72 Ash 121
Shuai wondered if it was that freaking spider infestation keeping him up again when he woke up and found it still dark out. While he was not afraid of them and heard the health officials' assurances time and time again that the spiders were harmless- unless one was dumb enough to agitate the spiders that they would swarm them in retaliation, they were still creepy crawly things which Shuai could not help but get the willies just thinking about. Especially after he heard the description of one such swarm leaving a woman a gibbering fool, though physically unmarred. Shuai could feel it each time he went to bed. Teeny tiny little legs all over him which vanished the moment he opened his eyes. Ghost spider? No it was wraith spiders just as he thought, fully certain when he found out about the wraiths which set themselves upon the Midden and the Undercity. Actually not quite but when weird shit happened, everyone would look to even the impossible to rationalize it and for Shuai this was the Wraithplague and Dread Mists. What? Spider fae? That was the excuse the authorities made like when they wanted to keep the population in the dark about the lizard people who ruled the underground. Of course there were lizard people, Shuai had a board and everything which had all the rumors and sightings and once he was able to connect them together he will find out where they were, raid their nest and get at their hoard of dragonstones.The best part was if he raided them there would be no spiders. From what he was told spiders ate rats but lizards ate spiders. The food chain. Shuai had been relying on his own ability to command the elements to keep the spiders out of his home by the second night. Though the Chisuo estate existed underground, there still had to be air or the family would have died off in a tomb of their own making long ago. The earth where the Chisuo resided in did not quite like that a member of the family they sheltered would seek the help of another element fundamentally opposed to them and Shuai found it hard to influence the air of his room because of the earth's interference, it's booming voice constantly trying to overpower Shuai's own even after the man had already expended his aether to link up with the air. However difficult it had become to influence the air this way, it was worth it for Shuai's peace of mind as when night came and he shut the door, a rudimentary pictograph to house the element for the night until morning when he could dismiss it, he had that constant flow of air right through the gap which would keep pushing back whatever spiders came his way.
But no it did not really work, no. He still felt the ghostly creepers on him throughout the night. That meant it was time for him to get a lizard. And a big one! Small would not do it for Shuai.
"Pfft of course I know how to take care of lizards. How hard can it be?" Shuai had taken care of a few other bea- pets as a child listed down what he needed to do like "all I have to do is feed them everyday. Give them some water too. Oh what food, I'll be letting them have the spiders. No I don't want that one, I want that one. You say the one I want doesn't eat spiders? I thought lizards ate spiders? Not all lizards eat spiders? Alright... And they have different ways of drinking water? You're joking right? " this was so unlike a normal pet. "Maybe I can take one out for a test run?" Well that was a good try for Shuai although it was rather obvious to the shopkeep he did not know the first thing about keeping a lizard so the struck a kind of deal. Shuai could buy the lizard and the stuff it needed to live with Shuai and if Shuai could take care of it, good. If not there was always the option of selling the lizard and its goods back to the shop at... a significant discount for the shop. Fucking traders. It was obvious there was no benefit for him- all the benefit was to the shop but Shuai had every intention of keeping the lizard and nonetheless made that side deal.
Because he had the lizard returned the next time he went to make the purchases of illumite dragonshards for some scrivening; to sell them to those who needed them like the Dead Legion and citizens who did not know how to use dragonshards properly, a rarity in Kalzasi. One should think after the last time the dreadmist came round to Kalzasi, the beginning of that very year actually and, the fact the dreadmists was something which came in with the seasons, everyone in the city would have been better prepared like people with their old immunite stones or whatever artifacts they got to protect themselves from the dreadmists. To their credit the government of Kalzasi was giving as good an effort they could give like with the use and maintainence of the Dawnstone Defence System but evidently even with as sophisticated a solution as that, Kalzasi was always a hub for weirdness and the dreadmists was not what they should be worried about most but whatever else took the opportunity to get into the city with it, like those accursed wraiths.
