Chương 423: 423

Skilling fish is hard," Mark said, sitting by a pond of Sally's creation on the other side of the Shine. The pond was the shape of a punch, driven deep into the ground and with a finger's-width of connection to the shine. The punch had been 30 meters across and the 'finger's width' was a full 5 meters wide, so there was lots of space for fish to swim in here to get trapped, to get experimented on. The experiments were not going well.

Mark was able to notice each and every one of the fish coming and going and he was more than capable of selectively Fearing away the big ones and luring in the small ones. The normal fish came and went as they pleased, and they, along with the actual targets, more than enjoyed the fruits of Mark's failed experiments. Mark had mostly made a lot of chum, and the fish loved it. Sally sat beside Mark on a rock, smirking as she asked, "Forbidden Magic is hard, huh?""

I can see why people ask the demons for help," Mark teased right back." Ughhh! Don't even joke about that!" Sally said, her vector tumbling from joyful to disgusted. Mark grinned a little… but his face fell, too. And then he spoke seriously, "The world is designed by demons to make you want to go to them, Sally, and ignoring that fact doesn't change that fact.

From how Titan's Strength people can only ever hurt themselves and they need someone with true knowledge of healing and Powers in order to heal, which is an extreme example, to something much more mundane, like how if anyone learns about magic at all before their time then they either monsterize, or they get a terrible Knack.

People need to be kept in the dark by the people who love them, until they're finally old enough to mature into random real power, and then even after that they can only hope to fight the big fights that threaten everyone by going to the demons and asking for more magic. Or by joining with them, and becoming archmages or dragons." The problems out there are massive, and they are created by demons in order to be problems… or for whatever reason that they're not telling us."

Sally frowned as she looked at the chum-filled waters of 'Fist Pond'. No one spoke for a long while. And then Sally said, "Yup." Mark replied, "Yup." And then Mark focused on a new fish coming into the kill-zone. To Mark's Quark-enabled vision, the fish was about 2 meters long and coated with ice. To Mark's dreamsight the fish had an ice-like brilliance to it, and the dreamland frosted all around it.

Mark zapped it with a Union of Sleepiness and Wakefulness, and the fish turned lethargic, sinking to the bottom of the pond, freezing over, shielding itself from whatever else might be out there. And then Mark stepped into his dreamspace while he was connected to the frosty fish with Union. As Mark stood in his surgery suite, the fish appeared out of the darkness beyond, swimming with an easy grace, under a frozen surface. It was the only thing moving well under the ice. Everything else was frozen.

The world of the fish was a frozen buffet, just waiting to be consumed. Mark took a blueprint for nothing at all and formed a bait fish on his property with that blueprint. The bait fish wiggled brightly and shimmered with sunlight, and Mark opened the way for the frozen fish to swim toward the target. The ice fish paused as it saw the bright lure. Under a sheet of ice, the frozen fish darted forward, mouth gaping open to vacuum the bait fish inside, deeper into its own memory of ice and easy hunting.

Mark unfolded the bait fish into a scaffold, turning frozen fish into both a cage around the core memory of the ice fish itself, and wrapping all of the ice fish's natural Binding in adamantium, soaking into the Skill. Carefully, he subdued the ice fish even more, as he began tugging the fish's Power away from it, and he replaced that Power with nothing. Quark stood to the side, watching the process in a way only he could, which was not at all how Mark was seeing it.

He was calm, though, and that was why he was here; as a warning system in case Mark needed to come back to reality. But nothing was happening externally. Soon, the work was done. The fish was terribly injured, but as Mark settled the fish's Binding into a blueprint for what might have been either Ice Shaper or Ice Body, based on a bunch of sigils that Mark sort of recognized, Mark put the blueprint into storage and he came back to the real world, still connected to the fish.

He breathed with Good and Bad, and the fish, who looked like it was suffering from frost damage to Quark's sensors, began to heal. The ice in its body began to fade away, while broken scales and a burst eyeball and torn fins rapidly healed. The near-dead fish was smaller now. Maybe 1. 2 meters long, according to Quark's estimates. It was a lot weaker, too. Some of the smaller, more violent fish in the pond set upon the previously-monsterized fish, and those normal fish soon ate the defenseless fish.

Power Level 10 fish tearing into a Power Level 0 fish… Not even a contest. Sally was holding a visor up to her eyes so she could see through the water, too. She lowered the visor, saying, "I almost feel bad for it." Mark was a little stunned, though, so he didn't respond too fast. Had he really gotten Ice Shaper from the fish? Ice Shaper —any of the big elemental Shaper Powers, actually— were big Powers. The kind of powers that you built a team of warriors around.

