The Astral soul system-Chapter 214: Self actualization

"wait,what?!"

Neo asked, looking like he was about to get up.

"The talking dungeon that for some reason knew your names told you to kill Zen, and you didn’t tell us before now?!"

Maximilian shrugged.

"We dealt with it, and we were still busy trying to survive back then. After a while we just forgot about it "

Neo still looked flabbergasted.

Zen himself was silent. Another person wanting to kill him was understandable,expected even, but a whole dungeon?

"Well it wasn’t exactly the dungeon?"

They turned to look at Xavier again.

"It was this glowing...orb in the center of the dungeon. And it was like it was controlling the dungeon "

"Though we’re not exactly sure the difference "

"What did you do?"

Zen asked.

"We smashed the damn thing. Good riddance"

Maximilian looked at Zen with a curious look.

"It was really strange. It called Xavier and me friends and said we had to kill you. It said you were dangerous and couldn’t be left to live"

"I need more details. What else did it say,as specific as you can remember "

The two thought for a quick second before Xavier quickly spoke

"It only called our last names "

"That’s right "

Maximilian nodded.

"It knew our abilities too, same with leonel and draconyx"

"And i think it mentioned something about a curse"

That immediately struck a chord with Zen.

"Curse? What curse?

"I don’t know. All it said was that the curse is still in effect. We didn’t give it enough time to say anything else"

Zen immediately asked Zephyr if he knew anything about this but the answer was disappointing

"Sorry boy. I don’t even remember how that sliver of my power ended up on that planet. Even if i did know anything you’d need to unlock more of my memories "

Everywhere went silent for a few seconds as they all took that in. Zen was considering ending things here when Xavier remembered something else.

"Oh yeah,it said that you were... this weird dangerous thing,or bloodline? I can’t really remember,it was something like -"

"Destroyer"

"Uh- yeah,that was it. How’d you-"

"Call it a hunch"

Zen turned towards the bathroom.

"I’ll go first"

They all quietly watched him leave. As soon as he did,Neo groaned and clutched his head. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"So what? We’re gonna need to protect him from murderous dungeons now?"

No one replied to that.

Maximilian suddenly flinched and looked towards Zen’s bed but there was nothing there

"..."

The door closed behind Zen as he walked deeper in.

"Well this is an interesting development"

Theia popped up out of the system again

"What do I do?"

"Well for one,stop making people want to kill you"

"..."

"Alright alright,let me think. A talking dungeon,huh?"

"You called the one outside a dungeon corpse,so can some living dungeons speak?"

Theia shook her head

"Not usually. Make there was something special about that specific dungeon?"

"It was empty but the system didn’t react like with the other one,so it wasn’t a dungeon corpse?"

"The system probably would’ve told you if it was"

Zen turned on the shower, taking off his clothes and moving under it

"What’s more concerning is that although you might not know where you come from and what this destroyer bloodline is, someone out there does,we can assume they can tell from a single look and will immediately attempt to kill you if they recognize you"

"Even more problems "

"Meaning even more exp"

"And even more power"

In a sick way this was sort of a good thing. He’d said it before but with his new restrictions he needed as many obstacles as possible.

"Well, time to use that dungeon card Aurora got me "

Morning classes quickly passed and Zen used most of the time meditating. Literally every waking minute not spent absorbing now could be the end of him. He wondered why it wasn’t affecting Jade but Theia informed him it actually was. Zen was bearing the full brunt of Moirai’s needs so Jade was expending less energy, plus she was still dormant. Immediately she awakened to her power the passive drain would begin, this would be once she transformed for the first time.

"She still sees herself as human, and in a way that means she...sort of is? One of astrals unique features is the passive ability to self-actualize to a degree. Your mental state is crucial to your abilities and powers, even the slightest bit of mental imbalance could be seen in your physical forms"

When Zen asked why he’d never experienced this, she replied he did.

"Remember? Your fear of lightning?"

Zen was still confused. He still froze even before the system but that wasn’t what Theia was talking about.

"I looked at the damage done to your body when equipping Lilith and Freya and appearantly lightning does double damage to you. The only explanation is-"

"I self-actualized a weakness to lightning..."

"I thought you’d already noticed "

Zen was having trouble believing it. Of course he’d noticed but he just assumed Freya was stronger than Lilith so his body took more damage.

"How do I get rid of it?"

"Get rid of your fear"

"I can’t - that’s not how it works "

Theia shrugged.

"Sorry dude . Can’t help you. Your mind instinctively sees lightning and thinks that no matter how strong you are you’ll get hurt,so that’s what will happen"

"..."

He sighed and decided to move on for now

"So what about Jade?"

