Ar'Kendrithyst

Located down one of the many hallways past the atrium in the center of the house, the entrance to the Benevolence research tower was one of House Benevolence’s more active areas. A good eleven people were already present, this early in the morning, including Tasar, who appeared in a flicker of black-green magic just down the way.

“Good morning,” Tasar said, walking closer.

“Morning,” Erick said, smiling—

Ah. A while ago, Erick had promised Tasar that he would tell her how to make a [Familiar] with their own mana pool. Now that he knew how that actually worked, he wondered if Tasar would actually want to know. Erick had made both Ophiel and Yggdrasil through rituals, knowing and planning on the fact that both would eventually become real. Since they would ‘eventually become real’, they had a theoretical mana pool waiting for them in the future, and so, Erick had Established that they could access that future mana right now.

Mana was rather full of possibilities like that.

But Erick doubted that Tasar would actually want to make something that she knew would become real.

Back when Erick had told the royalty of Stratagold that he was immortal, Tasar had taken Erick aside and tried to give him some good advice about his [Familiar]s, and Ophiel in particular. Now that he was immortal, he would watch Ophiel grow into a real person, and chances were that Ophiel would be both the first and the last of his kind, and that he would be mortal. [Familiar]s rarely turned into real, thriving species. Eventually, Erick would lose a child that he had watched grow into a very, very old man, and there was nothing that he could do to stop that.

Tasar had done that exact thing once before. Once was more than enough. Never again would she make a summon that would become a real person.

But now, Erick had [Reincarnation], so even if Ophiel’s form didn’t function long term, he had a solution to that problem, too.

—still smiling, still greeting Tasar, Erick asked, “Do you want to learn how to make a summon that has their own mana, Tasar?”

Tasar’s eyes went wide, and yes, she did.

But Erick continued, “Thanks to Phagar I think I know why my summons have mana.” His smile waned, and he said, “If you want to know, I can tell you and then help you make one yourself, but it will be difficult for you. It’s nothing untoward, but it is a choice; one that I know you have already said no to.”

Tasar’s sudden joy gutted like a fire turned to ice. Eventually, she thawed a little, deciding, “I would like to know the choices, either way.”

“We’ll talk later.”

Tasar gave a small nod. Behind Erick, Kiri’s eyeridges were high on her head. She wanted to know what was going on. He would tell her, too; probably both of them together, actually. Teressa had a mild curiosity, but she could take or leave a whole conversation about [Familiar]s and not really care one way or the other.

Erick turned back to the research tower.

Beyond a large archway made of angular, Art Deco-like lightning reliefs, lay what was essentially a bunch of individual laboratories as one would encounter in any proper Mage Guild the world over; spaces for people to experiment with small scale magics. The main room ahead was a large-ish gathering space, like a courtyard with multiple levels ringing an open center. On those levels were bunches of doors leading off to other areas. Some rooms behind those doors were larger than others. Some doors led to library rooms and office spaces, though there wasn’t much in any of those right now. The whole tower had an empty sort of feeling to it, much like the rest of House Benevolence, even though there were people here and working hard already.

A different tower held the Office of Magic. Over there was where Aisha held all the experiments with turning iron into a viable magical metal. Tasar had helped a bit with that, since she was the one who had invented [Condense Oxygen] and helped turn that into a cure for Wrought Rot, but there was a long way to go to solving that problem, and the Gemslicers, the ones who actually made the cure for Wrought Rot, were not talking to Erick.

But all that magical iron stuff was for another day.

Today was a day of working on Benevolence, and others were already here.

As soon as Erick stepped into this space one of the doors on the second floor swung open. Aisha stood on the other side, along with three others.

With an excited, happy tone, Aisha gripped the railing and called out, “Are you finally coming to experiment?”

“I am!” Erick walked forward, saying, “I’m finally out of pressing crises, though there are still longer term crises, of course.”

Aisha smiled. “Of course! Come on up! We might have finally gotten the elemental condenser truly work—”

A small explosion popped behind Aisha, briefly backlighting her and the other three with multicolor lightning. As the lightning dissipated, a riot of plant life sprawled out of the room like the sudden appearance of a jungle made of vines and ferns and bamboo.

Erick’s heart briefly beat hard, but the feeling passed. Nothing had happened.

Just a minor Benevolence explosion.

Aisha groaned in disappointment. Her employees had various other disappointed looks upon their faces. From inside the room, Erick heard someone yell about how it was all working just fine. As Erick walked forward, another person yelled back about how it obviously wasn't fine, you fucking fairy fucker, and this was probably all a plot by Ar’Cosmos to fuck over everything they were trying to make.

Aisha scowled at that voice, yelling back, “We wouldn’t even have the elemental condenser if it weren’t for them!”

