While Stella had been talking to Hera privately, Lunam had spoken to Clark, Paul and Carl about the use of the magical beast cores they’d collected. As expected, none of the three had a problem even if all of them ended up becoming scrap. They also agreed that the rest of the Star and Moon adventurers would share the same opinion on the matter.
“I may know the basics of enchanting, but it’s not like I’ve ever studied it before.” Stella cut into her sister’s thoughts. They were sitting around a small table in their room.
“You have a valid point.” Lunam responded with a vague frown as she tried to think of a solution. “For now at least, I think we should test to see if it’s actually possible for you to complete a functional inscription pattern. This will only require basic knowledge, and then we can try to find a more experienced enchanter to teach you the specific pattern we want.”
“That’s true.” Stella replied. She’d been so concentrated on the outcome, that she’d forgotten to worry about the process to get there.
Tentatively choosing a lower quality core, Stella cleared her mind of all the distracting thoughts drifting through. For lack of a more specialised tool, she grabbed her operating stylus in order to engrave the basic Energy Focussing Array. This stylus was made of orichalcum which could help draw out the internal energy of cultivators. Stella would often use it when performing highly detailed operations.
Orichalcum was vital for a cultivator to emit their internal energy, normally Stella would use special gloves with a thin plate of the metal covering her palms. This helped her to draw out a large amount of her internal energy, allowing her to manipulate it to heal her patient.
Stella tested to see if this stylus would mark the core, and when a line appeared her face lit up in celebration. Quickly composing herself, she continued with the carving. The next stage was to see if the healing technique, to stir the energy inside the core, was enough to allow the completed diagram to activate and cause a noticeable change in the world’s energy.
After an hour of difficult engraving, a complicated pattern slowly emerged on the palm-sized core. As with all patterns, the centre of the the inscription was framed with a curled border. The main part of this particular patten consisted of hundreds of strokes to make up the form of a swirling vortex.
This pattern was the most basic starter inscription as it didn’t matter too much about the placement of each individual stroke. Only the number of strokes and the overall shape mattered in this design. With more advanced patterns, if even a single line was less than a millimetre off then the entire enchantment would fail to activate.
The Energy Focussing Array that Stella was drawing, would gather external energy to increase the density in the surroundings and was greatly beneficial to developing a mage’s power. This change would also help to focus a cultivator’s mind, helping them to bolster their internal energy at a slightly faster rate. However, it was definitely more beneficial to a mage.
Upon completion, Stella breathed out a sigh of relief. Taking a few minutes to stretch out her stiff muscles, she finally looked up at her sister. A nervous smile flitted across Stella’s lips, as she tried not to think about the possibility of the enchantment failing.
“I don’t think I can bring myself to try it out.” Stella spoke to her sister weakly. She was knackered after expending so much mental energy, and would have to spend some time recovering before being able to activate the array, let alone carving another inscription.
Without saying anything, Lunam just nodded at her sister’s words and picked up the gem. Inserting her mental energy into the core, she sensed the presence of an enchantment array and sought to activate it.
With the influx of mental energy, the inscription started gathering the world’s energy around them. Soon, the amount increased enough for the still air in their room to start swirling into a helix around the two sisters.
Cutting off the link to the pattern, the wind soon died down and the two girls were left staring at each other in excitement.
“It worked!” Stella shouted happily, grabbing her sister’s hands.
The two quickly packed away the tools and started discussing what sort of enchantment they wanted to inscribe for their teacher.
“I was thinking of some sort of defensive enchantment.” Lunam mused. “She has a bad habit of forgetting to worry about her safety. But I think that any defence formation we could engrave wouldn’t have much of an effect for someone of her level …”
“That’s true …” Stella agreed with her sister. “It would also have to be a passive enchantment, so we’d have to store a lot of energy inside the formation. Only a high level core would be able to withstand that kind of energy.”
“So which formations are easier to convert to a passive status?”
“Well, most low level defences normally start out as passive. The stronger shield-type defences that have to block magic or physical attacks, have to be active, though.” Stella seemed to have a higher base knowledge of formations than her older sister.
An active enchantment was an inscription that required a constant influx of mental energy in order to sustain the effects of the formation. However, once a passive enchantment was completed, it’s effects would constantly be present until the energy stored inside was used up. The quality of the base material was the predominant factor that affected how much energy an enchantment could store.
“How about a poison resistance enchantment?” Stella suggested. “That way, even a low-quality formation could potentially save her life.”
“That’s perfect!” Lunam’s eyes lit up at her younger sister’s idea. “Now we need to find an enchanter who would be willing to teach us just such a formation.”
