Chapter 016

Joram looked over his shoulder- not that he really needed to, but he wanted to be sure he wasn’t imagining anything weird- and saw one of the clan ninjas standing there, face half covered with that black cloth.

Well, crap on a cracker, he thought as he swallowed the rest of his bun.

“Is there something that we can do for you?” Tillia asked politely as she set her bun down on the wooden plate beside her.

“The Matriarch would like to speak with you,” the woman replied, which gave him pause. He took another look at her, taking in her figure and calculating.

His eyebrow went up as he looked back up to her face and noticed that her eyebrows had drawn down slightly as she regarded him with flinty eyes.

Feeling a trickle of sweat roll down his back, he hopped to his feet and announced, “Let’s go!”

As they passed by the food stall, Tillia handed the wooden plate back to the old man and thanked him for the food, telling him how good it was. The man beamed as he received the plate and invited her and “her brother” back any time.

Joram grinned at that and noticed that Tillia had kept the rest of her bun, proving that what she’d said was indeed true.

The walk back through town was a much quieter affair, Joram not wanting to say anything that might anger the ninja further. It also seemed that Tillia didn’t want to say anything out of place, so she too kept quiet as they walked.

Most of the snow that had fallen last night was still visible as they walked, having been protected from the sun by the many trees that lined the road. He was impressed with them, still green and luxuriant in winter. They weren’t a standard coniferous tree with pointy needle-like leaves, but instead closer to one of those junipers that had the soft, flatter, leaves. Upon closer inspection, the leaves almost looked like feathers, and were just as soft, even in the larger specimens.

He didn’t tarry long, as the ninja scared him a bit, nor did he hurry overly much as he was genuinely interested in exploring the local flora. Yes, they’d passed by on their way down the mountain path, but he’d been so excited to visit the town that he’d mostly ignored the plants on his way down.

He also realized that he was likely sub-consciously procrastinating his return. Yes, he was fairly certain that he wasn’t in trouble as the ninja hadn’t done anything so drastic as grabbing him and running. But there was always the chance that this was the “nicer” option reserved for cooperation. He didn’t want to push his luck and be potentially subjected to the “not-so-nice” option.

When they passed the gates into the clan hold, Joram noticed that the guards had slightly pitying looks on their faces. He wasn’t sure if they knew something he didn’t, or if it was due to his escort. Either way, he felt a bit more sweat trickle down his back.

By the time he’d been led to Grammy’s door, Tillia had been asked to wait in their apartments until Joram came back. She hadn’t taken the request well, but still did as she was told.

Bless her heart, he’d thought as she had stiffly walked down an adjoining hall.

Now he stared at the door leading to the Matriarch as the ninja knocked smartly thereon, then opened it a moment later. He wasn’t sure if there’d been some sort of invitation, permission granted, or if she had instructions to just enter right after knocking. Either way, he was led in and saw the Matriarch’s twitching eyebrow and knew that he was in for it.

“You may go,” the Matriarch said with a flick of a finger, dismissing the ninja as she watched Joram.

If he hadn’t “seen” the door close behind the ninja with [Touchsight], he wouldn’t have known she’d left and closed the door, she was so quiet. That unnerved him almost as much as the expression on Grammy’s face.

Then he stood there, waiting for some sort of sign or instruction.

After a good ten minutes of her staring at him, she sighed and motioned for him to come sit beside her.

He really wished that he’d worked on [Detect Thoughts] more in the last year as he really didn’t know what Grammy was thinking. Altaea had managed to get so good with the power that it had become a permanent ability of hers.

Well, I guess I’ll have time to practice over the coming years… he mused as he took a seat to her right, hoping that he wasn’t being too presumptuous taking the favoured seat, but also hoping that it would subconsciously influence how she perceived and treated him.

“You went to town,” she said abruptly, finally looking over to where he sat.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, raising a slender eyebrow.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his head.

“That is not what I asked.”

He gulped, then tried to work saliva back into his mouth before he replied.

“I really wanted to see the town and didn’t think to tell you,” he said, trying very hard to be meek. It was difficult, as he hadn’t known that there’d been this restriction in place. Sure, he knew not to go out without an adult, that’s why he’d bribed Tillia, but needing to tell the Matriarch wasn’t something he’d thought of.

