Chapter 044: Normal Life

Leading a normal life is not as easy as it sounds.

There are quite a lot of complicated yet meaningless rituals one has to go through. It’s all rather tedious.

Incidentally, since murdering people isn’t conducive to leading such a ‘normal life’ – I think – I’ve provisionally decided to spare Finram, for now, despite his threat against me. I suppose I’ll just kill him when he actually acts on his threats.

But yes. While sparing people’s lives when I otherwise would not is quite easy, it’s unfortunately not enough to consider myself as someone leading a normal life. And the other stuff is quite a lot more difficult.

Still, I try to do my best.

The first hurdle I met is that I appear to have lost the ability to express my emotions in any comprehensible form, which apparently makes me seem strange and alien to the people around me. I never really noticed myself, but Lilly told me that my expressionless face is actually quite conspicuous, and that my telepathic voice couldn’t get more cold and lifeless if I tried. Unfortunately, those are not problems I can fix with just a bit of casual effort. I attempted to form a smile, while in front of a mirror, but nothing really happened beyond a few vague twitches in my cheeks. It might have something to do with the injuries my face suffered from the frog godbeast’s acid, but it’s much too late for me to heal that, now. The damage has already set in. And as for my voice, well, I don’t really understand how I’m supposed to put something nebulous like ’emotion’ into it. My mental link to Sanae has long since been strong enough for her to pick up my background thoughts – emotions included – every time I speak with her, so I never met an occurrence in which she didn’t automatically understand what I was feeling at this particular moment.

So I ended up stumbling on the first hurdle.

But I’m not going to give up so easily. Surely, there are many normal people suffering from extensive facial nerve damage while also having flat voices. I don’t see why such a thing alone would prevent me from achieving a normal life.

The first step in the day of a normal person is to sleep until the sun rises.

This is necessary because both humans and majin apparently require several hours of sleep every day in order to function properly. Gods can ignore that need for a while, but eventually, they do need to rest as well.

Failure to do so for long enough will result in death.

As for me, sleep is only useful as a way to relax a strained and tired mind. Even then, while I did require such a thing in the past, my brain has gone through 300 years of strengthening, and few things can put any sort of strain on it.

Battle, maybe.

And using magic.

But not all that much. I’ve been doing those for so long and with such regularity that they’ve become only slightly more mentally challenging than simply staying at rest. It would take a very difficult battle or a very complex and delicate spell to push my mind toward its limits.

That is to say, I don’t actually need much sleep at all.

But I did say I would make an effort.

So I just spend eight hours lying on a bed, waiting for the sun to rise and the humans in the house to wake.

It does give me time to devote to my body strengthening.

Right now, the sun is still hidden beyond the horizon. I can hear a few people up and about in the house – probably some of the maids – but I focus more on the torrent of blood-qi flowing through my meridians and on the familiar ache burning throughout my body.

Stronger.

Ever stronger.

I slowly sharpen myself into a better weapon.

I may have already left the Planar Tower, and I may be trying to live a normal life, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to discard my strength or give up my desire to become stronger.

After all, my objectives still haven’t been accomplished.

My work is still not done.

So it’s important to continue and make progress.

The incident in Fushia City was not a pleasant experience – for anybody, I reckon – but it did offer me some pleasant surprises. Even beyond the inexhaustible reserves of blood-qi I now possess, after experiencing the violence of the torrent of energy that flowed through them at the time, my meridians have all become noticeably larger. I can now channel much more blood-qi through them at any given time, and this in turn increases the maximum potency of my body strengthening and magic spells. Another change – one I didn’t expect and can’t really explain – is that the adamantine has climbed further up my limbs. In just those few minutes of madness, nearly three more centimeters of white flesh have turned into indestructible black metal. Going at its usual rate, this should have slowly taken place over 30 or 40 years of painstaking effort.

…I’m not going to complain, but I consider understanding how my own body works as something rather important to me, since it’s my main weapon. I’d really like to know how exactly this could have happened.

Well, it’s not like I don’t have any guesses about it…

My eyes still closed, I let my mind drift into my dantian and turn to look at the towering black rune floating in the void next to the glittering white one. It’s still spewing dark smoke, like always, but the mist around it seems slightly sparser than usual, for some reason.

Not enough for me to see what the word is, though.

In the 279 years I’ve had that rune in my dantian, I’ve never activated it. Not even once. I’ve never cast a single spell with it. It always coils around and plays with my soul, every time I get a bit agitated, but even though I was wary of it at first, this never seemed to affect me in any way, so I soon stopped paying attention to it and just let it do whatever it wanted.

But, well…

Am I just overly suspicious in thinking that, maybe, this thing has something to do with what’s happening to me?

Still, there isn’t much I can do about it, even if that’s the case. I can’t just rip it out of my dantian. It’s a part of me, as much as the other rune next to it or the heart in my chest.

