JR 8.1

Hey Guys! I hope the weekend is going good for everyone! Here is Journey! 

Z2 POV~~~~~

The world felt so different since I merged with Lean. He had such a simplistic view of the world due to his birth that I almost wasn’t able to handle it. Lucky, I was able to show him some of myself in the process, and we came to a compromise. Now, our souls were linked if I understood the magic enough. That was always Puppet’s area. 

Father didn’t seem to mind my change, so in the end, I didn’t really care. The strange mixture of mana inside me, Lean, even the strange looks the others give me now, all of it pales in comparison to what I would have felt if Father had been upset about my change. In fact, Father even seemed to be impressed that I had gained more strength. 

If I used the mortal’s scale, I would be a Tier 2 level 8, nearly on the cusp of reaching Tier 3. The only drawback is that Lean’s mana and mine were linked. For either of us to reach tier 3 then we would both have to reach there together and at the same time. I felt it was a small price to pay for allowing him to live when he was created basically on accident. Even if I would be stuck at Tier 2 for a while, my mana pool was the size of a lake compared to a regular mortal on my level. 

As I showed Lean around the town, Father came up to us. Her accepted Lean into the Family as I liked to think of it. Father was the one that had created us all after all. Father got onto Puppet for a bit, but as Father was the kindest being in the universe, he quickly forgave him. Father gathered us all up.

“Do you guys want a break or do you want to get back to traveling?” Father asked he was looking at all of us seriously, so I knew he wanted the truth. 

“I would like to stay with Father for a few more days!” I said earnestly. 

“I would also like a few days to reflect on the last week, Father,” Puppet added from next to me. 

“I need a bath,” Natsuko said as she made a face.

“...” Natsuo just shrugged. 

“I would like to talk to Teacher while we rest so a few days for me as well,” Azra said.

“Every well. A few days to rest then I need you guys to head towards one of the Lecazar cities,” Father said with a smile. 

I jumped forward to grab onto Father’s arm before he could fade away. I knew it was selfish of me as Father was very busy, basically running three dungeons but I couldn’t help myself. Lean looked on curiously, I was worried he might try to ask to mate with me again but he just turned away as something else interesting caught his eye. 

“Father, let's do something together! I don’t care what it is,” I said, I may have been bouncing on my toes. I quickly glanced down to see that I was, in fact, bouncing a bit. 

“What would you like to do?” Father asked without getting upset. 

I quickly thought as I needed to think of something that wouldn’t completely waste Father’s time but would also be somewhat fun. I had a semi-mortal body now so I could eat food if I wanted to, but that would leave Father out. Father was more interested in long range fights so we couldn’t have a duel or spar. 

“How about we go test out my new magic?” I asked, it would kill three birds with one stone, as I would get to spend time with Father, get a better understanding of my own abilities, and I believed that Father would actually be interested in it. 

“Hm, that sounds like a good idea. I want to say that I am paying attention to the North so if something happens, I might be distracted,” Father warned me before we started heading towards the forest. 

“I understand Father!” I said just happy that he agreed to spend time with me. I noticed that Lean had joined us halfway through the little town that Father had created for the inhabitants when he created his tower. 

As we reached the forest, we heard a massive boom from a distance. Father had a smile on, so I knew it probably wasn’t anything dangerous, “Azra is training with her Teacher right now,” he elaborated just as another boom sounded out, followed by the sound of a tree falling. 

“We can’t lose to them!” I said as I pumped my fist. 

Father burst out laughing as he rested his hand on my head. I had gotten taller when my body changed, but I was still shorter than him by a bit. We reached the edge of the forest and even before we came to a stop some targets appeared in random spots through the section of the forest I was able to see. 

“How about some simple targets to get warmed up on?” 

“Yes, Sir!” I said. I channeled quite a bit of mana towards my right hand as I held the image of a long delicate blade. It came to two meters long with a bit of extra, made of ice that had what looked like living shadows in it. It was still lighter than a short sword would have been as I could control the ice much easier. 

