Anima Conversion is now Level 5!
. . .
Anima Conversion is now Level 8!
Three levels was nothing to scoff at, he supposed.
“Now then, let’s see here…” he said while picking up the tome and map fragment, and focusing on the latter first.
Revelate!
Name: Elden Map Fragment
Type: Artefact
Quality: Legendary
Requirement: Primogenitor
Description: A fragment of the Ancient Map of Eld, home of the Blood Lords. The map has been lost to time, and with it, the location of the Elden and their ancient seat of power.
Special Effects: When united with the remaining six fragments of the Ancient Map of Eld, this will unlock the pathway to the homeland of the Elden.
Aurelian stared at the fragment for several precious seconds, and then shook his head immediately. “And of course, this means—”
The System’s pop-up alert confirmed his suspicions a moment later, as if it had been waiting for just that realisation.
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<td>
QUEST ISSUED: The Ancient Map of Eld
You have stepped foot on the path to recovering the secrets of the Elden already, but the journey before you is yet extensive. With the recovery of the first Elden Map Fragment, you have embarked on the next leg of your journey.
Find the remaining six pieces of the Ancient Map of Eld, and combine them to unlock the path to the Elden homeland.
Be warned, the covetous envy of Absolum cannot be easily denied.
Success Parameters:
Acquire all six Elden Map Fragments
Reconstitute the Ancient Map of Eld
Failure Parameters:
Lose the Elden Map Fragments
Someone else reconstitutes the Ancient Map of Eld
Rewards:
1 x Secrets of the Elden
1 x Unique Title (Varies)
Huge Experience Gain
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Aurelian eyed the floating quest text with a squint, and roamed his eyes over the offered rewards and implied benefits with a wary gaze. He had become greatly skeptical of the System since his arrival on Terra, and the only truth that seemed immutable was that there was always a catch, or hidden condition, or some sort of unexpected twist lurking around the next corner.
Sometimes it felt like the System was almost enjoying its twists and turns.
His hood shook and he dismissed the quest with a wave of his hand while looking back down to the map fragment. It looked like almost any other piece of innocuous aged parchment, though he did feel something strange from it. A moment of wracking his brain followed, and then he blinked.
It had been when he’d used Anima to heal himself.
“Did this thing react to that…?” he murmured with surprise, while narrowing his eyes upon it.
Dragon’s Gaze was brought to bear against the map fragment, and Aurelian’s eyes widened when it was. As if in confirmation of his prior suspicions, the map fragment was not merely reacting, it was actively shimmering with faint traces of what recognised as the distinct energy of Anima.
“What if I—?”
Acting in the same moment as he was speaking, Aurelian injected what little Anima he had remaining into the map fragment.
The Elden Map Fragement is reacting to your Anima Resonance!
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius, you have discovered a Blood Memory!
Would you like to view this memory now?
Y / N
Aurelian selected ‘yes’ instinctively.
The world abruptly vanished.
<blockquote>
He stood at the precipice of a vast and mountain-girded valley, shielded by peaks in reminiscence of a giant horse shoe. The sky overhead a swirling maelstrom of golden light and blackened clouds twisting together like the central eye of a sky-spanning hurricane. Towers of obsidian and silver, shining with scarlet veins of Anima, jutted from the earth; their surfaces engraved with intricate and pulsating runes of golden light.
At the center of it all, a colossal gate loomed—sealed, cracked, but yet unbroken.
“The Path is severed… but not lost."
The voice, at once singular and at the same time a choral cacophony, thundered in his bones—it inhabited his blood, his marrow, his very soulforce and Core.
“Find the Fragments. Rekindle the Blood. Inherit the Legacy."
The words were a demand, a command, and a plea all at once. They boomed with the authority of something beyond mortality, something as Ancient and Primordial as Bael’tharax and yet wholly separate.
Aurelian’s vision lurched abruptly, reality bending around him in a kaleidoscope of light until—
</blockquote>
Aurelian gasped out a desperate breath and nearly dropped the fragment. His pulse pounded in his ears, and he felt something screaming at his mind and soul. There was a pressure building within him, a kind of immense and incalculable weight that was pressing against his skull from inside while he attempted to process what had just happened.
“Was that Eld…?” he muttered to himself. “Did I just see the homeland of the Elden?”
