Dance of the Gods

Michael and Veronica walked to one of the empty tables, where they immediately plopped down. They have been going back and forth between this place and the dancer floor, for the past two hours.

Veronica should've been really tired from all the dancing, but her body felt perfectly fine. Her mind was another question...

While dancing she had to pay a lot of attention not to try and kiss Michael in the middle of the floor, and it didn't help that he seemed to struggle with a similar predicament.

In reality she wanted to leave to have a bit of alone time with him, but she also remembered that this world's courting was vastly different from her own. Also this was their first date and she didn't want to look like a whore...

Slowly her mind settled back to its usual calm, and she asked Michael to get both of them a drink. It was really expensive, but he tried not to think about it.

While waiting for him to return she scrutinized herself a bit. The night seemed to be quite fruitful. Throughout their dance she also tried to focus on acquiring a Deeper Understanding, and she did manage to break down the wall a lot further.

When they first sat down here after their first dance, she managed to get some information out of him about the whole Deeper Understanding.

"So you want to advance further?... That's a questionable choice, but I won't judge you for whatever you decide... Anyway, reaching a Deeper Understanding could be very easy or very hard depending on many different aspects. For you it probably won't be hard since even before you became an ascended you already had affinity to the Dancer path."

Veronica looked at him with confusion for a few seconds, which caused Michael to smile. With one hand he pointed straight at her eye. She thought for a second what he meant, and eventually she gasped with understanding.

"You mean my eye color?" He nodded and after taking a sip of his very overpriced drink, he continued.

"Yes. One of your parents probably was part of the Dancer path, which caused the affinity to be inherited... But let's get back to the point. For anyone to acquire a Deeper Understanding, you have to learn about your order's principles first..."

The inheritance of Ethereal Property was something Veronica still didn't fully understand, and there were many questions about her background. She didn't know why her eye color changed with the transmigration, or if it had something to do with the woman who's body she technically took over.

She only let herself think about this for a moment, then quickly she focused her attention back on the main topic.

"These principles are different for every person, but one common denominator is their connection with the required prerequisite for the ascension... What was yours?"

He asked, but it took a few minutes for Veronica to answer. She was currently preoccupied with thinking through everything he had said.

"I had to dance until I couldn't walk!" As she said it Michael suddenly chuckled a bit.

"That's a really good one! Mine was to resolve a deadly conflict peacefully, without anyone dying..." Veronica looked at him mouth agape. "How did you accomplished that?!"

She didn't quite understand why these prerequisites were important, or who decided what they were. It was also an interesting question, that why was one path's harder than an other's.

"I cheated of course! I went out with Ted, he's my boss by the way, and we found a large shootout between two groups of criminals. He made all of them stop, and I handcuffed each, this way I technically stopped the conflict without any bloodshed!"

Hearing that, Veronica's previous amazement got increased even further, which also caused Michael's smirk to widen a bit.

"One thing you should definitely pay attention to, is that don't take anything literally. Yeah, your previous prerequisite was very straightforward, with only one real solution, but most of them will be much more vague... You have to use your brain, when completing them!"

She turned thoughtful yet again, but only for a few moments this time. There was a bit of hesitation in her, she didn't know if asking him would really help, but it was definitely worth a try.

"My next prerequisite is to kill someone in a flexible manner... Do you have any idea how do I do that?"

It took only a few seconds of thinking for Michael to come up with a viable solution. It felt a bit insulting since she was thinking about this for a long while now, but she haven't come up with anything.

"I see your path is one that really loves vague descriptions. That's going to be a pain in the ass later on, but for now its still quite easy... The solution is simple. You have to kill someone in a very convenient manner, like using something that would only work in that specific scenario."

What he said made her think, and she soon found the merit in his words. Her mind was already going into overdrive trying to think of some very interesting solutions, but first she still had to acquire the Deeper Understanding.

After that the conversation soon ended and they spent the next two hours dancing or talking. All the while Veronica was slowly accommodating possible principles.

For now she only managed to gather two, which she was sure to be true.

The first one came to her mind while she danced. Because she was constantly thinking, her body basically went on autopilot. She moved perfectly without even paying attention to it, and when this realization hit, a large part of the previous wall broke.

The first principle of a Dancer was to let your body move on its own. It knows movement better than the individual, and it also liberates the mind to focus on other, more important elements.

As this thought appeared in her mind, she felt her body move better and more accurately. It was like the connection between her movements and mind was much more defined, but also more ethereal. Her body moved with only a thought and without the need for her to micromanage each little commands.

It was like sending a command of taking a step forward, but the solution and most optimal way wasn't devised by her brain. Instead it all happened like a reflex, without thought.

The feeling freed her mind, which eventually led to the discovery of the Dancer's second principle.

This one was more interesting, she had been thinking about it since she had gotten that strange feeling in the morning. Whenever she acted different than she felt, it made that scratching feeling on the wall inside her mind.

The second one took a bit more time to understand, but after thinking about it for a very long time, she finally got it right. It caused the wall inside her brain to get further dismantled.

The second principle of the Dancer was to act like how you need others to see you, and not how you actually feel.

She still needed to do a bit more testing with this one since she didn't want to make a false impression on Michael, but she knew for a fact that she was correct with the second principle.

After the second breakthrough she even asked Michael what would happen if she got the principle wrong. He just said that you can't get it wrong, if you feel the wall breaking then you already got it right!

She felt that most of the wall was broken, but there was still a third principle she had to identify. The issue was that she hadn't got the slightest clue what the third one could be.

'A real dancer would have to move without thinking too much and have to act like she wants the audience to perceive her... What could be the last...'

Eventually Michael came back with their drinks, but her mind was still hyper-focused on finding the third principle. Only when he poked her face did she finally look at him.

"Hey! What was that for?" She asked while taking a sip of her drink. It was some kind of cocktail. It tasted sweet, but that's all... She would've preferred straight whiskey, but when she ordered it for the first time, the bartender looked at her so offendedly that she quickly changed the order.

Michael laughed at her after that, and explained that the etiquette of these places require everyone to drink something special. The only liquor one should order straight are wine and champagne.

These rules were really starting to infuriate Veronica, but she would bear them for the sake of Michael. He ordered the drink for both of them, but she didn't pay attention to its name.

"You were ignoring me!" He said in faked outrage. "I certainly wasn't!" She said in the same tone as he.

"Really?... Then what did I ask you three times, before I poked your face?" He asked with a smile, which in turn caused Veronica to turn away embarrassed, but at the last moment she changed her expression to upset.

She pretended to be mad at him, but he just started to laugh at her. After a minute of this exchange she finally gave up.

"Okay, fine... Sorry. I was just occupied with my thoughts..." She still haven't looked at him since she actually felt a bit ashamed.

He slowly reached out and grasped her left hand gently, giving a small peck on one of her rings.

"Don't take me too seriously, I was just joking." Her face still had a red tinge to it, but not because of embarrassment.

"Anyway, my previous question was, how long do you want to stay?" He didn't let go of her hand as he spoke, which caused her mind to short-circuit for a few moments.

When she opened her mouth to speak something very strange happened.

From the back of the room shouting could be heard, which was eventually followed by the sound of a large explosion.

Veronica heard one sound before the bomb went off. It was a shout from some very angry person...

"DEATH TO THE RICH!"