CHAPTER 59: SOUL DIVE TEST

Soren walked through the stone corridor that was dimly lit with glowing crystals and flickering torches. Mistress Sienna was still leading him from the front.

“Say,” he voiced. “Why did you choose to make this accord specifically for one year? Couldn’t you continue to freeze my fate indefinitely?”

She nodded, “I definitely can.” Sienna then turned her neck back slightly, her eyes sharper. “But is that really what you want?”

His lips twitched. She was right—that wasn’t what Soren wanted. If his Soul Chain was eternally put in stasis, he would have no opportunity to grow as a Phantasm. He would permanently be stuck with his current abilities with no way to upgrade his Soul Weapon. Maybe to a regular person, that was already good enough. But just the mere thought of stagnating when he had been gifted such an amazing Soul Weapon disgusted him. It was a waste not to risk his life on the sliver of a chance he has to move past his current limits.

“As for why I chose one year,” she followed. “That is the maximum amount of time I can grant you without having your soul disintegrate from the corruption and instability. I made sure to calculate exactly how much corruption you will accumulate over a one year’s length. The amount is just barely under the threshold of total failure.”

“I see…” They continued walking down the lonely corridor for what felt like an eternity, until a wooden door presented itself before them. It was placed at the center of a fork in the road. The corridor had split into two—left and right of the entrance.

“Let’s enter inside,” she said, cranking the door knob and pushing slightly—heaps of dust fell from the hinges. It was clear to Soren that the room hadn’t been used in ages.

Entering inside, he was shocked once again. The room expanded outward into a circle. The floor extended down below their feet, creating a large basin filled with some sort of shimmering liquid. The basin stretched from one end of the room to the other, leaving only a little bit of space to walk in at the outer perimeter.

Soren couldn’t exactly tell what the liquid was, but he could feel that it was special. The more he stared at it, the more his eyes felt droopy. It shimmered slowly and peacefully, as if a thin layer of icy-white fog covered its surface.

“This is called a Soul Mirror. It’s been a while since we’ve had to use it. There’s a magecraft spell beneath the surface of the pool that powers it.” Sienna walked up to the basin and smiled back at Soren. “All you really need to know is that it has the ability to reflect Runic Existences as seen in the beyond, into reality.”

Soren rubbed his chin, “Interesting… So this is what we’ll be using for the Soul Dive test?”

She laughed. “Unlike your [Eyes of the Fairy], this method is far easier to utilize. And I have many wards placed around this room that filter out anything that might be… Unpleasant.”

Soren assumed she was speaking about the corruption originating within his abstract rune.

“So then… How do we begin?” He asked.

She smiled, “Easy. Simply toss your Soul Weapon into the pool.”

Soren glanced down at the ancient tome in his hands. Won’t its pages get wet if I do that… He thought.

He didn’t know why, but it felt as if The Records was also looking back at him. Screw it, he said to himself. I'll trust the mistress. He took a deep breath, stretched out his arms and let go, dropping the Soul Weapon into the murky pool.

Almost immediately, a change occurred. Within the ripples, a bead of water was coalescing. In the blink of an eye, it stretched upwards from the pool, shooting to his arm’s length in height, as if mirroring how his Soul Weapon was dropped.

Soren blinked a few times at what he was seeing. In front of him, a strange projection had appeared. It was a ring of some sort, with facets that formed strange geometry. Looking closer, Soren noticed that the ring was formed from millions of tiny butterflies, all flying in unison in that same constant shape.

Confused, he glanced at Sienna who was standing next to him, but even she looked fairly perplexed.

“What am I looking at right now…” He was met with no answer.

Sienna only broke her silence a minute later. “That… Is supposed to be your Soul Chain. But this is very strange… Truly strange…”

His confusion only grew. He wanted to question her, but her expression told him to be patient—she was clearly still trying to come to a conclusion.

A minute later, she sighed and glanced over at Soren. “Your Soul Chain… It’s not real.”

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“Huh?”

“It’s exactly as I said,” she affirmed. “That is not what a real Soul Chain looks like. The ring is usually made of astral anima that has properties of the abstract rune you merged with. And that’s true for the most part when looking at this one… But look here,” she pointed at the projection. “The ‘Soul Chain’ has no node.”

He glanced at the rigid and oddly shaped geometrical ring. She was right. There was no channel or space for where the supposed abstract rune was meant to be locked in place.

“As you know, a Soul Chain is meant to be a trap that contains abstract runes to harness their power. So how can your Soul Chain not have anything to contain? It is simply illogical. But at the same time, the anima it is made from is clearly influenced by the concepts of the Abstract Rune you have merged with. You are still a Phantasm… Somehow.”

Soren couldn’t help but be even more confused after her explanation. “Are you saying that my Soul Chain does exist somewhere, but the one before us is a fake? How is that even possible?”

