CH2: Living With Gwen

Vergil stopped when his new owner Gwen pulled him outside on a telekinetic leash. The sight above froze him in place as sprays of seawater sprinkled on his face. A vast city towered above the lips of a vast swirling whirlpool of and above the moon half devoured by a tentacled monstrosity with innumerable eyes looked down at the world. Vergil could feel it like a storm on the horizon to his Ostrich Oscillation. Psychic energy expanded from it in waves blasting the ground and creating the phenomenon around him with its presence alone. The moon had turned red, with numerous crisscrossing tentacles stretching across its surface.

Even though he knew it wasn't his moon and this wasn't his earth, it hurt him to see the sight before him. His mind threatened to shut down, and it was worse than the toddler or even Mandela. Vergil started hyperventilating at the alien sight until a cold tentacle slithered over his eyes, blocking his vision.

He heard a strange crooning sound. "Don't look at it, little one. Follow me, and everything will be alright." The voice said.

Her words blasted his mind with a frequency of psychic energy threatening to shatter his psyche. It was too much too powerful for a mere human mind to withstand.

Vergil also realized there was power in it, the same psionic power he needed to cultivate the mind. Slowly he went through the motions while her tentacle covered his eyes. A string connected to his mind formed from ki and began rotating. Like a line of sticky silk, it captured the high radioactive particles like flies in a resin trap. The technique used qi to process the dangerous energy into something his brain could use. He slowly cultivated it while focusing on the image.

Some of the pain receded while whatever was in his stomach lurched up. He vomited his guts out on the ground. The alien creature waited calmly while he finished. He followed it over a bridge between skyscrapers on an upper level of a city stretching high in the air. Below there were other bridges and darkness; he couldn't see the streets below, even under the moon.

Another of the creatures walked by, followed by humans dressed in white with glazed-over eyes. They moved in unison in the monster's direction while the lights were on; no one was home. It was from the alien's communication. Every transmission contained mind-shattering psychic energy that destroyed the human mind. There weren't memories in the bodies because they had long since been destroyed.

"I can't believe I managed to find a resistant. My name is Gwen cutey. Can you say, Gwen?" The transmission declared while he struggled to cultivate the psychic attack.

"Don't tease the animal, Gwen; even resistant ones can't transmit their thoughts and eventually go serene. Your cousin had one since she was bronze rank and kept from destroying its mind until gold. Its mind was one of the most delicious she had ever eaten." A powerful voice said.

"I don't want to eat him; he's a pet," Gwen said.

At this point, he wasn't surprised. They were basically humanoid Illithids or mind flayers. He wasn't sure if they could read his thoughts or didn't bother to because he was that unworthy. Either way, it was good that they thought so little of him while he was too weak.

Vergil cycled his cultivation quickly and felt his head throb. He was already nearing his cultivation limit for the day, and he barely started. He needed to meditate and consolidate the energy if he wanted to survive.

They arrived at a vast building covered in statues made of gold of various mind flayers. Vergil could feel the wealth and opulence roll out of the room as he was led out of the lobby into a vast room covered in posters of different mind flayers, a holographic computer in the corner with various levels to the room along with an aquarium filled with various strange fish.

She stripped, bathed, and covered him in powder before pulling out a large pillow that was supposed to be his bed. Then she poured diced sponges all over the floor around him before patting his head with a tentacle. Afterward, she floated up, turned on a holographic computer, and started playing a game, leaving him in the corner of her room.

He had never felt more like a dog, but it was convenient for him. So Vergil sat on the pillow that he supposed would make a comfortable enough bed and closed his eyes.

Time flowed by while he consolidated his gains from a few transmissions from the creatures. He took the energy they shoved at him in communication and refined it. Slowly the energy stuck to the string he set to rotate around his mind began to drain away, and he felt his mental strength grow. He became more aware of the sheer information in the brand. He began reviewing techniques while his mental consolidation continued slowly.

After hours he felt his mind fully transform, and what felt like a bolt of electricity traveled through his system. Suddenly he entered the initial stage of the mind prenatal realm. He worked slowly with his ki and produced a second thread for mind cultivation.

…

His first week with Gwen was dull except for the occasional transmissions and mind-shattering information. The creatures called themselves Psions as far as translating their mental signals into something humans understood went. There were pockets of human resistance in places called the under city where gangs of wild humans roamed with Psion experiments, mutated animals, and mad Psions who abandoned the ways. The squids invaded the earth, and all human governments were destroyed. What little remained of human society had been subverted by the Psions or was too weak to bother destroying.

"I can't believe I finally have a human to listen to music with. A shame you can't tell me what it says." Gwen said as they listened to some classic rock together while he reviewed what mind techniques would prove the most beneficial.

At this point, with two threads of cultivation, her transmissions weren't harmful. But they weren't very effective for cultivation. A week of her transmissions wasn't enough to bring Vergil's mind cultivation from initial to intermediate.

