After resting for several minutes, Oliver stands and makes his way to a more concealed corner of the bell chamber. The BellTower has 4 open walls to allow the bell ringing to be heard freely. The Bell was long since gone, but in each corner was a column with a 90-degree angle that allowed him to sit with his back against the wall and be hidden from view on either side. Like this, if Guards did approach, they couldn't see him from the street below.
Oliver Took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He had heard about TomeBearers before. he knew what it meant to awaken, and the method for a newly awakened TomeBearer to summon their Tome was common knowledge. Oliver knew that this knowledge was so widespread because of how much the masses wanted to Awaken. If you thought about it, it made perfect sense that they would seek out the knowledge of what to do if they awaken, and once the word is out, everyone knows.
According to the stories, the first time consciously summoning your tome is a Long process. The lengthy time requirement isn't due to it being complicated or haven't dozens of steps, it was actually quite simple. Instead, the Time it would take a TomeBearer to summon their Tome is due to the difficulty of the task. Imagine having a new sense that you've never had before, never used before, and suddenly you have it and you need to use it to detect something you have never detected before with any other sense. This was basically what was required of TomeBearers upon awakening a Soul Tome.
Oliver grappled with his mind for several minutes as he settled into a more steady even breathing pattern. He knew that breathing and reaching a sense of peace would help him use this new 6th sense for the first time, just as hearing far-away sounds is easier when you quiet the noise around you and tune out what isn't important. Minutes come and go and the newly awakened TomeBearer could feel a sense of peace wash over his mind. Distractions were there but in time he learned to acknowledge them and then move on not dwelling on them or allowing them to pull him down a rabit hole of distractions.
After 20 minutes, which seemed like much longer to Oliver, he reached a state of hyper-awareness. Oliver could feel his heartbeat reverberating through him like echolocation, feeling his whole body in waves. He slowly began to explore this awareness until finally, after what seemed like hours, he felt it.
There was a Node in his brain, he could feel it although it was not physical. He pushed at it, feeling a barrier stopping his mind from entry he knew he had to break into The Gate to access his Soul, so he attacked it with his mind. wave after wave of unfocused mental energy assaulted the Gate until eventually, he broke through it. that's when he felt it, his soul, surrounding him, filling him, this was what power felt like.
There in the distance, he could see it...The Tome in all of its transparent glory. He willed it towards the Gate, trying to pull it out and summon it forth, but like any new muscle being exercised, it was slow and sometimes even painful to manipulate his mind and soul like this.
When the Tome finally released itself he felt a wave of euphoria as he finally saw the tome with his own eyes in the physical world. Oliver had heard stories of many tomes, Tomes whose pages were on fire, or a Tome with a miniature Grove of trees growing from its cover. Even with all the Varieties he had heard of, Oliver had never heard of one like this, it was transparent, and it seemed as though his hands could pass through it with ease if he wanted them to. Oliver let his hands trace the magic symbols layered on the books cover. this was another unique trait of his Tome, most Tomes had one or two runes, and some legendary ones had a Whole complex magic circle on it, but none of them that he had heard stories about had layers upon layers of runes and magic circles and rune paths made of glowing lines.
With a mere thought, the Tome opened, showing the first page. a blank cover page that Oliver quickly skipped past.
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Name: Oliver Oberon Ozul
Age: 16
Affinity: Psychic
Rank: Uncommon
Mind: 15
Body: 1
Soul: 11
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The next page was ornate and the layers of complex texts still dwelled beneath the surface of the page, appearing to shift and change. In the center of the page was a diagram of a human body, his body. As he read through the texts surrounding the diagram he saw the diagram shift and change. When he looked at the line that gave numerical value to his body, the part of the diagram that was his silhouette became highlighted, as did his anatomy, such as bones, Veins, and muscles. it also showed places where he was injured and even scar tissue from old injuries.
When his eyes focused on the mind stat an image of his brain and the nervous system attached to it became more highlighted, while the still visible body faded into the background.
His brain shone with ethereal light far brighter than the body had done.
Finally, Oliver focused on the soul stat, which showed up brighter than the body but shone less than the mind, as a glowing aura in and around the faded outline of his body and mind, with an extra glow around a spot within his brain where his gate had manifested itself. Oliver also noticed a second glow that was brighter than the rest but not as bright as his gate, located over his stomach, where his stab wound had been.
This was amazingly rare, he had never heard of a Tome that had so much detail, even though the numeric representation of his mind body, and soul were normal, (albeit high in the case of the mind) the diagram of his body was unique.
Oliver flipped the page, excited to see what the next, and final page would hold. when he did turn the page his jaw dropped...
[TomeEater-Your Tome consumes the Tomes of those you kill and converts their highest stat point into assignable stat points for your use. Additionally, their Tome's pages are assimilated into your Tome, keeping what is compatible, altering what is semi-compatible, and erasing the wholly incompatible pages, leaving blank pages for you to use.
Note: the Tome is consumed in the process, and in doing so the body and soul of the victim are also destroyed.*
Rank-Ascendant]
"Ascendant???" Oliver exclaimed, having to lift his jaw from its shocked reaction to speak, before looking around nervously to see if anyone had heard him, even though he knew nobody was around. this wasn't a rank, or at least not one from any of the stories. this shouldn't even exist, the ranks are as follows
Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary. That was it, the ranks weren't supposed to go any further than that....was Ascendant something even higher?...