World Sphere - 31 - Unfathamable Aether Core

Chapter 31 Unfathomable Aether Core

The next morning, I was excited and up early. I had only a few hours of sleep, but if I could make a magic device to create ice cream I would be ecstatic! I was the first one at the farmhouse and was glad to see Callem had returned. Wynna was in the larder below, so Callem had a few minutes to talk to me.

“Good morning, Storme. Yesterday, we went and got supplies in the city.” He paused as if coming to a decision and continued, “Wynna has registered as your mentor and set up an account for you with the coins you created. Well, not your coins. She used her own coins and kept your shiny platinum.”  Callem took a thick bracelet out and placed it on the counter. “This bracelet will let you withdraw coins from the Depository. You need to place a drop of your blood on the aether crystal embedded here to link it to you.”

He stopped talking as Wynna came up from below with a tray of food to prepare for breakfast. She saw the bracelet on the counter and gave a curt nod, not happy about something. They obviously disagreed on whether it was wise to give me access to my own coin. She forced a smile.

“Storme, how was your day off? Callem said you all needed it, she winked at Callem when it was clearly her who had forced him to give it to us. Who did you spend your time with?” Wynna said being a bit nosy. Maybe there was a gossip wheel on the farm?

“I just studied, rested, and ate. Nothing that great.” I said, then I thought of something. “Wynna, Aelyn showed me her reading,” Callem’s and Wynna’s faces expressed extreme surprise, so I paused.

“Wow, Storme. We both warned her to keep what was on that sheet a secret and to destroy it after she read it. She has shown you a large amount of trust, A LARGE AMOUNT of trust, Storme. Keep her secrets.” Wynna said with sincerity.

“Um, yes, I will. I am curious about getting my ether core size read, but none of my texts mention it in terms of actual numbers,” I said, keeping my tone low and somewhat pleading.

Wynna spoke thoughtfully, “I don’t have that ability, Storme, Ennet does. But maybe I can give you an idea? Well, Storme, an average person without an awakened core, has an aether count of 1; this is just what saturates a normal person’s body within the Sphere. They cannot control it as they need a core to manipulate the aether. But a single point can be utilized for abilities that require aether even if they do not have an aether core. As a person ages, they are able to use this minor amount of aether much more effectively, extending the use of their powers, but their total aether pool never increases without an aether core.” 

Wynna started working on breakfast as she continued. “A person with an awakened core usually has between 3 to 23 times that amount of aether on awakening, so their reading score usually falls in the range of 3 to 23 as their current value. As you have probably read, as aether core matures it expands slightly in size and density to fall somewhere between 10 to 20 times its initial size on awakening. That is where the maximum range in Ennet’s reading comes in. With your enhanced aether core at tier two.” 

She stopped and looked at Callem with a guilty expression because I hadn’t told her about my aether core tier, and I had told Callem it was a tier two core. It was actually a tier four core. So, I deduced that Callem had let slip my secret, but I didn’t hold it against him. He did look awfully guilty at the moment, so maybe I could get something out of him later?

Wynna’s pause ended, and she continued her lecture, “Well, each tier is three times as powerful as the last generally, so that means you should have had nine times the average on awakening—somewhere between 27 and 207 in terms of aetheric points available to you when you first awakened.” Wynna said, doing the math. Then, a manufactured shocked look passed her face. “That means when your core is fully mature, you will have between 270 and 4140 aether!”

She was shaking her head. “That is incredible, Storme. Archmages without an expanded core ability usually have somewhere in the range of 500 to 1000, I think. I am not sure about that, though. I may have read something to that effect a long time ago,” she had a distant look on her face, then returned to focus on me, “You could try casting a tier one spell over and over and count the castings. Usually, a tier 1 spell uses about 1 relative aetheric point,” she paused pulling up knowledge from memory, “Tier two about 2 aetheric points, tier three costs 4 points, and tier four costs 8 points. I assume a tier five spell costs 16, but I didn’t read that, just following the progression from a textbook I read many years ago.”

I thought for a bit while helping to prepare breakfast. Callem was silent and not making eye contact with me. Wynna was studying me. No, she realized that I might be a monster in terms of my aether core capacity. I thought for a moment that the last method didn’t work for me in my current state. My cleanliness spell varied in aether investment based on how dirty I was.

Also, every time you leveled a spell, it cost a tiny bit less aether as the mage’s efficiency increased and took a little less time to cast, and the cleanliness spell was already level seven. My mend flesh spell was sort of in the same boat as I unconsciously chained it over and over until I felt the healing was done.

