Author’s Corner: Second chapter of the day! Sorry if it looks a bit iffy for now, writing with a headache tends to slow creative juices, and was too bored not to write! If need be, will go over it and rewrite like I did chapter 49. In the meantime, enjoy!
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I’d like to say that I spent the rest of the night refining Seeds of Wind and Seeds of Earth, but that would be a lie. I didn’t pass out or anything, Celeste just offered me a much better solution. “You can make things in your grove now, right? Why don’t you just refine the seeds in there? You should have more than enough to spare of the first five elements.”
Realizing that she was right, I begrudgingly accepted the proposal. When I went to my grove and began refining the ground to make a Seed of Earth, I found that a two meter radius sphere was enough to instantly refine a low quality seed. If I increased the radius to three meters, I could refine a medium quality seed within a minute. I suddenly felt like a dunce for always refining them by hand. Although I could not easily bring magical items into my grove, taking them out of it is easy, as I have learned from Yo and Celeste.
Though, this wasn’t really a viable option before, since I had only a small grove. Each one would leave a nearly visible impact after refining it. However, now the grove was large enough that I had plenty of room. Though, this only applied to fire, water, earth, wind, and light seeds. It seemed that I did not absorb any other elements from Legion, meaning I still had to refine the Seed of Dark and Seed of Lightning by hand.
Still, now that I knew I could do it this way, I had a better idea. Instead of refining those two seeds outside of my grove, and then having to do the whole combination effect on the outside, I began actively cultivating those two elements, drawing them into my grove and forming the seeds in there. This way, I could do the combination procedure in a controlled environment. And, worst case scenario where the combining fails? The mana doesn’t rush out into the open, and should just be returned to my grove so I can quickly start over.
This took roughly four hours for me to refine both medium quality seeds, and then about ten minutes to combine them all into a rainbow patterned sphere. Once that was taken care of, I began pulling the element seeds I had gotten from the big water slime out, and popping them into my mouth like candy, breaking them down the same way as when I add a new element to my grove. With this, I received even more water mana, and could remake the seeds whenever I wanted.
The only one that I didn’t do that for was the seed which had a mixture of water and darkness. According to Celeste, it was the Mire Affinity, which I had not practiced yet. I planned to feed this to Yo when he turned into a slime person, and see what happens.
Anyways, with that, I ended up having the rest of the night to just relax. I spent it cultivating metal mana until I was ready to pass out again. In the morning, the doctors examined me and determined that I was physically fine, and just needed to eat a bit since I had slept so long. I took them up on that right away, and grabbed a bite to eat on the way to the police station. Once I had Celeste back, she told me that Yin and Yang were bugging her to let them out now that she could connect to the other bracelet again. I was honestly a bit surprised to find that she could connect to it in the first place when Yang was inside my grove.
In the end, I relented and summoned the two of them. Each one quickly assumed their ‘ideal place’, with Yin perched on my shoulder and Yang hugging my arm as we walked. Now, let me tell you, that was an awkward situation to explain to the police. Telling them that they were both my animal companions, and that Yang had simply evolved in the game. They seemed suspicious at first, as if they thought I might be working with slave traders, but when they saw how ‘enthusiastic’ Yang was they let it drop.
After retrieving Yo, I went down to the server room and used Technomancy to connect myself and Celeste to their AI. For the most part, the next bit was a boring cyber battle that lasted all of two seconds before the far more advanced AI overpowered the station’s, and reset it to the default. It was interesting to dive into an AI, though, like floating in a stream of endless code. I wondered slightly if that was what it was like for Celeste to be in my head, but she couldn’t answer.
When I told Monte that I had refined all of the items needed for the protective field around the town, he said they were working on getting a length of cable to run a circle around Oakland, but it would take a few more days. He had also put in a word with some other districts to spread the word, so most of the cities on the western coast were looking for druids to set up the barriers. In a few more days, that should extend to every city in the country, and then most likely the world.
Though, as a side note, I did offer to Yin to have her quickly train up to her next evolution when we got back to NeoLife, since I could easily refine Seeds of Wind now. It took her a while to decide, but she still decided against it. Still, I gave her a medium quality seed to slowly refine to help her cultivate, and Celeste said that she should be bordering her evolution now.
With that taken care of, I walked around with the two birds for a while to show them the city. Normally, this wouldn’t be very special, but I haven’t taken the chance to really show either of them around a city yet since I found them. Thanks to that, they were both very impressed with the scenery. Of course, there were many people that had their eyes glued to Yang as well. Even though women could choose to become a different race to change their looks slightly, it would not automatically make someone beautiful.
After spending a couple of hours walking through the city, I pulled the two of them back into my grove. Before doing so, I asked Yang to practice making staffs out of the trees, and spread the plants out a bit more now that the grove had grown so much. Then, I went back to my house and logged into the game. Since I was going to be waiting a few days for the police in the real world, that meant I had at least a week or two in NeoLife to train.
Once I was back in the game, I decided to take up a certain subject with Celeste. “What kind of monsters normally spawn in space? And what levels are they?”
