Spiritual Dei was preoccupied with going through knowledge gifted by the Spirit mana, but Physical Dei set about going over their notifications. A lot had happened, and there were notifications galore to show for it.
[Rule of Wrath uncovered: I will allow no harm to come to those under my care.]
His eyebrows shot upwards at it, having completely forgotten about the “Rules of Wrath” that his affinity mentioned during their meeting.
Going over the Interface again, he found that it didn’t appear on his Interface, but he could still read it in his soul, etchings across all his memories that were engraved into his being.
He also noted how there were empty spaced between these etchings, room for more rules, and his awareness of his rules was increased. While there was no official screen on his Interface, he’d begun to sense the Rules he’d yet to discover
Rules of Wrath:
* I will allow no harm to come to those under my care.
*
*
*
*
There were five etchings. Five spaces to fill in, and he knew that “I will allow no harm to come to those under my care” was the first one, there was no doubt in his mind.
Now that he was aware of this new Rule, he could point out several moments in this life and the past where his Rule called out to him, spurring him into action as his affinity exploded with mana.
He realized that he’d uncovered this Rule directly before the fight as it shouted in his ear that, if he backed away, it would be the gravest of sins. If he’d hidden, he would have given up on those he considered in “his” care, dooming them.
He moved on to the next notification
[EXP gained for killing the Wraith of Shattered Obsidian (Level 214). EXP gain raised due to level disparity]
[Class Leveled Up: Prodigal Detector (Level 69) -> (Level 70)]
[+1 Mental, +1 Magical]
[Class Leveled Up: Prodigal Detector (Level 70) -> (Level 71)]
That was a hard fucking fight for two level ups.
He sighed, knowing things would only get more difficult with each level. While it was true he’d fought hard, he never got as close to death as some of his previous fights. The enemy was ill-equipped to fight him, and he hadn’t had nearly as much trouble as he would normally have with creatures stronger than him.
Still, it was frustrating knowing how steeply EXP gain dropped off. He had to keep in mind that many of these level two hundred beings spent decades honing themselves, and he was a very new player on the field. He needed to give himself time before getting frustrated.
Next were the Skill Level ups.
[Skill Leveled Up: Meaningful (2) -> (3)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Meaningful (32) -> (33)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (101) -> (102)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (105) -> (106)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Astral Projection (4) -> (5)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Astral Projection (7) -> (8)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Homeostasis: (13) -> (14)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Homeostasis: (25) -> (26)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Identify of the Stout Protector (52) -> (53)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Identify of the Stout Protector (55) -> (56)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Fine-Tooth Comb (46) -> (47)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Vigilance (56) -> (57)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Vigilance (62) -> (63)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (46) -> (47)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (51) -> (52)]
And, finally, the pièce de résistance
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (50) -> (51)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (60 -> (61)]
“Oof, that is not as high as I thought it was going to go” he thought to himself.
It had been hours of… okay, minutes of agony to reach sixty one. Even if that was more than reasonable, even incredible time, it just felt like more should have happened. He understood that it was probably just him putting the Skill on an unnecessary pedestal, but still.
Nonetheless, the new levels would serve him well, and he would have time later to level up the Skill.
