Chapter 9: Chapter 9 - Unexpected Gifts

“Flying around?” Rein repeated, still puzzled.

“Your sister asked me to take her for a flight,” the whale’s voice echoed in his mind. “I agreed, at a price.”

“A price? Don’t tell me...” Rein groaned.

“Yes. Her pneuma. Worry not, I’m only absorbing a tiny amount. Far less than what I’m passively receiving from you,” the whale replied. “And with her full consent, of course.”

Rein sighed. Flying through the air like that was exactly the kind of thing Morin would find fun. Apparently fun enough to pay for with her own pneuma. He remembered how she’d been fast asleep earlier when they were first carried by the whale’s wind. She hadn’t experienced that moment of weightless drift into the whale’s body. Now, watching her bright face as she soared and spun, Rein realized how much she must have wanted to feel that freedom. Maybe, after all the chaos they'd just endured, it was worth the price.

Still...

“You really are a sly one,” Rein muttered. “Pricing everything.”

“Naturally,” the whale replied. “Everything in the universe is transactional. Even joy.”

There was a pause before the whale added, “Besides, I threw in a complimentary item. A healing ointment. Her skin was quite badly burned, you see. Though I must say, I’m impressed her clothes were entirely unharmed. I have also given her fruits to recover and rehydrate, to replenish the blood she lost. She seemed to have taken a liking to their bland taste. Or... maybe she was just that hungry.”

“So she really did get burned,” Rein muttered. “Thankfully, our clothes are made from ousia-soaked materials. They’re incredibly tough. Your stomach acid isn’t ordinary magma after all. Even if she knows how to coat herself in pneuma, the gap in strength between you two is far too wide. As powerful as you are, I’m guessing you’ve already opened all your pneuma gates, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” the whale replied. “All four chambers of my heart are open.”

“I thought so.” Rein exhaled through his nose. Compared to that, Morin had only opened her second gate—the second chamber, as the whale would call it.

Still, something the whale said earlier kept gnawing at him.

“You’re wrong, by the way,” Rein added softly, his gaze lingering on Morin as she laughed and twirled in the air. “Not everything is transactional. Not everything can be bought.”

The whale didn’t answer right away. Its silence stretched for a moment, as if weighing Rein’s words.

“…That may be so,” it finally said.

Rein nodded faintly, but his curiosity soon shifted. “By the way, what’s that golden thing she’s riding on?”

“One of the serpent’s scales,” the whale replied. “It broke off during our fight. I must have swallowed it along with you.”

“A scale from the golden serpent?!” Rein exclaimed, his voice shooting up.

Rein wasn’t an expert in appraising the worth of rare items, but even he knew that a body part from a creature as legendary as the golden serpent had to be worth more than his own life.

“Yes,” the whale replied, pausing before continuing, “If it amazes you that much, you may keep it.”

The words rang in Rein’s ears like a sudden chime, clear, surreal, and almost too good to be true. For a moment, he couldn’t even process what he’d heard.

“What do you mean I can have it?” he asked, his voice filled with disbelief.

“The serpent’s scale. You may keep it,” the whale repeated, calm and firm.

“I don’t even know how valuable that thing is,” Rein said. “What could I possibly offer in return?”

“Nothing,” the whale replied. “You both assisted me against the serpent, and for that, I owe you. Besides, as the host of this journey, I should have provided a more comfortable ride. Consider the scale a form of compensation. As for me, I have no use for the body part of another creature, especially one with no pneuma left in it, being cut off from the source. Even for collecting purposes, which I admit I enjoy… that particular item holds no appeal. I simply don’t like having it.”

“For free?” Rein repeated slowly. “No tricks? No hidden cost? You can’t take it back later.”

“You have my word. Did those words not come from your own mouth just moments ago, that not everything is transactional?” the whale replied.

Rein let out a soft chuckle, despite the soreness wracking his body. “Then I’ll take it wholeheartedly. You have no idea how much that one gesture changed my view of you.”

The whale answered only with a deep, amused rumble.

And yet it was true. Something in Rein had shifted. Perhaps it was the shared ordeal they had survived together, a bond forged in danger, like the phenomenon some mortals referred to in their psychological studies: the hanging bridge effect. Or perhaps it was simply the weight of such a generous gift. Either way, he found himself trusting the whale a little more now. Maybe not completely, but enough to feel that they weren’t just cargo inside its belly.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Still, owning a scale from the golden serpent was an incredible starting point. For him, for Morin, for whatever came next. The hard part would be figuring out how best to use it once they reached their destination. Selling it for starting funds seemed like the most realistic option… but he had a feeling something like that could be useful in more ways than one.

“Also,” Rein added, shifting slightly with a groan, “thanks for healing Morin’s injuries. You mentioned giving her a healing ointment, right? What was it? And, uh… can I have some too? Because I’m pretty sure I need it more than she does.”

He was still lying on the floor, his head resting awkwardly on a rock he’d made into a makeshift pillow. Every inch of his body still throbbed like a single bruise. The pain hadn’t gone anywhere, it just waited quietly, humming under his skin.

“It is called honey,” the whale replied. “It can be eaten or applied directly to wounds. A gift from someone in the Overworld. A secretion produced by insects called Bees, cultivated in an ousia-rich environment. Fascinating creatures, truly. This honey remains eternally fresh and is capable of healing nearly any injury.”

That bit of information lit a spark in Rein’s mind. Just one more thing to remind him of how little he truly knew. How vast and wondrous the worlds outside Rigel really were.

