Sense: A Fantasy LitRPG Saga (A Touch of Power Book 3)
Page 42
“My lady, we can’t accept…” She glanced up at Piper’s father before patting Piper’s head once more as she straightened, standing up to her full height to look at the man. With brown hair, blue eyes, and a full beard, he looked kind, but concerned.
“Of course you can. I made it for her because she made Lavender happy. Have a good day now.” She grinned, patting the startled man on the arm before she turned and continued walking up the steps to her platform. As she ascended, she could hear the excited whispers of the people surrounding Piper as they marveled at the tiny tree and the preening fellacai. She was pretty sure she even caught a few wiggles out of the corner of her eye that was Piper’s happy dance.
“Mommy, tree like me! Pretty!” Lavender’s voice in her head made her grin.
“I’ll make you one in the workshop too.” she silently promised her little one, then mentally checked in with the other fellacai. Unlike Lavender, they’d been flitting among the crowd, never staying with any one person too long. Behind her, she heard the challenges continuing as she finally made it back to the VIP section.
The guards in the way bowed respectfully as they stepped aside, and she realized there were guards to get into the section. She’d bypassed them twice already by using the skyway. She nodded back and returned greetings to the people in the section as she made her way back to her regular seat. Flopping into it somewhat gracelessly, she turned to look at Aylin and asked with a twinkle in her eye, “So, how’d I do?”
Aylin let out a muffled laugh that she disguised as a cough as she turned to Jade. “I will make sure Jorgen is appropriately chastised for his display. However, you weren’t kidding about how easily you accomplished your win. Could you really have kept up your wind wall for hours?” Her curiosity easily shone through, and Jade grinned.
“No.” Aylin had a strange look come over her face at Jade’s bluntness, thinking she tricked Jorgen, but Jade quickly went on, seeing she’d been misunderstood, “I could have kept it going for most of the day. As long as there’s sunshine, I wouldn’t have run out of energy.” Seeing Aylin’s look morph from whatever it was to confusion, Jade held out her hand, absorbing light in a sphere around it. It looked like a dark orb as she explained, “I’ve learned how to convert sunlight into pure energy. It’s an endless power supply for me. However, if all I was doing was holding the wind wall, I don’t know how long my magic would have lasted. I’ve never actually tested how long my magic lasts without replenishment, but I know my mana pool is much larger than most people’s to begin with, considering my magic score is over thirty.”
There. She’d finally said it, albeit quietly. However, that quiet statement was enough to rock the people around her. Victor, who’d just taken a swig of something, spit it out and started coughing, pounding his chest to clear his lungs as Aylin asked incredulously, “Over thirty?” followed by a muttered, “He never stood a chance.”
Jade grinned and shook her head, almost wanting to divulge that the rest of her stats were almost equally high, but decided against it. She didn’t want to give someone a heart attack, after all. Which reminded her… She laid her fingers on Victor’s wrist, sending a jolt of healing magic through him, just in case. There was a little water in his lungs, but he was otherwise fine, so she quickly called the fluid out of his lungs and into his stomach, with Victor gasping sharply as he realized what she was doing.
Playfully, she stuck her tongue out at him, “Try not to breathe your drinks.”
“Then don’t say stuff like that while I’m drinking!” Victor retorted easily. It was all her fault he’d done it!
She raised her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll try to keep shocking statements to moments when nothing is being consumed.” Her statement obviously made Victor recall the multiple times she’d dropped an information bomb on them at meals, and he shook his head at her mutely.
“Speaking of food, this is the last challenge, and once it’s done we’ll have lunch. I’m starving.” Aylin’s quiet voice reached her and she grinned at the woman. She liked people who were motivated by food. However, that reminded her of the fact that fights were still going on, so she turned to look at the last challenge. She didn’t recognize the person from Niloi, but she recognized Jarom as the opponent just as he won. She beamed, clapping slightly for the man who would forever be ‘the gladiator’ in her head.
Aylin stood up beside her, silence falling over the stadium to replace the cheers for Jarom as she spoke, her voice amplified by wind magic, “Thank you all for coming to the trials! We congratulate those who have challenged their power! We invite you all to join us for the feast outside. As we fight together, we celebrate together. Today, we have much to celebrate! The world has been gifted with a new traveler in these dark times, one who shines a light on all around her. Today, we celebrate the alliance between Niloi and Caoi! May our countries and our friendship prosper!”
The speech ended to deafening cheers and Jade’s cheeks turning bright red. She hadn’t expected Aylin to use her as part of her closing speech. She was taken off guard by the whole thing, but that didn’t stop her from standing when everyone else did. She was caught by surprise again when Aylin latched her arm through hers and started pulling her out of the stadium, saying cheerfully, “Let’s go get food!”
Well, at least Aylin spoke her language.
Chapter Forty-Four – Zoo
It was amazing to her how friendly everyone was after beating each other up. Unlike the formal tea party and dinner she’d had with the other delegations, the Niloi party was a giant buffet style. On her entrance, she’d failed to notice the massive pavilion on the other side of the arena because it was made of the same stone as the ground around it, blending in perfectly from above. She quite liked the giant square, however. Servants kept bringing food and lining it around the four sides of the pavilion, while everyone mingled around circular tables inside.