[Name: Dei Grrata
Race: Human (Gem Dweller Variant)
Class: Prodigal Detector (Level 71)
Profession: Pondering Sage (Level 5)
Achievements: Void Walker, Soulspeak, Beyond Understanding, No Rulers Above All, Bearing the Burden, Slayer of Mountains, Cruelty of the Slaughter (II)
Contracts: Soul of the (IIIIIIII)
HP: 92/92
MP: 92/92
SP: 92/92
Stats:
Physical: 46
Mental: 45
Spiritual: 39
Magical: 46
Affinities:
Kindness: Mid-Rare, 73%
Wrath: Mid-Uncommon: 67%
Soul: Low-Uncommon: 58%
Inner Skills:
Kindness: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (61) (2406/2440), Call for Help (24), Good Samaritan (1), Meaningful (33)
Wrath: Pandora’s Box (Unleashed) (2), Growing Pains (106)
Soul: Astral Projection (8), Connection (1)
Health: Homeostasis: (26)
Mana: Meditation (31)
Confluence: Identify of the Stout Protector (56)
Outer Skills:
How About a Demonstration?, Fine-Tooth Comb (47), Vigilance (63), In Tune (1), Commune with the Universe (2), High Mind (52)]
[Pandora’s Box:
1423/2000 Wrath
628/2000 Kindness
355/2000 Soul]
Caught up with all the updates, Dei turned to look at his projection, seeing that he too was finishing up with his task of absorbing the Spirit mana
* * *
The first thing to decide was what Projection Dei wanted to learn from the Spirit mana. Gargeth stated that Melders tended to work together with Spirits in collection, so that was no longer as necessary as he thought it had been before. Long term, he could hopefully find a weak melder each time he fought and killed a Spirit. Right now though, what did he want to know? What would be useful for him?
As he went through the Spirit mana’s meanings, more than what he expected had been removed. There were certain gaps in the information that Dei could see the outline of, but was unable to learn from. These gaps pertained to possession, tying his Spirit form to his Physical form, how strengthening his Spirit might give strength to his Physical self, and essentially anything to do with the real world. Instead, he needed to learn something from the intangible aspects of it.
To him, it was a rather easy choice. Too many times had he faced creatures that were capable of shouting to disrupt his form without even touching him, undodgeable attacks that devastated his Projection. The frog, Wraith, and even Gargeth all held area attacks, but he didn’t
Realizing it was such a massive problem, solidifying his form against these attacks was the first thing he did.
Focusing on reading this information from the mana, he felt as knowledge flowed into him. Before he could put up defenses, he had to learn what it was doing too. He’d broken off around two hundred Spirit mana from Gargeth, and seven or eight hundred from the Wraith.
It felt like a textbook began forming in his head, the Spirit mana writing passages inside of it personalized for him alone. It read like a lecture, but there was no “will” behind it that he could sense.
To strengthen your form, you must understand your own structure. Why does your particular soul project itself into the form it does? For you, it is that your soul is fitted to the shape of your body. Your physical body gives structure to your soul, rather than the other way around for most spirits.
Dei suddenly felt a lot of skipping, as he already knew that the System refitted his soul shape to his body, as he was there for it. He knew what the process was like, so the Spirit mana didn’t need to be wasted by bringing his attention to the limits of its own shape.
More skipping when the Spirit mana tried teaching him how to wiggle his Soul Shape free of its apparatus, in the form of his Identity.
Finally, it settled on teaching him how to build crystalline walls around his Identity.
“Your soul shape is formed by your Identity, a normally very weak aspect of the soul. The Identity is meant to be malleable, changing as the person grows. One can sacrifice this malleability, becoming stunted, to gain immense mental fortitude, but that is not something you want, so instead you will focus on empowering your Identity personally. When you split your Identity and re-merge it, the spare Soul and Spirit mana is used to make for an easier transition between bodies. By sacrificing this convenience, you have decided to instead spend that mana to form a sort of “shielding” around your Identity. The wall will grow with your Identity, slowly becoming stronger the more you feed it. This will cause your Identity to become much more resilient to outside manipulation, but it will now become painful when re-merging Identities. In time, you may learn to manually section off some mana to dedicate to making the transition easier, but the simple shield is cheap and effective for your purposes.
With that, the lesson was finished, and Dei learned how to make a shield to specifically protect his Identity at the cost of now feeling pain when re-merging his Projection back to his body.
Something was odd though, as he still had the seven to eight hundred mana from the Wraith that was untouched. He no longer had enough Spirit mana to improve his shielding, but there was copious left over to do nothing.
