Old Friends

This was maddening, as every time Jody felt prepared based on the knowledge he had accumulated, he was hit with unexpected circumstances. He might as well just wing it from now on. Nothing ever happened to him the way it was supposed to happen. Thus, Jody decided not to concern himself with the matter of recorded knowledge any further. He would use it as a reference only. From now on, he would take on the mentality of a scientist.

He needed to prove things on his own!

With a thought, Jody extended his spiritual sense outwards by ten meters. This was half of the limit of his previous spiritual perception. He was certain this was no longer his limit, but he felt restricted somehow.

Unfortunately, the only thing within his perception was a dark cloud and an unusually large swirling black mass. That mass seemed to be perpetually releasing and maintaining this cloud of darkness. He also found it challenging to extend his perception any closer to the mass, though not impossible.

Jody was immediately able to conclude that this swirling mass was likely Ke Si himself. Ke was actually standing about three meters to his left, presumably monitoring the situation outside. Jody took a few steps and stood at Ke's side before extending his spiritual sense to twenty meters with a slight grunt of effort.

He could feel his concentration slipping after a mere moment, but he persisted through the blinding mental pain. Due to all of the mana elixir coursing through his body, he felt his concentration improving as rapidly as it was depleting. Before he knew it, the pain he felt had vanished completely.

Ke Si was focusing with his eyes closed, lest he miss the Lord's summoning in this precarious situation. Suddenly, he felt a small presence arrive at his heels. Bewildered, Ke looked down at Jody incredulously.

It seemed that now, he could be sure of one thing.

Somehow, this kid was for sure aware of his current location despite his avatar's shadow cloaking. Ke didn't know whether to laugh or cry. While he wasn't trying to mask his presence from the boy, it still shouldn't be so easy for Josiah to penetrate this darkness to find the former. Unless...

"Little Lord...this humble one hopes to ask you something."

The little bells chimed on Ke Si's waist-length white dreadlocks. After witnessing the various signs, Ke discovered that he should stop treating this radical existence next to him as a typical and clueless child. In fact, he should perhaps not treat him like a child but rather as an old monster.

After all, the boy was now a Scholar Realm genius.

He would only advance in mentality faster in the future, not slower. The first thing Ke desired to know was whether or not the boy truly knew where he was in this shadow domain. Jody, on the other hand, didn't respond with words. He merely looked up in Ke's direction. Ke could swear Jody was staring him in the eyes.

After getting closer to Ke and enduring the mental pressure, Jody was already within the swirling darkness. As a result, he could now sense the butler clearly. This essentially rendered Ke's first question pointless.

Thus, the head butler chose to ask another, "How is it that you knew where this humble butler was located, young lord? How were you able to tell? From what I know, this should be impossible for you."

"Impossible?" asked Jody in genuine confusion, his head cocked to the side slightly. This revelation was news to him, as he asked, "Why should it be impossible?"

Ke slowly shook his head.

He had nearly forgotten about something important. Freak or not, little Joe was still just an inexperienced little boy, after all. For all intents and purposes, he only had three years of life experience under his belt. His knowledge and views of the world were ultimately naive, if not wholly shallow.

Ke straightened his back and spoke low and clearly, "My realm and competence are currently much higher than your own, Lord Trill. As such, it should be impossible for you to feel my aura or track me with your eyes. Yet, I spoke to you only once, and you knew exactly where I was. That is the only reason I now know that you can sense me. However, sight, smell, and taste should be blocked in this domain. How could you sense me? How can you see me?"

"Realm?" asked Jody, who had stopped trusting the information in books.

In fact, Ke didn't need to speak at all, and Jody would have still found him.

"Indeed. I am a Void Door Sage, Lord Trill. This realm is also known as the elite level magi when compared to other paths," said Ke, but when he saw the boy's head cock to the side again, he decided to explain in further detail. "Because there are many different heavenly truths, also known as paths to the sky, we use united ranking systems to compare the separate truths to each other in terms of strength. Starting with the Rookie-level, expert-level, and then you have my realm, the Elite-level..."

"Can you call me Jody? Just Jody," demanded Jody.

He was, in fact, long past tired of all these traditional formalities. Five years of solitude had left him rather lacking in empathy, and he also hadn't had to be anyone but who he really is in that dark isolation. That time alone had only made Jody far less willing to compromise.

"This… is perhaps too inappropriate, little third," Ke didn't dare go against protocols of that level.

After all, the bloodline of his young master, Josiah, was not some typical weight. It weighed heavily in Ke Si's heart. His status as a medjay of death only demanded equal respect.

"I am fine with little third or young master Josiah," replied Jody with crossed arms and a harrumph as if he had just made his life's most significant concession.

In fact, he had.

