[Severed Divinity] 61. Sudden Summons

Isen tried to keep his breathing steady.

“—perfectly normal to feel lightheaded. Keep breathing. You picked the skill up very quickly, Isen. Your master prepared you well.”

“Thank you, Jorin,” Isen ground out. “I think I need… to rest.”

Jorin’s expression was impossible to read. “I’ll walk you back. You shouldn’t have lingering exhaustion from a single invocation. If you’re still fatigued in a few hours, come find me.”

For the second time in two days, Jorin escorted Isen to his room while carrying his belongings, in this case the pill furnace and primer. He didn’t inquire about them, though he did make one offhanded comment about the benefits of tearing holes in the wall to let odors vent, since the rooms didn’t have windows in the current setup.

Isen collapsed into bed and curled up on himself. He pulled out the Shard of Erasmus and held it up to the light shining through the black fabric.

The words of Legacy resounded in his head. He had so many questions, as usual, and so few answers seemed forthcoming.

Evolutionary suggestions. Restricted capabilities.

Return to your nearest Compass for assistance until tier up.

The words of Legacy only manifested for elite objects, like the divine dagger. What if Legacy’s framework wasn’t just restricted to high-tier items, though? What if its full potential was only available to higher-tier bearers?

If Lumina Eldrassin was also a bearer of Legacy, as Isen suspected, what was her system like?

He buried his head in the pillow. Such answers wouldn’t be forthcoming.

He stripped out of his sect clothes and dozed off, the exhaustion from using the cloaking technique dragging him under.

When he woke, it was night.

He felt refreshed, so he sat on the bed, hands clasped together, and envisioned shadows again. This time was easier than the last. Shadowy mist shimmered around his shoulders. He held the half-formed technique while he walked over to the mirror in his little bathroom corner.

Isen noticed just how dark the room was; he couldn’t see anything with his mundane sight. After staring at the vacant mirror for a second, though, its edges began to glow, revealing his reflection.

The shadowy energy just… wasn’t there. All he saw was his bare shoulders. He angled his head, arched his shoulders—he just looked like himself.

Only when Isen fully manifested the technique did he see a change in the mirror. His body was like a reflection on a pond’s surface, translucent and partly indistinct. His manifested invisibility was obviously worse than Jorin’s.

When he turned from the mirror and looked down, he was cloaked in liquid shadow. Shutting his golden-ringed eye, the effect softened, giving Isen a glimpse of his translucent silhouette beneath the shadowy energy.

He released the technique and nearly vomited.

He’d overexerted himself again. His hollow core felt terrible, and his shoulders felt as though impaled by knives.

Techniques were clearly powerful and versatile. They were also dangerous. They used up energy quickly and could strain meridians.

He would need to be strategic about how he used them.

Full of pain, he ambled back to bed. He awoke early, when the sun was only starting to rise. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep.

More importantly… he had things to do, and so little time to accomplish them. Lumina hadn’t contacted him, but she might any day.

Isen hadn’t heard anything from Welco, so he was failing at the task Lumina had given him, but he didn’t see anything he could be doing differently. The sixth sense was quiet. He didn’t know what that meant. Given the potency of the opportunity he’d felt when Allezin pawned him off to Welco, he’d thought… Well, he’d thought that he’d feel something by now.

Maybe he just needed to be patient.

Isen dressed himself in the sect uniform, fastened his tier two pin on his collar, and sat down with his books. The light streaming through the dark cloth was finally enough to read by.

Now that he had a featherless quill (borrowed from Arthum), he practiced the elven sigils in the workbook. His fingers blurred over the page, his patience thin. With every stroke, he felt slightly closer to his goal—knowing the language well enough to excel in classes, and more importantly… parse the elven books in the depths’ sanctum.

He practiced for an hour, then stopped to cycle for a few minutes, resetting his mind. After, he reached for A Pill Acolyte’s Primer. The book was bound well and had a good heft to it, and Isen was surprised to find the book full of illustrations. Detailed diagrams of plants, close-ups of pills, diagrams of furnaces and how energy should circulate through them—the book had it all.

Isen’s hands tightened on the leather cover.

