I took a step back from the mad lich.
“You sound like you’re talking about some insane science experiment.”
Torix steepled his fingers.
“In essence, I am. You’re a rather unusual person, so seeing your build manifest shall be interesting at the very least. In fact, I cannot wait to see the answers I seek.”
I gulped.
“So, why does a strange build make you so curious?”
Torix tilted his head.
“Make me curious? Oh, it does no such thing. To the contrary, nothing about your situation has evoked my curiosity. I simply am immersed in curiosity every second of every day.”
The boards creaked under my feet.
“Have you always been that way?”
Torix paced to the side.
“Something that’s important to understand about me is that I lived in a clan that had never left its homeland. My family never saw the stars and wondered to themselves. I was their opposite, the oil to their water. In that regard, I needed something different. In leaving my home planet, I found something else to the dreary sameness I’d become accustomed to.”
He raised his hand, inspecting the dried fingers.
“And in doing so, I have found worlds that are always changing. Here, in unwalked worlds, I am always awash in possibilities or mysteries. You think your build awoke my curiosity? No, disciple. My desire for knowledge has burned brightly since my birth.”
His eyes flared bright.
“And it will continue to burn until the stars fade and I am no more.”
Torix’s gaze never felt so piercing. I gave him a shaky smile.
“Then if we survive this quarantine, let’s see if we can’t explore a few stars? I’d love to see what’s out there too.”
Torix grabbed his chin, contemplation replacing his severity.
“Exploration is merely the first step to understanding. I wish for more than mere awareness. I wish to dissect the universe and understand it utterly. But my pedantic rants aside…Yes, well said. We’ll uncover the stars in the distance and beyond. However, for now, we must aim our insight and ingenuity to this realm.”
Torix interlocked his hands behind himself. His robes fluttered as he walked.
“For you to learn gravitation, you’ll first learn to master your mana. That would be the first step. After that, you’ll need to construct runes for it, considering how effective they are. Doing so shall grant you a far better understanding of your mana in general.”
He nodded.
“All that is required after that fundamental is spatial chaining, dimensional locking, then mass deviation.”
I dragged my hand down the back of my hair.
“That, uhm...It sounds intellectually rigorous.”
Torix waved away my concerns with a hand.
“Nonsense. Anything that is complicated can be made simple by breaking it into enough parts. Learn each of those fragments, master them, then use them in conjunction with one another. That is all a master of any craft does, including gravity mages.”
My nervousness mounted as he continued,
“A proper set of runes acts much like mastering a basic function. It automates, but it doesn’t offer understanding. Creating your own runes from scratch will enable you to gain said proficiency, but it requires at least a basic understanding of the underlying principles to be written in the first place.”
I nodded as eagerness supplanted some of the dread pooling in my stomach. I glanced at the runes on my forearms.
“I guess these runes are a way of shortcutting a basic boosting skill.” I glanced at my palms, “Why would runes have to stop there, right?”
“Precisely. As an aside, have faith in yourself. Anyone may learn anything. The only thing between you and this knowledge is discipline and time. Put both of those principles to practice, and you will become a master soon enough. I don’t believe that. I know it down to these dried bones.”
I clasped my hands to fists.
“Hell yeah.”
He swooshed a hand.
“We’ll start with reviewing your runes and working on the next working incarnation of them.”
Since Althea understandably needed a break from the constant slaughter, Torix and I worked together on learning the basics of the runes. As expected, it required a lot more learning than anything I’d done prior. Even after a few days’ worth of lessons, most of the material was foggy, partially from my own scholastic failings but also from a lack of context.
I’d never studied another language or worked on electrical currents. In many ways, runes mirrored those professions fused together alongside magical theory. As mana required a certain mindstate to evoke, these disciplines were all about handling difficult, arduous circuits, algorithms, and arrays while in a volatile emotional state.
In that regard, the lessons were the perfect material for a seventeen year old that never finished high school. As we practiced, my own mind’s doubt ate away at me. Torix kept his piercing gaze on me during the entire set of lessons all the while. At some point, I hit a snag on one particularly difficult set of circuits.
Over and over I tried. For hours, I toiled against the machinery and advanced circuits. I resolved myself to finish, to push through a potent snag in my understanding. Despite myself, I continued my failure. As time passed, the insidious doubt resurfaced. It crawled through my history. It brought out all my insecurities and hated me.
I remembered every time I failed a test after a sleepless night. I relived nights spent staring at a doorway, wondering if he would come to my room and remind me how small I was. It felt baked into my being, a part of my makeup that I couldn’t escape. I ceased wondering about the material and began questioning my ability. Torix watched all the while, his azure eyes flaring brighter overtime.
