I had trouble sleeping that night. Part of it was the headache had abated only slightly. I wasn't sure why my skull felt like a balloon trying to pop, but I had a sneaking suspicion it was because of the Universal Language Approximator thing.
Forcing more information into a brain without actually learning it was apparently a painful experience.
Plus, I had already had sleep. After knocking myself out with overwhelming use of mana, my body had taken advantage of my unconscious state to fill up my nap-o-meter. Everything I had done after waking up in the cult temple had occurred during the evening, and by the point I had earned Sacrifice as a new Aspect, it was actually bedtime in the city of Zairgon.
I was not making it easy for my body to get used to a new circadian rhythm.
That was one of the few things I learned from Elder Escinca, the old cult leader, before he had bidden me goodnight. It had been a rather exciting day, apparently.
Understatement of the century, from my perspective at least.
At least the familiar orb of light—a sprite, as the Elder had called it—that had taken residence in my room had dimmed. I supposed having my own nightlight wasn't terrible.
And oh, Escinca had left me more food and water too. I munched on long, thick sticks, somewhere between bread and crackers in consistency. They were weirdly filling, though not really tasty.
To ward off my homesickness for a bowl of mac and cheese, I decided to look through my status again. Three whole days until I had to worry about my core imploding. Well two days, for a conservative estimate. I'd need to figure out how to push the countdown back further.
Actually, no. Sacrifice had worked once to push it back. Sacrifice could use up mana in one go where Aspects like Gravity couldn't, possibly due to the Windfall Affix I had received, though I wasn't sure. I'd have to confer with the Elder. Which meant I just needed to find something to Sacrifice so I could push the implosion even further back.
The issue it left me with was this—I had Sacrificed something personally significant to me, and I had only gotten a stay of execution for three days. Only three, at most. That felt a smidge annoying, but then, maybe I shouldn't be greedy.
It was what it was. I needed to work with what I was given.
Basically, I still didn't have enough information to go off of. What I did know was that I had gotten somewhere between two to three days of implosion offset for Sacrificing emotionally important personal belongings.
Which suggested offering something miniscule like a few locks of hair was going to add a few seconds or minutes at best. Not even worth bothering with.
I would need to find something truly worthwhile to Sacrifice. Especially because of the reward I had gotten in exchange. When I had explained how we were communicating so effectively all of a sudden after the ritual, Escinca had been wowed. I still remembered the amazed look. Then he put two and two together after I had explained the Affix.
"Windfall…" he had said, hand under his chin again. "I don't think I've even heard of that Affix, but it sounds like something that magnifies your rewards. Affixes don't generally come with descriptions because the names tend to be rather self-explanatory."
I had nodded. Windfall. Probably from all the overwhelming mana my core contained. The term made me think of unexpected profits. I grinned. My boss probably would have loved it.
The Windfall Affix was what had helped me obtain the Universal Language Approximator. I still wasn't sure how it worked, but it was essentially a far more advanced version of the partial translation thing going on thanks to the Weave. Like I could hear Escinca speaking a completely alien language, and yet, his words created the right meaning in my mind.
And apparently, Escinca had felt the same way when I spoke with him. My regular old English words, which he had been able to understand only in part before, were now perfectly comprehensible.
What an odd system. I was grateful for it, but that didn't change the fact that it was weird. I wondered if I could still make a conscious effort to learn the language here.
Turned out said alien language was called New Zair. This implied the existence of one called Old Zair, but I decided I'd figure that out later.
Since I had trouble falling asleep, I decided the next best way to actually get my body to rest was to push the boundaries of how much mana I possessed once again. That meant channelling Gravity and infusing my body and my surroundings with greater weight.
I played around with it. Infusing my hands separately, then only my limbs, then only my torso, all the different weights forcing me to bend and twist in different ways. It was fun, almost like being in a very slow rollercoaster. I did the same to my pallet and the little desk I had in my room—no, this wasn't the room with the missing wall. This one gifted me proper privacy.
Time was hard to count without an actual clock at hand. I wasn't even sure how people here passed time. Considering this was the Sun Cult, I wondered if they had a strict policy of only using sundials. Although, without a proper sun on hand… Yeah, probably not.
But my plan worked. I pushed out enough of my regular mana, tinkering with the way gravity could weigh down whatever I wanted, that the familiar emptiness grew within me.
Oh, and I got a nice reward too.
[ Rank Up!
Your Spirit Attribute has risen by one Rank.
Spirit: Iron II ]
I wasn't sure yet if Spirit was what controlled my body's capacity to channel mana, though that's what it sounded like. But if it did, I thankfully didn't get a flash of renewed mana invigorating me. Maybe I would need to let the magical energy fill me back up to take advantage of more total mana.