“Your Soul Weapon,” she replied. “Remember how I said it was leading you toward not observing it with [Eyes of the Fairy]? Well it seems whatever it’s trying to hide from you, it made sure to hide it even through a Soul Dive Test by fabricating your Soul Chain… But this is just a theory. There might be another reason for it that even I am unaware of…

“Alas, if only my master was here…”

Soren silently observed the flock of tiny butterflies swimming in unison, rotating in a constant orbit.

“Won’t this make the accord impossible then?” He asked. “How are you going to freeze the fate of my Soul Chain if you can’t even locate the real one…”

“You won’t need to worry about that. Pausing the fate of your Soul Chain doesn’t require direct contact with it. Star Fate requires a connection with, believe it or not, the stars. And the method to do so is unrelated to whatever projection you are seeing right now, whether it's fictional or not.”

She flicked her silver hair behind her ear. “More importantly, we need to talk about something else that’s even more concerning.

“Soren… Your Runic Existence, it’s missing…”

“What?” His eyes widened as he glanced back at the fictional Soul Chain.

Mistress Sienna nodded. “A Soul Chain orbits around a person’s Runic Existence. This fictional one we are seeing is orbiting nothing… So not only is your Soul Chain missing, you aren’t even fully represented in the Beyond…”

She rubbed her chin, “Actually, that might also be wrong. Your representation within the Beyond is this fictional Soul Chain we are seeing… It seems the Beyond views your Runic Existence from the same lens as this fictional Soul Chain—are they one and the same?”

Soren remembered what he had seen when he entered his Heart’s Shroud. His True Self had manifested itself as his Soul Weapon. He and his Soul Weapon were the same existence…

Soren nodded. “I… Have been keeping a secret from you guys…” He began to explain what he had seen when diving into his three layers of self.

Sienna frowned. “How fascinating… But also confusing. This implies that whatever Abstract Rune you merged with, it didn’t happen naturally through the forming of a Soul Chain… I’ll hold off on any conclusions since we still don’t know anything about this. The best thing we could do is research this slowly—there might be something in the historical record I can find that matches your case… I'll be sending a letter to my master as well, that may turn out some results… In the meantime, while you research becoming a first circle magus, try to look into this on your own.”

Soren on the other hand was wondering about something else. If his actual Soul Chain wasn’t here, then where could it be? According to Mr. Unknown, he had gained his Soul Weapon from the ritual he conducted, so could his Soul Chain still be on Earth? But that seemed impossible to him. Afterall, Mr. Unknown had clearly hinted at a different conclusion.

“While it is possible to return you home, it will only be for brief moments. Your soul’s runic existence had already been morphed to accept the conditions of The Beyond, here in Yarian. This world is governed by Fantasia, and Fantasia alone. And now, your soul reflects that.”

The words echoed in his mind. My soul’s Runic Existence has been morphed… He stared directly at the slowly orbiting fictional Soul Chain… No, his Runic Existence in the Beyond. Even if it was a fake, what he was looking at was still how the Beyond represented him… Morphed… He thought again.

Is this what Mr. Unknown was speaking about? That my Soul Weapon had morphed this fictional Soul Chain to fit with this world’s rules? While his actual soul was stored elsewhere along with its unstable Soul Chain, this representation he was seeing was morphed to fit the perfect conditions of Yarian. His real Soul Chain and its Runic Existence couldn’t be on Earth, since Unknown had clearly stated that he could only go back there for a few moments at a time. So then, where could his soul be? Where was it being stored if it wasn’t on either Earth nor Yarian. He had already come to a conclusion.

[The Faerie Court].

The realm of realms. He didn’t have any evidence, but he felt like it was the only “place” left that practically made sense. A forgotten rune, a fragment of it, somehow merged with him on his journey to Yarian. Even Mr. Unknown didn’t know much about it. Clearly, it must have changed him in ways even he was currently unaware of.

He had to use that ability soon. He just needed to prepare for it.

“Still,” her voice echoed out into the pool chamber, breaking his chain of thoughts. “This soul dive test isn’t a complete failure. We can still extract some crucial information from this, even if what we are seeing is nothing but a replica of the real Soul Chian.”

She snapped her fingers. Almost immediately, the shimmering pool water began to coalesce and morph. It jumped out into a stream that took the form of a scroll. Blinking, Soren watched its shape solidify into actual paper.

Ignoring the looks Soren was giving her, Mistress Sienna unfurled the scroll and glanced at it. He peeked at the Vinuan words from over her shoulder.

Test Results

Soul Weapon Class: Abstract

Rune: Fairy Witness

Fragments: 1 Insight

Topology: Unknown?

Governing Concept: Unknown?

Sienna sighed at the information. “Sure enough, we weren’t able to understand everything about your rune… Without the real Soul Chain, such a result was inevitable.

“Fairy Witness…” Soren murmured. This was the name of the rune he had merged with. Obviously, his other forgotten rune fragment wasn’t detected.