Billy woke up and there was someone else in his bed. As always he was just a little bit startled.

Blearily scrutinizing the other person till he recognized who they were. Recalling his current time and place and species, as he slowly woke. He was surprised to find that this time that other person was Edna. He wasn’t sure why she’d suddenly decided to sleep in his bed, ‘that’ was Elena’s peculiarity.

All the same there was, lying nestled close, her head on his chest, faintly tickling him with all its feathery yellow hair. A slight bit of drool seeping through his pajama top, warm, slightly gross, but not entirely unpleasant. He gently lifted her off of him and she mumbled speaking to someone in her dreams while she rolled over, wrapping herself in the comforter.

“Nh….Maybe she didn’t like the new room?” said Billy. Wondering what he could do to rectify the issue while a small voice in the back of his head called him an idiot and quietly pushed any such action to the back of priorities.

He yawned as he stepped out of the room, careful not to wake the remaining inhabitant.

*****.

Nine months after his return home the Bone Tree Company made several big changes. The first was an expansion of their product line and production level. Allowing them to extend their operation to the markets beyond Meallan’s borders.

This change was due to Billy’s three newest successful, ‘safe’ creations and the enormous boost he’d gained to his cultivation, changing him both inside and out. The biggest of the three creations was a type of fabricator, an evolution of the usual cauldron and forge that allowed him to make magic devices and medicines in bigger quantities.

It was the kind of mass production one would see from the bigger ateliers and factories.

The second big change was a change of address. After the big hub-bub, things calmed down and Billy asked the two to catch him up on what he’d missed while he’d awol and preoccupied. Edna had informed him of the fact that they’d gotten a bit famous.

The Labyrinth Raid dramatically boosting their prestige. Billy’s backseat approach to things while they’d been climbing, inadvertently serving as advertisement for their products. Which lead to Edna being able to sell off some of their excess stock and meet a few potentially useful connections.

It all sounded well and good till she mentioned people from the ministry and the church frequently calling and visiting. Their questions and conversations always seeming to return to the currently absent Billy.

Edna failed to mention a scary moment where she’d almost thought they were considering taking the two of them into custody, with Elena and her quietly getting ready to fight their way out just in case the church’s templars ‘really’ did come to try and take them.  She hid it because it all turned out to be nothing and she still felt silly for misunderstanding and nearly causing an incident.

Little did she know that it was less of misunderstanding than she thought. Elena ‘did’ share the story though, relating it Billy while all three of them were at restaurant, eating out for once because apparently Billy’s return was something worth celebrating.

Hearing that made him lose his appetite, though he kept eating anyway so as not to spoil the mood. The next day he headed into the EITC to show his face and spending a fair portion of the company’s funds for a upgrade in the company’s guild status. Using the application process as an informal way to let the guild and the rest of the world that he now knew was paying just a little too much attention of his current cultivation rank.

The whole process leaving the clerk stunned and later frightening the manager of that particular HQ, out of his wits. With that done and with the Bone Tree Company now serving as a globalized S class corporate body Billy decided it was time for a move.

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The girl’s would stay in Gene, because it was something he’d decided to do all on his own. He would go because it was only his presence that could cause them trouble. And Elena would eventually be talked into accepting this because teleportation and spatial manipulation meant that addresses were irrelevant.

Billy left Gene and went west towards the stretch of Hinterland that lay just above the borders of Gwenael and just below the borders of Lloyd. Far enough away from everything, and deep enough in the middle of nowhere, to keep people from trying to get in touch.

His most ardent hope was that his actions would be enough to keep any groups with ill-intent from setting their eyes on his people and his company. He was fairly optimistic about his chances. As for why he was optimistic all ‘that’ lay in the third change. The changes in the abilities and power levels of the three members of the Bone Tree Company.

