Yearning for the Moon

Chapter Fifteen

"I'm sorry, you did what? Is that why you've been trapped in your room for the past few weeks, barely taking the food dishes we brought you and only coming out long enough to give me the potions and pills you wanted me to sell for you?" I could tell from his tone that he was a little hurt I had stayed by myself these past few weeks. Though it isn't as if I had much of a choice in the matter, it is not as if I could show the spatial world to him, for all he knew I took my equipment out of my spatial ring and set up a mini workroom for myself in the rooms they had given me.

"Look I know I've been distant, but you know I didn't just come here to relax, I came here to claim the city I had won, and while I haven't been there yet, that was because I wanted to solve a few of the integral problems that will make it easier in the long run. And now that I've done it, we can begin the real work." He stares at me in skepticism not believing me in the slightest, but he didn't need to believe my words alone, I could show him the proof he needed to see.

"You're trying to tell me that you built lodestones that are smaller, stronger, and less draining on the crystals in only a few weeks? We've only been here two months, how did you manage to solve something people here have been trying to work on for years?" Well I mean I had a little help, without Bohdi's books I don't think I would have solved the issue so quickly, I still think I would have solved it eventually, it just would have taken me much longer.

I still can't believe I was so lucky to have these books on lost skills, I mean I didn't even know whether Elixir Weaving had been lost before or after Pill Refining had been lost, had someone erased that first or since pill refining was lost it was forgotten because there was no way to weave elixirs without pills? There were still so many mysteries surrounding the time when pill refining was lost, and I knew I likely wouldn't get any answers soon, but I was determined to make my own way in this world as a pill refiner, regardless of what enemies that may draw towards me.

"You don't have to believe my words alone, I can show you." I bring out my finished products, the lodestones easily a tenth the size and weight of the ones normally used. He stares at the lodestone in my hands with disbelief, which is fair I mean it was rather small compared to the normal ones and it was also covered in strange carvings that he wouldn't know the first thing about. I place three lodestones in a triangle shape and add a crystal to each watching as the shield lights up, Andreas walks forward and pushes on the shield, even going so far as to punch it with a fist enforced with spiritual energy, but it does nothing to it, the shield remains firm.

"This is amazing, Elianna, the money you could charge for this, not to mention the shorter time it will take to travel from the border." I smirk at him, impressed that he looked so awed when he had looked so doubtful before.

"You think I want to sell this to anyone in the outpost?" He looks at me in confusion, and a little hurt, after all the benefits this could bring to the outpost were immense, but this was not for a place whose city lord despised me, no this was mine, my creation, it would stay where I could control it. "This will be a product used for my city only, though I may agree to part with some for your family here, I am confident no one will be able to replicate these. Besides I have much bigger ideas then just this, you really think I was holed up in that room for weeks and this is all I accomplished? You wound me with your doubts, Andreas." He looks appropriately confused, because likely to anyone else this accomplishment alone was worth weeks of effort to hear that I had done more was almost unbelievable, then again since it had been weeks in the real world, I had spent months in the spatial world working on this.

"You did more than this? You have a talent for making me feel dumb, Elianna, truly am I only good for the money I have?" I tilt my head in thought before shaking my head lightly.

"No, I think after the past auction sales I might have more money than you as well now." He rolls his eyes at me as I tease him. "So, I have some plans here that I need you to commission to be built. I am thinking a custom carriage, with custom harnesses for the horses, all of which will enable me to hopefully produce the first moving lodestone shield." He looks at my drawn blueprints with awe after all that would shorten the travel time even more if no one even had to stop in order to set up shields, the way this worked was with beams of wood pointing off the carriage and at specific points of the horse harnesses in order to ensure a proper shield around the carriage and the horses.

And since none of the lodestones would be on the ground then it could move about freely, the reason we needed to have lodestones placed above like they had originally used in our camp, and as they were placed strategically throughout the highest points of the outpost, was because each individual lodestone had a barrier that not only spread out to the sides but also above and below, except all of that shields only went a certain distance, for lodestones of this size, even though they still had the same capabilities of their larger counterparts that I had started with, their limit was around twenty feet, and for the dome shield a lodestone placed at a higher point then the rest was required so that their shields could connect and force the shields to bend to meet each other.

That's why lodestones worked so well together, they wanted to touch the shields produce by other lodestones to make a stronger barrier and they did that if they could overlay their shielding. While lodestones were not animate and alive like the cultivation crystal fluorite resided in, they still had their own qualities, like magnets they were drawn towards each other. "Because of the new size and the strange carvings you see that enabled me to improve on the lodestone, they use up less energy from the spirit crystals, actually if I use an extremely strong crystal I hope to power the entire shield from a central location in the hopes that movement would be less likely to dislodge their power source." The look he gave me when I told him I wanted to power the entire shield from a single location.

I was doing all sorts of things that hadn't been done before, at least not in a few thousand years. "This is astonishing Elianna, now if only you could make finding crystals to power it easier, though you do seem to have little trouble in that to begin with." I give him a wide grin in return, excited to reveal more of my newly developed products.

"Speaking of crystals, while I haven't found a way to give everyone the luck I have with finding good crystals, I did find a way to make getting them out of the hematite so much faster, think seconds or minutes depending on the size compared to hours." He looks at little shocked before he seems to shake it off and nod in acknowledgement of what I said. "What you don't want to see proof this time?" I was a little disappointed he didn't want me to show him, it was so cool to watch.

"No, I'm sure you're telling the truth, at this point I think it is better to just assume you are telling the truth then not believe you, after all you've always proved me wrong, I figure it is about time I simply just believe you, even if you are coming up with things I would have said were impossible before I met you, how you ever denied being a prodigy I'm not sure, but I hope you don't still believe that, because you are certainly no longer a prodigy, you are just a full on genius now, there is no other way to describe you. So what else did you come up with in your weeks of hiding away?" He asks it so casually, as if expecting me to list off a dozen other miracles I came up with.

"Uh, yeah that's it, just those two, I think I did rather well." He looks at the lodestone shield and my drawn blueprints of the moveable shield and starts laughing.

"Well? You think this is well? This is insane Elianna! You are a complete genius! I mean for anyone else I bet this would be impossible to do in a century let alone a few weeks, I don't even want to know what you'll accomplish a year from now, but I tell you, I will be sticking by your side for all of it, because I think you will be remaking the world and I want to be by your side while you do." My heart feels warm, and my cheeks are red, to think I had a friend like this, who believed I could change the world, who never asked anything of me, and offered to do so much for me, he truly was the best friend I could have, it just pained me to know I was keeping so much from him.

But now wasn't the time, not that I thought he couldn't keep a secret, but because I couldn't trust if anyone else wouldn't overhear, maybe once I make my own city, but for now I would keep him in the dark, where it was safe. After all if some mysterious evil had wiped out all the pill refiners a thousand years ago then who knew if that same evil would come for me now that I knew the lost art and others that had been lost with it. If my blueprints were proper and my idea for a carriage worked out, then we could finally begin planning on rebuilding the city I had won, to be able to access the vast amounts of resources in the tainted lands without the city lord trying to smother me.

I should have known it wouldn't be that simple, it never is in my life, I should know that after all the difficulties I've already faced, and yet I was hopeful, too bad my hope was misplaced as always, the city lord wasn't about to let me leave so easily, not when he still thought he could manipulate me into getting him richer than he already was, even if I had threatened to kill him, my skills were very valuable, I probably should have just killed him when I had the chance, then maybe none of the disasters approaching me would have happened.