"It is unknown why the Nodes of Obelisk and Dhalene have not been inherited until very recently, but I currently have two main theories. One is that the wills inside the Nodes finally stopped resisting and were able to be obtained. The other however is a far more insidious one: the gods purposefully allowed their Nodes to be inherited to control their users. There is no solid basis for that theory as Lucan Duskwalker and David Raigeki are both very clearly in control of their own faculties, but it is something worth noting if these two porcelains go on and display suspicious qualities."
-Academy Report to the Guildmaster I, by previous Academy Head Ian Canding
As his first day at the Academy came to a close, Yul found himself ecstatic. Not only was he finally attending the Academy, but he was also learning new and interesting things, topics that sounded like they came straight out of the current Guildmaster's fairy tales and fables. The only problem of course was that he was sitting next to a monster playing as human and considering how little he expected everyone's seats to change from now on, he'd be sitting next to him for the rest of his time at class 3-A. It was, to put it lightly, a death sentence for his sanity.
It seemed that at every moment he was beginning to forget about him, the monster would make a slight movement, or a noise and bring him immediately to the forefront of his mind. This all culminated into two hellish moments: one he thankfully declined, the one where he was invited to the gardens, whatever that was; he wanted to have a nice breakfast - or lunch, hard to tell at the time of day it was - after all, not whatever someone like him would want to do. Then he spoke these accursed words, which was what present Yul was being forced to deal with.
"Want to go check out the dorms now that class is over?" David, the monster, said, a slight horrifying smile distorting his monstrous visage, "I am right though, you are bunking in the dorms too?"
"Y-yes," Yul responded, as calmly as he could while those murderously sharp eyes bored into him, "Though I-, I don't think we'll be near each other, unless our surnames m-match."
"Oh yeah, forgot about that. Mine's Teron; are you a 'T' too?"
"No," Yul sighed, most of his stress leaving him on the realisation that he wouldn't be anywhere close to the monster, "Mine's F-Finiad, so nowhere near y-yours."
"Shame. Opposite ends of the alphabet too so I can't imagine the rooms would be close either. I'll see you tomorrow then, Yul, want to head off early. Have a sneaking suspicion we'll have to be up early for the morning."
Nodding to his hopefully new friend, David picked up his briefcase and left the classroom, no-one taking any heed of the monster, despite his - at least to Yul - clear disposition. Finally, Yul celebrated, looking over to the rest of the class, he's gone. Hopefully I'll be able to make some new friends that I can move over to tomorrow, away from that-
Then it hit him. As he looked over to the rest of the class, he saw all of the beginnings of well established friendship groups, congregating into their own little corners, with no stragglers on the sides on their own either. Just by sitting on his own, next to David, and not interacting with anyone on his break due to needing something to eat, Yul had isolated himself. His only remaining hope was that tomorrow could have more opportunities for getting to know people, but the fact that no one even spared him a glance as the different groups left the class to do their own thing dampened that. Maybe my dorm-mates are alright?
With his happiness reignited by that stray thought, a proper smile returned to Yul's face for the first time in the entire Academy day, not out of any short rush of excitement but genuine contentment.
Thinking it would be better to unpack his things earlier rather than later, the idea put into his head by the monster himself, Yul excused himself from the classroom, forced to push past some of those who were still lingering and entered the corridor outside. It was a straightforward and well-signed route to the dormitories, arrows and instructions on small boards littered everywhere for the first day. As Yul had figured out, there were three wings for the dorms, one for those with surnames with a first letter of A-I, a second for J-Q, and a third for R-Z. The R-Z and A-I groups were on opposite ends of the entire dorm area so that would help in avoiding the monster even more than usual. At the entrance to the dormitory section of the Academy building there was a small reception area manned by a far more attentive person than the one in the foyer, though her smile as she greeted other porcelains and helped them along was a bit forced. When the queue for the desk that Yul joined finally moved up enough, all he had to do was give the receptionist his name, and she would give him the key to his room alongside the room's number.
Although the room wasn't too far along into the wing, the dorms in general were massive, and the multiple floors didn't help with navigation much at all, the signage for all but the different wings and room numbers stopping once he reached this section of the Academy. He did find his room eventually though, right in the middle of the second floor, so possibly the noisiest room in the entire wing. Fumbling with the key, Yul pressed it against a small black plate on the doorframe engraved with the number '1209' and a lock symbol, nothing mechanical particularly visible. With a small flash of soul energy and a click, the door unlocked, creaking open to reveal that there was already someone inside.
"Hello!" Yul beamed, glad to finally get to know someone properly, "I'm Yul, it's nice to meet you!"