The kind of Power that Mark had originally hoped for when he went for Addashield's offer." I think I just got Ice Shaper," Mark said, still disbelieving what had just happened.

"I'll have to look at it closer but… holy fuck. Ice Shaper." For a moment, Sally said nothing, her vector tumbling with surprise and joy, and then a disbelief at that joy, followed by a whole lot of introspection. It was a facial journey of emotions that ended with Sally staring at the water, saying, "Fucking hell… Forbidden Magic, huh?"" Forbidden Magic," Mark said, agreeing. Softly, mystified at herself even as the words came out of her mouth, Sally said, "No wonder people ask the demons for help."

Mark said nothing to that. They both just sat with emotion, with each other, and Mark got back to fishing. The sun dropped lower and lower in the sky, and fish came to Mark, to the killing field, and Mark tried to keep their Powers intact as he pulled them out of them. Mostly it was water-centric Powers. Something that might have been Slick Body was common, and Mark got good at pulling that one out of the fish because he got a lot of practice.

Something that might have been 'Hider', if it was Natural, or 'Camouflage' if it was Soul, or maybe even 'Unnoticed Mind', if it was Mind-based, was the second most popular fish Power. None of them seemed like real Powers, though. More like Knacks. Mark pulled two Water Shapers out of a pair of fish, though, and with the Ice Shaper from that one fish… As the sun fully set, Mark said, "We're done here. I need to check these out deeper, and that means going back to the house.""

If you can really put Shaper into people…" Sally looked toward the dark horizon, beyond the Shine, beyond the settlement in the far, far distance. She had been thinking deep thoughts while she had been on guard duty for the last few hours, and now she let those thoughts out, saying, "If you can put Shaper into people, then there are a lot of hunting teams that could really use a Shaper. I got hundreds of 'em looking for a good Shaper in that warrior-connection program I'm funding with your money.

Not for a while, though. Not until you can do this without turning them into chum." Mark wasn't sure where this new capability was going to take him, but he was really glad Addavein had suggested trying this the other day. Mark nodded, saying, "I'll see where it takes me." - - Mark sat in a dark room in the bottom of the house, and then he closed his eyes and entered his soulhouse. With a thought, Mark stood before his filing system for his gathered Powers.

Mostly, it was unorganized, because Mark had simply put stuff into the filing cabinet without knowing what he was putting in there, and stuff tended to move around in his house when he wasn't looking, when it was new. Mark spent a minute putting stuff into hanging folders, and then Mark stepped to the roof of the house, to the back, and he activated his System Call contraption.

Like always, Mark had to Call out to System Prime several times to get enough of a connection to actually show his status, and thus show what kind of Powers/Skills/Abilities he had picked up. Mark Careed, Age 19, human (Elf, as per System) [Inheritor] Physicality set to: Weak, [Variable], Full Mana Type: True Adamantium House: Several Bricks Extra Lives: Secure Utilized: 37/114 Cohort: 0/1 Bindings: Full.

Body, Adamantine Immortal: 099 Shaper, Adamantium: 099 Mind: 99 (Unusable; Familiar Detected) Natural, Union: 099 Soul: 99 (Empty) Arch: 99 (Empty) Archived Abilities (Old): Strong Body (Incomplete), Healthy Body (Incomplete), Low Shaper (Incomplete) Archived Abilities (New): Bolter, Breeder, Camouflage x3, Eater, Healthy Body x4, Hider x7, Ice Shaper, Parasitize x3, Plant Body, Slick Body x8, Strength Unending, Strong Body x2, Stunner Body, Water Shaper x2 Archived Spells: Protect, Vision, Listener, Tracking (Warning! House is too full to hold extra abilities.)" Holy shit," Mark said, heart beating hard enough that he felt it even as he dreamed. Quark asked, "What occurs, sir?"" I got like… 20 Powers from those fish. And some of them are really good— Strength Unending? Holy shit.

What fish was that— It was the fish that kept struggling to get away—" Mark paused, because this video would go out to Addavein and others, so Mark explained, "There was a fish in the second hour, I believe, that came in and started absolutely chomping the failed extractions; the chum in the water. I calmed him down and then went to work, but he came into my house and almost burrowed out of my adamantium lure.

