Chronicles of the True Wizard

Peace had made it about halfway to the major peak, which was impressive for just about anyone climbing. For Felix though, he had barely felt the effects of the curse at that point. With Peace gone, he leapt multiple steps at a time back up towards the peak.

Unlike the other peaks with multiple minor peaks that led up towards a major peak, sub curses within the umbrella of a larger curse, Oblivion and its counterpart Creation, were standalone peaks and largely considered to be above the other major peaks. They weren't classified as such but the obsession they carried was deeply rooted in all Anima in a way that stirred something ancient within.

Felix couldn't identify what the experience was because even trying to tap into it, to experience it for himself, it was incomprehensible. It was very obviously present though no matter where he looked, like something embedded into the very nature of Anima itself.

Passing the halfway point where Peace had finally collapsed, Felix continued bounding up the steps, finally really feeling the effects of the curse but easily brushing them off with some manual attention.

By the three quarter mark, a sizable chunk of his focus was dedicated to keeping his soul aligned. Another eighth of the way up and he had to dedicate his entire focus but he was pretty sure he could have stood there indefinitely. From there he started taking each step one by one and with each one, his soul threatened to tear itself apart.

The strength of the curses as he ascended grew exponentially and with each step, the effect felt like it doubled, then tripled, then quadrupled.

His soul struggled and pushed against the manual exertion of his will power. His body resisted as it was bound to his soul. He didn't need to exert Strength or Matter Control or anything he would normally use to move his body. His Reaper's Skills did nothing to help him here. It was just his will power fighting back against the ancient will of whatever collective experiences Oblivion tapped into.

As he struggled to take another step, Felix's senses vanished and once again, his consciousness reverted into his old form of meditation. He blocked everything out except his own soul. This time it wasn't him and a puzzle cube but it was a ball of light, his core soul, pushing against the encroaching darkness all around him. Like a sun using its light to physically push against the pressure from the bottom of an ocean of liquid darkness.

In a way, it felt comfortable. It was familiar. It was known. Felix had no idea why but he also immediately obliterated the thought the instant it appeared in his consciousness. He couldn't think about anything else. There was nothing else. It was him, and that which he pushed against.

With each step he took, the darkness pushed in closer. The light diminishing.

Felix was completely consumed by just pushing forward but even he, knew when to stop. As the darkness swallowed everything around him, as it threatened to consume the ball of light itself, Felix himself, he stopped and took a step back.

The instant he did, the darkness was blasted away a short distance. He took another step back and it recoiled, almost like it feared him. In reality it felt nothing and it was his will overcoming its strength but now that he was releasing his consciousness and letting everything back in, he savored the notion of the curse fearing him just a little.

Opening his eyes once again, Felix turned around and leapt down a hundred steps at a time. They turned and curved with the shape of the rocky mountain so he couldn't jump further, although he could have flown. He didn't though. There was something to climbing the mountain being steps, something he recognized and respected. A certain acknowledgement of the strength of the curses they tried to surmount.

Flying just felt like an affront to the feat of climbing.

Looking back, he hadn't even made it to the clouds but, from his experience, the mountain peak would be just beyond them. That wasn't the penultimate peak though. As with all major peaks, they led to one more peak, standing above the rest.

Felix wasn't sure he would ever make it there and he wasn't even certain what it was because he hadn't asked yet. It wasn't important because right now he had a goal. Once that was complete, then he would look to the mountain peak beyond and worry about what it was.

Now that he was allowing his mind to wander, thoughts he had previously dismissed floated their way back into his mind. For one thing, though both The Endless Hunger and Oblivion were completely black, it was like they were two completely distinct colors.

The Endless Hunger was a black that drew in color to fill an endless void. It wasn't just the absence of a thing, it was the active consumption of everything. An insatiable vortex that pulled in everything around it, like a black hole that nothing could escape.

Oblivion though, was emptiness. It was nothingness. It was black that was the absence of everything. It was nonexistence and the purest form of death. It wasn't something being reduced to dust, it was something being removed from the equation entirely.

Oddly, The Endless Hunger was a minor peak and yet Oblivion seemed in theory, lesser than Hunger. Hunger was absence that pulled things in. It was anti matter and a black hole. Oblivion was just the void of anything and pure destruction. Yet, having felt both, Oblivion was obviously the grandfather to the nascent child of hunger. Where Hunger was primal, Oblivion was primordial, it existed before hunger ever did.

