Chapter 5: A New Purpose
After Redell, the healer within the four, gave her an okay from her checkup, she headed unsteadily downstairs, supported by his large, muscular arm. Her steps were like a baby lamb, trembling and unsure.
She wasn’t so much walking as lifted just above the floor by his arms to that her feet could brush against it.
“I haven’t walked in a while you know.” She said.
“I know,” He said, “You also haven’t spoken in a while.”
“What are you talking about?” She said, her tone full of confusion. “I’m speaking now, aren’t I?”
“You’re using your soul to speak,” He said, “That isn’t the normal way to do it. Outworlders like you almost entirely reconstructed with magic do not have lungs nor vocal chords, so they use magic to speak, not their souls. We’ll have to teach you the normal way to speak, or it’ll stand out.”
“I don’t have lungs?” She said, pausing her trembling steps.
“Have you been breathing?”
She frowned, introspectively inspecting herself for the sensation of air passing though her new nose.
“No?”
“Your body is entirely magic,” Redell said, “About as magic as it can be, without becoming a magical race.” Her confusion prompted an addendum, “I’ll explain more later. For now, your body doesn’t need to breath. You’ll still need to eat and drink, at least for a while. Although, in your particular circumstance, that is unnecessary as well.”
“It’s unnecessary?”
“Your soul seems to have some sort of connection to the astral, funneling a steady stream of magic to your body,” He explained, as he recalled the results of her diagnostic exam, “That sustains all of your now magic body functions, without needing to consume external sources to maintain them.”
“I like to eat though,” she said, “I don’t want to stop. I don’t know what I’ll do without ice cream, sushi, curry, or pasta. You have ice cream, right?”
He laughed heartily, “None of us here need to eat. But we do it for fun! Why do you think we’re going to breakfast right now?”
The panther man following behind her, Laius, said in a soft, resolute tone, as if declaring an ultimatum, “Life without food is meaningless.”
“Laius here is the team cook,” He explained, “He wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Stimulation is good,” He said sternly, reaffirming his point like it of deathly import.
Downstairs, she saw another Laius in a kitchen, his panther-hands a shadowy-blur as he prepared a breakfast spread with superhuman speed.
“Eh?” She said, dumbfounded. “Wasn’t he just behind me?”
The Laius behind her smiled mischievously, and faded away in a black shadow.
“Right. Magic is real,” she said, “Magic is real…”
Redell looked at her curiously, “Didn’t you study advanced ritual magic for some time?”
“My original world had no magic,” she said, “At least, in any of the memories I remember. I’m still trying to resolve my old reality with this new one.”
Amara and Chelsea sat around a long dining table, waiting. The kitchen and dining area was a large, clear room on the bottom floor. The sides of the building were surrounded by large, safari style windows, opened up to let in fresh air, ruffling the drapes in the breeze. Hanging pots of ivy and ferns decorated the perimeter. Furniture was made of local wood in various colors, homely, but high quality. They were draped with bundles of cloth and soft cushions, lining the backs and seats comfortably.
“Chelsea made all the furniture,” Redell explained as he guided her to a seat at the dining table. “She a wood worker.”
“Among other talents,” she said, “Including ritual magic. I can’t leave Amara entirely to her own devices.”
“This wasn’t my fault this time,” Amara protested.
“This time,” Chelsea said, “I still haven’t forgotten the time you annihilated my favorite shirt because of your ritual blowback.” She narrowed her eyes, “That wasn’t intentional, was it?”
“Of course not, Chelsea. I’d never try to intentionally destroy your shirt to look at your chest.”
She leaned over, whispering to Redell, “Are they together?”
“They are,” Redell confirmed, “It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just how they flirt.”
Laius finished cooking quickly; food lifted by shadow clones of Laius to set the table with a delicious breakfast spread. Most of it was softer foods, probably to accommodate her. A gently spiced porridge, made of an oddly similar yet alien combination of grains. Soft fruits that seemed to melt like jellied honey under heat. Fruit juices with a creamy texture, as if it had been mixed with milk and cream. Toasted bread that seemed crunchy at first, but flaked away like the highest-quality buttery pastry. Juicy and tender slices of meat, fatty and soft.
