I woke up as I had fallen asleep. The place was mostly fixed, and the spirits were doing what they always did; playing around, monitoring the area and fixing things that seemed off.

I jumped in the lake and floated on the surface. I didn’t benefit much from a power spot, but it did feel nice. I saw a long queue coming out of the entrance of the frozen cave. The spirit sisters were handing out bread and all these spirits were standing in the line. Bunch of weirdos.

I checked on Giana’s spirit and she was still unconscious. I let her spirit float in the lake next to me.

After her spirit strengthened enough, I took her out of the lake and created a workshop out of ice. I took her physical body out and inspected her. Nothing off with the body, It's ready to receive her spirit. I carefully inspected her spirit to determine what extra traits she will be picking up.

Noelle entered as I did my best to synchronize her body with her spirit. I did this by placing the hand of her spirit in spirit water, which I applied to the body. “Can I help?”

Uhh, I don’t think so, the 2 traits she got from Cockroach are ‘perseverance’ and ‘fast information processing’. Do you mind if Giana inherits those traits?

“She was already persevering but fast information processing? That sounds good but why did Cockroach have that trait?”

I don’t know but apparently, she was some sort of genius.

“Ha! A genius in being annoying! I’m honestly relieved that there are no negative traits.”

Hmm, I will warn you though, while Giana would be the same as you know her, she will be slightly different in combat, I ran some simulations on the possibilities.

“Oh, no, is it bad?”

Hmm, well she got a perseverance and fast information processing of which she already had perseverance so that’s just going to become stronger, she is also a 9t so she already should have fast information processing, if she wasn’t already a genius in combat she will be now, also the power spot strengthened her spirit. This sounds wrong, but this might have turned her into a monster and maybe potentially the strongest individual we have experienced in many years, maybe ever.

“Oooh! That sounds good! It is good right?”

Well, this is all theoretical, it will be important to keep her safe because the gods love messing with 9t so we have to keep her safe till she becomes more experienced

“Ok… I trust you.”

I slowly and precisely lowered Giana’s spirit into her body. Some unfamiliar white lightning started to crackle while doing this. Giana’s spirit moved and she woke up screaming and I instantly aborted.

“Why did you stop? You said it would be uncomfortable, right?”

Yes, but it shouldn’t hurt…

I apologized to Giana and Noelle, and I soothed her. Giana looked around, still in a daze. “Wha.. what’s going on?”

I’m sorry Giana, because my mistakes you ended up dying. I can’t undo the pain and discomfort you went through, but I will do my best to get you back to your body.

Giana looked at her hands. “You don’t need to apologize, I did all this expecting to die, I didn’t expect this to happen, however. What happened?”

Noelle tried to hug Giana, but she went through her. She tuned whatever makes her touch spirits twice and hugged Giana when she got it right.

We will go over it later, I need to figure out why your body is rejecting your spirit, I’m sure your spirit is still in the range where it shouldn’t be rejected.

I opened various filters and started analyzing Giana’s body and spirit.

Do you mind if I take a look at your spirit?

“If you need it, I will give it to you.” I dipped her ‘spirit’ hand in the spirit water again and inspected her spirit tethers. They were quite frayed. I took out some Ichor Pneuma and fed it to the spirit tethers. They absorbed it and repaired, but not fully.

She inhaled deeply and started humming. “Oh, this feels good, what is this?”

I will explain another time.

I couldn’t determine if the problem was her spirit or her body. Did her spirit outgrow her body? That shouldn’t be the case.

Ok Noelle, I need you to take her body and cleanse it with this spirit water like a shower, Giana might be able to return to her body if you do.

Noelle narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t you do it?”

It’s like taking a bath or shower and I’m a guy…

“So?”

I didn’t like the look on her face. Please?

“Fine! I can’t say no to a request from my lil’ bro! You were cool in that fight to save Giana, though.” Noelle got up and picked up Giana’s body.

“Oh, Noelle can you tell me all about it?”

