The Third Step: Chapter Thirty-Six

It took me nearly another two weeks before I had reached the level of speed and skill within the Elysian Mastery Tournament Orb that I was ready to step through and challenge the Arcanist level scenario. 

When I finally did, I just let out a sigh and wondered if I ought not to have bothered with so much effort. 

Smoke rose into the air as houses burnt. Dark shapes rushed from house to house, and the sound of combat and spells filled the air. A power, the hallmark of a beastial Arcanist, hung in the air, commanding and empowering the monsters as they brought death to everyone around. The display before me was terrible. A deadly event that might well represent the extinction of a town, a city, or even a nation, if it got out of hand. The kind of once in a generation nightmare that might live in the minds and hearts of innocent noncombatants for their entire lives.

And it was entirely familiar.

Desolants swarmed across the landscape of a false town, emerging from an anthill on the far end of the village. They were already rushing toward our group as the Beast Tide ability started to focus on us. I glanced at Dusk, then at Dawn. 

“Help me hold them off, then I’ll finish this.” 

Dawn nodded her entire body, while Dusk just set to work. She thrust her hands in the air, causing hundreds of tiny hands to erupt up from the earth around us. A moment later, spikes of golden crystal began to skewer through the waves of oncoming ants, and I cast Kludde’s Weight, crashing down onto them. The effect synergized well with Dusk’s hands, and an instant later, sweeping arcs of gold infused both of our spells, further empowering both of them.

The entire time, I cycled Mantle Dragonfyre, gathering power to kill the ant queen. Given the way that waves were rushing down from a distant point, and the power of the desolant queen directing them, I was betting that the expectation was for us to slowly fight our way through waves of third and fourth gate attackers until we reached the queen, where we’d need to face off against the Arcanist opponent. 

All things considered, it was a good choice for a final test. Desolants hit hard, but their ant bodies and use of beastcores over upgrading their bodies meant that their defenses were paper thin. Dangerous, but I’d much rather fight against a desolant queen than a true Arcanist like Liz’s grandfather or Jinwei using their full power.

As soon as I completed a third cycle of Mantle Dragonfyre, I stretched my senses across the town, carrying them on the wind and light with Sky Dragon’s Senses. The instant I touched upon the power of the queen directly, I vanished. 

Teleporting several miles in one go was draining, and I’d normally have split it across a few shorter jumps, but if I was right… 

I appeared in the air behind the queen, thrust my hand out, and wave of destructive red and brown exploded from my fingers. An instant later, the world began to break apart into streaks of white light, and then I was pulled out of the orb entirely. The glassy surface had transformed from transparent to a milky white color, and an instant later, the word “congratulations” appeared on it. It faded after a few seconds and was replaced with a number: one hundred and eighteen, and the sense that I could push my spirit in once again.

As I looked over the number, I couldn’t help but feel a spark of pride kindle in my chest. I knew that it didn’t indicate my actual final ranking within the tournament – many of the challenges were non-combat, so specialized combat mages like Liz were going to have a much harder time than I was.

But even so. Out of the entire world’s worth of spellbinder combatants younger than twenty-five, I was in the top hundred and twenty. And that was competing against people who had been trained with the specific purpose of winning this tournament, and sat at the very peak of fourth gate, with treasures like palisade-acorns to further boost them. Oh, I had plenty of my own advantages, I didn’t deny that. But at the same time, I was still only at the peak of third gate. 

I thought that if I re-entered the orb and made my way through several more times, I’d be able to raise my ranking, since I’d be able to do it faster, with less mana loss, and fewer injuries taken, but… Should I? If the rankings were revealed to other competitors, being in the middle of the pack should mean I didn’t draw too much attention. If they weren’t, then I’d be chasing a number for vanity’s sake and nothing else. It might feel good to see the number keep ticking up, but it didn’t really mean anything in the end. I’d keep an eye on it, and if I got too close to possibly not making it in, I’d start delving the orb again. 

As I thought that, I noticed that new words had joined the number written there, and my eyebrows scrunched together. 

“Sapient bond detected. Please report to tournament staff on one of the following dates.” 

I glanced at Dusk, then at Dawn. 

“Bond? Shouldn’t it say bonds?” 

Dawn tilted her head and sent the mental image of sand being turned into pasta. I thought she might be confusing sand and flour, but then the whole image devolved into a massively complex math equation that was too large to even fit in my minds eye. 

“Fair point,” I agreed, though I had no idea what she had been trying to communicate. In its own way, though, I thought that was somewhat the point. The orb likely hadn’t been able to get a read on her sapience level, so she was counted as non-sapient. Dusk piped up and asked what the issue with her sapience was, and I just shrugged. 

“I don’t know. Let’s ask Meadow.”

Dusk shrugged and said I could tell her the answer later. She was bored and wanted to go make stink bombs. I nodded, then reminded her not to use them on random people before I left, wandering around the boat. I eventually found Meadow in the dining hall, eating a bowl of pasta. I had an instant to wonder if Dawn had used the winds of destiny to foresee that, or if it had been sheer coincidence, before Meadow smiled. 

