PSTH: Chapter Thirty-One (Patreon)

There’s a lot of discussion around the phrase ‘War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!’ and its use in Pre-Arrival culture. Some, such as myself, believe that the phrase was an ironic one. With a culture dependent heavily on an inherently limited resource, and with the proto-Obsidian Kings working to stymie and slow the development of re-usable sources of technology, magic, power, and even food and farming? It seems like, as inconceivable as it is to you and I, there was an endless list of needs for war amongst the common people of the Pre-Arrival world. Others believe that it’s semi-ironic, a veiled criticism of the proto-Obsidian Kings and their command over culture, while others still believe that there was simply a staggering level of cognitive dissonance in the people of the Pre-Arrival world. Unfortunately, we may never know the whole truth, as none of us lived through it.

-

Lecture on Pre-Arrival culture, 375 Modern-Era

-

There was a lot of paperwork, just as there had been the time before, and Lisa Ruth chatted away happily with us as we worked to fill it out. I was pretty certain that made the paperwork take even longer than it would have without her talking, but it was honestly nicer than having to sit and do it in silence. 

“Alright, alright!” she said, laughing as she swept the documents from our augpads and onto her own. “I’m sure you’re raring to know what exactly your trial is – unless you’ve been lookin’ at leaks online. You haven’t, have you?” 

“No ma’am,” I said, shaking my head firmly, and she laughed, then sent us a link over the local network. I clicked on it, and was offered the option to upload a photo. 

“I’m quite associated with the park,” explained the older woman. “As such, I wanna see everyone able to enjoy it to the fullest. I don’t want a bunch of Tamers who just come by to fight and then skedaddle on off to the next Councillor. Get me pictures of five different unique plants – they could be trees you like, flowers that are pretty, mosses, mushrooms, whatever. Yes, I know mushrooms aren’t plants. This isn’t biology class. In addition to five plants, I want five different animals – and from a respectful distance. I won’t have you getting gored by an elk because you don’t understand personal space. And then, finally, five non-human essence users. They can be essence beasts, essence hearts, Primals, whatever floats your boat.” 

She placed her hands on her desk and gave us both a death glare. 

“And now, I’m hoping that I don’t need to tell this to you all, you seem like good young people. But if I find out that you’ve been damaging the park, entering areas that are cordoned off for restoration, littering, anything like that, I will see you stripped of my seal, and petition to have your rank entirely suspended. And if you think I won’t see, think again. I’ve got eyes all over Arkose. I can see a squirrel pissing into the wind from fifty miles away. I can see everything, I just choose to ignore most of it.” 

She allowed her essence to swell and fill the space, pressing down on us, and I had to take a breath. Given how Councillors modulated their power to who they were fighting, it was easy to forget that each of them was a powerhouse in their own right – even if a councillor only met the minimum requirements for the position, they’d still have four Primals at level sixty-five. Judging from the power that Lisa Ruth let off, I was betting she was above that minimum threshold. She didn’t feel quite as potent as Vince had, but she certainly was stronger than the ghost of the Obsidian King. A moment later, Lisa Ruth’s power receded, and she grinned. 

“So remember, we’ve got bearproof trash cans for a reason, and if you’re not willing to carry the trash to one of them, don’t bring it in the first place. Now go on, shoo, I’ve got work to do and you’ve got pictures to take. Go on now.” 

She made a sweeping gesture with her hands and I stood, thanking her and pushing my chair in as we headed out. Laurel glanced around, then pointed at one of the sparrows that was pecking away on the ground near the bike rack. 

“Think that will count as one of the five?” 

“In a court of law, yeah, but this isn’t a court,” I said with a snort. “She’d probably just tell you off for ignoring the spirit of actually enjoying the park.” 

“You’re probably right,” Laurel said, tucking her augpad away into her backpack. As she did, and I considered the implications of the challenge, I let out a snort, then started to laugh. Laurel gave me a strange look and I waved my hand, catching my breath before letting out a sigh. 

“Nothing, it’s just. My best friend is currently in school for a degree in photography. I just saw her and spent time with her and her partners, only to turn around and leave… right into the photography challenge. She’s going to be so annoyed when I text her about this.” 

“Ah, Laurel said, before glancing around, frowning. “Where’d River go? I swear he came with us, and I was just on my augpad. I don’t have any missed messages.” 

“Is there a spellcasting exhibit or anything of the sort?” I asked curiously, glancing around the welcome center. It didn’t seem to have anything of the sort, just the various plaques describing the sorted history, conditions, animals, Primals, and other things that could be found in the park. 

“He does have other hobbies, you know. Just because he was focused on magic while on Vince’s payroll doesn’t mean that he’s only got a magic brain.”

“Like what?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to be aggressive or contrarian, but Laurel frowned at me as if I’d said something wrong, I just wasn’t sure what. She looked at me for a few moments before she answered, still sounding a bit displeased. 

“He watches a lot of magiaball,” she said. “He’s actually into a few different sports. According to him, the magian divisions for football and boxing can get pretty crazy at times.” 

