Sachihiro

Shikai breaks with time as pieces of me get numb, I lose grip of the higher energy state after an unknowable amount of time in which I have been theorising my existence. I can’t stay here forever so the first thing I need is to figure out where best to appear to receive assistance when I arrive.

Oddly enough I think the best situation for me would be to get help from the Draug. I already know he’s greedy and has something going on the side with Phosphorus and he wants me alive at least long enough to benefit from my bargain with the Spirit/deity. The Library is a very good alternative but they already have way too much access to me, and nothing really compels them to help me without getting paid.

My family would freak and I may just die leaving them confused and hurt.

Okay, so Phosphorus is my target. It’s no surprise that there is a spiritual bond between the Draug and I through my position as herald. What surprises me is that I notice my spiritual connection with Phosphorus in the Draug’s possession within the spiritual realm. I see/feel it clearly because it is mine and I see that it’s still strongly attached to me, I can take it back if I want but the Draug has it. All the better, I have something to leverage the Ancient Beast's help.

Having decided where to risk my next jump back I focus; back to experimenting with my current existence so I do this right.

It’s immediately clear that within my dimensions I have no limits, at least none that I can currently see. I am all hands I am all eyes I am all tongue I am all ears within myself I am all-seeing. I create and witness the complex symmetry of chain reactions involved when I cast mana within myself. A spark of colour that blooms gayly, burning across my particles as directed.

I discover with pleased surprise my artifact storage ring allows me to bring physical objects within myself in the spiritual realm. I empty my 'pockets' within the isolated space that is me. A pile of spiritually steaming shit, my library orb, blood crystals connected to the essence of those I love, my storage bag with all my supplies. All here floating inside me in their own little isolated bubble.

My bag of holding is filled with travelling supplies and items intended as gifts for my wives, most everything else I bought I left in the cabin in Atopia. There are some exhausted stylus’ I eject from the bubble that quickly disintegrates as they leave the confines of my spirit-body. So I am acting as some sort of insulation against the destruction that occurs when spirit meets material.

I attempt to change the shape of my spirit body, an attempt like sucking up my stomach flexing and though the spirit particles that make me up slosh and roll nothing I do changes my overall circular shape. I wanted to try to be humanoid before I jump back into the physical but it seems to be a no go.

Fuck it. Here goes!

Establishing a connection... the Draug accepts the connection and I pull myself through an opening I form within myself. Body and spirit wholly coming through inside out like intestines of a fresh kill being cleaned...

[BHOO], [TSEEE...]

...

I occupy space, disoriented but quickly adjusting to perceive myself perceiving ether radiating into me bursting within my particles becoming mana. Mana not just sustaining me but fueling my particles to overcharge causing them to bud more molecules which are energised to overcharge budding more particles.

I’m pumped tighter than tighter still within my body bloating outward from within then it stops.

It’s funny how I have complete sensory perception within myself but now that I see/feel the most within I have no idea what I look like without. I perceive the Draug quietly watching me without an iota of change its expression or aura, almost bored indifference yet I’m wondering what he sees.

I take a breath as I normally would, perceiving the heat fumigating outward from the stone but originally coming from the Draug in some way I can’t interpret. I see him, I see all around me from every angle like I’m some giant eye with 360 vision.

Maybe I am a giant eye. Weird.

Yet not weird at all.

Everything about this is new but familiar. I see better and further than I could before, the heat isn’t scatting yet my feeling of it has deepened; more resistant yet more sensitive. I perceive everything external that I would normally perceive if I was just standing here in my human body but I feel it deeper.

A rock beneath me I engulf, tasting it, feeling it, floating it around within my dimensions like I have it cupped in the palm of my hand. I exert pressure on the rock tightening myself firmly around it, surely I could smother a person with such pressure. The rock shoots out of me with force as I sling it far into the darkness.

THUCK, it hits something after a moment in which I relax myself letting go of the tight hold over my particles.

Zanjutsu releases which surprises me because I didn’t realise I was in the duel state of existence with Honour. My particle fall apart but I catch myself quickly, now a flat bottomed dome-shaped blob of particles/things somehow holding myself from completely collapsing into a jelly puddle.

