The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 29 - Perspective of a Probable Prodigy

While the courier was hired to bring the near-finished products for her final touches and then return them to her ’boss’, Elua also sent and received letters quite regularly. The ones she looked forward to most were obviously the responses from her special gem. She held herself back and only sent one a day to her fiance, but that much restraint was having... effects.

’Wanna talk, wanna see, wanna-’

There were also updates from her mother and father. The Dame Goltbred liked to write about Onya and mothering. She was enjoying the time off work but knew it wouldn’t last with the events that were on the horizon.

The Earthen Fellowship might be a Guild that was focused on civilian concerns most of the time, but the military types would be seeking fixes and double checks of structures from their members.

Ondua often wrote about just such details. Ever since she expressed a ’little’ interest in what he actually does on a day-to-day basis, he loved to organize missives that outlined what The Ironclad Order was up to. As the Hero of the last ’war’, preparations for the Voidling Descent was one of his focuses.

Since the location of their arrival, their choice of movements, their targets, and pretty much everything else about the invasions were kind of ’random’... all the man could really do was make sure everyone in charge of other people and tasks were keeping the situation in mind.

’Ah, so he really is a figurehead supervisor.’

His daughter didn’t blame him for that. Being ’powerful’ enough to only need to let other people do actual work was a fine thing. She still assumed she *must* be oversimplifying his own description of what he was up to. Perhaps there were talks and scenarios that he dealt with that weren’t meant to be penned down.

While that could be true, so far the dad told her practically *everything* except his bathroom schedule.

After three weeks of being away, the young heiress had now moved away from constant study in their library towards ’actual work’. This mostly consisted of watching others work on drawing or carving sigils on-site. Occasionally, the newer members were being allowed to do some of the simpler geometry ones to help build confidence.

Or destroy it a little, in a few of their cases.

The symbolisms were as much of an artform as a science and that wasn’t something that every fresh, intelligent young person could just *get*. They sought the rigidity of perfection instead of flowing change that properly fixed any earlier mistakes. So when they messed up a little, they felt like they ’ruined’ it and couldn’t finish their work.

Elua was one of a half dozen new youths that was more capable of helping. Senior members easily noticed this and so allowed her and the others to take on more and more small tasks. However, it was hard to be very proud of this...

’At one point I was no better than those few.’

Because she was a hard worker and not a savant, the reborn cultivator had made many of the same mistakes. Her concept of the ’art’ was really just a massive collection of learning and memorizing how those mistakes had been fixed. Be it by others working with her or by herself.

She also eventually had the advantage of coming up with illusory ’blueprints’ that she could then design straight out of her spiritual cultivator-improved memory retention. That was the point she really shifted from rituals as a distracting hobby to something that could be used on a regular basis. So while she really was not a genius or a true artist, she did have her advantages that made the difference seem rather negligible.

"You’re so good at this already. I can’t believe it."

A boy a year older than her, whose task was basically to make sure the ’apprentices’ didn’t touch or do anything they shouldn’t, voiced his opinion with wonder. The martial focused Guild that they were currently applying an additional outer layer of defensive ritual to also had a few of their members watching things. The brunette shook her head.

"I’m not that good. I don’t even have any idea what they are doing over there."

She wished she was lying with her facade, as she really didn’t! Three elder sigilists were hard at work. For a while she was excited that she may be about to learn something new... but as the hours went on that day...

’Why... would they have done it in this overwrought fashion?’

She did learn something new - sort of. When people have discovered how to do something in one way, it becomes the default until given a better option. Somehow combining a few *other* sigils in certain patterns had never been discovered on the continent - or never been shown to the Coiled Serpent Guild.

The ones that they *did* use were less effective, took longer to carve altogether, and necessitated the usage of an additional keyshard in the design. She did consider that the last part was the main point... but later research proved that the lack of the simpler configuration she recalled existing in their archives was the real factor.

Elua struggled a little with what to do. It could be said that bringing it up directly was a ’bad’ idea. However not bringing it up at all felt like a worse move. She would lose all the potential reputation gains for introducing the sigil geometry in this backwater that could later be beneficial.

