Wild Era 2, Ch 23: Ascendant

When the world resolved again, Kelin was in a different place.  

He was still among the stars, but the hall and the sovereign were gone. Now he was standing on a flat stone plain that seemed to extend forever beneath a starry sky.

It wasn’t a natural place, but something made of magic and thought, or perhaps the inner workings of the Path.

Magical runes and artifacts drifted through the sky and mixed with the stars, some close and some far away.

There were spells and enchantments, books, scrolls, suits of armor, weapons, natural sources of elemental power, golden treasures, and more, thousands in all, although only a few dozen were close to him.

He knew that each of them represented a class that he could take for this Evolution. There were nearly unlimited options, but only those few dozen nearby were the ones that were really viable.

Taking something like a pure melee class would conflict with his current one rather than building on it.

His mind was a blur from meeting the sovereign, so for the moment he ignored the class choices as he let his emotions settle.

“That was unexpected,” he said quietly, gathering himself as he looked around. 

He’d never met the sovereign that casually, nor had he known that the sovereign held him in high regard and had hopes for his advancement. 

It was gratifying to know that the long years he’d dedicated to the galaxy were appreciated.

He hadn’t imagined that he would meet the sovereign during his Evolution, but it had answered his most pressing question about who had killed him. It had also given him a new goal.

To become the Sovereign of Souls.

Only then could he fully command the Law of Resurrection, or the Dominion of it, to use the sovereign’s term. He hadn’t known about the difference before. 

He knew why the sovereign had waited to speak with him and why the Path had been silent. If they had offered him that choice earlier, he might have been tempted to seize back his old power.

Then he would have ended up stuck in the same spot at Level 699.

If he wanted a new future, the path in front of him was critical. He had to choose a class that would help. Without that meeting, he probably would have stuck to Soulfire, without being aware of the greater possibilities.

Now he had to reconsider.

He was still holding the goblet from the sovereign’s table in his hand, so he looked down and analyzed it.

Sovereign’s Goblet (Eternal Artifact).

Effect: Eternally full of the sovereign’s mead, which is blended from starlight and astral honey.

Limitation: The sovereign has limited the effects of the mead in this cup, unless it is once again returned to his table. 

You have drunk from this cup in the sovereign’s hall. An unknown effect lingers. 

There were stars and celestial bodies engraved on the surface of the goblet, along with intricate runes and symbols of the elements. It was a subtle pattern that changed as he watched, moving from one scene into the next.

Before he had time to consider what the unknown effect was, his attention was locked on the words “Eternal Artifact.”

This was something that only the sovereign could create. 

If an Immortal at the Seventh Evolution forged a cup with all their strength, it would only have been called an Immortal Artifact.

He held the goblet in his hand as he shook his head and then he took a sip out of it as he looked up at the stars and the class options.

The taste of stars and golden suns exploded across his palate again, accompanied by a brief  wave of dizziness. The taste lingered with layers of fragrant apples and a touch of winter’s ice, chill and warm at the same time.

He had a feeling it would change from season to season, always perfect and unique, no matter when he drank it.

“I wonder if I can use you to block attacks,” he said as he glanced at the goblet. A bit of humor tugged at his lips, but there was no need to answer the question.

He knew that if an arrow hit the artifact, it would be lucky if it only shattered.

The shock of meeting the sovereign had kept him from asking too many questions, but now that he was alone again, dozens more filled his mind, including how the war was going, the chances of rebuilding Irian, and what had happened to his old allies.

He regretted not asking when he had the chance.

The sovereign had said he would give him back some authority over the Path, so it might be able to answer some of them.

He gathered himself as he began to seriously consider his Evolution and what to do.

A point that the sovereign had mentioned played through his mind as he looked at the crystallized section of his soul. 

That was why he’d been reborn.

Apparently, it was a combination of Primal Chaos and a Law of the Soul from the sovereign’s death magic, the essence of the two combined together.

He hesitated to say it held the Laws of Life and Death, but it was close. Hopefully, he would be able to make use of it in the future as a cornerstone of the Law of Reincarnation.

And that brought him back to the choice of his class for the First Evolution. He hadn’t planned on anything related to reincarnation, but now he had to consider it. 

He agreed with the sovereign’s assessment. It would be the peak of soul magic if he was able to master that Law. 

It would also mean that he would be effectively unkillable and perhaps even able to bring back other people to live again.

Perhaps Irian could flourish once more...if the people could be reborn.

He gave it due consideration, but at the same time, he didn’t know if it would be possible or even wise, since perhaps their souls had moved on. He would look into it when he had the ability.

