Chapter 25: Back to Work

  “The blessings, they were humans?”

  With an intense stare, Shade asked Ms. Silver his educated guess about the origins of the blessing characteristics. Ms. Silver looked at the young man sitting next to her on the bed.

  Her eyes were silver with a glowing hue. Before answering she looked to the ceiling and then back at Shade.

  “Some were, yes.”

  “Some?”

  Ms. Silver stood up, and her silver robes fluttered with the aid of a gentle ethereal breeze. She turned to look at Shade and decided that it was time to finish her explanation.

  “Most blessings come from the gods themselves. They split off a small part of themselves to grant their followers a power like the one gained from contracting spirits and demons.

  However, some blessing does not originate from gods. No that isn’t completely correct…”

  Ms. Silver thought for a moment and then corrected her previous statement.

  “Long ago, saints were called grounded gods. If we take that information into account, all blessings come from gods. After a saint or god dies, their bodies split apart and turn into characteristics.

  However, the characteristics aren’t all from spirits and demons but some of them could be from the mystic themselves.

  These characteristics are blessings, and they come from having completely absorbed the spirits or demons into yourselves.”

  “Completely absorbing spirits?”

  Shade interrupted Ms. Silver’s explanation again to focus on a rather important part.

  “A complete absorption is when you have fully integrated the entity into yourself. That is when the spirits and demons lose all forms of self.

  More or less, you make them believe that they are dead and part of you. This will cause the building madness within you to disappear.

  With our current understanding of spirits and demons we have no clue about why this happens. However, there is a reason why this isn’t common knowledge within mystical circles.

  The prosses of completely absorbing the entities within yourselves could cause a loss of control and loss of self. It isn’t something someone that isn’t a saint should even think of or attempt to do.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Shade nodded along and then noticed that Ms. Silver had a tired expression as if she wasn’t planning to explain that. Ms. Silver continued after sighing.

  “Your divination characteristics grants you a natural instinct of your opponent’s strength. You should had noticed that the opponent you were facing was much stronger than you.

  However, that natural instinct was blocked by the persona you made to act like a mystic. He lacked what you perceived as useless, fear which corelates to danger perception.

  Sensing the danger, the blessing you received from the goddess woke up and took over. HE was a former saint within our sect hundreds of years ago.

  Not much is known about him except from the fact that he had an intimate relationship with the goddess and that he was incredibly powerful.”

  “I see…”

  Shade blocked out his thoughts, he knew that the more he thought of the one inside of him the worse his situation could become. But still he was impressed… He set his sights on the goddess.

  Ms. Silver walked towards the door before continuing her speech.

  “As you are much stronger now thanks to his intervention, you will now be participating in all missions that a knight of the silver moon would be expected to participate in.”

  Shade ignored a term he had never heard before and decided to ask one last question to Ms. Silver before she walked out of the room.

  “What is his name?”

  “His name?”

  Ms. Silver thought for a moment and for some reason she couldn’t remember that saint’s name.

  She gasped softly as something finally fell into place as she remembered something important… I don’t know his name. Why? How? I have read all of the old texts our sect has and never reacted to the fact that not one of them had mentioned his name.

  “Ask the moon.”

  Without any way to answer Shade’s question, she told him to ask the moon which was the same as telling him to ask the goddess.

  Shade watched as the silver clothed saintes walked out of the room and asked himself what he was going to do now.

  Instead of staying in the temple room, Shade decided to take a walk. He was in a grey shirt and black pants. He didn’t know who had changed his clothes but decided to ignore it.

  “Finaly up?”

  Shade had just opened the door and standing outside was Mr. Specter. He had a large smile on his face as he spoke.

  “I was a bit surprised to be honest. To think you would be taken over by your spirits this early in your career.”

  Mr. Specter threw a coin at Shade. Shade caught the coin without much effort and looked at it. It was a common coin that was usually used in divinations.

  While the type of coin and its worth isn’t important within mysticism, most mystics prefer an expensive coin when performing divination. Most mystics also prefer to use the same coin for every divination.

  No one knows why they really do this, but some have guessed that it is a form of mental ritual and belief rooted in the human psyche that associates high value and the notion of a specific item or tool for the job with a high success rate.

  Shade understood that the coin he was holding was Mr. Specter’s specific coin which he used for divination… Is he trying to cheer me up?

  “Mr. Magician, get changed, you and I will be going on a patrol together!”

  Shade looked confused. He did know that most mystics in the sect go on patrols, but he was never assigned to go on one. Then he remembered what Ms. Silver had said just minutes before… So, this is one of my other duties?

  …

  “My first patrol, what a mess it was.”

  The reminiscing man sighed as he remembered the night of his first patrol.