On Cosmic Tides

After their dinner party, Theresa Skycrest began to stop into the shop for evening cultivation practice a few times each week. Laurel was riveted by her descriptions of how the cultivation teachings from her time had evolved in the lack of mana. Mana theory had been more of a chore in her youth than a passion, but the contrast was enough to keep Laurel engaged with the topic as she’d never been before. Theresa in turn expressed gratitude for the knowledge Laurel took for granted. She gifted Theresa with an introductory cultivation guide from her own time to work through. The fact that it was in an ancient foreign language made this more of a symbolic gesture than particularly helpful, and so they spent these evening visits running through the exercises it contained.

The others had been far from idle. The increasing notoriety Annette’s network had generated, along with the massive compound being built supernaturally fast left Adam and Annette with an unending stream of strangers snooping around the shop. Applications for administrative and student positions once they took out some well-placed newspaper ads had also started to come in. This led to a crash course for Laurel from the two of them on the language of Meristan calligraphy and stationary. What they could infer from the paper and ink each person chose, and any designs or lack thereof within the application, which were well-meaning or condescending, and how the quality of materials reflected on the sender.

Aside from organizing the applications and sorting out the actually promising prospects from the rest of the pile, Adam had completed the monumental task of recording everything Laurel had accumulated in spatial storage and was willing to put into their eventual contribution point store. Laurel had kept anything she had come across since getting the tattoo that she thought might be useful, not to mention everything she could pry out of the original citadel. As such they had enough cultivation resources, useful enchanted objects, and random junk to last them for years.

Annette for her part had made rounds of the various industrial and business districts in the city. Just from what she had seen Laurel pull out for her own convenience, Annette was convinced they could make enough money to more than support their growing sect. There were mana crystals that provided light, some that emanated heat, and still others that created a small trickle of clean water. Even better, their application to the Merchant’s Guild had been approved before any of the more recent notoriety, so the only barrier to selling them was their own time and effort. Laurel had told her creating the crystals was a “good initiate exercise in mana control”, meaning that they would be able to have their future students generate them for contribution points, and then sell them to the general populace to cover their operating costs. Annette lacked the experience the other two had of belonging to some large organization, but hadn’t let that stop her. Over dinner she even confided to Laurel that it was more fulfilling than any of her previous positions.

********

Laurel was deep in her usual morning Core manipulation session when she felt the echo of an odd eddy in the mana currents further inland. She brought herself back to her physical body and wrote a quick note. She looked around the work site and spotted the small crowd of children that usually lingered nearby.

“Hello children! I find myself in need of a messenger this morning” she said while flashing a coin. There was some shoving around and elbowing until a boy in his mid-teens stepped forward. “I need this note delivered to Fort Sarken.” She looked the boy over and then pulled out a jade seal. “Show them this when you arrive so they know it came from me.” The boy nodded seriously as she handed everything over. “You can have this coin now, and the same again when that seal is returned to me,” she added pointedly when the boy's eyes locked on the gold. He ran off in the direction of the fort as soon as everything was shoved into his pockets.

Her eyes ran over the rest of the children that were standing in the crowd. Several she thought she recognized as having been healed by her in the months she had been in the city. “I might have some more odd jobs later I’ll need assistance with.” Adam would grumble and call her a soft touch, but part of the reasoning behind the location of the sect was to improve the city and gain favor among the populace after all. Following through on the promise she just made, she sent another child off with a note for whoever was manning the shop today. They could potentially provide some general education to these children and get most of their basic maintenance for the sect done in one go if they were clever about it.

Two hours later, she was once more roused from her cultivation by the arrival of General Skycrest, a couple of his aides, and the boy she had originally sent with the message, looking exhausted at having already been to the fort and back. She flipped him the promised extra coin as she approached the group.

“I see you got my message,” she said brightly.

“Yes. What exactly did you mean by a disturbance in the mana network? Should we prepare for an attack?”

Laurel realized her note may have had the wrong tone. She held her hands up, palms facing out in a conciliatory gesture. “It’s hard to say exactly. All mana flows are connected, some at deeper levels than others. So when I’m deep in cultivation here, or paying close attention, I can feel the ripple effects of events that happen elsewhere. Something happened around a few dozen kilometers that way.” She pointed off roughly south by southeast. It could have been a number of things from a particularly strong cultivation breakthrough to a strong technique. My best guess is a spirit beast breaking through some threshold.”

