Nar jumped to his feet and looked around the dull, solid green wall of light around him in startled confusion.
Did I just…
“In your pod controls, look for the open/close door,” the master spoke again, with a hint of amusement. “It should be a simple affair.”
“I-Uh…”
He stumbled through his UI as though it was the first time he was even seeing the blasted thing, and found the controls she had mentioned, just below the on/off toggle.
Interestingly enough, as he glanced past the controls, he also saw that he could change the color of the barrier, the transparency, and there was even a grayed-out option labeled with “Sounds”.
Open door!
A rectangle appeared in the barrier and Nar stepped backwards to allow the Master of Aura to step in.
“Good, now close the door,” she said, smiling.
“Uhmm…”
Surprised, Nar did as he was told, and the barrier closed behind her.
“Let’s take a seat, shall we?” the master said, smoothly seating herself down into a cross-legged position, her back as straight as a sword.
“Y-Yes, master.”
Nar rushed to do as she told him, and mimicked the way she was sitting. Or tried to. His back immediately protested the rigidity that he tried to impose on it.
“Tut-tut,” the master said, shaking her head. “So inflexible. And using your hand to sit down, too… Your time in the Blades Hall will not be a pleasant one.”
“The Blades Hall?” Nar asked, unable to keep the excitement from his voice.
The master pulled a pained expression. “The Master of Aura sits before you, and all you can think about is the Blades Hall? I’m wounded. And this after we’ve already met too.”
Oh, shit! Nar panicked, feeling a wave of fire flare out across his body. And we did meet! But where?
The master chuckled at his confused panicked state.
“Relax. I’m merely jesting,” she said. “I would’ve been surprised if you remembered anything other than pain from yesterday.”
Nar frowned as realization dawned on him. “You healed me… Right?”
She scowled at him and he straightened his relaxed back in a snap. “I mean, right, master?”
The smile returned. “Yes, that I did. That was the most extensive case of aura exhaustion and burns that I’ve ever seen in a fresh off the gate Ex-Climber. Not to mention actual aura collapse! Can’t remember the last time I’ve even seen that on an apprentice.”
“I… Thank you, master.”
She gave him a solemn bow, which he awkwardly returned.
“A one-time use of two advanced skills, am I correct?” she asked. “Rewards for fulfilling bonus conditions in a hidden quest for a class change.”
“Uh-Yes, master. But how did you know?” Nar asked.
“I am older than I look, and the word unique is very, very seldomly correctly used to describe anything in the Nexus. In fact, whenever you hear someone using it, they’re 99.9% of the time trying to scam you, or trying to trick you into buying something you neither want or need. Remember that.”
“Yes, master.”
“But as for a proper answer, while rare, what happened to you is something I’ve seen before on past apprentices. Minus the aura collapse bit… In fact, if we were to look them up, I’m sure that we’d come with at least fifty or a hundred thousand of such instances occurring on this round of Ceremonies alone.”
“A hundred… And that’s rare?” Nar gasped.
The master grimaced. “Do you understand that there were over fifty thousand Climbers in your Ceremony? And that there were thousands of Ceremonies taking place all around the Minus at the same time? One hundred thousand to be precise?”
Nar blinked, drawing a blank.
“Ceremonies range between twenty and just above fifty thousand climbers. That means that anywhere between 800 million and 2 billion Climbers exit the Gates every year, giving the survival rate of the Ceremony. This year was an average-ish year. About 1.6 billion Climbers made it out. Therefore, one hundred thousand of those having class related hidden quests makes it a rare enough occurrence.”
Nar tried to articulate words, but his brain wasn’t keeping up with the numbers. He understood them, of course. One, the system had just dumped on him the meaning of billion, and two, his System given calculation abilities were working just fine. However, and again, there was a disconnect between knowing and actually understanding.
“But… That’s so many…” he whispered. “So many of us…”
And that means that there’s a 40% survival rate for the Ceremony… he realized, his mouth blanking at the meaning of such death. That means 4 out of 10 didn’t make it… And Kit said that some Ceremonies didn’t even make it…
“The Nexus is a big place, Nar,” the master said, her tone soft. “There are quadrillions of sentients. Do you understand that number?”
The meaning of trillion and quadrillion filtered into his head.
“Yes… No!” he said, horrified. “That’s… That’s so many people! And so few of us make it out!”
“That… Is our reality, unfortunately,” she said, her expression tightening. “It doesn’t really bear thinking about it. There’s nothing to be done for it… But we need to return to the reason why I’m here. I noticed that you had no issues covering your entire body in aura.”
“I… How…” Nar blinked, stunned at everything she had revealed to him and also at the sudden change in topic.
“I knew you had very well-established channels, perhaps even pathways, from when I healed you,” she continued. “But it’s only now that you’ve seen your gains that I realize that not only you have pathways already, but that you’re actually a step further than that. You have a path specific, upgraded skill. And you are the only one on the ship to currently have one.”
Nar nodded, hoping against hope she didn’t ask him to explain it, as he hadn’t been able to actually see what his [Pathways of the Champion] did for him.
