It has been an hour or so since Magnus narrowly escaped being caught. He was able to make sense of things more. He studied his inherited Blessings and Curses during the time that passed and discovered a few things.
Klaris' Curse, which was called Vow of the Unnamed, was as brutal as it should be. With a Blessing as strong as Mirror World Thief, it only made sense... according to the man's memories at least.
{=[ Vow of the Unnamed ]=}
- Requires one to hide behind a different identity and never reveal their true name. The more people who know your name, the weaker you will be until your eventual death.
Verses:
"You are he whose name must never be proclaimed.
Lie behind your masks, for the day you are known is the day you die.
Hide behind your lies, for the day they see the true you is the day of your defeat."
{=[=o=o=o=o=]=}
Retrieving those memories from Klaris made Magnus sigh in pity.
"So he was discovered because of his thievery, and thus his Curse killed him." He muttered.
There was a certain theory present here in the World of Blessings and Curses.
"The stronger the Blessing, the worse the Curse." Many people would say, and it was a very prominent memory in Klaris' mind.
It coincided with the fact that to activate a Blessing, one need to perfectly abide by one's 'vows.' A Curse generates the energy needed to supply the invocation of a Blessing. Stronger Curses generated more energy, but it was usually never enough to constantly invoke one's Blessing.
Klaris himself had to abide by his Vow of the Unnamed for an entire year to have enough energy for one invocation.
Moreover, without sufficient energy from one's Curse, the Blessing would draw energy from the body and soul. Such an event was both good and bad.
Bad because a powerful Blessing can instantly make someone disintegrate upon invocation if they did not have enough Curse energy. Good because the humans of this world had figured out a way to generate Curse energy—or more accurately, Spirit Energy—with their bodies.
All they had to do was train hard.
They had to cultivate the energy they needed and grow.
It was simple yet complex at the same time.
Only a few special cases had Blessings that could stay permanently active, and that was when the Curse was too strong when compared to the Blessing.
Now, as for the Curse that partners with the Blessing, Master of the Hivemind, Magnus only had information on its verses. But with the greater number of lines, this Curse was a whole level more brutal than Klaris' Vow of the Unnamed.
{=[ Vow of the Lonely ]=}
Verses:
"Advance as One, alien soul.
You are an existence unwanted by the world.
Your glory shall be yours and yours alone.
No man is an island, but you have no choice but to be greater than man if you seek existence."
{=[=o=o=o=o=]=}
"Yikes." Magnus grimaced upon reading such words.
"In a way, it fits perfectly for those who started this Apocalypse scenario. That person must have lived one hell of a life with such a Blessing and Curse. On top of that, I have their soul within me as well, so it feels very personal now. I wonder if he was going to try and control me through his Blessing if his plans went well? That would've been a pseudo-rebirth now, wouldn't it?"
Walking through unfamiliar streets, Magnus shook his head. He was getting a few weird looks from the townsfolk, probably because he was covered in mud and wearing strange clothes—jeans and a t-shirt.
Everyone else wore more leathery and rubbery garments that seemed to be customized for the town's muddy ground, as even the streets were flooded here and there. It was quite a unique getup.
The rare vehicle that passed by would cause a huge splash of dirt to go flying. The citizens of this place never seemed to care if their garb was dirtied. They just trudged along, hiding under their hoods and concealing their belongings.
It truly made Magnus stand out... But not as much as the policemen that were scampering around wearing pure white.
"It must be a difference in status," Magnus observed as he narrowed his eyes.
The region he was in was filled with dilapidated buildings built right beside the muddy streets. Precarious bridges formed by randomly pieced together plates of metal could be seen swaying overhead. Drops and streams of water that came from pipes like drummers performing in different areas.
"Thawsore... what a sad-looking birthplace you have, Klaris."
Magnus sighed as he was kicked out of a shop for trying to steal a leather cloak. This was his third try so far, and he confirmed that he lacked talent in thievery.
"I need a job..." He finally decided, "Klaris worked with a corpse-collection team... There is clearly an open spot now with his death. I can try my luck there."
Following Klaris' memories, Magnus continued to trudge forward in the mud.
"At least there, Klaris' memories will be able to help me a lot more."
.
.
.
As Magnus moved, he continued to read through the twenty-eight years of memories that Klaris had.
It started from a childhood alone, not having enough to eat and living by the day. He lived with the fear of starving to death in the next hours every single day.
