Chapter 5: Whole(?) New World
Forewarning:
There are several things that I dislike seeing in other stories so here a brief list of what things you are unlikely to see in my stories:
-Babies with superpowers (IE: super/already developed eyes or inherited skills) – with the exception of the Gulit or the various levels of inherited mana
-Universal ‘goddess’ beauties, especially ones that just suddenly fall for the MC – the concept of beauty may change several times in this story simply because beauty is based on the culture surrounding someone
-Uber OP characters (This does not include technology, just do not count on non-god characters who can level mountains or create continents because they are that OP) - THAT SAID, there will be fiarly OP characters from the point of a normal person, just not in comparison to the others in the story.
-Race. It is an artificial construct and if you read about skin color in my stories they are references to the character’s medical state. There will still be various levels of discrimination, but even if I include racism, I do not feel the need to specify white on grey or green on purple... cuz I am the author and I can get away with that :P
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“Heno!” I quietly took note of a new curse to add to my repertoire and let my child-self continue to watch little Carol play with her newly discovered toes.
“Nathan! Apologies to the gods for mixing their names!” One of the many things that I had learned in the past week was that a popular way of swearing was to mix the names of various gods so that you did not directly use their names as curses.
Part of Nathan’s anger was actually my fault as neither versions of myself saw him as a good father figure. He was perhaps better than I had been, but that was not setting the standard very high. Even so, my child-self still called thought of as the stinky-man despite the fact that he did not smell any worse than the rest of the family after a day of work. That type of casual disrespect had made him try and discipline the child-me a few times, however, it did not go over well for him.
My new body was simply too fragile to take a good beating without serious consequences and he had broken bones on accident more than once. This meant that he got to take me to visit a healer in one of the near-by villages and pay them for second-rate potions to heal someone too young to do much work even when I was healthy. My new body was simply too young, thin, and fragile to be of much help out in the field so I ended playing or occasionally working with the animals. I still worked my share of course, but such incidents ended up training Nathan far better than it did the child-me.
Still, I did not want to push him to far so after I learned of his temper so I tried to push my child-self to be more careful. Thankfully, while thin bones meant it was easier to hurt me, my body also had less to heal so the child-me got better faster than she would have otherwise and could get back to work faster. This minimized some of the damage the family took as a whole. The pain of the beating also pushed child-me even farther away from Nathan. Now, my child-self would call him ‘Nathan’ behind his back or ‘sir’ to his face and nothing else aloud. The ‘stinky-man’ himself never seemed to be prepared to kill the child-me however so she continued to, at least, let him keep the somewhat more affectionate nickname in her head.
As Nathan prayed for forgiveness I reflected that the memories of my child-self were very enlightening in some ways about how I might have treated my own children differently. In other ways, however, it had not helped at all as there was a big difference because of the amount of time I used to spend with my brats in my old life and how often my current parents were around. How was I even supposed to have the time to spread my time between my numerous spawns and rule a small, later rather large, kingdom primarily comprised of individualistic law-breakers. Anton had even spoken briefly on the subject while he covered a very short lecture on psychology. I made my decision without thinking of my propagations however and had to acknowledge that incidents like Regus’ challenge might have been a direct result of that choice.
Still, in life or in death, I never stopped learning. This also included my newest start into life as I discovered that the principle applied to my new life as well. I had already learned many things in the last few days in my new body. Primarily I learned that I was going to be bored out of my mind if something did not change soon.
While I had a new body, my rest patterns were the oddest I could conceive of. I had no body, yet I needed even more rest than the child-me did. Where she slept for 9 hours the other night I had slept for 14. That was not all, after applying what Anton told me I managed to confirm some basic theories about magic before I realized that there was almost nothing for me to actually do.