He realized that the Wraith hadn’t known how to provide shielding to its form, so there was nothing to learn from it. If he wanted to use its mana, he would need to draw from whatever it knew how to do.
Its pool of knowledge was limited though, as it was born from his own. Much of what it knew about spirits came from Dei himself, with the exception of that screaming attack it used to destabilize his projection frequently. If he had to guess, it was a racial ability of Wraiths themselves that it learned in its creation. Different spirits were likely to have different Racial abilities, as Gargeth mentioned offhandedly when telling Dei about how Melders helped other spirits by collecting mana for them.
Now, did Dei himself want to learn that ability? While it was probably a Racial ability to Wraiths, he thought he should be able to, at the very least, figure out the basic mechanisms for a Skill from it, so he quickly glanced through the Spirit mana… finding that the scream was powered by Spirit mana. Dei couldn't learn it, as this version of the scream was incompatible with his affinities, unless he wanted to continuously kill spirits to power this specific Skill. Could he even learn a Skill that wasn’t one of his affinities? The Spirit mana implied that he could, but it would still be a huge hassle to power such a thing, needing to keep a constant storage of Spirit mana on him at all times. He decided against learning the scream, as it was not worth the trouble.
That thrown out the window, what could Dei even learn from the Wraith? All it had was his knowledge of spirits and…
‘The Obsidian Elementals knowledge! Of course!’
Similar to how Gargeth specialized in Body affinity mana, the Elemental specialized in Convection affinity mana. Dei could draw on that information, if he wanted to. The question now was: what could knowledge of Convection mana do to help him?
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His mind went back to one of his previously existing Skills, [Homeostasis]. He first used it to actively expel heat from his body before it collapsed, and he now had a well of knowledge to draw from about the way Convection takes place in the world.
Homeostasis was a passive ability, but he had experience in actively using it. Through active breathing techniques, he was able to concentrate and expel the convection mana flowing through him. He now wondered: was there a way to take it a step further? Could he use the knowledge and harness convection within his body?
Looking through the spirit mana, he realized he could. While it wasn’t as simple a process as “produce heat and breathe fire,” he could learn how to use convection for different purposes.
How it would manifest itself, he couldn’t be sure, but he decided it would be a hell of a lot more useful long term. Many creatures could already use screams as area attacks, but few had the expertise of convection that the elemental did.
Mind made up, he focused everything into figuring out how to upgrade his usage of [Homeostasis], getting another tailor-made textbook entry.
Convection is the process of-
Multiple jumps took place, as the mana realized he already knew the basic processes of convection, skipping over what he didn’t need. After a few seconds of reviewing the fundamentals of what it meant for heat to flow in a certain way, giving rise to the process of convection, it finally settled back in.
“In order to use the process of Convection actively in your own body, you must first designate your container, then, build heat by trapping it in said container. By preventing the heat from leaving the designated container in the body, it will slowly rise in internal temperature as it absorbs the heat from its surrounding area.
“Once enough heat is built up in a particular container, Convection mana will naturally begin forming. By trapping both the existing heat and Convection mana within the container, it will rapidly accelerate in building power as Convection mana produces heat, which further produces more Convection mana, repeatedly until the cycle is broken to release it towards a set goal.
“The [Homeostasis] Skill will control where heat and Convection mana builds, so all you must do is choose a container, and manage the fall out of heating up your organs to lethal temperatures.
“Which container is chosen will also decide how the heat manifests itself. By choosing to heat the lungs, you may breathe fire after enough mana is assimilated. Choosing the circulatory system, you can heat your body far more effectively in cold environments. If you designate your entire body as the Convection container, it will begin pulling heat from the air, cooking any parasite that invades you.
“You must be careful, though, as the heat from such actions WILL harm you, unless you form an affinity to Convection. By breathing fire, you will damage your lungs and trachea. By heating your circulatory system, you begin to suffocate as your body cannot properly deliver oxygen. In choosing your entire body, you suffer from a superhuman level fever, cooking all of your organs at once in the hopes that whatever invader has chosen your body as its target dies faster than you do.
