Sense: A Fantasy LitRPG Saga (A Touch of Power Book 3)

by Jay Boyce

  Moving on, she turned to look at the empty stone archway as she asked, “So, why’d they close the portal...?” Her voice trailed off as she saw everyone relocating to a different archway. Her voice held a tinge of confusion and curiosity as she asked, “Wait, can’t they only open one portal every few days because it’s so draining?”

  Camille patted her on the shoulder before hooking her arm through Jade’s and pulling her along to their new position. “They usually hold it open for a lot longer so that the people can use it. Today, only the delegations are passing through. Normal portal usage will resume in a few days, but for occasions like this, we end up putting normal travel on hold.”

  Frowning slightly, Jade probed further. “But doesn’t that put out a lot of people who were planning on crossing through?”

  Victor answered from her other side, “It does, but it’s something we can’t avoid. We can’t risk insulting the delegations. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen often, but we halve the price of travel for the next gate to each city to make up for it.” Jade nodded thoughtfully, taking that as it was. It wasn’t a perfect system, but they did their best. It was probably like airline tickets getting cancelled due to weather. Some things you just couldn’t help.

  “Opening the gate to Abhain.” Duke Donnely’s voice carried across the square. Her babies fluttered by her briefly, as if to check in and make sure she was fine. After her quick reassurance, they went back to playing along the top of the water dome.

  Preparing herself to see some sort of exotic sea beast come through next, she was surprised when a woman and a man walked through on foot. The tall spears in hand were held in what she would call a very guard-like position as they moved forward before bowing slightly to the royal family. “Presenting Ancestor Aylin and the Niloi delegation.” She was noticing a theme here, but perhaps that was the custom: send someone through to announce the leader of the delegation before they arrived, and also to make sure they weren’t walking into an ambush.

  Men and women began to file through the portal, each tanned young person looking very much like a warrior, despite the fact that their armor was made of very colorful, shimmering chitin. The strangest thing seemed to be that they had no luggage or beasts like the other two delegations exhibited. What they did have were some bags that glowed purple. One young woman--well, she looked like she was maybe in her mid twenties--stepped forward flanked by two guards.

  Her black hair was curly and fell to nearly her waist, and she wore a headband of what looked like seaweed expertly woven with beautiful shells. Like the rest of her people, she wore the colorful chitin, though hers was obviously a step above theirs. Queen Ashanna stepped forward to meet her as the two women grasped forearms, then each leaned forward to do kisses on the cheek. If Jade had to guess, it was a mixture of both cultures as Ashanna welcomed her. “Ancestor Aylin, welcome to Caoi.”

  The dark skinned young woman smiled at her and replied, “It is lovely to be back, Queen Ashanna. I trust you have been well?” Ashanna nodded, and they began a little small talk as Jade thought about how effortlessly they changed roles with each delegation, sending forth whoever would best deal with the leaders, or command the most respect from them. Jade tuned back in to their conversation when she heard the word arena. “--after the arena exhibition tomorrow. We will see you then.”

  Aylin clasped Ashanna’s arm once more, then smiled and turned back to walk to her people before leading them out of the square and into the rain. Watching them, she realized that as soon as they stepped into the water, a new umbrella bubble seemed to form above them, and with her mana sense, she could see the blue magic stretching out of almost every member of the delegation to support it. It was rather impressive, and she realized they probably had quite a bit of practice to make it that seamless.

  Looking back at Camille, she asked quietly, “So, um… I kinda spaced out. When are we meeting with them and what’s going on now?”

  Shaking her head, Camille laughed softly, which drew the attention of her parents, who walked over to them as Camille explained, “They were talking about the exhibition matches tomorrow. When the Niloi visit, they always hold sparring matches with the locals to compare, and then they celebrate with a feast afterwards.”

