Chapter 4
After Argyros was finished speaking he teleported them down once again. He found that when he was hovering above the ground still and that he was still dressed exactly as he had been six days prior. The two men that looked exactly like Argyros were standing in the exact same spot that they had been the last time he saw them. The greenery now surrounding them marked the only change.
Argyros called out “Coren, Rocen.”
Both men walked over to Argyros and knelt in front of him. They tilted their heads to the floor and spoke together. “Yes, Elder we aim to serve.”
While flicking his head and thumb out at Wes, Argyros said. “From this day forth you shall serve this boy. You will train him in the same ways I have used while I presided over your training. If he should perish or be misplaced you will have to directly answer to me. Do you understand?”
Both Coren and Rocen slammed their foreheads to the floor and spoke as one. “We have received our words of wisdom and now hold them close to our hearts.”
“Enough. I will leave him in your care until you meet me once more.” Argyros leaned forward and said something else but the words he spoke did not provide any sound.
For the first time since Wes had met Argyros, he saw true contrition across his face. He walked over to Wes and said. “These two will not be your babysitters. They will train you in our ways. I came here in a rather bold manner and did not try to obfuscate what I was doing. Your life may now be forfeit but I will try and buy you more time. With any luck, we will meet again soon. I suspect Coren and Rocen will be quite hard on you. My recommendation is that you use their misdirected frustration with me as fuel to drive your growth.”
After Argyros thought for a moment he waved his arm and Wes found himself at the peak of a mountain. He could see black lands in the distance in every direction he looked. When he looked up to the sky he found thick clouds. Not a speck of empty sky could be seen. Below him on one side was a deep gorge at the base of the mountain. On the other side was what looked like a river that he had seen in his studies. Behind him was a mirror image of the front of him; only the gorge and river were opposite.
Right when he was thinking to himself, What the hell am I supposed to do? A screen appeared in front of him.
Name: Wesley of 29744C
Race: Human
Age: 27
Unique abilities: Imperial over Metric (Temporary), Back in My Day(Temporary)
Abilities: N/A
Skills: N/A
Achievements: Locked
Trait(s): None
Current Status: Cursed(Suppressed)
Attributes
Health: 8+2
Stamina: 15+2
Mana: 2,483,200+2
Strength: 13+2
Dexterity: 9+2
Awaken Quest: Reach the Endless Sea.
Reward(s): ??????????, ?????, ???
Failure Condition: Death/Time reaches 00:00:00
Failure Penalty: Death
Time remaining: 335:58:21
Wes took in his status screen for the first time in awe. He had dreamed when he was a boy to awaken it but gave up when the age of awakening came and went. The average age was six in his village. Only one who had awakened that he remembered had made it off-world. Most were content to stay in their homeworld with their families. Wes thought to himself, Is this even my world?
He continued, what’s with that age? Did I somehow age 12 years? Damn you Argyros if you did this to me I will make you pay. I know what Metric is but what the hell is Imperial? Is it trying to tell me that Imperial is better?
Most importantly, what the hell is up with my mana? That must have been what Argyros meant.
Snapping him from his thinking a boom rocked the land behind him. He turned on his heel and looked for what it was but could not find anything. Just a dark land and what he thought were trees between the gorge and water.
He observed a small winding path from his location down so he turned back around to where he was facing before and found no such path. He was thinking about which path to take when he heard a bone-shrieking screech down the side of the path, followed by a loud thud.
Dipping to a crouch he made himself as small as he could at the peak of the mountain. His instincts screamed at him that he did not want to meet whatever that was. He remained still for a time and heard nothing else from the path side. Wrestling with indecision he took a seat and pondered his next move.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
***
Goddess Tessonia sat in a lavish seat as one of her young daughters sat in front of her. She brushed her daughter's shiny gold hair and teased her as only a mother should. “How is your husband these days? What is his name again?”
“His name is Yunisher mother.”
“Forgive me, my love.” Tessonia replied.
When Tessonia was going to ask her daughter another question she felt a crunch in her heart. Followed by a release of weight on her shoulders. For the first time in a hundred millennia, she could breathe unencumbered. She knew right away what had happened. Her Mana rushed out of her and slammed into everything around her. It demolished everything, leaving no room to discriminate between friend and foe.
She bathed in the ecstasy of having the full capacity of her mana.
When she gathered her sense of self she looked down and found nothing. She looked around what was supposed to be her throne room and found only two living individuals. Her home and lands for thousands of kilometers had been demolished by just flexing the full weight of her Mana. The two that had the strength to bear some of the weight of her power were not unscathed themselves.
She wagged her finger at them, “come here”
The stronger of the two pulled the near-lifeless body of his son forward. “Yes, Eternal Mistress. How may I be of service?”
Tessonia took him in. “It seems you have grown strong Pruton.”
Pruton had most of his body destroyed and blood was coming from every orifice. He dared not bring his eyes to his mother's. “Not as strong as I would like, Eternal Mistress.”
Enough of the formalities. “Call me mother.”
Pruton hesitated before he replied, “If I could be so bold it would make my heart happy.”
She shook her head. “I seemed to have made a mess. I need you to go and see who I offended and clean up my mess for me. I will go and make restitution to all those who seek it. After which I will be taking a little trip.”
