Chapter 46: The lives of Aster Stradivii Part. 1_Quest for the Marble of Many realities [Modded minecraft/Pokemon Fanfic]

Turns out... I cannot sleep. And trust me, I tried. While Mewtwo fell asleep right away, I tried to find a way to shut myself down, or enter some sort of power saving mode. I have none of those options.

So after about two hours of search and attempts, I give up, and get back outside.

Our little clearing is still covered in cobwebs. The silver threads glimmer under the moonlight. I raise an eyebrow at that, and then look up. A large semi-transparent full moon is visible above the cottage. It is mostly here for show, but it feels so... wrong somehow. Maybe it is because I can see the floating islands of the Ezian plane behind it? The night seems to be approaching in the outside world.

Although the barrier of the Sanctuary tints everything blue, I can see the colors take deeper and more vibrant shades as sunset approaches outside. Three days have gone within the Sanctuary, and only an afternoon has passed outside. That makes me pause and recalculate. We dilated time to move ten times faster within the Sanctuary, allowing ten days to pass within during one day outside... However

We activated the time dilatation feature of the Sanctuary somewhere early afternoon... so... we have... about fifty days left... give or take one. Which is a lot of time left considering how fast we are growing.

I nod to myself, we are getting stronger fast, and we are about to reach a new level of advancement soon. But first, let's clear all those spider webs.

Seriously, I am tempted to just ask a spinarak to join us when we leave the Sanctuary. Threads for days! I shake my head, bad thinking here. I can even feel Aster glower at that line of thoughs. Pokemons should only be partners and friends, not tools to be used and abused. Aster nods within me.

I go to take out my sword, and groan once more. It is still not repaired. Welp, by hand it is then.

Follows half an hour of me struggling to remove as much cobwebs from everywhere as I can. The result is messy, and no strings are acquired in the end. Which is sad, but also somewhat expected. It seems one needs a cutting implement to collect spider silk.

Which is why the first thing I do once I have removed all the silk from everywhere is fire up the smeltery. I am going to need a new sword and I am not sure what I should use to make it yet.

As I peruse the list of available materials, I also start construction on a new botania structure. The runic altar, which I will need to make the band of aura. It only requires a mana diamond and a few living rocks. Making a mana diamond is rather easy, just dip a diamond into a mana pool and voila. Then five livingrocks, and I obtain a white inverted pyramid looking table. Its surface is scribbled with runes and indentations, and a polished mana diamond pokes through the center. Two cubes rise from the top and slowly start to orbit around the diamond.

I open the lexica to search for how the altar works.

Place it down, charge it with mana through a mana spreader and add the components on top. Leave a livingrock in the center once the charging process is over and tap it with a wand of the forest. That does not seems to complicated... Let's try it. I need one mana pearl and five manasteel to make the only component I am missing for the band of aura: the rune of mana.

I follow the instructions, putting five manasteel upon the altar. They all start to float and orbit above the altar, the same way the little cubes do. I quickly make a mana pearl, again I only need to dip an ender pearl into a mana pool, and add it to the altar. Finally, I take the mana spreader Mewtwo made. I make sure not to store it, I do not want Mewtwo's hard work to be erased by the normalisation that happens to everything I store in my inventory. I place it under the floating mana pool, and watch as mana fills it instantly. I was unsure this would work, but it does. Now I just need to aim it. I tap the spreader with my wand of the forest and then tap the altar.

A green beam of mana instantly leaves the spreader and impacts the runic altar. The polished diamond at its center starts to shine slightly. As more beams impact the diamond shines brighter and brighter, until tiny motes of lightning start to strike at the floating ingots and pearl. I take that as my cue that the charging process is done and throw a cube of livingrock on top of the alter. The large cube floats up above the altar, and I gently tap it. With a whoosh and a flash, all floating components collapse onto each overs, and something fall upon the altar with a clink.

I blink away the artefacts in my vision from the sudden flash and pick up the result. All of those components have disappeared for only an off-white palm sized coin to remain. It feels somewhat warm to the touch. On both sides is a purple spiral that pulses with energy. A rune of mana. Finally!

I quickly store it in my inventory and assemble it into a band of aura. Four manasteel ingots arranged in a diamond shape with the mana rune in the upper left corner.

I assemble the band of mana as well. Making the mana tablet necessary for it is quite easy, one mana diamond surrounded by eight livingrocks. Then it is a similar shape to the band of aura, with the rune of mana replaced by the mana tablet.