Holding his hand out for a shake, Yul got a good look at the dorm-mate in question, the practised greeting coming automatically once he saw someone. His glee, both real and forced for the greeting, evaporated upon seeing the obviously noble person in front of him completely ignore him. Wearing a set of clothes that he recognised as the latest in militant noble fashion, something he had to learn due to his family, Yul paled even further at realising who this could possibly be, the short blue hair and hard expression only confirming his thoughts. The man in front of him was Alexander Finne, grandson of the Gold General of the Seas, Evelyn Finne, who famously commanded the battle against an ambush from giant and cyclops forces, eventually taking to the battlefield herself and drowning the remaining enemy combatants with a tsunami summoned by one of her Arts.
And it just so happened that not only was her only grandson staying not at his noble estate but at the Academy dormitory, but Yul also shared a similar surname to them. Hiding his grimace the best he could, Yul took the lapse in conversation as a chance to examine the rest of their room. Not only was it cramped, but there were only two beds, wardrobes, and desks. One was the bed that Alexander claimed and the other was by the door to what he assumed to be the bathroom and was very obviously the less comfortable one, it being smaller and somehow not as clean.
With all of his joy now well and truly gone, Yul could only begin unpacking his things wondering what he had done to deserve any of this: the monster's attention; the rubbish dorm room and mate; and, worst of all, a horrible lack of friends to talk to.
Sitting by an open window, beautiful moonlight shining in and illuminating his dorm room alongside a pleasant draft of air cooling it, Daniel watched in silence, admiring the view of Alandriel and the land beyond its walls. It was a bit too noisy to fall asleep, the room next to him filled with a group of porcelains who thought drinking late into the night was a good idea for their first day knowing each other. Fortunately, though Daniel was suspecting that there was no luck involved, he was the only person in his room so had a nice pick of a larger bed by a desk near the window, the only other choices being two bunk beds. Thoughts drifting to the idea of what it would've been like if he had lived in the dorms in his first time at the Academy, they also naturally drifted to his friends; or, in this case, who he hoped to eventually call his friend.
I wonder... What Arts does Yul have? He isn't artless, no, too spiritually present for that. Unless he is an outlier like me, I suppose. Unlikely, however. Hmmm....
"Just when is he going to show me his Arts?"
"When-... when am I going to learn- learn what my Arts are?" Daniel asked, his breathing heavy and body sweaty.
"I suppose... we can do it soon, if it doesn't disturb your lesson?" Avos offered, scratching his stubble and looking over to Gulliver, standing not too far away from him, for confirmation.
"I was planning on doing it soon, so this is as good of a chance as any to do it. It's a good break from all the physical work you've been doing lately too." Gulliver smiled, looking down on the sprawled out form of Daniel on the grass, practically dead to the world. At least, he was dead until the platinums' proclamation brought him back to life.
"Really? That's great!" Daniel exclaimed, getting up a bit too quickly, causing his aches to flare up and send him back down again.
"Take this time to rest before you do the sensing. I'll run you through the procedure, while Avos prepares himself too," Gulliver said, looking for something to sit down on that wasn't grass and dirt, "I am right in assuming you want to do it too though?"
"Oh, definitely. It's not fair that you were the only one to see it!" Avos grinned, before heading over to a group of fisherwomen by the river, cajoling them for some spare mats for them to sit on.
"Now then, here's the deal. We're going to do a similar procedure as we did with the soul link, except you're already going to be in your spiritual space when it happens. One big difference though is that you need to make sure that you leave your spiritual bridge open behind you, so that Avos can enter. That way we don't have to do a forced entry which is never fun.
"While inside your space, Avos will guide you but it's better for everyone if you know what to do ahead of time, to avoid any surprises. First order of business is to shift your Node over to yourself. This is a bit different to you shifting to it, but it's important; now that you effectively 'own' the Node again, you need to continually assert dominance over it, unless you want your Live Node to grow a spine again and fight back.
"After summoning it, you need to probe it with your will, prodding it all over with a fine-tooth comb of sorts, making sure you don't miss a spot. It'll be far easier for you than others to do this as your Node is Exposed, meaning there's no finicky soul membrane and all it's seemingly reality-defying shape and weirdness to deal with. Just a perfectly spherical soul room.
"As you prod the Node with your will, you'll get... How do I describe this? You'll receive... flashes of intent from the spot you disturb, indicating what stimulating that section of your Node would do, and what Art it would manifest. Technically, that is what you are doing: simulating what happens if you inject soul energy into that spot and elicit an Art, only with will instead."