Back home, they relied on plants to treat injuries, though they became obsolete as they ascended, besides, getting hit by an energy blast point black usually meant instant death. What's the point of healing in that? Anyway, if it could be healed, there were different flora for different ailments. Some for burns, others for cuts or inflammation. But none—absolutely none—boasted the ability to heal almost any injury. And even then, those plants lost potency quickly. The moment they were uprooted or severed from their source, their ability to absorb ousia dwindled, often rendering them useless within hours or days.

But honey? Something that remained eternally fresh? And it came from insects instead of plants? Not to mention creatures from a lower world? Rein could hardly believe it.

“Can I have some of that?” he asked, eyes lighting up. “You can take more of my pneuma if that’s the price.”

“I could,” the whale said, pausing before continuing, “but I have a better idea. Earlier, I noticed you have not yet learned even the fundamentals of coating your body with pneuma. And seeing you barely able to move right now, I assume you’re not proficient in healing yourself with it either?”

“I can use it to heal, but only very slowly,” Rein admitted, feeling the weight of his limitations. “I’ve only opened my first pneuma gate, and I’m still far from reaching the second.”

“I see,” the whale said. “That will become a significant problem for you, especially in the place you’re headed. I cannot teach you how to unlock the second chamber of your heart, nor how to coat yourself with pneuma for defense. These things did not come to me through learning; they occurred naturally. I never had to shield myself with pneuma. It's redundant. Any damage I take, I can regenerate faster than it harms me.”

The way the whale said it so plainly, Rein almost forgot how absurd it sounded. Unlocking all the pneuma gates naturally? Regenerating damage without defense? It was like listening to someone casually describe how they breathed underwater or moved mountains.

“But I can teach you how to heal faster,” the whale added. “Given the size of my body, I’m frequently struck by attacks. The sheer speed at which I travel causes parts of me to disintegrate, so I had to learn how to regenerate at a rate faster than destruction.”

“That’s… generous of you,” Rein replied, blinking through the exhaustion. “And of course, I’d accept knowledge like that in a heartbeat, especially from a creature as powerful as you. But… are you really offering this for free?”

“Yes,” the whale answered without hesitation. “I will admit, I’m growing fond of you both. Perhaps because you’ve been my longest passengers. In all that time, I’ve come to know you more than any other creature I’ve met. Even more than my own creator. Second only to knowing myself.”

There was a pause.

“That makes you… what? Allies? Companions?”

“Friends,” Rein said, cutting in gently.

The whale echoed the word like a new discovery. “Friends… Yes. That is a good word for it.”

Rein’s heart skipped a beat at the thought. A mythical being like the Million Whale calling him friend, that was… something. Comforting, in a strange way. And maybe, just maybe, it was something he could brag about someday. Though of course, he’d never say that part out loud.

“And as your friend, I do not wish for you to die,” the whale said. “Your sister, I believe, can manage on her own. But you? Not yet. And protecting the both of you would be beyond her current strength.”

“Fair,” Rein said with a soft chuckle, though his thoughts drifted back to the events earlier. The pain, the fire, Morin carrying him, shielding him, doing everything she could to keep him alive. And yet now she was up there, spinning joyfully through the air atop that golden scale, her laughter echoing like nothing had ever gone wrong. It grounded him.

“I assume you’re at least capable of consciously directing your pneuma through your body,” the whale continued. “You demonstrated it earlier, enhancing your legs, your arms.”

“Yes,” Rein confirmed.

“Then this will be simpler than I thought. Tell me, how were you taught to heal yourself in your realm?”

“I know enough to gather pneuma at the site of an injury and let it gradually heal over time,” Rein said. “I also know certain plants that can help accelerate healing for specific wounds.”

“That’s it?” the whale replied, a note of puzzlement in its voice.

“Yes? Is there… more to it?” Rein asked, now unsure.

He had studied every cultivation book available to him at his current level, especially the ones on healing. Many were written by the highest-ranking Celestials. And while he knew there were more advanced techniques in the higher tiers of pneuma mastery, healing was always treated as something simple, basic. It was never treated as something important, like something in the background, overshadowed by the endless search for power. Once one’s pneuma regeneration increased, healing was supposed to scale with it. At least, that’s what they had all been taught.

“What about offensive techniques?” the whale asked. “What have you learned for combat?”

Rein opened his mouth to answer, but Morin beat him to it.

“Combining pneuma and ousia to form energy blasts,” she said quickly.

“That’s all?” the whale repeated, now sounding more baffled than curious. “And how were you taught to do that?”

“By forcefully absorbing ousia into our bodies,” Morin explained, demonstrating with her hands like she was molding an invisible orb. “Then combining it with pneuma and releasing the mixture outward as a blast.”

The whale was silent for a moment.

Then Rein asked, “Speaking of ousia, Morin, what was that thing you did earlier? With your blood? You managed to create an energy blast even though there’s barely any ousia here.”

He had his theories, but he wanted to hear it straight from her.

“When blood is exposed to air, the person who shed it can temporarily convert it into ousia,” Morin said. “But it’s weaker than natural ousia.”

So it was true, Rein thought.

“Don’t do that again,” Rein said, his voice low but firm. “Or if you must, only when absolutely necessary. Losing that much blood is dangerous.”

“Okay,” Morin replied softly.

“You Celestials…” the whale’s voice echoed with a hint of disappointment. “For all your so-called evolution, you rely on nothing but brute force. Forcing pneuma into your wounds without understanding the mechanism. Forcing ousia to combine with your pneuma as if strength alone can bridge the gap between ignorance and mastery.”