Ashe groaned as he stumbled into the courtyard, muscles sore and his legs quivering. Sammath followed suit, probably using his Motion Concept as a crutch to keep him up. Somehow, Erin had made sure that everyone in the class had been thoroughly worked out and people had collapsed throughout the class. Erin had spent nearly half of the time on fitness training, exhausting everyone, before she’d even began to instruct them in movements. Despite the few complaints she received about returning to the very basics of unarmed combat, Erin had ignored them and, after nearly an hour and a half of practicing and holding the same punch, everyone’s arms had died. Even the few Cultivators that honed their bodies had been struggling by the end of it, Erin just making their exercise heavier. Even with their exhaustion, though, Erin had expected perfection in their movements, saying that if they could perform the movements when they were at their weakest, they could do it when they were fresh.
At that moment, though, Ashe completely disagreed. He felt like he’d never be able to come close to Erin’s standards. That didn’t matter, though, and Ashe was happy to just be better than average by the end of his training. Despite his physical exhaustion, though, Ashe knew that he wasn’t able to just slack off. He needed to work on his Enchanting. So, it was with great displeasure that Ashe sat down in the courtyard and began to pull on his Ink. Ashe channelled it through his body, the glowing white energy coming to his fingertips.
Ashe pushed it out of his finger, a glowing line forming in the world in front of him, as he worked to make his Enchanting more efficient. One moment and a few strokes later, the Wind Rune came into being in front of Ashe and a breeze began to blow through the courtyard. Ashe pushed his Ink into the Rune, letting it consume more and more Ink as the wind built up into a gale. Branches and leaves whipped about, pushed by the artificial wind, and leaves from the gardens flew into the air. After nearly thirty seconds of this, Ashe was forced to cut off his Ink before he completely ran out. Ashe grinned, feeling slightly dizzy, and looked over towards where Sammath was lying on the ground, “I think I’m ready to get to the next Stage.
Nearly three hours passed before Erin agreed to help Ashe break through. While his physical exhaustion didn’t matter, he was still just tired mentally and Erin had made him take a nap and have some food before she agreed to do anything. Erin sat down in front of Ashe on the cobblestones of the courtyard. “So, do you know what you do when you advance from the Baron Stage to the Viscount Stage?”
Ashe shook his head, “No. Not even Cab has actually told me anything.”
Erin nodded, “Well, after the last… incident, I did some more research on how Shinians advance. When you move from the First to the Second Stage, Shinians tend to customise their Ink to better utilise their magic and make it more efficient. Each type of Enchanter utilises Ink with different properties as some Inks tend towards being better at writing Runes, that type of Ink isn’t going to work for Imbuers, and the Ink that Carvers use isn’t going to work very well for other forms of Enchanting. I don’t know, though, if you need to do that. Your Ink has already been affected by Cab’s presence so it might not be possible to change it or even beneficial to do so. I’d recommend you talk with Cab about it. He’ll know more than me. But that’s beside the point. During this advancement, you need to expand your Inkwell, just as you did with your last advancement, and normally you’d specialise your Ink. It’s a relatively simple advancement, still, and I have the Core to give you the energy you need.”
Ashe nodded, “I’ll talk to Cab, then.”
‘No need. I head everything. Erin was right to refer you to me, though. You won’t have to change your Ink. In fact, I’d recommend against it. Not even I know what would happen if you were to change your Ink in any way. For your safety, I think we need to just leave it. Even if you’re missing out on some efficiency, it’s better to just leave it, in this case.’
“Cab says not to do anything with my Ink. He doesn’t know what would happen and that it’s a lot better to just leave it than mess with it.”
Erin nodded, “Alright, then. Do you remember what you did last time you advanced?” Ashe nodded resolutely and Erin went into the house, coming out a few minutes later with the massive Core that she had from Lu. Erin sat down once more and had Ashe put his hand on the Core, “Channel your Ink into this Core and then use it to create a series of barriers inside the Core. You want to be able to remove them easily enough if you need more energy but we don’t want to overwhelm you or your channels like we did last time. Have you got that?”
