Who Are You?

They were sitting on the grass, the night sky stretching above them. From the hill she could see the city in the distance, a beacon of light. Consequence looked like a bonfire, torches and glowing crystals blazing in the night. She turned her eyes away, and met Ryun’s.

“First, I don’t know if this is something that you might want,” Ryun said as he pulled out a vial and offered it to her.

Slowly she reached out and took it from him, then looked at it.

Elixir of Great Secondary Path Removal

Drinking this elixir will remove all knowledge and power of your secondary Path if it is not above tier 6. Consequences will depend on Second Path’s integration with perks and power.

Anrosh blinked at it. “Where did you get this? Was it a reward for killing the Dome Leader?”

Ryun shook his head. “No, no. I died at the end, I didn’t get to see my rewards, remember? No, Selia has my rewards. This… this was Zenker’s.”

She leaned back, her mind trying to connect what he had just said with reality. “Zenker’s, but… oh, you found him?”

“His body,” Ryun nodded. “Hastur kept him, he was trying to do something with it, but… it doesn’t matter now. I got his equipment, his storage, his treasury.”

“How much?”

“Wealth enough to make sure that the Twilight Melody Sect never wants for anything. We are going to need to build a real vault Anrosh. I don’t want to keep it with me all the time, I am holding it in my Void Storage, but if I die we lose it all.”

“What all is in there?” Anrosh asked.

Ryun smiled. “We’ll get to that, later. Do you want to drink that?”

Anrosh glanced back at the potion in her hands. “I… it is too valuable, I’m sure that someone—”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” he interrupted. “I have two more.”

“Oh,” Anrosh just said. “Even still… I don’t think that I need it, maybe not now. The Path of the Unbreakable Wall is good for me, for my style of fighting.”

She tried to think about what she would even take instead of her current Path.

“Perhaps in the future, then,” Ryun said as he took the elixir back. “I’ve been trying to decide if I should take it myself.”

“Really?”

“The Path of the Unbreakable Wall is… it is good. It has helped me a lot, but in the end it doesn’t synergize well with my Aspect, even the Aspect I plan on taking as my second might be more useful with something else. I shall see, I still need to talk with a few people. Today is about you. Here, take these first,” he dropped a small crate filled with stat increase potions. “I don’t have enough for a bath, but… it will still be useful. I’ve chosen them to help with your imbalance. You advanced to Peak Immortal?”

“I did, I cycled as much as I could over the years,” she told him as she looked at the potions. There were dozens of potions, each of a different type. And she saw how there were more of some stats than others. She looked them over and then with a glance at Ryun started drinking.

Once she was finished, he spoke.

“I have an elixir that could improve your Qi, raise your tier to nine. But… I hesitate to give it to you, we lack a source of Absolute Cold that high, it will be wasted if you cannot cycle high tiered Essence. We will need to work on that, find a source, both for you and Kri.”

Anrosh nodded in understanding. “Tier six is still high, more than most ever achieve. Not everyone is a monster like you,” she waved it away. Even though a part of her that was a Cultivator wished that she could take it.

He nodded in agreement, and then pulled out three vials and placed them in front of her. She picked them up, looking them over.

Elixir of Great Perk Merge

Consuming this elixir will allow you to merge any six perks, while using one perk as the base for the new one. The resulting perk will depend on used perks synchronization and compatibility. The effects can be harmful. Only tier 6 and below perks can be merged.

Great Core Reinforcement Elixir

Consuming the elixir will add 25% more capacity to the Cultivator’s core as well as 25% more Qi density.

Great Body Reinforcement Elixir

Consuming this will reinforce your physical body, granting you +3% to all base stats.

“Ryun… this is—”

“Don’t worry, there is a lot more where that came from. I picked these, especially for you. I have enough for me, and others.”

“That is amazing.”

“Zenker had a wealth of an entire faction. Of a Great Sect, an Empire. He was a faction all by himself… I do not think that we could’ve defeated the Dome Leader without him. It was… injured when we fought it. A scar ran down the Dome Leader’s entire body. And he did it all alone,” Ryun shook his head in amazement. “Show me your screens, I have an idea about which perks you should try and merge.”

Anrosh did as he asked.

Together they went through all of her perks, discussing and making a choice.

“Yes, that feels right,” Ryun said once they were done.

“Will it work?” Anrosh asked.

“I believe that it will,” Ryun answered.

She looked at the three potions in her hands and the drank them, first the reinforcement ones. Then, she took her clothes off, not knowing what the effects were going to be, and drank the last potion. A prompt appeared in front of her, and she picked the base and then the rest, six of her perks. The effect was… not exactly unpleasant, but she could feel it happening, changing her body. She felt sharp pain on her back, heard a creaking noise of shattering ice. And she felt… cold.

Once it was done, she felt… different. They had decided on upgrading her body, which was one thing that she was lacking in severely. Her previous choices hadn’t been… great. Useful, but not great. And because he said that his Evolved Inspiration had to do with his body.

“Huh, that is… interesting,” Ryun commented, looking her up and down.

She pulled out the notification that appeared and read through it.

Congratulations! Perk Merge Successful!

