It was in the early hours of the morning, so morning that many refused to consider it a part of the morning at all; most of the people awake at this hour were considered night shift.
Despite the early awakening, Nash wasn't tired, a consequence of going to sleep early the previous evening and his Second Calcification physique (though mostly the latter.)
The hardwood floor was cool where it touched his hands and feet, which barely registered; the sensation was ignored along with the burning of his muscles, as his focus was elsewhere.
His full attention was on the slow pushups he was performing, each one with perfect form.
Every repetition of the exercise took nearly a full minute for him to descend to the floor, followed by another near-minute to get back up. The weightlifting plate on his back rose and fell ponderously with the motion, his breath also rising and falling as he focused on the calcification of his channels.
This had become his morning routine for the few hours before Rigel woke up and work began, and Nash was finally beginning to feel and see the progress.
With the enhanced healing abilities of the Second Calcification and that he was nowhere near his physical limit, he had gained perhaps five pounds of muscles in the past three days. That was, of course, only the physical results of his training.
Nash could feel himself beginning to approach the peak of the Second Calcification realm as his Aetheric powers grew bit by bit, his channels hardening and less Densified Aether leaking out upon use with every day that passed.
At the bottom of the pushup, he held position for a few seconds, feeling the burn of his muscles and the pressure of the weight on his back. I need to get another weight, he thought as he began pushing up once again, unsatisfied with the difficulty of the exercise. If I don't pick up the pace, I'll begin to plateau soon.
Eventually he finished with the pushups and moved onto the other exercises; squats, lunges, holding the horse stance, planks, and others. In each one he held the weight and in each one he took his time, every possible inch of his muscles under resistance multiple times through the workout.
When he was finished, he left the guest room to take a short shower and eat a light breakfast while he waited for the old man to awake. When Rigel did eventually wake up and leave his own room, he found Nash already sitting down with tea ready for the both of them.
Sitting down, the old man smiled when and took the teacup, thanking Nash before taking a drink. "As usual, Greenstone," Rigel said, shaking his head in false exasperation. "You do not need to try this hard to earn your keep. It's not like I'll kick you out if you awaken with the sun instead of before it."
"That may be true," Nash responded, "But I do it for my own cultivation, not solely your benefit."
"Very well, but it wouldn't hurt to take a break once in a while."
Instead of responding, Nash swirled the tea in his cup and smelled it, taking a sip. For the next fifteen minutes or so, they drank the tea silently and Rigel ate his own breakfast, prepared and handed to him by an eye-capped vine.
Once they were both done, Nash stood up and rinsed his own tea ware in the sink before drying it and returning it, while and the old man did the same with his. They moved into the actual gym area and began to prepare it for the first class, dragging out and arranging punching bags and small mats to practice break falls.
The earliest of the early arrivals started to filter into the building, taking whatever cubby they were accustomed to and filling it with their things before coming onto the floor and warming up. The previously silent gym began to fill with a variety of sounds that dissipated as fast as they were produced, as if the vibrations themselves were embarrassed to interrupt the relative quietude; the squeaks of foot and shoe upon floor, the slapping and clapping sounds of fist and leg against bags, the quiet falls of jumping jacks on the hardwood floor, the grunting produced during the stretches of the more inflexible clients.
Eventually, the less early comers and then the late ones had arrived, and class had started.
Nash waved over a half dozen students and began coaching them through the first few exercises, running practically on autopilot as he thought about how to throw his family off his trail.
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As one advanced in cultivation, most put a great deal of their practice into cultivation methods that extended their lives and enhanced their physical abilities.
One advantage that nearly every common technique provided was a reduction in the need for sleep; in fact, the only one without this benefit (and, indeed, lacked it to such a degree that it actually increased that need) that was considered of any worth was an unusual scripture practiced by a certain caste of monks in a few minor monasteries, known as the Long Slumber Sutra.
