Chapter 326 - Divine Ember

Chapter 326 - Divine Ember

Reivyn stood by the open portal, waiting as the Special Unit mercenaries completed their mission on the other side of the open portal. Reivyn had previously sent out two separate missions, and the second group to be sent were the first to return. Neither he nor Kefira, nor anyone else for that matter, had enough Perception to monitor exactly what was going on down below, so they had come up with a simple solution: The first group was sent much further ahead of their target, and Kefira simply held the second portal open until the mercenaries returned. After the last mercenary came through, Kefira would switch back to the first group with a portal anchored at the original position.

Reivyn waited patiently for the mercenaries. While they were busy, though, he experimented with his Divine Sense. So far, portals were like black holes to his perception. He could perceive the portals, of course, but his Divine Sense didn’t penetrate through to let him know what was happening in the tunnel, much less the complete other side. He had a vague sense that he had done so before, though, so while he waited, he concentrated on trying to actively direct his Divine Sense.

For the most part, his Divine Sense had become a part of him and ran completely autonomously. He could turn it on and off, but other than that, it was just either on at full blast, or it wasn’t. The only other trick he had was ignoring the plethora of information flooding his brain at any given time, but that was more to do with his mind and Mental Stats than the Skill itself.

I’ve never really had a reason to try and manipulate my Divine Sense after overcoming  the mental strain, Reivyn thought,  but I really should have tried to take more control over the Skill by now. Who knows, it might help me Level the Skill a lot quicker, or it might be the key to bypassing one of the thresholds.

His Divine Sense was more of a passive sense than anything he could control, but after his exercises with manipulating his Qi, he believed there should be a solution to control any kind of energy. He didn’t know if his Divine Sense was actually a kind of energy, but what else could it be? There had to be something that was accumulating, filtering, and processing all the information. He hadn’t grown an extra organ when he obtained the Skill, so it wasn’t that.

What really made him convinced it was some form of energy he could manipulate was the “Divine” part in its name and the fact it was Tier 6.5 instead of Tier 7. He knew that the Skill itself was a Divine Level Skill, and the System had told him outright that the Skill was relegated to a lower Tier because it didn’t have any Divine Energy to power it.

So there’s definitely energy involved somehow.

His Divine Sense was like a magnetic field centered around his head. He had a complete sphere of perception, even into the ground beneath his feet with his eyes as the epicenter. Nobody else could detect whatever it was that was feeding him the information, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

Reivyn started by simply trying to Will his Divine Sense to obey his commands. He was trying to flex some sort of muscle that wasn’t there, or at least that he wasn’t aware of, yet. His ability to manipulate Mana was like a muscle, and as he grew his Qi Meridians, he was getting a better feel for controlling that energy without having to wrap it in as much Mana.

He still needed to, but it was like learning to walk. He had pulled himself up and steadied himself with his Mana, but as he exercised the “muscle” more and more, he needed less help in maintaining his balance. He felt a toddler learning to walk was the perfect analogy for what he was doing. Soon, he hoped, he would be able to eschew the crutch of Mana with his Qi manipulation altogether.

He was trying to figure out if there was a similar “muscle” for his Divine Sense as for his Mana and Qi. He was sure there was, and he realized he would probably need to use a crutch to help himself, but he wanted to go about it systematically.

After several minutes of fruitless attempts to simply command his Divine Sense to obey his will, he stopped. He reviewed his efforts to see if he could catch a glimpse of the mechanism, but there wasn’t enough feedback with just the first attempt.

Next, he turned to his Mana. Unlike his Qi, though, he didn’t have a convenient ball of energy floating inside of himself to easily identify and wrap his Mana around. He began by using his Mana to probe about in his head behind his eyes. It was a bit disconcerting to consider what he was doing, but he knew that his Mana was metaphysical. There was no real danger of accidentally damaging his brain or anything else important in his head.

There didn’t seem to be anything to find with his Mana, though. He extended the search to the rest of his body, but he knew what he was going to find: nothing. He had no idea even what he was looking for, but it didn’t seem like there was anything to find, either.

