Chapter 569 - Pulsating purple brain worms.

Liang snorted as the entire formation ritual began to glow a brilliant carmine hue, somehow seeming more real than the rest of the deep sea rig platform they stood upon.

“I think you’ve found yourself a new apprentice, Osirian.”

Osirian smirked, eyes twinkling almost playfully. “Perhaps.” He regarded Eric a bit too intensely. “You’ve already defied logic by proving yourself a natural prodigy along both orthodox and unorthodox paths. An aptitude not just for channeling Spiritual Energy, but your own life force as well. Aptitudes that are normally at least somewhat in conflict, yet you’ve been blessed with an aptitude for both! Now, do you have what it takes to learn what some would call forbidden arts?”

The man smirked at Eric’s surprise. “Forbidden, sensei?”

“Forbidden only because the masters above refuse even to avail themselves of its secrets. Secrets that I alone may judge you worthy of exploring, just as my master did before me.”

Eric, excited enough that he had to work to keep his breathing steady, just bowed, fists to chest. “I would be honored, Sensei Osiri—what the fucking hell is that!?”

Eric shivered at the sight of vile abominations squiggling free of coal black brush and glistening purple ink. His lips curled in visceral displeasure as the intent-looking wujen began scribing glistening purple and violet hued sigils that looked as much like writhing brain worms and blinking eyestalks as they did the letters to any alphabet.

“What the fucking hell even is that foul AI slop?” A dismayed Eric hissed, earning quite the scowl from the wujen who spun around and smacked him. Hard.

Eric deliberately relaxed his body and rolled his cheek with the blow… simply because he wasn’t an idiot who would alienate the one man who had already taught him so fucking much and he was so filled with gratitude, but he really, really didn’t like where this was going as he rolled to the deck, earning snorts and chuckles.

“Finally treating him like an apprentice should be.”

“Who the hell does he think he is, showing so little respect?”

“Our highland masters would have beaten him silly or expelled him. No second chances.”

“Kid’s too arrogant. Won’t let anything sink into his thick skull unless it’s what he’s already figured out.”

Eric winced internally at the latter comments, both hating their truth and being humbled by it.

Because they were right.

He was being an arrogant prick with so many things that came naturally to him that he hardly needed a teacher at all. And now with a sigil formation alphabet so hideous and strange that he felt shivers even seeing it… without a teacher, he’d get nowhere at all.

Nowhere at learning even the fundamentals of an art that by Osirian’s own admission was so extremely rare that very, very few people held any inkling of its very existence, let alone how to manipulate it.

Eric immediately lowered himself in a deep bow. “Forgiveness, Master Osirian. In my… startlement I misspoke, beholding an alphabet utterly beyond my ken.”

The hot-eyed wujen glared at Eric for long seconds before snorting, ire fading to dark bemusement. “Something you can’t instantly master, making us all feel like imbeciles? Hah! Well then, maybe I can actually be a teacher to you, prodigy… and maybe you can show some damn respect as my student!”

Eric winced, lowering his head further. “It is as you say, Master Osirian. This one is exceedingly grateful for whatever lore you choose to impart to my overly thick skull.”

The wujen smirked, looking at his own reddened palm, the wind whipping his hair making him look more like a wild monk than ever. “Damn right, you’re thick.” He gave Eric a hard look. “You were rolling with my blow.”

Eric nodded. “Of course, sensei. Only a fool of a student would allow his master to come to unnecessary harm.”

Osirian scowled. “So, you’re saying that there’s no point in beating you at all, then.”

Eric forced a chuckle. “That would be bad on your hands and embarrassing for me, and a waste of both our precious time.”

This earned a bemused snort. “Ha. You’re no fun at all! Alright, kid. Let’s see if we can actually get some of our most important sigils into your thick skull.”

Eric blinked at this, trying not to glare at the pulsating purple brain worms that were totally smirking at him and only pretending to be placid sigils. He could feel the way they writhed and twisted, whenever he turned his glance.

“These are some of the most important? Not the symbols tied to blood and body humors that will be channeling so much wild power into the muscles, bones, and sinews of our body cultivators?”

Tang chuckled. “This boy’s definitely your future apprentice, Osirian.”

“Hardly, if he can’t even set up a warding-eye formation!”

The wujen gave Eric’s shoulder a clap. “These sigils were taught by an old mentor that shall remain nameless. Yet however odd his nature, his lessons were ones I value as much as any other. Unlocking a path utterly alien to most of us. And you know what that means, right?”

Eric stared at the man, getting a weird, twitchy feeling in his gut.

And somehow Osirian could sense it. The wujen scowled. “Spit it out.”

