In the middle of beating me up for absolutely no justifiable reason, Azrael’s nigh-invisibility flickered and cut out. She had an ugly expression, and it was pretty obvious that she was getting a headache from lack of Mentum. I took the opportunity to check my Phylactery, and silently rejoiced when I found that I no longer needed to allow Azzy to kick my butt all around the tower.

Seif Ambrose

Spatial Lich 5 (Max, Specialization Available)

Phylactery 5 (Max)

* Undead Possession 8

* Reconstitution 7

* Incorporate Phylactery 6

* Mental Shield 6

* Mentum Generator 8

* Clone 6

Necrosis Manipulation 5 (Max)

* Deadsight 7

* Animate Necrosis 8

* Shape Necrosis 5

* Create Undead 9

* Necrotic Restoration 6

* Construct Consciousness 10

Domain of Undeath 5 (Max)

* Spread Undeath 9

* Mold Terrain 10

* Transmute 8

* Omnipresence 7

* Omniscience 5

* Empowered Control 5

Spatium Manipulation 5 (Max)

* Delinear Sight 7

* Stitching 8

* Folding 6

* Notions 6

* Notching 8

* Seaming 6

Calling 5 (Max)

* Taglock 6

* Nomantic Call 5

* Bondsight 7

* Alter Bond 6

* Sympathetic Bonding 6

* Call Through Space 5

Enhancements: Willpower x5

Named Belongings: Caerbalope, Antigo, Arachnomicon, Drachma’Uban

I’d managed to get to the point where I could pretty reliably get past her Skill if I focused for a few seconds. Sadly, she’d realized this, and started moving faster to compensate. That also meant that her strikes generally hurt more, but I guess it probably helped with my Boon growth?

“Alright, that’s all I needed help with. I’d thank you, but I’m pretty sure you got more out of this than I did.”

“Awh.” She pouted. “Are you sure I can’t get just a few more hits in?”

I glared at her. “Yes. I’m sure.”

Azrael walked back upstairs with a huff, and I refocused on my Phylactery, healing myself up a bit as I did so.

I wanted to go over my Boons and make sure that I understood all of them pretty well before I picked a specialization. That way, I’d be able to replicate their effects even after I lost them. I was confident that I could already do this with a few of my Boons, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Undead Possession was simple. An application of Mentum and Necrosis, similar to what I would do when Animating a corpse but slightly different, and then I’d will my consciousness towards it. The Phylactery itself would handle the rest. Alternatively, if there was already an undead under my control, I’d just need to carve out a small metaphysical imprint for my soul and then send myself into it.

Reconstitution was the first Boon I’d gotten that allowed me to create matter out of energy. I basically just needed to mix in the right amounts of energy, pack it in tightly, and then instruct it to stay compact. Once my consciousness was inside of it, it would be held together subconsciously.

Incorporate Phylactery was a weird one. I had to use it a couple times to figure out exactly how it worked, but eventually realized that the Boon had actually just changed the way my Phylactery worked, so it wasn’t something I’d need to worry about. Mental Shield was similar in that my Phylactery naturally handled it, but I’d be able to replicate that effect by pulsing out Mentum with the intent to block and destroy hostile energies.

Mentum Generator was yet another fundamental, subconscious change to myself, but this one could also be replicated. I spawned a few Nailwolves to drain out a bit of my energy, then focused on my pool of Mentum.

At base, my Mentum was something like a landlocked lake, and it would fill over time from rainwater. In other words, energies from the surroundings would soak in and become purified, then trickle into the pool. What Mentum Generator did was make a stream running into the lake. The lower the lake got, the harder the stream would work to fill it back up.

To put it in more real terms, Mentum Generator passively shoved all of my energy to one side of the pool, creating a vacuum on the opposite side of a small hole it would create. Energy would rush in to fill the gap, then be purified as it passed into the pool. I could replicate this by simply focusing on manipulating my Mentum inside of the pool to do the same, which was easier than manipulating it on the outside.