As Reivyn was preoccupied with searching for a mechanism to control his Divine Sense, the mercenaries in the second group came back through the portal. They were bloodied and disheveled, but none of them were missing or had any serious injuries that Reivyn could detect. They had obviously had a much more difficult encounter than their last one, but it wasn’t anything extraordinary. It was about what he would have expected after a normal collision on the battlefield.

Kefira waited for a headcount, and after receiving the all clear, she closed the portal and refocused her Mana. It took her another minute or so to weave the Spell and find the exact anchor points, but a new portal sprung up quickly.

Reivyn continued his exploration with his next move as Kefira was working. He grabbed a ball of Qi, wrapped in Mana, and directed it back to his head, behind his eyes. He was planning on exploring his body the exact same way with his Qi as with just his Mana. With the previous analogy of his Mana and Qi being located on different metaphysical floors, it stood to reason that anything related to Divine Mana would be on a completely different floor, too.

He quickly directed the plucked ball of Qi to his head, but he paused once it was there.

Hmm, Xudrid once mentioned something about using Health as a combination like how Mana and Stamina together make Qi, he thought. He said it fell under “Forbidden Techniques,” but he also mentioned they were forbidden because they were dangerous for those who didn’t know what they were doing. I wonder…

With his willpower, Reivyn stuck his Qi ball in place and began assessing his body. He knew that his Health should be accessible like his Stamina and Mana were, but he had never directly taken control of it before. In order to figure it out, he did the first thing that came to mind.

With a quick prick of Mana, he stabbed his finger with a needle-sized bit of Mana. A bit of blood welled up on his finger tip, only doing a single point of damage to his Health Pool. It was a drop in the bucket compared to what he had available.

He focused his attention on his Health pool and how it felt to lose a bit of his vitality. With his experiences with Stamina, Mana, and Qi, he quickly pinpointed a thread of energy he identified as his Vitality. It was centered around his heart, and there was a bit of a pulse at the loss of the single Hitpoint.

With as much caution and care as he could muster, Reivyn focused his full attention on his heart. He felt the core from where the pulse had originated with his mind and ever so slightly poked it.

A severe pain assaulted his heart immediately, and he nearly collapsed as a wave of dizziness overtook him. He quickly regained his bearings, though, and cradled the bit of Health that had separated from the core of his Health pool in his heart. He didn’t want to lose the bit of energy to have to do that a second time if at all possible.

A Notification in the corner of his vision flashed red, catching his attention, and he immediately turned his attention to it, still cradling the Health with his willpower.

[WARNING!]
[Health Pool has been directly stimulated!]
[-3,333 HP]
[Helpful Hint: You probably shouldn’t do that again.]

No kidding! Reivyn was astounded. His eyes widened in surprise as he momentarily froze in place. The little ball of Health isn’t any larger than my Qi ball, and I can tell it’s only 1 Hitpoint worth of energy, so what happened to the rest of my Health pool? 

Reivyn came out of his mental fugue and focused his attention back on his heart. He could still see ripples like waves cascading around the metaphysical core of his Health.

Oh.

That simple poke had caused catastrophic damage to his Health Pool. He had only siphoned one point from the pool, but getting to that one point had been devastating.

Yeah, I’m going to take that advice and not do that again any time soon, Reivyn wryly thought. I should either practice my control or figure out a different method if I want to do anything with my Health pool in the future. It was probably the method. I’m fumbling in the dark here, and that poke didn’t seem all that powerful.

Reivyn shook his head and returned to his fumbling. The mercenaries of the second group began trickling through the portal as he directed his little ball of Health up to meet with his Qi. He figured his Qi was already a combination of his Stamina and Mana, and he had the Mana wrapping both to protect and move them, so he didn’t siphon any additional Stamina.

He brought the ball of health and overlapped it with his Qi. Nothing happened at first, as two distinct balls of energy seemed to occupy the same space at the same time.

Oh right! It’s four dimensional, not three. They’re not on the same “floor.”

Reivyn flexed his will and brought the two balls of Mana toward each other. The two balls of Mana touched and combined together smoothly into one container as his Health began to mix with his Qi.

The only way he could describe sensing his various energies was his Health “appeared” as red, his Stamina was yellow, and his Mana was Blue. His Qi was a combination of Stamina and Mana, so it was green to his perception. They obviously didn’t have those actual colors, but that’s what he perceived when he focused on them.

