“You did not see his eyes,” I say trying to convince the judge after my hour long trip through the void. The equivalent of thousands of light years in real space. “Nash is so resolute that his very words act like binding contracts for the system. I couldn't even explain things to him properly, not that it would have made any difference, but still…”
“I have seen many determined eyes.”
“You haven’t seen his, not after he learned….”
“What is it you fear? That he would enter a motion himself and extract an even higher price from the system? There is no chance of that even with the best lawyers in the universe, let alone anyone he could scrounge up in the short term even if he filed for an extension and waited until after his planet’s integration in this backwater galaxy.”
“That is… not the problem. Even if he knew all the rules, I don’t think he would enter any motions.”
“Then the problem is solved.” He says getting a bit impatient, but the situation is… unique and I can’t let myself be cowed, even before a judge in his position.
“We should bend all the rules and use every smidge of our leverage and influence for I am SCARED. Not about what will happen now, in a century or even in a thousand years. But in a few scores of millennia even if he ends up even more crippled and at a dead end in his progression, his will is Iron. No, it’s Mithril, eternal, unyielding and capable of manifesting real Magic. He won’t just be a thorn in this galaxy. I am not any friend of the council and I believe the same is true of you, but I’m not signing up to be a resistance fighter. Nothing is certain, he can die before the end, but that sounds unlikely…and if he makes through...”
“Those are bold words, and this talk of the resistance. Anyways without an Aether warrior like him at full strength… he will lose his planet.”
I grit my teeth until it hurts. Adopting a little of the human’s physiology really affected me, but even as it makes emotions so much stronger in the positive, it also made me even more stubborn.
“Do you bind our conversation as ‘privileged’ given I will be volunteering instance information?”
“Yes. No word of this will be repeated.” He says. Hearing that the ‘court’s witness’ that wasn’t even recording anything gets up and takes his leave. “Speak in plain terms, for I do not have the time to waste.”
“Two other people can wield Aether and although not everyone will be able to do the same, even in developed worlds Aether Wielders are rare. Plenty of the strongest warriors get there the slow grinding way.”
“Rare, but not especially exceptional.”
“Except, they did not learn that back on Earth with Nash’s help. He only started teaching them after entering the instance.”
“But, isn’t the instance only a few months old?”
“Not even 5 months yet. But this is just one of a hundred things I could tell to surprise you. We shouldn't really be afraid of his power. He does not play by the rules. Even if he does lose his planet…”
“I got that. I remember why he came here and that perception field of his… really interesting and useful, but also limited as you well know.”
“Man, you are still trying to fit him in a box. I’m not going to lie, he hasn’t yet come into himself and I don’t know how much of a hindrance that delay will cause. It may even cause him to fail in saving his planet, but it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know why or how, but he would figure out a way to throw wrenches into the system’s plans. I don’t think we have to worry about the second coming of “Wrath” as he teleports killing entire planets and integrating sentients while he is still under protection from the system, but you know how little it sometimes takes to tip the balance of power.”
“And you want to give him an infinite source of Aether and make that an exponentially worse problem? One that if your predictions of his capabilities are anywhere near accurate, he will be able to upgrade?”
“We both know that it is not really infinite, it is just taping into the system’s Aether well.”
“Semantics. The system won’t just die anytime soon, so it might as well be infinite. Eighter way, you talk like he is inevitable. He is a curiosity, maybe a star that shines a little brighter than usual, not…”
“No… He… moves outside our structure of power. He has his own resources.”
I look at him and I wait for the truth to dawn. Confusion gives way to pondering before a bit of horror blended with resignation shows up in his face.
“Then why are you worried, he will just die if he got the second resorce.”
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“No, best as I could piece together, he spend at least a month from the second to the third resource and the imbalance didn’t kill him. Why? How? I have no idea. I’m telling you, he may not be the most straightforward power. If we give him a fixed of Aether now, he is gonna be pissed as we tarnish the memory of Pando. Which by the way he doesn't believe is dead. I do not want to see him even more motivated, no matter his intentions. The best we can hope for if we care about his galaxy and the trillions of beings over here is to delay his rise and guide him hoping that he grows wise enough to know that while keeping his planet out of the council’s grasp is certainly a worthy and acceptable goal, pushing beyond that is inviting open rebellion.”
“He really survived weeks from his second to the third resource? I… I think I’m starting to see your point, and if someone like that survives long enough.”
“He is a bit of a cockroach, I have seen him hitting 0 health and he took it better than I have seen in a while. He KNEW he was going to live and if you see the effect of his Health resource equivalent...”
