Neo opened his eyes as he woke up.
"Good call"
He suddenly heard Zen speaking and was confused as everyone else was sleeping.
"Who are you talking to?" He asked.
"No one" Zen replied smoothly. There was no point panicking because Neo couldn't see Theia. In fact she had flown directly in front of him and started making silly faces and blowing raspberries in his face just to prove a point.
Neo looked a bit suspicious but thought nothing of it. He looked towards the others and noticed they were still sound asleep.
"Looks like they gave a lot"
Zen nodded.
"They've earned their rest"
Neo stretched a bit before getting up.
"Well at least one good thing came out of this whole situation"
"And what would that be?"
Neo looked around at the dozens of beast corpses littered on the ground.
"We're gonna be fucking rich if we find a way back"
Neo was right. Zen himself had killed over a hundred beasts. That alone would be a considerable amount, but together with the others, it would definitely be a large amount for a few teenagers.
"Come on"
Neo extended his hand to Zen to help him up.
"Where are we going?"
"We're going to clean the battlefield, claim the spoils of victory and stuff. The others aren't waking up any time soon, and I figured with how long we slept, it's the least we could do to help "
Zen felt it made sense and took his hand, besides, he had nothing else to do, and he had just woken up a few hours ago.
After they were done with the beasts already in the dungeon. Zen went up to the others that were sleeping, and without waking any of them up, took off the storage rings from the fingers of Xavier, Maximilian, and Sable before walking back to Neo.
"How did you do that? You're like some super spy,or secret agent"
Zen looked at him strangely.
"Oh right, that's literally what you are, isn't it?"
Zen looked at the rings in his hand for a few seconds, making sure to know which belonged to who.
"Let's go,we already cleaned out all the cores here"
Zen said before leaving the dungeon.
Neo discreetly looked at the ground where Zen had stepped and noticed that there were absolutely no footsteps or traces, even with all the blood in the room,he had somehow avoided leaving any traces or tracks.
Neo was shocked. Zen had walked so casually that you wouldn't even suspect he was trying to be quiet. How had he done that and still created the illusion that he was being casual.
"Damn"
Neo said before chasing after him.
Theia sighed as she left Neo and flew back to Zen, landing on his shoulder.
"You're acting just like they say"
"Hmmm?"
"I'm just saying. Whether or not you know it, your character lines up with the description of an Astral: so careful and stealthy that your lack of any traces is the thing that's eye-catching"
Zen shrugged, he still didn't understand the whole Astral thing, but he knew that how he acted was instinctual, Something he had done over and over and over again until it just happened on its own.
The two,or rather,three if you counted the invisible member, walked until they reached the spot where they fell from the cliff.
"Up there"
Neo pointed to where the previous battle had taken place, above them.
The collapse had made it relatively easy to climb up to the surface,so climb they did.
The first to reach the top was Neo,who had been the first to start.
Zen was about to reach the top when some of the rocks beneath him suddenly gave out.
Zen frowned and tried to jump the rest of the way, but it was too far and he fell to the ground.
Theia hurriedly rushed after him, yelling.
"Soul form! Soul form"
Zen realized what she was trying to say and activated Soul form, the evolution of phantom form.
Instead of what usually happened, Zen's body seemed to become slightly incorporeal and ethereal.
Zen felt like this was extremely familiar to how he felt when he was summoned by Immy.
Somehow he instinctively knew what to do and his body became more intangible and see-through as rocks and stones passed through him, and as he fell,he even fell through the ground.
He suddenly heard Theia's voice from the system.
"Soul movement! Hurry"
Zen took a deep breath and his descent suddenly stopped. He slowly began to elevate until he popped out of the ground. At the same time,he ran out of Astra.
Theia heaved a sigh of relief.
"Are you okay?"
Zen nodded affirmatively.
"Zen, are you okay?!" Neo yelled from the top.
"I'm fine" Zen answered.
"It's not a very big fall, but how do i get up now?"
Neo thought for a few seconds before getting an idea.
"I'll use my ability to destroy some rocks and make somewhere you can climb"
The thought made Zen instinctively take a step back but he answered.
"Fine, just let me get back a little"
"It's not that bad"
Neo said, but Zen was already running back.
***************
Zen pulled himself up the newly created path and managed to get over the edge.
He looked around for Neo and saw him meditating, getting reminded of the most terrifying part of Neo's strange power: He had absolutely no control and would use all his energy in one attack. He had managed to reduce it a bit after practicing with Maximilian ( Maximilian giving him instructions from a distance), but he still had limited control.
Zen took a few steps closer to when he suddenly felt something strange. It was the feeling he got whenever he was being watched, but strangely it was coming from Neo who had his eyes closed.
