Chương 65: Path Forward

Show less"Whoa," Auram whispered in awe. She floated up to look into the sky.

"Don't go too far. This is another illusion, and you can very easily touch something dangerous in the sky," Liesel said.

"What is this place?" Auram floated back to the tree line. Liesel spent a little while explaining her understanding of the realm and Arval's existence.

"You think she's Ahura's student?" Auram asked, cutting off Liesel's explanation.

"I imagine so," Liesel said.

"You don't like her?"

"She's dangerous, the Custodian says." Liesel raised her brow. That was surprising. It could be very dangerous. At least, they would not have to worry about that for a while.

"Arval is a relatively good-natured child, and I imagine you would like her." Auram shrugged, reservedly nodding. Liesel, at least, believed Arval was not an issue, and she would be willing to keep Auram a secret from Ahura if they insisted. Besides that, Liesel warned against wandering too far away from the garden, as there was a boundary and the heart somewhere, hidden from their eyes. And lastly, Liesel had someone who could help her figure out the nature of the Materiality in this place.

"It seems odd..." Auram nodded.

"Like we're given the privilege of accessing the Materiality from the air without any resistance. It is impossibly hard to do this in the outside world, even for me. But there is no resistance. Materiality seeps into the body. It is real Materiality, though. Unlike the artificial nature of this place, it is substantially pure and untouched." Liesel nodded.

"Then, I will go back to meditating."

"What are you going to do about your Soul's puncture?"

"You will get to see it once we leave the realm."

"Yeah... did you figure out a way?" Auram asked.

"It was just a few hours, but I was only a step away from strangling the Custodian if he didn't give me a way to see you. My wish was granted."

"Please don't even joke about it. He is divine from you, and I stand," Liesel shrugged.

"Arval says Elder Ahura would open a path out. We just have to wait here for a bit."

"Oh." Auram nodded, frowning. It could be due to her reservation about accepting Ahura's help, Liesel thought. Liesel closed her eyes and settled down to meditate. She began by drawing Materiality into her Soul Form. She wove and twisted the energy until it was at the same concentration as her Nebulous Core. Her higher Control and experience of the past month almost made it trivial. Once she compressed the newly introduced Materiality to the same density as the core, she incorporated them.

[Materiality: 221/221] At the end of the first hour, Liesel felt as though she had solved all her troubles. She could increase her Materiality capacity and even shift the state of her core from Nebulous to Condensed without having to expand her Soul Form. But the problem bared its ugly fangs in the next hour. As the Nebulous core's size expanded, her soul form's size became an issue. There was not enough space to prepare Materiality to assimilate into the core.

She tried still, pushing the limit of her manipulation to keep expanding, but her Nebulous Core was too big and yet too small to be worth anything. Liesel spent a while on the thought alone. To condense a core, you applied equal pressure from all sides until the gaseous state of energy turned into an almost solid in density, beyond the point where an Ascendant could alter its form further with their Control.

After that, it would develop a crust as the Materiality settled down under the pressure, which served as a protective barrier and gave the core its solid appearance. Past a certain density of Materiality, the development of the Condensed Core began. It was also the point of no return. But it took weeks to settle into that solidified form.

Her Control was high enough that she could compress materiality to make space and keep feeding the viscous Materiality to her core Materiality every moment of the day, increasing her capacity bit by bit. She might come out with a thousand Materiality if she pushed her abilities to their limit. The realm was the perfect place because her Soul Veins wouldn't be damaged, and she would not have to absorb Materiality from the Materiality Cores either. It would be the natural and least painful way to achieve it.

Of course, there was only one issue. She had no control over when she might have to leave the realm. Drahk might push the Elder to open a passage out now. It was a gamble. I cannot stay behind alone... I doubt the realm would even accept that. In the end, her caution stopped her from taking a daring step. Unlike Arval, Liesel believed it would be two or three more days. Because Liesel was trapped here with the child, the Rakamels would try to extract them as quickly as they possibly could.

"Ar-Auram," Liesel said, "What happened after I left?" The spirit had been sitting on a tree, pretending to be diving from a platform into the nonexistent river.

"Not much..." Auram swam to her side, sitting in a chair in the air. This time, however, the realm did manifest a tiny chair for the spirit." Whoa..." Auram's golden eyes glimmered in awe. She patted the armrest as she folded one leg over the other and puffed out her chest.

