Chapter 366: Presentiments of Ending

As Zae Zin Nim circulated the qi in her dantian yet again, she realized that it couldn’t last forever.

She certainly hoped that her marriage would - she wanted to achieve immortality alongside her husband and wife, then fly together into the heavens. She longed to see what Kai and Omilaena would grow into as they advanced together. She knew that, if they fought for one another long enough, they would have many tender moments like those they had shared.

But this honeymoon, these blissful days on their island... those were coming to an end.

Eventually she would hit a blockage with all the resources that she could access on the island, which would mean that staying here would become self-indulgent. Currently she was still building up her poison immunity, slower than Kai, which provided a strong excuse for not leaving. But as soon as she gained useful resistance, she would have to worry about holding back her spouses, not to mention her own growth.

As she had feared, 20% of the way to Sky Soul would prove a bottleneck - the fact that Darkmist Island had taken her almost to it was already a miracle. Zae Zin Nim sighed as she accepted that she would make no more progress that day and left the Immortal’s Cave.

She let herself pad through the house, for once not pursuing any major objective. This place really was suitable enough: not exactly a sect mansion, but a lovely home for the three of them. Now that they had been here so many months, she no longer saw random rooms and corridors, but places where they had shared kisses, training, impromptu meals, and even intimate moments.

Eventually she found Kai striding down a hallway, toward the cellars as usual. He stopped his rapid pace to lean down and kiss her, though.

"Hey, Zin Nim. Love you."

Just the way he said her name made her feel warm and liquid inside. The pronunciation was right, but the pause was wrong - it sounded like "Zinnim", a single name as on his home continent. She doubted that he even noticed, but she thought of it as his personal name for her and enjoyed hearing him say it, especially breathed into her ear when they were together.

"Hello." She kissed back and then kept a hand on his arm. "Going back to the caverns?"

"I know I’m spending a lot of time there, but I can’t help it." Kai’s gaze shifted downward eagerly. "There’s something bigger, circling around some of the caves. We’re sort of hunting each other, I think, but I’ll eat it eventually."

She had been planning to ask him if he wanted company, but it seemed he wanted to do this himself. "Good luck." After another kiss and bidding him farewell, Zae Zin Nim let him go and walked on.

Omilaena was nowhere to be found in the house, which wasn’t surprising considering that she had been ranging further for the last two weeks. Zae Zin Nim had been refining her senses, however, even within all the mist, and set out to find her. Eventually she spotted a blue speck atop one of the sides of the caldera and leapt up toward it with floating steps.

"Hello, Omi," Zae Zin Nim said. She had planned on saying more, but her breath was taken away by the view from atop the rim: dark mist filled the air, the ocean reflected its shadows, and craggy rocks disappeared into the mists, as if all parts of the world melded together here. It was both surreal and beautiful, unlike anything she had seen before.

"It’s nice, isn’t it?" Omilaena put an arm around her waist and pulled her to sit beside her. "I was searching for resources when I realized how impressive it could be here. This is one of the best views, but it’s even better on cloudy days."

"What resources are you looking for? You’re working on something new?"

"Not exactly. I’ve done all I can with the chakra fruit, so I’m searching out other potential reagents."

"I see. I want another dose, by the way."

Her wife pressed her lips together, making them glisten bright blue, and then caught her in a gentle kiss. Their lips burned coldly, but Zae Zin Nim welcomed the sensation and even extended her tongue to take more. The poison left her light-headed, but Omilaena kept her safe against her side.

As she recovered, Zae Zin Nim spoke up quietly. "What are you thinking about?"

"Eh?" Omilaena glanced down at her. "I won’t lie, it’s nothing romantic."

"No, I want to know."

"Well... I’m trying to figure out a fundamental problem. Chakra, qi, and mana are fundamentally different forces, right? They produce entirely different sorts of powers in different contexts. And yet you can often use one type of energy to power another type of magic."

Zae Zin Nim frowned. "Is that so surprising? They are all energy, and they fail to work in more delicate contexts."

"Yeah, but I’ve been testing the devices here and I can make it work, a lot of the time. And the real question is inside us: Physique is reinforced by all three types. Not always, but they’re usually mutually reinforcing. Kai is the obvious example, but we do it too, even you do."

