“The next step,” Aloran said “In becoming a Reaper, is to work your Skill into everything. Use Connection in every Skill. Fight with Connection, live with Connection, dream of using Connection everywhere. This is a step which many miss, and that gets them killed. Using the Skill in multiple, versatile ways is important because any use of the Skill will attract attention from the Leviathans. If they see that you’re using it as a regular Skill, they will take offense and wipe you off the map. There is nothing that Primordial Children hate more than seeing their delicate, finely honed abilities used as the functional equivalent of a simple sword. For them, it’s like seeing their professionally crafted clockwork machine smashed over someone's head to kill them. They think ‘Sure, you can use it like that, but seriously?’ If you continue to push their patience, they’re known to completely wipe you off the map. Not even with spells, they simply descend their presence onto your location and let that kill you. For Dragons, this takes the form of absolute incineration. For Leviathans, as you’ve seen, frost forms over everything until all of it is dead.”
“Wait, but why did it attack before? Why try and kill me?”
“Probably because it couldn’t find you. Without a tracking mark on you, it's nearly impossible to find things within my Hidden Refuge. Normally, even looking at the Skill screen would serve that purpose, but Gods interact weirdly with the System, and I was able to obscure its view of you through the System, albeit only partially. It's a little funny, I can only partially suppress a mortal man’s tracking marks, but I was able to deny the Leviathan its right to see who dared use its Skill. Such is the nature of advanced Skills I suppose, they are very good at one thing with glaring weaknesses in others. Either way, whichever Leviathan tried finding you probably got pissy and just started killing things. Sure, they don't think it’s right to haphazardly edit souls, but they’ve got no problem with killing things, letting souls pass on naturally, especially with protecting the sanctity of their abilities.”
“So basically, I need to use my [Connection] Skill for everything? How do I do that without being discovered by the Leviathan?” Dei asked.
Aloran laughed. “Oh no, you’re going to attract their attention, you just need to impress them more than irritate them. As long as you show the Skill proper respect, they will not mind you using it.”
“I think I get it, but I don’t actually have to worry about that right now. I have no way to actually use the Skill because, last I checked, it requires me to concentrate Soul mana at least fifty times. I haven’t really tried using it with lesser concentrated mana though, so it might work with something weaker.”
“I wouldn’t. I can’t be sure, but that could be considered a brute force attempt at using the Skill, and potentially irritating. That shouldn’t exactly be a problem though, don’t you already have it constructed? Isn’t that what you said the lines along your body are? You said that Soul used an intervention to save you and produce the mana required to make enough [Connection], why not just reuse what you already have?”
Dei scoffed. “What, and let my soul fall apart? Why the heck would I do that?”
“What? You haven’t healed your soul yet? Hasn’t it been like… more than half a year? Why not… Why haven't you formed a rejuvenation Skill?”
“I formed a soul repair skill just a week ago. If I can get some time to rest, it’ll be fixed eventually, but it’s not that easy,” Dei said defensively.
“A week ago?! Did you completely give up on fixing your soul early on?”
Dei was about to respond defensively again, but paused. ‘We aren’t on the same page here.’
“Start from the beginning. Why do you think I would have healed my soul by now?” Dei asked.
Aloran, catching on, said “Ah, yes. You see, the more you want or need a Skill, the more likely it is to come into being. That isn’t to say you can just think anything into existence, but for simple things like healing? Your affinities should respond, providing healing at a cost depending on which answers your call.
“The only time someone suffers a crippling wound without it being repaired is if their affinities deem that they’ve given up, that they aren’t willing to fight for it anymore. It’s not at all uncommon, as crippling wounds tend to have a traumatic story behind them as well; getting one’s arm blown off would understandably haunt someone. The reason I don’t think that’s a problem for you is because you’re a Slaughterer now. Your very existence is proof that you will not let anything cripple you, not even your natural traits. You’ve cut away the unnecessary things, including any shackles holding you back. There should be no mental block, because that’s just not possible for Slaughterers to have after their transformations; they either work that pain into their transformation, or they leave it behind.”
