Chapter Seventy Five
Telnia, First in Line for Matriarch of the Grugtrim clan, woke with a stretch, grimacing. Unacceptable! The bed… this is unacceptable! Telnia did not move, resting in her bed as she waited for her maids impatiently. She understood that her maids would need some time to move, so kindly gave them that time, but as the seconds passed and none came, her kind patience was quickly replaced by ire.
“Maids!”
Her shout echoed though the room and to her servants’ room. She heard the scrambling of the maids in the servants’ room next door and allowed them their time, but less as they’d already failed. The door opened quickly and one of the maids rushed in, settling in beside her as the morning massage began to prepare her for the day. She basked in the moment, enjoying the massage, one that proved to last a bit longer and a bit more in depth today. The maids then shifted duties, the second taking over to give the first maid a break. Telnia heard the quiet shuffling in the room of the other maid moving off, but did not express anger, still finding the massage well done and enjoyable.
Another ten minutes passed before the maid removed her hands, bringing the massage to an end and lifted her up carefully before turning her to the edge of the bed. When she arrived at the edge of the bed, she shifted just enough so her gown could be slipped from under her hips then raised her hands to allow it to come over her head. The next moments were spent with the maids carefully preparing her for the day, casting the one Cleanse of the day before dressing her.
Her good mood soured, however, when she traveled to her private dining room to find it empty, her trainer not arrived yet. It’s the first day. I will be kind. Breakfast came, poorly prepared and their final failure. She turned to her maid.
“Find another, more appropriate, inn for my stay here.”
The maid bowed, “Immediately, Miss.”
She nodded, satisfied with the deed done and returned to her meal, eating slowly, her anger only smoldering as the eccentric took ever longer to come. She finally finished her meal and grew ever more impatient since he never came.
She stood as her patience ended, “Where is he?!”
* * *
She settled in her space, staring out across the vast emptiness. It was once a place teeming with life and the spaces of billions, trillions even. Now, she was the empress of a vast emptiness. Few times was her vigil interrupted, and she often and regularly drove such wildly and fearfully from this Space in fear so as to not doom those poor fools to a death they did not deserve. It was a lonely vigil, but she had little else available to her, so she did so in no small part out of pure spite against the Emperor of the Great Cycle, Lord of All Within Sight, Ruler of the Starry Path, and mentally deficient moron who solved all problems with nothing more than his fist.
She sighed, dismissing her irritation as it had long lost its power, dulled by ages that could not even be counted. She was alone. Her clan scattered and destroyed by the vile tongue of Taglisea whispering poison into the Emperor’s ear against all, gutting the great powers of the Starry Path and all who lived in it. She grimaced and shook her head, returning her thoughts to her latest intruder; a strange but unusually potent seed, remembering his first claiming of Space.
She knew little of combat, either of the more brute physical or the more elegant mageries, but she did know Space, and this little seed’s conceptual knowledge of Space was staggering, Space contracting and forming its connection with speed and precision. But when he’d claimed his Space and when she’d seen the space form, she’d been shocked, her greed almost driving her to take him as apprentice. He had much to learn, more than he could possibly know. But for a mortal to know such things… In another time, in another place, she would have beggared her clan to take him under her wing, but she restrained herself as she knew she had no way to protect him nor bring him to her. She could only drive him away to safety. So, she immediately empowered her Presence, erupting outwards to cover his space. And yet, he stepped through, her Presence failing to impact even slightly against stepping inside. She’d frowned at that, surprised that he could even approach the door, let alone enter.
He was young. Incredibly young. Time may be well outside her powers, but Space and Time had always been intimately connected and while she had very little skill in Time, it was enough to feel and to know he was incredibly young, barely thirteen and still a youth by any species measured yet he’d already claimed a space and such a space it was, already several times larger than most others firsts; some few even tens of times larger.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
While greed was her response to his youth, his form shocked her, taking her aback. He was a young furless ape of some kind. A truly strange sight in a sapient, for sapients she knew were clawed and armored with great fangs and maws. She was stunned to see such a weak and small thing before her. She studied for a time, wondering at its strange form as an upright bipedal so easily unbalanced and ultimately killed. She found her curiosity growing then immediately shook free of it, knowing she could not allow him further exploration. He must flee and never return. She brought her Presence to bear.
