The Third Portal: Chapter Forty-Four

Learning was slow, but by the time the three hour training session had completed, I was feeling confident that I’d be able to shift the arrays in my body, even after the effects of the booster faded. It would take a little while, but it would be useful.

The next few days I spent on the soul strengthening array, until I had my meeting with the local guildmaster of Phantom Hand. I’d already met the him, the man with the dragon arm who had been with Mallory’s mom, but when I arrived at the sparring rings that I’d been told to meet him at, he wasn’t there.

Someone else was there, though, a young woman with a manticore’s tail at the peak of fourth gate, holding a domain weapon. I squinted a second later, and realized the weapon wasn’t resonating with the world in the same way something like Liz’s weapon did. Not a domain weapon then, but one bound to her spirit. A growth item, maybe?

She dismissed it as I approached, and both of our tails were swishing in irritation.

“You’re the one who Gakodi turned in the favor with?”

“You’re not the guild leader, but yes, I am.”

“Apparently you’re some weird half-fox. Can you absorb your tail into your beast core? Or dismiss the eyes?”

“Nope,” I said, popping the p. “But you’re still not the guild leader, and that’s what I was promised.”

If she’d come in, introduced herself as vice guildmaster, and offered to reschedule, or apologized for him not being able to keep his appointment, that would be one thing, but this was just… aggravating.

“Then we’re going to focus on that first. He’s not wasting his time with a basic skill. If you can figure it out, then you can meet with him.”

I set my shoulders and started by drawing out my nails, the threads of black in my veins, and my crown of morels. My soul mana ratchetted up in intensity, even though the recovery rate dropped significantly. I closed my eyes and focused.

I knew it was possible, and Edgar thought it should work now that I had cleared up the command over my spirit and resolved the root, but I’d been so busy that it had slipped my mind to even try.

First I pulled the gemstone blue nails into my beast core, letting my nails return to normal. Then I drew in the blackened veins around my heart, then the crown of morel mushrooms. When they were all in, I focused on my tail. I reached out for it and tried to pull it into the churning mix of soul mana.

If I hadn’t had the training with the Beastbody guild, I wasn’t sure I’d have been able to do it. Even with the training, it still took me a few tries before I felt it dissolve into my soul mana. Unlike with the three items that had merged with me during Dawn’s familiar bond finalizing in the use of the tree, the tail didn’t seem to have much bearing on the recovery or the potency of the soul mana.

Also unlike the other three, it didn’t especially want to stay there. Its natural place was out in the world, and it took focus for me to keep it repressed. I gripped it hard with my will and opened my eyes. The woman with the manticore tail frowned.

“I thought you said you couldn’t do it,” she said. “And what were those mushrooms?”

“I’d never tried. Now I have,” I said, not answering about the morels. “Why don’t you get the guild leader?”

“Alright, but first, let’s see you release spells through your tail.”

“Most of my biological arrays aren’t in my tail.”

“That just means it takes more effort, and skill. Why don’t you show me some. We all cast spells through our phantom limbs.”

I gritted my teeth, but started to try and cast Pinpoint Boneshard through a flick of my tail. It took a bit of effort, like casting through a foot instead of my hand, but it happened. The woman shook her head and crossed her arms.

“Faster. I can conjure quills instantly. Try shifting the mana through your body as you cast.”

I did as she said, and it happened a little bit faster, but still not perfectly. The only reason I didn’t leave was because after each attempt, she provided a little bit of useful information on casting through a phantom limb. It was infuriating, though, as if there was a technique to it that she was feeding me in dribbles, rather than just telling me to let me practice on my own.

Even more annoyingly, there clearly was a technique being used, because trying to shift to fire a Briarthreads through my foot using the same technique didn’t work – this was something they’d developed for their phantom limbs, something I could use, and they were teaching me, but trying to do so in a way I couldn’t reverse engineer.

Once I’d put the technique together, she manifested her blade again. I glanced at it, and not feeling any enchantments, re-evaluated again. Legacy created?

“Now you’ve got it, and just need practice. Do it on your own time. If you can beat me, you’ll get to speak with the guildmaster.”

I began cycling Mantle Dragonfire, then cut it off. I wasn’t going to use deadly force just because I was annoyed. Instead, I tossed out a Spatial Anchor and used my new Reposition Anchor spell to teleport it behind her, and then caused a wave of blademoss to fire out, funneling power into my spiritshield lichen as I did. It tore into her tail, and she whipped around, even as the tail started repairing itself, the spell automatically re-creating the damage. I put my hand, glowing with more blademoss, up to her neck.

