206 (III)

Academy [IV]

***

With that done, they returned to the crafting chamber to apply the final finishing touches to Shiv's mask. With the Mind Shield enchantment gone and an opportunity to gain five Adept Skills or a single Master Skill, Shiv went for the former. On top of that, however, he requested a Stealth-based enchantment as well.

He had a set of boots right now that didn't fit so well with his Voidmantid armor, especially since he was wearing the boots inside the armor. His boots allowed him to dive into darkness or to blink back to a patch of shade he last resided in. But he wasn't always going to have darkness.

When his Magebreaker still worked, it offered him illusory capabilities, the potential to project a light-forged manifestation of himself as a decoy or to go Chameleon. That was what he was looking for.

"Chameleon, you say?" Concelhaunt grunted. He used his chassis to scratch his chin, and beside him, Merrielmel did the same thing, but with his own hand. As they conferred with each other briefly, communicating primarily through a set of eyebrow wiggles and incoherent grunts, they finally settled upon a specific mana core that radiated with a bright white glow. It gave off the faint hint of Pyromancy from the heat that spilled forth, but there was also something more, something heavy. There was a weight to this enchantment.

"This," Concelhaunt said, "is the Illusory Decoy mana enchantment." He waved at the crystal, and Shiv saw how it resembled a hardened piece of stone. But as he looked at it, he saw something else. The stone began to shift, and it started to look like him, a smaller version of him, but definitely him.

"Why is it doing that?" Shiv asked.

"Because if you manage to find an object you like, you can project a beam of light over it. It will scan it, and it will forge an illusory decoy over you."

"So," Shiv said, "it will let me turn into something else?"

"No, not really. You won't gain the mass or all the other properties. You'll just have a light decoy over you. It's pretty useful, but if you're going to run into someone with some advanced scanning capabilities..." The goblin winced. "The simple problem is that this is probably the best we can do with the little bit of mana capacity the item still has. Perfect Semblance is a real hog. But if you ask me, that's the real stealth, you know? Looking like you belong in a place. That allows you to slip by unnoticed."

He was right, in a word, but Shiv wanted as many options as possible. "Well, got nothing else that's better than that?" he asked.

Concelhaunt sighed. "We could just give you flat invisibility, but it's going to be lesser invisibility. Not enough mana space."

"How bad is lesser?" Shiv asked.

"Well, you'll be invisible, but you're going to be giving off a lot of distortions. It'll be like a small vortex hovering in the air around you."

So not that invisible at all. Shiv considered that and decided against it. He still had his Silhouette skill he could draw on, even though he had advanced his stealth to Creeping Void. Creeping Void wasn't good for being a student in the Academy, especially since it was a Master-Tier Skill, and poor, dead Marcus only had an Adept-Tier Toughness skill. "Alright," Shiv said. "Guess that's the best we can do."

"Wait," a voice interrupted them. Can Hu staggered forward. Its legs were still damaged, but it managed to make its approach all the same. "I would like to assist," Can Hu said. "I have knowledge of this equipment." The Penitent paused, and its optics narrowed to pinpricks. "And I don't trust you."

"Me?" Merrielmel said, pointing at his face with his mouth open.

"Means the both of us," Concelhaunt clarified. "Listen, we're—"

"It takes little mana capacity to infuse a Tracker Enchantment into a piece of equipment," Can Hu continued. "I will make certain that you do not find yourself inspired by such ideas."

The crafters seemed hesitant, but Shiv was touched. He reached out and slapped the penitent over the back, and then dove to catch Can Hu before it could topple over. "Shit. Sorry, Can Hu."

"It is alright, Pathbearer. My legs will be rebuilt shortly. Now, let us bring this restoration to a close."

The mask went back into the pool of mercury once more, as did several mana cores and an ingot of adamantine. The forging took place upon the anvil carried on the back of Concelhaunt's chassis. It glowed with a series of gleaming patterns and formed a column that connected to the ceiling. When they pulled the mask free from the mercury minutes later, it glistened with a new appearance: the texture of adamantine mingled with focus crystal and mithril. As it was placed upon the anvil, it was secured by a heavy weight. It gave a creaking noise, and Shiv worried that it might break in half again.

