40 Chapter 40 - Learning About Havens

"Little brother?" Megan asked in surprise.

"I did tell you that my parents had children in other worlds." I reminded everyone.

"Yeah, but I never really believed it." Kelly spoke out.

"Hey, I don't have a lot of time here. This world is really weird." Annitte commented.

"Huh?" I asked my sister, then I realized she seemed a bit incorporeal. I couldn't see right through her, but she certainly wasn't here in the flesh.

"This world isn't like the others, I can only make a small space tunnel and send a light image of myself to speak with you." Annitte replied.

"Is it because of the pyramid?" I asked.

Annitte shrugged, "No idea."

I held up the dragon scale I got from the brown dragon. Seeing it she frowned. "A flood dragon scale? Where did you get it?" she asked me.

"It came out of the pyramid. I saw the pyramid appear in the air as if it was coming out of a space pocket. It released a white mist that raised the ambient mana level. There was also a voice that said something about dimensional balancing." I told her.

"Dimensional Balancing?" Annitte asked. "I will let the others know but I haven't heard about it before. Have you asked the jerk?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I haven't been able to contact him since the blast hit the gate location and the immense wave of crazed mana was released." I replied.

"So you too. Don't worry about it. He gets like this some times, they should show up in a decade or two when they need something or to let us know they squeezed out another kid." Annitte remarked bitterly.

"Anyways a haven is your best bet with how weird your world is." Annitte told me.

"What about my family?" Calidia asked worriedly.

"Almost forgot about you." Annitte said looking at her. "I was supposed to find you and let that old hag know, but since you are with my brother I think I will, wait, you are with my brother aren't you?" Annitte asked.

Calidia blushed but nodded shyly, it was pretty cute.

Annitte nodded, "In that case I will just let her know you are alive." she replied.

"What about my father?" Calidia asked.

Annitte shrugged, "No idea. I don't get involved with the other factions, I wouldn't even look for you if I didn't specialize in interdimensional tracking and owe that old hag a favor." my sister told her.

Calidia seemed to deflate a bit hearing that. I knew she was very keen to know what happened to her father. "No rumors?" I asked my sister.

Annitte scowled a bit but sighed. "I heard there was a scuffle between the heirs of the old hag, supposedly there were a few who were seriously injured but no one died." Annitte replied.

Calidia brightened, "Thank you!"

Annitte gave her a small smile then looked back to me. "Do you have any idea how to form a haven?" she asked me.

"Caly told me the theory." I replied honestly.

"Those jerks didn't say anything?" Annitte asked.

I shook my head. "Nope. Just talked about the bonds and mother's ability and how it should be enough to form a sanctuary."

Annitte shook her head. "Fools. If it was so easy someone would have figured it out centuries ago." she commented then stared at me for a few moments a curious gleam in her eyes. "So how many of these lovely ladies are yours?" she asked me.

"Twelve." I replied without hesitation.

"So many? But I only sense half that in bonds on you?" Annitte asked me suspiciously.

"I haven't restored most of the bonds after they shattered." I responded.

Annitte stared at me her eyes wide for a moment. "Your bonds shattered already?" she asked me in a whisper.

"Why does everyone seem so surprised by that?" I grumbled.

"Twelve bonds and a shattering within days? Really you have to ask?"

"Ten bonds, the other two came later, and yes. Do you not know our parents?" I responded.

Annitte groaned then rubbed at her temple for a while. "Did they at least transfer any information about your heritage?" she asked.

"Dad did, nothing from mom." I replied.

"Of course she didn't, none of us have properly inherited her ability." Annitte grumbled. "My time is running out, here is a guide to forming a haven. Remember my energy signature, once you have formed a haven you can form a space tunnel from your haven to me circumventing whatever it is that is blocking this world." Annitte told me.

"Your energy signature?" I asked her confused but instead of answering Annitte moved closer to me and hugged me tightly planting a kiss on my cheek. "Welcome to the family little brother, I will let the other three know I meet you." she told me in a whisper then disappeared. As she did a torrent of information was implanted into my mind.

I winced at the flood of information. It was just as bad as Dad's bond information.

"You alright?" Karen asked me worriedly as she and Megan came to my side to support me if I fell.

I nodded. "Yeah, it hurts for a moment when the information floods into my head." I told her.

"So can you open a haven now?" Derek asked.

I shook my head. "No, I have to review the information then practice it a few times, I think. I will have to find a quiet room and look it over by myself. In the meantime can you and the others give some thought to where we can find the supplies we need to feed everyone?" I asked him.

Derek nodded but kept his eyes on me. "What was that about the bonds shattering?" he asked.

