Ch 37 – Tempes

On the vast blue sea, with crashing waves and soft yet howling winds, a man with black and white hair, heterochromatic eyes, and wearing a white robe, stood still without moving a muscle.

His eyes were squinted and his brows were furrowed. Kaleido neared his hand to his chin, rubbing it as he contemplated in deep thought.

'Why hasn't "It" manipulated the abundance of beasts in the sea to attack me already?' Kaleido asked, his eyes looking at the calm blue sea around him with wariness.

'It might be that "It" is manipulating a desolate beast to come to attack me, so it's taking a long time? No, if a desolate beast were to see me, they'll see a rare snack, so it shouldn't be a problem for "It" to manipulate a mindless beast to come to kill me.' Kaleido slowly bent his legs and sat down on his small boat, a boat more similar in design to a raft compared to a traditional boat.

'Or perhaps…' Kaleido stared at the blue sky, muttering with a peculiar tone, "I managed to escape "It"?"

'If I'm being optimistic, then perhaps I might have gone under "Their" radar after accidentally entering the River of Time.' After thinking about this, Kaleido felt that it might be a plausible theory.

'Unfortunately, I lack the finer details to know how "It" functions. From how "It" can detect me, how "It" can manipulate other organisms to attack me, and many more. But if I were to assume that "It" is not as omnipresent and omniscient as I thought, with "It" having a few blind spots, then perhaps…' Kaleido paused, "Perhaps "It" can't follow me through the river of time?"

'Wait!' Kaleido abruptly widened his eyes, his mouth gaping open in shock as he finally noticed something amiss, 'This…'

'How many years have passed?!' Kaleido moved his gaze from one spot to another, his breath trembled while his heart palpitated as if he has just seen something terrifying. From the clouds in the blue sky to the distant sun, his fingers trembled while his legs shook.

"Five… Thirty… Fifty-six…" The more he spoke, the more solemn his visage became, until finally, he uttered a phrase that made his whole body suffused with cold sweat, "A century."

'A whole century has passed since I entered the river of time?!' Kaleido stood up and hurriedly paced around his wide raft, his eyes glum and grave.

Out of the blue, he extended out his hand, and the black markings on his body glowed. In the air in front of him, the silhouette of an illusory black door quickly formed, solidifying into reality as Kaleido planted his flat palm onto the door.

But at the very last second, he stopped. He stared. His eyes were cold and calm, his heart serene and tranquil.

Letting go of the door, he retracted his arm and watched as the illusory black door disappear from his view. Sighing to himself, he slowly sat down and muttered, "Calm down."

Grabbing his forehead, he closed his eyes and lets out a long breath, "I can't believe I panicked over something so… trivial."

"So, what if I appeared a hundred years into the future, does that even matter? I'm an outsider to this world, a person who belongs to another universe. Ties, relationships, bonds, they don't matter to me," he muttered with a callous voice, and he opened his eyes that stared into the far distance with an aloof gaze.

'Perhaps the next time I reenter the river of time, I would reappear hundreds of years, perhaps even thousands or millions of years into the future. So I better get used to this.' Shaking his head and regaining his usual demeanor, Kaleido leaned back and lay flat on his raft boat.

'Instead of wasting time thinking about the passage of time, I should instead refocus back on the problem at hand. Why has "It" not attacked me yet and not sent an immemorial desolate beast to kill me in mere seconds?'

'This area, the vast fucking sea, is a prime opportunity to manipulate hundreds of thousands of aquatic creatures to bombard me.'

'Does "It" know that I can escape if I want to? No, that wouldn't matter for "It". Hmm, so why?'

'Perchance… my assumption is true? Did I really manage to go under "Their" radar by going through the river of time? So how would it be able to detect me again and make me a glaring red dot on its map?'

'Of course, entering the unentered Space Cave would definitely grab hold of its attention, so I shouldn't enter Space Cave in the meantime unless I find a way to conceal my aura and presence from "It". Perhaps with enough inspiration or when I reach Grandmaster in space path or time path, I'll be able to create a Gu to conceal myself from even "It"?'

'But losing access to Space Cave is a problem, especially when I consider that I would lose access to developing my space path at the current moment. Now, the only space path Gu I have on me are Space Blade Gu, Formless Bubble Gu, and Mending Space Gu. Losing Displace Domain Gu would put me in serious danger when in a fight as I now can't teleport, leaving me with Quick Movement Gu as my only movement type Gu.'

'Luckily, I already stockpiled a large amount of food for my current Gu, and Quick Movement Gu only needs to feed on the river of time.'

'Tsk, I haven't realized it but now I also lack the means to use my current set of killer moves. Most of them require the use of Displace Domain, leaving me with only one trump card, Void Slash. Unless I somehow find a way to replace Displace Domain or Space Step, my battle strength has fallen by a drastic amount.'

Opening his eyes, Kaleido rubbed his forehead with a groan and grimaced, "I don't even know how to get more space path Gu now that I don't have Space Cave available to me."

'The only way I'll get more space path Gu is through markets in human civilization, plunder variant humans, get them from wild beasts, or find them in the wild.' Kaleido sighed, and then muttered, "Any of those methods are unavailable to me too."

'But…' Kaleido's eyes shone, raised his arm to his face, and stared at the various white markings scattered all around his exposed skin, thinking, 'I have access to a secluded domain of heaven and earth that's of the same rank as Space Cave.'

