The Quantum Wanderer

Next morning, when the light starts coming in from the window, I take a look at my girls. Shandon is now with a different feel from Opal. Her hair has these colored reflexes to it. I instinctively pass my hand through it. She gets closer, and hugs me. Her strength, even asleep, is impressive. She starts waking up slowly and so do the other girls.

When I put Shandon’s hair behind her ear, I notice her eyes.

“Shandon… Your eyes…”

“What about my eyes, my lord?”

I am looking at these blue eyes that now have no irises. It is completely blue, with some iridescence. I can tell now only the general area she is looking at.

“Take a look at the mirror.”

She approaches the mirror, taking a look. She stares are her own face, doing poses, looking from different angles. All sorts of different angles. She turns to me.

“Does it displease my lord?”

“No, they look good on you. It just is not average humanoid.”

She closes her eyes, and when she opens then again, she has the irises back. But they are not moving. She has it feels really weird.

“Is this better, my lord?”

“Yes, it is better, but… Your irises are not moving. You have to keep them focused on the subject in front of you, or it is going to feel weird. But it is much better.”

We hug and cuddle a little bit, before going down for breakfast. When we sit for breakfast, Ruby is the one to start the talks.

“My lord, who do you think would have won the mock battle, if things didn’t get… fired up?”

I smile.

“I… don’t know. Ruby, you are just a little bit faster, but Shandon has a better technique. She has been paying more attention to knight school.”

Ruby mumbles something.

“My villain, where can we go practice my new spell?”

“Do you want to go to the beach in Drakonia?”

“That works. Day at the beach!” Cecilia exclaims.

Charles and Lucille look at us. They are getting used to our shenanigans.

“Charles, do you want to go as well?”

“What beach is that?”

“The one of the wedding.”

The couple look amongst themselves.

“Sure. Why not? We are not going to get eaten, right?”

I laugh it off. We start having breakfast. After I finish breakfast, Muninn turns to me.

“Father! I have some important news.”

Muninn flies over to the table, lands in front of me. I lower my head, and I watch the scene. There this big castle, the gate is open, and a large group of individuals are going out of it. They have shiny armors. It doesn’t look like steel, it is probably mithril or something better. It is a group with a little more than a dozen individuals.

There are two riding in front, one with the Holy Kingdom’s flag, the other one with Arthuria’s. The group has two set of armors. One group following each flag.

In their middle, there is a person with a better armor. If I had to guess, adamantite. I don’t believe it is enchanted, though. It is difficult to estimate this while looking at the scene from other eyes.

The guy in the middle carries his head high. He could be from almost anywhere. Even though what I am perceiving are not my senses, I can feel that this one guy has way more level than the others. I take a look at the others. It is still hard to estimate, but something tells me that they are all high level. There are a couple of humanoids with them. There is a wolf like beast kin, and an elf.

I am amazed that they did had this much inclusion in the group. I would expect it to have only humans.

“What happened, my lord?” Opal asks.

“The hero and his followers are on the move, apparently.”

“What do you think they are up to?” Cecilia asks.

“They are probably going to intervene in Romuela? Or try to?”

Ruby giggles.

“How long do you think the fight with Skylar would last?”

“Given the difference in power, it depends on how much Skylar would play with them. There is a tale of a hero party that killed a dragon. By the description of the dragon’s head and size, it was a hatchling. And the whole party died, only the hero survived. We can consider that a tight victory. Comparing a hatchling to an elder… Or a councilor…”

Cecilia laughs.

“Do you think he is going to use the hero to beat down the others?”

I giggle a little.

“We have to admit, he has style.”

After breakfast, we go to our rooms to get dressed. The girls are in bikinis, with their bags of holding on the side. I do the same, I have to spare some nails to Cecilia. Charles and Lucille have a lot stuff. They have some foldable chairs that the dwarves have gifted us, some floating devices, even a leather float.

