“The reign of the Vethral Empire was a period of division, specism and constant rebellion. Though Emperor Lothril’s rule was unchallenged until the ascension of Nocteus, he paid little attention to the day-to-day actions of his vassals.
With the exception of the small group who fled to Eurus, the aelthiri of that time were relentless in their oppression of the ‘lesser species’. They believed that, as natural born elders, it was their right and privilege to be served by those weaker than them. The ‘lesser species’ were simply born to serve; it was their honour to be enslaved. That this line of reasoning would make the aelthiri themselves slaves to the dragons does not appear to have occurred to them.
Unfortunately for the Vethrali nobles, the existence of the system made it rather difficult to keep the vast human population suppressed. Many methods were attempted, everything from mental bondage to plain genocide, but none ever succeeded in bringing true peace to the empire. In fact, at no point in the half million-year long history of the Vethral Empire was there ever a time when it was completely free from uprisings.”
From “Faen Accounts of the Vethral Empire” By Phineas Gelith
10th Teril, Spring, 375th Year, 84th Era, 2nd Age (2 day later)
Joseph sat at the desk in the middle of his workshop, a worried frown creasing his face. The usual activity of his various projects was absent; everything in the room lay still and quiet. Numerous pieces of platinum were scattered across the table; the device he’d been working on not an hour before, abandoned.
A centimetre thick sheaf of papers sat atop the fragments. It contained a comprehensive guide on how a ‘hypothetical’ mortal might go about successfully applying the principle of ideal immortality. As well as notes on various figures of ancient legend, who supposedly had seventh grade classes and the theme of extreme time that they all had in common.
When Nathan had first explained his idea, Joseph had been dead set against it. But as they went through the file it became increasingly clear that, with Nathan’s sentiment multiplier, the idea was more than just theoretically possible.
Nathan already had the tolerance abilities to deal with the pain and isolation of being tormented by lightning for a hundred years. And he’d somehow found several pieces of available real estate in Atlantis, the only city in the elder band.
The idea was to use one of them as the site of a large restoration enchantment. That dealt with the issue of having sufficient mana for an enchantment to keep him alive long term.
Another of the main problems with ideal immortality was that it required mastery of over half a dozen different skills and abilities. And that was only exacerbated by the need for a degree of competence equivalent to level 12 or 13 in the case of the skills. Nathan’s answer to those issues was to use the judicious application of pain to master everything necessary, as well as a large number of extra magic skills to take advantage of the overlapping benefits.
In the face of such overwhelming preparation, Joseph hadn’t really had any basis to deny the void-walker. Despite that, it seemed wrong to just let the man walk straight back into agony again, and even worse to help him do it. So, he’d proposed a compromise.
Tomorrow they would visit Kathresh’s system shrine. Not even the council of 12,000 years ago had been mad enough to snub the Host.
There they would attempt to ask an administrator if the plan could work, from a system perspective at least. If there was no answer, or if the answer was negative, Nathan had agreed to go back to the drawing board.
“Did I make the right choice Marius, letting there be even a chance of this madness going ahead?” he asked his butler, the only other person in the room.
“I think you made the only choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well sir, you don’t really have any right to stop him,” Marius answered, with a slightly apologetic expression. “And, if you interpret your patron-beneficiary contract literally, you are obligated to help him to the best of your ability.”
“Oh, realms above, I hadn’t even thought of that,” Joseph said, running a hand over his face. “Gods this is a mess.”
“With all due respect, I don’t think that’s really true.”
Joseph turned to look at Marius. “What would you call it then? What was the point of saving him if he’s going to waste the ten years he has on this insanity?”
“I believe the point was to give him a life to live as he chooses,” Marius replied, a slight edge in his tone.
“You're right about that. I can’t forcibly stop him. Respecting the autonomy of weaker beings is a core tenet of federal ethics, after all.”
“If it helps sir, you could view aiding the success of this endeavour as a way to repay your debt to Master Nathan.”
“That… hmm.” Joseph paused for a moment to think, his frown deepening. “That’s a very selfish motivation, Marius.”
“Well sir, as Lord Nocteus says in The Book of Veran, “If we must think in less than noble ways to trick our instincts into fulfilling a higher purpose, then so be it.”