I may be crazy for doing this but I don't wanna be clenching my anus like this the whole time.

I let myself go dropping as I expected into a spreading puddle of mass that spreads spreads and spreads going around obstacles taking the easiest route yet ignoring gravity. I’m relieved there aren’t any holes here I don’t know what would happened by now I’m spilt fluid but I'm conscious. I’m very grateful to be consciously aware of everything happening to me otherwise I'd be in a much stronger state of panic.

I think.

My particles don’t separate, spreading like spilt paint thinning the whole time until I'm spread so thin I can’t spread any further. A burst of spirit-mana from my stretched form then an implosion of spirit from the spiritual realm and mana from the physical causing/allowing me to retract back. With mana as fuel the process reverses as I coalesce the energy within me.

Rolling back from flat on the ground to circular becoming a ball of living particles that can perfectly perceive everything within the 10 diameters of its circular dimensions.

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Everything settles. I'm a giant marble. It's a bit embarrassing for some reason.

The Draug is looking at me with the most bored expression I have ever seen on him.

‘’Herald, you come to me unsummoned.’’

Immediately I am weary at the aura of threat accompanying his words, serious threat that makes me doubt everything I think I know about this creature and what motivates it.

‘’I had a visit from Phosphorus,’’ I say quickly. I immediately feel the mood change so I go with that. ‘’He offered me a great treasure.’’

Mhm, ‘’and what did you do with this treasure?’’

‘’I rejected it of course seeing as it was a first offer.’’

I move by rolling around, not getting disoriented or dizzy from the motion though my insides shift. Orientation suddenly isn’t as significant as it once was, I can move fairly quickly as well but there is no subtly at all. I’m a giant pearl but I’m not complaining, just surprised, no there has to be more than this. Why would I evolve into a giant pearl at the 4th Tier?

This is a 4th tier evolution right?

Is this all an accident or natural, did I fuck myself up? Can I revert back to humanoid? Why hasn't the Draug commented?

No, I feel too comfortable for this not to be natural so I play around with myself as under the Draug's intense gaze. Using water-mana manipulation I can change the consistency of the particles that make me up. Managing to decrease my weight works at increasing subtly and decreases speed but decreases power. I can change how my particles are aligned and interact with a burst of mana just like water manipulation.

‘’You rejected it,'' silence. ''Why come to me with this herald?’’

‘’I would be honoured of course if you would deal with the Spirit on my behalf, of course, a tenth of all he pays will be yours.’’

'Hahahahahaha,' the stone rumbles as a predator with a sharp hungry gaze flashes past all my spirit-aura defences directly into my psyche.

‘’You have the jewels of a dragonling truly, coming to me as you have. I will do you the honour of representing you against this creature taking a fith of all he gives, in turn you will go announce my coming back from whence I was banished. After which we will be done with each other.’’

A fifth, is 80% of what I should get actually satisfactory for me? No, but for a chance at being rid of Phosphorus and the Draug both for good in terms of spiritual obligations, it's a bargain. To be honest with myself even when I made that proposal I expected nothing, I'm just trying to keep myself alive so everything else that comes my way will be a bonus.

‘’What assurances of safety will the Smouldering Ruin give me I wonder while heralding him to people powerful enough to banish even his august self? What rewards?'' It sounds like I just might become that stain on the wall after all before this relationship officially comes to an end.

Finally, I manage to make my form the perfect combination of hard and yielding that allows me to move about quickly but also subtly not rolling like a ball of stone but bouncing and moving like an inflated rubber ball.

I don’t really want any pay or reassurances from this creature but I want it to value me, I want it to put a value on what my heralding it is worth ‘cause clearly I can undervalue myself.

A predatory aura, ‘’a perfect time for you to cultivate.’’

‘’I still have things to do first. No. Wait!’’

He grabs me, opens a rift in space and stuffs me into a cavity of a rock forcefully. I can’t wiggle out of his monstrous grasp as I fill a hole in the wall. My shape changes like water in a glass as I twist this way and that morphing, stretching to fill the too-small spaces I’m shoved into.

I hear ringing, I am shaking in imitation with the cave I’ve been deposited into. I’m shaking minutely but with more speed than I know how to shake off. Every part of my outer shell itches terribly, my outer shelI particles being energised and pulled apart by the shaking. I resist as long as I can but start breaking down anyway. I start melting as my particles are shaken apart, am I in the tuning-stone?

