The Fool's Freedom

As soon as Alan left and reappeared in the World Temple there was a System message waiting for him.

Congratulations. For being the first being from a newly integrated world to step into the unknown and explore the universe, you have been granted the title: First Pathfinder.

Pioneer has fulfilled its purpose and has been replaced by the title - First Pathfinder.

First Pathfinder

To walk among the stars, to visit worlds and fractals long lost in the dark void, to search and find a path where others cannot. To explore, to yearn for adventure, to dream of the impossible. There will be many others, but you were the first.

You become much more sensitive to spatial energy, phenomena, and hidden spatial passages.

You are very adaptive to spatially unstable environments.

Well, [Pioneer] didn’t seem to offer much anymore, and a replacement was very much welcome. The title sounded grand, and while it didn’t offer any of the much-coveted percentage modifiers it had effects that sounded like they could come in handy and potentially save his life. He wouldn’t call himself a pathfinder; he had always operated on the principle that not knowing where you are didn’t mean you are lost as long as you don’t admit to it.

Could denial be a superpower in a world of magic? How would that work? Huh.

Alan returned to the Sanctuary trading and browsed a bit more, looking for some healing potions or mana crystals, but all he found were herbal tinctures that ‘might’ work and some more wailer crystals and beast parts.

The Sanctuary trading was quickly becoming oversaturated with all kinds of garbage as people tried to trade whatever they could for medicine, and good weapons, and Alan hoped that would change soon.

Still, many of the good weapons similar to Ash’s bow were traded for crystals and monster parts. There were a few daggers that caught his attention, but he still had his enchanted ritual dagger and an ordinary one.

Their Sanctuary seemed to be doing quite good and he had to admit he had underestimated the gangs. Maybe calling them gangs was a bit harsh as they did manage to create balance and order into the otherwise sure-to-fall-apart fragile imitation of a society.

He opted to trade 15 of the wailer crystals to cleanse the big one and then traded half of the remaining 12 to get 6 cleansed small ones. It was annoying wasting so many resources, but that was his only option for now.

The cleansed crystals that appeared in front of him looked almost like ordinary rocks, with none of the glow that the ones from Ig-Thun had had, which only showed him that he had nowhere near enough for another ritual so soon. Which was a shame, as the bonus was one of his safest and surest ways to grow stronger fast without having to go out and risk his life.

The only other safer path was to improve on his limited skills. He would have to go out and hunt, and soon. Preferably opponents weaker than the Echidna but not by much.

His bag was once again on his shoulders and Alan tried to will it back into the token, but nothing happened. Old Greyheart had alluded it was possible, though, so he didn’t plan to give up.

Walking out of the hall he saw Ashlyn sitting on the steps with a bored expression on her face.

“Hey Ash, was I gone long?”

She stood up and smiled, “Not at all, about twenty minutes or so. Time is funky in the Temple.”

So it is.

“We should get back to Walter and let him know we’re all right, then back to the grind?” she asked.

Alan agreed, “Sounds good, but first I would like to rest a bit, make sure there is nothing healed out of place. And I’ve got some ideas for my skills, so I want to try that.”

“Sure, sounds great. Let’s pass by Walt and then go to the place I’ve got dibs on. It would be great with some magical restoration.”

The two walked down the steps of the World Temple and passed the bunch of guards who eyed them warily. Alan gave another manic smile to the young man from before, just for the hell of it, and watched as he paled.

“Damn, I feel like a gangster from the old movies.”

“You are acting unhinged enough to pull it off. Though, your style is kind of shit. Couldn’t you at least grab a better cloak while you were in there?”

Alan pulled the side of his tattered black cloak and frowned. There were a few more holes added to the bunch, and pieces of it hung by a literal thread.

“It’s got character,” he said.

“A bag of trash has got character, doesn’t mean it looks good.”

“Eh, I will get to it. Style comes second to ultimate power. Close second.”

Ashlyn shook her head and smiled. The walk back to Walter’s was uneventful. Alan was surprised at how quickly his reputation as a madman had spread as he watched people change direction to avoid the two of them. Maybe they were just afraid of Ash? She was scary.

Walter’s place was just where they had left it. Alan had half expected for the Sanctuary to shift like the Bazaar. The doors and windows were covered and the fire in front of it had long become ash.

“Walter?” Alan called out and pulled back the curtain. One of the candlestones Alan had left flickered in the middle of the room, lighting the space and creating quite the atmosphere.

“Walter?” Alan repeated, a bit quieter than he had intended. The room where he had performed his ritual was also closed with a curtain.

Alan grabbed his spear with both hands and carefully pushed the thick cloth out of the way. Walter’s weathered face turned to stare at him, looking particularly creepy under the light of the candlestones.

What surprised him though, was the person lying on the floor in front of Walter. Blood-soaked bandages and clothes littered the room, and there was an arrow stuck in the side of the stomach of the unconscious Florence.

“Alan! It’s bad!” Walter barked, “I asked for a healer but they told me to fuck myself. Tim refused to even speak to me.”

“Fuck me,” Alan quickly dropped his weapon and knelt. Without hesitation he took out the last vial of Arzuan Healing Liquid, and gently poured it into Florence’s mouth, lifting her head to help her swallow.

“What happened,” Ashlyn asked from behind.

“I don’t know, some folk found her with an arrow sticking out of her stomach a few hours after I was done with choosing my class. She is quite well known here, and people have seen us together so they called me. Had to chase some Future vultures who were telling people to let her bleed and throw her out of the barrier. No sign of Davis.”

This was bad.

“This arrow is like the good ones I bought from the Temple,” Ashlyn said. She had knelt next to Alan and examined the wounds, “shouldn’t we pull it out?”

