Reforged from Ruin [Eldritch Xianxia Cultivation]

Don't get too angry. Don't let it distract you. Don't get too angry.

The array breaks down for the fifth time in a row, and Raika growls, punching the wall in front of her.

"FUCK!"

It's fine. It's fine! Don't get too angry. Anger needs to be useful. If it's weakening you, then it needs to be put aside. It's fine.

Or it would be if the damn things would just fucking work!

She sighs, sliding down the corpse-chair she was using (because Heavens forbid the Fallen Kingdom be off-brand for even a single second), letting her back rest against the cool bone. Her high body temperature has warmed it considerably, but even still it's more refreshing than staying upright, stewing in her frustration.

This is why you chose this in the first place, she reminds herself. You had a crutch, and now, you're learning to work without it.

She knows how it works. She knows. The theory is all there, solid and consistent, fluid and open to interpretation- it's the execution that just. Keeps. Failing.

In her Body, she wouldn't have this issue. Supported by the Heart and its intrinsic comprehension of physiks and Qi-wielding, by her Truths and the versatility they offer, by hundreds of brain tracking every minute detail? It would be harder to fail than to succeed. But the whole fucking point of splitting herself like this is to make sure she actually learns rather than relying on her advantages.

It's Taran's advice all over again, delivered by a point-blank shotgun to the face almost two years ago now. She'd been relying on her regeneration back then to keep her in a fight, and it made her weaker as a fighter, too willing to take hits she could easily avoid. Now, she's trying to avoid the same flaws in her thinking- ergo, splitting herself, limiting herself.

But now, staring at the wall of half-functional formulae, she can't help but hate herself for the decision.

She could be fighting. She could be spreading herself out further, could be interfacing with her strengths instead of her weaknesses, could be a better version of herself. And instead, she's here. The weakest of the mobile versions launched out into the world, yet put in charge of taking care of two of her most precious allies, two of her closest loved ones.

And she's doing… alright?

The kid's well fed and kept safe, practically swaddled by this place. Considering how tough some of the last few months have been, it's probably nice for him to have someplace to get used to, even if it's only for a few weeks. Some stability is good for kids, and there's enough advancement resources here that he could skip the next two realms. If that's how it works. She's not sure if the Fallen Kingdom cultivates conventionally- they use Qi, and she's sensed plenty of spiritual organs, but who the hell knows. Most of her responsibility in taking care of Jin has been beating the prowling predators off with a metaphorical stick.

The Church is polite enough that her mediocre-but-functional political skills have kept them away from the manor for now. It's not a certain thing by any means, though. They operate on the timeline of immortals, or the next-best-thing, and don't seem to be in a particular hurry, but they want the kid, bad. Something about his advancement, whatever trait of his makes Death energies blend so seamlessly with his cultivation, has them metaphorically salivating about him.

Li Shu is in her element. With Raika's help, she's multitasking half a dozen long-term projects at once, ones that she couldn't manage with the needed precision while on the move. Studying Raika's biology from the outside has given her perspective, she claims, and Raika's seen her Sacrifices shifting, bit by bit, even while her friend helps her with learning the science of magic.

They're ok. They're safe enough, at least, to consider this place a port in the storm that has been their lives recently.

But here she is, staring at a wall, knowing she could do more if she just let herself… but that doing so would have a cost.

It fucking sucks.

She's got the basics down. Any array that needs three runes or less, she can do, any early-stage formulae, she can handle more or less. It's the issue of advancement, of pushing past that. She sees the symbols, the numbers, the threads that connect them, but… she just doesn't understand why she can't quite make them click. Anything too complicated ends up like the wall in front of her.

She lets out a sigh, waving away some of the ash from her face, and stares at her failure.

The wall, previously covered by hundreds of smaller scorch-marks, is gone.

The new wall has only one, the edges of it still dripping molten and exhaling fumes from the crater in it.

If she curled up enough, she could fit her whole body in the hole she's made, melted a few feet into the wall and still glowing with magma made from molten calcium and carbon.

It's fucking worthless.

She gets up, waving some more ash away from her face.

Set up a basic shield? Easy. Ignite or detonate something? No fucking problem. Summon some elemental effect? Sure, if she has the time to check her math.

