Victor wakes up and the first thing he realises that he is not home anymore, no one is.
He looked around his cavern and saw that half of the mattresses were empty, it seems some of his ‘roommates’ had woken up and decided not to disturb him. They got lucky with the cavern, although there were 12 people who had to squeeze together in the small room last night, at least they didn’t have to sleep in the tunnel Where there was always someone walking near your head.
“Good morning victor.” His English teacher greeted him in a dull tone. His eyes were red, as if he had just cried.
“Good morning Mr. Moretti”, he left the cavern quickly in order to avoid any more interaction with the man and give him more space.
He felt numb as he stood up and dragged his feet out of his cavern, walking slowly and carefully on the uneven ground. He exited their cavern while crouching slightly to avoid hitting his head. His view narrowed down to a tunnel curving upwards. while the other end of the tunnel went deeper and deeper. Torches were casting dim lights on the rough walls
On both sides there were more bedsheets, and some students were still sleeping. More students were waking up and dredging upwards towards the entrance. He went along with them. At every turn and twist wherever the tunnel widened and there was extra space more beddings were placed.
He finally reached the entrance and stood on the slope facing the scenery. Far in the front, after the vast grassland , was the large wooden mansion surrounded by fields and gardens. It was looking so small from up here. His legs still hurt from the long walk Up here.
On the left side of the mansion there was a verdant forest full of vitality. Further left, the ground gradually rises to hills and mountains. The hill they were on was a part of the same chain. On the right side and further ahead there was a town full of wooden and brick houses, the people were waking up and the city was just coming to life.
Yet the most unnatural part of the scene was the sky. The twilight light of dawn was also accompanied by a large moving network of golden strings that encompassed the whole sky. It was there yesterday night and it is here right now also. And the ‘people’ who live here aren’t giving it any special attention which means it is a part of this world. Like the sun and the moon. When someone finally asked about it the day before, they were told to “not worry about it”.
He glanced to his left and saw that all the students were gathering around their ‘guides’ who were handing out a bunch of small yellow berries to everyone. A whole carriage filled with the fruits was lying behind them.
Then he felt his stomach growl.
###
He got in line and was shortly handed a leaf plate filled with a small mountain of yellow berries that might just fall off the plate. The distributor was what an emaciated koala with red eyes and canines standing on two legs reaching his shoulders would have looked like.
He went away with his breakfast and found his friends sitting on a bunch of rocks at the edge of the slope. He chose a rock at the edge as his seat, far enough to not have to talk to them much and close enough to still be a part of the circle.
“Good Morning Victor !”, said Joe a little too loudly for his taste as he just took his seat.
“Morning”, wow ’he sure is looking energetic today, he sure accepted this new world quickly’
“Victor, what does your status say?”
‘Ah so that’s what this was about’,Although he already knew the answer as he checked last night, he willed it open once more.
Victor Romanov
Nexus: Empyrean Savonnette (I)
Modules:
Nodes:
“It says empyrean Savonnette.”
“Oh My God! Empyrean! that is so frickin awesome, I want that”
“Oh, you know what a savonnette is ?”
“Nope, the name sounds really cool though, it must be
something awesome”
“…”
“…”
‘Is this guy for real?’ ,
###
“...Hell, I think the light from Sunny’s lantern would synergise with Mark’s aqua scepter and make his water more magical ?...”
“Damn that’s crazy”
“I think his lantern will make my water more sinister, Like there could be potentially souls of the damned that’ll swim in it. Maybe the damned will then drag their enemy’s spirits to the deepest abyss of the ocean of drowned souls. What should the water be even called ? Damned water ? Dead water ? Perished Water ?”
“Damn that’s crazy”
“...Will my Enigmatic Glock 117’s bullets have elemental augmentation ? I’m sad that my core doesn’t sound that magical but I can make do if i can shoot bullets that explode into lightning and fire. I would definitely have infinite ammo ! Can you imagine me coming at the last moment in a lost battle wearing a cowboy hat and raining hell on the enemies…”
“Damn that’s crazy”
“...We might end up with harems of our own since we’re basically the defenders of this world now. We should be rewarded for our service. There should be more species that look more humane. I’m not a furry, neither am I looking forward to becoming one. The real furries tho, they might be going crazy right now…”
“Damn that’s … what ?”
“...I mean just imagine being a furry. Just look around you, and there is also a lot of variety here...”
Victor could only stare in disbelief as the discussion that started with harmless topics like magical artifacts and speculation degenerated this much in a few moments. ‘Wow they sure got comfortable way too fast, at least lower your volume’.
