Phoenix rubbed at the spot on her chest where the god and goddess had come into physical contact with her. There was no longer any pain, but the memory was still creating phantoms in her mind. She was beginning to hate waking up without the memory of actually attempting to sleep.
When she exited the tent this time, she was startled to not recognize her surroundings. The grassy hillocks were gone, repced by ftter steppe pins with some sparse pnt life that reminded her of tumbleweeds she would see in movies of the Old West. The sound of running water seemed distant, and she noticed Paul a few meters away, surveying the ndscape from the edge where the ground suddenly stopped. Whether he was looking out for potential threats or just enjoying the view, she wasn’t quite sure.
She groggily made her way over to him, stumbling a few times, and asked, “How long was I out?”
“Three days,” he said gruffly and pointed toward the small campfire he had made with a rge ft boulder nearby and commanded, “Eat.”
“At least that expins why I feel like utter garbage,” she stated grumpily, then walked over to the pte of food awaiting on the boulder and took its pce. As she sat on the stone, she didn’t even bother to ask what any of the food was this time before pcing it into her mouth.
The meat was slightly tough with a smokey fvor, and the fruit looked like pale blue grapes that seemed to gush with liquid as she popped one into her mouth. She instantly felt better and found herself craving more. This caused her to eye the food warily as she decided to ask, “What is this, and why do I like it so much?”
Paul watched her with an amused look as he expined, “I found some manarins on the way and decided to roast some of the doudrisk I killed when we first met. Both of those are Crystal Caste ingredients, meaning the mana in them is enough to sustain your new Caste level without needing to supplement with Bits.”
“What about you?” she asked as she took another tentative bite of the magical food.
He grimaced slightly, then lifted another green-colored stone up for her to see before popping it into his mouth. She couldn’t help ughing at the silent answer and popped another of the berries into her own mouth.
Paul then made his way over to the fire and pced himself next to her to share the boulder seat with her as he prompted, “Your book.”
She barely even thought about the guide before it appeared in front of her, as though eager to inform. Together, they read through the messages that came after the gods’ quest.
Quest: Divine Call for a Hero
Objective Complete: Accepted the divine quest with an Oathbond.
Objective Reward:
The quality of your quest rewards has been permanently enhanced.
Objective Complete: Gained Hero’s and Rebel’s Soul Mark.
Objective Reward:
[Adventuring Pack] has been added to your collection.
Divine Title has been granted.
Additional objectives still remain.
New Divine Title: Chosen One
Your aura has been altered by the divine entities: Hero and Rebel. The alterations have enhanced the strength of your aura, increasing its range and resistance to effects from higher Castes. Your soul has been marked as one who has been chosen by the deities of Makera.
“What in the abyss?” Phoenix whispered to herself as she rubbed at the spot on her chest again. The gods had marked her soul? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She did know, however, that she felt extremely uncomfortable with the title of “Chosen One.” She still couldn’t fathom why they would choose her. There were probably hundreds of thousands of people on this pnet who were better suited for this task than she was.
Her introspection was interrupted by Paul’s resolute voice, “I will teach you how to control your aura.”
Phoenix looked up at the stoic warrior, “Really?”
He nodded before adding, “And fight.”
Her eyes widened, and she couldn’t help but sputter, “B–but why?”
They stared at each other for a long moment before he responded, “Because you need it, and I can do it.”
Paul then gestured to the spot she was rubbing on her chest, “You have a Soul Mark there now. I noticed when dressing you to travel,” he expined and reached into the bag at his belt, pulling out her sewing kit and handing it over to her.
She didn’t even need to touch it as it vanished into her collection. They both seemed startled by that, and Phoenix realized that her aura encompassed both Paul and her, as well as the surrounding area. “Sorry. I, um… I didn’t mean to do that. My aura just reacted to my thoughts.”
“We’ll work on learning to retract it first since that’s usually the more difficult thing to do,” he gruffly said as he reached into his bag again, “Auras naturally seek to expand, but you should try to keep it restrained when around others and only unleash it during combat,” then he held out a small mirror for her. At her questioning look, he gestured with it at her chest once more.
The Wayfarer hesitantly took the mirror with her free hand while bancing her pte of food on her p and lowered the colr of her dress enough to see the new mark. It was a five-pointed star with feathered wings outstretched behind it. The lines were a dark bck, but the interior seemed to shimmer with swirling rainbow colors, simir to the text the divine quest had dispyed and the marks around her wrist. She guessed that, as far as sudden and unpnned tattoos went, this wasn’t so bad.
“Does this ‘Soul Mark’ actually do anything?” she asked, curiously tracing a finger over it.
Paul shrugged slightly, “Not in an active sense. It simply lets others know that you are Chosen by Hero and Rebel as one who has gained their favor should they gaze upon it.”
Phoenix handed the mirror back to her new trainer, “So if I keep it covered, then people won’t realize I have it?”
He gave her a curious look but tilted his head in confirmation as he tucked the mirror back into his bag.
“So when do we start training?” she asked, excitement beginning to creep up in her.
“Right away,” the warrior stated, then ran a hand through his golden hair in an uncharacteristic dispy of anxiety, “However, you being an Aurabreaker might make training more complicated. I only know of one other even remotely in our part of the world, and I’m not sure they’d be willing to help train another.”
Paul sighed and shook his head as though clearing away the worry to recim his composure, “Aside from your multiple Auras, are there any other Talents I should know about?”