“Resources are a short term boost that do more harm than good in the long run. Nothing but a dead end. Eventually, he will fall behind if he doesn’t come back to the system.” He argues, but I can see in his eyes.
The doubt, the shifting in his thought patterns and openness to the possibilities Nash brings to the table. I KNOW that I can take him the rest of the way. I have trillions, maybe Quadrillions lives on the line depending on me stopping a well-intentioned, but ultimately young pup turning the gas on the stove without lighting it.
---------------------------------
Aster watches as a pair of young rabbits dig into my back to climb atop my head. The small meeting draws to a close. The Arch Shaman and his apprentice and the hundreds of seeds that had an interest in developing further also send a pair of representatives as I act as both a mediator while adding a bit of a human perspective to the discussions.
My mind whirls from all the revelations from the battle throughout the meeting, let alone the automaton’s encounter and my soul damage, or rather damage to the system’s constructs in my soul.
I take deep and low breaths and let the oxygen invigorate me, reaching all the way to my brain and not only calm me but help me make good decisions.
I call out with my telepathy:
“Then everyone has their own parts to play. Anything more to ask?”
A clear wave of denial hits me from everyone ending the meeting.
They all enter my Inner world and each head to their own projects. The only group was the absent Wolves, but I ignore their galavanting ways while they try to level by hunting and sparing with other beasts. Let him run around and poke at the HLZ to his heart’s content. The ever growing horde was something that a few people worried about, but I talked to him and he would not attack unprovoked.
Other plans for the future fill in my mind as I reach for my Qi.
It comes slightly more sluggishly and slower than before, so I push harder. I bend my mind and try to make my body be like it was before, but I fail. My stats… This is about my loss of stats. Even my Qi lost a little raw potency likely from my intelligence stat decrease.
Higher intelligence had a marked improvement in damage or work per unit of Mana, but I never felt any meaningful improvement in the raw resource that is generated, just on the end result based on the intelligence stat of the final wielder.
I file this away adding one more line back to the list seconds after taking a dozen items out of it and ‘assigning’ them to the others.
I walk back into the village after my quick stroll to see and feel the changes coming into place. Thousands of people worked diligently dragging pieces of enormous works of magic and defenses, some of which weigh more than a ton, except they don’t need heavy construction machinery in most cases, just the power in their arms. A few levitating cradles, do help reach spots that are too high or have some other factor restricting movement, but eh mass of work has markedly changed.
The wall doesn’t get a single inch higher, but the magical defenses it boasts, and even the teams of mages comprised of stone singers and earthmovers, go over every single inch of the whole endeavor making sure that it is pristine and ready to survive anything the enemy is likely to throw at us.
Just another couple of days until the attack. For now… I have other concerns and the portal project is the perfect opportunity to take my mind off the bustle in the village.
Though as I get there, there is a tall covering of tall foot-wide poles integrated into the buildings around the village change. Something of a dome stretches from the wide gap without buildings. Over 20 meters in width at the narrowest point. Runic patterns ready to empower the overhead shields, should they ever be needed.
They won’t be exceptionally strong given the wide area and large gaps between the poles, but they still have their place.
No base was larger than those 20 meters, but even that was a small victory, as the few subclass nature mages started making headway in connecting to my roots and growing something stronger than should be possible with traditional woodworking. Though the magic seemed pretty unsuited for direct combat relying on slow but wide area growth and shaping.
I stop near the portal admiring all the changes. Gone were the control panels just a few meters to the side in the open and the small runic battery underground. In its place, nearly a hundred enchanters toil over a 7 meter wide three dimensional wireframe of copper, hiding a 1 meter pure silver work and in the middle of that a delicate sculpture with hair thin strands of gold stretching from small plates not even a hand span wide.
Merlin sits to the side, so I move over and wait for his head to leave the clouds.
“Ohh, Nash.”
“Hi, nearly finishing up?”
“Yeah, another half an hour at most. But I was just thinking if I could make an alteration or two on the overhead shield. I think I can increase its base structural integrity by adding a ring just on the walls or the central square, well probably both for and even power distribution and redundancy. That would avoid most local overloads of the shield. We are still having trouble with very large shields collapsing entirely from concentrated attacks but I got a few ideas.”
“A demonstration that two heads are better than one.”
He looks at me with an ease that I wouldn't have dreamed he could reach a couple of months ago, roots grow from the ground into diagrams.
My perception field and my entire being look at it, not as laymen using a dictionary to translate it all in my head, but with the ease and masterfulness of a native speaker in the language of magic. This half an hour would be fun as we waited for the portal to finish up.
Very very fun.