Mila
Mila watched Aalam level up and felt a bit dirty.
The guilt had stopped when he’d mentioned Houston, as it wasn’t her causing him to change, it was the universe, and if he didn’t change he’d just die again. But she didn’t like the fact he had to change in the first place.
“What are you feeling?” Nana Xara spoke to her for the first time since Aalam had woken up and Mila’d blocked their connection.
“I’m kind of hating the universe a bit.” Mila took off the Left Hand of the Runescribe and handed it to Aalam as they both sat down and waited for their resources to regenerate, the Twin Dragons safely on her ears.
After enslaving the space mage, she’d had him take her to the empty Quill Clan, follow her to the empty Flare Clan, and then finally teleport her to the Vol Clan, where she’d used her Evil Eyes - Lust, Devil’s Contract, and order suicide combo to destroy the entire force. He’d saved her several days of running and had allowed her to eliminate an extra invasion force, which was nice, and, during the time they were together, she’d picked his brain for everything he knew about spatial magic, translating and then sending it all to Aalam. But neither she nor Aalam were big fans of long term slavery so, after he’d teleported them back to the cave in the desert, she’d killed him.
Then she’d teleported to the platform Aalam had set up near the Pillar of Conquest of the Life Tree Empire’s main force and taken over that pillar as well before catching up with and infiltrating the Amoranth Kingdom’s army.
Now, after destroying the force of the Amoranth Kingdom, the plan was for Aalam to return to the Eshna area. He would then place the teleportation platform at the location of the Undead’s Pillar of Conquest before returning to the soul well. Meanwhile, she would travel to the remaining Pillars of Conquest and end the ability of all invaders to communicate with the outside universe for the next seventy one and a half years.
The pillars of the two Life Tree Empire’s subordinate forces and the Albatino Merchant Union would be simple, as there were few if any cultivators from those forces left. And the Kindar Raiders would most likely be easy to conquer as well, at least so long as one of the many people she’d killed so far had been a member of the Kindar Raiders in hiding, giving her a contribution percentage in destroying their force and thus the ability to claim the pillar. But the Pillars of Conquest of the Kingdom of Night’s royal family and the royal force of the Amoranth Kingdom would likely still be guarded, so she had to hurry before they scattered.
“Yeah, hating the universe is usually pretty normal during an apocalypse style integration.” Nana Xara sounded like she was speaking from experience. “It generally gets better, but it usually doesn’t go away if you have anyone you care about.”
“You underwent an apocalypse style integration a long time ago, right?” Mila asked. “How did yours go?”
“Interesting.” Nana Xara sounded like she was smiling. “I don’t talk to you for days and the first thing you want to know about is my life history?”
“You seem to only be speaking to me now because you think I need someone to talk to about my feelings.” Mila started to smile slightly herself. “What better way to comfort me than to tell me about your own experience so I can compare and contrast?”
Nana Xara snorted, but then she said, “Alright. Fine. But in return you need to tell me what happened when you talked to Aalam. I can only guess so much from context.”
“Alright.” After a few days had passed, Mila had started to want to talk with Nana Xara about that anyway, as she wanted an outside perspective and she had no one else to talk to.
“Well, my world was more like Hira than Earth. About the same percentage of cultivators to not cultivators. Though some, but not me, were lucky enough to have an Uncommon grade race from the start.
“It was an F rank world with nothing special about it and our technology level was about that of Earth in the early 1900s, just starting to introduce chemical warfare. But we took longer to get there, several hundred years, and the global warming effect we’d caused was even worse than on Earth in your time. War and Global warming were then our two apocalypses.
“I was about fifteen when the integration started and I performed moderately well in the tutorial, gaining two Law Eggs, one of the fire element and another of the water element, but I was by no means our best. The bastard daughter of a line worker in an industrial plant, at the time I couldn’t even read and my System notifications were all verbal.
“In the tutorial, my mother died and, after the tutorial, I was captured by one of the invasion forces and forced to mine for mana influenced metals. That lasted for three years, but the invasion force was destroyed by an alliance of four of the world’s seventeen nations under the leadership of the most powerful cultivator to come out of our world’s tutorial.