Clone was basically the same as Reconstitution. It would mimic whatever body I was using at the time and put a small bit of my consciousness into it to maintain the energies. It was honestly pretty simple, once I realized that it was the same sort of Mentum pool manipulation as Mentum Generator, except I would instead cut off a tiny portion of the pool itself and stuff it into the metaphysical space that my consciousness itself would normally rest in.

Deadsight could be copied by just sending a small bit of Necrosis towards my eyes, and my undead nature would make that even easier than it already was. Animate Necrosis was practically second nature to me at this point. Shape Necrosis was just intent-based energy manipulation, telling the Necrosis to hold onto the flesh it was inside of.

Create Undead was basically just the same as Reconstitution, except I didn’t have to worry about making a place for my own soul and there was a bit less hand-waviness in terms of musculature and such, so I needed a template. While I was piloting my own body, it was basically just a hunk of ballistic gel that I subconsciously forced to move with Necrosis. My creatures couldn’t really do the same, at least not as effectively. Necrotic Restoration, in turn, was pretty much the same, but instead allowed the soul of the target to provide the template.

Construct Consciousness was a type of bond, which was something I was very familiar with at this point. This bond was focused on allowing information to pass on, and for my soul to imprint on the body of the other creature, which formed a nascent soul that would grow larger and larger the longer I held onto the bond, which in turn needed to be maintained by that information as well as a supply of energy so that the incipient soul could grow. The soul could continue to grow after that, but it would have to happen in a way similar to how “normal people” did.

Spread Undeath was simple. Just put Mentum and whatever other energies I felt like using into the air and bind it all to my Phylactery. Mold Terrain was just the same as Shape Necrosis, but I did it mostly with matter and Mentum instead.

Transmute was a little weirder. It went deep, rearranging things on an atomic level to create the effects I desired. I honestly didn’t know if I would be able to understand this one well enough to replicate it once all was said and done, but I focused on it for a while to at least try. My Omniscience was very critical in this, and I was able to watch things alter themselves slowly. I still wasn’t completely sure if this ability would be able to stick around, but I’d at least given it a shot.

Omnipresence was kinda similar to my Phylactery abilities in that I just had to send out a portion of my consciousness, but it would be latched onto my Domain itself. It should be pretty simple to replicate. I’d never really looked into the mechanics of Omniscience before, but it looked like it latched a bond between the targeted object and my Phylactery, and then some sort of information transfer occurred, like with Construct Consciousness. I had absolutely no clue how to replicate that, so I’d just have to hope that my new specialization would give me some abilities to replace it.

Empowered Control… I mean, to be honest, it gave me a little bit of everything. The Skill and associated Boons were enhanced by this one, so rather than me needing to make sure it would carry over, it would instead help me internalize the others.

Delinear Sight was basically the same as Deadsight, just sending energy into my eyes, except that more perspective was required. For example, Stitching was one of my first Boons in the tree, but it didn’t actually do very much on its own. All it did was provide me with some of the theory behind space magic. That, in turn, provided me with a new way to utilize my Delinear Sight and acted as the base for all of my other Boons in the Skill's tree.

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Folding was pretty simple. Just create snips in the fabric of reality and make a certain shape on a 2D plane that I picture with my Delinear Sight. Then, reattach it with a bit of Spatium, repeat the process elsewhere, and then bring the two cut-out planes together. Tada! You have a portal.

Notions was even easier. I basically just made some strings out of Spatium and Mentum, then used the Mentum to give it an identity. Or not. Depends on what I was trying to do.

Even Notching, one of my greatest abilities, was pretty simple. To use it, I needed to be able to see whatever I'd created, which meant using Stitching, but then make a simple structure that wasn't bound to those strings of reality but rather the location itself. Seaming… could theoretically be used without Stitching, but it would be harder, I think. Instead of picturing new stitches appearing in the same place as the old ones, I would have to basically pour Spatium into the air and try to send it into the fourth dimension. I wasn't completely certain it would even work, but maybe I'd have to try it sometime, if things didn't go according to plan with the upcoming specialization.

Taglock and Nomantic Call both let me use bonds based on certain things, specifically genetics and names. As for how to replicate their effects, I just needed to find those bonds and then Call with them. Bondsight was another visual application of magic, though this one had more Mentum in it than Spatium, and I needed to focus on seeing those bonds. Alter Bond was just using a touch of Spatium to control the bonds I saw.

