Helo’s consciousness slowly comes awake and he can feel nothing. No. Not nothing. More like meaninglessness. There are things to feel, but everything is so meaningless to him, that he just can’t seems to care.
But there is something there… A rhythm that is starting to pull at his awareness. “Ba-dum, Ba-dum.” It is slow and seems to grow weaker with every beat. Trying to look around Helo is surprised that he can’t see through normal eyes. Right now, it is like he is looking through his aura, and only his aura.
But the world around him isn’t what he remembered before he fell. He is standing on nothing, looking at nothing. Nothing but a gold and black swirl that wraps around his consciousness. On the other side of the swirl there are red and purple energies following channels that seem to go everywhere and nowhere. The red and purple energy seems to be flecked with a darkness that shouldn’t be there.
He can feel it, begging to be let out. But Helo just can’t seem to find enough energy care. Even if he did have the energy there is no way that he would be able to let it free. Where ever this weird non-thing place is. It was Helo’s last chance to fight back the energy, but he just couldn’t must up the will to care.
It was only in the last moment that something changed. Helo was about to close his eyes for the second time when he felt something different. Nothing overt, but a stream of purple energy was reaching out to him. Following the purple energy, the red seems to be fighting to keep up.
When that purple energy that is tinged with darkness finally reaches him, Helo gains just enough strength to push free the gold and black swirl. Directly after making the effort Helo feels like he just got done running all the miles. Seconds later he loses consciousness.
What Helo doesn’t realize at the time was that it was his instincts reaching out to him. The purple and red stream was his instincts final attempt to help him. With that push Helo freed his bloodline from its confines within his heart. With that freedom his bloodline energy sweeps through his body and starts to combat the dark interloper. The purified energy from the pill has very little meaning. It doesn’t want to poison or harm. It doesn’t want to do anything. It just is what it is.
The darkness was too strong for Helo to use. His affinity for darkness with his bloodline sealed is barely strong enough to help. But with his bloodline free, the insidiously powerful but extremely neutral energy is swept up and put to work.
Normally when someone falls unconscious when they are cultivating, they end up dead. The energy that they were willing to move in their body, to gather and form pathways or a core, it breaks free and runs wild.
Luckily for Helo the pill was made by a powerful alchemist and purified well. The pill had no intention; it just was. At the same time, it was too powerful for him, he couldn’t will the energy in any meaningful way. So, falling unconscious doesn’t matter. Luckily for him, his bloodline was powerful enough to move that energy, and with his bloodline come a flood of powerful instincts that Helo has been working to control.
Those instincts sweep through his body and take active control of all the dark affinity energy that is killing him. How could neutral and intentless energy compete against his bloodline. Then in the same way that the extra life force he absorbs while sparring is used to recreate his cells, the darkness is used to refine his mind and spirit.
The issue Helo was having in his attempts was that he didn’t know how to modify the energy his mind produced. He had no way to understand the process that one goes through to cultivate their minds. In the end he needed his bloodline to start the process. He also needed to start with the source. This is something that he has barely touched upon.
Helo can trace as his physical energy interacts with is body, he can see as it is produced from his cells. But he has a much more difficult time tracking his mental energy, it is like trying to look at the other side of a coin. But doing so without touching it, he can see where the energy is pulled into his heart to fuel his bloodline, he can see where it enters his core and is turned into system skills. He can also see how the energy congregates around his mind and is used during ‘Mental Grasp”.
Helo has tried before to force his brain to start taking on dark energy, all that happened was his emotions were dulled for a while. But his bloodline uses his brain and his core as a conduit to transfer the energy within the pill into Helo’s spirit. Taking all the energy and turning it into his own. This is a natural reaction of his bloodline, any foreign energy, intent, or concept is taken and destroyed.
But with energy that is the same as his it can be used to nourish the body. Sending the energy back through the conduits of his mind, it starts to alter how he can mentally affect the world.
Slowly finding the strength to wake up again, Helo blinks his not eyes and looks around. Again, he can only see using what feels like his aura. All around him, he watches what he can only assume is his bloodline does something.
Trying to think, all that comes out are thought. What is happening? Where am i? Having no idea what is going on Helo feels like he should be freaking out, instead he feels oddly comfortable. Where he is happens to feel like home.
Looking around again Helo can see a similar sight. His memory is hazy, almost like it was to much work for his mind to store the memory. But he can remember a feint outline of gold and black, with a back ground of black tainted purple and red.
His sight now is similar but not the same. The gold and black energy that Helo now knows is his bloodline, is flooding down all the pathways that his other energies were using. Along with his own energy he can feel the neutral energy from the pill as it enters his spiritual conduits.