Someone inside complained that they still didn’t have the condenser, because Ar’Cosmos was fucking it all up!

Erick sighed as he walked up the stairs. Aisha was already inside, clearing away plants with [Blight], radiating blackening magic into the air and dissolving every single plant in the area. Erick had seen this explosive outcome happen five times already, and this sixth time was no different. Luckily, [Blight] didn’t affect eternal stonewood, so this spell was the best way to get rid of unwanted plant growth. As Erick stepped into sight of the room, he watched as Aisha began flowing [Cleanse] out into the space, evaporating brown and black gunk into so much thick air.

As the goop evaporated it revealed two loudly yelling people standing next to the single table in the room. Erick ignored the small fight for Aisha was already on it, separating the iron wrought human man from the red-skinned orcol man; Raim and Clavog, from Stratagold and Ar’Cosmos respectively. They had been the arguing pair from before. They always argued, because both of them were very good at their fields of elemental magical study, but they had been raised in very different environments. Clavog knew all about how magic was supposed to work. Raim knew all about how magic actually worked.

Or at least that was their usual refrain.

On the table was the source of their arguments and their current project; an elemental condenser. It was a series of multicolor-metal parallel tubes going up and down, looking a little bit like a pipe organ, or a bunch of meter-long crayons in a bundle. Those metal pipes led to a collection plate in the base of the machine. The inside of every single pipe, each made of a different magical metal, were fully inscribed with runes.

The machine drew in air, filtered mana inside that air, and condensed that mana into a solid crystal atop the collection plate. And it worked fine inside Ar’Cosmos. Inside that fairy land, this machine was how Fairy Moon had created a mana crystal, which she then had turned into a counting crystal so Erick could monitor his Stat growth when he was first accreting.

But it did not work well inside this Script-filled normal space.

It did not work well.

Erick asked, “Still not working well?” He mana sensed over to the main condenser room, then came back, saying, “The others seem to be working… Minimally.”

Aisha said, “The others are still condensing what they are able to condense, but—”

Raim and Clavog finally realized that Erick was in the room with them.

Clavog instantly said, “This rusting shite tried turning up the volume!”

Raim rounded Clavog, saying, “It should have worked, dragon fucker!”

Erick stared at the offenders, saying, “Switch the machine back to minimal power, and do it right.”

Clavog pulled back his anger, trying to stuff it away into a void as he breathed long and slow. And then he resumed breathing normally. Raim did much the same.

Clavog turned to Raim, saying, “We’ll go slower.”

Raim scowled, then realized he was scowling and tried to shut that off. Through gritted teeth, he mumbled, “Slower, then.”

“Anyway!” Erick released his own displeasure as best he could and turned to Aisha, saying, “So yes. I have some time today to see how all this Benevolence research is going—” He turned back toward the elemental condenser, adding, “—and it seems to have hit a snag?”

Aisha walked forward, saying, “The main problem we’re having is the same problem we’ve always had with working new elements; there just isn’t enough of Benevolence to go around.”

Now that was a bit disturbing, actually.

And for multiple reasons.

Erick frowned a little, saying, “Even considering my mana production is still mostly in the Script, I’m always casting magic, and the Gates are right there, doing the same. I’ve been putting Benevolence-flavored mana into the manasphere for two months now and we’re at the epicenter of that output. Hullbreaker was putting out measurable amounts of Elemental Pirate all across the entire Letri Ocean after only 6 months.” He studied the elemental condenser, saying, “This thing should be able to condense more than it has.”

Raim exclaimed, “Exactly! That’s why I tried to turn it up!”

Clavog frowned at the smaller man.

Erick added, “But it obviously can’t. So why?”

Clavog furrowed his brows, slightly miffed, as he said, “Because this machine does not work well outside of Ar’Cosmos, as I have said multiple times to everyone—” He cut himself off. He continued, “That it is working at all means that there is Elemental Benevolence to be had, but— Even with the Hullbreaker example, we had thousands of these machines all over the Letri ocean looking for him. Any variations in production at all gave us a good idea of where to find the Wizard, but those machines were still attuned to minimal output. The machine cannot be improved, for the Script ties it down and prevents it from working properly!”

The elemental condenser was beyond Erick’s skill, but he hadn’t really tried to improve upon the design, either. He had no time for such a thing, and besides, his people here were already on the job. They had even managed to make some magic out of Benevolence.

Every single person in this room had made at least one Benevolence spell in the past month, since Erick had gotten House Benevolence up and running. Some of them had even managed to make small enchantments using those spells. A wand of [Benevolence Jolt]. A rod of [Benevolence Bomb]. A [Detect Benevolence] pair of goggles. Erick had copies of those spells from his subjects, and he had even found time to make versions of his own. There were obvious problems, though, because the spells other people made were very different from Erick’s own versions.