Author's Note: I have included a large FAQ regarding recent developments in the story (mainly the duplication power) at the end of this chapter, so if you are curious, check it out! None of it is essential information, and while it might contain some vague spoilers, most of them are things that most readers here already expect (for example, this is still a 'wuxia' style story, not a typical western fantasy novel).

The long walk back to North Stone Village was surprisingly fun; it was, in many ways, the first time I had experienced true freedom in nearly a decade. Nobody was looking for me, nobody was waiting – in fact, Wolfram was, technically, the only other person who even knew I existed! (The other me didn’t count, as he wasn’t really an ‘other person’.)

I avoided the road entirely, both because I wanted to see what the countryside was like, and because I didn’t want to risk running into any patrols. Explaining what I was doing out here by myself might be a little difficult. It also gave me a chance to test out the navigation skills I had spent the last four years learning, as well as the wilderness lore. There were tubers and roots aplenty (if you knew where to look), as well as numerous different types of edible berries and fruit. Because we were, as a species, immune to poisons, I didn’t have to really worry about testing out new potential foods I came across – as long as it was organic, we could eat it.

There weren’t any plants that I specifically recognized from Earth (not surprising, considering how little I knew about botany), but the general sense of things was similar, except for one big difference: Size. Everything was stunted and small, even the trees. Most berry bushes were shorter than I was, meaning they would only come up to the waist of a full grown adult, while the trees were considerably taller, but still puny compared to the scale of things on Earth. Roots, tubers, berries – all of it just seemed smaller than I remembered, probably indicating that the ground here just wasn’t all that fertile.

There weren’t any farms close to the road itself, but there were plenty of smaller cart-tracks intersecting it every now and then; I had to assume those led to the many smaller ‘food producing’ settlements that allegedly peppered the land. Wolfram had cast a simple invisibility spell on me before I snuck past the House Flameward soldiers who were manning the huge entrance to The City, timing it so that I had just over half an hour to get myself far enough out of sight before the spell would fail.

It took me about an hour to reach the first signs of cultivated lands, which took the form of a tall sentry tower built next to a row of trees planted along the edge of a field. And shortly after that I saw my first person; the sentry posted in the tower.

The sentry towers were an integral part of our defensive system, and each of them functioned to give the soldiers posted to them (generally a quad per tower) both an elevated vantage point and a place to take shelter during a large scale beast attack. Those were supposed to be quite rare this close to the city, so I wasn’t all that worried… alright, that was a lie… I was plenty worried, but I tried to shove it to the back of my mind. I had access to all my powers at the moment, leaving the other Heller somewhat defenseless, but he was safe in the House Flameward compound. Swapping abilities between my duplicates was a core part of my strange new power, and all it required was that I return to the blood-mist form and release control of whatever abilities I no longer needed. Then I would send a message to myself through my soul-link with Wolfram, and my duplicate would be free to grab whatever abilities weren’t being used.

I moved over to a clump of trees and did my best to stay low, not wanting to deal with any inquisitive Warriors who might come out of the sentry tower to investigate why a child was wandering, alone, outside The City. I had a plan for what to do if I did get caught in the open, but I figured it was best not to use it unless I had no other choice…

And that is when I heard growling behind me. I spun around just in time to see a dark four-legged form lunge at me, its jaws open and reaching for the soft flesh of my throat (my scales were just starting to harden, but everyone I had asked said that fourteen or fifteen years old was when they would finally provide enough defense to be useful in a fight).

A gentle green light flashed in the corner of my vision as the beast landed on top of me, letting me know that my Ion Shield was down to half-power after the first attack – strange how I had used to view it as being so strong, when now it was (in comparison to ice) my weaker power set. My mind whirled as I quickly applied TR, reacting instinctively as I sped myself up and slammed both fists into the black furry head of the creature that now had its jaws clamped around my throat.

I had spent years practicing the delicate timing required to add Qi to a sudden blow, but I still only managed to get it right on the second hit. My Qi enhanced left fist pushed right past the beast’s thick fur and into the fleshy meat beneath, hot blood spurting between my knuckles as my strike connected with the bone of its skull.