Letting out a whisp of his will, he follows the pathways and watches as his mental energy system is slowly turning darker. Not just the pathways but the vortexes that draw in energy from… somewhere. All of it is starting to gain a dark tint. It is hard for him to see with his bloodline in the way, but it is similar to his body and how his physical energy is now tinged gold.
Feeling the process Helo starts to grab the energy himself and help the process along. His bloodline was able to naturally attack the energy. But it isn’t able to command it like he is. Finding his way back in that strange place, Helo now realizes that wherever he is, it’s like the seat of who he is. His bloodline is here, along with all the passages within his energy systems.
Focusing his mind that has been drawn back from nothingness, Helo starts to manually push the dark aspected energy around his body and into his mental channels. The process is a battle between apathy and not enough energy concentration to work. But with his bloodline helping him by starting the process of drawing the energy in, now Helo can do it himself.
“Do you think Helo is okay?” Alli asks Hianta. The two of them just got done with an hour-long shift at the gate and are now resting.
“Yeah, he said that it should take a while.” Hinata responds. Helo has been unconscious for about four hours. When they first went to check on him, they found him barely breathing. But after a while things evened out, now its like he is sleeping.
“Any updates on the tablet?” Alli asks her friend.
With a sigh she pulls her tablet out. “You know Alli. You have a tablet too.” Hinata looks over reports and maps of the area.
“Yoeko reposted that the traitors were cleared from the mountain and it is safe for people to start coming there.” Hinata scrolls down the list of reports. “One of the tier 3 rifts are high tier. It will take a while to clear. Another report says that your family is having an issue of their own and can’t come right away.”
Alli looks a little worried after hearing new about her own family. But checking her messages she knows that her family is at least okay. “We are luck Helo could modify the array then. With how things are going we will need all the mana we can spare to last until they have the tier 3s contained.”
Alli looks over the wall from her place sitting on the roof of the house that Helo is in. The number of monsters that are swarming toward the town is more than she has ever experienced. With a large mass of sapient life in this area, the monsters are congregating. With over fifteen rifts that broke around the area, they don’t have anyone to spare to go clear them. All their effort is going toward stopping the monsters from entering the town.
Looking over the monster Alli can see another wave of birds coming this way. Prepping her ‘Runic Construct’, instead of making a mass of fireballs she makes an array. This is a simple array that continuously generates ice spears. This will last as long as she maintains it.
As the birds get closer the runes on the construct start to light. With a whisp of wind, cold are washes over the area. This causes Hinata to glare and her friend and shiver a bit. But Alli ignores her, pumping mana into her construct it starts to launch ice spears into the sky.
Most of the spears miss her targets. But the angle that they are flying in from means that the mass of monsters is getting hit instead. About every sixth spear is finding a bird and there are only a few left by the time they make it to the open top of the barrier. But at that moment Cody has already sent up a barrage from his place on the wall. He has been enjoying the solitary combat of siege warfare. With his ‘Cold Enhancement’ that gets amplified by ice mana in the area, he has not only his tower, but the ground and walls around him frozen over with ice.
All the Kitsune and Dryads started to glare at him as the world got colder. They are a summer loving people. They started to vacate the area around him and give him dirty looks. But when the cold built up and he singlehandedly cleared away a fifth of the monsters before his mana ran out. They changed their tune quickly.
The rest of the party are taking turns at the gate or on the walls, but most people are not taking things to seriously. They have enough people in this small town to defend all the walls. But due to monster instinct and habits, they only need a quarter of them at a time.
Looking in the sky Alli stretches with her hands in the air. “Ahh I’m just so bored. Why can’t there be more to do.”
After her words she is expecting a response from her friends, but they are all staring at her with horror. “What?” Turning around she asks, “Is there something behind me?”
“I can’t believe you just said that.” Luna says.
“Why. Why would you curse us so.” Aiko adds.
Hinata just stares at her best friend and shakes her head. Leaning back, she just hopes that this wasn’t one of those odd moments where her friends fate affinity is nudging her without her knowing.
Twenty minutes later screams can be heard from wall to the left of the gate. Turning to look at her place where she is napping Hinata groans. Giving Alli are dirty looks she just says. “You had to say something didn’t you.”
Breaking out from the tree line, about one-hundred-feet from the wall as massive worm is digging its way forward. The worm is massive with a body at least two-hundred feet long and it is at least ten-feet in dimeter. It’s mouth is ringed with rows of sharp and hideous teeth. All around the worm the ground surges and pushes it forth. This shows at least some type of earth affinity. Someone on the wall screams. “It’s mid-tier 2!”
