Within the Sky Citadel, we quickly set into a daily routine. Our Virtual Selves spent their time alternating between training and playing various games, while our real world selves took care of any business or personal projects that we might have. For me, I was working on training my three domains, building upon my trinity to give me extra combat options.
Tsubaki was often accompanying me for my training, offering her insights whenever there was something that I was unsure about. Similarly, the two of us began developing team attacks, as it would likely start becoming common practice for us to fight together during invasions. With how well her Light domain synergized with my Mirrors domain, this gave us an excellent basis for our tactics.
Dana spent most of her time working on redesigning the enchantments of the Sky Citadel itself, bringing them up to date with the most cutting-edge in magic research. Additionally, she had apparently been working over the last decade to create an alternate enchantment system within the citadel, allowing it to be switched from Earth’s magic system to Lorek’s on the fly. This would allow the Citadel to even fly within the skies of Lorek.
Lifre often kept herself writing various stories, her imagination almost boundless. Whenever she wasn’t writing, she could be found traversing the world to leave different ‘trial’ monsters for people to overcome. According to her, doing so would leave the ‘seed’ of a story for her to write about later.
Finally, there was Gerard. Honestly, he spent most of his time working, and I didn’t even believe that he had a Virtual self. If he did, he kept it busy enough that I never got to see it. However, he seemed to enjoy the work, taking pride in his ability to manage the common response systems of the Citadel.
Today, I found myself in the study, holding an empty Level Stone in my hand. Looking down at it, it was hard to believe just how important this seemingly mundane stone had become in recent years. The educational system had shifted almost entirely, now focused on absorbing the information from these stones and reviewing it, as well as practical application for the techniques contained within. Even the general studies could be saved through the Scholar class.
Looking at the stone now, there was something special that I wanted to try with it. Something that I wasn’t entirely sure would even work. After all, it wasn’t really part of a class. However, the general studies being transferable gave me hope.
I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath and rooting through my memories. I found the memory of how I created World Sight, using my Soul domain to capture the memory. Afterwards, I branded the memory with the mark of the Scholar, and tried to implant it into the Level Stone I was holding.
The Level Stone lit up to show a reaction, making me think that I had succeeded. However, when I reviewed the information in the stone, my face darkened. What I saw was a memory of myself hammering away at an ancient forge, back when Terra first taught me how to do smithing as a ‘required learning exercise’.
Okay, so it won’t work with the stone. I muttered to myself, before blinking. My hand came up, slapping at my forehead. I had just done what I needed to do… but I missed the final step.
My fist clenched, shattering the Level Stone. Now that it had accepted those first levels of Scholar from me, it had basically been wasted anyway. As such, there was no point in keeping it, since I doubted anyone wanted to learn such primitive forging methods in this age.
Once again, I found that branded memory that I had created just recently. This time, I exerted the power of my Souls domain to manifest a small white pearl in my hand. Souls are a collection of ideas, thoughts, and memories. If someone were to create a solidified soul containing a specific memory, that memory should be able to be passed to others.
After creating this pearl, I swept over it with my domain once again, altering the memories to remove any personal traces of ‘me’ from within it. I did not want an identity crisis to appear because the memory contained any vestige of myself that conflicted with whoever used this pearl.
Finally, once I was done with that, I created three additional pearls by copying the first. “Tsubaki.” I called out, the kitsune standing a few feet behind me the entire time.
“Yes, my Keeper?” She asked, stepping forward.
“Please call Dana and Lifre in here.” I said with a small smile. I would have had her call Gerard as well, but I didn’t think that he had access to ki, which would make it impossible to create World Sight.
“As you wish, my Keeper.” She nodded her head, closing her eyes. I could feel a brief pulse of mana as she sent out the summons.
It did not take very long before the two appeared, walking into the study with confused looks on their faces. “You call us here for something, boss?” Dana asked, walking over to stand next to Tsubaki. Lifre simply bounced on her heels, quite literally, while waiting to hear what I wanted.
“That’s right. Dana, could you have one of your shadows absorb this, please?” I asked, tossing one of the pearls to Dana. She caught it deftly, looking it over and even sniffing it.
“This is… a solidified soul essence?” She muttered, rather sensitive to the nature of spirits. After a moment, she nodded, and her shadow shifted to produce a black-haired human woman. The woman extended her hand, allowing Dana to place it in her palm before she directly consumed the pearl.
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That’s right, consumed. She shoved it straight into her mouth and swallowed it. Not quite how I imagined the energy being absorbed, but if it works, it works. I watched, waiting as the information was quite literally digested. Eventually, the woman opened her mouth, speaking slowly. “World Sight…”
I let out a sigh of relief, as that meant that she had truly learned at least some of the information within the pearl. “The three of you, each come and take one of these.” I said, gesturing to the remaining pearls. “This is a special type of sensing energy, one that can traverse vast distances and silently pierce most restrictions. Once you absorb the energy in the pearls, you should be able to understand how to make the energy yourself.”
