We have restarted our journey to the city of Memphit, now with the Hunter Atremer and his Wizard daughter Aubrey, joining us.
We travel through an average looking forest. The trees closely resemble what you would see in my world, but every now and then there’s a tree that looks different. There’d be a tree that had its bark turned bright pink, or one that had absolutely massive leaves.
(Atrocious Tree)
At most it’s something to look at while we hike.
I take a breath. I didn’t use my diaphragm to expand my lungs to do it, I used my soul. It’s the same method that the Abominable Moles used to breathe and I wanted to see if I could do it.
And I can! The air feels warm from the midday heat. It feels like summer, or maybe late spring. I wonder how seasons work in Ydri?
I’m caught off guard by my own thoughts. Learning that Ydri is a god wasn’t that surprising to me, but thinking of Ydri as a place is confusing as hell. Ever since I came to this world I’ve felt like something is watching me, and to be fair, I’m right. Ydri’s Jester implies that it’s watching me.
But after learning what it is, that feeling has become much worse. I can feel its presence around me. Eyes looking from every direction.
I feel completely surrounded-
This dread I’m in is cut off by Aubrey’s voice, the Wizard taking my side as we walk. “You’re a Monk, huh. Is that a magical or a physical class? I assume it’s not an intellectual class because of your… Frankly absurd number of scars.”
I’m freed from my stupor and I look down at the Wizard. Me being almost two whole feet taller than her. “I… Don’t understand the question.”
Aubrey stops in her tracks and blinks, “You don’t? What don’t you understand?”
“What’s the difference between a magical class and a physical class? I’ve never even heard of these terms before.”
“You haven’t?!”
Aubrey looks up at me in shock and I get a peak of Eva slowly shaking her head. Aubrey darts her eyes back and forth as she processes what I said, but she snaps out of it once she realizes she’s about to be left behind.
She runs to my side and speaks through a cracked smile, “Well, you see, a magical class primarily uses magic and mana in its class skills, and a physical class primarily uses your body- your stamina and vitality- in its class skills.”
I grin at her explanation. That means there are classes that don’t use magic. I wonder how they work? “I have a magical class then.”
Aubrey's previous awkward expression from explaining something that should be obvious vanishes as she lights up. “Really! Can you show me some of it?”
I raise an eyebrow, “Do you get anything out of it?”
“A little… I want to see your magic so I can apply it to my own magical theory. It can’t be a one to one translation, since we have different classes, but the different angles on how magic works will help me get stronger!”
So she wants to see my magic to make herself stronger. Too bad that won't work with me. “I don’t know if I can help you. My mana flows in the opposite direction, so you probably can’t get anything out of it.”
I feel something change inside the Wizard's soul. Like a dam breaking, unleashing a flood of curiosity. She becomes starry eyed, “What does that mean?”
I went on to explain to her how my magic works and how it differs from other magic users. Her outward flow of mana stopping her from repeating what’s possible with my inward flow.
She tilts her head as I finish my explanation, “Magic that can only affect your own body… Wait, isn’t that similar to how the abominations use magic?”
“Yes, it is.” That’s likely the result of Abatu creating these monsters. If Abatu was a Monk, it makes sense the monsters he created would have Monk-like qualities.
Aubrey slowly blinks as she steeps herself deep in thought, “Fascinating… I still want to see an example.”
“Hmm, alright.”
I obviously can’t use any skills that require me to manifest my aura. I don’t want to scare her. Unfortunately that only leaves Instant Position and Frost Breath. I think the latter might be more appropriate to start out with.
I take in a deep breath and Aubrey’s eyes snap towards my chest. My soul wraps around my lungs as the air inside becomes frigid. I blow a cone of frozen air at a nearby tree and it immediately becomes stiff as its leaves stop swaying.
I walk up to the frozen tree and give it a light tap, causing cracks to burst through it and the tree crumbles to a pile of splintered frozen wood.
