Chapter 117: Chapter 117

The next day, I did some basic training and sparring with the Scarthralls, but my mind wasn’t on it. Instead, I was looking forward to my job.

But before I got going, I was reminded that not only had I been to Ring Two yesterday, but today’s job would also be taking me there. Which then reminded me that I owed the Sea Cult leader, Favoile, some intel on the goings-on at Ring Two, particularly regarding the Earth Cult.

To that end, I enlisted the help of Vandre and Lujean.

“A scouting job?” Vandre asked, rubbing his hands together in excitement. “On Ring Two of all places? This sounds like a mini adventure, Cultist Ross.”

I snorted. “I suppose so.” I explained to them what we needed to find. “The problem is that I’m not sure if we’ll actually see any sign of the Earth Cult or not.”

Vandre thumped his chest. “I’ll keep an eye out!”

Lujean shook his head. “We’ll keep our eyes out. But can we actually get into Ring Two again?”

“Yes, you’ll just accompany me to my job for a bit. Hopefully, they won’t mind.”

Once the morning rush was past, we headed out. There wasn’t a specific reporting date or time, so long as the requested mage eventually showed up, which I did.

The Rakshasa foreman looked at me dubiously. “We were looking for a mage…”

“Please don’t be distracted by my cult robes,” I said. I held out my hand, the Silver-ranked Mage Guild badge starting to levitate as I wrapped violet threads around it. “I promise I am a mage.” Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs novel✦fire.net

The foreman blinked. “Ah, Gravity. Alright.” Next, he looked at the Scarthralls behind me. “We’re not paying extra for… attendants. This was a singular employee posting.”

“I believe the correct term is contractor. I’m hardly an employee of your company. Don’t worry though, they’re only friends accompanying me into Ring Two for the moment. They’ll remain out of sight, out of mind.”

The Rakshasa still squinted at the Scarthralls, whom I had recommended to cover up as best as they could to draw less attention. They had taken to it eagerly, since scouting and spying involved minimizing one’s appearance. Vandre had been so enthusiastic, he had ended up doing the opposite, his inconspicuousness making him stand out.

“Alright, then,” the Rakshasa foreman eventually said. “We can get started, I think.”

The job was pretty simple and exactly what I had expected—carry things around, the more and the faster, the better. There was a quota of the amount of stuff I needed to move, and a bonus if I finished my job within the very day I started.

Essentially, all I needed to do was levitate a bunch of stone. There were other materials that had to be transported too, such as various tools, bags of earth and sand and what looked like cement. I wasn’t actually sure. Did they even have cement here?

It was honestly a nice test of the bounds of Gravity. Now that the Aspect was high Silver, I could expand the threads pretty far and have them loop over a huge chunk of my quota all at once. It made me look forward to Gold, where I probably could have dragged in literally everything I needed to and more besides in one go.

The only bit of help I needed was to tie everything together in neat little roped crates and cartons. Oh, and some help from a few other construction workers to maintain the train of materials whose weight I had vastly lowered. Couldn’t have different sections getting stuck in winding streets or hitting passersby after all.

Interesting to note that the construction workers had their own set of uniforms and protective gear too. Helmets and gauntlets that would have sufficed for actual combat, not just building accidents.

It made me wonder about the economics of it all. According to the foreman, it was apparently more profitable for everyone to pay a mage to carry out the majority of the moving rather than use a bunch of workers doing so physically. This sped up the entire construction process, which meant the company—called Shikarthola Builders—could exact higher payments from the client.

As such, everyone in the company got paid even more. No wonder the workers approved of the process as well.

Of course, another reason for the seemingly low number of workers was because everyone was using magic. Path of the Builder apparently gifted people with an Aspect of Construction that tremendously simplified the process of erecting new buildings.

I was fascinated to see some of that in action.

There were people shaping the stone into precise bricks while hardly even using simple chisels and hammers, mixing the cementlike material with their bare hands, erecting scaffolding for laying everything up with next to no effort. And all of it from a small handful of people too. No wonder they could keep their need for manpower down.

Although, while I did find all of that interesting, what really caught my eye was the location.

I had passed by the construction site the previous day, though I hadn’t realized the exact place I was back then. Thanks, my terrible sense of direction. Now, however, I realized I was pretty close to Kalnislaw lands.

The construction company was working on the lands soon to be inhabited by the Anymphea. I had seen one of them too, just hadn’t put two and two together at the time.

It was easy to draw that conclusion. For one, there were several of the Anymphea’s interesting Bloomwagons waiting outside the bounds of the construction site. For another, a familiar Anymphea was keeping an eye on the construction permanently.

“Interpreter Moreland?” she said once I got a break from work and could drag myself over. “You’re…” Her eyes drifted to the construction yard. “Working here?”

