Escaping back into Aloran’s cave, he checked his clock and realized the entire process had taken around six minutes. It wasn’t much, but he was sure that was enough for his trackers to realign themselves in his direction, an inevitability considering he was running low on Kindness mana and when he ran out, [Good Samaritan] would no longer fully silence his marks.
Speaking of, he was most hopeful for that evolution. While it was true he was unlikely to remove them all in the time he had, especially considering he had hundreds on him, it would be good practice for a future situation.
He saw that he had a new notification and quickly checked it.
[Affinity Strengthened:
[Soul: Low-Uncommon 99% has strengthened into Soul: Mid-Uncommon: 5%]
Not unexpected at all. Leviathans were closely tied to the concept of Soul, so it would be more than enough to break another threshold.
Then, seeing no reason to delay, he temporarily waived off questions from the others and looked over his new evolutions.
[Pandora’s Box (Sealed) - Level 300 - Kindness Affinity - 10872/12000 Mana Stored
To contain your sin, you have created…
…
Level 300 evolutionary upgrade - Gain the ability to concentrate mana up to 2x its original. During the process, release a melody custom to whichever affinity was chosen. This melody will act as an attracting call for entities with an active affinity for the song. Strength of call is dependent on concentration being refined]
‘It’s not just a mana concentrator, it also works as an incredibly effective taunt. If I can find a way to increase the radius that monsters can hear it, I could lure a certain type. I could even synergise this with my Slaughterer build, finding unique monsters that I need. All I have to do is pull enough of a mana type into my box, form a bond with the monsters that show up, then use them to get more of that mana, slowly building in strength until I’ve got some strong allies.’
It was a blessing and a curse. He’d have to be careful to not make enemies swarm towards him, but if he used it carefully, there was potential.
[Good Samaritan - Level 100 - Kindness Affinity - Toggleable
No good deed goes unpunished, but perhaps one can avoid the hammer of judgment, if only the hand holding it fails to find you.
When committing an act out of the goodness of your heart in a way that is more detrimental to you than it is beneficial, gain the ability to make either your face or all your actions obscured.
Become more difficult to trace the higher leveled it is
Level 100 evolutionary upgrade - When something attaches itself to your soul to track you, find which area the mark is contained within.]
It said “area” and not “exact location” so he would have to test its effectiveness, but it was generally what he hoped for.
[Growing Rage - Level 200 - Wrath Affinity - Passive
Working out or fighting to the death, what’s the…
…
Level 200 evolutionary upgrade - Imbue ??? into body with every ??? rebuilding yourself towards ???]
He smiled at the description. Though it was unhelpful, that meant the System would’ve had to reveal stuff about the Leviathans to say it. Before, he thought the System blotted certain things out because it didn’t know them. Now that he had some more experience, he was starting to realize the System had to deal with various divine entities and cater towards them. It seemed like whatever [Growing Rage] specifically did, the Leviathans didn’t want it spelled out for him.
Still, he was pretty sure it was doing what he wanted it to, bringing him closer to becoming a Reaper. He would have to strengthen this evolution further when he got more length of [Connection] by replacing more and more of the training equipment in his Skill, but that was more of a long-term goal. He hoped it wouldn’t be too hard to do after the Skill leveled up a bit, but he was pretty sure if it passed level two hundred, he’d be fighting it with each change he made.
[Identify of the Stout Protector - Level 100 - Soul/Wrath/Kindness Affinity
There are many unknowns…
…
Level 100 evolutionary upgrade - Wrath mode upgraded]
‘Hardy har har, yea, I see that. It does give me some information at least. If the System can’t tell me everything it does, that probably means channeling mana through it isn’t the limit of its abilities, it’s going to be more complicated than I first assumed.’
When he’d reviewed them, Dei told the others how his evolutions went and the effects he’d ended up receiving, as well as the cryptic descriptions of the System, and why he believed they were presented in such a way.
Aloran was quick to speak up about his own opinion in the matter. ‘You are mostly correct, though it is not just because the System has made deals with the Leviathans. It may also be because the System deems it more beneficial to not tell you, but there is no way to know which of the two is the reason for its vagueness. For your Identify though, I am reasonably confident that it says nothing because there is nothing it’s allowed to say. Usually, it at least tries to give you something to work with. If it doesn’t, I would say it is likely that your Wrath Identify did not dilute the concepts in Connection, nearly at all. Instead, it contains a pure version of Connection within, and the System cannot describe what Connection is.”
“Wait, didn’t all of them do that? I’m pretty sure I infused each of them with Connection, why would Identify be any different?”
“True, they each have parts of Connection within them, but it is partially changed by the Skill. Your Identify supposedly did not do that. When you cast your Wrath version, it manifests pure Connection, not a muddied down version of it. As for why? I can’t be sure, but it is a Soul affinity Skill, yes? Maybe it was easier for Connection to integrate? But that is only my guesswork.”
