Rory watched as a flood of various feline creatures of all shapes and sizes storming over a torn-up plain and moving towards the city. A powered mostly-transparent force barrier in the shape of a dome was over it, but there was no way the city could survive those numbers without help – the shield would never hold. More blasts of plasma than Rory could count shot from the city, sending hundreds of the beasts flying in the air or tumbling to the ground. Their bodies were crumpled bloody messes, parts of the various cats thrown aside or vaporized by the city’s defenses.
Yet the hundreds dead did almost nothing to impact the seemingly infinite deluge of beasts. Dirt, body parts, and blood rained down with each ineffectual strike by city defenders from behind the barrier and walls.
It seemed doom would certainly fall upon the city until a dark blue streak could be seen falling from the aqua sky, only to slam into the ground an equal distance between the city and the approaching hoard. The blue light faded along with a cloud of dirt and a two-meter tall man stood there, seemingly unafraid. His thick plates of ocean-blue techarmor glistened as he held up a single arm. Suddenly on his arm appeared a diamond-shaped dark blue shield with four equal three-foot sides and what appeared to be a glowing sapphire in the middle. The man was in his forties, had short black hair, a matching trimmed beard, and his scrunched eyes and thin lips made him look furious.
The gem in the center of his shield flashed then the entire shield flowed like liquid and reformed into another diamond, but this one twice as big and with the bottom two sides many times longer than the top two. The shield started glowing brighter than the rest of him and he took a single half-step forward, lowering his left knee onto the ground. The glow brightened and pulsed but nothing else was happening and the creatures were getting closer. He didn’t move and the terrible tide of cats was only a few feet from him. All of a sudden his shield flared, he lifted it high and yelled as he slammed it into the dirt. A bright flash nearly blinded Rory and the rest watching, but it faded quickly and they saw a wave of water three meters high and at least fifty wide rushed from the man, smashing into the seemingly infinite army of creatures.
Out of nowhere, another streak, this time yellow, fell from the sky onto the ground behind the man in blue. A woman appeared when the light cleared, her whole body aglow in yellow as twin scythes spun in her hand as she flexed her wrists and looked excitedly at the mass of creatures.
The wind blew around her, causing her beautiful blond hair to swirl and float. In stark contrast to man in blue, she wore far less bulky, black-as-night lightly-plated techarmor decorated with embossed skulls of various shapes and sizes, making her appear a reaper searching for victims. She flashed a brighter yellow and blurred forward after the wave of water. She streaked through the ranks of the downed cats, killing those who withstood the blast, which turned out to be most of them. Rory reflected that apparently wasn’t a very damaging technique. He also noticed that that appeared to play into woman’s desires because blood and body parts flew from downed or stunned felines as she streaked around the battlefield, leaving death in her wake.
Rory saw a third beam of light fall from the sky, this one green. Once it cleared, a man was exposed, having landed in a crouch. His armor was hidden beneath a brown cloak, but he looked no less impressive as a gnarled green and brown branch about twelve inches long appeared in his hand. He aimed it not at the creatures, but at the blue-clad warrior.
Rory and the other observes gasped as a thin mist existed from the end of the branch and floated to the shield-bearer. Rory feared, as did the others, that he might be attacking the other. But instead of causing harm, the blue armored man’s already glowing armor and shield flared many times brighter. The heavily armored recipient stood up and his shield morphed again into that of a slightly curved rectangle nearly as tall as him. He once again slammed it onto the dirt and a bright flash that appeared harmless left a strange blue glow around each of the living cats. The army was so large that even after all the prior strikes, there were still thousands upon thousands remaining and they all turned towards the blue-armored man. Those that were knocked down rose to their feet, while the ones already on their feet released a roar that reverberated through the valley, causing Rory to feel the floor beneath his feet vibrate. The beasts, enraged beyond reason, charged. Still not showing any concern, the man made a pushing motion towards the beasts with his shield. The movement was subtle, but the result was not. A cone of water rushed forward, but it did not attack the beasts like the initial wave. Instead, it formed watery walls on either side of the horde, seeming to force all the creatures to funnel towards the blue-armored man.
Then a final streak of light fell, this one red. Except it never hit the ground. From tens of meters in the air, a man in white armor awash with small glowing flames became visible. Wings of orange and yellow fire were manifested from his back and flapped, keeping him aloft. A straight double-edged longsword appeared in his hand and it flared with matching flames.
If the woman from before had appeared as a reaper, this man, with close-cropped brown hair and brown eyes that glowed and flickered as if with flame, appeared an angel ready to smite all evil on that world. The woman from before flashed into view behind the blue man, followed by the brown cloaked man who walked up at a leisurely pace.
