On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

Arc 2 – The Weasel – Chapter Twenty-One

I quickly concentrated on the new information and this was what I saw revealed.

[Level] 8 [Class] Fae-Bonded 0/20

Concentrating on the Class brought up further information.

By agreeing a covenant with a Noble-blooded Fae of the Seelie court of who has become your servant, you will gradually take on more of the aspects of the Fae, who are renowned for their great Fortune and Charm. ?????? will increase and ????? ????? increases more rapidly. There may be ??????????? depending on the Fae you are bonded with.

Damn, I guess my Self-Examination Skill isn’t high enough as there are still things I can’t understand. Still, Fortune and Charm… those are pretty neat.

“Oh yeah, before I forget…” I concentrated on my Territory and with that dismissed my degraded weaselkin, who dissipated, axe falling to the ground with a clang. Now free, the Kamaitachi rushed over to the wounded Shaeula.

“Princess, are you-you going to die?” he asked, frantic.

She smiled at him with as much energy as she could muster and responded “I do not-not believe so. It hurts, but I think I will live-live.”

“You definitely will.” I promised. Concentrating I made the spear vanish from her body and re-appear just above her, withdrawn from her torn flesh, and I grabbed it. With that done the blood began to flow rapidly, causing her to groan and the Kamaitachi to try and staunch the flow with his own paws. Relax; I know what I’m doing.

With that thought I channelled most of the ether that she had bequeathed me with to aether, and with that I closed her wound, pristine fur and flesh covering it. As they looked shocked I grinned wryly.

“It’s not a perfect job, restoring the blood lost is beyond me at the moment, but with some rest I’m sure you’ll be fine.” To be honest I was a little worried that I hadn’t fixed all the internal injuries, but luckily I remembered what I was taught in biology class so my imaging of injuries was decent, and I trusted that since she was a fairy of some kind… wait, they call themselves Fae… That aside, I had a feeling that once I had closed her wounds she would heal, even if the same would probably not be said if I tried the same thing on myself.

As she struggled to her feet I looked around the cave we were in. Other than the chair, the table and the glass on it, the place was bare, the walls brown dirt, lit by the purple and green glows of the light-orbs. “It’s kind of… dingy… for a princess in here, isn’t it?” I said, provoking a scowl from Shaeula.

“We wanted to establish a firm control of this land before we brought over our Seelie treasures. Should any of them-them be stolen by other factions, or worse outsiders, then it would bring great shame-shame to us and my father.” I got the impression she was pouting, maybe I had touched a nerve. Her gaze was wandering a little too, suspiciously at that. Oh well, I guess it isn’t my business.

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“That makes sense.” I nodded my agreement, trying to soothe her. “Oh, I need to fully integrate this place into my Territory. Do you have a Territory Anchor here anywhere?”

She looked at me strangely, a bit puzzled. “I am not-not sure what you mean. But my Territory extends from this-this throne.” She gestured to the wooden chair she was sitting on earlier. It had survived the gales of wind she had called up before, which was a testament to her control.

A bit shabby for a throne… I reached out to it and as I did so silver letters once more appeared.

This Territory is too far from your Anchor to take command of. Your Territory Anchor must be upgraded to Rank 2 before you can consolidate this Territory. You currently possess 3078 Ether. It requires 10,000 Ether to upgrade to Rank 2.

Hmmm, Well damn, ten thousand ether huh? That’s pretty much what I’ve spent already on everything else. Regardless, I dare say it would be worth it long-term… It seemed Shaeula-chan had saved up a modest amount of ether, still, it was not enough. Time would build trust, and I had no intention of mistreating her, but until she understood that and we built up a better relationship it would pay to be cautious.

As I was unable to merge the Territories the throne disappeared, and in a cloud of light more ether was transferred to me as the Territory collapsed. Ignoring the message about the extra ether I turned to Shaeula-chan, who was hissing in rage.

“My throne, what did-did you do with it?” she complained.

“Calm down Shaeula-chan.” I tried to mollify her. “I needed to retrieve all the ether so we can strengthen my Territory so it can expand out to here and join with yours. That got rid of your chair as a side-effect. Besides, I’ll get you a far better throne soon. This whole place could use a redesign, it really isn’t fit for a princess, is it?”

“A new throne. See that you do-do.” She nodded, still scowling. She then paused for a second and then looked at me, irritation in her eyes. “Shaeula-chan? What nonsense is this-this? I am not-not one of you mortals. I have no-no interest in being referred to by your silly-silly conventions. Either my name or princess will serve.”

Am I weird for finding that kind of cute? I guess girls are girls, even if they are giant weasels… God, if I had known this would be my life a few weeks ago…

“As you wish, Shaeula.” Calling her princess might just remind her of her current situation and spark desires for freedom, so that wasn’t wise. Luckily I was half-British so I could do without honorifics if I needed to, though I’d been in Japan most of my life so it still felt a bit weird. “So anyway, I’m curious. Why did you come to Japan then… or at least the Boundary of it?”

Shaeula sighed. “That is quite-quite easy to explain. To solidify my position in the Seelie Court I needed to obtain Territory, and this area was-was largely unclaimed, as well as having plentiful elemental essence sources nearby. The wind energy of this place-place was so strong it formed this alternate space… I suppose you-you humans would refer to it as a dungeon. As we are creatures of wind-wind, this place was perfect for us, and we could-could secure potential other elemental sources such as earth essence also-also.” She let out another long sigh. “Of course, it was not-not as easy as I had hoped. That idiot Grulgor had a similar idea, and moved-moved to occupy the area. Then we found-found the Raven Knight, a wanderer through the lands of the Fae, who seems to hold some-some grudge against me, as well as discovering the powerful source of earth energies had a guardian of some-some might.”

