42- A covetable Ability requires discretion

8/2/5/4353 M.A.C - Niwut- Morning

"So, yeah, I leveled up again..."

"That's great, why do you not sound more excited?"

"Well, I am excited, but I'm feeling a bit guilty."

Khetep raised an eyebrow and waited for his son to elaborate further.

"I mean, Sarima is still level 1 and all. I'm supposed to be teaching her, but with only me leveling, the optics don't look great. I don't want her to feel like she's falling behind, or to think I'm holding out on her."

Khetep patted his son's head as he let out a chuckle.

"You worry too much. Put yourself in Sarima's shoes for a second. Sure, you are leveling up faster than she is, but she knows you are a Blessed and have years of experience she doesn't. She is probably happy that you are leveling so quickly. In a way, it confirms that you are worth learning from. So, did you upgrade some Abilities, or did you get some new ones?"

He might be right. but her lessons have been going very well...I wonder why she hasn't leveled yet.

"One new, the other an upgrade. My [Somatic Support] was upgraded. I think my practice with anchoring the load to different muscles unlocked something. I can now spread the load out between as many muscles as I want simultaneously. My maximum output increased a lot and, if I spread the effort, I can keep going a lot longer. The new one lets me control the crystallization process of a material. Let me show you."

Doro picked up a chunk of the Silica he had harvested over the last decan and showed it to his father.

"Until now, I could make glass into glass, and sandstone into sandstone, but I couldn't transform one into the other. Now..."

Doro invested some energy into the chunk of Silica he was holding, bringing it into a near-liquid state, and tried out his new Ability.

[Reorder Structure]

Doro turned the mass into a sphere and let it return to a solid state as his other ability quickly turned it transparent. Doro was now holding onto a clear pure silica glass orb, pleased at having gotten his new Ability right on the first go. Khetep seemed to be about to congratulate his son, but Doro wasn't quite done.

"I should also be able to do this instead."

Doro invested energy into the glass orb and used [Reorder Structure] again, only this time he took a few seconds to concentrate on the way the bonds were reforming. As the mass took shape again, it now appeared as a multifaceted orb-like polyhedron.

"Look! Quartz! Making stuff into crystals takes a bit more energy because I have to keep the mass liquified longer while I set the bond structure into an ordered state, but it's worth it!"

Doro waited for a response from his father, but Khetep looked like someone had found his pause button. A bead of sweat started appearing on his brow as his hands started to quiver. He brought both hands up to wipe at his eyes in disbelief, but the large chunk of crystal did not go anywhere. Khetep had yet to utter a single word, but Doro could see the panic coming over his father.

"Dad? What's wrong?"

Is quartz a taboo substance or something?

Khetep snatched the polyhedron from his sons's hands and held it up against the light of the sun. Doro wanted to tell his father that looking directly at the sun through crystal might not be the best idea, but he could see that it would have fallen on deaf ears, hyperfocused as Khetep was.

"Don't show this to anyone, not even Sarima. If people find out you can do this, your mother and I won't be able to keep you safe."

Huh? What the heck? It's just quartz, fairly sure the black crystals I gave Mom are rarer. Is it because I made a large chunk?

"Why are you panicking Dad? It's just quartz. I'm sure it gets mined all over the place. I mean, it is made of pretty much the same stuff as the walls of our house."

"Doro, listen to me. First, I don't think anyone knows for sure what most crystals are made of, and there hasn't been much historical success in making synthetic ones. Some might have succeeded, but they kept it secret if they did. The issue is that you were able to make a completely pure and flawless piece of quarts of this size. The transparency seems top-grade, I can't see any inclusions or imperfections, and the cut looks good enough that I'd have thought this was done by a jeweler, or at least a Brahmatec. This quality of quartz is not only rare, but it is also in extremely high demand for brahmachines. I don't think the supply has ever gotten close to meeting the demand, so if they find out you can do this..."

I'd get kidnapped and basically become the crystal equivalent of a dairy cow, gotcha! Yeah, I guess it's like if some dude on Earth showed he could make perfect silicon for computer chips while we were in a shortage. Guy would probably get captured by some government.

Doro nodded as he started to understand his father's misgivings and he transformed the quartz polyhedron into a glass sphere once more.