Atremer and Eva take note of how destructive that was, but Aubrey is beaming, “Woah… But, I thought you said your magic only works on your body? If you’re using magic to freeze the air inside your lungs, does that mean that the air in your body is considered part of the body? What’s the technical boundary where your body ends and the rest of the world begins?”
The sudden rush of questions causes me to, ironically, freeze. “I… don’t know?”
I said it like a question. But the questions she asked are good questions! Saying my magic can only affect my body sounds simple, but there is a nuance to it. For example, my armour is also transported with Instant Position, so does that mean the skill sees it as part of my body?
And that was just the first thing that came to mind. What about Soul Conjuration, my Terrifying Presence works through it, so does that mean my other presence skills work through it as well?
The sudden flood of introspection on how my abilities truly worked caused me to stop completely, leaving the others to stare at me with confusion.
“Maybe we should take a break. I think I need to do some tests.”
Aubrey’s soul gets incredibly excited at the prospect and looks over at her father. He grimaces but then looks up towards the source. “I suppose it’s time for lunch anyhow.”
Aubrey throws her hands in the air, “Yay!” She swivels to meet my eye. “I can watch right?”
I grin at her enthusiasm, “Sure! But I should warn you…” My gaze darkens and my open mouth smile blackens. “I have a Terrifying Presence.”
---
I thought about leaving the group to do my tests, but since Aubrey wanted to watch, she wanted to go with me. Obviously, Atremer wasn’t having it, there was no way he would let his daughter go out into the woods with a stranger.
Honestly, good on him. He’d be stupid to let that happen. Not that I would do anything to harm her, I like Aubrey!
But that meant that they were going to see Terrifying Presence for the first time, and it was awesome! Atremer flinched when he first saw it, but he stole himself and didn’t lose his guard. Aubrey however completely froze at the sight for a solid 10 seconds before she managed to snap out of it.
It took around five minutes for them to relax enough around me. It was intense with me constantly feeling Atremer’s soul on the verge of attacking me, but it seems he managed to restrain himself.
Now that they were properly acclimated to my presence, it was time to make some more magic happen!-
“So your Frost Breath freezes the air in your lungs and then you ‘manipulate your soul’ to eject it out your mouth at high speeds. The question is, how are you able to freeze the air if it’s not a part of your body?”
Aubrey sits on a stone with a notebook in her hands. She dips the end of a pen into a little pot of ink at her side and starts writing notes. A loose piece of bread hanging out of the side of her mouth.
She’s taking this very seriously- “The air in my lungs is surrounded by my soul. I thought that since it was completely surrounded, that the mana would be directed towards the air. In turn, freezing it.”
“Mkay-” She scribbles in her notes with a determined ferocity, “But is that what it’s actually doing? Or! Is it doing something else entirely?”
I raise an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”
“I have a class skill called Mana Perception. When you used Frost Breath I saw the mana swirl in your chest, but you know what I didn’t see?” Aubrey’s eyes darted up from her notes to meet my eye, her gaze filled with wonder and her soul glows bright with crackling electricity. “I never saw the mana leave your body! The mana was expended but the air you exhaled had no magic in it whatsoever!”
There never was any magic in the air-
“Then how was the air getting frozen? Is there something we’re missing?”
Aubrey didn’t respond, these were questions that she didn’t know the answer to. She was a Wizard, not a Monk. I will need to find the answers myself, but I’m grateful to her. Aubrey's thirst for knowledge led me to this revelation.
If the mana wasn’t in the air, then it never left my body. The air entered my lungs, then the magic froze the air, and then air was expelled. My inward flow of mana shouldn’t make this possible, and yet it does.
I take a step away from the group and approach a tree, a target. I focus my Magical Aura Perception inward. I watch closely as I breathe deeply. My aura surrounds my lungs as the aura freezes the air. I feel the shifting of my soul, the mana vanishing as the temperature drops. How do you work?-
I sigh, causing the tree in front of me to freeze solid in an instant.
I turn back around to see Eva tilting her head over Aubrey’s notes, a finger on the chin of her mask. “Um, I have a question.”
