As the Skill formed, Dei felt an imbalance begin to correct itself in his head. While he was still in a horribly unhealthy state of mind, it was no longer catastrophic, and he could feel the schism between his mind and body no longer widened. It would take time to fix itself, but it was on a road to correction.
Dei quickly expressed to Clever that he was okay, the poor Korgonda terribly afraid that Dei was under attack.
He stood back up, blowing out a lungful of air and re-inspecting his surroundings. Still, nothing jumped to eat him. At this point, Dei was almost positive that the cave was safe.
Deciding it would be best to wait until later to see his reflection, Dei carefully put Clever on his shoulder, then began the long trek back up to where they first entered Checkpoint Two.
* * *
As they traveled upwards, Dei contemplated everything so far. He’d always known that there was something happening under the surface, issues that would arise later. Frequently, Dei found himself stepping out of the natural order of the world. When he avoided a soul cleansing, then again as his fully formed mind tried to inhabit a childs, and most recently as his body developed faster than it should. In each scenario, he was given the opportunity to reach for more power, but was also forced to recognize that strength came at a cost.
It was true that he’d been granted opportunities, but there was give and take. Sometimes, the cost advertised was not the only one.
When he’d spoken to Gargeth, the Melder stated that his body would cut off his non-mundane senses and half his MP pool to grant him power, but that wasn’t exactly true. Those were the costs that Gargeth knew about, because he specialized in Body. Gargeth had no way to know that mental changes were equally as, if not more important than the physical ones.
With each barrier Dei ran into though, he succeeded and was stronger for it. He was beginning to learn, really learn how the world worked. He realized now that Skills were a confluence between emotion, will, and magic. In each instance of a Skill formation, Dei was faced with a harsh situation and only formed the Skill when he refused to give up.
During the panic attack, his Fortitude affinity didn’t just form the Skill. Only when he began wrestling with it himself did it finally step in. Dei had no doubt that if he’d given up to the fear, allowing it control over his faculties and waiting it out rather than fighting against it, he would not have formed the new Skill.
Dei hadn’t survived this far only because he needed to, but because he wanted to. From the very start, Dei refused to surrender, fighting against his fate time and time again.
Desire was integral in the building of strength. He’d noticed it first when he didn't want to strengthen his connection to Soul, so it simply stopped happening. There would never come a time when he made a Skill he absolutely did not want, as his body would fight against it.
Dei’s body would resist magical changes forced on to it, which brought up a peculiar thought: Gargeth was wrong about specializing his constitution. Gargeth stated that, if he reached level one hundred before he let his magical senses catch up, then he would be permanently locked out of them.
While Dei didn’t doubt that level one hundred would be an important cornerstone of power, the change being forced onto him would go against what Dei was learning about how the world worked. Instead, Dei thought that people who were forced to grow quickly, like him, would be happy to trade in certain senses for a better chance at survival.
That brought up his next point: was Dei one such person? Did Dei want to double his HP at the cost of his MP, lock himself out of magical senses, and begin relying on his eyes alone to see souls?
The fact that he could see souls at all was incredible. Only because the System developed his eyes for him in the womb to help accept the new Racial ability upgrades was he able to do so.
Dei started looking back over his life, realizing that he’d not only survived without these advanced senses, but thrived. He didn’t need to sense magic or see what souls were behind him to grow more powerful. The only useful instance of his Soul Sense without using his eyes was when the Wraith tried to sneak attack him from behind while in the spirit world, and Dei felt the attack coming.
If he’d specialized his constitution, he wouldn’t have been able to sense it. Even then, would he have needed to? If he’d gained more HP, would his skin have toughened up to the point where the Wraith couldn’t just assassinate him?
More than that, Dei saw a path ahead for himself. Over and over, his way forward continued to overlap with the Spirit realm. In the future, he could only imagine himself becoming more active with the spirits, not less.
Gargeth told him of a way to enter the Spirit Realm with his physical body too by tying it to his Projection. If Dei did this, he wouldn’t need his Soul Sense anymore, as his Spirit Sense would detect all creatures in the area.
It felt like a massive puzzle he was slowly forming in his head. The Sectioning upgrade for [Pandora’s Box] covered the MP weakness of a specialized HP Constitution, while becoming a half-spirit would cover the others. He felt like he’d already taken the first step as well, his new [Solidity] Skill forming a bond between his Body and Soul. If he could get it to level one hundred, would there be an option to unite the two? It all felt so… converging? He had incomplete parts of a whole, but if he played his cards right, he could carefully slot them together.
