He hopped for hours on end, looking for a place to come to rest when it finally entered his sight. A rotten log that formed the perfect small cave for him to rest his weary body.

It was the perfect height to accommodate him and all he had to do was evict the previous tenants. The small hairy creatures found a nice and comfortable place to rest in his stomach as he hunkered down in the moist soil below.

Something about his surroundings felt so right to him. They weren’t vernal pools, but they were definitely something. He could almost imagine living here for years on end, becoming the undisputed ruler of this area.

The king of this rotten kingdom.

He shook the strange thought out of his head. He would be lulled into such a feeling of complacency just yet. He still had things to do.

The ground around him molded to his shape as he sunk deeper into the substrate below.

It was nearly home, just not quite yet. The world warped slightly. His eyes seemed to be playing tricks on him.

Water seeped in from underneath his feet and filled in the space. The log sunk into the newly formed mud, locking it to the ground forever. The mosses changed slightly from short sparse greenery to tall and spongy sphagnum.

The dark black dirt lost its nutritious color, replaced by brown clay. The wood warped from a fallen pine into waterlogged cypress.

This was truly home. He was finally comfortable for one since the erasure of his old life.

He fell asleep in the newly formed swamp.

-

“That was weird. How did you do it?” The oh so familiar voice spoke to him while his eyes were still shut.

“Ugh. What are you talking about, dirt?”

“Can you not call me that? I am THE Celestial Demon. I wiped worlds from the universe. I started and ended empires. I outlived the oldest trees. I am Pangu Fei.” The speech almost sounded heroic if it wasn’t said by a patch of dirt.

“And I am Egosum. I am the toad of wonder. Jumper of worlds. Oh right. I am also still alive unlike a certain somebody. Didn’t outlive the trees near me, did you?”

“Damn, you are just getting more and more mean with the insults.” The soul soil flinched at the jabs and glowed slightly at the horrific burn. “What did I do to you?”

“Um, maybe you wished for my death, tried to do some freaky shit to this place, and constantly annoyed me.” The tension was palpable in the air.

“Oooooooh. I see. Well, I shall be the bigger individual and say I am sorry. Time flows strangely here so that stuff feels like an eon ago for me. Let's sit those petty grudges aside and make amends. Shall we?”

The request infuriated him. The dirt still found ways to bother him even when he tried to apologize. The only thing in that speech that stood out to him was that he wished to be the bigger man. He would not let the prick have any sort of moral high ground.

"Fine, I shall be the true bigger man and forgo all of the small slights you send my way. What were you asking me earlier?” Egosum sat up and stared down to the ground imperiously.

“I…I… Ugh. Whatever. I was asking about how you manifest your dao without even being in the mortal realm. That shouldn't really be possible until the permeation realm. You might be able to do it as a peak condensation realm but that would be pushing it.” The flood of worlds confused him slightly as he thought about the question.

“I guess that is very simple. I don’t know. You are welcome.” The finality to his voice through Pangu off.

“I see……. Well, I must say that you truly impressed me with that display. You might just be a talent of the millennia. You must have felt an immense drain from that manifestation since your body isn’t used to expending that much energy.”

The only reason he was here was the complete exhaustion he felt from the days of tension finally being let out. If anything, he felt better than before creating that miniature swamp around him. It felt homely.

“Not really. It felt kind of nice actually. It reminded me of where I came from.”

“Fascinating. You might have the highest attunement for a Dao I have ever seen. I am pretty sure you could even surpass your master and that other guy. Um, was it Quetulopus? Yes, that was it. You could rule this world with my guidance. Take it back over for your kin once and for all and all that.”

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The vision he was provided by dirt was truly dream-worthy. In fact. It matched up with his dream exactly. If what it said was true, he might just be willing to give him a shot at teaching him.

“Fine. I will listen to you, but you better not mislead me. I can just ignore you for eternity.”

“Yes! Oh, yes! You will love it. The rushes of power when you ascend, the strength that will funnel through your body. It will be spectacular.” Pangu glowed a slight blue in apparent joy.

“Let's get started right way. Do you remember how you created that small swamp around you?”

“How do you know I even did that? I didn’t tell you about it.” Doubt crept into his mind as he thought.

“Oh. Well, I found out a way to see through your eyes while you were gone. It doesn't do anything to you, I was just so bored that I finally found a loophole to provide me with some entertainment. Really helps synchronize your time and my time together. That little stunt of utilizing your dao let me take a peek outside.”

