Ignoring all the eyes on him, Jin placed the Frost Lord Fang wolf's fang down and walked up and greeted Jenny with an amused grin. “This is quite the funny appearance for you of all people, isn’t it? Wish I could take pictures,” he chuckled, clearly entertained by her lazy sprawl.
“Hmmm, leave me alone, you scammer. Just make yourself useful and punch stuff,” Jenny waved him off without even opening her eyes.
“No, I don’t think I will,” Jin replied easily, smiling.
“Hey, monkey, beat him up for me,” Zeph woke up, his ears perking as he looked at Jin with obvious excitement at the thought of fighting someone strong.
“Hmm? Cool monkey,” Jin said approvingly. He paused, glancing around at the collection of creatures nearby. “Hare, wolf, sheep… even a bear. Is Kei just collecting creatures now?” His gaze lifted instinctively toward the sky and the tree line, his expression turning thoughtful. “Feels like there’s something missing.”
“There’s also a Stormbringer Fellhorn and a Frost Tyrant Fellhorn,” Owen added casually, nodding toward the surrounding area. “And Seth’s over there too.” He gestured briefly. “But the bear isn’t Kei’s. That one’s mine.”
“What are you looking for?” Lisa asked.
“He’s got all these creatures,” Jin replied. “I was just expecting a bird to be among them, that’s all. Oh hey, you’re here too.” He finally noticed Lisa properly.
On the ground in front of her lay a blueprint, beside it the finished creation it depicted.
“Yeah,” Jenny added, glancing at it. “Just like his father's that he keeps in the corner of his office.”
“When he told me about it, and about its connection to his parents, I really put my all into making this for him,” Lisa said quietly. “I hope he likes it. It's supposed to be a weapon he had in mind to make, and he seemed so excited about it. He was really adorable."
“Is anyone going to explain why Number One is here, and why him, and why you all seem so familiar with each other?” Talia finally questioned.
“Oh, Scammer?” Jenny yawned. “He’s Kei’s bodyguard who somehow scammed his way into becoming Kei’s best friend.”
Jin looked around. “More importantly, who are all of you, and why are there suddenly so many people here? The wood crafting lady’s here, and even you, Kaito?”
“Human experiments,” Jenny said flatly. “Kaito’s here for me. I don’t know why, but whatever. And her” she pointed lazily at Lisa, “that’s your new sister-in-law.”
The clearing went quiet for half a second.
Then Jin blinked.
While the others were still surprised to learn about Kei and Jin’s friendship, Jin himself was far more stunned by a different revelation.
A sister-in-law.
The moment it sank in, his gaze shifted to Lisa, softening instantly. The sharpness he carried dulled into something warm and protective, as if he had already decided that whatever happened next, she was now under his care. Lisa noticed immediately and couldn’t help but laugh, genuinely pleased.
“Is it true that Kei was weak back on Earth?” Kai suddenly asked, voicing a question that had been sitting in his mind for a long time.
“Oh right, he told us he was really weak,” Reese added.
“Hm, more lazy than anything,” Jenny replied without hesitation.
Lisa shot her a stunned look, as if to say she had absolutely no right to call anyone lazy.
Jin thought about it for a moment. “I guess that’s one way to put it. Not really lazy, though. More like he never saw the point in exercising. I’ll admit, I was surprised by how strong he was when he showed up and handled that Apex boss. Why do you ask?”
Reese, Kai, Owen, and Talia exchanged glances.
Then, as if a dam burst, they turned on Jin all at once.
“That demon has no soul!”
“He made us exercise nonstop!”
“He threw us at monsters!”
“We got beaten up. A lot!”
They unloaded everything. The brutal training. The relentless drills. The advice that somehow made things worse before it made them better. They ratted Kei out completely, voices overlapping, some of them even breaking down into full sobs, tears and snot included.
Jin listened patiently.
Very patiently.
When they finally ran out of breath, he nodded slowly.
“…So,” he said, eyes lighting up with a dangerous kind of excitement, “he’s exercising now?”
The group collectively froze.
Something about the look on his face made their skin crawl.
“Oh yeah,” Jenny said lazily, not even looking up. “Kei is definitely going to kill you guys now. If you thought his training before was bad, now that you’ve ratted him out, he’s absolutely going to design new training regimens. Ones just for you. Probably to test things.”
Lisa covered her mouth, amused, her shoulders shaking slightly with laughter.
If anyone had been paying close attention, they would have noticed the color drain from Reese, Kai, Owen, and Talia’s faces.
