Me, My Spirit, And I [Book 1 Complete]

Deep beneath the Shadow Company Compound was a workshop with highly restricted access. Here Shada did his more secretive and disruptive experiments. It was where he kept his notes written in English. There were shelves of notes, diagrams, formulas, and ideas.

His team had succeeded in recreating Dwarven skyships, then taking it further with improvements like propellers and Essence Resonance Motors (ERMs), but Shada was unsatisfied. For Shada the problem was that the designs were too dependent on Essence and enchantments. Essence was literally used as currency on Sierrallas.

His Essence Resonance Motors could be fueled by Personal Essence, Essence Crystals, and the Ambient Essence Accumulators (AEAs) he had yet to release, but that was all Essence Technology (EssTech). There were tons of other purely physical energy sources to exploit, but doing so with the same efficiency and cleanliness as EssTech was proving problematic.

His lab/workshop had a wide array of small devices that he was testing. For example, there was a tiny stirling engine that drove a piston by exploiting the compression and expansion of hot air just like a steam engine, but far safer to run. Of course, stirling engines had downsides, which is why they were never widely used on Earth, but it served to help recreate known processes. There were mini-windmills, waterwheels, and even basic turbines. They all did the same thing; they took some physical phenomenon and turned it into useful kinetic energy. Shada even had a small crank based electric generator he created just for the novelty factor using some copper wires and magnets.

All of these things had taken hundreds of years to develop on Earth, but Shaping magic made creating and tweaking prototypes exceedingly fast. Give a Shaper nothing but a steel ingot and a diagram, and they could hand Shape it into basic parts like they were molding clay; except they could do this with glass, stone, metal, and even wood. Shada employed entire teams of Shapers to help in his research and development divisions.

The problem was, as always, Essence. There was an upper limit on how fast Personal Essence regenerated from Ambient Essence and even Shada's AEAs couldn't surpass that limit. What he wanted was not to turn Essence into physical work, but do the reverse. He wanted to turn physical work into Essence just like they turned mechanical or heat energy into electricity on Earth.

Shada picked up his latest AEAs prototype in psychokinetic hands and looked it over. It was a complex enchantment based on the idea that spellwork could literally tell Essence what to do and the Essence somehow listened. In the simplest terms, the enchantment told the Essence to gather, clump together, condense, and crystallize. It was like programming reality, but there were still limits based on how Essence worked naturally and a person's knowledge of magic languages. The first was very poorly understood and the second was Shada's personal area of expertise. He had no peers on Sierrallas when it came to magical languages, thanks to his Traits.

With an effort of will Shada sunk deeper into his Essence Perception and examined his workshop, his machines, and his enchantments. He sank deeper into the Etheric Plane as he watched the interplay between the physical and immaterial world. How long he floated there in meditative observation he didn't know, but his attention shifted when one of the latest ERM models jammed. This wasn't uncommon. Experimental devices were prone to failure. What was unique about this was that the motor, which should have been causing a simple wheel to spin, was itself spinning. The wheel had locked up for some unknown reason and the torque had broken the motor block free of its mooring.

The spinning motor block was having a very odd effect on the Etheric Plane. There was a vortex forming around the motor drawing in Essence. The AEA created a similar vortex when working, but here the motor was creating the vortex without the enchantment and in the deeper Etheric instead of the region occupied by Ambient Essence. Of course this was creating a problem for the AEA attached to the ERM. The flow of Essence into the motor was increasing, which caused the motor to spin faster. This in turn was increasing the size of the vortex of Essence.

The ERM began to shake violently. Friction created heat, which caused the natural lubricants in the motor's moving parts to catch fire. Black smoke poured from the motor block as the Essence continued to gather around the device. Shada knew he should stop it, but the display was so absolutely fascinating that he couldn't pull his senses away.

