-Tech City Spire-

With 4 days left until the auction, things had been quickly ramping up in the city. More and more powerful cultivators were entering the city and with that influx was the increase of people taking advantage of the cities services.

Namely, a lot of people were trying their hand at the Spire or at the Arena. On this day, James had been busy trying to ascend to the 22nd level of the tower when he got a coms from Jasmine.

“James, it would appear that a new contender has appeared in the arena for your 7 sins challenge. Both Jessy and Fatty have been defeated.”

James looked up the flight of steps he’d been ascending and then wiped the sweat from his face. He let out a long breath then turned and started walking back down the steps to exit the tower.

“So, I take it this person is challenging me next?” he asked Jasmine.

“No, the contender is challenging Goliath next. However, I was told to bring this to your attention because they have used dual elements. Jessy is also of the opinion that you will definitely want to meet this person.”

“I see. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. We can’t expect to be undefeatable in the True Spirit Realm. That would be arrogant even for me.”

A few minutes later, James walked out of the tower and then shot off like a streak of lightning through the streets towards the arena.

-Tech City Arena-

When James got to the True Spirit Arena, Goliath had just walked out to the centre to meet the challenger. This person was rather short, and their lack of stature was only exacerbated by Goliaths 7 feet of muscle.

The challenger had their face hidden in the shadow of their hood, and they wore a plain black robe allowing no one much insight into who they were. At their waist was a single sword on a belt not too different from the one that James now wore.

Standing opposed to the challenger was Goliath donning blood red leather armour and wearing a horned helmet made of bone. Held in a single hand by his side was a massive War Hammer that was the length of his body. The hammers head was the size of a 40-gallon drum and was pitch black, letting no light escape it.

The seats around the arena were packed to bursting with tens of thousands of spectators screaming and cheering. James jumped up to the top of the arena wall and looked down over the arena battlefield.

The arena was built to give all element affinities a fair chance, and it had parts from all 4 major elements. A long narrow stream wiggled through the centre like a long snake and the ground was loose dirt and stone. Placed around the arena were long iron torches sticking out of the ground and naturally, there was air.

As James looked down at the challenger, they too turned and looked up directly at James. Even while looking up, the hooded robes seemed to hide their face, everything that is, except for the bright blue eyes that stared back out from the shadows.

James sat down on the wall and cocked his head to the side as the two of them began a staring match, only to be interrupted quickly after by the ‘ding’ of the arena bell signally the start of the match. The challenger’s attention very quickly reverted back to Goliath and their hand fell to the hilt of their sword as they lowered into a battle stance.

Goliath grinned and spun his hammer around a few times like it was a plastic toy. Then without any further delay, he charged forwards with the hammer held in both hands off to one side. Seeing the huge mass of meat that was the Goliath of Wrath speeding towards them, the challenger rapidly drew their sword sending a series of wind blades through the air towards Goliath.

Goliath didn’t even seem to register them as he barrelled onwards and let them slice across his arms and legs. As they impacted and dissipated on his body, his eyes began to glow red, and his speed increased. The shallow cuts on his body began to rapidly heal, and his every step began to send out earth ripples in every direction.

Luckily for the spectators, the earth ripples reached the edge of the arena only to be dissipated by the flashing arrays all along the outsides of the arena. Having their stance disrupted, the challenger was forced to move and chose to advance towards Goliath instead of creating distance.

Seeing this person finally making a move, James’ eyes opened wide in surprise. Whoever this person was, they were fucking fast. Even James had to admit that without using his lightning energy, he would find it difficult to properly track their movements.

As he watched on, the contender seemed to float across the earth ripples and when only a few meters from Goliath, they disappeared and reappeared like an apparition in front of him while swinging the sword down in a chopping motion.

To the spectator’s great surprise, Goliath made no move to attack or defend to the front where the contender just appeared and instead smashed his foot into the ground and rolled off to the left while swinging his hammer to the right.

In almost the same moment he smashed his foot down, the apparition in front of him disappeared and reappeared to the right swinging their sword in a sideways slash. Goliaths face made a savage grin as his massive war hammer connected with the challenger’s sword and then a boom rattled the arena, and a huge cloud of dust rose up shielding the spectator’s view.

The challenger was shot out the other side of the cloud like a bullet from a gun and very quickly found themselves face planting with the normally invisible protection arrays around the edge of the arena. After a flashy light show from the array field, the challenger fell to the ground and slowly began to pick herself up.

The crowd was going wild, and it seemed they mostly believed that Goliath had just secured his victory. On the other hand, James sitting far above at the top of the arena cupped his chin with a frown. His quiet contemplation was very quickly interrupted when Exsue suddenly appeared on his lap and started rubbing her face against him like a cat.

“You better not get any funny ideas Jay Jay. If you try and hit on that bitch just because she has the lightning attribute I’ll just kill her.” Exsue purred into his ear.

James’ face made a series of different changes and then settled on a questioning one with his eyebrow cocked. “She? How do you know it’s a girl? And how do you know they have lightning attribute?”

Exsue pouted and looked at James with a frowny face. “Don’t play games with me Jay Jay. She might be wearing robes, but any self-respecting man can tell it’s a she after seeing her figure moving around. And we both know that she must have lightning attribute, I can sense it when she uses it just like when I sense another person’s cultivation level.”

James looked back down at the arena and his face soon formed into a frown. “This isn’t good Exsue. It means they’re probably already here.”

“They? Who is this bitch?”

“I don’t know. But I have three theory’s and only one of them is good.”

While James and Exsue had their little discussion, the dust in the arena had finally settled revealing Goliath using his hammer to stand and covered in rapidly healing cuts and blood dripping from his body. On the other side of the arena was the now once again standing challenger wiping the blood from their mouth and breathing heavily.

After taking a step forward, they reached to their ribs showing they most likely received quite a bit of internal damage from that short bout. Goliath’s eyes were now glowing so brightly they looked like flashlights beams of red and his face had a disgustingly broad smile.

