Tsaimath

Chapter 858

It took us a few more inconclusive tests before we gave up. The stupid plant in the lake, or whatever it was, didn’t react in a predictable manner, making the entire process pretty much a waste of time. Or maybe there was a pattern but I hadn’t been able to isolate it, or there were specific conditions we had failed to take into account. Whatever the case, our tests had given us such a wide...

Interlude: Resident Evil

“What in all hells is this?!” Mark couldn’t help but curse, looking at the basement the group had led him to. It was one thing to be told, ‘Boss, there’s something you need to see for yourself,’ but an entirely different thing to actually see what they had reported and still try to discard what your senses are telling you, simply because it was too bizarre.

Or maybe it was sim...

Chapter 857

While I remained near the water, Lia and Silva went and tried to hunt something that I could use as a test subject. Since I had no desire to personally meet whatever was in the water, or whatever had struck before, I kept a distance and started to experiment. Luna stayed with me, using her eyes to study the effect just like I did, only from a different angle. Her eyes worked in a different fash...

Chapter 856

I was no dwarf, but damn, could I dig a hole.

After sleeping for a few hours, curled up next to Lia and Luna, I had concentrated on doing just that, taking the relatively small hole I had initially created and enlarging it. It was partially to continue training my Earth-Magic, partially because I was bored and finally because the increase in living space was useful.

It was a curious...

Chapter 855

Realising that we were about to reach the area Lia had mentioned, I shook myself out of my thoughts. It was incredibly difficult to ascertain anything about the connection between Luna and myself, to say nothing about the strand that connected us to the Grandmother. For now, I could only say that there was a distinct connection, that it wasn’t one-sided and that I’d be able to follow it in ...

Chapter 854

“Mother, I stumbled across something we should check out,” Lia told me, as she returned from one of her nightly wanderings. Over the last few months, she had started to habitually roam the land during the night, simply exulting in her physical strength and speed. Running, jumping, exploring, those had become her primary outlet while she was looking for interesting prey. Sadly, there was no ...

Chapter 853

Looking at Luna, I could only shake my head. During the last two months, she had grown over ten centimetres, her body maturing at a rate I couldn’t quite believe. A part of me suspected that the change was driven by the levels she had gained, but I couldn’t be certain and wasn’t about to use other children for experiments. Whatever the reason, she was growing at an insane rate, to the poi...

Chapter 852

“Now, what do we have here?” I mused out loud, looking at my latest magical experiment. It was one of the few things I wasn’t willing to share with Luna and took quite a bit of effort to hide from her, simply because I wasn’t willing to let her see this.

In one of the basements we had used as a lair during the campaign against the Withered, I had set up what could either be descri...

Chapter 851

With a twirl of my hand, the snow swirling around me took on another shape, forming into a javelin. It wasn’t quite as hard as Ice, but closing my hand and focusing my magic changed that, right before the Javelin was launched forward, piercing into my target before shattering, tearing it apart.

Training my Ice Magic had changed just a little over the summer. Instead of focusing on using...

Chapter 850

Rebuilding my throne might have been premature, but it most certainly was comfortable. Just sitting on the sturdy edifice of Ice made me feel calm and empowered, the runes I had engraved into the back and the armrests helping me to connect to the circle around me, letting my mind slip into the Astral River with ease.

The ritual circle I was using was pretty simple in its design, mostly ta...

Chapter 849

With no pressing matter to attend to, we settled in for the summer. The long, hot days meant that Lia was near-permanently confined to our underground shelter while it was hit or miss for me. I could be out in the Sun but it was uncomfortable, even if I could sustain the constant drain on my Astral Power for quite some time. Luckily, the umbrella I noticed served me well, to the point that I ev...

Chapter 848

Teaching people about magic was incredibly interesting. Even speaking to somebody of the same affinity but with different experiences revealed an entirely different approach, not only to the intuitive parts of elemental manipulation but even the relatively consistent Rune Masteries were individually different. Just like handwriting, only that the differences in form caused a slight difference i...

Chapter 847

Taking a deep breath and letting it slowly flow out of me again, I looked outside, hoping against hope to spot some thick clouds anywhere nearby. Sadly, the weather wasn’t cooperating, the day outside was picture-perfect, with a deep, blue sky stretching as far as the eye could see, the temperature just shy of being too hot with a gentle breeze keeping things from being stifling. Or in other ...

Chapter 846

When we reached the brewery, I stopped for a moment, simply looking at the building in amusement. There was the grave we had dug for the people previously living here, still faintly smelling of Hecate’s magic from the benediction Silva had placed upon it, and all around the building were traces of canine activity. Only pawprints, nothing more, but when I flicked out my tongue to taste the air...

Interlude - Survivors 403

With the rising Sun, the people of Apple Gate Farm got up to work. There was always more than enough work for everyone and while the community had grown from a few survivors driven from their homes and banded together for shelter, the growth hadn’t been without its costs. Long gone were the days when everyone could fit in the farmhouse and the barn, instead multiple large shelters had been co...

