Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 61: Slimes Are People Too?

Alex didn’t have to spend any time trying to convince Akus of his plan. The water mage simply stepped toward his, placing a hand on his shoulder.

As soon as he felt a bit of his aether enter his body, Alex began casting [Vita-Surge Cloak]. Akus’ aether was pulled along, reinforcing the spell pattern that matched his aether channels, increasing its power further.

It was a peculiar addition to the man’s aether, being able to boost spells. But Alex was more than happy with the effect.

The influx of vitality, strength, and agility that he felt coursing through his body was a nice notch higher than he expected.

His eyes focused on the strange humanoid thing in the arena.

It didn’t seem to be cowed by Alex’s spell. In fact, it looked like it was beginning to prepare to attack, the creature’s legs bending in preparation of a leap of some kind.

Alex got to it first.

In a plume of dust, Alex launched himself forward and crossed the space to the mannequin before it could manage to react.

An axel kick sent it into the floor, a small dent at the top of its head.

“No getting up now, goodnight,” Alex said.

A moment later his fists began to rain down on it as Alex stood poised from above. He wasn’t using his Martial Style, but that didn’t matter given the massive strength and speed of Alex’s punches. Each one landed against the mannequin's body with bone-rattling impact, a fist-sized dent left behind.

After ten punches, the thing’s body was beginning to bend inward. After twenty, it was losing any actual structural integrity it might have had. Thirty punches later, its body was flattened, stretched, and deformed to the point of roadkill.

It tried defending itself the whole time, even on the floor its limbs attempted blocks or counter-jabs. But they were ineffective at best. Alex didn’t care much if it blocked. He was happy to pulverize its limbs too. And he simply slapped away any counter it attempted, given the reaction time his enhanced brain was getting from [Vita-Surge Cloak].

It only took twenty seconds or so for the construct, whatever it may have been, to be beaten to the point of destruction.

Alex sighed heavily as the mannequin buzzed and shut down, the notification from the System flashing across his eyes.

[Vita-Surge Cloak] died away, and the lethargic wave followed after, along with the buzz of his meridian imprints going to work on lessening the fallout.

“Very good work, Alex. I think that training construct was a Late-stage Adept martial construct. Yet you defeated it so easily.” Akus peered down at the remains of the dummy as he spoke.

“Didn’t really fight it fair, that’s why. Overwhelming stats mean a lot when you have the human intelligence to back it up. Aether beasts would rule this place if they were smarter,” Alex said.

“Aether beasts do get smarter. Each stage of their progression also comes with additional intelligence,” Akus raised a brow at Alex, as if he should have already known this.

Alex paused and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Every aether beast forms rudimentary sentience at Adept. They can have basic thoughts, desires, and goals. At Magus Tier, beasts are even known to begin understanding some spoken languages, even if they can’t speak themselves. By Sage Tier, given the difficulties in entering such a stage, they under-go an Awakening. This gives them true sapience. And aether beasts have even created and ruled kingdoms following such changes.”

“Damn, so beasts can eventually become… people?”

“They probably wouldn’t like that word, no. Even awakened creatures still refer to themselves as aether beasts. As that is what they are. But some adapt to and integrate into humanoid culture more than others. Some even have been able to create human forms.”

Human forms? Hear that, Obby, we might be able to make you a real boy some day.

“Hilarious. You think I won’t be taking over your meat-sack long before then?” The pebble shot back.

“Okay,” Alex spoke to Akus once again. “So beasts are people too. Friends, not food. Got it.”

“Erm, sure, yes, glad to help. I would like to remind you that there are always exceptions. Some creatures stay “dumb” no matter how powerful they become. And some can become sapient far before. It was said that the dragons were one such kind. Even in mortal tier they were as advanced, if not more advanced than us.”

Stolen novel; please report.

That also made sense. Alex couldn’t really see a slime becoming a person, after all.

“Enough lessons. Let’s get our reward and find the next node. We need to stay moving.” Alex mentally clicked on the screen in front of him, confirming his choice, and the two were teleported away.

Back in the forest and moving swiftly away from the node they had just completed, Alex looked at the newest small golden coin in his hand. This one had a depiction of a closed fist on the front. He wasn’t too sure what it meant, but he couldn’t do much about that yet.

He tucked it into his spatial bracelet and looked to Akus, the mage moving swiftly along with him, the scraps of map pieces in his hands all the while.

“It seems we are at the far south-west area of the dungeon. The next node looks to be about thirty hours' travel. I said we were lucky to be next to a node right as we entered, but it looks like that was a lie. We are in a bit of a sparse region, and need to move closer toward the center to reach more nodes.”

Alex cursed under his breath. Being so far out meant they would possibly begin to fall behind. They hadn’t earned any keys to this central Palace that Akus mentioned, and as far as Alex could guess, they’d need at least ten of them at the end of this.

