OtH 1.12 - Information is Enlightenment

Ran out of meds toward the end of last week and didn't get back on them til Tuesday. So my ability to write had issues for a bit. Seems to be back up and running again now though, so continuing along.

Reodan had told Aarick about the demonic corruption, and he thought he had understood. However, he hadn’t really understood the scale of the problem.

Sure, the low areas of the world were uninhabitable, but as he had learned more about the world that seemed less and less important. The world was massive, so what did it matter if people could only live in the higher elevation areas? There were plenty of elevated areas back on Earth.

I didn’t realize.

All the empires seem to be doing well enough. They probably still have a lot of room to expand, but almost the entire world is corrupted.

How powerful does that demonic energy need to be, that it takes five immortal and ridiculously powerful beings to hold it at bay. And even here, the low areas are unlivable.

When Reodan told him about the war, about the remaining demons, and the energy… He hadn’t actually thought that much about it. Sure, it was dangerous, and he would need to watch out for them, but he considered it a problem that was mostly resolved.

Instead, it was like aliens had invaded, and managed to destroy almost the entire world. And some remnant of the weapons they used had rendered almost the entire planet a wasteland.

Five immortals were left… out of how many? Had there been dozens, hundreds, millions, billions? Were these empires only the sad remnants of an unimaginably vast world?

He scribbled out some calculations on the paper in front of him, trying to guesstimate the relative sizes. It wasn’t that hard to figure out the size of this planet, or Earth. As long as you had the circumference it was a relatively easy calculation. If he hadn’t been doing engineering classes he doubted he would have remembered the formula for calculating a sphere, but the formula made the calculation trivial. Tedious, but trivial.

Calculate the relative area of this planet versus the area of the circle the emperors are protecting… Yeah. That was what I was afraid of.

The world was almost entirely lost. Less than 0.4% of the planet’s surface was actually usable. Probably a substantial portion less than that, since he had treated the entire circle they were protecting as habitable.

If this was Earth… that would be what? Less than a third of the continental United States remaining?

This… probably isn’t actually my problem though. The empires have been here for millions of years. They might face a crisis due to the amount of room eventually, but that is far away.

While this might be logically true, he couldn’t help but feel some level of existential dread. Most of the planet was a corrupted wasteland. Sure, he was in a place where that shouldn’t matter, but his mind wanted to dwell on it anyway.

Stupid brain, fixating on something we can’t actually deal with. It’s not like we haven’t already learned about plenty of dangers that we might need to deal with some day.

For the moment, he did his best to put it out of his mind.

This was helped somewhat by the rise of a second sun, just starting to peak over the horizon.

Guess that makes this still morning.

He pointed to the new sun.

“What are the names of the two suns?” He asked.

Reodan quirked a smile at him.

“I’m not sure, sir, some astronomers have named them all, but there are too many for most of us to bother.”

Wait, what?

“Too many, what do you mean?”

“Something else that got lost, sir?” Reodan asked. “There are many hundreds of suns. Today we happen to have two, but that is not terribly uncommon.”

How…

Physics…

Orbital Dynamics…

His mind shorted out again.

Okay… Breathe…

Either the orbital dynamics are utterly insane, or I am missing something... again. That seems to be happening a lot, but to be fair I am dealing with an “Out of Context” situation.

I have someone to ask, so… ask.

“How, exactly, do the days work?” He asked, forcing himself to stay calm.

“I am not an expert, sir.” Reodan said. “However, I can give you a general overview. The world, Paliarz, is orbited by many hundreds of suns and moons. They each have their own orbit, and they have a cycle that repeats every four hundred days.”

Okay, I can deal with that.

The stars are almost certainly much smaller than they should be. And this would mean that the planet is probably not rotating incredibly fast.

It would still be an insane thing to organize all the various orbits. The moons and stars must be massive, but probably much easier to manipulate than all of… what was it. Paliarz?

No idea why the stars are so small and the planet is so massive, but maybe I can figure that out once I understand more about how qi works. Or I can ask Lurona once I see her again. Not sure how I would get the problem across to Reodan without revealing that I know the physical laws should be different.

Ignorance about how the days work is one thing, trying to say there is something wrong with how things are is more suspicious.

“Thank you for answering that for me,” He said.

Reodan bowed graciously, indicating his pleasure to serve while Aarick looked out the window absently.

“Can we go outside?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, of course. However, I recommend we wait until the students meditations have finished.”

He had gotten so used to the flashing lightning that he had forgotten how loud it must be outside.

That would be a good reason to segregate the creches, even if they didn’t need the lower qi. No one would want the flashes and sound near a city if it wasn’t necessary. I mean, I thought airports were bad… but they have nothing on this.

It’s easy to see why they set aside a specific time to do this though. No one would be able to get anything done if this went on all day.

