A Soldier's Life - 391 - (edited 5-16-25 +250 words)

Chapter 391:

My physical stats looked about as I expected from the training I had done since Godok. If Konstantin saw my reading, he would probably say I was not reaching my full potential. It did get more and more challenging, the closer a person came to his or her potential. I was also extremely fortunate that my attributes had all been fortified, otherwise they would have definitely reverted when I had not been able to focus train.

Physical

Strength (+2/+0) 74/86

Power (+6/+1) 86/97

Quickness (+1/+0) 70/75

Dexterity (+0/+0) 68/75

Endurance (+3/+0) 91/98

Constitution (+0/+0) 66/73

Coordination (+3/+0) 71/82

As Maveith had pointed out many times, quickness was the most valuable attribute when it came to fighting. Although my speed surpassed almost every human and elf I had fought, there were creatures out there that had proved to be faster. I had two such creatures in my dimensional space: the demon quasits. I should have harvested them when we returned to Gramney. I had planned to have Ignis make a cage for them so I could release them safely and in a controlled manner before using the collector on them. I was distracted and in no rush, and then news came of the otherworlder humans. I scanned my mental attributes next.

Mental

Intellect (+5/+0) 48/58

Reasoning (+0/+0) 58/62

Perception (+1/+0) 62/65

Insight (+2/+0) 49/54

Resilience (+3/+0) 60/71

Empathy (+1/+0) 26/26

Fortitude (+6/+0) 77/90

My attribute growth was mildly surprising. I could understand the intellect jump with all the books I had been reading in both Godok and the dreamscape, but the jump in fortitude seemed out of place. Mages usually trained their fortitude by practicing their spellcraft under extreme mental duress. It was closely linked to resilience, which helped a person defend against outside stimuli, usually from monster aura effects. I just couldn’t recall being challenged, but then my new normal had greatly shifted over the last three years.

Magical

Aether Pool (+2/+5) 30/33

Channeling (+5/+0) 51/67

Aether Shaping (+1/+0) 13/13

Aether Tolerance (+0/+0) 52/56

Aether Resistance (+0/+0) 19/22

Prime Aether Affinity Space

I sighed as I looked at my magical attributes. I knew I had hit a wall in my shaping during the lessons with Lesna. For me, it was now more about maximizing what I could do with my current control. Aether shaping essences were some of the rarest essences. I was more keyed on my aether pool for three reasons. One, I was getting close to having a large enough pool to imprint a displacement spell form. And second, Elaro thought I needed to expand my aether core to the high forties before I could safely unlock a new affinity. And finally, among the magic attributes, channeling and aether were the most common.

I turned my attention to the other side of the tablet reader to review my magic affinities even though I knew very little had changed. When I meditated, I could actually feel the strength of each aspect now, and even trace out where each affinity was on my core. I begrudgingly admitted that this advancement was due to Lesna’s lessons and my channeling growth of pulling aether from the environment while meditating. I could even “push” aether through my cores various facets to “flavor” the aether. I was sloppy, but this was actually a hugely important step for being able to casting spells.

Elemental Magics (Common)

Fire 0

Air 0

Water 7

Earth 46 Earth Speak

Lightning (Energy) 8

Spirit (Healing) 26 Self Healing

Nature (Plant) 0

Unaffiliated Magics (Uncommon)

Charm (Mind) 23 Mind Fortress

Illusion 15 (+2) Aether Sight

Clairvoyance 0

Protection (Guardian) 30 Air Shield

Necromancy 0

Celestial (buff) 0

Abyssal (debuff) 0

Rare Magics

Space 101 Dimensional Pocket

Time 90 Slow Aging

Displacement 80

Materialism 9

Worlds 88

Void 22 Purify body

Convergence 74 Essence Assimilation

The variety of my spell forms would make any mage jealous, including the halfling next door to me. Only when I showed her how piss poor my shaping actually was did she believe me that I was not hiding my spellcraft. The best place by far to find magic affinity essences was a dungeon, either in a reward chest or with a rare dungeon-artificed collector.