I got him —obviously— and then I healed him back to full and he managed to swim away from all the other fish trying to eat him. He was one of the few that survived the extraction. I wasn't sure what I got from him, but it's obviously this Strength Unending here on this list. That little guy survived… A question for whoever watches this: Can certain Powers regrow in people or monsters?

Because Reeni said that sometimes people kill themselves when they try to use a Power they no longer have, because their astral body memory remains but none of the secondary Powers that prevent self-harm are there. But could that fish, which swam off just fine, regrow Strength Unending?" It's a Power that just doesn't stop, too, so… Maybe?" It's like Dynamo, but instead of rapid mana production it's rapid physical healing and a basic 2-times Strength, if I recall correctly.

Not good enough for a kaiju killer unless they have other stuff going on, but for a paladin? A paladin of Drakarok with Strength Unending would be a truly good combo…" Mark thought about Shawn; Tartu's teammate and a paladin of Drakarok. Shawn had a basic Brawny Power though, so Mark would need to switch out both… Mark hummed. Maybe something for some other day, actually. He would never do such a thing to Shawn without knowing that he could actually do it, without hurting him.

Mark sort of moved on, saying, "Strength Unending is a good Power… And taken from a fish, too! Super weird. Cool, though." Mark added, "And I did get 2 Water Shapers and 1 Ice Shaper, as suspected." Mark listed off the other ones, in alphabetical order, and then he finished with, "I am worried about moving on to human trials, but I think it's actually a lot easier to do this, with this methodology, than it should be.

I wasn't killing any fish by the end, and a bit of Good/Bad Union was enough to heal up the minor physical damage." - - With the moon shining in the window beyond her office, Second Princess Walaria sat in her chair, stunned, mind aflutter, as she finished watching her apprentice's latest report." It's not that impressive," Third Princess Kalimara said, on the screen on Walaria's desk. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Walaria had given Kalimara a copy, of course, and they had watched this one together." It's impressive," Walaria flatly stated.

"He's advancing quickly, and you will be his ally in this, Sister."" This does not rise to the level that I care about. He's not a mage, and he never will be. It's all tricks! As soon as we figure out his tricks or we can replicate the house, then he'll be left in the dust like all of the rest of those who use tricks to prop themselves up into power."" He's Adamantine Immortal and he is an elf, and he's already an ally if you would let him be an ally."" I'm starting to side with Dominant on this one, Sister.

He is too disruptive. I am glad you didn't have to embarrass yourself with trying to talk him down after that horror of Nobody Important, but we both know he is lying to himself and everyone else when he says he will stop. When he resumes, and when Nobody Important makes good on his threat, Mark will be directly responsible for a lot of people dying."" He publicly backed off of the Reset Quest rhetoric, and that reporter who hates him is more than willing to make a name for herself propping up his lie.

I doubt Mark will make overt moves for decades."" And then decades down the line several million people will die when an Old God of the Light burns down everything that boy is building and all of the people around him." Kalimara said, "You need to distance yourself from him, Sister. He will burn you, too. All of the Empire needs to drop him. He's not even a true citizen! He cannot be, not as a rival Inheritor. He is always going to be an impediment to Aluathan stability."

Walaria said, "The distant dream is a land of 12 Empires, beholden to Aluatha through economics, blood, and honor. Xerkona accomplished as much for a thousand years, and even more so when Earth came back to us, though they were foolish enough to remain with Okuana when the tide finally turned. So forget the Reset Quest, Sister, and focus on all the rest of it, and know that we will either be allies to Xerkona, or enemies, and we all know what happens to the enemies of Xerkona eventually.""

We also all know what happens to Xerkonan ambassadors, too, Sister."" This ambassador is Adamantine Immortal, with a demiplane and the ability to resurrect through the dream. We have not seen an ambassador of Xerkona like this, ever. So the old adages of Xerkonans dying first and others coming in for the kill will need to change." A pause. Kalimara sighed, looked away from the screen, and Walaria knew she had won their minor conflict of opinions. Kalimara was always much more reasonable than Doomo.

Walaria let the moment cook. Soon, Kalimara looked back at the camera, at Walaria, asking, "Is he willing to participate in royal society? To be wed to a royal of our choosing?"" Likely not, but I will ensure a debut is had, at the very least. If he should deny us entirely then we will have to become enemies, but I do not wish for that and I doubt he does either. The easy path is him leaving it up to us and us picking a girl.