On my left arm, where I was still robotic, three panels opened around my wrist. Two barrels each extended and a spot that felt like a trigger emerged in my palm so that if I squeezed my hand, the guns would fire. I could also mentally trigger them, but in a fight, it might be hard to think if I was dodging attacks. 

Father examined my improvements then nodded in approval. He gestured into the forest, so I crouched as I waited for a signal. Father smiled then lifted his arm into the air as his wrist took on the same appearance as mine only with one barrel. He squeezed his hand, and a gunshot rang out. 

I shot forward, using my left hand to fire out targets that were further out. I was able to take out ten in only a few seconds just with the gun. Targets started popping from around trees or from bushes. I brought my blade around in a speed that belied its length and sliced them clean through. In a matter of about a minute, I had cleared all the targets. 

“Good, Good,” Father said as he clapped.

We kept that up for a few rounds each time my aim getting better. Father started adding moving targets and even flying targets that weaved through the canopy of the trees. One moved so fast I had to chase it down as it would move before the bullets were able to hit the damn thing. I swung my sword as a wave of ice erupted from the end and froze everything in its path. 

The drones became faster as the session continued. At first, I was able to contend with them using only ice mana, but I had to start using my new dark mana as they gained immunity to ice as Father upgraded them. I channeled the mana so that spikes made of darkness would emerge from the shadows of trees to strike nearby targets or drones. Dark mana still had trouble contending with the aerial drones though, as the sunlight worked against me. 

“Alright, that's enough for the easy stuff,” Father said after it had been about an hour or so, “time to take it up a notch.”

Suddenly, a massive automaton formed in front of me. It had to be at least seven meters tall, and while it was vaguely humanoid shaped, there were several types of weapons that were attached in various places. It reminded me of those human’s that wore a full set of armor to cover their entire bodies. I cracked my knuckles as I knew this would be a tough fight. It had several guns that I could recognize as well as several that I couldn’t. 

Father fired the signal shot, and I took off. As I fired rounds from my wrist gun, a barrier formed around the automaton that blocked it quickly. It turned a shoulder mounted cannon towards me and returned the favor. I had to up my speed to be able to dodge the rounds. I was so busy dodging that I couldn’t return fire. 

Suddenly a shadowy figure formed in front of me. The bullets sank into the shadow then popped back out a second later. The rounds stopped, and the shadow took a more corporeal form. Lean stood in front of me with an almost angry look on his face. 

“I’ll help! No one hurts my friend,” Lean said with determination. 

Father called from a distance, “That’s fine by me. Trident A1, resume attack.” 

The automaton took a step forward as its other shoulder mounted weapon fired. Something impacted the ground in front of me. A moment later there was an explosion that threw me several meters into a tree. I was saved by Lean again as he turned into his shadow form to absorb most of the impact. I quickly studied him through our link to try and see if I could do the same trick. 

Meanwhile, Lean used his shadows to grab several nearby trees that had to weigh several thousand pounds and forced them to fall on the automaton. I couldn’t continue to be an embarrassment to Father. I shot to the side to get around the automaton. I was channeling mana into my body to increase my speed even more. I turned when its back presented itself and shot towards it. 

When I was about three meters from it, a turret on it's backlit up. Not taking any chances, I angled my sword to intercept the attack, a beam of light collided with the blade and was deflected into the forest. I brought my slightly chipped blade around and cut at the turret, where I managed to score a hit, I jumped back to gain some distance.  A moment later the sound of several trees crashing to the ground in the direction of the beam. 

Lean also managed to slip some shadows through the barrier that was blocking projectiles. He had put several gashes in the front torso and the weapons on the shoulders. I was about to charge in to deal the finishing blow when a voice rang out.

“Trident A1 accessing damage… Lack of speed… reconfiguring…” 

A substantial barrier formed around the automaton that only from the sensation I was getting I could feel would be a pain to crack quickly. The metal on the automaton started to condense as it shrank nearly two meters. It added two more of the machine gun turrets and another grenade turret. There were also two more beam weapons. The mana density I felt from it was also at another level. 

