The Third Step: Chapter Thirty-Three

Orykson returned at eight the following morning, holding an old-fashioned lantern, the sort that burned oil, rather than using ambient energy or having an enchanted mana core. The lamp’s glass was slightly rounded, with a metal handle that could be held aloft. He held it out to me, and I took it, curiously examining it. 

“What is it?” I asked, frowning as I turned it over in my hand. The lantern didn’t feel magical in the slightest, not even in the sense that it had complex internals for me to train my mana senses with. 

“The containment unit for the Flock that Meadow ordered,” Orykson said. “It’s capable of containing a peak sixth gate spirit, so it’s more than enough for the Flock.” 

“How long does it last?” 

“It should last roughly five centuries,” Orykson said, then paused. “Well, I suppose if you were to bring it in a warded zone that blocked it from absorbing ambient death energy, it would only last about eighty years.” 

“No, I mean how long will it keep the Flock contained? Kene’s grandmother gave Dusk a spirit trap some time ago, it could hold spirits for a few hours. Will this buy me a few months? Weeks? A year?” 

“Five centuries,” Orykson repeated. He wasn’t even smug about it, just saying it with a hint of annoyance, as if I was being particularly dull. 

“Oh. Why can't I sense any magic from it? Like, at all. Did you put a veiling enchantment on it?”

“Items of this quality are rare, and Meadow asked me to ensure it was something you’d be able to carry around without drawing attention. When it’s inactive, most people can’t sense anything, and when a spirit is stored within, it creates an artificial tether to your mana-garden, which should cause most people who are below Occultist to believe you’ve created a permanent seal via a method like a full-gate spell. Hardly an uncommon technique for exorcists. Now, shall we get to work on the door?” 

I nodded, stopping by the alchemy lab to collect my potion before heading to the door frame. I raised my hand and connected my magic to the carvings all along the door, then cast Create Spatial Pocket. As with before, I could feel the lump of power forming, and focused on expanding its stability. Within a few minutes of work, my spatial mana started to run dry, and my temporal mana was down to two thirds. 

I uncorked my potion and downed it, then picked up a mana source and absorbed it, my legacy splitting it into spatial and temporal power. As the new flow of magic entered my spirit and restored my spent mana, I focused on sending it into the spell. 

Reaching the point of stability to jump from expanding the space within the doorway to creating a pocket space within that doorway was fairly simple, and I reached it almost immediately, but the power needed to go from a pocket space to a demiplane was much larger. If creating a pocket was an eyedropper, then creating a demiplane was an entire bucket. If not for the components I was using, it would have been even harder.

Once I reached demiplane levels of planar stability, I got the sense that the leap to an astral plane would be more like a lake in the eyedropper and bucket analogy. Fortunately, I didn’t need to go that far, just to a demiplane, but it still didn’t make expanding it much easier. I had to shift to expanding the size of the demiplane, while also splitting the power to reinforcing the membrane, so it didn’t collapse back into the form of a pocket space. That took less effort and power, but it was still another drain on my focus. 

Mana source after mana source went by as an hour, then another ticked past, and I forced my focus to stay on the task. If my mana control slipped long enough for the spell to entirely cut off, then – at best – I’d need to spend thousands of silver on hiring specialists to come in and patch up my mistake, and at worst, I’d wind up completely wasting all of my time, effort, and money as it failed to congeal at all. If not for the time-mind, as well as a good bit of coffee that Kene brought me throughout the process, I wasn’t certain I’d have been able to keep working on the magic that long. Even with those, if it weren’t for the intricacies of balancing the flow of mana with the variables of the plane itself, I was certain I would have failed. 

But finally, as eleven in the morning rolled around, I picked up the final mana source and drew it into me, my spirit feeling raw and aching from the sheer amount of power that I’d been channeling. I had a newfound respect for the Space King and the Wardsmith, the pair that had designed the key that had gone on to become Dusk. Creating a single stationary demiplane at third gate with a literal doorway had been incredibly rough. Even if they didn’t need to worry about the power requirements, the skill it took to manage a plane that could downscale to be bound to a first gate mage’s spirit, or upscaled to ninth, while also being bound to a key? And that didn’t even touch on the key’s ability to absorb materials. It was so far beyond me that it wasn’t even funny. 

As my mana petered out, the spell started to solidify, then collapsed into solidity. I stared at the door, and for a horrified moment, wondered if I’d completely wasted everything. Then Kene stepped forward and sent a spark of ungated mana into the frame, and a portal snapped into existence, molded to the dimensions of the door. 

On the other side was a slippery grayish-blue space, almost as if it were made entirely of colored glass. It was hard to determine the exact size at first, especially just from glancing at it, but my spatial sense gave me a much better sense for it. The room was fairly large, about the size of a bedroom, and the interactions between time and death within the space were significantly slowed down. 

