Venturing the Wild (Sequel to Mould Breaking / Zelda: BotW)

[gthesob]

He should have sent pics of toddler Purah.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 36

Magnus was honestly a bit impressed by how quickly Jerrin and Robbie had adopted the DD network, it had only been a day since they had their own terminal installed and they were already using their full access to the database on knowledge it contained.

It wasn't just the fact that every book, from both labs, had been properly transcribed, archived and organized. Magnus had also linked related subjects of study and correlated their findings, and added his own set of books to the database.

Though that wasn't all, his work with Purah towards the Age Rune and the DD network, along with his own personal work in designing the flying drone had contributed into acquiring a perk containing all Sheikah Runes and their use, individually and in combination.

He had decided to transcribe them into one massive, digital dictionary that would most likely need constant work for weeks if not more. There were a huge number of those runes he had frankly never thought would exist, showing that the Ancient Sheikah had done a lot when setting the whole system. Thankfully some of these runes had definitely been created to solve very specific problems, which meant they could be practically ignored.

Of course, this was still very much just the runes and their interactions, for their proper use he would have to weave them together into much more complex constructions to create anything remotely close to a spell or one of the slate's runes. It was closer to a massive dictionary that convinced all languages and dialects of Asia into a single work and now Magnus had to use that to write an epic.

He had broken the perk in by rewriting all of the rune strings that went into the drone's programming. Things like the stabilizers, power distribution, communication, etc… all had received a pretty thorough overhaul and streamlining as there existed many specialized runes that fit many of these spots and simplified the syntax.

Magnus turned towards the princess unit, the spider-like machine had received a set of upgrades to its programming and production capabilities. His attention was taken away when a small sensor he had installed on the way to the house pinged him. He quickly ordered the few worker units that had been finished to clean up their digging work before he headed out to welcome Symin and Purah.

The excuse he had given her was that he wanted to show her something in his workshop. The truth was that he wanted to get her out of the lab, now that she was young again she needed to keep herself healthy via exercise and a walk out of the lab would do her good to start.

He didn't even need to step out as he had extended the house towards the cliff face with a new room. The room was a combination of cellar and cupboard, plus it also contained the water heating for the house. He had finally gone ahead and remodeled the house. Every floorboard had been given treatment to improve their quality with a similar alchemical compound to that he used inside the bunker. He had also reinforced the house's foundation and laid hot water piping under the floor to keep the place warm.

He still had planned to rework the walls for better insulation before Winter came, but there was no rush there as the season was a month away and without the corrupted Nayru the weather had warmed back up a bit.

Purah and Symin were already outside of the front door by the time he reached to open it. "Welcome to Link's house, now version two point oh." He joked and invited them inside.

"You've made it your house as much as it was Linky's once upon a time." Purah told him as her eyes wandered all around the place.

"Thank you for inviting us." Symin said and handed him a bottle of rice wine. Apparently it had become popular after the Calamity, he had tried some in Kakariko village, it was quite good and sweet.

Purah stopped and looked down, a moment later she reached to touch the ground. "You're warming the house," she observed in surprise, "if I had to guess you're using water?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I take some water from the pond, filter and boil it before it gets stored behind the house, part of that water's kept hot and flowing through a series of pipes under the floor." He quickly explained.

She nodded and wandered off to check everything he had built.

"We got delayed because the director had forgotten to update Reede on the fact she got deaged." Symin said with a hint of embarrassment.

"That must have been a conversation." He joked and shot the man a grin.

While they talked Purah interrupted from time to time to ask him to explain things or check if she understood how things worked.

"I may have to ask you to install a shower like that in the lab." She mused.

"The problem would be the source of water, though I think I found a rune that may be capable of draining humidity from the air to collect water, and so close to the ocean it should work especially well." He offered.

He ignored the soft grumbling about cheating at knowledge. Symin quickly interrupted it.

"You wanted to show us something else, right?"

Magnus felt it a bit for the older man, since Purah had regained her youth, she had become a bit too energetic.

"Sure, this way." He gestured towards the door on the back of the house and guided them through the cupboard.

Purah stopped and pulled the set of special goggles she kept on her head over her eyes, observing the room carefully. "You enchanted the walls?"

"I enchant practically everything." He admitted. "It's an inherent part of how I work, most of what I've worked in the house's been enchanted to last longer, stay clean and repair itself a bit, which feeds back on lasting longer. Of course I also used an alchemical treatment first, but that's just the details. The workshop… well, you'll see."

A quick mental order had a clean section of wall suddenly slide open, revealing one of the small worker units manning the controls. Their path was quickly lit by the magical lights coming online.

"Now that's some presentation." She nodded cheerfully and walked forward before stopping and leaning down to check the worker unit. "You made them smaller?"

"That was the idea the whole time, I think I said it before?" Magnus answered.

"I think you mentioned it once." Symin offered as he followed them. "Though you never explained why."

"Besides not wanting to scare people with huge monstrosities? Outside of a bigger reach there's not really too many advantages with them being larger. Most of the work a big unit can do can also be carried by multiple small ones." And then he added. "But there are many things a big one can't do that small ones can."

He guided them to where the other eleven units were currently digging, or at least close enough for them to watch them work. Thankfully enchanted tools were quieter than normal ones.

"You really just invited us so we ask you questions." Purah sassed him before sighing. "But I do have my curiosity, why do you need so much space?"

"Two main reasons, the first is that I'm building a bunker for the inhabitants of Hateno Village. If the worst were to come to pass, they could evacuate. Once it's finished I will invite Reede and show him, explain to him why I made it and most likely see about setting the place in such a manner that even if it's just the kid they can lock themselves safely and come out once the danger passes." His explanation was accompanied by a few blueprints of what he had planned. "The other is that I need someplace safe to park the ship once I retrieve all the segments."

"I keep forgetting you arrived on a ship." Symin admitted.

"You will have to allow me to study it." She added.

Magnus shrugged. "I see no problem with it, but I honestly don't think you'll get much out of it, or at least not in the way you're expecting to." He confessed. "Mainly because most of the tech's deeply black boxed."

She rolled her eyes. "How much longer will you be staying?" She prompted.

"I will be staying over the winter since my next stop will be the Hebra region." He answered. "I had thought of heading to the Gerudo desert during Winter, but for that I would need to work out permission to visit."

"Hmm… a letter of introduction from me or my sister could work, most likely Impa's as she was closer to Zelda and the princess was a very close friend of Urbosa." The researcher mused.

"Or I could do this." Magnus stated proudly and whistled a few notes, Darkness enveloping him for a moment before dissipating and revealing her. "It's pretty solid and I would only need to recast the illusion after sleeping, otherwise…" She shrugged.

His female self wasn't too far away from his male self. His hair was much the same, his height hadn't changed, the differences were honestly minimal. His features softened and turned a bit rounder, the ratio of waist to shoulder was inverted, and thankfully he didn't grow any facial hair to begin with.

Symin blushed. "Do you need such a big…" He blushed harder as he gestured to Magnus' chest area.

She just laughed. "Fun fact about that, I'm not actually creating this form, this is actually what I would look like as a woman."

Purah raised an eyebrow. "And how would you know? Unless-"

"That's right, I've been female a few times in the past. It started way before I was born because one of my aunts was born a man, and once more biology's not going to stop my father from helping his family. While I've no access to the spell that makes it possible, I do have the memories of how I looked, felt and the rest so I can replicate it."

The woman walked around her a few times. "I see nothing obvious, so yes, you could pass as a woman easily."

"I could also see if I could replicate the spell with runes, though I'm not sure how difficult it would be." He mused.

"Wouldn't you need extensive knowledge of biology for it?" Symin prompted.

"Not necessarily." Purah answered before she could. "The Age Rune does a lot of things with the body for what we don't really have the complete knowledge for, it's very possible there's a rune to do the same with gender and flip it around."

She nodded before releasing the illusion and going back to him.

"Anyways, I will be heading to the Hebra Region first and visiting the Rito, there should be one or two pieces in the area for me to recover. I should also be able to more easily make contact with Gerudo Town and start working on a permit to visit, otherwise I will just illusion myself up to enter."

Purah just laughed. "Oh… that reminds of Linky, he also had to dress himself as a woman to visit with the princess a few times. I think only Urbosa saw through his disguise, so as long as you don't push your luck you'll be okay."

He smiled and nodded. "Now for what I really wanted to show you." He gestured them to the worktable.

On the surface lay two mechanical hands, the more finished one looking pretty similar to his armored gloves. The main difference was the blue eye at the center of the palm.

"Interesting, I like the style." Purah offhandedly commented. "What are they for?"

"This," he smiled and connected with the nearly finished one.

The hand tensed as the eye lit up in a familiar blue glow before floating off the table and to his side. It came to a stop a bit away from his right hand and started to mimic all the movements and gestures his right hand did.

"I'm still working on it, but they are meant to give me two extra hands." He showed. "Though I'm still far from using them properly, the idea is that they will act as two extra hands and not just imitate my hands."

"What's the eye for? It doesn't look like the Sheikah crest." Symin asked.

"Ah, it's actually called Hamsa or Hand of Fatima, it's a symbol of protection against the Evil Eye and similar curses." He eagerly explained. "It also taps on the Nazar, which could be considered a sibling symbol, it also covers protection against the Evil Eye while also carrying concepts of sight, surveillance and attention."

He showed how he used it to grab a tool and move it around.

"Very impressive, what do you need?" She asked.

"I want help going through their code, I can take care of the physical aspect, but you're still the best in terms of software." His words seemed to please her.

"Symin?" Her assistant nodded. "Then we'll help, but in exchange you will see to upgrade the lab, goddess knows that building may fall apart one of these days otherwise."

He thought about it for only a moment before agreeing. He had gone his own way to keep the lab organized and it wouldn't be too hard to move all the books to a proper chamber inside the bunker during the remodeling. In addition to the fact that the worker units would go a long way to make the work easier.

"Good." Purah's smile showed her eagerness. "Now show me those runes and let's see what kind of mess you made."

Magnus rolled his eyes but complied.

---

The three of them spent the whole day working together, Purah quickly took the lead and had him practically delete every rune he had worked into the remote hands. At the end of the day they hadn't reached anywhere close to the functionality he had achieved on his own, but the rune strings were considerably more stable and solid than his previous work.

At the end of the day they decided on a new schedule before he cooked dinner for everyone and the two Sheikah headed back to their place. He would not be seeing them for a couple of days as he had planned to finish his work in the Ash Swamp.

He headed out of the village quite early, greeted the two young men who were finishing their nightly patrol. Reede had kept his word and hired a couple of retired adventurers with enough experience to train half a dozen young men who had put themselves forward to take the roles of protectors of the village.

Eight men, from which six were young and inexperienced, and the other two were old and retired wouldn't really put too much of a defense if monsters actually attack, at least not at the moment. Hopefully Magnus' presence in the village would provide enough time for them to get the necessary experience.

There was also the fact that the Age Rune was a thing, but so far Purah was still considering revealing it. He could completely understand why, he had stored the flying delivery drone away and wouldn't bring it out unless it was really necessary, and in comparison the drone was much less ground breaking than the Age Rune.

The two young men looked at him with a bit of admiration, and jealousy at how well rested he looked. Funny thing was that they had most likely slept more in the last twenty four hours than he did in the last week. They were using the armor he had crafted, it took a bit of the green out of their looks, which would go a long way to keep the inhabitants of the settlement feeling safer.

It was that train of thought that made him decide to allow a couple of red-skinned Bokoblins past his attention as they were wandering towards the forests outside of the village. These monsters would hopefully be easy targets for the young men and not only provide some experience for them, but also reinforce that feeling of safety.

Outside of that, his way to the swamp was unnoteworthy. The fort did look better after getting cleaned out, once he finished with the swamp he would see about resuming that project. That would have to wait as he quickly got into finishing with the swamp first.

A dozen worker units strode out of his inventory, unfortunately the princess unit would have to remain in the lab as it wasn't ready yet to lead the smaller ones. He was thinking of a supervisor unit to add another tier to the organization, but that would most likely not be necessary until he was working with higher numbers.

Not that he needed too many more as the dozen he had were tearing apart the derelict machines apart into materials and throwing them into the inventory. This left him pretty free, which he decided would be a good moment for a hobby.

Magnus retrieved his 'old' wood flute and brought it to his lips to play a mundane tune. Thankfully he could control his magic easily enough to prevent it from seeping along with the song. It did compliment the working of power tools.

He played for a while, until he heard the sound of flapping wings that made him look up.

It had been over a year since he had seen the big blue bard, apparently he had missed him more than once during his travels, so it was nice to meet him here.

"Kass!" He waved the Rito down.

"Well, well, well, if it's not the traveler." The large man landed and fixed his belongings. "Magnus, good to see you again, what are you doing here?"

"Cleaning up." He half-joked as he gestured to the worker units practically chewing through the machines.

Thankfully enchanted power tools were quite low on the noisy scale and the large amount of vegetation would keep any noise from traveling too far. Not that there was much in the area, people usually didn't establish themselves on flood plains, even less ones that had been turned into a swampy battlefield.

"You made those?" Kass asked, surprised.

"Yes, I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to learn everything available on Hyrule." He smiled. "I called them worker units, honestly they are just puppets. They only move around because I'm here, otherwise there's nothing to really drive them."

"That will relieve the people of the stable West from here." The Rito said.

He winced. "I honestly thought that the stable was further away." He admitted.

Kass nodded. "They were on the other side of the river, but an attack by a couple of Stalnox last year forced them to relocate."

"I heard nothing of it, what happened?"

Kass shrugged. "Unfortunately the situation's still not clear, it happened during a Blood Moon seven moons ago. In the middle of the night a pair of those undead giants wandered out of the forest on the other side of the minor Twin Bridge."

Magnus didn't hide his wince, he had fought live Hinox, the idea of a giant undead one added a whole new level to the danger. Plus he was pretty sure most people wouldn't be able to destroy one of their skulls as easily as those of the Stalkoblins.

"I see, so someone heard or saw me here and they panicked?" He asked.

Kass nodded. "I was in the area following a rumor, and since I've the ability to fly I decided to offer myself to scout the situation. Thankfully it was you." He puffed slightly. "Though I didn't know you played an instrument."

Magnus blushed a bit. "I certainly didn't when we met in Kakariko Village." He quickly laughed to hide a bit of his emotions. "Though I will admit I'm just following instructions at the moment and using my natural dexterity."

The Rito scoffed. "Don't underestimate yourself, you may have memorized the movements of your fingers. But the fact that you're smiling while playing it showed you were enjoying yourself, and that's what matters with music. Tell me, what's music for you?"

He smiled. "Music's how I alter the world around me, at least temporarily."

"Hmm, an interesting interpretation." Kass said and caressed his chin.

"Oh, but so true too." Playfully Magnus told the Rito before he brought the flute to his lips. "This is not the correct instrument for it, but…" He smiled and blew the first notes of an old Country song about the damned warning a cowboy during a storm about the dangers of trying to catch the devil's herd.

While Hyrule didn't have too many legends about a story like it, Magnus carried enough of its essence with him. The song carried in itself a much older legend, transplanted from an older continent but the feelings and meaning still resonated. And it was enough to weave the images of the tale, mixing it with some of the local iconography.

Some details were maintained, horses and horse riders were common on the land, and so were cows and pastures. But the cows were almost boar-like, the horses were Stals and so were their riders. He could almost hear the words, he could certainly hear Kass' accordion having joined. It impressed him how easily the Rito was going along with it.

He didn't allow the tune go for too long, the illusion was starting to grow stronger as he definitely heard the sound of thunder. It wasn't hard to see the Rito's natural Wind magic was resonating with the song's spirit.

"Well, that was an experience." Kass observed, his eyes stopping on the mirages still breaking down.

"I like to think I'm quite adept at illusions, and slowly growing better." Magnus boasted a bit.

"Are those illusions why you look like you do?" Kass asked as he pointed at him with one of his large, feathered fingers.

"Uh?" Magnus quickly ordered one of the worker units to return to him so he could use their visual sensors to look at himself.

Though before that he noticed a coat of deep, black fur had grown to cover his arm and his nails had grown into sizable claws of a deep, familiar purple. He couldn't help but grumble as the memories floated up, finally released from their locks once he saw his foxy features.

"Yes… yes I think it does." He answered with a sigh.

Magnus ran his claws through his hair, it seemed to have grown into a mane, even while braided, and gained black accents. "Are there any legends in Hyrule about people turning into animals?"

Kass hummed thoughtfully and rubbed his chin. "Hmm… I think I remember two tales of something like that. One's about a hero cursed into the form of a beast, and I think there's the Wolfos, which are humanoid wolf-like monsters, though none has been seen on Hyrule in more than a thousand of years."

He thought about it. "Well, it's close enough. Though this is not a curse, more of a bloodline thing. My father and my mothers could all turn into animals and I inherited it, I just had forgotten I could do it." He explained. "Though in my case I'm a type of fox."

"A fox, illusions and if you had a penchant for pranks I would say you were a Keaton." Kass laughed.

"Let me guess, they are foxes with multiple tails and like to play pranks and act all mystical like." He offered.

"I would say you've already met one by your question."

"Not exactly, though I've met some called Kitsune which were quite similar." He shook his head and willed himself back to normal, the change was completely natural and painless. "I'm what's called a Zoroak," Magnus eagerly started to tell the bard about a land even further away.

He should see if he could visit one of those Worlds, it would be nice to see if he could learn some Dark type attacks. But for now he had many things to take care of in Hyrule.

 

[Radial]

I was not expecting Pokemon. What would it take for a story there?

 

[Krazyfan1]

Zoroark, neat.
especially since the illusions can be physical, and going by Zorua, allow the user the physical skills of those they turn into (i.e changing weight and floating by turning into a skiploom)

 

[Melakias]

I was not expecting Pokemon. What would it take for a story there?

Click to shrink...

Pokemon is one of the worlds visited in the second party of the story, even for a little while.

Zoroark, neat.
especially since the illusions can be physical, and going by Zorua, allow the user the physical skills of those they turn into (i.e changing weight and floating by turning into a skiploom)

Click to shrink...

In my headcanon (explained later as what's canon in this story) Zoroarks actually have two types of illusions, a solid, self one that allows them to take the form of other species (and even objects if skilled enough), and an area of effect, usually done as fog and/or lose-you-direction.

 

[Krazyfan1]

solid, self one that allows them to take the form of other species (and even objects if skilled enough),

Click to shrink...

i like to imagine that with this one, unless the Zoroark Trains for it, the illusion is still fragile (hence the going away when hit), and the transforming doesn't give any innate ability to move properly.
i.e a Zoroark that copies a bird CAN fly, but they have to learn first.

 

[Melakias]

i like to imagine that with this one, unless the Zoroark Trains for it, the illusion is still fragile (hence the going away when hit), and the transforming doesn't give any innate ability to move properly.
i.e a Zoroark that copies a bird CAN fly, but they have to learn first.

Click to shrink...

Yup, that's how it works in this story too. Of course whatever limitations a normal fox may have, Magnus' true nature and the Forge throw them out of the window hard and fast enough to break more than a few glasses.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 37

Magnus watched Kass fly away, they had ended talking for maybe a bit longer than the Rito had expected, and most likely quite more than what the people at the stable were certainly expecting. He hoped they hadn't panicked too badly.

Still, he had finally cleared the swamp off Guardians, most likely a few parts laid buried in the ground… well, most likely way more than just a few. He would bet there were a number of weapons and machine pieces strewn all over the area if the tale of Link's last stand was anything to go by. But he didn't feel the need to start digging around without a clear image of what was down there and there was no sign anything would be too dangerous.

The talk had also been pretty nice, Kass was definitely one of the most well-known storytellers on the land and had a plethora of songs, tales and legends he would love to know. He was no historian, but he would certainly not mind properly documenting all of his knowledge, maybe a nice project for the future; especially since the DD network was working.

He told the Rito a few stories of his own, though he mainly explained his other form. He had regained a whole chunk of his memories while unlocking it, he certainly remembers when he could only turn into a Zorua during his childhood; he missed having a tail a bit. Though his braid did act like one in a funny way. The form would hopefully allow him further control of his illusions even without a sound medium, but that would require some training.

Funny thing was that his Darkness wasn't identical to Dark-type energy, it was a bit broader and had much more depth to it, shown by the fact that he still hadn't really mastered the element anywhere close to what his mother could do… regaining those memories had been the nicest part of the whole package.

Being able to remember her face, name and the many times they just hung out as mother and son had helped a lot in his internal balance, there were pieces still missing. But so many less than before.

He watched the last unit step back into his inventory before the familiar blue frame disappeared. With that done Magnus got off the rock he had been sitting and cracked his neck, he slowly willed the change. Carefully he focused on his body as he followed it.

Thankfully Zoroarks were humanoid enough that his body didn't go through any extreme change outside of the vulpine features to his face, the growing of claws, fur and elongation of his ears. His clothes did feel much tighter now that he had a coat of dense fur under them, he would have to see about modifying them to take into account the changes. This meant that he would have to focus on tailoring as quick as possible, that meant picking some rolls of cloth and thread and start working through the manuals he had found in his database.

He flicked his head a bit and grabbed his long braid when it whipped around. His hair had indeed turned black in some parts, but he had been wrong in his earlier appreciation. It was still primarily purple with black accents, it was just that the braid hid most of the purple. It also lacked the jewel at the end, he would have to craft something to put there.

He let it go and focused on his hands, the fur that covered his forearm extended past his knuckles, hiding just how large his hands were, on top of that the bright purple claws at the end of his fingers were eye-catching enough to trick the observer even further. Another thing was that he had kept five fingers instead of the reduced number the foxes had.

Taking a step made him look down, his shoes appeared to be doing their best to keep his claws from tearing through, another thing to modify. For now he removed his shoes and threw them into the inventory as he enjoyed the sensation of moist grass between his fingers.

He honestly didn't notice any change in his senses, as sharp and developed as they had always been, that was a plus in his books. Things would be much harder once he unlocked his Titan Heritage, then things would get hairy… in more than one sense. Still, for now he had a whole new field to explore in his body.

He breathed in deep, filling himself with air before breathing out and wrapping himself in an illusion of not being there. There was no need to start any weird legends or tempt someone to try and attack him; not that they would catch up to him. He leaned forward and started to run back towards the village.

It was easy to fall into old, now recovered, knowledge. He had done this before, trained thoroughly on how to master this alternate form of himself. Funnily enough his claws provided him some assistance to his movements that human hands weren't capable of. Human skin was great to grab onto things, making certainly acrobatic feats harder. On the other hand the hard surface of the claws had much less grip, this allowed him to use them to slide much easily on branches and surfaces.

He hoped his sprint back to Hateno hadn't spooked anyone, because while his illusions hid his figure and muffled the sounds a bit, it did little towards the few trees he bounced on once he was far enough. Though he was moving fast enough that he supposed most would have thought a big bird flew off a tree, or through a tree.

He stopped before coming out of the woods, assuming his human form and putting his shoes back on after cleaning his feet. The run had felt nice and he made the trek between the swamp and the village a breeze. It had been fast, very fast, it was only because he liked to take his time wandering that he didn't run around between domains. That and the fact that he would most likely miss interesting things if he did, he would certainly never have met Robbie if he had run to the Zora's domain after visiting Mija.

He greeted the two guards taking the afternoon rotation before heading to his place. After that fast run back, he took his time walking through Hateno. He did stop at Ventest's Boutique to buy some materials before arriving home.

With all that on hand once he reached his house he allowed the units to step out into the workshop and start working on recycling all the reclaimed materials as he pulled thread, fabric and all patterns he could imagine to get working.

---

Tailoring quickly became a filling task in Magnus' time, though that was mainly because he was working on it at any time he wasn't using his hands. Which was quite frequent with the units doing a lot of the manual labor in the workshop.

It also became an excellent training for him to get used to the far-hands, actual name pending, once they got them working after a week of progress. It was still hard to disassociate them from his actual hands, more than once he noticed they were mimicking his left and right hand respectively. But it was becoming easier and easier to consider them a second pair of hands, instead of an extension of the first.

While they were capable of such fine movement his hands could, or near enough, they weren't capable yet to do the whole magical weaving progress that was taught in the manual he had found. He still couldn't channel his magic through them, even less weave it with the same skill he used normally.