Right now, his new class needed to be able to incorporate the Law of Reincarnation, or at least to lay a foundation for it, but he couldn’t diverge too far from the Laws of Soulfire and Wildfire, since those were what his core power was based on. 

He needed to find a way to merge them.

Normally, the Path would provide a mentor of sorts during an Evolution, someone to speak with who could advise on the best class choices and help you decide, but for him there was no one.

Even if there had been, he would have sent them away so he could think.

He’d already spoken with the sovereign, and between that and his own experience there were few who could match up. 

Time here moved strangely, so there was no rush. No matter how long he took, only an hour would pass outside.

He considered his options, studying everything available to him and considering the future. Eventually, he came to some decisions.

First, he was already accessing the Law of the Soul through Fire. That was the nature of Wildfire as well as Soulfire. 

If he was going to master the Law of Reincarnation, it would be the easiest to do it through Fire too.

It was his Path and there was no need to diverge. 

That led him to the question of how.

As he considered it, Serai’s dream of an ice phoenix came to his mind. He didn’t know why she had that dream or if it was even related to him, but it did remind him that phoenixes were legendary for their ability to be reborn through Fire.

If he wanted to find a Law of Reincarnation in the future, it seemed like that should be his angle of approach...something like a Flame of Reincarnation.

To reach that, he would have to plan his class abilities at each Evolution to create it. 

Each Evolution had to add a critical part that would eventually combine into the right Concept at the Fourth Evolution, and then to the correct Law at the Fifth.

Whether or not he could comprehend that Law was still up in the air, but he would try.

He spent a while considering the various aspects of Reincarnation and what might go into it. 

Eventually, he decided that he needed core abilities focused on the soul, healing, rebirth, life, death, renewal, continuation, a cycle...and perhaps memory or other related things. 

Even if it wasn’t perfect, it would be a good platform to build on.

Fortunately, he already had a lot of them. He just hadn’t been using them for that.

Wildfire and Soul Ignition would work for the death aspect. 

They could potentially become something else in the future, but their main job was to burn the soul, which was on the right path.

Touch of Soulfire and Soul Recovery were a good start for healing, along with Soulfire Body Refinement to recover from mortal wounds.

All five of those together should create an aspect of life and death, but he was still missing a sense of continuity, something that would bring them all together to create a cycle of rebirth.

As he searched for the right ability, what surfaced in his mind was a Law he already had a foothold on.

The Law of Endless Flame.

By its nature, it already had one of the necessary concepts.

He had been using it for its power, as had the old civilization and the royal family that had built the Temple of Mist, but perhaps that was the wrong way to approach it and the reason why they had failed to fully realize it.

Perhaps he could focus on the sense of Endlessness and leave the flame as secondary, but still important. That might allow him to merge it with Soulfire and Wildfire in the future.

He could see part of the necessary Path, but not all of it. 

There was no Law of Reincarnation in the galaxy. He was going to have to make it and he could only guess how to get there.

He also still had to follow the path that was in front of him, taking one of the available upgrades to his current class, which meant sticking with the development of Soulfire.

If he took the right class with the right ability, however, he could create a platform where it would be possible to sidestep into something that was closer to his goal.

He reviewed the classes available to him. 

Some of them were Epic and others Legendary, but he paid less attention to that than to their main abilities as he searched for one with a concept that could absorb and redefine Endless into itself.

He didn’t need a flame that burned endlessly, but rather a flame that endlessly renewed itself in a new cycle. 

Eventually, he narrowed down his choices to the one that seemed the best.

After that came the list of subclasses, since that had to Evolve as well.

Unlike in his first life, he knew the mystery of the higher Evolutions and that his subclass and class abilities would eventually merge into a singular concept. 

He could use it to fill in areas where he was lacking.

The class and subclass floated in front of him, represented by abstract symbols.

First was a flame.

It was the gold of soulfire at the center and tiny soulfire runes rose and fell inside it, including Blaze and Ignite. Those runes burned more brightly as they moved outward, making the flame turn golden white at the outer edge.

Then there was what looked like an ancient mirror. 

The edges were carved with runes and the surface resembled a talisman, except that its surface reflected the flame next to it. In that reflection, there was a faint second flame as well, like an echo of the first.

He studied the two abilities and then he drew on his Ability Artisan and Soul Artisan traits, making slight changes here and there.

He couldn’t change them too much, but this was the time to do it. A slight nudge at the origin could change the future course of a great river.

When he was done, he nodded.

He reached out and touched each of the symbols and then he looked at the stars in the sky.

“I accept this class and subclass,” he announced.

Acknowledged, the Path answered, its voice shaking the heavens.