“Joram,” she said, now twisting her body in her chair so that she could more easily look at him. “I realize that you’re much more mature than your body would indicate, and that you could likely handle any unfortunate incident that might arise, but. You are also a Reincarnator, and we need to make sure that your identity as such isn’t exposed before you are able to fully handle the consequences of that information getting out.

“So, if you wish to visit Brightside Town in the future, please take along a guard. Tillia may well be your caretaker while your parents are away, but she hasn’t even stepped into the First Tier, so she isn’t able to adequately protect you yet.”

Joram took that all in, then took another breath. She’d just been worried about him.

That was surprisingly touching. Sure, being picked up and escorted by a ninja, possibly with more in the shadows, was a bit much in his books, but he could also understand wanting to protect someone. Heck, he’d been one of those protective parents too…

That thought sobered him even further, causing his expression to become dead serious.

“OK,” he said, nodding at the same time.

Grammy blinked at him, then nodded back, seeming to accept the answer.

“That said,” she segued. “Why were you so bothered when I mentioned ‘the straight and narrow path’ earlier?”

That caught him a bit off guard, causing him to break eye contact and look around the room, his chest tightening slightly, his breath coming a bit faster.

“It brought back memories of home,” he said at last, his voice cracking at the end.

He cleared his throat a bit, composing himself as Grammy stared at him, a thoughtful expression on her face.

“If you don’t mind, could you tell me about it?” She asked, her voice surprisingly gentle.

That made it worse, the memories flooding back to his life on Earth, to the months leading up to his sudden departure from that plain of existence.

“I was a father once,” he began, then stopped to clear his throat. “It happened in April, late spring, when the yearly last dump of snow came. It was a particularly fierce storm, dropping over thirty centimetres of wet snow of the course of the afternoon.

“They had been visiting her mother, their grandmother, and needed to return home so that the girls would be in bed at a good time because they had school the next day.

“I’m told that she lost control of the vehicle as they were going up the overpass and ran into another vehicle. They smashed into the guard rail, then were hit by another vehicle who wasn’t able to stop in time, sending them over the side of the bridge, right into oncoming traffic.”

He stopped there, not able to continue through the sudden lump in his throat, his eyes stinging.

It had been quite some time since he’d gone over this, let alone spoke of it out loud, and he found that his eyes were also stinging.

Through [Touchsight], he noticed that Grammy’s expression had turned grave. She sat there, though, patiently waiting for him to continue.

At length, he did.

“By some miracle she survived, but my girls didn’t. I had to raise funds for a proper burial. It was closed casket.” He finished, looking out a side window at the deepening colours of dusk.

Grammy shifted in her seat, then reached over, picked him up, and placed him in her lap where she then hugged him tight.

That broke whatever restraints he had left, and he began to bawl, tears coming fast and hot.

They sat there for a long time as he felt the pain tear at his chest and soul. He had cried after hearing the news, but it was a more despairing sort of thing. This, this was the full, soul-scouring release of those pent-up thoughts, feelings, and emotions that hadn’t been properly addressed in all this time.

It was pretty ugly. His eyes were red and puffy, his nose also red, but running like a tap. But eventually he calmed, the tears stopped flowing, and his shuddering breaths turned calm as Grammy continued to hold him, not minding the fluids that soaked her robes.

“Thank you for sharing,” she said quietly, still holding onto him.

He went to speak, but then coughed instead as he realized that he’d cried himself raw. So, he merely nodded and croaked out, “Sorry,” as he motioned to her mucus-covered front.

She just shook her head and continued to hold him.

A thought occurred to him, or rather he remembered the ring on his finger, so he activated it, [Cleanse]ing away the mess in a small bubble around him. Grammy was close enough that she was included in the area of effect, turning his embarrassing mess into faint particles of light that left behind pure water that was quickly evaporating.

Grammy smiled, “Thank you, but you didn’t need to bother,” she said as she continued to hold him.

He still didn’t trust his voice, so he just shrugged and cleared his throat again. At which point Grammy nodded to herself, then motioned to a side table that held a tray with a pitcher and two glasses. The whole things rose into the air slightly before floating over to rest to the front and left of them.

She then poured a glass and handed it to him. He drank, grateful for the water. After a few more minutes, he felt better able to speak, so he did.

“I really appreciate being able to share with you.”

