The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 384 - Functional Circles, Spiraling Fractures, & The Patience Of An Ogre
Chapter 384: Chapter 384 - Functional Circles, Spiraling Fractures, & The Patience Of An Ogre
"What are you making here?"
Sevra’s question came out as barely a whisper. The scout was beginning to understand exactly what kind of power she was witnessing. Her Walk Astralism was something she was rather proud of - and its capability was impressive in her mind. But these Projections of the heiress were so, so far beyond what seemed possible for even groups of cultivators to do at once.
"The key thing for the immediate future. Everything else is just distractions for later." freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
Elua waved her hand and the grand design in her illusive blueprint consolidated to only the simple dwelling that had started it all. A comfortable enough bunking area that would be built next to the large stone with the spring underneath. Amenities that would take more than a few days to construct with her current plan.
’She’ll be the one to go insane if I don’t give her a task before then. Funny how the two of them switched things up on arrival, for weird reasons.’
Madrigil was watching as a ring of sigils were quickly prepared. He hadn’t asked any questions yet, just watching as rock was chipped away, blown into a pile by the use of an Element. Instead, he was doing his best to predict what the end result would be of the formation.
He had already calculated that the arc size would leave an interior meant for a single person to sit inside. So it likely wasn’t the shelter itself. It did seem to have a lot of sigils and linkages he wasn’t familiar with... and he had no idea what was going on below ground.
"Why are you so blunt with threats but vague with answers over things like this?"
The ancient cultivator stopped what she was doing and turned to the woman whose spirit flinched when the next strike on rock hadn’t happened. Rapidly, the full blueprint of what she was working on flashed into a glowing display that all of them could see - exciting the noble whose nose almost struck the ground as he began tracing them from up close.
"Threats... do you actually think I’ve been threatening you at all today? I honestly think I’d have every right to, as both of you are in your own ways responsible for separating me from the person I love. But I think I’ve been quite kind."
Standing up, the brunette dusted off the skirt folds of her dress while tilting her head to the side, looking at nowhere while trying to imagine everything that had gone down in these hours.
"I explained I could get you back. I explained I would do so. I’ve brought us to somewhere we can find shelter and water. I have not lied to you once, to my knowledge. Have not harmed, raised my fist, manipulated your spirit beyond the bounds of what is ever needed for you to see my... Illusions."
’For a moment I thought to say Projections. Would have been a lie, but would have been after I said I hadn’t lied. That would have been safe, but would have killed my next comment.’
Throughout her speech, the ’older’ woman had held her head down to the ground. Everything she had said may be true, but it didn’t make her feel any better or safer. It had been her choice to bring the realmshard to the reincarnator, and now she was paying the consequences in her mind.
"Sevra. I’ve been honest and not *sought* to manipulate you in any of the ways I feel I could. The only thing I have not done is coddle you as if you are someone of importance to me."
Taking a few steps closer to the taller cultivator, the ancient in a teenage form sighed and *awkwardly* frowned. It wasn’t just smiles and other positive emotional displays she would need to work on. To become more authentic, she would need to embody all parts of a young human girl again.
Snarls, glares, and all kinds of pinched faces that definitely would not be ’cute’. But would be useful for reacting to all people *not* Qatrand. And also... would form the basis of how to do those things more ’sweetly’ - like when she needed to pout, to look exasperated, and the like that were not *fully* positive feelings.
"Because of that indifference, I have therefore not stopped to explain every step of a technical process in a field that, to my understanding, you’d have no possible way of-"
"I got it! It’s a specialized spiritual enhancement array, isn’t it?!"
She tried to give off ’exasperation’ when she turned her head, but it looked more like half of her face bit into the most sour of lemons even to the formerly mad noble. Not that he cared - he could feel and categorize the Intent she used at the same time. That behavior was actually very efficient and he appreciated it!
"Yes, excellent timing. But my point was made. If you want to know what I’m working on, ask that man. After all, it’s not like you’d trust anything I say and I have no need to listen to your accusations. You’re an adult and someone following the path toward Divinity. Act like it."
Unhurriedly, the heiress turned away and went back to the physical nature of the work. Making an area available for the scout to use her Walk ability much more efficiently and effectively. A dedicated scout for the whole Astral Exclave would make a lot of her coming plans easier.
To find materials, source plants and seeds, locate what other wildlife might have flourished in the realm... and giving the woman a sense of agency and involvement as soon as possible would surely keep her from snapping.