It looked almost like their souls were leaving their bodies.
At least, that’s what Kaito thought he was seeing.
Plop.
In front of everyone, a small mountain of equipment spilled out onto the ground. Different parts, different accessories, spanning multiple grades. The one thing they all had in common was their purpose. Every piece boosted mental attributes. Will. Intelligence. Even Charisma.
“This is everything I’ve managed to collect so far,” Jin said, glancing at the pile before looking at Jenny. “Do you think any of this will help him?”
“Whoa… that’s a lot,” Kaito muttered, picking up a silver-grade scepter and inspecting it. “So all that dungeon diving and hunting mental-stat gear… that was for Kei?”
Jin only hummed in response.
“And Jenny’s been stockpiling materials to make clothes for him too,” Lisa added, her tone shifting with concern. “Is there something you two are worried about?”
Jenny and Jin exchanged a brief look.
“During the time you’ve been with him,” Jin asked carefully, “has Kei ever acted… odd?”
“We only met him here,” Kai replied. “So all we know is how he’s been with us.”
“That’s fair,” Jin said.
Jenny leaned forward slightly. “Then let me put it this way. Have you noticed any changes? Even small ones. In his behavior, his personality.”
The group hesitated. Reese, thinking back. “Do you mean the calligraphy thing? I’ve seen words carved into the ground and surroundings before. Like they were etched by wind.”
Lisa nodded. “He asked me to make calligraphy scrolls and brushes too. Actually… that was right after you came by asking me to make playing cards,” she said, glancing at Jin.
Jenny turned slowly to him. “Really? Even here you’re trying to scam people?” She stared for a second longer. “…How much did you make?”
Jin coughed. “Ignoring that. It sounds like he’s still keeping himself under control. For now. Let’s just hope we’re not already too late.”
The worry on both his and Jenny’s faces was unmistakable.
“He’s been in a dungeon for awhile,” Jenny added quietly. “When he comes out… let’s hope we can still keep him grounded.”
“We’ve just been training, trying to keep up,” Reese said. “Whatever’s in there keeping him busy for that long is bound to make him several times stronger than us. So we’ve been running dungeons and quests with these guys, hoping to close the gap. We’ve also been trying to improve that whole natural training approach Kei told us about. Not relying on the system.”
Jin did not interrupt. As if unwilling to let Kei’s efforts with them go to waste, he had them explain everything. Every drill. Every restriction. What Kei made them do and, more importantly, why he made them do it.
By the time they finished, his expression had darkened.
“I guess you feel stupid now, huh?” Jenny laughed, catching the look on his face. “Believe me, I was pissed too when I found out dumping stat points was basically a waste. But you?” She gleamed. “You were riding Kei so hard about exercising that he literally jumped off the highest floor in Cherry Tree just to get away from you. And you still didn’t think of such a thing.”
Jin exhaled slowly.
“Alright,” he said at last. “I’ll continue his training for you.”
Everyone stiffened.
“He remembered some of the easy stuff I tried to teach him,” Jin continued, crossing his arms. “Back then, he could do push-ups just fine. But they reminded him of the cramped place he grew up in, so he avoided them and got lazy about it. Doesn’t matter now.”
His smile turned sharp.
“Until he comes back, you’re under my care. And if this whole exercise thing is really as effective as it sounds, I’m going to squeeze more stat points out of you than he ever did.”
Silence followed.
At that point, Kaito was more than certain of one thing.
Their souls had already left their bodies.
.....
Wukong stood there speechless, staring at the human now sporting long, drooping hare ears and voltage-lined legs. His mouth hung open.
“This is going to be fun,” the confused prince finally said, bouncing lightly on his feet as his body swayed with excitement.
Kei Y shared the sentiment, but he focused on his body instead. He opened and closed his hands, feeling out every change. His muscles felt tighter and more responsive, his ligaments loaded and ready. His frame seemed built to stretch, coil, and release tension far more efficiently than before.
Without another thought, he vanished.
Wukong raised his arm just in time as Kei Y’s hare-furred leg crashed into it. The impact pushed him back a few meters, feet grinding against the arena floor.
“Oooh. Strong,” Wukong said, grinning as he absorbed the blow.
With his free hand, he reached out to grab Kei Y, and a gale of wind erupted to push his arm away. Kei Y quickly realized it did nothing. Wukong’s grip closed around his head a moment later.
A troubled look crossed Kei Y’s face.
