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Chapter 20

  Chapter 20

  Everyone sat in a circle around one of the, as it turned out an hour earlier, not dead crabs. The other one was in a containment script powered by a few scales from Yin, Duong and even Ti Li.

  Yin broke the script on the claw he’d already broken off and used a knife from Ten to cut off a slice of raw meat that teemed with energy. ‘’Alright, let’s find out what this is going to be like.’’ He tilted his head back and dropped the meat onto his tongue.

  Ash. Searing flame. Salty water. And powerful energy that had no taste but to his soul felt like being hit with a wave of superheated air. His pure madra, already cycling, accelerated on his willpower and started to grind down and distribute the energy in his body.

  His pure core had been down at less than half when he ate the meat, and over seconds it started to swell. At the rate it was going he’d be back to full by the time he was done subsuming all the energies that we’re now rampaging in his system.

  He pried open his eyes, not even having noticed that he’d closed them, and saw his body reacting. Too many of his shirts had been ripped so he’d taken to simply going topless, so he could see the grotesque sight of veins popping all over his skin.

  Yin’s muscles all ached, all over his body they took in madra and nutrients from the disgusting meat, rebuilding themselves stronger. The same process would be taking place in his entire body, something he was only vaguely aware of with his senses of the madra within him.

  His pure core reached full, and still it tried to swell further. Taking the chance Yin changed his wheel cycling technique. From a small millstone that rotated around the edges, to a single one stretching from the center of his core to the ends. Constantly digging down, constantly growing and wearing down the boundaries of his soul.

  Someone spoke, asking something, but the blood pounding through his head drowned it out.

  The energies in his body were almost fully consumed, but Yin was finally done. His pure core hit the limit, and then broke past. Low gold.

  Taking deep breaths as his heart finally started to calm down, Yin looked to his companions. ‘’So delicious.’’ He croaked like a frog. ‘’So tasty, take a bigger bite than I did, it’s so good.’’ Yin flopped over on the ground. Groaning as what felt like every cell of his being protested.

  Zeurel put a soothing hand on him and life madra flooded him and aided his iron body in putting him back together. A chime and a pitter patter like rain sounded and a purifying flood of water washed his channels clean as well.

  ‘’Good morning Cherie! Good morning baby!’’ Zeurel cooed delightedly over her little water spirit that had apparently woken up.

  ‘’Secretary is pleased, this will result in much more Pure madra for her.’’ The spirit cut an almost translucent sliver of meat from her crab leg. Inspecting it, then letting her illusion face drop, the remnant body underneath slurped it up and shuddered.

  Ti Li nibbled on the tiniest little piece and then her face almost collapsed into itself as she grimaced.

  Everyone took their own, much more reasonable bites than what Yin had done.

  Yin pushed himself back up and idly forged a powerful scale that he gave to Cherie as thanks. The little water spirit, changed again into a chubby little satyr now, accepted it demurely. Taking the coin, as big as her body, and then split in half to eat it whole.

  The little water spirit thanked him by making a sound like a burbling creek and then raised her arms to Zeurel in an ‘uppies’ gesture.

  Zeurel took her little baby and deposited it in her hair to go back to sleep.

  Yin waited until his breathing evened out again, and his throat felt less like it might collapse. ‘’Alright.. Okay, from now on, I’m thinking we should all use this to advance to true gold. And on the way, practice our techniques until we get our bindings for them.’’

  ‘’I still need a venom treasure for my cycling room.’’ Duong said between spitting and cleaning his mouth with water. ‘’Oh and, Secretary, I want to make a workshop up here for my crafting. Going down to the city is wasting too much time.’’

  Secretary was still shuddering on the ground, but still managed to use a ruler technique to turn their surroundings into a vision of a perfect workshop. Carved into the stone they sat on, it would have a forge, tool racks and tables. One side of the room would have script cages for remnants and a dissection table.

  Yin looked closer and saw that all the scripts were just jumbled nonsense and some of the tools were out of place. Like a hair comb and a horse shoe on a handle.

  ‘’Should I.. work more on my pure madra first, and do this later.’’ Duong was almost drooling looking around the illusion.

