Chapter 208 - Jiran Frost (Patreon)

The element slithered inside him, an insidious infection that he chose to welcome with open arms. If he didn’t acquire an aspect like this arena demanded, there would be no going home, no saving the people who were relying on him, and never seeing his loved ones again. The problem was, he had no idea how to go about it. Olive’s advice to form a deeper connection was not only second-hand information, but may have been worded in a way that promoted inner growth, rather than actually being useful.

I can’t expect things to work out before I run out of mana. I have to dive into the process, understand it, and shape the end result into exactly what I want. At least, that method has always worked for me in the past. I’ll start by summarizing everything I know. Aura is simply a controlled extension of the wall that protects the body from the soul. The soul itself is some kind of repository for memories of past lives. Probably not relevant or useful, but the entities contacted via divination skills exist, at least partially, in the soul as well.

An image of Daughter popped into one of his minds and he idly wondered how she was doing with this trial’s consistent assaults on his aura. He crushed the idea before it bore fruit, determined to remain focused with the combined processing power of all his minds.

Mana goes through a fundamental change, something like inverting into itself to infuse a portion of the soulwall, which then allows it to stretch out and gain a foothold in reality. The system calls that phenomenon the Manabody. Through practice and understanding, that power can be controlled and enhanced in various ways, like growing larger and exerting more pressure on the physical realm. All of that is done through a connection between the body and soul called the tap, which can appear randomly anywhere inside the body.

Jiran jerked upright as he nearly fell asleep. An icicle that had formed on his eyebrow cracked and fell, the sound of it hitting the floor and shattering the loudest thing he’d heard since entering the cave. He forced his body to shiver, hoping it would keep him awake, the idea that movement might warm him up wasn’t even worth considering. He closed his eyes tight and the crunch of his frozen eyelashes rubbing together was loud in his ears.

As for aspects themselves, the most simplistic ones I’ve seen were definitely the Forkara elders. They first converted their mana to an element and then pushed it back through their channels into their taps. Afterward, it only took a second for their auras to change and reflect that attribute. The entire process seems convoluted but the raw boost in power can’t be ignored. If it were as simple as cramming an element into the tap, I would have been done already. There’s some kind of trick to it, and I’m not going to figure it out by merely thinking. Time for some good old-fashioned self-mutila-I mean experimentation.

Jiran created a thread of mana and fed it into the tap in his neck. For most, finding one's pinprick-sized tap was an arduous process that could take decades. Through the thread, he was fed a plethora of sensations: Chief among them was the blistering cold suffusing the tiny tunnel that led to his soul. The entire space was frozen and looked all too similar to the narrow tunnel that led to the very cave he was sitting in. Despite it being in his neck, he had to stretch the thread five meters before reaching the end of the tap, a testament to just how strange the entire process of reaching the soul was. There, he encountered a familiar barrier.

When he cured Shara, Lenton’s granddaughter, he had to use her aura to bypass the barrier in her tap. His own barrier gave him no pause, parting smoothly to allow his mana through. Beyond was the indefinable space that separated physical reality from the soulwall. Jiran gazed in wonder at the off-blue wall that stretched left and right far enough to contain the galaxy that was his soul. Inside this strange place, he existed as a shadowy mass. Though that wasn’t quite right, it was more similar to an ideal given form, but not strong enough to actually exist, like the shadow of a shadow, or a dream within a dream.

He was nearly torn from his intense focus when he found the usually empty space alive with activity. A billowing cloud of frost was gushing from his tap, filling the soul-space and slamming itself against his soulwall. Every time they connected, a wave rippled through the wall and it was accompanied by a dull throb that spread through his physical body in the form of a bone-deep chill.

I wasn’t imagining it, the air in this cave, in this whole arena, really is attacking my soul.

Jiran immediately attempted to form a barrier between his soulwall and the fog but he may as well have been attacking a revenant. It pushed right through his defenses, crashing like a wave against the beach. He rallied the aura sealed away inside him, yet that proved useless as well. The fog simply washed up against his soulwall in another slow and inexorable motion. Jiran winced at the ache that spread through him, growing frustrated in his helplessness.

It’s not doing a lot of damage to my soul, if any. Wait, I remember Daughter saying it wasn’t possible to damage the soul directly but if there was a break in the wall and some of my soul leaked into reality it would be… bad for me. Still, it's clearly hurting my physical body through some kind of feedback loop. I’ve got to figure out a way to protect myself. Oh, if I can’t stop the cold, maybe I can reinforce the wall.

His attempt to infuse the wall with mana was mildly successful. The next wave only released a mild numbing that trickled through him. With a shake of his shadowy form, he withdrew his mana.

That’s just going to drain my mana all the faster. Besides, I get the feeling this is how forming an aspect is supposed to happen. If I want to include ice in my aura, then doesn't either a portion of my soulwall, or soul itself, need to be attuned to the element? The question is, which one, soul, or wall. And how long does it take? If I was in a normal place with a normal cold that wasn’t attacking my soul, probably years. Here, it could actually be finished acclimating in a day… I can’t take that chance. Even if this is a thousand times faster than normal, I have to find a way to speed it up.