“Yeah that’s not gonna be easy, though. Formation blueprints are an enchanter’s life.” Stella replied dejectedly.
“We won’t know until we try.” Lunam pointed out optimistically.
Stella reluctantly followed her sister out onto the capital’s busy streets. The two headed towards the centre of the city to find one of the larger enchanted equipment stores. Since they had access to more (and better quality) formation blueprints, they were generally less protective over the lower grade formations. As long as one had enough money, or an object that could tempt an enchanter enough, a copy of the original blueprint could usually be bought.
The reason Stella was pessimistic about their chances, was because neither she nor her sister had much money on them. Due to the Sun and Moon adventurers being such a large party, most of the money they earned would go towards daily expenses such as food and lodging.
“Stella,” Lunam started as they were making their way through the busy streets. “What do you think it is about Nihil that makes everyone instinctually abrasive towards him?”
She knew that Nihil was a touchy subject for Stella, but Lunam was genuinely curious as to what her sister’s opinion on this would be.
“Ugh …” Stella wasn’t expecting her sister to bring that guy up all of a sudden. “I’m not sure why I even react so strongly against him. If I calmly think about our exchanges, it’s clearly always me provoking him while he remains the same as ever. If there’s anyone who rises to my provocations, it always seems to be Ignis, and yet I’m perfectly normal around him.”
Not even Stella could explain her own behaviour. Whenever she was around Nihil, it was almost like a red haze covered her vision and made her act obnoxiously.
“Well, it’s usually pretty amusing at least.” Lunam commented, suppressing a small laugh.
“Why did you suddenly bring him up now, though?” Stella asked her sister in confusion.
“There’s something about him that has been bothering me ever since we first met in the inn.” Lunam started explaining. “Even just a brief glance at him across a crowded room was enough to rub me the wrong way. I thought I’d ask you while you’re calm because he isn’t nearby.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Stella replied grudgingly. “But why would you invite him to join our party if he bugged you?”
“Hmm … I’m not really sure …” Lunam mused. “I guess that despite him pissing me off, I also got the feeling that there was more to him than it seems on the surface?”
“Really? I don’t think he’s as complicated as all that.” Stella commented.
“Well, I will admit that he certainly doesn’t help himself. Even if he has a face that pisses people off, he could be friendlier to help people get past that.” Lunam shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “He gives me the impression that he’s actively trying to keep people at a distance.”
“You have a point … I’ve also got that feeling from him before.” Stella agreed. “There have been a few exchanges where I’ve felt that his response was originally going to be different, but in he end he decided to go for the more abrasive option. That’s part of what pisses me of so much about him.”
“I wonder how he and Ignis became such good friends.” Lunam muttered. “They seem to be polar opposites, and yet they’re a perfect team.”
“They grew up together, so I guess they naturally ended up growing close.” Stella wasn’t too interested in such a story.
“Really? Somehow I have a hard time believing that.” Lunam questioned. “They look to be similar ages, but there’s something about Ignis’ implicit trust in Nihil that makes me think he’s much younger. Also, I’ve often caught Nihil looking at Ignis with a sort of ‘fatherly’ pride when he thinks no one is watching.”
“Huh? That’s creepy.” Stella said thoughtlessly. “How old would that make him? There’s no way that’s possible. I’ve heard of people looking younger than their actual age, but that kind of gap is just creepy.”
“If a person trains to a high enough level, they can look whatever age they feel like looking.” Lunam pointed out.
“But those two clearly have low cultivations. Their auras were only at the 6th repetition, and they’re already past the age where they could have reached the ‘Expert’ level. They’re clearly just ordinary people who pissed off the wrong guys.”
“And yet they’ve managed to keep up with our pace without slowing the group down at all.” Lunam commented pointedly.
Stumped for words, Stella realised that her sister had brought up a very good point. She hadn’t really thought about it since she could move that speed with ease, but it was certainly true that normal people would require a horse for long distance travel in order to keep up with the group.
“It’s not surprising that they’ve kept secrets from us – we’ve only just met, after all.” Lunam spoke up, seeing her stumped sister. “It’s not like we’ve told them about our own circumstances.”
“That’s true …” Stella agreed.
If she had been around Nihil when Lunam had pointed this out, Stella would have overreacted and kicked up a massive fuss, demanding to know the truth. From this, it was evident that Nihil’s aura affected her behaviour more than she cared to admit.
“Maybe he’s not entirely useless …” Stella muttered.
Unknowingly, Stella’s feelings towards the unsociable guy had improved somewhat. It remained to be seen if this improvement would actually help the two get along better, or not.
