EG Monster Island Chapter 1

***** AUTHORS NOTE ****

Thank you, everyone! Craesti City is out to the editor and I feel is the best book in the series. In large part, that is thanks to y'all helping me spot potholes, make suggestions on content, and find the bugs in my work.  Monster Island is started and I'm halfway through chapter 2, so I felt it was a great time to get posting here! Note that I may end up missing a week either next week or the week after as I push on edits for Craesti City rather than MI. 

Core Patrons! (i.e $10)  I need names from y'all. We're going to be seeing a lot of new characters pop up. Ashkhas are named using Arabic and can have fanciful names/titles. Illyrians use Persian as their main source of language, but add extra syllables that you'd expect from a frog lizard person. Topraki I'm thinking Russian or other Cyrillic languages . The Weltreich is German/Germanic languages. English/Swedish/Polish/Chinese/Gaelic are Craesti Kingdom and there are traders/emigrants on Monster Island from the Kingdom. Feel free to comment on possible names below. (*Note: others can comment too, I welcome feedback, but the Core Patrons will guarantee get a name in the book as long as they give something usable). 

I'm creating a newsletter to better communicate when novels come out, and to allow me to trade newsletter mentions with other authors as a marketing tool. If you're interested, sign up here https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/n6m1y1  

**** AUTHORS NOTE ****

I sat on my bunk, gathering in Aether from a level five Beast Core, and channeled it into the body tempering technique. My eyes were closed, my breathing controlled. My focus was on the blood vessels in my left hand. I slowly strengthened them, making my way millimeter by millimeter towards my left pinky. Slow and steady wins the race.

After ten minutes, something shifted, and rather than advancing by micrometers my technique raced down my hand, looping through every artery, vein, and capillary before rocketing back to my chest. Within minutes, it had swept through my entire body, finishing tempering my blood vessels in a rush. “Woah,” I exclaimed, coming out of my center to a tingling feeling filling my body.

Sitting next to me, Jon shivered and fell over, his blue eyes opened wide. “Woah,” he said, unconsciously echoing me. “Did you just finish all of your artery tempering in one go?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to calm down the pins and needles flowing over my body.

“Good!” Librarian Narwan exclaimed, striding in through our open door that I swore I locked before starting to gather. His face was lit with a manic grin, his white hair in a frizz that screamed mad scientist. Ming and Xiao shook themselves out of the gathering trance they’d been in, blinking open black eyes in eerie unison. “Not you two, though you have only a few days until you catch up to them.” He turned to us. “You have been working hard! Excellent. Now you see why I had you temper your blood and blood vessels first! Because your organs were tempered, and then your blood, everything in you is being passively tempered even as we speak. Every drop of blood carries with it Aether used to temper, and will slowly pass on its capabilities to your muscles, bones, and skin.”

“Thank you for explaining, sir,” I smiled up at him. “So, should we focus on bones next, make sure they’re strong enough to support the strengthened muscles?”

“No,” he knifehanded that comment away. “Now we will work on deepening your foundation. The Lo brothers need to catch up, so they may be instructed as well.”

“Yes, Master Narwan,” Ming said, standing so he could bow.

Librarian Narwan waved him off, and in the process dropped another Beast Core into the Formation. “Gather faster. I will only teach the technique I will be showing Aiden and Jon twice, and you must be in the next group,” he glared at them, before sweeping out of the room.

I gave Ming an apologetic glance, but he’d already dropped into a trance again. Xiao shrugged at me, then Jon shooed me out. We hurried down the corridor to one of the workrooms. Vaya and Bridget were waiting for us, along with Aleks and Hanna. Librarian Narwan was quickly sketching something on the board. “We’ll have to make sure to help the others get to our point as soon as possible,” I whispered to Vaya.

She smiled at me, her beautiful face lighting up, then whispered back, “They are doing fine. Jamila said she and Lea were only two days behind us in the tempering. Librarian Narwan sold them a similar pill to ours when they won, and Jamila is giving you a contest in stubbornness and working hard.”

“Good,” I leaned in close to her.

“Ahem,” Librarian Narwan enunciated. I turned to see him glaring at me, and everyone else was watching Vaya and I. Jon had a smirk on his face while Hanna had a soft smile on her dark face. I blushed brightly, and so did Vaya. Librarian Narwan cleared his throat, and everyone turned quickly back to him. “All of you are still in Foundation Condensation. I have been given leave to teach you all a technique for deepening your Aether Pool and strengthening your centers. Memorize these ten runes,” he gestured at the wall.

