Mana 4 Chapter 15 (Patreon)

In the past, when I had accepted Aurora’s core as a child, she had gone as far as to suppress herself to keep from harming me. Quinn and Mei had given me their cores willingly.

But all three of them had simply joined their respective ring without fuss.

This was different.

My inner world was filled with thunder and lightning as the raiju actively fought being joined with me.

Lightning mana raced through my system, jolting me and threatening to push me out of my meditation.

Pushing through, I managed to enter my own soul palace. The entire place was wrapped in lighting, isolating me from everyone else.

And there she was, looking pissed off as hell.

Messy blue hair that brightened at the tips held out at strange angles as the static kept it aloft. Her eyes glowed with the barely contained lightning of a raging storm. Around her neck was a patch of fluffy blue fur, almost like a scarf, but below that she was all woman. She stood there in a loosely wrapped dress that hung impossibly onto her shoulders. A single blue tail stuck out the back, lifting up her dress.

“Why am I here?” She snarled.

I didn’t have much time to think about how to answer her question, but I did know how to handle a mana beast. They respected power. It wasn’t time to be her friend to calm her down. I’d need to dominate her.

Standing from my throne, I glared down at her. “To serve me.” I left no room for her to consider it as anything other than that. She was going to be my mana beast whether she liked it or not.

Electricity crackled off of her and bled into my soul palace as it shuddered.

“This is my domain.” I demanded it of my inner world. I willed my soul palace to block her mana and limit her power within it, but I miscalculated.

This mana beast was a fifth rank beast.

She screamed, and my control of my own soul palace was ripped from me as mana gathered to her. She put out enough lightning to cause my soul to shudder.

Still, I stood tall, bearing down over her as she put out enough electricity to fry me.

It was a show, one that I watched impassively.

“Name.” I demanded.

“You ask for mine without giving your own?” She growled.

I gestured around both of us. “You are in my home.” I paused, deciding maybe if I helped orient her, she’d come around faster. “You are dead. This is your last chance to stay in the world. If you do not serve me, your soul will be gone forever.”

What I didn’t mention was that I was pretty sure mine would be too. The power she was putting out was terrifying.

But as I thought it, I realized that more was at stake than just my soul palace..

That sank in like a boulder landing in the ocean. My soul palace was still connected to all of my wives. Her rampage here could harm not only me, but them as well.

If anything, my resolve only grew stronger as I stared her down. I refused to show any weakness. She would only struggle and push back harder.

I worked to calculate my options as she considered what I’d said. If we truly fought, the only option I could think of was to dip into my bloodline, which would only delay my death. Not loving that idea, I focused back on her, only to be met by further silence.

The moment of tension broke when she spoke. “Lumi. That’s my name.”

“Good. I’m your new master, Lumi.”

“Fucker, that’s not your name.” She growled, and her hair rose several inches as the electricity intensified.

Unsure if this was going to work, I had to ask. “Do you remember dying?” The electricity in the air dimmed with my question.

Confusion flickered across Lumi’s face. “Y—yes. But you aren’t him. He was at least worthy.” She growled, and the electricity in the air that had dipped rose once again. The reminder of her death only seemed to agitate her further.

“Maybe not. But if you join me, you will be able to get your revenge.” It was a shallow motivation and one that had an expiration date on it, but I hoped it would appeal to her baser instincts and buy some time for camaraderie to develop.

I at least had to hope my luck with mana beasts held out, and she’d become part of the group.

She looked me over. “You’d kill him?”

“Yes, although you can have the killing blow, if you’d prefer. It means little to me how he dies. Your service is what I need.” I continued to stand over her.

But the way her hair started to settle down, and the air calmed, I decided I must be on the right path. She was considering it.

“I want to kill him.” She declared.

Nodding, I agreed. I didn’t mention that it would likely need to wait until I hit my fifth ring, so she could access her full power. We’d figure that out later.

“Deal. You’ll serve me then.” I said empirically, holding my head high and motioning with my hand for her to come forward.

Lumi stepped forward and grabbed my hand with a sneer.

My soul lit up like the eye of a storm as she pumped so much lightning mana into me that I was forced to grit my teeth and focus every ounce of my being on my soul not exploding into a thousand pieces.

Lumi looked at me over the glowing handshake with hard focus as she tested me.

This wasn’t a joke. If I slipped up, my soul would shatter, never to reform. Part of me was furious with her deception, and part of me understood her reluctance to bow down to someone she saw as weaker.

It only meant I needed to be more forceful.

Pushing through the pain of my soul, I pulled her forward and bent her over the armrest of my throne. “Bad girl.” I slapped her ass hard.

There was a pause as all the electricity stopped instantly.

“What did you call me?” She said, her voice sounding confused.

“Bad girl.” I slapped her again. “Very bad girl.”

Her ears on top of her head perked up, and her tail raised higher, pulling up the bottom of her dress and showing me her creamy ass. Slowly, her head turned and her face was full of shock and confusion for just a moment before lightning exploded outwards and away from me.