"Got us some mats, here." Avos interrupted, waving back in thanks to the fisherwomen he got them from and dropping them onto the ground. Daniel crawling to grab his one, and the other two platinums placing their own under themselves and sitting down, Gulliver continued his mini-lecture.
"Usually, for an Arts sensing like this, we would also be looking for your Node Ability, the 'Art' you elicit when you inject soul energy into every part of your Node simultaneously. But, thanks to your own accidental experimentation, we've already discovered it. Very common for almost all Nodes, you have a control type Node Ability. For example, The Rogue and The Inquisitor both have control type Node Abilities, Lucan's being Shadow Control and Ellis' being Weapon Control. It provides absolute control of all aspects related to that of the Node, in this case shadow and weapons, given that it lies in your domain. You don't particularly need to know what a domain is, or even the strict definition of an aspect, so just take it at face-value.
"Since you already know what your Node Ability does, this would be a prime opportunity to name your Node, which would help jumpstart your Pathing attempts later on. I don't want to pressure you though, as if I influence you in any way, the outcome may not be fully satisfactory. It is a one-of-a-kind Node, so it is your decision; it affects no one but yourself."
"Got it." Daniel said with a nod of determination, mostly recovered and rested.
Stolen novel; please report.
"Let's get on with it then. I assume you know how to enter the spiritual realm?" Avos smirked, shuffling over towards Daniel and getting into his personal space.
"The weird thing with the dream stuff, and then that exit... the spiritual bridge?"
"Yep! The sooner we start, the sooner we can start focusing your training!"
Under the dutiful watch of two platinums, Daniel went through the motions that he had done on that fateful night. Senses became meaningless as he snuffed them all out one by one, his meaning of space and reality as he knew it fading away, only himself in an empty nothingness remaining. And, as he sat there in an endless moment, a now familiar sense reached out to him. A Dream that Daniel eagerly snatched and harnessed.
Colours of thought exploded into his mind, the chaos of the cognitive realm revealed to him, the insane ravings of everyone around him deafening. He did not panic though. This wasn't going to be a repeat of last time and he was prepared. Mirroring his actions in the physical realm, the ones he used to recognise the Dream sense, his mind stilled, the calm of his own portion of the lake that was the realm spreading out far and wide, removing all interferences from his mind. Seemingly out of nowhere, a bridge was revealed to him, appearing from the fog of chaos and making itself known. 'Drifting' towards it, Daniel did not immediately enter, instead thinking how we could possibly leave the metaphorical gates open behind him, so to speak. To his surprise, the bridge responded to his request and dilated, revealing the nothingness of his spiritual space beyond like a pupil in an all-seeing eye.
He phased in without hesitation, his apprehension at it shutting behind him erased by the realisation that this spiritual bridge was as much of a part of him than his body and mind. Crystallising and becoming his avatar in the spiritual realm once more, Daniel looked back, wondering how long it would take until Avos entered when he saw that he was already there. A diamond to his glass, Daniel's will couldn't help but tremble in front of the monster that was Avos' spiritual avatar, a smouldering sprite of pure energy, all but hidden to him moments before. It simultaneously loomed over and cowered before him, its paradoxical nature only worsened when he realised that it wasn't much of an avatar at all, but a single strand of the platinum's will taking its wielder's form. Carved from that very same diamond, it was both the spitting image of The Brawn and a wisp unable to fight back in his space.
In a fragment of strangely perceived time, a burst of intent suddenly escaped from the wisp and entered Daniel's avatar, transforming into a message.
'Are you getting on with it then?'
Metaphorically shaking his head to rid himself of doubts, Daniel prepared himself. It was odd, he remarked, that before the spiritual realm seemed so empty and lifeless, him unable to sense a thing; but now? Like a lighthouse in the distance, his soul and Node smouldered with energy, begging to be called upon. So he did.
In one moment there was nothing, and in another, his Node was brought before him, shifted into being. Though Daniel couldn't exactly communicate in the realm like Avos did, he could practically feel the excitement and amusement oozing out of the platinum's form. He ignored Avos' inevitable and expected antics and 'got on with it' as he had been instructed to do. Bursting from within, streamers of will expanded outwards and around the Node before him, in all of its stormy glory. The ribbons hardened under Daniel's focus, becoming spikes that caged the Node inside of the net of will, blanketing it in its entirety. Only then did Daniel begin.
Picking one spot randomly, a ray of will tapped the tiniest of sections of the Node. The Node responded in kind, sending its own retaliatory burst of will, expressing an intent; it was a fragment of a fragment of a fragment of an intent, but it carried meaning. Figuratively grinning ear-to-ear, Daniel continued, stabbing new spots at a far faster pace, emboldened by the response; fragment by fragment, section by section, Art by Art.
