Agnisotra: Origin Tails

That was a nice illusion at the end you had me fooled too. I freaked out like crazy. Gregory said as he was panting.

Well getting you to freak out adds to its authenticity. I said as I gave a thumbs up.

So, we escaped one water hell to escape through another one. I can't say I'm very happy with how today has been going. And besides that… What is this smell?!

Well, it's a sewer after all.

My nose! Sometimes it sucks to have a good sense of smell, in cases like this and when Raishin forgets to shower! Gregory pinched his nose.

I'm in the same boat but there is nothing we can do about it now. We kept running through the sewers until we got to a sewer crossroad where Gregory and I had to split up.

Greg, you go to the right here and you go up at the third manhole. It will put you 1 block away from your place but you can never be too careful.

You really know the whole sewer system by memory, don't you? I don't know if I should be impressed or sad for you. How did your sword test go by the way? Gregory covered his nose with the sleeve of his coat

Hmm, it went well, maybe it went a bit too well. I almost cut off Charlize’s arm.

Well, your “failed” projects can skin and chop up a boar mid-air so I'm not surprised.

Well, the thing is my blade didn't touch her, the little bit of air around the blade when I swung it did.

How is that even possible? Anyway there is an easy solution for that!

What is it?

Start sucking! You make us all look bad!

Well, not my fault your focus lies on non-offensive techniques!

You'll see one day it will save your ass and you will be thankful!

I'm sure about that, I will be counting on you for that!

I'll do my best not to get captured, you should do the same! Gregory waved and ran towards his right turn. He slipped and fell, cursed, and continued running. I thought back to the fight I had with Charlize. There were numerous instances where I could have defeated her but this would end up in her getting gravely injured. Fighting opponents that I don't want to hurt shouldn't be done with swords. I didn't even touch her yet almost managed to cut off her arm. I got more options for life-or-death battles but otherwise, I didn't have more to work with. I walked towards the manhole I needed to exit. It was about an hour till midnight, prime time for green sewer rats but I didn't see any. It reminded me of earlier today when a lot of sewer rats rushed by and ignored me. The direction they came from earlier today drew my attention and I checked the area out. Nothing stood out.

The weakness of my Elgards eyes is that I have filters for various things. If I don't know what I'm looking for I can easily miss it since I don't have the correct filter for it. I have some standard ones that I use to check out. The most recent filter I added was one that could see this strange energy that seemed to be everywhere but also in everything. I looked at my hands and saw them faintly coursing inside me.

Filters showing myself in the third person perspective got added, I also added an eagle eye perspective which lets me know where I would be if I was on the surface, another one which allows me to view myself from way behind and way in front. I don't know what is going on but I don't want to get surprised by whatever is going on.

I equipped my sword which I called Wind Cutter. I know I suck at naming swords but I have the feeling I won't keep this one for long because I'm working toward a more permanent sword. But I will work on my naming sense for swords in the future! With sword in hand, I followed the sewer towards the area the sewer rats fled from. It was a long walk and I was getting close to leaving the town. There were no turns or splits in the sewer, just one single sewer line, so I couldn't have mistakenly gotten on the wrong trail but so far, I didn't find anything that could pose a threat to sewer rats. I also haven't seen any sewer rats since earlier today. I looked around for heat signals but the only ones were on the surface and myself here in the sewer.

The first sewer rat heat signature I saw was 5 km toward the town, close to the town center. I wondered how far this sewer line was going. This was certainly not normal. There were no houses above me so why is there a sewer line here? Is there a facility that deals with sewer water this way? Not that I know of. I started to become nervous because everything was a bit unsettling. It was midnight by now. I've been walking for an hour. As I was about to decide to go back, I spotted something. About 400m in front of me the sewer line changed. My bird's eye view told me I was getting close to the Umbra Mountain range.

Our town was in the mountains on a plateau so I want to say it would be the base of this mountain range but since we're already elevated by about 3500m I don't think that is correct. But from my perspective, it is the foot of the mountain. I approached the area where I saw that the sewer line changed and as I got closer, I saw a barrier on the line where the sewer line transitioned into some ancient-looking waterway. I wondered why I didn't see the barrier earlier but I remembered for some reason it only became visible when someone passed it for a short period or if you got close to it.

