Adamant Blood

It was a new day and it was time for Isoko to try creating her very first spell.

Mark was happy for her, but also way too jealous.

Isoko grinned as she walked beside Mark, down the road to Duchess Elaria Valen's mansion. "Does it make me a terrible person to love that I'm better at this than you?"

Mark burst out laughing. The sound was lost among the tram moving over there, carrying tens of people, the cars on the road, and the sounds of soft music filling the air from the open front of a cafe, where people were sipping coffee and eating scones. It was a good day, and Mark was happy for Isoko.

Mark seriously-but-sarcastically said, "The most terrible person in the world, for sure."

Isoko was soft in that moment. Soft smile, soft joy. She softly said, "Thanks."

They reached Elaria's house soon enough, walking past turrets hidden in the walls, past warding schemes hidden in the cultivated bushes and flower gardens. There was magic there, in those bushes. Small things that weren't even there, most of the time, and which built upon the politeness that people usually exhibited when dealing with the mother of the General of the Settlement.

The Valen Family wasn't allowed to have a standing army, like most noble families, but they were allowed their magic, and they knew their stuff. Most of the time, most people wouldn't even notice that there was magic in those bushes. Mark certainly hadn't until bees had attacked some people trying to sneak in to steal some roses. Elaria had waved it off as kids being kids, because that's what it had been.

The Valens did have one guard, though.

Sekail, the gruff, scarred 'butler' of the Valen household, answered the door. He was a lot warmer these days than he had been when Mark first came to speak with Elaria, all those months ago, but he was still the Valen family's only knight allowed to them by the Aluatha Empire. Most of the Valen's power had been removed 75 years ago, after the Reveal and the ousting of all dragonists from power, so Sekail had never seen the height of the family's power. But he had been around for the birth of Aurora and Kandon, and he was a small power in his own right… Mark thought. He had never seen the guy do anything, though, which was fine. Mark didn't need to know if he was strong or not. Sekail just looked the part.

"Greetings, Sekail," Mark said, to start, as was proper. "We come for more lessons from the Duchess."

Sekail stepped back and let them inside. When they walked past he looked out where they had been, and then he closed the door. He was spooked a little, but that was normal for him.

"She's in the mage room," Sekail said, and then he followed them that way.

Mark and Isoko went to the mage study, which was a bunker room that did not look like a bunker room. It was located down a wide, central staircase, through an archway, and past a small hall. Elaria was inside, sipping tea and reading reports, in the middle of the large, featureless stone room. Even the light was coming in from the edges of the ceiling, so that no solid sources of light were visible at all.

It was sort of like how it was inside the Binding; a mage would see their soul in a way that there appeared to be light, but there wasn't really light at all.

Elaria looked up from her tablet and smiled. "Mark! Isoko! I was hoping you would show up early, and you have." With a serious tone, she asked Isoko, "You ready?"

Isoko answered, "I am ready to Alter my Binding."

The Powers that a person Awakened in the Tutorial, through the introduction of Prismatic Mana to an undifferentiated soul, were solid additions to the soul that allowed the user to have Powers. Mark's Binding was Union, Adamantiumkinesis, and Incorruptible Body, all at once. His Binding was very complicated.

Isoko's Binding was Platinum Body, and it was pretty darned simple; it made her one element, all throughout, and it empowered her in every physical way possible, which was mostly categorized as a Strength modifier and a Speed modifier. Isoko had a 5x Strength score and a 2.5 Speed score, along with a thousand-kilo body when Full Platinum, so that 5x Strength modifier was a whole lot more than just 5x, but that's what the scanners labeled it as. More than that, while Platinum Body was primarily a Body Power, it had a full spectrum of Power Levels, in all of the Body, Shaper, Mind, Natural, Arcane, and Arch categories. This meant that her initial Binding was geared toward protecting and empowering her, while also giving her 'untapped' strength in every other category.

Elaria nodded at Isoko's serious answer. "Mark and I will wait beyond the glass, I'll shut the door, and turn on the holoprojectors to help visualize. Now remember: you can come out of your soul and go back in whenever you want before you start Altering, but when you start Altering then it must be done all at once and solidly. If you get 50% of it, then that should be good enough for a first try. Anything less than that must be ruthlessly culled out of your Binding and then you must astrally stretch to exhaustion for a day, otherwise you risk permanent damage.

"Altering a Binding is a very big deal, and you know this, but I am repeating it so the severity of it is not understated.