Turning away from the black rune, I glance down at my soul. The cracks running through it dating back to the battle against Jodene and Shen Lei are starting to heal. At this rate, my soul should be good as new in 4 or 5 more weeks. Fortunately, someone leading a normal life has no great need of telekinesis, so there is little risk of the injury worsening in the meantime.

(Hmm, hmm…)

Oh?

A low, indistinct mumble suddenly rises up from behind me, and I turn toward Phineas. He’s still sleeping, but when I float closer to him, I notice that his eyes are moving behind his closed eyelids.

[…Are you awake?]

No answer is forthcoming even when I call out to him, so it seems he won’t be waking up just yet, but that was definitely a good sign. His dormancy should end pretty soon.

That’s good.

I have a lot of questions for him.

Cutting off the flow of blood-qi flowing through my meridians, I open my eyes and climb off the bed, the wooden floorboards creaking under my feet.

I shake the ache out of my limbs, then walk to the center of the room, where I won’t be bumping into anything fragile, and start stretching, testing the range of movement of each of my joints.

I didn’t suffer any permanent damage from the battle in Fushia City, but body strengthening will always minutely affect my strength, my speed, my weight, my balance. Since my muscles are strong enough to rip themselves away from my own bones if I’m not careful, it’s important to train regularly to know precisely what I can and can’t do with my body.

I slowly test the limits of my flexibility and adjust and calibrate the way I distribute and use my increased weight and strength.

I’m still in the middle of my exercises when I hear the pitter-patter of hurrying feet, rushing toward my room.

A few seconds later, the door bursts open.

“Akasha! Good morning! W–Woah! Doesn’t that hurt?”

I release the leg I’d brought over my head from the back and return to a normal standing posture.

[…It doesn’t.]

Seeing Lilly blush while asking her question acts as a reminder, and I walk toward the wardrobe next to the bed and pick one of the outfits inside to put on. While I get dressed, careful not to snag the dress’s collar on the tip of my horn, Lilly says something stupid again.

“I want to do it too!”

[…You’ll break.]

Definitely. Her tendons and ligaments will absolutely break if she tries to imitate me. And then, Finram will have to die because I put his niece in danger or something.

“Really? Then, what else should we do?”

[…]

Contrary to what I’d expected of her considering her usual frivolous behavior, Lilly is actually quite assiduous in her own training. In the mornings, she’ll do some physical and practical work, while she’ll study more scholarly subjects in her afternoons.

She doesn’t seem to show as much progress as she would if she had demons threatening to eat her if she didn’t put everything she learned into immediate practice, but it’s still impressive enough.

I tend to forget it, since she looks older than I do, but that brat is only 13 years old. That’s pretty much the age I was when I was first trapped in the Tower, so it would be strange to expect of her as much skill as I can display now as a 291-year-old.

In fact, considering the level she’s reached so young and the rate at which she’s learning new things every day, she could definitely be stronger than me, 300 years later. After all, she’s not fumbling around, making mistakes left and right. Her training on magic is guided by Finram, and she also has tutors for the other disciplines she’s studying on the side.

The only advantage I have on her is that I’m older.

“Akasha? Hellooooo?”

[…What?]

“So? What are you going to teach me today? Oh, but not magic! You don’t teach magic very well! I couldn’t understand your lesson at all, yesterday.”

[…I don’t have anything to teach.]

“Of course you do! Uncle Finram said that, even without magic, you’re really strong! You can teach me that!”

[…300 years of body strengthening.]

“Waaah… That’s too much. Humans can’t live that long, you know? But you practice some sort of martial arts, right? How about you teach me your secret techniques? I’ll be your first disciple!”

Lilly takes up a funny-looking stance in front of me, like she’s preparing to fight, but her balance is a mess. She’d get tired really fast if she stood like this for more than a minute or two, and I could trip her with just a slight push, so I’m not sure what it’s supposed to accomplish.

Confuse the opponent, maybe?

[…I don’t have secret techniques, though.]

Lilly drops her strange stance and peers at me suspiciously, rubbing her chin. “Are you sure? Doesn’t everyone strong have secret techniques? Uncle Finram says he has dozens, but he doesn’t want to teach them to me. Because they’re secret.”

…That certainly makes a lot of sense.

“How do you fight, then, if you don’t have secret techniques?”

[…Stab the eyes. Tear the throat. Crush the legs. Dodge what’s lethal. Weather what’s not.]

That should be it, really.

The important point is to know when to do which one of those.

Although, I suppose I don’t exactly follow these rules all the time, either. Thinking about it, my fighting style should simply be ‘destroy the opponent and save energy, no matter what the means’. But that’s not very specific, so I thought it’d be better to give some actual advice Lilly can use, instead.

“Hmm. That sounds really violent,” Lilly says. Quite accurately. “I don’t think I want to do that. And that also sounds really painful. Aren’t you telling me to not dodge when the attack isn’t lethal? Wouldn’t I get hurt a lot?”

[…Yes. To save energy.]