The important part was that I was drowsy again. I tried to form a mental list of questions as sleep slowly arrived. Questions about the freaking sun, and about the Weave and Aspects and Paths, questions about what the business of the cults was and who were those arrogant nobles…
I fell asleep.
"Why are you eating so slowly?" Aurier asked.
After I had woken up and groggily wandered out, I had soon met the young cultist, who had greeted me brightly. Informing me that he had been up for a couple of hours now, he had taken me to the well so I could freshen up.
Then Aurier led me to a small dining area on the first floor of the temple. Apparently, Elder Escinca, who tended to get up even earlier than Aurier, had prepared breakfast already.
"I'm training," I said. I was channelling Gravity at a slow but steady pace, trying to feel out the rate at which my mana was used up and seeing how long I could maintain it. At that moment, I was infusing my arm to about twice its normal weight. "Trying to figure out how much and how long I can use my Aspects. Well, Aspect. Since Sacrifice is so different."
I had gotten a little better at breathing and talking while weighing myself down. Maybe I could fine-tune my control to be better about it.
"Ohhhhh, I see," Aurier said. "Not training just to raise your ranks, then?"
"Well, that would be helpful too. But yeah, right now, I just want to figure things out."
We had already chatted a bit, getting the basics out of the way. Like explaining how we were suddenly able to talk so easily and what Aspect I had used on the volcano and back again on the carriage.
There were so many questions I actually wanted to ask. I couldn't remember whatever list my sleepy brain had come up with last night, so I was trying figure out which of my questions and concerns took top priority.
"What even is this food?" I asked as I brought the spoonful of the strange, grainy porridge towards my mouth.
"Beetle gruel." Aurier slurped down the contents on his spoon with relish. "Yum!"
"Beetle… gruel…"
"Yes!"
I felt like I should have been told I had been served insects. "Why, uh, beetle specifically? Why not, I don't know, fish gruel or something like that?" Surely, there had to be better options than beetles.
Aurier shrugged. "They're the cheapest. Fish… hmm, do they even make gruel out of that? Maybe they do that in your world." He paused midway to putting another spoonful of what I was starting to consider poor excuse for food in his mouth. "Oh, that's right. You're not from here. You wouldn't know how things work."
I looked down at my bowl of quashed insect matter. "Yeah, no, I really wouldn't."
The hand bringing the spoonful of my breakfast portion to my mouth had grown even slower, and it wasn't because of the extra weight any longer.
Aurier laughed lightly. "Oh Pits, there's so much we probably need to show you."
I closed my eyes for a second, recalled I had already consumed food here—which meant, I had already digested insects—and quickly swallowed down a spoonful of my meal. It didn't taste horrible. In fact, it was basically porridge, just grainier.
"I still can't believe you got a Path from our Sacrifice," Aurier said.
I decided against chewing my food too much and just swallowed it down with water. "How do people normally get Paths?"
"Well, there's a bunch of ways. Usually, you have to work for it in the vicinity of someone who's already got a Path. You know, like a mentorship of sorts. Some people are just born with it, though."
"Huh."
What followed was a series of questions from Aurier about my Path specifically. I was a bit hesitant at first. His excitement was a little off-putting. But I figured if I wanted proper assistance in growing my Aspects, I needed to be frank with people who knew more, and I didn't get any negative vibes from Aurier.
I told him about Gravity, about my Infusion Affix, about how I had tested it so far and tried increasing weights for different things by different amounts and for different periods of time. And after all that, I had only managed to get it to Iron II so far.
"Ranking up your Aspects isn't that easy," Aurier said. He flushed. Like most other people I had seen so far, he was pretty pale, so it turned his head into a brown-haired tomato. "I've had my Path for almost a year now and I haven't been able to break into Silver yet…"
"What's your Path and Aspect?" I asked.
"Um, I've got Path of the Smith, with an Aspect of the Forge."
"Wait, you're a blacksmith? What are you doing in a cult then?"
Another flush. I wondered if I was pressing the guy too much, but hey, I had just revealed everything about my Aspect. Turn-about was fair play.
"I was apprenticed to a smith for a while, but I wasn't… very good at applying myself, so I ended up losing my apprenticeship. The Elder took me in, kind fellow that he is."
"Oh, I see." I drank some water to calm my stomach down. "That was nice of him."
Considering what I had seen of Escinca, and now heard about him, I was mildly surprised there wasn't a gaggle of orphans running around. He sounded like he went out his way to adopt stray kittens.
I eyed Aurier again. Those lean muscles I had seen earlier now made sense. No doubt, a result of his smithing training.
Speaking of which— "I'm thinking of weight training," I said, flexing my arm a bit. My existing bicep "Cause well, I can literally control weight. Problem is, I have very little experience with that sort of training and I don't want to mess things up."
"Oh! Don't worry about that. I can take you to, uh, my master."
"You mean the smith who dropped you?"
