by Jay Boyce
They were staring at her, and it was Eric who sighed. “I suppose this means you’ve reached intermediate in spatial magic? I can’t move your schedule around…though I don’t think it’ll be a problem. There aren’t any other spatial magic students at the moment, so it’s just tutoring…”
Jade snapped her fingers as she realized, “Oh! Yes, I’m at intermediate, but I would like to move to the intermediate death magic class too. I also want to switch my life and earth magic classes so I’m in intermediate for those too.”
“You’re already at intermediate life magic?” Eric raised a brow. “Didn’t you just learn it this morning?”
Jade grinned, shrugging. “What can I say? I’m a fast learner!”
“You’re intermediate in earth magic too?” Victor asked in interest.
She paused, considering the table, then shrugged and said, “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?” Will asked curiously.
“It means that ten of my magics combined into a single skill called Elementalist, and it’s at advanced.” She grinned as several utensils hit plates and the table, having been dropped again.
She rather enjoyed dropping bombshell statements.
Chapter Fifty-Three – Business
Silence reigned at the table for a few precious moments as her statement sunk in. “Advanced?” Camille had sputtered out first, echoing her last word. Her eyes were wide and she stared at Jade in awe.
“Yes, advanced.” Jade’s voice was filled with patience as she waited for them to process the bombshell she’d just dropped.
It was Victor who spoke next, his words surprising her into a short laugh. “You know, for once I’d like a meal with no surprises. Is that so much to ask?” He looked up at the ceiling as if appealing to some higher power. Jade was tempted to tell him not to bother, it didn’t help and no one was listening…but then she stopped herself. Did it help? She was here, wasn’t she? How could she have gotten here if it wasn’t for some higher power? If they were real, she had a thing or two to say to them about how they were running their world. Because really, why monsters? Why couldn’t they have made the dissenters into bunnies or something?
Did they have bunnies here? What would they look like in monster form? She once again wondered if they had a little nub horn and were called bashers. She barely held back a giggle at the thought. She almost wanted to see it, just to see how close Dakota had gotten. Maybe this world was just one big dungeon made by two crystal gods. It wouldn’t explain how she got there, but it was entertaining to think about nonetheless.
“Earth to Jade.” Will was waving his hand in front of her face, and she realized everyone was staring at her again.
“Sorry, spaced out there. What’d I miss?” She grinned unapologetically. She was still herself, so she figured they should come to expect her space cadet moments by now. Sadly, she thought she’d been doing better about staying in the present lately. There was still work to be done!
“Could you tell us more about your skill combination? What were the ten magics you mentioned?” Eric was carefully probing her, but the way he said it, your skill combination, made her pause.
Then it hit her, and she asked curiously, “Wait, you knew about skill combination before?”
Eric sighed, obviously realizing he wasn’t going to get information out of her until her curiosity was satisfied by the stubborn look on her face. “Only from legend. There are several books in the library that talk about how some of the first ancestors were so talented that their skills combined into something greater. They were called the Heaven’s Blessed. Unfortunately, we don’t have many records from back then, so the knowledge of how it was accomplished was lost.”
Jade pondered that for a moment, then nodded. “Well, as best I can tell, I got elementalist when ten different magic types hit intermediate. They were blood, dark, earth, fire, light, lightning, metal, nature, water, and wind. So I’d assume it’s when ten different skills are complementary and hit intermediate.” She paused, then shrugged. “I have no idea what all that would entail for anything other than magic. I know of at least ten other magic types, so once I hit intermediate on all of those, I’ll let you know, though I still haven’t managed to learn the one.” That last bit was grumbled darkly, an obvious sore point that she’d failed this morning.
She didn’t know when Eric had pulled out a sheet of paper and quill, but he was dutifully scribbling down all of her hypothesis. He glanced up, asking simply, “What are the other ten magic types you know, just to be sure we’re on the same page?”
Jade sighed. “You know all of them already. You’ve got classrooms for them. You only need to switch out special with gravity.” She paused, then sighed. “Only, I know that’s not all of them.”
Victor piped up, “You mean the four other colors you could see?”
She nodded, then explained to the confused Eric and Stephen, “I can see four colors I haven’t tapped in my aura, but I’ve no idea what they mean. They’re this pearly white, copper, silver, and gold.”
“I wonder what they would be…” Eric’s mutter encapsulated everyone’s feelings as they all pondered what the colors might mean.
“I doubt we’ll figure it out on our own. If it was something we knew about, someone would have learned it already.” Camille’s voice was that of reason, so the rest reluctantly moved on to what they knew.
Eric frowned while looking down at his sheet of notes. “What level did you say elementalist was?”
Jade shook her head at him with a grin. “You know full well I didn’t say, but it’s at advanced seven.”
He paused, obviously thinking about something deeply as he murmured, “I’m not sure the intermediate classes will do you much good then…”
She laughed. “Of course they will! Just because my skill level is so high doesn’t mean I know how to properly use it! It just makes it easier for me. It doesn’t give me knowledge of what I can do.” She knew that because of her other magics, like life, death, and spatial. Just because she’d had them for a while, it meant nothing until she’d figured out what she was supposed to be doing with them.
