“I want to move on to taste. I have a good idea of what I will be using as reference.”
The light scent of the herbs all around them played at his senses. The mixture of smells became closer to what he remembered of the swamps back home with each time he visited his soul domain.
It seemed to grow more and more solid each time he took the space in.
“You should really spend more time on smell if you can. It is not every day that you move up a realm after all. Well, It does feel like that with you but that is exceedingly strange.”
“I know you can see what we are going through. I need as much Qi to throw around as possible to help us in this upcoming fight and another realm higher is the only way you have told me to increase it.” His attempts at persuasion were answered with a quick exhale from the soul soil.
“Yeah, I know. You should be fully aware that you haven't even come close to running out of Qi before. I feel like this is just an excuse to progress much faster than you should be.”
The words left Egosum silent as he thought about the deeper reasons for his desire to increase his power. It hadn’t been anything conscious when he came to this decision. He just wanted to be able to do more in the battle, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that Pangu was right.
“To be truthful, I do not care at all if you want to try speeding it up. It’ll be a fun little experiment to see how your body reacts.”
Egosum glued at the soulless tone of voice and causally explained possible consequences.
“Now, what you want to do for taste is pretty simple. Just like smell, you only need to incorporate your idea of taste with your dao. The only difference is that you have no way of experiencing taste without having it in your mouth, so you need to use your entire imagination for this. You also don’t want to focus on the tastes as integral to your dao because that has some weird consequences.”
Egosum closed his eyes as he listened to his temporary master. The old monster fell into a few tangents as he thought about his past.
The memories of his time in the vernal pools and then during the early days of his journey.
“I feel confident that you will be okay with moving to taste earlier than the others if we are being realistic. It isn’t nearly as rough on the body nor as world-shaking in effect.”
He cut out the parts of early tadpolehood that didn’t relate to eating.
The feeling of pushing warm water with his tail as he surged forward to take a bite of the prepared pellets, the sight of their round and greenish-yellow appearance, and the soft, crumbly texture all fell away from him as he focused more on just the taste.
“When I thought of war as a small fry, all I thought of was salty rations, weak beer, and a metallic taste from blood. Let me tell you what, getting stabbed in the gut is the worst pain I have ever felt and I have been through some shit.” The dirt ranted once again.
“Please stop talking to me, I am almost in a trance and you aren’t helping.” Egosum whispered out into his soul domain, filling the winds with his voice.
Silence fell over his world as Pangu stopped speaking. His hearing slowly lost focus on the surroundings with no harsh and grating voice to disrupt him.
The tangy and sweet flavor of the prepared pellets mixed together with a strong crustacean smell made up most of his life.
The faint flavors of herbs came through at different parts of the year but became a constant point of interest to him and his spawn mates.
Frogbit, camber lily, and frog bulbitis were just a few of the herbs he actually knew the names of now, but almost a dozen other flavors played at his mind as he thought back.
While the plants did not make a swamp's distinct odor, they were definitely intimately tied to the tastes prominent in the swamp.
The senses varied in usage so much that only his earliest months of life made up most of the exploratory nature of his sense of taste.
His palate was molded early and cemented recently.
The bugs he ate were flavorless as he swallowed them down with ease before his taste plates could get a hint at what he shoved down inside but the herbs always made themselves known.
His mouth watered at the fond memories. It was the easiest of his senses yet to incorporate into his dao. The memories of the flavor sat in the back of his mind, safely away from his pallet thanks to Pangu’s warning.
His eyes slowly opened back up as he became acquainted with the realm once again.
Sight, touch, smell, and taste were all blatantly apparent to him in varying intensities.
“Congratulations. That might have been the fastest incorporation of a realm ever or at least very close to it. Your eyes were only shut for a few moments before you came back. Ooo, this is definitely incredibly strange to experience. Taste as a pile of dirt is something I never would have expected.” His musings caught EGosum’s attention.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“You develop senses the same time I do? How?” Pangu laughed quietly before speaking up.
“I am literally a part of your dao realm. When you incorporate your senses into it, you incorporate them into me as well. It is plainly obvious that would happen in my opinion.”
Egosum grumbled at the small slight.
“Well, I am sorry I’m not some ancient monster that has hundreds of years of experience.” His tone carried heavy sarcasm as he enjoyed the serene swamp that lived inside his Qi core.
“Thousands.” The casual one-off comment made Egosum do a double take to look over at the patch of soil.
“What?!” The tone was frantic and obviously surprised.
“I told you I outlived the oldest of trees. I wasn’t kidding. Chopped a demonic tree down when it was about ten thousand years old and I had already been around for a bit before it was a sapling.” The total enormity of the sentence was hard for him to understand.
