Name:

Luce Bravelight

Race:

Human (child) (Mutant)

Class:

Empty

Soul:

Second refinement, Tier 5

Body:

Second refinement, Tier 2

Mind:

Second refinement, Tier 2

The return to reality was a confusing affair, as the drugs affecting me stopped working around the same time, pulling me from the state of hyper focus and refining me to the confines of reality once more, with a small difference in the way I perceived the world.

As I looked at my teacher, the weirdest form of synesthesia set in, probably as a result of my mind-expanding to work more efficiently with my body.

I knew whether he was loud or not, the way particles of warmth seemed to gather around him, lowering the temperature for anyone else.

I had not found myself yet, but I had gotten what I came for, the self discovery was sure to come at some point during this journey.

Slowly, I stood up, smiling towards the towering elders drug addled form as I disappeared through the front door, spending the remaining evening training my new war pic.

When the first refinement of my soul was to understand the arcane, and the second was to act according to the Arcana within me, it probably needed me to be more of its manifestation than before, which once again required me to find myself, a task that was hard to complete when distractions popped up everywhere.

I had achieved my goals with the reptiloids within a total of two years, and still I had not grasped who I was.

It was unacceptable to end this chapter of my life without it, and thus I trained through the night, using spells and perception to enhance my attacks wherever I could, shredding one cheap training dummy after the next, until I finally delved into the mines and began working on them.

Self reflection was hard for me to do, for even when I was isolated in a lightless mine shaft, the fallen cried in my head.

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Some would be avatars of revenge in my situation, avenging those who empower them, I would have chosen the revenant trait and embraced the hatred, but I was not that emotional.

Others would cry about their lost destiny, crying for the heroic journey of fighting some form of demon lord or another, but I had decided against the Hero path, and instead held onto my magic.

Many would go the path of a villain, which was the most enticing among the previously mentioned, though I knew it would be inevitable for some hero to slay me if I bathed in this worlds darkness.

All of these were common staples of the fantasy genre, all of which I hated.

Despite the loneliness of my previous lives, or maybe because of it, I could not choose the path of isolated studies, my companions too important to betray them, for they had become my only constant in this world.

The path before me was sure to be filled with corpses, and so long as it wasn’t someone I considered important, the thought of death was more of a comfort than the dread it would be to many others.

I knew the determination within myself had grown when I witnessed the pseudo immortality offered by traits like undead or stasis, but I would never hold onto some false sense of security anymore, no phylacteries send to space or works of fiction that I hoped to hold on for a while after my death. I longed to survive and ascend past this world, a way to be an immortal in more than just theory.

It was this determination that had brought me this far, and it had to carry me through many more years.

I would be no Lich hiding behind an army of undead, bound to his dungeon. Nor would I be a vampire held back by his grave dirt and flowing water. I would be no god or great old one, shattering reality when I intervened in some way.

Even the image of a dragon did not fit my vision, the titans sleeping whenever they did not fly around and cause wanton destruction.

Only one of the lives whose memories I held had ever witnessed the kind of power I longed for, with a glimpse of it showing in this one when I turned the priest into a titan, the memory hauntingly realistic as I lost myself in it during my mining tour.

He had been a simple farmer named tom, an old man even back then, checking on his fields as a storm was coming from the nearby coast. As everyone else had retreated inside, he had looked outside long enough to witness a scene of true majesty, the waves forming and the sky obscuring the titanic form rising from beneath the waters to consume the ships.

There were tentacles slashing through galleons on the horizon, teeth so pure they reflected the lighthouse it was dragging into its maw, the twister above it functioning as a beacon of destruction, and when it passed, the world became just a tad more peaceful, of course it didn’t hold until the old man died due to bandits but even in death he had longed to witness such power again, and I carried that dream of his, as it resonated with every memory I held.

I wanted to be a force of nature, neither good nor evil, strong enough that no one would dare to stand in my way, and yet the Kraken was not what I wanted to be like.

I, Luce Bravelight, wanted to be a sky whale, a titan with a small pod of allies, each one a force of nature looking out for one another while others are looking up at them with adoration in their eyes, fearing to step in our way without hating us for what we were.

My group was made of a cat, a sturdy pig, a shadow stepping rogue and an eldritch sorcerer with an unyielding hunger for death and destruction.

For that goal, we would probably function as heroes and villains, but I knew the only thing that mattered in this world were my friends and this vision.

Would I follow the quests I had been asked to? Of course, I accepted them out of a reason. But I would never allow myself to stray from this path, and that is the truth I found about myself as my pickax separated layers of rock from the wall.

I am Luce Bravelight, slaughterer of slimes, apex hunter, my own master and soon to be bearer of many more titles this world would know me by.

The sound of stone hitting iron ripped me out of my thoughts, my skills and traits having led me on a path towards my target, where I quickly got to work on excavating this vein of iron.

Following that, I cast purify and clean on it, slowly making sure nothing but pure metal was left soon after as I held a particularly long piece of iron in my grasp, which I pulled all the way outside.

Before my departure, I required the mind elders help once more, and as I finished the construction of an oven suited for iron melting, he soon came towards me, and together we melted the earths treasures, the work a combination of many spells to ensure the construct could withstand the elders air fueled flames, as we flooded the form of a war pic and many other objects.

As the metal became the form I wanted it to be, I made sure to cast purify and drain impurity on it to the best of my ability, adding things like infuse potential and ‘pour dim’ on it, somehow turning the shiny metal pitch black when it finally cooled down, exploding the form we made for it as the infused potential was unleashed.

Upon picking it up, I noticed a thrum from within as it began redrawing the potential from me, slowing me down for a while until it returned to absolute stillness again.

When I thanked my teacher, it was followed by me running to bed, carefully handling my war pic, so I didn’t unleash its power on accident.

Finally, I had become ready to fight my nemesis, only a few more days passed, in which I made plans with my allies and familiarized myself with my new weapon, a pair of metallic daggers for Pale finally concluding our plans to head out into the world.

The last evening was a big farewell celebration, with many a drink spilled among the others, both my companions and I went to sleep early that night, ready to hunt down the titan and make some progress on our inevitable path to greatness.