Chapter 235

Liz turned her head to look at the curled-up cat in the seat behind her and took the silent invitation for what it was.

Reaching deep inside herself, she found her bloodline and pulled.

With what felt like a silent pop, Liz went through the unusual sensation of being inverted until she was suddenly two feet tall and very on fire. She had enough practice with the change at this point to reign in her flames with [Fire Manipulation] immediately, preventing any more scorch marks from joining the collection on her seat.

Liz spread her wings and flapped, hopping up to her seatback and using it as a perch to look down at her manager. Luna returned her stare with a blink, slitted eyes meeting the predatory gaze of a phoenix.

A bloodline is just as much a part of you as your hand or foot, and needs to be exercised accordingly. Fire is a part of your blood, so push out and feel your connection to it, flex it like you would anything else.

As Luna ran through her little mantra, Liz tried to settle herself mentally and physically.

She needed to relax; that much was apparent even to her, but knowing it and doing it were two different things. The entire issue had come up in a rift a few months back, when she surprised both herself and Luna. After she transformed into her phoenix form, she found her flame powers to be somewhat lacking. She was wholly unable to reach the level of power she expected. She had still managed to kill the enormous Redwood Anaconda, but it had revealed a glaring weakness.

Her flames were weaker than her upper limit should be.

A weakness she needed to correct immediately.

That had prompted Luna to start training her on the issue during their transit between worlds.

She even did so in beast form after they found that Lizs bloodline resonated with the older cats. Whether that was just due to their close proximity after training together for years, or just because she trusted Luna, neither of them were sure, but it helped Liz settle down and connect with her own bloodline.

Lunas presence also helped prevent her from burning a hole in the ship that was keeping her safe from the corrosive energies of chaotic space, which would be a stupid way to die.

Liz slowly raised the power of her flames until she felt them reaching their limit.

As they continued to practice for a few more hours, Liz felt her control over her bloodline and its fire powers settle down an inch or so more. As they approached their destination, she hopped back into her seat and pecked at the controls to guide their reentry into realspace. She could have transformed back, or just used her AI to bypass the issue altogether, but she wanted to get some level of practice doing mundane tasks as a bird. If she ended up stuck as a phoenix for a while, like when she would need to molt after resurrecting, she didnt want to learn everything from scratch at the last minute.

Liz did turn back into her human body to guide the ship down to land, dressing herself and donning both sets of masks as well as her Torch armor, only possible in the tight quarters of her ship thanks to the spatial rings on her fingers.

That was still irritating almost a year after getting her beast form.

The strongest storage rings, those made by Talented crafters, could hold other storage rings within them. Weaker storage rings, like those holding houses, could do so thanks to the enchantments on the houses themselves. However, they cut off the contents from being accessible without first dropping an entire building, and then rummaging through the closet. But most of the time, spatial rings took up space equivalent to their storage capacity when stored within a separate storage device, so a ring that held twenty cubic feet could never be stored within a ring that could only hold five cubic feet of space.

Normally, that wasnt a problem, but spatial items that were capable of adapting between bloodline forms were annoyingly expensive, and were invariably smaller in size than their normal counterparts. So even if she did get one, she couldnt actually keep her main ring inside of it. Most beasts didnt even bother getting one, and instead attached their rings to a collar or other accessory.

That was something she couldnt really do as a two-foot-tall bird. She was tall for small birds, but small for her bloodline, and beyond that, birds weren't well equipped to wear something like a collar or the like, at least not without it getting in the way of flying.

She had tried, and ended up using a small circlet around one of her legs. But while that worked itself, it was less than ideal, as it made for an easy to target item on her body since she needed to throw it up mid transformation and then catch the ring in her claw. It was a slow process at best, and one that just begged for someone to steal the ring and disarm her of any potions, talismans, armor, weapons, or even clothes.

That in and of itself would have been ok if she didnt already have a specially made ring sitting in her wedding presents from her sister, Alice, that she couldn't use. That ring would perfectly transfer from her fingers in human form to a tiny, unobtrusive bracelet on her ankle when she was in bird form, and back again.

The issue was that even with its limited storage size, it was valued in the Tier 23 range, forcing her to wait until she was at least Tier 19 or so to be able to buy it back.

Until then, she just had to suffer.

At least she had a stopgap in the form of a pair of [Gossamer Outfit] skills from Erin and Leah. It was a common enough skill that could summon illusory armor in the form of clothes, albeit exceptionally fragile ones. They had substance, but even the slightest damage would dispel the illusion. Given the modification manuals they had provided with the skill shard, she knew exactly what they each expected her to use them for. Leahs was a fairly straightforward catalog of good outfits for a range of occasions, notes on how to hide other clothes with the illusion, and how to make the fabric a little more resilient. Erins well, it offered excellent advice on how to make outfits in multiple parts, if nothing else.

