Chapter 5

  Montai squeezed himself through the door into Yin’s room, completing the group of reincarnators. ‘’You know? I was super sure Tiger used a pure dream path. But it was light and dreams huh.’’ He mused.

  ‘’And Yin wants to be a little split core Tiger.’’ Zeurel teased, having already made a mess of Yin’s bed, probably shedding fur under the covers too. He considered trying to pull her out, but her temperament was still unknown and her level was apparently lowgold. He couldn’t see anything like a goldsign on her, he’d have to ask later if sacred beasts could advance without consuming a remnant.

  ‘’You kinda look like that one character, Yin, the uh. Shrine dog?’’ Montai really liked commenting on looks, the damned fowl.

  ‘’I don’t know that one.’’ Yin said, feeling just a slight bit of despair as he’d been told by half a dozen experts that his idea for the Hungering Mind path was a bad idea. ‘’Montai! Get your beak out of my backpack.’’ The bird recoiled.

  ‘’You have something tasty in there though bro.’’ He whined.

  ‘’All he ever does is eat, that’s why he still hasn’t ascended to gold.’’ Zeurel said from a nest of blankets she’d made. Yin decided that he didn’t mind, since he was still planning on sleeping on the floor for at least a few more days. ‘’And what’s so bad about having a pure path, it was totally strong when those guys did them.’’ Those guys being the main characters in the book.

  ‘’I’m going to need every bit of help I can possibly get to make a spirit like that purple guy.’’ He could vaguely remember that the insides of it were incredibly complex scripts that seemingly evolved as it advanced. ‘’I guess I’m gonna have to rely on tools and alchemy. Montai, can you hand me that bag? Thank you.’’ Yin retrieved his notebook and flipped through it, adding in an addendum to what he knew of the dreadgod. Then he flipped to a blank page.

  ‘’So, I’m going to get educated again, because I was raised in the sticks. What are you guys planning on in terms of getting stronger?’’

  ‘’I don’t know.’’ Said Duong listlessly, still hanging out by the door.

  ‘’I’m working on becoming a healer!’’ Zeurel said, probably used enough to Duong that his behavior didn’t phase her. ‘’I’ve got a cultivation room I’m using every other day, and I’m doing the breathing thingy while I cycle so I can work on my willpower. I only ever last like half a minute though, hehe.’’

  The breathing thing? ‘’The breathing thing.’’ Yin gasped, suddenly realizing something he’d been missing. He’d only been doing the part of the technique that deepened his reserves, missing the torturous breathing that would help to temper his will.

  Zeurel nodded gaily, and then pointed to Montai who looked like he’d melted onto the floor. ‘’Aaah right, uuh, that cycling thingy. But, y’know, I’ve been thinking I might change my path. Now I’ve got wind and shadow, literally can’t fly without that wind madra, but I’m thinking I might add something. Not sure what yet, and I don’t want to go gold before I figure it out.’’

  Yin hadn’t known paths were that malleable after they were established, but he filed it in his notes.

  Duong glared at them all when they looked to him. ‘’I’m doing the wheel cycling.’’ He didn’t offer up any more information. Yin sort of understood why the other two seemed to dislike him. He still stuck around for some reason.

  ‘’Alright.’’ Yin closed his notebook with a snap and tucked it back into his pack. ‘’My lessons start tomorrow, so, what do you guys do for fun around here? Can we go bully Margo or what?’’

  ‘’Why do you like bullying Margo so much? She’s a nice lady.’’ Montai said softly, probably meaning she’d given him food.

  ‘’I found the crack in her armor and now it’s become my duty to attack it relentlessly. Also she has pushover energy and I think it’s cute.’’ Yin nodded sagely to himself even though he hadn’t meant to say the last part out loud. Zeurel and Montai laughed at him, the goat going as far as slipping out of her nest to slap his head.

  ‘’You know we’re all eleven right?’’ Duong asked, looking mildly grossed out. ‘’She’s, what? 70 or more?’’

  ‘’Not that much of an age gap, I was in my fifties when I passed over, or whatever happened to bring me here. Did you guys die?’’ Yin accepted his fate as Zeurel’s new armrest.

  ‘’Last thing I remember was trying to get away from the coast guard.’’ Montai said absently, looking like he was about to go to sleep. Hopefully he wouldn’t stay in Yin’s room for the night, he had a pretty powerful bird odor.

