Nash’s POV, a few hours before

Just over two hours later, I pass my perception field on the finished rocket sitting inside my inner world. From the wooden framework almost as light as balsa but marginally stronger than ebony to the 9 seemly machined engines at the base.

A wild dream greater than I ever thought possible brought by a spur of the moment decision. A solution to a problem that this niche machine solves. And all of it came together in about two hours. It isn’t without flaws, but it will serve its purpose. The people finish entering the space carved inside it carrying the absolute minimum amount of equipment given that any extra kilogram of mass they carry also means a hint less speed with the fixed fuel budget.

Then the time comes and my mind splits as I watch the faux inner world inside the rocket sharing its mass in full open up the flow of fuel. Then I turn off gravity in that region of my inner world for a few seconds to facilitate my next moves.

Using my will, I consciously shift the direction of gravity down the longest straight section that the craft can fit through. The space is mine to control, and instead of gravity being something to fight and overcome, now it works for me letting me give an initial speed boost.

Making the effort is a mental struggle. After pushing fairly hard for the last two hours to reach about 3 thousand kilometers an hour, now I’m manipulating gravity.

I sense the inner world fighting as gravity reaches about 10 times the normal earth gravity, then 11, 12, 13 then it’s over. The craft passes through the last portal just shy of hitting the wall of the inner world and going splat.

I didn’t push anywhere near close to my limit, but this was my first time doing manipulations of this type. Like the first time going to the gym and trying to pick a weight in a different range of motion and position.

You can feel the muscles aren’t even struggling at some point and then 5 more pounds completely break form to make the exercise impossible. This is far from my maximum, but the body wants to protect itself. Lacking coordination, range of motion, and a hundred other parameters conspire to make it harder.

Even hampered by my inexperience, the craft flies through the sky lighting its leaking engines and steadily increasing the power. Untested balancing systems keep the heading straight as orange flames shoot out into the inner world before I close the portal. With near vacuum optimized engines, it flies away at well over a dozen kilometers of altitude and a kilometer per second adding speed and the little kick I gave it. That is as fast as I can fly with the system’s soft ‘cap’ on inner world speed.

I run my perception field through the 300 thousand elite fighters, many very talented, but that got stuck in bad instances or that for some other reason didn’t acquire the funds to remain longer.

As I feel my own speed and the light strain, I stop everything and concentrate on recovering. After recovering I might push my speed a bit higher, just as a form of training, but two hours is already enough for now. I need some rest and getting to the elves half an hour late won’t make a difference.

I pushed further than I can sustain and recovering to be ready to fight is more important than getting there quickly.

Then, my mind comes back to a pair of sparring elves in the inner world. Wielding the best swords that the enemy had available, clad in armor fit for their Arch Druids, I sense the mana flowing through them and their equipment, understanding the connection they share with their equipment and the security mechanism they wield even more deeply. After months of incessant work, I can instantly pinpoint what they are doing for their equipment to work, but I still can’t reproduce it.

That particular application of will, in many senses is like a signature and when you have never held a pen to write and even holding it correctly is a struggle, forging shouldn’t even be on the horizon.

But my observation is far from useless. It hones the instincts that I start to acquire. Now I don’t even have to wait for the mana, to learn someone’s next spell or move. Given that I’m getting a better idea of what is considered an ‘elf’ will signature that their equipment looked for, I might be able to start interfering with it in so many ways.

Actually using their custom equipment might be outside the realm of possibility, but their bulk armor and weapons available to people of a given rank and class have much looser requirements. Even a few of the slightly more restrictive and ‘secure’ equipment meant for Archdruids and other special classes could be worn by a decent portion of the elves. Albeit with some difficulty given the required level of mana control.

It didn't directly need mana to work and provide the small boosts I was so enamored with, but it was a good rule of thumb.

Even as I touch the wood on my craft and once again expand it from an aerodynamic flying coffin to a tall van like craft that I can comfortably sit cross-legged on. I put on the simplest set, one with a flaw in the engraving that should have failed inspection. But the few Elves that come to our side unanimously said that it was ever so slightly easier to activate it and given that unlike roots where a few cuts too deep could simply be healed during the engraving to make any such engraving effort ‘perfect’, the metal would need to be melted back into and the process restarted which is complicated given the strange alloys they use.

I spend the next half hour working on it, almost feeling as if I’m getting somewhere but in the end, it is not today. As my mental fingers get numb from my work, I put it to the wayside coming back to spatial runes.

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I know the benefits that they are going to bring, I can almost feel it all clicking, but there is still something missing. My understanding of the enemy’s language of magic, the few sources from the system. Though my research is along this particular avenue, a slight gain working with space runes tended to improve my other engraving and reading capabilities across the board.

But I’m not a native speaker of runes just yet, I don’t even have a ‘complete’ dictionary. So I start to read it all once again, trying different configurations with both mana and Qi, creating runes of every type with different materials, timing the mana inputs, backing it with my will and letting it run wild.

Amidst it all, I weave a story of work. Work that leads to success, success that rides on a strong foundation that I’m now building. A foundation required to climb anywhere.