She had thought she was the only one eating with vigor, but found the others doing the same, voraciously stuffing their mouths with Laius’ food.
“Compliments to the chef.” She said, holding a thumbs up between inhaling food. She had never felt so hungry in her life. She had been so deprived of physical sensation, that eating food felt like some sort of psychoactive drug, the flavors pinging and sparkling in her mind like flavor fireworks, like Remy from Ratatouille.
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The breakfast finished, the table spread completely cleared out, the barest of crumbs on any particular platter.
“I was thinking,” Amara said, breaking their post-breakfast coma, “That we should train her up. I haven’t had a student before. I’m a little interested.”
“More than a little interested, clearly,” Chelsea scoffed.
Amara grinned sheepishly.
“Train me?” She asked curiously, “For what?”
“Do you know how essence magic works?”
She shook her head. “I was only taught about external ritual magic and astral magic theory.”
Chelsea sighed, “Who knows if what you were taught even functions the same way in physical reality. Magic in a realm of magic, and magic in a realm of physical reality isn’t going to work in the same way.”
“Your circumstances are unusual,” Amara said, “and you’re clueless.”
“That’s true.”
She wasn’t going to be offended at something so blatantly true.
“You’ll need to get stronger to achieve your objective. Finding a way back home, was it? That sort of ritual magic is going to require a high rank, and you can’t cast that in physical reality without destroying yourself from the blow back of attempting something beyond your power.”
“A high rank?”
“Oh bother.” Chelsea said. “This is going to be a long explanation.”
They moved to a separate room. A low, comfortable wooden table, draped in lace that accentuated the wood craftsmanship without feeling matronly. Soft grey couches and chairs surrounded the table, completing the comfortable gathering space. A crystalline board appeared suddenly, like a standing whiteboard, but completely clear.
“Woah,” she said, “More magic.”
Chelsea sighed. “This is unimpressive compared to the ritual you used sort all of time and space for a tunnel to reality.”
“Chalk it up to a difference in experiences.”
Amara leaned forwards, pulling out a cube around 6 inches on all sides out of nowhere like some casual street magician and setting it down on the coffee table. The cube was a deep blue, air bubbles floating up to the top surface through water. It looked like someone had taken a cube of water from the ocean, and placed it in a fully transparent box. It looked stark and strange against the rest of reality, almost out of place. When she internally wondered what it was, a window appeared in front of her, explaining it for her.
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Item: [Water Essence] (unranked, common)
Classification: Essence, Consumable
Manifested essence of water
Requirements: Less than four absorbed essences
Effect: Imbues one awakened water essence ability and four unawakened water essence abilities
You have absorbed 0 of 4 essences.
Once absorbed, an essence cannot be relinquished or replaced.
You are able to absorb water essence.
[Absorb? Y/N]
[Record] of [Water Essence] has been added to the [Archive]
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“Eh. Eh? That was a lot of new stuff at once. Water Essence?”
“You know what this is?”
“No not at all. Some sort of weird window appeared, but it doesn’t explain much. Just ‘manifested essence of water’ whatever that is. It’s like a dictionary definition using the word to explain the word you looked up in the first place. How unhelpful.”
“I’ll explain,” Amara said, “This is one of forms of manifestations of magic in this world. Sometimes, ambient magic condenses, forming an object, like so. As an essence of water, this appears around bodies of water, like oceans, rivers, and lakes.”
“It represents water?”
“Something like that,” Amara said, “Why this all matters is how magic works in this world. There are two types of magic, external magic and internal magic. External magic is as you’ve learned, or some form of it,” Amara continued, “It requires rituals or tools to perform. Anyone can perform it, as long as the rank is not too high, and you have the requisite skill to pull it off.”
“So its universal.”
“Yes,” Amara confirmed, “Even normal people like you can perform some external magic. It’s fueled by ambient magic, hence, external. Conversely, if there’s not enough ambient magic, it won’t work.”