"Do you understand?"

Isoko stood strong, saying, "I understand, teacher." She bowed. "Thank you for all you have done."

Elaria judged Isoko for a brief moment, and then she stood strong too, saying, "I wish you well, apprentice."

And then Elaria grabbed her chair and left the room.

Mark lingered for a small moment to say, "Good luck!"

Isoko noticed Mark and she appreciated him, but she was fully focused on the task at hand.

Mark left her to it.

The door closed. The wall went from opaque, to transparent, and Isoko was already sitting down on a cushion in the center of the room. The lights were bright, but Elaria touched a screen by the transparent wall and the lights dimmed. It was quiet in there; Mark knew. Now it was also dim.

Elaria touched a button that was already set up, and some holograms displayed in the room.

On the left was a platinum sphere about 2 meters across, encapsulating the words 'In The Rain', and surrounded by the 6 colors of the Power Hex; auroras of Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, and Purple. The Orange was a spike of power headed off to the side, like a mountain inside orange mist. The whole thing was a representation of Isoko's Platinum Body; her main Binding given to her by the Prismatic Mana and ritual of the Tutorial, and also the graft of Power that had been given to her by Freyala, as represented by the orange mountain surrounded by mist.

The center was platinum and the rest was an excess of power, because that's how Platinum Body looked to Isoko, inside.

To the right of Isoko's Map of Platinum Body was a much smaller, airy sphere 20 centimeters across, surrounding the words 'Above It All'. It was an indistinct sphere that was not really a sphere at all, and more like a collection of winds, and it was made of green. Green was the color of Shaper Powers and Isoko was going for Wind Shaper as her 'Flight Spell'.

There were lots of qualified flight spells. 'Flight' was a good one. Flight would have been made of the Red of Arcane. Isoko wanted more than just normal flight, though.

She wanted her birthright Power that the System and the Tutorial never granted her.

She wanted to fly with wind, like her grandmother, the supervillain Wandering Sage.

Elaria voiced Mark's concern, "I hope she manages it. She certainly wants it enough."

Mark asked, "If she fails she can go for normal Flight, right? There won't be a Breaking of the Binding, will there?"

"She can't break her Binding today," Elaria said, but not any more relaxed. "Both of you can experiment a whole lot more than you already are before you experience any sort of catastrophic failures at all, or the need to compromise to a lesser spell like most people eventually do. I just gave that warning about astral stretching because that's the proper thing to do. No, the real issue is going to happen when she either makes this magic and it's fragile and useless and she never manages to get better at it, to properly Alter the magic into her soul, or, she does everything perfectly and it's still not a good fit for her. She does weigh a thousand kilos when Full Platinum. That is a lot of weight to displace with the power available to Wind Shaper. Too much, I would say…" Elaria's voice drifted away as she stared through the glass at Isoko's back. She whispered, "She does want it a lot, though."

Mark watched Isoko meditate, and he thought about his own situation.

Mark's Binding was complex as hell. It was not nearly as simple as Platinum Body, because Adamantiumkinesis and Union were his main Powers, and both of them were variable as the aurora sky of Daihoon. Incorruptible Body was a lot simpler than everything here and actually provided grounding to the other two, but Mark's Incorruptible was layered in with Adamantiumkinesis and Union, and that made Incorruptible Body complex as hell, too.

In comparison to Isoko's platinum sphere surrounded by auroras, with the orange mountain of Union, Mark's inner world was black on black on black; Adamantium mana, throughout. That fact also increased his difficulty of understanding his Binding.

But there was some good news.

Mark wanted the spell Protect, and the Map for that spell was a perfect sphere surrounding and protecting everything else. It should be doable… Mostly. Making Protect would take up pretty much all of Mark's loose Binding, though; the parts that weren't already in use by Incorruptible Body, Adamantiumkinesis, and Union. But back to the bad news: Union and Adamantiumkinesis connected to the world, and thus the 'edge' of Mark's Binding was rather fucking complicated and hard to 'turn into a perfect sphere' without fucking something up.

Union and Adamantiumkesis wanted to connect to things.

Protect wanted to sever all connections.

Elaria was pretty sure that if Mark managed to get Protect, then many different things could happen. His Union and Adamantiumkinesis could be temporarily limited to his body, or maybe to 10 meters out, or his entire expansive Union would be Protected, meaning that Mark could try to connect to things with Union, but he would fail in that connection. Or! The best outcome: Protect around his body, while leaving his Powers unaffected. Mark knew which one he wanted to happen…

But another issue was the base of the magic.

