Chapter 227 - Glimpsing the Divine

Ra’Tiki ran his hands through Whitecloud’s feathers, gently stroking the Giant Igrit’s neck. The action was both to calm the bird as well as his own racing heart. They had all seen Death’s Shadow flying in the distance and heard his roar. It had been Ra’Tiki’s first time seeing the great beast, though his Father had spoken of another time, decades ago during the man's own childhood. The ancient dragon was the true ruler of the archipelago and maybe beyond. Ra’Tiki and the rest of his tribe were just lesser beings that the dragon deigned to let live here. The Elders of the tribe would no doubt send a great offering to appease Death’s Shadow, hoping the dragon could be placated. In the meantime, Ra’Tiki and the other Igrit Riders would take to the skies, scouting the archipelago to see if they could find what caused the dragon’s appearance. The Elders told stories about the Great Cataclysms, when beings akin to Gods had come to challenge Death’s Shadow, and the damage each Cataclysm had caused. Once, these islands had been one landmass. The last Great Cataclysm had shattered them into the archipelago they now were, and the Rakan Tribe needed to know if another was coming so they could evacuate. As the grandson of one of the Elders, it would fall to Ra’Tiki to lead the Igrit Riders to determine the threat. However, they would wait one more day before they took flight, in case Death’s Shadow chose to return. The great dragon no doubt did not wish to share the skies, and Whitecloud, Ra’Tiki’s Giant Igrit, was still shaken from the roar of the dragon. Another day at most. Until then, Ra’Tiki would make sure his riders were ready. With a last brush of his mount and bonded animal’s neck he stepped away, raising his voice as he let loose a ululating cry. His brothers and sisters answered him and gathered to listen to his plan. He just hoped that the glimpse of Death’s Shadow meant nothing, but a worm of fear remained in his heart.

*************

Nate looked over his work. It had taken two days to create eleven Mythic Daggers and cost him four Divine Energy. Unfortunately, he’d need to increase his Mana Absorption Stat to over five hundred for it to be able to keep up with the Divine Energy empowered Skill. That meant he was always going to be wasting at least some of his Divine Energy using it like this. Still, the results spoke for themselves. Eleven Mythic Daggers, all carrying an affinity for Durability and Reinforcement. That covered roughly the number of arms Kiri liked to use. The main problem was how long it had taken him, which led back to a problem he had long since accepted. The limiting factor in all his endeavours was him, or more specifically, that there was only one of him. So, over the last two days, while his Multi Conceptual Material Shaping chugged away, improving the daggers before him, Nate had spent that time focusing on his Class Core, or more specifically, the Skills etched into its surface. His planning was still in its early days, but the answer was right there before him. Class Core Skills were just highly complicated runes. If Nate could replicate even a lesser version of the Skill he was using into an actual runecrafted device, perhaps he could sit back and let mana gems do the work, freeing him up to focus on other things. 

Of course, he was already accepting the fact that anything he created would be far less efficient, both in terms of mana and time, than what his Class Core Skill could do. After all, any creation he made wouldn’t have all the supporting Skills to assist or his Embodiment. What it could have, though, is scale. Who cared if it took three times as long if he had twenty of the things? As for the mana cost, while it might matter on Galle, it wouldn’t matter here where the mana was so thick in the air that it left him feeling like insects were crawling over his skin. In his mind Nate was envisioning his own little spatial pocket, set up like a production line, with runecrafted tools that would do all the work for him, built upon his Intent. It would be a lot of work, and who knew how long it would take him to create, but the end result would free up more of his time, which of course meant he would have more time to spend on the things he loved, namely his art and spending time with the people he cared about.

Gathering up the eleven now-Mythic daggers, Nate entered the spatial pocket through the rip in space that was his spatial anchor. Inside was a single very large room. Nate intended to section the area off into various rooms, but for now it was a spacious open-plan room stretching for forty-metres in length and width with a ceiling just under ten metres above them. They weren’t making full use of the space yet, but that was because Nate hoped to extend it as needed while potentially leaving room for something like a garden outside, after all, he had some plans for his Conceptual Life Artist Class.

Because of the lack of furniture it looked more like the floor of a warehouse than it did a future home, not helped by the fact that Kiri had piled up all the extra building supplies in one corner. While the stacks of wooden planks and stone blocks were neatly arranged and out of the way, it definitely made the place feel like it was set up for storage rather than living. 

