The notification of getting a new Path and all that obviously ant I had to peek at my status again.
[ Ross Moreland
Profile
Race: Human
Weave Access: Full
Paths
Path of the Newborn Star: Iron I
Path of the Acolyte: Iron I
Core
Mana Implosion: [Unawakened]
General Attributes
Vitality: Iron I
Power: Iron I
Agility: Iron I
Path Attributes
Spirit: Iron I
Fervour: Iron I
Aspects
Gravity: Iron II
Infusion
[…]
Ti until Mana Implosion: 12 hours ]
Just as the blue screen had said, I had acquired a second path underneath the Newborn Star one, as well as an associated Path Attribute called Fervour. Considering this was all related to being a cultist, I supposed it made sense, but that didn’t help understand what that Attribute did or was supposed to signify.
At least the other Attributes felt a bit more self-explanatory, save Spirit.
I did note with so satisfaction that Gravity was indeed at Iron II now. The logical conclusion was that I had channelled it enough—with the combined cases of using it against Aurier and then on the carriage—to rank it up. Basically, I had to use it so more to get another rank, and my little experint when following the light orb wasn’t enough.
Maybe it needed more and more use to cross every higher rank, which made sense. Then again, there had been a kind of breakthrough when I had used my Aspect on the carriage, where I learned I could infuse objects externally, not just my own body.
So, was a realization or enlightennt like that necessary for every rank as well, or did it just raise the speed at which rank-ups occurred? I wasn’t sure which was better, or if the difference even mattered.
“I don’t have Sacrifice itself yet, despite having a new Path,” I said to the old man, who had disappeared from the balcony to return the goblet in his office before returning. “But I do have a spot where I can gain a new Aspect…”
I assud the old man comprehended enough of my words. Despite the major language difference, we were kind of sort of conversing. I still wasn’t sure how I could even partially understand them, or how they got what I was saying, because I was positive I was still speaking English. Sothing strange was happening where their occasional word got translated in my head.
Maybe it was the sa for them. I couldn’t be sure.
But more than that, I was also assuming they all had access to the sa sort of lists and blue windows with bright words that I did. That they all had the Weave too. I had seen the threads of power on them, sure, but that didn’t necessarily an they had a handy system too.
The old man seed to understand what I ant either way. He scratched his head again. His short bristly grey hair was so dense that it sounded like rubbing a toothbrush.
He nodded like he had co to an understanding, then showed how to do a Sacrifice.
He pointed at himself vigorously, like that part was important, then reached up and quite literally tugged off a few strands of his hair. I stared. Hadn’t that hurt? And how strong was this old guy to just snag off a pinch of his bristly hair like that?
He held out his hand, his hair in the centre of his palm. For a second, when nothing happened, I began to wonder if he was indicating that I should take the hair.
Then the threads appeared. White lines flowed out and around his hand, circling until they landed on the hair in the middle of his palm. He muttered a soft chant I didn’t catch and his eyes scrunched up just a bit as more of the glowing golden threads pressed down on the hair in his hand. With a spark, the whole thing disappeared.
I blinked, because when I looked up, his hair had changed. It wasn’t a big difference. The strands still densely populated his head, but they were a little longer now, wavier too. Shinier. He looked like he had just co back from an expensive hairstylist.
“Uh…” I wasn’t even sure how to respond.
The old man just pointed at himself vigorously again.
Alright, alright. I had to get my brain working. So what had he done? He had taken so hair, mumbled out a mantra, and applied his mana to said hair.
And received a Hollywood makeover in exchange. What kind of a Sacrifice was that?
Back to the point at hand—I was starting to understand the process. All hail pattern recognition. There was the tribute, there was the magical catalyst, and finally, there was the switch. Hair, mana, chant.
Hmm. I could certainly pull off a bit of my hair. What I wasn’t sure of was how to push my mana into it, because so far, I had just focused on my Aspect and it clearly ended up using however much of the magical energy I possessed to power itself. I didn’t have an Aspect to focus on, not one that could sacrifice stuff. Weighing down my hair wasn’t going to cut it.
Plus, my hair, as I was proud to reveal, wasn’t going to co off my head so easily either. I had a sneaking suspicion the old man had a Power Attribute well above Iron I.