For all that Erin liked to act outwardly reserved, at heart, she was just as bad or even worse than their parents.

Liz snorted at the thought. Who was she kidding, she was absolutely looking forward to trying out Erins modifications and outfits. Not that she planned on ignoring Leahs handbook, and there was something to be said for combining both sets of modifications. Shed also see if anything interesting came of converting the spare shard to blood. It would likely just end up as another form of [Blood Armor], inferior to her [Blood Crystal Armor], but there was always a chance it would end up as something interesting.

She only had her landing port for a few minutes, so Torch hopped out of her ship and pulled it back into its ring, clearing the way for the next arrival or departure. Luna was sitting nearby, licking a paw, and Torch knew from experience that only she was currently capable of perceiving the manager. Her AI connected to the local PlanetNet and began pulling in a steady stream of information to help her get her bearings.

This was a relatively newly settled world, but that only meant it was a few thousand years old. Being a Tier 4 system further relegated it to the equivalent of backwater planet status. It was the sort of planet where only low Tiers settled, as it was needed to bridge the gap to higher Tier worlds. Or, that was the case until a passing Tier 45 entered the system and investigated the entire place with their spiritual perception.

Generally, uninhabitable planets were of little interest unless they were high Tier, where they would be terraformed and moved into more reasonable orbits, and planets past the local asteroid belts were usually gas giants or something so small as to also be useless. That same concept held true in this system, but the passing Tier 45 had noticed something.

One of the moons circling the small gas giant wasnt a moon, but rather a spatially expanded vault hidden away and filled with a number of Tier 20 goods.

Being a Tier 45, he couldn't care less about such goods, and simply reported it on the PlanetNet, where it made a splash. Vaults like this popped up every now and then, when someone had created a secure storage area for all their worldly goods, then died without telling anyone its location. It had taken some time, but some investigative work had found the creator of the vault, who didnt have any living next of kin, ultimately transferring it into the possession of the local Duke.

Looking to give one his nieces a chance to prove her mettle, the Duke had invoked an old Imperial law, opening the contents of the vault to anyone Tier 20 and below strong enough to claim them, while concurrently and temporarily suspending the normal prohibitions against murder and robbery, along with most other Imperial laws. Even punching down Tiers was allowed to a limited extent while inside the vault, but the higher Tier was expected to let anyone weaker than them live rather than kill wantonly.

The announcement had caused a stir in the local sector, with a slew of far flung noble families sending eligible representatives to either claim a portion of the valuables, or in the hopes of killing someone from a rival faction. All while disregarding the traveling Tier 15s who, while not numerous in a region without a Tier 15 system, flocked to the site of the news in recent months and wanted their own piece of the pie.

Liz wouldnt have cared for the treasures at stake, but Torch was just a few planets away when the news had broken, and was looking to make a name for herself. Luna had approved, and now she was here.

In the next two rooms she tried to enter, she was met with stiff resistance from the occupying teams. Seeing that, she quickly cut her losses to avoid getting into a long, drawn out fight for such little loot when it was easily avoidable.

She was clearing a room of portable formations when a group of five entered and tried to pin her down, aiming to take her already stuffed spatial bags full of loot.

Torch found the Tier 16s displeasing, and expressed her discontent by resisting with prejudice.

Instead of them leaving with her accumulated loot, she ended up walking away with most of their bags of plundered items, which she consolidated into one bag. Sadly, one of the group had managed to get away, but Torch didnt really mind not getting the entirety of their spoils.

There were still plenty of chances for more, after all.

Seeing that the next room she wanted to enter was a warzone, as two teams fought over what felt like a Tier 15 growth item chalice, Torch kept moving, not caring too much about a single item. At her next stop, she found a gallery full of paintings which had so far been untouched.

Torch debated passing the room of paintings but dedicated herself to grabbing them anyway. While art wasnt as useful as combat or crafting-related items, Torch knew it could be even more valuable at the same Tier, and decided to risk it.

Unlike potions or armor, she couldn't just use [Air Manipulation] to grab everything, and had to manually grab each one, which cost her precious minutes.

Once the room was empty, she ran deeper in and past a dozen or so open and empty rooms, before getting pushed back out of a room with two teams working together inside. Heading into the adjacent room, she found a team of Tier 17s she recognized from outside who had shot her hostile glares, looting what seemed to be another room full of formation.

Deciding to liberate them of their gains, Torch rushed into the room with a spear and shield at the ready. Most of the other rooms seemed occupied, and she felt confident she could handle a few Tier 17s, even while fighting alone.

She blocked two [Firebolt]s and an [Ice Lance] with her shield, letting them recharge her personal armor and provide a slight speed boost. She wrapped herself in a fire [Bloodrush], leaving a trail of flames in her wake as she dodged an [Earth Spear] and somersaulted over a [Mana Bolt] to get in close.

