Agnisotra: Origin Tails

Sup Bywen! Oh no glow…

I grabbed a spirit tether and sent energy through it.

“Oh, good morning Agnis.”

Good morning. I forgot to tell you something last time. The spirits, they love bread. Now if this is a bread thing or a favorite food thing, I don’t know, but eating it will temporarily strengthen your spirit tether. I don’t know what the long-term effects are but it’s probably something that’s needed.

“I see, my vessel is unable to eat bread though…”

Well bread doesn’t work for me; I suspect spirit salmon works for me but maybe this is your problem. Your vessel can’t eat in the traditional sense. So, I want you to remember that when you’re in the new vessel, remember to eat your favorite food regularly.

“So, this is also happening to you because you don’t eat yours regularly?”

Uhh, perhaps. That combined with the spirit world trying to pull us in might be a bad combination.

“I will ask the elves to procure it for you.”

Uhh spirit salmon are a pain to catch so don’t bother. I will put ‘Hunting down Spirit Salmon’ on the list of things to do after I finish this. I am here for this!

I took a container full of spirit liquid out of my dimensional pocket.

I want you to infuse this with as much spirit energy you can. Not neutral spirit energy, your spirit energy.

Branches reached out to the liquid and spirit energy poured in.

I hope I have to do this just once but I might be back later for more.

My spirit left my body again but this was not a problem because I wasn’t moving. I decided to try and reconnect some spirit tethers. Some had snapped when my spirit left my body.

At least now it was easy for me to find out how long I have. It’s probably game over when they all snap but I had more than enough left.

Bywen is big so she also has still a lot left. In both our cases the tethers snap faster than we can repair.

Would you let me leave the village if I urgently needed to hunt down some spirit salmon?

“I would send some elders with you.”

Guessed as much. So, what are you going to do once you have your spirit vessel?

“See the world!”

Well, isn’t that interesting, the true leader of the elves wants to do something the elves are hellbent on preventing.

“I don’t get it. I keep telling them that they can leave but they just refuse. I don’t have the option to leave if I want to.”

I don’t understand it either, but it’s not my problem so I’m not going to stick my nose into this. This will be something you need to address once you’re out your tree.

Bywen kept talking about the things she wants to try out when she has a spirit vessel. Most were basic things but it meant a lot to a spirit who had been a tree for practically forever.

“I think I’m done. This liquid won’t take more of my spirit energy. Thank you for listening. I will be awaiting the completion of the vessel.”

Don’t worry about it. I do want to warn you to curb your expectations though. It might seem like I’m close to completion and theoretically I am, however, this Ichor Pneuma is sensitive to mistakes and on top of this, the method to bring this all together is a mystery. Putting the body together itself might take months or years. Please don’t get your expectations too high.

“I will do my best, what are months or years compared to how long I’ve lived.”

Fair point, I just thought I should tell you this. Anyway, I’m a busy fox. I hope that I can finish this before all our spirit tethers have snapped.

I wanted to leave but I checked if I was taking my body with me. I did so I continued.

I had placed some oil in a glass jar. Jyno was looking at it as if it was a mythical creature. I hoped this would work. I added some foxfire to the spirit liquid and poured it into the oil.

“Whoa would you look at that. That’s a good sign, right?”

Jyno looked at a viscous oily liquid that displayed multiple different colors.

Yeah, finally something that works the first try. I guess I can make multiple batches.

“Do you have to mix it? The colors are everywhere.”

Nope, it seems this is supposed to happen. Now the basis is finished. I will have to apply my knowledge about spirit tethers to it and when that’s done make it some sort of anchor.

“And how will you do that?”

I will first make more batches then see how Bywen reacts to it. There is a list of ingredients to tune it but it depends on how she reacts and then I have to mix crystalized Dragonvein in it. That should almost complete it. I will have to keep checking how Bywen reacts to it. Then flush it through the spirit bones and anchor it. Depending on the situation I might have to break off some of her spirit tethers and mix it in.

“I will leave it to you. You seem to know what you’re doing.”

Oh no I have no clue what I’m doing. I’m going in blind from here on.

“Well, you are the only one who even has an idea on how to do this.”

I put my tail to work to create a suitable anchor.

Jyno and I spent the rest of the day creating jars of incomplete Ichor Pneuma. After that, I prepared 12 different mixtures of ingredients used for tuning. Since Ichor Pneuma is closely tied to spirit energy, they will improve the use of spirit energy or make it a bit harder. Some will effectively dilute the Ichor Pneuma while others will make it thicker. Some are mandatory depending on what type of spirit is going to inhabit the vessel.

The Spirit Skin has all the resistances but it doesn’t protect the vessel from the inside. A fire spirit will of course have fire resistance but there is no point if the vessel burns up because it houses a fire spirit. Most of these ingredients address this. The concentration needed to be tested so I will have to harass Bywen quite frequently.

I am not overly familiar with life spirits so I made every possible tuning solution just in case. I could store it if I didn’t need it.

It’s better to have and not need than to need and not have.

I mixed a solution that made sure spirit energy wouldn’t go out of control and then created thousands of mixtures with different concentrations the next morning. They had different tuning solutions and all applied them to small samples of incomplete Ichor Pneuma. I created every type of sample tenfold. I carefully labelled them and categorized them in groups.

Jyno came down while yawning. “Holy fuck, what are all these vials?”

Different mixtures I need to test. I’m going to kick your ass if you break any.

“Did you increase the size of the house again? How many vials do you have?”

Well, I’m doing my best to have different types of mixtures but I can’t do them all. Especially not if I have 10 of every sample, I think I’m reaching half a million.

“Didn’t you say the spirit blood or however it’s named will adjust itself?”

Ah, guess I’m done then!