The chalkboard drawings seemed to melt off the wall and began spinning slowly. The runes were three-dimensional, with twists and bends that would not have been apparent without the assist. The first two were mirror images of each other. We were given two minutes to look at them, before he announced, “Now, dive into your center, but focus on my voice. Put the first two runes on opposite sides of your Aether Pool and hold them there.” He waited for a few seconds while everyone drew the runes. He spoke to the others, guiding them into correcting the shapes, before telling me, “The second rune, Aether Pull, needs another bend at the top. No, down farther, there, yes, now twist sharply left and forward. Good, now you are ready.”

The last sentence went to the group. “The runes alternatively push and pull Aether, especially internally. Focus on the first, and push the Aether away from it clockwise around your pool. Use the second to pull the Aether towards it, while pushing Aether away from its other side. This should set up a clockwise spinning whirlpool in your Aether.” We were left to struggle with this for another minute.

I focused, imagining a giant paddle stirring the Aether. My Core pulsed angrily, almost full of Essence. The Lamia had given me a ton, but Librarian Narwan had asked me to save it. I held in the Essence that tried to escape, and kept stirring. After getting started, a small sliver of Aether misted off the top into the runes. They lit up, and began to circulate the Aether on their own.

“Now, place the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth runes at the edge of your pool. The third should go towards your front, fourth to your right, fifth to your rear, and sixth to your left. Do hurry and get it done before your Aether overflows the boundary of your pool. I do not want you to advance, and doing so this early will actively hurt you,” Librarian Narwan’s voice seemed to echo into my center.

I gulped and quickly set up the runes. These were much simpler, a series of straight lines and right angles that, once completed, projected a shield around my center. Why don’t we use these runes in techniques? I wondered for a second, then asked it aloud instead of pondering on it more.

“These block your own Aether, so they would not be very useful,” Librarian Narwn answered. “Though there are some later techniques I can teach you that these help prevent blowback. Not very useful until you are into Threshold at least, though, so ignore that for now.” He talked me through fixing a few of the runes, then moved on to others.

I held the technique, and my Aether continued to spin faster. Slowly, it rose up the sides of my Aether Pool to reach the shields, and then continued up to press against the sides of my center. A hole had been formed that led all the way to the bottom of my pool, and the pressure on the sides was starting to become uncomfortable.

“Excellent, now that you can see the bottom, the seventh and eight runes go there, stacked on top of each other. The ninth and tenth go on the top of your centers, directly above the seventh and eighth. Once those are ready, push Aether into them, then exert your will to expand your pool. The small amount of Aether pushing against your center above your pool will strengthen it as well,” Librarian Narwan directed.

I built the runes, and then focused on stretching outward. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I grit my teeth and bore it, pushing harder against the side. It felt like stretching a muscles that was torn, my body screaming at me to stop, but Librarian Narwan continued to exhort us to push harder. Just keep pushing, just keep pushing, pushing, pushing, I sang in my head.

The Aether drained from my center and my pool, soaking into the edges and strengthening them. Finally, after half an hour, I was just about empty. My pool had increased by maybe ten percent in depth and size. “Excellent work, Aiden,” Librarian Narwan said. “A good start to strengthening your Foundation.” He turned to everyone, “Do not do this more than once a week. If you wake up tomorrow morning feeling sore in your center, wait until the feeling leaves to gather again. This is not something that can be healed, barring extremely expensive pills that I do not have with me. Go eat lunch, then gather until you are mostly full. We will work on other techniques to assist with advancing tonight.”

“Thank you sir,” I stood up from my chair and bowed to him. My stomach rumbled at the same time. I laughed quietly, then Vaya pulled me out of the room.

“Come on, I am starving,” she said, squinting her gorgeous green eyes at me. We rushed down the hallway, with Jon thundering right behind us, to find the cafeteria already full of crew and our compatriots. The small set of tables where we always sat were already lined with plates, and Jamila was laughing at something Tayiq Farah, our guide slash assistant slash minder, was saying. Her face was awash in joy, her bright white teeth contrasting with her caramel skin as she giggled.

Lea turned and saw us coming, then whispered “They are coming,” to Farah. Immediately, the rest of the girls faced us, and more whispers sprung up, though a quick sound barrier was cast by Lilianna so I didn’t hear what they were saying.

I looked at Vaya and shrugged. She shook her head and said, “I am hungry,” before sitting down next to Jamila and Lea.

Lilianna pointed to another table, “Boys sit there.”

