Divine Apostasy Book 6 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Ruwen had worried that the process would get exponentially harder the further he progressed into the Steps. And while it did get more difficult, he found that fixing an imbalance rarely required him to go very many Steps backward. This stemmed from the fact that to make the whole balanced, the smaller pieces needed to balance. That meant any changes he needed could only come from a few Steps in the past.

In another development that in hindsight shouldn’t have surprised Ruwen, his breathing followed a design similar to the pressure he exerted. He worked on both his breathing and force distribution through the first fifty Viper Steps.

The Bamboo and Viper Steps contained over a thousand Steps each, and Ruwen’s constant calculations and focus exhausted him. While the first fifty Viper Steps weren’t perfect, he’d made a lot of progress. Even this rough first pass through the forms would take him many sessions to complete.

Ruwen sat cross-legged and studied the distant star Shiny. The spell Fresh Harvest that kept his gravity sphere from dissipating only lasted six hours. So the spell acted as a sort of timer, and he knew his force training to the fiftieth Viper Step had taken around twelve hours. At that pace, it would take him about a month of constant work to get through all the Bamboo and Viper Steps. It was a good thing he had time.

Ruwen reviewed the Five items he wanted to accomplish while out here alone: explore the Architect Role, create essence recipes for spells, perfect his Bamboo and Viper Steps, Fortify to peak Diamond, and find a way through the barrier that encased his soul.

Sitting on the outside of the shed wearing only underwear, Ruwen cast Campfire again. The fire’s warmth made him feel better. Between mastering his ability to use less force and practicing his weight distribution across the Steps, he felt a little tired of movement. A break from physical training would benefit him.

That left Ruwen two options, examining his soul and essence recipes. Although eventually he’d need to move to cast any new spells he created. But for now, he decided to start with his soul.

The progress Ruwen had made in almost every aspect of his life in the past few months defied belief. He had started with many advantages, but his remarkable progress would not have happened without massive amounts of hard work and focus.

Ruwen’s desire to better himself had met with success in every area except one: finding his Soul and using its power. Sift’s seemingly easy progress only made Ruwen feel worse. How could Ruwen fail at something that looked so simple?

Sift had probably felt the same way about Ruwen’s progress with his Core and Spirit related abilities. Sift had never said anything, but he’d probably been devastated when Ruwen had found his center practically by accident, when Sift had spent his whole life searching for the same thing. Ruwen’s frustration didn’t compare to that.

Sometimes things didn’t work out no matter how hard a person worked to make them better. But quitting wasn’t an option, at least not yet. First, Ruwen needed to work at finding his soul as hard as Sift did at finding his center.

Loneliness crept into Ruwen’s thoughts, and he let himself sink into them for a few seconds. He missed Hamma’s laugh and Lylan’s sarcasm. Even one of Sift’s terrible stories or sayings would be welcome. Ruwen’s thoughts turned to despair as he wondered if he’d ever see them again, and he immediately pulled himself back to the present. He would see them again.

Ruwen closed his eyes and moved his focus to the area between his shoulders, just under the bottom of his neck. The thumbnail sized sphere no longer looked completely black. It now had dull streaks lining its surface.

When Ruwen had helped repair the wall of New Eiru before the big battle, he’d increased his Stonemason skill to level fifty-seven. That skill gave him the knowledge to recognize the pattern covering the sphere. They were stress scars. And they had appeared after the Literary Aneurism trap Rami had triggered in the Inklord’s office at the top of the library in Malth.

Somehow that trap had affected the prison that surrounded Ruwen’s soul. In the underwater safehouse in Malth, he’d listened for the “music” that Sift said his soul produced, but Ruwen had heard only silence.

Silence like what surrounded Ruwen now. The complete lack of sound had become oppressive, and he’d found himself talking out loud, just to hear something. But that silence would help him now. If any sound at all had escaped his soul, he’d surely hear it here.

Ruwen surrounded his soul with mental focus, moving a mental ear across the streaked black surface. Over and over he crisscrossed the surface, searching for even the faintest sound.

After two hours of intense focus, Ruwen had exhausted himself. The Fresh Harvest spell ended and a few moments later, the gravity sphere dissipated. In a now familiar process, he quickly created another gravity ball and encased it with Fresh Harvest.

Ruwen removed the lid from the small hole in the shed’s floor and placed the gravity sphere inside like a seed. Sitting back down, he admitted to himself that his soul still remained silent.

Instead of continuing to search for sounds, Ruwen contemplated what might have caused the damage to the prison surrounding his soul. Could the Literary Aneurism spell damage the soul in addition to the mind? That didn’t seem likely to Ruwen, but he didn’t know much about these types of things.

It was possible the spell had a soul component to guard against Cultivators. But wouldn’t the mental damage be sufficient to kill anyone, Ascended or not?

Ruwen wished for the thousandth time that he could talk to Rami. She would probably know, or figure out quickly, what had caused the damage.

Thinking about Rami reminded Ruwen of what she’d said to him when he had initially tried finding his soul. He’d been sitting with Padda as they worked together to find where Ruwen’s soul resided.

Ruwen thought about that conversation.

“I think Dusk gave you a clue as well,” Rami said. “Right after she offered you the Shadow Step Grandmaster path.”

“Really?” Ruwen asked.

“When I looked through your memories, I felt like she emphasized this phrase right before you left. She said her sisters weren’t ‘thinkers like us,’ when talking about your soul.”

Ruwen returned to the present and cast Campfire. Leaning toward the fire’s warmth, he thought about Rami’s observation and what he knew of Dusk.

Dusk, one of the three sisters who had created the Bamboo Viper Steps, had said little in the short time Ruwen had spoken to her. The Bamboo Viper trial had exhausted him, and he’d almost failed to reach the top of Mount Sorrow.

Ruwen had hoped one of the two Founders of the Bamboo Viper Clan would be there to meet him, but neither had appeared. Instead, he’d discovered Dusk, the Grandmaster of the Shadow Steps, whose moves hid inside the Bamboo Viper forms.

Ruwen’s experience speaking with Uru, Blapy, and other powerful beings had taught him they rarely spoke lightly. And usually, their words had double meanings. Blapy did this the most.

So when Dusk said her sisters weren’t “thinkers like us,” when talking about Ruwen’s soul, it had importance. The fact that Rami thought Dusk had emphasized that phrase meant it was likely a critical piece in finding an answer to his smothered soul.

What did “thinkers like us,” and Literary Aneurism spell have in common?

The obvious association was they both affected or used Ruwen’s brain. But the soul linked to a person’s identity, not their mind. Maybe Dusk had wanted to provide a clue to the location of his soul.

Ruwen had eventually found his soul between his shoulder blades, as his identity had shifted from pure intellect to carrying the burdens Uru placed on him. But maybe his identity had still resided in his mind during the Step Clan trial.

Ruwen shook his head and held his hands closer to the fire. While the feeling of responsibility had increased after he’d returned home from the trial and began preparing for the war, his identity had already shifted away from his intellect. He knew that because he remembered the horrible feeling of pulling the weight of his soul up Mount Sorrow, and it had centered between his shoulders.

That meant Dusk knew as well. Why then bring up “thinkers”?

The campfire went out, and Ruwen sighed. He hadn’t discovered the reason for Dusk’s comment and had no idea why the Literary Aneurism had damaged the structure around his soul.

But Ruwen had reached one conclusion. The trap had somehow caused damage. Which meant, after returning home, he needed to find another Wyrm Hole trap with an even bigger Literary Aneurism spell tucked inside.

Find one and trigger it.