As for why the sensation of him being just his core soul standing against an ever encroaching darkness felt familiar, Felix had no idea. It was like a feeling of deja vu and that he couldn't quite shake. He decided he would spend time thinking about it in the Garden and see if he got anywhere.

Getting to the bottom of the steps, Felix leapt over the flat ground and avoided the Spirit Sanctum entirely, heading straight for the portal frame instead.

Heading through straight to the Twilight Garden, even before sitting down on the large flat stone next to Peace, the ripples began to calm him.

He wasn't misaligned coming down from the mountain and it wasn't really recovery he needed. He wasn't actively injured or exhausted. It wasn't like his muscles being torn apart and rebuilt from a workout, like it was for Peace and many others. For Feilx, it was like accumulating stress.

He needed to decompress.

If he didn't, it would just accumulate and lead to injury. In decompressing though, he didn't just sit there and let his soul relax, he manually took control as it was washed in the ripple of relaxation and imposed his will upon it. He aligned his soul, hardened each layer and furthered the control he had over the anima within him.

He knew he was done when he found no signs of his climb but before standing, he did something he always did right before leaving and timed his will with a ripple. Just as it hit, he squeezed down with the entirety of his will on his core soul.

It was already the densest anima he had ever seen but that didn't mean he had reached some limit. With each foray into the Twilight Garden, he tried to further compress his core soul and each time, it shrunk just a little more. It was by an almost imperceptible amount but each time, the will he could exert felt like it doubled. In reality he knew that wasn't the case, or rather that it didn't translate perfectly because everything he could exert his will on, either increased exponentially or wasn't worth considering.

With the peaks, even if he was right and his will power doubled, each step took more than double the will power of the last, at least where he had climbed to. Each hardening of his soul's layers took vastly more than double for each minuscule step he took. Each compression of his Mana Core took so much more will than the last. Still, it was progress and he didn't intend on stopping anytime soon.

Standing back up, Felix found Peace had already left and headed back to The Somatic Halls himself. As he headed towards the building, it seemed almost quieter than it usually did. Stepping in through the back door nearest the rooms Felix and Peace rarely made use of, Felix followed the halls towards the main sparring room with the judges and felt the building shake just before he arrived.

Turning the corner, he saw Peace finally sparring against Aro Zaki on the platform.

His aura was suppressed but Aro Zaki still carried the same domineering presence he always did. Now instead of in his posture and gait alone, it was exhibited through his strikes and steps.

Activating Reaper's Sense, Felix tried desperately to follow along even a little.

In every other somatic fight involving Peace that Felix had witnessed, Peace looked like a god and an artist at the same time. He would dance through the fights and was obviously superior to his opponents. Aro Zaki, was the only person Felix had ever seen that came even close. Using Reaper's Sense, Felix wasn't even sure at first who was better.

Aro Zaki fought aggressively, matching the feeling of his presence and aura.

Peace fought almost artistically. He danced, as he always did, between aggressive stances and defensive moves with the odd flowing dance move thrown in to readjust or reposition.

Where it always looked like Peace was holding back previously, to Felix's untrained eyes, it finally looked like he was being pushed.

Though Felix had no intention of becoming a hand to hand fighter-not unless he somehow found a ton of extra time-he was well aware that in a fight as high level as the one he was watching, there was wisdom he could extract. He had no idea what or where but he memorized as much as he could and tried to understand what each person did and why they did it. Each decision they made.

It was possible he got nothing out of it, having not enough base knowledge and understanding of the field but there was no reason not to try.

They fought for three more minutes from when Felix walked into the room, the crowd watching in complete awe and even the judges desperately watching and hoping to learn.

At the end though, they both stepped back as if some unseen referee had ended the fight.

Neither looked exhausted. Neither panted. Neither were sweating. Both of them looked drained.

Whether mental or spiritual, they had both obviously been pushing themselves.

Aro Zaki swept his robes off the ground and swung them back around his shoulders as Peace hopped off and headed towards Felix. As he did, the observers argued as to who would fight next, most of them eager to fight after what they had just witnessed, eager to implement whatever nugget of wisdom they had extracted.

As he approached and they walked back down the halls, Peace beamed.

"That was… impressive." Felix chuckled, not quite able to find the words.

"That was awesome. I was pushing it off for so long and he promised to turn off his aura but still- Anyways, after climbing those steps with you and seeing I was fine, feeling it I just… I decided to give it a shot. Oh man I haven't had to fight like that in… ever."