Ashe nodded, closing his eyes and visualising his Inkwell, the brown walls of his Inkwell surrounding the glowing, white Ink inside it. Ashe retreated slightly from his Inkwell, his consciousness passing through the material easily enough, and drew some Ink from the Inkwell even as he searched mentally for the Core. Ashe found it near-immediately, the core a veritable bonfire right next to Ashe’s hand. Ashe drew on his Ink and pushed it into the Core, forcing it into the massive, crystalline thing. Ashe grunted lightly as he had to force the energy inside the Core to the side, the energy of the massive serpent not wanting to move aside for Ashe’s Ink. Slowly, Ashe began to build a wall from his Ink as he cut down through the Core. As he did so, it became progressively harder and harder to hold, the mental pressure that the energy exerted increasing as Ashe’s wall grew. Despite being thin, the wall was strong enough to hold up against the pressures of the energy and, as soon as it snapped into place, began to feed on the serpent’s energy to maintain itself.
Ashe gasped in relief as the mental pressure abated. Ashe then moved his hand slightly and began to lightly drain the Core to replenish his Ink. During his time at the Dawnblaze manor, he’d learnt techniques to properly drain cores and to regulate the flow of energy so he wasn’t overwhelmed. That being said, he didn’t want to take chances when advancing in Stage which was why he was still walling off sections of the Core. Slowly, over the next few hours, Ashe began to divide the core into pieces. Not everything was evenly divided, with the faucets in the Core and Ashe’s limits in the amount of Ink he could use at once but the Core was slowly divided into spiralling, fractal-pattern reminiscent sections. Ashe ended up draining about five of these sections to provide him with the Ink he needed but, when there were hundreds of them inside the Core, that didn’t really matter.
By the time he finished, though, he was completely mentally drained and evening had encroached on the world’s territory. Buzzing insects filled the air and Sammath, who’d clearly been keeping an eye on Ashe, came out of the house when Ashe lay down. All of Ashe’s limbs were numb and began to prickle as his blood flowed back into them. Ashe groaned, partly in pain and partly in euphoria, as he stretched out and his limbs shook lightly. Eventually the sensation faded, and Ashe fell limp, “Good stretch?” Mirth filled Sammath’s voice as he looked down at Ashe.
Ashe nodded, with a mumbled ‘mhmmm’, and Sammath poked him lightly with his foot, “Come on. Get up. It’s dinner time and I’m hungry.”
Ashe’s stomach grumbled its agreement and it was only then that Ashe noted just how empty it felt. Before, he’d been preoccupied by his deadened muscles but Sammath’s words focussed Ashe on his need for food, “Good idea. Help me up?” Ashe extended his arm to Sammath, who was still standing above him, and the older boy walked around him and grabbed his hand. Sammath easily pulled Ashe to his feet, leaving Ashe to wonder if he was just that much stronger or if he was using his Concept, and left Ashe to stand on his own two feet. Right as Ashe’s muscles cramped up. Ashe crumpled to the ground, “Oh, fuh-” Ashe groaned in pain, curling into a ball around his cramping calves and thighs, and Sammath snorted at him.
Erin dropped down from the tree, then, “Cramp?” Sammath just nodded, a light grin on his face, and Erin strode over to Ashe. Erin’s piercing, blue eyes looked down on Ashe and Ashe felt like she was looking into his muscles and seeing exactly where they were cramping. “Just take your time stretching. I’ll put the Core away.” Erin took a step to the side, facing the Core, and rested her hand on the giant, crystalline sphere. One moment, it was there and the next, it was gone, whisked away into Erin’s storage ring. Erin took it off her finger and handed it to Sammath, “One of us needs to be wearing this at all times now. While they won’t harm us for it, they will certainly try to steal the Core from us if we’re ever caught unaware or leave it unattended. You have the least potentially destructive magic. If you feel like you’re close to advancing your Concept, though, I expect to have that given back to me. As soon as Ashe is finished with the Core, I’ll also be expecting the ring back.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Sammath nodded and took the ring, slipping it onto his finger. Ashe slowly uncurled himself as his muscles relaxed and Erin nodded to him, “Come on, let’s go get something to eat.”