"River of Time," muttering the name of the white river he was recently exposed to, Kaleido shook his head and sat up.

'Even if I can enter the river of time where time path resources are certainly abundant, I don't want to. Unknown dangers and risk of falling further downstream, meeting desolate beasts and dangerous entities that lurk there, it's something that only a fool would do.'

'I should only reenter it once I have absolute certainty that my life wouldn't be put in danger, or that I am forced to escape danger and the only way to live is by entering the river of time.' Patting his thigh, Kaleido waved his sleeves and a book with a brown cover appeared in front of him and fell down with a thud on the flat raft boat he was sitting on.

"The Legends of Ren Zu. Perhaps I'll find a helpful clue here," Kaleido grabbed it with uncertainty, wondering if it would even work.

With all the time in his hands and his safety temporarily assured (because if "It" does attack him, it's more of a good thing as he'll regain access to Space Cave), he opened the leather cover of the book and began to read.

Flip!

Crash!

Howl!

The sound of waves crashing, winds howling, and pages flipping accompanied one another to produce a harmonious symphony for Kaleido, a young adolescent teen who is not even 18 yet.

After a while, the sound of pages being flipped stopped, and Kaleido closed the book in silence. His blank gaze stared at the brown leather cover of the mysterious book that tells the tale of the human ancestor, Ren Zu. Waving his sleeve once again, the book disappeared and Kaleido placed both of his hands over his crossed legs.

'The book still holds a lot of profound mysteries, but unfortunately, they aren't of much use to me… though it feels like I'm nearing a breakthrough here as if I'm just one step away from understanding something.' Forcefully ignoring that irksome gnaw that bit at the back of his head, he took a deep breath to clear his mind and began a short meditation session.

When he felt that his heart was tranquil and his mind was serene, he moved his senses towards his aperture and sensed the dark red steel primeval essence that fully occupied the mystical sphere inside his abdomen, and he slowly started to wield it to move towards the walls of his aperture.

Slowly, the tides of primeval essence turned faster and faster until a large amount of his primeval essence was being drained to nourish his aperture walls. His speed was beyond what normal Gu Masters could ever hope to achieve. Even those with A-Grade aptitude would salivate with greed at his abnormal cultivation speed.

Even those with the Ancient Desolate Moon extreme physique, the physique that corresponds with time path and gives the user an extreme primeval essence generation rate couldn't compare with Kaleido, the monster born from a normal human who crossed universes.

As his actions slowly turned autonomous, the familiar feeling of his consciousness floating away from his body and his mind seemingly turning fully blank just like when he meditated slowly started to appear.

His breathing turned calm and steady just like when a person falls asleep; his tense muscles relaxed and eased their tension.

Finally, when he entered a state similar to a trance, the image once again appeared.

A place where time and space seemed to exist yet also not, where the concept of everything and nothing coexisted with one another.

All kinds of shapes and colors converged and twisted, creating sceneries that mere words couldn't describe. Colors bloomed like flowers, strange spheres split and divided into countless copies, and cube-like objects exploded like fireworks, illuminating the vast darkness of light.

If anyone else were to see that scene, they would have their minds imploded by how eldritch and wrong the image felt. It was something that completely broke the rules of physics, the rules of reality itself!

It didn't abide by logic or reason; it only did what it felt like doing.

And as Kaleido stared into the depths of that madness, it felt like something clicked within him as the fragmented thoughts running around his serene mind finally connected under the guidance of this chaotic vision.

As the vision inside his mind slowly receded and dimmed, he suddenly felt like something shattered within his body, and the illusory sound of glass breaking into countless fragments rang in his ears and mind.

Opening his eyes, he saw his aperture walls have turned into something like a crystal made out of light, reflecting the inside of the aperture where his Gu Worms rested inside his primeval sea.

"I'm finally at Rank 2 peak stage…" Kaleido opened his eyes which carried a hint of joy within them and slowly moved his body from its numbed state.

It's similar to the feeling of not moving for a few minutes, resisting the urge of your body to move and twitch a muscle, and forcing yourself to enter a sleep paralysis state.

After a while, his body returned to normal and he stood up.

"After months, I'm finally just one step away from becoming a powerhouse amongst normal mortals, a Rank 3 Gu Master!" Kaleido smirked, and he continued, "That alone would have made me happy, but to think the Legends of Ren Zu hid such a terrifying secret that even my otherworldly origin can be affected by its profundity."

As his smile widened, he slowly walked to the edge of his raft and stared at his reflection in the clear blue waters. Just like magic, he watched as his body slowly started to change as if he has used a Gu to change his appearance.

Slowly, his eyes and hair started to change color. From being half black and half white, it slowly started to turn into a full white color, and as he rolled back his sleeves, he saw the black and white markings on his body start to disappear and he could clearly feel the dao marks on his body hide under his own skin.

Finally, when he stared back at his own reflection, he saw a man with white hair and white eyes wearing a wide white robe.

Chuckling softly, he moved his gaze toward the clear blue sky and muttered, "Tempes… That's a good name."

AN: This chapter has 2178 words.

Holy crap... I didn't think about what humongous brokeness his newfound ability might bring considering he's smart as fuck and would obviously exploit something like that.

Do I really have to do a Braun again?

But you know what I didn't account for? Kaleido's "geniusness" is getting exaggerated to an extreme degree in this chapter.

(February 8, 2023 – 440th day of writing)