The young soldiers behind the general looked unconvinced but Ridge seemed willing to believe her. “I’m taking a few pilots and specialists to check it out. Will you be able to join us, save us some time flying in circles?” Laurel readily agreed and sent another child off with a note for her companions explaining the situation before joining the soldiers on the way to the airfield.

“We can wait for you to grab some supplies,ma'am,” one of the soldiers offered.

“Oh no need for that.” Laurel waved him off and went back to her discussions with Ridge over the local environment and what kind of beasts might appear.

******

Laurel found being up in the biplane delightful. She had flown before during battles with monsters or other cultivators, or sometimes just for fun, using her own abilities. None of that had the same luxurious feeling of being able to relax while feeling the sensations of flying through the air. It was probably helpful that she was fully confident in being able to save herself and the others should she somehow be forced out of the plane. The mana density threshold had finally tipped over the edge of supporting those more advanced movement techniques like long-distance or high-speed flight, and she was looking forward to an opportunity to take advantage.

She was sitting behind one Major Katherine “call me Kat” Donahue, who had greeted her with a lit cigar and a warning about what she did to the last passenger to vomit in her aircraft. They were accompanied by planes piloted by General Skycrest, the young Captain ‘Sidetrip’ that Ridge had mentioned as having cultivator potential and Lieutenant Samuel Vorsen. Behind each of the other three pilots was a member of the local special forces. Their leader, Captain Varska had assured Laurel she was carrying enough explosive ordinance to ‘drop any monsters we find straight to the other side of the planet.’

There was an easy banter coming across the transmission stones set in the plane dashboard, hinting at a familiarity from working together often. Laurel just sat back and appreciated the inventiveness of the planes, which actually ran off of mana crystals. Eventually she couldn’t hold back the curiosity and leaned forward so her voice would be picked up. “These planes are fascinating for a mostly mortal construct” she announced, “but can I ask why they are being powered by lanterns?”

“The planes are powered by the crystals in the dashboard,” Trip attempted to explain.

“I can see that,” Laurel replied. But these crystals are clearly designed to work as lights.”

“Huh” General Skycrest’s voice came across the sound crystal. “The crystals were found in a ruin a few decades ago, and some clever bastard figured out how to hook them up to the planes. Same with the transmission stones.”

“That’s quite clever. Crystals and enchantments designed for the purpose would make the planes faster and more efficient. But really I’m constantly impressed by what mortals have invented without cultivators around.” With that particular piece of dispensed wisdom Laurel leaned back to enjoy the rest of the ride.

As they neared their destination, General Skycrest sent a “Look alive people!” across their sound crystals. “Laurel, any way to tell what we’re looking for here?”

Laurel looked out over the terrain. They were in the foothills of a mountain range, covered in a dense forest. “I could sweep my senses across the area, but if whatever it is can fly, they’ll probably come up to say hello”.

“We’ll leave that as the backup plan. Everyone, we're going to run a standard search formation, half a klick apart on the wing, 45 degree area of focus to either side, call in anything weird. Laurel, jump in at any point with whatever magic stuff might help.” In a well-practiced maneuver, the pilots all wheeled the planes around until they were flying parallel lines, each a couple hundred meters away from the next.

For her ‘magic stuff’, Laurel sped up the flow of mana to her eyes to make it easier to see any plants or animals that had evolved from an infusion of mana. Another quarter of an hour flying in their search pattern Lieutenant Samuel came back across the line “got something over here, looks like a family of rainbow deer.”

Kat changed their course so they could fly by and get a look. Once she spotted the small herd, Laurel grinned. “Aurora elk! I wouldn’t have thought we were in the right climate but the mountains and the ocean must keep it cool enough.”

“Are they dangerous to humans?” General Skycrest asked as they reset their formation to do more sweeping passes above the spirit beasts.

“More than a mortal elk. They will be more likely to try and defend themselves rather than run away if we confront them. They won’t seek out humans however, and they’re still plant eaters. They also happen to be delicious, it wasn’t uncommon in my time for sects to let herds develop on their lands in order to harvest the meat on special occasions.”

“You eat the rainbow deer?” One of the special forces members sounded interested and vaguely concerned.

“It's a delicacy, yes. You do need a chef trained to work with spirit beasts to bring out the best flavor though, I can’t imagine we’ll find many of those in the kingdom.”

“Well, with that disturbing thought - “

Laurel cut the general off “Do you people not eat venison, it's delicious not disturbing.”

