Otherworld Adventure

Since they were mercs, they could just switch sides depending on the situation as long as they haven"t formally enlisted in either one of the two powers" army.

"Hmhm~ this is nice~"

A young boy said while his long white hair fluttered gently in the wind.

"You like the new form Silv?"

"Hehe, yeah~ it feels really good to have your hair fluttering in the wind! It was pleasant on my fur as well, but it was tiring since I had to run."

"I"ll head in now, take care of Sleipnir."

"Sure~ Uh, Master...can you call Big Sis Yuna?"

"Huh? Why not call her yourself?"

"Eh? N-nevermind..."

Cecil eyed the young boy with long white hair that reached all the way to below his waist in puzzlement.

The white haired young boy who appeared to be around 10-12 years old was actually Silver. Once the party"s new monster, the Black Trihorned Storm Colt, who Cecil named Sleipnir, after the legendary horse from Earth"s mythologies, which by the way, he was hoping to ride one day as a child, became the one pulling the carriage, Silver was free to transform into his humanoid form.

The girls naturally got a kick out of this. Human-form Silver was a total lady-killer. His adorable face coupled with his big blue eyes which radiated innocence and curiosity, made the ladies swoon over him.

Since his master was Cecil, naturally when Silver took on human form, his base appearance was that of Cecil"s. He also had Lucia and Serilla as secondary masters, so their features were added a little to the mix.

This was why he looked like a more feminine version of a younger Cecil with white hair and due to his long hair, it was hard to actually determine at a glance whether Silver was a girl or a boy.

The only defining difference would be that despite being a small boy, Silver had a lot of muscle underneath his clothing.

He was copying his Master"s body when he was at that age. The best part about Silver"s appearance being so similar to his Master and his secondary Masters was that when he and Lucia stood together, the two looked like actual siblings.

Matching white hair with minutely similar facial features, he looked like Lucia"s little brother... actually, he looked more like Cecil and Lucia"s child instead.

Lucia was so elated that she had suddenly gained a "sibling" so she immediately called her parents and told them about it. She was a little too excited that she had worded it wrongly at first which of course led to a huge misunderstanding that naturally involved Cecil in it.

Lucia told them that the party was going to have an adorable little kid, who looked like Cecil and her, traveling with them now.

Anna and Zaki were shocked when they heard this. They immediately called Cecil and asked him if Lucia had given birth to their grandchild already. He naturally denied this and it earned him an earful. It felt like half a day had pa.s.sed before he and Lucia were able to clear up the misunderstanding.

Oddly enough, this disappointed the two parents and they even told Cecil to hurry up with it. They wanted a grandchild soon. This gave him a large headache and he could only promise the two that he"d give them one sometime later in the future.

Lucia and Serilla wanted to spoil Silver a lot, since he looked just like a young version of Cecil. However, the one who spoilt him the most was naturally his "caretaker", Yuna.

When Yuna finally saw the human form Silver, her motherly instincts immediately kicked in and she began spoiling him rotten. This naturally made Silver himself happy. The person he admired a lot was treating him so kindly, just who in the world wouldn"t want that?

The Lucia and Serilla however saw something else. Unlike the dense Cecil, they saw that Silver had other feelings besides admiration for Yuna. The dense one this time was actually the girl and not the boy.

They wouldn"t interfere with the two and decided to let nature take its course, but they were rooting for Silver.

******

When Cecil went back inside, he made sure to tell Yuna that Silver was looking for him. The dragon girl happily dropped what she was doing and made her way to Silver.

"Hehehe~ those two sure get along!" Lucia smirked as her eyes followed after Yuna who was making her way over to Silver.

Cecil thought that it was only naturally for them to get along, "Isn"t that a given?"

"Oh, Cel, you still don"t understand, do you?" Lucia said as she patted him on his shoulder.

He didn"t understand what Lucia was going on about so he only shrugged and sat himself down on the couch. Cecil was just about to begin cultivating, but he suddenly found two weights suddenly drop onto his shoulder and lap.

