.
I grew my flukes as soon as I submerged… if ‘submerged’ is the right word when I was technically surrounded by air. The unique rules of this small world forced the free Water mana currently wrapping my body to remain together in a thick, viscous mass that gave the atmosphere on this side of the surface the same properties as material water. It only barely changed the refractive index, though, so it looked very much as if I were swimming through the air.
And not just me. I plunged through a school of spirit fish and then briefly circled a tiny sea monkey band, before diving deeper. I swam down between two clumps of a drifting, sargasso-like mass that was a colony of synergistic life, plants and animals similar to corral. Nothing like it exists on Earth or Huade, but it was a regular feature of the waters of my ancient home. It provided shelter for juvenile sea creatures and a habitat for many lifeforms evolved to live within it. As I passed, I caught sight of a moray-like creature waiting for prey.
The environment was as warm here as above the surface, and if it were the water it felt like, it would be too warm to be comfortable, but this ‘water’ only had the thermal capacity of air, and didn’t have density equal to the pressure I was experiencing. Thus, rather than an unpleasant swim in lukewarm water, I was experiencing the light breeze of the air passing along my skin as I swam. The strong, warm light from this bright day balanced that cooling breeze wonderfully, like basking on a Caribbean beach.
The pressure came from the Water mana, which was growing thicker the farther down I went. The pressure would be a problem for a human diver, but my body, when in its half-dolphin configuration, absorbs Water mana in proportion to the pressure surrounding me, giving me a capability for depth greater than the deepest-diving whales.
Despite its appearance, this was just a little lake though, so I couldn’t test that here. Instead, I swam all the way down until the geometric rules of the space turned me sideways, somewhere around two hundred paces deep.
The sanitary functions that were part of Little Jia’s space management tools prevented a sludge from appearing here. Invisible filter magic collected the particles that precipitated from above and forwarded it to her recycling systems. So here at the lower boundary, I sped through ‘water’ as clear as everywhere else.
That lower edge was not empty, however. The same aquatic spirit life imported from the Fundamental Realm and the Spirit Realm lived down here as at the other depths. Without a definable ‘bottom’, and without the depths growing darker, it wasn’t bottom dwelling life. It was just the same fish, squids, crustaceans and otherworldly species as found everywhere else in this body.
As I sped along, I passed below the center of the mass of rock that was the main island. The bottom of the ‘martini glass’ passed barely fifty paces overhead, but it cast no shadow upon me. The light came equally from below and above in this miniature replica of my native Sky Ocean. The surface overhead was as brightly lit as the ground on the other side. It even had aquatic plants growing on it in many places, creating an important habitat itself, as an upside-down rocky reef.
It occurred to me, I could multitask. Swimming required little of my attention, and nothing that lived in a lake less than a mile in radius was large enough to threaten me. I at last turned my attention inward, dropping into a shallow meditative trance.
I swam through two thick substances, of differing nature. The Water mana, I’ve already yakked about too much, but I was also in a thick soup of spiritual energy, that nurtured much of the microscopic life around me. That life created a food chain through which the aquatic spirit beasts absorbed that energy, but I, as the closest thing to an Immortal in this world, could absorb it directly.
My spirit vessel… I had been told it was no longer ’embryonic’ but rather ‘nascent’. Had I skipped through ‘fetal’ somehow? ‘Nascent’– in other words, newborn– meant it could just barely survive without the protective shield of the blood core that had acted as a surrogate for an Immortal mother’s womb. Survive, but not thrive, which was why it was still an infant. Fortunately, it had me to care for it. It was time for me to start doing so.
Before, others more advanced than me, with careful inspection, had been able to see that vessel, and I had no choice but to take their word for it. My spiritual senses could not detect it. Now, this rich environment changed all that. It was as if, on Huade, I had been in a dim room– as a mortal without fairy or vampire sight, mind you– but I had now stepped outside into the bright day.
Perhaps that was ironic, given I was also swimming through this brightly illuminated depth, but the light shining on my skin and the spiritual energy shining on my mind had the same sort of intensity.
That intensity gave me my first look at my vessel, growing deep within my blood core. It was indeed still tiny, but it had now become large enough that, now that I knew where it was, I could probably detect it back on Huade.
And that shine also led me to memories that I hadn’t been expecting to find. Memories of a master– or rather, a parent– who had lectured me as a child. But this wasn’t Senhion’s childhood. Her guidance regarded an already Immortal body made of spiritual essence, not a body of flesh and blood. Oddly, it wasn’t Fan Li’s childhood either, although as soon as my memories began, they started resonating with Fan Li’s memories.
The problem was, Fan Li was a half-spirit, a creature who, like a fairy, couldn’t be regarded as entirely flesh and blood. She was literally half spiritual essence herself, an existence that only marginally could dwell in the Mortal Realm. It was only possible because it was supported by that alien substance called qi that did not work the same as mana. Her wisdom could comprehend mana through recognizing the equivalent relationships they had to the Void and the Spirit Realm, but her methods needed an interpreter at this level.
That interpreter joined the party now, as I released my defenses and allowed his wisdom to flow into me.
Power Systems Technician First Class Daq R’mion, an enhanced human whose ‘mother’ had performed miracles nurturing her scientifically-altered foster children through the ‘superstitious’ meditative techniques she taught. Her success rate had outstripped all other nurses in the center, so nobody could veto her methods.