Worthless.

The skills of an early practitioner, someone capable but ultimately pointless in the grand scheme of things. A cruel perspective maybe, unfair, but who ever claimed that she needed to be fair to herself? The world is ending, and she is full of wrath and fear and the burden of responsibility.

Any Foundational Realm cultivator can learn enough to shape Qi into some element or attack. The point of an array, of formations in general, is twofold- prepare things ahead of time, and do something much more complicated than someone can do mid-battle. If she wanted explosions or shields or elemental effects, she could do a hundred different things.

And yet… here she is. Adding conditionals, or unique modifiers, or even anything dynamic to her formulae just… fumbles.

The plan for this particular array had been to set up a burst of heat, melting its surroundings and using the material to form chains and attacks. Like it has for the last five times, this attempt hit the first step, only to fail at the second.

Ugh.

Breathe.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

In. Out.

Calm down.

In. Out.

…

FUCK.

Anything for a gods-damned smoke.

But hey- not her turn for it. Because far be it from Raika to let Raika feel fucking comfortable.

She sighs, not even bothering to make it a meditation aid this time.

Fuck this. She needs a break.

She gets up, brushing ash and bone dust from the back of her robes. With a gesture, the worms shift and shiver, before crawling back to her, forming into neat patterns as they march back into her body. Their commander follows along, turning from where it was watching and marching its glistening black limbs back towards her.

Beetle bumps into her, knocking its horn against her shoulder rather than skittering back into her body.

She looks down at the little fellow who's come from ever so far, on ever such a journey, and who remains one of her loyal companions. Beetle matches her gaze, buzzing its wings with a sound not unlike an engine grumbling.

She lifts a hand, and Beetle happily crawls into it, tapping a drumbeat on her palm. It's funny- the way that the little legs stomp onto her palm would be enough to bruise a mortal, its edges sharp enough to nearly cut her. She's pretty sure the little creature would be a right terror set loose on the ecosystems of the third ring.

"It's alright, Beetle. Do you mind doing me a favor? I think I need to take a little field trip. Do you mind accompanying me?"

A second set of drumbeats, this one conveying both eagerness and reluctance.

"I don't intend to cause any trouble, but I could still use some backup."

Drum-scuttle-drum.

"No need to be rude, freeloader! I don't- well, alright, I do often intend to cause trouble, but not this time! I just need to… clear my head. See the world a bit. I don't think I'm at my best, all cooped up in this place."

Beetle tilts its head to stare at the tuning fork around her neck, somehow exuding with no pupils a look of "you see what I'm dealing with".

Much to her chagrin (and amusement, she admits) she feels Dink give a little tremble in response, sending back its agreement.

"Always so critical! You helping or not, you little shit?"

A pause for a little bit- and then a single firm stamp of Beetle's two front legs.

"Good. Come on then."

She clicks her tongue twice, feeling her body shift and roil as systems beyond her control respond and give her what she asks for.

Centicroc, the reptile of a few hundred legs, rolls and roils out of her body, twisting and turning as it emerges from her inner world. It gives off a snarl as it does, looking about ready for action- and then finds that there's no visible threat, and instead just curls up near Raika's legs. The beast is as much a great serpent as it is a crocodile, its body long and sinuous and winding in great coils. The central trunk of it is almost half Raika's height, and even in her much-reduced form, she's still well over six feet tall.

Beetle hops off of her hand, landing atop the beast's head, mounting his mighty steed. She chuckles at that, straddling the back of the spirit beast as it rumbles beneath her. It's smart enough to recognize someone stronger than it is, and the one that feeds it- but she has a very funny thought that it's more afraid of disappointing its commander than it is her.

And with a little drumbeat of touches, that same commander gives out an order- and they're off.

Between Qi, Bestial Cultivation, and the sheer number of limbs it has, Centicroc is already well on its way to its own movement technique. The beast, sitting comfortably at the upper edge of Core Formation, is enough to properly torment a lesser sect of the third ring, and it was a pack hunter. As it moves with its pack, here, now, ingrained memory has it leap from the top of the training corpse-pagoda they've given her and launch itself out into the night.