“You really talk for a long time.” The terse response flustered the dirt slightly.

“Shut it. I am your master now and my main goal is to get you up in realms. How can I do that without lengthy speeches? Huh? Do not even think about answering that. It was rhetorical.”

‘That really did get under his skin. I will need to put that away for later.’

“Now. That feeling of connection with your Dao from creating the swamp should give us a good starting point. Remember and store that feeling in your mind. Instead of pushing it out into the surrounding, bring it inwards and incorporate it into your flesh, bones, and organ. Make it part of you and deny it when it tries to leak from you”

Egosum took a few deep breaths as he took the swamp around him inside. The freshly grown sprouts were pulled inwards, incorporating themselves into his vision of an idealized swamp.

There was something missing from it.

‘Where were the noises, the smells, the tastes, the vibrations, the sights?’

He felt lost in his own idea of what wetlands were. They were just thoughts in his head. Words without meaning behind them. He felt an intense desire to fill them in. They needed to be defined.

“Stop. You already broke through.”

“Why don't I keep going? I felt Like I was getting somewhere.” The frustration he felt was immense. The ideas were almost there, he just needed to ponder them a little longer to piece them together.

“I know. That is exactly why. You easily broke into the first layer of the mortal realm. Now it is all about consolidating the layers into your body. You were about to slip into the condensation layer. Without the qi to support the ideas you were planning to insert, you would have turned into a husk of your former self.”

Egosum vibrated with energy unlike any time before. He felt like his body was overflowing and needed action to calm it.

“.....I see. It's just so frustrating. I felt like I was almost there.” He sat back down to relax. The power in his body felt more personal than before. When he flexed his muscles, they weren't the only thing within him to respond. A nebulous power within him stood to attention.

“You did very well. Now all you need to do is focus on holding the power close to you to strengthen your layers. By the time you reach the fifth layer you will already be as strong as five full grown men despite your small stature.”

He saw visions of himself throwing his full force into a hop and flying through the air as the great goddesses intended. His thirst for power was fully ignited

“I can see it in your eyes. Your desire for strength is very high. That is what’s most important. Without it, you will stagnate and become complacent with where you find yourself.”

Pangu glowed fiercely at the thought of power.

“One day you shall rule this planet. This might be quite fun for me.”

“Thanks. I look forward to growing with this method. I feel like I'm not just stuck in purgatory anymore. I feel some self-agency for once.” Egosum voiced his honest appreciation and bowed slightly.

“Hmmm. That's weird. I haven't ever taught anyone before. It made me feel a little tingly.” The toad before him flinched away in disgust.

“Hey! Don’t make this weird. I just meant that it felt kind of good to help someone out is all.”

He relaxed slightly as the dirt rushed to explain.

For once, he didn’t feel like coming back to this derelict swamp, devoid of all the things that would describe it as so. It was a waste of the time he could be using to explore whatever dream world his mind could create.

“Remember. Internalize the qi. Keep it from leaking. The higher concentration you can maintain, the faster that process will be. By the time i see you next, you will hopefully have reached the 5th stage and condensation can occur.”

The world around the toad blinked in and out of existence. He gave the patch of dirt before him one more bow and slowly faded out of his soul domain.

‘What a wonderful experience. I feel better than ever. The swamp around him felt like home, nearly as he remembered it. The feeling was not only afforded to land though. His entire being was infused with the same wetland feel of what layed around him.

He had finally reached harmony within himself.

A sticky feeling touched his back softly. Thinking it was just a drop of water, he looked back for the source of it.

He saw a figure behind him and rocketed out of his little slice of paradise.

“I will kill you... Whatever you are!” Out of the dark cypress log hopped a large green frog.

All of the previous tension left his body before he tightened his grasp on the leaking dao.

It hopped towards him again.

“Hello, brother. I wasn’t expecting to meet one of our kind in this goddess-forsaken land.” Egosum stuck his chest out in pride. He needed to show his best appearance to his kin if he was going to lead them in the future.

The frog before him was reminiscent of some of the more common foot soldiers of their civilization's army. The light brown dots and gray-green skin channeled memories of home as the frog before him hopped closer.

‘Please don’t try to eat my face.’

“Can you speak? I am Egosum, apprentice to Quetinctol and survivor of the attack on our people.”

The creature before him hopped closer and closer before resting one of its hands on his side.

“Um, hello? Can you not speak?” His attempts at communication fell flat as the frog merely turned its head slightly at his questioning.