He then took a long breath and lifted his hammer in both hands as he once more moved towards his challenger. Seeing the mountain of muscles stepping forward again, the woman picked up her sword from the ground and after a few swings returned it to its sheath.

Also taking a deep breath, she began walking forwards as well. When the two were about 20 meters apart, the challenger pulled her sword out again and following it from the sheath was a long arc of lightning that fired directly towards Goliath. To her consternation, Goliath just raised his hammer and the lightning bolt was sucked into the head.

James couldn’t help but give a chuckle watching this. Of all the people to fight against with lightning, Goliath might have been the worst. He and James had both had uncountable sparring sessions, and Goliath had long since thought up countermeasures for all of James’ tricks. It was also the reason he had been able to predict the high-speed feint in their earlier collision.

Seeing their trump card being so carelessly rendered useless, the challenger changed tact and started to run in a circle around Goliath. Their speed increased bit by bit, and soon they looked like a single blurry ring. Seeing where this was heading, Goliath’s face grew solemn.

Very soon numerous blades of wind were slashed out from the circling blur heading towards weak points like joints or arteries. Goliath began to spin his hammer like a staff and as it spun it danced around his body deflecting wind blade after wind blade.

Just when things looked like they were going to develop into a battle of attrition, the wind blades increased in magnitude to become an uncountable wave of deadly sharp blades all closing in on Goliath.

Seeing things devolve so quickly, Goliath gave a loud grunt and swung his hammer with full force into the ground. A huge ripple like a crushing wave spread out from Goliath and engulfed the incoming wind blades like the sea.

Another dust storm rose up in the arena, but the focus of the battle quickly shifted as Goliath shot out one side of the dust cloud swinging his hammer defensively while the challenger fired off blindingly fast stabs and slashes from their sword.

The cuts and wounds continued to build up on Goliath’s body until his movement suddenly stopped and another huge swing of the hammer deflected the sword and sent it flying across the arena. The challenger took this opportunity and closed the tiny little remaining distance until she managed to land a hand on Goliath’s arm.

Seeing this, James suddenly stood up and dropped Exsue onto the ground. “Oh god, please don’t tell me she’s about to...”

Before his words finished, Goliaths body began to spasm and jerk. This only happened for a second until the glow in Goliath’s eyes grew frighteningly bright and his head reared back releasing a demonic roar that shook the stadium.

The entire arena began to shake, and a pulse of air blew out from Goliaths body like a small explosion. Much to James’ surprise, Goliath’s roar died in his throat, and he suddenly became limp then collapsed.

The crowd was silent in shock and then seeing the challenger having won against three of the Sins in a row, they went mad. Cheering and applause echoed out over half the city as they screamed, yelled and stamped their feet like savages.

James stood on the top of the arena wall looking down at the now unconscious Goliath and the huffing and wheezing challenger who was leaning on her knees trying to keep herself standing upright. James couldn’t stop himself from mumbling as he cupped his chin and his face darkened.

“What the hell was that?”

Exsue, who’d climbed back up and was now sitting piggyback on James’ back again, looked down curiously at the arena. “What was what? She just shocked him into unconsciousness right?”

“No, I doubt it. I doubt even you could shock Goliath into unconsciousness anymore. He seems to have developed some kind of hatred for it from our training, and now it only drives him into momentary insanity. He becomes mindless in his rage and destroys everything. Last time I did it, he nearly killed me. Normally takes him a while to calm down and I’ve never seen him drop like that before. There’s something else going on here.”

After a brief time of catching her breath, the challenger left the arena, and the crowd began to quieten down again. James had Goliath dragged back to the Lab where Skay began a battery of tests from the standard to invasive but found nothing out of the ordinary.

James then called Jessy and Fatty down to the Lab after watching their recorded battles with the challenger and questioned them. Both of them went down in similar ways and woke up the next day which was why Jessy had brought this to James’ attention.

Neither of them could explain what happened when they were touched be the stranger and could only say they suddenly become drowsy and then unconscious.

James was both excited and worried by this news. He began to have a number of suspicions but chose to discuss none of them. He wouldn’t know for certain until he met this person himself.

Unfortunately, the challenger chose instead to battle Exsue the next day.

With only three days until the auction, the news that someone had managed to defeat three sins in a row was huge. The city was in an uproar of excitement, and the entire arena was packed to bursting the next day with spectators pushing beyond the hundred thousand mark.

James once again sat on his perch up on a random spot along the coliseum-like wall and looked down at the arena. All prior damage had been repaired overnight, and the challenger and Exsue stood facing each other at opposite ends of the arena.

Exsue, of course, was looking up at James throwing him suggestive looks only to be enraged by the fact all of his attention was instead focused onto the challenger, who also happened to be looking up at James with those clear blue eyes again.

As opposed to the curious look James had yesterday, his face was now emotionless and void of expression. Soon, the ‘ding’ of the arena bell rang and before the contender even had the chance to lower into a stance a huge bolt of lightning flew across the length of the arena and connected with her shoulder throwing her into the array force field.

James couldn’t help but slightly pity this girl for having chosen Exsue to battle. The fact that James had been paying her any attention would undoubtedly make Exsue jealous. Making it worse, she was another person with lightning affinity, which doubly increased Exsue’s envy at the lady drawing James’ eye.

Exsue was already rushing across the arena and lifting her hand for another lightning bolt before the challenger had even finished climbing back up from the ground. As she forced herself to her feet, she pulled the sword from its sheath on her hip and let a huge arc fly out to deflect Exsue’s next attack.

In less than a second Exsue was within striking distance and her hands were formed into claws dancing with lightning as she swung at the face of her opponent. Seeing herself being dragged into a difficult close range battle, the challenger instead ducked back while slashing with her sword to create distance.

She then flipped her sword and swung back again releasing a wind blade that was simply swatted from the air by Exsue’s lightning claw. “You little bitch! I’m gonna kill ya! Jay Jay is mine!”

