Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 51: Routines

“Alex, are you there? Can you hear me?”

Allie’s voice was the first thing he heard as he woke back in his bedroom. He had been moved from the bed onto the floor next to Allie’s many medical and alchemy supplies. Holly was off to the left of the room, clearly conflicted between the urge to give Allie space and to be at Alex’s side.

He looked around, seeing Tom-Tom and Kate still unconscious on the bed, their hands on Amnio’s orb.

Allie had pulled him away, so something must have happened.

“Can you hear me?” Allie asked again.

“Yes, yes, I can hear you,” he said, waving her away. Just moving his arm caused his muscles to burn, forcing him to lower it.

“You began releasing that purple energy again. It was straining your body, so I had to pull you out.” Allied explained.

He thought back to what he was doing inside the orb, training with Amnios. The Hydra had been directing him towards how to harness his bloodlust and use it to dominate his wyrm-heart.

It was a tricky bit of maneuvering to do at first. Amnios was asking him to use and manipulate instincts that he just didn’t have as a human, but ones Dragonkin seemed to possess and understand innately. That sense of bestial pride, of domineering aggression that went beyond just normal human expression… it was difficult for him to grasp.

Until he realized how close that feeling was to the Wrath from his [Demon Asura Style]. Just like with his [Technique] connecting to his feeling of [Descending Demon Fist], it seemed to him that the wrath generated by the martial art was at least adjacent to this Dragon-pride Amnios wanted him to tap into.

He just needed to direct it through his soulspace into the heart.

And he had been trying to do just that, inside Amnios’ orb in the large training area. He had pushed his rage into the beating organ, challenging it for dominance. That was when the heart reacted, flooding him with draconic essence.

Alex had been training to contend with the heart when he was woken up by Allie.

Activating his constitution inside the soulorb seemed to have actually activated it out in the real world, and the changes the draconic essence had on his body would only make his current soul injury worse, prompting Allie to “save” him.

“It looks like I’m more limited in my training than I had first thought.” He sighed disappointingly.

“You need to make sure you’re in peak shape for the Inheritance, Alex,” Holly had knelt down on the floor beside him now. Allie’s hands still rested on his shoulders, her healing spell working gently through his body.

“So, I need to be careful, take it easy. I get it. I know,” he said more roughly than he meant to.

Holly looked at him sternly, then her face softened. “I know it's frustrating, especially for you. But… it’s just how it is, at least for right now.”

Alex opened his mouth to retort, then stopped and closed it. After a second of thought, he opened it again. “Okay, yes, I get it. It’s just… this feeling of being useless while you all train and prepare. It’s almost unbearable.”

He felt Holly’s hand slip into his, the two fitting together as they always did when she held his hand. Her skin felt warm, smooth, and he breathed in heavily, taking in her scent. After all that time, her scent hadn’t changed.

“It’s going to be okay. You have plenty you can still do. Devon will probably love some help with his [Glyphcraft] work, and Allie with [Alchemy]. If you don’t wanna do either of those, Henry can teach you how to slow down with [Herbalism], or Myrae or Selkie can teach you their enchanting skills,” she gave his hand a squeeze. “There’s plenty to do, Alex.”

She was right, again. He did have plenty he could do, and he just didn’t see it. He couldn’t just ignore his skills, every one of them could hold the secret to aether manipulation that let him use [Demonstrider] more safely, or to forming his Dragon-fire.

“Alright.” He looked to Kate and Tom-Tom still on the bed, their minds deep inside Amnios’ orb. Then he looked back to Allie and her many potions and vials arranged beside her. “Alright Allie, let’s train.”

***

Two weeks.

That was roughly how much time Alex had until the Inheritance Dungeon opened. He had spent just as much time sitting in bed, waiting to heal up.

Which meant he had wasted half the time he had to prepare. He pissed it away in bed when he could have been doing more.

Right away, he basically set up a rotating schedule with everyone so he could get as much time in as possible.

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First was [Alchemy] training with Allie.

She had by far surpassed him in the skill long ago. He had to improve in leaps and bounds if he wanted to even begin catching up. Which was difficult, as he only paid attention to parts of the [Alchemy] that assisted his [Glpyhcraft].

There was far more to it than just enchantment ink, or mixing wyvern blood.

Potion creation. Breaking down alchemical reagents. Identifying catalyst treasures. Applying effects to items, beasts, or people. Alchemical Pill formation. And so on, and so on.

And that was only the first part of his day.

Henry came next, the large man bringing in his strange portable garden in a sack.

[Herbalism] involved more than plants classified as herbs. Alex came to learn that it encompassed basically any aether-rich plant. The still would have been better called [Botany] or [Horticulture]. But, he did design the System.

“You feel the aether in the plant. Check for bad growths, and trim,” Henry said slowly as he ran his fingers over a row of small plant saplings. Occasionally, his other hand would bring a pair of pruning scissors to bear, taking off a section with expert precision.

This was by far Alex’s least favorite skill, given how slow it was. Holly had been correct, it would force him to have patience, one way or another.