I had forgotten her name, embarrassingly enough, which hit extra hard because she remembered me. “I am. We all need money to survive.” Well, I needed it to procure things to Sacrifice, which boiled down to survival, so it wasn’t like I was lying. “Just dropped by to say hello, Lady…”

“Lady Kyris! I’ll remember this time, I promise.”

“The social dynamics of your city escapes me entirely sometimes. Claderov was much simpler.”

Hmm, I supposed I could see her point. A human, a race who were normally relegated to Ring Four, was all the way up in Ring Two. An interpreter, who was respected and important enough to work alongside the Councillors, the most powerful people in Zairgon, was now working at a construction company.

Right, I began to see the headache-inducing incongruencies.

“I heard my son challenged you to a duel, Interpreter Moreland,” Kyris said. “Did you accept?”

“Oh, right. I did, actually. I hope that’s not a problem.”

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“Not at all.” Kyris smiled for the first time. “It’s good that he’s making friends. And more importantly, he told me you had certain plans about an issue we were facing…”

Her words faded as she looked past me. I turned too. The rest of the builders were one and all staring at me. I didn’t need much time to realize it was probably extremely odd for a construction worker, contracted or otherwise, to be speaking so casually with the rich, noble, Ring Two client overseeing the whole thing.

The foreman coughed into his hand.

“Sorry, my lady,” I said with a short bow, fist to chest. “I’ll be back after I finish my job.”

The foreman’s treatment of me changed a great deal when I resumed working. It hadn’t been anything offensive to start with. Neither overbearing, nor too controlling, nor too directionless and lackadaisical. He explained what I had to do, trusted me to complete it, and was ready to answer my questions or provide assistance if needed.

Now, he was almost subservient about it. He nagged me to see if I needed anything, made sure to thank and praise me, and even offered me refreshments personally in between breaks. Wild how much a person’s behaviour could change after seeing one little offhand interaction.

Clearly, I had transformed from competent contractor mage to someone friendly with nobility, and thus, important.

But I wasn’t bothered too much and completed my quota well before the day was over.

“Do you want me to assist with any of the remaining materials and stuff?” I asked.

“Free of charge. Just think of it as a little add-on.”

The foreman wrung his hands together. “Ah, I could never possibly ask for anything free of charge from a mage such as yourself, Mage Moreland.”

“Well, how about this, then? I’ve got a little place that needs some proper repairs, though it’s in Ring Four. If I help you with the rest of your stuff, do you think you could take a look and help with it?”

“We’d be absolutely delighted!”

I blinked. At the mention of Ring Four, I had been sure he’d hesitate. Caught between wanting to appease me for whatever reason and associating so directly with Ring Four.

Apparently not. The fact that he was agreeing so readily despite only being a foreman—not the owner of the company or an administrative higher-up—also said a lot about the company itself, I supposed.

I completed my end of the deal within another hour, after which the foreman signed the letter and added the pin that I’d need to submit to the Mage Guild for payment.

Now I was free to resume conversation with the Anymphea leader, Kyris.

Except, it wasn’t just her. By the time I had completed my job and the builders were retreating for the day, Ascelkos had returned.

“Ross!” He smiled brightly at me. “You really did show up for our duel!”

His voice was loud. All the workers who had been about to leave now stopped in their tracks, slowly turning around like it was their names that had been called.

“Sorry, Ascelkos,” I said. “I couldn’t hear you. Why don’t you shout a little louder.”

I didn’t know if Ascelkos failed to parse sarcasm or if he was just messing with me.

“Come fight me like you promised, Ross Moreland,” he said.

I was pretty sure most of Zairgon had heard that.

Rolling my shoulders and neck, I approached. I wasn’t really tired. Sacrificing food took care of fatigue and helped a lot with stamina levels. My Spirit had risen high enough that mana exhaustion was just a minor niggling despite a whole day’s work.

So I figured I’d take care of the duel since I was already here.

“Alright,” I said with a smile. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Ascelkos.”

There was some open space a little bit away from the construction site where we could carry out our little spar. I could see the Kalnislaw manor in the distance from that location, but I paid it no mind.

Ascelkos was getting ready at the other end of the field, and he was deadly serious about this duel.

Not surprising. He had said that it was an important tradition, and everything I had seen of him had proven that he valued tradition a great deal.

Lady Kyris was standing off to one side, while the construction workers had gathered at another end to witness the spectacle. After asking for permission, of course. They were all staring at me. If anything, the fact that I was duelling with the client only made the foreman look at me with even greater awe.

“Prepare to admit defeat in record time, Ross,” Ascelkos called out challengingly.

I cracked my knuckles as my heart started thudding at the prospect of the fight. “Is trash talking an important tradition too?”