"Yes, even the traditionalist sects say that lesser energy sources should be purified and used to strengthen the body."

"What really intrigues me is the idea of mixing or changing other forms." Omilaena was still holding her waist, but she was off in her own world now. "According to some of my reading, in theory there’s no reason that mana has to produce Classes, so in theory you could cultivate it. Is that true for everything? There are definitely chakra-fueled systems similar to cultivation, but could you produce a qi-fueled Class? If so, why don’t we see it more often?"

The idea made Zae Zin Nim’s brow furrow; she wondered if Omilaena was teasing her, but she seemed entirely serious. "That is a very strange thought. Qi and mana seem so different... that’s hard to believe."

"I doubt they could create identical systems, but maybe they could mutually reinforce? I mean, if you can strengthen your physique by using all three types of energy, could you strengthen cultivation by trying to cultivate all three?"

"Carelessly using other systems would weaken your cultivation base... but... there are practices for using chakra or mana. I do not know the details, but you could study them if we go to Cloudspire."

"I’d like that." Omilaena planted a non-poisonous kiss on her cheek. "And you’re my best test case. If I find any way to strengthen you, I’ll definitely let you know."

Omilaena could always be counted on for gifts of power. Zae Zin Nim floated back to the mansion with slow cloud steps, pondering what to do next. It occurred to her that the others had mentioned the hedge maze but were always too busy to properly look at it... maybe she could make an effort and present a solution to them as a gift.

From above, the hedge maze was so choked with mist that she couldn’t see any of the pathways. No doubt a large enough qi technique could blow it all away, but... Zae Zin Nim doubted that she would learn anything with such a brute force method.

Instead she alighted on the path and used the appropriate entrance. At first the pathways into the maze seemed perfectly ordinary: anyone with a disciplined mind could map the turns and find a solution trivially. Yet when Zae Zin Ni attempted to do so, she found herself returning to the first crossroads far too early, having turned left only twice.

That should be impossible, unless... Zae Zin Nim sat down in the center and pondered the mists as they floated around her. There was definitely no teleportation technique, as she would have noticed the sudden change. It was remotely possible there was a very subtle mental manipulation, but surely Kai or Omilaena would have overcome that. Perhaps the simplest possibility was deceiving her vision and letting her mind trick itself?

She smiled as she began to meditate. The center likely contained no great treasures, but she would present the solution as a gift to her spouses.

.

..

.

Omilaena didn’t always get together to eat with the others - she was too accustomed to shoving a little food into her mouth while working. Sometimes they did, however, and it was pleasant in a way she hadn’t expected. It was unfortunate that Zin Nim was missing, but that just meant she could be more forward with Kai without her flushing and stammering.

"So Kai... this has been a long honeymoon, but are you completely happy?" She extended a leg under the table to tease at his thigh.

"How can I not be?" he asked. "You two are incredible." Notably, he didn’t squirm away from her foot anymore, no matter how she played with him.

"Oh, come on, you’re so ambitious when it comes to power, don’t you want more? No experiments or fantasies you haven’t explored?"

"I’m honestly really satisfied. Why, are you trying to build up to something?"

She guessed that he was deflecting, so she switched to another tactic. "I guess I’m just offended that you haven’t ever tried to stick it up my ass."

That got him to choke on the piece of bread he was eating and his eyes bugged out slightly. "Seriously?"

"Not offended, but don’t you ever want to experiment?"

"We have experimented, by my standards. I like a lot of the things we’ve introduced. But that... I don’t know, is that even safe? It, uh, doesn’t seem like a penis is designed to go there."

"It’s not meant to go in a throat, either, but we make it work." Omilaena gave him an exaggerated wink. "While we’re all comfortable here, we might as well explore some new boundaries."

She kept quiet about the fact that she thought this was the best time to push Zae Zin Nim. The other woman was usually uptight, but she’d begun to relax here - when they had to move on, Omilaena was pretty sure Zae Zin Nim would stay horny but lock into whatever practices she’d learned up to that point. Best to stretch her boundaries now.

