Chapter: 06

Ken-POV

The next day I woke up early. It was kind of different having someone else inside the base. It felt weird, like when one of your friends crashes on your couch unannounced.

In the end it didn’t really matter. They had a deal; she leaves him alone, he shelters her for one night. He held up his end of the deal, now it was her turn. Sure, he could invite her to stay, but what would they really gain? A good shot with the bow maybe, but most people could probably deal with something like that easily using magic.

It was obvious her power wasn’t high. Otherwise, why use a bow at all? She would be a leech on him, causing more work probably. But then again, he could probably find simple things for her to do. Maybe hunt some small animals for different meat.

When he went to the common room she was still knocked out in a food coma from overeating last night. Her curvy body splayed out over her pile of bedding. Meh, she wasn’t that special now that he thought about it. Weren’t most elves beautiful anyway? She wasn’t some rare flower or anything.

He went to the side of the cave and started on another project, digging a new doorway into the wall. When the rock piled up around him, he spent some time shaping the chunks into little bricks.

His first reason for this project was expanding his base. The second reason was the practice, improving his power usage and increasing his limit whenever he tired. He was planning on building a workshop next, where he could store materials and work with more elbow room.

He made a short passage about ten feet long, before starting on the square shape of the room. The issue was, he ran out of space to put the bricks. He thought for a bit trying to find an inconspicuous place to store them, but there wasn’t anywhere nearby.

It was settled then… he needed a new spell. The stone was a light red, probably holding traces of iron or something. The first thing he thought of was a way to destroy the material, like in the regenerative circles.

That didn’t work well, because it took too much power to use it efficiently on large quantities of material. It also seemed, the denser the material, the slower it would disappear.

So I then thought of compressing the bricks. Taking a rock to experiment, I cupped my hands on its sides and released what I called my aura hands. Instead of putting it over my hands though, I covered the rock completely.

Then he got to work adding layers, and each layer I imagined the inside layers being pushed in, displaced. The rock groaned before crumbling, so I had to try again. What happens if rocks undergo severe outside pressure? The rocks form starts changing. Logic would dictate it shattered, but not under all circumstances.

If you add heat to pressure, the stone starts to turn into a completely different object. In this case, he imagined his power bubble heating up just slightly. The drain was larger, but the change was instant.

The rock glowed a light red for a moment, then rapidly started shifting. The surface rippled and the glow changed to a yellowish orange color. Then right before his eyes the orb visibly shrunk with the addition of the next layer.

Glad he wasn’t actually touching the stone anymore as it hovered between his hands, he added a few more layers and it shrunk to half its original size.

When the size reached the size of a single fist instead of two, I warped the shape of the pressure field, making a cube. The liquid complied quickly and when the heat was released, I waited for the cube to solidify enough to release the barrier and put it down.

As the stone cooled, I was extremely surprised to see a black rock with glowing veins running around its sides. The veins cooled slower, and a minute later I poured water on it before picking it up. The stone was noticeably heavy for its size, and covered in soot as well. Cleaning off the exterior in the wash basin I was greeted with a welcome surprise.

The rusty colored stone around him, was in fact iron. But that wasn’t all, as I observed the different colored veins running around the rock. There were traces of copper between the iron veins.

I just sat flabbergasted, looking at it for a few minutes. There wasn’t much metal, but it was in there. Running like silk strands over the surface.

What if… If I change the shape and I compress it, shouldn’t the metal sink to the bottom, since it’s denser? Worth a try I guess, but what shape. Maybe, an upside down cone. Yeah, if I mimic the way the earths shape affects it, then the metal should gather nearer the bottom.

Grabbing a large brick from the tunnel, I reformed the barrier heating the surface quickly. Then I formed a cone shape and waited for the rock to conform appropriately. It started slowly, but adding pressure at the top of the cone caused streams of molten liquid to shoot out and press against the bottom quickly.

It was like watching a slow motion picture as the rock heated further flowing faster and faster. When the entire form was glowing a dull white, I knew it had all melted correctly.

Cooling the stone impatiently, I rinsed the heavy cone and looked at my handy work. The tip formed a dull point of copper followed by about an inch of iron. The rest of the stone was a black granite. In a way it looked kind of cool, but the moment was ruined when a voice surprised me by my shoulder.

“What’re you doing?” I stumbled throwing the rock a little before it sailed down to meet my foot.