’I guess I can connect myself to *that* woman sooner than I intended.’

She scribbled her unhumble offering on an empty letter before finding an important enough person to pass it off to. For context, Elua also doodled the part she’d seen them working on. While one of the men she had been working under was an option, the girl decided to target someone she’d seen but not spoken much to.

"This is...?"

"A replacement way of applying sigils for the other one on the page. It’s quicker and better than the one I saw being applied recently. I’ve seen it in use."

The man narrowed his eyes and looked down at the young girl, with his glasses catching the sheen of a sun ray. Things were already going ’well’!

"You would have me believe an apprentice came up with something like this?"

"No, sir... that’s not what I-"

"I’ll be confiscating this. Next time, don’t try to overreach."

The Goltbred heiress looked ’shocked’ and nodded ’timidly’. However, the entire time she had been playing a bit of a trick with her Element. Condensing water out of the air had been mastered. She had also experimented with feeding fire but hadn’t quite managed to turn quick sparks into roaring flames without more preparation than was reasonable. It was also very... noticeable.

Stringy tunnels of air held tightly in place with essence was her latest plaything. The goal had first been a functional whip of air but changed pretty quickly on realizing it was ever more absurd than feeding sparks. After that ’failure’ the reincarnator did recall an acquaintance who manipulated Sound, though.

’He talked a lot about wave propagation. It apparently moves better through liquids than gasses. Providing a tight channel of humid air works quite like a tunnel for carrying sound elsewhere.’

Of course it would be too strange for the sound to come from too far, so she had encountered the man ’by chance’ right outside the working area of a much more senior sigilist. One of the elders that *was* working on the project. Having heard the conversation and suspicious dismissal of the young girl’s findings, he rushed right over for two reasons.

One, he recognized her talent and it would be too proud to not even check her work. It was not to the point of giving them anything they wanted, but young geniuses were treasured.

Two, he happened to be the cousin of the best friend of the wife whose sister had been ’dueled’ by Yatrel er Goltbred in the past. Insulting the daughter could not be considered intelligent. This wasn’t something the mint-eyed girl knew or calculated. It was a lucky coincidence!

"Excuse me, comrade. May I see that document you were handed?"

The success made her want to giggle, but she kept her ’uncertain’ demeanor going. She could have just used her illusions to convince someone later, but new methods were *fun*. The man who was trying to make off with her new method to evaluate it on his own in secret silently fumed while handing it over with tight motions.

"Are you sure of this, Young Miss?"

The heiress tilted her head at the question then nodded.

"My mentor taught it to me."

Both of them raised their eyebrows, wondering which sigilist in the Guild had taken her under their wing... and was hoarding knowledge! They also tempered their expectations with the possibility that the ’naive’ and ’weak’ child was being deceived somehow.

"Who is your mentor?"

"Ah, she’s an old woman I meet sometimes near my home. She started calling me her disciple and teaching me for a few hours a week. I still don’t think I’m worthy of her attention... but-"

"An old woman, you say?"

The Guild she joined had recently long ago caught wind of a ’mercenary’ ritualist in a neighboring region that was providing a working method to the Saltfire Storm Alliance. He himself had been requested to go and carve it... but he was busy at the time and sent one of his sons.

"I understand this may be a rude question, but could you send her a letter? All of us here would be very interested in meeting with your teacher."

’Well, the one you want to meet is right in front of you... and my real teachers must all be long dead.’

Unexpectedly, despite knowing this on the surface, admitting it in her monologue did sadden the reborn cultivator. Outliving people you met was a common occurrence, even for mortals.

"I’m sorry, she always seemed to just appear when I wandered around. I don’t know where she lives or how to contact her. Oh, but she promised to keep teaching me when I return! I’ll keep your request in mind and inform her at that time."

The girl smiled charmingly with total ’sincerity’. Once again she wanted to giggle, thinking that between then and now some of the younger members might be sent to look around the city she grew up in for a woman that doesn’t exist.

Elua fondly remembered appearing and teaching one of her disciples in her last life in nearly the very way she talked about. Watching silently from afar and showing up whenever she felt like it at the most random of times and places over the course of three years.

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