Stem the tide

Year 159

“The next demon king won’t be here.” Edna said confidently. “Based on historical records, so far there’s only been two incidents of successive demon kings in the same continent, within the past 500 years.

It’s actually not that low, isn’t it? 2 consecutive demon kings imply 4 demon kings in the same continent, and every 10 years meant 50 demon kings in that period of time. About slightly less than 10%? At least, that’s what my primitive mind suggested. 

Not the best chances, and can still happen. Edna, thanks, not a flag I appreciated having.

“I don’t think I’m that unlucky.” Edna responded. Edna was merely trying to convince me that we still have time. Our research and development for stronger, more powerful magical bombs and weapons was making progress, but still too slow to really tip the scales. 

In the past 2 years, we’ve started training more [enchanters] and more [lapidarists], to buid stronger, more powerful magical bombs. It’s funny that I’m back doing what Harris was doing. 

Back then, he wanted huge crystalline matrixes to store my skills. Now, what I’m trying to do is huge crystalline matrixes to store bombs. Bombs. Lots and lots of bombs. Bomb research tied in with my ongoing hexbomb research, and the idea of a ‘clean’ hexbomb.

That felt like a dirty word, the idea that there’s such a thing as a ‘clean’ hexbomb. As if the twisted tangle of soul fragments, things made via blood sacrifice can be ‘clean’. 

My regular process of ‘harvesting’ souls also generates soul fragments. I dislike the term ‘harvesting’, since as a soul and spirit tree, my job is actually to facilitate the transfer of souls to the unknown, for them to reincarnate in life. Increasingly though, I’m now curious what actually happens after sending them off. 

Anyway, that’s another thing to study. For now, soul fragments of the dead are what I use to make artificial souls and minds. To fuse them in a way that makes a bomb, while still ‘clean’, is really one of the oxymoronic challenges, because my very nature as a soul tree and spirit tree is really to ‘repair’ all these soul damage, not find ways to corrupt soul fragments into bombs. 

We resumed experimenting on the soul fragments, and set up large mana batteries around the Valley of the Unrotten to do so. Dabbling with soul-related matters still required a lot of energy, but not as much as they used to. It seemed that my naturally higher levels and domain abilities contributed to a ‘discount’. 

We attempted a few different kinds of ‘research’. One of which was to manually stitch the soul fragments together, and figure what shape creates what sort of effect. We know for a fact that hexbombs are imperfectly connected soul fragments, but why? Is it the irregular shape, or type of connection, or the base nature of the fragments? Do the type of fragments matter?

At first, I thought it didn’t, but then as the research continued, it’s quite clear there are some differences in the nature of these fragments, especially in the ‘type-of-death’. If so, that’s a bad sign because the power of blood magic is then inherently tied to the nature of its sacrifice, that the fragments must be made in this manner to generate that level of power. 

I believe it's possible to separate the emotions from the fragments, but if the emotions are the fragments, then...

We reviewed our experience clearing the hexed lands, and it took a lot of brainpower mainly, to disentangle the hex. I wonder how did that work, that ‘drawing out’ the negative emotions so that they can dissipate, does that actually support the view that the emotion and fragments are separate, or was it both?

At the same time, it’s a known fact that some extremely traumatic deaths can generate ‘ghosts’ and ‘haunted’ monsters, and so, are those ghosts and haunted creatures similarly a product of that person’s soul fragmentation on death, and those fragments then transformed or created a ghost? 

There had to be something. Death and blood magic must be linked. 

-

Arlisa went on a tour of the cities and places of the Central Continent. Despite being an average student due to her lack of effort, she was enthusiastic at the opportunity to get away from her parents. 

“You seem very keen on travelling to the other cities, Lady Arlisa.” A fellow student around her age said. Arlisa theoretically should have graduated, but she decided to stay on. The Freshlands Treetiary College does have a ‘core’ syllabus that’s aimed to replicate the 4-to-5 year university experience, but there are a lot of ‘optional’ subjects, and even the core syllabus changes year on year. 

