Cyril Sarnath
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Chapter 172
🕑 Added 2023-06-16 19:07:47 +0000 UTCKeynes had gone through at least a hundred different plants when he felt something unusual and novel; an instinct, which he followed as he inspected plants with his spiritual aura.
At first he only recognised a distinct spiritual signature of each rarity but he didn’t stop there and tried to peer deeper into the spiritual structure that made the plants. This constant pushing followed the new instinct and its feedback only reinforced Keynes’s focus.
And then it happened.
Congratulations!
You have acquired a Technique of Spiritual Sensitivity
*
Your Understanding of Spirit has increased dramatically
Keynes’s mind filled with understanding. It was…so much different from the scrolls. In his mind, he could trace back every step he had taken to reach this layer. It was unbelievable how blind he’d been before now. Nonetheless, he was forced to relax and clear his mind to keep from being overwhelmed.
He allowed himself to be swept by the spiritual stimuli like a log in a wild river. With closed eyes, he let himself immerse in the new feeling. The river calmed and slowly morphed into an ocean of spirit.
Spirit was everywhere. The world was made out of spirit…
…and Keynes just learned to see.
Without opening eyes, he ‘glanced’ at the plant—Firsome Blue Acacia—and found new depth in its spiritual signature. Its complexity was mind-numbing but nothing could discourage Keynes. His spiritual sense dived into the plant’s spiritual structure and felt a faint connection between the plant’s rare rarity and its properties. With enthusiasm and dexterity of a newborn—rather than a surgeon—Keynes’s spiritual fingers touched the delicate spiritual matrix. Like a living organism, the plant’s spiritual DNA had its own purpose but the exact role of its design was beyond Keynes’s understanding. It wasn’t surprising. He just started to see the ocean, he couldn’t yet swim in it. There would be time for that.
His attention turned to a different aspect of his new understanding. His spiritual fingers suddenly grasped the structure and squeezed. It resisted for a while but Keynes was a Level 4 Perfect State ascender in the Superior stage. Instinctively, he knew that the plant couldn’t withstand his spiritual pressure.
The plant’s spiritual structure was both very fragile and malleable. It existed in perfect harmony where every detail of its design mattered. But at the same time, it possessed strange resilience that was trying to keep it functional. Even as Keynes tightened his grip on the structure, it morphed and wiggled like an eel. It tried to adapt to the pressure, even though some features and characteristics were lost in the process.
Keynes didn’t stop and the spiritual structure started to break apart, unable to accommodate the rapid change. As his spiritual aura crushed it, an invisible wave of energy was released. He wouldn’t know it happened if his Chaos debuff didn’t resonate with it.
The physical plant quickly decayed and then disintegrated, leaving nothing behind…
Out of nowhere, came the unsettling sensation of being watched, closely. Immediately, Keynes felt that the act of spiritual destruction was an act against nature itself. But the System didn’t stop him and…there seemed to be no consequence.
“Lem Solaris?” Keynes asked, wondering if she would show up.
She didn’t.
But there was one extra matter left. Why did the Chaos debuff react to the spiritual destruction of the plant? Were Spirit and Chaos parts of the life cycle? What happened there?
Of course, the answer didn't materialise.
Another plant ended the same way and once more the debuff reacted. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just a faint resonance with the energy of a dying plant. Keynes didn’t even worry that the debuff might become active. Which in itself was something to think about.
The spiritual structure of insects was far more complex than plants even of the rare ones. There was an additional depth that was represented as a shades of spiritual energy within the structure. It was also much harder to crush insects’ spiritual structures—they didn’t have spiritual cores like ascenders or monsters—and in most cases, Keynes ended up destabilising them. It had varying effects with a few insects perishing but without releasing waves of energy. Proper monsters were going to be far more resilient than mere insects, so a plan to use spiritual aura to kill them was out of question. Also, Keynes had a hunch that the System might step in if he started annihilating spiritual structures of monsters.
But he wasn’t going to stop there. The technique was powerful and he had much to learn with it. So he took a look at himself and he found what he expected but much more complex than he thought possible. Above it all was his core. The level of intricacy made everything else pale in comparison. It was like comparing the design of a rocket to a car.
Keynes swiftly moved his attention away from the main core to six attribute cores then further down searching for the source of mana. He was sure he could figure it out. But first, he needed to understand the relationship between attributes, the main core and Levels. Essence was a building block of the entire spiritual structure of ascenders. Absorbing it made levelling possible. There had to be a connection between all these elements. He even considered using the orb of insight he’d received as a reward for gaining the third degree but something new caught his attention.
His buffs were half-integrated with his spiritual core. Their presence wasn’t obvious and their structures looked irregular and rather out of place. Keynes spent time investigating each of them as it wasn’t clear which one was which. He also found no debuff.
Whatever was going on here, showed that his buffs weren’t properly integrated with his spiritual core. Could it be that mana core was in a similar situation? After all, only after intervention of Lem Solaris’s master, Vitality, the sixth attribute was reinstated. He continued playing with the buffs, hoping to find a solution and better understanding of his current predicament.
While he didn’t figure out how to fix it, he learned the buffs were misaligned with his core. This almost pushed him to use the orb of insight and re-align it but then he remembered that the essence was required to make changes inside his body. He left that for later and focused on his spell cores.