  Ashanna chose this moment to interject, “You’ve the rest of the morning free. We didn’t want to overwhelm you with all of them at once, so we scheduled specific times. We’ve got tea this afternoon in the castle gardens with the Saibreh delegation, so if you would be there around two, that would be wonderful. Dinner will be in the castle ballroom with the Resaigh. Tomorrow morning, the exhibition matches will be held in the arena at Dracona starting at nine, and they should last most of the morning, after which we’ll celebrate with a feast, which will be lunch with the Niloi delegation. That leaves the afternoon to get ready for the ball, which will start at six.”

  Jade heaved a silent sigh of relief. She could handle oneish meal with each of the delegations and a break before the ball. Since she’d already be at Dracona, that was probably a good time to meet with Eamonn. She’d need to make sure to let him know. Glancing up at the dark sky that wasn’t even visible through the sheets of rain, she asked curiously, “Are you sure having tea in the garden is a good idea?”

  Derrick laughed, patting her on the shoulder. “If it’s still raining, we’ll put up another bubble.” Well, she supposed that made sense.

  “Okay then, if you don’t need me anymore, I’m going to head to my workshop. I have a few things I want to get done...sooner rather than later.” Her expression darkened slightly as she remembered the violet haze that she’d only seen in two places: the Resaigh delegation and the suicidal orcs attacking the wall.

  “Of course. We’ll see you this afternoon.” Camille grabbed her hand, giving it a quick squeeze before letting go.

  A harsh cough stopped her when she was about to lift into the air. “I would like you to explain how you damaged your legs on the way here first.” She winced, turning to look at Cody, who was staring at her expectantly.

  Sighing, she gestured to the rain above them. “I figured since there was so much rain, I’d use water as my bubble to fly today. I wasn’t really thinking about the fact that there is also lightning and the water conducts it. So we got struck and it made it through my legs before I was able to absorb the electricity.”

  Everyone was staring at her and she heard Hunter whisper harshly, “You got struck by lightning and you didn’t say anything!?”

  She turned to her little buddy and gave him a small smile. “It’s no big deal. I stopped it, replaced the water with air so it wouldn’t happen again, and then got healed. No permanent harm done.” There were groans from people all around her, but she noticed no one refuting her as her little ones gathered around her, settling in her hair once more.

  “How was Will okay? Did you heal him?” Tisha voiced the followup question, and most everyone turned to look at him, remembering he’d arrived with her.

  “Nah, she was making me practice my wind magic, so I wasn’t touching the bubble.” He answered nonchalantly, seemingly uncaring of the danger as he added, “Really, everything is fine, and we all have other things we should be doing right now, don’t we?”

  There were grumbles of agreement, and Jade heaved a sigh of relief, knowing she’d dodged another tiny bullet there. She’d learned her lesson the painful way, and she wasn’t likely to make the same mistake again.

  Chapter Thirty-One – Jeremy

  “I’ll see you later!” Jade hugged Camille one last time before she concentrated, lowering her gravity as she stepped outside of the water shield in the courtyard and into her own air bubble. Lifting into the sky, she grinned, shooting up into the air through the rain. The city was hard to see through the rain, but truthfully, the water made the lights sparkle beautifully.

  Then the city was gone as she entered the cloud cover, watching in amazement as forks of lightning flashed through the clouds. It was beautiful, and she was half
blinded as one of the forks raced past her air bubble, though she was thankfully safe. After her vision returned, she flew the bubble ever higher until she came out the other side, staring in amazement at the bright blue skies around her. The juxtaposition of the dark clouds beneath her and the bright shining sun above was amazing, and she absently pulled out a crystal from her ring, imprinting the view on it so she could show others.

  Further away, the clouds broke up, showing a patchwork of fields and trees, but up here in the air, everything was calm and peaceful. Actually, the way the clouds puffed up sequentially into the sky was rather beautiful, and she laughed, singing softly, “With all that glitters down below, I’m finding the stairway to heaven…”

  Skipping happily through the sky, she jumped in and out of the clouds with glee just because she could.

