PenguinKills
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Chapter 360 - Self Study
🕑 Added 2025-08-25 21:25:35 +0000 UTC--AN--
Sorry about the no chapter Friday, something unexpected came up. It's been resolved, so we should be fine going forward.
~~~
The Admiral
New Norfolk
The Admiral sat in his office and thought about all of the reports that had been brought to him over the last few hours. With the last of the invited guests arriving, things were set to start the next day, giving those who arrived later some time to settle in and get comfortable.
With that being the case, many individuals began their machinations today, sending messages, making requests, holding meetings, and engaging in more subtle communications with one another.
The Admiral had people to watch it all happen, but he made sure that they understood not to take it too far. He didn't want any accusations of him spying on his guests to start flying around.
That would set everything off on the wrong foot, making his goals all the more difficult to achieve.
From what he was seeing, that ship had already sailed though.
Mikayla and Tasunka were having messages sent back and forth regularly. Tracy was trying to appease Rhett, but it didn't seem to be working, and Patrick was meeting with Marcus over what could only be a trade deal.
Frostheim had all but shown up with Vanessa, arriving within an hour of one another, and after that, had publicly met to discuss terms. While they hadn't met in the open and aired everything, it was obviously meant to be a message.
After that, New Canada's Leader started meeting with New Boston and Zuri to discuss whatever it was he wanted to discuss. They were technically the closest two factions to his own, and there could be many things he wanted to talk to them about.
Reaching out only after Vanessa concluded whatever deal she made with Frostheim limited those options. For some reason, The Admiral didn't think he was meeting to share his anti-demon summoning formation.
Which led to Zuri's message. While Fitzwallace wouldn't go so far as to say that the two of them were close, he would say they were friendly. Their two factions had worked together on a few occasions, and they looked on the other favorably.
He had the technology while she had the people. Even for all the land that he had reclaimed in the name of the American Faction, Zuri nearly matched him in population alone.
Reclaiming New York was a cheat.
Not only was it a heavily defensible island, but she had millions to call upon should she be attacked. That didn't mean that she was without her own issues, food primarily, but that amount of manpower could get a lot of things done.
Getting most of her food from him put them into a tentative alliance based on need.
~~
Ryan wants to expand, and with his options narrowed for him, has started talks with me over how he might 'help' in the future. His ploy is obvious, but it also could be helpful. If he can weaken the Witch, it will save me a lot of time.
I need that land, Fitz, I simply do not have enough food to go around. It's either West, North, or South.
-Zuri
~~
He took the message for what it was, and not what it could be interpreted as. A warning and helpful tip, rather than a threat. His faction held the lands South of hers, and he'd rather not see them come to blows.
Two of the most powerful factions knocking each other down was the last thing he wanted to happen when their next test was maybe a decade away.
Zuri needed to expand to increase her food production, while Vanessa saw that expansion for a threat it was. The two would come to blows; it was only a matter of time.
They would fight, and Vanessa would lose. She simply didn't have the forces to stop it, no matter how strong she was individually.
The Admiral had been content to watch, but then an unseen variable had come into play.
Frostheim.
While the two factions working together wouldn't even the forces, it would certainly draw them closer to being evenly matched. Being able to set up defensive positions and entrench themselves, the two working together could very well fend Zuri off, no matter how many she threw at them.
If Frostheim called on Marcus, as they were known to be friendly, things would only get more catastrophic.
Not only would the fighting last much longer, but it would see some of the most noteworthy factions weakened before they were set to face whatever their D-rank test sent against them.
So far, this Assembly was doing the opposite of what he'd hoped.
If I cede Philadelphia and the New Jersey region to her, would she agree to stop?
The Admiral didn't know, but he also couldn't sit back and watch as all of them dragged each other down. The Great Lakes Alliance had a city on the Eastern coast of Lake Erie that extended pretty far east, and there was a smaller faction based in where Pittsburgh used to be.
There weren’t a whole lot of options for her if she was looking to expand.
The only person that didn't seem to be doing something the Admiral needed to keep an eye on was Drake, but that was mainly because he didn't know anyone. He wasn't at the Gathering, so he hadn't met any of the other Faction heads before.
Tomorrow would decide if this was a success or a massive failure.
___
Chris
Frostheim
Did I feel guilty for not going to the Assembly? No, no, I didn't. Did I feel guilty for having Rachel go in my stead? No, not really. We were so asininely far away from everything that the trip there and back would take over a year!
That was insane. It was what I had wanted, to be out of the way, but it made these gatherings annoying.
Unless we figured out a way to sail, fly, or otherwise traverse the distance in a much shorter timeframe, no, I wasn't looking to go on any diplomatic missions that weren't of the utmost importance.
While she was gone, and dragging Brayden and Sophia with her, Hal was looking over Emberhold and the new Village that popped up next door, Wavecrest. It also bordered the lake, hence its name.
The new pylon drove our total up to 5. Frostheim and Emberhold being City level and Small City level, with Frostfall, Snowbrook, and now Wavecrest being Village level.
I was surprised that it was founded. If I were being honest, the people of Emberhold didn't exactly scream 'village frontier' people. Still, either for fear of being trapped in the city again or fear of being ruled by someone like Victor, they decided to venture out and make their own.
It made it one more pylon we had to defend every other month when the Settlement Wave came, but it wasn't all that bad. Frostfall and Snowbrook could handle themselves without our help now, and we had the forces to spare.
Abigail noted an uptake in leveling speed from it, which was something we would have to watch closely. The amount of essence the waves brought wasn't something I had noticed all that much, but with five of them now, it was building into something formidable.
Other than that, I spent most of my time feeling out my new Rank. D-rank opened up a lot of doors, and it was another reason going South wasn't a good idea. This was my time to catch up.
