With their small feast finished, the trio headed to the old woman's tent and were welcomed at the flap by a much more energetic Morgal than they had seen before.
The permanent scowl and dejected attitude were gone, replaced with a kindly old lady's grin and lidded eyes.
“You look happier.” She let them in and sat on the close across from the group.
“To be entirely candid, I was not too sure how much longer we were going to be able to last without some food beyond the stuff we could forage nearby. Don't want to attract attention here and the hunters haven't been back in a long time so we were running low on food and spirit.”
She took a deep breath before looking at all three of them.
“Thank you. I wasn’t really expecting any outside help and I really don’t have anything to offer you. I had a tent put up to the back right of this one. You are welcome to use it if you intended to stick around for a bit. Any more food you could hunt for us would be immensely appreciated. Again, just, thank you.”
The old lady bowed her head slightly in reverence.
“We plan to stick around for a few more days. We will try to bring something back each time we go out. Hopefully, we can alleviate some of the stress and concern for food. Well, it is getting pretty late. I think we will head to the tent to rest. I appreciate the hospitality.”
Her face lit up at the news and she showed them the way out and had someone guide them to the tent.
It was bare except for a couple of hay pillows they could sleep on. It was the perfect place for the group to spend their time when not exploring. They found a comfortable spot and drifted off into sleep.
-
“Hello, Mr.Hero!” The overly chipper voice startled him to attention. The vibrant and wet swamp welcomed him back as the sights of the soul domain flooded into him. The world felt more complete than ever before.
The ground felt more solid, the water wetter, the clouds darker, the muck stickier, and the herbs more colorful. It was a verifiable paradise for him and his kin. He took a deep breath and notice that there was finally a hint of something drifting around in the background.
It was a mixture of earth and rot. The perfect smell of a healthy wetland.
“What changed since I was last back? I feel like I can smell something. I don’t remember that being like this.” The question elicited a light chuckle from the patch of earth below him.
“You noticed pretty quickly. I am impressed. Normally people would take a few weeks to tell that something even changed in their soul domain despite it being so integral to their dao. That smell is from your efforts recently. That monster core you ingested did a good deal of the work lifting your senses out of your corporeal body. “
Egosum cut the ranting man off as the last sentence finished setting in.
“Monster core!?” What do you mean monster core? That stuff leads creatures like me into monster territory. I’ve heard all of the stories back home of people falling to the temptation of easy power.” The toad fell into a repetitive state of going back in forth between denial and confusion. It was a continuous state of despair.
“Relax you dimwit. Do you really think just because you ate one little monster core that you are going to become a demonic beast? You should have seen the stuff I ate. It would make this planet's core look like a dumpling. You already solidified your dao and it has done its work in incorporating the rouge power well. There isn’t an ounce of taint in your body.”
The words eventually caught up to him as the dirt continued to assuage his concerns.
“It is perfectly safe as long as you don’t start to rely on them like you said. It's only a crutch for those without a strong basal dao. Now calm down and let us talk.” Egosum took rapid and deep breaths as he tried to focus in on Pangu’s words.
“Good. Now, I wanted to congratulate you. You broke right through the second realm of condensation and even smelt the third layer. You exceeded my expectations in every way. I mean, That deer fight was really something to watch. Funny but it definitely showed a clear understanding of your dao and an interesting usage of its influence on the earth.”
Egosum looked at Pangu for the first time since his freak-out. His breaths were even and calm.
“Yeah. I felt the earth around me cradling my body and I let my qi seep into the dirt on reflex. It hardened like a shell to protect me before turning into a deadly trap. I am quite proud it worked out.”
“Ah, and that is where the issue lies. It only worked out that way due to luck. If you had a teacher to help you develop techniques or consolidate your observations, you might actually go into a fight certain of victory. Not just feeling confident but actually knowing you are going to win because losing isn't even a possability.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The response was obviously leading, but Egosum failed to disagree. Quetinctol was nowhere to be seen and no other amphibian seniors that could match his style were anywhere nearby.
“Fine. You are right. So, what are you going to teach me?”
“Hold on. Before I teach you anything about how to utilize your Qi, I need to teach you how to channel it into manifestation. Those antlers on that creature you killed recently were a manifestation of its Qi. If you were using Qi sight correctly, then you would have seen them when you looked at it through the ashen cloud, but since you were looking for its Qi signature you only saw its basal form.”
“You need to change how you see the world in Qi sight from passive to active. Detached Qi is visible but when it stays in contact with a beast's body, it is more subtle. It requires you to merge physical sight into Qi sight. It is simpler than it sounds. Like using half of your eye for each sense. That will help you to see all dangers and speed up reaction times.