"That just means you're in his area of influence, and he can sense you. He already knows you're here,so no need to wake him."
Zen checked and could see that all the Astra around him was being absorbed by Neo extremely quickly.
Neo opened his eyes and immediately looked at Zen.
"You made it "
Zen nodded
"Let's begin"
Zen handed two rings to him so they both had two.
They both started harvesting the cores at the hearts of the beasts. They both seemed already quite experienced with animal corpses that they were able to get the cores quickly and efficiently, however neither of them asked any questions.
They also took some other materials like the fangs and claws of the beasts that had various uses.
It took them a few hours to get every beast and by the time they were done, they had filled almost all the storage rings, and Neo had lost count a long time ago.
The last one to be done was the third tier beast that Jade and Maximilian had killed.
Zen looked at the corpse and was suprised to see it was almost completely intact.
Neo almost immediately burst out laughing as he saw the beast.
"Xavier told me about this one. It was killed by Max and Jade"
Neo told Zen how Jade and Maximilian had done it, struggling to keep in his laughter as he imagined what it would have looked like.
"Clever" Was all Zen had to say.
Sure, the technique was wierd, but she had accounted for all of the resources and abilities on hand, and it had worked flawlessly.
While thinking, Zen suddenly said something out loud
"What would have happened if it was an M?"
Neo looked at Zen, suprised, but eventually, imagining what something like that would have looked like made him burst out laughing.
Zen was about to try to extract the crystal when he suddenly realized the scales could be valuable, but after some thought, decided against it. They had nothing to scale it with, and didn't know if this place was safe.
Zen threw a fist, muttering
"Sledgehammer"
Like an actual sledgehammer, his fist came down on the beasts scales, damaging them.
He had to try a few more times before he was able to break through completely.
"Nice" Neo commented
Zen pulled out the crystal that was slightly smoother ,larger and more luminous than the others.
It was the same as the one from the third tier beast Neo had killed.
"Alright, guess we're done here. I don't know about you, but I need a break" Neo said as he plopped down.
After a few seconds,he suddenly opened his eyes as he realized something.
"I'm not tired?"
Normally that would be a wierd question to ask, but he had been harvesting beast cores for hours without a break, and now he felt like he could do it all over again with no problem. It was a foreign feeling to him.
Zen on the other hand felt completely the same, this level of work wasn't enough to get him exhausted even before his evolution,so he felt no different. Zen didn't know what he was expecting from the evolution, but if anything it seemed a little underwhelming, other than his new skills and abilities,he barely felt any different physically.
Still, he sat down with Neo in silence for a few minutes, meditating before Theia suggested something.
"I know how we can pass some time" Theia said before telling him her idea.
Zen felt it was worth a shot.
He looked at Neo and activated Soul bridge, the advanced version of soul link, and started meditating.
According to Theia,if he used Soul bridge, with a person who was meditating while he was also meditating, there would be an... interesting effect.
Zen found himself in his castle on the throne. Sensing something amiss, he went outside to investigate and was mildly suprised by what he saw.
"It's quite small for a star system"
Slowly he lifted up into the air towards the star at the center, expecting that to be the heart of that place.
"Zen?"
He suddenly heard Neo's voice and saw someone flying down towards him.
"Did you do this?"
Zen stayed silent. Sometimes it was better to let people figure out answers(lies) for themselves,those were the ones they would believe anyway.
"Right,i guess you're still figuring this out too. Damn,if only this thing came with an instruction manual"
Neo seemed to accept it all very easily as the topic soon changed to Zen's castle.
"Whoa. I had a few guesses as to what it would look like...but none of them even come close" Neo said, drifting a bit closer to the collosal gothic architecture.
"Do you mind?" Neo asked, remembering what was possible here.
Zen shrugged, and taking it as a sign of approval,Neo flew towards the large building and touching it's cold walls.
"Awesome"
Zen had told Lilith and Freya to stay inside for now. He still had to keep somethings secret from Neo.
Theia suddenly appeared, hovering next to him and still the size of an action figure.
"You realized?"
Zen nodded. He was sure Neo had realized as well, but the amount of control he had over this place had been cut in half, probably shared between the both of them.
Neo seemed to be done with admiring the castle as he touched down near the rocks and the sea.
A pair of chairs and a table suddenly appeared out of nowhere right next to Neo as he took his seat.
"Come on" he invited Zen to join him.
Zen flew down and took a seat .
"Since we have this chance , let's talk. How was your trial?"