Bindings, all of them, surrounded a simple seed of power.

Mark's Bindings were built on 3 memories. A fishing trip with Dad; Adamantiumkinesis. Mom cleaning the house; Originally Healthy Body, but it had become Incorruptible after the Battle For Memphi. And making friends with a rival rugby player in a Freyalan healing center; Union.

Upon those seeds came Mark's 3 Powers, and all of them were made of the adamant mana that was his soul, which came from Addashield's adamantium donation, more than a year ago.

All of that was buried so far down under the Binding that Mark could see it, like it was at the bottom of the ocean, but he couldn't actually affect it, because the bottom of the ocean had a lot of pressure to it, and those things down there were basically immovable.

Adding a perfectly round sphere of Protect around his Binding would first begin with finding a memory to base Protect around, and then layer it across his soul like a perfectly deflective shield.

So? Like? What memory would work for that?

Mark could already tell that a perfectly good shield wasn't going to work at all, and it was going to limit him a lot. He needed some memory that would work better with what he already had, which meant a malleable shield that could flow with Union and cut with Adamantiumkinesis. But how could a shield cut, and still be a shield? Obviously that was… probably possible, but Mark needed a memory for that, and it had to be a good one.

Isoko had done all of that already, and her memory of wind was strong. The memory at the center of her Platinum Body was 'In The Rain', which she had never elaborated on because it was deeply important to her, and Mark was fine with that. 'In The Rain' was easy enough to understand, even if he didn't know all of the details. 'In The Rain' was just as easy to understand as the memory she was using for the center of Wind Shaper; 'Above It All'.

Now she just had to go into herself, using her memory of 'Above It All' to make a foundation for all of her Shaper-capability to latch onto, and take all of the Green-Shaper aurora of her soul and wrap it into that spiral-flow-sphere around that memory-core.

'Simple' stuff.

Mark asked, "What does the Flight spell look like again?"

Elaria picked up an extra tablet and tapped at it, then handed it to Mark saying, "Much simpler, for sure. You should try that one. It would work with fewer complications than Protect."

'Flight' was a Red-Arcane sphere of directions and some whirly bits. It allowed for flying-type movement primarily through arcane action; not action-reaction like Shaper magic, where you pushed on something and achieved movement in the opposite direction. Just pure demonic 'it works because we say it works'; that's what arcane magic was like.

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Mark had asked questions about that a few times. 'Why is it like that?' To which Elaria had responded that that lesson was beyond the scope of the regulations she was willing to flout in order to teach them outside of a Mage Secrecy contract. She hadn't pushed either of them to sign such a contract with House Valen, but she had offered. Isoko was probably going to take her up on that offer if she managed this 'flight' magic today. Mark was less certain… But maybe it would be okay to have an actual mage contract?

Mark wanted to avoid that, though, and he could learn about magic through Inquisition training, anyway. Maybe Lola knew some other Flight-type spells?

The 'directional flight' Flight of Elaria's spell might be easy for Mark. Mark's soul was pretty much a bunch of directions, anyway. But Mark could already fly around with his Adamantiumkinesis, though, so Flight was low priority—

"She's starting," Mark said, the very second Isoko's vector turned inward.

Elaria sighed a little, then went, "It's mostly a bunch of watching, followed by success, or some frantic moments of healing that you will not interfere with."

Mark had already been told all of this before, so he had no problem saying, "I understand."

"I'm going to stay here and watch over her. You don't have to unless you want to."

Mark said, "I'll stay."

Isoko went in and out of herself several times over the next 40 minutes, but then she went inside and she stayed there. It reminded Mark of a person sleeping; their vector pointed inward and darting around in their own memories, in their dreams. There were a lot of similarities and parallels between Opening the Bindings and magic and the demons that created the first real magics. It was said that the first demon and mage came about when 'a dreamer dreamed of a demon and the demon killed its dreamer'… Or something like that. The phrase was used to refer to the birth of demons and mages tens of thousands of years ago, and it was probably not a lie, but it certainly wasn't the whole truth.

Anyway.

Isoko went inside of herself like she was lucid dreaming, and then she began to construct a False Binding out of her base memory of 'Above It All' and loose soulstuff that was Shaper-shaped, or which could become Shaper-shaped.

