Before Zhen Liu’s eyes were several desire cores glowing with all sorts of bright and beautiful colors, stored safely in strange glass containers that seemed to vary in design in a rather wide manner.
A whole deluge of emotions and questions passed through Zhen Liu’s mind as he stared at the bottles.
Who among his predecessors was the one to start bottling up th desires?
What did each of them do?
Were there any similarities between them?
But the one emotion that seemed to beat out all the others, his curiosity, his wonder and even greed was one simple emotion: rage.
’YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THERE WERE A FUCKTON OF CORES DOWN HERE ALREADY? Secondarily, I COULD STORE THESE STUPID THINGS NOT INSIDE ME?!,’ Zhen Liu mentally ranted.
During this rant, his mind wandered to the fact that there were still several hundred other shelves full of other materials.
When he realized that half of the crap in here could also work as kaijin material, his anger looped around to just being full-on calm again.
While he was tempted to lay down on the ground face first and start screaming, Jin Fang was in the vicinity and he had to at least attempt to look cool and collected.
Please note, he was unaware that Jin Fang noticed these moments...and that she also found them adorable in the same way people find kittens getting cranky adorable.
=Milord, before you get too excited at the prospect of new/old cores to work with, please attempt to retrieve the bottles before you. The ones containing cores, of course,= Logos interjectd before Zhen Liu could rant further.
’Oh...shit, I forgot you’re in my head.’
Zhen Liu looked over the various bottles before deciding to reach and out and grab one that looked to be glowing with a cyan color, encased in a bottle that was decorated with gold flower designs.
As soon as hands were only about an inch away, the bottle suddenly zapped him and slightly repelled his fingers with an invisible forcefield.
Out of curiosity, he tried again with a purple one decorated with barbed wire and flower designs, and was repelled again.
"Sensing a pattern here..."
One last time, he tried to grab a white glowing bottle that had a crucifix in a pentagram on it, something he should definitely ask about later, and was once again repelled.
He looked to Logos for explaination.
’Why am I being rejected like Tantalus over a fruit here?’
=The long and short of it milord is that these bottled desire cores were created by previous Kaijin Lords. As such, they’re locked due to it being the will of their makers,= Logos explained.
It took all of two seconds for Zhen Liu to understand what Logos was talking about.
’You mean to tell me, that the other kaijin lords are still alive? Or at the very least, like Anton?’
=Essentially, yes, mostly like Lord Anton. As such, you cannot access their stored treasures without their permission.=
’Oh joy...locked content...whatever! How do I store these cores?,’ Zhen Liu asked as he summoned up the [-Floating- Core of Toxic Control] and [-Howling- Core of Extreme Violence] into his hands.
"What the fuck?," he heard Jin Fang exclaim. This was technically the first time she had ever seen a proper [Core of Desire] before, which in retrospect was weird due to her having seen the kaijin and...literally everything else associated with them.
’Shit, I forgot I never did show her what this crap looked like...hold up, these are also [Unusual] cores.’
It had just dawned on him that the two cores he acquired were back-to-back [unusual] cores. He had really, really hope his luck wasn’t drained after this point.
=Leave the storage to me.=
With a wave of her hand, the two cores that Zhen Liu had summoned were suddenly encased in their own bottles, complete with designs.
The [-Floating- Core of Toxic Control] was encased in a bottle detailed with designs of a winged spider of all things, while the [-Howling- Core of Extreme Violence] had a werewolf design on it.
Zhen Liu couldn’t tell if this was ironic given the sources of these cores, or foreshadowing for their kaijin designs...assuming that he follows these designs.
’Wait, do y’all design the bottles or...’
=When we store away the cores of desires, we create vessels based upon the history of the person they have been extracted from,= Logos explained as he stored away the two cores, =it’s why there are at least several repeat desires in storage, but with very different histories.=
’Huh...okay then...just to double check, is the dragon corpse also here, or...’
=It is, but we’ll be using it on our next stop.=
________________________________________________
Meanwhile, in a very different part of the Library...
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one,
The little one stops to suck his thumb...>
"Brawler, stop that," Razor Maiden chided Spring Brawler.
"What? Why? Just following. Instructions," Spring Brawler protested back.
Pathos at some point had decided to change their form again, this time into young adolescent in an animal costume, leading the kaijin on some path through the library none of them had seen before...again. All the while, singing a children song that was definitely not from this world.
Pathos cheerfully commented to the kaijin.
While Hurricroak nodded in agreement, Nepherage and Frosttusk just looked at each other with blank/confused expressions.
Pathos exclaimed before stopping in front of a long hallway, several doors flanking on each side.
The kaijin were confused at the sight, wondering what they were supposed to be looking at exactly.
"Uhh...Sir Pathos?," Nepherage opened up, "what are we supposed to be seeing here?"
Pathos went as he looked confused before looking up and realizing the issue.
Logos grumbled as he stretched upward and whacked what should have been a big glowing sign.
The words, "KAIJIN ROOMS!", was displayed as soon as the neon sign started working again.
Pathos went as he shrunk back down,