Gurthari did a move I recognized. She tried to use the same freeze spell on Yulli that she’d used on me. Lucky for me, I’d had my mage sight active, so I was able to perceive the many glowing threads floating through the air as Gurthari weaved them from zeal emanating from her spellheart. I made a mental note to remember exactly what she did to prepare myself to better fight against it.
The spell was nowhere near as effective on Yulli as it was on elves still in the zeal accumulation stage. Instead of letting the spell touch her, Yulli reacted instantly and thrust her palm forward, expanding the ball of flame until it was a disk as tall as she was. Then she pushed the disk forward, causing the swirling flame to expand outward, devouring the plant matter on the forest floor.
Soon it projected in a line, consuming the mind magic spell that Gurthari had cast, and even scorching the flesh of the mind zeal wielder herself.
“Zeal that overwhelms and consumes. The ability to interact with zeals other than that of your spellheart. Only a true mage...” Gurthari backed up several paces, her limbs red and raw.
“I admit, that mind magic is tricky stuff. Even those with mage sight have a tough time seeing it unless they’ve trained themselves to see mind zeal. Still, I’ve had a lot of practice dealing with mind magic lately. A little zeal accumulation elf like you doesn’t even measure as a threat compared to what I’ve faced recently.”
Yulli closed her fist, sending the deep crimson flame swirling in the surrounding air, where it coiled like a snake. It reared overhead, preparing to strike down at Gurthari.
As for the mind heartwielder, she did something that surprised me. She tossed her dagger on the ground in front of her and fell to her knees.
“Honored senior. I did not mean to offend your honor.” Gurthari held her hands up as she knelt on the ground. “Please, grant one weaker than you your mercy.”
Yulli seemed to consider it for a moment. “Very well.”
I expected Yulli to withdraw at this point, maybe take Gurthari prisoner. Instead, the crimson serpent of flame rearing up behind her struck down in one quick motion, engulfing the mind zeal wielder in a finger of flame.
When Gurthari died, the remaining bits of the binding spell unraveled from the air and scattered.
After a good ten seconds of burning, Yulli withdrew the flame back to her. There was no corpse left, though strangely, a small white sphere hovered in the air, swaying gently in the breeze. From it, I could see a pale amber glow slowly dissipating in the air.
Yulli reached for a small ring on her hand. She twisted it off her finger and pressed the ring to the floating ball of light. Suddenly, there was a small gleam in the previously dull jewel fixed to the ring. Yulli then slid the ring back on her finger.
I walked forward and kicked at the ashes. It was hot, so I didn’t want to sort through that with my hands. It only took a bit of searching to find what I was looking for. Gurthari’s mind spellheart.
I’d only caught a few glimpses of it, but what I’d seen hadn’t done it justice. It was a pale amber stone about the width of both my thumbnails. It had smooth edges, as if it were formed from a drop of some tacky resin that had hardened before it fell to the ground.
Yulli saw what I had pocketed. “Those things are useless. We’ve tried. The Cult of the Unblinking Eye must have some special techniques that allow them to begin practicing mind magic. It hasn’t worked for me or any of my mage acolytes.”
“All the same. I’d like to give it a shot myself.”
Yulli shrugged. “Speaking about you though, how is it you ended up here all alone? And how you ended up confronting an enemy heartwielder?”
I gave Yulli a half-baked story I’d come up with on the fly. Most of it was truth, though I left out anything that mentioned Illiel. I fully admitted that it was my desire for one of these mind aspect spellhearts that had driven me to fighting the heartwielder.
Yulli accepted my explanation as we gathered the rest of her troop. I thought things had gone rather well, but then Yulli pointed out two of her subordinate mage acolytes.
“I like your ambition. Were you anyone else I’d put you on a combat squad. But you’re too valuable to my clan to lose, so we’re going to have to curb this reckless streak of yours. From now on these two will be your keepers. You don’t go anywhere without them. They’ll see that you’re fed and washed and kept happy.” The two mage acolytes looked at me. One of them had her expression as stern and formal as it would have been had she been asked to take the night watch. The other though smiled at me and looked excited at the apparent prospect of coddling me like a baby.
“Thank you, I’m flattered, but that’s really not necessary. We need all the mage acolytes in your squad prepared for combat purposes. Having two mage acolytes tend to me would be a waste.”
Yulli shook her head. “Non-negotiable. Danori, the one male we managed to bring with us, has already reached his peak in terms of cultivation. He’ll never make it to the mage acolyte levels. But you’re another story. Based on the amount of zeal I saw you pull just now, you’ve got talent to spare. From now on you will spend every breath training. Getting you to the mage levels should be our top priority. Once you make it there any children you sire will be considerably more powerful, and powerful new clan members is just what the Songstone clan needs right now.”
That was... reasonable. And I didn’t have anything against doing some intensive training, but this didn’t sit well with me. Yulli was already taking charge, and I was being reduced to something a bit above the field of mystic trees Nela was planting in terms of value. A stud in a pen. This was an unacceptable outcome. I’d have to come up with something to deal with Yulli, and fast.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I planned to spend the rest of the day in secluded meditation. Even when everyone else woke up and started working I remained behind in my private chamber.
