Chapter 9

  Yin took a deep breath, like a man breaking the surface after almost drowning. Secretary shifted into numbers, less than three minutes this time. It had been a few hours and he was reaching the limits of his channels and core. He was reaching the limits of jade. Another month or so he’d be able to push his pure core up to gold with some treasures to help.

  ‘’So, Secretary, any new designs?’’ Yin gasped breathlessly at the shifty mass of purple slipping down his crossed legs.

  It projected an array of scripts. ‘’Okay, and what’s its purpose?’’ Secretary showed him an adorable little cartoony version of Yin punching the scripts and then holding his swollen red hand. ‘’Alright, nice, we’ll try it out. Just one thing though, it gathers vital water energy. How is water supposed to stop a punch dead in its tracks?’’

  The spirit condensed into a very confident looking face. ‘’Alright, I’m convinced now, this will totally work.’’

  It took him a few tries to get back on his feet and leave his cultivation room, scratching at his chin. Still not feeling even the slightest hint of hair. How old had he been the last time his beard had come? He just had the vague notion that somewhere around fourteen to nineteen he’d gone from fresh faced to constant five o'clock shadow.

  ‘’It’s because my diet is lacking meat.’’ Secretary seemed confused. ‘’Sacred meat, I need some serious stuff that can make me grow in many ways.’’

  ‘’We should probably try to get some new stuff for you too Sec. Think it would do you any good to drink a Twelve Dawns elixir?’’ The dream spirit spun around, spitting out random signs and scripts. ‘’Ok, let’s think about that tomorrow.’’

  Yin walked out into the central courtyard into a clear space, waited a few seconds, then fell backwards. A soft leaf hammock was suddenly there to catch him. Such a lovely place, but he could go for a.. Ah. A fruit grew quickly near his head.

  Taking a bite of the sweet fruit, Yin told Secretary. ‘’We are going to figure out how this place works and then making our own literally everywhere we go. If we stay more than two hours somewhere I want to turn the spot into a place like this.’’

  The purple blob soaked its way into his hair and stayed there, probably in the spiritual version of sleep.

  Yin enjoyed the light filtering down to him and the pleasant temperatures for a while. But the itching sensation in the back of his mind came back regardless. Not only was he making very slow progress in both advancement and figuring out his techniques. He was falling behind the others.

  Duong had broken through to gold in his pure core. And though he hadn’t met him in months he’d heard that the guy was making some really impressive soulcrafting projects.

  Zeurel had gone and become a truegold. Her healing was worth a lot around the city, netting her plenty of resources to barter for things more suited to her. To go with her spiritual growth came physical growth since she was a sacred beast. She was head and shoulders taller than him now, not counting her horns that curled around her head.

  And probably only Emriss herself knew how Montai was doing. But Yin could imagine, the bird was probably pushing Underlord by now.

  ‘’What do I have, two years?’’ Secretary emerged to correct him. ‘’Two years and four months.’’ Yin could see stars through the gaps in the dense growth.

  ‘’I need more.’’ More resources, more experience, more knowledge. He cycled his pure core pushing with everything he had. Slowly, agonizingly all the madra in his pure core seeped out and was forced into a single scale.

  Holding the coin in trembling fingers he considered the white color.

  The hunger binding he’d taken from a dreadbeast those years ago, he considered it every now and then. Some nights just sitting near it, feeling it’s corruption, how it resonated so weakly with him.

  He wouldn’t be able to use hunger anyways even if he could. Secretary would need to be able to help him filter things out, and the spirit was seemingly nowhere close to that.

  The scripts they’d worked out over the last months, they might help, might do something, anything. But it might harm the spirit too, and the risk of that wasn’t worth it.

  He lay there until his body and soul felt rested, and then he went to his room, dug out his old thousand mile cloud and rode it up through the central garden. The namesake of the city his destination.

  —

  The cloud gave out a few hundred meters before his destination, the scripts holding it together literally unwinding. But Yin wasn’t all that bothered, using his pure cloak made the landing only hurt a bit rather than leave him with broken bones.

  He bounded forward, still using his cloak, drawing offended glares for being so terribly rude. No sacred arts in walking spaces. It was common sense.

  People came and went into the titan tree, even as late at night as it was. Yin followed into what, to the tree, was a small hollow, in reality it was one of the largest spaces in the whole city. And in the center of it stood a second tree, ethereal and feminine, tall enough that Yin had to tilt his head back even at a distance.

  Emriss Silentborn in her true, well, one of her true forms. At any given time madra swirled around her, techniques beyond comprehension constantly woven. Before he had a chance to open his mouth her voice resounded in his head.

  ‘’Yin. A situation has come to my attention, I believe your home is involved.’’