A muffled yelp escaped from the beast as it let go of my throat, its thrashing having taken another few points off of my shield. I finally got my first good look at it, my eyes widening as I realized how it was able to sneak up on me like that; the damn thing was one of the shadow wolves that had attacked my village when I was still a baby, I was sure of it! I had been paying attention to my surroundings just before it ambushed me, and I still hadn’t detected anything.

My Ion Shield was damaged, meaning I might not have enough juice left for a lightning bolt to fry this thing before it could attack again, and the wolf was certainly not wearing any armor my magnetism could take advantage of (I REALLY had to do something about that power), but now that I was ready the shadow wolf was moving at half speed compared to me. It snarled and leapt at me, one of its eyes blinded by the stream of blood coming down its face.

I danced backwards quickly, just barely avoiding the shadow wolf’s pounce, but feeling a lot more confident now that I had TR active. I suppressed my sudden urge to play with the wolf (I wanted to see how long it would take me to finish it off bare handed), aware that the rest of its pack might be about to rip me to shreds. Shards of ice abruptly started cascading from my palm as I reached out with my left hand, creating a trio of sharp ice spikes for the wolf to land on. I dropped low to the ground and spun around, searching for other threats as I allowed gravity to run its course behind me, a series of ice spikes appearing around me in a defensive ring just in case I was ambushed… but there was nothing.

A high pitched series of yelps rang out behind me, followed by a long whine that sounded WAY too much like a dog. I stood up to inspect my handiwork; the shadow wolf was messily impaled on two of the spikes I had created. It was staring at me as it whined and snapped helplessly, its energy fading fast as the pool of blood beneath it spread.

I will admit that I felt just a little bit bad, but only because the noises it was making reminded me of a household pet that I hadn’t seen since I was reborn. But that didn’t stop me from taking a stroll around it, inspecting the beast while it was dying – the thing had just tried to kill me, after all.

It was smaller than I remembered, but then again I was a lot bigger now than I had been. All in all, it was just slightly smaller than I would imagine a regular wolf from Earth would be (not one of those huge ones from Alaska or wherever). All in all, the shadow wolves were probably the weakest individual beasts I had encountered, but what made them deadly was their strange capacity for stealth.

I raised my other hand and shot a shard of ice through its skull, finally silencing its whimpers. I felt guilty for letting it suffer, and there was no point trying to lie to myself. I can pretend I didn’t care, but that didn’t make it true.

“And who the bloody beast do we have here?”

My head whipped around, my hand raised defensively in front of me as I created a razor sharp ice-sword.

“House Spiritwind, are we? Well, an honor to meet you, little lost lordling.”

I spun around, unable to see anyone in the area the voice was coming from, but after a moment I remembered to look up in the trees around me. There was a man above me, hanging upside down with his arms crossed… I had a flash of vertigo as I stumbled back, half expecting him to fall and drop on my head... before I realized he had prehensile feet and a long tail – both of which had a firm grip on the tree branches supporting him.

He let go of the tree with his feet, using his tail to slow his fall as he somehow flipped himself around in mid-air and landed on his feet right in the center of my ring of ice spikes. I had to admit – it was pretty damn impressive.

We studied each other for a moment, him seeming more interested in my ice-blade than in what I looked like. He had pointy elf-ears like my mother, and in fact he looked almost entirely human except for the hand-feet and the long hairless tail waving behind him. He was about the same size as her as well, for that matter, only a head and a half taller than I was – which made him one of the shortest male adults I had ever seen.

I stayed silent, thinking over what I was going to say. My previous plans were more or less ruined, seeing how he had caught me in the act of killing a beast with my ice powers. Luckily, he didn’t seem very familiar with House Spiritwind’s Cultivation Technique, or he’d probably assume I was a lot more than a simple ‘lordling’.

“Name’s Zeff, nice to meet you, lordling.” He gestured over his shoulder, “Thanks for taking care of that one for me, by the way, he’s been a slippery bugger for sure.” Zeff gave me a broad smile, his posture open and unthreatening, his gaze moving between my face and my hand.

Oh right, the ice-blade! I quickly got rid of it, and decided to clear out the rest of the ice I had created as well. I still wasn’t sure what to say… but Zeff was obviously leaving the ball in my court this time: He just stood there, smiling at me.