She hesitated, thinking about her [Waypoint] ability and how the Magi had become so possessive of her with its revetion. She wasn’t sure how this former holy Padin would respond. Would he want to possess her as well? Turn her into a weapon for this Alliance of Adventurers? Purge her from the world as some sort of undead abomination variant?
Her uncertainty is what held her back from divulging it, but she knew he could tell if she lied, “Not any that I’m comfortable with sharing,” she said quietly. This time, she could definitely feel his aura as it invaded her own, searching for her secrets. She gred a bit at him and muttered, “Rude.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgment but didn’t apologize, “You are an enigma, young one.”
Paul then crossed his rather muscur arms and said with a hint of exasperation, “I’ve never seen someone with so much potential that thinks so little of their self.”
“Potential?” she asked, looking at him. It felt like he was reiterating the hope she had been going to sleep with since arriving here, at least when she wasn’t just passing out from pain, and it made her think of Morgan’s words before sending her here.
“Of course. Everyone has potential,” he stated, looking back out towards the horizon, “You just seem to have an impressive start. A Wayfarer Aurabreaker, who has already bested foes, if only barely, and been hand-picked by the gods? And that’s all in less than a fortnight.” Then he gave a slight smirk, “With the right training, you might even make a great Adventurer.”
The pair fell into silence, Phoenix uncomfortable with the positive assessment of her filing her way through events by sheer luck. She decided that maybe she could open up a bit more about why she disagreed, though, “I’m not so sure. My whole life so far has been people telling me my future only held inevitable death. Too sick to live much longer. Too weak to offer assistance. Too isoted to truly understand what living was really like. Will coming here, becoming an Adventurer, really change all of that?”
“It sounds like you’ve been given a rare opportunity,” Paul said as he softened his stance. He watched her contemptively, assessing her like he seemed prone to do, “You’re so young,” he whispered almost mournfully.
She gnced towards him, “Not that young. I just turned eighteen, which is an adult where I come from. Though I admit I don’t really feel like an adult yet,” Phoenix said, returning Paul’s assessing gaze with one of her own. He only looked to be in his early thirties, maybe, so she returned his question, “How old are you?”
He gave a low chuckle and revealed, “I’m 64.”
Phoenix gawked at the man standing before her. It sounded impossible, and her brain had to adjust mentally to reconcile what she saw with what he said. “H–how?” she barely managed to blurt out.
His smirk grew as he answered unhelpfully, “Magic.”
Before she could say or ask anything more, Paul moved towards the tent to start breaking it down again, saying simply, “Come. We will walk and train.”
Paul turned out to be a brutal and unrelenting trainer. He refused to pause the continual barrage of his aura, poking and prodding her own into the bare minimum of acceptability for being around people. It took a while for her to learn to read Paul’s aura with her own in order to attempt to emute what he was doing with his.
To her senses, she could feel him expand and retract his aura as if he were breathing, and he showed no outward indication of what he was doing. It flowed around him and around her, mingling with hers yet remaining separate. Oil and water, she was reminded.
She could feel him pull it inwards till it seemed to meld with his skin, as if they were the same thing, and the power she felt from it was reduced to a bare trickle. She tried pulling on her own aura, but it felt like a solid wall refusing to budge.
“I don’t get it,” Phoenix compined as she sat down on the side of the rough path they were following up north along the river. She was exhausted from the mental exertion more than the walking despite having been traveling for hours now.
“I’ve pushed and pulled, but it’s not listening!” she grumbled, then looked up into the assessing gold eyes, “Do I need to increase my Strength or something? I saw that listed as an attribute thing…”
Paul gave a slightly annoyed huff and expined, “Those are physical. Your aura is spiritual. Strength will affect how hard you hit, how much you can lift, and your own body’s density.”
As if to demonstrate, he proceeded to pick her up and continued walking down the road, cutting off her protests as he continued his lecture, “Agility affects how fast you can move, how flexible you are, how precise you can strike, and how well you can bance.”
He seemed to take advantage of the time she pyed the role of delivery package as he increased his pace to that jog which threatened to steal her breath away. Which was fine as she also pyed the role of the listening student, “Fortitude determines your health, endurance, resistance to both magic and the elements.
“While Mind is directly tied to your mental acuity, memory and multitasking capabilities, reaction times, etcetera,” he jumped over a boulder blocking the path and Phoenix almost screamed from the sudden shift as her grip tightened on his shirt.
“Those attributes are what your Aspects bind to, pulling a part of your soul to fuse, enhance, and reinforce the physical. Usually an Aspect will bind to whichever unbound attribute suits them best,” he said carefully, as though unsure if she was understanding everything.
“What about Magic? Wouldn’t Star have fit that better than Fortitude?” She asked to indicate that she was indeed following along.
He shook his head and expined, “Magic is always bound to the Css Aspect. It seems to act as an unlocking mechanism of sorts but there is still a lot of debate and research being done on this.”
“Well what does that attribute do?”
“It determines the depth of your mana well and the power of your magic-based abilities,” he said succinctly.
“Aren’t all abilities magic?”
The corners of his mouth twitched slightly as he answered simply, “Some more than others.”
“So what affects my aura?” She asked with a frustrated scrunch of her nose.
Paul slowed down then and set her back on her feet as he replied, “Your willpower. It’s not a physical attribute but a representation of the strength of your soul. It is all of you. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar enough with Aurabreakers to help expin how that differs from mine. It’s something you’ll have to practice and discover for yourself.”
She kicked at a rock in annoyance before nodding reluctantly and following him across the rocky riverside once more as the barrage of aura prodding began anew.
