Chapter 23: The First Truth

Elias dropped to one knee as he tried and failed to understand everything in front of him. He felt the smoothness of his motion as if he were weightless, and he realized that this should be the result of his Agility at 19. It was almost as if this powerful body had always been his own, but without Lumina, he could not access it.

His eyes were still closed, but he knew that his body was different… denser, stronger. He could kill his previous self with a single punch, and his last hunt would have been a cakewalk. But how was this happening? He was just a Wisp who had not even drawn any source of vitality inside his body, meaning that he was technically a Rank 0 Wisp.

While his mortal body was in perfect shape, Elias struggled to gain muscle due to his body’s refusal to change, as lifting weights and exercises were useless since his muscles healed any damage, and this did not allow any form of growth. Elias had expected that his Strength should not exceed a maximum of 5, yet his Status screen showed him a Strength of 14, and he could feel

that strength; it was as if his muscles were permanently flexed, their fibers had grown thicker and firmer.

How could all these transformations happen in a few seconds? Was Lumina that mysterious and powerful? Elias nearly rolled his eyes. Yes, it was. Lumina was the lifeblood of the gods; of course, it could change his body in a few seconds.

From the many records he had gathered over the years about the awakening of individuals to Lumina, the highest attributes most people could reach on the physical side were 10. It represented the peak of the body, and except for certain freaks who could push past the limits and gain higher attributes, most people in this world would never get an attribute greater than 10 as a mortal.

Of course, Elias acknowledged that this attribute could be greater, but since most people were awakened when they were youths, and had not reached the peak of their physical development, there was still space to grow, but this usually meant their attributes were not greater than 5 or 7 when they were awakened. Mortal bodies were not supposed to hold power greater than 10, else it would cause much pressure to build up on the organs and other areas of the body, leading the body of the mortal to quickly fail

The record holder was the Prince of Stormfall, who was said to have awakened with his strength at 12 and his constitution at 13. But that was Royalty, and those people were the freaks of the Siphon society.

He, on the other hand, had 14 in strength, 19 in Agility, and his Durability was 22. Were these not the physical attributes of a Peak-level Wisp or a weak Fury Forge? This was not even the most shocking aspect, while his physical side might exceed all known records, his mental attributes, on the other hand, blew everything away, and Elias could not believe the numbers.

There was so much to unwrap here that he was almost overwhelmed. He knew he was purposefully selecting the parts that he was most familiar with, which were his attributes, and still, they were not making any sense. He did not want to even concentrate on the words besides his attributes or even consider the other changes he was seeing, like True Name, his Race, or the fact that he had not just awakened to the power of Miracle, but Damnation; however, his Status Screen called it Condemnation. Was there a difference?

There was so much to unwrap here that he could feel himself begin to panic; however, Elias could feel his mind changing, and it was a weird sensation as if barriers placed inside his head were melting away, but this change was a welcome development as his confusion and surprise vanished, and his mental state became impossibly stable. If someone were to begin hacking at his neck at this moment, he would not even blink.

This change in his mental state happened so fast that it was as if a switch had been turned on inside his head. Elias knew at that moment that his Ascension to become a Siphon was complete, and his earlier panic was the remnant of his mortal self being washed away. He was now a Siphon, and the mortal mind would be led to madness the more he looked at the Status screen.

The answer that he was looking for was always in front of him all this time, and he only had to look at his Status properly, and all of his queries would be resolved.

Elias exhaled slowly. The words from his Status screen were cold, clinical, and utterly alien, yet they felt like the first true map he had ever been given of himself. All of his fears, frustrations, and confusion had been mostly wiped off at a single moment, but instead of fully understanding them, his mortal mind had been panicking.

There was too much information here that Elias had to go through, but his mind was calmly separating everything into an order of Priority, and so he was not overwhelmed by what he was looking at; instead, he began to piece out the truth from the chaos, knowing that his Will and Perception were the ones responsible for these changes in his thinking process.

Elias opened his eyes and came to his feet, dismissing the Status screen from his mind and watching it collapse into motes of blue and crimson light that sank into his eyes, causing them to glow for a moment. There was no need to keep up the Status screen since it was distracting and he had already memorised all the information on it.

The first truths about his present state came to him quite easily, and that truth was in the word: Reawakened Siphon. Elias had not awakened as a Siphon; he had reawakened as something else. He is no longer just Elias the hunter. He is something older, hungrier, and far more dangerous.

Elias had no memory of who he was before he was seven, and he wondered whether he had once been a Siphon, or whether the Passenger had been a Siphon once and now his Ascension had fused the Passenger, the Eldritch Insects in his Core, and him into one being. Perhaps it was the reason he had both the power of Miracle and Damnation inside him.

Elias knew that he could not spend too much time stuck in a single place while he sorted out everything going on inside of him; he should also be exploring this Fragment and looking for the place to Seed his Lumina. He had not forgotten that there were monsters in this Fragment, and he did not know if he was entirely safe.

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