I open the portal, and we jump to the beach. It is already noon here. Huginn and Muninn decide to enter the water, and clean up in it.

Charles and Lucille set up their chairs, and a beach umbrella, somehow. I have no idea where they found it.

Opal and Aquamarine take out a towel, and apply a little of earth magic, making the sand stay in the format of a recliner.

Ruby goes to the water.

Cecilia and Shandon are close to me. We go a little away from the group.

“Ok, Cecs, show me what you got.”

She holds the nail in her hand, and points to a place in the sand. I enhance my senses, in particular the mana, to try to feel what she is doing. She does a very good job, but her nail is still subsonic. She does it again. I analyze her mana flow.

“It feels like the force you are using to push it out is growing. Like you are blowing instead of spitting. It has to be a kind of cough to generate enough force. Your current shot is going to penetrate steel shields, but look at this.”

I shoot a nail in the same direction. The sonic boom sounds, and the place where I hit now has a small crater.

Shandon is looking at it, then she looks at me. She smiles.

“My lord, may I try?”

I hand her a nail.

The nail explodes. Her crater is much larger than mine. While mine is mainly sand, her crater has pieces of glass produced by the impact. Cecilia and I look at Shandon. The others stand up in the distance, looking our way as well. I look at Shandon. She smiles.

“THIS IS FUN!”

I turn and yell at the others that everything is ok.

“Can I see another of those nails, my lord?”

I hand her a nail. She inspects it closely.

“Where can I get some?”

“You can buy them in the city. They are cheap.”

She cuts a nail in half with her nail.

“And a little on the soft side as well.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t matter much. With the speed that can be given to them, it could be as soft as lead and still do a lot of damage. The important thing is that iron is magnet friendly.”

She inspects the two pieces in her hand.

“I can see that… This is just so… interesting…”

The other dragonesses are approaching us. They are intrigued by the new magic. Huginn and Muninn stay in the water, close to Charles and Lucille. The couple doesn’t move from their place.

I leave Cecilia with a bag of nails. I turn to Shandon.

“So, do you have a better feel to your powers?”

“A little bit. There is the light control, I can also create images. I can interact with the light around me.”

“I just saw that you are good with magnetism as well.”

“Yes! I can sense the magnetism all around us.”

“That’s because the planet creates a magnetic field around it. And this provides some shelter from the sun rays. Not all that leaves the sun is good for us. There are very tiny particles that a magnetic field can push out… Actually, that gives me an idea… Let’s get a little far from Cecilia, so that we don’t interfere with her training…”

The girls and I move farther away. I place Shandon close to the water.

“Ruby, can you shoot your breath close, but not hitting Shandon? A weak one. I am going to ask you to sustain it a bit.

“Shandon, you are going to put your magnetic field, or shield, up.”

Ruby shoots the breath. It is starts with a straight line, and then it starts bending away from Shandon. Then they stop. They get excited, and come running to me.

“This is awesome!” Shandon says.

“My lord, why didn’t you give me instructions like these?”

I put my hand on Ruby’s face. She is pouting.

“Because I don’t know enough about your powers to make suggestions. I studied magnetism, but I don’t really know what are your type of powers. You seem to have something related to fire. But I don’t know how to work it. I am sorry.”

She places her hand on top of mine, and smiles. I give her a peck on the lips.

“Now Shandon, there are other two kinds of light that I would like to show you…”

I take out a piece of meat. I create a basin on the sand. I put the meat there. I throw a maser at it, the microwave maser. The meat heat up pretty quickly.

“Oohh… I see. This color in particular is interesting.”

“Yes, most materials are going to have a color that work with them. This one works with water, and all living things contain water in them. So it is a go to spell that I like to use. Unless the target is using a full body armor of metal. The metal will interfere with it.”

“What do you do if the enemy wears metal?”

I pull out a nail, and I heat it by induction in front of them. I give another nail to Shandon, and she does the same.

“I see. What else can you tell?”