“I win. Go get him.”

She sighed and shrugged, then walked off. It was a full thirty minutes before she returned with the dragon-armed man who led the guild. I’d been on the verge of leaving, assuming that he’d skipped out on his teaching time. 

“I was so disappointed to hear that you’re not a full blooded phantom fox,” he said, shaking his head. “Do you even have phantom fox spells?”

He must have heard that from the leader of the Glowing Soil Guild, who had assumed that I was a half-human after a few misleading comments. I let my mind spin quickly before I settled on what I wanted to do. 

“No, I don’t, even though I have the mana to cast them, and the spells I do cast become biological for me. I’d be interested in seeing any records that you have of their spells, and trying to re-spark some of them into my biology.” 

“I was hoping you could do the same, actually,” the man said, sighing. “We were founded by a phantom fox that was supposedly able to manipulate, create, and contain shades and artificial magical matrixes. They created the spells we use for their bond, who had lost a limb. But that was nearly four hundred years ago, and the spells were all lost when the Sevenfold Celestial Sage burned down the original guildhall a few centuries back.”

“That’s a shame,” I said honestly. 

I was a bit surprised their guild had been operating this long, and a part of me was interested in looking up if they had any interesting history. Given that I hadn’t heard of them before coming here, they had to have fallen somewhat out of favor, probably after the Sage attacked them. Primes, he was a prick. 

“Well, since I can’t help you with that, and since you can already suppress your created limbs, the main thing we can teach you is combat.” 

The man flexed his created draconic arm, and the woman manifested her blade again. I glanced at it, and not feeling any enchantments, re-evaluated again. Legacy created?

I took a step back when they stepped forwards, and the man lunged at me, claws extended. I teleported into the air behind him, sending a scattershot of Pinpoint Boneshards down at him, while the woman fired off manticore quills at me. I cut them out of the air with swipes of blademoss, then landed. 

We spared on and off for what little time we had left remaining. The still un-introduced scorpion tailed woman seemed insistent on trying to beat me into the ground with her blade, which seemed to output an absurd amount of power, more than fourth gate, and had a killing edge that reminded me of slaughter spirits. It had to be a legacy, and a powerful one at that. 

The guild master, being an arcanist, took it far easier on me, and actually offered a few minor tips. Everyone in the Phantom Hand Guild was a users of specific set of beast spells, aligned with the limb they manifested, so he had some information on using beast spells effectively, even if it wasn’t revolutionary. Between the aggressive sparring matches and the technique for releasing spells through a phantom limb, I couldn’t say that it was a waste, but I definitely was left with a sour taste in my mouth that less than a third of the time training with a guild master that I’d been promised had actually been with him. 

I had to spend the next few days working with the myrmekes queen, which was interesting as it always was. One of the chefs had brought a mint jelly filled pastry, which had apparently almost caused a violent uprising, as the myrmekes thought we’d reneged on our deal and were trying to poison their queen.

The chef, for their part, had thought it was going to be fine. The myrmekes had liked cinnamon and citrus, despite it being too pungent for normal ants, and mint wasn’t even poisonous to normal ants. 

Trying to explain that mint was completely harmless to humans and normal sized ants, when the myrmekes only had about fifty words they understood, was quite the ordeal, but I was eventually able to smooth things over. 

It also, critically, got me over the threshold of seven thousand points. Only six points over, admittedly, but that was still seven thousand and six points! 

As such, the next morning, before I was set to meet with the leader of the Nightheart Guild for my final day of training, I headed out to the customs house. I checked over the list of rewards that could be bought for points. There were a few items that caught my eye, but nothing that immediately shot to absolute precedence in the way the Organshield Crystal and Timemind had.

The Rebirth Phial had also been sold, and as such, a new item had been taken its spot, the Gemstone Vessel, a massive flying yacht, enchanted to the brim with wards to let it traverse the ocean or sky alike in complete safety, that could be stored in a single thumb-sized ruby. That was pretty neat, but such a vanity item that I dismissed it immediately.  

Much like Ikki had said, one of the two Timeminds that had been for sale had been purchased. What he hadn’t said, however, was that six of the Organshield Crystals had been purchased, and there were only five remaining. 

Both were in high demand, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to just wait around until I had enough points for both. The crystal was clearly a hot item, while the Timemind was less so. But, the crystal was a lot more expensive, and there were more of them. Then again, six had already been sold… 

I scratched my nose, trying to determine which would be the smarter purchase, while at the same time, checking on the time, not wanting to be late for my meeting with the Huli Jing leader of the Nightheart Guild.