Chapter 611: Fragments of Lostwreck

As she flew, on a mission to acquire great power and perhaps decide the fate of her world, Zae Zin Nim found herself thinking about her wife. It bothered her how much Omilaena was willing to risk, tempting fate with Insanities. She admitted that from a different angle it could be seen as ambition, as they would never grow unless they took significant risks, yet that didn't make those decisions any less maddening.

Perhaps Omi's recklessness could be considered the Ninth Insanity of their world. Was that something that might amuse her? Zae Zin Nim was too stressed to care for any jokes at the moment.

Even as she flew south, high above Lostwreck, Zae Zin Nim kept thinking back to Omilaena. Her wife was still in the abandoned capital, imprisoning a fraction of the Whispering Death within several layers of defenses. The problem was that even that wasn't enough - without her attention, it could escape, or even explode from the Prana Jewels.

The early experiments had proved difficult. Apparently the disease was mostly one of chakra, meaning that chakra itself was ineffective against it. Mana could be used to scour it, and qi seemed to be the most effective method of control. Unfortunately, Omilaena couldn't keep up with the intense qi required, hence Zae Zin Nim had taken it on herself to quest for her wife.

At last she saw it: the vicious icy sea that prevented anyone from sailing further south. According to the invaders, if someone could survive the icy fingers, they would eventually reach another land, but Zae Zin Nim had no intention of going that far yet.

Instead she searched among the icebergs, seeking out those that were charged with unnatural power. The entire sea of ice definitely seemed bizarre, perhaps caused by some other Insanity from outside their world. All that mattered was that the result included various icebergs with natural treasures: some glowed blue with mana, some had cores of chakra, and qi wafted from others. That was the entire reason she had come this far.

As she searched, Zae Zin Nim couldn't help but evaluate everything she passed, just in case it was useful. She did end up taking a few pieces of ice, since they might have some use, and placed them within her spatial bracelet. None of them were what she needed.

After a day of searching, at last she found something suitable: a spike of ice so intense that it froze the sea where it touched, creating a massive iceberg around it. The spike had incredibly intense ice qi, enough that it would have been classified as a treasure even on Cloudspire. It wasn't 'pure' by those standards, with a strong element of chakra binding it to the ice, but that didn't seem to matter so much any more.

When Zae Zin Nim reached out, her Coldfire Corona lit up automatically around her hands, preventing her from damaging them on the ice. She needed to be extremely careful finding a way to transport it, then she hurled herself back north.

Now that she carried a potential solution with her, Zae Zin Nim's mind wandered from her wife's recklessness. Her own work on Lostwreck had been more productive, right up until this development. She had discovered multiple societies that seemed to have been cultivators, before they had been annihilated by the Whispering Death.

She wasn't so lucky as to stumble across an unprecedented treasure or a legendary cultivation technique. The best she had found was the case of rainbow pills, each of which surpassed what she knew, but seemed difficult to use. It seemed that the blue pill might be useful for Omilaena, if only she didn't need ice qi, and some of the others seemed unnatural enough to be suited for Kai. None of her efforts had determined if any would be appropriate for her.

Better than pills, there were multiple manuals that she could figure out, some of them even written in a language that was half-familiar. They spoke of cultivation very similar to what she knew, but they used different language. Some even called the second stage "Body Purification" just like the invader had.

As far as she was concerned, this was strong evidence that what he said was basically correct: there was more cultivation in the outside world, stages that no one could attain here because their qi wasn't dense enough. The stages she had known were likely just shadows of the true cultivation, at least to a certain point.

Far from discouraging her, she found this exciting.

Because, contrary to what the invader had claimed, Zae Zin Nim wasn't convinced that he actually understood what he spoke of. His techniques were powerful due to his natural phase, but they weren't sophisticated, and it was strange to think that an accomplished cultivator would be working with a bunch of scruffy sailors.

No, it seemed more probable that he had been a failure who left a sect, and in that case his supposed wisdom was likely wrong. Even if there was a stage of cultivation she knew nothing about, it was inconceivable to her that improving one's dantian and qi could be harmful. More likely the opposite was true, and higher realms were like the stages she knew: building a strong foundation made the next stage more powerful, not less.