10th Waril, Spring, 375th Year, 84th Era, 2nd Age (1 day later)
In the main room of his apartment Nathan went through the motions of preparing a pot of farin. He’d fallen in love with the drink since he’d been introduced to it a week and a half before. This particular pot, however, was just something to do.
In a few hours he would know whether or not his plan to become ageless would work. Facing a coin flip of ten years versus eternity would make anyone nervous. Though, of course, he experienced only a mere echo of what he should have felt.
As he waited for the kitchen’s small frost flame to chill the mixture of milk and fruit, he reached out into the ambient mana. With practiced ease, he identified and separated the restoration mana. Relishing the calming sensations that came from it, he watched the ambient mana mix and transmute until the compound was once again balanced.
After the roiling energy had calmed, he reached out again, with slightly less skill, and repeated the process for transformation mana. A second ball formed beside the restoration mana, conveying a feeling of tension and a strange flickering sensation.
In short order, they were joined by the metallic scent and clanging sounds of creation, the incomprehensible words and fluttering pages of divination and the kaleidoscope of illusion.
Then Nathan reached out one last time, an expression of distaste forming on his face, and the five balls of mana were joined by the burning, acrid taste of destruction.
With all six sub-elements of mana hovering in front of him, he marshalled his will and started to slowly transmute restoration into creation. After five seconds, the balls of mana began to tremble. After ten, all but the restoration ball had collapsed. After twenty, a few trace amounts of creation mana appeared, and then the final ball collapsed in on itself.
Nathan leaned against the counter with one hand while massaging the bridge of his nose with the other. He could feel the headache that came with each attempted transmutation building at the front of his head. It always felt similar to brain freeze; though, thankfully, it was just as short lived.
He felt like he was missing something every time he attempted transmutation, but Elder Ashbourne assured him that he just needed to keep pushing. One thing Nathan had noticed though, was that ever since he started practicing transmutation his progress in every other aspect of Mana Control had been even smoother than before.
After a while, an enchantment on the farin strainer created a ringing sound to let him know that it was ready. He turned off the frost flame and depressed the plunger, pushing the pulp of the fruit to the bottom.
Having filled a cup with the tea-coloured liquid, he made his way out onto the balcony. The view was just as spectacular as it had been on the first day. If anything, the fact that he now knew what he was looking at made it even more absurd.
The distant blur of blue that he had originally taken to be the sea, or perhaps a particularly large lake, was in fact the river Kethril. At a mere 83 kilometres wide, it was the smallest of the three that made up the federal river system.
Over time he had grown increasingly inured to the scale of Kelric. Learning that each of the federal cities had a population of around a hundred million had barely fazed him. He hadn’t even blinked when he found out that the kingdom of Albion was over twenty million years old. But the massive pillar in the distance, which split the sky in half, never failed to amaze him.
At over 17,000 kilometres tall, Wyrmhold reached so high that its peak wasn’t all that far from the edge of the world. If his admittedly blurry memories were to be believed, it was as tall as the Pacific Ocean was wide. And, as the name indicated, the mountain was home to the dragons, a sapient race of natural born ancients who received 75,000 stat points for simply growing up.
Wyrmhold made the Vitandum Mountains, which ran from east to west several thousand kilometres to the north of Kathresh, look small by comparison. Though objectively they were still immense.
If his balcony hung out from the building, instead of being inset, he would have been able to see them to his left. As it was, he didn’t think the view was worth leaning out over a ninety-four storey drop.
There were three sets of tables and chairs along the length of the balcony. They resembled the kind of wrought iron furniture that was used in gardens on Earth, though they were made from an alloy unique to Kelric. Actual iron furniture would be a ludicrous extravagance.
After taking a sip, Nathan swapped his farin for the book that he’d left on the table. A general guide to training Mana Control. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his patron, but if there was a good reason for the elder to keep something from him, Nathan doubted he would find the answer in his room.
He tore through the book at the breakneck pace that his high mental stats and Reading skill allowed, getting through a page every dozen seconds or so. The time passed steadily until, after refilling his cup several times, he found what he was looking for.
“Maw’s teeth,” he muttered.
