Chapter 581: Chapter 581 - Some Inscribe Meaning To Objects & Actions, Some Mark Such Meaning As Implicit

After listening to the ancient cultivator’s plan for their morning together, Rezzue touched the first bassinet with the back of her fingers. The past year for her had been an incredible journey... and she knew that it didn’t seem like that would slow down any time soon. She began speaking a set of names before she ran her knuckles along the other baby-baskets, in the order of their birth.

"Talizz. Wyrae. Raupii."

"Hmm... so not the Old Tongue?"

An immediate comment from the woman listening made her smile, but she restrained it and responded with the seriousness she felt it required.

"No. That language has persisted for an incredible amount of time, but I would not give them a name connected to a past we do not properly respect as a culture. No offense to your parents."

"None taken. I still believe that mine and my sister’s were picked by coincidence rather than deep thought. Regardless, I take it that the decision this time was also more to match your upbringing - and not just because they are mortals."

"Yes. My husband said he had traditional alternatives he expected his family would approve of, but currently... I do not think he cares that much about what they approve of or not."

Elua hummed a noise at the strange answer, delivered with another little smile attached to it. While she had not heard any details about the change of leadership that happened overnight, her eavesdropping use of air tunnels bouncing the sounds from this room - while Qat was inside earlier, anyway - had clued her in that *something* was going on.

Yet, it would never click that the young man who she had threatened, shortly during their first meeting, to bend his sword into cuffs and drag him to the Yecine estate for making a quick series of unwise choices... would turn into the newest Patriarch of the very family that she had essentially *done* the equivalent of those very things to!

"Still, they are beautiful names. A variety of three freshwater fish that your homeland loves, if I remember correctly?"

"You do. Thank you again for showing such interest in where I grew up."

"As I said before, stories like that are interesting because it informs me of your perspectives. Cultures that bond with nature in a balanced and respectful way for harvesting resources are the most captivating to me. Oh, and... if I might add, the three you spoke are all river fish, at that."

"...They are. Why are you smirking?"

Making a show of touching her own face - as if she had not realized she was smiling - Elua tilted her head to the side and conjured another little image. Colorized versions of drawings that she had once seen, of those three specific fluvial creatures, were made to float around a representation of an S curved river. Two of them had been well known enough as a species in her last life, though there were some clear regional differences that made her stick to the books on limnic and lotic ecologies she had read in this era.

"Oh, I just had a thought. I would never push you or your children that way, but three beautiful river fish swimming around a particular ’river bend’? Well, Onya would be very lucky to have the triplets as her younger friends... if they grow up anything like you, is all."

"I see. I am not deciding anything right now for them either. This is not even something I have had the thought to discuss with Navuill. But... do you think your mother would take them in when they are old enough, to train as servant companions for your sister?"

"That is certainly not something I expected you to ask me. Before I even answer, I’d appreciate you telling me why you should *even* consider that for them right now?"

The return question was expected... though it was not as if the heiress couldn’t think of potential reasons. A mortal working in a heroic cultivator’s household was a status symbol all its own, for instance - that was something that had not changed between her last life and now. But the red-haired woman was actually still seeking the full answer inside herself, mostly speaking her thoughts out loud the same way the heiress had taught her to hypothesize in group research settings.

"Am I to pretend my blindness to the happiness of the Goltbred staff? Not to mention, keeping them close to your sister at this age means they may gain yet another protector that will care for them. And finally, if they are still happy in such a life when they grow older, one or more could potentially transition to being of menial use to the two children you have told me will be coming."

Her eyes swam a little uncomfortably at the last part. For she remembered being shown the very *wrong* seeming organ pulled from the Greater Colonizer, the process for pulling out the material components she would need, and just the whole description of everything else involved in creating the start of a body for them to inhabit that felt way more like highly forced chemistry than simple, but natural, biology.

"You are really playing on all my strings this morning, hm? I’ll think about it, but I don’t see why my mother would refuse at this point. It might not be obvious, but you’ve basically already been taken in to her circle of people."

"No, it was quite obvious."

"Well, even if you didn’t notice, she likes you a lot."

"I said-"

"She even agreed to wait a little bit until she offers you that membership to the Clearer Skies Society. Considering everything going on between our families."

Glaring at the mint eyes that seemed to just be waiting for her to speak again, eventually Rezzue gave up and sighed before pointing to the nightstand where a thick folio was present.

"Yatrel sent the paperwork overnight."

"Longer than I thought! I was sure she would have walked right over while I was distracting snuggling with Qat..."

"Elua. Not to be rude, but do you mind if we get to work before one of them actually wakes up to be fed?"

"Ah? I’m already working. How is this lettering so far?"

