Incoherent sounds flow from Vox’s lips as he curses under his breath. Ares joins him with a weak groan as she hits her shin against a triangular black rock.
“Lola, hold still. Walking in this darkness is hard enough without you acting up. What’s wrong?” The small girl holds on to the struggling rabbit with all her might. The critter only calms down when they finally reach the entrance.
The shadowed stairway is a lot brighter than the previous room and sighs of relief can be heard as the group finally can see where they are walking again. Only Tess looks back at the room with a longing gaze while juggling some dark crystals.
“You got her?”
“Yeah Angy, thanks.” Angeta gingerly lets Ares’ weight rest against Vox’s side as they enter the downwards tunnel. Vox has taken two steps down the stairs when he trips over his sister’s feet. The two lose contact, and the qi inside Ares goes on a rampage the moment contact is lost. Blood starts trickling from her nose as she crumples into a heap, rolling down the stairs.
“SIS, NO!”
“Blrgegregeegggrrlaaah.”
Vox jumps after her, grabbing a leg and lying down just above her. He ignores the steps digging into his body while closing his eyes and flooding her with qi again. The remnants of his qi left in her body come under his control quickly, but the damage is already done.
“Lola, stop squirming!”
“Sis, please be alright.”
“Bleeeerg.”
Ket frowns at the spectacle in front of him. “It’s all fun and games until someone dies from acute cell deterioration, huh. Maybe we should take-”
A spiderweb of cracks cuts his speech short. Four stubby lines in the air just down the stairs cause tears in reality. Slightly glowing, the anomaly is clearly visible to the light-starved group.
“LOLA STO- HURK”
Selis fails to keep hold of the struggling rabbit. Lola uses a bit of serious force to free herself, causing the blue-haired girl to plop her butt down on the stairs. Bord dodges the rabbit by instinct as Angeta’s grab attempt only catches air.
The rabbit kicks off the dungeon wall, leaving cracks in the compressed rock as she kicks off. Aiming for the spatial anomaly, the white streak disappears for a millisecond.
CRUNCHBOOMFWHooOOP
A sound so bizarre it would be hard to put into words echoes through the narrow tunnel. Before anyone can react, the world turns white.
⁂
OOOOF
I tuck myself in, forming a ball as I do multiple backflips while falling back down the stairs. I hug the fluffy bundle to my chest and land in a crouch. “I missed you too, you shitty rabbit.”
Putting her on my shoulder, I walk up the stairs. Reality broke slightly when I punched through the spatial separation, and I sensed the dungeon eliminating the overlap. A thin sheet of something incorporeal was in between me and my students. My fist cracked it, and the dungeon solved the impossibility of two spaces inhibiting the same space by removing this sheet.
“Hey guys, everything alright?” Which means I can now see the sorry group of idiots laying and standing on the stairs just above me.
Vox stares at me with blank eyes while he holds on to the leg of his sister, who is right in front of me. Selis rubs her butt as she looks at Lola with teary eyes while Bord rises from a crouch. Ket seems agitated, and Angeta looks at me with an indifferent gaze. I sense Tess appearing from a shadow behind me.
I grin at them while rubbing Lola’s head. She nuzzles my neck as she cuddles up to me. It’s good to be back. “I see you guys followed my advice of keeping out of trouble. Let’s first fix this, though.”
I snap my finger, sending out a small burst of qi towards the shivering, groaning, and generally pathetic figure in front of me.
‘ANTI QI, ONE PLUS ONE IS ZERO, ELIMINATION BY ADDITION’
“You can heal her now, Vox.”
The shivering stops as the rampaging qi in Ares’s body gets turned into ambient heat. Lights dance across her skin as Vox sends his healing qi inside her. I’d love to mention something about her pale face regaining a rosy complexion, but she is lying face down.
“Did the Tower explode again?”
“No, Tess. There was a nasty dragon infestation though, but I handled it.”
I start walking down the stairs to the next room. I wonder if the dungeon pulled my students into my possibility space or if I am in theirs now. The next floor is another water floor, the one where I crushed all the crystals in the ceiling already.
