Chapter 90

Atraxia was apparently an incarnation of the concept of 'Accepting love' Which followed in the vein of Slaanesh's domain and conceptual tie as the concept of Excess. So the question was who was to be my next trial?

Even as I walked deeper into the Pagoda I wasn't idle in my taking in the opulant decorations that were the norm for being within Slaanesh's realm. Each step I took left an invisibly spiritual signature behind and by the time my feet moved the seal I left behind became invisible.

I didn't rush to the next section and in doing so, I left more than two hundred seals coinciding with the number of steps I took until I reached the next door.

"Come on in." A voice spoke out and I blinked... As it wasn't a female voice at all?

I opened the door and I saw a large handsome bearded man standing with his arms folded over his chest as he leaned against a forge of all things as the room opened up into a wide open beautiful courtyard. "Jake, my name is Kriosa, I am to be your second test. Now help me get the forge running."

'The hell is this? Where is the waifu I expected?' I thought before mentally shrugging as the spiritual being looked at me with some impatience so I walked over and using my spiritual energy I stoked the flames as he began working some kind of magical bellows.

"Now, I see you like swords right Jake?" He spoke raising an eyebrow and without a word I pulled my natal sword from my chest. Seeing the beautiful sword within my hands that seemingly shimmered with each of my heart beats he sighed and said in a relaxed tone. "Haa... Now that's a beauty there haha." He chuckled and then continued. "You have a beautiful sword, young man... So let us make her a sheath what do you think?" He spoke making me raise an eyebrow.

"My sword is nurtured and strengthened within my body, how about some armor or something?" I asked and after a moment he nodded and said gruffly.

"Let me measure your wrists and arms then." And so using some twine he began making knots around my arms at various points along with testing my range of motion.

'What the hell is this man's game? To make some kind of trapped enchanted armor?' I thought blankly and then the gruff man had me work with him on the forging and even the Warp Sorcery woven into the full-armed gauntlets he was making.

Sure I had damned near infinite cultivation knowledge but I couldn't do shit for actual Warp Sorcery that wasn't just outright reality bending via sheer force of power instead of stable magic.

"So young man... You indeed have great spiritual power, but what do you know of the essence of true power in this universe?" He asked between hammer blows upon the pieces of the gauntlets.

I raised an eyebrow as that was out of nowhere but while I couldn't answer something like 'cultivation' or something like love or whatever... I still had an answer though. "Control over one self?" 

Kriosa shook his head and said gruffly. "Indeed control over oneself is important, whether you be human, eldar, or even demon... But no, true power is the control over the very universe around you."

It took me a moment to remember what he was talking about and I raised an eyebrow as I simply stated. "Enuncia?" 

To which he nodded and continued hammering the pieces of the gauntlets into shape. "Are you going to teach me Enuncia?" I asked incredulously and the man actually pulled back his hammer swing as he burst into laughter.

"Haha! You are a greedy little shit aren't you!" He then took a swing of some kind of alcohol that was strong even to my nose as he choked down his chuckles while shaking his head. "Nah... I cannot be bothered to do that." And as he said that, I felt a weight leave the room as obviously, the spirit of the pagoda pulled back at hearing that.

Then he continued his smithing work with us making more relaxed small talk. I learned he was an old spirit of creation that was an offshoot of creation in the same vein as Vashtorr the Arkifane but instead of being a demon of the consequences of uncontrolled technological exploration. He was a spirit of the crafting of things by hand.

"Alright, now lets start putting these pieces together... You polish the ones I haven't messed with." He said tossing me a sanding block that made my face twitch.

'How the hell are you supposed to fucking seduce/game me with the amount of damned work you are making me dammit!' I thought with some annoyance but regardless I continued the game and used his method to carefully polish and smooth out the inevitable tiny imperfections made in beating red hot metal into shape.

Once everything was finished Kriosa took a breath and he tossed me a wine skin that I freely drank of knowing that if Nurgle's potion didn't kill me, whatever poison was in this wouldn't either. Though thankfully there wasn't any poison in the wine.

"Now. Jake, can an old man ask a favor of you?" He asked and I nodded and he took the gauntlets into his lap and took a deep breath.

"Good, then you know what I want." Before I could ask what he wanted, he spoke. But the words that came out of his mouth weren't words. The divine word of creation made even my cultivation-enhanced mind burn as though it was a computer put under way too high of a strain.

 My vision dulled and the Pagoda itself shook as I heard the spirit scream as I saw in slow motion how Kriosa looked up to me and winked before tossing the now glowing gauntlets into my lap. But as I caught the gauntlets and they merged into my arms like my own sword did.

The spirit closed his eyes and without a word, he exploded into a bloody mist that even as the spirit of the pagoda formed from the floor and tried to collect all the blood... The blood just broke apart in the air leaving nothing behind.

"He used Enuncia with his entire being... What a fucking madlad Haha!" I couldn't help but laugh as the Pagoda spirit looked at me with murderous intent.

Kriosa didn't give a shit about the deal, trial, or whatever... He simply wanted to fuck over the spirit of the pagoda even at the cost of his existence and what he wanted was simple. He wanted me to use these gauntlets to rearrange the bitches face obviously.