Sixth Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  A large skull head appeared in front of Davin.

  “Are you slacking again?” the head asked, its eyes glowing with mysterious fire.

  “No! Not at all, Brother Egbert! Please vacate the teleportation array and step forwards. New arrivals to the left for medical check and familiarization courses. Returning citizens, to the right. Welcome to Alva,” unlike before Davin’s words were filled with cheer and happiness as if he were only too happy to please others.

  “Right,” the head disappeared from mid-air.

  “Mysterious and creepy, stop putting on a front, Egbert!” Rugrat yelled into the air.

  “Hard to find good help these days.”

  Rugrat led the way, medics cast spells, checking everyone.

  “You have an issue with your heart. You should go to the hospital for further testing,” The medic said and wrote out a note, passing it to Kanoa.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your knees are in bad shape, your back is a bit of a mess. Did you break your collarbone and one of your fingers?”

  “Yeah, just pains of the trade,” Kanoa said.

  “Well, we can get that fixed up easily and you have some scar tissue leftover that will be simple to fix. Also it looks like your arteries are partially clogged so you’ll need to flush that out, easy enough, happens a lot of the time,” the medic said with a smile.

  Kanoa walked forward and looked at Rugrat.

  “Ah, just like a partially clogged artery, a few healing spells and you’ll be fine,” Rugrat waved it off as they entered an auditorium.

  “Like I could’ve had a heart attack and what did he mean about my wear and tear?”

  “Bit of healing and your knees like when you were sixteen again, spine all in the right place, no more aches pains, squeaks, and creaks. Also, heal your heart and circulatory system up good. Just clears you out. I was a big chew fanatic, I’m all good to go now. Got a whole new set of teeth, not one filling!” Rugrat opened his mouth and pointed at it.

  Kanoa looked in seeing nothing but pearly whites.

  “Oh, whoops, you’ve got a quick presentation first.”

  A lady was waiting there for them all at the front of the auditorium.

  “Please take a seat, once everyone is ready, we will begin the introduction to Alva,” the lady said.

  “We have replaced some of your people in the different groups with our own, they’ll act like you and keep running, make it appear that you’ve disappeared into the Beast Mountain Range,” Rugrat tilted his head to the lady, “You might find this useful.”

  “Thanks,” Kanoa said, he was still not sure about all of this, on alert against anything.

  Kanoa and the other military members sat around the civilians, watching the doors.

  “Hello and welcome to Alva. First of all, we do require for you to take an oath on the Ten Realms to not share any information you might learn. This is the oath, please review it and let me know if you have any questions.” Behind the lady, a set of words appeared on the wall outlining the content of the oath.

  Kanoa went through the oath with everyone and then the lady started talking of Alva, going through its founding, the different institutions, then property-owning, loans, taxes and so on.

  Kanoa was a little surprised by the founding, but the main points were all similar to what happened back on Earth. It was clear that Rugrat and Erik had greatly affected the changes that happened in Alva.

  Questions started and the civilians starting to see something that reminded them of the stability of home began asking questions and coming out of their shells more.

  With the information session over, they were all given temporary resident cards. Then they were led out of the auditorium and the defenses around the teleportation array.

  Kanoa looked at the growing city that lay underground. It was dark, simulating night, but he could see lines of light above his head, there had to be hundreds or thousands of glowing crystals growing from the ceiling. It looked like an artificial night-sky.

  Kanoa took a deep breath and realized just how dense the mana was. He could feel it flowing into his veins, making him feel alert and full of energy, clearing his mind.

  Lights could be seen in different windows as people worked through the night. New buildings were being built and factories worked through the night.

  “Well shit,” Sung said as he stopped next to Kanoa. All of the military members grouped up together so others couldn’t hear them and make sure no one else got close.

  “What’s the plan, Captain?” Badowska asked.

  “We give it a shot, see what the truth is of this all,” Kanoa said.

  “This might not be too bad,” Miller said looking around.

  Kanoa grinned and a few others chuckled. All of them stepped back from the hyper-alert state they had been in for months, relaxing minutely.

  “I heard that they have showers and we’ve got food vouchers,” Sung said.

  “Move in groups still, always have the civvies covered. We’ll check in a week and see how things are going,” Kanoa said.

  The group nodded and then broke up, they gathered up their charges and headed toward their temporary house, what looked like apartment-style housing.

  Chapter: Truths and misdirection

  Tanya cracked an eyelid open as she looked around the dusty room.

  “Mrhmmk,” she rubbed the dribble from the side of her mouth as she blinked a few more times, taking in her office and looking at the book she had fallen asleep on. She smacked her lips and cleared her throat as she woke up.

  She blinked slowly a few times as her eyes focused on the book and the wet spot on it. She stretched her hands and paused mid-stretch as if struck by lightning.

  I drooled on a book? A library book?

  “No! Nononono I am not getting in shit for defacing a book! Egbert will kill me!” She jumped up and ran around the room. Grabbing a rag she moved to the book, dabbing it as if it was the most precious item in the universe.

