§
The crawling, prickling feeling I felt all over my body at 10:1 immediately ramped up into a feeling of crushing pressure. I don’t know if this makes sense, but it felt like it should be overwhelming, yet it wasn’t. As long as I continued my tempering technique and continued swimming as hard as I could, it remained tolerable. I had a feeling that I didn’t dare stop, though.
But it was very familiar. This was the feeling of pressure that had overcome me in my suite on Huade, forcing my exile to this place. And, almost as if to confirm it, the same golden glow I witnessed on Huade began coating my arms.
Alarmed, I forced my spiritual voice to Immortal Mother. <Isn’t this Ascendance?>
<You are overcoming it, Child. This too is a kind of Tribulation, just not the one that you pass through to reach the Immortal Realms. We are borrowing the Law of Heaven in order to push your body through centuries of refinement in hours or minutes.>
<How long will I need to keep this up?> I was growing worried about what all this exertion might do to my babies.
<They are safe, child. I am actively protecting them. When you tire too much, we will move back to a compression you can tolerate to allow you to rest.>
Why didn’t she answer my question? I had nothing in Senhion’s memories to guide me, and this ‘Tribulation’ was nothing like what the cultivators of Fan Li’s world faced, when they leveled up. Although that too, should be the power of the Law of Heaven, operating within that universe’s rules, it involved a transcendent form of lightning particular to that universe. So, I don’t think Tribulation was the proper word for this act of exerting my stubborn refusal to be pushed out of the universe.
I swam on and on, continuously breaching the surface in long leaps, then re-entering to accelerate underwater and then jumping again. My eyes remained fixed on the golden hue coating my arms, hoping to see it decrease.
Dive, kick, kick, leap. Dive, kick, kick, leap. The mantra kept my mind fixed on my task, allowing me to push issues with terminology out of my mind.
The golden aura didn’t decrease, but I began to notice that it wasn’t the only thing emanating from my arms. Tiny droplets like black sweat were continuously oozing out of pores and then disappearing in the slipstream.
<During refinement, your body has been shedding material flesh and replacing it with magic flesh, child. What do you say to accelerating the process?>
I was already going as hard as I could. Accelerate how?
<At the top of a leap, grow your wings while keeping your flukes and remain airborne.>
Vaguely, I knew that was a thing, although Elders rarely did it. She wanted me to do it because adding my wings to this body would decrease the percentage of matter even more, since the wings would increase my volume while my quantity of matter would remain fixed. She didn’t mean for me to fly faster, she meant I would speed up the tempering.
It still felt insane to try something like this at such high speed. My first time trying to adopt a new body form ought to happen while I was concentrating on nothing else. It shouldn’t be while I was aggressively channeling spiritual energy and mana and absorbing pneuma, while simultaneously maintaining the highest pace swimming stroke I had ever accomplished and fighting the pressure that was trying to squeeze me out of the world.
What the heck. It was just adding one more thing. Dive, kick, kick, leap, grow my wings.
Senhion could fly in aquatic form, at least close to the waves, without the wings. I wasn’t quite there yet. But with them grown, I was now successfully skimming the surface, no longer descending back into the water side of the grand ellipsoid that was Sky Ocean. I banked slightly to keep my course on the same curve I had been swimming.
All the while, the tiny droplets of material flesh continued to escape through my pores.
<My babies are safe, right?> I worried. <This isn’t doing anything to them?>
<They are perfectly safe, child. I am isolating them while you do your exercises. I would never endanger my precious grandchildren.>
Were they her grandchildren? They were both reincarnated souls not formed from my soul at all.
<Such things matter not, child. They are your daughters and my granddaughters. If it did matter, extra generations were involved, but they were already my descendants in their previous life too.>
That’s right. They had been her great-grandchild and great-great-grandchild respectively.
After what seemed to be hours later, Immortal Mother ordered, <Little Jia, decrease to 1000:1>.
The pressure vanished like a soap bubble popping.
Immortal Mother appeared beside me, also in the winged mermaid form. Her wings matched mine. I expected them to be the same white jade hue as her skin, but she matched them with her raven hair instead. She flew ahead in order to lead me, then banked toward the south island, and the reproduction of Grandmother’s home. We flew in through the hole we exited.
“Drop your wings and dive into the lake,” she called out, then demonstrated, diving deep into the middle. I followed and then we were together under water, swimming back toward the fountain pool.
Immortal Mother had Little Jia take time compression down to 1:1 thrice more, for repeat refinement sessions. The first was in the late afternoon, not long before the mortals arrived for dinner, and the other two were during the night, while they slept. Each time, Little Jia returned the world to 1000:1 to let me rest.
But I grew uneasy in the process, because every time we were in 1:1, I would feel strong, repeated draws of Holy mana. I doubted it would be Austrydhur, here in Sky Ocean, so I thought it had to be either Mireia or Melione.
§
During my eighty three days in Sky Ocean so far, Huade grew more than four hours older. At 1000:1, it would have been barely more than two hours, but the body refinement sessions at 1:1 were becoming progressively longer, adding an additional two hours. During that time, the Holy mana draws continued, eating at my heart as I worried for why they were needed.
