Tree of Aeons

324. Caval’s Heroes

324. Caval’s Heroes

324.

Year 290 (continued)

Caval’s demon king

Lausanne was first of all the domain holders to get a chance to hit the demon king. “I get the first swing at it?”

“Of course. We are all eager to see where our own star mana domain holder stands next to the demon king.” Hoyia smiled. “Go for it.”

In fact, we all knew she was eager to test out her powers. Lausanne struck the demon king with fury not unlike a level 100ish hero, and her observations were interesting.

“The star mana within my body subtly pushes back against the void mana of the demon king!” Lausanne realized why the heroes had a unique insight into the battles against their demon kings. The star mana in their body’s net repulsion against parts of the demon king could be used to identify where the demon king’s core was. 

“That’s a rather clever exploit of star mana.” Lumoof thought, watching the battle from afar. I thought it subtly resembled how magnets of the same poles pushed against each other. Thus, from the direction of that repelling force, we could triangulate the ‘center’ of the source of that same other pole.

Ebon, Hoyia, and the others soon joined in the battle. Well all except Lumoof and Edna who decided to talk for a little bit longer. The two were more powerful, and it would be a shame to rob much needed experience from the junior domain holders. 

We speculated that the hero class likely developed an inherent ability to read those signals, perhaps to a much finer level. 

That force only showed up when there was sufficient star mana to go around, especially if not obfuscated by many other competing signals. A demon king emitted many types of presences. A spiritual one, which governed some of their abilities. Some demons also had a normal magical core or in certain types of demon kings, multiple magical cores. This, usually, was the same as their spiritual core, as with humans, but it was not unusual for powerful monsters to have multiple such magical cores. These were like mana batteries and crystals split throughout their flesh, and they also emitted a magical presence. 

Lausanne’s weapons glimmered with the power of that incredible mana. Her blades were indistinguishable from those of the heroes. She could borrow the powers of the heroes and use them as if they were her own. “Yeah. It’s only present when almost my entire body is flooded with this star mana.”

Back then, there were two real categories of hero-items. Some hero items could use normal mana and expressed a weaker version of its abilities. These were the type of hero items normally left behind as relics for their descendants as defensive artifacts for many ancient cities. Then, there were those that only exclusively used star mana. 

Stella quipped. “I suppose with you around, we can now tell apart what are inherently the [hero] class abilities and what are the [star mana]’s natural qualities.” The void domainholder wasn’t much of a combatant, but gaining levels required her to participate. 

The two elements were generally pretty tightly packed together.

I had some limited star mana, thanks to my special star-mana collection leaves. What I had was about one, if not two magnitudes less than the heroes, and my own normal mana was significantly, like many many times larger than even the hero’s pool of star mana. For me, my star mana may as well have been a tiny pond, next to my ocean of regular mana.

So, it didn’t demonstrate any qualities. 

It was like adding salt to an ocean. The ocean didn’t get any more salty. 

But now, we could make great strides into demystifying the overpowered abilities of the hero. 

The demon king of Caval gave Lausanne a good fight and was probably above average in terms of strength. But once Lumoof and Edna stepped in and helped, the demon king’s defenses crumbled.

Most demon kings we’d encountered had multiple gimmicks. Of these gimmicks, most had a spiritual element. The demon king’s spiritual template, in other words, was inherently vulnerable to powers of the [soul forge], and it was how Lumoof could functionally disable or lock down certain gimmicks like resurrection or split forms. 

The demon king’s best chance against someone like Lumoof was a pure-strength type of demon king. A demon king with so much inherent strength that didn’t rely on gimmicks. 

There were some out there, I believe. Multipus was pretty highly ranked as was the demon king of Gigantadragon. 

I could tell that star mana’s damage was really quite powerful. As Lausanne added more different hero-type weapons to her arsenal, I could only imagine her being far stronger than heroes at level 200.

From Lumoof and Edna’s experience, the gain in their combat strength from level 150 to 200 was incredible. Edna used to just deal pathetic damage at level 150, and Lumoof wasn’t much better without [Avatar]. 