“How long were you even planning on creating more combinations?”

Maybe a week.

“You’re insane...”

I hear that a lot lately.

“Don’t you get tired?”

I’m always tired.

“How about you rest up then?”

After I’m done.

“Which is going to take how long?”

Months if I’m lucky.

“Go rest! I will carry these to the big tree!”

Uhh, sure.

I beckoned Nilah and looked at Jyno who realized he made a huge mistake. I grinned and went to take a nap. I wonder if he will still be moving over half a million vials after I wake up.

My nap turned into a 3 day sleep. I got up and found a living room without vials. My peaches were gone too. I grinned, walked over to the big tree, took real peaches out of my dimensional pocket and tossed them to the onion stealing elders. They caught them but put them to the side. It smelled like onion in this room.

I headed over to Bywen and found cabinets full of colorful vials all labelled. I will have to thank Jyno.

“The elders had already warned me that you might come to test these solutions. I’m ready.”

I will do this different that I normally do. There are a lot of samples and nobody has time for this so I’m going to use one of my skills [Elgard Overload] to make the impossible possible. I will try to cram over half a million samples in your system without any adverse effects within 8 minutes. Anything that I can’t get to will be applied in the next session, 80 minutes later.

“It’s not going to place a burden on you, is it?”

Nope, just won’t be able to use my Elgard’s eyes for a bit.

I started [Elgard Overload] and applied as many samples as possible. All the negative side effects got kicked out of reality.

A clone noted every possible change. I also sped up time to find out short- and long-term effects.

My [Elgard Overload] dropped and I had applied more than half the available samples. So far there were 109 favorable combinations. The 80 minutes without my Elgards eyes were used to find out and deduce which combinations would have the best effect. I might be able to narrow down which works the best.

I had noticed something though. There seemed 2 groups that did well. One highly specific to Bywen, and another one that was more aspecific.

the aspecific one would be used to create Ichor Pneuma for my own spirit vessel. Tuning this for myself will be a royal pain. It would also make for an Ichor Pneuma that could work for any spirit. It will need minor tuning to make it fit that spirit more but it will cut out all the bullshit I’m going through now.

I could use my Elgards eyes again and we went for another round. Most combinations I tried out, had hardly if any, side effects and I could stop my [Elgard Overload] after 4 minutes. I had a new problem, I had too many options that work.

Uhh Bywen, I have 392 samples that work, pick one.

“Does it matter which one I pick?”

Nope.

“I like that light green one.” A branch pointed at one of the viable vials.

Ok this will be used then. This went better than I expected.

“What is up with that group over there?”

Oh, those are not specific to you but could make for something that could be used for any spirit.

“Oh, that is wonderful news, I was wondering how you would test this on yourself.”

Yeah, that would be a bit difficult. Thank you for being my test subject. The next time I return is probably when I want to request to leave the village.

“Ok I will have some elders on standby.”

Ugh, really? Can’t I go with Greg, Raishin, Jyno and Elliana?

“I will consider that.”

You kind of sound like a mom now…

“I consider everyone in this village my children.”

I noticed… Anyway, I will have to do 9t stuff if you don’t make up your mind!

“I was afraid that that would be the case…”

I left and went back home. Jyno seemed exhausted. “I…I made it in time, didn’t I?”

Yeah, you did great. Get ready we might leave the village soon.

“Did you get permission?”

Nope, that’s why I’m telling you to prepare.

“You’re not trying to anger the guardian spirit, are you?”

I’m pretty sure she would have already if she was capable of getting angry.

“We know she can get angry…”

Wow you guys must have really fucked up then, she seems extremely patient to me.

“I will prepare, just know that I’m blaming you if we get into trouble!”

That’s fine.

Jyno got ready and I went to visit Greg and Elliana.

Hey guys! Get ready! We are going on an adventure tomorrow!

Are you even allowed to go outside of the village?

Nope! So that’s why I’m warning you beforehand!

“I will set something up so we can safely leave then!”

Elliana?

See at least she gets it! Well, I have to tell Raishin!

I went over to Raishin’s house but he wasn’t home.

Well, that’s annoying. I still have 10 minutes before I can use my eyes. Where would he be? I went to his usual spots of picking up chicks. He wasn’t there. I actually have no clue where he would be now. Picking up chicks was such a large part of his behavior.

Maybe he was training or hunting. I asked around and an elf had seen him train at the edge of the village. I found him practicing lightning magic.

Teaching Elliana had made this much of an impact on you?

Raishin, who was all sweaty, turned around.

Yeah. I thought that I should at least know more about lightning magic even though I won’t use it in real life situations. Greg had also taught me some things about magnetism. Look!

He threw his spear and it returned back to him.

Uhm, you do know that I had built that function into your spear, right? You don’t need magnetism to do that…

Ah right… bad example, throw something made out of metal!

You do know that only specific metals abide by magnetism, right? Unless you go crazy to the point it affects everything.

Hehe just throw some random metal that’s not iron.

I threw some copper scraps. Raishin showed a magic circle I’ve never seen before and the copper scraps flew at him.

Eh? Cool, eh? If it’s metal I can use magnetism on it!

That is impressive! Keep practicing! I came here to tell you that we’re going on an adventure tomorrow.

Oh cool! I can’t wait!

Me neither.

I could use my Elgards eyes again and I went back home. I created more of the tuning sample that Bywen chose and applied it to the Ichor Pneuma, i would attempt to gather crystalized Dragonvein the next day and then mix it in. After that I can test it out on Bywen.

I had to clean up the mess I made because my spirit left my body again and I knocked over some unimportant vials. I mixed the tuning solution with the incomplete Ichor Pneuma over a low temperature foxfire and decided to rest until the next morning