Human Form

[Boundary between the Hidden Dimension and somewhere in Japan]

"Not very aggressive, too. Not a good thing," the voice spoke as though Alex wasn't there. "Open his sight."

An electrical shock went through his body, shooting right through his head like a migraine attack and Alex fell flat on his face into the old ground soil from the weight of the invisible force. His eyeballs felt like someone was gouging them out.

A bubbling anger grew within Alex as a surge of searing yet soothing heat ran through his body, creating a powerful strength which threw off the weight of the invisible force, relieving him immensely.

His eyelids remained shut like someone sealed them tight.

"Oh… nice ssshow."

"Flames…" Alex could hear the panic in Higanbana's voice.

"Pissss off flower woman if you can't take a bit of burn."

"Higanbana, go back now," Yasomagatsuhi ordered, and the flowery scent vanished.

"Chongli has left me the short end of the stick," the voice muttered as Alex felt a hand touching his shoulder.

No matter how he struggled to open his eyes, he couldn't, and his growing frustration added more fuel to the fire running through his body.

"Be careful of your biological body," Yasomagatsuhi said.

"A matter of finding another," came the nonchalant reply.

A cool feeling ran through his body from the hand like the heat was being sucked out of him. And then the hand withdrew.

His eyelids felt lighter than he slowly opened his eyes to a blur. Then his vision sharpen to make out an East Asian woman in her late 20s wearing a winter jacket, with Yasomagatsuhi by her side.

"I was the one who spoke to you in Huangquan," she said in a quaint accent, which was tinged with a mixed Asian and Australian accent. For some odd reason, the primeval beings who had spoken to him did not carry an accent at all.

In fact, he never thought of differentiating their origins from their words. Then the thought never popped into his head until she spoke.

"Mind if I ask you something?"

"Yup, go ahead."

"Your accent…" Alex thought of how to phrase it.

She raised an eyebrow. "You noticed you don't differentiate between accents since you entered the Hidden Dimension?"

"Yes… but you have one, almost like mine," Alex replied.

"Because I am human."

No wonder Alex couldn't see her earlier. When he first entered the boundary, or as the Mishakuji described, the cusp between life and death, he couldn't see the boys who entered Kanghui's shrine.

Earlier, he was blind to the woman as well, until Yasomagatsuhi granted him sight of the human world beyond the veil.

Something clicked in his mind - if he can do the same, he would rather be human, even if it meant taking over a body. "How?"

Perhaps the ghostly possession of a human body was not that far fetched. Alex wondered how he could get hands on a body and the methods to move into the body.

A grin grew over her face, as though she could read his thoughts. "It isn't possession. A dying soul has to be persuaded to relinquish its body to me."

"Persuaded as in coerced?"

She shook her head.

"But if you are a celestial crow, surely with your powers…"

She shook her head again.

"Things stolen comes back to bite back in the ass later, but things given up by a free and willing owner assures no unforeseen problems later," she replied with a straight look at his face. "It's only dying souls I deal with."

To force her soul into a living body is a novice mistake. She had learnt that hard lesson several millennia ago.

Force lead to violence. A full revolt of a vengeful soul would always decrease the lifespan of a living body wrecked by repeated attempts to regain control.

Even the powerful need peace to accomplish their mission. She glanced at Alex. The humans were often impatient. Even the fully evolved human souls will still repeat the mistakes of their inherent flawed characteristics.

"Why dying?" Alex said.

"A dying soul knows that it can no longer fulfil its wishes. A deal guarantees their wishes fulfilled in full. Then they either opt for reincarnation or remain as they are," she replied. "There are consequences if you cannot fulfil your end of the bargain."

"What are the consequences?"

She mused for a bit, leaving him in suspense.

"One fine example of consequences." she twirled her finger around her temple and whistled. "Vengeful ghosts grow in power in parallel their thirst for revenge increases over time. Some can be as powerful as a primeval being, enough to torment their target. The Ghost Emperor is one. Unfortunately for Xitian, the Ghost Emperor's target belongs to another faction."

Alex cringed at her explanation, but a burning question still stuck in his mind.

