They had been traveling for a long time. At least a day, judging by Thalza’s internal clock. Their speed was quite low, considering what they were capable of, but with the air devoid of Qi, using extra energy just to travel faster was unwise.
Gerald wasn’t in a hurry and the ground was not conducive for fast speed running anyway. Besides, if there was anything they had in excess, it was time.
Thalza sighed and took out a Soul Stone. She stole it from a random guy she killed, along with a few others. As she examined it closer, she detected a slow trickle of usable Qi from it. The Soul trapped inside was slowly getting dissolved, barely enough to recharge her expended energy as they went.
Compared to it, siphoning power from the normal Spirit Stones would have been a thousand times faster, so it was a shame she didn’t have any. Recently resurrected and all that. Even her victims were flat broke, having been in the Lower Plane for years already. The easy sources of energy were all used up first, leaving only the slow and steady Soul Stones to feed on.
There was a sudden pull, and the crystal flew from her grasp into Gerald’s outstretched hand. [Hmm. What a curious thing.] He murmured, examining the Soul Stone.
Thalza glared at him without a word and then took another out of her storage to continue the process of recovery. She didn’t use a lot of power in the last fight, but it was better to be fully prepared at any time than to save. You never knew when disaster struck.
[Oh, wow… Talk about trash.] Gerald suddenly exclaimed. It prompted Thalza to pay more attention and look at him. [This thing has a terrible conversion rate. Around 1% I would say, the rest of the Soul just gets wasted.] He said, looking at her.
[Useless garbage.]
He tossed the crystal sphere back at her and then turned around, continuing his walk in a straight line.
Thalza caught it and stored it away since she could only absorb Qi from one at a time. It was not simple or easy to do, draining a Soul Stone, especially since the land itself wanted to drink the Base Qi leaking out of it like a dry sponge.
“Still better than the alternative. Without it, we would slowly starve in here. At least with this, I can Cultivate, even if it is slower than normal.”
[Oh, please… That thing needs at least a year to fully convert a Spirit Realm Soul into Qi. Multiply that by the number of beasts you need to kill that are at your Level… Yeah, good luck reaching the Sky Realm in the next century.]
Thalza snorted. “So? Like you could do any better.”
Gerald paused, turned around, and looked at her with a mischievous smile. He didn’t say anything even after some time and just continued walking. Thalza squinted at the unusual reaction, but without him saying anything she couldn’t guess what he was thinking.
[Do you know where the Soul Stones come from?] Gerald asked after some time.
“They are… made?” The Drow guessed, not really interested in the origin story.
[Kind of. They form inside some monsters that inhabit the Lower Plane for a long time. Gradually the creatures adapt to this hellish place, repurposing certain organs to grow the Soul Stone. It’s actually a really crude attempt at a much greater power, the ability to consume Souls. Isn’t that fascinating?]
Thalza shrugged. She didn’t think so, especially with how slow the Soul Stone was, but she supposed it was better than nothing. The beasts still had to fight to survive, but even a trickle of Qi in such a place was a treasure worth fighting for.
[Such creatures are very rare, of course, and you can’t tell from the outside who has it, so there is no way to target them. I believe only two were among those we killed back there, and that’s already considered lucky.]
“Uh-uh.” Thalza nodded absentmindedly. She was more interested in sucking up the Qi that the crystal was giving off, rather than listening to random trivia about monsters.
Another thing that bugged her about Gerald was that he was strong. The Drow had a natural respect for powerful beings, and unfortunately, he was up there among the best. It made her feelings about him really complicated. She hated him, but at the same time, she respected and even slightly admired him.
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The fact that she couldn’t even scratch him while he was under her spell was even more irksome. There was a saying her elders liked to use when problems arose.
Even gods can bleed.
It basically meant that nothing was impossible. That every obstacle could be beaten.
Yeah, but what if that isn’t true? What if there is someone that does not bleed? What then?
She pinched her glabella in frustration and sighed.
Ugh. This is so damn annoying! Why am I even following him?!
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[Say, can you see inside that illusion of yours?] Gerald suddenly asked out of the blue. He didn’t even bother fully turning around to look at her and simply shifted his head to one side slightly.
Thalza snorted and decided not to answer. That question was way too personal for her, touching upon the workings of her magic. Besides, if he really wanted to know he could just look for himself. She wasn’t sure how much of her mind remained untouched after all his probing.
