Chapter 52 - That’s Where

  The midnight bell tolls through the darkened city. The artificial night deepens, creating lakes of shadow and rivers of streetlamp light. Despite many of the inhabitants knowing the lesson Alex had just figured out about sleep, few souls venture out during the night. The habits of mortal life are firmly etched into the minds of most, and they find it difficult to shake the routine of being indoors once the artificial sun no longer lights the false sky.

  For some, other habits linger as well. Using the cover of darkness to conceal their activities, the seedier inhabitants of the city come alive with the absence of the sun. Trades of pilfered goods, deals for favors and partnerships, as well as predations of the most vile sort. The upstanding citizens that do operate at night keep to the lit streets and the areas patrolled by the night-watch, thankful for the illusion of safety they offer.

  In the back rooms of one of the less reputable pawnshops, one ambitious street-rat makes his play. “I’m telling you, Gravitas has her eye on this guy, she’s even got her golden-boy goat honey-potting him.” He says, having reported what he’d seen the day he tailed Alex before tipping off Uril, and then the next day too when the goat had run him off.

  “And I’m telling you that if he’s got those big-names sniffing around, we don’t want any part of it.” A larger thug answers, rolling his eyes at the kid. “I don’t know about you, but I kinda like continuing to exist.”

  The kid throws his hands up in exasperation. “Look, he’s Faded, just like us. But he also seems to zip around like he’s got Animus anyway. The guy has to be loaded if he isn’t worried about burning his soul out. If it were one of us, we’d be having to buy a top-up every few days.” He looks around at the faces of the rest of the gang. “Think about how much coin that guy has to have.”

  The bigger guy just shakes his head. “Too risky. If you try this, you’re on your own.” He says, and most of the experienced crew-members nod their agreement. But not all of them have the same sense of self-preservation.

  “Fine, but don’t come sniffing at me for a cut you were too scared to go get.” The kid barks back, taking note of the few in the gang that seem to consider his proposal.

  Back in Uril’s apartment, Corvus waits for the banter between Alex and Uril to find a lull. When he senses things are settled for the moment, he clears his throat softly. “Alex, it would be prudent to use a portion of this time to further your capabilities.” He suggests, somewhat amused when Alex seems startled at the sound.

  In truth, Alex had been so absorbed with Uril that his mind had completely skipped the fact that he and the incubus-goat weren’t alone. He flushes and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, um, what did you have in mind?” He asks, trying to cover his moment of embarrassment.

  Corvus gives him a reassuring smile. “You have nearly mastered the use of intent-movement, and your use of perception-augmentation is passable but could use refinement. There are also the skills of telepathy and telekinesis, which you have not attempted yet. The choice is yours, refine the one, or attempt something new.” The old crow gives his assessment, then waits for Alex’s decision.

  Alex briefly turns to Uril again, and the goat just gives him a wink with an easy grin on his lips. Seeing that Uril is fine with the interruption, Alex turns back to Corvus. “What would you recommend?” He asks, adjusting his seated position to face Corvus. His heart flutters for a moment, feeling warmth against his back as Uril adjusts too and leans over, putting his arms around Alex’s waist from behind. But the incubus doesn’t try to distract him further. Not yet anyway.

  Corvus can’t help but let out a soft chuckle as he watches the pair. “I feel as though it would be more beneficial to achieve the same ease-of-use with the perception-augmentation that you exhibit with intent-movement. When a skill becomes second-nature to you, that offers the better freedom to then learn another skill.”

  Alex nods, getting comfortable again with Uril against his back. “Alright, so what do I need to do to work on the perception-augmentation?” He asks, giving Corvus his full attention.

  The crow abandons his human guise and instead assumes his natural form. He shifts to get comfortable again now with his longer crow-like legs and lankier build. “Your previous use of the skill was intuitive for you, almost instinctive. I will admit to a fair degree of surprise when you utilized it in tandem with the intent-movement, allowing you far more fluid control of the trajectories.” He may have said surprise, but the tone in his voice is pride.

  Alex nods along, remembering that moment in the forest of crimson leaves and white sand. Using both skills at once had taxed his spirit rather heavily, but it had allowed him to weave between the trees rather than making rapid shorter leaps.

  “In each instance you have used the skill, you were focused on what you needed from it. Try engaging the skill, but unfocused.” Corvus instructs, settling easily into his role as a teacher.

  With his brow furrowed in concentration, Alex tries to grasp what Corvus means. He thinks back, mentally ticking off each time he’d used the skill. When he’d made the vertical leap to escape the hellhound pack, he’d been focused on seeing further and more clearly. Then again when he was trying to escape the ambush, he’d been focused on finding the minute motions of the hounds breathing. Then in the forest, he’d used it for heightened control over the intent-movement. But in every instance, he’d known what he needed from it.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Trying to use the skill without having a clear intent for it feels like trying to push at empty air. As if there’s nothing for his will to hold onto. Alex sits there, feeling like his mind is straining against nothing. And all that happens is nothing. Without a clear intent behind its use, the skill simply refuses to activate for him.

  Taking a breath to allow himself a mental reset, Alex keeps trying. He can feel his spirit responding to his will, a sensation he’d become intimately familiar with since arriving in Hell. Like stoking a fire, his spirit swells with the potential for… something. But try as he might, the perception-augmentation simply won’t work.

  Corvus allows Alex to struggle for a time, watching as the boy’s frustration builds. But before it can boil over, he lifts a hand to interrupt Alex’s attempts. “I can see you are struggling. Perhaps try using the skill as you have before, direct it at something specific. And in the process of using it, examine how the skill feels to your spirit.” He suggests, giving Alex a more familiar method of exercising the ability.