If Level 150 was the starting point, then Level 200 was when Edna could not only match a full powered hero but overpower one and win. 

Still, Lausanne’s star mana gave her a huge damage edge over her level 150 peers which meant she was immediately more useful against the demon kings, compared to her peers like Ebon, Kafa, Roon, and so on. 

This was clear to us during the demon comet incident. The rest of the domain holders had to be supported by an arsenal of high quality, extremely powerful tools just to keep Multipus occupied and slow it down. The heroes had no such limitation. 

The battle was over. We left the demon king at less than a fifth of its strength.

The domain holders had overpowered the demon king and left it pretty much disabled. 

Lumoof ripped off large chunks of the demon king’s spiritual energies, and Lausanne, as a result of one of the hero-swords, gained a set of ‘sealing-swords’ type of ability. She used it, together with Lumoof’s vines, to keep the demon king suppressed.

Now, we waited for the summon of Caval’s hero.

***

One of the great validations of Lausanne’s much larger pool of star mana was that I could then definitely answer whether the hero’s star mana was potentially ‘tainted’. 

I had a small amount of star mana on my own, but I wasn’t exactly sure whether my Earthling experience or the fact that I also went through the hero-summon process as a byproduct influenced the qualities of the star mana. 

A part of me suspected it wasn’t, but again there was no proof. On this front, it was a relief to say it wasn’t. Lausanne, as a pure, native domain holder with access to star mana, meant the hero’s star mana wasn’t tainted with secret ‘bugs’. 

At least, the gods were not so paranoid to do so. 

***

Year 291

Caval continued to face lesser demonic attacks, but with its demon king paralyzed and Lumoof regularly checking in on the demon king to ensure that the set of magical seals we placed around the demon king kept it suppressed, there really was no major threat to the quite powerful knights of Caval.

“Lausanne, I have a request.” Kei said to her as part of their meetings. “The League of Heroes need someone who is also at their level to guide them. I know Colette, at the moment, has taken up the role as the ladyboss, but I want someone else to balance out her influence. She’s also quite occupied with her family to actually spend so much time on things.”

Colette had decided to have a second child with Prabu, after her first daughter. Rohana. They wanted a few more, too.

I wondered for a moment whether this was how the very first heroes populated the world with humans, because I recalled Hawa once saying that the first heroes had no mental barriers or mental suggestions that prevented them from forging new families. 

***

The wait wasn’t long. A few months after the demon king was ‘sealed’, it came. 

I learned of it through Hawa. 

“Ah. The hero will arrive soon.” Hawa spoke through his divine relic, perhaps he could tell from the changes to his faith points. 

It happened just as quickly as I felt the world warp so slightly. As if the bubble of reality was twisted ever so slightly to allow a strand from the unknown to reach into the world of Caval, and through that strand, two heroes emerged.

I wonder whether it was because I was more sensitive to heroes now, that I could tell where they were without even having to rely on my network of trees. Caval, after all, was only home to a node tree. And yet I could still have a rough feel for where these heroes were.

***

Those that came through were a couple. A boy and a girl, both teenagers. They looked absolutely lost when we found them in the woods of Caval.

Caval was a sparse land, filled with large, unclaimed spaces between all the fortress towns. Lands that were sometimes filled with monsters. Trade thus followed old, familiar routes, escorted by the knights, armed with descendant swords, who regularly patrolled the routes. 

“You two look lost.” Lausanne said, as she arrived in front of them. Her aura was well hidden in order to not scare them, but the two blinked. Her mana was now in its normal mana state.

But just in case, Lumoof followed behind, invisible. 

“Uh, we are.” The two looked at each other and then back at her. They looked like they had something to say to the elven domain holder, but couldn’t actually spit it out. 

“I see. Then come with me.” The elven domain holder said and tossed them some food. “You two must be hungry. How many days have you been walking?”

“Eh. Only a few hours, I guess? We were just sitting in our buses on the way home, when there was a moment where a truck looked like it was going to smash into us-” The boy said. “Uh, wait, I’m Perry. And this is my girlfriend, Sandra. What’s your name?” 