She had also forgotten to feed him numerous times. Vergil's initial prenatal ki cultivation had barely kept him alive, and he was forced to cultivate spirit energy to keep himself alive. As a result, he lost weight, and what she did feed him wasn't exactly 5 stars. She fed him one protein bar every 4 days and sometimes remembered that he needed water. Rarely did she remember he needed fresh water and often gave him saltwater.

"I'm about to cultivate in the Far family ancestral leviathan vein. Do you want to come with me?" She held a protein bar over his head. "Jump up and down if you want to," Gwen said.

When he saw the bar, all thought of anything but getting the food he desperately needed left him. Vergil jumped and reached for it. She glowed in what he assumed was her version of chuckling and raised a hand. "Alright, stop, and I will give you the bar." Vergil stopped what he was doing.

She gave him the bar, and he bit into it furiously. "I think it's so funny you eat with the mouth on your face," Gwen said.

He finished the bar and wanted more. Vergil could see his ribs poking out and knew he was starving. She held up a silver helmet and placed it over his head. "Now keep that on; it will protect you from the leviathan vein's power.

…

A week later, he followed her into the Far clan building. Various Psions flew about, leading humans around while a group of Psions waited to meet with Gwen. They were the Far family, from what he understood, or representatives of the group. Psions with various different colorations stood in solidarity.

"Why are we letting her into our leviathan vein?" One of the younger Psions asked.

"She is that old General's grandniece. He pulled some strings for her because her family was too poor to have their own Leviathan vein. It's not like we were saving a spot for the Su clan and their lovely heiress. Did you hear Su Courtney was spawned in the bronze rank?"

"That is the kind of genius we need to offer our leviathan vein to not this trash from clan out of favor. They would be no better than a merchant-class clan if not for the General. I heard she searched for that human herself and even found a resistant."

"I heard if you grow them with transmission and devour them when you reach gold, it will ease your cultivation into the Diamond realm. Not like Feng Gwen will reach silver in a century with her talent. Maybe we can offer her extra time in the leviathan vein for him."

Vergil didn't like the gossip even as he greedily cultivated the energy from the transmissions. Two strings allowed him to subvert twice as many transmissions, even in the clunky silver helmet. As a result, he could actively investigate packets of energy moving back and forth between Psions.

He felt that a little more would bring him into the intermediate stage of the prenatal realm of mind cultivation.

"It is customary when offered a great boon like another family's Leviathan vein to offer a gift in return. Nothing too valuable like the human at your side." One of the voices said.

"Far Fang, I already brought a gift of equivalent value to a human." From a ring on one of her fingers, Gwen pulled a bag of clinking stones and tossed it at the feet of the Far family representatives. "20 deep pearls would buy you 20 humans that gives you a 0.02% chance to find a resistant," Gwen said.

"Oh, you are too kind. Is this all you have left after purchasing humans? What number did you start with, 21?" One of the representatives said.

Vergil collected every scrap of psychic energy he could manage.

"I am favored by fortune; perhaps you will be so lucky," Gwen said as she slid a tentacle from below her waist around his neck to rest on his shoulder.

A gasp of transmissions ran through the representatives as what Vergil could only assume was a scandalous act. He had to question if the act was sexual in nature or a social mistake, like eating with the wrong fork at a fancy party.

Vergil felt his two threads of cultivation fill up completely from the transmissions, and a rumbling echoed through his mind.

He cultivated quickly, bringing himself from the initial stage to the intermediate. That meant he could hold two mind techniques. Then, all he had to do was focus on what he needed to extend his cultivation because, apparently, they were about to enter closed-door cultivation in something called a leviathan vein.

They were led to a room with 20 humans with glazed-over eyes. Nothing was going on upstairs, and he understood something horrible was about to happen. Gwen glowed before looking at him.

"If you can understand me, please turn around and cover your ears. I don't want you to see what I'm about to do. Trust me, you don't want to see it either. But it is my nature." Gwen said.

What did he think was going to happen? He knew what she was the entire time, but knowing and seeing it were two different things. When he turned around, he felt her release the transmission equivalent of a sigh.

Even when his eyes weren't facing her, his ki sense filled in the picture for his intermediate prenatal mind. The more he cultivated his mind, his ki sense expanded, and information came in more clearly. Even without seeing what was happening with his own two eyes, he could see it in his mind and piece the image into an approximation of reality. Ostrich Oscillation improved the image with its ability to cycle through various energy frequencies and return information.

Vergil covered his ears but failed to block out the sounds of dozens of tentacles below Gwen's waist, wrapping around a man and bringing his shaved head to the beak in the center of lower tentacles. The hard beak opened wide and bit through the skull of Gwen's first victim. It at least happened fast. Her tongue slurped up the brains of the first victim before dropping the flailing body. After the first victim, the look on her face was rapturous. Then she moved on to the others.

Ultimately they were two very different creatures, and relying on her might not be a good idea.