The priest being unresponsive, Aden swipes his hand down the back of the man's head, pulling the hat back, revealing his terrified blue eyes.

“Please forgive me messenger!”

Unable to move with the back of his robe in Adens hand, he contorts himself into pose as if he were kneeled and praying.

“This one knew not with whom he conversed with!”

“That does not answer my question.” Bringing the man closer to his face, forcing his head back to stare him in the eyes. “What made you hostile to us?”

“R-r-ru-r-r-runes! The mention of runes!”

“The church is withholding them from the commoners?”

“Yes! Only the initiated are allowed to be educated in the divine language!”

“Divine? Not necessarily. Runes are just taking advantage of the rules of how reality flows, like a river guides water… The runes you have must be different but under the same mental terminology. Are they in this book?”

Aden reaches within the robe and pulls out a leather bound book.

“Yes, all bibles are written in the divine!”

Diverting one eye down to the book, he lets it fall open in his hand, revealing the pages within.

Runes… but not quite… These are characters formed only with runes. It seems the characters were designed based around the runes, thus resulting in the meaning of them having to do with the effect of the runes. I suspect if I read the runes, I would be adding intent to drive the chi flowing within them, charging the runes up.

“These are just primed runes awaiting intent with characters arranged to match the effect of the runes. The altering of these runes weakens them, but allows a simplified language for you mortals. This is no divine language, these are runes for children that will never grow up.”

Taking on a look of concern and self-doubt with his fear, “wh-what do you mean? This is the language of the goddess! H-how can it not be? It was taught to the saint by the goddess herself to spread among the devout!”

“Devotion of the blind is easily used.”

“I-I-I…I’ve been nothing but studious.” Georgos slouches, looking down at his hands.

“I worked so diligently…”

“You may have worked hard, but the diligent wouldn’t fall for something so obvious.”

“That's right…”

“Of course I’m right.”

“You must be a demon! Sent to test me!” Looking back up, Georgos’s eyes swirl with a purple fog

Motherfucker.

“I lack the patience for this.”

Relaxing his grip, Aden allows the priest to fall, his hand sliding up the back of the minister's head, absorbing it.

The priest collapses on the ground at his feet, a sliver of ethereal dark violet miasma seeping into the air.

Turning his head to speak to the kids, “He may not have been evil, but he was extremely deluded while also being magically manipulated. He’s in a better place now.”

I could have just imprisoned him within me, but I really don’t feel like taking on the hassle or the risk… Hmmm… That chi’s gone now though.

Stepping on the minister, his corpse falls into Aden as if an endless chasm had opened up.

[Georgos Merdegraf Assimilated]

[Skills Acquired]

RPG time, this must be the system integration. Ahg, screen clutter. No, I don’t need to see assimilations on the front page… I’ll keep identities for now though.

image [https://i.imgur.com/H3Jgvrl.png]

Turning to the children before they could get a word in, “At this point, would it be better to attempt to continue my vacation, or commence a purge of the church?”

Wait, were my stats JUST updated?!

[Connection Re-established]

[Calculations Now Localized Due to Poor Signal]

Cedric, ever the warrior, snaps to attention, foregoing his emotions, “No evil permitted, sir! We must purge the demons!”

Not much changed anyways, and it's not like I can’t detect these differences myself. Now these skills… I wonder what class their system thinks I should have.

Celia, having not taken this as well, is collapsed to the side, stifling tears, “Minister…how…”

“For one, I was looking for advice on how I could minimize the damage I had just done to this town, not inviting you for some scourge purging. This minister had far more chi within him than both of you kids mana together.” Wait, why do they have so much mana and so little chi? “And on the other hand, stay with your sister. You kids have home and family to defend, I can wreak havoc quite well on my own.” That did whet my palate too…

“We can help!”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Celia sobs into her knees, “How could- Georgos- Why.”

Aden stares at cedric as he averts from meeting his gaze.

“You kids aren't ready for a crusade. Study well what I taught you and with enough progress you’ll surpass this meager world.”

Aden looks over the children, musing without internal monologue about their innocence. Listening to Cedric console his sister.

Weak.

Ah, no. What the hell. Haaaah… I guess they are though… too inexperienced with life.

“This is goodbye, children. I hope you hide well from this world's flow of fate and grow strong.”

Not allowing them goodbyes, Aden takes to the air shortly to reach the library.

Reaching to open the door, he accidentally pushes it off the frame when the handle gets stuck while stepping forward. To his right, a short elderly woman in glorified rags far beyond her years, sits looking up from her book, mouth agape.

…

“Apologies, bookkeeper. Here, have a priceless treasure”

Aden blooms a shimmering golden-pearl lotus in his hand and holds it in view, her eyes taking on a greed unexpected of her age.

Noticing the wrinkles within her wrinkles once more, “I’ll throw this pill in too… You should take it.”

A juicy looking green ball grows in the center of the lotus, glowing softly with a comforting warmth.

Pure ki should be good for her, right?