Zen entertained a few of Neo's questions, but most of the conversation seemed to be Neo saying something then asking Zen a question which he would answer. By the end, Neo had realized that Zen's silence wasn't a sign that he was adverse to communicating,he just prefered not.
"I just remembered something. Hey, check this out"
Neo made a pulling motion and one of the planets from his star system started moving towards them, stopping directly in front of them.
The planet suddenly cracked open as a crystal flew out towards Zen.
"I was hoping you could tell me something about this"
Neo said, pointing to the person in the crystal.
Neo briefly explained the whole situation and why it was so confusing to Zen.
Zen looked at Jesse, this was strange to him too. Even after defeating dozens of enemies in his soul realm, they never showed even a hint of fear or sense of self preservation. Jesse's case was something unique.
Neo seemed disappointed when Zen admitted he had no idea, but was surprised when Zen asked if he could hold on to Jesse for a while.
"Are you sure? It could be dangerous if he escaped and was loose here while you were gone. What do you want to do with him anyway?"
Jesse escaping wasn't an issue, and even if he did, Zen wouldn't worry with both Freya and Lilith here.
"Just a few experiments, and i might be able to get answers for you. I could pay you for him if you want"
Neo paused as he realized this was basically slave trade, but looking at Jesse,Neo didn't see the problem with that.
"Fine, you can have him, and you don't need to pay me, he's not worth anything, just remember you owe me one"
"I won't forget"
Zen said as a strong suction force came from the castle, pulling Jesse who was still in the crystal into it.
Zen had a hunch about what Jesse really was, and a way for him to use him.
Almost immediately, the topic switched from Jesse like they hadn't just sold him like cheap property.
"Hey, Zen...Do you think we can fight here?"
********************
Zen paused in mid-air as he looked at the soldiers Neo had summoned. With a flick of his wrist an equal number of beasts and fighters appeared on his side, charging at Neo and his warriors.
Zen did a quick aerial maneuver to avoid the clash between his and Neo's warriors and flew straight for Neo brandishing his sword.
Neo teleported, instantly appearing behind Zen and slammed his staff towards Zen who ducked down without looking back before spinning back with his sword aiming for Neo's neck.
It was suddenly stopped in place as a forcefield appeared in front of Neo, deflecting the attack.
Zen snapped his fingers, and a few of the gothic statues and sculptures depicting demons, dragons, gargoyles, and other things suddenly began to move as they came to life. The gates to the castle opened, releasing Zen's new soldiers as they all headed towards Neo and Zen in the sky,all aiming to claw and tear Neo to pieces.
Neo panicked and quickly created a few soldiers to protect him, diverting Zen's monsters to those, but had slightly lost concentration on the forcefield he was using to keep, Zen at bay. Pushing through, Zen managed to push Neo back, and had been countered when Neo teleported back to create some distance.
The sound of something piercing through flesh suddenly rang out as Neo saw a sword piercing through his body completely.
Coughing up blood,he slowly turned back and saw Zen pushing the sword into his back, and looked towards the other "Zen" that he had left behind and saw it begin to disappear.
All of Neo's monsters disappeared as he began to fall lifelessly to the ground and into the ocean.
Inside the castle,Freya and Lilith were spectating the battle from one of the windows.
"Why is he being so dramatic? This is the third time he's done that exact same dying routine when he lost"
Freya shrugged
"He does it well at least "
Neo and Zen had made a few basic rules for fighting here.
First: Both sides could only have a limited amount of soldiers at once, and a limited number of soldiers in a round
Second: You couldn't use more than three spells at once. Spells were what they called it when they warped reality,for example, flying, forcefields and illusions.
Third: Warriors can only attempt to attack the opponent if there are none of the opponent's warriors present, otherwise they could only battle among themselves.
Zen teleported above the water and touched down, walking on it like a solid surface.
Neo suddenly emerged from the water, sitting on the surface.
"Man... how do you keep beating me?"
Zen raised three fingers.
"One: you loose focus two easily. Two: You aren't very imaginative,you can do literally almost anything here,why hold back? Three: You're relying only on manipulating reality,you have no actual training on combat "
Neo sighed, catching his breath before getting back up.
"Okay, well we've got time. Let's see if i can correct any of those mistakes"
Zen suddenly teleported from where he was standing as the water suddenly erupted like a geyser where he was standing a second ago.
"Damnit!" Neo spat before chasing after him.
Theia watched as the two went at it again and again,her eyes twitching subtly.
She considered telling Zen that this was a bad idea, but it had already started up again, and looking at the size of his and Neo's realms, she realized they would both have to do this thousands of times before the damage they were doing was noticeable, and it would have healed by then, so eventually she just watched the show, trying her best not to think about it.