The portal closed behind him, and he landed gently in the tall, knee-high grass of Sylcra, the largest island on the archipelago.
Reaching into his inventory, he pulled out a healing potion before chugging it down whole. He sighed in relief as the pain from the broken ribs eased.
"I'm finally free," he said out loud to himself, feeling the weight of constant discovery lift from his shoulders. At the same time, a sense of heaviness settled in his heart as he once again left behind everything that he knew.
This is becoming a bit of a pattern.
At least I'm better off now than I was the first time around. I have food, water, and a tent. I'm stronger, and I'm not a stranger to this world anymore. Besides, there's no saying I can't visit Spiros and Arya in the future. I'll just have to be careful. Maybe kill Arke first. I'm sure that both of them will become warriors, and once I'm a Hero, I'll go back to the tomb and let anyone that's still there out, he thought, forcing a smile onto his face and blinking unshed tears out of his eyes. There's no way Spiros will stay in there, and I'll bet everything I have on him simping his way out. If a guy can shit his pants for a girl, he can do anything.
Using his hands for shade, he surveyed the land. As far as his eyes could see, all that existed was grass. Craning his neck, he noted the positions of Theos's nine identical suns, hanging horizontally in the sky, before he withdrew a map from his inventory.
A largely pointless exercise, as he had spent hours staring at it and plotting his path before coming here. He only looked at it now because he thought it felt appropriate. Nodding to himself, he started walking north. There was a river that cut through the entire island, and nestled along its banks were nearly all of Sylcra's villages, towns, and cities.
Five minutes of walking later, he stopped abruptly, cursing himself as he did.
I'm such an idiot. He took the Mask of a Thousand Faces out his inventory and stared at it apprehensively, noting its soft wooden texture and its two large eye holes as he turned it over in his hand.
It looks so … plain. Still, it's a Hero-tier artifact.
"I can't believe I killed people for this dumb thing," he muttered to himself before gingerly holding it over his face.
As soon as he did, it tightened and conformed to the counters of his head. An uncountable number of thin, straw-like wooden tendrils emerged along its edges and wrapped themselves around his skull, snaking around his ears and wrapping thinly across every strand of his hair. They worked their way into every cavity on his face, save for his eyes and mouth. Just when Luke thought it was over, they wrapped themselves down his neck, not stopping until they were covering every inch of his body save for his eyes. Luke squirmed in pain as the strands brushed against his broken ribs, and he fidgeted awkwardly when they wrapped around the more sensitive parts of his anatomy.
Instinctually he brought his hands to his sides, only to pull them back a moment later as the pressure eased.
I can't believe Yjarn broke my ribs so casually. Without the Seed, I really would be fucked. I'll have to be more careful with the stances in the future, so something like this doesn't happen again, either. They're good for instant kills, but using them nonlethally isn't what they're for, and I need to account for that beforehand.
He took a deep breath, wincing slightly as his lungs forced his ribs to expand. It hurts, but not as much as I would have thought. The potions really are magical. I should figure out a way to get my hands on more. Maybe I can find something like the society here. Whatever—he shook his head—that's a problem for future me to figure out once I find civilization.
Luke lifted his hands to his face and inspected his arm, rotating it slowly as he did.
I'm a wood-themed mummy … It's surprisingly comfortable being all wrapped up. Now, how does this work?
Tentatively, he urged some of his mana into the mask. In his vision, a holographic version of his naked body appeared in impeccable detail, from the smallest marks on his skin, to every strand of hair. It was all visible, and Luke cringed a little when he saw it. Max's body was his now, but it hadn't always been.
That's interesting, and … Luke felt around the mask with his mana, inadvertently triggering some mechanism, as in the next moment the image the mask was showing him changed. The person he was seeing now was of similar height and build as him, but his skin was a few shades paler. His hair, while the same length and style, had darkened from his previous brown to a raven black. The largest change between him and the person on display, however, was his face. It possessed thicker and darker eyebrows, a smaller and slightly less bulbous nose, higher, more princely cheekbones, and a narrower jaw.
Leaving him reeling in surprise as he took in his prospective appearance.
To Luke, the way he looked was barely worth his attention, and beyond making sure he was well-groomed, his appearance was frivolous to him. Both his original body and Max's were neither ugly nor disfigured and in good physical condition, without any allergies or health concerns, and that's all he cared about.
The one on display, however, looked like it had been chiseled from marble under the careful attention of a world-class artist.
Not supernaturally beautiful or to the level that it would draw attention in a crowd, but if someone were to sit down and look for flaws, it would take them a minute.
Are there no other options? Luke thought, funneling even more of his mana into the mask. Quickly, he came across some manner of built-in controls. He fumbled around for a minute before figuring out what each button did. Cautiously, he pressed down with a wisp of his mana on what he hoped was the next button, panicking slightly as the image changed to display perhaps the ugliest person he had ever laid eyes on. After admiring the sheer hideousness of the form, he hit the button again. The one that came after that looked like a female version of the first, and the one after that had purple skin but otherwise looked the same as the first.
