Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)
Chapter 367: Hope

While we had decided on a final plan to move forward, we still needed assistance. I had already learned about how ludicrously expensive dimensional terraforming was, and creating a new sun wouldn’t be cheap. We needed help. The most obvious place to get help was our teacher. The next time Elder Veridian came to teach us, Anise and I decided to try out our first test.

“Elder Veridian, Anise and I discovered something interesting while I was working with my dimensional terraforming magic system. We want to see if you react the same way we did. Do you mind taking a look?” I asked, after the elderly woman finished settling down in her seat and getting set up for our lesson.

“Something new? What did you find? Is it the same as that mess you made when you were trying to separate heat and light for some reason?”

I blushed. “That was one time! I was just curious to see if it was possible.”

Anise cleared her throat. “It’s something beneficial this time, Elder Veridian. It’s a type of light that seems to help us regenerate essence, but we want to see if other people also benefit from it. We’re heroes, so we might have some sort of unusual interaction with it.”

<Nice save!> I said over the communication bracelet. Anise winked at me while Elder Veridian turned towards me. She showed far more curiosity this time.

“A light that lets other people regenerate essence? That sounds like it could be incredibly useful. How did you come across this, exactly?”

“I discovered it while I was messing with my new magic system,” I said. “I was trying to convert various types of light into other types of light, just out of curiosity. I was originally thinking that since starlight can transform various types of rock, but light-emitting rocks can’t, there must be a lot of different types of light.” That was an outright lie, but it sounded plausible enough. Lying didn’t make me feel great, but talking about my attempts to restore sunlight from a previous dimension wouldn’t make much sense to elder Veridian. I cleared my throat. “When I created this new type of light, which I refer to as ‘sunlight,’ Anise and I noticed that the light making contact with our bare skin allowed us to restore some essence. Would you… be willing to test it out for us, and tell us if it restores your essence too?”

Elder Veridian nodded. “I would love to see it. If you have a way to transfer essence to other people, your essence regeneration could be stored up for future raids every Astral Tide season…” She smiled at me as she held out her arm. “Go head. Show me.”

I used my shaping ability to create an incredibly small facsimile of a sun inside of my palm. A moment later, the little pinky-sized ball of light started to emit light and heat. 

“Now, just move your arm closer to the sun. It’s very small, and not very hot, so it’s not very similar to a real star… but it should work well enough,” I said.

Elder Veridian did as I asked, and held her bare arm up towards the little sun I had created. She held her arm there for several seconds, while I wrestled with the rest of the dimension to keep the laws of reality from snuffing out the little ball of heat I had created. After several seconds of concentration, Elder Veridian’s eyes widened.

“You’re correct. I can feel my essence slowly regenerating. It’s only a little bit at a time, but I can definitely feel it coming back.” Elder Veridian moved her arm even closer, until she was nearly touching the little ball of cheery light. “It seems that the closer I am, the more quickly my essence regenerates. I wonder if it’s based on proximity, or the light itself…” Elder Veridian took a bag of flour and used it to temporarily block the light my miniature sun was emitting. “So if the sunlight is blocked, no essence regeneration happen at all. I suppose that means that if I was wearing a dress with sleeves, I also wouldn’t get very much essence regeneration… Hmm. I estimate that it would take around five days to recover all of my essence, I would probably need around five days to recover. I wonder what happens if…” Elder Veridian put her hands dangerously close to the miniature sun, and then wrapped her arms around it, almost as if she were trying to give it a hug.

A moment later, Elder Veridian grinned.

“So it’s based on how much sunlight I’m touching. I thought that perhaps the ball of energy was using light as some sort of targeting method, so that it could figure out where to send essence. But now it seems like the more of my body is in contact with the light, the more essence I regenerate per second. However, every centimeter of skin is worth less than the previous one.” Elder Veridian turned towards me, and I could see delight in her expression.

“Miria, how much essence did you spend to create this?” asked Elder Veridian.

“Umm… it takes about one percent of my essence per minute, give or take a bit,” I said. “I could maintain it for an hour and a half before I ran out, approximately.”

Elder Veridian nodded thoughtfully, and it looked like she was doing some sort of calculation in her head. A moment later, her eyes widened in surprise.

“Wait here for a few hours. I’m going to get a few colleagues of mine. I want to test something.”