Lilly blinks at that. “What? Isn’t it better to be a little more tired, rather than be slashed by a sword or be hit by a spell?”

Hmm…

Well…

Said like this, my advice does sound kind of stupid.

But in my experience, it’s better to be injured a bit, rather than needlessly waste energy. It’s always possible to heal from non-lethal wounds once the battle is over, but once energy runs out in the middle of a fight, the only fate is death.

Still, I don’t think it’s wrong for Lilly to refuse my advice.

[…It wouldn’t work for humans. You’re too fragile.]

I can only allow myself to be struck and stabbed and sliced willfully because I know my body can take it. My limbs won’t be cut off. My brain won’t be pierced through. My bones won’t break.

“Eeeeeeeeh. So we’re back to the 300 years of body strengthening?”

[…Don’t fight like me. Just use ranged magic.]

“Oh, that’s better! I really don’t want to be hit by swords! Well, actually, to tell you the truth, I don’t want to fight at all, but uncle Finram says I should be able to defend myself.”

[…He’s right.]

Lilly shrugs. “I don’t know. Since we have a lot of money, can’t I just hire a super strong mercenary to protect me?” Then, something seems to occur to her as she stares at me with glittering eyes. “Hey, Akasha, you’re a mercenary, right? And you’re super strong, right? How about you become my bodyguard and protect me?”

[…I refuse.]

I have more important things to do.

Lilly pouts and looks at me sulkily. “Tch. Well, if I’m going to learn magic, then I have to go see Uncle Finram. Do you want to come with me?”

[…Yes.]

Lilly’s mood abruptly brightens again and her usual smile reappears on her lips. “All right! Let’s go!”

And without a pause for breath, she pounces on me and hauls me out of my room after her to follow her to her lessons.

After Finram’s lessons on magic, Lilly takes a break to eat and spend some time with her father and mother.

I realize eating is part of a normal life, but since it would be worse than useless for me – it would waste energy without any sort of benefit to offset it – I decided to forgo that part.

Instead, I just go the library and read.

There are many, many books, here, and while there is some overlap with those I found in the library of the house where the Springfields stopped over during the trip to Fushia City, most other books I’ve never read before.

I mostly ignore fiction books and stories to focus more on whatever will bring me data about the world. And slowly, I fill in the gap in my knowledge those 279 years have created inside me.

During the afternoon, Lilly too comes to the library, as this is the place where she takes her more theoretical lessons with her other tutors – they come one by one, depending on what Lilly is scheduled to study that day.

Most of these people are clearly a bit uncomfortable to see me there listening to them and asking them questions alongside their actual student – even more so than Finram was the first time I accompanied Lilly when she was learning magic from him – but they dutifully answer everything I ask of them, so I have no reason to complain.

And like this, the afternoon of a normal person passes peacefully.

Late in the evening, two maids accompany me back to my room.

I’m not exactly certain why they insist on following me. Maybe they’re afraid that I’d get lost in the various intersecting corridors. Or maybe it’s just a human custom to do things this way.

When they wish me a good night and the door closes behind me, I hear their footsteps recede in the distance, along with their whispering voices.

“How scary! That child really has scary eyes!”

“I know. When she looks at you, it feels like your soul is going to be ripped from your body. Or like a wild beast is staring at you.”

“And those scars are really terrifying. I wonder what happened to her.”

“I hear that she’s…”

“…”

Every day, I hear the comments of the people around me, who apparently don’t realize that my hearing is sharp enough to record everything going on in this house, down to the pattern of everyone’s breathing and the rate of their heartbeat.

I’m not sure if I should answer the concerns they voice.

Should I tell them that my magic does not, in fact, allow me to rip the soul from the dantians of my enemies? But that I wish it could, because that would be very convenient?

Shaking my head, I walk to the wardrobe and take off the dress I’m wearing, carefully smoothing the wrinkles in the fabric and hanging it back on its hook.

When I close the wardrobe again, my reflection on the mirror set into its front enters my eyes.

[…]

Do I look that scary?

Wouldn’t it depend on personal sensibilities?

Lilly doesn’t seem to find me scary.

Although I suppose she just focuses on my tail and my ears and just ignores the rest, so she may not be the most representative sample I could find.

But I don’t think I look scary, either.

My eye isn’t scary at all. On the contrary, the fact that it glows so brightly means that everyone can know where I am, even in the deepest darkness. Isn’t a conspicuous threat more comforting than an invisible one? And my scars aren’t scary at all. They’re the proof that I can be hurt. Isn’t a vulnerable threat more comforting than an invincible one?

I wonder if Nerys would find me scary?

Damn it.

Now I’m getting worried.

It’s true that I don’t look at all like I did when I was young. And I don’t act at all like I did when I was young.

Is there even a shred of the old me left?

Hmm…

Yes.

Yes, there is. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to find Nerys in the first place.

Or would I?

