EG Book 7 notes then outline

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

Sorry this is late. I got a COVID shot on Thursday, and Joy one on Saturday, which made everything late. The first post is the raw notes I wrote over 2 weeks. In a bit, I’ll post the more final outline pulled from it. Let me know what you think!

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

First few chapters - aftermath of Legacy. Give Sultah Aleahil the portal plans, describe what happened. Explore the Legacy, find a few new and interesting things. Find the next few stages of Gathering. Give the information to Librarian Narwan, get promised rewards. Date night with Aleks, no assassins. Dungeon run, medium difficulty, Aiden blows through the first four waves by himself, struggles but ultimately wins on the fifth. Everyone else on his team decides to finish through the fourth level and stop. Get some cool rewards, but not too big because of his massive jump in power. Maybe have the team beat the first wave on the hard difficulty? Or just a discussion after they finish the medium difficulty, with Bruno wanting them to come back. (Ooh, they could get a thing from the destroyed dungeon at the end to let them jump to a new instance of Bruno’s dungeon, something like the portal to the Divine Territory, and Bruno gets a new instance that has a variable difficulty based upon what they want? That’d be fun, I think, and he can put it in his town. Later on he could find another, and let him basically teleport around with Bruno’s help. Not this book though, maybe the next?)

More details! Chapter one, day after the big party. Aiden wakes up while it is still dark out. He’s alone in his room, Jon sleeping over with Bridget. He looks out over the city and grins, as the party is still ongoing. He then looks through the Legacy. The first part he examines is the gathering techniques, where he finds a listing of Core runes that range from level one to five, then a series of combined runes that reach level nine, better than anything he has except his Lightning rune.

The Legacy is very different from normal knowledge stones. He finds himself in a long hallway with doors on either side. Core runes is the first door on the right’s label, and entering he finds himself in room full of bookshelves. Each book is a rune, acting as a standard knowledge stone, though he can read a description on the first page without being pulled into the memory. He checks out a couple lower level runes, then dives into the most complex one he finds. Based upon his Affinities, there are only a few runes he cannot use. With that limitation on him, he pops out of that particular Legacy stone and into the Alchemy one. Again, long hallway with rooms off it. Nothing like Affinity powders anywhere but they do have a long listing of Affinity pills. Most are extremely complicated and use rare ingredients, but some seem fairly simple. Aiden memorizes a few, but the ingredients are mostly unfamiliar to him. Decides that Librarian Narwan will teach him some as well, and he wants to give him a gift. Aiden then goes to the Soul Strengthening gathering technique stone to find out what Librarian Narwan needs to do to advance. Spend some time here describing what I laid out on Patreon (copy into here). Maybe more detail. He doesn’t try to learn any of the techniques to actually do that, though, as he is warned that knowledge outside of his tier has a chance of hurting him badly.

Enough time has passed that breakfast is being served, so he goes down to eat. Some discussion with Vaya and Jamila about what he found, then he just gives them the stone with the core runes in it. They aren’t surprised, but the other diners are flabbergasted by the gift, even though it is only a loan. Librarian Narwan finds him right after breakfast, and the rest of the chapter is Aiden being pulled into a meeting with Sultah Aleahil, Librarian Narwan, Aleks, Gunter, (Topraki heir), (Ashkhas heir), Ambassador (Craesti name) and a few others. Sultah Aleahil starts the meeting by asking Aiden if he has had a chance to review the Legacy, and if so what is he willing to share. Aleks interrupts and says that anything Aiden shares should be rewarded. Gunter laughs and says “Of course.” Aiden interjects, “For now, I want to give all of the Gathering level gathering techniques away on the promise you will give them to everyone in your nations.” “Why?” Sultah Aleahil asks. “A calamity is coming,” Aiden says, “and only by strengthening everyone will we survive it.” “So why not share everything?” “Too much, too quickly, might shatter the nations,” he answers, “which is kinda counter productive.” Everyone laughs sadly. Aiden looks at Librarian Narwan, “I do have the information about how to advance through Soul Strengthening. Unfortunately it is not a fast process, so it probably won’t give us a decisive advantage against the Illyrians.” A stream of offers from everyone except Librarian Narwan and Aleks erupts around him. Eventually, Aiden says that he will sell it to all of the nations, if given sufficient remuneration, but that can wait for later. He then pulls out the portal instructions, and gives them to Sultah Aleahil on the promise that all four nations will have equal representation in the five year trials.