Then snapped back in sheer shock as her Presence utterly failed to have any impact upon him. Entire Cradles had bowed before her Presence, yet he continued walking easily around and exploring his space. For a moment, she thought him immune to her Presence, as if it rolled of him as easily as water off oiled cloth but quickly realized he simply ignored it, brushing it off with ease as he wandered the room mapping its shape. Fear quickly took over, as she now considered him much stronger than she could perceive. She offered apologies and a greeting in her Presence, but he did nothing, nor acknowledged her. The discrepancies this strange being showed were paralyzing: youth but knowledge, youth yet apparently withstanding the Presence of an immortal with ease, youth but skills far beyond his age. She breathed deeper, and attempted to offer her apologies again. Nothing changed.
As she watched, she quickly came to understand that he was simply unaffected by her Presence, whether in apology, a call to him, or to induce fear and drive him away. An impossibility to her mind. He stood tall, without worry or fear and continued exploring his space. And the more she considered, the more certain she was that he was simply young and completely unaffected by her Presence. She grew worried now, not for his strength, but because of his weakness. He has to leave…
She drove her Presence even harder, hoping for some small twinge of fear to shine through and drive him away but found herself still surprised at his easy bearing under her Presence. His firm grasp against the walls, however, drove her attention from thoughts of driving him away to his Space once again. His walls… and structure. This… It was remarkably well made, with firm and strong walls to protect against the void and he was easily able to interact with the wall. She almost reconsidered, seeing how firmly his walls had formed, but then focused her Presence upon him once again. Please! You must run… go… leave! She hoped some small cry from her would drive him from the space and protect him from any of Taglisea’s agents. He would only find death if this continued.
The furless ape, however, continued moving easily and without concern, her Presence was somehow not even reaching him despite his grasp of the mageries. She saw her Presence waft through him, definitely brushing against his spirit and firmly bringing pressure to bear, but somehow it did nothing. Suddenly, he left his Space but soon began playing with it, much like every one of her own ancestors and students had, his control quite immaculate and not bound by the limits of physical concepts of movements, objects moving in and out with speed and simply moved in space immediately as his thought demanded. It was still quite slow. He was mortal, after all. But it was still rather impressive and humorous to watch. She found herself growing invested. Then, it emptied, and Space returned to quiescence.
She was now dangerously curious about this new Space master, and she sighed when her despair roared full, worried that his inevitable death would soon come. He hadn’t been here long, so… maybe… but… He was a strange and strangely weak creature. He had no fang or claw; no tail or great maw and any Cradle sapient would easily and instantly kill him. She’d never seen his kind before and found herself growing worried she never would again.
* * *
Joe woke, stretching. The day had begun the same way, with him waking sometime at midnight. He spent it as he usually did, practicing his mana and exercising his mana points. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he did come to learn pretty quick that they were changing, somehow. As was now usual, he fell asleep in the middle of his mana exercises before waking once again in the early false dawn, the dim glow of the sun shining in through the window fought with another soft flashing glow at the edge of his visual perception. Beside him, he felt the pleasant coolness of Kilniara pressing against his side. He found himself conflicted, happy to have Kilniara beside him but also a mix of worried and confused by the system notification.
He didn’t move, listening carefully for Kiliara’s deep breathing and found her quiet. Oh… she’s awake listening for me… He couldn’t keep his humor silent and Kilniara replied in kind, but beginning to chuckle at each other’s antics. Their laughter broke out and soon threatened to be loud enough to wake the boys and both focused on calming themselves until they were able to constrain their giggles. After, they both looked at each other for some time before kissing each other; a light but meaningful kiss. They pulled back from each other before both chuckled a bit and then each turned to their training, Kilniara leading the way this time.
With the move to training, Joe felt comfortable to pull up his notification. He willed his system to come up and a looked at it. He grinned, frowned, wondered, then grew a bit worried.
You have achieved equivalency in your statistics. Your base statistics have now reached or exceeded your current imported statistic. Please initiate naturalization and have your life evaluated by your imported statistics or by your newly achieved local statistics.
A small ‘accept’ button at the bottom of the popup was lit and glowed invitingly. Joe stared at it and considered, his mind roiling. He had so many more stats than he had before, he could easily… Well… let me check. He flipped open his status to check what jobs he had and to begin shifting them all out so he could check his base stats and see a good comparison when there was a rather firm if soft knock on their door.