After all, he was not even eight yet, and five of those years he spent trapped in his own head.

"Young master Josiah, you can just barely be considered to be in the Scholar Realm. This is the early rookie level." Ke paused, his brows furrowed in contemplation. "There are two great divides between us. Tell me, how can you notice this old man, Ke, with our difference in strength?"

It was at this moment that Jody recognized that his ability to use spiritual sense wasn't as common as he had assumed. It was lucky he had practiced caution with revealing it in the past.

Well...he didn't really hide it. People just never noticed.

Jody pondered for a few seconds but ultimately decided to answer truthfully. With the talent he had revealed so far, was there even a point in hiding this? Plus, he could now blame a great many things on his sage rebirth. Who would know the truth? No one else had visited the Destiny Platform with him, and he could tell whatever story he wanted, just like those damn books.

Thinking up to here, Jody replied calmly with an indifferent face, suddenly resembling his mother by a lot, "I was curious as to why I must hide as soon as I woke up. I am worried about my mother. So, I stretched my spiritual sense to its limit, which isn't far enough for me to see outside this dark cloud when I'm in it. Does the cloud suppress spiritual force? All I could see was a spiral of darkness, the height of a grown-up. Since pops spoke to you last, I knew this would be you."

Ke was astounded. How logical.

Jody, who was still spending spiritual force to maintain some minor level of visibility, noticed that the dark spiral momentarily stopped spinning for half a second before quickly resuming. Suddenly, everything within this darkness became visible to him again. Merely, even though the sun was back, it looked like everything was painted black.

"Jo...young...little third did you just say..." Ke seemed quite agitated. His aura was slightly unsteady, and his voice shaky.

He seemed so excited he might burst, but he struggled to maintain his focus. He couldn't let the young master's unstable aura be detected by those outside.

"Did you just say...that you can 'extend' your spiritual sense outwards by not one but several meters? Not in a straight line wherever you're looking or through one of your other senses, but you can actually cast it out? Just with your mind? At will? What do you sense in that state? Is it just sight? Smell? Hearing?"

Jody just nodded as he could sense everything in the high state. He remembered how magical it felt when he entered it and concluded he had overlooked some important details.

"And little Lord Trill...you can enter this state at will?" asked Ke Si as if confirming this was critically important.

"Well, it's a bit tiring," Jody replied honestly.

"So you really can...were you able to do this before you woke up?"

It was at this moment that Jody finally realized where Ke's constant confusion and shock originated from. It now seems that being able to enter the high state is not a common occurrence. So the problem wasn't having spirituality but his level of utilization. Having inherited the memories of an ancient Titan, Jody was unfamiliar with this disparity.

Most members of the Titan clan possessed powerful spirits from birth, although their bodies were incredibly fragile.

Thus, Jody had taken the strength of his perception for granted. Such a thing was not rare for the members of the Titan clan, after all.

However, after analyzing for a moment or so, Jody realized that this was the trait that set the ancient Titan clan on a different path from the rest of the skyslaughter race. Such a memory was easily overlooked since these weren't his own memories in the first place. With how smart this butler was, it wouldn't be worth trying to fake it now. Thinking like this, Jody nodded his head in response, and Ke directly vanished from his senses the next moment.

After a moment of shock, Jody withdrew his spiritual sense and exited the high state. This state was a bit exhausting for the current him. Plus, Ke Si seemed to have granted him some limited visibility here. How considerate.

With Ke gone and having nothing better to do, Jody sat down cross-legged and entered a state of meditation. He needed to recover his spiritual force. This time's meditation was different for Jody.

As he meditated, he could feel this marvelous feeling that felt like an open door waiting for him to enter. Although this feeling intrigued Jody, he made it a point not to investigate things that seemed marvelous blindly. All the horror films of his past life were the best examples of the consequences.

So Jody observed this unusual sensation without losing himself in it. He was like a security guard watching over a detainee. Ten minutes later, he suddenly heard a familiar voice in the back of his mind.

"Hey, kid, how long are you planning on dicking around at the door? Come into the host space for a chat, will ya?"

His eyes snapped open in shock.

He was completely startled out of his meditative state. He never expected to hear a voice in his head suddenly. Unlike the robotic voice of Trippy, the source spirit of [Pharaoh's Law], this voice definitely belonged to a person! However, Jody very quickly calmed down and mused, "The host space...of course."

He quickly resumed his meditation.

This time, once the marvelous feeling washed over Jody, he put forth no resistance as his consciousness was pulled right in. He now found himself in a vast space, split into two halves. The first half seemed to be a broken section of a giant wasteland, like a single puzzle piece.

