AN: Hey all! Sorry again for the late post. Still catching up from that one delay, but I'm getting back on track and more plans are falling into place.
On another note, we got more art! If you haven't seen it already, we've got a piece for our speedster assassin Shadowbane which was posted to the official art post a while ago. Now, we've also got one for our favorite crazy lady Katta, both by Rezami.
Hope you like them, and enjoy the chapter!
Shadowbane:
Katta:
October 25th, 629
“Holy shit…”
When my eyes finally opened, I felt my weakness instantly.
I lifted myself, feeling winded, lightheaded, and dehydrated. I had a feeling that I’d feel sick too if my immune system were any weaker.
Glancing at a nearby clock, I realized I had slept for two full days straight. Lighting a cigar, I got some medicine in me, letting it work its magic while shifting out of bed.
I felt the weakness in my legs, but opted to ignore it out of desire for food and water. I didn’t even get properly dressed, still in some loose shorts as I walked through my new estate to the kitchen where I found some preserved foods kept on stand by for my snacking leisure.
Not long after, Umara walked in, looking like she had just come out of her study with a grimoire in hand. She gave me a soft smile.
“You’re pale.”
“I’m feeling pale. I’ll be fine though.”
“It’s been a couple days. I’m just glad you got some good sleep. Seems like your body understood that things came to a close.”
I nodded silently. I wasn’t unfamiliar with the phenomenon. Realizing that a chronic and stressful event was over was often a trigger for the body shutting down and going into recovery mode. Normally that would result in some kind of sickness. Since my body was too powerful for that, I just felt weak instead, which said enough about the toll it demanded.
I felt my recovery kickstart in real time, taking a few minutes to just sit and stew. Despite the weakness, my mind was sharp, no tiredness to be felt.
It made me churn with ideas for the future. I had work that needed to be done, a few things more pressing than others.
After enough silence, I spoke my mind for Umara to hear.
“I need to get into my workshop, and I’ll need your help. Prosthetics for Graves is priority, then I can handle my Crown and Invocations after that.”
“I know you said a month or two would be needed to research them both, but will it really be enough time?”
“Oh yes, it will be quite enough. The prosthetics will be easy. I should have that done in a week. The harder part is my Crown and the research I need to do for it. The hardest part is developing that combat simulator. How long that takes depends on what the Puppet Master gives me and how well Invocation research goes.”
“I see. Well you’ll have me whenever you need.”
“Thank you my love.”
I gave her a kiss, my thoughts drifting to any ideas I had already conjured.
The prosthetics already had functional foundations to build off of. I’d just have to figure out how to integrate the Death Shrine material and link it with a human nervous system. I had a feeling that I could find insight in how to do that from a Neural Gem. They were responsible for doing just that, which meant not only could I pull from their innate abilities, but I could utilize all of the tech that I had developed from my SEER Knife, from interfacing with the Neural Gem to my specially designed bio-programming capable of controlling it.
The only thing still up in the air about that was the material and biological properties of the metal. Just because it could interface with a nervous system well didn’t mean that the body it was growing into would accept it. I’d need Umara’s help with the biological testing.
After the prosthetics would be the Crown. For that, I’d need to do research on the Despair King Blood, the Broodfather, and Invocations. I intended to use all three elements in my Crown.
I still remembered Terrace speaking about how I had a rather large capacity for Crowns. Although I had one, compared to others, it was superficial. It only modified my eyes and spinal cord. The changes to my Spinal Cord were the only potentially problematic factor since the Despair King Blood would undoubtedly touch upon it, but I wasn’t expecting any great interference. Even if one was replaced by the other, it was a trade I was willing to make. The benefits to reap were too large to allow the previous Crown to get in the way.
Terrace was indeed the master in this department. I still didn’t have much knowledge in the way of the Church’s Crown technology. Even the Kingdom and its own Crowns were a relative mystery. I had my guesses after the appearance of the Nephilim, thinking that this superficial Corruption wasn’t a new technology and was instead used to provide the Kingdom a competing edge in the field of Crowns against the Kingdom. That would probably be the reason why the Kingdom could do it even though the Church invented the tech and didn’t share it.