“Yeah, but I am waiting for the potion to improve her condition a little bit first. I don’t want to instantly kill her by mistake,” Alan sat back on his heels and frowned. He knew that pulling an arrow out was dangerous. He had done it to himself but he had been quite high on stimulants, and none of the arrows had been in his stomach.

The three sat in silence until Florence’s breathing evened out and became much deeper and some of her shallower wounds started closing.

Alan decided that it was now or never, before the potion healed around the arrow, “Hold her.”

He considered asking Ashlyn to do it as her Strength was much higher but ultimately decided not to. It was his guidance they were following, and he was strong enough to take the arrow out.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled the arrow in a shower of blood and Florence screamed, trashing about. She quickly went back to being unconscious, and the newly invigorated bleeding stopped soon after.

There were sighs of relief around the trio as they allowed themselves to relax. Walter used a damp cloth to dab on Florence’s forehead.

“This world will take us all, no matter what we do,” he said.

“Unless we manage to use it. We should waste no time with petty struggles for power or control over others. It is getting more dangerous out there and I have it on good authority that we will get completely fucked if we wait around and don’t get stronger.”

“What do you mean?” Ashlyn asked.

“This new world is full of resources and chances to get stronger. And there are things beyond our imagination, that have been with the System for a long, long time, who certainly want to take a piece of that pie. Especially if the natives, meaning us and whoever else is out there, are weak babies who are carefully taking their first steps into the System-governed universe.”

“Well, fuck,” Walter said.

“Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?” Alan smiled. A fight against time, like he had done all his life, just on a different scale. And this time, he could fight back.

“You’ve really lost it,” Walter shook his head, but there was a glint in his eye, “Can’t say I am not excited to try my new class, though. If those punks hadn’t agreed to give me Florence…”

Alan slapped the man on the shoulder and laughed, “That’s the spirit. Remember though, information is power. We will probably reach a point where knowing someone’s class or skills is half the battle.”

“Yeah. There’s one of the gangs, Tigers or something… They’re all [Fighters] and they all pick the same skills. They are strong, but the other gangs are pushing them around simply because they are not versatile at all,” Ashlyn said.

“Adventuring parties always have a wide cast of roles for a reason,” Alan agreed, although there was probably an exception. Did the various powers around the universe have armies, or did it all come down to strong individuals duking it out?

Florence seemed to be sleeping and after an hour Alan decided it was time to head out for a bit. He assured Ashlyn he would just to the edge of the Sanctuary and experiment a bit. It took him a while to reach the place where he had first entered the barrier. The ring of broken stones and concrete blocks that seemed to surround the Sanctuary like a planetary ring was a good place to be by himself.

The first thing Alan did was draw his dagger and send out a [Shadow Slash]. The blade of darkness flew and disappeared into wisps. The second cast he tried to hold, and focused on feeling out the energy, its path, the way it changed as it left his body to become the [Shadow Slash].

He didn’t charge any more mana as he had done in the fights against the Wailing Carrions and the Echidna but only held the shadow blade from going off. It consumed mana, but it was a negligible amount. Most of the strain was on his body, as the dagger had become strangely heavy and unwieldy.

The featureless knight that had walked behind the strange girl in front of the hut of Old Greyheart flashed into his mind. His weapon was made of darkness, similar to Alan’s [Shadow Slash], but solid and permanent.

Attributes allowed one to shape his inner world is what Old Greyheart had told him.

Alan focused on that energy, connecting a strand of his mana to it, without allowing his mana to flow and change despite the insistence of the skill. He slowly forced his mana to shape the shadow energy, but pushed too far and everything dispersed, thankfully without blowing up in his face.

He did the whole thing again. There was sweat on his brow as he watched how the shadow covered the dagger and extended further and further, more than doubling the blade’s length. With an exhale, Alan grinned and swung.

What had been a normal dagger was now a much longer blade made of pure shadows, leaving a trail of darkness as it moved.

Congratulations! Your skill [Shadow Slash] has become [Shadow Weapon] (Rare).

Shadow Weapon (Rare)

By using a weapon as the base, you converge the shadows giving them mass and form, extending the weapon’s base form, and boosting its cutting ability.

Enchantments belonging to the original weapon are transferred over to the shadow version.

You can still cast [Shadow Slash].

Alan instantly felt the effort he was expending ease off, as the new skill took over the process completely, letting him enjoy the fruits of his labor.

He walked over to a nearby piece of concrete and slashed with his new shadow blade, and felt little resistance as the blade cut off a piece. The effect was greater than a [Shadow Slash], although it lacked the range.

If he could find an enchanted weapon with an effect that was more useful in normal fights than the effect of the ritual dagger, then he would be set. Learning to fight with blades was also a good thing to do, although he doubted there were any instructors around. He wondered if the Bazaar had people offering combat training. That was next on the agenda.

The next thing he did was sit cross-legged and access the Bazaar token on his wrist.

You cannot enter the Bazaar at this time.

I am not trying to!

Alan carefully probed the mark under his skin and felt something that was both there and wasn’t. There was a space inside of it, strange and closed off. He hadn’t felt it before, but now that he focused it was obvious. Was it the token itself or something it had created for itself with the marking?

Was it his new title, [First Pathfinder] that allowed him to notice? Had Old Greyheart known he would get it? Was it the key to using the token as a storage item outside of the Bazaar? So many unknowns.

Alan kept probing and probing, first with his natural mana, then he tried to turn it into shadow-attributed mana like his skills did. It came easy and he poked the strange space in the coin with it. Shadow mana reacted differently as it was somewhat stronger than his natural mana.

With a thought, he finally managed to shove past the barrier of the Bazaar Token.

The air shimmered and shadows swirled.