The red of his Health was like a drop of ink falling into green paint. At first it just splashed chaotically, but then the energies began to coalesce around each other. The colors began to darken as they mixed, turning a deep, deep black.

Reivyn was a bit worried as he watched the energies, not expecting such an outcome. Black didn’t seem like a proper color for energies that represented life for the most part.

Before the colors fully merged and turned true black, though, a speck of light formed in the center. It exploded out and washed the black away, leaving a silverish color floating within Reivyn’s bubble of Mana.

Immediately it was like a door opened. Reivyn’s perception expanded, and he sensed a golden speck of energy floating in the center of his brain. It radiated a golden light through his body, and he could see that the majority of it was absorbed into his Mana Meridians. A very tiny fraction, almost too small to notice even with his Divine Sense permeated throughout the rest of his body, though it seemed to disappear as it was soaked up like a sponge.

Reivyn remembered a couple of Notifications he had mostly ignored until this moment as soon as he saw the speck of golden energy.

That must be the Divine Ember the System Notification mentioned before, he realized. He could tell that it was an additional “floor” up from whatever energy he had created by combining all three of his pools together, though. He still couldn’t touch it with the silver ball of energy.

It seemed the mechanism to control his Divine Sense was still out of reach. Before Reivyn dismissed his silver energy ball, though, he suddenly came to a stop.

Hmm, that shouldn’t be right, Reivyn thought. My Divine Sense isn’t powered by Divine Mana, so the Divine Ember shouldn’t be the mechanism to control it. Only when my Skill is powered by Divine Mana should the Ember matter.

Tentatively, Reivyn began to explore his body once more with his silver energy ball. He didn’t know what to call it, but he was content with just referring to it as “silver energy” for now, so that’s what he did. He moved the ball around systematically through his head, but there didn’t seem to be anything to find other than the Divine Ember.

That’s still the focal point of the Skill, but there should be a different way to interface with it.

Reivyn moved his silver energy down into his body, and as soon as it got close to the very center of his being, between his Health core, Mana Core, and Qi Core, the silver energy twitched and shot out of his control. At first it seemed to disappear in the very center of his being, but then his body spasmed as all of his muscles locked up.

His mind went blank as the silver energy exploded into being once more, going haywire as it was like a ball of lightning. Tendrils of energy shot all through his body, focused on the center of his being, a place Reivyn absentmindedly recalled once seeing his very soul located. The thought just flitted across the outer edges of his awareness, though, as he couldn’t muster any conscious thought.

The silver energy lashed about within his body, but it didn’t seem to be doing any damage other than paralyzing him. That was until it lanced up into his head and connected directly with his Divine Ember.

Energy flooded his body as he was bathed in a golden glow. Shadows of memories wiped clean by the System tried to make themselves known as a familiar feeling overtook him. It was a familiar feeling, but he could tell it wasn’t exactly the same.

Unbidden, his Status Page popped up in front of his vision.

[                                       Status                                             ]
[Name: Reivyn   Class: Divine Hero  Lvl 23     Age:    16 (21)]
[                                Divine Grand Arcanist                           ]
[                                Divine Fighter                                       ]
[Health:  ERROR  Stamina:  ERROR  Mana:  ERROR]
[Qi: ERROR          Divine Mana: 9/10]
[Physical Stats   Mental Stats]
[STR:  ERROR           INT:     DV 1]
[VIT:   ERROR           MAG:   DV 1]
[DEX:  ERROR          CLA:    DV 1]
[CHA:  ERROR    PER:     ERROR]
[LUK:  ERROR]

The words on his Status Page glitched and flickered in and out of focus. He could barely make out what was said before it suddenly disappeared once more. As soon as the Status Page disappeared, his mind regained its clarity.

Before he could think about what was happening, though, his Divine Sense exploded. It expanded to encompass a range hundreds of times larger than his previous radius, and the details he could perceive were equally more crisp and clear. The Skill easily bypassed the previous black hole of the portal, traveled down the tunnel, and out the other side.

He was unable to dismiss the information flooding his brain. It was the same situation as when he first unlocked the Skill. He was wholly unprepared for the glut of information forcing its way into his mind.