“Well, no. But it is customary.”

I laughed. “Alright then. Let’s see if you can put your money where your mouth is.”

Ascelkos rushed in. He was fast, faster than I had thought. Considering he had only recently awakened his new Aspect, I had thought he was mostly in Iron, but that speed was evidence of an Agility way higher than Iron.

And then the power of his blow solidified my new conclusion. His new Aspect might be Iron-ranked, but he sure as the Pits wasn’t.

I was sent staggering back several steps despite blocking as best as I could. My forearms throbbed a little where he had struck. Physically speaking, Ascelkos was powerful. Maybe even stronger than me, I was starting to realize.

Well, he was one of the deputy leaders of the Anymphea in his father’s absence, after all.

Ascelkos’s movement style also had a certain gait and flow about them too. A swerving, curling motion that made me feel like I was watching things unfold with too many frames per second.

The worst thing about that was it made it far too hard to predict his motion. One of the key things Gutran had taught me about fighting was the need to read the opponent’s movement to predict where the next blow would land. With Ascelkos, I couldn’t read his muscles, could hardly foretell where his next punch was going to land because of the flowing motion of it all.

I blocked punches, barely evaded several flying kicks, and was forced to suffer a thump to my midsection that nearly drove the breath out of my lungs.

And all the while, I was channelling as many mana threads as I could, mana exhaustion finally needling to a greater life within me.

I tried to counter, of course, but Ascelkos was both a more experienced fighter—quite clearly—and physically better than me too. Fast enough to dodge my blows no matter how quickly they came in, and probably strong enough to tank through them too if I ever managed to land a hit.

Though, distantly, it made me wonder what hitting would actually feel like. What with his watery-looking body with its flowing motion and all.

I didn’t need to land a counter, though. A brief brush of my fist against his chest, which he had mostly evaded, was enough. The next time Ascelkos tried to rush me in, he stumbled. I grit my teeth in a hard grin.

There. Gravity was in full effect after all our contacts, as evidenced by the violet threads on his shirt.

I was naturally taking full advantage already. Ascelkos’s reactions were incredibly fast, his arms drawing up defensively to block my powerful kick. I released the hold Gravity had on his clothes at the moment of impact, my Power forcing him back several feet.

Trying to take even more advantage didn’t work. With all his incredible experience, he was able to evade and create some space.

“Ah, so that’s your Aspect,” Ascelkos said. “I was waiting for it to show. Very tricky one you have too.”

I raised my hand challengingly. “You haven’t even seen what I can really do.”

He flashed in with more furious strikes. It was honestly great practice trying to both keep up with Ascelkos’s physical aggression while also trying to maintain my control over Gravity and the other mana I was channelling.

Channelling Gravity wasn’t helping much. Not when I was trying to manipulate the threads in his shirt. Ascelkos was strong enough to just bullishly power through it, so the only recourse I had left was going all out.

Which led me to pinning his clothes to the ground by weighing them down. He had a much harder time blocking my kick then.

At least that forced him to finally get rid of his shirt after he had rolled upright. A small win.

When he rushed me down again, I didn’t get to properly block this time. Ascelkos had decided to bring his mage Aspect into play. A blob of water glub-glubbed to life in his hand before it flew straight into my face.

I was a little too surprised to react quickly enough. Instead, I found myself coughing and falling at the same time as the distraction led to getting punched hard.

Somehow, I managed to instinctively kick the ground hard enough to throw myself away, lowering my own weight with a quick use of Siphon.

“Two can play the same games,” Ascelkos said as I got back up quickly.

The corner of my eyes caught our audience on both sides. Kyris had both her hands clasped before her, almost looking like she was a little too invested in the fight.

Meanwhile, the construction workers were all staring agog, though more at me than at Ascelkos. If it had been surprising a contractor construction worker mage like myself was chummy with the noble clients, it was apparently even more surprising that I was holding my own against one of them in a duel.

Ascelkos came at me again, but I was ready with the other mana I was channelling. The Anymphea got to take only a single step before the ground exploded.

I felt a flush of heat enliven me. My Flare Aspect had come into play.

My opponent was thrown back by the first few explosions, then staggered around as more blasts erupted everywhere. The combination of Concentration and Capacity had turned the area into a minefield, dust hanging thick in the air. Ascelkos was somehow able to predict a lot of the flaring gouts and evade them, but he still got caught several times.

I was about to rush in and take advantage, regardless of the dust clouding my vision, but a commotion behind me drew my attention away.

The construction workers were parting, and between them, Lujean and Vandre were being herded forward like naughty schoolchildren about to be taken to the headmaster’s office. Herded in such a way that the spar between me and Ascelkos came to a complete stop.

And herded by the familiar figure of an annoyed Captain Revayne.