The Fourth Gate: Chapter Twenty-Five

Dusk meandered across the table to the plant that resembled the healer’s heart – steward’s soul, hadn’t it been? – and absorbed it into herself with a sleepy murmur, before wandering back to me, curling up in my hand, and passing out again. I sent her back into her realm and looked up at the River Lord. 

“I think that’s your answer as to what she wanted,” I said. “But as for me…” 

I turned back to the two tables, the one with the minor rewards and the one with the more major one, when a thought struck me. I looked at each of my mentors, and then to the River Lord, before I asked a question. 

“How likely is it for me to be able to find meridians or nadis or an internal orrery on my own?” I asked. “I know that Ivy purchased some… gestalt-nadis? Something like that. From the Sekhem Court. And Bijuli had a powerful pair as well.” 

“Not as simple a question as you might think,” the River Lord said. “The meridians and other items I have placed before you are of the highest quality. Perhaps the Craftsman, the Alchemist, or the now-dead Refiner could do better, but then again, perhaps not.” 

“They are rather unique,” I admitted, and got a glare for interjecting my opinion, which I didn’t think was fair. Orykson stepped forward and continued for him. 

“Items of this quality would typically be reserved for the core sect treasury, for the deeper vaults of the antiquated nobility system, or for the highest level rewards of large and powerful guilds,” he said. “They are not unique, but they are very expensive, require unusual components, and the attention of skilled specialists."

“Mmm,” I grumbled. A part of me had been hoping that this was a trick, and that the River Lord was trying to scam me. That would have made the choice easy, at the very least. 

“These are very valuable. But they are not unique,” Ikki said. “If you wished, you could purchase a weak set of meridians from the outer sect treasuries of many groups, costing somewhere in the range of five thousand to fifty thousand Mossford Standard Silver.” 

“And the bath?” I asked. “How likely is it that I’d be able to actually fix all of the damage I caused on my own?” 

“Shifting your beastgate is possible, and is on the list of things I had planned for you to begin work upon once you reached Arcanist,” Meadow said. “And I have faith you will be able to find a way to repair the channels and deeper spiritual damage.” 

“Faith,” Orykson said, snorting. “It’s not impossible. Patching the cracked channels, for example, is certainly doable. Far from easy, but doable. But repairing the completely broken ones? And then clearing out some of the other, lingering injuries?” 

“If Orykson says it is not impossible, I believe him,” Ikki said. “But I do not know of any sure ways.”

“Nor do I,” Meadow admitted. “Though souls are far from my speciality.” 

“I know of a handful of other methods,” Orykson admitted. “But each of them is more complex and power-intensive than the last, and I know you well enough to know that you’d rather die than use several of the methods.” 

“What about the ones I wouldn’t find horrifically unethical?” I asked. 

“The simplest and cheapest involves attempting to find a shade from a species that went extinct three centuries ago, building a psychometric array powerful enough to peer that far back, retrieve a memory of its body, copying it, bringing that copy forward to the present, finding a creation mage powerful enough to make that copy real and permanent, rather than just forged mana, a soul mage stitching the shade into the body, utilizing a complex seventh gate soul-mana potion with the healer’s heart to nurture the shade into a true soul, breeding it with a cousin of the species that still exists today, using potions to ensure the breeding favors the extinct parent, and then breeding for what is likely to be several generations until the right legacy appears.” 

“That is… a lot,” I admitted. “Though it does sound kind of interesting to do.” 

The River Lord let out a very undignified sounding snort, as if he didn’t believe that I’d actually do it. The childish part of me wanted to grab the beast-thorn meridians there and then, before marching off to prove that I would and could do it. But that was stupid and I knew it. 

“I should take the bath,” I said, a note of sour reluctance in my voice. “I love the idea of having my channels back to better than normal, or making them stronger than ever, or having a permanent spiritual healing effect, or doubling my effective power. But I can get a smaller version of those. I’ve got a lot of power, but I don’t have a way to heal myself.” 

I paused for a moment. I knew the Sekhem Court had at least one set of Nadis, since Ivy had asked for them, and I needed to find a way to break into their vaults anyways. I didn’t feel especially bad about burgling from rich nobility who abused the people beneath them. Even if I gave Satya her jewelry back, and turned over a lot of the wealth to the people of the province, I didn’t think it was unreasonable to request a set of high-quality nadis for myself. 

“There is wisdom in that, as loath as I am to allow a third non-sect member to have access to the saint-level baths,” the River Lord said. “I take it that is your choice?”

“It is,” I said with a sigh, and then I felt Meadow’s hand on my shoulder. I turned and looked at her, tilting my head curiously. 