279 years ago, I needed something to keep me going, in order to escape the Tower, so I deeply carved this objective into my mind and clung to it as hard as I could.

‘Find Nerys again’.

But did I even care anymore – actually, truly care – when I was on the 100th floor, on the 158th floor, on the 191st floor?

Did I kill the demons around me and go down the stairs to the next floor so that I would meet Nerys because I loved her and wanted to see her again, or did I just do so because that is what I did?

Is there even any real emotion left, or am I just mechanically going through the motions?

Isn’t the best proof of that the fact that I’ve even forgotten my father’s face? I try not to think about it, but if I’m perfectly honest with myself, didn’t my own father become little more than an afterthought to me?

Right.

It makes sense.

Would anyone be able to stay as motivated to accomplish her objectives as I still seem to be, even after spending so many years failing to see any noticeable progress?

No.

Impossible.

Their anger would fade. And their love, as well. They’d stop missing their friends and family, after some time.

Then I should…

<STOP! OVERTHINKING! THINGS!>

Sanae’s voice suddenly explodes inside my mind, so loud that it sends me reeling back a few steps.

Um…

Is this how it feels when I’m shouting into someone’s mind?

I can understand why they don’t like it…

I turn toward her, standing on the sill of the open window. She probably just came back from her hunt – she doesn’t share my newly inexhaustible reserves of energy, so she needs to regularly go out and find some demons to eat.

I must have been really lost in thought, to not even notice her coming back.

[…I’m not overthinking. I’m just thinking.]

<Then stop.>

[…Are you telling me to just plain stop thinking, now?]

<Yes.>

[…Could it be that you see me as some sort of brainless idiot?]

<Yes.>

How rude.

And how inaccurate, too.

[…I just didn’t think in the past because there was no need to think.]

I just needed to kill and survive. But things are different, now. Enemies are much scarcer. I have some leisure to think about what I should do.

<Leisure?>

Images of horse-mounted bandits, of warriors on a train, and of two gods punching me in the face and throwing lightning bolts at me.

<Enemies. Everywhere.>

[…]

<Enough peace. Go. Kill.>

[…I’m trying to live a normal life. It’s important. Killing things would undermine that.]

Sanae hops closer to me.

<Too early. And…>

A maelstrom of emotions suddenly bursts into my mind. I recognize them as my own, seen from Sanae’s point of view. There is always that dark anger in the background, of course. But in the forefront is a restlessness, an urge, an impulse, steadily growing stronger.

Seeing what I feel so clearly exposed makes the actual emotions inside me surge up with more clarity, as if in resonance. My breathing becomes a bit rougher, and I clench my fists tightly to suppress the tremor shaking them.

<Need to vent. Soon.>

I grit my teeth, but I don’t deny her words.

I’m perfectly aware of it myself.

I’ve been trying this ‘normal life’ thing for barely a week, and I can already feel that need. Something akin to hunger. I see it as good training for my mental fortitude and do my best to carefully keep control of my actions despite it.

I’ve been mostly successful so far.

But it’s getting worse.

This place is too peaceful.

No tension. No danger. No enemies.

Peace and safety.

It’s weird.

Normally, it would be fine – probably – without enemies to kill, but what’s compounding the problem is that I’m not moving.

I know I’m not wasting my time.

But it still feels like I am, deep inside.

I need a clearer objective than just ‘act like a normal person’. And then, I need to move toward that objective. Idleness isn’t working out very well for me.

[…Then what?]

<Simple. Find. Nerys.>

[…No. Not as long as I can’t control myself well enough.]

<Gradually. Now, too early.>

[…You don’t know that.]

<I do. Proof. Here.>

Once again, the maelstrom of emotions bursts into my mind, and I flinch away from it.

[…Stop that.]

<Leave here. Then it stops.>

[…]

At my hesitation, a strange, ghostly sigh seems to sweep through my brain before Sanae’s voice rings out once more. <Look.>

In my mind, a blank white figure appears, the word ‘Akasha’ written on its face. Around this figure, a landscape slowly forms, and the figure starts running around, frantically looking everywhere, in piles of dead leaves, inside hollow fallen logs. Then the figure enters a deserted village and starts looking inside the houses, lifting buckets and opening drawers left and right.

[…What is this?]

<You. Searching. Nerys.>

[…I don’t think Nerys is small enough to fit underneath an overturned bucket.]

In my mind, the pictures change again, and this time, a second figure appears in the distance. This one has the word ‘Nerys’ written on its face. The Nerys figure goes about its business and lives its life, while the Akasha figure follows it around, hiding behind tree trunks and inside barrels and atop rafters.

[…That makes me look really dangerous, somehow. Like a predator stalking its prey.]

