JESSIE : LEVEL 13

DAY 254 : F-DAY, FOURTHWEEK, HORUS, YEAR 1

CENTRAL 28 : TERMINAL 2 : FORK

After that little shitshow, I’m of a particular mind about my time in Central. To put it plainly… Fuck this place.

To that effect, I ran straight here. On foot. No trains, no carts, no nothing. Not even a Dash to get my momentum going. So basically as fast as I thought I could get away with in front of the Pyramid Guards. Which is why it took me this long to get all the way over here from the instantiated Guild Hall door that I stormed out of yesterday morning.

The whole trip proved rather cathartic, people cheering me as I ran. Oh god, this whole city recognizes me now, doesn’t it? All the better reason to get the fuck out.

So here I am. Finally. And somehow, despite giving myself more than a day to think it over, I still have no idea where to go next!

No matter what, I need to temper myself. If I learned one thing from that Tournament match, it’s how vital Attunements are. They’re like ki in a cultivation thing. No matter which path you take… You simply NEED to take a path, or you’re basically just leaving power on the table.

So I’m still thinking it through even as I head all the way upstairs to the International section of Central Terminal.

As though a Kingdom’s land stretches to the end of its own platform, there are posters advertising that region plastered across every square inch of its allocated wall space. And entire encyclopedia editions of guides are available for purchase from people at various stands.

The generally friendly atmosphere of the station overall, is somewhat ruined by each platform’s staff all shooting the others a more or less perpetual glare. That, despite the tightly-packed crowd of people who all seem perfectly content with wherever they’re going.

But as for the available ‘help’, I can practically smell the bullshit coming off all of it. I can see them gesturing furtively at me too. They think they’re being stealthy. But nothing is too fast for my almighty pause button to catch. Safe to say, they’re all heavily incentivized to upsell the hell out of their own faction.

And I mean yeah, I need to go to a kingdom. I need an Attunement. I would’ve gotten one half a year ago if not for… But which one?

I walk up to the edge of what the lack of propaganda indicates is a neutral zone, to examine one of the same infographics plastered all over the rest of the station. A somewhat lazily stylized map of the Human territory, also known as ‘Midgard’ if you’re annoying.

The overall octagon is divided into subsections for each kingdom, with a smaller octagon in the middle representing the Exterior, Outset, Interior, Outskirts, and a little pink dot for Central itself right in the middle.

Placed on top for reasons I have to imagine are more to do with the alphabet than any kind of power dynamic or cardinal direction, is the Fire Nation, represented in red. Going clockwise from there is the Frost Kingdom in Cyan, Juicy in Blue, Void in Purple, Shine in White, Surge in Yellow, Quake in Orange, and Gale in Green.

Actually, how would cardinal directions even work on the inside of a sphere? And where’s the top? Or does it have a top? Is there a special square or octagon at the top or bottom that… FOCUS. On kingdoms. Goose chases and snipe hunts can wait.

I’ve already decided on one of the bottom three in the diagram. So that cuts out five of eight options. But it still leaves me with light, dark, or lightning Blessings to choose from. That’s all an Attunement really amounts to in the end. Two new powers that can eventually be just as strong as any Mythic Skill. The kind you only get two of, and none before ascending. I guess someone could technically spend some number of millennia inching their way to Level 32. But I’m not doing that. Which means this choice represents not only half of my endgame trump cards, but far more than half of what I can ever hope to bring to the Tournament.

If I’m being honest, the fact that I already know the most about electricity makes that direction particularly tempting. I modified all three of those remote control spider toys I was using these past few hours. Plastic explosives aside, there was a reason why my heaviest modification was electrical.

I’m not some sort of electrical genius prodigy or whatever. But it did become somewhat of a fascination. An obsession, even. I didn’t just need to learn a lot about electricity. I wanted it. To understand what was basically Earth’s magic system. And yes, it also helped me avoid electrocuting myself just handling Ash.

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So I did the work. I looked it up. And I learned something practical, on my own, for the first time in my life. The only time in my life, come to think of it. Even still, the process was relatively painless. Especially compared to something like school where I didn’t have a choice in what I learned. So yeah, there’s that.