He bore his eyes through me, the lich offering little to douse my resentment. As I set a runically charged pen down, I balled my hands up, hating how little I knew about anything. I lowered my head, feeling defeated. Shocking me out of my pity, Torix slammed his hand against my desk. I peered up at him, a wave of fear spreading over me.
I worried he would say I’m not enough. I wondered if he would hate how slow I was learning the material. Would he regret taking me on as a student? My anxiety surged, and his voice was as hard as steel.
“Cease wondering if you can or cannot do this. This isn’t supposed to be a simple, easy endeavour. It is a trial by fire, one spurred by necessity. Are you struggling? Excellent. Is it difficult? Good. That struggle is a result of your applied effort. It means you are still trying. That is all you need to proceed through this.”
His words leaked out like a caustic venom.
“But if you cease trying, then you have genuinely failed. So desist with this incessant pondering. Are you some chosen individual who learns easily? I shall answer that for you. No. You are not.”
My heart sank before he put a hand on his chest.
“But neither am I. This is the truth - no one is. That is not our bane or burden. It is our freedom. We have, within each of us, the ability to choose what and who we are.”
I blinked, my throat and eyes burning. He leaned over my desk, his eyes meeting mine.
“Your past will not stop you from rising above your current circumstances. In regards to your life, nothing you have experienced is climacteric. Know that the actions you take from here on are what will define you.”
I let the words of my father, friends, and teachers fade from my ears. I blinked, water getting on my papers. Torix peered through me.
“Tell me, disciple, how will you choose to define yourself?”
I gave him a hurried nod, an intense resolve rushing over me in a wave.
“I…I will be relentless.”
Torix spread his fingers, a fireball forming.
“Then back to study, disciple. If the midnight oil burns low, I will offer light.”
I honed back in, my determination renewed to a fever pitch. Even if I didn’t believe in myself, I couldn’t fail the one person who did. So we started my initiation into those disciplines by learning how to manipulate my mana without the runes.
I hadn’t realized just how reliant on them I had become until I tried channeling the mana without the runes' help. It was almost impossible to do so without going utterly ballistic. The sheer bloodlust and frenzy left me curled on a ball on the floor, unable to move or think. I could only sit still and breathe myself through the fury.
It took days to get even subtle control over the energy, and trying to handle delicate tasks while charged in mana was a nightmare. Anytime I tried writing runes or even standing upright, I smeared the text or tackled the floor when I fell down. It was like painting the Mona Lisa with a sledgehammer or performing brain surgery with a lawnmower blade.
The mana training gave me perspective for the runes and what they did. The energy followed a current dictated by the sigils. The markings shifted and moved the mana through complex and intricate pathways, mirroring the thoughts required to manifest the equivalent magic. While the magical formulae and esoteric algorithms eluded me, the runic equivalents flowed into my mind like wine through a festival.
It stunned me. I never expected something like runes to be one of my talents, but apparently it was. It reminded me of being a visual learner but reversed. I actually learned better from reading the books rather than trying to apply the thoughts and concepts directly. It was a polar opposite of my previous schooling abilities, which I hadn’t expected at all.
As I finished another set of runic conversions, Torix put a hand on my shoulder. He said,
“You are young. You know nothing of who you are and what you are capable of. Those that knew you understood even less.”
I blinked, my unpenned hand squeezing tightly. Memories burned in my mind. I recalled all the moments when teachers called me a problem child. I remembered when my father tore my tests apart and told me to stop cheating on other students. To my surprise, flashes of Michael and Kelsey rolling their eyes at my questions seared in my head like a brand.
It was something I hadn’t thought about, but everytime I had ever tried to learn or study, I had been burned. Every spark of curiosity or academic success had become something agonizing, and before I knew it, I associated study with pain. As a child, I caved into my circumstances and ran away from anything remotely scholastic for that reason.
However, I was a child no longer. I had never known my strengths or weaknesses. I had no idea what fields of study arose my passion for learning. But now, I did. As that washed over me, I ground my teeth in anger and indignation, not at those that beat me down, but at myself. I had allowed them to crush my spirit.
Never again.
Torix gave me a tap on my shoulder.
“Let’s uncover exactly who you are, shall we?”
I smiled, the pain in my chest turned into something that healed rather than hurt.
“Yeah. Let’s see what I’m made of.”
