Chapter 26 (257)

  “Everything looks good over here!” one of the robed scientists called out from behind his control hologram.

  Throughout the plain stone room, people were working hard. Some were moving around like bees busily attempting to pollinate the various machines that took up much of the floor space. Others were like pillars of professionalism, overseeing everything within their little slices of controlled chaos. All the while, in the center, the fifteen-unit tall pillar of contained essence wrapped in steel wiring swirled dangerously.

  Right alongside it, on the main control platform, Nicholas Salvatore-Verena stood proudly with an intense look on his face. What he and his team had accomplished was nothing short of remarkable.

  One of the researchers from the Center who’d been monitoring a readout shouted, “Resonance pillar is now active. Two minutes until the pulse is charged. Control linkages are all transmitting their ready states.”

  The young woman dressed in mage robes next to him who was in charge of their connection with the Tower of Magic called out, “The link with the scry array is now active! Signal is solid and the relays all seem to be working as intended.”

  While doing his best to keep his tone calm, Nick ordered, “Be sure to counter any interference you see in the reciprocal feed. We need to be able to supply real-time updates to the observational matrix to bypass the false images we might initially be seeing.”

  The mage on loan from the Tower of Magic replied with a nod without bothering to turn around, her entire concentration remaining on the holograms floating in front of her.

  Nick on the other hand was trying his best to pay attention to everything. While everyone else needed only to focus on their assignments, he had taken it upon himself to be in charge of the entire project.

  ‘This… this is what humanity can accomplish when they work together for a common purpose,’ he thought to himself in satisfaction.

  Even when he was a young man, failing to live up to his parents' expectations, he’d been captivated by the pursuit of knowledge. While others spent their time vying for position and accolades, he’d been in the library studying the foundations that kept their society functioning.

  Technology. The understanding of the greater mysteries and their applications. That was the secret to ensuring humanity's survival in the face of all the threats that it faced.

  He’d always known it was his calling, and time and time again he’d been proven right as his efforts were rewarded with merits and accolades of his own.

  Now, as the lord of his own house, the merits he’d receive if this most recent idea turned out to be a success would affect more than just himself. His entire house would rise on the ladder.

  But that wasn’t why he was doing this. He was doing this because the city needed him to.

  Nero may have had the idea, but as exceptional as he was in his own way, he was incapable of putting it into action. He simply lacked the knowledge base.

  “Pulse is ready!” the researcher called out.

  Nick’s slight smile tightened in anticipation of their success. “Is the secondary Resonance Pillar with the other forward base online?”

  Another researcher, monitoring yet another hologram called out, “Affirmative. Systems are linked and ready to activate on your signal.”

  Taking a deep breath, Nick shook his hands to release some of the tension he was feeling. The entire room went silent as they waited for the order.

  Firming his resolve, Nick called out calmly, “Fire the pulse.”

  Had he not been waiting for it, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it. But he was, and he did.

  The ether shook like a slab of gelatin being slapped. Emanating from the Resonance Pillar, the wave propagated through the essence flows at a blistering pace, altering nothing but making the ether in the area tremble with its passing.

  Less than a second later, the mage called out, “We’re getting the feed now. Putting it up on the central viewer.”

  Nick turned to look at the rapidly updating map which up until now had been showing only what the kobalds had wanted them to see. Like tapestry being pulled aside, the interior of the mountain was revealed.

  While the technique he and his team had developed didn’t ‘break’ the illusion, it did allow them to successfully bypass it, allowing them to see what the kobalds had been hiding.

  Staring at the upper portion of the mountain city where their forward operating base was primed to invade, Nick’s face paled.

  “Oh, all of the heavens above, that’s not good,” he muttered to himself before everyone in the room began frantically sending out alerts.

  —--

  Nero had always considered himself someone who was at least somewhat self-aware. He knew he had his weaknesses along with his strengths. There were countless things that he sucked at and only a few at which he could be considered passible. He’d always been like that, and he found comfort in the fact that he was able to do the best he could with what he had. However, now he found himself in a situation that he was completely unprepared for.

  He was now one of the ‘talented’ people who had a natural advantage over the schlubs who were just trying to get by.