Aubrey stops writing to look up at the masked woman. “And that is?”
“Why does the air need to be in her lungs?”
I blink as me and Eva share a look. “The air needs to be in my lungs because…” I trail off. The air needed to be in my lungs because of my inward flow of mana, but now we know that’s not true. The air wasn’t getting frozen because of my mana, it was, “...My Aura.”
My eye widens as a grin slips onto my face. “That’s it! It was my aura, my presence!”
Aubrey tilts her head, “What do you-” But she stops when she sees my aura manifest. Atremer flinches, but Eva doesn’t even react to it anymore.
The invisible black flames wrap around my body and I focus on the class skill Frost Breath. The air around me is stagnant and warm. My aura shines with a fluorescent glow every time I breathe.
The air around me shifts and my aura exhales-
The grass at my feet sway at my feet from a sudden breeze before breaking apart with white frost enveloping the ground. The fringes of my soul turn a deep blue as icicles form on the ends of my hair.
White gusts of wind swirl around my body as I receive a notification.
Congratulations, you have evolved a class skill
-
(Frost Breath) becomes (Aura of Frigeration)
Aura of Frigeration / Level (1)
(Through focus, you have changed the structure of your aura. Your aura now commands the area around you to freeze. The breath of your soul is frigid.)
Expend mana to frigerate your presence
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
My soul recedes as the wind stops, “Nice.”
I didn’t expect to evolve one of my skills from this, but I’ll take it. There are still the other questions I had about my skills, such as other presence skills working through Soul Conjuration. Maybe I’ll start working on that next.
The Wizard cuts off my thoughts, “Did you just evolve your skill?! Do you understand how it works now? What’s it called?” Aubrey lights up, almost knocking over her pot of ink.
Aubrey’s constant excitement makes me smile, “It’s called-”
A chill runs up my spine. I turn my head and extend my Magical Aura Perception as far as it’ll go. Atremer snaps his head in the same direction with a concerned expression. He grimaces, “I smell blood.”
I felt something dying. The sensation of souls being whisked away. It happened beyond the range of my perception, but I still felt it. “That felt dangerous.”
I look to the north, where the feeling came from, with a smile. I turn to Eva, but find her already staring at me. She says simply, “No.”
I stammer, “Uh, but… I wasn’t even… Aww.”
I grimace as I feel the collar around my neck tug slightly. I really wanted to see whatever that thing was and if it wasn’t too high leveled, maybe fight it. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
Atremer gets up, still looking to the north. “We should get moving again. Aubrey, pack up.”
“But I want to…” She trails off for a moment as she looks at me. Aubrey bites her lip before turning back to her father, “We should at least see what you sensed. This is a good opportunity to level!”
“No, not while we’re with them. It’s too dangerous.”
Aubrey shakes her head, “I trust that they aren’t scheming anything. Why would Tiffany be so open about her class skills if she was going to use them against us?”
Atremer glares at me through his round glasses. Surprisingly his distrust is directed more towards me than Eva. Wasn’t his whole thing that we might be elves? Why isn’t he glaring at Eva, who still hasn’t taken off her mask?
Atremer isn’t having it, “I still don’t think that’s enough. Let's quickly return to the city so we can go our separate ways.”
Eva nods, “I agree, the sooner the better.”
Aubrey gives me a pleading look, “Come on, back me up!”
I wear a strained smile, “Sorry, as much as I would like to fight whatever that was, I ca-” My mouth is shut again by an invisible force. I blink as I remember what that sensation was. Tied Tongue-
I was going to say that I can’t say no to Eva. Does Eva consider that fact a secret? I blink, oh shit! I realize that if I said that, they might figure out that I’m enslaved to her!
Aubrey tilts her head in confusion as Eva glares daggers at me. I grit my teeth as I finish my broken sentence, “I agree that it’s too dangerous for us to blindly fight.”
Aubrey pouts, “Don’t you want to test out your new class skill?”
“I do, but if we don’t trust each other, how can we fight together?”
