PSTH: Chapter Forty-Two

Why do Primals have the urge to bud their essence, when essence hearts are perfectly capable of producing a Primal from seemingly nothing but time and ambient essence – the very thing they produce? The answer is simpler than you may expect. Primals, like humans, can’t live forever. Outside of suspended animation like an egg, most Primals live around fifty to sixty years. Despite Hearts creating them, they do so slowly. Too slowly to account for the number of Primals in the world. In the end, this means Primals have kids for essentially the same reason humans do – keeping their species alive and hearty after they die. 

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The Essence of Animation, a book published by a biologist in an attempt to categorize every type of essence-based creature, published 439 Modern-Era

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As the shell faded away, I felt a surge of essence. Most of it flowed into Scales, as the victor of the battle, but smaller currents passed into Hex and me, while an amount that was smaller still passed into the Apaturegius. Scales’ core grew to the peak of its current power, then spun and condensed. Within an instant, there was a fifteenth level layer on his core.

I felt a bit of excitement burning through me. Scales was a three form Primal, which, if painted with a broad brush, meant his current pneuma and anima levels were weaker than a two or one form Primal of the same rarity and level, in order to pave way for stronger power in the future after attaining further forms. It wasn’t a hard and fast rule, of course – there were plenty of exceptions. But generally, when a Primal with multiple forms entered its last form, it would almost be like a jump in Rarity. That was part of why Vince’s Serest was so feared. As a three form in its final form, and an Epic, it was extraordinarily powerful. 

Generally, Sharmonds like him entered their second form somewhere around level fifteen. It could vary a few levels depending on the individual and their ousia weave. I studied Scales’ essence intently, trying to sense if there were any major shifts. Nothing seemed to be happening, and I suppressed the disappointment at that. It would happen when Scales’ spirit was good and ready. Even if it took him five levels, it would be worth it. Besides, he was nearing level seventeen, where his core would naturally develop the Aqua Fin spell. That alone would do a lot to help round out his kit. 

I turned to the Apaturegius and extended a hand. It wiggled over to me, tilting its head curiously, and I raised my finger and started to sketch the Bond Primal spell. As soon as it finished, a connection snapped into place, and I extended my offer. Not in words, of course. Primals might be smarter than many animals, but they weren’t developed enough to have full language. It was in impressions and emotions. 

In return the Apaturegius sent his – as it was a him – own impressions back. He had loved the fight, loved being able to exert his power without having to fight his very essence every step of the way. He’d cultivated and battled from the ground up, and wanted to keep growing. The idea of fighting lots of strong opponents sounded fun to him, and he wanted to do that. He did enjoy the forest and the trees, but he wasn’t completely set on staying here. It was possible that he’d want to return here some time, perhaps bud off some of his essence to generate another Apaturegius, but that was a distant idea and concern. 

The bond snapped into place, and I felt our essence begin to intermingle. Hex emerged from her storage gem and strutted next to me, proud of herself for all she’d done to help Scales win the battle. I pulled out the box of essence mints that I’d purchased from the shop in Tourmaline, and fed one to each of my Primals. I wasn’t Gawain, I couldn’t just throw them around like they were nothing, but I felt like this was important enough to justify giving them a little treat. 

“What are you naming him?” Laurel asked as she and River both approached. She was smiling, the Kirow still on her shoulder, nibbling on her ear in a motion I thought seemed oddly affectionate. 

“Blast? Hmm. No that doesn’t sound right. But he was zipping around…” 

“Zip?” River suggested, and I glanced at the Apaturegius. I didn’t mind Zip, but I wanted him to like it as well. He seemed to like it some, but wasn’t entirely sold, so I shook my head. 

“He doesn’t mind it, but isn’t sold.” 

“Gale?” Laurel offered. 

I glanced at the Apaturegius, and tried to interpret his impressions. He seemed to like the sound of it, but it was too… soft? Fuzzy? The mental image projected was of it sounding too much like dandelion fluff, so I thought that soft probably described it well. 

“Too soft.” 

“Zale,” River suggested, and I felt a surge from the Apaturegius. 

“That’s it,” I said, pointing and nodding excitedly. “Zale. His name is Zale. But what about you, Laurel? Have you figured out a name for the Kirow?” 

“Beak. It’s a bit basic, but given how he keeps poking at me with his beak, I couldn’t think of anything else,” she said, letting out a soft laugh. 

“I like it, it fits,” I agreed. “Alright, well, you know what my third is. Deal’s a deal, let me see yours.” 

“Hey, you know my fourth!” she protested. “Three for three.” 

“I’ll show you my fourth when I find one,” I responded. She grumbled, but spun some of her green essence into the storage gem on her belt, an an instant later, a large stone coyote-like Primal filled the area. 

“This is Pop,” Laurel introduced. 

“A Canistone,” I said, recalling it from the list of the dozens of Primals found in the park. “They’ve got a pretty strong focus on pneuma, don’t they?” 

“She does,” Laurel agreed. “A balanced mix of speed, strength, and defense, with a gift helping improve her senses – not that it’ll matter while fighting you.” 

“I endeavor to be the most annoying Tamer in all of Oceanseed,” I said, giving her a lighthearted grin as I reached out to let Pop sniff my hand. 

“The two of you have me almost convinced to try and find a Primal of my own,” River said. “I know with my core, I’ll only be able to bond and work with an Arcane element Primal, but it still seems fun.”