Physical essences were common, while mental essences were uncommon. My plan was to help Evie by finding her one of each essence, both physical and mental, to fortify her attributes so they would not degrade during her training. This meant we would have to do some hunting in the wilds before approaching the Death Hunters’ Citadel. Or possibly, detour to a dungeon. There were two in the Kingdom of Nausis that would be suitable for our needs.

The Restless Mountain Dungeon was in the city of Mubearos. The entire city formed around the dungeon as it produced large quantities of mined copper and iron ore that the dungeon replenished. It also allowed for large numbers of entrants at twenty.

The Savage Grotto was a less popular dungeon, but it was a very long trek through the northern wilds of the Nausis Kingdom to a fort called Ephidnapol. The dungeon itself was home to a myriad of goblinoid races and was more dangerous because they were sapient and employed strategic tactics. It had to be delved, otherwise the dungeon would release its creations into the Endless Dark, and they would eventually make it to the surface. The only positive was the artifacts the dungeon rewarded. But still, travelling nearly eight hundred miles each way would take weeks.

A knock at my door prompted me to send out an earth pulse. The image was terrible, but the height revealed the person on the other side. “Lesna, what do you want?” I asked, opening the door. “I just thought to ask you if I should toss the dungeon medallions overboard,” she said seriously.

“You are not going to turn them in for a reward?” I asked, surprised. There was an unwritten rule that adventurers always returned the medallion of fallen adventurers to the guild so families could be notified. Due to the mercenary nature of being an adventurer, it was understood there was a possibility we would have to fight each other. Lesna held the medallions of the adventurers that had taken a contract to hunt our necromancer, Evie.

“I asked around before we left, and they were kind of well-known,” she said hesitantly.

I nodded, seeing the wisdom. “You don’t trust their friends not to track down whoever turns them in. I thought you were going to do it anonymously.”

“Clairvoyant magic,” she said simply. True, in a world of magic, no secret was safe.

“Toss them,” I confirmed. She went to the porthole in the hallway, unlatched it, and dropped them off the stern into the ship's wash. “Hope it helps you sleep better.” She nodded vigorously and returned to her cabin with Evie.

The Sensible Seahorse cut the waves surprisingly smoothly over the first leg of our journey. There were some sixty other passengers on board the vessel, who roamed the deck during the day. I had Benito and Blaze train with me on deck before the sun got too brutal in the morning. A few other passengers joined us, but none had serious proficiency with weapons. This was a poor man’s transport, after all.

Lesna and Evie joined me in my cabin after practice, and we worked on our magic skills. Lesna was completely self-trained, and she had some very unique approaches and explanations for magic that made more sense than the texts I had read. Blaze and Benito would join us for a large lunch supplied from my space, and then I went into language lessons with Evie as she worked on her Elvish. I showed patience as she stumbled through learning the language, and we bonded, sometime breaking into laughter when we compared what the Elvish words sounded like in English. Sometimes Lesna or Blaze joined us as well, but Benito had no interest in learning the complex language.

Our first port stop was Linshin two days later. Linshin was a massive city sprawl of mostly humans. We were warned by the first mate that only had eight hours before the ship was leaving the dock, so I told everyone to remain on board and I would visit a few vendors close by and bring back samples of the local cuisine.

The humidity was brutal, and I was sweating as I walked the streets near the port. The street vendors didn’t speak Elvish, but I used the tried-and-true method of communicating by pointing with my fingers and holding up a few coppers to ask how much.

I knew all my companions had a sweet tooth, so I focused on sickly-sweet delights, my favorite being a deep-fried carrot. At least it looked like a carrot, but the sweetness and crispy shell of the vegetable made me think it was something else. I had wandered a distance and started to approach the trade district, and was about to return to the ship when I noticed a book shop. I would be foolish not to take a look at least.

The musty smell of books greeted me, and a frail old woman with silvery white hair looked up from the book she was reading. Her gray eyes had a youthful liveness to them that made me reconsider her age. She cracked a smile and nodded, as I was the only one in her shop in the heat of the day. I returned her nod and walked along the shelves, but most books appeared to be in the Kingdom’s tongue.