“The process of convection takes a long time to build up to any useful amount of mana, but has no upper limit to how hot you can make it somewhere in your body, so long as you can handle the strain.
“Use with great caution”
Dei breathed out a sigh of relief as the information stopped flooding into him. While the process wasn’t painful, it was unpleasant, like studying for multiple weeks straight and stretching his mind too thin.
Looking over towards Physical Dei, he saw that he’d finished going over the notifications, conferring with one another, they quickly started sharing all the knowledge they’d gained in their unique perspectives.
* * *
“Now what?” Projection sent towards Physical
“What do you mean? Now we go into hiding for like a month or something” Physical sent back.
“But why? I’m pretty much completely healed up at this point, so we don't need to regenerate any more Soul mana to make another Projection. You could go back to the cave, while I can go check on the Korgonda” Projection said.
“I feel like that's a terrible idea for multiple reasons. First is that the Korgonda is likely not ready to talk yet. It just absorbed two massive wells of power, it needs time to digest them, like that ghost-eating frog did,” both Dei’s scowling at the thought of the enemy. “If you go to it now, you’ll just be sitting around anyway. Besides, you’re filled with bound Spirit Mana. If you take damage now, our soul is gonna start hurting, badly. On top of this, our mind is split in two, limiting your thinking speed.”
Projection deflated “Yea, I guess you’re right. I was so tunnel visioned into seeing the little guy, but it's for the best that we wait a month, even if we can visit him right now. By then we can send out a bland Soul mana projection, not imbued with Spirit mana. Alright, remerge?”
“Remerge, yea” Physical agreed.
They high fived each other, and were quickly joined as one again, sharing in each other's knowledge and experience. It was excruciatingly painful this time, Dei’s two Identities grinding together as the spare Soul and Spirit mana went into empowering a barrier around his Identity, but such pain faded quickly.
He was not far from the Garden, so he quickly walked back and squeezed into the crack in the wall.
While the tightness wasn’t at a point where it would become trouble, Dei was still struck by how large he was getting. He was technically a year old, but how tall was he? Four feet tall? More? He didn’t know, but it was scary to think about how fast he grew. Mentally, he had the experiences of an adult to fall back on because of his previous life. Physically, he was probably twelve or thirteen.
But for some reason… he still saw himself as a child. It felt like a trick of the mind, but he was unshakably sure that he was only a year old.
An ache solidified in him, discomfort gnawing at his mind, but again he chose to ignore it in favor of continuing his training.
* * *
[Since the Fall: 8/16/809 - 3:23:46]
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (61) -> (62)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (68) -> (69)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (31) -> (32)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (35) -> (36)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (52) -> (53)]
[Total Stats Gained: +2 Physical]
Dei awoke with a gasp, clutching his chest and waiting for the pain to subside. He groaned and heard another crystalline fracture in his Skill.
After thirty or forty seconds, he breathed out a sigh of relief and slumped back down to the ground, panting.
One week after he met the Korgonda, Dei continued to train. Now, he was focused on [Pandora’s Box], since it would normally not hold enough mana to help it level up. An issue he’d discovered, though, was that it refused to allow him to focus on anything else. Each time the mana within the box reached its limit, Dei was struck by agony harsh enough to break his flow of training in other Skills. The pain would only subside after his Skill leveled up once again, raising the cap of how much mana it could hold.
There were very few Skills he could continue to train during this time. [Growing Pains] was one, as he could easily get back into pushups after the spiritual strain faded. He could also still use [Meditation], but it felt shallow. Normally, he’d be able to slip into a quiet stupor, but now his mind was always slightly in a state of unrest, waiting for the next bout of pain. The Skill still helped calm his mind each time, but it wasn’t as comfortable. He was getting better at it though, the rapid level ups in the Skill proof that the difficulty of quieting his mind each time helped to improve his technique.