*****

First there was Billy’s changes, the changes that had kept him from his home for a whole half-year. Reforging his form, and then requiring that adjust to changes in his inner-being. The whole process had been similar to what he’d gone through when he’d rebuilt himself from the dragon’s flesh, but of a much grander scale. This time he didn’t have a mere dragon emperor’s body to work with, what he had was a whole universe and the material and essences of two beings that were several realms above his own.

For six months Billy was a black hole. A dark star. Existing as a single point of space-time that had hung nowhere particular. Unseen, unnoticed, stuck in between space and time do to the annihilatory forces he’d had to unleash to kill the rust maiden.

It wasn’t all bad. In the end the gains outweighed the extreme pain that always came with being crushed down to one-dimensionality.

*****

It was important to know that the rankings and layers of the Imperial Ranking Table, were based on an incomplete understanding of how the universe worked and how the cosmic scales of power were arranged. While the mathematical measurements and physiological facts were accurate enough.

The claims for what each rank and layer was capable of, were more than a little exaggerated. A sort of propaganda promoting the myth of their undefeatable forces. The truth as it was understood by Billy, and anyone else who knew a little about thaumaturgy and aether cultivation was that the twelfth layer was just the end of the first realm. The twelfth layer of concept creation was merely, a beginning point.

The point where one finally had enough aetheric content  and metaphysical weight that any universe inhabited by beings of sentience and sufficient ability to set enough measures in place would immediately reject you. Turning the flow of the world monochrome if one tried to use all of one’s power at once, shifting one over to a semi-identical sub dimension,  where reality was less fluid and more resilient for the sake of protecting the order of the real world.

Billy had explained all this to the girls as he’d been tutoring them, training them, helping them power-level their cores through a few layers, while he refined their bodies and boosted their base strength.

The ratios for condensation and cultivation for each realm was largely identical to the first, with the only difference being a change to the little mentioned and unseen, suffix. The thaumaturgical mathematics that governed aether not changing as the core aether progressed through different states or ‘realms’.

The Rust Maiden was a being of the sixteenth realm, strong enough that even the old empire at it’s prime would haved bow down and bargain for their lives if she’d approached, so it was only natural for Billy to break through when he took in her living aether and the aether of the parasite.

The power nearly killed him, frying all his soft tissues into charcoal, but he was able to use the rust maidens corpse to fix that problem. Appropriating the alien tissues of both her and the parasite. Melding the material with his own half-dragon make up to create a new existence. A thing with unbreakable metal bones and dark matter in its blood. A thing with some of its key proteins either replaced or interspersed with some manner of hard-structured light particle.

A thing with tendrils of an extremely anomalous nature replacing every fibrous tissue in its body. The well behaved tentacles fortunately letting it seem that not much had changed, if you didn’t look too closely.

A thing with the eyes replaced with fires that swam in a sea of shining dark. He was now even more monstrous than before, but he was also more capable. His base strength, resilience to damage, and intelligence, many thousand times what it was before he fought the maiden.

The expansion in his intellect was particularly dramatic, the difference between the past and the present similar to Billy’s one experience with alcohol. Back when he was young and still human enough to get drunk or at least sick. Another Elena instigated misadventure.

******

The real boon was the fact that the miasma and the energies of the distorted spaces within the prism allowed his inner-world to finally stabilize. The world within his shadow finally able to fully form a complete world core with the internal logic for the world now able to fully to fully express itself. The world within his shadow was a now a world that could grow. A world that was well and truly alive, generating vast amounts power by virtue of its own existence. He now held such a world within the confines of his innermost being. Nurturing it as it nurtured.

In short while he was still far from what he’d call strong. He was now stronger than he had been. Much stronger. Strong enough that he could finally stop worrying a little.

Sure that even if he wasn’t truly strong today. With the power from the world within his shadow and a little good old fashion meditation he’d be able to cultivate to the levels he needed. Regaining his former power and then maybe even surpassing it. More importantly he now had the leeway to help the girl cultivate. The strands of his power that they held, becoming mighty currents. Boosting their base abilities and core aether as he boosted his own.