Chapter 298 - Soul Training (Patreon)

“So what’s the deal with these Transcendent Abilities?” Kefira asked as she and Reivyn set up to finish testing out his last two Affinities.

“What do you mean?” Reivyn asked.

“Well, it seems to me we could create the same effects with Spell forms. For instance I could cast an Ice Bolt Spell with the ability to sap energy without having the Ability.”

“Really? You could?” Reivyn quirked an eyebrow at Kefira. “Show me, then.”

Kefira furrowed her brow as she thought about it. She knew it was possible, so she began building the Spell construct. She didn’t normally use the Ice Affinity, or very many of the lower Tier Affinities for that matter, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have it or Level it up. Her Affinity Level wasn’t anywhere near reaching Transcendence like Reivyn, but it was still higher than average for her Tier and Level.

She wove the Mana and began building the knots while thinking about the visualization required. As she added knots, the complications began to rise. Knots were a way to empower Spells. The most common way was to help load more Mana into the construct, but it wasn’t restricted to this. Patterns of knots on top of the weave pattern could add complexity and utility to Spells.

The problem Kefira faced was that as she added the knots to the weaves, the additional knots would retroactively change what the earlier knots did. She would have to plan a dozen steps in advance to ensure they had the desired effect. Knots that appeared to work toward the end goal would ultimately change to something else, sometimes being completely antithetical to what she was trying to accomplish.

There was a reason creating Spells from scratch without the System’s help was so difficult. Most free-hand Spells were quite simple. Even Reivyn’s ball that shot lances at the enemy below was orders of magnitude simpler than adding an additional effect to the underlying Mana. Instead of trying to enhance the effects of the Mana, his construct just gathered Mana, displaced it, and released it. The biggest difference for his Spell was the displacement of where it released from and the fact it could be set aside and ignored to Cast more Spells.

Adding additional heat or longevity would have been fairly simple, but making wider changes, like making the Plasma sticky or something, would be completely different.

Kefira wasn’t considered a prodigy for no reason, though. Eventually, after about twenty minutes of iterations, she had built a complex network of weave, knots, and a shoddy visualization because the space allotted for the tapestry was convoluted with braids of Mana crisscrossing through it at inconvenient locations.

Kefira looked at Reivyn with triumph. Reivyn simply held his hand out and instantly created a simple Ice Bolt construct instantly. He went further and created ten to hover over each of his fingers on both outstretched hands. It took zero additional time to create the extra nine as it was an instant Cast.

“How much Mana is in that Construct, and how efficient is the Mana Drain?” Reivyn asked.

Kefira inspected her Spell and frowned.

“There’s about 400 Mana in the Spell, and I wouldn’t know how efficient the drain is until I cast it at something.”

Reivyn tossed out a Mana barrier and gestured for Kefira to attack it. Kefira formed the Spell and launched it at the shield. It struck with a decent amount of power behind it, and the expected divot appeared where it made contact.

The divot expanded slowly, but quickly stopped advancing, having petered out much quicker than Reivyn’s Spells from the previous day.

“Looks like it drained about 40 Mana…” Reivyn commented. “So instead of Draining three times the Mana invested, it drained 1/10th.” Reivyn “tossed” his Spelss up and down in his hand. “Each one of these cost 50 Mana, and they’ll each drain 150 Mana. It’s clear to see what’s superior.

“Sure, we can eventually come up with Spell forms to do the same thing for some of these Abilities, but the costs in complexity, time, and efficiency just aren’t worth it.

“And that’s not all. Can you replicate the Abilities of the other Affinities, like Lightning? You can’t create a Spell form to affect the speed of the Mana inside the Spell, much less your own Channels. You can’t add the mental fatigue of Mud Mana. There are some things that just can’t be done with a complicated Spell construct.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Kefira conceded. She didn’t seem upset or defeated by the comparison they did, though. Instead, she seemed even happier. “I wonder what sorts of effects I can come up with for Space and Time Mana? It’s exciting to think about.”

