– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 218, Season of the Rising Sun, Day 40 –
“What are we going to do about Terry?” One of Shen’s friends asked him.
“Nothing,” replied Shen calmly.
“Really?! He killed—”
“Someone that did not heed my warning,” interrupted Shen sternly. “I told all of you that it’s not time yet. If you are both incapable of understanding that and incapable of trusting my judgement on this, then your fates are your own. It is no stain on my conscience.” He brushed something from his shoulder.
“But—”
“But nothing.” Shen cut the speaker off. “Our brother let his greed best his judgement. Take this as a warning.”
“I don’t believe Terry is that dangerous. If we could separate him from the pinnacle item.”
“Not. The. Time.” Shen glared at the speaker.
“There are rumors that Terry is a senior hiding his age.”
“That nonsense again.”
“His age keeps shifting! First he was getting older than he had any right to be, and now he’s younger all of a sudden?"
“That doesn’t mean he is hiding his true age! Perhaps the artifact is just broken!”
“Calm down,” interjected Shen. “The artifact is fine, but there are indeed several possible explanations for what it showed.”
“That’s right. There are some people claiming that there should be a Spring of Rejuvenation in this place.”
“People can claim many things. No one has seen it.”
“Because it’s in a blocked area!”
“Convenient, isn’t it? I hate these divining fortune tellers pretending to understand the realm by the farts of the insects.”
“He did enter the blocked area though. Allegedly, he used only a single finger!”
“Heavenly horseshit!”
“Until we find Aparicia to confirm if her bone age has changed as well, there won’t be an end to this conversation, so spare it for later.” Shen rebuked his friends. “Unfortunately, the Heretic appears quite capable of avoiding our attempts to investigate.”
“But I really don’t understand why we are so hesitant to go after Terry? Even if we are still focusing on the tickets, we have used other opportunities to take treasures, right? The man is alone and carries a pinnacle item. Can it really get any better?”
“There are rumors about Terry being behind the many disappearances. He seems to linger around the spots where people have vanished.”
“Which, again, can have several explanations,” reminded Shen. “Terry seems to have no compunctions about using his spoils of battle, nor any reservations about exposing his wealth. Despite that, we have no record of him wielding any item associated with these disappearances.”
“Okay, then why? Why are we ignoring the biggest pig ripe for slaughter in this realm? If we go at it properly, we have a high chance of success!”
“One, because I don’t see why we should waste a sweat when others can do the work for us.” Shen smiled thinly. “Two, because I don’t like wasting time. High chance of success?” He scoffed with contempt. “A fool’s game.” He held the gaze of the speaker. “True strategy is setting up win-win situations.”
Shen rolled his eyes and shrugged. “And I also have to disagree with your evaluation. You need to pay more attention.”
“We have seen him fight. We have gathered the intel from the felan and others. What is there left to still be uncertain about?”
Shen moved his hair away from his face and gazed at his friend. “Do you think you could beat him? One on one, I mean.”
“Probably. He’s faster than me, but I’m stronger than him. As long as I can get one good attack beyond his defenses, his head will pop like a watermelon.”
“As long as…” Shen’s lips curled up in a display of condescension. His eyes moved to another person in the group. “How about you? You seemed to nod along before. Do you think you could beat Terry? One on one.”
The red-haired woman paused to think and then nodded with hesitation. “I would have to avoid his blades, but I’m confident in my speed.”
“Avoid his blades…?” Shen looked at the woman with the same condescension that he had shown the man before. “Only his blades?”
“No, I would have to make sure he doesn’t grab me,” replied the woman with a slight wrinkle on her forehead.
“Because?” Shen puckered his lips.
“Because I’m not confident in escaping his grasp,” explained the woman. “Terry appears stronger…” Her voice trailed off.
“Stronger than you?” Shen grinned widely. “That’s precisely it.” He looked from one to the other and shook his head. “I’m certain that you would both lose.”
The two frowned. The man spoke up with an indignant expression. “He might outlast me in mana, but I would not allow him to drag on the fight. One good hit and—”
“No no no, you are missing the important part.” Shen interrupted his friend’s burst of hurt pride. “Look at everyone else.” Shen gestured towards the rest of the group. “For each one individually, how do you see their chances?
Shen lowered his hand again. “Because from what I know about the contenders in this realm, Terry is stronger than anyone faster than him and faster than anyone stronger than him. Think about that for a moment.”
