Serenity looked up at the others. “That wasn’t the worst thing I did, but it was the worst thing I did for a long time, and probably the least justified. Probably. Along the way, I learned a lot. It’s hard to summarize, but you’ve seen me cast magic and you’ve seen me use runes; those are both things I learned after Earth died. Other than that, I learned that my goals were all wrong and that people really, really hate the undead.” That might not be the best way to summarize his experiences, but it was a good start.
Serenity wasn’t certain how to cover the end of everything; it wasn’t entirely his fault, and he didn’t know how he could have prevented it, but there were definitely parts of it that were his fault. Maybe more than a little; there was a reason he’d said that killing so many Sterath was only probably the least justified thing he did, rather than the worst. Aki might well realize that he’d done something really, really bad yet still didn’t feel unjustified. She had enough experience to recognize that. Raz probably wouldn’t, though Serenity couldn’t be certain; Echo likely would have, after all.
On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he had to. Maybe he should just talk about what he’d learned?
“Death magic won’t bring anyone back from the dead, not in any way you’d want if you actually care for them.” Serenity moved his hand to Rissa’s knee, then continued. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t anything that will work, but it’s not easy. I was given the chance to return to the beginning, and I took it. So in some sense, I’m the man who lived through all of that, but in another I’m not. That’s why I called the Final Reaper my father; I’m not him, and I refuse to make the choices he did, but a good piece of me comes from him. Fortunately, I also haven’t lost everything the way he did.”
Raz’s mouth dropped open, but Aki was the one to speak. :That must have been quite a ritual. You have mentioned that you have SpaceTime Affinity, but I have never heard of a ritual that would let someone travel back in time that far or to their former body.:
Serenity paused. He wasn’t certain how to address that. Perhaps he should say that? “I don’t think I should go into details, so I’m not sure how to answer that. All I can say is that I don’t think anyone, including me, is ever going to be able to do it again. It was extreme, and the requirements were something I never want to have happen again.”
The end of everything; otherwise, the Voice would not have resorted to something so severe.
Raz perked up and a question spilled out of his mouth. “So that means you know the future? What happened on Asihanya after I left?”
Serenity shook his head. “I don’t think I can answer what you’re looking for. The first time I ever went to Asihanya was quite a few years after the destruction of Earth, so more than ten years from now. I was there as a student; I think the only time I left Stallet Center was when we went on specific expeditions. Dungeons, mostly.”
Raz frowned. “I thought Stallet encouraged the students to explore.”
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Raz was disappointed at how much Serenity didn’t know about the future, but Aki seemed almost pleased. When Serenity asked her why, she had a solid reason. :I never believe anyone who tells me they know everything. What you know is consistent with what you say happened and ordinary forgetfulness. I am not surprised you do not know far-away events, even big ones; you do not really like gossip. Your knowledge matches your story.:
At that point, Raz excused himself. He said he wanted to do some flight practice, but Serenity thought he wanted to work off his nerves. He’d gotten increasingly anxious every time he asked about Asihanya and Serenity wasn’t able to give him a good answer.
“It’s probably time for me to get going, too; I need to finish my Path. How’s Rube?” Serenity started to get up, but suddenly felt horribly dizzy and sat right back down. He hadn’t realized he had a headache, but he did; it’d snuck up on him.
:Unchanged. You seem unwell.:
Rissa grabbed Serenity’s arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Dizzy. Headache. I think-” Serenity stopped. He thought it was probably the Core Sickness, and there was an easy way to check.
Condition: Low-Grade Core Sickness
Healing Available: Full
Mana: 3000**/5000
Essence: 3000**/5000
Stamina: 2600/2600
The asterisks were new. Serenity focused on them.
**Mana and Essence-based skills may not function as expected during Core Sickness.
That was not particularly helpful, but it was still good to know, as was the fact that his Core Sickness had progressed to Low-Grade. He probably should have found a better time to explain everything. “It has to be the Core Sickness. I’d better finish my Path; that has to be the best way to move forward.”
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Rissa helped Serenity to his feet. Now that he knew he wasn’t feeling well, it was easier; he’d simply been caught off guard the first time.
:Core Sickness? That doesn’t make sense. Is that why you asked about it earlier?:
Serenity nodded at Aki’s crystal, then realized that moving his head sharply wasn’t a good idea. After a moment to recover his balance, he replied. “Yeah. I saw it on my Status, thought you might know something about it. If you have to add levels, I’m sure I have to Tier up; it only makes sense that that would be the equivalent.”
:But you are Pathed. You aren’t a monster. How can you have a Core?:
Serenity didn’t stop his slow walk towards the crafting area. “Ever since I came back in time, things have been different. I think the Voice did something, but it could be the overlap. I don’t know. What I know is that I’m a chimera. A True Chimera, whatever that means. I have a Core and I have a Path and they both limit each other. My Path can’t go over my Core Tier, but I have to complete at least one Path at each Tier to Tier up my Core. I get abilities from both and I change sort of like a monster every time I Tier up my Core. I meant to mention it earlier but we got distracted by the future.”