The harder path is us raising up the Kanno family to Aluathan royalty, since his teammate, Isoko Kanno, is already family to a few soldiers and one captain in the Grand Guard. Through them, we could make Mark accept Isoko as his noble wife."" I'll send a request for that information to your office regarding the finer details. What are the highlights?"" The Kanno family tree splits on a refugee from the girl's home nation of Japan that was stranded in revolutionary Aluatha at the turn of the Reveal.

The man was one 'Nori Kanno', though they would call him Kanno Nori. He was father of that supervillain from Earth, Wandering Sage, and he was divorced at the time of the Reveal. When the Reveal dropped him into Northern Aluatha, Nori married into the Oraka Family out of Rocktower. They had a great many children. In 1983 the family reconnected over the previous wife's death in the Reveal, and how the Japanese family had survived."

Walaria skipped to the current date, saying, "The Orakas o f Rocktower are some of the finest Sand Shapers in Rocktower because of Nori's blood and a very strong wind affinity in the entire family. They're a minor nobility. Mostly soldiery. One captain, Pedro Oraka, has distinguished himself many times over. Most of the family has scattered to the winds, though the majority remains in Rocktower and also on the other side, in Mexico City."

Walaria finished with, "It would be the work of a few hours to elevate the Orakas to proper nobility." Kalimara did not take more than a second to think, to ask, "Would they be loyal?"" The only issues that our searches turned up were a few sex addictions —nothing too untoward—, drinking and normal drug use, and a few possible bribery issues in the outer rings of the main family.

I visited the settlement after picking up a pair of them, one Joey and another Pedro, the Captain in question, and the main rising star of their family, outside of Isoko. Isoko believes that we will be using them against her. We will, of course, but I would prefer to use the treasure instead of the trap."" Any magically inclined—" Kalimara looked away as someone spoke off screen. She turned right back to Walaria, and said, "I'll read the reports. Thank you for keeping me updated, Sister.

I have yet to discover anything in the archives regarding houses, soulhomes, or anything that is not related to demiplanes or divine realms. What Mark is showing us with his house does relate heavily toward demiplanes, but not to any specific types, tied to any physical location except for the one he inhabits directly. It is a novel situation. I will let you know if we discover anything actionable."" That is unfortunate…"

Walaria had a thought, and so she said, "He is coming to the Winter Ball, with a fair number of people. Could we allow him to see the Heart?"" Does he know about it?"" Doubtful."" If Aurora hasn't talked to him about it yet, then suggest it. He may very well stumble upon the nexus of power that is Xerkona without actually trying. That is what famously happened to the Great Hero Jamasani, after all." Walaria frowned a little.

She did not expect Mark to stub his toe on a Heart of Empire as long as he stayed away from the Xerkonan homelands. As soon as he got there, though, then the fireball would be thrown. That wasn't why she frowned. The issue with Kalimara's question was a lot more personal.

"… Aurora still not willing to talk to you?"" Not particularly," Walaria replied, curtly." Ignoring that, then," Kalimara said, breezing past the wound.

"Does Mark have any desire to go to Xerkona? Does he suspect it will be a difficult thing to locate his inheritance?"" Not to my knowledge, on any of those accounts, though that was before he forcefully denied pursuit of the Reset Quest, so now he's going toward everything else. Addavein has been feeding him information on a number of topics, too. It is anyone's guess if Mark knows what it will be like to actually search for the Heart of Xerkona.

As for plans, Mark has expressed interest in starting up the Understanding Parties again. I expect to have one here at the Winter Ball involving Water People." Kalimara went carefully still when Walaria mentioned Addavein. And then Kalimara said, "I'll be there for the Understanding Party, Sister, even if I am… hesitant to be around Addavein. I must end this here. Good day."" Good day." Click.

For all of Walaria's power, her presence, her skill, certain things still made her hesitant, too, and one of those things was Addashield. The fact that he was a dragon now only made Walaria more hesitant, so she certainly understood Kalimara right now. And if they invited him into Aluatha as a guest? With guest rites, and all of those natural magics surrounding him, insulating him? Walaria sighed, and looked away. She had no idea how to feel about that. - - Addavein had no idea how to feel right now.

He had just watched the latest video drop from Mark. The first half had been Mark, inside of his house, with Quark recording and all of the house completely unintelligible. It was black on black on black, and what Addavein could see was all distorted, and not looking like a proper Binding at all. Mark had been present and talking, though. And then the video had switched, and Mark was in his little room below his house, and Quark was on a video screen to the side.

