Chapter 58 - Grange
Liesel blinked. "Do you mean we are imprisoned?"
Arval visibly tensed as she bobbed her head. But it was apparent from the way she had said those words.
Liesel licked her lips, looking up at the sky. The first thought that came to her mind was to climb up the root veins the Heart was connected to and reach the ceiling above. It might be the final desperate effort. The ceiling was as high as the clouds in the real world. She couldn't see herself ever reaching the top, but she didn't see herself waiting to wither away here either.
"How will we leave then?" Liesel asked, "Or are you planning on staying here forever?"
"Elder Ahura will open a way out from the outside," Arval said with some hesitation. "But it will take a long time."
"How long?"
"Weeks... months, in the worst-case scenario. She's old, you see, and she is not as quick as she was before."
Liesel might have believed the girl, but she found the predicament odd. The only thing that restrained Liesel from deeming every word out of the child's mouth a lie was the golden-ringed irises.
"How did you find a way in so quickly, while being chased by a mutated beast? If it is so much harder for her."
The realm might be so vast that the old hag would need to search for them, but there was no way that Arval had done it for the first time, or even the second. Elder Ahura should know where to find them by now.
"You don't know how the Primordial Core works?" Arval asked, frowning.
"I have never heard of such a term before."
"Do you know what the Primordial Veins are?"
"I do."
"The Primordial Core, or the Heart, is the source from which the Veins get their energy. It is also the deepest part of the Primordial Domain. The closer you are to the Heart, the faster time flows. An hour in the outside world is a day here."
"How... why?" Liesel asked. She had noticed the separation of time flow between the actual world and the Necropolis, and a layer deeper, the effect seemed somewhat consistent.
"I don't know," Arval shrugged. "Elder Ahura says it is the defensive barrier of the Heart. If it is harmed, the cluster of realms it sustains would collapse. What we are feeling is the slight effect of time dilation, but if someone wants to harm it, they would have to get closer, and time flows faster. Everything will wither into nothingness before it ever touches the Heart."
So, it's nothing like a Soul Heart. Liesel was glad about that, because she had no idea how she would take something so large and make a potion out of it. And there goes my desperate last effort.
"Do you know how many realms are sustained by this one heart?" Liesel asked, as she tried to wrap her mind around the new concept. She had some questions, not many, but they would creep up as she internalized the new information that seemed so natural when she thought about it, and yet she never considered its existence before.
"I don't know... I am not allowed to see or learn about the world beyond the Necropolis."
"And how long does your elder usually take to find you here?"
"It'd be after the final rite of my father," Arval said. "So probably tomorrow in the real world, and close to three weeks here."
Liesel closed her eyes. A part of her was frustrated. How are we going to survive without food or water?
The words were on the tip of her tongue. It was so irrational and irresponsible that Liesel didn't know how someone could even do this. But she reminded herself that was the point; perhaps not having any way to survive was Arval's way of expressing her anger and punishing the adults.
She could only hope someone was wise enough to force the old hag to act quickly.
What now?
Liesel climbed back to her feet. "I will let you have your peace. Don't mind my presence."
Liesel distanced herself from the well and wondered what to do. If they were stuck here for weeks, then she didn't need to have all her answers right this moment. It could wait. Nor did she want to push Arval into an uncomfortable place. Though Liesel couldn't understand what kind of power Arval had, she could affect this place in various ways. Liesel's Soul-Form had been frozen, and after something Arval did, it was now withering again. So it was far from as simple as the child made it seem.
Since her Soul Form was no longer frozen, the Unravelling was also working.
[Estimated Time: 2 Hours 14 Minutes]
Liesel had to take a second glance at it, and still had a hard time rationalizing it. Yes, the time was almost one-sixth of the last estimate. Perhaps this realm had other effects that she didn't understand. Does it supercharge the System's functions?
Liesel shifted her focus onto the Soul Form.
For the next two hours, she adjusted the pressure to make it as efficient as possible while also trying to minimize her soul's depreciation. The latter seemed impossible. She may have saved a single speck of dust every minute after pouring all her control and attention onto it. But for a longer stretch of time, it may only harm her. She was not immune to exhaustion, even if she had limitless Materiality.
Her body's injuries didn't seem to be growing worse, though they were not healing either. She would have to take a look at them eventually and worry about them. For now, it seemed unnecessary. She didn't want to see Arval as an ignorant child, but clearly that was hard after watching the girl bawl her eyes out for close to half an hour.