His worry became utter disbelief as Concelhaunt proceeded to throw blow after blow upon its surface, using his fist-sized hammer. Bursts of mana filled the air, and just beside him, the enchanter wove spell after spell, conducting the twisting patterns that sprouted free from the anvil back into the mask.

Shiv realized what they were doing. They were weaving the enchantments deeper into the structure of the material. After what felt like an hour, the lights faded, and steam rose from the completed mask.

"That's done," Concelhaunt finally declared, letting out a breath. "Heroic equipment really takes it out of you."

Shiv stood over the mask for a moment and looked down. It felt foreign to him. He was more used to seeing his translucent reflection upon a sheen of bronze. Now, he couldn't see himself at all. It wasn't reflective anymore, but it was sturdier, heartier. As he touched it, the notification loaded.

Equipment Obtained: [Mask of the Stolen Path]

Tier: Heroic

Condition: Perfect

Composition: Mithril; Adamantine

Enchantments > Perfect Semblance; Augmented Adept-Skill Thief (0/5); Illusory Decoy; Binding; Self-Mending

"No Tracking enchantment," Can Hu reported.

"Thanks," Shiv replied. "Good job. Thanks for keeping an eye out for me."

"It is what we are supposed to do, Pathbearer."

As Shiv took the mask in both hands, he drew in a breath before trying to put it on. He only got halfway before he lowered the mask again. His eyes fell upon the body of Marcus Unblood, and he let out a sigh.

"Is something wrong?" Tequila asked. He looked between Shiv and the corpse. "You regret not picking the blonde one, the one with the large flaps on her chest?"

"Breasts," Helix chided with annoyance. "They're called breasts."

"I'm gonna call them flaps. I think they're ugly."

Helix clenched his teeth and began muttering prayers to the Challenger so that Tequila might suffer a particularly undignified death during his next reincarnation. Shiv ignored the orcs and their shenanigans as he looked down upon the dead boy.

"Think we should say something," Shiv muttered to himself. After his earlier thoughts about how not everyone was like him, and how not even being a martial Pathbearer could allow one to preserve their own life, he felt a strange sense of sympathy for the dead student-to-be. He was like him: another orphan, first considered a cripple, talented in some ways and utterly worthless in others.

But Marcus had strived, and Marcus had gained a chance at a better life, despite all the odds stacked against him. And it was a life he wouldn't get to live. But in his stead, Shiv would get to experience everything he should have at Phoenix Academy. There was something deeply wrong about that.

The Deathless stood over the corpse and let out a breath. "Alright, so, hi Marcus. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if there's anything after. I don't know a lot of things. I don't really even know you either, but this is the best I can do. I wish I'd gotten to know you. I wish you'd gotten to experience the Academy. I wish you could have fixed whatever sickness was bothering you. I wish you could have been the Pathbearer you wanted to be."

"Oh, please, Insul, what are you doing?" Helix complained. He came to a stop just beside Shiv and shook his head. "This... this is meaningless. He's already..." He was silenced by a glare from Shiv.

"It's not meaningless," Shiv said. "It's not meaningless, because I decided it's not. You understand that, right?" Here was Shiv teaching a lesson to Helix, a lesson the orc should have known well: dominance. Now, sentimentality was justified, for to slight it would incur Shiv's wrath, and Shiv was feeling particularly wrathful for this interruption.

Helix coughed. "I, yes, of course. I have overstepped."

"Yeah, you sure as shit fucking did," Shiv said, voice low. "Yeah, where the hell was I? So, uh, fuck. Godsdamn it, Helix." Shiv felt a snarl of anger rising in the back of his throat, and part of him wanted to rip the orc in half and pound the corpse until it was nothing but bloodied paste. But he controlled himself.

He still needed a Biomancy tutor. More importantly, blind rage was not going to be his way. Now, Shiv was going to be very calculated and very brutal when it came to his rages. Anger was a valuable resource, and he wasn't going to waste it. That being said, he was going to use Dread-Tainted to teach a lesson.

