Ruby sat for a long time. Her mother had always told her to think about her decisions in advance. But as she sat, she felt impatience continue to rise. Her tails swished behind her as she watched the bat who still refused to share his name. He was watching the hole the thing had dug to sleep in.
She was grateful to the thing, not just for her potential freedom, but also for the death of the enslaver. She felt his dark presence vanish from her soul when he died, or more accurately, the dark presence of her mother.
The goblin had been a foul creature, taking the remnant souls of those he killed and infusing them into his monsters. She had felt every moment of pain her mother had felt, trapped within that skeletal body. It was horrific. So, despite her caution, she firmed her heart.
Ruby stood from the floor of the cage, drawing the eye of the bat. She waved her tails through the air for a moment before opening her mouth. A twin-colored wave of flame emerged from her mouth. Half blue, the other half red.
She drained her hodlinop to nothing as she blasted the bars of her infernal cage with her flames. The bat cautiously retreated as the flames sparked, but couldn't move far.
Only once it began to pull on her haplenic did she stop the projection of her flames. She let the minimal smoke clear to reveal minimal damage. She swore internally as she curled up and began to meditate.
It took her an hour to return to her full hodlinop reserves, at which point she stood and released another gout of flame against the bars. This time, it caused a little more damage to the dark steel-like material.
She kept cycling between meditation and burning away at the bars until finally, a hole large enough for her to walk through appeared. She grinned and padded out, ignoring the remnant heat. She passively noticed the bat leaving the safety of the waterfall. She didn't blame the little animal; it was likely scared and desperate to forget the torture of the enslaver.
She, however, could understand a bit more than the frightened beast. She was a proud yokai, even if she was young. She knew she couldn't survive out here on her own for long. Nightshade may be her home, but that didn't mean she was powerful. She remembered a time when she was young and tasted one of the nightshade fungi. It tasted terrible, so bitter.
She could probably catch a squirrel or two, but she relied a lot on her fire. She couldn't just burn down the forest for a snack. Instead, she needed help. Maybe, just maybe, the thing in the pit could help her out.
So she curled up atop the rather cold blob in the hole, keeping it warm with her body. She fell asleep like that, curled atop a protector.
Nicholas awoke first from the torpor. He refused to call it hibernation. Not even bears truly hibernated, and neither did a slime. He stood up and stretched. His hands touched the ceiling of the replica apartment, causing him to sigh again. How he missed home.
He had other things to do, though, more important things. Nostalgia could come after he was sure his new life wouldn't end at the jaws of some giant two-headed wolf thing. The memory of the monster still sent a shiver down his spine. If he were still a normal person on Earth, he couldn't have survived a second against that monster. It would have turned him into a fine red mist without even looking.
He wanted to change that. He knew it would take forever, but he was willing to work for it. He was sick of feeling weak. He wanted to hold real power, not the power that could have been stripped away by his parents, not even the power he held over his parents through his sister. He wanted the power to crush them underfoot, to make it so no one would threaten him again.
He sighed and decided that while it was a good motivation, it still made him sound chuuni. He'd have to work on a way to express his reason that wasn't 'I'll kill anyone who stands in my way.' Not just because of his distaste for the lazy motivation, but also because it wasn't true.
He stepped into the field and then immediately to the outer soul. Three days of free astral infection didn't sound good. How did he know it had been three days? He wasn't sure.
He pulled up the astral infection information with a thought, finding it had only progressed to 66.31%. That was… lower than he expected. He still didn't know what the negative side effects of an Astral Infection were, but he still didn't want to find out.
What he did want to know was why it was progressing so slowly. It might be that it was just harder to increase the infection after a certain point. That certainly wasn't true for the body, but what did he know about souls? Only what he'd figured out so far.
What did surprise him was that, apparently, they'd gained Astral Infection Resistance and already brought it to 0.04%. Guess he didn't need the…
His thoughts drifted out as he looked closer at the notification. There was a dropdown, like there was beside most resistances. Azotreh had Acid Resistance at 0.09% after the species change, but if he focused on it, he found out that it was only because they had Cerulean Slime Stomach Acid Resistance at the same value. Same for pain, they had resistances to several kinds of pain rather than just pain in general.
So, the dropdown was worrying. Especially when he focused to open it, and found a listing both above and below it. Astral Infection Resistance was under Infection Resistance and Soul Infections. Then, under that was the Creeping Roots Resistance.
As he stepped out and began to pull the roots from the ground, which required far more effort than before, he wondered about the resistance. Did it mean there was more than one kind of astral infection? Clearly, it did. But what did that mean? Would Creeping Roots try to weaken their soul and allow more insidious infections in?
He shook his head. All that mattered for now was cleanup, ensuring the roots didn't find their way deeper.
It took him the better part of a day to pull all the roots up. Some of which left little marks in the soil making up their outer soul. It hurt like hell to pull them up, but he did it anyway. Better pain now than something taking over their body.
He took them to the big tooth pit again and tossed another root in to see if anything changed. He was a little surprised when something really did.
[New option: Sample for ERR]
[Would you like to spend 1 Spark of Expansion to increase the ERR]
[Manifest Dungeon Nexus, or otherwise create dungeon to unlock sampling capabilities.]
[Due to your circumstances, one Spark of Expansion already rests within your Dungeon Nexus. If used, it will allow your nexus to expand its capabilities.]
[Options for devoured material: Create Relic, generate 1st stage Conception Understanding, increase Resistance to the Astral Infection, convert to Resource, convert to Poten, increase Astral Attunement, gain random Astral Alteration, gain random Ability, gain the Astral Attribute, begin generating Astral Essence, gain new Technique, gain new Dao]
[Note: Creating a relic will cause it to manifest outside of your inventory due to its current capacity being too low to hold it.]