  Zeurel was about to go next but Duong cut in. ‘’Wait, no, expand on that, why were you running away?’’

  ‘’Aah, you know, caught a floater with a whole bunch of uh.. cocaine, what’s a good word for it here, nose candy? I was just gonna grab a couple bricks for the boys and leave but the fuss caught me red handed.’’ Montai opened a large eye and saw the reactions his story had garnered.

  ‘’What the fuck man?’’ Yin asked half impressed, half mad that Montai had such a more interesting story than his own.

  ‘’I wish i had something interesting like that.’’ Zeurel complained, idly twirling a lock of Yin’s hair around her finger. ‘’I was in one of those big trampoline places trying to convince the owner to sell to the company I worked for.’’

  Yin tilted his head up and met Zeurel’s uncanny goat eyes. ‘’Let’s leave it at that so I can imagine you were a mafioso. Organized crime person.’’ He added when she obviously didn’t get the foreign word. ‘’And you Duong?’’

  The dour guy crumbled under two and a half expectant gazes. ‘’Last thing I remember I was signing the contract for a farm I’d bought.’’

  ‘’Neat.’’ Yin said appreciatively. ‘’Last thing I remember..’’ More than eleven years and a lifetime ago. ’’Right. I was about to do a flip off an elephant's trunk like the tour guide did. They bet I couldn’t do it and I was going to prove them wrong. Um, I was on a company trip in Thailand.’’

  ‘’Did you do it?’’ Montai asked, and the others looked interested, Zeurel slipped off his head and thumped into his lap.

  ‘’Can’t remember, maybe that elephant knocked me out.’’ Yin smiled and helped Zeurel up. ‘’But enough of this wonderful bonding session, let’s do something fun! Like bullying women!’’ For some reason Zeurel was the only one who agreed and led Yin out to go look for Margo.

  —

  Yin diligently filled out his new notebook, pages and pages already full with new information about Cradle and its mystical mechanics. The general knowledge of the world was good, but Yin cared much more for the stuff that directly concerned him.

  ‘’What about two and half parts light to one and a half fire and one force?’’ He asked his lecturer, a truegold by the name of Gui’man. He’d been lecturing for almost five hours and still looked more than ready to continue, earning Yin’s respect.

  ‘’Perhaps,’’ Gui’man allowed, having shot down several other proposals for the path of Ramiel. ‘’The fire would add great amounts of destructive energy to the light, and the force would add stability and control. Of course the mix would dilute the properties that are mainly associated with light. It would become slower and more rigid, maybe forbidding its use in illusory techniques. I can think of similar paths, however they only use two of the elements, so they may not be entirely useful for you to study.’’

  He went on to add a few more subjects for Yin to study on his own time, this time paths rather than political treatises and historical texts. At Yin’s rate of reading, getting through it all would take half a year and they were still adding more things for him to study.

  Such as scripts.

  Over several days he met with several teachers on the subject, all lecturing on their own knowledge in the use of the language. All adding homework they each thought would best educate him further.

  His schedule for some days was so packed that even though they lived in the same complex Yin didn’t see his peers at all. That was fine with him though, they were all adults in the end. Even though they were children again.

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  —

  A month and a half had gone by in the blink of an eye, and Yin was pulled from his torturous meditation by Zeurel and Montai kicking his door in. The madra in his channels crammed back into his core, forcing it to grow just a bit more and aligning with its brother.

  ‘’Let’s gooo!’’ Zeruel yelled, only waiting long enough for Yin’s madra to stabilize before pulling him up and throwing him onto Montai’s back. ‘’It’s time!’’

  She joined him and they ducked as the bird slipped through the, much too small for him, doorway.

  Mildly shell shocked by the sudden abduction and after letting his heart come back up into its normal place in his chest after Montai took them far up into the sky Yin asked. ‘’Time for what?’’ He had to raise his voice over the howling wind as they soared over the natural architecture of Titan’s Grove.

  The wind suddenly stilled even though they were still moving, Yin could feel Montai using a technique under him. ‘’What was that bro?’’ The bird asked in the suddenly quiet space around them.

  ‘’What are we doing, where are we going?’’

  Zeurel pressed herself up against him, almost pressing Yin down flat onto Montai. ‘’We’re gonna go get little spirit companions!’’

  ‘’You guys are getting your own too?’’ Yin asked with some strain because of how strong Zeurel was.