At that Hinata’s eyes go wide. Frantically looking for the man that Helo taught to control the barrier it takes her a few seconds to find him. By that point the worm was already eighty-feet away.
Leaping off the roof she dashes toward the man. The barrier is made to defend against a few blows from a tier 3 monster. This is more than enough to stop the giant worm. But they all agreed to lower the strength of the barrier. Most tier 2s would be stopped. Only the strongest would a chance to break it. The strongest or monster specifically like this giant worm.
Stolen novel; please report.
Reaching the man she yells, “You need to get the barrier up in full. NOW!” Shoving the man, he takes of running toward the tree at the center of the little town.
Running back to the wall she joins a group of people that was sending out attack after attack at the monster. Their arrows, spells, and all sorts of other projectiles strike the worm but barely leave any marks. By this point it is already twenty-feet from the wall and approaching fast.
When the worm is only ten-feet away a man that has a presence far more powerful than anyone else steps forward. Holding a staff in his hands and chanting a spell, he unleashes more mana than Hinata has in her entire mana pool on a single spell.
The spell creates a massive bolt of lightning in front of the man, and it arcs forward, striking the worm on the side of its face. The work takes the blow with a bellow of pain and its head gets rocked to the side from the lighting.
Dirt and dust go flying into the air all around the wall. The body of the worm goes off track and the entire beast slams into the wall, it is like a person who is barely going five-miles-per-hour on black ice. You might have your brakes all the way down, but you just keep slowly sliding.
The worm only dings the barrier but its massive size causes an explosion that send grass, mud and dirt into the air. The connection rocks the wall and everyone almost loses their footing.
The giant monster stalls near the wall and the lighting mage nods his head. “Hopefully that was enough.” He says in a gruff voice before going back to the fight at the gate.
A few seconds later the worm starts to move. Being right next to the wall the worm wastes no time rising up on its lower body and lunging at the barrier. As the worm is starting to dig into the barrier, everyone can see a beam of light shoots into the sky near the central tree.
“I hope he wasn’t too late.” Hinata says as everyone watches with baited breath. The barrier is forming from the top and flowing down, but the worm is already at work trying to push through.
Everyone breathes a sign of relief as the two barriers meet. “Whew.” Someone on the walls says. Another man starts to cheer. His joy is cut off as the sound of a window pane breaking echoes out. Everyone heads snap to the wall. The worm broke through.
“How…” Alli says under her breath.
“The barrier must have needed longer for the two to combine, or they don’t combine and it needed to reset. I don’t know Alli-Chan. There are a ton of reason.” The two girls are standing on the wall to the left of the worm and are unsure of what to do.
They watch until the mayor shows up beside them. “This isn’t good. A second hole in the wall will split out defense.” Calling out to her gaurds she says. “Go and kill it. You are one of the strongest people here. It can’t break through the wall.” You can tell by her voice that she isn’t expecting much. The worm is eating through the wall like it is nothing.
The guard arrives over the monster and he jumps down past the wall. A group of fighters join him attacking the worm. That is when Alli notices something is wrong. Even as the worm are getting attacked it continues to dig into the town. A monster should be fighting back or fleeing.
Looking around the area Alli’s eyes land on a specific location in the woods. She doesn’t know why but that spot just feels right. Hinata follows her gaze and she does notice something. “A troll?” She asks out loud. “Cody! Shot an arrow toward that tree.” She points to the location that Alli was looking.
Cody uses every skill he can to empower his arrow. ‘Cold Enhancement’ swirls around him and draws in the frigid air, ‘Ice Arrow Barrage’ layers over the arrow giving it the potential to split, finally ‘Artillery Shot’ empowers the arrow with strength and massive amounts of weight.
The arrow launches from his bow with a ‘WHOOOSH’. It sails in a peaceful arc; it truly is a beautiful sight. The central arrow is a as white as ice, and is glowing from the skill. Surrounding it another nine white arrows follow behind.
The arrows land and the first arrow blasts a hole in the tree. A straining noise can be heard in the area and then the tree topples. The other arrows fall around the area and Hinata can hear a shout.
Running out from behind the tree, with a white shaft sticking from its thigh is a short and stubby troll. Using her ‘Identify’ she understands what is happening.
Troll Beast Tamer
Tier 2 Level 93
A high tier 2 troll. Not a fighter, sends monsters to fight for it.
“It’s the troll!” Hinata shouts. All eyes turn to her, but nobody knows what she is talking about. That is until her best friend speaks up.
