“Oh, yes-yes, you did promise me that.” Shaeula agreed. “I would rather-rather have my kin returned to me though…”

Man she’s cute. But I’ll say it again, I’m still definitely not interested in furries! “Don’t worry, I promised I would help you return your kin and I mean to keep that promise. But first we need your throne. It’s an important next step in the plan. Long term I plan to use the second build queue to work on longer builds such as the Barracks upgrade, while the first queue works on quicker lower-level buildings.”

“I see-see.” She shrugged sadly. “I suppose it can not-not be helped. Still, I do feel better now that many more of my kin-kin have been reborn.”

“I’m curious…” I had to ask a question. “When all your kin are restored, can you still use more weaselkin from the Barracks?”

“I can-can.” She agreed. “It is not unheard of for lesser Fae-Fae to be born from the fabric of the Astral itself, though no noble Fae such as myself would be created in such a vulgar manner-manner. This is-is little different.”

“Good. That way we can build a great host. That’ll surely impress your siblings, right?” I teased.

Shaeula grew flustered, so I changed the subject. “How goes your training? Have you made any progress?”

“Some-some.” Shaeula answered. “I cannot grasp your ‘stealthy’ ways, but in terms of compression…” green light flared around her and her weasel-snakes appeared, all knotting into one huge mass which then shrank down to the size of a single snake. It darted out and detonated in the air, the rushing force hitting me like a club, making me take a step back.

“Nice.” I applauded. “And if you combine that with rotation and vibration you might even be able to take down Grulgor. A troll should surely be no trouble now, right?”

“Carelessness is the great-great enemy.” She said primly, but I could tell she was pleased, her eyes shining.

“I know, I know.” I had to laugh. “But soon your power will be strong enough, without question. Anyway, have we had any problems while I’ve been gone?”

“Nothing of note-note. The tide is reaching the peak-peak, and after a few more days it should start declining. Then we can-can relax. Some beasts drifted into our Territory, but we-we dispatched them without much problem. Larger beasts have been spotted-spotted in the Territory of the Raven Knight, and in the far distance, but none-none have come to bother us.”

“That’s good. By the way, have we found many Etherite ores during the tide?”

“Some-some.” She allowed. “All are the red-red ones though. This tide may not be deep enough or-or we may be too far from the centre-centre to find many.”

“No matter. Every little helps. 57,500 ether is the goal, so we need just under 17,500 more.” That doesn’t seem so much now, yet when I started this a few weeks ago such sums were nearly unimaginable. Still, Tier 3 buildings cost a ton and take ages, so I daresay I’ll have to start spending further ether on speeding up construction…

“There are few monsters remaining from the tides-tides…” Shaeula said, pondering. “I do not-not feel it is wise leaving our Territory now-now to go looking for more. While the tides are still shallow-shallow, anything could wash up-up.”

“Yeah, you are probably right.” I ran the numbers in my head. Ten astral days had generated a bit under forty thousand ether, so at around four thousand a day, plus the gathered Etherite ores… yes, we can do it, the Throne at least. I want the upgraded Anchor, but it can wait a little if necessary…

“All right. We’ll go back to training for now, but first I need to have a word with the kobolds. I have a task for them.”

“Those-those… beasts.” Shaeula scowled. “I am not-not sure what purpose they could have…”

“Don’t worry, it isn’t something you need to be concerned about. Go fetch the Etherites and I’ll meet you in a couple of hours.”

As Shaeula departed with some muttering under her breath I made my way over to the Kobold Den. As I arrived the kobolds came out to greet me, barking excitedly. Is it just me or are there more of them? The group was probably half as big again as before, with another couple of the kobolds being miners.

The biggest one (who was still pretty small, I had to admit) came up to me with his pickaxe slung over his shoulder. He knelt down and passed me a small pawful of sparkling gems, mostly diamonds, but with several others mixed in. None were particularly large, but they sparkled prettily in the light of the tide.

“Are these for me?” I asked, and the Kobold miner barked his agreement. “Some gems, we found, we discovered. We give to you in thanks for keeping your word and keeping us safe. We are safe here.”

“Well I appreciate it. You kept some for yourself I hope?”

“We did, we have. Kept some shiny gems and metal. Not much to be found here, only a little to be found. But we will look, will search.”

“I see. Well, when we expand our Territory further, if you can find a suitable spot let me know and I’ll build a mine for you. In the meantime I have a little job for you if you don’t mind?”

“A job for us? A task for us?” the leader asked, and I smiled reassuringly.

“Don’t worry, it isn’t anything too hard. I just want some building and carving work done…”

*******

When I returned Shaeula was waiting, a pile of nearly twenty Red Etherite Ores in front of her.

“Nice going.” I approved, as I quickly broke them down for ether. “We are that much closer to our goal now. If any more appear be sure to grab them.”

“Of course-course. I know what to do.”

“I know you do. In that case we might as well continue with our training while we wait for the ether to pile up.”

“How-how delightful.” She sighed. “Very well-well. But you need to explain better.”

“Sure, I think I can do that.” I answered. “I think I might be able to show you, at least a little bit. If you watch carefully…” I gathered wind energy around me. I was unable to supress the jade glow, that was as Shaeula had insisted, but the attack with the wind energy itself… Shaeula felt the wind rush past her, ruffling her fur.

“Damn, that was way too weak.” I complained, but Shaeula touched her fur in wonder.

“I see-see. The elemental energy moves the air. Yes, it was-was weak, but if one can not-not see an attack, one can not defend against it.”

