I walk about half an hour in search of something. I had planned to spend a few minutes just following whatever path seemed interesting before taking a meandering path back, but there was something in the air. I can almost feel the Aether building and instead of doing my usual trick of blanketing the entire area with my ‘presence’ with the perception field, I just use my other senses.
I pace forward, for the hundredth time looking back trying to spot the source as a pinprick of attention gets to me as if somebody was staring at me. But amidst the thousands of people around me, the slightly more intent gaze gets lost.
Still, it isn’t random. That gaze carries a unique intent, though I can’t stop my pursuer simply with my eyes. So I keep going, hoping whoever it is.
I walk past hundreds of shops, selling everything that I could imagine, from the deadliest implement their crafters could forge to bath sponges and extra strong scented soap meant to clean some of the vilest body fluids caked on after a long day fighting. Few in the region had seen more than a token amount of fighting before the pyramid takeover, but they learned and after over a week, they had adapted.
“Yadda, yadda…, buy my soap?” I mentally translate the Arab words in my head from the owner of one of the little stalls. Even if I don’t recognize a single word, his meaning couldn’t be clear.
After I show no interest, he looks at me defeated. For a moment I think of acquiescing simply to share a hint of the wealth I had accumulated back into the economy, but I smother that impulse a moment later. Even without relying on the perception field, my eyes catch the muscle twitches and his mild attempt at manipulating me. Understandable, but I won’t reward that. Not when the product I had in my hand was simply a curiosity that I don’t have the mildest need or desire to acquire.
I simply shake my head, reapplying in broken Arabic.
“No interested.”
I sense his wish to curse me escaping for wasting his time but he outwardly keeps his temper in control and moves on to the next customer coming to browse his shop. This time a native and someone that I feel a lot more susceptible to his tactics, though I don’t feel guilty as it looks to be someone that actually needed the goods on sale.
My leisurely pace simply takes me all around but I get no closer to figuring out who is pursuing me without cheating. The path of the crowd limits my movements and the constraints of a large number of people in the streets even without cars. Those had slowly made a comeback, but without enough roads, they were mostly intended to transport things usually in medium distances, instead of avoiding the trivial mile long jog to most people now, faster than back in the day to boot.
I grow dissatisfied with the game. So I need to fundamentally change it, otherwise, even if I win it, it will come down to simple luck. I catch a glimpse of a very nice path completely free of people… atop a balcony only 6 meters off the ground.
“Now, that is what I’m talking about.”
I don’t hesitate, erecting a mild and flexible shield around myself clearing a circle with a meter and a half wide. That should stop limbs from getting broken after swinging in my path while I jump.
With a push carrying a good fraction of my power into the ground, I’m flying mid air. A second later I grab the railing and put my feet on it. Instead of walking on the narrow corridor. Taking off in a near sprint, I’m halfway through the hundred meter long free path ahead when a spike of indignation gets to me through the Aether. A few seconds later, I take a turn left but there are no walking paths outside the buildings, so I simply jump to the nearest window, crab walking their sills.
A calming thrum of glee and panic keeps coming.
Any lingering doubt about the source is gone and the chase is on as I purposefully avoid looking back knowing that that might end the game then and there.
Gawking faces follow me, though not nearly as many as if this had been before the system altered our paths. It’s the reality of the situation and if I was giving in to the impulse now, so much more was the standard for hundreds, thousands of ‘impatient’ teenagers in busy thoroughfares. We have the closest thing to superpowers that we could expect and the joy of using them.
But right now I have a more important game to win. Half my mind tries to regain a little of my ‘aura’ control. A skill I practiced long and hard before the system and that It would be useful to expand upon. I tried to turn on that same perception filter that made people ignore me when I worked late in the night even sometimes under the very noses of the forest guards ‘responsible’ for Pando.