The only thing he could think of that he would miss, would be his Projection. Gargeth said that he wouldn’t be able to do that anymore if he tied it to his body. It was useful to be in multiple places at once, and he’d dreamed of becoming a literal one-man army in the future.
Thinking about it more though, that path wasn’t discarded yet, was it? Gargeth was able to split his body into multiple parts. If Dei tied his soul's Structure to his body, he wouldn’t be able to project anymore, but that ability would turn into something similar to what Gargeth could do: a second, fully formed body. What did he call it? Swarm mind?
Dei found himself… excited for the future. He wanted to specialize his Constitution now, he didn’t dread it. He wanted to become a half-spirit and dive into a deep mysterious world of ghosts and other sorts of creatures.
He looked around as he and Clever made their way up, beautiful glowing waterfalls, soft grass and interesting creatures all around him. Despite the brutality of nature, the risk he took in simply existing away from civilization, he found that he wasn’t ready to return. He didn’t want to stop just yet. He loved his mom and missed her, true, but he wished she could be here with him, rather than go back with her.
He didn’t want to go home yet.
He felt melancholic when such a thought occurred to him, but Dei found himself appreciating the changes he underwent. He wanted to become something more, live his life, and find happiness through it all.
Dei found the walk back up to be a relaxing stroll. Mind clearer than ever, he was ready to face checkpoint three.
* * *
The roar of water grew quieter behind them, and Dei finally breathed a sigh of relief. Not only because there would be fewer animals from this point forward, but because he grew tired of such loud noises.
Clever stated that he’d quickly begun filtering it out at the start of their journey, and the noise grew quieter over time. He could still perfectly hear his surroundings, it was only the roar of water that was muffled.
‘Is this another change to his body?’ Dei wondered. He kept finding that Clevers body would rapidly change to help him survive, depending on the environment. Rather than wondering quietly, Dei simply asked Clever about it.
Clever sent back feelings of confusion, as he hadn’t recognized such changes. After a few seconds though, Clever said that it had a Racial ability called [Adaptable Body] which, as expected, allowed his body to adapt.
Clever was happy Dei pointed it out, as he hadn’t tested the limits of the Racial ability, and he was curious as to how it affected his biology in different situations. Clever sent that he was going to try and change himself, if given the chance to do so.
For the next few hours on Dei’s shoulder, Clever focused on bringing active changes to his body, but couldn’t spot any. After a while, he grew tired, so Dei held him as he took a nap.
Dei’s physical body also went to sleep eventually, stating that he was far too exhausted to keep watching, and he’d need to train more tomorrow, so he went to bed.
Alone with himself, Spiritual Dei jogged down the cave, quietly scanning for threats.
* * *
Multiple times, Dei was forced to hide Clever somewhere and drop down into the Spirit Realm, but all of the monsters were either incapable of sensing them, or didn’t care enough to hunt them.
Twelve hours later, Dei finally reached checkpoint three
His Physical body continued to train, and Dei felt a few notifications, but didn’t particularly care to go over all of them. His other self was telling him all of the important ones, and he found that he wasn’t curious as long as one of his Identities knew the information.
The only noteworthy levels were that his [Pondering Sage] Profession finally hit level six, giving him another plus five to his Spiritual stat, and that his new [Solidity] Skill was rapidly leveling up. Already, it was at level seventeen, and his mental state continued to improve as it did so.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
It didn’t necessarily make him happier, it simply stabilized his mind, letting him think more clearly as his Mind, Body, and Soul were all brought into balance.
Focusing back on what was ahead of him, Dei slowed his jog to a walk. Clever was alert as well, but Dei ultimately was not afraid of the new Checkpoint.
When Dei first became a projection, he was able to sense multiple very weak signatures on the first level of the Spirit Realm. What he now approached was one such signature. He’d chosen this one out of all the others because, when viewed under his [Tremor Sense], Dei could see the broken fragments of something that interested him. He couldn’t make out what it was in detail, but there were twenty or thirty pieces of something that were a vibrational deadzone, completely invisible to him. He could make out the shape of shattered glass, but couldn’t fathom what the shards were actually made of. Multiple monsters passed through the area, so he didn’t think the shards were deadly, but none of the creatures took any interest in them.
The overlap between a physical object and weak spirit gave Dei the sense that this could be some sort of possessed item, and if he could collect the pieces together, he might gain another companion along his journey.