“I’m on my way to see Lord Runax in North Stone Village.” I spoke slowly, not even sure what I was going to say until after I was done. What came out was a part of the cover story I had prepared for myself in the event I ran into any soldiers, minus the part about me being a young noble of House Flameward... I'd have to change that part of my cover identity to House Spiritwind now that he had seen me use ice.

I figured that either Firebrand or Kodan would back me up if things went sideways, so I wasn’t really worried about impersonating minor nobility. But… not House Spiritwind nobility… this, I would have to keep quiet. Wolfram’s father did NOT strike me as a reasonable man.

“Well, fancy that, lordling, me too! Surely it’s the will of the spirits that we travel together, then.” His grin had widened, and his posture visibly relaxing after I dismissed my weapon… which was odd, because I hadn’t been able to tell he was tensed up beforehand.

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It took us three days to get to North Stone Village, mostly because Zeff wanted us to stick to the treeline as much as possible. He was surprisingly good company, often chatting away at me as he swung through the trees with uncanny grace. I was staying pretty silent, only answering direct questions and avoiding any topic that might reveal my subterfuge… which was pretty much all of them.

Zeff even led me to one of the farming settlements when I mentioned that I wanted to visit one, waving at the sentry towers we passed while letting off a series of fire-blasts from his hands – probably a code of some kind. The settlement itself was pretty interesting, consisting of a strange looking house-fort that doubled as both the living quarters and emergency shelter for the families who worked the fields. The crops were smaller than I would have expected (and I didn’t recognize any of them), but the fields themselves were absolutely huge.

All the people we saw were wearing weapons as the worked, and most were wearing some type of protective armor as well. We stopped to chat with a few, Zeff simply telling them I was a minor noble when they asked who I was. They told us about recent beast activity, most of them seeming familiar with our guide, and the vast majority telling him that they hadn’t seen any Reaver Wolves (the official name for the beast I had just killed) recently.

“Hunting Reavers is my job, lordling. Has been for near on a decade, now.” Zeff told me when I asked him one night, “Most dangerous buggers out here, if you ask me. Quiet as the dead, hard to track.” He shook his head, handing me a roasted shadow wolf thigh – Zeff had butchered my kill the day before, claiming it was his favorite type of meat. It certainly didn’t bother me, seeing as how all the meat I had eaten as a child had come from one beast or another; we weren’t picky. And it was only fair, seeing as how they liked to eat us so much.

When I asked how often there were beast attacks out here, Zeff told me that attacks in small numbers were a fairly frequent occurrence, but the Warriors stationed in the area made sure any groups large enough to be dangerous were taken care of. The important part was that deaths were quite rare, and most injuries could be taken care of by one of the Silverlight Healers assigned to the area. Our people were relativelt hardy, and not having to worry about sickness or infection was a huge boom to peasant life.

Apparently stronger beasts tended to attract the Merrik even if they weren’t part of a horde, so they rarely made it this deep into settled territory. And even if they did, an experienced quad of Warriors could take out most of them without any casualties, as long as the uber-beast was alone. Apparently things were actually a lot safer here than in North Stone Village, despite the odd small grouping of beasts wandering around: We had a large scale beast attack every four or five years, but the people here rarely even saw one each generation. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that… why even have such a large village that close to the mountains, if it was so damn dangerous?

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I think that Zeff had been planning to deliver me to Lord Runax himself, but even though I hadn’t spoken much I felt that we had bonded on the road. It probably helped that he got a glimpse of how powerful my ice abilities were the few times we were attacked (it had taken me a while to realize that he had been using his vantage in the trees to FIND the various beasts around us, not avoid them). His preferred method of attack was to snipe them from the trees with lightning, but he would always stop and take the time to point his targets out to me before he attacked. I wasn’t sure if he was being careful, or just sharing so that I could get in on the action too – either way, he seemed pleased when I happily agreed to join in on his hunts.

I watched him for a moment as he made his way back into the wilderness between North Stone Village and The City, looking at the Guards he had unceremoniously handed me over to. They recognized me, of course, and were more than happy to escort me to see Lord Runax.

That visit, however… was less than pleasant… but at least it was over quickly. I simply informed Froggy that I would be staying in North Stone Village for the time being, and that I would be reporting to Captain Buzac next to relay my new orders to him.

