Chapter 12: Easy to Impress
“This is my experiment workshop.”
After Nara’s first bout of parkour training, Amara led Nara into another building on the compound, which was close in proximity to the ritual workshop.
It had similar freestanding tools and long workbenches to the ritual workshop, but it did have many more tools than the ritual workshop. Crystal drawing boards formed a semicircle on the far side of the room, covered in neat notes, diagrams, and equations. Bookshelves lined the far end of the room, away from the workbenches. As Nara gazed past their titles, they were automatically recorded in her Archive. She picked out a few of the titles: Fundamentals of Artifice, Elemental Materials and their Enhancement Effects, Common Materials and their Uncommon Uses, Advanced Astral Magic Theory, and Utilizing Ambient Magic to Reduce Ritual Costs.
Nara absentmindedly thought that she was turning into a library. Her mind couldn’t remember it all, but she now had her soul’s ability to do it for her. She’d still need to read the books—they hadn’t been downloaded into her mind like the skill book. They were just there in her mental library, waiting to be checked out when she had the time or the ability to understand them.
Nara was aware the capabilities of her Guide seemed extreme, even for magic, but she wondered if it’s capabilities had been in part enhanced by another racial ability of hers, the Astral Domain, formerly known as the holorealm. She had a ‘realm’ of sorts that could store not only physical objects and herself, but also information, and her Guide appeared to integrate that function.
“The ritual workshop is intended for general use,” Amara said as she showed Nara around the workshop. “Many crafts require rituals, and not just my experiments. If I didn’t have my own workshop, I would constantly occupy the shared ritual workshop.”
The two moved to sit in comfortable chairs next to the bookshelves.
“My Guide ability has this Archive function,” Nara explained. “Pretty much anything I set eyes upon has an entry in my Archive, if I can recognize it as an object. Doesn’t work on things like the water and air, for example, but it would for a bottle of water, and the mana potion Laius gave me. And some other things have identification blocking I can’t see. I’ve noticed, as part of the Record that’s recorded, it includes a blueprint for the object. I can’t create anything beyond my rank, and even the blueprint isn’t enough for me to replicate it for reality. But maybe you can make use of it. How do you adjust the ritual for what material you are trying to create?”
“I use devices and rituals to analyze the item in question, then start a trial and error process where I gradually adjust the ritual to produce the item,” Amara said. “If the ritual isn’t perfect, all that’s produced is rainbow smoke.”
“Rainbow smoke?”
“When magical material dematerializes, it forms rainbow smoke. After you kill a monster for the first time, you’ll experience it.”
She didn’t like how Amara said that: experience.
“Monsters are made of magic?”
“There one of the phenomena of magical manifestations, alongside essences, awakening stones, and quintessence.” Amara next words were laughing, as if she knew Nara would be unable to follow it, “I’ll advise you now—do not smell the smoke.”
“I won’t say you didn’t warn me.”
Amara handed Nara a stone material. It was crystalline and refractory, sending prismatic light across the room as it was illuminated by light. The thin crystals grew in a spiral shape, like a succulent plant following the Fibonacci sequence.
-------
Item: [Prismatic Quartz] (bronze rank, epic)
Classification: Material, mineral
A sparkling quartz with refractive properties. Often used as a crafting or ritual material.
-[Record] of [Prismatic Quartz] has been added to the [Archive].
-------
“This is one of those rare materials you mentions?”
“It is. You have the blueprint now?”
“I do.”
Nara called up the entry in her Archive for the Prismatic Quartz. Her Archive was sorted by classifications—Objects, Equipment, Books, Rituals, and others. She could change the organization with just a thought, or recall whatever she actively thought about. It was her own database, designed by a hand much more adept at user-interfaces and readability than she was. She wondered if that was a reflection of the instinctual nature of magic.
“The blueprint comes in many different forms,” Nara explained, learning about her own ability as she demonstrated it for Amara. “There’s this one, which looks like a ritual circle.” She displayed the circle to Amara. “…and this one, which I can’t really read, even with my translation ability. The final one is more like a structural blueprint.”
