[Ashborn-B1] 73. Chump Change (Patreon)

LXXIII

Chump Change

Judith’s boots clanged on the tiled floor of the extensive hallway on the other side of the entry room. Two rows of knight—so many that they seemed to stretch into infinity—lined the walls. Light filtered through the picture windows and illuminated their white armour. Some wielded claymores—which were unenchanted just like Scar’s main form. Others wore shields bigger than Garen.

‘Level sixty. Level sixty-one…’

The army arranged here could slaughter every disciple in the Tomb.

‘They must be under restriction.’ That’s what she hoped. Putting this much might in the hands of a whimsical spirit like Scar was asking for trouble.

She side-eyed the weapon-spirit, who bobbed through the air and whistled.

“I’m sure you’ll love what I’m about to show you!” he said.

Yeah, right.

A passing picture window showed a blue sky full of clouds that swallowed the horizon. The illusion was so well-crafted she couldn’t tell it was one beyond using her logic.

When she turned away from studying the sky for any lies, they’d reached another set of steps. This one much shorter than the first but wider. Red carpet covered the bottom floor.

“This is where my children sleep,” Scar said.

“Your children?” But wasn’t he…her social training kicked in. “I’m certain they’re all lovely.”

The blade sprite chuckled. “You thought a blade couldn’t have children just now, didn’t you?”

She kept her face passive and the spirit chuckled again.

“Normally, that’s true. However, weapons like myself which reach a certain threshold can develop real, spiritual manifestations. I’m like a true spirit. Only one tethered to a sword.”

She had known that weapons could develop. Sage Aetheris, Caelia’s Father, had a weapon that was capable of fighting on its own even if the sage fell unconscious. As far as Judith was aware though, the weapon didn’t have a sprite, nor anything close to ‘true intelligence.’

Certainly not the ability to birth children.

She hadn’t identified Scar because that’d be rude, but she wished she could’ve. ‘What level would a weapon like Scar be? What about his grade?’

Hazarding a guess didn’t even cross her mind. That’s how far out of the regular wheelhouse Scar was.

Despite the strangeness of the situation, her chest thrummed. The child of a blade-sprite could be nothing other than a weapon, no? If he was offering her something that had even a tenth of his potential, things were looking good.

The hall at the bottom of the stairs was a stone’s throw in length. A massive, circular gate was embedded into the wall. One made up of five concentric circles whose enchantments were a veritable, blazing star to the senses.

“Open the gate,” Scar told one of ten guards standing at attention. These were in the level seventies.

Hulking metal groaned as the large warrior touched a panel at the side, making the circles rotate like wheels. The outer circles rotated clockwise while the inner circle followed the hand of the clock.

Judith had thought it impossible, but the room on the other side was brighter than the hallway. So much so that she had to shield her eyes again.

“Father!” she heard a cry while blinded. “You’re visiting us!”

“Hooray!”

“What took you so long—”

Too many feminine voices for Judith to keep track off cried out all at once. Through her returning vision, she spotted the figures of female sprites. Though they were mostly transparent, each of them wore a flamboyant dress that exposed varying degrees of skin or bust. Their hair was done meticulously with not a single strand sitting out of place, and their skin was so polished it gleamed like a well-sharpened blade.

Essence trailed from behind of all of them, though Judith couldn’t yet see the weapons they must be bound to.

Ahead of her, a well-tended grove adorned the dome-shaped chamber, which was many times larger than the ballroom back in Castle Shield. A tiled road zigzagged through the centre, past well-springs wherein more sprites were bathing and chatting.

All of them were women.

“My apologies, my lovelies,” Scar said. “I had to entertain some guests.”

“No fair!”

“Entertaining her?” One of the sprites came to hover in front of her face and studied her intently. A moment later, she turned away and huffed. “Ugly. Why don’t you go bother someone else?”

A nerve popped on Judith’s forehead, though she tried to control herself. This place was more treacherous than a damned snake pit.

The sprites threw a multitude of jeers at her face as she followed Scar along the tiled road, deeper into the garden. The bathing sprites openly stared at her with affronted expressions, not even bothering to cover their naked figures after they noticed her watching them.

“We’re all family here,” Scar explained without Judith asking, “so my children don’t know the concept of ‘shame.’”

‘I bet.’

His children buzzed around them as they came up on the far end of the garden, where a simple, wooden cottage stood beside the path. Scar rasped his knuckles on the entrance.

“Dorothy, it’s me. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

A noise too soft for Judith to decipher echoed from the other side.

Scar obviously had no trouble understanding it as he pushed open the entrance and let them in.

The inside of the home was just as humble as the outside let on. More humble even than what Judith expected. There was no furniture except for a single, wooden bed.

“This is Dorothy, my daughter.”

Dorothy was clothed in a white one-piece. Her transparent hair covered her bed from head to toe and fell past the sides like she was a princess from a fairy tale.

What drew Judith’s gaze was the rise and fall of her chest. Heavy. Burdened. Her cheeks were flushed, too.

‘She’s not getting enough essence.’ Spirits didn’t breathe air but the lifeforce of the universe. She was literally almost suffocating just lying down.

Scar could only have one reason for bringing her here.

“Is…is she the offer, Lord Scar?” Judith almost couldn’t get the words out. “I—I don’t mean to overstep, but will she be able to fight?” A frown couldn’t help but dawn on her forehead despite feeling sorry for the sprite.