‘The primary difference between the first and second tiers of elemental control skills is the capacity for transmutation. While technically possible at the first tier, it is primarily used as a whetstone to encourage greater skill in other areas. Though it should be noted that with perfect cultivation of the mage grade, transmutation is usually possible at around level five of the relevant control skill.’
That explained why he felt like he was hitting his head against a wall. Nathan was starting to get the impression that Elder Ashbourne was almost compulsively secretive. It would be annoying to deal with but, as long as nothing too important was kept from him, he could live with it.
Case in point, he’d woken up a few days ago to find a stack of speculative newspaper articles, financial reports and other documents from the last half a year sitting on a table. Together, they fully documented Elder Ashbourne’s first attempt to save him.
Out of all the details that they revealed, it was the cost that really got to him. Even discounting the favours which the elder had expended within the seeker community, the various experiments had a total cost of almost 30 crowns.
Fortunately, Nathan had familiarised himself with the currency before then so he actually had an idea of what that meant. There were six denominations of currency in Kelric, using a system that originated from Albion.
Dregs were the lowest, being functionally equivalent to pence, then rings, gates, nobles, crowns and wings. Each denomination was worth one hundred times the previous one, which made 30 crowns equal to 30 million rings. Based on Nathan’s limited ability to make a comparison, one ring was roughly equivalent to three pounds. Or in other words, the elder had spent almost 90 million pounds saving him.
Shaking his head a little to clear his thoughts, he settled in to keep reading. He may have already found what he was looking for but that didn’t stop the book from being interesting. The time passed by once again until eventually he heard a knocking from the main room.
“Is it time to go?” he asked as he opened the door.
“Indeed it is sir,” Marius replied. It still amazed Nathan that it had taken him so long to register the butler’s uniform. While everyone else looked like they’d walked out of a cultivation novel, Marius was dressed for a period drama.
It was apparently traditional to hire butlers from Albion, where that style of dress was the norm. In truth, most of the amusement Nathan derived from it came from the fact that he genuinely hadn’t noticed for a week and a half.
As they rode the elevator down, Marius turned to look at him.
“I should warn you, sir, that questions asked at the system shrines are very rarely answered. Most people just get a frequently asked questions notification. It would be best not to get your hopes up.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Marius. I have a feeling that it will work out just fine,” Nathan said, looking at a notification he’d gotten a few days ago.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
[Administrator Fariel: As your situation is now resolved, I no longer have an official reason to check in on you. This will, more than likely, be the last communication for quite a while. Although, if you ask a question at a system shrine about something with the potential to generate a large amount of sentiment for the Host, I might be able to justify giving you an answer. Good luck out there.]
“A very clear and reasonable response, sir,” Marius replied, making Nathan chuckle.
After a few moments, the elevator reached the ground floor and they stepped out into the atrium. There, Elder Ashbourne was waiting, dressed in his usual green robe. Nathan would never understand how anyone could willingly wear something with such enormous sleeves. It seemed like unnecessary aggravation.
“Good morning, Nathan,” The elder said.
“Good morning, Lord Elder,” Nathan replied as he crossed the expansive room, “Random question, why didn’t you tell me that transmutation is typically reserved for people with second tier elemental control skills?”
“Would you have worked so hard at it if you’d known?” the sorcerer asked with a knowing smile.
“No…” Nathan said, smirking, “If I’d know that it would accelerate my progress in other areas, I would have tried even harder. And been less frustrated.”
Petty revenge taken, the void-walker headed for the door, laughing as he went. He made space in one of his mind palaces for the sight of the normally dignified elder’s mouth hanging open in shock. With a memory as good as his, learning illusion magic would probably count as a war crime.
The journey to the Kathreshi Museum, another of the second ring towers, took slightly less time than Nathan’s regular trip to the library. The expansive parkland between the central towers placed them surprisingly far apart.
The same image of a book from the library was placed above the door of the museum. It was, as Nathan had found out, a representation of the Lesser Key of Solomon. Solomon being the ancient wizard who founded Kathresh.
The grimoire’s image was the official symbol of Kathresh. A fact that was quite ironic in recent millennia given that wizards were people capable of directly manipulating sentiment, making them intrinsically linked to witchcraft.
