Rise of the Devourer

Book 2: Chapter 2 — Soul Strain

Noah stared at the invitation in his hand, before putting it into his inventory. “What’s the time frame on the invitation?”

“The Lord didn’t specify, but it would be rude to keep him waiting for an answer. That said, you can claim that you’re still recovering from your injuries if you want to delay,” Nae replied.

“That’d be nice. I’d like to rank up before I go at least,” Noah said.

“Actually, you really shouldn’t,” Aurelia said.

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t have a full set,” Nae replied.

“A full set?” Noah asked, confused.

“A full set. Each path lets you unlock four abilities on your own. Naturally, since most people only have one path at rank F, this is not a difficult task as you always start with one ability unlocked. But for you…” Nae trailed off.

“The reason you unlock a full set is because you gain your fifth ability on rank up. This ability cannot be obtained through a Tome, and is a product of your own actions, the rest of your ability sets, and the direction you want your Path to go. When ranking up, you’ll essentially craft your set ability that’ll define your Path,” Aurelia said. “My Flames of Fury was my set ability for example. I unlocked it when I ranked up to rank E.”

Noah frowned. “So I can’t rank up till I have all my abilities filled out?” Noah asked.

“You can, it would just be really stupid if you did,” Nae said.

“There’s also another thing we have to discuss,” Aurelia said, glancing at Nae.

“Noah, do you know how Astral Scripts and leveling work?” Nae asked.

“You kill things, you fight or do things in accordance with your path and you level up, which strengthens your soul,” Noah replied.

“That is correct, but not accurate. It doesn’t quite strengthen your soul, but more so, increases its size and potential well. The reason we limit attribute strengthening is because rapidly increasing our attributes can cause harm to our bodies as they fail to keep up with our soul,” Aurelia said.

“It’s called being Oversouled. It’s one of the most stupid things you can do. And guess who almost did it to themselves?” Nae said, looking at Noah.

“Okay… so how bad is that?” he asked. “I feel alright.”

“Show me your Astral Script,” Nae said.

Noah looked at her before glancing at Aurelia in surprise.

“Don’t look at her, show me! This is a private conversation and I’ve already seen it anyway,” Nae said.

“How?” Noah asked.

“Right, you don’t know. I may be a half, but I’m still a Celestian. Just mentally direct it towards me and I’ll be able to see it,” Nae said.

Noah thought over it for a moment, before nodding. Reaching out to his Astral Script, he opened the page, before trying to mentally nudge it towards Nae.

You’re about to share your Astral Script with Nae Celestine.

Do you agree to this action?

Yes/No?

Noah selected the yes prompt, as he felt something link him and Nae together.

Astral Script:

Name: Noah Brown

Race: Human (Symbiont)

Rank: F

Paths:

Exsanguinator (Rare) - level 50

Astralwalker (Epic) - level 50

Void Hunter (Epic) - level 50

Attributes:

Power: 231

Agility: 200

Constitution: 223

Mystic: 264

Attribute points: 0

“By the stars… how long ago did you arrive on Erandir again?” Nae asked, glancing at Noah.

“A month I think? Maybe five weeks” Noah replied.

“And you went from nothing to here in a single month?” Nae asked again?

Noah nodded.

Nae glanced at Aurelia. “How did you not notice?”

Aurelia shrugged. “I just thought he was an outerworlder so things worked differently for him.” With a pause, she glanced at Noah. “He’d always been weird from the start after all.”

“So… it’s bad?” Noah asked.

“I don’t know what to say. One one hand, I know for a fact that you’re a monster now. On the other, you gained nearly thirty attributes a day. Which is five over the maximum limit. Your soul is growing so fast, there’s no wonder just a slight hit to it put you in a coma,” Nae said, sighing.

Noah frowned, looking down at his arms. He could see the mana around him, and his own aura, moving lazily around his body before leaking outwards. “I feel fine to be honest.”