This time, it was Erin who extended her hand to the Shinian and he took it with a light smile, “Good. I’m quite hungry.”
The next day, after Erin’s hellish training, the three of them retired to the courtyard, and surrounded Ashe. Erin took the ring back from Sammath and pulled the Core onto the ground. Ashe put his hand on it, noticing it was very slightly dimmer than it had been the day before, “Well that’s a waste.”
Sammath cocked his head, so Ashe decided to explain, “My Ink walls inside the Core have been slowly consuming the energy to maintain themselves. It isn’t much but we probably only have around a month or so before the Core is practically useless.”
“Then it’s best you advance quickly. I can probably make use of the rest of the Core afterward.” Erin replied.
Ashe raised his eyebrows, “Are you even able to absorb energy from Cores? I mean I know Shinians and Cultivators can but, well, we have our own sort of Cores. How would a Bloodline even work with that when you can’t absorb anything but one specific thing?”
Erin sat down, “We use the energy to directly scour the outside of our Bloodlines for imperfections, burning or washing or freezing them away, depending on the energy of the Core. But that’s beside the point. You need to meditate and then advance. It’s about time you caught up to Sammath and I and, well, the jump from Dusk Stage to Baron Stage is a lot smaller than the jump from Baron Stage to Viscount Stage. I estimate that you’ll significantly increase the number of Runes you can utilitse. When you advanced from Dusk Stage to Baron Stage, your Runic limits jumped from four Runes at once, even if that was a stretch, to twelves. Though I still think you could probably get up to fifteen if you were to properly optimise your Ink usage. My guess is that, when you advance to the Viscount Stage, you’ll be able to use nearly fifty or so Runes at once.”
Ashe’s eyes widened. Erin was right; so far, the trend was that the limits to the number of Runes he could use was increasing substantially. That would, of course, change as he advanced to the Count Stage and began to make use of layered or stacked Runes and, once again, it would diminish as he advanced to the Archduke Stage, if he ever made it to that level, and began to utilise three-dimensional Runes but his capacity would only increase. Ashe’s days of trouble with using too much Ink in one Rune were beginning to fall behind him.
Ashe sat up straight and closed his eyes, beginning the rhythmic breathing exercises that he’d learnt to calm his mind. Nearly thirty minutes later, Erin tapped his shoulder to let him know it was time to start advancing. Ashe nodded as he opened his eyes and lay his hand on the Core, forming a tunnel with his Ink and pushing it through his hand to the Core. Slowly, Ashe began to siphon the energy from the Core into his Inkwell, swirling it around and using it to completely replenish his stores of Ink as his Ink slowly converted the energy. Ashe drew on his full Inkwell, using his Ink to make a series of Fire Runes around the Inkwell, rather than just ‘beneath’ it. This time, Ashe had actually been able to plan out how he wanted to go about advancing and how to make it more effective. From there, Ashe began to pull at the walls of his Inkwell.
Slowly, they began to expand and Ashe could feel how solid they were. There were no cracks in his Inkwell’s walls and none of the material, whatever it was, remained as Ink. That meant that Ashe was free to stretch it to its absolute limits. As he began to slowly expand the Inkwell, Ashe began to pull on the energy in the Core to slowly fill it up even as he pulled his Ink to surround his Inkwell, in between the two layers of Inkwell walls that Ashe was forming. As Ashe pulled energy from the Core to replenish his Ink, he began to break down one wall, and then another, and by the time that the material from Ashe’s Inkwell walls was stretched so thin that it seemed almost permeable, Ashe had drained nearly twenty or thirty of the sections… out of hundreds.