He should really see into learning Hyrule's method to create enchanted clothing, he idly wondered how similar or different it would be. But that could wait, at the moment he was trying to get his clothes to accommodate his changes, especially his fur coat.

Of course it took over two weeks of constant work for things to finally click and a new perk slide into his collection. It was hard to explain, it was as if suddenly all he had learned from the manual and practiced with his hands suddenly made sense; it all fit well and everything he had been having troubles with suddenly was obvious.

He could feel how the connections with other perks came up, all of those perks related to crafting of armors in any way shape or form suddenly revolutionized their methods with this perk. Bulky Goron armors were slimmed into much more comfortable and stylish metallic weaves, showy Zora armors became more low-key without losing their aesthetics.

It was also what allowed him to fully rework his Sheikah clothing, not only he added the Zora armor's swimming ability, but also added a good amount of fire and heat resistance from the Goron armor without compromising the looks too far. He had also changed the blue undershirt from blue to a dull gold while the trimming of the coat, sash and pants went from red to green.

He liked how it had come out, gave the clothing a more earthy look without losing the original design, and marked them as his. On the more magical side he worked his transformation into account, the clothes would stretch and resize as necessary. He gave most of his changes of clothing the same adaptability enchantment.

A funny interaction between perks was that his original hunter perk had synergized with his tailoring perk and the one aimed to work with natural materials to cover enough leatherworking that he could make himself a set of comfortable enchanted shoes that would become sandals when he changed.

With tailoring under his belt, he had started to rebuild the whole building from the ground up using the original building as a guide and adding to it. For anyone else this would have been a complete impossibility without a lot of time and available labor. Thankfully for Magnus, he had over a dozen and a half small worker units, half a dozen large worker units and a second princess unit geared for the production of materials, rather than parts.

Plus taking a break from the digging of the hangar would do his mental health some good.

"Are you sure about letting us stay at your place?" Symin asked him as Magnus showed him the second bed he had put together a little ago and set in the small storage room he had dug under the first floor.

"It's really not a problem." He waved it off. "Remember I don't really need that much sleep, if at all, I can take a quick nap during the afternoon or during some dead time, or even sleep in the workshop." He laughed. "I could sleep on a rock and still be rested."

"Ok… just tell me if you need the bed." The man repeated as Magnus walked out of the room.

There he found Purah once more investigating his oven. "Still interested in that?"

"It's just so simple, but your way to approach the design's completely different from what developed in Hyrule. It's amazing to see how the paradigm developed in other Worlds." She answered and her proper capitalization surprised him.

"Hmm, I don't know how correct would be saying it that way as I inherited a lot in my way of thinking and tackling problems from my father, and he was a cornucopia of crafting knowledge." He mused.

"No, that still counts." She quickly rebuked. "He still took all that knowledge and mixed, worked it out and refined it into something his own, he gave you that, and that's definitely a very particular paradigm." He had found she sounded quite happy to talk about her ideas. "In many ways that puts his paradigm above the rest from having been influenced by all of them and most likely crafted to perfection or close enough."

Magnus nodded. "Anyways, that's just a convection oven, it generates an area of controlled heat and moves the air to make sure all surfaces receive the same amount of heat. I would have thought the freezer would have been more interesting."

She scoffed. "Please, I've known about the Freezing Rune for over a hundred years and seen plenty of interesting uses for it. Cooling air is very basic." She turned to face him. "All that's interesting there is your cuisine, so many dishes I've never seen before, and since I'm young again I don't have to restrict my diet anymore."

He chuckled. "I would say that if you continue not restricting your diet you will need to start to exercise… actually you should get a routine, no sense in letting yourself go now that you're young again."

"… Maybe." She grumbled as she looked away.

He just smiled and shook his head before he wished her well and headed towards the lab. All of its contents had already been stored away, outside of personal belongings everything else had been packed into his inventory. Most books and records would not be going back to the lab and instead be stored in a climate-controlled archive in the bunker.

Since they had already warned Reede about the work, Magnus started working the moment he arrived at the top of the hill. The first thing he did was bring down the old Guardian, he had planned a little gift with it for Purah. Once that was down the small army of worker units came down upon the house.

The tower was taken apart from top to bottom, carefully cutting off the edges of the walls allowed the large units to remove the walls themselves, as the small ones took care of the inside parts. He maintained the inventory open to allow the pieces to be unceremoniously dropped into the gravity-less space. Once the tower was done a couple of the large units were taken inside of the building to hold the main beams as the small one removed all tiles and took the nails out.

He doubted he would reuse much of the wood, it's too aged and many pieces revealed to be rotten when inspected. But many would certainly be recycled in smaller pieces. He had honestly already prepared the necessary wood for the planned building, it was currently being cured inside the workshop after being alchemically treated.

Once the ceiling and the beams were taken then came off the walls and finally the ground. They had already removed all tech from the lab, most would come back. The main exception was the DD Terminal which had already been installed in the bunker and would run safely from inside the reinforced mountain.

He looked at the spot that once had a building, in just a few hours it had been completely removed to the point only the foundations had been left. A quick order had the large units change their tools for scoops and started digging the new basement and the new foundations for the lab.

---

The construction went through quite fast, each unit, even the small ones, could carry the work of at least one worker by itself. When one added the coordination ability provided by the System and his orders it turned the whole job into child's play.

Almost literally as Magnus had gone ahead and preassembled the parts after treating them alchemically. This only left the preparation of the land once the building had been completely taken out.

He had gone ahead and moved the Ancient Furnace to the basement of the building, installing the necessary network to deliver the power to the area, maybe even reconnect it with the old Ancient Furnace on the other side of the lake.

Once that was done, the rest of the building easily came into form. Walls, floors and the few necessary support beams were assembled with machine-like precision. A curious shortfall from his alchemical treatment was that it wouldn't work with materials that had been processed too far from their natural state, while wood and rock could be easily treated, iron and glass were too far.

This meant that things like nails couldn't be properly reinforced and would present a weak point on the construction. Thankfully he knew how to utilize nailless wood joints, things like mortise and tenon, box and dovetail, and a number of combinations of them; plus a very large number of reinforced wood dowels to secure everything.

"I can't believe it only took you five days to rebuild the building." Purah actually sounded more than a bit surprised. "You even placed the old Guardian back on the top of the tower."

"Yes, I also fixed its main cannon, it can be controlled from the inside of the building." He revealed. "I modified the angle so it should be able to shoot at anything coming towards the village if necessary."

Purah looked excited while Symin, on the other hand, appeared more than a bit worried.

"I ended up digging a couple of basements too and installed an ancient tech elevator to get between floors." He explained as he guided them inside. "The lowest basement's actually just for the Ancient Furnace and the DD network."

He guided Purah and Symin through the building. Not every room was completed, technically. Things like the kitchen was still lacking the appliances, but he had installed the whole water system.

As he had expected, there were a whole set of runes geared to the manipulation of water in all its forms. Different from the system installed in his home, the one in the lab was practically harvesting the excessive humidity coming from the ocean to fill the water tank with potable water.

"Great work." Purah shot him a thumbs up. "Oh, I also finished the rune code for your extra hands, you should look through it."

He nodded. "Thanks again for that, it will be nice to properly start working with them. What are your plans now?"

"Well, I do have a few ideas for a few runes I would like to try to get working for when Linky wakes up… I wonder how much longer till he does wake up." She mused as she rested her cheek on her palm.

"Definitely on the hundred year mark." Magnus answered and Symin nodded.

"What?" She prompted, surprised.

"The process is magic enough that it will most likely complete on the century mark, it's how it usually goes."

"You can't just guess things like that." She grumbled.

"Actually," Symin interrupted, "most records do show that magic tends to prefer round or significant numbers, a hundred years would fit both."

Purah just grumbled and turned to look at him. "And how about you? What are your plans?"

Magnus winced. "Outside of finishing the hangar and bunker I'm actually feeling a bit lost, I don't think I will manage to remain here for the whole Winter." He admitted.

"That's not surprising, you've certainly been living at a fast pace for fifteen months. This must be the longest you've stayed in a single spot, right?" She theorized.

"I stayed longer on Death Mountain, but only by a week." He answered. "Though that was also quite more guided given I was being taught by a teacher."

She nodded. "It's understandable, you should try to slow down. But I think I could ask you to do some things for me." She mused. "You still have planned to fix the fort up the road, no?"

He nodded to her question. "Though I don't expect it to take too long."

"If you rebuilt this lab in less than a week I can believe that." She chuckled. "Or you could move on, let's be honest, Winter's not a problem for you, it's just an excuse." She said with clear understanding.

"… that's true, cold isn't really a problem." He admitted with a sigh. "Honestly I doubt anything in the Hebra Region will get as bad as the Lanayru Range."

"Then you shouldn't stay here, you've certainly set things up properly and with the DeeDee network we can easily keep in contact, no?" Purah looked into his eyes and asked.

"Yes, I would suppose that a Blood Moon may interrupt the connection if I'm on the other corner of Hyrule, but outside of that it should work well."

"Then go, finish the work here, or not, don't let it hold you down." Purah grinned. "You're the Traveler, no?"

Magnus couldn't help it, it bubbled inside of him. The name had been given to him the moment he arrived in Hyrule, but it was only now that someone had named him. A small chuckle escaped on his lips, it was more than a name, it's a proper title that would define him. He wondered if Purah understood what she had just done.

It would be a constant tickle in the back of his mind from now on, always urging him to go out. It would push him to visit new places, learn new things. He liked the idea of this, take knowledge in, become more, become a living proof of the lives of Worlds and Civilizations.

"...yes." He answered after calming himself. "I think you're right, what's a little cold when you have your own fur coat." He winked and willed himself to change.

Purah was surprised enough to take a step back. "Wha?!"

"But I still have a number of things to finish here, so I think I'll wait until the next full moon, I'm pretty sure it will be a bloody one." He hummed, acting as if he hadn't turned into a meter sixty five bipedal fox. "Anyways, I will be heading back, contact me if you need anything."

His figure slowly melted away as it had been an illusion for over a minute, his body having moved away and left a ventriloquism cantrip speaking for him.

He hummed to himself as he made it quickly back to his house. Now that he had decided on leaving slightly after Winter started he would need to fix his plans accordingly. The hangar's work would have to be expedited and would need to be finished by the time the queen unit was done, even if it wouldn't be properly programmed yet.

There was also one other thing he wanted to do.

Magnus started by retrieving the larger piece of Luminous Stone he had. The chunk of stone glowed lightly at all times, but it felt lacking of a goal; just like he had been. He first shaped it into a spherical bead before carving the necessary runes on it. Once that process was completed, he soaked the whole stone in the concentrated alchemical hardening compound.

While that happened he prepared the necessary materials for the enchantment process. He was glad to have acquired so many Keese bits, to make up for the lack of a material properly carrying the concept of sound with a huge amount of bat-like monsters.

He fished the stone bead from its alchemical bath, the stone had gone dim, appearing not any different from the beads Zoroarks usually wore. The only exception was the almost imperceptible engravings. He quickly started to enchant it, improving the effect of the runes engraved in it. This would shore up the weakness in his illusions.

Magnus looked at the finished object. "Stone Bell, yeah, it's a good name." He hummed and fixed it to his braid, the magic in it would keep it firmly in place while also increasing its toughness as high as possible.

The small chime produced when he swung his waist-long braid made him smile, it signaled he was getting ready to depart soon.

 

[ImpossiBurd]

Another fantastic chapter, I always look forward to these. Being named Traveler is a big deal, but it feels fitting.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 38

With a departure date decided, Magnus quickly got himself into a working frenzy.

His first task was the completion of the bunker, enough space and facilities for the whole of Hateno plus some more people to stay inside comfortably for a week. Magitech easily took care of lighting, fresh air and all kinds of water. There was also a large storage for food, but he would leave that to Reede.

He had taken the man through the place and shown him how to access the installations and the lock & unlock system from the inside. While both knew the situation in Hyrule was slowly growing more dangerous, there was no immediate threat, so the hoarding of resources could take its time.

He also mostly finished with the hangar. Nearly two hundred meters long, more than enough for the ship and some extra. The only thing that was left was actually the hangar door, as the construction and installation of such would take too much time and resources at the moment; it was just safer to leave natural rock at the moment.

And while all the digging accrued him a large amount of nice stone and a few metal deposits, it had also expended all of his store of diamonds as they had been used for the illumination.

A large amount of the stone dug from the mountain was put towards repairing the fort. Thankfully this was done in an afternoon with the units taking care of about ninety percent of the work. Magnus still had to take care of the portcullis and the mechanism that operated it.

He had actually expanded the fort by constructing a set of shelters for any guards that occupied the point. If Hateno and Kakariko decided to go forward with that, he wouldn't be surprised if either the stable moved to the location or a similar kind of settlement grew around it. The area was in the middle of both villages, and with the ash swamp cleaned off derelicts the area could be once again used.

As he neared the time for his departure, Magnus realized that if he had stayed he would have more likely aimed his time towards the construction of public infrastructure. He could easily see himself reworking the roads between the two villages, most likely adopting a multi-layered road design like those of the old Roman roads.

Such works would also lead easily into the installation of a Blue Flame network and the use of said energy source towards illumination of the roads. Well lit roads would most likely increase safety by keeping most small monsters away.

As expected, on the day a hundred and twenty of his second year on Hyrule, the moon that rose was full and bloody. Though on the other hand, its effects were lighter than the one before. He also noticed it during the next day as he took a patrol around the area from early in the dawn until the sun set.

Though if this had weakened the monsters in the area or his skills and weapons had improved enough to make a difference he couldn't tell.

And with a day of constant killing, and plenty of monster's drops looting, the day of departure finally arrived.

"Just use the unlock rune," he told Purah, "it should make the workshop available."

The woman scoffed. "I know, Magnus, you told me multiple times already, and we worked on the system together." She finished with a chuckle. "You can go safely, we'll keep an eye on the house."

Symin nodded. "Will you be heading towards Kakariko Village?" The man asked curiously.

"I'll actually be heading South," he said, "I will be crossing the mountains by Keya Pond and taking the road of Atun Valley. I'm pretty sure there's a ship segment in the area of Lake Floria and another in Lake Hylia. I want to pick them up. I also talked with Kass when he came around last week. The spring of Courage is in the area and I should visit it, even if I may not be able to finish the trial yet."

He thought about it. "There's also Malanya's spring, I should visit the horse deity to keep with the task Cotera asked me to do." He rubbed his chin. "There's a few things I've to do in the area before I head North towards the Hyrule fields, though I don't think I will get anywhere close to the castle yet. Most likely I will go West towards Satori Mountain and head towards the Hebra region, I will have to ask the people of the area."

"And I bet you will fight every monster you come across." Purah joked before smiling and turning serious. "Stay safe."

With nothing else to say, he once again thanked them for their hospitality. It wouldn't be as if they wouldn't be able to talk in a while, the DD network allowed them to just call each other, or even comment in a basic chat function he had put together.

He exchanged a few words and goodbyes with the few people he crossed on his way out of the village, wishing the guards on duty a good day before he finally took the route towards the South.

He made a quick time up to the Firly plateau, he made it to the area North of the Keya Pond in just a few blinks up the cliffs. His mastery of the light-speed movement had improved quite a bit since he had started to use it.

The way through the area was a leisure stroll, there was a surprising lack of monsters in the pond. Thankfully his thirst for battle was sated when he came across one of the tree bases the monsters constructed from time to time.

Since he hadn't been noticed, he decided to take a moment to think how to approach the small monster base. He retrieved Tenlight and took a focusing breath.

One of the things he had done during his week-long stay in the Lanayru Range had been practicing fighting styles. Graceful was in a way the most basic of his weapons, few things could withstand a swing of the blunt weapon. There were still techniques one could carry out with the long, heavy bat, but it was mainly a brute weapon.

Forward, in a way, followed by complexity. The combination of staff and spear it presented both broadened what one could do and also restricted the possible movements. One had to keep a certain minimum distance from their opponent, it lost a lot of power when they came close quarters.

Close and Personal was both the most martial and most primal of his weapons. There was little that felt as good as truly punching someone in the face. The weapon had been given one reforge once he had returned home, the gloves now fit and felt better.

He had found fighting styles for all of them and had been practicing them. But so far only Tenlight brought him the sensation he could start defining his fighting style.

His grip tightened down on the sword's handle, the material creaking almost imperceptibly. A moment later he started running towards the edge of the cliff, jumping and blinking right in between the monsters on the tree base.

"Morning." He whispered and unsheathed his blade.

The three closer monsters had their necks severed. A technique derived from Iaido's instant unsheathing techniques, it combined with his blade's mirage edges. Of course the technique wasn't perfect yet, two more of the nearby Bokoblins only got cuts down the shoulders.

He scoffed at the cries of alarm and rage coming from the multi-colored monsters and prepared the next attack.

"Sun Fall."

A clean, downwards cut that created a forward blade of Light, it concentrated every ghostly blade the weapon created into a one controlled cut that ended multiple monsters in a line. Though it also wasn't perfect, many of these blades had failed to keep in line, even if it had helped by biting into the nearby monsters, it was not the goal of the attack.

In a way it was the opposite of the fan cut he had used on the beach so many weeks before. And he used a moment later to decimate the monsters coming to him.

"Need a name for it." He mused as he kept the cool and cut down the Bokos and Moblins that approached him.

He blinked to a side and replaced the blade for his gloves. Small tongues of fire licked the air as he closed his fists and quickly punched the surprised monsters in their big, ugly faces.

If he had to be honest, the sensation of teeth and bone crunching under his fists didn't bother him. It wasn't like it lasted more than a second before the goblin-like monsters were sent flying from the might of his fists. The intense heat from his attacks worked perfectly in silencing them before the monsters. It also wasn't as if he was pummeling them down into the ground.

He deflected a few of the primitive arrows showing his way with the back of his gloves before he blinked towards the archers. To his surprise he was forced to step back as a Moblin had gotten close enough to try and spear him.

For this he decided to return the favor and replace his gloves for his trident and charge at the Moblin. The sharp teeth of his weapon bit into its neck and kept going to stab the tall and lanky monster through the weapon behind it.

A second thrust had the weapon tore through the already dissipating monster and pierce the next monster. A quick look around notified him that there were no more monsters that could be a danger for him, this meant only red-skinned Bokoblins.

He grinned and decided to try something new. He retrieved his daggers and connected them together before starting to play a haunting tune. It took only a moment for the look of loss in the red Bokoblins was replaced for that of anger and they quickly started to attack each other.

He used a single throwing knife to reward the last standing monster. Having to head down to pick it up made him think he needed a way to quickly recover thrown projectiles. The monster drops were also picked up and stored away as he took five minutes to bring down the wooden structure around the tree.

With that done he went down to the road and finally headed West. It was impressive how the weather changed when he had only left Hateno a few hours earlier. The cold, mountain weather was replaced by a hot and humid tropical jungle.

He expected large trees, palms and lots of mosquitoes. But what he didn't expect was a bridge built upon the massive mangrove-like trees that crossed the lake. The forest in the area had kept him from seeing it until the last moment, and the sight was impressive.

To his right there was a complex of waterfalls, multiple levels created a large number of them. He could see a stable lost between the trees on the other side of the bridge, only the familiar column of smoke signaling its presence.

It almost made him forget about the pair of Lizalfos that were shooting arrows at him from deep within the canopy.

He knew it was not the smartest idea, but he couldn't help but equip Forward and jump away from the arrows, and directly into the water down below.

It took him a moment to get used to the sensation of Water around him. It was so overwhelming and made him feel small for a moment, even if it was technically a very confined region of an already restricted lake, it was many times his size.

He took a deep breath in response and felt no bother as the water simply went down into his stomach, not a drop entering his lungs as he felt the moment pass.

It also helped that a few Lizalfos wielding spears had jumped after him, or maybe they had been in the water already. Thankfully his spear was designed to work as well, if not better, underwater than out of it.

"Ship Segment located."

He grinned and bubbles escaped from between his teeth as he ordered the System to start the process of retrieving the ship as he turned his attention to the lizard monsters. This was a whole new dimension of fun.

---

Purah's finger slid over the screen, the map presented moved according to her wishes. She had to give it to Magnus' System, the map built from his observation was an impressive piece of work.

It was nowhere near complete, only covering the area the young man had observed by himself. It was also interesting how the Lanayru bay region and the South Trilby region were much more complete, apparently the ship segments could scan their surroundings when activated; this was shown by the way it appeared a bigger brush had painted those regions.

She wondered what kind of information she could get once the whole ship was complete, could it scan the whole of Hyrule at once? Maybe deep underground? Could it find the legendary islands hidden in the sky?

Though what caught her interest was how it worked towards marking the man's travel. She could see how he had headed South by the newly uncovered area, and the timeline feature she was allowed access to showed he had already gotten into a fight by the now removed monster base.

"Checking on Magnus?" Symin prompted and she nodded.

"It looks like he arrived at Lake Floria already." She answered as she zoomed in quite a bit, though she quickly noticed something weird. "… and it appears he's fighting Lizalfos, underwater."

"What?" Her assistant rushed to her side to check what she was looking at.

The screen showed the underwater topography of the lake quickly fill up as it was obvious the young man was swimming around frantically. She had to admit it was interesting to see the bottom of the large lake so clearly.

"Are you going to prod him to explain himself?" Symin asked in good humor.

She chuckled. "Not really, he's an adult and can go to fight monsters if he wants." She answered. "Plus I trust he won't go out of his way to fight anything he can't really take down."

"Even a Lynel?" He curiously asked.

She snorted. "I actually think he can fight one. It's the fact that he doesn't actually go out of his way to fight one that makes me trust him." She said.

She dearly hoped she wasn't misplacing her trust, though she was also pretty sure he would soon decide it was time to fight one of those monsters, either to test his skill or in search of materials.

Her thoughts went back to the map and how it filled with Magnus' movements across the land, it made her wonder if she could devise a rune to scan a large area. It was a pretty interesting idea when paired with the design program she had seen him use, while she wasn't truly studied in the matter, she could see how useful it would be.

Maybe take some inspiration from the flying drone and create a survey drone. Get it high enough and it should be able to scan the terrain without problems. Though the question of how to get that information back would need to be properly thought off.

She practically ignored the sound of the door knocking as her assistant would take care of that. Her train of thought was interrupted when Symin spoke.

"Director?"

"Yes?" She asked and turned around, freezing for a moment when her eyes laid on a young Sheikah woman. "Impa?"

The girl looked confused. "I'm Paya, Impa's my grandmother." She corrected her.

"Oh my, you're identical to her in her youth." She hummed and leaned closer before pulling back and smiling. "Nice to see you again, Paya."

"Aunty?" She asked even more surprised than her.

Purah chuckled. "Yeah, it's me. If I remember right it's been almost ten years since we saw each other." She hummed. "I should have really visited before."

Paya still looked lost. "But… how?"

"Symin, would you bring some hot water and the tea leaves Magnus left in the kitchen?" She asked as she turned to her niece, or well, grand-niece. "It's simply, I decided I was tired of being old and saw to fix it." She chuckled.

"… would grandma look like me if you used it on her?" She asked curiously. "Could you use it on her?"

"Yes, she's my sister after all. I was actually thinking of visiting and offering… though I honestly doubt she would take-"

"I will help you convince her." Paya quickly interrupted her. "Grandma's been looking after Kakariko Village practically her whole life. If I'm going to take over for her as the leader she needs to enjoy her time off."

Purah laughed, only stopping to thank Symin for the tea as the young man placed down the teapot and cups.

"You're so different from my sister at her age." She smiled reminiscing. "She was so reserved, even when she was by the princess at all times, she barely expressed herself. Though she did have a fire similar to yours when she got on the warpath."

"So?"

"I will help, it wouldn't be a bad idea to visit." She looked around. "I've been spending way too much time in the lab now that I think about it." She sighed and took a sip of the tea. "Now, what did you bring you?"

The girl quickly retreated into a much more familiar shyness. "Well, I heard Magnus was staying here and I wanted to visit." She admitted as she looked away.

Purah winced. "Sadly you missed him by a day, he left this morning towards the Hebra region."

"But I didn't cross him on the way here." She prompted.

The older woman shook her head. "He headed South towards the Floria Lake region." She explained and the girl just pouted defeated. "Don't worry, you'll see him sooner or later, he's not going to stay away." She kept the fact that they could contact him at any time, mainly because she was pretty sure he was busy underwater. "How about you tell me how my sister's been doing?"