The floor itself was smooth wooden planks that gave the space a warmer feel, though Nate had used the stone blocks underneath to reinforce the structure. The stone itself had been fused together using his Skill to shape material. He’d tested the same with the wooden planks but found he didn’t like the appearance. Frick had likened the experience to being inside a wooden bowl, so instead, Nate had sectioned the planks and shaped them to slot into each other, binding them together. The same was true of the walls, and Nate’s current feeling was that it was too much wood. 

The wooden decor was an easier problem to solve, given the ridiculous amount of paint he had stored in his Brush of a Thousand Paints. But painting the walls would have to wait until he had actually created rooms. So in the meantime, they were basically camping in the warehouse. Or perhaps ‘glamping’ was the better term, given the enchanted beds they each had, along with enchanted cooking equipment, food storage and lighting. The latter had all been sourced by Kiri in preparation for their journey and while the tiers were relatively low, they certainly covered all the necessities. The only thing that was missing was a bath or shower, something Kiri had been unsubtly suggesting should be a priority for Nate to create.

Kiri looked up from where she was cooking up some dinner, fish sizzling on a frypan as she very carefully applied some seasoning.

Nate grinned, “Channelling your inner Rania?”

“Mum was such a great cook but such a terrible teacher!” griped Kiri. “She was always so wishy washy with her explanations. ‘Just add as much as you feel comfortable with’ or ‘as much as your heart tells you’. Like, how am I supposed to know how much is enough and how much is overkill?!”

“I’m sure it’ll taste fine,” Nate offered, instantly realising it was the wrong thing to say.

“I don’t want it to taste ‘fine’. I want it to taste good!”

“Yeah, fair. Maybe you can get some actual lessons when we get back to Galle, or in the Heartlands?”

“Alright,” Kiri grumped in response, flipping the fish on the frying pan and trying to season the other side. “How’s it going anyway?”

“All done,” Nate replied which elicited a smile from Kiri. “You’ve got eleven Mythic daggers to work with now, all with affinities for Durability and Reinforcement, so they shouldn’t break. What about you? How did the hunting go?”

Over the last two days, while Nate had been focused on making the daggers necessary for Kiri to challenge one of the two Dungeons they had found, Kiri had not been idle. Moving building materials into the space hadn’t taken up that much time, even considering she placed them out to minimise the time Nate needed to spend on fusing everything together. So, with her spare time, and a dearth of daggers, Kiri had taken to fishing. Her methods were questionable, as Nate wasn’t a huge fan of her idea of using herself as bait, but he couldn’t argue with the results. A couple of aquatic predators had taken the bait, and while Kiri had been forced to use two Soul Twins, she had successfully killed both of the predators. They’d also learned a limitation with Kiri’s Embodiment. His sister's Embodiment was simply called ‘Reborn’ and the meaning was ‘One who experiences rebirths’. The bonus it applied was doubling the effectiveness of all Concepts, Skills, and Spells that related to the idea of being reborn. 

On the face of it, the Embodiment was weaker than Nate’s in terms of actual power. That however, was not the full truth. For one, Nate could acknowledge that the ability to cheat death was a ridiculous power. With the improved efficiency the Embodiment granted, Kiri could now generate a new Soul Twin every second day and could currently store up to eight of them. He’d joked that she was now a cat, since she technically had nine-lives. The joke had gone over her head since she lacked the context, but the fact remained that more and more, the truth of his sister's jokes that she was immortal were coming true. If that had been all it granted, then it still might have been arguably weaker than Nate’s own Embodiment. But, since the Embodiment was also the path towards collecting Divine Energy, Kiri’s showed a much simpler path to extracting Divine Energy from Reality. Each time she ‘died’ and was reborn, she had generated three units of Divine Energy. It meant that Kiri could produce three Divine Energy every second day. In the future, as her Skill improved, that would eventually become three Divine Energy a day. She was basically an unending fount of Divine Energy and all she had to do was die and be reborn.

Nate on the other hand had to constantly be making discoveries or learning more about Concepts and how they interacted with Reality. He hadn’t tested any of his ideas yet, but now that his time was freed up he intended to. Which brought him to the first thing he wanted to test.

