The Third Portal: Chapter Six (Patreon)

I bounded forwards, using Immovable Lock to catch one foot in place, then bore down on that foot to fling myself forwards again with more momentum. 

With my Foxstep currently throwing my spirit into disorder every time I used it, I was trying to work on expanding my other methods of magical movement. This wasn’t quite as fast as flying, nor as convenient as a potion, but it worked out my muscles and didn’t require the formation of a potion to work, so I figured it was worth learning to use. Plus, given how much third gate life energy was rushing through my muscles, it was still faster than walking.

As I ran in the air over the plains, Dusk zipped circles around me on her cloud, while Dawn spun lazily through the air. I wasn’t planning on trying to hide Dawn from the old tortoise. Even if I didn’t trust him, there was no way he wouldn’t be able to piece it together once he saw what she’d done to the tattoo. Besides, Dawn was appreciating the sunshine of this world, sending me positive feelings about the cool air and light and how different it felt from the silver sun and stars in Dusk. 

I kept my senses spread out around me, running all of my sensory spells at a low mana cost, while Markus – the ghost of the hunter who wanted to kill one last animal before he could pass on – floated around the sky, keeping an eye out for predators who might object to me moving through their territory. 

It was the sensory spells that gave me warning. A veiled presence was above me, diving down. I spun, calling blademoss into my hands, weaving Enhance Forging with Briarthreads, activating Foxarmor, and preparing Tortoise Time, just in case. 

A massive bird, one that looked something like a hawk grown to the size of an elephant, let out a cry when it saw me and unleashed its maigc, bearing its claws down at me. They began to glow with a thick gray light, mixing tempest, physical, lunar, desolation, and telluric mana into a claw strike. 

It was… Unimpressive. The bird was stronger than I was, at fourth gate, but it felt like it had only dug out one set of steps. I wasn’t stronger than it, not without using something like my soul mana or cycling Mantle Dragonfire several times, but nor did I need to flee. 

The bird’s talons, already forced to cross more space in less time thanks to my foxarmor, were easily battered aside by my Briarthreads, and my blademoss left long, thin scores along the bird’s thighs. It flapped its massive wings, which flared with a flight assisting spell, and it shot upwards before letting out a loud cry that shook the air and sent shockwaves rattling down at me, almost like one of Dusk’s own attacks. 

Dusk let out an unimpressed sound and punched out both of her tiny fists. Her dominion infused shockwaves struck the bird’s attack and knocked them aside, shielding the both of us. The bird began flapping more rapidly, sending down long, slicing crescents of magic at us, and I threw my hands out to either side of my body, preparing to–

“Kill it!” Markus screamed, breaking off my motion. “Mount its head on your wall!”

I jolted as the ripples of energy struck my Briarthreads, the fourth gate mana breaking apart the spell’s structure even through the Enhance Forging boost. I flared out Tortoise Time, catching the crescents before they could strike me, and dodged with the combination of Foxarmor, Tortoise Time, and Immovable Lock, but it was a close thing. If they’d gotten much closer, I’d probably needed to step into Dusk’s realm, or else Foxstep to the ground. 

The bird seemed to take this as a good sign and flew up higher, launching more swirling crescent attacks. Dusk started punching them out of the sky as I recast my enhanced Briarthreads and used slashes of Blademoss to knock them out of the way. Markus’ ghost started to scream again, and I shoved it into a spirit gourd. I was not going to deal with it right now. 

The bird let out another cry, and this time, thick, forged feathers of mana began to crash down on us. I funneled a wisp of soul mana into Enhance Forging and Briarthreads, and the thick strands of plant around me suddenly exploded in density and size, knocking the feather attack away. 

I immediately cut off the draw on my soul mana and let my spells return to normal. That was something I’d been practicing. The soul mana was much more potent than my normal mana, but my beastcore could only hold so much. Sure, my pool could expand, but it was still a small pool. If I treated it as a short boost, I could make sure I was using the limited resource well. 

I flung an Enhance Forging boosted Fungal Lock over the bird while running through the air towards it, and Dawn poured her dominion into Dusk, whose flight accelerated until she had matched altitude with the bird and launched a Sandstorm Lance at it. The bird used its claw attack to knock the lance away, but it couldn’t do that and also rip off the strands of mycelium. When I added a bit of the Ninelight Morel’s mana into the Fungal Lock to get it to spread even faster, the bird decided to cut its losses. 

It cast its flight boosting spell again and started flapping up and away. 

Dusk floated down to me and made a sound like a woodpecker, congratulating us for winning. 