With that short statement made, Exsue launched forwards to engage again. Her body swayed and disappeared until reappearing like a ghost right behind the challenger and swinging a lightning claw down. The challenger gave a ‘harrumph’ and ducked down while spinning back and slashing against the claw.

A crisp ‘clang’ rang out when the two connected and the challenger and Exsue both shot apart a few meters sliding along the ground. The challenger made a flourish with her sword and then inserted it back into its sheath while lowering herself down in preparation to strike again.

Exsue also slid to a stop and dropped down with both hands out to her sides flashing with lightning. James was rather surprised by the look she had on her face. It was the first time he’d ever seen Exsue look serious about anything. He almost felt bad now, as he thought back to how much she seemed to love him. That thought quickly disappeared when he reminded himself how absolutely crazy she was.

As the two ladies in the ring faced off against each other with menacing glares, an eerie silence fell over the crowd in the arena. The tension in the air began to grow until it felt like the air in the arena was actually vibrating, and the pressure was slowly ramping up like sinking into the depths of the ocean.

Finally, this menacing aura was interrupted when a patron of the arena let rip a ground shaking fart, and the two contestants suddenly disappeared from sight. Moments later they both reappeared, and the clang of the claws and sword connecting with each other rang out.

The crowd erupted into cheers as the duo disappeared from sight again, only to reappear a few meters away locked in combat once more.

The rate at which they collided began to increase, and soon clangs and screeches rang out through the arena before the previous ones had even died out. The duo managed to traverse half the arena before they finally split apart again.

They both looked a little worse for wear with bleeding cuts covering their bodies and their robes torn ragged along the arms and legs. Exsue looked especially bad, mostly because her eyes were bloodshot and she was foaming at the mouth. She looked like she was on the verge of having a fit.

Although you still couldn’t see the challenger’s face under her hood, you could tell she was pretty drawn out after having that brief contest of speed with Exsue.

Before the crowd had the chance to allow the eerie pressure to descend again like last time, Exsue stood back up straight and looked down her nose at the challenger. “You’re pathetic. You’ll never be worthy of Jay Jay you cheap hussy.”

Exsue then dispelled her lightning claws and fired off an arc at the bell in the arena, to signal her withdrawal. The moment the bell rang out, the challenger dropped her sword to the ground and fell to her knees puffing like she’d just escaped a natural disaster.

James was beyond surprised. Knowing Exsue’s nature, he never expected her to resign from a match. Especially against another woman with the lightning element. He was pretty sure she’d probably have killed her if the chance came about.

As the staff of the arena escorted the challenger out, and all the patrons filed out of the exits, Exsue jumped up along the wall until she was next to James again. Seeing her hardly out of breath and with only a few cuts and bruises he couldn’t help but cock his head and raise his eyebrow.

“What’s going on Exsue? It’s not like you to concede a fight. Don’t tell me you don’t think you could win?”

Hearing this from James, Exsue gave ‘humph’, pouted, stamped her foot, and then turned to face the now empty arena. She raised both hands above her head and channelled her spirit energy. Very quickly a massive lightning ball 5 meters in diameter formed over her head and with a little flick of her arms it rocketed into the centre of the arena.

Following this, the entire centre of the arena exploded, and the shock wave crumbled the array barrier like it was brittle, aged paper. The debris decimated the seats along with the few poor individuals that had failed to leave the arena yet. After the dust had settled, Exsue turned up her nose and, for the first time since they met, she walked away from James.

James couldn’t help but scratch his head and sigh as he glanced at Exsue and then back to the huge crater that was once the True Spirit Arena. Without even asking, Jasmine already had drones flying in from all over the city clearing debris and rebuilding.

With the excitement of the day over, James returned to the underground training arena at HQ and started training. From that little show by Exsue, he now understood just how limited his understanding of lightning was. Although it’s true that she had 7 times as much lightning spirit energy as he did, the speed and level at which she could manifest it was clearly leagues above his own. This showed just how limited his experience was.

It was true that his understanding allowed him to bridge the gap between himself and a True Spirit realm who had dozens if not hundreds of years more experience than him, but it was also clear that it would never be equal to the millions of years of experience Exsue had.

With that thought in mind, he sat down in his room and began to consciously circulate his breathing technique at maximum power. He very quickly discovered something strange happening after a while and then suddenly realised that he wasn’t alone in his Spirit Realm.

Sitting cross-legged on a floating piece of ‘solid energy’ was Gold James who was apparently also cultivating. Normally, James left his True Spirit body floating cross-legged in the middle of his lightning nucleus, and for the first time in a long while, he returned his main focus to his spirit realm and let the real world bend away to the peripherals.

Spirit James stood up and stretched for a bit, then floated over to Gold James who continued to sit and meditate on his orbiting grey asteroid. Spirit James gave a little cough to get his attention, only to be ignored. Feeling displeased that he was being ignored by himself, Spirit James summoned a ball of fire and proceeded to create a flamethrower directly into Gold James’ face.

~Arghh! What the fuck are you doing?!~ Screamed Gold James as he clutched his charred face and rolled off the floating grey rock, landing in the ocean of water down below.

Spirit James gave a sadistic smile then sat down on the rock and checked his cultivation speed again, then started mumbling to himself. “Now that is strange. I thought he couldn’t manifest spirit energy in the body ... but he was definitely just cultivating my hands of time in reverse, and I could feel my cultivation speed almost double.”

While grumbling and cursing, Gold James rocketed up out of the clear liquid element down below and floated up next to Spirit James. Before he had the chance to return the flamethrower to the face, a bolt of lightning streaked out from the lightning nucleus and engulfed him.

Spirit James just chuckled then opened his eyes from his self-inspection and began to question the now once again charred Gold James. “What was that you were doing just now? I thought you can’t manifest spirit energy at all. How did you activate reversed hands of time in the body simultaneous with mine?”