  Yin’s mouth drew into a thin line. ‘’Alright.’’ He sighed to himself, drawing looks from a few people walking around him.

  ‘’It is early, but this is a good opportunity to test you, would you be willing to solve this case for me?’’

  He couldn’t answer, just the mention of that village he’d come from made his guts twist on themselves.

  ‘’I can prepare transport, and I believe it would be best if you retrieve Montai at the Obsidian Range. We have little time, Yin, you must decide now.’’

  ‘’I’ll do it. Fine.’’ Yin grumped, causing people around him to back away from the child talking to himself.

  Directions to a facility containing a cloudship appeared in his head as if he’d always known it. The monarch's ability with dream madra, even though he was well aware of it, became much more terrifying.

  It felt imperative that he didn’t waste her time so Yin took off at a run out of the tree. Barreling down streets he’d never seen but knew by heart now, he quickly reached a heavily guarded workshop. A sacred artist saw him and jerked his head to a door and led the way in for Yin.

  ‘’Congratulations mister Yin, you get to take the Miniature Rose on its maiden flight.’’ His voice held a note of tension in it. Yin started to understand why as the man took him up to a wide platform overlooking a vehicle. A cloud, like the one he’d ridden earlier, but several meters across. In its center was a small building with a rose bush growing out of it, standing on a single trunk and only spreading its branches high up like a tree. Rosebuds dotted the top of the canopy, closed for now.

  ‘’We crafted this so the roses would help fuel it during the day, lessening the need for madra infusions into the central scripts. There aren’t any security functions on it so you better not leave it unattended.’’ The man drilled into Yin with his eyes. ‘’Do not leave my ship unattended.’’

  ‘’Alright man, I’ll make sure someone stronger than me always stays on it.’’ The man didn’t seem pleased by that but he moved on, showing Yin the controls and where it accepted madra.

  As he ran Yin through all the controls for the third time in quick succession Zeurel burst into the hangar in a green haze. ‘’I’m here! I made it! Sorry! Oh my God this thing is sooo coooool!’’

  ‘’Shut up! Get on!’’ Yin yelled distractedly, running his hands over the control script desperately memorizing the functions. Zeurel came into the cockpit, squeezing past the engineer to glare at Yin who barely cared.

  Yin repeated the controls back to the engineer twice to satisfy him, and finally someone opened the hangar by making the leaves of the roof retract. The engineer pointed to his own eyes and then at Yin’s before hopping off the platform.

  ‘’Why was he so uptight?’’ Zeurel whispered, leaning over Yin to look at everything.

  ‘’He made the ship, and I'm pretty sure this is something like a uh cuckold situation.’’

  Zeurel gasped and glanced out through the windows at the stoically glaring man. ‘’You think he.. wanted to do that with the cloud? What?’’ Yin held his incredulous stare at her for a few more seconds before engaging the lift script.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  They soon saw the skyline of Titan’s grove, and then they were soaring high above the city. ‘’Hey, wait, are we not bringing Duong?’’ Yin glanced at Zeurel who quickly pulled back a finger that was about to poke the acceleration script.

  ‘’Well, if he’s coming he’d better hurry up right?’’ She said simply, and they looked out and around to see if anything was approaching.

  Zeurel stretched and stepped around as if on a slow stroll, ending up chest to shoulder with Yin. He looked up at her sly smirk, danger senses starting to blare. ‘’This is a pretty romantic situation you know… See? The sun is starting to rise.’’

  Yin glanced and saw the reddening horizon. He wasn’t entirely comfortable doing something like this, being thirteen or something like that in body, but he had to agree, it was pretty romantic. He put his hand on her hip and Zeurel almost instantly started huffing through her nose like a bull. She gave him no more time to move at his own pace and nearly headbutted him going in for a kiss.

  He would have liked for their first kiss to be softer but Zeurel was apparently in an elevated state and just pressed harder until he flared his pure cloak and pushed her back. Laughing breathlessly as she tried to steal another peck at his lips. ‘’Relax! Mission Zeurel! Mission!’’

  Through the girls pouting and less forceful attempts at more kissing a voice drifted in to them. ‘’Sorry, Emriss told me to come here, but if this is a thing you guys want to do just the two of you I can go back.’’ Duong said, standing outside the door looking, as usual, vaguely ill.

  Yin cleared his throat and forced Zeurel off him. ‘’No no, everyone is coming, we’re getting Montai too.’’ He cleared his throat again. ‘’Let’s go!’’

  Zeurel sulked and actually seemed embarrassed to have been caught in the act, so Yin explained all the controls to Duong as they gradually picked up more speed as the sun rose.

