It was the equivalent of a holographic cellphone, except that it could potentially work over any distance. As the multicolored lights swarmed around my room, the scenery changed into a black landscape. Around me stood over a dozen figures from various races, the diplomatic leaders of the different worlds.
I was familiar with most of them, but there were a couple of new faces. The first to speak was the fairy king, Duhe. “John Hulett. You know why you have been called to stand here today?” His wings were a mix of pink and black, looking like those of a butterfly, though he stood nearly five feet tall. His build was slim, a childlike face similar to what was common among his race.
I merely nodded my head. “This is about my request for reinforcements.” I had submitted the report as soon as we arrived in the Gerin system, and naturally had requested reinforcements. Now that the various governments were back under proper management, it should not be too difficult of a request.
Duhe nodded his head, but a black-skinned woman next to him, standing nearly seven feet tall with sharp horns poking out of her head, spoke. This was one of the new representatives, someone whose name I didn’t know. “That’s right. We have spoken on this matter in length.” Her face held a vicious expression, but I did not pay it any mind. She was of the demon race, and their faces were actually like that naturally. It took a great deal of effort for them to have what would pass as normal expressions.
However, her next words surprised me. “After reviewing all of the data on the enemy, we have come to a conclusion. At this time, we are unable to offer any support to your cause.” My shock must have been obvious, because Maeve spoke up next, with a troubled voice.
“Don’t be mistaken… It is not that we do not wish to help. It’s just… our level of technology is far below a standard where we would be of assistance. If we pooled all of our resources together, we might be able to afford a decent ship from the market, but we would have nobody familiar with the systems to man it. Using our own technology, it is unlikely we could do anything more than getting in your way.”
As she spoke, several of the other leaders also nodded their heads. Duhe looked at her for a moment before sighing lightly. “However, we are willing to offer what little aid we can. Though this cannot come in the form of a ship and crew, there are other things that we can assist with.”
“Aye.” A short, potbellied humanoid said. He was Tulin, appointed leader of the dwarven race. “Each of us ‘ave a field we’re good at. Give us a week, boy, and we’ll get ya some designs for yer ship that should ‘elp.”
After Tulin, it was again Maeve that spoke. “Aside from that… we have come to an agreement. Although none of our ships are strong enough to help, and none of us possess the technology to do so on our own, there is something else that can be done. Each of us have agreed to creating a ship together, one that would have the strengths of every race. We can’t make any promises on when it will be done, but once it is, we’ll send it to help.”
I could only nod my head. Honestly, I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t getting any backup. But, the reasons that they provided were all valid. Aside from the Deus Ex and the Qu’Lopti, both technologically superior races, it wasn’t likely that any of the others would have the ability to hurt a New Human Empire ship. The only thing that they’d do would be to add to the number of possible targets.
I guess that I was just hoping they had made new advancements since this all began, which would help them catch up to where we needed them to be. Maybe this new ship that they were working on would fit that bill, maybe not. It might not even be finished before this whole war was over.
Still, the fact that they were at least doing something to help was a sign of improvement. Before, whether it was sending ships to aid me or helping come up with new technologies, none of the other governments had offered help. “I understand. I hope that the process goes well. Until we get the upgrades we need for a prolonged battle, my fleet will be staying in the Gerin system. That will give plenty of time for the designs you mentioned.”
After that, I was dismissed. I could see an apologetic look on Maeve’s face, but I didn’t mind it. With a nod, I picked up the metal sphere from the ground, and placed it back on the table. The holographic environment quickly disappeared, returning the scenery to the normal living quarters from the Ariadne.
“Looks like things are going to slow down for a little while.” I heard Celeste’s voice enter my mind as I sat back down.
“Yeah…” I nodded in reply. “Check to see if there are any dungeons or boss monsters that we could use for training in this system. Even if it wouldn’t be enough to train me, some of the crew could still benefit at least.”
I received a brief confirmation from my mental passenger before she asked a question. “And what about you? Any plans for the next week or two?”
I let out a brief sigh as I thought about it. Honestly, there was nothing incredibly pressing for me to do. I had already updated my gear as much as I could right now. There wasn’t anything on the market that I could afford that seemed like it’d help me get stronger. With my ring and staff, my affinities would naturally grow on their own no matter what I did.
“Maybe I could come up with a new technique or something?” Even after my lessons with my mother and Kismet, most of my strategy relied on pure blasts of elemental energy, or brute force control. I was still struggling to create my own techniques.
