Cataloguing the items he’d found in the ‘transformation cave’, as Leon had taken to referring to it in his head, was only part of what he needed to do to put his soul realm in order.  He also had a gigantic pile of gold that had once been the massive serpent colossus to deal with, as well as the two emeralds that had been set into its eye sockets.  The emeralds were set aside for Gaius, but before handing them off, Leon wanted to take some time to study them, for they hummed with magic power.

However, after giving them a thorough examination with Nestor, he found that they were little more than magical batteries.  He felt a little sad parting ways with them, for he could think of a few things he could do with such massive batteries—even if they were on the verge of depletion following the colossus’ destruction—but he fully intended to keep his word; these emeralds were Gaius’, not his.

The golden remains of the colossus’ frame were far more intriguing, though.  Many of its enchantments were still intact, though depowered and old, and served as great inspiration for Leon’s studies.  The gold alone represented an enormous amount of wealth, enough to ransom a King, but with its enchantments, Leon didn’t intend to sell the ripped and rent hulk anytime soon, if ever.

The colossus’ ivory horn was another story, for it held no magic power, and possessed only one enchantment: it could glow in the dark.  It was still one solid piece of ivory, and though Leon couldn’t even begin to identify what poor creature had lost its horn for the colossus’ decoration, he guessed it was still worth a fair amount of silver.

Leon was a little disappointed in the lack of use in the horn, but he supposed the colossus wasn’t so much a dedicated guardian of that temple as it had been something to awe aspirants and pilgrims.  It was powerful, but possessed little in the way of combat enchantments other than the fact that it was a massive golem made almost entirely out of gold.

After evaluating the colossus, he turned his attention to something far more heartbreaking: his armor and his flight suit.  With his new eighth-tier power and the promise that the transformation enchantment held, he felt like he might be able to fly without a flight suit, but that was beside the point—with the aid of enchantments, he’d be able to fly much more efficiently, making longer and faster flights easier.  His blood hummed in delight at the thought of soaring through the skies under his power, and after that transformation, his instincts demanded that he liberate himself from the tyranny of gravity as soon as was possible.

As much as he would love to indulge that, though, he knew that his armor had to come first.  Once again, it had been beaten and broken and rendered useless.  Some parts, like those covering his legs and left arm, were fine, but his cuirass had been ruined by the shade of Artorias, while his right gauntlet had been ripped asunder when he’d caught his hand in the formation of a teleportation portal.  His helmet, meanwhile, was utterly lost to him, with whatever remained after his fight with Jormun having been thrown away before he was cast down into the pit.

It pained him, but as he stared at the extent of the damage and as he remembered just how much of a pain it had been to have repaired and re-enchanted the first time, he slowly came to the conclusion that he’d need to commission a whole new set of armor.  His Magmic Steel armor had served him extraordinarily well, and he would honor its remains, but he needed something new, something that he could work with much easier.

He needed something that wasn’t highly specialized for fire and lightning enchantments, as his armor had been, which was one of the reasons why he’d needed so many silver bands attached within.  If he could enchant the metal of whatever new armor he wound up with directly, then it would be much more durable and efficient than using attached silver bands.  He could even attach in new weapons or other effects much more easily.  If he advanced his knowledge of wind magic enough, he could implement his designs for his second generation flight suit into his armor, removing the need to switch between the two if the need arose.  He’d even be able to incorporate flying into his fighting style with much more confidence and reliability.

Leon had to stop himself from salivating at that thought and instead focus on the present.  He wasn’t sure how much longer he wanted to stay within the Bull Kingdom, and he was torn between getting his new armor made now or later.  He’d undoubtedly be able to get better armor made in Imperial lands, but he didn’t know how long it would take to travel there, and he couldn’t possibly predict what hardships might crop up along the way.  He may need new armor sooner rather than later, but he also balked at the idea of spending his silver on something that would so soon be outclassed.

He supposed he could simply buy something fairly cheap and spend some time enchanting it into something reasonably sufficient, but that was also an unappealing idea.  He never considered himself a vain person, but right now, ‘sufficient’, despite its literal definition, just wasn’t going to be enough.

‘Is that the blood of the Great Black Dragon coming through?’ Leon wondered after a while of trying and failing to come up with something that he could conclusively decide upon.

For the time being, he decided to wait until he could consult with Emilie or anyone else who knew the Empires and the routes to reach them before he made a decision.

As he thought it over, his eyes drifted, and eventually landed upon the distant mountain where the mausoleum he’d built for the stone giants lay.  It was about time to return their dead to them, he felt a little more ready to admit his failure to them.  His heart sank when he thought of Lapis and the other stone giants who’d followed him out of obligation to his bloodline, only to meet their ends under what he considered his failed leadership.

