Eternium ~ Chapter 21!

“Dale.” Hans grabbed Dale’s hands and pulled him down into a seated position across from him.

“Yes, Hans.” Dale was trying not to laugh out loud. “Are you finally going to confess your deep feelings for me?”

“How did you know?” Seeing Dale’s shocked face, Hans slapped him hard enough to make Dale’s face move slightly. Hans grumbled at the lack of reaction, “Abyss-touched Mages. No, you little blighter! I need your help. My progress is basically nonexistent. Rose is catching up to me in cultivation, which is great, but she’s been cultivating for less than a year. I need to advance again, I want to be able to spend forever with her, and I am aging by the day. Sure, it’s slow, but I don’t want to look like Mr. Wrinkles, Artorian, by the time I’m a Mage. Can you help me?”

“Woof.” Dale shook his head and grinned. “That’s pretty rough, Hans! Have you tried-”

“No ‘old man’ jokes please.” Hans forestalled the inevitable and his mouth formed into a hard line. “Can you do something? A technique, a-”

“Can I see your cultivation?” Dale cut him off with a direct question. Hans looked nervous at this, normally it was easy for someone to look at someone and get a sense of their cultivation. When an Aura had been formed, the actual cultivation was hidden and only estimations could be made. Dale was asking for a huge amount of trust. Hans swallowed and nodded, sending a small thread of Essence to Dale. Then he sat and tried to absorb as much Essence as possible from the surroundings.

Latching onto the thread, Dale followed it to Hans’ Center and looked around. There was very little corruption, and from what Dale could tell the Aura was well-made. The only thing… the amount of Essence trickling into his Chi spiral was absolutely miniscule. Dale’s passive Essence collection was higher than this by a large amount. Dale opened his eyes and looked at Hans with a huge question spilling out of his mouth. “Do you have only the Guild’s cultivation technique?”

“Yeah.” Hans rubbed his head and looked down. “Noble ones have protections, or… people that hunt you down if you steal or use them.”

Dale started to scoff, but thought back to his own experiences. Now that he thought on it, he had never seen a cultivation technique for sale. Even the academy didn’t teach cultivation methods, only ways to use the cultivation you had previously acquired. Everything Dale had, he had been gifted. How common was this issue? “Do you want me to help you?”

“If you think you can.” Hans calmly replied. Dale took his hand again and went to look at the Chi. The pattern wasn’t bad, but with Cal around, there were far better methods. There! In the wall of Hans’ Center… that was an affinity channel that was blocked. Dale’s mind zeroed in on that, and he grunted. If only he knew how to open affinity channels, he could help his friend just by opening them. As far as he had heard, it required a specialized Mage to-

Dale brushed against the blockage, and felt a spark of Mana travel along the connection between them. Hans gagged, and spewed black bile all over Dale’s lap. The assassin dry-heaved for another long minute, then looked up at dale with tears running down his face. “What the abyss did you do to me?”

“I… I’m not sure, I was only-”

“I thought you were just looking.” Hans coughed a few more times, spitting out black and sludgy mucous. Then he went still, his eyes half closing as he focused inward to look for damage. “Alright. Dale. What… why do I have a perfect water affinity now? How did you? I. What?”

“You’re kidding.” Dale flatly announced.

“I’m not.” Hans looked at Dale in awe. “Never tell another person about this. Most Mages can force open affinity channels for others, but usually only partly, and it isn’t something that people do for a living will appreciate. What you did would cost someone the same amount as a castle, Dale. No, even more. Perfect affinity?”

Hans shook his head and looked like he might cry. “It’s impossible.”

Dale coughed and looked at Hans sidelong. “Um. So, you are happy about this?”

“Are you joking? Obviously!”

“So. Want me to do the rest of them?” Dale’s words made Hans freeze momentarily, but then he started laughing like a madman. When he could finally contain himself again, he nodded vigorously.

The process took some trial and error, but within an hour Hans had six perfect affinities. Looking at his Chi spiral now showed the same amount of Essence coming from each source, but now the cumulative passive collection outpaced Hans’ previous active collection by at least double. Hans was completely thunderstruck, and nearly had tears in his eyes. “I just… I can’t believe it.”

“I have no idea how to give you a cultivation technique.” Dale informed him sadly. “Otherwise I totally would. You know that, right?”

Hans waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. Frankly, with the world ending and all of these affinities… I’m thinking now might be the time to risk stealing one or two.”

“Wait, what?” Dale rocked back on his heels, Hans’s words managing what his slap had been unable to a short while back.

“Well… I do know where a few Noble houses keep them.” Hans grinned darkly. “I might be able to fool their owners for a couple weeks, and that’s all we need, right?”