The entire exercise had been more to confirm the power of the Transcendent Abilities than to try and discredit them. Kefira seemed fired up to advance her own Affinities and explore the possibilities of her own concepts.

“I don’t know about Space or Time Mana, but I do know you, and I’m sure it’ll be something amazing,” Reivyn said. “I’m looking forward to it.

“Alright, are you prepared for the final two Affinities?”

“Ready when you are,” Kefira said. Two Mana barriers just like the previous day sprung up in front of the section of wall they had chosen.

Reivyn didn’t prepare anything fancy to go along with his Affinities to start off with. He formed a simple Bolt of Darkness Mana. Using Darkness Mana in this way wouldn’t add anything to the Spell, usually. It would be 100% kinetic energy. It would just look cool, in Reivyn’s opinion.

A black bolt that seemed to have wispy strands of dark mist escaping from it flashed and crashed into the Mana barrier. Reivyn just stood and observed the Mana barrier for a few moments. Kefira quirked an eyebrow after it seemed nothing happened.

“Is that it?” She asked.

Reivyn gestured at the barrier.

“Inspect it,” he said. “Do you Sense it?”

Kefira frowned as she studied the Mana barrier.

“I don’t Sense anything,” she answered.

Reivyn walked up to the barrier. He pointed at where the Bolt had struck it and circled a couple of areas surrounding the epicenter.

“Focus your concentration here.”

Kefira doubled down on her Perception. Her frown grew deeper.

“I’m having a hard time focusing specifically on those spots,” she said. “My mind wants to shift my attention away from those spots, and the more I double down, the harder it gets… Ah! There we go. After reaching a certain threshold, my mind overcame the compulsion. I can see it now.”

Inside the Mana barrier, a dark splotch of Reivyn’s Mana lingered. It looked like someone had tossed an ink bottle to explode against the shield. Without knowing it was there and overcoming the mental block associated with it, Kefira had been unable to perceive it at all.

“Is that all it does?” Kefira asked, looking at the splotch of Mana skeptically.

Reivyn smiled as he reached out and touched his Mana, withdrawing it from the shield back into his Channels.

“Wait, did you know you could do that?” Kefira asked.

Reivyn paused his steps back to where he had been standing. A look of surprise flashed across his face.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “It just seemed natural. I guess I instinctively did it. Usually, our Mana isn’t just sitting around like that. It was free floating, with no construct holding it together. I guess that made it possible, or at least easier.

“Anyway, yes, that’s all it does on its own.” Reivyn repositioned himself and formed another Spell. “But what if I do this?”

He Cast a Bolt Spell woven with Ice and Darkness Mana. The Spell struck the barrier. It drained the Mana from the barrier just like all his other Ice Bolt Spells, but Kefira simply stood there with a confused look on her face.

“Huh, I know it's draining the Mana from my shield, but only because I know what your Ice Mana does. If I didn’t know ahead of time, I wouldn’t be able to figure it out. The Darkness Mana not only prevents me from focusing on where the Spell struck, but it prevents me from even noticing the drain to the Mana. If I focus really hard, I can get past it, but it does that thing where it makes my attention slide away from it if I don’t put enough effort in.”

“Alright, let’s try this one, next,” Reivyn said after resetting everything.

A gray blob coalesced over his hand and slammed into the shield. Reivyn felt a faint twinge of lightheadedness after Casting the Spell. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. It didn’t affect him too much, but there was definitely a strain from using three different Abilities at once.

“Now that’s just not fair,” Kefira shook her head. “Just to confirm, it was still Ice Mana, right?” Reivyn nodded his head. “Yeah, that one would go completely undetected. I wouldn’t know it was Ice Mana, so I wouldn’t know to check for any additional damage, and the Shadow Mana prevents me from even thinking about it.

“I just know to comment on it because that’s what we’re doing, and you told me. That’s a sinister combination.”

“Insidious,” Reivyn corrected.

“Come again?” Kefira cocked her head.

“The name of the Ability for Shadow Mana is Insidious, not sinister.”

The two stared at each other for a couple seconds before Reivyn cracked into a smile and started laughing. Kefira rolled here eyes and punched him in the shoulder.