"You can ask the girls. That shit outside is only going to get worse and we need somewhere we can use as a base." I told him. Then I made sure to give both Jamie and Jessica a hug and kiss along with a few of my other girls who wanted more attention. Grace seemed to be number one on the wanting more attention list, followed closely by Dena.

Before I left I noticed Marshal had pulled Rebecca into a corner and was talking to her animatedly but quietly while Rosa stood a few feet away looking rather unhappy.

'You alright?' I thought to Rebecca. Her situation was more complex than the others and while I wanted to march right over there and stake my claim I resisted the urge. Despite the bonds I was literally the other guy in that situation though it was Marshal who started cheating first and abandoned his family, so I felt no guilt on the subject. I just didn't know Rebecca's mind and what she was willing to let me do to help.

Rebecca didn't reply. She looked around until she caught sight of me then ignored Marshal and walked right up to me wrapped her arms around me and kissed me quite passionately. I didn't mind at all and returned the kiss. I knew she was using me a bit, but in this case I was happy to be used.

'Seems I will have to have a talk with Megan and Karen.' Rebecca thought to me.

I liked what that implied but I was still worried about her. 'Are you alright?' I asked her.

'Yes but we can discuss it later when we are alone.' she replied then pulled away from me then took Emily and left the room.

"Not fair!" Grace grumbled making my other girls giggle which caused Grace to smile.

I went back to the room I had shared with Megan and Karen then locked the door behind me. We had a time limit and I needed to figure this out so my girls could be as safe as I could make them. Once we had somewhere safe to stay we could begin worrying about the little details.

I laid down on the bed then closed my eyes. I was able to see my abilities but focused my mind on the information that had been pushed into my head. First was the information on the bonds from my father then the information on creating a haven from Annitte. While I wanted to know more about the the bonds I focused on the haven information.

After scanning through the information I was glad I had received it. There was an important difference between what Calidia had told me and the information from Annitte. Using Calidia's method would allow me to make a temporary haven, unfortunately it would continuously drain my energy just like the space pockets I had now, just at a much faster pace, a pace that I wouldn't be able to keep up with using my normal regeneration rate. With my space pockets the energy I used to keep them open was less than what I regenerated in the same span of time allowing me to keep them open permanently with a sacrifice to my regeneration rate.

The temporary haven used seven different abilities simultaneously. No ones regeneration rate could keep up with that kind of energy drain. Instead after forming a haven a spell formation was laid down that drew in mana from outside of the haven to support it removing the burden of supporting the haven from me. This was the reason why a haven was not considered a sanctuary as a pathway to the outside had to remain open so mana could reach the spell formation that maintained the haven. The spell formations for a small haven wasn't difficult to create, but I needed a focus. A physical object that the mana would flow into before entering the spell formation. There were many different things that could be a focus, but the better the focus the larger the spell formation could be. Meaning the larger a haven I could create.

Thankfully I had the perfect material for the focus on hand already. At least being terrified out of my mind hadn't been pointless. The single scale of the brown flood dragon should be able to handle the mana flow of a small or medium sized spell formation.

As for how big a a haven those would support? The small spell formation could support a haven a square mile in size with a height of fifty feet. More than enough room for the number of people we had now. As for the medium spell formation it could support a haven of ten square miles with a height of one hundred feet. The medium was the smallest sized haven that a silver or gold core could use to be considered a lord. I had no idea what any of that meant but it was included in Annitte's notes, along with the information that she and my siblings all ruled over a haven half the size of the continental United States, excluding Alaska. They called it a tiny world sized haven and wanted to upgrade to a small world sized haven but lacked a focus strong enough to support the spell formation.

Included in the explanation was a way to find a material suitable for being a focus. In fact it was a good way to practice as I had to fuse the six elements with my space energy and use that to sweep the area for anything that resonated with the energy. It sounded a lot simpler than it actually was. While I had no trouble fusing three elements together to form my black lightning, each additional element increased the difficulty greatly. All six was enough of a headache that I wanted to bang my head against the wall.

After several hours of practice I was finally ready to attempt to add the space energy. I nearly cried when the space energy fused with the six elements without any trouble. I would need a lot a practice before it was easy to do, but I was still satisfied with what I had accomplished in a few hours. As I was fairly tired and didn't think I had enough energy to open a haven pocket I used the energy to scan my surroundings. Even though I had the flood dragon scale, it never hurt to have extra materials in case something went wrong.

To my great surprise I senses something that gave off a stronger resonance than the flood dragon scale.

Standing up I left my room and followed the trial of the focus I found into Grace's families room to the window where I stared in the direction that I could sense the focus. It was the only one in my range so I was interested in getting my hands on it, but given what I was seeing I placed the focus somewhere by the little lake in the park. The same park that was seeing the war between twisted, mutant beasts, and mutant plants. It wasn't going to be easy to retrieve.