Sharp

Cutting through the technical mumbo jumbo, I now understand that Astral Spaces are a pimple on the side of reality. Bursting the pimple is bad, really bad. Some pimples only have one connection point to reality, while others have several. Some pimples continually discharge things into reality, e.g., water, fire, air, etc., and some do not.

The Academy’s astral space was peculiar in that it moved or perhaps rotated occasionally, shifting the portal entrance. The Astral Professor and some key postgraduate students were figuring out why this happened, building on previous research. This was not something I was going to be interested in either. It sounded worse than Magic Studies.

The first excursion into Astral space was spent examining the portal entrance and the astral rituals stabilising it. She gave us half an hour to “go and play with the monsters and get it out of your system.”

A number of people dropped the course after that as it wasn’t what they expected, and they really only wanted to play with the monsters. In fact, the class size was halved to eleven. I stuck with it because there were aspects that were interesting to me. The rituals were way out of my league, but I suspect that was done on purpose to get rid of unsuitable students. We weren’t expected to learn the rituals; that was advanced astral theory.

This was a course on Astral Magic, though. What interested me was that our world of Pallimustus was more pimply than a human teenager. I didn’t know if other worlds were different, but we had a lot of pimples.

These pimples were not part of the world but grew out of, and sometimes fed into, the magic of the world. Because they were not part of our world, they were outside the domain of the gods. This fascinated me as nowhere should be outside the domain of the gods. Did that mean the pimple was in the domain of the Great Astral Beings, or was it like some halfway zone, a purgatory, if you will?

My professor said my questions were more about theology than astral theory and that I should take a theology course. The Introduction to the Gods course has just moved into the must-take category for next semester. Then I discovered it was taken by Priestess Arabelle Remore. I am definitely taking it next semester; I can bump Melee Fighting into next year.

The first semester, I had weekly sessions with Healer Remore. Last semester, they moved to fortnightly. This semester, I am meeting with her monthly. I am making progress. Some things still trigger me, like the hairdressing incident, but I am getting better.

Each world or universe had an astral membrane that filtered the raw astral magic so we could survive. The thickness of this membrane varied across the world, which meant the density of the magic varied. Hence, Vitesse was a silver-level zone, and Stillwater was only bronze.

The universe membranes were the function of the Great Astral being the World Phoenix. Our pimple on the side of the world also had a variable membrane. Hence, the magic was denser at the swamp end and less at the lake end.

Our first task was to copy a ritual diagram and learn to use it to measure the change in the density of the magic. We calibrated it here in Vitesse and then at the different portal sites in astral space.

The density of magic in the astral space changes, which is particularly noticeable when we approach a monster surge every ten years or so. It was one way to tell that a monster surge was on its way. We were almost in the middle between surges, and the magic variation should be at the lowest and most even. The professor wanted the data as she was mapping the magic and had seven surges worth of data, and there was a change in the magic over that time. Things didn’t settle back exactly the same as before.

That was way above me, but I could measure magic. I carved the ritual into one of my round shields, and the third attempt worked, but the professor pointed to some small variations, saying they would affect the accuracy of the data. The fifth attempt was acceptable, and I protected it with a layer of Resin. Then, I had to learn how to use it.

This involved regular trips into the Astral space, usually in conjunction with the Professor or her Senior Researcher. She let us fight some of the monsters because she wanted us to level, but she also made short work of others. She was gold-ranked, and her senior researcher was silver-ranked. He let us fight more monsters as long as the research was completed.

Monitoring stations were set up around the space, measuring the edges, which also fluctuated. They also measure a myriad of other things: air mixture, gravity, moisture content, and day/night cycle. There was also a monster detection array to note the number of monsters spawning within its range. The stations often required repairs.

I was in here one time, and the second-semester student team came past with their third-year escort. That was when I got to see the Prince fight. He was fast. He obviously had several movement skills. I thought I recognised one that Saskia shared, the Speed of Light teleport. He seemed to be almost predictive in some of his moves and was often in the right place for a strike. He fought with dual Scimitars, which were single-edged curved blades. Scimitars were cutting weapons and were not designed for piercing as well. That seemed to be a weakness to me, but he made it work.

Neither of his wives nor Keon were with him, so the professor was still mixing the teams up. I did catch a fleeting glimpse of an incorporeal entity flicking around the edge of the fight, and I assumed that was his familiar. It was the colour of moonlight, so it was probably from the Moon essence. I didn’t know what it did. It didn’t seem to attack in any way.

