On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

Thirty-Six

“You-you… are… a slave-driver.” Shaeula panted as the winged creature in front of her burst into sparkles of ether, which was quickly absorbed and sent to the Silo. Slumping down on her haunches she drew in long rasps of breath. “I think-think… we should rest… a bit…”

“We’re fine.” I chuckled, though I was feeling rather drained myself. We had been hunting for well over a day of objective time, the hideous human-sized owls with wolf faces we had just dispatched the latest creatures to have descended near our Territory. “Not only are we raking in the ether it is excellent training in how to use wind. Your last attack was particularly good, using rotation to drill into the enemy. If I’m not careful you are going to win our little wager.”

“I am starting… to understand what-what you mean.” Shaeula’s breathing had calmed down after the rest. “Compression, rotation, vibration… all-all are ways to enhance the destructive force of the wind, without much-much greater usage of elemental energy.” She looked satisfied. “With the wind energy drawn from the Ether Spires we can-can fight all the harder and longer, so we learn-learn at a rapid pace.”

“Yeah, it’s a real crash course. I am sure my heart Chakra is generating wind faster after all the usage. And in addition to that we make sure our Territory remains safe.”

The intensity of the Etheric tide was still increasing, the sky awash with blazes of colour. In the distance large shapes could be seen, such as snake-like shadows many metres long, or tall thin giant-like beings striding across the land. Fortunately none of them had strayed our way yet, but flocks of lesser creatures were common, and some of them were surprisingly powerful. “If this is a relatively shallow Etheric tide I’d hate to see one of the deep ones…”

“Some-some of the most devastating tales of ruin-ruin are based on the deeper tides.” Shaeula agreed. “The Moon-devouring Wyrm for one. Many nobles of the Seelie Court perished last-last time it appeared. There is also the Chimaera Swarm, The Frost Wraiths and many-many others.”

“They all sound pretty strong. Let’s hope we don’t see any of those for a long time. Oh well, that’s enough rest. We press onwards. We nearly have enough ether for our goal of queuing in the last two upgrades to the Ether Spires.”

Things had progressed more smoothly than I had imagined they would. With the extra draw for my Rank 2 Territory, which was significantly larger than before, plus the four new Ether Spires being in a more ether-dense area, the rate of gain was greater than I had planned for, to say nothing of the large surge of ether generated by the Etheric tide. This had been supplemented by the high number of creatures the tide had dragged up, which we were blasting through at a rapid rate. I had even reached Level eleven recently due to the large influx of enemies.

“Monster…” Shaeula muttered, but she followed me as we circled our Territory.

“By the way, now you are starting to master the destructive wind techniques, how about the stealthy ones?”

“Stealthy? I do not-not quite understand what you mean.” she replied, tilting her head, which I secretly found rather cute.

“Well, why do we have all the glowing green light when we use elemental wind? After all, air and wind is usually colourless, right?”

“Wind energy is green-green. That is simply the way it is. Every elemental energy has its own-own colour.”

“Maybe so, but the air itself doesn’t have a colour. How about you try this…?” As we continued to patrol our Territory I demonstrated the technique I was thinking of. It wasn’t flawless by any means, but it could definitely be a useful trump card. However Shaeula’s amber eyes quickly glazed over at my explanations, and she rapidly became downheartened. Resolving to find a better way to explain it, the patrol continued…

After several more objective hours of time we had scoured our Territory clean. We were still a few thousand short of our goal of ether, but after doing some quick calculations based on the increasing rate of ether gain due to the Etheric tide I figured we would have just about the required amount if I could last out long enough before returning to the Material plane. Therefore the obvious thing to do would be some training!

Ignoring the muttered protests from Shaeula we began to practice some more, leaving the Kamaitachi and the weaselkin to patrol our Territory in our stead. My focus was on increasing the flow of wind energy my body could handle, as well as fine-tuning my new trump card, while Shaeula… She seems a bit down, but I’m sure she will get it soon… she was to work on improving her compression and rotation, as well as trying to understand what I meant about the colour of wind.

Many hours passed, until my brain was aching from all the concentration. Unfortunately the rate of my ether drain to remain in the Boundary was now prohibitive, higher than I had anticipated, so I was not quite going to be able to meet my target. Queuing one upgrade of an Ether Spire I reluctantly bid farewell to the relieved Shaeula, and with some parting words on keeping going with the training, which caused her to scowl, I returned to the Material, opening my eyes in the darkness of early morning.

Man that’s disappointing. Chances are a day or two of the secondary queue will be wasted, lying dormant, but next time I return… I suppose I could push it and really gather ether and try and return tonight… Shaking away those thoughts I let out a sigh. It wasn’t a disaster, so it would probably be best to keep up with my standard routine. After all, I had many demands on my time…

Since it was still early I grabbed a couple of hours of sleep to take the edge off my mental weariness. Once that was done it was time for another quick jog. Being the weekend there were less people going to work, but I did see a very tired looking Karen-chan on her way out. Man, overtime is rough. I remember the huge amounts I used to pull back with Hayato-san and the gang… when I get a chance we really need to have a get-together, like the old days, but everyone's busy with their own careers now...

