PSTH: Chapter Sixteen

Air essence. A flexible type, similar to water in that way. Most air primals got a highly versatile set of status conditions, buffs, and debuffs. It’s also known for its speed boosting abilities – I’m sure some of you have seen how many magiaball players use air essence. But you’re probably screaming at your screens right now, because the number one power that air essence offers to its wielders is so obvious: the ability to play the bassoon endlessly! No, it’s flight, we all know I’m talking about flight. 

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Intro to the fifth in a video essay series about essence types and their unique factors, 454 Modern-Era

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“Left!” I called out. At my command, Hex leapt into the air, bounding atop the tree branch and lunging forward. She snapped her jaws forward, pouring power into her spirit, and unleashed a Shade Bite. An instant before it connected, Scales’ Boost Scales completed, and the anima flowed to reinforce the defenses of his pneuma shell, causing the crash of Hex’s attack to practically skate off. He took advantage of Hex’s closeness and slammed down on her frame with a Frosted Bite. 

If Hex had still been fresh, then she likely would have had the speed needed to get out of the way in time, but we had been training for several hours and Scales had been working the long game. She was tired, and as his teeth sunk in, her pneuma shell cracked and began to glow brightly, before dissolving into nothing. Scales’ own battle form faded an instant later, and he gently nudged the smaller Primal with his nose encouragingly. Hex was stoic for several long seconds, before she rubbed her cheek against Scales’ body and they both came trotting over to me. 

We flopped down into the dirt and I pulled out some canned oysters, tossing them to my Primals as we relaxed. Being made entirely out of ousia, Primals didn’t technically need food in the same way that humans did, but they still enjoyed it, and it was good for relaxing, and that was important after training. As the essence flowed through us, I felt another layer compress and form on Hex’s core as she broke through to level eleven. I rubbed her head and praised her for a moment, but internally, I sighed wistfully. 

It had been almost two weeks since Vince, Laurel, and River had left. Despite my initial enthusiasm for getting out to Tourmaline, then to Arkrose, I had wanted to spend a little bit of time home first. It had been the place I’d known basically my entire life, after all. My mom was here, and even if I messaged her and occasionally video called, I was going to miss her while I was out on the road. Not that I wasn’t excited, I definitely was, but I was also nervous. I’d been using the level gap between Scales and Hex as an excuse to delay leaving for the last little bit, and the excuse had finally run out. 

It had already been a thinly veiled excuse, since the gap in power between a level twelve and ten wasn’t huge, but now the gap was down to a single level. It was time for us to head out soon. Once my break finished up, I headed back inside to find my mom at work on her table. 

Upcycling materials into jewelry was a minor hobby of hers, and with how much waste was still leftover from the Obsidian King era and earlier, she had a huge amount of material to work with. Dozens of fishing nets the size of my entire body still made their way to shore each year, despite concerted efforts from Oceanseed’s government to gather the waste.

It was some of that same fishing net material that she was currently working with, her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth as she focused on finishing the knot she had been working on. When she heard my footsteps, she looked up at me and gave me a sad smile. 

“You’re leaving tomorrow, aren’t you?” 

“I… yeah. I am.” 

“I figured it would be soon,” she said, opening a drawer on the desk and pulling on it. It was an old and battered wooden piece, so it took a good yank, but she eventually got it open, and pulled out my mystic jewel. It had been safely ensconced in a tight series of knots and recycled fishhooks woven to create a small cage, and bright red fishing material had been transformed into a necklace. She stepped over and slipped it over my head, smiling. 

“There. Now you don’t have to have it rattling around in your pocket all the time, or just laying around in your bag.” 

“Thank you mom,” I said, pulling her into a brief, awkward hug. She hugged me back and then held me at arms length. 

“You should go thank Susan one more time, and say your goodbyes. Oh, and say bye to Rane’s parents. And don’t forget about…” 

It took the better part of fifteen minutes for us to work out a list of everyone I needed to say goodbye to. I’d already said my goodbyes to most of them, or at least told them that I’d be heading out soon, but with her list in hand, I did as she had said, and made my way through the village. It felt like I got five thousand hugs from everyone by the time I was making my way back home, and a few people had given me a couple of small gifts: a loaf of bread, some cookies, some dried fish strips, and a jar of beautyberry leaves that had been mixed into a natural insect repellant. 

The last one was especially useful. I wasn’t weirded out by bugs, far from it, but nor had I been the kid that loved to pick up worms, centipedes, and spiders just to examine them. They were an incredibly important part of environmental balance. I wasn’t about to go full Obsidian King and kill them en masse just because they were gross looking and ate crops that had been genetically engineered to be eaten by them, but nor was I about to throw my arms up in delight because a worm had somehow gotten into my tent at night. 