Dei didn’t have any idea for what it might be either, but Alorans explanation made sense. “What does this mean for it though? I’m playing around with [Connection] a lot, but ultimately, I don’t actually know what the Skill does. Its description is cryptic and what it can do has always been unclear. If I’m using pure Connection, I don’t think I’m properly equipped to utilize it efficiently…” he said, worrying about what the Leviathan would do if he wasn’t taking full advantage of his Skills potential.
“I can’t tell you for certain what the Skill does, but I know some tidbits and speculation that might help. As far as I know, [Connection] is a small fragment of the Leviathans true Skill: [Right of the Leviathan]. Every Leviathan is born with this Skill, but it can be broken up into four parts: [Connection], [Command], [Alter], and [Know]. It’s theorized that if you gained all of them, you could merge them into the full Skill, but again that’s a bit unsure. As for the Skills themselves, it’s believed that they function based on the word that composes them, and the domain of the Primordial Child. Similar to [Right of the Leviathan], there is [Right of the Titan] so on and so forth for all the others, and each of them are structured similarly.
“To clarify what I mean by the word and domain, [Command] would be the ability to Command things within the domain of Leviathans, such as souls. This means that [Connection] would be the ability to connect to anything with the Leviathans domain. I know this is vague, but this is truly all that is known of the fragmented Primordial Child Skills.”
“Damn… So I got like, the second weakest of the Leviathan Skills? Command and Alter would’ve been insane to have.”
“That’s intentional. Command and Alter are absurdly hard to earn and Soul never gives them out, ever. Know and Connection are usually what people use to break into becoming a Reaper.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Okay okay, so I can connect to things within the Leviathans domain. What does that mean?”
“Dunno, really. Souls? Spirits? Life in general? Creation? You’re on your own for this one kiddo.”
Dei hummed thoughtfully. It couldn’t just be souls, otherwise it would be called the Leviathan affinity, not the Soul affinity.
Experimentation time indeed. Probably… later though. For now, he would use it as a simple Identify, and save the complex stuff for after his battle. No blowing stuff up with it either, lest he anger the Leviathans for using it as a common weapon. He would make it clear that now just wasn’t the time to figure stuff out.
That in mind, he quickly began testing the limits of his new abilities. He already knew Pandora’s Box, so he ignored that. Instead, activating [Good Samaritan].
* * *
He’d fidgeted with it for a while and finally figured out how to track the marks down. The new mode of his Skill led him to this memory, because there was an intangible connection between this memory and the voodoo doll of his Skill.
He assumed that Connection took itself literally in this case, connecting to where he needed to go.
The memory he was now looking at supposedly carried a tracking mark, but he wasn’t sure how. It was one of him walking down a random cave some time after saving Clever and before meeting Fendrascora. It was this specific memory too, this one moment. He looked at it now as a still-frame.
He could move his vision outside of his field of view, because his mind naturally remembered what was there before, and could extrapolate what it looked like around him. Not sure what else to do, he got to looking.
* * *
It’d taken him two hours of searching to finally find it. Most of the memory was alterable, but would sort of stutter back into place if moved, reasserting its existence. One random pebble on the ground though, one random pebble didn’t glitch when moved. Studying it for a time, he could see nothing special about it.
He crushed it.
Dei sensed the link between [Good Samaritan] and this memory fade, and a unique mana type was expunged from the memory. More than that, [Pandora’s Box] actually kicked into action, absorbing the unknown mana type.
[Pandora’s Box:
8556/12000 Wrath
358/12000 Kindness
23/12000 Soul
721/12000 Fortitude
1150/12000 [NULL] ]
72/12000 Void
10/12000 Tracking]
‘Sweet! When I break down the tracking marks, I get to keep them!’
He didn’t know how to turn them back into a tracking mark, but he had some experience using freeform mana manipulation without the affinity. He did it every time he caused an explosion using Snap mana.
Now that he knew how the Skill worked though, he wasn’t interested in continuing this experimentation. He moved on to [Growing Rage].
* * *
It was just as simple as he’d hoped. Now, when Concentration passed through the Skill, it was upgraded slightly with Leviathan-based concepts. These concepts didn’t take away from the original, simply adding onto it.
He did note, though, that it was very little. As he suspected, he would need more of [Connection] in the Skill.
* * *
“Luckily, it will be easier to strengthen the evolution now that a small amount of Connection is a part of it” Aloran said in response to his question. “It won’t be as easy as it is now, but not nearly as difficult as forcing an evolution on the Skill outside of its threshold. Once it levels, you can put more changes into the Skill- so long as it is only to strengthen what is already there.”
‘That’s good. That means I can keep training with the Skill without worrying about wasting its potential. With my Identify as well, I’ll be able to lengthen it from seven feet. That’s way too short of a distance, but if I add more Connection to it, the Skill should respond accordingly and give me more range.’
