by Andrew Rowe
I turned to find Meltlake watching Mara intently with narrowed eyes. I knew she could handle the fight easily if she needed to, but how quickly could she cross the distance? She couldn’t teleport, could she?
I frowned, but remained in place for the moment.
Mara on a white tile only twenty feet or so from the gigantic beast, raised her fists with a gleam around them, and said, without a hint of humor, “Here, kitty kitty.”
The gigantic tiger was eager to oblige. With a leap that made my heart pound in my chest, it crossed the entire distance between the two of them in a single leap. If it was truly made of solid metal as it appeared, landing on top of Mara would have crushed her into paste, even with her considerable strength.
She wasn’t there when it landed, of course. She made a leap of her own, but not as far as her typical ones, hopping just far enough to land at the tiger’s right side. She pulled her glowing fist back and slammed it into the creature’s side with a quick “hah!”, then stumbled backward with a wince.
The tiger wasn’t damaged in the slightest. When it swung a paw in her direction, Mara was already leaping backward, avoiding the gout of flame that erupted from the tile she was currently standing on. That put her on a yellow tile, which fired a blast of lighting from the nearby wall.
She punched the lightning with her good hand, sending the flickering bolt straight into the tiger.
That had an effect, at least — but probably not the type she’d hoped for. The tiger shuddered as the electrical current struck it, then lowered its head and inhaled.
“That’s…uh…” Patrick mumbled. We all recognized it, including Mara, from the panicked expression on her face.
She reacted quickly, but it wasn’t enough. When she leaped upward, the tiger simply turned its own head to face her — and then exhaled. A colossal line of blue-white lightning crackled from the tiger’s jaws.
Mara crossed her arms over her body just before impact, her aura briefly hardening. Then the lightning smashed into her, burning through her shield sigil’s barrier in an instant and sending her flying backward to land in a shuddering heap on the floor.
I shot forward before Sera could protest. Meltlake still hadn’t moved, and I wasn’t convinced she’d do so in time.
Mara’s entire body was smoking when she pushed herself off the ground, kicking a spike that shot out of the ground beneath her and snapping it in twain. She spat blood, and I couldn’t tell if it was just from her split lip or something worse.
“Mara!” I shouted as I flew closer. “Let us help!”
“No.” She shook herself off as the tiger slowly turned toward her, growling and preparing to leap again. “I’ve got this, Corin.” Her fists tightened. “I have to.”
“At least let me boost you to Sunstone!”
“No need.” Then, as the tiger leapt toward her again, Mara cracked her neck and stretched out her hands to her sides.
“I hit Sunstone two days ago.”
The world seemed to freeze in place as Mara’s aura flashed brilliant orange. Then, as my vision cleared, I saw her shooting upward with a blade of pure mana stretched out from her right arm.
The tiger’s lunge missed her entirely. Mara landed atop its back, narrowly avoiding the mass of spikes, and thrust her mana blade into the tiger’s neck.
The tiger roared, then bucked, hurling Mara free. When she landed, she was already moving again, sliding under a paw and swinging upward, slicing through the bottom half of the tiger’s throat and scattering metal fragments everywhere.
That still didn’t cause the tiger to fall. It slammed a paw down toward her, only for Mara to roll beneath the arm, slashing upward at the elbow and tearing another gash.
When it spun toward her, Mara slashed across the tiger’s face, then jumped backward again. “Gotcha.” She grinned and hopped back another step.
The traps she’d triggered with all that sliding and rolling went off. She was long gone, but the tiger wasn’t.
Flames burst from the ground beneath it, melting sheets of metal. Spikes shot upward, failing to pierce the creature’s hide, but staggering it regardless. Vines of pure darkness wrapped around its rear legs.
When the tiger tried to stagger backward, instead, it simply fell to the ground with a crash.
“Good night, poor kitty.” Mara’s next jump put her on top of the center of the creature’s head. Then, with both arms raised upward, she formed a two-handed mana blade and slammed it straight into the tiger’s skull.