It was some sort of symbolic language. When she tried to read it, her vision began to blur, and her head pounded. It felt like she was accessing knowledge she wasn’t equipped to handle, and something she shouldn’t be seeing. If magic was telling her through a magic-induced migraine that she wasn’t ready for the Lovecraftian rune recipe, she was going to listen. She moved on from the rune-based blueprint as quickly as possible, although Amara herself had seemed unphased, indicative of her high level of knowledge and capability.
The last version was physical and scientific. It was a combination of physical and chemical structure diagrams. The three blueprints reflected magic, science, and one other thing that Nara didn’t yet understand.
The available blueprints were likely a result of her own experiences. She had encountered ritual magic before, and she’d seen structural blueprints of a variety of types—chemical, architectural, engineering, machining, and so on. She couldn’t effectively leverage what her ability provided for her, but maybe Amara could.
“This final one is based on information from your world?”
“That’d appear to be the case, but I have no idea how it handles the magic component of magic materials. Maybe all three blueprints need to be used simultaneously, or maybe they all contain the full information but in different digestible forms.”
Amara stared thoughtfully at the three screens before her. If she felt the same nauseating reaction at the second, symbolic blueprint, she made no show of it, nor mentioned it. She walked back to her worktables, and picked up a small crystal. The crystal levitated in her hand, then emitted three weak bursts of magic and light.
“This is an image crystal,” Amara explained. “We can use it to capture the image of something, then reproduce it onto another material, such as paper. Not as easy controllable as the equivalent ability, however. I’ll need to alter and trim the images to fit my purposes.”
Amara let Nara inspect a few more magical materials, ranging from normal rank to gold rank.
“Crafters can usually work with a tier above them,” Amara explained as they progressed through materials. “Silver rank is considered the wall of progress, where the time it takes to reach the next rank, gold, is exponentially longer than the previous two ranks. High rank crafting abilities would provide a welcome challenge to push abilities further, faster. For an adventurer, they do the same, fighting monsters a rank above them.”
Nara had read her fair share of cultivation novels thanks to her mixed heritage, so this was a concept she understood well. Progress becomes more difficult the further you are along towards each rank, with the most noticeable decrease in progress a little before the halfway mark, then further decrease towards the next ceiling.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Fighting the next stage of enemy while beneath them, such as from Body Refining to Golden Core, was a common trope in martial arts cultivation fiction. That this was her new reality was a bit harder to grasp. She was learning fast thanks to a stimulant shot of knowledge straight into her soul, but she was just barely scratching the surface of normal human capability. Fighting monsters was still the stuff of fiction.
Amara sensed Nara’s apprehension over the mention of monsters once again.
She smiled warmly, “But that is a ways away for you. Do not fret.”
*****
After her discussion with Amara, Nara met with Redell outside, sitting in on the grass next to a shady gazebo.
She found that she liked to spend time outside, a new development for someone who was a couch warmer. It wasn’t that she ever disliked nature, but that she disliked driving to it in the vast blacktop jungle purgatory that America had constructed for itself. Combined with her long meandering through unreality, the sensation of nature brought her great comfort. It grounded her.
“You say I’ve been speaking weird?” Nara asked curiously, “What does that even mean?”
“You are speaking with your soul,” Redell said, “Which is bound to grab attention from those that can tell.” His eyes seem to grasp more than just what her expression showed, “I’m guessing you don’t want to stand out?”
“I’ve never been one for the limelight. Aside from the occasional talent show in high school. Never one to win first prize; I’m not cut from that premier cloth.”
His brows scrunched in thought as Nara’s translation ability did its best to communicate her meaning.
“It is something I’d like to discuss with you later, for a personal project, but first, let us try to remedy your method of speaking.”
“If I don’t have internal organs and such, how am I supposed to speak? Other than…” she gestured to herself in confusion, “Whatever I’m doing now?”
