B5 Chapter 37

“Now, the Elixir.” Thaira ordered impatiently, beads of sweat dripping down his face.

The Vortex Gate technique was complete, and the first Stage-1 Vortex had been formed in my weave. However, the young Mikoniv’s technique did not only require a tremendous amount of highly compressed ether, it required Essence and several different stabilizers to work properly.

Thaira Heilos precisely asked for the Essence of Binding, the Essence of Connection, and Essence Fusion. Each of those Essences was unique and required several other Essences to be mixed and fused. The process was arduous, and not even Jura could easily provide the Essences. That was how I ended up being forced to concoct an Elixir that incorporated everything. It cost House Heilos dearly and would have been even more expensive if they’d ordered a True Alchemist to come up with a new Elixir recipe for their purposes, but it worked.

Popping the cap of the viscous silver Elixir, I emptied it. The liquid dissolved as it trickled down my throat, yet it didn’t flow straight to my World. I guided it through my body toward a Wild Gate. Said Gate was connected not only to the weave but also to a maelstrom of water-attuned ether. The abundance of ether contained in the fingertip-sized structure was no longer surprising, yet the excitement remained.

As the Essence and special properties contained within the Elixir reached the maelstrom of energies, they reacted. The maelstrom stabilized almost immediately. It settled down as well, anchoring between the weave and the Wild Gate. That, among many other things, was a necessity. It was necessary to use the connecting point of a Gate and the weave to anchor the maelstrom of the Vortex Gate technique, and that required upgraded high-grade Essences.

It wasn’t cheap – Essences that could be channeled into the weave never were – nor was it without any dangers. High-grade Essences put a heavy toll on the weave and its branches. A few months ago, the Essences would have seriously harmed the weave, but now that I had Ethereal Earthen Gates that strengthened the weave much more than the regular Earthen Gates had, it was possible. Not without hurting me, but a little bit of pain meant nothing if that meant we could create perfect, permanent vortexes.

The process was slow and arduous, the pain rising with every hour that passed, but the Elixir worked as intended. The maelstrom transformed into a vortex, fulfilling its purpose. It rotated slowly, pulling ambient ether toward the weave before filtering it into the Gate. Liquefying the ether in the process was not feasible, as unfortunate as it was; however, we managed to recycle the ether leaking from the Gates. It went through the circulation system of the Blazing Gates first before the Vortex Gate received it and absorbed it, and that was more than acceptable.

Only parts of the leaked ether were wasted. As for the ether the weave had to consume to work properly, it was rapidly replenished by the Vortex Gate. If I had more of them. Or higher-ranked Vortex Gates.

“It works.” I got to my feet and moved around. Before today, that would have been enough to destabilize the vortex and drain some of its energy. That was no longer the case now.

“What about high-intensity movements?” Thaira’s mother intercepted. She appeared by our side, startling young Thaira and me.

I shared a glance with the heir of House Heilos and saw the same irritation I felt. He was just as scared of his mother as I was. Even as an unBlessed, she was frightening.

Is she really an unBlessed, though? The way she moved without getting noticed by anyone was too fear-inspiring to come from an unBlessed.

“That… I don’t know.” I answered cautiously. “But I don’t believe it will pose an issue.”

“I don’t bet on ‘beliefs’, Mr. Savier. An examination is in order, don’t you think so?” she asked, her tone gentle as the sun, while her eyes radiated utter cold.

They were calculating, scheming in ways that made me shudder even after all those months I spent training, brewing, and growing stronger.

“Of course. An examination… What kind of examination are we talking about, though?”

“Nothing grand. I only need you to show Thaira—” She cleared her throat, clearly having misspoken. “I only need you to use one of your stronger attacks, preferably a sequence or your strongest strike, on House Heilos’ training dummy. That should count as high-intensity movements and will help us determine if the Vortex Gate technique is truly complete.”

Ignoring the Mikoniv’s little faux pas, I nodded and followed readily to the basement, where House Heilos’ training ground was already waiting for me.

Thaira’s mother used an ether device to drain the training ground, removing the pool of liquid ether it had been saturated with. The room didn’t run dry, and my boots splashed through small ether puddles as I kept up with Thaira, who looked chirpier than usual, and his mother.

“Give your best. Don’t hold back.” The Mikoniv’s mother said calmly, gesturing to a set of training dummies flooded with liquid ether. The training dummies appeared more like statues of knights clad in sapphire-blue armor. Each plate was suffused with a horrendous amount of water-attuned ether, which fed the enchantments that strengthened their connection to the steel plates as well as their durability.

There were a few more effects, but I only felt them. I didn’t see anything, nor did they create any sort of visual effect.

“I only need to strike them?” I asked, fairly sure I understood the reasoning behind Thaira’s mother’s actions.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

There was a trace of hope in her eyes, one she tried to hide, but failed. A long time had passed since they started with the creation of the Vortex Gate technique, and their time together was coming to an end. That also meant Thaira’s motivation would soon fade away. If nothing changed, that is.

After months with the little troublemaker, I knew that he was both arrogant and lazy. Then again, lazy didn’t sit right with me. It was more like Thaira lacked the drive for greatness. He had the talent and when something interested him, he would give it his all, but the Vortex Gate technique was all that had interested him in all the months we spent together.

Thaira’s mother pushed the young Mikoniv to train and improve, or else he wouldn’t be allowed to keep working on the Vortex Gate technique, which had been more than enough. Until now.

She wants you to show off.

Aureus’ voice reverberated through my mind.