I listen, the blasting shower of the roaring waterfall unmistakable now. There is an explosion of spiritual energy that influxes from within elevating me to a higher energy level. There is Honour in Death, in Shikai, I blast with intent to move. My particles solidifying again with more power, vibrating at a higher energy level, more strongly attached to each other, heavier. More resistant to outside forces.

The Draug’s presence prevents me from escaping.

In Shikai I last longer but eventually I melt, becoming a buddle of melted particles vibrating at the frequencies of a crushing waterfall amplified 100fold by the nature of the tuning-stone. I melt into a puddle intermixed spirit and matter.

*

Draug

I watch the herald melt into a puddle shaken apart by the power of the stone yet somehow he stays alive as I expected. He wants rewards from me because he doesn’t comprehend the power of the path of cultivation I have put him on, the cycling technique itself is dracontine. Used by cultivating dragon friends from Dracontine but my herald is too stupid to be grateful for what I do for him.

I pull the melted remains out of the stone sticking my claws in it I connect to him, exerting control over him forcing what remains of him to breathe and cycles in my Draconian Cultivation Technique. The effect is immediate, a 'breathing' in expulsion of the excess energy accumulated from the tuning-stone. I can’t believe I’ve never tried using the annoying rock this way before.

For centuries I’ve watched creatures step into this stone and die until this Sachihiro came along who not only survive but captured some of the essence of this place in the weapon he carries. The breathing blob starts taking humanoid shape again as I force it to cycle over and over according to my will.

I’m not gentle with it, expedient with the procedure ‘cause clearly the herald is tough enough to survive the attention and is at a transitional nexus in its growth. The puddle take shape as essence cycles forcefully through it expelled out as chi. At this point I’m not sure what’s happening but it’s interesting to study.

Forced by the routes and channels created by the cycling pressure I’m exerting he starts taking more and more distinctly humanoid features. Essence cycles from puddle of particles to Core then outwardly forming lungs, forming throat, a forming mouth as a side effect of the path cycling takes.

To have witnessed the herald’s evolution was a surprise as those of beast lineage usually gain an evolved form at the 4th tier, not humans but this Sachihiro keeps defying convention.

Or maybe he’s part beast himself. More than anything though I’m surprised he’s alive through this tempering process, I’m not even sure what type of essence he’s getting from the tuning-stone but definitely essenceto chi conversion takes place through my ministrations.

What aspect he's accumulating within him as I force his cycling I cannot taste. As sure as darkness though this cycling is again force changing his form into a more recognisable one with organs taking form to support systems.

Lungs need circulation, which needs organs and tissues in an interconnected web that takes shape from the shimmering puddle making it more and more difficult to force the cycling. I don’t stop until I’ve cycled every last ounce of kinetic-energy leaving a humanoid-shaped blob of shimmering metal lying still on the stone.

I shove the herald back into the stone, he melts back down from the powerful microshaking and do the whole process again.

I feel him feel pains, which is good, the little shit was starting to get too bold. I'm curious how far this relationship will go, I've never imagined a being so much weaker could have so much potential benefit for me. Is this why the Elder Creature grooms such a large menagerie of lower beings within herself?

I’ve never witnessed a body tempered this way, I’m curious to see the result.

Taking the melted puddle out I stick my claws into its nervous system and force it to cycle the essence in and chi out of it again. It starts taking shape quicker, able to move its melting arms like a man drowning in mud. I hope this is as painful as it can be for the insolence you’ve shown you snivelling worm.

Energy in excess is supplied by the roaring falls with high pressure, energy amplified by the tunning stone, cycled through the herald and expelled out through his entire body as it cycles the energy as directed. I feel like a divine smith tempering a weapon as I stuff the struggling humanoid back in the sto to again melt.

Again I force cycle it back into humanoid form, continuing the process over and over until the herald's inner energy is near exhaustion. This is a very efficient tempering process, I will use it to temper one of my weaker forms.

I continue my own cycling, not having moved from my spot in almost a hundred years but soon. Soon I will move and take all that's mine.