Chereads / Magi of Sinlung [ GameLit Political Fantasy] / Chapter 37 - Preparing for something unclear

Chapter 37 - Preparing for something unclear

It felt much stronger than before the encounter by Auquans Myrith Crestfoam and Lysara Tidecrest continued even as they left Xiaxoan Blues. Heavyness seemed to be in the air at the grand hall-it almost as if residues of the cosmological magicians' power would sink into every stone. Silences were predominant over Larin, Tyrs, Mynta, and Ted as all bore the same undertone: tension which only they carried with them as if it wasn't there to them.

"It wasn't just power," Tyrs murmured finally, breaking the silence. Her glaives lay across her lap, her fingers tracing the etched runes along their hilts. "It was presence. Their mana didn't just radiate it consumed the space, twisted it. And they barely even noticed."

Or they saw and decided not to give a damn, Mynta said darkly. That's a strange sort of power, the kind that warps everything it touches. They apologized when they suffocated us, but that was transitory. Like a courtesy, not a necessity.

He clenched his fists. He recalled the suffocating feeling on their part, crushing the raw mana against his chest that made breathing heavy as their power found ways to seep into every cell in his body. It was not a passion for cruelty; it was indifference. That realization shook him more than if they wanted to hate him.

"They're used to being the center of gravity," Ted said quietly, his voice heavy with understanding. "The rest of us are just debris caught in their orbit." End.

We have to do better, Larin said, his voice a soft pronouncement. We need to be stronger. More flexible. If we ever thought the Kirat Empire was our enemy's strongest position, then we were deluding ourselves. The empire hardly raised a fight. They threw down before the aerial bombardment ever reached land.

"That is, Mynta added, "surrender before it hits land".

That is not victory, he pointed out, "that is inevitability".

They took action immediately. Runners were dispatched to Xiaxo with all the information, warning the folk of danger that would probably be coming and telling them to prepare themselves. The messages carried a portentous note-this was no time to be complacent.

Every other day looked the same at Xiaxoan Blues. The banging of hammer and vibrating magic in the air did not fill this formerly peaceful manor. The recruits practiced in the courtyards, their voice a sharp stab at discipline as they sparred and exercised their spells under the watchful eyes of Tyrs and Mynta.

In the forge, Larin was cast headfirst into smithing with a mind full of ideas. Ted took him by the hand to the basics, while Tyrs and Mynta added combat knowledge to that with practical crafting. But it was Dernporost who really transformed their work.

"Smithing is no different from spellcraft," Larin said one evening as sparks flew from the anvil. He hammered a glowing shard of alloyed mana-steel, his movements precise and deliberate. "Every piece of a weapon has assumptions built into it. If we apply [Divide], [Combine], and [Deconstruct] the way we do with spells, we can make something.....new"

Ted raised an eyebrow. "New?"

"Not in the literal sense," Larin explained, "but adaptive. Weapons that respond to intent rather than just force. Armor that flows with its wearer instead of resisting motion. We may be new players in this world changing philosophy of Dernporost, but there may be people who have tinkered through with it for generations." 

Tyrs, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, watched thoughtfully. "You're turning philosophy into steel. Let's see if it works." 

The first thing they ever produced was the Porost Dagger. He had moulded from a composit of mana-conductive steel and taken living vines extracted from deep of Sinlung deep forests. In faint, but shimmering glory, there did shine with that edge impossible, so flat-bladed as such.

The magic in the knife was so subtle. It did not depend on brute magic but rather flowed with the Dernporost principles. The blade could change direction in mid-swing, and its weight and shape could change based on the intention of the wielder. It could grow in length and narrow the edge for precision or broaden it for force.

Mynta tested it first, the blade a blur in her hands as she moved through combat stances. The knife responded like an extension of her will, its form shifting fluidly.

"Remarkable," she whispered. "It's alive."

"Not alive," Larin corrected, "but aware."

He hadn't stopped doing the experiments yet. The flex of the knife had inspired him to work on something, some tool that extended his senses. So he stuck together a usable telescope he already owned with various lenses of alchemy, capable of seeing thermal patterns. Now he could view thermal patterns from objects and humans, giving shapes to them in the dark, behind walls, and even where they were completely hidden.

As he scanned through the eyepiece of the telescope that night, looking out at what was moving from the patrol several hundred yards away from the walls of the manor, the idea came.

"What if I don't even need the telescope?" he murmured.

He spent the next days crafting a spell that would reproduce the effect of the telescope. Using [Combine], he put together vision enhancement, thermal perception, and long-range focus all into one spell. But the key was [Deconstruct]—he unraveled the boundaries between physical sight and magical awareness, allowing his mind to overlay sensory information in real-time.

And then, as if the very earth had turned over, he hurled the spell and the world convulsed like a maddened animal. Heat signatures flared like ghostly fire. He saw the imprint of Mynta's footsteps on the coolness of the courtyard, the flicker of wings as a bird passed overhead.

"You are not seeing," Tyrs observed, examining the impact with rapt attention. "You are perceiving levels of reality."

It's called [Spectral Sight], Larin said. "It's not perfect yet, but it's a start.".

Not long after, their work spread far beyond the weapons and the sight. The forge became an innovation laboratory as they tore down everything they were familiar with. Ted worked on adaptive armor, which could change from soft to hard depending on the impact received. Mynta developed a spell for a shield that could shatter into several independent pieces and deflect multiple attacks before reassembling.

The more they tried, the more they realized that assumptions were buried deep within their magic. Every limitation was a choice that had been made long ago; every rule had the potential to be broken.

One afternoon, while refining a defensive ward, Larin paused and looked around at the others. "We've been thinking of this as survival," he said. "But it's more than that. We're building something new. A way of life that doesn't bow to empires or conquerors." 

Tyrs smiled, a fierce light in her eyes. "Then let's keep building." 

The days passed on, one by another, and were filled with the hum of progress, wordless understanding of that fact, though the flow of time went on against them. Yet, in the breast of Xiaxoan Blues, sorcery found a way in, entwined itself into steel. Thought matched to philosophy unfolded, of which neither empire could envision a thing, nor, for that matter, anyone within the cosmos could.