  When she thought she was close to Dracona, she finally descended all the way back down through the clouds and into the rain once more, surprised to find herself near the middle of the campus. She angled her bubble towards Magnus, intending to go all the way down to the ground floor, when she caught sight of the open courtyard on the fifth floor.

  Realizing she’d never gone above the second floor of the building, she landed there instead, looking around curiously. All along the sides of the courtyard were different things that could be used for training, including targets, torches, a trough of water, and piles of dirt. It was obviously designed for students to come and practice their magic or whatever else they desired.

  She released her bubble as she stepped inside the hall, moving towards the stairwell when she realized that all the doors to the rooms were closed and locked. They were the classrooms, so only the teachers would have the keys. She paused for a moment, staring at the door as an idea came to mind. She could satisfy her curiosity and advance her lockpicking skills if she wanted to try to get in…

  “Forget it. No breaking into rooms on campus.” She quietly berated herself for the thoughts as she began her trek down the stairwell. She paused on the fourth floor to look into the hallway, checking if there were any open doors by some random coincidence, but she didn’t have any luck there. However, there was a twang of a bowstring, followed by the soft thunk of arrows hitting a target coming from the courtyard. Over and over again the noises rang out, and she realized whoever was shooting was going at it with a single-minded intensity.

  She walked over to the balcony, peeking down at the courtyard that occupied the middle of the third and fourth floors. And there he was, in all his sweaty glory. His skinny frame was shaking as he struggled to draw the bow with overtired muscles, but he drew, released, and hit the second ring on the target, a cluster of arrows already marking that that was exactly where he wanted to hit. The center was already completely full, as was the first ring, and he was slowly and steadily making a spiral around the target. It was beautiful and amazing, but he looked like he’d been at it for hours and was half dead as his clothes hung to him like a second skin. If she didn’t know better, she’d have said he got drenched in the rain.

  She knew Jeremy had been practicing in order to keep up with her and Carter, but hadn’t quite understood what that entailed. She’d never imagined this. When his next arrow left his bow and he didn’t have another one in hand yet, she controlled her gravity as she vaulted over the railing, landing softly behind him. He swung around, eyes widening as he realized who was there.

  Smiling brightly, she gave him a little finger wave as she called out, “Hi Jeremy! What’re you--” her voice stopped mid-sentence as her keen sight took in his hands for the first time. They were red and raw, and at least one fingertip was bleeding. He yelped and took a step back as she dashed forward and grabbed his hands, her healing magic rushing into him.

  It wasn’t just his hands. His entire body was trembling with exertion and the stress he’d put on it. The muscles were breaking down, ready to be rebuilt stronger. Having taken a closer look at her own changing biology, and the dense flexibility she’d gained, she took the opportunity to do some tweaking. It wasn’t much, merely setting the cells on a slightly better path that would improve his fitness...and keep doing so every time he broke them down to rebuild. She wouldn’t tell him that, because she didn’t want him to keep half killing himself. The world had shown her how it was done with her own body; all she was doing was silently passing that knowledge on.

  Well no, what she was really doing was silently passing those genetics on. She’d studied Darwin’s theories of natural selection. Thankfully, it wasn’t something anyone would be able to see for lifetimes, most likely. Unless she started tweaking more people, but she didn’t know if she should do that. This was the second time she’d changed someone instinctually, and now that it was done, she was thinking of consequences. Although this was a little different from Jonathan’s age reversal, as she hadn’t changed his body’s key functions. Still... Humans repopulated very slowly, but if Jeremy passed those genes on to his kids, she realized it was going to be obvious that they grew stronger faster than the other kids. What if she kept giving people this minor modification that no longer seemed quite so minor?

  What if in two generations, humans had simply grown...stronger? The thing that scared her was that what she was doing felt a little bit like how the mesmer virus changed human anatomy. She’d accidentally started playing God. There was also the terrifying thought that, if humans changed, the monsters who pulled from the pool would get even stronger too, so was it even worth it?