That, however, was not pertinent; what was currently more important knowledge was how that advantage allowed 'Longstep' Beryl to work through not only one night without sleep, but several.
With his cultivation technically in the early stages of the Fourth Calcification (though age and old injuries had regressed it to slightly beyond the peak of the Third,) Beryl could go quite a while longer without sleep, food, water, or even oxygen than most humans.
After 72 hours without sleep, a non-cultivator would be experiencing hallucinations; Beryl could probably go nearly 200 before sleep deprivation started having those effects on him, and wouldn't even feel much for anything less than 48 hours.
That was how Beryl had worked throughout every night since he had been sent on his mission to find and return Nash Emerald.
He had combed through security tapes, questioned the homeless, criminals, and other vagabonds; he had followed trails, read police reports, investigated the gas station, and even managed to figure out modern technology long enough to watch a newfangled motion-picture showing Nash beating up a greasy-looking fire cultivator.
His conclusions so far were as followed: One, Nash hadn't yet left the city proper, and likely wouldn't do so for a while. Two, he wasn't actively pursuing the gang that had attacked him, and was likely in hiding from both them and the police. Three, nobody Beryl had spoken to had seen him working in any other gas stations or, in fact, anywhere.
Assuming they weren't lying to him, of course. As time went on, that felt less and less likely to Beryl.
But he felt like he was making progress, like he was so close to finding the Young Master.
He had ruled out most of the city, including all of it under the 'turf' of the insignificant fire-based gang that was at odds with Nash. For a moment, Beryl considered bringing some of them along, to give some of that human trash a chance to have the honor of being a sharpening stone for an Emerald, but discarded the thought; he had been ordered to bring Nash home, and Senator Emerald would brook no unnecessary delays.
Now, judging by the boy's psychological profile, he would try to fall back on his martial abilities to provide for himself.
It was time to check the underground tournaments, the dojos, the academies, the gyms.
Beryl could feel that he nearly had him.
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The Boss of an unimportant fire-based gang sat in front of a crystal in a sparse room, his eyes focused on the ancient artifact in the center of the room as he cultivated his channels, cords of Aetheric smoke wrapping around and reinforcing his channels.
He ignored the pain of his cultivation technique and stared deeper into the pale-green crystal, into the slowly drifting clouds of smoke inside, letting himself become mesmerized by the seemingly infinite patterns of coiling and unwinding, joining and separating, billowing and clinging that the old clouds inside the crystal were constantly engaged in.
The crystal itself was mostly clear with a tinge of blue and greens, filled with an ephemeral smoke in a way that it was unclear whether it was hollow or whether the smoke moved through the solid structure of the crystal itself. The smoke, however, was obviously Aetheric, and the Boss could feel it pulling at the unstable foundations of his cultivation technique, sliding the solidified layers of calcification past itself into a slightly better arrangement.
The crystal, about the size of his thigh, was kept off the ground by three pieces of flat steel folded in their middles to make right angles facing outwards from the crystal. Each one supported the structure from the ground, keeping it from eddies of Aetheric current. The pieces of steel were kept tightly to the crystal by a wrapping of thinner steel around the base of where the pieces met the crystal, hammered to coil around the assembly multiple times and cinch it together securely.
It was this treasure that had propelled him to the leadership of his own gang, that had brought him to the threshold to the Third Calcification with his admittedly lackluster talent and poor-quality cultivation technique. It was this treasure that had brought him to the heights that his previous gutter-rat self would barely dare to imagine; the head of his own gang, a respectable cultivation, money, power, whatever he wanted.
And it had been breaking, slowly but surely.
It had started with a singular, minuscule crack.
He had just cemented his power through an overwhelming victory against a rival gang, him and all of his subordinates celebrating with bottles of expensive wine looted from the luxury car of the recently killed boss of the Windspear Brotherhood.
