Chapter 337: Sing like nobody’s around
=So…at what point do you think he’ll tell them the truth about his abilities?=
=You’re banking on that last one aren’t you?=
=The one time?=
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Zhen Liu looked over his unconcious cousins as he tried to come up with a believable enough lie that they’ll probably ignore this moment or chalk it up as negligence on their part.
Out of a mix of frustration and to get his brain flowing, he scratched his head while pacing.
‘Alright, so my cousins happened to be in the area at the same time I my transferrence thing and passed out as a result…wait, are any of the kaijin around to help with this?’
[On your neck, maestro,] Hurricroak answered, [the others are occupied right now.]
‘Occupied? With what?’
[Uhh…]
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“UNHAND ME WOMAN! THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE COMMANDS IT! I WILL MOUNT HIM AND MAKE CHILDREN STRONG ENOUGH TO RULE THE WORLD! SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST!”
“OH NO YOU DON’T, I WAS HERE FIRST! WAIT, WHY AM I EVEN HAVING THIS ARGUMENT?!”
As Rianna and Jin Fang had their “disagreement”, the kaijin and proto-kaijin just watched on with silent curiosity and confusion, respectively.
Well, pseudo-silence.
[Hey, big sis?,] Spring Brawler asked Razor Maiden,[Why are those? Two fighting?]
[Hmmmm. I remember reading once that humans were usually attracted to things such as money, power and looks, but I don’t think that’s the case here. Most of our money comes from the clan, we kaijin are like seventy percent of his power and our lord is… okay looking. So I have no idea here.]
[Animals… attracted…to…music,] Frosttusk interjected, [true for…bugs…true…for…humans.]
[Wait… you’re telling me that the amazonian huntress over there is going crazy because our lord just…sang a song?]
[Pretty much,] Nepherage agreed.
[Man…humans are weird.]
“IF IT’S A FIGHT FOR DOMINANCE, I WILL WIN!”
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[Dealing with the consequences of slaking the thirst of thirsty women who got all of their sexual know-how from watching bugs.]
‘That was…oddly specific, whatever! Hurricroak, I’m going to be adjusting your move list now.
[Oooh, fun!]
Zhen Liu focused his mind on both Hurricroak’s ring and the seal on his hand, causing the all too familiar display to appear before him.
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Kaijin Name: Hurricroak
Core: Resonating Resolve
Aether Formula: Concerto of the Storm Gods.
Ranking: Aether Grandmaster, First Ring
Strength: C+
Dexterity: A+
Endurance: C+
Intellect: A-
Speed: B+
Aether Arts: Rhythm Combo, Thunder Shout, [13 other combat arts], ARTS CAPACITY INCREASED.
Kaijin Art: Storm Revelry.
Bestowal Enhancement: Thunder Amps
Description: A froggy chimeric popstar kaijin that has folkloric origins. Has recently developed an interest in “anime music” and “Asian” pop. Also watched about a thousand Bollywood movies to date.
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‘Fuck yeah! New abilities that I can’t address right now because I need to convince my cousins that they were just hit with the fall out of my practice sessions! Now, where are those hypnosis arts…’
Zhen Liu rapidly clicked through the Library’s catalogue of aether arts, looking for ones associated with music, hypnosis, illusions, dreams and trickery.
‘Hmmm, looks like a lot of these require instruments or the ability to sing…wait, can I even get away with that latter one?
[If it helps,I can do a good impression of your voice, maestro. Not as good as Nepherage, but yeah.]
‘That’s not the issue Hurricroak, it’s because aether puppets aren’t supposed to breathe and….wait, duh, I’m dumb. Hurricroak, get ready to get inside my brain.’
[Huzzah!]
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“H-!”
“Mgh?”
“He-!”
“Gianna?”
“Hey!”
“Bwah!”
Zhen Hai shot awake as he realized he had been rendered unconcious due to… something. He looked about in confusion as he tried to figure out what had just happened.
The last thing he remembered was going to go see Zhen Liu in that abandoned quarry the latter liked to train in, while he himself was accompanied by Zhen Yue, Zhen Xing and Zhen Guo. Granted the last two had completely different reasons for tagging along. They were walking, talking and then…there was a…bear in a suit? No…a goat?
And then singing?
Why did it feel like he was trying to remember a dream?