Gregory and I have left the barrier multiple times to gather ore so I did know this, I just forgot it since I wasn't expecting the barrier to reach this far. I looked back and determined that I was about 7 km outside the town. Did the barrier scale dynamically in size trying to keep people inside it until a certain distance was reached from its centre? What even was the centre of the barrier? I realized that I actually didn't know much about this barrier. Hmm? I should investigate this barrier after I finish this investigation. I remember the magical signature of the barrier before I pass through it. The moment I pass through the barrier, various magical signatures start to appear in my sight.

Hmm I see, this barrier can hide magical signatures. I wasn't talking to anyone specifically but sometimes I just talk to myself. The waterway continued on. Who built this? Something resembling an exit neared. What I saw shocked me. The waterway exited in a large room. It wasn't a room since I was under a mountain now so it was a cave. It was easily as big as Boshi town. So, this room was really big and the waterway exited inside this room creating a small waterfall.

Around the perimeter of the room, I saw multiple of such waterways exit into this room. I was relatively high up. I looked down and I saw something that looked like a big temple and... Well, color me surprised, next to the temple I could spot a no winged dragon. It seems to be sleeping. If no winged dragons were not common where I come from, I would probably be excited or terrified. But I got more curious. It looked like an earth dragon so at least it made sense for it to be underground but as far as I knew they would make their own lairs and more closely to magma. I scanned for heat signatures but the hottest thing in this room was me.

I cooled myself off with ice in case anything else could sense heat. My body temperature changed to about the same temperature as the ambient temperature to at least be invisible to heat sensing. I applied stealth and illusions on myself and jumped down. A split second after I jumped down, I realized that this was quite a dumb move. It was about a 100m drop... I should've tried to climb down. At least this was faster, is what I thought, but I seemed to be falling quite slowly. I made a splash in the water. The dragon woke up and looked up but I stayed underwater. It is a good thing I didn't bring Gregory; he probably would've been completely done with anything water-related by now.

The dragon seemed to still look around. Something about its behaviour gave me a reason to think that he was agitated by something. That something was probably me but in general, dragons don't need to be afraid of anything. They are really powerful. I swam behind the dragon and surfaced. The water should have gotten rid of my scent and my stealth and illusion should have prevented me from being detected. Unless it used wind magic to detect entities then I'm screwed. I should find a way to deal with that in the future. I went through various filters and checked out what I could learn from this dragon. Yup yup, it would completely destroy me in a battle but hey it seems some form of crystallized energy is lodged in its side. It happened to be that same energy I seem to see everywhere. I really should give it a name someday. This crystallized energy mass seems to really fuck up the dragon's energy balance as a whole since it doesn't like to interact with mana, so the dragon's mana is getting vaporized.

An interesting interaction, less so for the dragon. I didn't have much experience interacting with dragons. I did know they spoke a different language than the standard Kaledonian which seemed to be the main language spoken on this continent. A bunch of countries decided on a language that would make communicating with other countries smoother. In Hourai we speak Hourai well but it is a heavy dialect of Kaledonian. I say heavy dialect but it's more based on ancient Kaledonian since my mother is over 3000 years old. She made our empire in a dimension similar to ours about 2500 years ago and spoke Kaledonian just like everyone down here. It is just that what we speak hasn't change much from how it was spoken 2500 years ago and over here it did change. I'm getting side-tracked, what I was trying to say is that dragons spoke their own language. Since I decided to speak to the dragon with sincerity, I dropped my stealth and illusions and showed my tails and ears. I started talking to him in Hourai.

Hello Mr. Dragon, I am Agnis Hourai, I see you have a problem with some crystallized energy in your side, maybe I can help you.

“ʬʩʧ”

Hmm as I thought I couldn't understand a word It said. At least it knew I was an ally. I knew I should've picked up draconian back then when we were still home.

“ךּﬔ” Hmm, it seems you can understand me but sadly I can't understand you. The dragon sat motionless for a bit and then moved. It startled me because this dragon was huge. It moved until its front claws appeared next to me. I didn't sense any bloodlust or malice so I just looked on as a claw approached me and touched my forehead. Some strange energy entered me.

“Hallo hallo? Test 123, can you understand me?” These were not the words I expected to hear from a dragon. Yes, I can understand you loud and clear, what did you do?