Aubrey's gaze slowly darkens, her soul becoming more resigned. The sparking electricity is becoming less frequent around her deep blue soul. “Okay… I get it.”
I tilt my head at the downtrodden Wizard, “Get what? I asked you a question.”
She blinks as she instantly becomes confused, “Huh?”
I grin as the other two get confused as well. Atremer flinches as he snaps his head back towards the north. My Magical Aura Perception is already telling me what’s coming.
I start to giggle in excitement, “If we’re forced to fight together, we don’t need to trust each other.”
A soul of purple fire is barreling towards us. I thought I would need to stall until it reached us, but the thing is incredibly fast. And pissed-
Atremer is pissed too, “Why didn't you say anything?!”
I yell back, “Save it for later! We have a monster to kill!”
He scowls as he pulls a dagger from under his cloak. I Instant Position Eva far behind the three of us as the monster gets ever closer. Aubrey finally realizes what is going on and pulls out her wand.
We now get a good look at the monster as it reaches the top of an outcropping of rock.
A giant two-headed moose with six legs, nearly the size of a fucking bus. It’s covered in red fur and its antlers tie together into a mess of spikes. Dead animals are still stuck on the bony protrusions.
(Stag-Lattice Abomination / level 63)
Definitely enough to get me to level-
I dash away from the group and conjure a soul spike to launch at its head. “Over here! Ya big red bastard!” I want to draw its attention towards me, I’m the tank after all.
As soon as the spike reached one of its heads, I chanted. “Spite. Collapse. Soul. Break.”
The spike explodes into a small ball of black fire, causing the abomination to recoil. It lets out a guttural roar like a dying lion. The sheer amount of rage directed towards me causes me to flinch.
The purple soul expands and wraps around the monster's body and my eye widens. It manifested its aura-
The Stag-Lattice Abomination launches at me from its perch at an incredible speed. The purple fire turned into purple lighting.
I swing my hand to create a wall of black fire in front of me and fully manifest my aura. The barrier explodes as the stag rips straight through it like paper. The antler digs in three points around my torso, one going through my left thigh and my right leg breaks from bending backward against the ground.
Summon’s Respite (2 / 3)
The monster continues to charge forward with me impaled on its antlers. It rips through several trees with me laughing up blood. “These antlers are fucking durable!”
I Instant Position through the mess of spiky antlers and appear between the two heads. I ignore the holes in my body and manipulate my aura to my leg so it bends back into place.
I manipulate the Dark Soul-Sledge from my back and into my grip to swing it full force in this monster's right head's left eye.
Time to see if it works-
I activate Aura of Frigeration through the soul-sledge. The Stag-Lattice Abomination screeches out as frost spreads rapidly through the left side of the head. A deep blue glow emanating through the bandages surrounding the hammer.
I break into a grin filled with bloodied teeth.
The massive monster suddenly falls forward into the ground with yelp and I hear the sound of flesh ripping. The monster continues charging while the antlers rip up the earth.
I glance back to see Atremer holding one of its front legs in his hand, casually throwing the massive limb to the side.
Summon’s Sense (2/3)
The soul of the Stag-Lattice Abomination shifts-
I manipulate my aura to my torso as a pillar of fur covered flesh slams into my side. I look over to see the pillar coming from the other head's neck, its pupil burning red from rage.
I snort, “Bitch.”
Still holding onto my hammer with my left, I raise what’s left of my right arm above my head. My aura flows through it and I craft a new limb of black flames with Soul Conjuration.
A scythe-like appendage, similar to the Roach Gladiators arm, extends from my arm. I swing down, cutting the pillar in a single strike. I then stab my new blade into the neck I’m latched onto. Detaching the blade from my arm, I use Magical Aura Manipulation to drive the blade further into its body, Aura of Frigeration going on full blast.
My Excessive Momentum reaches 51% as the monster suddenly goes silent and stops moving. My eye darts- Its soul is still there so it's not dead. Why’d it stop?
I’m pushed up as the entire beast suddenly grows in size with a quick burst. What the fuck?
