A Soldier's Life

Chapter 190: New Routine

The entry room of the dreamscape hadn’t changed. Rather than walking to the scorpion room, I willed myself there like a teleport. Being able to teleport would be a spell form I hoped to learn eventually. I needed to get my aether attribute close to forty before working on that spell form due to the aether demands. Tonight, I planned to review the earth affinity spell forms in-depth and start on the road to learning one.

I held up my hand before Konstantin could berate me, “I will practice with you in a bit. I even have a small upgrade for you.” I focused and incorporated what I observed in the Imperial Legion practice yard into Konstantin and Xavier. Better teachers would make me better.

I hopped into the plush leather chair, and Oscar joined me so I could rub his head while I studied. I glanced at the index before starting.

Earth Affinity Lesser Spell Forms:

Shape Stone (10)

Imbue Glowstone (10)

Shatter (25)

Earth Affinity Major Spell Forms:

Earth Speak (25)

Stoneskin (30)

Earth Apex Major Spell Forms:

Manipulate Earth (50)

Earthquake (70)

Quicksand/Liquify Earth (70)

The first entry was for shape stone, requiring a minimum of a ten in the earth affinity. It was the exact same ability that Maveith had. The spell form channeled aether to create an aura around the mage’s hand,. tTurning the stone into clay. The higher your affinity, the wider the area. The clay would return to stone about sixty seconds after the aura no longer affected it.

This is what allowed for the masterful sculptures I had seen with different tones of stone giving give life-like appearances. Maveith used this to build his residence.

The second option on the list was to imbue a glowstone. Glowstones were special stones mined in dungeons and could also be found above ground over a Ley Line nexus. Certain minerals would become saturated with aether and emit a soft glow. Another way was to craft a light stone. This was accomplished by shearing a stone in half, inscribing the light rune, and putting the stone back together. Dungeon glowstones were natural, didn’t require a rune to function, and could be broken apart into smaller glowstones. The brighter the emitted light, the more it cost. Artificed stones were generally more valuable because they were brighter but needed to be fed aether more often.

This spell form circumnavigated the use of the runic inscription—making glowstones typically formed in dungeons. It could also affect any type of stone. The mage forced his spell form on a stone, which would glow for about twenty-four hours—the more aether, the brighter the light emitted. A side benefit of the spell was that a stone repeatedly used in this manner would eventually become a glowstone.

If a single golf ball-sized glowstone sold for one gold, then this spell had a lot of possibilities for monetization. So far, both options were appealing to me. I moved on to the last of the suggested lesser options for the earth affinity.

Shatter was at the upper range of low-tier affinities. Requiring a twenty-five affinity, it should still be within my final range. Shatter magnified imperfections in stone to break it apart, but there was more. Over time, the mage could control where the shatter lines were, effectively making construction stones or, as an example in the text, initiating a landslide or destroying walls.

With a fifty affinity, the shatter spell form could also affect metal, but the spell form required touch, so you better be sure you could shatter a sword about to strike you. If you were wrong, then it would be a painful final attempt. Also, it noted the shatter spell form couldn’t affect runic weapons or runic armor.

These were all strong options, and I was hopeful for even better options moving onto the mid-tier spell forms. Earth speakseemed amazing upon reading it. If you physically touched the ground, you could get an image of everything within the earth within a spherical range out to five yards. Things like birds in the air would not appear. Living objects, like people and trees, in contact with the ground would be blurry.

It appeared to be like a three-dimensional radar. Finding underground passages would be easy. Although you needed just 25 affinity points to imprint it, the higher your affinity, the better the range. At 35, the range doubled to ten yards. It doubled again at 45, increasing to twenty yards. At 55 affinity, you could see out to forty yards.

This would be extremely valuable in dense woods or in a stone fortification if you were locating enemies. One note that made this extremely appealing was it functioned normally in dungeons. It would make scouting a dungeon room extremely easy—not that I wanted to see the inside of a dungeon again anytime soon.

The earth glide spell was a movement-focused spell form. It sounded like it would look amazing to see. The ground pulled the mage forward, using aether instead of the mage’s legs and stamina. The speed was controllable, with the fastest speed determined by the earth affinity. At 30, the speed was noted as walking speed, doubling every 10 points of affinity. It cost one relative aether for every minute the spell form was activated. I started to calculate my relative aether pool.

My aether pool attribute was 21/26. My aether pool should be 34, then. The rough formula was one point up to ten, then two points from 11 to 20. It jumped to four points for each point from 21 to 30. That meant the five points of unrealized potential could add 20 more aether points to my pool. But right now, I could maintain earth glide for 34 minutes. It was a good spell form, especially if I was running away.

The next spell form was one I was familiar with. Boris Angella used the stoneskin spell form when we dueled. The description was exactly as expected. The spell hardened the skin to prevent slashing attacks and spread the impact of bludgeoning attacks. The higher the affinity, the tougher the mage’s stoneskin spell form. There were even elemental protections with this spell form, but interestingly, the shatter spell could disrupt the stoneskin spell and even damage organs.

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It was an expensive spell form to activate, costing around five relative aether. Its effectiveness slowly faded over a minute, but you could reset it by investing another five aether, but you needed to wait at least twelve heartbeats between activations. This information would be useful if I were fighting someone else with the spell form.

That was probably the last of the spell forms I would have access to after consuming my essences. I wanted to get them all, as they all would grow with my affinity. Each one had its own situational utility. I would have worked to imprint stoneskin if I knew I was going to remain in the legion. The only downside of the spell form was it changed your skin tone, alerting enemies you were using it and probably making you a target.

