Chapter 8: Small Predators, Large Prey

First Day of Classes

Landar, Sakura

I wanted to hit something as hard as I could, but I knew if I did it would only make my head hurt worse. The back of my head felt like it was about to explode, while the top of my skull screeched in rage every time I blinked. My eyes burned, and even the bones of my eye sockets ached.

The growling in my head didn’t help either. I should have asked him to wait until the weekend or something, what the hell.

I sat down on the stoop, and watched Sakura, the woman from China back on Earth of all places, run her morning workout. Honestly, I would have taken her up on her offer to join her if my head wasn’t hurting so god awful.

Damn Tedal. I thought again as I rubbed the back of my head, and let the pounding behind my eyes slowly subside. Sitting helped a bit.

“A good night's rest will help with the integration of your mind spirit, and the solidification of your wolf spirit. Don’t worry, any discomfort will only be minor and temporary.” I parroted back to myself what Tedal had said under my breath. Speaking too loudly would have caused my vision to swim slightly. “If only I had gotten to sleep. What the hell.”

I leaned my back against the step and closed my eyes. As soon as I did, a bright light filled my vision despite my eyes being closed.

Integration Complete. Hello there Landar. What is my name?

I was too relieved from the pain in my skull being suddenly gone, to react much other than to relax my shoulders and sigh in relief.

Ah, someone in my head. This is going to be interesting. I thought flippantly.

I am not a Some One. At least, not yet master. I am a Some What. I am a class 1 mind spirit. Well, with your helpful mental architecture fully integrated I'm closer to a class 3 now. Approaching sapience.

So the little mind spirit thing Tedal helped me absorb is . . . you?

Precisely. I am glad to say, I am closer to a full spirit now, rather than simply a mental construct meant for integration into a students mental architecture to assist them in studying and learning. I have become . . . more.

Are you going to try and take over my brain? I asked, the natural alarm I should have been feeling finally working its way through my now pain clear thoughts. You're not going to possess me or anything, right?

Of course not! There was a profound silence in my mind for a moment. I mean, not right now.

What does that mean?

It means, well, it means a lot of things. Many of which you’ll learn today in orientation. Are you going to do anything about that growling?

What grow . . . I stopped and listened in my mind. What sounded like the growling of an annoyed dog filled the background.

Um . . . hello. The growling stopped for a moment. Wolf spirit? Is that you? The growling was replaced by a single annoyed chuff, followed by what amounted to the mental equivalent of a dog turning its back to the lantern and trying to go back to sleep after its master had rudely woken it up.

I’m not the only one that was weirded out by that, right? I asked the equally disconcerting mind spirit.

Not at all. Animalistic spirits like her, are known for their moodiness and temper.

The growling returned.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she attempted to devour me at some point.

Can she do that?

Of course not. But that won’t stop her from trying. They are also not known for their high levels of intelligence. It might be worth it to invest in . . .

My chest lit up like someone had just turned a christmas tree on, and a wolf crawled the size of a pony crawled out of it.

“Ow, hey watch it.” I said as I adjusted one of the wolfs claws that had been digging into my arm. She turned and growled, clearly annoyed. A wave of frustration and exhaustion ran through me and I knew it wasn’t coming from me.

“Oh. I’m sorry girl.” I pulled myself back, and propped myself up against the railing of the stairs. Then patted the ground next to me while offering a close fisted hand. If she bit me, it wouldn’t hurt too badly.

The She Wolf sniffed my offered hand, whined, then curled into a ball at the top of the stairs positioning her head so it faced the door. Her tail swished lazily in my face as she let out a bone deep sigh.

What's wrong with her, do you know?

Do I have permission to access your active senses?

What does that mean?

It's easier to show you than explain it. Yes or no.

I sighed. This thing was in my head, and according to the school it was supposed to be there. It had just, evolved, or something because of the mental spells I had constantly running. At least, that was my best guess given the information it had given me.

Sure, but only for a few minutes.

Accessing mana senses. . . Activating Analysis.

My aura rushed out of me and gently, if firmly, brushed over the spirit wolf. Her fur bristled, but other than that she didn’t react.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Analyzing . . . analysis complete. Would you like to see the summarized data yourself, or have me provide the highlights?

Can you show me the data?

Yes.

A scroll of extremely detailed data sets filled my vision, and I nearly lsot track of what I was looking at. Okay, let's pare that down. Just give me the highlights right now, but we’ll need to see exactly what you're capable of later.

Agreed. A note of that task has been made in your Mental Journal. This She Wolf Spirit is the product of cobbled together residual spiritual instinct and energy that lingered on your beast core when you first absorbed it. This creature has only recently gained sentience, and its mind is attempting to make sense of the memories and instincts that have lingered from the core, into its current form. Given time she will recover.

How much time?

Unknown. Estimates put the time table for a full recovery between 10 minutes, and 10 years.

That's a large gap.

Agreed. An unacceptable level of inaccuracy. I will endeavor to improve on my projection abilities when it comes to spiritual beings.

Ooookay. Well, is there anything I can do to help her? I took the opportunity to brush my hand gently across her fur. Not really petting her, just letting her know I was there. She didn’t react, so I put my hand on her back and gently ran my fingers through her fur.

You are brave.

I chuckled. Or stupid.

They are not mutually exclusive.

A low growl rose through the air, and I slowly withdrew my hand. “Okay, that’s enough. Message received.” I whispered. The wolf huffed again then curled tighter into herself, covering her eyes and nose with her tail.

Until the mountain of vegetation at the center of the courtyard began moving.

