Chapter 158: Journey To Enlightenment

Author's Note: Sorry for the late chapter. Hectic day.

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"Good luck today,” Caen told Guinevere.

“Thanks!” she said, pulling on her boots in the shared parlor.

It was about 6 in the morning, and she and the others were leaving for the Citadel's assessment dome at the center of the city, where the entrance exams were held. They were accompanying Guinevere for moral support.

Caen would not be following them to the dome lest anyone note that he hadn’t actually taken the exams. He still intended to keep his scholarship secret.

Nimue had a few things to do in the city today, and Zeris would return to the inn as soon as Guinevere went into the examination hall.

A few minutes later, Zeris stepped out of her room, and they departed for the dome.

Caen was feeling very refreshed. He’d stored enough sleep for more than a week and had kept tabs on his clone in the Astral. The clone’s soul was not in any danger of unraveling, so they’d decided to extend their time apart.

Once he could no longer feel their souls nearby, Caen retreated to his room and locked the door. He was currently connected to the shadeling in his shadow, whose soul structure he could sense despite not having a clear understanding of where the shadeling was at the moment.

“The Seventh Guile,” he sent.

The shadeling flowed out of his shadow and came to sit in front of him. “This is certainly a much more fitting mode of communication,” he said to Caen.

It took a moment for Caen to make out the shadeling’s intent. When communicating in this manner, Caen couldn’t quite hear the voices of those he spoke with. Instead, he received the raw meaning of what they were saying, which was very layered and nuanced. 

When he’d woken up yesterday evening, Nimue and Hakohnzo hadn’t been present, so he and The Seventh Guile had taken the time to practice soul communication. The shadeling took to it with as much ease as Sh’kteiro and Hshnol had, but Caen still needed more practice.

In the Astral, Caen’s clone had shared some of the experiments he had run, and Caen was eager to try those out for himself.

The first thing he attempted Mimicking was the shadeling’s ability to move smoothly.

He asked The Seventh Guile to move about and occasionally hold still. Caen located the relevant web cluster; it was always active, but grew in prominence whenever the shadeling was in motion. 

He began to conform his soul to the web cluster, guiding the changes away from his Kinesis affinity. He’d given this quite some thought last night; the ability would likely pair best with his Kinesis passive augmentations.

Caen immediately felt lighter. He felt poised. He was more aware of the weight of his body, and in an entirely new way. This was so different from his Kinesis passive augmentations, yet they seemed to form a very strong synergy in his mind. 

He could move each of his limbs, his whole body, so fluidly, so elegantly. Flowing in whatever direction he wanted. It reminded him a little of his Body-enhancement and Kinesis passive augmentations when he wasn't actively suppressing them.

New instincts from the poise ability whispered into his mind. With an exertion of his will, his legs left the floor as he drifted a few inches into the air. Seconds later, he dropped down gently. It was as though gravity didn’t have as much of a hold on him as it usually did. He took a step forward with intention. There wasn’t so much speed as there was agility and nimbleness to the motion. 

He darted towards a wall, ran up it, and continued onto the ceiling, where he fell after two steps. It wasn’t a bad fall, and he still had Kinesis passive augmentations. The poise ability also allowed him to adjust his body orientation easily. He noted that he’d barely made any sounds as he ran up the wall.

He tried again, this time, pairing his movements with a Kinesis spell chain. He made it all the way up one wall, across the ceiling, and down another wall with little difficulty.

Caen spent more time than he cared to admit testing out the poise ability. He would have to test this out in combat.

Next, he tried to Mimic the shadeling’s ability to flow into shadows. He located the ability in the shadeling’s soul, but could not change his own soul in accordance to it. His soul structure refused to budge.

This was the same thing that happened whenever he tried Mimicking a Percipient’s affinities. 

A quick test confirmed that he also couldn’t Mimic the shadeling’s ability to mask him. It made Caen wonder why he could replicate some of the shadeling’s abilities but not others. Cloning seemed rather complex to him, perhaps more complex than the masking ability. But The Seventh Guile had explained that two-tails were capable of cloning and poise, but could neither flow into shadows nor mask.

“I feel a sharp awareness of you sometimes,” the shadeling noted. “I’ve been feeling this since our first meeting in that barn. I feel it now, too. Does this have any relation to these strange abilities of yours?”

“Something like that,” Caen replied with a sigh. 

Ever since his Contract affinity had risen out of abjection, Soul-sense had become as strong as a magical bond. Every time he connected to someone for longer than a few seconds, they became aware of the connection, even without knowing what it was.

