.
It’s amazing what an especially rich spiritual environment can do for a being such as myself. Because I did not pass through the Spirit Realm to get to this place, I was fully, consciously me, the entire way. That is not to say I would call myself the usual Tiana-slash-Robert now that my mind had awakened to its full potential here, but this time, my current Huade personality was not a child I was taking care of, but rather, me.
My companions had yet to develop any spiritual growth at this level, and would only grow slowly conscious of it, so they were simply watching in amazement as the dog that had just been a girl a moment ago whipped her tail back and forth in my arms while rubbing her ear against my chest.
“I’m happy to see you too, Little Jia,” I told her while scritching her behind the ear.
Dilorè recovered her voice first. “Little Jia? This is the spirit of Mount Ciddan?”
I chuckled and nodded while raising her so I could nuzzle her neck.
“A dog?”
“A spirit beast,” I corrected her. “She’s of the canine clade, but she isn’t a dog, strictly speaking.”
“I understood that she was a sort of… spirit made into an intelligent being? An intelligence you created from spirits?”
“In a way, she is,” I agreed. “But originally, she was simply my pet, as a beast born around the same time as myself. Spirit beasts take thousands of years to attain intelligence. To make it faster, it’s necessary to culture them. When I was about to descend, I didn’t want to leave her behind, so I built an autonomous reasoning construct around her, by adding spiritual media compatible with her substance, and made this small world where she could live.”
I looked down at the animal in my arms. “She surprised me a lot, actually. She probably has most of her substance hidden in her shrine, since this isn’t enough to support a truly intelligent mind, which she clearly has grown to have.”
While rubbing my head against her, I added, “This little girl has really outdone my expectations. You’ve grown a lot, Jia! Did you run the time dilation the whole time you were waiting for me? Perhaps you’ve achieved proper Ancient Spirit Beast status?”
She had to use a spirit voice to answer me. I kept the time dilation high until I had met the goals you left me, Commander. And I worked to help the others along as well. I have not yet achieved my true evolution to Ancient status, but I’ve worked hard!
“Yes, you have,” I agreed, stoking her neck. Her tail was still going at a solid 240 rpm.
I frowned as I realized something. “Wait… you learned Dorian?”
It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that we were not speaking Xa-Ne.
I have studied the local languages by sending out autonomous proxies of myself, Commander! I am familiar with most developments over the last five thousand years. As I saw the locals developing strong magic, I felt it had become necessary to communicate with them.
As usual, her spiritual voice was my old voice, from my body as Senhion.
“And you decided to make yourself a human form, too?”
It qualified her for Venerable status, and was something that normally took twenty thousand years to attain, but spirit beasts would often forgo it until they achieved a few more milestones.
Not just me, Commander! Do you have bags to bring in?
As she spoke, two lines of spiritual energy, similar to Diurhimath’s proxies, came rushing down the bridge toward us. They split left and right and became eight girls with similar outfits to Jia’s, four on each side.
I managed to not show surprise, but inside, I was gobsmacked. I had not expected that the minor members in the domestic staff, all simpler creatures than Little Jia somewhat like general purpose humanoid robots when I last saw them, would have evolved to the point that they appeared to now be fully sentient.
But that was the difference that the high spiritual energy levels made, I suppose. They were evolving nearly as fast as they might have in the Fundamental realm, and doing it with the guidance of their very reliable senior, Little Jia.
My spirit beast shrugged herself out of my arms, jumping back down to the floor, then ran to a spot between the two groups. Spinning to face us, she morphed back into her human form.
“There are travel bags in the passenger cabin,” I stated with a nod. She nodded left and right, and two girls on each side converted back into spirits and dashed as streaks of light into the aircraft behind us. They emerged shortly, once more in human form, carrying our luggage.
“Commander and dear guests, please follow us,” Little Jia politely requested.
I held up my hand. “Sorry, Little Jia. The others shall follow, but I will need to go outside while these three acclimate to this world. I will probably be gone for up to twenty four hours in the outside world.”
Her face clouded with disappointment, but she maintained her smile and nodded. “You have to spend time with me later, though!”
“I promise,” I nodded. “Try to make sure they have at least three days while I’m gone.”
Chiara immediately protested, “Didn’t you just say twenty four hours?”
I hesitated, then smiled. “I’ll explain why, later. For now, please understand that Jia could make twenty four hours outside take a hundred years in here if she wanted.”
I looked back to my assistant. “But you are not to do so, understand? Once they have three days, pull back to match time outside.”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” she declared, pouting a little. “If anything, I would like to make twenty four hours out there take three minutes in here, so you come back sooner!”
She could do that, as well. She had full control over time synchronization between this world and Huade, and could dilate time in either direction.
“I assume the portal is still next to your shrine?” I asked.