<Hogwash.>

Then, the Akasha figure suddenly grows bigger and the words ‘normal’, ‘healthy’, ‘sane’, ‘peaceful’ and ‘not a mass murderer’ appear everywhere on its body. When this happens, it stops hiding and abruptly rushes directly toward the Nerys figure, dropping onto one knee thirty meters out and sliding the rest of the way while keeping this position. The earth explodes around its grounded knee like a bow wave before a speeding ship, and a bouquet of wilted flowers, their roots still dirty with earth, suddenly appears in its hands out of nowhere. Upon seeing this, the Nerys figure claps jubilantly, then the sun abruptly sets halfway down the horizon and the two walk hand in hand toward it.

[…]

<Understood?>

[…Um. Maybe. I’m not sure.]

Basically, if I try to trim the nonsense from those images, all it says is that I should find Nerys right away, but hide from her and only appear when I’ve managed to gain perfect control of myself.

Well, it’s not like I never considered doing this, but…

It’d never work.

[…I’ll never resist the temptation to talk to her.]

I’ve waited for 279 years. If I see Nerys suddenly appear in front of me, I won’t be able to simply hide and wait and look at her from a distance.

Absolutely impossible.

In response to my concerns, the images rewind, the scene returning to the point where the Akasha figure is about to slide over the ground toward the Nerys figure with flowers in its hands.

Except, this time, a spider figure with the word ‘Sanae’ on it abruptly appears next to the Akasha figure and cuts its legs out from under it, black blood spraying everywhere. The Akasha figure doesn’t seem to particularly mind, and starts furiously crawling toward the Nerys figure. This seems to infuriate the spider, as it starts to repeatedly stab the Akasha figure, driving its bladed legs right through its back and pinning it to the ground to prevent it from moving.

<Understood?>

[…Isn’t that a bit excessive?]

<Half-measures. Bad.>

[…This isn’t doing much to convince me to accept your plan.]

<Stop. Whining.>

[…What? I’m not whining. You’re whining.]

<No. You are.>

[…No.]

<Yes.>

[…No.]

<Yes.>

[…No.]

<Yes.>

[…No. Times infinity.]

<Idiot.>

[…You’re the idiot.]

And finally, Sanae keeps her silence, not deigning to give an answer to that. Which makes this profound debate my uncontested victory.

Still, this stupid spider makes a good point.

Even if she doesn’t go as far as cutting off my legs and stabbing me in the back, she could stop me. She’s strong enough for it.

And wouldn’t it be easier to lead a normal life if I know Nerys is safe and sound and that I can see her whenever I want – even if I can’t actually speak to her?

That would do a lot for my peace of mind.

I open my right hand and look at the faint shaking in its black fingers.

I sigh inwardly.

Haaaa…

Sanae’s right.

I need to start moving again, or I’ll go crazy.

[…All right. I’ll leave.]

Let’s put aside this attempt at a normal life, for now.

It was more a failure than not, but I can try again later.

Let’s continue looking for Nerys, then.

[…Be ready to rip my legs off and pin me to the ground.]

<Always am.>

[…]

47 comments

  1. Sanae is so rude.
    I hope Akasha leaving doesn’t result in the Springfields being attacked by a horde of devils without sufficient protection.

  2. It’s really cute how “not a mass murderer” is something that needs to be specifically, precisely stated as a requirement.

  3. Honestly it pisses me off that she isn’t healing her body. And I don’t understand her saying it is too late because it isn’t, it would just require more work compared to a fresh injury. Out of the two healing her body or body straightening; she should be focusing on healing her body because in the long run it is more efficient to have two eyes and less scar tissue. Also I had no problems with her not fixing her body before, but now that she has a giant amount of blood-qi she should be experimenting with fixing her body and other things.

    Thanks for the chapter

    1. I agree but I think it’s too early all of her scar tissue has been healed enough to not interfere with her movements also an eye, voice box and arm are to complicated to remake from scratch and she herself sees no problem with her scars and thinks it’s pointless to remove them. Rather than her deciding to do it there should be an event/person which causes her to heal or convinces her to heal herself.

      1. She shouldn’t have to remake anything in my opinion, even her arm. The cells shes giving blood qi to in order to regenerate should still have the genetic instructions needed to make that part. Stuff like scars should be easy.
        Overall, while the arm may be more complex with regards to using the regeneration in that direction it still should’t be a real issue at this point, besides the adamantium bones and the utility of a morph-able arm versus a real one.

    2. I agree. I’m a bit pissed if she’s now for the reason of “its been too long” unable to heal herself. Seems like BS with the amount of control she has over her body and Qi.
      And I think I’ve said it before I think, but while a few scars are no issue, the amount of scar tissue Akasha has should be a real detriment to her overall agility, and movement. Maybe someone should point that out to her?

      1. I agree with you the amount of scar tissue she has should be affecting her in a bad way, more than likely it costs her more blood-qi to do the same motion because the scar tissue is holding it back. I just want her to start to move into the direction of experimenting more with the blood-qi and fixing her body because it should allow her perfect some of her moves that she couldn’t while fighting everyday and it would allow her to learn more about her body maybe she can change the size and shape of her limbs like Sanae can.