Now there are the basic rules of magic that everyone knows about however I actually managed to explain the why for some of these rules. For example, it is an accepted fact that using magic makes you hungry. Powerful mages on my previous world ate truly terrifying quantities that would kill people like Nathan and still had a hard time gaining weight. That was because using magic was like using any other muscle in the body, it used your body’s energy, calories or fat, as fuel. Unfortunately my new body, even when she stuck extra food, was tiny. I kept trying to practice my energy cultivation methods, but I had to limit it in the extreme to keep from overworking my new body. This led to my second discovery about magic.
While everyone back on my previous world knew that energy cultivation, as it was called, drew in surrounding energy to help develop the body and that you could only draw in as much energy as you had mana, they did not know how exactly it worked. After I gained my new body I tried analyzing what energy cultivation actually was. Essentially it was the mana user claiming energy from the air around them and processing it in their own body. Traditionally this resulted in various benefits, including benefits on an incredibly tiny, maybe even elemental, level. Anton though had dodged telling me too much about the different ‘elements’ and how they each effected the body, with the exception of elements like oxygen, calcium, and iron. Thus, the art of energy cultivation allowed the body to collect some of the nutrients that most people of my old world had not realized they existed, much less were needed. Stones, Anton’s teachings were the only reason I could explain any part of the base level reasons for the typical longevity and good health (and height) that went along with being a powerful mage. Of course, these effects were subtle and hard to directly attribute to cultivation as they benefits were usually associated with magical strength instead of the energy gathered with said strength. As a result, people like myself in my previous life, individuals with less than three mana circles, in particular, did not have more than a few extra years in comparison to normal individuals.
Which was another thing I needed to check on eventually, however, it would have to wait for now. My previous world set up specific concentric circles usually using the foot size of the individual to measure the distance between each circle. The one taking the test would then stand in the center and fill as many of the circles as they could with their mana. When I was tested in my previous world I had enough mana to fill the first two circles. It was especially unfortunate for me as the third, seventh, and tenth circles differentiated mages. Individuals below the third circle were labeled ‘sensitives’ as if we could not preform magic, just sense it. Between the third and seventh circles you found ‘magic workers’ who frequently made a living producing cheap magical devices. Those who could power the seventh circle and above were the ones who considered themselves the ‘real’ mages and could massacre even a large mob of non-mages relatively easily. Those above the tenth circle tended to call themselves ‘grand mages’ or ‘magus’ or something similar and typically were a part of the nobility or royalty. My new body probably had around eight or nine circles worth of magic, but it was hard to tell with my current level of control.
Although that was all based on my old knowledge, not my knowledge of this world’s magic system. Though, from what I could see and feel, the natural laws of this world were very similar to my old one regarding magic and energy cultivation. Maybe if I got a chance to speak to my magician brother when he came to visit I could…
My ruminations were interrupted as Nathan finally got back to the topic at hand, my future. Typically, from what I could gather, a child in the borderlands or any smaller village would begin their more informal learning at age seven and buy a more formal apprenticeship in their teens, if they did not follow their parent’s craft. However there were two major problems, my parent’s position and myself.
My family were personal farmers and minor landlords. We owned more land than we could reasonably farm so others were allowed to farm a piece of the land in exchange for a share of the crops they grew. Unfortunately, while my family were rich and even of a high social standing for the area they still had the mentality of farmers as they were relatively new to renting land. Their land and standing had both only expanded after a combination of family deaths led to a large inheritance and the new farming techniques were implemented. As a result, I got stuck between the ranks while Nathan, who seemed to dream of having titled grandchildren, had tried to find me a position in the mayor’s house in the town of Entrials to the south, (child-me kept calling it entrails,) no doubt in hopes that I would meet some visiting official. He was stalled by the mayor wanted to finish negotiations for an engagement meeting for between my sister Florence and his son before considered finding me a position.