Chapter 845

Maybe I had underestimated the effect of levels, just a little bit. To me, Luna was just a cute kid, not scary in any way, shape or form. For the people at Apple Gate Farm, Luna was a cute kid, with the aura of a being able to squish most of them with ease, giving an impression almost on par with their strongest fighters. Only, she was also that cute kid, the dichotomy playing happy havoc on th...

Chapter 844

It took us two more nights to reach Apple Gate Farm after Lia crossed the first divide. During those two days, Lia and I discussed what had happened during her crossing of the Divide and tried to understand how that might have fed back to me. Or if the title I had gained the moment she did had any actual relation to her success, there was always the possibility that it had been an unlikely coin...

Chapter 843

• AN: Apologies, the chapter somehow got scheduled for tomorrow, instead of today. 

After another day of discussions and deliberations, Lia made the decision to challenge the first divide, using the middle of the night, or witching hour, to make her attempt. I was a little torn over it, mostly because she hadn’t shared her actual plan but given that th...

Chapter 842

Walking around the park, I was hit with some strange, mixed feelings. Here, at ground zero of my attack, I was both a little amazed at what I had accomplished but also scared of the devastation I had caused. Knowing that I could snuff out many lives with the equivalent of a gas attack, using my tried and true Devouring Mist, was one thing, but here, I could see that I could also accomplish the ...

Chapter 841

Somehow, when people talked about something being a walk in the park, I had a feeling that they weren’t referring to what we experienced the night after the ritually boosted attack on the Withered.

Walking into the area they had previously occupied was a fascinating experience. Maybe it was thanks to my extrasensory perception trait, maybe it was due to my high intuition, either way, I ...

Chapter 840

By the time I woke from my strange dream, I felt a headache creeping up on me. It was one thing to get some information in regards to childcare, something I was incredibly grateful for, and getting information on Luna’s class, possible future path and what to look out for was valuable, too. All that was great but sadly, Lady Hecate had apparently decided to either test or push me, I wasn’t ...

Chapter 839

A tiny part of me was incredibly amused at the situation. Before the change, I had occasionally consumed amusing stories about parents and the troubles they had with their children. Even now, I wasn’t quite sure why I had liked those stories, maybe it was some sort of subconscious attempt to make myself feel good, or right, about my previously childless status or maybe I wanted to vicariously...

Chapter 838

Given how exhausted all of us were, with Luna and Alex still out cold, the three of us who were still standing decided that moving any sort of distance would be foolish. The streets were quite dangerous right now, thanks to the Withered that were now running wild and I wanted to check out the park as soon as possible, so we’d have to return anyway. Though, as soon as possible meant it would b...

Chapter 837

Feeling the world fade around me, I bit my tongue, using the pain to focus my mind. It helped, though I was still wobbly, sinking to my knees instead of completely keeling over. I needed to remain active, simply because I had no idea what was going on around me, the battle might still be ongoing, even after I struck the primary nexus of the Withered.

Slowly, my senses came back to me, rep...

Interlude: Frozen Summer Rain

• AN: Trying to write a semi-sapient colony of fungi is HARD!

In the beginning, there was a cold, damp mist. It came and when it went, it left behind hundreds of bodies, providing ample nutrients for the colony. With that near-limitless amount of fuel, the mycelium could spread far and wide, bringing in ever more nutrients. The further the hypha spread, the m...

Chapter 836

Breathe in… Hold… Breathe out…

Slowly but surely, I let more and more Astral Power flow into the ritual circle around me. For once, I had forgone the throne I had commonly used for rituals on Mundus, simply because I had something else in mind. When I first used ritual magic on Mundus, I had enjoyed bringing a dynamic component into it, letting the magic guide my movements, as my mo...

Chapter 835

Getting Luna to level ten was fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things. Just hunting down a bunch of Undead, letting her help by using her ivy vines to restrain them, before either Lia, Silva or I finished them off. She didn’t get the full amount of EXP, something we expected given that she wasn’t in any danger at all, but with the Mother’s Guidance Trait she had received from Lady He...

Chapter 834

Maybe I was just evil, but watching my munchkin flounder around with her newly acquired Life Magic was incredibly amusing. Luna might have borrowed the Grandmother’s affinity but it seemed that the instincts for that sort of magic hadn’t been transferred over, or maybe little Luna was simply clumsy, possibly due to her age. Either way, she had a reasonable amount of power, given that she wa...

Chapter 833

“So, what’s new with you?” I quietly asked Silva, once my conversation with Luna was finished and she was drifting off to sleep. Given that I was playing pillow for my little moon, I had to be still and quiet, so I wouldn’t disturb her, but I still wanted to know what my canine companion had gained from crossing the first Divide. She had done so in the presence of her deity, so I had hi...

Chapter 832

“Luna Morgana…” my munchkin let the names slowly roll over her tongue, repeating them a few times, likely to get used to them. Given that she couldn’t see her own eyes without a mirror, I conjured up a polished shard of Ice, allowing her to see the obvious inspiration for the name. The smile spreading across her face told me that the choice had been a good one, following the method my o...