The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 172

Part 24

“Thanks. I doubt it’ll be necessary though.” Val told her as she reached for a glass of juice. “If we’d have been awake enough to think straight, we could’ve just brought our bed from Hilia, there’s plenty of room for it in the living room here. But it was really okay. One nice thing about still being small is that the couches are plenty big enough for us, and they have to be some of the nicest, most comfy couches in the world.”

“They were wedding presents from the elves, like almost everything else here.” Mark mentioned. “I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I don’t recall who gave them to us, but we got an enormous number of presents that night. It’s all the very best elven quality and craftsmanship though, that’s for sure.”

“The nice thing about elves is, they’re patient.” Alilia laughed. “If it took you five hundred years to get around to sending thank you notes for those couches, those who gave them would appreciate it just as much, and not consider the timing to be in any way inappropriate. They do expect that you’ll get around to thanking each of them eventually, but they know you’ve been busy since you were married.”

“We also don’t have to thank them individually if they gifted us as groups, and most of the elves did so.” Talia pointed out with a giggle. “So we only have about forty thousand thanks to send out or deliver in person. We’ll get around to it after the war.”

Just then a big group of gods appeared floating in the air outside the balcony, and Neela, First Goddess of Humans, moved to the edge of the balcony to address them.

“Your education spell is wonderful work, and it is of crucial importance right now.” she stated with a warm smile, letting her aura and her mood affect them. “While we lacked the creativity to think of doing such a thing, and we lack your skill with automated spells and so could not have produced a better spell, nor done it in a shorter time, we do have some abilities that are still beyond any mortal levels of achievement. Thus we have relieved your translators of their tasks, and have produced some three thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven translations. They are accurate in magic, language, and dialect. That is all the languages and major variations spoken on our world now, and every new magic user on Kellaran can use one.

“So, if you are capable of accepting such a huge transfer of information, we will return the translated spells to you, so you can make them self-powering and send them out. It would be best if you did this now. As I’ve said, this is of crucial importance, since almost no-one speaks Trade Common as their native language as you do.”

Val and her family Linked to ensure they had the capacity to accept the transfer, then she told Neela; “Thank you, every one of you, for your quick work on this. I’ll take the transfer now.”

Neela gave her the thousands of versions of the huge and complex spell over a one-way Link that otherwise seemed completely conventional. Val had to use some magic memory enhancements, but it turned out that she didn’t need her family’s assistance to assimilate it all.

“This is really great work, as far as I can tell.” Val stated. “As one would expect of your work, of course. We’ll have to wait until the new students start using them before we really know how good all of it is, but I’m pretty sure there won’t be a problem.”

She made the final modifications to the first translation, then quickly crafted an automated spell to do the same for the rest. It took almost two minutes, and the gods waited patiently as she did so, while the rest of her family continued eating.

“All right, that’s it. Here they go.” she announced as she triggered all the spells.

Again, Mark shared his vision of the complex spells’ casting. “I can’t get over how beautiful it looks when you do that.” he mused with a grin as he did so.

“Beautiful and wondrous indeed.” Neela smiled. “We thank you for finishing the spell’s crafting so quickly, and for attending to our request so promptly. There are already… over eighty of the finest students who have proven capable of absorbing the entire Education through direct psionic learning, and have therefore completed it. Make that one hundred and twelve, and more by the second.”

“It’s doing better than I thought it would.” Val stated as she monitored her spells’ performance. “Either more students are capable of direct psionic learning than I thought, or the spell is better at teaching that way.”

“You’re welcome, Sister.” Six teased. “I knew we’d have some improvements to make to your psionics, and we did. See this part?”