"Kneel, puny human, for you stand before the Monarch of Spirits." Liesel regarded the chair with interest. It seemed somewhat royal in its presentation, though there was no gold or iron; rather, it was made of clay and leaves.

"I am sitting, Your Majesty," Liesel added offhandedly. She was pretty sure there was a component of pity that compelled her to go along with Auram. How did she even develop the capacity to imagine that the spirit must feel lonely in her isolation just to survive? A worm inside her mind found that worrying.

"Mayhap you require a pair of glasses to assist your antiquated eyesight?" Liesel added, quirking her brow. Just as Auram was about to retort, she frowned, swiveling her head at a tree on the side. She leapt out of her chair, which turned into a cloud of dust and vanished, and stood in her usual disarming manner.

"Arval?" Liesel called. The child poked her head out from behind the tree.

"I was not trying to eavesdrop on your conversation."

"That's what you did," Auram said, accusingly.

"I didn't mean to," Arval said, stuttering over her words. A bit of panic settled in her brows.

"It doesn't matter," Liesel said. She found the entire exercise unnecessary.

"You can join us." Arval rushed there and sat on the other bench.

"I didn't want to intrude on your conversation. I will never spy."

"Then, how did you escape my attention?" Auram asked.

"I didn't," Arval shook her head desperately.

"I will never sneak up on you." That might be the Realm's decision. Liesel thought, seeing the confusion and panic on Arval's face.

"Auram," Liesel said. Liesel could understand why the spirit was on edge. Auram's senses were one of her many tools of survival, so someone getting so close to her without her noticing, when she was trapped in an unknown realm, unable to use her teleportation abilities, was bound to be harrowing. Auram exhaled, "Sorry. Don't sneak up on us again." Arval nodded.

"Are you a... spirit? How did you get here?"

"I am Auram," the spirit said, settling Liesel's head.

"I am also stuck here just like you two. No clue how I got here." Arval nodded, staring at the spirit. After a moment, she seemed to realize that she was. Her eyes darted to a random tree and back at Auram again.

"S-sorry, I have never seen a spirit."

"Most of the mortal kind haven't," Auram uttered. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"Do you want to eat fruits?" Arval asked awkwardly. Auram stared at the child for a long moment, utterly silent. Liesel could see the shades of panic and worry swirling in Arval's mind through the golden eye rings.

"Of course, I do!" Auram flew over to Arval's side.

"Look at your face. You are on the verge of tears."

"I am... not," as if the words reeled them out. Arval quickly wiped them off.

"I am not crying!"

"It's fine. We all cry," Auram fanned Arval's face with her wing.

"C'mon, I am hungry. Where are the fruits?" Liesel exhaled. She wished Auram had been a little more careful of the child's emotional state. Auram was much more sensitive to people's emotions than Liesel could ever hope to be, so Liesel tried not to worry. That was uncomfortably hard.

"You are not coming?" Auram asked, following behind Arval, who was quickly racing out of the garden.

"I want a moment to myself." Liesel exhaled. Her mind went back to the previous night. She didn't want to waste her energy on it, and that instinct was developed from years of training. Liesel felt compelled to challenge it now.

"You monstrous beast, how can you hit a child so hard!" Arval grumbled. She had the restraint not to use her spirit dust to heal Arval.

"Do you know what she desires?" Liesel asked. Auram shook her head.

"You should ask her. It is my kindness," Liesel said. She didn't believe she was showing kindness, of course. She didn't know what else she could give the child to ease her pain, but this practiced and controlled escape.

"You are just being cruel. What does this achieve?"

"Nothing. I have asked her to think, and she refuses to. I find no interest in this spar," Liesel settled back in the chair. She was holding back most of her strength. At this moment, her body wanted to fight something like those tenacious spiders in the second layer of the Necropolis. To rip out their sinewy legs and stab them back into their bulbous acid abdomens.

"Then you should teach her, instead of hurting her," Auram argued.

"Her body and soul are superior to my own," Liesel said.

"What I can teach is of no use to someone like her. All my techniques and distractions make up for the power that I lack." Arval finally sat up. She seemed somewhat more subdued than the day before. A slight cut on her jaw was healing, visible before their eyes. Auram's presence was definitely helpful.

"You don't have to accuse her. I know what I am doing."

"You are hurting yourself," Auram said.

