Alacryan Arthur

Chapter 31

Arthur Leywin POV

I entered the keystone once again and was welcomed by Erith.

"Seems like your wounds healed nicely, so let's continue."

As I activated Realmheart once more, to be able to see the voids before they hit me, I was surprised to see purple dots everywhere.

"Wait a second." I stopped Erith, who looked a bit confused.

"I think I can see Aether!"

I could see how the purple dots were everywhere and how they formed this mental realm. Every few centimeters was a purple particle, which almost formed a three dimensional grid. The ambient mana particles flowed freely, while these particles just waved a bit to the left, then to the right, but in general they stayed in their positions, holding each other at the same distance of around 3 cm. The mana also never came close to a particle, even when I cast a spell the mana was repelled by the aether particle. The small movements by the aether itself didn't seem to respond to the mana however, they seemed to respond to something else.

A ripple went through the aether, and I saw how some aether particles left their place, to instead wander toward Erith. They manifested into a square, around a meter in each direction and began to rush toward me.

As before the ambient mana evaded the attack, which wasn't a void anymore, but a grid of purple dots, at least to my eyes.

Since I could see the attack much earlier and clearer it was easy to dodge. So were the few attacks that followed and Erith began to nod.

"It seems like you really learned to feel aether. I must say, I am surprised to see how fast your progress is. From what I have heard even the young dragons don't learn this fast. Because of their will they are able to feel aether a lot faster than we ever were, but due to their missing knowledge of aether they only scraped the surface of what is possible."

Erith stopped for a second. "I could tell you how limited their usage of Aether is, but it would probably be much easier, if I would just show you."

"How can you show me? Is there a dragon here?" I thought the relictombs did not allow pure asuras inside, and from the reaction Erith had shown earlier I had presumed that even if a dragon was to enter, he wouldn't let it live here.

"No, there isn't. I am going to use the one single aether rune I have, to share my memories with you. If you are ever going to fight against another person, or even an asura with knowledge over aether, these memories should be pretty useful.

Consider it a parting gift, as I can't teach you anything else. My knowledge about aether is very limited, the fact that I managed to gain insight into a rune still surprises me till this very day."

I was surprised. I kind of figured that he had quite the affinity for aether, considering the way he talked about it and how he effortlessly threw these attacks at me.

"You look surprised at that. While the aether attacks are potent, they are nothing compared to the things our leaders could do, and even they could only dream about the things that should be possible.

One of our leaders was able to look into certain parts of the future, the second one was able to construct these keystones, which may not seem like much, but they are considered a pocket dimension. With the help of another Djinn even the flow of time is slower here, as you experienced yourself. Lastly, the third leader was able to heal a person from just about anything and he was the reason our understanding of aether even grew so much.

You will see him in my memories, and what he was capable of.

Now, if you lie down, I will share my memories."

I laid down. "Is there anything I need to know, or need to do?"

"No, just close your eyes and don't resist, I heard it's quite a weird feeling."

Gideon POV

BOOM

I was catapulted backwards by the force of an explosion.

These damn Phoenix cores.

The royal family had sent me 5 of these cores, in hopes I might turn them into life-preserving artifacts, but they were terribly unstable. I would have had more luck if I had to combine fire-salt and combustium, not that I would ever want to do that.

The moment I even tried to use my mana to overwrite the function of these cores they would release a huge amount of mana, and shield themself. With each failed experiment the cores stayed isolated for longer and the explosion was getting smaller, indicating the depletion of the cores, rendering them useless.

If I don't find a way soon, I will have to prepare another life preserving artifact and present them instead of the cores, which was a thing that greatly disgusted me. I didn't like the idea of passing my work for something it isn't, but the idea of letting down the king and queen was even worse. Not because they might be disappointed or anything like that, but because they might cut down my budget in the future.

"Master Gideon! Are you okay?" my Butler asked, as he came running toward me.

"Bah, I'm fine" I let out, annoyed that I was making no progress.

"I was just on my way to inform you that the Queen has arrived," he continued.

Great. That's just fantastic. The one person whose request isn't done by now.

I heard a knock from the door of the house, and my butler already turned around, to open the door.

I exhaled and hurried to clean up the mess the explosion caused.

"My dear Gideon" I heard Queen Glayders voice behind me.

I bowed down and with my head still facing the ground I said "Queen Glayder. I am sorry to inform you that the progress isn't as far as I had hoped. These Phoenix cores are very unstable, and I can't find a way to stabilize them, but I am sure that I will find a way in the near future."

"No worries, I am not here because of them." She said, while gesturing to me to behave normally. "A lot of artificers already tried to craft something out of them, and your progress already beats theirs by quite a bit."

"No, I am here because of a discovery in the beast glaydes. We could use your knowledge, as we don't have a clue what this thing does."

She withdrew a crate, around 20 cm in each direction, from her dimensionring and let it hover toward the ground.

I carefully approached the crate and opened it.

The crate contained the remnants of a bird-like manabeast, with an arrow in it, as well as a small black device bound to its back.

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not very familiar with mana beasts, I am sure you will find someone with superior knowledge in that field." I said to my Queen.

"We already had someone take a look, that mana beast is unknown to us. It seems like it had the ability to camouflage itself, with the box included. It was only hit, because a hunter in the beast glades missed his target and hit it instead.

No, we are curious about the box. Since we don't know what it does, I figured you might know something, or at least discover something."

Before I could ask, she added a "This has priority and you're allowed to use all techniques you deem necessary, but of course it would be good, if the box isn't destroyed in the process."

I just nodded and hurried to loosen the box from the bird. The box was bound to the carcass, similar to how a saddle was bound to a horse.

The box itself was small, maybe 5 cm x 2 cm x 5 cm, and it was covered with runes I had never seen before. As I probed some mana into the runes, I could feel how the mana that normally flowed throughout the runes was disrupted, and I quickly stopped, afraid it might do irreversible damage.

"I want a report as soon as possible." Queen Glayder added, and left to leave me alone with the device.

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