So she intended to stay the course: she would reach Sky Soul just as she had planned. And then, after they finished the invaders, she would discover whatever lay beyond it.

When Zae Zin Nim returned to the familiar ruins, she found her wife kneeling with the box hovering in her hands. She looked exhausted - without an improved Physique, or stamina like Kai had, Omilaena was the least able of the three to continue like this without rest or sleep. But the way she smiled weakly when she saw Zae Zin Nim...

"Are you alright?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

"I'll manage," Omilaena said. "You seem like you're dying to show me something, though."

"Yes, use this." Reaching into her spatial bracelet, she revealed the intense shard of ice. "Your cultivation must be close, you've been working on it for so long. You might need something physical to take you over the edge, since you altered your cultivation."

"Then give me a break with this."

Omilaena gave up the box, which Zae Zin Nim left hovering in a sphere of blue flame. She could do that easily enough, but the fundamentally spiritual poison worried her. It had been trying to waft out from the beginning, slipping through Omilaena's barriers to strike them again.

Relieved of her burden, Omilaena took some time to clear her mind and shifted to a meditation pose. Despite her complaining and lack of discipline, Omilaena really was a good cultivator - in some ways, she had the easy talent of a genius that Kai made up for with hard work. When she was really determined, like now, Omilaena could make great breakthroughs.

Except she wasn't simply drawing qi into her dantian like she would with a normal breakthrough, because the qi was concentrated in the tattoo on her arm. Normally it was nearly invisible, but the blue-white tendrils were glowing now as they absorbed qi from the ice shard.

Just in case the breakthrough required ordinary qi or other assistance, Zae Zin Nim pulled medicinal pills and other items out of her bracelet and set them in front of Omilaena. She even considered the rainbow pills before deciding that she didn't understand them enough. Her wife didn't seem to need them, though, only taking a qi pill in order to top up her reserves as she struggled to break through.

Then, with troubling swiftness, Omilaena grasped the ice shard with her bare hand and pressed it against her arm. She cried out in pain, and Zae Zin Nim gasped in sympathy, but Omilaena kept driving it against her skin even as it threatened to freeze her. Slowly, inch by painful inch, she began tracing the tattoos that she had placed on her arm.

Partway through, the tattoos began growing on their own, creeping further down Omilaena's arm. They surged intensely and suddenly the ice shard dissolved, leaving Omilaena gripping her own arm.

"Did you...?" Zae Zin Nim nervously inspected her wife's soul and then breathed a sigh of relief.

<

Name: Omilaena

Total Power: 1969

Heart of Poison: Level 93 (651)

*Prana Jewels: Level +6 (42)

Lethal Artisan: Spinel Rank (335)

Nascent Ice (250)

Path of Venomsteel: Step 11 (165)

Physique: D-9 (245)

Soul Level: 9 (81)

Azure Core (+200)

>

"That hurts like balls," Omilaena muttered, rubbing her arm. "My head hurts too much to judge, was that a good breakthrough? Is that what you'd hope for the Nascent Foundation stage?"

"It appears to have 250 Power, which is the theoretical maximum." Zae Zin Nim knelt down beside her wife and took her arm, tracing the silvery lines. "This is very impressive, Omi. I'm glad you finally found a way to break through. You have nearly 2000 Power now."

"And I need more than that." Despite her tone, Omilaena didn't pull her arm away, just turned back to look at the box hovering within the flames.

Instead of her previous methods, Omilaena encased the box and the Prana Jewels within pure ice qi. This was far more effective, locking away the dangerous power, though the additional strength behind Omilaena's techniques couldn't hurt.

"I think I could handle further remnants of the Whispering Death," Omilaena said, "but I don't know if we have time to keep exploring Lostwreck."

"What, then?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

"I need a way to get this poison under control and make a Physique breakthrough, and I don't think I'm going to do that here. Have you found enough resources?"

"Perhaps... perhaps I have."

There would be more time to explore Lostwreck one day, but for now, Zae Zin Nim realized that she most wanted to return to a different continent.