“Fine,” I smiled, then rolled my eyes. “Come on Jon, the girls want to talk girl stuff.”

“Well, good. I do not want to talk girl stuff,” he said primly, then laughed, unable to stay serious for that long.

Ming and Xiao joined us. Ming looked at me and asked, “How far did you extend your pool?”

“Uh, about ten percent, I think,” I told him. “Librarian Narwan wants me to increase it by at least twenty times what it was to start with, so I’ve got a long way to go.”

“That is an ambitious goal,” Ming said. “My father only expects an eight-fold increase.”

“He told me six,” Xiao grumbled. “Why does he not expect me to do well as well?”

“Hopefully, it won’t matter,” I told them. “Librarian Narwan is probably going to force all of us to reach as high as we can. I wonder what the next technique is going to involve?”

“No idea,” Jon shrugged, then dug into his plate. “Mmm, Bluefin Tuna, and it is level three! So good!”

I quickly grabbed my fork and started to eat. It was deliciously flaky, and seemed to dissolve into my mouth. There was a lemon-like juice on it, along with some sugary herb mix to give it a sweet and sour flavor mix. The first bite reached my stomach and I felt the Aether flow from it into my digestion meridian. With a small exertion of will, I redirected it to my blood vessel meridians. Looking closely, I saw some of my red blood cells absorb the Aether and then spread it to the muscles in my torso, minutely expanding the zone of tempering. Huh, that’s awesome! Of course, this means I’ll have to eat more higher level food, and gather more, since I’m sure they’ll do the same thing with gathered Aether. I can probably go with an hour less sleep a night, at least until we reach Monster Island. Even there, cause they have coffee!

We ate quickly, with Xiao telling a story of a time he got Ming into trouble. Ming just shook his head, a wry grin on his face. Loud laughter occasionally echoed out of the sound shield the girls were under. The first time it happened, I looked over to see all the girls gesturing wildly, unaware the sound had gotten out. Lilianna glanced over, and I pointed to my ears. She blushed, her pale skin turning bright red.

The second time, though, all of the girls were looking at us. Jon nudged my side and rolled his eyes at me, looking over at their smiling faces. I waved to the girls, smiling while holding in laughter. “Just smile and wave boys. Smile and wave,” I said, having to clench my stomach muscles to not fall into giggles.

Finally, we finished eating, and the guys followed me back to our room. I pulled a Beast Core out of the bag Librarian Narwan had given us last week, and plopped it down into the Formation in the center of our room. “I have a feeling we’re going to be working extra hard today, so let's get ready,” I sat at the desk on mine and Jon’s side of the room.

“Got it,” Jon said, “no tempering, just filling our centers.” I nodded, and we gathered. The Formation in the room is amazing! It adjusts the speed at which it pulls Aether out of the Core to keep the room’s Aether Density at a specific level. So we can just gather to quickly refill ourselves and not have to wait. If we had to use my Formation Plate, or Ming’s, we’d drain the room to nearly nothing while it slowly pulled Aether out. They are designed to pull all of the Aether out of a Core in an hour.

We gathered for about thirty minutes, fully draining two level one Cores. My Aether Pool was back to about ninety five percent full. I didn’t want to go above that and risk overflowing it too early. A knock on the door brought me out of my reverie. “Knight Kaminski wants everyone who finished tempering to come to the cafeteria. Wear training clothes,” Vaya called through our closed door.

“Okay, we will be out in a minute,” Jon called, and he and I scrambled to change. Ming and Xiao were still focused on tempering, trying to catch up to us.  I threw on my favorite workout clothes, which felt like cotton but kept me cooler and drier than an Under Armour shirt from back on Earth. Jamila and Vaya had purchased it for me in a memory that still made me blush to think about. I put another Core on the Formation, then we left the room.

Vaya, Bridget, Aleks, and Hanna were waiting for us. About a week ago, the girls had all decided to turn a pair of pants into shorts, as the temperature soared outside. Every day brought us closer to the equator of this world, and we left fall to find summer still rearing its sweaty head. I just used a tiny amount of Ice and Fire Aether to pull heat away from my skin, keeping me cooler and comfortable.

Knight Kaminski was waiting as well, a small smile on her stern face. “Good. Master Narwan and I wish to test how effective the blood vessel tempering was. Run to the other end of the hallway and back as fast as you can, until I tell you to stop. No techniques at all. No Aether usage. Just run.”

