CaTastrophy427

Trying out indenting the dialogue to make it a bit more noticeable, poll at the end, tell me what you think. It's slightly more work but it's how I normally have it when drafting for my own convenience.

Following the directions I was given, I went deeper into the compound than before, ending up in a larger courtyard with several temporary stone walls dividing the area. I handed over my token upon request, and was told to wait in one of the lines for my turn to show whatever skills I wanted to show to boost my initial rating. There were three people ahead of me, all three of whom were the more typical idea of an assassin, clad head to toe in black with a nondescript mask covering their faces. The time each took to demonstrate their skills varied, but it was finally my turn after about half an hour.

“So, what will you be demonstrating to us?”

“Two things, the first is the potency of the venom my spirit companion produces, and the second is a few techniques of my elemental spirit”

“Which element is that?”

“I honestly don’t know, and if you can figure it out, I’ll be impressed”

All four of the judges - figures literally cloaked in shadow, entirely nondescript blobs that’re only vaguely humanoid - started to murmur at that, but the one in the lead eventually decided to just move on.

“Very well. To start, how quickly does your poison kill, and through what mechanism?”

“It kills in seconds after I release my control over it, and the mechanism by which it kills is also unknown. The traces it leaves behind are nonexistent, it just looks like the victim dropped dead for no reason. You might recognize the venom, and if you do you’ll know I’m telling the truth when I say nobody knows how it works”

Once again, the judges had a quiet discussion I couldn’t hear, and once again they apparently decided to just move on without prying for more information, either believing that I didn’t know or thinking that I wouldn’t say what I knew even if pressed.

“Fine. We’ll begin with testing it on a sedated tier 3 spirit beast”

“I mean, it’d kill a tier 5 or 6 spirit beast just fine as well, but sure, let’s start there"

One of the judges pressed a hand-shaped imprint on the wall, and about a minute later a sluggish monkey in a cage rose from the ground in front of the judges’ table. I took the dagger they provided me, ran my nail across the blade, and plunged it into the beast’s foot. Not even three seconds later, it was dead as could be, and the judges once more had a whispered discussion. I repeated it for a tier 4 boar-type spirit beast and a tier 5 copper-tailed lion, one of Leon’s kin - not that he objected. However, the dagger broke on the latter, and so did the replacement dagger, so I shrugged and reached for a third.

“Please don’t, it’s not going to work a third time”

“This time it will, because I’m also going to show one of the applications of my element. It’s fully invisible to people who don’t have this kind of elemental seed - and I’m the only one I’ve found who has it - but trust me, it’s there”

I made a pinching motion at the base of the blade, keeping my fingers slightly off of the dagger itself, and slowly ran them up towards the tip. As I did so, I coated the dagger in a thin layer of Solid Nothing, leaving only the spine of the dagger uncoated, and explained that that’s what I was doing. I then ran my nail along that spine, leaving a faint sheen where it passed from Snek’s venom.

“And now, this blade that shattered when thrust into the lion’s fur... effortlessly glides through fur, skin, muscle, and bone”

To demonstrate, I cut through the middle of the lion’s foreleg, leaving an eerily bloodless wound, and seconds later, the lion collapsed dead just like the two beasts before it. I used the same dagger on the tier 6 obsidian viper they brought out, and then was told they didn’t have anything stronger for me to test my poison on.

“Well, that’s fine. As it killed a tier 6 spirit beast known for both its potent venom and its resistance to most poisons, we can assume that this venom will almost certainly work on anything below tier 6, and will likely work on those of tier 6, maybe even 7 and 8. The same is true of my elemental spirit in solid form”

“Solid form?”

“I think of it as coming in two forms. The one I demonstrated, the solid form, is invisible, has a fixed form, and if shaped into a blade, sharper than anything else I have found, almost on the level of a spatial blade I’d imagine”

“Well, what is the other form?”