Seeing my consternation, Wynna said, “I am sure Callem can bring you to visit Ennet if you really want a reading.” I looked at Callem for a second, and I sensed he would say no, but then he nodded. I was also doing some more math in my head as I had a tier four core, which meant my initial core fell between 243 and 1863! And my maximum core would be between…2,430 and 37,260! I was a monster! It now made sense how casting spells had trouble draining my aether pool, and I needed to create the coins to empty my core.

Callem spoke, breaking my inner haze of math calculations. “Yes, Storme, I can take you to Hen’s Hollow. We can visit your family and Ennet while we’re there. Your brother’s birthday is just a few days away, right?” Oh, I hadn’t planned on attending, and the fact that Callem remembered when Pascal’s birthday was, when I didn’t, made me feel guilty. However, the possibility of seeing Freya and my parents made the decision easy for me.

“That sounds good.” I paused for a second running some scenarios through my mind, trying to decide if what I was about to ask would be a good idea in the long run. “Callem, can I ask a favor?”

Callem looked defensive but nodded, so I continued, “My brother Pascal. He has a passion for the sword, and for his birthday present, I was hoping he could come out here and train with us for a while. We do have a free bunk,” I supplied hopefully.

Callem relaxed as my request was not as bad as he thought it could have been. He thought for more than a few minutes. Probably calculating how Pascal would fit into his training regimens with us. It took Wynna elbowing him not too subtly for him to agree. “Yes, that is fine. Let’s say just for a month.” Ok, I had been thinking more like a week, but a month was ok. “And Storme, this will be my apology for telling Wynna about…”

I waved away his apology, “No, it is all good, Callem. I actually don’t mind at all, as I trust Wynna completely.” This actually gave them both smiles, and we prepared breakfast in good humor. My motives for inviting Pascal were a bit more selfish. I was thinking if Pascal was stronger, then he could help protect our family better. With my wealth and Gareth’s thirst for adventure, I didn’t think I would remain on Titan’s Shield forever. There was also Sebastian’s warning about the Sadians.

The others soon came in like ravenous beasts after a long fast and devoured everything we had prepared. From the buffet, I got a stack of blueberry pancakes with butter and some summer sausage with melted cheese.

After breakfast, I realized I had four days before Callem would take me to Hen’s Hollow. The workouts were just routine for me now, as I wasn’t as focused on progressing physically as Gareth, Aelyn, or Cilia were. Leda and I shared a similar mindset; we put in a fair effort but didn’t overexert ourselves. My true focus was on studying mage craft.

With two days left before we would go to town, I finally imprinted my obfuscate spell! The spell essentially put a black unreadable haze over my entire aether soul. Wynna couldn’t read anything from me when I asked her to try so it worked! The first evolution of the spell allowed me to reveal only what I chose.

Controlling this aspect of the spell was like having a mental image of a sheet of paper and covering everything on the page except what I wanted to reveal. For my second evolution, I planned to alter what people reading me would see. Each evolution could only alter one aspect, one line on the sheet. You could turn those alterations on and off independently to either show the truth or falsify it. I was also happy to see maintaining the spell draw so little aether, so little I didn’t even notice the expenditure.

Before Callem took me to Hen’s Hollow, I managed to get the obfuscate spell up to level three by casting it non-stop for two days. My second evolution focused on the size of my aether core, which was represented as a percentage of its actual value, so I needed to get that reading from Ennet to know how to adjust it. Obtaining my precise aether core size was essential.

In my third evolution, I chose to modify what my enhanced aether core ability displayed. I decided to present it as a tier two rank instead of tier four. Since everyone already knew I had a significant amount of aether, this should give me an excuse to cast a multitude of spells in public. With those alterations completed, I kept the aether core tier two ability ‘visible’ to explain my large aether pool.

During the walk into town, Callem asked if I knew anywhere that sold chickens. Apparently, Wynna had asked him to get some as she liked fresh eggs and I used them a lot in my cooking. I told him the Gaskil farm had chicks and coops for sale. Other than that, I knew the Gyles farm had a lot of chickens as they supplied eggs to almost everyone in town who didn’t own their own chickens. I told him I liked the Gaskil’s better so Callem said we would stop there on the way into town.

The Gaskil farm was large. It had three large fields and raised sheep for milk, wool, and meat. It also had chickens and geese. I saw Monty’s parents, two massive fluffy hounds that came bounding up to us, tails wagging but not barking. I stayed in the background as the Gaskil’s came out and greeted Callem and petted the dogs.

