I got the giggles, and they quickly turned into laughter. I was high on the feeling of invincibility and the rush of our narrow escape. Today had been a wild ride. First, the jumping around with teleportation. I still don’t know the limits of that magic for Jena. I couldn’t even imagine what he would be like once I awaken. Just the teleportation alone would have been good enough for me. Then there was the running on our way out. And those walls! What were the Nyadzire ruins? What kind of ruins were they? Today was a day of puzzles.
Somehow, all the fear I had felt today had bled away into euphoria. I didn’t know or understand many things. But instead of fear and worry overwhelming me, right now I was filled with excitement and wonder.
Quote:
Ding!
You have escaped the mutated hyenas
+1 Way-finding XP
+1 mental XP
+1 physical XP
You have 3 unspent physical XP
You have 3 unspent mental XP
“What?! Only one Way-finding point?” I huffed as my laughter faded. Then I thought to myself, Ah well, at least I’m earning points. No need to get greedy. I’ve already gained more today than I ever thought possible. I quickly spent the Physical and Mental XP, assigning one point to each base attribute, then pulled up my status.
Quote:
Status Update
Name: Anesu/ maMlilo
Mutupo: Dragon
Bonded Companion
Name : Jena
Type :Dragon
level :Locked
Bonded relic :1
Name : Jena’s lair
Type :Dragon’s lair
level :Locked
Base attributes
Strength :5
Dexterity :5
Constitution :5
Intelligence :10
Wisdom :10
Charisma :10
Passive general skills unlocked
Running :3/10
Endurance :3/10
Pain Tolerance :2/10
Balance :2/10
Awareness: Clean Sight:0/20
Danger sense 1/10
Climbing :2/10
identify :2/10
Way-finding :8/10
cooking :1/10
swimming :1/10
housekeeping:1/10
Class : pending awakening
Abilities :pending awakening.
Congratulations!
Minimum base attributes threshold reached for the Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma.
Minimum base attributes thresholds required for awakening.
I sat up. This couldn’t be right. At least three of my base attributes had reached the threshold! I was so close. Jena won’t believe this.
“Jena, look at this!” I showed him my status. His eyes brightened as he read. I could tell just by watching his face when he realized I was more than halfway closer to my awakening.
“This is terrific!” he said with a grin. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say the system is deliberately helping you.”
“Seriously? You don’t think I could get these points with my own clever head?” I raised a mocking, dusty eyebrow and burst out laughing. I felt so light and happy. It must be the adrenaline high.
I could see it on his face and feel it through our bond, the excitement and hope he was trying to downplay. He was pensive, thinking hard, not even a slight grin or flash of teeth to acknowledge my humor.
“Now, if only we knew how to get your physical training progressing that quickly too,” he mused.
“Maybe more interaction with the outside world?” I suggested. After all, just one day out there had netted me so much XP for my Mental attributes. Though I would prefer it without the danger. At that thought, all the mirth I felt faded. Today could have ended badly.
“If only I had known this before!” he said, pacing with frustration. “By now you would have awakened. Six weeks! I wasted six weeks!” I didn’t agree with him, of course. We hadn’t wasted six weeks. It was no use telling him that. He needed to work it out himself. The problem with emotions is that they are not reasonable, at all. Right now, while I was riding an emotional high, Jena was sinking into an emotional low. The Nyadzire ruins incident had really freaked him out. Even before that, he had been in a hurry to get me awakened, but now it felt like he was supercharged about it. I wasn’t. I needed time to adjust to the changes, and the six weeks we had spent here had been good for that.
I needed a distraction, something to pull him out spiraling lower in his thoughts. Which reminded me, what did he say about time dilation?
“Hey, Jena, why didn’t you use time dilation for my training? We could have spent six weeks in here and had it be such that no time had passed outside.”
He huffed a sigh as if I were disturbing him while he was doing something important. I just grinned at him, unrepentant. “I know what you’re doing, and I appreciate it, but you need to take this seriously, Anesu. This is a dangerous world.” His tone indicated he wasn’t impressed at all.
“Jena,” I said, matching his tone, “do you really think I don’t know that? It’s a dangerous world. That’s exactly why I need you to stop feeling guilty and start thinking clearly. Plus I really need to understand this time dilation.”
He was quiet for a long moment, then said, “Time dilation doesn’t work the way you’re thinking. At least, my time-dilation magic doesn’t work that way. I can only dilate time within a single day. I can’t make it stretch beyond that.””
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“How long can you dilate time within a day?”
“As long as I want in a single stretch.”
“Can you dilate it outside the lair?”
“No. The time dilation isn’t exactly my magic. It’s the lair’s magic. In a sense, it will be yours once you fully claim the lair when you awaken. My time magic is more about speeding up my perception of time. I’ll only get that when you awaken, I guess. You see, too many things depend on you awakening…”
“What does that mean?” I cut him off before he could spiral on and on about how he’d failed to awaken me fast enough.
“What do I mean — too many things depend on you awakening?” he asked incredulously.
“No, no, no. I mean about time perception.” There was so much I wanted to know, but for now, let’s start with this.
“It means I can slow down movement in my perception. When something is moving fast, I will see it as if it were in slow motion.”