It was not because his defense had failed.
That did not help.
But something else bothered him more.
Now that he was in this transformed state, he could feel it clearly.
His aether was dropping at a steady rate.
[Khenu]
[Aether: 145/150]
All those major attacks and rune skills he’d used earlier drew entirely from the ambient aether, not his own.
That had never been a problem.
Kei Y didn’t care whether a technique used his internal reserves or the world around him. If anything, a cultivator’s personal aether was usually better—denser, purer, more responsive unless the surrounding ambient aether was exceptionally high-quality.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
So the drain itself wasn’t what bothered him.
What troubled him was the type of aether being consumed.
His pristine aether.
He used pristine aether deliberately, always by choice. It was a resource he tapped into only when he wanted unmatched amplification or perfect force execution.
But now?
He wasn’t choosing.
His pristine aether was being consumed automatically.
The moment Wukong grabbed him, the moment the transformed state held—his body continued draining pristine aether without his consent, siphoning it as if maintaining the form required it.
Kei Y’s brows drew together.
“I guess Unique Skills really do function differently…” he muttered. His eyes flicked down at his transformed limbs, voltage rippling beneath the skin.
“Using [Aspect Manifestation: Creature-Borne Adaptation] is a lot more demanding than [Prismatic Adaptation].”
Aether ticked down again in his vision.
[Khenu]
[Aether: 142/150]
He grimaced.
This wasn’t a skill he could keep active indefinitely.
Crash
Kei Y’s head hit the stone hard enough to crack it, the shock rattling through his skull and snapping his thoughts back into the fight. The moment he looked up, Wukong’s fist was already descending, fast enough that Kei Y felt the pressure before the strike even landed.
Kei Y opened his mouth, and the inside of his cheeks lit with thin, glowing rune strokes, tiny ash-inscriptions forming.
He exhaled sharply.
A blast of Ash sprayed upward like a volcanic cough, erupting straight into Wukong’s face.
Wukong jerked back, momentarily blinded as the ashen cloud clung to his eyes and nostrils.
Kei Y rolled out from under him, vaulting backward with digitigrade legs that crackled with Verdant Volt. In a blink he reappeared behind Wukong, twisting mid-air as he brought his bamboo staff down in a clean arc. Aether Control surged through the wood, tightening its fibers until it struck like metal.
The staff slammed into Wukong’s skull.
“Gah!”
Wukong staggered, shaking his head.
He looked up just in time to see something else barreling toward him.
An atlatl projectile, runes burning across its shaft, already exploding forward.
Without hesitation
Clang.
The projectile shattered on impact with Wukong’s forehead, splintering like it had hit a mountain.
Kei Y landed lightly behind him, flipping his staff into a reverse grip.
“There it is,” he muttered, eyes narrowing.
Wukong grinned, the ash still smudged across his face.
“Tsk. You’re really annoying… I like you.”
He vanished.
Kei Y barely caught the flicker of movement before Wukong reappeared directly in front of him, staff already swinging down in a brutal, effortless arc.
Kei Y raised his own staff in time.
Crack.
The two weapons collided, shockwaves rippling through the tornado surrounding them.
Wukong pressed forward immediately, twisting his wrist and sliding into a second strike. Kei Y parried, pivoted, and countered in the same motion. Their staffs blurred, spinning, colliding, redirecting, hooking, each movement flowing into the next without pause.
Wukong frowned mid-exchange.
With genuine curiosity.
He spun his staff horizontally, forcing Kei Y to duck, then slammed the butt of it toward Kei Y’s ribs.
Kei Y guided the strike away with a glancing sweep of his bamboo staff. The air whistled as Wukong’s strike carved through it, powerful enough to deform the wind wall behind Kei Y.
“You…” Wukong said between exchanges as he twisted into another strike. “…are interesting.”
Kei Y didn’t answer. His staff moved instead—fluid, deceptively light. Every impact reverberated through the bamboo as if it were forged iron.
Wukong noticed.
His eyes lit up.
“Not only did you unlock Aether Control,” Wukong said, grinning wider as their staffs locked briefly, “you’re good enough to make a regular stick hit like a weapon grade treasure.”
Kei Y swept the staff upward, breaking the lock and forcing Wukong into a backward hop.
Wukong laughed.
He lunged again, this time faster, so fast his staff left afterimages. Kei Y sturggled but matched him, sliding into a stance he didn’t belong to, adapting instinctively, borrowing from Breeze, Zephyr, and even hints of the Verdant-Volt Hare’s explosive rhythm.