Shen pushed another strain of hair out of his face. “You might have your advantage, but he has more options. He can apparently shift his combat style fluidly. He freely changes and breaks his battle rhythm. This flexibility in itself is something to account for.” He sighed with slight frustration. “I would have preferred to deal with such a person outside the folded space in any case, and that was before his unreasonable growth.”
“You mean the pinnacle weapon and the weird golden mana he is using now?”
“Part of it,” admitted Shen. “But even more so that his strength and speed have both improved. In the last battles we observed, there were the usual distinct moments when Terry shifted styles. However, compared to the first times we watched him fight, his strength when focusing on speed is higher, as is his speed when focusing on strength.”
Shen looked meaningfully at his two friends whom he had used as examples. “Even if Terry has kept nothing hidden, which is unlikely. Even then, his supposed weak point is getting closer to your strong point and, simultaneously, his own strong point is becoming more pronounced. I would not bet on you even in a two-on-one.” He clapped to jolt his friends from their quiet frustrations and smirked with self-satisfaction. “That’s why we are not in the habit of betting, but of strategizing.”
***
Terry was sitting high up in the sky with several metal ingots in front of him on the tertium slab.
“No…” He frowned and removed a metal ring from his king spear.
The ring fits perfectly but I need it to stick on the pole, so…
Terry reshaped the septimum to be a bit tighter. He placed it against the king spear’s pole and frowned again.
I don’t know what I expected. Of course, it would not fit anymore.
“I should have asked Elvis to give me a bunch of notes on possible connectors…” Terry grumbled and tried to remember what the tinkering elf in Tiv’s Chara Settlement had shown him.
“Maybe like…” He reshaped the ring to have an edged inside with alternating raised areas with a consistent tilt in one direction.
He shaped another piece of metal to hold the first ring in place and then extended the king spear’s pole to force the ring onto the unbreakable staff. He examined the result. His goal was to have the ring fit tightly and without risk of slipping off.
“Workable,” muttered Terry. “Otherwise, I’ll have to try some kind of clamps, but that would be more annoying when wielding it normally. Perhaps I really need to look into heating the ring up and then letting it tighten around it while cooling down. That would be problematic in other ways though.”
Like when facing enemies wielding fire.
Terry had thought back to his past trials and battles. He had often relied on creating a lever with an immovable fulcrum for some additional force. He had used it during the Trial of Havoc, against the hellspawn in the Valkyrie’s prison dungeon and even as early as in the battle over Syn City.
The king spear, with its resizable pole, seemed a perfect fit for levered setups, but Terry did not like always having to retrieve potential fulcrums separately from his dimensional storage. Divine mana from his inscriptions could work but, while sturdy, it was far from immovable. That was why he was investigating the possibility to attach some additional pieces for a similar purpose like the septimum pearls in his armor.
Terry was filled with gratitude to his past self for purchasing the Shape Metal imprints. He was severely lacking access to good smiths to create his prototypes, and he had many ideas to test. In a place like this, the shaping imprint was truly invaluable.
Besides identifying the best way to attach additional pieces, he still had to figure out a good mechanism for allowing the spear to rotate. Truth be told, Terry was not even sure if his overall idea was feasible. Whatever mechanism he came up with, the movable parts of the mechanism also had to withstand the applied force.
He could fortify specific areas and test different structures, but he always had to take the spear’s main purpose as a weapon into account. A fancy lever fulcrum would not be worth it, if it turned the spear into a clunky mess that was unwieldable as a weapon.
No matter if his efforts were futile in the end, the tinkering was one way for Terry to calm his mind. The more time he spent in this isolated folded space with little but lunatics for company, the more he felt that breathing exercises alone did not quite cut it anymore. His patience was wearing thin and deep down, he feared his sanity was doing the same.
His mana foundational training and physical exercise helped. Experiments and scribbling in his notebook helped too. The occasional re-read of chapters in the Path of a Mage allowed Terry to get through the worst of his days.
Something about the book always managed to calm him. Perhaps it was the perspective of someone pushing through a lot of suffering. More likely, it was the cozy feeling of nostalgic connectedness the book brought up for him: the reading time with his siblings, his uncle Samuel, and even the sentiments of his uncle Olgorn whom Terry had never met.
He tinkered away, lost in his thoughts, and at the center of a thin but widespread cloud of his naturalized mana that was rotating and constantly oscillating through a cycle of decay and re-naturalization.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
He did not know how much time had passed when a bunch of scrap items suddenly manifested all around him and splattered around the immovable tertium slab.
