Beacon from Beyond

Dei cried into the air for a long time after his mother left. He knew that he would be alone for either the rest of his life, or until he was strong enough to take on every Shaman at once. He cried until he fell asleep, laying back in the indent that him and his mother had rested in while she was still here. He slept fitfully yet dreamlessly, and when he awoke, he still felt ragged.

His throat was dry, and he looked towards the stream in the corner. Without his mothers pack, he would soon need to start searching for food, even if the water was taken care of by the small trickle running through here…

Except he did see his mothers pack. By the door, he noticed a familiar satchel made of sturdy, dark brown leather. He felt tears well up in his eyes when he realized she had left it for him, but cleared his throat and swallowed them down. He had much to do, and so little time.

He could stand and walk now, having learned in the time his mother was still here. He also realized that his [Tremor Sense] was cut off somehow, stopping him from being overwhelmed. He could only see the smallest sphere of area around the cave, just five or six feet out, before his senses hit some sort of brick wall. He wondered if there was something cutting them off from the outside world, and that this feature of the cave was why his mom had taken them here to hide.

She was so proud of his first steps, even if she looked slightly bittersweet that they had happened while in hiding. He noticed that his body was developing functionality faster than it was necessarily supposed to, and attributed it all to [Growing Pains]. He unsteadily made his way over to the bag, pulling with all his might on the water skin, but ran into a second problem. He wasn't strong enough to lift it up.

While he could unscrew the top and drink it as it spilled out, he did not want to waste the water, even if it looked like he had an unlimited amount from the stream.

For now, he walked over to the side of the cave, leaned down, and let the water run into his mouth as he pressed his face against the moss. He had seen his mother drink the same water, and even give him a sip from it. He suspected it was to see if there was anything in it that would make it harmful to him, so that if he was forced to drink the water, she would know she needed to heal him afterwards. It was unnecessary, as the water was harmless to him. It tasted horrible, like grass and dirt, but he supposed that was kind of what he was drinking.

He cupped his tiny hands, getting some of it on them, and noticed that it was crystal clear. Even if it tasted very earthy, there weren’t any visible pollutants.

He sighed. He knew he had been putting it off for a long time, but it was time he looked through all the changes that had happened in his interface over the last few days. He still didn’t want to, again suspecting a compulsion the System gave him to try and wait until his soul was healed fully, but he didn’t have a choice any more. He would need all the tools he could get to survive where he was. While he suspected that he could eat the bugs in this little cave if he ran out of food, he would rather not do that.

Willing the notifications to organize themselves from oldest first, to the most recent notification last, he went through them. They started right after the affinities had posed their deals

[Soul: High-Common: 17%] has strengthened into [Soul: Low-Uncommon 0%]]

He had definitely gained tons of smaller percentages from all the messing with his soul that Iora was doing to him, implanting him with language and fear, then going through everything within him again. Apparently, having your soul torn apart by something significantly stronger than you while you try to resist upgraded it by quite a bit.

He wondered why that was, as he couldn’t see why it would strengthen his connection at all. Soul was solitary from what he heard from everyone else. It was about diving deeper into himself and who he was… but maybe thats what he was forced to do?

When she went back over his memories, she inspected every single part of his memories, including the parts of him that he hadn’t actively seen before. She went over memories his body had, yet he didn’t actually know how to tap into, such as his memories of before his consciousness woke back up.

In other words, she increased the connection between his soul and body by stitching them together in ways they weren't supposed to, that way she could see deeper into him. If he was some sort of creature evolved to mimic children, he would probably have a natural defense against mind-reading. This defense didn’t have to be conscious, and it could be something that not even he knew about, such as just forgetting that he was a monster. She woke up every single experience, whether he knew about it or not, then pulled it into his physical mind, so that she could read it.

These experiences, now physically linked to his body in ways it wasn't really supposed to be, artificially increased his connection to soul. An agonizing yet effective training regime, which he would not be repeating.

He moved to the next notification

[Soul of the (IIIIIIII)

Swimming, diving, fighting, pulling, ripping. You fight. You kill. You eat. Your strings are great. They are strong. You are strong. Become stronger. Gain more. Strengthen strings.