Tsubaki was the first to step forward, grabbing one of the pearls and pressing it against her lips. However, she did not consume it as Dana’s shadow did. Rather, she inhaled, seeming to suck the soul power directly out of the pearl. This caused it to fade away while Tsubaki stood there with her eyes closed.
Lifre and Dana soon followed suit, though Lifre simply popped it into her mouth like a piece of candy. I suppose that being a slime would be of benefit there. Either way, all three of them stood there for a few moments to process the information, their eyes opening one after the other.
“I’d like it if all three of you practiced this energy. After seeing that memory, you should be able to understand how useful it is.” I was honestly tempted to give them the Ki of Beginning as well, but I wasn’t sure if that would clash with Dana’s World Shadow, given that she already possessed a Saint Body.
The three nodded their heads happily, each turning to leave the study. Since they had the memories of a successful energy creation, it shouldn’t be difficult for them to use their personal experiences to replicate the event. Furthermore, once they had their World Sight, that would greatly enhance their ability to control their own energies.
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“Here it is…” Nimora muttered to herself, having finally found the farm that Jace had pointed out to her. Doing so had taken her several days of scouring the countryside of Kross. Although he had pointed to the farm, it was a lot harder to search it all herself to find that one building. For some reason, you required a special service to be able to use positioning software in Kross, and had to be a resident of the country to get that service.
Who even does that?! Nimora cried out in her mind as she looked at the groups of soldiers outside the house. Apparently, the deaths had been discovered, and the local law enforcement was investigating the scene.
She projected her senses into the house, being careful to avoid any of the soldiers within. She let out a breath of relief upon finding the painting of the local king on one wall of the bedroom.
The enchantment must have been well hidden indeed, as Nimora couldn’t sense a trace of magic from the painting. Thankfully, this also meant that it had not yet been discovered by the soldiers, either.
Nimora grit her teeth, forcing herself to wait hidden in the sky. Once the soldiers left for the day, she would be able to move in and activate the painting’s enchantment. Even if she was not an expert of Earth, concealing her energy was an easy feat for her. After all, she had trained to track down a God of Deception.
Once they had left, she made sure her energy was fully concealed, slipping past the wards she had watched them establish earlier in the day. She was careful not to touch anything that was marked as potential ‘evidence’, moving straight for the painting that lay undisturbed on the wall. Once there, she covered the eyes of the figure in the painting, and felt a rush of magic wrapping around her.
The next moment, she stood in a large room, metal walls slowly lighting up in response to her presence. Across the walls and floors, she could see scattered droplets of black sludge. The unfortunate remains of Thadius’s puppets. She shook her head sadly, realizing that this went further than she had initially realized. Although she had seen the chatroom, the number of sludge puddles seemed to surpass even that.
“Where is it…?” She muttered to herself, navigating the halls until she found a large room with numerous terminals laid out on desks. She all but gagged when she saw the black sludge covering the terminals themselves, having to wipe one off in order to activate it. Or rather, wake it from ‘sleep mode’, as the previous owners never had the chance to turn them off.
Once the terminal was properly active, she began browsing through the files. It was thankful that these files weren’t encoded, as they were not connected to any external network. That made it easier for Nimora to navigate the files to find any records related to merkin.
And there was one, an experiment log archived from the time when her love had gone missing. According to the project summary, they were trying to find a way to convert the merkin’s natural psionic song into a way for Thadius to spread his influence. To test this theory, they had abducted a merkin to perform vivisection…
Nimora’s fists clenched tight when she read that, having to force herself to continue. The experiment ultimately ended in failure, as the merkin’s song was not a method of controlling the thoughts of others. While plausible, they would need to create an entirely new divine artifact to facilitate the process. One which they went on to list being their next goal.
Nimora’s face went more and more white the more she read through the details of the experiment, immediately looking away and breaking down once she had finished. It was no easy task to read about what they did to her love, but she had to confirm something. She had to confirm whether they infected him or not. If they did… she wasn’t sure if he would still be him in the Underworld.
Now, as she leaned against the wall and allowed herself to properly cry, a smile formed on her lips. They hadn’t converted him. Right up until the end. There was even a mention that they had tried to do so, but there was something stopping it. Likely his natural psionic powers, but it made it such that they couldn’t convert him without expending enough power to draw unwanted attention. His mind was his own, right until the very end.
Giles… I’m coming home. She thought to herself, clutching at her chest. She had left her son in order to go on this hunt. And now, she wanted nothing more than to see him again. The only problem was… she didn’t know if he would still be there. Given how he was treated among the elves of Spica, he would have likely left to meet the Merkin. Meaning… he should be somewhere on Earth, within the oceans. I’ll find you, I promise.