A sword appeared in the flying man’s hand and he held it out in front of him, point up. The red glow about him brightened to match the planet’s massive star. Then he raised his sword and a beam of solid red ten feet across shot from it into the aqua sky, blowing apart the clouds and disappearing into nothingness.
Rory and other watchers were getting scared because the beasts were almost at the three on the ground and if the flying man didn’t strike immediately, it would be too late.
But just as their nervousness was reaching a state of panic, the sky glowed red, getting brighter and brighter until that same beam, but many times as wide around slammed straight down into the middle of the hoard just seconds before the first of the creatures would have reached the shield of the blue-clad man. A blast that shook the city exploded outward like a miniature star.
Rory could see and hear nothing but bright light and explosive power, and he fought not to turn his away from it. A few seconds later the sound lessened and the light faded. He gasped again at what he saw. Nothing remained of the horde of thousands about to destroy a city of humans. As the dirt blown into the air settled and smoke cleared, Rory was able to make out the brown-cloaked man and black-armored woman standing stoically behind the blue-clad defender proudly still behind his shield and staring at a scorched and blackened plain.
Those three streaks shot back up into the sky and disappeared only to be slowly followed by the red, who had never touched the ground.
The lights rose in Arena B as the projection faded from the center of the arena and every single student was clapping, calling, screaming, and stomping their approval of the mighty humans and their victory over the vicious creatures who would have ended so many innocent lives.
“Settle down, children.” Vice-Principal Macmillan had to call out three times before it was quiet enough for her to say something else. “Every single one of those heroes, part of team Flame Knight, is a graduate of this institution, and if you want to be even remotely close to them, you must settle down and pay attention.”
All the students willingly and quickly did as asked, excited to learn how to be as amazing as their famous heroes. As he settled into his seat, Rory scanned the familiar Area. The sunken oval center floor where Rory had spent many hours playing, running, lifting, throwing, dodging and the like, was surrounded by seats, each level higher than the last making it easy to see. Off center to Rory’s left was a raised platform where the vice-principle stood in her boring school uniform of red and black.
Rory wasn’t sure why they were in the arena rather than a classroom since it was a learning class rather than an exercise class. But he also didn’t care. He guessed that this would be the only non-physical training class he had ever looked forward to in his entire time at the Institute.
His eyes were completely focused on his Scottish teacher as she explained what he’d need to know.
“Let me start by saying how impressed I am with all of you, whether from class one or five. You have done amazingly well getting to this point. I’m sure you will prove our faith and effort in you worthwhile when you become wonderful Soul Wielders in service to the Empire. So before anything else, let me say congratulations.” The then lightly applauded to them and they, Rory included, clapped and cheered back once again.
When the room was silent, she spoke again. “Now, onto the lessons. What you are about to learn and see will impact the rest of your lives, so please focus.” Then she cleared her throat. “The Growth of Soul System Technology, or ghost for short, is the environment with which you will improve your body and weapon. From the moment you receive the imprinting on your hand – or hands if you have a dual construct – and you are able to bring your Soul Construct into a solid matter form, you become a true Soul Wielder.”
The vice-principal raised her right hand which showed a gray swirling inscription with streaks that Rory found interesting. A black and gray laze-pistol flashed into existence in her palm. Rory “oh’ed” like the rest of the class. Then it flashed away and she waited for the kids to calm down a little before continuing.
“From the moment you become a Warrior, Defender, Supporter, or Crafter, you will receive different training, enter different classes, eat different foods, take different medications, wear different clothes, and much more. The level of sponsorship you receive will dictate how different, but in the end, the key is to remember you are no longer a normal human. You are a Soul Wielder.”
Rory was bouncing in his seat in excitement. As always he was sitting next to Killean who had been quiet and down all day. When Rory had asked if he was okay, his friend had only said, “I’m good,” and nothing more. Rory was worried, but his mind was on the class and him becoming an amazing Soul Warrior, so he moved on quickly.
Their vice-principle proceeded with the lesson. “Why do we make all these changes to your training and diet? The answer is because of the changes your body and soul will go through. And that is what we are going to discuss today. Specifically, those changes and how you can encourage and even direct them. As you all are children and have the attention span of mice…” Rory grinned and heard a few groans and giggles from his fellow students. “…we will be conducting a number of demonstrations a number of things, rather than simply lecturing on them.” Then in a louder voice she called, “Come on in.”
