Bonded Summoner

Book 4. Chapter 29: Heart of the World

With the HQ node placed, they now had a countdown timer for it to be setup within 48 hours. It was to Jake’s surprise that the Ravenwolf Tribe had in fact built up a fair amount of Contribution Points, and so he did not need to spend many of his own getting it setup. In five days, the portal linking the three locations would be ready.

Apparently, Valtor was already ‘harassing’ Timone, micromanaging the Ravenwolf Tribe. There were dozens of preparations for the new HQ to be constructed without a hitch, but defense was an important component. In theory, Tartarus could try to stop the HQ’s creation.

The five days would be just in time for the World Tree Seed to arrive. Thousands of the previous Gaia’s servants would flood to Harmony Peaks, taking over the defense. Alliance Nodes were being taken across the world of Highlands, and Vesuvius’ people were back on their trek to hunt for reptilian allies and head off the betrayers.

Morwen’s people and Warrior’s Brotherhood were heading to the coasts, and soon the Ravenwolf Tribe would be doing the same. It was time to win back their territory, and push Tartarus back.

But first, it was time for them to go meet the Heart of the World, and see if there was something they could do for it. They went along with Aisling and Dahlia as their guides, Timone and the rest opting to stay above ground for now, to work with Valtor and lead the Clans in their efforts for now.

As they wandered inside, Jake could feel the thick auril being drawn into the cave. Harmony Peak’s vitality was high, because this cave was here drawing in auril from what was likely the entire Northern Hemisphere, somehow.

Jake was riding on Bloodberri’s battlements, which she extended for Dahlia to ride; her sitting across from Jake. Fhesiah, Ophelia, and Aisling flew slightly ahead of them, talking.

“So, there was a scavenger hunt going on, and I found one of the targets out on a balcony. I decided it would be devilish of me to lure Jake for a bit of fun out there.”

Aisling snorted. “No way! That sounds like this one time, where I tricked Timone into thinking the kids had class. We were right behind nothing more than a curtain, when–”

Tanda sighed. “I don’t want to hear about that, Aisling!”

Aisling shrugged. “I knew we wouldn’t get caught, but Timone didn’t. It was extra exciting! You didn’t even know!”

Tanda frowned. “But now I do! I don’t want to hear about you getting it on just feet away from us!”

Aisling frowned. “Why not? That was how your clan-sister Tina was made. It was a special day!”

Tanda groaned and Fhesiah chuckled, and Jake knew she was getting all sorts of ideas from this conversation.

Considering at Tier 2 her illusions would be completely out of control, he wasn’t sure how to feel about this.

She looked back and gave him a wide smile. “You have a lot to look forward to, Jake. We’re going to have so much fun, you have no idea!”

Berri was talking to Dahlia, and once again the conversation was not all that favorable.

“Wow, you’ve had 18 children? That’s wonderful. I want at least that many. That way, my children can play offense and defense in baseball! Do you play games with your kids?”

Dahlia nodded. “We play lots of games together. We also like to sing and dance, but plenty grow wanting to become warriors, and start their own Clan.”

Berri and Blood went on about their training of their baseball teams, and how even the adults were joining along in the fun, and taking advantage with the training.

Tanda eventually landed in Jake’s lap with a groan. “Aisling keeps teasing me. How do you put up with it, Mom?”

Dahlia chuckled, as she looked on at Tanda fondly. “You just can’t let her get under your skin. She’ll move on to other targets if you aren’t as fun to tease. Either that, or just play along with her. Aisling is fun to be around. What about you, son-in-law? You look a little green at all this talk of children.”

“The number is just a bit daunting. I think most humans would gawk at twenty kids per mate? I think I’d have trouble remembering their names at that point.”

She smiled at him. “You don’t need to worry about the trouble of all the children, your mates will take care of that. Beastkin men just get all the fun parts, and focus on protecting and providing for the family. For us, the names come easily as we hear their song. Of course, there’ll be enough mates to help with even that for you, too. Then, once you have some older children, they help the family and clan too. Family is not a burden, it is a tremendous gift.”

Tanda was now leaning heavily into Jake, and if wolves could purr, he just knew she would be. He was scratching her ears, and the frustration just drained out of her.

Jake replied, “I get that, but it’s just hard for me to imagine. Human families are hardly ever over ten within their immediate family, and my generation has had most families shrink to one or two as being the majority. Anyway, I do know these two especially are going to be wonderful mothers.”

Ophelia floated nearby and added, “Valkyries are not incredibly fertile. It may be many years between children for me, when we start trying.”

Fhesiah laughed. “Don’t count on that! I’ll make sure you can have as many children as you want, and so will Jake!”

Ophelia started fidgeting with a blush. “I-I always dreamed of having twins. It’s extremely rare for valkyries, but they would be especially strong fighting together, and can watch out for each other.”

Blood added, “Of course, Berri and I would love to have some twins, or triplets. I love having my twin sister, we wouldn’t have made it through our life’s challenges alone.”

