PSTH: Chapter Seven

Why, exactly, does training yourself beyond your limits create a massive rush of essence when you stop to rest? Why does defeating a magian

Why, exactly, does training yourself beyond your limits create a massive rush of essence when you stop to rest? Why does defeating a magian or tamer in a good battle produce a rush of essence? Truthfully, we don’t know. By and large, essence seems to obey the old laws of thermodynamics, albeit with oddly variable anima conversion rates. But this is an instance where energy seems to be spontaneously created. Perhaps it comes from the soul. Perhaps it comes from the same mysterious place essence hearts come from, which are another such violation. Neither of those are satisfactory answers to us, as they’re patching over gaps with supposition. 

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From the ‘On the Nature of Essence’ Planet-Net Site, 422 Modern-Era

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The next morning, I packaged up the lunch and dinner meals for everyone that Vince had requested and set them aside. I double checked the enchantments on the pack, knocked out some sand that had gotten into the bottom even though I knew there would be more inside before the end of the day, and started to pack. I probably should have done that last night, but I was an early riser, and doubted that Vince and the rest were up yet. 

The heavy waterproofed canvas tent went in first, followed by the flax tarps and cord I’d purchased the day before, then thick sleeping blankets, my box of food ration cubes, a knife, a trowel, and four sets of clothes, with extra socks. Socks, even wool, could get soaked easily enough in the marshlands and I didn’t fancy traipsing around with wet feet. After that, the magitech equipment went in. First was a camp stove, the fire anima core set with a converter that would allow me to power it for meals, as long as I had the anima to do it. In a pinch, even Scales could fuel it, though converting water element anima into fire was extremely inefficient. 

A one liter water purification bottle went in next. The model I had would need upgrading, as I’d found out firsthand when hunting for and training with Scales. It was capable of fueling itself on ambient essence in order to purify the water, but the absorption rate was slow, and it took almost twelve hours to recharge. It was charged now, and full of clean water already, so I theoretically had a second liter when I needed it, but that wouldn’t work if I was stuck on a longer trip, especially since I needed it to rehydrate the food cubes. Just in case, I nestled bottles of purification tablets, desalination pills, and a gallon jug of clean water in the pack as well, the glass containers clinking as they tapped the enchanted bottle. 

A flashlight, some toiletries, my augpad, and the packed food made for the last things to join the pack, which was getting quite full. If it weren’t for the spells on the bag helping to reduce weight and prevent breaks and spills within, I’d have been worried carrying all of that, but the pack had been one of the highest quality pieces of gear that I’d sprung for. 

I clipped Scales’ storage gem, glowing the same pastel yellow as my essence, onto my belt loops, did the same to the empty gem, pulled on a wide-brimmed sun hat, and checked myself in the mirror. I fixed my hair a bit, then headed down. I knocked on my mom’s door, whispered a goodbye to her still-mostly asleep figure, and then biked out to the hotel where Vince, Laurel, and River were staying. None of them were awake yet, so I took the moment to sit and cultivate ambient essence with Scales.

The ambient essence within the village was only around level five. It was technically four point seven nine three something, but for all intents and purposes, it was level five. Significantly lower than most places in the country, which usually had levels somewhere in the twenties or thirties, but we didn’t have a nearby essence heart to boost us. 

Since Scales was past the level ten barrier, cultivating the thinner local ambient essence wasn’t the most effective way to gather power, but we couldn’t exactly push our training limits or battle against someone inside the hotel’s lobby. I was probably also past that level, but as a tamer, I kept my personal essence entirely raw to keep it compatible with my Primals. It wasn’t even the null element that many common primals had, as it was too protean and chaotic. As a result, it made quantifying the exact number of layers of essence within my spirit more of an estimation than the exact count that could be scanned with Scales or a magian like River or Yanette. 

Irrespective of what my actual level was, the power in the air here wasn’t going to progress us much, but it would help a little bit, and every little bit helped. Scales began to gather essence to himself, using a technique that was intrinsic to his primal nature, while I took a deep breath and began to visualize. 

In the air around me, I envisioned a mist of grays and whites. Scales sat next to me, a pulsing blue core, far denser than the fog, and I was a burning yellow flame a bit less potent than he was. I focused on the flickering, shifting flame of my essence within the visualization, and began to feed it the ambient mists. As they swirled in, I imagined them sparking the fire to grow larger, like a combustible gas, every little bit helping the burning yellow light of my spirit gain more and more power. Then, I pushed out again, resetting the cycle. 

Though forming the visual was simple enough, the work of actually gathering the essence in the air to me, and setting it alight to incorporate itself into me was much more difficult. It was made doubly so by the effort required to intensify the ambient magic to match my own strength, and before I knew it, I was pulled out by a hand tapping my shoulder. My eyes snapped open to see a pair of bright red eyes looking down on me. 

“Morning, Aiden,” Vince said, grinning. “You got here early. Is that the harmonic fire soul method I felt?” 