I was the other problem. My body was part of the problem as not only was the child-me’s body obviously supposed to be weak and frail the rest of my life, but I also had a naturally irreverent attitude towards others. While I was not sure if this was more my fault or the child’s – Leo’s list of curses had not included it – it would cause problems if they ever tried to apprentice me. As it was I should have been able to go to a magic academy, with my potential it might even be mandated by some law, yet the first thing that any academy would teach me would be what not to do with magic. It was the same no matter the world, after all, magic was far more dangerous than a sword, especially while in the hands of a child. ‘Do not’ use magic spells without thought, ‘do not’ end a spell without telling your magic that is supposed to stop, ‘do not’ use magic until you have a good understanding of the basics. Of course, while they would feed me well, the academy would also recognize that no child my age could have my level of wisdom and would likely come to the conclusion that forbidden magic was involved, resulting in death, if I was lucky.
Thus, I was stuck helping with the animals or sewing, which was looking more and more like my formal skill. I sewed for myself in my previous life after I managed to kill a man by using a cursed needle that I slipped past his tailor. It was an absurd way to die and the skill itself was useful so I made it a habit to take care of my own clothes. In fact my new body’s smaller and more dexterous hands let me sew much more quickly and precisely, even if Nathan did not see much chance in it attracting a husband as all women sewed.
“Florence, how would you feel about meeting the lord mayor’s son?” Nathan asked, making sure that sure that she was still given the option of saying no. For all his other failings Nathan did recognize the fact that children had veto power when it came to marriages, regardless of social standing (with the only exception being the royalty.)
Florence, to her credit, nodded and acquiesced to her father’s request with grace, leaving me to wonder if I was going to be forced to go along too.
Nathan immediately went to the back of the house to get his parchment and quill to compose a message for the mayor.
I tried not to roll my eyes and after quietly encouraging the child-me, slipped away to the basement where we kept the last remnants of our food before the Metal harvest began.
The years here were called cycles and were divided into five elemental periods with the exception of the day of the gods, wood, fire, metal, water, and earth. Wood was the beginning of the cycle and signified the growth of trees and nature. Fire signified when our sun (I was still having trouble with only having one in the sky) warmed the world the most. Metal was the period of harvest and the time of wealth. Water was the cooling period when the gods were said to celebrate the turning of cycles by showering the world with ice. While Earth was divided into five cycles and served as the days of transition between the other four periods.
AN: wood(72) > earth(18) > fire(72) > earth(18) > metal(72) > earth(18) > water(72) > earth(18) > cycle/year end - with 'days of the gods' being leap days
The Day of the Gods was a particular day that occurred every three cycles at the end of the Metal phase and represented an extra day for prayer and reverence.
As it was, this was the only time of cycle that no one paid much attention to the amount of food in storage. It was the last few days before harvest officially began and coincidentally a few days after my new body was born seven cycles ago. Both individually would mean that I would not get yelled at too much if I was discovered. Combined, these two facts meant that I did not even have to sneak in, although I did encourage my child-self to sneak in for the sake of practice.
Energy cultivation was good for three things besides making you use calories. They were called mana expansion, compression, and internal energy storage in my old world.
Mana expansion and compression were very popular with the aristocracy, who were almost always the ones with excess mana. The reasons were quite clear when one thought about it too, as it was namely about blood. Aristocrats were obsessed with blood and marrying individuals with high amounts of mana would always – in their minds – strengthen the family blood. The idea was even partly true as magic ability was a recessive trait, however mana expansion was both a boon and a curse to this pursuit. Mana expansion filtered the world’s natural energy, which could be some natural or wild form of mana, no one knew for sure, into the human body for the purpose of increasing total mana capacity. This made individuals more powerful and more attractive to aristocrats despite the fact that the increased mana did not pass down genetically.
The average mage could increase his natural power by two full circles if he meditated an hour a day, however three circle increases were rare and the primary reason that mages under three circles were looked down on in my previous world. No matter how hard they trained a three circle mage would almost never reach the seventh circle of power. Only a very powerful mage who dedicated almost every day to expanding his circles would even have the chance to live long enough to try at a fourth circle expansion. This was because each mana circle was ten times harder to expand than the last and would eventually take more time than cultivators had to live their lives.
