VP BK I, CH 3: Reflection

Chapter Three: Reflection

A five-year-old Aelius stood in front of a mirror, his father  behind him, hands on his shoulders. Both were occupied by one thing; the  reflection of his eyes. They shone with a bright white light that left  momentary trails of cloudy dust when he moved. Honestly, their  appearance was a surprise and for the last few days, young Aelius had to  be confined to his bed chamber to avoid the things they showed him. His  doting father, Titus Aldebrand, had taken a quick leave from his post  to be with his son in this trying time. The Lord had hurried home at the  news but not so fast as to have been unable to do any research into his  son’s condition.

“Tell me, what do you see?” Titus asked his son.

Aelius groaned, unsure how to answer the question. He could see  the mirror as well as his reflection but at the same time not and at the  same time more. It was the strangest thing. When he looked at the  mirror he could see the mirror for what it was. Silvered glass bound in  jade. He could see what it did — bounce light back where it came thus  showing what lay in front of it. He could see the individual components  and at times, their histories. The man who carved the jade frame had  cried as he beheld his work, his joyful triumph was imparted to it. The  silvered glass was made by a separate artisan or rather the first man’s  apprentice, a man who aspired to replace his master and whose ambition  was the first thing captured by its silvered plane.

When he looked at his reflection, he gained, at first, a  distorted look at himself. Right was left and left was right. It was a  view that his eyes instantly corrected, thinking it was a mistake.  However, he was just so used to the normal way that they would switch  back to the mirrored look only to go back again under the assertion that  the reverse view provided by the mirror was wrong. That was not the  worst of it. He could see his reflection but at the same time not. His  eyes told him that the image in front of him was not real. It was merely  an apparition caused by the silvered undersurface of the mirror  bouncing light back into his eyes. The moment he peered deeper it  vanished and suddenly he was looking not at himself but at a large piece  of silver-backed glass in a jade frame.

At a glance, his eyes told him everything, bombarding him with  more information than he had ever wished for, more than he could  reasonably process. At times it was innocuous things like the height,  weight, age and density of the man behind him. However, they also  tormented him with things he had no business knowing, like the fact that  Vincent, one of the manor’s oldest serving and most trusted guards was  also its gaoler and chief torturer. All it had taken was a meeting with  the man in a corridor with his eyes open and he was inundated with the  truth of what the man was and what he had done. A glance at his armour  told him how many times they had been splattered with blood and the  different people that blood came from. A look at his weapons and  suddenly, he knew how many had been killed or suffered at their touch.  Aelius was still trying to force out of his mind the sight of the murky  energy that clung to the man, rising off him like a smoke signal.  Discordant essence that, his eyes told him, was filled with and formed  by the grudges and ill will Vincent’s victims bore him.

Sensing the boy’s inner turmoil, Titus tried a different  approach. “Your eyes are very special, Aelius! They are Mystic Eyes of  Truth. With them, you can see anything and everything. The things you’re  seeing are just as real as you or me, even more real in your case. It  will take some practice and a lot of control but soon, they will show  the most precious thing the world has to offer, the truth. Legend has it  that a possessor of the mystic eyes of truth can learn to see straight  to the heart of the world and master all its laws. Clearly, your new  power will lead you down paths of power and become the most powerful  tool in your arsenal”

Patting him on the shoulder, Lord Aldebrand grinned with pride. “I look forward to your growth Aelius.”

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Aelius dragged himself back to his room, his mind filled with errant  thoughts. His father was right. He was allowing this one defeat to hold  him back. Since waking up, all he had done was sit around feeling sorry  for himself. Revenge? That never even crossed his mind. Walking up to  his dressing mirror, he stared into it. For a moment, he hesitated,  afraid to activate his mystic eyes. He knew in his gut that he would not  like what he was about to discover. Just before he could chicken out,  he forced essence into his eyes, allowing them to awaken. Looking at  himself and only himself, he saw it all.

He ignored the obvious, seeking out the changes that had occurred  since his last inspection. Aelius saw his own depression. The weakness  in his essence. The regression in his cultivation base. He saw to his  surprise, the lack of atrophy in his muscles and wondered how his  parents managed that. He read the age of his bones and baulked at the  age of his soul. Frowning, he checked again. His eyes were feeding him a  contradiction, his soul was both four years younger than his body and  four thousand years older, maybe more. How was that possible?

‘The Void’, some part of him answered.

Biting his lip, Aelius searched for more side effects from his trip  there. He found what he was looking for, a condition he identified as  learned helplessness. It turned out that hanging, paralysed, in the void  for an untold amount of time was bad for your mental health, who knew?  He saw how it was reaching into everything in his life. Even his lack of  desire for revenge. Perhaps, unconsciously, he felt that if he could be  defeated and left for dead when he was at his peak, a time when he was  actually stronger, wealthier and more connected than his adversary, then  what could he possibly do now that his enemy seemed have found powerful  backers everywhere and risen so greatly in strength, he had become the  favoured son of heaven.

He sat on his bed with a sigh. ‘So this is what they mean by “a  shadow in your thoughts and a demon in your heart”‘, he realised. He had  always looked down on those who developed the condition, thinking them  soft-hearted and weak-willed. Was he now soft-hearted and weak-willed  too?

