Though the other shields were also all level four and had the same stats as the first one, each of them had their designs—a dragon, a markhut lord, and a human. Elian’s face was supposed to be on the last shield, but he couldn’t pull off that level of control just yet.
“Splendid workmanship,” said Varmisal, touching the designs with his Aether arm.
Needless to say, Elian’s classmates were also impressed, including Jadewell. Only she could match his level of detail in his work. She had made a level eight construct because she focused on just one. In contrast, Elian prioritized many constructs. If he got rid of the details and just settled for plain round shields, he could make eight level five constructs if he exerted himself, probably more if he reduced their size, but that wouldn’t be as showy.
At this stage of his Aether Magic journey—pretty much the beginning—it was better in terms of defense to layer several weaker constructs than use one stronger one. If he met a jarlion again, he was confident he could block its magical attacks… some of them. His construction rate was some ways from keeping up with its constant firing.
“Thank you for the praise, Master Varmisal,” Elian said. And thank you, Priest Thalman, he added in his mind.
The books that Thalman had recommended gave Elian a new perspective in his meditations. One book, or rather, a diary of an Aether Mage Penitent from two decades ago, detailed an easy way to tweak the attributes of constructs. It was like using the notes of an upperclassman to breeze through an otherwise difficult subject. Because Elian could transfer his constructs’ Attack and Magic Power points to Armor and Magic Resilience, they were sturdier than other constructs of their level.
Thorren came next, making a simple helmet that fit over his head. He made sure it gleamed brightly, explaining that he wanted to attract attention at the Stage of Devotion. His control was of its colors and patterns.
“If such is your goal,” said Varmisal, “then I suggest making an open-faced helmet instead to add more recognizability. Aether Magic may be rare among Penitents, but your face is your own.”
“I failed to consider that,” Thorren said as the front part of his helmet disintegrated. “The crowds shall forever remember my face.”
With all of the students having made constructs that had attributes, Varmisal led them out of the garden of Creation Trees and into a room with tables and chairs. Their next lesson was controlling Manifested Armor, imbuing them with thoughts so they could act on their own. Elian was elated—it was time for good old lectures in a magic school. He could feel like the main character in one of the fantasy books he used to read as a kid.
While drawing simple seals for thought commands on the board, Varmisal explained, “I’ll first address what most of you are thinking—this skill isn’t necessary for defending against Lesser Tribulations. Many Penitents using Aether Magic never instilled a portion of their will into their constructs. But it is useful, nonetheless, and would give you a better understanding of Aether Magic, in turn allowing you to make stronger constructs.
“For Aether Magic, everything is connected to the mind and how you impose your will on the world, molding blocks of magical creation to the form you desire. And what better way to train your will than with Manifested Armor? There’s a misconception among the common folk that all Aether constructs replicating armor are Manifested Armor. Not so. It’s only when they can act without your direct control can they be considered as such.”
Varmisal went on to explain some of the benefits of having command seals on constructs. One of the more useful ones was that they could repair themselves—this was what made the Golden Army of the Sarhat Kingdoms famous.
Where did King Idum-Ani place the command seals on his summons? Elian pondered about this only now. Those fearsome gleaming warriors could regenerate themselves even if only a metallic pinky survived.
“You may think such a function isn’t useful for meeting Tribulations,” Varmisal said, pointing upward, “but you’ll have another thought when you reach Greater Tribulations. Your mind will be preoccupied with a dozen other things that you’ll be grateful your constructs will repair themselves as strikes continue to descend from above. Stemming from that point, there is another benefit to putting some thought into your constructs. Get it? The command seals? Thought?”
He laughed at his pun. Elian and the other students hesitantly chuckled along to avoid awkwardness.
Oblivious to the reaction of the class, Varmisal continued to laugh while making a small ball of interlocking gears. The teeth of the gears were inscribed with runes.
Varmisal stepped away from his floating creation. Its gears began to rotate. Aether visibly gathered next to it, forming a blob, slowly solidifying into a small round shield. A sort of buckler. The ball of gears continued whirring and clicking. Another Aether buckler appeared, and one more after it. The gear construct stopped moving after it finished the third buckler.
