Chapter 140: Distant Thoughts and Small Secrets
On the last day of the festival, the team was surprised with an unannounced visit from everyone favorite punching-bag diamond ranker, Sezan Aciano, and his lovely wife, Luciana Aciano.
“Nice place,” he mused as he settled into the covered patio of the nebula house, guided in by Sage, not that he needed directions. His diamond rank senses easily punctured the privacy protections of a bronze rank artifact, impressive as they were for their rank.
She turned to Encio, “You didn’t say he was visiting.”
“I did say I was his favorite grandson, of course he visits me. Unless you think the only occasion he will visit is to look for my missing teammate?”
“Fair enough.” She turned to Sezan, “Did you get Encio’s permission?”
Sezan scoffed, “I don’t need my grandson’s permission to visit him. I’m a diamond ranker!”
“Yes dear,” Luciana, his wife, said, patting him arm gently. “We all know that you’re a diamond ranker.”
“So? What are you here for?” Nara asked.
Fragrant silver leaf tea had been served to the group in ceramic cups with stark vein accents much like the Japanese art of Kintsugi. Nara liked their irregular yet beautiful appearance. She had nothing against mass produced goods as a former reluctant lower middle-class captive of globalization and capitalism, but she may as well fund her hobbies now that she can afford them.
“Do you have to say it like I’m an unwelcome guest?” Sezan pouted good naturedly, and he made himself comfortable.
“No Sezan, you’re always welcome in my home. You as well, Luciana.”
“We’re thankful.” She smiled with the composure of an adult that Sezan sometimes lacked.
Sezan leaned back into the comfortable cloud chair, the softness easing his grumble into a content sigh. “I’ve been invited to Sanshi’s end of the year banquet.”
“This isn’t exactly your stomping grounds, why did they invite you?”
“Since Sezan participated in the Advent rescue, it was sufficient excuse to as least send him an invitation without seeming senseless,” Encio explained. “One does not just go around and invite diamond rankers,” he said with the grandeur of a famous quote.
“Sanshi may be of relatively low importance now,” Sezan explained, “but the rest of the adventuring world is realizing the value of low magic zones for adventurer training.”
“That isn’t how its usually done?”
“The population centers of this world are in high magic zones,” Encio said. “It requires significant travel that iron rankers don’t have easy access to in order to train in lower magic zones, so usually a silver ranker accompanies them on their low rank contracts.”
“They get chaperoned on their monster killing contracts?”
“Those that know better send their younger generations to places like Sanshi, where they can get valuable experience managing themselves. It’s not that those with protection aren’t well-trained or resolute but have less experience when contracts go wrong. They end up surviving iron and bronze rank but get overconfident with their durability at silver rank. Now that they don’t have someone watching their back, that when things go wrong.”
“We had Ranshi chaperoning us for Siyu. It can’t be that different.”
“It’s not a significant difference,” Encio agreed. “But having your only true risk in mirage chamber scenarios curtails your ability to evaluate genuine risk. Genuine risk may be rare at silver rank, but that’s when you need that sense to push through.” Silver rank was impressive and solidified your position in society, but gold rank was the foundation of powerful families and guilds, of which reputation and power was built upon.
“The De Luca school has been shifting their approach to essence user education,” Luciana explained. “It’s in both Sanshi’s and the De Luca’s interests to collaborate. It won’t be a direct proposition, but we’ll likely see indirect discussion of Sanshi’s development plans. If I like what I see, I’ll pass on the information to my son-in-law.”
“The De Luca school offers both political power, resources, and specialty classes, like politics,” Encio said. “For those that reach silver rank in Sanshi, it becomes an increasingly necessary skill to navigate high society. How to know when someone is trying to manipulate your actions, and how to get around that or when to work together to further your interests. It’s not something everyone can understand, but if I least one team member does, it’s an advantage.”
“As Sanshi grows, the city will start to feel external political pressures as other regions realize that low magic zones have something to offer. The backing of a—” she glanced at Sezan teasingly, “—diamond ranker through the De Luca stymies any blatant force.”