Erin took the Core from Ashe, putting it inside the spatial ring and then handing it back to Sammath, “Take care of that. I need to work on something with Ashe right now.” Sammath nodded at Erin and Ashe cocked his head at her.
“We need to work on what?”
Erin looked over at his question and gestured for Sammath to head back inside, where Ashe knew he’d probably laze about but it didn’t matter that much, “You’ll be doing most of the work but you’ll be practicing the use of your Ink without your hands. Your hands slow you down substantially and now that you have enough Ink to be able to waste a little bit of it, you can actually afford to practice utilising your Ink without the crutch of your hand. Once you do this right, you’ll be able to write Runes as fast as you can think them into existence. Maybe faster if you’re acting purely on instinct. It will also give you the ability to begin planning out your next advancement.”
Ashe frowned, tilting his head at that, “How do you mean?’
Erin pursed her lips slightly, “Well, do you know what you have to do to go from the Viscount Stage to the Count Stage as an Enchanter?” Ashe shook his head and Erin nodded, “I thought that would be the case but I had to make sure. To move from the Viscount to the Count Stage, not only do you have to do the same things you’ve already been doing but you also need to Enchant your Inkwell.”
Ashe’s eyebrows raised at that, “But how to I do that if my Ink never actually stays anywhere.”
Erin just shook her head, “That shouldn’t be a problem. With all the hundreds of Enchantment power variations I’ve heard or read about, most of which are Enchanters who had children with people from other powers, there have been none that have had an issue with Enchanting their core, no matter how esoteric or strange their method of Enchantment.”
“Alright, then. But how will it help me do that? Manipulating my Ink without hands, I mean.”
“If you don’t need to use your hands, then it should be much easier for you to form the basic sphere of Enchantments that you need to create for your next advancement. Just remember that you’ll be advancing with resources, so you’ll be able to create an Enchantment more complex than what you may be able to do while just relying on your natural Ink capacity. With that in mind, I would recommend that you practice your outer Inkwell and inner Inkwell Enchantments separately, so that you can create stronger Enchantments for your Core. I’ll also have something made to help you with your practice and to finalise a design.”
Ashe nodded to Erin, “Thank you.”
Erin waved him off, “Thank me after you’ve gotten better at manipulating your Ink using just your mind.”
Ashe went to speak but Cab interrupted him, ‘Take the hint, boy. It’s time to practice.’ Ashe’s mouth closed with a light click and he withdrew his consciousness into the space where his Inkwell resided. While it wasn’t necessary for Ashe to do that in order to concentrate and bring forth his Ink, he felt like it would help him when he tried to just manipulate the Ink with only his mind and without the crutch that his hand, admittedly, was.
Ashe pulled on his Ink, bringing it out of his Inkwell, through his body, and into the air. Opening his eyes, Ashe found a ball of glowing, white Ink hovering in the air in front of him and he began to manipulate it with his mind, pulling it into the shape of a Rune. While it was technically easier to make it the right shape, Ashe relying on his memory of the Rune to directly create it rather than through the more fallible medium of his hand, Ashe found that he was using far too much Ink to create the Rune and ended up using nearly five times as much Ink to create the Rune as he should; something that would have drained nearly half of his Ink pool before his advancement and, as it was, used up nearly 10% of his current pool.
Erin nodded in approval, though, and Ashe felt himself smile despite the wasteful use of Ink. “Good. Now, I think we need to get that Core back out here so you can continue to practice. A little bit short-sighted of me not to keep it out here, but that doesn’t matter. Use as much of the Core as you want, and I’ll use whatever is left by the weekend.”
Erin ducked inside the house as Ashe began to pull more Ink into the air, forming another Rune. This time he was a little less wasteful, having begun to grasp the idea, but he still pulled far too much Ink out and wasted far too much Ink while forming the Rune. Despite the challenge, though, Ashe smiled as it truly began to sink in that he was starting to become powerful. Today, he could now make nearly fifty Runes if he used his hands or ten with just his mind. Tomorrow, who knew what Ashe would be able to do?