“You use magic, like everyone else,” Redell said. “Like all of us here at the compound. Now, try to sense the magic within you. You should have an intrinsic sense of it. Ever since you’ve absorbed your essences, you’ve fundamentally changed into an intrinsically magical being.”
Nara did her best, focusing her senses. It was there, that same, energizing energy within her body. She could feel a tiny but steady trickle of it provided to her from beyond reality, as Redell had mentioned previously. The barest trickle was also consumed by her body to maintain its function—life.
“Your body already automatically utilizes mana to preserve itself,” Redell explained. “All you need to do is use that mana for another function—to speak. The ability to speak has been reconstructed as a part of your body to match the abilities your soul thinks you should have. You should be able to do it, vocal chords or otherwise,” he said, tapping on his throat in a reminder to her that he had none for himself.
“Isn’t that going to increase consumption? Like how running increases calorie consumption?”
“Calorie...? I’m not quite sure what you mean but it does increase the rate of mana consumption. Compared to magic abilities and the magic that sustains the life of your body, the magic required to speak is but a droplet in a massive sea. Right now, you are using your soul as a medium to speak. There is a time and a place for that, but not for ordinary words.”
“For ordinary words, we use ordinary magic?” Nara said, in internal wonder over the absurdity of the statement. Since when has magic ever been ordinary?
“That’s right,” Redell said, his eyes glittering with amusement, “Even if you aren’t convinced that magic is ordinary.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Can you read my mind?”
“Nobody can read minds, dear,” Redell said. “You just aren’t particularly hard to read.”
“I was told once that I had an expressionless face,” Nara said, bringing her hands up to touch her expression, “You don’t think so?’
“I think are very expressive with those you are comfortable around.”
“After just a single day? I’m damn easy.” Nara said, exaggeratedly sighing with a mournful expression.
“Now, now. Let’s focus. Give it your best attempt.”
After a while, their practice session ending. Nara didn’t think that she’d have speech lessons in another world at her age, but here she was.
“You’ve gotten the hang of it quite quickly.” Redell remarked. “But you tend to slip into soul-speak when you lose focus.”
“We’re calling it soul-speak?”
“Unsatisfied? I can try to think of another name. I make no guarantees on an improvement. Hm…something already comes to mind…”
Nara recalled his incessant suggestions of puns for her own name.
“No…soul-speak is fine.
“Are you sure? I think I have some other ideas—”
“I insist. I like it. So, what was that personal project you mentioned about? Amara spoke to me a bit about hers,” Nara said, quickly changing the topic before he could suggest something like ego evocation or mystic musing.
“I’m a bit of a musician,” Redell said, starting off his explanation by conjuring an instrument within his hands. It looked a bit like a guitar, but the sound was deeper and more resonating. The tuning pegs at the head of the guitar were not there, instead replaced with small, flat disks at the top of the strings. The strings were made of a clear, gleaming material, like diamonds pulled into a flexible string. He strummed the almost-guitar a few times, then touched the buttons to tune it with routine familiarity.
“What does that have to do with souls-speak?” Nara asked.
“I hope to use music as a medium to communicate with the soul,” Redell said.
“What for?”
“You have not encountered them yet, but there are an array of afflictions and unusual circumstances that can affect the soul. For mental healing and soul trauma, but also for more malevolent forces. If the soul can be communed with, more directly, then it may be another path forward to treating these conditions. You do present an interesting subject, as one that has spent more time as a soul in the astral, than as a person in physical reality.”
Redell played a soothing song on his guitar, both uplifting and relaxing. It was full of the joy for life that he himself embodied, rich and hopeful.
“I’ve always romanticized that music can touch the soul. Maybe, I can make that a bit more literal than figurative.”
“One other thing, Redell,” Nara said, interrupting her practice with a question for the gentle giant.
“What is it?”
“Do you have an instrument I could learn to play? I have the feeling that I used to play an instrument myself. I can’t remember what specific one, and the instruments of my world and this one aren’t the same anyway.”