“I imparted some of my wisdom onto you, at least related to languages. I’m surprised you're still conscious, I messed up and instead of just draconian I imparted about 20 extra languages.” Oh, I'm kinda used to headaches so maybe I got resistant?

“Hmm a plausible option, so what are you doing so far from home young nine-tailed spirit fox? Your aura and smell seem familiar, reminds me of some hot phoenix chick I met 3000 years ago. I think her name was Edea. Wait a second, I think I have a picture of her”

Yeah that would be my mother, Edea Hourai. Why do you have a picture of my mother by the way?

“Oh, so she has a kid now. Well in remembrance of how hot she was, I will help you out!” Ignored eh, and you sound like someone I know, do you by any chance know any six-tailed tigers?

“Can't say that I do, now what can I do for you young lad?” Well, I don't know, I wanted to help you with that crystalized energy in your side.

“Oh, so you've noticed, this crystallized energy is a thorn in my side, I can feel that it's there but I can't do anything about it, I can't grab it nor does it get affected by magic. And from time to time it pulses, which hurts like hell.” Hmm is that why the sewer rats ran away?

“Sewer rats? Not sure what you're talking about but every creature would run from a dragon's roar.” I think I can help you.

“What do you want in return for this young one?” Hmm, what can you tell me about this energy? You don't seem to be able to interact with it but you seem to know what it is.

“You sure that is all you want? I can't just send someone with such a hot mom off with just that." Uhm how about becoming my friend?

“Friend? What is this weak shit! Ask for something more challenging!” It sounds weak to you but you see, I get into trouble a lot and I could use a certain earth dragon friend to help me out in need.

“Hmm on a scale of human lifestyle to challenging the gods, scale, how deep is the shit you get yourself into?” Hmm well, our homeland got destroyed and we got sold into slavery, how would that fit on your scale?

“What?! Hourai is gone? Your mom is gone?!! Unacceptable! You have my word young one whenever you need help just call for me! Maybe I can score brownie points for your mother.” I am not sure I should be content with that motivation but I guess we have a deal; I didn't catch your name though.

“I am Terovatyr, first brood of Kaledon.” Wait you're the son of the dragon that brought lots of civilizations together and unified them under one language?

“Yup.” Then why the hell don't you speak that language?!

“Hey listen kiddo there are some things dragons can and can't do, we’re not all-powerful! Quite close but not quite there yet.” Even though your father made that language?

“Anyways about this energy…” Fine, but save the talking for after I got this energy out.

“They are leyline energy or as it was called in the past: dragon vein.” Dragonvein?

“Hmm yes under the dragons there is a myth that this planet was a colossal dragon who got defeated in a war against the gods. Over time his body began to petrify and became a planet. But its blood which was still running became a form of energy that supported life but more from the shadows. While magic and their energies made the planet flourish, dragon veins kept all these energies in check and influenced phenomena which those energies needed help with.” So why can't dragons use it then?

“It's a lost art.” Isn't that a bit too convenient of an excuse? Didn't the dragons just forget or didn't bother to learn it just like you didn't learn Kaledonian? I might've been mistaken but Terovatyr showed something that resembled a nervous tick.

Looks like I hit the mark, unlucky for you I'm not all too unfamiliar with dragons and this just seems like their thing. I walked towards Tero’s side and inspected the crystallized chunk of leyline energy. How did this even crystallize and get in your side anyway?

“Ok, this is a funny story, So I was just tunnelling through the mountain looking for a snack. I've eaten enough mana, ores and rocks so I was looking for something new. And about 20 km away from here I saw something that looked like pink broccoli. I wanted to take a bite but it shot these weird spears at me. And one of those spears is what you see here on my side.” So, you, a dragon got defeated by a pink tree?

“When you’re as old as me you will realize that phrasing is very important! I didn't get defeated; I made a tactical retreat.” Right… and this tree was underground? I asked while attuning to the leyline crystal. I was bracing for the incoming headache but instead, I was met with the words:

“Help me, this world is on the verge of collapse!” Hmm, of those languages you imparted to me by accident would there be any that could be related to leyline energy or Dragonvein?