He wasn’t looking forward to going there and admitting his failure, but it had to happen eventually.

For the next few hours, Leon spent his time in his soul realm drawing a few sketches for a new enchantment scheme for any armor he might commission in the future.  He couldn’t do much without actually having the armor and knowing how much space he had to work with, but he could at least get started on the basics.

He only stopped when he looked up from his work and noticed that the Thunderbird, who’d been doing little else other than analyzing the transformation enchantment on the distant mountain where it had been copied, seemed to be taking a break.  He set aside his work and flew on over.

“How’s it going?” he asked as he lighted down softly on the mountaintop.

“Quite well,” she said as she shifted into her human form.  “It’s markedly different compared to what I’d been working on myself.”

Leon cocked an eyebrow, remembering that the Thunderbird had promised to look into ways to help him stimulate his blood and achieve something similar to that transformation.  It had only been a couple years since then, though, so he hadn’t thought she’d made much progress.

“How so?” he asked as he let his eyes wander up and down the enchantment, taking in the countless runes that made it up, admiring how it formed long streams of light in the air.

“It requires an immense amount of power to pull off, for one,” the Thunderbird said with some disappointment, “but I can’t really argue too much with its results—it certainly sets out to do what it was designed to do.”

“But…?” Leon asked, sensing the hesitant pause in his Ancestor’s voice.

“But it does so in an almost callously barbaric fashion,” the Thunderbird replied, a smile adorning her bronze face, yet there was little warmth in it.  “Your human mind was suppressed under the influence of new instincts, and you experienced immense pain during your transformation.  These alone make this enchantment, without modification, unsuitable for use.  There isn’t much point to having the ability to transform your shape if you and your transformed self are essentially two separate entities that share no memories.  If you transform in battle, your superior form might choose to simply fly away, or attack your comrades.  Useless.  Counter-productive.”

Leon nodded.  The prospect of freely transforming into a bird in the way the Thunderbird did was exciting in ways that he couldn’t fully articulate, but if it required going through what he did in the transformation cave every time, it would be a power he’d never invoke.

“Is there a way to prevent that?” he asked.

“Of course there is!” the Thunderbird boomed, her voice like a crack of thunder.  “Most of what I was working on was to mitigate or eliminate those very flaws!”

“Is there anything obvious?” Leon asked as he slowly walked through the arches of light formed by the millions of floating runes.

“There are a few things I’ve already done,” the Thunderbird proudly stated.  “Nothing great enough to make this thing usable, yet, but progress has been made.  This thing worked by stimulating blood far more than was necessary.”

“Or maybe it was necessary,” Leon countered.  “This enchantment wasn’t designed for me, remember?  It was designed for Jormun, whose family had gone so long without awakening their blood that they’d lost the ability to do so.  My blood, however, was already awake—at least, the part that I inherited from you was.  It didn’t need as much stimulation…”

“And yet, that serpent didn’t seem entirely in control of itself,” the Thunderbird replied.  “It didn’t show off much human intelligence.”

“Not showing it doesn’t mean it didn’t possess it,” Leon responded, then frowned and shrugged.  “I suppose we’ll never know, though.  Not like we can question Jormun about what he experienced.  Either way, for me, this blood stimulation was too much, so we can safely tone it down without losing anything critical for the enchantment to work?”

“That’s one thing I’ve already started to tweak,” the Thunderbird said as she gestured toward one part of the enchantment.  Leon followed her gesture, but the enchantment was so complex that he couldn’t even begin to pick out the specifics of what she’d done.

Still, he nodded, for even if he couldn’t see what she’d done, he trusted that she wasn’t lying, and he was suitably impressed.

However, there was something he was curious about what she’d brought up.  “You were working on the transformation with the Great Black Dragon?” he asked.  She’d said so before, when he’d confronted her about how she’d kept that part of his lineage secret, but it took on new meaning now that he had a face to picture in his mind.  The Great Black Dragon was no longer just an idea in his head, he was an actual person.

“I was, and while he was hardly the most cooperative, he did provide valuable reference material.”

“I thought he didn’t want to acknowledge me at all,” he said.  He tried to control his tone, but he couldn’t help some bitterness escaping into his voice.

“He didn’t,” the Thunderbird confirmed.  “However, what he says and what he does aren’t always that similar.  He said he didn’t care what happened to you, and that you were undeserving of even the lightest of acknowledgments from him.  And yet, he aided me when I asked for help, and he smote the Primal God when it entered your soul realm—I don’t think that God ever thought that that proud bastard would have such a reaction when it saw that your blood was suppressed!”  The Thunderbird threw her head back and laughed, but Leon wasn’t quite so mirthful.

“He was quite emphatic that I was nothing to him,” he pointed out.