I’m still only at level 150 and I won’t be able to enter the next trial for a little while yet, especially if the other shoe that I feel is about to drop hides as many rocks as I dread inside it.

As that mental image crosses my mind, I swallow dry. My gut revolts and I know that they have something. But even though I hadn’t let myself feel it until now and this feeling is too general, I know that if I don’t act perfectly, they will achieve a significant victory today. Something thickens up into the air. But even after I land, I doubt I will figure it out. Their information security had grown a lot and the osmium shoe just teeters on the brink. Osmium with a hint of mithril to make sure the impact of the heaviest natural element hits with full force without deforming.

A deep breath later, letting go of those mental images I watch another pair of elves fighting, these ones against a few of our elite fighters for training. But new bunnies in my inner world playing seemed all the more interesting to think about.

No doomsday scenarios, just fluffy little bunnies.

Hours pass working. Part to deepen my foundations, part to prepare for the upcoming fight. A fight that I will have to battle a good portion of our best and brightest, so the pressure of the juggernaut to knock everyone down and bulldoze over the enemy is twice as heavy. Still, not everyone left and worse comes to worse, I can just retreat. I will have millions of people at my back that I know I can count on.

The flight comes to an end as I touchdown just outside the main fortress. I’m immediately swarmed by people before a messenger drags me to the command tent even before I start to work on figuring out what the enemy is up to.

Even then I let the surroundings directly tell me, absorbing whatever is in the air. In every concrete measure: speed, pattern, time and location, the enemy's moves are indistinguishable from any other month, but I can sense Aether in the air. Amidst the heavy impressions of normalcy, plans are being hatched and implemented. The meeting in the central chamber of Arch Druids in their ‘Safe Zone’ feels different. Every single word they spoke is coded and I don’t have enough context to figure out by ‘simply’ observing their brains.

“Did you learn anything?” Asks James.

“Not really. But now that I’m here, the sense is even stronger. I’m gonna directly observe them for a while. I will need to enter their territory, but this time I will go in alone. I need to be free to think.”

“Don’t risk yourself.”

“Only a couple kilometers and I will keep an eye out for anyone coming close. If too many approaches at once, I will skedaddle from there.”

He gives me a wry grim at my choice of words. After trading a few more details, I take off running, pounding the ground with strength that would have sunken my whole leg into the ground before the system. Against the hard soil and the root reinforcements that I now grow as second nature spiraling into the soil as supports, my strength only propels me faster.

Going past the freeway speed limits, reaching downright lethal territory, I work on my running form. Each minute movement, my leg extensions, the angles of my torso, and the jumps to go over the obstacles. Neurons fire in synchronicity activating my muscles with precise timing and balance as I pull my feet back for the next step. It seems five seconds later, and I get within the proper range of the enemy’s city in the outer reaches of their territory. So I slow down and start to move sideways.

My longest inner world and perception field corridor is trained straight on the enemy, now no longer intermediated by the network, I get direct feedback while in range to get a better feel for the flows of Aether.

I try to leverage those advantages with help of my other half and even pull Aspen’s and the other seeds help to get a better sense of their discussion as most of their Archdruids are gathered in the central ‘cathedral’ safe zone.

The second Archdruid is back in charge after I captured the Elder even as more elves of the same rank showed up. The others... aren’t happy with this state of affairs, that is clear as day.

They make snide comments, they are derisive and they seem to do everything to undermine his authority. He is ready to choke the life of one that holds some weight and is probably trying to replace him, but he controls himself.

Power plays, in the midst of it all, power plays. Maybe that is part of what I’m feeling. They don’t think the second Arch Druid is achieving the results they should and the power transition will change things. Still, they either don’t have the authority, or there are other things in place. Maybe he has seniority in some manner.

Too much is in the air. I watch the whole play, not like a foreign movie without subtitles, but a high resolution security camera. Wonderful in many occasions, but a story without people miming their actions and intentions for the viewer. No collage of significant moments that weave on each other, simply a lot of time with uninteresting things happening and brief moments that I try to capture.

The perception field covers a lot of gaps, as I can sense the anger, the anticipation and the hundred other emotions of the groups better than the very people around them, but I don’t understand their actual words nor do I have the background knowledge to understand beyond a surface level.

Walking back, without a single elf having come my way. My mind spins with the possibilities to no avail. I know I’m missing something. Their preparations, the way their leaders haven’t told anything to their lesser troops is different, they are gonna try to screw us over, but HOW?

HOW are they trying to skewer us?

Flying busses arrive with the troops for our regular attack reinforcing the soldiers stationed here. An even greater army that we estimate for the first time will cross a hundred million for the first time as even the leaders of places far away felt the shift in the air. Even with a lack of elite troops, we are still very powerful and most of our allies still had their own elites.

The day passes until a few hours before our own planned offensive, then the enemy takes their first step.

On the other side of the world, goblins rush out of their village carrying three bone rams. So with me standing under the weight of their territory, I see the first outright clue to the puzzle.

“It has begun.”