The rest of the morning was normal if normal involved a princess blushing whenever you looked at her and constantly telling you to 'forget yesterday ever happened!' We disassembled our camp and made space for the potion ritual which involved a nineteen pointed star surrounding a circle with a potion placed at the tip of each spike.
Taking the chance to change the topic, I began explaining some of the basic runes while distributing the potions. Now, these potions were nothing too special with the potion of strength, for example, gave someone between a ten and thirty percent strength increase for an hour while the potion of purity cured poison and the potions of rebirth healed up to three hundred health. Yet each of these seeming weak individual parts was required to form an impressive whole.
The purpose of this ritual was to cultivate and strengthen the body in the same fashion those old monks used to talk about. Considering the constant fact that my people's myths, legends and rumours kept aligning with the realities of these higher worlds it made me wonder if our saints, prophets and immortals were just people from here trolling a non-magical world. I mean there literally is an eight gates Ki skill that would allow one to ascend to a higher realm just like in the monk's teachings. It fits their description right down to the gate names and where they are located in the body.
I later found this speculation to be correct. Over the millennia many pieces of information have fallen from higher layers into the non-magical 8th layer only to be recorded as a form of religion.
Deciding I would like to see the ritual in practice, I made the princess a guinea pig.
“Hey princess, since you made these potions how about you go first?”
Giving me an incredulous look she retorted, “Why the hell should I do that? The potions were made following your recipe.”
Lying to her I responded, “Because if something goes wrong I can stop the ritual, you can't.” With a defeated expression She entered the circle and sat cross-legged on the ground.
As the inscriptions lit up a hollow sphere of water was formed from the atmosphere surrounding her. The vials containing the potions opened and the rainbow coloured liquids were drawn to the sphere colouring its surface like a moving painting. The sphere slowly collapsed inwards and when it reached the princess I realised we might have a problem. The purpose of this ritual was to continually destroy and rebuild the cells, strengthening them in the process. Well, guess what happens when it encounters non-magical non-living material such as clothing, it gets destroyed but not reformed. Watching the unexpected event the only thing going through my mind was “she is never going to let me live the down.”
A 100% naked as the day she was born princess sat before me and if not for the multicoloured oil-like haze of the potions acting like a censor bar in hentai I would have seen everything. Like any normal 20ish-year-old human male present with a beautiful naked woman, I popped a stiffy. I mean travelling with a hot girl was one thing but seeing her naked was something different. Knowing that the ritual was working and would finish in an hour I want into the forest to both relieve myself and get out of dodge.
When I returned the princess was glowing red. Not in an “I'm embarrassed” manner but more akin to a boiled lobster complete with steam. The changes were subtle but still visible as she appeared more toned, sporting a six-pack and was slightly taller. She had gathered some clothing fro her belongings and all that remained in the circle was a black, foul-smelling sludge. I approached and was met with a slap. “Did you see?” She screamed at me
“No! When I saw the ritual was working correctly I left.” I replied trying to hide my smile. Still unconvinced, I continued “Was I here when you came out? Didn't I just return?” She shrugged and marched off towards the local stream and I chose not to follow.
Despite my best efforts it still took until the afternoon to get her to believe me that I did not expect that to happen and she only agreed to let the issue drop after stating that she would watch my ritual as compensation.
Some might jump at the opportunity to show a woman their junk but I have some level of shame and modesty. Before beginning my ritual I created a set of underwear from woven vines and leaves believing that if it was living matter it would remain intact. So as to stall any attempts at undermining my plan I wore my oldest, most damaged clothing over the top hiding the new addition.
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As the ritual began and the sphere formed it was like viewing the world through distorted glass. The potions dissolved into the liquid spreading colours through providing a sensation I could only describe as being inside a kaleidoscope. Then it collapsed and I watched as my clothing disappeared but the plant underwear remained, the last thing I remember before the pain began was getting the stink eye from the princess and hearing the word “Traitor”.
Your probably wondering, Jack, your a young single guy and Emily is a young single girl so why not try and see what happens? Are you some kind of celibate priest, or are you gay?
To answer your questions I'm not gay and I would be more than happy to turn in my newly restored virginity card except for one small problem. My primordial yang was an ingredient to create the clone needed to house the pheonixian remnant. So the second I fuck someone or something. Be it human, elf, orc, dracon, monster, male or female I have essentially committed suicide. Just another reason to add to the list of 'why I wanted this sleeping god to vacate my soul'.