When I saw the good Captain he was rather surprised, muttering something about an old bastard to himself. He flushed when I asked him what that meant, asking that I just forget it. Then came the hard part.

“Captain… you know about how I’m… different, right?” I asked, “Well, you may hear reports that I am still in The City. I just want to ask that you don’t worry about those, and please don’t report my presence here either.” I paused, giving him a chance to speak.

“Ah… yes… um…” Said Captain Buzac, “Heller, I… uh… am afraid that must admit to some degree of confusion…”

I smiled. I absolutely refused to lie to someone as upstanding as Captain Buzac, and it felt pretty good being able to tell him (most of) the truth.

“I am actually in both places.” I chuckled, “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. Can you please help me keep this quiet? I don’t want to freak too many people out.”

Captain Buzac was clearly flustered, but he agreed to give what aid he could. I had to admit that the whole situation caused me some concern, but I felt that I would be pretty safe as long as I stayed within the territory controlled by House Flameward. Kodan didn’t know about my powers yet, but I planned to let him in on things as soon as I was able to arrange a meeting with him… or, well, the me back in The City was going to meet with him. Whatever, it would all be the same after we synced up again in a few months.

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Several months after the other ‘me’ had gone back to North Stone Village, I went online to review some of the images that he had uploaded for me. It was great to see that my family was doing well, with my mother so happy that I was home that she hadn’t yelled at Jaws in weeks! I had to admit that I did miss them slightly, but I was always the independent sort – even back when I had moved to China for a year, I had never gotten homesick. Sure, keeping in touch with friends and family was great, but I had a tendency to focus more on the present than dwell on the past. Still, I was looking forward to synching up and getting the benefit of both lives, including the time with family.

That being said… I was a lot more excited about the other benefits I’d get from the upcoming sync. From what I could gather, working the forge had done wonders for my physique, even though less than half a year had passed. Combine that with all the exercise I had been doing here at the House Flameward compound, and I had a miniature training montage going on, like something out of the movies.

But even more than that, I really wanted the cultivation knowledge that my other self had gained. Before my latest split I had come up with a pretty simple plan, one that I hoped would help with both my lightning/magnetism power set as well help me solidify control over the errant ice powers package: Study the Cultivation Techniques of this world.

The plan was simple, but hard to execute. I wanted to study the Spiritwind technique that Wolfram had kindly provided me access too (via the soul-link), as well as the Flameward technique that I had been given shortly after joining up (I had plans to ask Firebrand for the highest tier technique, but I didn’t know how he would react… and I hadn’t seen him in over two months now anyway).

The problem with my plan, of course, was that I wanted to have access to the electricity power set at the forge at North Stone Village, leaving me here, with the ice powers, to cultivate the Spiritwind technique while hoping nobody would notice. So far I had been doing a pretty good job of hiding my ice powers from everyone except Firebrand himself… and he just didn’t give a shit about much of anything except drinking and fighting (often in that order), as far as I could tell.

Aside from that, however, everything had been going pretty well here. All the soldiers and instructors were treating me extremely well, for obvious reasons, and both Tetra and Wulfric were here in the compound with me. No more shared rooms, however, but only because I had a private suite courtesy of Firebrand… I still hadn’t asked why. I just wished the windows were better insulated, as I had noticed that they often start to fog up when I follow the forms laid out in Spiritwind book – with aid, of course, from the plethora of ‘instructional videos’ that Wolfram had helpfully uploaded. Progress on the Flameward technique, on the other hand, was moving much slower; from what I understood, the problem was a combination of it being a lesser technique, and not having access to expert instruction.

Wulfric and Tetra were taking to the new training environment here like fish to water, though Tetra was not overly pleased that I kept pushing back the date on giving her ‘upgrades’ like I had with Wulfric. All in all, she was handling it pretty well, but I could understand her frustration – I tried to think of it like a parent buying a car for one sibling, but then telling the other that they were out of luck.