“Well, I only became a Slaughterer a few days ago?” Dei said, but he formed his Soul repair Skill before then anyway, so that shouldn’t be the issue.
The Skill he formed wasn’t even intended for Soul repair, it was a hibernation Skill. Soul repair was a secondary effect, so he technically still hadn’t formed one.
“That’s not it” Aloran said. “You started working on your transformation long before the System locked in the procedure, no, it’s something else. Would you mind if I did a mild scan on you? One a bit more intensive than when I looked at the memory of Iora, but not too badly. Just a general overview of you. It will notify me of any unique inconsistencies in your soul, then I’ll tell you long before investigating any of them.”
Dei nodded. He still didn’t want anyone knowing all his secrets, but this didn’t seem like it would be too bad. If his soul were a painting, it sounded like Aloran would take a step back and look at the entire thing in general. Besides, if it was too invasive, Dei would just block his attempts.
He needn’t have worried though, he felt Aloran avoid searching any memories. Instead, he looked at the general structure of his soul and at the anchor points of several Skills.
He paused at the cracks in his soul, and Dei still sensed a slight spike of fury from Aloran when he looked at those fractures. Not towards Dei, but Iora.
Nonetheless, he continued on. After a general scan was done, Dei heard Aloran say “Would you mind if I searched more into this connection with Love that emits from the cracks in your soul?”
“I would mind, honestly. Do not go there. Why do you want to?” Dei asked. He didn’t want Aloran mucking around with his connection to his mom. Even if he couldn’t figure out anything personal, that was too invasive for Dei’s taste.
“Because, I think it’s the reason you haven’t formed a soul healing Skill yet. Would you mind telling me the story of how you were infused with such pure loving intent?”
Dei grumbled a bit, but he went into detail. While he and his mom were in this Garden when she continuously tried healing him, it seemed that Aloran wasn’t able to really recall things from a time when he was asleep. Dei didn’t know if he was completely unaware in that time, but he clearly didn’t see everything.
When he was done he heard Aloran hum thoughtfully. “I believe I see what happened here. Instead of you forming a soul healing Skill, your mother did for you because you were in no state mentally to fight against your crippling wound. Normally something like healing over time would disappear, but Skills are always unpredictable. If I had to guess, then the reason you have not formed a soul healing Skill is because you are already being repaired. That glow is following your mothers last directive, to heal you in her stead.”
Dei was stunned. He’d never even considered that the glow would actually have an effect on him, he just thought it was his mothers way of reminding him she was there with him, always.
‘I’ll have to write her another message soon. A long one, too.’
“Because you were already being healed,” Aloran continued, “Your soul saw no need to expend effort in forming a new one, relying on your mother instead.”
“How? How did it know, if not even I did? I’ve wanted a soul healing Skill this entire time…”
“Kid, even if you didn’t know, your soul is a record of everything, every single sensation that has ever happened to you. If you know where to look, you can investigate some pretty taboo topics.”
“Such as?” Dei wondered.
“I’m not telling you. I can already sense you have an unnatural awareness of your soul in the first place; if I point you in the right direction, you might even be able to find them, and if you do, you’ll have more than just some Shamans after you. Just be careful kiddo, and if you run into anything that seems a bit… out there, turn back.”
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Dei wanted to say he would be curious, but there was too much going on in life to figure out what he wasn’t allowed to know. If it would make him new enemies when he already had them in spades, he was fine with being left in the dark.
“Alright alright lets circle back to the topic at hand,” Dei said. “So the first step to becoming a Reaper is to get a Leviathan Skill, the second is to use that Skill in a bunch of different ways. I now might be able to recycle what use of it I have now,” he was still avoiding saying the name “Connection” because it made him wildly uncomfortable, so his speech felt a little slanted. Either way, he got his point across. “But just because I might be able to reuse it, doesn’t mean I can. How do I know if my soul is fully rehealed before I pull out the stitches? I feel like I need to wait until the cracks go away, at the least.”