“You know what I meant!” She said.

“Yeah, yeah. So it works really well, huh?”

“Perfect.”

“Amazing. Alright, then, onto the last Affinity: Light. This one is called Beacon, and it says it binds the threads together.”

“Hit me with your best shot.”

Reivyn formed a shining Bolt over his hand and launched it at the shield. Just like the Darkness Mana, the Light Affinity itself didn’t add anything extra to the Bolt. It was pure kinetic impact. On top of that, the weave was incredibly simple, so there wasn’t much in that department, either.

Reivyn did notice that the threads stuck to each other considerably more than he was used to in the simple weave. No, it’s more than that, Reivyn contemplated. It was like they were magnets attracting each other, or better yet, gravity. They had an incredible pull towards each other, like even I, the person in charge of the weave, wouldn’t be able to pull them apart.

The weave was much more compact than he was used to, also. It was almost like the threads were so tightly wound together, it was still just a single thread of Mana.

Hmm, not sure what utility that could bring to my weaves, honestly. It didn’t seem to affect the potency of the Spell at all. Nothing was really changed other than the size and durability of the weave. I wonder if the main point is that I can just make thicker, more complex weaves in the same space, leaving room for more complex knots and tapestries, kind of like the problem Kefira had with her complicated Spell construct attempting to mirror my Ice Mana Ability?

“Honestly, I don’t really know where to go from here,” Reivyn said, scratching the back of his head. “The weaves are incredibly tight and pretty much impossible to unravel, but that’s it.”

Kefira shrugged her shoulders.

“Just repeat the last Spell, but add Light to it and see what happens.”

Reivyn didn’t have any better ideas, so he did as Kefira suggested. He wasn’t really putting much thought into it, though, so instead of weaving everything individually together, he recreated the Ice, Mist, Shadow bolt first and added Light to it after.

He formed the Spell, and the world tilted. He hastily flung the Bolt at Kefira’s barrier, but he wasn’t able to track it or see what happened. The entire world was like a whirlpool of colors, not even his Divine Sense was spared.

Everything merged, swirled, and pulled apart in chaos as lights exploded around his vision in some spots and other spots went completely black. It was the most disconcerting experience he had ever had.

He didn’t know how long he was out, but the next thing he knew, he was bent over, dry heaving on his hands and knees, Kefira patting him on the back with a concerned expression on her face.

“Reivyn… Reivyn! What’s the matter?” Kefira frantically called. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

Reivyn spit the bile out of his mouth and sat back, gasping for air. He looked up at Kefira as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Okay, four Abilities is too much,” he said. He rolled over and slowly clambered to his feet, Kefira giving him a steadying hand. He felt the urge to shake his head to clear it, but he thought better of the idea and simply took a deep breath. “I felt a slight strain when I did three, so I should have known better.”

“Yeah, let’s not do that again,” Kefira said. “Do you know what the problem was?”

“I’m guessing soul strength?” Reivyn asked more than answered. “I’m not entirely sure, but that’s what makes sense. I’m dealing with Mana, so it’s not my body, and I didn’t overuse Mana, either. It felt nothing like Mana sickness from getting too low on my reserves, and it wasn’t the same exhaustion and type of backlash from over-empowering a Spell.

“The only other thing that makes sense is my soul.”

“We’ll go with that assumption for now,” Kefira nodded. “We’ll look into it later. Hey, at least it had an interesting effect on your Spell, right?”

Reivyn quirked an eyebrow.

“The dizziness hit me before I could even see the finished Spell, and I just tossed it out as I was collapsing. I have no idea what the effect was.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know exactly what you did, but instead of having a Bolt that had all four properties combined somehow, there was one Bolt with three distinct Affinities and Abilities.

“None of the Affinities or Abilities interacted with each other like previously. The one Bolt was three different shades in a line, and each shade had distinct characteristics.”

Reivyn thought back to the Spell and tried to glean anything from his memory, but everything up to right before he intended to add Light Mana to the construct was blurred. He couldn’t remember how he had designed the Spell, only remembering that he had added Light to an already existing weave of three different Affinities.

