Chereads / Home of Freaks / Chapter 4 - Calm Before the Storm

Chapter 4 - Calm Before the Storm

When we got down to the pool there was only a few people around as it was still only 9 or so and it wasn't exactly warm enough that people wanted to go outside to have fun and cool off. Seeing that it was mostly normal tourists with a few hunters sprinkled around I viewed it as a safe environment to test out my powers at one of the smaller pools. There were 7 pools in total differing in depth and color with one even being heated and styled to resemble a natural hot spring.

I went to one of the smaller ones that was right now a clear light blue color that would have felt freezing cold to the touch if the one touching it wasn't me. I cycled my cultivation method which Silvie helped me name during breakfast. We called it the Mythic Winter Jade technique as we wanted to both honor its heritage and acknowledge its creator i.e. me.

After a few cycles I could clearly feel the life and ice qui in my body and to a lesser extent the wind, water, and yin qui was also present though I could barely feel a faint trace of moonlight not in my daintain or mind's palace but in my body and flesh. I used the ice and water qui turning it into a magic circle as I imagined a complex spell (for a beginner) that had ingrained itself into my soul when I awakened.

Xorm Tugv, Khahf, po Wyvr po, iz Wyvr mo Bahn - Vapor, Bend, twist, listen. (PS - I made a language for this.)

(Xa or mt tu gv, kh ba hn wf, po wu wy vrm po, iz wy vrm po ba hn - Please pretend this part doesn't exist, its for the idiot author to study from.)

I chanted almost silently but this would still need to be trained out as any noise in a hunt could spell endless trouble. For now I'll just put off using spells for hunting until I've trained it to a more acceptable level. I felt the qui inside of me circle through my body and change into ice and water magical essence as it escaped my body from my palm and materialized as a magic circle which I had to carefully carve into the air with my mind as if with a pen.

First, I made a ring with the water element, then I drew a snowflake pattern which was made from ice mana, and finally I connected everything with the water element by putting a core in a teardrop shape in the middle of the spell which then spread water mana through the whole thing like a heart and blood through veins.

When the water mana had spread through the whole thing looking like vines looping through an ice formation I carefully inscribed the powerful runes onto the ring outside the formation. I repeated the phrase a few times to encircle the formation and gently push it onto the pool's surface using both ice and water mana but made sure it didn't change any of the inscription.

(Imagine a ring with a snowflake in it, the ring is made of water element so it's a deep blue while the snowflake is a silvery-blue. Then make a small blue teardrop at the center of the snowflake which icy vines grow out of winding around the parts of the snowflake stopping at the outer ring. Lastly, the outer ring is filled with water which has the incantation in Zagadkain script on it. (The language I made for this.)

This all seemed long as it was a complex process but in truth it barely took 3 seconds but that was still too long when it was in the perspective of a hunter in the wild. As such it seemed like I would have to train my spell activation levels to a higher grade as this was simply unacceptable for a mage aiming to hunt for long periods of time in a forbidden zone.

As the spell touched the water I felt a strand of energy connecting my mind to the particles of water around the formation. I raised the water up like a spike and spiraled it around the formation making little creatures at the top which I tried to make as detailed as possible to test my control.

It started easy with a vaguely snake-like shape of water which I then had to impress the scales into. Then came the wings which I had to reinforce with ice as the water did not want to become that spread out in the air while under pressure from gravity. Next, the fins and underbelly scales which was very annoying as they overlapped and the fins were so, thrice cursed, delicate. Finally, I worked on the face, tail, and claws they took some work but nowhere near as much as the scales and fins.

(Imagine Subnautica's Below Zero Ice Dragon Leviathan but more slender and long also make the wings/fins feathery but change the feathers to a soft ice.)

Once I got everything drawn it felt like my head was straining against the urge to lay down and not think for a while but I knew that if that happened I would lose all of my progress so I soldiered on and walked into the cold water to practice a bit more. I controlled the weird leviathan dragon mix to fly around me doing stunts and breathing icy mist and water to imitate liquid nitrogen something I wanted to later create and control.

I saw Silvie wanting to approach so I signed her to remain where she was as I created a more appropriate creature for her to play with. I made a feline shape using water as I added smooth fur in ice which should allow her to pet it and gave it two crystal eyes with a diamond shaped ice imprint in its forehead. I then sent it over for her to play with which made me notice that the further my creations go from the spell formation the more energy they take to maintain and control.

(Imagine a cat, give it 2 dragon whiskers (meaning really long ones), then give it Vaporeon's tail, weebing between its fingers (like think duck legs,) a blue crystal (sapphire) on its head, and make the fur really fine ice.)

By now, some people have noticed what I was up too as Silvie and I weren't really inconspicuous with my silver hair and blue eyes or with her beautiful gold hair and green left eye and purple right eye. Most of them left us alone though they did stare at my use of magic to play around with her. But one idiotic young civilian just decided to see what would happen if they throw a rock at my feline creation meaning they threw it in Silvie's direction. I reacted accordingly summoning Quartz in split second speed and ordering him to use moonlight qui to flash over to her side blocking the blow.

I stared murder at the 16 looking civilian kid (what if he was my age I was way more mature than this idiot and failure of a human) who dared to attack my sister who thankfully wasn't scared but was looking annoyed in her white sundress which when I saw the wet sand on it explained why. I looked around trying to find the cursed parents of this brat to give them a piece of my mind on his mental capabilities. Before I got the chance, one of the hunters relaxing on the sidelines who noticed the commotion took the initiative to give the brat a harsh talking too about what attacking a hunter or his family represented. (H*ll, I was allowed to bring him to court and killed for that.)

I checked the time wanting to go back inside as that incident ruined my mood and was rewarded with my H.A.L showing 10:50 which meant that the equipment was scheduled to arrive soon giving me a good excuse to get away from the idiot. I signed to Silvie asking if she wanted to go back.

"Can you keep the little kitty and dragon until we get to our room? Their cute." - Silvie

Oh no, it's that face again the one she makes when she's trying to be cute and beg without really begging. Every time she does it I question how far I have fallen as I stare at the dragon Leviathan thing that she called cute. The cat I could understand as that was made for her to play with and is kind of cute but the dragon I made based on the deep sea Leviathan? I question how my sister sees the world at times…

Anyway, I knew I would do as she asked since I have zero resistance to her requests so I started thinking of a way to accomplish this task she had asked of me. One idea would be to get them up and then create a new formation in our room using the bath or a bucket. But I quickly dismissed the idea as our room was on the fourth floor and way too far away from the pools which mean that I would most likely fall unconscious before we got there from mental exhaustion.

I frowned in concentration before finally having an epiphany as I thought about how the spell actually worked. I got the spell as a combination of my Yuki-onna bloodline and Koi Moonlight Dragon Bloodline. In my ancestral memories the spell would actually be categorized as more of a spell formation mix which using my mana would link me with water particles in the surroundings of the spell and allow me to control it. I could technically keep it up eternally if I don't do much with it and just leave it somewhere.

So using that knowledge I created two formations which I privately called the Vapor Control spell and inscribed one on the gem of the cat thing I made for Silvie and another on the head of the thing I'm going to call a baby leviathan (it was like a foot and a half in length). That done I was starting to feel slightly wobbly and cancelled the first spell signalling the group to get back to safety quickly.