Slowly, or at least slow to him, Shada watched stress fractures travel through the motor casing. It wasn't designed to handle this level of centrifugal force. It was now spinning so fast that it would soon tear itself apart. The question was, would the motor break before or after the Essence Vortex reached critical mass?

A flash of Essence like looking into the ignition of a star blinded Shada's Essence Perception and caused him to experience the rare phenomenon of losing consciousness as a Spirit.

—

Luca was studying history with his tutors when his entire body seized so hard that he was thrown from his chair. Like Shada, he lost consciousness nearly instantaneously.

—

Lusha awoke disoriented and with a pounding headache. System Messages were flashing for their attention. It was always a little confusing when Luca and Shada merged, but it had never been so violent before. They tried to sit up, but their mother's hand held them down. They could see Shinobin's face looking at them with worry and concern.

"Lusha?" Shinobin asked. She was using her healer's voice, but the professional mask was slipping as she watched Lusha blinking in confusion.

"Mom? What happened?" Nausea threatened to make Lusha lose their lunch, but the soothing Vital Essence flowing into them was easing the discomfort.

Shinobin squinted. "I was going to ask you that."

It took several moments for the thoughts of memories of their other personas to sort themselves and form something resembling coherence. "Shada was doing experiments. One broke in a weird, but really interesting way…" Lusha trailed off as they tried to remember the exact details. "One of the motors broke and created a weird vortex in the Etheric…" Another pause and then Lusha continued. "I think it created an explosion? I am guessing it injured Shada and forced us back together. There are System Messages I can read that might tell me more."

"That would explain the minor earthquake, boom, and wave of Essence that disrupted enchantments across the city!" Shinobin's voice took on an edge as she finished her statements.

Lusha blinked in confusion. "Earthquake?"

"Yes dear, a minor earthquake. Whatever your older yet not wiser self did shook the entire city!"

"Oops?" Lusha was still a bit dazed so was somewhat oblivious to his mother's glare.

"Oops? Oops? You made the entire city shake and you say oops?" Shinobin growled in frustration.

"My motors have exploded, broken, and slammed into walls etc., but this was different I…let me read these messages and see if the System can give me insight."

It seemed that Shada was vulnerable to explosions of Essence. This wasn't surprising, as Lusha already knew that certain magical weapons could damage Spirits. They had simply never encountered one.

Lusha wanted to smack themselves on the forehead. They had already made comparisons between their ERMs and electric motors on Earth so it should have been obvious that reversing the process could be used to create a generator. It simply hadn't occurred to them.

Had they created the equivalent of a nuclear bomb and electromagnetic pulse bomb by accident? How was that possible? It would take a while to figure out what exactly had gone wrong, but they would have to work hard to make sure no future accidents occurred.

There was something particularly disturbing about having a literal Goddess tell you that you nearly killed yourself by accident.

"Well?" Shinobin asked impatiently as Lusha started off into space looking a little shell shocked.

"I, uhhmm, accidentally created a bomb that caught the attention of the System, the Goddess Sierra, and something called the Council of Ascendent Beings…I am on a watchlist."

It was clear from her face that Shinobin didn't understand what Lusha was talking about, but she understood the word bomb well enough. "Why would you create a bomb?"

"It was an accident. Too many experiments interacting in strange ways. I will make sure it doesn't happen again."

Shinobin nodded along. She didn't know what was going on, but the look on Lusha's face stopped further questions. Instead she wrapped her confused child in her arms and did her best to comfort them.

"I have become death, destroyer of worlds…" Lusha whispered quietly to themselves in English with a disturbed grin on their face.

—

The Shadow Company Compound was a heavily enchanted structure. It was layered in anti-divination wards, protective wards against accidents, and contained an entire host of enchanted manufacturing equipment. There were cracks running through the walls, most of the EssTech was either damaged or inert, and many of the staff had been knocked out by the Essence Pulse from the explosion.