"Alright, here's a reminder." Shiv reached out and gripped Helix by the collar of his silken coat. Immediately, the fear chain between him and the orc intensified and grew exponentially harder as Helix gasped. He started experiencing everything Daughter did as Shiv applied Dread-Tainted to his Leviathan of the Shapeless Tide skill.

"I—uh…" Helix blinked, trying to shake himself free from the terror-drenched stupor Shiv inflicted upon him. He kept pawing at one section of his face. It was the part of Daughter's skull that Shiv had driven his hand through.

"This might not be for Marcus. He might not hear this at all," Shiv said to the rest of the room, especially the orcs. "But it's still for me. I don't want to be like Udraal. I don't want to be like Veronica Chandler or the other Avatars and Ascendants. And I don't want to be like you."

He nearly shouted that final line to impress upon the orcs that he was their Insul, but he wasn't one of them. "I want people to matter. I want life to matter. And I will shed blood for it to matter. My identity will not… eh… Will not…"

"Will not exist on a foundation of softness?" Adam suggested.

"Right, softness," Shiv continued. "It's going to be strong, and it's going to be brutal. And I will fight to see the world I want to be made true. You got an itch? Well, so do I. But it's a different kind of itch. And you respect that. And you respect this boy here. He died for something. Because I said so."

With that, some of the orcs flashed bright. Patches of glass grew along their bodies, and Helix suffered the most of all. His chest was gleaming underneath his silken coat, and Shiv fought the urge to strike him, to cement his point with a death. Instead, however, the orcs bowed their heads, and a few of them chuckled. They were pleased. Orcs didn't just like dominating others; they liked playing the game, and losing brought them pleasure. After all, what was the point of struggle if there was no tension?

Shiv swallowed what remained of his rage. He looked down at Marcus and sighed. "I don't remember where I left off. But yeah, I wish things were better. I wish the world was better. I'm gonna try to make it better. I probably would have cooked for you if we met. I might have liked you too. So, sorry I'm gonna burn your body now."

As he finished, a brief silence followed. Shiv looked at the other people in the room. Kura was utterly uninterested, staring blankly in their general direction. Five looked away when Shiv tried to meet his gaze and started lightly whistling a tune. Candles was still snoring off by the side. Can Hu gave him a slow thumbs-up, and Gone was still scratching at her brand. Adam stepped forward, however, with Irons behind him.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"It's been a while since I offered a eulogy," Adam said. "But let's see if I can remember how it goes." The Gate Lord cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and drew in a breath. "Oh, wick that never got to be flame, I give upon you my lament. Oh, tale unsung and life unlived, I give to you my sorrow, my regret, and my fondest hopes that your next life may rise to greater heights than this one, cut short of the precipice. Though you may have fallen in despair, though you might have only known loneliness and darkness as companions in those final moments, we stand here now. We witness you. We recognize you, a wick that never got to be flame, and in recognition understand that what didn't burn in you will burn in us evermore. Through us may your story continue, and through us may you find that light in the next world to come."

"Praise be the Struggler," Irons finished for Adam.

"Praise be the Struggler," Adam echoed.

Shiv blinked. "That was, uh…"

"That was kind of beautiful," Mortar said. Now it was Shiv's turn to be surprised.

"What?" Mortar replied. "It is beautiful."

"It was," Whisper agreed. "A bit sentimental, but quite poignant."

"I mean, what was that, though? That sounded like you did that before," Shiv said.

"Yes, it's the Eulogy of the Struggler," Adam said, looking to Irons. "Captain Irons taught it to us. It's a prayer some ancients used to offer to the System. But as people's view of the System changed, and they realized it doesn't care, so too did the eulogy change over the years, becoming a set of rites offered between friends and even enemies on the battlefield. For everyone understands another Pathbearer to some extent, for all must struggle in a world unkind, driven only by the rite of might, the rite of blood."

"Rite of might," Shiv said to himself. He looked down at Marcus's face and tried his best to remember it as he saw it now. He told himself that some people never had a chance. With that came an understanding. "Adam, I was pretty lucky, wasn't I, despite everything?"