Lumi was gone. I puzzled over what had just happened, trying to figure out if I’d blown it.

But then I could feel something changing in me. A wave of lightning mana crashed into me, but it wasn’t painful.

Instead, it filled a void like water flowing into a cup. Something pushed into my soul, filling my fourth ring.

Straightening up, I rushed out of my soul palace in time to see what I could only assume was Lumi’s soul palace pushing itself into place and linking with the other the mana beasts’ soul palaces above mine.

“Huh.” I guess that was all it took.

“Isaac!” Nikki rushed forward, crashing into me. “What the hell was that?”

“My new mana beast.” I was still staring up into the sky to see if Lumi would come back. But it would seem that I caused enough confusion that she was going to spend some time alone to sort herself out.

“Oh! We should celebrate.” Nikki’s mouth quirked up in a wicked smile.

Looking around, several of the other girls were watching as well. They’d likely felt the struggle in my soul palace. The entire thing had been shaking during the attack. “Everything is okay. A powerful mana beast has joined my fourth ring, but it was rougher than expected to win her over.”

It was then I noticed a new face peeking out behind Nikki. I’d never seen her before.

Confused, I managed to ask, “Who is that?”

Nikki looked back and smiled. “Husband, I’d like you to meet my mana beast. Sandy.” Sandy was a dusky skinned beauty in tan, almost gold robes with a small pair of tawny ears sticking out the top of her head.

There was something familiar about her.

It took me a moment, but I realized I’d known her as a sand lion. Clearly she’d recently become a fourth rank beast. “Congratulations to both of you on your growth.”

“Tens of thousands of third rank cores.” Nikki whispered. “But I beat Diana to it.”

I chuckled, noticing Diana indeed looked a little sour at her sister showing off Sandy. “I expect great things from all of you.”

“Of course. Mistress says you are her husband, so I shall call you Lord.” Sandy did a half bow.

“Master.” Aurora shot down from the sky and landed on my back. “You did it!”

All of the girls around me were smiling, and suddenly I found myself in a celebration I wasn’t likely to forget for a long time.

***

I woke up content, my face pressed into Mei’s cleavage. Lumi never did join us during the night, but it was probably for the best. I had enjoyed the time with my familiar wives.

But now it was time to come back to the real world. After all, we were still recovering in a cave.

I’d slept well having them nearby, although I was woken up several times so the girls could rotate out for watch. All of them joined me when we were done in the shared soul space.

“Mei.” Fumbling around, I found her face and poked her cheek until she rolled away and I could free myself.

Having done this for years, I knew my window to escape was short. Wiggling out from under the rest of the girls, I threw myself out of the pile.

I moved out of the way just in time for Mei to roll back over, except this time, she found Aurora’s warm body and smothered the other mana beast with her chest.

Moving a bit more, my body protested, reminding me that it was still injured as pain radiated through my body.

I paused, assessing my injuries. The wounds were at least mostly closed by that point. My healing was incredible, which was good, since I seemed to get injured more often than I’d like.

Stretching the aches out of my body as I got up, I found Kat looking back from the cave entrance at me, and I made my way over as the sun was rising. Rays of light were starting to peek into the cave.

“Morning.” Kat said as she went back to keeping a vigil outside the cave. Even with all the fun in the shared soul space we needed to keep watch in the wilderness.

“Anything interesting?”

“No. Pretty sure the fight with the Ying family patriarch and the raiju scared everything off the mountain.” Kat turned to give me a small smile before looking out again. “You are going back to the city, aren’t you?” There was a quietness in her voice that told me she didn’t like the idea.

“Yes. Tracey said there was a timer on the crystal, and I could feel the mana leaking out of it slowly. I think she was telling the truth about that part.”

Kat scowled. “She should die.”

I stood next to her, wrapping my arm around her. “She serves a purpose for now. Returning her to the sect will net me points to move ahead to getting this thing off.” I shook the cuff in her view. “But before we head back, I need you to tweak her memories a bit. Not only will she serve as a payment on my debt, but as my alibi.”

“What are we taking out or putting in? Make her think she wants to be your little pet slave?” Kat broke out in a vicious smile. Woe to those who got on her bad side.

“No, I was thinking more along the lines of removing everything from when she met Guo Ying. She doesn’t need to remember me killing him or my abilities. If we replace that with some mild adventure and a tragedy to explain the loss of Claire and Beth… it might just sell the whole thing.”

Kat pouted. “I can’t do something more fun with it?”

I leveled a glare at her. “Let’s not get too creative. But you will need to fill in the time, and there needs to be a reason that she didn’t turn me over.” I tapped my chin a few times. “There must have been a decent sized beast wave if all the mana beasts left the area during the fight with the raiju and the Ying family patriarch. That makes a decent story for why she couldn’t meet up with Guo Ying and how we lost the other two disciples.”

“Of course. I’ve broken into her soul palace enough times that I’m more the master of it than she is.” Kat did a small flourish. “I will leave her a little present though.”

