Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)
Chapter 197: Orb

<Your orb is heating up?> I asked, my mind whirring as I tried to sort through the implications of Anise’s statement.

For years, Anise and I had tried to figure out what her orb was supposed to do. It emitted a small amount of manifestation essence, so the two of us had always assumed it would let Anise cast spells from a manifestation essence system. but so far, neither of us had ever gotten the blasted thing working. After a year of banging my head against it, I had been sorely tempted to just start throwing alteration essence at it and try to force it to do what we wanted it to, but I had a feeling I was more likely to break it than get it working, so we had continued poking at it in hopes that it would do something. Sallia had also tried putting manifestation essence into the orb, to see if it was some sort of spellcasting enhancer, but that had also gotten nowhere. Either Sallia’s manifestation essence system was incompatible with the orb, or we were using it wrong. Ansie had tried tossing magic missiles at it, and I had tried stuffing alteration essence into it, along with a variety of other tests - but nothing had ever worked.

And now, Anise was saying that the bloody orb was finally doing something. I didn’t know whether to laugh in ecstasy or throw the bloody thing off the mountain in sheer frustration.

<Are you sure?> asked Felix, sounding just as surprised as me. Felix had also tried several times to figure out what Anise’s orb did, but apart from confirming that the Orb was unusually resilient against damage, and the fact that the orb didn’t emit manifestation essence when it was surrounded by a thin shell of iron, he hadn’t figured out what the orb did either.

<It’s definitely heating up,> Anise confirmed.

<Is there anything else happening to the orb?> I asked.

Anise frowned. <It’s hard to notice, but I think it’s getting hotter as we walk further into the mountains. I might just be imagining things, though. The iron shell makes it a little hard to feel minute heat differences.>

I frowned as well. Anise’s orb heating up could be a good thing - or it could be a bad thing. It was honestly hard to guess right now. It was an unexpected variable.

<Keep an eye on it for now,> I said, as I tried to think.

On one hand, if Anise had some sort of miraculous encounter, it would be nothing but helpful. Anise was currently far behind the rest of our group in terms of power - and after this world, Felix would probably have a lot more useful abilities, assuming he got a keyword ability for binding essence out of this. I wasn’t quite sure what Felix was going to do with a magic system focused around affixing and transmuting items, creating ability potions, and making prosthetic limbs work - but I was sure he would figure out a way to weld this magic system into a coherent whole. Sallia and I weren’t likely to get much out of this world, since neither of us seemed very interested in this world’s magic system, but we already had a synergistic set of magic systems working for us. Which left Anise far behind the three of us. If she found something to help her catch up, it would be much easier for us to work as a group in the future, and it would also be easier to buy lives when the time came to fight for our futures.

On the other hand, if we all died here, Felix would lose this chance to get his binding essence keyword ability online, and we would all lose the potential to farm more Achievement in this life. In our other two lives, we had only taken massive risks once we had farmed out most of the low-hanging fruits that would help us earn more achievement. Any further gains would have been very hard to accomplish, given our circumstances and abilities in those lives.

In this life, we definitely hadn’t tapped out our achievement earning yet. We were nowhere close to that point. I still hadn’t even gotten my first round of achievement for healing people, and Felix had been talking about looking into precise metal prosthetics to improve his combat abilities. If we died at the age of six, without earning all of the easier Achievement rewards, we would suffer a huge loss, which might kill us when we needed to buy more lives.

Interacting with Anise’s orb was a potentially massive risk with a potentially massive reward.

<All right, this is a decision we have to make together,> I said, after some thought. <What do you guys think we should do about Anise’s orb heating up? I suspect if we remain in the mountains, Anise’s orb will eventually do something unusual. I have no idea what yet, but it’s obvious it’s doing something, and we don’t know if that’s positive or negative. If we want to, we could stuff it in my dimensional backpack, to keep it from reacting to our environment, or we could throw it off the mountain. Or, we can let things play out and see what happens. We haven’t earned all of the easy Achievement in this world yet, so we’re taking on more of a risk than usual…> I started outlining all of my thoughts about adulthood, achievement earning potential, and what following Anise’s orb might mean for our safety, before I finished speaking to the group.

<I… umm… if it’s okay, I would really like to see if there’s a chance for me to really earn a manifestation essence keyword ability in this world. But I don’t know if I’m comfortable putting other people’s lives in danger for that. I really want it, but if I have to give up on it, I can wait until we find a better world for my manifestation essence keyword ability…> Anise trailed off.

<I don’t think it’s a good idea to pass up on this opportunity,> said Sallia. <I mean, we seem much stronger than the regular combatants of this world, since the magic system is so unsuited for direct combat. I mean, we can still definitely earn more Achievement in this world, and we definitely haven’t maxed out our runes yet… but I think that being too cautious will make us miss out on a valuable opportunity to grow stronger. Even if we manage to get an opportunity for Anise, she needs time to capitalize on that opportunity and turn it into a keyword ability. If we toss the orb into Miria’s backpack, it might be years before we can return here - and those years could be the difference between Anise earning a keyword or not. I think we have the ability to handle any danger we run into, and this opportunity is too precious to pass up or delay.>

<We are pretty strong compared to the residents of this world, but Sallia’s words also bring up something I think we should pay more attention to,> said Felix. <We still haven’t reached the peak of what strength we can gather on this planet. Not by a long shot. Both of you can still form a lot of runes, right?>

<I haven’t done the math on how many more I’m likely to form, but I’m definitely not close to capping out yet,> I said.

<Neither am I,> said Sallia.