“Oh right…” Terry muttered while moving his eyes over all the pebbles and random wood pieces. “I don’t know why I even continued putting these on…” He moved his finger over the enchanted storage anklets he had bought in Arcana. “...much less why I kept filling them. Habit probably.”
Or dungeon-induced hoarding. Or maybe it’s Thanatos-induced hoarding. One can never have too many pebbles!
Terry moved some of the scattered items into his storage bracelets before removing both of the cheap storage anklets whose enchantment had finally reached their expiration. The second one might not have regurgitated its contents yet but now that he was examining it in his mana sight, he guessed it would happen within two days as well.
“No point in carrying these around anymore then…” Terry gave one last glance at the storage anklets he had bought from the money he had received for selling the mana cores that Matteo and Sigille had gifted to him. They had served their intended purpose. He did not have to rely on scrap items as jumping points anymore. He now had the divine hammer inscription for that.
Terry indulged in some wistful memories about his travels with his aunt and cousin and then returned his attention to his tinkering. Even if he could not figure out the attachments for positioning a fulcrum, there were other things he needed to work out.
At the very least, the king spear should have a few tertium attachments for better long-range aiming or for killing momentum for quicker direction changes. When he had fought with an aspected glaive to defend Lizzy on the Bulwark, the ability to completely kill the momentum of the long weapon mid-swing had proven quite useful…
***
“...forget it.” Zhang refused firmly. His sunken eyes flashed with resolve. “Our Icy Dew Mountain will have no part of this.”
“Foolish!”
“Have you no ambition? There is no better way to advance than—”
“We’ve had our encounters with that man before,” interrupted Zhang sharply.
“So? Now you are scared? Little chicklets?”
A boulder of a man and a tall woman immediately stepped forth from behind Zhang.
“Insolent.” Barnes glared at the martialist that had insulted them. His large and thick stature cast a shadow over the offending party.
“If you want to see chicken, I’ll gladly peck your eyes out.” Chun glowered at the martialist and retrieved a soft sword from her storage ring.
“Manage your tempers!” Zhang chided his sect members sternly. “Don’t forget the lessons of that day. We are not here to fight.” He fleetingly glanced at a man in white-golden robes, who was standing silently in one corner, and then fixed the other martialists in his eyes. “In fact, we are about to leave.”
“Oh? And do you have the authority to speak for your whole sect?” sneered one of the martialists.
“I do.” Sheila stepped forth to stand next to her Senior Brother Zhang. She caught Zhang’s gaze and nodded briefly before facing the others. “I agree with my senior martial brother. We will not raise a hand against that man.”
“Then maybe we should make sure you don’t leave and tattle?” A woman from the crowd postured with threatening eyes.
“Oh, I’d like to see how that goes for you?” A pair of martialists in the shimmering combat robes of the Blazing Sun Sect stepped forth. The man and woman joined the side of Zhang. The woman spoke calmly. “We have no intention of joining your plan either. Are you going to turn against us too? Do you dare?”
“Of course I dare, you—!”
“Well said, sister of the sun!” A felan woman with the appearance of a golden tigress in black robes stepped forth. “Let’s see who dares to stop us from leaving.”
“Hom? You—”
“Let her go,” a woman in dark green robes glared condescendingly at the felan Hom. “We don’t need her. We have a high chance of success and there is no reason to split the spoils further.”
“Right, Chalita.” the martialists simmered down until an elven man in green clothes joined the leaving side as well. “The Outcast?”
“I’ve had business dealings with Terry,” said Guillermo. “I plan on repeating that in the future.”
“Fool! If we take his possessions, what need is there for business?”
“He is defiling the legendary artifact of the Monkey King! He has to die!”
“Are you done?” Guillermo interrupted the buzzing crowd. “We’ll be taking our leave. Try to stop us if you dare.”
“No need,” one of the people from Shen’s group in the back spoke up. The person carried an oversized greatsword on her back. “They’re not going to warn him. They have no reason to do so.”
“Naturally not,” said Guillermo indifferently. “May the strongest reach the peak. The heavens will reveal who is truly deserving.” He turned around to leave. His eyes lingered for a second on the masked felan with leopard spots that was standing silently in the back.
Among the group of people refusing to join the plan was leaving, Barnes of the Icy Dew Mountain was approaching Zhang.
