Aalam
Almost three years after Mila left, Aalam, having already created a Heroic grade F rank shield and spear set for Isaiah to practice with, was working on his first E rank weapon, a common grade spear, hoping to give Isaiah a better weapon to use as soon as possible to help with his knight training. And, as usual these days, Diana had for some reason joined Isaiah in cultivating and meditating inside his crafting hall, despite the entire enlightenment zone providing the same effects.
“Do you have any sense for how long you might be stuck at your bottleneck?” Diana asked as she cultivated to clear the contaminants in her body from the natural treasures she’d eaten that day.
“I’m not at a bottleneck.” Aalam finished with the cleansing and strengthening of the materials he was going to use and started to move them into the desired form, the process much, much quicker than it had been back when he’d started practicing in the hall, his control over his Heroic grade skill far better than his control over his nine Epic grade skills back then.
“But all your other Law Larvae reached high grade almost half a year ago.”
“All my other Law Larvae were already on the right path.” Aalam smiled as the outline of the spear began to take form, the metal floating in front of him responding to his every slight thought.
“What does that mean?”
Aalam looked away from the spear he was working on toward his sister. “What’s your mental model for your Laws?”
“My mental model?” Diana looked confused and Aalam sensed Isaiah exiting his meditative state to listen.
“How do you think about your Laws and how they interrelate to each other?” Having acknowledged Diana for the conversation they were going to have, Aalam turned his eyes back to his work.
“Oh.” Diana nodded her head. “I see them as three interconnected heavenly cycles. Each individual set of Laws follows the concept of yang to yin, yin to yang, like that fish symbol. Spark to frost, frost to spark. Day to night, night to day. And flesh to necrosis, necrosis to flesh. The Laws of Spark, Day, and Flesh are then connected by the concept of Yang while the Laws of Frost, Night, and Necrosis are connecteed by the concept of Yin, creating three interconnected yin yang heavenly cycles.”
Diana’s aura showed amusement. “What is your mental model, Aalam?”
“A puzzle.” Aalam finished putting the floating metal into the form of a spear and started the process of carving the weapon’s internal qi channels and drawing its internal three dimensional runic structure. “All Laws in the universe make up a giant multi-dimensional puzzle, with each early Law Egg a puzzle piece. When you grow your Laws, it’s by adding pieces to those you’ve already put in the correct place, and the name of a Law is based on the center of where the puzzle pieces representing the Law are located, which is how the name of a Law can change upon advancement.
“Most of my Laws in two dimensions would look like a circle, even most that changed names when they advanced to Law Larvae, but my Law of Storms is different. In two dimensions it would look like a line going from the area representing the Law of Gust, through the edge of the area representing the Law of Storms, and then into the area for the Law of Atmosphere.
“All my other Laws are pretty near the center of the area representing one of the twelve elements, but my Law Larva of Storms is different. It’s quite near the border with the elements of lightning, water, and fire. Were I to advance it wrong, it wouldn’t be a pure elemental Law anymore, and that would mess up my path, so I have to be careful.”
“I don’t fully understand,” Isaiah said, the tone of his voice and his aura telling Aalam that he was confused.
Diana, however, appeared to get it. “Basically, Aalam messed up by starting with the Law Egg of Gust, as it doesn’t work well with his path, so he has to be a lot more careful with how he advances his Law Larva of Storms than his other Laws. It’s not that he’s stuck, but that probably over 40% of the insights he gains that he would normally add to his Law have to instead be thrown away, which makes the Law take longer to train in.”
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“I also want to get the wind element Law of Anti-gravity once I get out of the Law Pupa stage,” Aalam added, “so I have to raise my Law Larva of Storm into a Law Pupa of Atmosphere, and then merge that with my Law Pupa of Gas to form a Law Scarab of Gas. As a result, the amount of insights I have to throw away is more like 70%”
“Back to a variant of my original question then.” Aalam could sense Diana smile at him with his almost fully mastered Sensory Domain skill. “How long do you think it will take for you to advance your Law Larva of Storms to high grade?”