“You feel alright, but your soul is unstable right now. Can’t you feel it? Your aura is diffusing at the edges. If you rank up now, your body will collapse,” Nae said.

“So, what should I do?” Noah asked.

“First of all, don’t rank up. You’re also banned from training or fighting,” Nae said, before turning to Aurelia. “You keep an eye on him. If he tries to escape, drag him back.”

Aurelia gave a nod, and Noah groaned.

“I’ll look into something for your soul. Think about what you want to do with the invitation in the meantime,” Nae said, getting up. Noah heard her murmuring something about troublesome adventurers and insane outerworlders under her breath as she walked out of the room.

Noah glanced back at Aurelia, and she looked at him in silence too. “So… you’re my prison guard then.”

Aurelia chuckled, before shaking her head. “I’m trusting you to not escape.”

Tony flapped above Aurelia’s head, circling around before the eye-bat flew back to his book.

“He’s reading?” Aurelia asked.

“He loves to,” Noah replied with a shrug.

With a curious humm Aurelia walked closer, taking a look at the book Tony was reading. “Oh, I know this book,” she said, picking it up. “My dad used to read it to me when I was a kid.”

Flipping through the pages, she sat down, beginning to read through as Tony perched upon her shoulder, reading along with her.

Noah leaned back, his mind filled up with thoughts of what to do next. The rank up being late felt annoying, but it made sense to wait. It was just frustrating that he could not grow as fast as he was capable of.

Without much else to do, Noah opened his Astral Script, looking at his abilities.

Abilities:

Exsanguinator (3/5):

- Blood Drain (Rare) - lvl 13

- Bleed (Rare) - lvl 13

- Lifeblood (Legendary) - lvl 10

- None

- Locked.

Astralwalker (2/5):

- Blink (Epic) - lvl 16

- Dimensional Storage (Legendary) - lvl 8

- None

- None

- Locked

Void Hunter (3/5):

- Obliterate (Epic) - lvl 15

- Void Hunter’s Eyes (Common) - lvl 24

- Abyssal Symbiote (Epic) - lvl 18

- None

- Locked

Noah noted the locked ability slot, realizing it was most likely the set ability Nae and Aurelia had mentioned. His system interface had also changed as his Soul Modification had ranked up to Intermediate. More information displayed itself to him now, and more than once, Noah had been tempted to dive deeper into his sub-attribute, especially now that his soul resistance was at the intermediate stage, but he’d held off on the idea till he was officially discharged from his bed-rest.

Going through his abilities, Noah opened the two big ones that had ranked up at last.

[Lifeblood (Legendary, Intermediate)] - level 10

Your blood is filled with a strong vital force. You can store life within your blood, utilizing it to enhance your healing greatly for a small period of time. Permanently increases all healing abilities by 25%. Permanently increase health regeneration by 150%. Provides a 5% increase to Constitution. Provides immunity from intermediate grade poisons and low graded rot.

The effects of lifeblood had been rather obvious and immediate. Noah’s dark demonic looking eye had returned to normal, as Tony no longer needed to fill in the gaps caused by the damage from the Rot. His arm had gained some dark tendrils running up to his shoulders but the dark red blotches and scars from the Rot had faded as his Crimson Rot effect had been countered entirely.

But somehow that had been just the small part. His constitution had gained an additional 5% increase and all his healing abilities now healed 25% more health. The effects had been massive, and likely a good part of the reason why he’d survived his injuries in the first place.

Just looking at the description brought a smile to Noah’s face. He’d only grown more and more ridiculously strong as his abilities had reached higher ranks.

Moving on, Noah opened Dimensional Storage next.

[Dimensional Storage (Legendary, Intermediate) - level 10]

The astral energies reside in your soul, forming a pocket dimension that you have access to. Allows you to store things inside your own dimensional storage and merge other dimensional storages into your own to permanently increase their size. You can anchor three items to summon into your dimensional storage regardless of distance.

