Agnisotra: Origin Tails

I woke up in a pool of vomit. Ugh, Agnis you bastard. Heh, don't mess with a nine-tailed spirit fox or you will regret it! I emptied my stomach. Gregory grabbed his potion but emptied his stomach before he could drink it.

Ugh, fine my potion sucks. Are you going to do anything about that fabric? I didn't see it for long until I passed out but it is probably the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Ugh, I don't think I have a choice, it looked at its limit. Ugh, we stink. Water magic time! No, wait! I got this! Wait! I washed us both with water magic. Gregory collapsed on the couch defeated but at least he was clean and didn't stink.

Are you sure you’re not a demon fox? Heh! Don’t mess with a fox! I grabbed Gregory’s stinky potion, pinched my nose, and downed it.

Can you make more of these and something that temporarily kills my sense of smell too? Are you going to fix it now?

I don’t want to but I think I have no choice. Did your shadow say anything about that dragon? It is in a critical state but I think we can ignore it in this timeline. It will probably break out either on day 0 or day 1 next time line.

There is a high likelihood I won't be able to help you guys with that. This dimensional rot or whatever it's called is not going to get any better I assume. Hey Agnis, don’t die.

I will do my best but if I pass out again from nausea there is not much I can do to defend myself. I wonder if there is a passive skill that makes one more resistant to nausea. People might disagree but at the moment that sounds like the most overpowered skill ever. I tried to walk to the door but got hit by a dizzy spell. Gregory caught me before I fell down.

Maybe you should wait with dealing with that, we need to eat something. Yeah, maybe that is a good idea. I took some snacks out of my dimensional pocket which Gregory and I ate and then we cooked, baked, and fried some fish. I had a mountain of fish stored after Raishin zapped Boshi lake major a few timelines ago and since we both love fish this is perfect.

Oof, I'm stuffed that was good. Yeah, I’ll let it digest a bit. I don't want to throw this back up.

Good plan. We just sat and digested.

Hey, how about you try and master your shadow clones better so that they can do all these risky things in your stead? That is one of their main functions anyways. To what extent can they take over what I would normally do myself?

It comes close to what you did when fighting Paul. It can do whatever you want to do and the more you master it the closer they come to your own capabilities; it will basically be as if you made a perfect copy of yourself. That sounds super strong. At the moment I can let them do relatively basic stuff or in combat perform quite well but it will take a lot of focus.

Just keep practicing and they could just be another you, you wouldn't have to deal with that nausea-inducing dimensional fabric and just send your clone at it. Hmm, this sounds really important, I will put 2 tails on this.

How about somewhere in this timeline you make another space and train your shadow clones for a month or so? I don’t want you to die or be incapacitated by nausea… Hmm, maybe I should do that yes, I'm running into too many things to handle and fix. Some capable shadow clones would be quite helpful. But what about checking out the root with Isi today?

I will send a shadow clone down there and explain the situation, I'm sure she will understand. When are you going? And will it again take a day for us here? I... I don’t know… I think I will go after fixing whatever is going on with that fabric as much as I can. It should take the same time for you guys as we've been away in real time last time. How do I practice my shadow clones though? I assume it is different then what we did together?

You will probably like this method. You just go full lazy and let your shadow clones do literally everything. Also, with battling the things you would normally do yourself let them do it. It is a bit like how we get familiar with our tails. Oh! I had the idea of getting more familiar with my tails and doing more delicate things with my tails! Like handling a sword and wires! I should do something like that too.

I’m better with shadow clones than you so I don't think I need a special space to get good results, don't forget that the experiences of the shadow clones count as ours so keep as many out as you can keep up, it doesn't matter if they look odd. I cracked my neck.

Another busy schedule for me, I wonder if I’ll ever get some rest. Well, I guess that the life of a tailed beast isn't easy.

I guess, I bet you will have your hands full when that light shadow dragon escapes. Yeah, I have no idea how to deal with that, to be honest. Time to run more simulations! After we escape this town, we should take a good and long rest.

Let’s hope that goddess doesn't get wind of us! … ok maybe we should find a good or strategic hiding spot so you can drop multiple illusion layers and then we rest!

So again, no rest for me? We are relying on you! Gregory slapped my back.

Ugh well, let's hope that we can hide from a god. I think I feel a bit better now, time to undo that by dealing with that fabric. I will take care of whatever happens here in the town after you fix that mess and go train.