“Not very long.” Aalam finished carving the spear he was working on and found everything acceptable, the spear a solid Common grade E rank weapon which he couldn’t activate himself. “I think I only have one puzzle piece left.”
Aalam stood up and telekinetically tossed the spear to Isaiah, who, used to this after years of cultivating in Aalam’s crafting hall, quickly tested the spear and found it worked as intended. Then Aalam spoke out. “The soul net says there is a hurricane brewing in the Atlantic Ocean. I’m going to go there and take a look to see if I can break through.”
Both Diana and Isaiah nodded at him and Aalam made his way to the compound’s teleportation platform and teleported to the boat in the center of the Atlantic. Then he used his mana to form temporary runes over his legs to act like a much inferior version of Isaiah’s Tempest Step skill and enhanced his movements with Telekinesis as he ran through the sky, eventually coming to a large mass of storm clouds and diving right in, making his way to the eye of the hurricane.
When he entered, however, he discovered he wasn’t alone. There was an Indian woman floating in the center of the eye and meditating while wind swirled around her in the air. And he recognized her. It was Mila’s old friend Nitya, who Diana said was now her chief general.
“Who are you?” Nitya noticed him as he entered and used wind to send him her words, a rather impressive display of magic.
Aalam thought about it for a second. He wasn’t supposed to reveal his identity as the Heavenly Spark Soul King. And he also wasn’t supposed to reveal his real identity either. As a result, he hadn’t interacted with anyone other than Isaiah, Diana, and Epecteos over the last three years, which had been quite nice.
So, he did the first thing to pop into his mind. He quoted Superman. “A friend.” Then he followed Superman’s example and started flying away. “Bye.”
Nitya, however, sadly wasn’t like Lois Lane. She could fly as well. And she had wind magic, which she tried to use to restrict his movements.
He could have easily broken out of the restrictions. Her stats weren’t even close to his. But he noticed something in her manipulation of the wind and she was able to approach him as he focused on it.
Congratulations!
Your Law Larva of Storm has advanced to high grade.
Your soul is affected by your understanding of Laws.
Agility +128, Magic +128, Spirit +64, Soul +64
Agility is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +128
Magic is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +128
Spirit is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +64
Soul is already at maximum.
Nascent Energy Converter ability activated.
Free stats +64
Then, not wasting any time, Aalam immediately advanced his Heavenly Spark Pure Soul racial ability, a process which took only about 12 seconds but would have a huge ongoing effect.
Congratulations!
Your racial ability Heavenly Spark Pure Soul (Legendary) has upgraded to Heavenly Spark Pure Soul (Heroic)
Heavenly Spark Pure Soul (Heroic): Increase the effectiveness of the Soul and Attunement stats by 25% and raise affinity with all Laws by 50%.
“Yes!” Without really thinking about it, Aalam broke free of Nitya’s wind restrictions with Telekinesis and then zoomed in and hugged her. “I love you, Nitya.”
* * *
Nitya
Being hugged by the extremely handsome man was shocking, and being told he loved her even more so, but while he immediately flew away and was gone from her effective perception range in a matter of seconds, Nitya just floated there in the middle of the hurricane, her mind going to the last time a similar thing had happened.
Then her thoughts started racing. Three years ago, Mila had reappeared after everyone, including her own grandfather, had assumed she’d been killed, yet somehow she’d become extraordinarily powerful without her name appearing at all on the lists of those who’d fought the invasion forces. At the same time, Diana’s mood had vastly improved, and even more so after she’d effectively conquered Earth.
Nitya had thought it due to a reduction in stress levels, but thinking back, that is when the daily assassination attempts had begun.
A ridiculous theory starting to form in her mind, Nitya made a beeline back to New York at top speed, intent on interrogating Diana.