“I suppose that makes sense… Alright, I’ll let the teachers know of the change. There shouldn’t be any problems.” Eric made a few last notes on his paper before putting it away in a small pouch, not unlike the one she’d just given Camille. Only, it obviously wasn’t large enough to hold the paper he’d just put in it. Activating her mana sense, she could see the bright purple glow of spatial magic.
Holding out her hand, she asked curiously, “May I have a look at that?” He paused for a moment, then silently handed it over. She probed it with her magic, finding a three by three by three foot space. She absently reached with her magic, carving out more space until it was a cube of four feet. Nodding to herself, she passed it back, then looked at Camille. “Hey, hand me that bag back for a moment?” Slightly confused as to what was going on, Camille did so. She quickly enlarged that to a cube of three feet instead of a single foot. Handing it back, she asked, “Alright, anyone else got one?”
Camille took the purse, looking inside again as she shook her head in bewilderment. “You just…right now…”
Jade bounced happily. “Sure, why not?” Eric was shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe her antics.
Will asked in confusion, “What did she do?”
Eric drawled back to him, “She just enlarged our bags.”
Stephen looked like he was going to ask more, but Estelle came over with the food at that point, one of her helpers carrying a second tray as she distributed the food to their table. “Thanks, Estelle!” Jade piped up quickly and was echoed by the others around the table. She’d noticed that Estelle only came out to deliver food personally to a few people, and those at the table were included in that group.
“You’re very welcome, and how are you doing today?” Her voice was kind as she set out the leafy greens and juice for her fellacai, no longer jus
t bringing Jade an extra plate and food. She seemed gratified when Jade’s babies flew down from her head to land and devour the offering.
“We’re good, thanks.” She was much better now that she had food. Even her annoyance at her ineptitude with spiritual magic dimmed in front of the feast laid out before her. “This looks amazing!”
Estelle beamed with pride, nodding. “And none of it crunchy, just for you. You enjoy your meal, now. I’ve got to get back.” She patted Jade’s shoulder affectionately, wishing the others a good day as well before she went back to her counter.
Jade grinned at her retreating back, muttering under her breath, “I really like that woman.” She turned back to her food, happily digging in as she glanced at the others, who’d also started eating. She thought about it for a moment, then held out her hand as she paused her eating. “Here, hand me your signet rings.”
Camille shook her head. “No, I’m good. Do you have any idea the value of what you’re trying to do for us? What you’ve already given us?”
Jade mulled it over for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t really care. These won’t be that large, just big enough to hold your weapons and such. Just think of it as extra safety,” she held up a hand, forestalling the rebuttals she could see on the tips of their lips, “but if you really want to repay me, then you can help me get my businesses going.”
“Businesses? As in, multiple?” Victor’s voice was filled with incredulity.
Smiling, she nodded. “You all know I have a bunch of ideas from my old world that I wanted to recreate. I figure, I want to create them, but I don’t have a whole lot of time to do so. Therefore, I’ve created blueprints.” She paused at their look of confusion, then tried to explain, “Basically, they’re detailed instructions on how to make them? Anyway, I’ve created a whole slew of instructions on things I want made or designs from my old world that I think would be fairly easy to recreate. I’ve put my instructions on a crystal using illusion magic.”
She paused, looking a little wistfully at her food before she went on. “I’ve got them split up into several categories, but I also don’t want to ruin the economy by flooding it with new stuff and putting others out of business. So I need to find people to make my designs for a portion of the profit. I haven’t decided yet if I want to let them sell it themselves or if I want my own store, but I’m leaning towards having one giant store with different sections for all the different things.” Heck yes, she would be the Walmart of this world!
“The long and short of it is, I’ve got a bunch of ideas but no idea who to contract and how to get a shop, etc. So I need business partners who can take care of the day to day and logistical side so I can work on other things and supply designs. Also, I figure my spatial rings are something that only I can do, so you would be my ambassadors for that, and with you guys sporting them, all the nobles will want them too.”
She took a deep breath, then let it out, figuring they needed time to process. She took that opportunity to start scarfing food down happily, humming to herself. Once she’d eaten a bit more, she put in her final two cents, “I realize all of you are probably super busy, so I don’t expect you to do it yourselves, obviously, but I figure you can find me capable people and help me get it started.”
Eric had already taken out a new sheet of paper and ink, his quill poised to write her answers down as he asked, “What exactly are we working with here? What kind of things are you selling?”
Jade contemplated the question for a moment, then explained, “Quite a lot of it is stuff you wear, be it clothes, bags, or jewelry. I’ve also got a stack of metal inventions, a ton of different foods, and the new obstacle course I designed. Then of course, I’ll have my spatial rings of holding. There’s also Damian’s glass figurines that I light up, though I’m not sure he’d want them to be sold anywhere besides his shop.” She paused, thinking. “I bet people would be interested in more communication network mirrors, too. I also recreated some of the music and shows from my old world.”