“The kraken the other day. It was unleashing Psionic attacks.”

His words earned confused looks from the other men.

“What the hell is he talking about?”

“No fucking idea.”

“Watch your words, boy.” Osirian hissed.

Eric winced. “Point is, all the fragile wanna-be body cultivators that Vu brought along… they did not get their heads popped. Nor did any of the mortals.”

Eric ignored the increasingly confused looks.

“Does he mean by the shoreline?”

“He must. But there hasn’t been any krakens sighted since the last incursion.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Eric didn’t flinch before the wujen’s scowl. “Because these sigils… they tie into the same sphere of power, right? They ward against Psionics or protect the mind or... something?”

Osirian’s hard gaze softened. “Correct, kid. These sigils are damned useful for protection. Protecting against a kraken’s screams… or against distant prying eyes that have never encountered an art like this.”

Eric’s eyes lit up when it clicked. “And if they never even realize they’re overlooking something, they have no reason to try to counter anything you do! So they will never figure out they’re being warded against, let alone how to pierce the ward, no matter how powerful they are!”

“You got it, kid. Now enough talk. See if you can master the first sigil of our Blighted Eye formation… what the hell is wrong with you, kid?”

The man shook his head as the entire crew laughed.

“You’re retching, just trying to master the first sigil? Ha! I lasted for the first four, when my master taught me.”

A shuddering Eric looked up from his pile of sick, suppressing a shudder. “They glisten. Those sigils glisten! And you can feel them like a bulge in the mind… like the personification of the word ‘moist!’”

Eric’s description earned at least a few flinches from the crowd of otherwise amused onlookers.

His de facto mentor snorted, crossing his arms.

“No more excuses. You’re finally where you need to be, student. Now try to copy the Blinding Eye sigil once more. And unless you want to fucking LICK that ink, you won’t waste another drop!”

Eric suppressed a groan, knowing better than to complain as he got to work transcribing just a copy of the wooden plaque that he was now most definitely using while Osirian got to work finishing the real ritual.

Yet no matter how hard he tried, no matter that this was the most basic of training tools… his gut clenched whenever he felt the glistening sigil come to life, or try to come to life on the smoking parchment… or in his mind.

Opening big pulsating eyeballs and staring so coldly at his poor Sylvan Brain.

He shivered, quickly discarding the mental image, knowing that was bullshit.

It was just a sigil tapping into a source of power that he actually had access to. Even if he had so firmly tied it to a single application, a Desert Dune style shout so intimately tied to his other arts that he could pretend it was just a projection of raw, physical force alone. Which for him, is what it had become.

But he could no longer deny his power’s origins… or that he had far more aptitude, now, for the writhing purple squid-brain power than the average member of his Sylvan Tribe ever would.

And that random thought made him stop cold.

“Say, Osirian?”

The wujen scowled as he put the finishing touches on the final sigil. “What now, apprentice?”

“You didn’t learn these arts from a Squid-brain, did you?” Eric forced a chuckle. “Sorry, that’s a slang term for a creature you’ve probably never—”

The man’s frigid glare froze Eric’s meandering mouth.

“Oh fuck. You did. This is a Squid-brain art!”

“If I did happen to mentor under a Lythid master, then I’d be forced to take offense at your tone. But since I don’t care what trouble idiotic elf boys got up to while in the Underrealm, you can just shut the fuck up and get back to practicing, apprentice!”

“Yes, sensei.” Eric winced, suppressing a shudder as he got back to his pitiful attempts at transcribing… now almost certain that all the writhing sigils were laughing at him.

“Alright, it’s ready! Put the brush down, kid. You can practice the basics later. But for now, the ritual is about to begin!”

With those words, Eric saw all the cultivators that had been in the ship with him, save for the one he had saved who was clearly still recovering, enter the sigil formation.

Osirian gave Eric a pointed look. “Do you .wish to enter? Be warned, boy, that the moment you make that choice… there is no going back.”

Eric furrowed his brow, before it suddenly clicked, his own inner eye having opened so wide to the realities of blood magic in the fascinating new form of crimson sigils immediately understood as the men had all removed their attire, their tattoos more visible in the sickly purple-green light washing over them all.

Crimson tattoos that were outlined with highland sigils and the purple eldritch cursives that his eyes watered whenever he glared at the latter too hard. But the blood sigils he understood as intuitively as his own heartbeat.

Seeing the way they seemed to expand and glow.

He turned to a grimly smiling Osirian with an awed look. “You’re using sigils not just to channel the flow of potency from the beast cores… but also to help draw in as much power as possible via tattoos!” Eric whistled. “Just how potent is a synergistic boost like that, I wonder?”