“Oh, and why not?” she asked him. “Didn’t I tell you all to check your gains before this class?”
Nar’s jaw dropped.
“You can read minds? …Master!”
She laughed. “Only young and gullible apprentices like you. And while you have an amusing excuse as to why you didn’t check your skills when I told you to, you should’ve still looked at them before coming here! What kind of Ex-Climber doesn’t look at his gains the moment he finds himself in a secure location and rested?”
Nar looked down at his legs, trying to keep any excuses from surfacing to his mind.
“I will have to think of a suitable punishment,” the master said. “In the meantime, why don’t we have a look at your skills together?”
“Yes, master!” Nar said, agreeing quickly before he could get himself into further trouble. Hopefully, the punishment wouldn’t be too bad… He grimaced at the thought, remembering that his thoughts were not his own. In front of him, the master grinned wickedly.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Crystal… Nar thought.
Like before, with Balink, a window suddenly appeared in between the two of them, one that both of them could read from their respective sides. Except this time, he noticed that there had been no prior window requesting his permission. Like Balink had told him, the Scimitar had full access to his status.
“Stop thinking useless things and read,” the master chastised him.
“Yes, master! I’m sorry!”
Grimacing, Nar read over his current list of skills, and found that they were now split between active and passive skills.
Skills
Active
Aura Attack (Aura/DPS): An attack that does an extra n * 0.55 damage, where n is the amount of Aura points you wish to use. Extra damage modifiers can be triggered, based on several factors such as… (No more information available). Cost n points of aura. - Common
Aura Quickening (Aura/Debuff): For five seconds your [NPC], [Reflex], [Agility] and [Speed] increase by n * 0.1, where n is your [Aura]. Cost 25 aura. Warning: Severe physical and mental damage may be incurred if this skill is overused. - Common
Meditation (Aura/Recovery): recharge your Aura through deep breathing and the emptying of your mind. Through this, it is possible to access a sense of… (No more information available) - Common
Passive
Pathways of the Champion (Aura): Upgraded version of the [Aura Pathways] skill. The [Pathways of the Champion] reach further and deeper throughout the body. The higher the level of the pathways, the higher its quality, allowing the user to better cycle their aura, in higher quantities, and with lesser and lesser loss of aura through leakage. Adds a 0.05 bonus to [Mastery]. - Rare
Senses of the Champion (Aura/Enhancement): Drawing upon your senses, including [Instinct], automatically taps into your aura core. This empowers all your senses by a further n * y * (x * 0.01), where n is the level of this skill, y is the current stage in the Path of the Champion (currently Aspirant = 1) and x is your [Aura]. Further, this skill, like the [Aura Senses] skill it replaces, is also one of the first prerequisites towards the more… (No more information available). - Rare
Mastery (Aura): The amount of aura that you can cycle and control all at once. Each journey is its own. Currently, 100 aura points (+ 5 [Pathways of the Champion] = 105) Warning: While you can reach for more aura, it will be extremely difficult, and carries with it potentially very serious risks. - Common
Dark Vision (Enhancement): As one born in the deepest darkness, you will always be able to see well through the dark. - Common
Wow… That looks so much neater, Nar thought. And there are even skill ranks now… And two of them are even rare? Crystal… That’s amazing! Right?
“It’s definitely not bad,” the master replied, holding her chin. “To come out of the gate with two rare skills and a rare class to boot…”
Nar nodded mutely.
And [Pathways of the Champion] doesn’t have that “no more information available” either… he noticed, as the master lapsed back into silence.
Of course, that didn’t mean much now that the master had explained what aura was to them, but it was still nice to have one of those annoying things disappear.
I wonder if that was because she explained it to us… And because I unlocked [Mastery] as well.
“That’s exactly it,” she said, sending another jolt of surprise through him. “I know they are annoying, but just try to ignore them. In time, you will fill in all the missing blanks. It’s just another one of those cons about aura. The System does not fully know what to reveal and not, and when.”
“Yes, master,” Nar said, nodding slowly.
“Now, regarding your path specific skills, while [Pathways of the Champion] explains how you are cycling with such ease tonight, unfortunately neither of them provide us with anything to go on with at the moment. I hoped to look at them together and discuss the implications of them, but it seems I was hasty. We’ll have to wait until they upgrade further and see what comes out of the System... But I can tell you that while everyone is going to unlock path specific skills soon enough, it's quite rare for that to happen without unlocking one’s affinity first. It’s not unheard off, of course, but it’s very, very rare. And that usually means more work.”
She straightened away from the window in front of them, which promptly disappeared. “Well, all in due time. For now, do the same exercise as everyone else, to upgrade your pathways and [Mastery] skills. And as for your punishment, by the end of the week, I expect your [Mastery] to have gone up at least once, and your [Pathways of the Champion] at least twice. And you get to figure it out by yourself.”
“What? But…”
“No buts, apprentice,” she said in a sharp tone as she stood up. And suddenly, she seemed very, very tall. “Special cases get especially hard work. And next time, don’t delay so much in checking your gains. It can be the difference between life and death. Something you should know by now.”