Unlike Kathreshi Central, the museum had a large number of public floors, all filled with artwork, relics and random bits of historical paraphernalia. The atrium was an open, high-ceilinged room littered with statues of various councillors and combatants from throughout the city’s history. The room was dominated by a towering central monument depicting Solomon himself, grimoire in one hand and staff in the other.
They made their way through the forest of stone until they arrived at one of the many lifts. After several minutes, the three of them stepped out onto the 726th floor. From there it was a short walk to their destination.
They passed through a series of exhibits on the history of systemology along the way, most of which seemed to be about Simon Relkweist. When they finally arrived, Nathan was slightly disappointed to discover what was undeniably a waiting room. A beautifully decorated and furnished waiting room, but still fundamentally a waiting room.
Marius walked up to the clerk who sat at a desk beside a small door at the far end of the room. She had her head resting in one hand while the other slowly flipped through a book. Her aura conveyed a sense of profound boredom.
“Excuse me, we are here to use the shrine.”
The woman didn’t even bother to look up, launching directly into a spiel so robotic it could have been mistaken for a recorded message.
“Unfortunately, the shrine is currently in use. Please feel free to take a seat. While in the shrine please do not do anything that might anger the Host. Please do not spend more than five minutes in the shrine if your questions are not answered. And please be aware that should your question be answered, it will be transcribed as an event of historical and systemological significance. Thank you for your patience. Have a nice day.”
Marius stood unmoving for a moment, slightly nonplussed, until the clerk turned to the next page, clearly ignoring him. Shrugging slightly, the butler returned to Nathan and Elder Ashbourne. With nothing better to do, the three of them sat down near the door, mired in the awkward silence that pervaded waiting rooms everywhere.
A few minutes later, the door to the shrine opened. A group of small children, presumably on a school trip, were escorted out by a pair of mortal women. The children, being too young to have level ten identification, behaved in the exact way one would expect from a group of bored nine-year-olds.
There was however, a moment where one of the teachers glanced over in their direction. Her eyes noticeably widened and a burst of shock ran through her aura. The group’s exit from the waiting room sped up significantly after that.
Once the way was clear, Nathan’s group made their way into the shrine. He immediately understood why the children had been bored. The shrine was a tiny, windowless room painted in a drab off-white colour. In the middle was a table that seemed to be made from plywood, and sat atop it was a head-sized cube of stone with a stylized image of a tree engraved into it.
“Could you have made it less interesting?” Nathan asked as he looked around the glorified cupboard.
“One of the Host’s three concepts is mundanity; it’s supposed to be dull,” Elder Ashbourne answered.
“Right,” Nathan said before holding up his copy of the ideal immortality folder. “Do I actually have to read out this whole file?”
“Only if you don’t want to give the system access to your mental record,” the elder replied
“Oh good. How viable is the method outlined in this dossier?” he asked, placing the sheaf of paper on the table.
[You have asked a question requiring mental record access to resolve. Will you grant mental record access?]
“Yes.” There was a brief pause as the system processed the question.
[Your question has been judged as category 23, grade 7. You will now be referred to an administrator.]
A brilliant, multicoloured flash of light burst out from the stone, forcing Nathan to squint. Just as he was getting used to the glare, an unreasonably loud, female voice filled the room.
“Greetings mortals, you are in the metaphorical presence of the mighty Vashniel. Bow before my awesomeness.”
Vashniel? Where had he heard that name bef… “Oh my god, you’re the arsehole who named my sentiment multiplier.”
“What? Shut up. What’s wrong with Echoes of the Barren Cosmos. It’s a great name.”
“A great name? What’s wrong with you? It’s about as informative as being hit in the face with a fish.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Exactly!”
“But it’s just the name, the description explains the ability,” the administrator said defensively.
Nathan opened his mouth to retort but Marius, having finally recovered from shock at actually receiving an answer, spoke over him. “Perhaps, sir, it would be a good idea to avoid antagonising ageless divine beings.”
“I…” Nathan stopped to think for a moment. “You make a good point. Can we just skip to answering my question, please?”
“What question?”
Nathan’s look of indignant disdain was slightly ruined by the bright light forcing him to squint. “How can someone so powerful be so brain dead?”
