Whispers from the Abyss

Luke touched the bubble with purple energy swirling in the middle of it. Luke was sucked into the bubble, where there was a big mass of land floating in the void with a mage tower in the middle. Luke started to make his way towards the tower; once at the tower, Luke heard a voice say, "Greeting little one, I am great sage Atosh. Here to teach you the basics of manipulation of abyssal energy. Just head right up the tower to the top, and I'll be right there to teach you." Luke was confused if this sage was a real being or not, so he asked, "What are you?" The sage Atosh laughed and said, "Why are you sure you are curious? Not that it's bad to be curious, but to answer your question, I am a small part of the sage Atoshe's soul with his memory that he left behind to teach all the youngins. Now, if you don't mind, make your way to the top of the tower." Luke nodded and then made his way up the tower, and once at the top, the sage was already waiting. The sage Atosh saw Luke make it to the top and said, "Are you ready to start, little one?" Luke responded in delight, "Yes, of course, I am ready to start learning magic!" The sage Atosh retorted, "Not so fast; you won't be learning magic just yet; you still need to learn the basics." Luke instantly became dejected by the sage's statement and thought, "This sucks; I really wanted to learn magic." The sage Atosh then told Luke, "Let's get started." Then the sage pulled out a book titled The Basics of Abyssal Energy and How to Properly Handle, and told Luke, "Get started reading the book, and if you have any questions, let me know." After the sage said this, it disappeared, and Luke started to read the book.

The sage disappeared and reappeared at the end of the bubble and muttered to itself, "It is to be expected that our knowledge has degraded over the years, but this is insane. There is only 1% of the data left, but at least it is enough to get our student started on his journey." The sage Atosh then started to notice that the bubble around them was starting to crack, signaling that this bubble of knowledge didn't have much time left. The sage Atosh started to cast a spell in an incomprehensible language: "ᚱᛁᛒᛅᛁᛦ" Then the bubble started to repair itself, but it wasn't going to last forever. The sage Atosh then muttered under his breath, "Now to get back to the little one. There is not much time to prepare him." The sage then disappeared and reappeared back at the top of the tower. Luke was enthralled by the book, not noticing that the sage Atosh had disappeared and only just reappeared. Luke's mind was thinking at speeds almost impossible for humans, but this space let him. After Luke was done reading the book, he asked the sage Atosh, "How long was I reading the book for?" The sage Atosh said, "You have been reading for quite some time, but nowhere near how long I thought you would have needed. You took only 10 hours to read it." Luke was shocked at how long it had been; he thought only an hour had passed at most, so he asked, "How? It felt like only one hour." The Sage Atosh told Luke, "It only felt like an hour because you were so focused you lost sense of time. I've never seen this type of talent before. It will be beneficial and a curse in the future." Luke was confused and asked, "What do you mean by a curse?" But the sage Atosh didn't respond and instead gave a smirk. Luke saw that the sage wasn't going to answer him; Luke instead asked, "I was reading the book, and I didn't understand what it meant to compress the abyssal energy into a dark heart, replacing my heart; it doesn't explain it at all." The sage Atosh looked surprised that the book didn't have that in it and said, "Let me look at the book; it should have told you how to." Luke handed the book to the sage, and the sage spent 5 minutes looking at the book. Once the Sage Atosh was done inspecting the book, he said, "I see what happened; this bubble is degrading a lot faster than I thought it would." Luke asked the sage, "What does that mean? How is the bubble degrading?" The sage responded fast, saying, "The sea of knowledge hasn't been fed enough abyssal energy for the past eras, so instead, it has been degrading the knowledge bubbles back into abyssal energy so it would not disperse. We don't have much time left together. I thought we would have more, so listen very carefully to what I am about to say." Luke nodded and started to pay close attention.

The sage explained how to compress abyssal energy into a dark heart: "Usually you would need to be in an area full of abyssal energy, but you don't have to because, for some odd reason, your very being is half abyssal energy. This is the first time I've seen this, but anyway, you must feel the energy flowing around in your body." The sage Atosh eyed Luke's body up and down once he said this, but Luke was too busy to concentrate and try to feel the energy flowing through his body, starting at his heart and flowing through his bloodstream to the rest of his body. After twenty minutes, Luke managed to feel the flow but wasn't able to control it. The sage continued on. "Once you can feel the flow, you must channel the energy into your heart. Even if it starts to hurt, you can't let the energy go berserk, or you will die. After you manage to introduce the energy into the center of your heart, the energy will, over the span of a week, turn your heart into a dark heart." Luke asked, "Should I try to do it right now?" The sage answered Luke, "Yes, do it now so I can help make it easier." Luke started to focus on the energy flow, trying to manipulate it to flow back into Luke's heart. Luke's efforts started to pay off, with more and more energy flowing back into his heart every second. When Luke's heart was halfway full of energy, it started to hurt like nothing he had ever felt before. It felt like someone was digging through his chest and poking at his heart with a needle. The sage Atosh noticed this and started to step in to help. The sage put his hand on Luke's back and started to inject Luke with his energy. Luke started to feel better and was filled with bliss, but Luke was shocked awake by his abyssal energy survival instinct. Luke's abyssal energy side felt angry at an instinctual level; it had never felt someone try to devour it. Luke felt through the energy that the sage Atosh had tried to take over his body. Luke didn't think anything in the sea of knowledge was harmful, but the sage proved him wrong. The sage didn't expect Luke to get rid of his possession attempt, but the sage wasn't going to stop yet. The sage had been trapped for so many years that he wanted out, but Luke didn't care, and in retaliation to the sage, Luke started to devour the sage. Luke couldn't understand it, but something deep down in him was awoken, and he knew instinctually how to use abyssal energy to devour. The sage and Luke were locked into a mental battle, with no one coming out on top. The sage should have won instantly, but too much time had passed since he put a part of his soul here.