Rupegia

Chapter 167: Theorycrafting – Part 2

"What is cancer?" Ciel quietly asks as our personal airship cuts through the clouds, slowly leaving the fantasy sci-fi town of Kini Kaina behind.

"Social media," I answer reflexively, still in a meme-y mood. Then I access my memories of Wikipedia, but I draw a blank because I was never much of a biology guy, so I turn to the golems for help.

"It's abnormal cell growth," Ted begins.

"The cells reproduce without control," Suzy follows.

"Until they negatively affect the body," Jarn finishes.

And that fully refreshes my memory. "Riiight… it's like a part of your body loses control and starts growing in a deformed way, but since it's inside of you, it can affect your organs. Imagine your heart starting to grow calluses endlessly until they're so thick that your heart can't beat anymore."

"That sounds horrifying," Alissa horrifiedly remarks with a horrified frown while the rest of the girls show varying levels of horror.

"Yeah, cancer sucks," I wryly reply, a bit embarrassed at the horrifying image I gave them. Then I turn to Ciel. "Have you ever heard of something like that? A weird growth inside someone's body that impairs organ function?"

Our resident healer makes a pensive expression as she peruses her medical knowledge, puckering her juicy lips in a cute way. Then she finds a memory that makes the girls flee from her mind in horror. "Alchemist's Cyst? It can be lethal if allowed to grow, and it's known to spread throughout the patient's body."

And that reminds Lina of a rather obscure piece of dwarven lore. "I heard that Coal Eremites can develop Soot Warts, which then spread inside their bodies, and they look… really ugly," she quietly shares, regretting remembering it.

"Coal Eremites?" I curiously ask.

She brightens up a bit now that I've initiated her second-most favorite activity: sharing her knowledge with me. "Uh… hermits who eat ash and breathe in the soot of burning things because they believe it purifies them, I think. Could be just a myth since they live in the Infernal Underground, and there are a lot of wild tales that come from there."

Lina's Trivia: the Infernal Underground is a place very deep under Mountainhome, and its name is very apt for its climate.

"Sounds like something a heretic would believe in," Ciel soberly remarks, trying not to sound too grim to not ruin the mood.

And Lina makes a complicated expression. "Yeah, the Underground is known to have heretics, but it's also mostly wilderness, so only eccentric people live there, which is why there are many myths surrounding it."

Then Hana asks a surprisingly philosophical question, "Wait, but aren't both ash and soot 'impure'? Aren't they the same thing as charring?"

I tentatively agree, "Yeahh~…? Ash is white and is the result of burning something completely, while char is…"

Then I have the golems help me remember everything I know about charring. I have bits and pieces of knowledge here and there, but once they're all gathered together and a few assumptions are made to connect them, we get a nice picture of this topic.

I clear my throat and scholarly explain, "Char is something organic that has been burned partially, creating a black solid of pure carbon as the water and other impurities have been removed from it by heat, while soot is basically the same as char but ground into particles that become airborne. Uncontrolled burning of organic matter quickly turns char into ash, but it's possible to control the heat so that the carbon doesn't burn, creating charcoal."

And Lina nods along, making her cute bangs sway. "That's why they eat ash. It's a 'pure' element, while soot is…" -she frowns and tilts her head to the side- "I don't remember why they inhale soot."

Now that gets to the crux of Hana's question, so she clarifies what's confusing her, "But everything about it is impure. Mom always said that charring is taking your vice for food to the extreme, and the dragonkin who let their vices control them end up eating too much charred food, which poisons their bodies with cysts."

But that bewilders me. "What kind of super-cancerous food are you guys eating that just charring it gives you cancer?"

"'Cancerous'?" Kaatohe quietly questions.

And I quickly answer, "Gives you cancer, which might be these 'cysts' the others have mentioned."

Then Hana continues, "It's like, every single thing they eat is fully covered in char, and they keep this up for their whole lives."

I grunt skeptically but don't argue further. "Okay, that does make more sense, but anyway, can you cure these diseases?"

Ciel happily answers positively, "[Purify Body] can. If it doesn't work the first time, then the healer performs surgery to open the body and find out what's wrong so that the spell can be targeted better."

And I just find all of this a bit absurd. "You guys cured cancer, just like that…" Then I smile bitterly. "But to compensate… Rupegia has wandering calamities."

"'Only Heaven is heavenly,' the Goddess of Piety once said," Ciel piously recites.

"Our home is quite heavenly," I warmly retort, and I get warmth back through [Bind].

But our scholarly priestess replies matter-of-factly, "But we still have to leave it to maintain its 'heavenliness.'"

"Fair enough."

Near the Sky Lander capital, there's a dungeon (or a sky fortress, as the Chimeras call them) that's used as a cheap source of food, so we're going there to test the Gifts of the last two Heroes. We're only allowed to hunt monsters on the fifth layer and up, as the monsters and animals of the lower (and easier) layers are reserved exclusively for the food stores of the crown, which they sell at a discount to the poorer populace.