“Do you have any books in Elvish?” I asked after walking through quickly.

The woman smiled, and I was somewhat surprised she still had all her teeth and they were healthy. My Hound training was nagging at me to make sure she was not a shapechanger, but I didn’t have time for it, and I already had my own problems on the Sensible Seahorse to deal with. She spoke in a tone that sounded younger than her age as well with excellent Elvish. “Don’t get many requests for pointy ear books in this part of the city. Top shelf at the end of that row,” she motioned and stood to walk me over.

Her body moved slowly, revealing her age. She could have used a potion for her teeth, and her eyes just gave me a glimpse into her true spirit. She walked past me, and her body odor reminded me of someone—Gilda. It was a weird sense to rely on, but damn it, she was a changeling. My instincts had been right. Changelings were sometimes persecuted and sometimes not, depending on the nation. At least they were not inherently bloodthirsty like shapechangers who saw humans as prey. I decided I was not going to stir the shit on this one. She smiled after pointing at the books and returned to her desk to read.

The bindings were faded and hard to read, which is probably why I missed them on my first walkthrough. There were only about twenty books. I didn’t have time to page through them all, so I just looked for one that was interesting. Most appeared to be novels or historical accounts. Finally, I found something interesting: an Elven tome studying dungeon artifacts that I was certain was not part of my dreamscape library.

I walked the book to the woman with two romance novels for Evie to practice reading Elvish. She smiled and paged through the first few pages of all three books. “Two gold,” she tapped the artifact book. “Ten silver each,” she tapped the romance books.

I laughed, “You said not many people pass through your store with an understanding of Elvish. All those books had a layer of dust on them. They may sit there forever.”

She looked me in the eyes, amused. “And there are not many books written by Laeroth Sylceran,” she tapped the book on dungeon artifacts. “One of the greatest researchers of the last millennium. You could sell that book to any library for a large gold or more.”

“Then why haven’t you already?” I countered smugly, thinking I had won the haggling. If she got too demanding, then I would page through it and return it to the shelf. I was trying to do the changeling a favor by purchasing it, as it didn’t appear she got much business in her store.

“I wish my collection to go to those who can appreciate it,” she replied smoothly. “I am not wanting for wealth.” She patted the tome, and slid it closer to her, “But I am not a charity either.”

“Fine.” The snippets of text I had read was at least interesting. I opened my palm to reveal two ancient gold coins and two large silver from a long-dead kingdom in the Telhian Empire and placed them on her desk. I could tell the woman enjoyed history and was well learned. She took the coins Maveith had cleaned with interest. 

“Gallos coins. Third Era, if I am not mistaken,” she said, surprised, still studying them.

“You would know better than I. I just dug them up,” I said, sliding the books under my arm. “Have a good day.” I left the changeling studying the coins.

I returned to the ship in plenty of time before we untied. Blaze was on deck, waiting to confirm I had returned. I was sure that if I hadn’t, he would have prevented the captain from leaving. “Any trouble?”

“Benito tossed someone over the rails who solicited Lesna and Evie on deck,” he said unconcerned.

“Another passenger?” I asked.

“One of the sailors. The captain told him not to come back aboard,” Blaze said, amused. I nodded and went to my cabin, and we spent the last two hours as a group eating. They managed to get through half of what I had purchased in Linshin. The ship broke out of the bay before sunset at the perfect timing for the outgoing tide, and we were back at sea hugging the coast.

After nightfall, I opened my new tome. Under the light of a glowstone, I slowly flipped through the book, and the old woman was right—Laeroth Sylceran was a brilliant researcher. He was trying to understand why dungeons created certain artifacts. I was so enthralled that I was actually reading the book instead of paging through it just to add it to the dreamscape.

I reached a chapter called: “Artifact Affinities and Aetheric Specificity.” I started to swear and curse in my head as I reread the chapter twice before putting down the book. I think I have been using my collector completely wrong!

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