After asking for a day to think about what he would want from everyone, Aiden spends a few more hours exploring the Legacy, looking at other alchemy recipes, gathering techniques for Core gatherers, and combat techniques for Core gatherers. So much new information is hitting that he ends up with a splitting headache and has to rest. He ends up asking for significant resources to bring Jamila’s and Aleks’s teams up to Core ASAP, additional tutoring on various tempering and training techniques used by the other three races, and one hundred years of no taxation from any of the races. Free passage to all nations for him and anyone with him. A commitment to sharing knowledge developed from the Legacy, .

Lesson for Aiden and team on how to advance as a Core-level gatherer. Description of how you have to gather to full, then overfill yourself while cycling the Aether in specific patterns. Typically takes twice as much Aether as you hold normally, but can take up to three times if your storage is small. If you are distracted or interrupted, you might lose control and let hte Aether blast through you. Then you have to fix all the damage, any cracks or chips in your already created Core, before you can start over to make a new layer. Each layer adds to your ability to hold Aether, so it makes the amount necessary to advance increase by double or more.The first layer takes Aiden nearly three hours of continuous gathering even with his advanced techniques and a powder assistance, simply due to his utterly massive amount of storage to start with. This ends up slowing Aiden down compared to the others, though they do work on opening up a few more meridians for the rest of his team.

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.

Travel back to Craesti using the flying disk and hut. Gathering and exploration a bit. Have to fly at around a hundred meters, too low get eaten by sea creatures, too high and get eaten by sky creatures. Primordial flying Beast flys nearby, some discussion. Go to the ruins found in Craesti

Librarian Narwan has to go ahead of them, trusting that they can take care of themselves. The flying surfboard expands to be twelve meters long and six wide, giving plenty of space to set the hut up on the front. The metal feels slick and cold to the hand, but each step clumps down, as if their feet had magnets pulling them to the surface. Hundreds of runes swirled across the silvery metal, lighting up blue, purple, and a pale gray. Aiden could see the flows of Aether the item put out, pushing them upwards and forwards while shielding them from the wind of their passage. The whoosh of the air was barely audible, along with a quiet hum. Aiden was given an Inscribed navigation device that pointed to one carried by Librarian Narwan, who would drop it off with King Craesti if he had to leave the city before they arrived. Aleks and Vaya convince him to use it to navigate to the ruins they discovered, arguing that a day extra of travel wasn’t too long of a detour.

The hut filled the back half of the surfboard. The hut was made of a pale wood, with a bright green door. There were no windows, and the roof was flat. The dark grey shingles covering the roof were a smooth clay, but Aiden was pretty certain he could not hope to break a single one. Inside, the main room was five meters on each side, with a three meter high ceiling. The walls were unpainted, bare for Aiden to decorate. All of his girlfriends had expressed different desires for how to decorate it. The room held four tables with four chairs in a darker wood, with a reddish tint to it. The leftmost wall held four doors, which Aiden found led to the Smithing room, Alchemy room, Inscription room, and lastly the kitchen. The center wall had two doors, which led into smaller common areas with two couches. Each common room had four doors leading into the bedrooms, which were four meters by five in size, with a desk, chair, and bed. The right wall mirrored the center wall, connecting to the other eight bedrooms. Each bed had a different colored quilt on top. To the right of the exit door on the same wall was a shimmering ball that glowed brightly in Aiden’s Aether Sight, and a note left next to it let him know that was the control for the Portable Home. By accessing it, Aiden realized he could rearrange the rooms, deleting or adding as he wanted, as long as the overall area enclosed was the same. He could not change the height of the rooms, though, which annoyed him. He decided to leave them alone for now, afraid he’d screw something up if he changed too much.