She heard the ting after two hours. When she opened her eyes, Arval was staring at her. The golden ring inside her red eyes narrowed in on Liesel's face.
"You are dying," the girl said.
"I have heard the same words at least a dozen times. Novelty wears off after the second," Liesel shrugged, scooting a little distance away from the girl.
"But... How are you able to keep it so slow? It seems impossible."
"If you have high enough Control, you can force yourself to live for a few days. It's a miserable way of surviving," Liesel said. "I imagine most people would give up even if they can sustain an active seal over their Soul Form through the pain that comes from the wound."
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"How do you do it?" Arval sounded serious, like a girl asking a question to her teacher.
"I may have a high pain tolerance, I guess," Liesel replied. "And some unique circumstances and a bit of training, I suppose."
"But manipulating your Soul Form to prolong your life, it's not just something someone should be able to do," Arval said.
"Ascendants are naturally tenacious souls. Dragging my life a little longer after a miracle is not that impressive," Liesel said. "Is that why you were staring at me?"
Arval shook her head.
Liesel shifted her attention to the System. Of the two options, she picked up the Dominion Attribute Point. It would raise it by one, but that was enough to get the Soul Weaving Skill.
Is that enough to complete the Archetype?
That was a question she'd need to wait to learn.
Despite being six times faster than the outside world, the estimated time was twelve hours. Liesel couldn't say for sure, but she was assured that there was no way one Dominion point would require seventy-two hours in the outside world. In this process, she was also a participant, and she had not advanced her soul to be faster, so it being closer to the actual time seemed like a better explanation.
Arval kept staring at her as Liesel was about to return to her meditation.
Liesel raised a brow. Arval turned her attention to the Heart.
Exhaling, Liesel began her meditation again. She could have practiced the Layering Technique or Materializing. She had the mental faculty to spare for it, but she was not sure how that would pan out in the long term. She felt Arval was in the right space to ask about it, but she decided to wait a little longer and let the child open up at her own pace.
"Are you not angry that I trapped you here?" Arval asked.
"You didn't," Liesel replied. "I acted upon my instincts. You are a child. If I felt I had been wronged, it would still not be directed at you."
The girl nodded. She trotted back to the well and settled there, staring at the heart.
Liesel found it a bit unsettling. Of course, a trained Rakamel would never slip into the well, but if Arval did, there was no way to save her.
You are a stranger, don't like an odd one. Liesel dragged her attention back to her Soul Form. But she couldn't just spend the next twelve hours in monotony, observing her soul slowly wither away.
She gave up after two hours. When she opened her eyes again, the Rakamel child was staring at her again.
Arval blinked and withdrew as she noticed Liesel's eyes on her.
"What were you doing?"
"Trying to understand how you interact with your soul."
"I thought you were angry at me," Liesel said, raising a brow.
"No longer," Arval said. "I can see your soul. I know how dangerous the deserts are. And how cruel the storms can be outside the village. Even if Saaranam's accusations were true... I don't know... it doesn't feel right. We had no proof. It is all Elder Ahura's fault, not yours. She killed my father. You were defending yourself."
Liesel blinked. That was odd, worryingly so. Enough that Liesel was questioning the origin of the child.
"I am glad to see that you are clear-eyed," Liesel said.
"I am sorry for my behaviour," Arval said, lowering her head slightly.
"You are wise for a child," Liesel said. "I don't hold it against you. Now, do you need something?"
Arval nodded. "Are you hungry?"
Liesel shook her head. "I can hold out for much longer, though I do not see how you are going to last three weeks."
Arval blinked. "You really don't know anything about the Primordial Domain."
"Yes."
"...We have unlimited food," Arval said. "Just not the kind that humans generally eat."
Arval stood up, extending her hand to Liesel. "Come with me."
"Where?" Liesel asked.
The girl just gave her hand.
Reluctantly, Liesel accepted. If she had been fooled, she'd accept the charge. She felt she had been cautious enough and had evaluated the child without being colored by the bias of her father's actions.
As Liesel followed the Rakamel child, the world around her changed. It was slow and awkward for Liesel. She could feel it change, but when she tried to notice it, it seemed to be an illusion. The ground beneath her feet grew grass, soft and lush; trees sprouted around her.
But not once could she see them growing. Whenever she tried to stare at something, it was still, as if she was just observing a bush or a tree that would take a year or two to grow, and as soon as she blinked, it would have turned into a tree.
"Is this your doing?" Liesel asked. She hadn't let go of the hand, but it did take a lot of effort not to act like she was dealing with an enemy.