Gold James, after brushing off the soot on his robes, cast a sideways glance at James then began to pat his chest proudly while explaining.I couldn’t at first. But then it suddenly occurred to me that you think I’m your subconscious and that I’m the one who runs your breathing technique when you’re out there doing busy stuff, so when you finally decided to come back and consciously take over breathing, I started breathing in reverse to test it.~

Spirit James scratched his head then cupped his chin while staring off into the endless space of his spirit world. “So you mean to say, that it’s me who’s limiting you, and not your own limitations. Perhaps some part of me is reticent to relinquish too much control, and you could only do what you did because I already consciously accepted that you should be able to do that.”

Gold James was also busily staring off into the endless white space while picking his nose and nodding his head.Sure, sounds about right. I don’t know why you’re so worried though. After all, I am you. I doubt I’d be doing anything you wouldn’t be doing.~

Spirit James cocked his head to the side then shot a glance at Gold James. “Are you though?”

Gold James then cast him another sidelong glance and put his hands on his hips.Am I what? Part of you? Sure, what the hell else would I be?~

“Well, that’s still up for debate. Your more like some kind of parasite I think.”

~Hmm well, let’s test it then. Let’s play paper scissors rock.~

“That’s hardly an accurate test. For all I know, you’re a parasite that can read my mind, which only makes you even more dangerous to give any control too.”

~Wow, talk about paranoid. For starters, we already know that we’re two sides of the same person because we can both control our spirit energy. Although, I’m beginning to wonder if I am a reflection of your subconscious. If I were, I shouldn’t be able to communicate so easily, or probably at all. Not just that, but we should be of one mind, not separate. Although we no doubt have identical thought patterns because we share the same brain, we are without doubt separate individuals ... like Siamese twins or something.~

“That’s true. Maybe it would be more accurate to call you a clone of my conscious and subconscious. That doesn’t explain why your control would be so limited though. Let’s try something to test that theory. I’ll try and... ‘allow’ you to manifest energy in my body instead of only assisting me.”

Spirit James then returned to the body and began consciously trying to let Gold James manifest Spirit Energy. A few short minutes later, James suddenly felt his perception speed up, and the world slow down, while his body began to vibrate with lightning energy.

~WAHOO! Haha, lightning energy for the win!~

James just gave a wry grin then consciously tried to limit Gold James again. Very quickly the energy dissipated and a loud moan of dissatisfaction came from Gold James.Aww man! Com’on dawg. Just let me ... you know, fire some lightning bolts or something.~

James let out a long sigh and not for the first time, reflected on how childlike his spirit clone was sometimes. He then consciously tried to release full control of everything and suddenly felt a strange sensation. For the first time in his life, he felt like a passenger in his own body.

James suddenly stood up and started looking at his hands then waving them about. Very quickly his body suddenly jerked and James felt himself regain full control of his body. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and heaved a sigh of relief as he gripped his hands into fists and then released them.

~Woh! Dude! That was mad. I actually moved the hands ... and the arms! Holy Crap I moved the body! HAHAHA WOOO!!~

James grimaced as Gold James ran around in their spirit realm whooping it up and screaming his joy at the top of his lungs. He then willed it, and Gold James once again was dispelled into nothingness while James stood in the training arena mumbling to himself.

“Man that was dangerous. The feeling of being in the passenger seat of my own body. Ugh! It was disgusting.”

James then decided to try and forget the sensation and resummoned Gold James. “Ok Goldy, let’s try that again.”

James then consciously allowed Gold James to materialise spirit energy and moments later little arcs of electricity were shooting off his body all over the place. A small whirlwind then appeared followed by flames, mist and earth shaking. Unfortunately, even with them both trying together, they couldn’t materialise true plasma without using the lightning element to excite the air.

With the testing out of the way, James and Gold James then resumed cultivating with their joint efforts, creating two separate clocks inside the body. One running clockwise and the other running anti-clockwise.

Strangely, this allowed him to have almost every single one of his elements active in the body at any one time without the normal huge backlash he would feel.

-Jetsu Mountain Range-

With only two days left until the auction and the Arena still being rebuilt, this time with stronger array barriers, James decided it was about time to do a little job he’d been putting off. As the suns rose in the east, James, Goliath and Exsue mounted up on Harvy’s Velocity along with 30 of the guilds best and most trustworthy members.

Tagging along on this ride was Gary, with his one good arm and face marred by burn scars. Why James brought him along on this trip, no one but James knew.

The destination today was the Jetsu Mountain Range. The most dangerous and volatile area for 600 km in every direction. 200 km of unexplored wilderness filled to the brim with powerful spirit beasts beyond the imagination of the entire continent.

Thanks to the huge difference in primal spirit energy in the area, the mountain range was beyond Jasmine’s ability to scan or view from the satellite in orbit. Even their usual coms didn’t work in this area without the assistance of a booster they had on board the gunship.

After a casual 12 minute flight from Tech City, the gunship floated around on the outskirts of the mountain range at a low altitude. James moved to the war room behind the cockpit while the guild members all began to suit up in their Mk II Combat Suits.

Seeing Goliath seated and waiting with his huge hammer on the ground and Gary just sitting there looking confused, James gave a little nod and then tapped his ear. “Jasmine, how far have you managed to get the drones into this area? Have you confirmed the location of the beast yet?”

“Of course James. Although the drones aren’t capable of entering more than 5 kilometres into the mountains, readings of electrical activity are markedly higher in this region of the mountains. At best estimate, the beast you’re searching for shouldn’t be more than 7 or 8 km in. I should point out, that video feed and other recordings varied wildly. The drones often came out showing they’d used markedly more energy than necessary to travel 5 kilometres.”

James rubbed his face as a blotchy 3-D projection came up on the war room table showing a very rough view of the mountain area they needed to search. He couldn’t help but wonder if Rex was sending him into the mountains to die here.

The mountain range was only 30 odd kilometres wide here. If they travelled too far in searching for this lightning beast, then they’d find themselves trapped between the habitats of numerous different wild Tower Realm Beasts.

James could only let out a sigh and then turned to the cockpit where Harvy stood next to Exsue surveying the area. Although Harvy was still mummified and smelled of various fragrant herbs, his wardrobe had been through a significant upgrade.

