Chapter 18

  Yin set down the last stone in what would be his cultivation chamber and stretched out his sore muscles. Standing in the middle of the stone platform surrounded by eight pillars topped by a ring of stone slabs made him feel like he was in some sort of modernized stonehenge.

  Next step would be to carve in all the scripts he needed into the pillars, the floor, the top ring and the wider ones to gather vital energy into the room.

  That could wait until his hands stopped shaking and he had some time to recover his madra.

  Yin skipped out and down stone stairs he’d personally carved out from the mountain range to their main ‘house’. He didn’t even have time to enter through the ‘door’ before Secretary was in his face. Her illusionary brows pulled together in a frown.

  ‘’Yin, were you aware that it is possible to automate the production of scales?’’

  Yin blinked at her and looked past into the living room, still a mess of materials and stone carved from the mountain. Duong stood looking sheepishly ill.

  ‘’Oh, wait, are you talking about that thing, uh.’’ Yin trailed off, trying to remember what he was thinking of.

  ‘’That thing that mined vital energy from the labyrinth and forged it.’’ Duong said.

  Now remembering, Yin nodded. ‘’That wasn’t automatic, people had to run those, and I don’t think they produce higher quality scales than the artists themselves could make.’’

  The remnant piloted by a spirit leaned to get back into Yin's direct line of sight. ‘’Secretary is currently working on fourteen designs that could theoretically run perpetually if initially given an appropriate amount of fuel.’’

  ‘’Cool let me know if yo-’’

  ‘’Pure scales.’’

  He sighed and looked to Duong for support. The guy seemed to take it the wrong way because he sighed and started to forge, to Secretary’s delight. ‘’What are you thinking of using a large amount of scales for?’’

  ‘’Secretary will hoard dream and light scales to ease future advancement. Secretary has also been deepening her knowledge of alchemy. Secretary has many ideas.’’

  ‘’Alchemy?’’ Duong asked, sweating slightly as he handed over the scale he’d made, starting to work on another. ‘’Wasn’t that super hard? Like, hundreds of hours of work for a low percentile chance of success, hard?’’

  ‘’It also requires rare ingredients and equipment.’’ Secretary added with absolutely zero awareness. ‘’Secretary has a hypothesis based on your descriptions of authority, but requires more information on both alchemy and top tiers of advancement.’’

  With her piece said Secretary let her illusory appearance fall away, and jammed the scale directly into her forehead.

  ‘’So, where are the others?’’ Yin asked Duong who looked like he might throw up or throw hands.

  ‘’Eeh. Here and there.’’ He finished the second scale, his pure core nearly completely drained. ‘’I think Montai and Zeurel went down to go look for Grandfather.’’

  ‘’He’s still gone? It’s been more than a week.’’ Yin paced into the beginning of a bedroom, considering the sheer amount of rock they had to break to finish it. ‘’He’s.. Skipping out on his share of work! That animal!’’

  ‘’Hey, come on, don’t say that? That word meant beast right? It didn’t sound like a curse.’’ Duong admonished weakly.

  ‘’Animal means animal. And seriously, that old man would have been a blessing to have here. An underlord should be strong enough to pry a few rocks apart with their fingers, save the rest of us the madra.’’

  Yin watched Duong’s face slip through a few different expressions. Settling on his usual sort of uncomfortable one. ‘’Well, I can’t argue with that.’’

  ‘’As always, this young master is correct. Now, Secretary, I need you to help me mark out the diameters of my circles.’’

  Secretary wasted no time and walked out towards Yin’s territory. Duong followed alongside Yin. ‘’You’re already that far along?’’

  ‘’Yeah, my shoulders and back hurt even with my iron body, but it’s going to be so worth it. Especially after I get to gold.’’ Yin skipped up along the ridge. ‘’What about your room? Coming along?’’

  ‘’I’m.. stalling.’’ Duong said with forced honesty. ‘’Secretary has been telling me how my gathering formations are going to have to be altered depending on my sources of metal and venom energy. I’ve been trying to find the right materials, but the cheapest of either I’ve found are going to cost me dozens of pure scales.’’

  Yin sighed, watching Secretary tumble down an incline near his construction, landing in a heap and then creating an illusory marker. ‘’And me pitching in won’t help much, and Ti Li will need all her madra to keep advancing. Did Montai teach her and Ten the wheel cycling?’’

  Duong shrugged. Yin made a mental note to ask them later. He knew Montai had been hanging with those two for nearly a year, but the bird could be- heh -flighty.

  ‘’What are you smiling about?’’

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘’Zeurel’s boobs. But that’s not important right now!’’ Yin bulldozed past Duongs scandalized expression and went down to pile up some rocks to make a slightly more permanent marking. ‘’I had an idea, maybe Kaido can help us out. That dragon can probab-’’ Yin snapped his eyes back to Duong. ‘’That dragon.. That dragon could probably hunt a sacred water beast or two for us!’’

  His friend considered it for a moment. ‘’What are we giving in return?’’

  ‘’Whatever he wants, within reason. Pure scales, lessons with Secretary about any subjects they want to know about, maybe sparring with all of us?’’

  Duong silently considered it, probably thinking of what he’d throw into the deal.

  ‘’And, just by the by, your Quicksilver path and Kaido's water and storm paths? You might learn a thing or two just from watching them.’’

  ‘’Yes, fine, I’m already sold.’’ Sighing Duong picked Secretary up and lifted her so she wouldn’t keep struggling with an incline. ‘’When are you thinking we talk to them?’’

