Even that required effort incommensurate with the results. Starting all the way back at iron-rank, his powers had often felt pointlessly elaborate, when a simple chunk of immediate damage was so much more effective. Watching Humphrey carve through monsters had been an almost emasculating experience; his team had deliberately left Jason monsters to kill on his own. Only against the toughest monsters did he feel like he was truly contributing, leaving him as an addendum to his own team.
It was once they started challenging silver-rank monsters that Jason felt his powers come into their own. Even the weakest silver-rank monster had a startling resilience, which meant that Jason was no longer racing to use all his abilities on an enemy before it died. At the same time, adventurers Jason had long envied, like Humphrey, were no longer taking down one or more enemies with a single sword-swing.
Although fighting packs of silver-rank monsters was objectively more difficult than their lower-rank equivalents, Jason finally felt like he was truly pushing himself. No longer was he reaching the end of the fight just as he was hitting his stride. In his latter days in the astral space, and now the proto-spaces of Earth, he felt that he was becoming the adventurer he was meant to be from the beginning.
“I think we told you this from the start,” Farrah said as Jason shared his feelings on the flight home from the latest proto-space. “Affliction specialists are kind of a waste at low rank.”
“I still need to work on fighting in the open,” Jason said. “Shade does a great job of letting me jump between his bodies, always moving where I need him. I need to work on making the most of the opportunities he sets up for me.”
“Stick to bronze ranks for that, for now,” Farrah advised. “Until you’re better at it, taking on silvers in the open is too much of a risk unless they’re as sluggish as a yowie.”
Jason had been incorporating Shade’s mount forms into his combat style more and more against the larger, slower monsters. The new approach was a way to develop in a new direction using enemies he was traditionally strong against, which typically didn’t help his advancement.
To make the most of his superhuman coordination and reflexes, he sought out environments to practise this new methodology. He went out bush to find improvised obstacle courses for Shade’s motorcycle and horse forms, along with more alien and exotic animals.
“They have mantis beetles on Earth?” Farrah asked, having joined him one such excursion.
“Definitely not,” Jason said.
“So, Shade can take forms from other worlds?”
“Yep,” Jason said.
“Then why can’t Shade take a heidel form?”
“Technically, the shape-changing is Mr Asano’s power,” Shade said. “You will need to ask him.”
“Magic’s very complicated,” Jason said. “Who amongst us can truly claim to understand all its vagaries?”
In Jason’s cabin, the furniture was currently configured into a pair of large armchairs in which Jason and Farrah were sitting. They were looking at the two paintings on the wall, specifically the one titled ‘The Invasion of Pallimustus’. It depicted a series of orbital cities floating around Farrah's home world.
“And that woman who came by painted this?”
“Most likely,” Jason said. “She goes by the name Dawn, although she’s suspiciously elusive. The Network and the Cabal have been trying to find her for months and coming up empty.”
“She was definitely a normal person,” she said. “Unless she’s so powerful that she can fool our senses, but that would have to be diamond rank. My perception power enhanced my aura senses when it hit silver, and with your soul strength, your senses aren’t much weaker.”
“Can a diamond-ranker even survive in magic this low?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know,” Farrah said. “When it comes to diamond-rankers, the rules you and I live by are more like guidelines. For all I know, she’s somehow artificially reduced her rank. More likely, she’s fronting for someone else, though. Since when do you and I warrant the attention of a diamond-ranker?”
Jason nodded at the painting. “Since that became an issue, I suspect. Assuming it’s actually happening. If your world really is suffering an invasion, I’m guessing the painting is a metaphor. Rather than an invasion from space, I would put money on it being dimensional.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I’ve already helped stop one dimensional invasion and I doubt we were the Builder’s biggest concern or he would have sent more powerful people. Plus, there’s the fact that someone clearly wants us involved. Maybe because we’re outworlders.”
“Someone?”
“My money would be on the World-Phoenix,” Jason said. “Otherwise, what reason would she have to intervene in my affairs? I’m less than a speck of dust for a being like that to brush off its shoulder.”
“Do you think it’s happening right now?”
“I don’t know any more than you,” Jason said. “My intuition says no. Why bother to tell us about it when we don’t have a way back yet?”
“You still think the astral magic books will have one?” Farrah said. “There's a lot of information about dimension crossing, but breaching an astral space is very different from crossing realities.”
“When Knowledge gave me those books, she was the only person in the world who both knew that I had the World-Phoenix token and what it would do. I suspect she chose the contents of those books very carefully. I just need to study them until I understand it. Thankfully, I have Clive’s notes to guide me.”
“You’re not ready to leave yet, though.”
“No,” Jason said. “Once we find our way back, there’s no telling if I’ll ever be able to return to Earth. Even if I can, it could easily be decades. Before I go, I want to make sure my family is equipped for whatever comes their way once magic comes out into the open.”
“You haven’t even started giving them essences, yet.”
“I’m leaving that decision to Erika. I feel like I don’t have the right perspective. I think she’s coming around, though.”
Asya and Farrah arrived at the marina together, getting out of Asya’s car.
“You still haven’t asked him out?” Farrah asked.
“The timing just hasn’t been right.”
“It’s been months. ‘Timing’ clearly means that in all this time, you’ve never worked up the nerve.”
“No!” Asya said. “Okay, yes. But it is unnerving. He knows what I'm feeling every time I stand in front of him.”
“He knows what you’re feeling right now,” Farrah said. “Your aura training is coming along nicely, but Jason’s so good in that area and his soul is so strong. If it’s even still a soul anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“The body and soul are intrinsically connected, but there’s still a dichotomy between them. One is physical and temporary. The other is spiritual and eternal. Jason doesn’t have that dichotomy anymore. He’s flesh and spirit in one—the physical embodiment of his soul.”
“Does that mean his soul is now temporary?”
“I don’t know,” Farrah said. “Even he isn’t sure exactly what price he paid to come get me.”