“Is this really wise?” asked Barnes. “If all of them work together, then they are sure to succeed. If we join them, we would be able to claim a share. Not the pinnacle item, but—”
“Your old possessions?” Zhang interjected stone-faced. “Lay down your grudge, or this won’t end well.”
“That person isn’t that strong.” Chun backed up Barnes.
“Are you willing to bet your life on it?!” retorted Zhang with accusing eyes. “I don’t know how strong Terry is, but I do know that he could have claimed your lives if he had wanted to. Remember that when you are whining again about the items you have lost.”
“We weren’t whining.” Chun averted her eyes.
“It took a lot of effort to make up for what we have lost before,” reminded Zhang sternly. “We cannot afford another loss like that, especially not from now on. We have made good progress and won our share of treasures, but it means nothing if we are not leaving this realm alive.”
“Yes.” Sheila spoke up. “My parents warned me that things will change quickly when the deadline approaches. We have to be careful.”
“Isn’t that even more reason to claw at any means to increase our strength?” demanded Chun.
“You mean like the last time you attacked that person?” chided Zhang. “I recall that it ended in a severe and rapid loss.”
***
Terry was hanging out in his sky shelter and inspecting the remaining items from the Hall of Power. He had initially neglected to check all of them in detail because these martialist items just appeared too weird and unfamiliar. The fact that he had to use them in order to know what they did was not exactly enticing. Then there was the fact that they might break if he used them wrong or with insufficient mana.
Terry’s discovery of the spearhead’s synergy with the Third Staff of the Monkey King had changed his opinion somewhat. There might be hidden treasures among the bunch.
He had already inspected some of the weapons in the Trial of Havoc and some more when searching for a spearhead. Now he was taking a closer look at the armor pieces. Most of them were small. Chest pieces that only consisted of a protective heart plate. Shin protectors. Bracers.
“That looks like the gloves Miguel sometimes wore…” Terry squinted at an archer glove. He was frowning at the amount of mana leaking from the glove.
Might be useful, powerful even, but with that kind of leakage, the mana interference with my other equipment would probably be too much.
Damn, I miss my other bidirectional attraction glove… Terry sighed wistfully.
He was feeling comfortable with handling both the divine hammer inscription and the glove on his left forearm. He was confident that he could manage the same on his right arm as well. Unfortunately, he had lost the other inscribed glove to the lizan martialist called Xuan in the Thanatos Proving Grounds.
Terry was less confident in pairing one of these martialist items with the divine hammer inscription. He could surely manage to overcome the mana interference with time, but…
“Perhaps I should focus on mastering my new spear before other upgrades…” He mumbled to himself with an unsatisfied expression.
His expression shifted to wary annoyance when he sensed a familiar signature appear below him. “Again?” Terry narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue. He stood up on his tertium slab and hesitated.
How did he find me?
He isn’t wearing the mana-cloaking mask, so I guess he wants to be detected?
“Okay, fine. If he wants to talk, he better give me a good explanation.” Terry packed up his items and jumped down to meet his former coliseum ally.
***
Terry warily spread his mana out and discovered another person further away from where Rafael was waiting.
Shape… Human. Human woman.
Terry’s habitual use of mana touch and his mana detection field allowed him to sense with much more detail than in the past.
Must have concealed her mana signature somehow. But the feeling matches the aspects that…
Terry clicked his tongue. The image of a woman in dark green robes sprang up in his mind. He had encountered a person with a familiar feel to her after the skirmish over the Lightning Heart Peach tree.
Chalita or something. The one that seemed to have a rivalry with the felan woman called Hom.
Is she here with Rafael?
Is she following Rafael? Should I warn him?
Do I care?
Terry recalled his impression of the woman from when he had met her.
Confident. True strength or bluster? She seemed somewhat respected. More likely to be strong.
Terry weighed his options. He was not looking forward to walking into an uncertain situation but he was curious to know what Rafael wanted. He had accepted that he had been wrong to look at Rafael as a friend. The felan was not a friend, at least not by Terry’s definition of friendship.
It still stung though.
Rafael is not like Nash. He could have hurt me many times, but he didn’t.
“He did attack me though.” Terry reminded himself. “The Heavenly Wolf Slash in the peach battle was unmistakable.”
Eventually, he resolved himself. His curiosity had won over his wariness and he descended by repeatedly jumping from layers of divine mana.
