When everyone was done talking, they dispersed to pursue the new leads they’d just discovered. Ethan needed to find somewhere to get his armor repaired, so he headed for the market district alone. After asking around, he quickly located a rentable workbench in a shop. An enterprising Aknii merchant had set it up for players to use, at a price. The bench was cobbled together using a mix of familiar tech and Aknii spellsmithing, but after some experimentation, Ethan realized it worked exactly like a normal workbench from Worldshift.
Once his armor was fully repaired, Ethan found a quiet place to meditate in a temple courtyard. After his run in with the growler and his talk with Lily, he felt like his mental state had changed significantly for the better. That mattered in evoking, so perhaps his clearer mind would allow him to make some progress when it came to touching the Origin and studying the glowing patterns in his own mind that allowed him to summon the power. He was going to need much more practice if he ever wanted to use evoking in combat.
At first, Ethan made progress developing his control over his evoking, but he soon reached a limit. He could only sit still for so long, and his thoughts had begun to wander. It made focusing on certain glyphs and emotions difficult.
Sighing, Ethan stood and stretched. What should he do now? He wanted to improve himself so that he wouldn’t let his team down again, but he could only do so much by himself. Well, there was one person who might be able to help… With another deep sigh, Ethan started walking to visit Adhut. Although, he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was so depressed that he wanted someone to yell at him.
Surprisingly, Adhut wasn’t in his cell. The monk at the gate pointed Ethan in the direction of one of the paved courtyards. There, Ethan found Adhut stretching by himself.
“I see that Lily isn’t with you. Why are you here?” the monk asked in a neutral voice as he kept stretching.
Ethan shuffled nervously. “Sorry to bother you, but I was nearby, and I thought I’d see if I could get some more advice or training.”
Adhut looked up and gave Ethan a curious look. “Very well. I’m glad you’re at least beginning to show some initiative.”
“Does that mean you’ll teach me some more evoking?”
“Yes, although since we’re out here in the courtyard and Lily isn’t around, the lesson will be a little different today. I feel like a workout, so we will be doing some sparring.”
“Using evoking? Is that safe?” Ethan asked in surprise.
Adhut huffed. “You have that fancy armor of yours, and I’m more than capable of protecting myself from someone at your level. Now suit up and take position over there.”
Nervously, Ethan did as he was told. He summoned his helmet and walked to where Adhut was pointing. Then he turned to face the monk. They were standing on opposite sides of a large square made up of stone tiles.
“Now, gather your power and attempt to hit me with it,” the monk told him. “For this exercise, crossing onto my half of the square is not allowed.”
“Er, how? You’re too far away.” Ethan touched the Origin and created a ball of twisting air above one of his hands.
His orb was now purer and more powerful than before, thanks to his meditation and training. Following Adhut’s advice, Ethan had also focused on smoothing out the power inside his orb and making it pull everything toward its center, instead of just twisting the air around randomly. However, he had no idea how to hit someone with it. He could move it around, but it didn’t have much range.
Adhut nodded. “So, you’ve realized some of the limitations of evoking. You can only touch the Origin within a certain distance of your own body, which is not the only limitation. You probably don’t know this, but all thinking creatures create ripples that disturb the Origin. Thus, it is harder to touch the Origin the closer you get to another person. This effect is even more pronounced around evokers, many of whom train themselves to strengthen their aura as a defense.”
“So it’s useless offensively?” Ethan asked.
“Far from it,” Adhut replied as he summoned a globe of fire and threw it at Ethan.
Taken by complete surprise, Ethan barely had time to flinch before the flames washed over him. He yelped and stumbled backward, but as the fire disappeared, he realized he was unharmed. His armor had done its job.
“Right, so how did you do that?” Ethan asked as he tried to pretend he hadn’t just squeaked like a little girl. “I’m pretty sure that just violated both the rules of evoking you’ve taught me and several of the rules of physics as well.”
Adhut grinned smugly back at him. “Energy drawn from the Origin doesn’t just vanish if you stop touching it. You simply have to hurl the power at your opponent, and this is where aether comes in so handy. That fireball was really a glob of heated aether.”
“I thought you said aether was like water.”
“Mostly it is, although I did say there were differences. Aether holds heat much better and doesn’t evaporate or explode.”
“Okay, that sort of makes sense. Can you teach me how to throw fireballs? That would be so cool.”
“Perhaps, but we should focus on mastering the technique you’re already using first. Learning a completely new evoking technique is difficult and very time consuming. An evoker must meditate extensively to find the proper soul glyph within themselves, if it is there. Sometimes a life-changing revelation is needed.”
“Soul glyph? You mean the glowing pattern in my head?” Ethan asked.
“Yes, it’s what most evokers call the pattern you discovered during our first lesson and what you remember every time you summon your orb. Most people call them soul glyphs or just glyphs, depending on how pretentious they’re feeling.”
“Oh, right. What exactly are soul glyphs? I mean, I’ve obviously seen them—in my mind—but I don’t really understand what they are.”
Adhut sighed at the distraction from their training. “Glyphs seem to represent a mix of an individual’s memories, emotions, and personality. When you touch them, you are recognizing and embracing a part of your true self, lending it power. That is why you get emotional feedback. The glyphs are how evokers communicate with the Origin. They are its language.”
