The Third Portal: Chapter Fifty

It had been a good while since I’d passed out. The iron and folic acid had done a good bit to help get rid of the fainting spells. But after channeling that much power, almost all of which was beyond my ken, I thought I deserved to pass out. As a little treat. 

I wasn’t the only one who passed out either.

Dusk didn’t exactly have a body, not in the same way that I did, but she’d also strained herself to the brink in order to gather up all that power and send it directly into me, and thus had fallen into a forceful rest in order to recover. 

Dawn was only a second gate spirit, but had somehow created crystals capable of converting the power of an Arcanist death mage. I didn’t even know how she’d managed to do that – a dominion based on enhancement might let her punch slightly above her weight class, and her spirit bond with me should do the same, but even the two of those together shouldn’t cover a three or four gate gap in power. 

The array had been designed to strengthen Kene, but it had also put a lot of foreign power into their system on top of requiring their bonded tattoos to be tampered with, and the hag briefly pulled away from them. They’d passed out as well. 

And finally, the witch, old and powerful as she may have been, was clearly suffering from some sort of curse or limitation that compounded with her incredible age and incomplete immortality. She’d strained herself in a very different way, but she had undeniably strained herself to her own limits, and had passed out as well. 

Much to my surprise, I was the first one who was able to wake up, and when I did, I was in my bed, in the cottage within Dusk, with Kene laid out snoring beside me, Dawn curled around Dusk’s little body on one of the pillows. 

That in and of itself was already strange, but the even stranger part was that when I gently probed at my own spirit, expecting to feel extreme pain and maybe even splinters from straining it, I didn’t. It was the exact opposite: my spirit felt stronger than it had been before. 

It took me a moment to realize what exactly had happened – my three full gate spells, the Kirin’s spell, Magister’s Body, and Beast Mage’s Soul, had all advanced a considerable amount. The connections in my spirit had all grown closer, and the synergetic effects of my spells had grown stronger. 

The energy flowing in my body had also concentrated, and even though that effect was lesser, it still felt somewhat like when I’d been at the peak of second gate, just waiting to advance into third. It was like I was a half-step into peak third gate in terms of my body’s energy. 

I was willing to bet that I knew what had happened. When the root of resolve had consumed power from the Kirin’s spell to fuse its growth with the others, it had also directed the Kirin’s growth factor into the others. 

I didn’t know what the growth factor of the Kirin’s spell was; it was opaque to even someone like Meadow, who was aligned with Fortune, and to Orykson, who was an excellent spell designer. But whatever it was, what I’d just done had tripped it big time.

I stretched and worked my way out of bed, stepping into the main room, where I saw the witch, curled up in a ball on the couch. 

“Ah, glad to see you’re up and moving, dear,” the calm and quiet voice of Meadow called from behind me. I turned to see Meadow in the kitchen, organizing a handful of bottles, which I recognized as nutrition potions. 

“Meadow!” I said, grinning. “How’d you get here?” 

“I listened to the wind, and hurried from my home in Mossford as fast as I could,” she responded. “Dusk’s realm was still open in the shop.”

“How long were we out?” 

“Four days,” she responded. “I’ve been force feeding you all nutrition potions to meet your water and dietary needs.” 

“Thank you,” I said. “It got bad at the end.” 

“Why don’t you tell me about it while I put some soup on?” Meadow asked. “Real food will do you good right now.” 

I nodded and rose, heading to the fridge and pulling out some carrots and celery, then fetching a cutting board and starting to chop. As I did, I told her about the array, and then kept going, talking about everything that I’d been up to. She’d been around for much of it, but I’d also been working so single mindedly on the array that I hadn’t exactly been taking a lot of lessons. 

Before long, though, my worries started to creep in, and I was talking about my fears: 

How Orykson’s estimate of four years had seemed like so much at the time, but now almost a full year had gone by, and I didn’t feel that much closer to the deadline, having barely even fulfilled the first step. 

How I was advancing too slowly, since Kene and Dusk were both almost fourth gate, while I was stuck in mid-third, not even done ingraining my spells yet. I was expected to have the strength to delve into a sepulcher before long, in order to get Kene to the bottom. 

How I was expected to compete and do well in the Elysian Mastery Tournament, and that I’d need to place in the top sixteen combat mages of my age and advancement just to keep my other two mentors, but how I hadn’t even been able to get through the orb yet. 

Meadow listened to all of them, nodding her head along slowly and letting me vent. Only when I was finished did she speak up. 

“Let’s see if I can’t help with some of those: namely, the last. Orykson would prefer you to compete. He won’t gain any political tokens for your victories, but the social aspects of having an independent mage from your nation competing are still good. It’s also something of a point of pride for him – Vivian, his last apprentice, took fourth in her own Spellbinder division, and swept the Arcanist tournament.” 

She held up her hand, telling me to stop before I could go down the train of thought that it created more pressure, not less. 