Egosum had his world rocked by Cinera’s understanding on the history of magic and how long it had been around less than a month ago. Now he was stuck trying to comprehend how long thousands of years would actually be.
He hadn’t been around for more than a year and a half himself and the literal dirt in his soul was inhabited by the soul of an ancient monster.
“Don’t let it get to you. Years are relative anyway. A year here isn’t the same as a year where I am from. Anyway, that was impressive. You should spend whatever time we have left here developing your senses together. The more cohesive they become, the better you will end up doing.”
Egosum let the conversation fall to silence as he experienced everything within his world.
Water flowed up through the ground from some hidden aquifer to fill in the shallow ponds and streams that blanketed the landscape.
The herbs and other random plants held tightly to the dirt to add stability to his ever-expanding Qi core.
Wind randomly whipped through the short plants and the odd tree to spread the deep bog smell across the landscape.
He squished his feet into the mud with each hop he took. Cool water filled his prints in, seeping through the earth in the same way the ponds were filled.
The beautiful sights played out everywhere he looked. The smallest of details from falling leaves to broken branches and perfectly still, stagnant pools all held a unique sense of wonder.
All of this held firmly within his core. The nebulous container within his body marked him as something between a mage and a cultivator if Pangu was to believed.
He felt all of the power he had been cultivating with each minute movement. His presence in his core made everything more vibrant and hard to miss. Qi pulsed all around him as he empowered his vision.
The sky flickered abruptly. In and out, the world began to change around him from a serene wetland to a blank scape.
He opened his eyes to look at what startled him from his pleasant life within his Qi core.
Thunkar was standing off to the side with his frog friend in his hands and his webbed back leg extended towards him like a prod.
“What are you doing?” His voice made the beastman jump in the short tent, hitting his head on one of the poles holding it up, shaking the entire thing like it was in a wind storm.
“Gods, you startled me. I thought you were going to kick again.”Egosum’s eyes wandered over the boy, landing on a matted-down piece of fur that looked disheveled compared to the rest.
“So you used Coyotl to poke me awake instead of risking yourself?” The kid rubbed the back of his head in shame.
“Well, them makes it sound worse than it is.”
“Is it already time to go and collect the parasites?”
Thunkar nodded his head as he scuttled back out of the tent, dropping the frog onto the moist ground Egosum called home.
“Owa owa.”
“Yes indeed. Very rude of him. Now let’s get going.”
The pair of amphibians made their way from the tent and saw Cinera waiting for them in the distance with the kid.
“I have something for you.” He pulled his hands from his back and presented him a new hook.
The weapon was light pink and not as well made compared to the first one he lost to the cat.
The point was dull and the curve was less pronounced.
“I know it isn’t the best but I figured anything helps.”
“No, thank you.” Egosum sheathed the weapon into his wrist mount and gathered the group's attention.
“This will be a hard fight. In the best-case scenario, only Punishe dies and the next pack leader lets them all come home to become one with the village again. That will have its own challenges but it will be a step in the right direction.”
Egosum took a deep breath as his mind raced to the possible issues and deaths that could arise.
“It will not be easy. Battles rarely are as we have come to find. I will explain more as we meet the parasites. Is everyone ready to head out?” He scanned the people before him.
The salamander nodded her head in a constant bobbing motion, the frog stared off blankly behind him, and the beastman tensed his hands in anticipation of the battle.
With the entire party's consent. He turned for the gate and balked at the woman standing in their way.
The old matriarch walked towards the group with something clenched in her fist and a tight expression.
“Granny, we are going to do this regardless of what you say here and now. You said ti yourself. This must happen.” Thunkar stepped forward.
Morgal watched him in silence as she slowly untensed her body before sighing.
“I know. I just wanted to tell you that all of your family is proud of you. Me, your mom and dad, and the rest of the village. You mean so much to us all. It’s… I just wanted to tell you that and to give this to you.” She held her hand forward and unfurled in before him.
A necklace bearing various trophies from animals of all types. Dozens of teeth lined the fiber that held them together.
Thunkar balked at the necklace.
“But it was lost when my father took his final stand.” He looked up to her eyes to try and understand.
“One of the hunters was able to get it before they fled. We would like you to have it.” She held it in both hands, opening it to slip it over his neck.
Thunkar looked unsure of himself as he looked at the piece.
“Just take it!” Cinera bumped his leg from the back, staggering him forward slightly and into the reach of Morgal's arms.
She draped the decoration around his neck and drew him into a tight embrace.
“Stay safe. Your parents wouldn’t let me live my last Days peacefully if you died tonight.”