  Maybe at first, when the humans became as strong as the mesmer, they’d be able to fight them more efficiently. But then it was like creating a resistant viral strain. Sure, you might kill off most of them, but then the ones that were left would be the strongest, most resistant ones...and they’d make more of the strongest, resistant ones. This was a mess.

  Despite her delving into the psychology of what she was doing, she didn’t undo the tiny change she’d wrought in Jeremy. Instead, she finished healing him, even going so far as to get rid of the blisters, but leave his skin slightly tougher on his fingers so that this didn’t happen as easily the next time. It was like a callous, but better! Oh crap, I just did it again… Sorry, Jeremy, I probably should’ve asked before I changed you…

  He was staring at her in startlement as she healed him, but he stood straighter when she was done, letting her hands drop to her side. Still a little worried about what she’d wrought, she decided to shift her focus for the moment. “What’re you doing half killing yourself without anyone to check on you?”

  He blushed, absently fiddling with his bow string as he looked out at the target he’d been systematically demolishing. “I was practicing.” That was it, that was all he said, and she raised a brow, staring at him expectantly. When he realized she wasn’t going to accept that short answer, he exhaled slowly, gesturing at her. “I’m not like you. I can’t just pick something up and be immediately good at it. I have to work five times as hard just to understand. To keep up. To not hold your lessons back.” That last bit was muttered under his breath.

  She stared at him before grabbing his wrist and pulling him gently over to one of the nearby benches, where she sat down next to him, staring intently at him until he finally lifted his eyes from the ground to look at her. “Jeremy. I’m a cheater. Not only did I spend more than ten years reading knowledge accrued by thousands of years of humanity and billions of people, but when I came to this world, I acquired not one, but TWO cheatlike abilities that make me grow ten, twenty, a hundred times faster than a normal person. I literally have the world hitting me with corrective actions on what I do, and it’s not because I earned it.”

  Pausing, she looked down at her own hands. “There’s a saying in my world, about two kinds of geniuses. Some people are natural geniuses. Things come easy to them, but it often makes them arrogant and lazy. Then there are the geniuses of hard work. That’s what you are. And you know what? It’ll take you places. It’s why you’re here at Dracona. Because you want it so much more.
You’re not like the nobles who’ve been handed their time here on a silver platter. You’ve worked for every single thing you have, for every gain. The thing about geniuses of hard work is that it isn’t easy. You know that; you’ve been here half killing yourself. But I believe you will do amazing things...because you will never give up.”

  He laughed a little hollowly. “But you’re a genius of hard work too. Everyone knows your schedule is insane, and you’re constantly doing huge things. Don’t forget, I’m in your classes. You have a relentless drive to improve.”

  Ruefully, she sighed, staring at the rocky ceiling above them. “I do want to improve. At first, it was because I wanted to be on the level of a normal human being. Then it was fear that if I wasn’t strong enough, I’d lose the new freedom I just barely found and started to enjoy. Then it was because I wanted to save my friends. And now? Now...I want to find peace. I realize that this is a hard world, but I keep wondering...if I can do enough. Enough to make it so that people can live normal lives without fear. Not just me and my friends, but as a whole. I’ve met so many amazing people who are trying to get by in this world. I don’t want people to get by, I want them to really live. So yeah, I’m pushing myself too. I think there’s also a bit of guilt there. I’ve seen what a different world looks like. A world where the only real monsters left are human greed and hatred.” She didn’t add that she’d seen what the world looked like outside of this kingdom. The Resaigh delegation was still fresh on her mind along with everything else.

  Her voice trailed off as she contemplated her old world. There was so much good, but even without actual monsters...there was so much bad. It all depended on what you were looking for. If you wanted to find the good in the world, it was there. But if you were looking for the horrible things humanity did to each other, those were there too. It wasn’t quite as easy as it might be with magic, but money and power spoke in every world.