A moment later, the creature crashed to the ground. This time, it did not rise.
“Holy goddess,” Patrick murmured, floating up beside me. “Did you see that?”
I wasn’t listening. I shot forward, floating down next to her. “You okay?”
Mara snorted. “I’m fine, Corin! You don’t have to be such a worrier.” She dismissed her mana blades, then brushed her hair out of her eyes.
“You want some healing?” I asked.
“Quick regen spell wouldn’t go amiss.” She reached out a hand toward me.
I took it. “Lesser Regeneration.” My hand flashed green as the energy flowed between us, then I hastily withdrew my hand.
“Thanks.” She grinned. “I feel better already.”
Sera floated down nearby. “Did you do that just to show off hitting Sunstone?”
“Maybe.” She smiled. “Couldn’t resist the urge to make it a bit of a surprise, you know? And aura suppression was good practice. Might need to do it all the time once I hit Emerald.”
“How’d you get there so fast?” Sera asked. “I know you were in the spire for a week, but even with the accelerated growth from the increased mana density in here, you shouldn’t be much higher than three hundred.”
Mara gave her a guilty look. “Enhancement elixirs. Before we went into the spire, Keras went to a bank and withdrew some things from storage. He gave me a set of six Emerald-level elixirs. They…he said he’d been saving them for someone important. I think he…might have given up on something to give them to me.” She looked away for a moment, then closed her eyes and continued. “Couldn’t say no, though. I burned through one each day, got a bit stronger with each. Then, when I cleared the fifth floor with him and Patrick, I asked for another, weaker elixir as my prize for beating the spire guardian. The prize was just a Sunstone-level one, but that put me just over what I needed.”
“That’s an awful lot of elixirs to go through in a short time period. What about elixir toxicity?” I asked. “Isn’t that dangerous?”
Mara shrugged. “Less so with my attunement than most, given how much Guardian reinforces my body. And these were high-end, expensive elixirs. He’d been saving them for years. But yeah, it was a gamble. I took it. You can see the results.”
Close to a hundred mana in six days was…absurd. I’d known elixirs could boost growth rates, but if Keras had given her elixirs that had boosted her mana to that extent…
Maybe I needed to get back into researching elixirs a little more seriously. I wasn’t going to get Emerald-level ones like Keras had given Mara, of course. I didn’t even know how he could have gotten those…a tournament prize, maybe?
I was curious who he had been originally intending to give them to, but that wasn’t the important thing right now.
I shot Meltlake a look as the professor floated closer. “You knew she was Sunstone, didn’t you?”
“I suspected.” Meltlake shrugged. “But more than that, I trusted that Miss Callahan could handle the encounter regardless of her attunement level. You’re still holding back a thing or two, aren’t you?”
“Might be that I am.” She flexed her hands. “But you know, right now, some of that mana water wouldn’t go amiss.”
The door to the previous room had reopened with the end of the conflict, and Mara went back there with the others. The floor was inert now, so Patrick dismissed the levitation spells to conserve mana.
While the others retreated with Mara, I stayed with Melt
lake near the tiger and got to work. “Any idea where the core is located?” I asked her.
“Not for this style of construct, no.” She shook her head. “But I’ll help you dig.” Meltlake raised her cane and a thin line of white flame extended from it. With that flame, she cut through slices of the tiger in an instant.
It only took a few minutes before we located the creature’s mana core, which I stowed in the Jaden Box. As an afterthought, I asked Meltlake to cut a few smaller chunks of the tiger and stored those in the box, too.
“You’re quite a collector, aren’t you?” Meltlake noted.
“Comes with the attunement, I think.”
“Perhaps, but your case seems more extreme than most. Don’t worry, however. I mean that as a compliment.”
“Thanks, Professor.”
She nodded. For a time, we were both silent.
Then, she said quietly, “I’ve been thinking about what you said before.” And after a moment, she added, “I don’t think you need my help. You are doing just fine on your own.”