We don't want to mess with that, so we're fine with going for the harder monsters, as it's not like they're going to give us a challenge anyway. We're so unconcerned with them that I send Oritiki and the Celestial Horns ahead to secure a few "experimental subjects."

The Companions that accompany us seem quite cheerful as they enjoy the casual joy ride. Their officer is keeping half of them at attention while the other half is allowed to flirt with us, and Aoi shows herself to be quite popular.

Alissa is acting as my personal emotional support fluffy fox, so I'm not feeling like ordering her to flirt with other girls; Roxanne is acting as Hana's personal emotional support slut, so she doesn't have time to flirt with other girls; Hana has already tasted most of them, so the more slutty Companions are looking for something novel; Ciel is acting a bit reserved after getting molested so much, so she's in her own corner; Lina is acting as Ciel's emotional support gloomy loli, so she's too busy to flirt; Yunia already has her own pet slut to play with as she kills time, so she has no need for the rest of the sluts.

And that leaves my little big blue dragon to receive all the attention, and in her human form, her height and graceful slenderness trigger the submissiveness in the Companions in a different way than my magnificent, masculine, and virile form can. If it weren't for the presence of five foreign males here (Alcander, the two Heroes, and two of Urmeie's bodyguards), the predatory sluts would be intensely worshiping Aoi's whole body by now.

I breathe in deeply as my hand momentarily leaves Alissa's fluffy tail to get a cup of her tight little behind. Then I slowly breathe out in contentment as I fondle her ass. All's well with the world right now, and I'm feeling so good that I might just fuck someone in front of the Heroes to assert dominance.

But right now, we have work to do, so I file that idea away for later. I feed Gify a not-grape just because she looks cute when she's properly eating (and not simply inhaling her food), then I walk up to Chesa.

The not-Zora girl is tall and slender with a similar build to an elf, but her body is much smoother, as if she has small reserves of fat in all of the right places to not show any muscle definition, yet she's still as flat as a board. Her nose is a bit larger than normal, while her nose bridge protrudes a bit forward, and the back of her head ends in a tail, making it all look quite hydrodynamic and even a bit cute. But the prettiest part of her is her large, elongated, Asian-like eyes with their mesmerizing and exotic gaze, and they pair perfectly with her pretty, pink lips.

She's an exotic beauty of a race that I haven't had a taste of yet, so the dragon in me wishes to unsheathe our massive Cock in front of her and begin a mating ritual, but even if Lily wasn't glaring at me, I wouldn't do it. Though, it's not like I'll never do it, just not right now.

Anyway, I stop before them and casually suggest as I brush Alissa's fluffy tail with my clawed hand, "There's still some time before we reach the dungeon, so how about you make it rain for us?"

The mer girl gives me a shy, doubtful glance as she avoids looking me in the eye. "Just that? It wouldn't be very useful in battle."

"Then how about you roleplay as Storm and try to take out my wind elemental-wives?" I casually suggest

"Elemental-what?" Lily quacks, and I regret saying it for a brief moment.

Eh… whatever.

I just summon wind-Alissa, and I get raised eyebrows from all four Heroes.

"Elementals can take the form of someone you love. So my wind elementals look like Alissa," I calmly explain, and the basically-naked summon in question does a cheeky curtsy and then shares a grin with the original.

The elemental-wives don't have nipples or a pussy (unless I order them to show their private parts), but the wind-wife isn't wearing any clothes, which exposes Alissa's perfectly feminine and well-balanced form. While U Thant keeps his eyes away after a glance, Samkelo seems to be like me, who shamelessly stares at and memorizes every naked female body he encounters.

"Do any of them take my form?" Lily asks with dangerous, narrowed eyes.

"Nope," I gleefully hum back.

And she narrows her sharp eyes further in displeasure but doesn't let it get to her. "Have you fucked any of them?" she quickly tries another angle of attack.

I tried to when I was stuck in Legado's labyrinth by myself, but I was suffering from erectile dysfunction, so it didn't work. Of course, that's something that I'll never tell any of the Lilys that might exist in the Earth multiverse.

So I simply elbow back, "Not yet, but we've digressed towards a lewd topic, and this time, it's your fault." I flash a smirk, then turn to Chesa. "Anyway, try to take out my elemental with your powers. I might even order it to cast spells or have the real Alissa shoot arrows to test how good you are at supporting."

The not-Zora girl meekly glances at Lily, then quietly agrees as she nods, "Sounds… reasonable."

Wind-Alissa giggles girlishly as Chesa's gusts of wind throw the elemental around. It'd certainly be disruptive in a battle, but the elemental barely has to make an effort to remain near the airship, so I decide to increase the challenge.

"Stop the elemental from getting close to the airship," I order, and the meek Hero obeys like a good girl.

She struggles to push the elemental in a single direction, as she can merely raise a wild storm with her power, but it isn't impossible, as she does succeed in gradually pushing the elemental away. It seems that her Gift relies on repeated practice, just like when I learned how to manipulate my soul.

Her mana consumption also isn't that bad compared to what high-level mages require to cause the same effects. And this reminds Roxanne of an important topic.

"Can other mages interrupt or disrupt your Gift?" she soberly questions.

