PSTH: Chapter Fourteen

Earth essence, sturdy as a rock. It might not have the highest magical energy density, nor the best type matchups, but it’s a solid choice regardless. I promise that’s the last intentional earth based pun I’ll make this episode. Probably. Earth was difficult to make a video for. Unlike with many other essence aspects, it’s just such a utilitarian type. It has attacks, and defense, but they aren’t flashy. That’s when it hit me – utility! So many people who farm find uses for earth essence that it’s crazy. A decently leveld earth and wood magian can grow more than enough food for an entire town, alone. There are also some earth element primals that can be found on farms…

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

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I watched as River pulled out a stick of chalk, and couldn’t help but wonder if it had been made down the coast – there was a village a few hours bike ride away that gathered up shells from clam farms and other similar shells all up and down the coast and made them into chalk. I’d gone there once on a field trip when I was a kid. 

I shook the thought away and focused back on what River was doing. I’d never seen a magian break a spell before, so I figured that it should be interesting. It was, but it was also incredibly boring. He spent the better part of two hours making markings on the ceiling, floor, and walls, mostly minor alterations that were nevertheless incredibly precise. He had to triple check every single one of them before he marked, then checked twice more once it was done. 

It was impressive, in the way that watching someone do complex mathematics or paint a delicate piece of art is impressive, but it was so slow that I found my mind wandering a good bit. Even Laurel pulled out her Augpad and started scrolling through it. Scales flopped onto the ground, sprawling his limbs out and went to sleep, while Hex hopped on top of his stomach and curled up, tucking her head under her smoke tail. I sat down next to them, then pulled out my own augpad and scanned them both. 

I knew that over the last few days, Hex had advanced a lot. The pattern of training, resting, eating, and sleeping had been the kind of grind that became mind-numbing and stopped providing gains in short order, but in the short term, could do a lot of good, though it did mean we would need to find ways to innovate her training in the future. That was fine, though, I had ideas. When I’d been working with Scales to push him over the level ten barrier, there hadn’t been a massive supply of water anima to draw on. We’d had to train with less, so with a lot of research, we had developed a training routine that was much more efficient. I’d just need to do the same with her. 

That was a problem for the future, though. For right this moment, I wanted to see what progress I’d made with the pair. Neither one had unlocked a new spell in their natural essence patterns, but the gauntlet of sparring had pushed Scales’ essence a good bit of the way through level twelve. He wasn’t knocking on the door of thirteen yet, but there had been a lot more progress than I’d expected. 

The real winner of the training was, unsurprisingly, Hex. Between the days of intensive training with a Primal who was stronger than her, my guidance in trying to push her spells to her limits, and the essence stone that I’d given her, she had exploded from the peak of level seven all the way to halfway through level ten. 

“Heart’s truth, you’ve done better than I expected,” I admitted. I had expected her to be somewhere in level nine, working to gather the essence needed to break through the level ten barrier. Though she was half asleep, Hex let out a small ‘mrowp’ at my praise, and I gently patted her head. 

I debated boosting my signal and trying to do some searches for shade and toxin training methods, as well as looking for more details on Hex’s species, but eventually decided against it. I could just wait until I got back to the village and look then. I wanted to keep my anima full in case something went wrong. 

Instead, I turned and glanced at Ella and Zaza. Both of them had grown as well. When Laurel and I had first met, Zaza had been level ten, and Ella level nine. Now, Ella had broken the barrier into level ten, while Zaza had leapt up to the peak of level eleven. I suspected that if we’d had even an additional day of training, she would break through into level twelve. 

It struck me with a jolt then that, at least in terms of raw essence, I was stronger than Laurel – despite the fact that she had her first Councillor. Which probably meant that I could beat a Councillor! Getting one of those would, in a weird way, make me feel like more of a ‘real’ Tamer than anything else. Every good Tamer had seals. Vince’s public profile displayed seals from twenty-three different Councillors and five Regents – the sixteen current Oceanseed Councillors, the three other current Regents, and the rest from now-retired tamers or international . 

Sure. Technically speaking, it was possible to do well in tournaments even without any seals from defeating a Councillor or Regent. Mikaya Johnson had never gotten one, despite winning national and international tournaments, but she’d been the exception that proved the rule. Just like Vince was an outlier on the high end, she was an outlier on the low end. Setting her aside, the lowest number of seals any winner of the Oceanseed National had ever possessed was three, and the average was probably somewhere in the seven to nine range. 