I blinked, turning to face her more completely. For a moment, Meltlake looked much older than her actual age.
I was never good at inspirational speeches, and I certainly didn’t know how to give proper encouragement to someone in her position. Meltlake was a hero. She’d been famous since…well, around when I’d been born, really, when she’d first been heralded as a prodigy of the Hartigan family.
What did you say to someone like that?
I wasn’t sure, so I said the first thing that came to my mind. “…Isn’t that a good thing?”
She seemed taken aback by that. “Well, it speaks well for your abilities, of course, but…”
I raised both hands. “No, no. Not just that, professor. It speaks well for how well you taught us.”
Meltlake gave me a skeptical look. “You’ve had many teachers.”
“Sure, sure. But you’re more than that — you’re an inspiration to all of us. You’re an icon. Just having you at the school is a symbol of Valian potential. Do you remember what happened with our mid-terms?”
“Certainly. Your team made it all the way to the end.”
“…And we were absolutely demolished by your simulacrum. I still don’t know how you managed to make one like that, but it was a good lesson. As strong as we might have gotten for our age, we still have a long way to go. We worked harder after that day. All of us. And beyond that? You’ve taken the time to give personal training to Patrick. He idolizes you, you know.”
“I’m not certain that’s wise.”
“Who would be a better model? You’re the most powerful Elementalist in recent history, Professor. Maybe the most powerful of all time. And how many powerful Elementalists would even bother to pass on their teachings to a commoner?”
She gave me a harder look. “Patrick has tremendous potential. His position of birth is absolutely irrelevant.”
“Right.” I nodded. “And how many other powerful Elementalists do you think would have felt that same way and offered to personally mentor him?”
“I…” She hesitated. “…Is that really enough?”
I shrugged. “I think it is. But it’s not up to me — and if it’s not enough for you, fine. You’ve still got choices. Maybe you can’t achieve Sapphire. Maybe that was a big goal, and you’ll never reach it: that’s tough, but that happens to a lot of people, you know. I was crushed when I didn’t get the Shaper attunement. But I’m still here, still working…and, in truth, I’m probably a whole lot stronger than if I’d just gotten the thing I’d wanted.”
Meltlake seemed to consider that. “Perhaps. I know there are other routes to power, they just seem…insufficient.”
“Well, then keep looking. Or make a new one. It may sound arrogant, but if you need help, I’m glad to offer it.”
“…Thank you, Corin. I…think you’re right. If one route proves impossible…I simply need to choose another.”
Maybe it was just my imagination, but when she turned away from me and toward the next room, I think she stood a little straighter. More like the Professor Meltlake I’d first encountered.
It wasn’t long before the others returned. After only a brief bit of discussion, we headed to the doors to the next room.
I knew what awaited us. It was a simple circular room with a stairway in the middle. In front of the stairway was a hovering phantasmal figure that resembled nothing more than an empty robe.
“Congratulations,” the spectral speaker spoke. “You have completed the fifth floor of the spire. Before you proceed, you may each choose a single reward.”
With a wave of the speaker’s hand the air filled with glittering prizes. Swords, daggers, bags of coins, potions, pieces of armor…they manifested without warning, then floated in midair.
In spite of knowing what was coming, I still gazed in awe. Then, immediately, I activated Detect Aura.
Most of the items were enchanted. Uniformly, those items bearing enchantments were Sunstone-level.
An idea crossed my mind. “…How much time do we have to choose?”
“There is no strict time limit,” the spectral figure explained.
“Perfect.” I grinned. “You guys up for waiting a few hours?”
***
While the others discussed their prizes, I made notes. I sketched out every single rune on every single item present.
I didn’t think there would be any truly unknown runes in the set, but there were a few I wasn’t currently familiar with.
After that, the next task was somewhat more exhausting. I went back to any of the items I couldn’t identify at a glance, touched one of the runes, and got to work.
Identify.