“That must be handy for dodge ball!” I just blurted it out. I have no idea where that thought came from. It's not like I was thinking about dodge ball or any sport for that matter. The last time I played dodge ball was more than fifty years ago.
“Dodge ball, Anesu! Only you would think of that.” He laughed at last, and I swear I could literally feel the tension draining away from his emotions. My brain fart managed has saved the day. Finally, we could start making real plans.
“Do you know dodge ball?!” I was surprised he knew about dodge ball. But I shouldn't have been. This world was really like my own, except with magic. Well, at least from what I had seen so far. Which reminded me.
“Jena! The bira! We should go to the bira! I want to go to the bira. What time is it now? Do you want to come with me? This is a perfect opportunity to test our theory that interaction with the outside world earns me XP. What do you say?” I words rushed over each other.
“Hey, slow down. There’s no need to rush. It’s not yet dark. The sun is still up, and the bira will only begin once the sun has set." That was curious. Our afternoon excursion felt much longer than the actual time that had passed. Jena continued, “So you have time to wash away the dust and grime from the ruins. I don’t mind going, remember, I am invisible to everyone else. It’s up to you, really. But do you really want to go, knowing that the people are probably under the Mist’s influence?”
“Well, the hyenas are free. Maybe the people are too. But you have a point, I have to wash up first.” I think if he could roll his eyes at this, he would have at my irrelevant answer. Jena was too serious. My philosophy was to make and enjoy life. Worrying about what we can’t change was not part of the deal. Besides, I was still riding the tail end of my adrenaline high. Seriously, this stuff is better than any drug.
“Your dust and grime are none of my concern,” he said with a smile. “The only reason I am agreeing to go to the bira is that you seem to gain XP whenever you interact with people. I have an idea. Do you think Matemai’s warrior could train you if you asked?"
“Oh, that is a good idea! I will ask. Let’s go first to Matemai’s campsite before heading to the village. That way we can kill two birds with one stone. We ask for training and also get a guide who is sworn to protect me. I am sure Matemai won't mind.”
“Good thinking, Anesu!” Jena was back to his normal self. I hoped I wasn’t going to sabotage my own work with the following question. His frustration and guilt had felt a little bit out of proportion. I wanted to probe that a little.
“Jena, level with me. What is going on? There is so much that is not making sense. Least of which is why you are linked with me. It doesn’t make sense to me. Then there’s the fact that you’re feeling guilty about something I don’t think you have control over. This is all before we even begin to consider the Mist residue that seemed to target me. You know what? I think as soon as I arrived, it swept the forest. I swear, one moment the forest was clear; the next, the Ding was warning me. Also, this Mist went farther than it normally does, according to Zuruvi and maNyoni.”
Had it only been this morning that I met those two? Then another thought hit me. “Oh my goodness! It's all my fault" I cried! I just realized that I might have triggered it when I arrived! I felt sick to my stomach. The Mist did so much damage! I had to fight hard to control my emotion. Logically I knew this wasn't my fault. But after seeing what it had done to the fields, I couldn't help being a little bit sad about this.
“No, you can’t blame yourself. In this, you are as much a victim as everyone else. You didn’t summon yourself. If anyone is to blame, it’s the people who performed the summoning. I would go as far as to say the summoning triggered the Mist thus why it went farther than normal. It had to go as far as where the summoning was made.” He said firmly emphasis each point by pointing to the ground.
“Yet another thing I don’t understand. Wouldn’t it be logical that I should have arrived where I was summoned? Instead, I arrived here. Where is here? I need a map. We need to make sense of this.” I indicated this with the sweep of my hands.
“Yes, all of this doesn’t make sense. My take is that you arrived here instead of wherever the summoning happened because this is where I was and where the lair is.”
“And where is here?” This had been bugging me for a while now, ever since the Ding told me about the Nyadzire ruins. Jena just shook his head. This bothered him too
“Surely you must know where we are? You were with Jena to the end, right?”
“Yes, but my memories of what we did with Jena at the end are all gone. I don’t remember. It is very frustrating. I’m sure that if I could remember, many of the things happening would make sense, though I’m not sure how much sense. My bond with Jena was not like the bond I have with you.”
We sat there in companionable silence. In one day, we had been through a lot together in this world already, and we both didn’t know to what end. To me, it didn’t matter because I refuse to live by someone else’s plan. In my mind, my goal was clear. If I wanted to have my retirement, this mystery had to be solved. Only then would I be able to know how I could dodge the system and claim my retirement and in the process, gain Jena his powers and free him from being tied to me.
“It seems the way forward is to Matemai and the village,” I said at last. “The village, which we don’t even know the name of. Why didn’t Matemai tell me the name?”
“Or why didn’t you ask?” Jena chuckled. Yes, why didn’t I ask? This was really curious. We needed to go to the village. There were still too many unknowns, but after the Nyadzire ruins, I felt like Jena and I could face whatever came our way. Maybe not face face it but we could outrun it if we had to. Maybe to night will help me untangle the mystery a little bit. If not I was also ready to enjoy the village at party of the year. Hopefully, this time, the people would be welcoming.