"Haven't tried it, to be honest," Chesa replies with a shrug.

"I'm unable to get a grasp on her Hold Over Reality," Alcander scholarly states.

"That sounded like a capitalized phrase," I remark through [Bind].

"It's a technical term. I've only heard it in my Magical Theory class back in Xane," Roxanne promptly explains.

Huh.

"So you can't interrupt her?" I question Alcander.

He nods and turns his eyes towards the growing storm. Then his forehead wrinkles as he makes a mental effort towards something. "Correct. I can sense her manipulating the air, but for some reason, I can't stop it, as if her Hold is 'slippery.' Perhaps if I started casting an area spell over there, it could disrupt her Gift?"

I kind of get what he's talking about. Interrupting a spell is like grabbing the edge of a hole and pulling it apart… and now I realize that this doesn't actually make much sense, but it's still an apt analogy as interrupting a spell isn't a perfectly logical thing based on earthling physics, to begin with.

"Allow me," Ciel volunteers and instant-casts [Wind Storm] right next to the elemental, and she immediately finds that it takes a bit of an effort to keep the spell active as Chesa's storm does indeed disrupt spells, but this wasn't the point of this experiment.

"Everyone, together now," I prompt the girls, and we all instant-cast area spells inside Chesa's storm.

"Ugh…! This feels very annoying!" she immediately complains with a disgusted frown.

"Is your mana consumption rate increasing?" I calmly ask.

She nods as her upper lip slowly rises, revealing a set of pointy and sharp white teeth. "Yes! Also, it's getting harder to maintain the storm. But the real problem is all these spells! It feels like there are bugs crawling in my skin!"

"She's suddenly so talkative," Yunia curiously remarks through our connection.

Crawwwling iiin my skinnn…! These wooounds, they wiiill not he-aaal…!

"Lily's a bad influence on you," Alissa dryly states in my soul space.

Sorry, not sorry.

"She's using an interesting description, though," Roxanne whispers with an analytical tone. The Four are a couple of meters away from our group, so they shouldn't hear anything.

"How so?" I ask in kind.

"Bugs crawling in her skin. It's almost as if her spirit has been pushed out of her body, and she's using it to create the storm, which would explain why it feels so frustrating for her when others cast spells inside it."

We let out multiple curious hums as she does make quite a lot of sense.

Then I turn to Chesa and announce out loud, "I'm going to cast a spell on you. It's nothing special, so you won't even feel a thing."

"What?" she quacks, but I just cast [Materialize] without saying anything else.

And there's absolutely no effect, which means that her spirit isn't actually out there, but that was expected. The truth might be that her Gift simply works similarly to me pushing my spirit out of my body, but Chesa's power doesn't actually use her spirit to do it.

We don't have any further ideas, so we stop pissing her off and dispel our area spells, and she lets out a sigh as her frown immediately clears. Then we notice that her storm is building up much faster now. But this makes us all concerned, as her Gift seems to rely quite heavily on her "Willpower" or morale, which brings into question how reliable she'll be in battle, considering she fits the archetype of a depressed teen.

It takes her about five minutes in total before the clouds form and lightning begins to strike. The elemental-wife can still escape the gusts of wind, but at least she's struggling to remain in place, while Chesa can easily keep her from reaching the airship.

Alissa and the girls occasionally fire spells or arrows at the elemental, and Chesa is actually able to divert them away, but she struggles a bit with multitasking, so she isn't reliable in protecting others from ranged attacks. As for the effectiveness of the projectiles, the less physical they are, the less they're affected by the winds, so [Fire Arrow] is leagues better than any Earth, Water, or Wind spell.

She's also unable to divert [Lightning Bolt] unless she has ample time to prepare, though the spell lacks in range compared to other basic system magic spells. [Dark Magic]'s [Torment] ends up being the most effective, as it's completely unaffected by the winds, but it's a spell that does zero physical damage, so it's not the most useful in the average battle.

She's not just discount X-Men Storm, as she has other powers besides manipulating the weather, but we're unable to test them, as there's no sea nor earth nearby. And once her storm is in full swing, it actually looks quite fearsome as the lightning falls like a machine gun all over the area. It's just that she has little control over where, exactly, they fall, so it's not that great against a single, small enemy. The biggest advantage is that she can keep the storm going for a long time, as it has little mana upkeep, so even our High Officer mages would lose in a straight battle of attrition against her.

The only glaringly obvious problem is that she's vulnerable while she builds the storm because she can't multi-cast yet. She has enough levels in both Wind and [Water Magic] to give her access to the support Spirit summon spells, but this means that she's just like any other high-level mage, unable to use her big spells when there's another high-level mage to get in the way.

The most important aspect of her Gift is that her storm is seemingly uninterruptible, so if she manages to get it going, then it's an instant win. She's actually already quite powerful since she's able to stand toe-to-toe with a mature mage after only about a year of training, so who knows how much more powerful she'll get in a decade.

Roxanne still wins 1-on-1 simply due to [Explosion], so the pride of the Ryder Royal Family still stands strong.