“Uuuh, what is happening?”
“Ares, you are okay! Thank the givers. How do you feel? Are you still sick?” Vox asks his questions in a rapid-fire manner. I ignore the chattering behind me while entering the water themed room.
There are a few crystals on the ceiling. Huh? Why are there crystals on a part of the ceiling? I snap my fingers and execute my grid-based scanning spell. Blue lines flash into existence and I feel Lola stamping her feet against my shoulders. I missed her on purpose, why does she hate that scanning method so much? “Stupid rabbit, why don’t you like those lines?”
She tries to nibble on my collarbone, but can’t get any purchase with her blunt teeth. I snatch her from my shoulder and look her in the eyes. Big black eyes peer at me. I can see faint tears welling up in them as she acts innocent.
“You don’t fool me with that cute face; don’t bite me.” I glare at her, but all she does is wiggle her nose a bit.
Placing her back, I look over the scanning results. The probable cause of the partially crystal-covered ceiling becomes obvious when I think back on the relative positions of me and my students.
The dungeon must have eliminated half of our relative dimensions. I felt something happening, but could not grasp what it actually did. The partially crystal-covered ceiling indicates the dividing line between me and my students’ dimension, a clear line that ran in between the group and me. The staircase comes into this room at an angle.
A sword pierces the water just beside me as it chops a tentacle covered shark in two. Selis hops over the water surface to my position, her eyes on Lola. She casually waves a hand and a big deer forming from the water explodes into mist.
“Have you guys been clearing these floors in this manner?”
“What manner?” Ket asks as he grabs the returning sword from the air.
“Waiting for the monsters to form.”
“How else?” asks Ket while orchestrating his swords back and forth.
I launch a few qi threads towards the remaining crystals in reply to that rather dumb question. I pull and compress the shattered crystals into a small orb, which I present to the group.
Silence reigns as all my disciples stare at me. Bord scratches his belly while looking at the freshly made sashimi all around. Tess forms a dagger from shadows, twirling it around her fingers as she eyes the ceiling. Ket has covered his face with a single hand.
“No, no, don’t make the dungeon angry, please.” A weak voice comes from the redhead clinging to Vox’s back.
I stare Ares in the eyes. “How can I make a computer angry?”
She tilts her head. “What is an addition machine?”
I sigh. I will have to introduce some new words to this language. “Let’s just get a move on. I have a lot of things to discuss with you guys. Sel, the exit is below the surface over there, can you make us a bubble?”
The blue-haired girl in question opens her eyes wide. “You mean I can control water to go below the surface?”
I sigh again. “We have a lot to discuss.”
Chapter twenty-five
Lesson
“H nnnnnngh” Beads of sweat appear on Selis’ forehead as she spreads her arms. The water surface in a circle around her starts to sink, forming a half sphere with a level floor. The seven passengers let out appreciative murmurs as they sink through the water surface, the smooth watery walls giving them a perfect view of their surroundings.
Bits of chopped up aquatic fauna skims acros
s the half sphere, leaving red trails in its wake. They sink quickly, and another wave of the small girl’s arms causes them to rise towards the diving bell structure containing the stairs going to the next level.
“Now that we all have calmed down let me say a few lines. I decided to take things a bit more seriously. So, I want to make some plans from the future; feel free to butt in with any suggestions.” I make eye contact with everyone one by one as they walk past me down the stairs.
Bord raises a hand, and I nod in response. “What happened to your face?”
I drag a hand across the subject in question and feel my patchy and scruffy beard. That ball of fire qi I stuffed inside the volcano must have done more damage than I thought.
‘CUT, BLADE, THE BEST A MAN CAN GET.”
Sliding a qi clad finger across my face leaves it baby smooth.
‘GROW YOU FUCKING HAIR, MAKE DAT STRATIFIED SQUAMOUS KERATINIZED EPITHELIUM’
A glorious new beard grows from my face as my follicles go into overdrive. I do some slight trimming and present it to my audience.