One of the side doors on the arena floor opened and out walked a boy in an open black vest over only his skin, loose red pants, and black boots. His black hair was short cropped and he was smiling at the vice principle as he walked forward.
“This, students, is Mr. Finnease Kulkaly,” the vice principle said while holding out a hand to him.
Finnease appeared a young teenager to Rory. His smile was wide and his white teeth glistened. But what stook out the most to Rory were his muscles. He was obviously in excellent condition, his young body was wide at the shoulders, his arm muscles were defined, and his stomach muscles easy to make out. He was clearly a Soul Warrior.
“Thank you, vice principle,” the boy said in a voice that was still young, with a little crack in it. He stopped walking at the center of the floor.
“Next,” Vice-Principal Macmillan called, “is Ms. Shayleen Cooper.” A girl, older than Finnease but definitely not a full adult, walked out of the same side door. She had ebony skin and black curly hair that went down just past her shoulders. She wore the same as her younger predecessor, but instead of a vest, she had a tight top that showed her stomach muscles and arms. Her muscles were about the same, or maybe slightly smaller as Finnease’s, but they were way more defined. She was also grinning widely and waved at all the students. Some of the students waved back, but not Rory. She was a girl after all.
Shayleen walked to stand a few feet to the right of Finnease and faced the students. “How ya getting on, everyone?” she called cheerily in an Irish brogue. Then to the vice principle she said politely, “Mrs. Macmillan.”
“Thank you for joining us,” the vice-principle replied pleasantly. “And finally, let me introduce you to Mr. Gregory McKayhee.”
Out came someone Rory believed was definitely the oldest. Maybe almost twenty, which was really old. He was also massive compared to the other two. His muscles were enormous and he was a good fifteen centimeters taller than Shayleen, who was a five to six taller than Finnease. Gregory was also unlike the others in that he wasn’t smiling. His face was emotionless as he walked forward and stood silently a few feet from Shayleen.
“He’s huge!” Rory heard one girl mention a few seats to his right.
Rory nodded, unconsciously agreeing. He really was.
Vice-Principal Macmillan clapped once loudly and everyone’s attention returned to her. “These three individuals are students, or in the case of Mr. McKayhee, a graduate, of this institution. They are students that we have sponsored and brought on as our personal team. There are two others, but they were unable to join us today. These three are here to help demonstrate all about how a ghost works. Would you three please introduce yourselves to this year’s class of Soul Wielders?”
Finnease took a step forward and called loudly in a Britannian rather than Irish accent, “I’m Finnease, as you heard. I’m a Soul Warrior, my soul compatibility was three, my Construct is a longsword, and I can use the fire element.”
He stepped back and Shayleen stepped forward. “Hey everyone! I’m Shayleen, but you can call me Shay. I’m a Supporter, my compatibility was a two, my construct is an amplifying pistol, and unlike Finn here,” and she jabbed her thumb at Finnease with a grin, “water is my thing.” Finnease rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out at her, which made Rory and a bunch of others laugh.
The final man stepped forward like the others, but his step was so much longer it looked as if he’d entered a new area of the arena floor. His Scottish accent was deep and rumbly, which Rory thought was a good match for his scary appearance. “I’m Greg, a Soul Warrior. My compatibility was four, my construct is a close-range scattergun, and my element is terra.”
Rory was impressed. This was an amazing team. He could only imagine what the other two might be like.
“Excellent!” Vice-Principal Macmillan said happily. “All right then. Before I show you a sample ghost, you must understand the basics. The first and most important things to understand are the two units of measurement which we going to discuss. The first is the energy our galaxy runs on and our Soul Wielders use to power their constructs. Who can tell me what it is? Raise your hands please.”
Rory and a number of the others raised their hands hurriedly, some bouncing in their seats. She called on a girl, of course, who quickly yelled, “myst!”
“Correct,” confirmed the teacher. A three-dimensional projection appeared over the vice-principal’s head that showed a transparent cube. “What you are seeing is a Soul Vessel. Every Soul Construct, no matter the strength, type, or element, creates Soul Vessels that hold myst. As you gain myst, the vessel is filled.” Slowly the transparent cube was filled with a vaporous substance. “That cloud is officially called Mass of Transmigratory Vitality, or myst for short, as I said. Every time you slay something with myst, it releases all the myst built up in its life. That myst, if not captured by something, will dissipate quickly into the universe where it will be reused somewhere at some time by something. You are fortunate enough to live now because something, ages ago, died and its myst is what was used to create your soul.”
She stopped then, allowing Rory and his fellow students to think about that.