Osirian snorted, arms crossed, but he didn’t look at all displeased with Eric’s praise. “Strong enough that half these idiots that couldn’t do much more than cleanse their meridians are now deep into Bronze.”

Eric blinked. “Wait, Spiritual Energy storage?”

This earned a snort. “Hardly. At least, not in the orthodox fashion. Lest you forget, we’re all body cultivators here, where the Spiritual Energy is claimed directly by our organs, muscles and bones. Which means we might never develop an awakened soul or a Silver core, depending upon your path, but our bodies are second to none! Our resistance and resilience means that no cultivator able to leave the highland plateau dares to take us lightly!”

His roar of a declaration was met by shouts of approval by all of his and Master Liang’s men, before they all embraced the lotus position and began taking sharp and deep inhalations.

Osirian flashed a pleased smile. “It’s time. Watch and judge for yourself, if this is a path you would walk with us.”

And with a single whisper, Eric sensed multifaceted sigils that Osirian alone had scribed abruptly fade as 11 beast cores that had been temporarily suppressed blazed to sudden life.

Eric’s eyes widened, awed both to sense their potency being drawn directly out of their cores, saturating the blazing double pentagram with such thick, cloyingly potent spiritual energy tied to vastness and the ocean that the formation array seemed to stretch countless miles in directions unimaginable, undulating like light was bending through endless seas, all of it so thick with power that Eric could taste its shockingly sweet potency. Even though almost none escaped the now blazing warding lines of the pentagram itself, the edges roaring with fires of purple and gold.

Eric only noted the roaring howls of the windswept ocean for its sudden absence. The air was deathly still along the entire rig platform, yet the eleven uninjured men’s wild hair whipped around wildly in unseen winds as every last tattoo upon their frames began to glow a brilliant fiery hue… before opening wide, revealing alien blinking eyes now staring Eric’s way, toothy maws drinking in the shockingly rich life force, while spacial tendrils whipped about in violent currents, writhing in directions alien to mankind.

And all of it just a trick of the light.

Eleven supremely gifted body cultivators were drinking in supremely potent Spiritual Energy along crimson sigils and tattoos Eric could now understand perfectly were all he saw, their muscles trembling upon their frames, their bones screaming as hairline fractures became cross-hatched bone fibers of impossible strength as every last wild cultivator within the ritual circle glowed with shockingly rich strength, Eric’s own interface pinging with excitement as one cultivator after another trembled and shook before howling with fierce triumph, having just broken through. So many of them adding another Bronze Rank to the thick rich potency infusing their powerful frames. And only seconds later they resumed their former position, muscles continuing to saturate with power, bones hardening with resilience, their very organs toughening to endure possible centuries of life.

Then, so slowly that one hardly noticed it, both beast cores, cultivators, and sigils began to dim.

Dimming so slowly that not even Eric could be completely sure it wasn’t just the final rays of the afternoon sun that he saw, cloud cover broken, before all 11 cultivators opened their completely human eyes, lurched to their feet, and strode free of the now depleted ritual circle, laughing and commending one another as Master Liang nodded at his wujen with approval.

It was impressive as hell. Eric applauded their breakthroughs. Yet still, he couldn’t deny the icy twist in his gut. It was damned clear that far more was happening than what he saw on the surface… and somehow, he just knew that there was no going back from striding this path.

“That was our best harvest yet, brother. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted such sweet potency shivering through my soul!” Liang commended, earning a pleased from his wujen.

“Then you already know who else you should thank.”

Liang’s hooded gaze met Eric’s own. “You’ve done well… apprentice.”

Eric grinned. “I see that drinking deep of extra-dimensional power agrees with you. I think you just broke through.”

Furrowed brows eased in a smile with Eric’s observation. “Indeed I did. A breakthrough which would have been delayed, I fear, had we not the benefit of your exceptional hunting prowess.”

“And the blood runes, Liang. Tell me your tattoo’s don’t burn and shiver against your skin?”

Liang dipped his head at the wujen’s words. “I would think that anyone claiming to be able to both master and enhance runes learned in a single day would either be fools or charlatans. But I can indeed feel the difference.” Hard eyes locked onto Eric’s own as Liang’s powerful hand clapped his shoulder.

“Be welcome here, disciple.”

Eric bowed solemnly as well. “This one is extremely grateful for your patience, forbearance, and wisdom,” He then turned to give the wujen a bemused smile. “I am grateful for your welcome.”

Osirian’s features lit up with pleasure.