I was snapped out of that train of thought by River clearing his throat and raising his hands. Blue light washed out of them, and I shut my augpad off to pay attention. The light shifted, forming into a dozen long, thin spikes of the same color. The spikes were covered in complex patterns, and I wasn’t entirely sure if he’d formed wedges out of his anima and then metaphorically drawn on them, or if he’d layered so much spellcraft into each one that they were practically solid. 

Before I could look closer, the spikes shot off, slamming into chalk markings all across the room. Where each spike impacted, shadows began to boil and bleed, the shade essence floating out of the enchantments, gushing out into the air, and slowly re-joining the raw essence of the world. 

River wasn’t done yet, though. He thrust his left hand into the air and more blue light started to rush from his fingers, even as he used his right hand to open a small brown glass bottle and tap out an anima restoration pill. He popped it in his mouth and the richly colored light surged again. It began to spin and twist, like a pile of living snakes. I wasn’t sure how he was spellcasting all of this without it being ripped apart by the alterations to the ambient essence in the room, but now wasn’t the time for that. 

The spellforms completed into a circuit that was very similar to the one on the ceiling, but flipped, as if he had held it up into the air. He flicked a hand out, and the royal blue spell slammed into the ceiling. Then he lowered his hand and began to craft a mirror image of the spellforms making up the floor’s enchantment. As he worked on the walls all throughout the central cavern chamber, he took two more pills, which had to put a dangerous level of strain on his anima pool, but when he had finally mirrored all of the text, he paced up to the heart in the center of the room, cupped his hands, and created a single spark of light. 

The last little drop of anima spun, then shaped into one last bit of spellwork. The magic all across the room surged back to life, and like the keystone of an arch dropping into place, they all settled. The entire room was awash in the vibrant color of River’s essence as even the chalk markings began to glow. There was a shudder that passed through the entire room at once, and then the light vanished. 

The change was slow at first, subtle. The essence in the air seemed to shift, like a breeze had pulsed through it. Then, with each gentle, rhythmic pulse of the essence heart, the breeze slowly rose, pushing away the gathered concentration of shade magic. Each second, it grew stronger and stronger, until the essence was practically howling around us. I felt like I was standing inside of a pressure cooker due to the sheer intensity of the collected, compacted, pressurized essence. 

The power reached a tipping point then, and it couldn’t compress any further. It exploded out in a wave that ripped through the caverns. Sound rang through the cavern, loud enough to sting my ears as stone began shifting, ripping, changing under the power of the essence heart. Light began to stream in from above as the Obsidian King’s mansion was split in half. Primals all across the cavern system erupted out into the sky, a stream of creatures that had once been forced to slip through narrow gaps to get out suddenly free. 

Then the storm of essence vanished, and I took a deep breath. The world around me felt… normal. The draw of the entire island’s essence and the conversion into shade anima was gone, leaving the ambient energy feeling ordinary. Better than ordinary, actually. The essence heart was level nineteen, but all of its power had been channeled away into the containment enchantments. Now all of that power was able to re-integrate with the atmosphere. It was like someone had built a levee to stop a river from flowing out of a polluted lake, cleared up the lake, then removed the levee. The trees that had been deprived of the water they relied on didn’t just have their power back, it was back and cleaner than ever before. 

“Well,” Vince said, slapping River on the back. “Great job!”

“Thanks,” River said meekly before he flopped onto the ground. “I think I’m tapped out for the next twenty or thirty years, though. Heart’s truth, my anima pool feels like it went through a dozen rounds with a professional boxer.” 

Laurel scooted over to him and pulled his head onto her lap, and began playing with his hair. I felt a spike of jealousy and looked away. I wasn’t jealous of either one of them specifically, just at what they had. Before I had time to dwell on it, Vince was speaking again. 

“Now that the heart is free, I can report this to the department of essence management, as well as the history society. You all will get some commendations for this, I’m sure. And Aiden, I’m sure you’ll see a spike in essence even back home in your village.” 

River scooted up so he was leaning against a wall, arm wrapped around Laurel. 

“Oh, nice. That should help me with graduate admissions, if nothing else.” 

“It will,” Vince said, then flourished his hand and produced the strange egg that we had come here for. “Now, if you want me to wait, I will. But I figure that since the ambient essence is back to normal, and since you’ll need to rest before we can begin kayaking out…” 

“Open the egg!” River said. An instant later, Laurel was chanting with him. “Open the egg. Open the egg. Open the egg.” 

I joined their chant an instant later, and Vince grinned, then gestured for us to pipe down. He placed his hand on the smooth shell, then there was a flicker of red around his hand as he started to pour magic in.