[There is a notification waiting for you, would you like to see it?]
"Huh, what? When did I get a notification?"
[It was during the fight, however, since you needed the utmost focus to survive, along with having to deal with Dua afterward, the System decided it was best to not alert you until you were finally in the clear.]
"Makes sense, alright, bring it up."
At that moment, the screen that showed his
| Name: Ixa | Species: Fallen Treant
| Stats
STR: 0
AGI: N/A
VIT: ?
INT: 8
| Skills & Abilities
Race Abilities:
Feat Skills:
"My intelligence grew more, and I got a new skill?... and now there's brackets, System, what inspired this change?"
[Well, as you grow, the System will need to adapt with you and better assort your data as there will be more to go through, so changes will come often; for example, this is your first skill outside of ones you were born with, so now, the System needed to sort the different skill better, do you wish to understand the difference between the two types?]
"Sure, the more I know, the better."
[Race skills are plain and simple: they are what you are born with, the innate talents, abilities the race has and excels at, some grow stronger, like the main one you have,
"Okay...so if I can get through tough situations, I can grow from them and be better equipped for more incoming ones in the future...neat."
'Sharded Consciousness'
- Through use of the mind, a body, and the ability to watch over many, you have managed to win a fight of one over many, your mind has learned to cope with the stress of using multiple perspectives at the same time and even achieved something new out of it.
One usually isn't enough, but with this, you can be ๐ฆ๐จ๐ซ๐ than enough, than ๐จ๐ง๐. A mirror shows an image, but a cracked one shows many.
May this aid you in your ventures, be it against an army or an individual... ๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐ ๐ข๐ฌ๐ง'๐ญ ๐๐ง๐จ๐ฎ๐ ๐ก ๐ญ๐จ ๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฐ๐ก๐๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐๐ง๐ฒ๐ฆ๐จ๐ซ๐.
| - The ability to separate & unite parts of your 'consciousness' is now yours, along with the ability to handle mental pressure easier, use it well.
(Unincluded effects exist.)
"Okay, damn, I see you, I understand why I got this but still, damn."
He was able to summarize this was from the 'feat' of using his 'perspective' of a natural radar for life to "watch over many", plus the body, well more so the eyes of the rabbit to clarify the strikes and where they would come from, and at last, the transfer of said information through intent to Dua, together to allow him to win the fight against 12 enemies.
"I'm also assuming that there are parts you don't fully understand about the skill System?"
[Correct, as the reason I added that additional note, "Unincluded effects exist" is because the uses of the skill are so extremely broad and unspecific that I am unable to analyze & catalog them all, so like before, you're going to need to experiment to find out, as the "instinctual" part of the skills only exist for your Race skills, as they are a part of your body.]
"Thanks for letting me know, and by the way, did you note the effect of me being able to sense living and dead things under Fallen Treant?"
[Yes, do not worry, as I stated before, I will monitor all of the things you learn, discover, and do.]
"Good, and now that everything has been settled, I guess I can get to work on experimentation."
So far, he has grasped the use of finding dead and living things, possessing the dead, spreading his intent, be it for communication or offensive purpose, and how to directly & indirectly communicate with someone, and the final thing is learn to use dead bodies to heal or detonate, but it cannot be said that he knows the limit to what intent can do, he was sure that it had much more uses, not to even mention
"Okay, lets test it out."
Based on the name, he guessed it would work with thought, so Ixa imagined splitting his mind into two equal halves and sharing them between the bunny's body, and his actual body.
However, this gave no response, which confused him for a second, but then he realized his mistake.
He focused this time on his ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐, his eyes that he used to see out of, but instead of the eyes of the bunny, he thought of himself, the individual, "his eyes", so to speak.
"Woah."
Before, his mind felt blurry and numb from all the things he was doing at once, from using his own body to sense the living enemies around him to moving the rabbit's body and seeing through its eyes, it was like trying to force two shards of glass back together into a whole, into one 'perspective'; it worked, but it wouldn't hold together for long, but this time...
He felt as if he was based in both bodies: the bunny, and the root; instead of putting the two pieces of broken glass together into one perspective, he is using them both separately, but at the same time...like somehow his perspective had split into twos but was still together.
Before, his head ached from simply looking through the bunny's eyes along with forcing his senses in his root body to sense the guards, along with the clashing intent, it was overstimulating before, the fact that his head didn't hurt now shocked him, and the fluidity & cleanest of it all...
That's what made him dizzy, surprisingly, it wasn't the fact he was seeing from two perspectives, but it was from the sheer fact that it didn't feel abnormal at all.
He fell onto his butt in the rabbit, and only after a few moments did the feeling pass and he got up.