Aiden uses this time to pass out the things he wants to share from the Legacy, other than the amulets which he gave out much earlier. Ming gets the sword. Jamila the spear. Jon gets the shield, and Bridget the cloak. He tries to give the helmet and breastplate to Aleks, but she declines. Her entire team refuses gifts, saying they can afford items of a similar scale already. Aiden does insist that Aleks take To Call the Heavens, as a last-minute life saving device, because her enemies will be much stronger than her. Lea ends up getting the breastplate and helmet. The necklace is shared around, with Aleks’ team getting the majority of time to start with, since they will have the least access. Aiden keeps the Inscribed plate, the belt, the flying disk and portable home. Xiao feels left out, until Lilianna says she’ll help him get a new armor set when they get back to Craesti City. He’s more excited to spend an afternoon with Lilianna than the present.

A few days out a giant bird Primordial focused on Metal flies next to them. It is enormous, with a wingspan of hundreds of kilometers when Aiden first sees it. It is so big that Aiden doubts his eyes, and its Aether blinds him. The Primordial shrinks to be about the size of Sia at his max before coming alongside them while putting up an aura shield so that its presence in his Aether Sight turns from so bright that it damages his eyes to merely blindingly bright. It flies without flapping its wings to prevent the downdraft from throwing them into the sea. Aiden finds out it is a she and she is named Minokawan. She offers welcome to the sky and a warning, that they were drifting upward and would be guilty of violating the agreement between the Primordials of the Sky and the nations of the ground. Aiden talks to her for a while, learning a bit more about the Primordials and the Beasts that never land. Apparently there is a type of krill that floats in the air at a kilometer up that a number of plant eating species eats. There is a refractive layer to the sky that prevents many of the people from below from seeing the Beasts up above. Aiden finds it fascinating, and realizes that there is a natural illusion technique, not refraction as the Beast thought. He really wants to study it, but Minokawa refuses to allow them higher, as there are other, more hardline Beasts who would eat him if he dared. Aiden warns her about Chaos coming, and she agrees to spread the word to the Beasts of the Sky.

Ruins in Craesti, was a trading city. Find a training arena, no techniques just martial skills, like the training pavilion but able to disperse the opponent before you would take mortal damage, instantly healing your projection so you can retry a level. Completing the challenge, 100 levels, gifts you a mental knowledge of how to best use your weapons. Use kenopsia here

Multiple Lamia, with their zombie (look up name) cohorts are prowling through the city, trying to find something. They end up fighting through a dozen groups. All of the Lamia are Seed Core or the level above, while their minions are at the high end of Condensation. Only after clearing the city do they find the training arena. They also find a vault that holds a number of precious metal ingots, two swords and a staff. The staff looks like a black hole to Aiden’s Aether Sight, and makes everyone else uneasy. It is what the Lamia are looking for. The disturbing feeling makes Aiden want to destroy it, but they are unable to. It is a Soul Strengthening level artifact, and would require Librarian Narwan or someone of his level to break it. It actively resists being put into Aiden’s ring or any bag, so they end up wrapping it in a blanket and throwing it in an unused bedroom of the Portable Home. It had tried to resist entering, but for some reason it wasn’t as strong, so Aiden was able to shove it into the main room, where all fight drained from it. He didnt’ trust that, so resolved to give it to Librarian Narwan or King Craesti as soon as he could. Xiao and (someone) take the swords, which were lesser versions of the one Ming received. The ingots are shared between everybody, with Aiden and Ming both overruling Aleks’ argument that her team didn’t need any. Maybe change one weapon to be whatever Lilianna or Milena use.