“I’ll have to experiment with this, but with two additional Affinities instead of three,” Reivyn said. “And later. After that I don’t feel like Casting again any time soon.”

“Understandable,” Kefira rubbed his back. “Serilla and I will go back to our sparring. You should go talk to your parents and see if they have any insight on the matter.”

“That’s a good idea,” Reivyn slightly bobbed his head. He didn’t want to jostle his brain too much, even with a simple nod. “I’d kiss you goodbye, but, well, you know…”

“Yeah.”

Kefira gave him a hug, the two keeping their faces apart until Reivyn could clean himself up more thoroughly. Reivyn gave a small wave to the two girls and headed over to where his father was coaching Teilon and Kimberly in their sparring session.

“Good, good. Keep your momentum through the swing to add to your Dance,” Refix called out.

Kimberly had struck at Teilon only for her spear to phase through him. Instead of trying to recover in a conventional sense, Kimberly simply adapted the momentum to her twirling dodge-Dance to avoid Teilon’s reprisal.

“Teilon, you’re getting better at phasing only part of your body at a time, but we can still tighten that down,” Refix continued. “You didn’t have to go all the way up to your shoulders or down to your groin. She struck right in your midsection. See if you can narrow the scope further, but it’s good progress from what you could manage a week ago.”

Reivyn walked over and stood beside his father as he continued to give advice to the pair. He didn’t want to interrupt his friends’ sparring match for his question, so he just watched silently.

The two continued to spar, slowly ramping up their pace as they refined their Skills and moves, until they were panting in exhaustion. There were several times either of them could have seized an opportunity to score a “win,” but Reivyn understood from context that that wasn’t the point of their match. They were working on very specific things, breaking down larger issues into smaller ones to hone them individually, and ending the match early by striking outside of those bounds would have been against the nature of their training.

Refix turned to his son as soon as the two lowered their weapons with the intent to take a break. He glanced at Reivyn from head to toe.

“You look like crap,” he said unceremoniously. “Your complexion is all white, like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s going on?”

“Had a little issue with the Transcendent Ability training,” Reivyn said. “Combining three puts slight strain on my mind, and combining four knocks me out of commission. The whole world goes topsy-turvey, and I lose my breakfast.

“Know anything about that?”

Refix considered for a moment, stroking his chin. Ameliyn walked over from where she had been standing a little apart from her husband so as not to distract him during his coaching. Case in point, as soon as Refix noticed her, he completely ignored his son to ogle his wife for a second.

“Dad,” Reivyn said, rolling his eyes.

“Hmm? Oh, right. The Transcendent Abilities… Honestly, I don’t know anything about that,” Refix shrugged. “This is new territory for both you and your mother and I. In fact you’re much further along than we are. I only have two Transcendent Skills, and your mother still has a little bit to go to break through with her Celestial Affinity.”

Reivyn looked at his mother in surprise.

“You don’t have any Transcendent Affinities?” He asked. “Not even with your talent?”

“I’ve been focusing mostly on my Celestial Affinity over the years,” Ameliyn shook her head. “I’ve kept up with all of my lesser Affinities, though, so they’re all hovering around 80 to 90, but I haven’t pushed with any of the lower-Tier Affinities, yet.”

“That makes sense,” Reivyn agreed. “Celestial is your main focus, and it’s a Tier 4 Affinity, so obviously it will take some time to reach Level 100. My highest Tier 4 Affinity just reached Level 26 after a couple of years of having them unlocked.”

Ameliyn grunted.

“You know you’re disgusting, sometimes?” She said. “‘Only Level 26 after a couple of years,’ he says.” She shared a look with Refix. “Can you believe this guy?”

“Now you know how I felt when he mentioned he had unlocked Command,” Refix snorted.

“Oh, trust me, I’ve been feeling it for a while now.”

“Alright, alright, can we get back on topic, please,” Reivyn cut in. “Let’s talk more about how amazing I am.”

Refix and Ameliyn guffawed.

