[Kitsuna – The Next Day]
"What was life like a thousand years ago?" I asked while floating in the green fluid.
The pool had repaired most of the spiritual damage from the previous night, but it had not erased Wrath's payment. Pain still followed every movement, muted enough that I could think through it.
Fran sat cross-legged beside the pool, drinking tea.
"If you want to know about the past, read a history book. They are surprisingly accurate in a few places."
I moved toward the edge and rested my arms against the stone. "What comes next?"
Fran set down her cup. "Attack me."
Naturally, I did.
Thirty minutes later, I was back in the pool while Fran stretched beside it. I had managed to touch her shoulder once, although she had thrown me across the cavern immediately afterward.
"You are not terrible," she admitted.
"That sounded painful for you to say."
"It was."
I sank farther into the fluid. "Even if I recalled the mana assigned to my clone, I still wouldn't be able to beat you."
"Correct. Mana is only useful when you understand how to apply it."
Fran retrieved her tea and sat beside the pool again.
"You have been trying to separate your elemental affinities."
"Some of them."
"Have any new affinities appeared in your status?"
"No."
"That is because you are not separating them. You are pulling incomplete pieces from an established affinity and weakening the result."
"My ice?"
"Fox Ice is your most developed elemental ability. Wind and water exist inside it, but you cannot simply tear them apart and expect both to become complete affinities."
I climbed out of the pool and wrapped a towel around myself. "Can you teach me how to do it properly?"
"Yes. Kayda could help with parts of it, but teaching is not one of her strengths."
"Let's leave our partners out of this."
"Agreed."
I glanced back at the pool. "Your wife created this?"
"The pool, yes. The dungeon existed before either of us found it. She built the restoration system because Wrath's backlash damaged more than the body."
Fran's expression tightened for a moment before she changed the subject.
"Tell me what is happening in the capital."
She already knew about the clone, so I explained the tournament, the angels, Logan, and the entity presenting itself as the God of Light. Because my clone and I shared information, I knew what was happening there even while my real body remained in the dungeon.
When I finished, Fran stared into her tea.
"To think that child is involved."
"Child?"
"The one you call the God of Light. He was already dangerous when I met him centuries ago, but by the standards of the older gods, he was still a brat."
"Why are you surprised?"
"He approached me several months ago and asked me to join him. I refused because he gave me no reason to care about his plans. I understand now that this is connected to an older grudge."
"Against the Draigs?"
"Against Stacy's birth family."
I waited, but Fran shook her head.
"I do not know how the grudge began. I only know it has survived far longer than it should have."
"What exactly is he?"
"The God of Light is one of the bodies used by Gluttony. It is not a mana clone like yours. Gluttony divides pieces of its soul and places them into other bodies. Some are prepared vessels. Others receive the fragment before birth."
I frowned. "So the host becomes him?"
"Not always. The fragments grow with their hosts and can develop separate personalities and even souls of their own. They remain connected, however. Information learned by one body can reach the others, and stronger connections allow them to share or copy energy."
That explained why fighting one of them could become more dangerous the longer the confrontation lasted.
"Mixed-blood hosts resist the fragments more strongly," Fran continued. "That resistance can weaken the connection, but it does not guarantee the fragment will be destroyed."
"How many bodies can Gluttony make?"
"I do not know. Soul division should have a cost, even for a god, but I have never learned what that cost is."
"And what will he send to the capital?"
"The God of Light body will almost certainly be present. Expect additional divine copies as well. The strongest among them can reach the level of a young semi-god."
That was not comforting.
Fran placed a glowing stone on the ground between us. "Now that you understand what is waiting for you, we return to theory."
I groaned.
For the next two hours, she made me compare the mana structures of Fox Ice, Devil Lightning, and Golden Fox Fire. My ice affinity was the most complete. Wind and water could eventually be separated from it, but only if I learned how to preserve their individual structures.
Dimension magic was different.
"It is not an element hidden inside another affinity," Fran explained. "You are controlling the boundary between two spaces. Stop treating it like lightning or ice."
She had me demonstrate my lightning control. I formed Devil Lightning around a weapon created through weapon creation, compressing the energy until the blade became a narrow plasma weapon.
Fran's eyes widened slightly. "You forged that?"