Soul is 100% easier to advance

Gain three Uncommon grade Skills of your choosing from all possible Soul Skills (REWARD ALTERED)

Gain one Rare grade Skill of your choosing from all possible Soul Skills (REWARD ALTERED)

Gain one Epic grade Skill, Chosen for you from all possible Soul Skills. (REWARD ALTERED)

Gain an absolute understanding of your own soul (Already achieved). Gain one Rare Skill, Chosen for you from all possible Soul Skills (REWARD ALTERED)

Intervention (one time use)

Increase your sensitivity to the presence of other souls.

It becomes easier to pierce the spiritual defenses of creatures smaller than you (REWARD ALTERED)

It becomes easier to pierce the spiritual defenses of creatures with less Soul presence (REWARD ALTERED)

It becomes 20% more difficult to learn and advance other affinities

You prefer isolation even further, disliking large crowds of people or those you do not trust. When socializing with those you do trust, your connection to Soul will slowly take damage, accelerating the longer you socialize.]

[WARNING: Contract not meant for your race! Accepting contract may have adverse effects in process of infusion]

[WARNING: Contract artificially altered. Balance is still maintained, reward and weakness equal to before, but is beyond standard formatting.]

When he read the name of the contract, he didn’t see anything, but he felt and heard a lot. There was the grinding sound of rocks being pushed against each other. The clacking of jaws chewing down into bones, breaking it to eat the sweet marrow within. He smelled blood in the water, and felt as the domain he claimed was his.

Reeling back from the notification, he quickly closed it and held his head.

“Ugh” he heard a groan escape his lips. It didn’t hurt, per se, but the feeling was overwhelming. When he looked at it, he felt like he was no longer human.

He opened the notification while actively ignoring the name of it, reading the rest. His eyebrows rose at the description, then his eyes widened even further reading the rewards and warnings attached

The contract gave up his three Uncommon skills he earned, as well as his Rare skill. Instead, they merged together into the reward of a single Epic Skill.

After that, the ‘extra’ Rare Skill he earned by already understanding his soul was also given up, instead netting him a one-time use “intervention,” whatever that meant.

This contract… was meant for a beast. Some animal he didn’t know. Something that was able to use any Soul skill, so it was most likely something that was born with the natural affinity for Soul. This was further confirmed when the description read “prefer isolation even further” yet the “even” was crossed out. Whatever this creature was, it lived a solitary life, one natural to Soul.

Speaking of the downsides, they were bad for this contract. Any socializing with people he didn’t already know was going to hurt his Soul affinity, like some sort of mega-introvert.

He was confused about why Soul had given him such a weird contract, but had a thought. ‘What if this was the only way it could help me survive? What if this was the only combination of things it could put into my contract that would end with me not passing on?’

After Iora had shredded his soul, he was as good as dead. He wasn’t just killed, his soul had nowhere to go, everything about him was rapidly being stripped away as he began to unravel. Soul, the affinity, needed to do something that was going to put his soul back together.

Moving on to the next notification, the idea was further cemented.

[Skill Gained: Connection]

[State: Dying has caused Soul Intervention to automatically activate]

[Soul temporarily taking control of Skill: Connection]

It had granted him a Skill, then took control and used it perfectly to save him. On top of this, he suspected that it footed the bill for the mana cost, as he doubted he had enough mana to use the skill as much as it had been used.

He studied the stringy structure in his soul multiple times over the past few days, and as far as he could tell, it was an absurdly pure manifestation of Soul mana. Even more pure than the mana present in his [Pandora’s Box (Contained)], a Skill which automatically concentrates the mana down into deeper forms. Actually, now that he had a better idea of how magic worked, it would be better to say that his skill made the concepts in the mana closer to the “deep concepts” that his mother had told him about.

Dei sighed. He didn’t know what this weird contract was going to do to him, but he was glad to be alive, and grateful that Soul had found a way to practically resurrect him.

He read the last few notifications.

[Stat Gained: Spiritual +1]

[Stat Gained: Physical +1]

[Skill Leveled Up: Growing Pains (17) -> (18)]

[Stat Gained: Spiritual +1]

And wasn't surprised. He probably got those after his soul began to mend, and his body started to develop more quickly. Initially, he thought the quickened development was because he was under a lot of stress so [Growing Pains] was responding in kind, but there was another suspect as well… he checked his Interface.