Luke, out of habit, attempted to scratch his head before giving up when he realized that he was still mummified. You have to be kidding me. He navigated to the next image, and sure enough, it was a purple version of the extremely ugly option that appeared before. What kind of options are these? I didn't really know what to expect, but I wanted a character-creation screen. Not this! he thought, continuing to flip through the various forms.
Eventually giving up on his search and spamming the back button, he navigated back to the very first option it had presented him. He'd discovered that all the other options were the same as the first three it presented him, but in stranger and increasingly unnatural colors.
I'd rather just be handsome than be handsome with bright red, pink, or aqua skin. I'm trying to stay under the radar, not cosplay as a devil or some Star Wars alt-humanoid that we're supposed to believe is an alien and not a guy painted yellow.
When he pushed his mana down on the mask's okay button, Luke's world turned white with agony as blood pooled in his mouth. The mask surgically—and mercilessly—had shattered the bones of his skull. At the same time, he could feel straw-like tendrils cutting into his skin and squirming like worms under his flesh as they did their work.
All over his body, the thin strips of wood that had mummified him grew needles as they did something. All Luke knew was that it hurt. A lot. So much so that he collapsed to his knees as the mask transformed him. Surrendering himself to the worst pain he had ever felt, he lost consciousness.
When he woke up hours later, the suns had set, and the nine moons had taken their place in the sky. An uncountable number of stars glittered around them, in spite of their pale light gently illuminating the night far more than Earth's moon ever did.
Shouldn't the moons make the stars harder to see? Luke rose to his feet, catching the mask as it slid off his face and sending it straight to his inventory. He didn't even want to look at it after all the suffering it had caused him.
The pain he had experienced already felt like a distant memory, but even thinking about it made him wince.
Bringing his hands to his face, he felt around for the changes, fearing that the mask hadn't worked as promised, or he had accidentally become the ugly monstrosity that was the second option, and he sagged in relief when he touched smooth skin.
I'm so grateful I'm not hot pink right now, Luke thought, looking at the pale skin of his hand. I should have stolen a mirror from the society. I knew I was going to end up with a new face. Whatever. Now, which way is north?
He looked back at the sky before realizing that he didn't know which way to travel based on the moons, nor did he recognize any of the constellations.
"Fuck it, I'll wait until the morning," he said to himself, accessing his inventory and pulling out a tent he had erected in his house in the Luminous Sky.
I wonder if I can build a tiny cabin now and just bring it out whenever I need it. Like a pocket house. It shouldn't weigh more than ten thousand kilograms, and I wouldn't feel as homeless as I do now if I did, that's for sure.
Wait … I almost forgot. Luke opened his status and navigated to inventory, scrolling down all the way until he found what he was looking for: the boots Yjarn had chosen.
Status | Skills | Quests | Inventory
Items:
Air-Walking Boots
Tier—Warrior
Enchanted to allow the wearer to walk on air as if it was solid ground.
There's no way! Luke pulled them out immediately. Kicking off his own shoes at the same time and sending them to his inventory, he slid his new shoes onto his feet. He frowned as he realized they were much too large for him.
Maybe I can get them fitted?
Standing up, he sent mana out from his feet and into the soles and grinned as they magically resized, molding themselves to fit perfectly.
They're comfortable!
Lifting one foot into the air, Luke pressed his leg down slowly, increasing the amount of mana he was channeling into them as he did. Are they broken? His smile slipped from his face when he felt no resistance.
He fed the shoe more and more mana and opened his status to keep an eye on his consumption at the same time.
Maybe I'm doing it wrong?
Stopping the flow of mana completely for a second, he lifted his foot back into the air, stomping down while sending what he estimated was three hundred points of mana into it at once.
His foot stopped midair, and the momentum of his step sent him into the air briefly before the effects of the boots wore off, making him land roughly on the ground.
"HA-HA-HA-HA." This is going to be awesome.
He spent the next few hours practicing with his new shoes, quickly getting the hang of using them while falling onto his face more times than he could count in the process. He would have kept going until the suns rose, but his mana wasn't unlimited, and the rate it replenished didn't keep up with the expenditure.
Each step cost him roughly one hundred mana, and more if he wanted to stand in place in the air.
Crawling into his tent, he sent his new shoes straight back into his inventory. Wanting to keep them in tip-top shape for as long as he could, he did so by putting them in stasis in the safest place he knew.
As he dozed off, he tried his hardest not to remember Yjarn's broken body lying at his feet. Or how he might still be alive out there in the frozen forest. Cold, poisoned, and unable to move. Screaming his throat raw as he called for help. It was something that he was beginning to suspect would haunt him for some time. Just like Nafik and everyone else he had killed. Except at least he had given them the mercy of a quick and painless death.
I hope he passed while he was unconscious.
When he woke up the next morning, though, he had something else to draw his attention.
The Seed had given him a new quest.