The Astral soul system-Chapter 207: Useless stuff

Now wasn’t the time for an existential crisis. Whether the current state of the world itself had something to do with him could wait for now.

"Theia"

"Hmm?"

"The Astral realm. How do I...get there? Is it just as simple as you said? A beacon?"

"Well...yes and no"

"Why?"

"Because you’re special. In fact once you’re strong enough you won’t even need beacons"

"What?"

"Yeah, that’s one of the main functions of your wings,in fact it might be the most important. You can travel through dimensions with them? Though exactly how,i can’t tell until you hit a higher level"

"I see"

Zen took a deep breath, feeling the ambient energy and spreading his wings. He’d done it enough times to do it almost instantly, plus it was partly reflexive since he had actually muscles and bones linked to them. He wasn’t sure how it worked, but he doubted he ever would

He curled them around, almost cocooning himself so he could see them clearly.

Their color was rather dark, almost black even, but it seemed to change color depending on who was in control .

"They’re too bright. So eye-catching"

As soon as he said that he saw them slowly start to dim becoming less luminescent.

"I can even do that?"

He muttered, examining the wings closely.

Covering them seemed to be what looked like feathers or scales, unfortunately he couldn’t tell. He wasn’t a biology expert but he knew enough to be able to accurately discern feathers from scales, but these seemed to be neither. They seemed almost glass like.

"These things can move through worlds"

He mused, thinking he’d probably need to be about level 100 before he could do something so grand.

"Leveling up is going to take far too long with all these curses"

He said, faintly brushing his fingers against the choker and the cuff around his ear before holding his necklace tight.

Looking at the yin symbol he went silent, trying once again to think back but still,all he could see were flashes.

Blonde hair. That’s all he could remember. He had an elder sister about ten years older than him with blonde hair.

Seeing Zen deep in thought, Theia dropped down onto his lap, looking up at his face.

"Hey. Relax, you’ve got time. Earth, the Astral realm, dungeons,all this. You’ve got all the time in the world, remember?"

Zen tilted his head, not sure what she was talking about

"Wait,did I forget to mention?"

Zen heard Zephyr groan in the back of his mind and even Sylphie who was at the pond trembled a little, looking like she was holding in laughter.

Theia laughed awkwardly, scratching her head

"Haha, well, better later than never. Um.. basically a rank one astral has an average lifespan of about about two hundred years if they don’t train or try to prolong their lives, and that’s in this world , unfortunately or maybe fortunately,from rank two it becomes a lot more complicated"

"Complicated?"

"Well..."

"Tell me exactly how long? Double?"

Theia shrugged.

"What does that mean "

"It’s complicated. At this point, I don’t think you even have a set lifespan, but I’d say it’s in the two fifties. Theoretically though...."

Zen realized what she was trying to say. The potential lifespan of an Astral only started to actually have meaning by the two hundreds. Anything from that point onward was determined by other factors like evolution stage"

"Other Astrals evolve as well?"

Theia nodded.

That sent Zen down another rabbit hole. He’d never heard of a sentient species going through what would take most other species millions of years in mere minutes. The closest he’d heard of were beasts increasing in ranks, but there was actual science behind that,it was a field of study. What he was going through now was a lot more ambiguous.

"It’s actually not that rare. Although not a lot of sapient creatures do it, some do"

She gave a wry smile.

"Unfortunately the pain is a universal factor when it comes down to it. No way around it. You can’t speedrun millions of years without side effects. Heck I’m surprised you didn’t burst into flames"

"That was possible?"

Zen asked before answering himself. Of course it was possible. The amount of energy coursing through his body should have melted through his body fat and with all the sparks, he wondered himself how he didn’t burst into flames.

"Does that happen often?"

Theia shrugged

"No clue, but you should probably prepare Jade for it. She has a pretty sucky pain tolerance "

Zen was once again reminded of what he’d done.

"Jade..."

She’d have to go through everything he had. The pain and agony that was this existence. He hadn’t thought much of it before, but how would a normal person react to being... this

She’d probably be happy about being stronger, right? Or scared to look at herself in the mirror?

In the end it was curiosity fueling these thoughts, nothing else

Speaking about Jade, shouldn’t she be able to collect souls now too?

He wasn’t sure how she’d fare with these things, but he was curious to see.

"Well at least she’ll be useful to you more now?"

"Why?"

