Path of Dragons

The smell of lavender twisted in the air, fusing with the steam from the shower. Meanwhile, Elijah sang Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now as he scrubbed the dirt, muck, and salt from his body. It wasn’t his favorite song or anything – though he did have a soft spot for eighties pop music – but it was catchy, and for some reason or another, it had been in his head for the past week. So, as one did, the moment he’d stepped into the shower, he had immediately burst into song.

He blamed his sister.

After all, she loved that sort of music, so growing up, it was always playing in the background. Back then, Elijah had made a show of hating it, but as he’d gotten older, his little brother irritation had turned to nostalgia. Now, he remembered it all so fondly, especially because it reminded him of a time when family had been as close as the next room. He desperately wanted to get back to that.

Looking back, leaving for Hawaii was one of the biggest regrets of his life. He’d done it as much to run away from everything that reminded him of his parents’ death as he had to pursue his career as a marine biologist. In retrospect, he should have stayed and leaned on the family he had left.

But that revelation came as a benefit of perfect hindsight, and at the time, he’d been in no state to be reasonable.

In any case, he channeled some of that nostalgia as he sang in the shower, and when he finally stepped out, his mood was definitely buoyed.

And why should it not be? He’d spent the past two weeks working on his underwater cave, ushering it to unprecedented levels of vegetation. That, in turn, had served to thicken the ambient ethera to the point where it had actually become visible. At present, it hung in the air pocket like a thick fog, just begging to be used.

On top of that, the nature of that ethera had changed as well, taking on a flavor – for lack of a better descriptor – similar to what he felt in his grove. And according to Nerthus, it was perfect for what he had planned.

So, he was in understandably good spirits as he left the bathroom and stepped out onto his balcony to dry. Winter had well and truly given way to spring, so the air only had a slight nip to it. To Elijah, whose elevated Constitution protected him from anything but frigid temperatures, it was quite pleasant.

Elijah turned his head to see Nerthus standing at the balcony door. The tree spirit looked no different than he had a few weeks before, but Elijah still felt that Nerthus had grown stronger. Denser, perhaps. He could only regard that as a good thing.

“Not really,” Elijah admitted, making no move to cover himself. It was his home and his grove. He could walk around nude if he damn well pleased. Besides, he didn’t think Nerthus cared that much.

Though, looking at the expression on the tree spirit’s gnarled face, he began to wonder at that assumption.

“I see.”

“You don’t wear clothes,” Elijah accused.

“I don’t have any…dangly bits, either,” Nerthus stated. “For those who do, it is…customary to cover them up when in the presence of others.”

Elijah sighed. “Fair enough,” he muttered. “But if you’re going to get all pearl-clutch-y, you should probably knock or something before you come into my house. Just saying.”

Nerthus didn’t respond, which Elijah wasn’t sure how to take. Regardless, he quickly dipped back inside and dressed. When he’d finished, he told Nerthus what he had planned, then asked, “Do you think it’s dense enough?”

“Yes. But I do not know if you are ready. It would be better if you used that soap of yours for another two or three years. Then you would be truly prepared to take the next step.”

Elijah shrugged. “What’s the worst that can happen?” he asked, drying his hair with one of the towels he’d bought back in Ironshore. No matter what else happened with the city, it was still good for filling the gaps in his supplies. After all, it wasn’t as if he could just run out to the nearest big box store and buy bed linens or towels. But there were plenty of supplies like that available in Ironshore. The only downside was that someone might try to assassinate him from time to time.

And he had to row across the strait.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good exchange or not.

“You could die,” Nerthus answered.

“I’ll be fine,” Elijah said. They had discussed it plenty of times, and they’d both agreed that, theoretically speaking, he should have the healing power necessary to keep himself alive until he crossed the threshold and solidified the chrysalis that would usher him into the next stage of body cultivation.

But theory and practice didn’t always agree. So, there was some degree of uncertainty concerning the upcoming process. Still, Elijah was willing to take a chance because the alternative was to wait years to make the push. It wasn’t just impatience that drove him – though there was some of that – but rather, a near certainty that he would need all the advantages he could get.

After all, he’d almost died against the orcs, and he wasn’t so naïve as to believe that they were a unique threat. For all he knew, there was another horde somewhere out there. Or something even worse. And that wasn’t even considering that as the world’s ethera density rose, so too would the power of the Voxx.

No – he needed to take chances, or he would never maintain his lead. And if he didn’t have that on his side, he would lose his ability to traverse the wilderness unaided, and that would, in turn, make finding his family impossible.

Besides, it felt like the right choice, and in a way Elijah didn’t really understand. Was that intuition part of his cultivation? Was his body trying to tell him something? Or perhaps it was his class.

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Or maybe he was fooling himself and he’d die a horrible death in an underwater cave.

Whatever the case, he’d made his choice. Good or bad, he was going to try.

So, after a few more minutes of conversation with Nerthus, he went to bed, and the next morning, he rose with a mission on his mind. So, he gathered the three vials he’d gotten from Biggle, then undressed and shifted into his draconid form. Before he knew it, he was racing across the island and to the beach closest to the underwater cave.

Before he dove into the water, he shifted back to his human form, then checked his bag to ensure that he’d brought all of his supplies. Each item was packed away in waterproof containers, but everything was there. So, he wasted no more time before wading into the surf, then diving toward the cave.

By that point, the trip had become routine, but when he started seeing the glowing crystals, he was still awestruck. The same could be said for the cave itself, though for a different reason. Certainly, the domed ceiling was festooned with the same green crystals as always, but Elijah was more concerned with the plethora of sea life that had taken hold.

