Kingdom Of The Weak

Oh, right. Xiao Yan was the escaped slave girl who had followed him ever since he"d helped her out back then. It wasn"t her original name, but she tried to adopt Remian"s name. Since "Remian" was "Lem Yan", she wanted to be "Little Yan", so that together they could be Big Yan and Little Yan. As for the "Xiao", it actually meant "Little", but oddly enough, could also suffice for a surname. Apparently it also meant other things like "dawn" or "sunrise", or even "respectful", depending on how it was written. Xiao Yan wrote her "Xiao" name following the meaning of "dawn" and "Yan" following the meaning of "beautiful", thus her name meant "Beautiful Dawn", reflecting her hopes for a new life.

Anyway, she called him "Big Yan", and he called her "Little Yan", which sounded just like her name. With her help, harvesting cores became much more efficient. She happily spent most of the required energy while Remian mainly flew her around and stored away what she brought in. This meant less resting time required and a whole lot more speed.

In two days, they had already harvested ninety cores. Just a bit more and they would reach their target of 100, and then Remian would go and see what a Level 4 token was like.

Also, Little Yan loved the Pod. She loved that Remian could change the temperature so that it was always comfortable day or night. She loved that it had its own internal lights that never needed oil or candles. She loved how the walls could turn almost-transparent when it flew so that she could see everything around them. She loved that it could cook almost anything she put into the Food Processor, and even manage it in different ways as long as she provided the necessary materials (oil for frying, water for steaming or boiling, etc). All these were functions that Remian gave her secondary authorization to use in his Pod. To her, it was all a wonder, but she believed in it and got along with it without any problems whatsoever. Since the Pod belonged to Big Yan and he was in control of it, she was not in the least afraid.

"Here! We got eleven!" Little Yan came back from the last nest with a big grin on her face. "That"s more than we need!"

"Great!" Remian counted the cores, stashed them into the second sack full of the fruits of their labor, and shut the Pod"s side door behind her. "Let"s go back to Scorched Earth City and get our money."

"Uh…" Little Yan shrunk back. "I… I don"t want to go. I don"t want to stop. Can we just go on? Can we just do this forever?"

Remian paused. "Little Yan, you can stay in the Pod and wait for me if you like. You won"t need to go back there this time around. But I think if I bought you some new clothes and something to cover the mark on your head, you should be able to walk around town safely. A scarf, perhaps, or a hat, or a mask, or maybe even all three…"

Little Yan calmed down. "Then… okay… but not this trip."

"Not this trip. I need to get your new clothes first." Remian paused. "Also… sooner or later, I want to go back to my own world. It"s very different there."

"What is it like?" Little Yan asked.

He told her about it as they flew back to the city, then he left her in the Pod with all his supplies (including a few days" worth of food) and took 101 trapvine cores to sell in the Alchemist Guild Hall.

"Is Elder Yun in?" Remian asked for him specifically.

"He"ll be on shift in an hour. Right now, we have other representatives…" the receptionist offered.

Remian did a quick sweep with Psionic senses and found n.o.body he recognized in range. That was saying a lot; since his forays into the Red Mists, his Psionic abilities had been increasing until his range of sensing minds easily overshot a kilometer.

Oh wait. There was someone familiar. Elder Yun was out there… actually he was in the toilet…

Quickly drawing his attention away from Elder Yun, Remian sat down to wait and practice his Psi-senses a little more. He picked up a few interesting bits of information while he sat there in the Guild Hall, mainly involving the prices of goods and services pertaining to Alchemy, both bought and sold.

Generally speaking, the Guild was stingy. They bought at roughly half the prices with which they sold, and their services were offered at a premium while they hired at bargain levels. A great deal of this was because people generally wanted their goodwill, and thus Alchemists in this world were very well off.

Perhaps the juiciest bit of information Remian found was the location of an old herb garden which still had a lot of valuable herbs remaining. The man who thought of it had brought in a bunch of the most priceless findings, items easily in Tier 4 and 5, and hadn"t bothered with the remaining low Tier plants.

From his memories, it seemed there were quite a few Tier 1, 2 and 3 herbs left. Tier 1"s generally went for below 100 Black. Tier 2"s averaged around 500 Black. Tier 3"s could reach as high as 10,000. Those didn"t mean much to the guy who was trading in the thousands of Earth Crystal (worth millions of Blacks), but to Remian they meant a whole lot.