I agreed. It was simply too obvious. She wanted her son to work even harder and thought I could help with that one last time. And that was more than acceptable, especially after spending no less than 1,000 platinum coins on liquefied ether deposits and close to 500 ingredient sets to come up with the right ratio for the Elixir. Research and development were expensive, and I hadn’t paid a dime. Now, however, I’d benefit greatly since I had the technique, the method, and the resources to create my own Stage-1, Stage-2, and Stage-3 Vortexes.

“All out? Traits included or...?”

“Please go all out.” Thaira’s mother said curtly, staring intensely at me.

“I will strike twice. Once with my physical strength only, and a second time I will go all-out.” I wasn’t willing to cave in to her demands. Not because she was unreasonable, but because I wanted to understand how much stronger I’d grown in the last few months.

Training tirelessly did not only push my World to new heights, my Soulkins had grown considerably as well. Through the soulshares’ empowerment, I had grown even more.

Nox finally advanced. He broke through to the Guardian Rank thanks to the evolution of Nullblade to Annihilation Blade. He only grew further, and so did the soulshare. In fact, our bond grew the most in the last few months, likely because the Ferronox Mantis realized that I wouldn’t leave him behind. I always said that I would help him keep up, but he’d fallen behind the most in the past.

Sapsie had already been a Guardian beast before thanks to the Source of the Netherkin and the blood I provided, but she’d grown a lot stronger ever since. All the Essence and blood she consumed over the course of eight months pushed her to the Late Guardian Rank.

As for Cosmo and Tessa, they didn’t grow nearly as much. Being bound to my World as it kept expanding upped their racial limit a little, but Tessa only barely advanced to the Unblemished Rank while Cosmo only pushed from the Low Unblemished Rank to the Middle stage. That, too, was by a hair’s breadth. Be that as it may, I was fine with the growth of the Cosmic Chipmunk and the Horror Tessar. They didn’t have to keep growing since they were not nearly as obsessed with power as my other Soulkins.

As long as I had some Soulkins with the desire to grow, I was fine.

And that, of course, included Aureus. The Earthen Spirit, as well as my only Soulkin at the Overlord Rank. After ascending to a Spirit, albeit a young one, Aureus broke through to the Overlord Rank. Ever since then, he kept growing, and now he occupied the vast majority of my World’s space.

All in all, my Soulkins helped me grow tremendously. New Earthen Gates formed, and they now emitted a murky golden, ethereal glow that refined the weave, strengthening it and its branches with every new Ethereal Earthen Gate that had been added to the weave. That included two 5-Star Ethereal Earthen Gates, whose size dwarfed the 5-Star Blazing Gate I’d relied on before.

Even with only the three 5-Star Gates linked to my weave and without my Soulkins’ empowerment, I was strong. Stronger than a regular Blessed with fifteen 5-Star Gates.

Kicking the ground, I rocketed toward the training dummy, arm pulled back, fists clenched.

Gathering every bit of strength in my body, I punched the armor with all I had. The power of a physical-aspected Grandmaster surged through me. It made me feel invincible as my knuckles collided with the training dummy, until the sound of bones breaking rang in my ears.

Fuck.

I blinked away, back to the position I started at, hoping teleporting away from the dummy was enough to drain the momentum behind my attack. It didn’t undo the attack, but I’d moved early enough to avoid breaking every single bone in my hand.

“What is that armor?” I groaned as life-attuned ether surged out from the Liferoot Gates. I didn’t heal the cracked bones right away, but it aided Pond of Life’s nectar enough.

That armor is strong enough to block a weak Monarch’s attack.

Aureus mused, which was basically confirmed when I glanced over at Thaira’s mother. Her eyebrow rose as she looked at the armor, which was now adorned with a tiny dent. Clearly enough, she hadn’t expected me to damage it.

“Strong.” Thaira gaped beside his mother. His eyes sparkled, though there was more than excitement buried deep within them.

A longing for more, I figured, the corner of my lips curling upward.

I can give you that. More is fine. I chuckled inwardly before saying out loud, “The armor is tougher than expected. But that’s probably for the best. You wanted me to go all-out, right?”

Thaira’s mother didn’t answer right away. Her brow twitched, and she was clearly debating what to do, but all doubts faded away as soon as she caught her son’s excitement.

“Go for it. Give it your all, human,” she said, still not calling him by his first name. Then again, I had never bothered asking her for her name either.

Flashing my teeth, I retrieved the most durable of my enchanted swords. Triggering its durability circuit, I pumped it full of ether. Then, without further ado, I unleashed the Annihilation Blade at full power. A murky hue shrouded the sword. It spread out along its blade and grew further beyond. The strain was considerable because not even Nox could use the strongest version of the Annihilation Blade yet. It was a Monarch trait, and it was near impossible for a Grandmaster, let alone a Guardian beast, to push the trait to its limit.

It was not impossible though. Not as long as someone, namely myself, could use spirit power to substitute for the lack of power.

She wanted everything, so she would get everything.

An all-out attack. It was something I was curious about as well.

The Insignia flared up, using the very power the newest of my traits generated. The Spirit Heart, born from Aureus’ ascension to a Spirit, flooded the Insignia with spirit power, which now flooded toward the Annihilation Blade and the enchanted sword resting in my hands.

“Just remember that you wanted this.” I called out before turning into a flash.

Appearing before the training dummy, I slashed at it, unleashing the torrent of energy that threatened to escape my control. But the control never slipped. I retained full control as I attacked.