Philosophy 30 > 32

The Gate Lord blinked and considered Shiv's statement. "Maybe," Adam said. "Maybe we all are. Maybe we still are. We're still alive, and we're still with each other."

"Still alive, still together," Shiv said. There was a lot to be thankful for and a lot to feel burdened by. Despite everything Shiv had learned about his parentage, about his past, about what might loom in the future, he felt lucky. There was a great deal of good alongside the bad. He never regretted becoming a Pathbearer. He loved it. He loved it still.

Even if his immortality was a thing born at Udraal's hands, it was his Path, and he was going to walk it to its end, whatever that may be. He was going to use it to make this world a better place as much as he could. He wanted to cook more for people, and he wanted to hurt less. Fighting, it was still enjoyable. Destruction and power, it was still addicting.

But death...

Shiv had seen so much death. He was sick of seeing people die for the stupidest things. He was tired of murdering the weak and foolish. All those lives lost, for what? Just because some people wanted to maintain their own interests? More often than not, it was because those people were fragile on the inside. They lied to themselves. They were too weak, and so other people had to die for them, for meaningless causes fought by meaningless people.

Shiv didn't want to be meaningless. He didn't want anyone to be meaningless. He despised the System more than ever as he stood here and hardened himself for what he was about to do. He placed his mask on his face then, and he gave Marcus his final farewell. "Goodbye, Marcus. I'm gonna be taking what's left of your life now. Hopefully, you won't be too embarrassed by what I do."

"Hopefully you'll be able to maintain this cover for longer than two hours," Adam added.

"Yeah," Shiv replied. "Hopefully."

As he focused on Marcus, his body began to burn. As the flesh caught on fire, as his soul kindled, it rushed into Shiv's mask as a surging blaze. This time, he felt the full weight of Marcus's soul briefly imprint on him, and there were several skills for him to pick from.

Just then, Marcus's full set of skills loaded before him, and the Deathless took in the finer details of his Perfect Semblance's new soul. He chose everything that Marcus was supposedly good at: Fieldcraft, Survival, Surgery, Practical Metabiology.

Shiv

Name: Tanner "Shiv" Lowe

Age: 18

Race: Human

Path:

Deathless

Feats [4/5]:

He Who Rises From Ash Eternal (Unique) - Allows the Pathbearer to quickly learn new Skills and advance existing Skills through repeated deaths.

Master of Rage (Master) - Allows the Pathbearer to infuse a skill with rage to increase its effectiveness. Consumes the Pathbearer's anger.

Causal Scargiver (Unique) - Causes the injuries inflicted by the Pathbearer to be scarred upon their enemy across time and causality.

Dread-Tainted (Legendary) - The Pathbearer has left a divine being scared with terror. Gods have fled your presence. You are now a source of absolute fear. Allows the Pathbearer to lace their skills with the divine entity's lingering terror.

Skills:

Marksmanship (Common) > 13

Baking (Common) 9

Barter (Common) > 10

Alchemy (Common) 2

Engineering 1 (Common)

Lance Proficiency (Common) 1

Acting (Common) 16

Riding Proficiency (Common) 1

Leadership (Common) 6

Rhetoric (Common) 1

Memorization (Common) 14

Physics (Common) 2

Dodge (Initiate) 32

Philosophy (Initiate) 30

Deception (Initiate) 37

Multi-Tasking (Initiate) 38

Pyromancy (Initiate) 18

Spear Proficiency (Initiate) 11

Practical Metabiology (Initiate) 43

Psychomancy (Initiate) 28

Hydromancy (Initiate) 15

Whip Proficiency (Initiate) 13

Analyze 1 (Initiate)

Portomancy (Initiate) 6

Frictionless Vector (Adept) 88

Deepest Edge (Adept) 66

Berserk (Adept) 21

Golemancy 1 (Adept) 26

Farsight 51 (Adept) 74

The Chef Unwavering (Master) 64

Strider of the Unbending Path (Master) 160

The Creeping Void (Master) 115

Plaguefueled (Master) 79

Shape of Monstrosity (Master) 139

Psycho-Cartography (Master) 93

Sticks and Stones (Master) 58

Inertial Overdrive (Heroic) 170

Aegis of Assimilation (Heroic) 116

Pillar of Orichalcum (Heroic) 255

Vitality Drain (Legendary) 122

Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides (Legendary) 502

Vitaemancy (Unique) 116

Non-Sequitur (Unique) 104

Blessings:

Song of the Vigilant - Allows the Pathbearer to maintain absolute focus while the song is active. The song will expand out from the Pathbearer as a web and form a Resonant Perimeter.

