The God of Remaking (2/2)
"What is this place?" the Queen asks.
"My soul Realm. Obviously. You're in your Soul Realm right now, which means that we're in that particular plane," the Felkin god says calmly.
In its mind, it feels that it's only normal for everything else to be stupider than itself, so it says this to the girl without a hint of mockery in its tone.
"Now that you're here…," Felkawyn says while holding perfectly still in the air beside the Queen's Soul Realm, "you may as well ask away. Is there anything you want from me?"
"What can you offer me?" the Queen crosses her arms and says. Perhaps it's because her soul is incomplete right now, but the part of her who would be quaking in her shoes and unable to speak isn't with her. Right now, all she can think of are benefits.
"Anything you want," the Felkin offers. "All things are recorded in my Soul Realm, and I can Remake anything in a shape that is recorded within me."
Despite not having cheeks, the Queen can almost feel the creature smiling. "Do you want power? Do you want to live forever? Do you want to be the most beautiful woman in all creation? Do you want an everlasting kingdom? Do you want to have all your 7 Names and become a goddess right now?"
Without hesitation, the Queen says, "I want to be as powerful as my husband. Always."
Hearing this, the Felkin has no visible response. When it had sifted through her spirit, it had felt all of her desires with its own hands, so it already knew what she was going to ask for.
"All right then. Follow me." The white phoenix transforms into a robed, humanoid Felkin, and it extends its hands toward her.
In a moment of curiosity, the Queen blurts out, "Couldn't you just reach your hand into my Soul Realm and pull me out?"
"Well… yes… yes I could, but it's horribly impolite to trespass onto another's Soul Realm. Mora made those barriers to be 'impenetrable' for a reason," the Felkin curls its head back and laughs.
"Anyway, come with me. I'll find you the trait you're asking for," it says while extending an inviting hand toward the Queen.
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The Queen reaches out, and this time, her hand passes through the barrier. She grips the Felkin God's hand, and she's slowly pulled out of her Soul Realm.
Immediately, the Queen feels a heavy pressure on her skin, as if even the air here is heavy. The only reason she isn't crushed flat by the air pressure is because there's an equally powerful mana density here that's passively strengthening her body.
Her ears still pop uncomfortably, though.
"Don't mind that," Felkawyn says. "You'll also notice that there's no gravity here, so don't worry about falling."
While holding the Queen's hand, the white phoenix flaps its wings every now and then, and they both zoom toward one of the towers.
As they get closer and closer to the nearest tower, the Queen sees its surface becoming clearer and clearer. Then, she starts to wonder… "Are those towers giant bookshelves?"
Felkawyn doesn't answer. What's the point of wasting words on something that's so clearly seen with the eyes?
Indeed, all of the towers are covered with countless shelves with normal-sized books occupying them. Each shelf has a small floor about 10 feet wide ringing the perimeter, and there are countless desks and tables with open books littering them.
As they both set foot on one of the tower's floors, the Queen is startled when she feels gravity again, and she plops onto the ground.
Ignoring the visitor's plight, Felkawyn looks at the messy tables and the open books covering them. "I'm sorry for not cleaning up," Felkawyn apologizes, "I hardly ever get any visitors here."
The Felkin snaps its fingers, and countless, ethereal white birds materialize out of the air and start carrying the scattered books away with their talons.
It's as if all of the birds have the books' locations memorized, for the second they slide their loads into their respective places, the white birds all wink out of existence.
"Now, everything's nice and tidy for the visitors. Let's find your little gift."
Felkawyn wiggles a finger, and a chair yanks itself over – presenting itself to the Queen. The Queen sits down awkwardly.
"Water?" the Felkin reaches over with a cup in hand and offers the Queen.
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Before the Queen started drinking the water, she thought it was funny at first that such a grand being can only offer water to its guests. However, when she starts drinking it, she's startled by how sweet it is.
"Is this mana water?" the Queen asks in wonder. This cup alone contains about 10% of all the mana she's ever had in her life.