“Yes, master,” Nar said, dejected.
“Good. I expect to see good results from you at the end of the week,” she said. “And I’ll know if you’ve just done the bare minimum.”
“Yes, master!”
“And if you fail, we’ll be adding worse to that punishment.”
And with that, she spun around and exited the aura pod through a door that Nar didn’t make appear in the barrier.
“Oh. One last thing,” she said. “Have you seen your reflection yet? It might help with everything. Affinity included. Just think “Mirror on” while in the shower.”
“Reflection?”
“Yes. Sometimes it helps to know what we look like, in order to understand who we are,” she said.
And then she was gone, and the barrier was closed once more.
With a sigh, Nar leaned back against the barrier, his head spinning from the conversation with the Master of Aura.
Reflection? He thought. Then the meaning came to him, and for a moment he didn’t know what to do about that information. To see what I… Look like?
However, at that moment, the threat of her punishment was just slightly scarier than the wave of curiosity and need that suddenly assaulted him, and he closed his eyes to start again, and pushed the thoughts of the mirror away.
Hey… Hold on! He suddenly realized. How come she didn’t say anything about my [The Aspiring Champion] passive skill? Isn’t that the most important one? It blocks all of my future modifiers! But wait… Did that skill even show up?
Nar quickly brought up his status tab and scanned his skills list.
It’s there. So I’m at least not imagining it. But then, why didn’t she even mention it?
*********
Punishment or not, it had always been his intention to work hard and get stronger. The punishment was just added motivation. And by the Crystal, it worked.
By the time Nar turned down the barrier and stumbled out of the circle, he was one of a few two dozen or so pods still active in the deafeningly quiet hall.
While he hadn’t made any major breakthroughs, that he could see at least, it had become easier and faster to spread his aura to his entire body, even if still with his eyes closed.
I wonder if there’s anyone else still here, he thought as he made his way out. I reckon Cen is definitely in one of those.
The caster was the most excited to learn about aura amongst all of them, and he had no trouble imagining Cen pulling all-nighters to do as much as she could.
“Well done, apprentice Nar,” one of the two instructors by the door said, as he approached. “Pushing through is the way forward, but one must know their limits. Bit by bit. You’ll get there. Even in punishment.”
The other instructor grinned at this.
They were both dark blue skinned, and fairly human in appearance, though one had a long mane of dark green hair, and the other had his much lighter green hair cropped very short. Nar noticed that they had some sort of thin, fleshy appendages coming down their jaws, and which seemed to move on their own accord. The man had six of them split across his jaw, and the woman only had three, two on either side of her chin, and one directly in the middle.
“Thank you, instructors,” Nar said, with a curt nod.
“Good night,” the woman said.
And with that, Nar walked the long way back to his room.
When he finally got there, he found Kur, Tuk and Mul already fast asleep. According to his clock, it was already a new day, almost 1AM of Second.
Despite his drained state, and the vague call of his bed, his legs carried him straight to the bathroom, and into the shower.
And for a moment, he hesitated, swaying in place.
My reflection…
He knew what he looked like, of course. Others had described it to him. His dad. Friends… The one lover he briefly had in his life at the cubeplant before their busy and differing shifts had dragged them apart.
But as with anything he had experienced since leaving, one thing was hearing, the other was seeing and living it.
Nar sighed and frowned at the wall of the shower.
What if he didn’t like the way he looked? What if he looked ridiculous, or hideous, or anything else?
“Ugh… I’m too tired for this. Mirror on!”
The entirety of the four walls surrounding him changed into a highly reflective material, and for the first time in his life, Nar saw himself.
Under the lights that had gone brighter, Nar reached out a hand and touched his face, the gesture mimicked in the mirrors around him.
His features were sharp. Hard even, though he wouldn’t call himself ugly.
His lips were thin, a darker shade of the ashen gray brown of his skin. And from atop his head, his longish dark ashen hair was neither straight nor curly. It was just some kind of something in between.
But what drew him the most, were his eyes.
Almost entirely black, his eyes looked at him with an intensity that made him want to look away. If his features were hard, then his eyes were harsh, almost threatening in their intensity.
Nar tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. In fact, it turned his expression ghoulish, and he dropped the smile immediately.
“Mirror off,” he muttered.
The walls became walls again, but Nar couldn’t escape the haunting memory of those dark, piercing eyes. Of his own eyes.
He remembered how the others had described him before. Intense. Hard to approach…
“Shower on.”
Considering everything he had seen and been through, was it really that much of a surprise that his eyes looked like that?
In the end, it didn’t matter.
He hadn’t Climbed to make friends, or find love. He had found a family in his party, yes. But he had Climbed for his dad, and the power to set him free.
That was all that mattered.
And according to his schedule, tomorrow, or today, as it was already past midnight, his entire morning was blocked out by a single class. Blades Hall - Conditioning (IW).
It was finally time to learn how to use his sword.