“The construct is making other constructs,” gasped one of the students.
“The applications are endless,” said Varmisal. “If mastered, you can use this function even for meeting Lesser Tribulations.”
Thorren raised his hand. “A Lesser Tribulation is only a single strike, Master Varmisal. After its descent, what use is making more constructs? Is it not the same limitation as repairing constructs after the fact? One must prepare all that he can before calling for a Tribulation.”
Varmisal answered with another demonstration. The three small shields faced upwards and layered on top of each other. Above them, Varmisal materialized the head of a spear. It rotated on its tip as it gradually descended. It drilled into the first Aether shield and shattered it. The spear continued downward to the second shield. But in that time, the ball of gears had made a fourth shield under the third one.
“The Tribulation is so much faster than this, of course,” said Varmisal. “And so, you have to make constructs that replenish your defenses just as fast or faster. Each person has a limit to the quality and quantity of constructs they can make. If you can make five, and one gets destroyed, you can make another one. Mastering construction, especially its speed, could multiply the effectiveness of your defenses.”
Elian nodded, recalling that King Idum-Ani explained the same thing to him. His constructs can repair themselves and make others, turning them effectively inexhaustible so long as the Sarhat King can sustain them.
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“By using builder constructs,” Varmisal continued, “you can free your mind for other things. A powerful Tribulation will certainly be stressful; leave the Aether constructions to your builders. They won’t make any mistake.”
The lecture about Manifested Armor control went on until it was time for lunch.
Elian figured that his stomach had calmed down enough that he could risk eating. For a couple of days, he skipped lunch because he didn’t want to cause an explosion of the unpleasant kind at school.
“Are you feeling much better now?” Thorren asked as they walked to the dining hall in another building. “If so, you should eat. Lots and lots! Remember, you’re feeding your pet parasite as well as if you’re carrying a child.”
“Babies in the womb can be thought of as parasites, uh?” The two of them laughed. Elian rubbed his stomach. “Yeah, I think I can handle it. Is that stewed markhut I smell? I can’t miss that.”
The dining hall had five long tables with seating that could fit around two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty people if with a bit of squeeze. There were only around a hundred people eating inside, both teachers and students. Varmisal had mentioned in passing during one lesson that the dining used to be packed when there were Enlightened Penitents specialized in Aether Magic. He must’ve meant Priest Thalman. Now that they didn’t have a poster child for Immaterial school, attendance dwindled.
Elian surmised that most of the students who moved on to take the paid advanced lessons were rejected from proper Aether Magic schools. This place was their only choice. They had to sacrifice one of their Divine Bestowal slots to enter, but it wasn’t that huge a blow because the Hundred-Armed Magistrate’s Boon was decently good, providing lots of base attributes. Divine Bestowals were usually modifiers.
A Manifested Armor placed a large bowl in front of Elian. Chunks of markhut meat floated in the thick brown soup along with plenty of vegetables. Another many-armed construct set a basket of bread to the side and another basket of fruits on the other. The food was donated by pilgrims and wealthy graduates of the school.
“Thorren, look at this.” Elian put his arm on the table close to the basket of fruits. Viney reached out with a tendril.
“Can you perhaps show me later?” Thorren asked with a grimace. “I’d rather it wasn’t my stomach that’ll be upset.”
“This’ll be interesting, I promise. Look.” Elian ordered Viney to pick a konnaki fruit from the basket. Around the size of a baseball with a hard shell, it reminded him of a coconut from Earth, just smaller and not hairy even if matured. Normally, this would be served with its shell already broken, but since students and teachers weren’t normal humans, they could easily open this.
Except for Elian.
He gathered Aether around the tip of Viney’s tendril and constructed a small blade with a blunt edge. Viney struck the indented line that ran around the middle of the konnaki fruit where the shell would part if the seed inside grew. A few hits from Viney—it did have an Attack Power, increased by its new Aether “weapon”—and cracks showed on the shell.
“Yes!” Elian slapped the table.
“That is… interesting,” Thorren said, looking away. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve.”