I think it’s time to set Raishin loose, of course [Solar stream] is still banned but he can go loose, we can evacuate the whole town now. Ok, good luck! I will make various potions for you to take with you for training. I stepped outside. I kicked a shade that approached me. It was almost 14:30. I circulated nature energy through my system and a lot of it. I never went loose with nature energy before but I think I would need it now. I circulated it for 10 minutes when I noticed that grass and other plants started to grow around the area I was standing. They were getting through the tiles of the pavement.

Hmm, when did I get this good at nature energy? I did realize that what I constantly did to suppress my nausea is similar to the technique that's used to improve mana control of any element. Basically, countering my nausea also doubled as training my control over nature magic. The nature magic in me spiked again. I should be fine with this much nature energy going through me, right? I opened back the filter. I felt some mild nausea but I was otherwise fine. All my fatigue disappeared. The fabric looked worse than ever there was no spot that seemed untouched, and various tears could be spotted it was full of dimensional maggots and centipedes and there were also newcomers.

Some disgusting fat beetles with transparent abdomens that had some green disgusting-looking liquid moving around in it. All of it looked repulsive. It seemed they could fly too. I saw the thing move behind the fabric again and make a big tear in the fabric. Perfect, I undid that by sacrificing 10 illusion layers and grabbed a shard making my [illusionary dagger] appear. I wonder how could I do this as nine-tail as possible. [Foxfire]? Trick these bugs? But only spatiotemporal magic works on them. What if I lace a [Foxfire] with spatiotemporal magic? But they will explode and not repair the fabric. The [Illusionary dagger] started to vibrate.

What!? I don't know what that means! It jumped out of my hand and floated and pointed at me when vibrating.

I don't understand vibrating daggerish! It kept vibrating and pointing at me. I looked at myself with my Elgards eyes. As if I was looking from the dagger's perspective. What is it? I looked at myself, nothing seemed wrong with me, maybe a little bit pale after all that vomiting, also plants were growing around me because I was going crazy with my nature energy. The dagger started to vibrate violently. If I don't do something fast it will drop and shatter.

I don't know what you want! I took out my tail. Hey, do you know what this dagger wants? No answer. The dagger started to glow blue and shot into my tail. My tail started to glow blue too. Even though the dagger just shot and merged with my tail there was still one floating and vibrating.

Oh… I get it… I tried to do something super nine taily without my tails out… Is that what you mean? The dagger just kept vibrating. Right, I should stop talking to things that can’t answer. I took out my 7 other tails and the dagger copied itself until there were 7 and shot into my tails which also started to glow. It stopped my nature magic but some weird but familiar energy started to well up inside me. I should have no clue what this is but somehow, I know what this is.

The energy slowly left my tails. I felt my 9th tail appear and at that moment my nine-tailed spirit fox form released. I didn't do this on purpose but it seems the illusionary daggers forced it together with my 9th tail. Space around me started to bend. What caught my eye was that the sky was acting weird. I looked up and it seemed like day and night were rushing past. I don't remember this. I don't think this is supposed to happen.

It stopped and even though it was 14:52 it looked like it was midnight and the full moon was in full display. That is odd, the full moon is supposed to appear in 6 more days. As I looked at the full moon, I felt myself getting stronger. My silver tails were covered in blue fire and I had blue fire wisps floating behind me. My hair was fully silver now and my eyes were glowing silver and my pupils were… hmm my pupils are gone; my eyes look like a full moon.

Damn, I look cool! I looked at my tails covered in what I assume is [foxfire]. I bathed in the moonlight while the blue wisps got darker and turned into a mix of [foxfire] and spatiotemporal magic. My tails pointed at the dimensional fabric and torched it. The maggots turned into vapor that flowed into the fabric. It seems this fire also heals the fabric. The centipedes and beetles seem to be relatively fine. The centipedes seemed to take damage but the beetles seemed unharmed. One tail disappeared. My intuition tells me that I'm on a time limit and that I should wrap this up before all my tails disappear.

Space was folding around me so I didn't move much to cover a great distance. I got on the dimensional fabric and grabbed it with my tails and tried to pull it straight. It seemed to work. I cauterized tears in the fabric. Another tail disappeared. All this time the Thing was still moving around behind this fabric. It is weird I’m using up a lot of mana but I don't feel nauseous. Am I using lost magic? I can’t tell. Since I've stepped on this fabric it feels like I’m in a different space where the rules of the world are different. A world where only spatiotemporal magic works. Is this why only spatiotemporal magic works on these things?