He had stumbled back to his personal room in the Crimson Bonfire Gang's headquarters more than a little tipsy and sat down to cultivate, but it had been harder than before. More so than his recent advancement should have blunted his speed, and that was when he had noticed the crack down the side of the crystal. Back then, it was simply balanced on the ground where he could stare into it from any angle.
He was not in a good mood the next day, hungover and terrified of the future.
That was when the episodes had started; anything that would have angered him even slightly before now sent him into a mindless rage of breaking whatever or whoever had provoked his ire and, if that was not possible, then his surroundings.
It only got worse as the cracks expanded.
That one crack had expanded from a short line, a narrow cleft visible only when one was looking, into a whole system of them, a spiderweb that provoked a profound anxiety whenever he beheld it. He had tried everything he could think of to avoid exacerbating the damage; laying it on cloths, suspending it from strings, wrapping it tight to stop the cracks from expanding, even pouring his own Densified Aether into it.
None of those measures had worked, and he had been forced to call in the only other person that had seen his treasure and lived to tell the tale - an oddly young-looking Metal cultivator, a smith.
The smith had been smiling as he gave the prognosis, as he always was.
Nobody the Boss knew had ever seen his face outside of the smile it seemed permanently forced into, and that smile combined with his conclusion had nearly led to the Boss trying to kill the 'young' man, stopped only by his position and promise of help.
"I am afraid," the smith had said those two years ago, "That this treasure is unsalvageable. Treasures for the more ephemeral elements - for example, fire or space or smoke - already have a tendency to degrade quickly, and that is rarely untrue for a treasure of this quality." The smith's smirk and tone of voice made it difficult to tell whether he was disparaging or praising the treasure, but either way it had not helped sooth the rapidly building anger in the Boss's heart.
"However," the smith had said, and the Boss could remember how high his heart had leapt at that one word. "One of my particular skills can create an Array in Steel to offset the transitory nature of a natural treasure like this. It would create a great degree of Metallic Artificiality around this crystal, dosing it with a constant drip of permanence and shifting the balance to let it last longer."
"The treasure's quality will drop dramatically as the drastically different Aether aspects clash against each other, but it will last for much longer. My current guess is that, without the modification, this will last another month at best. I can bring it up to years, but in those years you will get no more use of the treasure than you would in that month; maybe even less."
"It is your choice."
The Boss had chosen to extend the lifetime of his treasure, of course. He couldn't cultivate without it. He wouldn't be *here* without it. He couldn't bear to be without it. He would be nothing without it. But even with the reinforcements...
It had begun cracking again.
Just as his influence had.
One had cracks in it's surface; the other one showed in how one that had defied him was still alive, still breathing, still mocking him by his continued existence.
He would have to find a way to rectify both.
One was much easier than the other; he only had to find the target of his ire, and kill him.
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'Longstep' Beryl was currently in a relatively nice teahouse for this part of town, wearing a fresh change of clothes but still not having slept.
Across from him was a middle-aged man of poor talent for cultivation who claimed to have information on the case of Nash Emerald, sitting down in the only other chair inside of the sectioned-off private sitting area Beryl had specifically requested for this conversation.
Beryl reached out and pulled a string near the door. Soon afterward, an employee came by with a teapot and filled their cups.
"Thank you," Beryl said to the tea staff, smiling until they left and closed the door. "I am told this type has floral notes and a light, airy body, but I am afraid that I was never the best at distinguishing those things. I suppose we should drink some and get to business; you said you had some information on Nash Emerald's current position?"
The middle-aged man scowled (which was apparently his default expression, from the little Beryl had interacted with him) and rose his cup to his nose, smelling the tea as he swirled it around.
He set it back on the table and spoke. "Yes, I have some information on where that spoiled twerp is and what he's doing. But first, you mentioned a reward over the phone?"
Beryl took up his own cup and took a sip, waiting a second to process all the flavors. "A higher quality than I expected for a place like this, is it not?"
