I stepped out of the sheriff van in front of the Cheese Man. I shouldered my pack and thanked the sheriff that had driven me back to town from McClure after I had been released.
The prosecution had withdrawn the charges from the second arrest before the court date, making me a free man again. My Lawyer, Mrs. Flints had made sure that the proper procedures were followed, and this time I got a ride back to town if I wanted it. Modern vehicles make traveling sooo much easier.
I headed towards the restaurant as it was just after lunch, and I had been craving the soup from the Cheese Man for that last week. The cafeteria style food at McClure was ok, but I had money now, and good food was worth spending it on. Unfortunately, As I got closer to the restaurant, and out of the direct sun light, I could now see passed the glass windows to the packed seating.
-Looks like it’s a full house and I got a few things to do. Get Lunch later.
I shouldered my pack again and headed down to the hardware store. I spent a half hour and walked out with two new, slightly larger tarps, more cord, new socks, and more embroidery supplies.
-This place really does have a bit of everything.
I jumped into the clothing store to grab some long shorts and a couple of new t-shirts, after which I headed to the library to check on my bank balance. The computer was free so went to check on my money online, till I hit a warning on the bank site saying that the connection was not secure. A quick check with the librarian, a humbling 15 min lecture on cyber security basics, and I was on my way to the bank to check on my balance.
-Looks like maybe some computer courses might be a good idea. Money and a place first.
I was coming to hate this bank. Waiting patiently in line for 15 minutes only to be told that my account was frozen and that I couldn’t access any of my money. For a short moment I was relieved that I didn't have my usual mana channeling levels, at least till the guy behind the till asked me to leave before I disturbed the other customers.
An hour later and a call to Mrs. Flints started the process to unfreeze my account. The bank manager was suddenly happy to talk to me when he found out how much money was involved. Apparently, Government regulations automatically flagged transactions over a certain value, and since it was to a new private account, the banking system froze the money.
Mrs. Flints figured it was done deliberately by Hadden and Crown as a final thank you after she carved $637,000 out of them. I think that student loan that she was talking about was looming larger on her mind than she was letting on.
Her finally piece of advice before hanging up was to get an accountant.
“After meeting a few of the lawyers from Hadden and Crown, I wouldn’t put it past them to have called Revenue Services with their “serious concerns” about your financial practices.”-Mrs. Flints
There was an accountant around the corner in the same building as the bank, which for a small upfront retainer, was happy to start cleaning up my financial life.
After all of that I was hungry, annoyed, and for guy having just over a half million in the bank, I had only a few hundred left to my name. I stomped towards the Cheese Man.
-Now would be the perfect time for Chief to pop up.
By the time I walked back to the restaurant I was more annoyed that fate hadn’t provided an appropriate revenge target, than I was at the rest of the world.
Looking in the front window showed that the lunch crowd had cleared out, and my usual table was free. I nodded to the mid-aged waitress as I walked in and sat in the corner booth placing my pack on the opposite seat.
Today was a French Cheesed Onion soup, something I was a bit apprehensive was a good idea till I tried it. Ellen was a genius, somehow managing to produce a superior version of a classic. I left a good tip asking the waitress to tell her so.
It took three days for my account to be unfrozen, during which I worked on embroidering my new tarp shelter, and recreating the memory plastic ribs to hold it in its barn roof shape. I think the accountant was happier than I was when the money came available.
I ate exclusively at the Cheese Man, talking with Ellen and the staff. Alice always had an inexhaustible supply of gossip. I was starting to wonder if she had an unusual lung mutation that allowed her to talk for long periods of time without breathing. Maybe a really efficient oxygen transfer rate, or an extra- spacial storage that held air.
I was also able to eat for free as I was able to fix the walk-in freezer when Ellen’s usual plumber/fix-it guy wasn’t going to be able to make it for few days. I cheated and used Elemental magic and some copper pipe from the hardware to supply the metal I needed to fix it. The supply pipe that cooled the radiator that dumped heat had split down its length.
I spent some extra time with detection magic getting a feel how the electric motors worked, and how the system used changing pressure to move heat around. I realized that there was a big gap between my half-baked knowledge and experience from the other world, compared to the realities of a modern mature technological system. The theory I used was the same, but the cooling system had parts that were the results of years of design and field use experience which culminated in something that worked, reliably, over long periods of time.