Thanks to James’ twisted taste and own self-amusement, Harvy was now outfitted with a black captain’s uniform with all the bells and whistles. Even his hat looked very captainy. Not to mention the few little medals pinned to the chest of his uniform. If anyone were to ever meet the gun crew out in the turrets, they would realise that they too had been given very sailor like uniforms to wear.

“Harvy, take us in. Keep it low for now. I don’t want to spook any flying beasts that might be around. The last thing we need is an air battle with a fucking dragon or some shit.”

Hearing the orders of his Dark Lord, Harvy began to shout out some sailor jargon like ‘about port 20 degrees’ and ‘steady as she goes’, that sort of thing. James wasn’t sure where exactly he’d been picking that nonsense up from, but if he were a betting man he’d put his money on Fatty.

Exsue spun the ship towards the west direction and started cruising over the forests slowly. As they passed over a multitude of new lights and sounds, Skay had recently been adding, started to beep. Then the 3-D projection of the landscape for about a kilometre around started to light up with little red dots.

The further they travelled into the mountains the fewer the dots became. Inversely to a reduction in dot numbers, the dots grew in size. By the time they were about 3 kilometres into the forest, the radius of detection had grown smaller until they could only detect to about 600 meters. More so than that, the further they moved into the mountains the more jittery and blurry the projection grew.

At about 5 kilometres into the forested mountain range, the projection became almost entirely useless, and James had to move up to the cockpit to get an idea of the surroundings. Seeing the forest and overbearing mountains in person made him suddenly realise just how vast this place really was.

As they sped along over the tops of the mountain forest, James cupped his chin and observed his surroundings. Finally, he realised he’d had an uneasy feeling since he’d stepped up into the cockpit and was able to actually see around.

“Exsue, how fast are we moving?”

“I’m not sure Jay Jay, only about a hundred kilometres an hour.”

James’ eyes bugged out of his head, and he suddenly realised why he felt so uneasy. “What the fuck, if we’re moving at a hundred klicks and hour, how is it that it’s taken us so long to travel only a few kilometres on the 3D projection.”

Harvy, for a rare change, joined the conversation while maintaining a watchful eye on the surroundings. “My Dark Liege, I’m not surprised you’ve never heard of this before. It’s called pocket space. Similar to the Endless Forest, but not actually a Gateway, more a bending of space itself. While it looks like a simple series of valleys and mountains from the outside, once you enter its range space expands over a hundred fold. The artefact spirit of the Velocity probably doesn’t know how to handle the sudden transition into a pocket space where spatial laws are ... bent.”

James rubbed his face and gave a ‘tsk’. “God damn it! You’re bent! Too much to ask for people to tell me what was going on before we came here?”

James then did some quick calculations in his head. From the outside, the space that the mountain range inhabits is only about 30 km in width. That means it’s now more than 300. They’d been flying for just over half an hour. That meant they were at least 5 km in or rather, 50 km. Another 15 minutes and they’d hopefully be around the area that the lightning activity was reported.

Well, this phenomenon explained why satellite scans and pictures always showed up with a dark spot in the area. With that thought in mind, James moved over to a computer panel and checked the spirit energy saturation. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head when he realised the reading was getting up near 500 times standard saturation. That was only on the periphery. If they managed to get near the centre of the mountains, then it’d probably shoot up beyond a thousand times.

It should be noted that at present, they were pushing getting an attraction array beyond 700 times standard. The only exception to that was the cube, which was beyond their ability to even measure.

James finally let out a long sigh as he pondered the mysteries of this world and decided to leave his other unanswered questions for a later time. He moved back to the centre of the cockpit and surveyed the area once more.

Because they were flying low and slow to avoid attracting unwanted attention, the view wasn’t particularly far. After a brief moment of hesitation, James finally decided to go for broke.

“Exsue, take us up. I want a better aerial view of the surroundings.”

No sooner had he spoken than the Gunship began rising into the sky. James very quickly realised his mistake after they got up nearly a km over the trees.

While looking about for anomalies, a huge fireball came out of nowhere and quickly closed in on the gunship like some kind of homing missile. James barely had time to react before Exsue was already taking evasive manoeuvres and the ship was violently twisting like a leaf in the wind.

Harvy began barking orders into his ear piece, and the gun crews began to unleash projectiles at the ball of fire. James’ face paled as he held on for dear life to a nearby handle on the bulkhead and alarms began to whir and flash to life in red.

Exsue took the Gunship back in low and close to the ground then made a roll off to the right giving the gun crew a perfect shot. Moments later, the fireball exploded like a ripe tomato and sprayed fire across nearly a hundred metres of forest down below.

Before they had a chance to catch their breath, a shadow fell over the top of them, blotting out the Suns like an ominous dark cloud. The shadow then began to rapidly enlarge to reveal a massive flaming bird falling from the sky like a meteorite.

The bird was nearly 50 metres in length from beak to tail, and if not for its feathers painted in gold and having three legs and three eyes, it very much resembled a crow. In only a matter of seconds, the Golden Crow was almost on top of the Gunship.

In a very anti-climactic manner, Exsue simply made a quick and sudden backwards movement which left the crow directly in the firing line of the gun crews, which seemed to have already been prepared. A series of booms rang out, and the Golden Crow went from an imposing mighty beast of the sky to a charred twitching mess pancaked into the forest below.

James’ fists were clenched so tight blood dripped down from his fingernails digging into his palm. At last, he managed to release the breath he’d been holding and relax enough to loosen his grip on the handle of the bulkhead.

“Harvy, what in the fuck was that?”

“Golden Crow, My Dark Lord. Quite a rare species actually. This one seems rather young and has only attained Tower Realm. Adult Golden Crows are said to be incarnations of the Yellow sun and are beyond powerful in Flame magics.”

James wiped the sweat that had been accumulating on his brow and looked down at the still twitching body of the crow on the ground below. He then made a decision he suspected he’d probably regret and gave orders.

