Ascension of the elder

Chapter 4: Mama's Boy

'Come on gang we've got a mystery to solve.'

Smiling to his stupid Scooby-doo reference Kyle began to think about the situation he was in currently. Firstly it appeared someone had done something to him either some kind of chemical or poison but it could be some special ability he isn't aware of. Secondly if it was some kind of poison it would have to have been used by someone close to him or with access to him, as the son of the head of the family he was always protected so to dose him they would need to be close. This line of thought wouldn't help as with cooks, maids and guards not to mention his family there would be over 50 people who would have been able to dose him.

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Realising that he was just spinning his wheels Kyle began to think about how he could protect himself. The most obvious way would to be stronger and so he began to look at how people strengthen themselves in this world. In this world people start at the foundation level which is the start of the strengthening procedure which incorporates the first five levels. Currently there are a few techniques to strengthen your foundation but they all comprise a breathing technique to draw in mana from the air and a mobilization technique to agitate the man in the main channel giving it enough force to breach the bottleneck.

While Kyle was thinking on these things he realised that his view of his spiritual world was still influenced by the memories of the previous Kyle and that was why he saw it as a river as that was how past Kyle imagined it to be. At the start of the foundation level there are minor differences in the levels of people's mana which made Kyle realise that when he forcefully expanded his main channel he changed made himself far more powerful than anyone else at his level. But Kyle inspected his physical body to see if there were any other changes, he realised that when he forcefully expanded his main channel, nodes and sub-nodes he damaged his physical body at the same time. The sub-nodes were connected to his physical body and the damage to his body was through this connection, but as he was inspecting his body he could see the damage was already repairing itself and again this seemed to be caused by the mana in the sub nodes bleeding in to his body healing and purifying him.

Kyle decided that while it was an advantage to expand these things he should do it slowly rather than instantly so his body could repair itself. Another thing Kyle noticed is that in all his family techniques there was no mention of the nodes and sub-nodes. Curious at this Kyle started to process the technique he trained in which was called "Breath of Ares" and was one of the top foundation technique in the whole empire.

When Kyle began the technique he saw the energy was drawn in to his main channel and when he manipulated it in accordance to the instructions there was a slight backflow in to the nodes. This backflow wasn't enough to clear any of the points which made Kyle think this was by accident rather than by intention, however this gave Kyle a theory that the reason this is a top technique is because of this backflow. He would need to investigate this with other techniques as reference to see what the difference was. He did notice that the back flow only affected 3 nodes and didn't even reach the sub-nodes, Kyle had 8 nodes and 64 sub-nodes cleared and enlarged but suspected there were more but he couldn't access them so he conjectured he may be able to do more when he broke in to the next level.

Regardless of how interesting he found all this it didn't help his immediate situation as this would all take time to investigate. Thinking further about all this Kyle realised at this point he was still face down on the floor. Calling himself an idiot and just being happy that nobody had walked in while he was face down, Kyle sat up and adjusted himself so he was sitting with his legs outstretched and his back resting against the bed that was present in the room.

"Common Kyle think."

While talking to himself Kyle was thinking about how to dig himself out of this hole. He could tell his parents but with no proof and no suspects what could they do. His only option in this case would be to rely on an outside agency to help him. Currently in the empire there are 3 respected professions which are represented by their respective guilds who in turn shield their members. These professions are blacksmith who are usually made up of warriors as they are the only ones with the strength to be able to work with the special materials used to make weapons. Alchemists whose members are usually made up of mages as they are able to use their mental abilities to remember a multitude of concoctions and their elemental mastery is used in the process to great effect. Finally are the array masters who are composed of sorcerers as no one else is able to manufacture arrays. There is a lot of crossover between these professions as they often require each other's assistance, for example a blacksmith may need both an alchemist and array master to create a new forge with enough heat to melt a special metal.

Of all of these the array masters are the most esoteric and protective of their members. As previously one of their low level masters was beaten by a noble of a neighbouring city for not finishing in time. The guild master when hearing of this declared the noble as being black listed which was echoed by the other 2 great guilds because if he attacks one he may attack all. This noble in turn began demanding all the guilds in this city needed to be disbanded. This was one too many for the guild master of the array guild who was a dream walker and in retaliation he broke the noble. Nobody knows exactly what happened but a week after the confrontation the noble was seen begging the guild master to take away his nightmares.

This definitely seemed to be the way to protect his self but Kyle didn't know anything about arrays or sorcerers so he would need to gather some more information on this before he made a move. Looking back further in his memories he found that there were many arrays in his home which took the place of modern appliances and conveniences. He even had a couple in his room such as a heater, water generation and lighting. Thinking that of all of these the water would be the safest to mess with, Kyle walked to the taps to see if he could get an idea as to how they work. Trying to use his soul sight to look at the array Kyle found he couldn't extend his sight outside of his body.

This was worrying as this was his major advantage and without it Kyle would be like a man with only one eye. Trying again and again Kyle suddenly felt a great deal of pain from one of the nodes in his brain. The layout of the nodes currently stands at 3 in his brain and 1 each in his chest, each arm and each leg. The node in his brain that hurt was located in the centre of his forehead. Leaning forward Kyle's hand touched the array just below the tap. As he touched the array his soul sight which he had been trying to externalise kicked in with full force showing him the full layout of the array. The array was in fact a large glyph in the centre surrounded by a circle made up of a string of glyphs. Kyle could feel a flow of energy within the glyph which was mainly made of mana but it also had a tiny piece of soul energy within it. This confused Kyle because according to all the memories he inherited nobody in the empire uses soul force for anything, but he realised of all the people the most obscure and unknown were the sorcerers and they may use soul energy at least in part. Deciding on a course and planning what he would need to say Kyle said to himself

"Looks like I need to speak to mum."