“Hmm yes, I think. Ancient draconian is only spoken by me, my siblings, and my father, all other dragons didn't bother with it. It is vastly different from the current draconian we use as it is starting to become an extinct language. It was said that the colossal dragon who became this planet was from the time of ancient draconian. Even my sire, who is old as fuck isn't old enough to have lived when this language was widely used. Why did you need it for something?” Well, whenever I managed to attune to leyline energy a loud voice in a foreign language would yell in my head, but now it is a soft female voice that says: help me, this world is on the verge of collapse. Quite the cliché line.

“Wait, really? Hmm, this is dire, but also amazing. As far as I know, nobody ever has been able to manipulate this energy and certainly never heard the will of this planet.” Will of the planet?

“Yes, as I said there is a myth that this planet came from a colossal dragon so that only makes sense!” What are the other 19 random languages you imparted to me?

“Some languages which were very common when I was a young dragon.” So, they are all useless extinct languages?

“Phrasing young lad!” Anyways since you don't seem to be sure about all of this, I'll just take this with a grain of salt, thank you for the story time though.

“Kids these days are so merciless!”

I got distracted by the conversation but now I started to focus. The voice didn't keep repeating, probably because it knew I understood her. I tried to gently move the crystal out of Tero’s side but my execution was still a bit rough.

“Yowch! I appreciate you taking this out for me but can't you be gentler?” You might want to dodge that.

“Dodge what?” As usual, when I move a lot of leyline energy it turns into water for some reason, and since this was crystallized energy a stupid amount of water got created and blasted Tero. “Very Impressive! You are very strong.” I didn't do that; well, I did do that but that is just what happens when I move large volumes of this energy.

“Haha, I did not sense any malice so it's fine, I needed a shower anyway, thanks for the help.” Tero was about to leave when I stopped him. Wait! I have two questions! firstly how do I call for you when I need help, secondly what is this temple here?

“Oh, to call me you just have to send a message to me with earth magic and this temple is a dungeon.” So. you’re into that kind of stuff, eh? Also, I can't use earth magic well.

“Nono is not that kind of dungeon! It is like an ancient ruin made by civilizations from before the Great Eraser. These dungeons are filled with treasures, knowledge, and ways to learn forgotten and lost magic. if you send a leyline message I will also be able to find you, probably…” I had so many questions but I just decided to let it be because it would end up with me getting more questions than answers.

Aight got it, now shoo, and don't come near any pink broccoli!

“Such disrespect! But I will let it slide, for now, I will use this as an excuse to have a lengthy conversation with your mom about your behaviour.” You are doing everything to meet my mom, aren't you? I said as I saw the earth dragon leave. There was no answer but I'm sure that any answer Tero would give would just make my headache worse. Whenever I see Raishin I will ask him if there is a possibility there is a dragon in his ancestry.

I had two choices now: Investigate the temple or find the pink broccoli. I wanted to do both but I didn't know if I had the time or energy to do both at this point. Judging from old lady Paula’s warning and the tone Tero talked in it seemed like the pink broccoli was an issue. But treasure, knowledge, and new magic sounds exciting too! Oh, I wish I could do both! Wait I can, can't I? I remember that Viridian always had clones which allowed him to do multiple things at the same time. There were some downsides to it but I forgot what they were. I also didn't get taught how to use this so I thought of what I could do and if I could replicate it. Making an illusion of myself wouldn't work because it wouldn't be able to perform actions that fall outside my expectations. If I could use 4 layers, I might be able to do that effectively but that wasn't something that would be similar to the cloning technique.

I had learned some shadow techniques from Gregory and if I remember correctly Viridian and Hisui also used shadow techniques. It seems that the assassin techniques the Mikazuki family uses were developed by Nadila’s grandfather who was an assassin. So, the assassin techniques I'm familiar with have roots in how the three-tailed shadow cats use their shadows. I switched gears and instead of thinking like a ninetails, I started thinking like three tails. Gregory could make all forms from shadows and technically imbue them with his essence. If I did that, I could probably make a shadow clone, I could then drop some illusion layers on it and give it a nine-tail twist to it.

I tried it a couple of times and succeeded. Well in theory. It was fully functional but well uhm it didn't look like me. It was quite malformed. Luckily, I could fix it with an illusion, and voila a perfect? Shadow clone. I'm sure Viridian would give me 4/100 points for this but it's not bad for something I've never learned right? Since I was more interested in seeing the treasure and ancient dungeon with my own eyes, I sent the shadow clone toward the pink broccoli. It was limping a bit but it would be fine! Probably. My specialty is speed so the limping would hinder it a bit but it still should be relatively fast! I think. Anyway enough about the clone, time to raid this dungeon!