Before I can think further, I hear Eva screaming at me, “Tiffany! Get out of there!”
I don’t question it as I Instant Position to her side. I fall to the ground with a thud and go to heal the rest of my injuries. I look back to the Stag-Lattice Abomination to figure out what the hell just happened.
It grows with another burst and hundreds of tendrils of red fur and flesh extend all over the abomination. A large lump of flesh bursts from where its front leg used to be and it pushes itself back to its feet.
It turns its massive heads towards me as its soul rages on. I get a peak of my hammer still embedded in its eye, still emanating the Aura of Frigeration. “I’ll be taking that back…” The Soul-Sledge rips from its eye and flies to me. “...But you can keep the other one! Spite. Collapse. Soul. Break.”
The right head of the monster explodes from its body with a blooming of black fire protruding from its neck. I get up grinning at the writhing creature as I catch my hammer. I glance over at Eva.
“Why did you want me to come back? I could have handled those tendrils.”
Eva scoffs, “Well, other than you being an ass.” She turns her head towards Aubrey and I look towards her as well.
The young Wizard is chanting unintelligibly as several massive blue magic circles surround her. Every now and then I can make out a word in her chant, such as ‘sky’ or ‘heat.’
I find Atremer’s soul up in one of the trees as I feel something about it change. I look to see him move his hands like he is knocking back a bow. He whispers something under his breath and he releases the imaginary arrow.
The Stag-Lattice Abomination cries out as it falls and fails to recover again. Was that Atremer’s skill?
I can’t speculate for too long as my hairs suddenly stand on end. The air becomes stagnant as Aubrey stops chanting. Her soul had grown to nearly triple its original size and half a dozen magic circles surrounded her body. Aubrey’s hand slightly shakes as she grips her wand and electricity sparks between her hair.
The magic circles vanish and the wand disintegrates as she speaks with an ethereal voice, “The Stride of The First Wizard.”
An intense flash of white momentarily fills my vision as a wave of heat washes past me. The thunderous sounds of a thousand bombs exploding all at once slams into my ears and the ground shakes. I look back at the abomination to only see devastation.
A charred crater surrounded by burning trees and sizzling chunks of flesh-
“Holy shit.”
You have slain a (Stag-Lattice Abomination / level 63)
-
More experience rewarded
You have leveled up! (49 → 50)
-
You have earned (5) stat points
You have leveled up! (50 → 51)
-
You have earned (5) stat points
(Linked Soul) has leveled up! (1 → 2)
(Soul Conjuration) has leveled up! (6 → 7)
(Aura of Frigeration) has leveled up! (1 → 2)
(Aura of Frigeration) has leveled up! (2 → 3)
Congratulations, for reaching level (50)
-
Strength (+40)
Durability (+45)
Agility (+30)
Endurance (+30)
Intellect (+30)
Soul (+40)
“Oh, sweet!”
Name (Tiffany Day) / Age (23) / Race (Human) / Title (Titan’s End)
Alignment (Chaotic Neutral)
Class (Excessive Monk) / Level (51)
Stats / Stat Points (15)
Strength (175)(+30)
Durability (232)(+30)
Agility (101)(+10)
Endurance (101)(+10)
Intellect (101)(+10)
Soul (175)(+20)
Intrinsic Status
Vitality (92%)
Stamina (76%)
Sanity (86%)
Mana (51%)
Traits
(Interloper)
(Serial Killer)
(Ydri’s Jester)
(Sadistic)
Skills
(Observe) level 5
(Mana Cycling) level 9
(Instant Thought) level 2
(Pain Ignorance) level 4
(Linked Soul) level 2
Class Skills
(Obscene Presence) level 2
(Magical Aura Perception) level 10
(Magical Aura Manipulation) level 10
(Instant Position) level 9
(Aura of Constitution) level 8
(Soul Conjuration) level 7
(Excessive Momentum) level 6
(Terrifying Presence) level 4
(Aura of Frigeration) level 3
Title skills
(Titanic Presence)