’Probably. Hope there’s nothing weirder than me she runs into out there in spiritual form.’
⟠ ⟠ ⟠
An hour later, the sigilist stood up and looked down at the completed array. It formed a perfect circle carved deep into the rock. Microsigils were also threaded throughout, carved using her usual supposedly impossible essence control tricks.
"There. Functional and stable."
At the begging request of Madrigil - she had expanded her blueprint and let him dance around and examine it to keep him busy as he lectured Sevra. Technical observations about ’sympathetic geometry amplification’ and ’essence reduction resonance’... and ’conceptual inflation vertices’.
Most of it, to be generous, flew completely over the scout’s head, but his enthusiasm was impossible to miss. She wasn’t sure she trusted the man any more than the reincarnator. But she was also still stinging from the ’talking to’ from earlier.
"It’s remarkable work. The precision required for what you set out to do... I’ve never seen anything like it in our time. Our sigilists are practically doodling with a rounded lump of chalk in comparison."
"Well, it’s not just the loss of old techniques. We can’t forget I have thousands of years of practicing under me. Without trying to sound too humble or too vain... raising me too high above spiritualists of our world insults my own hard work."
Sevra stared at the array, then at the two cultivators who seemed so certain of its benign purpose. Her voice came out smaller than she intended. Unable to completely shake all her fear.
"What if it... changes me? Permanently? How do I know this won’t bind me to you somehow? Or trap me inside it..."
Elua’s expression shifted to that same sour-lemon look from before. Mint eyes squinted at the scout, who hadn’t met her eyes since she was basically told to grow up.
"Sevra. Enough. I am someone who could literally kill you in dozens of ways you’ve never heard of before I could even describe one of them. Being honest, if I wanted you trapped there are hundreds of simpler and quicker ways I could have done so than stare at the ground and smack the earth."
The brunette reached up and rubbed at her face, trying to loosen her expression more, but giving up. She wasn’t exactly pissed... but her patience was growing thinner.
"If I wanted to bind you to my service, why exactly would I waste time on elaborate deceptions when I could simply do it? I don’t need you to trust me implicitly, but I honestly don’t know how to make you calmer without lying to you."
Madrigil nodded along as if this was perfectly reasonable logic, which somehow made it worse. A wall of solid black covered him from sight. Something he couldn’t see, but Sevra could. Elua er Goltbred sat back down cross-legged beside the array.
"I need a competent exploration of this realm to catalog its current resources and map its new boundaries. You happen to have the perfect Aspect for that job. I’m outsourcing it so that you have something to do."
She gestured toward the enhancement circle with one small hand before tapping down inside it with a very, very careful control over her Ogre Physique. Letting that small amount of ’angry’ sneak past and shatter all her hard work really would upset the heiress!
"You get that this makes you better at what you already do. You don’t trust that. Fine. Don’t use it. And I stress, this is not a challenge. This is not me trying to make you feel like if you do not, then you are a coward."
Those same small hands slapped her own cheeks with a force that rattled the nearby rock sliver pile. Pain stung her reddening cheeks as the girl ’snarled’ at herself.
"This is so frustrating. Why does everything truthful I say sound like this to you? I could have already had you working exactly as I want, if I wanted to do things that way. Pretended to be kind and *made* you think you are not afraid of me."
"That’s exactly why I can’t help it. What if this is all an illusion in the first place? What if-"
Rolling to her feet, the ancient cultivator began to walk rapidly towards the cliff while shouting unintelligibly and interrupting her. Unexpectedly, she had been the one to snap first - an ancient cultivator’s patience was overcome by a stubborn, stubborn woman she could both understand the viewpoint of... and not *get* why she didn’t get it.
"I’m going to speak one final time and then I’m going to leave this area for a while. Maybe a whole day, I really don’t know. I simply can’t be around you anymore. You have no idea how *noisy* your trembling spirit is."
Containing her own spiritual pressure from striking the woman was tough. Madrigil could feel it, as she wasn’t particularly trying to keep it from being his problem. She was just trying not to worsen things for the Shadow Whisker member who had annoyed her so.
’Qat would want me to play nice. Qat would want me to play nice. Qat would-’
"As I see it, you have two choices. Trust that someone with my capabilities has better things to do than play elaborate little games - or spend the next several months cowering uselessly while I build everything to send you home anyway."
A step ’stomped’ the ground. Cracked the earth. Flung the small cultivator at high speed through the black basalt arch - and off the cliff entirely.
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