Is what I wanted to do but there is a problem. The temple is locked. It has ancient symbols on it and because of Tero's mistake, I recognize most of them. But the words and their order of them don't make any sense. Did Tero double mess up and attach the wrong definition and meaning to these words? Or did the ancient civilization mess up? Am I messing up by misinterpreting them? All these possibilities of mistakes made my head hurt. I decided to believe in Tero for once and assumed what I know of this language is correct, the ancient civilization probably wouldn't mess up their own language so the problem is me. Are there double meanings of these words? I went through everything I knew about this language in my head. As far as I can tell there are quite some words that have double meanings or more and I know these too, so it isn't an oversight. There was only one word that had a double meaning, I read it as "past" but it could also mean "reverse". I thought about it and tried an idea that I had. Maybe nothing makes sense here not because I am messing up but because this is intentional and it is a puzzle to test the so-called invaders' skill in their language.

The words I read were: past, new, forgotten, heaven, written, and dwarf. These words made no sense but if this was a puzzle then the word "past" which has another less frequent meaning as "reverse" could be the clue. I reversed the symbols making the words and I only got gibberish. I reversed the order of the words; yeah this isn't going to make it make more sense. I was thinking that the requirement for entry was quite high, not only did you need to know a dead language you also had to do word puzzles with it so a basic understanding of this dead language wouldn't even help you. I tried flipping the meaning of these words, the reverse was, in my opinion, the key to solving this puzzle so I will leave this out: old, remembered, earth, spoken, and giant. Hmm, this doesn't make any sense. But these words reminded me of a story from home. It was an ancient story and it was called: Remember the words of the old earth giant. I got excited because this might be the answer! Since I couldn't move the symbols, I said this sentence. Nothing happened. I said the same sentence in Hourai. Nothing happened. How could I be so stupid as I slapped my forehead, of course, I have to say that in the ancient language! I butchered the pronunciation a couple of times before I got it right. In this language, it combines a lot of tones that get followed up by other weird tones to pronounce. Not exactly a tongue twister but it comes close to one. Nothing happened again. Hmm, I was sure this was correct, did I still mess up the pronunciation?

I thought back to the title of the story, maybe it had an alternative title that used the same words but a bit differently, like ‘Don't forget the words of the ancient earth giant’ or ‘Remember the sayings of the old earth giant.’ I tried all versions I could come up with, of course butchering the pronunciation of them multiple times before I got it right. But nothing happened. I started to get frustrated. I was hoping I could wrap all this up swiftly but I've been trying to solve this puzzle for about 2 hours now. I checked on my clone but oddly enough I couldn't find it. Did it go back inside the barrier? The barrier was a pain in the ass because it seems to block many functions of my Elgards eyes. I could try to force them to look through it but it will be very draining and I don't know what is in this dungeon. I decided to let the clone be and focused on the puzzle in front of me. Maybe the clue wasn't this story. Then it dawned on me! Maybe the title of the story is a question asking for an answer. I try to remember the story. But it has been so long. There was a life lesson in the story. I racked my brain but I couldn't remember the important details of the story. I decided to telepathically contact Gregory. Gregory has a great memory, sometimes it looks like I have a good memory too but that's because I store energy in a mental archive, I created with one of my fox tails. If I don't know if I saved any information in the archive, I can't retrieve it and remember it. I didn't seem to have anything related to this story in there so I asked Gregory.

Yoo Greg, remember that story that's called: remember the words of the old earth giant? Ooh, that's an old one, the official name is ‘Don't forget the words spoken by the ancient earth colossus.'

Do you remember the life lesson in it? Are you cooking up a weird strategy that needs this story? Hmm not really, I just remembered this story.

Hmm well, the life lesson goes as follows: Fire begets destruction, water begets decay, wind begets asphyxiation, lightning begets disintegration, and earth begets bloodshed but nature will act as a balance and keep the elements in check. It is a lesson to help you control your magic if it gets too strong or goes berserk. Not everyone has an affinity for nature energy but every living creature can learn it and gain proficiency at it will automatically calm down whatever element spirals out of control. Did you remember this because you want to apply this to your fire magic? Hmm not really but that is a great idea, thanks, Greg. Did you arrive safely?