The various ocean flora he’d transplanted into the cave had thrived, growing rapidly under the influence of Nature’s Bounty as well as the thick ethera. And that vegetation had attracted various creatures. Mostly, the population was limited to insects, but there were a few reptiles, amphibians, and fish present as well. They all ignored him as he swam to the deepest point in the cave.

Then, Elijah focused inward.

On his heartbeat. On the gentle sway of the water against his skin. On the subtle sounds of the surrounding ecosystem. But most of all, he let himself truly feel everything around him via One with Nature. If he’d tried that before he’d achieved the Quartz Mind, he would have been overwhelmed. However, not only had it allowed him to break his mind into nine separate pieces, each with its own vortex through which he could siphon ambient ethera, but it also increased his ability to parse large quantities of information. It wasn’t easy, and it required him to utilize every facet of his mind. But he managed it all the same.

And the results were stunning.

He could feel every single organism in the cave – and not just the flora and fauna. The microbes, too. The bacteria. The algae floating in the water. Even with his Quartz Mind, it bordered on overwhelming. Yet, he’d spent much of the past week preparing himself for it, so he managed to keep himself from collapsing under the weight of so much input.

Instead, he let it suffuse him in a way that made him truly feel like a part of something much greater. However, Elijah knew the risks before him, so he kept himself from fully giving himself over to that feeling, lest he lose his grip on his identity. It was a real danger, according to Nerthus, so he was very cognizant of it.

Still, he walked himself right up to the edge.

Then, without opening his eyes, he reached into the bag he’d brought along and retrieved the first vial. As he held it in his hand, he preemptively cast Healing Rain before shoving the vial into his mouth and uncorking it with his teeth.

The liquid slammed into his mouth like it had a mind of its own, burning blisters in the tender skin as it washed down his throat. Elijah was ready for it, but still, he let out an impotent and garbled scream of pure agony. But with another facet of his Mind, he focused on the next task, which was to retrieve the second and third vials, which he raised above his head and popped open.

The potions drifted down, enveloping his entire body in a cloud of diluted poison.

It was pure torture.

Yet, Elijah didn’t use Touch of Nature to heal himself. Nor did he move away from that cloud of poison. Instead, he simply endured, focusing on the ethera all around him. The cloud of poison didn’t dissipate. Nor did it fall to the cave’s floor. It hung all around him, eating him alive even as the first potion assailed him from within.

After thirty seconds, Elijah pulled a berry from his bag and tossed it into his mouth. He couldn’t taste it. Nor could he chew. Swallowing was the extent of his ability, and even that was almost beyond him. Still, he persisted, and the berry went down, sending a spark of healing and ethera coursing through him. So, he ate another.

Then another.

Over and over, he ate the berries, and the ethera in his body continued to build. Even as he did that, he pulled with every vortex of his faceted Mind, flooding his soul with even more ethera. His core filled to bursting, but he kept going until the ethera was seeping from the wounds inflicted by the poison.

But even then, it wasn’t enough.

His body hadn’t reached the point of failure. The stress was still too faint to prompt the metamorphosis.

So, he retrieved the final vial from his bag. This potion was the strongest yet, and Biggle had cautioned him not to use it. But Elijah had known, even then, that he wouldn’t have a choice. For whatever reason, his body was too durable.

He downed that potion as well.

Indescribable pain tore through him, and without his Quartz Mind, he would have succumbed, then and there. However, he managed to barely shunt the pain into one facet after another until there was only one left. That, he kept free to guide the ethera into his body.

And then, finally, it happened.

Elijah couldn’t tell what it was that he felt, but he knew that his body was ready. So, with one last heave, he shoved every bit of ethera out. And the results of that expulsion mingled with the incredibly dense ethera, solidifying a second later.

After that, Elijah’s body was rebuilt, one cell at a time.

The metamorphosis he’d experienced upon reaching the Body of Wood stage had been transformative, curing him of his cancer and expelling all sorts of impurities. However, the next stage was a qualitative leap forward. It wasn’t just perfecting what was already there. Instead, it was pushing past the limits of humanity and into something else.

He knew all of this from the guides he’d bought, but feeling it happening was something else altogether.

Elijah had no idea how long he remained in that cocoon of solid ethera, and if he was honest, he didn’t really care. He was too busy reveling in the process, which was agonizing, transformative, and edifying, all at once. It was as if he’d reached physical enlightenment. Yet, as high of a peak as he’d reached, he could now see just how far he had to go.

Then, suddenly, it was over.

The end began with a simple crack, no bigger than a hair, but it slowly spread until great sheets of solidified ethera sloughed off of the cocoon. They dissolved the moment they broke away, so when Elijah finally broke free, there was no evidence of the chrysalis.

Except for the naked man floating in the center of the cave.

Or the fact that all the vegetation and animal life that he’d so arduously nurtured to fruition had died, dissolved and used for fuel. Now, all that remained of what had once been was a thick layer of silt at the bottom of the cave.

However, Elijah was not distressed at that fact. Death was a part of any circle of life, and he could feel the dense life energy blanketing the cave’s floor. From that would spring a new cycle, stronger than ever before.

But for now, Elijah was only concerned with the notification he’d received:

After reading that notification, he could only wonder how long he’d been in the cave. It had felt like only a few minutes, but as he’d discovered in the past, his perception was always a bit skewed while he cultivated. In any case, he’d done it. He had achieved the next step. Now, he only needed to take care of a few errands, and he could finally get down to completing his quest to evolve Ancestral Circle.

Then, he would resume his search for his sister.

As he floated in that underwater cave, though, Elijah let himself bask in his achievement.

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