Sympathetic Bonding created a bond with Spatium and Mentum, then put a knot in it to reroute the energy and removed a bit of the casing inside the knot to let it move in both directions. The bond also needed to encompass the entirety of both target creatures, almost putting them inside the bond, rather than connecting them with it. Call Through Space used Spatium to tug on a bond and force it to shrink, thus closing the physical distance between two things.

That was all there was. I'd internalized as much of the magic as I could. Now…

Please select a Specialization Advancement.

Spatial Archlich (Death+, Space)

Archlich of Space (Space+, Death)

Ancient Seeker (Forbidden Knowledge)

Death’s Custodian (Phantom)

Caretaker of Slumber (Burial)

Debt Collector (Death Pact)

Bearer of Nothingness (Abyss)

Witness of Azathoth (Eldritch)

I pulled out the book that the crazy old geezer had left behind for me, consulting the descriptions of my two favorite options: Forbidden Knowledge and Eldritch. I'd only read the summaries of the options before, but now it was time to delve a bit deeper.

Forbidden Knowledge was first. The biggest question in my mind was what exactly that encompassed, and it turned out that it could access many of the dimensions that were adjacent to it, including the Abyss and the Far Realm, which was the name of the Eldritch plane. That's not an exact translation, but I'm calling it that for my own sake.

Forbidden Knowledge focused on multiple things, from contacting dark gods and ancient entities and calling on their power, to summoning creatures and objects from other realms. It sounded super cool, but there was a catch. Even the most basic of uses of Forbidden Knowledge required you to directly interface with another realm, one where you had no authority. The dimension of Forbidden Knowledge was actually just a subsection of a greater plane called the Greater Aethenium, with the Forbidden Knowledge section being known as the Kelemnion.

The Aethenium was effectively just a massive library, containing all information that had ever been known by any creature from any universe. Each section of the Aethenium had its own quirks. The Light section, Alephdria, had books where the ink was replaced by pure light. Kelemnion’s books whispered dark secrets to you, things that had driven people mad, information that had been lost in holy crusades against its use, knowledge that had been sealed away for the eternities.

If you could maintain your sanity within Kelemnion, you could learn every dark art that had ever been known to man. That, however, was the issue. Who could keep their mind intact when inundated with the whisperings of mad sages, unfathomable deities, and dark eidolons?

Eldritch had similar problems. You could make Vitasis and Necrosis into one, denying the natural cycle of nature while simultaneously rebuking the opposing nature of undeath. You could contact a plane where time had no meaning, where titanic gods ruled, and where everything would bend to your will. You could infect our world with that same power. Yet, witnessing the Far Realm was purportedly an endeavor that few survived. Stumbling across the wrong entity at the wrong time could just mean death, or eternal torment. With that said, at least with Eldritch I could mostly choose to stay in this world, though I got the feeling that I’d need to spend a bit of time in the Far Realm to progress to my next specialization. With Forbidden Knowledge, going to Kelemnion or drawing on some of the knowledge stored there was practically required.

What to choose?

I went over the options once again, specifically the realms that the two energies were found most prevalently in. Specializing in one of them didn't guarantee that I would have access to one of the planes, but it was a good example of what they could do.

Alright, pros and cons. Forbidden Knowledge would help me gain information about things in this world, which was something I lacked. It would likely improve my versatility and help me experiment with my own magic. Cons, like all other Jack Of All Trades archetypes, I’d be stretched a bit thin if I tried to be good at everything all at once. Also, it might slowly drive me insane.

Eldritch would probably provide me with an immediate boost to my powers, though it might be a bit hard to grasp or handle all at once. It would reduce my current obvious weakness to Light and Life magic. Furthermore, it might put me into contact with beings that could eliminate Esheth before he became a true threat. Cons, it might put me into contact with beings that could eliminate Esheth before he became a true threat. Also, it might quickly drive me crazy.

Part of me hovered over the options for a moment, but after taking a moment to steel my nerves, I accepted my new specialization.

Class Specialization selected.

