The Fool's Freedom

The mana was abundant and the world was brimming with everchanging life. The trees, the earth, the beasts he could sense were all growing by the second. Miniscule changes that made Alan sigh and forget himself for a moment. As the current him saw it, mana was equivalent to existence and beyond, and even the void itself was simply a different type of mana that opposed the rest. How else could anything thrive on it otherwise?

It was much more than simple affinity and his new ability to sense emptiness and even apply it to himself in a small degree was amazing. Some almost meditative calm was very welcome to reinforce his other abilities.

He had been going from one extreme to the other lately. He felt surges of cruelty and desire to unleash suffering stemming from his experience with the Bone Lord. The arrogance he had felt when the dragon’s power had coursed through his veins still lingered too like an echo waiting for an opportunity. He had killed so many without batting an eye. Would he have done it if the power was his? That was just looking for an excuse – ‘Someone else gave me the gun I just pulled the trigger.’

No. He had done it all.

Alan hazily remembered being almost overwhelmed by the whispers of the shadows at one point too, but it felt like a distant dream. They seemed to reflect his emotions and even add to them, like small tiny devils whispering in his ear. However, at that single moment, they had almost become part of who he was. That was dangerous.

Lastly, he felt the remnants of the paranoia and lack of confidence that had appeared during his stay in the Bazaar. Overthinking had always been one of Alan’s strongest talents, to his utter dismay. Even now he wondered which of the branching paths he had stepped on would be his downfall.

Would the shadows rage and consume him, turning him into a vessel for their will? Or would that be the deed of the one whose legacy the System had given him? Saiya.

Perhaps he would awaken more of his bloodline and lose it under the immense power of dragons, or because he was incompatible with one thing or another. The System seemingly made evolution a boundless process, but… was it so?

Nothing had changed despite everything. Alan was still resolved to pay what was owed and to become the most powerful version of himself. However, it seemed that each time he reached a conclusion and felt himself grow as a person, his psyche would be shattered and he would have to pick up the pieces.

People were influenced by their classes, and so were the classes influenced by the people. Had he, perhaps, always wanted someone to rely on? It would explain his current trajectory. Using cynism and being an asshole as armor, while deep down the loneliness had crushed what had made Alan himself?

I’m getting sidetracked again. He shook his head. It felt weird heading into the unknown with so much uncertainty and so many things to resolve. Would stepping up to tier two be another monumental change that would further alter him, or would it be just like leaving a room and going into the next?

Perhaps it was just a checkpoint and the changes would continue slowly building up until he had something resembling an adequate kit of skills and traits. What was the end goal anyway? To be the strongest? That was highly unlikely even with all the strange boons he was running into.

And luck was a double-sided thing. For all the good he earned, came more problems.

He was sure the universe had a lot more to offer than the desolate fractal and all the death and sadness there. Alan sighed and took one last look around the treetops. He was sitting on the tallest of the trees and gazing upon the green world.

There was beauty in what the System had created. It was all deadly beneath the wondrous exterior but still, it was beautiful. It was human nature to seek the pleasing and the beautiful. And it was also human nature to destroy it and make use of it.

The mana itself was many times denser than anything he had sensed before, especially compared to the fractal that was now just a grey memory.

Even the Transient Bazaar hadn’t come close. Strange. He hadn’t sensed anything similar in the Bazaar apart from his few close brushes with epiphanies. Then again, he hadn’t really looked. The coffee place in the field, and Old Greyheart’s tea stood out.

The thought of Isind calling on the debt made him anxious too, but it would probably be just another delve into a dead body. He had done enough of those for now.

Alan had been worried that showing the wrong skill description would be considered lying, but it didn’t seem that the Bazaar cared or had noticed, thankfully.

At least his new skill was cool. He dreaded to think of the trouble he’d bring upon himself once he started using it properly. Was it considered graverobbing if he rummaged into the memories of the dead to learn of buried treasures or powerful knowledge?

Whatever. One step at a time. I need to find shelter and get to work first. Figuring out the skill from the Tome was also a priority, but two others trumped it all.

Figuring out what’s wrong with Xil, and advancing to tier two.

For that, he needed shelter.

Alan dropped down the tree and picked a random direction. Shadows billowed around him as tiny strands. He was excited to be back even if there was nothing left of the home he once knew.

And now… he was not just a lost foolish little prey for the horrors of the new world.

It was mere moments later that he ran into the first creature – a huge wolf that reminded him of the ones he had slain once. It was much different though, and fleshy protrusions were growing all over as if it was trying to evolve itself an armor. Its size dwarfed even the Prowlers from the fractal.

You have slain: Forest Armored Wolf (96)

Weak. Or am I strong? It’s so difficult to keep track of the power gaps. It feels like levels are just for me to track my own progress, rather than judge the strength of everyone else. Skills are the game changer, and so is the element of surprise.

Alan kept running around. He was looking for something in particular – a cave or anything that could be used as a shelter. He didn’t know what the tier-up would entail but it was certain he didn’t want to be bothered.

It took him about an hour. He left most of the monstrous animals he passed alone, as they seemed to fear him. The few that didn’t he just left behind. Nothing could keep up with him.

However, he knew those were the small fry. He had felt fearsome auras during his little experiment that dwarfed a lot of what he had seen so far. Maybe not the scary dragon man or even the Void Dragon, but they were fearsome compared to the current him nonetheless. Mana converging like an ocean. It was not restrained like the mana intelligent beings contained, but rather chaotic – more natural in a sense.

