Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 90 - Consequences (Patreon)

Elijah hibernated.

In some ways, he was intently aware of his surroundings.  He could feel Orveth Kaal more clearly than ever before, and to the point where it almost felt like he’d wrapped a domain around it.  It certainly didn’t paint as complete a picture as his locus, but the sense approached that surrounding his satellite trees back on Earth.

In his current state, he couldn’t be bothered to care, though.  The bulk of his mind remained dormant, and if he’d been capable of high reasoning, he might’ve attached that capability to his cultivation.  If it weren’t for the plethora of leaves and spores, he would have been completely comatose.  Even with them, it felt like a half-awake state where he was vaguely aware of his own unconsciousness. 

To some degree, he knew about the crystal that had formed around him.  It was made almost entirely of solidified vitality threaded with dense flows of ethera that connected him to the Worldseed. 

As he lay there, he transformed. 

The blueprint he’d created during his cultivation session drove most of the changes, but the system stepped in to correct any mistakes he’d missed.  The more perfect his plan, the less the system had to bridge the gaps.  And Elijah had worked for years to get it just right.

Even so, it wasn’t complete.  Despite his advances in power, he was still human.  And humans always made mistakes.

That reality was unavoidable, and as far as Elijah could tell, it extended to every version of sapient life.  Not even transcendents were perfect.  People like Mano were evidence enough of that, and that was just one Elijah had actually met.  It was enough for him to infer imperfection across the spectrum of life.

If he’d had to guess, he would have said that the system was the same.  Perhaps it came closer to perfection than any other entity, but even it could make mistakes.

Elijah hadn’t seen them, but he didn’t expect to.

Not at his level, either of expertise or experience.

Whatever the case, Elijah felt certain that his version of his new body would have worked.  Perhaps not with perfect efficiency, but it would’ve still constituted a huge leap forward.  With the system’s assistance, it would become something even more impressively powerful.

But that kind of thing took time.

The system’s tinkering finished quickly enough, but the finalization process stretched on for days and days as Elijah’s body entered a period of metamorphosis.  It wasn’t unlike that of a butterfly in a cocoon.  Normally, he would have been entirely unaware of what was happening, but it seemed he’d left those days far behind.  So, he felt everything as his body dissolved into a liquified slurry before being rebuilt, cell by cell. 

He’d done something similar countless times during his cultivation session.  However, the difference was stark enough to ensure that he knew how much more complete and complex the final metamorphosis would be.

His versions had been temporary.  He knew it, and he approached it as such.  During each session, he’d confined his actions to iterations on his overarching plan.  If he’d allowed it, his body would have naturally returned to its baseline.  Obviously, he hadn’t let that happen, occupying multiple leaves within his mind to keep the plan steady. 

What was happening within that cocoon was different.  The results were meant to be permanent.  And effectively, the session would eventually move his baseline to coincide with Elijah’s new blueprint. 

The way he looked at it was like he’d spent the past years molding wet clay.  The process now fired said clay until it hardened into its final shape. 

Fortunately, there was no pain involved.

Or rather, there was a significant degree of agony.  The difference was that he couldn’t feel it in his state, which came as a relief Elijah didn’t realize he needed.  The sudden cessation of pain had come as quite a shock to his tortured body, mind, and soul.  It wasn’t until he felt its absence that he recognized how accustomed he’d become to pain.

That wasn’t natural. 

And if he’d been a little more aware, he might’ve wondered how that had affected his outlook on life.  One could only endure so much pain before it began to leave scars, mental and physical alike. 

But Elijah had known that from the very beginning.  He had accepted it as the price of progress, and one he’d been willing to endure.  So, even if he might’ve considered regret, he never would’ve crossed that threshold. 

He had made his choices, and for good reason.  There was no reason in looking back on them with remorse.

The cocoon constantly pushed ethera and vitality into his system, but it didn’t spontaneously manifest.  As far as Elijah knew, that wasn’t possible.  All energy came from somewhere.  In this case, the source was the Worldseed itself, with the mixture of ethera and vitality connecting the cocoon like an umbilical cord.

If Elijah had tried to process that much life energy without the cocoon, he would have erupted into a mass of tumors, much as Ok’tarik had when he’d used the Breath of Life on the orc.  But instead of a massive tidal wave, Elijah experienced the intertwined energies as a metered flow, strong but steady.

That made all the difference, and it allowed his body to gradually adjust to the transformation he’d forced upon himself.

Still, it was no quick process.  Weeks passed.  Then months.  Through it all, Elijah knew only peace.  In his semi-conscious state, he couldn’t bring himself to worry over the fate of his friends, his family, or the creations he’d helped usher into being.  Instead, he adopted a peace of mind that had always eluded his conscious thoughts.

Vaguely, he was aware that, every few days, the Worldseed pulsed, sending ripples through the core and, presumably, across Orveth Kaal.  Elijah had no idea what that meant.  Nor could he muster the mental energy to care.  Instead, he focused only on his contentment, which slowly pervaded his entire mind until only a few leaves managed to resist that false sense of peace.

