The Fourth Gate: Chapter Fifteen

“Alright, out, out,” I said, waving each of them out of the way, even as I started unbuttoning my shirt. I wasn’t near as self-conscious about my body as I had been a few years ago, not with my full-gate spells having progressed so far, and it wasn’t like Kene hadn’t seen it several times or like I’d be completely stripping down. Even so, having Meadow, Dusk, and the witch watching me felt… weird. Thankfully, the witch grabbed Meadow and they dove into a shadow, while Kene and Dusk backed off a few paces and took a seat on the table we’d been using as a preparation station. 

“Is this okay? I’d like to stay near, in case there are any unexpected reactions.” 

“It’s fine,” I said as I finished partially undressing, then slipped into the water. It was colder than I had expected. The surface was steaming, why was it so cold? The icy shock permeated into me, and I shuddered, then rolled my shoulders back as I realized the cold sensation was purely spiritual, not physical. Like most advancement resources, the power was entering my spirit, but unlike most things, which were consciously or subconsciously pulled into the spirit, this was having an effect on both my body and spirit, and was leaking through between the two. 

It wasn’t painful. Many such baths apparently were. Given the fact that mono-mana full-gate growth spells were common among the sects and magical traditions more common to history here, it was even often a necessary part of the process. Pain was usually the result of stripping away any excess buildup of other types of magical elements or even unwanted aspects of the same magical element that had entered the spell. 

The go-to example was physical mana and weaponry. Countless sects had full-gate spells meant to give their practitioners physical strength, speed, and grace, but also used spells meant to create weaponry out of force. But those were two contradictory aspects of physical mana – one empowering existing matter, while the other dealt with giving physical form to mana. Not the kind of thing I usually concerned myself with. But, with a bath designed to alter the full-gate spells stripping away the aspects related to forging mana that had been incorporated into the spell, it could leave only the aspect related to empowering existing matter. The excess mana would be ejected. This bath, thankfully, was meant to empower such ‘impurities’, as they were locally deemed. 

But though it wasn’t painful, it was definitely strange. The cold began to shift, turning to warmth, as the magic flowed into me. It wasn’t working in the same way something like the headstone or a normal advancement resource would, rising the potential height and power of a spell, but rather, acting upon a specific function of the growth spells in my spirit. It was unlocking that potential, and I grew stronger because of it. My heart started to hammer as the major roots linking Beast Mage’s Soul with Magister’s Body drank in the power, and their effect bound it into the Kirin spell as well. For a moment, I feared overburdening my spirit again, but thankfully, there was no bond involved here, no spiritual weight, just ordinary mana and energy. Of course, enough of those could still overdo it, but this wasn’t at that limit. 

The power funneled into me, and the bath turned from hot to temperatureless, but tingly, like I was bathing in lightning after drinking a potion of lightning immunity. It circled around in my spirit before transforming into a bath of gravity, all without actually changing visually. On and on the bath changed, the sensations growing evermore esoteric, and then…

I was floating in clear, normal water. Almost an hour had passed, and I felt… good. Strong. I was nowhere near the power I’d need to reach the maximum baseline potential for fourth gate, but I was still far above where I had been only an hour ago. I rose, and Kene looked up from where they’d pulled out a book. 

“How are you?” 

“Stronger,” I said. “I could go for about a hundred more of those, I think.”

They shut the book with a snap and stepped over to me, putting a hand over my heart. Gold and green light flowed from their hands into me, and they slowly nodded, while Dusk chirped like a bird, saying she didn’t feel anything wrong with me. 

“I think you’re right,” they said. “You don’t seem to have anything wrong. I wouldn’t take another advancement resource for at least a day, or risk mana toxin, but that’s perfectly normal.” 

“Hey! I got stronger, and I didn’t die!” I said, and that got a laugh from Kene, who reached over to the table and tossed me a towel. 

“Here. Dry off, teleport to the house, and get changed. I’m sure Meadow and Orykson are itching to get your next few spells in.” 

A short time later, I was standing in a grassy field within spring, only a few thousand feet away from the field of flowers. It was still recovering from the massive donation I’d made in Chrysite, but a year later, it was looking healthy again at least. Dusk was floating a short ways away, meditating atop her cloud, working on drawing the power of all the needed beasts from the realm into herself. 

“Spriggan Step is a fairly underwhelming spell at first blush,” Meadow said. “It provides less speed than a life-based haste spell, let alone a life and time based one. It provides less physical power than the same haste spells, which aren’t renowned for bestowing physical might. Hardly any plant mages bother to learn it, instead choosing to focus on spells like Vine Strike.”

“But I’m learning it despite that, so there’s a massive ‘but’ coming,” I said, and Meadow smiled, tapping her cane against the ground. 

“There is. First, it should further prime your will to accept a plant from the…” 

She trailed off as she hacked and coughed for a moment, before she continued to speak. I frowned, but said nothing. She claimed she had about five more years, and I believed her, but… I was worried. 