But for the time being I decided to get back to my task for the afternoon: Applying the first of the new upgrades to my ice powers! I had discovered early on that I was now generating CP at what seemed to be half the rate as before, which had worried me until I was able to get in touch with the Heller back home – and found out that he was getting the other half. I wasn’t sure if I liked that at first, but after thinking for a while I decided it was for the best. And that way each of me (now that is a phrase I never thought I would use) could focus on a different power set to work on. The other Heller had made great strides in designing the new electricity power set, and I was looking forward to seeing what he came up with.

Anyway, back to the ice! The power I was about to buy was one of the scariest ones I had come up with so far: I was going to have to die… wait, no… make myself not alive… ack… become non-living? Yeah, that last one sounds best. Basically I was going to turn myself into a frost elemental… even now it just seemed crazy. I had gone over it again and again, and (especially after my successful ‘experiment’ on Wulfric) I felt pretty confident that I would be able to become non-living and back again… but I still felt a LOT better knowing that I had a backup of myself in my village… just in case.

I made my way to the top of the barracks, taking extra care to ensure that I wasn’t noticed. I didn’t want to risk being in an enclosed space if something went wrong, and if everything went right I was supposed to go and meet up with myself tonight.

The ritual took a long time, but everything went well; I could feel the runes settling on my soul (while designing the blood-mist duplication ability, I had finally figured out what the Qi infused runes had been attaching themselves to when they sank into me, and it certainly wasn’t anything physical). I took a deep breath and activated my ability…

…

…

Cold. I didn’t feel cold, I was cold. I could feel the heat around me dissipating, or maybe being absorbed… I couldn’t tell. There was frost forming on the small area of the roof around me, and I hadn’t even activated any of my ice powers yet.

I looked down at my naked body, talking a step backwards in surprise when I saw my hands – they were like murky ice mittens, probably somewhat opaque, but it was hard to tell in the darkness... or was it? I looked around, realizing for the first time that I could see better than I should be able to at night… but all the colors were wrong. That was… unexpected. Was I seeing in a different spectrum of light then? Infrared or something like that… but no, that didn’t fit. I had seen IR cameras in my job as an Electrician back on Earth, and this looked NOTHING like that. More like a… poorly restored black and white film, with all the colors chosen by patients at a psychiatric hospital.

The rest of me was the same as my mitten-hands, blocky opaque ice with no real defining features… I had planned to look like I normally did, but my body was clearly different than I had expected. And not having fingers was VERY weird…

I closed my eyes and tried to go back to my normal form… and it worked! I felt the difference immediately, the cold air around me causing the scales on my arms to shift slightly. I glanced around, resisting the urge to shiver as I noticed that my clothes were back. That had been another of my concerns, because I had designed this power to store anything I was holding or wearing when in my frost elemental form. I had half expected to find my shirt embedded in my organs, or my belt… somewhere unpleasant… but to my great relief everything seemed to be in its proper place.

I turned back into my naked frost avatar, confirming again what I had suspected after the first trial: I was composed of moving blocks, like a poorly designed video game character. Well, shit. No fingers, no toes, but my knees and elbows seemed to work. And the roof seemed smaller somehow… oh… no, I was just bigger. As in, three or four times larger than I was in my ‘living’ form.

Not ideal, but it could be worse. I was pretty upset about the no-fingers thing though… but if the rest of this transformation worked it wouldn’t be such a big deal. So I gave the rest of it a shot, willing my new body of ice to scatter…

… Oh bloody beast... I could see everything… and I mean everything, in every direction, in nearly perfect clarity… all at the same time. If I had a stomach, I would have lost my dinner, lunch, breakfast, and then just kept on heaving. This was so much worse than my first time in soul-form…

I tried to move, but I ended up moving out in all directions at the same time. There was no forward, no backward… not even an up and down! I could even see myself, both from the outside and the inside, a swirling cloud of ice and snow that was moving aimlessly across the roof as I slowly spread out over an ever increasing area.

I heard a shout from down below and I could tell I had been spotted… because I had seen one of the Warriors down below spot me. Even as I examined myself I was still seeing… gah… this was terrible! OH SHIT FIREBALL!

And it HURT like I couldn’t believe, not like a burn but… like losing a part of myself. Entirely unpleasant. I’m such an idiot… why did I have to choose ice powers? Focus on ice, then join the Great House that specializes in melting me.