After letting that wave of emotion encompass me, I went back to work. I sent a silent prayer of thanks to Schema for sending Torix into my life. Whether other people believed he was an evil lich or not, I didn’t care. He treated me well, and he was the first person in my life who believed in me.
It was a feeling I had never experienced, and it felt amazing. And that was why I would die before I let him down. Leaning into that motivation, I stayed on task as the days of study passed me by in a flash. I kept on task, my focus sharpening by the day.
The lich peered at me as I hunched over a series of books while translating my work. Torix murmured,
“For one who feared school, you seem to soak in anything about runes easily.”
I took a breath, trying to unravel the conversion process for water spawning runes.
“It feels so right to me, like...Like I’m speaking to the world directly instead of trying to finagle my way to the result.”
Torix scoffed.
“I’ve taught several students, yet you are the first to argue anything remotely proximal to that perspective. Most say the codified language of Schema is something archaic and unrefined.”
I brushed a hand over a series of the sigils.
“Eh...I think they’re beautiful.”
Torix shook his head.
“Practical? Certainly. Effective? I’d concur. Beautiful? Hm, even I would argue to the contrary, but to each their own as they say.”
I raised a brow at Torix. The lich leaned back.
“They do say that, don’t they?”
A light smirk traced my lips.
“Yeah, they do, and it looks like this backwater world has a bit more to offer than you thought.”
Torix’s eyes flared yellow.
“Ah yes, such as old country bumpkin phrases. Truly a feast for the mind.”
I rolled my eyes before getting back to work. The magical theory bit revolved around achieving certain mindstates and focusing through the interference. Considering the sheer volatility of ascendant mana, I soaked in the wisdom of the ages, trying out a variety of meditation, focus, and harmonizing techniques.
It resulted in subtle gains over time, though nothing particularly notable like with the runes. I had already understood focus from my boxing pre-system, and I could rally my mind whenever emotions rushed over me from my childhood. While not the worst I’d heard of, I did experience quite a few, er, distractions while growing up.
Missed meals, hard knocks, and waking up to the dull thwack of a bottle across my back, I learned to distance myself from my reality and hone in on other parts of my life. Magic, in many ways, required a similar style of dissociation, a dichotomy of emotion and the mind.
One needed to rile themselves into a fever pitch of rage and anger to summon the mana. Refining that energy required discipline and coldness, something I lacked but was developing. So, I put the hours in. If I summed the experience up in a single word, it would be challenging. Despite the newfound difficulty, I couldn’t help but smile my way through it.
Since the system began, I built my concentration from a near high school dropout up to a manic battlemage. While not a complete turnover, it was progress. All my willpower and endurance allowed me to handle this kind of task by sheer force of will as well. I could also afford many mistakes.
While most mages had fragile, easily broken bodies, I was exceptionally resilient. I could channel mana and have a limb explode. In a few minutes, it reconstructed itself, and I would try again.
It reminded me of trying to break a brick barehanded. Shattering it could be done in numerous ways, but I had the option to just slam my face against it till it crumbled. While many would look down on that approach, I abused that ability for all it was worth. After all, I simply wasn’t as ingenious as Torix or as deft as Althea.
However, I was tough, and I was willing to use the full extent of what that durability implied. Pain, suffering, and distance, I watched my body turn into cinders a thousand times. In each advent, that self immolation burned brighter, and I smiled in the glow. As was the case in my fights, I had no qualms losing fingers or feet.
Even if my ribs shattered, my blood boiled, or my insides churned, I would continue. And so, I did. Through trial and error, I gained a better understanding of the volatile and violent mana known as ascendance. From sacrificing this way, I learned a lot of extra tidbits about it. If I ever lacked motivating for instance, I could burn through a light portion of the mana.
It gave me an antagonistic anger, one that helped during more than a few late nights. If I only used a small amount of it, it acted like caffeine in coffee. That energizing aura helped whenever my desire to continue waned. Considering I didn’t need sleep, that urge to rest came up often.
During those times, I would breathe, observe the feeling, and let it go. Another tip I picked up was that I could form my armor into the runes. With the new evolution of the metal, a greater level of control over it arrived. With that exacting precision, I could create intricate patterns in my armor if I willed it to be so.
I didn’t care for enhancing my aesthetics, but learning to manipulate my runes on the fly could be invaluable. With a bit more experimentation, I could make tiny wires that traveled down the flesh of my arm from the runes. While initially painful, those strands acted as conductors for the mana, and they pushed the runic effects into my body.