Mark had poked around with the loose stuff inside of his own soul, but there wasn't a whole lot of it, except for in the Arcane category, and even then there wasn't much. Sure, he had high Power Levels. Higher than most people, even higher than Isoko. But Adamant Mana, of which his soul was made, was primarily Shaper, Arch, and Arcane-aligned, Union took up everything Natural about him, and his Body was solidly Bound to be Incorruptible. So what was left? Mind.

And Quark, as Mark's Familiar, was mostly attached at the Mind location.

Mark did not have much in the way of excess Power Levels to play around with. Even if he managed a spell, he might only have 10 or 20 points of Power Level to play around with, and that much of a Power is only really good for utility.

Isoko, however, was Platinum, a non-magical metal (and not a mana type), and she had a PL of 90 in every category. Even her Orange-Natural side, Bound by Freyala into Union, was only a PL 85. So she had more 'Free Natural' available to her than Mark, with a PL 97 in Natural, but he had True Union, so he was using all of that Natural capacity himself.

Four hours later, while Mark was sitting on a chair and responding to fan mail emails, Isoko came out of her trance.

It was like she woke up, and her vector was different. Usually, as a brawny, she was mostly constrained to her body. Union allowed her some good distance, but only for Union.

But now her vector was in the air all around her.

For a moment, Isoko was happy. She felt the air all around her, and she knew what she was feeling.

Her happiness lit up her vector like a sunburst.

And then her vector went right, as she tried to push herself off of the floor as she would with a hand. She went left and slammed bodily into the wall. She tried to breathe, but nothing was happening. Her control of the air around her was stopping her from being able to breathe.

Everything went from 'it might be okay', to sudden panic, all at once—

Elaria was up, pressing a button on the screen by the transparent wall, saying, "Don't move, Isoko. You might suffocate, but if you panic you make it worse. Stay perfectly still… yes. There you go. Focus inward, do some stretches—"

Suddenly Isoko's vector snapped back to her body. Her Altered soul had shattered back to its original Binding.

Mark was standing by the window, now, looking in, trying desperately not to lose himself to a panic. But Isoko was fine. She breathed hard, gasping, but she was fine. Mark breathed with relief, too.

Isoko's voice carried through the speakers, "I think I—" She coughed, then coughed again. She took a moment. She breathed, and said, "I forgot the buffer part so I don't… slam into walls... and the breathing part." She waved a sarcastic hand. "So I can breathe! Important thing, that!"

Spells made by the System, by the Tutorial and the Prismatic Mana at the end, were more than 'I can move air around with my astral body'. They were more than just Airkinesis. Proper Airkinesis was the ability to breathe, even though you were personally controlling all the air around you. It was the ability to reactionarily stop yourself from crashing into a wall, by using the air there like it was a part of you. It was the inability to be damaged by hurtful air, and a whole lot of small 'side powers' that all added up to the System's given Airkinesis.

Constructing the spell yourself meant that you invariably messed up on some of those 'side powers'.

Brawnies were tough, though.

"I'ma brawny," Isoko said, sitting back up, trying to make everyone not worry. "I'll be fine."

Elaria said, "Yes you will. So do some stretches for an hour and then we'll try again tomorrow."

Isoko nodded and she got to stretching her astral body, her vector flowing left, right, then forward, then back, and then up and down. It was like watching someone with broken bones try to move, and Isoko was in pain the whole time, her breath ragged. But she moved herself anyway, and eventually her astral body relaxed. The damage smoothed out. She still had an hour to go before she'd be good to walk on her own, to heal naturally. Mark wanted to stay for her.

But Mark couldn't stay.

Quark blinked a notification into Mark's sight, and Mark took a phone call to the side.

"Hello, Aurora," Mark said, which was a good sign of whatever this phone call was about. If Aurora just talked over him then that was the need for instant action, but Mark had been able to get the first words in.

Elaria whipped toward his direction anyway.

General Aurora Valen, Elaria's daughter and overseer of the settlement for the next 5 years, was not in a rush. "Not an emergency. Just wanted to say thanks for saving that team yesterday and clearing the gopher's normal habitat, and ask if you have time to talk about this Inquisitor training happening in the settlement. If you know anything yet, mainly."

"I haven't spoken with anyone about that yet; not really. But Isoko and Sally have training with Lola tomorrow. I'm going with them and they said something about other people potentially joining. Some Executioner of Drakarok? Eliot will probably come with us because we're all going, but he might not."

"The buddy system is over as of a month ago. You don't have to pair up if you don't want to."