But so what? That’s way too low of a bar for the thing that’s going to define the rest of my life. Like, what if I’d have a better time with a different area of study? What If I’d be way into photons and shit if I would just take a peek down the Shine rabbit hole? Or Void, for that matter? Like… Gravity? Hello? Not like I ever researched either of those things. But that’s the point. How could I possibly know?

To make matters worse, there’s no room for anything but committing fully to whatever path I take right now. The information on Attunements is sometimes unclear. But not on this. Every single source agrees on the fact that while you can change Attunements, you’ll never be offered anything as good as the Blessings you were already given by a different Apex.

In fact, once you’ve had an audience with any of the Apexes, the others will scorn you. They won’t refuse to offer power. But that power will always be worse than what they offer someone who came to them first.

There are plenty of Heroes who wish both vocally and vehemently for that not to be the case. Often while drunk, and rarely while in possession of even remotely good Blessings.

I won’t make their same mistake. Nor will I walk a path just because I’d have the easiest time at the start. As I learned from gym orders in Pokemon, that should never make the difference. Or else I’ll just end up with grass. And who wants grass? Not me. And not anyone I respect.

And just like with that starter, I don’t have time to go back and pick something else if I end up not preferring it. Not if I’m trying to enter next year’s Tournament. Even still… This is my future we’re talking about… It doesn’t… Doesn’t…

There’s someone behind me. And getting closer.

[ LEGENDARY WEAPON EQUIPPED: MAGATANA - 191 PHY - 149 MAG ]

The figure reaches out just like Oneshot all those times when…

Three subjective minutes of convincing myself not to draw my sword later, that hand taps me on the shoulder. “Excuse me, do you need help with anything?”

Turning woodenly in place, I stare stone-faced at my presumptive shoulder tapper. I don’t say anything.

The concern on the blue woman’s own face increases linearly over time. “It’s just that you really do look like you could use some help.”

I gulp. “Tha-um…” Fuck, she’s got me there. “That’s true.”

After two more subjective minutes of panicking about panicking about panicking and so on, I think of the best way to sum up my main goal here. “Do… Do you know a lot about the Eight Kingdoms?”

The NPC perks up with a smile, gesturing to her Royalty-free uniform. “ThaaAT’S my job! Ask me literally anything you want and I won’t even put politics into it.”

“How do the Kingdoms rank from most to least populated?”

“Shine, Quake, Gale, Fire, Frost, Void, Surge, Juicy.”

I snicker in cathartically-for-once fast-forwarded time. “Is that because it’s called Juicy?”

“Hard to say. That’s definitely part of it. But it probably has more to do with the regular heavy rainfall. The environments are themed after the Kingdom’s element, so it tends to be very wet everywhere you go.”

I shudder. “Water levels…”

The NPC nods in perfect, universal understanding of the exact reason for my shudder.

Come to think of it, that order of elements does basically line up with how pleasant it sounds to live in a land with that as an overarching theme… Which means deciding my Attunement based on that would be stupid.

So more directly… “How would you rank The eight attunement elements purely in terms of Movement Blessing synergy with the Speed STAT?”

The NPC smirks. “Now we’re getting to the core of it, sword-lady. It all depends on the Blessings themselves, but in terms of ballpark averages… Shine, Surge, Gale, Fire, Juicy, Void, Quake, Frost.”

And there’s Shine again… “I understand if this is too in-the-weeds of a question, but how do they line up in terms of how their Power Blessings tend to pair with a sword?”

She glances down at the one I have equipped. “Depends on the sword. But for katanas, I’d say… Shine, Gale, Juicy, Quake, Surge, Fire, Void, Frost.”

There it is again…

The more I think about it, the more information I gather, the more obvious the choice gets. In fact, there never really was a choice. All my favorite characters in anything… Or at least my favorite powersets. The characters themselves are kinda meh. From the gods, to the children… The way it illuminated their eyes…

All of my narrowed-down choices have distinct pros and cons. One has power. Another, utility. And the third? Aesthetics. It has aesthetics. It has great fucking aesthetics. MY aesthetics…

And just like that, I know exactly where I’m going. It really never was a choice…

Shooting the NPC a quick thanks, I turn on my heel and head straight for the Suge Kingdom train.

Zenitsu powers, here I come…