  I could use a clean spell? No shit, don’t that would remove all the ink from the pages and turn it blank! Egbert would murder me!

  The wet mark wasn’t shifting as her panic increased.

  Tetsu looked at her running around and got up, jumping up and down, excited to play. He was nearly twice the size of a doberman with that goofy I-want-to-play-too-human look on his face that dogs got when excited.

  “Calm down Tetsu, I can’t play right now!” Tanya said as she was running through ideas in her head.

  She closed her eyes, focusing.

  “If I had a hairdryer that would work. I have the clean spell that expels the water from my hair. If I do it to the book then it could expel the ink too! I need something warm. Not a flame spell could set it on fire. Is there a way that I could create a hot element that is strong enough to dry out the pages.” Tanya raised her hands the air around them shimmered as mana and attributes were combined together.

  Flames appeared at first.

  “Nope!”

  Then metal shards shot out over her hand.

  “Okay, more metal, circulating water and fire to create a circulating breeze and increase the fire attribute for more heat,” she kept her eyes closed and the air in front of her started to move, it turned red and seemed to have reflective particles within.

  There was another knock at the door.

  Shit, I totally forgot that there was someone at the door!

  “Who is it?” Tanya asked as she put her hand under her magical heater.

  “It’s Rugrat I wanted to talk to you about your recent studies, I made an appointment?”

  “Oh yes,” Tanya looked around and then took out a key she threw it towards the door. then Using air manipulation she turned it in the lock, then with Earth manipulations she used the door to shift the doorknob, opening the door as she sent a blast of air to open it.

  It happened in a few hurried gestures before she focused on her book.

  Rugrat looked inside, Te
tsu bounded over to him, eager for someone to play with, in his excited state.

  George who was in his dog size was beside Rugrat and sniffed at Tetsu. The two of them sniffed one another, getting used to the other.

  Tetsu tapped George’s neck with his, his tongue hanging out wanting to play.

  The two of them started to wrestle a bit in play, jumping around, George was like a puppy again.

  “Make sure you two don’t break anything,” Rugrat said to George.

  “What are you doing there?” Rugrat asked as Tanya raised up a page of the book she moved her hand, manipulating the spell around the page as the water started to evaporate.

  “I am using a heater spell to dry the book,” Tanya whispered.

  “You defaced a bo-“ Tanya’s hand clamped onto Rugrat’s mouth and looked around.

  Rugrat nodded. She removed her hand and worked while Rugrat carefully walked to the door and closed it quietly, locking the door.

  He waited as Tanya painstakingly dried the pages. She waved her hand and sighed as the spell fell apart and the book’s pages were dried.

  “Holy crap, I nearly died of a heart attack,” Tanya said, slumping into a chair, her back covered in a cold sweat.

  “Definitely not,” Rugrat shuddered.

  Tanya clicked her tongue and Tetsu came over.

  “You two go play in the yard,” she said.

  Tetsu jumped up and down.

  “I can’t come now but I will play with you later.”

  Tetsu lowered his head and his tail dipped.

  “You have George to play with though!”

  Tetsu looked up and over to George whose tail was wagging as his tongue hung from his mouth.

  “Alright, don’t get into too much trouble,” she opened the door in a few gestures, the two hounds ran out and she closed the door behind them without standing up. She sighed and brought out some fruit juice.

  “Drink?”

  “Please,” Rugrat said as he cleared some papers off of a chair and put them down on top of a full desk, making sure nothing fell before he sat.

  She chilled the juice down with air, water and metal magic and inverse flames that drew the heat away.

  Rugrat took it, watching the spell fade away in thought before looking at her.

  “Okay, so what are you interested to learn?” Tanya said, the sweet juice clearing her throat as she looked to Rugrat.

  “Pure magic, explain to me what you think it is,” Rugrat asked, he leaned on the armrest and stroked his beard.

  Tanya played with the piercing through her lower lip, looking at the ceiling to pull her thoughts together.

  “So pure magic is a name that others have given it. What I am looking to do is study the fundamentals of magic. Primarily, what is mana, what are attributes, how do the two work together, then the system of ley-lines, dungeon cores, and the various ways that those fundamental components are utilized in different ways,” Tanya looked to the corner of the room and nodded, sure in her answer.

  “Okay, so what have you found out about magic, small words please.”

  “If mana is fresh water, then attributes is the salt of mana. Mana flows throughout everything, it is sunshine and water, the power of the Ten Realms. Everything has adapted to it. Attributes by themselves are nothing, just impurities lying around, when combined with mana, then they change the state of mana lets say. Going with the water idiom, you have steam, water and ice. Combining these different attributed mana, or different states of water, then you create a spell. A spell is a combination of attributes, powered by mana to create an effect that the attributes and the mana could not create on their own. So,” Tanya held out her hand. “Use your mana sight and watch my hand. First, I will be creating a fire mana attribute layer around my hand. Fire mana creates an immense amount of heat but it can also pull it away. It is why people with a high fire attribute have a greater resistance, same for the other attributes. Now I have some wood element, add in some fire element.”