"Weapon creation gives it form. The Pseudo-God Blacksmith ability allows me to raise the quality of the weapons I create. With enough mana and the correct materials, I can create demigod-grade weapons."
"You continue to collect abilities you barely understand."
"That is why I'm here."
Fran dismissed the plasma blade and handed me a worn shoe.
"For dimensional control, place this in storage with one hand and retrieve it with the other. Do not open a full portal. Feel the distortion connecting both points."
"Why a shoe?"
"Because I will not care if you destroy it."
"You were sleeping on this yesterday."
"I have other shoes."
The first attempt placed it somewhere in my storage without forming a stable return point. On the second, it emerged too quickly and struck me in the chest. Fran made me repeat the exercise with smaller objects until I could feel the exact moment space folded around them.
A spoon hit my forehead. A coin appeared beneath my foot. Part of a weapon rack emerged above me before I forced it back into storage.
The failures continued until the motion finally became clear. Storage and teleportation were not separate processes. Both relied on connecting two locations and moving an object through the space between them.
I placed a coin into storage with my left hand. When I opened my right hand, the coin appeared in my palm without tearing the air around it.
Fran watched from her cat form atop a folded towel.
"Better."
"I already knew how to teleport."
"You knew how to force open a passage. Now you are beginning to understand why it opens."
I practiced until I could repeat the transfer without destabilizing it. When I opened a blue portal afterward, its edges remained steady rather than flickering under the pressure.
Information from the capital reached me through the shared mind. My clone had entered its fight with Amari, and neither of us intended to let the match end carelessly.
"I need to go," I said. "The clone is fighting Amari at full power."
Fran opened one eye. "Do not get distracted."
"No promises."
I stepped through the portal.
[Five Hours Later: Return to Camp]
"Understand barriers now?" Fran asked when I returned.
"Kind of. I'm not an expert, but I could break most of them if I had enough time."
"And the tournament?"
The clone's latest information settled into my thoughts.
"The finals are tomorrow. Today was only the quarterfinals."
"Then recall it. You need its experience and mana before we continue."
I dispelled the clone.
Its body vanished in the capital, and everything it had gathered returned at once. Memories, combat experience, remaining mana, and accumulated growth struck my real body in a single wave. My knees buckled as my mind processed two sets of recent events as one continuous memory.
Fran caught my shoulder before I fell.
"This is the backlash I warned you about."
"I noticed."
When the pressure finally eased, I opened my status.
Name: Kitsuna Draig
Alias: Shiro Adachi
Age: 15 (Immortal)
Race: Primordial 3-Tail Demon Fox
Bloodline: Primordial 9-Tail Fox
Class: Weapon Sage (Wrath Lord)
Level: 163
HP: 8,884 / 8,884
MP: 53,536 / 76,536
STR: 4,644
VIT: 4,442
DEF: 3,963
INT: 38,268
END: 5,849
AGT: 6,471
Skills:
Dimension Storage, Devil Fire / Devil Lightning, Fox Ice, Golden Fox Fire / Golden Fox Lightning, Saint Healing, Sword Domain, Mana Sense, Master Flash Step, Novice Dimension Teleport, Novice Dimension Creation, Analysis, Weapon Creation, Pseudo-God Blacksmith
Passive Abilities:
Heightened Senses, Soul Regeneration, Eyes of Intimidation, Human Form, Night Vision, Mana Tails, Mana Eyes, Soul Sensitivity
Tail Abilities:
Clone
Spiritual Magic
Fox Illusionist
[LOCKED]
The class advancement and eighty-level increase belonged to both bodies now. So did everything the clone had learned during the tournament.
Once the resynchronization settled, I created one replacement clone. There was no reason to create more. One body was enough to maintain my public presence in the capital, while allowing anyone to see two of me would expose the ability.
The clone already knew the plan. I assigned it enough mana to pass as the real me and opened a portal back toward the capital. It stepped through without a word.
Fran watched the portal close.
"Do not take Wrath lightly. You are improving at holding on to a purpose, but anything can break that control."
"I know."
"Knowing the cost and experiencing it are different things. Additional tails will make you feel invincible while the skill is active. The pain only begins once the power disappears."
I looked toward the pool, remembering what a single minute had done.
"I'll keep that in mind."
Fran picked up her tea. "See that you do. Tomorrow will be worse."