The manor is a beautiful place, in spite of the corpse-nature of it. Or perhaps because of it. Maybe the gothic motifs, the foreign architecture and how it embraces what some might consider morbid, make it all the more beautiful. The manor stands at multiple stories, its empty halls still giving the appearance of life, of movement, of something haunted. She can see the living chambers, the main hall, the training yard with the caterpillar-like corpse-structure now planted inside it, alongside the black vines and their white flowers.

And then she's off, across the grounds, her spirit beasts thundering beneath and before her as they move through the night. The grounds of the manor are sprawling things, hills on hills of cultivated forest, full of corpses and graves, full of skittering things of bone and Echoes that yet move and hunger.

They have traveled through far, far worse in their time with the Overgrowth. The dead woods thunder below as they traverse the treetops, black leaves on pale white trees echoing beautifully along.

And then the edges of the property, where they have been… encouraged to remain.

The city of Godsfall is a city of hills, rolling bumps in the terrain covered with buildings almost like coral reefs. Dotted all around and within it, there are dozens of other manors, many of them significantly more impressive than the one that Raika and co are staying at. Each one is like its own mausoleum, standing tall against the dark of the strange woodlands, surrounded by lesser cemeteries that happen to be the homes of all the "others".

She's seen the Cathedral of the Burrowing Saint. She can guess how a lot of the manors around the city are likely going to look.

Now it's time to do what she does best, and look into the city proper. The places where people live.

If it is that they live, here.

Her Centicroc spreads weight evenly between its many legs, a well-honed talent for stealth in the Overgrowth coming through just as easily here in a more urban sprawl. The buildings are pale, always colored in bone, making everything seem monochrome when taken in at a glance.

And never, ever, the sounds of life. The smell of movement, the color of heartbeats- absent.

An urban sprawl, bereft of any sign of life. Any sign at all.

No people crawling through the streets. No merchants hawking their wares. No children running and playing, despite the light of the sun overhead. Just… nothing.

The streets are paved, their lines smooth and weathered with the tracks of wheels that have come across them thousands on thousands of times- but there are none to speak of now.

She pauses for a moment, Beetle sensing her desire and tapping out a rhythm to get Centicroc to rest at one of the buildings they pass. Like nearly every building, it is two stories, possessing many windows, all of them paned with well-made glass.

The glass is always black, as if veiled on the inside.

To her senses, it's not much of an impediment, but it's still strange. She can sense the air stirring in the rooms beyond, the shape of the house clear to her by the shape the echoes they cause as they move.

This house, like every other building beside it, has a storefront, entirely empty save for the very basics. A counter, an inner space, a store-room, a blank sign facing the street. One of thousands of streets, arranged in neat, rigid lines, all of them with houses to each side and storefronts in every one.

The upper floor seems familiar to the sort of houses she's seen in the third ring- basic living spaces, with kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms, but little else, left sparse.

She taps the glass, listening to the echo.

Little else, left sparse- save for the coffins.

There are thirty-two of them in this house. They take up nearly every available spot on every available surface, laid out in rigid patterns of right angles to leave just enough space to walk between them. She can't see them directly through the curtain, but her synesthesia, a core part of her Supreme Body Art, tells her a little.

They are black as midnight, denser than they should be, for the size and Qi she's sensing- and they are all full.

She stares down the street, watching the dozens of miles that stretch to the horizon.

The Bishops claim that this is one city. One of many.

Behind the part of her analyzing that claim, behind the noise it makes in her mind as she aches at her weakness… there is another, deeper part that just stares, and wonders.

The world is large indeed.

She exhales, long and slow.

"Ok. I think we can head back. We can explore the city with Jin properly, sometime. He might like it."

Beetle stamps its feet, chittering up at her.

"Yeah. Sorry for the short trip, but… there's more work to do. Come on."

Her mount turns, and they begin to turn away.

And yet…

Well. She might not be looking for trouble, buuuuut…

Making sure not to make any overt motion that would alarm anyone watching, she lets part of her skin slip open, and lets a single drop of blood fall from it.

Maybe it'll be detected, cause some trouble… or maybe not.

She heads back to her work, the hour or so on break enough to refresh her. She has too much to do to stay still and reflect, not now- but in the meantime, while she works, she can leave it to the rest of herself to try and spread some roots among the locals.