“The new sense of touch is much different. It will help you overcome that innate resistance in the living world. Before you could change small parts around you. A pace or less. Now that you have gained strength, it works in conjunction with touch to expand your powers further. The deer fight showcased it perfectly. You influenced five paces around you to turn it into a trap perfect for the beast.”
“If you focus on the connections between particles, then you will expand that distance drastically. That is the whole purpose of the second realm of touch. Practice these two things, then we will work on the third realm of smell. “
Egosumconcentrated on his eyes. The strange sensation of two orbs flicking from side to side was impossible to ignore. The friction of eyeballs in their sockets stole any attention he placed on his vision.
“I feel like the more I focus on my eyes, the less focused I can be.”
“True. Try to focus on the sense of sight not the sense of touch.”
The help transitioned the feeling from one of fluid motion in his body to one of watching the world grow into predetermined actions. The water trickling down the side of a tree happened twice. The clouds in the sky floated past the same point repeatedly. Everywhere he looked, double vision welcomed him.
“It’s-” He was abruptly cut off before he could speak.
“I know. Less talking, focus on that double sight. Shorten the time between them. Merge them.” The voice was more of a whisper now. The harsh voice Pangu put on had faded into the background. His senses were too focused to acknowledge him.
Hours seemed to tick by as he tried to bring the two worlds together. It started off slow. The images occurred randomly. They never followed the same pattern. After trial and error at adjusting the flow of his dao in the realm, the dilation between each sight normalized.
The world was already more clear. It was just watching it replay once again instead of being a jumble of cut-up videos overlapping.
He moved to shorten the delay and found the process far easier as he merely willed the separate worlds closer together. The delay disappeared as the time rapidly diminished.
When he finally finished, he took a look around his soul domain and was amazed more than he thought possible. The trees standing around him breathed with life like those in the elven kingdom had. The water ebbed and flowed with Qi distinct to it compared to the earth it poured over.
Despite the overlapping signatures, everything was visible. One tree’s leaves did nothing to hide the others behind it. Everything carried the same opacity but one lone patch of earth not far from his side. The spot Pangu melded with appeared far too dense to glimpse though.
It was a black spot in his world of wonders.
“I figured it out.”
The voice startled the soul dirt from his own musings, causing him to respond with confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
“I figured the Qi sight out. Feels a lot like soul, Qi, and mana sight all wrapped into one though.”
There was a short pause before Pangu answered.
“I would say that is accurate, but what do you mean you figured it out?”
The world around them shuttered and flickered as the tell-tale sign of Egosum stirring from sleep signaled the end of their talk.
The morning light was visible through the cracks in the leather tent, perfectly landing across his eyes. The other amphibians were still completely asleep.
Egosum crawled out of the tent and was met with a very strange sight. A pile of wooden toys and strange devices sat before him. He turned side to side as he tried to understand what they were.
“You like the presents? The kids left them for you as thanks.” Thunkar stood off to the side of their tent, seemingly waiting for someone to come out.
“Why? We don’t want them.” The stoney line caused the boy to visibly recoil.
“Woah. You can't crush their hearts like that. At least put them in the tent for now and give them to Granny to give out later. Let 'em down easy you know.” He took it upon himself to push them through the flap startling the remaining occupants awake.
“You really flip-flop between touching and crass. Anyway, are you ready to go hunting again?” The question fell on deaf ears as he hopped away to find something to drink.
The boy ran after him to guide him around the village.
“I feel a little more certain than before. We can go out to hunt for a little bit. First, we need to get my friends stuff to drink as well. Cinera might enjoy some fire.” Thunkar turned his head in confusion before shrugging it away and answering his demands.
The kids around the village seemed to have endless energy from the feast the night prior as they played with bigger smiles than he had seen when they first walked through the village. They thanked him as they ran by, expressing childish joy in a way only they could.
I can see Quetinctol's interest in the younger generation was starting to make a little more sense to me.
-
“I feel like I become a hero everywhere we go.” He turned to his side where Cinera baked in the still-warm coals.
“Yeah. Very true. I don’t mind it though. Pretty nice.”
“And to think, all we had to do was hunt a deer. Didn’t even require us to save a whole nation.”
They spoke about random topics before Coyotl let out his signature call, startling everyone nearby.
Thunkar walked over whittling away at a bone before looking up to strike up a conversation.
“Does that mean we are ready to go?”
Egosum looked back at his friend who had left the water and decided that the decision had been made for him.
“I guess so.”