Although I didn’t have too much knowledge though, it wasn’t like I had none about everything generally. Not only did I have decent guesses about how Crowns truly worked on a fundamental level, but waiting for me on my Aerial was information from Terrace about what I could expect from the Despair portion of the Crown. I was far from the first Summoner to receive such a Crown, even if I was turning out to be only one of four that had ever received one from Authority 11 material.
A Despair King Blood was unlike the other three King Bloodlines. Although Unholy Light dabbled in mental afflictions, at its core the bloodline afforded one Mana control abilities. Anarchy, although potentially touching upon Mana control, was primarily Vigor-based.
Despair was fully Psykic, however. According to Terrace’s information, which provided some background on Despair King Bloods through historical encounters, there was actually a fairly small amount of information, certainly small compared to the other King Bloodlines. That was because Despair King Blood encounters came with the highest mortality rates. Most people who ever encountered one either died to it or saw it escape before they could even fight it.
They were obviously known for being the most intelligent of the Bloodlines, even if they weren’t found commanding others that often. They were tricky, conniving, and a few encounters even spoke about their sadism. If Death Shrines were any indication, that fact wasn’t surprising.
Most encountered caused some form of trauma. Despair King Bloods would torment their prey, not just through physical torture, but mental torment. Illusions were their most potent ability, which they used to lead their prey into false senses of security and distraction. The encounters describe themselves like a horror movie where a soldier is being hunted by an enemy he knows is there, but can’t interact with.
Despair King Bloods were physically weak and had no elemental magic at their disposal. Unlike the other two Bloodlines which used two of the magical energies, Despair King Bloods exclusively used Psyka and leaned into their strengths in extreme ways, primarily because they had no other strengths to lean into.
These strengths were reflected in the benefits I’d receive from a Crown. The most obvious benefits were those that improved thinking abilities, such as speed of thought. The Crown was also known for adding sources of thought as well, not unlike a Spark. The weaker King Bloods under Authority 10 provided two sources of thought, and for most higher Authority Summoners that meant they’d double their sources of thought from two to four.
Those at and above Authority 10, however, added three sources. Adding it to myself would mean I’d have both my primary consciousness, my two Sparks, and then three more sub-minds from the Crown.
Apparently, these sub-minds were biologically sourced as well. They weren’t sure of every detail, but one clear boost was to neural matter around the spine and in the brain. Noted changes were enhancements to reflexes and strength throughout the entire body as a result of higher neural stimulation thresholds, as well as improvements to bodily management systems like those responsible for hormonal regulation, which meant it was affecting the entire nervous system.
On top of that, the Despair Kingblood contained a Psykic organ. It was both similar and different from the Mana Organ that Umara received from Unholy Light. Her’s allowed her to stream Mana through her body with far higher thresholds and control. On the other hand, this Psyka Organ was only able to control Psyka through the space around the body. First hand accounts indicate that users controlled Psyka like they would control a field of the energy around their body.
It was just like the technique most summoners learned where they’d use their Aura to bring Psyka beyond them, except the ability was inherently bio-magical with Despair King Bloods. And since they were given a dedicated organ to control it that way, although there was an adjustment period, using both Auric and biological control methods provided a vastly higher skill ceiling for controlling Psyka, always resulting in far finer control over the energy.
Most changes were benefits, but depending on how it was looked at, not all of them were. Two of the primary negative changes were to attitude and sleep.
Receiving the Crown had a noted affect on people’s attitude toward fear. This was primarily reflected in how they either had heavily reduced fear, or fear was outright eliminated from their psyche. Biological changes usually showed changed regions of the brain, which I interpreted as shrunked or eliminated fear centers. This meant that most summoners who received the Crown became far bolder without the feeling of fear, and most of the time, it was interpreted as negative since it often changed them in ways associated with narcissism.
The second change to sleep was notable as well. Often, Summoners with the Crown needed even less sleep than usual. Some Summoners who could previously go a week without sleep could now go a month without sleep. Those who could go almost a month without sleep could go half a year without sleep.
If those changes occurred to me? I could already go multiple months without sleep, and that’s just what had been proven. As of now, although I hadn’t surpassed my previous record, after my advancement I was rather sure that I didn’t need any sleep anymore.
This Crown would apparently cement that theory. The only reason it was seen as negative though was because of the psychological affects and shift it had on most Summoners who weren’t used to sleeping so little. The weakest of them required heavy therapy in order to keep themselves from going mad at the unending stimulation of wakefulness. Others needed to adjust over the course of months to finally get used to or cope with their new reality.