Aurier flushed again. "Yeah, him. He's got experience in this sort of thing. I think he can help you."
Considering Aurier's muscles, it wasn't that far-fetched. Still. "A smith who knows how to body-build, huh?"
"Yeah, he knows a thing or wo about training, trust me."
"I'm more worried if he's actually going to help…"
Aurier got a faraway look on his face. I wasn't sure what that was for. "I think, once he sees you, he's bound to help."
Alright, I wasn't sure what that meant either, but I supposed I'd find out when we got to Mr. Smith.
We talked some more as we finished up breakfast. Aurier was happy to explain what he knew about the Weave and all the little things I could see on my status.
The Attributes, as I had suspected, were self-explanatory just like Affixes. Power increased the power a person could generate, Agility did the same for reflexes and general physical speed, and Vitality raised energy levels and the ability to take a hit.
Path Attributes were more Path-aligned, benefiting only the Aspects and other things associated with said Path, though some were a bit more general. For instance, Spirit would raise mana capacity, regeneration, and effectiveness, which would in turn help any Aspect that used mana. It was apparently a common Attribute for any Path that was "mage-like", according to Aurier.
Spirit was definitely increasing my total mana, as far as I had been able to find out. I had been steadily using Gravity for the entire morning, and I didn't feel even slightly drained yet.
I learned about the ranks too. Iron to Silver to Gold made sense—the metal tiers. Then it turned to Opal, Onyx, and Jade—the gem tiers. Why not something like Ruby, Emerald, and Diamond? No clue. Maybe Nintendo had cross-dimensional suing capabilities. Last came the ruling tiers—Sovereign, Paragon, and Ascendant.
Sovereign, just like what the Universal Language Approximator was. Just like the rank that wizard had mentioned.
Aurier apparently didn't know him either. I would need to ask Escinca.
The same went for my mana core. Aurier's Path didn't offer him one, and he had no expertise in the matter.
"My master is likely to know, though," Aurier said. I raised my eyebrow. "Uh, yes, he's rather experienced in all sorts of stuff."
This mysterious master was sounding more and more intriguing.
My intuition was correct, though. I had to keep training, using, and exploring my Aspect to rank it up. The same thought process went for the Attributes too. My idea of weight training with Gravity was going to help my Power, and I was slowly starting to brainstorm ways I could use my Aspect to raise the rank of Agility and Vitality as well. Spirit would improve naturally.
Hmm. I had been referring to Gravity as the Aspect would help me train, but could I somehow integrate Sacrifice in that as well?
"You seem pretty driven about all this," Aurier said.
I blinked. "I do? I—well, I don't know, it felt natural to me. Like, this is literally magic." I touched Aurier's spoon, wrapped a bunch of void-coloured threads around. He looked like he couldn't decide if he was annoyed or amazed at being unable to lift his spoon easily. "I never had something like this… before. I'd be doing myself a disservice if I wasn't a little driven."
Aurier looked a little guilty at the before, but eventually smiled when my Aspect's effects finally wore off and he could continue eating. "Your home sounds like a… not very fun place."
"Hmm, it has its ups and downs. It doesn't have anything like the Weave though."
Frankly, I couldn't even imagine what society would have been like if everybody had access to magical powers. Would technology ever have progressed as fast and as far as it had? History and civilization would probably be radically different.
A grand, unifying, and magical system like the Weave was just that game-changing. That godlike.
It made me think about all the things I could do with it. I thought about the Universal Language Approximator and how I could potentially speak any language here. So much potential. I thought about all the Paths and Aspects, about how I needed to talk to Escinca regarding Sacrifice because Aurier wasn't very experienced in that either.
"You know," I said, not entirely surely how I was supposed to broach the subject, but it had been nagging my mind. "You're pretty… friendly. Almost excited, kind of. For someone who was happy to see me be sacrificed not that long ago, that is…"
Very expectedly, Aurier flushed again. "I, uh, well, it's because… you're kind of the most exciting that's happened to us."
"What?"
"Like, the way you handled those noble bastards and—"
He stopped. I stopped listening to him too. Loud knocks had interrupted us, like hammering on stone. Aurier didn't seem surprised as he headed off, and since my meal was basically done, I followed him to the temple entrance.
The vampire was rapping on the stone wall near where a door would have been had the temple not been in total disrepair.
"Oh, hello Hamsik," Aurier said a little nervously. "This is—"
"I see he's finally up." Hamsik, the vampire, inspected me like I was an insect that had escaped the porridge-making process. "What's the Elder thinking giving him a robe? Without even exacting an Oath, I imagine."
I wasn't sure what an Oath was—though I could guess—but I grinned, appreciating my new fit. "I kind of like it. Soft fabric, fitting where it needs to be and breezy where it doesn't."
"You don't deserve it."
My smile melted as I stared at his heavy scowl. This guy was going to be a problem.