Chapter 328

  A Simple Supply Run

  “Come on mom, we are going to be late,” Gwen said, her voice trying to maintain a calm regal quality that is only slightly offset by the way she gives off very minor body shifts denoting her true feelings on the matter.

  If she were a full kitsune, I could almost imagine her tails twitching agitatedly, while she peers on as if nothing was happening. Maybe she’ll just get ephemeral tails? I don’t know.

  Why would you want ephemeral tails anyways? Still unknown to me. So far the only ephemeral appendage that makes sense at all are wings. But then again, I am kind of partial to my wings at this point, as I try to remember when I last touched the ground.

  Well, the last time I touched the ground here.

  Back in the void realm, being able to fly was a luxury that I could only afford for minor times of the day and that was generally after I had time to rest and recover.

  Chills.

  Less than twenty-four hours removed from that place and I am still getting gooseflesh from my memories there.

  That or just feeling his odd gaze on my back is enough to amplify even minor discomfort to be truly unbearable.

  Flap, flap.

  I of course follow, as does our odd little companion. A companion who has to run awkwardly to keep up with the by comparison long legged elf who was slowly walking to help all of us stay together in one awkward gaggle.

  “You know, I could just meet you all there?” I state, trying to avoid this obviously bad attempt at a dramatic family reunion.

  “Do you know where the supply depot is?” Gwen asks, her tone in that mocking way that says she already knows the answer to this question.

  “You could just tell me.” I reply.

  “Okay, if I said it was northwest of here by about a kilometer, would that help?” She asks.

  I hold up my finger as if I am going to come up with an answer to this very question, but then I hesitate. I have the Internal Compass skill, but that along with Painting, and Artist are the three skills that I have not maximized my full potential with.

  “Okay, what does it look like?” I ask, knowing that Gwen has Angel’s Sight, actually this is rare for all three of us currently going together have Angel’s Sight.

  Yes, that is another way I knew this was a setup orchestrated by my daughter. Namely the fact that Valeria, Penelope, Jhonny, Gabriellaz, and any other student who might have had questions were suddenly called to an important all hands meeting conducted by Mallory.

  “It’s big and gray, with silver shutters,” Gwen states calmly as she opens her third eye, and looks around. Once again, I am reminded that she only has the Tier V version, the version I started with. Though, once I got my third eye, I got bumped up to Tier VII in Angel’s Sight, allowing me greater insight into the way a body utilizes energy, but doing absolutely nothing for my recently acquired third eye.

  Of course, everyone that has since joined as being part of my bloodline has both the third eye, and up to a Tier V in Angel’s Sight. I am so far the only one who is blessed to have three completely useless orbs that don’t actually work in their intended manner. Then again, I guess I technically don’t work in my Intended manner.

  As I am technically a Healer but I spend most of my time teaching classes, but none of which focus primarily on Healing.

  It’s clear from her response that she does not want to make this easy on me.

  Worse, I am doing that thing where my mind goes a million miles an hour to think around the one subject that I should just address, but I can’t. This is when I spin my ideas and find more ways to distract myself from what should be spoken about, and generally where I have the most personal breakthroughs while also getting into the most trouble.

  At this thought, I can almost feel something clicking into place. A universal fact about myself, or deep personal insight that might just help me be a better person. Or at least a person more capable of facing the world head on.

  I can feel it, some concept that might make my life easier if I just focus on it once more.

  Of course, that’s when he once again ruins everything.

  “So, it really is you?” Rob, or Robi’dob’dob the mob askes, just his cadence alone is enough to get under my skin. That calm and smooth delivery, as if I had listened to him speak for years. As if he could easily charm his way back into my life. As if he could just pretend the last thirty years never happened.

  “Of course, who else could we be other than ourselves,” I reply.

  Rob opens his mouth and looks like he is going to say something, but then a quick glare from Gwen causes Rob to do the impossible. He goes quiet.

  Seeing that, I would almost swear that Gwen had the Mythical level Tamer class.

  I’m about to ask for how she did this, but then realize that my speaking might break the spell. This somehow forces no wait. It doesn’t force but rather allows for an Encouraged Silence.

  This is how we move through the guild lands.

  We are going so slowly that I decided to practice Arcane Geomancy, letting out wave after wave of energy.

  By now, the activity is like second nature to me, as I used to do so in the void realm constantly, as I was used as a nearly endless rechargeable battery to help bring life to that planet. Well, a semblance of life.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I learned a lot about magic and about balance of energy while I was there.

  There was also the added benefit of learning how oversaturating the land with energy would be a way to make even stronger biomes.