A few more fireballs passed through me as I struggled to move, but all I achieved was spreading out further and further. I had billowed well past the roof in all directions now, covering nearly a tenth of the entire compound. The fireballs still hurt, but not as much as they had when I was smaller. Still, I could tell I was getting weaker, little by little. By the spirits… if I die like this… well, let’s just say I’m glad the other me won’t get this memory. I’d rather my death be a mystery than have Wolfram find out what a dumbass I was.

FOCUS! Okay, use your ice powers… I pictured a tower of ice appearing on the top of the barracks… and I could feel it as it appeared! It felt amazing! Right away I could sense my body consuming it in order to repair the damage done to my spread out ice-cloud-body. There were more guards now, some of them throwing lighting as well as fire… but I could barely feel the lightning at all, less than a tickle really. Those damn fireballs though… I focused on the ice tower I had just made, wondering if I could use it as a focus to draw myself together.

And it worked! I could see myself rapidly billowing around, snow falling down on the Warriors below as I contracted. Well… holy crap, so the snow I had seen in my body wasn’t actually part of me, it was actually real snow? That… is fucked up…

Right after the last piece of me entered the ice tower I remembered why I had chosen ice powers – because they were cheap, useful, and there was a heck of a lot of synergy I could get out of them. This ice form, for example, it couldn’t exist for long outside of an arctic climate. In fact, I had designed it specifically so it required my ice powers to function, thereby saving myself hundreds of CP, and gaining a power that was insanely overpowered in the majority of circumstances… that is, if the rest of it worked as planned.

But for now, I had to make a swift exit or risk being melted to death… because that was a thing now. Being a ‘frost elemental’, I couldn’t live as liquid water – it was ice, or game over. I had looked at doing a form that could handle both, but it required way more CP and required that I give up on my ability to fight while spread out like this. That’s right, one of the key features I had designed into my frost elemental form was the ability to condense parts of my ice cloud enough to grab, lift, punch, or even stab things. And I was incredibly excited to try it out, but for now I had to figure out how to move…

Alright, well… focusing all my attention on the tower had worked, so… maybe if I focus all my attention on the sky? I gave it a shot, and proceeded to zoom out of the ice tower with a lot more speed than I had anticipated. The ground was receding rapidly beneath me, at a speed somewhere around ten times the fastest sprint I would have been able to manage.

OH WAIT, SHIT, THE DOME! I was headed straight at the freaking rainbow dome thing that covered the city! I tried to slow down, but it took me a moment to remember that I had to find a focal point… Stupid, stupid… aannnnd too late…

I completely failed to slow down – all I managed to do was spread out again, part of me heading downwards while the rest kept going up. And before I knew it I could see the rainbow dome… from both sides. It was over me, under me, and passing straight through me at the same time. It hadn’t killed me yet, but I was still spreading out. Hmmm… it was interesting that I could see the bubble dome thing so clearly, as it was supposedly invisible at night. But then again, I could still see the Warriors of House Flameward far down below me, my strange ‘panoptic’ vision able to see better in the dark than I usually could in the day… wait, I’m still spreading out, crap! Focus, Heller, you bastard!

And that’s when I noticed I was melting. The air around me was too warm, and I hadn’t been there long enough to cool it off. I needed to figure this shit out, and I needed to do it now! I chose a point far off in the distance, hopefully in the direction I wanted to go… but it was so hard to tell when you could see all directions at once. Dammit, my mind just wasn’t programmed for this crap!

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Once I had calmed down a little it was simple enough to orient myself: Since I was in the territory of House Flameward to start with, the closest section of the wall to me was to the north. In fact, even from way up in the sky I couldn’t see the wall off in the south, just The City spreading endlessly behind me as I made my way towards the forest beyond the wall. Actually, it was a lot like flying in an airplane… a very slow airplane with a 360-degree view that you couldn’t turn off…

I was still melting the entire flight towards the forest, probably because I was traveling too fast to keep the air around me at a reasonable temperature (anything below zero was pretty comfy). I was feeling distinctly weak and diminished by the time I was half way there, and I had to pause to create a few balls of ice I could snack on… which promptly slipped through my grasp and down on The City below me. NOT a bright move…

Why had I picked ice again? It was seeming like a worse and worse idea as I tried to condense myself enough that I would be able to support a simple ball of ice. What finally worked was choosing a point in the center of my cloud and just trying to move towards it… which was kind of like looking at your belly button, and then trying to walk in that direction. Not as easy as it sounds.