After being asked, the heiress began holding her hand out with three onyx spheres hovering, approximately the size of her thumb. An illusion snapped into place over top of them, holding three tiny names in gold to be judged by the new mother... who wanted to call them perfect as-is. However, she knew the artisan before her would go crazy looking for a problem if she didn’t land a reasonable complaint right now.

"...The ’a’ could be more pronounced on the corner."

"Good catch. Alright, ready to etch it out with Acid? And yes, we will walk over there, away from your children to do it... even though I’ve proven again and again that I am perfectly capable of containing any of your messy reactions."

The last half of her final sentence was said with a bit of an unnecessary grumble. Certainly, it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to hydrofluoric acid acting upon a solid piece of silicon dioxide, turning it into very toxic silicon tetrafluoride. Frankly, even without the Gas involved, letting many of the useful for chemistry Acids anywhere near adults - let alone babies - was a recipe for someone to either be harmed directly or weakened almost *insidiously* as it absorbed into the skin and caused future problems.

But the challenge minded cultivator still didn’t take kindly to the idea that she couldn’t keep everyone in the room perfectly safe. Elua was also already actively creating a complex crucible of contained pressures and heat, using four different gases out of her special containers, to turn some of the gold-alloy molten and pull it into wire. A crafter was never as pleased as she for doing the appropriate legwork to source and contain her collection of gases.

Abundant Nitrogen to hammer the heating onto the little bars. Rare Xenon as the outer layer thermal shield around that vortex - and also below, in the gravity catch for the the brightly glowing golden drips melting like wax. An Argon ’nozzle’, because it was just easier to mentally differentiate the gas for this shape even if it was not quite as resistant to heat as a heavier gas, would act as a die that would squeeze the Molten metal into the desired thin form.

Finally, a heat-transfer friendly spinning exchange of Helium would fully chill the metal into its new solid shape. And the entire conjured apparatus would wobble in the air, to self-spool the high gauge wire around a random cylinder of ornamental wood she had found in that very guest room. Something she could tell that the same young Wood cultivator had a hand in making as he had the flooring.

Compared to that level of Element control, Rezzue - approaching the stones that were sat on a vanity with a small stoppered vial of Acid - seemed like a fawn still learning to walk. The outer layer held a tight lattice of spiritual barrier mixed with genuine inert gas that would prevent the hydrofluoric acid from reacting with the stone where it wasn’t needed. So too, was the exact depth and angle she was meant to eat away already ’stenciled’ out by the Goltbred woman lazily holding her hand out to await the toxic fumes.

Even though she clearly didn’t need to hold her hand anywhere. A habit that the red-headed Yecine wife found as annoying as she did inspiring. For she still needed to push her fingers towards the area she was interacting with, to better focus her mind. But even with that ’crutch’, as Elua often called it without as much judgment in her Intent as always came out in her Voice... the chemist-mother was ahead of her peers for only so many months of concerted effort. Precise amounts of the substance was gingerly dribbled from the container and manipulated to go where needed.

’And I only had to push back slightly three times on the first attempt, once on the second piece of onyx, and twice on the third because Wyrae cried out. Competent late bloomers really are something.’

Thinking so after all the drastic, fizzing and fuming sublimations were done, that left the tiny etched valleys to be filled soon by carefully damascened gold... Mint eyes narrowed just a bit. Try as she might to feel otherwise, she was envious still. That so many people benefited so *well* from her teachings in this life. They didn’t have to steal and scrape for the knowledge they knew existed, ready to consume.

"Go feed Number Two."

"Really? On purpose?"

"I’ll call them their names aloud when I finish these~"

"...Fine. But I swear, I will return this behavior by someday calling your child something different. For the first whole month of their life."

Chuckling at her *actually* serious promise, Elua hopped up into the air and began to Levitate in place while grabbing for her spool of gold wire. A massive waste of her energy reserve, by her prior life standards, but she felt far more at ease this way. Proving that she was still capable of doing some things that others hadn’t figured out - even with her showing the technique off so much in the Exclave.

She just decided not to think about the fact that most of her students were not even Primalist in their essence cultivation, let alone the required Breacher for the right magnitude of essence field density. Nor did she choose to think that they’d probably learn the ability in a few years of gentle effort, compared to what took her a solid ten of hard work!

’Seeing your students succeed is its own pride. Seeing your students-’

But willfully choosing to ignore things, like her father preferred to do with so much, only worked when she fully had enough of her Qat time to distract her darker impulses. Sleeping together, *sleeping together*, and waking up to her had been only the smallest start... and not rushing into that sitting room to tackle the blonde and demand a kiss took the whole core of her worldly attention.

Barely kept in check with every little high-pressure Gaseous hammering of fine wire into precise crevices.