What we know we find safe, and it is our foundation for growth. However, what happens if what we know is untrue? Then the foundation we established no longer holds, and everything crumbles to the ground. A strong person rebuilds, a weak one becomes as broken as their foundation.

~Dagda, the All-Father, Chief of the Gods

Mara sighed.

“That idiot,” she mumbled while staring at the manual in her hand. Crow had infected her with curiosity and couldn’t undo her choice now. Before he came into her life, she’d have chosen the Void Dimension Blade without hesitation.

Instead, she stared at the Void Soul Doppelganger and wondered what this could even do for her. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t one to dwell, so she opened it up and started reading. The Druid elders considered her a prodigy, so they weren’t stingy with her cultivation. Learning martial abilities, techniques, and spells had been easy for her.

One glance at the manual, and she felt her mind stutter. She wasn’t like Crow, so her understanding of the fundamentals wasn’t as strong. There were few skills she couldn’t master, and looking at her current techniques and spells, she knew her aptitude toward fire wasn’t as strong as it was toward the Void. Fiery Heart Barrier, Piercing Inferno, and Raging Bloodfire were the abilities she had the highest aptitude toward. However, all those combined weren’t as complex as this single manual.

Starting from the beginning, she focused on the foundation necessary to use this technique. Because she didn’t have Crow’s background, she didn’t realize she was creating a Celtic Knot similar to the one he formed for his Ghosting ability. Nor did she recognize that there were hundreds of combinations of Ogham runes within it. Had she known those things, it would have simplified the process. The cultivation method wouldn’t have confused her as much and caused her to fail multiple times.

By the fifth day, she gained several moments of enlightenment. She also finally noticed that the chamber in which she sat had filled with Void Mana. The mana was so pure that it could rival the cleansed mana inside Crow’s Source. Incorporating the Void Mana into the cultivation method for Void Soul Doppelganger provided long-term benefits to her body, mind, and spirit.

On the seventeenth day, she completed a full rotation and felt the ability activate. Pain tore through her body, but she pushed it aside. Her mind stayed focused on the cultivation method and tried to forget everything else. Even as her body bled and it felt as if the Void was devouring her, she kept at it.

Had Crow been present, he’d have seen her eyes turn black, two dark pits that seemed to devour everything. A purple halo that was so dark that it might as well have been black emerged around her and created an umbra of dark energy. If she was a male lion, it would have looked like its mane.

She gave off an inordinate amount of heat as well, like a dark sun. She hadn’t realized that this was partly because of Crow’s yang energy still inside her. It merged into the cultivation method and helped her gain control of the ability. Before long, it stabilized, and the wild energy coursing through her slowly fell under her control.

Her injured body was something she couldn’t avoid. Still, it too was slowly recovering while she continued to absorb the Void Mana in the chamber. Little by little, she felt that the technique was about to show itself. Sadly, it only had one stage, the Formation of the Doppelganger, but she felt there was more to it.

A tear in the fabric of reality started out as a tiny pinprick and then elongated into a rip. It grew larger while the power inside Mara grew more volatile. Sensing the depleting Void Mana, Mara knew she only had one chance, so she continued to power up while reviewing the manual’s contents again and again.

Both of her hands grabbed at her chest, below her breasts, and pulled. The pain was terrifying and almost caused her to lose consciousness, but she fought through it. All the while, she was tearing a part of her spirit from her soul. It was damage that could take years to repair, but as she held the formless spirit energy in her hand, her soul quickly mended.

It was a doppelganger fetus which meant it was still part of her soul—it didn’t cause true damage. As she inserted her will into the spirit blob, a shape took form inside. It looked like a fetus still inside its mother’s womb, only its eyes were like the Void, and it looked extremely terrifying. Mor than that, Mara could tell it wasn’t human-shaped.

After the fetus formed, it sucked the remaining Void Mana inside the chamber into it, and Mara fed it all the Void Mana inside her as well. The mana absorption stopped only after it turned into a black shadow of a fetus, and Mara quickly sent it into the Void through the tear in reality. She knew it couldn’t exist in this spacetime for long, and if it wasn’t sent off, she would have failed her challenge.