Containing the level of strength and balance I exhibit is not something many can replicate, even if they are very selective in the stats they concentrate on. I can feel a hint of another skill I should have acquired long ago, but never managed to unlock. A type of movement skill beyond running. Possibly the very acrobatics skill I so wanted, but even though I don’t want to lose the thread of the chase, I let my own streams of Aether capture this moment of inspiration and insight. The flow drags pieces of the moment into it infusing the pure Aether to enhance the effect of the moment.
The mildest state of enlightenment overcomes me and I can not only feel the skill in my grasp, but so much more. This is a precious moment that pure Aether helped me to attain, but I was fast running out of that.
I twist my willpower mid air once, twice, thrice in each one of my jumps, trying to cross that last little leg. My jumps grow longer, even while more of my attention tries to reduce my my aura to go unnoticed by the world. My legs push the ground, and walls with enough power to to lift trucks. Longer and longer arches become a synonym of my search for the pinnacle. The search for the spark that will help me cross this small gulf. More than just the right state of mind, but the state of body and of action.
Then it comes:
The system’s reluctance gives way and An Aether construct comes into existence far away. A skill arrives on the way to my soul.
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Without a care in the world for my jump, I activate a floating rune with a constant stream of Mana and tap the breaks that will reduce my momentum automatically. Though with only moments before I get to the wall the mild breaking power of the formation I’m using won’t do much to slow me down. I don’t even care that I might collide with a sharp object, only an unsheathed and masterfully crafted sword strongly held in place at the perfect angle even has a chance to injure me with how tough my skin is.
In a split second, I enter my soul to witness the skill entrenchment process. It seemed Aether constructs were common to me. But usually, it's only a small shift or addition in the form of a stat point or a normal skill level.
This reaches another tier.
The skill that comes is a lot less ‘refined’ than my last two. Even if the acrobatics-like skills are very useful it doesn’t have that same all encompassing flare changing each and every aspect of my being, like the dual mind skill. This is ‘simply’ an extension of my physical movement capability on more occasions rather than just running.
I get further in tune with the songs of Aether that the system puts up but all too soon it’s over. Like listening to the greatest of sinfonies for 30 seconds flat and then it’s over.
Opening my eyes, I see the room’s ceiling. I get up, rolling my shoulders out of habit, but this isn’t combat and it wasn’t a several ton wolf that fell on top of me during one of our sparing sessions, just hitting the ground with my own momentum.
I then look to the side and I grow self conscious realizing where I am. A young couple lays in bed, with a startled young man holding an unsheathed sword. My face heats up even if what is in display is way less than what I captured from thousands of people every time I extended my perception field inside a city or near a concentration of people. Still, I look away turning to leave as quickly as possible, but the dumbstruck face of a young teenager in the window halts my exit. The calm demeanor of the situation, all things considered, is shattered as the young woman realizes that I’m not the only person who crashed the party and angry shouting ensues.
I take off running for the window forcefully breaking the moment. That takes the kid out of his daze. Trowing a few silver coins on the ground in the way of an apology for the broken window, I fly out. The broken window is the only thing I can remedy.
That fraction of a second is enough for the kid to get to another window and I only catch a glimpse of his sand colored cloak which blends fairly well with the predominant stone surroundings.
I chase after that open window, one without any illumination and likely anyone inside. I dash inside hoping to catch him, but he is already leaving through the bathroom window. I keep up the chase without caring for the niceties, though I still don’t use the perception field, relying only on my other senses.
At times, he almost forces me to take a wrong turn, but in the end, my hearing, the vibration on the ground and air and the distorted reflections I catch with my eyes are enough. I keep up my rhythm easily as his panting grows and grows until he can go no longer and the chase is over in a random rooftop.
I grab the scrawny little kid by the neck gently as sweat builds in between my fingers just from that contact and raise him to my eye level.
“Let me go, I’m not gonna run. You caught me fair and square.”
His nearly perfect usage of English doesn’t surprise me. What does is a close look at his face, a face I recognize.
“You are touched in the head?”