Felix cocked his head a little, "There isn't anyone stronger in The Cult?"

Peace shook his head, "There are. Many. The Reaper used to be… There are others but Aro Zaki is just… different. The way he fights is so… I don't know, engaging?"

"It looked engaging."

"It's not just that but after… you know, I feel so much lighter. I was a little worried I was going to lose my instincts because obviously I'm not old enough to have the battle experience I have but… It's more like I'm not bogged down anymore. There aren't other voices telling me to do this or that, it's just me and my voice. It's all mine."

Felix nodded, "You were worried you were losing yourself as they slowly influenced you but we got rid of them and you retained some of it."

Peace looked at him, unsure of his point.

"You must have been letting things in. Maybe some experiences and instincts you didn't want slipped through the cracks but it seems like for the most part, you let in what you wanted to let in and rejected the rest. How else would have tuned your instincts so precisely?"

Peace nodded slowly, "I mean… maybe. I guess…"

Felix opened the door and stepped into their sparring room where Nova was still sleeping in a corner, "I can't comment on the sapients or sentients of the multiverse but on earth, people picked up the habits and traits and mannerisms and speech patterns of those around them. Sometimes people changed for the worse and they would have to adjust if they ever noticed what had happened but…"

Peace nodded, "I see."

"You're worried about finding who you are but… I'd argue most people are the products of a billion little things they learned and picked up throughout their lives."

Peace didn't say anything else on the matter but he was obviously thinking about it as they stepped onto the platform and Felix roused Nova. While Felix mostly believed what he had said but, one exception was ever present in his mind, himself. He definitely didn't mention it though, as hypocritical as it made him. Whatever made his soul the way it was, definitely resulted in his being a little different from others.

It wasn't that he didn't change, it was more that as much as he could remember, it was he who chose what changed almost consciously. At least so he believed.

They sparred and Felix continued training his Reaper's Skills. He immediately noticed Peace seeming almost faster or more flexible. It genuinely looked like he had been unburdened further, even in his drained state after fighting Aro Zaki.

Every day, Felix trained. He didn't worry about the days though as he never needed to sleep and he was constantly teleporting between what he was pretty certain, were different planets with different day night cycles. All he worried about were his training cycles as he went from sparring with Peace and training his Reaper's Skills right to The Unwavering Steps where he climbed and finally back to the Twilight Garden where he consolidated his training.

He didn't stop for breaks at all as he wanted to get as much out of the recruitment as he could.

Peace continued to spar with Aro Zaki and over the course of many dekads, eventually came out on top. Whether it was the fact that he had marginally higher physical stats than Aro Zaki-who described his class to them as most similar to a sorcerer-or a matter of skill, Felix had no idea. It was however enough for the judges and Aro Zaki himself, that they requested the presence of someone else to fight Peace.

Peace also continued to climb the peaks though no longer with Felix. Instead, he climbed and even mastered the three minor peaks of Sloth, Cowardice and Despair. He had chosen those specifically because it was Fear that he struggled with the most and so he targeted mastery of that Major Peak.

At the same time, Felix did what he could with Peace's Core Soul although it wasn't much. For the most part, he helped Peace sort through and remove what he wanted to remove but even more so, Felix just helped him become aware of what was there. Every time they spoke, Peace was gradually more accepting of everything that had changed him and who he was. He genuinely seemed to enjoy sparring with Aro Zaki and that seemed almost like a life line for his sense of identity.

While Peace progressed in his somatic evaluation and mastered the peaks he had set his own mind to, Felix spent 18 days in total climbing the peak of Oblivion. It was less than the peak of Wrath had taken him and he hoped that everything he had learned, the hardening and strengthening his soul had undergone would help with the others.

As Creation had taken him less time to ascend in total, he was satisfied to say that it likely had although Creation was also so odd, he wasn't certain.

Like Oblivion, it was something he both somewhat understood but also something ancient he couldn't grasp. It was ever present as an experience in all anima but it was also not really an obsession that typically plagued sentient beings. It was just there like a bad recurring dream.

Its manifestations amounted to Felix desperately wanting to create new spells, learn new forms but even more so, an urge or a craving he couldn't pin down. There was something he desperately wanted to do but just didn't know what it was. Luckily, it only took him 11 days to completely dispel the urge and do away with the indescribable feelings.

