Chapter 38: The art of mastery starts with the art of mimicry
A few days after watching the grudge match between Sullivan and Donovan…
[Can’t come out. Too full.]
[What? What do you mean you can’t come out? What do you mean full? I don’t think I ever seen you eat anything.]
“Is something wrong?,” Jin Fang called out.
“I don’t know. Nepherage doesn’t want to come out…”
Currently, Jin Fang and Zhen Liu were making use of one of the empty properties that the Zhen Clan owned as a practice ground for Nepherage. Aside from practicing forms with Zhen Liu, Nepherage still had to practice using her arts while Zhen Liu had to get used to his aether being drained when she did. Especially after Zhen Liu finally built up the courage to mess around with her arts list and swapped in some new skills that seemed…pricy.
Granted, this endeavor now hinged on Nepherage coming out of her bracelet and right now, she wasn’t doing so. At this point, Zhen Liu decided to stop poking at Nepherage’s bracelet with his aether and switched to trying to get her out using brute force methods.
‘Maybe something is physically interfering with her?,’ Zhen Liu thought as he began to twist the bracelet off of his wrist. It was about at the midpoint of his left hand when a familiar voice chimed into his head.
“Wait. Say wha-GYAAAAAAHAHAHA!”
Wave after wave of aether came flowing out of Nepherage’s bracelet and into Zhen Liu’s mind, body and soul.
He still hadn’t gotten used to aether being extracted from him, having aether forcefully injected into his wonky channels wasn’t much better either.
‘Why do I feel…hot? And what’s with the sulfur smell?’
As more and more aether flowed into his body, strange images and sounds began to overcome his senses as profound understandings began to unfold within his mind. The present seemed to fade away as a strange vision overtook him.
The image of a dancing maiden, dressed in islander garb, began to play out in Zhen Liu’s mind. It was initially slow and uneventful, but as she continued to dance, things became more and more intense.
As the scene played out, it became clear to Zhen Liu that this maiden was dancing in the mouth of a volcano.
Everytime she stomped, the ground began to crack and glow orange. Every movement of her arms was accompanied by jets smoke and ash shooting upwards and following the movement of her arms. And as she jumped and spun, spurts of lava, flame and rock shot up in tandem with her movements.
At the very end of her dance, the maiden struck a rather memorable pose, her fist raised high into the sky, accompanied by a full-on pillar of lava erupting out of the ground and illuminating her figure. In that moment, the figure looked less like a maiden and more like a wild nature goddess.
Strange whispers escaped from the volcano goddess’s lips as Zhen Liu beheld the scene. It was in this moment that a different mystery cut in and the vision ended.
Zhen Liu felt his consciousness return to the present after the announcement was made…only to find himself collapsing to the ground while covered in sweat and feeling physically exhausted as all hell…but also feeling a lot stronger. This was incredibly confusing to him.
‘What…what just happened.’
[I now feel much better,] Nepherage chimed in, [Thank you, milord.]
“Zhen Liu! Are you okay?!,” Jin Fang shouted as she rushed over to Zhen Liu’s side, going onto her knees and lifting his head as to rest it upon her lap. She had this worried look on her face that Zhen Liu couldn’t help but find a tad adorable. He was tempted to tease her, but now wasn’t the time.
“Why did that ghost make you two dance like that?”
“I’m fine, I’m fin-wait…ghost? dancing? What dancing?”
Zhen Liu shot Jin Fang a rather confused look, unsure of what to make of her question.
“You mean you don’t remember?”
Zhen Liu shook his head.
“No…what did I do?”
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Jin Fang watched on as Zhen Liu began to fiddle with his bracelet. She found it adorably amusing seeing Zhen Liu struggle with his unusual abilities.
“Wait. Say wha-GYAAAAAAHAHAHA!”
“Zhen Liu!” Jin Fang was about to rush to Zhen Liu’s aid, when she stopped in her track when the familiar sight of the marionette ghost from last time manifested from her beloved’s body.
“What? You again?!”
As the ghost began to properly form around him, Zhen Liu’s body began to emit a weird silver glow as the bracelet on his wrist released a brownish-orange light. Moments later, Nepherage was summoned, surrounded by a brownish-orange aura, but she looked a bit…limp.
As the marionette ghost became more and more solid looking, it began to do swirling motions with it’s hands around Nepherage and Zhen Liu. The two of them began to emit strands of white energy that latched onto the marionette’s swirling hands.
‘Are those…strings?’
Once the marionette ghost was fully manifested, it stopped swirling hands and jerked them upwards. The threads of white energy that came from Zhen Liu and Nepherage’s body, turned into puppet strings that held the two of them aloft and taut. As the two were suspended in the air, the strings connected to Nepherage began to take on an brownish orange color that crawled up towards the marionette’s hands.
A brown and orange aura began to envelop the marionette ghost, eventually reaching the other side and dyeing Zhen Liu’s strings in the same color. Zhen Liu’s body suddenly jerked at the change, the silver aura around his body changing to match the brownish orange of Nepherage’s.
Once the change was complete, the marionette began to slowly move it’s two hands. This action caused both Nepherage and Zhen Liu to twitch their arms and legs in perfect unison. Needless to say, this action startled Jin Fang.
“What the-”
Things got even weirder when Zhen Liu and Nepherage started dancing.