After looking and walking around in the bunny while sensing the dead trees, grass, etc. in his regular body, he looked for those things that were just outside the clearing, once he confirmed they were there where he felt them, he re-entered, walking over to his body.
"The next step is to try and unite both views into one; while this new skill would have made the fight before a cinch in processing all those tasks, it'd be much more effective to have it all crammed into one vision."
The only reason he thought it possible is because how the skill description mentioned "separating & uniting"; it never specified exactly which parts of a 'consciousness' he can separate and unify, so why would it exclude multiple perspectives of sight being able to become unified...
'Especially considering that the ability to sense living and dead things isn't really sight, more-so a sense, so it would make sense for it to be more compatible, welp, time to find out.'
Instead of seeing from both ends of the perspectives, he thought of uniting the two.
Immediately, the surroundings faded to black, he did feel a slight tingle in his eyes, meaning he was still 'seeing' through the rabbit, so he ended up accidentally...
'Oops, focused on my actual body there for a second too long.'
He restarted, this time, emptying his mind so he won't accidentally think of something else.
This time, something else happened, almost the same, but the difference was clear.
"Wow, cool."
The entire area turned into a different shade of black, different from the darkness of his body being blind, it was more of an endless void, except his body as a bunny was the only thing with color, filled with a sort of strange gray; the reason being it looked like a mix of a mist, haze, and fog.
As he shifted his gaze ahead, that same color of grey basked everything ahead, highlighting the outlines of everything ahead, be it the trees, the dirt...
For some reason, everything ahead of him was laid out, while everything outside his vision remained a void, the only reason he could tell that was because he could feel it, he guessed it was due to the fact that the sense of detecting living and dead things was making up this type of vision.
It was only then he noticed that nothing was getting in the way of his sight; he could see beyond the trees, the dirt, the small puddles of water, he could see a somewhat long distance away.
Little to large white lights made up some of the things he saw, from small flickers of light in the dead trees, to relatively large ones in the sky he saw moving, most likely, birds, even little, tiny ones in the small patches of grass, as for the inanimate things like the rocks, clouds, they were completely filled in, with no light to speak of.
'Hmmm, considering how all types of animals have different levels of how well they can see, maybe it can improve or degrade how far I can see based on what I'm using to see through... wait, I just realized...'
He separated the union of sight and unified his consciousness once more into the rabbit.
"Hey System, how far can I send intent, manipulate dead things, etc, etc?"
[System is unsure of the exact limit, however, when you first possessed the rabbit from before, it was around a couple dozen of meters away, and as you didn't feel opposition yet, the total distance must be quite sizeable, and it's bound to increase as you improve
[Oh, and by the way, there is one odd thing I discovered about the bunny's body that may explain why it is here in this forest in the first place if you're curious.]
"Really? What is it?"
[As I was scanning you along with the Bunny's body after the fight and everything started to calm down, I noticed that the body had a mutation, which caused a certain deformity, which I've come to the realization that it caused its head to become oddly shaped; usually, bunnies have 360 vision, but, as it is obvious, you are seeing around 60, the average of a human, so I theorize that it was born this way and was ostracized since then and eventually, cast out, which led it to searching for a new home, it ended up at this forest, and then died at some point.]
"So I would be seeing 360, but because this bunny is an odd one, I ended up seeing less?"
[Actually, it is better to focus ahead instead of everything at once, so I'd say it's better.]
"Well, that doesn't matter anymore, so let's move on, the next test should be...hmmm, how about testing to see if I can absorb necrotic essence material from a distance?"
[It could also serve as seeing how far you can spread your influence, so yes, I'd say that's an excellent choice, especially as you can progress towards your advancement at the same time.]
Ixa nodded as he closed his eyes and thought about what he did before when he found the rabbit's body.
He quieted his mind, and did the same thing as before, move from conscious, to subconscious, to what laid beyond it.
Once again, everything went dark, and he felt unrestricted in his movement, be it up, left, right or center.
Before, it required his utmost focus, but that was for getting the 'will' of the skill, now, he wouldn't need to keep up that state of mind, to which he was thankful for, as it was tiring to consciously rend your mind to be quiet and shift states...if that even made sense?
Anyways, this time, he used
From what he could understand with before, when he was following the inclination of the skill, it was actually utilizing his ability to detect living and dead things to find the rabbit's corpse before he even knew he could, which was strange, as the two were different skills, however, considering one of the skills is literally his race, it made sense.
Before, the instinct of the skill lead him to a body, however, now, he would only get a sensation that directs him to where he could possess a body, although he would have no clue what he would possess and how close he had to be for the feeling to appear, but with this, he can more accurately find a body without just following a "feeling", although it still felt strange when he used his sense for the dead and living, as he didn't understand how it worked still...