“It is,” I said, quickly rising. Scales let out a yawn and hopped off the couch with me. “It was the best method for making use of diffuse essence I could find.”

“It’s fantastic for places that you’re stronger than,” Vince agreed. “Once you head into areas with more power than you’ve got, you should look into another method or two.”

“Do you have any advice?” I asked hopefully. 

“Hmm. Look into the hundred streams of raw essence method. But really, the best thing you can do for increasing you and your primal’s levels is to train and battle other tamers.” 

I nodded my agreement, but before I could say anything, I was met with a gagging sound and shifted to look behind the Regent. River and Laurel each had a stuffed breakfast roll in their hand, and Laurel was staring at hers with a look of consternation on her face. I couldn’t help but blurt out, “What?” when I saw the look. 

“I don’t like shrimp,” she said, making a face. 

“That’s your fault, babe,” River said, a smug grin on his face. “You’re the one who grabbed rolls without checking what they were.

“What kind of place has shrimp in their breakfast rolls?!” 

“A place near the ocean, maybe? Where they can probably get shrimp and fish? Just hypothetically, of course.” 

“Nobody should eat shrimp, ever, it’s worse than murder, and if you intentionally pu–” 

“Alright,” Vince said, clapping and cutting short their argument. “Aiden, do you have everything you need?” 

“No. You said that you’d packed a few days of food and water, and only needed me to pick up some for tonight. If you need me to carry food and water for you all, then we need to make a trip to Luanne’s.” 

“Not quite what I meant,” Vince said, though he didn’t seem to take it poorly. “We do have food and water, and I purchased a nice water purifying machine. But you’ve got the rest of the gear we need, like the kayaks and food for today?” 

“I have all that, yeah,” I agreed with a nod. “If that’s the case, we’re probably ready to go?” 

Vince turned to look at River and Laurel, and when neither of them protested, I tossed the keys to each of them, then took out my own to the locker where I stored my own kayak. I led them through the village to the beach, Scales trotting next to me. I locked up my bike there, then pulled out my own, checking over the stretched hide, just to make sure it hadn’t ripped during the time since I’d last used it, then handed everyone life vests. With that done, we headed to the water where I helped push off River and Laurel, though Vince had managed to push himself off without an issue. 

I followed them out in the water, only to find that River and Laurel had gotten into a splash fight, knocking the water around with their paddles. Scales, who had dove into the water the moment the option was presented to him, was currently rushing between them, yipping and using his paws to splash water at both of them. 

I sighed and rubbed my nose, then glanced at the sun, paddled to my left side to turn right, and began to orient myself in the direction of the old Obsidian King estate, before shifting to look at everyone.

“Alright everyone,” I said, speaking up as Scales swam through the water to catch up with me. “A few details. Ocean kayaking can be risky, since the waves can get rough. Now, we’re still going to be in and around the barrier islands, so you’re probably not going to be seeing anything especially dangerous, but if you feel unsafe, just call me over. If you do capsize, doggy paddle while Scales and I help get you up.” 

I pointed to a bed of oysters, clinging to the mangroves and sea grass, and put as much seriousness as I could into my voice.

“Those are oysters. While they might just kind of look like rocks, they’re actually quite dangerous. Stay away from them. They can slice through the hide of your boat without trouble, and if you can’t maintain a pneuma shell around yourself, they can cut through you too. They also filter out algae, zinc, and bacteria from the water. If you do get cut on them, we’re turning around right away and bringing you to the clinic. Every summer, a few tourists ignore that and wind up getting hurt. Am I understood?” 

“Yes sir,” Vince said, his voice every bit as serious as my own was. That seemed to surprise Laurel and River, both of whom looked at the usually easygoing tamer, then back to me and nodded. 

“I understand,” Laurel said, tapping a storage gem and conjuring Zaza onto her shoulder. “Should we start burning pneuma to create a shell when we get near them?” 

“It’s not a terrible idea, if you’re within an oarspan of them, but as long as you keep away, you should be fine.” 

I took a few more questions, then we started to head out. The first hour went easy enough, though I did notice that there was something strange happening with Laurel’s essence, though I couldn’t tell what it was. 

After the first hour, though, we started having to slow down in order to not leave River behind. The spellcaster was muttering under his breath about how he was meant for libraries and mountains, not ocean kayaking. I didn’t have the heart to remind him that we were keeping close enough to the shore that it really wasn’t even ocean.  

No primals sought us out to attack, which was a little surprising, but not shocking. Even losing a fight could pull in more ambient essence than the same amount of time spent in cultivation, so it wasn’t rare for wild primals to want to skirmish with Scales and I. Then again, both he and Zaza were stronger than pretty much any other primal in the region, while I suspected that if Vince unveiled, he’d even scare off the mundane animals. Maybe they decided the potential gains weren’t worth the wasted pneuma and anima. 

Two hours later, and I had to slow down again as River began needing to burn some of his pneuma in order to restore his physical endurance, while Laurel and Vince also started to slow down. 

“Just one more hour until we can stop for lunch y’all,” I encouraged. “You can do it!”