Despite having visited her inner library earlier today it was still a wonder to behold. The vast, spherical structure completely enclosed her with thousands upon thousands of books which were nested neatly in slightly curved bookshelves. As before, most of these tomes appeared dim and muted like they had been left out to bleach in the sun. These were fragments of her past that she did not have access to yet due to her cultivation rank being too low. Although the sheer volume of inaccessible, hidden knowledge tantalized her imagination, that was not what she was here for now.
She looked to the many mundane-appearing books alongside the dulled ones with hope. One of these had to be something that was useful to her. She was looking for a Low Bronze art that could either help her with long range enemies, group stealth, or group transportation. She held out her hand and–searching through the volumes as her representative had instructed her–willed the correct book to appear in her grasp.
Prior Knowledge (Low Bronze) available for purchase. Would you like to spend a point of insight to unlock this knowledge? Y/N
Third Eye Insights Remaining: 1 (Low Bronze)
She spent the insight and quickly read through the contents. [Forced March] would allow her to give a +5 Endurance buff to five individuals within fifty feet of herself. It was extremely qi efficient to maintain at only 1 qi/minute, but it wouldn’t fix her current problem. She closed the book and set it aside in a temporary ‘discard’ pile, then all memory of the art promptly fled her mind as her insight was refunded. All she could recall was that it was some sort of group movement art, but it wasn’t what she was looking for.
She held out her hand again, this time focusing specifically on group teleportation. Maybe she could get something similar to [Moonlight Gate]. That would solve both her escape issues, and the problem of getting Harold down into the canyon.
After a few seconds of nothing happening, she gave up. There must not be a skill that powerful at Low Bronze–at least not one that her past self had discovered. Holding out her hand again, she pulled another book from thin air.
Prior Knowledge (Low Bronze) available for purchase. Would you like to spend a point of insight to unlock this knowledge? Y/N
Third Eye Insights Remaining: 1 (Low Bronze)
She selected yes.
[Illusory Wall] would let her create a 10 by 10 foot stationary illusion that could mimic the surrounding environment to camouflage those that hid behind it. The walls cost 10 qi/ hour to maintain, and she could have up to six active at a time. In a past life she used it to hide her camp locations in caves or depressions in the ground, or sneak up on enemies by casting it repeatedly in front of her as she approached. Perhaps if they were not currently in a vast desert where their tracks would be easily followed it would be more useful, but in this situation it wouldn’t help them much. Again, she set the book aside.
Samantha filtered through several more books with varying skills, but she didn’t feel strongly that any of them were what she needed. She set each down in the temporary discard pile as the minutes ticked by, and she felt herself becoming anxious. She thought she would’ve found something promising by now.
The sound of a loud gong tolled throughout her dantian, and she slapped her ephemeral hands over her ears on instinct.
No! Have I already run out of time? Did I waste this death and Harold’s poison?
As she finished the thought, a thick piece of cardstock popped into existence in front of her. It read:
Paralyzation poison resistance has increased to Rank 2 - 0%.
As soon as she read it, it disappeared and a new one took its place.
New estimated time to revival: 7 minutes 47 seconds… 7 minutes 46…
Samantha was relieved that the sound was only signaling a system notification, but her heart raced at seeing her new revival timer. With how things were going so far she wasn’t confident she could find a useful art in time. She needed to make a decision as soon as possible.
Moving the notification so it floated next to her instead of in front of her face, she held out her hand and began ruthlessly filtering through even more arts. If there was any doubt in her mind that the ability would be immediately helpful she discarded it before reading too deeply. Book after book she set down in the discard pile as the timer ticked down.
Just as she was about to open the next book, an adolescent tenor voice echoed through the space, “The birds are coming down! I think I can reach them.” It took her a moment to remember that the voice was Silas’s, and that while in her dantian she could hear him as if he were speaking aloud to her.
Distracted from her search, she asked, “What do you mean they’re coming down?”
“One swooped low to try and grab me. I dodged, of course. Another one is diving now. I think I can get them!”
The vultures initiating an attack so early wasn’t a good sign. With only Silas able to defend, Harold could be in trouble if they turned their attention to him instead. She was about to ask for Silas to get rid of the birds, but a new idea occurred to her.
“Can you hold off and pretend to be weaker? I’m going to revive in a few minutes, and I think if all three are close then we can get rid of them all at once.”
Silas thought over the proposal for a few seconds, “I think so. They don’t seem very strong.”
“Okay. If it gets dangerous, forget about pretending! Just do whatever it takes to survive.”
“I will. Don’t take too long or you might miss all the fun.” he teased, then was silent.
Samantha snatched the next book from the air, looked at the first page, then promptly discarded it. This happened several more times before she finally found a tome that caught her eye.