“Hmm… The big monsters, ones with a level over two hundred, are hunted down as standard policy when a system is colonized. But there are several smaller species that can be quite troublesome, like the stellar fish or void caller. Wait.. are you thinking what I think you are? Why am I asking that, of course you are. And the answer is no, you shouldn’t do it. At least, not yet. Maybe when you train the Gravity Affinity, and already have a fairly decent Plasma Affinity. But right now, that would just be suicidal.”
“Damn…” To be honest, I had thought about quickly training my Plasma and Gravity Affinities by flying out to the local sun to cultivate. That should have an even greater effect than I received when I cultivated on the jungle planet. Though sadly, the idea was firmly rejected. “So my best bet is still to farm monsters here, huh?”
“Right. And now that you have the Scythe Mantis arm, you can work on getting another animal. What kind of trait do you want next? Or would you rather focus on getting experience for Yin so that she can evolve quickly?”
“I’ve already got several layers of armor, and natural weapons. My eye covers sensory abilities.” That made me remember something, so I decided to upgrade my ears before I left the town this time. “I think at this point, I’ve gotten what I can get from animals, unless I go for things based more on appearance. Are there any magical animals with useful abilities that I can copy on this planet?” With my Aspect of the Armored Beast covering both my skin and bones, and Aspect of the Hunter giving my diamond-like claws, I didn’t have much else to gain from the more mundane animals. Maybe if I found an animal that was especially good with speed, but this was a planet where everything had integrated with rocks, so that was unlikely.
“Hmm… there is the silver moth. It’s a fairly rare insect on this planet that consumes ore and refines it into silver thread. You don’t have a method of making metal threads yet, so that might be useful for you. There is also the cliff tiger, which is able to dive into the ground and swim through it faster than most animals on this planet can run. It can’t breathe underground, so it has to do this in short bursts.”
I thought about it for a few moments before answering. “While silver threads would be cool and all… I wouldn’t really be able to do much with them but sell them. Yang’s a crafter, but silver wouldn’t really qualify for the Nature Magic crafting method.” With that decided, my next target would be the cliff tiger. Earth swimming would be a good defensive power and movement ability. “Do cliff tigers have something like tremorsense to detect what is on the ground above them?”
“Nope, but they typically don’t stay under for more than twenty seconds at a time. So a tremorsense isn’t really needed. There are other animals on this planet that do have that sense, but they are mostly back in that forest where--”
“Nope, not going back there, fuck that.” I didn’t even let Celeste finish, knowing what she was going to say. She smirked wryly to me as I vehemently denied that plan. “Not worth it for a new sense. I can just have you keep an eye out for any other animals that we come across that fit the description.”
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Celeste laughed lightly, but agreed to that. “So, are you going to get the new affinities first, or level up Yin?”
I considered that, but ultimately it was more important for me to get Plasma and Magnet Affinities. Yin could level up even if I left her alone in the grove by training her Wind Affinity, so she might even be done by the time I finish. Just to be sure, I went into my grove and refined five medium quality Seeds of Wind and put them near her, leaving the instruction with Yang on what to do with them.
As a fun side fact, all of my 10% affinities finally increased to 11%, and water even increased to 12% thanks to all of the seeds I broke down in the hospital. That boosted my mana recovery a bit more, which helped me out. Anyways, in order to gain the Plasma Affinity, I planned on borrowing from my beam saber, until Celeste spoke out. “Actually, before you do that, there’s something else you need to take care of first. Didn’t want to bother you about it unless it turned into an issue… and well.. I think it’s going to turn into an issue now.”
I paused, just as I was about to grab the beam saber from my grove. “What is it?”
“The soul fragments you absorbed from Legion. They’re starting to fight against the filters I made. You’ll need to purge them before they can break out and try to take over.” This little tidbit of news made my eye twitch slightly. “Sorry, I know I should have told you sooner, but I figured that you wouldn’t want to use the new skill, and didn’t think they’d be able to put up a fight this soon.”
Deep, calming breaths… “Okay… do you have any idea how to do it?” Thanks to the initial sliver that had given me the skill, I had a faint idea about how to use Soul Arts, but since I hadn’t practiced it yet I couldn’t confirm. Celeste, on the other hand, has had the equivalent of weeks(at her processing speed, at least) to study the hints on how to use the skill.
“I might. It should work kind of like your shapeshifting, but several levels deeper. This isn’t the form or appearance of an aura that you are messing with now, but the actual composition of it. And right now, there’s not a buffer zone for you to get rid of the soul fragments without sacrificing skills, so you’ll need to pick something to give up, and gather it all together. If you were more skilled with this, maybe you could purify the soul fragments, but for now purging them is the only safe option.”
“I got two levels from them, so I need to give up two levels worth of skills, right?”
Celeste confirmed my thought, but added on something else, which did not help at all. “Yes, and no. The amount of experience you got would be the same as levels one through eight, rather than just one and two. It’ll still only set you back a couple levels, but that is an important bit of information.”
“Alright…” I took a quick glance at my skill list. “I can give up Dagger Mastery, Archery, and Wind Magic since I have the affinity to imitate that one. How much is that all worth?”
