ROTLE- Chapter 163- Cosmos, Not Universe

Two days, Aiden thought with a frown. They’d been in the forest for two days. His frown deepened, wrinkles forming on his forehead as he forced himself to calm down.

It’s not like I’ll need them to get the heart, he reminded himself, watching Zen and Feira as they sat sweating by the tree.

Feira didn’t just need to learn [Mana manipulation], she needed to learn the foundational skill [Dash] as well. Fighting the urge to run a frustrated hand through his hair, he turned his attention to Ted and Fjord who were practicing in preparation for their training on how to use the blink dagger.

Ted was almost there so far. He had developed a habit of using the trees as his targets. From where Aiden was, he couldn’t tell if they were following the training as he had instructed them, but every now and again, when he checked on them, he found that they were.

He sighed, allowing himself to relax a little. There was still time… he hoped. Normally, it would be a while longer before someone would claim the [Heart of Nosrath]. The problem here was that he had altered too much in regards to the heart. It was funny how he had done so without even doing anything in regards to the heart.

The [Heart of Nosrath] and [Crystal of Existence] had always been used in the same sentence. They both spawned on the same day and each had a respawn time of two years. These similarities were what made the world of Nastild think of them together.

By claiming the [Crystal of Existence] the moment it spawned, everyone would be on their toes. Those with eyes on the crystal would realize that someone had anticipated its arrival even if they wouldn’t know who—Aiden hoped that they didn’t. As such, they would all rush their need to claim the heart, lest someone else claim it as Aiden had done the crystal.

But they will all be focusing on the same plan.

That would leave them, ultimately, at the same stale mate. All the kingdoms that are aware would try to hurry up their plans and end up clashing in the same way that they would if they do not.

It will be a blood bath, Aiden thought.

All the people that would work together just to get their hands on the heart. There was now a new divergence he had created. It won’t be long before news spread that some unknown group had gone in and claimed the crystal. That very truth would inform everyone that if they were daring enough and fast enough, they could maybe, just maybe, claim the heart for themselves, too.

Anyone with half a brain would know not to use the heart, but if they could get their hands on it and get away with their lives, the heart was sure to sell a hefty sum in the black market.

Why didn’t you think this far? He asked himself, knowing that the number of people he would have to get through to get the heart had now increased.

Initially, his plan had been to get a group of mercenaries for that specific task. The alternative was to join a group in the event that he could not get a head start. The alternative was still a viable option. Steal the heart and escape.

He scratched his head. He hadn’t thought this far because he hadn’t cared. What was an extra group or two as competition when he was quite literally going to be in competition with monarchs?

Feira’s eyes twitched. It was Aiden’s cue to get up. He walked up to her as Fjord accidentally dashed into a tree where he was training. The boy slammed into it hard, clearly miscalculating the distance and fell flat on his back. He stayed there for a while, staring at the sky above.

Aiden stopped two paces in front of Feira, making sure not to interrupt the runescript that encircled her. Each rune glowed a soft blue.

“Don’t open your eyes,” he told her.

One of the most popular and efficient ways of gaining [Mana mastery] or [Mana manipulation] was to sit in an environment of dense mana. There was no better way. It was what everyone used, even the Order.

Back at the castle, the person that had been in charge of teaching them magic had achieved it by using a spell to create a mana area that they had been forced to sit within until they could feel the mana. Aiden didn’t have any spell to use so he had pulled together a runescript for the very purpose.

It wasn’t as good as the spells, but it was arguably the next best thing.

“You have to feel the mana,” he explained to her, watching her eyeballs move behind closed lids. “You have to sense it, to feel it.”

Zen sat quietly next to her, well outside her runescript but within one of his own. Aiden made him sit in it in case he could somehow gain [Mana mastery] alongside his [Mana manipulation]. After a while, Zen would leave the circle and they would spar.

“It’s hard,” Feira muttered.

Aiden wanted to tell her that it wasn’t but hesitated. “A lot of things are hard,” he said, instead. “But there are also a lot of things that we have to do. Focus.”

Just then, Zen got up from the ground and dusted himself off. He looked down at the runes on the ground that encircled him before gently stepping over them.

He paused when he was out of the circle and shook his head as if trying to banish a bout of vertigo.

Aiden watched him. When Zen noticed his attention, he spoke.

“It’s always disorienting the difference in the mana density,” he said. “It’s just here and there but it’s like stepping out into a different world entirely.”

Aiden nodded. “Runescripts can do that.”

“Runescripts,” Zen mused, looking down at the ground. Then he looked around them. “Are they the same thing that you inscribe on some of the trees? The ones you keep checking every morning and evening.”

