168: Return
There was a silence in the room while Kathrine left, broken only by Crisplet, who threw another piece of coal at my cheek.
“I’m sorry, it looked incredibly comfortable. I won’t nap there again,” I said, holding my hands up.
“The issue isn’t napping there. Honestly, napping anywhere on your grounds is perfectly fine. The issue was no one knew where you were after you just had a confrontation in the markets, which led Crisplet here to panic somewhat,” Milo said calmly.
“If Crisplet is panicking, we’re going to expect the worst. Crisplet, thank you for asking for Lily’s assistance. It’s good to know she can find him,” Hari said.
“It makes sense, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but no matter where Trev is, or how long Lily is gone, she can find him,” Milo said.
Hari nodded before getting to his feet as well. “Alright, I’m going to train. Call me if you need anything.”
Milo looked at him hard for a moment. “I know you didn’t forget.”
Hari immediately looked guilty.
“Just visit him. You agreed after all. We won’t let him stop you from being an adventurer. I’ll get Trev here to drag you out himself if they lock you up,” Milo said with a laugh.
I didn’t know that Hari was catching up with family, but it was probably for the best. I hoped he could repair some of the damage done there, but I had my doubts it would fully restore decades of anger. Time will tell, though.
Hari let out a sigh, but said nothing as he left.
“Now you…” Milo began as he pulled out several books.
“You are going to be working on your mana control and not running off. Crisplet, I’ll watch him if you want to keep working on your statues. You can do it in the library fireplace if you like. You can keep an eye on the hallway from there, make sure he doesn’t sneak away,” Milo said.
But Crisplet didn’t seem convinced, instead choosing to move to the corner of the room where a small dome of ash appeared no higher than my waist, but obscuring everything inside. It didn’t hide everything, however, because with Crisplet inside, there was a clear silhouette.
Milo nodded, seemingly happy with that.
I was half hoping I could escape myself. My side was still sore from where Lily tapped me. I didn’t have any damage notifications, which surprised me honestly, because I remembered back when I burnt my finger I got damaged for one. Yet a tap from Lily that made me slide on the ground a little was not enough to cause damage?
Milo didn’t wait to hear my protests, however, and carried on with his explanation.
“Right, I’m going to bring out fairly mundane-looking cubes. They are a training device for novices. I used them myself when I was younger. Each is imbued with a type of elemental magic. I’m going to start easy, but your job initially is going to be to reach out and tell me what type of mana is contained in each cube,” he said, putting six cubes on the table in front of me.
Each one looked like a small, polished metal cube. Appearance-wise, they all looked exactly the same, but I did as I was instructed and reached out with my mana, spotting the fire one immediately. In fact, the fire one felt like it was larger than the rest. There was a cube that seemed familiar, but I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t even really describe it like the others.
Next, I found air, which felt like it was moving around in a swirl, followed by water, which kept slipping away, and the only reason I could really see it was that it was contained in the cube.
Earth just felt solid, immovable.
And lastly, the final cube: I felt nothing. I honestly believed Milo had just put it in there to mess with me.
After opening my eyes, I pointed each cube out, getting to the last two.
“This one is familiar, but I don’t know it, and this one is nothing at all,” I said.
“I see. I know this is a task to strengthen your mana, so it’s not supposed to be super challenging, but the one you’re familiar with makes sense. It’s shadow mana. It’s likely what Lily is primarily made of at this point in her life, and it’s what most of Liane’s abilities use, but not being able to feel this cube is surprising. Most people spot it first,” he said, picking it up and turning it.
“This is the opposite to shadow mana, and it’s light mana, or the sun’s mana, depending on where in the world you go. These are the most basic ones. There are others, but it’s rare and far more specialised. I’m going to alter the strength of them and mix it up, then try again,” Milo said as he stored them all and pulled them back out.
This repeated for at least an hour before there was a knock on the door.
Archie appeared, bowing. “Sir, Prince Luis is here. He has gone out to the training yard and wanted me to pass on the message to thank you for the invitation. I also have four messages that were delivered today as well.”
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Milo sighed. “I’ll take the messages. I assume they’ll be thinly veiled threats from House Valrith.”
Archie just smiled as he bowed before leaving the room.
I went back to sensing the cubes. At this stage, Milo had the fire cube on its hardest setting, along with shadow and air. Those three I could still detect. The light was still on the easiest setting and unfortunately I still had not been able to sense anything.
“Yeah, this letter is from House Valrith, demanding we apologise, and pay money for the damages to their reputation…” Milo said, the letter going up in flames before me.
“And this one is not surprising. House Grey Rock has asked that you apologise to House Valrith, so we avoid them, as that implies they are working with them. That’s always good to know,” Milo chuckled.
“Now, this one you’ll like. In a couple of days, three chefs from the palace will come here to teach you over the period of two days,” he said with a giant grin.