* * *
After Avos entered the cognitive realm shortly after Daniel did, Gulliver waited for all of 5 seconds before the pair came to, eyes fluttering open, less explosively than last time. With it being his third - maybe fourth time? Gulliver wasn't sure - entering the spiritual realm, the boy was pretty out of it for a while, at least compared to the platinum who was back to normal immediately. As was usual from spending an extended time in the spiritual realm, the pair's eyes were off somewhat.
Avos' pupils had a strange red glint to them, contrasting his ordinary amber irises. In the moments where Daniel's eyelids weren't half closed from tiredness, he noted that there didn't seem to be any obvious change, probably meaning that the boy's link wasn't strong enough to form a proper connection; either that or the Live Node's will was still rebelling. That was his observation until something yellow flashed in his brown eyes, barely noticeable until it appeared again, dancing around the inside of his eyes, leaving stormy blemishes on the irises where it 'collided'. The discolouration spread like ink added to water, drowning the brown out and colouring it all dark grey. With a start, the boy came back to fully, the new colour vanishing as it was blinked away.
"Well that sure was an impressive Node. Nice showing, kid," Avos smirked, patting Daniel on the back before shuffling away on his mat, "Let's get to the interesting bit then."
"Let's," Gulliver nodded, taking on a more serious tone which sobered the boy up fast from his still partly delirious state, "First order of business: how many Arts did you sense?"
"That's the thing, I'm... not entirely sure," Daniel said, brows creased, "There were definitely 3 other clear ones, distinct in their entirety, though there was a bit of a... complication with one of them."
"We'll get to that later; elaborate on the ambiguity then, as that may indicate something rare."
"There were four other... sections, not quite Arts, that felt very similar to each other, bearing almost the same intents only portraying them differently. Yet they were all contained in a single 'group', just like the other Arts felt like they all belonged in their own 'group'."
"That's perfectly normal for what you have. I imagine you've heard of Variations, or sub-Arts?" Gulliver asked, his question answered with a nod from the boy, "Those smaller sections were simply the Variations of the total group, that total Art."
"So I only have 4 Arts in total?" Daniel said, appearing almost uncomfortable with the admission.
"Yes," Gulliver said, before rushing onward, noticing the boy's alarm, "That is indeed a small number of Arts for someone to have, the total usually being around 15, but it's nothing to be concerned about. If anything, you could say it's a bit of a boon. The fewer Arts you have, the less each Art has to 'fight' each other for parts of the Node. This means that each individual Art has a far greater share of the Node than usual, and is therefore far more powerful and capable than what is expected from an individual Art. Add onto that the fact you have 4 Variations of one of your Arts, it means that you effectively have 7 separate arts, ignoring the fact one has complications, all with a similar and great share of power."
"But, wouldn't Variations be weaker? They don't have as much.... 'territory' compared to the other Arts, right?"
"Now that's where the peculiarities of Variations come into play, and where, in my opinion, the term sub-Art is lacking. When eliciting a Variation, it draws power from the entire 'group' of other Variations and 'dominates' them, overriding their own intent and imposing it with that Variation's. In practice, the Variation truly becomes simply a variation of the total Art, having the same power of the entire whole, only different, varied. Something important to note though is that not all Variations are made equal, so even if they display more power than their 'territory' may indicate, the relative size of that 'territory' compared to other Variations indicates its actual power as a variant Art compared to all of the other Arts' powers."
"I... I see."
"Come on, let's get to the interesting part!" Avos complained, fed up that his fellow platinum was taking so long to explain, "I want to know his Arts!"
"Fine... go on and continue, Daniel."
"Well, the first Art I sensed was one of the smaller ones. I didn't feel it at the time, but it felt less present than the other ones, but also more active at the same time? It wasn't something I can imagine myself focusing on, but it would activate regardless of my will?"
"That would be a passive Art," Gulliver explained, "Only really needs to be elicited the first time or when you want to make any changes to certain parameters of the Art."
"The passive Art then, it gave me a rough image of enhancement. Not in the way I imagine you, Avos, would use an Enhancer Art but more akin to a refinement, making everything just a little better... a little quicker and reactive; or the opposite, in a way. If I'm going off of the theme of the rest of the Node, then it would be something like an enhancement of my reflexes, my general movement, and... some sort of pulse?"