[Name: Dei Grrata

Race: Human (Gem Dweller Variant)

Class: N/A

Profession: N/A

Achievements: Void Walker, Soulspeak, Beyond Understanding, No Rulers Above All, Bearing the Burden, Slayer of Mountains

Contracts: Soul of the (IIIIIIII)

HP: 18/18

MP: 18/18

SP: 18/18

Stats:

Physical: 8 -> 9

Mental: 10

Spiritual: 12 ->14

Magical: 11

Affinities:

Kindness: Mid-Rare, 29% -> 34%

Wrath: Low-Uncommon: 83% ->99%

Soul: Low-Uncommon: 0% -> 37%

Inner Skills:

Kindness: Pandora’s Box (Contained) (50) (40/2000) -> (590/2000), Call for Help (9), Good Samaritan (1)

Wrath: Pandora’s Box (Unleashed) (2), Growing Pains (18)

Soul: Astral Projection (1), Connection (1)

Confluence: Identify of the Stout Protector (1)

Outer Skills:

How About a Demonstration?]

Yea, he was seeing the change now. His [Pandora’s Box (Contained)] had gained hundreds of points of mana, so he looked at a breakdown of it.

[583/2000 Wrath

7/2000 Kindness]

The Wrath was expected, as he had been furious a lot over the last few weeks. First in the dark room with Iora when he thought his mom had abandoned him to her, again when he realized she was manipulating his psyche, a few more times when people tried hurting his mom, then there had been a simmering irritation the entire time he had been trapped in this cave. He was frustrated. He wanted to go back to his family, and just keep living quietly, but he knew that wouldn’t happen

[585/2000 Wrath]

He sighed. And then he was angry one last time, when his mom had to leave in order to guide Iora and whoever else was there to track him away. Thank goodness to his Skill, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to keep his head, and he might’ve either snapped at his mom or refused to tell her that he loved her before she left.

Just thinking of that, he said one more quiet prayer to Kindness. He would never have forgiven himself if he hadn’t told his mom he loved her, one last time.

What was less expected was the Kindness mana in his [Pandora’s Box]. He couldn’t be sure, but he suspected he earned it by helping his mom escape the shadow attacks, and then a bit more when he told her that he loved her.

Back to his original point, Dei was most likely developing much quicker, as his [Growing Pains] skill had much, much more fuel to work with. He noticed it struggling to pull more Wrath concentration from his [Pandora’s Box (Contained)] Skill when it had a smaller pool to work with.

He didn’t know if it would be fast enough though. He needed to develop to take care of himself in a world where magical beasts hunted, and he needed to find a way to hunt.

Looking over his interface though, there were two new Skills he still needed to read. He started with the first one, the Skill that had kicked off the entire endeavor. It truly was a bittersweet feeling knowing that he had saved a life, and promptly had his own stolen from him, but he couldn’t change the past. Even if he could though, he doubted that he would. He pulled up the description to distract himself

[Identify of the Stout Protector - Level 1 - Soul/Wrath/Kindness Affinity

There are many unknowns in the world. Some will kill you, some will protect you, some will be neutral, but there will be uncertainties everywhere you go. They do not need to stay that way, but the path to discovering secrets is not singular. Uncovering the uncertainties of the world can require the hammer and chisel, or the gentle touch of a brush. Using this Identify, take one of two paths you desire, harnessing the power to protect those closest to you.

Gives the ability to glean information from the subject's soul signature. If the subject of Identify does not have a soul signature, it will fail. Identify comes in two modes: Kindness or Wrath

Kindness Mode: Gently attempt to glean information from the subject of identify. If the creature is Sentient, a mental handshake will be initiated as you request information about it. If the request is denied, Identify will fail. If the request is granted or the subject is non-sentient, you will slowly glean more information on the subject the longer you channel Identify it.

Wrath Mode: A needle-like intangible soul attack will be launched at the target, piercing the natural defenses souls put up against being Identified. Subjects who are hit with this version of Identify and fail to resist it will have their obscuration Skills temporarily yet violently disabled. If the needle of Identify successfully pierces the subject, they will be dealt soul damage relative to the amount of mana channeled into the Skill, and you will immediately glean information from the subject relative to the amount of mana channeled into the Skill.

Minimum initial cost: 5 mana.]

It was an incredible skill, if he was understanding this correctly. With it, he could “glean information” from things using their soul as the medium. He had to test this out.