I think in terms of practical applications.

“You breath is made of light. As such, it has a very long range. Longer than the rail gun. You can shoot the moon, and we are going to see the hit.”

Shandon looks up. She opens her mouth and shoots. I can feel the amount of mana being used. A couple of seconds later, I see what looks like a distant star flashing in the sky.

“You are right! It does reach the moon!”

The smaller, dark moon is not visible during the day. Not until Shandon shot at it.

We stay in silence, looking at the point in the sky where Shandon’s breath had managed to create a spark of light.

“My lord, my lord, I did some experiments as well.”

Ruby shows us her arm, and scratches it. She leaves some marks, and there is almost the sign of blood, as if a normal person had been scratched by a normal person. It hurts, but it isn’t deep. I take a look at her arm. The neutron crystal scales on the scratch are gone, as well as the very top of her skin. But regeneration kicks in and her skin is reformed. She reapplies the neutron crystal scales on the area. I let her arm go.

“I stand corrected. It makes sense that you can resist your own nails.”

“And we owe all of this to our lord…” Ruby says.

She disappears from my front, and when I look she is holding my arm. I can see Aquamarine is pouting a little bit. Opal also lets a sigh go.

“You are going to evolve soon, probably…”

“I hope so, my lord.” Aquamarine says. Opal nods, pretending to be resigned.

We go back to where Cecilia is shooting nails against the sand. She is already better, they are now breaking the speed of sound. She uses a sanctuary spell to capture mana around her. I am the one to greet.

“Cecs, congratulations. You improved a lot.”

“But it is still so much worse than yours… I wish I had more nails.”

“Yes, but there is a level difference, so don’t worry. You will get there. You already know the mechanics, that is the most important.”

Shandon gestures to the place that Cecilia has been using as target practice, and the nails come to her hand, one on top of the other. The nails are a mess. Some bent, some the tip is completely rounded. Cecilia puts her bag underneath Shandon’s hands. With the nails inside her bag, Cecilia thanks her sister.

We walk over to Cecilia’s parents, and we lay down a little bit, close to them. Charles is the one ask.

“What were you kids doing? That was some loud noise.”

Cecilia is the one to answer.

“Nothing, pa. Marcelo was helping me with some new magic.”

“Aren’t you in magic school?”

“They don’t teach everything, pa.”

Charles lets it go. We enjoy the and the sound of waves until sunset. At that point, I open a portal to our Charles and Lucille’s bathroom, they go in, and then I open a portal for us, to our bathroom. The whole bathroom thing is to avoid sand all over the house. We clean ourselves up and go back down. It is amazing how just a little bit of beach is enough to tire a person.

We decide to take a stroll around the city. It is always fun going out with the girls.

Another couple days passes. Muninn lets me know that Romuela’s army is not marching towards the next city in Elator. After this next city, they are going to reach the capital. The hero and his troop are still moving about.

We are having breakfast when Muninn lands in front of me.

“Father, Skylar wants to talk to you.”

I let Muninn sync with my consciousness. I have a point of view from Skylar’s shoulder. I look forward, there is a city far in the distance. I take a look at the city, it has a huge flag, covering the part of the wall that is above the gate. The flag contains four female dragons and two crows. It is very similar to the one that was given to the guild. Nice try.

“The banner is not supposed to be used that way. I have no association with this city.”

“Thank you, councilor.”

I disconnect from that crow. Muninn told me that the number of species that he could use for talking was limited. Crows are one of them. Parrots and some others can also be used, but the crow was closer.

The crow flies to a tree nearby. Skylar comes to an official.

“You can go ahead on this one.”

The official bows down and starts preparing the troops. They start marching down. Once they are in position, Skylar walks down the middle, until he is on the other side of the moat. He throws a breath, burning the flag to a crisp immediately.

The officer, by his side, starts his speech.