“Well, nothing ever goes as planned, does it?” I said, intrigued by the idea of the dungeon she mentioned. This space did appear disconnected from the rest of the Boundary, which seemed to mirror the Material, at least superficially. In a way it was close to the way the insides of buildings seemed to be full of strange creatures, or the abnormal size of the graveyard…

“Well, this is all-all your fault!” she snapped. “You slaughtered my kin and drove me to this state. Now-now you had better assist me in fending off Grulgor and his trolls. I have some-some kin stationed at the border between our domains, but should he come-come in force, they will be swept-swept away.”

I chose to ignore the fact she attacked me first as that would be unproductive. “Of course. I have made a pledge with you, and I will definitely keep it. On that note… just how am I going to help you ‘regain your fallen kin’?”

Shaeula puffed out her chest in pride and smiled. “I have a very rare-rare gift among the Fae. Those of my kin who die return to me as spirit lights, and they can-can be reborn when I gather enough aether and elemental essence.” She gestured with one paw to the faint, nearly transparent, glowing balls of light that flitted about her, that had been nigh-invisible to me until now. “You must-must protect me until I have recovered all-all my kin. We can then defeat Grulgor and take-take his land too!”

“Sure, that was always my plan.” I said with a smile, ignoring how tired I was feeling. The life and death battles plus the large uses of aether in hostile Territory had sapped my strength. Still, I didn’t want to drop back to the Material yet, so I was steadily topping off my aether supplies. “I might have a plan that will work.” Before that, I need to make this area secure first…

“Very well-well then.” Shaeula said. “In that case, what-what can I do for you now? Bear in mind I am injured, so do not-not treat me roughly.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I replied. “What I would really like is if you could teach me how to use the wind like you do?”

There was a long moment of silence, and then Shaeula let out another deep sigh, longer than the others. She sure does sigh a lot.

“Well-well…” she allowed. “It is not-not as though you can not-not, you have been drawing in wind elemental energy all this time-time. But it is not-not easy to learn this.” Her eyes glowed a pale amber as she looked at me. Another deep sigh followed. “Your foundation is quite-quite terrible. Your Chakras are imbalanced, most-most of them barely active. The wind energy you have used recklessly has-has also corroded them. The network is also largely useless and full-full of damage, and strange routes and tangles. Were you self-taught? No, wait… that is strange-strange.” Her eyes went to my wrist where I had received the bracelet from Exposition-san. “It looks like that did-did something to your root Chakra, allowing it to draw in aether… But it seems a strange way to go-go about it.“ She took a harder look at me. “Your teacher was quite-quite useless. I feel insulted that you managed to defeat me-me.”

Behind her the Kamaitachi let out a chuckle, but it fell silent as she whipped her head around and glared at it.

“Sadly, I only had a very brief time with my teacher, so I suppose they did the best they could in the time they had. They did say they could have got my whole system set up, but it would have limited my growth in the long term.”

“Maybe so…” she allowed. “But still, with such-such a lopsided balance you could suffer irreparable damage if not-not lucky or careful enough-enough. There is already much-much wear and tear. I will need to train you up-up from the basics until your Chakras and network stabilise. Then you can-can support elemental energy. If you continue as you are now-now it could cause you permanent damage to your higher self. The wind energy you absorbed earlier has done some-some harm to your root Chakra, as it was treating it like the pure aether. Still, it can-can be repaired.”

“I can see asking you about this was very wise. You seem to know a lot about how to use aether and elemental energies.”

“Hmph.” She crossed her arms and nodded, snorting. “Of course, I am a princess of the Seelie court, were I not-not to know of these things I would bring shame to all-all of the Fae. But now…” she glared at me, her eyes glowing. “Your lessons will have to begin another day-day. Your weak network cannot support your Astral form any-any longer. When you next return we shall begin your training. Work-work hard, because you need to be strong enough to keep-keep our Oaths. I will not-not hear any excuses you can not-not do it or it is too-too hard.”

Tsundere much? “Of course. I eagerly look forward to your teaching. It would be of great benefit to me, and thus to us, if I could master my abilities. After all, if we are to fight off this Grulgor, who is giving such a noble Seelie as yourself trouble, then maximising everyone’s abilities is paramount.”

“Yes-yes, you speak the truth.” She allowed, pleased at my show of respect.

“I would ask that once I return to the Material you and your Kamaitachi clear out the route to the main Territory and connect it up. That will help us with defence in preparation for my Territory to merge with yours. If you can gather whatever ether you can that would also be great, as we will need it to build up our power base and speed the merger. Put your safety first though, it is more important that you remain unharmed.”

“Of course-course. I am much too valuable to risk in battle unless the need-need is great.” Shaeula agreed.

“Still, if you could clear the buildings on route safely that would help a lot. If you find any intelligent beings that will join us, take them under your control. We already have some kobolds with us, and any extra forces will be a benefit to us.”

“Bah, dog-headed little pests. Still, I shall take-take your advice. I shall see it done.” She wasn’t pleased, but agreed grudgingly.

“All right then. I’ll be returning to the Material. I’ll see you in a few days.” With that I stopped fighting the persistent and escalating drain on my aether and let myself lose consciousness, dropping back to the Material world.