Elemental Gatherers Book 7 Outline

Chapter 1 - Night after big party. Still going on. He’s alone in room. Decides to investigate Legacy. Looks into cultivation techniques, find them to be a mix of gathering and tempering techniques. Finds a listing of Core runes, which work similarly to his, dozens of each Element from levels one to five, with other, higher level combined runes as well. Finds a really good rune to replace his Fire rune with, along with a treatise on how combined runes can help with multiple Elements and combining them. He decides to replace his Fire rune right then and there.

Chapter 2 - More investigation of the Legacy, finds the section on advancing through Soul Strengthening. He can’t see details, but got the general gist of things. After going through that, he explores the Alchemy one, finds neat pills but nothing like the Affinity Powders. Gets recipes for a few Affinity pills that seem doable, with the plan to share with Librarian Narwan and get assistance making them. He wants to get all of his Affinities to Excellent if he can. Leaves the Legacy to find that it is now breakfast time, heads to the dining area of inn to find Jamila, Vaya, Lilliana, Milenna, and Lea talking. He waves, and Vaya gestures for him to come over. A quick kiss for both girls, and he ends up telling them about the Legacy. After a bit, he just hands Vaya the stone with core runes in it and tells her to share it with everyone else.

Chapter 3 - Librarian Narwan pops in to grab him immediately after and pulls him into a meeting of the highest levels. Politics happen. They talk about the war, trade, and then bring up the Legacy. Aiden tells a bit of what he’s discovered, as well as making a promise to share most of the gathering level information with everyone, on the promise it gets spread fully. “There is a calamity coming,” he answers when they ask why. Tells them he knows the secret to advancing through Soul Strengthening, which causes a massive commotion. This he’s going to sell, not just give, because it won’t provide a quick powerup to benefit the war.

Chapter 4 - Librarian Narwan collects all of his students and gives them a lesson on advancing as a Core-level gatherer. He spends a bunch of time talking about how to create structures in the crystal as you form it, repeating himself multiple times, because of how important it is to get it right. Common wisdom is that it's not necessary in Seed Core, and actively makes advancing harder, but it can give you a leg up on using specific techniques.

Chapter 5 - Date night with Aleks, she prefaces by saying that she does not want to talk about the Legacy at all. “We can talk business later,” she says, “but now I want to just be a courting couple.” Aiden sweeps her into his arms and spins her around, “As you wish,” he says with a grin. She takes him to a very fancy restaurant, where they are given a private room. It’s a sushi place.

Chapter 6 - Entire team gets together to discuss leaving. Aiden shows off the flying disk, empowering it to full size, and then puts the Portable Home on the back end. It fills half the disk, but that leaves plenty of space to control it from, and the inside is accessible even when the disk is moving. Librarian Narwan tells them the rules for flying over the ocean, limiting them to a height of eighty to one hundred meters, no more or less. Too low will get you eaten by sea Beasts, too high will get you eaten by sky Beasts. Exploration of the Portable Home, discovery of how to adapt the interior, some information on possibly expanding it but would be stupidly expensive. Librarian Narwan gives them an Inscribe compass that points back to Craesti City, and then tells them he has to go ahead. Knight Kaminski stays with them, though.

Chapter 7 - Aiden passes out the items from the Legacy that he wants to give to the others. Lots of discussion and planning, then an argument happens as a bunch of people want to go explore the ruins found in Craesti City before returning home. End up deciding to go there. After discussion, everyone but Aiden, Vaya, and Aleks go back inside the Portable Home (at least one person has to be at the controls of the flying disk at all times). A Primordial approaches them, named Minokawan, and welcomes them to the sky while reiterating Librarian Narwans top height rule. They end up in a discussion about why, and Aiden is fascinated by the fact that there are societies of Beasts that live in the sky. He wants to visit, but Minokawan informs him that other Primordials are not as kind as she, and would eat him for the trespass. Aiden pouts a bit, but then warns her of the coming of Chaos.

Chapter 8 - reach the ruins. Land and store flying disk and Portable Home, as they worry that they’ll attract too much attention flying around. The ruins end up being a full city, with most locations empty of anything but dust and debris, discuss the feeling of kenopsia. Find a group of Lamia with zombies, looking for something. Ambush them, big fight. More Lamia come. Dozens of groups of Lamia and zombies, all of whom are stronger than the one they fought in Craesti City, have to be defeated. Once the city is clear, they are able to explore more.

Chapter 9 - Find a working training facility. Makes them fight without any techniques, just your martial skills. One hundred levels of increasing difficulty that attempts to teach you by doing. You are pulled out of the simulation before lethal damage is accrued, letting you repeat an attempt almost immediately. There is no penalty to trying again, and you get checkpoints at every five levels beaten . Aiden is obsessive about running through the training, and they end up spending two days just going through the training.