Redell grinned, “I am graced with the birth of a new musician. I have to say I’m honored.”
“I’m hardly a new musician if I was one previously.”
“The impetus of a new era of musical learning. Re-embracing a joy once thought lost,” He wiped a dramatic fake tear from an eye. “It stirs my heart of passion.”
“Redell…”
He held is hands up impishly. One by one, he conjured up different instruments. He played a short song on each, demonstrating the technique to play and to give Nara a sense of their musical timbre.
“Go on and try them all. See which one calls out to you.”
She did, picking up a few to blow, buzz, strum, pick, tap, press, bow, and pluck. Some were too large and unwieldy, others too simplistic for her taste. She finally found an instrument that did call out to her, a lute of rich wood, lacquered dark green. It was detailed with trees, leaves, moss, and vines in swirling delicate gold designs. It conjured images of a deep, shaded forest in summer, like the awe-inspiring and storied redwood forest, their size evidence of ages past. The musical instruments in Redell’s possession were awfully elaborate; they were all custom pieces.
“The lute, that’s a nice choice,” Redell nodded. “I recall my own day of traveling. Breaking out in song with strangers on the road. Once you enjoy a song together, strangers become friends.”
“This is your lute? I don’t want to take something full of memories.” Nara said, pushing the lute back towards Redell.
He laughed, merry and hearty.
“Every one of these is an old instrument of mine.”
“You’ve learnt all of them?” Nara said with surprise.
“One of the many benefits of ranking up is an extended lifespan,” Redell said. “I could not choose just one to master, so I mastered them all.”
“Or, jack of all trades, master of none?”
“You aren’t yet convinced? I’ll do my best to change your mind so much so that you may grow sick of me.”
“I was convinced long ago. I’m easy to impress.”
*****
With a moment to herself, Nara recalled that she had received another item on top of Nirvana, her new trusty shapeshifting weapon. It was the second item The Reaper had given her, a plaque that fit within her palm.
-------
Item: [Astral Boundary Gate] (transcendent rank, unavailable)
Classification: ???, Consumable
Effect: Interfere with the boundary between reality and the astral on a single world by accessing a realm with a gate that manifests the properties of this dimensional divide.
???
Uses: 1/1
-[Use? Y/N]
-------
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?”
She roughly, sort of, understood what the plaque did, in the same way someone could describe satellite communication and she’d understand the phenomena but not it’s underlying fundamentals.
The Reaper had said that The Weaver of Dreams had overstepped its authority. Her memories of the astral were fuzzy, as if looking through frosted windows, but she did remember that conversation. It was one of the few she had had with a real person.
The impulsive push-buttons-and-see-what-happens part of her was tempted to immediately use it, but she suspected it was intended for Earth, and not for Erras. What world she arrived in was up to chance; the only constant was that she was from Earth, unless those beings somehow knew what world she’d end up in. However, she didn’t put precognition and clairvoyance beyond magical beings of indeterminate and immeasurable power.
It seemed this was one of those end-game items that heroes received at the start of their journey, unaware of how it’d be used until the very end. She didn’t want Earth to be Endgame; they already had a movie for that.
That did mean that there was an expectation by others that she would return to Earth, somehow. At the very least, that expectation was reassuring. If they expected it, they could have at least provided her with a way back. Was that too small of an issue for great being to care for? She had to work up her own transportation? Least they could do is reimburse her, but maybe that’s what Nirvana was. Her…compensation.
“I didn’t want to go back to Earth immediately now that I’m here on a god damn magical world, but if I could call an interdimensional Uber when I’m ready that would have been nice. Too convenient for you lot? I suppose you can’t be at my beck and call, the puny, formerly nameless wandering soul.”
She took one final look at the plaque. It had an imposing heft to it—it felt important.
“This is a plot point for later then,” she said. She stowed the plaque. If she kept looking at it, she’d be too tempted to use it just to see what it did.