Lausanne smiled. It was all so familiar. “Lausanne. Now, did you meet a guy who said-”

Sandra blinked and nodded furiously. “Yes! There was this strange lady in a white robe that spoke to us. She claimed that we have been summoned to be heroes! But uh-”

Perry laughed. “I don’t feel very heroic. Do you?”

Sandra nodded along. “Yeah. I’m hungry.” 

Lausanne thought of easing them into the whole hero thing, so didn’t want to shock them with flying dragons and all that yet. There was a carriage waiting for them nearby. It was good to talk to them on the way to the nearest town, which was just a few hours away by horse. 

The first three days with the heroes, we mostly tried to learn about them. They were still horrified that they died and were thus transmigrated to another world, but, as with most heroes, they found their footing surprisingly quickly.

***

“First, let’s start with spars.” Lausanne said, as she guided the two new heroes for a spar. It was nostalgic. Harris and that batch of heroes had a spar with Lausanne too, when they first arrived. 

The nearest town was a small one, also with its own little hero sword. Lausanne, Lumoof, and a few domainholders had rented out a few of the empty homes to use as a base of operations, while they practiced. The world of Caval had some old traditions with heroes. Most of them involved a recharging step, where the new hero recharged the hero swords and asked for their blessings, often in the form of getting a ‘copy’ of that hero sword.

As expected, they improved tremendously, guided by an innate talent. Or perhaps, a talent guided by the [hero] class. 

On that very same day, their [hero] class hit level 5, they got their growing hero swords. 

“Mine’s a lightning sword! So cool!” Perry said and got to swing it around. “It’s a Level 1 [Hero Sword - Lightning!]” 

Sandra’s power was strangely [Hero Sword - Dark]. Her attire and makeup had a strong, darker color, but it was strange that she had a dark-element weapon. When she demonstrated them, they were more like death energy, but without the undead parts. 

“Interesting.” We didn’t detect the [Class] detail of the hero when we examined the hero swords already placed on Caval. Perhaps, when the hero died, the hero swords transformed into a different state.

At low levels, the hero sword’s power was decent, comparable to a weapon made by someone level 50 or so. But the speed of this increase was the same as the heroes. They gained levels as long as they battled. Some days, they gained 3 to 5 levels in a day. 

For Lausanne, it was intimidating watching how fast they improved. 

But Lausanne was not just someone around level 50 to 60 anymore. Today, she was a domain holder with star mana powers of her own, so she kept up. In both speed and decades of lived experience as a warrior, she could match and exceed them as she sparred.  Anyone else would have found it strange, but for Sandra and Perry, their frame of reference was Lausanne. 

And Lausanne learned powers from heroes, and that was where she encountered the first limitation of her domain.

It didn’t teach her spells or skills that were generic, but made stronger by star mana. That meant she didn’t learn to cast certain generic spells that Colette or Prabu could use or regular skills like [Shield] used by Adrian. They were normal spells, just made extremely powerful with star mana and also the [hero] class.

But, if they picked up [Heroic Punch] or something of that sort, Lausanne could copy it perfectly, though its strength would then be dependent on her own stats and levels. Similarly, she could learn both of their [Hero Sword] variants, but she did not demonstrate any of their hero-derived abilities. 

That said, I also viewed it as a strength. It meant she also could empower her own set of generic abilities and make them into a star-mana enhanced version. 

***

As they got more confident, Lausanne guided them towards the various demonic spawns and led them to visit the various hero swords using their status as heroes. 

We learned that though all the locals were tremendously respectful when they were present, there was an undertone of pity. The knights knew, perhaps from their long history, that the heroes of Caval frequently died in battle. There were very few centuries where heroes lived beyond two demon kings. 

It was a feeling we knew well, and one we saw on other worlds. 

It took about two weeks for them to reach Level 50. Another month to reach Level 70. But we knew, at least from experience, that this speed would slow down dramatically. 

***

“How are they?” Stella asked while she explored the other worlds. “I still feel bad for robbing them from their homeworld. Maybe, the accident wouldn’t have happened if the hero summon didn’t happen.”