“And I appreciate the trust you’ve shown me,” Grammy replied kindly.

“I missed you,” he said quietly, still not used to being vulnerable.

“And I, you,” she said, giving him another squeeze, which warmed his heart further.

He came to a decision then. “Can I share with you one of my abilities?” He asked, looking up to look her vibrant green eyes.

An eyebrow peaked, then dropped again as a wry grin replaced the piqued expression. “Yes.”

“You’re not mad?” He asked, searching her face, paying close attention to her body language.

She breathed in, then said, “I have long suspected that you’ve not told us all that you can do with your skill in Mental Strength. I’m just glad that you feel that you can share now.”

Joram studied her face for a bit longer before nodding to himself, then sent out the invitation to join his Network as he said, “Then please accept my invitation.”

He then took a moment to commit her expression to memory, it was so precious. Never before had he witnessed her eyes go so round as her jaw dropped.

After a few moments of stunned silence, he felt her accept his invitation and then suddenly she was in.

‘It is something I picked up along the way,’ he sent. ‘We are able to communicate telepathically over this “Network” of mine. There are also some other benefits, but we can go over that later.’

“How?” She asked, then closed her mouth as she realized that he hadn’t been speaking out loud. Then her eyes once again widened as she realized that his voice wasn’t the same.

‘You just need to concentrate on what you want to say, then “think” it with the intention of me “hearing” it.’

It took a bit longer, but Grammy got the hang of it sooner that he thought she would, which pleased him greatly. She may not have been gifted in the area of psionics, but she was certainly capable of learning things rather quickly.

‘How long have you been able to do this?’ She asked, curiosity and suspicion leaking across their connection.

‘Since before I was born here,’ he hedged, not very confident that he wasn’t going to get in trouble, regardless of her assurance.

‘Then, have you formed this connection with your parents? Anyone else?’

Oh, it felt like the jaws of a massive trap were about to snap closed around his tiny little neck.

‘Yes?’ He sent, not wanting to lie, but also not wanting to sour their newfound closeness.

She sat quiet for a while, thinking. After a few minutes, she sent, ‘Why not tell me before now?’

He blinked at that, for that wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting.

He looked away, not making eye contact as he casually sent, ‘It might be because you might be ever-so-slightly… scary,’ he finished in a rush, ducking his head as his arms came up to cover it, prepared for an explosion.

… that didn’t come.

Instead, he felt her arms wrap around him again, pulling him into her bosom where she firmly held him in place.

‘Just what have you gone through?’ She sent quietly, deep sorrow flowing through, the understanding inherent in how the Network worked giving him the full intent behind her words.

He sat there, stunned, his brain locking up until he felt a mental jolt from Avi.

‘Any more shock there, and I may have to use [Psychic Chirurgery] to repair the damage,’ she sent, sass evident in the tone.

Which was, somehow, what he needed for his brain to start up again and process everything.

‘Thanks,’ he sent to Avi on their own, personal, line.

‘Thank you, Grammy,’ he sent, then proceeded to share some of his backstory, relaying the things that had contributed to his reaction.

* * * * *

Tatia “listened” to Joram’s story, amazed at what she was hearing. She’d known that he’d come from another world, but hadn’t guessed that it had been so different from her own.

She listened to his stories of his childhood and couldn’t help but be appalled at a good deal of the things that had happened to him. Sure, clan life could be hard, and competition fierce, but people generally weren’t so outright… damaging.

Yes, she knew of many stories about clans that had such fierce competition that they would resort to murder, but that was far away from here. The Clear Knowledge clan was a paradise compared to what he’d grown up with.

Then she understood his trust issues, in general, and especially with female authority figures. She couldn’t yet tell if it had been a blessing for him to be reborn into a matriarchy, or a curse. Well, “curse” was a bit dramatic, but still fit the bill.

She had her work cut out for her, but at least they’d taken the first steps together.

* * * * *

Joram lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It really was an interesting ceiling, as the architecture here was somewhat different than what he was used to.

Sure, the support beams were the same, but instead of covering them with drywall or something similar, they put frames filled with paper between the beams. They weren’t square, nor even of uniform size, instead preferring to have the same number of rectangular panels on each side of a beam. It was an odd design choice, as sometimes the panels on one side of a beam were narrower than the ones on the other side of the beam.

