Year 186

We hear stories of the heroes completing their tour of the northern islands. They spent close to half a year visiting various kingdoms and cities, and apparently created some defensive devices too. Then came the stories about assassins.

The heroes were attacked by assassins armed with hero-items. This wasn’t in any of the official channels, but it was clearly noticed by my Valthorn’s network of spies.

So much so that one of the top spymasters came to me with a request to send more people to the North.

“You have the floor, Master Intip.”

“The North has been one of the more difficult places to crack. The natural archipelago means news travels slower via conventional means, and magical messages are often disturbed by the magical winds.”

“We face those challenges elsewhere.” Lumoof responded. Certainly, islands, and magical disturbances are not exactly uncommon.

“Indeed. But we’re facing assassins. Already ten of our informants have been killed, and our own agents are on the run. We need high tier individuals in the North, not just the regular rank and file in the level 30s to 50s.”

At this point I asked. “Do we not have higher level spies?”

“Spies are essentially a thief and an informant. Their classes are fundamentally criminal in nature. The spies we have essentially recruited from the noble classes, who traditionally served their lords to spy on their neighbours.” Internal disputes between my vassals, essentially. They die quickly, and often, so the good ones don’t last very long. This was a flaw, clearly. I did not realise that my dependence on my trees as my main intelligence network meant there was no real program to develop my espionage and spy forces, even if I could grant them higher-ranked classes, they still need opportunity, and challenges.

But it’s too late. I’ll have to fix it for future conflicts. “Alright, so what do we do now.”

“We can send our higher levelled Valthorns in. Those in their early level 50s, and train them in some spy-skills.” Master Intip proposed. “This would give our spies the combat competence needed if there’s a fight with whoever’s killing our informants.”

Edna paused. “These... assassins, are they related to the Laenza?”

Kei, who happened to be in the meeting, “When I was there I encountered and engaged the services of another organisation. The Rosewood Alliance.”

Master Intip nodded. “The Rosewoods are one of my primary suspects, but we are still attempting to establish a motive. They’ve used to work with us, at least, on a lower level, but something has changed recently, and they’ve refused to talk. Those that we captured didn’t say much, except they won’t work with us.”

“Any suspicions?”

Kei paused. “Is it because of the heroes?” At that point, Kei repeated what her experience was, and what she said to the Rosewoods.

The spymaster clearly nodded. “I suspected it had something to do with our earlier mission, but we were not aware of the contents of that conversation. It’s clearly something that should have been shared a lot earlier.” The spymaster glared at Kei and Kei shifted uncomfortably.

“It seemed they already knew it’s us, then, and also had something to do with the heroes. How does this tie in with the assassination attempts on the heroes? How did these group of assassins have hero-items, and what are their motives?”

“My sources claim it is an ancient feud, they are a cult of demonic worshippers that attempts to harness the demon’s powers to bring salvation.”

That sounds really familiar.

“They are often mixed with those who used blood magic, but a few decades ago those who used blood magic separated from them, and they’ve pretty much disappeared for a while. But few know the truth.”

Edna frowned. “If they have hero items they can threaten any of us. These hero items are not so easily found, so how did they get their hands on it?”

“And hero items are all really bulky if they need to be recharged.”

“This doesn’t make sense.” Lumoof repeated. “If their goal was to annihilate the heroes all along, Alvin was there right for the picking.”

Edna jumped it. “It’s possible that there’s another group, these Rosewoods who are working against them. These two forces are battling it out in the dark.”

“Lady Edna, are you speculating that the Rosewoods consider us aligned to these... hero-hunters?”

“Possibly, but our past action of healing Alvin should clearly suggest we are not affiliated.”

At this point I jumped in. “There’s also the Laenza... what’s going on with that?” How many ‘parties’ are at play here?

“The Laenza are more of a loose alliance of hero-friends, but there are bad elements who’ve infiltrated them who are from these hero-hunters.” Our spymaster explained. “They used to be more of a supporting cast, hoping to ally with the heroes for benefits should they survive, but they’ve weakened considerably after some bad bets.”

One of the Lords stepped in. “Alright, the Northern Islands are a collection of small nations, the largest of them hold the biggest islands. Are they all pro-heroes?”

“No. Some of them are outright anti-heroes despite being part of the 4 temples. There’s an odd relationship where the temples tolerate their heretical behavior.”

“And how do they get away with it?”

“They justify it politically. That it’s not a religious disagreement, but a political one. That they disagree on heroes on political principles.”

“That kind of shit gets accepted?”

“The ways the 4 temples blend propaganda, rhetoric and the twisting of words is quite an artform.” The spymaster commented.

Lumoof actually laughed. “To be fair, as religious leaders, we are often asked to take sides on political matters. So many of the kingdoms and vassals of Aeon had asked for special status and recognition in the name of faith.”

“Alright, so what now? We need more resources in the North, correct? More firepower. But that doesn’t solve our problem of lacking information and losing our network. Having the swords to back up our people is one thing, but these people were there for decades.” One of the Lords brought the conversation back on topic.

“Indeed. But it is the best we can offer at the moment. It is also a risk, because with hero-items on the table, it is possible that these hero hunters may use them on us if they feel sufficiently threatened.”

