Three months of nonstop training, alone, is dull and mind-numbing. Every single person on the small island numbered 357 could agree on that statement. However, that never meant they slacked off. Unless injured, they made sure to pick up a weapon or sit comfortably and do whatever they could.
Even the young girl who recently turned seven, wielded a double-edged shortsword and swung it with ease. Every single day. Without fail.
That’s not to say nothing happened prior.
Around one month in, one of Icy’s targets finally evolved and clearly gained some sort of food trait. They worked to hunt it down just a few days after that evolution, and he guzzled down the change to its body as Mala watched intently. Within the body of the beast, one which would’ve barely reached gold tier if not for Icy forcibly mutating it into candy, it was possible to see a body of thick crimson red, with little coloured beans all throughout.
“Sorbet and… Jelly beans? What flavour is that anyway?” Jaren got the first question in as everyone else was too surprised by what they saw beneath the beast’s hide and fat. The fact that it was alive no longer surprised them, but the mutation was almost fantastical to them.
“You’re free to have a taste, this stuff can’t mutate you. I think it’s dragonfruit, pretty nice.”
Rebecca’s head tilted first in suspicion, but it was Korridan who spoke up, “The fruit that dragons specially grew to be their favourite? Should you be transforming yourself into that?”
But he didn’t particularly care about it.
Pulling away from the chilly corpse once more, he quickly said, “I don’t have anything to lose. And a counterpoint; Infinite dragonfruit sorbet.” No one had a response to Icy’s statements, and Mala just created a few spoons from ice for them all to have some taste of the sorbet. It was far from the first time they enjoyed something chilled on the warm island, with Icy being able to create ice cream at literally any time, but the far denser and crystallised sorbet with a citrusy tang stood out from the wealth of sweetness his ice cream gave.
Comparing modern dragonfruit by taste is tough, since it’s actually a heavily mutated variant of what was called dragonfruit long ago by its discoverers.
But everyone more or less agreed that it was sweet and sour like an orange, but the flavour itself better matched mango or pear. Additionally, some fruit trees and wild vegetables grew on this island in the first place, so it wasn’t like they lived off meat and ice cream for months.
After eating a fair bit of the body’s slowly melting sorbet, he finally triggered a mutation within him that caused little to no upsets for once. Perhaps it was due to sorbet being rather different in composition, but he found that instead of being mixed in with the four ice cream flavours within, it instead went to his legs. It was hard to say if they took the place of muscles, flesh, or so on, as he never knew how such things felt. Now he just had four legs filled with red sorbet, although rather interestingly, one still saw vanilla ice cream for his claws.
As for the jelly beans, he found they tasted wonderful, but the others believed them far too sugary. After eating thirty of them, his body changed once more. The bottom of his feet changed to be padded with those jelly beans.
He took a couple days to adapt to this change, every step felt different as the hardened surface conflicted with walking on ice cream for so long.
Returning to what happened after 3 months of training, his heart recently passed 80% in its transformation.
One other beast mutated, but only provided him with a slight mutation to his breath innate ability, in that it now sprayed out a mixture of vanilla extract and thick caramel. Whether more effective or not wasn’t something that he could decide easily, although it remained as tough as ever to peel off.
For most of the day, he sat in the wooden cottage’s main room with a Freezing Aura Barrier to avoid melting at any time. Its residual cooling also kept the whole place in a chilly state, the ground around Icy might constantly be covered in a layer of ice, but it was hardly an issue. Raccelline certainly never struggled with the cold, spending most nights with him even now.
On that day not long after the 3 month mark, in particular, he shuddered whilst lying down, a twitch down his back which so rarely happened that it instantly alerted him. The first consideration was that some emerging sixth sense warned him of danger, but that couldn’t be the case.
He had yet to form that!
The closest was his Auric spirit which seemed to trigger something similar, even though he asked the spirit, it didn’t understand what exactly that sensation was. Just that danger was real enough to feel.
If not those things, then…
He didn’t hesitate to speak aloud in the place, only Mala was nearby as the rest trained outside more often than not. “It’s finally happening then? I thought you said a short while, Nexus?”
[Short is relative. Though most of our simulations showed 1 month]
Why did it feel the need to add a cop-out if a perfectly legitimate reason followed?
The response confused him more than anything. He stopped his thoughts on replying, focusing his senses on his soul just as he would when training it. With his degree of soul manipulation, it was even easier to do this, and after stabilising the small mass of light within his body, he saw the changes occurring.