As the tear into the Void disappeared, Mara collapsed to the ground. There wasn’t any energy left in her body, and she fell into unconsciousness and slept.

“Wake up,” a voice called out to her.

She sat up groggily and could feel her connection to her Void Soul Doppelganger. Surprisingly, it had already grown. Mara instinctively knew the doppelganger was a lion cub but couldn’t understand it. A doppelganger traditionally took the appearance of the thing it was copying. This lion cub did not do that, so why it was called a doppelganger.

“How long?” She asked with a hoarse voice.

“You have twelve hours to leave. Or fail.”

“Thanks,” she replied, but knew the voice was gone.

She left that alone for the moment and read through the benefits of having a Void Soul Doppelganger and sat down to cultivate. She used a traditional Druid cultivation method and absorbed the surrounding mana into her body but felt something even more impressive coming from her doppelganger. Void Mana flowed into her body in great abundance, which greatly aided her. Already she felt her Source was filling faster, and the mana was devouring the impurities as well.

The physical changes in her body weren’t noticeable at first. Her strawberry-blonde hair had lightened so that the blonde looked white, and the strawberry coloring contrasted more starkly. Her pupils looked like the endless Void, which made the iris of her eyes glow like a cat’s at night. The muscles in her body also thickened while becoming more supple. Most people wouldn’t notice these changes, but Crow would.

“Maybe he isn’t an idiot,” Mara said after opening her eyes. She knew that the doppelganger’s benefits were beyond her imagining because now she had access to a source of Void Mana. Other cultivators might struggle to learn void-related abilities, but she knew that hurdle didn’t exist for her now. While the doppelganger couldn’t come into this reality or aid her in any way, she felt this was fair. In hindsight, she was glad she didn’t choose the Void Dimension Blade.

The door exiting the chamber appeared after she finished creating the technique, and now she stepped through. She found herself in the lobby again, and the Clockwork woman was there.

“Congratulations, you are the second person to pass that round one.”

Tei explained the same things she told Crow at almost the exact same time. Mara came out ten minutes after Crow did, and had she not sat down to cultivate, she’d have been first. She didn’t know that, but Tei did.

“Do you have questions?”

“Just one. Why is it called a doppelganger?”

“It is a Void Soul Doppelganger, not a Mara doppelganger,” Tei told her in her usual direct way.

“So my soul is a lioness?”

“We all see ourselves in a certain light that others can’t understand. Seeing a physical manifestation of our soul can enlighten us because it allows us to know how we truly see ourselves. Consider that one benefit of choosing that technique.”

Mara nodded and found this reasoning to her liking. She didn’t feel like a lioness most days, but she knew she could be fierce and overbearing at times. She also knew she protected her little sister as if Esme were her own cub. Thinking about a lot of the things she did over the years, she made more and more connections with the aspect of a lioness and started laughing.

“Yes, I am a lioness,” Mara said and left the Clocktower. She went directly to her room and waited. She thought it might take days, but an hour later, she felt Crow passing by her room and reached out to grab him. Not giving him a moment to even greet her, she was on him. Her mouth smothered his, and her body was already craving him.

Crow picked her up and threw her on the bed. Quickly he activated Ghosting and allowed his clothes to fall off his body. Mara gasped, but Crow was already on her. He flipped her over and took her from behind. Mara’s moans, growls, and screams echoed through the inn, but neither of them stopped for at least two hours.

Afterward, they kept going, but it was slower and not as lustful. Instead, it was more intense and meaningful. They continued through the night until they finally collapsed, exhausted as the sun rose once more.

***

Acco arrived in his room shortly after Crow was pulled into Mara’s, but he didn’t realize he was next to hers. As he settled down to sleep, Mara’s screams of pleasure assaulted him shortly after. He knew who it was immediately and looked at the two manuals he received before throwing them at the wall. Acco even got up and pounded on it a few times, but they completely ignored him.

“Damn you, Crow!” He shouted, but he doubted either of them could hear him based on what he was hearing. Angrily, he stormed out of his room and the inn and went to a nearby pub. Even on the street, he could hear Mara screaming out, and to make it worse, he was almost dropped to the ground when he felt her orgasm echoing through the Constellation.

“Fuck my life!”