But, after I managed it, the cloud was dense enough that the hand I tried to manifest actually looked reasonably solid… so I tried again, creating a ball of ice just above my (still fingerless) phantom appendage. It worked, and I wasted no time in consuming the entire ice ball, my cloud flushing out again with the new influx of material.

By the time I made it to the forest floor outside The City it was nearly dawn, but that was only because I kept on having to gather myself up after accidentally spreading out… and holy crap was I tired.

Crazy long FAQ! Hope it helps:

Q: If heller split his soul and one of his bodies gets destroyed, does it also destroy that part of his soul? Also, could his mass just double when he recombines, making him denser?

Hey there, great questions! I'll clarify here, then add a bit more just for fun. :D

Answer Part 1

As to density doubling, if Heller had bought that as part of the power, yes it would happen. But he didn't consider becoming a 'double dense' version of himself, mostly because he didn't see this flaw coming. Hindsight is 20/20, haha. Also, that would have cost him more points, believe it or not. He SAVED points by screwing up and not being able to re-combine fully.

As to the soul being lost, that would only happen if the SOUL itself was destroyed. Otherwise it will snap back... kind-of. Heller doesn't actually understand WHAT is going on with his soul, since it isn't physical and can't be split. All he knows is the System calculated that he would have a backlash effect if one of him died, but he would eventually recover back to 100%.

That's why he decided to risk buying such a crazy power, because it gives him a second life in a world where it's all too easy to die.

Note: Semi-spoiler - not even the Merrik can damage a soul, let alone destroy one! Hense why he couldn't touch Heller's soul back when they first met.

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Answer Part 2: Random author rant

In this story the MC is meant to be a self-made hero. Unlike many other stories where there is a series of random fortunate encounters, in this story there is just the one - the encounter with the terrorists in the airplane. Everything else is a direct consequence of Heller's actions; cause and effect. Random luck isn't playing as much of a role.

So what I am trying to do is consider what a REAL PERSON would buy with his powers, and it seems to me most experienced gamers would consider a way to cheat death. In fact, there are a number of places in the story where I will be rolling dice based on probability, and characters can die (some, like Wolfram, would end up reincarnating again due to the soul-link, others would be lost). Heller can obviously die as well, but because he thought ahead he is going to be VERY hard to permanently finish off: We can assume he will last till the end, but I'm not going to give him stupid plot-armor. I hate plot-armor!

/rant

:grin:

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Q: Will both ‘duplicates’ of Heller get their own CP's. Basically doubling it, if they manage to merge later on?

This will be handled in the next few chapters. (Meaningless spoiler: No, it will not be doubled due to how Souls and Cultivation Techniques work together)

Further clarification on how Heller’s ‘Duplication’ ability works, which are already implied but won't be explicitly stated (another minor spoiler included as well):

- Any change that a normal human could theoretically achieve can be 'copied' (or left behind), including memories and skills, plus muscle memory, fitness levels, and general health. So if one learns Kung Fu, and the other learns Gun Fu, after they 'merge' then split again each will know both Kung Fu and Gun fu. If one gets cancer due to radiation poisoning, but the other doesn't, the cancer can be left out after the split. Basically, things that his 'TI' power could handle, all physical. Memories straddle the threshold of physical and soul, but appear to be able to be merged just fine - no explanation for this is given, although this mystery may be investigated later on (probably not though).

- Things that are connected directly to the soul, such as ALL cultivation techniques, can't be 'duplicated' because they are not physical in nature. This includes anything bought with CP!

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Q: Does each each ‘Duplicate’ of Heller have half the stamina when using powers now? Also, can they all use the same powers? If so, that is seriously OP!

Great question! I’ll try to clarify a bit, though none of this matters to the story itself. All this info is for my fellow gaming geeks who like to know the mechanics. So read on only if you like that crap, lol.

-Heller doesn't have a 'stamina pool' exactly, he is a person who has a certain degree stamina. Both parts of the split have exactly the same physical body as he had pre-split. And since both are the same as the original, both have the same stamina as the original. Using powers makes Heller ‘tired’, just like lifting weights or running might – this hasn’t changed!