"Well strictly speaking,you two are kin now, basically you’re a clan, though a clan of two isn’t really a clan,is it?"

"And what use is that to me?"

"Well for one,you noticed how the system was completely against you leaving her right?"

Zen nodded. It had practically threatened to return him to nothing. Weaker than before he even got it. It also said he’d gain a strange new evolution, something called an Abyssal.

"Well that’s because kin stay together. Although not as much as humans, almost all sapient races are social creatures,at least to a degree, including Astrals. You’re bonded now. You can’t feel it now, but trust me, it’s stronger than anything humans can ever hope to replicate,at least without an outside source like abilities"

She looked back at Sylphie and spoke.

"She shares the same bond you have with the codex and is both indirectly and directly connected to you"

"You mean mentally?"

"Yes, but your souls also share a link. That’s why you saw her in your inner realm. You’ll feel it when she’s awake "

"So... she’s also going to live as long as me "

"Possibly,yes,or who knows, even longer if she’s lucky "

Zen thought for a good second. Although there was a clear difference between a human and Astral,they were practically identical until the latter transformed. Jade herself probably wouldn’t notice for a while.

Until then? Maybe it would be better to keep this from her. He wasn’t planning on waiting for her to figure it out, just until Zyro found an explanation that wouldn’t give her a heart attack. He was the empathetic one after all.

For now, telling Jade would be an inconvenience, one that couldn’t be accurately predicted.

It had taken about two months for him to transform for the first time, and without the system, he suspected it’d take Jade even longer, especially when she wasn’t even aware she could do anything like that. He had plenty of time.

Zen’s head lolled to the side, his wings sprawled at his sides. Although they cost energy to release, the energy in the cave was more than sufficient to sustain him and Moirai.

"Alright, we’re getting moody again. Wanna see my pal screen?"

"Your what?

A system screen he’d never seen before suddenly popped up and Zen... wasn’t really sure what to say

"Is this your... avatar creation space?"

"Something like that. Check it out!"

She said, enthusiastically swiping between dresses and accessories.

He looked at the top corner and saw something called pal points. Appearantly she had about five hundred left.

A bit curious, he tapped on a dress and it asked if he wanted to buy it. It const two hundred pal points.

He clicked yes and the dress appeared on Theia.

"Hey. Something called permission exists,you know?"

"Why have I never seen this before? And what use is it?"

He said, swiping through.

Theia shrugged, buying a chair and sitting, though the chair itself was still just floating.

"I don’t know, life as an Astral is honestly one of two things, deadly or... boring, like really boring. The system has dozens of little useless modes like this just to keep you entertained, appearantly GK wanted you to relax once in a while too"

Zen wasn’t really sure what to say. When he thought about it, hundreds of years, while seeming like something amazing would probably get boring after a while, right?

"And the most important reason "

Theia suddenly added, causing Zen to listen closely

"I get to look fabulous!!! And every single day!"

She said, fireworks suddenly appearing behind her. GK had certainly picked a very... expressive AI.

He was a bit curious about what else he didn’t know but right now he was still thinking. Theia had successfully gotten his mind off some stuff with her silliness but he still needed answers.

He watched her switch back and forth between outfits for the next few minutes while still thinking.

"Could i fix the beacon?"

He suddenly asked.

"Right now? No... but you could probably harness it"

She closed her customization screen and pointed to the lake.

"Remember those weird tentacles you fought? Those were basically parasites drawn by the dungeon corpse. They should show up every now and again but if you’re lucky it won’t be too hard to handle. Beacons like this make it easier for them to show up"

"Okay,so i use it as bait?"

Theia shrugged.

"If you want? A lot of interesting stuff resides in other worlds. It’d probably be pretty dangerous but you’d almost certainly have some fun...oh and i guess you could get stronger too"

"I see"

"You could even bring Jade too"

"No"

"Hey dude, like it or not, she’s sort of your responsibility now. You’ll have to acknowledge her eventually "

Zen thought for a second before deciding to think about it later. Instead he decided to look at something else.

"Theia,I need new weapons for the three of us. Our current equipment might be insufficient with our drop in power"

"On it boss man "

Theia said, the system opening as she started browsing through thousands for gear that was appropriate for her three hosts.

"And while I’m at it should I make a secondary search for equipment for our...allies?"

Theia asked, careful about using the word friend, especially if she wasn’t speaking to Zyro.

"..."

"I’ll take that as a yes!"