Chapter 208: You Awaken

Elias’s eyes opened. He had never felt so refreshed in his life, and he knew that he had slept for too long, because the world seemed as if it had changed.

He did not know how long he had slept. Hours, perhaps. A day. The time he had spent in the trial had stretched and compressed in ways his mind still struggled to process. The crystal maze. The forest of bones. The still lake. The chamber of mirrors. The weight of the dead. The dance with Rhys and Lyssa.

Elias did not know which day it was or the time. Not too long ago, one of his greatest secrets was the ability to precisely tell the time as he was aware of every moment that was passing, but now, all of that had changed, and the days began to blur together.

Is that what it was like for an Angel? If you live for thousands or even tens of thousands of years, what does the passing of a single day or a week mean to you?

Time was essentially becoming nearly meaningless, and Elias feared that this deep sleep he was frequently falling into, while it may be because of an issue with his healing, also represented his increasingly loose attitude towards time.

His Elder Talent thrummed in his chest like a second heart. It had grown during the trial; he had felt it, the red light bleeding through the cracks of the moon in his Lumina Space, the hunger for evolution, the need to remake him. He had held it back. He had been fighting, surviving, carrying the weight of the dead. He had not had time to be remade.

Now he had time.

But before he let the change take him, before he unleashed the progress he had earned, he needed to know where he stood, to see the ledger of his own becoming, and understand the foundation before he built upon it.

Elias opened his eyes as he lay on the bed, and called for his Status Screen.

The blue light filled his vision, familiar and alien, the language of the System that had first spoken to him in the Fragment, that had named him Reawakened, that had branded him with the truths he was still learning to understand.

He read slowly, but this was the way Elias had always read, carefully, with the hunger of a man who had been starved of knowledge, and also with the precision of a hunter who could not afford to miss the smallest detail.

[STATUS]

Name: Elias (True Name: ??? – Fragment-Bound)

Race: Human (Divine Remnant Hybrid – Pillar of Sorrow Assimilated)

Age: 18 (Chronologically) / Ageless Echo (Spiritually)

Authority: Ascendant Candidate (Bronze Potential – Mutated)

Path: Dual – Miracle / Condemnation (Equilibrium Achieved – Sovereign Balance)

Stage: Level 0 Fury Forge (Unallocated Points – 45)

Base Attributes:

Strength: 149 (Giant Muscles)

Agility: 165 (Advanced Reflexes)

Durability: 225 (Dense Flesh)

Perception: 207 (Sight Awakening)

Will: 258 (Sovereign Will)

Esoteric: 202 (Triple Legacy Synergy)

Vitality: 4551 / 4551

Stamina: 973 / 973

He stared at the numbers for a long moment. They were absurd. He knew they were absurd. A Level 0 Fury Forge with Durability that would shame a Mist Phantom. Will that could stand against an Angel’s aura. Vitality that would take an army to chip away. And beneath it all, the quiet, patient hunger of his Elder Talent, waiting to push these numbers higher.

But the numbers were not what mattered. They were the surface, the skin over the bone. What mattered was what lay beneath.

He let his eyes drift down the Status, past the attributes that measured his flesh, to the deeper truths that measured his soul.

Active Legacies:

Lumina Vein Scripture: Scripture of the Hollow Monarch (First Scroll – Containment)

Grade: Forbidden Scripture (Fragment)

Core Concept: Embrace contradiction. Hold infinity inside finitude. Contain the uncontainable.

Paradox Vessel: Internal void pockets. (Initial)

Inverse Reflection (1%) (Initial)

Vein Completion: 0.00018%

He could feel it, the void in his chest, the infinite hole that had been there since before he could remember. The Scripture had given it a name, a shape, a purpose. It was not emptiness. It was a vessel. And it was waiting to be filled.

What was amazing was that there was another Scripture that was waiting for him beneath this first scroll, and the moment he mastered this first scripture, he could begin the second one.

However, noticing the slow growth of this scripture, even after feeding it two of the biggest prey he had hunted, Elias could not help but shrug and move on… no one ever said the journey would be a quick one.

Heaven-Grade Art: Crimson Vein Dominion

Grade: Heaven-Grade

Core Concept: Absolute mastery over blood as a weapon and conduit

Blood Dominion Lash (Initial)

Crimson Shroud (Initial)

Hemorrhage Cascade (Initial)

Sanguine Resonance (Initial)

Vein Completion: 35.008% (Abilities upgraded, pending activation)

Elias could feel the pulsing of his blood through his blood, and it was slower than normal, as if the flow of blood had slowed in his veins. He knew that this was the effect of his Elder Talent, holding his body in a form of stasis, in preparation for his next round of growth, and even the Crimson Vein Dominion had to bow before the power of this talent.

Feeding on the runes of that Rune Beast had given this heaven-grade art a massive boost, something that should take months or maybe even years of grinding on the battlefield and spilling a lot of blood had been accomplished in a single fight.

Talent was all well and good, but it seemed that at this stage, what was most important for a Siphon was resources, and not just any resources, the right kind.

Mystic-Grade Art: The Art of Stone

Grade: Mystic-Grade

Core Concept: Endure

Stone Skin (Advanced): 55% physical damage reduction while armored.

Crushing Endurance (Initial): 0.4 Durability per day under 5,000kg of armor.

Iron Will Anchor (Sealed)

Rebellious Burden (Sealed)

God-Slayer’s Shatter (Sealed)

Vein Completion: 0.00%

Elias looked at the number for a long time. Zero, and this number bugged him more than he would care to admit.

He had not grown. After he had lost his helmet in the first seconds of the trial, he had paid for it with every blow that should have been turned aside, with every wound that should have been lessened, with every moment he had been vulnerable when he should have been stone.

The lesson was learned, and he would not forget. Perhaps this incident was not normal and was caused by the Commander in order to weaken him for the trial and show him the lesson of being fully prepared, but Elias thought that these might just be excuses, and he had lost the helmet because of his personal failures and not anyone else’s.

No, I need to grow stronger and much faster, and there cannot be any excuses that should warrant such failures next time.

Sighing, Elias scrolled past the legacies, the numbers that measured his failures and his strengths, to the words that named him.

Titles:

The Good Hunter: +15% effectiveness against worthy prey.

Late Bloomer: +25% Lumina absorption from kills.

Ascendant Swarm Symbiosis.

Fragment Bearer: (Unsealed) The Pillar of Sorrow.

Defier of Fate.

Heir of the Pillar of Sorrow.

The Storm’s Heir.

Sovereign of a Hundred Pools: (Irreducible Pool)

Triple Legacy Forging.

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