“When exactly did you have time to do all this?” Stephen’s quiet voice brought her back to the present.
“Oh, after my lesson with Queen Ashanna. I had an hour and a half, so I literally just made all of the crystal blueprints. Apparently, all I have to do is think about inserting a specific memory, and that put the entire thing in. It was rather nice and time saving.”
They were just shaking their heads. Eric finally began, “Alright, so as far as division of labor goes… I should probably handle the metal stack.”
“You’ll probably need help with that, actually. It’s the most complicated and involves a wide variety of random other things. Plus, a lot of the jewelry is metal based.”
He paused, considering this, then shook his head. “It’s not going to be simple, is it?” She shook her head and he sighed. “Alright. We’ll probably just have to take a look through the designs before we decide then. Is there anyone specific you’d like to work with?”
“Actually, yes. Sharon from Sew in Style would be my choice for help with the clothing, but there’s honestly so much there that she’d probably have to hire more help. Oh, and Keenan from Keenan’s stone. Those are my only preferences.”
“Noted.” Eric had quickly written the name down, then shook his head. “When can we see the designs?”
Jade shrugged. “Whenever, really. I have them in my ring.”
“Right…” he muttered while everyone else was eating quickly. Evidently, they thought whenever meant ‘eat fast because we’re making another field trip to her workshop right now.’
“What do you want to call your shop?” Victor’s voice was gentle as he asked his question.
She paused. The only thing she’d ever come up with was Jade’s Inventions, and that seemed…pompous and wrong. They weren’t her inventions, anyway. She was stealing copyrighted material here… Could she do something with Copy? Copycat? What about something with alternate? Jademart? Maybe something to do with magic?
With a sigh, she shook her head. “I’ve got no clue.”
Chapter Fifty-Four – Terraform
“I know! You should call it–” Will paused for dramatic effect, “Jade’s Empire! Because you’re literally trying to sell everything and take over the world!” She almost snorted her food trying to contain her laughter but couldn’t stop the giggling fit when Victor reached over and hit him upside the head.
Still, the topic deserved consideration. She didn’t want to call it Jade’s anything because the ideas weren’t her own; she was just stealing them from her old world and bringing them here. At least she had magic, and it wasn’t like some sci-fi show where she had to terraform the planet before it was habitable…
Wait! “That’s it!” She realized she’d spoken aloud when everyone turned to look at her. Blushing sheepishly, she said with a smile, “I think I want to call it Terraform.”
“That’s…an interesting name. Care to explain what it means?” Stephen’s voice held curiosity for the new term.
She grinned. “Well, there’s two meanings. My old world was called Earth, but before that, it was called Terra, which still means…earth, just in a different language. So I guess the first meaning is that I’m taking the form of things from Earth, or Terra, and bringing them here. Which I suppose is pretty close to the second point, anyway. The actual term terraform was used in stories of traveling through space to other worlds. Most other worlds can’t actually support life, so they talked of terraforming the planet, or making it habitable to terrestrial, or land-bound beings. That’s really what I’m doing, I guess. I’m taking things from my world to make things here more comfortable for myself.”
“That’s…pretty on the nose.” Victor smiled encouragingly at her. “It’s also pretty great that you’ll be making it in the kingdom based on earth magic. It just matches all around.” He paused, then asked, “Your world was called Earth?”
She nodded. “Yeah, imagine my surprise when people kept using earth in sayings an
d it had a similar connotation. I guess some things stand the test of worlds. It was a little disorienting at first because I knew you were referring to either the ground or the god and not the planet like I would have been. I also wonder if sometimes whatever makes me understand and speak your language just translates things into a similar saying I’d understand.”
“The ground is the embodiment of the god, so it’s not that much different either way. As for the other part, I have no idea, but it’s worth looking into,” Camille spoke in explanation.
“Really? Like I know he’s called Father Earth, but you think he IS the earth?” Her voice betrayed her bewilderment.
Victor shook his head. “No, but it’s his domain. More like it’s his aura, an extension that he created for us to live on. All things on it are under his watch.”
Jade shook her head. “Okay, religious philosophy can wait.” Forever, as far as she was concerned. She still had a thing or two to tell the gods if she ever got her hands on them. She shook that thought away. Monsters were plenty; she didn’t need to go against gods that seemed mostly benign, the whole turning people into monsters thing aside. Maybe they gave people monsters to fight so they wouldn’t rise up against the gods? She dropped that line of thought, trying to move on. She had different priorities to take care of! Things would be fine as long as they didn’t expect her to be their poster child.
Her babies had finished their meal by now and were moving back to her hair, satisfied. She quickly finished her meal since everyone else had started scarfing stuff down. When everyone was done, she nodded, smiling as she stood. “Alright, let’s get this show on the road!” They looked at her strangely but started out the doors nonetheless. Thinking about it, the fact that people didn’t understand her sayings meant that they weren’t being translated or that it only worked one way. Strange. She quickly stacked the plates on the table to make it easier on Estelle and her helpers, then left as well after waving to the woman behind the counter who nodded back cheerfully to her.
