The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 456 - Creatively Engineered For Much Needed Play
Klaytei and Dima had a hand in her mother’s gift to her... though like a lot of things that had and would happen back on the continent, Elua would only learn about it later. The personal servant had suggested a sphere as an option, instead of the more rectangular box shape that the Earth cultivator had planned to put the ’real’ gift inside. Admitting when Yatrel looked concerned that such a thing might be a little challenging to get right, the mortal rushed off from the reddish-blonde and brought back the branch manager of the Coiled Serpent Guild - promising that she could draft a blueprint for it.
With convincing words from the confident servant that ’making sigils work together’ was the same thing as ’making a puzzle’... the former liaison ultimately did as asked for the then roommate and the Dame Goltbred - a person whose affluence (and daughter) had gotten the current job Dima held set up in the first place. Not to mention her living arrangements, in both peace at the branch and the strange, strange wartime peace she was spending in a small home.
What was a few nights of playing with clay in private to make example shapes while taking notes? The woman would not think the same when she was told the mere six minutes it took to yield to steady and patient physical manipulation... without the heiress even ’cheating’ with her spirit!
The hollow center after four layers contained a glass sphere, no larger than her small fist, that contained an exacting replica of the Goltbred main estate. Every detail of the miniature was there - from the inner courtyard at the center, to what seemed like individual roof tiles, and even tiny crystal windows. Words escaped her lips as a whisper, as looking into the sphere felt almost like peering through a window across the distance of space.
"Ah... she sent me ’home’."
Pure ’yearning’ rocked the area around her, followed immediately by movement to grab the pair of disciples out of the water... before her unintended spiritual assault, which fried their senses, caused them to accidentally sink below. Arranging them back to back, her vision blurred a little more as she sunk to her knees and hugged around both above their waists.
"...Sorry."
The place in her memories she’d spent so much of this life was something she could easily make an illusion of any time she wanted. But she hadn’t let herself... just like she refused to make anything but the vaguest representations of Qat. And now she was thinking that all of these *gifts* they sent were an intentional attack on her conviction to stay!
"Elua?"
Nohre’s voice drew her back to the present and out of her imagination. Of how things could and probably would go if she left now. A hand then stroked the top of her head - and she felt what little self-respect she might have had as their ’master’ collapse altogether. Especially when the teen spoke again, while reaching down and pinching the brunette’s cheek.
"I think we’re both happy to comfort you with our time, but my fiance can only breath shallowly. Can you ease off crushing his diaphragm and pushing his spine into mine, please? This is very uncomfortable."
"...Fine."
"And open that one. It may make you cry less?"
The final package the boy referenced - once he could take a full breath in and wonder how he had gotten to such a strange point in his life... was much flatter than the others. Having seen what it was personally, he could not possibly imagine how it would make her bawl any more than she was. Then again, he also didn’t imagine her standing up while still holding onto both of them to walk in that direction.
Placing them on their feet, she crouched down and opened the third box. It had an interior lined with mint colored silk, a small but expensive touch that El wasn’t sure she would save as is or make some other use of in the future.
’Hoarding things will become a problem again if I’m not careful.’
On that cloth was something that surprised her as much as the miniature. Dark grey, almost black wood was painstakingly formed into a sort of polished ring shape... with shallow fluted channels at particular curving angles that were lined with thin copper plating to add a further aesthetic appeal. Lifting it carefully, she saw that while the top side had an *interesting* and particular curve to it, the bottom was incredibly flat. It was also evenly segmented into three arcs.
"It’s beautiful, but... what is it?"
"Little bits of talk, pulled together into something she had especially made for me." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
Answering Nohre by using roughly the same words that had been in the letter from her beloved, a lot of that section of writing made more sense now. Apparently the craftsman had allowed her to title the new toy... and Qat picked the name Flurry Ring. It was clear to Elua that the other teenager had taken a story the reincarnator had told when asked, about the sort of weapon she had felt most accomplished with, and sought to turn such a ring shaped blade she had described into something *safer*.
