Chapter 169: Boredom

Excerpt from the book “The final hunt of the nightwalkers” By Fang

We spent weeks tracking him. His name was lost in rumors, but he is known as the bloodhound. An abomination among man who hunts hunters. How many innocent people have felt his fangs against their neck? It makes me sick.

His breaths are numbered; he has hunted his last. This evening, either he will die, or my party will. In exchange for power, we have linked our life forces together. We triumph as one or fall as one. The witch who did it for us called us fools. She was right. Yet, we follow the trail, all the same, enriched by the flowing life energy between us.

Hunting him is complicated. He is an old soul, black as night and a skilled tracker, hunter, and hider. His footprints less than a scratch deep, not a broken branch to be found, not a smell to be smelt. You might wonder how we can track him. By a stroke of luck, he consumed one of our corrupted peasants. Their life in exchange for the ability to follow him. May the sun save them.

So, here we are, under the light of twilight in a damp forest, surrounded by gnarled trees, dense thorny shrubbery, and the odd piles of mushrooms.

While eating my salad, I muse on what’s going on and how far I am from completing my task.

Mutandis is just waiting on eggs, and frankly, I cannot speed that up quickly. Potentially, I could gather more chickens, but is it worth it? Considering the time it takes to gather the chickens and bring them back, I would have more eggs from the current chickens. I only need a small handful of them.

So waiting seems like the best option—damned fanciful thread needing hawthorn saplings. No point even doing witchery until I have all 3 magical saplings, simple as.

“Why ya picking at your food?” Jengal asks.

“Just thinking.”

“About…?” He continues.

“The magical process, what we can do while we wait for eggs, how I hate waiting,” I say calmly, with little attention to anything.

“What are you? A toddler? A bit of patience would do you well.” He says in a teasing tone, tossing a tomato at me.

“Rude,” I say, tossing it back. “Nothing wrong with thinking.”

“You can think, but don’t get lost in there.”

Cassie just looks at us in amusement, ignoring her salad. Damned carnivore

After finishing our food, we each retire to doing our own thing. Given the waiting time, we simply have little to do. We bounced around the idea of waking up, but Jengal insisted he wanted to explore this dimension. Is it a dimension? Or a plane of existence? Should have paid more attention to my classes on philosophy.

Heading out into the wilderness, I head towards the closest river. My goal? Sugar cane, leather, and crystal flowers. Magic always makes me happy and is fun to do in boredom.

On the way to the river, I spot a flicker. Diverting, heading towards it, I see an area twisting like a glitched game. My curiosity piqued, I close in. Finding it right below where my island would be situated on the ground. A large elliptical-shaped entity is fluctuating in the air. Greens and blues mixing to create a mirage of color.

“What the hell is that?” I ask myself, racking my head. It took me a few moments before I realized what it was. “They have started.” Shaking my head should have watched them more closely. I need to finish up here and check up on the pointy-eared troublemakers.

It must be packing some crazy juice if the energy is rippling into the spiritual dimension. It’s a few wats short of a nuclear power plant. Well, let’s hope that they stop the dimensional drift and not rip the world to shreds. Although, I think Felix would just fix it.

Tearing my eyes from the glitch, in reality, returning to my hunt for sugarcane. It wasn’t long before the river was in sight, having flown with my wings; then a bountiful growth of sugarcane. Swooping down and grabbing it was a piece of cake. Now, cows. I by no means have enough leather to make books.

Flying across the landscape, looking into areas I think cows would like. It wasn’t long before I found the occasional patch of ‘mowed’ grass. A sign of cows, sheep, and chickens; I think it’s the first 2; chickens typically leave the ground bare.

Some further flying later and I find that it was sheep, to my great disappointment. Grabbing the fluffy bastards and bringing the sheep home. Could use the wool. Once dropped off, I return to my cow hunt.

Repeating the mantra, “meat and leather, meat and leather.” I will never know if the mantra helped, but It wasn’t long before I happened upon a herd of cows. With glee, I captured them all. Heading home on tired wings. Like running, it is labor-intensive to fly.

Once home, I keep 2 breeding pairs before slaughtering the rest. Taking their leather and crafting it with paper. Books in hand, it is time to get some crystal flowers.

Turning my gaze to the beautiful forest that I live next to. The spiritual dimension giving the forest an ethereal sense to it. Slowly walking towards it, taking in the subtle glows of the local plant life. Feeling the breeze of life energy wash over me.

Thinking about it, why haven’t I tried to manipulate any of my energy? Looking inside, I see all the forms of energy circulating within. Suppose they have some connection to your soul. Grasping the nature energy, it felt like manipulating another hand. Easy, smooth like silk. It twisted and turned at my whims. Moving some of it out of my body and into a nearby plant allowed it to overgrow. “Bonemeal on demand, sweet,” I say in glee.