        1. I think it’s best to just read this with a decent amount of suspension of disbelief. At the very least, the scar tissue issue is better than that with giant frog that was far too big to be feasible, beatable or even being noticable. If she can battle such an amphibian while having the proportions of a tenth of a milimeter to the size of normal human being, I’m guessing she can ignore scar tissue to do normal damage.

          1. I have to disagree with you on this. Based on the story her beating the giant frog makes senses. It is like a human that has the power to do noticeable damage to a mountain fighting something the size of 10 mountains it would be hard and that person most powerful attack wouldn’t kill the monster but repeat attacks and hitting in the right spots makes it possible just very very hard, and that she had help from Sanae, who is near un-killable, makes her killing the frog reasonable and that she doesn’t have to sleep so the fight can go on for a long time. Also you have to remember that the frog was a low ranking god beast so it was no where near undefeatable.

            Now on to the topic of scar tissue. This makes less sense because she spent years mastering her body’s movements. I understand she couldn’t fix them up right away because she didn’t have opportunity to waste energy experimenting on something that doesn’t actually affect her killing potential. but now that she can she should because for her just walking around uses her blood-qi so out of all the energy being used by her just walking around 1%, that being the low generous side, goes to countering the affect of her scar tissue which would impede her movements. So for a person who wants to lower the cost of energy being used fixing the scar tissue is a must.

            Also I am justing going by what the author has created for this story and that makes beating the giant frog possible but hard, and her ignoring the scar tissue unreasonable because it wastes energy. But yes I will suspend my disbelief for awhile maybe she hasn’t notice because it only uses a small percentage but she should be fixing it here soon.

    3. Since the first explanation, I’ve always assumed that once her injuries form scars, they are considered healed. Thus, trying to heal them would restore the scars. To put it another way: if she lost an arm (and was able to restore) it would heal with the scars she had before she lost it.
      Another way to think about it is changing a software programs setting, without a restore to default button. When she is injured, if she doesn’t immediately heal, the scar or missing appendage will be saved, with no way to restore it to the original.

      There’s two things to consider under this assumption though.
      Since her memory is perfect after a certain point (sometime during her body strengthening), perhaps she can manually overwrite and heal herself from memory. (Save file is corrupt, but she has a screenshot of the settings page.)
      The second thing to consider, is how much blood-qi is required to heal? Remember, she is continuously strengthening her body and making it denser and denser. If she lost her adamantine arm and tried to heal it, I doubt the adamantine would be restord as well, and she would instead be left with an ORDINARY arm, with no body strengthening. It would then take another 300 years to restore it to the density it had reached.

      Although maybe I’m wrong, and she will eventually heal completely. I hope she heals completely. Maybe someone else has the magic word “restore” or something similar. I imagine “heal” would just heal to what it was before that injury.

      1. First if heal actually worked that way it would be the stupidest setup ever because our world doesn’t even work that way; over time scars do fade so in a world where she could heal a injury to perfection but didn’t then she should be able to heal it completely later on, and second scars are by definition not fully healed. Healing her scars are should be like healing any injury they should heal to perfection(what was suppose to be there should be there) meaning the scar tissue would dissolve and the tissue that belong there would form just like our bodies do to scars over time all but a lot faster and more effective.

        I too hope you are wrong because that would really discourage me from continuing to read(I still would but I would be upset). I hope Liv has it where heal heals thing to perfection it just takes more time for scars(because they are imperfectly healed so they have to break down and reform the right tissue) and missing organs(they are complex so it would take longer for it to fix)

        1. note : That’s not our world, she is a fusion of an Elf, a Feni, and a deamon, she is a God, se have been doing body strengthening for a long time, she fought continuously for 300 years, and she is self-taught.
          With all of this it’s difficult to really know what is possible or not for here to do in terms of healing, for example maybe here first scars have healed long ago but new ones have taken their place, or since she is self-taught maybe she didn’t know how to fully heal old wound.

          1. I know this isn’t our world but if you want it to actually make sense(base on what we know of that world) then she should be able to heal them. Also I stated above that I wish for her to experiment or be taught how to heal them. I was just saying to the guy above that she should be able to and that hopefully she figures it out.

          1. scar
            skär/Submit
            noun
            plural noun: scars
            1.
            a mark left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound, burn, or sore has NOT HEALED COMPLETELY and fibrous connective tissue has developed.

            When I said not fully healed I mean that they are not the natural way the body should be so healing them(scars) to perfection(the way the body should be) would erase them. Also by the definition above and in any dictionary scars are not fully healed and are fibrous connective tissue developed on parts of body tissue or skin.

      2. I have no idea where you got the idea that if she could restore a lost limb that the scars would come back with it. I am so glad you aren’t the author because that is the worst idea I have ever heard of and it would go against everything that has been stated in the story. I suggest you to reread this and you might be able to understand how healing her body works works

        1. Maybe she’s not empowering her cells to heal her at all.

          Maybe her healing is a function of a pattern stored in her Soul and if she screws around too long with wound till it “heals” then her Soul stores the new formation into her pattern.

