Chương 219: 5.18 Peonic

One thing that Irwyn realised while waiting was that always having Alice around, acting like a living clock, had degraded his ability to tell the time. He had simply not needed such a skill for far too long. If there was a deadline, their Time mage possessed an uncanny ability to always keep perfect track down to the second and remind them. With her in the throes of Carving, that wasn't possible. So he wasn't actually sure whatsoever how long it took, only that Desir was the first to awaken.

There was not much of a flourish to that. Just a loud exhalation before the shapeshifter opened his eyes and walked over to take a seat next to them.

"About six hours and thirty-five minutes, if I had to guess," Elizabeth said.

"I would have put it at just over six hours," Irwyn frowned.

"But I am probably way off."

"In case you have forgotten," Desir interjected.

"No. Because you have clearly forgotten, the average time to carve a Concept is seven hours, with a thirty-minute deviation being considered relatively 'normal'. Every minute less than that spent signifies a large difference in difficulty. Not everyone cheats like you." Irwyn paused, unsure what to say to that. During their time in the Trial, he had never kept track of how long things took since it didn't really matter. Even days had been difficult to estimate with no sun and moon cycle, nor the need to sleep.

His own Carvings had been incredibly fast, and while he knew Elizabeth's had taken hours, it was nothing exact. Actually, he vaguely recalled the average time fact being mentioned at some point before the Trial.

"I think the seven-hour time limit might be deliberate to let some mages carve right after a battle," Elizabeth added.

"After all, everyone here should be at least above average in talent. Speaking of, it is very impressive that you have surpassed Alice."" Soul is my first Concept exactly for that reason," Desir grinned.

"I am glad I ended up choosing it. Conception is going to take fewer years than I could have hoped because of that."

"Years, is it?" Irwyn said with a wide grin.

"Sorry, I only accept taunts in writing." Desir did not hesitate a moment.

"Here," Elizabeth was already handing him a note as he finished speaking, having actually transcribed Irwyn's words.

"Did you… prepare for this?" The shapeshifter stared, clearly baffled. Irwyn was also surprised, but feigned nonchalance.

"As if that was the first time one of you asked for something in writing as the first recourse," she snorted.

"Burning whole sentences into paper is actually a somewhat decent exercise." As they bickered, Alice also finished her part and awoke. The difference between the two of them couldn't have been more than a minute or two. As soon as her eyes opened, the Time mage teleported to sit with them at the table.

"Hey!" Waylan shouted as soon as she did. Because, apparently, he had been sitting in the last empty chair. There was no telling if he had quietly been waiting there the whole time or had taken that seat only in the last few seconds. Everyone presumed it was deliberate thought. It was just like him to only break prolonged quiet to mess with someone. Actually, when Irwyn thought about it, Waylan tended to speak less and less lately.

"Seriously?" Alice teleported off to the side and stared at the sneak.

"No need to be a soar loser about hot seat." Following that sentence, Waylan vanished. But not in his usual way, but rather by forcefully reappearing attached to the ceiling. A moment later, Alice was again in the chair with a victorious grin. The sneak did not even yelp; he just glared down at her.

"How much time do we have left anyway?" The Time mage asked afterward.

"Hard to tell. Probably half an hour," Irwyn offered.

"You cannot even count without me. Tragic." Alice shook her head with a sigh.

"How is your Concept?" Desir was much more interested in magical talk.

"A bit weird. It affects me even outside of casting magic. In a good way, but it will take some getting used to. I think I can eyeball arcseconds now, for example."" Geometry is fundamentally a non-magical Concept," Elizabeth commented.

"None of mine were like that, but what you are feeling is a known thing. Especially for you, since you have already been developing your supernatural perception for space. You just incorporate it subconsciously."

"It could also probably be used to improve your mind acceleration, right?" Irwyn suggested.

"Mine is already pretty good with just Time … but you are right. I probably could optimise a bit on the angles and distances between neurons. But I also don't want to spend endless effort on it. My family had a very refined schema for a spell that uses Dimensionality, Time, and Chronomancy, which the ring can teach me - since it is also directly involved in it. I will need to do four more carvings and two mergers for that, but once I get there, it will be way better than anything I could come up with on my own."

"Only two mergers, or any more after?" Elizabeth asked.

"Only those two. I was honestly only going for one or even none before the Ambrosia. But it would make me feel way too inferior to you two to aim just for direct carvings all the way."

"Well, now you hurt my feelings," Desir mischievously grinned.

"As if you are not cheating with Soul. You will have a Domain years sooner than me."

"If I can actually pass the boundary, with my deeply trailblazing approach," the shapeshifter shook his head.

"And I also need to figure out how to carve my other elements, which will be a headache. I can get the rest of you to help me with four of them, but Realm and Essence could hold me back for a while. I have barely used either, nor really even understand them."

"Essence as an element is a lot different from the other eight," Elizabeth said.

"A big portion of it lies in replicating or amplifying, so you could feasibly lean into that and mirror the rest. As for Realm, I don't know that much that would be useful for carving. But there are tomes I could get you. These are basic elements, decent guides and first Concept manuals can barely even be considered secret knowledge."