They spent a few days after fighting the Lamia recovering and exploring. Lots of fragments of items, broken pottery and plates etc., found, but only the vault and the arena are hole. The arena needs Aether inserted to run, and they use a few of the Beast Cores they have to power it. Everyone runs through it once, learning some better techniques and how to fight to maximise their new strength and capabilities. Even those who aren’t at Core yet are given techniques to use for Core.

After exploring, return to Craesti. More political fallout, discussion about the future. King Craesti welcomes Aiden with open arms. Headmaster Glav arrives the day after, and a series of discussions allow Aiden to formally betrothe Aleks, Vaya, and Jamila. Lots of discussion, and then it is decided that Aleks and her team will move to attend Azyl Academy. Captain Svik is notoriously absent, and Aiden finds out that he vanished shortly after arriving from the Askhas island. No one knows what he discovered or why he left to come so quickly back.

Headmaster Glav arrives within hours of the team’s arrival. Librarian Narwan is annoyed with them, having anticipated that they would have arrived two days prior. Aiden explains where they were and what they found before handing over the staff, still wrapped in a blanket. Librarian Narwan promises to examine the item and determine what should be done with it. End up getting a massive group together, including four of the eight Soul Strengthening gatherers in the kingdom, to destroy the staff. Takes a massive ritual, with hundreds of participants, to fully suppress the evil inherent to the staff and let them destroy it.

Everyone ends up being given rooms in the castle (check Craesti City for name), and Aiden has to go to dinner with the king, queen, Aleks, and her brother. King Craesti starts off by asking Aiden where he got the gall to court Aleks without asking him first. Aiden panics, stammering through a description of the crocodile encounter and how Aleks kissed him first, before King Craesti bursts into laughter. “I saw this coming,” he told Aiden, winking at Aleks, “and would have released the line before that fish was caught if I did not approve.” Aleks smacks her dad’s shoulder, who just keeps laughing. Queen (name) says that she is happy Aleks found love, and didn’t have to marry for the good of the kingdom. Discussion ends up with King Craesti saying they would not have forced her into any marriage, but he is glad that the one she picked is politically acceptable too. At this point, Aiden is panicking as he realizes that the King is treating their marriage as a done deal, but he was thinking they were only still working on the ‘do i really like them?’ stage of dating, not the “Do I want to marry them?” stage. Vaya and Jamila are invited to the next dinner, and the four of them are grilled for hours about their relationships by the king and queen. Headmaster Glav, Librarian Narwan, and Aiden, Vaya, and Jamila’s parents are all brought in for dinner, and it becomes more and more embarrassing for the kids as they tell tales of their childhoods, though Ma and Pa only tell of the time when he was learning how to walk after Caleb and Aiden merged. Vaya and Jamila’s parents are brought into Aiden’s secret, and admonished by the King to not tell anyone else. Here is where the King springs on Aiden that Aleks and her team will be joining Azyl Academy rather than Craesti Academy for their second year, along with an admonishment that he needs to be ready to graduate soon thereafter. “Knowledge can be gained while serving,” King Craesti tells him. “But people of power and capability will be needed on the front lines if we are to truly destroy the Illyrian Empire.” When Aiden asks what level is considered graduation, he is told that Seed Core is all that is required, but that there are a few more classes that he has to take. There is a class on Core-level gathering, a class on politics and the political structure of Craesti along with its relations to the other nations, and a class on managing and leading a town, though it’ll probably end up being his family that is in charge of a town that he is given.

Jon, Vaya, and Bridget are all given a Knightship, and then Aidens’ title is upgraded to Baron (this should be the next one), and he was given a charge to set up a new town on the edge of the Great Western Forest. Because he is still in training at Azyl Academy, his remit to start the town is delayed until he can find a leader for the town in his stead, though the King does expect that he plan ahead of time to ensure success. Specifically, he needs to find someone else to be mayor of the town and rule in his stead, because he will be too needed on the frontlines of the war. The area he is given to rule is adjacent to the Barony where Bridget grew up, and she is promised that, once she reaches Perfect Core, she will be given the Barony, and the baron already there moved to a new location. She tells the king that he isn’t doing a very good job of improving the lives of his people, and King Craesti promises to investigate immediately.

