9: Vanishing Title
He paced around the room, his mind in a whirl as he thought of a way to get out of the mess he landed himself in.
Not the fact that he signed away his life under a very driven woman with no sense of morality, but breaking the contract with said driven woman with no morality.
“Come on, Aidan. You were able to break a contract bound to your damn soul. You can do this.”
He hyped himself up, getting confident in his abilities by messing with the vibrations of the universe, or what his talent described as the Path of Harmony.
He wasn’t quite sure what that was about, but he understood that harmony is a lot bigger than just its musical aspect.
If he could break a contract that was bound to his soul, then surely there had to be a way to hide it. Looking back at his status page, he waited patiently for his mana to regenerate, then realized he could just use Soul Meditation to recover it faster.
He sat back down, and tried to return to his earlier state. He found himself utterly shocked when he felt his soul leave his body in an instant, returning to that strange phase of the world where his soul was the only thing that moved. He even glanced back down to find his body sitting in that exact position, breathing slowly and calmly.
“Whoa, guess using a skill just makes things easier, huh?”
He spoke, but he knew nobody around him would listen. All anyone would see was a young man sitting in the middle of the floor with his eyes closed. He could beat the monks from the Himalayas with that sense of relaxation.
“The system really can do everything. Or is it because of my talent?”
He put aside that notion, deciding to wait for his mana pool to refill. He wandered through the room, exploring the building he was in while he had the time.
When he decided to act like a ghost and went through the ceiling to get to the second floor, he found nothing but darkness. But he recognized that it was a slightly smaller square compared to the room his physical body was currently in. Feeling stifled, he moved back down through the ceiling, only to find his body with the floor and the walls just barely reaching up to the darkened ceiling.
He supposed he needed to focus more on sensing the vibrations from each location in order to grasp this ability to the fullest. That meant he couldn’t just go out of the building and mess with people.
“Not that I planned to. But if Nina wants me to be her little spy, that would be a pretty good ability to have.”
Now that he broke his contract, he didn’t feel all that bad about doing what she said. Honestly it sounded like something he wouldn’t mind since it kinda went along with what he wanted to do with his new life, which is basically just figuring out how stuff works in this world.
After messing around a little in his ghostly form, he saw that his mana pool was full and returned to his body. Without incident, he opened his eyes to find himself in his physical form.
“Alright, now for the real hard part.”
This time, he didn’t want to use Rend. He just wanted to hide something away. While he wouldn’t mind taking the title away entirely, he had a feeling that he couldn’t get rid of something that the system itself imposed on him.
After all, his powers came from the system itself. He didn’t know how well that would work, and he feared that there would be consequences by messing with something like that.
So he needed to hide it, to obfuscate it from someone else’s view. Perhaps in doing so, he might be able to avoid a lashing from the scary landlord.
He put his hands together, and took in a breath. He became swallowed up in his own senses again, this time not using his Soul Meditation but to truly dive into the harmony that exists within the fabric of reality.
He sent his mana outward, trying to take hold of the vibrations that exist between different realities. Now that he could see the difference between the physical and the spiritual, he could see a clear line, a gap between two worlds in his mind.
Slowly, his mana crept in between the gaps of the two worlds, trying to pierce into something that wasn’t quite there. It spread all around him in a film that meticulously covered each part of his body, sweat pouring down his head and back as his focus took every single mental power he had.
When he felt he could no longer cover his body, being entirely wrapped up in his own mana, he opened his eyes to look down at himself. For a moment, everything warbled, messing with his vision, but he could plainly see the floor beneath him despite seeing through his legs.
A notification dropped onto his vision, making him pull it up to see if it worked.
You have gained a new spell!
Vanish (Copper)
Allows you to obfuscate the appearance of whatever you desire, making it disappear from the public eye. It cannot be pierced by scans and identifiers. It can last longer the more you understand the spell.
Mana Cost: 15
“Fucking yes! It worked!”
Aidan punched the air in delight at his success, standing up to find himself still invisible.