He tuned them out as he focused on his meal.
The yellow berries were the size of a golf ball, its surface was purely yellow and smooth. He bit into it and was surprised by the flavour that exploded in his mouth. The fruit was juicy and tasted sweet and sour at the same time.
###
Alfreno was annoyed. First the Viscount left him out of the mansion and them gave him babysitting duty. He not only had to maintain them but also had to take his entourage to the abandoned caves all the way to the hill then. It was a slow walk across the plain fields, but what else was he expecting from them ? Outworlders they may be but they weren’t even proper rank 1s yet and from their size they were adolescents. Good thing they also came with their supervisors which made the task of handling them a lot more easier.
The journey to reach here while making sure none of them got left behind or ran away. There were a few stragglers but they were tied up and then dragged along anyway.
Then sending soldiers under him to scout, map and then clear out any vermin. Turns out the cave system goes way deeper into the mountain than thought just hearing the cave’s many pathways description gave him a headache. While also handling the logistics of dozens of carriages coming from the city carrying hundreds of goods required to make it a makeshift shelter hundreds of humans.
Turns out he’d miscalculated the amount of manpower he’d need and all of this ended up taking a lot of time. And he also had to supervise almost everything.
He wasn’t meant to handle people. The only saving grace was that Great mage Chevis Constantin was coming to take the reins from him. He pondered how his future will be affected because of this.
Much of his precious time will probably be spent searching specific nodes for them in the labyrinth. He could feel his envy rising at that thought. Nodes just being handed to them without any work but oh well most of the rifts would be too dangerous for them as they are now, he’ll have to pick up the slack and find their nodes.
At that moment he was able to pick up their conversation with his enhanced hearing,“ I wonder how hairy that giant’s groin will be ?”.
He could feel his eyes twitch, ‘Nevermind they can get their own nodes’.
###
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
‘What in tarnation is that !?’, Victor stared at the Cloaked monstrosity that stood in front of them after they had been gathered. He was being followed by more beast-humans who were also wearing robes.
It looked like a black ant on steroids standing on two legs. He had two huge compound eyes on his face and serrated mandibles covered his mouth. Although he was wearing a cloak, it was easy to tell that he had a V shaped torso. He had four arms, each as thick as his thighs and instead of fingers his hands ended in sharp claws, the two lower arms were crossed while the upper ones were holding a Grimoire and a staff. All in all, his menacing figure looked quite comical
“Alright folks !!, glad to see you all gathered up here. I’m Great Mage Chevis Constantin, you can simply call me Mage Constantin. For the Next few months I’ll be supervisor of this stronghold and the one who'll teach you the ins and outs of weaving, while also discovering the capabilities of each of your artifacts and deciding a path for your future growth.”
“Now since you’ve all had your breakfast, get comfortable and let us begin your first lesson on weaving”
###
Hours had passed, the Cave system was now a hub of activity. Labourers had arrived from the city and were in the process of turning the caves into a stronghold that can properly shelter hundreds of people. A lot of living quarters were being dug out, and wooden supports were being placed so the passages didn’t collapse on them. All while stone workers were carving the place to be more symmetric and aesthetic.
A part of the forest below the hill was being cut down and another part was being converted into a growing ground for fruits other than yellow berries.
Victor didn’t care about this. He was in lotus position trying to meditate Among other students. A Green werefox in cloak was roaming around them, giving them their first lesson on magic. Turns out that the ant mage wasn’t the one who’ll be teaching them. It makes sense though, one person can’t teach 600 teenagers.
“You need to access your soul space to see your soul weave. You guys are already weavers yet you need to know how to access your soul space. And for that you need to enter into a meditative state and you would feel a tug in your mind, don’t confuse that with your status, the tug will feel like pulling inwards. That would be the Grand weave asking you for your permission to take “you” inside your soul space. That’s the key to opening it. The first time will be hard and may take from a few minutes to hours, perhaps a few days for some of you, but by practice eventually you’ll be able to open them instantly.”
His concentration broke again, he tried again. Breath in, Breath out, Breath in, Breathe out. He could finally feel himself calming down. His mind emptied itself and felt for it in his mind. The status was like a small concrete button that was always in front of his mind asking to be pushed, ready to expand into his status window at a moment’s notice. Then he felt it. A pull different from the status one. This feeling was deeper, it was asking to pull him deeper. He agreed.
