Just as soon as Fen's head hit the pillow on his bed with the intent of sleeping away the tiring day, something in the back of his clicked and forced him unconscious. A familiar pulling sensation sucked his mind away from his reality, into the memories of the creatures he'd killed that he'd be ignoring.
Just before his mind succumbed into the memory, Fen thought, 'That damn God. If I knew this would happen, I wouldn't have left those memories alone...' His curses were left unheard however.
****
"Edmond Holding... Don't disappoint me." An old withered face came into Fen's, no, Edmond's view. A feeling of frustration poked him in the chest, before being squelched by... what was this? Pride? What an unfamiliar feeling.
Fen was shocked to find himself in the memories of the Chosen he'd killed in the Task; he didn't even know that he could access human memories. Previously, he had believed that his racial talents were limited to the monsters he killed in the various Scenario's ran from the Points Table.
Well, Dey had actually mentioned something like this happening, but the Godly bastard never mentioned it again... Shouldn't he give him a reminder about something as important as that, knowing that he was going to kill someone in the Task?! Well, it wasn't as if Fen placed any of his faith on him anyways, so he wasn't exactly disappointed, but a heads-up would have been appreciated.
Anyways, feeling a body different than his own, a human body and not a monster, was extremely disorientating. Unlike with, say, the Lesser Dragon, it wasn't the differences that impacted his mind but the strikingly similar features of Edmond's body that felt the most severe to his mind. Like the different length of his fingers, the lower perspective from Edmond's smaller height, the feeling as air entered his lungs...
It was overwhelming. Until it wasn't.
At first it felt like worms were trying to dig their way into his skin, and then a cooling sensation ran down his body and into his core, washing away the sensation. While the pain was still there, it became much easier to handle.
[That's the base of your ability. Your ancestors weren't stupid; after some tests, they were quick to find out the effects of experiencing another intelligent being's memories, especially a humanoid with similar biological features to your own.]
'Eh? Am I going crazy? Why the fuck am I hearing that voice...'
[You're not schizophrenic, although I can't give you a definitive answer on the going crazy part.]
'Fuck you.' Now Fen's thoughts were directly pointed at the sliver of Deion's consciousness that was currently wrapped around his mind. Somehow the God had frozen the memory, allowing him to communicate directly with him without interrupting any of Edmond's experiences.
[Now, before you start insulting me for my absence,] Dey continued talking like he didn't hear Fen's thought, [I've been a little busy with stuff in the real world inside the Void to come talk with you. Most of it's sorted, but I don't have much time between phases before I need to go again. After seeing how urgent your condition was however, I knew I need to be here.]
[Usually, to control the experience, Vituls take the lives of prisoners. Other Vituls, that have either committed crimes or other similar atrocities, used to help those of the younger generation move on from the experience of killing another intelligent beings. That process almost never occurred however, and it only happened when our home planet wasn't united under one country, Veratul. Otherwise, we only did it to have capable peace enforcers. ]
Dey sighed. [We only started that again when we were threatened by Heaven.]
"Huh. I guess Veratul was like any other country, with prisoners and wars. Guess genetic perfection doesn't change nature, huh?" Dey's eyes narrowed at his words.
[Don't group us with normal intelligent races. We fought for good reasons, some groups or nations took the search for perfection too far, using that as justification to commit genocide among our own people.] The God's tone was solemn as he remembered the horrible scenes he had to watch back on his home planet. [Anyways, I'm going to release the memory. Just try to remember, this isn't you. Hang on to the pain, no matter how much it hurts you. If you don't your ego might be infected by the Chosen that you killed, leading to unpleasant consequences. While we tried our best to make the pain manageable, the numbness makes it even harder to hold onto your sense of identity.]
Fen only had the time to nod his understanding before his consciousness was pulled back into Edmond's body.
The same pain started afflicting him, but Fen managed to hold it back long enough for him to start paying attention to the memory.