“You… You… I am not brain dead! I’ll have you know…”
The outraged administrator was cut off by the sound of a door opening followed by a distinctly male, yet strangely breathy, voice.
“Vashniel, have you got those… What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” came a quick reply, along with the frantic sound of someone desperately trying to change tab.
“Have you… Oh for the love of sanity. Stop restoring your answer privileges, you always do it wrong.” The sound of someone fiddling with a keyboard resonated through the room. “See. Why are the volume and brightness set so high?”
“It looks impressive.”
“We’re the representatives of the god of mundanity. We’re not supposed to be impressive; we’re supposed to be professional. Now then, what are you actually… Oooh, hello Nathan. That was quick.”
“Is that you Fariel?” Nathan asked, enjoying the fact that he could now see normally. The iridescent glare had faded to a faint aurora dancing across everything in the room.
“Indeed it is. Let me just take a look at…” a quiet murmuring interrupted the administrator, “Look, there’s a reason we keep banning you from responding to questions. Go design another hypothetical naming algorithm, that always cheers you up.”
There was more, slightly louder murmuring followed by the muted sound of a door slamming.
“Fair warning,” Fariel said, “you might get some weird notifications for a while. Vashniel is in charge of the more cosmetic aspects of the system and she tends to be a bit irresponsible when she’s in a bad mood. I’m sure she’ll get over it in a century or two.”
“It’s nice to know that the system upon which my continued existence relies is operated by such wise and competent people,” Nathan replied.
“Trust me, the other candidates for her position were even worse. Anyway, I’ve read your proposal and I have to ask: are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yep.” He could almost hear Fariel rolling his eyes.
“You are aware that there will always be the chance of sapient error and you might waste your entire life?”
“Of course I am, I’m not stupid.”
“In that case, the answer to your question is that your proposal is not only possible but eminently viable. The main problem you’ll face is that maintaining anything for a hundred years is difficult. Let alone something as delicate and unstable as the ideal state.”
“Fantastic,” Nathan said, a massive grin splitting his face.
“Indeed. It may also take you a longer than a century, vampirism was quite a bit more stable than ideal immortality.”
“How much longer?”
“It could be anywhere from a few decades to a few centuries. It’s never been done before so we don’t really have anything to go off of.”
“What’s a few centuries between friends?”
There was a chuckle from the administrator. “Yes, well regardless, there is one small piece of housekeeping we need to do before I have to leave. Standard procedure for category 23 grade 7 is to explain the exact implications of a grade seven class, assuming that the questioner does not already know them.”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“Right then, I assume you are aware that grades one through three are incomplete classes, grades four through six are increasingly strong complete classes, and that at grade six the sentiment is so potent that it causes slight cosmetic changes.”
“I am.” He’d found out about that last bit while researching classes.
“The reason why seventh grade classes take so much more sentiment is because once you reach the threshold for the seventh grade you transform into a completely new species, an ageless one in your case. Because the transformation is inherently unstable, you then need to acquire even more sentiment to stabilise it.”
“Right. Does that then carry over into level cost?” Nathan asked
“Naturally. Seventh grade classes take significantly more sentiment to level than lower grade classes. However, with your sentiment multiplier, your levelling speed should only be four to five times slower than a normal person with a sixth-grade class.”
“That’s a relief. I was slightly worried that it would take me hundreds of years to level up.”
“Quite. The only other thing of note is that, if you successfully become ageless, you will receive a fifty percent discount to your service charge.”
“So I’d give 0.5 percent of my sentiment to the Host instead of one percent? That seems a bit random.”
“It’s a gesture,” Fariel said. “Broadly speaking, it is good policy to maintain positive relations with beings who will be using the system for potentially millions of years. Anyway, I’m afraid I have to go now, so I will say again: good luck. May your life be long and fruitful.”
And just like that, the lights and noise cut off, leaving them once again in a thoroughly uninteresting room. Nathan turned to look at his companions.
“I think that went quite well.”
10th Waril, Spring, 375th Year, 84th Era, 2nd Age (same day)
“Absolutely not.” Maria gripped the bundle of papers Elder Ashbourne had given her so tightly that some of them had ripped. “This is utter insanity. How could you possibly allow this to happen?”