Arlisa nodded. “Yes, Irkania.” The group was mostly commoners. Most of the noble born students had their own ‘continental tours’ already, but the Freshland Treetiary College wanted to recreate a similar educational exposure for its commoners, so they had a tour arranged. There were other nobles too, most of them less wealthy. Still, there was no shame in the tour, since many of the academic team participated. “I’ve wanted to visit the coastal cities for quite some time.”

“Did you participate in last year’s tour?”

“I didn’t.” Arlisa shook her head. “I wanted to but something came up.”

“Ah.” Irkania was a lizardwoman, from one of the riverine towns. They were relatively rare previously, but a few decades of stability helped their population to regrow. “Have you ever been there in the past?”

“No. Maybe my mom took me there when I was a small tiny girl, but I can’t remember any of it.”

They both smiled. “Well, I was hoping that you knew your way around. I’ve got to visit some relatives and pass them some souvenirs. But I guess I’ll just have to keep walking around and ask whether they’ve seen any lizardpeople.” 

Arlisa chuckled, and made a joke that would be inappropriate in more socially developed societies. “So the whole stereotype is true! All lizardpeople are connected!”

Irkania laughed too. “Well, to some extent. We are a small species.” Truth was, they were once more common, their cities were centered around the swamps of the inland lakes. Most of those lakes and the swamps were flattened when Sabnoc blew up. So, what’s left of the lizardpeople that went on to reclaim their lost land all came from a small pool of survivors and outlying villages. 

They benefited greatly from the Valthorn’s Social services, especially the [incubation pods], specialised [childcare centers] and nutritional tree saps. Young lizardlings were frequently starved of nutrients and it seemed they have a relatively low survival rate. It was also particularly troublesome as infant lizardlings were pretty much animals and had very monster-like aggression, their sentience and awareness seemed to just pop up when they passed their 2nd year. 

In the case of lizard young, it was particularly important to prevent their lizardlings from escaping. Their society has a very strange relationship with their children, to them, the sentientless children were monsters, and their own people have no qualms killing the young lizards if they were exceptionally aggressive. To them, a child is only a lizard child when they gained their will and intelligence. Before that, monsters. 

They also have no concept of parents, and practiced a case of pooled upbringing, where everyone contributed to raising the newly sentient children. Everyone was pretty much related, and the females would deposit any fertilised eggs in a central location in their village.

Till this day this was something I have not been able to process, that they are able to have that emotional distance from their spawn for that first two years. 

“Cousins?”

“Yes. Everyone’s a cousin, or an uncle. We do have our own words for it though.” Irkania smiled. The lizardpeople repopulation programme was one of the few success cases on the Central Continent, but one we rarely talk about. Lizardpeople generally face a little more discrimination than others, particularly because lizardpeople prefer to work and play at night. Daytime they are often observed to be lazing about, and thus they have a reputation as being lazy. Still, they are one of the best night-time guards, and are very good counter-assassins, thanks to their extremely keen sense of space and movement. “But I believe they are two generations before us.”

“Ah.” Each village a family, each generation a batch. Arlisa nodded. 

The tour was a large one. Easily 500 students in this batch. For the commoners, they were split to about 6 different batches, so that everyone would get their chance for the tour. The academic staff would rotate to participate, along with a group from the Valthorns and the Treeology.

The largest beetles were used as transport, after all, once all the other support staff was included, this tour was a 1,000 strong tour. Entire inns were reserved for the tourists. It spoke of Freshka’s evolution from a town no one knows to the Spiritual Capital of the Continent. The soft and hard power it now controlled. 

The sea. Arlisa spent about half an hour by the sea before leaving. A little disgusted.

“The sea’s the same everywhere.” Irkania said. “The ports too. Forever messy, and filled with the smell of salt, rotten fish and people who didn’t have showers for weeks.”

“I thought lizardpeople don’t shower.”

“We do. Some of us.” Irkania smiled. “Were you expecting something different?”

“I don’t know, actually.” Arlisa said. 

“Maybe what you need is space. Away from whatever that kept your mind occupied. Perhaps your mother?” 

Arlisa shrugged. “Perhaps.”

-

Communications with the reef mind continued, and progressively, I began to feel like its mind was forming up. It no longer felt like it was a clueless thing clawing randomly. The images and scenes it brought up were all new, different, and it repeated, as if getting confirmation.

