It took Arthur an embarrassingly long time to calm down and he was glad no one was around to see him celebrating. Being the Originator of a new species, he had to maintain some dignity at least. Still, if Arthur had ever had a reason to be happy, it was now.
Arthur didn’t have much experience with online auctions, so when he didn’t need to pay the entirety of his fortune as he’d bid, he was ecstatic. 343,000 credits was a great nest egg for him to rebuild his fortune. Starting from scratch would have been annoying. Arthur pulled out his Secret Notebook. It was ten past four, two hours away from his scheduled conversation with Iris. He didn’t care.
Arthur: I won the auction.
Iris’ reply came almost instantly. Did she keep the book open twenty-four-seven?
Iris: Congratulations, How much did it cost?
Arthur raised an eyebrow at the question.
Arthur: You’re a seer. Take a guess. Shouldn’t you already know?
Iris: You know my magic doesn’t work like that Art. I see things. I’m not omniscient...
... 4,700,000 credits.
Arthur spluttered.
Arthur: You liar. You guessed the number perfectly.
Iris: That’s because I searched for the listing Art. No magic. Your girlfriend's just wicked smart.
He could feel the amusement coming through her message.
Arthur: You actually watched that movie?
Iris: Yep. And about a dozen others, though I put some of them at three times speed. The phoenix blood is in transit by the way. No instant teleportation because of how much security we’ve put on it.
Arthur grinned.
…I wish I could see you right now. You’re probably smiling like a kid.
Arthur's grin immediately disappeared.
...And now you’re trying to put on a serious face. It’s not working, is it?
Arthur: You set up some cameras in the cottage didn’t you?
He looked around his kitchen suspiciously.
Iris: If I did you’d never find them.
There was a sudden scrawling scribble as Iris tried to erase what she'd written.
Iris: That was a JOKE by the way, a joke. I didn’t set anything up. I’d never invade your privacy like that. Unless you wanted me to. God, I’m making it worse, aren’t I? They were telling me to lay off the creepiness factor too. I promise I’m not a creep, Arthur. Sincerely, honestly, truly Art, I’m not a creep.
Arthur could sense the panic in her words. The seer’s writing had lost its usual beautiful calligraphy, now a quick scrawl that was hardly legible in certain places. He chuckled at the thought of the powerful fae princess, embarrassed and tearing her hair out with the notebook in front of her. He looked at the last sentence Iris had written and then their entire conversation thus far, and quickly realised something. He wasn’t a seer, but no one could accuse him of not being observant.
Arthur: You’re not on your own, are you?
Iris took a little longer than usual to reply and when she did, Arthur could feel the guilt through her writing.
Iris: I may or may not have phoned Ayesha the second I saw your message in the notebook.
Arthur: So what’s the verdict? Are the jury happy with me so far?
Iris: Who gives a shit if they’re happy or not. I am. And besides, they all love you.
Arthur: They? Just how many people have you told about me?
Whatever the case he was glad she had told her friends about him. Arthur had dated a girl before who was too embarrassed to be seen with the poor orphan who wore old ratty clothes. He'd done it once. Never again.
Iris: Ayesha and three others. And an adviser I hired for relationship management. Cut me some slack. You’re the first person I’ve ever courted unless you count the time I’d promised to marry my dad when I was four. Clearly, I need all the help I can get.
Arthur: I'm up against THE Fatebreaker. You’re giving me some impossible competition here.
Iris: Okay Art. You’ve teased me enough now. We’re wasting words here. I was supposed to teach you ritual magic today. Did you do what I said?
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The seer had instructed him to do a deeper analysis of his soul splinter skill. Ritual skills were the closest thing to unstructured magic that still fell within the parameters of the System. Using ingredients as powerful as his own risked failure, never mind the fact the ritual was legendary rank. He’d been pouring ether into the skill matrix intermittently over the last few days to get more comfortable using it. It was also how he’d learned the general layout of how the ritual would look. Arthur quickly sketched it out into the notebook.
It was a chaotic mess of interconnected circles covered in a scrawling language that he’d be drawing with his blood. He labelled the places he knew where certain things would go; Wovan’s core, the Titans bone that would make her new body, the majority of the ether-infused liquid—his blood—Earth's Blessing and the Space Gem that would hopefully enhance the spider’s affinity with magic.
It took him two minutes to jot things down from his memory and he quickly ran some ether through the skill so he could compare his drawing to the mental image in his head. It was perfect. Iris didn’t reply immediately, she was a master at ritual magic but this did come from a legendary skill. She wouldn't be able to understand it instantly.
And I was wrong.
At the thirty-second mark, Iris started to make annotations over his drawing in a language he couldn’t read, even with Myriad Tongues. She added a few smaller circles, crossed out a few lines from his original drawing and added a few swirling conduits connecting different segments of the ritual. All her annotations were done in red ink which made it easy to see the differences between the original drawing and her personal flourishes.