'So I can use skills in correlation with one another to generate better effects and even improve the skill's output; this is very useful, I must remember this for later when I get some new ones.'
He made sure to commit it to memory before letting that thought go.
As he focused on that small window of a perspective he left behind, he felt for more dead bodies, or more concentrated groups of living things, who knows, he may discover something else in these dark woods.
As his attention to everything dead and alive spread throughout the forest like a magnifying glass moving across a map, combing it for something to harvest necrotic essence material from, he actually found something...well, someone.
'Dua?'
Every time he felt something alive, there was always something different, even if they were the same thing, they were always slightly different, there was a similar feeling when they were the same type of thing, but never exact.
He didn't realized what it was at first, but discovered this small fact with those killers from before; despite them all being human, something about them being alive felt different; like a unique signature to their life, and Dua was no different, and after spending that little time with him, be it talking through that shared temporary connection, through intent, or helping him in that fight, he learned to hone in on his personal signal of life.
When he left earlier, he was able to still detect him for a little bit, but as he moved on and thought of other things, he focused less on him and his signal, letting it fade to obscurity.
But it's not easily forgotten, and now, he was feeling it again, along with another thing; it didn't feel human, so Ixa wasn't sure what it was, and based on how they are moving fast around each other, connecting at times, he could assume they were...
'Fighting... I guess I can keep up my promise, AND test out how far I can manipulate things.'
โขโขโข
"Hmph."
Dua kept a calm and collected face as his blade met with another, sparks flew and metal scraped against metal, he pushed with his strength to win over the other in this test of attrition.
The opposing person was another one of the mayor's guards; for one reason or another, he wasn't with the group before, but now, he was facing the one that should have been long dead by now.
'How in the **** is he not dead?! Where are the others, did he kill them? No... that shouldn't be possible, it was 12 against just him! But the blood on him is speaking otherwise. ****, this wasn't supposed to happen. I gotta alert the boss about this.'
He wanted to turn tail and run back to the village as soon as possible, but Dua wasn't relenting, despite being a bit slow to respond, he was not letting up; if he were to turn around and try to book it, he would just end up slashed or stabbed in the back.
The battle of attrition ended surprisingly fast as Dua, despite being the one who initiated it, backed off, willing losing it.
'He must be tired from fighting them off! I do not need to be afraid. Maybe I'll even be rewarded for defeating him when 12 failed.'
He could tell that his opponent was weak just from that meeting with their blades; while Dua used enough force to hold him off, he was slowly losing that battle.
His guess was right on the money, as while Dua got healed by Ixa and the grievous wounds were gone now and some of the 'superficial' ones bandaged, the energy he lost during that fight along with the taxation on his brain from such a demanding situation has eaten up all of his energy for the day, leaving his body drained.
"TIME TO DIE COWARD."
The guard leaped forward in a stunt of bravery to silence the cowardice that was gnawing at his heart, however, it never mattered if he was brave, cowardly, or foolish...
~BZZZZZ~
He instantly felt a strange surge in his body, it came with such a force that he felt like his entire body was thrown back.
His leap straightaway faulted; his body not even able to register the pain of his falling body as it met and grinded across the mucky dirt.
As he clutched his head from the sound of buzzing, a feeling of absolute hopelessness ate away to its hearts content across his entire body as it fed on the fear that was before gnawing, now feverishly devouring his entire being as it blossomed into something so much worse than a mere overwhelming buzzing sound.
It was as if the worst thing you'd ever experience in your life came, crawling from god-knows where or when, to your body, completely out of nowhere, and decided that today, ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ฌ๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ ๐ก๐๐ญ๐ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ฏ๐ข๐ง'.
His body convulsed rapidly as he muttered gibberish incoherently, as if hoping, that somehow, the words would carry this feeling away, like somehow telling whatever had befallen him would release it from his body and give him peace, similar to how doing violence calmed anger... unfortunately, it was the same as trying to explain a color...it was pointless to try, as every time he would try to translate the feeling into words, all that came out was inconceivable rubbish.
It was like he was speaking something beyond foreign dialect, surpassing language, like he was speaking the dang emotion in and of itself.
Unfortunately, he didn't grasp an ounce of this stuff as he was the bearer of this scrutinizing pain that was ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐จ๐ง๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ฏ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ฐ๐๐ฌ ๐ก๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐๐๐ซ.
He started to feel cold at his feet, legs, body, arms, then...
'What...is happeni-'
He couldn't even finish this sole thought before suddenly everything stopped, his shaking, the feeling, his thoughts...
๐๐ข๐ฌ ๐ก๐๐๐ซ๐ญ.