“Once I get him up there and he’s working on improving his Path, I’ll tell you about the first time it happened. It was in an abandoned city formerly overrun by the undead in a Tutorial Dungeon.” Rissa stopped there and flashed a grin at Serenity.
He groaned. He did not need anyone else teasing him about that! “I know! It was a mistake! We should have gone slower.”
Rissa winked. “You keep saying that. Stop blaming yourself; we all thought we were doing fine.”
They’d somehow already reached the door to the crafting area. Well, it wasn’t far. Serenity pulled the door open and stepped in, still balancing himself against Rissa. He didn’t feel weak but he did feel like his balance was just a little off. It was probably the headache.
Rissa helped him over to the door to the individual workrooms. “Rissa? Would you like to come in with me and watch?”
Rissa shook her head. “I’m going to talk to Aki instead. Is there anything you don’t want me to tell her?”
Serenity thought for a moment. “No, there isn’t anything I’m trying to keep from her anymore. Doesn’t seem like there’s much point, other than keeping me from being embarrassed, and I’m sure those are the stories you want to tell the most.”
Rissa grinned back at Serenity. “Of course!”
Serenity made himself walk into the workroom as if he were fine, but the moment the door closed he felt himself slump. It was a lot of effort to look fine when he felt like crap, but the only way he was going to fix things was to do some magic and finally finish this Path.
He took a moment to recover then finally took a good look at the workspace. It was better than he’d feared when he learned he was going to start from a generic workspace; it looked like Aki had more than one option, because most of the floorspace was taken up by a giant open area with a circle etched into the stone floor. The floor itself seemed to be an otherwise solid piece of stone. The walls and ceiling looked like they’d fit into any modern home, except that the entire ceiling glowed softly instead of having a fixed light. The only furniture in the room was a drafting table and a chair.
It was basic, but it was a good sort of basic. The first thing he could do was wards. That was always the first- no, the second step. The first step was cleansing and imprinting the area. Serenity knew several ways to do it, but he picked the one that didn’t require any materials. He sat on the floor, closed his eyes, and spread out his aura and mana and essence senses. He gently pushed both mana and essence out of himself and into his aura.
Normally, this was done with only mana. It would overwhelm any existing background mana with his own signature. Serenity decided to try the same thing with essence, since he knew he’d be working with it extensively in the workroom. That was a good part of why he wanted a workroom, after all; it would be a safer place to experiment.
Serenity pulled up his Status and blinked in surprise. Something he’d done since the last time he’d checked had given him two levels, but that meant there were still seven to go. It was time to start.
Wards first, but he should start the way he meant to continue, which meant that he needed to look over each of them and see if he could improve them as he cast them. Serenity laid down the first ward spellform; it was basic, and was used to ward the entire room against outside influences. It was probably completely unnecessary in a dungeon-managed private workroom, but Serenity was going to do this right.
It had a few small hooks that seemed to gather or work with essence, but it didn’t have any sections that were primarily about essence, so Serenity cast the spell without modifying it. It didn’t seem like modifications would add any value.
The second ward was more about defining the room for future wards than anything else, and it was always a fiddly piece of work that could take hours to get right. Serenity spent hours trying to get it to come together before he realized he was simply too exhausted. He’d been up fairly late for the ritual, then worked for hours on the crafting, then talked to Aki and Raz, and now he’d been at this for hours and all he wanted to do was sleep.
He sent a message to Rissa, curled up on the floor, and passed out.
When he woke up, he felt less exhausted but he ached all over. It was either from sleeping on the floor or the Core Sickness; if this were before the Tutorial, he’d have guessed it was from the floor, but he didn’t really have those issues anymore; it was like being young again. It was probably the Core Sickness.
He needed to get back to work.
Serenity spent the next hour fiddling with the second warding spell. When Serenity finally managed to get it to come together correctly, he wanted to swear. Most of the fiddly bits seemed to be there specifically to channel a net of essence that outlined the room and its major features. If he could do that, he could avoid the hours of work on the fiddly bits of the spell - and the spell would probably also be better at what it was supposed to do.
Serenity tore the spellform apart and started over yet again. It was still involved, but far less so than the mana-based spell. He was still horribly clumsy working with essence, but even with that it seemed to work better when manipulating it directly instead of using mana to move it around, even though he was skilled with mana.
Serenity outlined the last thing in the room - the chair - and sat in it before finishing off the mana portion of the spell. When it was complete, he set it in motion.
Right after he let the spell go, the Voice spoke.
[Path Complete]
[Initiating selected Evolution]