Time passed quickly while John trained his aura circuits. Not only was he able to use the perceiver circuit for five minutes now but he’d also formed his aura shield. It was now time to meet his teacher. John hid his aura using the Astari method the holocube had taught him, and entered Sor Al’s chamber. He wanted to surprise her. He hoped to give her a scare.

“What have you done?” Sor Al gasped as soon as she saw John. “Why can’t I sense you?”

“It’s an Astari hiding method. It’s useful for hunting.”

“Quickly, draw the circuit for me,” Sor Al said with enthusiasm, a blank holospace appearing before John. He drew the circuit as best he could, his finger tracing the circuit diagram within the body shaped outline. He marked the nodes and internodes, the aura generators and condensers, finally marking the rectifiers in red. “Such elegance, not even a strand of aura is wasted. Such complexity. I’m surprised you can use it at your level,” Sor Al exclaimed. Of course he could use it. The holocube had taught it to him after years of preparation.

“It looks a little like the word for ‘stealth’,” said John.

“Vaguely. Our own weaving is so much more unrefined, using the words as templates. This is so much more. How many other wonders are you keeping from me?”

John scratched his head while he thought. “That’s it.” He wondered if his aura blade could be considered a wonder. She’d already seen it during his fight with the millipede monster so she probably wasn’t as impressed.

“If only we had gone back for that cube.”

John sighed. He missed having his cube too. They had been through so much together. John stopped hiding his aura and waited for Sor Al to notice his progress.

“You’ve gained basic mastery over the perceiver circuit,” Sor Al nodded. “Well done.”

“Can you teach me how to weave the elements now?”

“All right. Let us start with fire.” It was finally time. John had waited for this day for so long. The day he would start wielding magic...or start weaving the elements as the elves called it. Magic sounded so much better.

At that moment John heard a ping in the chamber. Sor Al waved her hand. A holographic image of the leader appeared before the two. “Realm mistress, I hope I am not disturbing.”

“Not at all, star dancer Linera.” Linera. So that was the leader’s name. It didn’t seem to matter. Nobody ever used it.

“The navigator has located a planet with a divine tree in our vicinity. Where there is a divine tree there may be a waygate. We will emerge from the aether in a few minutes and orbit the planet soon after. Do you wish to be a part of the boarding party?”

“Of course. It will do us good to walk under the blue sky again. We shall move to the docking bay now.”

The leader’s hologram dissipated into nothingness.

“We?” asked John. “Am I coming too?”

“Of course. Don’t you want to?”

“I do, I do,” John said quickly. This would be his first expedition on another planet. He wondered if he’d be able to smell the difference in the air, or feel it in the gravity.

John followed after Sor Al to the docking bay where the blade dancers stood.

“This way, realm mistress,” an elf bowed, leading them to one of the spacecrafts. Karamen waved at them from the boarding ramp of a neighboring blade dancer. John nodded back and boarded the craft.

It looked like the elves were going to land quite a few parties on this planet. John spotted six blade dancers being boarded and each could hold a hundred. Was the divine tree so important?

“What’s a divine tree?” John asked.

“You shall soon find out,” Sor Al replied. “Remember to keep your aura shield activated. It will stave off any infection we encounter on the planet.”

John nodded and a purple luster infused his skin. It was as easy to maintain the circuit at this level as it was to breathe. If he used more power, and created an aura shield as large and brilliant as Sor Al’s, he’d soon grow tired. The spherical shield shining around Sor Al made sure that everyone on board stayed at least three feet away from her, just the way she liked it. Sor Al disliked close contact. He wondered why. Had something traumatic happened to her or was she just born that way?

A hologram of the leader appeared within the blade dancer. “There seems to be a small settlement of wood elves in the vicinity of our landing zone. Though they are cousins, remember to remain vigilant,” she said.

John thought back to his lessons with the holocube. Wood elves were elves who worshiped the lost Mother Tree. They eschewed technology in order to live as one with nature. He had fought against a wood elf in a holographic duel. They were so agile that sometimes it seemed like they were walking on the air.

As they flew closer to the ground, John noticed a huge tree, so tall that all the other trees in the forest barely came up to its lower branches. It was vibrant and green. John would take at least three days to climb it. The Bright Ones had named this tree the Longevity Tree. The leaves, when prepared in a certain way, could extend a mortal’s lifespan. The elves were nigh immortal so they probably didn’t care about this. John didn’t care either. He still had a long time left before he died of old age.

“That is a divine tree,” said Sor Al.

“I thought so. The Bright Ones call it the Longevity Tree.” The blade dancers circled around the divine tree as they flew downwards. When they had reached near the treeline of the forest they flew onward and landed on a cleared field. The landing zone was a few hundred yards away from the divine tree.

The blade dancers landed with a slight jolt and the boarding ramps extended out with a swish. Sor Al and John were the last to disembark. Outside, a group of wood elves gathered around the blade dancers. They were much shorter than the high elves, standing approximately six and a half feet tall. There was a green tinge under their eyes. An elf stepped forward to greet the leader. It was hard to tell the age of an elf, but one could tell that this elf was very old. His hair was still black but he had wrinkles on his face. His eyes held a glassy look. Though he was fit he didn’t seem as agile as the elves John was used to seeing. Weren’t elves immortal? How could they age?

“Welcome to planet Barla,” the old elf said. “I am the tribe’s chieftain, Riel.”

“Greetings chieftain Riel,” said the leader.

“If I may ask, what is the purpose of your visit to our land?”

The leader pointed towards the divine tree, “We came in search of a waygate. They are often in close proximity to a divine tree.”

“Indeed there was a functional waygate here once,” the old chieftain sighed, “but unfortunately, no longer. The waygate once led to Ayrelar.”

Ayrelar? John thought with surprise. Ayrelar was the ancestral home of all elves. Sor Al had told him it was destroyed ten thousand years ago. There were few living elves who had walked under the blue sky of Ayrelar.

“What happened to the waygate?” asked the leader.

“The stories say it stopped working when an asteroid hit the planet. Come, let us not speak here. Our homes are not far away. Let us talk and feast and sing. We have not received guests for a long time.”

“Very well cousin, lead the way.”

Sor Al whispered to John, “Do you notice anything strange about these wood elves?”

John activated his perceiver circuit. “There is something wrong with their aura. Something dirty, like a pollutant.” There was a darkness within them, like oil floating on the surface.

“Remain wary while you are here.”

“Should we warn the others?”

“Don’t bother. The star dancer should have already noticed it,” said Sor Al.