That seemed to cheer the girl. Purah smiled, she could see her sister in her niece, maybe they were right, it was time to get back in contact with Impa.

---

Magnus was having a lot of fun learning to fight underwater, he knew he was nowhere near close enough to what Claire could do. His sister was unparalleled underwater, if you wanted to fight her in a liquid medium you had already lost.

Thankfully the Lizalfos weren't dangerous enemies, even in this position. The Zora enchantment in his clothes allowed him to zip around and he definitely needed less air than the lizard-like monsters.

Forward outdid itself too, there was little as deadly underwater than the pressure of water deciding you were occupying too much space. The water currents around him were as dangerous as they were invisible, more than one attack had ended redirected on one of the other monsters. It didn't matter that the Lizalfos were green or blue, here they were prey.

A random thought made him grin and a small flick of his head had Stone Bell whip around at the end of his braid. Magic fed into the enchantments and runes. Water was such a good medium for sound to travel through.

Magnus watched as the closest monster froze in place before grabbing their heads. He slowly started to dial the wavelength and intensity of the tone he was producing. It didn't take long to see the monsters' eyes roll back and their bodies dissipate into miasma, carried by the currents.

He grinned and focused the same tone on the rest and did quick work of the threat they presented. He doubted anyone would see Lizalfos in the area for some time. He then turned to the spot the ship segment was emerging from the muddy lake bottom.

A wave of Forward cleared the cloud of detritus and revealed a pretty familiar metal box. He quickly directed the System to drive the segment down towards the river fed by the lake; the Floria River would have a good spot for him to emerge. It would also hopefully keep many from wondering what he was doing, it was still quite light outside.

The way down the river was peaceful, it seemed the battle had spooked any lingering monsters. Though he noticed a few Octoroks in the edge of his perception, he decided to ignore them for now.

Soon he reached a river bank that allowed him to step out of the water, a quick cantrip dried him up, though even before that it was already all draining quite quickly.

"What's inside?" He prompted as he moved the segment into the jungle and away from prying eyes as it unlocked.

"Segment contains the ship's main storage."

He could barely wait until the door opened and he could enter. "So what kind of storage are we talking about?"

"Segment contains a physical location of User's inventory to store certain objects and clear space. Segment also contains the basic material production system."

"Wait, what? I thought dad didn't add this!" He didn't remember that part had been installed in the ship, if he had he would have aimed to retrieve it much sooner.

"Changes to ship's design were carried before departure. System's use will still be restricted as segment's power production is not enough to run at full functionality. Complexity and materials will be severely restricted."

He snorted, there was the catch. "How complex are we talking?" He asked as the door finally opened once the seals were lifted.

"System's construction system can't build anything magical or with a definition of under one centimeter in detail."

To him that sounded a bit too arbitrary, most likely it would fail to construct anything that could be considered electronics. Though the idea that he could construct magical materials if it had a source of power was interesting. He once more hated not remembering everything.

The inside of the segment was well lit and looked like a small warehouse, walls of unmarked boxes created a labyrinth. Checking one by one would most likely take too long.

"Do I have access to a list of supplies stored?" His question was answered with a screen opening in front of his eyes, in it there was a proper catalog of everything stored.

He couldn't help but grin as there were indeed a number of very interesting materials, along with goods that could be sold, non-perishable foods, spices, seeds and many other interesting things.

"This will help a lot." He nearly purred in delight as he had plenty of ideas that would benefit greatly from some of the exotic materials in store.

There wasn't much too exotic, but some of the elemental alloys and reagents would be quite useful. The production would also come to cover some of his chemical needs.

"It's almost a shame to put it away…" He stopped talking as he realized he was being quite an idiot. "System, can I store the Segment in my inventory?"

"User's inventory is indeed capable of storing the Ship segment, though said segment will need to be locked while inside."

That was very good, it would mean he could take them with him instead of burying them away, though it also meant he could have at least stored one of them in his inventory. He sighed at the thought, it wasn't the biggest of problems, one was near Kakariko and the other shouldn't be too much trouble.

It was tempting to start working with the new materials, but there was still enough sunlight that he could continue his way. He would head first towards Malanya's spring before visiting the Spring of Courage and then Lake Hylia.

He quickly retrieved a series of metals to experiment in some downtime before he ordered the System to lock the segment and park it in his inventory so he could resume his trip.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 39

Magnus easily found the road by following the edge of the river until he arrived at the bridge that crossed it. Though he didn't take the road, nor he headed North along it. Instead he continued West, crossing the Guchini Plains.

He felt a small temptation to head South towards a Hinox he could see in the distance, the sun was still high enough he could run down and terminate it. But he had gotten his fill for the day and wanted to get to the stable further West to spend the night there.

There wasn't much to catch his eye in the plains, the most interesting thing was a strange pole he passed by. But even that was soon left behind as he arrived at the practically vertical cliff wall. It was tall enough he wouldn't be able to blink to the top at once, thankfully he had improved enough to chain two of them.

Impressively enough it wasn't enough, forcing Magnus to pull his daggers out and stab them into the rock wall. The blades dug into the rock and his fall was quickly arrested. To get more track he unequipped his shoes and used his bare feet to slowly start to climb up.

Stab, step, pull, stab, step, pull.

Bit by bit he climbed the last few meters and easily pulled himself over the edge. He really needed a push to improve on his Blinks, he knew he was doing something wrong. But he honestly couldn't remember what was wrong about it.

He gave the plains below a quick look before resuming his walk towards the stable he could peep in the distance. He wondered if the people knew about Malanya's spring nearby, or had the horse god chosen the area because of the stable.

What he could tell was that the plains below were definitely perfect for the horses that lived on it, he could see many herds of very healthy-looking horses prancing around, laying in groups and just grazing.

Hyrule had multiple old traditions around horses, between them there was the legend of Epona, the legendary hero's ride. The mare apparently reincarnated along the hero, or a horse was born of her lineage at the same time.

Personally, Magnus didn't have much practice with horses, or most wild animals outside of hunting. This was because most animals considered him as a dangerous predator and stayed away. The only difference was shown by fearless animals and a few breeds of dogs. Out of those, most animals quickly got stressed from his presence if they couldn't escape.

Horses hadn't been any different and he had only noticed in hindsight that horses moved away when he arrived at any of the stables he had visited. And now wasn't too different as he noticed the horses peering in his direction. Thankfully none panicked, maybe they felt safer given their numbers, or the god in the vicinity.

The sun was starting to set by the time he entered the stable. The few animals inside didn't react badly enough as he approached the stable master.

"Good evening, welcome to the Highlands Stable. I'm Padok, how can I help you?" The man behind the counter greeted him with the usual familiarity the men owning these small settlements used.

"Hello, I wanted a normal bed for the night, I'm just passing by today." He handed the necessary rupees. "I'm Magnus, any interesting rumors in the area?"

The man put the money away. "Not much, honestly this corner of Hyrule doesn't get much of interest, we've horses and a few ruins further North towards the East. But you've to venture into the deeper vegetation to get anywhere unless you want to try your luck getting to the Dracozu River."

"I will keep it in mind then." He thanked the man before he headed out to sit by the fire.

He wasn't feeling especially hungry, but he may need to eat some of the basic rations he carried in his pack later. A great thing about having had a home for a bit over a season was that he had been able to really experiment with travel rations given Hyrule's ingredients.

Though he wondered if his advance towards the cooking perk had stalled. He was pretty sure he had cooked a bit of everything, though his diet had been quite light on meat outside of fish. Maybe he will try to cook some more red meat in the future.

"Evening traveler." A man slightly older than him greeted him as he sat. "New around these parts?"

He nodded. "Evening, and yeah, passing by on a larger trip."

"Then it's a pleasure, I'm Blynne, I'm one of the people taking care of the horses here."

He shook the man's hand. "Magnus, Traveler."

"Any good at riding horses, Magnus?" The man prompted with an almost superior tone.

"Not really," he laughed, "actually most animals are a bit scared of me." He chuckled and pointed to how the horses in the pens stood in the furthest corner to him.

"...Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

Magnus chuckled. "It's okay, it's happened my whole life. We think it's something about my bloodline," and it was almost true too, "so I give them their space and I keep mine."

"If it's not horses, what brings you to this area?" The man asked. "Because there's honestly not much."

"Well, I was actually looking to visit a fountain I was told was nearby." He decided to keep it vague for now.

"Hmm… The only fountain I can think of is that of the legends, they say the god Malanya hides in the mountains to the South. But I don't think anyone has ever gone to check." He told him.

"Then I'll have to check." With his words, the conversation moved more onto rumors.

Even down here the situation was growing more dangerous, some Bokoblins had taken to capturing horses and using them as steeds to mount raiding parties. So far they had kept the roads North, but if Magnus was going to head towards that direction later, he would need to see about doing something about those.

Soon the sun set completely and it became night, the fire was fed and many people soon joined the area to eat. In most stables dinner was a community activity, Magnus hadn't shared many, though he hadn't truly stayed in many either.

He shared a few words with some of the other travelers and merchants that were staying before retiring for the night, he decided that two rounds of sleep for a total of four hours would be enough. Once that had passed he thanked the woman that had been taking Padok's position for the hour and headed out with the excuse of wanting to have a good time for the day.

The woman had been surprised, but wished him well as Magnus headed West following the road as it bordered the lake until he reached a point where the road split. There he headed down as he could see it went up the mountains and back East.

It was still dark enough all he had to deal with were a few skeletal enemies that fell easily to his blade, Light consumed their skulls as the morning light cleared the dawn's fog. It still took him the better part of an hour to get all the way to the end of the valley after an old bridge. Honestly it wasn't a surprise that no one had visited in a while.

The fountain wasn't had to find, being located in the valley's dead end. It looked practically identical to the other two he had visited. Though it couldn't really disguise the Death he could feel from it, Malanya definitely had some kind of necromantic ability, or similar enough. It was almost familiar if he could say.

He stepped up the mushroom stairs and a hand popped out, it was familiar, though much more androgynous compared to that of the Great Fairies.

"Oh traveler, it's been a long time since one like yo… you feel strangely familiar, traveler. Have you visited before?" The ethereal voice was also not feminine, it was deep and hoarse.

"I've visited Cotera and Mija's spring before to refill their energies. You must be feeling my energy spreading through the land." He answered. "I'm Magnus."

"Oh... what brings you to my spring? I certainly can't feel any connection between you and those under my purview."

"Same reason." He answered and chuckled. "Cotera asked me to help all the fountains on Hyrule." He grabbed Malanya's hand with both of his own. "Now prepare yourself."

And with little more warning than that he started to channel his mixed energies and pour them into the divinity. Instantly he felt the difference between them and the Great Fairies. The hole was so much deeper, so deep he could hear bones rattling in the depths.

Trying his luck, he opened his eyes to the magic in the area and the fountain glowed in purples and yellows, it drank greedily from his Darkness and Light. Thankfully he had more than enough to give, and pushing himself to produce more and more was always helpful as long as he didn't overdo it.

"Stop, stop, that's enough!" Malanya pulled their hand back, their voice nearly cracked as the bulb started to pump with pure magic as it finally bloomed.

The fountain was darker, purple petals that would scare more than one into keeping a distance. Then came the bubbling water and rattling noises as out came Malanya.

Taller than any of the great fairies, though they were all bones and quilt, not even skin was left of the god outside of their perfectly manicured hands. Their long spine rattled as they shook the excess of magic, Light and Darkness practically being shed off as their horse mask twisted and turned a few times; not that he managed to catch sight of any skull behind it.

He recognized the mask's design, though it wasn't perfect, it appeared very similar to some of the styles used by the indigenous people from multiple parts of Africa, though he could see a few hints of Voodoo influences.

Malanya shivered more. "Ohh... that was some of the strongest injection of energy I've had in a long time." They then looked at him. "There's still something familiar about you outside of your energy."

Magnus only needed a moment to think about it. "Well… I'm ghostly nobility," he admitted with an awkward chuckle, "my uncle's King of the Infinite Realms, and his younger sister is the mother of my two siblings."

He was pretty sure the horse god blinked at that. "I think I remember hearing about the Infinite Realms, but it's not why you came here."

He shook his head. "No, awakening you was my goal and that's done."

Malanya tapped the bottom of their mask in contemplative thought. "I can't let you go without a boon for your deed, but you don't have a connection to any horse I could help with."

He chuckled. "Animals tend to prefer to stay away from me, I think it's the predator side." He grinned, revealing the sharpened fangs from his beast form as his ears stretched and grew furry.

"But you wouldn't hurt any horse, right? Otherwise I would have to deal with you." The horse god thrust themselves forward, hands open as if to attack. But a moment later they pulled back and eerily laughed. "I'm kidding, though I've got an idea. If you promise to not inflict any suffering on a horse I will let those that live in this land know that you're safe."

He nodded, not needing to think about it. He wasn't going to hurt a horse, he was pretty sure there was no reason to at all. "I promise I will do my best to not inflict any suffering on a horse, and help them if I see the possibility."

Malanya nodded and tapped on his head. "It's done, don't betray my trust, or else…" They leaned forward once more before pulling back and laughing. A moment later they fell into the pond like a puppet whose strings were cut.

He could only chuckle and decide the horse god was either very bored, or they were a dramatic one.

With that done, he started the way back to the stable, the night was starting to lighten already.

---

He didn't notice much activity in the stable by the time he passed, people were definitely up now that light was increasing. But most people appeared to be taking things slow as he continued his way North.

Though he did not follow the road, instead cut his way short by walking along the West side of the lake he had passed by earlier and made his way through the plains. And while the horses indeed didn't look as afraid of him as they were before, he could tell it wasn't a unanimous opinion if they had any.

Though the real problem was the sight of Bokoblins on horses, the animals definitely didn't look too happy about them. But they didn't seem capable of getting them off their backs as they had practically tied themselves to their steeds.

Luckily they hadn't seen him yet, giving him enough time to think of a quick plan. He retrieved his bow and a quiver of normal arrows as he swung Stone Bell while channeling his Darkness through the sound.

It was still early enough that the magical fog of darkness snuck up on the monsters and the horses, quickly enveloping the area in an unnatural and confusing darkness as he drew the bow, aimed at the furthest monsters' large head and let it soar. He quickly grabbed the next and quickly took them out one by one.

The darkness didn't just confuse and befuddle them, it also muffled all noises, making the monsters incapable of noticing the fall of their comrades until there was none. In addition, it also kept the horses from being spooked, leaving them free to wander off once he got the illusion to break.

He considered this keeping his word to the god, so he kept going until he reached the road. If he remembered right the forest ahead was called the Faron Woods, he honestly doubted there was no connection between Faron and Farore if the goddess of Courage had a spring in the near area.

As he headed East, the weather quickly went from the temperate plains to a heavy and hot jungle. Palm trees, vines and so many types of plants and bushes that he felt tempted to take a sample of every plant around, though he would resist the urge until he had the ship back together and he could plant the samples.

His advance was stopped when he found a small group of Blue Bokoblins camping on the bridge. They had constructed a set of primitive barricades from obviously fallen branches and roughly felled trees. Unfortunately for him, this time the monsters had had enough foresight to set their base in a spot that allowed them to see him before he saw them and had quickly started to attack him.

He quickly blinked to cover behind a tree as he cursed having not made a shield yet. He had counted easily a dozen Bokoblins of the same color, though nothing discarded the possibility of being deeper in the trees.

Close & Personal found themselves on his hands, the gloves feeling more like an extension of himself after their reforge, it was as if he always had an extra layer on his hands. On top of that they should be able to change forms with him if he felt like it.

With little more planning, he ran out of cover and rushed towards the barricades, punching the few arrows that would have gotten to him, the metallic plates on his gloves shielding him.

Magnus jumped over the obstacle and rained his punches down towards the Bokoblins. Several thumps resounded as their skulls bounced on the bridge's surface, a few of the blue-skinned monsters having caught fire from his gloves' flames.

His next blink worked to get him away from the flying projectiles and get between one of the archer groups. He assumed a boxer's stand and solidified his posture before breaking the Bokoblins' face in, all while Stone Bell chimed with Light to create a basic mirage.

Suddenly the area appeared to have been reflected through a funhouse mirror or through a glass of water. Arrows flew off course as the monsters weren't smart or skilled enough to make up for what they saw. He, on the other hand, could easily see through the illusion.

He grabbed the last of the Blue Bokoblins in his vicinity by the leg and went with an old and tested tradition. Fire spread over the monster as he swung him like a blunt instrument to smack the other targets. Its screams of pain went ignored as he threw it hard enough at the last few Bokos before assuming a more martial stance.

His fist was brought down to his waist, a breath in, fueled the flames before he punched with a powerful kiai. A fireball was shot straight forward, flying true and ending the already heavily damaged Bokoblins.

Magnus took a moment to survey the area before relaxing, no monster was left. His fire had done some damage to the area, though it was mostly localized on the poorly made barricades. He quickly threw them over the bridge's edge and into the river, the water would snuff out the flames.

He collected the few monster bits that had survived the fire, if this was the welcoming committee he knew it would get worse the deeper he went into the jungle.

The weather drew hotter and more humid, the paths less defined. If it wasn't for the System's mapping ability he could see himself easily getting lost, even if he just followed the river.

It surprised him a bit to find ruins all over the place, and not just hidden by the vegetation or laying on the jungle's floor. But many still stood up, large monoliths of carved stone. They were positively ancient. They were everywhere too, made him wonder if they had been constructed in the jungle or had this grown around them.

From what he had read, in some of the many books he had transcribed, the ruins were believed to have been constructed by a race called the Zonai. Not much was known or remembered from them, barely a small number of ruins dotted the land in some areas. With a style that reminded Magnus of the Aztecs in the way they carved stone into the figures of serpents, though given the dragons that inhabited Hyrule, they could very well be the dragons that flew around.

Though the constant rustling he could hear and the Miasma that accumulated in the undergrowth left it clear that monsters were copious in the area and he couldn't stop to study the ruins further.

Magnus jumped back to dodge a couple of Lizalfos' tongues, just in time to see them hit the ground and spark like live wires. Before he could locate their source they had retreated and the monsters moved away still camouflaged.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, but before he could react a large, yellow Chuchu sprouted from a hole in the ground and released a massive electrical discharge that made him tense momentarily.

"Fuck-" He groaned as he forced a Blink away as he started to change.

His clothes shifted on his body, the sleeves retreated up his arms, it loosened around his chest and legs, while at the same time it tightened around his neck, waist and ankles. His shoes turned into sandals, his toes grew into purple claws that dig into the soft and fertile ground. His hands turned into bestial claws. Finally his hair sharpened and his hair filled up, a braided mane hanging from the back. Stone Bell started to sway from side to side, each chime sending a wave of low frequency to act as a radar of sorts.

It took his mind a moment to get used again to a technique he hadn't practiced in over a year, but soon his vision gained a new layer of understanding as the information was properly parsed. Everything gained a new depth as he could almost see around objects and peer at what was behind them. It wasn't just a mental map of the area, instead, density gained colors and weight in what he saw.

It was much easier to dodge the flying boomerang sword that came at him from behind; he allowed it to pass before using the expected trajectory to ambush the Lizalfos that had thrown it. The yellow-scaled monster looked surprised to have been found.

It raised its oblong shield to cover himself, but it was ineffective as darkness wrapped around Magnus' claws. The shield was hit and practically shot off the lizard's hands fast enough he could hear its fingers break. The other claws came down, creating gashes of darkness that cut through the monster's face and chest.

While monsters in Hyrule were made of miasma and darkness, his own wasn't the same. The injuries practically bubbled as the hidden element of Light started to eat away at the monster, feeding on the available energy to hollow his enemy out and ending it. But by then he had already moved away.

His darkness spread through the shadows of the jungle's floor, darkening them more and allowing Magnus to sneak towards his next target. The next Lizalfos wielded a spear and was constantly sparkly, almost expecting to get attacked.

It didn't matter much for Magnus as he dodged a random tongue while channeling his Darkness with a twisted intent. The monster was surprised when the spear was snatched off its hands, and even more when it was flung at them from another direction, wrapped in darkness to hide its presence until it hit the monster's neck.

The remaining Lizalfos had gotten smarter, because the three of them had joined together to mount a better defense.

Magnus equipped Graceful and the bat thrummed. A vicious and bloodthirsty grin appeared on his face as flakes of Darkness floated off his fur.

To surprise the Lizalfos he rushed them, the metal bat held sideways before swinging with all of his might. The lizard in the front could barely react in time, even as it released a shock of electricity, all he could feel was a tickle.

The impact folded the monster in half and kept going, grazing the monster furthest away and hitting the last one nearly as strongly as the first. Their bodies launched away from the spot they had been standing from the amount of power used in his attack.

Darkness concentrated on Magnus' free hand before being flung out in a ball of purple glowing with a dark light before it was flung at the grazed Lizalfos, practically consuming its head as the body fell headless to the ground already breaking apart.

He stood there, breathing deeply as he tried to calm himself from the excitement of the fight, a grin still upon his lips. He quickly retrieved one of the healing elixirs and downed it to expedite the fixing of the damage caused by electricity.

"Coming here really was a good idea." He chuckled as he could hear the rustling increase, it seemed the fight hadn't gone amiss in the monsters inhabiting the area.

"Come! I will end you!" He taunted and prepared to fight for every step of his way.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 40

Claire woke up to the familiar sensation of water pressure on her body. The young nineteen year old woman floated off her back and cracked her back. She quickly reviewed the happenings in the hour she closed her eyes.

She grumbled a bit as a few of her helpers had noticed pirate and marine activity. A sigh escaped her lips and the pressure on her increased to the point most bodies would have been reduced to a marble, she quickly dispelled it before the things in her small house were reduced to dust, again.

She walked out of the building, taking a moment to observe the Ryugu Kingdom. She had spent a few months in the World and already liked the place. Especially after she cleaned up the few problems there were.

She hadn't arrived in the kingdom on her first day, but she was pretty sure most didn't wander the bottom of the Grand Line to get from island to island. The inhabitants of the fishman island had also not been the first fishmen, nor mermen, she had met since she had arrived. Though most stayed away from the stranger practically waking through Sea King-infested waters as if they were decorative fishes.

It helped that most Sea Kings also kept their distance from her, they could instinctively feel she was the Abyssal Titan, which really synergized with her legendary beast form. Thankfully she had cleared things up when she had arrived in the Ryugu Kingdom and they had had no other choice than talk to her.

She may not have her father's unnatural charisma, but no one could say her mother didn't also have a way with words. After helping with a few rowdy pirates and stopping an assassination attempt, she had been welcomed to the kingdom and quickly climbed into a role of protector of the waters surrounding the island.

It especially helped when she decided to clean Sabaody off all the slavers, those disgusting pieces of- her train of thought was interrupted as the water around her grew dark, murky and filled with things that shouldn't even see the darkness of the bottom of the ocean.

A storm worthy of the end of Paradise assaulted the archipelago and all slavers disappeared into the night. All shackles rusted down to nothing. Tattoos, marks and deeds of ownership were washed away by the waves and the rain. Safes were left open, secret deposits revealed, boats ready to sail left unattended. Slaves no one had seen before showed themselves more than capable of organizing people and taking them out into the sea where currents took them quickly home before anyone could react.

And with slavery not being legal, the World Government could do no more than scoff, grumble and look aside. At least officially, they had sent that light guy. She didn't want to say the old dude was pathetic, but with three family members capable of making Light bend to their wishes, the admiral was so straightforward it hurt.

It hurt him mostly, as in she had sent him flying into the deep void of space. She wasn't sure if he had managed to come back or what, he may have hit one of the floating islands if he was lucky, or the moon. A water mirror had been all she needed, and that was something she had learned to do when she was four to deal with her siblings.

She chuckled as she made way to the royal castle, unfortunately she wasn't going to entertain the princess this time. She walked in through the front, greeting the guards who smiled warmly at seeing her before she headed down one of the less used corridors.

Two knights standing guard by the door greeted her and allowed her to enter the large room. A tall mako shark mermaid turned to look at her, a warm smile on her lips turned mischievous. "So you've finally come to force me to scry the future?" She said in a fake-hurt tone. "You should know you can't make me change my opinion of you by keeping me in this golden cage."

