15-6. Long Overdue Testing

“You know there have already been reports of…a few incidents, right?” asked Carmen. She took a sip of her coffee. “This is really good, by the way.”

“Tura would be pleased to hear that,” Elijah said. “And I know exactly what Sara’s been up to. Locus, remember?”

Indeed, Elijah had devoted an entire leaf to keeping tabs on his adopted sister. Especially so since she’d insisted on exploring Ironshore on her own. He’d objected, but somehow, the argument had ended in her favor. Decisively. Elijah still wasn’t certain how that had happened.

Since then, she’d spent every waking moment in the city, and for the most part, she had behaved herself. The only issues came from her inability to tolerate anything negative said about Elijah. If Miguel hadn’t been shadowing her, things might’ve gotten more than heated.

“I didn’t expect people to hate me so much, though.”

“They don’t hate you.”

“That one guy did. As soon as Sara mentioned my name, everything went off the rails.”

“Okay – a few of them hate you, and don’t take this the wrong way, but for good reason. You killed that guy’s brother.”

“I did?”

“Right before the Bloodrock Bay incident.”

“Oh.”

Back then, Elijah had decapitated a handful of people who’d spread information about the grove. In his state at the time, he was in no mood to pay any attention to nuance. Anyone who’d participated in the attack on his grove – even tertiarily – deserved to be punished.

And that meant execution.

“Yeah,” Carmen said, leaning back in her chair. It creaked a bit, but it was well-made. “My point is that you have a bit of a reputation. You tend to stay out of the limelight until –”

“You mean I spent most of my time in Primal Realms. Or getting tossed into the abyss.”

“Sure. That. But to the average person, you’re like a shadowy boogeyman who leaps out, wipes a city, then goes back into hiding. Everyone knows this is your grove, but they don’t really associate you with any of the good parts. So, you’ve got all the bad, but none of the advantages.”

“That kind of sucks.”

It made him miss the Empire of Scale, where he could travel in relative anonymity. Sure, he had enemies – especially after what he did to Skahan – but those were a tiny minority. Most people in the empire had no idea he even existed, at least before his victory. Even that small degree of fame tended to be fleeting.

“We’ve tried to work on it,” Carmen admitted. “Or at least Nara has. She seems to take your reputation personally. I mostly just stay in my forge.”

“Make anything cool lately?” he asked.

She shrugged. “This and that.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Elijah said, turning to her. “You need to do more than that.”

Carmen sighed. “You’re even less of an adult than the girl.”

“I never claimed to be mature,” Elijah reminded her. “In fact, I consider it overrated.”

“Of course you would. But fine,” she conceded. Then, she told him of all the projects she’d completed over the past couple of years. Like any great artist, once Carmen got started, she couldn’t really stop talking about her work. She described an upgrade to the Iron Legion’s equipment, a new project focusing on gear for the elites, and a weapon she had built for Davu Adebowale.

“The guild leader?” Elijah asked.

“He’s retiring from the position, and he wants to get back out there and into some Primal Realms.”

“Really?”

Carmen shrugged. “He seems to think that an Administrator would be better for the role,” she explained. “If I’d taken a different class evolution, I’d probably be thinking the same thing.”

Elijah knew that Carmen’s ascendent evolution had been a hybrid that focused as much on running the Forge of Creation as it facilitated actual smithing. And her demigod evolution had continued that trend. So long as she worked inside the Forge of Creation, she could more than rival any pure smith. However, if she tried to forge anywhere else, the results would become less than optimal.

The tradeoff was that everyone else working in the Forge of Creation was significantly enhanced. Not only did they gain extra attributes, but they found themselves capable of feats of focus that would have otherwise been impossible.

“When I first evolved, we had an issue with people working themselves to exhaustion,” she explained. “That’s one of the class’s features. Reduced fatigue, I mean. And people feel it less, too. The result was people keeling over all throughout the Forge of Creation.”

She gave a harsh laugh.

“It’s funny now, but at the time…well, we almost lost a couple of good people. Good thing we caught it.”

Carmen regaled Elijah with more anecdotes from the forge as well as a few stories from her relationship with Anupriya. They were still together, and Elijah didn’t think that was going to change anytime soon. That wasn’t to say they didn’t have their issues, mostly stemming from living in separate cities. They made it work, but not without a few arguments along the way.

Finally, Carmen talked about little Eli, who was coming up on his fifth birthday.

“He’s smart. Really, really smart,” Carmen stated. “Smarter than me, for sure. He’s curious, too. Always looking for the next horizon. It’s been that way since he was crawling. Kept sneaking off into the woods. And it’s gotten so much worse since he started walking.”

“You think he’ll have a nature attunement?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, shrugging. “It wouldn’t surprise me. But Scholar would probably fit, too. Explorer as well. We’ll just have to see.”

It sounded to Elijah like they just might have another Druid in the family, but he didn’t say as much. He would love the kid regardless of what archetype he chose.

Unlawfully taken from NovelPhoenix, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

One thing was certain – he had at least ten more months on Earth, and he intended to use some of that to get to know the newest member of the family.

Elijah and Carmen both enjoyed another cup of coffee before she told him that she needed to head in to work at the Forge of Creation. He watched her go, glad that she’d found some measure of peace and happiness. After everything she’d been through, she deserved it.

Even if Elijah knew that she’d never stop pushing forward. Neither would Miguel. Or some of his other friends. Perhaps it was just his nature or the situations in which he’d found his companions, but he’d attracted quite a few special people into his orbit. And those sorts weren’t content with good enough.

Neither was Elijah.