Back to Azyl. More politics, training, alchemy, and scout training. Steve is their trainer. A sixteen person team is put together for scout training, as opposed to the standard training normally given to second tiers. Ming’s, Aleks’, Aiden’s, and Bet’s team, including Nicolai and Annabeth. Aiden watches them like a hawk as he expects betrayal, but none come. Lots of friction because of their prescient, but they are the strongest students in his age group. Scout training, Core training, group techniques and large scale techniques, more gathering, new core runes, core rune development, alchemy, pills and powders. Spend some time making a frankly ridiculous amount of Affinity Powders, then giving them out to smaller schools to assist with bringing the weakest members of society higher.

Aiden gifts Headmaster Glav all of the new Core runes he has access to, on the promise that she put them into the offering for new students. All of the first, second, third, and fourth tier are given access to the core rune knowledge stone to improve what they have already. He spends more time exploring the gathering technique information, finding Gathering and Circulation techniques that were nearly as good as what Librarian Narwan taught him, and he started to teach everyone. Knowledge spreads, and hundreds of people who would have been stuck in Gathering manage to advance, and yet more people are able to move up the ranks of Circulation, strengthening the city and the kingdom. More techniques, more recipes are brought out. Aiden also seeks his parents’ advice on who could be a good mayor, and ends up giving the position to Jon’s dad, who is flattered. At one point, they travel to Aiden’s land, and then Vaya, Jamila, and Bridget set up a growing formation and they plant the Elemental Raspberries. It takes time, but over the course of a few days they are able to set it up. Jamila is super happy, as she is given leave to create a massive garden to her liking, with the promise that it is hers forever. A minor Beast Wave occurs while they are there, and they are able to blunt it before it would reach any town. They plot out where to build what for the initial construction of Aiden’s town, and then they head back to Azyl to procure supplies and advertise the opening of the town. Jon’s parents’ take over the process at this point and are given the platinum coin that Aiden was awarded at his elevation.

Expedition to Great Western Forest once they finish the main portion of the scout training. Aiden and co have advanced to the early/middle Seed Core stage (of beginning, early, middle, advanced, top, peak) by this point, but Aiden is having issues keeping up to advancement rates due to the utterly ridiculous amount of Aether he can process and hold, and thus how much he needs to gather in order to advance just a single layer. So he’s only done twenty layers, while Vaya is at thirty, and Jon at forty. Being so advanced isn’t necessarily so good, and Aiden worries that Jon especially won’t be able to advance to Soul Strengthening. Throughout this time, Aiden is going through the Legacy and doling out the lower level information freely. At some point, we need to see the amulets work, which Aiden gave to the people of his generation, forcing Sultah Aleahil, (emperor of Weltreich) and (grand Khan of Topraki) to keep them close and happy. Aiden discovers he can exclude specific amulets from the call when the Grand Khan shows up instead of (Topraki heir). Information is spread, and Aiden discovers that those in the “call” can access knowledge that he wills them to get, allowing him to give techniques, core runes, and other items to the various nations.

Meet the snake mentioned at the forest father from book 2?. Vaya and Jamila both contribute to strengthening the tree, but it is still declining. The tree only has months to live, when it should be eternal, and the snake doesn’t know why. They are charged with finding the cause, a dozen extremely rare ingredients are given, and Aiden is able to use them immediately to create a set of pills that Librarian Narwan had designed based upon the Legacy, strengthening the Metal and Earth Affinities of everyone. Aiden is able to see an Aether flow that disturbs him and he believes it is the cause of the damage.