          Kinda makes sense when you realize that only those reaching God status have true Souls and only they are naturally “immortal”. The Soul is probably maintaining the body as much as the body is providing an environment for the Soul. The body is like a shell and the Soul is the actual mollusk.

          Even if this was true, complete healing (and a LOT MORE) is still possible but it will have to be learned by her learning how to do tricks with her Soul and its many functions. Take a while though since if she screws up she could end up crippled or dead.

          And frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that will be a lot more satisfying as a reader than her just waking up and going, “Oh right! I should totally heal myself to perfection as I could do all along… WHOOPSIES!”

          1. Didn’t it state that she had to circulate The Blood-Qi to the region that was damage to heal it and people without souls can do the same with their magic? Your idea of Soul making a subconscious blue print of the body is interesting and could make sense. It would be like her imagining the way she wants her body to work and then circulating the blood-iq to change it that way, but if that was true then I think the old man would have pointed out.

            Also I don’t think it would be a Whoopsie moment it would be more like a enlightening moment. It probably takes more Blood-Qi to fix a old injury compared to a new one and she never tried because she was uneducated in that field and didn’t want to waste Blood-Qi, so now that she has enough she hopefully will try. Honestly I find this more reasonable as a reader than the soul one because it goes with her character and the Magic system that has been in place.

  4. I’m wondering. From the sound of it Akasha’s soul is way stronger than that of any god at her level, and even her soul reaches its limits whenever she uses extremly complicated spells. Gareth, though, claims that his spells are more complex. Does that mean his assumption is wrong?

    1. I don’t remember reading anything about her soul reaching limits when using magic. Right now her soul is damaged back from the planar prison so she can’t fully utilize her magic. More complex spells would generally be more powerful, but when a simple wave of your hand can evaporate mountain ranges why would you need complexity?

      I’m exaggerating, but the point is simple goes to complex in increasing power, and then back to simple for true masters. I read this somewhere recently, but cannot remember where at all. Could have sworn it was from Cultivation Chat Group, but I couldn’t find it when I went looking.

      1. Right out of this chapter:

        “Battle, maybe.

        And using magic.

        But not all that much. I’ve been doing those for so long and with such regularity that they’ve become only slightly more mentally challenging than simply staying at rest. It would take a very difficult battle or a very complex and delicate spell to push my mind toward its limits.”

        And the magic in this novel does Liv wants it to do and not what anyone else thinks it should do. The same is true for Akasha’s regeneration abilities.

          1. True enough. Sorry about that.

            We need more data on how soul, body-strengthening and mind work, and how they work together.

            It is strange that Gareth should be able to cast more complex spells than Akasha, but, since the god-emperor agrees, it’s most likely true.

            1. I don’t find it that strange. Akasha has only been using magic to kill efficiently and hasn’t had time to improve and make them more complex. Also Gareth is human so he can do more types of magic and if they can be combined then he would be able to make them more complex. So I can see why he can do more complex magic is because he spent his time combining and or experimenting with magic while Akasha had to make do with what ever killed and slowly make them better while fighting and she couldn’t waste her Blood-qi on making thing more complex when she wasn’t sure if they would be more efficient when killing. Also Gareth had people teach him so he has thousands if not millions of years of other peoples experimenting and knowledge so he knows how things go together and whatnot. While Akasha had to learn everything from the ground up over time this will give her the advantage of being able to learn things and finding it out whether they work or not on her own then just assuming based on other people like Gareth but of right now he has more complex magic than her.

              So when they say Gareth can cast more complex magic I take it as them saying Akasha hasn’t had time to improve her magic and learn how to make her magic more complex. I assuming you took it as them saying she just couldn’t cast complex magic but I think they meant her current magic is less complex compared to Gareth who was taught by others with Thousands if not millions of years of knowledge behind them. So she should be able to cast more complex magic if she is taught how or experiments with magic. Hopefully Nerys has the same type and can teach her or the old guy gives her some more tips.

              I agree we need more data.

              1. Akasha did have books to study from, too. Unfortunately we don’t know the level of these books. We don’t even know if they were planted by Wayland or his predecessor. Gareth is only 16, how much of the time did he spend cultivating? How much time did he spend with politics? How much time could he actually spend developing his spell casting?

                Anyway, my comment was more (or at least meant to be) about the most complex spell each party could cast. In W002 we have “[…]the complexity of the spells I cast, I do believe that I’m firmly superior to her.”. Admittedly that’s not exactly the same as saying that he can, out of the both of them, cast the most complex spell.