Eric seized the moment. “I don’t suppose you happen to have any Pristine Lotus Blossom Extract or Cloud Dragon’s Breath Tincture, by any chance?”

Osirian snorted with laughter. “Are you serious, boy? Fragile hothouse flowers jealously guarded by the most zealous of highland sects? Do we look like we’re in a desperate panic about the fucking purity of our meridians?”

Eric’s own smile grew strained. “Ah. Of course, sensei. I don’t suppose you know of how one might acquire such?”

“That depends. What’s it for?”

“There are certain paths forward that might be unorthodox, but I have a friend that could benefit from the rapid cycling of their Qi without allowing a buildup of impurities to sicken them from the rapid cultivation. Hence the Lotus Blossom component in addition to the Cloud Dragon’s Breath Tincture, as their constitution is less than perfect. But if they can get through this hurtle, then their examiner, who I don’t think is exactly a registered Spirit Doctor, but we both know that conventionality is sometimes a crock of shit… anyway, they’re hopeful this will be of great benefit to them.”

Eric rubbed the back of his neck, having done his best to prepare a response that was free of lies yet still allowed for a certain degree of anonymity.

Osirian snorted, a smug expression flittering across his features as he crossed his arms, rubbing his chin. “Sounds like this would-be spirit doctor isn’t completely incompetent,” he allowed. “And I won’t even inquire about any other unorthodox sects you met, fleeing highland persecution. Good for them, I say. As long as they aren’t foolish idiots. And as you have the common sense to speak to a true expert on most cultivation matters…”

He ignored the chortle from Master Liang. “Sea serpent vis, eldritch scales, and Zelon’s Bane.”

Eric blinked at those terms. “Ah. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with any of those—” His words cut off, the wujen opening his hand and placing 3 vials within. “Payment for the cores, boy.”

Eric quickly nodded. “Agreed.”

“Good.” He then handed Eric a sheet of vellum covered in crimson ink. Similar to his own. “How best to take it to rescue any cultivator doomed to stagnation. Then, once they are stable, you send them here.”

Eric blinked at this. “I believe they are happy where they are… revered wujen Osirian.”

The wujen snorted. “So be it. But if they stumbled so badly that they’re in need of these compounds… then they’ve already stumbled badly enough that their life will be nothing but roadblocks, even if they manage to break through one final time.”

Eric bowed his head. “Noted, revered wujen Osirian.”

“Good. Assuming your friend or lover isn’t in dire peril right this minute, you’ll be permitted to visit them when next our crew returns to shore.” Osirian flashed a toothy smile. “I hope you like grudge-work and don’t mind pungent stink, boy. Because a beast-blood apothecary will never smell of jasmine and spice!”

For some reason, half the crew laughed at that.

“Finally, a new apprentice to take care of his shithole lab.”

“Careful, that man’s ears are sharp! But yeah, we’d all be fucked if germs were something we still had to worry about.”

“It’s not that bad. Just pungent.”

Eric grimaced as the murmured conversations washed over him, then flowed into a bow.

“I look forward to studying under your tutelage, when I next return.”

The wujen’s smile froze in place. “What do you mean, when you next return? Apprentices stay on the rig, same as all initiates!”

The entire coven of cultivators all pinned him with what were now jet black irises that had glimpsed all the horrors of limitless multidimensional horizons.

Eric’s eyes blazed with frozen flame.

“I mean when next I stop by to hang out with you and your awesome crew.”

He flashed a cheeky grin that was just a bit too wide at all the assembled cultivators whose exquisite, muscular bodies squirmed with pulsations alien and strange.

“Way I see it, you boys have a dozen or so more cores to blaze through and gain all sorts of eldritch insights from. But you can always use more, am I right?” Eric winked and saluted the men. “I look forward to our next hunt together!”

He then dived off the rig platform, and by the time a handful of vaguely alarmed body cultivators peered over the lip of the rig… he was nowhere in sight.

Having looped underneath and taken off at damn close to Mach 6, his ears somehow still blazing with comments he shouldn’t even be able to hear, hoping to make it home what would be just fifteen minutes past sunset.

Hopefully, not too late for a 16-year-old commuting to campus.

“Where the hell did he go?”

Tang laughed. “He’s a slippery one, ain’t he? Got to see the full show, and oozed right out of scrub-work, altogether!”

“Boy has no respect for protocol or master-student relationships,” Osirian huffed.

“Fucker looked like he was ready to eat us.” Liang snapped.

Osrian chortled. “Yeah, you just had to summon forth the strangeness to intimidate him, didn’t you, brother? Turns out my newest apprentice is plenty strange all on his own.”