Nicholas looked over the options again. He once again knew for a fact that he wouldn't choose to increase his resistance to the infection. Apparently, they already gained it from allowing it to spread and then fighting it back. No reason to use the resource on something they got just from collecting it anyway.
He also mentally crossed off most of the previously removed options. While things like a dao were tempting, he also had no idea what a dao was. Better to gain some more information before making such huge choices.
Azotreh didn't have any astral-based abilities, spells, or other magical capabilities. So he decided to return the option of creating a random ability. He also removed the option to increase their astral attunement, considering it was kind of worthless as of this moment.
He didn't second-guess as he chose to gain a new random ability. He knew it didn't say a random astral ability, but he assumed it would be one anyway.
The inner soul trembled as a new structure appeared.
[You have gained the innate ability: Astrum Shaping]
[The ability: Astrum Shaping has granted a skill: Astrum Shaping (Apprentice)]
[The devouring option: Create Astrum.]
He raised his eyebrows. According to Azotreh, skills are usually granted once their corresponding ability reaches its maximum level. He guessed that maybe shaping abilities were a little special.
He tossed the rest in and chose the new Create Astrum option, forgetting about the inventory problem.
Ruby awoke to the thing moving slightly. But it didn't seem hostile. She could finally sense its aura again, which was vast like few things she'd seen. Her mother had told her about an old contract that had fused a dozen familiars into their body to empower their aura. But this only felt like three? Maybe four presences.
She had developed enough aura senses to know that there was more than one mind within the thing she was sleeping on, but she sensed no malice from it. She didn't put her guard down, but didn't flee for the wind. Instead, as the thing awoke, she reached out a thin tendril of her aura.
The surprise when a small pile of purple rocks fell from just above her almost made her stop, but they didn't land with enough force to harm her. Just fell off her fur like gravel. They were small stones, not really harming her.
She felt a little weak after four days without food, but she could sustain herself well enough on the ambient mana, which seemed awfully dense on the cold thing she was sleeping on. She still took a little damage from absorbing it, considering it was still tainted with the thing's archetype and aura. But she didn't mind. Dense mana was worth it, even if it gave her stomach problems.
She kept reaching out with her aura, cautious and vigilant. But she extended further and further, until the slowly waking thing finally noticed her presence.
Errazorrus was exhausted. Fuzem was sitting in her chair, half falling out of it. He knew Nicholas was also up, but he was busy with something. So instead of bothering, Errazorrus finally took control of the body, sending system messages flashing across his vision.
He ignored the windows because he felt something trying to touch them. He pushed out their collective aura, reinforced with his draconic might. The thread of energy wavered a lot, but didn't break. It was determined. So Errazorrus figured it couldn't hurt. If worst came to worst, he'd just eat whatever was trying to reach out.
He accepted the presence's attempt to reach out. He sensed some yokai energy off the little fox he sensed sleeping atop the body. Suddenly, a little avatar of the fox appeared in the room. Fuzem didn't stir much.
The fox looked up at the dragon with some fear and a lot of awe. True dragons were rare, though nowhere near unheard of. They were powerful and usually solitary, so most people never saw a proper dragon. But anyone trying to scale the path encountered at least one dragon early on.
Even so, the little fox had never seen a dragon, so Errazorrus had to snap his fingers before the fox's eyes before she refocused.
'Creature!' the little fox yipped happily as she waved her twin tails around. 'Creature can speak! Sapient! Yay!'
Errazorrus felt a little offended to not be assumed as a sapient entity, but considering the fact that he was currently in the form of a slime, and gave it up.
He looked down at the fox and spoke, "Proud yokai, why do you reach out to us?"
The fox's tails stopped swishing, but she quickly took control of herself again.
'Creature! Ruby, I'm Ruby, is young! Barely nine!' the fox yipped, 'mother was killed by the enslaver and turned into his monster! Then you killed enslaver, right?'
Errazorrus considered the question, then remembered the skulls in The Master's hall. He shivered.
"Yes, I killed the goblin necromancer."
The fox looked up indignantly, 'Not necromancer! Necromancy is a noble art in the right hands! He was an enslaver.' She paused for a moment before continuing, 'anyway. I have nobody, and you may be four, but you have nobody too! So, I think we should work together!'
Errazorrus was taken aback by the request, considering how hard he instinctively knew most yokai were to befriend, let alone form a bond with. But the little fox, Ruby, was right. They had each other, but only one body.
That, and maybe giving Azotreh someone their own age to talk to, would be helpful. He glanced at the still sleeping Fuzem, then back at the little fox. He held out one hand, palm up.
The fox lept onto his hand and bit into his forearm. She used a hint of her magic to leave a slight burn. It hurt, but not much. Especially not to Errazorrus, considering he was part red dragon.
To return the favor, the fox lifted a paw. Errazorrus left a single tooth mark on the paw, sealing their pact in blood. Well, not real blood, but kind of blood.
The fox looked very happy as she looked at Errazorrus, and he couldn't help but smile at the excited beast. She may have been naive, but he thought all of them could use some levity. Even if they were safe for now, they still needed food and water, to empower themselves, and to help each other work through the pains of the past.
[You have formed a bond with Ruby! Due to the mutual agreement of the bond, it has been elevated to Familiar. Remaining Familiar Bonds: 3/4]
[You have earned achievements: Bond Maker I, Familiar I, Yokai Bond, Companion I! Corresponding titles have also been earned.]
[Bond effect (RU) (passive): Increase the power of all fire-based abilities by 1%.]
[Bond effect (RU) (active): Entities suppressed by your aura are afflicted with Charring Stun.]
[Bond effect (AZ) (passive): Increase the power of all mana-based attacks by 1%.]
[Bond effect (AZ) (active): the quad-soul reinforced your aura and will, increasing both fourfold.]