DISCLAIR: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishnt. Anyway on with the show...errr read.
On Track
The situation could have been a lot worse, I grudgingly admitted. Ignoringeverything even remotely related to Ziz, I was unbelievably lucky.
Not because of the ship, even if things weren't as bad as they could have been. The ship was horribly damaged, Ziz having skewered it with its beak to see if it was worth eating and punched a hole most of the way through it in the process. It had thankfully missed a lot of stuff that was really irreplaceable, but it had still ripped through wires and tal and more. You couldn't inflict that much damage on an Airship and not hit sothing important. It hadn't eaten the engine or anything, but it was still pretty bad.
Not really because of where I was, either. I was on Mantle now, which might have seed lucky, but as a continent, Mantle was kind of, uh, big. I was on one of the broken Islands in its southwest corner, which I wasn't even sure counted as part of Mantle proper, even if my quest had apparently accepted it. It had apparently been enough for the quest I'd been on, though I didn't even get a level out of it, which was making start thinking I wasn't getting paid enough for this shit. I an, I was used to annoying, dangerous quests for pretty shitty rewards, but that was in actual gas. Given that I was taking my life in my hands here, I figured I should get more aningfully compensated.
Regardless, I was on Mantle, but though there were plenty of worse places to be I was probably farther away from my destination then when I'd started. So that wasn't the reason, either.
But the saving grace was that my power, as always, was bullshit. Because of it, I'd figured all of that out in less than a minute. With it, I thought the situation may not have been completely hopeless. It was pretty much built for situations like this, honestlysituations where I had few solutions but a lot of ti, because it's not like I was going anywhere without the White Whale.
The ship itself, I'd quickly realized, was fucked. I didn't have the skill to fix it and I didn't have the parts; it was beyond my ability to completely repair. Or rather, beyond my current ability to repair. Since my power boiled the issue down to my skills being too low, however, I was better off than pretty much anyone else in the world would have been. I had the blueprints in my head, a full understanding of how the ship should have worked, and I had so of the materials and a way of actually working with them.
I'd turned everything off to keep from wasting power, gathered up so of the new scrap tal, and started grinding my Crafting skill, making simple things at first, then more complicated things, building them up and lting them down with Crocea Mors, again and again. The sun rose and set, rose and set, and the skill improved until I could ply it to my purpose and started repairing so of the damaged portions of the ship. A good amount of the damage was beyond regardless of my efforts, for I simply didn't have the parts or a way of working with them, but the tal portions which made up most of the huge hole in the ship? That I could do sothing about and I did.
By noon on the third day, the obvious damagethe huge hole, primarilywas gone, though parts laid exposed for later repairs. I'd accomplished the work of heavy machinery and hundreds of n with just my brain, Aura, and Elentals, fixing it up. It wasn't the prettiest patch job ever, but that was fine because I wasn't trying to win a beauty contest with it.
But it still wouldn't fly. I'd nded the superficial bits but airships, like beauty, were more than skin deep. I couldn't fix all the damage on the ship by twisting tal alone; getting the ship in the air again would have been, for anyone else, a hopeless prospect.
I wasn't anyone else, though. I was the Garand I was stubborn as hell.
As another point of dubious luck, Ziz had chosen a more or less empty island. I'd explored it during my first day here and hadn't found any sign of human civilization, past or present. As far as I could tell, there were no Grimm on the Island, eitherif there ever had been, they'd either left or ran away after Ziz's arrival and hadn't co back even after it curled around another mountain and went to sleep again. That was both good and bad; no Grimm to fight ant I couldn't level up but it also ant I didn't have to put up with the constant distraction of attacks, allowing to focus on my current problem.
And maybe, just maybe, a possible solution.
I'd kept Levant and Crocea Mors manifested and by my side at all tis. Part of that, of course, was to continue to train my Elental skillsbut a larger part was simply so I wouldn't be alone on this island, imdiate danger or not. Either way, it was for the best, because of what I needed to do next.
