“Do you understand?”

Elmer thought it to be a very serious matter, and since he did not really care for what exactly he referred to the man as he did not hesitate to nod in agreement.

“I understand,” Elmer said, and Eddie’s finger dropped, so did his stern tone.

“Good.” Eddie smiled. “You should have noticed by now… that one of your senses has been heightened.” Elmer blinked. “When you drank the essence elixir, one of your body’s twenty five senses that is of the most unique to you was taken to a greater height, a superhuman one.”

Elmer immediately knew which of his senses had been heightened.

He had noticed a while back that his hearing had become extremely good, allowing him to hear things he’d never been able to hear before. But his constant falling asleep after that weird sensation befell him always made him believe that it had just been an effect of him feeling drowsy.

Now he knew better.

Though, why was it his hearing that had been heightened, and why was he always falling asleep in the process?

He had grown to be of an understanding that nothing happened in the world of the supernatural without its reasons, so what exactly was the criteria that decided his hearing was the one to be taken to a superhuman level? Why was this particular human sense the one unique to him?

“Do not try to put any reasoning into it and just accept it as it is,” Eddie said unexpectedly, forcing Elmer’s thoughts to an abrupt close. “Only the Upper Echelons deeply understand how the supernatural works. They’re the closest to the Heavens after all.”

Elmer’s toes curled.

So if I want to know more I’d have to become an Ascender of the Upper Echelon…?

Eddie’s gaze narrowed at Elmer as though he was trying to peek into his thoughts, and that caused Elmer to clear his throat and put his swirling mind to a rest.

“And you?” Elmer asked. “What rank are you? You’re an Ascender, right? Seeing as you have a heightened sense.”

Eddie put the narrowing of his gaze to a stop and smiled. “Echelon 9.”

Elmer gasped, his brows pulling in. “You’re higher than Ms. Edna?”

“That I am,” Eddie replied in something of a smug tone.

“Then shouldn’t you know more than her?” Elmer asked.

If the Upper Echelons knew more of the secrets of the supernatural than the Lower Echelons, then that probably meant that the higher in rank an Ascender went, the more they knew. So why had he said that Ms. Edna knew more than he?

Elmer was genuinely curious.

“It doesn’t work that way.” Eddie shook his head. “At least for us in the Lower Echelon. We only know the surface level information. The deeper bits, yes, all for the big boys.”

Elmer sighed and leaned back on the couch.

So the only way to learn more is by becoming an Upper Echelon Ascender… Was the secret to reversing time for Mabel also up there as well…?

All of a sudden, Elmer’s eyes widened, prompting him to jerk forward from his leaned back position and blurt, “Powers?” Eddie had confusion paint his face for a moment. “Before I drank the elixir I was told Ascenders had greater strength and speed than normal humans, but I’ve not felt anything different in myself ever since. Do you know why that is?”

Eddie smiled. “But you are different.” Elmer was dumbfounded. “Just like your senses, only one of your physical characteristics has been heightened as well. I’m sure you could not have missed it.”

Elmer took a moment to think, and yes, he really should have noticed long before now. His fight with the Lost should have been the only proof he’d needed.

He had been able to survive and defeat the Lost all because he had become faster, otherwise there was no other way he would have been able to evade the slashes of that monstrosity.

There was a little bit of sense to why his speed had been heightened. He had always been a good runner, but that deduction further made him question why it had been his sense of hearing heightened. He could not in any way find a good enough reason for that outcome.

“Is that all?” Elmer asked. “All we get for drinking that elixir and almost falling prey to its madness is just a heightened sense and a physical characteristic? No actual abilities?”

Eddie chuckled. “No. You do have a unique ability as well.” He stretched his arms and yawned before continuing, “But it will forever remain docile until you’ve ascended past the Baseborn Echelon. Though once you do, you’ll have knowledge of the usage of the ability as though you had been born with it, just like your heightened sense and physical characteristic.”

Elmer blinked rapidly. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not that hard to understand. As long as you remain in the Baseborn Echelon you will never be able to use the unique ability that has been granted to you by the pathway. And, before you ask, I do not know why. Like I said, all the reasons for that are known to only the big boys.”

