Avuri

As it turned out, no one had any idea what they had done, at all. Even pooling all the knowledge that the Elders had ended up getting them nowhere.

Vale was at least able to help soothe some of the worry that something was wrong; while he had never seen two bodies share the same Qi, he had at least seen the strange shifting Qi before. It was apparently not uncommon among high Realm Cultivators that practiced styles that Cultivated multiple elemental bases used without blending often.

It was typical for Cultivators that used multiple elements to eventually combine those upon reaching the Sky Realm and creating a Domain and their personal Qi. However, if they continued to Cultivate the Qi without combining the elements into a single personal style of Qi, it could mutate into a form similar to what Emery and Avuri were now working with.

Avuri figured that they had essentially done that inadvertently by Cultivating their own styles in separate bodies. But somewhere along the lines they ended up pushing their Qi together to create the mutated, shared variant they now held.

The part that still stumped everyone was the whole two-bodies-one-Domain thing. There were no records that anyone could find of even Bonded Cultivators becoming linked in that way. They always remained with distinct but attached Domains, until the pair eventually failed in some way.

If anything, with all the new research into it, Avuri was concerned. Every single record they read about powerful Bonded pairs ended in some kind of tragedy - either one of the pair died which crippled the other, one betrayed their partner, or something eventually broke them apart. Betrayal was even the most common outcome, which really didn't give Avuri the most positive impression of other Cultivators. Everyone was so selfish.

As a few more days passed, they also discovered more about their new abilities while their nightly Cultivation was spent working on their respective dragonblood.

They discovered pretty quickly how bafflingly powerful their new Domain was. It was truly a single Domain that they shared, and it held the properties of both their previous Domains, but allowed either of them to access it.

During the day, Avuri was now regularly practicing Emery's sharpness manipulation, while Emery worked to better her Domain control with her suddenly massive reach, as well as Avuri's instant moisture control.

In addition, they found that they no longer needed to 'connect' the way they used to. Even on opposite ends of the Basin, with their Qi focused only around them, as long as they weren't actively holding their Qi back, they could share their thoughts the way they could before while connected. Similarly, if they both meditated and entered their now shared Inner World, they would appear in the same space, seemingly regardless of their physical body's distance.

Those effects were ones that no one could explain with any certainty. The group at large - the family and the Elders - had put together a few theories, but they were largely theoretical and untestable. Afterall, much of it was more akin to contemplations on the aspects of Qi and the soul more than anything even remotely 'scientific'.

Ultimately, the entire discussion was consumed less than a week later when the entire Basin was startled in the middle of the night by a massive boom. Even Emery and Avuri, who had been deep in meditation of their own, were startled out of it and flew to the window to see what was happening, worried they were under attack.

It didn't take very long to notice the upper half of one of the other homes was missing with light from the remaining Arrays within spilling out into the darkness.

"Cierra, get your brother and sisters." Avuri called to the house behind her as she and Emery leapt from their windowed balcony toward the ruckus.

Using their full speed, it took them no time at all to land in the center of the mess. Kord stood there, dumbstruck, in the middle of what was left of his room. His bed was basically scattered about in splinters, with the torn cloth of his sheets similarly all around. His clothes must have been vaporized in the blast too, as he wasn't wearing anything.

He turned toward them, clearly cowed and embarrassed, stammering out several apologies in quick succession.

However, Avuri's concentration was entirely focused on his body. Lyn had suggested he would end up with scales and perhaps claws, but his current form went well beyond that. His arms and legs were entirely covered in dark silver, shiny scales, reminiscent of metal. His hands and feet bore vicious looking claws that would no doubt be a useful weapon for him in combat.

But it also looked like he was wearing something like a harness of scales. Whatever he had done that caused the explosion and vaporized his shirt - if he had been wearing one - and Avuri could see tracks of scales extending in strips around his body. They covered his entire shoulders and most of his neck, crawling up around his jaw and into his hairline and onto his forehead, like a headguard. The scales also covered his upper back, with a trail of them following down his spine - and the track of scales down his spine even had extended ridges along the path.

"I'm sorry about the room, please don't be mad. I'll help fix it in the morning, I promise." He was saying, completely ignoring the obvious changes to his body. "I don't even know what happened. I was Cultivating, trying to process the dragonblood, then everything went white, and I heard a boom that pulled me from my meditat- is everyone okay?"

Avuri moved before Emery did, sliding in to give Kord a hug. She also popped an extra, plain robe from her storage ring and threw it loosely around Kord's shoulders so he wasn't standing there without clothing, even if his modesty was preserved by the new scales.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Um? Momri?"

"It's fine. Don't worry about it." She said, then leaned back to give him a little more space. "Did you even look at yourself?"

"Huh?" Kord didn't seem to put two and two together at all, so Avuri grabbed his wrist and raised his hand in front of him, his fingers clearly slayed out before him as a dragonic claw. He blinked at it, still not quite registering what was happening.

Avuri supposed it wasn't fair to expect him to be fully coherent - sometimes getting forcefully torn from meditation could be disorienting. She figured it was likely that the transformation was sudden and knocked him for a loop. So, she smiled and asked, "You really don't feel different? Weird?"