And all this was to distract him from the many emotions and feelings that’d been dragged out into the open.

Yes, talking about things helped one to work through them. No, it wasn’t healthy to just put things like that aside indefinitely. It was just… hard.

He’d done much work on himself over the years, and even more after coming to this world. But with how he’d broken down like that, he supposed that it hadn’t been nearly enough.

Gah, this sucks, he thought as he pulled a pillow over his head.

He was very glad that Grammy was so understanding. And supportive. And awesome.

It did feel better to have gotten a lot of that off his chest, though. But it would take a lot more to fully work through the rest of it. Feelings didn’t just go away because one found them inconvenient. Nor did the past go away because you locked those memories away.

Man, he had a lot of work to do.

- - -

The following days passed by without further incident. Joram kept working at solidifying his foundation, making sure that he hadn’t missed anything that might need to get started before he entered the Second Tier. Which proved to be a good thing, as he finally noticed that the Adamantium Body Technique suggested starting it while in Tier 1.

While the benefits of starting it in Tier 1 were good, the pain described was less than encouraging.

After having researched as thoroughly as he could about adamantium, he came to realize that it was also a rare metal here that was prized in artifact refining.

It took him another month to track down a small sample of the stuff, and even then he’d needed to badger one of the clan smiths for another two weeks before he’d been allowed to just hold the raw ore.

Fortunately, he’d been able to [Delve] the sample, first isolating the metal, then memorizing its atomic structure. Which proceeded to confuse him to no end.

He could identify any of the basic elements from Hydrogen to Lead. He avoided anything that started to have half-lives, not particularly keen on the inherent radiation of those ones. That said, adamantium was… strange.

He knew that magic made what would normally be termed as “impossible”, possible. But this was just… weird.

The sample was completely stable, with an atomic weight that pushed it to the 330s on the periodic table, which was higher than what’d been discovered on Earth before he’d… left.

Everything that he knew about atomic theory said that this was an impossible element, that this thing should be belting off radiation and causing mass death, if not just going outright nuclear when someone hit it.

OK, maybe that was an exaggeration, and he was no nuclear physicist, but he was more than a bit freaked out by the impossibility in front of him.

Adamantine was a clever alloy that was incredibly hard and resilient. Adamantium was just freaky.

And the manual wanted him to absorb the stuff.

It had taken him another few days to convince the smith to show him a small billet of adamantium. It was much lighter than he’d anticipated, weighing not much more than an equal sized block of aluminum. The structure was fascinating! He could see why Altaea had made a body tempering technique focussing on the stuff.

If anything, it seemed more durable than adamantine and was lighter to boot!

… and cost hundreds of Tier 2 Cards for just that one billet.

To put that into perspective, his storage ring had only cost three hundred, Tier 1, mid-grade crystals. Which was also more than what it would cost to build an inn in Brightview.

Sure, he had enough raw crystals to purchase what he needed, but he also had no way of going about doing that without spilling the beans on why he needed that much adamantium, nevermind where he’d gotten the crystals from.

‘Joram?’

‘Yes, Avi?’

‘I’ve been monitoring your body these last few months, and I believe that suppressing your cultivation for much longer could have deleterious effects,’ she sent, concern evident in her voice.

That gave him pause.

On the one hand, he really wanted to get the best results from his training and so he very much wanted to get the first stage of the Adamantium Body Technique completed before he broke through to Tier 2, Qi Gathering. On the other hand, if he somehow damaged his foundations in suppressing the cultivation too long, he might wind up being a dreaded ”cripple”.

Now, injuries weren’t something that bothered him, as he could heal up with a mere thought. Well, it was slightly more complicated than that, but was basically true. What gave him pause, though, was that he didn’t know enough about how cultivation affected the body and the “meridians”.

Would he be able to repair any damage that occurred through a cultivation accident or some such? And besides that, how did cultivation affect his gestalt nature? Normally, cultivation affected the body, making it more magical, durable, healthier, stronger, etc.. If one wanted their spirit/soul to get stronger, then there were specific cultivation methods for that, likewise for mental strength.

But this body was a “normal” human, so maybe he didn’t have to worry too much about that. But what would happen when he eventually switched back to his High Elan or Outsider forms? Would his training translate over, or would he have to cultivate each “self” separately?