His view warped and he saw a small Glowing star appear before him in a void, it had 2 colours swirling in it, it was shining in swirling golden and royal blue colour. On closer look it was not a star but a complex feligree of glowing strings. Changing their own brightness at a calming rhythm. His Nexus. His core artifact.
It was beautiful. Every few moments it was releasing weak pulses of some energy that would go on and on till it disappears into the void. He focused on his core and willed his core Artifact to manifest. And it did.
He was back in reality and on the palm of his hand, golden smoke with sparks of blue enveloped his palm, then it retreated into nowhere. It left a hanging pocket watch laying on the palm of his hand, its chain already hanging off his hand.
It’s polished golden surface was emanating a warm hue. The Dial’s inner disk was midnight blue with a metallic sheen with the word “EMPYREAN” engraved on it. On the outer rim Roman numerals were engraved and adorned with a majestic blue gem in between every digit. It’s minute and hour hands seemed to be made of gold. It almost had a dreamlike quality, as if it existed in a different realm.
“So a Savonnette is just a Fancy term for a pocket watch. Huh.”
The hour hand of the watch was on the digit II, and the minute hand wasn’t moving.
###
“Next”, It was finally victor’s turn to be recorded. He stepped in front of a desk, across him was another Grey wolfkin sitting, he was looking comical wearing a monocle, his eyes were dull and he looked bored. He grabbed another parchment from bundle beside him. Dipped in pen in the bottle of ink beside him and in mere minutes drew a perfect replica of Victor’s face on the top left of the parchment. Victor was shocked at how good the image was, this guy could have become a prodigious artist on earth.
“Name ?”
“Victor Romanov”
“Core Artifact ?”
“Empyrean Savonette”
“Show me”, he held his Core Artifact by the chain in front of him. The wolfkin glanced at it, then glanced at his own pocket watch, which show 5 minutes past noon. He then held it in his hands, held his monocle with the other hand and slid his fingers across it’s boundary, “hmm, interesting”.
He wrote his name right beside his drawing followed by Rank 1 weaver and Human in perfect cursive. He handed his form to another wolfkin standing beside him, “Hand him over to Ju?rgen”. This one looked thinner and was blue in colour. He signalled at Victor to follow him. They had taken another path down the hill opposite the direction of the grassland and with that they had officially entered the Green Ridges. On the way he saw many other Mages handling other students who had made it before him.
He could spot out some of his classmates and friends between them but most of them were people he had seen. The servant brought him to another mage, handed him his form and left. Victor was left standing awkwardly as the figure kept staring at his form.
The mage had two more students, and they were sitting on the ground giving victor a look of shared pity.
The magus looked up and exclaimed,“HAAAH, It must be Fate that Another one has been sent to me, or perhaps my fellow Colleague finally looked beyond my facade and understood my prodigious talent, for he has entrusted me with such responsibility”
He had one purple horn on the left side of his Forehead, pale white skin, otherwise he looked totally human.
He finally looked at Victor with a shit-eating grin, “Ah you must be wondering who I am, after all who can this mesmerising Saviour be, who has already charmed your two fellow students and has been burdened with saving you from your plight by uncovering the mystery behind your peculiar artifacts…” He must have been waiting for victor to ask, but then continued.
He held his arms open, “Well well well, Puny Human the chosen one in front of you is the One and Only, The Legendary Demonic Magus, The Illusterous and Imperishable Ju?rgen, Bearer of the Gods’ Will and Might, Defender of the world. You are looking at a future myth who’ll herald the age of light and prosperity”
Victor looked at his fellow students and truly understood their predicament.
“Ha ha ,Worry not human ~, for someone like me no secret is inscrutable, I’ll have the in’s and outs of your core Artifact figured out by the end of the week” he declared haughtily.
He, infact, was not able to figure out his core’s function in a week.
###
Victor gulped again nervously as he was sitting in front of the intimidating Great Mage Constantin who was reading his report. The ‘report’ at hand were the pages Ju?rgen had frantically filled with his failed experiments and theories just an hour ago. Turns out their ‘forms’ which had been handed to Mages incharge of them were meant to contain comprehensive information about their Core artifacts. The half-Hellspawn, however, had been ‘preoccupied’ with his own pursuit of attaining true mastery of weaving and had put off the task till the last hour.
Ironically there was least known about his Artifact yet his report had been one of the thickest out of all students, even though Ju?rgen was unreliable, he was meticulous.
“So, Victor Romanov, you should know, that it isn’t everyday that we find something that flusters Mage Ju?rgen and an artifact as mysterious as yours. According to this report your artifact has been completely unresponsive till now. Right?”
