I walk down the streets of Eden, once again admiring the rapid progress of the city. It's been several days since I visited the spirits, and there's been even more construction activity than usual. Partly because Alara's in a rush to redirect resources to the western port city, and partly because there's just been a lot to do.
At this point, the public school has been finished along with the library, and they only await the hiring of sufficient teachers and the acquisition of books, respectively. The latter is solely my responsibility, and I know I'll need to visit Azazel soon to make good on that promise to Alara. I've also been contributing to Eden's development by interviewing people for the newly opened train operator jobs, managing to fully staff all the currently built trains as of yesterday.
Meanwhile, Alyse has been supervising the design and construction plans for a major combat center in Eden, like Wellick's Ring, which we've all agreed will simply be called the Coliseum. She's also been asking me to teleport her back to Wellick every other evening to see Cara, with the two having apparent reconciled, which has honestly taken a huge load off my mind.
Alara's been rather busy advertising the plans for the Coliseum, in an effort to attract skilled warriors and lay the foundations for guard recruitment. However, she's also finally broken ground on the construction of Eden's first bank, which I somewhat recall her droning on about excitedly, suggesting that it's a big deal. Being a bank of one myself, I find it hard to relate, truthfully.
Percivil took me up on the offer to teleport him to Central Tail, where he spent a couple of days visiting with Xian and reminiscing about their experiences with the Otherworlder, Zang. Apparently, this also required an ungodly amount of drinking contests, for some reason. When Percivil eventually came back to Eden, and sobered up, I sent him back to Elmesia at his request to start the preparations for opening his new enchanted smithing business here in Eden. By his account, this creates lots of loose ends in Elmesia that he needs to address.
Then, there's Alto, who's been...weird, lately. More than normal, I mean. She hasn't asked me to take her on a single joy flight, and during our normal 'research' sessions, I've caught her giving me strange looks when she thinks I'm distracted practicing my spells. Yet, whenever I call her out on it, she just looks away and says she's 'collecting data', and that her 'findings' aren't yet 'suitable for peer review'.
That said, her enthusiasm for our most recent iteration of the nature-vs-nurture magic experiment hasn't waned in the slightest. We managed to set up some large, wire enclosures outside of Eden to house the thomellarays, while the magic moths themselves are pending arrival from the elves' magic academy – a process which Elira and surprisingly Tessa were essential in facilitating and expediting.
As for me, well, my schedule has been quite the hodgepodge of obligations. Other than research and interviews, I've also had to continue ferrying the various elven nobles back and forth between the royal palace and their respective family homes, as they continue to make preparations amidst the Empire's looming threat. Truthfully, I've taken as little interest as possible in the specifics of their preparations, since I consider most of it unnecessary.
The ideal I once spouted to remain neutral between nations and species now seems naive in retrospect. I'm already biased, and I was deluding myself to claim otherwise. I love Ilina, I'm marrying her, I'm technically the Elven Prince now, and for all the animosity they showed me once upon a time, I have to admit that the elven cities are practically utopias, at least for elves. I respect the way they treat one another, by and large. So, as far as I'm concerned, if the Empire attempts to lay a finger on the elves, I'll wipe them out to whatever degree I need to...the elves need not be bothered with the effort.
Nevertheless, there are a couple updates from the nobles and Ilina's family that I found quite interesting. With the second Royal Announcement only a day away – during which my 'real' background will be revealed to the kingdom – people have long begun filtering into Avalon, and rumors about the reasons for the event are circulating like crazy. And since the event will also herald my construction of the new, royally managed trains between Avalon and the kingdom's remaining capital cities, the necessary train stations on both ends have just finished construction. Naturally, this has not gone unnoticed by the elven citizens, which is why many of the rumors circulating about the Royal Announcement are related to expanding the train system.
Yet, the greatest revelation of the past few days has not come from others, but through my own investigations in secret. Of course, I'm referring to aether...the divine counterpart to the ethereal magic particle.
Since I first learned to sense it, I've been probing the world – and the people – around me, trying to piece together whatever I can about aether through observation only...for now. The first thing I've noticed is its distribution in the world around me. Or rather, the lack of it. As far as I can tell, there is not so much as a speck of aether floating around in the atmosphere, making me suspect that my observation of the artificial aether's instability is in fact a natural property. I've only found aether in two places – structurally dispersed throughout the bodies of nigh-immortal beings, and within the runes inside of sentient beings linked to Azazel's apparent magic system.
That brings me to the second thing I've noticed...it's distribution in nigh-immortals. Greater Spirits seem to have a fine, chaotic, nervous system-like distribution of aether, while Elder Dragons' aether distribution looks more like an overlapping skeletal system. Then, there's Alto – like someone prepared a densely gridded three-dimensional lattice of aether and superimposed it on her body. Clearly, there seems to be a correlation between the source of these beings' agelessness and the structure of their aether.
