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Air from nowhere!
It just keeps pouring into the third sky that is forming between the regular atmosphere and the more mystical realm beyond. Which now that I’m looking at it, is even stranger?
Like, I’m a flat continent chilling at the bottom half of a bubble of space surrounded by non-existence. In theory, what is above should be a dome. It isn’t, though.
Instead, it almost seems to wrap. After all, the Sun sets and then travels around the underside of the realm. Except you couldn’t see the Sun from the underside and this wouldn’t explain the shape of the atmosphere topside. Guess this is those magical physics I was told to expect. A planet will appear to have a sun rotating around the sky because that is what’s expected.
Ahhhhh
That feels much better! All the cracks in space sealed up with the completion of the third sky. I guess they’re acting as a barrier? Though now I’m left with more than enough people.
And yep, they’re stable. Sat back and watched ten or so generations pass. Now everyone is kind of homogenized? Even those isolated clans in the forest got absorbed. There had been a few with animal features, but they sank into humanity. Though the occasional person will be born with animal traits.
And I’m not even sure how connected those two things are! People pop up with traits of animals that I hadn’t seen, so I have to assume the human bloodline is quite the mutt. Anything and everything could be mixed in there.
This proved interesting to watch and so before I knew it, they’d been on me for a few hundred generations and I’d accidentally learned their language. My language. Because when they first came through, most groups spoke their own. Now enough time has passed it all got mixed together and diverged again. Though more on the side of accents than multiple languages.
More strange is that they clearly know of writing. Their myths from before arriving here make explicit references to it being a thing for some. They simply don’t have a written form for This language, and while they managed to settle on one language. The general population didn’t manage to settle on how to write it.
Which is weird and not how I think such things are supposed to work? Then again, I don’t exactly remember the details.
More the shame, none of them seem to have any knowledge of the more mystical side of things. Which I’ll refer to as cultivation, as that feels right. Thankfully, there are myths about that kind of thing as well. Though the source makes me paranoid.
Seems it wasn’t just the planes visibly being strip-mined of resources that outsiders had invaded. There were more than enough stories of stronger than human beings popping up in their old worlds. Some of whom even directly claimed to be from another world.
Though I guess I should take it all with a grain of salt. Not like I knew their language when they first came through. Who knows how the stories have changed and been translated!
Maybe I should try and poke them? They’ve settled into clans and gotten a little insular. I don’t even blame them! They have wildlife 2.0 to deal with. Sure, more critters are normal than not, but coming across even one double size wolf tends to not end in your favor.
Now, what do I have saved up that might help? Hmm, a few bits and bobs. Nothing specific? I guess I just watch and wait for an opportunity.
Heh, land of a thousand lakes. For some reason, likely a reference from my past life, I find that phrase funny. Though it isn’t wrong to call my land that, at least for the moment. Even after all this time, crater lakes cover the world. Marks of tribulation that likely saved me.
And yep, in the background my people form bigger groups, sometimes breaking apart again. Oh, wait! That, kingdom? No, I’ll call it a tribe.
That tribe is being led by a lineage that often has avian activism. Nothing specific, just feathers in their hair. Oh, and what gained them their position, a bird’s-eye view, which makes them some of the best long-distance archers in the entire world.
Anyway, I’ve got an eclectic collection of powerful non-Primordial avian parts. Let’s see what they do with some blood?
A spirit vein wraps around a blood geode. Not from a specific bird, but rather the dribs and drabs of any number of powerful avian spirit beasts who had bled on the ground. This stone contains about a small pond’s worth of the stuff. Though calling it a geode wasn’t just a turn of phrase.
While whatever strange process causes these things to be preserved, it isn’t always perfect, especially when the contents are so mixed. Anyway, there are blood crystals. Don’t know what good they are, but that’s not my problem, anyway. I’ll let the bird tribe figure that out.
Just toss the geode at the surface near them and see the fireworks!
There are no actual fireworks. A shame. However, the explosion of dirt into the sky when the blood geode stops phasing through the ground because of my spirit vein, and starts taking up actual space. Not that I had realized that was happening, but whatever, it worked! They noticed the stone and are examining it.
Even better, someone from the tribe’s ruling lineage is there and can sense something! They’re going to break it open!
Which, uh, takes longer than not. I’ll just consider that a good thing as the one guy was planning to keep it to himself. Now all those ruling the tribe know about it. Not sure why I thought it would be quick when they don’t have metal tools, but after a few decades, they’re about to crack it.
Heh, sploosh! The blood geode was sticking up out of the ground and so they came at it from the side, which means they tunneled in from the side and let out a rush of blood. Not too much, but enough that I get to see what happens when both regular people and those showing bird features get submerged in the stuff.
And what that is, is a little disturbing. Those already with bird features, see those features extend. Rough skin on the arms and legs becomes even more like a bird. Fingernails go even more talon-like. Hair turns entirely to feathers. Stuff like that.
Those without bird features already face one of three outcomes. Nothing. The growth of bird-like features. Or the worst option. Their bloodline is obviously incompatible, causing them to mutate away from avian, but unable to truly awaken whatever their bloodline favored. Those last ones didn’t survive long.
And while all that is fun and games, the more important thing is that those bird-featured tribal leaders see it as important and sacred. Which, admittedly, means they are unlikely to experiment all that much with it. However, they know it is blood and seem to be turning their eyes towards the avian spirit beasts.
Which I just realized I’ve started to call spirit beasts. I’m going to keep that up. Anyway, they won’t need to look far for them. It seems that they can detect the blood from quite a distance and any bird with even a spark of Qi is now heading toward the opened geode.
Oh, hmm, maybe that wasn’t the best idea? The, uh, the birds won. It took them decades, during which the tribe flourished. The ruling lineage gains a natural advantage over those nearby, each being baptized in the blood upon reaching what they consider adulthood. Which was a little young for my taste, but they also die around 50 on average.
And that average took a nosedive as they worked to protect the sacred blood. Right up until a swift hummingbird managed to pierce through their defenses and dive into the pool.
It emerged the size of a wolf with three pairs of wings and talons made of the blood crystal.
That day the tribe died, with only those on the edges of their territory escaping. The forest they lived in soon became a forbidden zone for all the nearby clans.
It seems I need to go back to the drawing board on that one. Or at least, not give away such large reserves of blood. Because the birds rule those lands now and I can’t see them not spreading out.
I wonder what other methods I could use to jumpstart a tribe towards advancement? They have myths of it. Some of them show signs of it through their animal features and abnormal abilities. I mean, there are even beasts who are clearly taking the first steps, that of forging their bodies.
Though maybe that’s the key? The bird tribe didn’t actually improve. They simply had their base statistics boosted. Likely advantageous in the long run, but only if they have some path towards improvement. Maybe what happened with the birds isn’t the worst and I need to do more of the same, if on a smaller scale?