Mosh woke to the sound of the singing lizards. He looked up through the roots and leaves, through green tinted lights into the forest canopy and what looked like an idyllic setting. The brightly colored lizards flew, catching insects on the fly. Large flowers opened, pointing towards the sun as leaves aligned themselves to catch as much sunlight as they could. Silky slumbered besides him, softly snoring. He withdrew his canteen to take a long drink of water and brought out some of the biscuits and other foods his mother had packed which would not last long.
‘Midkar, are you there?’
The familiar sarcastic voice of his mentor answered, ‘Do you ever tire of that inane question? As always, the answer Is yes, I am here! Where else would I be? My jailers would not allow me to be anywhere else!’
‘I am sorry to upset you, I just wanted to confirm you were still there, you have been silent ever since I left the Crucible and returned home.’
‘And you thought that was voluntary, you naïve child? I am forced into holding, a rather joyless dimension with little to do than read books and watch the viewer. And let me tell you, what the sons of catamites that are responsible for us Mentors here involuntarily consider appropriate, make watching glaciers crawl exciting!’
Mosh had to control himself and not chuckle. Midkar, for all his age, sounded like an aggrieved child moaning about his caretakers. ‘I am holding you to your promise! You promised that once I entered the first ring you would tell me what shaping is.”
‘And I shall. My word is honor, and as much as they ridicule and mock me, none question my honor! But before that, a minor thing you need to do.’ Midkar poised, then his mind shout resounded giving Mosh a headache. ‘PUSH MANA INTO YOUR BAG ALREADY! Seriously kid, you had an Arbiter tell you to do it, and you have not done it! You haven’t even checked if that other bag had its effect unlocked, and if it was, what it is! I would have bugged you about it before, but Mentors are blocked from giving inventory management advice until the First Ring. It is seen as part of your initiation to be able to survive with what you have!’
Mosh would have blushed, but his scales did not allow that. He took out his bag, and concentrating on mana flow directed mana into the bag. He felt it flow in, cutting off quite quickly, only five points needed to activate whatever the bag was going to do.
Midkar whistled. ‘It appears the Arbiter did not go cheap on the bag. Most will only activate one boon based on your highest tiered index. Don’t let others know what your pack can do, its an invitation to asking them to plot against you!”
Mosh, nodded, sending his acknowledgement of the warning to Midkar. He picked up the other bag. He supposed it must not have been attuned since he could access its content without being blocked for not being attuned to it, so he was hopeful it would have the same boons as hi current pack.
Attempting to attune to
Mosh read the text, understanding why he could use the item, and it would act as extra food storage, it was just a pity that he could not awaken the rest of the abilities his primary pack possessed.
‘Right, Shaping explanation time, kid, unless you have lost interest?’ Midkar sounded almost hopeful that Mosh wouldn’t be interested, but the excited affirmation of wanting to know that came from Mosh made it clear that he was still interested!
‘What is Shaping? Some call it biomancy. Essentially you can energy linked to it, often referred to as Bio, to shape and alter bodies. Tapping into it allows healing and regeneration, and with practice and the right patterns, shape changing.’ He stopped, sensing that Mish was stunned, when he thought Mosh capable of paying attention he continued. ‘You probably want to know why I didn’t want to tell you about it or let you start practicing it before you hit the First Ring. If I were you, I would want to know, after all, healing and regeneration sound like lifesaving abilities, and shape changing a game changer in combat. But there is a drawback to it. Bio does not work by itself, it is energy intensive, far more than just the energy that comes from Bio. It gains energy from your evolution tier, dividing the bio energy used by your evolution tier, and if there are not enough bio points, it takes from your health. At tier zero, using it is a death sentence!”
Mosh gulped, thinking of the trap it represented. He was still curious though, he had achieved Tier three evolution before the First Ring, wouldn’t that have been enough? The thought struck him, and he asked Midkar why the delay even as he advanced his tier, was not Tier 3 enough?
‘No, its not enough. Simple healing may not kill you if you are healthy when you activate it, but if you were healthy, you would not need it! A few guidelines suggest not using it until you reach at least Tier five, other suggest Tier seven or eight, the cautious Tier ten. Once you can use it without killing yourself, it is the trump card it sounds like, but be patient, don’t kill yourself rushing to learn and burn yourself out!’
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Mosh took out the Shaping Codex, opening it to start studying, and unlike his previous attempts, Midkar made no moves to stop him. He read the cultivation method, the odd combination of meditation and movement, akin to some of the ancient martial arts that had disappeared as chi empowered ones took their place. He wondered if they were descended from this, forgotten cultivation arts for shaping becoming mundane exercises. He would have to seek out one pf those who kept such arts alive and experience them firsthand.
He spent hours studying the Codex, pouring over the first of the skills, trying the exercises to learn it, and made a small cut in his finger to have something to heal. After hours of trying, of concentrating and trying to circulate the bio energy to the wounded location he finally succeeded.
Slight healing skill learned. Quick repair of surface wounds. Cost 10 Bio per point of damage healed.
‘Hey, Midkar, how do I know how many points of damage need to be healed?’