Chapter 10 - While resting or waiting for their turn, everyone keeps exploring, and they end up finding what the Lamia were looking for, a sealed vault. Spend time breaking into it, and discover that it has hundreds of metal ingots that glow in Aiden’s Aether Sight, a sword, a halberd, and a staff. The sword and halberd give off a feeling of sharpness, like the sword from the Legacy, while the staff looks like a black hole to Aiden’s Sight. No one wants to touch it, so palpable is the feeling of evil coming from it. Aiden tries to destroy it, but cannot so much as scratch the greasy looking metal. They decide to take it back to Craesti and hope Librarian narwan or King Craesti can destroy it. Aiden has problem storing it, as the staff actively resists any attempt at putting it into a spatial bag or his ring. FInally, he is able to force it through the door of the Portable Home, where they leave it in a bedroom covered in blankets so no one touches it.

Chapter 11 - Journey back to Craesti City. King Craesti meets them outside the city, and has them land just out of sight of the walls. Big parade walking in, after they all change into their fanciest clothes. Discuss here the upgrades Aiden’s fancy keikogi he got from the Tower of Trials. At the end of the parade, everyone who isn’t a Knight already is Knighted (as they all advanced to Core over the course of the trip back), and Aiden is promoted to Baron. Big banquet lunch and party, and then Aiden, Vaya, Jamila, and Aleks are pulled into a smaller dinner, where King Craesti teases Aiden. Headmaster Glav is there, and they have a long discussion that ends with Aiden being officially betrothed to the three young women. He mildly panics.

Chapter 12 - Next day, Aiden talks with King Craesti and others about the staff, and they try to destroy it but fail. Research is to be done by Librarian Narwan and a counselor of Craesti Academy on methods to improve their chances next time, but Aiden is stuck with the staff for now. Afterwards, Aiden is surprised when his parents arrive for a dinner with the King, where King Craesti informs him of his responsibilities as a Baron of the Kingdom. He is charged with starting and governing a town on the border of the Great Western Forest. King Craesti doesn’t expect him to begin immediately, as he needs to still attend Azyl Academy, learning and growing more, but appointing a mayor and starting to recruit citizens is within his ability now. He is given a platinum by the King to start the town with. Research and planning about what to do with the town.

Chapter 13 - Big political announcement of Aiden and Aleks’s betrothal. Smaller announcement has Vaya and Jamila being betrothed to him too. Large party, all of their family is there. Bet arrives with her team (Annabeth, Nicolai, and ???). Obvious tension between Nicolai and Aiden. Aiden tries to find Captain Svik, but he disappeared. Search for him, nothing. After a bit, pulled into a meeting with Aleks, Ming, Bet, Headmaster Glav, Headmaster (Craesti), and Captain (name) Steven, who tells them to call him Steve. Discussion about the training they’ll be undergoing as second-tiers, since they are too strong for the normal second tier training. Planning about what classes they need to take, secondary ones for Aiden specifically.

Chapter 14 - Travel back to Azyl Academy. Headmaster Glav helps transport some of them, the rest just ride on Aiden’s flying disk. Classes begin in a few days, but they have a bit of free time. Aiden gets pulled into a training by Librarian Narwan on using multiple Alchemy sets at once, and he gives him a present, a travel Alchemy set that is easily bigger than a normal one. “You can store it easily,” Librarian Narwan says, “so it counts as a travel set.” Aiden just rolls his eyes. A massive amount of Affinity powders later, and Aiden still owes a ton of them.

Chapter 15 - classes. Politics, governance, and gathering at higher tiers. Probably a whole chapter of this again, sorry for those who didn’t like the history chapter of Azyl.

Chapter 16 - more classes, scout training, group techniques - shared and joined. Shared techniques are ones where everyone does the same thing, and each technique is shared with the people to either side. Generally used by second tiers and the army for enhancing and multiplying arrows shot through a technique. Gives Condensation tier gatherers enhanced range and power by using the physical medium of an arrow. Joined techniques are much, much more complicated, where every person controls part of a massive technique, similar to area techniques but with multiple people. Team works on various shared techniques to start with, as they are easier to learn to coordinate.

Chapter 17 - more scout training. Scout teams are sixteen people, which ends up being Ming’s team, Aleks’s team, Bet’s team, and Aiden’s team. Aiden and Nicolai just avoid each other as much as they can, but they end up having to work together fairly often against targets. Aiden believes that he is partially responsible for Captain Svik’s disappearance, but Nicky seems to have no idea what Aiden’s talking about.