“What? No, I’m not mentally challenged. You aren’t making sense.”
“I mean, you visited Pando and met me?”
“Yeah, if you are THE Magic Man. But you are different. All well kept and groomed, talking to the world leaders at your whim. Not the crotchety old men touching kid's foreheads and giving them magical powers.”
“I didn’t give you powers, only a hint of Aether, the rest… was your doing.”
“Same difference. Life stuff is half the reason I managed to do so well.”
“I saw it. Impressive. And all of that at level 100.”
“Yeah, my class is strange. I’m trying to take the next step. Wait.. you aren’t even sweating. You must have cheated, I’m not slow.”
With a simple smile, I reach out across space, without using a hint of Qi to all the plants on the rooftop terrace and make them more vibrant. I enhance the vibrations of life accelerating the extraction of vitality from the soil they are planted in. The terrace garden grows more luscious and greener. It won’t be able to sustain that long without care, but it won’t hurt them unless I push the effect to unnatural levels. Slowly a few grape vines slither their way and creep up to the starry eyed kid.
“No, I didn’t cheat. Though I could have in a thousand different ways.” I say slowly wrapping a vine around his ankle which he easily sidesteps.
“I could have dodged that.” He says demonstrating exactly that with ample room.
I simply smile and this time I use my Qi. I send two spheres, ready to pop with a spark of Life, but I don’t waste the second resource, instead choosing to use another technique.
With a push and a lot more willpower than I wished the Qi bubbles, pop by the pressure applied and an explosion of growth springs the vines forward surrounding both his legs in an instant. Escaping by twisting motions that didn’t sever the vines is impossible.
He looks dumbfounded for a moment but then grins sheepishly.
“Well, you are the Magic Man, Protector of Pando and whatever. I can’t even get mad I ‘lost’.”
“So, do you want me to touch your forehead again?”
“Humm... ” He says thinking over my offer. “Well, the first time turned out all right… so why not? Just don’t tell my parents.” He says with a serious tone and I nod in acquiescence, though I do need to needle him a bit.
“I thought I was supposed to be the one talking about silence.”
“You are weird. You are gonna get us both in trouble if you keep that up.”
I approach him, having stopped restraining my perception field since I caught him. I learn everything I could hope to without direct access to his system screen or more time. I get fairly precise measurements for all his stats and even a few of his skills by the way he moves. His use of mana in movement techniques indicates a level of control I hadn’t expected with such low mental stats, comparatively speaking.
I reach out to Pando instead of tapping into my own pure Aether stores. The large pool of fairly uncontaminated Aether Pando accumulated from the free floating stuff around the planet comes over to me and I send probably a fifth of the amount I got during integration into the boy. More than the amount of Pure Eather I have now. After a moment I send a hint of absolutely pure Aether into him, with a pinch of soul scruff.
Let me see what you can do with it.
Those are precious and limited resources, but he may achieve something interesting with them.
That soul scruff probably won’t manifest in the same way as my usual technique, an exercise in which I helped teams of people to increase their stats in a similar way to myself, but there is potential there and curiosity drives me.
“I feel… powerful.”
As he speaks I can almost feel partially unconscious use of Aether enhancing his mana technics. He must have been low on his own supply. Only a minute pulse comes out before it all heads back into his pool.
With a cheeky grin, his idle shuffling during our talk finally takes near the corner of the roof and he takes off running once again.
Each jump spends a mote of the Aether I gave him supercharging his moves to unbelievable levels, all without feeling the impossible confidence and drunkenness of RAW Aether usage that most ‘proper’ Aether Wielders fell to.
“Interesting. Not quite fully conscious control, but I didn’t expect even a fraction of this, even with the nudge I gave him. He didn’t have the decades that most people need to accumulate a natural Aether field. Alex is gonna have a field day figuring out and replicating what the kid did. He is probably the only one with the right mentality to figure out what the kid did with conscious control of Aether.”