Standing on top of the earthen maze, Yuriko's Anima perception had seeped right through the walls and ceiling easily. The earth and stone were temporary, conjured from a concentration of Elemental energies that were forcibly converted into the materials. After a time, the energies would revert to their component parts and vanish. How long that would take depended on the spell and how much Intent had been infused into the Conjure Earth and Stone spell. For this instance, Yuriko only put in as much as she normally would with a single sunblade.
Consequently, her perception was more than able to slip through the gaps without forcing the issue, and since she was at the centre of the maze, and the structure being just a bit wider than a hundred and fifty paces, everything was well within her purview.
The past couple of weeks of research, experimentation, and just doing her usual training had borne bountiful fruit. She'd had taken a quick trip back to the borderlands, past the wastelands, and into the Chaos Sea to check how Arcana Weaving held up, and well…she was somewhat disappointed.
The spells worked, true, but the infusion of both Will and Intent to keep the structure stable was easily a match for what Sorcery, or just plain Shaping, would have cost. It had the benefit of structure and rigidity, however, so it did enhance her capability to Shape. However, unless she knew far more spells than she currently knew, her Shaping would become limited if she continued using Arcana Weaving.
Only in the Chaos Sea was the cost of Arcana Weaving palpable. And it was probably why the locals didn't venture out into it too often. Only those who were significantly more powerful could do so, probably above the Knight level, which was why the locals had assumed she was stronger than her youth would have made apparent.
Overall, Arcana Weaving wasn't as overwhelmingly useful in the Chaos Sea, but she'd yet to test its efficacy in the Myriad Planes. But then again, if it worked in the Chaos Sea, it should work in the planes.
The teams entered the maze and Yuriko closed the entrances with a single cast of Conjure Earth and Stone. She made sure that there were airways inside though, small tunnels barely as wide as a gold coin. While the air trapped within would have been enough for fifty people to breathe, if any of them conjured fire, they might suffocate.
The students moved slowly, cautiously. They clumped together because of the darkness and because there was no straight path longer than five paces. The maze was filled with right-angle turns and spiral curves, and while they were preoccupied, Yuriko conjured a second layer atop the first, and added ramps, both obvious and subtle, across the field. Now all she had to do was wait, watch, and amuse herself.
She had enough consciousness strands to keep watch of each student and had as much again to spare. Her ability to split her mind had unknowingly improved with her reaching Transformation. Or maybe it was the constant training of her Intent and Will?
Hmm, a few groups used a Light spell, banking on the fact that the turns made detecting them much harder, but it still gave away their presence. One of the dark groups had their hunters split off while their vulnerable members went down a few turns and huddled up. Each of them fired off a cast of Echolocation every few seconds to make sure nobody was sneaking up on them.
The light group had not been that foolish now that Yuriko took the time to analyse their move. It was only the hunters that lit up while the prey moved away. Hunters couldn't capture other hunters for points, but they could be disabled by removing their badges. Yuriko chortled as the investigating group realised the subterfuge using Echolocation. Since both groups were using the base version, they spotted each other as soon as they came within reach, and they crashed into each other and devolved into a melee. In the meantime, their light group's prey members continued away and eventually ran into another group. They were foolish enough not to use the spell more often and were blindsided.
But these were fifth-year Battle Magi after all, and the skirmish ended without any losses, though both teams were now a bit more wary. Another team found a ramp to the second level and were exploring cautiously. Yuriko had added murder holes that they could slip their spell through, though one of them nearly broke an ankle stepping on one. Oops.
Yuriko clicked her tongue in annoyance. They were too soft. Their physiques were barely better than an unawakened! Sometimes, even worse! Didn't these kids train? Even if their empowerment method did not focus on the body, they should still try to stay fit, especially if they intended to delve into Chaos Founts.
Or maybe only a few of them ever intended to do that, huh? Still, she should put these kids through a physical training routine. Perhaps teach them a technique to strengthen themselves too? Oh, no, no. She should check if there were any spells that did the same first. She'd been focused on the part of Arcana Weaving that was similar to Sorcery than the other disciplines. None of the locals had Animus so she wasn't sure if her training methods would even work, and for them to gain it, they'd have to brave the Chaos Sea.
Hmm, perhaps nothing so dangerous. She taught the Karcellians how to create an Animus Core after all.
Sometimes she wondered why she was willing to share secrets and methods so freely. It just seemed right to her. It wasn't as if she was spreading the Imperial Path or the Ancient's Way. She barely knew how Spirit Binding worked, or how the Xylarchy and the barbarians harnessed Geists. So far, the easiest method to teach was actually the beastkin's, Kassy and Roland's, Martial Path. And really, that path was just having Animus focused on empowering the body, which was only a subset of her Ancient's Way.
The interesting thing about Kassy's Martial Path was the ability to change into an atavistic form as well as a battle hybrid. Since she wasn't a beastkin, she had no idea how to do that, so really, she knew nothing of the Martial Path beyond the shared commonalities.