“You idiots! The troll is controlling the worm! Kill it!” With Alli’s shout all the warriors that were over the wall turn to face the troll. The troll freezes in place and its eyes go wide. With a yell is turns to run away. Its gait is awkward and slow due to its awkward proportions, and the arrow in its thigh isn’t helping.
Limping away the troll is quickly overwhelmed. Right before the troll is killed it uses one final skill. A wave of monsters and beasts flood from the forest toward the hole in the wall.
A group of tier 1 fighters are doing their best to push back the massive dead monster, but things are going slowly. Not only is it hard to push the worm out of the wall, but the wall and barrier are reforming slowly. If the monsters push them off the wall, then they could create another entrance.
All around people are starting to worry, so far, they have been keeping calm due to the safety of the wall. This means that they are rotating positions, going from the wall, the gate, and resting. They aren’t using their highest consumption skills and they are conserving their resources. A tier 1 mage can spend all his mana in only a few minutes. They need to pace themselves.
But the wave of beasts heading directly for the wall is starting to cause panic. Mages and archers are starting to use their most powerful skills to keep the wave back. At the same time Alli jumps down and creates a construct to close the wall.
Hinata jumps down by her friend, “That must have been one of the troll tamers from the tier 3 rift. One that managed to slip through.” She stands in front of the hole with her sword raised. As they wait for the monsters to hit Alli’s construct the rest of the team shows up.
“My Lady, it seems that it is time for a lowly knight to prove his worth.” Carl is the first to speak and he places his sword across his chest and bows. The rest of the team give him a weird look, but they also respect his words.
The monsters have close in half way to the wall when Mayor Eliana steps up next to Alli. Similar to the front gate, she uses her wood aligned crafting skill to create a massive wooden wall around the hole. Slumping she sits with her back against her new creation. “Haaaaa, this isn’t going well, we need to clear the rifts. Otherwise, they will keep coming.”
The monsters are about to run into Alli’s construct when she hears someone yelling. “They are almost all tier 2!” This causes the mayor to perk up. Looking over the wall she can see her head guard standing in front of Alli’s barrier.
“Nerda! Get back over the wall!” The mayor yells at him through the construct.
The armored man turns and bows to her. “It was a pleasure serving you Eliana.” The guard says. Him calling her by her name makes some tears come to her eye. He never calls her that, even when she asks him too. “The heiresses are strong. But Ms. BrightMoon’s construct can’t hold them off. Stay safe.”
With that the man turns back and a tide of monsters wash over him.
Helo isn’t sure how long he has been weaving dark attuned energy into his channels, but his mind is almost shot. The longer this goes on the more dark attuned energy he can fill his channels with before it starts to negatively affect him. But at the same time, the more effort he has to use to control larger amounts of energy.
Pulling his consciousness back into that central location Helo looks around. With a smile that isn’t a muscular contraction on his face, but is a wave of pleasure that washes over this weird place, Helo looks at how far he has come.
His mental energy is tinged with just the slightest of dark energies. To his surprise it seems like it is even more than the gold that is in his physical energy. Just letting himself relax the last remnants of the pill get swept away and are naturally cleared from his channels.
Still smiling Helo looks around with his complete focus, he is no longer being affected by the energy and can study this place completely. Trying to figure out where he is Helo starts to think it through. I am in a location where my energy gathers. Where my consciousness is, is a location where my energy seems to be pooling. OH! MY CORE!
Taking another look with a clear mind Helo can see it. His bloodline swirls around him, but is sealed away. The energy around him feels like it is all his, that is because it is. He can see where his mental energy is pulled from somewhere and his physical energy flows through. It all comes to this location and then spread out.
Now how do I leave? Helo speaks but also thinks to himself. Trying to will himself awake, he is surprised to find his vision flickering. I’m blinking. “This is the room I took the pill. Hey! I can speak again!” “BING” “BING” “BING”
“Damn! Stop it. I’m getting to it!” Helo says into the sky. Shaking out his body Helo feels better than he has before. Like a part of him that he didn’t even know existed, is now feeling more intune with the rest of him. At the same time, he feels more balanced. Activating ‘Bloodline Awakening’ Helo feels only the smallest bits of strain. Smiling he is happy that he can smile. Lately the skill has been making my emotions muted. But I can feel happy! “HAHAHAH.” Helo holds his chest and laughs at the relief he can feel in his body. “BING” “Damnit okay!”
You have taken one of the first steps in body and mind cultivation. Due to the paired nature of your bloodline, your mind was holding back your body. Balance is the key to your growth.
You have started the process of changing your human body and mind to that of your (Redacted) bloodline. The process starts with the ability to channel your energy.