About 2+ years since we made contact with the Reef mind, it finally attempted it’s first conversation.

> Reef. Greetings. <

I heard its voice, my group of artificial minds allowed it’s attempt to communicate to reach me. 

< Tree. Greetings. > I responded. I would one day hope to bridge this communication with Lilies, and also Vallasira. Perhaps Vallasira could visit it directly. 

> Reef. Happy. < It is happy? 

< I am glad. > 

> Language. Difficult. < 

< With practice, becomes easy. > 

What is this reef mind? Is it a dungeon core? Or perhaps just a collection of reefs and corals that somehow gained consciousness and a soul?

It paused. Reefy did not attempt to speak for a while, but I could sense a lot of thoughts floating about, those thoughts sometimes vaguely touch the roots at the edges of the reef. I wondered whether it’s appropriate for me to refer to it as Reefy. 

-

I awarded my 2nd special class, [Aeon’s Field Scientist], to a middle-aged dwarven alchemist named Alka. 

Alka was just a [Level 39 General Alchemist], and he’s spent the last 40 years working on growing highly powerful crystals from simple raw materials. He made some progress, but as with research, it’s often an issue of resources, just as much as knowledge. To try everything and see what works, requires one to be able to afford everything. If a researcher is financially distressed, the research usually would not progress. 

The materials needed for labs are expensive, especially when dealing with items possessing magical potential. 

So, when Patreeck summarised a list of contractors and researchers that supported our attempts to develop more potent crystal bombs, Alka somehow came up. I interviewed him, and somehow, perhaps an instinct or a gut feel told me he would be fit.

“I will sponsor your research, and you will have a set fund. Chancellor Brandak’s office will handle it.”

“And all I gotta do is find ways to make bigger, stronger, magical storage crystals.” He wasn’t confident, I mean, I could read his mind and I knew he was acting, but he still attempted to put up a confident face. But as it turned out, he should’ve had more confidence in himself.

“Yes.” 

I notified Chancellor Brandak to set a reasonable budget, but something on the lower side. Two months later, he displayed the first multi-layer crystalline bomb. In short, a two-stage crystal bomb. It’s performance was impressive. It was a deviously simple solution, and I wondered why we were so obsessed with getting better crystals. A set of interlinked crystal bombs, with mutually amplifying spells stored could be made more powerful than a single large superspell. 

Honestly, when I saw it I felt like I was an idiot. What’s stopping us from making an entire super-lattice of crystal gems, all configured to cause a massive chain reaction?

“Crystals store magic and mana, and are meant to go off at a trigger. A chain of crystals that is meant to trigger when the others trigger, arranged in such high density will explode from the sheer mana density and the entanglement of the different spell types. You want the spells to only interact when you want it to, but the crystals also need spell shielding so that they don’t interact prematurely. See the problem? More crystals, more shielding. More shielding, harder to trigger and less efficient.”

Alka, liberated from the financial challenges, went full speed ahead on research, and so, I decided to award him my special class. Simply because I needed someone to work on this. I was prepared to build massive nuclear bombs if it meant I can end the demon kings easily.

If he could solve this multi-crystal amplification-containment puzzle, we’re well on our way to magical nukes. 

Once I have magical nukes, I’m gonna try to send a few across the rifts. Sorry, Pacific Rim and Avengers. I know nuclear bombs across portals are not new. 

-

So, along the line of portals, Stella, or Astia, managed to actually gain a special class.

[Void Mage]. This was after she accidentally hurt herself a grand total of 73 times, and cursed herself in the process. That process has been generally beneficial for me too.

I gained a rather specific skill in dealing with Stella’s void mana exposure.

[Skill : Greater Resistance to Curse obtained]

[Skill : Curse-breaker obtained]

Void magic. Progress! 

This was a good affirmation, and dispelled one of my earlier concerns. I was worried whether this void magic existed outside the ‘system’. It was not uncommon, at least from my memories, for certain types of magic to exist outside the system. Void magic seemed likely to be one such thing. 

Stella’s skills were rather lame, really. [Void Fist], [Void Punch], and [Void Walk]. It seemed that the powers of the void were indeed powerful, but it didn’t seem particularly different. But, under the hood, when I looked into Stella’s soul spring, that was when the differences were clear.