At times, I wondered what good it was to have a special technique like that, when you had sufficient control. However, Celeste would always patiently give me the same answer. “A practiced technique can bring out more power than pure control, with less energy used. Although it requires an initial investment of time to create, it can mean the difference between life and death. Compare it to the difference between a street thug and a martial artist. They both throw their fists around, but one does so in a practiced manner to release even more power.”
There wasn’t much I could say to argue with that logic. Truthfully, the only reason that I had never bothered creating new techniques was that I had never met anyone that had a high enough degree of control over any of my elements that pure control wouldn’t work. And, if it didn’t work, I would always have backup to save the day.
However, I couldn’t follow those rules anymore. The opponent that I was challenging next was a god. Even if they weren’t an elemental god, their strength should be something beyond what the current me can handle. Maybe they could shatter planets with a punch, or ignore blasts from even the largest weapons.
No matter what, I needed to improve, and I only had three ways of doing that. One, I had to create new techniques to use. Two, I could learn or improve some of my skills. And three, waiting for my grove to evolve. The last method was unreliable, because I didn’t know what kind of power I would get from this new evolution. As for skills, a new skill likely wouldn’t be enough to help me out, whereas the current ones I have aren’t easy to train anymore.
“You’re just procrastinating because you don’t want to try to think up a new technique, aren’t you?”
“Yes, yes I am.” I answered Celeste calmly, recognizing that I only really had one choice. But what kind of technique did I want? Ideally, I’d like something that I could combine with the others, like a combination move. But those are… difficult to train, to say the least, and impractical. What would I do if one of them wasn’t able to do their part?
“John. Stop procrastinating.”
“I don’t wanna.” Yes, I was being childish. Was I going to stop? Probably not. “Well… I could evolve my Puppet Body power…” I thought back to my only real self-created ability. With a thought, wind and fire formed in the middle of the room, forming a hazy outline of a body. Fires were lit up in the eyes, mouth and hair, while wind densely swirled to create the rest of the body.
“How are you going to do that?” Celeste asked, somewhat doubtfully. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure myself. I knew what the best case scenario woul
d be, but it wasn’t currently possible.
“I… want to make them complete. Having to control each one in a battle is too distracting, even when I split my mind. If I am able to create a consciousness, and make their bodies self-sustaining, I could create my own army of elementals.”
Celeste seemed to nod in my head. “Okay, then what about storing them? I’m sure you don’t want to have a tornado walking around the ship all the time.”
At that, I could only smile bitterly. “That’s the problem. I would like to keep them in my grove, so that I can just bring them out when I need to. But, with my grove on the brink of evolution, that’s impossible. Whatever I sent in there would just be destroyed before it ever saw any use.”
“Alright… I get that… What about a magic item? Could you store their consciousness inside of a magic item, and then push it into the body when you summoned it?”
I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but Celeste’s words struck something, giving me an idea. “Celeste, has anyone ever told you that you are a genius?”
“Not nearly often enough.” Was her quick reply as I got up and made my way to my crafting room. “What did I do this time?”
“Nevermind right now. Tell me, do you have any mana-conductive metals? Mithral, orichalcum, whatever you can gather up.” I had an idea this time, and I was rather relieved when I discovered that Celeste wasn’t directly scanning my mind to find out what it was.
“Let me check with my main body.” There was a brief period of silence while I finished walking to the crafting room. Right now, Priscilla wasn’t here, so she was likely off somewhere keeping either Sharon or one of the other crew members company. “Okay, I’ve got less than half a kilogram of mithral throughout my grove, but that’s it. Everything else has already been used up.”
“Great, can I borrow about half of that?” I wasn’t entirely sure how much I needed, but I knew it wasn’t a lot. “And ask your kids if any of them would like to be the god of their own little world.”
There was a small gasp in my mind, as Celeste instantly understood what I meant to do with this plan. “I’ll go check right now. But, are you sure that would work without giving them a Deus Ex body?”
I nodded my head confidently. “There are a few important aspects to possessing a grove. The most important two are a mind and a soul. The grove integrates directly into the soul, while the mind controls it. Theoretically, an item could be made to have a grove without a mind, but it’d basically just be a bag of holding.”
“If you have a soul and a mind, the next important thing is mana control. That can be easily done, as long as I enchant the item to have that property. Finally, there are the basic elements. Again, those can be simply enchanted into an item. Once all those components are gathered, you just need the elemental seeds. I can easily make those at any time.”
Celeste listened to my explanation before offering her opinion. “Okay… but the starting grove is so small. You can’t store an army in there. And before you suggest it, you can’t just teach the item’s soul to make them, because that would deplete the grove even faster.”