Before they could continue that interesting line of conversation, Zae Zin Nim entered the dining room. She had her hands tightly in her sleeves, doing a poor job of hiding her pride and excitement. Omilaena could have interrupted her to guess that she’d figured out the hedge maze, but let her have the moment.

"After a great deal of exploration," Zae Zin Nim intoned, "I have discerned the secret of the hedge maze. There is no great prize at the center, but I hope that it might be useful to you."

"Hey, congratulations," Kai said. "I always meant to spend more time there, but got distracted."

He was best at that sort of honest, uncalculated congratulations. Omilaena decided to go in the opposite direction, pulling Zae Zin Nim into her lap. "Good work. Do you want some sort of reward from us? How about a whole night where we focus entirely on you?"

Zae Zin Nim flushed but didn’t try to escape her hold. "You... you are both already very considerate. This is not a payment, this is merely my contribution to the ongoing relationship."

"Mm, yes, that’s a very sexy way to put things."

That flustered Zae Zin Nim further, but Kai had set down his food and moved over to pull them up into a hug. "Why don’t you show us what you’ve found?"

They entered the hedge maze and, as far as Omilaena could tell, walked directly into a wall of roses. Usually she had complete control of her senses, so she was actually impressed with the design. Not exactly an illusion, certainly nothing projected outside, more of a distortion of what they saw around them with some very clever chakra.

Even once you knew that trick, there seemed to be an actual maze, which Zae Zin Nim guided them through carefully. Everything was a little more subtle than expected... Omilaena realized that it was something like Soul Cultivation, yet it couldn’t be a Soul Level characteristic, that made no sense. That would be a mystery of her own to figure out.

Eventually they reached a central garden, a circular space filled with overgrown flowers and herbs. Omilaena quickly bent down to examine them, admiring the rich chakra there. Yes, this was a very different strain than the orchards...

"I was going to say I hoped some of it might be useful." Zae Zin Nim fidgeted nearby, as if worried that her gift wouldn’t be well-received.

"These are great, thank you." Without leaving her knees, Omilaena tugged the other woman closer by her hips and kissed her stomach. "Now are you sure you don’t want a reward?"

"Oh, I... I feel..."

"Relax." Kai came up behind her, hands rubbing her shoulders reassuringly. "You did this just to make us happy, right? We just want to do the same for you."

"I just... it seems we already do everything that is possible for spouses to do..."

"Not everything," Omilaena said with feigned indifference as she looked at the chakra flowers again. "I’m surprised you didn’t want to get rid of your anal virginity."

Zae Zin Nim went stiff. "My what virginity?"

Got her. It seemed that Omilaena was going to get the reward instead.

.

..

.

"That..." Zin Nim had to take a moment to catch her breath. "That wasn’t so bad."

"You intrigued now?" Omilaena asked with a playful smile even though she knew the answer. "Going to be asking for that every night from now on?"

"No, no I will not. But... I’m glad I tried it. I think that my qi really did shift, like I was giving up something new. Did you feel it, Kai?" When he made an ambivalent gesture, Zin Nim turned back toward Omilaena in confusion.

"Anything that has a major effect on your body is going to affect your qi, so this really - sorry - stirred things up. It probably didn’t make anyone stronger, but it did have an effect, so congratulations. You’ve gotten rid of your anal virginity."

"Good. There aren’t any other virginities you’re going to spring on me, are you?"

"Well, there’s always your armpit virginity..."

"That is not a real thing." Zin Nim grabbed one of the pillows and swatted her with it, and Omilaena laughingly defended herself. Kai ended the fight by squeezing them both tighter against his chest, which made Zin Nim calm down and drew Omilaena’s attention.

"So what do you think?" she asked him. "Worth trying, right?"

"Honestly..." Kai shook his head slowly. "I’m just thankful there’s no important sexual energy techniques involved with this. If there was some sort of ‘ass cultivation’ that builds up ‘butt qi’ I’d have trouble taking any of this seriously."

Zin Nim giggled against his chest and Omilaena laughed freely - it was always nice when someone as congenitally serious as Kai showed his wit. He broke out laughing as well and gripped them both tighter.

See? Assfuckery was romantic.