But people could only put their effort and attention unto that which they can control which explained the increased demand of illumite. All they really needed for those was money and they were not even so rare that they are unobtainable to those without the means. Shuai really should not have tried to haggle especially when it would have been easier for the traders to sell the illumite to someone else but it was not cheaper illumite he wanted but, more. " I just want a big batch to last through the season." He and everyone else and the traders believed they had the responsibility in these trying times to provide illumite to anyone needing them, for the right price. While profiteering was one thing, it was shortsighted to neglect the longevity of their entire customer base in Kalzasi. "But that's it, if you sell them to me, you'll be indirectly helping a lot more people so it'd be a win win for the both of us. Do you really think I'll be using all this illumite by myself?" That would only be the case if Shuai had a really poor sense of control of aether and the possibility of him wanting to scalp the prices? "If that wasn't a valid concern for you to have, and I believe it shouldn't because of those fucking opportunistic bastards, I'd see you in a duel arena for the insult unless you gave me a public apology, but we are both on the same side here. We want to help people, and I can prove it."
He looked to the assistants sent to help him carry all the wares back "tell him who I am" but even with the Chisuo reputation of helping the people of Kalzasi, anyone could call themselves a Chisuo or coordinate with their fellows to appear as one for scams. Shuai did not like doing this because it made him feel lesser, like he could not make it on his own but, it always worked and the urgency of the matter left him with no choice but to do it. Sighing, he flashed his signet ring at the merchant before continuing "maybe we can talk about price and quantity now?" Even if the bulk buy should prove much more expensive than the norm, a little work with scrivening should be able to get the family back its investments in the materials and maybe a little more profit than any other merchant could get despite the added advantage of the dread mists rush.
Back at the family's estate with his whole haul, he got to work. Over the years with each dread mist season, he learned to do the same thing over and over that if he really wanted to, he could do this with his eyes closed. While there were the innovators who made a splash, a lot of the scrivening work especially for no names like him all came down to practice with tried and true products they could throw out at any given moment. However the searing of 121? With all its nastiness like spiders, spirits and wraiths along with the dreadmists? Maybe it was time for a little innovation. But later. Shuai made a batch of the usual illumite shards first for the early customers before retiring to his room to try something new. That one batch would hopefully last for the day while most of the populace had yet to realize they were going to need illumite for themselves and fast. If more arrived there was no way he would be able to remedy the situation of their lack in stock other than to hope the other scriveners of the family could pick up the slack.
With one of the basic scrivened illumites in front of him, he verified the pictograph set upon it. There was the one important pictograph there for those without the will to activate the illumite on their own, so the dragonshard could be activated through it and tap into the illumite's own energy reserves,; then the other important pictograph to stop the illumite in action and therefore extend it's longevity. However there was nothing which would truly extend the longevity of the dragonshard, not even the vortexes made in conjunction with these other pictographs to prevent the errant use of energy because at the end of it, it all came down to the users and there was no pictograph to fix th- them. Which was why Shuai always strove to make his own creations independent from the user. It was not only easier but it would also free them up from having to maintain complete control of the stones even at the back of their mind and for he who made use of his pictographs in fights? That gave him a better advantage over what the layusers of scrivening products believed was what they were paying for when commissioning a scrivener for some work.
And if efficiency and longevity is key... with a few changes to the vortex and some additions to the pattern of pictographs, paths converging into a continuum to feed into the vortex. This should do it, oh wait, it had yet to fix the issue with control and Shuai had some of the people around the estate to help him take some measurements. There were a lot of humans around but barely any non humans so it would seem his initial calculations would end up with a product more suited for humans which was just fine. If the minority wanted to use his products they should not have been born as non humans in the first place! With a few more paths which grew the pictographs of the illumite into a much more complicated glyph, based on the highest observable statistics of the array of humans for the boundary, Shuai believed he had reached what was peak efficiency for his illumite shard. No randomized output values on activation but just a constant flow of energy into a set boundary of light from the illumite. In the short run, sure it might have obvious differences against the other shards which were good enough to be activated 'the right way' to maximize its energy use but in the long term? Over days? No excess energy would be lost to the unregulated use of the energy of the illumite and that would be key.
The next day, he would show this new pattern he made so the rest of the scriveners of the house would be able to use them. It may be unorthodox and would force them to put in a little more work into what should be an easy task, but it would be well worth it for the house's goals as well as their customers wanting to be protected from the effects of the mists.