He now also split his mind in six parts when meditating: 50% of his mind would control everything normally, then five minds of 10% would meditate on five different links to improve his Presence.
When Dei got tired of working out, he would use his Primary mind to study the differences in his [Pandora’s Box (Contained)] Skill. Normally, he wouldn’t be able to pinpoint where in his Soul his different Skills were located, but there was practically a beacon to the massive concentration of mana in the Skill.
When he first started leveling up the Skill, he got nervous, as he would “hear” a crack when it got bigger. Initially, he thought he was breaking the Skill, but when he started studying it in his Soul, he noticed something peculiar.
The massive music box, a visual representation of [Pandora’s Box] in his soul, was repairing itself somehow. When he looked closely, Dei noticed that there were tiny spider webbing cracks all along the sides of the Skill. When it leveled up, Dei noticed that some of the wood grew over the cracks, healing it.
His best guess was that the cracks represented how the Skill was still partially broken, damaged from the change in bodies after he was reincarnated, and him leveling it up continued to repair it.
The noise he heard when leveling it up implied that it wasn’t wood he was looking at, but something closer to glass that was colored to look like wood. He didn’t know what that was supposed to represent about the Skill, but it was something to keep in mind.
He was learning a lot about the Skill through his current trial with it, but the pain was unbearable at times. With each level up, it was taking longer to reach the next threshold too. When he first started, it only took about twenty five seconds to level up. Now, though, it was around forty. He would push through, he had to eventually, but he wasn’t going to enjoy it.
Lying back down, he tried to go back to sleep. It was still only three in the morning, and he had a hard day of training ahead.
* * *
[Since the Fall: 8/30/809 - 1:35:12]
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (69) -> (70)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (80) -> (81)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (36) -> (37)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (53) -> (54)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (53) -> (54)]
[Skill Leveled Up: High Mind (54) -> (55)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (106) -> (107)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (107) -> (108)]
[Total Stats Gained: +3 Physical]
Again, Dei woke with a start. No pain but he knew it was coming, and he braced himself
Seconds later, his [Pandora’s Box] sent waves of fire through his body. He fared better than he had when he first started, able to pull himself into a wobbly meditative stupor that helped the sensations he felt roll off his mind. The pain should have been scarring, he should have flinched away from leveling up his Skill after so much suffering. He knew that, in a way, he was subconsciously training himself to hate his [Pandora’s Box (Contained)] Skill, but he couldn’t allow that to happen. For the past two weeks, Dei tried to find a solution, tried to make each level up less painful, but failed to do so. Instead, he focused on preventing mental scarring from taking place.
Meditation was the key, somehow. He felt himself step into the metaphorical thickets of the Skill, off the path that [Meditation] laid out for him, using it in a way the System couldn’t account for.
He breathed in, body ablaze, and breathed out, the pain exiting him. He pictured the pain as a literal fire in his body, pushing it up, out of him like he did to the Convection mana.
It was a placebo effect- he’d studied it with [High Mind] multiple times before- but it helped visualize his goal. He would bring his body into balance through the pain, not allowing it to take hold and damage his mind.
The level ups took longer now, minutes at a time, but he weathered it. It was only pain, no damage done to him, and he would control his response to the sensation.
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (81) -> (82)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (54) -> (55)]
His muscles relaxed, but he didn’t slump to the ground anymore. He breathed deeply, but they were far more controlled than the gasping breaths he was forced to take two weeks ago.
It was over, and he continued to live. The pain was gone, but he remained.
Many times, he thought about emptying his [Pandora’s Box], or at least stopping it from filling all the way. He considered taking a break from training it, but refused to do so. He could convince himself it would be temporary, but that wouldn’t be true at all. Once he stopped, Dei couldn’t see himself starting this kind of training again willingly.
He needed to make as much progress as he could, and find a way to fare better, before he had to use the mana to leave the cave.
