Amun.
8th of Sextrand, 1492.
Mii'etus Praesyris.
***
This place may have been a shit hole but it wasn't without its consolations.
On the one hand, it was beautiful. Like the Halls above, the Tower of Might was a corkscrew of basalt wound around the divine trunk that seemed to have been carved by water rather than the hands of drow slaves, complete with branching corridors leading to wings carved out by the branches of Evar's divine tree, forced into the Darkworld's body like a parasite.
On the other hand, there was a bounty of knowledge to be gained here. Lilith's history and how it pertained to me was a surprise, yet was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Moreover, what we witnessed in this tower couldn't have been better.
Drow, in their zeal, were perfectionists, and being from one of the most long-lived realms saw that perfection be aimed at the most important thing to them. Power. As a result, they were essentially on par with Telin's Sight, having immense knowledge of classes and their virtually endless paths; assuming they were studied enough. Evar was studied enough. Hence my mirth when he approached me after guiding me to a much more spacious training hall up the corkscrew.
What stole my mirth away, however, were the weapons he held out to me while saying. "Welcome to the advanced levels of the tower."
I took a glance at the closest bystanders before taking the weapons with a begrudging sigh. The button noses and white horse manes of the Hun'ana twins were still here with their brothers and slaves. Not to mention many more unknown drow from the other houses of all ages from ours to Evar's, looking at Iris snicker while Leary gave an encouraging thumbs up.
At least Sovereign Galendra was off feasting on the tower's spiders.
"I was told of your reluctance to use swords," he said with no attempts to hide the disdain in his voice.
I deflected with a casual shrug. "Eh, they're not my style." I still stood on what I said all those years ago, of course. Swordsmanship took years upon decades of training to be effective, yet they'd be tame when compared to a spearman with equal training.
That didn't mean I wouldn't learn for the sake of learning, however. Nor did it mean I was right. I was untrained in swordsmanship in my previous life and was still ignorant of the ways of this life. I didn't have a teacher, so I didn't touch them. Jaimess was the same way, yet that changed with the tengu he befriended. And so, as they taught him, I would be taught.
"They're good for slaughtering, I suppose," I murmured, giving the weapons a closer lookover. If only to admire the skill of whoever crafted these fine weapons using the [Forgers Eye].
Text and schematics of the single-edged blades soon floated around the weapons as the perk activated, prompting Simion to take what I was learning and send the blueprint across the Legions to be replicated, tested, and distributed, for there was more to them than met the eye.
They appeared like a mix between sabers and scimitars, with nary a guard to be found on their onyx hilts. Moreover, their makes were of mithral and adamantine that'd been layered into razor-thin tools of death, making them exceptionally light, durable, and magically conductive.
The same was true, of course, for the dirks and hand crossbows he threw at me soon after, saying. "While you may favor polearms and daggers, scimitars and hand crossbows are your heritage. I am honored to present such tools to you. They are forged by the finest drow hands in Zimysta. Then." He sighed. "He was killed so no one could replicate his craft."
My brows perked at the mention. "And his body?"
"Devoured by spiders."
"Tch." Although he heard me, I hid my annoyance beneath a veil of concentration after withdrawing some mithral, adamantine, and divine wood from my Shadow Pocket.
Within moments, the ambient arcana had been poured through the weapons and coaxed over the metals to activate the [Replication] perk, causing the absurdly dense energy in my Divine Well to pour from the 'circuitry' in my arms.
As was becoming the norm, I could hardly control my divine mana. It gushed out of the weapons and materials like floodwaters, pouring over the floors and up the walls to seep into the ceiling and polish, upgrade, replicate, or outright fabricate everything in sight.
Arenas became mock villages filled with combatants born from mana, stone, and metal. Weapons racks were turned into dimensional inventories with heavier or weaker variants for training. Yet those same energies took hold of the metals before me, heating, hammering, folding, and layering them into virtually identical replicas. However, they were treated differently than steel, as they were sharpened before being quenched and polished.
By then, Iris had taken the originals to replicate them while I went through a similar process with the replicas. Arcana was coaxed around the scimitars, dirk, and hand crossbow, where it remained to morph and redistribute the materials as I intended, Upgrading them into more efficient killing tools; a repeating hand crossbow, in the latter case. The former was made into the same thing as the originals and returned to me once Iris Replicated and Upgraded them for herself. Monoblades.
When I turned to face Two-Heart I saw the most bemused expression focused on the blades lying at my feet. Such a look on a more weathered and scarred version of Etan's placid visage forced a snicker out of me as I stepped into the ring and bowed. Then I outright laughed when Numa, free of the Owl's vestments rose from the darkness to claim his new weapons.