So, once Carmen was gone, Elijah leaped down from his balcony and shifted into the Shape of the World Serpent. As he rose above the island forest’s canopy, he caught sight of a familiar white owl.

“Hey, Alfie. Long time no see.”

The owl swooped in, landing on Elijah’s nose. “Welcome back.”

“That tickles.”

“Sorry,” the Animist-as-owl said, ducking his head into his feathers.

“Follow me.”

Alfie lifted off. Then, the pair headed toward the mainland. Elijah took it easy so that the younger Druid could keep up, though he was surprised to find that Alfie was much faster than expected. Doubtless, he’d ascended.

Elijah led him inland, passing Ironshore’s farms and heading deep into the mountains. Below, Elijah felt a few strong auras, but none strong enough to challenge him. And eventually, he descended to a wide, rocky clearing atop a steep cliff. As he drew closer, he shifted back into his human form, then landed easily.

Alfie followed, though his landing was much rougher.

“Still getting the hang of that,” he admitted.

“You’ll figure it out.”

“I hope so,” Alfie admitted. Then, his face lit up as he revealed what Elijah already knew. “I ascended!”

“That’s fantastic,” Elijah said, gripping the young Animist’s shoulder. “What’d you choose for your evolution?”

“Soul of the Guardian,” Alfie answered. Then, he went on to explain that his evolution focused on strength and constitution, giving him extra advantages with his bear form. “I can actually hold my own with a real Defender now. And it’s a good thing, too, because nobody really wants that job. I can get in on towers or Primal Realms whenever I want.”

“But it’s what you want from your class?”

“I just want to be useful.”

Elijah narrowed his eyes. He could understand that desire, but he suspected it went a little deeper than that. If he had to guess, he would’ve said that Alfie chose the guardian-focused class evolution because it let him shield others from harm. His personality seemed to fit that idea.

“That’s a noble goal. Don’t let it define you, though. Being selfless is good, but don’t forget that you’re a person. You don’t exist in a vacuum of selflessness. You can’t live for everyone else. Not exclusively. You need a little joy in your life to balance it out. Remember that.”

Alfie nodded seriously, telling Elijah that he would remember that lesson. Then, he said, “I haven’t gotten a new version of Shape of the Guardian yet, but I think it’s coming soon.”

“That’s great. I look forward to seeing it,” Elijah said. “Now. Do you want to see something no one else on this planet has ever seen before?”

“Uh…”

“It’s my new shape. I just got it, and I haven’t even tried it out yet.”

“Really? And you’re showing me first?!”

“Well, we Animists have to stick together, right? So? Want to see it?”

It turned out that he very much did. So, without further hesitation, Elijah used Shape of the Magus for the first time.

The transformation happened quickly, but it took significantly more ethera than any of his other shapes. Not enough to change most of his strategies, but enough that he noticed it. The only other form that came close, in terms of mana consumption, was the Shape of the World Serpent.

In any case, Elijah felt his body stretch and morph, and he fell to all fours. In less than a second, the transformation was complete.

“Woah.”

Elijah didn’t really need Alfie’s reaction to know that it was an impressive form. Even without using Soul of the Wild to inspect it, he already knew that he’d become a massive toad. Maybe rhinoceros sized, if he wasn’t totally mistaken. However, the scale of the creature told only part of the story.

His back was made of jagged blue crystals, like cubic fluorite, but slightly clearer. Meanwhile, that azure crystal gave way to muddier brown at his shoulders, turning far denser where his feet met the ground.

“Your eyes…”

Elijah used Soul of the Wild to inspect the object of Alfie’s attention, and he found that his eyes were made of orange crystal swirling with energy that looked like fire. And finally, his underbelly was purest white, almost entirely translucent. However, there were no organs visible. Just swirling wind.

The implications of the toad’s composition were clear, especially when combined with the spell’s description.

Upon closer inspection, the label of dragon toad seemed accurate enough. His face was distinctly frog-like, but with aggressive brow ridges and the mane of blue crystals that gave it a far more predatory look.

“What does it do?” Alfie asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Elijah admitted, his voice far more croak-like than he liked. He checked the spell descriptions again:

Eye of the Magus was pretty self-explanatory, but he still gave it a quick test. And he very nearly blacked out when it took effect. The entire world was teeming with magic, which presented as dense flows of varying colors. Primarily, they were confined to reds, browns and yellows, whites and blues, but there was a good bit of green there as well. There were other colors, too, but they were far less common.

Elijah took them to be representations of different flavors of magic. Red for fire, brown and yellow for earth, white for air, and blue for water. Some of those conflicted with their scale-color representations, which made it slightly disconcerting. However, it still felt mostly intuitive.

Shield of Elements was a passive ability, which meant that it was always active. He would only notice it when someone attacked him with elemental magic.

So, he moved on to the keystone ability.

Way of the Magus.

He activated the spell, sending ethera through the pathways of his soul, but the effect fizzled. He tried again, but with the same result. It was only on the third attempt that he realized what was wrong.

He needed to specify an element.

In this case, he chose fire, largely because he’d become intimately familiar with it while using the Shape of Embers.

The spell activated, but again, there was no outward expression. Instead, Elijah felt something building in his belly.

“Um…your…uh…neck thing is glowing,” said Alfie, backing away.

Elijah opened his mouth, and with a flick of his mind, he spewed a column of fire into the air. However, the second it left his mouth, he realized one very important thing. He could manipulate it.

Taking hold of it with his will, he split the column into three, then bent it towards a nearby rock. The boulder melted in the space of a second.

When the fire dissipated, Elijah just stared at it for a long moment before croaking, “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”