Wood slammed against metal.
Wind spiraled violently around each point of impact, pressure popping in sharp bursts as sparks of green lightning flickered between their clashing weapons.
But in the end, it was still wood against metal.
And metal won.
Kei Y’s bamboo staff splintered under the strain, snapping apart mid-exchange. He did not spare it a glance. There was no time to. The fight did not pause just because his weapon failed.
He flowed forward regardless.
Kei Y found an opening, small, but enough.
He pivoted sharply and drove a kick into Wukong’s chest, sending him skidding backward across the stone. The moment distance opened between them, Kei Y flipped backward and landed on his hands, his legs folding into the familiar shape of a crouched hare.
His muscles tightened.
Aether surged.
Verdant Volt roared to life.
In a single breath, a massive aether-projection of the Verdant Volt Hare enveloped Kei Y like a second body, taller, broader, its silhouette outlined in luminous green arcs that crackled violently against the air.
The projection kicked.
The aether-hare launched forward like a living lightning bolt, barreling toward Wukong with predatory acceleration.
Wukong’s eyes widened as the pressure hit him, then, instinctively, his skin hardened, turning to stone with a rapid, grain-like ripple spreading across his body, petrifying him in an instant.
It still wasn’t enough.
BLAST.
The impact rang through the arena like a thunderclap.
Even with stone skin, Wukong felt the full brunt of the strike vibrate through his bones. The paralysis effect of Verdant Volt crawled over him, locking his muscles for a moment. One knee hit the ground as static crackled violently across the petrified flesh.
He lifted his gaze.
Kei Y stood several steps away, the projection gone, reverted back to his human form. His chest rose and fell in heavy breaths, sweat mixing with faint aether-light across his skin.
But he was smiling.
“Heh… can you keep going?” Kei Y asked.
That was all the provocation Wukong needed.
A grin split his face as he pushed himself upright. With a single fluid motion, he thrust his palm forward.
The ground split. A massive stone hand burst upward, fingers curling as it surged toward Kei Y like a divine punishment.
Kei Y didn’t flinch.
His Kaleidoscope Eyes shifted—brown puzzle pieces swirling and locking into place. Earth resonance ignited behind his pupils.
He mirrored Wukong’s motion.
A matching earthen palm erupted from the ground beneath him, massive and dense, forming with perfect precision from the swirling rune-strokes responding to his eyes.
The two palms crashed together.
Stone thundered against earth.
Cracks spiderwebbed.
Dust erupted outward in a violent wave.
There was never any doubt whose would break first.
Kei Y’s palm shattered under the force, exploding into rubble.
Wukong’s palm didn’t stop.
It kept advancing—slower, fractured, but inevitable—barreling straight toward Kei Y.
The palm smashed down, only to have struck nothing, as Kei Y had already dissapeared.
Wukong anticipated Kei Y’s disappearance and reacted instantly, but when he looked up, Kei Y was already airborne. This time, the puzzle-like fragments within Kei Y’s eyes had shifted. They were no longer brown. Their color had deepened into something heavier, closer to stone itself. What unsettled Wukong most was how familiar it felt. The hue, the texture, the presence. It looked like the very stone he commanded.
Wukong extended his staff, striking upward to catch Kei Y while he was still in the air. For a split second, he thought he had the timing right. Then Kei Y vanished again. This time, however, Wukong could not find him at all. No displacement in the air. No disturbance in the ground. Nothing.
Confusion crept in.
Before he could react, a stone fist slammed into the side of his head with crushing force. It was a blow he did not sense, did not see, and did not anticipate.
“What the—” Wukong muttered, staggered.
Kei Y appeared in front of him as if he had always been there, his palm already rising. The strike surged upward toward Wukong’s chin, heavy with a stone force. Wukong snapped his guard up just in time, blocking the blow and darting backward to create space.
Kei Y did not give it to him.
He followed instantly, reappearing within arm’s reach and pressing the attack without pause. With no staff and no distance left to exploit, Wukong was forced into close-quarters combat as Kei Y drove forward, fists and palms flowing seamlessly into the fight.
It went without saying that Wukong was the superior martial artist by a wide margin. His foundations were deeper, his experience broader, his instincts honed over countless battles. And yet, the way Kei Y fought now forced Wukong into a corner he had not expected.
Pressure.