  Right now, I was just making the bare minimum of energy biomes. That is just using Arcane Geomancy once and taking lands to a Tier III rating was just the beginning. But just like watering an empty field there are different levels to energy saturation. You could just turn on the jets and constantly spray water into a bone-dry field and force the land to turn into unusable slop. Or you can drench once, then slowly continue to reapply water to a field and bring about a lasting change to the soil.

  As we move, I am going for more of the latter, taking time and slowly casting Arcane Geomancy to reinforce the energy that has been slowly seeping into the soil.

  It doesn’t hurt that I continue to pump out energy at a rate that is just faster than my regeneration rate, causing me to slowly lose energy, but at a sustainable rate.

  Also, the act of distributing energy is easier.

  I’ve found that not controlling it constantly often yields better results.

  How just releasing the energy like water from a hose and letting the energy bundle together and disperse as it meets the ground is a lot easier way of applying additional layers of energy together.

  And of course, this is the moment when I realize why Valeria’s Spray-Healing technique is so perfect.

  Or at least ways that it has at least one perfect line of casting surrounded by waves of discordant chaos.

  “Ahh, snikes!” I hiss to myself as I finally come to a deep understanding related to casting.

  At least, I think I am close to it, I will of course need to go to Valeria to see what she is doing with her castings and if that is in fact what I think she is doing. It has been a month since I last intimately witnessed her casting form. It was sloppy, and yet despite being wasteful and completely inefficient, it somehow still had a part of perfection in it, which was why I was drawn to her.

  “Everything okay?” Gwen asks, concern in her voice.

  Hearing her I shook my head, realizing that we had all stopped moving.

  “What now?” I ask trying to once again keep my thoughts focused on the deep insights that are just at the edge of my consciousness. Though this one, I think will be easier for me to remember as it deals with me gaining something from my Apprentice, which was why I chose her in the first place. Only now, I have had time to try to noodle out what I was seeing and variables that could be tested.

  Even now, I use my cascading and releasing Arcane Geomancy energy as an example of ways that energy moves when released from a repository. Granted the energy used in Arcane Geomancy is a mixture of Mana, Qi, a tiny bit of ephemeral energy, and likely other sources that I haven’t been able to differentiate yet, they are there.

  Which means I can see the expected pattern of how energy would work in a mixed state. But how would mana, which I mentally consider to be more of a gaseous form of energy react?

  “Hello, earth to Cass,” Gwen states while waving her hand while flickering mana particles that alternate in color.

  Seeing the sparkling light, I almost want to protest that I’m not a cat and thereby attracted to lights. But I must admit that I only stopped once I saw the flickering lights.

  “See, your training is paying off already. That is great use of transitionary magic.” I compliment.

  “Yes, next time I need to hypnotize a distracted pixie I will be glad for my mana cycling practices,” Gwen replies dryly.

  “So at least three more times in the next ten minutes?” I quip back, as I too play her game.

  “Undoubtedly,” Gwen responds, then pauses. “All right, I see the cascading colors of energies, but what exactly are you doing?”

  Hearing Gwen’s honest curiosity about magic, I can’t help but feel a faint connection to her. I know she doesn’t care for magic the same way I do, but hopefully with more instances like this, I can draw out her natural proclivity for magic. The fact that she went instantly to altering energy forms, granted it is her class assignment from her class Glyph, but she is easily passing that lesson.

  “I’m supersaturating the ground here with excess Arcane Geomancy energy in an attempt to see if we can make the land more…” I began but I’m instantly cut off as a system message popped up letting me know I am doing exactly what I envisioned happening.

  Yes, a new quest with a preassigned skill. Best of all, I think this is a skill that I will want to max out and should be easy to max out. Especially at the rate of needing to supersaturate over 10,000 square feet of space by this method. This skill will be easy to progress, unlike Internal Compass, I mean honestly, how do you practice it? Seriously, how can I practice finding directions from inside myself?

  “More what?” Gwen asks quickly her fingers flashing colors but only going between the same green and purple varieties that she showed earlier. Clearly those are her primary schools, an easy tell if she was to ever get into a duel with another magic user.

  Shaking my head about why my daughter should worry about magical duels, I think for a moment and try to remember what I was talking about.

  Then I remember, “oh, I was trying to see if there was a way to make the land become in a supersaturated state. Taking it from Tier III, which is the state it is currently in, and seeing if we can supercharge parts of the lands to be even more capable of holding even more energy.”

  There is a silence as Gwen just puts her hand to her chin and thinks deeply about the comment.

