November 2, 2022
Day 13
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“Yes, the presence. I didn’t get a chance to tell you guys when I met you last time, but this was always going to happen. As your legendary title must have told you, the moment you were exposed to pure intent, your soul got attuned to it. And everyone attuned to pure intent eventually accumulates enough of their intent in this world that it brings their presence from the metaphysical realm into the physical one. The presences of the remaining 7 of you would manifest too, it’s only a matter of time. “
Helena was visibly beaming at the last statement, and was just about to ask a question when Ivan beat her to it. And to her dismay, his was not the question she wanted to ask.
“So how powerful are these presences? And are they common in the multiverse? “
“The second question has any easy answer, so I’ll deal with that first. Presences are quite rare in the wider multiverse, but they are common on integrated planets. In fact, travelling with a presence in the multiverse while in lower grade is a dead giveaway of your origins. "
From the expression on Ivan's face, Martin sensed a question coming and he pre-empted it.
"You might be wondering why this disparity exists. Well, given how abruptly the integration happen, there are always people who find themselves in inopportune circumstances when it does. The system is, at least by its own standards, rather benevolent during the integration of a planet, until the tutorial ends that is. In that benevolence, it interferes and provides pure intent to everyone who would die without it, and gives them a chance to reach a bastion and set up a base. As a side effect of this, Pure Touch of Intent is perhaps the most common legendary skill in the entire multiverse. “
"And everyone with that skill will manifest a presence?", Ivan asked.
"Yes, if they survive long enough. ", Martin tersely replied, before continuing on.
“Coming back to your first question. As far as the power of the presences is concerned, they always start out weak but can grow to become insanely powerful. But to explain how they gain their power, I’ll first explain exactly what the presences are. To do that, I need to explain some fundamental concepts of the multiverse, a primer if you will. “
Martin fished around in his pocket for something. Then, he pulled out an object that looked remarkably similar to a cigarette. He lit it with a magical spark, taking a deep puff before he spoke.
“So, the first thing you need to understand about the multiverse is that the lines between the physical and the metaphysical are blurred. Fundamental principles of the universe, the concepts, the laws, the possibilities - everything can take a physical form when concentrated enough. And if these physical forms survive long enough to accumulate enough density, they become sapient and start exercising their will. Some of the most powerful beings in the multiverse are in fact manifestations of powerful concepts. These manifestations too are sometimes called presences, though most just called them manifested concepts or just concepts. "
As he spoke, he exhaled a ring of smoke, and then another, and another, until the coalesced to form a shapeless mass of smoke. Then the mass took the shape of an orb with two holes for eyes. Then, looking at that orb, Martin continued.
"But the multiverse is not ruled by these powerful concepts. Rather it's the myriad of races who are born with sapience, the most populous of which are humans, that rule the multiverse. And when these concepts fight against the sapient races, the sapient always win. The reason for that is simple, the concepts are constrained to act in accordance to their nature, while the true sapients can exercise free will. “
Rahul began to ask a question but Martin stopped him by raising one hand. And the whole time, he kept adding smoke to the floating orb.
“Let me give you an an iconic example first, one that is often mentioned in children's textbooks on manifested concepts. The example talks about the manifestation of compassion which, despite having vast powers, had lived a miserable existence. Eventually it gave up on its sapience and returned to the metaphysical realm. Effectively, it had committed suicide. While it had lived, every act of war, all the suffering in the multiverse, everything had caused great regret and pain to the presence of compassion. "
"The manifestation of compassion wanted to see a world free of war, but to stop wars, one needs to be strong enough to deter the warmongers. But it was against the nature of compassion to hold territories, to train armies, to wage war, and so it helplessly watched all the suffering in the world, until one day it could no longer bear it. ”
As he said those words, the orb, which had started to look almost as corporeal as Intent by now, dispersed into a puff of smoke that slowly blew away.
The atmosphere had turned gloomy as the tale was narrated. A fragment of compassion lived within them all, and that fragment instinctually cried at the recollection.
Martin let that feeling sink into everyone for a few more moments, before he got back on track.
