate by plate, but with the blocking side out. When it's time to pack everything, power the outside array manually to starve the one on the inside."
That was clever. Even though it doubled Robert's workload, which would make the gathering chamber portable. He had no doubt it would be bulkier and more fragile than a commercial one but it only cost him labor. He'd gladly invest the time to spare the millions of dollars.
"Thank you!" Robert said with a bit more enthusiasm than he expected.
"Go for broke!" Noah waved. "But let me take a look at the finished product before you test it, okay?"
"Sure!"
*
*
Robert stared at the pile of broken plates and crystal shavings. Hours later, he only had half of the gathering plates done and zero of the blocking ones. Seven out of twenty-one. His failure rate was bigger than three out of every four.
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His frustration only made the problem worse. He took breaks in the liminal void, strolls through the flower meadows of his mental palace but his desire to help Amanda served as an anchor for his anxiety.
The only reason he wasn't freaking out was the jade mind tempering. The little he managed to translate from Burmese said this was a tempering to "bring out a calm and crystalline mind out of and surpassing suffering. The jade mind does not ignore or subsume said suffering. Instead, it elevates and enlarges the mind so the tribulations of the mortal heart become small and irrelevant."
The best way to temper the jade mind was to experience suffering and then feed it to the technique. Robert cycled his essence as he savored his anxiety and pondered on its causes. Amanda's safety was his responsibility. That alone didn't explain all of his feelings. She was a classmate. A fellow expedition member. They had to rely on each other to survive. But she was also a friend. That covered most of the reasons.
Then Robert pondered. Was there more to it? Did he have romantic feelings for Amanda? He didn't answer that yet. She was hot. Young. Gorgeous. Very feminine. Sexual desire was different from love. But he couldn't find the will to have intimacy with her. Despite Amanda being the only female he'd seen in years, he felt that making an advance would mean betraying something inside him. Something stronger than his libido. Amanda was family but not as his wife or lover. He loved her as an older brother loved his sister. It wouldn't degenerate from pure storge, familial love.
His conflicted emotions became clear. Now that Robert understood the causes of his anxiety and tempered them under the jade mind serenity, he felt his resolve and willpower expand. It was by a minute amount but he was now stronger than the anxiety Amanda's predicament induced on him.
Looking inward, he was surprised. This little exercise pushed jade mind's advancement by four percent.
The portable gathering array didn't seem so daunting now.
*
*
The next morning found Robert still engraving the plates. He finished the inner set, the one that would let all kinds of wisps inside and absorb Air wisps to power itself. But he didn't even start with the second array, the one that would block everything so the interior one couldn't sustain itself. Because the supply of slime core crystal was dangerously low.
He had to choose between setting the gathering chamber and leaving it behind, saving the remaining crystal for whatever projects Noah needed them, or risking wasting it all. But Noah said he could use everything. He wouldn't say that if he had plans for it.
Robert still loathed using the crystal for the second set of panels. They were less complex because they didn't have the collection and attunement parts. All they needed to do was to strip the main set of its essence.
The more he thought about it, the stronger the idea that he was using a meteor to kill a slime became. He only needed to drain the panels upon command.
With this idea, Robert dove into the books once again. One chapter spoke about creating an enchantment to replicate a spell. It required the caster and craftsman to work together, or better, that the craftsman knew how to cast the spell.
He could make a drain essence spell crystal and bind it to only take the essence the primary array needed to keep working. Once drained, he could store the panels without risk of damage.
Better, he only needed one spell crystal.
However, it required him to infuse the crystal with Void essence. Noah had explicitly forbidden them from doing that.
Robert put everything away and tidied his workspace. He needed to get permission and maybe help for this last stage.
*
*
Before that, he checked on Amanda. She was asleep, still with Freddy dutifully standing guard next to her on the bed. Her lifeforce had recovered and it seemed that she ate the whole soup. He saw the empty and clean pot.
"Hey, buddy. How's she?" Robert asked through telepathy to avoid waking her up.
"Good. Amanda ate her food and slept all night. Except when she used the restroom." Freddy replied on the same channel.
"Would you mind staying with her a while longer?"
"No. Puff friends gone, and scritches good."
Robert spent a moment admiring the simple life Freddy led.
"Great. Really appreciate it, buddy. The puffblooms are doing an important job."
"I know. Still sad."
He said goodbye and went to find Noah. The teacher took some time to answer the door. Noah wore his travelling attire, complete with his big backpack of holding.
"Whoa!" A surprised Robert shouted. "Are we leaving?"
"Soon but not today," Noah replied. "I'm moving closer to Amanda. How may I help you?"
Robert explained his idea.