“Harvy, take us down there. Send the team out and begin trying to haul that thing inside. Cut it up if you must, I don’t really want to let a Tower Realm Beast go to waste. I’ll take Goliath and Gary, and we’ll scout ahead. I saw what looked like lightning activity to the east about 4 kilometres. Hopefully, that’s our target. Be ready for us to be running back with our tail between our legs.”

Harvy gave his customary ‘My Dark Lord’ response and then began firing off orders. As the gunship lowered down into the forest and crushed no small number of trees beneath it, James and Goliath both shot out from the lowering ramp and disappeared off into the forest. Closely following behind them was Gary who didn’t seem the list bit phased about this whole thing.

James carried a large hemp sack on his back while Goliath lugged his massive war hammer along on his shoulder. Gary carried a large wooden box on his back that was heavy enough to make his feet sink into the ground with every step.

James was actually surprised that Gary managed to maintain speed with them, but he somehow nonetheless did. More amusing to James was that every time they passed an area inhabited by true spirit or palace realm beasts they would immediately move to attack Gary first. Like it was some kind of primal directive in their genes.

To James’ disgruntlement, although Gary received quite a few minor injuries, he was somehow saved in the nick of time by some bizarre event. It got to the point James would purposefully change direction towards areas he sensed spirit activity in, just to see how Gary would survive.

At one point he watched on bemused as a group of blue furred chimps tried to pummel Gary to death only to fall into a pit of quicksand because Gary had tripped over a stick.

Not only that, he later watched on as a python the size of a tree struck out from the shadows of the underbrush and suddenly had a sneezing fit from some strange flower Gary had picked up earlier. It then proceeded to die from allergies.

After he’d had some fun, they pushed on towards the area James thought he’d seen lightning activity. After about 20 minutes of running and diversions, they came to the entrance of a barren valley that lead down into a cave between two short mountains.

At a cursory glance, this place seemed awfully normal and quiet, but from the way all his hairs stood on end and a cold chill ran down his back, James was certain this place wasn’t what it seemed. He didn’t have to wait long before a branching arcing of electricity came out of the cave and spread out across the valley and cliff faces like the branches of a tree.

Just as quickly as it had come, it once more disappeared. James squinted his eyes together as a wave of foul air like the smell of a wet dog followed behind and swept out past the trio standing at the valley entrance. After a moment’s thought, James dropped the sack from his back and started pulling out a bunch of spirit bombs all painted in blue.

Unfortunately, before he had the chance to start setting the trap he’d planned, a roar echoed out from the cave, and a spirit pressure equal to something on the 30th floor of the Spire descended on the trio. James could instinctively tell from the spirit pressure that whatever level of cultivation this creature had, it sure as hell weren’t no tower realm.

Despite his best efforts, James’ body was frozen in place, and he could barely move a muscle. With a great deal of strain, he called forth Gold James and they focused on pouring spirit energy into the body to move.

As James tried to force his body to move, a vague white shadow appeared in the entrance of the cave and slowly became clear as it walked out into the light of the day.

A monstrously big Mastiff covered in white fur filled with lightning slowly walked out from the cave and then surveyed the three interlopers on its territory.

James couldn’t tell if he should be amused that such an adorable creature was so goddamn powerful or if he should be upset that he was going to be eaten by a fucking house pet. His viewpoint quickly changed when the dog began to speak.

“Huumaans. Huuuumans.”

The Mastiff’s voice was deep, drawn and croaky like the sound of an old man with throat cancer. The dog seemed rather displeased with that and licked it’s nose and shook it’s head, all while looking menacingly adorable. It then made a few embarrassing throat clearing sounds, gave a sneeze and then began speaking again in a deep mellow voice.

“Agh! Cough, cough, Achoo! Ahem ... Humans! Ah, much better. Now where was I ... ahh yes, Humans! What do you seek from the All-powerful Ruff!”

James was dumbfounded. He, of course, knew that spirit beasts could communicate, but from what Exsue told him, it was leagues beyond tower realm. In fact, most spirit beasts had to have developed full sentence before they could learn to communicate.

The trio suddenly felt the freezing effect of the spirit pressure disappear, and the moment James once again felt in control of his body he slapped the back of his left hand which held a ring. Very quickly, the ring lit up with an ominous glow preventing any further spirit pressure attacks in the future.

In almost the same moment, Goliath did the same action, leaving Gary standing there perplexed while staring wide-eyed at the Mastiff.

Seeing two of the humans jumping back, the Mastiff acknowledged Gary first. “Very well then. You there, it seems your request is most pressing for your two friends to generously step back and grant you my audience. Speak, what is it that you seek.”

Gary looked like he was still frozen solid from the spirit pressure and James couldn’t help but wonder if the poor bastard had just had a stroke. After a moment of reflection on the situation, James decided it would be best to just try and leave without provoking this thing. It may look like a harmless dog, but even a rodent could fell a tower realm if it had even half the cultivation level of this creature.

James made a salute to the Mastiff and then began making excuses to leave. “Ruff. Please excuse us travellers for our disturbance.”

He then spun on his heel while grabbing Goliath’s shoulder and made to retreat at maximum speed. The Mastiff gave a low grunt and then the earlier spirit pressure once again descended on James like a thousand feet of water.

This time, however, the ring on his left hand glowed brightly like a torch in the darkness and the spirit pressure simply split like the red sea allowing him to push onwards in his escape.

He hardly made it a few hundred metres before the world became a blur and he found himself on his back staring up at the proud looking face of the white Mastiff.

“Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! No need to be so hasty little one. I see you have the All-powerful lightning element. Take me as your Master, and I’ll train you. To have reached this far into the woods with only true spirit realm cultivation is a true mystery and as a Beast of my word, I always reward humans that can reach my cave.”

James wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed by the prospect of being the disciple of a pet, or worried that he clearly couldn’t escape from such a powerful creature. While James was having an inner existential crisis, the dog was sniffing at his hand with the ring on it.