Claire raised an eyebrow as she looked at the woman, then the impressively open set of windows, back to the mermaid and finally laughed. "Still sore about me wrecking the future?" She teased.

The woman scoffed insincerely before laughing too. "Good morning, Claire, what brings you by? Someone is going to start trouble again?"

"I'm good, Shyarla. Just noticed some suspicious activity and wanted the opinion of the royal fortune teller." Her words made the mermaid chuckle.

The title was mainly for show, not that Shyarla wasn't capable of telling the future, she was actually one of the strongest fortune tellers in the World by a wide margin as far as Claire had found. But no one besides her really asked her to look into the future, the title was given so she could be paid a very sizable salary that went into an orphanage she had been overseeing before she had met Claire.

There was also the fact that Claire had thrown nearly all of her predictions out of the window by just being her. But that's another story.

"Hmm… let me check." The shortfin mako mermaid floated over to her crystal ball and peered into it. "… You're right, it looks like they are trying to restart the whole slavery business on the archipelago… and they captured a pair of young fish men as part of their batch of slaves."

Red lines spread over her body, a pair of glowing rings formed behind her hands.

"I see… well, it looks like I'm out to teach them once more a lesson." She spoke very calmly. "Take care Shyarla, and say hi to the kids of the orphanage for me."

"Take care, and you should come, they like your stories." The mermaid replied and waved her goodbye.

Claire made sure to pass the word through the knights of the castle that she would be heading out. Mainly because she didn't want the queen angry at her, the woman would have wanted to come out too and one assassination attempt on her life was one too many.

She stepped out of the large bubble and back into the open ocean, her body changing quickly.

Her skin quickly dyed blue in its majority as her hair lengthened and straightened, changing to match the color pattern of her body. Her hands grew larger, almost into a mix of paw and fin and the red ring on the back of her hand grew lines that connected to her now white fingers. Her eyes grew completely dark except for the bright yellow iris, her siblings always joked that it made her look goth.

Invisible underwater, a set of dozen spheres of water formed, growing denser and denser by the second. Once she stood far enough away from the bubble that protected the city she flapped her arms.

The woman was launched towards the surface so fast water opened up for her.

---

Rayleigh couldn't say he loved his life, but he certainly lived well. He spent most of his days as drunk as he could be in Shakky's bar and all he needed to do was take care of the unruly sort that visited the Sabaody Archipelago.

It was certainly much easier now that the slavers had been dealt with, though having witnessed what happened that night… Rayleigh could admit he would prefer to have been blind. He wondered how many people had been by the sights. He was an old hand at the terrors of the sea, but there were things no one should ever know.

The sound of the door's bell made him turn, not entirely surprised to see a young runner rushing to Shakky and handing her a piece of paper in exchange for some bells. The woman read through it, sighed and served herself a glass of something he was pretty sure was her strongest stock.

"It's for you." She handed him the paper and he didn't lose a moment reading it.

He snapped his tongue against his teeth.

Someone was trying to restart the whole slave business, as if the disappearance of a few hundred people, a few World Nobles between them, wasn't enough of a warning of what happened when they tried. He would even bet they had been stupid enough to try their hands at a fishmen or two, or worse a mermaid.

"I will be back later." He said out loud.

The woman snorted. "If the place's still standing you get the cheapest drink on the menu on me." She muttered as she chewed on her cigarette, stressed.

He wouldn't be surprised if the stores would soon be closing their doors for the day and barricading themselves. He headed directly to Area 1, not even doubting that anyone stupid enough to try to restart the business was as dull as an unsharpened crayon.

The old auction house was gone, though someone had seen to expedite the construction of a new one.

"Idiots." He scoffed, it would be gone by the next day, or even by nighttime.

A rotund pirate wearing too much jewelry laughed and turned to him. "Wuahahaha A client! It looks like the reopening of the Human Auction House has gotten out! Don't worry, you will soon be able to buy all your necessities here!" He advertised in a slimy tone.

"I'm not a client, I'm here to remind you what will happen if you try this shit," he told the man in a tired tone, "maybe if you free the slaves and get in dogeza you will get out of the island with your heads still attached to your bodies. Because I don't want to get my clothes wet in another infernal storm just because you thought you could be smarter than the rest."

The pirate-merchant looked insulted. "Those are hearsay! Just a fabrication to stop good and earnest merchants from doing with coins here! I bet you locals just want to keep all the money for yourself!"

Rayleigh raised an eyebrow. "What we locals want is the sea not deciding the archipelago's not worth the space it occupies. Are you an idiot or are they paying you enough to shut your damn brain off?"

"Bah! It's all legends, as if the sea could be angry." The pirate laughed once more. "Buahahaha, once I get the business restarted the World Nobles will return and shower us with money!"

He shook his head, he had seen things in the later part of Paradise that made him believe the ocean could easily hate you, and more than once in history had waves decided to wash away whole islands that had been considered impregnable fortresses.

Before he could kick the idiot, Rayleigh felt a ping far away, it was coming. He could only sigh and step back to watch.

"I tried to warn you." He turned around and walked away

"Uh?" The pirate let in confusion. "See! All a fabrication, now that I'm not buying what you're selling you're giving up! Buahahahaha!"

He could hear something shoot out of the water at speeds fast enough there was an explosion before it impacted the ground a couple dozen meters away and created a huge crater.

Before the dust cleared, a feminine figure of shiny blue, white and red walked out of the hole and headed towards the pirates. She looked like an angry goddess here to smite the sinful and the dozen blue jewels like a massive halo behind her only fed onto the image of divinity as she walked with the surety of someone that owned the seas.

This was the second time he had seen her. Most of his knowledge came from the rumors that got to the archipelago from those that visited the underwater kingdom but didn't manage to pass to the second half of the Grand Line. Many said she was some kind of legendary Zoan, capable of ignoring the sea weakness and walking underwater even in her human form.

But Rayleigh was pretty sure there was no fruit that would make anyone ignore that, the best many could do was float up when in contact with water. Or at most move slightly if they were still majorly dry. For this young woman the sea wasn't a weakness, it was her strength.

"What do you think you're doing?" Her voice reverberated in the area and the old man could feel the relief coming from inside the auction house. Had she broadcasted her voice out on purpose?

"And who do you think you are? Trying to butt-in into the market I own? Good luck, I got here first! Buahahah-" The man stopped talking as he visibly started to fight to breathe.

He also visibly started to dry up so fast parts of its body broke into dust and fell off.

"Slavery is forbidden." Her voice boomed and it wasn't as much as she stated a fact, but a reminder to everyone.

Rayleigh winced as he felt another person arriving and knew things were about to get dicey.

"Terror of the deep, bounty one billion bellies, by the authority vested on me by the World Government, you're under arrest." The figure of Admiral Sakazuki spoke slowly as he chewed on his cigar. "Please resist." He added with a grin.

The woman tilted her head. "You know you can do nothing to me, right?" The woman spoke with a surety that Rayleigh hadn't heard from many outside of his late captain and a tiny few.

"I've seen scarier men that you try to resist." The admiral started to shift into his Logia form, magma wrapping around his exposed human body. "I will show you the might of Abso-"

But before he could finish speaking one of the jewel spheres behind the woman rippled, a blue laser cut through the distance between the two fighters in an instant. It took even Rayleigh by surprise, especially because he realized the jewels were made of water, sea water, and Sakazuki's arm had fallen to the ground.

It wasn't a lethal injury for a Logia user, not even a permanently debilitating one. But since the damage had been done with sea water he was definitely weakened as it would take time to heal.

"That was one straight attack, can you deal with two? Four? Twelve?" She asked calmly, but her tone turned dangerous as she continued speaking. "More?" As she spoke more jewels formed behind her, the number rising very quickly.

The Admiral growled in response, grabbing the stump on his arm.

"Leave." She offered and Rayleigh honestly hoped the man would leave. But he knew the admiral had too much ego to retreat.

His growls were loud and twisted, it sounded more like an active volcano than a man. His figure quickly started to expand and the ground melted.

"By the power invested in me," he spoke slower, definitely in pain, "and for the crimes you have committed against the World Government and the World Nobles, I will bring you down, scum."

Rayleigh was pretty sure he was witnessing the awakening of a very powerful Devil Fruit, already cursing and thinking how to shield the rest of the archipelago from the damage it would cause.

"So this is how you want to do it?" She asked, sounding completely nonplussed. "Okay, let everyone know you started this."

And in front of those few witnesses that remained, she started to grow. She quickly matched the height of the smallest of the Giants he had met and kept going for a few more meters. Her visage grew more bestial and beautiful at the same time.

Rayleigh could see a small number of Sea Kings congregating off the coast to watch. He wondered how they saw her. What did they see her as?

Her figure was as if a whale had grown arms and legs, though her proportions kept her looking correct and human. She exhaled and the whole area vibrated as a massive, circular gate of stone appeared out of thin air behind her back, replacing the halo of sea water spheres.

She only raised her massive hand and clenched her fist.

Water rose from the ocean and any exposed body of water, like titanic snakes that decided to hunt the man that had threatened their master. The admiral fought valiantly, using the intense heat of his body to evaporate as much of the liquid as possible. But the columns of steam that rose from their contact only fed back into the water..

More and more water wrapped around his figure, the rock quickly cooling and the man's screams of anger completely muffled. The sphere of clear water kept growing until no more water was fed.

Only then the almost divine being clenched their fist harder and the sphere of water reduced its size by half. A second passed and the sphere reduced again to half, the human-shaped figure of stone inside cracked before it reduced again and again. The rock broke down and started to shrink, compressed down until all that was left was a single, perfect sphere of the darkest obsidian.

The woman shrunk down to normal as she walked towards the sphere. Her steps cooled the still hot and half-melted ground as she lifted the sphere of hardened minerals as if it didn't weigh more than a soft ball and flung it off into the distant ocean.

Rayleigh couldn't help but chuckle, an admiral had been so easily dealt with. He wondered how much of what she had shown was actually necessary, and how much was shown, a scare for those that tried.

He knew the admiral was in no way weak. But in a world where every Devil Fruit feared the ocean, the woman was indeed an undefeatable goddess.

He only watched her wander towards the auction house, it surprised him to see the slaves already waiting outside, free from their bindings. He was pretty sure no one had helped them out except for…

The old man threw his head back and laughed, that sonnofa-, he turned and wandered away, back to Shakky's bar. The woman had used the talk and show of power to stall while she freed the slaves. She took her time because she wasn't even truly paying attention.

He walked into the Rip-Off bar and smirked as he saw a glass filled with the cheapest rotgut on the archipelago waiting for him-

"So?" Shakky prompted.

"Good news? Sabaody stands for another day and the slavers are dealt with." He answered as he sipped on the swill of a drink. "Bad news? The World Government can't hate her any harder from having turned one of their admirals into a paper weight and flinging the remains into the ocean."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Who bit it?"

"Sakazuki."

She snorted. "Good riddance."

"I drink to that." Rayleigh cheered and downed the rest as he cackled.

He pondered if he should approach the woman to talk, so far she hadn't shown any disdain for pirates, only those particularly troublesome. And she was usually kind enough to send them back to the surface if they would have died once they crossed over.

What he really wondered was where had she come from? And if there were more like her.

---

Magnus watched the Wizzrobe's body break away as it fell with the Lizalfos shield embedded in its chest. It had taken a bit to figure out their disappearing trick, but their whole pond ripple step in the middle of the air was too much of a weakness to not be seen through.

The lizard monsters' shields turned to be excellent weapons against them, as they were made of metal, they attracted the lightning magic the magic-using monsters used quite well. It had just taken a bit of practice to understand how to fling the deformed seashell-shaped shields to make sure the spikes dug into the magic monster's bodies.

Honestly the packs of Chuchus and Keese they summoned were more of a danger. While the smaller threats didn't exactly hurt him, the electricity they released on impact made his body tense. By now he was pretty sure he was adapting to the constant electric shocks, they certainly didn't freeze him for as long as they did before.

At least the pile of monster bits and Lightning Rods in his inventory was a nice addition, he had a few ideas on how to use those. He had also started a second pile of exotic ingredients and seeds, it turns out the jungle area was full of edible and pretty powerful reagents. Though he was still doubting about trying the durian, he was pretty sure it was a durian. And while he knew the fruit to be delicious, his nose never agreed with the smell.

The biggest reward had been finding a couple of big Heart Radish that were seeding. So far he had only seen the stalks they produced flowering, this one had gone past that. Instead of a flower there was a heart-shaped, cherry-red seed shell.

It had been a great surprise when he found how they spread their seeds, literally as the heart shells exploded on contact. The explosion was such that he had only found a few seeds, the rest flung off into the far distance too fast for normal people to even see.

The process was also final for the plant, as it released a wave of short-lived healing energy and the root shriveled up and died. It wasn't a bad system, it also encouraged animals to pop the shells and get peppered with seeds so they would spread them around.

He had much more luck with the next one he found as he captured practically all of the seeds by encasing the heart shell with two bowls before making it pop.

He honestly doubted it would grow anywhere not in the wild or under a controlled and energy-fed environment like his ship's greenhouse. It wasn't a surprise they were hard to find, he could imagine there was a need for large plots of wild land to feed even one plant.

Along with the Hearty Radish he had found lots of edible mushrooms, several types of fruits and a number of pretty interesting plants. He had seen to grab seeds of any that he could, he would have to return in the future for more samples.

Thankfully he had finally made it to the spring, though the sun was already setting. Fighting every monster on the way had definitely taken a toll on his time. The spring's entrance was inside a large stone dragon head. It was frankly impressive to think the stone still stood up to time, even more that the massive fangs still hung there.

Though he decided to take a small break before advancing, to have a little snack.

He could feel the spring deeper into the ruins, the power was similar to the other two he had felt, though it was definitely more powerful than what he suspected was the Spring of Power, but that may just be the distance from where he had felt it.

The thing was that this one was almost hidden by the jungle and all the Life that saturated the area, while the Spring of Wisdom had been on such an open and high spot all of its presence was lost into the sky.

He drank some fresh water and cleaned himself a bit before deciding to head in. It was time to learn what his second test was.

 

[Krazyfan1]

so his sister has Kyogre abilities.
Neat.

 

[Melakias]

so his sister has Kyogre abilities.
Neat.

Click to shrink...

And his brother is still the scariest of the bunch, imagine that.

 

[Jordisk]

And his brother is still the scariest of the bunch, imagine that.

Click to shrink...

Well, his sister is the daughter of two moms, right? So, like Magnus, she only has one conceptually-overpowered parent. Meanwhile his brother would be the son of the Princess of Ghosts and the King of Crafts, to the point I half expect him to have biokinetic abilities as a kind of inverse of his mother's ghostliness (and I think Rick's, too. Didn't he get a half-ghost state as one of his perks?).

Or I could be wrong and the two girls produced a boy together (unlikely but possible because CF Bullshit), in which case he is the son of the two ladies that KEEP UP WITH THE CELSTIAL FORGE.

 

[Melakias]

Well, his sister is the daughter of two moms, right? So, like Magnus, she only has one conceptually-overpowered parent. Meanwhile his brother would be the son of the Princess of Ghosts and the King of Crafts, to the point I half expect him to have biokinetic abilities as a kind of inverse of his mother's ghostliness (and I think Rick's, too. Didn't he get a half-ghost state as one of his perks?).

Or I could be wrong and the two girls produced a boy together (unlikely but possible because CF Bullshit), in which case he is the son of the two ladies that KEEP UP WITH THE CELSTIAL FORGE.

Click to shrink...

It gets explained more later.

Spoiler: basically

Milo's indeed a biokinetic, along with soul and mind control at similar levels, and no, it's not touch-based. And Milo and Claire are technically 1/4 ghost, got a few abilities by inheritance, but not a transformation, and their other abilities kinda overshadow those few.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 41

Magnus walked into the massive stone maw, admiring the ancient work of the ruins. It was much more impressive from up close. The 'throat' of the dragon was actually where the spring was, the broken columns made him wonder if there had been some kind of ceiling over the area once upon a time. Now it was just the clear sky above.

The spring was similar to the one on top of Mount Lanayru, a large spring with a statue of the Goddess on an altar. While the Wisdom spring was bereft of any vegetation, this one had two massive and very obviously magical trees.

He could feel the two of them practically observing him from their spots, it made him wonder just how old they were, or did they die and were reborn every few centuries?

Unfortunately he wasn't his brother and couldn't just step up to any random rock and ask them how the day was and get an answer. Milo's charisma just worked on another level. But Magnus could see about asking the Great Deku Tree if he visited the spirit.

It was hard to pinpoint the presence he had felt previously, but not so much as if it had disappeared, but more because it covered everything in the area; it suffused it.

He stepped forward and sank a foot into the water, walking towards the old Goddess statue.

Traveler, you who have come afar

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, he was also hearing it not with his ears. It was also a voice he couldn't really compare to the one he had heard on top of the mountain, so he couldn't say if it was one of the three Goddesses or something else.

You who have completed the first test

Even if the Spring didn't lack a ceiling, he would have not missed how the night sky started to darken and darken. Heavy and deep clouds of pure black covered the heavens.

Stand Courageous against the attendant who wields the Lightning

A powerful thunder rumbled in the sky, drawing Magnus' eyes towards the glowing figure of Farosh. The dragon of white and yellow swam in and out of the storm clouds, lightning spreading through the clouds starting from its body. They bore one magnificent horn from which lightning ran down towards the land.

He felt it as the power discharged into the ground not far from the ruin's entrance. Such might and he had to stand to it. He felt excited.

Magnus stepped out of the spring and could see the spot the lightning had landed. It wasn't just the burnt ground. It wasn't the magical lightning that still crawled over the rain puddles. It wasn't the crater produced by the explosive power.

It was how the crater had revealed a monolith that had risen off the spot. It was made of polished obsidian, a smooth and mirror-like sheen only interrupted by the same lightning crawling up and down its height.

He looked up, the dragon still weaving in and out of the clouds, obviously waiting for him to get into place. It made him wonder if others had gone through this before, the monolith was quite altar-like.

He blinked onto the altar and got ready, there was no need to ask questions in this, it was a test of Courage after all. He took a deep breath and looked up.

"Bring it."

It couldn't be said if the dragon heard his words, or simply knew it was time. The serpentine figure flew up into the clouds until there was not a scale visible, but the clouds grew heavier, charged up with electricity. The darkness light up as electricity saturated the clouds.

It was hard to miss what was coming. He could hear the sparkles as the dragon fed the imbalance further and further, until it peeked down and all that charge concentrated on their horn. And down it came, landing right on him.

The time it took the lightning to travel between the horn of the dragon and the monolith felt like an eternity. It allowed Magnus to think about what he was doing, almost wondering if he was going a bit too far, or maybe was being a bit too self-destructive. He hadn't taken any elixir against this kind of thing, but he honestly doubted any kind of potion could actually deal with what was coming. All he could do was center himself and let the power go through him.

The distance didn't take an eternity, it didn't take a moment, nor a fraction of things. One moment all that power had been accumulated on the sky, the next there was a perfect path down, and all the power rushed through it.

Night became day, and the lightning was visible from very far away, the thunder was heard soon after. Many animals in the vicinity just fell to the ground dead, the sonic explosion being more than what they could deal with. Their insides cooked or ruptured, brains practically turned off or mushed.

But Magnus stood untouched, surprised as he hadn't closed his eyes, nor had been blinded by the light. He still stood in place on top of the monolith, the area around it had become even more carbonized as the Lightning, capital very much earned, had just gone around him. It was practically glass, any dirt burned away and the leftover sand and stone melted.

He looked at the monolith, patted and felt it still warm. He theorized it must create a sort-of Faraday Cage, but to redirect such power…

He shook his head before he felt a burning sensation on the back of his palm, a new crest drawing on his skin. Three circles were drawn in a light green color, one inside the other, inside the other and all aligned to the left, or at least it looked that way when he looked at the back of his left hand. Farore's crest.

Courage shown, a test completed

He watched as Farosh flew down from the clouds, running his horn and body against the ruins of the temple.

Temper Bravery with Knowledge

He rushed to the spring and grinned, many dragon bits were floating on the water.

"Two down, one to go." He quickly started to collect the dragon materials.

He would spend the night in the Spring to calm down, his body felt strangely energetic during the night.

---

Magnus spent the night studying the ruins without disturbing the area much. Thankfully even without that he could still scan most half-buried with the use of his Darkness. It was only interrupted early in the morning when Purah messaged him.

Purah: What did you do?!

Robbie: I've to admit I'm curious too, boy. We felt it even up here.

Purah: Don't try to lie, I've seen the scans you've uploaded to the DD database and calculated the rough location of both the lightning and the spring of courage.

Magnus: In my defense, that was the trial carried out by Farosh.

Purah: What kind of test needs something of that magnitude?

Magnus: The Spring's Attendant created a massive storm cell and unloaded all of its charge down on my head. And before you ask, I wasn't even touched by it. The monolith I was standing created a sort of safety bubble, the test was showing bravery in the face of danger.

He also felt like the test called him an idiot after, which made him wonder if there was any other way. Or maybe he had to prepare more? Or maybe it was the first and the Wisdom test was meant after this one.

He could feel Purah sighing from the other side of the screen as he retold the short series of events.

Purah: Hopefully your last test doesn't cause Death Mountain to erupt violently, or create a new volcano.

Symin: Given the records on the matters of Din, it's most likely the test would ask him to show his power by stopping a Volcano, or maybe creating one himself.

Purah: Please don't create a new volcano, or at least discuss it with us so we can choose a good spot.

Magnus chuckled as he wandered through the Farosh Hills, he had to climb up a bit, but it was certainly cutting his travel time as he would come out directly onto Lake Hylia.

The hills were peaceful, practically no monsters around and only a few animals. Given their name, the dragon must enforce a certain amount of control over the area. He talked with the Sheikah until he finally reached the edge. Unfortunately the way down wasn't steep enough for him to just jump out, and just descending was a bit too boring.

There was something he had honestly hadn't tried yet and this seemed like the perfect moment to do so. He shifted into his beast form, fur covering his figure before he tapped into his race's transformation capability.

Zoroarks had two interesting abilities. The first was the ability to create large-scale illusions with the aim to confuse and befuddle, this was primarily used to prank others and protect their pack. Magnus had been tapping into this ability by mixing it with sound and music for some interesting effects. The second ability of the species was the ability to self-transform, now Zorua had also had it, though in their case the transformation tended to be imperfect; ears and tails were common signs of transformed Zorua. Zoroark, on the other hand, had this ability perfect to the point they could effectively do anything physical the form they adopted could.

And one of the skills he remembered practicing was flight. Unfortunately the only form he could adopt was that of a Rito, and the species didn't fly with just their wings, they tapped into wind magic from what he had observed. But they could still glide quite well.

He hoped Kass wasn't angry he copied him. He quickly grew larger, his shoulders widened, arms lengthened and hands expanded. His fur shifted into feathers and his muzzle turned into a beak. His legs and feet shifted last.

He shivered and ruffled his feathers as he got used to the new form.

"Let's see if I remember right." He thought out loud before blinking up in the air and spreading his wings.

It took him a moment to remember how to properly read and catch air currents, thankfully he was high enough that even a few scares weren't going to stop him. It was also because he would be definitely hitting the ground hard if he stopped.

Still, after a few drops, he managed to catch a good current and glided down towards the water, the transformation reverted twice once he was a few meters above the surface. He retrieved Forward and used the trident as a literal spear point as he dived weapon-first into the water.

"Okay, System, guide me to the segment." He subvocalized and swiftly followed the presented directions.

---

It had taken almost an hour to find the buried segment, wait for it to dig itself out and accompany him to the coast. Thankfully Lake Hylia was quite free from monsters, or at least it was in the area the segment had fallen into.

"So what's this segment for?" He prompted the System. "And should we unlock it?

"Segment can't be unlocked. Segment contains over fifty percent of the ship's general areas such as hallways, multi-purpose rooms, bridge and similar."

"Then in you go." He gestured to the open inventory window and allowed the segment to float in.

Magnus chuckled and opened the map of Hyrule. He was West from the road going North, that meant he could hug the edge of the great plateau to cut his travel time shorter instead of following the road.

It was still early enough that he could make it to the Forest of time by noon and follow the road from there. What worried him was that he would most likely make it to the stable way before the evening, and stopping there would mean losing several hours of light and travel time.

And since he didn't want to lose more time, either at the moment or later, he started to walk.