On the other side of the portal, he saw a robed man lunging toward one of his mercenaries with his blade. Reivyn had no control over his body, but he felt the Divine Mana, as that was clearly what had suffused his body, activate another Skill that usually lay dormant in his Skill list.

His body moved of its own accord, dashing through the portal, the tunnel, and out the other side in the blink of an eye as his own sword swept forth to parry the strike from the robed man.

The robed man easily withdrew his strike and regained his balance, jumping back a short distance from Reivyn. He studied Reivyn with his sword held ready at his side. Reivyn’s body stood rock-still, his muscles straining and his veins nearly bursting as he stood over the mercenary that had tripped from the surprise of the sudden attack.

The robed man didn’t say anything. He simply glided forward and launched a series of attacks at Reivyn. Reivyn watched as his body reacted on its own. His sword moved to mee the man’s attacks, parrying each strike before returning a counter toward the man’s throat.

The robed man easily batted the counter strike away. To Reivyn’s trained eye, the parry had been done with casual ease. The robed man had never overextended, nor had he exerted any real strength in any of his blows. He was clearly testing Reivyn.

The enemy once more glided forward, fluid as water. The attacks came twice as fast and twice as hard. The sound of metal on metal rang out across the meadow. Instead of letting Reivyn retake the initiative with a counter attack, though, the man danced around Reivyn, increasing the tempo and power of the strikes in a continuous barrage of swings and thrusts.

Reivyn easily delt with the rain of blows at first, but soon his body strained to keep up with the speed of the man’s attacks. He could also tell that his Skill Level wasn’t any stronger than his opponent’s. They were close enough together in ability that Reivyn couldn’t easily tell whether the man had a higher Skill Level or not, but it didn’t matter under the circumstances.

Pain lanced through Reivyn’s body, but it didn’t interfere with the Perfect Domain Skill that had taken over his body. The Skill was originally intended to passively defend himself when he couldn’t consciously control his body, but it had evolved to intercede on his allies’ behalf, as well. Seeing the robed man attack one of his mercenaries had triggered the Skill.

Reivyn couldn’t muster his Mana or Skills in his current condition, so he could only watch as the robed man continued to increase the pressure on his body. On the edge of his awareness, he could perceive tiny bits of his flesh begin to evaporate in the wind as he started to take small cuts to his arms and torso. His Perfect Domain Skill was enough to control his body to avoid any fatal attacks, but it wasn’t to the point where it could use his full combat potential.

Reivyn started to worry as blood trickled down his arms and dripped onto the ground. He could see a faint smile on the robed man’s face. He could tell that the man was purely enjoying the swordplay. He also didn’t use any Mana or Skills, but Reivyn had the sense that the fight would be hopeless if the robed man grew bored and decided to do so.

Reivyn couldn’t use his Identify Skill on the robed man with his mind unable to control his body, but he guessed it would say something similar to what it did about the other robed man he slew at the enemy portal base. The difference was this robed individual was an actual powerhouse. The man’s Stats were clearly far ahead of his own, even in the strange state that he found himself in.

Reivyn didn’t know if he could fend the man off if they were both using their Skills and Mana, but he did know he wouldn’t stand a chance without the Divine Mana boosting his Stats.

The only problem was that it was obviously killing him at the same time that it was providing the boost to barely keep up with the opponent.

Reivyn’s body continued to degrade, and his Perfect Domain seemed to finally take notice of the issue once Reivyn recognized the threat.

Reivyn watched as his Skill made a decision for him. In order to create distance from the robed man, Reivyn allowed a strike to get dangerously close to his heart so he could fully leverage his power and slam the robed man away. The opponent’s eyes widened at the sudden shift in strategy, momentarily losing his balance as he stumbled backward from the blow.

Reivyn’s body wasted no time and scooped up the mercenary that was paralyzed in either fear or awe at their duel and dashed back through the portal. He was back on top of the mountain in an instant, and Kefira cut her Mana to the portal.

With no threat remaining, Perfect Domain deactivated, and Reivyn collapsed to the ground, losing consciousness almost immediately.

Author’s Note: The actual colors used are Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow; not Red, Blue, and Yellow, but for simplicity’s sake, I’m just using the “traditional” primary colors for Health, Mana, and Stamina, respectively.