Austin was nearly 24 levels ahead of me, and that just couldn't stand.
Frostheim's two dungeons got a workout every day, so my essence gain stayed high. Even a few of the nearby dungeons were hit as well to give me a boost. Lucile was doing a nice job boosting their growth, but they were still a few floors from being able to truly challenge me.
Not after my evolution.
Speaking of changes that my evolution brought, there was a downside to going up a rank. Well, maybe not a total downside, but certainly an adjustment period, and not in the obvious way.
My stats had risen by a decent margin, and those did take some getting used to, but it was something else that needed getting used to that caused me the most trouble.
My hammer.
Every time my hammer was remade, it adjusted itself to the weight that I needed. The first time I summoned it back when I first evolved to E-rank, it was maybe a hundred or so pounds, something my strength at the time could handle.
That hammer broke during my fight with the Demons, forcing me to resummon it. It got heavier to match my increased levels and strength. It got heavier again when I resummoned it after the Orcs destroyed it.
I wasn't sure how much it weighed exactly, but it was a fun competition to see who could lift it and who couldn't.
After my evolution, I resummoned it voluntarily for the first time. After the large jump of upgrading [Body of a Frostborn], my evolution, and gaining north of 40 points a level, I outgrew it pretty quickly.
My strength had risen by over 30% in a relatively short period. The heft it now had made the previous hammers feel like toothpicks and feathers in comparison. If [Weight of the Arctic] didn't also increase the hammer's weight, I might have needed two different hammers for fights with and without my boosts; the multipliers were getting so large.
But that wasn't what needed getting used to. No, that was something else that resulted in the increased weight.
I was beginning to look like Austin when swinging my hammer.
It was just too heavy, and my body mass wasn't enough to keep up and counter it. Large, powerful swings had my feet pulling off the ground if I didn't angle it right.
It had been a problem before, but not nearly to this extent. Widening my stance, making sure the angle I swung in wasn't wrong, and anchoring myself to the ground by freezing my feet were usually enough to offset it.
Not anymore.
The momentum behind my swings was too much.
For the first few months, I trained to mitigate it as much as I could, but nothing I did worked. The ice I froze my feet on broke. No matter what angle I swung at, it left me unbalanced. No matter how wide I set my feet, it ended the same way.
My salvation came when a random conversation with Gabriel gave me my answer.
Gabe was mainly settling into his new role as Order Captain, but he still set aside time for his research and experiments, and it was one of those times that gave me the solution.
~~
"This should work, damnit! I don't understand why you can speak through it, use [Identify] and other appraisal skills through it, pressure people with it, but it can't interact with the physical item!" Gabe all but shouted in frustration.
"Do you need me to pull it back in now?" I asked.
He had needed my help with his experiments with aura and had me full on blasting it out into the area. My aura had grown after evolving, and it was gaining an impressive amount of force if I did say so myself.
"Yes, lighten it as best you can," Gabriel said offhandedly, mainly focused on the testing apparatus he had set up. "It can't just be spiritual, that doesn't make any sense."
In an effort to help, I asked, "Why don't you explain what you're trying to accomplish. You didn't really explain it other than to tell me to let my aura out completely."
"I didn't?" He asked, and I shook my head no, "Oh, sorry. I got carried away with an idea."
"You see," He said, "It's known that auras are a part of your being, that much I told you already to get you to speak through it, but that can't be the only thing it can do."
"It presses down on people near me," I said. I'd also felt a few auras that belonged to some fearsome beasts do the same to me, but I hadn't ever felt a person's aura do that. Not like I did to others.
"Yes, but that isn't what I'm going for. You have [Aura Detection], which uses the aura as a medium to appraise an object or person. Gavin recently got [Aura Trace], which lets him track the residual energies left behind in a person's wake. There has to be more they can do."
"So, letting my full aura out, you wanted to see what, exactly?"
Gabe turned away from his testing and looked at me, "Yours and Rachel's are the only auras I know that can affect temperature. You cool things off, and she heats them up. If temperature can be affected, and everything else I mentioned, what's to say you can't move things too?"
"Like crush them down physically?" I asked, starting to get the idea.
"No," he snapped quickly, "Well, yes, but not only that. Telekinesis! Actual telekinesis, not through a skill, spell, or artifact. Through will alone, true telekinesis!"
"I don't..." My words trailed off as I thought about it. Nothing I'd seen or experienced said that it was possible, but it also didn't say it wasn't.
Auras weren't something I was well-versed in, but I didn't see why it couldn't be possible, and if it was, I had a solution to my problem.
What if I could anchor myself with my aura? I wouldn't need to play around with freezing my feet or a wide stance. I could grip the ground and make sure my swings didn't unbalance me at all.
It was perfect!
~~
It wasn't perfect.
I had no experience with using my aura in such a way, and I didn't have Gabe to help teach me. This wasn't something he knew how to do either.
After his test, which sparked my idea, we visited Vulwin to see if he knew anything about it, but that was of no help. He didn't tell us anything we didn't already know.
He said it was possible, but advanced aura techniques weren't something D-ranks dabbled in. They usually didn't have the aura strength to really do anything.
That didn't deter me, though.
I knew my aura was strong for my level, and I was convinced it would work. I also didn't want to shell out the gold Vulwin asked to get the information from outside.
This was something I wanted to do myself. For the first time in... forever, really, I could learn how to do something myself. I didn't have to rush off to get information from Vulwin or buy something from the store.
I could test, tweak, and mess with figuring it out for myself.
Even through failure after failure, my enthusiasm persisted.
I finally got to do something myself.
Comments
adrian_hora
No problem about no chapter, maybe take a break 1 week on rr, so it will be easier to have those 20 chapters ahead here
Buck
TFTC!
