The Power of Ten

Chapter 5-160: To the Victor...

Everyone knew we were going to be heading back after this kill, simply because of how much there was. I had to spin up another Mass Disk group to transport it all, too bad, so sad.

Helix alerted everyone that we’d killed it, and when they demanded proof, posted the vids and us carving it apart. Sama was murderously fast at it, and even The Mick was impressed by how fast she could take apart a physical body so cleanly. She sent him to watching the rice and dicing the dragon meat to boil with spices and such, calling out instructions to him every so often which he followed very carefully.

I just spun up containers, tossing the rubyish Dragon Pearl I’d taken from its head underneath its horn idly. It was really good at channeling magic, although the fundamentallum in its lungs was the source of its breath weapon. The Pearls made excellent Orbs...

I also reassembled its lower jaw with Marrowmeld. My first Dragon Baneskull was going to be a thing.

Helix drifted over, in between dissection-filming sessions as he uploaded through the Obelisk. “Hey, Trav, question, question,” he asked eagerly, his Vaccine floating out there and giving us a perfect selfie. “How did the dragon find us? Shouldn’t we have been pretty much untraceable in the cinderstorm?”

“Well, first, it’s not a true dragon. It’s a Huo Lung, a Cultivation creature, more like a spirit creature than a magical creature. It wants to feed on living magical creatures, and if you recall, we had Master Fred’s Ward up protecting the Hut...”

“Right, but he used hellfire to blend in with the cinderstorm!” he agreed.

“To a magical creature, that was just another form of negatively-attributed fire, but to a Huo Lung, it was a distinct standing magical flame, obviously not natural, nor belonging here. It probably saw it from some distance away, and snuck up by melting itself a path through the ground.

“We basically broadcast our positions to it, because of what it was.”

“Oh.” He looked impressed, gazing off in the direction it had been operating from. “Are there going to be more creatures like that out here?”

“Cultivation creatures? A dragon wouldn’t even stay around unless the fire Qi was rich enough to support it, and it’s a higher-order creature.

“Somewhere in the Firezone, something is converting fire mana into Qi. There’s definitely going to be lots of lower-order Fire Spirit creatures there.” I waved my hand and flicked up a rough holo of the area. “I’m guessing there.” I pointed to the most isolated and smallest of the five outer volcanoes of the Firezone, and also the only one near the locations where this alien creature had been sighted.

“I don’t think we’ll see another Lung-type dragon... but whatever creature is overseeing the conversion is probably still there.”

Helix looked at me carefully. “So, we should kill it.”

“Oh, Heavens, yes. It thinks Powered are the choicest of munchies. Kill it, and butcher it and turn it into comps and Karma.”

The idea definitely delighted him. “Serves it right... and that stew smells so good!” he agreed. “Uh, another question... why haven’t the undead kicked it out?”

“What do the undead care?” I replied. “Mana or Qi, they’ll still be around, still rise... and you can bet they are harvesting any fire creatures here for ‘special troops’. If they try to do the same in return, the Shroudlord can just crush them leisurely, and whatever conversion process they are using to make their Fire Qi.”josei

“Is there any way to reverse the conversion?” Helix pressed quickly.

Unwhite fires rippled up mistily, fell from Clavus. “Qi is not formed naturally, it is forced on the world, forcibly changing it. Vivic fire eats it like any other unnatural force, and returns things to the way they should be.”

“Ohhhh, the damn stuff is so useful...” He nodded like a curious chicken

“Not if you’re not a natural creature. Then the stuff is pretty worrisome.”

“Happily!...” he grinned. “Why are they doing this conversion stuff?”

“Removing Chi and Mana from the world neuters the abilities of Powered, making them easy to kill and get rid of. It will even stop them from being born. At that point, Cultivators control the world. So, they’ve simply begun the process in a place they didn’t think people would be able to do anything about.”

He managed to look troubled as he actually thought about the implications. “They’re trying to take control of the world...”

“Yes. Powered are their direct competitors. They want to reduce humanity to the status of only providing raw material to make more Daoist Immortals, they have no other use. They’ll cut off technology as interfering with Qi, start raising beasts and plants that take in Qi and spread their ecology, and basically reduce humanity to a feudal state with them as the unquestioned overlords as they seek ever-higher levels of power.

“They are perfectly willing to use any and all means to achieve this goal, and completely shamelessly, but they cannot deny their inner nature or goals. They will do this, regardless of any smiling words to the contrary, because beings like you and I are in their way of an ideal world, and have to be cleansed off it if they wish to live properly... like scraping dung off your boot.”

His expression twitched again. “They think so little of us, huh...”

“A human’s only purpose in life is to be a potential source of a new Daoist Immortals, and so to have children before they become one... if they are worthy. As you are Powered, your only purpose in life is to be a filling meal.”

Finally, just a flicker of light behind his eyes. “A meal? They are going to eat me?”

“Process your soul, devour your power, and refine you into a Cultivation pill, if done properly.”

He was having a hard time processing that, that someone or something that was supposedly human could be looking at him that way. “Are you sure about that?” he had to ask.

“Unfortunately, yes. You’ll see it soon enough. You saw it here, you just didn’t process it.”

“What do you mean?” he frowned.

“Despite them doing the most damage to it, it basically ignored Sama and Briggs. It also avoided me, as it could tell I was the most powerful.” I pointed at the ground, and the now-cooled hole it had come out of. “Who was seated directly atop that hole?”