  Yin shrugged, marking out the next boundary with some help. ‘’If they don’t come to us I’ll set the cloudship down on the lake until they come knocking.’’

  ‘’I don’t think you should do that, Kaido is probably not the only thing in the lake.’’

  Yin rolled his neck and stacked up his last marker. ‘’I am just absolutely craving some good S-tier, grade 100 sacred meat right now.’’

  ‘’Secretary is craving more pure scales.’’

  ‘’You just ate, I’ll feed you all you like later.’’ Yin mentally mapped out his script circles, thinking of starting with the light gathering one, biggest by far. ‘’Let’s make Ti Li forge scales, we can say it’s for forging practice. I mean, it is. But I want to exploit the child.’’

  ‘’That sounded bad in several ways.’’ Duong told him dryly.

  —

  Night was falling, the horizon glowing crimson, and on a cloudship Yin’s companions returned. Montai flying next to it.

  Putting the finishing touches on his force gathering script Yin got up and stretched his aching back out. His next work would be the fire array, and then he’d set up oil candles on the eight pillars.

  After that it was just a few little things.

  Montai banked and landed in an alcove he’d carved out to be a comfortable roost. Apparently not keen on talking.

  Yin skipped down and met his other companions as they landed the cloud ship on top of their base. Zeurel spotted him and leapt down, only to pick him up and crush him in a hug.

  ‘’Yin, we got some bad news.’’ He could vaguely hear over the blood pooling in his ears from how hard she squeezed him. ‘’Grandfather is gone.’’

  A burst of pure cloak with his last guttering bits of pure madra let him slip out of her grasp. ‘’What do you mean? Not the usual kind of gone?’’ The old bird did have a habit of stepping into shadows and slipping away.

  ‘’According to Queen Talia he is traveling to the Six Leaves capital to catch his friend before they ascend.’’ Ten calmly said, landing near them with Ti Li limply hanging in her arms.

  Zeurel nervously stomped around, making a great racket with the clatter of her hooves on stone. ‘’And that place is sooo far away! Yin it might take him a year to make the round trip if he ever even comes back!’’

  Yin sighed and let her pick him up again, matching Ti Li and just limply hanging in his girlfriend's arms. ‘’Right, he wanted to go see a friend of his, the former king or something?’’ He hadn’t been paying all that much attention to Grandfather’s words the other day.

  ‘’Former king Talion Tawlim.’’ Ten told him, as bland as ever. ‘’Honorable Grandfather once adventured with the king. He did not specify why they stopped speaking. I assumed it was because the King couldn’t leave his duties for any longer.’’

  ‘’I think it was because of a woman.’’ Ti Li huffed, seeming to have a hard time breathing. Yin totally understood, he was having some slight trouble drawing breath himself. ‘’King and Grampy got into a fight over a lady and haven’t spoken since. Just like my stories.’’

  Yin zoned out as that sparked a discussion on an old man's potentially sordid life.

  This was a setback. A pretty major one even.

  Montai’s grandfather represented a few things, the greatest one was a safety net. Underlords were rare outside the seriously major hubs like Titans grove. Even here in Tasaria the strongest people were only truegold. Yin was somewhat convinced that Kaido was one of the strongest people in the city, though he hadn’t actually seen any of the royal guard or army.

  His strength made him a better teacher than Secretary, able to more than keep up with any of them and give pointers. He had more intimate knowledge of techniques and experience with fighting than most people in the regions around them.

  And he was also something of a rock for many of them. The quiet old man who liked to sit and drink tea, calmly talking with anyone who’d sit with him. Zeurel’s, and now that he was actually looking for it, Ten and Ti Li’s distress was because the old man was a source of stability for them.

  The old bird had probably left without even saying anything to Montai.

  ‘’God damned animal..’’ Yin wriggled and tilted his head all the way back to look Zeurel in the eyes. ‘’Let’s go mess with Montai so he doesn’t sit and stew in his cave for too long.’’

  ‘’But he said not to bother him.’’ Zeurel whined, and Yin forced himself out of her grasp.

  ‘’That’s the kind of shit someone who wants to be bothered says. Let’s go!’’ He led the way, skipping up over a few boulders and then fell all the way down to the entrance of Montai’s cave. ‘’Ay Big Bird! Let’s-’’ A wall of wind slammed into him, carrying him out far into open air.

  As gravity took its hold of him Yin felt dozens of stinging cuts over his body that quickly started to heal, drawing on his already taxed madra. Yin had to switch to Falling Star madra and cloak to cancel out his momentum when he hit the ground further down the mountain.

  Pausing and wiping streaks of blood from his face Yin looked up at the dark cavern Montai sat in. The asshole didn’t even peak his head out to see if he was okay.

  So that’s how he wanted to be?

  Fine.

  —

  The next morning Yin gathered the scraps of cut up vegetables and put them in a bowl. Then he added the leftovers from everyone’s plates and mixed the slop up.

  A jaunty walk took him to the top of Montai’s cave where he called out. ‘’Got you breakfast buddy!’’ Then he unceremoniously dropped the dish, letting it clatter down several meters.

  ‘’What the fuck, man?’’ Montai called from his cavern.

  ‘’Hey! No worries man, I’ll bring you lunch and dinner too. Stay in your gay baby cave until you feel better!’’ Turning on his heels Yin marched back to his other friends, who all looked very uncomfortable. ‘’Alright! Today we’re making our sparring arena!’’