“So, they’ll try to appeal to you by showing off their developmental plans for the city at the banquet, and they’re using Sezan’s involvement in the rescue of the researchers, as well as Encio’s presence in the city, as a pretext?”
“Exactly,” said Sezan, waggling his fingers. “So, do you want to come along? Might be fun.”
“You say that like politics and upper management meetings aren’t anything but hours of soul draining boredom that’d kill what little internal spark I possess.”
“The food will be spectacular. Sanshi’s best cooks, the who’ve conquered adversity and competition in order to win the right to cook a meal for a diamond ranker.”
“You’re going,” Chrome added, resolutely stating his piece.
“No. Don’t you already have Nolan and Laius for that? What do you need a banquet for?”
Thanatos barked.
“No!”
“…Some of Sanshi’s rarest alcohol, aging for centuries…”
“We can age food with magic! That isn’t that impressive!”
“…the rarest ingredients and impeccably prepared dishes to a backdrop of Sanshi’s highest caliber of musicians…”
Nara narrowed her eyes and grumbled. “Musicians and food? That’s tempting. But why invite me?”
“It was my idea,” Encio said. “Don’t you want to show your family all that you can? This may be the only chance you have to attend a banquet with the prestige of a diamond ranker. How about looking down at society from the loftiest of peaks, for fun?”
“For fun?”
“For fun,” he repeated, grinning.
So he was being a good friend, Nara realized.
“Alright,” Nara relented, having lost the argument before it even began. “Why not? Let’s get fancy.”
*****
Nara stepped out into a palatial garden from Sezan’s portal. According to her map, the location was the Three River Palace, located at the west edge of the city. There was no royal family, so it was not a palace for royalty. Rather, it was an event palace for hosting large occasions such as this banquet. When it was not reserved, the gardens were open to the public, although it was a bit too removed for anything but a day trip.
As they made their way through the gardens, they entered a large banquet pavilion. The building was shaped as three circles intersecting at their center, like a triune of rings. The middle of the banquet was a large open space for conversation, dances, and performances. It was in the shape of a rounded equilateral triangle, a geometric result of the intersecting circles. Banquet tables were set up in each portion of the circle, with the most important guests and families sitting towards the center.
Nara spotted a few other familiar faces.
The Arlang family was together with Aliyah, Eufemia, and John.
“They were all going the entire time? I feel betrayed. Especially John, he doesn’t seem the type.”
John was wearing a well-tailored suit. Something like suits were formal Rowan fashion, and the style John had chosen as his representative fashion. The suit wasn’t the same as Earth’s, but they were close enough in purpose and construction that it translated the same to the outworlders. John’s suit had a long overcoat and more embroidered flourishes than he’d find in Earth’s modern fashion, making him look a bit Edwardian, except with less tweed, no ties, no vests, and silkier fabric. He was excitedly snapping photos with his magic camera of the venue, like an event photographer with no particular subject. Nara was running a recording crystal instead.
“Everyone else doesn’t have to be coaxed into attending a party,” Encio countered.
“This isn’t just a party it’s practically a ball!”
“The Arlang group didn’t have enough room for the entire party, so the two of us are going on my grandfather’s authority.”
“Shouldn’t Sen’s sister be here or something?”
“This is Sen’s first year in Sanshi, so he had first claim to admission. His sister has already attended before. You should learn from him; it’s good to broaden your perspective. Not just of ordinary culture, but what it’s like at the top. You have an odd distaste of the rich.”
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“The rich are parasites of the working class.”
“In your world.” Encio pointed out.
“And it’s not the same here?”
“Who do you think are fighting the monsters? The poor? They can’t afford essences.”
That gave Nara pause. Erras was odd—or perhaps, her world without magic was the odd one. The rich bought essences, and essence users fought monsters. Not all did, but only those that fought monsters were the strongest, the most powerful, and therefore the richest. If you let a bunch of civilians die from neglect, either you get forcefully removed from your position with death or pressured resignation, or you stop having a population to lord over.