You know that was almost 5 hours ago, right? You don't mess up time like this unless… are you doing something dangerous again? Uhh, I have no idea but it can't be more dangerous than Charlize so I will be fine.

Hmm sure, I'll just make some healing potions and concoctions to cure various status ailments when I have time. Wow, no faith in me, eh?

You are wrong, I have complete faith in you getting into trouble and returning with some exotic status ailment, I have known you for too long to be wrong in this. Have you heard from Raishin yet?

Hmm, not really after his so-called rescue he seemingly just disappeared. I am just warning you in front, I have found 2 instances that indicate that something big might happen soon, firstly according to old lady Paula, the animals around and in the town are restless, secondly, I found a no-winged dragon under the Umbra mountain range who got wounded b that strange energy I kept seeing, according to the dragon it’s called leyline energy or dragon vein. A pink tree shot a spear at it. It must be a big deal because anything that can wound an earth dragon like that is no joke.

Pink tree? According to Pietro, the tree creating the barrier is pink. Wait, you know about the source of the barrier?

Yeah, he got called to inspect it half a year ago, something seems to be amiss with it at least back then. Pietro came back and told me a bit about what he did but he didn't disclose if whatever was wrong was fixed. Hmm well judging from the fact that it almost one-shot an earth dragon I think it didn't get fixed or maybe even got worse. Also, on top of this, whenever something big and bad is about to happen Raishin always acts odd and randomly disappears.

Yeah it is like he feels it coming way before any signs appear. Hmm well, I did see weird fluctuations in leyline energy but since I'm not that attuned to it, I have no idea what it means, over the last year it has become denser but it also feels like it was charged with a certain. Feeling. But now I can sense it more easily. The energy is charged with the feeling of despair.

Hmm, that's not good. I will start storing energy then since it seems we will get into deep shit sooner or later. I doubt you will see Raishin but if you see him tell him to start preparing for the worst, Ted comes back tomorrow, right?

He comes back today at around dinner time. Ok let's discuss it together tomorrow morning then, I will also tell you guys what I'm about to do here.

You better not die on me! I'm quite attached to living so I will do all in my power to stay alive. Good, there is something I want to talk to you about since I'm also investigating something but that can wait till tomorrow, cya in the morning.

After closing the telepathy link, I looked at the temple door again. The life lesson Gregory told me about could mean two things, Either I had to recite what Gregory told me. There would be no mistake in this because Gregory rarely forgets or misremembers stuff. Or had to hit the 6 words with the corresponding element. “Heaven” should be hit by earth magic that one was clear. Since the word “past” was the clue to the puzzle and probably connected them all these needed to be hit by nature energy. So, all that was left were the words new, written, forgotten, and dwarf. I recited the answer, this time by only butchering the pronunciation twice. No reaction, so all that was left was hitting the words with the correct element. If this didn't work then I was out of ideas. Since I was partly a phoenix, I associated fire with rebirth so I would assign “new” to fire. I wanted to assign “written” to air since its reverse was “spoken” and words are basically air but I wasn't sure if that was the correct way to go about it.

Only the words 'forgotten/remembered' and 'dwarf/giant' were left for water and lightning. I remembered a prank I did in Hourai in which I zapped some bully and it caused him to forget parts of his day and the day before so I felt forgotten when lightning leaves water with dwarf/giant. I didn't have any weird justification for this one since there was only 1 left. Did I make a mistake somewhere? I could swap earth to giant and dwarf but then Heaven/Earth was open. Would that one be air then? I decided to just go with what I had for now. If I made a mistake in these elements I could hopefully try again. I was considering that there might be a mechanism that would attack me if I got it wrong. I hit the words with the elements and made a frost shell around me in case something would attack me. The words lit up in colors associated with the elements I shot at them and the whole place started to rumble. I looked around with my Elgards eyes to spot where the threat was coming from. The rumbling continued a bit before it stopped. Hmm maybe the mechanism is broken, this place is ancient after all. I turned around and saw that the door to the temple was open.

Whoa. I can't believe I got it correct, even though I picked some elements randomly. Maybe the ancient civilization had a thought process just like mine. Haha, that's impossible, I thought as I entered the temple.