Two Hours Later~~~~~~

We had fought the automaton for a solid two hours, and I was feeling quite tired now. We had managed to get through its increasing difficult weapons and barrier so far, but this time I felt it might be a bit much with just Lean and me. 

“Trident A1 accessing damage… Seeking magic required… Barrier strength inadequate… Ice mana nullification inadequate… dark mana nullification inadequate… reconfiguring…” 

For the fourth or fifth time, I was having trouble recalling, the automaton in front of us began to change. It shrank down more and was now the same size as me at roughly 185 centimeters or so. It had taken on a feminine form during the last change, I think mainly because I was the one that dealt the final damaging blow. She wore a tight-fitting gray and black armor that looked like cloth, but we had learned it was annoying hard to get through. 

Six pieces of metal were attached to her waist that allowed for various magics, like her barrier, or the magic she gained two forms ago that blew nearly 30 meters worth of area to ash. One of her arms was the grenade launcher, and the other still looked like a hand, but it held a meter plus long machine gun, that fired bullets that nullified mana. 

The barrier fell as she finished her change, there were less physical changes this time it appeared. She had gained a face that would probably be beautiful to the mortals. She had platinum blond hair that ended right at the back of her head. 

We readied ourselves. The automaton shot forward with enough force that the ground cracked under her. One of her flaps glowed as hundreds of metal spikes formed around her. I changed my body to shadow to dodge as the shadow form increases my speed tremendously. Lean not only turned to shadow but used air mana to move at speeds that would rip a mortal’s body apart. 

We managed to avoid all the spikes while keeping our distance from her, but one managed to slice through Lean’s foot as he either missed it or underestimated it. The foot and part of his leg came out of the shadow with a deep gash that leaked yellow blood. I channeled some mana as I froze it over quickly. 

Lean gripped the spear he formed three battles back, that was made out of shadow. He looked at me, and I nodded. We charged towards the automaton, I had a feeling if a mortal under tier 2 were watching this fight they wouldn’t be able actually to see us. A grenade appeared in our path, and we quickly separated to avoid the explosion, as it had gotten more extensive with each form. 

Suddenly, I felt something rip into my shoulder. It caused enough pain that I phased out of the shadows and collided with a tree. I gouged out a hole in the tree I was moving so fast, which did not make me feel any better. I gritted my teeth then looked at my shoulder, there was a hole I could probably put two or three fingers through. 

“Stand down, Trident A1!” I heard Father call from the distance. A moment later I felt a hand on my shoulder, and the pain faded, “That was an outstanding job. I’m amazed at how powerful you have come, and you make a good team with Lean.”

“But… but we didn’t win,” I said depressed. 

“Wrong, you won four times, and could quite possibly win this one too if you had more rest. As I said you did an outstanding job,” Father said as he patted my head with his other hand. I glanced at the wound and sighed as it was mostly closed now. That amount of pain was new to me. 

Unable to resist I looked over to where the automaton, I guess Trident, was. She was standing without moving a muscle, her weapons were gone, so she must be able to absorb them somehow. Father saw me looking and turned to look as well. I couldn’t resist and asked, “Is she like us or the other automata in your dungeon?” 

“Hm, she is like you. Trident, free-time mode,” Father said.

Trident blinked a few times then said, “Free-time mode accepted.” The color of her eyes turned from red to green, and she looked around. “After accessing memories, I would like to see a… sunset.”

Father looked at the sky then said, “Sure, it will still be a few hours, but I know a place that has an amazing view.”

“Proposal accepted, please commence teleport.” He nodded then waved his hand, and she vanished. 

“That one is going to be fun,” I said. 

“I’ll be keeping her at the dungeon for the time being her ability to adapt was why she was created.”

“I see,” I said a little depressed I couldn’t stay in the dungeon.