"You should rest for today." It is a distraction from a much graver pain.

"I can still fight," Arval got back up to her feet.

"I can defeat you." Liesel considered for a moment, both Auram's argument and Arval's actual intent. What she really was offering to the child was pain for nothing? There was nothing beyond it.

"I believe Auram has a point," Liesel said.

"I felt obligated to entertain you yesterday after my irrational demand, and today almost seems like an implicit promise. But there is nothing gained from this, neither for you nor for me."

"Once I internalize how you fight, I can win. You can't back out just like this," Arval said desperately. Liesel pressed her lips thin.

"So you say. But you are required to have techniques, discipline, and instincts to fight. There is no internalization in actual fights. It is violent and uncaring, a quick slope to death." Arval's jaw clenched. She didn't say anything, just staring at her with teary eyes.

"I don't want to waste my time fixing your lack of training," Liesel said.

"I am time-bound to my worries as well." Arval turned around. She was about to run away, and probably cry somewhere in silence. Liesel didn't know whether Arval was a unique case of an emotional wreck or if that's just how everyone was, and her own experiences were buried in some corner of her mind, forgotten forever. She doubted she would ever remember them. All she remembered was the academy and the training, and her mother in painful moments.

Liesel had little to offer as a remedy for Arval's pain when she had not found anything for her own yet, but she had a little thing.

"Wait," Liesel said.

"You can ask me for a spar once a day. And it has to be your honest attempt. If you need help with close combat training, I am willing to offer a hand. Only half an hour, and you will meditate on what I show you. And it will be just distractions. That is how you win a life-or-death battle. By choking your honor." Liesel was still offering a distraction. A different kind. Instead of physical pain, it could be fighting the rigid understanding of battle Arval had. It would only help the child in the long run.

Arval didn't say anything. She still looked somewhere between angry and on the verge of tears. She dashed out of the garden. Of course, you are a child. Liesel sighed, shaking her head. She looked at Auram, who was also sighing.

"Yeah, leave it to me."

"I appreciate your help, Auram," Liesel said. Auram glanced at her, as if there was something wrong with Liesel's statement. Without Auram's presence, Liesel didn't know if she would have ever changed her implicit agreement with Arval.

"Without you here, I would've been just a monstrous beast for her," Liesel whispered. It didn't reach Auram.

Liesel spent most of her days training her mental muscles that wove the runes. She had grown significantly quicker, though her soul no longer had space to hold a Crest. It didn't have enough for her own Materiality Core. So her practice was a theory for the foreseeable future. Still, runes could be useful in many ways if she found correct chains to create something useful—an expansion of her Impact Rune use, for example, without even needing the jewel.

Not to mention, the theories would come to reality at some point. Liesel tried to interact with Arval several times a day, talking about things from the human realm. It was Auram's idea to help Arval's loneliness and grief. They also had spar in the evening, but Liesel no longer even landed a strike. It was mostly Arval desperately and predictably trying to land a strike, and Liesel shrugging the child away from her body and tilting her onto the ground. She did show her method of Layering, which Arval couldn't do.

Hers was shallow, easily broken under pressure. Liesel was also making progress on her Materializing ability by bouncing ideas with the spirit. Auram could naturally influence the Materiality outside her body and use it. Liesel didn't think that was possible for a human. Instead, she tried to channel the Materiality into the air, and then force it to materialize. That's how the mages achieved their spell circles. It was a bit harder for her without any skills.

After a few hours of struggle for a couple of days, she managed to expel materiality through her soul vein. It was a leap in her abilities that achieved basically nothing. It may have improved her Channeling capacity, but for some reason her endless practice amounted to zero attribute gain. Materializing that expelled energy into a thread from the air was another matter entirely. It was slow progress still, though Liesel felt lost in this aspect. Why was she having such a hard time Materializing?

The corridors didn't appear after Auram arrived, either because the realm had achieved what it wanted, or it was waiting for something. The second possibility bothered Liesel to a great degree. She tried not to hope for either, as indifference was the best state of mind. During one of their worldly conversations, while they were discussing the possibility of Ahura opening a way earlier, Auram mentioned the conversation she had eavesdropped on.

"No..." Arval shook her head.