I wonder what died to make my soul…
Interrupting Rory’s reflection, the vice-principal continued the lesson. “When you terminate a creature, a Cursed, or, yes, a Soul Wielder, you gather Myst from them. Normals provide no myst, thank goodness. That said, Her Majesty The Queen obviously does not wish her subjects needlessly slaughtering each other to gain strength. So our rather strict law enforcement structure – which includes very strong specialized constables called enforcers – exists to prevent murders. That includes tools that allow us to trace myst paths. In other words, the constables can follow a myst trail to who received it. I assume I don’t need to tell you what happens to murderers.”
She didn’t. Occasionally there were public executions of these murderers on GalNet. It was always a capital crime and always caught thanks to the “traces,” which were never wrong and could never be defeated or avoided. Of course, Rory was pleased to see the murders punished. He would be killing creatures and Cursed with his da and didn’t need to worry about hurting anyone or anyone hurting him.
She pointed back up to the floating cubical Soul Vessel. “Back to the ghost. So what do you do with the myst you’ve earned?” The vice-principal asked. “Well, when you gather enough to fill a single Soul Vessel, your construct will grow. That single full vessel is our second important unit of measurement and is referenced as a Soul Vessel, or just SV, and you can do many things with it. This is where we have our ghosts. The Growth of Soul System Technology gives you the opportunity to, yes, grow.”
The projection disappeared and Vice-Principal Macmillan said, “What you are about to see is an example of a ghost. Yours may look similar or completely different, depending on your construct. No matter their appearance, all ghosts serve the same function: to allow you to increase in power. Once you have your Soul Inscription, you will be able to focus on it and, through your Soul Power, think at it with mental intent, ‘Grow’. It takes some practice, but you’ll get it quickly. Eventually, you will be able to control your ghost with barely any thought. Now, the following is something like what you will see.”
A projection appeared over the vice-principal’s head. To Rory it looked like a standard Britannian one-handed longsword like those in museums his parents took him to that showed weapons and armor from forever ago before humanity discovered Soul Power.
“What you are looking at is Mr. Kulkaly’s ghost. We have special projectors that display it for our classes, which is one of the reasons we agree to sponsor students – so they can share and you can learn. Now, if you would, Mr. Kulkaly” the vice-principle said with a ‘go ahead’ gesture.
Finnease stepped forward. “This is exciting right?” he said with a grin. “I remember what it was like. You just found out you have at least enough compatibility to get a construct and how you’re ready to jump out of your skins and start killing things?”
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Rory nodded vigorously, as did a bunch of other kids.
He chuckled. “Well, as you can see, my construct is a longsword.” He held out his hand, which had a gray inscription whirling around a few long lines. A sword matching the projection appeared in his hand. “Your ghost representation will generally match your construct. Now, with the help of my team,” and he jerked his head at the other two, “I have mostly filled up a vessel with enough myst to get me a SV. In fact, it is just barely not full.”
A projection of a cube took the place of the sword. It looked pretty much full of myst to Rory.
“So, let’s fill it up, shall we?” Two doors split in the ground a few feet in front and to the right of Finnease and a force barrier cage one by one and a half meters rose from the opening. Through the mostly transparent walls, Rory could see what looked like a half-meter-long rat. It was black, had red eyes, a long pink tail, and was super neat and gross-looking. A bunch of gasps and squeals could be heard from the kids. Rory grinned.
Finnease walked a step towards the cage when the barrier on the side of the cage facing him dropped. The rat squealed and ran at him. To Rory, Finnease looked excited rather than scared as the drooling squeaking beast that was as tall as his shin ran at him. In what Rory though was a flash of light, Finnease swung his sword down and from left to right. There was a slight crunching sound, following by a splatter and thump.
“Savage…” Rory whispered while leaning forward on the edge of his seat. He heard a few “eww’s” and “gross’s.” And a few more squeals… from the girls of course.
“Now, kids,” Finnease said as if nothing had just happened, “there was barely any myst in that single rat, so you didn’t see anything. But when there’s a lot, you would actually see my sword glow or even flash. And if there’s really a lot, you might actually see the myst enter your weapon.”
Vice-Principal Macmillan spoke up then. “As Mr. Kulkaly said before, he was just shy of filling his next Soul Vessel. Well, here is what his ghost showed him.” And words appeared projected above him.
{Tunnel Rat} slain. . .
Calculating. . .
1% Myst Gained. . .
Vessel filled. . .
Finnease pumped his fist. “Brilliant! That’s how you do it.” Then he grinned up at the crowd. “First, that percent is percent to fill the next vessel. Anyway, you’re probably wondering why I’m so excited. It’s because every time you gain a vessel, it becomes harder to get the next one. Each vessel that you fill by gathering myst through kills, requires more than the last one. So it can get pretty hard to fill them eventually.”