I discounted the glowstone spell form since I had a few glowstones and didn’t need revenue. Earth glide was also reluctantly crossed off my list. Shatter was crossed off next, even though it was tempting. I would have loved to fight First Citizen Boris again and use it on him. That left me deciding between earth speak and shape stone.

Building a dwelling like Maveith’s could be done with my dimensional space. I could become a sculptor and make spectacular statues. Actually, probably not, as I didn’t have a single artistic bone in my body. Earth speak appeared to be my best option and would be useful when I joined the Hounds. The only negative was the short range of the spell at my lower affinity. Maybe before I completed the imprinting process, I would change my mind, but for now, I would start working on earth speak.

The remaining spell forms were also extremely powerful, but I didn’t delve too deep into their descriptions. Move earthwas likely the spell the storm giant used when creating the crater in the swamp. Earthquake was the spell the Telhian mages used to destroy the walls protecting Macha. The last spell seemed useless, but quicksand had a wide area of effect and could sink a wall or tower around a town or city in a siege.

I reviewed the spell form for earth speak for just a few minutes before joining my dreamscape population for some weapons practice. I switched between my best three runic weapons: the magebane short sword, the longer black blade, and the black-tipped spear.

Of the three, I preferred the black-tipped spear. I was sure the powerful runic weapon had additional properties as well. Maybe I could sneak into the lower city and get a revelation scroll to use on it.

I woke well before sunrise and continued my routine of predawn physical training in the real world. Not long after the sunrise, a knock came at the door. I was shocked to find a massive delivery of meats, eggs, produce, cheeses, and casks of various ales, juices, and wines. It was ten times what I had written down.

Six men carried it up the stairs and helped me put everything in the pantry, and I activated the heat sink in the cold room. What was Zyna thinking? This was enough food to feed ten people for a month, and a lot of this would spoil in a week. Was she planning to make me her personal chef and host dinner parties? I knocked on Zyna’s door, but she had already left, or maybe she had not even slept in the tower.

I caught one of the porters as they finished the last run, “Can you bring me some recipe books?” His face twisted into annoyance. “Will twenty large silvers be enough for five different cookbooks?” That was two gold coins worth enough and should have been more than sufficient.

I was not a good cook and would need some help if I was going to prepare decent meals for the Chancellor. The broad-shouldered middle-aged porter considered, “I will ask my wife to procure them for you.” He took the silver reluctantly.

“Get a variety of cooking books, and you can keep the surplus,” His demeanor instantly changed, surprise and delight in his eyes. Maybe he had thought I was asking him to do it for free? I had no shortage of large dungeon silver coins, but I would be more frugal in the future.

I spent some time moving the ingredients around to organize the pantry and then prepared an omelet with something like parmesan cheese. I crisped the parmesan before cooking the eggs. The eggs were slightly overcooked and crispy, too. I didn’t need a lot of food with the ring of sustenance, but I hoped to cook better than this.

I wandered the suite and stopped in the alchemy lab. Cleaning this room was a massive project, as I guessed many of the flasks and beakers had been overcooked, and cleaning them would be next to impossible. Maybe I could convince Zyna to get me some alchemy books. I attacked the alchemy lab, cleaning the easiest glassware first and moving to the increasingly difficult glassware.

Zyna walked in as I was trying to scrape material off the bottom of a beaker. “You don’t need to clean this room. I don’t think it has been used in over fifty years. I never touched it in my last stint as the Chancellor. I don’t have the patience for alchemy.”

I made my request with some hope. “Could you get me some basic books on alchemy?. If I am going to be your tower slave, I need a hobby like Rapunzel,” I quipped.

“Who is Rapunzel? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I thought you would want to feed the mage aspirants and Renna. They will be here an hour before dinner for their punishment.” She looked over the partially cleaned laboratory. “I will requisition the books for you. I never thought much of Imperial Alchemists’ work after consuming a few dungeon potions. Once your armor arrives, you will attend my class with me in the morning six days a week.”

I surmised with the massive food delivery, Zyna was hinting that I shouldn’t cook any meals for the three with what was left of my dungeon harvest.

“Do you want lunch now?” I asked.

“No, I have a meeting with Master Mage Janus. We are going to discuss essences, and I will get your answers. I do expect dinner an hour after sunset.” I nodded and couldn’t believe how quickly I had accepted my role.

Zyna left me alone in the tower again. I was planning out my daily routine. It started with two hours of studying in the dreamscape, and then weapons practice for two or three hours there as well. Five hours in the dreamscape was more than enough ‘sleep’ for me with the sustenance ring.

I would work on my physical training until sunrise, then spending time in the alchemy lab, cleaning, and trying my hand at the profession. I would direct Livia, Flora, and Renna, and while they cleaned, I would then prepare a large dinner for all of us.

After they left, I would spend some time in my room paging through the metal smithing books to add them to my dreamscape. Then, I would begin the cycle again with the dreamscape amulet. A knock at the door had me find the two mage aspirants smiling at me. “We got punished again by Chancellor Zyna,” Flora said happily.

I chuckled at her happiness at being punished. “Come in. There is still plenty to clean.” I said, but it only seemed to enhance her happiness. The two mages headed toward the nearest bedroom to start. Renna arrived shortly after with a bright smile, and I started to prepare a feast for dinner.

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