The Future - 3

Grey Forest hadn’t changed at all in the seven years since Wick had last entered. He walked at a normal pace toward the Misonians' trial dungeon. All the while, he could feel eyes on him.

He stopped and looked hard at the inky darkness between the rare specks of sunlight that came through the mist and trees. In the shadows was a leathery black that made Wick smile. He said, "It's been a while, Zata."

Large leathery wings flapped in the shadows above Wick. The wings belonged to a giant monster the shape of a bat, but the face was that of an old man. The creature had called itself Zata, a camazotz. At that time, Wick had thought the camazotz was a species of bat creatures like Zata. He knew better now.

The creature's human face darted out, only a few feet away from Wick's own. Its face was exactly how Wick remembered it, but much less frightening now. Zata inspected Wick silently then bowed its head in respect. "I greet you, Crafter. It is apparent to Zata that you have stepped fully into your fate and legacy."

Wick nodded. "And the Hemincross as well."

Zata's eyes widened in surprise and a little reverence. "Truly you have taken the weight of both fates? Should you have not broken in both spirit and body a hundred times by now?"

Wick shrugged. "I make fate. It doesn't make me."

Zata stewed in that for a moment. "Time will tell if you overestimate yourself, Crafter. You are here to conquer the second trial? I would not think I could make good on my threat from before. You brim too much with power."

"Yes," Wick confirmed. "And the third."

Zata's wings bristled in excitement. "Foolish, foolish. You owed me a boon for the favor I gave you those years ago and still do. Conquering the dungeon's trials means this Domain will be yours. Do you have the power to handle such responsibility?"

Wick turned, planting his spade into the grass, and walked away. He said over his shoulder, "I killed a guntus, Zata. I killed a guntus."

Zata, god of bats, cackled in the darkness of the trees. "Not a true one," Wick heard it say.

A half-hour of a leisurely walk later, Wick planted his hexagonal glass amulet in the dungeon's entrance. Immediately, he was given the notification screen. The screen was translucent blue.

Enter Guardian challenge room? Once entered, you may only exit by passing the dungeon. If you die, the dungeon will recycle your body, energy, and spirit.

Yes/No

"Yes," he said.

The world shifted around him. In less than a blink, he found himself in a seemingly endlessly large room. It held no doors or windows. The walls, floors, and ceilings were made of stone and were covered in the Misonian script. Of course now Wick knew the images weren't letters but instructions for his legacy.

On the wall opposite Wick stood hundreds of stone, metal, and wooden sculptures. Due to the seemingly infinite size of the room, Wick couldn't tell if there were more sculptures. Each of the sculptures were unique, carved as exact replicas of the infamous divali spiders that plagued the lower levels of the Sprawl, their torsos vaguely humanoid.

A single metal sphere the size of an apple sat in front of each sculpture. Without warning, metal pillars protruded out of ten of the spheres, growing exponentially. The spheres now looked like metal hearts, and they fused inside their respective sculptures, all wooden.

Ten wooden divali came to life, skittering in tandem toward Wick. His first instinct was to scatter the beads on both of his bracelets, one on each hand. But he stopped himself.

Wick needed to grow, and thus chose his limitation. He said aloud, "I need to win this without using my Crafter abilities."

He had inherited two of the four secret legacies, the Misonian and Hemincross. The Misonian legacy was the Crafter, allowing him to make golems, or more accurately, golem hearts. He had years of experience with that ability, inventing new ways to use it.

The Hemincross legacy, Synchronize, was new to him. If he was going to survive the Labyrinth's terrors, then he needed to learn how to sync skills. Wick expanded his True Sight to its full ability. It was the upgraded version now, and so the headaches didn't plague him like they did before.

His mind expanded and could see the auras of all the divali golems. They surrounded him. Wick summoned multiple copies of skills from the golem hearts on his bracelet, all of which had mutated into unique skills. His Source Points drained.

Wick's Aqua Jet (2)

Wick's Ignite (3)

Wick's Golden Shield (2)

All three level-one skills circled around him. Wick twisted them with his fingers.

Golden Shield and Aqua Jet twined, transforming from sorcery into magic, forming a watery golden globe around five of the wooden divali golems. Wick squeezed his free hand, and the globe filled completely with water. He opened his hand and made a slicing motion with it, cutting two of the links in the skills. The combined skills changed, and the globe of water turned into ice, freezing the golems inside.

Wick pointed his spade at the massive frozen sphere, and the spade extended to the height of two men, the farthest it could go. With his True Sight, he could see the magic decay at the touch of the spade. He strained to tame the decaying properties of his weapon or else it would suck on his own life force. The Autumn Sword was as greedy as he was.

The frozen sphere exploded into a pile of snow before vanishing back into ambient manna. Wick noticed with his True Sight that the manna floated back toward the nearly endless pile of divali statues. The remaining wooden golems attacked him from different sides.

He retraced his spade, spun it above, and caught one of the spidery legs with the edge of the spade. His strength matched the powerful golem's own. Wick bared his teeth and twisted the remaining skills in his sorcery hand, weaving them into a new pattern.

"Let's try this," he muttered.

Ignite, Aqua Jet, and Golden Shield threaded together around his spade. Wick twisted the handle of his weapon, and the spade transformed into a lance. It was covered in a mass of black fire. The fire covered the wooden spider monster, burning the whole thing.

"Stupid," Wick said. He jumped back before the fire devoured him too. His True Sight informed him that the decaying properties of the Autumn Sword would break the fire magic in another second. So before that happened, Wick spread his fingers on his spell hand and made the fire jump to the other divali golems.

