Legacy of the M'Zee Chapter 25

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

Not a whole lot of work done this week. Spent a lot of time with the family and relaxing. Going to write a bunch tomorrow, though, and keep pushing forward on Legacy. Please have as much of your edits/thoughts/comments on Energy Barons up by this coming weekend! I've only got two weeks until it goes to the editor.

*** AUTHOR'S NOTE ***

I managed to make twenty seven pills with the ingredients given. Other than what I used, there were several dozen vials of rare materials that I packaged and bundled into my bag. I looked over to the timer and saw that I had about a day left before this particular challenge ended.

“Okay, now what?” I asked myself. “Well, getting stronger is always useful. Twenty-seven pills means I can take two and save the rest for everyone else. I’ll be generous to my countrymates only, though.” I thought for a second, “Well, let’s take one and see how it goes. Maybe one will be enough. I’ve got the books and I’m sure Librarian Narwan or Counselor Sila will be able to teach me many more recipes for pills to push us all forward. Just gathering in this room will help me advance anyway.”

I looked at the pills, all of them laid out in different jars, and selected the one with the highest quality. I made these, I thought, so I’m taking the best one or ones. Hopefully the others will have gotten a similar level of challenges and rewards. Then we can trade and help each other, though even if they haven’t I’m still going to pass out these pills to them. I grabbed the jar and threw back the pill. It was the size of a gumball.

Upon entering my mouth, the solid sphere dissolved into a liquid. It tasted bad, like moldy gym socks, but the taste was ephemeral enough that I didn’t throw up. It was close though. The liquid slammed into my stomach like a bowling ball. A massive surge of Aether exploded through my digestion meridian, the flow not stopping as the pill’s power was only slowly expending itself. My center quickly filled, the level of my pool going from just below my meridians to over them in a second, and then the pill’s effects pushed into my meridian system.

I had to slow down the flow, my meridians screaming in pain as Aether surged through them. It took only fifteen seconds for my meridians to fill completely with the foreign Aether, their surface feeling like they were sizzling on a skillet. Once full, they ballooned out slightly, until the energy could push through them and into my muscles. The pain ramped up here, as my muscles were attacked. Aether shoved into them, forcibly converting parts of the cellular structure to Aether while enhancing different parts. My muscles grew stronger even without changing in size.

More and more Aether poured into me, my gathering technique running full tilt while also processing the Aether from the pill. Each second the pill pushed its effects farther into me. My tendons were next, feeling like I was stretching them beyond the point they’d tear, but they held, becoming both stronger and more flexible at the same time.

I maintained my grip on the Aether flow, limiting how quickly the pill was processed and supplementing its power with what i could gather. My bones were covered next, Aether flowing into them to cleanse, strengthen, and convert. I cried out when my ribs felt like they were shattered, but then rebuilt. Aether continued to gush from the pill, and I felt my body pushing quickly towards the next level of gathering.

Threshold Condensation was entirely about saturating your body with Aether, letting it become a part of you, enhancing every bit of your body and mind. It was different from tempering, in that tempering made you more resistant to a particular Element, while Threshold Condensation techniques basically turned you partially into Aether. You gained an ability to spend that Aether once finished, though you would have to gather and replace it before you could continue to advance, and it left you weakened until you did. A sudden surge of power, though, could save your life.

Each second of processing the pill was probably equivalent to an hour’s worth of gathering in the ridiculously high Aether density room that I found myself in, or three hours worth in a normal place outside of here. I could tell the pill would take at least an hour to finish dissolving. I will make it through this, I thought, my head pounding in agony as my brain was transformed. Passing out would lose me significant progress, and I will not give in to the pain!

My mind flowed through my body, finding and smoothing eddys of Aether as parts of me resisted the advancement. Impurities from the pills, powders, food, and just living tried to prevent the Aether from absorbing correctly, but by noticing I could direct more power to those spots, burning or pushing out the blockages and smoothing my advancement. Each bit of impurity removed was a further step of my capability, and the destruction of a blockage that might one day prevent my advancement.

I lost myself in the process, finding and directing the Aether flowing into me, letting the pain fade into the background as I fell into a trance. Tiny tweaks to my gathering technique, miniscule redirections of the power flow from the pill, and a conscious ignoring of the damage being done, even as it was healed, kept me going. An hour and forty three minutes later, the last bit of Aether from the pill entered my center, and the pressure on me eased.

Two minutes afterward, and all of the Aether had been absorbed by my body. A massive wave of Aether shot out from me as I fully crossed over to Completion Condensation. My body had been completely remodeled, and I was stronger than I ever was. “Hah,” I shouted, jumping to my feet. I immediately collapsed, my body too exhausted to do anything. “Okay, I’m just going to lay here for a minute.” I sniffed, then gagged, “and then take a shower as soon as I can!”

A minute later, I forced myself to my hands and knees, then crawled into the bathroom. I tapped the tub and started a bath flowing in, before pushing myself to my feet in the shower. The flow of hot water energized me, and I let it rinse the majority of the toxin sludge that had pushed itself out my pores. I felt more human after a minute and started to scrub away what was left. Once I was clean, I eased myself into the bath and soaked, celebrating my successes so far.

I wonder how everyone else is doing, I thought. Is Aleks advancing through the challenges like me? Did Vaya have to deal with the beam room? Would it really have killed me if I took the attacks wrong? Did it kill any of my friends? Light, I hate not knowing, but Spirit wouldn’t tell me. Darkness, did Sia get to join? How would they test a Beast Bond rather than a gatherer?