“If you want, we can look around in the woods a while longer? With the rare heart nearby, there’s a nonzero chance of finding an Arcane Primal around,” I offered. “You two helped me look around, so I’d be happy to return the favor.”

“Nah. I’m not certain that I do actually want the responsibility, I’m just saying that it would be interesting. Besides, I’d need to imprint the Bond Primal spell onto my core anyways, and I need those slots for work if I’m serious about going into magitech.” 

“Unless you used a storage gem,” Laurel pointed out. “They have Bond Primal imprinted into them.” 

“I suppose that’s true,” River mused. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it, but there’s no reason for you to stay around here looking just for me.” 

“Tell you what,” Laurel said. The way she said it, I almost thought she was imitating Gabby’s accent, but she continued seemingly without having realized that she’d dipped into it. “Both Aiden and I need to stick around for a bit to challenge Lisa Ruth. How about we spend the time training out here to get ready for the fight with her, and if we happen to run into a Primal, I’ll lend you one of my storage gems?” 

River bit his lip and mused over the proposition for a few moments before nodding his agreement, and Laurel kissed his cheek. 

“Great! And while we do that, you can help teach us how to use the spiderweb principle to empower our Primals!” 

“Wait, hold on, that wasn’t part of the deal!” River protested, but he had a smile on his face as he made a rude gesture at her. She made one back, and then they kissed again. I turned away and glanced at Hex, doing my best to shove down the pang of jealousy that I felt. Instead I threw myself into examining Laurel’s idea. 

Hex was uncommon, so she wasn’t nearly so far behind as Beak the Kirow was. A common needed to work doubly hard in order to keep up with the strength of the higher rarity Primals. Hex hadn’t run into any problems with power just yet, but I couldn’t deny that there was some merit to the idea of working on improving the weaving of her ousia. Heart’s truth, even improving my own ousia wasn’t a bad idea. If I could store more potent anima and pneuma, I’d be able to help further empower my Primals. 

“Right,” River said, and I turned back to see they’d disentangled from one another. “How about we head back to camp, and then I’ll see what I can do?” 

I glanced at the sun and nodded. It was getting fairly late in the evening, so we made our way back, and I pulled out my camp stove, camping utensils, and food cubes. As I started making the macaroni and cheese with chicken, River and Laurel moved their heater to the center of the small clearing, atop a small pile of stuff so it wouldn’t risk lighting the leaves on fire. Once that was letting out some heat, they set up a small camp stove of their own and cooked their own dinner, while our assorted Primals sat around the heater and began to gather some essence for their own sustenance. 

Once River, Laurel, and I all had our food, River began to explain the principles of the spiderweb principle. 

“Right. Full disclosure, I’m not an expert on Primals, but I am pretty good at this. It’s standard procedure to bring our ousia weaves up to a minimum level of complexity before we begin seriously training in magitech. A lot of the spells used are really high level or complex, even if they don’t cost absurd amounts of anima, meaning the complex ousia’s improvements to anima and pneuma are really helpful in casting them. More than squeezing out a few extra levels.” 

“What rarity do you bring it to?” I asked out of idle curiosity, and River pointed at Scales. 

“What’s his rarity? My weave is about the same level of complexity.” 

“Rare,” Laurel answered. “I suppose that makes sense. It’s the same standard level that most Tamers go for in their Primals.”

River nodded and took a bite of his own food, some sort of soup, before continuing. 

“The complicated part of the spiderweb principle isn’t the weaving. That part is hard, as you have to burn essence in order to accomplish it, meaning you have to focus on cultivation and on weaving your ousia into the more complicated pattern, at least if you don’t want to accidentally set back your own progression. It’s hard. Not complex. The complicated part is learning to advance your understanding well enough to actually feel the ousia of yourself and others.” 

“That’s got to be a useful skill, though,” I said. “It would let you know if an opponent in a tournament has pushed themselves or their Primal past their limits.” 

“Oh, it’s pretty useful, but developing the sense is really counterintuitive. How would you two do it?” 

“I’d look as deeply and intently as I could with my essence sense,” Laurel responded. I nodded along – I’d been thinking almost exactly the same thing. 

“And this is why I said it’s counterintuitive. You actually need to zoom out and not focus. Like… you know how you can forcibly un-focus your vision? Kind of like that, but with your essence sense. Stop looking, and you’ll find it. Only in the blurriness of attentionless attention will it shine through.” 

I grunted my acknowledgement. He sounded like he was quoting a teacher on the last part, which was annoying, because that was the part that made the least sense to me. Instead, I focused on something he’d mentioned a little bit ago.

“You said we’d need to restructure into a pattern. How do we know what it is?” 

“Well, ousia mapping and patterns is an entire field of study with its own principles, and one that I don’t claim to be an expert in,” River respond. “But as far as I’m aware, there are at least a couple of open source patterns for pretty much every Primal under the sun. There are literally thousands of different ones for people.” 

“How can there be thousands?” Laurel demanded. 

“Ones focused on improving pneuma-enhanced strength, speed, toughness, a hundred blends of each. Ones focused on anima manipulation, power, regeneration, so on and so forth,” River said. “We can move into a spot with better signal to let you all download patterns that work well for you guys. But we’re getting off topic. Here are the main ways I managed to unfocus my senses…”