Chapter 18 - Alchemy!! All the alchemy, all the time. Different pills and powders done to help Bet’s team advance as fast as possible. Bet and Annabeth pay Aiden by providing all of the ingredients for their pills, and help him source ingredients to make Affinity Pills found in the Legacy.

Chapter 19 - time skip, a month or two later, discussions about the town Aiden has to build. He ends up asking Jon’s parents to lead the effort, and they all go out to where the town will be located. Scouting around the area, looking at Aether flows, soil content, sloping, water availability, etc. Jamila and Vaya find a perfect spot to set up the growing array from the Elemental Raspberries, so they enlist everyone’s help to put it up. Inscription work, with assistance from the Legacy and detail work on how to design the growing array.

Chapter 20 - Another time skip? A few more months later. Aiden is actually falling behind Vaya, Jon, and Bridget. Each layer of his core takes more and more Aether to create, while Vaya et. Al. Need less than he does. He tries to help them open more meridians, since he worries that they’ll be stuck at some point because they have a lesser storage than he does. Finally, all of Bet’s team has reached Seed Core, with Aiden, Jon, and Xiao’s help, and they are told that they will be conducting a scout of the Great Western Forest to attempt to discern where the Beast Waves are coming from. The Army has scouted, but found nothing, thought their best units are deployed to the war front. Most of the chapter is getting ready for the trip.

Chapter 21 - Meet the Water Mocassin at the Forest Father. Exploration of the area, discussion with the Mocassin what is happening to the Forest Father, and why they need to figure out what is going on.

Chapter 22 - Delve deeper into the Forest, following the weird Aether signature. Fight against a massive wave of Beasts. Lots of combat.

Chapter 23 - continued fighting, as they barely hold on. Hundreds of Beasts, techniques both shared, joint, and singular. Finally, they are running on fumes but there are still Beasts coming. Kitsune saves them, smashing the crazed Beasts and directing others around, before charging them with investigating what is causing the Beast waves.

Chapter 24 - Massive Aether flows lead Aiden et al to a Dungeon near the center of the Great Western Forest. The inside is more like the first, but immense. The entry hall is twenty meters on a side, and the hallways leading off it are similarly huge.

Two hallways forty-five degrees to the left and right. Straight ahead is a massive door covered in disturbing carvings and a spiral Inscription that leads to two open slots where something needs to be inserted. “Obviously, we need to travel down both hallways, defeat a boss, and get the keys,” Aiden says, rolling his eyes. “Couldn’t be original, no.” The dungeon prints a threatening, rambling, incoherent mess of craziness, this time without the hope that the first dungeon had. They go left first, end up in a large stone cavern. There they have to fight hundreds of Chaos Chameleons in the high/peak Condensation level, led by four goblin tamers at Seed Core. After they defeat them, the door opens. In the hallway leading out, Sia flys forward and triggers a trap that fills a section with flame. Sia doesn’t care

Chapter 25 - Next room is a puzzle room. Beams of Elemental Aether flow from the ceiling to the floor. There are dozens of mirrors, crystals, and other items to manipulate the Aether, and they have to reflect, split, and combine the Aether beams to create specific combinations in gems on the walls. Clues are in the carvings on the wall. After matching all of them, the door opens, and they cautiously move forward. No traps here. Next room is a large bridge across a river of lava. The temperature is extreme, but they are all Core and can basically ignore it. Thirty or so goblins, a mixture of warriors with shields and spears, archers, and shamans, try to prevent them from crossing the bridge. They fight, and notice that the lava is rising. Bet notices that there are three buttons along the wall on their side of the bridge. Aiden spots another five on the opposite side. They blitz through the goblins, and have to experiment with the order of button pushing. Vaya and Nicolai end up finding the clues that point them to the right order, which when pressed causes the lava to drain, revealing a door.

Chapter 26 - First sub-boss. Goblins like the previous room, with a chieftain in full-plate and at the Foundation Core level. Aiden and Jon tank the chieftain while the others defeat the rest of the enemies. Once the others can join, it becomes a simple fight by overwhelming the chieftain with ranged attacks while Jon, Aiden, Ming, and Nicolai switch off deflecting his blows. After defeating, they find a chest with a dozen Cores, some more loot (figure out later) and a half moon piece of crystal. They head back to the main entryway and place the crystal into the locked door.

Chapter 27 - First room is a trap room, lots of explosions, poisons, and attacks that they have to dodge and figure out how to avoid. After making it through with some injuries, they run into another fight room. Chimeric creatures, mixtures of bugs and various Beasts, attack them. There are dozens that bridge the gap from peak Condensation to Seed Core. More injuries and no one dies only because of Jamila saving Xiao and Ming when they are poisoned by a Beast that combines a cat and a scorpion.