The spirits evolved naturally, consistent with their chaotic aether scaffold. The Elder Dragons were created from humans by the gods – presumably using aether – and while that was certainly artificial in nature, it was incorporated deeply enough into their constitutions to make it heritable. Finally, there's Alto, who was directly modified by Azazel at personal request, and who may not be able to naturally pass on her nigh-immortality to children.
Unfortunately, that makes the fourth type of aether structure I was able to observe all the more confusing...mine.
Normally, I can't use my magic domain to sense my own magic distribution, like there's some kind of self-interference. But it occurred to me that the same principle might not apply if I try to sense a completely different type of particle – the aether – within my body. Sure enough, it worked like a charm, and I was able to detect three runes floating near my core that I assume correspond to an omni-affinity for each of the three magic classes in Azazel's system.
Yet, that was far from the only aether in my body. Much like the others, I appear to have an aether structure within me as well. However, mine seemed to resemble a spiral galaxy, with sporadically distributed clusters of variable density aether that seemed to congregate in the center of my being. As for what that means, I'm inclined to think it falls generally into the 'natural' instead of 'artificial' category given its chaotic design, but I admit that I ultimately understand very little.
Finally, pairing all these observations and inferences together, I've developed another hypothesis about the mechanics of Azazel's magic system. Since I first discovered the affinity runes, I've wondered how they get 'engraved' in people. Now, I think I know – the crystals used in the magic assessments. As for why I think that, it's based entirely on comparing the aether in Nina and Ciri – the former carries runes and underwent the assessment, the latter doesn't and didn't.
Part of me wants to take Ciri to the guild to get assessed, and use my magic domain to monitor the flow of aether during the process, but I've decided to hold off for now. I can only imagine how much of a fuss a second Elder Dragon would cause at the guild, and there's the chance my probing draws additional scrutiny from Azazel as well, which I'm not sure I'm ready for.
Shaking off the strange foreboding sensation these thoughts have summoned, I return my attention to the final person whose recent activities I have yet to describe.
My eyes slide to my left arm, which Nina is currently wrapped tightly around with a smug expression as she walks down the sidewalk beside me, then to the unnaturally dense crowd of elves around us. The one that seems to constantly part around us with perfect timing, composed almost exclusively of wide eyes and bewildered stares.
I let out a heavy sigh, having grown used to this phenomenon over the past hour. It seems that, at least within Eden, word has spread of Nina's little unsanctioned declaration of our relationship status. Now, Eden's elven residents know that Mizuki the human is also Mizuki the husband of Nedonera the Elder Dragon, and they are unsurprisingly shocked and full of questions they're clearly too scared to ask.
Ignoring them, I glance back at Nina.
"So, did everything go over well?" (Mizuki)
Indeed, with a burst of motivation that truly stupefied me, Nina decided to work without rest for multiple days straight to finish her construction 'assignments' in the demi-human territories. She returned late last night, and I woke up to find her sleeping in her spot beside me like she'd never left.
Hearing my question, Nina nods emphatically, her smug expression twisting into a prideful smile.
"Yup! The roads, the walls...all made out of stone, all finished!" (Nina)
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Especially given that she worked around the clock, her completion time is within the range I'd estimated, but it's still remarkable to see her basically erect a simplistic version of the Great Wall of China in a matter of days.
"Any run-ins with the humans?" (Mizuki)
While the wall she erected was technically in demi-human lands, there are plenty of border towns in the Empire not too far from it. Plus, even if it's called demi-human territory, I know far too well that there's no shortage of humans venturing into it without any care for how the demi-humans feel about it, especially closer to wolf-kin territory. I could imagine some having been within eyesight of the wall as it was erected. Of course, they wouldn't be a threat to Nina or the wall, and the wall's construction has no doubt already been noticed by the Empire's border residents regardless. I'm only asking Nina out of curiosity...the thought of some random bandits shitting themselves over the encounter brings a smile to my face.
Nina's brow furrows, like she's trying to remember what she had for dinner for two nights ago.
"Hmm...maybe? At that altitude, as fast as I was flying, I didn't make the effort to differentiate lifeforms. Though, I do seem to recall some humanoid creatures getting flung into the air as I used my earth magic." (Nina)
I chuckle quietly at her flippant description. Seeing as how the demi-humans were warned about her plans beforehand, I can only guess that those were in fact humans. As for the possibility that the situation she described could have killed them...I couldn't care less. Regardless of how accustomed the humans have become to marching through that area as they please, most demi-humans would undoubtedly classify them as trespassers.