Therein marked the start of some respite during this time of chaos. It reminded me of the old days when most of my days were spent fighting my Doppelganger and studying; attempting to master myself. Only, Iris, Leary, the Hun'ana twins, and their brothers replaced Toril, Jaimess, Ed, Gio, and Letta. Not to mention the presence of a more-than-capable teacher and countless more drow in the background.
As Abbot Eiriol did above, he took us through an accelerated course that left no corners cut, setting up ambushes or similar scenarios to teach us when to utilize the basic defensive, offensive, and neutral postures; movement techniques; attacks; or blocks.
Needless to say, I enjoyed myself. That enjoyment- a heightened emotional state in general, I came to learn, resulted in an exponential increase of the divine mana pouring from my frame.
A rhythm was soon developed, sustained for days on end by my unconscious desire to keep the lessons rolling melding with my mana domain to affect those around me. With their needs for sustenance diminished and their nightly trance all but forgotten, Evar flowed through his teachings like the Falls themselves and those he was teaching followed his increasing pace, kept alive by the new undying powers of my domain.
Within 2 days his pace was faster than that of Abbot Eiriol. Yet we were nowhere near the level required to be on this floor of the tower; the Hun'ana sisters notwithstanding. Regardless, Evar switched up his pace at the start of the 4th day, guiding us away from the wide range of battle terrain formed during our training stint and over to one of the many classrooms carved into the walls.
"While your skill with scimitars has evolved considerably, you still have a long way to go. The path to mastery is centuries long. Even for you." I rolled my eyes during his pause, knowing damn well I cared not for such a thing. Evar only sighed. "Our focus will shift to arcane combat. As always, we start with the basics. Mana Veil and Mana Bolstering.
"Now, I can see you are in the habit of maintaining a mana veil at all times. Its density compared to its thickness is admirable. Considering your station, however, it's not so surprising."
"Would you be if I told you I trained it up before my ascension?" I snorted.
"You do not conceal it, however." He mused, ignoring me entirely. "Not that such a thing is ultimately important. No matter." He waved, motioning me to face the slave in the ring. "While the mana veil is used to defend against magic, it weakly defends against physical attacks as well. When paired with mana bolstering, the skin in particular, it completes the defense of an arcane fighter.
"From here, the path divulges. The path I foresee you going down involves Infusing your weapons with mana and then Projecting them to cast spells. In this sense, your blade is your wand. The other path leads toward the mastery of mana forging, which generally begins after one's first century. While we will be starting down that latter path, I will at least verify you are capable of mana projection.
"Now, demonstrate one of your arcane spells." He demanded, pointing his scimitar at a helpless slave. There was but one problem.
"Er… I uh… don't have any arcane spells."
"Ugh." Evar sagged in desperation, prompting a chorus of 'You can't be serious,' 'Unbelievable,' and similar remarks to ring throughout the hall before he finally said. "Make one."
Not that there was any pressure, but I grasped onto the first thing I could think of and racked my brain on how to make it- my name- arcane. In ancient Egypt, Amun was said to be a wind god before he merged with the sun. Wind was my strongest element, which I mastered manipulating before I gained my fusion core, so there was some irony in that. Hence my first arcane spell was to involve wind.
Even then, though, there was too much to consider. Too many variables. The composition of this 'air' would affect its density, which would in turn affect the spell's speed and power, not to mention specific heat and any additional effects like corrosion, temperature, or combustibility.
In the end, I chose to focus on none of those things, for other, more foul things soon caught my interest. And so, I pulled the ambient arcana into my blades as I knelt low, feeling a bit silly as I willed the energy to change into compressed air tainted with a little crepuscular pesticide.
I rose in a sloppy spin, as I was unfamiliar with such a maneuver with these weapons, yet the spell more or less went off as intended. The winds blasted over those nearby, blowing away the webs around their minds and sending the many observing spiders into a frenzied stampede.
As well-hidden as the spiders were, few seemed to notice my sacrilege. Especially with all the dust and noise. At the very least, Evar didn't, as he blew away the dust to reveal his unimpressed visage without delay. "Better than nothing, I suppose."
"That just means I have more to learn, which is never a bad thing." I sighed, growing increasingly impatient with this ordeal. Thankfully, Evar seemed to catch my drift, given the swiftness in raising his infused blades.
"That mindset is something that did not come from your station, I am sure. Well said!" He grinned. "Indeed, you only have a grasp on the basics, for you still mold mana like a human. Increasing the durability of weapons is the default effect. Thus I ask, what of a weapon with exceptional hardness?"
Without waiting for my answer, he leaned to the side to dip his sword into the stone and watched my brows rise when it comically flexed into a 'C' shape, matching his posture almost perfectly. "Yes!" He grinned haughtily. "Flexibility, sharpness, or any other factor can be altered with mana infusion. In theory, the same is true for mana bolstering, although such things are extremely taxing on the body. I invite you, Living Lich, to try."
