Chapter 311: Movements in Sanctuaries of Magic and Faith

“I wonder how Gwyllain’s doing,” Alex muttered, considering ideas for his staff. As he learned more summoning spells, he’d been making a list of which ones could enhance the staff’s power.

“Hope the little guy’s alright. It isn’t exactly safe out there,” he said, referring to the dangers in Thameland’s wilderness, and the hag who’d captured the asrai fae. It was a very different world compared to the safety of the school’s library, where he was now studying in a secluded corner.

With the dark shadows of his homeland in mind, he circled another spell that would definitely be going into his staff: mana to life.

“No way I want to get caught out there without a way to heal myself. Ugh, this is going to be rough, though…”

Magical healing items were tricky things to construct and often had limited usefulness; mana from objects wasn’t easy to turn into lifeforce. He remembered an entry from his blood magic textbook:

…while it is possible to make potions and other alchemical items from blood-magic, such items that channel mana into life face great inefficiency when turning their mana into life force. Mana within objects exist at different wave-lengths compared to mana within biological organisms, making it much more difficult to convert to life force. Certain magic items are exceptions to this, such as water from the fountain of youth or other legendary magical artefacts, but remember, exceptions are exceptions for a reason: they’re rare.

Normally, that very reason would have quashed any thought he had of using mana to life in his staff, but dungeon core substance was so efficient with mana in general, that it might balance out the natural limits of a magical healing item. Having a staff that could heal through mana manipulation, would be a huge advantage to him and his friends if there wasn’t a healer around.

He just couldn’t pass that up.

Putting Cleanse Flesh in the staff was also a must; he could eliminate toxins from his or anyone else’s system without having to struggle with casting the spell.

But first, he’d have to learn it, as he’d been trying to do for the last ninety-nine times.

And this would be…

“Attempt one hundred…” Alex grumbled, flipping open the notebook labelled ‘Cleanse Flesh’.

Four days had passed since the Ravener’s silence-spiders had attacked the encampment, and the Generasians hadn’t been idle. Patrols were doubled. Extra mercenaries and delvers hired. Sending Wizard’s Eyes to sweep the area around camp was not only frequent, but now, a matter of routine.

So far, no Ravener spawn had been caught lurking in the hills.

Things were quiet. Too quiet, some were saying. Watcher Shaw was up nights watching the hills like he expected a horde to bleed from shadow and moonlight. Even Alex’s group seemed to be itching for…a confrontation.

“They are watching us,” Khalik had said one morning before trekking out to raise stone with a well-armed battle group. He’d peered through the gates, squinting at the hills with one hand resting on his sword. “I can feel it. They are out there. Somewhere. Instead of hiding, I’d rather they come and get this over with.”

“Maybe,” Alex had said before heading to the research tent. “Maybe.”

He would’ve been lying if he’d said that a part of him wasn’t getting real tired of waiting: whether the Ravener spawn was after dungeon core remains or the Fool, he knew they’d be back. Crushing them would be necessary, but also…satisfying.

But, not everyone was eager to see them again: Carey had told him she hoped the monsters were finished with the encampment.

The day after the surprise raid, she’d been more cautious, all nerves, rather withdrawn, nothing like her usual chatty self. A couple of days later, she’d said she felt more comfortable…but still seemed to check the top of the wall frequently, like she was looking for something.

Her work hadn’t suffered though, she’d settled into her duties smoothly, quickly picking up the routine like she’d been with the research team for months, not days. Alex had to admit it, Carey was skilled, and while she made his teeth grind at times, he couldn’t find fault with her work ethic, dedication, or knowledge. Her being in the lab was moving their research along faster.

And the faster they picked away at the dungeon cores and uncovered their secrets, the better.

But whether or not Ravener-spawn were waiting in Greymoor, Alex was glad for the peace of the library. Confrontation would be a part of Thameland as long as the cycle continued.

Here in Generasi, he could get back to some much needed and undisturbed practise time.

Cleanse Flesh was finicky, and it was pushing him to his limits...much like Ito’s devilish Spiral. It had one of the most complex magic circuits he’d come across so far.

The textbook had even warned about the spell’s complexities.

Cleanse Flesh, it had stated. Requires complex circuitry or the spell would be disastrous. While it might be easy to remove impurities from the flesh using divinity—for reasons that elude this author—it is a much trickier process for one to do so using magic circuits.

There are a number of hurdles to overcome.

First, it is important to remember that any biological organism is not a monolith. We are more than just meat, blood, nerve, and bone. The bowel has many important flora that are necessary for us to maintain health. Our bodies are filled with a mixture of chemicals that—in the right amounts—would be considered toxic or poisonous. Stomach acid is an excellent example of this. So what would happen if we developed a spell that simply wiped away all substances from our flesh that could be harmful? Likely, we would make ourselves very sick or even very, very dead.

This process only grows more complex. This becomes even more difficult if one’s body is augmented by foreign substances. Magical prostheses—

Alex remembered Professor Ram’s force construct arm.

—implanted magical devices, alchemical suspensions like those used by the Irtyshenans to create blood walkers, do not naturally occur in the body. A spell that wiped away all ‘foreign substances’ would be disastrous for such folk when magical items were painfully ejected.

No, Cleanse Flesh must be discerning.

The spell must scan a body to determine what substances within it are acting as a boon, and which substances are acting as harmful agents. This requires a level of sophistication above that of most spells at the equivalent tier.

“Sophistication…that’s a hell of an understatement,” Alex said. “And I thought Ito’s Spiral was bad. …well, it is. Anyway, complaining’s not gonna help me learn it any faster...so, time to get to work.”