"Hum, go for it. I don't see any dangers but I won't help you carve the crystal. You can do it on your own. Take the tools and the crystal plates to the liminal void with you and carve the runes as slow as you can. Since your muscles won't get tired there, you can take your time. I believe the crystal will naturally take the Void affinity in that dimension but you may need to use some of your essence."
"Great. Thanks, teacher man!"
*
*
Back at the workshop, Robert placed everything he needed on the workbench, including fresh crystal slabs, the cutting bench, and the grindstone. Holding the workbench with his hands and intent, he used his talent. All of the world around him lost its color but for the workbench and what was on it.
Robert sat down, measured the size of the plate he needed, and cut one copy of it.
He carved the drain essence spell crystal as slow and steady as he could.
*
*
Robert found that doing things slowly was an art form in itself. Were it not for his training with Qigong, he would've given up long ago. Not even the couple of extra decades he spent in the liminal void could train him to completely ignore boredom.
His slab was down to the last ten percent of its size but he had one drain essence spell crystal set to only target the working Ether of nearby gathering panels and Wind wisps. He figured out he needed a way to stop the panels from getting any charge back while they drained and deactivated.
He worked on his mental palace while he waited to return to reality.
*
*
Welding a modular frame for the gathering chamber was trivial. The workshop had plenty of scrap metal and metalworking tools. Robert designed the thing to fit into a storage ring without taking too much space.
The frame was composed of twelve T-shaped edge pieces made out of sheet metal he bent into a straight angle profile. The center part of the T was as long as the two arms. Eight corner pieces with V groves for the sides and one gathering crystal safely housed inside the metal. Finally, six small rectangles with slits above and below to match the middle section of the T edges. One of them, painted black, had the drain essence spell crystal.
The portable gathering chamber was a cube a bit more than two meters wide, tall, and deep. Disassembled, it fit snugly inside the storage ring Jeremiah gave him as compensation.
Robert went to the street in front of Amanda's building and assembled the chamber. Each face if the cube looked like a flattened number eight and opposing faces mirrored each other. Because of the T sections, the north and south faces had the middle bar on the horizontal while the west and east faces were aligned on the vertical. The chamber allowed ingress from any side but those trying to enter from the west and east sides had to duck under the central bar.
Cotton and coal had already returned with even more puffblooms. The Ether level on the island increased a little.
The problem was that two puffblooms moving together didn't transport twice the Ether. They each had an aura where Ether would follow. Only the portions of that aura that weren't overlapping carried the full share of Ether. The remaining volume where auras overlapped only increased its carrying capacity by a little, with heavy diminishing returns when more than two moved in a packed group.
Robert had Cotton and Coal leave their friends behind and come help him charge the gathering chamber. The two only needed to go around the city, dragging wisps with their aura, and then fly through the inside of the chamber. The Ether they carried would follow them inside the chamber but get stuck inside as they left. They would lose some of their Wind essence to the chamber but that was also in the plan. Robert would make them do only a few passes and then let the puffblooms rest.
He set some meditation mats and cushions on the inside and noticed the first problem with his design. He needed a floor.
Checking the Netherecho inside the chamber, he found the wisp density bigger than the outside. He also saw several vestiges trapped inside the chamber. Strange. The commercial gathering chambers he used didn't have any vestiges inside.
The crowded vestiges soon started a brawl as they became angry and flustered at the situation. Some of them came after Robert, clearly intent on showing him what they thought of his trap. Robert had to use his armillary sphere construct to stop them dead on their tracks before he could quickly leave the Netherecho by opening his physical body's eyes.
"Goodness, what have I done?" He mumbled in shock.
*
*
After he fetched the rest of the expedition members, Robert became even more embarrassed by his failure. Amanda doubled over with a raucous fit of laughter unbefitting of a high society lady such as herself while Noah failed to hide his grin behind his mask. The movements of his ears, neck, and scalp told it all.
"You made a poison jar," Noah explained. "In the east, there's this belief that if you put several poisonous vermin in a jar, they will kill each other and the survivor will be the most virulent one. Or that it will become even more toxic than before because it would've grown in the fighting."
"Whoa!" Amanda started. "Is that a real thing?"
"Yes, but only after the rift cataclysm and the presence of Ether. All living creatures generate Ether when they kill each other. That's how our stars grow and also how Prime Vestiges can manifest," Noah used the opportunity to naturally address a lecture topic. "That's why it is correct to say that Robert manifested a Prime Vestige when he killed Damien and not that Damien dropped a prime when he died. That Prime was created from excess Ether generated inside Robert's soul."
"Oh. I knew that," Amanda quipped.
Noah continued. "We need to stop the vestige brawl inside this chamber before the survivor evolves to a remnant from all the Ether they are making and absorbing in this fight."
And now Robert knew why the commercial portable gathering chambers were so expensive. They must have a substantial number of fail-safe and security measures to ensure a safe meditation environment.