Change is never easy. A river needs an act of god to jump its channel.

~Syn, Goddess of Observance and Truth

A reflective targe made of silver rose from the center of his chest. Even unconscious, he was aware of the changes happening. It was as if the Three-Headed Crow ability activated while in an unconscious state, which he didn’t know it could do. Or maybe it couldn’t do it until now.

At the center of the round Shield was the black oak tree that had become his symbol—the Fireheart Oak. Its roots and limbs grew until the top reciprocated the bottom. The top and bottom would have been indistinguishable if the black-flamed leaves didn’t appear on the boughs that represented the limbs.

The odd thing was that the Sluagh perched on the roots below, and there was more than just the three-headed one. Hundreds of those smoky-looking blackbirds spread across the roots, but most cultivators would only recognize them as simple blackbirds. It was too small to make out the finer details, but Crow knew. It was because in the center of them all, in a sort of an unnatural gap between boughs and roots, the three-headed Sluagh Crow dealt with frequently was there. He could even feel it cawing in amusement as if everything Crow was going through was a cosmic joke.

The repulsive force that rendered him unconscious was the Feedback. That force had latched onto his Soulburn curse, and Crow felt it wasn’t a typical trait at all. Unsure of what to call it, he just went with Soulburn Feedback, representing the individual components.

After acknowledging it, the repulsion lessened. It didn’t really latch onto the Shield but settled around it. It created a corona of black flames around his Shield that became part of his actual flesh, like a new scarification tattoo.

That was when he noticed his Heritage disappeared. His stomach and chest were smooth and clear except for the Shield and its corona. Instead, he felt his bloodline power throbbing inside the Fireheart Oak within his Shield. The same went for the discomfort of the scarification tattoos—they went away, too. Around the edge of his Shield, grommets appeared in a multitude of muted colors. Nine of them, to be exact.

Those grommets were the stars represented in typical Shields, but his were different. Each linked to an element and provided resistance to it. He only knew that because one of the nine linked to his fire resistance, and it glittered unnaturally as if showing off its strength. The wood grommet also had some power in it. The rest were rather dull and lifeless.

Crow didn’t know what the last four grommets represented but knew the first five were Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, and Metal. These were the five initial elements of his Scarification tattoo. If going by Shield elements, the next would be Topaz, Ice, Amethyst, and Diamond. Topaz was for Storms—so probably Lightning or wind. Ice represented Spirit and Death. Amethyst was Shadow, Dark, Void, and Space, and Diamond embodied Light, Time, Illusion, and Life. So it could be those four, but he wasn’t absolutely sure.

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Either way, it appeared all the external elements on his body were now part of his Shield. Not that they were gone because he felt more in sync with them now than ever before—it felt like his body had evolved.

The last change, after the Shield solidified and permanently covered his Source, Crow felt his chakras convulsing with power. The Shield sent mana coursing through his meridians, acupoints, bones, and blood. The cleansing properties of the change forced open his Heart Chakra. Amid the glow of power, he felt his body reach a threshold and knew this was what Song Xue had mentioned. It was the barrier between the mortal and the immortal within him.

As his unconscious body cultivated the new meridian paths, Qi filled his fourth chakra and,4 by extension, reinforced his body. The barrier between the mortal and immortal body was nothing to joke about, and even now, he knew it’d be a long time before he could breach it. His mo4rtal body needed to gain ten times the power it currently had to even shake the barrier.

Song Xue getting stuck at this bottleneck was understandable. Crow tried to calculate when his Shield would have enough power and lacked enough understanding to figure it out. Something told him it wasn’t just about his Source or Shield, but his grasp on the Truths of the universe. It was understandable considering that the Visu4ddha, the Throat Chakra, was about the expression of truth.

Crow sensed all this happening in his mental space, so he didn’t feel pain or the exhaustive state his body was in. Days flowed by as the changes took effect, on top of the months he spent in his Soulscape. The one month’s time that was expected went beyond what was considered normal. Those in the know could only smile in pity at the tragedy that is unfated.

His Shield’s formation finished. The heart chakra’s opening and body transformation also finished. Crow’s entire body collapsed as the power sustaining slowly faded away. He’d done it! Crow became a true Draoidh, a cultivator worthy of the name Maddox. The circular shape was no bigger than his fist, and as it cooled, he could feel the wooden texture against his skin. The repulsion—Soulburn Feedback, was still there to a degree, but it no longer tried to expel his own flesh.

“Don’t worry, kid,” the tower guardian said into Crow’s fading awareness. “Your body is in a safe place for now, and neither beast nor man will discover you. But… heh, I can’t say the same thing for ghosts.”

Crow felt uneasy, and once he exhausted the last drop of power from his Shield, he lost his ability to use the Three-Headed Crow. External sensory disappeared along with the remaining vestiges of his awareness. Because of that, he didn’t notice that his Shield had merged into his Vortex Pin. It meant that the soul-linked item was of a higher level than a Shield.

Days passed as his body lay in the swampy mud like a pale corpse. Unmolested by weather, time, or creatures. It was almost two weeks before the corpse-like being’s chest started moving, and a rattling breath echoed from unused lungs. Color returned to the pale flesh as the body’s limbs twitched uncontrollably.

In his awakening, Crow screamed, and his hands dug into the wet met as his back arched upward. The scream tore through the area unending as his flesh shook and his eyes finally snapped open.