“Yes ma’am,” Aleks said, turning and sprinting down the corridor. The rest of us took off after her, having gotten most of the instant obedience conditioning Aleks had from her mentor. We did two laps back and forth before Knight Kaminski added extra gravity to the hallway. I kept running, pushing forward and controlling my breathing even as my weight went up by half. Two more laps at that level were followed by an increase again.

I’m barely breathing hard, I thought, but I’m still slowing down. Just can’t push as fast in two g’s.

Finally, after another two laps, Knight Kaminski called us to halt. “Interesting,” she gestured and a cool breeze flowed over us, “you have all seen a fairly massive increase in overall stamina. No commensurate increase in strength or speed.” Jon mumbled something behind me. “Do not be annoyed. Being able to fight for longer, to continue past when your opponent collapses, will be very useful. Additionally, I will be able to increase the difficulty of your training. Still need to bring you to exhaustion for the best results.” Her smile turned feral for a second. The gulp from everyone was audible.

“But not now,” she laughed. “Go enjoy the weather. Relax and celebrate for a few hours. Master Narwan will seek you out soon.”

We rushed out of her sight, heading up to the top deck of the ship before she changed her mind and made us run more or something. There were a number of crew working or lounging on the next two floors. Madfiei Mujnun was examining one of the ballistae with two helpers as we walked past, and Jon peeled off to join them. I scowled slightly, still miffed that he’d gotten to learn about creating the ballistae and bolts that went into it, but I was denied getting information or examining the Aether cannon on the upper decks.

I ran up the stairs, reaching the middle of the deck, then turned to head up to the poop deck. I’d gotten over giggling at the name, finally, but it took some time. “Sia! You nearby?” I called out mentally.

“Yes. Catch,” he responded, and I looked up to see a four meter long fish dropping towards my head. I leapt upward, wrapping my arms around it, then turning over and landing on the squirming creature. A quick stab ended its suffering, and I felt a small burst of Essence enter me.

“Level four, Fire aligned fish?” I asked out loud.

“Red Snapper,” Captain Alborz said, walking up behind us. “Large school of them, so Siarcysty and Zimnodlot are helping us catch some. Got a dozen level three and four smoking in the kitchen now. We will be able to sell quite a bit. Master Narwan informed me you all are celebrating tempering your circulatory system. Congratulations, that is a difficult step.”

“Yes, congratulations,” Ambassador Saf’Ir appeared behind us. He’d taken Librarian Narwan’s penchant for jump scares and run with it.

“Ah, sir,” I said, looking up at him. “Have you perchance come to a decision on my request?”

He looked down at me, then shook his head. “No, I have not decided yet. I,” he stopped suddenly.

A shout came from above in the Ashkhas language, “Another ship. Just coming over the horizon, on course for Monster Island from Oddali. Hold, she is turning towards us.”

“I will investigate,” Sia announced, flapping into the air and quickly blurring away.

I strained my eyes and activated my Divine Senses technique to see the white sails of another large sailing vessel as it came our way. I pointed it out to Vaya.

“They turned our way when spotted?” Bridget asked from behind me.

“Uh, that’s what the lookout announced,” I answered.

“Does that not seem suspicious?”

I paused for a second. “You don’t think they’re pirates or something?”

“Either that or they are in need of assistance,” Hanna said. “My father told me ships tend to avoid each other on the ocean.” We watched in silence. Captain Alborz and Ambassador Saf’Ir had left without us noticing. The ship slowly grew in size.

A few minutes after he left, Sia returned. “They are being chased by another ship. I recognized the captain of the closer ship. Skipari Svik, father to one of the other members of your tier.”

“Skipari Svik? Maove’s father?” I said aloud.

“What about him?” Bridget asked, concern in her voice.

“That’s his ship,” I pointed. Sia bonked my head with his, then flapped off to find Captain Alborz. “Sia said they’re being chased by another ship. Come on.” I followed Sia down off the poop deck to just in front of the main mast.

Master Narwan and Knight Kaminski were standing next to Captain Alborz and Ambassador Saf’Ir. Floating in front of them was a glowing plane of Aether, with three dots on it. “The Illyrian will catch up to the Craesti in six hours,” Captain Alborz said. “We can reach them two hours after that, unless you can push more Air across our sails. Are you sure you want to risk your students?”

“Yes!” I yelled out as we ran up. “I know the captain of that ship.”

Librarian Narwan looked at me, then back at Captain Alborz. “I will get us there.”

“Then make with the wind,” Captain Alborz replied before belting out, “Two-thirds to starboard, make for the merchant vessel!”