When manipulating my armor like that, Torix would sit over me and analyze my work. He said it reminded him of self-surgery, and I agreed. Rewriting my runes was difficult as well. I had to make the wording short and sweet, otherwise the runes became inefficient.
Since ascendant mana was a combination of both dominion and augmentation, my runes had to cover twice the ground in half the time so to speak. In the end, it reminded me of writing poetry. Every phrase had to carry multiple meanings. Even the visual layouts of the runes came into play, becoming pivotal in how each piece was interpreted.
To Torix’s chagrin, my sigils became more powerful when I used jagged, rough lettering instead of the smooth sterility of Schema’s renditions. Torix mentioned all the ways the imperfections weakened the energies, but testing showed different results. I described it like this - the way the letters looked had to reflect the feel of the energy coursing through them.
That approach didn’t even tap into the intricacies of the words’ meanings. Wrath, power, rage, control, even discipline, it all had to mix into a line or two. Like writing a story with drama and tension in only ten words, rune writing was a means of distillation. For some reason, I loved it. I didn’t know why, but I did.
After a week of working on all the different aspects of mana manipulation and the runic carving, I managed some functioning prototypes for new runic glyphs. They would function more or less like the previous ones, though a bit more efficiently. I wouldn’t have to pump massive pools of mana into them for simple effects, and the extra explosivity was always welcome.
I still had a choppy control of the mana without the runes, but Torix mentioned I would always struggle against the tide of energy.
“Mana is a mindstate, but as is the case with all obsessions, it may consume you given enough of your attention and devotion,” Torix said.
I rubbed my temples, the midnight oil having burned long ago and the sun rising in the distance.
“I’m going to have to come up with some kind of solution for it. Otherwise, I’ll just be sitting there in battle, struggling against the raging tide of thought and feeling.”
Torix paced behind me, helping keep me on track.
“Ah, but your attention will always be divided. That alone gives other builds a means of closing the distance between your and their raw stats. In that regard, that which propels you also hampers you. Tell me, are you regretting your choice of skills and attributes already?”
A defiant smile crossed my lips.
“Not a chance.”
Torix nodded.
“Good. Now again.”
Our next mission was coming up. Everything passed by in a haze during that time since I studied like an obsessive madman. If someone argued I lacked balance, I’d agree with them. Balance was an enviable proposition, but I lacked the means of acquiring it.
I was in an unbalanced situation, and it called for extreme answers. And so, I gave it my all. I entered a state of perpetual progress, which put me on a fast track of progress. While a difficult perk to take full advantage of, willpower and endurance combined to eliminate my need for sleep. If I exploited that benefit to its highest order, I could explode in my ability, propelling myself ahead of others.
Althea continued remodeling her rifle in the meantime, and we spent a few evenings together cooking and talking about life in the meantime. If I lost my sanity, then she offered one of the only refuges against my madness. Speaking of which, she struggled to adjust to this harsh lifestyle.
I couldn’t blame her at all. Living in Schema’s world was like living in an endless war. After being born and surviving, adults fought monsters until they either died or ascended into a being that could evaporate planets. Everyone else was caught between those two eventualities.
Even the strongest willed person needed a break from it every now and again. Schema, being a robot, didn’t understand that. That dissonance in his understanding of a person was where most of the problems with his system came from. If the AI just had a working army or portion of the population that fought, not everyone would have to scramble to face the incoming threat.
As it was, any new world had to develop their current population into a fighting force. Every man, woman, and child, from the elderly to the deposed, they all faced monsters until they died or rose above the ashes of a fallen world.
And I would change it.
Those thoughts tumbled in my mind as I checked on Althea. I knocked on her tent to make sure she was alright. She snapped,
“Who is it?”
“Uh, Daniel. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
She unzipped the tent, her silver skin and lavender hair as stunning as always. She stuck out anywhere like a diamond amidst coal. She sighed before going back into her tent.
“Oh, sorry Daniel. You can come in.”
I waited a few seconds before stepping inside. If I was to describe the place, it was messy. Not in a filthy sort of way, but like the place was lived in. Compared with the eerie cleanness of Torix’s place, it let me relax. The unmade bed and a few cooking books were spread out on the ground.
Based on the smell of food in the room, Althea may have tried cooking a thing or two, which I appreciated. She wanted to take more charge when we hung out. I told her she didn’t have too, but she insisted.
“I want to make piles of goop delicious too.”
“I’m not exactly working with piles of goop.”
“What did you make the other day that smelled so bad?”
I winced, memories of the eggs coming over me in a wave.