Scar snorted. “Watch your tone, Child. Dorothy is a spirit leagues above your paygrade.”

Judith blinked. Scar continued.

“If I’m being honest, I wasn’t going to offer you anything significant.” He fixed her in place with a look. “Your core is middling—”

Her chest thumped like she’d been struck.

“—and your body isn’t in top shape. You must’ve skipped out on your physical cultivation a lot.”

She swallowed. This was straight up humiliating her. But what was she supposed to say in response to the truth?

“So I guessed,” Scar sighed. “What good is a wielder who’s too weak to handle their blade? Dorothy is too good for you.”

“So why offer her, then?” Her words came out as a snarl.

Powerful spirit or not, she had her limits.

The sprite crossed its arms, while it hovered and stared at the face of his daughter, who’d fallen asleep during their conversation. “As you can see, Dorothy will not make it through the year.”

The angry pressure in her jaw let up. She side-eyed the weapon-sprite.

“For a reason that escapes even my own understanding, her spirit didn’t manifest a weapon when she was born. That makes her different from my other daughters in more ways than one. She doesn’t have a physical medium to bind her spirit to. The form you see in front of you now is merely a projection. It has no base. In essence, she’s nothing but a clump of loose energy.”

Judith shifted in place. Was that why she was bigger than the other sprites? Though formidable, the spirit of the other daughters made Judith think they were infants. Likely, the weapons they were bound to limited their size and development.

“There’s no limit to her growth?” Judith asked.

Scar nodded. “Together with her lack of a base, her spirit has grown too powerful for her own good. She can’t keep it together. Think of it as a child growing too big too quickly—their bones wouldn’t be able to support their weight.”

They would have trouble just standing. The same way Dorothy was having trouble merely lying down and breathing.

Judith tilted her head. ‘Then why would she not just…’

“Cultivation doesn’t come natural to a weapon spirit like it does to a human or a beast,” Scar said without her having to ask. “Its a skill that takes centuries to learn for the most genius among us.”

As his voice trailed off, the silence between them stretched out across the room, broken only by Dorothy’s laboured breathing. The poor daughter briefly opened her eyes, stared up at Judith, and smiled.

‘That single mumble from we entered must’ve drained all her strength.’

Between the female sprite’s loud breaths, wheels turned in Judith’s head. Dorothy’s problem was that she was growing much too powerful. That was the inverse of Judith’s own issue.

‘I lack talent and raw ability.’

If she formed a bond with Dorothy, the spirit could share her growing power with her. And since the sprite was basically a manifestation of light essence, Judith could use it for everything—fuelling her skills was one of them, but the most important was undoubtedly cultivation.

Whereas others would need to turn raw essence into light essence themselves or drain it from essence stones, the sprite could single-handedly sustain Judith’s growth.

Scar scoffed. “Seems like you’re realising what’s on the table.” He spun on her. “My terms are the following: First, you will share your physical body with Dorothy. That way, you’ll act as a container for her powers.”

“My physical body? Not my core?”

“You idiot! Is being forgetful one of your flaws as well? I said: Dorothy is leagues above you! Your current core could never hold her. Part of this first condition is that you will bind her to your core once you grow strong enough.” He took a moment to glance at his daughter. “Should Dorothy allow it, of course.”

Judith frowned. “That means her power will constantly be seeping into my body…how would that work?”

He huffed. “You’ll need to train hard enough to become a proper vessel. Should her growth surpass your own…”

He made a popping sound, which made Judith grip her bicep. The image that called up in her head wasn’t pretty.

“What else?” Judith asked.

“My second and final term: you will remain chaste for as long as Dorothy is bound to you.”

Dorothy’s breathing was loud enough to be an explosion with how quiet it got.

“Sorry?” Judith said.

“Light is an element that benefits from purity,” Scar continued as if he hadn’t just told her not to have intercourse ever in her life. “So, too, do weapons crafted from the element. The more pure your soul, the stronger the bond between the two of you will be.”

Which meant more power could flow between the two of them. That would save Dorothy from dying, though it put Judith at greater risk.

‘Staying chaste…’

She hated to admit it, but her thoughts went to a single person. A tall, good for nothing that could only play the flute. He was kneeling in her garden, one hand cradling her own as he produced a golden ring with his other.

‘Judith, will you…’

She breathed in, and the image of Ray’s face overlayed on top of her ex-fiancé’s. Blood burst from his midsection, where the white stalker had cut him in half. Then the energy bubbled out of him as his soul joined the mass of spirits whirling into moon over Vyke’s head.

‘Only those willing to risk their lives should enter,’ Herbert’s words once more resounded in her head.

And now she understood the whole of it.

The spirit’s rewards required payment. He could’ve asked her for anything: part of her lifespan, her soul, you name it. Yet look what he’d asked instead. Giving up her body and taking on the risk of popping like a balloon. But if she could keep up with Dorothy’s growth, that payment was non-existent. The only other thing was a vow to remain pure. However, purity in female cultivators was encouraged anyway, so what was the latter really losing her?

The only thing she was discarding was a child’s past fantasy which had died years ago.

And if giving up part of her self would let her achieve her current goals—

“Looks like you’ve come to a decision,” Scar said. “I will warn you, the process will be painful. It may kill you outright.”

Eyelids closed and sharpened Dorothy’s figure in her sight.

—then she’d do anything.