---

Robbie turned his wrist first to one side, then to the other. It still surprised him that rewinding his body's age by just twenty years had brought such a difference. And while it was a bit of a bother to get his old clothes mended so he could use them again, having his full hair back more than made it worth it.

He turned to look at Jerrin, his wife had already used the Age Rune a week earlier. But in his opinion she looked just as good as always.

"How were the things down in the stable?" He asked.

"People were worried, but barely anyone actually saw the lightning." She answered as she closed the door behind her. "Most were actually more worried that it was Death Mountain becoming more active."

He couldn't help but chuckle as it felt like a silly come back to his earlier conversation through the DDN.

"What did you tell them?"

"I convinced them that we used the telescope to check and that everything's okay." She answered as she grabbed her pad to check on something. "During the walk I was thinking, Magnus talked about the concept of Faraday Cage and I wanted to look more into it."

He grabbed his own and quickly searched for the term.

"Uh… a physical method to protect from electricity…" The man read through the article.

"It's actually quite interesting," Jerrin said, "with the easy access to magical resistances it seems no one actually looked into the field. But it shouldn't be discarded just because there's a simpler way to do things."

He nodded, he had seen it a lot in the Ancient Sheikah Tech, a lot of times the inner workings were very simple just because magic made it easier to insulate the system, store information or even just as a way to finish the piece.

Nothing said you couldn't use both paradigms together. His mind towards Magnus' flying drone, it used a physical propeller system instead of the Guardians' anti-gravity system.

But what if one used both?

"What's on your mind now?" Jerrin interrupted his musings.

"What do you mean? I'm just reading-"

She quickly interrupted him. "I've known you for multiple decades, do you think you can lie about having an interesting idea?" She cut to the center of the matter. "What were you thinking?"

"I was just thinking about what would be the result of combining foreign knowledge with Ancient Tech." He admitted.

She snorted. "Obviously something greater than its parts." She stated seriously.

"What?"

"You think you're the only one thinking that? Purah's doing, Symin's doing it, Magnus practically bases his dogma about learning and combining. If I had to guess, he inherited it from his mysterious father." She answered calmly. "It's okay to look and learn from others."

He sighed. "… I know, it's… just it feels like what I achieved should matter more."

"And it does, but nothing says you can take what you managed even further by cooperating." She smiled warmly. "There's a phrase I read in one of the many books Magnus provided, if I've seen further is because I've been standing on the shoulders of giants. We manage what we do today because others set the road for us to get further."

"Uh… I should really look into some of those books." He mused out loud before quickly scoffing. "Okay, okay, I won't keep it to myself, so I have a few ideas to discuss."

They quickly fell into their usual discussion. There would be many ideas coming from this, he just felt it.

---

Magnus passed the stable at around four in the afternoon, even with Winter having already started, it would still be about an hour before the sun started to set, giving him ample time to make his way forward.

His way around the Great Plateau had been almost boring, outside of a few random Red Bokoblins and a single Red Moblin, and there was nothing threatening about them; especially as none had been in a group larger than two.

It was obvious by now that the Great Plateau was doing something against the monsters in the area, because even he couldn't sense much of what was going behind the fog wall that surrounded the elevated geography. It had left him simply observing the steep cliff wall and how it appeared to once had been carved into a sort of wall. Had the whole chunk of land been moved in the past? Either from another part or elevated via a huge act of magic or divine power?

It definitely held some level of artificiality, but it was obvious that whatever had happened had been so long ago that no clue or sign really remained.

He did feel a terrifyingly chilling sensation when he was getting closer to the stable, and questioning the rumors once he entered the place he learned that a very powerful Lynel had claimed an ancient ruin nearby. Thankfully the monster was more than content, or whatever it could feel, to stay in the spot and not wander away. But it had also meant that the area outside of the ruins was practically quarantined and no one even wanted to see if the monster would feel like hunting anything that entered.

He was edging the Dalite Forest after crossing the bridge when his eyes caught sight of something quite curious. It had the body of a rabbit, the head of an owl, moth-like antennae and was soaked in glow paint. If he wasn't wrong, this was a Blupee, such a curious little creature, somewhere between a fairy and a spirit, and they usually were quite skittish.

Which is why it surprised him it just hopped over to him and bumped against his leg.

Magnus knelt down and stroked the little being's head with a finger. "Hey little fella, do you need help with something?"

The Blupee lost themselves in the gesture for a moment before comically shaking itself and chirping and nipping at his finger. While it didn't use words, it was obviously asking him to follow them.

"Okay, okay, I'm going." He freed his finger off their beak and followed the small creature as it started to hop ahead of him.

It didn't surprise him to see the Blupee quickly speed up, their body was that of a rabbit and it wasn't strange for such animals to reach speeds of thirty km/h, or even forty km/h in short bursts. It forced Magnus to pick up the speed and run after the small creature as they rushed towards Satori Mountain.

The Blupee took him through the forest, through a path not usually used by Hylian feet, a trail of animals and spirits. As they moved closer to the mountain, the ground filled more and more with lightly glowing, blue lantern-shaped flowers, very similar to blue bells. They grew in delicate stalks almost like decorations on the sides of the natural road.

And it wasn't just the only interesting plant, he recognized many high quality ingredients, both for alchemy and cooking; though in Hyrule those two didn't have too much difference.

The spirit looked up to him as they stopped at the base of the mountain, almost waiting for him to start climbing. So he did. He shifted into a fox and started to climb the rocky wall with his claws, easily digging them into the material.

The Blupee, meanwhile, simply disappeared from where it stood, reappearing much higher, once more waiting for him.

It took him almost half an hour, this was certainly not the most efficient way for him to climb up the cliff. But it was fun and helped him reacquaint himself with his body.

He soon reached an area flat enough to walk once more, the spirit guiding him through a copse of trees towards what appeared to be a small lake, or a very big pond.

The spirit chirped in surprise and disappeared in a flash of light as several Stal enemies rose from the area.

"So you needed help cleaning the area?" He chuckled. "Good for me." He brought out his blade, the weapon feeling a bit awkward on his claws. But he would do it.

Stalkoblins, Stalmoblins, Stalfos, all undead and fleshless, all technically immortal as long as their heads remained intact. He had actually tested it, the rest of their bones would slowly reform even if they had been broken, he had also seen more than one head sharing a body for unfortunate results for the monster.

Another advantage they had, was that they weren't affected by his illusions, though he wasn't sure of why.

They were still less than cannon fodder against him, even just tapping into his Light made them shy away, and Tenlight practically ate through them. The fact that they would last less of a chance than a candle in a hurricane didn't stop the skeletons from rushing him.

It still was a mob of targets, it's no surprise the Blupee had asked for his help. Such a target rich environment that he weaved his Light into a faux second blade to hold with his other hand and started to chop.

Most attacks broke skulls, the energy in his weapons burning through the Malice-saturated bones. Headless skeletons panicked for a short time before they went away, and the mob was quickly thinned down to nothing.

He quickly stabbed the illusionary blade into a skull and watched the light fade from its eye sockets and the rest of the bone crumpled away into a horn and wisps of miasma.

"Done." He stated as he looked around, seeing no other monster.

He looked around until he saw the Blupee hop back up to him.

"Was that all?" He prompted and the spirit nipped at his pants and tugged. "More? Okay, guide me."

It appeared the mountain had become infested with undead, because the spirit dragged him around, slowly getting higher until he led him to a conspicuous pile of giant bones.

The moment he stepped close the bones started to rattle, a sort-of warning that went unheeded. They started to rise and as he had expected, took the shape of a Hinox, or at least its skeletal structure. The Stalnox reached to grab its fossilized eye and stuck the glowing sphere into its eye socket.

Magnus rushed forward, dodging the clumsy attempt to grab him and swung Tenlight towards the monster's shin bone. To his surprise, the blade barely bit into the material. It felt like hitting rock.

He swiftly jumped back as the undead giant tried to kick him. It seemed the monster didn't have the same weakness as its smaller cousins.

He quickly replaced the blade for his metal bat, exchanging a type advantage for a more effective damage type. He batted at the monster's hand as it tried to grab him once more, the sound of crushed bones made him smile as the Stalnox screamed.

"Come on you big lug, a few fingers is nothing compared to what I will do with you." He cackled as his Darkness practically bled from his fur as he quickly moved.

He used and abused the natural darkness too, zipping around the area and dodging the large and clumsy monster, sneaking in to slowly break the monster's kneecaps. It wasn't too effective, the monster wasn't really standing on its bones, he could see how all magic seemed to come from the eye, this being the root of the beast, the anchor; for a manner of speaking.

The metal bat was replaced for the bow and a normal arrow, the projectile was notched and launched in just a moment. The arrow hit the edge of the eye, slipping into the empty space between the sphere and the fossilized eye socket; the malicious orb popped free and flew off the skull.

He chuckled as all danger dissipated so quickly it became comical. He grabbed the eye to observe it. It wasn't exactly a rock, more like something between very hard rubber and some soft wood. The combination of toughness and flexibility kept it from receiving too much damage.

Or it would if Magnus didn't use his weapon to beat the eye like a baseball and Blink ahead, retrieve his blade and swing the weapon with both hands.

For as tough as the eye was, it lost completely to Tenlight. The combination of high speed and the sharpness of the Light-infused blade severed the volleyball-sized sphere in half, one part hitting the ground and breaking into bits, while the other broke away into miasma in the middle of the air.

He watched the skeleton suddenly realize what had happened. The giant set of bones went stiff and started to rattle before each bone exploded into quickly dissipating bits and Malice.

He couldn't help but shudder as the area was filled with the disgusting sensation of evil, causing Magnus to cycle his Light to burn it away. It also had the effect of melting the little snow that had accumulated in some corners of the area.

Before he could check if that was all, he felt a presence behind his back. He quickly turned and froze, just a meter away, looking down on him, was what could only be described as the Blupee's father-figure.

A stallion's body instead of a hare. Two owl faces side to side, giving the impression of a four-eyed creature. A much larger set of moth-like antennae that looked like a laurel crown, or a set of horns.

This was the legendary Satori, the Lord of the Mountain.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 42

The Lord of the Mountain was both majestic and alien, even as they were composed of animals natural to the world, the mix put them in the unnatural category. It felt different from a chimera, those tended to respect certain logic, the fact that they had two faces that appeared as a single one added a level of eeriness.

Gratitude…

The spirit's words came through muddied, mixed with many other things. A single word felt like a conversation for him, the Lord of the Mountain hadn't just thanked him for clearing the undead, there was also a retelling of how hard it had been for the last few months as the number of monsters rose.

"It's okay," he brushed his acts down, feeling a bit awkward at the blast of emotions that had come through, "just helping, I like to think it comes naturally to me."

Reward…

The Satori leaned forward and pressed their forehead, the spot between its two faces, against Magnus' own. And if the blast of feelings, words and memories that had come before had felt awkward, this was a cannon ball that made him wince.

It was a memory of masks of memories of masks of memories of-

"Memory packet received and parsed."

He felt a shiver as what felt like a life of memories stopped trying to fill his mind, quickly organized itself and was turned into something much more understandable. It still felt strangely disjointed, bits and pieces, stories of multiple people, multiple ends, multiple masks and multiple sorrows.

They weren't happy memories, at least most of them were about those whose ends came too soon, with many matters to resolve. Though it wasn't all, some masks held different memories, instead of unfinished business they were memories of happier times, or well wishes, hopes and dreams.

It wasn't exactly knowledge, while he could see how some of the masks had been created, he wasn't sure about using what he saw. There were prices he wasn't ready to pay. But he could adapt it to what he wanted, and he could already think of a very interesting use.

"Thank you." He injected as much honesty and gratitude as he could.

The Lord of the Mountain nodded and turned around, stepping away. Only then Magnus noticed there were dozens of Blurpees around him, standing like little tiny, glowing witnesses everywhere. Sitting on the branches of the cherry tree, under bushes and all around the pond.

One approached him, and he would bet it was the one that had dragged him into the little endeavor. He knelt once more and rubbed its head, it caused the spirit to chirp and ruffle before jumping away, a big silver rupee left in the spot they had been. The Blurpee turned to him before scampering off to disappear.

"Well, that was interesting." He pocketed the crystal before he reached for what appeared to be a fallen branch of the tree.

Closer inspection showed the branch hadn't fallen by itself, it appeared to have been torn off. But he couldn't find any spot on the tree it appeared to have come from. He chuckled again and marked it as Satori having added a bit extra to the reward. The material was definitely not normal, having grown by the pond such a being frequented would have some side effects.

He would have to be careful, but it appeared to be enough material for one mask. He started to wander down the mountain, finding an easier path compared to the one he had taken up. A pocket knife found its way to his hand and he started to work on the wood. Though the night was obviously not done yet.

---

Ayim was not having a good time, and that was an understatement.

They had noticed a few jealous looks from the other scouts after Maus had picked them. But that had been expected. The problem was that the more they learned about the history of Hyrule, the roots of the Yiga clan and old theories about Ganon and the Calamity.

It had slowly created a riff in what they believed and how the clan acted, and others had slowly noticed it. They had ignored the shunning at first, their time was too busy to care for petty gestures from others.

Ayim was usually either training, studying, transcribing or out on missions. This last being almost the only time they had to rest, which had led to them failing a mission. Though in their defense the information given to steal the information of the trade routes used by the new merchant guild was erroneous.

Thankfully it was only a small few who had decided they had failed the mission on purpose and were betraying the great clan. Unfortunately, these few had decided to take matters into their hands and Maus had decided it would be a good lesson. Or maybe their master thought they could deal with it.

In a matter of a moment and a distraction, a knife had found its way into their side. The only saving grace is that Ayim was pretty sure nothing important had been damaged, they would have definitely not managed to run away for so long.

The others were playing with them and it stung that there was little they could do except run away. Eight foot soldiers wasn't something they could fight, even with the skills of a blade master.

Running South, North or West would have been a death sentence. The best result of heading into the desert would have been picked by a Gerudo patrol and death would most likely come to them. North would have led them into the territory of a pretty nasty Lynel. West was the edges of Hyrule into the wild lands.

East had been, or well, East-North-East if they had to be specific. Using a common shortcut into the Dalite Forest had allowed them enough time to get ahead and hide themselves to appear like a normal woman.

They would have preferred to use a man's visage, they tended to get less skeptical looks. But they had seen someone walking through the road, and women tended to have an easier time asking for help, especially when they were panicking. And for Ayim, it was very easy to appear panicked at the moment.

"Help!" They didn't have to fake the wince as speaking was a bit more painful than they had thought, maybe the injury was worse than they hoped for.

A wince helped them hide their reaction to finding the Traveler on the road, there was some level of irony to the situation.

Their emerald eyes focused on them and Ayim felt as if his gaze cut through their disguise. They felt like running away as his first reaction appeared to be aggressive, but then his eyes landed on the obviously bleeding injury and quickly changed his tune.

They sighed softly. "Follow me." He gestured and guided Ayim off the road onto a flat and clear spot.

Ayim didn't feel ready to speak again, as long as he didn't ask questions they were pretty sure they could survive the night.

"Release that transformation, it's painful to see, and more painful must be for you." Magnus ordered in a tone that reminded them of Maus.

The man nodded as they revealed their Yiga clothes, his side much darker given how the blood had seeped into the fabric.

It surprised them a bit when he snapped his fingers and created a sphere of light to illuminate the area. The glove held on the air as it had been hung from a non-existent support.

"Lift your shirt, I need to clean that injury." He ordered. "Come on, I can tell you've been running like this for a while and I will need to clean the wound before giving you treatment."

Ayim looked away as they lifted the blood-soaked fabric, revealing dark, marred skin. Yiga training wasn't kind, it was a blessing that their clothing hid their skin from head to toes. It was not uncommon among scouts, more common among foot soldiers and blade masters tended to collect scars by the week. It was the dark side of the clan's techniques, it was easier to hide as others when you didn't like how you looked at yourself.

Though against their expectations, Magnus said nothing about it, instead easily manhandling them to get better access to their wound and clean it up. Ayim barely flinched when the traveler cleaned the inside and outside of the wound with a dark liquid that left their skin dyed orange.

Before they knew it the injury had been sewed shut and dressed to keep it clean. "Here." Magnus handed him a vial filled with a viscous green liquid.

Ayim was pretty sure it wasn't poison, it would feel unproductive to poison someone after treating their wounds. So they popped the cork and the strong smell of Hyrule Herbs filled their nose, this was all they needed to swallow the content of the vial.

"...why?" They asked.

Magnus snorted. "You were injured and asked for help." He answered and placed his hand on their clothes, the blood stain disappearing a moment later. "That's all."

There were all sorts of conflicting emotions going through Ayim at the moment. They also had a lot more questions, but before they could ask them Magnus looked in the direction they had arrived, they heard the sound of running a moment later.

The multiple Yiga foot soldiers walked out of the shadows, weapon at the ready as they glared at the two of them.

"I don't care what you are here for, leave." Magnus' words sent a shiver down Ayim's spine and they weren't even directed at them.

More than one of the other clan members took a step back at the threat, but their numbers gave them confidence.

"I'm repeating my warning, leave." The words didn't carry the same threat, instead it was given by the glowing trident that appeared on his hand; the air quickly growing heavily humid.

That wasn't the only weapon that appeared, nor the last thing as a set of golden gloves appeared behind Magnus. They were floating in the middle of the air, each held a dagger.

"Last chance." The man shifted the spear from standing straight into a two-hand hold.

With no Yiga retreating, the battle started with the bass of a heavy bell. A moment later their eyes unfocused as Magnus disappeared as if he hadn't been there, which was most likely true because one of the footsoldiers screamed in pain as he was hit back by a large mass of water.

At the same time two more winced as each received a stab wound to the leg. In Ayim's opinion it didn't look lethal, but certainly would make moving much harder.

The problem was that they had been on opposite sides of the field, they could only watch as the other foot soldiers spread around, teleporting from one spot to another. Their attempts to catch Magnus failed as the man barely appeared for a second, only to show to not have been there to begin with.

Ayim wondered when the fog filled the area, it felt like it had muddled their thoughts. They had certainly missed when a strong hand grabbed them by the shoulder and dragged them away.

"Come on, they will need at least ten more minutes to realize they are alone." Magnus explained as they moved away.

"What happened?" They could only ask, the first they received was a very fang-y grin.

---

Magnus hadn't expected his nightly trek to be interrupted by a poorly disguised Yiga clan member. He had considered ignoring them, even taking them out and dragging them to the closest stable. But at the end his medical knowledge, while not as influencing as before, and the fact he was a good person pushed him to help.

It didn't take him much to notice the injury had been aggravated by continuous movement, which led him to believe the Yiga had been running for a while. In addition, closer inspection showed the blade was one of their clan.

He would have called it a trap at first. But the injury was neither self-inflicted nor taken willingly. Even if they had been forced to play the bait and there was an attack about to fall on him, he would have healed the clan member anyways.

They had been very lucky, the blade had missed both intestines and spleen and only barely nicked their liver. Even luckier that the run hadn't aggravated the cut, it had only tore the muscles a bit more, nothing that some stitches and a bit of herb extract didn't put in the quick path to recovery. Though they could have easily woken up dead in a day or two if they hadn't received such an elixir as the liver would most likely bleed inside of them until they couldn't breathe anymore. Asphyxiating on dry land was not a nice way to go.

At least the arrival of the pursuers helped him blow off some steam after bottling his reaction to seeing the scars on the patient's skin. He didn't doubt it was a common thing, it wasn't just damage from blades, many of those appeared as if the body had been dragged against rough stone for a long distance. It reminded him of the injuries he knew some people got in boot camps, just many times worse.

He had given them a good beating as he weaved a pretty potent illusion to daze and confuse them. They would most likely bump against each other for a few more minutes as they left the area; the Darkness weaved into the illusion would also sap their stamina until they didn't feel like following them.

Magnus dragged his patient only for a moment before they took the suggestion and started to walk.

"Why?" They asked.

"I felt like it." He answered. "Now, I would suggest you decide what to do because you will only get between thirty minutes and an hour of advantage. I also recommend plenty of fluids and rest so you recover fully."

"Can… can I come with you?"

"No." Magnus cut that train of thought. "Nope, there's a difference between me healing you and going in the same direction. I can't say I trust you."

They didn't appear to be hurt by the comment, but their body language indicated they wanted to come with him.

He internally cursed his empathy. "Okay, for a few hours, once the sun rises we go different ways." He acquiesced and groaned on the low.

They walked in silence until they almost reached the bridge, where they headed off the road and made camp behind a copse of trees. Magnus quickly wrapped the area in another fog bank to keep them from being found as he also started a small fire.

The Yiga clan member looked surprised by the fog, or at least he was pretty sure he was reading them right. Between the mask and the schooled body language it wasn't exactly an easy thing.

He quickly prepared a small vegetable soup, though he added some Hyrule Herbs and a small hearty truffle.

Even if it was hard to read them, they definitely wanted to ask questions, and as Magnus handed them the bowl of food they finally asked.

"How did you see through my disguise?"

He blinked, between what he expected as questions, that was definitely not among the first. His confusion led to mischievousness.

"I will start saying that anyone else would most likely not have seen through it." He started to answer. "Between the darkness and the surprise most would buy the act as true. But unfortunately for you, you came across me."

Darkness wrapped around his figure, his skin growing a thick mat of fur before the same Darkness sunk in to transform himself. The change was quick, a mere moment thanks to the lack of pressure, and now he looked nearly identical to the clan member in front of him; the only visible difference was the impeccable shirt.

"Transforming into others is a skill that runs in my blood, and lies don't tend to last in my eyes." He wasn't going to explain how his titanic heritage worked, but it had been becoming easier to see through falsehood.

He slowly reached for his mask and the Yiga clan member stiffened, though once the mask was removed behind was just a smooth Darkness. "Of course I can't show what I've not seen." He chuckled as they relaxed and turned half away to quickly chow down his food.

Magnus ate through his own. "Ask anything else that's in your mind, at worst I will tell you I won't answer them." He offered.

When there were no questions coming, he pulled his pocket knife and another piece of wood he had picked. This wasn't as special as the cherry branch, but it proved to be easier to work as he started to carve a new mask.

Between his strength, skill and the sharpness of his small blade, it took shape quite quickly. The bits that fell quickly shrunk in size as he work went from giving it shape to giving it detail. Their attention was quickly caught when it became obvious it was a Zora.

"What's that for?"

Magnus looked up after blowing the dust off the mask. It would need a bit of polishing and maybe some color, but no one could say it didn't depict a pretty good looking Zora man.

"Well, it's half-done, but masks have this ability to let you be someone else." He replied mysteriously.

He retrieved a few Octorok bits he had stored away and quickly spent them to kick-start the enchanting process. Without an actual 'memory' to infuse into the mask, he instead leaned on his knowledge of the Zora race, what he had learned of their biology while healing them, of observing them use their abilities, of the knowledge they had taught him to craft the armor.

The magic mixed with the knowledge and infused the mask correctly, and something clicked… Well, two things did. The first was the mask, it obviously changed as magic saturated the wood and changed it. His treatment of the wood already made it as tough as metal, but it went further than that. The surface smoothed without him having to sand it down, the face adopted a light cream color as the head and fins were dyed of his purple.

The second thing was the completion of the Great Fairy enchanting perk. The method was just like how Cotera had explained and at the same time so much more. He would have to sit down and explore it well once he was alone again.

"Hmm, better than expected." He admired out loud before placing the mask over his face.

His transformation wasn't so much as hi-jacked, as it was turned into the mask's own. Red and black clothes turned cream and purple skin, he gained nearly thirty centimeters of height, much taller than before. Though still short for a Zora.

He felt his head and braid shift into a fishtail, Stone Bell still attached above the caudal fin, a few others sprouted over his body too; arms and waist primarily. Finally he felt the large toes on his feet grow larger and separate, effectively shifting closer to a second set of hands; a web connecting his toes.

He opened his maw, the multiple rows of teeth inside his mouth felt weird, and his first breath was similarly weird as he felt as if the air was too dry.

"Much better than expected." His voice came out sounding a bit strange as his clothes covered his gills, he would have to add another form to his clothes. Or maybe start working into a proper set of morphing gear.

"...what are you?" They prompted.

"Unique." He answered. "My father's peculiar to say the least, but he decided to really invest his time in my siblings and mine creation." He explained and shrugged.