“Ow, frick!” I hopped around for a moment, glad the pointed end didn’t impale my foot by chance. “What the hell woman!”

Her head had been just beside his own, which creeped the hell out of him. He could practically feel her breathe when she spoke.

“Oh, I woke up a few minutes ago. How’d you do this?” She’d picked up the cone, inspecting the shiny tip. The look on her face was that of someone who just shit a brick, then found out it was gold.

Snatching back my newest creation, I held it to my chest glaring at her. She didn’t even apologize! “Don’t you have somewhere to be right now, like killing your peers or walking around aimlessly until winter tries freezing you solid?”

Her face soured a little at my last comment, but I ignored it in light of her rudeness. “About that… I was wondering if I could possibly stay. You know, team up or something?” Uh oh, she was waving around her ten foot danger flag. How do I break it to her nicely? Ah this should do.

“NO! You haven’t even been nice at all, and you haven’t shown crap for ability.”

“Oh thanks, I knew you’d understand…” the words didn’t really hit her for a moment before her face turned bright red. “W-…Wait what? I don’t understand.” Her face was crestfallen, like she just heard someone was going to die or something… It was possible I suppose.

“Let’s see here. N plus O equals a big fat NO. I honestly can’t even remember if we introduced ourselves at all. When we met, you tried killing and threatening me, then I let you in my house and fed you. We had a deal. You leave me alone, I feed and shelter you one night.”

“Oh…” she tried giving me her best version of puppy eyes, but it was nothing compared to Lapillus’ training. “But… it’s snowy outside. I’ll freeze if I go out there!”

“What are you talking about, it’s still clear outside. It’s just a little chilly is all?”

She shakes her head slowly, glancing at the door. “No, you’re wrong. I can sense it, I have water affinity. There’s snow out there, I’m sure of it.”

I walked over to the doorway, and opened it halfway. I was greeted with a gust of snow to the face, while a gale of wind tried ripping the door from my grasp. Struggling to close the door completely, I leaned back using a foot against the second doorframe to lever it shut.

Turning around, clumps of snow fell from my clothes and my face was coated in a layer of ice. Looking over to her, I contemplated my choices. Nobody could survive out there right now. It was like the weather was truly ferocious when it struck on this place. The rain was similar, coming down in torrential waves as it fell. There was no in between, it seemed, when it came to the weather.

I didn’t hunt others simply because I was from earth and it felt wrong. I had morals to uphold, not to mention I liked not dieing myself. Sending her out there would be the same as a death sentence. Making my decision grudgingly, I walked back past her into the common room to start a fire. I’d always been a loner, and I liked it that way. Now, he’d have to worry about so many other things.

“If you stay here, you listen to me when I tell you to. If you’re here, you can make yourself useful. My names Ken, yours?” I was in the middle of setting up a fire pyramid when she squealed happily and hugged my frosty form from behind.

It might have felt nice, but as it was her warm skin made my cold skin tingle like needles brushing up against me. “Thank you! My names Selene, you won’t regret anything. I can cook and clean and… and what else is there again?”

I slapped my forehead, sliding my hand down to rub the bridge of my nose. Was I the only person with a sense of craft or something? “Remind me again how you and everyone else survived this long?”

Taking me seriously, she started a little lecture. “Well… every time you kill enough people you have the chance of gaining a random care package. Plus whatever those people had of course. There’s random shelters or loot stashed around the hills for us to find as well. You can find new clothing, weapons, food and camping supplies.”

“So everyone’s fighting over these shelters? How big did everyone else group up?” Suddenly, letting her run off to find a large group to raid him didn’t sound so good.

“Oh, maybe twenty to thirty usually, the largest being around a hundred or so. Usually just like ten or so who know each other group up at the beginning. Some groups accept strong fighters, but the few groups I ran into were way over my head. Most everyone else has tents or shelters set up in camps by now. Everyone’s been struggling for food as far as I can tell. There were a few dilapidated farms out on the plains areas, but other than that everyone’s just hunted for food.”

“Wait… why didn’t anyone else hole up like me? If they had any earth mages in their group, they could grow food pretty easily. I mean, I just started using my powers and I could probably make a plant grow without incantation if I had to.”