Chapter 28 - another fight room. Also has dozens of traps throughout that aren’t triggered by the chimeric creatures. They figure out pretty quickly what the pattern of the traps is, and end up fighting through the Beasts quickly. Last room is twenty Beasts that are all Foundation Core. Only by exploiting that the dungeon Beasts don’t work together do they make it through the fight at all. More loot and another crystal, which they use to open the door. .

Chapter 29 - After opening the main door, they find another group of goblins. The goblins keep coming, until Aiden is able to find an inscription that is summoning them. A dozen minor clues would have helped point them to the stone that needed to be moved over the Inscription, which shuts off the influx of enemies. During the fight, before they shut off the Inscription, Annabeth stabs Steve in the back and tries to attack Jon, but he’s ready for her. The fight grows hectic and dangerous with Annabeth on the other side, until Nicky knocks her unconscious upon trying to get him on her side. Nicky isn’t a traitor, just an asshole, and they find out that Annabeth was the one who hired the assassin in Azyl. Chaos had warned someone to look for extreme talents and recruit them or eliminate them. Because Aiden hurt Nicky, she believed he wasn’t a good target for recruitment. Jamila was similarly selected for removal, but the massive increase in security caught two assassins before they stopped trying.

Chapter 30- Last challenge in the Dungeon the true boss fight. Big battles, defiant last stands, death in the main group? After defeating the boss, Aiden finds and then shatters the core.

Chapter 31- Everyone absorbs some of the crystal, including Aiden and his team. Aiden finds out that the Dungeon crystal seems to integrate itself in between the bonds of his current core layers. The massive flood of Aether is difficult for them to deal with, but not as bad as the first time. After processing, Jamila tells Aiden that the extra Core material doesn’t respond as well, and he says that it should be better when they advance to Perfect Core.

Chapter 32 - Aether flows in the area are massively disturbed by the destruction of the Core, and a massive chunk, half a meter long and a quarter wide, of crystal is still there after the Core’s death. Aiden tries to prevent more Aether from flowing into the crystal, but it forms a shield around itself with flows pushing him away. They try to stop it, but cannot. After a few minutes, a portal forms, and massive Chaos Ants pour out. They fight them off, but the flow doesn’t stop. Finally, Aiden leaps into the portal.

Chapter 33 - Aiden finds himself in an ant hill. Seconds later, the others arrive. “Kitsune showed up,” Vaya says quickly, cutting an Ant’s head off, “she’s taking care of the Ants that make it through.” “We need to find the source, and cut it off,” Aiden says. Rest of chapter is them fighting the ants, with minor time skips between sections.

Chapter 34 - Find the queen, fight against her guards and other reinforcements. Defeating the queen, they find the crystal again. Still can’t damage it, but Aiden takes a chance and touches it. He’s offered the ability to link the dungeon to another, to create a new dungeon, or to leave the portal, allowing Chaos more control and access to Zemia. He chooses to link it to Bruno, and is able to move the location over the next two days, before it’ll be set. They rush back to where Aiden’s village will be, and establish a connection. A small circle of trees grows instantly, with an arch like the one in the Ashkhas forest. Aiden steps through to find himself in Bruno’s dungeon. Bruno is ecstatic, and says that he got a brand new instance that is calibrated to the average of the group that entered.

Chapter 35 - Discussion with Librarian Narwan, Headmaster Glav, City Lord (name), about what happened, and an immediate invasion of the Haodha compound is conducted. Count Haodha is discovered to be in league with Chaos, and had used his time to reach Soul Separation like Librarian Narwan, along with two others at Soul Forming. Massive fight, Aiden et al have to fight a massive amount of Chaos Beasts and corrupted humans, while their seniors battle above them. Nicolai chooses to stand with Aiden against his family, as does a large amount of his cousins, but most choose Chaos.

Chapter 36 - defeat of the Chaos Cultists and closure of the other portal they’d opened to let the Beasts in. Vaya’s and Ming’s family divide up the majority of the Haodha business, some is left with the ones who didn’t turn traitor, and then Aiden’s Ma is given the rest. Some more work is done on setting up the village, with the knowledge that Bruno’s dungeon is there, along with the growing berry formation. Headmaster Glav declares that they have succeeded in their training, and gives permission for them to head to the front lines. The book ends with the group getting onto a boat, as they are not allowed to fly ahead. Aiden hollows out a bunk room to place the Portable Home in it, giving them a luxury beyond what anyone else on board gets.