After that, he practically raced up the rest of the major peaks as he didn't expect to have so much time left after mastering the two weird and ancient ones.

Regret and Fear, the Major Peaks often associated with the past and present respectively, were much easier and took him just 2 and 3 days respectively. With those two mastered, he had officially mastered the curses of the past, present and future, Regret, Fear and Desire, at least as they were classified by Amatara's followers.

Pride was the final major peak and took Felix 7 days to climb. It seemed to simply be more applicable to Felix and his feelings and so it was harder for him to deal with. All of his experience with the others and as far as he had come though, he had expected it to be faster.

After that, was the final peak. He still didn't know if it had a name but all he knew, was that at each of the major peaks he had ascended, he had seen a path that climbed one final peak beyond all of them.

Each of the other major peaks, like the minor peaks below them, were physically local peaks. They formed a plateau at the top of one mountain but descending just a short distance down their backsides, they began ascending once again towards a single, penultimate peak.

That final peak had no steps carved into it and was steep like a cliff. All around it, were lanterns containing as much of each of the Major curses, just as each of the Peak's had held. The lanterns were held in by metal spikes and clanged against the rocky cliff face as the wind blew by almost worryingly so considering their contents. Instead of their contents growing in size and intensity though, the distance between them shrank as he manually scaled the side of the peak.

It took Felix 9 days in total to finally make the climb all the way to the top where he found, a large open plateau. He had almost expected either a city, or nothing at all but it was neither.

The plateau was wide and circular and almost completely flat except, the rock of the mountain formed a lip of sorts around the outside.

Instead of lanterns, all around the outside of the peak and completely equidistant from the center, were was looked to be altars or standing braziers. Floating atop each of the bowls was a sphere almost over a meter in diameter, each a different color. Each one, a different curse.

The sphere of Desire looked reflective and rainbow like at first glance, like a diamond refracting all light. Peering at it though, it reflected back at Felix the deepest secrets of the universe. Arcane truths, spells, realms he was unaware of, the origin of The System, the reality beyond it and so much more. He was used to it though, he had long since mastered the peak and he easily looked away.

The Sphere of Wrath was a deep red and instilled senseless anger into all who peered into it.

Regret was like Desire and looked reflective but it was dark. Like a still ocean in the middle of the night it was reflective and showed experiences from the abyss. Felix saw thousands of memories of his past though nothing particularly clear. While he didn't fully agree with everything he had ever done, he didn't feel any significant regret about anything. Another one of the unique properties of his soul it seemed.

Fear tried to physically manifest itself and morphed into various scenes, like a sphere engraved with horrific carvings across its surface. They shifted and morphed and showed Felix being trapped, dissected, torn apart. They showed Felix dying, they showed him losing himself and being driven insane and burning in the flames of Oblivion.

Oblivion itself was simultaneously a Fire and an orb of smoke and nothingness. Cracks in reality, rising smoke and a burning flame all emanated out in every direction at once, like gravity simply didn't exist. With each of them, space itself was destroyed as they stretched outwards but didn't reach any farther and never expanded.

Creation was an orb of pure white, not bright like a sun but just white. Out of its surface, inexplicable creatures, things Felix recognized, objects he couldn't describe, formulas, equations, words, feelings and everything in between appeared and tried to escape the gravity of the orb itself. Whatever force held and contained the orbs though, was too much and it got nowhere.

Lastly Pride was like a perfect mirror. Unlike Regret and Desire that were dark and bright, Pride seemed to reflect reality itself, except it didn't. It showed a reflection of Felix, taller, more handsome, summoning thousands of creatures, commanding an endless army of constructs, using them to take down gods and consume planets.

It was so absurd, Felix almost laughed.

In the very middle of the plateau, sat a slightly raised stone circle. Just a couple inches off the ground and wide enough that he could lie across it without any of him overhanging the sides.

That first time he climbed it, he sat on the platform and meditated. He felt the curses around him trying to consume the Anima that formed his soul and just breathed in, recognizing he wasn't affected by any of them.

He didn't stay longer than a breath that time though as he had taken a while to ascend in the first place.

Heading back down, he realigned himself in the Twilight Garden before heading back to spar with Peace.

That very day, he finally upgraded the class skill he was hoping to upgrade every single time he sparred.

