Beastforged Bond

Meeting Scar and the Mikoniv merchant at the market had been interesting, to say the least. The Mikoniv hadn’t been as scheming and devious as Scar made him out to be – if his goods weren’t dangerous – but there was no way anyone should pay a premium price for goods that were barely acceptable. If anything, the Alchemy Tower’s decision to get rid of such items rather than sell them in the tower was enough to know that they were bad. Not dangerous bad, but bad enough to focus on Scar.

Scar…was just as weird as the Mikoniv, but trusting him felt like the right decision. His warning about the Mikoniv merchant had been kind, even if it was only to help himself in the end.

Regardless, I was now in possession of two World Mending Elixirs to test Scar’s skills.

Expensive.

Aureus grumbled, which I could only agree with. Sixty platinum coins was almost one-tenth of my entire fortune.

“It’s fine. I need this.” It was unlikely that the Elixirs would be enough to fix the World, but it was a start.

Next up, I considered using one of the Grand Hall’s portals, but they were too expensive for my liking. So instead of wasting dozens of gold on short-distance teleportation, I spent two gold on a beast taxi.

The monstrous horse stopped in front of Dracos’ library, my next destination and, hopefully, the place where I’d find more information regarding Gates and weaves. Especially since Kazriel’s library hadn’t helped much in that regard. Not with what I wanted to learn, at least.

Ten silver coins spent on a one-day pass to the library’s first three floors, I stepped inside.

At first glance at the massive monument, I was flabbergasted. Because that was exactly what the library was. A monument as if carved for gods rather than mortals.

Five colossal floors stacked in vast circular tiers that overlooked one another through an immense hollow center. Endless shelves stretched into the distance, packed tightly with tomes bound in leather, metal, scales, and all kinds of even more exotic materials Adam couldn’t even name.

Bridges of white, glistening stone connected sections high above, while countless lanterns floated soundlessly through the open space, their pale light reflecting off polished onyx, marble, and ancient runes etched into several pillars.

High above, near the ceiling, drifted isles of stone wrapped in dense currents of ether. It was almost impossible not to notice them, the sheer amount and density of ether drawing my attention. Ancient-looking shelves drifted upon them in absolute silence as streams of luminous energy spiraled around the sanctuaries like living storms.

My instincts screamed in warning. The ether’s pressure evidently preserved the ancient tomes against the erosion of time, yet it felt like it served another purpose as well. To force one’s senses toward the floating shelves and archives, to show, to demonstrate, the power needed to reach them. Looking at them was enough to tell that I was too weak. That I would fall victim to madness, or worse, if I dared to step onto the isles of stone at my current level.

“How may Ubu help you, sir?” A sonorous voice appeared at my side.

I let out a yelp that echoed through the library before spinning toward the child-like face of a creature…made of obsidian? The creature was not a beast, yet it didn’t feel like any of the Blessed I’d been around before.

“I am so sorry,” I said in a hurry, cheeks burning hot when the creature’s brows furrowed. It only reached up to my waist, yet I didn’t doubt for one second that those obsidian-clad knuckles could grind my bones to dust if they had to.

“Please do not apologize. Ubu made a foolish mistake.” The creature bowed deeply. “Ubu should not have approached you so suddenly. Please accept Ubu’s apology, sir.”

“Don’t worry. I should have been more careful.” I whispered, looking around and hoping no one would throw me out for being too loud.

“You should have been more careful.” The creature nodded. “But Ubu should have been more careful as well.”

The creature, likely called Ubu, looked up at me, deep violet irises meeting mine. “How can Ubu help?”

Ubu stared at me intently. He didn’t move, neither did his ether, until I finally spoke up.

“I am looking for information regarding human Blesseds’ Gates and weaves. Preferably information about illnesses regarding either of them.”

“Illnesses?” Ubu tilted his head slowly, mechanically. “The archives have 2,951 records of the requested information.”

That was too much. Way too much. Also…archives? I was pretty sure this was a library. Then again, I didn’t really know the difference between a library and an archive. Except the obvious, of course.

“Do you have information regarding Gate Outflow Syndrome? If so, do you know if there have been records of a method or technique created to absorb ether into the weave or straight into a Gate?”

Ubu nodded slowly but didn’t say anything right away. Ether poured into his small onyx-clad head, and his violet irises turned black for a moment.

“We have fourteen recordings regarding Gate Outflow Syndrome. Unique ether absorption techniques have been preserved, but Ubu believes they will not work in tandem with Gate Outflow Syndrome. If that is what you were looking for, sir, then Ubu has to apologize. We do not have anything of that kind.” Ubu lowered his body again.

This book was originally published on NovelPhoenix. Check it out there for the real experience.

“That’s alright.” It wasn’t like I expected a miracle. “Can you show me the recordings about Gate Outflow Syndrome?”

Since I was already in the library – or was it an archive? I wasn’t too sure about that now – I might as well find out more about my condition.

“Ubu will bring the recordings. Take a seat and Ubu will find you.” Ubu saluted and disappeared. One moment he stood there; the next, I couldn’t see him anymore.

What a cutie patootie~

Sapsie squirmed, to which I could only agree. Ubu was indeed cute.