  Alex relaxes back against Uril for a moment, absorbing what Corvus had said. The incubus gives him a light squeeze for encouragement, but otherwise doesn’t interrupt the lesson. After collecting himself and letting the frustration bleed off for a few breaths, Alex focuses again.

  He looks around, and seeing where Hara had curled up to nap, he focuses on her. This time, when he stokes his spirit, the energy seems to easily leap to perform the task, sharpening his vision. Only being a matter of feet from her, the augmentation skill doesn’t bring her into better focus, but instead, he finds himself inundated with the details of her stone-like pelt and the crystal structures growing from her body. Alex discovers that, if he wanted to, he could count the individual strands of fur in any given portion of her form.

  The deluge of data also causes Alex to recognize the other ‘trick’ of the skill. It doesn’t just allow him to perceive the details, but also gives him the acuity to handle it. That realization in turn allows Alex to start shifting his attention from Hara and the treasure-trove of information his eyes can drink in, and to the skill itself.

  He can feel the pressure generated by his will within his spirit, that feeling of a stoked flame. Following that sensation, focusing on where it leads, Alex traces the flow of energy with his mind. Without even realizing he’s doing it, the target of the perception-augmentation shifts. No longer sharpening his eyes, the skill turns inwards. Alex’s entire world inverts.

  Corvus watches Alex closely. Using his own Apex class of the skill, he keeps an eye on the way Alex’s spirit ripples, similar to how the restaurant host before had identified him as an Apex. Instead of just gauging the strength of the ripples, Corvus watches the activity. When Alex focuses the skill on Hara, Corvus can see the way Alex’s emanations seem to pull inwards and towards his head, just as he’d expect.

  What he didn’t foresee however, is when the inward pull intensifies, the ripples seem to rebound and sink inwards to curl around Alex’s soul. Corvus’s eyes widen, his beak parting as if in a silent ‘oh.’

  Alex’s awareness is awash in ethereal blue flames that dance and pulse in time with the thrumming of his spirit. And as his perceptions sink inwards, he becomes aware of a core of flame. The flame seems to be fed from all around as threads coalesce and waver around it. “That’s my will, my intent.” Alex mutters to himself as he watches the dance of fire and filament. “Then, the fire, that’s… that’s my spirit.” He realizes.

  Testing the thought, he focuses more intently, willing more power into the skill. Even as he wills it to happen, the filaments thicken and ripple allowing him to not just see, but feel, when the skill surges with more power. Alex lets out an excited laugh, but he reels in the impulse to feed it even more and allows the flow of intent to return to how it had been a moment before.

  Looking closer at the flame of his spirit, Alex can see where its energies are being drawn. As his focus shifts, it’s as if his perspective is carried by those tongues of flame flowing, riding along them to where they’re infused into a structure. The skill for Perception-Augmentation.

  Alex isn’t sure what he expected to find, but nothing could have prepared him for what he discovers. Before him, spread open like a projected map, is a latticework of geometric fractal pathways. Most of the paths are dim, with only a trace of his power trickling into them. One seems to be slightly brighter though, and as Alex’s perspective shifts again, he recognizes that it’s a stylized eye embedded in the pattern. The glow of spirit-fed-power is fading out of the eye glyph, and Alex realizes it was the portion of the skill that he’d used to enhance his vision.

  “If that was for my eyes, then what part is active now?” He mutters, examining more of the structure. He follows the main flow of energy, sinking his perception into the lattice. The energy coalesces into a swirling mass near the heart of the lattice, an inwards pull towards a single point. There’s another stylized glyph holding it in place, fully infused with power, but Alex can’t discern what it’s supposed to be.

  As he examines the swirl, his perspective is drawn towards it, as if carried on the current. When his view is right on the edge of the energetic whirlpool, he sees something that makes the visuals crystalize in his mind. As if gifted with a flash of inspiration, Alex understands what he’s seeing.

  Within the swirl of energy, Alex sees the core of flame again, fed by his will, flowing outwards towards the skill, being drawn into its framework, and swirling down into the core, spiraling in a recursive loop of perception. He’s witnessing his soul examining itself.

  Almost instinctively, Alex tips over the edge, allowing the skill to pull him in with the flow. Once more his awareness is awash in those etheric flames. But he regains his bearings quickly and hones in once more on the true source of power within him, his spirit. His perspective sinks inwards among the filaments of will and intent, towards the heart of his spirit. He wants just one more look before ending the skill’s abilities.

  There, at the core of his spirit, rests a hollow. An empty space, perfectly devoid of flame, intent, anything. And Alex can tell that it feels fragile. “That’s where my Animus was.” He muses, feeling the emptiness far more poignantly now that he’s seen it. Only then does Alex back out slowly, taking in the receding view for a brief moment longer before willing the skill to end.

  For a brief moment, nothing seems to happen. Then the etheric visuals dissolve, fading to black as Alex realizes his eyes are closed. He blinks them open, regretting it immediately as the very real light of Uril’s apartment once more assaults his eyes. Alex sits up, shaking his head to clear it.

  “Hey, are you alright?” Uril’s voice, soft and warm but tinged with a bit of concern, comes from just behind him. Alex remembers that he’d been leaning against Uril’s chest as he’d been working on the skill. He takes a moment longer, then leans back again.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. That was…” He trails off, noticing the intense gaze that Corvus levels at him.

  Corvus examines Alex for a beat longer, then his head tips to the side. “Alex, explain everything you just did and experienced.” The tone is firm, demanding, but laced with an awed curiosity that Alex hadn’t heard from Corvus before. “And I do mean it. EVERYTHING.”