“I don’t...” He shook his head slowly, but a shadow passed over his face.

“You were. Aura-wise, you radiate as the weakest Powered here.” He grimaced as he looked at the severed head, pictured being caught in the serpentine jaws lined with teeth. “It attacked Sir Pellier, not any of the Aruan shooters. And it was going to breathe on Father Bower first, but it never got the chance.

“With one lash of its coils in a circle, it could have sent the Aruans flying, but it didn’t even waste time on them, and it didn’t even attack the ones doing the most harm to it. It went after the low-hanging, sweet and sugary food, trying to harvest at least one of you three before fleeing.”

“Couldn’t that just be coincidence?” he managed to say.

I smirked. “Getting nervous? You should be. Guess who all the Spirit Beasts are going to be focusing on when we come across them?”

He swallowed despite himself...

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The Hou Lung stew got raving reviews from everyone, including me; nobody had ever had something so good. When they found out Cultivating/Spirit beasts generally tasted impossibly good, there was general consensus that we were going to be doing a lot of butchering and skinning, and we had to get a restaurant established where this stuff could be served.

Our triumphant return following Sleipner with various Disks being loaded down with loot became something of a sensation, especially since Helix had been posting our escapades all over the Internet.

Everyone was swimming in goldweight now, to the point where they could even afford to get others Infusing for them... and they had two Master Smiths and a master Jeweler/Gemcutter/Whitesmith/Woodcarver/Boneshaper right here to help out with the raw materials.

That said, nobody at all was surprised when I Teleported out to the Seal I’d left behind, roved around a bit, and returned via a Linejump, making sure I was maxing out my daily Naming Karma.

The idea of taking days off and doing much of nothing just didn’t really apply to me now. ‘Resting’ was letting three of my thoughtstreams think about nothing much, setting up my next book, arranging Feats and Masteries I wanted to take, plotting out the steps I had to take to achieve what I wanted to... and tracking changes going on in the world, as reported by my ever-growing Allegiance.

The Elders of Heavenbound Hall had found out I was assembling an Allegiance, and that it was possible to swear Fealty to me.

They also found out I had the Teleport Item spell when the Great Seal that Windgraf Kochtal had put into place received the gift of a Tome with some Valence IV and V spells they had never seen before, meaning Casters loyal to Heavenbound Hall would have an incredible advantage over those that did not.

Of course, they also wanted to discover how to set up such Allegiances themselves, and thereby grow their own networks of power.

The downside to that was getting people to believe in them, when I was obviously the one with the power and the purpose for getting things done. The people working for me were focused and motivated, because they could see that I meant what I said, and there was no backing down from it. I couldn’t be everything to everyone, they had to do their part, too... but what we could achieve together was going to change the world.

I was a Ten Caster. They could barely believe it, and they still didn’t know I could Cast at Twenty-plus if I had to.

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It was Day Seventy-Seven since I’d come to this world, and yeah, I was making waves.

The Second Star, the Bloodline Star, and the Arcane Rose were now in place, raising my Caster Level another +3 for all spells as they harmonized and boosted Spell Power. I now only had to work on the Elemental Star and the Divine Star.

Arcane Theurge/3, Archwizard/4 and 5, Name Theurge/1, and Elemental Theurge/2 and 3 had all gone by.

Archwizard/4 and 5 doubled the Spell Engrams for those Levels... admittedly not much, and spending Spells devoted to Stars removed the benefit of the Stars, which is why I was keen to raise my Sorcerer Levels.

That said, I could replace them with Ki, so spending them wasn’t as big an issue as it could have been.

I had added Topped Spell, Twin Spell, and Fastcast Spell, which gave me potentially a really big punch if and when I needed to. Granted, it would blow off Valences like nobody’s business, but I could get off the equivalent of three Shard spells in one Casting cycle, a stupefyingly fast rate of Casting power that had never been seen on this world... and I could do it by basically looking at something.

And then repeat it the next round with even more punch, if I wanted to.

Holy Scourge/2 and Argent Savancy/2 allowed me to Smite a target with Spells and gave me additional protection from Force effects respectively, representing additional burst ability and passive defense.

Elemental Theurge/2 and 3 forced the Extra Druidic Domains of Withering and Cataclysm on me, with their respective Caster Level bonuses to Air/Lightning and Water/Acid spells. More Spell Power on the stack, building towards being able to take the Elemental Star.

Importantly, Einz had finished its empowerment of Control Temperature, and was now working on the personal-only effect, now at -80 degrees F.

The terrain was getting hotter as we drew closer to the center of the Firezone, but -80 was still sufficient to get below normal freezing, and thus activate my Snowcaster bonuses. When it finally finished out in another week, -150 degrees would be able to keep me below chilling anywhere outside a volcano... which meant the greater bonuses.

Another +2 or +4 CL, +1 or +2 Potency, +1 or +2 damage per die, and +2 or +4 to my super-cooled Intellect was anything but unwelcome. When it was completed, I would have those bonuses almost anywhere.

Very useful in a Firezone, as might be imagined, where Penetrating Cold made cold spells effectively double damage...

I was making sure to get base rep counts of Shards in, even if I wasn’t getting much Meta practice. That siren number of 500 to qualify for Reserve Feats was calling, and I really wanted to get there...