<In that case, if we do this exploration later, it’ll be safer. Passing up the opportunity now might feel bad, but I think we’re likely to live to old age in this world,> said Felix. <Unlike our last two worlds, our ability to flee from disasters isn’t particularly constricted - and we also aren’t about to fight large groups of people who are stronger than us. At least as far as individual combat goes, we’re fairly safe here. So Anise will naturally have a lot more time to capitalize on anything we find in the ruins. There’s no need to rush when we can grow stronger and then come back later.>

<I… I can wait a little bit,> said Anise, although she sounded a little disappointed.

<I don’t know - while it’s possible that we’ll be able to come back here in the future, Anise having as much time as possible to train, improve, and make use of whatever we find could mean a lot. And while I don’t want to sound overconfident, I also think we can handle most smaller-scale threats in this world,> I said. <Anise still has {Phoenix’s Last Stand} for emergencies, I still have my tarot deck, Sallia can end her swordsman’s journey and get immediate stats if an emergency happens, and we have all of the items I stuffed into my dimensional backpack after stealing them from the facility we rescued you from. Several of which were lightning bolts that we can probably use like grenades or javelins, although we haven’t tested them much. I think we have a reasonable level of power and a good number of trump cards if an emergency happens. Exploring now feels more reasonable to me than exploring later. There’s value in being cautious, but I think waiting several years to return is being to cautious.>

<Hmm… that’s also a good point,> said Felix, after some thought. <All right, you’ve convinced me. Let’s keep an eye out for whatever is causing Anise’s orb to heat up, and see if it leads to anything useful. Miria, can you be ready to teleport the orb away if it looks like it’s going to explode or something?>

<Of course,> I said.

The four of us nodded, and then stopped mentally conversing with each other. I took the time to examine the parents again. They were watching their surroundings like frightened animals, ready to flee at the first sign of danger. However, I also saw a hint of fascination in everyone’s gazes. The otherworldly feeling of manifestation essence existing where it shouldn’t, as well as the rhythmic pumping of essences from place to place, was a sight that defied the conventional wisdom of this world.

Very noticeably, the constantly fighting scouts from both militaries seemed absent in the mountains. The cold, frigid air in the mountains, as well as the exceptionally rough terrain, seemed to have driven them off, thankfully. I wasn’t finding any other people with my soul sight, just plenty of plants and animals. I also occasionally needed to heal everyone, despite the fact that everyone had bundled themselves up with a few extra layers of clothes, but the trek wasn’t that bad with magical healing readily available.

Anise’s orb continued to heat up as we cautiously moved forward… for about two hours, she would occasionally confirm that the orb was still getting hotter. Until suddenly, she sent another mental message.

<The Orb is cooling down,> she said. <I think.>

<Hmm… interesting,> said Felix. <Anise, can you try taking a few steps backward and tell me if it feels like the orb is getting hotter or colder?>

Anise did as Felix requested, although her parents gave her some very odd looks.

<It’s getting hotter again,> she said.

<Maybe it gets hotter the closer we are to a specific object or location?> said Felix, before glancing at the sky. <It’s nearly dark. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with dragging our parents into whatever we’re about to run into. Maybe we can sneak out at night and try exploring on our own? That way we don’t have to deal with potentially getting our parents hurt. I think we’re unlikely to die this time, but it’s always a possibility.>

<I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that,> said Anise.<If my parents woke up and found me missing, they would lose their minds. Maybe we should just tell them that we’re going exploring?>

<But we’re also six,> said Sallia. <It would be hard to explain why we’re all going to leave, and I doubt our parents are just fine with letting their six year old children wander around. I mean, we could say something is ‘calling’ to us, which might make sense since we have abilities and they don’t. But that’s more likely to get the parents wondering what is influencing our minds than get them to let us explore.>

<Also, will the temperature be fine? It’s pretty cold, and without Miria’s healing…> said Anise.

<If we take shelter in a cave for the night, and light a campfire, I think it should be fine,> said Felix. <Miria, you didn’t see any scouts or military people in the mountains at all, right?>

<Yeah.>

<Then it’s probably safe enough for a small fire to keep everyone warm. Especially if it’s partially hidden by a cave,> said Felix.

I hesitated, and then glanced at my mother, with her glazed expression and her slightly blue eyes. Then, I looked at Old Mo, who was still cautiously scanning our surroundings to check for danger.

<Even if temperatures are taken care of, I don’t think I’m comfortable leaving Old Mo wondering what happened to me if something goes wrong. Or my mother… if she notices my absence, anyway. I’ll let him know tonight, but I’m going to say that it’s resonating with my ability somehow. Old Mo knows that I’m an… unusual six year old. I think he’d be willing to let me go,> I said. <I’ll also tell him that Anise has an ability, and ask him not to share that fact with Anise’s parents. We were originally planning on pretending you acquired your ability sometime during this trip, right? We can just ask Old Mo to help us feed into that narrative. I think he’d be willing to help.>

<You have a lot of trust in Old Mo,> said Sallia. <I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s treated you pretty well, but it also sounds like he’s a former assassin. And he might have an ability too. We don’t know. If he does have an ability, why wouldn’t he feel the ‘call’ just like us?>

<Maybe the ‘call’ only applies to children?> said Felix.

I mentally sighed. <I… I don’t know. Look… I do have a lot of faith in Old Mo,but he’s also always been there for me when I needed him to be. I… I really want to think the best of him. And even if he knows something is weird, he’s more likely to confront me about it than make problems for us with our parents, which I value.>

<All right, fair enough,> said Felix. <In that case, we’ll go with your plan. Tonight, we’ll let Old Mo know where we’re going, and maybe we can also leave notes for your parents, just in case. leave notes for our parents in case. Then, let’s see if we can reach whatever is making Anise’s orb heat up and return before morning.> said Felix.

With our decision made, we prepared to wait until nightfall.