“All right,” I said.

A few minutes after Elder Veridian rushed off, our parents came to see why the old lady had left. They seemed slightly bemused when they heard that Elder Veridian was going off to find some colleagues for ‘a test,’ before they returned to their baking. About half an hour later, they returned with a few fruits and a nice, warm slice of cheese bread.

It tasted wonderful.

Another hour passed by, before Elder Veridian finally returned. She was flanked by five other people, one of whom was an elderly elf, three of whom were foxkin, and two of whom were more unusual species. One looked kind of like an amalgamation between a man and an ant, and the final one looked like a regular human, which was pretty unusual in this dimension. Before I could get a better look at the newcomers, Elder Veridian dragged the other five people over to me.

“Miria, can you create that ‘sunlight’ again?” she asked.

I nodded, and recreated my miniature sun. The five new people crowded around it. With so many people trying to squeeze into a small circle around my tiny orb of light, it was surprisingly crowded. One of the older women was trying very hard not to trip, although it looked like she might fall on top of me at any moment.

“Make sure to roll up your sleeves, if you have any. Then, extend your hands towards that little orb of light and let me know what you feel,” said Elder Veridian, standing outside of the cramped circle. The other five did as she requested. A moment later, the woman who had nearly tripped onto me frowned.

“My essence is restoring itself,” she said. “Not very fast, but… it’s definitely regenerating.”

“How quickly is it restoring your essence?” Elder Veridian asked.

“I’d say… it would take about five days to restore all of my essence,” said one of the men. “Give or take a day or two.” Experimentally, he rolled up his other sleeve, before he stuck both hands nearly into my miniature sun. “Interesting. The more of my bare skin comes into contact with the light, the more quickly my essence regenerates, although there seem to be diminishing returns.”

Elder Veridian turned towards the others. “Do all of you have similar time estimates?”

The others frowned, before they nodded. “About five days to restore everything, plus or minus a day or two,” said another one of the men.

“If I were to take a bath in this light, it would probably take about seventy two hours to restore everything,” added one of the women.

“Why did you ask us to come here? Isn’t it obvious that the hero is just transferring her essence to us somehow?” asked one of the women. “I mean, it’s good that she can do so, and if she’s willing to do so, that would actually help a bit with essence regeneration. We would be able to build up some healthier stockpiles for emergencies. But I don’t think that’s too important. Both heroes combined regenerate less than a percent of the annual essence harvest. Am I missing something? Transferring a bit of essence doesn’t change much.”

“You’re forgetting something very obvious. Every single one of us has different magical capacities. Despite that fact. All of us are regenerating similar quantities of mana… proportional to our maximum. All of us would need about five days to restore all of our essence from nothing to full, but every single one of us has a wildly different maximum amount of essence.”

I saw the eyes of the others widen in shock.

“Come to think of it, weren’t the heroes very low in magical capacity?” said one of the other women.

I saw a few others nod, and then the woman who had nearly tripped onto me began cackling. Her laugh sounded throaty and scratchy.

“It seems like little Miria is actually creating more essence from nothing! Based on her magical capacity, the amount of essence she is spending doesn’t seem equal to the amount of essence we are gaining each second. Does anyone notice any sort of extra cost for this essence regeneration?”

The other elderly-looking person frowned.

“I notice that I feel a bit hungrier than before. I had a smaller lunch today, since Elder Veridian brought me here before I could finish eating… but it felt a bit worse after using this ‘sunlight’ to regenerate some essence.”

“I also feel a bit hungrier than before,” said one of the others.

“So this ‘sunlight’ is currently assumed to make nearby people convert extra food into essence?” said Elder Veridian.

“We need more information to be sure, but… it certainly appears that way,” said the cackling woman.

Elder Veridian’s smile was so bright that it could have replaced one of the stars in the sky.

“In that case, this is excellent. We have plenty of regular food. If we can convert regular food into essence, even at a ridiculously inefficient rate, that would still be amazing.” Elder Veridian stepped closer to me - and then, to my surprise, she picked me up and hugged me, before spinning around in glee. “Miria, you might have found a real path forward.”

In Elder Veridian’s, eyes, there was none of the hidden disappointment I had seen when she tested our essence capacities. Now, her eyes blazed with something I hadn’t seen in her gaze before.

Hope.

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