He could hear MIdkar’s laugh, genuine amusement rather than mocking, ‘Remember I said that the cautious wait until Tier ten evolution before using Biomancy? Knowing how much will actually be spent is why. At Tier ten your Mana Record will start to show how much Health you have, and how much need to be healed when you are wounded.’ He paused, ‘one more thing, not relevant yet, but it will be if you every get your shaping to Tier Twenty-Five. That is when you are able to influence others. Even harder and at higher cost than using it on yourself, but nobody fights a high Tier shaper. Even if you win the chances are your life will be shortened, and you will leave maimed.’ Mosh shuddered, his imagination running wild as to what you could do if you could directly alter the body of another. If you were also a shaper, you could fix yourself. If you weren’t, your life was doomed to be a living hell until you found a friendly Shaper to help you. He took Midkar’s advice to heart, NEVER fight a high Tier Shaper!
Office of Arbiter Zak
Zak watched the screen, intently. When the boy had been on Earth, the attempts to scan him and remotely monitor him had failed. He cursed the Earth Polity for their wisdom in buying high tier scout drones. Those drones had dealt with all the monitoring devices he had deployed to spy on the boy, and he was forbidden from bringing anything over tier twenty-five without a warrant. And a warrant required proof, but he could not get the proof he needed for the warrant without the equipment he needed the warrant to get! A bureaucratic conundrum, one he found not too uncommon, and one that was always frustrating! But the boy was back in the Crucible now, and there the cameras were ubiquitous and easily commandeered by himself.
He saw the boy taking out the Shaping Codex he had supplied him with, and he cursed. It had been deemed a fitting part of the compensation by the Inner Council, but no one had expected that the one with such a high Shaping Tier would be a Paragon! He would dive in, rip it from his hands and stop him learning from it if he could, but it would not be tolerated. War hero or not, an Arbiter attacking a candidate in the Crucible would face the death sentence unless reason could be shown. More likely, even before the Inner Council could sentence him to death, the Crucible would respond, he would be lucky to emerge at Tier zero. The one historical precedent for such an attack, and considered a required lesson for all, had an Arbiter reduced to Tier zero, every index reset to zero, incapable of gaining any points. That was not the end of it, the Arbiter was locked, incapable of interacting with the world. They had been alive for millennia, death denied to them, and their victim had long since grown old, had numerous descendants and died in peace. Zak had no desire to end up in the bed next to his, he would not make that mistake!
He watched, he recorded, and he waited for the boy to betray himself. He would get the evidence of Aether use, and hopefully that would get him the tools he needed to do a long-distance scan of his bloodline to prove he is a paragon. A paragon with Aether within the Crucible could not be ignored and given that he had possibly met with the Progenitors, it would force action from the Inner Council. He watched, contented in the knowledge that the destruction of the boy was only delayed and would happen in time.
Kobold Village
Chief Broli surveyed the scouts before him. Through the last night and day, they had watched the newcomer, trying to learn more before they attacked. They all told the same story, he stayed beneath the roots of the mother tree, the daughter trees spread out around him making approaching him in secret difficult. He pondered the problem, sending the scouts away. His favorite wife came to him. She looked tired, her latest clutch had just hatched, and they were still small and suckling at her for most of the day. She came before him to offer advice, and he did not disdain it, she was the wisdom of the tribe where he was the might and shield.
“Husband, leave this one, the spirits say he will be our doom if we attack.”
The Chief paused; his wife was more articulate than he who could only express basic thoughts. He contemplated her words and signaled for another to join them, the tribal Maker, he who created all the poultices and medicines that kept the tribe healthy. He waited for him to arrive and acknowledged the arrival of the Maker as he entered through the curtain of vines. The two advisors started talking rapidly, faster than he could follow, and the Maker turned to him.
“My Chief, the spirits are seldom wrong. If they say not to do something, it would be foolish to go against them. Let the scouts watch but tell them to flee and not engage the stranger. Do not provoke him, it could be our doom.”
The Chief nodded, calling his messengers to him to send out the revised orders for the scouts. It would be foolish of a Chief to ignore his advisors; they were wiser than he. He ruled because he could protect and when he no longer could he would no longer be Chief, but the advisors would remain advisors for as long as their wisdom help which was far longer than the reign of any Chief. Or so his advisor’s taught, and they had never been wrong.
The two left, leaving the Chief to watch over the latest clutch and to watch as they struggled to advance their initial steps against the defanged and declawed creatures within the birthing pit. In the past, before they had crossed the bridge when they were dumb animals, the battles in the birthing pit were true life or death struggles. Now the fledglings survived, the creatures their fodder to grow and thrive. He smiled, enjoying the spectacle as one of the hatchlings barely larger than his hand, repeatedly bit at one of the fodder creatures. He could spot the moment it was granted the bite skill, and it went from ineffectual gumming to doing damage. Ah, this one would make a fine soldier one day! Some of the other still crawled blindly, and their siblings dropped small pieces of their kills for them to feed on and grow. Legends said that long ago before they crossed the bridge, the fledglings had fought and killed one another. The Chief had to scoff at such stories, those who shared your birthing pit were your closest support, always there for you, an extension of yourself just as you were an extension of them! How could you eat yourself? He watched, happy and entertained at the antics of the fledglings.