  Back on Earth, he’d risen to the level of store manager for a cell phone retailer, and he’d been mildly proud of that accomplishment. Not because it was a dream job or anything of the sort, but he’d felt that it was about as high as a person like him could have risen. He’d had regrets, of course, but that’s all that they were. If he were truly honest with himself, and he’d always tried to be, then he’d gotten as far as he’d earned.

  He’d never been anything special and didn’t have family money or connections to leverage for his success. He’d enjoyed being just one of the masses, a nobody who could throw out his completely uneducated and unwanted opinion as if it mattered while not actually believing anyone would care.

  There was a great deal of comfort to be had in knowing that no one would take him seriously.

  Both online and in real life, he could act like a tool, screwing with people and spouting his nonsense without any serious repercussions. As a simple nobody, no one would care about his opinion, and getting a rise out of people made him feel somewhat important. It was a fun pastime… a novelty.

  Yet, the practice of being an asshole was only something he could do because he WAS a nobody. If he’d actually had the skills, talent, and background to be taken seriously, then he’d obviously have to have watched what he’d said or suffer the consequences of people actually listening to him.

  Now, here in Dorchester, he found himself being taken seriously. He’d tried playing it off, handing over the reins of responsibility to others, and it had worked… for the most part. He’d resigned himself to being a figurehead, someone they could prop up like a celebrity, and he’d been fine with that. As long as no one relied on him, he could learn to handle it.

  But, looking at them all demonstrating how poorly they were able to interact with the essence flows, and how long it took for them to make any progress, he finally understood why he’d ended up in this position.

  He WAS a talent.

  Just like those people he used to mock for not being able to take advantage of all their ridiculous gifts, whether it was their family or natural abilities, he was now one of them. People would be looking to follow in his footsteps as if there was a way for him to pass on his advantages so they could benefit from them.

  He had no idea what to do with that realization.

  While sitting on his stump, pretending to read, he watched as the rest of the wackos continued to work on their healing magics. Almost all of them were failing quite terribly at it.

  Only Merrick, who’d already had some experience with the spell forms was showing any progress.

  Frowning in thought, Nero could see what the problem was. Even though the healers were showing them the correct spell forms, the team was unable to copy them correctly. And if they couldn’t copy them correctly, then they couldn’t practice sending their mind along the spell to actually practice healing.

  Spell forms needed to be understood by most people to cast them. It required time to familiarize themselves with them so that they could be adapted to a person’s center. They didn’t snap together until a person ‘knew’ that they would work the way they intended them to.

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  The only conclusion that Nero could come to was that it had to do with skills. Or at least that HAD to be part of it. Most likely, his soul having been floating around forever in the ether probably gave him a ton of skills that were above average. Or at least the potential for them to be after he practiced them in the real world for a bit.

  Opening his skill sheet for the first time in forever, Nero was inundated with messages tracking his skill growth. Had they been arranged on paper, they would have filled a damned library. But, Nero would not be deterred, so he scrolled back up to the top and began skimming.

  He saw various repeats for things that he must be doing often, like ‘Essence perception’ and ‘Sensory acuity’. The skills themselves didn’t come with any more explanation, but he believed he got the general idea. However, the problem was there were too many of him to keep track of. There were thousands, and very few of them repeated themselves with any regularity aside from some groupings that probably happened around the same time.

  Nero paused his scrolling when he came across an acquired trait.

  Essence Presence - The ability to see and interact with the flows of the world.

  Raising his eyebrows in surprise, Nero stared at the trait in surprise for a good five seconds.

  ‘Huh, so either I’m getting massive skill growth due to my history as an ether ghost or something else is going on here. Maybe it's my adaptability pillar at work… or I’m just a blessed MC with a cheat that nobody bothered to tell me about,’ he thought to himself.

  Either way, the answer to passing along his talents and blending back into the background was easy. All he had to do was find out which skills people sucked at and get them to work on them. As a plus, it wouldn’t require him to give anything up, and it would take some of the social pressure off him for people believing him to be some kind of prodigy.

