Free As A Bird [A RWBY Re-do Isekai]

Caged Soul

HELLO LADDIES AND LUDDITES! Time for a little bit of fetus living (weird, I know). As always, please leave comments for what ya'll want to see in the future and how I can do ya'll better. Without further adieu, let's hop right in.

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Screams. All I could hear were screams. 'Wait,' I thought with a shudder, 'hear? Fetuses don't have...earsss...'

I gasp as my eyes wretch themselves open and see a crimson sky set alight by high stoked fires and smoke. I'm laying on the ground, my body in too much pain to move. Then I hear it. A deep voice chanting hymns that reverberate through my ears and down my spine. I grit my teeth and shot up from my prone position. I let out a horrified gasp. Mountains of corpses and flesh dyed red surrounded me. Screams seemed to echo from the dead as their fear took hold even after death. In front of me was the largest mountain, one that continued to climb as I trailed my shaking gaze up to its peak. There I saw him.  The chanting in my ears grew louder as, from what I recognize now, several cultivation methods imprinted themselves on my mind. Ways to climb to the top of that mountain. 

I was screaming at this point, the knowledge slowly sealing itself after it overwhelmed me. However, my horror wasn't done. I fell to my knees, crying with my eyes open. He looked upon me and smiled. I was terrified as the last bit of knowledge was being sealed away. I thought I would never forget, I HOPED I would FORGET. I, with the last gasp at the last piece of knowledge being sealed, spoke: "You can't be me..."

------

I slowly came to. I couldn't hear, see, or feel. I tried to move, but any kind of movement was sluggish. 'Oh,' I thought as I relaxed into whatever the hell was keeping me afloat. 'So I'm finally on Remnant.' I began to feel giddy, being in a world where I found my childhood. I wondered if the old man's inheritance would come through -the last thing I remember before being here was him placing his hand on my head. 'That stupid grandpa said he'd give me an inheritance, but he didn't give me squat -the stingy bastard.' Right as I was thinking that, knowledge came pouring out of god-knows-where and began to fill my tiny infantile mind.

-Soaring Sage Soul-

"The soul is a bird song that echoes who we are and foretells what we have yet to become. Your soul cannot lead you astray, as it is the CORE of who we are. Fly free with your soul."

***

-Find your soul

-Strengthen your soul by rotating it gently throughout your body

-Form a Vessel for your golden core with your soul

My still forming heart pulsed with excitement. I was going to be using Qi alongside Aura in REMNANT OF ALL PLACES! 'OPness, here I come!' I mentally smirked. While I could ponder my future plans for the unsuspecting broken world, I understood that it had to wait until I saw my situation outside of my mother's belly. 'Speaking of which, I wonder if I'll look the same.' I mentally shrugged. It didn't matter, I was here with a new clean slate and was ready to ROCK! I slowly relaxed. I remembered that cultivation required a calm heart and a clear mind to work -not that I was cultivating yet, but it never hurt to practice. I sat back, figuratively, and began to quiet my mind. Normally this would take a while, with how messy everyday lives are and how inexperienced most people are with meditation, but, with my experience with traditional yoga (not the soccer mom yoga, ugh) and the mind of an infant, it didn't take long to clear my head. Then I heard a soft chirping. It was...pained? I looked inward with my eyes(?) and felt, rather than saw, my souls. One appeared as a red bird imprisoned in a golden cage and the other was cloaked in a red hue. The only information I could gather about the latter was that it reeked of blood. It appeared to be dormant, so I looked toward the former instead. The bird had dull red feathers and was chained to the contrastingly bright golden cage. 'That's kinda fucked...' I was still kinda off-put by the presence of two souls, but the blood-reeking thing retreated to the smallest corner of...wherever I was seeing this. It seemed though, in all honesty, that the bird was in pain and helpless. So, I did the only thing I could do: I began to look for a way to free the damn dinosaur descendent. I couldn't interact with the cage, so I began accumulating Qi through my *breath. While this Qi wouldn't be used to further my cultivation, I figured out that Qi and my soul were able to interact with each other. I didn't really have a clue for what I should've been doing -there was no door or latch on the cage. But as the bird's chirps became quieter, I was reminded of something. The pup I failed to save was overlapping its image with the bird. Something overcame me and I began to see red -I moved faster to try and save the damn avian, pushing Qi to the cage faster and faster. As the cage began to crack, I heard chanting coming from the soul in the depths of my mind. It responded to my will and paced itself fast -matching my every breath with its ancient tongue. As the bird's eyes began to glaze over, the cage shattered. Its pieces floated in the space with nowhere to go and the bird perked up. By now the chanting had died, but I stilled pushed Qi to the little bird. Qi was found to weave through all life, so I figured that a little bit of Qi would revitalize the avian. 'Thank the stars I was right,' I thought to myself as I watched the colors of the bird become brighter and brighter. I suddenly noticed something, however, as the bird perked up from its resting place. 'It's a...Cardinal?' The former mascot of my high school looked around once I stopped sending it Qi. With a glance directly at me, it began to fly. It was in slow motion at first, as if it was a bird in a Nature documentary. Then, the second soul surged out toward it, merged with it, and charged at me like a freight train. Before I could mentally scream in pain, I heard words -not unlike the ancient hymns I remembered bits and pieces of during my (rage-induced) healing- flow over my ears:

"For it is in slaying gods that we become gods ourselves. Through this taboo act, we become a paragon of bloodshed and war to raze all, finite in mercy and unshackled from death. You freed us, so, by our strength, fight alongside thee."

I shuddered at the myriad of voices that spoke together. It sounded exactly like a part of what the chant was saying during my cycling of Qi. My confusion quickly gave way to child-like glee as I had realized that I unwittingly completed two of the three steps. I understood, however, that the more I cycle my aura at this point, the stronger it'll be. I mentally sigh and bite down a sob. 

'It's time to grind...Though, I need to also build the Golden Core Vessel while I'm at it.'

A Golden Core was used by cultivators as a storage unit for the Qi they would gather from their surroundings, as a refinery to distill the Qi into different qualities to be used for various purposes, and as a central hub for Qi after it circulates throughout the body. While it is beneficial to have this -and you HAVE to have this to be a cultivator (according to the old geezer's soul formula)- it takes time to form. I looked at the golden cage pieces around me and smirked. 'I could use this to frame the vessel, can't I?' After that, I'll condense some aura like I would Qi for the Golden Core and fill out the frame. Should be fine since aura recharges, right?'

So with that, I dutifully counted the days till my birth, silently screaming in my head from boredom and strengthening my Golden Core Vessel. Thankfully, the little cardinal flying around managed to be helpful and made the frame alongside my efforts. I was awarded by my efforts with another formula, this time for the body:

-Ancient Asura Body-

"They can certainly TRY to kill you, but who can hope to take your head when they can't even cut your skin? When your heart can't be pierced with the sharpest of spears wielded by Gods? Allow them to try to fight you; indulge the imagination of children who try to carry the mountain. They will hopefully know better one day."

***

-Temper your organs with Violent War Qi

-Temper your bones with Violent War Qi

-Temper your skin with Violent War Qi

-Temper your Muscles with Violent War Qi

I couldn't really do anything but organs without risk to my body -every other part of my body would be changing drastically in the years of my growth. 'Still,' I thought to myself in amusement, 'what an overbearing technique.' I mused over how things would be after I was out of the womb. I mentally shook my head -it was time to grind.

'Remnant, here I COME!'

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*Breath sometimes refers to Qi itself, but also refers to the individual's ability to move Qi around their body and in/out of it

Man, I'm just really teasing ya'll huh? Still, I feel this is important -while our character WILL be OP, I want to show what work went into him becoming strong. That, with his struggles and background, should make his OPness comfortable for those of ya'll that want an MC that gets to struggle. Anyways, I'm prolly gonna see what the poll says by the time I post the next chapter -just so I can see if ya'll want a system or not. I'm prolly gonna lean to no if there ain't any votes; it just makes it easier to enjoy the story if I tell you what abilities he gets through hard work (and keep my pages clear of cluttery numbers). Anyways, till next time. Ciao~