“Ruff! Truly brilliant artistry. What a magnificent artefact. Are you a forge master boy?”

James looked up at the Mastiff then down at the paw on his chest. He then looked over at Goliath, who at some point seemed to have been knocked unconscious. With a glance back he saw Gary, the incompetent bastard, kowtowing with his head pressed to the ground.

‘This isn’t good. How the fuck do we get out of here.’ James wondered as his brain began to spin at full speed. He ran simulations in his mind over and over but regardless of what he did, he couldn’t fathom any way to escape unscathed.

Finally, he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to try and have a conversation with a talking dog. Mustering his voice, he gave a short cough and then introduced himself.

“Greetings ahh ... Ruff ... sigh. Here we go. Never going to live this down. Greetings All-powerful Ruff. I am James of the Dark Brotherhood, and these are companions of mine.

“We administer a city in the Yori Empire outside the boundaries of the Jetsu Mountain Range called Tech City. We came to the forest in search of a suitable Spirit Beast to inhabit the Monolith of our city and protect our livesto ... err ... I mean our citizens.”

Ruff’s big wet adorable eyes gazed at James for a while until all of a sudden his tail began wagging furiously and he began jumping around like an excitable puppy. “Ruff Ruff, Ruff, Ruff! This is perfect timing HAHA! Ruff! I’m going to get a chance to evolve safely! Ruff!”

James slowly pulled himself up from the ground and looked at Ruff jumping around the valley like a dog that just ate a bowl of sugar. Seeing the animal distracted in what appeared to be joy, James reached down and slapped a lightning infused palm onto Goliath.

In a matter of seconds, Goliath’s eyes sprung open with a red glow, and he shot to his feet in an unnaturally fast manner. James was already a good ten metres away as Goliath came up swinging. Before he had the chance to calm Goliath down, the world blurred, and suddenly Goliath was unconscious again, and Ruff was standing on his back acting like he hadn’t even seen him there.

James could only smile wryly at the sight of this. Goliath had gotten a bad run of it the past few days. Being bested by a house pet would surely only increase his anger. James considered for a moment and decided that after the auction he should give Goliath a break to just do whatever he wanted for a few days.

As James stood there trying to process what the hell the dog was so excited about, Ruff bent down and picked Goliath up in his teeth then started dragging him along to the cave while trying to talk through his grit teeth. “Come, come. A spot of tea before we depart then.”

James wasn’t exactly sure how to process this whole scenario. It seemed like the beast was excited by the prospect of entering the monolith. He decided that even if this was some kind of trick, there wasn’t much he could do. If he tried to run again, there was no way he could outrun the Mastiff. It was like trying to outrun a motorcycle on a skateboard.

He was also rather curious what a sentient spirit beast’s cave was like. With the thought of exploring new frontiers on his mind, he marched forwards and grabbed his sack of array cubes in one hand and Gary with his huge wooden crate in the other. Against his better judgement, he took a deep breath and followed the dog into its den.

-Cave of the All-powerful Ruff-

To James’ great surprise and slight discomfort, Ruff transformed into the form of a man in mid-step after entering his cave. As he strolled into the cave, he took the form of a tanned, well-built young man, with the same short white hair he had as a dog.

The discomforting part was the fact that he was entirely naked as he strolled into the cave which led James’ mind into uncomfortable tangents. Quickly shaking the thought of the dog actually being a serial pervert, James followed on along the dark tunnel until they reached a small room filled with light.

Not only was it filled with light, but also a good deal of old wooden furniture. Some of it looked chewed on, and others looked like they would fall apart if he placed any weight on it. The most shocking thing wasn’t that the place looked like a human dwelling. Instead, it was the mysterious and sudden materialisation of a white robe into Ruff’s hand from out of nowhere.

Before James could fully register that sudden change, the dog become man threw Goliath onto the bed, donned his white robe and then materialised onto his hand a silver tray with a teapot and cups.

He then set it down at a little table with a few chairs scattered around it and began to brew some tea.

James, in a rather dazed manner, simply set his bag and his Gary down on the floor and then sat at the table. Finally, his curiosity couldn’t be held back any longer, and he started asking questions.

“Ruff ... errr, you can take human form?”

Ruff gave a lopsided grin as he steeped his tea and then nodded. “Sure I can. All beasts in the Sentient Realm can take human form. Some are more limited than others I’ve discovered. For example, as a common bloodline of the Mastiff, I can only take human form in an area I’ve marked out as my home. More powerful creatures with ancient and powerful bloodlines can often transform without limitations, or at least, with less strict ones.”

“And your robe ... how did you, ahh...”

“Oh, I see. Yes, I’m not surprised you don’t know. They’re rather rare you see.” While saying this, he took off a ring from his hand and passed it over to James. He then made a very dog like scratching motion behind his ear and began pouring some tea as he continued to talk.

“That there is a Spatial Storage Ring. Not uncommon way back in the Ancient times when I was first born, but I suppose they would be far from common nowadays. Our continents turned into a crappy little backwater now after all. Like the guy with leprosy, no one wants to visit. It’s sort of ended up like crap after these few millions of years. You should already know this anyway. I smell an ancient bloodline on you.”

James lifted his arm and sniffed at his sleeve a few times. Not smelling anything out of the ordinary he leant forward and took a hot cup of tea from Ruff. It then struck him why he might be able to smell another beasts bloodline on him. Exsue was after all still a spirit beast come human. It wouldn’t be surprising if she still technically had the blood of a dragon in her veins.

Finally, James looked down at the black ring he’d just been given. He wasn’t sure what material it was made of, but what he did know was that it was tripping him out. It looked like he was actually staring up at the night’s sky. The ring was filled with twinkling stars and black emptiness.

Seeing him mesmerised by the ring, Ruff grinned and then sat back while sipping his tea. “Space Stone. Even in my day, it was pretty rare. Used to be huge deposits of it all over the continent. It was actually why so many powerful beings came here and made this place their home. Back in those days, the spirit energy was so thick you could taste it every time you took a breath. Once they’d dug out all the big deposits, everyone left and the whole continent went back to shit.”