If he reacts like this to quartz, maybe I should avoid telling him I can probably make diamonds out of carbon, or rubies and sapphires out of aluminum for now.

***

"Oh...She just wanted to ask me how my father was doing because she thought he looked depressed the last time they drank together."

Sarima decided to risk a bald-faced lie to try and hide her failure. Suyum had promised she would keep her faux pas a secret, and Sarima was too scared of Doro's reaction to own up to it unbidden, so she decided to try and just move past it.

Doro seems to be buying it, but why does Uncle K look so on edge? Is he suspecting me of something?

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unbeknownst to Sarima, the father and son pair were also in the process of trying to keep something from her. The fact that none of them were particularly good liars could have been a problem, but each was so focused on making sure to keep their own secrets hidden that they did not question the others.

"So, what are you teaching me today?"

Doro hemmed and hawed as he tried to bring something up, seemingly not finding the right words. Luckily, his father jumped in and cleared up the situation for him.

"So yeah, Doro leveled up again and he is feeling guilty that you haven't. I told him that you wouldn't be jealous, but he worries too much."

"Daaad!"

"Why would I be Jealous? I'm using my Abilities as little as possible to avoid leveling up you know?"

Khetep nodded, as if what Sarima said made complete sense, but the look on Doro's face betrayed his complete lack of comprehension.

"I want to wait until you've taught me many interesting things before I try to level up. It would be a waste if I started leveling up quickly and got a bunch of meh Abilities when I could have gotten better ones instead."

Doro still seemed to have trouble following that line of thought and spoke up to ask for some clarifications.

"Aren't your Abilities mostly based on your Choice though?"

Khetep seemed to realize what was stopping his son from grasping Sarima's logic and started speaking.

"Your starting Abilities are entirely dependent on your Choice, the ones you get from leveling up are a bit more complicated. The more you use Akashic energy, the more your soul grows accustomed to it. Leveling up is basically a side effect of your soul growing more powerful and being able to store more Akashic energy as you practice with it. If you keep using the same Abilities in the same way for a long time, you are likely to get Abilities that lower energy costs, or something along those lines. If you practice with your Abilities and try to find new applications for them, you are likely to get an upgrade to those Abilities. It gets complicated when you take into account that your mental state, physical activity, and knowledge can cause you to unlock completely new Abilities that are in a similar wheelhouse as your others."

"Yeah, that's why I'm trying not to use my Abilities much at the moment. If you teach me some cool stuff, I'm more likely to unlock some fun Abilities instead of just upgrading my basic [Store Manager] ones."

"Don't worry yourself over it though, Doro, you already have more than enough interesting knowledge. Also, historically, Blesseds don't tend to get stuck in the mortal realms as most pass the level 30 threshold, so don't worry too much about keeping room for specific Abilities. You can just continue to experiment as you have for now. If you really want to develop a specific type of Ability but are not sure how to go on about it, practicing with an Akashic artifact with a similar purpose can help."

"Oh, that makes sense, I think I get it. Guess you two are the teachers today, eh?"

Doro chuckled at the reversal in their usual roles.

"...But yeah, gonna be a bit busy this morning because I need to finish Mom's present, so let's get your lesson sorted right quick Sarima. Show me if you are ready to move past single unknown variable equations."

***

"Done! All I need to do now is to shape it."

Doro clapped his hands together as he admired his handiwork. In front of him were three masses of glass in differing shades of green.

Good thing this doesn't use much chromium because it's the resource I have the least of...Still, since we are keeping her in the dark and all, Mom deserves at least this much.

Doro had used some of the chromium and silica he'd extracted throughout the last decan to make the green glass, but he'd wanted to play with the shades a bit. He had yet again copped some copper from his father to turn it into a copper oxide and add some blue into some of the glass. After playing around with the chromium and copper oxide content for a while, he'd managed to make three shades he was happy with.

"So, what are you going to do with those?"

Sarima leaned over Doro's shoulder to peek at what he was working on, having seemingly finished the exercises he'd set for her earlier.

"I promised my mother I would make her something nice. I'll have some leftover though, so look forward to a little gift too."

A small smile appeared on Sarima's face, as she no doubt started imagining what her gift would be. Doro was putting the last touches onto his mental blueprint as Sarima asked another question.