"How did Chongli's energy wave form the part of my soul? I don't recall being sick or making deals."

She snickered.

"Chongli can gift a pair of his waves to a primeval being to absorb, but he can't gift a single one. Not the seventh because that wave is the most uncontrollable."

"How do you know that?"

"What does he call his fire?" She enquired.

"Supreme, and I think he hinted it came from the cosmos."

"One to six - elemental fire and the last cosmic fire," she chuckled at a hidden joke. "Like Kanghui, one to six - elemental water and the last cosmic vapour. He sure picked the right one to watch you."

Alex furrowed his eyebrows, lost in her explanation.

"Too difficult for you to understand. So never mind. We run on different theories than the primeval beings. Those two were one of the earliest to evolve in their full form, but they don't come from this planet."

She snapped her fingers and a small orb appeared in front of Alex. A greenish light shone from it to him and started sweeping Alex as though scanning.

"What is that?" Alex pointed at the orb.

"Scanner to project." No sooner had she finished her words, a miniaturised silhouette of him appeared cross legged as he was, with a glowing aura of purplish black. He poked at it, only to see his finger move through the silhouette.

"Your aura. It merged…" she paused and turn to Yasomagatsuhi, "maybe we should open his sight of aura."

Yasomagatsuhi shook his head. "He can't tolerate it, not from how he reacted earlier."

"If he went through soul shearing…"

Alex bit his lip as Yasomagatsuhi's eyes changed into a brilliant gold hue.

Then, with a huff and the look of disdain thrown in Alex's direction, he shook his head and said, "he had help so he didn't go through the entire process. May explains why some abilities have not awakened."

Abilities? Foresight, paranormal sight, shape-shifting, teleporting and all the thingamajig things were like unattainable magic.

A grin appeared on her face as she studied Alex carefully. "No pain, no gain."

"What do you mean?"

From her open palm, another glowing orb, the size of a round pearl, appeared. "A basic skill. A matter of changing energy into another form. Try it."

"How?" Alex looked at the one before him. It was still there with the image of his aura.

"Concentrate on wanting an orb," she said, and closed her hand over the orb. "In your head, imagine an orb forming. Let nothing distract you."

***

[10 minutes later]

"He is hopeless," Yasomagatsuhi commented monotonously as Alex grimaced at the exhaustive mental meditation of focusing on his thoughts.

"Poor concentration," she added, stretching her hand towards Alex before being held back by Yasomagatsuhi's hand.

"Earlier would have wiped a few hours off the lifespan of your body," Yasomagatsuhi warned her. "Are you sure that you want to break the barrier again?"

"Yaso, how long this body has is now determined by myself, not you, not anyone else," she leaned in to stare into the eyes of Yasomagatsuhi.

Yasomagatsuhi loosened his grip on her wrist and stood up, towering over her.

"If it causes danger to you, maybe…" Alex trailed off as Yasomagatsuhi backed away.

"Only to the physical body. It's old. Over 40 years of wear and tear."

"You are in a 40 plus woman's body? I thought you were in your late twenties!" Alex stared at her in surprise.

Not even a visible wrinkle or fine line. He has assumed she was in her late twenties because of her demeanour.

She smirked and changed the topic.

"All those who undergone extreme suffering will reawaken their abilities faster. Haven't you noticed that bit by bit, you can do far more when you undergone extreme distress, frustration or pain?"

What she said was true. The capabilities to flee came from the fear of what Arahabaki would do, and conjure the defensive fires emanating from within his body in times of distress.

"That's the human resilience you need to keep," she said.

"But I don't even know how to control these abilities, fleeing is a matter of hard concentration and by the time I can do it in a fight, I will be roast," Alex groaned.

"Human pessimism is the characteristic you need to lose," she said, "Once you can concentrate enough to channel the energy flow, over time with practice, it becomes second nature, like learning to walk in a human body."

Alex sighed. Concentration was not never his strong point. Not even in his mortal life. If he had concentrated more on his task in the archaeological dig site, and not get distracted, he wouldn't end up in the hidden dimension.