Jia tipped her chin up. “It is, and the cave is open and ready to respond to your commands, Commander. Would you wait a moment though?”
“What is it?” I wondered as she stepped closer.
She was looking at Lucy’s stone, I realized.
“There is another guest here, is there not?” she asked.
I stroked the stone. “Lucy, come out, please.”
“Out!” Lucy declared as she appeared, with her back to Jia’s nose.
Little Jia tipped her head while studying the pseudo-pixie, then tipped the other way. Lucy lost interest and started flying around, inspecting the other girls.
Something occurred to me. “She helps me communicate. If you can communicate with your proxies outside, can you communicate with Lucy?”
Jia reached up and touched the stone that Lucy had come out of, then stated. “Now I can. I have left a drop of my spirit essence in the stone.”
“Thank you,” I smiled. “Take care of my friends well.”
“Yes, Commander!”
I nodded and rose into the air. This small world was an annex of a world similar to Huade, with similar mana, rather than another system like Huajie’s. Although there were some minor differences, I had chosen that world because the minor differences didn’t affect my body. I flew out across the ‘water’, aiming for the ‘west’ side of the island, in the coordinate system my Servants had used, back in the day. The outdoor combat floor was ‘south’, the island on the opposite side of the main island was ‘north’, the island to the left when facing the main island from the combat floor was ‘west’ and the ‘waterfall’, where my Merrow servants once conducted their combat demonstrations, was ‘east’.
After convincing Lucy to return to the stone, I found the portal, and learned that its monitoring system was no longer a non-aware robotic device similar to Taihimel’s portal guardian, but had evolved into a cute girl resembling a halfling who was tending a garden patch beside a little cottage when I arrived.
“Greetings, Commander! Will you be passing through?” she asked, as if she had seen me yesterday.
“I will,” I nodded. “I’ll be back after a while.”
“Please step through,” she stated, gesturing toward a ‘monolith’ next to the shrine, similar to the one in Taihimel’s world.
That exhilarating feeling of expanded consciousness vanished with my exit from my small world, but that was somehow a familiar feeling that I had experienced many times as Senhion. While it was a little depressing to lose the buoyancy of dense spiritual energy, I gained considerable clarity upon returning, with my thoughts and plans in better order. Even without trying, my spiritual vessel had absorbed energy from the rich environment like a dry sponge.
I exited the mountain through a tunnel that was very different from the old days. Jia had decided to simply abandon the old ‘atrium’, a house-sized cave with visitor accommodations near the peak, and create a new tunnel farther down the slope, with much simpler design. She had indeed paid attention to the outer world as the years went by, because she had a very Dorian pair of temple guardian statues parked to the left and right of the tunnel mouth. Other than that, though, it was just a tunnel leading from the outside to a simple portal room.
In the air, a half-thousand paces above, a squad of fairy warriors were still waiting. I flew up to meet them.
They all looked a bit stunned. As I flew up in front of them, Lady Tamerà demanded, “Where did the air boat go?”
“Into the mountain, Rehëu,” I answered simply.
Her eyes darkened. “I saw no such thing. It simply vanished just now, right in front of us, then here you are. I’ve never heard of stealth capable of hiding an entire air boat from fairy senses, but there is no possible way you could hide a cave large enough for an air boat from us! And this is Mount Ciddan! Are you seriously claiming you can land on it without taking damage?”
The just now explained the stunned expressions I had seen. When I first discussed the plan to bring teammates here with Little Jia, I had mentioned taking advantage of time dilation. My trusty assistant had already started, it seemed. The boat had disappeared only moments previous, to the eyes of this patrol.
My lips curled slightly as I said, “It’s my mountain, My Lady. I’m flying to the valley portal now. Will you follow?”
Without waiting for an answer, I began flying toward the first of the two gates I had to pass through, to reach the valley entrance. The others soon fell into formation with me, intent on escorting me.
“Why are you claiming Mount Ciddan as yours?” Tamerà demanded.
Had she given up on tracking the air boat? She clearly settled on the stealth explanation and rejected the ‘entered the mountain’ part, but apparently had given up on her demand to know where it had gone.
“I can go there. You can’t. Simple, no?”
“How did it become your mountain?”
“I don’t believe I am obligated to answer your questions, My Lady,” I replied, “But I will indulge you this time. It has belonged to the Fairie royal family since before the Fairy King was born. It belonged to his mother. It now belongs to me. You may confirm this with His Majesty if you wish.”
We passed through two gates on our winding path to the double spires at the valley mouth. As we approached it, the shield rose between the spires to admit us, just as it had done for Prince Manlon’s launch, in response to some invisible signal. Perhaps they simply did it automatically for the valley patrol.
I wanted to ask Tamerà, but I decided to save my question for Mother, who was bound to know the answer. I was about to go talk to her anyway.