Mana compression was similar, but much more popular with non-aristocrats, as it involved using the natural energy around the individual to make their mana ‘thicker,’ meaning that they could use less mana to accomplish the same task. This method was more popular with mages who had excellent control over how much magic they used as it could both increase the power of their spells and the decrease the amount of energy (mana & calories) they would use. This was jokingly called the workman’s cultivation in my previous world as lower ranked noble families and working mages would frequently make use of compression to produce more magical devises without eating themselves out of house and home with the amount of mana used. Privately, some of the great houses also practiced it, however they would hide the fact for fear that it made them look too poor to afford the ridiculous amount of calories they consumed daily when using magic.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The final method was usually only regularly practiced in war time. Internal energy storage used the cultivated energy to enhance and protect the individual’s body in times of need. All mages kept a little energy stored in their bodies for emergencies, however outside of the nights before a battle, most would never actively store energy when they could practice expansion or compression. It was a method typically used by only the weakest mages who had no intention of expanding or compressing their mana. It was also my favorite method in my previous world, giving me enough strength and speed to ambush more powerful enemies.
In my new body I was mixing which method I used because of the lack of calories my child-self was consuming. When I could, like I was now, I would encouraged her to sneak food so that I could keep practicing, however until I gain more control over my new body, encouraging was all I could do.
Fortunately, for now, I had an opportunity to eat more than I would normally, however I was going to have to use my new body to hunt for extra food after the Metal harvest festival was over. Otherwise I would be stuck in the barn or the house all winter long with no access to food that was not measured out for every meal.
My child-self shivered as she went down to the cold cellar and tried to ignore the chilling effects of the enchanted bricks. The cold would keep most of the food safe to eat for longer periods of time than it would under different circumstances. There were only a couple avotatos left, namely because they had to be stored in their own, specially constructed, box. The avotatos were unique plants that grew underground in groups and provided an amazing amount of calories, protean, and even some vitamin A, meaning they were my preferred food in this world. Unfortunately, even with magic to help them keep better, they were only good for so long.
Looking at one of the avotatos that was about to spoil I sighed with my child-self and we grabbed it along with a handful of cheese from a different area in the cellar before my we went back up the stairs. A while ago, right after I realized how much food I would need, I thought about deliberately encouraging my child-self to eat rotten food so that I could purify it while making our stomach stronger. The suggestion was not well received.
Though in my mind it would still be better than going hungry or not training.
What if we could absorb energy through the air? Did we not already do something similar with energy cultivation?
No, there was not enough nutrients just in the air, much less calories.
Then how do plants get their energy?
Something to do with sunlight and their roots.
Then why not copy them?
Different body design, our cells are not built for it.
That is for sunlight, how about roots?
We are still not designed for it, or did we have roots growing somewhere strange?
No, but why can we not do it with mana? Like we do with the air, but with just the avotatos?
We cannot… wait… maybe…
We looked at the avotato and took off its skin with the snip spell before digging a finger into the vegetable.
After a minute to careful compose the spell I wanted to cast I gathered my mana. Sending out a probe of mana I tried to drink in the nutrients, but that did not work. Pausing a moment to rework my spell I tried braking down the vegetable and letting it travel into my body. It was not efficient, but it worked, causing a small amount of the fruit to break down and be absorbed into my blood.
Quickly getting excited, I tried analyzing how much energy I retrieved from the fruit in comparison to how much I had to use to break it down and absorb it. The results were disappointing, while it worked we barely took in more calories than I burned. Although the nutritional benefits were enough to make up for it under other conditions, right now we needed calories so the spell was filed away in the back of our mind for further research.
Sighing, my child-self snuck off back to the barn and enjoyed the avotato and bit of goat’s cheese while I pulled myself back from my new body.
As the sights and sounds of my new world faded I opened my eyes to my mental connection construct.
Since I had first connected to my new body I had redone my connection construct again, keeping the pool of consciousness that represented the child-me I was now sitting on a white throne of ice that would slowly melt as I merged with my new body. As it was now I only had my bottom of my feet in the pool and not even my ankles were submerged.