And he was absolutely right; that was incredible news. I couldn’t wait to learn more from them. I wasn’t sure if I needed my own ingredients, but I might get my travel cloak and make a more hidden visit to the markets before they arrive just to stock up on basic supplies… that salt vendor had other salts too.
My thoughts trailed off and only returned, catching the tail end of what Milo had been saying.
“…think we should accept this offer to meet from Blackmere. It would be worth getting the crafters on our side in all this,” Milo was saying.
“Uh, yeah, sounds good,” I nodded.
Milo only shook his head, but was interrupted by the door opening. A familiar figure walked inside.
“That’s a remarkable statue out there,” Sylverith said, looking around, seeing the dome of ash in the corner.
Crisplet poked his head out briefly, giving a burst of sparks, and then returned inside the dome.
“That’s a real talent he has. Looks like the skill has evolved too,” she said.
This caught me off guard. I had not checked Crisplet’s stats in a long time. I thought, like mine, it really had not moved a lot, but I was incredibly wrong. Crisplet was less than a thousand experience off hitting level twenty-five and catching up to me, but importantly, his Ashborne Architect skill was gone, now replaced by Ashborne Effigy.
“Crisplet asks that you don’t pry… sorry, he says, no peeking until he’s finished. Apparently, he has an amazing surprise for everyone,” Sylverith said with a smile.
She took the seat that Hari was sitting on prior. “I will need to return my focus to the forest again soon, so we will need to organise time for your training after I’ve finished the commission with the young phoenix smith, and spoken to the king.”
Milo looked as if he was about to say something, but stopped.
“About that, we had an idea,” I said. Now was as good a time as any to discuss it.
Milo took over. “We were hoping to run it by you, actually. With Trev being in the unique position that he’s in, we believe he will be allocated land, as it would make him a more official noble house and tie him closer to the king and kingdom. We were going to request the dark forest.”
Sylverith scoffed. “You can’t own my home.”
“It’s not about owning it. If it’s in my name, as far as the kingdom is concerned, I can prevent people from destroying it any further, since they’d be stealing from my land, at least on paper,” I said.
“Oh, I see. That would be agreeable, yes… I was about to warn him that any who come close to my home will perish by my own claw, but I suppose a more diplomatic approach would be better, then I can still get permission to utilise his library, which reminds me, you wouldn’t mind if I store some books here, would you?” She chuckled.
“I don’t mind at all. I imagine Milo would love more books to read, if that would be okay, of course,” I said.
Milo just nodded.
“Excellent. Well, I need to go speak with my daughter, so if you’d please excuse me, I will let you know about those lessons, and oh, do collect me when Crisplet finishes this statue of his. I would like to see it. That one in the foyer is truly wonderful,” she said, getting up from her chair and waving goodbye.
“Goodbye, young Crisplet,” she said, getting a burst of sparks from within the ash dome.
“I’d better go get dinner started,” I said, standing up.
“And after dinner, we’ll be practising again. Also, don’t forget to reduce your mana before you sleep,” Milo said, looking at me sternly.
I nodded.
“Make sure you do. You might not feel the effects now, but I imagine once we start selling your goods at the shop, your level will rapidly rise for a while. This will pose issues for you if your mana channels are not sufficiently repaired,” he said.
“I understand. I will make sure that I do it. Are there any downsides to doing it?” I asked.
Milo thought about it for a long while. “Yes, and no. You’re likely not going to recover enough mana overnight to refill for the next day, so you’ll be lower on mana constantly, and when we’re finally back on the road, there are risks to being low on mana at night time while you sleep, but we should have enough protection to not worry about it,” he said.
“Do you know when we’ll be back on the road?” I asked hopeful it would be soon.
“It will be a few weeks yet, its hard to tell from the capital here, it’s kept fairly warm naturally due to the concentration of mana, but we’re about to hit winter properly, and that’s a poor time to be travelling out in the wilderness, even with Crisplet.” Milo said.
I couldn’t help but be reminded of the days swinging wooden swords at each other in the snow-filled yard of the orphanage, when we couldn’t even feel our hands. I wonder if that’s another thing I could address.
“Thanks for all the help, Milo.” I said.
Walking to the door of the study, I was thinking about what I would need to cook and who for; the prince was here after all, and Kathrine might show up, so I would have to make extra of whatever I chose, I was also going to be open about the buffs, without going to all out.
“Crisplet, we’re heading to the kitchen,” I said as I got closer.
The dome faded as Crisplet came out, and I caught a glimpse of a tree with leaves of fire fading away. That was a good one. I wish we had saved that tree back then.
As we walked, I was checking my inventory for what I could use. I considered the Titan Boar, but the next one on the list caught my eye, something we’ve not had in a long while. Maybe I’ll make a couple of meals. We still had another juvenile phase spider in there; perhaps I could do something with that for Liane? Maybe a berry pie again?