Even so, he had no real way to mark the passage of time, save for his internal sense, which had always been a little suspect.  Instead, he focused almost entirely on the process itself, noting all the corrections made by the system.  Once it finished perfecting his plans, the transformation began, and Elijah watched that with unabashed anticipation.  He saw each layer build, cell by cell, until they came together. 

For most people, it would have been a horrifying experience.  Torture, to many.  Yet, for someone like Elijah?  It was enlightening, and not the false version that had been forced upon him by the system’s cocoon.  He watched as biology and magic intertwined to create something new and more impressive than the sum of its parts. 

His body was a masterpiece of bioengineering, magic, and nature.

Finally, after a long time, everything came together.  Even then, his body continuously drew power and vitality from the Worldseed.  It wasn’t until Elijah felt a mental itch that he recognized that the process was waiting for his input.  And like a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon, he flexed his newly formed arms.  They could scarcely move within the gelatinous combination of ethera and vitality that served to nourish his every cell. 

He forced the issue, eventually brushing his fingers against the hard surface of the emerald-like cocoon.

Elijah pushed.

But it didn’t give.

It was like pressing against a mountain, for all the good it did.  But Elijah was used to moving mountains. So, he did it again.  Harder.  Eventually, he managed to form a fist, which he rammed through the viscous semi-solid stuff and into hard surface.  It rang like a bell, vibrating his eardrums and sending a deep sense of foreboding down his spine. 

Elijah ignored that, punching it again.  The second sound came at a slightly different frequency that rippled through his every cell.  He could feel them solidifying further under the odd sound.  He hit it again, and with more force.  His newly formed body responded even more easily to his commands.  With more strength.  More coordination.  It was as if he was a child taking his first steps, though each stride brought with it a little more confidence. 

He hit it a fourth time, and his body lit up with ethera.  The hyphae-like connections he’d woven through each cell blazed with energy, and the cells vibrated as they eagerly drank ethera.  Strength flooded Elijah’s muscles, and he cocked his arm before sending a devastating punch toward the emerald cocoon.

It cracked.

Only a hairline, maybe an inch long.  But it was the beginning of the end.  Each subsequent punch brought with it another slightly different sound that further awakened his body.  Gradually, that crack spread into a spiderweb of rifts.  Then, after nine strikes, the shell broke entirely.

Suddenly, Elijah was in pain.

He let out a roar as he plunged headfirst into the torture he’d almost forgotten. He curled into a ball, his every muscle vibrating with tension.  His jaw clenched, and his fists turned into tight balls of trembling fury.

Then, something unexpected happened.

His cells came alive.

Like a newborn letting out its first cry, each cell yawned.  The mycelial connections blazed with energy as they absorbed ethera from every direction.  They didn’t funnel it into his soul.  That wasn’t the point.  Instead, they circulated it through the entire system, then into his core, where it became a part of him. 

When it exited his core back into his heart, it served to strengthen him in ways he couldn’t have anticipated.  More importantly, it also inoculated him to the detrimental effects of that caustic ethera.

It didn’t completely nullify the pain.  Just lessened it to a dull ache – probably strong enough to incapacitate most people, but nothing compared to what it had been before.  Elijah bore it, though not easily. 

Still, the lessening of the pain allowed him to focus on three things. 

First, the interior of the core was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.  Before, he’d been far too distracted to recognize it, but now, he had the mental freedom to do just that.  And he was more than impressed.  The ethera surrounding the Worldseed had taken on a consistency that wasn’t quite liquid, but wasn’t really solid, either.  Somewhere in between, it was more than capable of supporting his weight. 

The whole mass had taken on a white-blue tint, but with swirling veins of green interspersed.  It was almost like scuba diving off the coast of Hawaii, though without the dense coral or vibrant sea life.

The color was similar, though.

What’s more, Elijah’s body seemed more than capable of remaining intact.  Before, the presence of such dense ethera was powerful enough to strip the flesh from his bones, and in only a second.  Now, it just turned it slightly red.

The second thing Elijah noticed was related.  His body had changed, and probably more significantly than after any other cultivation session.  Not only was he a little taller and denser, but his scales had been altered as well.  Somehow, the ribbon-like pattern twisting around his arms had thinned.  However, they had also become more vibrant, like true emeralds of the highest quality, and ones with tiny motes of life dancing within their depths.

Otherwise, the outward expression of his body seemed to have been perfected in a way that would have been alarming before the world’s transformation.  If Elijah would have seen someone so perfectly formed, he would have assumed it was the result of photo manipulation or artificial intelligence.

He’d always been a handsome man.  Elijah could admit as much without false modesty.  But now?  His features had pushed into almost-uncanny territory.  His face would have been at home on the cover of magazines or on a movie screen.

Cultivation went far beyond looks, though.  In only a moment, he could tell that he’d taken a qualitative leap forward in terms of strength.  The distance would need to be determined later, but Elijah predicted it would be significant.

But more than anything, he found satisfaction in a simple notification:

Congratulations!  You have cultivated a Body of Gold.

He’d known what to expect from the notification, but seeing it came with a wave of relief.  But now that he’d achieved his goal, his mind immediately turned to the next steps for Orveth Kaal. 

Because he wasn’t finished with the ancestral world.  Far from it.