Chapter 5 : Humans are Wizards okay!

A vast emptiness. Then a vast everythingness. Then emptiness once more. What is something that lives constantly in two states?

The space shrinks and expands each second like a rubber band. Two rubber bands? One expanding and one shrinking. A Light blinding and then the darkness swallowing. All encompassing and being encompassed. 

My eyes strain to open as my head settles down. The images that haunted and enlightened me in my dreams fading to nothingness leaving me confused. 

Confused? What am I confused about? 

Darting awake I prop my body up looking around my room. A room I've been waking up to for the last few weeks, the room of me from this reality. 

There is a distinct lack of silky fluff in my arms. "Orsouri?"

Squeak! 

Looking over the room once more I spot a small hole in the ground dug up by the escapee in question. Surely sleeping in my arms wasn't so bad right? I only held her tightly to my chest and buried my face in her absolutely heavenly soft fluff all night long. 

"Okay, maybe I was a little rough with you last night. Living in this world without the body pillow I so intimately cuddled every night to sleep is hell! I needed something soft to hold!"

Squeak Squeak!

"Oh? Not that? You found something?"

Moving away from the bed in my tattered pajamas I hurry over to the hole my little cloud dug. Inside I can see her covered in dust pawing at what looks like a wooden object. Eventually with the effort of us both I pulled it out.

"Why is this thing so heavy! Is it full of rocks?"

Orsouri peeks over to me before squeaking in a manner that affirms my previous conjecture signaling that yes in fact it is a box full of rocks. 

"Huh?"

My hands fumble with the box for a while before eventually finding a rusted latch that comes loose with a little more effort and humiliating noise that I most assuredly wish I didn't make out loud. Peeking inside low and behold I find rocks! Any geologist's wet dream is what I would say but instead I stay in awe. Not just any rocks! Soul Gems! 

These things are expensive, at least 10,000 credits a pop and I can see 8 of them. Of course selling them would be idiotic, rather it would be far more worthwhile to use them! Soul Gems were one of the basic resources to increase cultivation faster after all! 

Fishing around to take all of them out, my hand catches something at the bottom of the box in a corner. It feels almost as if I can pull it away. Without second judgment that's just what I do. It's a box of buried treasures in my house ergo; all your treasures are belong to us!

I would like to say I didn't giggle at my joke but I would be lying. 

The bottom of the box pulls away letting me peek at what was hidden beneath as my nerves tense. I quickly realize what I have uncovered, forcing my breath to speed up and grow heavy. 

[Beasts Paradise]

A well worn book with a torn and broken faded cover stares back at me making me uncomfortable. The words drilled into my eyes in a catching way hypnotically forcing me to stare and get lost. 

This book is dangerous, or what's left of it. It looks like only a few pages survived whatever era this book is from. It looks so archaic, the words while comprehensible clearly not a language I was ever taught. The School mentioned something like this, books from a bygone era prior to modern beast mastery, books that were written closer to the heavenly dao. 

"If novels taught me anything then this must be an opportunity granted by fate, I your most humble discoverer will learn you well." 

The adorable dusty cloud lets over an annoyed squeak letting me know that the most humble discoverer was her and not I. Details, clouds should focus on being soft, clean and cute. 

"I know. My most amazing little baby found such a huge treasure. You can have two of the gems! If I grow stronger using the other ones then we can eat even better food! Maybe even in the future these gems will be the pellets you eat daily!"

Orsouri's eyes lit up, I could clearly see her little cogs turning as she imagined such a future. A pile of delicious and rare ores and treasure for her to nom on freely. She responded as I imagined taking her two gems and hurried over to the little den she made next to my bed. I'll have to remind her later that it most likely won't be getting much use so long as she stays so cute and cuddly. 

Intensely taking my eyes back to the book I open the first page instantly getting absorbed in the preview.

My mind wanders back to the lecture Miss Jacobs gave the day I transmigrated.

“Cultivation methods upon reaching the Iron stage of cultivation open up a beast space within the beast tamer to store contracted pets. From the Copper tier and above a new contract slot is opened allowing beast tamers to contract new pets and diversify their strengths. The amount of beasts and the strength of them help this process. The pressure pets generate helps temper and expand the beast space, simultaneously pets too strong can damage it.”

[Beasts Paradise]

[The art of creating a paradise for beasts upon cultivation. A cultivation method designed to modify a beast tamer's personal space into a beast's paradise that grows as the beast tamer does. This space acts as a separate world. Energy generated in this world feeds back into the BeastMaster tempering their body into one similar in strength to a beasts.]

........?

A world? The words are there, and I understand them. Why can't I seem to come to terms with what they mean? Most cultivation methods let the beast space grow yes but only within the confines of letting more beasts be contracted. While beasts stay in the beast space they are asleep metabolizing the things they consume and healing more efficiently. The beast space is less a pocket space and more a bedroom for beasts.

Who created such an insane Cultivation method? 

The Enhancements it gives to the user are crazy as well. Rather than focusing on being able to wield energy to attack or to reinforce oneself it uses the energy to cultivate the Beast’s Paradise letting the user draw from the energy stored within to temper the body and unlock spirituality. 

Humans are wizards okay! They are supposed to use the energy they cultivate in a way similar to magic. Only people with talents suited to fighting in melee would bother tempering themselves, even then it's a grueling process and the energy can leave the body creating flashy attacks. Cultivation manuals that temper the body aren't rare but ones that do so and grant such a op bonus to training beasts most certainly are. It seems balanced that all it can do is strengthen a person though, they can’t use the energy to influence anything outside the body.

I read the pages carefully, coming to a conclusion that saddens me. Only the Iron tier cultivation method is left. Maybe I can find the rest of the book elsewhere? Maybe it's a secret art held by a Noble family within the federation?

I don't have a cultivation method at the moment. While I would lose the bonuses of the cultivation method when I switched off of it I could still retain them until I find something more complete. 

What a treasure indeed. 

Humming to myself I bring out my tome and look over the details listed. Thinking deeply I remember one of the less used functions of the tome. Absorbing. It can absorb texts!

"Keeping something like this is dangerous so storing it this way is for the best.'' I assure myself as I flip to the final pages in the tome placing the book over it. The book seems to glow even more violently as it sinks slowly into the tomes pages the same way quicksand devours those unlucky enough to get trapped by it. My eyes staring excitedly into the tome during the process. 

Eventually the glow fades and my fingers brush over the paper in an overjoyed and nervous manner. 

"Let's get started!" 

Following the method described, with a soul gem in each hand, I sit in lotus position taking a deep and emotional breath.

Mind emptying, emotions dulling, breath deepening. 

The energy paths slowly get drawn in my body following the diagram as each breath takes the latent energy in the atmosphere and brings it into my meridians, the gems in each hand supplying a cool and energizing flow that supplemented the process. I feel a small tug as I do the Tome in front of me siphoning some of the energy away. The energy I wasn’t able to control and absorb myself.

Feel free to do so. Feel free, weird Tome.

My thoughts once more drift into my cultivation as I ignore most everything else in my surroundings, the feel of the energy coursing through my body almost addicting. Like pouring liquid comfort into my bloodstream.

Eventually I hear a sound that startles me from my trance. A sound that makes me grin. My mind trembling for a moment as the energy that was slowly tracing the diagram drawn in my body rushes into my dantian, the vortex compressing the space within myself forming something I didn't think I would have the privilege of creating so quickly. 

"My Beast space!"