***
Terry landed on the ground with some distance to Rafael. “What do you want?” He asked the felan in a tone more grumpy than he had intended.
Rafael appeared to hesitate before answering. “Do you have a ticket?”
Terry tried to maintain a deadpan expression but his eyebrow jumped up anyway.
Is he worried about me being trapped after all?
Guilty conscience?
Is he trying to make peace? Did he come offering me a ticket?
Rafael took the silence as confirmation and continued. “Some smooth-skinned pickpocket managed to steal mine and now I’ll have to come up with another one. I could offer important information—”
“Piss off.” Terry exclaimed involuntarily.
The damned leopard is only here for himself. Unbelievable.
Not even acknowledging the shit he has done. Not even the slightest hint of an apology. I…
Terry felt his temper flare up intensely.
“Don’t be an imbecile!” Rafael retorted angrily. “I have information that could save your life. I need a ticket. If you have a spare ticket, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones.”
“What?” Terry breathed out quietly. He did not believe his ears. You? YOU are willing to let bygones be bygones?
“Yes, let’s be adults.” Rafael continued. “This is serious. Both of our lives depend on it. You’ve pulled some shit, but we can still work together.”
“Me?” Terry suddenly discovered that he did not care about holding his temper back anymore. “ME? I am the one that has pulled some shit? Did I hear that right?” He subconsciously made a step towards Rafael.
“Yes, you!” Rafael straightened his back. “You stole my altar from me!”
“Bullshit!” Terry scoffed. “I won, why shouldn’t I? Isn’t that what you wanted? You! You leaked information about me. You attacked me with the other martialists.”
“Because you stole my altar!” retorted Rafael. “I had it in the bag before you interfered. Not only was I delayed and falling behind, but the whole round of trials turned into a mess.”
“Oh boohoo.” Terry flipped Rafael off. “You leaked information even before that.”
“No, I did not.” Rafael flinched. “You can’t prove that!”
“Who gives a shit about proving it?!” Terry made another step towards Rafael. “You were probably scared about my reaction after you—”
“I’m not scared of you, you furless monkey.” Rafael squared his shoulders and also made a step towards him.
If Terry didn’t know how often Rafael’s outward posturing clashed with his silent thoughts, he might even believe the felan. Instead, he snorted with derision. “Oh really?” His eyes were fixed on Rafael. “Then why did you run away in the first place? After Shen told me what you should have.”
“Nothing good comes from hanging around that person,” snapped Rafael. “You would probably have done something stupid! Just like you are doing now, you idiot. Just listen to me.”
“Piss off,” growled Terry. “I thought of you as a friend.” He spat the last word. “That’s what made me a real idiot.”
Rafael was taken aback by the word ‘friend’, but quickly recovered his own righteous indignation. “Oh brother, are you taking me for a fool? You made up some crap about sticking to stories and how we should not take any of the treasures and then you went and took everything for yourself!”
Terry stared at the felan with utter incomprehension. “What the Wastes are you on about? Stories? You mean the estate in Thanatos? Who took everything?”
“You!” Rafael stabbed his finger forth. “I’ve seen the wealth you throw around. I’d be an imbecile to not connect the dots.”
“You are an imbecile, alright.” Terry shot back. “I’ve taken nothing from Beatrice’s estate. These treasures are from the altar’s reward.”
“A likely story,” sneered Rafael. “Somehow everyone else only got a single reward. You know what, who gives a shit? Even if your ridiculous claim was true, it would just mean that you stole all of that from me. That’s the shit you pulled.”
Terry was flabbergasted and at a loss of words that weren’t just strings of insults woven together.
Rafael visibly tried to calm himself. “Now I’m willing to let that be in the past. Everyone is only looking out for their own interests, and I’m not holding that against you. I’m even willing to offer you life-saving information. Perhaps I might even lend a hand. All I want in exchange is a ticket so that I can get out of this secret realm when the time comes.”
Terry’s brain had stopped processing what Rafael was saying and when he realized that both the felan and he were silently staring at each other, he burst out: “Piss. Off. Now.” He inhaled deeply. “Before I forget myself.”
“Smooth-brained imbecile,” spat Rafael and he glared at Terry. “You deserve what’s coming to you.” The felan walked away and then broke out into a run.
Terry was still focusing on his breathing to calm down when he sensed changes in mana from the location where Chalita had been hiding.
***