It wasn’t even in a noteworthy cave. Just… a random section, of a random corridor. As Dei turned the corner, he finally laid eyes on what he was working with.
On the ground, scattered about, were broken red shards. In the center of them all, the handle to a sword was halfway buried into the ground.
Instead of approaching, Dei set Clever down and told him to wait a second, before phasing into the first layer of the Spirit Realm.
Rather than broken shards, the glowing afterimage of a handle overlapped exactly with where the physical handle was buried. From what he could see of the two mirrored blades though, the Spiritual one was unbroken, while the Physical was completely destroyed.
Phasing back into the physical world, Dei told Clever what he’d seen, and began walking forward to the broken fragments, Identifying the handle and what was left of the blade attached to it.
[Sword of the Shattered Refuge - Artifact
Once a mighty spirit blade, it was shattered in its final confrontation. Forgotten to time, its wielder never returned. The memories stored within the blade are discordant and unreadable, but there is one truth that permeates them all: The blade's purpose was to provide a bastion for the weak]
Careful to not step on any of the smaller pieces, Dei made his way to the handle. He gently reached for it, brushing the back of his hand against the dark brown leather, pristine in nature despite how it was doubtlessly ages old.
The moment his skin touched it, he felt a presence invade his mind, broken and confused. It attempted to communicate something to Dei, but utterly failed, instead sending a chaotic mental message.
His hand jerked back as he closed his eyes, brows scrunching.
The message felt like it should mean something, so he began trying to parse through it.
No matter how he looked at it though, there was no angle he could see that made sense. Giving up on understanding it for now, he tried to communicate with it using [Meaningful], telling it to quiet down.
He let it touch the back of his hand again, but no jolt of information entered his mind, so he wrapped his hand around the handle, carefully trying to pick it up…
This time, he did understand an aspect of what it tried to tell him, as pure fury rushed into him. The blade hated that he tried to use it, sending a pulse of mental anguish at Dei, forming a link between the two of them.
Screaming out in pain, Dei reeled back, feeling something not only tear into his mind, but shoot for a soul attack as well.
It would not be so easy though, as the main portion of his soul was protected by the mysterious concealing bubble.
The attack rushed down an invisible tether, back to his Garden, but was stopped dead by an indomitable barrier.
The two forces clashed, sparking along the connection and releasing waves of power into Dei’s soulscape. The furious blade struck hundreds, thousands, millions of times in seconds, but the barrier reacted just as quickly, blocking every single strike with uncanny prediction.
Both Dei’s were brought to their knees at the force of blows being exchanged within them. Projection Dei saw as golden sparks glowed brightly deep within him, all along his organs, each spark contained entirely within his body. “That cant be good” he managed to groan out as the stress of the battle took its toll on him.
Seconds passed slowly, and a turn in the battle took place that Dei was completely unequipped to measure. Rather than simply defend, the barrier around his Garden began to move, pushing down the connection between his Body and Projection.
The Spirit Sword continued its strikes, but they seemed less organized, instead becoming a panicked flailing. Animalistic instinct guided the blade as it was quickly outmatched and pushed back.
With a final rush, the barrier completely expelled the Spirit Swords influence over Dei, cutting the connection.
Instead of stopping there, Dei sensed a will behind the barrier, screaming at him to force his way forward again and grab the blade. Dei froze for a second when he realized there was a mind behind the concealment array that guarded his body, but quickly complied, grabbing at the blade again.
A second confrontation took place, a far more evenly matched one. His barrier crept along the handle and down the red blade, the will behind the sword screaming unintelligibly as its soul was invaded.
Like an unstoppable march, his barrier slowly enclosed the sword's will in its own personal containment, completely sealing it.
Feelings of reminiscence and nostalgia emanated from the barrier that guarded him, before it quickly retracted, sending one final clear message in a deep booming voice.
“Collect her shards.” It commanded, and the presence disappeared entirely.
‘What the fuck…’ Dei thought to himself, as the entire confrontation took place over the course of twelve seconds. So much happened, and he could hardly make sense of it all.
He understood that the weapon tried to invade his soul to kill him, but was stopped by the barrier. When the barrier went on the attack though, that was unexpected. And finally, the voice said to “collect her shards.”
It referred to the sword as a her, making Dei think that whatever will was behind his safety, was somehow related to the sword.
Looking at the broken red blade, Dei read the name again ‘sword of shattered refuge… the barrier gives me “refuge” as well, are they twin artifacts? Is there some object in my garden, buried, that creates a concealing barrier?’ he wondered, but no answer was forthcoming. Dei’s physical body genuinely could not sense anything that powered the barrier… but he already couldn’t see through the barrier when he was outside of it, so perhaps it was hiding itself from him.