Kei Y’s movements were unrefined, even crude in places, but they adapted on the fly. Each exchange grew heavier, more grounded, as if the space itself was being claimed inch by inch. It was enough to make Wukong draw on something he rarely needed to reveal.
His physical cultivation technique activated.
Wukong’s meridians hardened, as though they had been carved from stone. Despite this sudden density, his aether flowed through them smoothly, without resistance. That alone spoke volumes. His aether already carried the qualities of stone within it, not common earth, but something far more refined.
Something closer to the divine.
This technique, Wukong had developed it himself, shaping his body to better withstand the overwhelming quality of his own force. His meridians had yet to reach the same level of refinement as his aether, but because the quality of his aether far surpassed them, it passed through the stone-like channels effortlessly.
The result was immediate.
Each movement gained weight.
Each strike carried mass beyond muscle alone.
Stone layered over strength, turning already devastating blows into impacts that felt like mountains descending. The heaviness of his meridians reinforced every attack, amplifying his power without sacrificing speed.
Every time Kei Y blocked or parried one of Wukong’s strikes, pain rippled through his body. Stone-laced force traveled through the contact point and rattled his bones, forcing him to immediately circulate Healing Force just to keep moving. Fractures knit themselves together almost as fast as they formed, muscles tearing and restoring in rapid cycles.
But as the exchange dragged on, something else began to change.
The brown fragments within his Kaleidoscope Eyes shifted. Their color deepened, their texture growing closer and closer to the stone that coated Wukong’s attacks. Each clash left behind an imprint, as if his eyes were studying the force directly, dissecting it piece by piece.
Kei Y ducked as a stone-covered fist blurred past his head.
If I’m not going to form a connection with you, he thought, then I’m damn well going to learn from you.
Wukong, meanwhile, was growing increasingly unsettled.
At times, he could read Kei Y clearly. He could block, evade, and counter his movements with confidence. Then, without warning, Kei Y would strike from nowhere.
A fist to the ribs.
A palm to the jaw.
A kick that landed without any prior motion registering.
It happened again and again.
Blows arrived from angles Wukong never saw. Attacks slipped past his awareness entirely, landing cleanly as if they had come from his blind spots.
The realization came when he blocked a palm strike head-on.
The impact shoved him backward across the stone, his feet skidding as he absorbed the force. As he slid, his vision finally caught up.
Kei Y stood there, arm still extended.
Palm out.
Perfectly still.
Wukong’s eyes narrowed.
That was when it clicked.
For some reason, whenever part of Kei Y’s body left his direct field of view, it vanished from his perception entirely. Not just from sight, but from every sense he relied on. Aether, pressure, intent. All of it dropped out.
Invisible.
And the moment that unseen limb moved back into range, it was already striking.
Wukong exhaled slowly.
“Strange,” he muttered.
This was the physical cultivation technique Kei Y had developed under Oceanna’s guidance.
Using Flow Pulse Tapping as its foundation, he wove Phantom Breeze directly into the structure of the technique.
Instead of circulating raw force continuously, pulses of Breeze Force tapped rhythmically against his meridians. Each pulse carried a refined quality, infused with the essence of Phantom Breeze drawn from his self-created techniques. His aether did not merely flow. It flickered. Appeared. Vanished.
Previously, Phantom Breeze had focused on suppressing Kei Y’s presence as a whole, thinning his existence until it resembled the natural movement of air itself. Most beings simply failed to perceive him unless their attention was deliberately drawn in his direction.
Kei Y had been working for a long time on weaving Phantom Breeze into his combat, trying to create strikes that could not be perceived. Until now, those attempts had only produced shallow openings. Useful, but fleeting. Openings that an experienced opponent could still exploit once they adapted.
This technique was different.
Despite the subtle nature of Breeze Force, every attack Kei Y delivered now carried the full authority of Wind. As the God Spark of Wind, his body was naturally attuned to it. His meridians accepted wind-aligned aether without resistance, circulating it as easily as breath. With his force alignment already at fifty percent progression, the quality of that aether was high from the start.
He faced none of the structural barriers Wukong did.
Where Wukong had to force stone-like qualities through meridians still catching up to his aether’s refinement, Kei Y’s body welcomed the wind. There was no friction. No rejection. Only flow.
Instead of cloaking his entire body, the technique focused on precision. Specific regions were targeted. Limbs. Joints. Points of motion. Portions of his form slipped out of perception for fractions of a second, only to reassert themselves at the exact moment of impact.
An arm that vanished mid-swing.
A leg that reappeared only when it struck.