“Boiled eggs and black beans. I threw the eggs away.”
Althea put her hands on her hips.
“Yeah, but the beans were still good, and if those aren’t piles of goop, then what is?”
I waved my hands.
“No, no, I overcooked them. I’m trying new recipes with some supplies that age better, but uh, yeah, there are limits to how long anything can last. People are going to have to start farming soon. Either that or we eat what we hunt.”
Althea took each of her steps like a dancer.
“It’s risky to eat eldritch, though there are ways to prepare the meat.”
The heat in the tent would’ve been stifling in a pre-system age, but we hardly noticed the inconvenience. I appreciated that as I murmured.
“Tell me it doesn’t involve boiling the meat for an hour?”
She weighed her hands back and forth.
“It’s…Yes. Boiling in chemicals.”
“Oooh, appetizing. Is it a bath of chlorine?”
“Iodine, but it offers a robust flavor.”
“I can’t wait. It must clean the insides too.”
She laughed.
“In a sense.”
I picked up a food magazine.
“You know, I thought these would be relics from a different time, something that was useless now. It’s really cool that you want to learn to cook.”
Althea hopped onto her bed, and her legs crossed as she leaned onto them. She wasn’t wearing the skinsuit like before. She wore fitted combat fatigues with a belt around her waist. It accentuated her figure. Here and now, I spoke with a beautiful woman inside her effective bedroom.
Even with all the changes Schema made, I was still a teenage guy. My hormones blazed before I doused them out with a mental lashing. I grinned, my smile a bit too wide.
“You pumped for the mission?”
She leaned forward.
“I don’t know. I was an experiment until Yawm was satisfied, and I hardly remember those days. After that, I was forced to kill all the time or lose access to my sedatives. This…This is the first time in my life where I’ve had some time to, I don’t know…Think.”
She pulled her knees up and hugged them.
“And yeah…I don’t know if I enjoy killing monsters all the time. That’s whether I was built to do it or not. Honestly, I’m surprised you’re so cheery about the situation when I feel like we’re slaves. Er, no offense.”
“None taken. The way I understand it, this is a situation we’ve been forced into. Still, we get a choice whether we lay down and die or rise and fight. Besides taht, a man chooses, a slave obeys. I’ve chosen to fight.”
She pointed at me.
“See, you would never have said that when we first met. You’d be all gruff and curt. It feels like Schema changed you.”
I stood taller.
“I think it’s for the better. It could be the situation as well…Maybe.”
She sighed.
“From what I’ve read, it isn’t exactly natural to stay awake for weeks on end, studying non-stop.”
“Well, with my willpower-”
She snapped, “There it is again. Don’t you care if that robot is getting into your head and changing things around? Doesn’t that bother you?”
A ragged edge entered her voice. I raised an eyebrow.
“Are you telling me it bothers you?”
She gripped her knees.
“Of course it does. I want to be me. I don’t want to be some glorified servant for Schema or Yawm or anyone else. Sometimes, it feels like I left one experiment just to become someone else’s project.”
I sighed, putting my hands on my hips. An awkward silence passed for a second before I met her eyes with my own,
“I’m not going to pretend that I know what it’s like being raised by some monster like Yawm. However, I can say that Schema gives us a chance despite all of his flaws. If we can reach a point where the monsters aren’t so deadly, then we won’t have to rage with our lives on the line anymore. There’s something on the other side of the fighting, even if we have to be the people that make it happen.”
Althea looked up.
“I’m just…I’m tired of being changed by other people and by other things. I feel like I’ll never know who I am.”
I recalled the memories of bending to my own circumstances, of long nights and hard mornings. I nodded her way.
“It’s a hard thing to know who you are. Hell, I just learned that I’m pretty good with Schemic runes.”
Althea recoiled in distaste.
“Really? They’re so hard to understand.”
I offered her a hand.
“Well, what I’m saying is that’s something I learned about myself just the other day. I’d have always assumed I wouldn’t have something like that in me. Who knows what you have left to find in you.”
Althea smirked.
“You know, you’ve been a bit cheesier than normal lately.”
I met her eye.
“Is it working?”
She grabbed my hand.
“More than I would like.”
She let my hand go, and I couldn’t deny an electric feeling from the touch. I felt absurd in that moment as if I chased shadows that already disintegrated. She looked at the side of her tent.
“I just...I don’t want to be like that. I want to be able to enjoy my time and relax. I never can. I’m always fighting. Either that, or I’m always studying for the next fight. It’s just...I’m tired of it all. And already.”