So the only way to become stronger and know more about the supernatural is to ascend…? Elmer was silent for a brief moment, then he had an unwarranted thought that sickened him. What sort of ability would I get from the Pathway of Souls…?

He shook his head.

“If…” Elmer trailed off as he returned his attention back to Eddie who was still staring at him with a smile. “What if I want to ascend,” he said in a low voice. “How do I go about that?”

The smile that had been on Eddie’s face washed away in an instant, and it caused Elmer to inhale sharply as he wondered if he had uttered something strange.

Had he?

Was asking about the method to ascend something that was frowned upon?

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Eddie sighed soon after, clearing away the stiffening air that had shrouded the room following Elmer’s question. “You don’t get to decide if you want to ascend.” Elmer squinted. “There’s only one person in each echelon rank, to ascend, a slot has to be open.”

Down went Elmer’s brows. A slot? Was it some kind of societal class? Even then, a societal class could have more than one person in it, why were the echelons only limited to a person per rank? He had been confused when Ms. Edna had mentioned it, and he was not any less confused now as it came from Eddie’s mouth. In fact, his confusion had become worse.

Eddie continued at the cost of Elmer’s thoughts, “You can’t just drink the essence elixir like you did to become an Ascender and go up a rank. You have to be chosen by the pathway at the expense of whoever is in the rank you’ll be ascending to.”

“At the expense?” Elmer muttered, his mind having a slight thought of what Eddie insinuated.

“Yes. The Ascender of a rank has to move up or down… or die for a slot to open up. And even if a slot opens up there’s no guarantee that it is you who will ascend. Chronos himself decides that.”

Elmer swallowed a lump of spit at what he had just been told. But even though death as a criteria for ascending up a rank had been mentioned, his mind drifted toward another.

“An Ascender can go down a rank?” Eddie nodded, and Elmer had another thought hit him. “Does that mean an Echelon 10 can still fall back to the Baseborn Echelon?” Eddie nodded again. “What… What happens to the Ascender’s ability when they drop back to the Baseborn Echelon? Does it go back to being docile?”

“No,” Eddie told him. “Once activated it can never go back to being docile.”

Elmer sort of felt relieved at that answer for some reason.

“A note of warning,” Eddie resumed his talk, changing his voice into a very low whisper that forced Elmer to take a hold of his wrist in a nervy manner. “Don’t ever try to find out more about ascending the Echelons.” Elmer’s gaze narrowed at that. “Unless you want to be tagged as a corrupted one by the Church.”

The Church… They must be hiding a lot of things…

Elmer felt something was amiss. He had been feeling that way ever since he’d read Col’s journal and had grown to become suspicious of the origins of the Gods.

What exactly did the Upper Echelons know?

“Alright,” Eddie’s voice snapped him from his thoughts. “I should have asked this at first. What have you come for?”

Elmer suddenly recalled his reason for coming to Saintess Boulevard, inciting him to take a quick glance at the cottage’s window to glimpse the cloud devoid of the orange glow of the setting sun but with a darker undertone that signified the crossover from evening to night.

He gasped.

“I came for some items,” he uttered to Eddie hurriedly. “For a job I took on.”

“What job?” Eddie asked.

“Exorcising a curse.”

The man with black hair streaked by white smacked his lips and stood up, then went through a curtained partition crowned by a brass frame carved in the likeness of the Crest of Time.

He returned after a few minutes with two things in hand.

Elmer stood up instantly and received them.

One was a yellowish delicate paper the size of his palm, and had been inscribed by red ink with Enochian symbols dancing intricately in a circle. It felt warm to his touch, like it was brimming with life and energy, and he could not tell if it was because his hearing had been heightened that he could make out some sort of indistinct whispers pouring out from it.

“Don’t worry, I hear it too. The talisman always does that.” Eddie said, prompting Elmer to blink and cease the furrowing of his brows that had come about from the scrutinizing gaze he had placed on the talisman.

The other item he had received was a bronze pendant engraved, as well, with Enochian symbols, but its was carved in some sort of whirlpool manner, both at its front and back.