Looking around the pocket cave he was in using his soul sight, everything around him glowed. The bugs had souls and the plants had what he thought were souls, but were mostly unrecognizable to him and shaped in a way he couldn't understand. He saw a little green beetle that reminded him of a rhinoceros beetle from earth, and decided it would be a good subject for his [Identify].

He didn’t want to hurt the little guy, so he activated Kindness mode and sent it at the little creature that was crawling up the wall.

Dei felt the mental request be sent at the bug. The bug paused halfway up the wall and looked at him by tilting its head in his direction. It stared at him for a few seconds.

Dei felt the bug deny the request, and he burst out laughing.

Rolling around in the grass for a few seconds as he struggled to breathe, he eventually calmed down enough to look at the bug again. For some reason, the idea that the bug saw him and had the audacity to tell a creature hundreds of time its size ‘no’ was incredibly funny to him.

He wanted to try again, but he was already down by five mana, and he didn’t know how quickly it regenerated, so he would be more careful this time around.

How would he make it succeed though? Studying the bug a little closer , he looked a bit further up the wall to where it was crawling. Up on the wall was a thin vine that it looked like the beetle was crawling towards. He studied the vine for a few seconds, but couldn’t see anything special about it. Nonetheless, he focused back on the beetle and tried again.

Sending a second request, this time he tried imbuing the handshake with something else.

‘Let me study you a little bit and I’ll set you down on the vine’

Again, the beetle paused and looked at him for a few seconds. It looked back up towards its location, and at first Dei thought it would reject him again, but he felt agreement come back to him.

He smiled, picking up the beetle that didn’t struggle in his grasp, and set it down on the vine up above. He also continued channeling mana into his identify, gently reading some facts about the beetles soul. He didn’t have anything in particular he wanted to know, so he just let it run, and slowly, he felt a window in his mind fill up.

[Greengrow Beetle]

It said at first

[Greengrow Beetle - Level 183]

‘WHAT?’

He died laughing a second time.

‘What the hell! Why is this beetle so high level!’ he asked himself through his tears. This Greengrow Beetle was the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life. And he could say that with confidence, because he was not very old.

He let the spell keep running, and its page slowly filled up.

[Greengrow Beetle - Level 183

Greengrow Beetles are a niche species of beetle that appears rarely in caves with no large predators and a hyper-charged mana environment. Feeding on smaller bugs and various plants, these beetles contain a significant quantity of mana for their little bodies.

HP: 163/166

MP: 332/332

SP: 129/166

Physical: 83

Mental: 2

Spiritual: 4

Magical: 1]

It was so weird, Dei felt like he was much stronger than this beatle, but his Physical stat was so much lower. He had to be sure though, because this beetle might be multiple times more powerful than him. It was also odd that the magical stat was double what it was normally supposed to be. Reading the description though, it was perhaps a quirk of this species of insect.

He watched as the beetle just kinda rummaged around on the vine he had placed him on. Once he had gotten all the information he needed from the beetle, Dei tried to dig a little bit deeper. The level and stats were a very surface level reading, but he wanted to see if it had any affinities.

The moment he tried digging deeper though, the beetle decided it didn’t take kindly to that, and cut him off before he could get any information from it. Instantly, the surface level Interface he was looking at disappeared. The beetles confidence against him still made him smile, until he remembered that it might very well be stronger then him, then his brow scrunched a bit.

He decided that he would stop experimenting with his [Identify] Skill for now. He didn’t want to hit any of the little creatures in the cave with the Wrath version of it, since it seemed kind of harmful, so he would put that off until later.

Instead, he looked more into his new Skill given to him by his contract called [Connection].

[Connection - Level 1 - Soul Affinity

A rumbling echo of the deep, feel as it flows through your body and out, connecting you to the world. The pulse journeys through all, taking and giving. The web connects all, pulling and pushing.

Gives the ability to form the strings of the Connection spell

Cost: 1 mana point with 50 times Soul Concentration per inch of Connection]

Oof, another doozy just like his Contract. It also further confirmed that the System couldn’t read into Skills given to him by his affinities, because the System very clearly had no idea what it did. The cost confused him for a second as he wondered what “50 times Soul Concentration” was, but it made him think of his [Pandora’s Box (Contained)]. He pulled it up again.

[Pandora’s Box - Level 50 - Kindness Affinity - 592/2000 Mana Stored

To contain your sin, you have created a tangible field within the world of concepts. To resist giving in to your anger, you refuse to lash out. You refuse to express your Wrath as you rise above your base instincts.