One interesting thing was that if he focused his mana sight onto his soul, his ‘sight’ seemingly detached from his body and mind and allowed him to move far closer to it than usually possible.
This could not be reproduced for any other part of his body.
A tiny thing from outside, his soul barely compared to a grain of sand in size, although the radiance it emitted made it seem tens of times larger. But when so up close, the slight bumps and indents on its surface could not be made clearer, an almost pristine surface coated in tiny imperfections. Not damage, nor ugliness, but a record of life.
A worn outer shell to represent that he lived.
But right now, that stable outer shell moved like a fluid. The surface vibrated, and waves formed all across. The effect did nothing to his body, and everything felt right as rain, as did his mind. But he could tell, or maybe intuitively comprehend, that whatever happened to his soul now would not be easy to replicate on his own.
“How do I enter? Is there any advice you can give?” While Mala already came over to keep an eye on him, it was clear who Icy spoke to.
[We are limited due to your world’s knowledge on souls. However, secondary awakenings share a characteristic unseen in the primary three. These ones are all highly responsive to emotions and desires; do not be greedy]
Don’t be greedy…
That was probably something he needed to hear, months of waiting allowed him to read through more than a few books about the soul from his memories. And from what he’d seen, if he could have however many armaments existed… What even counted as greed here?
No time remained. He focused on the soul whose splashing surface somehow did not send ripples through his very being. Everything about it changed. No longer was his soul a single solid object, but instead a delicate thing wrapped up tightly. His ‘sight’, consciousness, or perhaps even the very roots of his existence, descended onto the ball of white.
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It touched down on the surface. An unstable texture he found surprisingly fluid, closer to water than syrup like he imagined. However, the thoughts ended there as a wave quickly rushed towards him, growing several times higher than his little sight. Stuck in the white glow, he just took a deep breath with the last remaining control of his physical body and watched as the wave crashed over him.
Everything went white as he went under. Mala watched him collapse, unconscious.
The whiteness around him kept him sane, and he slowly sank deeper and deeper into the sand grain of his soul. An object so small held a world within, and yet few ever traversed further than the surface. Time had no meaning to a soul, it lacked the senses or notion of such a thing, and so he just fell…
Minutes to hours. Hours to days…
Was it after about 5 days he finally felt a change? He grew bored at some point but always held the Nexus’ words in mind.
Do not be greedy.
There would be more chances to come in the future. For now, he just wished to explore and find what suited him most.
No– What he desired most.
The white faded, and he was met with a sight he could never have imagined. One which made so much sense and explained everything so well, but at the same time created a seed of doubt only comparable to the existence of the Exeter bloodline.
He saw bricks. Bricks of pure elements.
Behind him lay the white space. He saw it curve in the far distance and form a great wall around this inner portion. Here, there was both nothing and yet he floated as though in water and space at the same time. And he could see stars, thousands of them glittering like immaculate gems across the landscape…
All of them contained within the bricks which came together. They formed a wall of their own, trying to wrap around the stars deep within and form an unbreakable existence.
To protect, but at what cost?
Everything seemed so hazy, and yet every detail couldn’t have been clearer, fortunately, his partially-built wall did nothing to stop him. Through one of the massive holes, he descended deeper and, when looking upwards, found a conflict about it all. The bricks of green, yellow, blue, and purple all stood out against the white background. Not once had he ever questioned the ways these things were done, but right now, he truly had to.
Deeper in, he moved, approaching the stars which felt so far away. A moment of time passed, to him it became minutes, and the dark world around him transformed once more. Confounded by the change, he looked back but only saw the bricks and white background once more. That blackness no longer felt real. In fact, he may as well ask if it ever existed.
Probably not…
A tinge of navy blue coated the space around him, the world like an astral ink. Only now did depth truly appear… To travel so far and reach an abyss of the soul. He received a lot of time to just think. But how much he could think about was limited. Clung to vapid emotions, he recounted their meaning and expectation, but he no longer felt them. Such words emptied of meaning, and he knew the stars so far away only distanced themselves further.
Emotions in limbo, while he became stationary.
But not greedy.
…
“This is horrible, has it already been a month?” In this place of white, he could not talk, but that never stopped him from trying. Speaking helped dull some of the horrible feelings which sprouted. Or rather, it dulled the one he found horrible.
For the first time in years, he found loneliness.
It never haunted him before, even when alone for weeks or months at a time with not a single soul to speak to. And with the bout of loneliness, he reminded himself of the heartbreak of his birth. A light link to why he could never bear to reject the child so similar to himself.