Pruton lifted his head to meet his mother's eyes for the first time since he was a child. “Does that mean?”
She nodded in the affirmative. “Yes, my time resting is no more. I have to go and pay my respects to an old friend."
***
Wes waited for a time trying to hear noises from both sides. He could only make out any sort of sounds from the side with the path. He kept reading and rereading his status for clues but aside from the actual quest description, there was none. It says “Reach the Endless Sea.” Does that mean I can go to either side? Maybe only one side is an actual sea. If I remember my lessons right, they said that some large bodies of freshwater on a planet were also possible. What if the one toward or away from the path is not a sea.
Wes looked at his time remaining:
335:27:07
He could see that this was a timer but how much of a buffer did it allow or was there even a buffer. Wes decided to take a risk. He was more likely to die from the loud things that he heard from the path side than he was from the timer dwindling down. At least he hoped that was the case. So he decided to begin the long process of finding his way down the side of the mountain without a path. Looking at what he could see from his vantage point he knew that he was just as likely to die but he hoped at the very least it would be a painless death.
Wes decided to go down the side that did not have loud sounds coming from it. The only animals he knew of personally were the ones that they would have for the yearly festival in the village. That was not to say that he did not also know of star systems that were littered with animals and plants that would actively hunt biological life.
Since the side of the path he chose did not have a clear, distinguished path he had to shimmy himself down the first portion of the mountain. He estimated that at its peak it was only a couple of hundred meters above ground. Maybe a kilometer at most. Wes felt a streak of pain in his head that passed quickly. Choosing to ignore it, he decided to continue on down the pathless side. If it were any higher than what it was he would have chosen the route that had the path regardless of what may be on the other side. His real issues on descent came when it became too steep for him to keep his balance. He had to transition to being on all fours. He had to be careful with the placement of every step and handhold. The ground had bits of rock that would flake away and an upper layer of something blue that made getting any real traction under his feet an issue.
He spent one whole digit from the left side getting down no more than fifty meters from the peak. The pulse of pain struck his head again. Over the past week of torture with Argyros his fear of heights gradually waned and he no longer had a fear of heights. A side benefit of that hell but he still to a degree feared injuring himself. Not being able to heal himself crystallised the seriousness of the situation he found himself in. Falling and dying was not an ideal outcome but falling and surviving the fall would be worse. He would die a slow painful death.
Wes did not walk into this awakening blind though. He knew that in an awakening one had to prove oneself by their own merits. No one could interfere with whatever task they got assigned. To accept or search for another's help would meet whatever failure condition and penalty it listed. Some of the people he knew who had awakened their quest had shared the details of their awakening. And they did not sound anywhere close to as harsh as his. The worst he had heard of penalty-wise, was that a man couldn’t have kids for 20 years. On the other hand, his tutor had mentioned that the more adverse a failure condition to a person’s future the greater rewards that could be gained upon completing his awakening successfully.
He was excited about what those rewards might be, but of course, his were nothing but question marks. He had no idea what he was working toward. Even his temporary unique ability seemed useless. He had no idea how to activate it. When he reached a shelf another 70 meters down he took a moment to rest and look at his status once more. The real thing that worried him was not anything else but what his current status said.
Name: Wesley of 29744C
Race: Human
Age: 27
Unique Abilities: Imperial over Metric (Temporary), Back in My Day(Temporary)
Abilities: N/A
Skills: N/A
Achievements: Locked
Trait(s): None
Current Status: Cursed(Suppressed)
Attributes
Health: 8+2
Stamina: 15+2
Mana: 2,483,200+2
Strength: 13+2
Dexterity: 9+2
I mean sure the over two million in mana was concerning, but he never really knew he had it until a little while ago. Based on what Argyros said his sister knew how to use curses. So he found that his sister may have cursed him, concerning. He checked his clock again.
332:07:22
He thought to himself. What the hell. Time is going so much quicker here. I didn't even do that much. How the hell is it already down 4 whole points on the left? Something triggered in Wes’s mind and he saw a change in his status.
Current Abilities: Imperial over Metric(Temporary), Back in My Day(Temporary)(Active)
Wes audibly shuddered. He scanned his body and found nothing different. He turned inward, scanning over the rest of his status and finding nothing changed. He looked back at his status and saw that it was still in the Active state so he started looking over the land below. He searched the skies and looked over the mountain. Nothing changed. Bringing up his status, disappointed he found that it had changed again.
Current Abilities: Imperial over Metric(Temporary), Back in My Day(Temporary)(Inactive)
Confused now more than ever he sighed and under his breath he said, “What the fuck does that mean. If it's just going to waste my time and do nothing then why change?”
When Wes had that thought while looking at his status he saw it change.
Current Abilities: Imperial over Metric(Temporary), Back in My Day(Temporary)(Active)
“M’kay, it’s a start. I will figure this out before I move another meter.” As he completed his thought his consciousness was slammed with information. He could not decipher most of it but his head hurt worse than at any other time in his life.
Current Abilities: Imperial over Metric(Temporary)(Active), Back in My Day(Temporary)(Active)
The only real question he had was, “What the hell is an inch?”