“Huh.” There were systemic issues like only the middle or upper class being able to afford essences in the first place, but he had a hair of a point.
“It’s not as if there are corrupt nobles and essence users,” Enio mediated. “But if you’re found running away in a genuine crisis to hide in a fortress without providing any sort of aid that’s the quickest way to lose all political clout, get your adventure society membership revoked, get imprisoned and punished, and become a relic of the past.”
“Especially since you all resolve certain disagreements with duels.”
Encio grinned, “A coward isn’t winning any duels. A well-matched duel is good for both competitors reputations. Feel free to challenge anyone who insults you.”
“To a deathmatch?”
“Deathmatch or mirage duel: your choice. I recommend the former.”
Nara raised an eyebrow doubtfully, “You’re gods-damn deadly, Encio. Do you want to kill your opponent?”
“It helps to have a…reputation,” said Encio confidently. “Most back out.”
It was very like Encio to win without making a single move.
*****
Malik’s eyes widened when he saw Nara walk in with House Aciano.
“Brother, isn’t that the girl who rejected you?” Cira, his youngest sister, said. She had obsidian black hair and black eyes, inherited from their black haired runic father, Zhaohai Fenhu, although hers had the characteristic celestine sheen inherited from their mother, Edira.
“How do you know that?” He hissed back, clamping his hand over her blabbermouth.
She grinned as she wrestled his hand back—he was higher rank than her, but Malik wasn’t going to use bronze rank strength with his younger sister, even if she annoyed him like a woodpecker at 5 am.
“I’m not telling.”
“Did Aina tell you?”
“Not telling.”
“Dammit, Aina.”
“I don’t need Aina to tell me, brother. You started looking like a kicked puppy the moment she walked in.”
“I do not look like a kicked puppy.”
“I won’t argue with you, brother. You are what you are: rejected. So?”
“So what?”
“Why’d she reject you?”
“Who says she rejected me?”
“You did, brother. Try to keep up?”
He sighed. He watched as she crossed the venue and sat down at the Aciano’s specially prepared table. She was wearing a white robe with a crossed collar of the Sanshi formal martial arts style, looking like a sword dancer from a land of snow. The outer layer was light and breezy, delicate like tulle with heavier layers of silver silk underneath.
Cira pinched him.
“Ow! Stop that.”
“That didn’t hurt. You’re bronze rank, brother. Remember?”
He glared at her. “What is it?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“…She said I was too young,” he reluctantly admitted. If he didn’t respond, Cira would not stop pestering him the entire night. He was trapped here beside her. His older brothers Kaisen and Fuzheng looked away guiltily, aware that they had strung their younger brother out to dry with their nosy, persistent, youngest sister. Better his failed love life than theirs.
“She’s not dating the Aciano, is she?” Cira said, her eyes on the group in question. Sezan winked at her, and she turned away with an embarrassed flush, suddenly aware she had been caught staring at a diamond ranker. So his sister still had some shame!
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“He is closer in age,” Cira emphasized. “Last I remember from The Familiar’s Tidings, I think he’s…25 now.”
“Cira stop teasing your brother,” Malik’s mother chided.
She was the most famous ruby celestine in Sanshi. Eufemia’s hair was a dark, deep violet red. Edira, in turn, had scarlet hair and eyes that gleamed with the light of a burning sunset, as close to on-fire as a celestine could have without actually having fire for hair. Ironically, she was the one who had married into the family known for their fire. Zhaohai, her husband, only had glowing blood red eyes and runes that contrasted his black hair; the charcoal remnants to a once burning fire, instead of fire itself.
“Zhaohai,” she shook his arm. “Our darling youngest son is re-experiencing his first heartbreak.”
“Which one?”
“That one, in the white with the Acianos.”
“Hm. Outworlder? How unusual.”
