Syonas sat on the bus with his head down, his hand rapidly typing into the holo-panel on his smartwatch. He was currently perusing his options for a new apartment. He couldn't afford to live in a better environment before, because he used all the money his brother sent him to bank roll his experiments but now that his project had already succeeded, he could move to a more upstanding part of town.
Having found an apartment that was to his liking, he ordered some movers online to move his stuff out and into his new apartment. Leaning his head back onto the head rest of the seat, Syonas released a sigh of relief. He was finally moving out of that hell hole.
'well, I won't need this any more.' Syonas thought to himself, while palming the gun in his back pack that was seated beside him.
At the touch of the cold steel, Syonas was reminded of the events that took place yesterday, causing mister Aziz's face to flash past his mind.
'I wont be gone too long though.' Syonas thought to himself.
A few minutes had passed since he had stepped onto the bus, Syonas had just noticed that the bus was unusually quiet. It was early in the morning so it's not like the silence was unexplainable, but there was something about it that made his skin prickle.
Taking his head of the head rest and opening his eyes to inspect the carriage, Syonas felt the hairs on his arm rise from the sight in front of him. The bus wasn't that big, it could comfortable hold about thirty people but because of the time of day there was only about twenty people on the bus, and every last one of them was staring at him.
'What the fuck is happening.' Syonas thought as his mind was slowly overcome with panic.
Instinctually reaching for that state of calm he had become so familiar with over the years, Syonas' breathing evened out and focus returned to his eyes, as he began to inspect the members of the bus with a critical eye. At this time his score of fifteen in intelligence began to show itself.
'Slightly flushed faces, dilated pupils, slight twitching movements ....... They are showing signs of nervousness, excitement, and....attraction?' Syonas thought in shock.
As he started into the vacant faces on the bus, it occurred to him, what ever changes that took place in his soul during evolution unlocked a stat that seemed some what strange.
CHR(charm): this refers to the host's physical attractiveness and ability to give suggestion. This stat came into existence as a consequence of irregular soul fluctuations that took place during the evolution process.
According to the system, the number ten signified the human biological limit, with only a rare few being able to surpass it. Which meant, even the most ridiculously good looking, supermodel would only be able to reach a value of fifteen.
Which means........
Syonas eyes shifted to the glaring number beside his charm in his status that said "25". There was most likely only one word to describe Syonas Looks.
"other-worldly" an elderly woman sitting a few seats in front of Syonas muttered while staring at his face.
Face heating up, Syonas was only able to stutter out a word of thanks before burying his head in his palms out of embarrassment and staying that way, until he felt the bus come to a stop then he dashed out of the bus as fast as he could.
Syonas had spent the last few years of his life in isolation, constantly thinking on how to solve the problem of the beast core. He didn't have much social interaction, so when another human being even an average looking complete stranger told him he looked other worldly. He immediately took one-thousand damage.
Luckily he slept in this morning so everybody was already in class when he got to school. With this he was easily able to get to the library without any incident.
Taking a seat in the perpetually empty library, Syonas released a sigh of relief at his newfound solitude. Too bad, it didn't last long.
"Who are you?" said the principal who seemed to appear out of thin air in the seat opposite him, a stern look on his face.
Syonas felt a jolt of surprise at the principal's impromptu entrance, which was quickly followed by joy when he noticed that he seemed not to be affected by his charm in the least.
"Sir, it's me, Syonas." Syonas said, a bit too enthusiastically.
Looking sceptical the principal leaned forward in his seat, giving Syonas a close-up inspection, his face slowly shifting from suspicious to astonished.
"Syonas, how?.... Did you awaken your gift" the principal said, shock being replaced with interest.
Syonas paused in thought. He had a planned to explain his sudden increase in physical ability after successfully creating a core, by claiming he had a physical gift.
A gift is a magical ability that is naturally awakened when someone first opens their soul space and begins cultivation. His solution to the suspicions that would surround his sudden physical changes was claiming he had a physical gift, but he now had a soul space which meant he had an actual gift now.
'I'll just go with my original plan and hide my gift.' Syonas thought to himself.
Although this meant forgoing the school's help in cultivating his original gift, it was better than being taken to some strange lab and being cut open for scientific research.
"I think so but I only opened my soul space yesterday, is this level of physical change normal" Syonas said with a furrowed brow, and feigned worry.
"Gifts come in an uncountable variety, although it is rare, a gift causing physical changes before being awakened is not unheard of" the principal explained slowly as a smile spread across his face.
Of course, Syonas already knew this, but faked ignorance would only make him appear more innocent and believable.
"Hand over your smartwatch." The principal said, with an outstretched hand.
Syonas handed it over without fanfare, it's not like he could keep it if the principal really wanted to take it anyway. Opening a new internet page, typing in multiple line of code, and putting in multiple passwords, a digital library popped up on screen.
"This is the school's private cultivation library it contains thousands of low level spells and hundreds of cultivation techniques for different kinds of gifts. Pick one that you think suits your talent, based on what you've noticed about it, it's okay if you don't pick the most compatible you can just come back to me later and I'll let you pick another." The principal said while handing his smartwatch back to him.