“Wait, wait. Let’s take a step back. What are we trying to achieve in the North?”

“Build a network of informants, in order to have valuable military and hero-related information. Keep ourselves informed on their movements, so that we can prepare for any unusual movements.”

Was this really necessary?

-

“Aria.” I activated the ice mirror that linked me with Aria. Lumoof was present, so that I could speak through him normally. “Do you have informants in the North?”

“Nope. I’m a hermit, remember? All I do is hide in my part of the world.”

Ah. I had hoped they had informants in the North, given her general proximity.

-

> Only the tales of merchants and adventurers. <

Ah. Another rejected one.

-

Was spying really the only way to gain information?

“Are there any nations in the north, with proper diplomatic relations that we can contact? That can act as our informant of the north?”

Surely there are magical solutions to this, perhaps magical farsight or something to that effect? My mages quickly commented, yes, there are such spells to allow ‘remote-viewing’, but they are costly and require more mana than normal.

This led me back to my earlier research on ocean-crossing roots. Previously I had limitations, in that my trees had to surface at certain distances. Given that there are vast swaths of oceans where there’s absolutely no land, this made this method unrealistic.

Next, was the idea with Stella, for a ‘permanent’ portal. That meant opening a portal linking my continent and the North, and then, through that permanent portal, extend my trees to the north.

Stella posited it is not yet possible, since she would still have to close the portal, and that meant large segments of my trees would be disconnected from the network. Was this really a solution, or just a stop-gap?

“So, why do you want to open a portal there?”

“Spread my trees? Having my trees there means I can access the magical energies there.” I answered, ignoring that trees also extend my vision and intelligence network.

“Do you have some kind of magical feeler?”

“Yes, pretty much.” I wasn’t lying. My magical labs are essentially magic sensors.

“Why not test it out?” Stella proposed and so she opened a magical portal, with the assistance of other young [void mages]. My roots went through it, and I could see a new place. I felt the cold, and my trees felt the chill too. A familiar sensation.

Cold. I quickly spawned more trees, and Stella watched more trees appear along the path of my roots. The portal opened somewhere in the largest island in the north, but even so, the overall population of the islands tends to cluster around the coasts.

I didn’t know where I was relatively speaking. The portal just opened somewhere in the proximity of the northern islands, but I just kept expanding.

“Alright, close the portal.”

The portal closed and it severed my roots. I instantly felt the loss of those new trees on the other side. It hurts.

Losing trees hurts. “Ah. Open it up again.”

Patreeck immediately shielded me from the cries and sorrow from my other trees. It seemed that even till now, I am vulnerable to the sensations felt by my trees.

Stella nodded and opened it up again. I sent my roots over, and didn’t find the trees.

“Hmmm... it seemed that my portal drifted and did not open in the same place.” Stella mused and the other void mages joined in.

“That’s not good.”

“Unless we have something like a beacon, it may be hard to lock the portal to a specific location. Void magic is inherently volatile like that, but the portal will hold.”

“Can’t you open a normal portal?”

“I only have void mana, you’ll have to get someone else to do it.”

“Ah.” I gathered the archmages, and they commented that maintaining a long term portal would drain huge amounts of mana, so it’s not feasible for them. “Surely if Stella can do it, you guys can open a portal too?”

“Well, it will consume more mana and will transmit our presence to the whole world.”

Oh. That’s a distinction between a normal magic portal and a void magic portal! Void magic is imperceptible to others. Which, then Stella quickly debunked.

“Not exactly. I can sense the use of void magic by my students. If I’m not wrong, if there’s someone who could use void magic, they would sense my portal on the other side. After all, I’m doing the magical equivalent of connecting to points through the void-space.”

Huh. So no one uses portals to invade because using portals is like telling the whole world I’m here. But how does a portal differ from a teleport spell? I mean, it looks like there is, but is there?

“A portal is a folding of space. A teleport is a folding of self into a shell, and then sent through space. There’s a distinction in the execution of the spell.” An archmage explained. Taking this concept, do the demons open a portal through the rifts, or are they ‘teleporting’ to our world?

“A portal for sure. Those rifts are portals.”

“If the demons can do it, why can’t we?”

“We don’t have their level of magical understanding.” Stella said. She’s been levelling up since her limiter was cleared, and now she is approaching level 110s. I gave her special permission to join the Valthorns in the level 120 dungeon raids, to help her level up.

“Alright, okay. Can we apply the teleport concept to travelling through worlds?”

Stella nodded. “I’m not opening a portal when I travel through worlds. I’m only floating through it on a little ship. But I can’t remotely send someone on my ship, when I’m not on it.“

“Unless we teach everyone to be a void mage.”

“Well, yes.”

-

Alka, my field scientist, wanted to experiment on the star-mana and void-mana interactions. Of course, the idea is simply to replicate the mechanics of the demon king’s deathbomb. Alka, being more of a generic mage, had to spend a lot of time figuring out how the demon king’s tainted core worked.

He had to make smaller experiments first, in an attempt to understand the concepts used in the massive tainted demon core. Not all of it was relevant, after all, if Stella’s understanding is correct, this core is mainly a battery, and also a world-portal. We’re trying to understand how it reacted with star mana, which is not part of its original design.