                1. Yeah I agree we need more data on where exactly they are at in term of complex spells(I think she mentioned that the books didn’t have anything on her magic ICE but they did help her understand some stuff and make her magic better). I was just saying he was taught compared to her having to learn herself so he might/should be ahead because it is faster to be taught then to learn by yourself(things we learned in school took society hundreds of years to learn and the people that made those improvements took decades to figure it out by themselves or with a slight reference compared to our 1 year to a couple of months to figure it out). I took it as someone who was taught how to make complex magic compared to someone who had to learn everything herself(with a guide or two later on for reference but are only slightly related or not the same as what she was learning they help speed things up but not as much as being taught)

                  Hopefully we get a clearer picture later on of how complex each of their magic is.

  5. Akasha is not getting a second eye. Where would Sanae hide to bushwhack her enemies if she did? Akasha is fairly “set in her ways” when it comes to effective means of eliminating opposition. She’ll change and adapt, if there’s need, but it would have to be a *compelling* reason to convince her to forego having her invincible spider-companion hiding away where no one expects her to be, especially because almost no one even knows Sanae exists. As for the scar tissue…I can only think of *one* area I think Liv might want to consider having Akasha try to do something about. Her voicebox/throat. Akasha is clearly aware of the fact her monotone-telepathy is offputting, which isn’t enough to bother Akasha. She said as much when she pointed out there are people with extensive facial nerve damage and flat voices living normal lives. No, I think the voice issue will link back to Nerys. Akasha *might* come to care about recovering her voice as part of fitting herself into Nerys’s existence. After all, Nerys is a hunted fugitive. Having a sister who can only communicate by monotone-telepathy would leave traces for Gareth’s spy network to hunt them by once the pair link up. Akasha’s physical appearance can be concealed with appropriate clothing. Recovering her voice would be something that would throw Gareth’s people off. They “know” AKA-13 communicates via telepathy. A cloaked figure with a normal voice accompanying a fugitive they’re failed to find as yet wouldn’t send up any red flags with Gareth’s people. On the other hand, the first time Akasha communicated with anyone Nerys didn’t want to kill, poof..there’s evidence left behind for Gareth’s spies. What’s the alternative? Akasha accompanies Nerys but lets Nerys do all the talking? A *silent* cloaked companion of Nerys’s screams “AKA-13” almost as loud as Akasha actually speaking to someone with her telepathy. I’m sure you can all see where this is going, but I’ll spell it out anyways. Voice recovery would be an effective anti-forensics measure for Akasha. Which in turn keeps Nerys safer. Which in TURN is a major priority of Akasha’s. There’s your motivation for Askasha caring enough to do all the experimentation necessary to actually fix something major about her body.

    1. All I have to say is that Sanae originally hid in her hair and only moved to the eye after the fight with the giant frog which was at the end of the tower. And if you want other reasons for her to fix her self up it is explained above.

  6. Personally, I did the synergy between Akasha and Sanae. The one fly in the ointment for me is the troubling issue of Orsino’s lightning attack being blocked from hitting Akasha by Sanae, yet Orsino mentions nothing of it to Gareth. I worry that Sanae is, or at least was at one time a plant. Not Gareth’s, his father’s. Sanae showed up just as things were getting *bad* for Akasha. Akasha herself admits the Sulfur Frog would’ve been the end of her without Sanae’s intervention. For a girl with this much bad luck to suddenly get such a major break twigs my “Something sneaking up on me” (by proxy) radar.

    1. Just to correct something.
      Orsino did mention Sanae (it’s in the changelog).

      Honestly, the most likely scenario for Sanae is that she is somehow related to Miroslav (or a disciple of him, if there was an additional owner of the tower before Weiland). It is unlikely that a plant of Weiland could override his control of the tower.

  7. Little announcement:
    I might not make it for this week’s chapter, so if worst comes to worst, it’ll be released next week, instead. Of course, since it’s just ‘might’, the chapter could also come tomorrow, as usual, but I prefer to give a little advance notice, just in case.

    1. By the way, has anybody noticed that no comment from the person named “x” came, this week? Did (s)he just give up, or was there really no typo, in this chapter?

      …I think I’m gonna go with the latter. It nicely strokes my ego.

      1. First, thanks for the chapter and for the news, second there is always typos, but even if you can’t see them they are here waiting for somebody to point them, even after hundreds of proofreading and thousands of mistakes found there will always be one more that nobody found out ^^

      2. I didn’t notice any typos when I read the chapter. Of course I could have missed some – I haven’t tried to look really thoroughly to find everything I possibly could.

        The only thing I noticed that seemed potentially questionable was this:
        “I consider understanding how my own body works as something rather important”
        but according to the following “consider as” is valid if “not as common in recent use”.
        http://www.learnersdictionary.com/qa/consider-and-consider-as

        1. Oh, sorry. I forgot. I saw that you delayed it and hoped you were out having fun with friends or family. Didn’t really think too much about it.

          orz

        2. Dunno why, but I think of you as a Canadian… What country are you from?
          Answer if you dont think I could tack you down by it, paranoid though everywhere.

  8. Either Sanae is the original master of the tower or she’s just waiting Akasha to… ripen I guess before eating her.

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