I sighed. I glanced at my palms. The new inscriptions brimmed with a silent power, like a loaded gun. I glanced back up at her.
“You have a choice. Either you let the darkness outside creep in, or you can let your own darkness creep out. I remember reading about some guy who said to be careful when fighting monsters.”
“Because their dangerous?”
“No. Because in fighting monsters, you may become one. I will never become a monster. Instead, I’ll eat them.”
“Uh...doesn’t that make you one?”
I scratched my nose for a second, “Hmmm...well I guess so. Uh, let me think for a second.” I pressed my hands against my temples for a few seconds. After a few moments of thought, I smacked one of my fists into an open palm,
“I think I can describe it. I won’t be a monster of men. I’ll be a monster of monsters. It’s like, uhm, imagine something made to scare you, a boogeyman of sorts.”
She leaned back into a tent pole, her figure on display. My eyes wandered before I turned away. At this point, I felt possessed by my hormones. In that regard, it was another monster to overcome. She gave me a wry smile.
“What do you mean boogeyman?”
I refocused myself.
“It’s a tale told to small children. You tell them that if they misbehave, a boogeyman will come out and scare them. It usually skulks out of the dark corners of a room, like someone’s bed for example. The monsters in Schema’s world are like that. I want to be a boogeyman to the boogeyman. A monster to the monsters. When they think of eating someone, I want them to know in the back of their mind that I’ll come and tear them apart.”
She crossed her arms.
“That sounds like it requires some mind magic.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be competent with that, but maybe I could come out as a legend or something like that.”
Althea laughed before I shot down a wave of embarrassment. I waved her off. “Look, I haven’t thought it all the way through. These are, I don’t know, formative thoughts or something.”
Althea grinned.
“No, I get it. I just...I thought you were a machine or something like that. Who knew I could make some sense of your goals.”
I gestured to her.
“Well, you aren’t very transparent either. You just sit there, hiding and being quiet all the time. It’s really hard to get a grip on who you are sometimes.”
Althea rolled her eyes.
“Oh, really now? From what I’ve seen, you’re just a…A worker. You work all the time, twenty-four seven. Who’s supposed to relate to that?”
“I don’t know. Calculators.”
Althea laughed again. I grinned with her before letting myself out.
“Anyways, I figured you could use some cheering up before the mission. Just know that if you don’t know who you are, then you can decide who you want to be.”
She sighed before peering up at me.
“I guess I’ll try to make the most of it.”
I nodded, leaving the tent. With the first blitz coming later that day, I walked over towards my own tent and checked my status. After a week of studying, I gained quite a few skills and points into those skills. Ascendant Manipulation, Soul Conduit, and I even had a breakthrough in two skills, Carving into Oblivion and Comprehension of Oblivion.
Those were the skills for carving runes and understanding them. I passed the halfway mark in both of those skills, which let me develop the new runic passage in my forearms, shins, and palms. All in all, I amassed over a hundred treepoints. I glanced at my current tree.
II Vicious(Beat an enemy 40 levels higher than you in combat lasting over an hour, Death's Dance, Scorn, and Desperation over level 25) | 13/50
I placed 37 points into the tree, messages popping up in my notifications.
With the might of your struggle, rip your enemy asunder. Rive them apart with fury of frenzy and the might of malice.
+2% total damage.
Feast on their flesh. Bathe in their blood. Break into their bones and mold their marrow. This wrath of yours, it’s a tool.
+2% total damage.
In order to inflict hurt on someone, you must come at them with the intention to hurt. You must embrace the primal.
+2% damage.
And make the primal frenzy your own.
+2%, and unlocks the skill Primal Frenzy. | Correction: Skill Primal Frenzy already unlocked! | +5% to total damage bonus.
In total, just a few tree points gave me 13% more damage. On a bang for your buck basis, the tree offered a level of efficiency no other tree had. Before I soaked that fact in, the menu for selecting my next tree appeared.
[III Fighter(Kill an enemy 40 levels over you. Path of Iron perk obtained.)(0/50)]
[Cosmic Soul(Obtain level three different soul related skills before level 500, ascendant unlocked before level 500, and willpower over 250 before level 500)(0/500)]
[I Invincible(Take over 10,000 points of damage, with capped resistance in the damage type, and live)
(0/250)]
[Fearless (Battle an enemy over 1,000 levels above you and live) (0/250)]
I selected the Fighter tree line, hoping for some easy, quick bonuses. After filling out all the points in the tree, it didn’t disappoint.