Mayalyn’s smiling face appeared in his thoughts and a shadowy representation of her formed in the soul-space. Surprised that his stray thoughts could form a semi-real manifestation in the strange place, Jiran didn't immediately banish it. The shadow quickly took on a more solid form until it grew wild blue hair and honey-colored eyes. He couldn’t move, didn’t want to move as he was swept away in the sheer personality emanating from her expression. She reached out a hand and when it touched his shadow, her image exploded into mist.

At the speed of thought, the mist reformed into another woman, this one with beautiful blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. She beckoned Jiran closer with a wave of her fingers and he could almost hear the words she mouthed, “You promised.”

Jiran’s eyes failed to snap open like they should when he jerked himself awake. Mana Confluence tore through him, healing the black splotches that covered his entire body. He tried to curse, but his lips were frozen together as well. He couldn’t breathe or move and the momentary panic caused a building pressure behind his eyes that warned of tears; it was an empty threat since they too were solid ice. Elemental Castigation made short work of the several centimeters of ice encasing him and he took a deep gasp of freezing cold air.

The ice was gone, yet the images of Mayalyn and Olive remained, nestled securely in one of his minds that refused to release them. Or perhaps it was that they were creating the only feeling of warmth he had experienced in hours and he couldn’t bear to banish them again. He embraced the reminder, adding the faces of the Timberlings, Forkara, and the People beside them. It wasn’t only Olive, he had made many promises, and the fresh reminder gave him the courage to do what he knew needed to be done.

I’m not going to survive in this cave for a day. I have to take the initiative. The cold in this place is insidious. I didn’t have any clue I was falling asleep until it was too late. The next time, I might not wake up.

Jiran dove back down his tap and swam his mana right up to a particular spot in his soulwall. All around him, the waves of icy fog crashed against the only thing preventing his soul from leaking into reality and devouring him. He placed a shadowy hand against the wall, knowing what he was about to do was possibly one of the biggest risks he’d ever taken.

It’ll only be for a moment. It can’t be any worse than being slowly invaded by this ice. Besides, if I’m going to figure out what’s really happening, I’ve got no choice but to go inside and look. The biggest issue is Madra’s mana. The last few times I tried to go in there and look around, it blocked my mana. I’ve got no other choice than to try.

Not giving himself time to doubt or change his mind, Jiran spun up the rings of his gate; two massive circles made of a mysterious material constructed by Madra herself. They rotated in place, one inside the other. Directly in the center, a crack formed running up the length of the wall and through it, Jiran saw a backdrop of deep darkness framing a galaxy of Madra’s mana. The dormant energy floated harmlessly, but he knew how venomous it could be once brought back into reality.

The unfathomable expanse of mana didn’t move to stop him and the icy fog was being sucked into his soul in massive quantities so Jiran wasted no time diving in himself. He immediately spun around upon entering, not bothering to look for the stars crammed with memories like the last two trips he’d taken to his soul. Except when he turned, all he found was more darkness, his soul appearing to stretch indefinitely in every direction. The fog was nowhere to be seen, nor were there any indications of what was happening on the outside of his soulwall.

Damnit, why does this have to be so confusing! There’s got to be a hint in here, some kind of clue to what’s happening! No, that’s stupid. Nobody said this would be easy or make sense. The only clue here is Madra’s mana being unusually dormant.

Unwilling to leave his soul open and vulnerable without any answers to be gleaned, Jiran withdrew his mana and slammed the gate shut. Upon returning to himself, he found his body completely encased in several centimeters of frost all over again. The frustration of waking up to find himself trapped after what felt like only a few seconds was too much.

Elemental Castigation exploded from him in a fiery wave, devouring the layer and sweeping intense heat into the cave around him. As if it were a living being, the cavern released a bestial roar in the form of raging winds and the cold around him doubled in strength, crushing his fire in an unstoppable, vice-like grip. Jiran blacked out as his meager attempt to free himself was snuffed out. He came to smothered in a fresh blanket of frozen pressure. The impossibly cold air wrapped around him, chilling him to his very soul. With one last squeeze, as though communicating that another attempt to spawn heat within its bowels would end in death, the cave relented and returned to its normal, deathly temperature.

More carefully this time, Jiran thawed and healed himself. When he could move again, a wicked smile split his face and a reedy chuckle escaped his lungs.

That was it! That’s so close to the power I want my aspect to embody. To snuff out my enemies in a blanket of cold so overpowering that they can’t move. And that was also the hint I’ve been looking for. Not only was I frozen because I let a little of that fog into my soul, but the cave itself fought back when I rejected its ice. This is just like when I refused to accept myself during the Aahmra’s training. The more I fought, the more I denied myself, the worse the recoil! I keep fighting back, trying to stop and control the process, but that’s not right. I need to accept it, become it, until the cold is such an ingrained part of me that not having it would be what causes a backlash.

That’s why Dokkuun said I can only have one aspect, because once I conform to a specific element, adding another would itself be a rejection of what's already there. An aspect isn’t an element-flavored aura, it's an aura that has become the element itself. Olive’s words were right, it was my interpretation of them that was wrong. Forming a connection with the element didn’t mean understanding it more thoroughly, but truly joining with it on a deeper level.

Now I know what to do and how to do it. But I don’t have any intention of accepting this cave's imperfect version of cold into myself. The cold I want needs to embody the ice-death of the universe. A cold powerful enough to stop time. A cessation of all movement: The True Origin of Ice.

With a final breath, Jiran threw wide the gates of his soul and the choking cold he imagined billowed out, latching onto the fog and greedily swallowing it.