If they were related too, Dei didn’t think it would be coincidence that this was the spirit he chose to mark as Checkpoint Three. There were other pathways that crossed with other weak spirits, but him choosing the one that was related to his hiding place? Unlikely.
Unless the others were related to it as well…
‘That would be quite interesting… did something happen a long time ago that involved a refuge?’ He would have to visit the different points to find out, but he chose to save that for later.
He still had to complete the request given to him by the barrier, so he went about doing so. Reaching for the blade again and wrapping his hand around the handle, he felt a sort of… thumping push against his form. The blade pushed over and over to escape its physical form and strike at him, but a miniature version of what guarded him worked to contain it.
It felt like he was holding an active bomb that was perfectly sealed. He didn’t think it would hurt him, but it still made him nervous.
Nonetheless, he lifted the handle and inspected it. The first thing he noticed was that the handle was big. Whoever wielded it originally had to be supernaturally large. Dei estimated his own height at around five and a half feet, but he could barely get his finders halfway around it. The handle too was incredibly thick, closer to the width of a claymore than just a sword.
Hefting it up, he realized just how heavy it was, despite most of the blade being broken away. The jagged edge of the break still looked viciously dangerous, and Dei didn’t doubt that he’d have no trouble piercing enemies if he tried to do so.
Only around a foot of the red metal was still attached to the handle, closer to a dagger in its current state.
Clever inspected their new tool as well, glowing brighter so he could see it better in the darkness around them. When his light reflected off it, Dei noticed a polished sheen across its length, the dirt left on it visibly sliding away to reveal the metal beneath.
“Incredible…” Dei whispered quietly. He didn’t know of a single metal on earth that had the properties of what was left scattered around him. If he had to guess, it was one that required high concentrations of magic to form, and Earth didn’t provide that.
Holding the handle in front of him like a knight, Dei noticed that the spiritual version of the blade, the one that looked undamaged, followed the handle perfectly. He wanted to touch it to see if it could still harm him… but felt like it would be a bad idea.
Instead, he stopped stalling and finally picked up the first fragmented piece, but quickly ran into an issue.
‘How the hell am I going to carry all of these?’ he wondered, as he could only confidently carry two. He did not want to stack impossibly sharp objects along his arm.
Looking at the handle and broken sword with the spirit trapped inside, he wondered if the Will of the Barrier meant for him to put the sword back together. What if the barrier could act as an adhesive, holding the pieces in place?
He placed the shard to the tip of the blade, trying to see if this was the piece that was attached next.
Before he could even react, Dei saw the part of the spirit imbued into the loose fragment suddenly get pulled into the barrier that contained the main portion of the spirit. As it did, the red fragment quickly turned to dust, falling through his fingers.
Eyebrows raising, Dei saw how the barrier was more full than before. The Spiritual version of the blade also began to flake away slightly. Before, the mirror image of the blade was a pristine replica of what it should have looked like in life, a massive claymore. Now, the replica was chipped in certain areas, cracks running along it.
‘I think I’m supposed to pull it all into the barrier’ Dei thought, and went about his task with a new understanding.
Instead of picking up the shards, he poked the main portion into them, watching as they turned to dust. Each time he did so, the spiritual version of the blade became slightly more damaged, breaking down as it was pulled more fully into the barrier.
When the last shard finally disintegrated, the spiritual version of the sword shattered almost entirely, except for the section that was a perfect mirror of the physical version.
With his Spirit Sense, he could still see that there was a spirit, it simply contained perfectly in the handle and red blade, rather than an intangible projection.
The broken sword now thrummed with contained power, and he felt its mind quiet down. It no longer pressed against the barrier, and its presence slowly receded. While before it raged against its confines, it now felt to Dei like it was going to sleep, falling dormant.
Half a minute passed while Dei and Clever watched the blade, feeling it retract into itself, before its spiritual signature disappeared entirely.
Dei couldn’t sense it, even with his high level [Spirit Sense], but he doubted it was dead. Instead, it was perfectly contained within the barrier, no energy leaking out at all.
Jaw hung open, Dei continued to study the strange tool he’d suddenly gained. The implication of everything setting in slowly. He resolved to consider it on the way to the fourth and final checkpoint… one he suspected would be even more dangerous than he initially assumed, if his train of thought was correct.