  ‘Plus, these people are now my people, and I’m not going to be one of those people in power hoarding secrets for the sake of hoarding secrets. If it costs me nothing, then why wouldn’t I help them? Their strength is my strength… right?’ he said to himself, trying to psych himself up into doing the uncharacteristically smart thing for once in his life.

  Standing up from his stump in excitement at having figured it out. Nero marched over to the loosely packed group and interrupted the first person he ran into.

  “Hey, Helen, stop for a second and look at this,” he said, basically ordering her to pay attention to him.

  Holding out his hand, he carved the basic healing spell form they all had been trying to learn into the ether. He made sure to infuse the pattern with his intent for her to be able to see it with her eyes.

  Helen, doing as he instructed, watched closely as the spell form took shape.

  When he was done, he kept his eyes on hers as he asked, “Can you see this?”

  Her eyebrows came together over her nose, the confusion evident on her face as she maintained focus on the hovering spell form.

  “Yes, my lord?” she replied, unsure of what he was getting at.

  Nodding, he said, “Good. Now tell me the moment you notice something changing.”

  Concentrating, Nero loosed his hold on the spell form, allowing its ‘snapped together’ integrity to falter. Ever so slowly, the spell form began to distort. At first, it was a slight tilting of the curves, and then the angles among the connections began to warp. In less than five seconds, the spell form was unrecognizable and it took Nero more and more effort to keep it together.

  Widening her eyes, she replied, “It’s changing! I think. Yes, it’s not a healing spell form anymore… I… I don’t recognize it anymore.”

  Smiling widely, Nero let the spell form go. He had no chance of recovering the center he’d spent as by the end he’d barely been holding it together. It took her longer than expected to notice anything, but not nearly as long as he’d feared it would.

  Gesturing for her to kneel down alongside him, he said, “Here, look at this.”

  Using his finger, he began carving out a copy of the spell form into the arena floor. It required a bit of essence manipulation to allow him to alter the packed dirt, but not enough to affect his center. But, by the time he was done, there in front of them was the healing spell form drawn out as accurately as he could make it. It was much larger than the one he’d carved into the ether, as the lines making it up had been done by his finger.

  “Tell me what this looks like to you,” he asked, looking over her.

  Helen was kneeling alongside him, staring at the pattern on the ground. “It’s the healing spell form, right?”

  “Yes, it is. Now I want you to draw a copy of it right next to it with this,” he said, as he offered her a dagger he’d pulled out from his personal space. He doubted she could directly manipulate essence, so this would have to do for now.

  Confused, but not willing to question him, she did as she was told.

  Slowly but surely, she copied the entire thing. Her eyes were dancing back and forth as she continually referenced his drawing as she worked.

  When she was done, she compared the two drawings for a bit before redoing a few places.

  After she was finally happy with it, she turned to him and looked at him for her next order.

  Nero, having watched carefully, stood up and said, “Now, I want you to carve it into the ether. Don’t worry about adding any intent to the spell form so I can see it. I’ll handle that part. Just try and copy the spell form as best you can.”

  No longer looking confused, Helen did as she was told. Holding up both her hands, her brow furrowed in concentration as she began using her center to create the spell form.

  Nero watched carefully with all of his senses, immediately seeing that his guesses were correct. Even KNOWING what the spell form was supposed to look like, she couldn’t copy it. It was like she was trying to trace a really thin line by using a singular branch while holding up a tree. She just didn’t have the ability to manipulate essence that precisely. She just didn’t know it, because she also doesn’t have the ability to see what she’s doing clearly enough for it to matter.

  “Stop, stop, stop,” he said gently.

  While she released the barely started spell form, she waited patiently while Nero tapped his chin in thought.

  “How about this, try and just create a straight line in the ether from here to here,” he said as he held up both his pointer fingers for reference.

  Like he told her to, she began carving a line in the ether immediately.

  Frowning in thought, Nero was unhappy to confirm that she couldn’t even do that all that well. The line she’d made looked like the aftermath of a drunk driver on a skills course. If there had been cones acting as a boundary, then they’d have ended up unfortunate victims of her inability to steer in a straight line. Both the ending and the beginning were pretty close to where he’d wanted them to be, but the middle was too wavy to be considered a successfully drawn line.