I thought about my new spell and wondered if I could use eventually use it like a plant would roots. I was quite surprised that it actually worked at all, the idea was so off the wall and normally unnecessary that most people would not have thought of it.
In fact I should not have thought of it. Even if I could fly in Leo’s world I knew that my mind should not be flexible enough to come up with that sort of idea, even if all you had to do was ask the right questions to…
Questions? Why did I ask myself those questions earlier? I knew the answers, so why ask the questions unless…
I asked myself the questions because my child-self knew of my problem and tried to find a solution.
Looking down at the pool I tried to pick my feet up out of the water of consciousness only to have the water rise with my foot. I was partially fused to my new mind and the fusion would only grow with time. So, who would be left at the end?
Asking childish questions does not guarantee childish answers I thought grimly before closing my eyes and resting my half of ‘our’ being.
* * *
The day before the Lord's Party.
South of Entrials:
Healer Kal'rek shook his head quietly. How under the gods did such petty politics manage to even reach out here?
He had spent twelve years learning, mastering, and finally practicing his abilities in the capital only to sent out to the northern most backwater because of his cousin's connection to the cousin of Guthan, the Mayor of Entrials.
Of course, the official reason was that he was supposed to visit the outer edge of the kingdom as part of his duty as a Healer, but no one riding along actually believed that. Everyone here knew that the real reason for this little expedition was the complete and utter failure of the opposition in the capital to stop the rising star of Administer Wolsey.
The political dominance of the Barons and Counts who had been in power for decades had been supplanted in recent years by both various deaths within their ranks and the talented commoner known as Wolsey. Now no longer as powerful in the court, their rivals had eagerly pushed Wolsey forward as a competent man who the King could trust and found a new monster to dominate the court.
That had been several years ago, but now most nobles hated Wolsey's meritocratic administration and were desperate to undermine it. However, as fruitless years of warmongering were a major reason for the loss of noble power and prestige, the Kingdom as a whole had yet to recover. Wolsey's reforms were also well received by the King and the newer nobles and mages who had come to prominence during the years of war, giving him enough support to make him untouchable.
So it was that certain nobles of the opposition to Wolsey had advocated sending an inspector to look into the possible expansion of the northern border into the forests. Since this area happened to be controlled by a distant relative of Wolsey though, they chose an "impartial" inspector by the name of Belherd to investigate.
Normally this would all be irrelevant, however, such an investigator, also had the power to seize control of an area if he deemed the lord of an area irresponsible. Such proceedings were extremely rare, but did occur and the removal of a lord proceeded based on the rank of the lord in question. As Guthan was only a mayor, he could be deposed in a moment and Wolsey would be injured by association... Or that was the plan as best as Kal'rek could figure.
Kal'rek's cousin was in one of Wolsey's few avid supporters among the nobles. When the proposal to investigate the northern most region of the kingdom caught Wolsey off guard, Kal'rek had become an impromptu addition to the small group, officially as part of his duty to the kingdom to act as a magic tester looking for talent and unofficially as Belherd's watchdog.
Kal'rek and his two guards had joined Belherd and his guard and begun a boring journey as a result. Now, after weeks of travel over turnpikes that should have embarrassed the local gentry, they were only half a day away from their destination and they had run into trouble.
A few people with their faces covered had jumped out and demanded money. Kal'rek could have dispersed them with a show of magic, but Belherd had taken the challenge personally and immediately drawn his sword, warning Kal'rek to not interfere. Now he was arguing with the bandits, demanding that they surrender.
Kal'rek was not impressed and watched, annoyed, as Belherd and the bandit leader were all but screaming their demands at each other, completely disinterested in everyone else. Why do swordsmen always feel the need to show off in front of mages? The fool knows I could end this, but he seems so intent on showing off and getting a scar that-
At that moment, a crossbow bolt flew out from the brush on the left and hit Belherd's horse in the flank. As his horse made an awful sound, the bandits in front of us jerked in shock. This was followed by four more bandits jumping up on, two on both the left and right sides. They were cursing and pulling out slings while another bolt flew from the right and glanced off Belherd's armor.