I paused, not sure how to tell Kat that I was worried about her indulging too far into her own darkness. What she was doing touched on the dark side of cultivation and could corrupt. “Careful. I don’t need her to be a broken human for the rest of her life.”

“Right.” Kat sounded a little distant before she changed the subject. “You should take these.”

Out of her spatial ring, trickled a number of large mana crystals. There was enough that I might even be able to pay off a good chunk of my debt to Madam Orchid.

“No. You keep them.” I shook my head. Paying off my debt was a stupid way to use these.

“What?” She frowned and gave me one of those ‘have you hit your head’ looks.

“I mean it. I think those will do more good in your hands. When we head back to Murdock, I’d like you to work with the Hua sisters and see if we can’t multiply those.” Touching one of them, I could tell there was a power contained within them. No doubt they were an invaluable cultivation resource, but right now, my concern wasn’t growing my cultivation. I needed to make friends and get rid of enemies. And I needed someone above the fifth rank to help me understand how to cross that threshold.

While Tracey had given me the basics, I knew from experience that formal instruction could move cultivation much faster.

As of that moment, I only knew of two options to get the instruction I needed. One was for Lumi to try to explain it, but would mean that mana beasts and immortals would need to have similar techniques for the 5th rank. The second and far more likely option was Madam Orchid. She’d do anything for a price. I just wasn’t sure I’d like that number she put on it.

“Okay, if that’s what you want.” Kat took back the mana crystals. “But, know that is just going to pull them to this world faster.”

“They can’t come until we deal with the Ying family. The Su family is out there as well, but we aren’t in their sights. At least for now, I’m in neutral territory. The pavilion doesn’t have a side or a single family. While not the ideal experience, it’s a safe place for the moment as I get stronger. Madam Orchid isn’t anything more than an extremely shrewd businesswoman.”

Kat wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I still want to kill her for even daring to put that on you.”

“Mohawk wasn’t enough?” I teased.

“No, not by a long shot. She wasn’t even fourth rank. I smashed through her soul like snapping my fingers.” Kat let out a long sigh. “Too easy. What about that auction house that sold you?”

“Too heavily guarded.” I tried to dissuade her, but Kat seemed like she had some pent up anger to deal with. If she was going to go on a rampage in Murdock, I’d be there with her. “Once the Ying family is done and the others are here, of course we will need to send a message that we aren’t to be trifled with.”

A smile widened on her face. “You say the sweetest things sometimes. I love you.” She punctuated the comment with a kiss. “So… how long do we have?”

I tallied up the days in my head. I’d spent a day traveling with Tracey. And it was the second day that she led us into the ambush. I’d spent two days recovering, and then another fighting Guo Ying and being nursed back to health.

If Tracey’s assessment of a week for the crystal to dry out was correct, then I had today, and two more. But I knew I’d need at least a day to get back to the city, maybe a day and a half, to be safe.

“Not that much time.” I sighed. “Today I’ll keep recovering, but tomorrow by noon, we need to be heading back to the city.”

Kat pouted and leaned into me. “No fair. I want more time.”

“I know, but there’s work to be done, and I can’t risk that crystal running out.”

“Fine. Then let’s use the time we have to hunt mana beasts here.” Kat spoke up. “Third rank and even fourth rank aren’t that uncommon. If nothing else, they will be more currency for me to use.”

I couldn’t help but give her a dubious look. “You want me to go fight while I’m still recovering?”

“Of course not.” She jumped to correct herself. “I want to go hunting with your mana beasts. You can carry stinky.” Kat wrinkled her nose as she looked back at the unconscious Tracey. “Plus, you’ll need a few of the cores if you are going to sell the story I’m planning to put into Tracey’s head.”

At the talk of my mana beasts, I wondered about Lumi.

The seal on my chest was still there, a curled blue tail and lighting for the motif around it. Pushing on her ring, I tried to summon her out to the world. But when I pushed, it was like I ran into a wall. She resisted me.

Frowning, I tried to draw up on her elemental mana. That at least, that came to me with a slight crackle on the edge of my fingertips.

“What are you doing?” Kat asked.

“Testing things. It would seem that Lumi doesn’t want to come out.”

Her eyebrow went up in question. “She’s that shy?”

“I didn’t get the sense she was shy. She was pretty badass when I tried to bind her, but when…” I trailed off, thinking of the situation again. At first, I thought it might have been embarrassment, but on second thought… “When I spanked her. I think she liked it and it confused her.”

Kat gave a throaty chuckle. “You do give a girl a good spanking.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, we’ll just have to work on her slowly. For now, let’s wake up the girls and get moving. No time like the present to keep improving ourselves.”

Kat didn’t pause for a second, jumping and going to mess with my mana beasts, waking them up.

All the girls got along fine, but Kat took special pleasure in waking them up and getting them moving for the day. Aurora was a particular favorite of hers.

I smiled, watching the antics, but then moved over to work to grab Tracey and get moving. We had work to do.