“Aeon theorized that in any sufficiently large world, like Earth, with billions of people, there will be hundreds if not thousands of children dying in car accidents every day. They may not actually avoid summoning anyone extra, but just pick from those who recently died.”

“I feel like that’s just an excuse, though I suppose Aeon should ask the administrators that question.” 

Lumoof chuckled, as the two reached a barren world. There were a string of barren worlds that seemed to have contained life at some point in their life, but now were stripped bare. The core was largely hollowed out. It was a strange miracle that it had not collapsed yet. 

It didn’t have the special star mana when a world was on the verge of collapsing. But Stella left a marker anyway. A little device she created filled with her void mana, meant to signal to her on the state of the world. 

In this period of peace, we wanted to reach the other gods. Maybe, together, we could end the demons for good. Failing that, we hoped to at least remove its current, world-destroying form and reduce it to a regional threat. 

Maybe then we would have a war between the gods. 

Maybe that’s why the demons were created. Somewhere far away and a long long time ago, a god got tired of the war between the gods and created an enemy so powerful that all of them had no choice but to unite against it. 

“Let’s keep moving.” 

***

“Level 100!” The heroes said, as they unlocked their star mana forms. All heroes reached this state eventually, a form where all their normal mana was replaced by the overpowered star mana, and interestingly, the hero swords were also at the same level. 

In their current state, the hero swords were incredibly powerful weapons, but we also noticed a large, glaring weakness. 

They drained the heroes’ star mana extremely quickly. The hero swords on their own did not generate any star mana, so it drained all of it from their source, the hero. A part of it was stored within the sword itself, never to be used. 

No, that wasn’t right. We believed the hero swords were designed to survive beyond the heroes, so it had sequestered away some of these star mana for future use. 

Sandra and Perry didn’t think about it. They couldn’t. The way they processed the world was at a surface level. Their minds, increasingly, as they gained levels, became obsessed with the demon king.

“I could feel it!” Perry screamed one night, waking up from bed in the inn somewhere closer to  the demon king. “It’s calling me!”

Sandra nodded, her face was unnaturally nervous and pale. 

Lausanne nodded. At level 100, there was a switch in their mind that kicked in and drove them towards the demon king. Their goal. 

She had to sit them down. “Perry, Sandra. Drink this.” 

A powerful tea made from my leaves temporarily helped them calm down and helped them regain their mind. The tea worked well. 

“You two are not the only heroes.” 

That made both of them gasp. “What? Where- where are the others?”

“Well, they are on other worlds.”

***

One of the questions we had in mind, at least with the other heroes, was simply, ‘when do we introduce the other heroes to this group of new heroes?’

Eventually the consensus was when they reached Level 100. Because of star mana. Colette hoped that any new hero should feel that they were joining them as equals, not as junior heroes. 

I thought that this was a bit of wisdom from Colette, who clearly understood that some of the new heroes did feel a little intimidated by Colette and Prabu who were close to Level 150 as mage [heroes]. 

The speed at which heroes gained level all plateaued past level 120 or so. At that point, it seemed that the gods judged that they didn’t need more power, so the effects of the blessings faded.

The gods didn’t want their medicine to be too strong.

But for now, the heroes didn’t need to know that. 

***

My node tree on Caval was placed in a town with no hero swords. It used to have one, but then the hero sword was destroyed in a strange event, perhaps, as a result of overuse. So, it was a town that was almost abandoned. 

The two new heroes made their way there and were finally introduced to the rest of the heroes. 

And now at Level 100, the two new heroes added to the [Heroes’ Journal].

I felt it gain even more power, as if that journal was at the verge of gaining some kind of sentience. Its stronger presence encased itself in a cocoon of powerful star mana. I wondered what would happen if a few more heroes added to it. 

But with the knowledge and whatever contained within that heroes’ journal, Sandra and Perry were reinvigorated, and their soul grew. They were now a bit more than before.

The demon king died a few weeks after that, killed by the two. 

Two more new heroes now joined our quest towards the end.