“** *** *** work,” the old cult leader said, rubbing his chin.
I didn’t understand the whole sentence of course, but the negative connotation in his tone was unmistakeable. “What won’t work?”
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
He replied and I didn’t understand a word. When he repeated, and I still didn’t understand, I was left wondering if the process of translation had it so that there were fixed terms that I could grasp. It wasn’t a random selection in every sentence. Unless I had just gotten a terrible luck of the draw.
The old man changed tack and said sothing different, and this ti, I got him. “** **** **** ** use ********* significant.”
“Significant…”
I had started tugging on my hair just to try and copy what the old man had done, but it looked there might not be a point. Hair wasn’t really that significant. What was, then? Blood? That felt like it had the proper gravitas. Very suitable for a ritual sacrifice.
“Uh, you happen to have a knife I could use?” I asked.
The old man blinked at . Then his eyes widened a little after he understood my intention. He shook his head a little vehently. Huh. Why was he so against blood sacrifice when he had been happy to have shot in the head?
He raised both his hands higher and spread them a little. “**** significant. **** you.”
I frowned. There were three words in what he had just said because I understood two of them and in both cases where I didn’t, he had spoken the exact sa thing, going by what I heard. And that helped comprehend what he was getting at.
More. I was going to need sothing that was more important than my own blood, and sothing that was more significant to . Sothing that was personal. Sothing that was irrevocably mine.
My mind went straight to stupid things at first. Like mories. Like my voice. Those were undeniably mine. Oh, I supposed I could add fingerprints to that list too, but were fingerprints that important for to function in the first place? They were vital for feeling and gripping things, but not necessarily for survival, far as I knew.
I had crossed my arms while I was thinking, which was when a different idea popped in my head. Clothes. My clothes. The dirty, bloodied, sweat-stiff shirt, slacks, shoes and underwear I had on from back at work. Those were… significant enough? Right?
“Will these do?” I asked, tugging on my clothes to indicate my choice of Sacrifice.
The old man’s eyes widened a little again, but it was accompanied by a kind smile. He nodded. I didn’t understand what he said, but he indicated for to follow, so I did. Ti to get Sacrifice.
Unsurprisingly, I was back in the ritual chamber. The old man had led straight to the altar, upon which I had neatly folded and placed my old clothes and shoes. No, I wasn’t naked. I had been kindly granted the sa kind of cultist robes—including boots and undergarnts—that the rest of them wore, the white-gold ones with the sun symbol on it.
Made sense. Even the Weave said I was a cultist now, so I might as well start looking like one.
We had brainstord for a bit—which had been an odd experience when we hardly understood each other—and co up with a way for to sacrifice my clothes. Or rather, Sacrifice them, to be exact.
The old man had set a small paper afire and handed the non-burning end to . I held it over my clothes, which had been doused in what slled like kerosene. It made my mind wonder as to the actual level of technology in this world, considering I had also seen self-driving carriages, albeit ones that were magic-powered.
I shook my head. Focus. I let go of the burning page before the flas reached my fingers, though not before I had channelled Gravity again and wrapped several deep purple threads around the sheet of paper.
It didn’t float down. Thanks to my infused weight, the paper practically dropped to my clothes and set them ablaze.
The old guy insisted on that exact procedure. From what I was able to interpret, the usage of mana was important to the process. I understood that it would link my action to the Weave in such a way as to grant —
[ Aspect Unlocked!
Offering recognized. Mana connection established. Requisite Path discovered: Path of the Acolyte.
New Aspect: Sacrifice [Iron I] ]
Right. That.
I didn’t even need to check my status. I was very certain that just as with the Gravity Aspect when I had first obtained it, this one had an empty Affix too. Although, in Gravity’s case, I had just needed to use its capabilities in a certain way to get an Affix. How did one use sothing like Sacrifice?
The old man ca over and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, his eyes on my burning work clothes. There was a solemn look about him.
As I looked at my clothes, at the last remnants of my possessions from back on Earth—I tended to keep my keys and phone in my desk drawer—a twinge plucked my spine. I swallowed. The gravity of what I was doing was really starting to settle in.
