Low-Fantasy Occultist

His family stood waiting in the courtyard. The breath of the horses in the nearby stables plumed white in the cold air. Eugene, Elena, Devon, Sonya, and Rose formed a quiet half-circle, the impending departure hanging over them.

Nick walked over to his mother and pressed the disc into her palm.

"Wear it against your skin," Nick instructed, keeping his voice low. "I carved spiritual static into the stone. It will scramble any telepathic probes or memory delves. It won't stop a dedicated caster, but it will buy you the seconds you need to react.”

Elena curled her fingers around the jade. Her expression remained stoic, ever the Lady of Floria, but her eyes gleamed with fierce pride. “I will, thank you. Give them hell, Nicholas.”

He handed a second disc to Sonya, who accepted it with a formal curtsy. Even her strict posture could not hide the gratitude in the set of her shoulders. “Thank you,” she murmured.

Giving her a smile, Nick turned to Rose and held out the modified leather scabbard.

“I noticed you keep your blade sheathed until the right moment," Nick told her. "I bound a seal of Accumulation into the grain. It will siphon ambient mana while at rest, and the friction of the draw will release that stored energy, granting you the speed and power you lost. More, when you get it back. Use it well.”

Rose took the leather, tracing the faint, glowing outlines of the kanji hidden in the tooling. She looked up, her jaw set with the same stubborn resolve she had used to face a Great Work. "Thank you. For everything.”

Finally, Nick stopped in front of Devon and held out the dwarven sword.

His brother took the weapon, his hand wrapping around the fresh leather grip. The moment his fingers curled around the hilt, his eyes widened in shock. A faint hum resonated up his arm, a spark of conceptual awareness echoing in the soul-scape.

"Nick... what is this?" Devon breathed, staring at the crossguard.

"Treat it as a partner, not a tool," Nick advised, a cryptic smile playing on his lips. "It might surprise you one day. Grow, brother, and you won’t be disappointed.”

With his stated desire to make for Prestige as well, he’d need all the help he could get, especially since he'd have to delve deep into the Green Ocean to earn the Feats he needed.

Hopefully, the sword would help him through his trials.

Devon swallowed hard, gripping the sword tightly. He reached out with his free hand and pulled Nick into a brief embrace. "Watch your back out there.”

"Always," Nick promised.

He stepped away. He needed no horse for this journey. The trade roads were safe enough with all the new soldiers being put to work, but the sky was far faster.

Eugene offered a crisp military salute.

Nick returned it, then drew a deep breath and focused. The air around him warped, bending the light as a dense sphere of force wrapped around his body. The cobblestones groaned under the sudden pressure, but his control was fine enough to keep them from cracking.

It had taken some time, but he was back to where he’d been, able to direct every mote of mana that made up his body. Or even better, given how much more there was.

With a crack like a whip, Nick launched himself into the air.

He tore through the freezing morning sky, climbing rapidly until the sprawling stone walls of Floria looked like a scatter of gray pebbles in the grass. He banked eastward, the wind roaring against the smooth curve of his shield.

The borderlands fell away beneath him, and the vast grassland stretched out, a patchwork of rolling golden fields, dense thickets, winding silver rivers, and creeping brown arteries of the trade routes.

Once Floria’s expansion slowed, even those would change, replaced by paved pathways that would make trade even faster.

Flying at this altitude offered a majestic view, but he’d chosen to go so high for another reason. His esoteric senses expanded, sweeping across the terrain below. Compared to the shadow he cast, the world’s lesser creatures burned like tiny, insignificant candles.

An hour into the flight, near the rocky foothills bordering a merchant pass, Nick spotted a disturbance. A flock of Gale Eagles circled a caravan, their broad wings churning the air into dangerous, unnatural crosswinds.

Nick altered his trajectory and dove toward the cliffs. The largest of the flock, around level seventy, had razor-sharp plumage and folded its wings to dive toward the panicked draft horses below.

A mage was taking potshots at them, keeping them from swooping down, but his mana was dwindling. Soon, only the archers would remain to defend, and their arrows lacked the piercing power to injure the beasts.

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Nick intercepted the matriarch as it prepared another pass, though he didn't bother summoning the devastating firestorms or vacuum spheres he would use against a real threat. Killing a mortal beast was no longer the challenge; restraint was. If he unleashed his true power, he would vaporize the eagle, the caravan, and a fair chunk of the trade road.

Thus, he wove a hair-thin thread of kinetic force, infusing it with spiritual intent, then snapped it outward like a whip. The invisible lash wrapped around the eagle’s throat, and Nick pulled sharply.

The beast’s neck snapped with a clean, audible crack.

And just like that, it went limp, tumbling harmlessly into the brush a hundred feet from the merchants.

A couple more applications brought the rest of the flock low, and Nick banked upward, leaving the caravan guards cheering at the empty sky.