I proceeded through the woods using the sun and a blue moss to guide my direction of travel. The blue moss, Konstantin told , only grows on the north side of rocks and trees because it needs the light of the blue moon, Poseidon’s Tear, to grow. I did not understand how the moon could only appear in the north sky at night, but I took him for his word as it seed to work as a navigation tool.
Mid-morning, I took a few monts to bury the Bartiradian elf woodsman. I removed a section of earth, placed him in the grave, and then added the earth back on top of him. I was not sure of his customs, but I hoped my efforts would at least end one of my disturbing dreams.
I tried to practice my skill at moving silently in the woods, but the effort and the slower pace made it frustrating, so I focused sporadically. With my armor left in Maveith’s stone abode, I tried to head in its direction. It was not like anything at all looked familiar as I walked. I did pause to harvest mushrooms. They were quick and easy and did not slow down much. I ate one of the ration bars and used the leaf wrapping afterward.
It was late afternoon when I thought I was close to Maveith’s ho by the distance I had traveled. At least I found so areas where blood grass had been harvested. It might not have been who gathered this particular grass, but it tickled my mory. Every tree looked the sa, but it felt like I was close. I soon found a heavily trodden path made by a large man. It did not take long to follow it to Maveith’s small, hidden ho. I was quite proud of myself for finding it.
Lifting the bar on his door took so effort, but I managed. I entered his ho, looking forward to a night’s rest in the silky weasel pelts. I could reach the city in a few hours in the morning. My armor was still in the spare room; next ti, I would just store it and not leave it behind. It might have prevented my shoulder from being injured by the manticore’s quill.
I ate from Maveith stores. I used the bacon fat to fry onions, potatoes, and salted at. I was sure he wouldn’t mind. I ate well and cleaned up after. It was night outside, and I went into the guest room after ensuring the front door was secure. I lay in bed and opened the ti affinity book for spell forms. I finally had ti to review my options so I could work on a new spell form.
Ti Affinity Lesser Spell Forms (10-25)
Compress Sleep (10)
Hasten Mind (10)
Seize Montum (20)
Echo in Ti (25)
Ti Affinity Major Spell Forms (25-40)
Hasten Self (30)
Slow Aging (40)
Age Target (40)
Probable Future (40)
Ti Apex Major Spell Forms (40-70)
Slow Bubble (50)
Flashback (60)
Ageless (70)
Stasis (70)
I read the descriptions of the lesser spell forms first. The first most commonly selected spell form was hasten sleep. This allowed you to rest while using your aether to recover your ntal state. It did not affect your body, only your mind. Each aether invested gave you about four hours of rest in a single hour. So you could get a complete rest and ntal recovery in just two hours. It also doubled your aether recovery while you slept, getting four hours of aether recovery for two hours of sleep.
Hasten mind was very interesting as it allowed to think faster. It did not make smarter, ti just passed much faster in my head. At the lowest affinity of ten, you would get to think about five tis faster. The text noted that every ten points in affinity that ti doubled. So, with my ninty affinity, I could get ten minutes for every second in real-ti. The problem was it only affected my thinking and not my body. It would make reading books a breeze.
Seize montum was even more intriguing. This required you to touch an object and steal all its inertia. So, if you tid it right, you could stop a sword before it cut you. Then again, you could lose so fingers if you were even a half a breath too late. The amount of aether depended on the size of the object affected. The only interesting thing about this spell was that the object would be frozen montarily based on a person’s affinity. The only reference I had was soone with an affinity of thirty in ti could hold an object just over a heartbeat after stealing its montum. Did that an the object would remain in place for a minute with my ninety affinity?
The final lesser spell form was echo in ti. This spell form allowed the castor to focus on an area and replay what happened in the past. How far back they could view depended on the person’s affinity. At a twenty-five affinity, they could look back as far as a month. They had an entire reference book for using this specific spell form. It was also a common spell clairvoyance castor’s learned. The ti version was slightly more powerful, being able to look further into the past. If the affinity scaling power held, then my ninty affinity could look back almost eight years ago.
The middle tier listed in the book started with hasten self. Unlike hasten mind, hasten self affected your entire body. At a thirty affinity, you moved fifty percent faster. At forty affinity, it beca twice as fast. According to research, you could go more quickly, but the world still worked on the body normally. It noted an example of a mage with a fifty affinity in ti who went blind every ti he used hasten self. So it was a useful spell, especially in combat, but it had a ceiling. I kept thinking back to a bug being splattered on a windshield.