Before she even landed, she unleashed fire from her armor and [Bloodrush] alike, weaving the flames to blind and disorient the group as she struck out with her spear and shield.

A mage caught the lip of the shield to his face as he tried to create some distance and get away from her flames. It wouldnt have even taken him out of the fight if not for the fact he was knocked into the path of a skill aimed at Torchs head, but he slumped to the floor, spasming. As they had moved to lethal attacks first, Torch responded in kind with an [Adrenaline Rush] and [Lesser Blood Sacrifice]-empowered fire [Blood Charge] as she ducked around the glowing axe flying towards her skull, striking out at its wielder.

As blood flew, Torch had to wrestle back the urge to grab it and finish the fight then and there. Instead, she withdrew a talisman Quill had made for the explicit goal of making a lot of fire. It was only tier 14, but that didnt matter at the moment. The world turned orange, and she moved.

Her next attack was further enhanced with [Heartpiercer], and punched straight through the breastplate of the woman in heavy armor and out the back. The wound provided Torch an excellent opportunity to grab control of the womans blood, crushing her brain and killing her instantly.

The final two members of the team apparently decided enough was enough, and moved to turn and run, but Torch was well beyond allowing that.

With a wave of her spear, she solidified the air and then pulled the wall of air back towards herself.

One of the duo was knocked back, as expected, but the other wasnt quite so lucky.

Focusing on the one almost near the door, Torch cast her final Tier 15 reward that had successfully converted. [Ischemic Harpoon] was what she decided to name her Talent changed version of [Harpoon], a skill which used water to create chains that linked to a spear and allowed for the weapon to stick into its target and be recalled at great lengths with a ton of power.

[Ischemic Harpoon] had all of those same benefits, but instead of being fueled with or attracted to water, it was fueled and attracted by blood. She had also extensively practiced wrapping the entire skill with flames so she could use the skill when pretending to be Torch. That also made people assume it was a fire spell, and try to counter it with a water spell, which wouldn't do much to the blood underneath.

When her spear skewered the man almost by the door, she felt him trying to tear free of the skill, but even with his spirit weakening the spell inside of him, she was stronger thanks to her Internal Concept that was bridging the distance through the chains of blood. Unless he could leave all the blood inside his body behind, there was no way he was escaping.

With a massive wrench, she pulled him back deeper into the room, where she finished him and his final companion off.

It was a pity that [Extract Ore] had broken on convert, as she'd been hopeful it might have been able to rip iron from the blood of targets. Unfortunately, [Anemia] instead joined the truly enormous pile of skills that were not to be, though it would have made this fight even easier.

Stopping only to loot them, she had to marvel at the weakness of these groups.

Apparently, her method of comparison was a little out of whack after fighting other elites in Minkalla, and then delving up several Tiers for so long. These average Tier 17s hadnt even put up a good fight, which made her question the earlier hostile gazes and immediate deathly attacks. It seemed crazy for them to be so aggressive if they couldnt back it up.

Just as she was exiting the now empty room, Torch felt the entire vault rock and knew that signified her cue to exit. There was no reason for her to stick around when the Tier 20s started fighting over the items deeper inside the vault, and she immediately turned tail and ran back out to the space around the gas giant.

The Tier 25 didnt seem surprised to see her, but she didnt stick around to get her loot examined, and immediately moved far enough to withdraw her chaotic space ship and boarded it, initiating the jump to chaotic space.

Once they left the system, three full spatial bags richer, Luna nodded to Liz as she indicated the bags.

A good haul worthy of the effort you put in. Do you want to keep that loot, exchange it for something off your wedding gifts list, or exchange it for training with a bondsman?

Liz was about to say she wanted to exchange the variety of stuff for some of the goodies of their wedding gift list, but hearing Luna mention the bondsman, she paused. When the four of them had first exited Minkalla, and Luna had heard about her additional Concept power, she had briefly mentioned getting Liz a lesson with a bondsman. That conversation hadnt gone anywhere due to the fact that proper bondsmen and their contract powers were both rare and valuable commodities, usually tied to noble families, as she had been in one life, or tied to the Empire.

While not illegal in the Empire, any Talent, Domain, or skill that enforced or supported magically binding agreements were subject to intense scrutiny and supervision. Having lived a life with that power, Liz fully understood why, but that didnt make it any more convenient for her to hire one to train her before she exited The Path.

One of them finally had an opening? Liz perked up. They were understandably intensely busy, and last shed heard Luna was still trying to find an opening in their schedules sometime before she would be off the Path entirely.

Indeed. Cabel Waters, Domain Bondsman with an emphasis on long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships. Hes also taken on students in the past, has a good track record of teaching, and he finally has about six months free in roughly three years. Its not quite last-minute, but hell understand if you cant make it, but I dont know when the next opening would be.

Well then, Liz tossed the bags of loot shed just won at her trainer. Sounds like an easy choice to me.