You have gained +5 Will and Vit. +2 Per and Int. Keep walking toward the peak and you will find more growth.
Name: Helo
Bloodline: Redacted (10.1%)
Tier 1
Class: Shaded Predator (Pseudo Tier 3)
Level: 35
Stats: 438
- Str: 27 (+5%)
- Agl: 72 (+15%)
- Dex:48 (+15%)
- Per: 55 (+30%)
- Vit: 91 (+40%)
- End: 27 (+15%)
- Int: 27 (+5%)
- Will: 91 (+40%)
Starting to laugh again Helo enjoys looking at the changes in his status. He has been working for months to increase his bloodline; he was slowly gaining a tenth of a percent after another tenth. Now he goes all the way up to over ten percent.
“HAahah seriously.” Helo says while wiping the tears from his eyes.” With a tilt of his head, he wonders about his core. Sending his fucus into his diaphragm and finding that place that is a mixture of all he is, Helo is able to find it. He can see the central location where his energy seems to flow to and from.
“Mhm. It looks stunted.” Helo thinks. While he was in there, he didn’t think much of it, but looking at it from the outside the flow is all weird. “I call it a core, maybe I do need a core.” Helo says to himself before shrugging. If I needed one someone would have said something.
Getting to his feet Helo fully activates his bloodline using his boosting skill. Feeling the swirl of black and gold energies flood his body, Helo is expecting pain. Instead, he feels a rush of power. This power is still draining his reserves quickly. He can feel as the power in his heart dwindles rapidly. It is long enough to keep the energy flowing for at least an hour. But based on how much energy he can feel, he is burning a ton.
As the energy settles and enhances his body Helo starts to focus outside again. He would hear the sounds of fighting, but there was fighting at the gate when he started. Only now, there is fighting all around him. Oh shit! Helo thinks as he takes off outside. Instead of running to the door he just leaps from the second story window.
All around him beasts, monsters, humans, elves, beast-kin and many other races are fighting. It is easy to see who is on what side, because the monsters have an aura around them that screams death, carnage and consume.
Draying his blades Helo wraps himself in his shadows and leaps into the battle. He smiles to himself at how good it feels. His skills are coming faster, stronger, with lower cooldowns.
I need to find the girls. Helo thinks to himself. Like that he starts hunting, not for a foe, but for his friends. All around him people are fighting back or making heroic last stands. The screams of the dying are going up all around him, something in his subconscious pulls him to those screams, even as he searches for Alli and Hinata.
Hearing another scream Helo jumps from the back of the monster whose throat he just slit and over the head of the man he saved. The man below him is frantically trying to wipe his tear-stained eyes to get a look at the man who saved him. “Th… thank you!”
Helo doesn’t acknowledge the man as he heads toward another scream. Creating a ‘Dark Blade’ on the way he pours his power into ‘Mental Grasp’. “Bing”
Helo considered stopping but there will be time after to see his skill upgrades. As his telekinesis covers his blade it takes on the same look as the last time. Like the world around the blade takes on a monochrome color, with a halo of dark light. Whatever this is, it is his upgraded ‘Mental Grasp’.
Turning the corner Helo sees a man about to be speared by a lance of flame. Sending his blade to intercept the attack, every one stops and stares in shock. The telekinetic wrapping seemed to weaken the fire so the blade passed through. Then it struck the Flame Cat on the other side.
“Mhm, so that’s what is does.” Taking a second to think. Helo just nods, it makes sense. His dark affinity seems to have a powerful ability to weaken affinities and concepts. So, if his skill, that wraps an object in a bubble of mental energy and gives him some telekinetic control, uses his new dark aspect mental energy. It makes sense that it would acts as a barrier to weaken other energy attacks.
The man on the ground stares in shock as the lance of flame gets split down the middle. Then looking past the flame, he watches as a blade that is as dark as the void between the stares dissipates into energy.
Turning around he looks at his savior. His eyes go wide as a young teen lands near his place on the floor. “Thank you.” He says while staring at the teenager in shock. The teenager is wearing a black hoodie with a large silver rose on the chest. The hood is down and the man can see his blood-red glowing eyes with thin slits for pupils. Looking down from his eyes the teenager has two fangs protruding down from his upper lip. They are not massive and only peak past, but they give off a sharp and wicked feeling.
Landing Helo looks at the man. Making eye contact his enhanced eyes take in the man’s shock, as well as the shiver that went through the man’s body as he made eye contact with Helo. Tilting his head and not answering the man’s thanks, Helo listens for voices he knows.
Then he hears a scream. This screams he knows all to well. “Hinata.” He growls out and leaps toward the roof tops.