Dimensional Storage on the other hand, had not had any changes that immediately stood out to Noah, but upon practice he’d found a few things of note. The inside of his storage felt a lot more stable now, the drain on his own mana reduced significantly. If Noah wanted, even without meditation he could remain inside for nearly five minutes before his mana ran out.

But the larger change had been the item allocation. Three slots hovered above the ability, where Noah could mark items he wanted to attach to. Testing with a pebble, Noah had throw it outside his window as far away as he possibly could. After the pebble had long escaped his line of sight, Noah had tried to teleport it back. The pebble had returned immediately to his dimensional pocket. But what was even more surprising, was how he could assign himself as the target too. The act was pointless as Blink allowed him to enter his dimensional storage at any time, but it showed him that there were no restrictions placed upon assigning people or living things as the target, and if he could pair this with the dimensional pockets he had, and blink, he could effectively swap places with allies and enemies mid-battle. He’d been unable to sleep properly as ideas had kept flooding him on the various ways he could use his new abilities.

Trying to keep his grin and the itch to escape this room in check, Noah closed the menu, before moving on to his skills. Both Soul Modification and Rot Resistance had reached rank intermediate, and he opened them up to look at their descriptions.

[Soul Modification (Intermediate) - lvl 10]

You dabble with your soul, meddling with the very connection of the Astral Script to your existence. The task is risky, but you’ve managed to avoid the drawbacks for now. Become capable of modifying your Soul and Astral Script to your preferences. Become capable of peering deeper into the underlying layers of the Astral Script.

Noah had nicknamed the skill, developer mode, as it essentially allowed him to peer back the layers of his Astral Script, and look at its insides. He had not tried to mess around too much given how unstable his soul had felt ever since he’d received Hellion’s blessings, but the temptation to do so had never quite left him.

Moving to the last item in the list, Noah opened the description for his Rot Resistance.

[Rot Resistance (Intermediate) - lvl 10]

You’ve survived the deadliest of Rots, and now your body is resistant to its effects. Your blood harbors the rot with no harm to you any longer.

The last one was the one he was the least sure how to feel about. According to the description, his blood no contained the crimson rot, so he could no longer use his healing abilities from lifeblood as long as he kept the resistance on. He could turn off the resistance if he wanted to, but then using his spear would inflict him with Crimson Rot again, if he ever forgot to turn it back on before he did.

Closing the menu, Noah remembered the reward from his last quest. Reaching out, he opened the party menu.

Party Members:

Noah Brown:

Exsanguinator (Rare) - level 50

Astralwalker (Epic) - level 50

Void Hunter (Epic) - level 50

Health: 100%

Mana: 100%

Two bars displayed his status on his interface.

“Hey Aurelia,” Noah called out. “Can you come here for a second?”

Aurelia looked at Noah in surprise, Rising from her book as she walked closer. “What is it?” she asked.

Noah did not reply, looking through his menu before he found the option to add a member. Opening the option, he pointed it at Aurelia as a prompt rose.

You’ve asked Aurelia Fauster to join your Party.

“Noah… What did you do?” Aurelia asked, staring at a screen floating in front of her.

“I sent you an invite to join my party. Not sure how it works yet, but I think I have an idea. Click on yes,” he said.

Aurelia looked at him uncertainly for a moment, before she pressed the yes option on her screen.

Aurelia Fauster has joined your Party!

Party Members:

Noah Brown:

Exsanguinator (Rare) - level 50

Astralwalker (Epic) - level 50

Void Hunter (Epic) - level 50

Health: 100%

Mana: 100%

Aurelia Fauster:

Berserker Monk (Rare) - level 104

Flame Touched (Rare) - level 102

Cinderborn (Legendary) - level 105

Health: 100%

Mana: 100%

Noah looked at the interface, before his eyes widened in surprise as he turned towards Aurelia. “You got a legendary Path?!”