While the less fortunate among the other ‘graduates’ led lives full of personal difficulties, her graduates went on to full lives in human society while performing the dangerous outworld jobs that society needed them to fill. Daq had even married and become a father, which was unusual among his kind.
Those methods involved enhancing the things within him that were still human, using spiritual techniques. The scientists barely acknowledged that those parts were real. In that world, Science believed those parts existed, but were beyond their ability to measure or investigate.
The mana of Daq’s world was thin, nearly as thin as Earth, but the spiritual energy was far, far stronger, and his foster mother had been an expert in manipulating and controlling the body and mind through that energy.
Now I followed her patient advice, finding within myself the places where my mana pathways gathered and directed the spiritual energy. In Fan Li’s world, the meridians would carry qi to these spots, but they functioned differently. Still, with the careful direction of the foster mother whose name was just outside my memory, she adapted– I adapted– and the mana nexuses of my body became filled.
“Breathe it in, and hold that breath…” she gently coached. “Soak in the vitality, then let the breath flow out…”
That vitality, Senhion’s knowledge recognized, was the precious spiritual essence that floated like plankton in the flow of energy. To that foster mother, it had been about the beneficial effect it had on the body. Living by the creed, a sound mind in a sound body, she believed the mind would be buoyed as the technique buoyed the body.
Probably, it was true, but at the same time, an ancient soul like the one living within her young charge Daq was likely absorbing it into his nascent spirit vessel, a concept her world did not understand. But Fan Li could take it from here. She knew that, once absorbed, it should flow, and she, with Senhion’s help, knew that in this world that flow was the bond of pneuma and mana that dwelled within my blood.
My greedy mind wanted to pull it in faster, and reached out to flow the air within the ‘water’. It was no different than asking them to gather the air, to better control the ship. With Sirth’s gentle call, the Wind spirits flocked to me, pulling spiritual energy along with them, to enrich the air surrounding me. And the shaman Kwelabi knew that what she was doing, this body with affinity to all elements could do with Water spirits as well, and those were thick in this soup of mana through which we were swimming.
To a shaman, spirits were literally the world, more the world than the tangible objects they passed among. His Water spirits joined Sirth’s Wind spirits and Water mana laden with spirit energy flowed around me as well, and as it flowed into me, the essence accumulated, flowing through my blood to the core where my spirit vessel nestled. Nurtured by the rich feast of essence, it blossomed and grew…
Commander?… Commander?…
I broke out of my reverie and discovered I was now swimming along the perimeter of the world in a two-mile-wide circle.
Yes, Jia?
It has already been four hours. Your Servants gathered at your residence already.
I winced. I had totally lost track of the time. No, I had lost track of everything, other than breathing and cultivating. Some ‘light meditative trance’! I accelerated upward and transformed from half-dolphin to half-bird as I burst through the surface.
The thing about the seawater of Sky Ocean is, it isn’t wet. Despite the grand draught of Water mana that my body had taken during my trance, my hair and skin were warm and dry. Flying through the air like this was as pleasant as swimming in the sea below had been.
In the distance, a pair of blue butterfly wings were headed my direction, growing into a certain cousin who had flown out to fetch me. I had been out of her detection range, so Jia had probably told her where to look.
She was dressed in a fluttery, open-backed dress with a short hem. It looked very appropriate with her style of wings. She looked amused by something as she flipped around and slid into formation next to me.
“I got distracted,” I confessed. “Have they been waiting very long?”
“Only about a half hour,” Dilorè answered. “What were you doing?”
“Meditation. I have a lot to work on.”
“Meditation?” Her eyebrows rose. “Anxiety relief, perhaps?”
“No, but we’ll talk about it at my place. I’ll be giving you some training so you can benefit from this place as well?”
“You… aren’t planning to show up in front of Ryuu like that, are you?” she wondered, her eyes wandering down to my body. “Chiara might get pretty unhappy with you.”
After I puzzled over her words for a moment, I looked where she was looking, and discovered that I had thoroughly forgotten I was nude.
I grew a smile. I even laughed slightly as I imagined Ryuu and Chiara’s reaction when I showed up in that state. Although I still felt it down inside, I could rise above the embarrassment while buoyed by a stronger will.
Still giggling, I flew to the spot where I had left my armor. As I came in for a landing, I did not find it there, though.
Little Jia? I called.
Yes, Commander!
Where is my armor?
“Is something wrong?” Dilorè wondered as she landed beside me.
Little Jia was rushing over as a streak of light, and materialized in front of us in her human girl form as I answered, “I left my armor in this spot.”
“I had it transferred to your residence,” Jia explained. “Is there something wrong, Commander?”
I chuckled and answered, “I need something to wear.”
“I’ll have something brought over,” she promised.
“Mm…” I recalled how Senhion would handle it, and thought I might be able to do the same. I gathered Water mana around my body in a fashion not that different from my mana coating technique, then carefully manifested it in semi-material form…
Dilorè’s eyebrows shot up, her eyes widening, and she grew a broad grin. “That is really hot, Your Highness.”
Pleased with myself for having created a raiment, I looked down at my body, then saw why she called it ‘really hot’. Instead of the garment I was trying for, it clung to my body like a thick coat of water. It was… extremely erotic.
“Chiara might dislike it if you let Ryuu see this more than if you let him see you naked,” she pointed out.
I sighed and erased it, then told Jia. “Yes. Please bring me something to wear.”
