Blessing: Chosen of Skyholm (Guardian)

You will now be able to interact with pure Essence creatures.

Error! Other effects will be added as the user qualifies for them.

As You have unlocked the Quest system early and have received the first ever guardian level blessing of Skyholm, a new evolution path for the Quest system opens up.

+1000 Quest points for a special quest completed. +10000 credits.

You can either take the normal upgrade route, or with a few more lucky encounters, introduce something new to the system, and the multiverse. You will soon be required to make a choice. Invest all your quest points and go through the well trodden path, or blaze a new path unknown. If you choose to be a trailblazer, you will be required to save up more quest points before the quest system can upgrade.

The notifications, long as they were, were what woke Rafe from what he was sure was quite a deep sleep. He could still faintly hear that 'Ding' that had become such an ingrained part of his life recently.

He was groggy still, but he was sure he could hear voices. For some reason, even as he forced his eyes open a little at a time, he thought it best not to announce the fact that he'd woken up yet.

As his paralysis subsided, he discovered he was lying on a rough surface, dusty and filled with grit. The returning sensations, including touch all over his body and sight in his eyes were uncomfortable, heightened, unwieldy. It was all he could do not to gasp and give the game away.

He had decided not to trust these strangers he could hear speaking. Why would they help him, only to leave him on the ground instead of a bed or at least a carpet? Could it be he'd fallen straight into the hands of kidnappers once he returned to Earth?

He was at least careful with his eyes. Opening them slowly, and closing them again before the light had him blinking like a mad man. He had to attempt it seven times. After which he couldn't stop blinking because he thought he might be hallucinating.

"...was a waste! It's been three months already, and he is back, alive somehow. But he's still level eleven!" A golden, luminous, translucent man spoke to a…

Rafe wasn't sure what he was talking to. A floating ball of some kind? Rafe couldn't remember ever seeing anything of the like. Then some kind of light pulsed from the ball, and for some reason Rafe understood that the ball was speaking. And he understood what it was saying.

'This is what you summoned. It has to do. It will have to be enough.'

"Yeah, well we need a refund on our investment…"

The orb pulsed again, interrupting the man. Rafe suddenly recalled sitting in front of something that vaguely resembled this, back on Aeon.

It was on his first monster hunting mission, when he'd met Orlandir, and Grunter, and Jasmine and the others. He also remembered Liam once telling him something about the unclaimed throne being based on one of these things.

"Of course I always have to stand with my hands folded and my brow creased," the man shouted, aggrieved. "How else am I supposed to appear competent and reliable?"

More pulsing from the orb.

"You take that back! You're just newly awakened. What do you know?"

The orb didn't pulse this time. Instead it seemed to have its attention fixed on something else. Or someone else, to be more precise. Rafe somehow knew they were focusing on each other in that moment.

"Certainly you could argue this position outlines my impressive butt muscles," the man kept on speaking, having no idea of the stare off happening a few feet away. "But those are physical considerations beings like us have no need for. You shouldn't —"

The orb pulsed. The man quieted. He turned around slowly to stare at Rafe.

He was quite a specimen, with well chiseled arms and general well sculpted physique. The effect of his physical perfection was only mired by the fact that Rafe knew he was not a physical being. It was entirely possible the man hadn't worked for his Olympian god-like appearance. His brow was creased.

"He is awake, I see. If only we could interact with him. Maybe it is possible to use him in some way—"

'He can see you,' the core interrupted.

"Don't be ridiculous, Deu. And don't interrupt me."

'He can hear you. All the embarrassing things you thought it was safe to tell only me because the others wouldn't believe me. He heard everything!'

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The more the orb spoke, the more animated it became, excited. It was like a child after a good prank. And now the man was studying Rafe more calmly, and with every word the orb spoke, his expression became changed.

First, his eyes widened in pleased surprise, a bit of hope even, but then he looked down at his arms folded over his large chest, and then at the pulsing orb, and then back at his own shimmering bottom. Somehow, the golden light he gave off started to turn pink.

'Yes! When you present him to the council, I'll tell everyone what you did…'

"Deu, the boy is dangerous!" the man said abruptly. "We have to go!"

'What?' The orb asked, only a couple of seconds before Rafe himself would have. Because what? 'I thought the others would want to see him immediately.'

"You did not see us here, boy!" the man said.

And he grabbed the protesting orb and vanished into thin air like he had never been there.

"...w-wai…" Rafe tried, finding his voice raw. As if he hadn't used it for days.

He cursed internally. He didn't know what was going on, but one thing was for sure. This was not Earth.