“Ahem. With that entirely undisturbing thought, we need to bring one back. Who wants to do the honors?” Ridge said.

“If you don’t mind, general, I can take down that older buck without too much of an issue, and store the carcass so no one has to smell it on the way back.” Laurel offered.

“Go for it.” he replied, when it became clear no one else was in the mood for some hunting. They weren’t going to give up the chance to see a magic warrior in action.

Laurel waited until their next pass brought them closer to the herd, and calmly jumped out of the plane. She heard Kat swearing as she fell, and manipulated the wind to angle her into the herd, trusting her reinforced body to absorb the impact. She summoned a sword to her hand just before landing amongst the elk. The glittering fur pulsed in different colors, shimmering like a living rainbow when the herd was bunched together. Before they had time to attack or run, her sword flashed out towards the older male. She wanted to avoid the calves and their mothers, so had to take down one of the more dangerous males. The elk did not have any natural defense and her blade slipped through its throat with barely any resistance.

As the beast slumped forward with blood gushing out of the wound, the rest of the herd began to scream and paw at the ground. The young bucks put down their heads and charged antler-first. She dodged the enraged animals until she saw the injured one collapse. In a single fluid move, she dodged another buck’s antlers, jumped to the downed animal, and sent it into her spatial storage. A small bit of mana was pushed into the ground as thanks. She then launched herself back into the air, and sent out a few strings of mana to bring her back to Major Kat’s biplane, alighting on the fuselage and crawling back to her seat. The whole fight lasted only a few moments.

There was silence as the formation turned back towards the capital until it was broken by Major Varska. “Damn, woman. That was awesome, I don’t think I even saw you make the hit. Might want to warn a body before you jump out of the next plane though.”

That opened the floodgates and the pilots and soldiers spent a few minutes discussing their first look at a real cultivator.

“What I don’t understand,” Captain Trip said, “is where did you put the body.”

This prompted a discussion of her storage tattoo and its many benefits, which lasted until they wheeled their formation back towards the capitol.

“So this magic shit is sensitive enough you can feel a few pretty deer from all the way back at the capitol?” Varska brought them back on track. She was reclining in the back of Ridge’s biplane like it was a lounge chair, eyes closed, looking for all the world like a woman lounging on the beach, not thousands of feet in the air.

“Good point Major,” Laurel replied. “I let the first chance to let loose in a while get to me, but those little guys alone wouldn’t be enough to be noticeable, we should keep looking.”

“You heard the lady,” the general’s voice came through, “back to the search pattern.”

They continued flying over the area, gradually encompassing more terrain looking for anything out of place. Half an hour after her fight with the elks, Laurel was reaching the edge of her patience for not doing anything. “I think it might be time to give it a sweep, General. I’m confident I can handle anything that might show itself.”

“I’m inclined to agree, Stormblade, and I’m looking to be home for dinner so let’s do this thing.”

Laurel pushed her spiritual sense out into the surroundings, with an accompanying ripple through the relatively placid ambient mana away from the city. “I’m picking up something east of our current position.” she called out.

Their plane formation looped around, just in time to see a boulder rapidly approaching. “Son of a bitch” Kat swore as she banked hard to the right, narrowly avoiding the incoming missile. “Where the fuck did that come from?” she shouted as the planes ascended to a safer altitude. As they moved in a wide arc, a tree trunk was launched out of the forest at the lead plane.

Laurel was rapidly scanning the area the projectiles had been thrown from for anything of note until she saw a distinctive gleam in the canopy. “It's that grove of trees. I think there’s a forest monarch tossing rocks.”

“Give us the headlines version on this one please” the general’s mood had turned serious now that there was a threat to his team.

“Old, untouched forest, mixed with mana, gives us a giant semi-sentient tree spirit that holds sway over a region of the forest,” Laurel shouted to be heard over the plane engines. “Dangerous if confronted, but still a tree.”

“Alright Varska, get the toys ready.” The general sighed. “I’d been hoping to get through this one without any explosions.”

“Forest monarchs tend to mean more spiritual plants or other natural treasures in their domain. If you don’t have people coming through here often, it will actually be an economic benefit long term!” Laurel was quick to intercept. She would be sending students out here at some point if all went well.

“She wants to eat the magic deer and let the magic plants hang around” Laurel heard from across from the same soldier that had balked earlier at eating spirit beasts.

The general thought it over for a moment before giving them the all clear to head back to the capitol. “We can always come back and fight the tree if we have to.”