I have Nine Lives

Chapter 61: Aquatic team's first time competing

Felix could feel his strength returning a bit as he got motivated but it was most likely placebo, his strength wasn't coming back physically but his mental stamina recovered a bit.

But this didn't help his weakening body, the water was so cold for it, and cats were naturally attracted to heat, they hated the cold. It was surprising that Felix could withstand the cold up this point with his cat psyche. Even though his previous actions shown otherwise Felix still had a lot of cat-like tendencies that he suppresses according to the situation he is in.

Felix wanted to jump on Lindo's shoulder and be done with it but Siracha's words resounded in his head telling him that he should go through this ordeal alone.

But why did they create this team then? He needed support, if not why did he even bother to let Lindo on the battlefield if he had to do everything alone?

Felix's eyes wandered a bit to Siracha's back but he couldn't see anything as the man was still swimming at the front along with the elephant shaman, he ignored his advice and put his paws on Lindo's shoulders waiting for the man to start swimming. Lindo smiled seeing Felix's trust and that he could rely on him then started to swim as well.

Bizkier found all of this pretty funny, the cat that defeated him couldn't handle a little cold? Maybe he overestimated the feline, he did have a few techniques that could use the cold under his sleeves so next time they would have to fight he thought that he could easily defeat him now that he grasped his weakness.

Siracha didn't say anything as he continued to swim, he ignored Felix's choice while the elephant shaman got closer to him and whispered:

"You are really though on that little ol' tyke back there I know he is your gods chosen but you don't have to be so aggressive with him, you know he could leave your tribe if he is dissatisfied with you right?"

"Letting the iron rust without tempering it will lead to it being broken in both ways."

"That's indeed true but you know sometimes you will have to let way to the younger generations to do how they want to do."

"Well you have your own way of teaching and I have mine."

Siracha shut his mouth as he continued swimming, thus their conversation ended as Mashi understood that Siracha didn't want to talk with him anymore on this subject.

Feeling quite angry that he was rebuked by the child that he had once used to slap around made Mashi quite uncomfortable, he wasn't so narrowminded to think that what he said was always right, maybe it was just his old age muddling his brain and eating at his sanity... he needed more meditation training.

Siracha looked back taking a few glances at the napping Felix and shook his head, even though he wanted to temper Felix through flames and blades he knows that a sword that would be struck too much would break. For now, he would let him rest.

Felix consciousness didn't enter his mindscape as it blanked out during the nap, nothing was around him but it also felt like he was conscious at the same time, it was pretty different if you would compare it to the death feeling when his soul was leaving the plane and it was also different compared to his mindscape... it was peaceful he wasn't sure if he felt this type of true rest in a long while.

Suddenly he was back on the train station roof, it was summer and birds were chirping. His stomach was growling as he jumped towards the bird catching it from mid-air and stuffing his mouth with it while falling on his feet graciously. The train station roof wasn't that high from the ground and he easily landed without anything happening.

"Felix-kun, why did you eat that bird!"

The woman that he knew came... what was her name again? Felix was embarrassed but he couldn't remember her name clearly, mostly because she never used her own name in front of him and she said it very rarely. Most of the time all he heard was Felix-kun that, Felix-kun this, have some dried squid Felix-kun I made lots of it for you!

Tsuru moved quickly but she knew the bird was dead, only a few drops of blood remained around Felix's lips before he licked them with his tongue, not even the feathers remained he ate the whole bird whole.

Felix frowned inside, this wasn't a memory, he remembers all the times that he hunted birds and Tsuru never caught him.

Was this a dream? This was one of the first true dreams he had ever experienced since he came to this dimension, the first one with Sahee didn't count as it was his ability's strange way of absorbing her soul, he still wondered where the necklace came from.

His surroundings distorted slowly as he realized it was a dream as he was transported into the mindscape, his ears rang as the voice of Aaltarox sounded in them:

"It took you a while to return here, didn't it? I tried to contact you multiple times. You have almost reached the island as well from what I can see, ok we don't have much time for talking, ask away!"

Felix didn't feel really well after having his dream disturbed but he asked a few more things about his ability along with the fact that he absorbed the shaman's soul and if there was anything else he would gain from it.

"Hmm? You were quite lucky it seems, but no your soul isn't as special as your body, your body mutated when it absorbed the energy of the tunnel you went through but it didn't reach your soul, you only get the normal benefits when you absorb someone's else's soul and my ability doesn't have anything to do with what you got, as for any benefits after you reached 9 lives?"

"Well... um..." The voice started to sound a bit awkward as he got that question:

"Uh... the connection is getting worse I think these are all the questions I can answer you for now."

Felix felt Aaltarox was doing one of his 'tricks' to get out of this conversation so he stopped him by saying:

"My soul grew quite strong since I absorbed the black bear shamans and I don't feel the connection between us weakening at all, can you bother to explain as the time for the conversation didn't pass?"

"*cough* *cough* Ok I can't give you any more abilities besides the one that you got nor can I strengthen it unless you get more believers to give their faith to me, that boy who has been chosen by the God of peace told you didn't he? I'm one of the weaker gods and you are lucky enough I had been able to give you nine lives, actually you have the most lives compared to the other's god chosen."

Felix found it right if you couldn't give the good stuff, at least give a lot of the basic stuff to make up for it.

"Any more questions?"

Felix nodded and decided to ask about God's chosen of the other continents:

"Finally the question that everyone asked before this battle beside you that is since your continent has 2 God's chosen the other boy will have to give you the other half of the information as the pantheon decided that each god can give half and half."

"The first God's chosen is from the Balton continent, I think your friend mentioned something about the giant spider race right? Well, he is from there and I can say that he is rather fearsome and you would have big troubles fighting him, he is a great user of the 6 swords swordsmanship and his godly ability manifests itself as an M tattoo on his forehead, I do not actually know what type of ability he can use... I'm sorry."

"The other one is from the Haron continent and he is from the raven tribe, his abilities are peculiar, to say the least, I do not actually know much about his strength besides that he can see a few seconds in the future in battle so... actually I'm of no help at all."

Felix sweatdropped, at least he had to know who to watch out for, the raven and spider teams, as for the other two continents? He hoped that Bizkier would get his revelation sooner or later before the battle started.

"I'm actually feeling pretty bad for being so useless, normally these would be all of the questions that you could ask but since I'm not really helpful in this situation I can bless you with some divine equipment that you can keep in your mindscape and take it out whenever you want!"

A blue and white body armor that looked to be made out of rubber and spandex appeared in front of Felix... it looked quite strange for him so he touched it and it felt to be quite hard but also pleasing to the touch, his paws felt rather nice as he touched it.

"This is my special divine item that has a self-repair feature along with the previous capabilities that I told you, also its defense isn't nothing to joke about. It should increase the wearer's survivability chance by at least 35% but it's rather weak against blunt objects that are too strong for its defenses, however, it's very strong against slashing attacks!"

Felix nodded as he felt his whole mindscape shake... it seemed he was being woken up.

The voice disappeared as Felix woke up and looked around only to see that even though they got rather close to the island they weren't near its shore yet.

Their paths were barred by people with gills and fish-tails!