“Let’s break down each line of Mr. Kulkaly’s ghost alert. Obviously the first is telling him what he slayed. This is managed by his commo’s connection to GalNet. It is always updated with the latest in the bestiary. It then calculates how much myst was gathered. That is almost always instantaneous, but has been known to occasionally take a few seconds if the creature is especially exotic or there is an especially large amount of myst. Third is the percentage. Now I know you know about percentages because we taught you about them especially for this day. The percentage displayed will always be the percent of myst you received in comparison to the total needed to fill a vessel. So if you have a vessel 99% full, as Mr. Kulkaly did, the shown percentage could be one or ten or three hundred percent. In that last case – where you start with a ninety-nine percent full vessel and kill a high-level creature or Cursed worth three hundred percent – it means you would actually fill multiple vessels and thus receive two or even three Soul Vessels with a single kill.”
“Let’s break down each line of Mr. Kulkaly’s ghost alert. Obviously the first is telling him what he slayed. This is managed by his commo’s connection to GalNet. It is always updated with the latest in the bestiary. It then calculates how much myst was gathered. That is almost always instantaneous, but has been known to occasionally take a few seconds if the creature is especially exotic or there is an especially large amount of myst. Third is the percentage. Now I know you know about percentages because we taught you about them especially for this day. The percentage displayed will always be the percent of myst you received in comparison to the total needed to fill a vessel. So if you have a vessel 99% full, as Mr. Kulkaly did, the shown percentage could be one or ten or three hundred percent. In that last case – where you start with a ninety-nine percent full vessel and kill a high-level creature or Cursed worth three hundred percent – it means you would actually fill multiple vessels and thus receive two or even three Soul Vessels with a single kill.”
Rory’s mind ran wild with that thought. He knew that was totally the path for him. Why kill the little rats when you just kill the great big buggers?
Finnease and Shayleen started laughing loudly then. Even Gregory had a half-smile. The vice-principle spoke loudly again. “Enough of that. Every year all you kids think you can bypass the hard work and jump to the end. Just kill the rat king rather than the little rats, right?” Rory nodded. Obviously that was the way to go. “Well, forget it!” she snapped. “Trying to kill something many many times your own strength is guaranteed to land you in its stomach rather than serving the empire. If you try to kill something that many levels above you, you. Will. Die. And likely a horrible and painful death. Get over your delusions. Soul Construct or not, element or not, high compatibility or not… you. Will. Die.
“Now that your delusions of grandeur are quashed, let’s look at Mr. Kulkaly’s ghost, shall we?” And a lot of words replaced the prior ones above Finnease.
Soul Summary:
Available/Used Vessels (Gathered): 1/14
Available/Used Vessels (Granted): 0/3
| Wielder |
Body: 1/1
Strength: 2/20
Agility: 1/20
Vitality: 2/20
Mind: 1/1
Power: 0/20
Defense: 0/20
| Construct {Longsword} |
Melee: 1/1
Skills: 2/2
Fire: 3/3
Heated Blade: 1/5
Power: 2/2
Sharpness: 1/5
Ranged: 0/1
Rory tried to read through everything, but it was a lot and he was still distracted by the bloody rat. As if reading his mind, Finnease used his sword and pushed the two halves back into the cage.
While he did that, the vice-principle spoke up. “I want to draw your attention to the ghost displayed here. Let’s start at the top. You can see that it says there are two types of vessels. The first are gathered. These are the ones you get when you slay a foe. You will notice that Mr. Kulkaly has slain enough to fill fifteen vessels – he has spent fourteen and has one available for use at any time. That, by the way, is known by most as levels. Thus he is level fifteen. Below that is granted vessels. That defines what your compatibility was and generally never increases. Now, as you can see, Mr. Kulkaly was a compatibility of level 3, meaning he received three free Soul Vessels. Now, think about that for a moment…” and she let silence fall.
Rory tried to process what he had just learned. Did that mean that he, with a compatibility of eight, would receive eight free vessels? Eight?
No way…
Apparently it was true, because she said, “I can see you all figured it out.” And a whole bunch of kids turned their heads to face Rory and were muttering or whispering. He smiled and blushed at the same time with a mix of pride and embarrassment. Killean was shifting in his seat again.
