Mari, Age 19:

  “She’s one of those blood-crazed monsters.” Mari grimaced, her gaze hardening. “I thought she was immune to that bioweapon?”

  “She was. Come, join me in the Nexus. Hopefully we can meet with an ally.”

  Mari nodded, then mimicked the way the older woman turned thought into energy, riding the connection formed between her soul and their destination until she was faced with the idea of a nexus between several powerful existences.

  Their presences were immediately noticed, and Mari couldn’t even blink her metaphysical eyes before she was driven back against the wall by an overwhelming force of will.

  “It has been many centuries since anyone invaded this place.” A deep, rumbling voice seemed to shake the realm around her.

  “Ivan, let me explain. I’m Marielle. The Medjay.”

  “Please. The Medjay is lost to us. Her mind imprisoned within an immortal body made into a monster.” Ivan’s voice coalesced before them with a condescending glare. His body, though… he looked more ancient than any human she had memory of. His clothing was very… tribal. All bones and woven grasses. He had dark skin and a bulky physique despite being an obvious entity of pure mind and willpower.

  In fact, it was only then that she realized that she didn’t have any memories of the Nexus or the other Dynast Souls. It made her wonder how Medjay did. All Mari knew was that Ivan had given up his own physical existence to host the place where the Dynast Souls could meet metaphysically.

  “Wait!” Mari’s voice cracked as she tried to interject against the force that held her back against the wall. “I’m Marielle’s clone. Let us explain!”

  “Well… that fear is nostalgic.” His expression softened into a wistful one for a few moments before his gaze landed on her. “You have your audience. Explain.”

  And so, the Medjay and Mari filled in the circumstances they’d been through before they’d tried to peer at what had happened to her predecessor.

  “I see. And I believe you. It is a shame none of the others are here to welcome your return. Perhaps for the best, in the case of some. In your weakened state, I think a few of them might just try to take advantage of you. As for Marielle… you know what you have to do.”

  Marielle’s visage nodded, and Mari had to bite her lip to prevent from quivering in fear. “Ivan, is there much you can do on your end for us?”

  The bulky man laughed boisterously. “A favor already? Never change, Jay. While you’ve been fighting wars and traveling across the stars, I’ve been quietly expanding the Soul Nexus. And the first thing you ask me for is a piece of the pie.”

  “You know it.” The Medjay’s face shifted to the blonde with green eyes. She was wearing camo pants and a metal band tee, which Mari felt awkward about recognizing. Their merged minds held the strangest of emotions sometimes. “Can you give me Marielle’s portion?”

  “Okay, can somebody fill me in?” Mari felt so lost.

  “Marielle made some investments to help expand the Hall. She was a genius, after all. Ivan stored chunks of energy we produced to help our rebirth cycles along. Mari learned over forty languages in her youngest years and invested the energy to immortalize that knowledge into the Hall. Ivan offers a sort of exchange. Since you have the memories, you know those languages, right?”

  Mari blinked. Thinking about it, she supposed that she did. She focused for a long moment, remembering something about Marielle’s mother having been a linguist of some sort. The memories all led to grief and loss so strong it forced her to withdraw.

  “So, cash in on her investment. I’ll snag the soul energy we need for now. You pick up some knowledge stored here. What are you bad at?” Medjay had a smirk on her face. She didn’t need to ask.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Everything.” Mari sourly supplied.

  “If you think so, pick something to internalize. Shore up a weakness. Learn a new weapon or something without ever needing a teacher. Break a nasty habit through mental conditioning, even. Don’t do the last one, though. You can just remove those from your mindscape.”

  Ivan nodded, folding his arms beneath his massively muscular chest and flexing his will to conjure a bookshelf in front of them.

  “Not books, please.” Mari grimaced. The effort she’d put in to copy books onto new devices by hand had taken up all her free time for years. The fact that the liberated people of Sylpharia had needed to create a whole new system of devices with all new libraries had been a monumental task, since Sylphariens didn’t like to share their technology with the slaves.

  The bookshelf was remade into a huge rack of sleeves containing… records. Like, vinyl ones. Mari huffed in exasperation, but began to leaf through the shelf.

  “Just pick one for now. You’ll have to expand the mindscape more to fit whatever things you add.”

  Mari nodded, moving to the shelf and peering curiously at the contents. There was a massive section on languages, which was impressive, but they were nearly all from Marielle.

  “Does the kid have anything new to add?”

  “Frankly, no. She’s a poor student, so even her knowledge of the language from her own world is a bit… minimal. She has a fitting background for someone taking up our mantle. Exactly the sort I’d normally choose for a successor.”

  “Ah. I forget sometimes, since Marielle was so uniquely gifted.” Then, Mari ceased to hear their conversation.

  Medjay was distinctly separate from her for the first time since the mess had begun, which she had complicated feelings about. She briefly saw the two immortals shake hands over something before continuing a conversation she couldn’t hear.

  She kept leafing through the records. Some had very unusual names that weren’t very intuitive. The further she went into each category, the worse they got in that regard. [Soul Synthesis] didn’t mean much to her, after all. If it meant what it said, then it implied a person could… create souls? That seemed unlikely.

  The odd part was how some of the shelves never seemed to end. The combat skills category just went on and on, even when the space it occupied was obviously smaller.

  Chewing her lip, Mari’s frown deepened more and more as she failed to get anywhere close to narrowing a list down. There was everything from [Reading] to [Cursive] and [Caligraphy]. [Origami] sounded like an interesting pastime. Constance would’ve loved all the varieties of [Gardening].

  Finally, Mari arrived at the social skills. She’d always been bad with people. She just couldn’t read body language or tone very well. There was a lot of nuance there that was lost on her. It also wasn’t her own fault. With all of the efforts Medjay had sunk into soul expansion while Mari had been tending to the mindscape, a conclusion had been reached about the knowledge she’d been given in her youth as Marielle’s clone. The Sylphariens had advanced cloning technology, but it had some flaws. Something like social skills were very complex, and all the little things that made a person unique could just as easily have left her lacking in that regard.

  So, as Mari leafed through the social skills, she realized that rather than learning social cues after straightening herself out, she could instead just dump that knowledge into herself in one shot.

  [Intuition]

  The single skill that called to her most immediately was one of the simplest things she was missing as a person. Or, that was how she felt, at least. She wouldn’t become Marielle, after all. Marielle was becoming a part of her. It was a lot of pressure, but she didn’t have to do it alone anymore.

  She slid the vinyl from the shelf and turned to face…

  The Medjay was grinning as a stone-faced Ivan handed over a small orb of pure soul energy.

  “Were you betting on what skill I’d choose?”

  “Yup!” Medjay had a huge grin plastered across her face in her blonde form. The playful one, Mari was beginning to realize.

  “I was suckered.” Ivan grumbled in annoyance, shaking his head solemnly.

  “Uh… Yeah, we’re technically the same person, so of course she’d know what I’d choose. Sorry.” Mari hung her head slightly in apology. “Anyway, I’ve chosen.”

  “Yes, you have. A solid choice, just not one that kids go for.”

  “I know she’s new, but she’s much older than my usual new incarnations. Don’t call her a kid.”

  Ivan held up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. You’re all set, then? Try to keep your future visits brief, though. At least until you’ve finished doing what needs to be done.”

  Mari nodded, intuitively connecting her soul to the vinyl in her hands and making the knowledge part of herself.

  “No pressure. I just have to kill my former body.” Mari took a long, shuddering breath through the tension of her nerves. Mari’s former body with an immortal body, mind and soul. Who is also a blood-crazed monster.

  “No pressure at all.”

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