Beryl put down the cup and smiled, reaching out to grab the small tray of honeyed cakes from another server's hands just as they were knocking on the door, grabbing it through the tiny gaps in the woven-rattan screen window of the door, which was made to echo the style of a much older and more storied tea shop.
The employee was momentarily bewildered by the display of physics-bending manipulation of Aether to do such a mundane thing, but shrugged and walked away.
I'm not paid enough to care about that, the employee thought, going to grab another tray.
"We shall start soon, but one thing first," Beryl said, pulling his hand and space towards him to set the tray in the center of the table. "Here, take a pastry. It's no good to do business dealings on an empty stomach." Beryl twisted space slightly and grabbed one of the cakes farthest from him, which was far enough to make reaching it normally impossible.
He took a bite of the honey-drizzled pastry and swallowed it, taking another sip of tea. "I know youngsters love to rush into things, get everything over at once so they can get back to whatever it is that you do nowadays, but when you're my age you'll appreciate the virtues of going slow."
The man, well outside of being called 'youngster' by this point, seemed to be taking offense judging by the deepening of his scowl.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Even with offense taken, however, it was one thing to feel it and another thing to complain about being infantilized to a cultivator that had likely been old since before his parents were born. He popped a pastry wholly into his mouth and managed to give the gesture a frustrated quality.
"Of course," he said, his displeasure dripping from his voice the same way a little drop of honey was dripping from his chin. He took a napkin and wiped it off, his anger only growing.
"What is your martial name, again?" Beryl asked, still holding his teacup in one hand. "It's always nice to see someone using them, these days - it reminds me of my own childhood. People stopped using them in the war; a bit impractical to say something like Three Blossoms Drifting Off A Tree of Enlightenment as a call sign over the radio, after all, and I guess the habit stuck. A shame, though. Eight Millipedes, was it? I guess the closest thing would be my old nickname from the war, Longstep."
"Yes, I am Eight Millipedes." The words sounded like they were something foul that he had to spit out of his mouth. He took a sip of tea, obviously to calm himself, and only didn't wrinkle his face further because it was physically impossible to do so. "Senior, if your stomach is sated, may we get to what I know about Nash Emerald?"
"Of course," Beryl said, taking a long drink from his cup. "And what may that be? Oh, and do mind your manners - he may be a wayward son, but he's still an Emerald, Eight Millipedes. Mind your station."
Eight Millipedes sat the cup down, and if one looked closely enough they would be able to see a few bumps traveling under his sleeves. For a second, an antennae poked out of his shirt collar, then retreated back into the safe, dark reaches of the clothing.
"Yes; I must've somehow forgotten. Well, Young Master Nash Emerald is currently working as an assistant instructor at the Unleashed Vine Martial Academy, probably for room and board. My payment?"
"Do not worry, Eight Millipedes - you shall be compensated more than a commensurate amount."
Beryl reached for his jacket and took it off the hook from across the room, once again without standing up, and took a bundle of bills from one of the pockets. He hung the jacket back on the hook, then paused just before handing Eight Millipedes the money.
Eight Millipedes appeared to be nearly salivating at the sight. "What?" he asked, confused by the delay.
"Well," Beryl said, "Are you completely sure this information is accurate? If you are confident in it, I see no reason to doubt you, and the Emerald family is gracious enough to pay up front." Beryl's fingers tapped on the table in that rolling motion the Emeralds always seemed to adopt when deep in thought. "The only problem is, if I check and find out that you had misspoken or, heaven forbid, lied, then the Emerald family would not stand to being made someone's fool. Do you understand?"
A short spasm of fear flashed across the other man's face, but it passed quickly. "I am confident that, as of yesterday afternoon, a Second Calcification cultivator that matched the description of Nash Emerald to a high degree was working in the Unleashed Vine Martial Academy, yes."
Beryl slid the money over to Eight Millipedes. "That is all I needed," he said, taking one last swig of the tea before setting it down on the table and standing up.