He was certain that he could refine that with time, but he had so much to do.

Zeris came back to the inn soon after but retired to her room.

Caen spent the rest of his day performing Divination and Transmutation exercises. 

He felt when Nimue and Hakohnzo returned later in the evening. They called him out of his room. Nimue had gotten a chocolate cake.

They waited in the shared parlor.

About an hour later, Guinevere walked into the room, smiling sheepishly.

“So?” Nimue asked.

“I’m anxious to see the results,” she said, “but I think I did okay.”

They ate cake and chatted well into the night. The exams would last for the whole week, but the results were announced every few days.

***

“I got in!” Guinevere screamed, running into the parlor one afternoon, while he and Zeris were eating supper.

“Congratulations,” Caen said, smiling.

“I had no doubt you’d get in, Gwen,” Zeris added, standing up to hug her.

“Thank you!” Guinevere said, “I’ve told Nimmy and Albi already. We should get all that enrollment business out of the way.”

Caen and Zeris had been waiting for Guinevere’s result before finalizing their own enrollments. They took a carriage to the Citadel's assessment dome. It was a large mound of crystal that glinted under the sunlight. 

The entrance exams were still ongoing, but Guinevere steered them to the administrative section of the dome. They stood in a queue for a short while.

After confirming their identities under oath and being verified through other means that weren’t elaborated on, they were each handed temporary identification tokens, which would grant them access to the Citadel.

The academy official warned them very sternly to be present on the morning of departure or their admission would be considered forfeit.

A few days later, the entrance exams were finally concluded, and it was time to leave for the Citadel.

Caen had most of his belongings neatly packed in his new spatial ring. The rest, he kept with Zeris. Chasma was tucked under his shirt’s sleeve.

He, Zeris, and Guinevere stood with over two thousand new students at the docks on the edge of Seafront. It was just past 6 in the morning, and the air out here was cold and misted with each breath.

There were other groups of what must have been returning students. Thousands of them. They wore high-collared capes in the colors of the Citadel: startling gold and light grey. Erudition runes ran across the edges of their capes, framing the Citadel’s heraldry.

A magically reinforced silence hung heavily around them. Caen had seen great crowds grow silent with a powerful archmage present, but there was none here that he could sense.

[This is so creepy,] Zeris sent.

[It’s an old tradition,] Guinevere said. [A former headmaster of the Citadel established it centuries ago. The boat ride used to go in batches back then. Thank goodness it’s large enough to fit us all.]

[We could literally just teleport there,] Zeris groused, shaking her head. [There are spatial enchantments on all the boats.]

[Yeah, they’ll probably transport us once we get to the Isles. Nimue says it's the same every year.]

[How long is the trip?] Caen asked.

[Six hours,] Guinevere said.

[Ancestors,] Zeris said.

A large barge had been prepared for the first-year students. It looked like a giant stage floating on the impossibly still waters of the Pristine Sea. 

There were other barges too, much smaller but better looking, and with a higher vantage. Without prompting, the returning students stepped onto these in an orderly fashion and gazed down quietly on the first-years as they were directed onto their own barge by a few Percipients in hooded cloaks with the same designs as the capes.

They stood in rows within boxes that had been marked on the floor.

“This is a contemplative voyage,” a voice said, piercing the unnatural silence. “Ponder the privilege you have been given, and consider your path. For your journey to enlightenment starts here.”

Soon, the barges were sailing towards the Citadel in the distance at a glacial pace. 

As the hours wore on and they approached their destination, Caen could get a better view of the Citadel.

A great cluster of floating islands. At the center, a single spire rose from the sea, pierced through the largest floating land mass, and continued far into the heavens.

The central land mass was surrounded by other floating isles, each of which was arranged around a mage tower that rose out of the sea. Sky bridges connected the isles and towers.

The closer they got, the more he realized just how large the spire was, to say nothing of the floating isles and the great shadows they cast. 

[Finally,] Zeris sent. [They’re about to transp—]

Caen was pulled through space. Smoothly and cleanly. 

The next moment, he was deposited in a large hall with a skylight, pinpricks spreading across his skin.

A single elevated stage stood at the front of the hall. 

“Ah, Initiates,” said a familiar voice in accented Thermish. He met Caen's eyes briefly, smiled, then turned to take in the rest of the students. “Welcome to the Imperial Citadel of Magic.”

The speaker was a man in his fifties with a bright orange beard and brown hair. A dozen silver ornaments glittered on his ears and fingers. 

Magister Fermien.