This is giving me a headache, he thought as he rubbed his forehead, leaning back against a “peach” tree, enjoying the blossoms.

He’d been long tempted to switch back to his High Elan form, but worried that it might affect him in some unforeseen way. Sure, there were many benefits to being a High Elan, but what if something happened that he couldn’t fix?

He slapped himself then, reprimanding himself for falling into rumination from simple pondering. Focussing on the problem, and not the solution, wasn’t going to get him anywhere except down.

‘Well, since I don’t need that much right now, do you suppose we could somehow “acquire” that billet of adamantium from Careth?’

‘Yes, we can certainly do that,’ Avi readily replied. ‘Except you’ll have to find an excuse to go into seclusion while you’re refining it.’

‘I could just tell Grammy that I’m close to breaking through to the second Tier and wish to go into seclusion?’

‘You could, but she’d probably want to have someone there, likely her, to watch over you due to your age and relative inexperience.’

‘Bah. Nothing’s easy these days…’ he grumbled, kicking at a small rock in the grass. ‘How long do you suppose it’ll take? The manual was exceptionally vague on that part.’

‘Who knows? Could be done in a flash, or it would take weeks. I don’t even have the pop culture exposure that you’ve had, so I can’t even make a guesstimate.’

He frowned, somewhat regretting not having copied those stories over while he was on Earth. To be fair, some of those translations were hardly readable, their grammar so broken, nevermind the idioms that were literally translated instead of having their meanings translated. Ah, machine translations.

‘Well, we’ll just have to risk it. I don’t want to have a backlash from suppressing my cultivation, nor do I want to have a sub-optimal foundation with body tempering.’

‘Well, maybe it’ll go as smoothly as when Altaea would absorb various inherently magical materials,’ she added in a hopeful tone.

‘Wouldn’t that be fantastic,’ he sent, channeling his inner Ninth.

‘Alons-y!’ she sent right back, causing him to be divided between a face-palm or cheering her for her geekly reference.

- - -

‘You’re sure you left enough crystals behind?’ He asked, fidgeting in bed.

Avi’s hologram just gave him a level look in return, arms folded, foot tapping.

‘OK, OK, I’ll get right to it…’ he mumble-sent back as he picked up the shiny metal block and turned it over and over again.

‘It probably won’t be as bad as you think,’ Avi sent by way of encouragement.

That was likely true, as his imagination was quite active and vivid. It reminded him of a web comic he’d read quite a while ago about a doctor who asked the patient’s level of pain. They gave eight out of ten. The doctor then told them to imagine the worst possible pain they could and set that as the benchmark for ten. The number went down to three.

He’d taken that as more or less his standard for measuring pain, or what he expected something to feel like. And this, well, this was on the level of imagining having molten aluminum poured over him.

Sure, horrible burns, cooking flesh, nerves firing for all they were worth before being burnt to charcoal. The worst part was that once the molten metal cooled, it would stick in place, continuing to cook you. Yes, his imagination was quite vivid. Nevermind the experience of being turned into a High Elan and having been peeled like an orange, having his bones rearrange, and having himself changed at a fundamental level.

So, no, he wasn’t looking forward to what this might be like, especially since Altaea had indeed warned of the great pain involved.

‘We could just find another body cultivation method that might not be so… uncomfortable,’ Avi suggested, spreading her arms in an open-armed shrug.

He just gave her a flat look. Everything that he’d read about body tempering techniques had one thing in common: they were far from comfortable. Sometimes, outright deadly.

‘No, I’ll do this,’ he sent back as he took the adamantium in his right hand and gave it a squeeze. That didn’t do anything besides make his hand ache slightly, so he took a deep breath, went into his headspace, and sat down at that old desk.

He was back in his High Elan form, tall and well built. It didn’t matter what form he took here; he could even be an eight-foot tall pink bunny with a gravelly voice if he wanted to. It was mere perspective.

With a nod to himself, he reached out and pressed the power button on his laptop, the screen lighting up.

Ah, how he missed just playing a video game. Maybe when he completed the clan’s basic education that everyone went though, he could take a bit of time off and have fun gaming for a while. Yeah, that’d be nice.

His hand went to the trackball mouse waiting beside the computer, his thumb rolling the ball until the cursor rested on the “Absorb” icon.

With one last mental sigh, he fixed the image from the manual in his head, then double-clicked.