-I’m going to have to examine existing machines and manufacturing processes when I start on my workshop. See if I can get machines to do parts of Alchemy or improve the processes I have been using. The less I have to worry about the mana cost in this world, the better.
Talking to Alice was able to solve why I hadn’t been harassed by Chief or his flunkies. The detachment was under investigation, with Chief, Timmons and another officer having been suspended. Only Officer Parsons and an officer from that worked parttime at this detachment were still active.
I was going to have to wait to deal with Chief or Timmons till they got the inevitable slap on the wrist, and their jobs back. No-one would be watching them at that point, and I could get revenge in a more personal fashion.
The Four Morons had disappeared from town. The guy that had taken a pot to the head was apparently in a large hospital, five hours drive down to the coast. He was suffering from yet another concussion, this one he got from falling out of his truck dead drunk.
Chuck aka Stinky, had skipped town on bail for parts unknown. It was rumored that his mother was going to be evicted from her house because she couldn’t pay the bond back. Once scum, always scum.
Greg, who was now referred around town to as “Strawberry” which I had assumed was from the milkshake he had been coated in. He had fled town and was working in one of the many lumber camps that satellited off of the town. Elen told me later that nickname Strawberry actually came the appearance of his genitalia from when the four were strung up naked and displayed to the town. I ticked him off my mental revenge list when I heard that. Partially because I figured he was suffering enough, and partially because I didn’t want to be close to enough to catch whatever he had. People were still laughing at the “Our strawberries are bigger!” sign above the fruit stand.
Mike, Chief’s nephew, had been arrested and charged for pushing Carl into the glass case during the original incident in the Cheese man. I was slightly annoyed at the news as it meant that he was going to be out of my reach for the foreseeable future.
Now that I had a larger pool of money than I was originally planning on having at this point I was debating about what to do.
-I need to stake my claim for the land around the lake and the headwaters where I pulled the gold from. Then I have to decide where I’m going to build my lab/workshop. I could find a nice mountain and use Elemental magic to dig myself a lair, but with my anemic channeling, it will take too long. I started building a Detection magic circle in my head that would find caves and empty places below ground, but soon gave up as the mana draw got way beyond my current ability quickly.
-I guess it's back to buying a place big enough that I can start working on my lab.
Once I got a proper lab up and running, I would be able to start working towards a setup that could handle Bio Magic, not to mention compounding supplements for my Aura training.
-Now the question is do I have enough in the bank to purchase a place big enough, and all the fees, taxes, and bribes that will have to go with it. Actually, I wonder if my problems with Chief and the police is because I missed the point when I was supposed to bribe them?
I shook my head.
-Getting side tracked. Library for the prospecting claim, and then research on land prices.
Five minutes and a depressing search on local real-estate told me that I was going to need more gold.
….
I heaved my pack out of the truck bed and waved at the guy I had hired to give me a ride up the forestry road. It worked out well as he was already headed up to a lumber camp to deliver supplies.
Coughing at the dust kicked up as the truck drove away, heaved the pack up onto my shoulders and checked the shiny new GPS unit I purchased from the everything hardware store in town.
The screen was rather small but was adequate for me to compare to the maps I had. It was the most expensive model that the store had, and it came with two very important features for me. It was simple to use, and the battery lasted the longest out of all the units they had.
I had also bought a solar/battery kit, high density plastic sheets, LED lights, small spools of wire, rope, small copper plates, and few other supplies at same time. I also scrounged through the small second-hand store for materials that I could experiment with in my free time. It would be interesting to see how mana interacted with modern materials that had not been available in the other world.
Add in extra food items like spices and more varieties of soup base than just chicken, my pack had gotten significantly heavier than the first time I had hiked out into the wild. I would live with the extra weight now, for the extra luxury later when I set up camp by the lake.
I quickly focused inward and checked on the low-level Aura training that I now had running at an almost instinctual level most of the time. I ramped it up to full training level as I walked into the forest.
When I had found the original version of Aura training system in the Paper knights vaults there was no other supporting documents with it. No research notes, accounts, diaries, or records of any kind. Just a comment that all the healers were dead in a report from a junior knight to his captain on the cleanup after the Aura documents were seized. It annoyed me later that not even the name of the creators of such a clean and brilliant magic were remembered.
