The Aether God: Chapter 3 - Cerulean Daedalus
Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.
The carriage held but just ourselves, and Immortality.
Caladrius School East District: Court 12, Lecture Hall 34
Cerulean was in a dream-like state: his body was leaned over to the side and his head bobbed and swayed multiple times. As if - and quite literally - emerging from the depths of a late-morning slumber, his eyes slowly parted. The world came into his focus, and with a sudden awareness, he found himself amidst a sea of disciples. His swift ascent to an upright position mirrored his abrupt coming to cognisance.
"What in the hell?" Cerulean was dumbfounded. As a disciple, he was intimately familiar with the lecture hall and everyone present. However, he vividly remembered dying just moments ago.
Elder Roshi’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Please turn to page 394. We will be reviewing infernal absorption elixirs… elixirs I’m sure you will all love!”
Groans filled the lecture hall.
“What the hell is going on… I'm a twelve-year-old kid on the… Stygian Plane? and moments ago I was also the Etherless Transcendent Sage of the Divine Plane? Additionally, I look the same now as I did as a child. I’m literally two different, identical people… Reincarnation? But then why am I still me here… t.. this makes absolutely no sense at all! Was my death moments ago? Or was the other me a million years in the past or future?”
His thoughts frantically circulated in an attempt to connect fleeting dots. He could not think of a single connection between the two lifetimes he had vividly experienced. They were nothing alike. In one life he was etherless, but was regarded as the foremost intellectual authority of the arts and trades on the highest plane of existence. He spent hundreds of millenia perusing cryptic scrolls, mastering the ethereal trades, and disciplines. He had memorized every formulation, manuscript, and sigil under the heavens. Transcendent Artists of the Divine Plane often sought his creations, and his knowledge regarding the arts - he led many of them to martial glory. In this life though, he was a twelve year old laggard that did almost nothing but joke around and sleep during lectures.
He thought for a moment that this was the apotheosis of inexorable randomness… A result of the infinite entropy within the universe. In his confusion, he pictured within his mind the vast cosmos beginning to churn, swirling and swirling until after an infinite number of eons, every particle converged at its center and exploded, erupting into a brilliant vortex of beans and potatoes with humanoid bodies and wings circling the heavens and singing songs that detailed the untold secrets of the Enigmatic Plane. This was clearly a joke - absurd. His mental efforts were futile as he grasped for straws, nearly giving up. That was until he remembered something. He looked down at his small hands… His eyes slowly drifted to the all-too-familiar ring on the pinky finger of his right hand.
“Why is this conundrum of a ring the only common denominator? That and not knowing who the hell my parents are?! Do… I have four parents now? Are those of this life in this universe!?”
He tried to pry off the ring with all of his might, but each pump was met with resistance as if the band itself was a teenager pretending to yawn as his younger sister flailed her arms at his legs. He began circulating his Spark of Ether to his hands in an attempt to remove it. As soon as it filtered back into his core, his eyes suddenly widened, and his expression went pale.
“There are traces of poison within this me too… I must have just died in the exact same way in both of my lives… and I was even resurrected in one of them… The convergence of memories and resurrection are both unheard of… My bodies even weathered the actualization moment of a Latent Aetherial Poison?! That’s even more unheard of! I- I have more questions than I ever had answers in all my 234,941 years of life on the Divine Plane!”
Cerulean peered into his soul.
“Before, the names inscribed on my souls were Cerulean and Daedalus… Now they’ve merged into one… Soul Convergence… That’s just… why did this me become the dominant vessel? Did somet… I HAVE AN AETHERIAL CONSTITUTION?!?!”
Cerulean’s mind, for perhaps the final time, exploded. This was the final straw. He felt akin to an overfilled balloon set free from its tether, darting in violent, unpredictable arcs through the open sky, until abruptly halting in a moment of catharsis. There, suspended in mid-air, he basked gracefully in the golden nether starlight before descending, drifting serenely back to earth. Finally, he calmly came to rest within a tranquil field of blossoming flowers, finding peace in the embrace of the earth where a Welkinean Auroral Breezeleaf drifted down and gently covered him as he began to snore. Never in his hundreds of millennia of life with seemingly infinite knowledge had he ever felt so puny and nescient.
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Cerulean sat expressionless. His head had tilted downward in dejection while his eyes traced the wood fibers of the curved desk.