"I won't," Edmond growled, pushing past the old man. His attitude surprised Ivan, but it wasn't that unexpected. The teacher was all too used to dealing with arrogant Chosen confident in their abilities. "The fucking rat won't even know what killed him."
"Mr. Altairus seems to be exceptionally talented as a Knight, Holden. Confidence is good, but arrogance..." A finger forcible poked him in the chest. "Arrogance doesn't fit the elegance that you should enshroud yourself in. Remember rule number one: Never let anyone else see you sweat."
He scoffed at the rule that he barely remembered. If someone did see him struggle, they wouldn't survive to spread the news anyways.
The memory made Fen experience most of the passageways of the Chosen part of the facility, it's people, what it was like. There was only one word to describe the obvious detail that was so different for the Opfer inside Fen's mind.
Pathetic.
None of them were working, training, or gaining experience; they treating the Program like some fun camp activity. The Task? While it was a reminder of what was really happening, the Chosen glossed over it; that was obvious in the way that Edmond thought about the upcoming fight with anticipation.
The stark differences in personality crashed Fen back into his own mental state, his understanding of the difference between his own memories and beliefs from Edmond's creating an indestructible barrier between the two egos. He could now safely watch and observe the Chosen's memories without having to worry about a mental intrusion, the only thing he had to deal with was the pain in his body from the physical differences.
[Impressive. I wasn't wrong, you are by far one of the more talented individuals I've seen. But that's only natural, considering everything.] Dey's words filtered into the memory without interrupting the experience. [What a waste. Only the universe knows what might've happened if I was like you. Oh, the things I could have accomplished...] The God sighed wistfully.
Finally, the memory was at the stage where Edmond was standing in front of the Task device, with the scared Foundation member standing idly at the side. By poking parts of his consciousness inside the orb of memory, Fen could feel the total lack of fear that the Chosen had inside him. The only emotion was an overwhelming boredom, and a slight tinge of annoyance.
Despite knowing that his opponent could be a problem, Edmond didn't care enough to worry about his own life. No, it wasn't that he didn't care, but more so that he believed that there was zero risk of his life being in danger.
Fen's consciousness writhed in anger. Most of the time he couldn't care less about what other people thought of him, but for him to actually experience how someone could just completely disregard his existence... The word 'rage' wasn't vivid enough to describe the feelings boiling in his mind.
Just as he felt angry about the treatment Edmond gave him, he also felt a perverse sense of joy which he hurriedly squashed down. Knowing just how little his opponent regarded him made his victory over the Chosen that much sweeter...
Suddenly, the figure of Fen's actual body entered the room, wearing the jacket of his Opfer uniform above his Theoredian armor with a backpack attached to his back with all the other essentials he thought he might need in the Task. Being able to see his appearance from an outside view was a weird experience, making Fen think about irrelevant things.
'Am I really that attractive?' Fen inwardly mumbled, forgetting to hide his thoughts from the omnipresent Dey who snorted at his narcissistic thought.
[I told you all Vitul are considered attractive by the standards of the known universes, but you didn't believe me... Even before your transformation began, you were already considered handsome too, so don't think about the transformation as something bad.]
"How much will my appearance change?" Fen was worried that he might look completely different when he returned home. While he was thankful for the change, it would take some explaining from him to make his family and Miko understand the reason behind the changes.
Of course he wouldn't hide the truth from them about his true nature as a Vitul. They deserved to know. Besides, none of them were likely to try and kill him following his explanation, so that helped. His girlfriend would probably become overjoyed at the changes in his appearance. Miko always liked his height, and now that he was taller, well... She'd be ecstatic, to say the least.
[Not by much; the general shape and characteristics of your face won't change so much that you'd be unrecognizable. Think of the change as more of an enhancement of what's already there rather than a transformation.]
"Huh. I didn't expect that anything that made sense would come out of your mouth... How surprising." Fen focused back on the memory before Dey could come up with a proper retort. At least now he didn't have to worry too badly about coming back home as someone who looked entirely different.