Feeling a pleasant sense of tightness in my muscles I then went through my spear training. My movements were definitely becoming swifter and more precise as I worked through the basics. It would soon be time to look at more advanced techniques. I then did some muscle workouts and a little basic martial arts.

Once this was done I had a cold shower, finished off by a light lunch and some ice-cold drinks from the fridge. As I had been training with Shaeula and working on my energy, I had come up with, or rather borrowed, a few creative ideas from various manga and light novels I had read. Some of them I could implement somewhat easily, but others… If I was able to channel pure oxygen throughout my lungs and blood I should gain an explosive boost in power and speed, but just how am I going to do that without doing something very bad to my body? I’m not a doctor…

I would definitely have to put a plan in place before I could use some of my ideas. Anything such as body reinforcement-style would have great benefits, but equally great risks to pull off. Clearing my mind of such distractions, I decided to take some time gambling to build up my pot…

… only to find four hours later I had barely increased my money at all, by a mere hundred and sixty pounds in total. Indeed, at one point I was well over a thousand pounds down on the start of the day. Damn, this gambling lark isn’t fun… losing definitely makes me feel the pressure. As a daily wage it was by no means terrible, but in terms of my goal it was lacking. I have a great need for money, far more than this.

Taking yet another shower, this time cleaning off sweat that was more fear than exertion, I returned to my room and began my Chakra and wind exercises…

********

The next day was a Sunday so after my usual training I decided to take a bit of a break and treat myself to a few hours of relaxation. Picking up a couple of manga magazines from the local shop I spent a few hours reading them and forgetting my worries. I also answered a few emails from Hayato-san, as well as my sister, and let her know the timings of my return home. I planned to return on the twenty-second, and stay for five days, returning home on the twenty-seventh. Hopefully she would also be free on the weekend of the thirty-first, before the holidays finished, not that I mentioned that, as I wanted to surprise her. To that end I fired of a message to my mom, asking her to make a few preparations.

Time was passing, so with a heavy heart I bit the bullet and started to gamble once more, hoping my bad luck had passed. To start with it seemed like my rotten luck was continuing, with spin after spin losing, but as I spun with a heavy heart I had a win, dropping a profit of over two hundred and fifty pounds on just one bet. After that I played for another hour, never losing that many spins in a row, steadily building profit until my pot stood at just over nine thousand pounds.

Based on the numbers I had ran during my internet research while devising my master plan this wasn’t going to be enough, so over the next week or so I would have to double that to be comfortable. I also had to perfect my control of fine invisible wind… Damn, I have all this spare time since I’ve finished all my freelance work, but somehow I’m busier than ever. I had a broad grin across my face though. All the challenges were worthwhile, as they produced tangible results I could actually see and feel, be that my Statistics rising, my Territory expanding or my bank balance blossoming.

Gathering both aether and wind energy slowly from the surrounding atmosphere, it wasn’t long before I was returning to the Boundary, to see how my Territory had developed…

The first thing I did was observe the building queue. Roughly ten Astral days had passed, the Etheric tide still deepening, so as I had anticipated, one of my build queues was empty, the other with about three days to go to finish the last Ether Spire upgrade. My stored ether was similarly impressive, with around forty-thousand in stock. My newly enlarged Silo couldn’t hold it all and it was glittering in a silvery halo around it like the rings of Saturn. Under the vividly bright colours of the Etheric tide and the constant fall of reflective white flakes it was quite the stunning scenery. My sis would love this. It’s a pity she can’t see it. Eri-chan too. She always liked pretty things. I remember taking her stargazing a few times, up on the mountains back home. Happy memories…

As I was considering this Shaeula appeared before me, flanked by her Kamaitachi and a group of black-furred Elite weaselkin. Her face was positively beaming with joy as she greeted me.

“You look pleased.” I observed.

“Of course-course.” She said excitedly. “More of my kin have returned to my side-side. How long-long before we can upgrade the Barracks again?” She spoke at a rapid pace, closing right up to me, face peering intently up at mine, causing me to flush and step back reflexively. Too close. Too close!

I could see that most of the lights that had surrounded her, the spirits of her kin, had gone, only a small number of the larger lights remaining.

“My Sickle-Weasels need to return to me-me.” She continued. “They would also be-be valuable assets to you. I think-think this should be your priority.”

“It is a priority, just not the priority right now.” I countered. “The cost in both ether and time is massive. A hundred and twenty-five thousand ether and one hundred days. It will come, but instead we first need to build the last Ether Spire upgrade to take advantage of the Etheric tide to amass resources, and then I have to make good on my promise to you.”

Shaeula looked downcast, making me feel a little bad, but she looked pretty cute as she cocked her head to one side in puzzlement. “Promise? What-what promise?”

“Why, to get you a new throne worthy of you, of course!”