Now he could disappear without anyone realizing, which wasn’t as incredible as phasing through walls as a ghost, but it was definitely a step up in survivability. But that wasn’t entirely what he wanted.
What he wanted to know was whether he could apply this spell onto something else. Particularly onto a title on his status page.
“All or nothing…”
Aidan let out a breath, dread increasing with every second that passed the longer he waited. Eventually he opened up his status page and searched through the list of titles.
He spotted “Contract Breaker” in the midst, his fingers trembling as he tried to stabilize his breathing. It was that he might need to focus on his spellcasting for this to take effect, and he needed it to be strong enough to last for a long time, and if possible, permanently.
Putting his hand up to the status screen, he phased his finger through it, finding absolutely nothing to touch. He knew that was the case, but he figured that touching it might give credence to his spell and increase the chance of its success. Then he channeled mana, flaring Vanish.
The same usual flow of mana drifted out of him, but it seemed to do nothing at first. With a smidgen of willpower, he forced the mana to dive deep into the title list, heading straight into “Contract Breaker” and making it vanish from his status page.
It was slow at first, but it caught on, like reeling in a lively fish refusing to surface. He gritted his teeth, his eyes twitching as he forced the title to disappear from his status page. It didn’t have to be erased–it just needed to disappear.
Minutes passed, and as doubt began to surface in his mind, the title vanished from his list, showing only the other titles that he had gained.
“Yes… yes! Hahahaha!”
He laughed like a maniac, his hands punching the air so many times as he made a little dance for his success. The dread that was accumulating finally lessened its impact on his heart as he fell to the floor, letting himself sprawl to stare at the ceiling.
Not only was he free from his binding contract, he even got rid of the evidence of it ever occurring. He checked his status to see if perhaps the single point in Vigor disappeared as well. It was still there, but he knew that trying to make that single point of Vigor disappear as well wasn’t worth it. He might as well just keep adding titles to his list.
Or I could just increase it with my points. Oh wait, I still have them banked…
He still had 1 AP and 3 SP remaining, receiving his last level up from killing the guards. He thought about what to spend them on for a moment.
I’m gonna have to spend these points wisely. Stat points allow me to have some diversity, but Attribute Points increase everything. Considering that my spells are my lifeline, I think it’s safe to say that AP goes straight into Intelligence.
That much was obvious. Intellect increases his cognitive thinking which is always useful, and increases the power of his spells. Wisdom handles critical thinking and mana regeneration, which would be important since his spells take up a chunk. And Perception was just too important for his Sense Vibrations to be ignored.
So putting that in place, he increased his Intelligence from 8 to 9, increasing the stats across the board. Now for his stat points…
Damn, I don’t really have a good idea. Strength sounds important, but I don’t see a reason to be strong to carry heavier things. I definitely don’t plan on fighting anytime soon. I got my spells for that. Vitality is super useful no matter how you spin it, but it’s already pretty high compared to my Strength and Agility, being five. That means my Agility is probably important.
The next problem was that he didn’t know what to focus on. Perhaps if he was faster, he might have been able to avoid the guards entirely, which forced him to end up in this situation to begin with.
Now that he knew about their corruption, his feelings on taking their lives just fizzled out. Now he only felt bitter about it.
They tried to rob me and kill me, and I still feel bad for killing them. That’s how I ended up signing the contract.
He was weak. He was uninformed. He didn’t know anything. That’s how he ended up in his position. He could only thank his lucky stars that his talent came through for him. He also knew that Nina made some big assumptions on who he is, particularly about hiding his race and abilities from others.
That may as well be true, but for the wrong reasons. For now, he had a plan in mind; to focus on gaining power to get a better advantage to live in this world, and to keep Nina off his back while he does so. She seemed to be the type to have a hands-off approach, so the first thing he needed to do was to show that he could handle himself without her monitoring his every movement.
He got up from the floor and stared at the mop with hateful eyes. Perhaps some little work might clear his head on what to spend his stat points on. Still…
“I can’t believe I need to do chores in another world… this sucks.”