Knowing what was coming and acknowledging the shit flying toward the fan, I focused on the first thing that came to mind while pulling arcana into my blades, then reared up for a vertical slice.
"Being the God of Mana certainly removes the excitement from it," Evar murmured after seeing my blades arc down, morphing into whips that lashed at the basalt tiles.
'Oh, don't you worry. I've got some excitement for you.' I snorted.
"Regardless." He sighed. "This verifies you can stand on this level of the Tower. Here, we focus on the techniques that give the art its colloquial name. To Mold Mana means to literally mold it. This begins with simple tools, such as the hammer, chisel, and scalpel used by enchanters. This is then merged with arcane casting to form Mana Crafting, which varies by elven kind. For wood elves, it's reported to be bestial constructs akin to dwarven machines. For us, it is weapons, armor, art, and architecture made with arcana, boasting magical effects."
He gestured to Z'ress, who seemed eager to outshine those present by drawing arcana around her raised fists. As it coalesced into something solid, it began to glow the same blue as her arcana, forming transparent gauntlets over her ringed fists.
"Having magical properties, it can both attack and defend against spells and, being made of mana, is quite versatile. It is, however, weightless, thus there is more to it than just crafting mana. Mind you, this is all triumphed by Mana Forging.
"Once you mature, sometime after your first century, the weapons we have given you will bind themselves to your spirit. When that day comes, you will learn to forge them into weapons that attack the spirit. Its power destroys spells and wounds the spirit and whatever organs may be inside, making it difficult for your enemies to cast spells, mold mana, manipulate, or utilize some perks."
Even I had to admire the power of such an ability, although there were things I was curious about still; namely, if my other weapons would become one with my spirit. There was little time to ask now, however, and I could always ask later, so I gave a quick nod to no one in particular and prepared to craft some mana. Only for someone to beat me to the punch.
It was undoubtedly because of her Mana Core but was possibly due to her Molecular Magic as well. Not to mention the 3D blueprints imposed on her reality by her augmented vision. Leary and I were the only ones aware of that, however, thus when Evar and particularly Z'ress saw Iris gather arcana around her head and form it into a faceless helm with a jewel of concentrated energy at the center, they could not compute.
"Excellent form, Princess."
She couldn't have come at a better time. The red shadow dragon in drow form waltzed into the hall as if she owned the place, reeking of demonic blood and… well, gloom. She turned the shocked reactions of the natives into dreaded unease. Meanwhile, some of my mirth returned.
We could finally move on to meet Eban, our soon-to-be wizard.
"Thank you, Sovereign." Iris politely bowed. Unlike a certain daughter of a certain Matron, who stormed up to grasp her by the tunic.
"How?" Z'ress Hun'ana seethed. "How did you do that?"
"You are no elf." Her sister trailed.
"B- but…" Iris' eyes bulged, blinked, and seemed to water as the habits she picked up from Zakira took over. "I have elven blood." She pointed at me with the same sense of innocence as her tone, yet her muttered words seemed downright dreadful to the young drow. "The Elven Devil's blood."
The sisters turned their widened eyes to my knowing smirk and the habits Iris picked up from me to take over without being seen. She leaned closer, shifting her innocent frown into a devious grin as she whispered in the drow's ear. "I'm an arcane caster with an arcane class. And a necromancer."
"Imp-" Z'ress spun around, only to take a step back once she came face to face with the inherited darkness in Iris' eyes.
"She's not just some human girl I adopted. Adoption was the only feasible way I could recruit the one worthy of being my daughter, and she is so in more ways than you think," I flatly said, despite my amused grin. "Reborn in mind, body, and spirit with that same worthy soul, as Iris Cole, the first Augmented Being in the universe. Of course, she's an arcane caster. And she has a magic core for mana too."
"If you are the God of Mana, that would make sense." Z'rynda huffed after a long moment, releasing Iris' tunic to pace across the chamber. "The Eternal is said to be the source of mana, the gates, and the magic cores possessed by humans."
"Yeah." I groaned, remembering what I saw after looking down the Eternal Path. "And he got tired of that responsibility so he pawned it off on me. Fuckin' dick."
"You speak ill of your God?" Z'ress asked, shock apparent on her face- and countless others.
"I am faithful to no deity, in this universe or otherwise, my fellow drow. I am free. Telin is my sponsor, not my God. He meddled with your lives to meddle with mine. He gave me my magic cores coupled with a few blessings and sent me to live, all so he could watch me from the multi-verse. My life is entertainment for him." I snorted, feeling the disdain rise as I turned my eyes to the many crimson eyes and glowing auras focused on me. "As is yours to your Goddess, considering those filthy webs strewn over your minds.
"I am free, my fellow Drow. You shall be too. "