“Better?”
They all look weirdly at my impromptu barber trick. Selis is staring at me with especially big eyes as she rubs her hand through her short hair. She scrunches up her face as her hair starts glowing blue while it slowly turns in a wild mop. The brightest smile I have seen from her yet appears on her face while she strokes her fingers through the blue locks.
“That was one of the first things I tried.” Angeta pulls a long, grey and glossy tail from her pants, a rare gentle smile on her face as she too starts running her hands across it.
“This is a good example of what I want to talk about.” All attention goes back to me as I continue talking.
Ket is totally ignored, along with the grand total of five facial hairs that he managed to grow from his face. He pulls them out while wincing, tears forming in his eyes. I want to ask if those tears are from physical or emotional pain but decide not to. I see Tess hold back her laughter and decide to spare the boy by changing the subject.
“I never had a chance to do this in my previous world because of entrenched, ancient, power hungry, and powerful authorities, but I want to start a school. Qi is pretty much omnipotent; I want to see what happens when I create a society where qi and cultivation information is freely shared and built upon.”
Ares is looking at me like I’m crazy; the rest has doubt clearly written across their faces. I sigh and rub Lola under the chin. She is the only one who truly understands me.
“Let’s get a move on first.” The next room turns out to be from my half of the dimension rift, the ceiling is completely bare of crystals. I jump down and walk towards the exit. Soft thumps followed by a short scream sounds out behind me. Ares must not have liked the fact that Vox jumped without informing her. A decent walk later, we are all gathered inside the resting area between level thirty and thirty-one.
I weave a protective web of qi, forming it into a slightly glowing ball of thin strands. Grabbing my necklace, I hang it in the middle of the stone room. “You guys go first. I have something to discuss with Ares.”
Everyone casts glances between Ares and me. Bord is the first to touch the floating piece of jewellery and disappears. The rest follow soon after until only me, Ares, and Vox are left behind.
“Anything I should know about your sis?”
He looks around nervously until I see him making up his mind. “No, please let her join us.”
I stare him in the eyes for a good ten seconds. He does not look away, so I nod and motion for him to move on. He casts one last glance at the nervous girl before joining the rest inside Tree. I turn my full attention to the fidgeting girl. “Any affiliations?”
She startles and looks at me. “Affiliations?”
“Yeah, I picked those kids for two reasons. They have some sort of affinity inside their bodies that I was unfamiliar with, and they didn’t have any strong attachments to this world. You have the light affinity in your body, just like Vox. But am I going to find out that you have sworn some soul oath or something like that?”
Eyes wide, she starts talking quickly. “No, no, only master mages have responsibilities that tie them to their factions permanently. I barely qualify as a journey mage. Nobody would miss me. My parents practically sold me to Wave when they found out that I have a connection to the light. I didn’t even have an official master back at Wave Island, only an old man that was kind to me because of my positive outlook. I was only allowed to read the primer dungeon book on light magic.”
I hold up my hand to stop the waterfall of words coming from her mouth. “Any reasons why I should let you join us?”
I have been slowly ramping up the amount of aura I’m releasing. Similar to back when I made those stupid kids disciples of mine, I’m gradually ramping up what I allow her to feel. It seems to be having an even more significant effect on her. She does not even have a core formed yet. I think I won’t let out my vicious aura, for now. Heart attacks are not funny.
Alright, a small sliver then. She grows even paler as she senses the slight amount of killing intent I start releasing.
Tears start to form in her eyes, and I can see her starting to break down. “I don’t know. I was so happy when I saw Voxander standing on that ship. He changed so much and acted completely different, but I still just knew it was him. Since then it was total chaos all the time, and then I became sick, and there is a beastwoman, but nobody treats her like a slave, and that bunny should be killing us all, but it’s just acting cute all the time. I was just getting used to the way I should act in mage society, and now it’s all completely different again, and then I got sick and… and…”
At this time, she starts blubbering uncontrollably while tears streak down her face. I made a girl cry. All the emotional baggage I saw behind her eyes is now flowing out. I retract my aura and kneel by her side.