“Yes,” the Vice-Principal said. “The higher your compatibility, the more free SVs you start with. This is enormously beneficial, obviously. We call it compatibility because the more a wielder’s soul aligns with his or her Soul Construct, the more they will work together to grow stronger. I can see you all looking. Yes indeed, Mr. Sheehan will receive eight free vessels when he first activates his Chakram.”
More muttering following but she moved on.
“Attention up here please…” She waited for everyone to leave Rory alone and continued. “That is not the only thing compatibility does for us. Before that though, let’s turn our attention back to the ghost displayed. You will notice the wielder tree. That is what they are called, trees, and those coming off of them, branches. The wielder tree has two branches, body and mind. The body branch has three branches of its own, Strength, Agility, and Vitality. I have provided for you on your tablets a writeup of all the wielder branches so I won’t go into them here. I think they are relatively straight forward and you are all smart enough to figure it out. You’ll notice the numbers next to each branch. As you probably suspect, Mr. Kulkaly can spend as many as twenty vessels on any of those branches. There is a ceiling to how much the body and mind can physically improve, which is the equivalent to twenty vessels worth of myst.
“The other main tree is the Construct tree and improves your Soul Construct. Again, that tree has branches: Skills and Power. Power is straightforward and simply increases the attack or defense through sharpening or hardening of your construct, making your attacks hit harder, and the like. The skills option adds special soul techniques and is unique to each construct and wielder. At lower SVs, they could range from adding spikes to making you shoot farther and the like. Impressive abilities like explosive damage or powerful shields or enhancements have higher SV costs. For those who can wield elements like Mr. Kulkaly here, you will receive entire trees just of techniques for that element. As you can see, he can heat his blade, adding fire damage to his strikes. The farther out in the tree branches the technique is, the more SVs are required to unlock or advance it.”
Rory couldn’t imagine how many creatures or Cursed his father had killed to get his special enhancement and damaging skill. He must have saved up a lot of Soul Vessels. And who knew how many team Flam Knight used in that vid before.
"Every single human who has a Soul Construct has the same two choices, Wielder or Construct, no matter what kind of construct they wield,” she added.
Killean shifted loudly in his seat and Rory looked over to find him rubbing his face with his hands.
“Kill?” Rory whispered, worried. Killean just shook his head.
“You should note that adding vessels to the body tree does not take effect immediately. It can take days or weeks to be impactful. Massive sudden changes to the human body would kill you.”
She then turned to Finnease and said, “Mr. Kulkaly, feel free to assign your available SV now,” and Rory turned his entire focus to the projection.
It changed back to what they had seen in the beginning, a projection of his sword. Finnease spoke up. “You are going to watch as I work with my ghost to assign it.” Then the projection zoomed in on the sword and Rory saw two rectangular white metal boxes next to each other. One had the word “Wielder” and the other “Construct” embossed into them.
“Notice they are white,” the vice-principle says. “Color speaks to the rarity of the tree or technique. I won’t go into it beyond that here; your sponsors will provide details.”
The projection then zoomed into the Wielder blade. Two more boxes, Body and Mind where there. Then he zoomed in on Body and the three boxes for Strength, Agility and Vitality appeared. At that point, the filled vessel seemed to appear from the right of the projection and fall onto the Strength box. The box flashed once and then the projection zoomed out a few times and Rory was once again looking at the sword.
“Thank you Mr. Kulkaly, for your participation today,” Vice-Principal Macmillan said.
He nodded and stepped back.
She continued. “Over the next week or two his muscle mass will be noticeably greater, allowing him to wield his sword with more ferocity. Now, we are going to change topics and speak about the other benefits compatibility gives you. First, every SV you apply will improve your body slightly, whether you spend it on that tree or not. Before you get too excited, here’s the key. The higher your compatibility, the more it will improve.” Once again, students turned to face Rory, and he just smiled and looked down. “And lastly, compatibility grants special Soul Techniques. As a wielder advances and applies more and more myst to their constructs, different techniques will become available. Once again, here is where higher compatibility is better: the greater the compatibility, the more specialized skills will be available for investment. Very high compatibility means more specialized and powerful skills. Nobody knows how to predict what the skills will be, how soon they will be available, and how many SV will be required to unlock them. But there is a certain fact that is always true: the most impressive skills are those granted to the highest compatibility. So those of you with level 3 and above should look forward to having a little bit of an advantage, and maybe a surprise or two in your futures.”
Unsurprisingly, this resulted in muttering and more looks at Rory, who didn’t respond this time. It had been fun at first being the center of attention, but now it was just annoying.
Go stare at someone else!