I'd ant to do this for a while now, but had never had the ti. The last few weeks had been a constant rush, an effort to get so many things done in too little ti. But now, thanks to Ziz Airline's horrible flight, I had all the ti in the world and a pretty pressing need.
"I, Jaune Arc, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee," I said, standing before a trio of prepared circles, readying myself for one ritual after another. I wasn't certain this would work, butnothing ventured, nothing gained. "I hope that you heed my call. Co, Fire Elental!"
The makeshift fire I'd built in the first circle erupted suddenly, blazing higher than it should have. A small figure gathered at the center of the fla, bronze skin and blazing red hair. He was a diminutive figure but sohow cut an image of nobility despite that, garbed in cloth of shifting patterns in reds and blues. The cloth left half his chest bare in a fashion that seed dimly familiar and he looked up at with eyes that glowed like coals.
But I wasn't done yet.
"I, Jaune Arc, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee," I spoke again, voice rising. "I hope that you heed my call. Co, Water Elental!"
From a bowl I'd crafted and filled with sea water rose a small, beautiful figure. A formal gown of deep blue was trimd in the white of sea foamthe sa color as her hair, white trailed down her back like a waterfall. Her skin was light blue, darkening as it dropped lower to royal colors by her hips. Below that, her legs were amorphous, calling to mind both the liquidity of water and the scales of a snake or fish. Her eyes were solid black, like the depths of the ocean, glimring slightly in the light.
"I, Jaune Arc, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee," I spoke once more, exhaustion beginning to set in as my power was drained away. Nonetheless, I was determined to continueand it would have been rude to stop now besides. "I hope that you heed my call! Co, Lightning Elental!"
Lightning fell from the blue sky, reaching down to strike the crystal of yellow Dust I'd set within the last circle. I hadn't been sure it would work, with the ritual predating the discovery of Dust, but Lightning was vital to my plans.
Nonetheless, I was extrely glad when no thunder followed the strike, though I was performing the ritual as far from Ziz's mountain as possible. Instead, the bolt gathered, congealing into a final figure. The only way to describe him was 'bright.' His flesh, his clothes, his hairthe entirety of his form was colored as if soone had trapped Lightning in a human form. Which, I suppose, I had. White cloth, white skin, white hair, white eyes, he seed solid but only montarily, shifting slightly between blinks of an eye. At tis, he would flicker, montarily facing another direction before facing . I couldn't make out precisely what he was wearing, because it seed to shift, rging with his body for an instant before tearing itself away in bizarre, twisting shapes.
You call upon the sea
The storm
The fla, Fire finished. Why?
I knelt and bowed, putting all the respect I could into the gesture. Whether because of their natures or my proficiency with Summoning Elentals, they seed more eloquent, intelligent, and dangerous.
"I'll begin in accordance with the ancient rituals," I replied. "My na is Jaune Arc. You have heard my na; please tell yours."
The three figures looked at , tiny but judging, and for a mont all was silent. I wondered if I'd erred in summoning more than one, if I'd made a mistake. I'd gained the Affinities by ditating on the elents, but
Suddenly I was gone. I was torn away in a storm, drowning, burning, falling, and flying all at once. I flew apart in a million pieces and gathered, flashing into existence and fading. I grew and devoured, growing larger as I moved, wiping away all in my path. I covered the world, flowed through it, a power that was everywhere, enormous, and yet sohow unseen.
I saw myself and I was unravelling, coming apart in light and sound, unable to control where I was going, unable to remain. I lived and died between monts and yet in that mont I lit up the world.
I saw myself and I was burning, being devoured even as I devoured in turn. I grew, expanded, ignited, and consud even as I lost my figure, my form, and beca nothing more than heat and lightand I shared both with the world.
I saw myself and I was lting, liquefying in an instant and falling to the ground in a splash. I felt my pieces separate and recombine, was immobile even as I shifted and grew to be everywhere, in everything.