We were definitely getting to so good spell forms. Slow aging sounded promising. I read it three tis to make sure I understood the description. There was a similar spell, but you would need to keep it active all the ti to get its benefit. The spell form was much more effective as it required either your aether core to be full or trickle aether through it if your core was not full. Your aging slowed to a tenth of its normal at a forty affinity in ti. If it scaled up like other spell forms, then my aging would be 1/320th normal.
Getting three hundred years for every one year was appealing. I could live to be twenty-thousand…or even older. Of course, the spell form required aether all the ti, but there were exercises to train yourself to direct aether constantly to a spell form, even while sleeping. So only when my aether bottod out would it stop. I laughed aloud, as that was a common occurrence for .
The next spell form was age target, and it did not work well on living things. I knew that was due to object’s aether resistance, but I should be able to overco those defenses with a ninty affinity as I did with my space affinity. I did the conversation, and each aether I invested would age a target of about eight years. I did not see how that would help in combat or life. Maybe growing plants, but there were probably better spells in the nature affinity for that. It had to have applications if the spell was in this book.
A little more reading, and it was used mostly in alchemy. Potions that required brewing tis of days could be done in minutes. I did not think I was destined to be an alchemist.
Probable future was almost completely combat-focused. The spell form gave the mage a quick view of the next twenty seconds. In a large-scale battle, they would know troop movents before they occurred and know if a defense failed. It was all experienced from the mage’s view and left them with a sizable headache afterward. Using it multiple tis in succession could make the mage go unconscious. It was an incredible power, but it did not fit .
The higher spell forms had to be incredible. The first did not disappoint. It created a bubble of ti around the caster. Anything entering the bubble was slowed down, giving the caster ti to react. The size of the bubble was fixed at ten feet. How slowly the people and items in the bubble moved was related to the caster’s affinity in ti. At sixty, that was 80% of their normal speed. With my ninty affinity, it would be 40% of their normal speed, and the best part was there was no aether resistance to overco. The bubble was fixed!
The cost in aether was a problem, and each second required a relative aether point. The bubble was also fixed in space once activated. If the caster left the bubble, it would end. Still, I could imagine being a terror on the battlefield with this or fighting monsters with ease.
Flashback was even more powerful. It sent the caster back in ti with the knowledge of the future. It was related to how much aether was invested in the spell form when activated. With my available aether, I could go back about—10 seconds if my core was full. In battle, this was imnse, especially if I was avoiding a killing blow. But you would still need to realize you were about to die to activate it.
The next spell form was called ageless. It worked similarly to slow aging, except when you channeled aether, you did not age at all. It did have so drawbacks. It kept your body in the sa state. That ant you could not alter your physical attributes through anything but essences. You could always stop aether channeling to the spell form to age. The second drawback was it took more aether to maintain than slow aging—almost five tis as much. This ant I would recover my aether slower when it was active. Slow aging only used a trickle of aether.
Stasis, listed last in the text, was an interesting spell form. It created a bubble of stilled ti around an object or the caster. Ti halted in the bubble based on how much aether was invested. The bubble size was also limited by the amount of aether invested. The stasis could be broken if the object was moved. I was not interested in becoming Sleeping Beauty, so I did not bother puzzling out the math based on my affinity and available aether.
I did not know if these were all the spell forms available to the ti affinity, but they were the most popular. My ninety affinity might have more powerful versions of these, but I did not have ti to wait. I needed to start working on sothing now.
I reduced my choices to ti bubble or slow aging. Ageless was better than aging, but with my high affinity, they were about the sa. And if I increased my ti affinity with essence, I could slow my aging even further. Ti bubble was incredible, too. It could be a lifesaver against a powerful foe or against multiple opponents. Then again, I had my dinsional space for one-on-one combat.
I was very tempted to live forever. But could I watch friends and family age and die around ? Also, just because I aged extrely slowly did not an I couldn’t die. It seed like almost every week, I was almost getting myself killed. Ti bubble could be learned as a normal spell. Of course, I couldn’t cast it yet. But I had been hearted to get my first essences to improve my magic attributes. I could get my magic attributes high enough to cast spells effectively with enough ti. I needed the ti…slow aging was my choice.
I had spent hours reading and examining the book and only got a few hours of sleep. I would have to ask Maveith if I could have these giant weasel pelts. They were too comfortable a bed. I put on my armor and exited Maveith’s ho. It should only be a few hours to the city, and I would see if they missed .
***
Book 1 is on Amazon Kindle! Bonus chapter this week to celebrate! No need to buy it as I will not be taking it down from scribblehub, but there are so edits in the first 10 chapters. I rushed to publish without a real editor as people were pirating my book. UPDATE: BOOK ONE IS ON AMAZON KINDLE!!!! /amazon/B0CV8MMBFT
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