The process wasn’t foolproof, but I recorded what I could, then reported that information back to the group.
“Okay. So, I’ve sorted the items here into categories.”
Sera rubbed at her temples. “Of course you have.”
I ignored her. “The items over here,” I gestured to a pile in the right corner, “are easily replicable with my current enchantment skill level. Some of them are useful, but we should still avoid them, because if we want it, I can just make it later.”
“This section,” I pointed again, “has items that require mana types that aren’t available to me right now, but still could be reproduced if we get access to someone with that mana type. I’d consider those low priority, but I’m not going to be grumpy if someone decides to take one.”
“And the rest are items you can’t reproduce?” Sera queried.
“Mm. Sort of. Two more sections. One is items I know I won’t be able to make for a while, either due to magical or material requirements. The last pile is stuff that doesn’t fall into any of those other categories. It includes items I can’t identify, things that aren’t magical items at all, that sort of thing. I’d recommend you all take something from one of those last two stacks.”
“What about you?” Mara asked. “Stickin’ with what you came for?”
“Yep.” I’d already picked up a single silvery disc and confirmed with the phantasmal figure that was watching us that it was a Petitioner’s Token. Sadly, said phantasmal figure wouldn’t help me identify the few remaining magical items I hadn’t cracked. “Some of this other stuff is tempting, though, so if any of you want to get me something…”
Sera rolled her eyes. “We’re still a long way from your name day, but we’ll see. Come on, show us around.”
I headed to the pile of items I couldn’t replicate.
First, a pair of pure-white gloves. “Magician’s Gloves. They make whatever you’re holding not only invisible, but also inaudible and intangible to everyone other than yourself. I could handle the first couple parts of something like this, but the third part is sprit magic.”
“Might be for someone a little sneakier than we are,” Patrick noted.
Inadvertently, I thought of Jin. “Maybe, but there are other applications. Depending on the area, y
ou might be able to, say, make a locked treasure box incorporeal.”
“Would it work on people?” Sera asked.
I blinked. “Uh…maybe very small people? I don’t know, actually. I’m not familiar enough with spirit runes to know the total area it covers, or how applicable it would be to the living.”
“Hm.” Sera seemed to ponder that, but didn’t make any moves to take the gloves.
I moved on to the next item, a bright yellow crystal sphere. I tapped a finger against the surface. Immediately, holes opened in the sides of the sphere and began to glow. “Off,” I said. The holes closed. I grinned. “I like this one. Automated proximity defense sphere. When you tap it, it detects you as the owner, then activates and attacks anyone else that is nearby. You can give it a few more specific commands, but I haven’t sorted through all of them again. I’m pretty sure you can mark friendlies somehow, but, uh, not sure.”
“What kind of attacks are we talking about?” Patrick asked.
“It shoots beams of light mana. I don’t think they’re very strong, but it might be a good emergency defense for, say, if you have to sleep in the middle of dangerous territory. Could deploy it around corners or that sort of thing, too.”
“Seems a little unwieldy,” Sera noted. She was right: the sphere was larger than a fist, meaning that carrying it in a simple belt pouch would be tricky.
“Yeah. Might have to have a special bag for it, or a backpack…or maybe build some kind of compacting function into it?” I frowned, then shook my head. “No, that’s too likely to damage it. Probably. I’ll think on it.”
“What’s next?” Sera asked.
“Oh, right.” I pointed at a floating potion vial. “Simplest thing here.”
“Enhancement elixir.” Mara filled in for me. “Same type as the reward I got from the last climb. You were workin’ on learning to make those though, yeah?”
“Working on the theory behind it, sure, but I didn’t take the potions class like Cecily. It’s probably going to be quite a while before I can do something like that, especially since it’s a Sunstone-level potion. Also, the materials are expensive. Mass producing those is a long-term plan, but for now, something like that isn’t a bad pick. It’s probably a couple points of mana at most, but that’s a permanent benefit. Most magical items are temporary.”
