The Fool's Freedom

A man with a crazy smile. A scream. A sharp blade piercing something that was not flesh. It tore at the old man through whose eyes Alan was watching it all happen. Then there was only blackness.

Alan opened his eyes with a start and pulled away. That had been much less information than he’d expected.

“Well?” Isind asked.

“Well, what?” Alan snapped. What was he supposed to do? This was the sixth corpse he was using [Last Glimpse] on. It was not getting easier. Rather, it was getting much more difficult to comprehend what he was seeing. It was fatigue build-up – a new kind of it.

Some of the deaths had been downright traumatizing even for him, especially when all that was left in the coffin were disembodied pieces of flesh that looked melted. He still shuddered at the sight of the insectoid truck-sized monster that was responsible for that one.

Most were normal. Betrayals, stabs in the back or directly through the eye socket. There was a drowning, in which a water mage forced such a quantity of water through the orifice of his victim, that the woman simply died from her organs being displaced and destroyed.

Alan shook his head. Each cast of the skill left him feeling worse. As if it was him dying, and not someone else. As if, while the visions were becoming visually more confusing and his mind was struggling to keep up, he was also feeling things. Whether it was a trick of the brain or something else, he did not know.

On some level, Alan started regretting his decision to seek help. He had done fine on his own now. However, the promise of a tier-up was too much even for him to resist. He wanted to know what lay beyond. He wanted to feel more power, to get close to the state he’d felt during the effect of the Void Dragon’s [Bestowment].

Would it happen after reaching tier two? Or was it impossible? He felt almost like a drug addict seeking a fix, only his drug was the endless power coursing through him and washing away the weakness. He had briefly felt as if the world could be contained in the palm of his shadow-covered hand… Like the dragon that had appeared. The one that had held his neck and gazed at him as if gazing at an insect.

“I mean, technically skills like this one, which provides sensory information, visions, and so on, start acting out when you overdo them. We’re brute forcing it, so it might feel heavy on the mind and spirit. It’s not a simple skill, and it's certainly not a pleasant experience for someone as weak as you to see so much death.”

Alan snapped to attention and for a moment felt the anger inside of him wash over, then it died down, placated like an unruly child by the all-encompassing curiosity that seemed to always nest inside of his mind since becoming shadowless.

“It’s like… I can’t see as much anymore… But I’m starting to feel it. The stabs, the acid, the encroaching blackness.” He shuddered. Was death just a gateway to true emptiness? Was he supposed to understand and use what lay beneath the cold embrace of eternity?

Isind nodded. “That’s normal. I didn’t warn you, but what we’re doing is not the smartest way to go about it. However, you want fast results, so doing it over and over and over again will be the best method.” He took out a small vial of milky liquid and handed it to the confused Alan. “Drink this. It’ll help you focus. This time, when you go under, try with all your might to stretch the time you spent there. Think of it not as a vision of a past, but as something that belongs to you. Claw at it, use whatever you can manage.”

Alan nodded.

“Does this cost extra?” he asked before drinking the liquid.

Isind laughed. “No. To be completely transparent, knowledge of different skills is a payment in itself, and what you’re giving me is a rare opportunity. Everyone’s obsessed with skills that do big booms and kill more things. And those with more… peculiar abilities are seldom alright with sharing them. It can be said I’m taking advantage of you.” The man winked.

That was… good and not good. Alan was already worried that he was making a deal with the devil, but the Bazaar was not a place where lies were tolerated for one reason or another, so he could believe Isind’s claims without trusting the man’s character. It was a freeing feeling.

Alan gulped down the liquid – it came with a slight sweetness and went straight for his brain. Similar to a drink of something bubbly. It refreshed him and made him sigh.

“Clarity tonic. The good stuff. Go.”

Alan reached out for the next coffin. This one was of a girl with strange features – three eyes, no nose, and looking no older than ten.

The skill took him and Alan found himself looking at a man of similar features to the girl. Two of his eyes were closed, and only the one on his forehead was open seemingly shining with strange light.

“You failed me. Now, you have to die,” he said. The language was strange – nothing Alan’s trait was equipped to handle, but he understood each word. “Goodbye, daughter.”

The girl whose final moments he was seeing screamed, then… darkness. Alan tried to hold on to it, but it washed over without slowing down and the more effort he expended the worse he felt the pain of the girl’s last moment.

His eyes focused, staring at the side of the coffin he was now kneeling next to.

“Are you alright?” Isind asked. He didn’t sound worried, only curious.

“So much death,” Alan said. “I can’t hold on to death.”

“Hmm, think of it as if you’re flexing a muscle. Five seconds may become six in time. Then seven. You will suffer the first few tens of times, maybe hundreds. Don’t worry though, we have enough corpses. There are more on the way too.”

“Does it have to be a different one each time?” Alan couldn’t understand that part. Wasn’t it possible to simply go for one of the corpses and experience the same thing over and over again? Wouldn’t that make things easier?