Thankfully, the vice-principal regathered everyone’s attention with a popular topic. “You all know of Her Majesty's knight, Sir Michael Wilmington, who you saw on the vid from before.” Everyone, including Rory, shifted excitedly at his name. “His most acclaimed technique, Heavenly Flame, is the fire skill that you saw destroy that swarm of beasts. Well, it is available only to him and only because of his compatibility, which was level 6 when he was tested while a student of our very institution.”
Her pride was obvious, as was the excitement in the room. Sir Michael was famous and pretty much everyone’s hero. And – according to the rumors – over level 200, although nobody in the public knew by how much.
That’s so fierce! I wonder what special techniques I’ll get…
Two more things before I let you go. “You will notice no single tree or branch or technique could have more than a certain number of SVs worth of myst applied to it on the ghost you saw. Whatever that number is, it is not the maximum, but is instead something of a starting point. Once a technique reaches the ceiling of its myst, the skill will either stop improving, allow access to another branch deeper in the tree, or perhaps open an entirely new tree. Again, the deeper it is, the more myst invested, the stronger it is generally speaking. Thus it has a higher the vessel cap.”
“And finally, we will move onto what may be the most important thing I am going to teach today. Yes, this is more important than any details of the ghost. Grouping, or fighting as a team, is an absolute necessity.”
“Woohoo!” spouted from Shayleen as she leaped up with her fist in the air. Rory smiled at her enthusiasm, but didn’t understand why. At that, all three of the Soul Warrior visitors: Finnease, Shayleen, and Gregory, started backing up farther from the center and moving into a triangle where Finnease was ahead, Gregory was to his right and slightly behind, and Shayleen was behind Finnease.
Once again, doors opened in the floor and a box rose with a rat in it.
The vice-principle spoke up again. “I’m sure some of you are thinking, ‘It’s only a puny level 1 rat. Why would any of them need help?’” Rory was in fact thinking that very thing. Finnease had killed that first rat with barely a thought.
She explained her logic with her next words. “The answer is that beasts are many times stronger than us at the same level. Perhaps fighting a tiny little isolated level 1 might be easy depending on your construct. But there are rarely locations where there is just one and they don’t simply stand around all by themselves twiddling their claws. They come in numbers. Large numbers.” Then a whole bunch of doors opened in the floor and a way more cages with rats rose.
“Numbers will kill you if you are foolish. Of course, there are few exception. Mr. Sheehan, for example. His initial SVs will make him equivalent to a much stronger hunter so his first levels will be easier. He will have spent eight SVs strengthening himself. Note that I said easier, not easy. All that is assuming he uses the vessels properly, of course, which he likely will because he will be receiving substantial sponsorship support. But! Remember this. Anyone, no matter how many vessels they have invested, can die from being swarmed by tens, hundreds, or even thousands of level 1 rats, unless they have a team to help or save them. Teamwork will be crucial, as you are about to see. Ms. Cooper, are you ready?”
Shayleen then summoned her construct, a pistol with a strange dish-shaped bowl at the end, and proceeded to shoot a blue ball at Finnease and Gregory’s backs.
She giggled. “I do love shooting these guys. Soooo satisfying.”
Rory saw Finnease turn his head towards her and stick his tongue out again while Gregory just rolled his eyes and grunted.
“Dead on, Mrs. Macmillan,” Shayleen said excitedly. Then a little more evilly, “Time to play.”
Rory had counted the cages while they were preparing and saw fourteen additional cages, each with two to four rats in it. So lots of rats. Grand.
Once again, Rory was at the edge of his seat, thrilled to see what was going to happen.
First, force barriers appeared around the arena floor and the vice-principle’s platform. Rory nodded to himself – he hadn’t thought about that, but he was thankful someone had.
“Releasing in three,” the vice-principle called, pulling back Rory’s attention. “Two. One.”
And the barriers holding the rats fell.
For a moment, nothing changed. The rats softly squeaked and sniffed and turned in a circles. Then one of the two in the cage closest to the three humans seemed to have caught the smell of something it liked. It lifted its head and its nose wiggled frantically as if it found the smell of something it liked very much. Then the rat it shared a cage with mimicked its actions. Suddenly the first squeaked loudly and ran at the humans, the other from its cage close behind.
Gregory’s scattergun, a brown and black short rifle began giving off a deep brown glow from the end of its dual barrels.
“Save your power,” Finnease said calmly. “I got the first ones.” And he stepped forward, his now familiar longsword lazily sitting on his shoulder.
“Everyone, no matter how many vessels they have filled, has a limited amount of power they can use for techniques,” the vice-principal explained. “Just using the weapon does not drain any addition power, however. Only the use of soul techniques does.”