Abruptly, I was not alone. Three figures stood with , or rather one figure did from three different perspectives. Even as I unraveled, I ca together, racing through the sky to return to my body. Even as I burned, I found myself centered, the brightest fla at the core. Even as flowed away, I returned, rising from the earth and falling from the sky to return to the shape I knew.
I felt them and they felt and we felt free.
My na is Vulturnus, the storm whispered.
I am Xihai, said the sea.
Know as Suryasta, spoke the fla.
We are one as the ancient contract dictates.
"Our souls are one," I agreed.
I am Vulturnus.
I am Xihai.
I am Suryasta.
"I am Jaune Arc."
Until our souls et their ends
"We will be forever one."
Then know; should the skies be torn through with light
Should the land fall beneath the sea
Should the whole of your world burn to ashes
Even then I will protect you.
The mont they finished speaking, I was gone, dropping into a deep sleep. I wasn't sure how long I slept, but the sky was dark when I woke. My dreams had been at once bizarrely joyous and troubled, of a world that was burning, drowning, and fading away, wrecked by titans of fire, water, and thunder. I stood amongst them, beside them, within them as they fought and felt at once like nothing but an insect and all but a god.
When I opened my eyes, I was not alone. I felt Crocea Mors humming in my gauntlets and Levant curled up at one side. Xihai rested at the other and Suryasta and Vulturnus at my head and feet respectively; far enough not to shock or burn, but close enough that I knew they were there. They didn't need to sleep, I knew, but they didn't want to leave alone while I restedand sohow, I'd held onto them even whilst sleeping.
A skill has been created through a special action! Through practice with many elents the skill 'Elental Mastery' has been obtained!
You've obtained the title 'Elentalist'!
I huffed out a quiet breath as I sat back and waited, not wanting to wake them up. I'd let them sleep for now.
And then, we'd see if I could make a broken ship fly.
I sat in the cockpit of the White Whale, eyes closed in ditation. As I felt rivers of power flow, converge, and then separate in the world around , the whole of the White Whale was revealed to my sensesas were my Elentals within it. Each stood at a different position within the ship, serving a different purpose as they sent tides of power flowing through the White Whale.
As ever, Crocea Mors moved through the ship itself, refining, hardening, and compensating for things around it. He made so parts harder, others more flexible, and strengthen the engine so it could hold up to the strain it was being put under. Suryasta and Levant stood within the belly of the ship, power mixing within the engine in a cooperative effort working to fuel, empower, and breathe life into the ship itself. Levant drew in air and, together with the ship's normal processes, Suryasta heating it, aiding the ship in generating thrust. Turbines spun while hot air expanded, aiding the White Whale's super jet. The two of them focused the result, keeping ahold of the expelled heat and air even as it fed directly into the energy converter.
There, Vulturnus was waiting. As wind energy was converted into electricity, he took ahold of it, bolstered it with his own strength, and feed it back into the systemand back into the engine itself. More than that, he guided it through the ship impossibly, sotis between broken wires. I was already considering what alternatives I could make with Crocea Mors help; safer and more efficient replacents, if ones that wouldn't function without the aid of soone capable of manually controlling electricity. But for the mont this was just a test, practice.
And so far, it seed to be working. Lights that should have been cut off from power turned on, parts of the ship that should have been inactive responded. Taking advantage of the systems already in place within the ship, of the loopholes and tricks a structure as massive as the White Whale used to soar, I thought I could do the sa despite the damages. I wasn't powerful enough to make the ship fly solely on my own poweryetbut combining my power and control with the processes the ship was designed around and the Dust it used for fuel
It was possible. It was possible. I was absolutely certain of that, even without rising from my ditation, because I could still feel it. Despite all the reasons it shouldn't have been able to, this broken ship was flying, hovering just above the ground.
It was hard. I could feel my Elental's focus, their concentration on their goals. I'd minimized the costs as much as possible to make it easier during my brief monts of lucidity, cutting corners where I could the save us all the effort. Systems that were unnecessary for now were checked once to confirm whether or not I could use them and then deactivated. I'd stored all the perishables on the ship in my Inventory and shut off the lights, the air conditioning, everything else I could to conserve power. With nothing but the bare essentials, I focused entirely on the ship, stretching my power through it as I pushed myself to the limits.