The notebook glowed once to remind them their time was coming to an end. Finally, she redrew the newly updated ritual diagram on a fresh page, labelling where he should place every ingredient with added notes for things he could switch up.
Arthur: So what's the verdict? Is the ritual good or not?
Iris: It's perfect and terrible at the same time. Perfect in that it's a ritual that'll do its own kind of soul surgery on a person and terrible because I know it's impossible for anyone to use except you. Honestly, I'm surprised the System didn't give you any warning to avoid using the skill. Make a mistake and you risk blowing up your soul. With how strong your are right now, I wouldn't be surprised if it made half your planet uninhabitable. Honestly, my guts are telling me to tell you to leave it until I can come in person to assist you, but I know I can't stop you just because I'm worried.
Arthur: And the changes you made?
Iris: They're mostly cosmetic to make the energy flow easier and thus ease the strain on you. The script is archaic, like dead language kinds of ancient, but I know enough to improve the effect by seven percent. I could do more, but the ritual is as perfect as they get; my modifications are only possible because I know you're using your blood instead of ether-infused water. Any more and I run the risk of destabilising things.
This was Iris' field of expertise and he could feel her confidence literally bleeding through her words. They really should start charging more for these notebooks. They carried on talking for a while, Iris entering teacher mode and giving him all the advice he needed to make the ritual as successful as possible. The Soul Splinter ritual thankfully didn't require a chant, so Arthur wasn't worried about messing things up on that front at least.
By the time the conversation drew to a close, he was both more and less confident than he'd been. Yes, he knew a lot more now, but he also knew how many different ways things could go wrong.
Iris: I just got a notification that your package is arriving. It's being delivered by a Shana—they're beings of pure energy—so don't be alarmed if you notice anything pop up in your basement. About your Trusty bowl. I don't know how using it will affect your ritual, but I'm 80% sure it'll be perfectly fine.
Even as Arthur read through Iris' final message, he scrambled out of his kitchen and took the stairs to the basement three at a time. It was just like the seer to tell him his package was being delivered by a real person—right to the centre of his home no less—at the very last second. He arrived in his basement just in time to see the Shana disappear, at least he assumed it was the Shana. Arthur would best describe the creature as an orange light, a being that didn't have a body per se or any defining parameters to how large they were.
The room was bright when Arthur walked in and now it was not. That was it. It's like finding out a pleasant summer breeze is actually a sapient lifeform. What kind of existence is that? Arthur sincerely doubted the Shana thought and perceived the world the same rigid way those with physical forms did. Did the Shana have their own societies? Could two of them exist in the same place or would they just merge together? Arthur didn't know, and he had to actively stop himself from searching them up on the System store.
Right there on his workbench was an ornate black box covered in glowing golden runic script. Even protected by whatever magic Iris had set up, he could sense the potent regenerative powers contained within. The abilities of a phoenix, to come back from death and be reborn; it made his own regeneration look like a joke in comparison. Approaching it, Arthur saw that there was a piece of paper attached to the bottom of it. It was a note, written in the familiar handwriting he saw every time he opened the Secret Notebook.
I know it's tempting but don't drink it. You'll explode, or get magical cancer or turn to ash. This came from a level 340 phoenix at the height of her power, it's not a dragon core taken from the stillborn corpse of a hatchling.
Arthur didn't need the warning. For once, his bestial instincts, usually raring to go in the presence of such an incredible treasure, were completely silent. It knew the phoenix blood was special, a source of power to be coveted, but it also knew that it was in no way shape or form ready to consume it.
Arthur opened the box. It was just as ostentatious on the inside, a velvet fur lining with a small divot in the centre holding a crystal vial. The temperature in the room immediately shot up by thirty degrees and Arthur was certain an ordinary human would have been incredibly uncomfortable right now. Arthur just felt toasty.
The crystal vial contained a single drop of phoenix blood. It was like someone had taken the essence of fire and condensed it down into a liquid. Staring at it was like gazing directly at the sun, though it was nowhere near as bright. Arthur identified it.
Arthur read through the blood's description and grinned. It was the first item Arthur had seen that had gone through refinement and pushed it to the peak of legendary. Refining was a risky process. One mistake and you'd lose the product entirely.
Someone who had the confidence to do it on phoenix blood was a master of their craft. The Titan bone was set to arrive at any moment. All the ingredients were ready. He just needed to bleed another seven hundred odd litres of blood from his body before Wovan returned to see the light of day. There were sixty-seven hours left before the world would learn of his location. He'd need to be ready to give them a good showing.
Etherious: Originator
Etherious: The Locus of Power has gone live. As a self published author doing everything myself, my novels success lies entirely on my shoulders. As such, the first day of a books launch is by far the most important time that determines how well my book will do.
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Should Wovan be an IT or a SHE?