“I think it’s time to see how much Divine Energy is required to level our Divine Classes.”

Kiri smiled, “Finally. Still happy with our plan for you to test it?”

“Yep,” replied Nate with a grin.

Kiri tossed Nate two processed mana gems filled to the brim.

Nate sat down on the wooden floor and pulled the processed mana into his Class Core. The second gem was almost empty when he felt that he had reached the point where the Class Core was ready to level. With a thought he directed the levelling towards his Conceptual Runic Artist Primary Class. He felt a tug at his Divine Energy doing so and with a gentle nudge he felt the Divine Energy drain away. A glance at his Status told him the level had taken five units of Divine Energy as the notifications blinked in front of him.

Accrued Mana and Divine Energy applied to Primary Class.

Level up…

Stats adjusted: +1 Endurance, +3 Intellect, +3 Creativity, +1 Willpower, +2 Perception, +1 Magic Control, +2 Mana Reserve, +1 Mana Absorption, +7 Free Stats

With a thought Nate added the seven Free Stats into Mana Absorption just like he had planned. Then he went over his Skill gains for the past two days.

Conceptual Spatial Manipulation 57 > 58
Conceptual Amplified Magic 56 > 58
Conceptual Spatial Authority 40 > 41
Spacetime Control 11 > 17
Gravity Manipulation 6 > 15
Simple Spatial Creation 1 > 9
Spatial Expansion 1 > 13
Spatial Anchors 1 > 15

All of his non-Divine Skills had levelled except for his Conceptual Life Artist Skills, which he was yet to use. On top of that, there was the notification that his Conceptual Spatial Authority was ready to evolve, but he ignored it for a moment, considering what he was about to do.

“It cost five units of Divine Energy,” he explained to Kiri. “Per level it seems. Whether that holds true going forward we will need to keep an eye on. But we have our baseline. You know what that means right?”

Kiri grinned, “It means I am going to out-level you for sure!”

“Maybe,” Nate acknowledged. Kiri might be right. Nate had additional Divine Energy expenses that she didn’t, though hopefully that would be balanced by how much Kiri might need to use in combat compared with Nate. Either way, it didn’t matter to Nate. Kiri was family. Her strength was his strength and vice versa.

“I’m going to evolve all my Mythic Skills,” Nate stated.

“That’s fine,” replied Kiri, looking back at the fish she had taken a bite out of. “Got the seasoning wrong anyway. Going to try again. I’ll do my own when you’re done.”

Nate acknowledge Kiri’s words before bringing up the pending evolution for Conceptual Spatial Authority. He had an idea, and wanted to see how it played out.

Conceptual Spatial Authority (M) is ready to evolve.

Conceptual Spatial Authority (M)
All Mages need to empower their Skills and Spells beyond what their affinities can provide. Some turn to tools, enchantments or alchemy. You have turned to sequestering mana to further empower your Skills by concentrating mana with your spatial affinity. This Skill empowers anything that utilises the Concept of Space, be it Spells, Skills, Runes or more esoteric applications. Empowerment is equal to Skill Level * 3 plus Magic Control / 40 percent. Mana cost for Spatial Effects decreases by Skill Level x 1 percent. Spatial Effects are Skill Level multiplied by one percent more powerful at passing through barriers and wards.

Evolutions Available! Please Select 1.
Skill Evolution Options:

Conceptual Spatial Authority (M)
Spatial Effects are Magic Power divided by fifty percent more effective when applied to spatially created zones.

Conceptual Spatial Authority (M)
Spatial Concepts are Magic Power divided by fifty percent more effective at altering Reality.

Nate sighed seeing the two options. The first was obviously meant to empower his new Skills while the latter was meant to make him more able to function within this Wild Realm. Both were good, and both would add a small bonus for the time being. The question was which suited him more in the long-term. When he thought about it like that the answer was obvious. This Wild Realm was a temporary state of things. His spatially created zones would be with him for the rest of his life. With a thought he selected the first option, improving his ability to alter space and its related concepts within his little spatial pockets.

With that evolution handled, it was time to evolve the rest of his Mythic Skills. Then he would return to this one, and see how it worked when he evolved a Mythic Skill to Divine when it was twenty levels away from evolving.