  ‘’I want a riverseed because they’re really, really good for healing!’’ Zeurel shouted into Yin's ear as if she hadn’t noticed that Montai was canceling out the wind.

  ‘’I have no idea where we’re going!’’ Montai shouted, taking them into a wide banking turn around an especially tall tree. ‘’Oh! And I’m gonna get a dream spirit too!’’ Montai started shouting as well for no reason.

  ‘’That’s no good birdie, that’s what I’m getting, figure out your own!’’ Yin shouted as well.

  ‘’What? Why bro? I wanna have a little trashy boy.’’ Montai whined.

  Yin forced himself to sit upright, Zeurel still clung to his shoulders, and crossed his arms. ‘’Very well, this young master will allow it! But I’m not feeding yours pure madra. That’s all going to mine.’’

  ‘’Maaan~’’ Montai moaned, and Zeurel giggled.

  ‘’What’s the deal with your ‘young master’ act? You said yourself you’re a hillbilly.’’ She questioned at a more reasonable volume, shouting time seemed to be over.

  ‘’This one merchant I talked to kept calling me that, trying to butter me up and scamming me into buying makeup and skin cream. I’ve been a young master ever since.’’ He told them. Something caught his eye in the distance, a teal formation appearing slowly over a building in the distance. ‘’What’s that?’’

  ‘’Our destination! Hold on to me!’’ Montai shouted and gave them no time to prepare before with a surge of madra they were enveloped in a stream of dark wind. The tunnel made by Montai sped them up to thrice the pace they’d traveled at just moments before. In only seconds they crossed over blocks of buildings and soon the bird had to slow them down to avoid crashing into the massive force construct. ‘This Way Please’ it said in its full form.

  Yin was silently amazed by the absolutely massive show of pure power. He himself hadn’t even tried to forge a scale yet because of how much madra it would take for him to do it.

  Margo stood on the roof of a complex that looked like a forest had been condensed into a vague square. The tiles on top of the building were very solid looking leaves that seemed to hold Margo’s weight with no problem.

  They landed and Yin was dragged along by Zeurel, who wasted no time greeting Margo, simply running for the arched branches that made up the entrance to the complex under them. This meant that Yin was also slammed into a forged force field along with her.

  ‘’Sorry!’’ Margo called from halfway across the roof, slowly coming over with Montai. ‘’We have a few rules of conduct here in the Spiritual Glade. No running, raised voices or releasing madra. Don’t touch anything unless you’re given permission. Oh, and when we get to the shadow room, please close your eyes, the spirits there don’t like it when you look at them too much.’’

  ‘’Oh, we’re doing a whole tour? I thought we’d just pick up the ones we want.’’ Yin said and wiped at his bleeding nose. The old wound Ten had given him made it so easy for his nose to bleed. Zeurel passed a green glowing hand over his face and he felt her madra invade and mend him. ‘’Thanks.’’

  ‘’That’s just gonna be like a bandaid, try not to touch your nose.’’ Zeurel said, actually serious for once, but it didn’t last more than a second. ‘’Margoooo!’’ She charged the woman with head down, crashing into her waist uselessly.

  ‘’Sorry, sorry.’’ She bent down to wipe Yin’s face and casually dissolved her construct over the entrance. ‘’Now, repeat the rules for me.’’

  She, for once, treated them like she was the adult among children and not another child. Yin decided to let her have her moment and terrorize her about her books on parasites later.

  ‘’Hey, wait, if I can’t use any madra in there I gotta do it right now, sorry give me a second.’’ Yin sat down and cupped his hands in front of him. Channeling all the pure madra out of one core he drew it through his pathways evenly, slowly concentrating it in his hands. He imagined the shape, a coin big enough to fit across his palm, and then started to compress his madra there. Slowly it trickled out into the shape he’d decided, but it didn’t want to stay there.

  Yin felt a strain through his entire body as he for the first time tried to forge his madra. It was an exercise of his will, he’d known that, but actually feeling it was nothing like he’d thought it would be.

  He pressed harder and harder, herding his madra into the shape, feeling his channels strain with the effort. And then he couldn’t push any more into it. Opening his hands he saw a pale, almost illusory coin. Gently squeezing it he felt it give some resistance to his touch. All in all, not even close to how it should be, but a good first attempt.

  He got started on the next one with his second core, Margo, Montai and Zeurel started coaching him through it with bad or borderline worthless advice.