Aiden nodded. “Those ones are a bit more advanced than this one, but yes.”

“How do they work?”

“In a very complicated manner.”

Zen folded his arms. “I might not be a lord, but I assure you that I’m not that dull.”

Aiden paused. It wasn’t what he had meant. In all actuality, he had only said that it was complicated because he really just wasn’t in the mood to start talking about how runescripts worked.

“I meant the way they work is complicated not that it is complicated to understand,” he said. “They work by using runes that counter each other’s properties while also allowing other properties. Some runes, when combined with others, create a new effect. It’s almost like alchemy. Water and salt are two different things, when put together they create a new effect.”

“Salt water is not alchemy, though,” Zen grinned.

Aiden gave him a flat look. “I know. Now can we resume your training?”

Zen nodded, then stretched. He raised his hands high, looking them above his head, arms straight, then bent from one side to the other.

Aiden waited patiently as Ted almost dashed into a tree.

After a while, Zen said, “Ready.”

Aiden looked down at his hands. The boy had no weapon. It wasn’t important, but he felt that Zen would feel more comfortable with a weapon. The foundational skill [Dash] did not require any type of main skill. Armed or unarmed, it was achievable. All it took was leg work.

After a moment’s thought, Aiden changed his mind about how he was trying to get Zen to learn the skill.

“Change of plans,” he said.

Zen gave him an odd look. “Will this one hurt like the last one?”

“Not so much,” Aiden chuckled. “I’m done whooping your ass.”

Zen sighed with relief. “I was beginning to bruise.”

Aiden snorted. “Don’t be dramatic. All I did was throw you around. I didn’t even hit you.”

“And my ass hurts. I’m surprised I didn’t break a tail bone.”

“Just wait here.”

Shaking his head, Aiden walked back over to the main camp. When he got to it, he bent at one of the large logs of wood on the ground. Oncot had been sitting on it last night.

Standing bored out of his mind next to a tree, Oncot looked at Aiden. The man wasn’t much of a talker, not even with hand signs. In the days that they had been together, he had barely said a word.

Yet, despite it all, he still had the same look in his eyes. A look he had possessed ever since calling Aiden the ‘Blood Man.’

Anticipation.

He was waiting for Aiden, as if Aiden had promised him a warrior’s death. In truth, it didn’t worry Aiden. He already had plans for the man. There was actually a renegade group of his tribes wandering these parts of Nastild. And, after much pondering, Aiden had made a decision to send him to them.

Unlike the main tribes, this was a tribe of forgotten misfits. Powerful members as they were, they were outcasts of their actual clan, bounding together to worship the Blood god in their own way—a way they felt most comfortable with.

Not knowing much about it, Aiden knew one thing: they accepted any tribe member they felt were worthy of redemption. Oncot would go well with them.

After a moment and no other form of communication from Oncot, Aiden turned his head to look at Elami. Like Oncot, the [Healer] tried to do as little in the way of talking as he could. The glow emanating from his body was gone now, though, nonexistent during the day. Valdan, however, was glowing brighter.

Aiden hoped it was a good sign.

Before he got up, taking the large log of wood with him, Elami spoke.

“Soon,” he said. “Not long now.”

Aiden wanted to point out that the man had said something similar a few days ago but held his tongue. The man was doing his best, there was no point in pouring out his frustration on the man.

Aiden nodded in acknowledgement of the man’s words before leaving him.

“Took your time,” Zen commented as Aiden returned.

Without much in the way of an answer, Aiden set the log on the ground. He set it up lengthwise so that it stood almost as tall as them.

Then he placed a hand over it. From his storage space, he summoned a dagger and stabbed it into the wood.

“This is what we’ll be doing today,” he said, taking three steps back. “Watch and learn.”

Zen nodded. Eyes peeled, he kept his entire focus on Aiden while his sister continued to try to gain a grasp on [Mana manipulation].

Aiden darted forward, his legs propelling him in a simple movement. In the blink of an eye, he had covered the distance between him and the log and snatched up the knife.

Zen’s jaw dropped.

“What?” Aiden asked. “What’s the problem?”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“You didn’t?”

Zen shook his head. “One moment you were there, then you were here.”

Aiden pursed his lips in thought, then stabbed the dagger back into the log. Then he snatched it from the log quickly.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

Zen shook his head slowly.

Aiden returned the knife and snatched it up a little slower. “What of that?”

“The knife just kind of disappeared and appeared back in your hand,” Zen said.

Aiden nodded. He needed to adjust his speed so that it was fast to Zen but not impossible. It took him four tries before he achieved the speed that he was looking for.

