Beastforged Bond

The tight schedule kept me on the move, and I barely felt how much time passed. Days turned into weeks, each as boring as the last. But as boring as it was, the weeks spent in Dracos were fulfilling as well.

The first thing I noticed about myself when I looked into the mirror was that I no longer looked as fragile as before. New layers of lean muscle had formed from extensive physical conditioning. Strength carried through every motion, highlighting my reflection’s broad shoulders. Calluses roughened my palms and fingers, veins stood out along my forearms, pulsing with life after yet another intense workout. My muscles twitched and tightened beneath sweat-soaked skin, but despite the exhaustion, I wore a toothy smile.

Even standing still in front of the mirror, there was a tautness to my physique, the result of a body constantly braced and adapting.

By using liquefied ether and feasting on meals expensive enough to be considered daylight robbery, my body returned to its former glory. Even better, I felt stronger than before, which only made sense. After working out, I focused on refining my World. That still occupied several hours of the day, though I managed to speed up the process. Once the World had recovered, I wouldn’t have to spend more than two hours refining it.

That aside, I dedicated several hours to researching my disease, the weave, and ways to recover ether without a World or core. The archive, Udu specifically, helped a lot in that regard. That was also how I ended up researching the weave’s equivalent among other races for the past week or two. Since none of the human records helped me, Udu provided me with unique scrolls depicting the Caldera, Mikoniv, Terats, and many other races I hadn’t seen around much.

Without the Onyx Golem, I would have been at a loss, but with him I managed to push further than I had deemed possible.

Other than physical torture, studying, and World refining, I also put aside enough time to fill my Gates. While the linked Gates were already full, I still had to work against the constant leakage while also filling new Gates to bind in the near future. But I didn’t pay too much heed to that and instead focused more on all the Essence I had purchased over the last few weeks. And that was a lot.

It took a while to locate the perfect Essence absorption method for me, and I spent a few more days modifying it until it was good enough to suit my needs, but I perfected it. At least, that was what it felt like after all I went through to perfect it as much as humanly possible.

First things first, the Apex Life Essence was too much for my World. It was efficient and as subtle as promised, and my World resonated with it, yet it was still too much for the broken World. Sapsie took advantage of my World’s condition and absorbed most of the Apex Life Essence, which was probably for the best. Even the one-eighth of the Essence Sapsie spared for me to absorb nearly damaged my World more than it healed it.

At the end of the day, absorbing the Apex Essence had been too draining. Sapsie was excited and demanded more Life Essence, but her pleading was ignored. She was already a bloody glutton, literally, and it wouldn’t help anyone if she rushed through the Ranks. That was especially true for Sapsie, who could only turn regular Gates into Liferoot Gates. Her bond didn’t even form new Gates, which was a problem in its own right.

After the Apex Essence incident, I used the low-grade Life Essence Jura had recommended to me. He did tell me to dilute the Apex Essence with the low-grade Essence since my World was broken, but I decided I knew better. In hindsight, that had been a stupid decision.

Having learned from my mistake, I started to dilute other high-grade Essences with the warm embrace of Life Essence. After all, that was what Life Essence was best at. It was ridiculously expensive – low-grade Life Essence cost more than the average mid-grade Essence – yet it could be absorbed easily enough.

Many would have called me foolish if they knew the stupidity I attempted after my incident with the Apex Essence, but the Essence called out to me, just like Volix did. When I visited Jura again two days after first meeting him, I purchased the cheapest high-grade Essences in his storage. Highly explosive high-grade Fire Essence, sold at the price of mid-grade Essence, changed owners. Jura warned me again, but the Fire Essence beckoned to me. It was exactly what my World needed once diluted with Life Essence.

The result was efficient and not all that destructive. The Fire Essence’s fiery power diminished greatly once mixed with Life Essence. Despite that, it was crucial to be careful. One mistake, and the few small scratches on the World’s surface would tear open, ripping a hole into the World. Fortunately, everything worked out as intended, and once I could be certain that the mixture was more effective than regular mid-grade Essence, I spent another fifty platinum coins, emptying the market’s supply of low-grade Life Essence.

As for the destructive Fire Essence’s stockpile, there was still a lot left. Apparently, no one had bothered purchasing the Essence ever since a Master Blessed with an intact World suffered from consuming it. Something about his World going up in flames.

Jura was fairly sure the man had been a miser who didn’t want to pay the price for regular high-grade Essences, so he simply ignored that his World wasn’t compatible with Fire Essence. That behavior cost him his World, crippling him permanently.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Anyway, my World was totally fine. Three weeks later, after spending four hours daily absorbing the Essence mixture, life was perfect.

It’s about time.

Aureus called out, and he couldn’t have been more right. It was indeed time. I could taste it already.

Power flowed through the World unlike anything I had ever felt before. The bonds grew stronger, reaching out to both me and the World, nurturing it, expanding it. After months of stagnation and being forced to suppress the bond’s effect on the World, it was finally time to let go. Aureus and the other Soulkins no longer held the bonds back and allowed them to grow. And grow they did.