“Ah, Malachi! Good. I was wanting to speak to you soon.” 

“Oh, really? I had a question. It can wait, though.” 

“No, no, go ahead.” 

I held out the glass orb to her, and her smile grew even wider. 

“Wonderful news! Come, sit down, let me order you a bowl of something.”

“Thank you!” I said, and the pride at the accomplishment bubbled back to the surface. I started to laugh and pulled Meadow into a hug, and she hugged me back. 

“Are you going to tell your family?” she asked.

“I’ll call them tonight, and I’ll let Kene know as soon as we get done with our conversation. Where is he anyways?”  

“Good, good. Last I spoke to them, they were using the gym on board. But yes, I assume your question is about meeting with the tournament officials?” 

“It is,” I confirmed. “Why isn’t Dusk allowed to fight with me?” 

“Well, she might be,” Meadow said, dabbing at her cheek with her napkin. “The rule is intended to prevent people who have spellbound one another from only winning one entry slot, and making every fight a two on one. Familiars cause some issues at times, but generally, they need coordination from their partner. Two people cause problems.”

“And Dusk is a person,” I finished. “That makes sense, but it’s annoying.” 

“Well, from a legal perspective, that is rather arguable,” Meadow countered. “In Feng Chui, spirits are only granted the rights of sapience if they complete an exam and pay taxes. I don’t know what Zhuanzhe’s exact rules are. In Mossford, she’s recognized as a sapient dependant, like you had adopted a child or a younger sibling.” 

“Spirits are confusing,” I griped, and Meadow just laughed, shaking her head. 

“No my dear, spirits are very simple. The legal systems of the assorted nations are confusing.” 

“Point,” I agreed. “So, what, they’re going to, what, give her tests? Then tell me if we can fight together?” 

“Yes. It also might not be all or nothing. They might allow her to fight at a handicap. Or forbid her from fighting, but give you full access to your familiar bonds. Or a dozen other things.”

I nodded my agreement, then ordered a small side of fish when the waiter arrived to take the order. Once he left, I turned back to Meadow. 

“What did you want to talk about?” 

“Now that you’ve finished your spellwork, there are a few things you need to do before you can break through to fourth gate. You should attempt to maximize the potential of your full-gate spells, but the more important part is gate carving.”

“Right!” I agreed. “Mine are going to be a pain and a half, since I have to work in my four resonance sources on top of the standard stuff for my spells, mana types, and spellbonds. Also my resonance enhancement of choice, which I have an idea about.” 

“It will be difficult, but it will be worth it,” Meadow said. “What’s your idea for the proposed resonance enhancement.” 

“I Fight to Make the World a Better Place,” I said. “As a Clarity of Purpose. I don’t think it’s perfect, and it’s very similar to the one you initially hoped to use, but… I don’t have a better idea. I think it incorporates the fact that I’ve become a combat mage, but I also refuse to kill people like the assassin sent after me, or the Flock. I fight, but I don’t do it purposelessly.” 

I was all but certain that wouldn’t be my final Clarity of Purpose, but I didn’t know what my Clarity of Purpose would be. I’d touched on my Intent when I’d stood up to Orykson’s refusal to take risks for ordinary people, and when I’d fought the assassin. I was willing to bet that I’d done it again when I’d terrified the Flock. But just because I’d touched on them didn’t mean that I knew exactly which one I had touched on, or even exactly what it was.

“Hmm,” Meadow agreed neutrally. “I do think that should work well enough for you. We’ll go over working that into your engraving pattern in a bit. For right now, we need to go over the options for the effect of the carving. All of them are fairly minor, but also very useful.” 

She waved her hand and papers appeared before us. We spent a good amount of time going over the different options and eliminating the ones that didn’t fit well for me, and by the time that my fish had come and gone, I had narrowed it down to only four options. 

The first option was the mana conversion pattern. It was simple enough, assisting in the cost of moving mana up a gate. It didn’t make it one to one, not even remotely close, but with five gates of mana, I needed to convert my mana up and down more than most people. 

The second was the repetitive flow pattern. It assisted my spirit in remembering paths that I made through my mana, which was the sort of thing that sounded useless at first blush, but became appealing the more I thought about it. I frequently chained together three, four, five, or even more spells into a combination. My garden was only going to grow larger, and this could help smooth the complex mana manipulation required. 

The third was annoyingly tempting in its sheer simplicity: the mana concentration formation. It did exactly what it sounded like, slightly but noticeably improving my mana concentration. That would in turn improve pretty much everything in my garden. It wasn’t going to solve any problems, but at the same time, I had a hard time dismissing the effect. 

The fourth and final pattern that caught my eye was an odd one. It wasn’t the most widely employed, and among those who did use it, most were knowledge mages: the spirit-eye. It improved the acuity of mana senses, helping to get more fine details from existing spells and senses. It didn’t make them stronger, but I’d put a lot of work into refining my mana senses, and I thought that it might be worth improving their fine details during my fourth gate, since their range would explode at fifth gate. 

As Meadow paid, and we went to go find Kene, I kept flipping between the four options, grumbling to myself all the while.