He looked at his hand once more before grabbing the mask and popping it off, the transformation broke in an instant and he was once more just human-like. The fact it had skipped the fox form would require some study later.

"What does that even mean?" They asked, sounding more than a bit angry at his evasiveness.

"Do you really want to know?" Magnus' tone quickly lost all mirth, assuming the cold of the night in its seriousness. "It will only bring more questions, many I really can't answer."

They snorted. "Yes."

"My father and mother weren't compatible, mainly for what my father had done to himself. So he looked at nature and found it wanting, he took matters into his own hands. He created me and my siblings, and spared no expenses."

"What does that even mean?" They sounded a bit repetitive, but Magnus didn't feel like pointing that out, and instead answered.

"It means that I don't need to breathe or eat, my need for sleep's practically cosmetic, I heal at an intense rate, I've two sets of hearts, an endless source of power and many other things." His hand shifted into a furry paw with purple claws before turning it back. "By most metrics I'm an abomination, and more than happy to be one." He grinned, showing sharp fangs.

They pulled back and Magnus laughed. "Don't worry, in just an hour or two we'll go different ways, and as long you don't make trouble for me I won't have a reason to oppose you."

They winced and pulled back.

"I meant you, not your clan, don't worry I'll only act if it happens in front of me. I doubt there's a reason for me to hunt down the Yiga."

The second wince made him raise an eyebrow.

"Master Kohga has actually convinced a good part of the clan that you're either Ganon's reincarnation or the key to release the Calamity." They explained.

He groaned as he threw his head back. "That sounds like such a hassle." He then chuckled. "… and not the weirdest thing that has happened to my family, at least it will pass as a good anecdote later."

"How can you be so calm?" They asked, sounding incensed.

"Because I doubt your clan will stop this or change their mind unless I either disappear off the face of Hyrule or take you all out personally." He only half-joked. "I'm certainly not going to change how I do things, but I will keep an eye for your kind, it shouldn't be hard to see through your disguise now that I had a better look at it." He explained calmly. "So I can only wait and see for now."

He smiled.

"… still, thank you for telling me." He added.

They just grumbled, the reaction made Magnus shake his head and quickly start to clean up the cooking utensils.

As night gave way to dawn, he turned to the Yiga clan member. "If you want to hide for a while I would suggest Satori Mountain, though I've no idea where your base is, neither do I want to know."

"...thank you."

"It's nothing." Magnus said honestly. "The fog will keep for a while, but I suggest you decide where to go." He explained before he started to walk.

He maintained enough awareness to make sure they weren't following him before he let go of his control of the fog. Stone Bell chimed and stopped supporting the illusion.

He wondered if he had done the correct thing, but his morals insisted that he helped those that needed it. And it may feel shallow, but as long as he didn't know if they were guilty of anything in particular…

They also hadn't felt especially evil, more like pragmatic, and if they had been born in the Yiga Clan it may be a bit too hard to judge them for it.

He sighed as he could only wait and see.

---

Ayim didn't know if they were lucky or not. They had certainly survived the lynching, but meeting Magnus on the road wasn't what he had expected to happen.

"So how did it go?" Maus' voice made their heart try to escape up their throat.

"Would you care not to try to kill me for once?!" They screamed in anger.

The old blade master ignored him. "So how was it?"

"I've no idea." They replied honestly. "They are even more confusing than we thought before."

Ayim lifted their shirt to remove the bandage and check the injury. But before they could even get to it they were shocked to find all of their scars had fainted almost completely.

"What the..!?" They quickly ripped the dressing, totally missing the fact that Maus had grabbed it.

Instead of stitches holding a blade wound they found a faint pink line that stood out on their dark skin.

"Very impressive, you will have to tell me everything once we're back on base." Maus spoke calmly.

"What? Couldn't you get close enough yourself to overhear?" Ayim complained as they fixed their clothes.

The ancient Blade master looked at them in silence before turning and leaving.

"… you couldn't get close?" Ayim felt some mirth as they realized. "You really couldn't get close. Oh my goddess." They laughed as they followed their master.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 43

Purah decided it was time to take a break from her current problem and turn her attention towards her latest hobby, prod her student/fellow researcher.

Purah: Magnus, I've a question you've managed to dodge for long enough, what was with that weird animal form you showed before leaving?

Magnus: Give me a moment that I'm dealing with something.

She raised an eyebrow at the answer. She sighed and stood up to walk to the Blue Flame kettle and heat up some water for some tea. She watched it for a moment, the idea had come from her grand-niece and it was much more useful than she had thought. She brewed herself a cup and took a moment to enjoy the perfume, it was a familiar scent she hadn't enjoyed in a long time; she would thank Paya for bringing her some of it.

She sat on her desk again and enjoyed her hot drink while she waited for an answer.

… it took a little longer than she expected, but soon he answered.

Magnus: Sorry about that, dealing with a little Yiga incident. Don't worry it's done for and I will explain later, at another moment, if you really want to know. Just believe me it's done and it shouldn't impact the short-term and very lightly the long-term.

She put the mug down and groaned as she rubbed her forehead, Magnus sure had a way to make her worry; she just hoped it was really nothing this time.

Purah: Okay, answer the question.

Magnus: First I would like to state that I was born being able to change into that form, or at least the juvenile form of the species, so for me it's very normal. Anyways, it's derived from a, surprisingly, natural gene called Zoanthrope Gene, though its origins are not what matters. My father came to acquire this ability and studied it greatly, and as many other things alike, he decided to improve on it.

She took a moment to parse through that, she wasn't too learned in biology. But she had read enough on the young man's database to get an idea. Plus a few experiments with a few scan runes to test if it proved mainly true in Hyrule too.

So far it appeared it did, and she had found some very specific runes to cover this type of study; which reinforced her theory that Sheikah had modified themselves in the far past.

The idea that a gene could come to be developed to change forms sounded weird. But strangely possible.

Magnus: Anyways, he made the improved gene part of my siblings and mine genetic code. Of course the improved gene doesn't impart a specific form, but instead forms one from what better matches the person. In most cases when it's integrated into a person it takes into account their life, experience, etc… In our case it became something more inherent as we had no life experience.

Purah: So you're all shapeshifting foxes?

Magnus: Ha! No! My siblings are a few times more ridiculous in their forms.

She raised an eyebrow again and pondered a bit, thinking she could guess. But after a moment she decided that asking would be much easier. They were from another World, to think they would share all the same fauna was silly.

Magnus: Well… my sister is a giant whale, with power over oceans and abysses.

Purah: That first part sounds like a leviathan, there are a number of fossilized skeletons around Hyrule, as far as I know there's one North of Death Mountain. And there are rumors of two others.

Magnus: Color me surprised, but yes, you could call her a Leviathan, in her case she's a Kyogre. They exist in the same world Zoroarks, my fox form, live. But different from the foxes which are numerous, of her kind there's only a tiny few, they are considered legendary creatures if not deities that control the oceans.

Purah: And your brother?

Magnus: He's a pink cat with psychic powers, about as numerous as Kyogre and believed to have been the World's creator deity's first creation. Of course none of these forms is what makes my siblings terrifying in their own way.

Purah had put her empty mug away and grabbed her pad, it seemed Magnus had shared a few pictures of his siblings. They looked pretty normal, but she could imagine how first impressions would be terrifying.

Purah: Because turning into a legendary whale is not terrifying.

She got the impression he was laughing in the distance.

Magnus: My sister can be terrifying, but she will just kill you if she has to. Really, she's very much like the Ocean, you're safe on the surface as long as she's calm and you don't go deep. Yeah there are things in the darkest depths of the many oceans. But the terrifying one is my brother.

After a moment he sent another message.

Magnus: My brother's title of The Smiling Saint wasn't exactly given in kind feelings. It's a warning, don't give my brother a reason to stop smiling. He's the family's strongest healer in mind, body and soul, and can easily take someone apart as easily as he can put them together.

She shivered at the idea of the damage an angered healer could do.

Magnus: My brother can make flesh act like clay and I have seen him take someone apart, literally, and keep them alive. Honestly a touch is all he needs to take most targets out, which is good enough to keep him from getting serious.

Purah: Okay… that's terrifying.

Magnus: Purah, my family's full of monsters, and I say that affectionately. But none of us is normal in any way, shape, or form. The only normal is that we all have our quirks. My sister will kill you, I may take my time but I most likely will end a threat, my brother will make you wish to be dead and thank him for keeping you alive at the same time.

Purah: On another, previous, subject. You said that the gene can be given to adults too?

She brewed herself another cup of tea, a stronger one this time.

Magnus: Yes, I think the ship should have a few Power Cores that provide the ability, why? Interested in trying?

She snorted and quickly typed back.

Purah: Mostly curious.

Magnus: Well, it comes with many benefits and a few disadvantages. On the bad side it's mainly the problems of a full-body pelt of hair, in the species that have it, and a few extra instincts; especially on the more esoteric species. On the good side you get an extended life expectancy, a healing factor, better senses, an overall increase in physical prowess and possible extraordinary abilities.

She couldn't deny those looked pretty interesting, but given the treatment she gave her hair to her whole body. Her interest was still mostly academic.

Purah: It's possible to know what one would become?

Magnus: Yes, but the very knowledge can interact with the result, observation bias. So it gets so it gets a bit dicey. Don't ask me why, it's very much a characteristic of the process that does the calculation. Though in your case I believe you would end up with an esoteric race in more cases than not.

Purah: Why do you say that?

Magnus: You already have access to something like the Blue Flames and your knowledge on Runes is practically unparalleled on Hyrule. Those two are already quite strong aspects.

The curiosity was growing, thankfully she couldn't just go ahead and try it; unlike with the Age reversal Rune. She would still ask more about it, for academic reasons, of course.

---

Magnus couldn't help but grin at how obvious Purah's interest was becoming. He didn't believe she would go for it, but she had acted without full consideration before.

He stopped when he reached the first split on the road after the bridge and opened his map just to confirm he was in the correct area. Though it surprised him to see the map signaling the presence of a ship segment nearby, more along the lines the System hadn't told him anything yet.

Not that it didn't matter much, he was arriving and from what he saw he would be getting quite closer to the location if he followed the road. Retrieving it would mean heading into the bog to the point of almost crossing it.

"System, can you identify the segment and its use?" He prompted.

"Ship's Segment is identified as extra rooms, it can be considered the sibling segment to general locations."

He hummed, it meant he wouldn't get anything from recovering it. Though it would also mean he wouldn't have to think about retrieving it if he already got it.

And with little more thought he headed North, stepping off the road once more and entering the bog. His feet quickly sank into the soggy ground, because it couldn't be described in any other way.

After a few minutes of walking he took his shoes off and just walked barefooted, it wasn't like there was anything capable of cutting his feet. Thankfully the area didn't have too many monsters, though it still had them.

Mainly Octoroks hidden among the tall grass and shallow pools, which were quickly dispatched with disposable wooden knives. Or Keese that hid under the strange structures that littered the area, apparently the heavily overcast sky allowed them to be up even after sunrise.

With the mostly free time, he focused his attention towards his latest perk. The understanding of Fairy Enchanting was quite interesting. Cotera's explanation hadn't been wrong, but there were so many things she hadn't consciously known about.

The main trait of the system was that it couldn't create something out of nothing, not like the use of runes and the functional enchanting he could do from observing others. It utilized the principle of similarity, the magic version at least, it consumed items with similar properties to reinforce these on the target.

The good thing was that these methods weren't exclusive from each other. The runes could be used to work to reproduce the abilities he observed and then the fairy enchanting could be worked on top of that to bring the whole thing to a higher level.

With many ideas in mind, once he reached the segment's spot, he sat down to design the boots that would accompany the Close&Personal. He was basing these armored boots on some of what he had learned from the Talus monsters and their power over earth and rock.

Magnus had taken his time with the stone giants, observing and studying them well; it wasn't him just playing around. He had come to the conclusion that the boots would actually show an excellent synchrony with the element.

Stone and Earth were steady and solid, you didn't move them without a good amount of strength or effort. And while they rarely did much, when the Earth moved, everyone felt it.

Boots will fit this, giving steady footing and making people move when he does. He would most likely need to stay still or link his movements with large acts of elemental control, but he could see it working well if he found a proper style for it.

Thankfully he wouldn't need to hunt down Talus until he could collect bits from their hearts to craft these armored boots; the monsters were specially stingy in dropping these crystals. He was actually not sure anyone knew the nail-sized fragments were that useful, he certainly had missed them the first few times he had fought them.

Instead he would use an Earth alloy he had found in the ship segment. This wasn't the only one of such, and he had certainly been nearly tempted to grab one of the crystals of similar nature. But those were better left until he finished the first version and tested them. Plus it wasn't like they would be going anywhere.

The boots would still need proper design and crafting work, which would take longer than what it would take to retrieve the segment. He would soon be on the road again, most likely spending the time in the stable.

He would take advantage of the downtime then.

---

Maus once more wandered through the many hallways of the Yiga clan base. He had made sure his student was resting on their last adventure. The whole experience would be a good lesson for them.

The meeting with Magnus had been a stroke of luck, it didn't save him the problem of taking care of the Yiga attacking Ayim, but also taught them a lesson and the state they would return to base would be enough shaming.

It had also come with more than one revelation. The terrifying thought that the Traveler had come from somewhere had been considered, but hearing him admit his father had created him and was capable of more was unsettling.

On the other hand the injury dressing he had recovered was interesting. He had already gotten his hands on one of the elixirs the young man produced and had confirmed their effectiveness. Now he wanted to see if he had missed something.

Of course that meant seeing the old witch.

He sighed and pushed all distaste on dealing with the woman and entered her room.

"Good evening, I apologize for coming to bother you after so long, but I think you may want to see this, Twinrova."

The wizened, dark-skinned woman scoffed.

"Look what the desert uncovered, I was pretty sure you had died a few decades ago." She spat out. "And that's not my name and you know it."

He chuckled and sat down on the other side of her low table.

"Practically everyone that knows you knows you by that name." He stated and grinned. "I remember that young successor, full of potential, read through the old records and decided that she would be the successor of the witches of legend."

Her mouth twisted before she snapped her tongue against her teeth. "Tsk, I wish your memory had gone the way of your power." She said and sighed. "Enough bickering, you came for a reason, what is it?"

He nodded and retrieved the dressing his student had dropped. "Here, tell me what you think and then I will tell you where it came from."

She nodded and grabbed the object, checking it all over, even tasting the inside; Maus had to hide a reaction to that.

"So?" He asked.

She breathed out hard. "Shush." She chided him and placed it down before she retrieved an ointment jar and, to his surprise, took a taste of its content.

"Outside of the blood and the extract made from Hyrule Herb, nothing is natural from the rest." She answered. "The gauze is cotton, but I've never seen it threaded like that. Though the way it's been prepared it's pretty clever and I may steal the idea. On the other hand, I've to honestly admit I can't tell what they are. Neither the glue used, nor the material of the tape."

He nodded. "That's what Magnus used to patch my current student. I've to be honest I didn't think you would find much, but your opinion is still appreciated."

It was her time to chuckle, or maybe it was a cough. "You still have a way with words…" She sighed. "If you want my professional opinion, it's a very smart way to do it, I will see how we can replicate it, it would be pretty useful for the clan members. Though I will also note that it's dissolving into nothing."

"What?" He hadn't noticed that.

She nodded and pulled a knife from a drawer and used it to carefully slice a piece of the tape. The small piece quickly shriveled and flaked off into nothing.

"I don't think it actually exists as matter per-se since I don't see anything being left behind." She muttered as she retrieved a magnifying glass and checked the spot the fragment had been. "Very self-cleaning."

"Then it's good I brought it so soon."

"I agree, I don't imagine it would have lasted more than a few hours, though I imagine it would have lasted longer if it was still applied." She mused. "What can you tell me about him, the traveler?"

"In a word? Terrifying." He admitted. "I may have been able to take care of him during my peak, but the more time passes the more he grows in strength and skill."

She hummed but said nothing about it.

"I'm not sure how he does it, but he can create this strange fog that could keep me from finding him, and I don't doubt it's not all he can do." He sighed. "I'm glad he's not actively hunting us."

She scoffed. "Kohga's definitely been doing his best to convince everyone he's the answer to our situation."

Maus couldn't help but to laugh. "Unless we change what the whole clan believes we would never get him on our side." He sighed as he relaxed. "I just wish I could, the Swordsman will most likely be returning soon with the seal coming undone, between the two of them I doubt the Calamity will last."

"I would like to think just the Swordsman wouldn't be enough. But I agree, both will be more than the Calamity can take, are you planning to stop them?" She asked with a little hum.

A laugh escaped his mouth as his head was thrown back. "Ha! No chance. Though I will pass on the knowledge that the traveler can see through disguises, apparently. Better not tempt fate by sending our forces against him when it's obvious it won't work."

She nodded. "Now on another subject that I've been hearing about a while, what's this about a new successor?"

He sighed, he would have to be careful. Otherwise the old witch would decide she wanted him to tell him everything he had done the last ten years.

---

Magnus had to admit his mind was occupied for the whole night he spent in the stable, and unfortunately it wasn't with the design for his future boots. Instead it had been on the subject of the Tabantha Great Bridge.

While very impressive a wood bridge had been constructed over such a large and deep canyon. Even more given the strong winds that blew practically at all times. Seeing such a construction made him feel itchy.

Unfortunately he couldn't just overhaul or rebuild the bridge just like that. It hadn't stopped him from brainstorming the idea of how to redesign the whole thing. At the end he had come to the conclusion that he would need several flying worker ants to construct such a bridge, so no huge bridge for him for a while.

Instead he simply ended up thinking of possible designs that could be used on said megastructure, along with the possible use of magic to reinforce it. Things like air resistance would go a long way to make sure it lasted longer and was safer to use.

Still, soon came time to leave and cross the bridge.

It didn't surprise Magnus much that most people preferred to take the long way North as the bridge would most likely not be safe enough for a carriage. But for one person it was possible, as long as you weren't afraid of heights.

Even without much fear of heights, he was still glad to step on solid ground after a few minutes of walking. Though his advance would be curtailed soon by what he could see in the distance.

A couple of Guardians were patrolling the area West from the bridge, they didn't appear to be intact. But they were definitely more than a bit conflict-capable.

It was surprising that no one in the stable had made a mention of them. They must have moved from another area, maybe a Talus, Hinox or maybe even a Lynel may have moved into the location they were before. They were a bit far to check how recent the damage on them was.

And while very tempting to get into a nice ol' scuffle.

"System, do you think you can take control over the two Guardians?" He subvocalized for safety.

"Short-distance communication confirms both units have working communication ports."

He nodded, more to himself than anyone else. There had been plenty of note exchanges between Purah, Robbie and him to work out a way to take Guardians out of the equation without a fight. Magnus was pretty sure he could fight them, but no one said that one couldn't use the more simple solution.

The idea had come from having met the Malice Guardian, though they doubted it could actually be taken out via this method, they had theorized that in the best of cases it could provide some well-needed distraction.

"Well, we've two targets to play with. Start with a low-priority ping to the closest unit."

He watched as the machine didn't even react to it.

"Low-priority ping has been ignored, unit appears to be in battle mode and will not react to anything besides a high-priority ping or contact from a higher ranking unit."

He grumbled a bit, that raised the danger of the test quite a bit.

"Okay, you will ping the closest with a high priority ping, but also prepare the override command. If the first goes through, send the second."

He received a confirmation chirp and watched as the Guardian stiffened this time. The blue stand-by was replaced by a surprising orange, then red, then green and then it shut off. Even from the distance he could see some Malice smoking off the Guardian.

That was good news, very good news.

"Now the other." He ordered and watched.

Unfortunately this wasn't as lucky as the first. Instead of going from red to green, it kept red as it stood up and scanned the area.

"Fuck." He cursed and ordered before he got moving. "Start hacking it."

He ran away from the bridge, the last thing he wanted was to get the fragile thing destroyed in an accidental shot. The machine quickly caught him as Graceful was retrieved from his inventory.

He blinked forward to dodge one of the cannon's lasers, shortening the distance between them. Instead of Attacking the Guardian, he used the metal bat as a hammer to drive a large, metal clamp into the ground and lock one of the machine's legs into the hard rock.

The machine quickly started to try and free itself as Magnus moved to the opposite side and rammed another clamp down. He was forced to quickly dodge another cannon shot.

The machine was obviously entering some kind of panic mode because he could practically feel the temperature of the overheating lens as the machine unleashed barrages and sweeps to try and catch him.

Thankfully it finally stopped moving.

"Guardian Unit's been neutralized, unfortunately had to force it to overheat to shut it down."

He nodded and brought out his tool box. He didn't doubt a Blood Moon would most likely reactivate the Guardians, so he would be taking them apart, their parts were still useful; even if it was just as materials.

Two less Guardians made the roads safer, though from what he knew it was barely a drop in a bucket. Purah had admitted there were hundreds of them…

Maybe once the tower system was reactivated he could see about forcing his control further over the network. Time would tell.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 44

Magnus fiddled with the Giant Ancient Core, he didn't think any Guardian was actually equipped with these. Robbie had mentioned them as some of the most advanced pieces he had studied from the Ancient Sheikah, but this was honestly the first time he saw one.

Funnily enough, they were capable of producing them. They just had no reason to. The cores were a combination of power, central processor and some kind of memory bank. Unfortunately it was also unusable, Malice had corrosive properties and a century of being taken over by the Calamity had eaten away at the machinery.

It made him wonder if this was why they weren't as dangerous as they theoretically should be. Though he could also theorize the strength of the Guardian units was actually in them cooperating rather than their individual power, as high as it may actually be. The current Guardians acted more as solitary predators even when more than one occupied a single area.

His attention was caught by the slight feel of magic to his right and up the rocky ridges that enclosed the road. It wasn't hard to guess that the fairy fountain, it cheered him a bit to feel she appeared to be in a better situation than Mija had been.

It wasn't hard to get to the fountain, the now familiar giant flower bulb. The area surrounding it was much more sparse, befitting the more austere looks of the Southern area of the Tabantha Frontier region.

Harder and sparser grass, shorter trees, thistles and only a few flowers grew in the area. It had its charm and he could see a few strands of wheat growing too.

He approached the bulb and knocked gently on it before the fairy could react.

"Uh? A traveler, it's sure been a while…" The voice that came from inside had a tone that made him think the fairy may have been asleep. It seemed she was preparing herself because soon the hand slid out, open and expecting like all of the fairies had presented themselves. "Greetings traveler, would you be so kind to-"

Magnus chuckled and gently held her finger to shake it softly. "No need to give me the spiel, Kaysa, I've talked with Cotera and Mija before. I'm Magnus and Cotera asked me to visit you and the others to help you recover your missing energy." He told her happily. "Now prepare yourself, because it will be much easier to talk face to face."

He warned her, but it was obvious she had no way to be ready for what was to come. Magnus had a very easy time by now to increase his stars' revolution speed. Strands of power, literal stellar winds, that converged towards the axis between them.

A moment later the weaved strands of power were transferred into the Great Fairy and poured into her metaphorical reservoir of power.

Kaysa's hand stiffened, but she didn't pull back. "Oh my stars above!" She nearly squealed out. "How are-"

"I've a lot of available power, this is just what I accumulate passively." He explained.

Funny thing about stars, they aren't really that efficient at what they do. Yes, they create a lot of energy at all times, but they are also simply massive; most people simply can't fathom just how big a star actually is in comparison. Over a million earths could come together and not be as big as the Sun, and the Sun's not even that big as a star.

Magnus tended to call the two sources of his power stars, but that wasn't completely true. Different from actual stars, those two sources were actually endless. Semi-physical and semi-spiritual constructs that formed part of his soul.

Different from stars, these two were endless and efficient in the power they created. He just didn't have any reason to pull so much power from them.

This time it was Magnus who stopped when he felt the Great Fairy had been topped off, and a bit more.

"Sweet Goddess… you don't do anything by half." Her tone was a bit higher than she intended. "Give me a moment to deal with all of this power." She laughed as she retrieved her hand and the large bulb started to pump the excess into the air.

He took a step back as the flower bud bloomed to expose the fountain's pool inside. While he wondered if the decorations were part of the nature of the position or they had set them themselves, he didn't feel curious enough to actually ask; they did look wonderful and added a regal presence.