Creates a pool within your soul that contains the excess Affinity Mana produced by the various affinities of the user, unless otherwise specified

Contains (2)*((Spell Level)/10) mana rounded down per level (Currently 10 mana per level)

Also contains twice as much mana within the Spell

Also concentrates the mana within the pool, giving a conversion rate of 6 Affinity Mana to 1 Concentrated Affinity Mana (mild concentration)]

In the description of the Skill, it said that it would condense six affinity mana into one concentrated affinity mana. Applying it to the [Connection] Skill, it was safe to assume that the skill would require a single point of Soul affinity mana, concentrated down from fifty Soul affinity points. Dei didn’t know how he was going to get that kind of concentration, so it would be safe to assume that he wasn’t going to be able to “produce” anymore of the strings for a long time. Instead, he would be stuck working with what he already had which, admittedly, was quite a lot. It was difficult to measure how long the string of [Connection] already was, as the Soul didn’t exactly have a set size, but it was a lot.

He looked at his own skin, pulsing with a bright white power that criss-crossed all along him, and he saw just how much there was. He didn’t think all the cracks were surface-level either, he could feel the warm glow deeper within his body all along his organs even if he couldn’t see it.

[Connection] held his soul together, but the condition of his soul was reflected in his body. Even if [Connection] didn’t effect him physically, it still manifested itself in some way he could see.

The level of concentration required for the Skill also made him think it took advantage of some sort of deep concept, kind of like how his mother told him dragonfire was a deep concept. Was [Connection] the tool of some legendary beast, like a dragon?

The name of the contract gave him the feeling of a cold and solitary place. Somewhere life struggled, yet horrible creatures fought and killed for supremacy. He couldn’t get it out of his head that it felt like… the ocean. Somewhere the light didn’t touch, further down than his old worlds oceans ever went.

The feelings made him shiver in fear. Even if the creature wasn’t anywhere near him, he still didn’t feel safe. From his Interface, he thought the little blue box that indicated the name of the contract watched him, even if he didn’t think it was possible.

[Connection] was never meant for humans in the same vein that [Dragonfire] wasn’t. He felt like Prometheus, stealing fire from the Gods and soon to be punished for his transgression.

But what could rival a dragon? Dei always thought dragons were supposed to be the most powerful mythical creatures, but he lived in a world filled with actual magic, not just some storybook. There was a good chance that some creatures he didn’t know about existed to rival even his wildest nightmares.

He closed the screen showing him [Connection]. He’d been staring blankly at it the entire time he was thinking, but he felt his body begin to shiver harder the longer he looked at it. It was weird, could he really be this scared of a simple screen? Nothing dangerous had happened, nothing had changed on the interface, yet he shook harder than ever before.

He sighed… and saw his breath.

His eyes went wide, and he realized that the entire cave had cooled, significantly. He closed his Interface entirely and looked around, seeing that the little stream running down the wall had frozen solid, and some frost was inching outwards from it. Now that he was looking at it though, the frost began to rapidly recede.

Fear coursed through him as he realized that perhaps, in a world full of magic, there was a way for the more powerful races to track those that had stolen their powers. He refused to move as he watched the cave return to its normal functions. The stream continued to trickle, the grass was unharmed by how fast the cold had come and gone, and no bugs were caught in it. After a minute or two, all signs of it were gone, but Dei couldn’t force himself to forget the terrifying image of the frost crawling outwards from the little water he had access to.

Despite it returning to normal, Dei still refused to move. Something in him screamed that he was still in danger, and he noticed that, directly in front of him, the Greengrow Beetle he had observed before was halfway down the wall. It wasn’t moving either… it had stopped mid stride. All the bugs in his periphery had.

Hours passed, nothing moved, and Dei was caught in his own mind recoiling in shock. He wanted to cry, but knew his tears would move down his face.

Three hours later, Dei felt a presence leave. He hadn’t noticed it was there in the first place, but he did feel it leave. He knew it wasn’t anywhere close to the cave, just watching the area from some distant place, and he didn’t think it had seen him. Had the cave's ability to cut itself off from the outside world blocked the creature's sight? Was he only alive on a fluke, having not looked at the notifications until he was hidden from the sight of anything on the outside world?

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

He needed to be very, very careful with this Skill.