Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Twelve

The little beast was talking, he sat perched on one of the last steps into this room, and stared at me, as if this was the most normal thing ever, when for weeks we had been communicating through physical actions alone. "Have you always been able to talk?" I'm sure that shouldn't be the first thing I should ask in a situation like this, but it is all I can think about.

"Yes, I have indeed always been able to talk, sadly you were too weak to be able to hear me, hence the annoying little hand actions I had to do for you to understand me. Though it was nice, I could swear and curse at you and you never knew." I kind of blink at the little beast, not expecting all that sass to be stored in such a small body.

"Wait, let me go back for a second, you were helping me because you wanted to see if I would get the twelve's blessing? What are you going to now that I have? What would you have done if I hadn't?" He just calmly swishes his tail back and forth as he stares at me for a moment, as if judging whether he should tell me the truth or not.

"Of course, I was helping you survive long enough to find out if you got the blessing, humans may have forgotten about the twelve, but spiritual beasts have not, we have long memories unlike your kind. As to what I'll do now that you have their blessing, I suppose you'll have to wait and see, as for what I would have done if you didn't receive, I likely would have killed you for making me baby you this whole time, I'm glad I don't have to now, you make good, dried meat." I was a little frozen in shock, he just said he would have killed me, but now he intends to stay next to me, and for me to just wait to see what he does?

What is to stop him from killing me and taking all the blessings I received, but that same thought reminds of how the spatial bracelet was made so that it would listen only to my command, how the door is only able to open with my blood, how the little beast suspiciously stopped on the second to last step before he touched the floor, was there some sort of trap I didn't know about. "You want these blessings, don't you? But there is some sort of restriction that won't let you, my blood is the key, as a descendant of Nero, so you can't touch any of this without me." He huffs out air and looks away from me, which is probably the best acknowledgment that I am right that I'll get from him.

"You know you could probably come down here if you were my contracted spiritual beast." My words are tentative, probing, I am no prepared for the look of utter disgust he gives me.

"No, I will never be contracted to a human, besides if you tried to form a spiritual contract with me, you'd likely explode, our levels of power differ too much." I raise my hands in surrender and take a few steps away from him, exploding was not something I wanted to do, not when I had finally passed the second common qi level. "You know I was just passing through the forest when I heard you, lecturing that servant who tried to make you enter the forest at night, even though you were so much weaker than him, you ran circles around him, threatening that while he could force you into the forest, you would make enough noise and draw enough blood to make sure whatever beast he wanted to make sure you died under, also got him.

So much determination for someone much weaker than their opponent, though mentally much stronger than him, you made me intrigued then, but when I realized you were a Dagon, I knew I had to keep an eye on you.

It had been so long since they sent someone here to try to get the twelves blessing, let alone someone of your pure blood like I can smell, but that servant showed you almost no respect, and from what I can tell, your own parents sent you here to die, presumably because of your weaker strength, but from what I can tell that was caused because you had reached your cultivation blockage, abnormal for it to be so low sure, but most humans never surpass that level, to have it so low is a blessing, it makes the subsequent cultivation levels easier for you to pass, surely humans know that a blockage happens once in their lives?