  Of course, this was when Rob once again spoke up asking questions that didn’t need to be asked.

  “But why?” Rob asks, a clear note of confusion in his voice.

  I take a moment to look at the flightless and seemingly emaciated looking pixie and just glare at him. Only to realize it is a lot tougher when he probably hasn’t developed the skills to read facial expressions with Angel’s Sight the way I have.

  Finally, after a long pause, one where Gwen won’t even answer, apparently trying to get my thoughts on this matter. No doubt I think she is wondering if I have gone full supervillain and am trying to poison the world through magic.

  “Well, aside from the fact that you and I would both shrivel up and die without having an energy rich environment to at least rest in. I’d say the reason for having an energy rich environment is simple.”

  Then I pause, as I realize exactly how odd this next thought might seem. Actually, I think I should have ended with the preamble, just an altruistic act on my part to make sure my STBF-Ex doesn’t die before he can be divorced. Unfortunately, I spoke knowing the next part to be completely true, but I think it will be odd for me to express this thought to others.

  I know Rob definitely wouldn’t understand. Gwen might, but I don’t know if she will be as open to this line of thinking, while he is here.

  “Which is?” Gwen pushes.

  Realizing I need to speak, I just answer with the truth, as crazy as it might sound.

  “I’m pretty sure that the planet wants me to do this.” I respond honestly.

  Gwen just stares at me for a moment, but then I can see the moment the gears in her mind begin to spin. She knows that I cannot lie. I can fudge and misrepresent the truth, but flat out lying is not allowed.

  “Oh man, more recycling bins, but this time you are sorting by energy types?” Rob asked sarcastically.

  Hearing the venom in his words, I want to strike back, to say how he never took anything I cared for seriously. But then pausing for a moment and hearing his words, I realized something.

  “Yeah, actually, that’s exactly what we need to do, sort by energy types.” I agreed.

  Rob looks like he was about to complain, but then stopped himself as his eyes seemed to glaze over.

  “Oh, okay then.” Rob replied.

  Hearing him speak, I just shift my head at him slightly, trying to understand what exactly just happened.

  “Okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah, well at least for me. I just got a quest letting me know we should do our part to help with supersaturating the land with energy,” Gwen began, then blinked as she seemed to realize there was more to her quest. “Actually, there is a part in here about bonus areas for finding lands impacted by war that could double bonuses received.”

  “Wait, could that possibly count towards my second related task of Fixing three problems related to the war with the Legrand Empire?” I ask.

  Gwen pauses and then realizes, “I believe that might actually be a case.”

  “Well heck, let’s go do that now, and get it out of the way.” I respond excitedly.

  “No, wait!” Gwen protests.

  “Come on, we know they can open the supply depot at any time, but sprinkling excess Arcane Geomancy energy onto war torn patches of land? Actually, both seem like they can be done pretty much at any time.” I respond, as I realized my original concern, that of someone else taking away the land needing to be supersaturated in such a way could likely only be done by me at the moment.

  Well and Gwen and Rob. I then pause as I remember Trenton, then I remember his seeming army of possible Legendary children.

  “No wait, I take it back, whatever is in that Supply Depot can wait.” I reply waffling with my own thoughts in a matter of seconds.

  “Mom, you need to visit that Supply Depot, and in fact I think you will be mad that you didn’t go earlier.”

  “What exactly is there waiting for me anyways? Some items I apparently ordered, but I can’t remember when.” I respond honestly, trying to storm our borders before an army of little Trentons come up here and begin taking away swaths of my airable lands.

  “Mom, those are the potion ingredients you requested. You know for your Unbound Recipe (One Time Use), and your Extra Trait Slot Recipe. It is this last one that we need you to go to the Supply Depot for, as there are enough to produce at least a dozen extra. You will be paid quite handsomely for each additional Extra Trait Slot Recipe you create.”

  Tingle.

  My whole mind tingles as I remember making these requests now, but months ago. And they are just now coming to me?

  Then I realize something, “you said the Supply Depot was big and gray, with silver shutters?” I ask.

  This of course is just misdirection as I am tired of going at Rob’s pace and apparently doing the equivalent of watering the same exact spot for hours. So I cheat, Telepathy.

  Looking into Gwen’s mind, I gently find the location needed, a trick that is a lot easier when you bring up an actual memory of the place.

  “Yes,” Gwen states.

  “Oh, why didn’t you say so in the first place, I know where that is,” I respond then Teleport away to the exact location. Leaving behind a confused Gwen and a perplexed Rob staring at my afterimage.