Those that enjoy battle and live for it are strongest. Either you gain the discipline to become a master of it, or you simply feed an obsession.
+3% to physical power and physical damage reduction multiplier.
You are the latter. The act of war is a narcotic for you, a therapy amidst blood and battle. While most find peace in paradise, you find your center among a mass of corpses.
+3% to physical power and damage reduction multiplier.
Only in the rage and decay can you truly focus. Once you’ve seen the brilliance of battle, everything else dims dull by comparison. Even the brightest light dies down to a grim gray.
+3% to physical power and damage reduction multiplier.
That gray bleeds into life, infecting it with an overwhelming apathy. Finding purpose amidst that gray is as senseless as trying to nurture a predator on bread. One day, they will need blood.
+3% to physical power and reduction multiplier.
And one day, so will you.
+3% to physical power and reduction multiplier. +50% flat bonus to physical power.
This tree didn’t pan out quite as well as the last one. The 50% flat bonus wasn’t much in comparison with my amassed physical damage bonus. The multiplier added onto my other multipliers too and wasn’t considered multiplicative. Still, it was enough to notice. The tree menu popped back up again.
[Cosmic Soul(Obtain level three different soul related skills before level 500, ascendant unlocked before level 500, and willpower over 250 before level 500)(0/500)]
[I Invincible(Take over 10,000 points of damage, with capped resistance in the damage type, and live) (0/250)]
[Fearless (Battle an enemy over 1,000 levels above you and live) (0/250)]
This time, I selected Cosmic Soul. It looked like it may help with the runic aspects of my build, so I poured my remaining points into the tree. Before heading out on the mission, I had one other set of bonuses to finish. One of the big trees I finished, Genesis of Potential, increased the amount of dungeon cores I could absorb from 1/4th my level to half of it.
That meant I had a couple of bonus cores to eat before we left. To get them, I had to further my debts to Kessiah or Torix to make good on the bonuses. With that in mind, I walked through the camp. As I did, the eyes of soldiers bore into the back of my head. It left my skin bristling, though in sensation alone.
Most of the people here at the Force of Iron were everyday individuals before Schema arrived. They just assumed I was some interspecies monster like Kessiah and Althea. However, unlike those two, I wasn’t an attractive woman. That fact gave each of them a cult following amongst other camp members.
It was a strange feeling. In a direct way, I was more disliked and divorced from humanity than two aliens. I still wasn’t hated like Torix though. The Force of Iron utterly despised him, and that stemmed from the lich’s iron fist approach to politics. He mutilated their leader, had them reorganize three times in three weeks, and worked them to the bone.
I mean what else did they expect. He’s a necromancer. He needs his skeletons. Get it? Cause he works them to the bone? Ok, I’ll go jump off a bridge.
My incredibly potent and humerus jokes aside, Torix still captured tremendous respect from his tactical competence. No matter how people thought of him, Torix reduced the Force of Iron’s losses while dramatically enhancing their gains. He even led lectures bi-weekly on basic magics to inform our people. These good works fostered good will, though he still had plenty of ground to gain.
On the other hand, it was difficult to gauge where I landed. If anything, I wasn’t despised as much as feared. The title and dark metal armor gave the impression of a monster. I’m guessing that’s why no soldiers even attempted walking up and talking to me this entire time. That all changed as I walked over towards Kessiah’s tent. I was glancing at my status screen like I was holding a phone.
It felt weird to look at it while staring straight forward, so I ended up bumping into a soldier who was passing by. I didn’t mean to, but I knocked him onto the ground like I was a linebacker tackling him. I even dented a piece of his armor, and he dropped his rifle into a patch of mud. As I turned my head to glance at him, he scrambled onto his knees.
He pulled off his helmet before wobbling back onto his feet. He gave me a short salute, his messy brown hair and five o clock shadow making him look older than he was.
“I-I’m sorry sir. I should have been looking where I was going.”
Being polite, I pulled my helmet back, exposing my face. I gave him a smile,
“Man, if anything, I’m sorry. I’ll watch where I’m going next time.”
I pointed at his rifle.
“Is that an issue?”
He glanced at the rifle, mud lodged in some of the mechanical parts. He picked it up.
“Uh, yes. But, I-I mean it’s not your problem. It’s mine sir.”
I put out my hand to him. He glanced around before handing me the rifle. His hands shook as he did so. I glanced inside the compartments, looking it over. Bits of grit were in the loading chambers, along with the barrel. Cleaning it would be a time-consuming pain. The soldier turned pale as I moved the gun around to view it. Testing my new runes, some ascendant mana flared into my palm.