"Your access will only last four hours in that time you may browse as many of the spells and techniques as you wish but your smartwatch has only been authorised to download one spell and one cultivation technique." The principal said as he got to his feet, gave Syonas the usual pat on the head before walking out of the library without waiting for Syonas reply.
A shocked silence filled the quiet library as Syonas stared at the screen on his smartwatch.
'just like that?!' Syonas thought, dumbfounded by how casual the principal was with access to these cultivation techniques.
But after opening a few spells and scrolling through a few cultivation techniques he understood why. Every spell and cultivation technique was massive, even the simplest spell had upwards of two hundred pages, and the spells where minuscule compared to the cultivation techniques . Most likely even someone with a rudimentary memory gift couldn't memorise a complete spell, not to mention a cultivation technique.
Adding to that, was the mountains of code that prevented him from screen shooting or recording any of the pages, but even with all these measures in place, the principal could not have accounted for any body much less a student having a super powerful A.I imbedded in their body.
'you getting this?' Syonas thought while rapidly scrolling through as many cultivation techniques an spells as he could.
[ Affirmative, visual recording has commenced]
Syonas spent the next four hours with twelve screens open all of which where rapidly scrolling through one technique after another, and at the end of these four hours all the pages went blank at the same time, with a small ping.
'So, what do we have?' Syonas thought in anticipation.
[......sorting all inputs.......]
[There are precisely seven cultivation techniques and two-hundred spells]
A smile of satisfaction spread across Syonas' face, as he began to inspect the cultivation techniques. Unlike the spells where he simply copied as many as he could, he was very intentional about his choice of cultivation techniques, because they where so large he could only get so many.
He chose one from each the elements of water, fire, earth, and air, a physical cultivation technique, a lightning technique, cause —why not? and one that he just found too interesting to ignore: an astral technique.
Though regardless of how many techniques he got, he needed to determine his gift first and he needed to start cultivating to do that.
The initial stages of cultivation where the same no matter the technique. They where:
Mind opening
Mind gathering and
Mind concentration
These stages formed the novice realm that preceded the mage realm. They were only three stages, but most people spent their entire lives unable to escape the bounds of the novice realm and step into magehood.
Focusing his thoughts, Syonas randomly picked a technique and began to read the first page.
'the soul space is usually said to be the source of a mage's power; this is a misconception of the illiterate and uninformed. A soul space is what its name implies it is. It is a space that exists to contain your soul. The soul is the true source of a mage's power, the first stage of the novice realm is referred to as the mind-opening realm because in this realm the newly formed soul space is slowly pried open for the soul to enter and inhabit it.' From there, the book went into considerable detail about the process and the things to look out for.
Having finished reading the entire chapter, Syonas never being one to procrastinate, entered meditation. Opening his eyes and being greeted by darkness once more, Syonas spread his senses looking for the border of this strange void.
He quickly came into contact with what felt like a thin film. Feeling the thin barrier that he felt could be ripped apart with only a slight effort of his mind, Syonas felt surprise. From what was written in the book it should be much harder than that.
"the book did mention that the more powerful the soul, the easier the novice realm would be." Syonas muttered to himself, feeling slight pride at his apparent talent.
Shaping the force of his will into a sharp point, Syonas proceeded to pierce the barrier. A blazing light shot from on the other side of the barrier before a torrent of golden gas flooded his soul space filling his mind with power.
The mind opening realm that took even geniuses months was completed by Syonas in seconds, leaving him in stunned silence.
'Well that was anti-climactic.' Syonas thought.
The golden gas that was his soul kept flowing into his soul space.
Five minutes..... Ten minutes...….. An hour. Syonas face paled as he realized it wasn't stopping anytime soon and if this continued his soul space would shatter again. He wasn't going to let that happen.
He needed more space for his soul to occupy but that was not doable, methods to expand the soul space where given in the book but they all took time; time he didn't have.
Looking at it from another perspective since he couldn't make more space, he would have to make less soul. Having come to this conclusion, he began to rapidly read through the techniques for the next two realms.
'after opening the mind and accepting the soul, it will spread into the void of the soul space. In the mind gathering realm the cultivator must find the fragments of the soul scattered through th-'
'well, this has nothing to do with me.' Syonas thought while looking at his soul space that glittered gold, finding and gathering his soul was not the issue. Swiftly skipping over the chapter on the mind gathering realm, Syonas started inspecting the chapter on soul concentration.
'After opening the mind, and gathering the soul it is now time to form the soul star. The soul star is what makes a mage a mage, by compressing the soul into a concentrated form, the cultivator becomes capable of producing more soul power than was formerly possible with his/her loose and unfocused soul, while drastically increasing mental faculties.' Followed by a precise description of the method to concentrate the soul and the difficulties involved with it.
By the time he had finished reading it he already felt a slight ache all over his body from his strained soul space. He reached out for two slivers of his soul in the ocean of gold and began to merge them together. The pain was excruciating as was described in the book, but he persevered through the pain. It was either this or be crippled.