Icon of the Paindrinker - Allows the Pathbearer to manifest the icon from their body. The icon will magnify the damage and pain the Pathbearer and all nearby enemies and objects suffer.

Curses:

Favored Archenemy - An orc will always be able to sense your presence, regardless of guise or appearance. An orc will always have a sense for where you are. Regardless of dimension, world, distance, or time, you are marked for an eternal war.

Hands of the Bloodied - Anything you craft and create will be stained with blood and degrade at an increased pace.

Rituals

Bloodrites of the Vaketh-Insul - Slay enemies of an appropriate quantity and tier to gain an equivalent in orc recruits from the Lone Star Orchestra

Name: Marcus Unblood

Age: 17

Race: Human

Path: Healer

Skills:

Swimming (Common) 19

Animal Handling (Common) 18

Cooking (Common) 15

Woodcarving (Common) 11

First Aid (Initiate) 40

Stealth (Initiate) 39

Observation (Initiate) 36

Tracking (Initiate) 35

Endurance (Initiate) 32

Skinning (Initiate) 28

Foraging (Initiate) 25

Climbing (Initiate) 21

Survival (Initiate) 49

Fieldcraft (Initiate) 48

Surgery (Initiate) 47

Practical Metabiology (Initiate) 45

Silent Movement (Initiate) 42

Knife Proficiency (Initiate) 41

Trap Making (Initiate) 38

Camouflage (Initiate) 37

Archery Proficiency (Initiate) 33

Toxin Resistance (Initiate) 29

Applied Botany (Initiate) 26

Tanning (Initiate) 22

Ironhide (Adept) 51

Curses:

Mana-Warped - Your connection to mana is fundamentally broken. Your corrupted ambient mana flow has permanently damaged your body.

Fleshwithered - Your cellular regeneration is corrupted. Wounds heal into thick, knotted scar tissue that restricts movement and deadens nerves. Your organs and muscles will constantly wither. Over time, patches of your skin lose vitality, becoming grey, numb, and brittle. Constant medical intervention is required to prevent creeping necrosis.

It shamed Shiv a bit that Marcus was ahead of him in Practical Metabiology, but he also noted how the unblooded boy's highest skill was Iron Hide, a Toughness skill. That wouldn't be hard for Shiv to fake at all, so he let it go. Just then, Shiv wondered if he had managed to extract one of those skills from Marcus's body, if he could bring him back to life. Part of him wanted to try, but as Marcus settled into his mask and turned to nothing but ash, Shiv let it go as he selected the Adept-Tier Skills he needed. Afterwards, he let Marcus remain at peace.

Adept-Skill Thief (5/5)

Survival (Initiate) 49

Fieldcraft (Initiate) 48

Surgery (Initiate) 47

First Aid (Initiate) 40

Tracking (Initiate) 35

Perhaps that was the one advantage Marcus had over Shiv: peace.

No one would bother him again. He would never struggle, and he would never face any pain, unless another life awaited those who died or an imperfect afterlife existed. Shiv, on the other hand, was probably going to experience a great deal of torment.

He let out a low breath. Then so be it. That was what it meant to be a Pathbearer. That's what it took to exact his revenge on the world itself. Because that's what Shiv ultimately hated: the world, the weakness in people, and the darkness it drove people to, incentivized by the cruel hand of the System.