Selene looked at me as if I was a monster, but a moment later calmed down on the surface. “Uh… I guess most earth mages get taken out early on, or they’re used to make simple fortifications, like mud walls or stuff like that. Most just focus on another element when their young, or learn something like enchantment. Honestly, I’d say you use more nature magic than earth magic, but that’s just my opinion.”

“Wait what? Why don’t you use runes or magic circles then? I have terrible capability, yet I could still use circle magic at the beginning.”

“Uh… first of all, runes are expensive to buy or learn. Secondly, most kids practice chantless from a younger age. Why practice expensive runes with little battle capabilities when you can learn to survive a fight? I mean, I’m a water mage. There’s very few things I can do at my power level, and circle magic doesn’t really work well with me. It takes too much concentration and multitasking.”

“Oh…” If runes were expensive, should he hide his own? Nah, most were concealed anyway. His runes would look like random scrawls to anyone but a dragon anyway, not to mention you had to understand the runes themselves to get it to work with your intent.

“So, how’d you do it? I mean, someone buying and studying runes usually garners a lot of attention.”

Groaning a little from the reminder about my situation, I leaned back in the bench staring at the fire. “Long story short, I’m from Earth. Didn’t even know anything like this existed outside mythology.”

I decided to ignore the rude gasp, as Selene’s brain tried processing everything. “Wait… how’d you get here then?”

“Oh, my parents are natives from here. Not really sure about the whole story, but they basically tried hiding me from this way of life until a couple weeks ago. When I brought out my power, my meridians gave me away. The next thing I know, I’m being transported by a man in black. Talk about flipping my world upside down.”

“Holy shit... wait, where’d you learn runes from then?”

Ah, the question I was avoiding. Whelp, there goes that pipedream of secrets. “I uh… my dragon taught me a little.”

“Your dragon knows rune magic! What the bloody hell, that’s like cheating. I’ve never even heard of dragons using runes.”

“Well… she’s from a different breed of dragon. Her variant keeps her size pretty small, and they dig tunnels often enough. Their lifestyle brought then closer to the earth, and a lot of the time they can live almost solely off of plant life. Her mother taught her some simple runes to do maintenance around their caves, keep the plants healthy and regrow fruits when needed.”

“I’ve never heard of a dragon like that before. She’s also furrier than normal you know?” She gestured at the little dragon over by the fruit rack munching on some breakfast, as we talked. It seemed like our conversation was less entertaining than her meal.

“Eh, I think she’s cuter this way. Less scary looking, and the furs softer than anything I’ve ever touched before. I’m also pretty sure nobody really summons them anymore, if anyone knows they even exist. Mine was a soul summoning, when I released my power. So there wasn’t any choice in it for me.”

“Lucky, I didn’t even have enough extra power to summon a mouse. They say the academy helps you summon a familiar if you live. I hope I get something good.”

“Yes, well I’d just be glad to survive this ordeal." That sobered her up fast, so I decided to leave her be. I made breakfast with the last of the fish, loathing the time when he was going to have to fetch the trap at the creek in this weather.

When I finished eating, I started compressing the stone bricks. It was a tiresome process, but as he worked, he started feeling more comfortable working with the fire attribute. His affinity rose only slightly, but it was better than nothing, and it got the job done.

My parents said this would happen to some extent, if I used other affinities often enough. But they also said it only rose so fast, and there were natural limits. Everyone could use any spell after all, affinity was basically whatever element you had the best connectivity with. Flexing these paths could enlarge your influence, but there was a natural limit on everyone’s body.

When I finished compressing all the stone, I carved the metal out of the tips stacking it in another corner. In the end, he had a decent pile of both iron and copper. Separating the metal was just as easy as cutting stone.

After making a simple room for storing wood, plants and materials, he sat down with some iron and experimented for an hour.

First off, he merged a few large pieces together into one seamless chunk of metal. Then, he stretched it out and molded the shape into that of a typical machete. Then he used some copper to wrap a thin string around the handle to make a comfortable grip. Lastly, he put an edge on the blade as best he could, and made a thin sheathe to carry his newest creation.

Looking up from his work, he realized the fire was almost out, meaning at least half the day had passed already!

Thinking he needed to reset his fish trap fast, and check the weather, he made for the entrance. Selene followed him happily, while Lapillus hitched a ride in his hoody.

Little did he know, Selene wasn’t particularly sneaky for an archer… She also neglected to admit how many people were tracking her the day before, when she ran into Ken.