“I’m not sure we won, so much as it decided to look for something else that would be easier prey,” I told her. She disagreed and set off with a huff. I pulsed Sense Directionality, then called out to tell her she was going the wrong way. She slowly turned and started following me again.

As I began running across the landscape again, I contemplated just how far I’d come. When Kene and I had been in the Idyll-Flume, we’d been attacked by a similar creature, a fourth gate bird that had used its bonded form to grow as large as possible. It had forced us to retreat into Dusk, then sneak away when it wasn’t out hunting, and a single claw strike probably would have laid me out for days or longer. 

Now, though… Even when I’d been interrupted mid-defense, I’d still been able to get out of the way of its strikes. I wasn’t going to claim I could take on any fourth gate mage, far from it, but I also didn’t have to run and hide. 

It was a strange feeling.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t spot Edgar until he entered the range of my mana senses. The old turtle let out a cheerful laugh and sent a burst of mana out in my direction to say hello. I knocked it aside with some of my own beastgate mana, then Foxstepped over to him. There was a flicker as I forced my spirit under control again, and Edgar studied me. 

“My goodness. You really have grown, even since I saw you last.” 

“This is nothing,” I told him, then reached into my Testudinal Basin and drew out the linked plants. The crown of rainbow morels began to ring my head, the veins of black began to spread through my heart, and my nails became a crystalline blue color as the power in the reserve turned up a notch, preparing to project itself out. 

Edgar let out an astounded whistle, which was a truly impressive feat, considering that he was a tortoise the size of a small house.

I grinned at him, then let them slip back into the reserve to let them restore the bit of spent soul mana faster.

“That’s quite an impressive battle form,” Edgar said. “Though I must admit, I’m surprised that you don’t store your tail and eyes within the core as well.” 

“What do you mean? I can’t,” I said. 

“It seems like it should be possible. It’s a reserve of soul mana, no? Even if the eyes are too changed, your tail is an energetic construct, it should be able to be stored. Perhaps you need to heal that spiritual injury first?” 

“What injury?” I asked, then realized that he must be talking about the root of resolve causing annoyances with teleportation. “Oh, wait, you mean this?” 

I foxstepped behind him, then forced my spirit back under my control. 

“Yes, indeed. Is it because of the creation of the beastgate? Are you leaking mana?” 

“Yes and yes, but it’s not as dangerous as you think,” I said, then launched into an explanation of how I’d forged resolve mana into the roots in my chest.

It felt strange for me to explain the details of a deep mana imprint to someone who was older, wiser, and stronger than I was, but Edgar listened attentively, nodding along and asking questions. I did my best to answer, but eventually had to plead that I was just reiterating information from Orykson, which Edgar accepted. 

“Well, now that I know you’re safe, how about you introduce me?” 

I introduced Dawn and explained the incident with the falling stars, as well as use of a ninelight morel, hollowvoid tree, and spread crystal together, and how Dawn had burnt the resolve mana within the tree to widen the natural draw of soul mana that a hollowvoid seed bestowed, then infused her starsoul mana and our bond into it to create a complete enhancement. 

“Ah, to be young again,” the turtle said, a wide smile splitting his craggy face. “This is the time of greatest change and malleability for you. And indeed, I suspect I have one more for you. Perhaps not as dramatic as these others, though it’s quite useful.” 

“Oh? The spell you mentioned that…” 

I trailed off as I came to the dark fact that it had helped lead to Edgar possibly being the terminarch of his species. Edgar let out a sad, tired sigh and nodded his enormous head. 

“Yes. It is possible to use an egg of a hudau tortoise to create a natural treasure that places this spell within your mana-garden, even if it normally can only be cast with hudau mana. That, alongside with the fact that our shells are proper hudau heritage stone natural treasures, rather than just mana sources, contributed to our current state.” 

He stretched out a huge foot and began to scrape away in the dirt, drawing out the spell diagram. 

“You don’t have to show it to me,” I told him. “Seriously. If my knowing about it would put you in danger or anything…” 

“I will be fine. Besides, I was in danger for much of my life.”

“Your shell?” 

“Yes. That’s why I stopped my growth, child. A false occultist is strong enough to fend off anyone below him, but my seventh gate mana is too small and diffuse to make my shell a treasure for the true powers of the world.” 

It made a grim sort of sense, unfortunately, but it made my heart ache, and I stepped forwards, throwing my arms around Edgar’s neck and squeezing. He paused and rested his head on my shoulder as much as he could without crushing me, then I stepped back. 

He finished drawing his spell in the dirt, then cleared his throat. 

“This is called the Hudau Heart.”