NOVEL WEB Chapter 20. Testing
The ground ruptured under her feet; vines of stone lashed at her ankles. She yelped, stumbling over herself.
A Foundation aura bloomed behind her—that freckly little twig was at Foundation?!
She dashed faster, swallowing great swathes of earth with each stride, bracing for a spear through her back.
None came.
She chanced a glance back. Where was he? Ah—that dot back there, bumbling closer. Why was he so far back?
He really seemed to be working hard at it, the poor boy, huffing hard. His helmet was a little too big for him. It rattled about his head with each step.
“Halt!” he cried again.
“No way…”
She let him get within striking range of her, just to make sure.
Then she leapt left, doubled back right, and he tripped over himself, splattering into the mud.
She began to laugh. “No way!”
“Stop that!” He must be new, since his face was all shiny and red. He could hardly hold his spear right—he looked like a boy playing pretend. Probably some noble’s son made to do idle work.
“Make me,” she said, sticking out her tongue.
He lunged for her, but she skirted a wide circle and he fell flat on his face again.
She was faster than Foundation level cultivator! She really was! Not a very impressive one, but still!
He lunged for her again, too far left; snickering, she dodged right.
Something crunched loudly. It was her face. Then she was on the ground, staring up at swimming stars. “Ow…” she whimpered, clutching at her smarting nose.
She clambered up, backing away as he advanced on her. She saw the culprit—a slab of clay, freshly raised, with the vague imprint of her face in it. He’d run her right into it, the tricky little bastard!
“Halt, in the name of the Emperor!” said the guard-boy again, like it was the only line he knew. For some reason he seemed unwilling to look at her directly.
“What am I even guilty of?” snapped Ruyi. “Swimming?”
“P-public indecency and damage to the Emperor’s property!”
“Ridiculous! What property?”
“Damage to the city walls!”
“I—” She blinked, sheepish. “…Okay, fine. You’ve got me there. But public indecency?!”
“Miss—” He gestured helplessly at her.
“…Ah.”
She was quite soaked through. Which explained his redness and his eyes, now she thought about it.
“I fell into a river! What am I meant to do—not get wet?”
“Uh,” said the boy.
“Besides—it’s past midnight! What ‘public’?! The only person here’s you, you little pervert! You ought to arrest yourself for—uh—being a creep.” Was that a criminal offense?
“Miss, I’m just trying to do my job,” said the boy, cringing. “Err—I can waive the indecency. For damage to the wall, at least, I have to fine you, or I’ll get in trouble. That’s the law.”
“Well, I’m not going down without a fight.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” She made fists, to show she was serious.
“Miss….” The boy said, looking like he was about to cry. “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be...”
He’d backed her against the wall. Then she had a very good idea.
“Catch me if you can, loser!”
One leap took her a third of the way up the wall, where her feet stuck true. She started walking backwards up the wall, savoring guard-boy’s shocked face. Up until the moment the wall caved in around her.
For the second time that night she walked straight into a trap. A fist of stone rose up, and she ran into it so hard her head snapped into her chest, so hard she lolled around in a daze for a few breaths. When she blinked the stars out of eyes she found stony fingers closed around her.
She’d been hit hard in the face a total of two times in her life—they’d just happened in quick succession—and already they ranked among her least favorite experiences ever.
As the stone fist dragged her to ground level she growled and raged and wriggled with all her might, but all she succeeded in doing was looking stupid. It seemed strength was not one of her strengths.
She sagged, defeated. She really didn’t want to have to do this…
“Um, mister guard?” She said, fluttering her eyelashes, devastatingly cute. “Could you please, please, please let me go? I would really appreciate it…”
It was almost unfair. It was probably the first time as girl as pretty at Ruyi had ever looked at him like that. She even threw in her best smile, with the dimples and the shy little blush—a trick she’d learned from Tingting that melted boys and girls alike to blubbering puddles.
The force of her charm hit him full blast, up-close. Poor thing didn’t even have time to dodge.
…he looked so unimpressed it honestly hurt her feelings a little.
“What was that you said?” he said. “‘Catch me if you can, loser?’, was it?”
He made her pay two silvers for the wall.
***
Next morning she found a nice secluded spot in the woods where she could run her tests.
Firstly, and most obviously, her touch. Back in the first few hours of her rebirth she’d had no control, a leaking pot. She let a little color into everything she touched. But after a night she had a grasp on it. Things frosted at her fingertips the way grasses frosted on cool mornings; it had something to do with the moisture in the air, already there. This seemed to be her core power.
With it, she could stick pretty much wherever—it took at least three fingers to firm a grip she could hang her bodyweight on. It worked best with skin contact; she could stick through her shoes, but she had to shove a lot more color to do it.
Unsticking was a matter of retraction, pulling light back in.
She tested the ice too, which was no normal ice. Normal ice had no mind-color. Normal ice shattered when she struck it, but this was as durable as steel plate and held faster too. ‘Qi’ wasn’t the right term for it—‘demonic essence,’ maybe?
***
She felt a little hunger spell around mid-morning, after she’d exhausted about a third of her color. She suspected the two were tied. It felt like an itching buzzing at the back of her mind now; if she wasn’t careful it slipped past her, and she found herself stumbling drooling to who-knows-where before her conscious mind caught up. But if she focused, really took stock of her mind, she could hold on.
She doubted she could hold on if she went past half-empty.
She had no demon flesh, so she made a visit to the eastern stream and speared a few Spirit Trout. Cooked things and herbs held no appeal for her; she wanted her food raw, fresh, alive, she wanted her mouth soaked with lifeblood.