We had been at this for days now. I'd scarcely broken my ditative vigil since we'd begun, so I wasn't entirely certain how much ti had passed, but I was certain days had gone by. Xihai stood beside , using her power to aid however she could, whether to heal or help restore my strength, but even with her help the firstlong ti had been hard, like an impossibly vast weight I couldn't put down. Even with the restorative power of my ditation, I'd quickly found my clothes soaked through with sweat; a distant, only mildly distracting sensation on my physical form, away as I was. The exhaustion that had caused it, however, was sothing I'd been extrely aware of with my enhanced perspective.
Raising the ship off the ground required constant, precise use of my different Elentals. The only reason I'd been able to maintain it at all in the beginning was because of Soul of the World, of precisely how it worked and how far I'd leveled it. When I'd first gotten the skill, all I'd been able to do was fall into a deep trance to see the flows of energy through the world around , focusing carefully on a precise flow to make it function as I wished. I brought the energy up through my body and back out, a careful, asured, controlled change to the natural world as I beca one with it.
And, really, that was still all I could do. While ditating, I had to focus almost entirely on a single, repetitive pattern.
It's just that in this case, the pattern was a little different.
I'd summoned up all my Elentals in their immaterial state before falling into my trance and then I'd focused on exactly what I needed, narrowing my view of the vast world. I'd imagined exactly what would need to happen, every shift in the engine, the motion caused by heat, every movent of the wind, every flow of electricity, every part of the process that governed the ship. I blotted out everything else until I was a machine dedicated to that single cycle, of imagining that one thing again and again and again to the exclusion of all else. My Elentals felt those thoughts through their link to , and through them I'd made it a reality.
The result was amazing even to in the monts I could spare it attention; sothing only made possible through a number of different factors lining up. If my Elentals had not been capable of so accurately making my thoughts reality while immaterial, I couldn't have done it. If not for the trendous focus I had while ditating, I couldn't have even successfully thought it. And even with both of those things, I wasn't sure if it would have been feasible without my new skill and title.
Elentalist, the title I'd obtained by gaining five Elentals, simply increased all my Elental Affinities by ten while I had it active, greatly increasing the power of all my elentals as a result. Elental Mastery, the skill I'd received for apparently the sa reason, was a bit more complicated in how it workedbut even more valuable. The first effect was similar to my physical Mastery skills; a percentage increase to attack and defense and such. Both seed based on my Affinities as much as the skill's level, though, producing so interesting results and implications. I couldn't be sure, but if I got the skill to a hundred and an Affinity to a hundredwould I be immune to the Elent in question? The multiplier I received towards attack was much greater than the damage reduction, but gaining immunity to specific elents wasn't unusual in gas by any ans.
Generally there was a bit more balance, except with really powerful, hard to acquire items butwith my abilitywell, I really wouldn't be surprised. Between that and Physical Endurance, I just had to shrug. Maybe I'd be immune to harm if I could get all my defensive skills maxed out, maybe not. I'd know the truth soday, probably, but I had a long, long way to go before then.
Its other ability, however, was what made it truly powerfulElental Mastery effected how the skill which had produced it functioned, improving Summon Elental.
Summon Elental worked in a very specific way as it leveled up; rather than a percentage based increase per level, roughly every five or six levels I beca able to summon another elental. For example, when the skill had been level twenty, I'd been able to summon, say, three Air Elentals. Instead of doing that, however, I could also just summon one, and it would have the power of all three combined. While there were situations where quantity surpassed quality and a small number of carefully positioned Elentals might be preferably, I generally just made the strongest ones I could because of the expansion to range, versatility, and power. Summoning different Elentals worked rather similarly, dependent on my 'pool.'