Finally, Alan found something that could work. He still hesitated. It was a ruin from the old earth, at least at first glance, and he didn’t recall there being many ruins out in the open before. The only one he could remember was the one he had passed through on the way out from Ig’Thun’s lair was one.

This looked almost like the corner of the top of a large building. There were not many openings but most of it was covered in dirt and foliage. A few shadow slashes took care of most of that and he took out his staff and with some reluctance turned it into a shovel. The item was only going to grow more powerful along with Alan with its percentage boost.

The description was easy to call back once he knew it, which was a great feature of the System.

Staff of Vel’Noir (Rare)

Passive: Adds +40% to the speed and range of projectiles.

Passive: Can serve as a focus and aid mana regeneration outside of combat.

I’ve not been utilizing it to its full potential. This will change. And I should’ve looked for an identity skill. Damn it.

Digging the ground was as easy as the shadowy shovel and his strength, no matter how much lower than that of others, was still superhuman at this point. It took him about ten minutes to find a door and his suspicions proved true. He broke through and heaved a sigh as warm and moist air assaulted him.

Hopefully, it’s not a Dungeon or something. It’s as good a place as any.

Alan carefully descended the dusty stairwell. His eyes were doing much better in the dark since his changes, but it was preferable to have a source of light so he took out a candlestone. Darkness was nothing that scared him, but at the origin of it all, he was still a human.

The walls followed the pattern from before. Metal and concrete melded together with earth, rocks, and roots as if someone had taken a building and made it one with the earth before returning its general shape. Like differently colored pieces of playdough slowly being made into one.

It was a fascinating thing.

He tried to sense the flow of mana but it didn’t tell him anything. It was certainly not as vibrant as up above in the forest, but it was not less. Just different.

He descended for a while and looked through rooms. Some looked like office buildings, others like caves that had never seen a human footstep onto their floors. One in particular grabbed his attention. There was only one exit and what looked to be the remains of a desk, or table.

The System seemed to arbitrarily choose what to age and tribute to entropy and what to keep intact. Surely there was some thought behind it, but Alan couldn’t and didn’t care.

He used [Shadow Creation] to reinforce the door he had passed through, blocking it to the best of his ability, before he checked the room one last time. If there had been windows adorning its walls now there was only earth and rock.

Hopefully, nothing will burrow here to eat me while I advance.

He sat down, back at the door, and coated himself in shadows too – like a blanket of sorts.

First, he took out Xil’s cube. It looked normal and focusing on it didn’t give him anything. Alan tried to recreate the feeling of Xil’s communication but that got him nowhere. With a sigh, he put it away in his shadow inventory.

Then, he examined his information one last time. He put all of his 42 free points into Magic as that seemed to count as his life from now on.

INFORMATION:

Name:

Alan Morgan

Race:

Shadowless

Bloodline:

Void’s Shadow | Progress: 1.1%

Class:

Warlock

Level:

100

Insight:

Flow; Emptiness

Titles:

First Pathfinder; Progenitor; Scion; Inheritor; Madcap; Slayer; Friend of the Spirit World; Enlightened; Mercenary(F)

ATTRIBUTES:

0

Strength

114 (OBOM + 94.2) +5 [15 base

Dexterity

129 (OBOM + 108.6) + 5 [15 base

Vitality

0

Will

408 (+94.2 from %) [314 base

Mind

458 (+90.5 from %) +5 [362 base

Magic

541 (R: EB +115) (+38.7 from %) [387 base

TRAITS:

One Mind, One Body; Empty Vitality; Shadowspeech; Broken One’s Will; Shadow Mind; Oathbound; Monochrome Armor;

SKILLS:

Warlock’s Body Mastery; Synaptic Failure; Shadow Creation; Ritual: Enchanted Bones; Ritual: Infused Flesh; Mortal Peril; Curse: Stolen Life; Mana Zap; Sacrificial Attack; Will of the Dead; Chains of the Dark Servants; Curse of Buried Shadows;

BODY ENHANCEMENTS:

Shadow Space; Enchanted Skeleton;

He frowned. During his change, he had felt something happen to his bones, but his status didn’t reflect a thing. He focused on it just in case.

Enchanted Skeleton (Enhancement)

Product of a Ritual, your bones are saturated with magic to the point of being able to carry enchantments.

Due to your bloodline’s effect, you cannot currently apply any enchantments to your skeleton.

That was curious. Maybe change would slowly come to him…Well then. Anything else? Nah, let’s go for it.

Alan closed his eyes.

You have fulfilled all requirements to advance to the next Tier.

Please find a safe place. Do you wish to proceed?

“Bring it.”

Please choose.

The world was gone and all that remained were the few choices floating in his mind. However, they seemed to freeze just before he could see what they read Alan found himself looking at a smiling naked spirit woman with tree-like skin.

“I promised to help, although you don’t seem to be dying anymore!” Enid said. “Will you let me?”

“How will you help?” Alan asked. He had forgotten about her promise. That was… not good.

“Well, first of all, are you sure you don’t want to trade away some of those choices? You won’t be able to pick a new class, but you will still advance, and…” she licked her lips. “I can give you a lot more.”

Alan laughed. “I’m not trading anything.” He hesitated, then smiled wide. “How about you owe me one and leave me be for now?”