Inhaling deeply through his nostrils then exhaling slowly through his mouth, he threw himself into Cleanse Flesh’s spell array, guiding himself through the Mark’s usual interference. Through ninety-nine attempts, he’d mastered the initial parts of the circuit, but the section that scanned the body for contaminants felt like he’d gone from a nice smooth run, to abruptly slamming into a stone wall and a full stop. Repeatedly, he stopped the spell, then resumed it as each failure piled up, and each bit of progress he made came at the pace of a snail inching through glue.

An old snail.

One that had overdosed on sleeping potion.

Alex cut the spell for the hundredth time, thinking about Val’Rok’s fireplace and burning spell guides. For a minute, he considered switching to summoning spells since he could learn them with ease—but ironically, that would go against his Operation Grand Summoning Ascension plan.

Rejuvenating Slumber and Warp Flesh were major parts of the operation, so Cleanse Flesh had to be learned first.

Before one could have dessert, they had to eat their vegetables, no matter how hard the vegetables were. ‘One step at a time,’ he reminded himself, then attacked the spell again, keeping calm despite the slow progress. He cast it a few more times then put it aside for the day. If he used much more mana, he wouldn’t have enough left for Ito’s Spiral.

“You learn Ito’s Spiral, and your practice time sky-rockets,” he said quietly, pulling out the dreaded device. “Keep your long-term goals in mind.”

‘At least with the spiral, the Mark will help, not hold me back,’ he thought.

Activating the Mark, Alex guided himself through the pathway in the wire, and into the entry to the spiral. His mana broke into several streams, pushing through the narrowing paths, splitting as they travelled along the spreading branches in the device.

Five streams.

Ten streams.

Twenty streams.

Forty.

One hundred.

Two hundred.

Three hundred.

Mounting streams spread from his mana, working their way through the Spiral. Splitting was easier now: what once took every ounce of his concentration, was now automatic. Like learning to walk. It showed the difference between steady practise, and giving up: a week ago, the thought of controlling ten strands at once, let alone hundreds, was impossible to imagine. But, here he was at three hundred, just a week after Professor Val’Rok had lent him the device.

“Eventually, I might be able to control a thousand,” he thought. “Maybe more.”

He wasn’t even halfway through the spiral yet and had no clue how many tiny pathways were in the funnel itself, but he pushed on, sweat beading his brow, with his goals firmly etched in his mind.

One goal was: to do something he’d done before; dominate a dungeon core.

Which meant getting every bit of training he could. There was probably a reason why there weren't any public records of anyone taking control of cores in the past. He, for one, knew it wasn’t easy...but it was possible.

Maybe, somewhere out there, someone knew who’d hidden the successes.

Third Apostle Izas strolled through an ancient mausoleum, flanked by rows of statues rising twice as tall as any human man. All were of bronze, forged in the perfect image of holy Uldar. The sculptures were grouped in twos, each pair flanked an alcove containing a single sarcophagus of dark stone. Izas walked by, sliding his hand along the tops of sarcophagi carved in the shape of the Hero who lay within. According to legend, the dark stone was said to be polished with the devotion of a thousand centuries of faith.

Whether they were that ancient was unknown to him, but he could well imagine it. Entire generations of lives in his kingdom had weighed on the shoulders of those in eternal rest within this burial chamber. And within these walls, only the very earliest Heroes slumbered under Uldar’s gaze: they were cut from a different cloth than those laid to rest in the capital.

He remembered well the sarcophagi that lay beneath the capital like he’d seen them yesterday, though in truth, the last time he’d visited was over sixty years ago. He did not miss it. Here, in this sacred place…in these tombs where the most ancient Heroes rested, here he could know proper peace.

The endless hymns echoing through the escarpment sounded like lullabies to his ears, bringing his spirit rest. Some of the younger priests—the rare breed holy enough to walk these halls—had whispered to each other that the Heroes might rise from the sleep of death were these hymns to ever cease.

The old man smiled.

He’d been one of those who’d whispered such rumours to his companions long ago.

“How simple things were then,” he whispered. “Perhaps you are the fortunate ones; departed to Uldar’s side before me. …would that I did not live through these strange and frightening times.”

For a moment, he paused, drinking in the tranquillity that hung over the dead—telling himself that he did not envy them—when the sound of footsteps echoed from the stone staircase at his back. He turned to see the bow-legged figure of a priest, a man he knew to be gifted with a brilliant mind, and hard-won wisdom.

Those ham-sized hands—covered in scars and callouses—spoke of a life that might once have been anything but ‘holy’, but now, he was as dedicated to Uldar as any who had passed through these halls.

“Third Apostle.” The man bowed so low that his large knuckles nearly brushed the stone. “A report has come.”

“The Heroes, Eldin?” Izas asked.

“Yes, Third Apostle, they,” the other priest answered. “We’ve learned of their journey to Greymoor and their contact with the foreigners.”

“Good!” Izas said, shaking off his melancholies over a life lived too long. “What has happened? What have the Generasians done? You may stand.”

The stocky priest rose, his robe hugging his broad shoulders. “Blessings on your kindness, Third Apostle. The Heroes fought alongside the Generasians, aiding them in destroying two dungeons. Together, they rooted out the pair of cores and gave their remains to the Generasians, I’ve been told. And the wizards are planning experiments on them.”

Izas tapped a sarcophagus. “Is there any report on what these experiments entail?”

“No, Third Apostle. The Heroes left before the wizards’ began their work.”

“And? Were the Heroes…displeased with these foreigners?”

“Not them, Third Apostle.”

“...them?”

“Aye, apparently more troubles come to Thameland.”

Izas went quiet. The time to rest might be at an end.