“I’m opening a konnaki fruit. That’s my achievement!” And Elian celebrated by scooping out the fruit’s fleshy insides. It was sweet and melted in his mouth.
“What is that on your arm?” Someone asked from behind him. It was Jadewell. She must’ve approached them after seeing Viney.
She usually sat at the end of the long table nearest to the door, keeping to herself as she quickly ate. Elian wasn’t sure, but she seemed to be avoiding some of the teachers who knew of her family. Understandable, given her circumstances.
“His pet parasite,” Thorren dryly said as he stirred his stew.
“It’s a plant symbiote,” Elian said. “It’ll help me meet the Tribulations when it grows to maturity.”
Jadewell questioningly tilted. Her long hair fell aside, revealing the scar on her cheek. “Oh… I feel like there are other less, erm, invasive options for defense.”
“I have been repeating the same line to him,” said Thorren. “But Elian is set on his pet parasite. We risked our lives, braving the dangers of the Dark Forest and beyond, to harvest ingredients for a concoction that’d help it grow.”
“The Dark Forest?” Jadewell sat next to Elian. As soon as she did, a Manifested Armor came by to serve her food. She ignored it, concern creasing her forehead. “Was that the cause of your scars?”
“It’s a long story,” Elian said, feeling his cheek. The scars should be gone now after he drank a couple of health potions.
“A daring tale,” Thorren said. “One that involved costrahastans, Solbasks, a jarlion, and a Grumpbeing. Yes, even a Grumpbeing—Elian managed to kill one with a Tribulation. He called for it as he was getting eaten by the fearsome beast.”
“Storm God’s thunder!” Jadewell covered her mouth. “Is it true, Elian?”
Elian shrugged. “You do know I’m pretty hard to kill, right? It was only a matter of timing when the Grumpbeing opened its mouth.”
“You make it sound so trivial and underwhelming,” Thorren said. “I’ll tell the story and do it justice.” He narrated how their fight with the Grumpbeing, their escape from the panicked Solbasks firing beams everywhere, and Elian blocking the way of the costrahastans until Priest Yonnik came to the rescue.
“What did the Forbidden Temple look like?” Jadewell asked.
“Another set of ruins like many others around these hills,” Elian replied. “Bigger and grander, for sure, but we really didn’t get a chance to tour it. Probably for the best, with the rumors of monsters and diseases.”
“An ancient curse is my theory,” Thorren said.
Jadewell looked down at her bowl. “I’ve heard my grandfather talk about it…”
“That’s right, he was a Champion Penitent,” Elian said.
Would Jadewell agree to help him connect with the Khaero family? They must’ve kept records of her grandfather’s journey as a Penitent. If Elian brought Jadewell back to them, perhaps—Elian shooed away the thought. That’d be fulfilling Jadewell’s wrong accusation of him.
“I didn’t listen much to my grandfather,” Jadewell said. “Tribulation this and that. I avoided the topic any way I could back then. But I remember this Forbidden Temple because he had talked to my father about the priests of the Temples of Tribulation.” She leaned closer and continued in a lower voice. “Experiments on humans are conducted there. So horrifying they made my grandfather’s bones tremble. Those were his words.”
“A plausible explanation,” Thorren quietly said. “Having priests guarding the area makes more sense. If it were truly a monster or an ancient curse, they would’ve dealt with it long ago. But if it’s their own operations, they’d have an interest in keeping it near these hills but far enough that people wouldn’t inadvertently wander nearby.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Elian said, remembering the statues and engravings of the catfolk inside and around the Dark Forest. “History repeating itself.”
Having Ihadir around already made the priests suspect—someone who had done those insane experiments on himself wouldn’t hesitate to do it to others. Thalman should also know about the goings on at the Forbidden Temple; he might not be as kind as Elian thought. The priests of the Hundred-Armed Magistrate had to present a fa?ade of righteousness. Part of the job description. But since they used to be Enlightened Penitents, they must’ve done some very questionable things in their quest for the Tribulation high score.
As if to prove Elian wrong, Thalman visited Borlen’s camp the next day to check up on them. Conflicts between the supporters of Tharguras and Faridar were escalating and the priest was concerned about Borlen.