Belherd fought with his horse as his guards proved their training and charged the sling wielding bandits as best they could, ignoring the few bandits with their swords out. Slings that used iron balls were some of the most dangerous weapons available to bandits. The iron would tear through magic barriers and the weight behind it would dent armor or break bones. Even if the slings only had stones in them they would be dangerous given that most of the guards only had on an iron chest piece.
Kal'rek, for hist part, pulled his horse back and took some distance once the fighting started. His guards also followed him, either remembering that they were just there to protect him or wanting to stick near the only mage in the group.
Belherd's four guards scattered the bandits who had been hiding within a few moments of the fighting starting, however they had not actually managed to kill any of them. The bandits, like the vermin usually would, scattered in the face of real resistance, diving out of the way of the guards while slinging their projectiles wherever possible before putting more distance between them and the dangerous men hunting them.
Soon enough, gaining distance became running for their lives and they quickly charged to various pockets of thicker brush that dotted this part of the country. The two hidden bandits with the crossbows also came out of hiding and ran for their lives. On horseback it would be easy enough to hunt then down, but Belherd had been attacked by the bandit's leader while his guard had been busy.
A reckless charge had earned the leader a quick deflection and a cut along his face. At first, Belherd fought defensively, but as the guards started dispersing the other bandits, he attacked the bandit leader more aggressively. As the leader's original lackeys had also run off at this point it rapidly became clear that the Leader would not escape.
Seeing the fighting come to such a rapid close, Kal'rek relaxed significantly. Besides the horse, it looked like no one had been hurt. I know bandits are stupid, but why in the name of Nabcor would they hide the majority of their force if they meant to shake us down for money.?
Sighing Kal'rek had his guards stay close as they approached the showboating swordsman, who was now just toying with his opponent while his guards returned.
Belherd finally decide to end the farce of a fight and knocked the sword out of the bandit's hands. Desperate, the bandit leader frantically backed away and grabbed at what Kel'rek though might be a dagger. Belherd however, had no intention of waiting and promptly stepped forward to end his foe, while the guards quickly surrounded them.
As if suddenly realizing that he had no future, the condemned bandit leader froze for a moment and simply watched as Belherd swung at his sword, going for the kill.
Then, with strength that only the suicidal or newly awakened undead would know, the bandit pulled out a dagger with his right hand and leaped at Belherd, only raising his left arm to block the sword. Caught off guard, Belherd tried to adjust his blow and succeeded in slicing through the bandit's left arm, but his sword was caught in the bandit's bone. The bandit though, had no such trouble as, despite his new wound, he thrust his dagger through one of Belherd's eyes and into the man's brain before jerking the hilt around in a blind rage.
Moments later the bandit was cut down by the guards, but it was too late for Belherd.
What in the world? Kal'rek stared in wonder at the oddest turn of events he had ever seen. One of the guards tried calling for him, but Kal'rek knew it was too late. A dagger to the eye from a man with nothing to lose. There was no way to stage that, but few will truly believe that such an insane thing actually occurred, everyone will say that Wolsey somehow had it set up... I feel sorry for those guards Kal'rek rode forward and coldly instructed them to strip the bodies of valuables.
It was not the first time Kal'rek had seen someone die and he knew it would not be the last. After the guards could confirm what they witnessed to others he would let them keep whatever they could find.
There was only one thing left to do:
In accordance with the laws of the church, Kal'rek cast the 'fleshfire' spell and waited for the bodies to be burned down to ash. It was an old law from before the Soul Wars to prevent Soul Mages from raising the dead.
It had been centuries since the last Soul Mage appeared, but no one let their guard down when it came to enforcing that particular law.
The group collected themselves and continued their journey, only stopping at a near-by village to briefly tell them what happened before continuing towards Entrials.
Unknown to the travelers, more than a few gods had been watching the exchange with great interest. From the viewpoint of the gods such trivial fights happened everyday, but this fight was the first of many such little events that had to be guided into place, by those unseen hands.