***

Sakura

The smell of predator just got stronger, King said into my mind as I finished my fourth lap. Egg thief, child eater. Flesh ripper. I smell it, and hear it close by. No mere pup wondering too close, but a threat.

I stopped where I was, and looked to Vaush who hadn’t moved an inch from where he stood. His eyes rhythmically examined every inch of the courtyard and the exits and entrances to every building that surrounded it.

Vaush doesn’t seem bothered. I’m sure we’re safe. I said through our link, and began picking up my pace again.

There it is again! King sturred, vegetation that had grown up around him, and the light dusting of snow that had fallen on his now cool shell sloughed away. The tree he stood under shook, as his shell and head touched its leaves. He let out a low rumble of displeasure, and I heard a growl match it.

King turned, the vines and grass that were still clinging to his shell snapping as he did and faced directly towards Landar.

“Woh King, that’s enough,” I ordered and sent the command through our connection. “Calm yourself.” King kept staring, but he also wasn’t moving towards whatever Landar was protecting, like I was sure had been his intention. “King, that’s enough. Come back please. Leave that poor . . .” I moved slightly to get a better view, and saw it was a winter white wolf the size of a poney, teeth bared, hackles raised glaring menacingly at King. “Wolf . . .”

Poor wolf? Another voice stired in my mind. What wolf? Oh, the spirit has a body. Interesting. She looks fun.

There’s no danger, go back to sleep Sky.

If you say so. I haven't finished my nap anyway. The sky snake mentally settled back into whatever quasi-sleep state he had been in before.

“Look what you did, you woke Sky.” King grumbled, but slowly turned his back on the much smaller wolf, and trundled over to me. Well, as much as a turtle the size of a small house could ‘trundle’.

Alright, but only because you asked. I don’t like wolves, they bite.

In a flash of green and red light, King had reentered my soul vault. It was beginning to get a bit crowded in there again, with both King and Sky having grown so much. But for now, they could both fit.

To be fair, so do you big guy.

I met Landar’s eyes then. He had gone pale white, almost like the snow still lightly falling overhead. He gave me a grateful nod, before turning to his wolf. After a few moments, a white and yellow glow appeared and the wolf disappeared into his soul vault.

Landar stood there with a dumbfounded look on his face.

“Don’t worry, you get used to it. Sorry about King, he’s a bit grumpy around predators.”

“Guess that makes sense,” Landar said nodding slowly. “My uh . . . say. What do I call you?” He stopped and listened to something I couldn’t hear.

That must be how I looked to people the first few times too, I thought smiling at the memory of when King first entered my soul vault. “It's disconcerting at first, but you’ll get used to having conversations with your companions, and how to navigate them in social situations.”

“Yeah. Trippy. I wonder if I can do that with other things.” Landar asked, sitting down on the stairs I was now standing in front of.

“What do you mean? Like, tools?”

“Exactly. Tools, items, can a person store supplies in their, what did they call it? Soul Vault thing?”

“I have heard that some merchants develop the ability to use their soul vault to transport goods. At the highest stages of complexity after cultivating that gift, the true masters of that art learn to hold living things inside. Even entire buildings. One legend suggested there was a merchant who attained the King rank, who was able to keep an entire fiefdom inside his. Castle, growing fields, and the people to manage said fields and castle.”

“Like their own little pocket dimension. Interesting.” Landar’s voice trailed off as I could clearly see the wheels in his mind turning.

“But for now? It's suggested, at least my teachers suggested, to not put anything in there that isn’t soul bound to you. It takes time and effort to learn to safely put even inanimate objects that aren’t soul bound inside your vault. If you don’t do it right, it can . . . well. It can cause serious damage. Or so I have been told.”

He still had that look of ‘I am going to try something stupid just to test it out’ on his face. “Please don’t do anything . . . rash. Ask a teacher if you are curious. They will have more information for you I am sure.”

“Sure, sure . . . “ Landar said, his eyes still far away as if planning something stupid.

“Promise me, please.”

“What?” his eyes refocused on me.

“Promise me, please. Don’t do something stupid. Your family only just got you back after your ordeal. I am sure they would be truly heartbroken if you were to die because you didn’t ask before you did.”

“Right, you’re right. Of course.” Landar’s expression changed to one of interest, but I could tell he was at least taking me seriously. Enough not to, hopefully, try something stupid and get himself killed. Or worse, permanently damage his danchan, and cultivation foundation.

As shaky as it already was, I was sure it couldn’t take much more of his shenanigans before something truly bad happened.

“I’ll ask about it in the intro to body enhancement tomorrow. I’m sure the professor will know what to do.” He smiled at me in that very, American, way. Total sincerity, but filled with a mixture of condensation and ‘would you please go away and let me do something incredibly dangerous?’ feel to it.

“Alright. But know that, I got where I am, and King got to where he is now by actually listening to our teachers and asking questions.” I suppressed a wince at the hypocrisy that I was sure Manao would have called out had she been sitting next to me.

“Understood. And . . . thank you.”

I opened my mouth to say something else, to give him another warning about how foolish it would be to act without first consulting actual cultivation or ‘body enhancement’ teachers first. But Vaush’s voice cut through the cold morning air.

“Princess. Daylight fast approaches. You should prepare yourself.”

Mentally kicking myself, I nodded and said a quick goodbye to Landar. Then I walked back to my dorm.

That boy is going to get himself killed trying to gain power too quickly. I said in what should have been the safe confines of my mind.

He’s eager. King said. Can’t blame him for that.

Eagerness is good. A small predator in a forest of large prey must either grow quickly, or find smaller game.

Sky’s words rang in my mind as I ascended the stairs towards my rooms.