  A flame appeared in her hand.

  “Its like a circuit, the attributes are different parts, linked together they create something greater than the sum of their parts and the mana just powers it,” Rugrat said.

  “Traditional spells are more like that,” Tanya dismissed her original flame and a spell formation appeared showing the same flame.

  “Spell formations are a means of quantifying spells. It is like the math of magic.”

  “I thought that you were totally against traditional spells?”

  “Against them? No, I think that they’re an incredible discovery, though I also think that they are outdated. This burns three times the amount of mana for the same effect! To increase the power, you need to put in more mana. While If I was to just use water and metal elements I could create a highly oxygenated area instantly through electrolysis, it costs much less mana overall but the effect is the same.”

  She cast the spell version and then her own modified version into the air, creating two larger flames in mid-air.

  Rugrat studied the flames and then half-closed his eyes, he raised his hand and a flame appeared identical to her pure-magic version.

  “It is more like cooking than it is like spell casting, though I can see how it would be faster to cast, what about higher grade spells?”

  The flames disappeared.

  “That is a bit of a problem. Spells are really useful when it comes to large spells, they create a path for the mana and the attributes to follow. I am not saying that we should use the spell structure, I think that it is a useful guide, training wheels on a bike, if you will. Once you master the spell then you can take off the training wheels and cast a spell without needing the complete structure. You can cast it faster, adapt quicker, even alter your spell mid-cast.”

  “If you alter a formulated spell mid-cast then there can be a severe backlash,” Rugrat said.

  “Yeah, because you are stuck into a rote system that casts mana and attributes together. If you deviate from it, it will all collapse. This attribute spell casting is simply combining attributes in different ways and then powering it afterward with mana to create an effect. It’s interesting that you talked of cooking. At the basic level, it is like cooking, but isn’t cooking when you get deeper into i chemistry?”

  “So you’re breaking down magic into its attributes, studying the reactions and then using your knowledge recreating spells without the formulas. Where do attributes come from though?”

  “Pretty much! Though one distinction to make is that elements and attributes are somewhat interchangeable. Elements are the basic and pure building blocks. Everything else is made up of different attributes, so humans are made up of all five elements, all creatures are, but some have a greater fire attribute. Elements are all around us, we all have a different affinity to different elements. Affinity means control, someone that has spent their days working in a field say, they will be able to control Earth, Water and Wood much more than say a smith who would be able to manipulate wood fire and Metal more. In my research, one’s environment changes their control over the different elements. Now, there is one great way to increase one’s elemental control is to increase their body’s elemental attributes. Confused yet?”

  “I’m holding on, barely. So how can you increase your affinity for the different attributes?”

  Tanya smiled and pulled out a book from her desk and turned it toward Rugrat, reading out the title.

  “The Fundamentals of Body Tempering,” she smiled as Rugrat’s brows pinched together.

  “Think about it, you and Erik have both tempered your bodies in the different elements, changing the attributes of your body and increasing your affinity for the elements. I read the notes that Erik made on learning that body tempering and mana cultivation were of the same path. That one tempered their body with the elements, making it stronger leaving purified mana to increase one’s cultivation without fear of mana rejection. It clicked for me, the two systems are treated as different item
s, but they are just two parts of the whole!”

  “So mana cultivation is like increasing the power of your battery and then your elemental affinities are the different parts you can create a circuit with? Playing with those power board things was way back in high school.”

  “That’s exactly the idea, looks like your teachers would be happy.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, I gave them enough troubles,” Rugrat grinned.

  “I know that only too well,” Tanya sat back and played with her eyebrow piercing. “Always liked reading, but school was more of a pain than anything to me. The only thing I really enjoyed was meeting other weirdos like me and getting together to play games. I was a factory worker, I didn’t care about the work. I just did it so that I could live comfortably and play my games in peace. Here where magic is real, it’s terrifying, but the nerd part of my mind is excited. Sure the system is not the same as what is depicted in fantasy books, movies, and games, and the stakes are a lot higher, but the possibilities to learn something new. The ability to cast spells. It’s awesome.”

  “Just have to make sure that it is practical as well.”

  “Well yeah, like min-maxing in real life doesn’t make sense. Look at you and Erik. You trained in mana cultivation first and are ahead of Erik but you are still tempering your body, learning from his lessons and he is doing the same from you. Both of you are not only fighters but you are crafters, medics, and adventurers. If you were to only train your strength, then you would have too much power to actually usefully apply, you need to increase your agility stat to get greater control. If you don’t have enough stamina then you can throw out a really powerful punch, but you’ll be drained. There are game-like elements to the Ten Realms, but it is the real world. Things change, even the Ten Realms system isn’t completely accurate and it tries its best but it is just a system. Every system has good points and bad points.”

  ***

  Pan Kun walked along the wall of King’s Hill, he held up a hand in greeting to some of the guards under his command that had been escorting traders.

  They raised their hands in greeting back as they walked through the gates. Their fellow guards quickly took the entry fee and allowed the traders to enter.