“We might not be able to help you with the answers you seek, but I’m sure the guard captain guy could help,” Refix pointed out.

“Oh yeah, that guy was really strong. I’m sure he has a ton of Transcendent Skills and Affinities by now.”

“The who now?” Ameliyn asked.

“The leader of the volunteer Adventurer guards,” Refix explained. “I couldn’t get a sense of his aura, which means he’s at least high Tier 6, maybe Tier 7.”

Ameliyn nodded her head.

“That’s a good idea. You should go ask him.”

“I think I’ll do just that,” Reivyn said. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Refix replied, clapping his son on the shoulder as he walked by.

Reivyn gave a goodbye wave to the four of them as Teilon and Kimberly squared off again, Refix already back into coaching mode with Ameliyn taking a few steps away to be out of his line of sight. Reivyn quickly made his way to the Adventurer’s Guild down the road. He didn’t have official business this time, so he approached one of the receptionists.

“How can I help you,” the older Adventurer inquired, appraising Reivyn with an approving eye. He could tell Reivyn was as young as he looked and already in a Tier 5 Region.

“I was wondering if the guard leader had a few moments to spare,” Reivyn inquired.

A voice slightly obscured by the closed door from the office down the hall reached his and the receptionist's ears.

“I’m free. Send him back.”

The receptionist simply inclined his head toward the hallway, indicating for Reivyn to go on back. Reivyn nodded to the man with a smile and walked down the corridor.

Reivyn was slightly surprised at first. He hadn’t been speaking very loud, and even with a high Perception Stat, it would have been hard to hear him over the rest of the ambient sounds in the guild branch down a hall and through a closed door. Then he remembered the guy was possibly Tier 7 and it made perfect sense to him.

“It’s open,” the voice called out again as Reivyn lifted his hand to knock.

Reivyn just shook his head as he opened the door and entered.

“Have a seat, young man,” the veteran Adventurer said with a smile. He tossed his current paperwork and pen to the side, sending it flying through the air to land on the ground. He folded his hands on the desk and peered intently at Reivyn as if the paperwork he had casually tossed didn’t even exist. Reivyn almost chuckled at the man’s antics.

“I was wondering if you could clarify something about Transcendent Abilities for me,” Reivyn inquired.

“Transcendent Abilities are unique to each individual. I’m not sure what kind of insight I could give you to help you achieve your goals,” the man said, frowning slightly.

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Reivyn shook his head. “I’ve already broken through with all of my Tier 1 Affinities, eight Tier 2 Affinities, and two Tier 3 Affinities. My question is about combining their effects.”

The grizzled Adventurer stared at Reivyn for several long moments, completely still and silent. Reivyn was beginning to worry something was wrong, but the man finally snapped out of his torpor.

“You’ve unlocked 14 Transcendent Abilities?” The man carefully asked for clarification.

“For my Affinities,” Reivyn confirmed with a slight nod. “My main Martial Skill is Level 104, having broken through some time ago, and I’m getting close with a few others.”

“Right. Fifteen Transcendent Abilities. That’s… a really good foundation. But wait! Did you unlock the same Ability for each of them? Because that would be a disaster.”

“Oh yeah, they’re all different, but why would that matter?”

“An analogy works best,” the older man explained. “Think of it like this: At each threshold, there’s a guardian blocking your advancement. Level 100, 150, 200, etc. Each subsequent guardian is about half again as more powerful than the previous. If you slay one guardian, you’re free to advance to the next.

“However! If you go around a guardian through a threshold that’s already been cleared, then the difficulty of the next threshold is equivalent as if the first guardian rushed back to defend the next threshold alongside the next guardian. You’ll have to fight both of them at the same time, and there’s no backtracking on the path of advancement.

“Each slain guardian could be bypassed at any stage. You have fifteen unlocked Transcendent Abilities, so you could theoretically pick Skill and Affinity and have hardly any bottleneck for fifteen threshold, using the ones you’ve already unlocked, but that would be a bad idea.

