The Fourth Gate: Chapter Six

We didn’t have much time to relax, despite my hopes, as the Healer re-appeared in the room, holding a key in his hand, and the Shepherd appeared next to him. Two more contestants were on the table, both covered in burns, so we were ushered out by Meadow, who took us through a side passage and out of the room. As soon as we were out, heading toward the sect apartments, I turned my head to Liz. 

“Unicorn?” I asked. “How come you never told us?!” 

“I can’t talk about it,” she said seriously. “But I figured that you’d already know. You saw me riding her during the Battle of Crysite. Between that and your senses, I figured…” 

“I didn’t,” I admitted. “It feels like you’ve got some sort of chalice in your spirit, filled with healing potion infused with soul mana? But it’s more perfect than a healing potion.” 

“Unicorns shed their horns once a century,” Meadow said. “The horns possess a unique link back to their original unicorn, and have tremendous potential. They can be transformed into blades, wands, and, indeed, chalices.” 

“So you’ve bound a horn, and it transformed into some sort of unicorn healing magic chalice?” I asked. “That’s why you could still call her to ride on during the battle, but the spellbond had such a weird and potent healing effect.” 

“Your description of a self-regenerating potion that grants true healing, of the sort a healer gives, rather than regeneration, which has also been infused with soul mana isn’t terribly inaccurate,” Meadow said. “There are a handful of legacies which give access to things like Titles, or Title-backed effects, though very rare. Some rare sirens have it, and some believe that most unicorns have something of the sort.” 

“You know, it’s not very in the spirit of the rules to just say that,” Liz said. Meadow just shrugged, and I studied them. Meadow’s  hadn’t been what I’d described it as, but it was close enough that I thought I understood just what Meadow was getting at. She was bending the rules – whoever set those, and whatever they were – but I’d already guessed the bulk of it.

“Are there any Titled unicorns?” 

“Are there any Titled Kirin?” Liz responded. I blinked, then shrugged. 

“I dunno. Maybe? It’s hard to tell. I’ve only met the two, and one of them didn’t like me.” 

“Exactly,” Liz agreed. I sighed and rubbed my temples, then let the conversation move on as we made our way to our families – though, with Liz and Ed engaged, it was more like our family. To my disappointment, most of the fights were wrapped up by the time we got there, and I only got to see a slow, boring battle between a pair of mid-tier competitors, before ushering everyone into Dusk’s realm. 

“That was amazing,” Kene congratulated, and my father agreed, while Ed immediately wrapped both of us in a tight bear hug.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” my grandmother said, while Kene’s grandmother squawked and pecked at Dusk’s head, telling her to wake up. Dusk blinked and rose, shaking head head, and then Dawn emerged from her spirit. I wondered if Dawn had been the reason for Dusk’s rapid recovery. 

“It truly was an incredible fight,” Liz’s grandfather said, pulling both of us into a hug the moment Ed let us go. “I am tremendously proud of both of you.” 

The congratulations went on for entirely too long, and both Liz and I were blushing by the end of the night, as Dusk talked up the fight alongside Meadow and the rest of the family. 

“I really only won because of my tournament prize,” I said, only for Lincoln to wave me down. 

“And my granddaughter only survived some of your attacks thanks to her armor,” he said. “It’s still a win in your book. Don’t downplay your achievement.”

“I look forward to seeing you two face one another at Arcanist,” Kene’s grandmother said, before blinking and turning her head. “I mean. Porridge. Pottage. Poultice.” 

“I wouldn’t mind a rematch at Arcanist, especially since we’ve both got a tournament invite,” Liz agreed. “Though it’s hard to know if we’ll actually face one another then.” 

I agreed, and the conversation continued to flow on, as they started discussing some of the fights that we had missed during our recovery period, interviews, and our way back to meet with the family. Apparently, we had missed a spectacular match between Dario and a lava elemental spirit, where the spirit had been able to throw around attacks comparable to a two or three cycle Mantle Dragonfyre as if they were nothing at all. She had won in the end, but only after forcing Dario to reveal he had some sort of ultimate summon that he cast in conjunction with his fish and mouse, an enormous serpent glowing with a dozen different types of magic that had been powerful enough to cut her arm off. 

“You two are still the only ones to crack the dome,” Ed said, and I grimaced. 

“Be that as it may, Cai Dao and Ivy both still haven’t shown off their full power,” I said. “I’m also terrified of Ming.” 

“Ming?” my grandmother asked, frowning. “Really? She barely scraped through in her own fight against that Roc boy.” 

“It’s not her current power,” Meadow said quietly. “It’s his winds of resolve.” 

That got us off on another tangent, and the conversation continued to flow from there as the night wore on. Eventually, the food was finished, and the drinks ran dry, and we all turned in to bed. I was woken by the spatial tripwire in the normal world going off early the following morning, while Kene and most everyone else was still asleep. I threw on some nicer clothes and stepped out, opening the door to see the Patriarch of the Silent River Sect standing there, holding a finely carved wooden box. At least, it looked like wood – it was actually tightly packed creation mana. 