At times, mental trauma affected cultivators much worse than it did  normal people. As a mortal, mental issues could affect your work, love  and social life as well as send everything you cared for into disarray.  If you were a cultivator, someone whose life involved going against the  mandates of the heavens and handling the primal forces of the universe,  these were magnified a thousand times over.

‘A shadow in your thoughts’ was a plague of self-doubt. Second  guessing yourself, thinking you were not good enough, overthinking  things to the point they seemed too complicated to touch: the shadow in  your thoughts could do it all. It would undermine your confidence and  wear away your determination almost as if you had an actual shadow  following you, whispering in your ear. A demon in your heart was even  worse. It was your mental trauma come back to haunt you like an enhanced  version of post-traumatic stress disorder. It was more than a chink in  your armour. It was a dagger piercing the skin of your heart. It became a  weakness, just waiting for someone to exploit and a phobia that could  be triggered at any time. This was a condition that could severely  hamper cultivation progress, the demon in your heart especially. It did  not just affect your everyday life, it could cause you to fail during  breakthroughs and worse of all, kill you in the midst of tribulations.

Fear gripped Aelius’ heart then when he saw just how close to the  edge he was. He was currently a Spirit Fusion tier cultivator, only one  realm away from his next tribulation. If he did not get this demon in  his heart sorted before then, he was likely a goner! But how?

Take back control! His eyes told him. You are no longer in the  void. You’re no longer helpless. You can control your life. Start with  one thing, anything. Change that. Then, find something else and change  that too.

The first place his mind went to was Richard. That rat-faced bastard  had truly done a number on him. Besides trapping him in the void, he had  humiliated him, taken his fiance, harmed his family’s status, murdered  his teacher and now… he stood to derail his cultivation and stall the  progression of his powers. A not unfamiliar rage grew in his heart as he  ruminated over what had been done to him, magnified many times over by  his new insecurities. Aelius welcomed it. He fed all his worry and hate  into it, directing it at his target. Clearly, the best thing to do would  be to find Richard and end him, permanently. Unlike The Void, he was a  tangible enemy, something he could defeat.

Unfortunately, the bastard was nowhere to be found. He had found a  master in a wandering cultivator, someone even Aelius’ father could not  defeat. No matter, all he would need to do was find stronger allies, or  wait until Richard was separated from his master then he would make him  bleed. He would pay back every bit of pain and humiliation a hundred  times over.

Perhaps, had events played out differently, Aelius would spend hours  thinking up ways to find, torture and destroy his hated enemy. Perhaps,  had that continued, the unhealthy fixation would sink deep into his  fractured psyche before taking root and warping him even further,  Thankfully, Aelius was doing this in front of a mirror with his mystic  eyes active. They caught sight of this seed of obsession before it had a  chance to form and filled Aelius’ mind with images, and predictions of  where such a path could lead. He baulked immediately, actually stepping  back and away from the mirror with fear and disgust. All the rage he had  built up drained away leaving him feeling empty.

‘So I cannot even focus on seeking revenge without losing myself  further’, he mused, laughing mirthlessly as even this liberty was taken  away from him.

‘What else is there to do?’ he asked in frustration.

His eyes showed him the answer.

Change yourself!

A tremor went through Aelius’ mind. He felt his comprehension expand  as he contemplated those words. Unbidden, his innate spirit, the  chimaera, appeared behind him. Acting partly on instinct and partly on  some inspiration he got from The Void, he let the light of his mystic  eyes shine on the phantom. Information flowed from his eyes and from the  many worlds he had seen in the void. The memories might be buried but  the knowledge they held was freely accessed by his mystic eyes.

In the light of truth, Aelius saw his spirit for what it truly was.  The chimaera was destruction incarnate. Child of not one but two titans,  it was a daemon of incredible potential. Its mere presence could cause  earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It was a living disaster, a creature  born with the destiny of destroying the world. Sadly, its growth was  often cut short, hampered by its own brutal nature. Seldom did it rise  to the task. Often, it was vanquished by those who saw the threat it  posed or worse, it got caught in the wake of its destruction. Compared  to the true beasts he saw in The Void, Aelius’ innate chimaera spirit  was akin to a pale shadow reflected in a muddy pool. Still, it had most  of the right elements. Laws of strength, destruction, fire and earth  were woven throughout its form.

Aelius had always counted himself as special. His clan was descended  from a great hero who vanquished a chimaera and saved an ancient  kingdom. For his great deed, his line was endowed with the chimaera’s  spirit. Aelius’ branch of the clan was renowned for its powers over  fire. Their primary inheritance was the chimaera’s [Flame of Ruin], a  mystical flame with incredible destructive potential. Depending on the  density of their bloodline, other branches had comparable inheritances,  like the powerful, [Quaker’s Pulse]. Aelius himself had always been  praised for possessing a particularly potent flame and bloodline.  However, when he looked at himself in the mirror, he only saw how he was  lacking in comparison to a true chimaera. His fire was fine but his  earth talent was minor at best. With the image of the ideal held steady  in his mind, he reached in deep.

Guided by power and knowledge he should not have, Aelius changed  himself. His essence surged to the high heavens, temporarily going out  of control as his new power asserted itself. It gained a thready beat  that grew stronger with each pulse, emanating outward. The mirror  shattered and the ground shook, cracking in parts. Soon, it felt like  the whole manor estate was shaking, caught in the grips of an  earthquake.

Aelius smiled to himself. He still had a long way to go but as far as changes went, this was a good start.