The Prince seemed to be in charge of the first years but did not come across as overbearing or an ass. Why was he such an ass to me? I was hiding and practising all my hiding skills, but his familiar still found me. We locked eyes before the bronze team leader called him away to another monster.

I wonder if he has heard rumours about me being a Cleric yet. They are circulating around the academy.

We also visited a couple of other astral spaces. The Professor had a contract with the Magic Society and shared data and research. One of them was an underground cave system. It was not very large and was inhabited by some really strange shadow and earth beasts. I used the Incorporeal nature of Rend for the first time when we were attacked by a shadow. I accumulated a lot of Dark and Earth quintessence from there. Our job was as a porter for the professor, especially me, as I had my Hunters Pack.

Once we got to the place the professor deemed to be the right place, we would help set up the equipment and stand guard while she did whatever she did. She remembered to explain it occasionally. Then we would pack up and move to the next spot.

My understanding of astral magic was growing, but I was more interested in its theological implications. I talked to some of the priests at the temple and some of the other acolytes at the academy. Most said they had a sense of their god all the time in the back of their minds, which comforted them. Then, when they went into an astral space, they lost that sense. It felt like they were cut off from their god.

I didn’t have that sense of the goddess all the time. That worried me a bit. Was I not a proper priest because I didn’t have it? When the Goddess spoke to me, she was very clear that she was happy with me. She “couldn’t ask for a better priest,” were her words. She repeated it several times. She also said I would go where I was needed. Would that be into places she couldn’t go, like astral spaces? I had a lot to ponder.

I decided to do the second Astral Space course next Semester. The theory was beyond me, but I could follow the instructions, and I was getting practical knowledge about the spaces. They were all different as well, and no other course was going to give me this experience.

The other astral space the Professor took us was a three-day trip. I missed out on the Adventure Society contract that week, but it was worth it. We were portalled to a town I had never heard of and entered the space nearby. This pimple of the side of the universe was huge and had several entrance points. What was interesting about this space was the variation in the astral membrane. It goes from the iron rank right through to the silver rank. The silver rank section was known to spawn gold-rank monsters on occasion.

We entered a bronze-rank section, which was like a huge freshwater archipelago but generally had very shallow water. Most of the water was waist-deep or less, with deeper sections scattered around. We were with the professor and the research assistant, but only five of us students could make it. The Professor produced a shallow watercraft to carry us, and we skimmed along, avoiding a lot of the monsters. We would stop every couple of hours and take readings.

The islands never rose very high from the water, maybe as high as a two-story building, and the vegetation was sparse. We were moving toward an iron-rank zone, and fighting iron-rank monsters was a breeze. I could solo most of them. There was a thing called a Shab, which had tough shark skin and shark teeth but legs like a crab. The iron-rank ones were easy to halt with my Hunters Tether, and we could kill them at our leisure. No mad scramble, no bronze rank resistances. It was like an island holiday. I once caught two in my tether, and Kai swam to one, climbed up, chewed his way inside and basically killed it himself. I did put it out of its misery, as three Kais would have taken a while, and the tether was running out, but he would have done it.

The professor pointed out some other portals into the space as we passed; some were submerged and apparently caused a waterfall at the other end. I wouldn’t have minded seeing that, but we didn’t have time for me to pop through and then figure out how to get back against the flow of the water.

The fun had to end with us moving back into a bronze-level zone, and we had to be more careful. Anything that was going to take us too long, the professor or the research assistant dealt with it or crippled it for us. We were not here to fight monsters but to measure the astral space.

Then, we moved into the silver zone and were basically watching the fights. That was instructive in itself. I collected a lot of water quintessence, iron, bronze and silver rank. There was a lot of other stuff as well, and I became rich again.

We fought stranger beasts than the Shab. There were Shakes, which were shark and snake hybrids with poison. There were these strange firefly-type creatures that were there and were not there. Rend got another workout, and I got some rare Dimensional Quintessence from that. The river hydra was really bad, and we needed help with them. Their head would grow back while you watched. They gave poison and growth quintessence. It was bronze rank, and I kept the growth for when my garden was bronze rank.

Kai found three awakening stones: Water, Sand, and Tooth. I also got lots of the tooth quintessence. We found a Water and Growth essence. The Water is quite common here, but the Growth essence is uncommon.

I might struggle with astral theory and magic, but this course was well worth taking just because of my experiences. I am definitely taking the next Astral Spaces course next semester.