"Thanks… I probably should have asked earlier. I was just going to trade for them with my favourite merchant. But now that I think about it, you will be able get everything for free, right?"

"Didn't you want to keep your elements a secret?" Alice raised an eyebrow.

"There is no way I am keeping it from the Duke of Black for long, even if I tried. In for a penny, as people say. I can see that look Waylan, don't even. Anyway, Calm will know better than to make it obvious that those tomes would be going to our group."

"I will arrange it… But communication is probably insecure from so far away. It might be a while until I can pass on the message."

"That's fine, I have plenty to go. Actually, I was thinking of aiming for Void next if I cannot figure out Realm in time. Advice would be appreciated, even if I actually used the element a decent amount." A mix of bickering and magical talk passed the time until their break was over. At some point, Waylan was even graciously allowed to come down from the ceiling. When the time to draw lots again came, it was, according to Alice, 34 minutes and 12 seconds after she had woken up.

Which meant her and Desir's times were likely a lot better than had been assumed, well below the 30-minute deviation. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. When it came to drawing a lot, Marmian seemed to bring in a startled manufactorium worker. Like before, the Inquisitors lulled him into calm and got him to randomly select where they would be going. Afterwards, the man was returned to wherever he had come from.

The crusade was headed to a non-beacon city, quickly transporting right into its heart. Like that, weeks passed. Being part of the crusade was at most times almost like a vacation. Especially with Irwyn being their group's main way of detection, there was no point in constantly casting elaborate spells. For the most part, Irwyn just had to maintain his barriers. Then they simply wandered the various destinations, which were often literally built with tourism and services in mind.

Then, there were the bad deployments. When the Crusade appeared somewhere already deeply infested. Almost always, the Rot would instantly go mad and commit to heedless slaughter. Then, they had to wade through hundreds of corpses, if not more. Sometimes, the places were infested just slightly. In that case, Draugr and lesser undead would try to evade detection for a few more minutes as they attempted to inflict at least some damage. One time, they had even arrived too late.

An entire large town they teleported to was empty. Just… not a soul. Not even a single body, though plenty of bloodstains. As far as the authorities of the Duchy knew, the town had still been reporting 'nothing unusual' until the very moment the crusade had arrived with only a few token Draugr left behind to falsify those messages. Tens of thousands of people and several hundred mages had just vanished without anyone noticing a thing. At least such grimness was rare.

And they had a great variety in the kinds of locations they went to. Cities and fortresses were the most common, but even they had their individual charm and unique features. Then there were the moving mega-farms, similar operations to the one they had visited in the Duchy of Black, just at a much greater scale and further from the nearest town. Similar were water processing facilities, as well as manufactoriums that produced both mundane and basic magical goods in great quantities.

Moreover, Irwyn noted that most of the places they visited were very… vertical. Besides the fortresses that generally sprawled in the middle of wide open fields and prioritised field of view around them, most cities and facilities were built tall rather than wide. Irwyn also often noted some level of space compression. Rooms or entire warehouses that were noticeably bigger on the inside than the outside were downright common.

"The Duchy of Teal is the smallest in geographical size," Alice explained when he asked.

"But they can make extra space, so it doesn't matter to them. Everything is concentrated around important Sources. Which they have about the same amount as other Duchies, as far as I know."

"A lot of the Sources in the Federation have been transplanted," Elizabeth added.

"It's not exactly easy, but there are prospectors who leave the Federation to scout for them to be extracted during peacetime. Technically, I had been granted that title and task when we were going North, though it is difficult to find anything worthwhile nowadays." Irwyn's nose proved to be very useful for their purposes. While he was not great at pinpointing where exactly the Rot hid, it was excellent for figuring out if the crusade had missed anything.

That earned him much respect from the Inquisitors especially. Eventually, even the undead seemed to figure out that their best attempts at leaving behind small but deeply hidden traps were pointless, and said remnants got less and less common.

"We have covered most of the Duchy of Teal," Marmian announced one time after returning everyone to the camp. It was about two months after they had first started.

"Next, the Crusade will proceed to the rest of the Federation. It is still possible to vote for repeated locations. Four-hour break." Thoroughly inspecting one area every day was a relatively breakneck pace, given that they mostly visited only major population centers or truly important locations. It was a bit off sync from actual 24 hours, so their breaks sometimes changed between nighttime and daytime, but that wasn't a large problem.

Almost everyone participating was at least a Conception mage, so just the few hours of sleep were more than enough for everyone. Irwyn personally only slept every few days. One problem specific to their group was Waylan. His body after all the Honing was superhuman to a degree, but not to the point where he could last indefinitely on four irregular hours of sleep. Once that became apparent, Alice quickly thought of a solution.

By accelerating time in a small area around just a bed, she could let the sneak squeeze out seven or even eight full hours of slumber. It was a bit draining for her to do safely, and she couldn't maintain the magic while sleeping herself, but it let Waylan function. Desir also contributed by keeping track of any of the biological effects of sleep deprivation building up and could ease them somewhat.