It was at that point that all of the other rats seemed to have caught on to the yummie meals the first two were loudly squeaking about. Then they reached Finnease and were permanently silenced with two bloody swings of this sword.
Rory could feel his excitement rising as he leaned forward even further in the chair and clapped and cheered with the rest of the class.
Finnease slowly walked back to his spot and Shayleen shot him again with her blue ability again. As she was shooting, she called, “For those of you kids that don’t know, I’m giving my boys here what’s called a buff. It provides a benefit of some kind, which is what most supporters do.”
Right as she finished speaking, a massive boom sounded that made Rory jump in his seat. He could swear that it had made his teeth vibrate. Along with the sound was a flash of brown light that shot out of Gregory’s scattergun and into the horde just feet in front of him. The result made his jaw drop.
It was like the rats all spontaneously exploded. Blood and gore flew everywhere as every rat in a cone starting at Gregory and outward three meters simply ceased to be.
“That was a Soul Technique specific to the terra element scattergun called ‘cone of shards,” the vice-principle explained.
Gregory took a large step to the left and Finnease came forward so he was to the other man’s right. The rats outside of the cone of death charged at him and his sword, now glowing red, swung in a series of flashes. Rats were sliced to pieces left and right as he twirled, leaped, stabbed and slashed in a dance of violent death.
Rory gasped as, despite his agility and strength, one of the rats got through and slashed its claws at him. His own blood flew as a wound made of three parallel slashes appeared just below Finnease’s right knee.
It then that Rory saw what Shayleen had done. A blue bubble of water appeared around the bleeding wounds and they started closing, even as Finnease ignored them and kept slicing rats into pieces.
All the while, booms of Gregory’s shotgun echoed around the arena. Pieces of rats flew everywhere as more brown flashes shot out of the barrel.
And then, as suddenly as it started, it was over. Silence permeated the stadium for a few seconds before cheers erupted from somewhere in front of Rory. That started a landslide of clapping and cheering. Rory rose to his feet and yelled with the rest of the kids, utterly astonished seeing his first battle.
After a minute of this, the Vice-Principal called, “I understand many of you children might be disgusted by this display. There is no better way to say it, so I will just put it out there. Get over it. A Soul Warrior’s life is not a clean one. You. Will. Kill. And it will be messy and bloody, just like what you saw here today. Whether you shoot, slice, bludgeon, or support, you will inevitably have to kill something to fill your vessels. There is no other way. So whatever reservations you have, whatever queasiness you may be experiencing, I suggest you get over it quickly. This institute will help you. Your sponsors will help you. But in the end, either you get past it, or you die a failure to your sponsors, your family, this institution, and your empire and queen.”
Rory nodded strongly. He absolutely agreed. The girls who he had heard gagging or hiding had better get over it. He was ready. In fact, he was excited.
“One more time, everyone thank our school’s Soul Warrior team and the three individuals on it who could join us. Shayleen Cooper, Gregory McKayhee , Finnease Kulkaly, take a bow.”
The three professionals, two of whom were covered in blood, turned to the audience and bowed. The kids applauded again and then they walked to the side and out of the door they had entered in.
“That is all for today, children,” the vice principal called. “You have no school and are free until I see you in four days for the imprinting. Have a lovely week off. Make sure to rest and recover.” Then the vice-principal silently stepped off of her raised platform and left the arena. Immediately, everyone started talking.
Rory was surprised to hear from his left, “Hey, Rors. Wanna go to my place?”
Smiling widely at having his friend talk to him finally, Rory nodded emphatically and said, “Yeah! We can play Virtual Blasto.”
That was their favorite game. They always teamed up together and let the random players have it. They were both really good, which reflected both the true purpose of the game and their talent. It was a game offered by the Empire to all of its citizens until they were tested for compatibility, which was mandated by the Crown. After that, the players had to have a Soul Construct to use it.
He and Killean knew conceptually it was supposed to help them improve things like spatial awareness, reaction time, endurance, and the like. But they played it because it was so fun.
They talked about the amazing display of power in the arean as Rory followed Killean to one of his family’s fancy transports. His family had special clearance in and around Belfast to make getting around easier. Rory loved riding in them because they were so posh. He was determined to have one of his own in the future that he and his family could ride around in.
Killean offered his tablet to Rory to send a quick note to his parents and let them know he’d be going to Killean’s to play. After that, he stuffed the tablet away and they talked about playing Blasto until Killean offered Rory some water, which he took of course. A few moments later Rory felt kind of sleepy and before he knew it, he fell across the seat of his best friend’s expensive transport and everything went dark.