“Hm. Magian boxing. I’m assuming they’re primarily focused on putting their power into pneuma to make them stronger, tougher, and faster, at the exclusion of their spellpower?” 

“Generally yeah, but it’s not as much of a rule as you’d expect. Usually the split’s about seventy-thirty in favor of empowering the pneuma shell, but there have been a lot of good sixty-forty boxers, and even some fifty-fifty. There’s also a few exceptions like Lorenzo Torres, who’s a sixty-forty in favor of anima, who uses the spellpower to really boost himself to absurdly superhuman levels for short times.” 

Both of us turned to see River walking toward us, as if he’d been drawn by our boxing conversation like a fish drawn to a worm on a hook. To be fair, I had exactly zero room to judge. I might not be able to properly form a core, form exact essence ratios, or gain slots within the core for spells, but I knew the ratios and innate spells for a dozen different Primals by heart, and knew the generalities of an order of magnitude more than that. 

“Oh, there you are,” Laurel commented. “Well, we’ve got a few hours of daylight left. What do you all want to do?” 

“I’m down for whatever,” River said with a shrug, and I nodded in agreement. We all stood there, awkwardly staring at one another for a long moment, before Laurel chuckled. 

“Well, aren’t we all just a bunch of excitement and fun. What would you normally do if you were alone, Aiden?” 

“Train, mostly,” I said, then gestured to the open fields of packed earth and natural grasses behind the visitor center. The ground was littered with the oranges, golds, browns, and reds of autumn, creating a crunchy layer on top of the dying grasses. “Do you want to do that?” 

“Sounds good to me,” she said, before glancing at River, who shrugged and removed his augpad from his bag. 

“I’ve got plenty of work to do for school, so that sounds good to me.” 

So our ragtag group made our way out across the sea of leaves, Laurel summoning Ella and Zaza from their storage gems, while I summoned Scales and Hex. Both of us had fought against one another before, but we hadn’t done too much to train together, and we’d both grown – both in our skill as Tamers, and in our literal levels. It made working together and against one another an interesting new proposition. 

We started by pairing Zaza and Hex off with one another, working to train their speed and endurance. Both of them were fast Primals, but their speed was built for quick dashes, bites, lunges, and slashes. It meant that when they went up against one another in sprinting competitions, they were short and rapid affairs. To help build their stamina, we had them partake in slower, distance races against one another, where the first one to sprint would wind up tiring themselves out and losing. 

Scales and Ella, on the other hand, were delegated to a different sort of practice. Scales worked on his ability at casting and maintaining his Arcane Bubble and Boost Scales while doing other tasks, while Ella worked on her new flight spell. She picked Scales up and rushed around with him, trying to break his concentration, while he formed bubbles that would push her off him. 

After that, they swapped, Scales and Zaza working to train their bites together by going after the same fallen log, while Hex and Ella played a variation of tag where Hex would chase and try to leap up and catch Ella, while Ella tried to loop the flight spell onto Hex and lift her into the air on her own. 

After that, all of us stopped to cultivate, and I took out the method that Vince had recommended, the hundred streams of raw essence. I’d downloaded it when I’d first set off from the village, but I hadn’t seen much use for it yet. The ambient essence in the city had been higher, but I’d been working on moving cultivation then, rather than on this method. Here in Arkose, however, with its abundance of essence hearts of various levels, the ambient essence was both plentiful and powerful, easily in the level forties. 

That didn’t mean all the Primals in the area would actually be that strong – everything started at level one, and not everywhere would be as rich as the visitor center, which was near multiple hearts. It was just a soft marker that there would be stronger Primals in the area than usual. 

That was a distracting thought, though, and I pulled my attention back to the tablet. My previous cultivation method had been picked because I was stronger than the ambient essence level. That wasn’t the case here, though. I skimmed through the method, pausing to focus on the diagrams, and then stood up, closing my eyes and pacing around as I reached out to the world around me. This method was fairly simple in theory, but difficult to execute. Anyone could reach out to ambient essence and pull it into them, it was the simplest cultivation exercise, and the foundation from which all others were built. This technique started similarly, reaching out and taking hold of ambient essence, but instead of just yanking it inside, I was supposed to roll it out into a thread, almost like I was rolling dough or clay into a long, thin line. 

After forming the thin roll of essence, you had to let one end start to dissolve, while pulling the other into yourself, while continually rolling the tether to keep stretching it out and stop it from dissolving. That was the stream part of the technique, and the hundred came in next – do it again, and braid the two together into a double helix of ambient essence. Then do it again. One hundred wasn’t the theoretical cap – the document referenced someone who had managed to form a hundred and thirteen – but it was generally seen as the goal to drag the maximum realistic level of essence into yourself.

We stopped and rested when dinner rolled around. Between my spars with Gawain, our own training, the cultivation, and training with Laurel, we had stocked up quite a few gains, and as the three of us headed into the town and got a large pot of vegetable soup with a warm, crusty bread, then settled down to to chat about the magiaball league, I felt the essence settle into us as Scales and Hex both broke into level fourteen.