His personal goal was to at least reach level one hundred in the Skill before the ninth of next month, where he would then check on his Korgonda friend.
‘It will pass. I will get through this.’
* * *
[Since the Fall: 9/9/809 - 8:00:00]
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (82) -> (83)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (94) -> (95)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (55) -> (56)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (62) -> (63)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (108) -> (109)]
[Total Stats Gained: +2 Physical]
One month since he killed the Wraith, it was finally time for him to leave again, but he’d yet to reach level one hundred in his Skill.
He failed.
He now had the perfect excuse to stop, to leave his cave and continue living. He told himself that he would come back to the training eventually, that he would build the mana back up again, and continue next month.
He could meet with the Korgonda, potentially continue adventuring a bit further through the checkpoints, and make it back to push through the final five levels. Dei would leave, take a break, and come back to train as he always did.
But he couldn’t do that.
Even now, even after all the meditation to keep himself sane, he felt himself flinching when he approached the threshold of the next level in [Pandora’s Box]. If he stopped, it would take him a long, long time to mentally heal enough to start training again. Even the thought of continuing to train caused him to shake.
He couldn’t keep going. He had to see the world outside of the cave, see other sights, and rest. It didn’t matter if it took months to gain the strength to reach level one hundred, Dei needed to stop.
Which is exactly why he couldn’t. While he needed to meet with the Korgonda, it would still be there in a few more days. It was doubtlessly stronger than its brethren after all the valuable resources it consumed, so Dei didn’t need to worry about it dying, at least not any time soon,
It was true that he had the perfect excuse to stop training, but he recognized that for what it was: an excuse.
He felt his mind calm as his indecisiveness faded away, and a resolve to finish what he started took its place. He closed his eyes, and continued to meditate
* * *
[Since the Fall: 9/12/809 - 15:31:27]
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (95) -> (96)]
…
[Skill Leveled Up: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (98) -> (99)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (63) -> (64)]
[Skill Leveled Up: Meditation (64) -> (65)]
Just three days later, Dei was on the cusp of the final Skill level up. His entire life in this world hadn’t been easy at all, but this felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done. His other decisions were all forced onto him, or he felt an obligation to do certain things, but it was only himself that chose to push to complete his training, despite his failing strength, or perhaps because of his failing strength, he chose to close his eyes and continue limping forward down his path.
Something within [Meditation] began to solidify as well, and it became easier to weather the pain [Pandora’s Box (Contained)] forced onto him. He still dreaded every single level up, but he no longer shook in fear when another bout of pain approached. He braced his mind, held on tight, and pushed through.
The final point of Soul came through his connection to the affinity, and Dei watched as it pressed into the broken Skill he continued to train.
Again, the horrible aching overtook him, but his muscles did not tense. His breathing did not change, continuing its rhythm and grounding him in the moment. His actions would be his own, and an empty pain would not guide him down a path he was not already following.
One minute stretched into two, two into five, and five into ten.
Even so, he never alleviated the pressure. He never cast [Identify] to give him some breathing room. Still as stone, he no longer even fought the pain, focusing to try and release it from his body. Instead, he simply let it crash into him, unmoving as the cold rock in the walls around him.
After twelve minutes, it reached the crescendo of agony, then abruptly ceased.
For a time afterwards, Dei continued to meditate, letting his mind center itself. With the final push, a change took place in the Skill, and he broke through a barrier previously holding him back. It felt like he’d stumbled into a clearing after tearing his body thoroughly on the dense foliage, but he’d yet to check his notifications to see what exactly.
When he felt he was ready, he finally let himself fall back into his body.
On top of [Pandora’s Box (Contained)] hitting level one hundred, Dei felt something reach out to him, connecting to him and respecting the efforts he put himself through. It looked over his entire life, up to the very moment he lived in, and judged him worthy.
[Affinity Gained: Fortitude]