All of them involved having an Animus Core, however, and Yuriko wasn't sure how forming one would affect the locals' Elemental Hearts.
The couple of weeks of study had enlightened her to this region's common sense after all, and she knew that they had been incredibly lucky to be able to blend in. It had been a reflexive thing to do when they arrived in a strange place that was much different from their original environment. The fact that there was no ambient Chaos to fuel her companions' regeneration had been more than troublesome.
Still, she wondered why they ended up in this place, why the Chaos Sea threw them here. One of the things she checked in their history books was if there was mention of the Shattering, and she did find it. But not as the catastrophe it had been back home, just an event in the distance that altered a few things.
That, and the fact that it would take more than a century's travel through Waypoints told her that she had arrived at the edge of the Chaos Sea, and not just at an isolated pocket. The thought was chilling, but also exciting. Lands that no one back home had ever seen! She had discovered what it was like before the Shattering, though Damien's memories didn't quite match up.
That either meant that this place was different from that prehistory, or things had changed here too. She was inclined to think it was the latter, but she had by no means integrated every last bit of Damien's experiences and memories. She'd gotten a fraction of a fraction of a percent. And that was an optimistic guess.
Oh well, at least with the new spells she and the others learned meant that even though her lover, Heron, and her handmaiden were always in touch. Every morning and evening, she would initiate contact via the Sending spell. It was a more complex version of the Message spell which recorded the caster's voice and about a minute's worth of speech to send to a target that was no more than a couple of leagues away.
Sending did the same except the range was wider and could be boosted by chain-casting the spell. At the moment, Gwendith and the others were about forty leagues away, and were about to reach a Chaos Fount called the Hillside Burrows. That Fount sometimes created Ambrosia, and it was the third delve they'd performed over the fortnight already. No luck on the first two delves.
Oh, Sofia Garcia and Juliette Abad's group ran into another set of hunters. The two feisty girls had both chosen to be hunters and they clashed with another group's fighters. The prey half of their group stuck with and helped attack the other group instead of running and hiding. A bold choice and one that was paying off well. Her rules didn't state that the prey couldn't fight back after all, heh.
Those two and their group were quite proactive. Yuriko wondered if the prize she had for them was really worth the enthusiasm. Hmmm. From her hip satchel, she withdrew a set of five amulets that each had Echolocation inscribed into them. But unlike the stone slabs she distributed earlier, these were actual inscribed spell tools. If they slotted a Wind Elemental beast core in it, it could activate the Echolocation spell when they say the trigger word. Or they could use the amulet as a spell activation tool and use the runescript patterns inscribed on them to cast the spell.
Yuriko had not made these by herself, though she had simplified the spells. It had been unusually easy for her to do so. The runescript patterns were easy to decipher, and when she envisioned what she wanted the spell to do, the patterns just jumped out to her or appeared in her head after a bit of thought. She suspected Damien's memories as the influence, but the man had not been a Sorcerer as far as she could tell. He was a powerful Shaper, and she suspected every God Monarch was so. But Sorcery, even though it was deeply connected to Chaos Shaping, was a derivative and not directly translated from it. Same thing with Arcana Weaving. It felt like a derivative of Sorcery and Shaping, or perhaps, Sorcery was a derivative of Arcana Weaving. She didn't know, and they existed in different environments. She was sure she could use Sorcery here, but the effects would be meagre, she suspected. There just wasn't enough ambient Chaos for the Radiant energy to devour and convert. Perhaps Radiant energy could convert other Elemental energies to more of itself?
For a moment, Yuriko could feel herself coming close to something. It was elusive and when her mind touched the concept she was grasping for, it slipped. A moment later, the thought disappeared and she was left with the feeling of disappointment and loss. But even that feeling disappeared a moment later.
Yuriko blinked. Ah, the game was about to conclude. The Echolocation amulets would be a good enough prize, but she could also give the winners her Nirian Tokens. The registrar had given her a quota of a hundred such tokens she had to distribute to students, and maybe some teachers, too. When they were given to the registrar, they would allocate an hour of her time to teach the bearer whichever of her skills and expertise that they wanted mentoring on, and she'd get a bit more coins in exchange. The going rate was a gold coin per token. It wasn't bad, and the hundred could be spread out into ten tokens a week for the trimester's ten-week duration. Besides, she only had four classes throughout the week and an additional two hours of mentoring wasn't that onerous.
"Congratulations!" she said to the winning groups.
Sofia and Juliette's group was one of them, while the second group had that young man that she nearly frightened to death. He gave her a smouldering glare, and she smirked at him.
"Well, you all have a choice of prize, an inscribed Echolocation amulet or a Nirian Token from me."
She presented the prizes using her kinesis. The two girls exchanged looks and reached for the tokens before anyone else could do so, as did that young man and two of his cohort. The rest took the inscribed spells.
"Well, then, our next class is in a couple of days!" She waved at them casually then flew off.