Mark pulled out a rather perfect diagram for Ice Shaper out of the 'blueprints in his house', and though Addavein was completely certain that Mark did not know that Binding, and that Quark was not capable of keeping such knowledge in his mind unless he was a True AI or Mark showed it to him… Mark had obviously shown it to Quark, and now Mark was pulling out a bunch of different diagrams and displaying them on the wall. They were all Bindings that Mark had had in his soulhouse.

Addavein's ears thrummed with rushing blood, heart beating faster than he usually allowed it to beat, because this, right here, was a novelty in too many different ways. Addavein watched the video all the way through, and then he sat at his desk and pressed some buttons on the computer and the camera. The screen started recording, and Addavein had to stop for a moment and admire his new human face. It truly was a nice face.

And then Addavein ignored that, tested his wards to make sure they were functioning properly in his office, crushed a few listening spells that he had allowed to pile up here and there, and then he closed the door. He erased that small recording, and then he started recording for real." This is excellent work, Mark. Two things:" The first is this: You should not be able to pull Ice Shaper or any other kind of human-centric Power out of a fish… aside from Knacks, perhaps. Hider, for instance.

The Bindings you got from the cattle make sense, since the Binding for humans for those specific Bindings is thought to have come from cows and cattle. But fish have no such husbandry and breeding. I can only suspect that your own Natural-aspected Union is responsible for the vast majority of translation happening there. This is a scholarly avenue that is worth pursuing, just to figure out what is happening here." A warning: Do not put Parasite into a person.

It would turn them into a monster, no matter how human-seeming that Binding is." The second is this: There are certain Powers that allow for easier Skilling than others. The entire Natural category of Powers is home to all such Power, except for rarities like Necromancer and Soulweaver, though those only allow for one type of application of soulwork. It appears either your interpretation of Union, or the demiplane of your house, or perhaps even Reeni, is responsible for your ease of action here.

She did guide your training after all, and she is of the Empire, so perhaps Aluatha is helping you directly. Normally I would hesitate to share that last, largest theory, for knowledge of witchery might bend the Witchery, but in this case it must be ruled out. Ask them about it. They might even tell you." But good work, Mark. One of the surest ways to lasting power is to empower those around you." Find criminals. Experiment on them. It is a terrible thing to do to fellow people, but it must be done.

This power must be grasped, and strongly. With certain combinations of Powers, none of which you have in your list right now, you could make a kaiju killer without needing a trip to Endless Daihoon." My mind is already abuzz with possibility!" Now… this one is not a kaiju killer, I can already tell you that… But Unending Strength, Bolter, and perhaps one of the Shapers; these are what you need to make a truly strong defender. Ice Shaper, more than Water Shaper.

Those three would be Body, Shaper, and Arcane, and with the right attitude and experience, such a Tri-Talent could hold a city wall from a monster wave all on their own." There are other combinations that would do better, of course. Dynamo instead of Unending Strength, but then again Dynamo would go with any shooter-type hero. Ice Shaper is fine. You can pull ice from the air and craft weapons well enough with it. If you had a Natural-aspected Multi-attack Power instead of Ice Shaper, that would also be an option."

This brings to mind that one fellow who was in the Battle for Memphi, that Kardi took the head of. The one with the revolvers. I do not recall his name, and I do not think he survived, but such a person, shooting off endless bullets and targeting well, with a few additions, would be a formidable addition to any guard." Addavein ended the recording there, and sent it off. …

And then he remembered something else that he should probably tell Mark, but as the moments ticked on in silent thought, a bubbling joy crept into Addavein's everything. This was another era of humanity, and it would be a much better era than all the other ones to come, but it obviously had roots in the distant past, as all things do.

Addavein pressed record on the camera again, and started saying, "I recall several stories from my youth and throughout my time as an archmage, and even when Kanda was around and able to talk. I recall stories of elves. Demons have spoken of the elves before, in small ways, but only when extremely compelled. None of them will give a direct answer about anything. In those stories the elves were capable of wonders that humanity could never match.

One of the stories was about how elves could twist souls in ways that made witches look like children playing with blocks…" Addavein spoke for a while about theory and practice and history long forgotten. It was only when he was 5 minutes into 1% of the lecture that he realized he was lecturing, and so he started cutting to the points faster. If Mark came back with questions then Addavein would talk at length, but Mark didn't need that much guidance in his life.

Just a general ' this is possible, this is theorized, and based on history this is known to be impossible, but go ahead and try again and see what happens'. That's all Mark really needed.