“Boy, wounds like that heal in a couple of months if the healing Skill is powered properly and there’s no venom resisting it. Your soul should be long-since healed, and you could get started on using Connection now- just wait until the end of our conversation if you’re feeling impatient, there’s more you need to know.”
“Should be healed? How sure are you?”
“Has that pink glow dimmed at all since your mother placed it on you?”
He shook his head, “No, if anything it’s gotten brighter each time I send her a message.”
“Hmm, being loving must empower it. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the Skill is not for lack of mana. I’d say there's a ninety nine percent chance you’re fully healed already.”
“I don’t know if I want to risk my soul falling apart, even if it’s only one percent,” he said hesitantly.
“Dei. From what you tell me you’ve been up to these last few months, you’ve gambled on worse odds than that for worse rewards. Are you joking?”
“Well… I don't know. I just feel like it’s too soon. I’ve gotten so used to the structural support that I just don’t want to remove it”
“Hmm. Well, I’m not exactly going to insist you gamble on something like that. This is your soul after all, and you can do what you want with it. Just consider this as a solution rather than waiting until you can concentrate your mana further. Don’t assume that the cracks, the scars on your soul, are ever going to heal- They won't. They represent more than just damage to your soul, but damage to your very being. The experience of having your own soul fall apart changed you in a way that is now permanent.”
Dei thought over everything he said, and it made sense. There were other things to do right now though, and he wasn’t in a rush to become a Reaper anyway. It sounded like he had decades, perhaps centuries before that became relevant. He could afford himself a few more months or years of recuperation before trying anything rash.
“So practice with Con- my Skill, in different ways. Got it. What’s the third step to becoming a Reaper?”
“The third step goes in tandem with the second. If you use Connection in multiple impressive ways, the Leviathans will recognize you. If Connection is worked into the fabric of your being, and you’re recognized, they will expend a small amount of effort to rewrite you into something closer to them- namely, a Reaper.”
“Rewrite me? That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not as bad as it comes off,” Aloran assured him. “I believe the process involves general strengthening of all your attributes, mind reinforcement, and a Racial change. Your mind will be left mostly untouched, except for whatever instinctual differences there will be between a Gem Dweller Human and Gem Dweller Reaper.”
Dei scratched his chin. It wouldn’t be the first time he tussled with changed instincts. When he was born as a Gem Dweller, it became abundantly clear that there were some things innate to them which he didn’t have before, such as how his mother was able to issue simple commands to him as a baby with a sort of chittering noise, and how he was able to let out oddly reptilian bellows.
‘Now that I think about it, my “beastial communication” should be upgraded now, because of my Slaughterer Achievement, yea? I gotta get on practicing that and what it means.’
“Alright, good to know. I have a lot more questions though if at all possible.”
“That’s fine, but there’s one more thing to discuss involving your tracking marks. I’ve been measuring the speed at which the person tracking you is getting closer. I don’t know exactly how far away they are, but by calculating the direction of the signal and the minute differences in it changing, I estimate that they will get here in the time range of one to three months. If I suppress your tracking mark, that can be increased into the range of two to five months, but the most important thing is what you can do. I sense that you have a low-level suppression Skill, which is good, but would you mind if I attempted to link up to it, perhaps working in tandem? There is a chance I could increase its effectiveness.”
Dei mentally filed away the time frames for when his hunter would find him, as that was wildly important information. He was working under the assumption that he could be attacked any day now, which was why he tried to focus on asking the larger questions from Aloran, but now he had some wiggle room- he would spend as much time in the Garden as possible.
It might seem counterproductive to not immediately go out and start training to try and earn experience, but the opposite was true. Dei was currently rebuilding his body with Fortitude mana using [Growing Rage] so that he could better handle the Wrath Curse, if he could finish that process then he had a much higher chance of survival. Clever seemed to imply that Dei was able to go toe to toe with a level three hundred Accipere when he released the curse fully. If he could channel even a small amount of that, it would prove better than a handful of levels.