The Aura knight orders had cared about improving the ability to channel mana only in so far that it affected their ability to create and project Aura. They deliberately ignored or completely cut out parts of the training system it an attempt to achieve their goals faster. Later, when the splinter orders were founded, the training system was trimmed and specialized even further almost becoming new systems in their own right.
To give the orders their due, they were able to refine their training to an amazing degree. From speeding up a new recruit's formation of Aura, to pushing the boundaries of what that Aura could achieve, the orders had taken the Aura system far beyond its original intent. But in the rush, they had blinded themselves, missing or ignoring any other possible use for Aura outside of their narrow focus.
After I had burned the Paper knight citadel to the ground, I had gone on to focus my wrath on the other orders. Having learned the full Aura system, I was able to replicate each of the orders unique abilities, giving me a significant advantage against them. Of course, being a generalist, my mastery of each could not compare, but I had all of their abilities to cover for my weaknesses, and something they had long lost. As a result of the complete training, my Aura had been much deeper than any but oldest of the orders masters.
During the fight with the Knight Grand Cross, the leader of the Paper Knights, the clash of our true aura blades had highlighted this difference. I could see the surprise on his face that my blade had not shattered the moment our blades crossed. His swordsmanship far outstripped mine, and he landed blow after blow, only to be stopped by my true Aura Armor. My strikes were clumsier, and fewer in number, but even the shallowest of strikes drew blood.
A blade knight first manifested his aura around a blade, starting with knives, eventually forming a complete aura blade around a sword. Dedicated blade knights would deepen their Aura till they could manifest a true aura blade independent of a sword. This process took could take decades of effort and marked the graduation to Master status. Most blade knights would never reach this point, only ever achieving the skill to manifest Aura around their sword.
The quality of a master’s true aura blade was measured by the density, or depth, of the aura it was made of. The deeper the density of Aura the more solid and durable the true aura blade became. A new master blade knight’s true aura blade may be incredibly sharp but was easily shattered. Over time and practice the master’s Aura deepened and his true aura blade became formidable.
As the Orders had focused their training on shaping their Auras to produce their distinctive styles, the result of this hyper focus was a weaker Aura density. Having used the original training system my Aura was not limited by their narrow focus. The deep red Aura that I manifested may have taken a least a decade longer to produce than most knights but was far deeper and did not require a blade, bow or armor to manifest around. My Aura was dense, controlled, and significantly more versatile than any that the orders could produce.
As the fight had progressed, the differences in our Aura density became evident. Each clash of our blades, and each strike on my armor, wore at his Aura, till it inevitably shattered. The swing that took the Knight Grand Cross’s head was inelegant, more akin to child swinging a stick, but it sliced clean, ending the life of an Aura user who was only capable of manifesting a now shattered blade.
As I hiked through the forest, I considered the effort needed to achieve Aura mastery in this new body. I had several factors to consider.
1) Time. Aura mastery was a long painful road that would take years to produce usable results.
2) Feasibility. The core of Aura training was to expand the ability of the human body to channel mana. With time, resources, and Bio magic I could both modify and add structures into my body that would allow me to channel large amounts of mana. With that increased ability I would be able to replicate all of Aura’s effects with magic.
3) Applicability. Most Aura manifestations were intended for fighting. Armor and bows were good when you have to fight aggressive magical beasts but lost any use when paying taxes or taking your driver's licence test.
4) Cool factor. Wielding a glowing sword and being able to conjure armor from nothing was just downright awesome.
So far, the cool factor and the frustration I felt with my anemic channeling capacity had been driving me to continue with the training.
-I should be able to speed up the process when I have the money to buy a place, to build the base equipment, to build the speciality tools for alchemy, to produce the specialty tools that will allow me to research this worlds materials/drugs, to use in magical chemistry, to produce the potion/pill/elixir/tincture that I will us as a supplement to the Aura training.
I shook my head as the mana I was circulating through out my body as I hiked started to make everything hurt slightly.
“Just keep focusing on the amazing body and the cool light sword you'll be wielding when I’m done.”-Me
I laughed as I paused for a moment as a stray thought hit me as funny.
-A very narcissistic reason to pursue a mystical martial discipline. I’ll kill at costume parties.
The absurdity amused me enough to distract me from the growing soreness throughout my body.
still love this story
Thank you for the chapter