"That can't be right." Liesel was frowning for a different reason, though. What might seem like a problem from Arval's or Ahura's point of view was utterly immaterial. The Primordial Heart was more than willing to invite others inside—both Auram and Liesel were there only because of that. So if they were stuck, it was an active decision from the Realm.

"If Ahura can't open it," Liesel uttered, "Then you might have to look for a way to open the passage from within."

"It's impossible," Arval said, shaking her head.

"You can't leave the Heart from inside."

"That's what you believe, at least," Liesel uttered.

"But there might be a way. Do you remember how Elder Ahura opens the passage from outside?" Arval shook her head.

"Can you show us how you opened the vein from outside?" Liesel asked. She faintly remembered using Shade Severing Strike and being sucked into this realm. If they couldn't leave, then Liesel was quite sure the Primordial Heart wanted Arval to learn it. It had chosen a bad time for it, if that was truly the case. Arval shook her head.

"It just happens on its own. I want to leave, and the Heart gives me a way to escape." Liesel held back a sigh.

"That's not good." It was harder for Arval to deal with the fact, as she didn't seem to understand the nature of the realm like Liesel did. Because Liesel didn't want to upset this living realm, she decided to keep her theories to herself. Auram was there to keep Arval company after all. They seemed to get along well once Auram got past her initial reservation about Arval's relationship with Ahura. Liesel was also contemplating another thought.

If they were stuck here indefinitely, it might mean she could attempt forming a Condensed Core here. They were here as long as the realm wanted them to, so in a way attempting this would let the realm decide the fate of the Materiality Core and her future.

"Auram. Will the Custodian accommodate your teleportation now?" Liesel asked. Auram pursed her lips. She was quiet for a minute. Probably the Custodian was speaking to her.

"He won't because it would mean meddling with your decisions and future." Liesel nodded. She didn't understand to what degree the Custodian was willing to let her die. Given her condition in the Wasteland, Liesel was pretty sure he would never step in to help her. She didn't think she had earned a right to demand it from him.

"He's so petty. I don't understand why he is so insistent on not helping in any way."

"He has done more than he had to," Liesel said.

"I do not mind either way."

"Yeah, but he does. He put you on this path."

"He left me with a choice to make, and I was the only one who acted. Except for giving me a choice between being consumed by demons or fighting the Mindeater, he has not coerced me into anything."

"That's a lie. It is the path that he wants you to walk to meet his expectations." Liesel sighed.

"I am not walking his path." What path am I walking? What am I doing even?

"What will you do then?"

"I am not sure yet. I want to form the condensed core, as that seems important if we are to leave the Necropolis. The Wasteland was a clear indication that my tricks have met their match. Even with Drahk's help, which I am not counting on, I don't know how we will cross the desert. Twenty-four hours is not enough." She spent the entire night contemplating. And the day crawled by with the same worry. She helped Arval with sparring. Liesel didn't consider herself to be a teacher by any means.

She tried to be patient with her, but all her tricks were to eliminate the gap between her strength and her opponents, using basic techniques to their extreme. She didn't think teaching Arval the same would hinder the child. If nothing else, the patience and practice would help her future. At the same time, she didn't want to teach Arval something that she had gleaned from the Imperial Academy.

"What's the worst gonna happen?" Auram uttered. She was sitting beside Liesel on the stone bench, peeling a tiny fruit.

"She's gonna be a target no matter how the future unfolds. Her soul is too precious, and the golden eye ring is enough to help her out."

"I can see your point. I guess it doesn't matter. But I was curious about something. Arval is the perfect age and potential to be the Librarian's Heir. Why doesn't he recruit her? I am more or less bound to never meet his grand expectations."

"You can ask him," Auram said.

"I am glad he hasn't set his sights on Arval. She doesn't need that kind of unending misery so early in her life."

"And I do?" Liesel raised her brow.

"You can stand against a Mindeater; I am sure it is not enough to break your spirit, as it would break hers."

"I wonder if I have something like a spirit to break." Again, Auram seemed taken aback by Liesel's admission.

"Maybe I didn't lose to the Mindeater because there was not enough human inside to be eaten."

"You are focusing on the wrong thing," Auram said.

"You have a very gentle spirit. I can see it."

"Then, I should worry about the Saffron Helm's fate, shouldn't I?" Liesel didn't know if that was even her own assertion or something she absorbed from Yehia. The next morning, Liesel decided she was willing to take the gamble. She was going to advance her Core.