Coming back into consciousness I checked my status to see the results. A new category called 'cultivation' had opened listing the 'Seven Chakras Scripture - 1st chakra – root'. I had chosen this option due to its ability to strengthen the body, unlike other methods I had access to that created special attacks or allowed one to ascend without reaching level 100.
The additional 2 points to strength, dexterity and constitution were helpful but the strengthened skeleton skill was the real objective. With each additional chakra release, it would have the potential to generate a new skill while further increasing this skill to the point my bones would become as strong as adamantium, capable of existing under the pressure and temperatures found in the centre of a star. When combined with the mussel strengthening of Samsara Scripture I would be almost unkillable. The only problem was the resources needed for either the hell realm of samsara or 2nd chakra – sacred were incredibly rare.
The next few days displayed the difference between our classes. While I was carefully wandering this toxic zone, double-checking everything with identify so as to not poison myself. The princess was taking a leisurely stroll without a care in the world. Due to the monsters here devoting all their evolution potential towards toxicity they were relatively weak and the princess immunity allowed her to kill them with ease.
There was nothing more annoying than seeing her smug smile as she simply stomped on a level 35 dread scorpion. The small, fist-sized invertebrate had poison that was capable of killing a thousand level 30 humans with one sting yet it met its end under the boot of a loli. Unable to contain myself I lashed out “Laugh it up princess you must feel like a god in this place but not everything it the world lacks the ability to harm you.” I realised I might have been a bit harsh and the rest of the day passed in awkward silence.
With Emily extracting the poison from the local plants and animals she had become a walking bioweapon. With the addition of her recently doubled stat gains from levelling she was well on her way to being the most dangerous thing on the planet. To slightly limit her strengths, seeing as I thought I would be leaving her behind, I did not provide her with a Time binder.
When she raised the idea of catching a creature from this forest I countered with an idea that would sound like insanity to most, to corrupt her nature elemental. Even she originally baulked at the idea as it was a choice that would normally lead to certain doom. Corruption of an elemental was always had a small chance to happen in nature and it didn't harm or detriment the actual creature in any way.
The problem was if a bonded elemental became corrupted it would also slowly corrupt the host. In Emily's case however since corruption was a type of poison she would be immune, so corrupting her elemental would actually increase it's strength while aligning it more closely to her class. After explaining the advantages and disadvantages she decided to give it a go.
Since we decided to corrupt it we had to decide how. There were multiple methods of corruption such as an elemental being contaminated by its opposite element or absorbing energy directly from an old one to become an abomination. We decided to just lace it with poison and curse mana while hoping for a good result.
The process was simple so Emily summoned the physical form of her familiar, The two-foot-high swaying tree with bright purple bark and red leaves was kind of cute. She gathered nature mana from the local area and started to feed the creature. As it began to absorb the supplied mana, it danced with a happy vibration. Looking at me she whispered, "Do we really need to do this?"
I could only play the villain and respond "Only if you truly want to get strong enough to take back your kingdom."
Emily started to incorporate curse mana and poison into the nature mana and the small not so intelligent tree continued to absorb it without noticing the change. Over the course of the next two hours we slowly decrease the nature mana until eventually, the tree was feeding on only poison and curses.
The once red leaves slowly changed to purple with visible green veins while the bark changed to a glossy black. The once lively looking plant became contorted and twisted after checking it with identify it had changed from a Nature Elemental into a Sapling of Despair. Truth be told after seeing the end result we both felt kinda sad for the once happy tree but unfortunately, there was no undoing what we had done.
Deciding to take a break from the killing and mutations the princess asked me if I had a familiar. Upon seeing the dumb turtle she kicked me in the shin and yelled, “I spent a week looking for that fucking Mirage Turtle. No wonder I could not find it!” in mocking jest, I retorted, "Guess I beat you to it or considering how I encountered it, it beat you to me. How's it feel to lose a race to a turtle?"
Despite the sore shin, I was happy the turtle had changed the depressing mood. Unfortunately, I did not notice the still physically summoned turtle eating a random stone from the ground. This small act would be both a blessing and a curse, causing this to be the most expensive turtle in history.