A spark of rage and hunger erupted. As Torix and I had trained, I breathed through it while filling in a mana pathway. The runes glowed a bright crimson on my palm, making red light sheen off my armor. Using my palm enchantments, I pulled the grit from the rifle via telekinesis.
I handed the rifle to him, the barrel of the rifle facing me instead of him. I figured it was politer that way. He took it from me, his hands still a bit jittery. I raised an eyebrow.
“What’s got you so scared?” I laughed, “Did you think I was going to shoot or something crazy like that?”
He glanced around, and my eyes followed where he gazed. A rough approximation of a circle formed as soldiers eyes the interaction. We were making quite the scene despite making no attempt to do so. The soldier glanced around, frozen in place. I rolled my eyes before spreading my hands to everyone watching.
“Alright, everyone. We need to level a bit. I’m a human just like all of you. I’m not going to tear anyone’s head off if we happen to bump into each other or drop a rifle...That would be literal insanity.”
Someone chimed in from the group.
“That’s what happened to the Sergeant."
With all eyes on me, I waved my hands.
“We all know he healed after what Torix did. If anything, I would think of that as a change in management. Torix needed an example. Your Sergeant was the unfortunate victim of that example. Me though-“ I tapped my chest, “I’m not going to do something like that.”
I lowered my hands.
“I just want to stop Yawm because that bastard needs to die. I think we can all agree on that, right?”
A few cheers rang out from the crowd. I raised a fist.
“Stand against me, and I’ll tear you down. However, if you walk with me, then I’ll be your sword and shield. No matter the battle, I will be the vanguard. Remember that.”
Right in front of me, I tapped the brown-haired guy’s shoulder pad.
“Bumping into me is nothing to worry about. Relax and work hard. We’ve got a monster to kill.”
I walked off, leaving the group of soldiers behind me. Once they thought I was out of earshot, an electric whispering took over the crowd.
“And here I thought Diesel was dead.”
“Not such a bad guy I guess.”
“Who knows, we might have a shot against the zombies.”
I let my armor flow back over my head before wondering why my wording improved so much lately. I could never speak in front of a group like that, and in highschool, my worst subject was public speaking. I still remember being told by Ms. Burns to quit using my fists while gesturing to people. She argued it was too forceful. I argued that the rest of my body language changed it to indicate strength.
Aaaand I failed that course.
For the soldiers, being in a state of perpetual fear took its toll on them. By humanizing myself, a few of them might have found a person to trust in and hope for. Those expectations rested heavy upon my shoulders, and I let out a shiver of nervousness once I left their gazes. This was going to be difficult.
After I walked through the camp, I reached Kessiah’s tent. I tapped on it, but no one replied. I frowned.
“Are you there Kessiah?”
Silence was my answer. I unzipped the entrance, glancing inside. Messy as a garbage bin, Kessiah’s tent effused the smell of old, half eaten food and dirty clothes. I closed the door, vowing to never peer within its confines again. After I surveyed the area, I found a suspicious distance around Kessiah’s tent and everyone else's.
I scoffed.
“She has a reputation, huh?”
Leaving the unsightly living quarters, I aimed myself at Torix who would likely have some dungeon cores he could loan me. I walked up to Torix’s house, one he turned into an evil lair. Skeletons guarded the entrance, and menacing spiders sat upon acid cobwebs. After studying here last week, it felt cozy despite the grim decor.
Near the house, Kessiah and Torix’s voices came into focus.
Kessiah whispered.
“Are you serious? Over 30,000 health?”
Torix answered.
“Even more. His health regeneration was over 10,000 a minute. Every stat across the board was inflated for his level. I never honestly believed we stood a chance against Yawm. Perhaps we may.”
Kessiah’s voice grew in frustration.
“I’ve seen him use mana like a drug. This strategy he has isn’t going to work long-term. He’s either going to die from overusing mana in battle or he’ll end up poisoned by it. You know what happens when someone is consumed by ascendance."
Silence answered her. I could barely make out her voice.
“They become scions of hunger. Possessed. Rabid animals that can’t be left unchained. Even if he pushes through that, then what? It doesn’t matter how tough the guy is. If Yawm hits him with a Sentinel’s spear, he’s done for, and we know Yawm has one.”
Fear welled in my stomach at Kessiah’s words. Torix replied.
“Daniel has already been exposed to the spaces between dimensions and survived.”
After a cackle, Torix’s words carried menace.
“He has survived exile, and we may overcome Ajax and Yawm through it.”