“That’s right. Imagine your most powerful attacks hitting an enemy with no defences raised. It would be an easy win. There are other ways to use it too. But of course, first we’ll have to get it to a state where it is effective. Even I can only manage a small gust of wind without the glow of elemental energies.”

“We could-could compress the small wind and vibrate it-it. A hit to an eye or throat then-then would no doubt prove damaging.” Shaeula suggested, bringing me a feeling of pride in her. With a warm look I smiled at her.

“Well done. That’s the fruit of your training coming out. I really need to step up my game or you’ll leave me behind.”

As we bantered back and forth we continued to train, Shaeula working on combining her new techniques with the invisible wind, me working on manipulating the wind in more complex ways, while increasing my generation. Time passed, nearly a full day of objective time, until we were taking a break, relaxing our tired minds and spirits.

“Hmm, the ether is climbing steadily. Etheric tides are great. It’s like a compound effect, I get more time, and more ether is generated per unit of time. I wonder if all the other candidates for Astral Emperor are taking advantage of this too? If they miss out it’ll hamper their growth quite a bit. I’m going to run into another one sooner or later…” Ideally I’d like to make an alliance with any candidates I found, just like I had with Shaeula, since the Earth was supposedly in grave danger, but that was obviously going to depend on them…

“You should not-not be so flippant. The risks of tides are…” as Shaeula began berating me a shadow passed across us, long and massive. As I looked up the Territory shook, an impact slamming into the defensive barrier over my Territory with great force.

Your Territory is under attack. Immediate response is recommended. The strength of the defensive barrier is currently at eighty-seven percent. If the barrier… silvery words flared across my vision as beside me Shaeula spoke urgently.

“See-see? Your mockery has brought trouble down on us-us.”

The Territory shuddered again, a flash of rainbow light hammering down into the barrier, dropping it by another ten percent. My Defensive Emplacement with the Sniper Mode countered, sending a lance of aether up into the flying shadow, exploding with a bright flare, bringing a loud bellow of anger which hurt my ears, even at this distance.

Taking hits like that the barrier isn’t going to last. We need to do something now…

“What should we do? What do you think it wants?” I asked Shaeula as the shadow descended. It was a long eel-like creature, with dead-white scales and rainbow eyes. It must have been twenty metres long, and as wide as a car. Shit that’s scary.

“It looks like-like some sort of wyrm. Usually they want to eat-eat.” The barrier rocked again as the wyrm opened its huge mouth and let out a blast of light. “It might-might have been attracted by the ether we have here.”

Damn. I did wonder why the Silo was necessary when the ether was kept within my Territory anyway… there goes my dream of queuing up the Throne of Heroes today… I accessed the Territory menu and added the last upgrade to the Ether Spire, seven and a half thousands of the over-spilling ether disappearing immediately. The wyrm paused for a moment, looking confused, before slamming bodily into the barrier shimmering over my Territory, knocking it down further.

“Whatever you are doing-doing is working!” Shaeula shouted.

Hardening my heart I scooped up the remaining ether that wasn’t protected by the Silo and channelled it into aether. My body was overflowing with force, my chakra networks humming with power, my lunar note flaring with sudden needles of icy pain. The gaze of the wyrm swung to me, more bellows erupting. Yes I know, your ether is gone now. But you’ll have it shortly…

Merging the aether with my abundant wind elemental energy I formed it into a great spear, and with a yell launched it high into the sky. With a whipping gesture of my hand I started it rotating, and it accelerated as it flew. The wyrm turned, but before it could the spear struck it low in the belly, ripping deep, scales flying, thick silvery blood raining down on my Territory, hissing and steaming. Screaming in rage it turned to bite at the stake tormenting it only to lose teeth and have its jaw shredded by the rotating winds.

Howling in rage it let out one more blast of light, this one missing my Territory and soaring off into the distance to impact an apartment building with an explosive glow, before turning and fleeing, soaring up across the sky and into the distance, fading from view.

Goodbye, over ten thousand ether… exhaustion ran through me as the huge rush of ether and elemental energies left me, coupled with the mental anguish of expending such a huge sum of ether on an attack. All that was left was the 25,000 ether that was protected by the Silo, although as spent energies rained from the sky some of it was absorbed and re-condensed, giving me a couple of hundred more ether back.

Even so… damn that hurts me. Still, trying to see the best of it I considered that it was good practice in seeing the massive scale of aether-powered attacks. If an enemy Astral Emperor used that on me… I’d die. I’d definitely die…

“That was-was impressive. Even my siblings would be-be praising that attack. The rotation made it very hard-hard to defend against.”

I nodded weakly. I’ve been too cocky with things going so well and me getting stronger. Death can still come with a moments’ carelessness. “You know I think I need to return to the Material and rest. I’ll be back tomorrow to hopefully queue in the Throne of Heroes when we rebuild our ether stocks. Looks like the Barracks will have to wait a bit as well I’m afraid, as our first Rank 3 building will need to be a Silo. We don’t need that happening again…”

That wyrm was on an epically different scale than anything around here. If we consider ourselves at Rank 1 or maybe 2, that Wyrm was a 3 or a 4. To feel confident about taking on something like that I would need to be far, far stronger than now.

“Very well-well.” Shaeula agreed. “I’ll set my kin to gathering up all the-the scales and teeth that have fallen. I will make sure our Territory remains safe-safe in your absence.”

Ruffling her head absent-mindedly I nodded. “I know I can count on you. Later.”

And with that I returned to the Material, waking up shivering in the dark.