Moving on to another energy, mana, I found it far more difficult to control than usual. Like my mental grasp was laden with oil, it was slippery, unresponsive, and stiff. Pulling it out of my body took a great effort, resulting in the barest trickle. Hardly enough for even the most basic of phenomena.

The next I chose was potential energy, which I expected to be a living nightmare to control. To my surprise, it was equally as easy as natural energy. That was until it exited my body. The moment that black ooze seeped out of my chest, the immediate area shriveled and died. A wave of green energy rushed me, filling me with a sensation of being crushed. The life around me returned as I fell to the floor, panting for breath.

“Note to self… Don’t do that.”

Curiosity satiated, I continue into the forest. Quickly finding what I am looking for, crystal flowers. Although, they were ever so slightly green. The tint telling me they are polluted with natural energy.

It isn’t a significant problem. The energies are very similar; one is unattuned, the other is. Nature energy can become mana and vice versa. Although, it’s not an easy task. Plants do it naturally; in fact, they generate new nature energy, along with converting mana. I am not sure I could do it. The mechanism eludes me. I simply attract energy, not create or change it. As far as my skills allow, I can shift and shape the power. In the case of mana, it will enable spells. Nature energy too, but different.

I suppose all energy can be used for spells, but mana seems to just be perfectly designed for the task. Like breaking glass with a hammer, a rock works too, but it’s simply more annoying.

It is fun playing with energy manipulation. I cannot deny that.

Taking the crystal flower back with me, I convert it into crystals. Making a wand almost immediately.

With a wand in hand, the next step is an arcane workbench. A simple craft that allows for the encoding of spells. It’s been a while, that’s for sure.

With the workbench complete, I focus my mind on a simple spell. Encoding the simple mine spell. Feeling that pleasant ding of success, I head outside to test it. Recalling when I first tried to do it, it failed terribly.

It worked well. Not a perfect encode, but it functions. I expected to be rusty, but apparently not.

Something about magic instills a visceral joy. Feeling the spark of energy move in a very organic way. Watching that spark speed up and grow in power until it blooms into a particular taste of magic. People on Earth, lacking in magic, are quite literally obsessed with magic. It’s the idea of something we don’t have. We want what we can’t have; it’s just human.

“Neat trick,” I hear as I shoot some more mining spells.

Turning and seeing Cassie. A plain cotton white dress replacing her previous leaf bikini. “Cool, right. It’s a little on the weaker side, magic-wise, but still fun to play with.”

“What would be on the stronger side?”

“Ars magica 2 is a good one. You literally build the spell part by part. It’s idiot-proof while being crazy powerful.” Recalling those moon rail cannons, sun bombs, and glitched spells.

She chuckles, “dumb people should not have access to magic.”

“Another would be blood magic. In all its negative stigma, pure power alone, it’s insane.” Remembering the overwhelming might of the magic. You couldn’t fight it, and that was what was most scary. The idea you couldn’t stop it, only prevent it.

She recoils back slightly at the mention of blood magic, biting her lips.

“I know.” Nodding in understanding. “If it makes you feel better, ethical methods exist to use the magic.”

She takes a step closer, sitting on the grass beside me. Patting the ground for me to join her. Sitting down, she stares at my arcane table for a moment. “I already knew you have the capacity for blood magic. It’s just the idea, the cruelty it causes. Just the name alone inspired people to attempt to use it. A long time ago, a lot of people died to someone trying to use it. A similar situation to the Damons family. Although, it was a different type of blood magic.” She sighs quietly, just looking out into the grassy horizon.

I wince at the name, recalling the terrible things. I won’t forget it for as long as I live.

Calling upon every ounce of wisdom my short life has accumulated, I speak. “Humans are power-hungry. Blood magic or not, they will do everything to get it. My world is an example of this. Free of magic, yet, full of strife, suffering, and greed.”

She nods, “too true.”

We sat there for a short while in quiet contemplation. The calm atmosphere bringing peace and serenity. The peaceful world is broken up by the occasional quip or joke, followed by laughter or an annoyed response.

After a while, I return to random mining with my spell. Contemplating on what spells to create next. “I prefer witchery and ars magica…” I complain.

Well, let’s whip up the place block spell. Might as well; it’s one of the few that will be useful here. Most basic spells are combat-related, which is a poor choice in a world free of monsters.

Having dug out a sizable area of Earth, encoded a spell I am unlikely to use, and wandered around in aimless boredom; let’s check the eggs. Calmly walking towards the small automatic collector and removing the handful of eggs. Heading over to the cauldron to produce some more mutandis.

I simply take the time to get all the witchery plants. Then planting and propagating them around my altar. Job done, let’s get some real magic done. Time to find Jenga; he did want to do some magic after all.

If I recall, he is exploring. Taking flight, “let’s see if an aerial view will aid me.”