The Astral soul system-Chapter 105: Flashback/Generous Zen

"But what?"

Zen answered.

"But someone’s coming to take my place soon"

"What?"

Sable tried shaking Zen to get him to pay attention to her but he still seemed unbothered.

"What’s with all the mystery. Tell me who’s coming after you. Who’s going to.... take your place. Someone with a shape shifting ability?"

Zen shook his head.

"Not an ability,at least not now. All you should know for know is that whoever it is will be more me than you realize. At the same time,i probably won’t be around"

Hearing that, Sable’s hands that were on his shoulders clenched unconsciously.

"So you want me to protect you? Or should I just kill this freak when he gets here?"

"No"

"But you just said he wants to -"

"I know. But if you kill him, you might kill me too"

Sable didn’t know what to say to that. Was he being threatened? If so,why wouldn’t he tell her what was going on.

"I want you to help him"

Sable’s confusion immediately rose from fifty to ten thousand percent. What was Zen talking about?

She suddenly put the back of her hand on his neck and felt him for a few seconds.

"Are you sure we BOTH don’t need to go to the infirmary?"

"Yes, I’m sure. Now listen,i need you to get somethings for me"

"A functioning brain?"

"No. I could get one of those myself if necessary "

Sable rolled her eyes and listened.

"I’ll need you to keep an eye on my roommates. Maximilian has been keeping a close eye on me so far,so he should know the minute its here"

"What?"

"A package for me"

Zen described the package and what he needed her to get, including how to open the box.

"Do you have that?"

"Yep, but even if I do, what’s the use of this stuff?"

"I’m getting to that" Zen answered before telling her the plan.

Sable was quiet for a few seconds before asking what was on her mind.

"Does that even count as a plan? I feel like ninety percent of this is me winging it, and I have no idea how helping this guy is going to bring you back. More importantly,it’s all guesses. What if something doesn’t go the way you except and it ruins everything, and you keep saying you won’t be there, so what’ll i do "

"You’ll do fine"

".... This isn’t certain, right? You’re not completely sure you’re going to disappear?"

"You’re right, I’m not, but I have a feeling and i don’t want to take the chance"

Sable seemed comforted by the fact and patted his shoulder a few times

"Then don’t disappear. Okay?"

*******************

Jade got out of bed and stretched a bit. She had had another nightmare and ended up getting little sleep, but it was at least better than yesterday.

She looked around and noticed that Zaria and Diane were already gone, they probably didn’t wake her up because of her sleep problem.

It was already almost midday, but luckily she didn’t have to go to school today.

She quickly freshened up and and was about to leave when she suddenly got a call from Zaria.

She picked up the phone and immediately heard her roommates voice from the other side

"Morning sleepyhead"

"Good morning"

"What’s up?" Jade asked

"Remember that girl you mentioned yesterday,the one that helped you with the puzzle"

Jade nodded slowly.

"We checked. There’s no one matching her description in the school"

"...."

Zaria sighed.

"Don’t be upset, it’s not your fault. Hey, come to the boys’ room. There’s something interested here"

Jade nodded and terminated the call before heading towards Zen’s room.

Once she was at the door, she called the others and they opened the door from the inside, letting her in.

She walked in and saw everyone else here. Looking at Maximilian and Xavier, She asked

"Are you two okay?"

Maximilian gave her a thumbs up and Xavier waved his arms around to show that they were fine.

"What happened?"

Maximilian pointed to two boxes they found under Zen’s bed while looking for clues .

"We found these under his bed. On of them is addressed to you so we decided to wait for you before we open it.

Jade looked at the boxes and indeed one of them had her name on it.

"Zen left this?"

"Looks like it"

Xavier looked like he had exhausted all his patience as he sprinted for his box excitedly.

"Finally! I have a feeling i know what this is"

Maximilian wanted to warn him to be careful but Xavier had already ripped the top right off in his excitement.

He excitedly pulled out what was inside.

He held the below elbow length gauntlets in his hands. They were both identical, releasing a dark metalic sheen along its rough metal exterior. Its body was covered in fur and spikes resembling claws and teeth, and when clenched the fists resembled wolf heads. At the back of the palms at the beginning of each finger,a faint crack was present from where a golden light escaped.

"Woah! "

Xavier quickly tried them on and found that the inside was surprisingly comfortable considering its gruesome design.

He suddenly noticed that there was a note on the inside. Careful not to destroy it, Xavier picked it up and read the first line

"Earth-Fang tremor gauntlets"

"Features:retractable claws"

Xavier looked at the gauntlets he was wearing and read the instructions, releasing the menacing wolf like claws from his fingertips.

"Active skills: Quake,rock rush, Tremor"

[Quake (crowd control skill: Slam both fists into the ground and trigger a small earthquake in a distance of ten to thirty meters all around you. Cooldown: thirty minutes]

[Rock rush. Release spikes of rock and launch them in the direction of your opponent by striking the ground anywhere and aiming for your target. Cooldown: thirty seconds]

[Tremor: An oscillating attack. Good for drilling. Max duration: Ten minutes. Cooldown (max): Five minutes]

Xavier read out the description of the skills for for everyone to hear and tried throwing a few punches, looking very satisfied with his new gear.

The others were reasonably impressed. Three active skills, plus an additional feature which was basically a secret weapon. Whoever made this was clearly a master.

"Man, I should have gotten Zen to get gear for me ages ago. It feels like my birthday came early this year"

Jade looked at Xavier show off his gear and looked at her box with eagerness, opening it gently in contrast to Xavier’s aggressive method.

As soon as the lid opened, visible cold air escaped like someone had just opened a freezer. The inside of the box was extremely cold and covered in bits of ice.