I did manage to fall asleep during a 1000:1 period though. At the end of which, I woke at the center of a pile of cats, pupper and Amelia. Why Amelia was mixed in, pressing her bare bosom into my arm as she hugged it, and why a blanket had appeared to cover us, were at that moment mysteries to me.
“Your grandmother returned to Huade to obtain news for you yesterday,” Immortal Mother told me. She was relaxing in the water near the fountain. “Little Jia is about to take compression down to 1:1 to shorten her absence.”
In other words, brace yourself.
I had been in the middle of body tempering exercises for all previous times. This would be the first time I felt that pressure while at rest.
I nodded and Immortal Mother apparently signaled, because I felt the increase of pressure once more. But… only just barely. It was nothing like the pressure of the first time.
She nodded. “Good. You’re most of the way there. Not enough to tolerate it at Huade’s spiritual density, but you’re close to parity here in Sky Ocean.”
Amelia wriggled and gripped my arm harder when I tried to slip free, so I gave up and just lifted my head to send Immortal Mother a wry smile. Keeping my voice soft, I asked, “How much longer do you think I need?”
Her persona was suppressed, yet I could feel Fan Li’s indignation at how easily I was ascending a ladder she spent a millennium and a half climbing. Yes, it was myself, recalling her struggles.
She shook her head. “You shouldn’t equate them. You forget that we designed the Elder physique to house a near-Immortal in the first place. While your physique is working in your favor, Fan Li’s half-spirit physique worked against her. It certainly appears unfair from the mortal perspective, considering the sheer effort they must exert for the same result, but you were never a proper mortal in the first place, child. This rapid progress is merely your soul returning things to how they were meant to be.”
“So, how long?”
“We will remain at 1:1 from now on. Another two or three body tempering sessions, lasting a few hours each, will cement things into place for you. I will allow you to use your bipedal form today as well. But that’s only for Sky Ocean. As for when you can return to Huade…”
She shook her head. “That will still be quite some time, I’m afraid.”
Crestfallen, I dropped my head back to the grass. For a moment there, I thought I was nearly home free.
“Thriving in this spiritual density is far easier for you than thriving in Huade’s, I’m afraid. And once you reach parity, you will no longer be fighting the pressure of Heaven’s Law. That will make things far slower for you.”
“I need to get back to Huade though!” I fretted.
“You shouldn’t worry so much, child. Your fear that your pregnancy progressing too rapidly for Huade’s timeline is already addressed, now that we can maintain parity in the flow of time.”
“My duchy is in danger, and I’m still not there!”
“You only left four hours ago, child,” she scolded gently.
I frowned. I knew that, but if she planned for Little Jia to run time at 1:1 from now on, events transpiring on Huade would progress at a pace equal to our own. Which meant that, by this time tomorrow, twenty eight hours would have passed without my presence.
Immortal Mother flashed her gentle smile, then shook her head.
“As others have already told you, don’t mistake your responsibility as their duchess as a burden that you bear alone. You have many good mortals and nonmortals watching over your domain.”
“It’s impossible for me not to worry!”
But now yukata-clad maids arrived to wake Amelia and serve our breakfast and Immortal Mother wouldn’t discuss it further. They were clothed because I had insisted a few days before this that being surrounded by nude beauties first thing in the morning was too much stress for my fangs.
I don’t know when Little Jia reverted to human form or even woke up, but she now appeared, kneeling in her kimono, respectfully setting out cups on a flat stone and pouring green tea. Out of my reach…
“It is safe for you to use your legs now, child,” Immortal Mother told me.
Even with my adventure outside the previous day, I was feeling stir crazy being confined to the lake, so I eagerly transformed… then realized that nudity was more embarrassing with legs than with flukes and quickly grew my swimwear raiment.
Which was a bit lacking. The ‘bottoms’ were just a pareo, after all. Having nothing but a glorified scarf tied around your hips isn’t exactly being covered. I know it was stupid, considering I had just been naked, but I carefully guarded the pareo’s hem as I stood for the first time in ages.
“Your Highness, is something troubling you?” Khortys stepped near to me to ask, noticing right away that I wasn’t happy.
“I need proper clothing,” I muttered back.
“We’ve prepared a swimsuit for you, Your Highness,” she answered with a smile.
I’m sure it’s easy to imagine, given the sensibilities of elven maids from the Fairy King’s Castle and the swimsuits worn by Princess Amelia, just what kind of a suit they prepared for me. But I will admit, it could have been worse.
She put me in a one-piece with too much cleavage and side-bewbage, but Amelia, whilst jiggling to a disturbing degree in her bright yellow two-piece, gushed over the thing. I ended up tolerating it as usual. Besides, I couldn’t dislike finally having legs again. Or sitting normally while enjoying a pleasant breakfast. Or leading Austrydhur up to the secret spot up the hill, to enjoy her in private while the others were still distracted with their meal.