His curiosity returned him a gentle disproving aura nudge from Sezan, so he stopped probing the bronze rankers at the table. Zhaohai was gold rank, and the current head of the Fenhu because of it. He wasn’t going to push further against a diamond ranker; he knew his limits. And the diamond ranker in question was one Sanshi wanted in good graces. It wasn’t as if he poked him, but he was aware many were in awe of a diamond ranker, and might get overzealous with his companions. They wouldn’t probe Sezan, so they shifted their attention. Sezan was pushing them all away, giving stern aura warnings to the ones that deserved it. Some of the rudest and mentally weakest passed out, heads thudding onto banquet tables in quiet clatters. They were quickly carried away out of the banquet hall by attendants and whisked away from Sezan’s ire. Sanshi would need to clean up their backwater tendencies; Diamond rankers were just myths and legends, and some had their hands stuck too far up the honey pot to realize they should’ve left it to the bear.
Sezan Aciano was the highest ranker here. A diamond ranker was almost never seen in Sanshi. He kept his aura at an appropriate level of authority; powerful and commanding but clearly reserved for his rank. It enveloped the massive celebration hall with ease, and asserted his rank as above everyone else here. No matter who else showed up, lest it be another diamond ranker, he was the most important person in the room. That was part of the aura etiquette of essence users. In public political settings, it was to let your position be evident through your aura. Otherwise, diamonds rankers kept their aura to themselves in casual, public settings.
If it was anybody else, he might have told his son about the virtue of not giving up, waiting out the few years, being respectfully persistent, and demonstrating his good qualities to win her over. It was what he had done with Edira, who had rejected him many times. She hadn’t believed that he didn’t want to tie her down and ‘tame’ her as many others foolhardy suitors had. Motherhood suited her, as fighting, adventuring, and calligraphy all equally did. She was a fiery woman and he wanted to be the coals that fueled her fire. Together, they were a phoenix fire furnace.
Zhaohai concluded that Malik’s first crush was a lost cause. He just shook his head and kept silent. It’s a shame, the Fenhu often pursued inventors, and she was one. The Fenhu kept their eyes on innovation’s edge. Mayber they could collaborate on a business opportunity instead. For a teaching moment, it would have to be the next time.
“Mother, please stop.” He pinched his sister back, “Look what you’ve done,” he hissed to her.
“You’re all grown up and you don’t want to tell your mother about these things?” she sighed. “The children grow up so fast. I feel unneeded.” She sniffed.
“Mother!” he objected, face flaming.
Zhaohai cleared his throat, adding supportively, “I could give you advice, next time.”
Malik sighed and buried his face in his hands, just wanting the banquet to end.
*****
Nara got a front row seat to the frustrations of Sen and Malik’s heritage. The formation of Sen’s team was not widely known, and Malik’s team was still missing members, so both were approached by various lower nobles appealing to the two with varying methods. Nara recalled her own interviews applying for positions at various companies and felt a kinship to these hopefuls, but understood the annoyance of unsolicited appeals. Average as she was, with baggy sweatpants and an old tee, she’d even gotten a few unimpressive solicitations while grocery shopping.
No one was impudent enough to approach a diamond ranker’s table without an invitation, and Sezan’s aura kept it that way. Diamond rankers were on par with the gods of this world in reverence (at least to normal rankers), and as Encio promised, Nara caught a glimpse of his lofty view.
Sezan’s table was set up on a raised sort of 1.5th floor of the banquet hall, and it was the only table there. The Aciano table wasn’t front and center, but rather towards the wall, where they had privacy and a clear view to the center of the dining hall, where performers were dancing a traditional sword dance, at times moving with power, and at times with flowing grace. A single bronze ranker was their attendant; he was the head steward. He’d communicate whatever Sezan wanted to others, without the discourtesy of additional people. He stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to their raised table, not daring to step to Sezan’s level, literally. If Sezan wanted him, he would let him know.