  Looking her in the eye, he said, “OK. Just bear with me for a moment.”

  Turning around, he shouted, “Hey, Merrick! Come over here for a second.”

  While Merrick jogged over across the training ring, Nero offered Helen an uncomfortable smile instead of any small talk.

  “Yes, my lord?” Merrick asked.

  Without any explanation, Nero asked him to demonstrate a line of his own in the ether.

  After he was finished, Nero had him hold it there in place before asking Helen to take a look at it. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten to tell Merrick to infuse it with his desire to allow anyone to see it, so to Helen it didn’t look at all like a line… but that in and of itself told Nero something.

  Thinking that Nero had asked what it looked like to her in the ether, she answered honestly, “It looks like a horizontal cylinder, my lord. Although there are a few denser areas where the cylinder is more solid, I can surmise that underneath it is made up of a solid line.”

  Nodding as if everything was going as intended, he told Merrick to do it again but to let her see it with her eyes. As requested, Merrick carved a line into the ether, flaring it into the material realm with his intention.

  Without being asked, Helen helpfully explained, “Now I see it. It’s a line.”

  “Does it look straight to you?” Nero asked.

  Her eyes darting to him in confusion for a moment, she replied, “Yes.”

  Nero told Merrick to maintain his line for a moment while he carved one of his own right next to it.

  “How about now, do they both look equally straight to you?” he asked.

  Taking a moment, Helen compared them with her eyes darting between them. “I’m sorry, my lord, but they both look the same to me.”

  Dismissing his line, Nero said, “No, that’s fine. That’s perfect even. I think I understand what the problem is now.”

  Both Merrick and Helen were looking at him in confusion, not understanding what he was talking about.

  “Merrick, is there a skill or something that governs how accurately you can carve center into the ether?” Nero asked.

  “Of course, my lord. Several. A person’s precision in essence carving is a result of multiple skills working together. For example, ‘essence manipulation’ is a skill that governs how well a person can interact and alter essence, which for carving affects how well they can manipulate their own center. ‘Essence control’ governs a person’s ability to steer and direct flows…” he said before continuing on in detail about skills one after another.

  Rather than do what he usually does, Nero didn’t interrupt him and instead did his best to listen closely. While he originally intended to just compare his own skill levels against Merrick’s and Helen’s to have an idea of what direction he should go with their training, he ended up having to immediately reconsider that idea.

  Merrick just kept going. There were multiple skills that contributed to the ability. ‘Essence perception’, ‘Essence tracking’, ‘Essence charting’, ‘Essence Shaping’, ‘Form recognition’, and even several ‘drawing’ type skills all came together to contribute to a person’s ability to carve a spell.

  It was pointless to track them all, so he didn’t even bother to try.

  “So, how do people get better at it? Do they just work on their individual skills? And how do people know that all these skills work together like that?” Nero asked, somewhat frustrated.

  Helen was the one to answer him. “Some people do. Magical academies have classes for most of those skills. I know a few people who train them as a hobby.”

  Merrick added, “There are many researchers who study things like this. Skill management and training are a cornerstone of the Center’s research efforts. While some of the more advanced training methods are meant to be researched by the cities themselves, the capital ensures that every Center in new cities has a solid foundation to build off of.”

  Nero was about to reply to the obviously biased system restricting knowledge for the sake of artificially ‘growing’ a hard-working population, but he was interrupted by an alert blazing in his senses from his link.

  Mumbling to himself, he complained, “This is what I get for forgetting to turn the damned thing off.”

  Before he could close the window, he felt Cathleen’s presence appear in his mind. “All units, report to your commanders for immediate deployment. Orders will be coming down, and we’ll be moving out within the hour.”

  Then, without any more information, her presence retreated, leaving Nero with nothing but questions.

  Helen and Merrick immediately took off, heading directly toward Natalie who had begun shouting out orders.

  Feeling his heart beginning to race as everywhere he looked people began running around like they were getting ready to evacuate, Nero muttered, “Um… So, should I go collect my tent? Or is this like a raid we’re doing before coming back here for some more waiting?”

  Sighing to himself, he began walking over to where Natalie and the rest were. ‘I suppose I should find out what all the fuss is about.’