"Where the hell am I? How did I get here?"

And he had just lost his first true source of answers. There had been something about a summoning and something about others, and power invested, and a waste. Rafe groaned as a pulse of pain shot through his head.

He had just woken up from a period of unconsciousness after a very grueling ordeal in the trial. Maybe he shouldn't be so demanding on his tired body. And speaking of the trial. He had just fought a grueling battle. And he had finished the trial of Skyholm. Surely he had some interesting new gains to go through.

'Ding' You have gained a new ability 'Void vault'.

You are able to store anything you touch in your personal soul void, including living beings. Ability grows with growth in soul quality and strength.

He remembered thinking it odd his void vault hadn't been a racial ability. Supposedly, since he'd unlocked his soul realm and forced a void enchantment down it, the ability was more connected to his soul.

There were a couple of problems with that. As someone from an Essence Desert, he'd seen it hinted that the starting point of his soul was lower than most. He'd also seen this live with his aura training. The second problem was that there wasn't a way to measure the progress of his soul from his status screen.

Or was there? If he knew one thing about this system, it was that it had a lot of hidden features he'd have to unlock when the time was right. Perhaps there was a hidden soul stat. And maybe even a body stat because he needed to find ways to improve his body as well if he was going to become a calamity beast hunter like he'd chosen. In the outside world, he would have only one chance against the beasts if he ever encountered them.

That should have scared him. Instead he found himself metaphorically salivating at just the thought. Was he crazy? No, no he was not. Even after losing against them, he'd gotten so much experience. How much more would he get when he finally won?

And he was going to win one day. After he'd thoroughly researched all of them and prepared appropriate counter measures for each encounter. Maybe even picked up a party of equally crazy individuals to tackle it with. Yeah, that was likely going to be a little difficult.

There wasn't much more to consider on the new ability. He could store living beings, which he knew wasn't a feature of most storage abilities, so there was that. He wondered what he'd do with it though.

You have gained a new blessing: Chosen of Skyholm (Guardian)

You can only have one blessing active at a time.

He remembered seeing this when he was busy fighting to stay conscious, to maybe say farewell. He wouldn't be seeing them for a while, he knew. In the end, he had been unable to. Apparently he only had one slot for a blessing, and yet the gods had still tried to give him one as a reward.

And he remembered that his first blessing had ranked up right around the same time too. He had done something to please Noid immensely.

Your blessing, Mark: Noid of the Sword has evolved.

Totem of the Wilde Sword God (rare, growth):

+40 agi, +35 coord, +30 str, +25 end, +20 vit, +15 wis, +10 int. +60 off, + 5 def when holding a sword during combat.

Well, that was going to be handy for an F grade individual. It was probably even relevant for someone in the early stages of the E grade. Unfortunately, he wouldn't get too many opportunities to use a sword as an F grade. But a full additional sixty bonus offense points was just too many to pass up.

If he had had to choose, it would have been hard to give up Noid's blessing. It was his first, and it scaled with his desired combat style. Unfortunately, unless it got ridiculous after a few more rank ups, the boost it gave him would become irrelevant once he was well into the E grade and beyond. He didn't even want to consider giving up a gift he'd received from his mentor and friend. Luckily, it seemed he would be able to keep both blessings.

You can only have one blessing at a time.

Error! Error!...

An Appeal has been made.

A second blessing slot shall be allocated as compensation for lack of the title system.

Calculating effects of second blessing: Chosen of Skyholm (Guardian)....

He had woken up to one of the effects of his new blessing triggering, so there was that. Apparently they would only trigger once certain conditions were met. And the first effect didn't have anything to do with combat.

There was also the message the system had left him after the effect triggering. He hadn't thought about it at the time, but a new direction for his quest system? And apparently that was why he was collecting Quest points. He wanted to complain that the whole randomisation of the amount of points a quest gave was unfair, but then the whole quest system was based on luck.

Now that he thought about it, first there were the fate points, which helped him unlock the quest system and the luck stat. And then there were the quest points, which were apparently a way to further improve the quest system. Maybe if he evolved it, he would get some other types of points to collect. He didn't know why, but even if he didn't know their use, just seeing big numbers on his status screen mostly always left him feeling giddy.

Collecting more points would be a doozy.

'Ding' You have completed a special quest.

You used the enchantment in a piece of equipment to create a skill.

+1000 quest points, +100 credits, +3 status effect concealer potions.

Your racial ability

humanity's creativity (E) has evolved.

Enchantment Eater (E): You can use one effect of an enchantment you consume to create a skill.

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