“Malachi,” the man greeted me, passing me the box. “Congratulations. This is your reward for reaching top sixteen.”

I nodded my thanks and took it, then placed it on the dresser. The River Lord didn’t move though, and after an awkward few moments of silence, I realized he wanted me to open it. I pressed a spike of ungated mana into the mana, and the box dissolved, revealing an enchanted key and a tightly rolled scroll. 

“The key is linked to your ungated mana, and will open the door to the sect gates, as well as the apartment gates, and your apartment’s door,” the River Lord said smoothly. “The scroll is the technique our sect archivist decided would be the most helpful. We noted that you had some trouble with reaching your full-gate spell’s maximum potential. You Mossfordians tend to scorn empowering baths, but we have several designed to assist with growth-type full gate spells. Your particular brand seems to mimic a seed, so we selected Shizhen’s Myriad Elemental Impurity Refining Bath. It will help you fill yourself with your impure energies.”  

He didn’t sound insulting when he said impure energies, just matter of fact. I assumed it was the Mono spell doing something funky with the translation, and that he meant impure in the sense that I blended multiple energy types into my mana and energy, rather than trying to focus on each mana type as an individual, like most humans and spirits did. 

“Thank you,” I said, unfurling the scroll to see a block of text, followed by a handful of sketched diagrams. As I read it through, I realized that it was an alchemical recipe, just written in perhaps the most unhelpful way that I could imagine. I mumbled the words under my breath, trying to make sense of them. 

“Cleanse all ingredients of unneeded arrays, as marked below. Following this, heat a large bath of water, cleansed in the usual fashion, with seventeen handfuls of mana-grass, thirteen star anise pods, nine handfuls of willow bark, and two spoons of dried, powdered turmeric root. 

“While the bath comes together, mash together five spoons of silverthorn sap with ten heart-goji berries, a smashed head of garlic, four handfuls of mint leaves sans the stems, two thumbs of ginger, and five thumbs of peony root. Set aside. In a large bowl, finely grate in three thumbs fresh rehmanna root, four thumbs fresh warm-desert ginseng, three thumbs dried viridian-milkvetch, and a handful of windy-plateau codonopsis root, fresh or dried as suits the season. 

“Add the mash first into the bath, and wait for the burning of a joss stick. Following this, add seven immortal zhi mushrooms, three mercurial lotuses, and the remaining grated materials. Allow it to simmer for another half-joss stick, cleansing scum as it emerges. Soak.”

I groaned internally, though I was careful not to let it show on my face. It was, technically, a very valuable recipe if it could be used to speed the progress of my full-gates development like was promised. The leftover water should also be useful for some of the plants in Dusk. But it was… so vague. I’d need to collect the new ingredients, play around with the ratios, and do way too much trial and error. It reminded me of some of the old baking recipes my dad had that used units like an egg of suet. 

“I trust it is to your satisfaction,” the River Lord asked, and I wondered how many competitors would actually tell him no.

“It is a very valuable recipe, and one that will be of great use to me moving forward,” I said, which was true. The Patriarch smiled, then waved his hand. 

“Come. I have arranged a teleport to the Keeper’s Hall, where our herediment headstones are kept. You will be allowed to choose one.” 

“Let me just grab Dusk–” I started to say, but was cut off. 

“Your spirit died in the fight. You won. This is not her reward, it is yours. Had she finished the battle in your stead, the roles would be reversed.” 

I pursed my lips in annoyance, and reached out to Dusk, nudging her awake and making sure she was okay with me taking it. She agreed that she was, so I followed the River Lord without making too much of a fuss, no matter how much I personally disagreed with his policy. 

The teleportation was quick and subtle, provided by someone who didn’t have a Title, but who must have been an Occultist, false or otherwise. Before I had time to even register the soft folds of space, I was in a hall of marble, jade, and gold, polished to a shimmering perfection, standing before an elderly man who slid out of the shadows like a ghost. He radiated the power of a false Occultist, his knowledge and abnegation mana obvious, but his spatial mana hidden like a whisper. 

“Thank you for the travel,” I said, bowing. That got a raised eyebrow from the old man.

“Few fourth-realms would notice as such,” he said, his voice dry and crackling. “Very good. Do you understand what a headstone will offer you?”

“Only in vague terms,” I admitted. “It can offer years of growth to my mana-garden in an instant. I know that I have some control over where the growth is focused, so if I picked up a headstone from a plant mage, I could either direct lots of growth to plant spells, mediocre growth everywhere, or something in-between.”

“It offers mana growth, but also instincts,” the curator said, glaring at me. “A young prodigy of the sword, lacking only experience, can gain a decade’s worth of sword instincts and impressions.”

“Oh, that is useful. Battle instincts only, or—”

“It is what you can gain from it. Now, hold still.”