“We’re not going for easy. We’re going for great. New experiences are precious. By all means, if you feel like you’ve got something to learn from the death of those here, use them as many times as you need. Learning’s the goal after all. Who knows where the skill will lead you? Imagine, just imagine if you could take something from your visions. If you could gain their experience if you could learn from their mistakes as if they’re your own…” Isind’s eyes had grown dreamy and he spoke with such passion Alan for the first time in a long while felt true jealousy. Had he ever been as passionate about anything?

A voice in his head answered quickly with a resounding ‘Yes’. He had been passionate about killing Bonez, about revenge, about growing strong enough to find the Bone Lord and crush the smug bastard.

Alan exhaled and nodded. He was fired up. He stood up and walked over to the next corpse. It was hard to tell what it was, but a piece of skin the size of a hand made him think of lisarni. Was it one of them? No matter.

He reached with his hand.

“Hold on like your life depends on it!” Isind called at the last moment.

A world of fire and brimstone. A group of adventurers trekking through the harsh terrain. He heard the ones behind him scream as the ground broke apart and a giant monster reminiscent of a centipede tore through their ranks. Alan felt the creature rip through the one whose death he was witnessing and then the world spun as something deep inside the person activated.

The last thing they and Alan saw before the endless black came was the center of a large opulent hall filled with armored beings.

Alan held on to the feeling, agonizing over the tiny parts of a second he managed to steal before the skill’s effect ended.

By the end of it, he was panting from the mental strain. He couldn’t figure out how to go about it, but there was clapping coming from his side. Isind laughed.

“Good! Twelfth of a second more than last time. Again!”

Alan groaned.

***

Many hours later Alan woke up on the cold floor of Isind’s skill training facility. Calling it a gym considering all of the corpses around was just too insane for Alan.

He didn’t remember fainting, but he was sure it had happened.

Isind was smiling over him like a maniac. “Wakey, wakey. I got a fresh batch of corpses waiting for you. Do you need anything? Water? Food?”

Alan rose up with a groan and shook his head. The last thing he needed was food, but he took the offered glass of water and drank it all at once. It was the most delicious liquid he’d ever tasted and soon Isind offered another which Alan annihilated as well.

Then, without a word he got to work. This time the victims had suffered even worse and stranger deaths ranging from what seemed to be the end of a torture session all the way to a poor woman getting her still beating heart gouged out and eaten in front of her eyes.

The effects the System and its given classes seemed to have on the various beings didn’t go unnoticed. Some managed to survive a couple of seconds after gruesome wounds or toxic poison – something a normal human wouldn’t have managed.

Alan lost track of time. Each death was a journey and each death was an experience that added to his. He even made Isind note the more interesting corpses for repeat experiences – those who had died in duels or combat with other classes. What if he could watch longer? What if he could gleam through the used skill and gain inspiration?

A few times he even managed to feel the exact moment the one whose death he was seeing cast their skills. It was too short of a time to learn, but if he could prolong it, or better yet, freeze and hold on to it… Alan couldn’t think of the possibilities calmly. He would be able to study anyone he wished.

He’d long stopped caring where Isind was getting all the different corpses. There was a different need in him. One born of curiosity and desire for strength.

Alan lost track of time as he submerged himself over and over, each time until he passed out from exhaustion. It felt great to not fear his vitality dropping or life ending, and the whole experience was somewhat cathartic, despite its difficulty.

Few of the times even Isind spoke with undisguised admiration, lamenting that if all his students were so masochistic he would’ve long been hailed the greatest teacher in the Myriad Realms. Alan took it as a compliment – it was meant as such, despite the different implications.

After a particularly hard session, Alan was once again on his knees panting.

“Seven seconds and a quarter.”

“Is that so?” It feels like holding on to eternity.

“Come on, don’t slack now!” Isind urged earning himself a scowl.

Alan stood up and with shaky feet reached the next coffin, but not before checking out [Last Glimpse’s] description.

Last Glimpse (Rare)

See the last seven seconds of the life of the dead body you touch.

It seems like the system doesn’t care about the quarter huh? He chuckled. His body was mostly fine but it seemed like his nervous system and his mind were getting overloaded. No matter. He was improving, even if it was one of the worst grinds he’d subjected himself to both before and after the apocalypse.

It can’t get worse than this.

***

It did get worse. Much worse. Alan cursed on the inside, never giving Isind the satisfaction of hearing his thoughts on what was happening. Despite his earlier musings, Alan was glad Xil was not around to see his current state and predicament.

The tonics and invigorating water Isind seemed to provide as if he had a bottomless supply helped a lot, but it was still not enough to save the mind from fatigue.

However, it had all proven to be worth it in the end. Improving the time Alan spent holding on to that feeling of death had slowly given him more time in the vision as the skill shifted to start earlier. To the current him, the difference between five and ten seconds had become a chasm that had cost him both energy and sanity to cross.

Thankfully, reaching the arbitrary threshold they were going for had proven enough to make his skill advance.