  Yin sighed and forced himself up, readying himself for another bite of horribly powerful meat. ‘’Do whatever you like, man. I’m probably going to need rest days so I can go down and look for venom stuff every now and then.’’ Slicing off a much thinner bit this time and eating it made the experience much more comfortable.

  In other words, terrible but not so bad that death seemed like an attractive way out.

  ‘’I’m going to need more plants in my cycling room to make the best use of this.’’ Zeurel said, her already true gold madra churning through her body, consuming the power of the meat with ease. All she needed to do now was keep doing the wheel cycling and practicing techniques.

  What else? Montai knew what to do, Ten could probably push up into True gold in a week or two. Duong was busy, Zeruel knew what to do. ‘’Secretary and Ti Li. What are your plans?’’

  ‘’Make a gathering array around the city for dream energy.’’ Secretary said, and Yin saw her soul grow slightly more dense with his copper sight. He wasn’t sure how remnants advanced, especially to gold, but she seemed to have her wits about her.

  Ti Li, as usual, took her time. Poking at a slice of meat Ten put down for her. ‘’I don’t know, become stronger?’’

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  Yin hummed. ‘’Wanna split your soul and get a second path?’’ A knife rested against his throat before he was even done speaking. Ignoring Ten and her -probably real- threat, Yin focused on the little one.

  She poked the slice of meat again, rifled through her robes, fidgeted with some little stolen trinket. ‘’I want to be like you.’’ She looked up at Yin, conviction shining in her eyes. ‘’One path for sneaking and stealing. One path for loudness and destruction.’’

  Ten fumbled the knife in her hands. Yin gave her a baffled look, it was the first time he’d ever seen her do so. She hurried over and picked her little sister up, pulling her away to discuss privately.

  Everyone went back to their own conversations after a moment. Except for Yin, who kept his eyes on Ten and Ti Li.

  —

  His pure core was almost perpetually full, and over days he made good headway into low gold. Expanding the core and deepening his reserves.

  And all the while he also practiced, from bounding around in his pure cloak, to forging fists and letting them fly. He even tried to use the domain he’d once read about, creating a sphere of pure madra around him.

  But that sphere only encompassed his chest and took so much madra it nearly drained his core completely. It felt especially underwhelming when compared to the house sized dome That Guy could make. Then again he’d been in the lord levels or even higher when he’d done that, so maybe Yin was just being too hard on himself.

  But pure madra practice would wait for a week because now it was time for Falling Star madra.

  Yin sat cross legged in his cycling pavilion. Eight oil candles burning on the pillars, seven script circles all working, from gathering vital energy to repelling wind and the drizzle of rain coming down.

  He could hear Kaido roar and fight against both Ten and Montai at once further down the mountain.

  His pure striker technique, the fists, was coming along, but the Falling Star technique was still at a standstill. He’d offhandedly kept attempting to use it, using ruling to gather energies and mixing with his own madra. But it never came together, it refused to stop moving, to let him compress it into a workable attack.

  But he’d seen the proverbial light in a dream that he’d blearily told Zeurel about. And then later she’d repeated his words back to him when he was awake and the idea came back to him.

  It was simple, but complex in execution.

  Don’t stop moving it.

  The madra wanted to move forever faster, so let it. Just give it a circuit to move in, and then make a dozen or so circuits simultaneously. When they were all good and ready, make them meet in the center and from there force it all out in one direction.

  Yin had spent much of a day just getting the circuits down, currently he had four under control swirling in the space between his hands. Now, as he’d been trying to do for hours, he needed to collapse them into the center.

  Waiting, letting any stress and tension slip away, Yin focused solely on the bands of madra circling. And then he cut the bands, all four at once, and directed them into each other. The reaction was different than he’d expected, when the madra met it all sank into itself. A little star was created and swiftly destabilized and died.

  Yin gave the energy a way out. Forward. And there it went, a single streak shot into the distance, bright enough to easily be seen for miles. Somewhere, far out over the lake it finally fizzled out.