In a blink, they all burned, leaving only ash. Their manna dispersed back toward the endless supply of statues, fifty of which came to life, all made of stone.

"By the Crawl," Wick cursed. Just from combining a few simple skills in new ways, his mind felt like it was on the edge of collapse. Maybe now wasn't the time to be experimenting.

He was reminded of the outdated Sprawler's Code: the strong live long but the bold get the gold. Wick wanted to get the gold and live long. He couldn't believe there was a time he only wanted one. Maybe it was because he was a sucker for rhymes. Either that, or he really had changed over the years.

As the fifty golems skittered toward him, he was sure he couldn't win the fight with just syncing alone. Wick sighed, planting his lance on the floor of the dungeon. It stood perfectly upright. Without him touching it, the lance transformed back into a simple walking staff.

He pulled back on his True Sight. The Hemincross legacy wasn't needed for this. Maybe if he had a week to tackle the dungeon, he would have been able to conquer it with only the Hemincross legacy. But now wasn't the time for self-imposed limitations.

The stone divali were only two breaths away from cutting his throat. He didn't let them get that far.

Wick pulled at the beaded bracelets on each wrist, scattering the beads to the ground. He used his most treasured skill and yelled, "Carve!"

Blue light surrounded him, forming a hexagon at his feet with him at the center. He couldn't help but smile. This was the skill he had evolved from his father's Cut. At the point of each hexagon, figures rose out of the stone, carved perfectly as he imagined them. Each of them had the face of his father, six sentinels to protect him.

On the surface, the statues looked to be an ordinary statue. If someone were to look closer, they would see that Wick had Carved fibrous muscles that strained and flexed like the real thing.

The spherical beads he had scattered fused their way into the carved stones, forming golem hearts inside them at different points. The sentinels came to life. This was the true ability of the Crafter, and it was only the beginning of what it could do.

Each of the sentinels shot out their own unique skills lent by the golem hearts Wick fused with them. Stone divali burned. Some were sliced in streams of water. Others were eroded by green poison. The skills were powered by Wick's Source Points. All the while, he hadn't even moved a muscle.

With the stone divali golems defeated, the air in the room shifted. All of the enemy golem hearts rolled forward, pooling together and forming a massive metal sphere that was half the height of the already-huge room.

The sphere grew dozens of arms, absorbing the remaining hundreds of statues inside. More arms protruded out of the golem, but all were shaped like the sharp-edged limbs of divali. They lanced at Wick.

He frowned. Everything he had learned and taught himself about golems told him that wasn't possible. "Well, that's new."

Tattoos spread across his entire body, lifting to form the figure of his father as how he remembered him, encasing Wick in a man-shaped ethereal blue armor. It was high kami armor. His armor blocked the incoming metal blades like a perfect shield.

Wick's eyes widened as soon as he realized what he was seeing. The giant golem heart was absorbing more of the statues behind it, acting exactly as the guntus had. That meant only one thing. The longer this fight went on, the stronger it would get.

He needed to end this quick. Syncing would do him little good here. He was too inexperienced with it. His abilities as the Crafter only worked best if he had lots of time to prepare golem hearts.

That meant he only had one choice, the Autumn Sword. He snarled at the thought even as his high kami armor strained against the growing power of the guntus-golem. Using the sword past what he could handle meant drawing on his life force, aging him.

Wick laughed at the cost of it. He picked up the staff, twisted it in the grip of both his hands, and transformed it into a spade. He snarled, "The bold get the gold!"

The spade extended into the guntus-golem. Wick felt the decaying effects of the Autumn Sword reach its limit. Then it drew on him. His hands began to drain of color, but his kami armor did not waver since it was powered on his will alone.

For a brief second, it seemed the attack wasn't doing anything. Wick did the first thing his father ever taught him to do in the face of something truly terrifying; he laughed.

The guntus-golem shivered and began to quickly erode. Wick didn't allow himself to feel relieved, and instead pushed more of his lifeforce into the Autumn Sword. It felt like forever had passed when the giant golem heart dwindled to the size of a grape and then eventually into nothing, the magic dispersing back into ambient manna.

Wick collapsed to his knees, letting go of the sword. He'd felt worse, but he hated what he had just done. How many years had he just aged himself? Deepest Hells, he certainly felt older.

A notification appeared before him.

By completing the second trial of the Misonians, you have been rewarded a Source: Soul Reflection

Wick righted himself back up on the now wooden staff, wiping the sweat from his brow. Before, he would have hesitated and thought over the reward. He had learned since then to accept any good luck that came his way. He'd need all of the good luck to fight the bad when it eventually came.

"Accept new Source," Wick said. He realized that as he now had a Source that wasn't manna, he could now officially be called a Sorcerer. Even before gaining a new Source, he could have wiped the floor with most Sorcerer students at the Skillia with only one hand. What a stupid technicality.

Your Source has changed from Manna to the Reflection of your Soul. Analyzing.

Wick waited patiently, excited to see what the Reflection of his Soul would be. With manna as his original Source, it had provided a standard number of Source Points. The reason Sorcerers changed their Sources was because any Source other than manna gave tens and sometimes hundreds more SP than the standard manna.

Of course, if their Source was seawater and they were in the middle of Simmerest where there was no sea, then they were, as the scholars would call it, screwed.

Analysis complete. The Reflection of your Soul is Greed. Your new Source is money.

Wick blinked. After taking a long moment to absorb exactly what had just happened, he threw his head back and laughed.

With his Source as money, the world would soon be his.