Luckily no one died, but Shada would have to arrange for compensation and cover the healing expenses of the staff that had been onsite during the middle of the night when the explosion occurred. The workshop was deep underground, so had contained most of the force of the explosion. The most damage was from the Pulse acting like the magical equivalent of a localized EMP. There were some unhappy neighbors the next day.

Shada looked at the area where his lab had been. Where the prototype ERM used to be a weird conglomeration of metal, stone, and crystallized Essence sat. No one could get too close to it without feeling violently ill, not even Shada. The Essence around it was in a constant state of flux. This was rather off putting to anyone with even the vaguest Essence sense.

"What do you plan on doing with it?" Alexzandrous asked. The Archmage was one of the few people Shada trusted enough to help him clean up the remains of his workshop.

"I haven't a clue. Break it down and Banish it, but it is so chaotic I don't know how."

"Give it to me."

Shada was uncomfortable with the look in Alexzandrous's eyes. "Why do you want it?"

"I think I can use it to create some rather potent wardbreakers. The chaotic Essence fluctuations are very similar to what happens when you use a wardbreaker. If I use pieces of this in a wardbreaking wand it would be much more effective than normal. I think, not sure. I will have to do some testing…" Alexzandrous trailed off and walked around the object Shada called an elephant's foot for some bizarre reason.

"If you say so. Wardbreaking isn't something I have devoted much time to." Shada was in his ghostly old man manifestation with his hands behind his back as he floated in place. "Take it, but good luck moving it." Shada gestured at the crystalline conglomeration as it pulsed and fluctuated in ways that would have required a seizure warning on Earth.

Alexzandrous nodded and began chanting and waving his hands. Shada didn't know what the spell was, but knew it was meant to contain the elephant's foot and put it in some sort of dimensional storage space. He didn't even know Alexzandrous knew dimensional spells, but the old man was rather secretive about the extent of his abilities.

The elephant's foot disappeared as if it had never been with not even a pop to note its passage between planes.

"I will see you at supper? You called a family meeting, right?" Alexzandrous asked while rubbing his hands together in anticipation of experimenting on the elephant's foot.

"Yes, I need to decide on whether or not to use certain bits of Essence Technology or not. What I have done so far hasn't been terribly disruptive, but my latest inventions are world changing. The question is whether or not to use them."

"We will see right? I am off to play with my new toy!" Alexzandrous also disappeared just like the elephant's foot. How he pulled off that trick Shada didn't know, but he wasn't called an Archmage for nothing.

—

Dinner at the cottage was a quiet affair that night. Shada and Luca were there as Lusha. Shinobin and Theo were snuggled close to one another. Alexzandrous sat in his normal spot at the head of the table with Vanestra to his left and Shinobin to his right.

Once everyone ate, Lusha stood up and took a deep breath. "Mother, father, great grandmother, and great grandfather I, with a great deal of help from my Company, have created three things that I do not know if I should unleash on the world and at least one that I have been warned by the System not to unleash." Lusha let those last words sink in before continuing. "The entire economy of Sierrallas is based on Essence. Essence Crystal backed chips are used as currency."

"Dear, we know these things. Anyone with an education knows these things," Shinobin said gently.

"Please bear with me," Lusha said. "There is a reason I am repeating common knowledge."

Shinobin simply nodded and sipped her evening tea while gesturing for Lusha to continue.

"Everyone knows where Essence Crystals come from. The most common sources are Beasts, Monsters, and Mines. There are a few people with spells or Skills that can crystallize Personal Essence, but that is inefficient due to the limit on how fast people recover Essence." Everyone was waiting for Lusha to get to the point. "I created an enchanted device that can create Essence Crystals from Ambient Essence." Everyone's focus tightened and Lusha fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Child, are you saying you can pull money from thin air?" Vanestra asked in something like bemused disbelief or confusion. Lusha couldn't tell.

"Essentially yes; here on the surface the Ambient Essence is pretty thin so it is a slow process, but the AEAs mean people could set up Essence farms." Lusha looked down at his feet. "In the Depths, an Essence farm would be much more productive."