Or is it? I’m not exactly sure whether the demons are that deliberate in the way they engineered the demon core, such that they blow up on exposure with sufficient accumulated star mana.

“If this core is designed to blow if star mana hit it, then wouldn’t it be possible to just hit it with star mana, cause it to blow up, and take down the demon king with it? We saw from our own earlier battle that the demon core is hidden somewhere, and has a threshold it hits before it blows. It can endure a certain number of star mana before exploding.”

“Or the demon king’s own energy regulates and suppresses the core from blowing up.” Kei retorted. “If so, the idea of extracting a demon king’s core is probably futile because it will blow up once taken out of it’s suppressed state.”

With no one to ask, and no clear understanding of how the entire core worked, it’s a risk we would have to take when that day comes. For now Alka kept experimenting. Hopefully, with the additional knowledge, we could figure out whether it can be safely extracted.

His experiments, as always, caused explosions of various sizes. Explosions are good, after all, this entire research is about making better bombs.

It built on years and years of continuous experiments, even when I wasn’t particularly paying attention, and he came up with bigger stuff. Bigger, stronger bombs by weaving magic a little tighter, timing them a little closer, and using improved amplification spells and designs. A long process of small incremental changes.

Void magic and the interactions with star mana offered a chance for a quantum leap. The change when man moved from conventional explosives to nuclear bombs.

Alka’s initial experiments, though, somehow scared him. The way star mana and void mana interacted was just naturally explosive, and there was something exponential at work, even if we didn’t understand it.

“This may destroy the world.” Alka privately relayed his worries. “We should never get to that point.” Alka’s calculations, at least based on our data points, that amount was significantly higher than what we or what we think the heroes are likely to have, but we don’t know what’s the upper limit of the heroes.

But they could achieve it. The heroes, and the right amount of void mana could pretty much destroy the entire world. “I would not ask you to get there. Our goal is to end the cycle, not end the world.”

Alka nodded, and went back to his experiments, but Patreeck mentioned concerns of his mental state, as he walked ever deeper into more and more complex magic.

-

Back on topic on the Northern Islands.

“So what do we do?” One of the lords complained of the sixth meeting about the north. “We’ve had so many meetings, and no conclusion. Are we sending muscle, or are we not sending muscle?”

“I thought we already established we are going to send, but we are now trying to figure out how to avoid hero items being used against us?” Another one responded.

The spymaster shrugged. “The hero item is essentially a great leveller for the north. On the Central Continent we can count on Aeon’s overwhelming power to offset the hero item’s advantage.”

I could open portals, but already, I could sense my power projection is not great. The portals did not ‘transmit’ power very well, quite unlike the demonic rifts.

There clearly was a qualitative difference in the demonic rifts and the portals. Why did the rifts allow me to ‘transfer’ or ‘project’ power to an entire world with just a small loss, but the portals imposed greater power-loss via transmission? Was it a quality of the portals, that they had lower throughput?

I brought up this issue to the group, and Stella, surprisingly, nodded. “I think it’s just the ‘size of the ‘pipe’. As you know, portals cost mana to maintain, and the more power you push through the portal, it’ll also cost mana. Just as how it cost a lot of mana for me to send Lumoof to the other side. I believe the same is with the portals.”

“So if you open a full-powered portal, I could increase the power output on the other side?’

“Theoretically yes.” A test soon proved it to be true, he felt the trees on the other side gain strength they didn’t have, but again, the portal lasted two hour before closing, and fully consuming the mana of all the gathered void mages.”

Instead of using the portals, I thought about Lumoof. Lumoof was my avatar and my link of power through him is linked in the system. Could he function as a conduit? A wireless connection?

So, I summoned him, and sent him through a portal. Thankfully, it’s still within the same world so the spell didn’t cost all of their void mana. Then, I activated the active avatar state.

At that moment, Lumoof, who was alone in the middle of nowhere, glowed, and then he levitated, and a magical frame resembling a tree appeared around him. The roots of the magical tree embedded itself into the ground.

I am now in the North.

Lumoof could only enter into this state a third of the time, the rest of the time he would have to rest, but between Lumoof’s self and the portals, I could theoretically use Lumoof as an anchor to send more people through, especially in combination with my Vine-Ropeway Network which allows me to send anything between two connected trees.

“Aeon, with this, you could theoretically invade any of the other continents?” Lumoof mentally pinged, in this state our conversations are through our shared mind.

“Indeed, but doing so means you are disabled and are locked into this tree form. It is less useful than your normal form.”

“I certainly don’t see it that way. We could use it on other worlds too, and expand your tree’s reach there.”

Indeed. Lumoof would be the key in any demon world invasion, such that I do not have to fear the collapse of any portals.

Ah. Back to the meeting.

“Send the muscles. You will have reinforcements.” I declared to the group. “Lumoof is already in the North, and through him, my presence will be there.”

We will focus on those plans some other day, but for now, it’s time to crack the North.

After decades of being locked to the Central Continent, it was time to make full use of my avatar, and infest the North with my trees.