“Why don’t they put something up to dampen the sound?” He asked.

“Not enough qi, sir.” Reodan said. “If you go to a school then the higher qi levels there will enable such. The meditation areas are all shielded in higher qi areas, for exactly that reason.”

Aarick recalled his thoughts about tractors earlier.

Maybe there isn’t enough qi for most machines here. The trains would be an exception, allowing transport between the cities, but a single machine for logistics would make sense. If they could only operate one machine, a train would probably be the best choice.

This… represents the low tech area of The Empire. I am seeing a frontier, sure, but there is more to it than that. Most of the technology they use doesn’t work if they bring it to an area of lower qi concentration.

Lurona mentioned something… spirit stones was it? Something about maintaining her cultivation using them.

So… its not just technology. The more one grows in cultivation, the more they need to stay in a high qi environment. Obviously there are ways around that, but it probably isn’t cheap.

“Lurona mentioned spirit stones,” He said. “what are they?”

“Ah, yes sir. Spirit stones, also called qi stones, energy stones, sky stones, and so on… are crystallized qi. They come in various grades of purity and sizes, as well as in different densities of qi.

They have innumerable uses, sir.

For example, they can be used by cultivators when they are in an area beneath their cultivation level. This prevents degradation of their cultivation. Each of us who work here in the creche is a given a certain allotment of them for that exact reason.

They are also used to power arrays, which will likely prove of use to you, sir.

Their most common name, spirit stones, is because spirits prize them and will trade favors or other resources for them. They are also commonly used as currency, because the increased density of higher level spirit stones can still fit into a small space. This prevents needing to exchange thousands or millions of lessor stones.

There are many more uses, as qi is a very versatile resource.”

He didn’t really know enough to even guess at the other uses, but since qi was the literal power behind cultivation, it had to be insanely powerful.

I was right though. Qi can be physical and energy at the same time.

He had already made that assumption after dealing with the food, but it was good to get some confirmation.

The food didn’t have any kind of crystals in it. So qi can integrate into the physical realm as more than just stone. God… I have so much to learn.

Qi isn’t the only energy I have encountered though. Chakra is apparently soul energy, but it never leaves the body, so it probably doesn’t crystallize, but ziu… that should be a different story. Of course, with qi being the energy of the heavens I wouldn’t have expected it to become stone at all. Maybe ziu does something equally unexpected and turns into ziu water, or clouds of ziu gas.

“Does ziu do the same thing?” He asked. “Are there stones made up of ziu?”

Reodan nodded and smiled at him.

“Correct, sir.” He replied. “Such stones are commonly called demon stones, though those who work with them generally refer to them as earth stones, or ziu crystals.”

People work with them? Why?

He was quick to ask his question aloud.

“It is a fairly recent development on the scale of The Empire, sir,” He said. “A technique that has only been in used for a few thousand years.”

Oh is that all? Hardly worth mentioning, then.

Despite his sarcastic thoughts, Aarick kept listening.

“Obviously, working with anything containing concentrated ziu was viewed with great suspicion. However, it turned out that using them via some special seals destroyed the demonic taint when it consumed the stone for energy. Extensive research was done, but the ziu was completely destroyed.”

Reodan pointed out the window.

“Look there, sir. The train actually uses demon stones for its power. Only a tiny amount of qi is needed to start the reaction.”

Aarick perked up and stood, then proceeded to move closer to the window. The train, lit with lines of energy, pulled various train cars behind it. The lack of fumes made sense. Somehow the energy was converted to motion directly.

He said something about using seals. Those are connected to arrays, right? So some kind of magical geometry. I already wanted to learn that so I can tell my parents I am okay, but learning what appears to be the magical equivalent to technology is awesome in its own right.

“Why not use the ziu stones to power what you need in the towers?” He said. “Or are they already doing that? Stopping the sound from the thunder would be a massive improvement, if nothing else.”

Reodan looked over toward the nearest tower.

“They do use them for some things, sir. They power the elevators inside, for example. The towers are more efficient and able to be larger as a result. I am given to understand that there was an empire wide reconstruction of the towers after the knowledge had proven safe.

As for why it isn’t used more freely. The formations needed to manipulate ziu are quite different from using qi. Most applications are still undiscovered.

If, sir, while you are studying formations you uncover a way to properly manipulate sound with demon stones, you will become quite wealthy. The Empire would pay you heavily for a technique that can be used to improve all the creches.

After all, sir. Sound is quite different than motion.”

No it’s not.

Sound is motion.

For a moment Aarick felt a strange sensation. He felt connected to the world more intensely. The sounds around him seemed to rush toward him. And, even with the formation on the windows, for a moment he could hear the roaring drum of thunder beating out its asynchronous beat.

Then, it faded, and he felt no different.

Was that another partial enlightenment?