"Yes and no," Arval said, shaking her head.
They arrived at a garden. A stone bench was waiting for them. It was spacious, unlike the dense forest surrounding them.
"The heart creates the world, and it can create anything we want. I am a friend, so it allows me to change this domain, as I have read in the books about the normal world. Don't tell Elder Ahura about it."
There was so much in those words that Liesel didn't even dare to unravel them. She just reminded herself the girl had a golden ring inside her iris. She was closer to a divine than a mortal, even if that shouldn't be the case by any sense of rationality.
Liesel looked around her. She could hear the cooing of birds, though they were invisible. A flowing river in the distance. It seemed like a vast forest, stretching as far as the eyes could see.
The sky above them was now bright and clear, and blue for once. Some clouds were far away in the distance, and it was evening here.
"Is this how the sky really looks?" Arval asked, noticing Liesel's eyes.
"In most habitable realms, it does," Liesel replied. "Are you sure you should be showing your powers to a stranger?"
"You are here, so you are not an enemy."
Liesel couldn't help but scoff at the idea. "For the kind of trial I faced, there is nothing in it that could have possibly informed that. It only tested my strength."
Maybe the test was to understand if I could kill the Child fast enough. Did I fail the trial, then?
"That's what you think." Arval approached a tree and took out a weird fruit that Liesel had never seen before. "But the way the trial is, it is not there to kill you to begin with. It'd have trapped you there as long as necessary to change you into a person that would not be an adversary, or expelled you out if you couldn't be reformed."
"I have not been reformed in any way," Liesel said, almost defensively. She had realized a blind spot that needed a fix. "Not that I'd ever threaten a child unless you gave me a reason to."
"Like wordlessly assaulting you?" Arval smiled. She brought the fruit and offered it to Liesel.
"Perhaps there is a chance I'd have subdued you, but most likely not. I knew who you were before then." Liesel accepted the fruit. "What is this?"
"I don't know," Arval said, shrugging. "I just let the Primordial Core decide after telling it what I think I want. It creates all sorts of weird fruits... at least I think so, as I have no idea what the real world looks like."
"I see," Liesel nodded. "What else can it do?"
She could see where Arval wanted to take the conversation, but Liesel didn't see the benefit of talking about the real world that the child would never see, and might be a sin for Liesel. She didn't want to participate in another Qhihdah-Shi. She wouldn't mind if it was Saaranam. She'd very much like to use her Soul Unravelling on him in front of the villagers. Atleast, in her imagination. She was far too cautious to act out so brazenly in reality.
"It can do everything you imagine."
"Can it create demons?" Liesel asked. Though somewhat reserved, she bit into the fruit. It tasted artificial, and the texture was odd. It was an orange in flavour but pulpy like a grape.
She found it filled with energy, though.
Arval pursed her lips. "It won't. They pose danger."
Can't have anything dangerous. Well, not dangerous to the heart... then, probably Arval. Why is she so important for the Heart, though?
Liesel nodded. She didn't push on it. She didn't feel she needed enlightenment on the subject if she could leave this realm quickly, and if they were here for a long time, eventually she'd learn about it.
"It is a hybrid of a grape and an orange."
"A grange?" Arval smiled.
"What?"
"A grange, grape plus orange."
Liesel was about to nod. It seemed rational, but she decided to play along. It didn't hurt. "Grange would be mistaken for derange, and so it will be struck down in the court of public opinion."
"Oranpe."
"That sounds much worse." Liesel shook her head. "It may have a name, even if I don't know. Or you can pick one you like. Most fruit names come from whoever finds them first. It doesn't even have to be Argish. You can use any word you like."
"Can I really?" Arval asked.
"So long as you can find a seed to grow it in the real world, I don't see why not." As Liesel said, she did see there was a seed in the fruit. Would it stay with them as they left the Primordial Core? That was uncertain, and whether the tree would even grow from it if it didn't vanish.
Arval's brows furrowed. "I will have to think about the names then. We have many more fruits. I will let you name a few too!"
Somehow, Liesel couldn't find it in her to stop the child from dragging her along and having to explain what kind of taste each fruit had. She also ended up sharing a few trivia she knew about some of them. Despite the enormous amount of energy contained inside each of the fruits, none of it seemed to harm her. If anything, she could feel the burn wounds healing slowly.
It seemed like the world wanted her to waste her time describing fruit tastes to a child who never would experience any of them outside of this place.