Book 3: Chapter 18: Stone

Book 3: Chapter 18: Stone

The smell of lavender twisted in the air, fusing with the steam from the shower. Meanwhile, Elijah sang Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now as he scrubbed the dirt, muck, and salt from his body. It wasn’t his favorite song or anything – though he did have a soft spot for eighties pop music – but it was catchy, and for some reason or another, it had been in his head for the past week. So, as one did, the moment he’d stepped into the shower, he had immediately burst into song.

He blamed his sister.

After all, she loved that sort of music, so growing up, it was always playing in the background. Back then, Elijah had made a show of hating it, but as he’d gotten older, his little brother irritation had turned to nostalgia. Now, he remembered it all so fondly, especially because it reminded him of a time when family had been as close as the next room. He desperately wanted to get back to that.

Looking back, leaving for Hawaii was one of the biggest regrets of his life. He’d done it as much to run away from everything that reminded him of his parents’ death as he had to pursue his career as a marine biologist. In retrospect, he should have stayed and leaned on the family he had left.

But that revelation came as a benefit of perfect hindsight, and at the time, he’d been in no state to be reasonable.

In any case, he channeled some of that nostalgia as he sang in the shower, and when he finally stepped out, his mood was definitely buoyed.

And why should it not be? He’d spent the past two weeks working on his underwater cave, ushering it to unprecedented levels of vegetation. That, in turn, had served to thicken the ambient ethera to the point where it had actually become visible. At present, it hung in the air pocket like a thick fog, just begging to be used.

On top of that, the nature of that ethera had changed as well, taking on a flavor – for lack of a better descriptor – similar to what he felt in his grove. And according to Nerthus, it was perfect for what he had planned.

So, he was in understandably good spirits as he left the bathroom and stepped out onto his balcony to dry. Winter had well and truly given way to spring, so the air only had a slight nip to it. To Elijah, whose elevated Constitution protected him from anything but frigid temperatures, it was quite pleasant.

“Do your kind routinely walk around without clothing?” came a voice from behind him.

Elijah turned his head to see Nerthus standing at the balcony door. The tree spirit looked no different than he had a few weeks before, but Elijah still felt that Nerthus had grown stronger. Denser, perhaps. He could only regard that as a good thing.

“Not really,” Elijah admitted, making no move to cover himself. It was his home and his grove. He could walk around nude if he damn well pleased. Besides, he didn’t think Nerthus cared that much.

Though, looking at the expression on the tree spirit’s gnarled face, he began to wonder at that assumption.

“I see.”

“You don’t wear clothes,” Elijah accused.

“I don’t have any...dangly bits, either,” Nerthus stated. “For those who do, it is...customary to cover them up when in the presence of others.”

Elijah sighed. “Fair enough,” he muttered. “But if you’re going to get all pearl-clutch-y, you should probably knock or something before you come into my house. Just saying.”

Nerthus didn’t respond, which Elijah wasn’t sure how to take. Regardless, he quickly dipped back inside and dressed. When he’d finished, he told Nerthus what he had planned, then asked, “Do you think it’s dense enough?”

“Yes. But I do not know if you are ready. It would be better if you used that soap of yours for another two or three years. Then you would be truly prepared to take the next step.”

Elijah shrugged. “What’s the worst that can happen?” he asked, drying his hair with one of the towels he’d bought back in Ironshore. No matter what else happened with the city, it was still good for filling the gaps in his supplies. After all, it wasn’t as if he could just run out to the nearest big box store and buy bed linens or towels. But there were plenty of supplies like that available in Ironshore. The only downside was that someone might try to assassinate him from time to time.

And he had to row across the strait.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good exchange or not.

“You could die,” Nerthus answered.

“I’ll be fine,” Elijah said. They had discussed it plenty of times, and they’d both agreed that, theoretically speaking, he should have the healing power necessary to keep himself alive until he crossed the threshold and solidified the chrysalis that would usher him into the next stage of body cultivation.

Then another.

Over and over, he ate the berries, and the ethera in his body continued to build. Even as he did that, he pulled with every vortex of his faceted Mind, flooding his soul with even more ethera. His core filled to bursting, but he kept going until the ethera was seeping from the wounds inflicted by the poison.

But even then, it wasn’t enough.

His body hadn’t reached the point of failure. The stress was still too faint to prompt the metamorphosis.

So, he retrieved the final vial from his bag. This potion was the strongest yet, and Biggle had cautioned him not to use it. But Elijah had known, even then, that he wouldn’t have a choice. For whatever reason, his body was too durable.

He downed that potion as well.

Indescribable pain tore through him, and without his Quartz Mind, he would have succumbed, then and there. However, he managed to barely shunt the pain into one facet after another until there was only one left. That, he kept free to guide the ethera into his body.

And then, finally, it happened.

Elijah couldn’t tell what it was that he felt, but he knew that his body was ready. So, with one last heave, he shoved every bit of ethera out. And the results of that expulsion mingled with the incredibly dense ethera, solidifying a second later.

After that, Elijah’s body was rebuilt, one cell at a time.

The metamorphosis he’d experienced upon reaching the Body of Wood stage had been transformative, curing him of his cancer and expelling all sorts of impurities. However, the next stage was a qualitative leap forward. It wasn’t just perfecting what was already there. Instead, it was pushing past the limits of humanity and into something else.

He knew all of this from the guides he’d bought, but feeling it happening was something else altogether.

Elijah had no idea how long he remained in that cocoon of solid ethera, and if he was honest, he didn’t really care. He was too busy reveling in the process, which was agonizing, transformative, and edifying, all at once. It was as if he’d reached physical enlightenment. Yet, as high of a peak as he’d reached, he could now see just how far he had to go.

Then, suddenly, it was over.

The end began with a simple crack, no bigger than a hair, but it slowly spread until great sheets of solidified ethera sloughed off of the cocoon. They dissolved the moment they broke away, so when Elijah finally broke free, there was no evidence of the chrysalis.

Except for the naked man floating in the center of the cave.

Or the fact that all the vegetation and animal life that he’d so arduously nurtured to fruition had died, dissolved and used for fuel. Now, all that remained of what had once been was a thick layer of silt at the bottom of the cave.

However, Elijah was not distressed at that fact. Death was a part of any circle of life, and he could feel the dense life energy blanketing the cave’s floor. From that would spring a new cycle, stronger than ever before.

But for now, Elijah was only concerned with the notification he’d received:

Congratulations! You have cultivated a Body of Stone.

After reading that notification, he could only wonder how long he’d been in the cave. It had felt like only a few minutes, but as he’d discovered in the past, his perception was always a bit skewed while he cultivated. In any case, he’d done it. He had achieved the next step. Now, he only needed to take care of a few errands, and he could finally get down to completing his quest to evolve Ancestral Circle.

Then, he would resume his search for his sister.

As he floated in that underwater cave, though, Elijah let himself bask in his achievement.