“FUTURE ROMUELANS! …”

The bridge starts coming down, slowly. There is a bunch of swords and spears on the ground, right after the gate. The soldiers are kneeling right after. An official from the city gets close. He has a white cloth on his right arm. He is dressed as a noble. He kneels down.

“We surrender. We ask for your clemency.”

The officer by Skylar’s side was going to talk, but he stops when Skylar raises his hand.

“Whose idea was it to try to use the flag?”

There is a lot of mana on the question, that flows like a wave throughout the city. Some buildings rattle a bit. The soldiers that were kneeling are now kowtowing with their foreheads against the ground.

“WHO TRIED TO FOOL ME?”

The officer from the Romuelan army is livid. He isn’t moving a muscle. He understands now how Skylar thinks.

An officer in the invaded city speaks out.

“It was I, my lord. I sorry.”

Skylar comes close to the figure kowtowing on the ground. He grabs the soldier by the front of the armor and releases a point blank breath on him. The armor melts on his hand, and covers the ashes on the ground.

He comes back to the romuelan officer.

“Do your thing.”

The invasion troops go inside the city, and start moving things around. The prisioners of war, the weapons on the ground. They start talking to officials, to understand how best to do the occupation. Skylar looks around, and lays on a roof. It looks like he is sunbathing.

The soldiers pour in the empty streets in the city. They are well behaved. They direct the surrended soldiers to another place, while other start collecting the weapons. The operation is a lot more efficient than last time. Two soldiers are escorting the new prisoners. They look at the metal on top of the ashes. One murmurs to the other.

“I have to give them credit, it was a nice try, though.”

“Yes, it is a pity for them it did not work. Even I thought that it would work.”

I watch while the invaders start again occupying the town. Rules of engagement say that cities that surrender immediately should be treated well. In this case, not a single spell was fired. It makes me wonder how the rumors about Skylar are spreading in Elator.

I get back to breakfast table. The girls have already finished eating. They are still around the table. I have been thinking lately about our next trip.

“Girls, what do you think of going to see the elves?”

The girls look at me. Cecilia is the one to speak.

“When do you want to go there?”

“Today is as good a day as ever. Why don’t we get our gear on and go?”

The girls are smiling. We go up, and start getting our gear on. The girls start getting their dwarven gear. I scratch the back of my head.

“Girls, isn’t this a little too… Shiny?”

Cecilia looks at herself on a whole body mirror. The armor looks really good on them. But the problem is that it looks way too good.

“It would be rude to not use Dyrgja gifts… Besides, we are going to meet elves, not humans. So your secret should be safe. If it is still a secret, that is…”

“What do you mean, if it is still a secret?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am guessing, because we are in different schools. But how many people do you think already noticed that the dragonesses are in a different level?”

“They have been keeping it hidden, haven’t they?”

“I love, but you are so naïve… How many times do you think they lost in a spar? They are already know to be the strongest around. Heck, I am not even close to their level, and I can see the teachers know something is weird. That my level is high. Way higher.”

“I see.”

The only way to hide my levels would be to become a kind of hermit, much like Andrew has done. He understood it better than I did. But then again, I want to learn more about this world. And we have seen so little of it. I haven’t done the travels that I wanted to. I have been to a couple of cities, but the world is vast. Normal travel around the big countries take weeks. And I am not even including the far south. Back to the subject at hand, I turn to the girls.

“You have a point. Shiny it is.”

We put our gear on. The girls enjoy looking at themselves in the mirror. I have the scratched breast plate. I pass my index over the scratches, and smile. Once we are all ready, I turn to Huginn.

“Daughter, can you please open the portal? Something close to a village, but not close enough that it is threatening… Preferably a place outside people’s eyes.”

Cecilia and the other girls stare at me. Huginn smiles.

“That’s the first time you call me daughter, papa…”

“Well, I think that this is the kind of relationship I have with you guys, right?”

“I think I am going to get diabetes…” Muninn grumbles. He extends a wing, and the portal opens up. “There.”

We go through the portal.