“Accept a plant from the dreamrealm,” Meadow said. “Better than even Ivy Cloak or Briarthreads. Then, like I said yesterday, the cost scales with the amount of plant matter you are bending. And finally, it will compound with any real plant matter. Spriggans, like dryads, are spirits that have merged with a physical substrate. They can utilize their own bodies for the spell, letting them move around quite a bit more than a human mage with the same spell. You’re not made of plants, but you can summon real plants with more ease than most plant mages.” 

“Oh!” I said, lighting up. “That makes sense. I can use it to launch me further even when mid-air, as long as I summon the plants from Dusk beneath my feet.”

“Exactly,” Meadow said. “Now, the spellform itself…” 

She passed me over a printed packet from the library, and I flipped through it until I got to the printed spell design. I channeled life mana to my fingers, along with tiny traces of time, and spatial mana, and felt as my full-gates poured small bits of physical and solar energy into the spell array. Once I had it etched out, I poured energy into the spell, and… found that it didn’t accept any. I frowned, wondering if I’d cast it wrong, before realizing that given its scaling cost, of course it wasn’t eating any power. 

I tried to scoot to the side, and felt the grass beneath my feet shift and push me forward. A tiny trickle of fourth gate mana drained from me as I moved, and it was definitely quicker than I’d intended to walk. Like Meadow had said, the effect wasn’t dramatic, but it also didn’t drain much mana. Definitely the kind of effect that I’d be able to sustain for a good time, even with my abysmal mana regeneration. 

Though, since it affected my physical movement, would it work with Foxstep? I teleported to the side, and found that the Foxstep carried me further than I’d intended for it to. 

“Oh this is funky,” I said, starting to run forwards, then Foxstepping to the side, then leaping into the air and teleporting to the ground. The last Foxstep carried me just as I’d expected it to, no plants beneath my feet, but everything else was adding more distance for only the trickle of additional mana. I teleported into a tree and leapt forward with all my might. Spriggan’s Step drained a considerably larger amount of mana as the branch I had stood on shoved under my feet, flinging me forward by a lot more than I’d expected. I landed in a tumble, then popped back up to my feet, shaking the dirt out of my hair. 

“Ah, interesting,” Meadow said. “I admit, I wasn’t sure that it would work with Foxstep. Can you control it?”

“I had the thought it might reduce the cost, but instead it’s adding distance, which is… weird. Definitely useful, but not what I’d expected,” I said. “I’ll get it under control. Honestly, what I’m going to need is to spar with Ikki. He’s really good at beating control into my motions, so he should be able to help.” 

“Ah, good,” Meadow said. “I was a bit worried we’d have to work on removing it from you. That would be… difficult… considering your full-gate spells.” 

“Nothing in life’s a lunch,” I said, then realized I’d butchered the expression about there being no such thing as free lunch. Ah well. I shrugged, but Meadow just shook her head in amusement. I turned and re-activated the spells, then launched myself into a tree. I heard a faint tinkle of laughter from Dusk and blew a raspberry at her, before Foxstepping forward. I was starting to get a handle on it. Kinda. 

“Hey, what’s the ingrained effect?” I asked, tilting to the side and Foxstepping again. 

“It’s a simple but good one, empowering the efficacy of plant magic,” Meadow said, and I nodded as I lost my balance again. That was a good one – my temporal magic was able to replicate the sheer power of basically the entire rest of my kit put together, thanks in large part to its stacking of those sorts of effects. I spent almost two hours playing with the Spriggan Step spell, conjuring Ikki towards the second hour, doing my best to dodge as he slashed back and forth with his domain weapon, punishing every time I presented an opening due to a lack of balance. 

As my life mana was starting to finally drain, the benefit of a low-cost spell on top of having a virtually empty set of fourth gates, Orykson appeared. He clicked his stopwatch, then nodded. 

“Good, your death reserves are full. Are you ready to learn Ghostmind?” 

“I think so,” I said, mentally tugging on Hannah and Arthur. Both materialized around me, and Orykson’s eyes flicked between them, before landing on me. 

“Some time ago, there was a man known as the Spirit General,” he said. “You’ve begun to walk a path somewhat similar to his, through very different means. You have demonstrated a far higher than average ability to call upon the dominions of your ghosts.” 

“He’s not calling them,” Hannah said. “He asks. He sends the request, and we apply our dominion that way.” 

Arthur barked his agreement. 

“Thus the difference,” Orykson said, sounding somewhat irritable. “The Spirit General forcibly chained ghosts to his will, and the only reason I tolerated his continued existence was due to the fact that ghosts aren’t people, and only possess fragmentary first, second, fourth, and fifth layers, nothing else.”

I could sense him building up to a lecture, so I tried to steer him back on course.

“I do remember almost taking his headstone, and thinking that his ability to draw on lots of dominions sounded useful.” 

“Yes, well, it was,” Orykson agreed. “Between your mental training with the Autumn Weaver and your existing ghost magic, you’ve taken the first steps to do something similar. But if you want to go further, then listen closely…”