Stella’s once clear soul spring was now pure, pitch black. It was like black oil poured out of her spring, her soul now a conduit for the void. The skills existed in her soul were matte black blocks of things, and resembled the curses she had, but now a solid form.

All this came at a high price. She lost all of her earlier artist or administrator levels. But somehow she still did it. The call of home was a lot stronger for her.

“I wouldn’t be able to go home. Not in this shape.” Kei said. “Earth would bomb me to hell, or put me in some kind of exhibit.” 

Kei gained more levels, and one of her stranger powers was the ability to change the surface and color of her crystalline body, allowing herself to actually pass off as a marble statue, or a stone statue. 

Stella didn’t really care much. “I gained the [void mage] class, but where’s my portal?”

“It’s probably something you need to discover.” 

“I keep trying...”

“Maybe it’s just a simple void equivalent of a ‘teleportation’ spell.” And so Stella attempted to learn teleportation, but with void mana. 

It didn’t turn out well for the first 5 times. It resulted in her rupturing her soul spring, and needed special repairs. Stella was knocked unconscious and in a coma for a week after one of the incidents. Strangely, despite her soul spring now entirely black, she can still cast regular spells and still tap into normal mana. Weird. Where did it come from?

If i could get hold of the [void mage] class seed, I would be able to seriously manufacture void mana. I suspected that void mana may well lead me to a new color for my soul forge. I also wanted to know whether i could make specialised [void-trees]. I theorised it should be possible, in the same way I could have star-mana producing leaves. 

Maybe the end goal is like a single grand unifying mana and soul theorem. Something that would bridge from star mana, to hex and blood magic, to this void mana schtick. 

-

“We should design a response plan if the other continents ever get attacked by the demon king.” Lausanne proposed one day to the Valthorns. “I saw the destruction of the Eastern Continent first hand, and we too, suffered the destruction of the Rottedlands. Though it may feel nice to see them suffer for their past crimes against our aggression, the vast majority of the populace is not complicit in their crimes. We should give aid.”

“Aid does not come free, and if we are to provide assistance, with all due respect Lady Lausannne, we must use that opportunity to spread his divine faith. The faith of Aeon.”

“That’ll trigger a war.” A diplomat suggested. “At least, from the more aggressive nations.”

Lausanne nodded. “Understood, which is why we must have a plan. There must be nations which we can ally with, or be friendly which, who can then act as our beachhead. Somewhere for the regular folk to retreat to, and somewhere, that we can push back at the demons, and stem the destruction. Save lives.”

“I believe the key problem is that Aeon is immobile and remains firmly rooted on our continent. It is his grace and divine protection that allows us the luxury of this conversation. It is our fortune and luck, and their misfortune.” Some of the Lords really take the shoepolishing and asskissing to the next level. The scary thing is, because of years of ‘brainwashing’ and ‘propaganda’ from the Freshlands Treetiary College and Treeology, they actually believe it.

It’s unnerving, but this is the outcome of my own actions. I wonder how the Emperor of Man felt when after millennia, his followers worshipped him instead of speaking to him the way he wanted. 

“Can we transplant Aeon’s trees?” A lady asked. “I mean, that’s what druids used to do, right, transplanting trees with magic.”

Fuck no. After a century or so I am not moving. 

“I mean, just the lesser trees.” 

“It’s something worth considering, and merits discussion with Aeon himself.” Kavio answered. Chancellor Brandak, Alka, Edna were all in the audience for this proposal. 

“We have six years at least, to plan a response.” Lausanne said. “I propose we identify friendly nations on each continent, and start making the necessary preparations. We can have seedlings and smaller plants moved over.”

“But does Aeon’s divinity and presence carry over? I had the impression his powers cover only the central continent.”

“Maybe it’s an issue of quantity. With enough trees and seedlings he could project power?” It was an interesting discussion, but I wasn’t about to reveal that all the trees I controlled so far are linked via a massive network of roots. 

There were certain groups of priests who felt we were too fixated on the central continent and wanted to preach on the other continents. They would be delighted at this news. 

How do I make my divine presence felt?

Perhaps a portal, with roots? Like how I invaded the demon world temporarily?

-