“How did you do that?” Zen asked, ever curious.

“I’m significantly faster than you,” was all Aiden had to say. “There are things I will do so fast that it won’t register to you. You’ll get there someday. For today, we focus on getting you the [Dash] skill.”

Shaking his hands out, Zen bounced like a man preparing himself for a fight. “So what do I do?”

“You already have the leg movement down,” Aiden explained. He had been sure to make sure Zen knew how to move his feet the right way to dash in and out of situations. Now he just had to perfect it for the system to grant it to him as a skill. “All I need you to do is dash forward and grab the knife before me.”

“Just that?” Zen asked, skeptical.

Aiden nodded. “Just that.”

“Ow!” Fjord yelled in the distance, forcing Aiden to turn and look at him.

Aiden winced at the sight. Fjord was on the ground holding on to his head while Ted stood with a grimace on his face over the boy.

Zen looked puzzled at the sight, so Aiden explained what he thought had happened.

“He probably dashed into my brother’s swinging strike.”

“That’s got to hurt,” Zen said, wincing.

Aiden was sure it did. But that was that and this was this.

“Focus,” he said. “I plan on leaving the forest by tomorrow. I will feel safer if you have this skill by that time.”

Nodding, Zen stepped back. “So I just dart forward and grab it before you do.”

“Dart forward, grab it, then dart back before I can snatch it from the wood or your hand.”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

Aiden stepped back as well and waited. A second ticked into two then three. He cocked a brow at Zen.

“This isn’t about strategy, Zen,” he said. “It’s about speed. Strategy won’t get you what you—”

Zen darted forward suddenly. Aiden moved at the same moment, snatching the dagger from the log before he reached it.

Zen darted back at the exact same moment, hand grabbing nothing but air. He snapped his finger in slight frustration.

“Thought I had you,” he said. “I swear I—hold up. I thought you took the knife.”

“I’ve already put it back,” Aiden explained. “Again. This time, if you miss it when you dart back out, I need you to dart right back in for it.”

“Until?”

“Until your legs hurt and you think I hate you.”

With a sigh, Zen darted in suddenly. Aiden moved at a speed that was just above his, snatching up the dagger before Zen could.

He returned it and was back in position just as Zen darted in again. Aiden moved, keeping the same pace, preventing Zen from taking it.

By the sixth consecutive dash, Zen had a frown on his face and looked as if he was turning red. Aiden checked the boy’s ears. They weren’t red.

Frustration, he concluded.

Zen’s ears turned red when he blushed from embarrassment or was red with anger. When he was frustrated, his ears didn’t change a shade.

By the sixteenth time, Zen’s ears were a bright red and he had a vein popping out on his forehead.

I should probably let him get the next one.

On the seventeenth turn, Zen succeeded in snatching the dagger first. Aiden watched his eyes light up in joy as he began darting back. The joy died on arrival as Aiden snatched the dagger out of his hand midair.

The dagger was back in the log by the time Zen was back in position.

“HOW!” he barked, failing to conceal his anger. “I swear I had it!”

“You did,” Aiden agreed. “But just for a moment. Then you lost it. Again.”

Zen darted forward.

Aiden did the same.

…

Boten strolled through the quiet halls. He had a lot on his mind. It was interesting to realize that he could not remember the last time he had a lot on his mind.

He had been given free rein over how he handled the problem on Nastild. Specifically, why the world had been trying to contact the greater gods and had been failing consistently. No one had even realized that it had been trying to contact the greater gods until the world had sent out an odd beacon.

Even now, nobody had been able to make heads or tails of what exactly the beacon was. From the little he had been able to grasp from the general archive, there were no records of such a beacon. If there was, it was not in the general archives.

He sighed internally as Jang’Uk followed behind him, quiet as the vacuum of space itself. The man was said to be quite the prodigy, useful in unorthodox tasks. If Boten remembered correctly, he had the [Arch-Mage] class. It was an interesting class, but nothing truly special over here.

“What next, sir?” Jang’Uk asked, shattering the peaceful image of silence he had created for himself.

You are not rude, Boten reminded himself, doing his best not to give a rude response.

“I have found us in a sticky position,” he explained. “Unfortunately, it is a position that involves direct intervention.”

“Which we are not allowed to do in this case,” Jang’Uk said, like the good little recruit that he was. “Are we to report to higher authorities?”

Boten would’ve laughed if he did not really find it funny. He doubted Jang’Uk understood the situation. They had just discovered that woken world is seeking help. The first important insanity is that woken worlds—worlds at least three hundred years old with mana—do not seek help. The worlds are not living things.