“But I do understand why humans say it,” he lightly chuckled, but it was an empty noise once more. If something is lost, can it be regained?
In almost all cases, yes. But to never lose something is a greed he could not bear, a statement that a single, young dragon could never make. This place not only defined itself off his desires and emotions but fueled itself with them. He spent so long thinking. Just trying to find emotions which burnt tirelessly. To find that thing which he sought constantly, without end, but never giving up due to a slight stumble. A strong emotion that he wouldn’t give up at some point.
Betrayal, revenge, depression, compassion, love, anger, joy or suffering. None were things he knew much of or held long enough for them to make a meaningful impact on his life.
It was annoying to admit, but everything he did came from a desire for selfish gain. Obviously, not literally everything. But to say that power hadn’t been his largest motivator at all times was a bit ridiculous. Power to survive. Power to prove himself. Power to take revenge. Power to help others.
What about this bloodline enamoured him over the others with clearer benefits?
The god-damned power!
It always came down to that. He rarely cared too much about missing a way to grow stronger. But if he could get it with little to no danger, then obviously, he rushed to obtain it. Refusal made no sense in so many cases. But at the same time, he found himself questioning it, to clarify, not whether or not his beliefs and goals were wrong. At this point, the fact that he chose this bloodline for power became a fixed belief.
Instead, he wanted to know if this desire was greed.
But with such hesitation and thought, he came to a vague conclusion. From the simple fact that he possessed the will and ability to turn away merely on the belief of it potentially ruining him, how could it be so overwhelming as greed?
He knew the limits so clearly here. Not just his own but those imposed by the Nexus’ advice, and the result had to be simple. So, he took it.
Belief finally grasped, he completed the process.
He slunk back towards the stars once more, this time the far off spots of light grew larger at an incredible rate. In just minutes, he already flew past a few, expecting to move past more any second…
But the surroundings changed once more.
The inky deep blue vanished, and in its place appeared a landscape of vibrant colours of sky blue and pink. Yellows and greens appeared and vanished, the newly lit situation catching him by surprise but giving no time to adapt. He wouldn’t here, it’d taken so long to finally see through his own concerns and finally jump to the deeper depths of his own soul.
In the streams of colour, he saw the white stars still. Only those nearby overpowered the mix of colours which consumed his sight, very soon passing by at least twenty more by his count.
And then… he stopped in place. For the first time since arriving, 35 days to be exact, he felt something within.
Within what exactly? He couldn’t possibly answer that. Neither did he care.
In front of him lay a single star. A great ball of white like his soul from the outside, but this one was perfect and spherical. It released its pure light without end, and completely illuminated the surrounding realm of colour to the point where nothing beside it stood out. There was a beat, like a drum symbolising the start and end, nothing like a heartbeat but instead a victory cheer. There was only one thing left to do.
Reach out, and strip the layer.
The great ball which left him feeling like an ant shook, eager for his desire to grasp it. It was not alive, not truly… The white ball actually hadn’t moved even the slightest bit, completely stationary and firm as a part of him finally reached onto the ball.
His soul shook. It vibrated and quaked, only he and the ball left in place, and then it finished.
The pristine white orb did not crack, nor shatter, and absolutely did not explode. The white surface flaked off, bit by bit, like watching burnt paper crumble under the slightest breeze. He felt no pain but instead a raw humiliation, as though forced to reveal one of the deepest and most sensitive thoughts he’d ever had. But no part of him could identify such things, it was not a sensation he ever endured, yet, he understood its concept.
As more of the white star flaked off, its layers stripped one by one, his focus on the surroundings faded. The white light dimmed to reveal a myriad of bright colours once more, but as he felt a long tiredness, it too grew dark. However, he clung to the hope of seeing the process, and so usedcuriosity to keep himself awake.
“Does it taste of anything?” He had no body to speak of while observing so deep within his soul, but hardly stopped him from trying to eat it. Moving towards the strips of white which dissolved to nothingness, he moved closer and felt them adsorb onto his immaterial form, stuck like wet paper. As those pieces stuck to him broke down further and further to the point of nothingness, he did, in fact, ‘taste’ the pieces, not at all surprised that they were sweet and creamy.
The fact that it worked almost tempted him to taste other things. Perhaps try the areas before, or even the vivid colouration of the current place. But he deemed it too dangerous.
Satisfied, he tried to look into the ball, but without any openings, he could no longer hold off the exhaustion. Whether artificial or not, he just gave in and slept. The awakening would complete on its own from what he read. He wondered just what sat inside this.
What the hell were soul armaments anyway?