“Sure! Come let’s go!”

The two left and I sat down in a frost chair and grabbed my head. I had a headache. I was also angry at myself. We got lucky and Giana can still be saved, but otherwise that would have been the end of her. All because I didn’t take things serious at the start. I knew lives were on the line, and I still messed around.

Trying to prevent them from finding out that I was a 9t eh? What’s the point if another 9t dies. I wondered what I’m supposed to do. I can’t properly look after myself, and I’m a danger to others around me. Just dying is also not an option.

I sighed, and focused on the immediate problem.

What do I address first? I started to run simulations on what could be wrong with Giana. Why is her body rejecting her? Should I manually retie her spirit tethers to her body? I don’t know how to do that. Maybe feed her enough Ichor Pneuma.

I looked through my archive and went through Rignef’s research, but there was nothing about this in it. I had to figure this out myself.

What would I do in case this happened to Bywen? I would refresh the Ichor Pneuma. But I can’t do this because Giana has a real body. Maybe the spirit energy in her body is upset because her spirit got ripped out.

The bath Noelle is giving her should fix that but… I got an idea.

Bodies reject spirits when they’re too weak. I forgot, but Giana’s body has 1 MP and 1 HP. If I can send nature energy into her body, she would heal, although quite slowly. About mana, I wonder if her body accepts pure mana from frost magic, pure mana would be the best option, actually.

If that bath doesn’t work, I will go for this.

I kept running simulations and refining the ideas I have. It’s health and mana restoration and if that didn’t work I would go for spirit tether restoration. I got quite far when they returned. It took them 3 hours for this task. I didn’t pry, but I was honestly wondering why it would take so long.

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The first thing that Giana did was hug me. “Thank you.”

Don’t thank me, this was my fault. Let’s see if this works. It might hurt.

Noelle laid Giana’s body on the bed. I noticed that Giana’s body, who was first wearing normal clothing, was wearing a risqué bikini. It was pleasing to the eyes. Too pleasing.

So, a question, I know that I’m not going to like this answer, but why is Giana dressed like this?

“Your eyes must be weary; you need something pleasant to look at. Also, it’s time that Giana finishes you off!” Noelle did the things with her eyebrows that Raishin sometimes did and Giana’s spirit got a bit red.

I knew it… well rejoice I think you’re perfectly suited for Raishin, you two would get along well anyway, Giana can you lie down and overlap your spirit with your body? Noelle pull her spirit out if Giana is experiencing pain.

Giana tried, but I could already see the white sparks, so I pulled her in.

Ok, this is not going to work, let’s go for plan B.

I went 9t mode and applied nature energy to her and sped up time. I also had Nilah relinquish the remaining pure mana she had and poured it into Giana’s body. I saw Noelle gasp and cover her mouth, which turned into an extremely annoying expression. I stopped when I had no more pure mana to give.

Ok, try again.

Giana’s spirit was still red but tried again, and the spirit tethers grabbed on to her body. I took out more Ichor Pneuma and fed it to the spirit tethers. It took a while, but Giana’s body and her spirit successfully became one. I kept applying Ichor Pneuma until all spirit tethers were restored.

“Why isn’t she getting up?”

Hmm, this sometimes needs a click. It might be what those stalkers did.

I placed one fist on her forehead and another on her chest and gently pressed and her body started to give off a lot of spirit energy. It was almost a spirit energy burst. She opened her glowing eyes and slowly got up.

“Wow, I feel good. Thank you!” More hugs. I already noticed something different about her. Her tails were a bit ambiguous at first, but they were silver now. Her spirit energy, which was nearly nonexistent before, was quite pronounced now. I may have turned her into a monster. What’s also is monstrous is this charm magic. I…I don’t think I can win from her. I think I’m toast. Zen Agnis had left the building.

“I somehow feel better than I ever did before?”

That’s strange, you are not on full health or mana.

She healed herself and did a cute dance.