Kene strode in, walking from end to end, then turned to me with a smile on their face. 

“It’s perfect! I should be able to manipulate your body fine in here.” 

They paused as they realized what they said, then flushed red. 

“I mean. The corpse. Wait, no, that sounds worse. Whatever. You know what I mean.” 

“Children,” Orykson said, letting out a long, tired sigh. “Regardless, this should serve as an adequate space to repair the damage to the body. As long as you delve a sepulcher within a few months of the end of the tournament, the slowed degradation and preservation fluid should keep the body fresh enough to allow for the hag to use it.” 

I let out a small cheer at that, and Dusk raised her hands, cheering as well. Orkyson nodded, then waved his hand. The vat containing my body, as well as a long, low medical table, teleported into the demiplane. 

“Excellent. With that out of the way, I believe it’s time we address an area where your magic has been lacking.” 

“Oh? I’m pretty low on space for any new spells.” 

“This isn’t a new spell. Rather, it's a failure to adequately utilize the power you already have.” 

He raised a finger, and a bone shard spun over the tip.

“You are still utilizing cow bones for Pinpoint Boneshard.” 

“If you’re going to try and convince me to use human bones–” I started to say, but was cut off by Orykson. 

“Nonsense. Most human bones are an adequate material at best, unless they’ve done significant work to refine their body, as you have. Magical beast bones are, by and large, better than the average human of the same gate. But you can continue to use cow bones if you wish. The issue is, you’re only injecting death mana and energy into them when you cast your spell. Stop thinking about them as a part of your spell, and think of them as a material akin to your plants.” 

I nodded slowly, removing the bones from my spirit and studying them. They radiated a bit of death energy, more than they had when I’d first taken them in, but not nearly as much as I would have expected out of a plant. 

“Bones are far closer to metals and stones than they are to plants. They don’t have life of their own to carry the burden of power, so they must be saturated with mana and energy, slowly improving their quality over time, until they eventually break through. Unlike a plant, though, their power is much harder to deplete.” 

“Wait. Shouldn’t my cow bones be third gate then? They’re sitting in my death garden – mostly.”

“Ah, good. You’ve very nearly touched on it. They are sitting there, but much of your mana is dedicated to the spell structure within your spirit, not to the bones sitting within that structure. You can, with some force of will and mana techniques, change this.” 

I closed my eyes and drew the bones back into their usual spot in my first gate. Then, as Depths of Starry Night speared mana through the Pinpoint Boneshard spell, I focused, drawing the power into the bones, rather than just the spell. It worked, but also nothing seemed to happen. 

“It will take time, and locating more powerful bones is also a viable option.” Orykson said when I opened my eyes. “If you had pursued osteomancy, I would have you designing spaces that specifically saturate your bone weapons, armor, and soldiers, using time mana to hasten their advancement. As is, this should be sufficient for the Pinpoint Boneshard. Once you utilize material of your gate, it should improve the spell’s effectiveness just as much as empowering the spell itself does.”

“A good swordsperson can make use of a terrible blade, but they’ll be better if they’ve got a sword that they’re not having to accommodate for the weaknesses of,” I summarized, and Orykon nodded. 

“Just so. Now, with that in mind, if you would like some recommendations, I have a few deplorable targets with reasonably powerful bodies that even you would likely admit are worthy of death.” 

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “If you’ve got dirt on them, have them turn themselves in. I’m not going to become an assassin.” 

“He didn’t say they were people,” Kene pointed out. 

“He didn’t need to. Orykson wouldn’t have needed to justify it if it were something like a life mana slaughter spirit with a body of bone. He would have just told me it was a slaughter spirit.” 

Meadow, from where she sat on the porch with her iced tea, let out a cackling laugh, and Orykson shot her a very annoyed look. 

“Be that as it may, it’s still a list of deplorable–” 

“No,” I said. “If you’re using one of your favors–” 

“I’m not.”

“Even if you were, I’d use my right to refuse on the grounds of principle,” I refuted. “I’m not killing people for their bones.” 

Orykson shrugged, and we spent a bit of time sparring against one another at a distance, trading teleportation attacks, before he eventually left. I spent the rest of the day with Kene, Dusk, Dawn, Siobhan, and Meadow, relaxing and unwinding after the stress of finding a space to keep the body where it wouldn’t decay, as well as everything that had gone on in the forest. 

I enjoyed the evening, cooking with Meadow and Kene alike, because I knew that it was time to turn my full attention back to training. I’d take a brief break once the trees were ready to establish Stone Gates, but by and large the months long sail to Tianzhu would be the perfect time to train.