And a moment later out of the pool of water came Kaysa, if it was even water, Magnus had to admit the thing was past the concept of saturation on magic to be considered water. The Great Fairy looked very similar to her peers, the main difference was her white hair, darker skin and the decorative accessories that hid little of her figure.

"Hmm... you won't believe how long it's been since I've felt like this!" She laughed and shivered, very much on purpose if he had to guess.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. Now I just have to meet with Tera and I'll have met all of you, Malanya included."

"… yes, I can feel the touch of your energy now, even that hard-headed horse has been visited." She observed before looking down at him. "And you're quite the interesting one too."

"Thank you, I like to think dad really overdid it with my siblings and me." He winked and posed.

Kaysa laughed and the noise was warm and soothing. "Hmm, definitely. But I can tell that a lot of that is just you, and all that power." Her words were accompanied by a playful hum.

He smiled. "The compliments are always nice." She laughed at his reaction as he continued. "I'll be staying with the Rito for some time so I can stay again, I've been training my enchanting and Cotera noted that you were the most experienced in it."

Her gaze sharpened and she was close enough her nose was nearly poking him. "Yes, I can see that. Those clothes had been enchanted in such a novel way, I can recognize Cotera's touch, but everything above is definitely new." She straightened. "I will hold you to that promise, it's been a long time since someone came to talk shop and not just to ask for my blessing."

He also had an idea, but he would need to contact Purah and Robbie for that. "I wish you a good day, Kaysa, I will come see you."

He didn't stop her as the giant woman planted her lips on his face for a kiss. "Good tidings, Magnus, may the winds bring you back soon."

He wandered down towards the road, adding a note to carve some stairs next time he visited, it would certainly make it easier for others to visit her too.

The way towards Rito village was quite straight, edging Strock Lake. Though before he could reach Kolami Bridge his path was interrupted by the familiar sight of a huge Talus. Most likely few used the road given the state of the bridge.

A small flex of his presence seemed to be enough to stir the rocky giant awake. It was definitely a larger example of its race, if they could be called that. Not only that, it seemed to have a high amount of precious and semi-precious crystals embedded in its body.

In other words, a walking loot bag, or at least lumbering.

Magnus equipped Graceful as he wandered toward the monster. He had to admit he had found the giants to be one of the easiest targets to fight on Hyrule, they were just too slow and clumsy. Its attacks were too telegraphed, it was too easy to just move off the path of the thrown boulders even if he was only giving the rock a modest amount of attention. And he only needed to blink onto its body to attack its obvious weak point.

He knew they were dangerous… but only for other people. He imagined they would be a nightmare to deal with if one was being sieged, or you were a large group and had much less mobility when you had to take into account allies.

Though he didn't even need to dodge the flying boulder as he parried it with the metal bat and sent it into the lake to the side. The Talus didn't show any kind of emotion as it proceeded to try the same thing again, with similar results; as dumb as the rock that made its body.

He couldn't even say he felt anything but neutral towards the monsters. Useful, but otherwise just more of an inconvenience. He took advantage as the Talus slammed the ground to pull a pair of new arms to step onto its back.

Graceful came down towards the exposed weak point, the hit causing the monster to stop dead for a moment before trying to shake him off.

He blinked away and repeated the process, it was almost boring as the second hit dealt another huge chunk of damage to the monster as his weapon happily cracked it further.

The third time was the charm, the monster didn't recover after stiffening up. Instead it fell to the ground before breaking open like a geode and revealed large amounts of crystals and gemstones. A small troop of worker units marched out of the inventory and quickly collected the resulting materials before he resumed his walk.

Once more the Talus had barely dropped anything of its own, the sliver of heart ore was a bit larger than the previous examples. But still too small to do anything with it.

Kolami Bridge was… another wooden bridge he was surprised that still stood. If anything it was even more surprising because of how simple it was. Just a number of planks held together by nails and to each side of the end of the road.

"Another bridge to make." He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Hyrule would definitely need some proper infrastructure to be added. He could understand the dangers of monsters and the sealed Calamity. But this was starting to grate on him a bit. At least he should have enough materials to construct this one easily, and the distance between both ends wasn't too far that the large worker units couldn't bridge the gap to construct it without flying units.

Crossing it went without much problem, but his way was soon stopped, again. This time it was Lizalfos, and a good number of them. He really hoped he would get to the stable outside of Rito Village before nighttime.

---

He would really need to do some proper culling of the monsters if he was going to use the South road again in the future, it was just impressive how many Lizalfos he found in just a few kilometers of rocky ground.

He still made it to the stable outside of the entrance to Rito Village, the yurt looked as welcoming as all of them always were. There was something in the design, between open and protected that set a very cozy atmosphere.

"Greetings, and welcome to the Rito stable." The stable-master greeted him. "I'm Galli, what can I do for you?"

"Good evening, I was looking to pay for a normal bed for the night and hear any news on the area." He passed the fee and a bit of extra for the information.

The Hylian nodded and pocketed the rupees. "There's good, bad and curious news, which would you like to hear first?"

"Start with the bad ones, better get them out of the way." Magnus chose.

"On the bad side, there's been an increase of Lizalfos in the road South, some hunters say they were pushed there by a Black Hinox moved halfway down the road to Warbler's Nest. It's not much of a problem since not many use the South Road, but it's good to keep in mind since the Lizalfos wander North for hunting."

He felt his mouth twist, it would have been nice to know.

"Good news?" He prompted.

"We're expecting a temperate Winter this year, most likely no heavy storms and little snow. It'll hopefully be an easy season." The man nodded and continued. "As for curious news, they say there's a bloodthirsty warrior that's been seen fighting monsters in the South East of Hyrule, few have managed to catch sight of him."

He felt like his family would laugh at him for having started a rumor like that.

"I will keep an eye for that then." He stated noncommittally and thanked Galli before sitting by the fire to relax.

The rest of the night was spent chatting with some of the locals and other travelers. As expected everyone, but him, had arrived through the North path, it added days to the trip. But it was certainly much safer.

After a night of his normal amount of sleep and plenty of thought for his close-future plans, he left the stable around mid-morning and started his trek towards the avian village.

The village was constructed on the tallest and largest of the rocky spires that sprouted from Lake Totori. It was very obvious why it had been chosen by the Rito, it was practically unassailable by anyone that couldn't fly if any of the bridges set from the border of the basin and the few islands that connected to the village were cut.

The tall cypress trees dotted the region even before entering the colder area further North towards the Hebra mountains. He should see about experimenting with their woods and their resin, if he remembered right it could be used for multiple things like rubber, varnishes and glue, between others.

It was also generally considered to be quite pleasant smelling, and could be smelled quite strongly as the scent was most likely spread all over the area by the strong winds; which also carried the noise from afar.

Splash - Plop

It surprised him to hear someone diving into the water below, but some birds did fish. Though the noises he could hear from ahead were worrisome enough that he rushed towards them to make sure everything was okay.

In an instant he could see the situation wasn't okay, a group of Rito children were panicking, about half of them were looking over the edge, one ran towards the village and the rest were just lost on what to do.

Magnus knew perfectly well what to do.

In a moment he was soaring over the edge, falling towards the water, and what he could tell was a trashing child. His body shifted twice, first step was into his Zoroark form, second was the Zora mask over his face.

His will pushed on the water and the surface tension was reduced to allow him to dive without resistance. His perception spread quickly to find the boy that was quickly sinking to the bottom, his body had stopped trashing, most likely the shock of just how cold the water really was below the surface.

It took a second to swim to him in this form, slipped an arm under his arms and carefully dragged him toward the surface. He knew perfectly well that wasn't the end of it, the boy was going through the first stage of cold shock response.

Birds usually maintained body heat by creating pockets of air under their feathers, and he didn't believe Rito were too different in this. Prestidigitation was used repeatedly until the boy was at least soaked in warm water as he retrieved Forward from his inventory.

The surprise of his expanded perception of all things water was slammed down with pure willpower before he carefully extended his control towards the water that filled the boy's lungs and carefully started to replace it with fresh air. Finally he sent a small and controlled shock to wake the boy up.

He held a firm grip on the boy as he coughed the last of the water out of his throat.

"Easy there, easy there." He spoke in a soothing tone and stroked his back. "You're okay, I rescued you from the water, breathe deep and relax, you're safe."

He coughed a few more times as he got his breath back into control.

"Do you remember what happened?" He questioned.

"...yes…" He squeaked, sounding still shaken. "… Cree was too close to the edge and she tripped."

He nodded. "And you pulled her back and fell yourself?" He asked in a gentle voice, receiving a nod in response. "You were very brave, what's your name?"

The cream-colored Rito chick looked a bit flustered. "I'm Tulin."

"You did very well Tulin. Now we should get back up, everyone must be panicking."

The boy looked around. "But how will we get back up?" He blinked as he finally realized they were still on the water.

Magnus chuckled as he swung his trident down, the water under his feet grew more solid before he carefully had it start to rise.

"What?" Tulin prompted, surprised as he was still in his arms as they rose.

It took a couple of minutes to reach the tall islands and he could see a number of Rito already waiting for them; kids hiding behind the adults. A lilac-feathered Rito woman rushed to the edge.

"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you." He could feel her gratitude and honesty.

"It's okay, he's okay, but he will need to dry up and have something warm to drink." Magnus suggested as he handed the chick over to his mother.

She nodded along. "Thank you very much, I don't know what could have happened otherwise." She shivered at the mere thought. "I'm Saki, and I'm sorry to say, but I didn't know Zora could do this." She gestured to the large mass of water he was still standing on.

He chuckled goodheartedly and stepped off before letting the water fall back down.

"That's because I'm no Zora." He reached to his face and popped the mask off, instantly returning to his human-like self. "I'm Magnus."

He heard a few whats and hows, making him smile. "Maybe it would be better if we relocated back to the village?" He asked.

Everyone agreed, the obvious parents getting their children home under the excuse of being enough excitement for the morning; the kids didn't entirely understand the fear the event had put in their parents.

He passively listened to Saki asking Tulin what had happened and the boy repeating exactly what he had told him. It was good to see the kid was honest.

The moment they stepped onto the main island a tall, raptor-like Rito of a plumage color very similar to Tulin landed and approached the mother-son pair.

The man quickly approached Magnus and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you." His two words held as much honesty and gratitude as it was possible. "I'm Teba, I thank you for saving my son's life."

He smiled. "As I wanted to tell Saki, I just did the right thing." He patted the Rito's arm before they stepped away from each other.

Saki and Teba guided him up the stairs of the village to their home where they sat down.

"What brings you to our village, Magnus?" The man asked.

"I'm traveling all over Hyrule to learn what the people can give." He explained. "I came looking for a Rito willing to teach me." He thanked Saki as the woman handed them a mug of warm tea.

He noticed Tulin had been practically wrapped in blankets, he didn't doubt the kid would be well.

"May I ask something?" She prompted and Magnus nodded. "What was that mask you showed before?"

"This?" He asked in response, pulling the mask out and handing it to her.

"Yes, but it looks slightly different." She observed as she ran her large fingers over the smooth wood.

"That's because I'm not using it." He answered. "And before you ask, it won't work for most people, it's made to allow me to tap into the abilities of the Zora when I transform into them."

Both Saki and Teba look like they want to ask about it, so he shows her. First shifting into a Zoroark, his sitting position having to shift slightly to make for the different legs; same with his clothes that shift to fit his lithe frame.

"This is not another race, this is just another way I am." He explained and took the hand when Saki handed it back. "But with both." He placed the mask of his face and allowed the second shift to happen. "Now I'm nearly indistinguishable from any other Zora."

"How do you do that, sir?" Tulin prompted from his nest of blankets.

"The middle form is part of my natural self. Though it's also a race in themselves, they have the ability to shapeshift naturally, but they can't use the abilities from the forms they take. So I fixed that by making the mask." He explained patiently. "The mask's been enchanted with my knowledge and understanding of the Zora race, I learned a lot when treating their injuries last year."

"Now that you mention, I remember rumors about a strange doctor that lived with the Zora and the Goron for some time." Teba mused.

Magnus nodded. "That was most likely me, I offered my services, along with the making of elixirs, to pay for my studies of Goron and Zora crafting."

"And you want to learn from the Rito too?" Teba prompted, his tone was weird. It wasn't angry or curious, it held a strange sense of confusion at someone doing that.

"And I'll try to learn from the Gerudo too." He added. "I'll live for a long, long time, and I've decided I will learn from all races I meet and are willing to teach me, not just their crafting, but their culture, stories and memories too." He eagerly told them. "I'm a traveler at heart, I doubt I will ever stay for long anywhere, though I'm not saying I will leave and never return. But I very much doubt I'll ever be capable of settling down, as they say." He laughed at their surprise.

"Why? Why would you decide on that?" Saki asked. "Don't you have a home?"

Magnus blinked before removing his mask, he wasn't sure he could speak honestly while wearing a face that could be considered not his.

"I do have a home, more than one." He answered honestly. "In the time I've been in Hyrule I've come to love this land and want to help it flourish. And I also have a home with my family, and while it's very far and it would take time to get there, I know I will see them again in the future, and that I will always have a place to return." He smiled warmly at the memories. "I'll just always long to go out and see what Worlds are out there."

After a moment the man nodded. "I don't think I will share the feeling, but I can tell you're honest, and that I can understand very well."

"Thank you."

The man laughed softly. "I don't know what I did to deserve your gratitude, especially after you saved Tulin. If you want I will take you to village's elder and present you to them, I'm sure Kaneli will hear your request."

"I will be in your hands then, Teba." Magnus bowed forward from his sitting position.

He followed the Rito after thanking Saki for the hospitality and telling Tulin to recover quickly. It looked like his arrival to the village, while unfortunate, ended up much better than he expected. Now he could only hope it would only get better.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 45

Teba looked at the young man walking with little care in the world, even after the elder had warned him the area had become infested with some powerful monsters. Instead Magnus had become elated and offered his help in dealing with them.

He was surprised and confused by this, he had scouted the area as one of the faster fliers and found a worrying amount of black-skinned monsters. Topping things off with a Black Hinox.

"Are you sure about this?" He asked his current companion.

"Yes." He answered without a hint of insincerity. "Dealing with monsters will not only make the area safer, and provide me with a place for a workshop and materials. But it will also be good exercise and I've not tested my mettle against monsters such as these."

The Rito tilted his head. "Are you sure that's wise?"

Magnus chuckled and wavered his hand. "Not entirely, I could certainly work in thinning the monsters out across several days." He admitted. "But I need to push myself, my body is very strong and still growing stronger, there's many abilities I've not been able to use because I've been lagging behind in my development."

"You have my bow to help then."

The young man smiled. "Thank you, Teba. But wait until I'm really in danger." He asked. "Oh, there they are."

The Rito was surprised by the comment and had to sharpen his gaze to see what Magnus was talking about. On a respectably large tree a group of Bokoblins had built one of their primitive bases. He was very surprised by it because he was sure they hadn't last time he scouted.

"I'm impressed by your sight." Teba praised.

"Thank you, dad spared no expenses when he made us." He commented offhandedly and looked thoughtful for a moment before making the weirdest club he had ever seen appear in his hand.

He nearly asked about it, but seeing that Magnus was going to use it, it would be easier to watch it in action. Teba flew up to watch the young man start moving.

Though that wasn't all that had happened, Teba was glad to have stopped expecting him to not surprise him as Magnus' figure split into three figures that jumped onto the tree base. A coordinated assault that surprised the monsters for only a moment before they raised their Dragon-bone weapons and attacked.

He winced the moment he saw what the weapon was capable of, one of the few Blue-skinned Bokoblins on the lower levels of the tree base was sent flying with a single swing. As if it had been hit by a charging Lynel, the monster was reduced to a flying, mangled mess.

A strange tone between all the fighting noise caught his attention, it seemed to come from nowhere in specific, and the open nature of the base certainly didn't help. But soon found the source as the tone was guided by the tone of a deep bell that seemed to originate from Magnus, but more specifically from the sphere at the end of his long braid.

Each time the magnificently decorated, glowing stone bead swung it went ding and dong. The use of it confused him, but he quickly wondered if it had something to do with how some of the Bokoblins that tried to attack Magnus missed. Or the clones, which were easy to spot as they weren't producing much noise when moving; even if they were still as capable of inflicting damage.

The sound of wood breaking made him wince as the large metal club swung down and buried the last Bokoblin half-way into the wooden floor before the weapon was replaced by a slightly curved, glowing blade that finished the job by piercing through the monster's eye. Teba winced slightly at the sight, but he was spared the gore as the monster quickly broke away into a few drops.

He landed by him. "Very impressive." The praise wasn't unearned.

"Thank you, and it was a bit harder than I thought it would be. That's good." His comment made Teba raise an eyebrow. "I'm trying to get better, and you need a proper threat to get better, or push things like I did." He explained. "The clones are a new technique I'm still developing. I based it on the Sheikah's technique, but using my own twist. I've a few ideas of how to take it even further."

"A question, though I imagine I'm correct. That noise had something to do with how the monsters missed you, right?" He asked.

Magnus nodded. "Yes." He swung his braid and grabbed the decoration. "This is Stone Bell, and it allows me to cast wide-spread illusions with the use of sound." He let it go and the bead swung once, twice and dinged on the third swing.

Teba took a step back as the wood under his feet started to turn green and grow grass.

"This is just a visual illusion, on the monster I used something a bit more subtle, it affects their sense of balance and hand-eye coordination. It's a bit dangerous since they become more random in their movements. But it mostly ends in them swinging and missing more often than hitting instead of missing."

"That's terrifying." The Rito felt a shiver go down his spine at the thought of losing dexterity. Not just as an archer, but flying could become very dangerous with an affliction like that.

"Better than the other one I tried." He mumbled and shook his head. "Nevermind that, just something I will likely not use unless very necessary."

He tilted his head. "If you say so, I will trust you."

"We should move, there's still a Hinox to take care of, I will return and bring this place down later. With any luck I can get some useful wood." He commented and simply jumped down the base's third floor, landing as if it had been a step.

"I know you want to take the beast alone, but seeing you aim to improve-" Teba started but was interrupted.

"If you want to help take out the monster you're invited." He said cheekily. "Also if you want, I will happily enchant your bow if you need."

Teba just sighed, it wasn't hard to like Magnus. But the young man had something that he could still not explain, maybe it was just how full of surprises he was while also looking fairly normal.

He gave his bow another check, maybe he would take them on their offer to enchant their bow, it had been a long time since he improved it.

---

Magnus eyed the black-skinned cyclops currently sleeping in a small clearing like most of its species did. The monster seemed to have gorged itself on several goats as barely recognizable carcasses and gore was spilled on the hard ground.

Mentally he thanked the System for keeping from smelling that, or the monster. Few actually could understand the foul smell of filth and miasma mixing, he would curse his nose more if he wasn't normally capable of ignoring it.

"What's the plan?" Teba prompted.

"Definitely not how I usually go at things." Magnus said with a grin. "Joke aside, Hinox normally have a single main weakness on their eyes. I imagine you won't have much trouble hitting that target as long as I can keep the monster distracted. Outside of that their short legs and their large mouths tend to be pretty good targets too, so here." He handed the Rito a handful of bomb arrows. "I doubt it will be fast, black-skinned monsters tend to be proportionally much stronger than lesser ones, and a Hinox's practically all defense."

"That I can do." He agreed and observed the arrows. "You made them yourself?"

"Yeah, I'm trying to improve on the design. But those are for another time. Aim for the mouth." He turned to look at the monster again. "I recommend getting some distance, I will wake it up explosively."

The Rito nodded and shot up into the air, making him watch and make a note to really study their race as soon as possible.

With his companion at a safe distance, Magnus wrapped himself in Darkness to muffle his approach as he started to generate Blue Flames. The monster was even uglier from close up. Not only it had more spikes, growths and warts growing from its body, but it seemed to have also several pieces of armor cobbled together from other things. The leg guards actually looked like they had been breast plates at some time.

Different from the last time he tried this, there were no standing trees close enough to his target, making his actions a bit harder. He started by weaving the flame-like energy with his magic, reinforcing the bomb construct.

It was a bit fun to look at the resulting construct, because instead of looking like a bomb, the energy took the shape of a Taijitu, also known as the Yin-Yang symbol. The only difference was the glowing, blue trimming that separated the two colors. It was about the size of a basketball ball, and just like one he used it to do a three-point shot.

The Hinox' single eye opened instantly and quickly reached for its mouth. But not fast enough as the construct went off. It was a mark of its toughness as most of the force was shot out of its mouth and nose instead of blowing its head wide open like a watermelon. Instead it screamed in pain and anger as it got up and zeroed on him.

Teba's skill made a show as a moment later an arrow cut through the air and impacted the monster's large eye, drawing another bellow of anger that made the coniferous trees around shudder.

Magnus didn't say a thing, instead he moved with Graceful in hand to break the armor covering the monster's legs. Whatever foul magic and miasma formed the monster seemed to have soaked deep into the material, to the point that even where it was wood, and not metal, it was as tough as granite.

This didn't make much difference as the kanabo's weight increased with every swing until the foul materials broke away. And just in time for Magnus to jump away as the monster got up, arms flailing around and short legs kicking.

He replaced the metal bat for his blade and took a solid stance a distance away. The blade rose as he focused one of his two elements on it before he swung down. The blades of Light that shot out were focused in a single line, hitting the monster and creating a deep cut that made it finally open its eye again.

Teba quickly landed two arrows in its eye, the Hinox roared bloody murder only to receive a pair of bomb arrows in its open mouth and fall back. Not dead yet, just stunned and open for Magnus to jump onto it and slash at its blubber with his blade.

The natural, as natural the monster could be considered, put quite the effort in keeping him from dealing significant damage. If it wasn't for the Light in his blade burning through the monster's tallow, he would have made considerably less damage before he was done with the monster.

Said monster wasn't dumb, it didn't roar again, or open its single eye. Instead started to jump in place, making the earth shake with its massive body. The ground practically cratered as the close-by trees started to fall down, close enough for the monster to grab one of them and use the evergreen like an oversized club.

"Magnus, are you okay down there?" Teba called out from the air.

"All good still." He answered and swung Forward to clean the clouds of dust raised by the monster's tantrum away. "It's impressive that it's still kicking." He mused as the monster was peeking very carefully through its fat fingers before swinging the three with the other hand.

He replaced the blade for Close&Personal, the gloves glowing even in the light of the afternoon as he punched his fists together.

"Hey ugly, over here." He taunted the monster, some of his Dark element soaking his words and making the Black Hinox roar and rush at him.

Magnus buried his feet into the ground and focused on the incoming hit. The ground sank under him as he caught the now nearly branch-less log with both hands above his head.

"What? Surprised you? How about this?" He grinned savagely as he poured his energy into the gauntlets.

The fire and heat went directly into the log and pushed it all towards the base, effectively the end currently aiming at the monster's face. A high whistling sound was followed by hot resin shot at boiling temperatures, it splashed all over the monster's face and large, ugly, open eye.

The Hinox instantly let go and screamed as best as it could as a lot of resin had filled its maw, gumming it up. Magnus still held the still heating log and swung it with both hands to smack the monster's face. Half of the improvised weapon exploded in red-hot splinters, a lot of them getting into the monster's still open eye as he quickly rammed the remaining log into its damaged stomach.

"Shoot the bombs at its mouth." He called out and quickly uppercutted the monster right on the jaw, just after the arrows passed its charred and resin-covered lips.

They went off with a muted noise as the light left the monster's eye. It rolled back into its skull as it fell down, breaking apart into Malice, miasma and a few monster parts.

"That will hopefully make the area safer." He mused as Teba landed.

"It will most likely have the Lizalfos move back, but we can deal with them much easier compared to the monsters we killed today." He noted. "Though… won't they be back once the Blood Moon rises?"

"Oh, most likely the Bokoblins will return, but nowhere near as strong. Once I build a place I will start pumping enough Light in the area that even with a Blood Moon it will be pretty hard for big monsters to return to the area." He quickly explained and showed the Rito a small ball of Light over his hand.

It was quite fascinating how he could see the lingering miasma burn on the sphere's surface, burning. Though he would also have to see about developing a proper way to do as he told Teba. The idea was there and he was pretty sure the final goal would do as he said, but he needed a proper way that wouldn't have the element just spilling everywhere instead of saturating the area.