“There, there. Let it all out. Come on, let’s not keep the rest waiting.” Student-master contracts don’t take that well on mortals. The qi doesn’t have a cultivation base to grab onto, so a lot more power is needed to reinforce it. This then limits the amount of qi the mortal can absorb by themselves.
It’s a great way to keep a lot of mortals in check, not so great when you don’t intend to exploit the mortal in question. I grab her by the arm and guide the snivelling girl to the necklace. I weave a qi-repulsion net around her head to stop her from being qi-poisoned again and pull her after me while entering Tree.
“GATHER ROUND!”
Lola jumps from my shoulder and goes to greet Tree. I leave Ares behind as she looks around with bulging eyes. I walk to the group of students. Vox runs towards his sister, but I grab him by the scruff of his neck and haul him behind me. I throw him next to the group of students as Selis returns from inspecting the garden.
“What happened to my ship?” I point a finger to the sorry vessel lying at the edge of the clearing while asking the question in a rather biting manner.
They all turn slightly pale at the viciousness in my voice. I liked that ship. Now its pristine and sleek lines are interrupted by black areas of charred wood and deep tears.
“It wasn’t in such horrible shape when we left it.” Ket’s reply is immediate. He must have prepared a list of excuses to say in advance.
I pause for a bit. I don’t look them in the eyes while replying. “Uhm, he-he, then who did all that? It sure as hell wasn’t me. No way that I would damage my own ship, right? Right?”
Ket looks at me with suspicion as the rest look down. “I left the stealth field on. The mages could not have found it.”
“You are truly an idiot sometimes. Of course they are going to find something with the number of ships floating around this place. Just because it’s sort of invisible does not mean it’s not physically there.”
I throw my hands up. “Whatever. You guys will fix it. I finally got a volcano, so there will be plenty of qi to go around to do it. Anyway, I wanted to tell you guys to
find a comfortable seat. I am going to tell you some proper fundamentals. That should allow you guys to stop being so weak.”
Angeta looks slightly pissed off as she plays around with some strands of grass. “We managed to fight against the combined mage factions. I think we are pretty powerful already.”
Ares is finally done gawking at the environment and ambles towards us. She jumps up into the air as I start laughing uncontrollably.
“HAHAHAHAAAAAA OH GOD. Wait, you were, he-he, serious? Let me laugh, HAHA, even harder. HAAAHAAAHAAA”
I double over as that absurd statement electrifies my funny bone. Her self-confidence is good. It’s just so misplaced it’s hilarious. Slowly, I calm down. Crawling back up, a steaming beastkin greets my sight. “Hee-hee, oh goodness, I know it’s rude to laugh in your face like that. Let me show you why though.”
Motioning towards my castle, my qi clone floats out the front door. Having another completely white version of me floating there is slightly creepy, so I weave some qi into a blank faceplate mask. I fiddle around with it some more. The qi has started to solidify, making a perfect copy of every cell of my body. I then limit the crap out of it. Eyeing Angeta, I set the limiter to the exact amount of qi that she has, both in her core and in her body.
“You all remember my trusty qi clone, right? I limited his power levels to the amount of qi you possess.” I wave my arms around a bit. “And now it has the same amount of skill as a standard sect disciple of your power level. Try to beat him up, if you’re so great.”
Grass swirls around the beastkin, covering her fur in a plant exoskeleton. She sways like a leaf, imitating the leaves wrapping around her as she uses the fighting style I gave her. My white clone just stands there, unmoving. She jumps towards him with a loud roar. A single punch later, the plants fall from her body as she vomits up her lunch.
“The reason I’m so dismissive about all those sects is because they severely limit potential. Those fighting techniques are many thousands of years old and have long since been perfected at the lower realms. I dislike them because they force their students on paths not their own. This is helpful if you want a lot of medium-power fighters but destroys any end-game potential.
The Dao of Magic: Book II Page 21