He walked over to the coat rack and shrugged on his jacket, walking to the door before he suddenly remembered something. He reached into the same pocket as before and brought out a smaller collection of bills, setting those on the table. "That," he said, "is for the bill. Good day, Eight Millipedes. I have business to attend to."
He snagged a honey cake on the way out.
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It was now midday, in the break between classes when Nash and the old man had lunch.
Today, the old man was cooking, and in the meanwhile Nash was setting the table. As soon as that task was finished, he took out a ratty, half-crushed notepad filled with scribbles and set it next to his plate, pulling a pencil from the spirals. He opened it to a well-crumpled page and traced the drawing of flowing lums with his fingers.
Nash had decided that using solely the arts of his family would be doomed, eventually, for failure.
Sure, they were a good foundation and were all high-quality, mostly gimmick-less techniques, but there simply wasn't enough there that he could push to make himself truly great.
Nash didn't want to spend the rest of his life implementing a training plan that had been devised before he was born, and he knew his father hadn't stuck to the one his father had given him, either.
Nash had seen his father fight, and it was not by strict adherence to the Emerald way in every manner. Though the old coot didn't seem to take that into account with my training, he thought, quite bitterly.
The current channel he was thinking of building was based off of what he had seen of Old Man Looking-In's channels while he used some of his vine-based abilities - Nash wasn't sure whether he wanted the eyes or not, since the idea of setting up a surveillance network tied him too tightly to one place for his comfort, but he sorely wanted the ability to apply some sort of active effect.
Currently, his fighting style was simple and effective at two things: avoiding getting hit, and hitting people.
To a lesser extent it also helped with movement, but not nearly as much as he would have liked. Additionally, Nash wanted something that could leave lasting effects, that could tie someone down, that could decrease the other party's effectiveness through a fight. Perhaps even a ranged attack.
Every one of those things were rather lacking from his current style; currently, the only 'status effect' he inflicted unaided was blunt force trauma, and his best ranged attack would be throwing a rock or shooting a bow.
Like a mortal.
He was reverse-engineering a few of the mechanisms he had seen used to materialize Aether, from both what he had seen in person and the best of the slop he managed to glance online. It would be sub optimal to directly use a technique not adapted to the Emerald methods of dipping, and his current plan had been converging to long ropes of ephemeral substance, materializing and dematerializing at a moment's notice - perfect for traps, surprises, and maneuvering.
It felt so close and yet so far to Nash, and he felt quite strongly that if he had a few more half-decent examples he would doubtless be able to use it by now.
Nash's focus was interrupted by Rigel coming in with a trivet and a pot, and he closed the notepad, tucking it and the pencil back into his pocket.
He smiled and nodded at Rigel, wordlessly heading to the kitchen to grab the other pots that were doubtless there. A bit less than a minute later, he returned, holding a stack of trivets and the rice cooker's bowl, filled to the brim. Another trip commenced, and he came back with a smaller pan filled with a still-steaming sauce. The old man had already pulled a trivet out for that pan, and Nash placed the pan on top and sat down across from him.
They each ate mostly silently, spooning bits of rice, meat, vegetables, and sauce into their bowls and speaking mostly to ask the other to pass them something. Eventually, all of the food was either eaten or packed away into the fridge and they stood side-by-side by the counter, washing dishes.
"Young Greenstone," Rigel said, saying the first word since Nash had asked him to pass the rice, "How is that project of yours going?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't talk like that," Rigel said, chuckling. "I'm not so senile that I'll question what I'm seeing at the word of another. If you don't wish to talk about it, that's that," he said, setting a thoroughly-washed pan onto the dish towel, "But perhaps this old man has something to offer with the technique you're creating. I may not have as illustrious of a background as you, child, but my cultivation is still higher than yours - for now."
Nash recoiled, his knees bending. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, a feeble attempt. My rhetoric teachers would be crying if they heard that, he thought as soon as it came out from his mouth. "On the technique, I cannot show it to you for obvious reasons, but suggestions are more than welcome."