Myrae and Selkie came to teach him after Henry.

The two mercenaries worked with a skill called [Infusion], as well as Myrae’s [Runic Shaping]. Each were enchantment type skills, and once Alex had been interested in it for a while now.

[Infusion] was interesting in that it required nearly zero ingredients or materials to be used.

“Almost all of [Infusion]’s work is done through your aether, and your will alone,” Selkie explained. “You need to hold an idea, and symbol of the effect you want to apply in mind.”

She held up a dagger, showing the faint enchantment already placed on the blade. “What do you feel?”

Alex looked at the weapon through [Aether Sight], seeing the stored aether, and even closed his eyes to feel the energy itself. After a minute or so, Alex did feel something. It was like he saw the image of a katana sword swinging down through the air, cutting across and through anything within it’s path.

“I feel… sharpness?”

Selkie smiled and gave a little clap. “Yes, yes, very good. First try, too, very impressive.”

As it turned out, [Infusion] was basically exactly how it sounded. He imprinted an idea onto something with his aether. The stronger the image in his mind and his will regarding the specific effect, the stronger the enchantment would be.

Thinking of a snowman for the concept of ‘Cold’ might have a decent effect. But imparting the idea of a blizzard, or a glacier, would probably be better.

Whereas thinking of a spear for ‘Piercing’ would be good, but the same symbol for ‘impact’ probably wouldn’t turn out well.

The thought and will behind the enchantment had to work together. And the stronger Alex’s will and his ability to impart his intent through his aether, the better the [Infusion]. The exact item being infused also played a part. Again, infusing a spear with the wrong concept would be a waste.

It was a skill that was greatly versatile, letting him create even abstract effects like ‘lightness’ or ‘efficiency’. But it was unknown how effective an idea or attempt would be until trying.

And removing a badly imparted [Infusion] was expensive, and could even damage an item. He would need to think things through beforehand.

Myrae’s [Runic Shaping] was also interesting. As an enchanting skill, it used very specific runes to impart an idea to create an effect. What surprised Alex was that it didn’t have to be a permanent effect. In fact, it seemed that wasn’t even the typical way to use the skill.

“Most people who practice [Runic Shaping] will craft talismans. And hold onto such creations for later use, such as when they running low on aether.” Myrae reached into her bag and pulled out a string of rectangular paper slips.

These were items he had seen her use before. They created small spell effects, some even nearly as powerful as full mage-cast spells.

For Myrae, it looked like she made dozens of healing talismans to save aether in combat. He remembered seeing her literally slap a few onto people who had been injured during fights while they were on the road with the merchant caravan.

The catch with this skill was it required specific knowledge of the spell or effect you wanted to emulate, which required lots of aether control. The second issue was that activating an applied runicscript—which was what a finished [Runic Shaping] application was called—still cost a small bit of aether. Thus none could be used if you were truly squeezed dry of aether in a fight.

And even then, most runescripts just weren’t as powerful as mage-cast spells. Most would fall short unless the enchanter had very deep knowledge of the spell or effect they were creating, or had powerful ingredients that were attuned properly to the effect when making the application ink.

Ink made from fire-drake blood for a fire spell, was one example.

Alex felt he could work on combining the two skills in some ways to make up for both skills’ shortcomings.

All the training still included Alex reading through Sylvaris’ scroll and the various aether slates. And diving into Amnios’ orb if only to talk about aether, draconic energy, and the ideas inside the Dragonkin manual Alex had gotten some time ago in the Dungeon shop.

He allowed himself a three-hour break between it all for sleep, but that was all.

At night he still worked with his fellow self-induced insomniac, Devon.

With a focus on [Glyphcraft] and other enchanting skills like [Infusion], this part of his new routine was where Alex felt most at home. Along with Obby feeding information through their bond, Alex and Devon worked on various projects together for hours.

Just like back on Earth, working on a piece of coding or running a program, the two of them were just easy to work alongside each other.

Devon stayed deeply focused on the tasks he wanted, while Alex helped nudge and direct him, giving assistance and ideas. Within days, they upgraded Devon’s rifle, worked on Alex’s golem summon crystal, as well as the flintlock pistol he had prototyped during the tournament.

Then they began working on other things. Machines, items that they both knew from Earth that would be immensely useful in Aetherios. Devon already figured out a small refrigerator and was selling the idea to the Empire for production.

A washer and dryer seemed to be the next big industrial push the two were trying to work on.

It was after the first week of this routine, while the two were working on the aetherian dryer machine, that Devon finally stopped and looked over at Alex.

The act was so sudden and strange, Alex almost thought Devon was having a stroke of some kind.

“No, no, I’m fine, I just… I’ve had something on my mind for awhile and I wanted to talk to you about it,” he said.

Alex fully turned towards him, an uneasy feeling about the situation rising in his gut. “Okay, what’s up?”

Devon took a deep breath, looking down at his feet. He stayed silent for a few long moments before finally looking up at Alex. “It’s the Inheritance Dungeon.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t think I should go in. No, I think… I don’t want to go in.”