New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 1134: A Piece Of History

Following the instructions of the bow, he sat down cross-legged near the center of the grove, almost directly over where they could feel the mana presence, and closed his eyes.

Then, he extended his palms, open skyward, above his knees, and concentrated on his own mana.

Alex was the first to feel the change in the air when Rì-Chū first channelled his power into a concentrated ball of mana, shooting it like a small missile toward one of the trees.

He stood there, surprised, as the missile impacted the tree, making a metallic sound, almost like a string being plucked on an instrument.

More missiles fired from Rì-Chū’s hands, hitting different trees in quick succession, and it became clear what he was doing.

A melody rose in the clearing, following the impacts of each mana missile, and a tune rapidly became apparent in these sounds. He was producing music with magic and trees.

The group became amazed at first until a growing swirl of mana started howling outside the grove’s limits. And it became violent at an alarming pace.

The center of the grove stayed calm, almost alarmingly so, as the outside forest started raging with a whirlwind, clouds gathering above their heads in the sky.

Alex quickly walked toward Rì-Chū, trying to tell him to stop what he was doing, but a barrier blocked his advance as he reached within ten feet of him.

"Rì-Chū! Stop whatever you are doing!" he shouted, feeling the object under the grove quickly stirring to life.

But he received no response from his friend.

The matter of the fact was that Rì-Chū couldn’t hear him. The surrounding barrier quickly blotted out all the noises aside from the melody rising from his magic.

Sweat began dripping from his brow as his focus grew. The images in his head were not subsiding, flying across his mind faster and faster, and it had taken him a dozen of these magical missiles to figure out he was performing a musical sheet without apparent notes.

A change happened faster than he expected, though. The images switched from showing which trees to hit to an actual musical sheet. The problem was that he needed to keep hitting the right notes, without knowing which tree produced what sound.

Fortunately for him, he had quite the musical ear and remembered every sound already produced, and could figure out the rest.

The largest tree in the grove’s limit was the start of his musical scale, and it went in order from there.

’Good thing my mother forced me to learn the piano, I guess,’ he mused, his focus flinching from the straying thoughts.

He immediately cast away the thoughts and focused on the musical sheet inside his mind.

He felt as if he knew this song from somewhere. The rhythm, the notes, the melody.

Something from the legend of Hou Yi and the Sunset Bow came back to mind. The part about his wife, who ascended to the heavens and became a moon goddess. Chang’e, the Moon Goddess.

This was the song in her honour that came later in history, when the legend became a theatrical piece, played to emperors and nobles of old China for entertainment.

He knew this piece was more of a zither piece, even though the classical piano had a set sheet for it, but was nonetheless impressed the music was used to unlock the prison around the bow.

It raised many questions in his mind that he wanted to ask the artifact. But those would have to wait.

The song was, after all, a piece many minutes long, with some parts faster and some slower, the tempo changing many times. His focus would be tried, and his mana capacity tested to its limit.

He was already starting to feel the drain on his body, as his small mana supply was being drained with every mana missile he shot out.

’I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep going until the end...’ he thought, feeling his mind starting to become sluggish from the exhaustion.

He kept going for as long as he could without making a mistake, until he hit the wrong tree with a mana missile, his mind already turning numb from the exertion.

Outside the barrier, when he hit the wrong note, a blast of lightning hit the transparent dome above the grove, cracks appearing on it, visible to everyone there.

"I think he’s losing focus," Kary said, seeing the fatigue on the boy’s face and the sweat dripping from his forehead.

"I can only imagine he hit a wrong note," Kujaku said, looking at the now black clouds above them.

"Something tells me he shouldn’t miss too many of those," Alex chimed in, feeling the mana under them also swelling.

Another wrong note later from Rì-Chū, and another blast of lightning later, the cracks above their heads lengthening, Alex understood they needed to do something to help him.

But what?

That’s when Luna spoke in his mind. She rarely talked to him on this side of the veil, since it required an immense amount of mana to maintain the connection to her master.

But she could feel the disturbance in his soul from his panicked state.

’I can help him. But I will need to cross over and meld with you, father,’ she claimed.

Alex had a small shiver, remembering that she liked calling him her father. But now was not the time to be irked.

’How so?’ he asked mentally.

’He needs mana from us, but out of everyone present in your group, no one is compatible. Only by using diluted Aether will we be able to make it almost universal. And I’m the only one who can do that on your side.’

Alex knew she wouldn’t talk out of ass at a moment like this, and he trusted her. But taking her into him right now came with its own set of problems.

He would be knocked out from the mana drainage soon after, and had no idea how long that state would last.

Another lightning blast struck the barrier above the grove, and his hesitation vanished alongside the flash of light.

’Do it. We can’t afford to wait for another mistake,’ he said, watching the barrier almost falling apart from the strike.

’Yes, Father.’