“Yeah! Twins are the best! Can you help with those too, Fhesiah?”

Fhesiah tapped her lips. “It’s tough, but it is possible. We may end up with some triplets and quadruplets as a result.”

Jake groaned as his worries just doubled, tripled, and possibly quadrupled, but Tanda wiggled in her seat to distract him, causing him to return to pamper her further with more scratches.

At some point during their travel underground, Tanda fell asleep, her head on Jake’s shoulder.

Dahlia smiled at Jake. “She’s been working hard, hasn’t she? I see that you will take good care of my daughter. I’ve never seen her happier.”

“She’s taking care of us as much as we take care of her. She’s eager to help and improve, and great to be around. Tanda is driven, thoughtful, and selfless, and we’re happy to have her in our family.”

“Tanda has always worked hard for the balance, both for the world and for the beastkin. She must really believe in you, for her to be the one who approached to join your family. I’m amazed the girl was able to wait for her father and us, or that you could? The way Aisling described you, I thought she would already be with child by the time she arrived. I’m disappointed we don’t have another grandchild on the way already.”

Jake chuckled, a little embarrassed at the topic. “I could tell how important it was to her, and–”

Fhesiah interjected, tapping Jake’s cheek suddenly, “And we keep our dear husband quite drained. It’s not that he lacks desire, it’s that we sometimes go a little overboard.”

Ophelia added, “And we train quite hard. It’s amazing he has anything left, really.”

Berri giggled. “He’s so cute when he falls asleep. I like to wrap him up.”

They finally arrived at their destination, interrupting the conversation: a massive cavern. Jake knew by the size of the stalactites and stalagmites that this cavern would normally be millions of years old, if it was on Earth. At the rear of the cavern, in the center, was a rainbow-hued plant about the size of a house.

However, even from the entryway, Jake could feel the taint wafting off of it despite the auril being extremely thick in the room. Dahlia looked pained, and Tanda woke up.

They arrived near the plant, and Jake saw streaks of black throughout the multicolored leaves and stems.

Dahlia said, “This is just one stem of many throughout the world, but could be seen as the main one. The stems draw in auril through the air, the mountains and ground, and the rivers to bring the energies of the world to the core.”

Berri looked at the plant with interest for a moment, but it quickly waned. “So…now what?”

Jake chuckled. “I guess now we try to heal it. We had devised that powerful group runic heal. It was too much for healing an individual, but perhaps this plant is a great target with our [Purifying Flames].”josei

The five minus Tanda all floated their runes into their group-casting, Fhesiah having just enough mana to cast this spell. The Tier 2 spell coalesced, all pushing their [Purifying Flames] into the construct.

[Group Runic Magic: Fairy Lights] was completed, and wisps floated through the air, having flames lit in them. The streaks of black throughout the plant were burned gently, and the plant’s prismatic lights brightened as it was healed.

The plant stirred as the taint was burned away. However, taint was being restored from deep within, almost as rapidly as it was being removed. Jake and his girls kept pushing mana into the construct, focusing on the purification. More wisps spawned as they pushed into the plant, and Jake even pushed the wisps down into the roots where the plant went underground.

This spell would cause wisps to float toward nearby allies based on the significance of their wounds. Then, it would heal them in a small radius, but with dozens of the wisps in the air, a massive group of people could be healed significantly.

Eventually, the party all ran out of mana. The mana within the room was thick, so Jake didn’t think it would be all that long before they could cast it again, even without drinking mana water. But were they really making any progress?

Dahlia, Tanda, and Aisling sat together, all breathing with their eyes closed, connecting to the world. Jake moved closer to their circle, and the rest of the girls crowded around.

Dahlia said, “Cernunnos’ daughter greets us, and thanks us for our help. Unfortunately, our efforts aren’t really enough to cleanse the world. Less than one percent of the remaining taint was removed. However, she can see that we can make a significant impact, given enough time and with enough preparations. Continue for a few more hours today. Then make preparations for a best-effort, and in fourty-eight hours she will work hard with us.”

Jake frowned, trying to think of what he could do to put out more healing per hour than they already did. Only Tanda was really missing from putting forth her efforts. Perhaps with some more time, he could devise a better spell?

Dahlia frowned. “Then she said something about Oran, and preparing to call Cernunnos. She will send more taint to the stem, for us to clear more for our efforts. Rest, and she will begin shortly.”

They all began to drink mana water, preparing for expending their mana once more. Jake looked around the room with his [Arcane Eye]. He could see that this location was where leylines met, a sort of nexus for magical energy. Then, the auril was extremely dense. Perhaps, if he had a way to pull into this or harness it for himself…

Jake summoned Oran, his song joining Dahlia, Tanda, and Aisling’s. Dahlia looked at it with a smile. “That’s Oran, then? He very much feels like Cernunnos himself. His song feels like a heroic beast I’ve met, so perhaps an offspring. I may have met this one’s parent.”