You are now an Ancient Seeker.

Skill: Phylactery has been transformed into Skill: Repository.

Skill: Necrosis Manipulation and Skill: Spatium Manipulation have been combined into Skill: Forbodum Manipulation.

Skill: Domain of Undeath has been transformed into Skill: Occult Sovereignty.

Skill: Calling has been transformed into Skill: Kelemnion’s Gate.

You have gained a Skill: Dark Whispers.

Seif Ambrose

Ancient Seeker 5

Repository 0

* Infomorph 0

Forbodum Manipulation 0

* Esoteric Sight 0

Occult Sovereignty 0

* Encompassing Knowledge 0

Kelemnion’s Gate 0

* Library Pass 0

Dark Whispers 0

* Ancient Mutterings 0

Enhancements: Willpower x5

Named Belongings: Caerbalope, Antigo, Arachnomicon, Drachma’Uban

I stared at my new Skills with some longing. Once, I’d had beeg numbers. Now, all but two were zeros. At least the decision was made, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. It had been a bit of a weight on my shoulders, and now that it was done, I got the feeling that I’d really be able to let loose again, figuring out all of these new Skills and mastering this new Forbodum energy.

Each of my new Skills and Boons were carefully turned over in my mind, and soon I was nodding, happy about my decision to take this class.

First of all, Repository was something of a straight upgrade to my old Phylactery. Instead of potentially risking my soul by sending it out every single time, it would stay within my Repository at all times, connected only by a stream of energy. That’s what Infomorph was, actually. It would bind me and whatever I targeted, meaning we’d be treated as the same entity until one, preferably the puppet, was destroyed. Meanwhile, I’d share in the senses of my body, even though my mind would be elsewhere.

Forbodum Manipulation itself was both similar and unique to my old Manipulation Skills. First of all, I got the distinct sense that it would be able to do everything my old affinities could do, which was pretty much what I’d expected, having read something similar in the books. In fact, the perfect mesh between the energies led to them working together to strengthen whatever they were used in.

If I wanted to raise a corpse, then the Forbodum would take the role of Necrosis, animating it, but it would simultaneously fulfill the normal roles of Spatium and Arcanum, using the former to smooth out the physical portions of the animation and the latter to do the same with any magical barriers or detriments.

I would have never been able to get my elements to work together this well before. They’d ultimately had different desires and needs, so the most I could do was stop them from going to war. Forbodum, though, had a singular goal and purpose, meaning that all aspects of it were one in that.

To be more specific, that goal was gathering knowledge. The more obscure, dark, and hidden. the better. With this at the heart of the magic, it treated anything it was thrown at as a scientist might treat their thesis project; that is, with extreme care and obsessive levels of detail.

Next up was the upgrade for Domain of Undeath, labeled Occult Sovereignty.

While the biggest part of these Domain Skills was their Boons, which taught you how to directly interact with it, I immediately realized that the Skill itself reminded me of one of my own Boons. This new Domain would be like Omniscience on crack, with flavor text from thousands of long-forgotten masters of the dark arts. That was relieving, since I honestly had no idea how to replicate that Boon now that I’d lost it. The rest weren’t that hard, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around that one.

Kelemnion’s Gate was pretty much what it sounded like. It would let me send myself to the plane of Forbidden Knowledge. I did wonder how that one might upgrade, but I wasn’t ready to experiment quite yet.

The last Skill was pretty much what the book had warned me of, though a bit more tame for now. Whenever I was working on something, there was a chance that the ghost of something that had experience with the matter would whisper the answer to my problem into my ear.

This sounded pretty great, until you realized that this knowledge would come exclusively from those who were powerful and wicked enough to leave permanent imprints in Kelemnion’s records. The knowledge they gave me could be a blessing, for sure, but it could also be a curse. While I wasn’t human anymore, I didn’t exactly want to hear a demon detail how to use the death energy from a thousand children’s fresh corpses to fuel rituals. Overall, this Skill left me feeling a bit conflicted, and I knew that I’d have to make wise choices when picking out its Boons, else it might drive me completely crazy.

Without waiting any longer, I dove right into tinkering with my new abilities.