Each of them showed a different level of integration with the main core and size. Manipulating these required essence. Keynes had done some of this already especially with [Flight] but now he saw how crude and inefficient these changes were.
But he didn’t really care about them at the moment. Another idea formed in his mind, one that others might not like and he was okay with that. And so he did two things simultaneously.
You have used the Orb of Grand Insight.
*
You have activated the Trait of Spirituality
***
Lem Solaris saw the thoughts in Keynes Kid’s mind before they reached his consciousness. She could easily stop him there. Remove the thoughts without him knowing what had happened. Perhaps the System would have acted and stopped her but she didn’t think it would. Actually, Lem Solaris believed that the course of action wasn’t particularly favourable for the System.
Keynes Kid was beginning to see the true face of the world. Of course, seeing wasn’t enough. Between seeing, understanding and changing the spiritual landscape was a vast chasm. Once Keynes Kid reached the third milestone, he would learn that the System didn’t like ascenders who meddled directly with the spiritual structure of the world. There would be pushback, though what kind of pushback, Lem Solaris couldn’t tell. The System was unpredictable.
She watched Keynes Kid absorb the trait. It was going to reshape him in a way he wasn’t going to like…
A spike of Chaos energy exploded out of Keynes Kid, obliterating his surroundings. Lem Solaris had to shield Keynes Kid’s connection with his personal assistant or it would be annihilated as well. Chaos didn’t discriminate against the different planes of existence, it destroyed everything equally.
Or more precisely, deformed.
Chaos represented an enigmatic primordial energy which introduced pure Chaos. Anything under its influence rapidly changed in an uncontrollable way. Only pure Order was capable of countering Chaos. But Order was as dangerous as Chaos and using it was forbidden. Order locked things the way they were in all possible dimensions, including time. Someone trapped by Order would remain frozen in place for eternity.
What Lem Solaris was now observing was a maelstrom of Chaos and Spirit existing within Keynes Kid’s spirit core. Spirit was neither Chaos or Order. Its origin was unknown but it was clearly a product of the System, though how the System managed to create Spirit or why, Lem Solaris didn’t know. It was the kind of knowledge locked by the Higher Realms.
As the energies started to spiral out of control and threaten the integrity of Keynes Kid’s surroundings, the System acted and attempted to isolate the boy from the physical realm.
But then the unexpected happened…
A rift opened. Not just any rift, not even a greater rift. No. This was something else. Something unknown even to Lem Solaris, no matter how unlikely that sounded. It was wide enough to swallow a building, and possessed no colour or shape.
Lem Solaris shuddered as she realised that she was affected by its mesmerising influence, which should not be possible with her attributes and resistances. She tried to contact Traveller but her connection was BLOCKED. She couldn’t move. She was trapped.
The rift rebuffed the System’s attempt. Then its form started to morph into a humanoid form though a far cry from a human. The energy skyrocketed as the System tried again but failed. It appeared as well as a genderless humanoid without any features. Both of them stood on both sides of Keynes Kid while the world around was slowly being destroyed by volatile energies. Even though the System froze the time, it was not able to contain the energies. Entropy was eating the forest away.
Beyond them was Lem Solaris watching this madness. She was unable to speak or move, and she knew that both entities were aware of her presence but decided to ignore her.
“CHILD OF CHAOS BELONGS TO US.”
It was difficult to describe it as a voice. It were waves of pure Chaos, travelling through the higher physical realm, and the System acted, trying to contain them lest they would tear it apart. Still, the energies of Chaos were too potent and some of them escaped the System’s grip. Lem Solaris bit her teeth as pain cut through her. She had some Chaos resistance but she was too close to the entity of Chaos. Remaining even in the periphery of its attention was too dangerous for her. She could only watch in disbelief as her skin was slowly disintegrating as the chaotic energies were messing up with her spiritual integrity.
It would not kill her. Her Soul would survive even Chaos but rebuilding spiritual constitution was always a bothersome exercise.
“NO,” The System replied and the world trembled. “KEYNES KID WAS BORN OUT OF THE SYSTEM.”
“NO,” this time the entity of Chaos denied, and through the pain, Lem Solaris sensed joy, alien, unending and misplaced. “THE CHILD BELONGS TO CHAOS. THE CHILD OF CHAOS COMES.”
Lem Solaris tried to scream as agony rocked her body. Half of her body was already gone if not for her Will, she would lose the rest of her integrity. But she endured.
She felt the entity of Chaos’ departure and the System’s corrective actions. Hundreds of metres of matter in all directions had vanished and the System was bringing it back.
It lasted less than a second but the sheer energy made Lem Solaris vomit. She dropped on the rebuilt bed of a forest. Her body twisted, burnt, melted, and worse, but it was already healing, although damage done by Chaos required Soul healing as the standard spells were useless against this type of damage.
It took her several minutes to fully recover. The forest around looked pristine and untouched. But its condition stood out of place in the bigger picture of the dominion. Not that any of the ascenders here could spot a difference.
Her attention fell on Keynes Kid and she immediately noticed changes. The Trait of Spirituality had been absorbed but the Chaos was no longer listed as debuff.
It was now a buff…
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