By wondrous strokes of luck though, Klaris made it through those days each time, when others kept dying near him. Being in the slums of the already dilapidated Thawsore was horrid. Muddy grounds turned into swamp-like sewer systems.
Disease plagued every poor soul, and malnutrition was inevitable.
Their Blessings could barely do anything to help them survive.
"One-liners," Magnus mumbled inadvertently as he recalled the initial levels of their Blessings.
That's right. Similar to how in Curses like the Vow of the Lonely being a lot more brutal than Vow of the Unnamed because of one simple line, the power of a Blessing could be seen in how many lines it has.
Longer invocations meant powers that could influence reality so much more. Of course, there was a way for Blessings to grow, but Klaris never had access to such information. All he knew about was the possibility.
Curses could be enhanced too to provide more energy... But the people of this world weren't fond of making their restrictions worse. They preferred Curses with one or two lines. They would just supplement the lacking energy using their own bodies as their Blessings grew.
Magnus, however, wanted to see what a Five-Line Curse was like. His senses called out to him to venture out into what others deemed insane.
Going back to Klaris, things started turning out a little better after his Curse appeared when he was 16, as with everyone else. Even though he didn't know what his Blessing did since he could not use an MTR, having the Curse meant he could at least pour energy into it.
This is when Magnus discovered that he didn't necessarily need the MTR to figure out the invocation for Master of the Hivemind.
He just needed to manipulate his Spirit Energy over time to slowly piece together what he needed to say.
'On that note... My ability to speak languages was modified ever since my arrival.' Magnus thought, 'The thoughts I have still use Earth-born tongues, but when I speak, I spout out the words of this region.'
It was a peculiar experience, to say the least.
Much like Klaris' first dive into the Mirror World.
Different from Magnus, Klaris did not really have an item in mind when he first invoked his Blessing. The world was reconstructed before him, and he wandered around for a few days. He lived a different life for as long as his ability allowed him to, but every object, every person, and every event that happened were all based on his memories.
It got more and more convoluted as the days went by. Events that happened when he was young piled on top of events that happened just a few days before he invoked his Blessing. The people he had met long ago were mingling with people he met just recently. Everything slowly descended into chaos.
And it was only when the chaos was at its peak, did the Mirror World fall apart.
'It's basically a phenomenon based on entropy,' Magnus marvelled at such a magical fact having ties with the science he knew.
It was surreal.
Now, when the Mirror World fell apart, Klaris almost did too. The fact that many people knew his name had brought about immense weakness to his entire being.
He was sick for days on end.
Starving and thirsty.
The only thing that kept him alive was a bottle of some red liquid he had once seen with the policemen. It was the object he had taken with him before the collapse of the Mirror World.
Those days turned into a month, and by then, Klaris was on death's door.
Who knew that there would be an event that nearly halved Thawsore's population just then? It was akin to a plague. A bioweapon perhaps.
It swept across the country, leaving the whole place in chaos.
Fortunately for Klaris, he was already dying. The bioweapon didn't see the need to infiltrate him and destroy whatever life he had left. It instead killed all the people he once knew as friends and companions.
It gave him a new chance at life.
When he regained his strength, the first thing he did was bury their bodies. He was among the survivors, and thus, a mountain of jobs had opened up for him, allowing him to live a better life than before.
He became proficient in the process of dealing with corpses, whether it was embalming, burials like cremation and ground burials, and even dissolution. He could handle the chemicals without killing himself, at least.
Thus, that had been his job ever since.
For eight years he worked, trying to pull himself slowly up the societal ladder.
Every time he collected a corpse either from Thawsore itself or from places beyond, he would make sure to commit every object he saw to his memory.
It was so that he could utilize Mirror World Thief whenever he had enough Spirit Energy. Once a year. Every new year's day.
He would sell the items he 'stole' whenever he could, allowing him to move into a home of his own, with appliances like the holographic television (that one, he stole) and whatnot.
It was only when attempting to sell a particular ring he had discovered did things go wrong and he did not even know why.
All he knew was that some organisation had locked onto him. And in this world, where Blessings and Curses were what empowered people, organizations, factions, and clans, reigned supreme.
It didn't take long for his true identity to be found out in a manner he still was unfamiliar with.
It led to his eventual death as the police, the populace, and many other people learned of his true name.
Magnus pitied the man.
It seemed like everything tied to the Otherworld Trials had a tendency to have those small, seemingly mundane actions, turn into some horrifying phenomenon.