"I should go and talk about our issue with the Duchy of Black," Elizabeth said soon after the announcement.

"And White for Alice, since we can likely assume someone there is still looking for her over Steelmire. It would defeat the whole point of coming here if we still end up exposed due to poor luck."

"Hopefully Marmian will take at least that seriously," Alice muttered.

"For all he has been a font of endless mischief, he has not actually messed up anything important so far, has he?" Desir instead defended him.

"Thank you!" said devil spoke, appearing between them. No one so much as twitched, fully inoculated thanks to Waylan's gimmicks.

"The things I have to do for a smidgen of recognition!"

"So you are actually listening to every conversation happening in the camp," Elizabeth instead noted. It went without saying that she always kept up a veil of secrecy for their conversations. In fact, it was still active and undisturbed. The Truth mage did not seem to particularly care.

"You are seriously the least fun band of prodigies I have had to deal with," the man lamented, not commenting on her words.

"Fine, you get along with each other perfectly, I can stomach that, but could you at least argue with other people on occasion? I don't know, call someone a peon or something? What kind of self-respecting ducal scion spends so much time in close proximity to dozens of commoners without so much as a contemptuous sniff?"

"Do you actually want that answered?"

"Yes, please!"

"I do not look down on a peasant any more than I would my so-called 'peers'." Elizabeth smiled, then changed the topic.

"I assume you 'overheard' my earlier worry?"

"Yes, yes, I will keep you nice and out of sight in Black and White. Do you think you are the only group with problematic backgrounds in this Crusade? It's basically a tradition to man these with people who have a reason not to stick around home. You wouldn't believe what the group from Green is dealing with." Everyone waited for him to elaborate after such a statement. Instead, Marmian just grinned, then vanished without another word.

Irwyn wanted to groan, but at least it was reassuring to see him not actually spilling people's secrets at a whim.

"Want to bet if the Duchy of Green group is actually dealing with something major or whether he was just messing with us?" Desir was the first to speak up afterwards.

"We would have no way to confirm that," Irwyn pointed out.

"I could just go talk with them and eventually get the idea. If they are involved in something insane back in their home, there will be signs to pick up on in a few days or maybe weeks."

"And let them notice you have recently carved a third Concept for a new element?" Elizabeth said.

"Probing goes both ways. They probably won't realise if we just brush past each other on occasion, but there is no way they wouldn't detect the Life over a prolonged period, even through the protections. Three affinities is already enough to be very notable."

"They will probably realise it anyway, if they haven't already," Alice said.

"He has visibly helped with healing on a few occasions."

"No, I have been intentionally playing off any healing as just using Fate to direct consumables," Desir nodded.

"The assumption of 'at most two elements' plays strongly into that, letting any observer justify away slight discrepancies. But only until something breaks that mirage. Not worth the extra risk for just amusement, you are right. I would have figured that out myself if it had gone past idle suggestion." Afterwards, they got into a discussion about what was the next place they should visit. Or rather, how to cast their one lot.

Irwyn was a bit ambivalent, but Alice got very excited about the possibilities, to the point that her enthusiasm affected everyone else as well. There were apparently many destinations and landmarks she had always wanted to visit, but never got the chance to. When peer pressure got him to share his own ideas, Irwyn thought of the places that he had read about in that outdated travel guide he had once owned in Ebon Respite. The two that had stuck in his mind were the Scar and the Everburn Insthmus.

When he shared that, though, everyone agreed that those were basically some of the few locations that weren't on the menu. Not that Irwyn had really expected otherwise. The Scar was a small mountain range so devastated by several Edicts in ages passt that natural laws broke there. It was surrounded by several rings of fortification manned at all times, since its special nature caused it to be where most lost Realm wanderers, teleportation accidents, and other forms of failed long-range transport ended up appearing.

And Liches. Many wandering and powerful Liches that needed to be killed fast before getting access to any bodies or Souls, hence why it was already heavily defended by the Inquisition even during the ongoing war. The Isthmus, on the other hand, was covered with eternal flames, most likely also caused by an Edict, that would never stop burning as long as they remained in the area. Irwyn had actually once dealt with a sample of that fire, which had been enchanted to preserve those miraculous properties.

Those flames also made it so hot that basically only the few golems born there could survive the environment. Not even the Rot bothered encroaching into the area. Nominally, it was under the governance of the Duchy of Red, but most of it was just an uncontrolled border region. Eventually, their group settled on a crystal mega-foundry in the Duchy of Purple.

There were only a few that had earned the word 'mega', and the one they chose was supposedly responsible for the majority of small utility crystals found across the Federation. For any small utility enchantment that caused light, silence, or such a simple effect, there was a nine in ten chance that it had been produced there.

The reason that convinced everyone of the choice was that Alice reminisced about how her father had once mentioned the desire to see it with his own eyes, but alas unable to gain access to the very much not public industrial complex. Of course, all of that would come down to some poor man or woman being briefly yanked out of their life to draw a lot. Marmian was getting progressively more creative with those. It was probably only a matter of time until he managed to find an actual jester somewhere.