At first Kai felt nothing but disorientation. All of his senses seemed to be missing... except for one. He could still feel the hunger surging within him, as ravenous as always. And yet it was part of him, and it wasn't mindless even if it was always hungry. When he reached out to it, he saw a new piece of his own soul.

<

Thunderbird (???)

>

So he had done it. Those symbols floating in his mind's eyes were what he needed to pull himself together, and everything else came with it. Behemoth's Heart was beating furiously, but it seemed to be healing his scorched flesh. In fact, that final experience had finally tipped him over the edge to Physique D-3. He couldn't have been unconscious long, based on the smoke he saw rising around him.

When he sat up he saw that he'd fallen on top of the Thunderbird in the center of a blackened crater. A huge bite had been taken from its chest, including the monster core that he'd consumed. Other than that, it looked surprisingly intact: the feathers spread over the stone, still crackling with lightning. He felt like laughing in victory, but his throat hurt too much.

"Came down to the wire, didn't it?" Omilaena walked onto the corpse, stepping gingerly on the crackling feathers.

"But we made it. And I couldn't have done it without you." Kai hopped up and grinned. "I didn't have to sacrifice any long term power, so I should be able to use the Thunderbird to its fullest potential. That's still an open question, since I need mobility more than flight, but now I can-"

"That's nice and all, but are you going to put on some clothes?"

Kai looked down and realized that the lightning had thoroughly blasted off... pretty much everything. His regeneration had restored his body, but nothing else, and he instinctively moved to cover himself while Omilaena chuckled.

"I mean, I'm not complaining." She exaggeratedly lowered her head to stare. "Very nice. But it might make the wrong impression on the elves."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." Kai reached into his spatial ring, which was one of the only intact items on his body, and summoned a piece of cloth. Once he wrapped it around his waist and tied it he looked more like a conquering barbarian than a naked madman.

"Do you just have a bunch of cloth in your spatial ring?"

"I mean, this is a recurring problem with my powers."

"If you find yourself so frequently naked you develop a system, I think the problem has more to do with you." Omilaena chuckled, but there wasn't any mockery in it. She put her hand on one hip, not seductively but just easing a weary body into a more comfortable position. "Are we finally done for a little while?"

"For a while." Kai sighed and rubbed his aching jaw. "I've probably been pushing too hard. If I don't rest I get less efficient, but learning that lesson never seems to stick."

"It seems to me that you're not suited to just doing nothing. You need to relax to something, not away from something."

Kai stared at Omilaena for a moment, surprised to hear something like that from her. Maybe she was right. Even if he'd grown to like training, he didn't want to spend his entire life doing it, but the problem was that he needed something more than just kicking back and resting. Of course, realizing that didn't help much when all he had to do was train.

Still... at the moment, he stood atop the corpse of the Thunderbird. It had been his quarry for a long time, and even longer for the elves. He could feel the new power pulsing within him, filled with potential.

For today, at least, it would be easy to relax.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

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Omilaena's work only continued after the battle, because she needed to harvest the body of the Thunderbird. Kai had apparently taken all of the meat that he needed, unfortunately including the monster core that could have been immensely valuable. That still left all of the electric feathers, which had to be taken apart carefully for future usage.

She spent a while puzzling over the beak and the claws, which were tough but not extraordinary. No poisons or venoms and not so durable that they could be used as armor. Most likely the best usage would be to melt them down for use as reagents - someone with a stronger background in potions or chakra alchemy would know more.

Soon enough the Bludshard elves showed up, hesitant at first and then celebratory. Some of them began playing instruments and dancing while, thankfully, others came to help her with her work. She insisted on keeping some of the feathers for her own experiments, but let the elves have all the rest.

"Hell of a thing," Yonto said mildly when he showed up. "Even the Council wouldn't help us with the Thunderbird."

"We're just glad to help," Kai started to say, but Omilaena covered his mouth before he could go too far.

"We're glad to help with your hunt," she said, "but if this has earned us a boon..."

"Yeah, sure." Yonto shrugged. "We're not much for boon-granting up here, but-"

"Do you have access to the Primal Loom? We could use a-"

"Naw." It was his turn to interrupt her and Yonto shrugged in a way that suggested the matter was closed. "We don't get involved with that sort of thing. I think we'll just pay you, for the trouble and for all the resources from the body. Somebody better at numbers will get it figured out."

When they returned to the caverns, they were paid over one million Crests. Omilaena stared at the chakra-dense coins as they were shoveled into Kai's spatial ring - she'd been thinking of this as an investment in Kai, but it had actually been a good use of her time from a purely monetary perspective. Now they had enough money to buy a hell of a lot of resources, maybe even some of the strongest.

Not the very highest tier, of course. The most powerful items on Rosemount couldn't be bought.

The celebratory mood followed them back to the caverns, where the Bludshard elves seemed glad for the opportunity to cut loose. They broke out some new wine, far superior to anything they'd served before, and set up a feast. She and Kai were at the center of it, which she navigated more easily than he did.

As the night moved on, some of the elves started going off in little clusters. Seemed like the Bludshards weren't much for monogamy, or prudery, or in some cases public decency. Kai wasn't quite the uptight boy he'd once been, but when three extremely attractive elven women approached him, he turned them down and moved off for more privacy. She recognized his smile as the false one he wore when he wasn't comfortable and pursued.

"No teasing tonight," Kai said quietly.

"I won't." She came to stand beside him and didn't push his boundaries. "Most would call you crazy for turning them down, though. I would have taken them up on it."

"Not really my thing."

"Are you serious? That's what a lot of men dream about."

Kai shrugged and she almost thought that he was going to push her away, but eventually he spoke up in an odd tone. "Back in Rayakan, there... I guess that's not important. I had a chance and it just made me feel... it wasn't what I wanted. And in Krysal, none of that... I don't know, it wasn't really satisfying. I'm a man, sure, but not an animal."

Omilaena had hoped to get closer to him but wasn't sure what she could say to that, so she just stood with him, not judging. Internally, she wondered whether it was his nature or something else that made him so stupidly loyal. Refusing to be unfaithful to a committed partner was one thing, but he was going abstinent because of a weird half-promise to a virgin girl who needed to get her own head on straight. If the two of them launched into a long, awkward courtship she was going to vomit.

She wished someone would care that much about her, but she'd probably never earn it.

Once they separated, Omilaena rejoined the festivities and took the opportunity to drink as much free chakra wine as possible. By stretching her Heart of Poison to apply to alcohol she could filter out the effects and just absorb the chakra without getting drunk. It still made her feel loose and confident, relaxed after so much time in the wilderness.

As the evening wore on, a trio of elves approached her: two strikingly handsome men and a woman who was just her type. And Omilaena turned them down. Not as clumsily as Kai, but she did. What the hell was wrong with her?

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Zae Zin Nim could barely see the number in her soul - it said 100%, but the meager symbols were overwhelmed by the sense of fullness. She had cultivated so much qi over so much time, it felt simultaneously overdue and impossible that she should be this close.

How long had she been cultivating in the Deep Vital Pool? Just a little over two months, she thought, but the time all blurred together. For her it was a meditative experience, but she knew that other things had been going on, from hunts to local politics to celebrations. She felt a moment of fear that Kai and Omilaena had simply left her and smothered it, because she had no time for emotions now.

Instead she focused on the mechanics of the last details, making sure everything was in place, both in the chamber and in her soul. Then she notified the guards and locked the door from the inside. After one more circuit around the chamber, settling her spirit, she sat down in the center.

It was finally time to advance.