“For one, each Transcendent Ability is tailor-made for the specific Skill you unlocked it with. It’s not necessarily going to be compatible with another Skill. Would it make sense to use your Martial Skill’s Ability to assist breaking through with something like, I don’t know, Mathematics?”

Reivyn shook his head at the ridiculous thought of applying True Strike to a Mathematics Skill.

“Exactly, and then you’ll have to worry about the next bottleneck. You would also have a Skill that didn’t evolve in any meaningful way. It would still just be the same base Skill that couldn’t utilize any unique Ability to enhance it, and it would only work toward increasing your Skill Level.

“There is benefit to increasing Levels beyond 100, but those Levels mainly come from improving the Ability. If you have a crippled Ability, you’ll never see the next threshold, no matter how long you live and work on it.”

“What about extremely compatible Abilities?” Reivyn asked.

“That’s one of the drawbacks,” the man explained. “Everything has an opportunity cost. If you have two Skills that have amazing synergy with each other’s Abilities, is it worth it to have the next threshold increase in difficulty to add that Ability to the Skill? Or should you advance in another direction and take that route further down the path of advancement? Those are the decisions you’ll have to make as you continue to grow.

“Now that’s for Skills for the most part. Affinities are a little different, because you can weave multiple Affinities together and tie their Abilities together, right?”

“Right,” Reivyn nodded.

“Wrong! Typically, the cream of crop, absolute geniuses can merge two Transcendent Affinity Abilities together at the cost of a significant backlash. The weaker geniuses and just hard workers can’t even attempt it. Their soul will shut it down as a defense mechanism.

“Do you know what determines whether someone is a genius or not?”

“Soul strength,” Reivyn was confident he had the right answer this time.

“That’s right. The cream of the crop have strong enough souls to withstand the backlash with only one breach when combining two Abilities. And by one breach, I mean their highest Level Transcendent Ability is only the first one, below Level 151.

“So soul strength determines one’s talent and the ability to handle more than one Ability at a time. Now here’s the kicker that people below Tier 5 don’t know: Breaking through Transcendence is the way to improve one’s Soul Strength.

“I know, it’s kind of paradoxical and a feedback loop. One needs a more powerful soul to improve their Skills, and one improves their soul by Transcending their Skills. People with too low soul strength, typically, won’t ever have the opportunity to improve their souls. There are other ways, like Natural Treasures, but those are few and far between.

“Anyway, to get back on track, every Skill or Affinity you Transcend improves your soul slightly, but breaching new Levels improves the quality of your soul. People who have reached Level 151 with a Skill or Affinity, have no problem combining two different Affinity Abilities, and those monstrous geniuses can handle three. Same thing at Level 201. 201 is three Abilities, 251 is four. See the pattern?

“Hmm, yes, I see the issue now,” Reivyn nodded. “So I’ll need to reach the next breach, as you said, to be able to add more Abilities to my weaves.”

“Just so,” the man nodded. “Did that answer all of your questions?”

“And then some. Thank you very much. It was a tremendous help for me.”

“Happy to help new and upcoming Adventurers,” the man smiled.

Reivyn stood and clasped hands with the man before turning to leave. With his Divine Sense, as soon as he turned his back to the man, he noticed that the paperwork that had been flung aside, as well as the pen, were somehow neatly placed on the desk again, the man beginning to peruse it. It had been an instantaneous shift. On the ground one moment, the next, perfectly placed on the desk. Reivyn couldn’t explain it.

“Yeah, just keep working away at your Skills and Affinities. Improving the Transcendent Abilities is the key to Leveling the Skills. You keep at it, and you’ll be able to combine two of your Affinitiy Abilities together before you know it…”

Reivyn walked through the door and began pulling it shut. The man suddenly looked up at Reivyn.

“Wait. You were talking about combining two Abilities, right?”

“Uh, no sir,” Reivyn shook his head as he leaned his head in the closing crack. “I ran into problems when I combined four of them.”

The door closed. Reivyn was amused to See that the veteran Adventurer still hadn’t moved from his stunned state by the time he got out of his Divine Sense’s range.