  —

  There was a tiny room for meditating, and two rooms with a total of eight bunk beds between them. Despite that they all stayed crammed into the tiny cockpit, Yin still at the proverbial wheel.

  ‘’So you guys made up?’’ He asked as Duong and Zeurel were coexisting in a small space with no apparent animosity. A noncommittal grunt from Duong and Zeurel hummed in affirmation.

  These goddamn people, making things hard for Yin.

  He blew a lungful of air out and tried to start his cycling pattern while standing to some success. ‘’Duong I’ve been hearing about your crafting for a while now? Got anything for me? Us. I said us.’’

  The boy became a bit more animated, patting down his bulky clothes and bringing out a pitch black little slate. Yin and Zeurel were equally flabbergasted when it turned out to be a void key. An entrance to a pocket dimension the size of a moving box opened, filled to the absolute limits with items. Some even fell out as Duong reached in and pulled out a dagger the length of Yin’s forearm.

  ‘’Yeah I got some little things, uh, mostly for you Yin. I’m best at making weapons so I wasn’t sure what kind of stuff you’d want Zeurel.’’ He missed their intent gazes at his void key completely. ‘’I managed to work this blade binding into an actual blade, y’know, because the concept was compatible with the physical item it meshed. But yeah, it’s simple but the binding lets you extend a blade madra construct, further the more madra you pump into it, up to something like 4 meters. But that might just blow it up, sorry about that by the way, I can’t seem to make my stuff last long, but they’re pretty effective.’’

  He placed the dagger in Yin’s limp hand and moved on. Explaining to Zeurel the function of a pair of golden hoof sheaths, something like shoes for her. They’d expel a burst of cloud madra that she’d be able to kick off of if she was fast enough. Yin was mildly jealous that he didn’t get a double jump item.

  Duong had even made something with Montai in mind. ‘’Okay so this is basically a contact grenade.’’ He carelessly waved an apple sized ball of four coloured writhing remnant flesh around. Yin tried to bodily cover all the vitally important scripts. ‘’It’s armed when a sufficient amount of madra is pressed into all four parts, triggering their bindings. I was actually a bit inspired by your path Yin, but it’s a lighting binding, shooting into a metal binding, shooting into a dual type magma binding and finally into a water binding.’’

  ‘’That sounds like a war crime waiting to happen.’’ Zeurel said after a moment, and Duongs only response was his patented pure evil smile.

  They hung out in there for another while, chatting about Duong and his soulsmithing until the conversation dried up.

  Yin decided that maybe it was time for them to get some air. ‘’So anyways, it’s about seven more hours to Obsidian Range, and then about fifteen hours to the shithole. Or, actually, we’re going to move slower when the sun goes down so make that eighteen to twenty plus hours.’’ Yin nodded at the dawning realizations on the faces of his friends. ‘’The bathroom folds out from the wall on the outside of the bedrooms. There’s a privacy script around it, but I was more focused on the controls so I kinda forgot how to activate it.’’

  Zeurel rubbed her face and Duong looked like he wanted to go check it out. Secretary seeped out of Yin’s hair and coalesced in the air, seeming to come back to life and began to explore the ship.

  ‘’Were you asleep or did you catch that part about the privacy script?’’ The spirit turned into a firework of question marks and then went back to tracing its way down the window.

  —

  ‘’We’re here!’’ Zeurel yelled and Yin flailed awake so violently that he hurt himself. Zeurels life madra pumped into him, outpacing his own that rushing to mend the minor damages he’d dealt himself. ‘’Obsidian Range is almost right below us.’’

  She didn’t wait for him to gather his wits, simply carrying him by the armpits out of the meditation room. Yin wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, but he’d managed to recover a bit of his pure madra. Hopefully he’d be back to full before they reached that place.

  Wriggling his way out of Zeurels gentle but firm grasp they walked side by side up to the edge of the cloud ship. Under them, taking up much of the horizon as well, was the Obsidian Range. Like most things in Cradle it was named so because it was literally a vast mountain range of lava glass.

  ‘’She didn’t give me any info on this place other than Montai being here. You think Turtle Man did this?’’ Yin made conversation as he scanned around the black shattered peaks.

  ‘’Eeeh, there were probably two fire monarchs at some point and they couldn’t deal with the other being around.’’ She held her hands out to her sides and then blew raspberries as they came together. ‘’Bwoosh! And then Turtle Man came after and slapped them down. Right there, see?’’ She pointed down, and Yin needed a moment to make out the vaguely handprint shaped canyons.

  ‘’Huh.’’ How many hundreds of meters across was that?

  ‘’Guys, I think I see.. Oh! Oh crap! Do we have defenses!?’’ Duong yelled from the other side of the rose bush, rushing around and into the cockpit.