Instead of gloating over its amazing gift, the Felkin looks down with a mourning expression, "I'm sorry for the meager gift. There's so much mana in the air that it was easier to pull some of it out than give you simple mana water."
(The air here is made from pure mana, after all - not air from which you could make H2O.)
Of course, to a being like Felkawyn, it's the taste that makes something valuable – not the material benefits. Thus, even a simple wine or a rich ale is more valuable than a huge supply of mana.
"So… what are we waiting for?" the Queen asks awkwardly in between sips.
"Oh, I sent a few of my Tracers to look for the right Trait for you. You DID say that you want to be as strong as your husband."
"Are these 'Tracers' those white birds who put the books away?" she asks.
"Mmm," Felkawyn nods.
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Even now, Felkawyn is closing its eyes and feeling its countless Tracers as they rifle through the bottomless libraries. In the god's mind, it feels and sees everything its Tracers are touching.
You could say that Tracers are the busiest of beings in existence. With countless Traits existing, and with Felkawyn constantly reorganizing its library of Traits, books are constantly being taken from their shelves and stocked somewhere else.
Right now, the tower that the Tracers are all looking at is one of the Towers of Ability. Here, the books lining its surface are all about unique magical powers. In each book is written the intricate structure of the talent – how it was built from the ground up. Felkawyn uses these books to reconstruct things.
In the end, Felkawyn's Tracers find a particular skill that was once owned by a particular Maykin Federation. This skill essentially links your power with someone else – expanding your soul and abilities to match theirs while not diminishing the other party.
This Maykin tribe in question had invented and used this skill as a fuel source that doesn't exhaust any resources – a handy way to leech off of the environment sustainably.
Of course, Felkawyn sees no reason why this skill can't be used for other things like, let's say, making the Queen as strong as her husband.
Once Felkawyn feels like a Tracer has found the correct skill book, a streak of white light zooms toward it and its guest. Not even a second later, Felkawyn outstretches its hand, and a blue book appears in its palm.
Sitting stone still, Felkawyn says, "Well, I got what we need. Just stay there, or whatever. This'll happen so quick that I promise it won't hurt."
'Won't hurt?' The Queen barely gets to brace herself before it's too late.
Without any other movement, Felkawyn looks to the side, where the Queen's Soul Realm still floats – invisibly shrouded by white mist.
The Queen, however, doesn't need to see her Soul Realm to feel what just happened. In a single moment, her entire Soul Realm shatters into pieces before exploding in a mass of white Fire.
Indeed, Felkawyn wasn't wrong in saying that the Queen won't feel pain, since her soul body dissipates the second her Realm is destroyed, and she loses consciousness.
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Once its guest has dissipated, the white Felkin God stands up, and with its special bronze eyes, it sees a knotted mess of countless words where her Soul Realm was before.
The words all sort themselves out neatly in the air, and they arrange themselves into neat paragraphs on newly appearing pages that Felkawyn is conjuring.
Pretty soon, all of the Queen's Traits have been separated into each of their respective books – 10 million books, to be exact.
Ever so casually, the white God conjures a duplicate of the book its Tracers had retrieved, then it has a Tracer carry this new copy to join the rest of the Queen's Traits – no – Fina's Traits.
'Hmm…,' Felkawyn thinks, 'It's not good for a soul to be overstuffed with Traits, so I'll take one away.'
The God waves its hand again, and a Tracer picks out one of the books (one which talks about the Fear of spiders), and the Tracer carries it away from Fina's other collection. "I don't think the child will miss THIS Trait."
In the next moment, the torrent of White Fire that had escaped from Fina's soul comes back together, and it pours into the stacks of 10 million books.
Just as suddenly as it was destroyed, Fina's Soul Realm is made once again.
In the middle of the 'new' Soul Realm, the image of a young woman appears in a curled-up, fetal position.
"Well, I guess this is where we say our goodbyes then," Felkawayn says emotionlessly as it waves at the unconscious girl. The God then spits the girl's Soul out of its Realm just as suddenly as it swallowed it.