[Telekinesis] would allow her to leverage her mind meridian to exert one pound of force per one qi invested for 10 seconds on any object. It was considered a long range utility art, though in a past life she had also used it for offensive purposes. She had used it in all sorts of scenarios, from flinging ball bearings with enough force to punch holes through enemies, to stealing crucial supplies from afar. Though its versatility was amazing, that wasn’t the most exciting aspect of the art. By far, the thing that interested her most was that her past life also had access to a spiritual projection art and [Telekinesis] could be used while projecting.
Checking the timer beside her, she had less than three minutes remaining until she revived. She wasn’t certain that this skill was the best choice for her exact situation, but the prospect of being able to move things with the power of her mind was exciting. Though she couldn’t remember what other skills she had viewed, she knew that none of them impressed her as much as this one. She also doubted she’d be able to find a better alternative with the short time she had left.
This was the one.
She turned the book over in her hands and wondered if she could somehow absorb the art’s knowledge right now instead of waiting until she left her dantian. Before, she had been momentarily stunned when she exited the spiritual space when the memories from the tome flooded her mind. Given she’d be waking up to a combat situation, this wasn’t ideal. The representative had told her that she had full control over everything inside of this space. If that was true…
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Samantha focused on the book and willed the information to flow into her. Responding to her desire, it began to glow with dim blue light–similar to the shining tomes representing knowledge she currently possessed. Suddenly, the book opened and the pages rapidly flipped, the words and letters peeling off of the paper and flying up into the air around her. By the time the final page had turned, a dark cloud of swirling symbols completely encircled her. The book snapped shut of its own accord, and the mass of black script slammed into her and soaked into her spiritual body. As the ink disappeared beneath her skin, the library seemed to fade into the background until she found herself standing on a ship.
Samantha looked over the largest body of water she had ever seen. ‘The Freitan Sea’, it was called. That was what her past memory informed her, anyway.
She never got tired of that salty sea air. Good thing too, considering the currently calm waters stretched on for as far as the eye could see. Cresting the horizon was a brown speck, which she knew from experience to be another vessel. She had been watching it for the last quarter hour, and clocked it traveling southwest at a slow, leisurely pace. It would cross their route eventually if they both stayed course.
She had scouted the ship briefly with her projection art and didn’t notice anything too out of the ordinary. The lack of any identifying flag on the mast was a bit concerning, but nothing to panic over. While it was true that pirates flew no flags, many friendly vessels also sailed flagless to show their lack of affiliation to any island. She felt comfortable watching and waiting until they acted suspiciously. They didn’t even have any artillerist stands on board, meaning it would be hours yet until they were in range to be a proper threat.
As she took a deep breath and listened to the peaceful lapping of waves on wood, a loud belch ruined the serenity of the moment. She turned towards the first mate with a scowl.
“You gonna stand there all day admiring the Blue? Or you gonna do your job?” he asked, scratching at a dirty patch of clothes on his stomach. The man reeked of stale beer, which just barely covered the scent of his unwashed body.
She curled her lip in distaste as she addressed him, “I am doing my job. You’re the one interrupting.”
He spat over the edge of the ship into the waters below, “Aye? Then why is that there vessel still sailing? It should be sinking to the sea floor by now.”
She frowned, “I don’t sink ships indiscriminately. It could just be an–”
“I don’t care what it could be. Neither does the captain. You want your pay? Get rid of it.”
“Mindlessly destroying others’ boats is the domain of pirates. Tell your captain I’ll not sully my hands nor reputation with such a grim task.”
He let out a bellowing laugh, as if she had told him some grand joke, “You think I’ll risk my neck bothering the captain over a little insubordination? Stop that boat, or I’ll throw you overboard myself. That’s an order.”
To punctuate the threat, he released his killing intent and brought her to her knees. She gasped for air like a fish out of water, and her vision started spotting with black dots before the intense pressure lifted. By the time she caught her breath again, he was gone. Probably off to get drunk again.
Doing her best to shake the lingering queasiness, she stood and looked out over the calm waters once more. Once this was all over she’d tell every artillerist she knew to steer clear of this crew. The compensation was good, but gaining ghosts wasn’t worth any amount of wealth. If they weren’t months out from the nearest island… she shook her head. There was no point whining about what-ifs. On the bright side, his actual order to ‘stop that boat’ had given her a bit of leeway for interpretation. She could work with that.
Climbing up into the artillerist stand on deck, she strapped herself in and pulled a four foot long, 50 pound metal rod from her dantian’s spirit vault. With practiced ease she drew her arm back, took aim at the sky, and threw the ammunition with all of her Strength as if it were a harpoon. Just before the rod left her grip, she boosted the throw with 100 points into [Telekinesis] and instantly projected her spirit out of her body. While her physical form slumped against the stand, her spiritual one took over control of [Telekinesis] and grabbed hold of the rod. After 10 seconds of further acceleration upwards, she had reached dizzying heights and blistering speeds.