They would need to pick up the pace.

“Alright, let’s get a move on. I want to be at the next node within the day.” Before Akus could protest, Alex launched forward, entering a near sprint over the uneven ground. He was still superhuman, he could run for a full day.

Akus didn’t say a word as he sprinted on behind him.

***

Alex was a bit overconfident in the one-day idea.

So far in the Inheritance, they had not run into any roaming fauna, basic animals, or aether beasts. During their travel to the next node, this remained true. But that didn’t mean there weren’t dangers to look out for.

It only took four hours for them to reach their first big issue. The large jungle forest led into an immense marshy bog. Trees still adorned the flooded wetland, towering here and there, but they were far more sparse than before, with hundreds of feet between each, perhaps more.

Small bits of land poked up from the surface at periodic distances, some clustered together, others not. The water itself was also not uniform in its topography, some spots reaching only a foot or so in depth, and others being deep enough to swallow Alex entirely if he tried walking into them.

But none of that would have slowed them too much, it was the strange geysers that was the issue.

From within the waters, jettisoning randomly, were eruptions that looked like sickly yellow gas.

Through his [Aether Sight] Alex could see a massive concentration of water and earth aether contained in the plumes. Bare guesswork put the density at around solid-stage adept tier. Meaning even though Alex didn’t know what effect the sickly yellow vapor had, it would not be minimal.

That wasn’t even counting the speed at which the eruptions occurred. The ejected gas was released like breaking of a vaccuum seal on a space station. The waters and yellow gas rocketing thirty or forty feet near instantly.

Alex imagined getting an arm or leg caught in the spray and getting the limb ripped off entirely.

“We go around then?” Akus asked as the two of them stared at the bogland.

Alex watched a few more of the geysers, noting the timing and finding no pattern. Even Obby failed to discern some sort of rhyme or reason to them. Eventually he nodded. “Yes, we go around. We only just got here, and I still hold to the idea we should take any risks yet.”

The detour added time to their travel, and it wasn’t the only issue they came upon.

Clusters of massively aether-dense flowers that released scorching pollen came next, forcing them to move even further out of the way.

Then it was a section of land that had ground so brittle it couldn’t support their weight. Alex had stepped over a tree root, and his foot broke through what looked like solid ground, only to create a two-foot-wide hole that appeared to descend into a deep tunnel.

Trying to carefully walk on only the “solid” parts was impossible, and the brittle areas became more and more common. Alex didn’t know where the vast tunnel network led, but they didn’t have time to explore, and he really wasn’t keen on finding out what had made the tunnels either.

They backtracked and tried again.

In the end, the two of them traveled throughout the night and all of the next day as well. Akus’ estimate of thirty hours turned out to be low. It took them thirty-five hours before they eventually caught sight of a familiar metal bell shape stuck into the dirt.

The two stopped a fair distance away but still within eyesight.

“You ready? Could be another combat trial. I doubt they will all contain only late-stage dept threats,” Alex said.

Akus double checked his scraps of map one last time before putting them away. “Yes, I’m ready. And I’m sure that a combat node wouldn’t even be the worst of the possibilities.”

“Ugh,” Alex groaned. “Don’t tell you’ve picked up Devon’s habits already.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Nevermind, come on.”

Alex led the way to the node, circling around to find the entrance and finally stopping in front of the teleportation glyph. He waited only a moment to take a breath before activating the enchantment. Just as before, there was a flash, and they were gone.

[ You have entered aRest Node.

Reward Tokens may be redeemed at any rest node.

Warning: Participants within rest nodes may see one another’s progress through a status screen, including the number of reward tokens one has gathered, or seals received.

Violence within a rest node is prohibited. But trade and exchanges may be made by both parties.

Exiting a rest node will teleport you to a random location outside the node within fifty miles. Once you have entered and exited a rest node, you may not enter the same rest node again for thirty days. ]

Alex and Akus found themselves inside a rundown looking ruin. Moss and vine covered stone pillars and walls surrounded them on every side, arranged in the way of a large one hundred foot by forty foot room. All the way at one end was a set of ten or so beds arranged haphazardly. Along the walls were damaged, waterlogged shelves containing books and scrolls that looked as old as the heavens themselves.

At the other end, opposite the beds, was a large campfire.

Alex could smell something already cooking on the fire, filling the large area with the aroma of simmering meat and fats.

But what caught his attention most of all, wasn’t the smell of the cooking food, or the albeit comfy-looking beds.

For the first time since they had entered the inheritance, Akus and he weren’t alone.

There were others already sitting about the campfire, all of them turned towards the two of them.

“Oh goody,” Obby said in his mind. “A node where you have to make friends? You are soooo fucked.”