I cast a [Foxfire: Winter’s end] mixed with spatiotemporal magic and wipe out all the centipedes differently colored motes replaced their vaporized bodies and they flowed into the fabric. It seems it affected the thing behind the fabric because it let out a space-shattering roar. My intuition didn't tell me how to deal with it I only know how to deal with these bugs. Another tail disappeared. I shot a [fireball] at the beetles flying at me. Shit! I forgot to lace them with spatiotemporal magic! It hit the beetle and it did a lot of damage.

Well, isn't this odd? I shot another fireball and analyzed it. Well, it seems I instinctively lace my fire skills with spatiotemporal magic, I’m just overkilling it by trying to infuse it with extra. Well, I feel stupid now, anyways. I keep pouring spatiotemporal magic in my next [Foxfire: winter’s end] This one vaporized most of the remaining beetles. The killing of the beetles seemed to have a great effect on the fabric of space. I pulled the fabric more neatly with my tails. I had 5 tails left now. There were no bugs left, the fabric was still covered in blue foxfire and there were still some spots that were festering and didn't look healthy. I slowly felt that I was getting exhausted.

Another tail disappeared. I still had to deal with that thing behind this fabric. It kept making tears that I cauterized and which slowly healed because of the fire. I kept blasting the festering parts but they didn't heal as fast as when I destroyed the beetles. I guess I still didn't really figure out how to do this. I only had 3 tails left now, I decided to ignore the festering parts because there weren't many and it didn't look severe. I should focus on this Thing. I still don't know how to get behind this but maybe that is a bad idea as long as I didn't figure out how to make a dimensional anchor.

I shot more [foxfire: Winter’s end] at the thing that was behind the fabric of space and it started to thrash and let out more roars. I used 3 100 illusion layered [Confusion] on it and it seemed to thrash even more and its roars turned into screeches. It sounded like it was in pain. Good. I used another [Foxfire: Winter’s end] on it and another 100-illusion layered [Confusion], and another tail disappeared. Another screech but it seemed like it got more distant. No more moving behind the fabric, no more slashes through the fabric. Did it run away? I only had one tail left and the sky started to act weird again by quickly shifting between day and night.

I decided to try and fix the dimensional fabric as much as I could with the last tail I had left. The tail disappeared and I almost fell unconscious. I fell down and crashed into the ground. The pain helped me to regain my consciousness. And out of nowhere, a big wave of nausea came up. I tried to counter it with nature energy but I had to vomit once before getting it under control. This is starting to become very annoying. I tried to get up but my body felt heavy. I dragged myself to a corner and cleaned my mess and my mouth with water magic. I blasted some shades that thought I would be an easy snack. I formed illusions around me and took a nap.

I got up and rubbed the sleepiness out of my eyes. After I dispelled the illusion hiding me some shades dashed at me and I jumped on a roof to evade them. I third to check on the state of the town but nothing happened. I tried again but my Elgards eyes didn't want to activate. Did I ignore the headaches that get paired with nausea too much? Did I get brain damage? I couldn't check myself because my eyes wouldn't activate.

Hmm, that is inconvenient… I tried to take out some tails to run by what could have happened but my tails didn't appear either. Uh oh, did I delete my nine-tailed spirit fox race? I realized how silly that was after I said that, if such a thing was possible some evil organization would go around and wipe out the problematic races and turn them all into humans or other things. Am I just human now? I did a small test and it seemed I still was part phoenix. I put that away because I've had 0 practice with it and it would make things worse, probably. I’m just assuming that whatever I did put a lock on all my nine-tail abilities. I attempted [Turning leaf] and using my pocket dimension. It went rough and cost a lot of mana. Now my mana pool is large because I’m a mythical beast but that doesn't mean that I should still throw these around. Because of obvious reasons and nausea.

I circulated more nature energy to counter it. Now luckily, I don't rely much on my tails but I do on my pocket dimension and my eyes. I made a frost bow and sniped some shades that got lifted in the air by echoes. Frost magic was bound to my phoenix side so this is fine. Hitting my targets was a bit more difficult than normal but it seems my accuracy is still high unassisted. I only had 4 daggers and 2 relatively short wires on me in person. I made a shadow clone, and this still worked fine, and going into stealth and the like also worked. I guess I should practice more on how to fight a as human in case things like this happens more often. Now the question is for how long would this last?