“He also did the very thing he swore he would never do,” the Thunderbird shot back.  “He acknowledged you.  Even if it was to throw a few barbed words around, he still acknowledged you.  By the way, how are you feeling?”

Leon frowned in confusion, then shrugged.  “Fine, I guess?”

“You weren’t acting entirely fine when that old bastard was here,” she said.  “Felt to me like you were still experiencing some draconic instincts that were flaring up with another dragon in your territory…”

Leon scowled.  “I just didn’t want him here.  He was arrogant and treated my soul realm like it was his own.  I just wanted him gone…”

“But I’m sure those instincts played a big part in that.”

Leon shrugged again.  “I’m feeling fine,” he repeated.

“Then maybe all of that’s quieted down.  I assume that flying lizard has gone back to suppressing your power as much as is now possible, but…  I think he cares about you more than he lets on.  Probably more than he wants to.  He doesn’t like that he has to share you with me, so he claims that he’s written you off entirely.”

“He has,” Leon stated.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” the Thunderbird replied.  “I think if I never showed myself to you, he might’ve done so at some point.’

Leon’s scowl drew deeper.  He remembered several times in some of his darkest moments when he saw visions of black fire, and of the Great Black Dragon within.

The Thunderbird continued, “He doesn’t act like a civilized man.  He isn’t a civilized man.  He’s wild, selfish, and arrogant.  He predates civilization, and never took to it once it came around.  He does what he wants and he doesn’t like to share.  But I think, for all of that, for all his protestations, that he does on some level care about you, even if he only cares that you still bear his power and have inherited at least a part of his legacy, and thus you reflect upon him.

“Regardless, I think it’s best if we add in some new parts of this enchantment so that it doesn’t try to stimulate that side of you…”

Leon raised an eyebrow in silent question as he glanced back at his Ancestor.

“This thing was designed to stimulate all of your blood, and perhaps some of why you experienced so much pain was because of these two sides of you at war within your body to see which would come out dominant.  I’d say mine won out, in the end, just as it always does…”  The Thunderbird glanced off into the Mists, a gloating smile on her face, and a chuckle managed to escape Leon’s lips.

“How much work would that entail?” Leon asked.

“I don’t know,” the Thunderbird admitted.  “At the very least, it should help to limit the scale of this enchantment, to focus only on my Bloodline rather than going for both mine and his, and that ought to help with the much bigger problem that you have with this: the power.”

Leon nodded.  It had taken essentially all of the power from the power crystal that he’d looted from Nestor’s lab to activate the thing in the transformation cave, and he couldn’t just conjure a similar amount of power.  If this transformation was ever to become practical to use, then it needed some serious refining to make it more magically efficient.

“It also funneled a great deal of power into you to fuel your transformation,” the Thunderbird mused aloud.  “We’d need to stop that, too, otherwise you’d injure yourself; you’d have to transform using your own power if you’ve any hope of using this consistently without being torn apart.  I suspect that would also help to limit the scale of this…”

The Thunderbird drifted off into technical babble that Leon was surprised to find he was able to follow fairly well—it seemed his lessons with Nestor were starting to pay off, even if he lacked the skills to actually implement any of the Thunderbird’s ideas.

So, as she returned to working on that, Leon turned his attention to the last bit of soul realm business he had to take care of: fully evaluating and fixing the damage done by the Primal God and his soul realm’s tremendous growth.

Most of the damage had already been fixed not long after Leon returned to his human body, but he still needed to do one last pass to fix the broken mountains and frayed edges of his soul realm.  And he found quite a few cracks and rents that he’d missed in his first pass that he quickly closed with a bit of applied Mist of Chaos—though that hardly meant his soul realm had been completely fixed.  It didn’t end at the edges of the island, after all.

Once that was finished, he was left with an island that was about twenty miles in radius within his soul realm, which was now ten times as big.  There was an immense amount of empty space between the edge of his little island, hovering there in empty space, and the edges of the mist.  So, he got to work filling all of that in, too.

It was tedious, and he took many breaks, and as a result, when he felt Maia starting to stir next to his physical body, he’d barely even started on expanding the land he had to work with.  Still, he gladly took the opportunity to stop making flat earth and dirt out of mist and returned to the physical world.

He’d have quite a bit of time after returning to the Bull Kingdom.  He still had a few responsibilities to the fleet on his plate, but once this expedition managed to limp all the way back to the Kingdom, he’d finally have time to devote his full attention to his personal matters.

Not the least of which was Valeria.  Just the thought of her instilled a feeling of deep dread within Leon.  He knew how she felt about him; she’d confessed as much on their way north after the southern campaign of the civil war.  He’d made his desires known to her as well, but whether or not she was actually willing to enter a relationship with him was…

Well, he figured he’d see when he’d see, and that for now, it was best not to worry.  Whatever her answer, he’d find out soon enough.

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