  ‘’You gotta think of it like that loud dude in the pub bathroom, like, he’s making a ruckus and you’re glaring him down.’’ Montai wistfully said, seemingly recalling an incident where that was exactly what he’d done.

  The second coin looked even worse than the first, but that was just because all the attention had thrown Yin off, and his channels were already sore. And he’d been dragged out of his room all of a sudden. Hadn’t had breakfast either. It was off season and the sun was too bright.

  Zeurel cut his excuses short and forced Margo to lead them in.

  —

  It was like a museum where every exhibit was another unique slice of paradise.

  A cozy miniature mountain range where little rock people tumbled around, sometimes knocking into one another.

  A dark room, with a tiny light shining down on plenty of dead leaves and branches that provided hiding spaces for flitting little dark shapes. Scurrying this way and that, finding cover whenever eyes lingered on their hiding spots for too long.

  A dreamlike little riverscape with a pond where the purest water could swirl lazily. Little blue spirits danced, played and sang, almost constantly exploring their tiny paradise.

  Margo and Zeurel were let in and the younger girl spoke softly to the little things. They danced around her, making her look even more like a fairytale character. One climbed on her and found the little nubs of horns on her head. It refused to come down, and that apparently decided the matter of which one would be Zeurels companion.

  Tinkling bell like noises accompanied them as they continued towards the dream spirit room. The little spirit on Zeurels head flitted back and forth, making a noise like sloshing water. When it spotted something it liked it made a bell like chiming sound until Zeurel brought it over to what it had seen. A script light.

  They were forced to wait until the little being was satisfied with its inspection.

  Finally, they were there, a purple room filled with curiosities. Puzzles lay unfinished, half painted pictures, elaborate clothes lay strewn. And books, scrolls, tablets with scripts. Above them all was a cloud, a swarm, of purple things constantly changing shape.

  Margo led Monai in first, the bird whispered for a bit and was quickly swarmed by spirits for a few seconds. Then they all left him alone and scoured Margo until they were done with her as well. They went back up to crowd around each other, some changing shapes into women or birds intermittently.

  Montai tried to convince them again, but was unsuccessful.

  Then it was Yin's turn. He stepped in and was quickly covered in the spirits for a few seconds, then they returned to their swarm. Yin took out a paper he’d prepared.

  Whispering, he held it out and pointed to the symbols on it. ‘’Ok guys, this is a symbol called one.’’ He went over the first nine numbers, to his captive audience. Then he explained addition. ‘’So, who can tell me what four plus three is?’’ The spirits became a visually noisy mess. Meaningless symbols fought for space with strings of numbers that shifted constantly.

  One stood out, having changed itself into a purple seven. He pointed to it and let it come closer, some followed it. ‘’What about two plus seven? What does that make?’’ After a moment it shifted into a nine. ‘’You’re so smart.’’ He praised it.

  ‘’Ok here’s a harder one, what if you took three away from the nine and then split that three into a one and a two. How would that look?’’ It took longer this time, but eventually it showed him the numbers six, one and two. ‘’Yes!’’ Margo hushed him.

  ‘’Ok little buddy, was that fun?’’ It bobbed over his hand, and he took that as an affirmative. ‘’Wanna come with me?’’ It bobbed again and landed on his hand, glomming onto it. ‘’I’m gonna call you.. Secretary.’’ He told the diffuse purple sludge that hugged his hand.

  Margo gently led him back out to where Zeurel jittered happily, her sylvan riverseed tinkling a greeting to Secretary. And Montai grumpily muttered about how unfair it was that he didn’t get one too.

  Yin dug his free hand into his clothes and pulled out the stronger of the two scales he’d made. ‘’I thought I was gonna have to bribe one to come with me but here we are.’’ He offered it to Secretary who assumed a more corporeal shape, a mouth, and swallowed it whole. Growing paler, almost pink, as it started to incorporate the power.

  Drops of water sounded, Zeurels companion wanted one too, and Yin was a generous soul. He offered the other scale up to Zeurel and told her with a smile. ‘’You can repay me with some elixirs or resources.’’

  She pouted as she accepted the coin and fed her little friend. ‘’I can’t call you something simple like ‘that guy’ did, so how about Cherie?’’ The riverseed plopped pensively as it took the scale from her fingers, sitting with it for a second. Then it shrugged with a sound like a breeze on the sea, split in half, and ate the coin.