Zhen Hai saw that next to him were the unconcious forms of his cousins. Thankfully they were breathing, so he could cross them out as having been killed.
“You okay?,” Zhen Liu asked with concern, “you guys were unconcious for awhile.”
“Uh…yeah ,” Zhen Hai answered while rubbing the back of his head in confusion,”we were coming to see you and then… what happened to us?”
“Uh…that might have been my fault…,” Zhen Liu replied sheepishly.
“Wait, you? How?”
“Well…”
“Buhh…”
“My head…”
“Didn’t I have a hat…?”
“Oh look, the others are waking up.”
A couple moments later, Zhen Yue, Zhen Xing and Zhen Guo joined Zhen Hai and Zhen Liu in the land of the conscious, equally confused about what had happened to them.
“Wait… weren’t we in like a concert hall or something?,” Zhen Xing grumbled groggily, “I remember there also being a lot of people…well, what looked like people.”
“Wait…yeah, me too,” Zhen Guo followed up, “we also had some lovely looking outfits. I miss the hat.”
“Cool so we were afflicted with the same weirdness,” Zhen Yue pointed out, “so…what happened?”
“I was just about to find out,” Zhen Hai answered while turning towards Zhen Liu. The other three followed suit to see what the reason was.
Zhen Liu expected this reaction, so he had a cover story ready to go.
‘Okay, time to lie.’
“Alright so… the reason why y’all got knocked out like this and are remembering some weird fantasy, might have been my fault…,” Zhen Liu told his cousins.
Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue looked at Zhen Liu with a face that said “Okay, no shit, you’re a giant walking, talking anamoly at this point”, while Zhen Xing and Zhen Guo decided to verbally question.
“Okay…how?”
“Well…”
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So prior to me finding out you guys were unconcious, I was just doing my usual practicing with puppets thing at the bottom of the quarry.
Today, I wanted to practice using my lightning and sound attributed puppet, well, practice using it to use arts via my own body.
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“Wait, you can do that now?!,” Zhen Xing and Zhen Guo interrupted.
“Oh right, never told you guys, yeah I can now, it’s just…weird,anyways!,” Zhen Liu continued.
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As I was getting used to wielding the powers of thunder and lightning, my master showed up out of the blue.
“Wassup my little disciple! Looks like you figured out the prosthetic trick! About time!”
Hold up.
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“I’ve been meaning to ask this,” Zhen Yue interjected, “but what’s the deal with your master exactly?”
“Huh?”
“Pa-Father talked about this with me earlier, but grandfather shared with him the letter he received in regards to Aranea, Lucille and Rianna. He made the comment that it sounded less like an enigmatic elder and more like…a crazy hermit?”
“Gonna be super honest with y’all,” Zhen Liu paused “…he is really fucking weird, but he kinda earned that right.”
“…fair enough.”
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“As a present for finally getting this far, here! A high class Ethereal art from my stint in the Music Hall of the Thunder Gods.”
Before y’all ask, it was a wandering ruins on Soaring Gryphon.
The art he gave me was something called [Dream Siren’s Solo,] some kind of crazy singing art that allowed the user to hypnotize multiple people at once into a singular shared dream-like experience.
“Yeah this art is a little tricky to use, since part of it involves getting the targets to be ensnared in a dream that you’re intimate with…so with that mind, I’m now going to subject it to you at full blast. PREPARE YOUR MENTAL STABILITY!”
After that I was ensnared in some crazy concert dream complete with lots of lights, sounds and musicians. I roused back to up consciousness a little bit after that mental blast to find my master missing, myself laying on a bed of grass and a note on my stomach telling me that he had made the grass so I wouldn’t wake up covered in rocks and sand, and that you guys got caught up in the art too.
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“Which leads us to now,” Zhen Liu finished off his semi-elaborate lie. It probably helped that he was only lying about the things involving a “master”,but that was fine.
“Hmmm.”
Zhen Xing and Zhen Guo nodded as they seemed to believe the long yarn that Zhen Liu had spun, granted, they didn’t really know Zhen Liu intimately enough to doubt him.
Zhen Yue and Zhen Hai on the other hand…
“So,” Zhen Yue started, “your master taught you a new art?”
“Yes.”
“Can you show it to us?”
“…yes.”
It was a good thing Zhen Liu picked an art that was in the library, otherwise he would have been fucked.