Running her fingers across one of the three joins in the wood, she pulled on either side of the dinner plate sized object - and it came apart quite easily with her strength. However, this only made her smirk as she took a look at the magnets aligned in alternating arrays. Letting them reattach and pull apart once more, she estimated that the force of their polarized bond was *objectively* strong by mortal terms... as far as very tiny examples of the ancient invention went.
"These are one of the continent’s lost technologies. Sometimes found in old ruins. Oh, I know we have basic magnets... but no one seems to know how to alloy *this* kind anymore."
’Let alone how to compress, sinter, and magnetize the powdered metal into the little ceramic-like bricks... and technologies related to how to synthesize and apply the thin layer of soft elastomer that helps disperse impact, with a covering of much more shatter resistant polymer on the outside - well, are all practically unheard of!’
Which is exactly why the heiress did not bother to speak of *that* part out loud while showing the components off to her students. Once again the segments clicked together satisfyingly, almost lining back up automatically as each alternated pole tugged and pushed toward its perfect spot the moment the inner sections grew close enough. It was enough to know that they would have been quite expensive - even if there were likely a large amount of remnant examples across the continent, which had not lost significant strength even thousands of years later.
She smiled at the idea of this premium item someone had gifted *her* new Hero of the Last Descent... and she used them immediately on her wife... when she could have sold them for territory treasury money! Having this added to the toy that Qatrand prepared for her mint-drop’s 14th was written down in the letters as a later addition, to make the item more complex and personalized. After all, Elua was as sure as Qat that no one but the brunette could play with it effectively in this form.
"Watch."
A gentle updraft of air beneath the ring’s surface generated lift, while the flutes began to add slow rotation exactly as intended. The entire item rose to hover in a lazy whirl at shoulder height without all too much concentration involved. Refining the vectors on the currents of gases caused it to spin even faster and create a whirring sound that changed pitch depending on the speed... all of which would be within the expectation of any Air elementalist.
However, it was at a certain amount of revolutions per minute that the purpose of the magnets became clear. Well before the potential weapon became dangerous as a cutting implement, centripetal force would tear the three segments apart. While the idea did have some potential for flinging off randomly into a group of enemies, the speed and lightness of the object was still very low to harm a cultivator.
"Ow!"
"Is that all the attention you paid when I specifically said to watch?"
"You didn’t say it was going to explode!"
Nohre’s voice complained right after the heiress caught the rebounding fraction of her toy... which had ricocheted off of a dark haired girl’s hastily raised hand. The other pieces were held in careful gas-wall stasis as she tossed the single, intentionally let loose part of her gift back into the group of them. Reassembling the ring in mid-air might have been just the slightest bit tricky before she was stuck here with all the time in the world to practice.
But where the average cultivator would fail to make good use of the item thanks to this harsh limitation on spin speed, Elua was ready to attempt the more complex challenge of finding the tricks, timing, and Techniques to push the segments back together - without just holding them in place from the start. Her father had given her hobby back to her, her mother her home. But Qat...
"Something old, but new. Like my love for you, dear ’fortress’. Be patient for me, and-"
"Sorry to interrupt your monologue, but when are you going to teach me that?"
Looking at Fusand’s finger pointing above her head, it took her a moment to realize that he was talking about the halo of dark wood and copper. In other words, how she had applied Adhesion and locked the toy to float over her head. Giving him a very critical look with her mint eyes *and* her spirit, she pointed his way for emphasis.
"If you are staying long enough that you breakthrough, I’ll do it then. Not before. You’d better get to actually cultivating and not just swimming, getting married, and trying to sneak attack me in revenge in this land that belongs to Qat."
Dropping the rock when being pointed at, Nohre hardly looked ashamed. She was not going to throw it *hard*, she reasoned. And besides... their master would have either dodged it or caught it. If she didn’t, they would quickly know that something is wrong with her again. Being inferior sparring partners wasn’t a foolproof plan of theirs - and it was truly 80% about the *training* and having fun.
Yet that was the same kind of sentiment which Elua er Goltbred herself had always approached their lessons. A portion of care hidden underneath progress and enjoyment. The kind they saw on her face now as the Flurry Ring zipped high up into the air.
’What a terrible name. I love it~’