“I call it the active form, as it gives up its semi-rigid shape and sharpness for mobility and the ability to react with spirit and objects containing spirit to produce more of itself, while low-spirit matter is converted to the solid form. Hmm... since you can’t see it, the best demonstration would be using it on a low-tier beast with a spirit core”

Upon my request, I was given a level 16 wolf-sized rodent in a cage, and I asked which wall would be okay to break a hole in, also asking them to make sure there wasn’t anyone on the other side. After being told that the wall directly opposite the judge’s table would be fine, I produced a wisp of Nothing, and showed them that that would only eat a small hole in the wall.

“That was a candle flame-sized wisp of my spirit. Didn’t do much damage. Now, positioning the beast in front of the wall... I’ll force the same amount of my spirit into its spirit core”

I did exactly that, backed several feet away, and... nothing happened... for about twelve seconds. Then, the beast vanished, and almost immediately after the beast vanished, the cage did as well, the ground, and the wall behind it, up to a radius of about eight feet. It was almost perfectly spherical, as I didn’t give the wisp much momentum at all. That was still enough to eat through not only the wall behind the beast and the ground beneath it, but also open a four foot wide hole in the walls to either side.

“Uhh... that was a bit bigger than I was expecting. I mean, I did once nearly delete a whole building with this, but that was from a tier 5 who absorbed some when trying to blow himself up. From tests on a few tier 1s, it should’ve had a radius of only a foot or maybe three feet with a level 10”

“Was it not then dangerous for us, too?”

“Not really, no. If it had expanded further, I would’ve stopped its spread early, and then like I just did, condensed it down to the size of a marble and converted it to the solid form”

As I spoke, I played with the small bead of Solid Nothing I’d made from this Nothing explosion. And for the record, I could only do this to the beast because it was weak and fully unconscious. If I tried to do it to a stronger one, a dead one, or one that was awake, it wouldn’t do anything or would at most convert the corpse into Solid Nothing. Good way to hide a body, but that’s about it.

“Is that everything you wished to show us?”

“Almost. Can you bring a set of spirit-locking cuffs?”

“Why?”

“Because even if I’m wearing them, I can still use my elemental spirit to destroy the cuffs and escape that way”

“How? That makes no sense whatsoever”

“The cuffs create a barrier that spirit can’t get out of. The active form eats through the barrier, the solid form passes through unobstructed. Simple as that”

“We’ll take your word for it, those cuffs are expensive, if you’re going to ruin them... well, we don’t really need to see that”

I wanted to point out that I’d already ruined far more expensive things for their tests, namely those live-captured high-tier spirit beasts, but decided against it in the end. Instead, I said I was done showing what I’d intended to show, and turned to leave.

“Ah, hold on. We still have to figure out what score to give you, and might need you to do another demonstration”

“Very well, I’ll wait”

I pulled a cushion out of my spirit realm, set it on the ground, and sat against the wall I’d put a hole into. In the meantime, the judges had a whispered discussion that eventually got to be loud enough for me to overhear much of it.

“They said... from their spirit companion, but... kind of beast it is. Shouldn’t we-”

“No, if... keep her spirit companion’s identity a secret, she’s not going... initial rating increase”

“But they might be... never know”

“He wrote on his application... venomous reptile, and categorically refused... few of the other questions”

There were a few parts I missed, but I did notice that one of them assumed I was female, another assumed I was male, and the remaining two didn’t make any assumptions in that regard at all. It sounded like they’re trying to guess my spirit companion, hoping to factor that into consideration for the poison. I decided to give them a hint, but that’s it.

“If you want a hint, my spirit companion is the same species as a certain legendary blood shadow’s, you’d likely recognize their name instantly if I said it”

That caused a stir, but there’re enough legendary blood shadows who match that description that they got nowhere, so they turned to the actual evaluation of my poison.

“So we just take what... a hint?”

“... supposed to pry”

“Well then, on what we’re given... blood gold shadow at least”

“That’s if she can inflict a wound on...”