He shook his head, but stopped suddenly, his other hand reaching up to touch the sides of his neck. When the claws hit the scales there, his eyes went wide. "What?"

"Don't freak out, alright?" Avuri smiled, trying to emanate a calm, sturdy support for him while she conjured a pane of ice as a mirror.

Kord stared, stunned at his own reflection in the mirror. "I…whoa."

"Yeah," Avuri chuckled, looking back to check on Emery. She had gathered up everyone from what was left of the second floor of the house and was leading them downstairs to let everyone else know what happened. "You must have finished internalizing the dragonblood. No one told us the effect would be so explosive, though…"

"Maybe I did something wrong?" Kord said, as he now looked over the scales tracking up and down his body, plus his claws.

"Do you think you did? You should turn around to look at your back."

"I…I don't think so?" He said, as he twisted to show the ridged spine trailing down the center of his back. "Holy crap."

"Language."

"Sorry, Momri." He said, still trying to take in the new look.

"It's alright. Just don't say that stuff around the younger kids."

"I know. I don't."

"Good." Avuri said with a small smile. This was about as animated as she had ever seen Kord. Usually he was so reserved and well mannered, but she supposed suddenly destroying your own house and waking up looking like a dragon would be enough to get a good reaction out of anyone. It was refreshing to see him so enthusiastic.

"Well. Do you remember the techniques the Elders showed us? Can you hide the scales?" Avuri asked, trying to get Kord out of his daze.

"Huh? Oh. Right. Let me see."

He closed his eyes, remaining standing where he was, and focused. Avuri could feel his Qi begin moving in the patterns they had been taught for the transformation technique. Thankfully, the actual technique itself was actually a stroke of genius, and therefore quite simple.

Had Avuri been left to develop something herself, her first instinct would have been to design a technique that targeted her draconic features and suppress, hide, or erase them. Such a strategy would have required not only a very specific technique to target each feature on the body, but every variant of it would have had to basically be new and unique for each person, given the manifested features weren't all the same.

Instead, the technique that the dragons had developed focused instead on making the body more human instead of less dragon. It allowed the technique to be pretty universal in application, as it simply overwrote the draconic features by using Qi to make a full human disguise instead. That technique was later reworked by Dragon-Kin Cultivators to apply to humans and amplify their natural body, thereby overriding their new draconic features.

The simplicity of it was remarkable. And in no time at all Kord's scales and claws were gone, replaced by his normal skin, hands, and feet. When he opened his eyes, he looked himself over, satisfied, while Avuri nodded approvingly.

"It worked?"

"It did. Now we get to go explain to everyone why your house exploded." Avuri chuckled, but she saw Kord go pale.

"I didn't hurt anyone, did I?"

"No, I think if you had, Em would've said so by now. She's talking to everyone in front of the house, I think. And she gathered up the whole Alder branch." Avuri said and ruffled Kord's hair, which he accepted gracefully.

"Alright."

Avuri took her son's hand and together they picked their way through all the debris toward the stairs inside, rather than simply jump off the second floor. Avuri thought it was best to give Kord the extra minute or two it would take to get his mind clear. By the time they traversed the mess of a house, Kord was looking a little less lost.

Most of the Basin was gathered outside the Alder house. There were a few missing kids, mostly the heavy sleepers who probably remained asleep in their beds. Most of the older kids were in attendance, having been knocked from their own late-night meditation, and were holding some of their younger siblings who were still upset by the loud bang.

As soon as Avuri and Kord walked out through the door, whatever semblance of order Emery had managed to establish broke down as the kids immediately slipped around her to shout questions at Kord.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, he's fine." I responded mentally. "I think he was more shocked than anything else. But he managed the transformation technique just fine without any real guidance, so I don't think he'll have any problems."

Emery nodded in response as the group surged around Kord with all sorts of questions. Avuri heard everything from "Are you okay?" and "Can you show us what it looks like?" to "Can you fly now?" and "Where's your tail?"

Kord did his best to filter the questions somewhat, telling everyone he was okay and that he didn't get wings or a tail. After answering what he could with words, he tried to get everyone to quiet down then craned his head over them to meet Avuri's eyes.

"Momri? Do you think it's safe to show them?"

Avuri glanced at Emery to double check. Neither of them really knew for sure, but Avuri doubted dropping the transformation technique would cause another explosion. Emery didn't seem to object either.

"I think that's fine." Avuri said. "But everyone, step back and give your brother some space."

The crowd grumbled but did back off so Kord was able to concentrate and reverse the technique. His scales and claws reappeared, as if nothing had changed. There was a moment of gasps, oohs, and aahs, before the questions surged again.

"Kord, your scales are sharp. Don't let the little ones touch." Avuri said, trying to pitch her voice over the din. Kord waved in acknowledgement as Emery stepped up beside Avuri.

"I guess we let the Alders have the open house for tonight? Fixing this one shouldn't take more than a day or two."

"Yeah, sounds like a plan." Avuri snaked an arm around Emery's waist and pulled her close as they watched their children get excited over Kord's new look.

Emery looked up the wrecked house, eyeing the destroyed top floor. "I think we should meditate somewhere not in the house for a couple days."

Avuri snickered. "Funny. I was thinking the same thing."

"I know." Emery bumped Avuri with her hip.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.