  Yin cycled Falling Star madra and lightly told Zeurel something he’d forgotten. ‘’This is actually an experimental crew transport slash exploration vehicle. So there are basically no defenses.’’

  The satyr smiled thinly and a haze of green rose around her.

  Duong rushed out of the cockpit again with an odd monocular made of remnant parts. He saw an eyeball track him in the instant Duong had it pointed his way. ‘’Aaah, I’m not good with things like this, it’s uhm, three, maybe four. Three of them might have been in the gold realm.’’

  In other words they were at a big disadvantage because of Yin. ‘’Just keep it cool man, how are they approaching us? Do they have a ship?’’

  ‘’No idea, the scope only shows things as concentrations of madra, but they were coming our way pretty quick.’’

  Zeurel put a hand on Yin’s shoulder and he felt it tremble. Her face was a tight mask of forced calm. ‘’Y-Yin I-I.. I’m reeally scared of fighting.’’ She got the words out after a deep breath.

  Yin tried to reassure her with a pat on the head, awkward as that was when she was so much taller than him. Duong looked equally spooked, thumbing another weapon he’d made. Somehow the two golds were the ones more scared of a fight than Yin, the jade with two incomplete paths.

  He took the scope out of Duongs stiff hand and walked to the edge where their potential enemies had been spotted. Through the odd contraption he spied two oddly colored blobs one much larger than the other. On top of the smaller one were a large steely blob and a very small white one.

  With his unenhanced eyes he saw a dot moving over the black landscape, they were flying without a vehicle. ‘’I’m like twenty percent sure that’s Montai and some friends.’’ He told the others and got the blade Duong had made him ready.

  Waiting to see who was approaching was one of the most tense things Yin had ever done. That bigger blob had him worried, twice the size of the other one. Was that what a gold looked like or had someone very strong found his friend.

  He relaxed for a second when a familiar black bird ascended enough to stand out from the landscape below. But that meant that the bigger madra blob, the little figure freely flying next to him was..

  They disappeared.

  Yin’s Falling Star cloak came up and he made it surge for that tiny moment of enhanced perception. Even so the line of shadow spearing towards them was incredibly quick. No time at all to prepare.

  Montai appeared, even bigger than he had been last time Yin had seen him, wings spread to slow down. Wind buffeted the wards of the ship causing them to sway. Then a distinguished gentleman simply stepped through them onto the cloud.

  Yin goggled at the dark clad man and in moments understood he was in the lord levels. Montai awkwardly fluttered on as well, putting Yin in between the two.

  ‘’Heyo broski!’’ Montai yelled cheery as ever. ‘’Oh naw, don’t worry about grandpa, he’s pretty cool when you get to know him.’’

  Yin swiveled to give the bird a wide eyed look and then back. Ah, the feathers in his hair and clothes, the guy was a bird too then. Back to Montai who was looking mighty pleased. ‘’And your other friends?’’

  ‘’Oh, you saw ‘em? Damn I shoulda known you guys would be getting even better while I was out. Hey, cmon jump off, this is my friend Yi-’’

  ‘’TEN!?’’ Yin yelled outraged as the pale, knife-framed face emerged from the plumage.

  ‘’Yin.’’ She greeted neutrally and dug into the black feathers, pulling out Ti Li.

  ‘’Hi Yin!’’ The little girl cheered lazily.

  ‘’Welp, no need for introductions then.’’ Montai adapted without skipping a beat. His grandfather sighed, for sure muttering the words ‘idiot grandson’.

  Duong and Zeurel cautiously gathered when there didn’t seem to be any danger. Yin sighed explosively, redrawing his already hastily made plans.

  ‘’Oookaay. Montai! We’re going to go solve an incident at the place I grew up in. Ten.. You are highgold holy shit.’’ Ten covered Ti Li’s ears after the profanity had already been spoken. ‘’You down to come along?’’

  For some reason she looked to Montai first before nodding.

  ‘’Cool.’’ Yin looked at the iron pure souled Ti Li and then at the probable underlord. ‘’Honorable Grandfather, we need someone to guard the ship while we do our training mission. Would you be willing to oversee it with Ti Li while we are gone?’’

  ‘’Naw man don’t go doing that, he’s gonna get a big head now.’’

  ‘’Silence! This Honorable Grandfather shall remain on the cloudship for as long as he pleases.’’ He seemed pleased as he called himself that.

  ‘’See?’’ Montai asked, massive head swiveling around to look at everyone. ‘’Oi, Duong, Zeurel, what happened? You’re massive now!’’

  Zeurel breathlessly mumbled and gesticulated nonsensically. The shell shocked boy mumbled incoherently, massaging the remnant bomb in his hands.

  Yin decided that he had to get that thing away from Duong as quickly as possible.