“I then fought under him and, thanks to a legacy I earned in the tutorial, I earned the Uncommon grade class Sage, after a few years becoming one of the more powerful cultivators under his force. For the first twelve years after I joined, we traveled around the world fighting against invasion forces and other native alliances, and, in the sixteenth year after the start of the integration, that man became the ruler of our planet and we had peace.”
Nana Xara sighed. “That peace didn’t last long, but that’s a story for another time. You asked about my experiences during my planet’s apocalypse style integration and that’s about it. We were lucky and didn’t have any invasion forces which were too strong, and no force of undead, while we were a moderately more powerful planet compared to Hira, though nowhere close to Earth. As a result, we were able to win, but I didn’t play too major of a role.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Now.” Her voice shifted to an excited tone. “Tell me everything.”
Before Mila could send over even a word, however, Aalam interrupted them, opening his eyes from where he’d been meditating, standing up, and walking over to kneel down in front of her. “Before we head out, would you mind using the tokens to upgrade the Twin Dragons in front of me? I think I could learn something from the process.”
Completing the quests for stopping four invasions had given Mila quite a few rewards. For the Quill Clan, the Flare Clan, and the Vol Clan quests she had a personal completion percentage of 100% and had solo killed the leader of the force along with all three generals. This gave her +12 to all her stats for each, along with a choice of a Legendary grade skill and a Legendary grade artifact.
Talking with Aalam, she’d chosen the skills Heightened Senses (F-Legendary), Thief’s Senses (F-Legendary), and Crafter’s Senses (F-Legendary), all skills required for the fusion Aalam was aiming for. And, for the artifacts, she’d chosen a bundle of twelve Triforce Threads, an F rank Legendary grade material useful for upgrading the Left Hand of the Runescribe, and two tokens, a Tactician’s Token (G-Legendary) and a Courtesan’s Token (G-Legendary).
For completing the quest relating to the main force of the Life Tree Empire, however, the rewards hadn’t been as good, as she’d missed one of the generals. She’d received only +10 to all stats and, for the skills and artifacts, she had the choice of three Epic grade rewards and two Rare grade rewards of each type.
Her Epic grade skills had been Hunter’s Mark (F-Epic) and Mark Tracking (F-Epic), which as a combo allowed her to mark targets and then hunt them down, along with Hunter’s Sight (F-Epic), a skill which greatly increased all aspects of vision, enhancing ranged combat. Her two choices for her Rare grade skills were then Hunter’s Smell (F-Rare), a skill which would allow her to track via scent and could be merged with the three Epic grade skills to form Hunter’s Senses (F-Legendary), and Spacetime Analysis (F-Rare), a skill which boosted space and time sensory skills and could be merged with skills she’d already collected to form Spacetime Sensing (F-Legendary).
Sacrificing all her shadowed skills other than Advanced Multi-Mind, Mila had learned all three Epic grade skills, while Aalam had learned everything else along with the skills previously gathered, consisting of four skills which, when mastered, could be merged into Spacetime Sensing (F-Legendary); three skills which, when mastered, could be merged into Psychic Domain (F-Legendary); and Hunter’s Smell, which, given the effects of Mila’s class, he could merge with the skills Mila had taken when all four skills reached 100%.
For artifacts, she’d chosen a Contained Light Essence and a Contained Lightning Essence for helping the upgrade of the Left Hand of the Runescribe in the future, both Epic grade materials, and a chunk of metal called Rain-soaked Iron, a Rare grade material Aalam was going to use to try making Roland an Epic grade sword, but it was the final two artifact rewards which Mila was the most excited about.
For the second Rare grade reward, they’d chosen an Orb of Knowledge Transfer (F-Rare), a small reusable orb one cultivator could put knowledge in which another cultivator could then absorb, the transfer of information quite a bit quicker than transferring knowledge through writing. Mila had put her acquired knowledge of Universal Standard in it and Aalam was going to spend some of his time over the next year studying so he could communicate in the wider galaxy without her needing to translate.