That is, when I summoned Crocea Mors and Levant to aid with the White Whale, I'd had a pool of eight possible Elentals and had split that between them because I'd needed the skills of both. Generally, I made each level four, though depending on the situation I could go all in for one or the other or any combination of the two.
Elental Mastery changed that. Because of it, I could maintain completely different spells for individual Elentals, using multiple Summons that each allowed for a full 'pool', up to a limit determined by my Elental Mastery. I couldn't use multiple castings to summon many versions of the sa Elental, but I could summon Crocea Mors at full power with one spell and then Levant with another, paying the cost to maintain them separatelyan added cost, perhaps, but one far below the additional benefit.
It was an amazing increase in the skill's power. Originally, I'd planned to use them while they weren't manifested, channeling my own power through them to use their Elents instead of summoning them to fight independently. I'd have split my power four ways between tal, Air, Fire, and Lightning, calling each with two Elentals worth of power. Summoned that way, they would draw directly upon my MP, of which I had a great deal, to hopefully overco their individual weakness.
Butit was an inefficient use of the skill, at least for sothing this prolonged. While they didn't draw power except when in use while not manifested, they required MP proportional to that use. If I channeled my power through Suryasta, for example, and used it constantly for high-performance stuff, it would drain much more power than just manifesting him because the latter had a fixed cost paid at certain periods and the forr was variable and steadily increasing. It was the difference between a maintained skill and an Active one, with the forr perhaps having a higher base cost but the latter needing to be paid with each and every use. Depending on what I was doing, one could be a better idea than the other, but for sothing of this magnitudejust lifting the White Whale like I was doing now cost well over a hundred MP and I couldn't do anything else.
I'd figured that, honestly. That had been the real reason I'd summoned a Water Elentalthe truth was that I'd been all but completely certain splitting my power that way wouldn't be enough to accomplish anything. Four Elentals at two most likely wouldn't have even been enough to make the White Whale fly like this again, much less accomplish anythingbut I'd wanted to be able to say I'd done everything in my power to try and succeed before returning ho a failure. If that had happened, I'd have put my power in Xihai and tried to sail for land; I'd probably try to get to Atlas and figure out a way ho from there.
But fourfiveElentals each with the power of ten or more? That was sothing different.
I'd grinded my skills relentlessly the mont I figured out how they worked, trying to raise Elental Mastery as high as possible, so as to increase the number of Summons I could use at once. In the process, maintaining multiple Elentals had improved my Summoning skill, especially as I had done literally nothing but ditate, maintain, and use their power for literal days. The constant ditation had been good for training Soul of the World, though that skill insisted on being slow as all hell in improving, and it seed that even just hovering helped improve my skill as a Pilot. With the latter's passive bonuses affecting the performance and efficiency of the ship
I could feel my power growing, could feel their power. My Elentals strengthening as the days wore on, growing as my skill increased and then faster as I summoned them with different spells in my brief periods of true consciousness. I wasn't certain how that worked exactlyif they were growing with , if I was reaching out to grasp power that I couldn't touch before as represented by the Summon skillbut it didn't matter. One spell beca two then three then four. I guided them fully with my mind at first, directing their power through the White Whale as we reached higher together, subrging myself in the flows of the world until I was nothing but a recording, playing the sa image over and over.
I concentrated wholly on that one goal to the point that I left my physical body completely in Xihai's care. I all but abandoned the material world in my concentration and it worked. The strain that had at first seed unbearable had lessened and beco sothing we all lifted together. I empowered my Elentals and they supported until what had seed impossible was in my grasp. My power grew as I struggled, stretching out to my allies, my friends, and I knew.
If it was like this, I could do it. If it was like this, I wasn't aloneand together we were strong. I could still complete the mission and I would. It was too early to give up, too late to turn back, and ti to move forward. We could do this, I know we could.
I took a deep breath and slowly drew myself from my trance, opening my eyes to watch the sun set far in the West. As my concentration eased and then faded, I felt my friends stepping into place to take up the burden.
The ship shuddered but did not fall.
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