I looked up at the sky. Because I didn't have my eyes, I didn't know how late it was but it seemed like it was getting close to the part of the day where the sun would set any time soon. I could still form illusion layers because I cast those a long time ago, I just couldn't shatter them to use [Confusion] and similar skills, only undo things. Without my eyes to analyze many variables this just became way harder. Now I was planning to train my shadow clones in a separate space but I can’t do that now. I made 6 shadow clones. Ok guys, since I can't use my Elgards eyes and I can’t talk to my tails anymore you will do! You will now be my eyes! And if something weird happens you guys can figure it out by yourself! You're old enough!

My clones nodded and spread out. Now I guess Gregory postponed looking for the root to tomorrow. I also didn't have my archive. Uh oh, what was I supposed to do today? It is day 2. I've done this many times by now, think Agnis, think! Right! Selling my rubies! How do I do that without my dimensional pocket? Hmm, I think I will skip it this timeline. I’m not going to lug around over 100 kg of red rocks. What else? Probably a run-in with Donkey because that happens almost every day. I slip in stealth and kick whatever shade I find in my path to the sky to make sure they get caught by the echoes. I wonder if I can do this in my now human form why don't the townspeople do that?

Suddenly I got an idea. Maybe Uraya or Paul and Paula know what happened to me! I head over to Paul and Paula’s house but then remembered how Paula almost got a heart attack after Ted said that Hourai was gone. What would happen if I said I’m not a nine-tailed spirit fox anymore? And man, my race name is a mouthful I’ll just say 9t fox, Yes that is short. Anyway maybe a bad idea to tell Paula. How about Uraya, she handled my mana corruption quite well. I decided to head over to Uraya’s shop. Maybe I could get some cool potions to fight with! I barged into Uraya’s shop because I tried to use some lightning magic but it was hard to use any lightning skills besides [Lightning bolt] without my eyes. I tried a budget [Lightning Umbrella] but it was a disaster and I might have attracted a bit too many shades by doing that.

Uraya’s shop was empty. I rang a small bell that would call her if she was doing something in the back. Granny Uraya? I didn't hear anything. Did she go out? I waited for 10 minutes. Not because I’m a really patient guy but because there were still many shades on the town square.

“Oh, I didn't know you were here Agnis.” Oh, you’re home, well there seem to still be many shades wandering outside. Do you know how late it is by the way?

“It is 17:43, I was preparing to close the shop, do you need anything?” Hmm, well I need your wisdom. So, let's say, hypothetically, of course, I wouldn't be able to use my racial abilities, what would you say could be a cause or way to fix it? Uraya gave me a weird look.

“Agnis, what did you do?” I guess I can’t fool an ancient witch. I explained the situation to her. She sighed and conjured a chair and sat down on it.

“You really like to keep the situation tense, do you?” I’m sorry, I had literally no clue what I was doing…

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a solution for it since I don’t really know what happened but I do know that this is temporary. You see nine-tailed spirit foxes aren't well known for their, ehmm… risk assessment skills. If something like this was permanent it would be a well-known fact among those that deal often with creatures like that and especially the witches, since we kind of have a love-hate relationship with them.” Oh, why is that?

“Their eyes and their intelligence make them the ideal research partners to study magic, but as you know they also love pranks and making trouble and witches are well uhm a bit stiff in that department, actually they hate it.” Hmm, a bit like Greg and I!

“I guess that is a good example. I would suggest that you stay low until you get your abilities back” Ok thank you! By the way, is this perfume you’re wearing popular? I think I've smelled it somewhere before but I can’t remember where.

“Silly Agnis, this isn't perfume, this is the true potential of mistflowers that you are smelling.” Working hard on that potion I see. Well, good luck! I will do my best to stay low!

“I really hope you will…” I ran out of Uraya’s shop and almost bumped into a shade. I dodged it and a clone came to my rescue. I almost forgot that Gregory told me to let my clones do everything. I guess things will get boring for me while I can't do anything. Maybe I should rest and let my clones do stuff. Yes, that sounds like a good idea! I snuck inside my room via the window, locked my door, and decided to nap.