The archive was not as crowded as I had feared. I found only one Mikoniv and a small group of Terats on the first floor. Marveling at the structure unfurling all around me, it grew increasingly more evident that the building’s interior was far more expansive than it looked from the outside. Walking up the staircase to the second floor, I found a few blue-skinned Caldera with azure-blue streams coursing through their veins.

I greeted them with a nod, which they failed to notice, or they simply didn’t care, before I went on to find an empty desk.

After sitting down, my gaze drifted across the archive before locking back onto the floating shelves. Ubu arrived shortly after with the first few scrolls. He didn’t say a word and disappeared once more.

“Let’s see what we got here,” I mused quietly to myself and unfurled the first scroll.

The first thing I noticed? It didn’t say a lot of things I hadn’t known before. One of the first things the scroll about Gate Outflow Syndrome mentioned was the loss of ether. Ether did not only leak out of the Gates, but was also necessary to live.

I knew that much already though. Moving around caused the Gates to leak more ether into the weave, which then used the leaked ether to guide the body. Ether was used to help me move around because moving without it would be more cumbersome and actually painful. I knew that much already. How could I forget the torture I went through in the past just to walk around the Bastion?

Without ether to draw upon, the weave would consume lifeforce, or the ‘patient’ would collapse. While the doctors in the Bastion hadn’t been certain about the lifeforce part, it would explain why I always felt so fragile before awakening.

The lifeforce part was also the reason so many patients with Gate Outflow Syndrome never made it to adulthood. What was interesting, however, was that patients with the largest Worlds died at a much younger age than those with smaller Worlds.

I had no idea how I hadn’t realized it until now, but apparently, Gate Outflow Syndrome was directly connected to the World.

Now that I think about it, I murmured inwardly while going through countless memories. Snippets of my first weeks as a Blessed mingled with fragments from two years ago, one year ago, and recently, showing something that should have been painfully obvious to me.

Moving around right now was not as costly as it had been before my coma. My World had shrunk ever since then, and I was certain the weave’s ether consumption would increase once more as soon as my World fully recovered and began growing again.

But it would never be as cheap as it had been years ago. When I first became a Blessed, moving around barely cost anything. At that time, every little bit had been important, however, the price I had to pay had been more than worth it. Now…it was still worth it, but the price had increased greatly.

Under normal circumstances, with regular training, maybe even some hunts or other more strenuous activities involved, I would have to spend two hours replenishing the Gates. And that was in an ether-dense area. Dracos held even more ether, but if the cost kept increasing the larger my World grew, I would have to be careful.

You have to train your ether control. Keep up with the increased ether cost or you will spend more and more time filling your Gates.

Aureus came up with a sound idea.

If I didn’t train my ether control, it would take longer, which would only worsen further if I were to live in a place with less ether to absorb.

“Still a cripple,” I muttered to myself, setting the first scroll aside. At least my Gates were much larger than the norm.

Picking up the next scroll, it read more like journal entries from people interviewing and researching the patients. Ignoring how weird that felt, I pulled myself together.

The scroll once again mentioned how useful the patients’ large Gates were. Everyone said that, and how magnificent it was to use Gates as ether storages one could tap into at any time. That was true. It was incredibly useful, and I’d already made use of it on multiple occasions. After all, I could use my Gates when others were barred from changing anything about theirs once they were filled and refined.

Once linked to the weave, they became fixed. I, and people like me, weren’t. That meant one out of a million humans could use their Gates like I did. If they survived, which was said to have an even lower rate. Searching for answers in the scrolls and tomes, I learned that only one in 1,000 patients reached adulthood.

Even when they survived, their Worlds were incredibly small. As for those who became Blessed, there were only a handful of journal entries written across several hundred years.

A few Blessed with Gate Outflow Syndrome made something of themselves, and all of them were said to have worked really hard from a young age. One had a great support network; her parents bought her large quantities of Essence to grow her World enough to fit a weak Wild beast. After that, they kept nurturing her while recording every single milestone of her journey.

Her story was interesting, but it didn’t last all that long. While talented and equipped with the means to bind various rare as well as regular beasts, her journey took a dark turn when her parents prepared a feisty Infernal creature as her bond. I suppressed a grimace at the grotesque description of the disaster that could have been easily prevented.

The young woman was not much older than me when she formed Infernal Gates after binding the creature, and they somehow forgot to account for the mental effect such special Gates had. It was the first time I read about special Gates affecting the mind, and my hair stood up on end. Not because I didn’t know the Earthen, Blazing, and Liferoot Gates were changing me, their influence on my mind was as obvious as my Soulkins’. However, because the unfortunate woman and her parents failed to account for one major fact. It was already difficult to regulate an Infernal Gate’s mental influence. For a young Blessed whose Gates were four to five times larger than most people’s, the effect was five times as potent.

The final pages of the journal were written by someone else. The handwriting made that fairly obvious, telling a tale no one dared to write down. The young woman and her family were dead now, the Blessed with the greatest potential to survive past the age of twenty-five with Gate Outflow Syndrome dead…all because of a stupid mistake.

We won’t do something this stupid.

Aureus commented.

We smart! We kill stupidity!

Nox announced proudly.

“Let’s make sure we don’t die a stupid death,” I mumbled before closing the scroll.