Everyone just stared at Lusha. Their fidgeting got worse. "What else did you make?" Alexzandrous said while squinting as if Lusha was going to pull a rabbit from their hat and he wanted to figure out the trick.

"One of me has talked about the Essence Resonance Motors right? The devices that are very good at turning Essence into motion? Well, it turns out the process can be reversed. I turned an ERM into an ERG, or Essence Resonance Generator. It turns physical motion into Essence."

"Where is the Essence coming from and what makes that different from your AEAs?"

"AEAs are heavily enchanted objects with no moving parts. ERMs and ERGs exploit a combination of science, technology, and minor enchantments to create highly efficient devices."

"To what end?" Vanestra asked curiously.

"An ERM can be used to push ships, skyships, ground vehicles, and much more. Anywhere you need mechanical energy you could use an ERM. It beats wind and water mills in terms of placement, efficiency, and versatility. Faster travel, mechanized farming, powered looms that can churn out cloth faster than it can be duplicated, and for a fraction of the Essence, are all possible."

"I don't understand. What is the problem?" Theo asked. Wyld Elves were nomadic wanderers. The complexities of civilization were somewhat lost on him.

"Right now, mills are limited by the availability of wind and water. With an ERM you could build one anywhere." Lusha started conjuring misty illusions of ERM powered mills. "You could replace rickshaw pullers with ERM powered coaches. Horse driven carts with ERMs." Imagines of motor bikes, cars, and buses appeared to travel down the streets of a city that looked like Westlin. "No need to depend on mercurial winds or a Wind Mage to speed ships across the water when an ERM can provide steady, reliable, and cheap thrust." Images of cargo ships gliding across the water appeared. "Pedal powered looms are limited by the speed of the weaver. ERMs will make them faster and not need the weaver, with a few tweaks." Looms churned out cloth while workers gathered the final product.

"You are talking about replacing people and animals with these ERMs? People will lose their jobs and livelihoods! You will render entire Professions and Classes obsolete!" Theo exclaimed in surprise as the implications finally sank in.

"It wouldn't be that bad. As Lusha said, the supply of Essence Crystals is limited. Even with the AEAs they mention that won't change too much. Can't get past the Essence Regeneration limit after all." Alexzandrous shrugged as if he couldn't see the problem.

Lusha grimaced. "Actually, that is not true."

Alexzandrous made a humph noise. "Say what now?"

"Essence Resonance Generators do not pull from the Ambient Essence, but from the Etheric Plane. You can build an ERG where you build a water or wind mill and use it to produce extra Essence. This in turn can power an ERM essentially for free…"

Lusha was once more uncomfortable under the intense gaze of their great grandfather.

"That means…" Alexzandrous trailed off as his eyes seemed to fog over. "You can increase the amount of Ambient Essence and then…" His eyes cleared and he stared wide eyed at Lusha. "You can use one of your Accumulators to farm Essence Crystals."

"Yes, exactly. The current economy would be turned upside down."

"Are you sure your metaphysical math adds up Lusha? What you are describing seems a bit far-fetched." Vanestra knew Lusha believed their own words, but what they were describing was simply too far from what she knew to be true.

Instead of responding Lusha handed everyone sheets of paper with numbers, estimates, and other statistics compiled by the high Mind Stat scholars he employed. "As you can see the number of manual labor jobs will drop through the floor and be replaced by my cheaper ERM powered machines. Essence Crystal supplies will increase dramatically. Finally, the entire labor force would need to be retrained to work with and manufacture these devices. Releasing these three devices for widespread public use will essentially trigger an Essence Tech based Industrial Revolution. Earth was changed forever by similar purely physical technology…combine the two? I don't know what is possible."

No one spoke, no one knew what to say; Lusha had the power to change the world, and it was now up to their family to help them decide if they should or not.