“I know, but we aren’t in enough of a rush that we need the grove developed right away. Besides, don’t we already have the perfect item to gather as much mana as we needed to develop a grove quickly?”
There was a pause from Celeste at that, as she understood what I meant.
Chapter 34: The Inanimate Druid
Soon, Celeste walked into my crafting room carrying a small chunk of silvery rock. Naturally, it had yet to be refined, but I could take care of that. “Any volunteers?” I asked, looking at her. She gave me a slight nod, but seemed hesitant.
“Let me take a look at the item before you put them into it. I don’t want there to be any mistakes here.” I could understand her worry, as these were technically her children. Even if I was giving one the chance to gain a new life, it could all tumble out of control with just one wrong slip. Even if people only looked at AI children like you would look at an orphan, how quickly would you offer up that orphan for a fifty-fifty chance at mini-godhood or death?
“Alright.” I accepted her condition easily, and caused the mithril ore to float out of her hands. Using my control of the elements, I quickly identified the impurities, removing them from the stone before shaping it into ten small rings. Each ring would represent one possible attempt to get the enchantment right.
First, I began to establish the enchantment circle. This would probably have the most varied components out of the ones I had done so far, due to needing so many elements. Because I wanted to include more than just the basic few elements into the grove eventually to support elemental constructs with more possibilities than just those, I included a total of ten ‘gather elemental mana’ enchantments.
The elements included were: fire, water, earth, wind, light, dark, lightning, plant, animal, and metal. With this combination, I should be able to create a stable grove that can support almost any constructs I want to put in it. After all, it would suck if I put a lightning elemental into the world, and it died out because of losing energy.
Now, with that taken care of, I included a mana manipulation enchantment. Normally, something like this would be useless on an item, because it is designed to enable the item itself to manipulate mana more effectively, not the person using it. If anything, it uses up extra enchantment space in the aura to slightly reduce the cost of using the item’s abilities. But, if I give the item its own soul and its own mind, then it should allow it to manipulate mana like any normal person.
From the pile of ten rings, I grabbed one at random and placed it into the center of the large enchantment circle. Then, I began infusing my mana into the circle itself. Because this was such delicate work, I did not allow the enchantment circle to take control of the mana to do the work for me. Instead, I constantly monitored the flow of energy, keeping it in check.
When the enchantment began to be absorbed into the ring, I strengthened my control of it. This was a crucial step, as I had to arrange the enchantments in such a way that I would be able to fit the AI’s mind into it when I was done. And, in order to make sure that the AI would be able to safely use all of the item’s powers, I had to place that particular enchantment as close to the center as absolutely possible.
However, perhaps my control of the mana had been a bit too strict. Just as the enchantment was beginning to settle in, and the flow of magic started to finalize itself in the ring, small cracks began forming along the outside of the ring itself. Then, with a quiet snap, the ring split apart in half.
Just as I was being thankful that the damage was low enough that I could simply reforge the ring, it began glowing red hot. Then stopped immediately and cracked again, then started glowing, before it erupted into a small burst of wind. As each piece hit the ground, they fell through the shadows, never to be seen again.
Okay, that’s probably the weirdest enchanting failure I’ve seen before. Shaking my head, I looked over the enchantment circle to make sure that I did not need to make any revisions before grabbing the next in the line of rings to begin work on. One down, nine to go.
“So, John…” Celeste spoke up, grabbing my attention before I could get started with this ring.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you want to give this ring its own mind? If you made it a soulbound item like your armor, then wouldn’t you be able to control it like a second grove?” She looked honestly curious when she asked that, but I couldn’t blame her. I hadn’t actually thought about doing it that way. However, there were a couple of flaws in the idea that would prevent it from being viable.
“Well, didn’t really cross my mind. But, pretty sure it wouldn’t work. If we make it a soulbound item, that means it would be merged with my soul, and thus my grove. The whole reason we’re doing this is because my grove can’t be used. Also, I wanted to be able to give the item to someone else in case of emergencies, and tell the constructs to obey the wearer of the ring.”
Shaking my head, I got back to work. This time, when the mana came into contact with the ring, I allowed my control of it to relax slightly, though still made sure to provide enough room within the enchantment for the mind to be placed. “Though, now that you mention it, this would be a good way to quickly cheat and give someone a grove of their own, if we soulbind one of these rings to them. Could potentially mass produce groves.”
Celeste waited to speak until I was relaxing my control of the mana again, waiting to see if this was a success or failure. “True, but doing it that way would present a problem of its own. Bypassing the initial cultivation lessons means that they would only ever be able to use the elements that were put into the ring at the start. They’d still have to learn to cultivate mana on their own.”
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