While playing with the ring, James unleashed some spirit energy only for it to be rejected by the ring. He then cycled through all 6 energies only to have that process repeat itself every time. When he was about to give up, he suddenly had another thought and slowly tried to place his spirit aura onto the ring.

A strange moment of disconnection then happened, and in his mind he could see the inside of the ring. It looked like a single white room about 15 meters in every direction. He could see old bones floating about the place, what could only be a dead possum and a number of other interesting old things from Ancient times like a rusted sword, decaying furniture and a handful of little jade squares with an odd language written on them.

With a thought, he willed one of the little jade pieces into his hand and then disconnected from the ring. Back in reality, his hand grew heavier with the weight of the little jade square that fit inside his palm. It had some strange characters written on it and looked old and worn.

Seeing James pull something out of the ring without any tutelage, Ruff gaped slack-jawed. Normally it took people a good deal of time to pick up the technique of operating a storage ring properly. James’ saving grace in this area came from his Guild Seal, which normally resided within his spirit realm. He spent a great deal of time playing with the summoning and unsummoning of that seal when he first got it.

After a moment of looking over the jade square in his hand, James suddenly had a thought. Seeing the light come on in his eyes, Ruff suddenly grew worried. “Wait! Not that...”

Before he could finish his warning, James had already extended his spirit aura only to suddenly have hundreds of images of dogs having sex flash through his mind. He couldn’t withdraw his spirit aura fast enough.

Ruff the All-powerful threw his tea across the room after seeing the sudden realisation in James’ eyes. Like a flash of lightning his hand snaked out and snatched the Jade away holding it protectively. James, on the other hand, looked like he was moments away from regurgitating his lunch and his face was as pale as a ghost’s.

Ruff gave an embarrassed cough and chose to ignore the fact that James had just stumbled on his porn collection and instead tried to distract from that whole thing. “Ahem! Well, it seems you’ve experienced Spirit Jade before.”

James, after he finished dry retching, wiped his chin and gave Ruff a meaningful glare before he asked; “Spirit Jade?”

Ruff gave him a quizzical look then began to explain. “Spirit Jade, is a material that stores information. You can implant anything from experiences to memories and even just information. Like the storage ring, it is imprinted and read with a person’s spirit aura.”

With the interesting show and tell finished, Ruff finally chose to begin discussing the thing he was most interested in. “Now, let’s talk about the monolith. You must be a descendant of the Ancient One right? You can truly put me into a monolith if my evolution fails?”

“Descendant? Um, I’m not so sure about that, I’m a stepper from another world after all. But yes ... I can put you into the monolith. After all, I’ve already done it once before.”

Hearing this declaration, Ruff’s eyes expanded until they looked like balloons. “You’ve done it before? You mean to say you’ve created a monolith and put a beast on the verge of deviation into it?”

James scratched his head and tilted it to the side like a curious dog with questions in his eyes. Ruff then imitated this action, and they both starred questions at each other for a brief second before James explained.

“Created a monolith? No. But I did pull an ancient spirit beast out from one when she was ready to transcend her beast form. In exchange, I had to put a ... place keeper in. It’s only a little true spirit beast and can’t maintain the protection of the monolith for the size of the city.”

Ruff scratched behind his ear agitatedly then sat back down. “So it’s true. You really can escape bedevilment with the monoliths help. I must meet the beast you pulled from the monolith! I need to know for certain!”

Following that declaration, Ruff took back his ring and everything in the room suddenly vanished with a wave of his hand. Gary, who remained prostrated on the ground was given a kick to awaken him from his stupor and Goliath was unceremoniously slapped awake.

The trio then left and escorted Ruff back in the direction of the Gunship.

-Jetsu Mountains - Gunship-

While James had been off gallivanting through the forest testing Gary’s luck and meeting some ancient spirit beast dog, the crew at the gunship had been hurriedly trying to stuff the huge corpse of the Golden Crow into the hanger.

Much to their dissatisfaction, the smell of a dead tower realm beast was like catnip and everything for 2 or 3 kilometres had closed in on their location in an attempt to devour the Crows corpse. At first, they trickled in one or two at a time.

After the first couple true spirit realm beasts had been exploded into little pieces by the cannons of the gunship, everything quietened down only to suddenly explode moments later. Soon they came in groups of 10 then groups of 20 and then finally palace realm beasts started showing up.

It wasn’t long before the guns were running too hot and half the crew were forced to run interference while the rest finished cutting up and dragging pieces of the crow into the ship.

By the time they were nearly finished, they had started taking casualties. Even Harvy had stepped out onto the front lines and like a glorious captain of the sea marched into the oncoming hordes. Every creature he encountered seemed to be disinclined to try and eat him, and anything that moved close enough to be touched by his death aura wailed in pain, so Harvy then became the number one deterrent.

Thanks to James’ twisted sense of humour, Harvy had been ordered to perfect battle with a special kind of weapon. It was truly awe-inspiring to watch him flutter across the battlefield like a shadow of death swinging a dirty great scythe back and forth reaping life like cutting grass.

The strangest thing was actually the fact that the more creatures he killed, the stronger his aura of death became. Not only was he like an untouchable ghost, but he truly did look like the commander of the undead while wreathed in the black miasma of his death aura and holding his scythe like the reaper.

Even though he was a strong deterrent, he wasn’t enough to hold back the horde, and he wasn’t fast enough to cross the field and save the lives of those few unlucky souls to get mobbed now and then.

When they were finally finished loading the crow corpse onto the ship, it was almost impossible to keep back the horde, and they’d been pushed back to the very door of the dropship. Just when they thought they’d need to take off and leave the exit zone James had set, a strange thing happened.

The beasts stampeding towards the dropship suddenly froze in their tracks and started sniffing at the air and wailing at the sky. Just as quickly as they’d first appeared, they all turned and ran back into the forests.

Moments later, James walked out of the forest with his two companions in tow and a big white Mastiff.