"That would be our next stop." Remian promised himself, and went shopping.

***

Back in his original world, the average levels of ambient mana in the air reached three times what it used to be.

When mana started seeping into the world from the damaged seal in the Rift, at first the nations were ecstatic. Over the first day, magic became slightly easier to use, and less taxing on the mages casting spells. As the days went by and mana levels reached twice what it used to be, basic Tier 0 spells became well-nigh effortless, and Tier 3 spells became something that a lone mage could do without tools or equipment like wands, staves or formations.

Free mana for everyone, everywhere! Everyone was so happy! At least, for a while.

But when it reached three times the previous norm, magical equipment started malfunctioning. Rather than breaking down or dying out like they had been due to a shortage of fuel before, now some of the more sensitive instruments ran out of control, or gone entirely haywire on their own. News reports from every nation began to tell stories of precision instruments badly messing up, and several high-level labs suddenly faced calamity when their equipment overdid something out of their control.

All that might be adjusted for, instruments calibrated, equipment redesigned and rebuilt to account for the difference, but the problem was that day by day, the ambient levels of mana in the atmosphere was still increasing!

Not just equipment, but other life-forms were being affected. Places closer to the Wildlands began to notice unusual developments in their plants and animals. For example, Fal-Herim"s riverside crops began to change colors and several strains of grain plants suddenly started bearing flowers that n.o.body had ever seen before. A tree in the Ira Caliphate began to grow needles as well as leaves. A cat in Paleres began to fly. It was mewling pitieously while floating six feet off the ground like an air balloon, completely independent of any device, spell, or external interference whatsoever when the report was written.

The lynxmice pinned pictures and posters of that report everywhere across the nine miles of tunnels underground they occupied at Fal"Herim. The helplessly floating cat became their favorite source of entertainment. One enterprising clan even wanted to try to fly themselves.

When they received word of it, Mikai was laughing in high-pitched squeaks about it for ten minutes straight until Tim commented. "If mana keeps coming in like this, one day, they just might end up floating around like that cat."

That sobered Mikai up very quickly.

"Don"t worry, Mikai. I can teach you some air magic." Mindy offered generously.

"Squeak…" Mikai gulped in apprehension.

"We better seal up this Rift fast, or else things could get really bad." Tim observed.

"We"re looking for solutions but short of s.p.a.ce magic, right now the most viable option anyone as is to fight our way through the Spectres and then cover the entire thing in cement."

"That"s going to cost us an ocean of blood." Tim grimaced. "What"s the word on s.p.a.ce magic?"

"I"m still waiting to hear from Gary. Last I checked he was about to head off to camp. Hopefully he can find some super-precious special s.p.a.ce magic book and learn something we can use."

"Mindy!" George called. "We need one last recon over on the east side!"

That was where the fortifications were lagging behind. Where rudimentary defenses had been completed across the entire Nine Kings Range, the East Side had more pa.s.ses and gaps to fill and thus hadn"t quite covered all their accessways from sneaky Spectre intrusion.

"What"s the job?" Mindy asked, going over.

"Extreme range perimeter. Full recon pack." George said. "Bring backup."

"Backup?" Mindy"s face fell. She looked around. "Where"s Darian?"

"He just got back from the front. He should be tending injuries in the field hospital."

Mindy grimaced. "Never mind. Tim! How"s your dragon?"

"He"s not my dragon!" Tim shot back. "And he"s still on the battle front!"

Mindy looked around. "Who else can I bring? Who else could even keep up?"

"Basically n.o.body." George told her flat out. "Unless you can convince the Wind Emperor to take on a scouting job, there"s n.o.body who"s as strong or as fast as you. But you don"t need to fight. We need a scout, not a fighter. Just stay high and far away from danger. We only need you to take a look, not to kill every Spectre you come across."
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"Then I"ll bring Aeyrie." Mindy decided to rely on the Eagle Princess for most of the flying. She turned. "Anyone else wanna come along?"

"Me?" Eriane raised her hand.

"Airborn scout and sniper team. Not bad." George mused. "Take care, girls."

"Girl power team! Let"s go!" Mindy cheered a little.

"Yay!" Eriane enthused in agreement, and off they went.