“Yes sir”
“The only observed change has been the hour hand shifting from number II to III during the third day of your apprentice under Mage Ju?rgen without you noticing the exact time”
“Yes”
“Did you do anything notable or is there any action or criteria you think that could have led to this change ?”
“None that I can think of sir”
As he read further, His head tilted back a little and his menacing mandibles twitched. Now Victor knew what a shocked Arachnid looked like.
“As per this your storage is 52 nodes, I must say, that is more than just exceptional. This is the highest I have seen till now”
“Thank you sir”
The Great magus chuckled, “perhaps someone might be tempted to just have you as a living node storage”
‘Not a great sense of humour, aye’
“And it seems your soul strength is also great”, he held up his upper right claw and on it three nodes appeared, they looked like floating runes which glowed with light “Show me”.
A node is the smallest a weave can be. From what he understood till now they can be considered as the building blocks of the magic of this world. A node is a three dimensional pattern or a diagram made of magical strings which represent a concept, function or intent.
They can be connected together to form modules which is basically a weave of higher rank i.e better magic. Or they can also be used to form a new layer of weave around the core Artifact, a person can specialise their artifact’s function or add new faucets to it’s powers.
Through this function, A core’s affinity can be easily found by using the nodes. By trying to merge the node and the core, whether the core attracts the node or actively resists it, their affinity can be easily found out.
Mage Ju?rgen had abused this exact function in his quest to solve Victor’s artifact by trying almost all the nodes Ju?rgen could find, some were so unusual that Victor couldn’t believe they existed. The problem was that his artifact didn’t accept any node that Ju?rgen was able to conjure. Yet it also didn’t actively reject them. The nodes simply slipped off as if his Core was impervious. He had already tried likes of Fire, Spark, Heat, Water, Cold, Air, Smoke, Vapour, Sound, Ash, Shards, Lava, Magma, Plant, Bark, Vines ,Grass, Dirt, Mud, Ball, Earth, Smooth, Rough, Cute, Appeal, Allure, Charm, Poison, Venom, Toxic, Decay, Corrosion, Vitality, Blood, Sharpness, Strength, Speed, Durable, Flexibility, Precision, Hard, Electricity and a few hundred more.
He held his hand to the runes and they were absorbed into his mind space hand, he followed them into his mind space and found them floating around his core in the abyss. He focused on them and the Grand Weave whispered their intent to him. They were Air, Compress and Pressure nodes. He ‘held’ Green node which represented Air and the semi-transparent node which represented Compress and pushed them against each other.
There was a little resistance but they merged with a mental click. Both the nodes altered a bit as some lines of each became undone and formed new connections with the other, while new lines appeared out of seemingly nowhere and wove themselves around the whole forming a new pattern. He didn’t need to look at his status to know that 2 nodes had vanished and a new module Compress Air (I) had appeared as the Weave whispered it’s intent into his mind also.
He repeated the same process with the Pressure node which was also semi translucent, there was a little more resistance this time but nothing much, he connected it to the previous Compress part of the module. He ended up with an Air Blast (I). He manifested the module in the palm of his hand in front of an inquisitive Great Magus. He poured his essence into it.
The air around was compressed on the palm of his hand into a small sphere. He could have compressed it some more but judged that this would be enough, He then pushed the air upward. With a small bang his hair whipped up, and a few pages on the table scattered, but the robes of the arachnid stayed in place, unmoved, along with his stare, ‘These are definitely magical.’
“That’s commendable considering that you have only been a weaver since eight days.”
He pondered for a while then sighed,“It is dangerous to send you to the rifts as you are, you must already know this but with you only able to utilize modules, it’ll be hard for you because their efficiency and power are not up to the par. There is only so much that Rank I modules can do”
He paused and continued,“Mr.Romanov, Your Artifact is most likely a conditional Artifact, it needs certain conditions or a criteria to be met before activating, Perhaps the revolving numbers of the hour hand represent progress of such conditions, there are many such kinds of Core Artifacts throughout the continent. Seeing how better your soul is compared to your peers, there is of course a possibility that the Artifact might have soul affinity, and this is just its passive effect. Seeing how rare those nodes are, it might be some time before we can confirm it. Perhaps we might even need a soul mage or an Artifact appraiser to examine it, and those are very rare to come by.”
“So what shall I do till then sir?”
“That depends, How good is your penmanship and management skills?”
“Neither of them are very great sir”
“The former can be solved easily, the latter, you will learn in time.”
###
Fin.