Technically, those were Yulli’s orders, so I had an excuse for the seclusion. Being secluded also meant that she wouldn’t be able to give any more specific instructions other than ‘train’.
Still, she was a problem that would need to be dealt with sooner rather than later.
And so, I meditated, as the trancelike state was a prerequisite for gathering more spellheart power. I’d really taken to the hobby since coming here. I focused for a bit refining my earth spellheart. By now, I was able to picture myself in the eye of the storm without even thinking. Earth zeal poured into my spellheart, as easy as breathing. The rest of my mind was able to contend with more important matters, like figuring out my plans for the future, both short term and long term.
For the long term, I realized that I would need to bind this earth spellheart to myself and become a mage acolyte. I’d gotten a taste of authority and power over the powerless mortals, but as soon as Yulli showed up, being a mage, I was stripped of all my authority.
Why? Because she was more powerful. In this world, personal strength determines your power. Sure, there are other kinds of power like money, connections, and rank within an organization, but that was all shaped by personal power. Those at higher levels of cultivation would find that all types of power would come to them far easier than those at a lower cultivation rank.
Mage acolytes had the advantage over heartwielders in every respect. Not only could they easily physically overpower a heartwielder elf, not only did they have access to special powers they could wield, but they also had extended lifespans as well, which gave them more time to accumulate ever greater amounts of power.
From what I’d learned, elves in this world weren’t immortal like the kinds of elves in Lord of the Rings and other such stories. In fact, an ordinary, mortal-level elf barely had a human lifespan. It was only with years upon years of cultivation that they could reach the mage acolyte ranks. Only then would they have some of that longevity and mythic grace human stories attribute to them.
But the mage acolyte ranks, and the ranks beyond, could be achieved by anyone. Even me. With hard
work, dedication, and just a bit of luck, any elf can become one of those amazing, powerful beings. What’s more, cultivators like that actually are immortal — so long as they keep advancing.
As it turns out, each advancement comes with a boost to longevity, and each level provides more longevity than the level before it. The catch being that progressing becomes exponentially harder as each level goes by. You need more and more resources, talent, dedication, and luck at each level to make it to the next. That meant that there were many bottlenecks along the path of cultivation.
Any elf could eventually reach the mage acolyte ranks if they cultivated a good spellheart and were able to bond it to themselves. In other regions of the world, I had learned that the mage acolyte ranks were average. Any child could reach them upon being gifted dozens of high-quality spellhearts to try bonding with, no need to cultivate them yourself. But out here in the zeal-barren lands far from a source of zeal, it took a lifetime of zeal accumulation to be able to reach the next level. Unless one had the benefit of elixirs or mystic fruit. That’s why herbalists like Sava were valuable. A few good potions could do in a day what a year of meditation would not. I mentally thanked Sava for all the nasty-tasting drinks she’d been feeding me since I came to this world.
There were a few other ways to get cultivation resources though. One of the most common was to simply take what you needed from those who had them. Many clans and sects would store up precious resources until they had important or talented descendent’s. Or until a time of crisis was upon the clan. The Songstone clan survivors had managed to escape with some of these resources, and so they were hard at work consuming them to raise Nela and other important figures up to the ranks of mage acolytes.
This was because, while anybody could become a mage acolyte, there’s a cut-off in terms of quality that must be met if you want to fully bond with your spellhearts and get the maximum amount of power. Nobody would bond a low-grade spellheart when they could still improve it to being a mid-grade spellheart with just a bit of time and meditation. Not unless they really needed that power now. Bonding with an inferior spellheart would cut off the path for future advancement and make it impossible to fully master it and reach the true mage ranks.
Besides Yulli’s people, those with Nela were simple domestic staff for the Songstone clan, now they were the core members of the group and would be given resources accordingly. Before catastrophe hit the Songstone clan, they were saving up their pay to improve their spellhearts to top-grade before merging them with their bodies. They probably jealously consumed the magic fruits Nela was trying to grow.
Good thing I’m indoors, or the elves might cough blood in envy. I thought as I nibbled on what tasted like a pear. It was sweet and crisp in a crunch earth-like way. As I took the final bite I felt a rush of power flow through my body. Yulli wasn’t going cheap on me.
You have broken through to the third level of zeal accumulation!
50 points awarded. Total points: 734
That was the first time in a while I’d seen the messages. I needed to get back to Mac soon so I could buy some rooms aboard the ship. I was certain that Mac and the ship were a bigger advantage than any amount of fruits, if only I could accumulate the points to use it.
Scanner level 3 (Upgrades Available)
Upgrade scanner for 350 points?
Scanner successfully upgraded to level 4
Weird. It was 400 previously. Mac must have done some something that lowered the cost. I accepted the upgrade, quickly bringing my point total crashing down again.
[Mac?] I projected in questioning. This time I sensed some fuzziness. Like white noise. I could almost hear something. This was good. Maybe one more upgrade and I’d be able to communicate with him. Maybe even I would be able to do it with a short hike off into the woods. I’d need to come up with an excuse to leave camp though.