“What would Rose say about all this?” Dale directly questioned him. “Would she want you to do this?”

“Not a chance.” Hans stated without concern. “But she needs a better method as well. What she got from Madame Chandra isn’t suited to her. The High Mageous was an elemental cultivator, and the trickle of celestial and infernal was all she ever needed. Unless Rose joined the church with a binding vow, they wouldn’t give her what she needs.”

“Why don’t I just clear her affinity channels like I did for you?” Dale made the offer easily.

“Please do!” Hans stared his friend in the eye. “But I’d like to give her a gift from me.”

“You’re out of your mind.” Dale watched as Hans turned and started stalking toward the portal. “Hans! If you plan to be sneaky… take a bath before you go!”

Hans didn’t stop walking, but his path changed just a little. Dale snorted, glad he had been able to do something great for his friend. Then he looked at the whirlwind of dirt created by snorting, and groaned. Full-power-everything was really hard to get used to.

“Hey, Cal.” Dale said to the open air as he barged to the front of the line and stepped into the third floor of the dungeon.

<How’s it going, Dale?> There was a pause. <Are you about to go on a rampage or something?>

“Depends. When we go to your inner world, do I get nice things?” Dale stared at a small fortification in the distance.

<I… see what’s about to happen, but no. You want things, you earn them like everyone else.> Dale didn’t even wait to hear the entire answer, sprinting at the hexagonal fortification and clearing the wall in a long leap. The Goblins in the fort never got a chance to fight back, all of them dying to a single finger jabbed against their noggin. <Can I interest you in a fight against something else during this trying time? Perhaps a Manticore on the fifth floor?>

“Well,” Dale started as he kicked open a chest and pulled out the tokens it contained, “I’m looking for resources, weapons, armor, land. I want to make an academy, maybe put it on a mountain that doesn’t fly all over the place and get into dangerous situations?”

<Sounds boring.> Dale heard a groan in his mind. <Fi~i~ine. You beat Manny alone and I’ll give you a Mountain. Everything else you mentioned is already in chests on the lower floors, just clear them and you’ll get what you want. Stop killing my Goblins, they didn’t do anything to you. Recently.>

“Thanks, Cal, ‘ol pal.” Dale started walking toward the stairs, then caught himself and returned to the portal area, skipping to the end of the labyrinth. As he stood staring at the door to the dungeon’s manticore boss, he had a sudden worry. “Hey. Cal. If I die in here, will you bring me back?”

<Eh.>

“What!” Dale shouted into the empty air. “Why wouldn’t you?”

<I don’t know, it seems like a pain?> the reply was not satisfactory for Dale, it seemed. <Look, I mean, at this point do I need you walking around out there? Maybe it would be nice to have control of my entire soul again, you know?>

Dale thought furiously for an answer, and snapped his fingers when he figured out what to say. “Cal. I’m only a B-rank zero human. You’re already in the A-ranks, yeah? What happens if I reconnect to you? Do I get into the A-ranks, or do you drop down to the B-ranks?”

Silence reigned for a long moment. <Fine. But if you die you lose your gear. I can convert Mithril into a hefty amount of Essence. About seven C-ranker’s worth, if you remember.>

Dale paused, debating on if he wanted to go in this room. Slowly, he nodded. “Alright. I need battle experience as a Mage. I have to control my body. I need to be comfortable with my new power. So… deal.”

The door in front of him slowly opened on its own, a sign that the dungeon was watching. Dale sighed and passed a bit of Mana through his armor, locking it in place at his joints. He unrolled the fabric that lay around his neck, and fully covered his face and head. The Mithril weave should stop the Manticore’s stinger and give Dale a fighting chance in this battle.

As he stepped into the room, the Manticore swooped down and alighted on the ground in front of him. “Chump, soft touch, sucker, mark, victim, dupe… fool. I know this scent. You came here once before, unprepared. Again you arrive, also unready, but without powerful allies. My thanks.”

Dale had no idea why this creature could speak, but it gave him pause. This creature was intelligent, it used not only its body for combat, but its mind as well. He may have made a serious mistake. An impact to his back sent him stumbling forward, and his head whipped around fast enough to see the manticore’s stinger retracting into the ground. Knowing he had only an instant to take advantage of the creature’s immobile status, Dale sprinted forward and began battling in earnest.

It would have already been over for Dale if he hadn’t been wearing the armor that he was, and he knew it. He threw his frustration into his attacks, and punched directly into the paw coming at him. Dale’s Mana was of a higher tier and purity than what flowed through Manny, and this helped mitigate the fact that Manny was at a higher ranking… but it didn’t negate the fact. Dale was spun around by the collision, and the blow hit his torso with far less strength behind it. Still, he was tossed across the room and into the wall.