Once they are made, I take them both out, and inspect them. Two little blue rings, the aura one has a purple gem on it, and the mana one has a green gem. Now... would they fit either hands?

I try on my human looking hand, and unsurprisingly, they fit without any problems. The moment I put both, a new little line appears under my energy energy display. An empty bar. The moment I take the ring of mana off, it disappear. So only the ring of mana makes that bar appear. I try to put the ring on my left hand, and look in amazement as the ring adjusts itself to fit my left hand. Okay that a pretty nice feature. I leave the band of mana on my left hand and wait for the bar to start filling up. I wait for a minute, but nothing changes. I feel puzzled at that, until I feel something move on my flank. I look down and my eyes widen in surprise. The deep cut that one zombie had done on my left side is closing up! My armor is growing back! As I look myself over, I can see little blue lines where the armor is being regrown.

I take out my pickaxe, and watch as it glows with a faint blue outline. Slowly, its durability fills back up. It is slow, but it is working!

I look in awe as the mana slowly repair all of my equipment. Except for my sword. My broken stone sword is still absolutely broken and unusable. I look it over, I had barely started getting familiar with it, I might just ditch it. Hum... no, I still filled more than a fourth of the accustoming level. I may as well just shift the blade for a manasteel one and keep the wooden handle and guard. I might change them later on, when I really need something more powerful.

I put enought manasteel into the smeltery to make a manasteel blade and let the ingots melt. The process is slow, So while it is happening, I look at what else I could do.

What do we need right now? More levels, as always, although I am starting to have quite a lot of accumulated experience from all those monsters we have hunted down in the depths. What else... More materials, or some ways to acquire them easily. More diamond is not something I would spit at. Just so we can unlock the follow up on the quests. Sadly, our only source right now was the trial of Eziakophael...

Wait... it refreshes right? And we got a dozens from it... We could go do it again right? True the monsters were pretty tough, but we still won in the end. And now we know what to expect! Unless the trial changes every times... Oh that would be bad... Still, it could be a reliable source of diamonds. Why did the trio make us gather 64 though? With how hard it is to find, how did they expect us to have the time to gather so many fast enough to keep up with Eziakophael raids? I know The dark god is playing dirty, but even if it had not, it still feels strange to lock our progress behind such a long quest.

Stolen novel; please report.

Ah, the manasteel has melted. I leave that train of thoughs behind for now, and pour the molten metal into a cast. I then replace the old blade and behold my new one. Blue sword. Yay.

Still this entire process has only taken a third of the night. Mewtwo is still soundly asleep, and We still have little to do right now. I am a bit skittish to advance any further in botania without the quests, I am unsure if I will need to remake whatever the trio asks of me, so I would prefer to see what they want first.

Instead I feed the endoflames anew, and take out Aster's journal. Princess told us to read through life seventeen if we wanted to learn of that corpse origin. Might as well do so.

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Life 17, Day 4

I have returned, once more. Hound was waiting for me, once more. Princess is resting at the village right now. I will ask her how long it took me to return when I meet her. I have read the journal once more. And noticed new gaps from my past. It is getting worse with each deaths. Hound, my beautiful hyena, looks at me with worries, which, if I am to believe my previous lives, is par for the course.

I feel tired, already I have faced a crazed cultist and watched as Hound ripped it apart. I have collected weird grey coins that the are called soul coins, and I have done so at least 17 times now, maybe more depending on when I started writing this journal. I know it is more.

We are on our way to the forest right now. I feel dread within me. None of my past lives have ever been able to get past the forest. Something always kills us there. Sometimes it is monsters, other times hunger and dehydration. Once it was a raid, Life 11 for future reference. Eh... future reference. I am already accepting the fact that there will be a life 28.

What has this place done to me? To us? I should sleep.

Life 17, Day 15

Once more we are lost. Princess has tried for days to find a way out of the forest, but the fog grows thicker each morning. Something wants us to remain here, and we have no ways to escape. Our food supplies are slowly dwindling. Hound tries to hunt as much as he can, finds little within the fog. Water is also slowly becoming a problem, this life might end with dehydration or hunger, whichever takes me first. When you read this next one, prepare more food, at least two months if possible, same with water. And most imp-

Life 17, Day 20

I have not had time to write in so long. The last raid was bad. One of the cultists managed to cut me with his blade, and whatever poison it was coated with left me unable to do much for four days. But Princess has finally figured something new. she can now make little puffs of pollen with her strange powers. They were able to sustain me during my convalescence. Hound also found sugary pink heart shaped berries that seems to have mitigated the effect of the poison. I cannot thank my two companions enough for that.

