“Oh…” Tim sighed, “You weren’t kidding about the ‘readjustment’, man. I’m feeling a lot of new things!”
Skendus the rat remained in the cave with him. He didn’t talk as much now, but one could notice the excitement that he was feeling, as it was very apparent in his gleaming, wide pupils! He wanted to see what Timothy was capable of now.
Tim did exactly that, he tried to summon one of his new, soul-based powers. Much like most of the powers that he possessed, it only took a thought to summon these new ones. Through a single thought, he summoned the unpredictable!
It was unpredictable, because he was suddenly airborne. For a second, Tim thought that he had detached his soul from his own body, but that was not the case. He was transparent now, much like most ghosts were, yes, but he didn’t actually leave his body behind this time around, but took his body with him instead! This twist of things was phenomenal due to multiple reasons.
Rather than detaching from his physical body, he had, in a way, transformed his whole body into this blue, ghostly form instead! One may even question how this was possible, and rightfully so as this was really weird, however, magical abilities were never restrained by the mundane laws of physics, no, so simply everything was possible!
This transformation was truly something, because it broke many barriers of what the typical ghost and or living creature was capable of. It broke the basic norms of evolution, shapeshifting, and or soul-based abilities all together! Tim could even re-summon his physical body upon will, so forget being human, this was a trait fit for the gods, he felt powerful!
“It would appear that the punished brothers have gifted you with their signature power,” Skendus added, “A long time ago, they gifted me with the same abilities, so I can tell you that they're really useful! You should be able to merge with other souls as well now, Tim, just like they can.”
Tim then transformed right back to a spider, as he had already put his powers to the test, at least a little bit. He was excited how this new ability of his worked so flawlessly, so he smiled as widely as a spider could smile!
Then, he followed along. “This is all so badass, man! They touched my bum-hole, but fuck it, I can forgive them! I can forgive you too now, Skendus. You scared the shit out of me with those goats, but you helped me the most, so I appreciate it!”
“You’re welcome, erg, I was just feeding my ego, come to think of it.” Skendus added.
“Feed whatever you want, it doesn’t matter. I’m like a god now, muhuhahaha!” He celebrated, in blissful ignorance.
“Not quite, you’re just despising the gods, Timmeth, remember that. So am I, actually, and so is everyone who received blessings from this cave, we all despise the gods!” Skendus pointed out, ”These new powers that the punished brothers gave you, they’re very rare, at least for all of us within the god’s punishment realm of mana, so these powers, they're a shining emblem of our defiance, boy! You know things are bad when even the dead stand in protest, ghosts are equally as punished as us, so we'd like to think that our cause is justified. We stand against such brute punishment that the gods so carelessly inflict upon us!”
Furthermore, he added. “We must protest, for as long as we stand. The god’s punishment realm of mana is specifically designed to punish us weaker creatures, as you know, and so many have died while they tried to push through the realm’s eight, gruesome levels! The punished brothers died like that as well, hence the word punished in their name. However, their failure made them so angry, that they came back as ghosts, created their own soul tampering cave afterwards, and have offered mystical powers ever since! They offer their ghostly powers to anyone who wishes to bear them, so let their resilience be a motivator to our cause.”
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Although all of this sounded pretty interesting, Tim didn’t ask for such a lengthy history lesson, and yet Skendus didn’t ask for his permission either. He had tried to stay quiet, but now, he felt obligated to educate the other regarding the new powers that he obtained!
For that matter, he continued. “You now have powers that don’t belong in the god’s punishment realm of mana, not at all, remember that. So, by accepting these powers, you despise the gods as well, just as much as we do! You despise the gods, and the torture that they inflict against us, the weaker! Erg, that’s all you have to remember about your newly altered soul, kid.”
“Cool,” Tim nodded, “The cave looks pretty badass too! Lotta colors, purple and shit.”
Just then, Skendus realized that Tim hadn’t been listening to a single word that he said. Skendus then used his illusion-oriented powers to brush through Tim’s brain for a few seconds, and confirmed that he hadn’t been listening at all. He was admiring the luminous colors of the cave, but that was about it, his brain was fairly smooth, so smooth that it could reflect rays of light!
“I guess the sea doesn’t offer many colors,” Skendus thought, and decided not to bother the little spider anymore.
Tim then led the conversation himself, he said. “As cool as the cave is, I gotta get back home, bro. I thought that the dry lands would be fun, but I almost died seventy-two times ever since I beached on this god-forsaken land! It's not funny anymore.”
“Right, you’re from the sea. There’s a lot in your mind too, ironically, erg… What's this green stuff you’re thinking about? Call me crazy, but I think that it traumatized you more than the devilish ants did.” The other asked.
The conversations that followed along were extensive, and half of them were quite pointless. Timothy was a chatty patty, he talked to himself a lot, for example, and with the system too, so he didn’t mind being a part of lengthy conversations with other living creatures, he parkoured from one topic to the other one too! Skendus didn’t initially want to bother the other with a bunch of questions, but now he couldn’t help himself. Tim was an experienced little fish, and he spoke his mind quite unapologetically too, so it was fun to talk to him about any matter, especially since he was really friendly as well.
A bunch of their conversations ended up being worthless, but a few of them turned out to be serious. They stupendously ended up making a joint plan, and it was a very important plan too. They reached such an agreement because they had very similar minds and aspirations!
Skendus was an explorative guy as well, and unsurprisingly, he bore the explorative soul ability too, just like Timmy did. He had explored the world a little bit, and liked what it had to offer, so it wasn’t a surprise that they got along really well.
Anyway, as for the plan, Skendus decided to join Timothy on his trip back home. They were to submerge in the sea together, and battle whatever the tides had to throw against them. Skendus could shapeshift too, and even though he wasn’t used to swimming, he was sure that he could adapt quickly. He was confident about the idea, especially since his arsenal of powers was plentiful.
He thought, “I stole the powers off of a demonic shifter a long time ago, like two decades ago probably, so I guess it’s time to put them into use. Should be fun to be a fish for once, fish are entertaining!”
Skendus would have to leave the radiant one-eye sect behind for a while, and this was disadvantageous because the sect was very important to him, but his mind was made up already. The sect wouldn’t punish him for exploring the world, so he could come back home whenever he wanted to. He had every ounce of freedom that a rat could wish for!
Anyway, since they’ve decided to leave this place together, that’s exactly what they did. They transformed their physical bodies into ghostly ones, with the separate use of that power which Tim had acquired earlier, called atomic shifting! This ability was useful, very easy to use as well. Then, they left the soul-tampering cave!
The exit of the cave didn’t go easy on their souls, though. It felt as if they were going through a snug, astronomical wormhole, and this was very uncomfortable. They even felt a bit of pain, which shouldn’t be possible at all for ghosts, yet they felt it!
They made it out of the soul-tampering cave eventually, and once they did, they didn’t really have any other obstacles in front of them. The sea was close by because Tim hadn’t traveled too far, as he had been a spider throughout his time spent on dry land, and spiders didn’t really have the biggest or most travel-friendly legs.
Since he didn’t travel far, they reached the sea right away, and dived towards it with a goal in mind. They wanted to explore the sea, more specifically, they wanted to figure out where anti mana came from, and they hoped that nothing would stand in their way!