"Of course, Greenstone. Forget I ever mentioned it, and do not worry about the secrets of your cultivation being revealed - I saw only a glimpse, and while obviously it was the diagram of a technique, the notation was unfamiliar to me."
"I..." Nash struggled for a second, wondering whether to reveal anything to the old man.
"I lack options to attack from anywhere but close quarters or to tie my opponent down. I'm attempting to form ropes somewhat like your vines out of my Aetheric aspects, but it's difficult to find an applicable technique for my... rather rare cultivation base."
"Yes, yes, keep your secrets. An old man like me has no use for them - I'd drop dead sooner than I'd get to use them anyway, and my channels are too calcified to change at this point," Rigel said, waving away Nash's words.
To Nash's astonishment, Rigel seemed to be sincere about all he had said. "Materialization is your problem, is it not? It's quite easy to materialize some things and quite difficult to materialize others," he said, bringing an eye-capped vine into existence, coiling around his arm from where it sprouted in the sink's drain.
"For something simple and processes-based, like wind or fire? Practically trivial, since they are more patterns to impose on something you can depend on being there rather than a thing to themselves. Something more complex and particular about material would be my vines, which are modified wood-attribute; they're difficult to start, but can take in lums or nutrients to grow 'naturally' after that."
"I have not actually seen you use your element, if you even have one. I can offer no advice about that, but I would advise weaving your aspect like your cultivation technique but almost 'rotated' into the physical realm," Rigel said, abruptly moving away from the sink and dismissing the vine.
He motioned for Nash to follow, and led him to a blackboard. "Everyone approaches materialization differently, and something quite different indeed may be required for whatever queer form of Aether you cultivate. At one point, my second disciple - these days he owns a gym quite similar to this one in Grand Harbor, incidentally - took months to realize how to materialize a simple, unadorned vine. Eventually, he tried applying his obsession with numbers to it and managed to create a dozen more in a quarter of the time."
Beryl chuckled. "I do miss him, even though he visits when he can. An odd boy, prone to a bit of brooding, but he grew out of it eventually. I remember him trying to explain his epiphany, something about multiplying a complex number by the square root of negative one to switch the real and imaginary components, and then sulking the rest of the session when nobody understood."
"So, what do you recommend trying?" Nash asked, handing the old man a piece of chalk when he gestured to it.
"Ah, yes," Rigel said, seemingly remembering the reason for the conversation after momentarily forgetting it, "Anyway, for materialization, the problem isn't as difficult as you think, and is also much more difficult than you hope."
"And by that, you mean?" Nash said, watching as Rigel brought the chalk to the dusty old blackboard.
Clicks and clacks resounded of chalk on board, and with a few obviously well-practiced movements he had produced a webbed graph, bubbles of concepts connected with arrows and lines and dotted versions of both.
Rigel continued to speak, setting down the chalk on the blackboard's lip. "You already know more about how to do it than you think. The hardest part, the biggest part? You already know a way to turn your aspect into a 'physical' form - that is how you calcify your channels."
Rigel pointed to one bubble of the graph, where 'cultivation technique' was noted with arrows pointed towards 'physical body.' "The problem from there, of course, is to do that but in the physical world, which is harder than it sounds. Yes, Junior?"
"Senior?" Nash said, somewhat surprised by the sudden formality. "Is it really that simple? Is it truly just adapting your cultivation technique to work outside the Aether?"