“... we saw, they can use their... almost anything”

Aaannnnd... it sounds like their evaluation of my poison is ’It’s exactly as good as their ability to inflict a wound for it to enter through’. I could’ve told them that it can be administered orally or even aerosolized and inhaled, but given what I’d shown for my ability to wound high-tier beings, I figured it wasn’t needed.

“True, he can cut... tier 7, so it all rests...”

“In that case... but we don’t know... phase of the exams”

“... assumption of his skills? Or do we...”

“... an option, we... her now”

“So what do we assume? Can they... a tier 4? Tier 5?”

“Let’s say tier 5 for now. ... level? Since we’re cloaked... by their aura”

“Level 15 is what he put on the form”

“FIFTEEN? They’re level fifteen?! I was expecting tier 4 or tier 5 due to the poison”

“I started him with a tier 3 beast... higher than his level”

“You’d normally start lower, why would you start her higher?”

“Look at the form yourself! See what he put for his self assessment? Even if it’s somewhat exaggerated, he’s still likely as competent as a gold!”

Hoo boy, they’re arguing and not even trying to keep it down now.

“This is ridiculous! Let’s assume half of this is true. They’d still-”

“It has to be more than half, he passed the second phase that was based off of these numbers”

“FUCK! Okay, then we can assume they can sneak past and kill multiple tier 5s. At their level, that’s enough to be a black gold blood shadow, right?”

“If not straight up a legendary...”

“You shut up, Har-”

“NO NAMES!”

“Right, sorry... well, we can’t start her anywhere near that high. Do we just give her the max score?”

“Do we have any other choice?”

“We make the rules, don’t we?”

“Until the realm HQ branch leader overrules us...”

“But do you think that’s going to happen before he makes a name for himself ascending the ranks at unprecedented speeds?”

That’s quite the high evaluation, I was expecting a high score, maybe even the highest they could give, but not for them to feel like the score cap isn't high enough. But after several more minutes of heated deliberation, they decided not to push the boundaries and just gave me the highest score they could give, alongside a sealed letter to give to the receptionist outside, and sent me on my way. No clue how they went about fixing those holes, but I assume they got fixed, and it wasn’t brought up later so I don’t think anyone who knew it was me had any issues with my actions.

The beginnings of the man who transcended time, part 3

Over the first century, I cultivated ceaselessly, my level rising from 81 all the way to 90, and this time, instead of being stalled by the difficulty of merging my spirit bodies, I found my advancement blocked by two equally insurmountable walls - my lack of a Path, and my spirit companion not having a ninth set of spirit patterns to form into a spirit ring. Without the corresponding spirit ring, a spirit companion cannot merge their partner’s spirit bodies to create a new one. I have seen this issue in others, but never expected it to apply to myself. 

I then began a deep dive into my elements, seeking one that might inspire a new Path. I began with my innate elemental seed, and then my condensed elemental seed, but in just a decade, I discarded both ideas, as they were elements from the big five, all of which had been used to make a well-known Path. My first companionseed, Life, was much the same, leaving me with only two options from amongst my seeds.

Between Wind and Time, I felt the latter had more potential, so in the next fifty years, I spent every moment pondering what Time truly meant. How does Time work, that it might be different in this realm than in all the others, yet be omnipresent and unfaltering in its advancement? Why is Time so resistant to change, despite being the source of change itself?

CaTastrophy427

So I may have gotten a bit distracted by a new game... I had this completed several days ago and just never copied it over here because... well I in all honesty forgot. Anywho, here're the usual discord and other series links. I was experimenting with formatting in the aforementioned other novel's most recent chapter (chapter 9, for those who're reading this in 2037 and wondering what I'm talking about, it's the system message formatting) and decided to try something here too. That's really all I've got to say lol, vote in the poll and I'll see you next time.

Edit: forgot to actually put in the links and the poll