As the flames settled around Shiv, his outer shell was reforged. He looked down at his arms and hands and found himself wearing... well, nothing. Marcus was dead, covered by a sheet and nothing more. The Deathless grunted as he looked down. "Now this is felling awkward," Shiv muttered to himself. As he looked between his legs, he saw another reason why he felt bad for Marcus. The fucking curse was a nightmare down there. It was withered. Marcus's voice was also hoarse and weak—vocal cords atrophied. He looked to Merrielmel and Concelhaunt. "Got another favor to ask. You guys got any leftover clothes here, student-sized?"

***

As it turned out, they did have extra uniforms. In fact, they had a few thousand extra uniforms, all packaged in a set of dusty crates. They were old uniforms from decades past, but they were still more than wearable. Shiv found a Phoenix Academy ensemble and dressed himself. All students received a canvas shirt on the inside, silk leggings, and cotton socks. Wrapped over those items was a padded utility vest that was colored black and gold. It had several pouches for potions, elixirs, and other gadgets, along with a belt meant for a few knives on the side, which Shiv approved of. Then there were the leather pants, griffin hide by the feel of it. The boots were likely made from an ogre's flesh, if Helix was correct.

And finally, there was the coat. It was more cape than coat in some ways, with how the back flapped freely. Though the arms and the fabric that cascaded down the sides of Shiv's body were a bright blue, denoting him as a first-year, his back was a stripe of darkness, emblazoned with a golden creature: the symbol of Phoenix Academy.

The blazing bird held a great blade between its beak and clutched a quill between its talons. Around it, there was a faint glow, an illusory enchantment that made the symbol seem as if it were actually on fire. If one focused for long, they could also hear the phoenix screech, but since Shiv had an actual encounter with a genuine phoenix, he knew that was the call of a hawk instead.

To be fair, if a normal person heard a phoenix's screech, their eardrums would likely burst, and their insides would probably combust as well. Phoenixes were not docile creatures, and they very much did not appreciate being disturbed.

"Alright," Shiv said, "how do I look?"

"Well, the uniform looks quite nice," Adam replied, staring him up and down. "A bit old and a bit worn in a few places, but quite nice. The academy has always cared for the quality of its fabrics. But you yourself..." Adam winced slightly. "I don't know how to say this without speaking ill of the dead, but, well, Marcus is a bit deformed around the torso, but not so much the arms. It's very evident even when you're wearing clothes. You're, uh..."

"I'm gonna run into some assholes?" Shiv ventured.

"You might," Adam replied. "More like snide remarks than anything. The rules are that you always have to wear your overcoat when on academy grounds. It's recommended that you keep the pants and vest on as well, but aside from that, you can wear anything you want on the inside: armor, robes, anything. The overcoat is self-repairing, and it usually comes with… Huh… Right. No lapel yet."

"Lapel?" Shiv asked.

"It's how the university sends you notifications. It's a Divination construct," Adam explained. "Usually, the lapel is a small mithril pin. It goes on your overcoat's collar; there, someone can scan it using their Analyze skill to see which year you're in, what classification or program you belong to, and which dorm you reside in."

"And I'm guessing poor Marcus didn't get a lapel because he's dead," Shiv guessed.

"Correct," Irons said. "He would need to be formally registered and scanned before he can get a lapel. It requires a one-to-one connection with his soul, after all." That made Shiv a little nervous. "So, I hope your Perfect Semblance works well," Irons grunted. "Otherwise, there will be questions when we resolve your registration."

"We?" Shiv asked.

"You're going to need an alibi and a justifiable story as to why you're not dead, won't you?" Irons asked.

Shiv grunted. "Got any ideas about how I came back from the dead?"

The Captain paused, and then he smirked slightly. "A few. Head trauma is a funny thing. As are certain toxins." He shot Helix a look. "Orc, can you induce a state of toxicity?"

"Please," the orc Biomancer humphed. "There is little I cannot do to the body. He will be in whatever state I desire."

"Good," Irons said. "Because recovering from a deep poison that stopped the heart is rare, but it has happened before. To make this seem proper, though, we need you to wake up where Marcus was. Which means you're taking those clothes off again soon."

Shiv blinked. "Oh. We're doing a morgue-awakening-thing."

Irons nodded. "Indeed."

"This might be the most demented admissions scheme ever concocted," Adam muttered in disbelief.

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