“I am sure that three years seems like a very long time to you. But you have a great deal of work to do if you want all of your other skills to catch up with your raw power. After this tournament, you’ll dive a sepulcher, maybe two. After that, I think that rushing forward any further would only hurt you. You need to rest. Learn. Build a future for yourself beyond rushing from fight to fight.” 

“You’re right,” I said, turning and giving a deep bow to the River Lord. “Yes, I’m certain. While I apologize for the imposition on your sect, I believe that I must do what is needed to ensure my own growth is not limited in the long term.” 

That seemed to at least appease the ornery Occultist somewhat, as he simply grumbled something as I rose and moved to the table full of minor rewards. Thankfully, I had a much easier time making some decisions on this table than I did at the prior one. I picked up the basket with the bamboo slip ward key without a second thought – I was a plant and ghost mage, and even if I was still in need of catching up with the latter, I was pretty good at the former. Expanding my repertoire, as well as possibly locating some plants that could affix more tempest energy into the soil to speed Dusk’s recovery, was a no-brainer. 

The next obvious item was the Dreamgate. As much as picking up a one-use item felt annoying, Meadow and Orykson had managed to agree on the fact that finding a plant within the dreamrealm would be extremely useful for me. Given how much their styles clashed, I wasn’t about to pass up on something that they actually agreed on. 

Next I picked up the rambutan fruit. I’d had it pointed out to me by the head of the Beastbody guild how useful that treasure would be. Even if this only provided enhancement to the first through fourth gate, it was still a very useful ability. I tried to tell myself that, since it put my energy to work, it was basically a set of meridians… though I didn’t fully manage to convince myself of that. 

It was the fourth and final reward where things got hairy. 

I started by dismissing things that I wouldn’t get enough use out of. The advancement resources would only speed along a process rather than add anything, the sympathetic-pearls were only a convenience, the ship in a bottle was of limited use to a spatial mage, and so on. 

I paused when I got to the universal mana storage device. Most so-called universal mana storage devices stored ungated mana. That was the only way to convert down from anyone, no matter the donor's type. It could then be converted up from ungated mana, even though that had horrific efficiency. 

I considered for a moment if Hudau magic could do something similar, before realizing it was… complicated. It might be able to build something compatible with most beasts, by converting to hudau, but converting a human to hudau? It would need to try and add in thirteen other missing mana types. And when donating to humans, it would need to remove thirteen aspects, which was possible – the hudau stones did it – but I wasn’t sure if it would be any more efficient than just converting down to and back up from ungated mana. 

Ultimately, hudau batteries ran into the same problem as trying to use it to cast a fireball, or even help with most blink fox spells. Hudau mana was just too general. It only really worked with blends that used five or more mana types, and ideally ones that used all fourteen, like dragons. There was a reason Edgar’s batteries in the teleportation platforms had tried to convert everything to spatial mana, not hudau. 

This storage, however, was a legacy enchantment. Mana put in was equal to the mana put out, none of the fuss of conversions and complex enchantment work. Given that I couldn’t replicate its effects, it went onto the short list of maybes, next to the stone of spirit growth and the spell matrix implants.

The stone of spirit growth was something Dusk would want. I knew she’d expressed a love of being small, but wanted to sometimes have the ability to be big. I wasn’t one to knock the importance of an aesthetic change. But at the same time, I knew Authorities could be used to change size, and both my familiars were only a stone’s throw away from Arcanist, where that power unlocked for a spirit. I felt a bit bad about it, but I put it down. 

The spell-matrix implants could potentially allow me to pick up a spell I would love, like Coral Dragon’s Claw or Analyze Magic but my first gates were pretty full. On top of that, there was the poor efficiency. But at the same time, I couldn’t deny that they could be a good long-term investment. Maybe. 

The mana storage, though. Mana batteries and other industrial storage devices weren’t exactly uncommon, at least not when looked at on the scale of cities and civilizations. But this one had a few unique elements that made it sorely tempting. 

The first was its compatibility due to being legacy enchanted, but that wasn't the only thing. It was storing fifth gate mana. That was absurdly potent when compared to an ungated battery, and probably how it was able to hold so much at such a small size. 

Then there was the sheet utility of it. I could use it for powering up specific plants in my alchemy projects, building demiplanes, helping power ascensions through to fifth, maybe even sixth gate for myself, for Dawn, for Dusk…

And speaking of Dusk, she was in need of mana now, far more than she normally was. Her realm was drained, and her form injured. The Healer had prevented permanent damage, but she needed mana. That mattered more than picking up a spell. 

I picked up the crystal sphere, and bowed once more to the River Lord. An instant later, Orykson’s teleportation spell settled onto me, and I vanished.