With my goodbyes mostly said, I headed back home, and helped my mom work on dinner, after which I sat down with her on the couch and spent the evening with Hex on my lap, and Scales on the couch between us. I cried twice that evening, though I wasn’t entirely sure why I had cried the second time, other than just the emotions running through me.

The next morning, I packed the camping gear that I’d brought on the trip before, albeit with a few minor changes. My one liter purification bottle went in, but I also added one that was capable of cleaning roughly eight gallons of water a day based on ambient essence. If it was especially brackish or bacterial, it might need me to fuel it with anima, but that wasn’t a bad cost at all. It also only took half an hour to convert each gallon, which was a significant upgrade.

I added in some extra clothes this time, since I’d be gone for quite a while, as well as a box of some soap flakes for laundry. If I had to do it on the road, I could, but once I got to one of the free hostels in the city, I should be able to use a machine. Forgetting them on the island had been a minor mistake, and not one I was keen to repeat. 

I slotted in the Tamer Consortium ID that I’d received upon signing up alongside a few other emergency cards and credit chips. Technically, I didn’t need a physical identification card, since I had the digital one, but there was just something irresistible about the book of stiff paper pages to me. On the topic of paper, I put in some maps of the country and the local area. While my augpad had better, more detailed maps, I didn’t want to go without. What if I was out of anima due to some battles and my augpad had died due to me forgetting to charge it? 

Now it was time for the fun stuff: the tamer supplies. They weren’t technically needed, weren’t allowed in tournaments, and could be toxic if over-consumed, but anima restoration pills and pneuma healing sprays were just too useful to not have a couple. Laurel had bought them for the island trip, and though I’d not had the money to spend then, now I did. 

I attached four storage gems to the belt that I was going to wear the next morning with a carabiner. Two of them were still the dull gray of an unused gem, but two of them glowed the same vibrant yellow as my eyes and magic. I still planned to cast the Bond Primal spell, since I didn’t want to waste credits or time on finding someone to repair Yanette’s work, but they were convenient, and helped restore magic faster. 

Next, I checked my augpad to make sure that I had everything I needed downloaded. I’d found the hundred streams of raw essence method that Vince had recommended to me, as well as a few different methods of moving cultivation. There had been thousands of different methods, and even filtering for ones that worked with raw, unaspected essence had left me with several hundred. I’d downloaded ten of the highest rated ones, but hadn’t had time to experiment with any of them yet: I had been more focused on bringing Hex up a level. But they were meant for exercising or other physical movements, so I figured biking on the road would be the best place for them.

With all that done, I removed the last thing I needed and headed out to my bike. The attachment I’d gotten wasn’t anything crazy as far as modifications went. It wouldn’t let my bike fly, or ride over water, or move at a super enhanced speed. But it was still incredibly useful, at least in my opinion: a balance enchantment. Once I finished fitting the ring-shaped core under my bike seat, the bike would be able to remain upright and balanced at all times, removing the need for a kickstand when stopping, and making it easier to ride. The enchantment’s strength was actually somewhat intentionally limited, since leaning a bike one way or the other was useful for turning, and it was a bad idea to stop that. The last thing I wanted was to crash because I wasn’t able to turn out of the way in time. 

It took me a little bit to fit on the core, but when I finished, my mom had woken. She must have gotten some chickens from Jenkins’ coop, because she had made a large breakfast of french toast, which we ate together before she hugged me. We both cried one more time, briefly, and I promised to at least text her every night, call once or twice a week, if not more, and come home when I could. 

And with that, I set off. Hex rode in the basket of the bike, while Scales initially ran alongside us, before he got tired and decided to retreat to the storage gem. We passed through the lowland at a shocking speed as I biked along, and within the day, we had moved from the familiar saltwater grasses and the scent of the ocean to the smell of loamy earth and tall trees. 

Oak trees, dappled with hanging moss were everywhere, with tall wild grasses. With autumn in full swing, ragweed and goldenrod’s bright yellow flowers were everywhere, standing out against the vibrant riot of rich browns, reds, and yellows of the leaves, which in turn mixed with the long, thin needles of the evergreens all throughout the region. All of the plants were gently swaying in a crisp wind rolling in from off the sea, though it had lost the scent of home, and if I hadn’t been biking for so long, I might have gotten a little chilly.

As I biked, I passed a handful of people. Some of them were biking along with levitation-wagons, bringing shipments of critical goods, while others were out walking for enjoyment. There were a few houses scattered here and there, smaller places than even the village I’d grown up in, and a few people pointed out Hex as we biked by, her bright purple smoke and cyan eyes an unusual sight in the area. 

I waved to them and slowly pressed on, making my way to Tourmaline City.