“Coming to presences. Despite what it might seem like at first, they are not exactly manifestations of metaphysical concepts of the universe. They are in fact manifestations of your will, nature and disposition. But getting a true manifestation of your personality is something that only happens at the topmost grades. "
"Instead, when your presence manifests for the first time, it starts as a simple concept which represents a defining and core tenet of your personality. Not unlike a manifested concept. But unlike manifested concepts, your presences will grow and evolve as you yourself grow and come to terms with your inner self, both in thought and in action. This evolution may happen independent of your grade evolutions. “
Noticing the lack of understanding on the faces of his audience, Martin gave an example.
“For example, depending on Ivan’s personality, inertia may evolve into apathy, or stasis, or a dozen other concepts. As he evolves, his abilities will change, and some evolutions may be more desirable than the others. But no matter whether evolution brings about desirable traits or undesirable ones, it always brings the presence closer to your true self. And the closer your presence is to your true self, the stronger its ability to affect reality. “
“Let's go a step further with Inertia's example. In his current form he will be able to slightly affect reality to cause a moving object to stay in motion, or a still object to stay still. If he evolves to stasis, he will be able to affect reality more strongly, but in different ways from early. As stasis, your presence would only be able to cause objects to come to a stop, or to stay still. If he becomes apathy instead, he would lose all ability to affect inanimate objects at all, instead being able to incite lethargy on sapients. “
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Martin went on for a bit longer, and questions and answers were exchanged on the nuances of the powers of presences. Until Helena ran out of patience.
"I have a question too! Can we talk to him. And how do we even know the presence is a he. "
"We can't talk to Inertia. Not yet. But at his next evolution, Inertia will be able to understand you guys and form simple sentences. As far as gender is concerned, the presences always have the same gender as that of their source. In case of Inertia, he's male because Ivan is male. "
Helena winced at every use of the presence's not-name in Martin's reply, but no sooner had Martin finished his reply than Helena shot another question.
"Why does the presence look like a panda? "
Martin hesitantly replied.
"That's actually a question I can't fully answer, as no one knows for sure. The leading theory is that it's a mixture of factors, with two factors being more important than the others. The presence's source feelings on what form best represents his personality, and the feelings of those around him. "
"What do you mean by those around him" Helena asked.
Martin replied.
"Could be anything really. His friends, family, companions, or perhaps the entire planet. Many rich and powerful scions have actually tried to game the system and get their presence to be in the form they want, but it rarely works. In short, everyone is just guessing and no one really knows. "
Before Helena could ask any more questions about the panda, Daniel interrupted.
"The system. What exactly is the system. "
Martin promptly replied.
"That's a good question. Another one that I can't fully answer, but I think what little I know would still be to your satisfaction. "
Martin took a puff of the magic cigarette as he prepared another long explanation.
"The system is a manifestation, and is arguably the most powerful entity in the universe. Unfortunately, no one really knows which concept the system is a manifestation of. But since it is one, it must act according to its nature. That has lead to much speculation and many theories, each theory explaining a subset of the system's behaviour but none explaining it completely. "
For completeness, Martin listed the most popular theories.
"The Manifestation of Order theory focuses on explaining why the system gives people levels to calibrate their attributes into discrete buckets. The Manifestation of Expansion theory is centered around the system's urge to integrate new universes into its domain. The Manifestation of Existence theory asserts that the system is so powerful because it manifests such a fundamental concept, and that the concept of existence in itself is generic enough to allow system to act freely, at least compared to other manifestations. "
While that didn't answer the question fully, it was still a lot to process for everyone. And they had questions. Lots of questions.
Martin replied to a few before he raised his hands.
"I think we have spent enough time on the fundamentals of the universe. There is much else to learn, but we have only fifteen more minutes. Let's not go off on tangents. We'll only discuss things of immediate use now."
So Rahul took the opportunity to ask the one question had been bothering him the whole day.
"How did I wake up from the trance?"
Martin replied "Yeah, I almost forget about that. I'll answer your question, but I needed to clarify a few things first. When you all went over your experience earlier, each of you mentioned having weird visions. Correct?. "
Everyone nodded, and Martin continued.