“In fairness Elder Haelend, it isn’t really my choice to make,” the sorcerer replied, glancing to his left where Master Nathan stood. They were in her office at the High Council Building, recently redecorated in her house’s pale blue.
“Well, I won’t have anything to do with it. This is complete idiocy.”
Elder Ashbourne was quiet for a while, opening and closing his mouth every now and then as if thinking of an argument before dismissing it. Eventually Master Nathan spoke, clearly frustrated with the stalled conversation.
“You really are terrible at this aren’t you. I thought you were a politician.”
“I suspect from your tone,” the elder replied, “that politician means something slightly different in your world. Suffice it to say that I am not accustomed to persuading people of things that I do not wholeheartedly believe in.”
“In that case,” the void-walker said,” let me give it a go.”
“What makes you think that you can succeed where an elder has failed?” Maria asked.
“The fact that you both suffer from the exact same problem: fear of the new,” Master Nathan responded, continuing before either of them could object. “How is what I propose any different to vitality training?”
There was a pause as Master Nathan let them process the question. While only the most complacent seekers left the other four stats completely untrained, barely ten percent of seekers trained vitality.
It was a gruelling, deeply unpleasant process which amounted to little more than glorified torture. Most adepts and elders did at least a small amount, but few had the stomach to go beyond fifty points.
“Vitality training has guaranteed results,” Maria pointed out, though with far less conviction than she’d had a few seconds ago.
“That’s a fair point. But when you put a few centuries of extra lifespan and a smidge of defensiveness beside eternity I think the potential reward outweighs the risk of failure.” He paused for a moment, his head tilted in thought. “That is a matter of opinion though, so let’s look at it from a different angle. How many people die every year trying to get a single achievement point?”
“Well, yes but…”
“How many combatants die every year hunting monsters to level up?”
“I…”
“How many non-combatants are injured or killed performing unnecessarily dangerous experiments to accelerate their levelling speed?”
“I get the point!” Maria yelled, slamming her hand into her desk. She winced as something cracked. Perhaps she’d put a few too many points into strength.
“So you’ll help?”
Maria just stared at him, incredulous. Rationally she knew that he hadn’t grown up with the same cultural norms as the natives of Kelric but the fact that a mortal could be so calm in the face of an angry elder still seemed absurd. She sighed and ran a hand through her mostly black hair. A lot of the grey was gone now, just a little remaining at the tips.
She took the time to read through the papers again, processing what the insufferable madman had said. Once she set aside her unavoidable desire to win the argument, she was forced to acknowledge that the void-walker had a point.
From a psychological perspective, his proposed training plan was several times worse than standard vitality training but, with regular, targeted restoration from an elder healer, there wouldn’t be any long-term side effects. He’d even proposed a series of trials that would let them design tailored restoration enchantments for him to use while maintaining the ideal state.
“Fine.”
Maria couldn’t stop herself from scowling at the triumphant grin that split Master Nathan’s face.
Status
[Status]
Name: Nathan Emmanuel Fellwood
Age: 0
Species: Human (Void-walker)
Realm: Mortal
Level: 0
Strength: 4 (4/10)
Agility: 2 (2/10)
Vitality: 10 (10/10)
Tempus: 10 (10/10)
Scope: 10 (10/10)
Stat Points: 0 (0)
Achievement Points: 2
[Class/es]
Grade 3 Available
[Skills 8]
Aura Perception 1st Lvl 10
Language 1st Lvl 10
Mathematics 1st Lvl 10
Mana Control 1st Lvl 10
Memory Technique 1st Lvl 10
Multitasking 1st Lvl 10
Reading 1st Lvl 10
Visualisation 1st Lvl 10
[Abilities 12]
Echoes of the Barren Cosmos 1st (Innate)
REDACTED 1st (REDACTED)
Enhanced Aethereoception 1st Lvl 10
Enhanced Memory 1st Lvl 10
Enhanced Time Perception 1st Lvl 10
Identification 1st Lvl 10
Insomnia 1st Lvl 10
Isolation Tolerance 1st Lvl 10
Lightning Resistance 1st Lvl 10
Obfuscation 1st Lvl 1
Pain Tolerance 1st Lvl 10
Trauma Tolerance 1st Lvl 10