This was it. I hadn’t properly thought about the greater context of my situation because I wanted to focus on stopping my core from imploding and taking with it. But that didn’t an my situation magically turned normal. I was still in another world, probably in an entirely separate plane of existence from the one I grew up in.
And, as far as I knew, there was no way of going back. This clothes-burning was a cutting of the ties. I was formally severing the last connection I had to my real ho.
I was acknowledging my intent to remain here for the ti being. Sure, it wasn’t literally locking in place. If there was so magical way of going back, I would absolutely stop and consider the option.
But the symbolism of it all… wasn’t just symbolic. I felt it in my heart. Felt in the solidity of my bones.
This world was the one that had granted this weird thing about a core that would self-detonate if I didn’t do sothing about. It almost felt like a disease at first. Like a stroke of bad luck I’d have to deal with, the way soone suffered an accident or had their house burn down or got cancer.
No.
Way.
I refused to see it that way. It didn’t matter how I had obtained this condition or why. Point was, I had it, and I was going to turn it into an advantage. I had fought against dying during the ritual sacrifice. Now, I was going to fight to make this work for. And if Sacrificing my old ties was how I did it, then so be it.
I didn’t have a chant like the old cultist. But I spoke anyway. “I am not letting a ssed up mana core kill .”
A pure white thread of gleaming power rose out of the fiery remains of my old ho and shot into my hand.
I gasped when it hit the fractures in my chest. It felt like the thread was swimming inside my torso, connecting the different cracks to each other, trying to pull them together sohow. Like it was stitching whatever ss was going on inside back to a more healed state.
A light squeeze on my shoulder reminded to focus on the connection. The thread was a line of mana, yes.
This was why the old man had said that using my Aspect—my mana, specifically—to start the Sacrifice was necessary. Because now there was a direct link from the sacrificial tribute to the magical energy I held inside . To my core directly, if I wasn’t mistaken. This was the link I needed. So, without further ado, I concentrated on pushing my mana out. All of it. All the mana inside my core.
The spiritual cracks began spreading, like razors slicing through my chest. They didn’t get far. The thread of white light was trying to hold them in place. It was growing thicker too. I felt warr and warr as the thread thickened, mana pouring out of and into the Sacrifice via the connection we had established.
The thread grew powerful. A tremor was making the whole place shake, or was it just who was shaking? Even the flas had turned completely white now. With a powerful snap, they all disappeared. The flas, the thread, the shaking. My old clothes too. All gone.
[ Affix Unlocked!
You have acquired a new Affix for your Sacrifice Aspect.
Affix: Windfall ]
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Unique] Combined Possessions From An Extradinsional World. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward: Universal Language Approximator [Sovereign I] ]
I was still trembling after it was over. The old guy’s hand on my shoulder helped steady , though. The fractured feeling in my chest had gone down a lot. Now I just felt like I had swallowed so fish without removing the bones, but instead of lodging in oesophagus, they were barbing my heart.
[ Ross Moreland
Profile
Race: Human
Weave Access: Full
Universal Language Approximator [Sovereign I]
Paths
Path of the Newborn Star: Iron I
Path of the Acolyte: Iron I
Core
Mana Implosion: [Unawakened]
General Attributes
Vitality: Iron I
Power: Iron I
Agility: Iron I
Path Attributes
Spirit: Iron I
Fervour: Iron I
Aspects
Gravity: Iron II
Infusion
Sacrifice: Iron I
Windfall
Ti until Mana Implosion: 3 days ]
A splitting headache spiked up, but I grinned anyway when I saw the very end of the status. Three days. I really had succeeded in pushing off the countdown. Sacrifice had worked.
Sohow, where I couldn’t use up the magical energy stored in my mana core fast enough via Aspects like Gravity, Sacrifice had used up a good chunk of it by just… Sacrificing it away almost instantaneously, I supposed.
“I did it!” I said, turning my grin to the old cultist, relief washing through in heady waves.
“Well done!” He bead at , his eyes flickering with surprise. “I ant to say this earlier… but, Ross Moreland, welco to the Cult of the Sun.”
I blinked. Unbelievable. I could understand him perfectly.
Reviews
All reviews (0)