Now it was time to get back to work. This might be the last full month he was able to take to improve himself, as Aloran confirmed that his enemy was closing in much faster now. Even if they couldn’t track him because of [Good Samaritan], they were still getting closer because they knew where he was before.
If he was able to keep Good Samaritan up, Aloran said he would have around two months… but Dei knew he didn’t have the mana for two more months. It was getting harder to contain the marks as the enemy got closer, he would run out this month. This would be his last training session.
‘Better make it count I suppose.’
* * *
[Since the Fall: 1/25/810 - 17:03:44]
[Skill Leveled Up: Good Samaritan (100) -> (113)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meaningful (57) -> (59)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Rage (200) -> (231)]
[Total Stats Gained: +11 Physical]
[Skill Leveled Up: Empower Self (21) -> (27)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Connection (8) -> (10)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Solidity (111) -> (124)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fortress of Denial (53) -> (61)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Homeostasis (146) -> (160)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (158) -> (167)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Identify of the Stout Protector (100) -> (103)]
His Kindness mana didn’t last the full month, as he’d hoped, but it was close.
In the time he had, Dei continued to use his [Connection] to produce more, upgrading both [Growing Rage] and his Identify. He could now Identify things up to nine feet, rather than just seven, and the concepts in Growing Rage were slightly more potent. That Skill would take a looong time to use to its fullest.
The conversations between their little group had all gone quiet. Each of them were getting stronger as fast as they could in preparation, and it was showing off. Fendrascora was just shy of level three hundred, and Clever flickered in and out of existence a lot. Dei asked what he was doing, but Clever remained purposefully vague for now.
Now that his cloak was down, Aloran told him the plan he’d created.
“While I could continue to obscure you slightly and give you a day or two more, it won’t change much about the battle. As it is, they will get here in five days. If you leave the cave, it’ll go down to four if they maintain the speed they’re at.
“You should use this time to earn what levels you can. More than that, you need to find your battleground. It’s very clear you’re going to be a powerhouse, and there will be a lot of collateral. You won’t want the caves coming down on your head, so I suggest going to the remnants of the city nearby. If the cavern is still as large as I remember it to be, there should be no risk of it collapsing.
“Now that it’s a Convergence, likely of Decay, the extra four days will also give you time for you and your adaptation Skill. When the enemy rolls around, you’ll know the terrain better, and you’ll be more resistant to the toxins in the area than them. I don’t recommend trying to remove or use the anchor there, as such a large cavern is almost guaranteed to have a guardian, but just learning to resist the mana and poisons will help a lot.
“Lastly, since you are about to leave, it’s time I give you some homework. If you find time to ponder during this battle, it will be wonderful experience for your Profession- that being said, don’t do this if you are pushing yourself to win! If it ends up being easier than you thought, go for it. If you’ll die by getting distracted, DONT.
“What I want you to think about are two things, and the first is one you’ve brought up: Classes. You asked ‘How does a Class affect the soul’ and it’s time for you to figure that out. The only information I will give you, for you to put together during your fight, is this: What else works on a scale from zero to one hundred? Don’t think about it yet, but later.
“That won’t be hard to figure out though, so the next bit of homework I want you to ponder is this: what are the echo realities, the planes between planes? For example, between the plane of Dragons and Leviathans, you have the Spirit Realm. Between Dragons and Titans, you have the Conceptual Planes. You don’t know about The Mothers realm so I’ll tell you now: it exists entirely within her own head. A reality, entirely dreamt up by her. So, what you must ask yourself now is this: what exists between the plane of Dragons and the plane of The Mother. Then ask yourself, what exists between The Mother and the Titans, then, what exists between The Mother and the Leviathans. So on and so forth, until you’ve figured out all the echo planes between each.”
Dei stopped himself from trying to get them all now, but he couldn’t believe he’d never thought of it in the first place. Of course there would be mixed planes outside of just the Physical one. Physical wasn’t the most important of the four, so why would it be the only one that could merge with the others?
No, there had to be… six types? And he only knew of two: the Conceptual and Spirit.
This was certainly a grand mystery too, so it would give incredible experience for Pondering sage. “Thank you, Aloran,” he said genuinely. “I can already tell that if this works, I may not be as stuck in my Profession levels as I’d previously thought.”
“Pay me back by rescuing my friends later,” he said seriously, “But for now, get going. The more time you give yourself to get a few levels, the more likely it is you’ll survive. You’ve trained a lot in the time you’ve been here, You can win.”
Dei nodded. “I will see you in… a while. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I’m not going to rush into battle. If I think running will help me live, I will run.”
“Good. Now go! Go!” Aloran said, and Dei listened, moving quickly through the crack in the wall.
When he was out, he wasted no time in turning towards Alorans old city and breaking into a sprint.