We are enjoying one last night before the next raid. I can feel it will be a bad one, I have been using my coins to strengthen both Hound and Princess as much as I can, but I do not believe it will be enough.

This might be the last entry in this journal from me.

Life 17, Day 23

Me Princess. Me writing master for. Hope clear.

Master dead. Big cave fell.

Ran from bad human.

Followed we. Found cave house.

Many bad things.

Too many.

Master dead.

We lost. We sealed way to cave house.

Hound looking for way up.

(Water stains the page, making the last lines unreadable)

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I reread the last lines, Aster died trying to run from a raid. I look at the next life, and once more, the last entry is written in broken English. Aster must have taught Princess how to read and write. A quick scan shows her slow improvement.

The next life is life 19. What happened between life 27 and 31 must have happened then as well.

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Life 19, Day 1

Why? Why? Why? Why?

Life 19, Day 26

I am pathetic. This might be my most useless life yet. I have not gone beyond the village. I do not want to. I have seen a man return twelve times in as many days, each times he did not recognize me. Each times he asked me the same question. If not for my companions, I would be the same.

Hound, that large hyena-dog animal is laying next to me as I write. The little white and green creature, carrying a flower everywhere she goes, Princess, is working with the villagers. She has been since they guided me here. I... We found two corpses on the first day, both mine. One I found before they found me, the other we found some ways from the village. Both weeks old, both rotten and half eaten by wild animals. I do not want to be here. I want to go home. Whenever it was on earth. What is america? So many names that no longer have meanings.

I do not want to go out tomorrow. I no longer want to be here. I don't want to die. I am scared. Please... someone save me. Please.

(Water stains the page.)

Life 19, day 27

I am Princess.

I write for savior.

He prefers savior title more to master title.

He died once more.

Bad men used strange moves to kill him from far.

We could not save. We are weak. Savior was also weak, weird.

We need hide previous saviors corpses. Journal is enough.

Life 20, Day 2

What is this world? Why am I here? Who are these creatures that help me? I had so many questions, and then they give me this journal, and now everything is as worse as it is clear. As much as I want to distrust them, their actions either within this journal or since I met them have been nothing but kindness. They love me, and I loved them, once. They have helped me reach this village yesterday, they have helped me fight off this weird cultist coming form a portal, they gave me this journal. Yet now that I am done reading through most of it, I feel sick. They care for me, but maybe too much?

The last line on my last life, written by the one named Princess is worrying. This last life in itself is worrying. Seeing corpses of myself somehow left me as a scared shell of what I achieved in my previous lives. That single sentence is making me shudder. I think I will try to make it illisible. I am not sure if this is a good idea, so I will let it be for now.

Princess tells me they found a way to traverse a magical forest. I have simply nodded at that. We are gathering supplied and will set out tomorrow. Right now I need sleep, and to think through all the information I have just learned.

Life 20, Day 5

This forest is going to make me go mad. Princess keeps insisting that we are on the right track, but it feels to me that we are going in circles. The only saving grace is that no monsters have appeared within. Having to sleep in shift in the planes was awful enough. The natural orchard was a nice find though. It was the first time I ever found it. I have enough dried food for at least a month, but the fresh fruits will be more than welcome for breakfast.

Still fuck this forest, fuck this place, and fuck whoever sent me here!

FUCK YOU!

Eh, I actually startled Hound and Princess with that scream. Sorry friends.

Well, I am going to catch some sleep. Princess is certain tomorrow we will find the way out.

Life 20, Day 6

Big tree ghost. That was why we could not get out. A big haunted tree was stopping us. A whole colony of them actually.

Princess has been spending a long time discussing with it, and it seems they reached some sort of agreement.

I need to find a way to protect the forest. Why? No idea. From what? Monsters most certainly. Although she did write humans, rather than bad men. So... I am unsure if she only meant the ones that come from portals once a week or actual other humans.

Life 20, Day 51

Savior dead. Biggest raid yet.

Twenty crazy, five magic users, and one armored crazy.

Armored crazy went for savior, we could not stop.

So close to helping trevenant colony.

Hound already gone to look for Savior. Will follow soon.

Trevenants still happy with progress. Maybe magical forest becomes safe next life?

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I close the journal. The fake sun is rising, a new day is coming. And we have work to do. I will relate my readings to Mewtwo while we return to the underground.

Chapter 46: The lives of Aster Stradivii Part. 1

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