…..
It took a while, but he was surprised to find that the building had access to running water and even a working kitchen to make himself something to eat. He wasn’t sure how, but it looked like this world had access to water and electricity. The first thing on his mind was that it was magic that did all that, so while he cleaned, he scanned the places around him to read up on the information displayed.
He found some pretty interesting stuff, to say the least.
Charged Mana Array (Common)
A magical array that powers the appliances in any given home, as well as create fresh water for personal use. Needs to be charged every few months to keep empowering the household.
There were these drawn lines that seemed difficult to clean off, only for him to realize that these were intentionally drawn like some sort of magic circle in some places of the building, mostly tucked away behind corners and spots where it was hardly visible. He marveled at that, wondering if there were more of these things within the walls themselves, or perhaps there was a room with a core engine that powers the entire place.
Did every other home run this way? How advanced was this city? He got more curious as the questions piled up.
Within his new home, the first floor was for the room where the main shop would be, reaching an impressive size capable of holding shelves and cabinets to put their wares. Up on the second floor was a bedroom which he suspected would be his room, a second bedroom, a bathroom, and a private room off to the side, possibly for personal meetings.
There was also a basement that he could enter through the back of the first floor, going down the stairs to find more stuff there, though it was just general stuff like an extra wheel for a carriage or several empty crates. It was absolutely dusty and filled with cobwebs, which he unfortunately had to clean as well.
He had to be sure to clean the entire place up, because he wasn’t quite sure whether Nina could get suspicious about him not cleaning it spotless, therefore proving that he broke the contract. He had to keep up the illusion that she still had control over him, and that meant following the order to the letter.
He’d change tactics if she decides to give him ridiculous orders, such as killing himself or something. Though if she was smart, she wouldn’t do something so drastic such as putting down a slave that would follow her orders. Unless he pissed her off, that is. That sounded more than possible.
Riddled with sweat, grime, and stinking up to high heaven, he took the chance to take a bath, taking off his stinking clothes and finally giving himself a nice needed cleansing. It was already nighttime by the time he finished his bathing so he headed off into the kitchen for some dinner.
He opened up the fridge, thankful to see that there was some bread and water, though only that. It looked like Nina stocked up for the sake of anyone she planned to take under her thumb and didn’t bother to get some variety.
I can’t exactly go out and buy stuff. I don’t have any money.
Letting out a sigh, he took a loaf from the fridge and some water to settle his hungry stomach from all the cleaning he did. As he sank his teeth into the slightly hard bread, once again enamoured by the fact that there was a working fridge in this medieval-like era, he thought about his next plan of action.
First, he needed information. Particularly on how this system worked. He first thought about asking Nina about it, but then he had to explain why he didn’t know in the first place. Considering all that she did, he wasn’t comfortable about bringing up the subject of belonging to another world.
Therefore, he needed to find the information himself. He could always go out of town when the day arrived, but that brought another question–where should he go?
He wasn’t comfortable about going out there and randomly asking people questions about the system, or about the town or the state of the country in general. He was never the friendly sort to bring up conversations on the fly, usually wanting to just bury himself in his phone whenever social activities are up and about.
But with his new spell, that could be avoided. He was already used to the immorality of using his spells to take advantage of other people, possibly avoiding having to pay for certain things if he could just take them.
Stealing wasn’t exactly something he liked to do, but there weren't really other choices to be had. He was starting to realize that the amount of choices he had was very slim to start with.
But he couldn’t even think about going out there and gallivanting across town with his nifty Vanish spell as exhaustion hit him, his eyes already drooping while barely finishing his bread. Shaking it off, he cleaned up after himself and headed upstairs to his room. Now that it was all clean, he headed over to the bed beside a desk and chair and promptly fell on top of it.
The entire day was exhausting, and his brain was taxed beyond measure. It didn’t take long for the darkness to seep in and take his mind, bringing him to a dreamless sleep.