A palm that existed only at the instant it connected.
By anchoring Phantom Breeze directly into his meridians through pulsed flow, Kei Y turned invisibility into a combat function rather than a stealth one. The technique did not hide him.
It hid intent.
However, Wukong’s prowess was still overwhelming.
He quickly grasped the nature of Kei Y’s technique and adjusted without hesitation, making sure to keep Kei Y’s entire form within his vision before committing to any action.
Kei Y did not mind.
“Ten,” he said calmly.
“Hm?” Wukong frowned, confused for a brief moment, until he noticed movement at his feet.
The petals scattered across the ground began to rise.
Ten of them exactly.
Realization struck too late.
Kei Y vanished from Wukong’s sight.
The petals surged forward at once, each infused with a different elemental alignment. They sliced, crackled, scorched, and froze as they converged.
Wukong hardened his body into stone instantly, bracing against the barrage. At the same time, he wove Daoist runes. A ring of fire erupted around him and expanded outward in a violent wave, the heat distorting the air itself.
The flames burned hot enough to expose the outline of Kei Y’s form through the shifting air.
There.
Wukong locked on.
Kei Y reappeared in his vision just as the fire ring finished expanding.
Then a soft chirp cut through the chaos.
Wukong’s eyes snapped to Kei Y’s shoulder.
The Shima Enaga had landed there, feathers fluttering innocently.
Wukong did not hesitate.
Knowing how dangerous that tiny fluff-ball truly was, he struck immediately. Stone pillars erupted from beneath Kei Y, launching him into the air before he could reposition.
Seeing Kei Y airborne, Wukong pressed the advantage.
More stone pillars tore free from the ground and shot upward after him, blasting toward Kei Y from multiple angles, intent on crushing him before he could regain control.
A curtain of dust erupted from the impact, rolling outward in a violent wave. For a brief moment, Wukong allowed himself to believe the attack had landed cleanly.
“You know,” a voice said calmly from within the drifting dust, “you should really stop sending me into the air.”
The dust began to thin, pushed aside by a slow, deliberate current of wind.
Kei Y emerged from the haze, suspended effortlessly above the ground.
The Shima Enaga was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, a soft glow shimmered in his hand.
A spark hovered there, rotating gently as it kept him aloft, its presence subtle yet unmistakable. Wind curled around it in slow, careful spirals, controlled to such a precise degree that the air barely seemed disturbed.
“So that’s what he meant,” Auserre murmured quietly, eyes fixed on Kei Y as he remained floating. “He already revealed his Spark.”
“You’re telling me that thing has been pecking me and harassing me this whole time?” the Vendor snapped, clearly irritated. “The shape’s different, but the feeling is the same. I knew it.”
“Creative,” Oceanna said, her gaze never leaving the battlefield. “Coupled with his physical cultivation technique, it suits him well.”
Kei Y lifted his hand slightly.
The Spark responded.
A gentle swirl of wind unfurled from it, deceptively soft. Far too soft.
The air rolled downward toward Wukong, not as a blast, but as a pressure that cut, pushed, and weighed upon him all at once. Each step Wukong took met resistance, the wind pressing against his movements like an invisible tide that refused to yield.
Kei Y rotated the object in his hand.
A parasol.
Its form was elegant and strange, its frame shaped from creation, wind, and frost rune strokes woven together into a seamless whole. Pale feathers and cherry tree petals etched across its surface shifted subtly as it turned, frost glinting along its edges while wind flowed through it as naturally as breath.
“You know,” Kei Y said, his tone almost casual as he hovered above the battlefield, “I’ve always admired parasols. They’re practical. Versatile.” He smiled faintly. “And honestly, they’re a perfect fit for my force alignment.”
As he spoke, the parasol spun once more, the wind responding with sharper intent.
Like Silvie had once said, a Spark did not need to be a weapon.
It could be an item. A skill. A concept.
In Kei Y’s case, his Spark was born from creation itself.
A concept that granted him a fragile, meaningful connection to his parents, and to a friend he held deeply in his heart.
This was its first stage.
A fusion of creation, wind, and frost rune strokes, given form as a Shima Enaga and parasol hybrid. The same parasol he had once proposed to Lisa as a weapon. The same parasol his father owned and he kept tucked away in the corner of his office.
A memory given shape.
A Spark that carried both purpose and sentiment.
And now, floating above Wukong, Kei Y gently closed the parasol.
The wind did not stop.
It sharpened.