Looking towards the boat in the distance, she put another 100 qi into the art and began guiding the rod towards the unsuspecting vessel. Alternating between small course adjustments and increasing the rod’s speed, it didn’t take long before she needed to complete her attack.
Just before the rod struck, she twisted it so that it flew through the air horizontally. It struck the main mast of the ship like cannon fire and completely obliterated the wood where it passed. The crew scrambled around the falling mast, some trying in vain to right the tilting structure. As sails tore and supporting lines were ripped free of their anchor points, the mast tumbled over the deck and sunk beneath the waves.
Samantha returned to her senses as the memory came to its conclusion. She found herself once again in the library, and–according to the sign beside her–had only been ‘gone’ for a few seconds.
Estimated time to revival: 2 minutes 29 seconds… 2 minutes 28…
Ignoring the many questions that arose from experiencing a visceral sneak peek into her past life for the moment, she checked in with her bonded, “How’s it going Silas?”
“Tougher than I thought. All three birds are working together. How much longer?”
“A couple of minutes, but I might be able to do something to help you from here. Hold on!”
Samantha had been wondering about the various applications of [Spectral Projection] ever since she unlocked the third rank of Silas’s bloodline. The skill was described as the ability to temporarily project her consciousness outside of her body, but she had been theorizing that it didn’t matter if her body was alive or dead. Unlike when other cultivators died, her qi didn’t disperse into the surrounding area. She imagined this was because qi was intimately connected to the soul, and her soul was currently residing here in her dantian instead of being reincarnated. Now was as good a time as any to test if she still had access to her cultivation base or not.
Envisioning [Spectral Projection] in her mind she started trickling qi into it experimentally. Almost immediately a plain door appeared in front of her. It was similar to the one that the representative had used when speaking with her. Samantha grabbed hold of the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped through.
----------------------------------------
She floated over her corpse and watched as Silas narrowly dodged two swooping vultures. Silas was bleeding from a few small cuts, but otherwise looked to be healthy. Just as he escaped the talons of the two attackers, the third pulled in its wings from high above and entered into a steep dive.
She quickly scanned the area to get a better idea of the situation. Overall, things seemed much as she had left them when she died. Her body sat undisturbed and still leaned against her backpack as if she had fallen asleep. Her spear was set on the ground to the right of her. Apart from the attacking birds, there was no one else present on the butte. It seemed Harold was still formulating potions down below, completely unaware or unconcerned with their current plight.
As Samantha looked over the dunes, she noticed a rapidly approaching cloud of dust coming from the direction of the raider camp. If she still had a beating heart, it would’ve been racing. She zipped over to the cloud and had her worst fears confirmed. Below her, riding a small herd of hideous spiders, was the raider group. For whatever reason they had initiated their assault early.
Returning to the butte, she began contemplating her options.
Option one: she could pick up her spear and use it to attack using [Telekinesis], but the strikes wouldn’t have much force behind them unless she invested a significant amount of qi. This would likely be the worst way to approach things because a flying spear would draw attention and possibly spook the birds. At the very least, it could tip the raiders off that something was odd. Option two: she could try something similar to what her past life had done. Picking up a rock or some other projectile and shooting it towards her enemies was certainly viable. However, she didn’t recall this technique ever being used on such a fast-moving target. She feared she’d be unable to hit them properly. And, again, having a sudden hole appear in a vulture might alarm the opposing group.
As one of the vultures ascended into the sky and tucked its wings in for another dive, she decided to go with a third option. She flew up and met the bird mid-air, then put 30 qi into [Telekinesis]. As the bird shot past, she wrapped her arms around it like she was giving it a hug.
Because she had gained knowledge of [Telekinesis] through spending an insight point, she implicitly understood many of the art’s quirks and how it would translate while projecting. Essentially, instead of mentally exerting force on objects with her will like when she was embodied, she would be channeling the energy through her spectral form. In this case, for the next 10 seconds, her arms would create a loop that exerted approximately 30 pounds of force on the bird’s wings.
As the two of them hurtled towards the butte top hundreds of feet below and the vulture attempted to open its wings, it realized something was wrong. It frantically pressed against her arms as the rock surface drew nearer and nearer, but to no avail. Like most birds, its wings were much more powerful when flapping downwards than extending outwards.
As hundreds of feet reduced to dozens, the vulture let out one final squawk of panic before impacting against the rock with a wet crunch. Samantha released her grip and watched as it bounced and skidded past a jumping Silas before being flung off the edge of the rise and falling yet another 1000 feet into the sands below. Dead.