“Communicate? That makes it sound like the Origin is alive.”
“Perhaps it is, although not in a way that is easy to understand. Many associate the Origin with a deity, which is not an unfounded assumption. Think about it. We offer the Origin our truest selves, and it grants us a boon in return. How very like divinity.”
“What do you believe?” Ethan asked his teacher. He had to admit the whole thing was poetic. Part of him was intrigued, even though he was still very skeptical. This was just a game after all.
“My own sect believes that Origin, Path, and God are all one. We believe a path lies before every person, and to know God is to follow it,” Adhut explained as he gave Ethan a stern glare. “However, you need to focus on the training. You’re here to learn basic fighting techniques, not contemplate the divine.”
“You’re not a very good monk,” Ethan remarked with a grin.
Adhut shrugged. “It’s not a monk’s job to preach. Now get to it.”
“Right,” Ethan said in agreement. “For my own attack, I could use my orb to create a ball of aether, but how do I throw it?”
“There are two main ways evokers use to throw aether. First, you can actually draw kinetic energy directly from the Origin and use it to propel the aether. Secondly, you can pull aether to the Origin point itself, and then move the point very quickly in the direction you want the projectile to go. I use the first method, but the second would be easier for you. You haven’t recognized and refined a glyph for pure kinetic pushes yet.”
Frowning in concentration, Ethan studied his orb and willed the Origin point inside it to slide toward Adhut as fast as he could. The orb immediately shot toward the monk until it reached the limit of Ethan’s range and dispersed. However, from the orb’s remains, a blur shot forth. A gob of invisible aether f
lew harmlessly past Adhut, creating a weak gust of wind that ruffled his robes. The invisible projectile then hit the grass behind him, creating a small dent and tearing apart some grass.”
“That sort of worked,” Ethan remarked as he looked at the small hole. Aether sure was weird.
Adhut nodded in agreement. “You did the technique properly, better than I thought you would, but your aim was off. That’s not surprising since you’re new to this and your orb is still chaotic and uncontrolled. Fixing it will require more meditation and better refinement of the glyph you are using. Try again.”
“All right, here goes nothing,” Ethan replied as he focused on the glyph for his orb and reached for the Origin again. Immediately, the orb popped into existence.
“Now, try throwing it at me again,” Adhut told him. The monk had been waiting patiently with his hands clasped behind his back.
Ethan eyed the monk’s defenseless posture skeptically for a moment, but then he shrugged. What did he care if Adhut got a bruise or two? Smiling, Ethan hurled the orb at him.
This time, the resulting invisible projectile was better aimed. It zoomed toward Adhut, but the monk didn’t move. Instead, another blur appeared in front of the monk and intercepted Ethan’s attack. They collided with a soft bang.
“You used a similar technique to block my own,” Ethan observed aloud.
“Yes, now let’s get to the fun part.” Adhut grinned and summoned another ball of fire, which Ethan had to dodge.
As a second fireball shot his way, Ethan tried to block it with an orb, but he missed and was forced to jump to the side. The monk didn’t give him time to breathe. He sent blast after blast at Ethan. Several hit Ethan as he tried to dodge, knocking him back but not doing any real harm.
After sidestepping a fireball, Ethan tried to counterattack. He hurled an orb of aether at Adhut, but the monk simply knocked it aside with a blast of his own. He still hadn’t bothered to move, which was super annoying.
After dancing around and getting splashed with fire several more times, Ethan started feeling frustrated. His strategy wasn’t working. He needed a new one. None of his attacks were getting near the monk. For an old guy, he was awfully alert, and every attack that got close was instantly countered. The endless stream of fireballs also made aiming difficult, so he needed to knock Adhut off balance somehow. But what could else could he do with his orb?
Quickly looking around after dodging another blast, Ethan saw a small rock sitting on the grass off to the side. He ran to it and summoned an orb right above it. The stone was immediately sucked into the center of the ball.
“Eat this,” Ethan remarked as he slid the Origin toward Adhut.
As expected, this shot the orb and the rock within it at the monk. The grey projectile zoomed straight toward his chest with surprising speed.
However, Adhut just grinned. Before hitting him, the stone suddenly stopped and unceremoniously dropped to the ground with a quiet thump.
“How did you do that?” Ethan asked in astonishment. It hadn’t looked like the pebble had hit something or been blasted. It had just stopped.
Adhut chuckled. “The Origin can both take and give. I simply used it to pull the kinetic energy from the pebble before it hit me.”
“Wow, that sounds useful for stuff like bullets. Can you teach me that?”
The monk gave the young man a suffering look. “I already told you how hard it would be to teach you an entirely new technique.”
“Ah, right,” Ethan replied as he winced from embarrassment.
The monk snorted and resumed his attacks. In fact, he picked up the pace. Ethan found himself harder pressed to dodge, let alone strike back. He definitely didn’t have time to look around for rocks, and that hadn’t worked anyway. He needed another tactic.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have one. No new ideas occurred to Ethan as he ducked under a high-flying fireball. It left him with no choice but to gamble on a tactic that had already failed him once. Instead of dodging the next blast, Ethan held his ground and summoned his orb in the path of a fireball. This time he didn’t miss. Instead, he grinned in satisfaction as his swirling ball of air absorbed the fire, stopping the attack. He then threw the orb back toward Adhut.
