“Hum. But we’re getting way off topic, what were we talking about?”

I scratch my head, “uhh, the plan for today was mixing magic and cultivation stuff, mana and ki, and we were… oh yeah! Shapeshifting! How about you ask the Serpent if it can help?”

“We’ll have to go down to the lower temple for that.”

“You do that. Wait, can I come?”

The look at each other. They’re not sure; one one hand they’re the leaders, but on the other, there are some things the Serpent decides. So we agree that they’ll keep an eye out for the dragon and tell me, both in words and by using the diver’s thumbs up sign, if it doesn’t want me there. I’ll also wait outside until they get explicit permission for me.

We dive just fine, soon dropping through a water barrier and landing on a round plaza outside a set of giant palatial doors. A bit later a voice I don’t recognize, but have a sneaking suspicion who belongs to, speaks out:

“ENTER.”

I do as told, giant straight, through the only open doors, and soon find myself in what appear to be an audience room, the couple each sitting on a throne seemingly grown out of that white stuff. I stop a suitable distance away from them and do a bow about fifteen degrees, not averting my eyes from them.

It feels like this would be terribly rude to a king, no, emperor worthy of those thrones, but while I wouldn’t quite consider them friends, I can’t exactly see them as supreme rulers. The coil of sinuous scales hovering above them seem to somewhat disagree, but aside from a mildly murderous stare, it lets it go.

“So… Why the audience?”

“IT IS APPROPRIATE.”

“But- nevermind. I was going to ask if you two could ask the Great Serpent if it knew about ki equivalents to shapeshifting, but…” I glance at the being in question.

“ELABORATE.”

I almost repeat it in the Dalek voice, but (wisely) keep my mouth shut.

“What one might consider my specialty in magic, shapeshifting, is incredibly useful. And it has less… utility-focused uses, too. I have changed my body in several ways, and regularly change it further, be that to be able to fly or to easier swim to these depths. Should I demonstrate?”

“IT HAS BEEN OBSERVED.”

“Ohh~kay. The ability to take on different forms is both useful and, at times, fun. Is that possible with ki, as cultivators?”

It seems decidedly less hostile, and while it doesn’t stroke its beard (it doesn’t have one), I get the impression of an old man doing so as it thinks.

And thinks.

And thinks.

“IT IS POSSIBLE. HOWEVER, REPEATED CHANGES TO A CULTIVATORS BODY WILL POLLUTE IT AND HAMPER THEIR CULTIVATION.”

“Hmm, so freely changing their body at will has a high cost. What if you kept to only one aspect? Aspect, element, affinity. Then you could keep things ‘pure’ to only that one?”

And thinks.

“SUCH TECHNIQUES EXIST.”

“Wait, really?” Thea speaks up this time.

“Could we become dragons, like you?”

“To add to what they said: Would that be temporary, or permanent?”

“THE LIBRARIES HAVE TECHNIQUES FOR TAKING ON FORMS SUCH AS MINE. SOME ARE TEMPORARY, OTHERS CHANGE YOU FOREVER.”

“Hmm, so you could theoretically have relatively free shapeshifting, but doing so would potentially destroy the ‘purity’ of your ki?”

“THAT WOULD BE CORRECT.”

We question it a bit more for specifics, and it seems like you can divide such techniques on whether they are temporary or permanent, and whether they partially or completely change your body, for four categories in total. The Temple has techniques for temporarily transforming into a water elemental, but also ones that slowly, but permanently, transform the body ‘embody’ Water. The Great Serpent also implies that it can modify techniques to some degree.

All of those either requires a higher cultivation, or for the long term ones, are part of the later parts of cultivation process. Continuing to think of the Serpent as an old man, he hits his fist in his upturned palm as realization strikes, tells the couple that now is a good time to look at long term cultivation techniques, and throws me out, slamming the doors in my face.

I mean, it just told me to leave and not disturb them, and the doors closed smoothly and quietly, but… The image!

But what now?

Hmm, well, I guess it’s been a while since I actually focused on aspects. Come to think of it, there was that one thing. So… I have aspects of Dog and Wolf as separate, and several kinds of cats, which are all separate species, but then I have aspects such as Fox, Eagle, and Falcon, but each of those are more a grouping?

So are they like… super-aspects? Like, a category with sub-aspects? Shouldn’t that be possible for other aspects as well? Like… I have all these aspects for various corvids, if I try to find the ‘essence’, the shared part, of what makes a corvid, then-

Oh. That worked.

But what determines if I learn something as more generic or specific? I guess with Eagle and Falcon it could be because I learnt it from a range of species, and… no, I can’t seem to produce an aspect for a specific species of eagle, despite knowing several. Hm.

And then there’s others… Fox, and Wolf, I suppose. Though there isn’t that much difference in how they’re built and sized? Wait, is it largely just based on my understanding of them? Or perhaps people in general? Maybe both?

How about elemental aspects, what about Mist, Water, and Ice?