A sneer crept onto Edmond's face, before he mocked his Opfer opponent. Reliving the moment made Fen inwardly cringe as he thought about much better he could've responded.
Really, 'same to you, Chosen' was so bland. He should've at least insulted his mother. Angering his opponent was a valid combat strategy, as long as he could endure the wrath that followed he would have held a significant advantage in a fight.
Well, no point in regretting the past, Fen could only put away his ideas for the next Task.
Now came the part that was really interesting; experiencing how Edmond was able to move so fast as a Mage would be extremely helpful for whenever Fen next fought a Mage. People of that Class were supposed to be able to sling spellworks and other magic infused with their core's Mana to enhance it, but to move so fast? There must at least be some physique-enhancing magic involved, otherwise there was no other logical explanation.
But much to his disappointment, there was no such magic involved. Unlike a magical beast, which had to focus their entire mind just to cast their magic, a Mage from an intelligent race had no such limit. They didn't need to consciously think about what magic they were casting, they could simply just... use it. Fen could describe the feeling as Mana surging around his body just like how he used his Vital energy, resulting in Edmond's reactions and movements becoming much faster and versatile.
There was no complex method involved, no technique. Or at least, if there was, Fen was too inexperienced to notice it.
It seemed the instantaneous movement that he witnessed during the fight was something similar. Edmond used his Mana circulation in combination with magic to manipulate the air around him to create a slipstream effect wherever he went. All that simple magic was just a smokescreen however; although Fen was only able to notice it was a second, it seemed that Edmond activated a spellwork related to light around his body too.
'So it was light refraction... How effectively simple.' Fen was surprised.
In total, in their initial confrontation Edmond used four different magical techniques and spellworks. He first used his magical energy to boost his physique, and then surrounded his body with air magic to remove any air resistance.
Then, he created another air spellwork to act as a shroud. The final piece of magic was a light refraction technique that would make him appear in the place where his air magic shroud was, hiding the fact that he wasn't there by camouflaging the light refraction model from Fen's magical sense.
In reality, Edmond was only around the same speed as him, if a little bit faster, but the refraction of light made his actions seem so much faster than they actually were as Fen's sense of sight was manipulated to make it look that way.
The only unsurprising piece of magic was the one Edmond used to blow him away through several buildings. For once, the Chosen had to actually think about how to manipulate his magical energy, allowing Fen to vividly experience what it was like to form the spellwork. It's complex shape would've been blinding to his own sense of Mana, but to a Stage three Mage like Edmond, the different lines and constructs that made up the spellwork were all clearly outlined.
Fen withdrew from the memory and allowed it to play by itself in order to commit the spellwork to his memory. The time when he would be able to make something like that was very far off, but when he did possess the ability, he'd be able to severely damage if not outright kill anything that didn't possess the regeneration abilities of a Stage two Knight or the durability of a Stage two Warrior.
A weapon like that was worth ignoring some worthless pieces of Edmond's memory.
After making sure that it was engraved into his memory, Fen keyed back into Edmond's orb of memory. Currently, he was experiencing the rooftop fight right before he unleashed the Mana knight constructs. Fen's heart pounded just thinking about the possibilities, what he could do if he was able to somehow learn how to recreate that spellwork.
At the same time, he started judging and correcting his actions. He didn't lose his senses because of his greed, and quickly started looking at what he could have done better, and what he did correctly given the circumstances. The Chosen's trick of light refraction opened up a key weakness of his; he was way too reliant on his own physical senses in a fight. Unless he was actively doing so, he didn't actively use his sense for magical energy unless they were overloaded by a powerful magical attack like the one Edmond used to blow him through several windows.
The minor uses of Mana manipulation were left unnoticed however, like Edmond strengthening his attacks and movements. If he had sensed them before he wouldn't have been left so helpless in front of Edmond's 'physical' prowess.
Archon Ellora had told him to start planning more rather than reacting as the situation changes, but really, wasn't his ability to react also very weak? He couldn't even react to the changes in magical energy around him unless it was already at a lethal level.