"I’m honestly not sure. I assume her powers are still somewhat sealed. It’s all about self perception. If she thinks she’s weak, she’s weak, and unless in a high stakes situation she won’t be able to use her astral powers, unless you make her see what she really is"

"So as long as she considers herself human"

"She’s stuck, at least in part. Of course it’s only to a degree. Similar to you,if she ever gets emotional, and I mean extremely emotional,her powers could just... erupt "

Zen remembered what happens almost everytime Zaine is in control and could already tell it wouldn’t be pretty.

"So let’s see if i got everything. First of all, energy based,not carbon based"

"Ding ding!"

"Second, capable of rapid evolution directed by nothing but emotions and other personal factors"

"Ehhh, loosely. Like... remember how your wings are both sharp and sturdy like blades sometimes? They evolved that way because of your personal perception, but they aren’t like that all the time "

Zen wasn’t sure if he completely understood but he continued

"Third, self-actualization of strengths and weakness, basically a built-in placebo effect"

"Yes but to a degree. You can’t just become invincible because you believe you are, but you might evolve thicker skin or instinctively learn a powerful defensive skill"

Zen understood that part. If it was really what he described then he would have been roasted alive long ago.

"What about the insides. If Jade or I took an x-ray would it be different from a normal person "

"Oof,yes, definitely,but it’d be similar enough to fool a professional if they didn’t take a close enough look."

That was expected, especially with the wings. Luckily those could be hidden

He couldn’t help but wonder what her transformed state would look like. Would she have extra eyes too? Or a horn like his?

Unfortunately Theia said literally anything could be possible. Every Astral’s transformed state was unique to themselves. Some could be similar, but none were completely identical.

The exact words were

"Trillions of trillions of unique humans can be created from the human genome, the same is true with astrals. The main difference is unlike humans who are stuck the way they are since birth,astrals change and evolve with every stage of life, becoming more and more complex and branching out further from the original genome , resulting in even more uniqueness. Everything determines an astral’s form,body,mind and soul, from their cultivation methods to their little quirks and habits."

Appearantly they relied even more on emotion than humans, though Zen already knew that from his transformation.

His eyes darted to Jade at the front of the class and almost like she’d felt his gaze she looked back,her eyes directly locking with his for a second before before she gave him a wave.

Zen didn’t react and just looked away, his eyes lingering on her bandaged hand a bit longer. Jade was starting to look more and more like a burden the system had placed on him. He couldn’t even understand himself and that was with the system. He didn’t have the luxury to worry about someone else right now.

Zaine agreed but Zyro wasn’t a fan of their tone, especially towards Zaine who was already muttering about killing her

At the end of class, he quickly left without meeting up with the others, already heading out of the school.

He didn’t get far before Zaria caught up to him again

"We need to talk"

"..."

"It’s Jade"

Zen finally stopped, turning to look at her

"What’s wrong with her?"

Zaria sighed

"That’s the thing. Nothing. She’s completely normal"

"I don’t understand"

"Listen to me. The same girl who beat the brakes off you is COMPLETELY normal. I asked her what happened during that fight and she said she just got lucky. Then i told her to hit me to test and her strength was absolutely nothing compared to yesterday "

"Uh-oh"

Theia facepalmed

"That’s... interesting "

"Seriously. We need to talk about this. I wasn’t gonna be nosy but I’m getting worried about her "

"I just need some time "

Zen said, already walking away

Zaria watched as he left and sighed, tugging her yang necklace to try to alleviate some of her stress.

"He really gets on my nerves "

There wasn’t much she could do about it though. Just watch Jade closely for now. Luckily nothing extremely serious had happened

As soon as he got far enough away he suddenly called someone on his watch

"Did you do the test?"

Sable looked at him suspiciously.

"I don’t know why you told me to cut Jade’s palm a bit, but you’re lucky i trust you. I’m also sure you noticed the bandage"

"And?"

"And nothing. I don’t know what you were expecting to happen but I cut her just enough to draw blood and the expected happened."

He glanced at Theia. Seemed she was right. Even after his first evolution, Zen could already heal from stab wounds easily, much less a simple cut on the palm

"She looked so scared too. I swear to... whatever scares you. If she stops trusting me or gets a scar, I’ll blame you"

"At least you got lick the blood out of her hand. You should be thanking me"

Not giving her a chance to retort, Zen cut the call. That was definitely going to be an issue later.

"Told ya"

"It would have been better if you told me earlier "

Zephyr joined the conversation.

"You shouldn’t ignore an ally,boy"

"Says the guy who’s getting hunted down by his brother "

Theia retorted, rolling her eyes

"That’s exactly why I’m saying this. Trust me boy. It doesn’t matter how high you reach, your family will always be connected to you in one way or the other, and that girl is your kin,at least that’s what the system says "

"..."

He couldn’t focus on all that right now, luckily they did all their best thinking while ripping into something.

Time for a dungeon run!