  There was sweat dripping from his forehead, the dense energies of his cycling room felt suffocating as usual. He’d finally made it, after so long.

  But Yin was disappointed. It wasn’t nearly strong enough. Four bands wasn’t enough, he wouldn’t call it complete until he could do it with at least ten.

  ‘’Death Star.. Nah.’’ He chuckled and got up, heading to their shower rooms. ‘’Starshot. Yeah, that’s better.’’

  Stumbling down rocks that he really should have just carved into stairs days ago, he met Ti Li. The little girl looked as expressionless as ever, but with some steel in her bearing. ‘’I’m ready.’’

  Yin nodded and led the way down into their finished living quarters. Passing the communal space into one of the hallways to her room. Stepping in he was greeted with stuff, trinkets, little tools and jewelry. He snapped up a nice necklace and put it on, ignoring Ti Li’s angry punches to his hips.

  ‘’It’s going to feel like dying.’’ She stopped and paid close attention. ‘’When you start it has to be done right or you might cripple yourself. Are you sure you’re read-dy? Is that the remnant bomb?’’ Yin warded Ti Li off even when she used her own pure cloak. Picking up the four colored superweapon. ‘’I was wondering where this had gone.’’

  ‘’It’s mine, I took it and no one wanted it back.’’ She pouted, acting her age for once. Yin relented and left it with her, he didn’t want the dread weapon anyways, disgusting thing.

  ‘’Fine, get yourself ready, one try, remember?’’

  Ti Li laid down flat on her bed, like she was acting dead for a play. Turns out that was her preferred cycling position. ‘’Focus on your core, feel the madra in it. Take that madra and split it in half, then make the halves spin.’’

  ‘’Do they need to spin in the same direction or opposite?’’ She asked insightfully.

  ‘’Opposite directions works best, make sure you do it right.’’ Yin helpfully bullshitted her, hopefully it would up her confidence and reduce the chance of her messing it up.

  ‘’I’m doing it.’’ She reported after a minute of silence.

  ‘’Good. Now take the two swirls and slowly pull them away from each other until you feel them strain against the limits. Got it?’’ She nodded. ‘’Now, as hard as you can, pull them apart.’’

  Ti Li took a deep breath, her soul split, and suddenly she was on her feet. Screaming in terror.

  Yin waited for her to recover before clapping and cheering with zero energy. ‘’Well done. How’re you feeling?’’

  She kept huffing like a cornered animal for a while, eventually starting to pick up valuable looking things from the floor to fidget with. ‘’I feel fine.’’

  He nodded. ‘’Want me to go get Ten for you?’’ She shook her head and continued to polish a ring with her sleeve.

  Yin heard a clattering noise outside and leaned out of the room. ‘’Zeurel! Come over here!’’

  The satyr peeked down the hallway and clattered over. They really had to add carpets or something to the floors.

  ‘’I’m really bad at comforting people, can you take over?’’

  ‘’Take over? What happened?’’ She looked past at Ti Li, then quickly rushed into the room and sat with her, whispering to the little girl.

  Even when he’d been Oskar he had been bad when things got emotional with others. There was a reason he’d been single at fifty plus.

  Staggering up the mountain range again Yin found Ten and sent her back to go care for her sister.

  ‘’I helped Ti Li split her soul.’’ He informed Kaido and Montai when they soared over in their own ways. Montai looked like he’d been hit by several lightning bolts.

  They both made understanding noises, despite Montai having not split his own soul.

  ‘’You’re looking pretty tired, man. You doing ok?’’ The bird asked, and Yin wanted to turn the question back on him, his feathers still smoked in some places.

  ‘’I’ve been practicing since, uh.. lunch?’’ The sun was setting on the horizon. ‘’I think I’m just gonna skip dinner and go to bed.’’ Yin spun, stopped and then spun back. ‘’Kaido! Are you sticking around till tomorrow?’’

  ‘’Oh, uh, yeah, I might. Why?’’

  ‘’I wanna kick your ass, fight me tomorrow. Ok, It’s decided! If you run away it’s my win!’’ Yin cloaked and ran as fast as he could back to his room to escape Kaido’s lightning.

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