As she's reaching shakily with caution to take the gift, “Actually, I’m not sure how well a mortal would handle so much life energy, maybe just keep it on you for now and eat it some oth-”

The old woman had swiped the pill before he could finish, thinking he was going to take the treasure away, then realizing the rest of what he was saying.

…

“Well don’t look at me, you’re the impatient one.”

A brief explosion of green light highlights her skeleton against her skin.

“You good? I don’t know how to translate a blank stare so well.”

Her orifices begin to take on a green glow, leaking ki steadily, then rapidly. Current of ki flow through her body, jolts of lights bursting where they intersect, releasing more ki into the air. As each wave of ki echoes through her body, wrinkles fade, scars fill in, and moles flake off. Her hair stays gray, but takes on a lustrous shine. Her back steadily straightens, spurring on lost height to return.

Berta stares at her hands, feeling up her arms, she flips up a dusty turned over mirror on the far side of the counter, touching her face, color returning.

“I guess that means it’s safe, although the excess gets wasted. Maybe if you were more skilled you could have absorbed more, even if it was a pittance of my reserves. Pure ki by the way, incredibly rare, and now you have many times more than I think entire cities of people here would have.”

A pittance to me though. Like donating a penny. Hmmm, she has mana though. I guess it’s something with their RPG-esque system.

Attempting to speak like she’s barely done in years, “Th-thank… you.” She clasps his hand in hers, looking him in the eyes. “Thank you.”

…

“If I were human, I think I’d be smitten right about now.

Which reminds me, I didn't resume a disguise… not that massive arms really did that well for me. Oh well, it’s gone well enough. I’ll just brute force the rest of this crusade, it’s not like they have nascent soul cultivators here.

Gripping his hand harder, “Truly, thank you.”

“Soooo, those books?”

“Mmmm, yes. What is it you would like to know?”

That voice is gonna lure a lot of men in.

“Magics, skills, beasts and mythical creatures, herbs, alchemy, artifacts, treasures, information on the church and government, overview of current affairs, anything of the sort. Any language and difficulty is fine.”

“Mmmm” She makes her way over to a far shelf to the right beyond her counter, sauntering down the aisle, she pokes her head back out. “Coming?”

“Yes” and he meanders off after her.

“This one here,” She says pulling a book gracefully from a waist height shelf and handing it absentmindedly to Aden, “contains herbs and herbalism.”

Reaching to a higher shelf, “This one.” she grunts, lifting down a heavy, metal clasped book and dropping it into Aden’s arms, making the pile two high. “Always looked like magic symbols to me. You said any language.” She finishes with a sly look.

“And down here…” She bends over, reaching to the floor shelf, facing away from Aden and sifting through the less organized section. Pulling out a slim journal, she turns around to add to the pile with another sly face ready, only to briefly lose it and adorn a pouting one.

Aden looks up from his books, “What? I was enjoying the section on Mystic Smithing. It meshes well with my previous studies.”

Berta shifts her weight, elbow on hip, giving him a look of disappointment.

“I’m an interdimensional being without a determinable species, do you really think you can seduce more treasures out of me?”

“You can’t blame a woman for trying”, she sighs out, continuing her perusal of books.

“I can think you are stupid for it, though.” He comments having returned to reading, then stops.

“hey.”

“Changed your mind?” Bianca says dismissively, not believing him and continuing to sift through books.

“You’re the only one I’ve given such an elixir to here, one of a kind. You’ve also seen me, have a mind for greed, and seem somewhat flexible.”

She stops, turning back to him with her head canted to the side. “I didn’t know you were into that kinda thing, I suppose I could work with that.”

“What? No, focus. I can keep you alive for a very long time. Very very very long time. Probably. If I take a quick thousand year nap, would you be able to keep business running? That lotus is pretty cheap and uncreative for me.”

Berta brings her head back, letting it roll to the side in thought. “That’s a long time to be selling your junk.”

“You’ll find time to be rather irrelevant to an immortal, and my junk to be rather valuable to mortals.”

Leaving her head tilted, now looking him in the eyes, “Then what could you want from us? Books?”

“Among other things. All knowledge and samples of all materials, creatures, plants, alchemical products, magical objects… corpses… You get the idea. Here, check it out.”

Aden held out the little book she pulled like a card between his fingers, “Now you see it,” then closed his hands, bringing the book onto his wrist, letting it fall within. “Now you don’t.” then opens all of his hands, “And now you see four.” He says, holding them in his palms, then alters his skin with the markings within the booklets and the texture of the pages, tracing outwards from his hands.

Her gaze having followed the growing text, now on his whole body. “You get the idea now?” He says, rippling changes through his skin, taking on various forms before settling back on his own.

“I think I have several. We could make a lot of money.” Greed, apparent in her eyes, her hand reaches out for a shake.

A familiar custom.

Taking it in kind, “Now those are the eyes I saw.” An oddly wide grin spreading across his face, “Aden, and you tell no one else.”

Attempting to give him her hand as a lady before begrudgingly giving him a proper shake, “Berta, and I’ll get you eventually.”