Like my world? She wondered. Was the atmospheric magic so low no magic worked and no essences manifested?
“Essence magic, or internal magic, requires absorbing essences. Each essence grants five magical abilities, that have fixed effects. In contrast to external magic, they grant the inherent knowledge to use them, use internal magic supplies, and are faster to use, viable for combat.”
“And you absorb four of them?” She asked for confirmation. Her Guide window mentioned she had 0 of 4 essences.
“Not exactly, you absorb three, and get a confluence, a combination essence that does not appear in nature, but represents the culmination of the three others you absorbed.”
“Buy three-get-one-free?”
“That’s right,” Amara said, “This all matters because once you absorb four essences, you rank up.”
“Rank up?” She asked again, the term entirely unfamiliar.
“Your existence undergoes a fundamental change.” Redell said, “For any normal person, they change from a non-magic being to a being of magic.”
“A being of magic? How’s that different?”
“For once, you can heal from any injury completely, as long as you don’t die from it,” Redell said, “You cannot be permanently impaired—your body follows the magical matrix it constructs, a blueprint to restore itself to its original form.”
“That was a whole lotta new terms, but you’re saying if an arm gets severed, it can grow back.”
“Yes,” Redell said, “exactly that.”
“So you get magic powers and a repairable body,” She said, “That sounds awesome, let’s get to it.”
“Now, now, no need for impatience,” Redell said, “It’s not so simple. Beyond iron rank are further ranks: normal, iron, bronze, silver, gold, and diamond, the final rank.”
“So how do you get to the higher ranks? You said I needed to get there to cast the ritual to get home?”
“You need to fight monsters,” Amara said, “Hence, we need to train you.”
“Oh...” She said awkwardly, her initial energy dissipating, “Fight…monsters?”
“Essence abilities rank up through challenge,” explained Redell, “Just training won’t do anything for you. You are expanding the capabilities of your soul, step by step, until you reach the next threshold. Training primes progress, but doesn’t push it.”
“Like lifting heavier weights to build muscle?”
“Like that,” Redell said, “There are other ways like using monster cores. These advance your abilities automatically.”
“That sounds like exp pots. Why not use that then?”
“It has significant drawback at latter ranks,” Amara leaned in her expression stern, “Promise me, you will never, ever use one of these. Promise!”
“Woah, okay, I promise!” She said, holding her hands up in surrender. Using an alternative method to rank up sounded very tempting, but maybe there was a desperately important reason she shouldn’t. Going by the clichés in cultivation novels, there must be some sort of penalty for choosing speed. Something something, no solid foundation. She didn’t care much to have a solid foundation, she just needed to be good enough to get back home.
Chelsea grasped Amara’s shoulder, and pulled her back. “You won’t understand why we say this now, but trust us when we offer this advice. Do not use monster cores to advance your abilities, for now. After you learn more and that’s the path you want to choose, I won’t let Amara say anything about it.”
She nodded, unsure, and not understanding. She didn’t have much of a choice for now anyway—she only had the words of these people to rely on. They had helped her so far, so she had no reason to doubt them. It may be too trusting, but she was stranded on another world in the middle of a jungle compound, not even knowing the name of the land she stood on.
“That’s how it is,” Amara said, “If you want to reach the mastery to accomplish your goals, you need to train, advance your abilities, and refine your power. To do that, you need to fight monsters. Are you up for it?”
“I don’t really know, to be honest. I’ve always been kind of weak willed.”
“From what I’ve heard, you don’t seem weak-willed,” Amara said.
She shrugged, “If death had been an option to me at the time, I would have chosen death. It wasn’t, so here I am.”
“Anyone in your situation would have chosen death,” Redell said, “There’s no need to be so hard on yourself. You were placed in an impossible, inconceivable position, and did the best you could to resolve it and escape it.”
“There wasn’t much else to do.” She said. “I had one purpose.”
“And now, a new purpose,” Amara said, pumping her fist, “I’m certain we can shape you into a fine warrior yet.”
“Uh, alright,” she said, “I’ll give it a shot. How bad can it possibly be?”