Hearing her sister’s comment, Lunam smiled in amusement. Stella was never straightforward about her feelings, and Lunam always found it interesting to watch.
“Hey, you’re thinking something rude about me, aren’t you?” Stella demanded when she saw her sister’s teasing smile.
At Stella’s remark, Lunam just let out an even bigger smile in response.
“Let’s have a late lunch before heading to find an enchanter.” Stella eventually changed to subject in mild annoyance.
* * *
At this point, Nihil was finally starting to get along with the adventurers.
“As usual, your cooking is top notch.” Linley sighed, even his onyx tail was gently swaying indicating his satisfaction.
At Linley’s words, several enthusiastic grunts of assent echoed throughout the group while they continued stuffing their faces with the the stew and bread that Nihil had prepared.
“Speaking of the food, how come this bread seems so fresh?” Lucas asked curiously. “It’s even still warm, like it’s straight from the oven.”
Glancing at Ignis, Nihil decided to reveal at least this much.
“The truth is that I have a void-space ring.” Nihil replied, twisting the emerald ring on his finger.
Naturally everyone’s eyes were drawn to the movement and they noticed the ring for the first time.
“When you say ‘void-space ring’ you are talking about what I think you are, right?” Merry spoke up in shock.
“The storage ring that can stop even time …” Alexis muttered. “That’s a super high level enchantment, how did you manage to get ahold of one? Not even all the money in the world would be enough to buy it.”
“One of the clients of our merchant caravan was in desperate need of some medicine that only we had. They didn’t have any money, and they thought that this was just a normal ring, so they used it as payment.” Nihil calmly responded.
Of course this wasn’t the truth, Ignis and Nihil had snatched one from the Royal Guard during one of their heists. It was the only one that the entire Kingdom owned, so that was the reason that all the lower ranked Royal Guardsmen were told for why the two boys were being pursued.
Ignis also owned a void-space ring, but the reason behind that was a bit mysterious as he’d had it since birth. Naturally the researchers had taken it from him, but since they hadn’t managed to recognise what it truly was, they hadn’t placed too much importance on it. Thinking that it was just a family heirloom, they hadn’t investigated it too deeply and just kept it away from Ignis. As a result, the two friends had managed to steal it back as they’d been escaping from that place.
“How could someone even make that mistake?” Claude exclaimed, dumbfounded.
“Void-space rings have a slight trick to activate them.” Ignis jumped in to reply. “An untrained eye can easily make the same mistake, but it’s also very easy to check if you do happen to know how.”
“There’s a trick to it? Are they not controlled by mental energy just like other storage rings?” Lucas asked. Since no one present had ever had the chance to use a void-space ring, they were all confused.
“Kinda … you need to circulate your mental energy through it in a particular pattern. It’s also possible to seal the ring to your particular mental signature.” Ignis explained. “When sealed, the only way to overwrite it is with the owner’s death.”
Since the Royal Guard had needed to pass the void-space storage ring around (with many different people needing to use it) they had never sealed it to a particular signature. As such, it was a simple matter for Nihil to use and imprint his own signature upon it.
After a while, the group packed up their lunch and continued on their way, quickly leaving the small woodland. It wasn’t long before they got attacked again, but the enemies this time weren’t anything they couldn’t handle easily.
Ignis suddenly sensed something and glanced behind him with a small frown of concern flitting across his features. Leaning towards Nihil, the red-haired boy whispered something into his friend’s ear, and a similarly concerned look flashed through his golden eyes. Quickly composing himself, Nihil told Ignis not to worry, and the two reintegrated themselves into the group.
Claude was the only one to notice this exchange between the two boys, but he decided to leave it be. He figured that if it was anything they needed to know, then Nihil would tell them sooner or later. He was already feeling guilty for pushing the boys to tell him some of Nihil’s secrets.
Naturally Claude was aware that he wasn’t told everything, however he was perfectly fine with the outcome. He could also tell that Nihil had only revealed his true form in order to distract Claude from questioning Ignis about his secrets as well. After all, while Nihil’s tail was questionable, he could have played that off as being a fox type Mysterious Beast. However, it was unknown which species could happily eat fire – especially a flame that dense and powerful.
Truthfully Claude was extremely curious, but he didn’t want to risk their tentative friendship over something which didn’t really involve him. Moreover, he had faith that if it ever did concern him, then either Nihil or Ignis would promptly tell him.
“Hurry up Claude, you’re starting to lag behind!” Archer shouted, turning back to check on his friend. At this point, Claude was already over half a kilometre away. Shocked out of his thoughts, he hurried to catch up to the group.
No one noticed the shadowy figure swiftly approaching, hidden by the tall grass underfoot.
Aerone Grey 