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Chapter 98: Preceptor Hiyilit
The tri-clinic closed very early on temple day, which often meant it tended to be quite packed by mid-morning.Just after the sun had risen, Caen was already at the tri-clinic. He was on dispersal duty today: the dematerialization of sprites.Sprites formed when there was an imbalance in the ambient m...
Chapter 97: A Message From Hshnol
The first portion of Caen's mind was focused on casting a spiritual scan.The second portion of his mind watched his own soul structure, specifically his aura, noticing the changes that occurred within it. Both Sh'kteiro and Hshnol had mentioned how spell constructs were primarily formed upon...
Chapter 96: Klakalk
Sh'kteiro didn't recognize the diagrams, and he couldn't easily get in touch with anyone who might until he returned to Vishnen.At the phrontistery, Preceptor Wijin was having a meeting, so Caen had to wait outside his office.“Caen,” Preceptor Wijin said when he stepped out of his of...
Chapter 95: Consider Other Options
Caen left them and began heading for the Valiant’s lodge. He lifted his backpack to examine the glyphs that had been scrawled on his bag as he walked.They weren't there.Caen came to a stop, shocked. He hurriedly retrieved his notebook and was relieved to find that the copied glyphs were still ...
Chapter 94: Doing Magic, Then
In an instant, he'd reshaped Chasma into a round buckler on his forearm, engaging absorption on its exterior.With the smaller portion of his mind, Caen channeled light from the Plane of the Speculant Eye through his being.He emitted two beams in quick succession into Binam's eyes. The man re...
Chapter 93: Let's Do Magic, Then
“We only do fetches with people we know,” a Valiant in scale armor said. “Sorry, cherche.”Caen sighed and walked away.“The guy moves like he's injured,” someone said in a low voice.This was the seventh party Caen had approached.Gatherers weren't allowed into the Redshadow Plane u...
Chapter 92: When You Wake Up
“Five affinities!” Vai exclaimed. “Heh. The runt of the litter’s finally growing up. You should be proud! Tahal's horns and tails, I know I am.”Caen, Zeris, and their uncle were floating in the morning sky before the great and magnificent form of Parthra. This was an instance of revisi...
Chapter 91: Core Four
They got their things from Guinevere's room and left the estate. Guinevere escorted them down the cobblestone road till they found a carriage that was headed into town.When Caen mentioned how he wasn't really into biking like she and Zeris, Guinevere told him that she'd take him freerunn...
Chapter 90: Till Dawn
“Wreather and Parity,” Caen repeated under his breath, running those words over in his mind and trying to see how they measured up against the other ones he'd come across.“I have no idea what those terms represent,” Guinevere said.“Do they have substages too?” Zeris asked.Guinevere n...
Chapter 89: Higher Stages Of Magic
They went through a few more rounds of testing, using the fragment, of course. Zeris and Guinevere kept ramping up the intensity each time with very interesting results. Chasma remained merely curious.By the sixth round, even Mimicking Guinevere's Lightning affinity, Caen still dropped to a knee...
Chapter 88: Chasma
Farmer Brah'm gave Caen a vase of nutrient-rich soil—he’d retrieved this out of nowhere—and explained that Caen would need to diversify his fragment's ‘diet’ routinely and not casually. Broadening what exactly his fragment could feed on was very important, the man said, as this wou...
Chapter 87: Home Of The Hughes-Richardsons
The next day, dawn met Caen meditating on the roof.His mind felt sharper, his thoughts clearer, his focus firmer. It was as though his consciousness had been replaced by something greater. Plans he'd been formulating over the past few days seemed to crystallize now. A time construct hung in the ...
Chapter 86: It Won't Be Long
They cleared the table and did the dishes after dinner. Aunt Grena had retired to bed, and Vensha had gone down to the commune saloon to meet up with friends. Caen sat at the dining table with Zeris and Uncle Teiro.“Are you sure you won't stay the night?” Sh'leinu asked from the living r...
Chapter 85: Take The Money
When he stepped out of the Plane, Caen was struck by how unpleasant… everything was. The air was only slightly dusty and had smelled somewhat clean on his way here, but now it seemed lacking. Even the ground beneath his feet seemed… wrong and unbalanced.The sun was only starting to rise. Caen ge...
Chapter 84: Easy Departure
Authors's Note: Today makes a month since I started posting this story. Thank you so much for your support. It means the world to me. I can't wait to show you all the fun stuff I have in store.---Absorption—the fragment's ability to feed on matter—worked a little like its resilience....