Eddie pointed to the talisman first. “Edna should have told you how to use that, right?”

She had, it was simply to place the talisman right where the ritual to summon the curse had taken place, but Elmer still wanted to hear Eddie’s explanation as well since he was the one giving out the items in actuality.

He shook his head, causing Eddie to sigh.

“That’s a purgatory talisman. You are to place that exactly where the ritual to summon the curse had taken place.”

Exactly what Ms. Edna had said… Elmer nodded. But when he was about to clear his mind from the talisman and its whispers to focus them on the pendant next, Eddie continued.

“Once activated you must do good to stay away from it.” Elmer took his eyes from the talisman and put them onto the mild expression of playfulness about Eddie’s face. He was probably in his serious chapter, but his countenance was making it hard for Elmer to know which was which. “If you are within a close range, it will purify both you and the curse.”

Elmer shuddered indistinctly. “Both me and the curse?”

“Both you and the curse, yes,” Eddie said. “We humans are of good and evil, the other balances the other, and the purgatory talisman purifies all evil in close proximity to it once activated, so we are no exception. When all the evil in a person has been purified, their soul will become unbalanced, causing them to cease to exist in totality.” Elmer swallowed a lump of saliva at Eddie’s explanation. It made a lot of sense, but that did not make it any less scarier. “So make sure to only say the prayer once you’ve placed the talisman on the spot.”

“The prayer?”

“I’ll write it down on a piece of paper. That is unless you want me to say it out and cause both of us to cease to exist?” Eddie smiled and Elmer’s nose wrung up at the man’s carefree behavior.

With nothing else from Elmer, Eddie picked up the pendant he had given him and held it from its chain with his fingers. “This is a divination pendant. You can use it to confirm the whereabouts of the curse you want to exorcise.”

That’s pretty convenient… Elmer’s tired eyes sparkled a tad, almost completely forgetting the scary nature of the item on his left hand.

“How does it work?” he asked.

Eddie smiled and raised the pendant. “The watchful eye of the Heavens that sees all, I plead for your vast gaze, show me if what I seek is in this place with me now. Elmer Hills.”

No need to fear saying the prayer for this one…?

Elmer inhaled sharply as he watched the pendant, which had been swinging calmly, violently shake and spin all of a sudden before coming to a halt a few seconds later.

“That’s how it works,” Eddie told him, and Elmer made sure not to forget the prayer. “If it doesn’t spin then what you’re looking for isn’t where you are. If it does, well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Elmer nodded as he put the purgatory talisman into his waist bag, in return shutting out the whispers that were coming from it. “Thank you,” he said, then took the pendant from Eddie and deftly rolled it in between the fingers and wrist of his right hand before dipping it beneath his sleeve.

“One more thing,” Eddie said. “Learn this other prayer I’ll give you now. It’s to grant you the ability to see the curse you plan to exorcise.” He smiled. “You did not think you would just be able to see something that did not directly exist in our plane did you?”

Elmer cleared his throat. He should have guessed as much. If simply becoming an Ascender granted you the ability to see curses and spirits then by now he should have seen enough to run him mad.

But one thought came to bother him at that reasoning based on what Eddie had told him about the heightened senses of the Ascenders.

He wondered what those with their sense of sight heightened could see.

“The watchful eye of the Heavens. The peering gaze that rains down upon the world. I pray for a minuscule portion of the power of your sight. Grant me the ability to see what I seek…” Eddie trailed off. “There, you say what you want to see. Understand?”

Elmer nodded. Though, something stuck with him again. The two prayers had been directed at the Heavens, not Chronos—the God of Time—the God Eddie supposedly worshiped. Was it some other divine being the prayer had been conjured for? Someone greater than Chronos? Someone like… the Creator of all?

Eddie went ahead to write the prayer for the talisman on a sheet of paper and handed it to Elmer.

“That’ll be two hundred and fifty mints.” Eddie said, prompting Elmer to take in a deep breath and exhale. After which he counted the sum of money that had been requested, and handed it over to Eddie before taking his leave with a bow.