Book 1 - Interlude 1 - Fhesiah the Dragon-touched Demoness

Book 1 - Interlude 1 - Fhesiah the Dragon-touched Demoness

Fhesiah the dragon-touched demoness watched Jake as his breathing evened out. It had been four days since she was brought to this world, yet she couldnt get over how fortunate she was to have been bound to Jake. Her mother had forced her [Nascent Soul] into a relic, severing it from her body in a last-stitch effort to save her from a fate worse than death at the hands of a rival sect.

Her mother had divined a future for her that would be full of love, happiness, and most of all: excitement. She would only have to accept the pact when it came, or her Soul be doomed to wander the void. Her soul stuffed into a relic, she had very little concept of that time; millennia likely passed between then and the day Jake bound her. The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

How many hands the relic passed through as people could not figure out the purpose she would never know, but she was certain Jake had no idea what the ritual was. His thoughts seemed to believe he was summoning a familiar from the void, but in actuality he was binding a servant that was already there in the circle. [The Framework] deemed her as such, and it wasnt far from the truth, but she had doubts that it would continue to classify her as a familiar in the future; familiars were meant to be lesser, subservient creatures to the one that bound them. What would happen once they became equal, or her more powerful than him as she inevitably would?

Just who obtained the relic, and why would they give it to someone so weak? A bound demoness is a prize some of the most powerful existences would fight to obtain, let alone one with a race as rare as hers; that was part of the reason her mother had to go through such lengths to save her and obscure what happened to her. Instead, it appeared to Jake she was freely given; a bonus item for joining this Alliance, like his beginner spear-staff, a laughable weapon. These are questions that would have to be answered later, if ever at all: Jake was unable to even contact his patron, for the time being.

Her initial interactions with him were mostly tests. As she danced around while he spoke with her, she was seeing if he demanded some level of respect or decorum. When she lit the mail on fire, she was testing his temper, and finding out what lines she could cross. Jake showed her that he truly felt that they were equals, and unless she did something truly harmful or something that majorly inconvenienced him, he likely would not even bother reprimanding her.

The demoness glanced over at the [Mana Crystal] Jake bought for her. The young mans dedication to self-improvement and devotion to his goals were admirable, yet they were only exceeded by his best trait: his heart. He lacked any guile, and he was hard on himself, but all his efforts and hard work were completely for the purpose of helping others be the best they could be. His desires were merely to help others achieve greatness, but what about himself?

Reality was hard, and such selflessness was rarely rewarded. Instead, it was punished by those that would take and take until nothing was left. The poor fool had worried that he might have summoned a sex demon as a reflection of his soul; yet he was still looking at the beast specialization for his summons, just so that he could bring out the best in his future team he had not yet met.

The idea that he would summon females for servants and enjoy them had not even crossed his mind. He hadnt even imagined that he could probably close off his side of the thought-sharing connection, and instead only use it to communicate when he desired. She felt bad for not trying to let him know, but she was just too used to it now to go back, on top of it being a challenge to communicate this fact.

Because Jake was so weak compared to what she was, her existence was forced to be reduced to the point where she could barely interact with the world, let alone have a proper connection with Jake in order to form the servant pact. She guessed that her previous power would put her at over level fifty as measured by [The Framework], and she was bound to a level one that had never killed before. She had slaughtered her first den full of creatures similar to goblins when she was only eleven years of age.

This framework forced a template on Jakes soul, and pushed him on a certain path to power. In a way, she was quite angry at [The Framework]: thanks to whatever it did to him, he could not enter the path of cultivation, at least not like how she knew. Still, she did not learn the truths of the universe, of their reality for a hundred years for nothing. She would bend the system to her will, and she would get it to help him do something that at least resembled cultivation: forming a proper mana core.

Being a cultivator, Fhesiah had originally started the path of cultivation by clearing out her meridians or channels, and awakening her [Dantian], her spiritual sea of heavenly energy. Her people would call this level of cultivation as the [Qi Condensation Realm]. She guessed that upon completion of this, [The Framework] would judge such a person as level one. They would then grow their [Dantian], gaining levels as their sea of heavenly energy grew in size.

The next stage, what [The Framework] deemed level ten, would be [Foundation Establishment] to cultivators, where the sea of heavenly energy would evolve into a metaphysical [Spiritual Temple] that she would build, containing her [Spiritual Sea]. She would refine and improve her body using the heavenly energy, which was a part of this metaphysical temple, as well. [Foundation Establishment] would end at level 25, where they would form their [Cultivator Core] out of their [Spiritual Temple] and [Spiritual Sea], as well as their knowledge of heavenly truths, or Daos.

They would then grow their [Cultivator Core] once more with heavenly energy, leveling until reaching the peak, which would be level 50 according to [The Framework]. It was at this point that she would evolve the [Cultivator Core] once more, with her soul enshrined in it instead of her body, creating a [Nascent Soul]. With that, even with her body destroyed, she could continue to live, like she had done previously; so long as her soul was not destroyed. Thanks to this, she could use heavenly energy, as well as the knowledge provided by her mother, to recreate her original body and start over once more. There were stages beyond even this, her mother and father being well over what [The Framework] considered level one hundred. Yet that was not enough to defeat the rival sect.

Right now, she was recreating her original body, and the meridians, or channels. Once completed, she will recreate her [Dantian], and she would then become a level 1 Cultivator, according to [The Framework]. Until then, her body would slowly gain corporeality and grow in size. She smirked; she couldnt wait to play around with Jake. If Jake waited longer before he summoned her at a higher level, she wouldnt have been limited as much, and maybe would have been able to create her body nearly right away.

The demoness was still glad that Jake summoned her when he did, at level one, though: now she could put him on the right path. If Jake summoned temporary beasts and joined a party like he planned, he would be at the whims and mercy of their capabilities, and just have to hope for the best that they were as competent or half as talented as him, and that they had his best interests in mind. No, she had a much better and exciting idea. She would make sure he summoned humanoids of the permanent type, and women so that he could have both a party he could trust and wont take advantage of him, but also the number of wives an inevitably powerful man should have.

After all, her mother had many sister-wives, and this is normal among the powerful in the Demon Realm, and among cultivators. Fhesiah also knew that Jake yearned for family but had no relatives to speak of. He would need to start a family from scratch, and what better way than by having many children? She knew Jake had both the talent and the drive to become one of the best summoners in existence, and she would be there to make sure he made it there, without him being taken advantage of. She would also make sure he would become a little more interesting.