-Technically, all the new Heller's can use all his powers, BUT they can't use them at the same time! Trying to use them at the same time might risk either damaging his soul, or at least temporarily shorting out the power (according to the System). This could be very deadly, so Heller has put a filter in place that lets him give selective access to his various 'duplicates'. If he ever created a purely physical power, it would only be usable by one of them at a time (because it’s always ‘on’)!

-He can ‘trade powers’ via his soul, which is somehow still connected to each copy. In order to do this he uses his soul-link with Wolfram as a relay system to ‘speak’ with himself (if separated by any distance, that is).

And here are a few more clarifications that likely won't be put in the story in detail, but were already implied.

-- Many of Heller's abilities work very well independently, as you can see already. He has multiple goals, and is using the 'split' power to multi-task. So is each individual Heller technically weaker? Yes. But taken as a whole, he has increased his power level but quite a lot.

-- Each 'duplicate' can independently manipulate ambient Qi. The reason for this is a complete mystery to Heller, but will possibly be investigated (much) later on in the story.

-- Heller can 'condense' all the powers into one body, leaving the rest without any special abilities (Except manipulating ambient Qi).

-- Heller can now continue training while also looking out for his family, and learning from his father.

-- *Important* Physical training has increased Firebrand's power by a lot, as we learned at the start of this chapter. And we have already seen that 'real world' combat skills are INCREDIBLY important to efficiently using powers. It's reasonable to expect that Heller is aware of these facts, and plans to take advantage of them.

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Q: I want to ask whether Heller can keep splitting, for example the 2 become 4, then 8, then 16 etc.

Answer:

Right now Heller’s 'soul' can only support a two-way split. Anything more than that would be too much strain. He verified this with the System.

IF, in theory, he was able to split into 3 or 4, then any of the 'duplicates' could further split until the limit of what his soul was able to support. Each Heller is identical, so it doesn’t matter which one initiates the power – right now, his ‘duplication’ power is the only one that each copy of himself has simultaneous access too. Why? Because he designed it that way! Will more powers be designed like this? You will have to wait and see, but it does take a LOT more points (roughly 100% increase) to set this up! Heller would run out of CP fast if he tried this for all his powers.

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Q: What about power creep!

Answer:

This is more or less a 'Wuxia' style story, so 'power creep' doesn't really apply in the typical sense, I think? As the MC gets stronger, they encounter more of the world and realize how they aren't as strong as they thought. Like Coiling Dragon, Desolate Era, all those stories.

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Q: I thought souls couldn’t be damaged to split! What happened?

Answer:

I, as the author, have never said that souls cannot be damaged / manipulated / or killed. Heller, the character, doesn't know of any way to damage them at the moment, and that has been revealed.

Heller doesn't actually know how his soul is managing to connect to multiple bodies, that was actually a side-effect of the power (one that he was hoping for). He split his body, and assumed that his soul would figure the rest out, and apparently it did. How? He has some theories, but so far they are all wrong, so I haven't bothered including them in the narrative.

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Q: But, isn’t Heller completely immortal now?

Answer:

When you say regeneration, do you mean lack of ageing? If so, that isn't something he designed into the power so he will still age normally.

Or, when you say regeneration, do you mean that his soul can spontaneously spawn a body somehow? Because that isn't even remotely possible, as the soul doesn't seem capable of using Qi independently of the body. Kind of like what the Celestial said a while ago, the soul without a body is like a computer without a battery - it can't actually do anything. So if all of his copies die, he is dead.

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Q: What about the lack of suspense, now that he can’t be killed!

Answer:

Regarding lack of suspense... I am not sure what to say. How often to main characters actually die? Was that something people thought was an actual possibility, given the name of the series? Suspense comes in the resolution of conflict, not the life or death of the main character. And that hasn't changed even a bit! He can still lose his possessions, his family, his sanity, become possessed, have all his hopes and dreams crushed, etc., etc. The only change is that he is a bit harder to outright kill now… unless something can track down and eliminate his duplicates…

So... lack of suspense? I am afraid that I have to respectfully disagree. :)