"Yes, and no, young Greenstone. For the first point, there is nothing that can be summarized as 'just' something in cultivation - nuance, nuance, nuance," Rigel said, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
"For example, sure, each Calcification realm is roughly one and a half times stronger than the one before with most cultivation techniques, but is it really 'just' one and a half times difference between a Sternum Etching and a First Calcification?" Rigel asked, his voice tinged with disappointment. "Now - on the materialization. Yes, that is the easy part, but there's more, even if you do manage to adapt your cultivation technique. You still need to make it useful."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's easy enough to make a physical expression of your cultivation. But what's the point if it's just, say, a stick to whack someone with? You want to be able to move it independently, for it to have special abilities, maybe to be able to retreat somewhat into the Aether so you don't have to lug it everywhere." Rigel gestured to a more complicated, nested portion of the graph, filled with a labyrinth of pointed arrows. "You have to create different types of 'tissue;' rather literally for a Wood cultivator like me, most likely more metaphorical for someone of your aspect, whatever that is. You need to be able to communicate with it, to store it, for it to perform work. That is the true difficulty part of materialization."
Wait, Nash thought, Retreating the materialization into the Aether... That sounds somewhat like the core of the Emerald technique. Is it derived from this or the other way around? Nash's fingers began tapping as he fell deeper into thought, into a habitual rolling motion; pointer to pinkie and back again, like a wave.
Either way, if I learn more about materialization and integrate it into my cultivation, it might increase my understanding of the Emerald techniques as well. Does this mean I'm technically materializing myself, or the inverse, with the whole retreating/dipping into the Aether thing? Weird.
Nash noticed Rigel waiting for his response. "Oh, yeah. To adapt my cultivation technique from the Aether to the physical world, I have to express it in a matter medium instead of a Luminiferous one, right?"
That, too, provided only more ideas for Nash's mind, which was quickly turning over several concepts and trying to slot them together. I'm probably ahead of that anyway - can't I just form it in the Luminiferous Aether and then dip it into the physical world? Like an inverse of what I would normally do?
"Also," Nash continued his questions, "What do you mean by 'retreating' into the Aether?"
"That is essentially right, but much easier said than done. They're quite different forms of expression on a fundamental level, merely due to the medium your energy must conform to. You have to build your cultivation technique denser, for one, and there are more difficulties that I do not have the vocabulary to describe," he said, absentmindedly pulling an eye-vine from the blackboard and twirling it around his wrist, where the bulbous eye stared at Nash.
"Now, on the 'retreating' or 'storage' of a Materialization in the Aether, there are several methods, most of which I do not understand. However, they all essentially rely on making the object partially exist within the Aether, and then using that alongside more specialized and varied methods to 'pull' the rest of the object into there. The easy part after that is getting it back out; the Aether doesn't tolerate any physical matter in it, and will reject most of it given enough time and a suitable place to put it in the physical world."
When I dip into the Aether, I get pulled in by my channels and the frame around me, both of which exist in the Aether, Nash thought, the rolling-tapping of his fingers growing more intense as more connections were made. To leave the Aether, I use my channels to displace matter in the physical world and open a space for me to "flow" into - is this the basis of the Emerald family's techniques? This materialization thing?
It has to be, but it's so... So simple.
Rigel's explanation continued, not dissuaded by Nash's obvious preoccupation with his own thoughts. "In fact, it's harder to keep your materialization in the Aether than it is to take it out - that's why my vines aren't entirely in the Aether, though I cannot say more without revealing some of my secrets." He chuckled. "I'll tell you the basics, but you'd have to become my disciple for me to teach you how that particular technique works."
There was a knock at the door.
Rigel let go of the vine and it retreated back into the blackboard, fusing into the wall. "Ah, it seems we have company. Is it already time for the next class?" He took the eraser and wiped off the blackboard. "I am sorry we could not leave that up, but I can't be handing that away to everyone walking through the door. Now..." Rigel Feldspar placed the dusty blackboard eraser back onto the board and began walking towards the door, Nash following him.
"Go and let them in, Greenstone. I'll prepare the floor," Rigel said, taking a turn in the hallway, the one that led to the wide-open room that most of the classes actually took place in.
Nash nodded. "Alright," he said, taking the other direction in the hallway and stopping before the front door. He unlocked it, swinging it open. "I am sorry for the wait, now you can come -" Nash began to say, the words trailing off into nothing when he saw who was waiting outside of the door.