“But Orykson isn’t your teacher anymore, I am. If you aren’t able to compete in the tournament, your contracts with Ikki and Orykson will expire, that’s true, but I will do what I can to bridge that gap. While they might not be on the level of the Time Prince or the Analyst, I am still a teacher of herbology and potions at Lledrith University, and I could get you time with tutors. And in truth, I think both the old men have become too invested in your future to completely ignore you. They just wouldn’t keep teaching you. For all that they follow a different path, the constellations of connections bind them as surely as the bright light of destiny shines down on you.” 

I started to relax as she spoke. I did still want to compete, because I didn’t want to lose access to training with such powerful and skilled mentors, but at the same time, when Meadow framed it like that, the pressure did recede somewhat. 

“When it comes to your advancement speed, consider that Kene has multiple years worth of a head start on you. Even if much of it was spent in alchemical training, some of it was spent on magecraft. Dusk is a single-gate spirit who is following a path with spells born into her from her very existence and the spell recommendations of the Library. She follows a… perhaps not well-trodden path, but certainly a clear one despite its rarity.” 

She poked me with a long, boney finger as she picked up my carrots and celery and added the onion and garlic that she’d been working on, then poured it all in a pot to start sauteeing it. 

“Despite this, you’re not that far behind either of them. If you had attended a normal university for a degree, you would have been expected to have gotten to peak second gate by now. Admittedly, those degrees have a great deal of time spent on other things like history, grammar, and mathematics. To compare to the combat certifications of Lledrith University, you’re actually somewhat ahead of the expected advancement pace despite having more stairs to dig.” 

“Really?” I asked, knitting my eyebrows together. Meadow shook her head and chuckled. 

“Really, he asks me? The man who just about blew a hole in his own soul for the power to defend his friends and family is surprised he’s ahead of schedule. Yes, dear, you’re ahead. As for the sepulcher – you’re ready. Not alone, certainly, but in a team? Working together with Ed and Liz, or perhaps Octavian and Maylee, as well as Kene, Siobhan, Dusk, and Dawn? I have faith you could make it down all three floors and to the bottom prize.” 

“Oh.” 

“And when it comes to the fact that you’re running low on time, I won’t pretend that everything is perfect and flawless, but I will say that you’ve tackled the first of the five steps. On the flight to the Elysian Mastery Tournament, you’ll be able to check off several more items on your list."

“How long will the flight take?” I asked. “There are, what, fourteen and a half months left until the tournament?” 

“It depends on which route you take, but we can get into route planning later. Regardless of the route that you take, by the time you arrive at the tournament, you should have most, if not all, of the materials you need for the body and the spirit. If you’re willing to use your favor, then the Craftsman would be an ideal person to forge those bits together into a passable pseudo soul. The tournament runs for three months, so even if the Craftsman were to require you to spend another few months collecting some additional materials, it still leaves you with an entire year for either taking the gift of Unbinding Rock or finding the amulet, then delving the sepulcher.”

“I… Huh. That’s a slightly tight timeline, but not as bad as I was expecting. Thank you.” 

Meadow reached out and pulled me into a hug. I hugged her back for a while, then we turned our attention to finishing the soup. The smell of it finally woke Kene, though the witch, Dusk, and Dawn remained asleep. Kene, Meadow, and I all sat to eat together, and I looked Kene over. Physically, they were fine, and their spirit seemed… stronger. 

Truthfully, it was both more and less than I’d expected. In terms of the raw power their mana was outputting, it felt like they’d maybe drank three golden soul potions, or fed a few drops of destiny into their foundation. Nothing to scoff at, but also not exactly crazy when it required months of enchanting work and the looting of an ancient city-wide array. 

On the other hand, there was a certain… solidity… to the way they felt that I couldn’t really match with power, and that was what I assumed was the power Orykson was attempting to cultivate. 

“How are you feeling?” I asked. 

“Better. I think I just needed to sleep to get adjusted to the array’s effects,” Kene said. “Hello Meadow. How did you get here?” 

“This way and that. Malachi, why don’t you go chop some wood for the fireplace while Kene and I talk some?” 

“Sure,” I agreed, heading out to pick out a downed tree and start splitting it for wood. When Kene and Meadow had finished their discussion, Kene came and fetched me. As we sat down for dinner, Kene broached a new topic. 

“I figure that Dawn's about ready for you to summit the mountain that you were talking about, and you'll be heading out that way to pick up your growth items anyways. I'd like to come along, but who else are you inviting?” 

"I'd recommend a group of about four people or less," Meadow added. "Animals and spirits are more adaptable to the wilds, so they don't count against that number. But too many other people will slow an already difficult hike down even more."

"You could have as many people as possible in Dusk," Kene pointed out. "But that also wouldn't really help that much with the hike itself. It might make combat a touch easier, but even then, I doubt there's much that lives up that high, so even that's a bit pointless."

"Four or less," I agreed. "Hmm."