Chapter 83: Amusement
Soul structures involved far too many elements to keep track of; there were sounds, vibrations, visual representations, physical, mental, and even spiritual impressions. Nothing truly stayed the same. All these elements oscillated and alternated between various phases. It was all typically overwhelm...
Chapter 82: Fragmental
The spells used to manipulate Parthran fragments were not quite Saffronan. But they did use spirit patterns—though of a different model—and even had visualizations of a sort. Apparently, the dryads used a different system altogether. They were able to send out signals with their spirits that int...
Chapter 81: 609,385th
Caen's entire existence coalesced into a whole. Restored. Terror. Dread.I just died. I just died.AND NOW YOU ARE WHOLE. OF WHAT USE IS POWER IF I CANNOT SAFELY EXAMINE THE THINGS THAT INTRIGUE ME? IT IS WISE FOR YOU TO FEAR, BUT KNOW THAT I SHALL DO YOU NO HARM.At these words, the terror abated....
Chapter 80: Little Supplicant
The hole was blocked by a web of white strings that did not budge when he pushed at them with his hands. It seemed to be some sort of cotton-like substance, and he could not connect to it, which meant that it wasn't alive.He used a spell to carefully pry it apart. There was more of it filling up...
Chapter 79: Quick Favor
Caen soaked contentedly in a pool of water as he made some plant tendrils on the wall beside him writhe. The water was very pure, and Caen had found that the pools here seemed to clean themselves somehow and had a rejuvenating effect on his skin. Parthra was no doubt behind all this. His clothes lay...
Chapter 78: Flora Practician
Apparently, they could both enter through the hole in the wall. Steps, like Yildriv had described, led all the way up to the third layer.Yildriv dropped to his knees and kissed the black ground, while making quiet promises about a poem he would write in the tree's honor.“Do you need help with ...
Chapter 77: Regard, Disregard
Caen jolly ol' chap sat at a round table with some of the fragmental dryads of Parthra. They dined on the fifteenth layer of the ancient tree, celebrating Rlarlarla's acquisition of a fragment of incomparable quality. They were all in treeform, except for Rlarlarla, who preferred mixform at ...
Chapter 76: Sleep Debt
A rush of static energy startled Caen awake. He sat up quickly in a groggy haze, reaching with one hand for a glaive that wasn't there while his other hand wrapped around the dagger by his thigh. Then he realized that it was not in fact his alarm ward system that had woken him up.Yildriv, the fl...
Chapter 75: Climber Lore
The dryad barkeep prepared a pie for Caen. He produced a round, fleshy fruit of some kind and gradually transformed it right before Caen's eyes. The dryad's soul structure revealed that this was a working of Flora magic, which intrigued Caen to no end.“What spell and modifier combinations ...
Chapter 74: Welcome to Parthra
Mafrolem, Yildriv, and several other accounts were apparently right about something: Parthra was incredibly impervious. Caen could not even so much as dent the bark with his daggers. He'd chipped off one of the blade's tips while testing this out for himself.The exterior of the tree was not ...
Chapter 73: Yildriv
Caen made his way to the top of the stairs carefully as he gazed around him. Parthra's soul structure was truly dizzying. The second layer was a vast, dark-walled cavern with two main exits. He moved quickly to the side and sat on the ground, trying to make out a prominent thread cluster in the ...
Chapter 72: All Things Of Itself
Parthra was the name of the great tree that sat at the center of this Plane. The majesty of its size alone was so awe-inspiring and made Caen feel very tiny.Every resource he'd read in the past about this Plane had done it a huge disservice. Then again, Caen had never had access to a very depend...
Chapter 71: The Parthran Plane
Once the last tree was felled, what followed was a night of celebration.After the Chancellery had done away with meal tokens, alcohol had still remained very expensive and inaccessible. That changed now. Caen was just as impatient to leave Odaton as he was dismayed.During the celebration, he went in...
Chapter 70: One Hundred Trees
Many days passed, and Caen fell into an easy routine. He continued his boosted magical exercises and practiced Flora magic on the awakened trees, but he usually made time to share supper with Zeris and Guinevere at the aides’ hall most evenings.The passive augmentations from his Blood-healing affi...
Chapter 69: Crazy Attracts Crazy
[I'm coming too!] Guinevere called.[It's just Fire magic,] Caen sent back. [But you're welcome to join us.][Sweet!]Caen and Zeris had made plans to practice with Ardor, but they'd been busy with other pursuits. Ever since she'd learned how to Impassion her fire, Caen's mind h...