I fell asleep in the bath, before waking with a start. The water had grown cold, and I quickly got out and toweled off. Walking into the main room once I was dressed, I saw that I still had about twelve hours until the trial was over. “Huh, that felt a lot longer than it actually was,” I mumbled to myself. “Now what am I going to do with myself? Ooh, dinner, or breakfast. Food. Stick with food, I have no idea what time of day it is. My sleep schedule is so messed up right now.” I laughed, then dug into the stew that was provided.

After eating, I decided to read through the rest of the pill recipes, just to see what was available. “So, a pill to help with forming your Seed Core, a pill to advance through Threshold Condensation. Ah, Meridian Expander Pill, you use to expand a meridian during the Circulation stage. Not as complicated, ingredients don’t seem as rare,” I told myself. “But you’ll have to take dozens of them to have the same effect as the Harmonic Cycle Completion Pill. Quicksand Reservoir Softening Pill, huh, this is the same as the Foundation Firming Pill Knight Kaminski and Librarian Narwan gave us. Reservoir Strengthening Pill, this one’s new. Comes with a caution, only ever take one of them. Whoa, blood of a level eight Earth-aligned mammalian Beast, stronger is better!? Nightfire Bloom, hold on, I saw that in the flora book.”

I pulled the other book out, and flipped through the pages. “Here we go, Nightfire Bloom. Extremely rare, takes a hundred years to mature in a high Aether density zone. Once mature, will only bloom if sufficiently burned at night, hence the name. Recognizable by the red and black striations along its stem and the seven leaf pattern of its branches. Oh, I think I saw one, but it must’ve been fairly young. There wasn’t a lot of Aether flow into it, but the red was quite brilliant. Light, this book is going to be worth a ton to the Ashkhas, especially if we can get the portals stabilized so more people can journey here.”

I paused for a bit, “Spirit, how often will the trial grounds open after the portals are fixed?”

Spirit appeared in front of me, “Five years,” they said. “Though that can be shortened if enough people channel Aether into the portals. Because this is a pocket dimension, it is able to speed up time relative to the main world with sufficient power. Though the amount required to shorten the time frame by only one year is astronomical.”

“Thank you,” I said, standing and bowing to them. “I’ll let Sultah Aleahil know. Perhaps they’ll make it a way to pay off debts or those who channel the most can get an opportunity to enter.”

“There is also a limit of forty eight trial takers,” Spirit said. “And they must all harvest with respect, as your group did. Any more than that will be blocked. I will provide a document with the rest of the rules to better support the trials resuming.”

“Thank you, Senior Spirit,” I said, bowing deeply.

“Good, now gather for the rest of your time,” Spirit said. “You need to be prepared for the next challenge.” They nodded sharply, their androgynous features stern but compassionate, then vanished with a twinkle.

“Will do, Senior,” I said to the empty air, knowing they could hear me, then I moved to the center of the room with a chair. I sat and focused, remembering the few lessons I’d had about the Completion Condensation realm.

Okay, the Initial realm was about getting enough liquid Aether to open my Aether pool. Foundation was enlarging the pool before setting the final size by advancing to Circulation. Circulation had me strengthen and enlarge my meridians before creating pores in the meridians to allow Aether to flow out of them into my body. Increasing their size now, after advancing to Threshold, becomes significantly harder, just like increasing the size of my pool after advancing to Circulation. Threshold is about soaking the body in Aether, strengthening, filling, and partially converting it into Aether. Though I guess I am all Aether anyway, since it seems to be the building block of the world.

I paused there, examining my body for a bit longer. So, I made it to Complete Condensation. Here is where I need to focus on increasing the density of my Aether, and fixing any issues that I can find with the previous realms. I’m sure Librarian Narwan has an amazing technique to push forward here, but I don't know it. That just means slow and steady. Pull Aether in, squish it as best as I can, then do it again. I don’t feel anything off in my body, but again, Librarian Narwan will be able to tell me everywhere I screwed something up.

I focused and built up my new Dual Runic Spiral Technique, pulling in as much Aether as I could from my surroundings. My center filled, from the depths of my pool to the top of my crown, and every bit of my meridians. After filling everything, my meridians started to leak, and then I pushed, filling my body entirely with Aether. It took nearly three hours to reach that point, where there was nowhere else to fit the Aether.

“Time to pack it in,” I growled, and kept gathering. Pressure built inside me, but I held on, forcing the Aether in my center to spread out evenly. Each meridian, each bit of my muscle, bone, tendons, blood vessels, and brain was packed, the Aether in me flowing smoothly from place to place.

Once the pressure was sufficient, I mentally pressed on, well, everything, and the loosely distributed Aether squished together, creating a denser liquid. A pulse shot through me, tiny eddies of Aether revealing a few spots to fix. I focused in on one, and tried to use the Aether filling me to straighten it out.

It took more than I expected, draining a full third of my center before finally fixing the tiniest bit. A minuscule portion of my left knee had its Aether infusion reoriented and increased, removing that particular eddy. Only fifty more to go, I laughed softly to myself, then looked over at the sand clock. And a two percent increase in density. Fire burn it, this is going to take forever to get to the point of crystallization. Of course, do I need to get that dense before advancing? I’ve already got a Seed Core, basically.

I laughed. I can just imagine Librarian Narwan hearing me think that. He’d beat me down for daring to take an easy road. I bet I’d be one of the weakest Seed Core gatherers around if I took that route. Okay, I’ve got time for one more round of gathering. Let’s get moving.

I pulled more Aether in, finding another eddy to smooth out once I was full, before trying to push as much in as I could, triggering another tiny increase in density. I stood from the chair, shrugged my shoulders, and then looked at the clock. I had half an hour or so. Just long enough to pack every bit of the ingredients into my bag, sewing one of the Beast hides into another pocket to hold even more items. “One minute. I’m ready,” I said aloud, and a doorway appeared where the entrance had been. I stepped through, and entered the next challenge.