It was his first book. The first he’d ever purchased on his own, at least. And in his opinion, the nicest one he’d ever held, much nicer than the dry tomes in the sanctum without any pictures and page-long paragraphs. Nicer, too, than the library books, which had thin, flimsy covers. Lady Jin’s books had been of good quality, but were old, their spines cracked and pages yellowed.

Reverently, he closed the primer, then re-opened it and turned to the first page. He soaked up every word—even the cover page noting the author, the scribe mage, and the binding workshop—and flipped to the next, reading a short epigraph chosen by the author, Camelle Keefe, Champion of Alshendor.

A single pill can hold the power to mend a broken body, to shatter a mountain, or to bridge the gap between worlds. Most are lucky to achieve the first and few obtain the second. Lightning smites the third.

Beware tribulation.

- Olen Triadara

And then, Camelle’s note underneath:

If you’re reading this book, you have a long way to go until you encounter tribulation. Eager student, I hope you make it that far. And when you do, fear it like you fear the alchemist’s flame. Tribulation lightning makes an excellent catalyst.

Isen turned the page.

***

A knock sounded on the door a while later, prompting Isen to nearly set off a small explosion. He was bent over the primer, studying a diagram of an alchemical flame. An energy ball flickered between his palms. He’d been trying to unsuccessfully shape his energy into a flame for the past hour or so.

“Isen?” Freyan’s muffled voice called out.

He blinked, then scrambled to his feet and grabbed Arthum’s quill. He tore open the door with a forced smile. “Good morning!”

“You seem very awake. Breakfast?” She bounced on the balls of her feet. Arthum was next to her, angled toward the dining building.

Isen ran a hand through his hair. “Sure.”

The rest of the school day proceeded much like the one before until the cultivation lesson. There was a third instructor this time.

“Isen,” Jorin said, “today, you’re to go with Kelsina.”

Freyan looked like someone had strangled a kitten, but she didn’t say anything. Arthum’s reaction was more subdued. He turned away, crossing his arms. The tier ones with Meridia glanced over, but the old woman distracted them by leading the contingent through the Femera sequences.

The main ring was large enough for hundreds of cultivators, so Isen and Kelsina easily found a spot away from the others.

“Hey, kid.”

Isen just stared at her. He had a rough understanding of the situation. He’d probably impressed Jorin yesterday by learning the cloaking technique so quickly. Jorin had then called for Kelsina, the top-ranked cultivator in the clan, to personally instruct him.

The main goal wasn’t to teach him. Jorin could clearly do that.

Kelsina was here to observe him. This was a test.

“Show me your shadow cloak,” she commanded, thumb looped through a belt loop.

The sun was bright overhead. Isen squinted into the glare. “Will it work out in the open?”

“It’ll work well enough.”

Wary of overexertion, Isen breathed in and cycled the energy to his shoulders. He visualized shadows and the cloak manifested, a tattered thing in the harsh sun. He cut the technique off and exhaled.

He still felt okay.

“Shadow cloak was your first shadow aspected skill, right?”

He nodded breathlessly.

“Huh. Well, we’re gonna see how far we can get before the bell marks the hour. Shadow sight’s up first.”

It was the ability he cared least about, but he’d already decided to conceal his ability to perceive energy, at least for now.

Kelsina pulled out a handful of papers that looked as though they’d been roughly torn out of a pad of paper. She thumbed through and handed one to Isen. It was a sheet detailing the shadow sight technique.

Isen narrowed his eyes as he went over the diagram on the sheet as well as the accompanying description. When cast, shadow sight would allow him to perceive the visual environment. It hinted at later evolutions that would allow him to perceive even more.

Isen had practiced sending energy into the meridians into his head before to strengthen his senses. This basic shadow sight technique wanted him to do something similar, looping the energy around his eyes and visualizing shadows.

He wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that he’d mastered the technique faster than normal exclusively because of his cultivation talent. He suspected that unseen, unfelt, in the background, the sixth sense nudged him in the right direction.

As he learned the new technique, he paid very close attention to how he felt, scrutinizing anything that felt like a hunch or guess.