Aurelian! Bahamut cut in abruptly. What are you doing?!
Huh? What do you—?
Check your System alerts! I cannot both shield you and protect the mortals at the same time! You must cease these tangential distractions!
Bahamut, I just got a vision of—
Later! the Dragon King interrupted. We can discuss it after the current crises are abated!
Not bothering to reply given the impatience in his bond’s mental sending, Aurelian instead directed his attention to the System at Bahamut’s behest, and was promptly assailed by a bevy of notifications.
Dragon’s Gaze is now Level 25!
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
. . .
Dragon’s Gaze is now Level 27!
Congratulations, Dragon’s Gaze has reached Initiate Tier!
You have gained Experience!
Would you like to Infuse the Dragon’s Gaze Skill?
Y / N
Aurelian’s eyes widened and he realised immediately what Bahamut had meant. While the alert itself was not a great burden, the implication behind it was—and now that his partner was no longer shielding the System’s influx from him, Aurelian could feel the physical and metaphysical pulls of the decision as potential energy raged to be harnessed or let free to pass on.
He hesitated only long enough to snatch the Essence Draught stored in his armor’s storage, and tore off the seal. A second later he tipped back his head, and poured the contents down his throat.
The moment he did, he mentally smacked the ‘Y’ option on the System prompt.
Infusion request confirmed.
Searching for valid Essences . . .
Essences found.
Populating . . .
[Essence of the Leviathan] (L)
No other Essences found.
Would you like to use this Essence?
Y / N
Another instantaneous ‘Y’ followed, and Aurelian watched with now-abating discomfort, but grim understanding of more to come, as the System cycled through its processes dutifully.
[Essence of the Leviathan] has been selected for Infusion.
Infusion parameters have been confirmed.
[Essence of the Leviathan] will grant the [Monarch’s Starsight] Infusion.
Mind Skill [Dragon’s Gaze] will now be Infused with [Monarch’s Starsight].
Beginning Initiate Tier Mind Infusion . . .
Aurelian’s head exploded with pain, and he snarled in both rage and self-recrimination at knowing he had completely expected the outcome, and still chosen to go through with it.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid—”
His cursing of himself was cut off by another wordless snarl, suppressed as best as he could, while power and energy flooded his mind and—more specifically—his corneas with unbridled might. Bael’tharax’s last gift raged through his veins, almost amplified by the existing Body and Spirit Infusions within him, and seared its way through his insides.
Pain Tolerance is now Level 40!
Aurelian felt as if his eyes were being hollowed out, scraped away molecule by molecule, and filled with magma as the infusion raged on. Pain Tolerance and Dragon’s Resolve surged to the fore, but neither could do more than brace him for the pain and suffering he knew was sure to come. Bael’tharax’s essences were an incredible boon, but they were also Legendary in their quality, and Nephilim or not; he remained an Untempered Novice.
The fact he wasn’t dead was impressive all on its own, and while knowing that didn’t help, it certainly did give him a reason for somewhat ironic self-appreciation. It was quite the achievement to be so hilariously overpowered for his level that the essence of what was essentially a quasi-deity didn’t obliterate him where he sat, and equally shocking, that he managed to stay conscious through the process.
Though admittedly, he’d have happily taken an enforced nap.
Pain Tolerance is now Level 41!
Another lance of agony seared through Aurelian’s mind and he felt himself heaving for air as he fell back against the rubble and sand, fists clenched, and eyes alternating between squeezed shut and wide open. He could feel fire in his gaze, burning away impurity as blood trailed in warm rivulets across his battle-dirtied cheeks, and foul smoke wafted from his skull and eyesockets.
Pain was an old friend by that point, but even then, this was like nothing else.
“F—Fuck…” he cursed under his breath, while his fingers dug into the earth and dragged metal, stone, and desiccated ground along in their wake. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The pain was barely ameliorating when another wave hit, and his back arched at the force of it. His body was reacting, not simply to the infusion itself, but to the coalescing multitude of draconic energy—platinum energy, at that—suffusing his being. It was as if both his Dragon’s Sanguination and his Mana Control skills were resonating with the changes happening to Dragon’s gaze—and Aurelian was a passenger in his own flesh.
Pain Tolerance is now Level 42!