A little earlier, having finished the lecture with some time remaining, Elder Roshi and the rest of the disciples had begun some lighthearted scheming. During Cerulean’s trance, they decided to play a little prank on him.
“Junior Cerulean! You look very lively back there!” Elder Roshi shouted.
Cerulean remained in a state of pure expressionless dumbfoundery, but he lifted his head. His eyes met those of Elder Roshi.
“Do you know the answer to the problem on the board?” Senior Roshi asked, his tone carrying a playful hint of mischief. He and the other disciples were well aware that this problem was none other than a Centennial Prize Problem of the Legendary Starfall Sect, renowned for its peerless mastery of the trades. Answering any of the ten problems would grant an individual a single request.
Every disciple in the lecture hall was trying to contain their laughter, as Elder Roshi had clearly just been explaining that the problem had remained unsolved after nearly nine-hundred years.
Unaware of this, Ceruleans eyes slowly drifted to the parchment board. The words inscribed read:
“In the text, Studies of Lethian Elixirs Volume 3: Infernal Absorption Elixirs, by the ancient Fifth-Rank/Lord Alchemist, Xiao Yue, she details the existence of an R5 Infernal Absorption Elixir. She surprisingly mentions that it even contains R1 Infernal Grass. What is this elixir’s formulation? Include the formulation’s ratio and medium.”
As Cerulean read the question, many disciples, failing to fully contain their laughter, started letting out snickers. Luckily, this was because they were all close with one another and had a great camaraderie. They knew Cerulean very well, especially his capacity for intellectual fabrication, and bluffing his way through lectures. This prank was especially funny because it would prove their stereotype of Cerulean. He soon spoke though, monotonously:
“All twenty-six R5 Infernal Absorption Elixirs all use R2 Infernal Cinderthorn Extract as their medium. Not one, but two of said elixirs are known to contain R1 Infernal Grass. They would be the U and X Variants. The U Variant approximately contains a 5:1 Ratio of R1 Infernal Grass and R3 Azurean Pine Resin and the X Variant approximately contains a 3:3:1 Ratio of R3 Infernal Pyrosilk, R1 Infernal Grass, and R3 Azurean Pine Resin. The U Variant has a slightly longer but weaker diffusion rate, while the X Variant’s is slightly shorter but stronger.”
Immediately, every disciple in the hall erupted into laughter that raged like a wildfire. "He can even flub his way through a Centennial Prize Problem! Amazing!" joked Archer. “I’m dying! I’m dying!” shouted another.
Cerulean thought nothing of the noise and sat expressionless. Immediately after speaking, his lifeless eyes again peered back into the wood fibers on his desk as pondered infinity. His head tilted downward, and his jet-black hair fell over his face. He appeared sullen once again.
By this time, in the front of the lecture hall, Elder Roshi’s jaw had practically dropped to the floor. He was absolutely astounded.
“BRIIIIILLIANT!!!”
As a Master Alchemist, he understood the fundamentals of the trade. He was also open-minded, so he hadn’t shut off his ears even to the words of a twelve-year-old laggard.
“The usage of Azurean Pine Resin in an infernal absorption elixir!? It shouldn’t make any… IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE! It’s unheard of for differing elemental ingredients to comprise an elixir… It should sound so stupid! Azurean and infernal too! It SHOULD sound impossible, but Azurean Pine Resin is… The ingredients are so low-rank, so why is it so intuitive… Did he mention there are twenty-six formulations, and list two of them in standard notation?! Do you first coalesce the Azurean Pine Resin in the medium to create an amalgam? No… because then… ” Elder Roshi stood deep in astounded thought, amazed by and pondering the formulations. Soon, it had totally passed his mind that it came from Cerulean.
Just as the laughter in the lecture hall began to subside, the last grain of Welkinean Sand in Elder Roshi’s chalice dissipated, and the chalice started ringing. The room erupted into a flurry of activity, as disciples scrambled to gather their belongings and make their exit. Among them was Cerulean. Since he hadn’t brought any materials to the lecture, he slowly picked himself up and trailed behind the other disciples out of the lecture hall. Elder Roshi was still standing in place, speechless…
……………………
After a few minutes, Elder Roshi's head shook and he arrived back at cognizance. He looked around the lecture hall and at the chalice on his desk, surprised they were both empty. He began stroking his beard and found himself grappling with the inexplicable events that had just transpired, struggling to find the right words to articulate his thoughts.
“That boy…”
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