Base Perk: Grand Absolute Cold Transcendent — 100%

Perk 2#: True Body — Enduring Crystal — 87%

Perk 3#: Hardened and Resistant Body — 82%

Perk 4#: Grand Frost Eyes — 57%

Perk 5#: Grand Frost Shields — 78%

Perk 6#: Grand Frost Endurance — 85%

Synchronization at 81.5% — Perk Merge successful

Lesser Frost Jotun: Transcendent of Absolute Cold — Perk Gained

She felt… different. She looked down and her arms. They were still deep red in color, but now there was more, a web of pure white covered every part of her skin. Cracks, as if her skin parted and was filled with something else, like scars. She studied the patterns closer, and realized that it was an interconnected web of snowflake patterns. It made her skin look as much white as it was red. She looked over, her chest, her stomach, her legs, everything was covered in white. It was almost… she raised her eyes and looked at Ryun, at the cracks in his skin. It reminded her of that. His inspiration had let her reach this far, she had always known that everything she achieved would be tinted by that. Hers was far more extreme, but it at least didn’t mist like his did. She pulled at her hair and saw that it was still white.

Then, she felt something else, a new sensation. As if she had additional parts that she never sensed before. She reached up with her hand, over her shoulder and touched… a bulge, smooth like ice, and cold. Three of them, all on her upper back, two on her shoulder blades and one in the center, near the back of her neck.

Then, she felt like… she reached out, feeling as if she was trying to move a limb that she had never moved before, and the three growths obeyed. They slid out of their slots in her skin and into the air, floating above her head in a triangle formation. She looked back, and saw that they were each diamond shaped, like the shields that her perk created. Smaller though, and not moving on their own. She had to control them on her own now. She pulled one down into her hand and saw that it was white, and looked like crystallized Absolute Cold Essence.

Her hand immediately glanced at Ryun’s fingers, the crystallized tips of his fingers.

She let the shield float back behind her and then pulled out her new perk’s window.

Lesser Frost Jotun: Transcendent of Absolute Cold

Your body is forged for the harshest of frost. You’ve undergone physical changes. You have grown three Absolute Cold shields that you can control like limbs in the range of two meters around you. Your bones are sheeted in a layer of ice increasing their durability. The Absolute Cold Qi seeps through your flesh and marks your skin, you can instill the feelings of frost and cold in anyone who meets your eyes. Your body is immune to all effects of cold temperature and Absolute Cold Qi. Your body has 15% resistance to physical damage, and any poisons, disease or toxins, that enter your body are subjected to freezing effects immediately, their temperature lowered until they are neutralized.

When the temperature around you is subzero degrees, your body starts to influence it, deepening the cold and increasing its effects by 20% per minute to the maximum of 60%. Any Cold related powers that you use are 30% more effective in above zero temperature, in sub zero environments all your Cold related powers have their cooldowns reduced by 15% and are 60% more effective.

Your body no longer produces heat, instead it produces cold. Effort, injuries, pleasure, and any other activities that previously increased your body’s temperature will cool you instead; If that point is reached, the Absolute Cold patterns on your skin will sheath you in a layer of ice that is 40% resistant to special damage and has durability equal to 500% your endurance, you lose 15% of your speed and can’t use any abilities while in this state.

You gain +60% to endurance, +20% to strength, +20% to wisdom.

She lost some things, vitality, regeneration. But she had gained a lot as well. It was a good perk, she felt… stronger.

“Hm…” Ryun said after he read through it. “That is something that we can work with. Ascended Inspiration will require for us to work on your body, but… we have time for that. Now, we can move to the next part. Evolved Realm.”

“Wait,” she narrowed her eyes at him. “You already have your Ascended Inspiration?”

His proud smile was the only answer she got. And then he gestured with his hand.

She felt… trepidation. She was about to advance again, to reach a realm that was… Something far beyond anything she had ever dreamed she could achieve.

“But first, tell me, who do you think you are?”

Anrosh blinked, not quite understanding. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I asked. Deep down, how do you see yourself? The person that you are?”

Anrosh opened her mouth, the words “sect leader” on her tongue, but she hesitated. She thought about it for a while. And then… she gave her answer.

“A mother,” she said slowly. Then she smiled. “A sister.”

Ryun matched her smile. “Keep that in mind for this next part. The Evolved Realm is… about choice.”

Anrosh frowned, but didn’t say anything, she did as he asked. She trusted him above all others.

He leaned forward, and extended his hands. She put hers beneath his, not touching his palms but waiting. He cycled his Qi and she did the same. She felt them enter the same state that they had once before. “Evolved Inspiration is about understanding of your body, about accepting it. For me, it was about realizing that I am no longer human, that I had no need to breathe, that I had no organs to pump blood, that I was Void.”

Anrosh kept her eyes closed, and tried to imagine it. It was not her inspiration, but she could identify with it. She wasn’t human either. She had two hearts, her bones were sturdier, she was taller than ordinary humans, her skin red. With this new perk that was even more true. She was now a creature of flesh and ice, a being of cold. It wasn’t the same, but it resonated, though it didn’t need to. She was riding Ryun’s inspiration, not her own. She felt it settle inside of her, and then it was done.

She could advance to the next Realm.