There were dozens of huge thunderclouds radiating electricity and stellar might. Floating mid-air in the center was [Pharaoh's Law], the blue and gold striped cloth fluttering like a lonely cape in the wind. Under the area [Pharaoh's Law] was gliding around, there was an enormous multi-colored egg that radiated a mysterious glow. This egg was surrounded by a golden nimbus force cloud that altered between transparent and opaque. The area three meters around the egg was the only fertile and green land.

Instinctively, Jody knew this was his Vajra Volos combat soul.

He had fused with this combat soul completely. He felt a deep connection with that egg as if it was he who was inside of it.

The other half of this space was similar as if a small piece of a greater puzzle, only this side resembled the vast cosmos and starry skies. Floating in the void above this piece of the dark expanse was an old-looking and pitch-black tome of legend with various glowing runes imprinted on the cover.

The [Cosmos Revolving Grimoire]!

The grimoire was opened on the second and third pages, each with detailed information about a guardian with an illustration. Under the grimoire, there were two creatures, one of which was a black-winged wolf pup staring Jody right in his eyes, while the other rolled around in the void like a playful child.

"Sly, do you need to struggle a lot to be the soul's host? What's the selection process like? It should most likely be annual, at least, right?" The creature rolling around in the void had soft and fluffy red fur, with golden sword and calamity symbols on both of its arms, "When we're free again, I'll apply right away!"

This boy looked like a werewolf pup with a red gem on his forehead. Inside of the gem was what appeared to be a sizeable golden claymore. The hybrid's chest and head were clearly that of a negus toddler, but its arms and legs were covered in red fur.

"Are you dumb? If we're free, what need is there for you, a god beast, to host someone else's soul? Do you listen seriously to anything I tell you?" 'Sly' turned his little muzzle away from Jody to snap at the hybrid puppy. "Also, that's NOT what a host soul does.

The former had a voice that Jody was all too familiar with. This creature was a genuine sky wolf pup with black fur that had a metallic sheen, rebirth, and serenity runes on both its left and right side and one small black wing on its right shoulder.

'Are these my guardians?' Jody's thoughts echoed loudly throughout the entire host space.

He wasn't sure whether he should laugh or cry.

"Welcome back, brat," came the cold and indifferent voice of the wolf pup. "We have so much to discuss."

"Indeed. It is time you learned who the true soul's host is," At this moment, the humanoid puppy was imitating the wolf pup's aloof demeanor and indifferent tone of voice.

Suddenly, the humanoid pup let out an exaggerated shout as he was completely shrouded in a curtain of emerald flames that combusted mysteriously out of nowhere.

"Please ignore the fool. My name is Prince..." The wolf pup that was lying down rose to sit on its hind legs.

There was an incredibly sharp look in his eyes, and he spoke dignifiedly.

However, Jody was rather impatient, insta-ruining the prince's momentum.

"Prince Sly then, is it? Fancy. I'm Jody Trill. Or Trillwolf? Josiah? Gold something? Whatever, at any rate, just call me Trill, or Jody, or both," Jody ruthlessly interrupted the wolfly prince's monologue before it started, causing the prince pup's eye to twitch. Jody just continued as if he didn't notice, "Why is it that you're able to talk to me? All those crappy books said that the consciousness of a combat soul is completely sealed."

"..." the young wolf quietly stared at Jody for a couple of breaths, wondering if he was possessed. He noted the lad's blue eyes before responding, "Are you dumb? Or do you not remember me?"

Jody looked deep into the emerald eyes of this strange sky pup. Slowly but surely, the image started overlapping with a cool white-clothed youth and a heavy golden sword. A sword that bore a striking resemblance to the jewel on the hybrid guardian's head. There was also...the dragon, Janair Mazi! As soon as this realization played out in his head, Jody unconsciously glanced at the enormous egg under [Pharaoh's Law].

"I remember. You're the youth I was with back in the underworld. Which would make him..." Jody pointed at the mass of flames, "So that makes him...the sword!?"

"Excellent. But, wrong. The sword is my brother's natal weapon, and they can unite as one due to his prowess; this is Sword Fusion of the highest level," Prince Sly stood up on all fours and walked lightly across the void, stopping in front of Jody.

"Natal, what now?" asked Jody patiently while shamelessly petting the sky pup.

"Less of that," the sky puppy's little black angel wing twitched slightly as he shook off Jody's hand to rise into the air slowly.

Sly was in front of Jody as if he had never heard of gravity, floating weightlessly in Jody's face without so much as a flap of its one wing. As Sly's green eyes met Jody's similarly jewel-like blue eyes midair, Jody felt a strange sense of kinship. This time, when Prince Sly spoke, his voice no longer sounded cold or indifferent. Instead, there was a tinge of rage and humiliation, and under that, Jody could swear he detected a bit of melancholy.

"Sigh...Do you want to hear a story?"