***
“So, you’d call this a high-grade mind aspect spellheart?” I asked Illiel. I’d gotten Sava to sneak her into my private quarters with me. Yulli’s guards were sloppy. One of them had actually started using her shift to catch up on her sleep. I suppose they were more babysitters than guards though, so it could be excused.
“Yes...” Illiel said slowly. She was still a little shook up from the realization that her mentor, Gurthari, was dead. Sure, she might have hated the older woman, but she was still a familiar face. It’s always uncomfortable when people you know die, even if you hated them. That was one thing that didn’t change even in another world.
“Mistress Gurthari spent years building that thing up from a mid-grade spellheart.” Illiel continued. “She was holding out until the peak of high-grade before she fused it with her body to break into the mage acolyte ranks.”
“I see... so binding this spellheart to myself would save me years of meditating, quietly collecting zeal in order to bring a spellheart up to this level.”
“That’s right, but it’s not so simple. There are ways to quickly improve the rank of your spellheart and save decades of work, but they typically involve the assistance of a cultivator many ranks above you. Or some incredibly valuable elixir or mystic fruit.
“You see, as spellhearts grow in power they become harder and harder to harness. The scale of low, mid, and high-grade spellhearts doesn’t apply to all spellhearts across the board. A spellheart is just a collection of zeal of a particular affinity, so it can be present in as little as a grain of dust or as big as a mountain. The issue is that a spellheart the size of a grain of dust would be essentially useless and attempting to bond with a spellheart the size of a mountain would destroy the mind and soul of the cultivator making the attempt.”
“Alright. So, the grade of a spellheart only applies to the grades that are within the range that are useful to cultivators like me. Which means that I can push this spellheart beyond high-grade if I want to.”
“That’s true, but I would caution you against that. High-grade is high grade because it’s as concentrated as you can get the zeal of any particular aspect and still expect to be able to fuse yourself with it. Any more than high-grade is risking either failing to fuse or simply killing you.”
“Interesting, though the point is moot if I’m unable to bond with this spellheart at all.” I focused on the little amber gem. I’d been trying all morning to get to respond to me, but no such luck. I wanted mind control powers, and this damned rock was being stingy!
I sent my mind into the spellheart once again. My attention delved within it and soaked right into the stone. I felt like I could push and pull it with my mind, except one little piece was fighting me, rejecting my will at every turn. After a few seconds it tossed me out, just like every other time.
“Forcing it won’t do any good. If you couldn’t bind with it by now, you’re not going to.”
I stared angrily at the spellheart. “I feel like I should be able to. Most of the stone seems like it likes me. It’s just this region right here.” I pointed to a little jagged portion of the stone with a crack running through it.
“It happens sometimes.” Illiel shrugged. “There are impurities nearly all spellhearts. Some are even put there deliberately by the people who grow them. Gurthari probably introduced a drop of her own blood while she was growing the spellheart from mid-grade to high-grade. It’s a common tactic to make your spellheart unusable to anyone who kills you.”
“If only I could just avoid that part... hey, is there any reason why I can’t just chip that part of the stone out?”
Illiel blinked. “As in, just knock the impure region of the stone open and pull out the part that isn’t working for you? I’ve never heard of that being tried before. I know it’s possible to use fragments of spellhearts, but they’re usually much weaker so most of the time people just work around the impurities.”
Well, just because something hadn’t been done doesn’t mean it can’t be done. I knew the opposite to be true more often than not.
I pulled out my earth spellheart and used
its power to make a shallow bowl in the floor. It wouldn’t do to lose any pieces of this thing when it shattered.
I’d commandeered a nail and hammer from a nearby pile being used in the construction work. They weren’t ideal tools, but this would be a crude job anyway. I wasn’t familiar with how spellhearts shattered. Did they break into shards? Did they shatter like glass or flake like slate? Or maybe they were like some sort of resin that would deform when struck? I’d need to figure out a way to build a microscope. Maybe even try to do some x-ray crystallography to see if I could determine the molecular structure of these things.
A long time ago I’d learned a bit about how stones split. There had been a huge boulder in my family yard, and my father wanted to get rid of it. So, he bought a hammer and couple of steel wedges and started hammering at the thing. That worked eventually, but the work of a stonemason is labor intensive, so he handed the project off to me. As a bored kid, I spent many hours hammering away at rocks, watching them split into little pieces. A few hours of YouTube videos and I learned approximately where to hit a stone and how to hit it if I wanted to crack it into a flat surface. That was about the limit of my ability, and rocks like granite still cracked however they wanted to no matter what I tried, but I learned to guide the cracks just a little. Flint napping was a skill I purchased. Thanks to my memory implant, I was able to buy it on a discount and simply download the skill. I had all the knowledge in my head, though it still had taken practice to make it my own.
What I was doing now was a combination of the two skills. I scrutinized the spellheart, formulating a plan on how I could get rid of the impure region. Now that Illiel had pointed it out I could tell that the red smear really looked like somebody had spread a tiny amount of their own blood around the stone. After which, they grew the stone one layer at a time to reach its present size.
Zeal of the Mind and Flesh Page 24