“Sure” he told Aloran, allowing the God to link up to his [Good Samaritan] Skill. It’d also leveled up a few times in the past few days:
[Good Samaritan (37) -> (48)]
When he felt Alorans magical tendrils, Dei guided them to the point where the Skill anchored to his soul, letting Aloran grab at it and feel around.
“This is… a pretty powerful stealth Skill. Also, it’s toggleable.”
“Yea?” he said, confused. It was good to know that it was a strong stealth Skill, which made sense considering all the limiters on which situations he could use it in, but Aloran said “It’s toggleable” like that should mean something to him.
“Ah, you don’t know. There are three kinds of Skills. Active, Passive, and Toggleable. Active means you have to maintain the Skill yourself, and if you stop pouring mana in, it’ll deactivate. Passive means the Skill happens automatically, and usually has a negligible mana cost. Toggleable is a point between- where the Skill has low-level effects which can be considered passive, but extra features which can be considered active too.”
“What!? It does more? I thought it just suppressed tracking!”
“Well, sort of? It makes it harder to track you, but the active parts of the Skill make it so that you can increase the strength of the obscuration effects by pouring in more mana. In the case of this Skill, there aren’t actually extra features- it just gives the option to make the passive effects more effective.”
Dei quickly began to allot a small trickle of Kindness mana into the Skill, and felt it flare to life.
He’d received a large burst of Kindness mana when he returned the first two pieces of Alorans set, but had quickly condensed them. His Pandora’s Box was almost full, and he didn’t want to deal with leveling it up right now. As a result, he had some pretty concentrated Kindness- not up to thirty six concentration, but he had almost a thousand points of mana with fourteen or fifteen concentration Kindness.
The result was amazing, according to Aloran at least.
“That should do it!” he said with some mirth. “If I work together with your Skill, I can fully blot out the signals for as long as you can power the Skill!”
Dei sighed in relief. While he wouldn’t be able to keep up the Skill perpetually, he should have bought himself a few more months. More months of training.
The only drawback was that he couldn’t use Kindness Concentration to reshape his body, but that was okay. Kindness didn’t seem to be a really “combat oriented” affinity anyway, so its effects would be limited. Much better spent buying him time to train.
Just as he was thinking that though, his Kindness affinity notified him of something else, a feeling of desperation coming from somewhere nearby.
Taking only a moment to focus on it, he recognized the direction it was coming from, and quickly stood up.
‘There’s no way’ he thought, making his way back through the entrance and hearing Aloran question what he was doing in the back of his head.
Setting one foot out of the barrier, he let Tremor Sense show him the world, finding exactly where the desperation came from: The Lorpee Cave.
He saw three monsters tearing at the stone rubble he’d set in place to cover the entrance, and how the population of Lorpee’s had still not recovered. There weren’t enough adults to repel another attack.
The Lorpees seemed to sense this wasn’t a fight they could win. They wouldn’t exactly need to though. He’d promised himself long ago that he would repel any attacks on the cave if it came down to it, because he was the one to kill their previous alpha for the sake of power. The least he could do was to carry out its role until a new one emerged.
Quickly sending a package of information to Clever, Fendrascora, and Fang, he asked if they wanted to come along. He wouldn’t drag them into another fight if they didn’t want to, even if he didn’t think these new monsters would pose as much of a problem. They seemed to be of average level for the area rather than the absurdly overleveled Accipere.
Clever and Fendrascora agreed, but Fang hesitated.
“There is something I wish to discuss with Aloran. Will my assistance be integral to victory?”
Thinking it over for a second, Dei told her “No, I can use my hands and explosions. These won't be a challenge.”
Not wasting a second longer, he went back to the main portion of the cave and dropped Fang off, then quickly wriggled back through the crack in the wall.
“Dei where are you going?” Aloran asked
“Do something really quick, don't worry I’ll be back!”
Breaking out from the wall, he was off in a sprint towards the Lorpees.