He knew it was irrelevant to his progress. He’d learn the technique and move on. But part of him just… needed to know if this bit of success was because of him, his own talent, experience, and effort, or because of some inexplicable, undeserved power he had been born with.

In the end, he had no clear answers. Energy flooded his eyes and the technique activated, but all Isen saw was black. He blinked, alarmed, before he realized what was happening. He couldn’t see past the shadowy energy. It completely blocked his energy perception, especially in his golden eye.

The technique was even more useless than he’d originally thought.

Technique recognized: Optical perception enhancement. Aspect: Shadow. Technique successfully registered. Warning: Technique has low compatibility with physique.

It was also followed by the same warnings as last time about evolutionary paths and part of the system being unavailable.

“Next,” Isen said, dismissing the effect.

Kelsina didn’t seem surprised that he deactivated the ability so quickly. “How about you try shadow fist next.” She held up another paper between two fingers, waving it back and forth.

Isen grinned. Finally, one he cared about.

He studied the diagram, then considered whether he could get away with cheating—forming an energy ball while envisioning shadows. It would have a different energy flow from the diagram, but he hoped it would produce a similar effect.

It didn’t work. Energy bloomed between his palm but didn’t have a shadowy appearance. He clamped his hands together to hide the energy ball from Kelsina. Isen hadn’t thought the energy flow in the technique diagram was arbitrary, but it was still good to confirm. He couldn’t just create a technique by venting energy while visualizing an aspect.

Forcing the energy to flow through his fingers in the way the technique needed was challenging. The energy needed to radiate out from his wrist and up through his fingertips.

“Kid, look here,” Kelsina said. She struck with her hand, fingers arched like claws. She did it slowly, and the energy flowed from her fingers like ink as she moved. The shadows deepened, flowing over her hand. When she completed the technique, the energy surged forward, rending the air and the ambient energy mist.

Isen took in a deep breath, then mimicked her movement. Forward step, arm back, lunge, fingers curled just so… Energy not moving in a straight course through his hand, but spiraling out. It suddenly made much more sense—the spiraling motion stabilized the flow of energy.

He felt the power at his fingertips, then envisioned shadow. Not to cloak, but to strike, an assassin in the dark.

His hunts in the depths flashed through his mind. Especially when he’d been a new tier one, ambushing foes had been his best path.

Dark energy pulsed around his fingers, cold as it coursed like a river over his hand.

Technique recognized: Augmented strike. Aspect: Shadow.

Isen grinned and turned to Kelsina. His smile faltered at her flinty gaze, betraying no emotion.

He composed himself. He already knew this was some kind of test. Of course she wouldn’t join in his excitement.

He cleared his throat. “What’s the next technique I should try?”

Kelsina shook her head. “That’s enough for now.”

The breath stopped in his chest. Had he messed up?

She turned and sighed. “The clan head will see you tonight. Go to him after eighth evening bell.”

Disappointment turned to elation. “Should I bring anything with me?”

She snorted. “Just don’t be late.” She waved the remaining sheets of paper in her hand. “Anyone ever tell you you’re pretty good at this stuff?”

Isen bit back a wry smile. “Someone might have implied it. Um… Class isn’t over yet. Should I rejoin the others?”

“No.” She walked to the edge of the ring, crossing into one of the alleys. Isen followed her to the mouth of the cultivation cave. “Recoup your energy. After that, the day is yours to do with as you desire. I recommend drilling the Femera sequences later on your own. If you need help, Meridia holds an evening session for all clades at fourth evening bell. Just don’t forget—eighth bell.”

Isen nodded, then slipped past Kelsina. The cave’s energy welcomed him like an old friend, filling his body and roaring through his hollow rings.

All of this will come to an end, he thought. Everything will crumble.

He’d take every benefit he could until that point. But he wasn’t ungrateful for the care Clan Femera had given him. Welco might be a traitor to Eldrassin for working with Dray, but his motives didn’t seem evil. As far as Isen could tell, Welco was doing what he thought was best to save his clan, and maybe the city, even if he thought the probability of success was low.

Isen could only hope that whatever Lumina Eldrassin was planning would flip the board and scatter all the pieces. That she would find a way to save her city… and herself.