The orb quickly lost its connection to the Origin and disappeared, but the stolen fireball remained and zoomed at Adhut. Grunting, the monk sidestepped the reversed attack. Ethan had missed again, but he was still satisfied. At least he’d finally gotten the Aknii man to move.
“I was wondering if you’d manage to pull that off,” Adhut remarked as he came to a stop. “Your ability can of course be used defensively, although you need to be careful. Powerful attacks will go right through it, and you might miss fast ones.”
“So I shouldn’t try to stop bullets with it, at least not yet,” Ethan replied thoughtfully. “Hmmm, I need to increase the strength of my will and better my understanding of the soul glyph I’m using if I want my orb to grow more powerful.”
“That and practice like this will help you move your orb faster,” Adhut said. “Now you know all the basics. In fact, I think I’m done with you now. You’ve learned everything I wanted to teach you, and I’m not as young as I used to be. You’ll have to walk your own path now, especially since you pilgrims never stick around here for long.”
“Thank you for the lessons, teacher,” Ethan said as he gave the monk a polite bow.
Adhut snorted rudely. “Just don’t misuse what I’ve taught you.”
“I won’t.”
“The paths we walk in life are never so easy, and certainty is for fools. Since I’m apparently your teacher, let this old man give you some real wisdom to counter such youthful foolishness,” Adhut told Ethan as he gave him a serious look. “Remember this, nothing can strip you of your will. It is your greatest weapon. No matter where you walk, you are not alone. If you are lost, look to your will to light your way and push back the illusion that is darkness and pain. The Origin awaits.”
“Er, thanks?”
The monk scowled and made a shooing gesture. “Now get out of here. I have duties to perform, and you’ve wasted enough of my time.”
Ethan nodded in acknowledgement and then quickly turned to leave the temple. He appreciated Adhut’s training, but he was more than a little obnoxious to be around. There was no point in sticking around if the monk wanted him gone.
CHAPTER 22
CHALLENGERS
After his lesson with Adhut, Ethan logged off. Most of his teammates were already off anyway, and he couldn’t spend all his time online. You didn’t need to sleep much if you spent most of your time in VR, but he still needed to take care of his body. He showered and then grabbed something to eat before doing some exercises. Ethan didn’t manage to stay offline for long though. An hour later, Worldshift lured him back. He wanted to climb the tower, not hang around in his apartment, so he pulled on his VR visor and lay down.
Once back online, Ethan wandered around the busy streets for a while before finding a quiet spot in another temple to meditate. None of his teammates tried to contact him, so that was what he did until he got frustrated a few hours later.
When he was reaching for the Origin, he thought he could feel the glyph he wanted, but it remained stubbornly out of reach. It was like trying to look at something that only appeared in the corner of your eye. Ethan really wanted to grasp the kinetic push ability, but it was obvious he couldn’t force it. He needed to find something else to do for a while.
He felt a little guilty about not helping his allies find information about the temple, but he really sucked at that sort of thing. Still, he should at least give it an attempt. Sighing, Ethan decided to visit the market again. It seemed like the easiest place to find people willing to talk, and it was full of interesting sights and sounds.
It didn’t take Ethan long to reach his destination. He simply headed in the noisiest direction, and soon the bright colors of the stalls and crowds of Aknii that signaled the edge of the market
came into sight. The blue skin of the natives contrasted starkly with the white robes most of them were wearing. Ethan didn’t see any players, but he was sure there were some around.
Curious, Ethan headed toward the largest crowd of people to see what they were looking at. He was disappointed to see that the focus of all the attentions was a cluster of food stalls selling everything from strange fruits to meat on sticks. Since this was a virtual reality game, Ethan didn’t actually need to eat. He was slightly curious about what the local food might taste like, but there were lines at all but the sketchiest-looking stalls, so he walked past without buying anything.
The nearby Aknii got out of Ethan’s way when he moved near them, and he got a few quick looks, but none of them seemed to be too concerned about his presence. It was more like they simply didn’t want to collide with his armored body.
Ethan also noticed a pair of guardsmen standing by a street corner watching him, but they didn’t do more than watch. Both were wearing armor with skirts made from leather strips and shiny metallic greaves and caps. They also had short swords and pistols hanging at their waists. All in all, they didn’t seem very dangerous, but Ethan suspected they were a bigger threat than they appeared. While oddly welcoming, the Aknii were full of surprises and seemed confident in their ability to deal with unruly players.
Walking past, Ethan entered an area full of tents and stalls selling weapons. He smiled as he looked around. This sort of thing was far more useful to him. He wasn’t the only player around either. There was a young man in grey armor inspecting a table covered in knives. His full-body sci-fi armor, brown hair, and white skin clearly marked him as player.
Ethan decided to casually walk closer and strike up a conversation. That seemed as good a way to get information as any.
Worldshift- Virtual Revolution Page 24