“Come on,” he snarled through clenched teeth while his vision swam, and a kaleidoscopic chaos of colours, light, and magical essence raged across his sight, “make it end, make it end, that’s enough, this is—argh!”
Dragon’s Gaze was aflame in his eyes, and he could feel his vision morphing. He could feel something within his seeing organs change in a fundamental way. This wasn’t the usual alteration of using the skill—it was something more. An evolution was taking place, and he was powerless to stop it, powerless to do more than writhe and snarl and wait for fate and the System to decide he had suffered enough to earn his growth.
His eyes burned with energy, and as the agony seemed to hit some sort of crescendo, Aurelian felt something in his eyes pop, inaudible in truth, but visceral enough that the force of it sent a rippling shiver through his nervous system.
Initiate Tier Mind Infusion Complete!
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
You have successfully Infused [Monarch’s Starsight] into the Dragon’s Gaze Skill!
Please review your Infused Skill for further details!
The world unfolded in a way that shocked him into stillness.
Aurelian sagged against the earth as the last dregs of agony faded rapidly from his body, and his head cleared from the fugue of suffering that had afflicted it. His eyes blinked, once and slowly, and he lifted a hand instinctively to reach out toward what he could now see.
The world was different in a way words could never fully describe.
Spectrums of colours previously forbidden to his sight bloomed in a bevy of brilliance that brought tears to his bloodied gaze. Mana filled the air, and he could see it with such clarity and precision that he no longer even needed to think in order to identify it. What was more, his vision was no longer beholden to the simplistic limitations of his mortal body—Nephilim or not.
He sat up slowly, and he realised that he could see his Arisen battling the corrupted Skarnids.
What was more, he could see Zylara—both the ghost of her passage via the mana she had left in her wake, and her leaping figure. She was barely a vague dot in the distance, yet the moment he wanted to, he was able to ‘zoom’ in on her like his eyes were a high-definition camera lens. The Blood Scion was rendered with perfect clarity to him, moving with lethal and terminal grace as she massacred skarnids alongside the Arisen.
They moved with and around her, working to use their obsidian bodies to launch the Spellbow into the area repeatedly and with enough regularity that she was airborne more than not—firing her bow with manifested arrows of black shadow mana wrapped in scarlet lightning.
“Woah…” he said quietly, and instinctively pulled up his System alerts to review the results of his Infusion.
Name: Dragon’s Gaze
Type: Mind Skill
Rarity: Epic
Level: 25
Tier: Initiate
Description: You have unlocked the power of a Dragon’s Gaze, allowing you to perceive the active power of the world around you. You are able to see perfectly in even the darkest of places, see mana in its myriad compositions within the world, and track enemies through their body heat alone. This skill additionally permits you other benefits, when paired with certain Titles and Skills.
Initiate Infusion: This Skill has been Infused with [Monarch’s Starsight] at Initiate Tier. This Infusion allows you to see anything within direct sight range with perfect clarity, up to one kilometer away. Additionally, you are now able to perceive and target the mana attunement and Core of any creature at your Tier, below your Tier, and a maximum of 1 Tier above. Additionally, you are now able to perfectly recreate an image of a spell from mana traces alone, including the general shape and species of the person that used the spell, and use this recreation to either track a target or learn the process behind casting the spell yourself. This is limited to creatures below or at your level, and up to 10 levels higher. Finally, you gain access to the trait Truesight.
Name: Truesight
Type: Trait
Rarity: Legendary
Description: Dragons have long been the absolute apex of the food chain, and their powerful eyes factor into this greatly. Through the power of the previous Dragon King, you have attained the eyes of a True Dragon, and are now able to view the world as they do. Due to your lack of true draconic form, however, this trait is limited in its application.
Effects: +25% Perception, +2 Perception per Level
Special Effects: You are able to pierce all illusions and invisibility at or below your current Tier, and up to 2 Tiers above. Additionally, you are impervious to being blinded outside of physical damage to your eyes, and your vision is no longer impeded by even the brightest of lights, nor the darkest of shadows.
Aurelian felt a grin split his lips as he read what the System told him, and opened his mouth to cheer, only for a new alert to freeze him in place.
You have reached Level 25!
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
Through tribulation and strife, you have managed to ascend past your limits!
You have reached Initiate Tier!
You will now undergo your First Tempering!