"Ah, it's you. I must admit, I thought it would take you longer to find me, but I guess I underestimated you, Senior."
The formally-dressed old man standing outside of the door smiled, half genuinely, half artificially. "Young Master, there is no need to call me by that honorific - though I admit, it is a relief to know you maintain your manners even in a place as base as this." The corner of Longstep Beryl's shrewd and tired-looking eyes wrinkled in a way that lent him an air of kindliness, though his tone left no doubt of what was coming next. "Now, it is time for you to come back. Your father may not admit it, but someone who has known him as long as I have can tell that he was worried sick by your departure."
Nash sighed. "May I at least take the time to collect my things and say a good-bye to the proprietor of this place? It would be rude for me to quit without telling him, so he could at least make arrangements to hire another assistant."
Beryl frowned. "That is acceptable," he said, obviously considering it only barely so. "But do not bother collecting all of your things - we can simply replace whatever you need back at the estate, and I will accompany you. I apologize that it shows a lack of trust, but at this point, I assume you'll understand."
"Of course," Nash said, his false smile strained. "Come in, Old Longstep. The owner is in the gym room, and then I can grab my things."
The walk was mercifully short, even with Old Longstep's signature hobbling gait; even so, it was still awkward, as there were perhaps no other ways the walk could be.
He isn't using any Aether right now, Nash noted. Soon, they had reached the gym room, where Old Man Looking-In stood, giving the floor one last sweep with a cheap, slightly bent and well-dented hollow aluminum-handled broom. At the two sets of footsteps, he looked up and smiled knowingly. "Ah, I assume that the class has not actually arrived yet? Young Greenstone, who is this and to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Beryl, this is Old Man Looking-In. Old Man Looking-In, this is Beryl 'Longstep,' a retainer of my family, the Emeralds." Nash smiled and gave a curt bow. "I thank you for the housing and food you have kindly provided over the past few days, but it does seem that my family has caught up to me, and I cannot stay any longer. My apologies."
"Oh, do not bother with the apologies - I had predicted something like this would happen, though I did assume it would occur later." Rigel leaned the beat-up broom against the wall and walked towards the two Emeralds, clasping Nash's hand in both of his own. Nash pushed down the revulsion when a minuscule eye-stalked vine, occluded from Beryl's sight, emerged and placed something it had wrapped itself around into his palm. "It was quite invigorating to have a talented youngster in here to help teach the classes, but I understand you must leave soon. I am guessing that you still must grab your belongings before you can go?"
"Yes," Nash said, slipping whatever he had been given into a pocket when the old man's hands withdrew. Nash nodded, and Rigel turned towards Beryl, reaching out his hands to clasp Beryl's as he had Nash's. Beryl wrinkled his nose at the offered hand-shake, and Rigel put his hands back by his sides.
"Young Greenstone here has been a pleasure to work with," Rigel said, seemingly unbothered by the obvious disdain Beryl held for him. "I simply must thank you and anybody else that was involved in the raising of such a dutiful young man," he said, motioning them with his hands, leading them towards the guest room Nash had been staying in. He stopped in front of the door. "Here is where he has been staying."
"Thank you," Beryl said with a mock friendliness, strained near to the breaking point. "The Young Master can collect his things and then we will leave."
Nash walked into the room and began collecting things from every corner, shoving them all into a small backpack. The clothes he ignored, alongside Rigel's continued attempts to make conversation with Beryl, and anything that wouldn't fit in the bag immediately. He had just zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder when he turned towards the two of them, interrupting Rigel's attempt to invite Beryl to stay a bit longer to have some tea.
"Rigel, I would like to thank you for letting me live here for the past few days and for your advice. Longstep, thank you for letting me grab my things - I'll need them on the road."
Beryl's eyes widened. "Wait, what do you -"
Nash dipped into the Aether and jumped through the wall, landing on the other side already in a run.