Tessa’s bond reached the 1st Stage and grew even stronger than before. Her emotions and thoughts flooded my mind, only to be crushed beneath the excitement and anticipation of my other companions. Reaching out to the Horror Tessar levitating beside me in her illusionary form, I pulled her closer and cuddled her firmly. While I could not yet access some of her traits, it was only a matter of time and affection until I could.

Feeling the weight of her bond as it strengthened even further, showing signs of approaching the threshold to the 2nd Stage, the corner of my lips curled upward. I hadn’t been able to spend much time with Tessa before the fight with the Ruler of Fire, but she fit well into the family. Tessa was exactly where she was supposed to be – by my side.

Cosmo squeaked out loud and leaped at my face, where he clung to me clingily. The Cosmic Chipmunk’s bond had grown considerably over the last few weeks. While I half-expected it to weaken after I couldn’t fulfill my promise to him, the opposite happened. The soulshare was nearing 20%, if I wasn’t mistaken, and it was closing in on the 2nd Stage. Even though it couldn’t be compared to the firmness of my bond with Sapsie, Nox, and Aureus, Cosmo’s soulshare was impressive.

Nox’s bond grew the slowest, yet it still climbed to a soulshare of no less than 35%. Sapsie caught up to the Ferronox Mantis, but I understood the reasons behind that. Nox wanted to fight, whereas Sapsie was happy enough absorbing Apex Life Essence and my blood. It wouldn’t surprise me if Sapsie’s soulshare reached 40% in the next few months as long as I provided enough Essence and blood.

Still, she wouldn’t catch up to Aureus. He was closing in on the 3rd Stage with a soulshare of almost 45%. That kind of growth was ridiculous, yet it made sense to me. My World resonated with my Soulkins, allowing us to grow accustomed to each other more easily. We trusted each other with everything, and we would do everything in our power to help one another. We were not only family but part of each other.

We were still ourselves, yet part of me was woven deep inside Aureus, and parts of him were inside me.

The World cracked from the power provided by the strengthened bonds, but with the daily Essence absorption and Blastor Refinery’s effect, the World not only endured the expansion, it knit itself together and became more durable than ever.

I’d finally reached the final stretch, my World’s condition crossing a neat 90%. The corner of my lips curled into a vicious smile, yet my eyes drifted to a pair of scrolls from the archive.

One was a technique called Breathing Tissue, and the other translated to Respiring Flesh. As similar as their translations sounded, the techniques couldn’t have been more different. I had yet to figure out how that would help me. After all, I had only seen the images scribbled on the archaic scrolls. As for why Udu gave them to me, allowing me to bring them back home, I didn’t know either.

All I could be certain about was that the texts were written by some of the strongest Mikoniv, namely one of the handful of Grandmaster Mikoniv among their race. But while the Mikoniv were proficient at Common, the archaic texts weren’t written in Common, and I… well, I was struggling to learn Aqae, the tongue of the ocean.

We can help you.

Aureus said.

We’re in this together, Adam.

Yes! Kill texts!

Nox hissed, only for the Earthheart to sigh loudly.

Maybe we should keep Nox out of this.

Maybe that was for the best. In the first place, Aureus was the most suitable. As much as the Earthheart looked like a brute, his mind was the sharpest. He could help me, and, even better, he had a lot more time to spare being locked up in my World.

“Let’s go. Let’s learn Aqae!”

***

“Why is this so difficult?” I felt like cursing. My head throbbed.

Ever since I bonded with Aureus, I felt much smarter. At least I could read faster, memorize almost everything to a near-perfect degree, and learn everything much faster. Even more profound topics came much more easily to me, including the Caldera’s tongue. But Aqae? The language of the ocean was a terror in its own right. Not even my mind, after being augmented by half a dozen Soulkins, could make much of it.

It’s only been a few days. You overthink too much.

Aureus mused calmly, though his voice dripped with joy. He was teasing me, and he knew better than anyone that it annoyed me. The Earthheart enjoyed that too.

“A few days in which you not only learned to read Aqae, but you can even write in it, technically,” I grumbled.

Does it really matter? I studied the texts all day while you were busy training. I’d much rather focus on my Earthen Aspect to grow stronger, but here I am waiting for–

“I know. You’re waiting for me to finish up.” A heavy sigh escaped my lips. “And, as always, you are right. In two or three days it’ll be over and we can leave this place for a little flight. What do you say?”

Aureus’ bond flared up at that. He didn’t want to show it, but being stuck in the World drained him greatly. He went through his studies of the Earthen Aspect, Paralyze, the Gravity Aspect, and much more for several months, coming up with new strategies to use ether, how to perfect the traits limited by potential, and how to push them past their limits, yet he couldn’t practice any of it. For that, he would have to leave the World.

The Earthheart wanted to spread his wings and soar through the sky. At the same time, he did feel like squashing a few Spawns and other big bad evils, and for that he needed strength.

I could only second that. Power may not be everything, but it was certainly useful for many things. In some cases, it might even be essential. For example, beating the living shit out of a Spirit. Not that I ever planned to do that. It was just a precaution.