"I don't want to ruin any image you currently have of your Pathing, but that sounds like the Art would allow you some control of your brain and nervous system, including the electrical signals themselves," Avos commented, before noticing the boy's somewhat dumbfounded look, "You do know what the nervous system is, right?"
"Yeah! Yeah, I knew, it was just... it didn't occur to me that it was about my nerves until you... well, you said it."
"That's what I'm here for, after all, teaching country-boy porcelains about simple biology," Avos grinned, taking pleasure in Daniel's chagrin, "The next one then?"
"It... it was, out of all of them, definitely the odd one out," Daniel went on, giving the still-smiling platinum a dirty look, "It doesn't seem lightning based, which all of the others most definitely were, in some capacity, even the passive one. The Art was all about some sort of attraction and repulsion, yet it would only work on specific things. No matter how hard I tried to pry more information out of it, that was the entire impression I got. Nothing about if, and how, lightning was involved, nothing about what things it worked on; nothing!"
"That's the downside to having an Exposed Node, you see," Avos began, "Since everything is unlocked to start with, no membrane to pick away at, piece by piece, you don't get any idea about how the Arts relate to each other, in the way the membrane connects more strongly to certain parts of Arts than others. All you get is the full completed picture, the Node Ability, and you're left with the task of figuring out which parts of it were painted in what order with what colours."
"I certainly understand that now, all the Arts feel just so... disconnected! Anyways, that was all I tried to get before I gave up and moved on. The second to last Art I found was the one with Variations. This was the one I ended up most familiar with, concept wise, as all the Variations helped with building my foundation of understanding. The Art was strictly about channelling lightning to use in combat, whether that be my body literally becoming lightning to travel faster, conducting lightning through my blade and projecting it, or even a combination of the two. There was one of the Variations though that felt familiar.
"You know that last ditch attempt my Node made that I told you both about, the one where I was making my link?" Daniel asked, both of the platinums nodding, "That attack, no, that execution was practically identical to the last Variation I found. The strange thing about it though was that the Variation feels... malleable, as if it had been overworked or strained in a way that gave me more control over the Variation; as if I could change it somewhat."
"Now that is something interesting," Gulliver remarked, going silent for a few moments, contemplating, before speaking, "I don't think you should touch that Variation for now, even activate it, until you find out how to either make it more solid again or change it permanently into something more to your liking. Would be too high of a risk to try anything with it."
"It's not as if I can even use Arts anyways, but I'll make sure not to do anything anyways. But that leads me on nicely to my last Art, the one I told you that I was concerned about. That shadow of the Node I told you about, the void, I think it's 'living' somehow in that Art.
"I distinctly remember it and the rest of the Node's will escaping somehow, somewhere into the back of the Node that I couldn't touch with my link. I think that's where the will and the void fled, and it somehow ended up corrupting the Art. I couldn't even touch it long with my will as it felt too wrong, and even then, the vague impressions I got of it were just plain evil: it was all about control and paralysis, except not in the way I could use properly. It wasn't about controlling someone else's body, like a puppet or marionette, no, it was about controlling my body instead; and the way it felt like it would do that involved... killing me first."
"Don't touch that Art then, at all," Avos said, his usual tone gone for something more sombre, "I wouldn't have put it against you if you touched that other weakened Art even a little bit, but this one? Don't try a thing, as you, more than anyone here, understand what activating that Art would entail."
"I understand... sir."
"I won't repeat what Avos said as I couldn't have put it better myself, so I'll say it's time for an event more fitting to the mood that an Arts sensing should have: the naming of your Node."
"I-"
"Do you need more time?" Avos asked, smiling once more, "I for one sure did; it took me ages to figure out that it was a Node type that already existed. 'Was too wrapped up in thinking I was going to be special."
"I already have the name of my Node."
"Oh."
"Don't be too put out, my friend, not everyone is as bad as you when it comes to matters in the spiritual realm," Gulliver joked, patting the pouting platinum on the back, "Do you want to go through the reasoning of your choice? That way it'll be easier for you to spot any mistakes in your own reasoning."
"Yeah, I'll explain it. So my father's Arts belonged to the Thunder Node, right? And my Node is most definitely a soul fragment of... of Dhalene," Daniel reasoned, still a bit hesitant at saying the gods' names so flippantly, "All the Arts I could properly sense were about lightning somewhat, nothing about any of the other things the god of storms is known for. It definitely isn't thunder, as I imagine my father's Arts included parts about sound, where mine clearly don't. And I don't think it can be based on the gods' namesake, storms, either as there's nothing about weather, which I would expect. With everything else ruled out, I can only come to one conclusion.
"I have a Node no one else has ever had, just like my father. I have the Lightning Node."