Putting in her hand, Jade was suprised when she felt something like fur and clothing.

Pulling it out Jade and everyone else saw exactly what it was and were even more shocked.

It was a blue, green and white hooded coat. It extended almost to the feet and was almost completely white with a design resembling blue claw marks extending from the shoulders and wrists. Bits of green resembling vines stretched around wrapping the entire coat, giving at some sense of camouflage despite the bright colors. It’s collar and upper body area resembled that of a winter coat with some fur, and the bottom made it look almost a bit gothic in style. At the back was a huge symbol of a snowflake.

Jade herself was skeptical. Wasn’t the point of armor to protect someone. What could a fur coat do?.

Behind her however, Maximilian, Zaria, Xavier and even the usually serious Diane looked shook.

Zaria touched the coat and immediately withdrew her hand when she felt the power of a beast crystal flowing through it.

"Impossible" she muttered , looking horrified.

Jade and Neo only now noticed their friends’ expressions and asked them what was wrong.

Maximilian forced himself to shake the incredulous look off his face and asked Jade if he could touch it.

Jade accepted without thinking much and handed it to him.

Max slowly felt up the coat and realized that other than some bits near the wrist and sides that seemed purely ornamental,there was almost no metal in the outfit.

Maximilian gulped slightly as he stopped.

Diane closed her eyes and touched it before muttering.

"I can feel it. The spirit of a beast,its a gorilla, and something else "

At the mention of the word gorilla,Jade was reminded of that enormous behemoth, and the even more imposing and unstoppable figure of silver.

’Zen used that crystal for me’

Neo had gotten tired with his friends acting strange and eventually asked what was going on.

Maximilian sighed and decided to answer.

"The first problem is,to extract beast energy and bind it to metals,it needs to be melted down. Somehow whoever created this managed to bond a piece of clothing with beast energy. Sure, most people have imitated this by forging thin armour and binding them with clothes or using abilities to make it appear as such and even those were rare, but the fact remained,it couldn’t be done"

"So? Maybe Zen did that"

Maximilian shook his head and continued

"When the meteor that brought aether arrived,it also brought dozens of new minerals and metals, metals which are nowadays mixed with beast crystals to form our gear. People tried but regardless of the strength of the core or metal, regular metals broke down when introduced to pure beast energy. It wasn’t a matter of the strength of the materials, something about how the old and new minerals were created were different, allowing the new ones to bond with beast cores,where the old ones couldn’t. Materials from earth and beast energy just didn’t work together, including clothes. This armor is made almost completely of fabric, the metal on it seems decorative at best. And in thousands of years, humans haven’t discovered any new form of fabric, even on alien planets, meaning..."

Neo suddenly realized why they were all so shocked. Something like this simply wasn’t meant to exist. There might be something that looks like it out there, but it was possibly the only one in existence .

Jade on the other hand was still looking blankly. She honestly didn’t understand what was going on, but she understood that it was probably strong and rare.

"Jade, put it on" Maximilian urged,eager to see what would happen.

Jade nodded and put on the jacket and started putting in the buttons.

The moment the last button was in place,Jade suddenly felt a chill go down her spine as the buttons all faintly glowed. Her mouth unconsciously opened and she let out a cold breath of air that was visible and went on for a few feet before disappearing.

Jade looked at her hands and slowly moved them around. Something felt... different.

"Okay, how do we test it?"

"How about you carry me?" Zaria suggested.

Jade agreed and easily lifted her roommate above her head.

Diane shook her head disapprovingly.

"This doesn’t prove anything. She was strong enough to do that already"

"Really?"

"She’s an archer. It takes an incredible amount of strength to pull a bow... That’s actually a good idea. Try using your bow and see how easy it is "

Jade nodded. Luckily she took her trusty bow with her everywhere.

"Careful."

"I know what I’m-"

*Snap!*

Jade looked at the broken bow in her hand in shock. She had barely used quarter of the strength she usually used to pull it.

Noticing the shocked look on Jade’s face, Zaria tried comforting her, realizing the bow was probably important to her.

"Don’t worry. We’ll get you a new one. It should probably be a compound bow though,you’d probably destroy anything made of wood"

"Looks like it actually gives stats. How do you feel in there?"

Maximilian asked.

"Cold.... but nice. It’s comfortable in here"

Jade pulled on the collar slightly and found it actually extended. She pulled it more until it went over her head, revealing it doubled as a hood.

As soon as she did,her entire aura of frost and even the cold air surrounding her disappeared. It seemed she had discovered a hidden function.

Diane went to the box to find the note but was surprised by what she saw.

"Uh... guys? There’s more stuff in here"

This time, even Jade was suprised. Was Zen really taking such good care of her? For what?

Diane brought out the next item and this one was surprisingly mainstream. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

A short sword,or perhaps a long dagger? It had an elegant white and blue hilt which betrayed its frosty nature. The short blade was about twelve inches long and was a mixture of a dull blue and silver.

This one must have been from the ice tiger Beatrix killed.

"It’s like I’m holding a popsicle. The sheath is normal, but the sword...I can feel the temperature from where I’m holding it

Zaria nodded

"It makes sense. It’s not uncommon for archers to have small backup weapons on them, just incase they run out of arrows and need to defend themselves "

She handed it to Jade who immediately understood what she meant. After a little experimentation, they found a hidden scabbard sewn into the coat that allowed her to keep the short sword without hindering her movement.

Finally in the box was a pair of black shoes and unlike the rest of her gear,it didn’t have any cold properties, they even seemed somewhat normal.

Jade put them on and remarked at how firm they were, but other than that,there was nothing.

It was now time to check the note Zen left.