She’s just a client, she’s just a client. I activated a mild [Blood and Thunder] as my blood was rushing to a part of my body that didn’t need it currently.

“Yup! I’m way stronger now but something is different. Are you ok?”

Yeah, sorry about that, I couldn’t get everything from cockroach out of you and don’t mind me.

“That’s not what I mean. I can feel now what you feel without using [Empathic bond] is it because you gave me your mana?”

Uhh, that’s not a good thing and I don’t know.

“And uhh…” Giana became red and fidgeted. “Do you know what it means to give me your pure mana?”

I cocked my head.

Huh?

I sensed some disappointment, but it quickly disappeared. Noelle was also shaking her head, disappointed. Did I do something wrong?

“I see, don’t beat yourself up on this, we made this difficult for you too, you’re not completely to blame.”

This is so uncomfortable… anyway, I need to do some more checkups to see if everything is alrig…

Noelle got up from her crystal chair. “How about you sleep some more! You still seem tired from that fight! And sleep in the house I make this time dammit!”

But Giana needs some more checkups!

Giana, hugged me and used [Sleep] on me.

Hey that’s not fair…

-

I woke up in a comfy improvised bed. I was still exhausted, but I was also starving. I looked around, and I was in some house made out of earth magic. It wasn't just regular earth magic construction; this was the work of a 7t. My tails needed brushing, so that was the first thing I did. Giana reacted to my Elgards eyes and headed over to this room.

She opened the door and stared at my tails. "How do you feel?"

Hungry.

"Perfect, we have food and we got bread from Nayani, let's eat!" She grabbed my hand and led me to the dining table.

The furniture caught my interest.

Is this all-earth magic?

Noelle who was fixing a door turned around. "No, I just found trees or rocks that made sense to serve as base materials and subjected them to [Polygonic construction]. Giana was in charge of furnishing and I made the blueprints and handled construction, but that's not important here, eat."

It was fish and seafood prepared in 4 different ways. There was also chicken and rabbit. Everything wolves and foxes love to eat.

There was a little bit of rice and some things made out of potatoes, but nobody was touching that, we were all going after the meat. I expected them to say something, but they were surprisingly quiet. There were some pastries that were very impressive and a loaf of bread in the shape of a snowflake. It looked like it would be a royal pain in the ass to make bread in that shape.

I checked the time and so much time had passed that their day of arrival should be tomorrow.

Let’s get you to Gittrian after we finish eating.

“That can wait, your rest is more important and we want to thank you again.” Giana said while still staring at my tails.

Thank me by never putting yourself in a situation where you will die. After thinking about it, the only condition under which they could kill you, was if you used your sacrifice skill. Their whole plan might have been to get you so far.

"Hmm, for having Giana as a target they surely ignored her a lot, yeah. So, guarding her backfired…"

There is no way we could've known that, and it doesn't feel good to send her out alone.

"Either way, I'm glad I had you 2 by my side, I would have handled it the same way if I had a chance to do this over because I feel that I gained more than I lost."

So bright! So, dazzling! My eyes!

"Shut up! I mean it!" I got hit by a headlock.

"Do I need to leave you two alone?"

Nah, it is time to get you two to Gittrian before I lose control.

Noelle crossed her arms and leaned backward. "That can wait, you need to relax."

"How about we go for a swim, do you want to see my bikini?"

I facepalmed. They wanted to go swimming… I had no time for this.

You know what I should have done this a long time ago.

“Done what?”

I’m sorry for what happened, but it was also good to have met you. Say hi to Yvonne for me.

Giana seemed to have guessed what I was about to do, but it was too late. I used [Elgard Overload], zoomed in on Gittrian, located an empty house and swapped this crystal house and everyone in it, besides myself, with [Turning Leaf]. I spent 4 minutes kicking impossibilities out of reality before I could end it.

I was the only one with a physical body now in this area in a strange house. The idols had successfully been delivered at their destination. My headache was killing me, so I went to sleep.