“Oh, don’t fill your plate up.” Aylin gestured for her to stop when her plate still had plenty of room.
Shocked, Jade stared at her, glanced down at her plate, then back at Aylin. “Why not?” She couldn’t help it if her voice was slightly plaintive. This wasn’t enough food!
One of the Niloi delegation, she wasn’t quite sure of their name, was the one who answered, “So you have to go back for more. Every time you fill your plate, you find a new seat. This is our tradition to strengthen our community.” It took a few seconds for her to register what he was implying. People had access to...everyone else. You help those you know, but if you know everyone… She really wondered what kind of commune the Niloi were living in.
Casting a longing glance at her plate, she muttered to herself, “If I can only fill it this full, I’m going to be changing seats a lot…”
The people around her laughed, obviously having heard her. “That’s the point.” The man grinned, patting her shoulder amiably before he wandered off to find a seat. Aylin grinned, pulling her along to a nearby table. Camille joined them, but the rest of the royal family wandered off to sit elsewhere.
“Lady Jade! It’s a pleasure to meet you! I’m…” For the next hour and a half, Jade met countless people as she talked and laughed with those around her. Sometimes she’d switch tables, sometimes other people left and new ones replaced them. It was a constantly shifting mass that was harmonious and fun.
She was also one hundred percent positive that the only reason she could remember all the names was because of her high intelligence stat. Otherwise, she couldn’t have recalled even half of them. Well, that and she cheated. Every time someone would clasp forearms with her, she’d briefly pull up their siphon stats so she could get a good look at their name when they said it. She found the visual element made understanding the names easier, especially when some of them spoke with thick accents. What was possibly most surprising was that some of the Resaigh and Saibreh delegations were also in attendance. Whether they were there to spy or not, she didn’t care, as long as they behaved.
Pausing for a moment, she shook her head after remembering how she was planning to spend her afternoon. “No. I mean yes, I will come back for that. But I have some other stuff to take care of first.”
Tisha frowned. “But it takes so long to get ready. Will you have time?” She played with the ends of her hair, and Jade remembered she’d promised to help her with her hair.
“It’ll be fine. There’s still plenty of time before then. I’ll see you later. Don’t worry too much.” She reached over, ruffling Tisha’s hair, much to her protest.
“We’ll see you later! Come on, Tisha.” Camille grinned at her, looping her arm through her little sister’s and pulling her away. Jade waved to them and a few other people as she slipped away, mentally recalling her little ones as she pulled out a mirror and fed her magic into it.
“Jade! Are you coming over now?” Eamonn looked thrilled, running a hand through his already wild white hair.
“Yep, I just need to know where I’m going.” She grinned at the old man, excited. This was probably going to be exhausting, but oh so worth it!
Eamonn nodded back to her, explaining quickly, “We’re behind the Caldwell Education Center."
She paused, trying to think if she'd ever looked behind Caldwell. She really hadn't. It was far enough away from Magnus, which was the only building aside from the arena that she'd approached from the air. Otherwise, aside from going to her classes, she hadn't explored campus at all. "Is there a lot of room back there? I've never looked." Her question was asked absently as she began to walk in the right direction.
Eamonn nodded quickly, "Of course! There's nothing back here yet. It's open land for future expansion!"
"Gotcha. Okay, I'll be there soon." She smiled fondly at Eamonn and he nodded again before they cut the call. As soon as she did, she lowered her gravity and launched herself into the sky, taking a moment to look around the campus. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by the orderly patterns she finally noticed; after all, the entire city of Caoi was built in an orderly fashion, so their highest education being no different shouldn’t have been a shock.
Everything was so neatly quadroned, however. Caldwell and Magnus were diagonally opposite from each other, probably so people wouldn’t notice they were basically the same size, as she’d guessed before. But everything else was on neat lanes. What she’d truly never paid attention to was that Caldwell and the arena she’d come from were at the back of campus. The shocking thing to her was that the campus was already so big, but it only covered two thirds of the area enclosed by the Dracona wall. That entire back third of the campus was empty, waiting for future buildings. Whoever built the campus thought far enough ahead to know of a time when it would be crowded and they’d need to add more facilities, then planned the wall and space accordingly.
That type of planning for hundreds of years in the future was something she could only admire. From the daunting city walls, the Dracona plateau, and the shining castle on a hill, she had to wonder if that old ancestor hadn’t been a city planner in their past life. Only by having a city planner deciding them from the start were such things possible. Otherwise, they were just a mess of people doing whatever was currently convenient. She sincerely commended that great ancestor for his foresight.
Despite her taking the time to ponder the layout, she was speedily passing through the air. She wasn’t all that far from Caldwell, because the arena was at the back too, only on the opposite side of the lot. As she approached, she realized that while the back third of the area was mostly empty. The area she was approaching could no longer be called empty space. Huge blocks of stone and piles of dirt, metal, and even sheets of glass were spread all around the area, with more than fifty different mages milling around.