One sliver after another was merged together and the pain continued to climb but he didn't stop, not because he didn't want to but because he couldn't. After he had merged five strands together the process had already become autonomous.
Syonas began to convulse in his seat from the pain. His skin prickled in anguish as the pain kept building until he could take no more and he blacked out.
Syonas jolted awake in horror half expecting himself to be back in his old apartment laying in a pool of his own blood, flesh still shifting from the formation of his core.
Syonas wiped his forehead, while calming his ragged breathing. It seemed he was still hunted by the events of last night, and something told him he would still be hunted by it months from now.
'Well, add that to the list of trauma.' Syonas thought to himself.
Glancing out the window, Syonas watched as the rays of the setting sun, as they bathed the library in a golden glow, giving the room a solemn air.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself and putting the horrors of his life to the back of his mind. Syonas reached for meditation. Meditation was more challenging to find than usual, for obvious reasons, but after a few minutes of struggle, he found it again.
Appearing once more in his soul space, the first thing Syonas noticed was the glaring absence of the golden ocean that was his soul. What had taken its place was a lustrous star hovering in the centre of his soul space.
Syonas released a sigh of relief at the sight. He had once again escaped by the skin of his teeth.
'This can't keep happening.' Stones thought while furrowing his brows in consternation.
It seemed that every step of progress he made was followed by fatal danger. He was aware of the risk involved with ingesting the core and went along with it, but this was different. Opening his soul space and beginning cultivation should have been a simple affair that all beginning magicians undergo, but in his case, it became a life and death affair.
There wasn't much that could be done about what had already happened. Syonas could only increase the caution with which he approached his future endeavours.
Syonas checked the time on his watch.
"11:45" displayed on his watch.
'A few more hours till the end of school.' Syonas thought to himself.
Syonas could go home now and maybe check out his new apartment, but he wanted to give one of the cultivation techniques a try. They weren't that many to choose from, so after some deliberation, Syonas settled on the astral technique.
Glancing through the technique, Syonas was surprised to find out he had not actually broken into the mage realm. There was another name for the mage realm: it was called the construct realm.
To step into this realm the practitioners had to build a core construct based on the cultivation technique they where practicing and place in the heart of their soul concentrate to form a soul star.
A soul concentrate is what came into existence when the cultivator had reached the peak of the mind concentration realm, Syonas currently had a soul concentrate.
Reading through the technique and contemplated continuing this blistering cultivation rate but he had already decided to be more cautious with every thing he did, he would shelf further cultivation for now.
Besides there was something else to do.
Now that he had began cultivation in earnest, he could find out his gift. Once again entering his soul space, Syonas consciousness settled below the soul concentrate as he slowly let his mind wonder, allowing himself to immersed in the darkness of his soul space.
Finding your gift was effortless once the soul space had been opened, but it was easier once cultivation had began the farther along the easier it is, and with a cultivation at the top of the novice realm it took Syonas a scant few seconds.
In the deep darkness of his mind Syonas heard the beginning of a melody, soft and simple, but he could not identify the instrument that was used. As time went by new sounds began to emerge not going off rhythm but adding more and more complexity to it.
Time became strange and immeasurable, he didn't know how long had passed but at this point the melody seemed infinite and filled with vast meaning and understanding. It was more knowledge than the human mind could ever comprehend and as though it could sense this this melody began to compress it self, crush itself, break itself until it became one simple melody again, a simple melody with only one sound, containing only one meaning.
He instinctually understood it and when these sounds finally became understandable, two words appeared in his mind.
Soul empath.
It was only two words but these two words represented that infinite melody that contained infinite wisdom. He knew instinctual that to truly master his gift he must awaken that melody once more.
Returning to reality and awakening from the dream of music, Syonas felt his mind fill with knowledge regarding his gifts and how to use them.
Syonas was dazed by the experience, his mind shocked by the magnitude of that melody. The feeling of being in the presence of such great power was almost a religious experience.
Shaking off the leftover amazement left from awakening his gift. Syonas began to go over the new knowledge in his mind when he was interrupted by hunger pangs.
He hadn't eaten in two days.
Well, the past two had been really hectic rising from his feet, Syonas began to walk out of the library while his mind began to rapidly parse through the information on his gifts.
He was so absorbed into his thoughts that he didn't notice the stares that locked onto him when he walked out of the library. He remained missing in his thoughts but was rudely interrupted when a smaller form blocked his path.
Syonas blinked lightly as his eyes shifted downwards and was instantly dazzled. Dressed in a bright neon pink dress with frills and a bedazzled collar, she had the most fascinating electric blue eyes, with small luscious lips glossed a bright pink: she seemed to really like pink.
"you! What's your name." She said in a cute but somehow still womanly voice.
"........uuh, Syonas?" it came out more like a question but she seemed to have got the point.
"Okay Syonas, from now on you are my boyfriend" she said in a commanding tone. While striking a pose and while pointing a finger at him.
"............huh?"