"...uhm...I"m going to cultivate now. Shouldn"t you two do the same?"

"At least let us take a break darling~ we"ve been cultivating nonstop for the past week!" Serilla pouted in dissatisfaction.

"That"s because we had to!"

"I know~ but now, its break time! Also, we still have that info we want to tell you about!"

"Y-you guys take a break. I wanna cultivate first so I"ll listen to the info later!"

Lucia began rubbing her head on his back while crying out, "Party p.o.o.per~ Cel"s an idiot~!"

"Lulu, I thought you said that you wanted to quickly catch up with Seri"s Ki cultivation?"

"I know, I know! But what Seri said was right! We need a break!"

"Okay, so you two take your breaks then!"

"With you of course!"

"No thanks!"

Cecil immediately declined. He had been feeling some weird stares being directed at him from the girls. They weren"t just weird, but also frightening enough to send a chill down his spine. He began feeling this when Silver had come out of the room with him in his humanoid form.

He had to avoid whatever it was that was coming for him, so he turned to cultivation. Cecil quickly closed his eyes and totally ignored the girls who were leaning on him. He began circulating his Ki and Mana slowly at the same time.

The girls upon seeing that Cecil was already beginning his cultivation and was fully immersed in it could only give up on pestering him.

They knew that cultivation was important to Cecil so they didn"t want to bother him and make him mad. Lucia sat on the side and pulled out the unfinished winter clothes she was making for the party and began working. She now also had to make a few sets of clothing for Silver.

He was currently only some of Cecil"s old clothes before his sudden growth spurt. Since they didn"t fit him, Cecil gave it to Silver, but Lucia wasn"t satisfied with this. She didn"t want to let Silver wear some hand-me-downs, so she decided to hurry up and create a few pair of cute casual clothes for Silver.

Serilla went over to Lucia and the two began chatting about mundane things together. It was during times like these that the two girls would spill their thoughts and bond closer together.

Cecil on the other hand had tuned out everything else and was fully focused on his cultivation. He slowly circulated the 2 energies inside his body together.

He made them flow together inside his body"s Energy Circuits and he could slowly feel the two energies meld together little by little which resulted in the formation of Ether. That miniscule amount of Ether he gained separated itself from the 2 streams of energies and made its way to a gathering point located near his solar plexus that housed all the Ether he had already cultivated during the past week.

The size of his Ether that was gathered over the past week of cultivation was really small. It was probably the size of a grain seed, more or less, probably less.

Cecil focused his attention onto his Ether and began trying to observe the differences and changes it had from his Mana and Ki. He couldn"t quite put his finger onto it, but the energy was rather peculiar.

It was obviously the combination of Mana and Ki, yet he couldn"t find any similarities. The unique life force radiating from Ki and the malleable power he could sense from Mana wasn"t present inside Ether.

Ether felt rather...empty. It felt empty, but at the same time it felt "big". He couldn"t quite put into words what he was feeling, all he knew that it felt "big". It was like that one time during his childhood when he saw a doc.u.mentary on TV regarding Earth, the Milky Way, and the Universe.

The profound and immense feeling he got at that time when he learned more about the planet and galaxy he was living in, how big the Earth was and how many living creatures lived in it, and how that large piece of rock he was living on was nothing more than a small piece of dust in the even larger galaxy he was in.

This kind of profoundness and immensity was the very same feeling he felt when he was observing the Ether inside of his body. Unknown to the boy, while he was delving deeper and deeper into this train of thoughts, the circulation of both his Mana and Ki hastened and so did the transformation and combination of the two energies.

Cecil was in a trance and he entered a deep state of emptiness where he became one with the world and his conversion of Mana and Ki into Ether hastened. The Ether inside his body continued to grow larger and larger in quant.i.ty and it began to transform his body slowly from the inside.

This continued on for about a month before Cecil snapped out of this cultivation state.