[I see…] Gerald replied, showing he was at least skimming the surface of her thoughts. [So how does that work? Can you see the memories to create those convincing illusions, or…?]
What a stupid question. I’m not like you. Thalza mused internally, pretending not to notice his mental touch.
Her illusions differed from others as they worked exclusively in the mind of the victim and were not visible to the world outside. She just had to send them in, and then the subconscious memories, the old and forgotten, those that weren’t protected by the conscious mind, would rise up to create a convincing distraction. Those memories would be pushed to the forefront, blocking out all other senses.
The victim would completely forget who or where they were, distracted by the visions. Few ever managed to resist her magic, and even fewer escaped her grasp.
Only once the illusions formed would she know what was created, but she couldn’t influence it much, or else the magic could break.
So, in a sense, she knew exactly what happened both times she put Gerald to sleep, and that is exactly what made her so angry the last time. She was doing her best to kill him while he was enjoying and playing around with the illusions in his mind.
He was flirting and fooling around with some random memory. And while she did her best to stab him in the heart, he was also stabbing back, only in a different kind of manner. And she had to see all of it, lest she break the illusion!
In the end, it was still too much for her and the magic fell apart, waking him up.
She suspected he could have broken out of the illusion on his own at any time, considering he was perfectly aware it was an illusion, yet instead of doing that, he chose to taunt her, having fun while she couldn’t even scratch his unguarded body.
The man was beyond infuriating most of the time, yet he also revealed some world-shattering secrets. Of course, she didn’t completely believe him. The mind-reader could probably easily fabricate false reality and alter her memories. Still, it was worth considering. If it was true that Demons were the enemy that already tried to enslave them once, then that was concerning, to say the least.
Just the possibility of having their path to godhood cut off was enough to make her blood boil. She knew that High Priest Antasaghar met with a Demon representative a few times, taking suggestions from it and whatnot. Maybe even orders. The secrecy that surrounded their allies was gradually becoming more suspicious in her mind.
Most Drow didn’t even know about Demons, being just as clueless about them as most humans were, but even those that knew about them only knew they were their allies, nothing more.
I don’t even know what’s real anymore… Ugh! I feel like I’m going crazy!
Thalza wanted to bang her head against a rock or something, the headache of overthinking pressing hard on her psyche. While being stuck in the Lower Plane she couldn’t confirm or disprove anything she was told, and things like that spiraled in her mind, looking for an outlet that didn’t exist.
With great effort, she pushed all those thoughts to the side and tried to meditate while on the move to distract herself. Maybe it would have worked, but the trickle of Qi coming from the Soul Stone was so tragically underpowered that it left her mind wandering for a long time after every Cultivation cycle.
The only other thing she could do to distract herself was to have a conversation, but her only viable partner was completely in his own world, and besides, she didn’t want to speak with him.
That left the rhythmic sound of gravel crunching beneath their feet. Not exactly a relaxing sound to meditate to.
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After finally surrendering to the eternal suffering of not knowing, she heard quiet scraping sounds coming from the front. Gerald, that infuriating man, was doing something again. She couldn’t see, and her pride would not let her ask, so that was just one more thing added to the pile of unsatisfied curiosity.
Whatever he was creating took a few long, torturous hours to complete, and with a final flash of magic, it was done. What it was, she didn’t know, but her curiosity was finally sated as he casually threw an egg-shaped object to the side.
It looked like a smooth stone, or an actual egg, painted with gold and silver. The thing landed in a small pile of loose gravel and dust, kicking up a small gray cloud. The egg then suddenly moved, righting itself, and then sank down into the stone beneath.
A moment later the pile of rocks became alive, and out stepped a humanoid figure about the size of a Mortal man. It came up to her chest and barely over the waistline for Gerald.
Thalza watched in confusion as the rock golem stumbled and leaned precariously before getting used to the uneven terrain, running to catch up with them and taking a spot behind Gerald. It was small and weak, made of inferior material, yet it still dutifully followed its creator.
In the silence, another pair of footsteps joined them, and soon that was all she could hear, apart from a familiar scraping noise coming from Gerald as he busied himself at the front of the line.
That… thing behind him… the golem, or whatever it was, he was making more.