The fish filled her up fine. Color came trickling back. To grow, though, she’d need demon flesh. Demons ate other demons to get stronger—every human knew that. It was why they were so monstrous.
Sadly, eating seemed her only way to replenish herself. She tried cultivating, but the little stars in the air still didn’t want her.
She really would have to pay Mei a visit soon.
***
The rest of the morning she devoted to benchmarks. Her best speed sprint, a hundred strides in half a breath. She snuck out one of Jin’s training boulders in the yard—a 400 jin chunker—and was shocked she could lift it. Then she tried the 500, and it squashed her flat. For a few breaths as she squirmed, trying to wriggle out the side, she thought she was going to die. Eventually she managed to squeeze out.
Was she meant to be this strong, this fast? Thankfully she’d had the Codex in a chest before her little icestorm hit her lab; she dug it out and checked it.
Like humans, demons at every stage varied wildly in power. Some larval demons could best feral demons. How strong a newly-made demon was depended not on the strength of the flesh they ate, but rather on how well their body took to demonic essence.
She had little to compare to, but she was pretty sure she was not normal. She was, at the very least, a better responder than a field rat.
This made perfect sense to her. She would’ve been baffled if she weren’t special.
Her one disappointment was her cognitive tests. She didn’t want to believe it at first, but after forty timed tries at Alchemy puzzle-solving the results were undeniable. She was somewhere between 5-10% stupider.
This ought to fix itself as she got stronger, she told herself. And she would get stronger--soon.
***
Some other cool tricks: she could shove a lot of color into the space of a drop of saliva, make a needle of it, and hurl that needle so hard it pierced a hole through the trunk of a tree.
She could make frost-breaths, though this did little outside of the range of two feet or so. Maybe it could blind someone who got too close.
She could burn a little color inside her and drop her core temperature so low she started smoking in the morning air.
Her claws seemed about as strong as tempered steel daggers, and more dextrous besides. She could shred the skin off a peach with one hand without scraping the flesh.
***
One worry she’d had was that she’d lose some immeasurable 'thing' that made her human. But other than feeling a lot hotter, and feeling the occasional pang of mindless hunger, she still felt mostly herself.
She’d expected to feel more… demonic? She wasn’t sure what precisely that was supposed to mean. Maybe she thought she’d become some kind of emotionless killing machine. It was kind of what she’d assumed demons were, on the whole.
It depressed her a little how willing she was to become one in spite of it.
But she still felt joy, and sadness, and she still loved Mother and Jin, and she still had a good long cry when she thought about Tingting this morning. She felt like a person.
***
There was probably more to discover. But after mid-morning she couldn’t stand the sun, even cloaked in frosted garb. She waddled her way inside.
Mother was training footwork in the courtyard.
"Hey, Mother," said Ruyi. She had this niggling fear that despite all her precautions, Mother and Jin would sniff her out instantly.
"Hello, dear--woah."
She seemed so taken aback that for one heartstopping moment Ruyi thought she knew.
Then she realized it was just because she was dressed head-to-toe in longsleeves, a robe, and a cap in the middle of summer. Which had the dual benefits of hiding her new muscles and keeping her cool, and the drawback of making her look like an utter lunatic.
“What? It’s in fashion,” said Ruyi, and waddled past.
***
Jin sat her down at dinner. “Rue? Are you doing alright? I’m worried about you.”
“What are you talking about?” said Ruyi, unwrapping her scarf to take a bite of raw fish.
“You seem…” Jin looked her up and down. “Distressed?”
“It’s in fashion!” she snapped through a mouthful of fish.
“All I mean is, I’m here to listen if you need me.”
“Heh?” Then she remembered the engagement business. She’d been having quite a nice dinner until then.
“You think I’m acting out.”
“I don’t think anything,” said Jin carefully. “I’m just letting you know. That’s all.”
She supposed it was better they think she was lovesick—which she was not—than think she was morphing into a demon.
She was still a little annoyed about it.
She was over Tingting. She hardly knew the Princess anyways--a dance, a few dates, some kissing? It was nothing. A little fling, for the season only. Really she was just annoyed other people thought she was annoyed about it.
And then she thought about her and Chen Qin kissing, her and Chen Qin having children together, and smiling at each other with love in their eyes, and she sobbed herself to sleep.
***
She ordered body dyes from the Alchemist’s Guild. She found she had to paint her arm daily; the pink tone just wouldn’t stick. It didn’t really look like skin up-close, it looked like paint, but it’d hold up under cursory inspections. She’d probably be fine if something briefly tore her glove off.
***
Mei was just closing up shop—wiping down the tables and sweeping wrappings off the floor—when she heard a chime at the door.
“We’re closed,” she said.
“But you said I could come by anytime!”
“Nala?”
“Hi,” said the girl, poking out from a small hill of clothing. She did a sweep of the room, then leaned in real close. “Psst! Do you have any more… y’know…demon flesh?”
Mei blinked at her. She was having trouble believing this was a real conversation she was having right now.
“…So? Do you?”
“Yeah. I stocked a whole warehouse, just for you.”
“Really?”
“No, you dolt!” sighed Mei. “What are you doing? You look ridiculous. Close the door. And don’t speak of this here, my Father’s upstairs!”
It was a sulky Nala who walked back to her. “When did you become so mean?”
“I can get you what you need,” Mei said. “But not here. You’ll have to let me close up first. Then we can go together.”
“To the Underground?” Nala’s face hardened at that.
“No—somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“…You’ll see. I can’t guarantee anything, but my… friend…in the cult—you may think of him as my supplier—is rather curious about your Alchemy work. As it so happens he’s having some difficulties on his end. If you can help him, he’s willing to supply you flesh. Much more than just a finger.”