“At your current levels of mastery… Almost there. You won’t need to sacrifice a full skill to finish it off, just a little bit of one. I’d suggest some of the runes I taught you, because they won’t be very helpful for the near future. About nine hundred or so should do it.”
I nodded, and could easily think of a few such runes that I wouldn’t need. I mean, I’m unlikely to need to use the rune apple, headache, lime, or sunflower any time soon. “Okay, so how do I do this?”
“First, focus on the skills you want to eject while scanning your own aura as deeply as possible. You should feel certain areas light up. Think of this as defragmenting a computer, you’re rearranging your aura to put the skills together.” Following her instructions, I closed my eyes and scanned my own aura with Mana Sense, going as detailed as possible while thinking of Wind Magic. A dozen tiny areas lit up in my aura, and I tugged at each one to gradually move them along the streams of energy, like playing a complex maze from a dozen different positions.
Once the little sections joined together, I did another sweep to make sure nothing else was lighting up. When I felt that bundle of energy, my mind was filled with everything I knew about Wind Magic, and all the practice I had done with it. Next, I did the same thing for Archery and Dagger Mastery, moving them all to the same position I had put my Wind Magic. To my dismay, and Celeste’s amusement, there were only two or three lights for Archery that I had to move. It was like even my aura was teasing me about how bad I was with my bow.
Finally, I thought of nine hundred different runes, and found that this was for the most part the easiest. Although it was nine hundred runes, they were almost all clustered in one area, so I just had to move them along to join the man bundle I had been establishing. “Wouldn’t this mean, that if I lost an arm or a leg, I’d lose any of the skills that were in that part of my aura?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe the skills flow around when you’re active, so if you lose a limb they just retreat back to your main body? Anyways, now that you’ve got the skills together, I’m going to slowly lift the filters I placed on the memories and personalities. I’m going to do it just one at a time, so this will take a while. However, if I did more than that, you might lose yourself before we finished. Keep a close eye on your aura, and whenever a new section lights up that doesn’t feel familiar, push it into that same cluster you just made, then pull it out of you with the skills. It should feel a little like having blood drawn, I think.”
“Not liking the ‘I think’.”
“Cut me some slack, I’ve only been able to study a small amount of information for this skill and make theories for the rest. Consider this first one a test run, it’s one of the weakest personalities you absorbed.”
Right as she finished saying that, I felt something off in my aura. Oddly, it was down near my foot, but it was like a different presence entirely. When I focused on it to draw it towards the skill cluster, I got a flash of memories from a little alien boy. They were too fragmented for me to catch any thoughts, and the only emotion he felt was fear. I quickly pulled that soul fragment up through my aura, until it reached the skill cluster, before matching it up with a few of the runes. It seemed confused by that, and just waited before I mentally grabbed it and pulled it from my aura.
There was a not inconsiderable amount of pain, quite a bit more than I would get from having blood drawn! “Sorry!” Celeste called out in a worried tone as my aura slowly closed the gap from where I had pulled the soul fragment out.
New Ability Unlocked!
Exorcise Spirit - Soul Arts - ★★
This ability allows you to identify foreign spirits within an aura and exorcise them from the host body.
Next, she released the mental blocks on another fragment, causing another section of my soul to light up. This one was an elderly woman, and I had a theory as I drew her towards the cluster. She was only releasing the mental blocks on the personalities, not the souls themselves. Since she had no control over my magic, she naturally couldn’t seal the souls. So, the souls should already be inside my aura roaming freely, but when she releases the mental blocks, the personalities find their way back to the fragments, lighting them up for me to find.
This process continued for a while, and I lost track of how many times I exorcised a soul fragment from inside myself. Every now and then, I would catch a memory from the souls as I was gathering them, but it was usually only the moment of their death. Some people say that there are only two things that nobody remembers, their birth and their death. However, each and every soul fragment I exorcised clearly felt the fear and memory of their death. I didn’t know where the souls would go after they were exorcised, but the mere fact of their existence led me to believe that there was somewhere for them in whatever afterlife there was.
By the time I was done with the last soul, which I had to reassemble from two dozen different pieces before I could send it off, the sun had already set outside. Though, I still wasn’t tired thanks to the differences in time from the real world to the game. So instead, I confirmed with Celeste that the souls had all gone, and my aura was my own again. I still had the Soul Arts skill, but thankfully I had lost the knowledge on how to do the original ability that had come with it. In the same way, I had lost all of my memories regarding training with the bow and Wind Magic, or how to properly wield a dagger. I still knew what memories I had lost, just not their contents. Like how you can remember the name of a movie, but not who was in it.
Celeste still has all of the memories from her perspective, but they wouldn’t help me in getting the skills back. Though, she assured me that I did not lose anything important, and that if it became relevant she would let me know. To my surprise, I actually only lost one level, but my affinities increasing probably helped with that.
Now, with that out of the way, I finally went to what I actually wanted to do in the first place, and pulled out my beam saber to begin cultivating Magnet Affinity.