She instinctively activated her mana sense, looking curiously at the milling mages as she got closer. If the uniform hadn’t clued her in, the fact that each and every one of them possessed earth magic would have been a major hint. She was looking at the Earth Guard she’d only ever heard about. They’d obviously either come back or possibly been recalled for this project. Honestly, it made sense, if they were generally in charge of building the walls and streets of the cities and settlements. She felt a little relieved that there was so much help. It would make things a lot easier and less power consuming for her.
She picked Eamonn out of the group, pointing her descent towards him. He and several of the Earth Guard were surrounding a table filled with papers and drawings, and she realized those were the preliminary blueprints for the zoo as she got closer. There were a few cries of surprise as people noticed her, but she grinned and waved slightly at them before landing on the ground, the leaders turning to look at her.
“Jade! You’re finally here! Come look at what we’ve drawn up!” Eamonn seemed genuinely excited, while one of the nearby guards sniffed quietly, as if miffed. Smiling at Eamonn, she walked up to the table, looking down at the drawings. She frowned slightly when she realized that they were basically just...big cages. Granted, even that would be an improvement on what the creatures were dealing with now, but it didn’t conform to her idea at all. She didn’t want her legacy to be a prison block.
Seeing her faltering smile, Eamonn asked quickly, “Is there a problem?” He obviously looked a little deflated at the idea that she didn’t like his plans.
Managing a small forced smile, she pointed to the plans. “These are just big cages. The idea is to adapt each habitat to the animals within to mimic their natural habitat.” She saw several people mouthing ‘habitat’ when they thought she wasn’t looking, and winced, trying to think of how else to explain it. “Basically, we’re trying to recreate their living conditions in the wild.”
One man, the one who looked sour from the moment of her arrival, remarked sarcastically without even bothering to look up from the plans, “Why would we do that? They’re just beasts that’re lucky to be alive.” Silence fell over the group, and his neighbor elbowed him slightly while everyone else looked nervously between her and him. Annoyed by his friend’s jab, he looked at the others defensively as he bit out, “What? Everyone else is thinking it, I’m just the only one willing to say it…” His voice trailed off as his eyes fell on Jade...and the fellacai fluttering around her head.
She kept her face as neutral as possible, but it wasn’t hard to imagine a cold chill emanating from her as she stared him down. He fidgeted slightly before lowering his gaze, and she spoke in a softly menacing voice, “Either help me do things properly, or leave. I have no use for fools without basic common sense.” The man looked angry at her words, but with another jab from his friend alongside the cold stare she was giving him, he lowered his head again, remaining quiet.
Hopefully that meant the end of the problem, though she could still see him sending glares at her as his friend, obviously trying to cover for him, asked instead, “How were you thinking of changing the plans, then?”
With one last glance at the plans on the table, Jade abandoned them and decided to choose an easier way to show the group her intentions. Thankfully, her reading about the monsters of this world had included information about their habitats. She used that as she created a 3D illusion model and began crafting it from the walls in. Starting with the first enclosure, she began to speak to the group. “This is for the fellacai. We can put the glass here to allow access to the sky…”
One by one, they went through the enclosures, with more and more of the earth guard chiming in at various points about the habitats they’d found different creatures in. As the group refined the ideas together, Eamonn was probably the one who contributed the most, which only made sense. The grouchy old man became animated as his ideas were brought to life in her illusory model. Several of the Earth
Guard were instrumental in figuring out how to ensure clean water supplies went to the various enclosures, how to create back hallways with a network of airlock entrances to the different pens for access. They’d even collaborated with her to figure out the mesh tunnels to be used for air supply when bars wouldn’t work because the creatures could slip through them.
It took half an hour, and Jade implanted the final image they’d agreed upon onto several crystals, which made the guards exclaim in excitement once more. “Let’s do this!” Eamonn was almost more excited to get started than Jade.
“Let’s see, we need someone to mark off the areas…” The guard in charge muttered almost absently, looking over his people as he started separating them into groups based on the different enclosures. The groups were easily organized, everyone taking a look at the mini model to ascertain their specific sections.
“Actually, I think I can help with that…” When the Earth Guard captain looked at Jade questioningly, she continued, “I think I can expand my illusion to life size very briefly, so people can mark the boundaries of each section.”
The captain looked thoughtful, asking, “That would take a lot of energy. Are you sure you want to try? We can simply take the time to mark off the different enclosures.”
Smiling, she shook her head. “I think I’ll be fine, but I don’t think it’s something I’ll be able to do for super long, so we’ll need to move quickly once I raise the illusion.”
“Very well. You heard the lady, everyone go to your approximate sections. As soon as Lady Jade raises the illusion, mark off the boundaries of your enclosure and then get to work.” There were sharp salutes and smiles as the guards dispersed, each walking to approximate distances from each other, more or less trying to gauge where their assignment was.
Walking to the edge of the area where the project would start, she brought the minor illusion in front of her. What she was about to do was probably crazy. With one hand behind her sucking in the sunshine, she pushed her illusion to start on the ground and enlarge out from her, the edge staying where it was, but everything else getting bigger and bigger. She watched it with her mind’s eye, grateful that her connection to the magic allowed her to monitor it.