Ding You have upgraded the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper's Sense (Adept XII) => Class: [Ancient] Reaper's Instinct (Apprentice III)

Class: [Reaper's Instinct (Ancient) Channel your hardened instincts to tune your Perception and Intelligence. All senses are applicable and increase your awareness, amplifying your senses to be more attuned to the world around you. Using these senses, and everything they detect, your memory and experiences allow you to predict possible futures further increasing your senses. This skill heavily scales on your Soul Strength and the experiences contained within.]

This is probably the skill The System assigned to describe what The Reaper did for himself. Also, scales on the experiences contained within probably means harvesting experiences from souls too…

The implications of the description and how it changed were drastic but not entirely unexpected for Felix. The part that mattered the most to him was the increase to his intelligence when he used it and the effect was immediately apparent. His brain was no longer playing catch up like it had been when he activated Reaper's Sense, now his two stats were nearly the same and they worked in tandem.

Peace was still faster than Felix by a considerable margin but he had to noticeably ramp up the speed and power behind his strikes and hold back just a little less.

Finally having mastered all of the Major Peaks, Felix spent a dekad meditating within the ring of curses at the penultimate peak. During that time he continued hardening and tuning his soul in the Twilight Garden but he also spent some time manually harvesting both the Giant's soul and Hollow Claw's soul.

The Giant's soul was uncomplicated and easy to harvest, almost exclusively providing Strength and Endurance in his body suffused soul layer.

He wasn't getting much from souls in general anymore, at least in terms of a percentage of their stats, because it was becoming harder to find anima that was applicable. The stronger he got, the more specialized his soul felt. Instead of directly mixing in the anima they used to control their bodies, he had to find the parts of their second layers that meshed well with his second layer. For the most part, he relied on soul structures, convictions and generally strengthening his will power and body directly. Tuning his experiences and imbuing some of the will they carried.

Still though, the giant and Hollow Claw were high level beings and there was a fair amount of each he could take. The Giant was simple but its soul was huge and played a large part in its body, how tough it was and how it moved.

Hollow Claw's soul was much more complex and it played a large role too but, in a completely different way.

Instead of strengthening his cells directly by being suffused with his soul, Hollow Claw's focused heavily on something that reminded Felix of Reaper's Movement. It did both but the latter was vastly more important to his abilities.

While there was a sizable chunk of anima Felix managed to take from the Giant due to the sheer mass of its soul, Hollow Claw's was similarly sized but there was simultaneously more and less he could take. There were more techniques and structures in place that he took note of and manually harvested but each one of them was lesser in quantity of Anima.

Using Hollow Claw's as a baseline though, Felix focused on two things.

First, he implemented basic structure for his body suffused layer. It was already something he was planning on doing, after seeing it mentioned in the manual The Reaper had given him but he had been waiting until he modified his body with mana channels. He still hadn't gotten there yet and he didn't implement anything crazy but he implemented the basics of a structure Hollow Claw had used. It was essentially a complex braid of anima, each one ideally with its own conviction but for now, just different ideals. Each one applied to different stats and were thicker in certain areas.

The second thing he did, was modify his Reaper's skills directly. The way Hollow Claw used them seemed to have been more intentional and Felix liked that idea. Instead of just using his will power to push his body to move, he used his will power to move in specific ways and with specific intentions. Hollow Claw's was much more complex but Felix had boiled his technique down to what he found most applicable and discarded the rest.

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That jump in understanding and usage of the skills resulted in jumping a full tier of proficiency in each of the skills which was awesome.

Class Skill Proficiency

Reaper's Movement: Novice VII => Skilled VII

Reaper's Sense: Novice V => Reaper's Instinct: Journeyman IV

Reaper's Bond: Novice I => Journeyman II

Reaper's Body: Novice III => Adept VI

At that point, he had just a dekad and a day left until his first recruitment was over. He wanted to spend the last couple of days decompressing in the Twilight Garden and rooting for Peace who would finally be finishing his evaluation so, he spent each day on the peak working towards something he had been dreaming about ever since ascending.

He spent the first few days preparing. He made sure he could touch and handle each of the curses, approaching their floating orbs and pushing his hand into each of them. He would be using his Soul Tendrils when the time came but he used his hand to be sure his physical body wouldn't suffer from cursed attacks in the future.

The thin film layer he had created of hardened anima around his entire body was incredible and made everything so much easier than he had expected. Like Talrain's aura, it would dampen any physical and elemental attacks as well but, The System was awful at measuring soul stuff so it didn't reflect on his status screen.