It was safe to say I wouldn’t need that, so it was a non-factor.
The only change I was concerned with was behavioral, but I had a feeling I could circumvent that issue using my Mind Palace. Even then, I also didn’t mind raising my threshold for fear. Some fear was always healthy since it usually did a decent job protecting against stupidity, but otherwise, it was also an inhibitor.
Nevertheless, even given all these things, the results were unpredictable due to the other ingredients I’d be using.
I’d need to conduct research on the samples I kept from the Broodfather. While Terrace was definitely going to derive more conclusive results than I, given that he specialized in the field, I also intended to glean plenty of things with Umara’s help.
Though, perhaps my most important topic of study was the Invocations.
I had glanced through the material that the Pope sent with slightly deeper scrutiny, and he hadn’t screwed me on our deal. I received copious details, research material, and both official and unofficial documents pertaining to how Invocations worked, how they were applied, how they could be modified, what it all meant in both local and translated script, and everything in between. The total sum of the knowledge sent to me gave me everything I’d need to understand, utilize, and develop Invocations. It was, in fact, everything I had wanted when I asked the Pope for it, which impressed me a great deal.
I had been awfully pessimistic recently, so having someone respond to me with the same level of depth I gave them was quite relieving.
The great thing about Invocations in my mind was that they could be used and manipulated by anyone. The civilization that created and developed them was ordinary, not a Magus to speak of. That meant it was a raw technology, even if it utilized magic and Aura.
Aura was key here. Invocations were just about entirely reliant on it, which was what allowed their users to scale their power. It also confirmed my guesses that ordinary people still had access to Aura and could in fact develop powers with it just as Magi could. The only issue was that Aura often needed something to attach itself to. Whether that was a requirement or just a matter of the user being able to visualize something remained to be seen, but it was undeniable that when someone had either magic or Invocations to give them a source of energetic power, their Aura was able to develop abilities and techniques with far greater frequency as opposed to when an ordinary person had nothing.
Either way, this all meant that I wouldn’t be locked out of certain levels of development for Invocations like I was with enchanting. Enchanting almost always demanded that a Warlock apply an enchantment since only they could directly handle worldly materials with their magic. Summoners, while a key part of thinking and development, were locked out of that process.
Invocations had no such barrier to entry. Invocations, before arriving at the Church, had also never been touched by someone with the intelligence of a Summoner. This meant that the potential for growth in complexity was extraordinary. In fact, I had a feeling that at least starting within the Church, the art of Invocations would become for Summoners what enchanting was for Warlocks. Once allowed to prosper publicly and once developed to a certain level, only a summoner would ever be able to bring out their full potential.
This was why I wanted the knowledge on it before getting my next Crown. If I could understand it, then I could make something better, with likely a magnitude increase in complexity and capability. I wouldn’t want anything less for my Crown, especially if I could learn to implement concepts from my Quantum Psionics.
If I was being honest, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad decision to put off making Graves’ prosthetics either. If I waited until after my Crown, I could work on it with a greater level of intelligence. Since Graves was getting his limbs back anyway, it wasn’t like I was on a timer. Both of us could wait, even if it would be a less efficient use of my time to put it off.
Well, that was for after my first week here at the island.
I’d need time to get everything set up. We had a lot of new residents here, myself included, and I’d need to get Wonderland facilities set up and running at full capacity. Without the war to force us to tinker with more pressing matters, I could afford to focus development on broader, more important topics.
But they needed my direction to make that happen. I was glad to provide it too. Iron Legion had been taken out of my hands and having something still within my grasp felt nice. My operations would now be completely in the dark, but that was fine with me. Although I quite liked the attention, there was a charm in the secrecy of my best work.
Another thing I had to prepare for was the return of my team. Once everyone was finished with matters in the Kingdom, those who wished to would come to the island and eventually follow me when I decided to pick up my feet and move. There was a lot of power and knowledge to unearth, and they knew that.
I just wondered who would be up to the adventure. I had my guesses, and was sure that not everyone would be joining me.
That would be their decision though. I certainly wouldn’t be making any for them.
With those thoughts, I went with Umara to the Wonderland facility in the city, preparing for my first day back on the job.