…no, but Water already covers all the forms of water, while Mist, or I suppose with english having two words for ‘tåke’ I guess I could’ve -and maybe should’ve- called it Fog, is more of a metaphysical thing? The whole, obscuring, hiding, that kinda stuff? Illusory is a fitting word. Ice… More like ‘cold’. Solid, hard, potentially brittle.

Hm.

Actually, where am I? I’m not lost, and while the surrounding ki makes magic a bit more cumbersome, it’s not really suppressed. I even remember how I got here-

Huh, with all the turns I’ve taken… that’s new after the Upheaval. Magic? Or the changes I’ve made? Or maybe something to do with stats?

Whatever, this door looks fancy, let’s see if the Serpent will get angry if I put my hand on the handle.

No roar in the distance? No sense of dread? And I’ll give it ten seconds to physically come here to stop me.

…two, one, zero.

‘Aight, let’s see what’s behind door number one!

Okay, so maybe it was a bit optimistic to think I could open a door which seems to be made of stone at this size with physical force. Magic… that works.

And on the other side- Oof, spatial weirdness aside, that’s some dense ki. But still not enough to supress my mana, so let’s go. Eugh, this strains my mana, but that’s a good opportunity to try the trick I thought of after getting my ass whooped by the Serpent.

Stupid hindsight, stupid thinking of the perfect choice several days too late. Stupid brain.

If the body can protect against cold by simply not sending heat (blood) to the outer parts of the body (at risk of losing said parts), I should be able to mimic that to protect against ki by not sending mana to my skin, right?

Huh, that worked better than expected, but it still slowly drains my mana. What if I withdraw it further, but only in my arms and legs…? Oh yeah, that’s perfect. Huh, the ki seems to ‘slow down’ or struggle as it enters my body, have I really changed my body towards magic to such a degree?

I guess it isn’t that surprising. I might’ve given up on seriously improving my mana physique by replicating what I see in Leda, but I’ve surpassed Tåke in ‘quality’. It’s more evenly, no, naturally spread out in her body, though, while my improvements are primarily in my skeleton and, upon further introspection, my nerves and/or blood vessels. Well, I can get my mana to where I want it quick and easy, and that’s what matters.

So what is this place even for? There’s something fucky going on with the space here, and I don’t even need to magically detect the spatial boundaries and… oddities to realise that, given how far I’ve jogged. No room this size would fit in that part of the temple.

The ki is getting denser and denser as I go on, but I can still use magic easily enough (though wasting mana). What’s the deal with the road though? There’s nothing else here, just this long and winding path? What about the edge- hooh, let’s not fall off the side. In fact, let’s stay nice and safe in the middle.

What the…?

What’s a tree doing here?

I mean, the leaves, uh, leaf-like things are on the wrong side, seemingly being pulled up, and the trunk and branches are made of what looks like that weird white material used so much outside, but like… less processed? I guess it’s like raw timber and planks. Though, the white stuff looks distinctly grown. Like this root coming back up out of the ground here. And this one, and-

Huh. So…

Is the temple built in the upper parts of a giant version of this tree, and the rest of the tree is underground? Hooh. There was a staircase next to the room with the floating fish, right? I should inspect those too, are they some ki-based relative of sky whales? Speaking of, I’ve gotta find more of those, too.

Didn’t the japanese ‘capture’ one? To whatever degree having a giant flight-capable magic whale hanging around your facility and cooperating means it’s captured. Hmm, I’ve been meaning to take a trip there, there should be plenty of interest in knowing enough of shapeshifting to give yourself (or others) cat, dog or fox ears. Wait, is that racist?

Well, that’s for another time. So a prreeetty big tree (though smaller than Yggdrassil back home) that has leaves on the bottom instead of at the top and has a large… whatever this vaguely circular ground would be called. A disc around the middle?

I should probably turn back, but before that, let’s continue for like five minutes and see if I get anywhere.

Right, so it’s probably another hour or two down this path to find anything new, and I’m not sure if it would be another ‘checkpoint’ or the actual endpoint, so let’s just turn around. Eugh, it took long enough to get here by foot, so I’ll just fly back. Definitely gonna stick close to and follow the path, though; even if space is linear here I don’t think I could navigate back without the reference of the road.

So I take a step, then another, then expend some mana and to push myself up and forwards, then find myself back in the temple and that’s a wall-

“Lars!”

Pushing through my stunned state, I turn around to see them exiting the door behind me.

“The-e-ea?”

“Are- are you okay?”

“No. Face-wall. Oww.”

A bit later, once I’m slightly less rattled, I ask about why they came for me, and of course the Serpent knew I entered. Also, apparently the space is made so that if you take more than a couple steps back you end up at the door. Hence my face-wall, as I so eloquently put it.

But as soon as that clarification is done I ask about what they decided on, what kind of technique they chose, and get the boring, if understandable, answer that they aren’t going to do anything permanent for now.

“So until you decide you’re just going to do the same as you’ve been doing?”

They are.

“What about core formation? Can’t you get started at that and just avoid all the things with permanent effects and reset your progress regularly?”