The forest clearing is huge, nearly a hundred meters in diameter (verify). The lake in the center is crystal clear, revealing the swaying green plants floating in its depths. The shore is lined with brilliant colors, flowers, stems, and leaves glowing in Aiden’s Aether Sight. The weakest plant he could see was a level four Morning Lily. “This place is a gold mine,” I said, amazed at my surroundings. Of course, the Forest Father occupied the majority of my attention. The massive tree extended into the sky beyond my eyesight, its branches reaching over our heads, even though they weren’t visible outside of the clearing. Leaves the size of my torso waved on the branches above me, glowing with enough Aether that my head hurt looking at it, until I could get my Sight to filter it out. Only by focusing on my Divine Senses Technique and using it to cut off parts of my Sight was I able to see the level eight Water Moccasin twirled around the lowest branch.

Aiden ends up speaking with the Moccasin, learning that he is the guardian of the Forest Father, and he doesn’t know why it is dying. He suspects that something is draining its Aether, feeding upon it rather than living in a symbiosis. Upon his promise to find the source and solve the problem, Aiden is given leave to take cuttings of every plant around. He gets just enough to make twenty Bones of the Earth Affinity Pills, which improve both Earth and Metal Affinity, though not as much as a dedicated pill for either. He uses the travel Alchemy set that Librarian Narwan had given him before they left the Ashkhas Baqiya, which massively improves his ability to create the pills. Even with the resources to make twenty pills, he is only able to successfully create seventeen. He gives a second to Jon, telling him to give it to his father in exchange for serving as the mayor of Aiden’s town. Jon is super appreciative, but Aiden just says that he needs his family to reach Core so they can protect the town better.

In the expedition, they go deeper than ever, following a massive Aether track to try and find out why the Forest Father is dying and why there have been Beast Waves at ten times the normal rate. A Beast Wave starts while they are inside the Forest, requiring them to defend and survive. This one is not a minor wave as seen before, but consists of dozens of level six and seven Beasts driving a veritable horde of level four and less Beasts ahead of them. They fight, the massive benefits that their tempering, techniques, and other successes helping them defend against the wave. In the end, though, it seems futile as there are just too many Beasts. A Primordial, Kyubi—no Kitsune, arrives as they are getting close to being overwhelmed and saves them, then asks for help to destroy the corruption that is causing the Beast Waves. She was summoned by the Water Moccasin, who knew something was coming that would threaten them. They follow her, and find another dungeon, this one still connected to Chaos and desiring the death of all living beings. Former serial killer, truly depraved individual (model off bad girl from Sorcerer Eternal?), wants to die but wants to take as many with him as he can. Fight through the dungeon, and end by shattering the dungeon core. All the others are able to absorb pieces, though they report a difficulty in adjusting to the new Core material. Aiden lets them know that they probably won’t be able to fully use the Core until they go through a Tribulation. Primordial arrives and thanks them for fixing the Aether flows in the Forest. The book ends with them leaving the forest, mourning Steve who died when Annabeth betrayed them all. Find out that Nicky was just an asshole, but wasn’t a traitor to the Craesti and didn’t actually know that his parents were. Annabeth crows that they are doomed, and unties with the Dungeon to fight them, but Nicky, who was pulled by her to her side, stabs her in the back. He ends up breaking down and crying afterwards, barely able to function afterwards. They have successfully destroyed the Dungeon and saved the people of Craesti from dozens of Beast Waves that were preventing them from rebuilding the towns that were destroyed. King Craesti shows up at the very end, saying that Librarian Narwan had left for the Illyrian war front. They brief him about what happened, and he takes them back to Azyl Academy. After a short discussion, Headmaster Glav gives them leave to head to the Illyrian war front. The book ends with the team being loaded onto a boat and headed to Illyria? Or is earlier better, after talking to King Craesti?

Dungeon setup - need to draw out what it looks like, assign room occupants, traps, and how combat really happens at the Core level. If you can affect the world for a kilometer, how does that look in a room five meters square? What does it mean to be Core, and how do I make the fights interesting? The Legacy needs to come into play, where the items given to people become relevant and important. The journey into the Forest becomes easier because of the Portable Home, and Aiden doesn’t have to use the travel alchemy set too much because of the Portable Home. Librarian Narwan gifts him a very fancy Alchemy set that isn’t portable just because of the Home.