Chapter 893: 893
The losses were devastating. Of the thirty brave primate scholars and pioneers who originally stepped through the veil of the Spirit Realm, only five managed to crawl back alive and none of them returned without deep, permanent scars.
The most bitter pill for the primates to swallow was the forced silence of their companions. While the Children of Wardenwild accompanied them as their guides and "protectors," their protection was strictly limited by specific laws. These deer spirits were the direct offspring of a world spirit, their eternal, sacred service was to the balance of the surrounding world and the guiding of souls.
Because of this divine mandate, the Children of Wardenwild could not interfere with the natural proceedings of the physical world. If a wild magical beast attacked the expedition out of hunger, that was considered a natural law of the mortal plane. The deer spirits could use their ethereal mist to hide the primates or guide them away from known territories, but the moment blood was drawn, they were forbidden from striking back. They could only stand by in silent, heartbreaking sorrow, watching the tragic demise of a race they deeply loved as friends, unable to lift a single antler to alter their mortal destiny.
The best the deer spirits could do was run alongside the primates when danger approached, attempting to herd them away from conflict. But if a clash became entirely inevitable, the Children of Wardenwild would simply fade, making their presence completely unknown and leaving the brutal ordeal entirely up to the primates. The moment the dust settled and the blood was spilled, these spirits would materialize once more from the mist, silently bowing their heads before continuing the journey.
Sometimes, the mere presence of the majestic deer spirits was enough to deter lesser predators. But other times, it did absolutely nothing, especially when dealing with highly intelligent magical beasts. These cunning creatures immediately noticed that the primates were completely distinct from the everyday sights of Nana, tracking them as exotic, vulnerable prey.
Returning home with such a high casualty rate shook the primate community to its core. The staggering loss made them deeply question their decision to ever leave the safety of the Spirit Realm. Grief and doubt hung heavy over their thriving community, threatening to pull them back into absolute stagnation.
But all of that existential dread was forcefully pushed to the side the moment they lit their first fire.
Using the precious, exotic raw materials the five survivors had brought back, and strictly following Ember’s meticulous blueprints, advice, and structural guidance, the primates achieved a historic milestone. They managed to craft a fully functioning forge of their own.
Deep within their territory, the rhythmic, metallic ring of their own hammers began to echo. They threw themselves into the work, obsessively dissecting their failures and using their hardwired apeling intellect to mimic the mortal-grade object Ember had created.
It took months of grueling trial and effort, a relentless cycle of warped metals and shattered glass lenses. Even with their hardwired apeling intellect, the primates could never truly replicate the flawless precision of what Ember had forged with his own hands. Their creations were bulkier, heavier, and undeniably tacky secured with crude iron rivets and thick leather straps rather than elegant seals. Yet, through sheer stubbornness, they made it work. They successfully mimicked the device.
Because the materials required to build them had been paid for in blood, these first functional prototypes were immediately monopolized by the five surviving primates who had risked their lives in the mortal plane. They claimed their hard-earned rewards, and the distribution of the few remaining devices was strictly decided by the primate chief, who awarded them only to the most brilliant minds and vital leaders of the community.
Instead of a handheld spyglass, the primates ingeniously molded the device into a pair of rugged goggles.
The scholars who received them wore them at all times, completely mesmerized by the reality unfolding before their eyes. Through the crude glass lenses, the silent, empty spaces of the Spirit Realm erupted into a breathtaking sight of ever-existing energy. They watched in absolute awe as mana pulsed like blood vessels through the glowing plants, swirled in turbulent rivers through the air, and radiated like heat from the rocks beneath their feet. For a race born blind, it was like opening their eyes for the very first time in a while.
Armed with this new vision, the primates who had acquired the goggles didn’t waste a single second. They immediately headed straight back to Ember’s forge.
When they stepped back into the chamber, they were no longer the passive, confused onlookers who had stood helplessly in the back months ago. Peering through their mechanical goggles, they could finally track the invisible currents Ember was manipulating with every strike of his hammer. They pulled out their charcoal slate boards and graphite styluses, initiating a tireless, hyper-disciplined process of learning and documenting what they were seeing.
They were already missing out on a massive amount of progress. Ember was a figure on a relentless path to godhood, and he had never paused his creation to wait for their return. By the time the primates arrived back at his workshop, adjusting the heavy straps of their newly minted goggles, the grand mage tower was already taking physical shape. The foundational rings were set, and the immense, gravity-defying architecture was starting to loom toward the cavern roof.
But that didn’t deter them for a single second. Every single swing of Ember’s hammer, every gesture of his hands, and every cooling hiss of the metal became an invaluable teaching moment.
Now that they wore the goggles, everything changed. Ember noticed the difference immediately. He saw the tacky brass frames strapped to their faces, and more importantly, he saw their eyes tracking the precise, swirling vortexes of mana he was weaving into the structure.
Because they could finally see, Ember changed his approach. For the first time, he actually began to take deliberate pauses during production. He would hold a glowing component aloft, wait for their graphite styluses to hover over their slate boards, and speak directly explaining the exact metaphysical reactions and structural laws they were witnessing through their lenses.
"You see the turbulence where the silver alloy meets the core?" Ember would say, pointing his hammer toward a micro-fracture of pure energy. "Without a mana signature to bind it smoothly, your metals will shear at that exact stress point. If you cannot use magic to smooth the current, you must alter the physical angle of the seam to disperse the kinetic force."
The impact of this shift was monumental. There was a stark, undeniable difference between trying to blindly copy a master and having an actual teacher guiding your hand.
The entire primate community noticed the rapid transformation occurring within the select group of scholars who owned a pair of goggles. It wasn’t just that they understood Ember better, the stark difference bled directly into their daily lives and societal production.
The way these scholars spoke about materials, architecture, and logistics completely shifted to a level of advanced, analytical logic. The adjustments they brought back to their settlement were visible and compounding at an exponential rate. Using their new understanding of stress points and energy distribution, they began restructuring their community’s buildings, refining their forge, and optimizing their water-wheels and instruments.
The rapid advancement of the goggle-wearing scholars didn’t just bring progress, it awakened an old fear from the primate’s past.
Using the precise knowledge of energy distribution and structural stress they had absorbed from Ember, the scholars even managed to dismantle and remake their own crude goggles. They stripped away the bulky, tacky iron rivets, replacing them with finely balanced brass gears and multi-layered lenses that could filter and magnify different frequencies of ambient mana.
The gap between those who could see and those who were blind grew at a terrifying speed. It reignited a primal, collective dread the primates had not felt since the days they were mere wild animals watching the grand apelings from the shadows, the fear of being left behind.
This psychological weight sat heavily over the community. It became so prevalent that even the revered primate chief, the very leader who had knelt before Ember to beg for their place in the forge, began making fewer and fewer appearances. Looking at the younger scholars charting complex formulas on slate boards, the chief realized with a sinking heart that his traditional wisdom meant nothing now. The world was moving too fast, and he was being eclipsed by his own people.
Driven by this existential panic, the primates survival instincts kicked in hard. The paralyzing grief over the initial twenty-five losses was suddenly pushed aside. It was no longer a matter of if they were willing to brave the mortal plane again, but a matter of how to manage their survival. They couldn’t afford to stop. The focus shifted entirely to logistics, how to establish a systematic order, how to minimize casualties, and how to tactically utilize the physical movements of the Children of Wardenwild to their absolute advantage.