The taint then bubbled up through the roots, the taint in the room becoming even more palpable than before. The leaves quickly darkened, the prismatic lights given off disappearing. Jake quickly shifted to the [Runebound State: Saint] he had devised, embodying Berri.

He could tell that the stem would not last long unless they healed it, so he had each of the girls cycle their heals into the plant, trying to monitor for efficiency. From what he could tell, Ophelia’s [Sacrificial Flames: Renewal] was the most efficient, especially with his [Saint] state carrying over to her.

He allowed Tanda and Oran to push their auril into her to heal her body when using the sacrificial spell, and for her to pull on Jake’s mana with energy sharing to continually cast it. Berri, Fhesiah, and Blood all worked to make a simple [Group Runic Healing] spell, pushing their [Purifying Flames] into it when Ophelia couldn’t keep up with it.

As far as Jake could tell, they were mostly keeping up with the taint. It seemed that Cernunnos’ daughter was sending enough for them to maintain or keep up with for now.

Jake retrieved his enchanting materials from his [Storage Bracelet]. He had often taken to carrying a good portion of them, since he would often work on enchanting things in Bloodberri’s carriage to be more efficient with his time. However, he wasn’t really sure what material would work best for his purposes. What he really wanted to make was a [Mana Font].

Much like how Cultivators couldn’t just force infinite amounts of Qi to become their own by just sitting in the densest of environments, mana users had similar restrictions. Their soul drew energies from the void at a mostly-fixed pace, and the higher density of mana in the environment hardly increased this beyond a certain point. It was slightly different for Jake, because he had a core, and the [Mana Siphon] or [Energy Vortex] skill.

This drew in even more, but there was still a limit– primarily, too much mana drawn in would harm Jake’s body and soul. Too much mana for him to handle would be a detriment, and the Framework mostly kept or protected them from taking in too much. It was only by drinking mana potions or drinking too much mana water that he could exceed this.

Higher Tier mages would have more powerful souls and able to have more mana, but the largest improvement would be stronger mana control. By taking control of dense mana within the environment, they could use less of their own mana to cast spells.

Jake could do this too, but to a smaller degree. Mana in Tier 1 worlds simply wasn’t dense enough. Even if it was, Jake’s Tier 1 [Mana Control] skill wouldn’t be strong enough to draw in enough of it from his smaller zone of control.

The mana font would need to solve both of these problems. It would need to draw in mana from a larger area, and condense it into a smaller one for Jake to take control of. Doing this, he just might be able to improve his mana core, besides.

Of course, the girls were privy to Jake’s thoughts, and were mostly up to speed with his thinking. “What about you, Fhesiah? Could you build a formation in here to draw in more Auril, more mana? More energies?”

She hummed, as she looked around, inspecting her area with her [Divine Sense]. She sighed. “I think 48 hours is really stretching it, but I think I can make it happen. I will focus on bringing energies into this room, and you can focus on condensing it. I think that should work well enough?”

Jake nodded. He wasn’t sure if he could make one that could solve both problems in such a short period. He wasn’t even sure it could be done within this Tier.

In the game he played, tools such as the mana font were only available near the end-game. What Tier that would be, he had no idea. If it was just condensing what was within the room already, he thought he could manage it.

He had several empty spell rods, and he worked with some quick experiments. This drew on mana quite a bit, but he thought he had something mostly working in just a few minutes, if he infused his own mana into it.

Jake went back to focusing on aiding in the healing and restoring mana, the mana and auril users. As much as he wanted to experiment more, he’d be able to do ten times the work in his lab in the same amount of time. He did think about what materials he could use and what kind of layout he could create.

Meanwhile, Fhesiah did work on drawing the master formation that the numerous in the surrounding area would connect to. This way, the drawing of energies would begin shortly. The heart of the world’s stem already did this to an extent, but her formation would amplify this greatly.

Just as the group were starting to get a bit sick, despite their conservative pacing, the taint reduced down to normal levels. The prismatic sheen on the plant returned, the taint back to the way it was before they started.

Dahlia smiled, as the group ended their connection. “That’s it for now. It looks like that was about 5% of what remains! That was a major effort. That was decades worth of healing in one go, she can’t thank you enough. This should give her enough leeway for two days from now, allowing her to come here. Rest, and prepare.”

Thinking that it would only take twenty days at that pace was extremely positive for Jake, and he could tell Tanda’s family felt the same way, their smiles beaming.

Berri motioned for Jake to hop on her carriage. “Let’s go back. Tanda can’t wait to get Jake alone!”

Tanda blushed. “W-We waited a long time, is all. For a beastkin, it was like an eternity!”

Fhesiah nodded. “Too true. Brock sealed the deal on two girls to Jake’s one. It’s like he’s not even trying to find more mates!”

Jake groaned as he hopped into the carriage, Dahlia joining with a smile. He had tried, but found that he couldn’t actually form his Refuge portal at this location. They would need to head closer to the Alliance Node, before he could make his portal.

They would head to the exit, and then Jake’s family would rest and prepare for healing the world. Of course, there was one more thing that they wanted to enjoy first.