"We still choose to pair up."

"Fair enough. So there's another person joining the Inquisitors, and he'll be there at Inquisition Hall tomorrow morning. He wants to meet you. He also wants to join the eventual hunt for Resurrection Magic, out on Endless Daihoon. He just finished his paperwork for the HVP and all of his original team has decided to retire, but he wants to continue and he doesn't care which side he joins. Either heroes or villains are fine.

"I want you to either accept him in your team, shove him toward Tartu's team, or disqualify him from participation in the Hero/Villain Program at all. Noel will be talking to you later about this, as well. I imagine the guy won't be up to snuff, and that he will train more so that he can keep trying and eventually be accepted."

Mark had a difficult moment.

He was almost-friends with Tartu Solari, Domainer and son of Grand Mage Rekaro Solari.

They still bounced off of each other angrily.

The guy was pushy as shit, and Mark did not agree with him about a lot of things… mainly about the 'good' of empire, really. Everything else they were not fine on, but Tartu was an imperialist and Mark hated what the empires had tried to do to him, to herd him into accepting shackles and becoming an adamantium farm, so that became the crux of their difficulty. But when it came time to fight Tartu was a good guy to have on your team.

Mark and Tartu, as Blackvein and Spherix, had even had a few normal Hero/Villain Program events where they both talked about the horrors of the Battle For Memphi, and Mark spoke up for Tartu and Tartu spoke up for Mark. No actual fights, though. Just talking to the camera.

Tartu was currently down to a team of him, Lenny the 'mud mage', who was getting better and better at that, and Shawn, the Retribution-focused 'bouncy-brawny' fighter. Kardi was dead and everyone was glad for that.

So Tartu had an opening on his team, but they were waiting for the right guy.

Mark's team was full. He got requests all the time. Mark always said 'no'.

So what Aurora was really asking for, was for Mark to push this guy over to Tartu's team.

Mark asked, "Who is it?"

"Derek Kevins, HVP name undecided. The multiman."

Mark breathed out an, "Ohhhh… That guy."

Derek Kevins was a 'multiman', which was a catch-all term primarily for the Arcane Power, Clone, but there were other such multiman Powers out there. Clones were ephemeral things that were mostly real, and if they died then they transferred knowledge back to the rest of the clone army. Derek could create clones of himself from any of his bodies, so he usually left two in the town and then went off and threw bodies at problems until those problems died.

… Derek probably had something different than Clone, actually, considering he was still here in the settlement at all. Something better? Maybe. Mark hadn't put much thought into it until this moment right now.

Derek had had a team, but the team had left him, because the way Derek fought got people around him killed. Mostly himself, of course. As far as Mark knew, no one Derek partied with had ever been killed, but Mark didn't know much more than that. Derek was only allowed to stay in the settlement when his team abandoned him because he was pretty much impossible to kill and he learned really fast.

The guy was usually inside the command center these days, doing observation work with a few bodies. Mark had interacted with him in that way a few times, with the guy calling out targets on a kaiju kill. Mark was pretty sure he had seen Derek Kevins running across the kaiju battlefield, nude and carrying guns, and trying to get experience on the battlefield even though tens of him died every time the kaiju moved.

He did make for a good source of Union, though.

Mark said, "Tartu is probably getting a teammate."

"Acceptable. Anything works. He's more than human fodder, Mark, but he is a lot of fodder, and right now he's trying to live up to all of his potential. I will not crush that desire."

Mark nodded. "I understand."

"I'm glad to see Isoko didn't suffer any catastrophic failures, but like mother said, that sort of failure is pretty much impossible for you two. Please don't go experimenting with magic yourself until you're sure you have the next several hours open. The people on the Kaiju Team have a responsibility to remain strong at most hours."

Mark nodded, even though he was on the phone. Aurora could 'see' people across the entirety of the settlement anyway; she was a very good telepath, in addition to having Supreme Telekinesis.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Later, Mark."

Click.

Elaria asked, "Anything big happening?"

"I don't… think so— Say. You know Derek Kevins, right? The multiple guy?"

Elaria raised an eyebrow. "Ah. The dangerous thrill seeker that is not allowed to learn magic because he could turn into a goblin-like self-replicating problem? The one who regularly views kaiju battles from up close with tens of clones, while also reporting from the command center? That Derek Kevins?"

"… Er."

Elaria waited.

"He wants to join the HVP and the Inquisitors."

"I would not recommend it."