"As you had rightly surmised, that was a mental attack. And while I can't be sure, your assumption that the albatrosses were the perpetrators of that attack is also quite likely correct. But a question that you didn't think to ask, one that is actually very important, is how did regular level 10 birds have such an overpowered attack. An attack that singlehandedly brought an entire settlement to its knees. As I've said many times, the tutorial is a cakewalk. So what gives. "
Maya projected her title as spoke for the first time since Martin had appeared.
PURE TOUCH OF INTENT (LEGENDARY) - Your soul is now fully attuned to intent energy. Passage of intent energies will not be impeded by your soul. This eliminates all innate bottlenecks associated with utilising intent as a human, but also eliminates all innate resistance every human has against intent based attacks.
"We are susceptible to intent based attacks. A mental attack powered by intent fits what you've told us so far about intent. "
Martin smiled.
This had been a good day so far. His wards were now a perfectly sized group for what he had planned next, they had enough SPs accumulated, and now this insightful young woman had made such a clever connection. As he looked at all his 8 remaining wards, all at level 9, he salivated internally as he hoped for a final lucky break that would just make this day the best one he had had in a millennia. But he'd have to wait until they expanded the cavern for that.
Martin broke free of his reverie and noticed the expectant look on everyone's faces. He started by repeating his line from earlier, but this time his tone conveyed sincerity rather than mirth.
"Very astute of you, Maya. All attacks, whether physical, magical or mental, can be enhanced by intent. Some of you may even have done so unknowingly. Pay attention next time your emotions are raging and perhaps you might even get a skill for it. But some attacks go beyond that, in that they are completely powered by intent. "
Martin considered the ways to explain the next part, and came up with an example.
"Remember how by practicing swordsmanship, you all unlocked the One Handed Sword I skill. In the same way, if Ivan does a simple exercise - trying to keeping a heavy rock in place by channeling his intent through his presence, while you all tried to move the rock - he will eventually unlock a Hold skill. Acquiring a skill is simply the system packing all your knowledge and experience with that particular task into a neat little box, which you can access at will without repeating all the steps. Muscle memory if you, but for lengthy processes. Actually, the system sometimes even adds something extra in the box.. "
Realising he was getting side tracked again, Martin got back to the topic.
"But we won't get into that. My point is, if you do it wilfully and often enough, the system will automate almost everything that you can do and make it a skill. That includes attacks, but it also includes things like singing, dancing, cooking, even breathing if you deliberately learn breathing techniques. So if someone utilizes their intent to try to cause confusion in their enemies, they might get a confuse skill. And that skill would be powered by intent. With beasts like the albatrosses, they get skills as part of their leveling, but if that skill's nature is to be powered by intent, then it'd be powered by intent no matter how the albatrosses got the skill. The fact that exercising intent takes a certain amount of intelligence that F grade beasts rarely have, doesn't come into play at all"
"Rarely?" Rahul couldn't help but ask.
"In the multiverse, all possibilities are viable and you learn to never say never. " Martin replied, silently hoping he had used that pop reference well.
"What was that defiant voice that whispered to me from within and broke me free. ", Rahul asked, getting to the crux of the question, though by now he thought he could guess.
"Well, lets go back to the confuse skill that I used as a generic example earlier. The attack that you suffered from likely was a more specific one, with particular intent powering it. The reason that you woke up while the others didn't was because the intent behind that attack must have been irreconcilable to your own intent. Since your intent hadn't fully manifested into a presence, you still fell to the initial attack, but a battle of wills ensued post that. Your intent must have won, or at least squeezed out enough of an advantage to break you free of the spell. The voice you heard was your own intent. You could think of it as an ephemeral manifestation of your presence. "
Rahul nodded and thanked Martin for his explanation. And as he realized that the events in the morning might help him get an idea of the nature of his presence, he grew curious and tried to recall the visions he got. Unfortunately, his recollections were hazy, but he kept at it, trying to piece together the few details he could remember.
In the meantime, as only the last fifteen minutes of their counsel with Martin remained, the conversation moved to to its last leg. It was time to discuss the dungeon.