For such a thing to have happened, it meant that there was something giving the world the ability to imitate a living thing. That was their first problem. Their second problem was that one of the world’s fragment was missing, which meant that either someone was attempting to ascend through unauthorized means or there was a [Prisoner] on that world.

The [Prisoner] route was the more likely possibility because Boten had not sensed mana levels above level two hundred in the immediate vicinity. The strongest mana level had been around level one hundred and fifty and it had belonged to a demon. Considering the world was experiencing another era of its rising darkness, the presence of a demon was not unreasonable.

The problem now was that [Prisoner]s were… unpredictable. They were as good as they were bad. They also tended to have one thing in common, they did not listen to authority thinking themselves all knowing and better than most.

They were annoying to deal with once they left the confines of their world.

With one fragment, they will need to gather all the fragments, he thought as he stopped in front of a door made of woven moon grass, pale and milky with dull stones and without leaves. He waved a hand in front of it and the grass began unweaving themselves, the door coming undone.

If the [Prisoner] gathered all the fragments, then he would end up binding the world to himself, giving him a little more leeway around the existing laws of the cosmos. Boten had never dealt with a powerful [Prisoner] before, but he was not interested in dealing with one either.

The darkness around them waited, the stars of constellations shining around, waiting watchers to their actions.

Once the door was completely undone, leaving nothing in their way, Jang’Uk spoke again. Boten suppressed a sigh as he felt the tiniest bit of the cosmos shift around Jang’Uk’s intent to talk. The man really needed to learn how to control the residues of his [Fragmented Tongue]. Residues of the trait continued to sip out of him before he spoke.

“Why is there a [Prisoner] on that world?” he asked.

Boten paused. Eye brows drawn in confusion, he turned to his aide. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The [Prisoner]. I’m guessing that’s what we are dealing with since there was no one else strong enough to steal a fragment of a world in that vicinity. Why is he there?” he asked.

“He?”

Jang’Uk nodded.

That was quite the assumption. Then again, maybe it was not just an assumption. Boten had shared nothing of his findings, but in the short time that they had been on Nastild, Jang’Uk had been able to decipher the same thing he had deciphered, showing initiative and skill in the blink of an eye.

Perhaps he had deduced the [Prisoner]’s gender through some method of wit that Boten had chosen not to pay attention to.

“Why do you say he?” he asked.

Jang’Uk shrugged. “There was too much death present.” He shook his head. “And too much precision. It is not expected of a woman.”

So, he’s sexist, Boten concluded. “How long have you been with us, by Nastild standard of time?”

“Four weeks?” Jang’Uk answered.

The residue of his [Fragmented Tongue] screamed uncertainty. He was truly young.

“The first thing you should learn is that gender holds no place in the realm of power,” Boten told him. “A man, a woman, a dog, even an insect, given the right amount of power can do things he cannot even begin to imagine.” He moved to turn away, only to pause. “I don’t know what your world was like, but do not look down on anything out in the cosmos.”

Jang’Uk bowed respectfully. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you even know what a [Prisoner] is?”

“I do.”

Boten waited. When it was clear that Jang’Uk would not defend his claim, he pressed. “Tell me what a [Prisoner] is.”

“A [Prisoner] is a being that has circumvented the laws of the universe using unauthorized methods instead of the authorized methods such as artifacts and the necessary world spells or divine interventions.”

“Cosmos,” Boten corrected. “Cosmos, not universe. And there is more to it than just that.”

“Kindly educate me on this, so I may learn more.”

“No.” Boten was abrupt with his response. It was not his job to educate the uneducated. “Go to the general archives and educate yourself. Until then, we have work to do.”

Jang’Uk nodded. The residue of his [Fragmented Tongue] showing discomfort. Perhaps it was a good thing that he did not have his intent in check. It made it impossible for him to lie to Boten.

Finally, he returned his attention to the darkness in front of him. He placed his finger on it and drew a diagonal line along it. Darkness tore open, revealing a world of blue.

“If we are not allowed to interfere with the activities of a world,” Jang’Uk said. “Then what are we to do?”

“We use specific tools,” Boten answered. “And we are here to get one of them. A suitable one.”

Jang’Uk remained confused.

Boten couldn’t help but smile. Once upon a time, he had been just like Jang’Uk: lacking.

“We have come to acquire the perfect solution to send for a [Prisoner] problem on a world,” he said.

“And what’s that?”

Boten stepped into the world of blue and Jang'Uk followed. Just as the darkness closed behind them, Boten gave his answer, choosing that very moment for dramatic effect.

“Another [Prisoner].”