Chapter 17: Cultivating New Habits
Nishant's unified standard of cultivation rankings had ten realms within it. Going from the lowest to the highest, these realms were: The Earthly realm, Epic realm, Ephemeral realm, Legendary realm, Nebulous Realm, Empyrean Realm, Figment Realm, Concept Realm, Idealized Realm, and Mythic Realm.
Technically speaking these realms were meant to describe the process by which gathered materia (or magical power) would transform when accumulated within the core of a living being. With the cycle going from particulate form, to gaseous form, to liquid form, to solid form, and finally to plasma..
As an individual cultivated magical power, their materia was converted from its base form and refined within their bodies, going from being energy, to being matter, till it was finally converted back into energy again. (Albeit, a more powerful, more metaphysically weighty, type of energy.) Cultivation could be roughly described as the transition from using magic to learning how directly manipulate the flow of reality.
In practice, each realm was made up of ten stages and progress through these stages would gradually take one from being a normal human to being a superhuman to eventually being an existence on the level of the immortals, the devil-kings, the archangels, spirit kings, and gods.
While the various peoples, and cultures of Nishant had countless means of making the journey from puny mortal to unstoppable undying existence, the outcomes for all realms below the concept realm were universally known and well studied. Though the results of these studies were kept under lock and key to be used as hegemonic inheritances.
Of course, all of this had nothing to do with the likes of the marchen and the sovereigns. They were beings of magic and cosmic law. Their power was even more innate than that of the spirits and oldest fae. Even the weakest and most insubstantial amongst the lesser-marchen possessed at least a few mythic powers and traits. Not to mention a greater-marchen like the tintenklopfer.
One could even argue that the marchen and sovereigns cultivated backwards, starting from the top and then spending the rest of their existences trying to shore up their weaknesses, and make up for their lacking foundations.
In Desmond, case he'd done a lot of 'shoring up' recently. His cultivation making so much progress that he'd finally been able to make the jump from being a greater-marchen to being a sovereign. Albeit, a lesser-sovereign.
Things had been a little touch and go at first. If it wasn't for Monday's help, taking care of him and her hard work, protecting him from the creatures and random ****holes that came out from his closet whenever his powers reached out to the magic of the distorted realms, he likely wouldn't have made it.
Yet make it Desmond did, and the results had been phenomenal.
Consuming thirty-two realms worth of magic and raw materials was enough to change a lot of things for Desmond. For instance he was no longer the tintenklopfer, he had gone from being a mere knocker in the dark, and had gone on to become a keeper of the keys of light and shadow.
His marchen moniker had even changed, being altered from Lord Midnight to King Twilight.
His darkness was darker, his light was brighter. His powers had expanded exponentially. He could now do with just a thought all the things he'd once required spells to do, and could cast spells where others would need long winded, long prepared for, rituals.
By some miracle, nearly having his mind and soul blown apart had led to both becoming much stronger, and he now had an entirely new body. Stronger, faster, and more responsive.
Where before he was merely very resistant to damage and required time and darkness to recover from harm, he was now essentially immortal. His mind and body imperishable. Capable of recovering from any harm so long as there was sufficient magic for him to do so.
When he first woke up, his body was near twelve feet, nine inches, in height. Tall enough that he could be mistaken for one of the shorter gigas or jotunn.
He weighed slightly under a eight hundred and thirty-five tons, which would have had him falling through the floor of his room were it not for all the magical reinforcements he'd placed on the house.
His skin was as dark as a moonless night, and his hair had taken on the brightness and coloration of a nuclear afterglow. Blinding white and luminant enough to leave an average man blind. The whites of his eyes had been replaced with endless darkness, and the irises and pupils had been replaced by two burning, swirling, yellow stars.
Fortunately, gravity manipulation was fairly easy for Desmond. It was also a very handy thing that being a shapeshifter who was relied on energy rather than mass meant being able to become as big or small as one wanted, with all the other cosmetic details being child's play for him to change.
Once he'd somewhat recovered from his incapacitation, Desmond was able to recover his human appearance. He reduced his height to its former six feet, eleven inches. He reduced his weight to something that wouldn't leave small craters on the sidewalks if he went out for a stroll.
Then he adjusted the rest of his features with a mixture of shapeshifting and glamours, so he could go out in public without worrying about looking like the star-child from a surrealistic sci-fi film.
With the negative aspects of his evolution sorted out, Desmond was able to enjoy its positive aspects.
For instance, even without the support of his cultivation and his powers as a sovereign, Desmond's physical body possessed a strength and capacity equivalent to that of a martial practitioner in the beginning of the Concept Realm.
Meaning that even without using magic he could go out and conquer a small country if he wanted, just relying on the capabilities of his body. Flattening castles with a wave of his hand, and wiping out small armies without breaking a sweat.
If his body before was like a castle, his body now was some manner of super dreadnought class space-aged palace. Luxurious and powerful. His affinity for manipulating the elements having reached new heights.
If Desmond had a single real complaint that couldn't just be hand-waved away, it'd be the fact that his transformation seemed to have amplified the luxuriae (lust demon) blood he'd inherited from his mother.
He was supposed to just be a cambion, a half-blooded luxuriae, slightly better looking than he should be but more or less just human. Now however he'd seemed to have inexplicably become a full-fledged incubus. His looks taking on a certain devilish quality, with certain appetites and portions of his anatomy going haywire.
Desmond now had a never-ending supply of 'yang' energy that he quite frankly didn't know what to do with.
He couldn't just let things be, because he'd either literally explode as if his you-know-whats were made of rocket fuel, or he'd go insane and turn into a terrifying beast of some sort.
The only saving grace with that last option was that rape was anathema to him. Meaning that if he did lose his sense of reasoning, he'd most likely just end up killing and eating a bunch of people. Running amok before some kind soul finally came around to put him down, and temporarily seal him away, like countless other undying evils of Nishant. This wasn't a 'good' outcome per se, but it was the 'worst case scenario' that he could live with.
There was a solution though, or at least he hoped there was a solution. He had all the knowledge and experience of the universe and the precursor universes that came before, at his disposal, so he figured that he'd eventually find an actual fix for the issue at some point.
In the meantime, Desmond would have to 'handle things' as best he could, and hope that it wasn't some kind of sexual harassment to send his assistant out on all those tissue runs.
Weekly Power Status
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