The Serpent seems to think about this again, and we end up just looking at it and waiting for it to-

“YOUR SUGGESTION IS NOT WITHOUT MERIT. THEY CAN LEARN FROM THE EXPERIENCE, AND WITH GUIDANCE THEY CAN RETRY WITH NO DEMERITS.”

Ugh, this guy. It’s nice that it can communicate without a headache-inducing mind bond, but its… ‘voice’ isn’t much better.

“THEA. FORM THE SEED.”

She closes her eyes and evens her breathing, then, to my senses at least, a whole lot of nothing happens. Soon she opens them again, but seem a bit distracted.

“KRISTIAN. FORM THE SEED.”

He does more or less the same.

“THIS IS A SUITABLE FIRST ATTEMPT. CONVENE IN THE TEMPLE NO LESS FREQUENT THAN ONCE EVERY FULL MOON. YOUR PROGRESS WILL BE OBSERVED AND YOU WILL GET ADVICE.”

“How long will this take?” Thea asks.

“AS YOU ARE NOW, IT WILL TAKE ABOUT TEN YEARS OF YOUR TIME TO CREATE A CORE OF SUFFICIENT QUALITY.”

“Our time?”

“It’s because of the wibbly wobbly timey wimey in the cultivation room.”

Kristian is the one to answer her, and I almost crack up at how honestly he says it.

“What do you think is the fastest they can do it?” I want to know.

As usual, I get goosebumps when it gazes upon me, but it’s a bit better this time, probably because it’s thinking. Then it gets as strong as any time, but somehow slightly less unpleasant.

“FOUR YEARS.”

“Oh? That’s a lot shorter. What do they need to manage that?

“FIRST, THEY MUST MASTER THEIR CURRENT TECHNIQUES. THEY SHALL USE NO MORE THAN ONE YEAR. IT WOULD TAKE LONGER, BUT CORE FORMATION SHOULD GIVE COMPREHENSION AND INSIGHT.”

“SECOND, THEY MUST REACH HARMONY WITH EACH OTHER AND MASTER EACH OTHER’S BODIES AND THEIR USES.”

It turns to them.

“THIS SHOULD BE NO OBSTACLE IF YOU OVERCOME YOUR SILLY OBJECTIONS. LET YOURSELF BE OBSERVED, AND YOU WILL RECEIVE GUIDANCE”

“What, don’t say that in front of him!” Thea exclaims incredulously.

“Wait, hang on, you mean the pair cultivation techniques, right?” I have a hunch…

“CORRECT.”

“So you’re basically telling them to have sex?” If so…

“CORRECT.”

“…do those techniques have anything to do with their bizarre libido?”

The pair turns to glare at it, and suddenly it seems a lot less majestic.

“…”

“CORRECT.”

That’s impressively loud for something so quiet. Also-

“What the fuck!”

Yeah, what he said.

“Is that why we’ve been so… like this!?”

As she shouts, she gestures at her crotch and drawing my attention to the faint scent I’ve specifically been trying not to think about.

“CORRECT.”

They share a look, and when they turn back to it, a pressure descends. While different from the shrinking Serpent’s, it’s not completely so. It’s distinctly uneven; mostly smooth, but occasionally it’s like two parts of a machine grinding together and throwing sparks at anything nearby.

“ IT IS A USEFUL PART OF THE TECHNIQUE. WHEN YOU-”

“I. Don’t. Care! You never told us it would do that! You should’ve- you can’t just-”

Whatever she was going to say becomes a shriek, and in a startling shift of mood, they both throw themselves at it, like wild beasts taken by rage.

The Serpent meets my eyes for a moment, and I know it doesn’t feel particularly threatened. There’s a hint of… pity? Regret? Something like that. Then a little bit of ki impacts me, pushing me away, just enough for me to reflexively move a foot back to keep my balance.

Then it turns to them.

Thea’s fist knocks away the part of the serpentine body away, but has no other visible effect, and it almost lazily moves its head to avoid the blue light Kristian sent out. Then I’m around the corner, having taking its hint and bravely ran away.

They went bonkers from that! It’s not like the Serpent had any ill will, and since it’s a technique they could just stop using it. Then again, I suppose they’re angry not so much because of the effect itself as that they weren’t told of it. I have seen their hungry looks, and with my senses those other things have been hard to miss, but I figured they were just really, uh, vigorous.

I have a sneaking suspicion that after all of this, they will still have lots of mystically libido-enhanced, dragon-sanctioned sex, though. Without me. Well, it wasn’t bad, so if I let them go at each other first… As for the voyeuristic suggestion, there didn’t seem to be any ill or even sexual intent behind that. It probably just wants to guide them.

Uh, with the technique. Then again, with its track record I wouldn’t be surprised if it pulled out some Kama Sutra manual. That somehow helped in cultivation.

For now though, it sounds like it’s just taking the beating. Or maybe not, that roar was not made by a human throat.

I stumble as the dragon’s pressure crashes over me for the second time, but recover and keep going. Fuck, fleeing was definitely the correct decision.