The Gaskil twins, Meradith and Feradith were there as well. They were my age and had grown since I had last seen them. They were identical twins, blonde, blue eyes, tall and well-muscled from working on the farm. I wouldn’t call either of them cute, but they had their own allure, a sort of rough-neck cowgirl look to them, and they were always smiling, which I found extremely attractive. Something struck me…did Gareth want to get the puppy for Freya so he could see the twins? They would be in our first year of the Academy.

I was lost in thought as Callem negotiated for chickens, and the twins moved next to me to talk. They looked the same, so I wasn’t sure which one asked the question, “How is the puppy Gareth bought doing?”

“He is doing great! He is with Freya, my sister. He is extremely smart. I think you met my sister two years ago at the New Year festival. That was the last time I saw either of you! I bet I can tell who is who?” They both had wide smiles.

“Bet? What should we bet?” one of the girls asked the other. The girls seemed to communicate mentally before she looked at me and said, “Okay, Storme, how about we cook you a meal at the academy if you guess correctly? If you lose, you have to cook each of us a meal on different days.” It was well-known in town that I was a great cook, so their wager made sense. Although the stakes of the wager were not equal, I agreed. “Sure! Your Feradith, and you are Meradith.” I pointed each in turn.

Their smiles didn’t waver as they answered. “Correct! Well, I guess you had a 50-50 chance!” They said, laughing. Callem interrupted, calling me over, and I found out he had bought twenty chickens, a rooster, a large chicken coop, and a large wagon to transport everything back to his farm. The Gaskil’s would load everything and we would pick them up on the way back.

The twin's father called them back to work, and they reluctantly left me. There were about seven kids on the farm, with the addition of the parents and grandparents, and eleven people in all. I scanned the large group as they started to work on gathering the chickens into individual cages and caught the twins turning to eye me and smiling as I was leaving. I was sure once they saw Gareth, their interest in me would instantly fade. Although I had filled out and grown a few inches, I couldn’t compare to my friend.

Our next stop was Ennet’s. Callem left me there to get supplies at the general store. When I knocked, Ennet was beaming when she opened the door. “Storme! I am happy to see you! Are you here to make me dinner?” she asked teasingly.

I smiled and said, “That could be arranged. But I am also here for a reading.”

She grabbed my bicep, gently pulling me inside, “I know! My mother and I have communication stones, and she told me you were coming!” I thought she was being a little handsy, but didn’t mind. “You are getting bigger and stronger, Storme,” she complimented me, releasing her grip on my bicep.

I decided to make her something in exchange for the reading. “Let me see what you have in your kitchen,” I waved off her objections to my cooking. I needed her to do me a favor, and doing something for her in return felt natural. I quickly put together a simple pasta dish with roasted vegetables and an Alfredo sauce. After we both finished the hasty meal, we settled down for the reading, as Callem returned. Since the reading wasn’t complete yet, Callem decided to wait outside, but not before grabbing a bowl of the culinary concoction I had made.

“Storme, I know my mother has told you what to expect, so I will get right to it. Read the paper and immediately destroy it—I think I might also be able to show you what the value of your core was when it awakened, but it will be my first time trying to do that. So that might be on your paper as well.” Ennet was professional as she prepared and then did the reading.

I got that uncomfortable feeling as my blood exited my hands to write the text on the paper. Ennet left immediately when she was done. There was a candle burning on the table for me to destroy the paper after I read it.

I revealed the paper to my eyes,

Aether Core Awakening 1,153

Current Aether Core 1,384

Maximum Aether Core 23,060

I immediately burned the sheet of paper. I was a little disappointed with a few facts. First, my maximum aether was only about 23,000, short of my estimated potential of 37,000. I know I was crying over nothing. My current aether core was already slightly larger than an archmage, according to Wynna. The second thing I was unhappy with was that my core had only expanded by 231 from all the practice I had done in the last few months. Ennet returned shortly after I burned the paper.

I must have looked disappointed because she said, “Don’t worry, Storme. My readings are not completely accurate. Well, your current aether core number is accurate, but your maximum core size could be low by as much as 10%. It depends on how dedicated you are to your training in the next decade as your core cements. Aether cores are fluid by nature during development.” She came up and gave me a full hug. “You will be an amazing mage, Storme, just work hard at it.”

I left, rejoining Callem, and we headed to my home for Pascal’s birthday celebration.