The final Epic grade reward, on the other hand, came with knowledge built in, a legacy artifact called the 12 Elements Bastard Sword. It contained the combat skills legacy of a D rank cultivator called the 12 Elements Psyblade and the legacy was all about using the power of telekinesis and Laws in close combat, exactly what Aalam needed.
Taking off the Twin Dragons from her ears, Mila held the pair of dragon-shaped earrings in her left hand and with her right she reached into one of the bags of holding on her belt and took out two tokens. One was a metallic blue with what looked like a Go board on both sides while the other was a warm red with what looked like a diamond necklace as its image. Both tokens were about 7 cm in diameter, just like the tokens of The Healer and The Reaper, and, when she took them out, they broke down into gas and entered into the Twin Dragons.
Like the last time she’d upgraded the artifact, Mila heard something, interpreting the change in the Twin Dragons' artifact spirit as a sound through her Third Eye Princess uniqueness. It was still like a breath on the wind, and the artifact spirit still wasn’t fully ready to reveal itself, but it was no longer a being of rage and cold logic. In the future, it still felt like it could destroy stars or mend planets, all while hiding from gods and tricking trillions, but now it felt like its previous logical side had been merged with skill to make it a chess master and its rage had evolved into the talent and skill to incite passion.
Physically, the greenish gray scales on the two dragon earrings had now changed to a mix of greenish gray and purple, and, when she switched the artifact between its various forms, the color change was the only visible difference other than the artifact now having two new forms. The most important difference, however, was in its potential.
Twin Dragons of Yin and Yang (F-Heroic) [Growth]
A legacy artifact formed by a Reaper’s Token from the flesh of an Invincible Slime, Formless Silver, and the emotions of the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s chamberlain. Due to the chamberlain’s desires, the Twin Dragons can only be used by the Heavenly Spark Soul King or one of his servants and has multiple effects, including the ability to absorb the legacy information of other legacy artifacts, the ability to transform into multiple forms, and the ability to store unused nascent energy. It was later enhanced by a Healer’s Token and gained the further ability to act as a Seal of Contract for both the Heavenly Spark Soul King and his chamberlain.
Upon the Heavenly Spark Soul King chamberlain’s rise to F rank, it then further gained the ability to more strongly hold disguised information. Then it was further enhanced by a Tactician’s Token and a Courtesan’s Token, increasing its potential but providing no immediate increase in abilities.
Current Legacies: The path of Illusions from a random D rank, the path of Shadows from a random D rank, the path of Passion from a random D rank, the path of Tranquility from a random D rank, the path of The Reaper from the Origin of Death, the path of The Healer from the Origin of Life, the path of The Tactician from the Ultimate General, the path of The Courtesan from the Mother of Love, and the art of crafting from an apprentice psychic
Possible forms: Twin Dragon earrings (weight greatly reduced), Twin Pistols, Longsword, Spear, Shield, Reaper’s Gown, Healer’s Raiment, Tactician’s Armor, Courtesan’s Negligee, Lord’s Seal, Seal of the Chamberlain
Effects: Legacy Eater, Transformation, Nascent Energy Storage, Conductivity, Contract Seal, Held Disguise
Requirements: The Heavenly Spark Soul King or one of his servants
There was no new increase in ability beyond its two new forms, armor and seductive bedclothes, but, on her advance to E rank, it would likely automatically increase to Fabled grade, and that benefit was rather huge.
The biggest reward for upgrading the Twin Dragons of Life and Death to the Twin Dragons of Yin and Yang, however, had nothing to do with the artifact. Aalam, watching with his various sensory skills, had a series of enlightenments. He advanced his Law Eggs of Calm, Vacuum, and 3 Dimensional Geometry to peak grade and gained a rather large increase in mastery for several of his new skills.
“Alright,” Nana Xara sent over, sounding a bit impatient by this point. “Now tell me everything.”