It seemed a bit of a waste for a bronze ranker to be a steward especially in Sanshi were bronze rank was important, but not everyone wanted to be an adventurer. Nara could tell he was a core user from the telltale mark of monster core contamination within his aura. Core users usually suffered in skill, but this steward had impeccable aura control. Sloppy aura control was annoying to all aura users around them, since it felt like they were all being flashed by an unintentional nudist.
There was a privacy screen for both vision and speech set up around the raised stage for Sezan. People couldn’t so much as gaze upon his visage without his explicit permission. Nara was a bit too used to seeing the cast-in-bronze ocean god of a man, and didn’t see it as some sort of huge honor. If she brought it up, she’d no doubt be treated to a dollop of Aciano smugness.
It was no wonder that Amara and the others retreated from society. Sezan was obliging, polite, humorous, and relatively public for his rank, but most diamond rankers were reclusive, or went incognito in public. There were ones that enjoyed the pomp and attention however, or at least grander purpose, or there wouldn’t be diamond ranked kings.
The celebration had more formality than normal. In situations where diamond rankers were needed, which no one wanted to happen since that was a disaster, they was far less pretense and performance, but the reverence lower rankers held towards diamond rankers was no less.
Nara did know that the four were diamond rankers (or at least very strongly suspected); there were several clues which elucidated her to their little secret. Sezan and Wisteria’s reaction to laxo nuts, which Nara found out later only grew in very high rank magic zones. Chelsea and Amara’s flirting fights casually annihilated high rank jungles (which they later studiously repaired). The topic of Redell’s research was incredibly restricted, although it was likely a gold ranker would be trusted with it too. Amara’s own research was literally creating matter from energy—Nara knew enough astral magic to know how difficult that was without an essence ability to do it for you.
Diamond rankers were also so fabulously rich that money itself was meaningless. Diamond rankers couldn’t pay other diamond rankers, and neither could countries unless the amount was exorbitant. Most diamond rankers assisted in crisis free-of-charge since money had lost all meaning, and others couldn’t afford an amount that had meaning. What they traded instead was in favors, restrictions, exotic curios, and artifacts. (And occasionally rare essences and awakening stones, if a diamond ranker had a favorite grandson approaching the age to start their essence journey.)
The cloud flask was a famous example, but the portable portal Chelsea could make was no doubt another. Portal abilities were extremely valuable, and an artifact that let a diamond ranker portal where they had no inherent ability to do so was even more so. Nara couldn’t even comprehend the magical mastery required to make a physical portal object that could manifest in two locations at once, then be retrieved and restored from either location; Chelsea was no slouch at astral magic herself.
Lastly, she had, in some ways, known from the very beginning, before she even had the concept of diamond rank. When ritualist make a ritual, they usually write in a trigger condition for the ritual. Rituals could activate automatically on completion if there was enough ambient magic, but most ritualist had the ritual activate with a small input of personal mana. That was the ritual construction standard to prevent mishaps and misfiring. All sorts of trigger conditions could be written, or not written, into rituals, but there was nothing wrong with the established standard, and Amara had followed that standard in the ritual Nara had hijacked.
Amara’s magic was diamond rank because she was diamond rank. She could power down her magic to a lower rank, but she couldn’t change it’s inherent quality, in the same way that Nara looted diamond rank coins from the True Mimic’s iron rank illusory duplication. However, she had only learnt what she felt was diamond rank magic after she learnt Sezan’s rank.
Chrome knew from the very beginning but said nothing. Nara too, would say nothing. Nara was bad at keeping secrets; she let small adjacent facts slip, and she had a hard time keeping track of what shouldn’t and should be said. Anyone sufficiently perceptive or deductive would realize, as Sezan had realized from the laxo nuts, and they were all playing one big game of look away and pretend.
The only thing Nara could do was to continually insist they were gold rank, even in her own mind. Since she was used to referring to them as gold rank in her mind, she did so with her words as well. She let herself forget that they were diamond rank, shoving the fact back into the dusty attic of distant thoughts.