"Is it glowing? How did you make it do that?"

The way she phrased it, you'd think I just made some uranium glass.

"No, it doesn't glow, but I mixed in some very fine particulates of reflective metal inside. Because of that, it makes the light catch on them and reflects it in every direction, giving the impression that it glows slightly brighter than the ambient level of light"

Sarima did not seem to grasp Doro's explanation and Khetep jumped in to help.

"Just think of it as many tiny mirrors stuck inside the glass, so no matter where you stand, there are always a few of the mirrors facing the right direction to shine line toward you. Well, as long as there is light. In the dark, it doesn't do anything special."

"Oooh, kind of like Scholar Atwuts head!"

***

After Sarima's little jab at the scholar, it had taken a few minutes for the trio to settle down and become productive again. As Khetep returned to his work, Doro took the lightest and bluest of the glass lumps and started shaping it into a soda-can-like cylinder, leaving the top open. He then softened the brighter green chunk of glass and started applying fine spirals and cloud-like shapes on the surface of the top two-thirds of the cylinder. Finally, he started coating the bottom third with the darkest green glass he had produced, marking vertical streaks into it, letting a bit of the lighter underlying glass glimpse through.

The main bit finished, Doro melded the remaining glass together into a swirly and colorful mass before dividing it into two halves. With the first half, he made a small plate with a circular indent in the center, for the his cylindrical creation to sit in, and then turned the second half into a dozen glass cats-eye style marbles of varying sizes.

"There we go, one luscious green lamp for Mom, to remind her of springtime in Umayer, and one set of marbles for you. What do you think?"

Sarima gave Doro a beaming smile as she inspected her gift and started rolling the marbles between her fingers.

"Oooh, so smooth and round! They are very pretty, but what are they for? you didn't pierce holes into them, so they can't be beads at least."

"These are marbles, they can be used for decoration, collection, or as a toy. Since Dad had both lime and soda stocked in his workshop, I was able to make decent glass, so they should be solid enough to play with. I'll teach you one or two games you can play with them after."

Khetep noticed that Doro was about to move on to his mother's gift and stepped away from his work for a minute.

"You have to make some of those tiny metal slivers for me at some point. I think I could put them into some of your mother's glazes, might give a nice effect. I've got to say though, this looks too good to put a candle in. Candles will get it sooty and the heat might wear down the glass over time. I think this deserves a proper glow stone, like this you can come up with something nice to put on top since you won't have to leave it open for the candle."

Doro and his father continued coming up with potential improvements and decided that they would work on improving it a bit together before offering it to Suyum.

***

"Thanks again for the marbles. By the way, are you free today?"

Sarima was gathering her marbles after playing a couple of rounds of the marble-tossing game Doro had taught her, but it was now getting close to lunchtime and she would have to return home soon.

"I've got lunch with the parents, then off to train for an hour or two, then I've got to increase my stockpiles of Albium since I finished processing my other raw resources and sifter sand is basically free. So not too busy, what's up?"

"Do you want to come have lunch at my place today, I made enough extra this morning and I think my dad would like to meet you."

"Sure, let's just go ask my parents if it's ok then we can head off."

Khetep had already gone to the kitchen ahead, as today was his turn to cook, and so the pair left the workshop and headed to the kitchen.

"Still here Sarima? You need to head home soon, sixth bell is about to ring and your father must be waiting for you."

"Actually, Dad, Sarima invited me over for lunch. I want to see their shop and forge, and her father wants to meet me, so, mind if I accept the invitation?"

Suyum cut in and answered instead of her husband.

"Sure, go ahead. I need to have an important talk with your father anyway, so the timin' couldn't be better."

Sarima was standing behind Doro at the moment, and so he could not see the wince of apprehension that appeared on her face. A now perturbed Khetep had not missed it though, and his body language immediately shifted to show his worry. As the pair of children turned around and started walking out the door, Khetep stretched his hand out toward his son, in a last-ditch hope for rescue, but he went unnoticed as the door closed behind them. He turned to face his wife and started rubbing his hands together nervously.

"I am not sure what I did, but I am sure I can come up with a valid explanation if you give me a chance."