He opened his inventory and had the worker units step out and start collecting the fallen trees, it would be a shame to waste all the work of deforestation the monster had done. Teba just looked at them in a mix of curiosity and wariness. He was glad to have shown the Rito the machines earlier.

Teba moved closer to the log/club that had been dropped on the floor.

"Your strength impresses me."

"And can you believe I've not hit my limit yet?" He reached for the piece of wood, his armored fingers easily digging into the still hot wood. "It's been slowly coming back to me, thankfully slow enough I can gauge things and not accidentally break something… or someone."

Teba shivered at the thought. Magnus was already mentally designing the house, a small alpine cabin would look very nice with all the cypress trees, he also had a lot of spare stone to use as material. Though he had a better idea.

He thanked the Rito for the company, but it was getting late and the man had to go back to his family. It didn't bother him, wishing him well as Magnus got ready for a good night of work.

---

Magnus was glad to have finally unlocked the Multi-tool function of the inventory, he had certainly been doing enough digging to fill one silly bar. It was still restricted, but the ability to dig and lay material in different ways and configurations made the construction of the cabin's foundations a breeze.

It had been very useful in digging an underground cellar large enough to deploy the storage segment and unlock it so he could produce some extra building materials. He encased the cellar with the same stone he dug from the mountain, reinforced those walls with the Light-alloy rebars and then coated it with the alchemical paint to further reinforce it.

The house above was taking a bit longer, mainly because the production of tiles wasn't the fastest thing without a proper power source for the matter generator. It took nearly a minute to make each tile given the fact he had them be produced as smooth and perfect as possible. With around a hundred and twenty square meters of roof it would take nearly a week to finish. But he expected it to be well worth it as the alchemical treatment would mean the cabin could resist a lot.

On the other hand the walls, flooring and structure was finished by noon of the next day. Once more he had gone for a nail-less juncture to make sure every part of it was similarly reinforced.

The inside ended up being twenty percent living quarters, aka bedroom, bathroom and a small kitchen. The rest was pure workshop space, nothing had been used yet, but his mind was brimming with ideas.

Though first he had something important to do.

One of the things he had prepared before leaving was putting together a DD Network terminal and he had quickly installed it in the basement along with an Ancient Furnace. With both of those working he could more easily tap into the network.

He opened a video call and only a moment later he saw Purah appearing on the screen.

"Good afternoon, I assume you are already settling in?" The researcher quickly prompted.

"Yes, there was a little problem that needed to be taken care of, but I've already installed the terminal." He explained as he allowed the system to run a few checks. "It should make communicating much easier."

"Monsters?" She asked with a knowing look.

"Monsters." He answered. "But that's taking care off for now. Oh, I had an idea I wanted to put through you."

"Send it over, I will look at it once-" Purah was interrupted when a familiar girl entered the picture.

"Magnus!"

"Paya, good to see you, what are you doing there?" He said surprised.

"Niece, please." Purah huffed and pushed. "She came to see you, but you had already left. So she's staying for a bit."

He gave an understanding nod. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there, Paya."

The girl sat down as Purah shifted the camera a bit to catch both of them. "It's okay, I'm learning a lot from aunty." She happily told him. "I'm also staying at your house, I hope that's not a problem."

"Better that someone uses that house instead of going for a century abandoned. And hopefully you will convince your aunt there to exercise some." His words seemed to make her happy. "I've already talked with the elder and it should be possible to get a teacher to come visit frequently, with Winter incoming they will be quite free outside of doing some hunting and maintenance of the village."

Before Purah could say what was in her mind, Paya spoke up.

"Aunt Purah's told me you were picking more parts of the ship you arrived, anything interesting?" The girl bounced in her spot a bit, showing her age in an adorable way.

"I ended up picking up three parts. The first was in Floria Lake, one in Lake Hylia and the last one in Ludfo's Bog. The last two were mostly service parts of the ship so they have nothing useful. The real reward was in the one I retrieved in the first lake."

"Come on, boy, don't tease us and speak already." Purah complained.

He laughed softly. "It was the storage segment, it doesn't just contain a plethora of things, it also has the matter generator." The older Sheikah looked stunned while the younger was confused. "It's a machine that takes energy and makes… well, anything." He explained. "Well, almost anything, it's currently running on emergency power, so it's very restricted in speed and complexity of what it can produce."

"That's insane, the needed power generation and processing power…" Purah mumbled just loud enough for him to hear her. "Tell me you can fix it."

"There's nothing broken." He quickly replied. "Each segment has enough power generation to remain whole, fix itself and work some basic systems. But the main power generation can only activate if the ship's put back together."

Purah grumbled. "So there's only four parts left to recover?"

"Yes, I'm planning on picking up the ones I already found in a few months before heading to the Gerudo desert. But there's four parts left outside of those, Medical in the Bottomless Swamp, Workshops in the Gerudo Desert, Multipurpose Rooms in the Hebra Mountains and the Heart of the ship somewhere close to the Forgotten Temple."

"And you will be picking up the one in the mountains and the temple in these few months, no?" Paya asked after thinking about it for a moment.

"That's the idea. Once I'm done here in Rito Village I will be heading to Death Mountain, mainly to visit the Spring of Power, and on the way back I will most likely visit Kakariko and the swamp." He explained. "From there I will go across Central Hyrule, though I'm still not sure if I should try to retrieve the part in the desert before or after dealing with Gerudo City."

"Have you finally gotten a way in?"

He shook his head. "Not yet, I've to admit I'm procrastinating. But I think my best chance will be looking for a way in the desert bazaar or the stable in the way."

"You shouldn't leave things to chance." She leveled a glare on him.

"Worst comes to pass, I will just shift for a few months. Not the weirdest thing I've done. I could also just finish the ship, there may be something useful there for me to do." He waved it off.

"I would say that most wouldn't choose an option like that, but I feel like it's entirely common for you."

He smiled and kept his silence as Paya looked between them, confused about what he was talking about.

"Oh, with Paya there, have you thought about offering your sister the Age Rune?"

His question quickly prompted a whole new discussion, one that thankfully had the younger woman much more active in it.

As he had told Teba, Hyrule had become a sort-of home for him, and some of its people as family. He wanted to help them, and had more than a few ideas of how to.

 

[Melakias]

Venturing the Wild – 46

Magnus' hammer came down on the current earth-alloy plate he was working on, keeping the metal at the correct temperature was more than a bit hard given the element of the material. The alloy was definitely a troublesome one to work with as its immense hardness needed a very specific temperature to be maintained for a long time before it softened, and by specific it meant it had an error margin of a tenth of a degree for thirty minutes, and then had to be kept at said temperature to work it.

Thankfully he had designed the armored boots with this in mind, so at least this version would have a set of interlocked armored plates. It would also go a long way to accommodate the shape-shifting enchantment and allow their use even when he had turned into a Zoroark, though said form wasn't that great for kicks.

It was easier to maintain the temperature of small pieces to work on them properly and let them cool once they were done. The thing was that once they cooled they sort-of locked and would need twice the work to reforge, meaning that a handful of plates had been wasted for minor mistakes. On the other hand once they were all cool and the boots assembled a second heating and cooling process would quadruple the initial heating time and make them practically impossible to melt under normal circumstances.

He proceeded to engrave the necessary rune in the plate, an appraising eye looked down at his work and nodded. The plate was put with the finished ones and he sighed in relief, that was the last of them and now he could allow them to cool before assembling the boots and giving them the reheat treatment.

He had a few good ideas for names, but that would have to wait until they were properly enchanted. He gave the hammer he had been using a look and grumbled, it had cracked once more, he needed to look through the alloys inventory and see about getting one of the neutral metals to make a good hammer head. But that would have to wait because he noticed a message from Robbie.

He sat on his desk and initiated the video call. "Good morning," he greeted, "what did you need?" He quickly asked as there had been some sense of urgency in the message.

"Good morning, Magnus, it's not as urgent as I don't want Purah to know I'm handing this to you." The not-so-old-anymore researcher said as he tapped on the keyboard. "Back when you were staying with us I lied a bit about you having worked through everything we held, there's a specific collection of notes that I decided it was better to leave out. Though that also meant it took me a bit to properly digitize them as well as you did."

A large file downloaded into his DD terminal and he quickly opened it.

"Oh…"

"I see you already recognized them." Robbie let out a dry chuckle. "Yes, those are our blueprints for the Divine Beasts. I've gone through them with all the new knowledge you provided, but unfortunately there are multiple parts that I still can't explain the purpose or working of, there's also many parts we had to modify given the lack of actual blueprints for their designs. Everything is properly annotated, but I doubt it's perfect."

He eyed the designs and felt Robbie was understanding just how much work he had put into these designs. Magnus could see the many annotations, observations and comments that had gone into the blueprints, he could practically see what was old and what was new. And there were a lot of new notes on the function of the giant machines.

"Robbie, this is incredible." He admitted as he eyed Vah Medoh's flying mechanism.

He sucked air through his teeth as he realized the machine could utilize its propulsion method to practically hammer down the ground with air pressure.

Robbie scoffed. "Like you wouldn't have gotten to learn their workings sooner or later, don't think I don't understand how your system works. Consider it a gift for having helped so much, and I want to see what you do with it."

Magnus shook his head and thanked the older man, wishing him well as Robbie finished the call a moment later.

He studied the designs for a bit more and started to notice a few similarities between the beasts. There were a series of systems and design choices that didn't make much sense in the machines, many of these spots were the ones Robbie and Purah had to fill-in when fixing them.

But they made sense if these had been based on animals. He couldn't tell exactly what kind of animals they had been based on, besides their general aspects. But he knew enough biology to see how some of those would cover certain organs, though he couldn't tell their actual purpose as it was obvious the Divine Beasts were stylized versions of the animals. Or maybe there had been giant, four-eyed camels in the Gerudo Desert once upon a time.

Though it wasn't impossible, Purah had mentioned the Leviathan skeletons, he would have to check on them. But that could be left for later, right now he had to finish putting together the boots and shin guards.

---

Saki wasn't entirely comfortable taking Tulin to visit Magnus, but her chick wanted to thank the man properly for saving him, and honestly she felt the same. Teba had mentioned he had helped him clear up the area South of the lake to start building his own place, so she expected him to have set up a tent while he worked.

Though that was far from what they actually found when she landed and placed her son down on the ground.

There was a fully built house in what appeared to be a recently cleared area of the forest. The walls had a foundation of rock bricks of almost a meter tall before giving way to a wall made from neatly cut wooden boards, there was even glass in the windows. The gable roof was still unfinished, less than a fourth had been tiled so far.

While she watched, Tulin had rushed ahead and was energetically knocking on the door. She felt a bit embarrassed and quickly moved to stand by her son as they waited for Magnus to open.

It didn't take too long, the young man appeared on the door frame with what she was learning was his usual smile and some basic clothes. "Saki, Tulin, nice of you two to visit, come inside." He quickly helped them inside before they could even say a word.

Her son happily followed as he released a tirade of questions that Magnus simply laughed over. She followed a moment later, looking around and being surprised to see that most of the area appeared to be filled with tools, boxes, materials and things she couldn't really put a name to.

"Calm down, little bird." Magnus said after chuckling and placed a hand on Tulin's head. "Now, first rule here, touch nothing without my permission, there's way too many tools that are dangerous. Even the lowly hammer can break a toe if it slips from your hand."

He said and gestured to the table. "As for what I'm doing, I'm working on a new weapon mostly." He continued as he moved to a table where a pair of strange boots rested.

"But those are shoes." Tulin pointed out without a hint of shame.

"It can be both." He told the boy. "Would you say a set of sharpened blades for your talons are a weapon and a piece of armor if they protect your feet?"

She watched her son turn contemplative at the question.

"...I think they can."

Magnus nodded. "Exactly." He grabbed the pair. "These are Solid&Firm, they are the siblings of these two." He retrieved a pair of blue and orange gloves. "These are Close&Personal."

"Ohhh…" Tulin let out, amazed and Saki had to admit they were beautiful. "But why two names?"

His mouth twisted. "It's a bit complicated to explain, it's basically part of their nature as paired weapons, and I don't mean them being two sets, but that each is a set. While it's not like one glove's called Close and the other Personal, they are both both." He explained and shrugged. "It's not the best answer, but the answer is simply: It's magic."

She didn't truly get it, but it seemed her son nodded understandingly.

"How did you build everything so quickly?" Saki prompted, curious about the speed.

"I had help." Magnus answered and gestured to a machine she hadn't paid much attention to yet. She stiffened when she saw it stir and get up.

"It's okay, it's not a guardian." He quickly amended. "I used their parts to construct them, but they are completely dumb, these are Forge Ant worker units, they are basically remote tool platforms, they can do the work of several people and not get tired."

Once more her son showed a complete lack of fear as he climbed all over the machine. Before she could say something about it, Magnus lifted a hand with a smile on his face.

"It's okay." He reassured her.

"You built them?" She asked.

"Yes, I'm still far from matching someone like my father. But I like to think I'm aiming in a different direction." He explained and smiled awkwardly, a hand rubbing the back of his head.

"You look up to your father?"

He nodded. "Dad's amazing in ways that are hard to explain, or without sounding like I'm making things up." He laughed as he kept an eye on Tulin who had climbed onto the machine.

His tone made her believe his honesty, though while she wondered what type of acts were considered by him, she didn't feel curious enough to ask. Or maybe it was a bit embarrassing about pushing. Her eyes wandered around a bit and noticed something that caught her interest. "What's that?"

Magnus' turned and smiled. "Oh, that's an idea that came to me after seeing your village." He walked over to the floating disk and placed his hand on it, pushing down and only getting it to dip a few centimeters. "This is the prototype for a self-sustaining floating disc."

"What is it for?"

"Well, this." He picked a very familiar wood structure and laid it over the disk. "A way to extend the village while keeping the nature of its design."

She stepped closer, the small model looked almost identical to her house. It lacked all of their furniture and their belongings. But she could easily see where everything would fit. Her eyes moved onto a sketch of Rito Village, the angle made it obvious he had been watching the village from outside of his house, dozens of those platforms spreading out from the village like a giant tree.

"Why?" She wanted to ask many things, but this felt like the one that took priority.

"I like to look at the future. It's true the Calamity's still sealed, but I think it's good to look at what will come after we deal with it."

She turned and looked at him, really looked at him. The young man was an oddity, and it wasn't just the way he held his hair or the fact that his ears were round. There was something about his personality, on how he helped others and was open about things.

"You have other ideas?" She asked.

"Many, like the great bridge South of here, it's definitely needing some work." His comment made her laugh.

Their attention turned to Tulin, who was balancing on the machine's arms. The sight ruffled her feathers a bit, her son was too much like her father sometimes.

---

Magnus had to admit sometimes time had the tendency to pass very fast. In the blink of an eye it had been two weeks since his arrival to the Hebra region. Even with sporadic lessons from the teacher he had acquired, he was absorbing every little bit like a sponge. It certainly helped that he already had an ample understanding of woodworking, metal working and similar skills.

Thankfully the number of accidents he had to take care of weren't many, though the few broken bones were definitely an issue given the nature of the Rito's bones. Having to put a broken humerus back together was nothing to laugh at, it made him wonder if he should try to pick up Biomancy from the manuals he had copied over, the problem was that it had never been a school of magic he had found much interest, or affinity, in.

Still, while he liked to keep himself occupied he made time to relax. For this purpose he had crafted a few new instruments. A harmonica and an acoustic guitar had been pretty easy to make in a couple of hours of downtime. Both had been enchanted to increase their toughness, repair themselves and keep tuned, this last one turned out to be the hardest, but an interesting problem to solve.

Just in case Magnus had chosen a spot slightly away from the road to keep any kind of illusion that may slip his control from causing problems. The harmonica went first, he had chosen a sixteen holes style to have a larger playing range.

It felt very easy to pick up, he had already mastered the act of continuous breathing he had trained with the flute and the smaller instrument led itself much more for the method. He also found himself enjoying much more playing styles like rock, blues, jazz and even some country.

Just playing allowed him to remember a lot of very old songs, classics half a century old or more. Songs that carried feelings in them, those that the song evoked, those that the people that people who heard, played, experienced felt.

It was in the nature of the System, even as unconnected as it was at the moment, to carry experiences and knowledge. This was something that mirrored Magnus and his siblings, they all carried a lot with them, even if it was unconsciously. They were living repositories, made to accumulate, with their long lives, practically perfect recall, quick uptake and adaptability.

Music was one of these, and something Magnus was having trouble holding down, so full of emotions that leaked in the way of his illusions; sometimes merging with the local information strata. And playing the harmonica seemed to carry this effect so much easier than the flute for some reason.

The guitar turned out to be much less capable, most likely given the relation his breath had with his elements. It wasn't impossible, it was still easier to do it when using Stone Bell, the accessory much closely linked to his magic. But it took some coaxing for the magic to imbue the strings of the guitar as he plucked on them.

He played for over an hour, losing himself in the memories he could read in the songs, only stopping when he noticed Kass flying in. It had been about two months since he had last seen the Rito.

"Magnus!" The blue bard landed. "So good to see you, I heard you have arrived in the area."

"Good evening, and yes, though I've mostly stayed in the house I built near here." He said after putting down the guitar,

"It's always a pleasure when I find you on the field, with interesting instruments." Kass observed, leaning closer and inspecting them as Magnus saw no reason not to hand him the guitar. "Very interesting, I assume you made it?" Magnus nodded. "Like a harp but with a hollow body."

"Thank you, I'm kinda impressed I've not seen anything like this around since they are definitely possible to make."

"I think the closest thing would be the lutes that were used before the Calamity." Kass noted as he plucked the strings with ease.

"An evolution of the lute, or maybe more of a side-step? I can't say I'm acquainted with the instrument as well." He pulled the harmonica and easily joined the small tune that the Rito was managing out of the string instrument.

Interestingly since it wasn't a song of his own, his magic quickly started to weave the figure of Rito flying around in the sky. Their colors and feather patterns were too solid to have come from nowhere. He simply observed and followed Kass as he played for a couple more minutes.

"Ah… that was quite an experience." The Rito mused. "And another instrument?" He observed it when handed. "Looks like an ocarina, but the sound indicates it works by another concept."

Magnus nodded. "Yes, it has two reed plates that vibrate when air goes through, unfortunately I think this one may be hard to play with a beak as it was designed with lips in mind."

Kass didn't seem bothered by the comment and smirked as he brought the instrument to his beak and easily played a few loose notes before picking the same tune as before.

"Color me impressed." The younger man chuckled.

"I doubt most would be capable, but there's a trick to it." He handed the instrument back. "I take that wasn't all you came here for?"

"No, while playing music and decompressing is always smart, I came to check some of the equipment I've been working on."

Kass gave him an inquisitive look.

"Yes… in a way." He joked as he retrieved the pair of armored boots.

Funnily enough, their look was nearly mundane after the enchanting and naming. Appearing like a pair of brown, leather boots, only from close it became obvious that it wasn't leather but dozens of tiny metal plates that fit perfectly with each other. Or at least they did while they were in their off state, as activating would reveal their nature much more clearly. The plates would expand and shift, going up nearly to his knee, protecting the shin as the leather-look would be shed away to appear as rocky scales. They would also shift if he did, taking into account his claws and shape of his feet.

"Those look… normal, though I can tell appearances can be deceiving." Kass observed them.

"That's the idea." He slid easily into them as he hadn't been wearing any shoes while he played. "They will most likely become my usual pair as I've no way to quickly exchange them." He joked, the inventory should be capable of doing it, but they were quite comfortable.

With a little flex of his will the shoes changed. He could feel how they molded and practically became an extension of the lower half of his legs, the plates shifted with his toes as he tried them. Just standing on the ground made him feel unmovable. But he also could feel the ground under him, his perception extending to all little rocks, worms and bugs buried under his feet.

The Rito whistled appreciatively.

"I think I remember a legend about a hero using a pair of heavy boots to win a contest of might, if I remember it right it was mentioned they also made him very slow."

Magnus grinned and leaned to his right and all of his body, along with the ground he was standing, slid quickly. "It takes a bit of practice to combine with other movements. But I certainly aimed to not be slow with them."

The Rito laughed at the sight. "Very impressive, at this rate I will have a whole book of songs about your creations." Kass mused.

"Try to not overdo it, I'm sure you will have plenty of work once Link awakens."

They shared a laugh as Magnus retrieved Close&Personal next, the two sets of weapons clicked together, two thirds of a whole he had still to finish. But together they were already more than twice each part.

Kass took a step back as he centered himself. A deep breath as a sign as he stomped down, all the grass in a two meter circle was dragged underground before the dry dirt grew compacted and hard. It was easy to turn the ground into something more solid than concrete, he would just have to remember to loosen it before he left.

His breath stoked the flames as he punched his armored fists together, sparks were the least of the results as small flames of fire licked the air. His stance widened, back straightened and his shoulders relaxed before he started to move through a basic kata.

Each punch was accompanied by tongues of fire, every kick reshaped the ground under his feet. It wasn't easy, and he stumbled more than once as he fought the instincts to move around instead of moving the ground.

The whole thing couldn't help but remind him of an old cartoon he had seen when he was young. It was a few decades old by the time he saw it, but he remembered there was some interesting relation between martial arts and elemental powers. Maybe he could re-watch it, or hunt down the World, it would be an interesting place to spend some time and learn the styles.

"Very interesting, I see moves very common to the Goron fighting style." Kass noted.

"Close, but they are kinda very basic in a lot of fighting styles across the Worlds, some of my siblings have gone further into the study of martial arts and can spout better explanations. Personally I like the 'it works' explanation." He got a laugh out of the Rito.

He pivoted on his front feet and kicked high up with his back one, his whole body leaned back to maintain the balance as a huge spike of compressed earth shot out. Though by how the material was compressed and reinforced, it was closer to a spike of sharp rock. He carefully lowered it, refilling the hole he made underground to create the protrusion.

"Once more, you show an impressive display of skills."

"Thank you."

"I guess there's not much on Hyrule that you haven't faced, right?" Kass prompted.

"Hmm… Well, I still haven't fought any Lynel and I know there are the Molduga in the Gerudo Desert, and I won't discount the possible existence of other things hiding around in a hole somewhere." Magnus answered. "I'm actually quite tempted to face a Lynel soon, I feel like it's what I need to push myself further."

"I don't think there's anything I could do or say to stop you from doing it, so allow me to observe once you fight, I promise the song I compose shall be an epic." Kass proudly stated.

"I will keep it in mind." He offered honestly, he would need to scout for the location of one of the lumbering beasts.

He would also need to prepare better, a proper armored set of clothes would be a must, and with access to the few rolls of magical fabric and silk in the segment… Yes, it was time to pick up on that.

"I thought you wanted to relax?" Kass teased him.

"Ah, well, you know how it is. Sometimes one can't sit still for long, I'm too restless. Especially when an idea gets into my head." He smiled a bit, embarrassed, before chuckling.

Maybe he should make and enchant a needle set, that would help a lot. After a few more tests he thanked Kass for the company and accepted the Rito's invitation for dinner with his family before heading back to his place.

 

[Kris-71854]

I love the slice of life theme that you've got going in this fic. Magnus does get into crafting and such, but it doesn't take over entire chapters. You've learned how to write a good CF fic.

You've got a rather good balance of character interaction, crafting, self-reflection, and setting the scenes/stages going.

 

[Melakias]

I love the slice of life theme that you've got going in this fic. Magnus does get into crafting and such, but it doesn't take over entire chapters. You've learned how to write a good CF fic.

You've got a rather good balance of character interaction, crafting, self-reflection, and setting the scenes/stages going.

Click to shrink...

Thank you, that's rather heartening to hear. Honestly, I think the biggest thing is accepting that you don't need get a perk every chapter and you don't have to start with a weak-ass normal human. It allowed much more freedom in just having a guy going around and having fun.

Does Magnus craft? Sure, but most is off screen unless I'm trying to set up something in specific (or maybe burn a bit of time, that does happen too from time to time, nothing against it). It's something pretty visible in the second part where the character's pretty comfortable with what he achieved and can just mess around a bit more.

 

[Bloodalchemy]

"No, while playing music and decompressing is always smart, I came to check some of the equipment I've been working on."

"Yes… in a way." He joked as he retrieved the pair of armored boots.

Click to shrink...

I think there is supposed to be a question from Kass between these two lines.