The two symbols flew toward him and the world turned into golden flames. It was all he could see in every direction. 

His mind expanded outward and it felt like he was becoming one with the Void.

Streams of energy from every direction gathered, spinning through his body. They were massive torrents like the stars had descended and were leaping through his veins. 

Most of them were made of soulfire.

Runes blazed through his mind and awareness as his body was infused with mana. His mana reserves condensed and then expanded again, filled with new density, and the same energy infused his skin and bones, rebuilding him in every part.

Increased mana density was the major advantage of the First Evolution.

As the flames burned, he felt his class changing and the new abilities settling in. 

Eventually, the flames dissipated and he was standing beneath the starry sky again. His skin blazed with soulfire. 

Notifications rang in his mind as everything settled into place.

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

You have achieved the First Evolution.

Your Class has Evolved from Soulfire Warden (Legendary) to Soulfire Ascendant (Legendary).

A Soulfire Ascendant gains 9 Intelligence, 3 Aura, 3 Wisdom, and 6 free attribute points per level.

You have gained a new Class Ability: Ascending Flame (Basic).

The longer your flame burns, the more intense it becomes. The mana cost rises with the duration. This ability may be used alone or as support for your other Abilities and Spells. 

At the Basic tier, this ability enables you to enhance the power of your spells by 50% over two minutes, at which point they will maintain that level of intensity until the spell is ended. The mana cost of the spell increases by 25%.

This ability was the beginning of the Path that he’d settled on. For a flame to be reborn, first it needed to be strong. 

Ascending Flame would boost Soulfire Inferno and Wildfire the most, as well as the flames from his soul arrows and Soul Ignition, but it would also apply a secondary effect to Soulfire Bolt and his wards, so that the longer they burned, the stronger they became.

Now that he had reached the First Evolution, he would only get one more Class Ability at Level 150, so he would have to make the most of this one. 

That was how the higher Evolutions worked. 

Classes and subclasses gained a new ability at Levels 100, 200, 300, and so on, while classes also gained an ability at Level 50 in each Evolution.

The trade-off for having fewer new abilities was that they were much more significant. There would also be plenty of time to upgrade them.

He turned his attention to his subclass. 

Your Subclass has Evolved from Arcane Artisan (Rare) to Mystic Artisan (Epic).

You have gained a new Subclass Ability: Mystic Echo (Basic). 

When you activate a talisman or artifact, you are able to summon an echo of its power as a second cast. This echo occurs immediately after the initial activation.

At the Basic tier, the echo is 10% as strong as the original, but as the ability improves, the strength of the echo will increase.

If you activate an artifact you’ve created yourself, the echo will be twice as strong and can be infused with your abilities.

He was rather proud of this one, since the Epic tier of this class was due to his efforts and not just to Wildfire. 

In the future, he could probably upgrade it again if he got some Heroic abilities.

Mystic Echo was also the result of his ability tinkering. It was a powerful ability that drew on the Law of Endless Flame for its second cast. 

It was the closest he could get for now to something that focused on renewal. 

As the ability improved, he intended the echo to become a full second life, one that would lead into the concept of Reincarnation. 

For now, it would help to make the use of his talismans and artifacts even better.

As the abilities settled in, the Path’s notifications continued to ring in his mind.

From Level 100, you gain 3 Intelligence, 1 Wisdom, and have 5 free attribute points to assign.

Kelin tossed the free points into Aura and the Path continued.

You were holding a Level in reserve, which can now be granted.

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

You are now Level 101.

You gain 9 Intelligence, 3 Wisdom, 3 Aura, and have 6 free attribute points to assign.

He added those free points to Aura as well. Then he glanced at his attributes.

Strength: 125 

Constitution: 209 (+75% durability, recovery, and resistance to mortal wounds from body refining.)

Agility: 116 (+24 Increased Agility from boots + Improved Sure Footing)

Wisdom: 225

Intelligence: 728

Aura: 340

Charisma: 102 

His attributes were coming along. 

Now that he was at the First Evolution, they would grow over twice as quickly. He had gained a total of 9 points per level before and that had jumped up to 21.

Legendary and Heroic classes were about the same in terms of total attributes, but lower tiers like Epic, Rare, Uncommon, and Common received fewer.

A Common class would be forced to upgrade to Uncommon at the First Evolution, and if they didn’t qualify for it, the Evolution wouldn’t be possible. Even then, it might only have 5 or 6 attribute points in total.

Over time, it was an insurmountable gap.

Higher Evolutions required more power before they were possible, and the simplest equation of power was how many total attribute points you had.

One of the things he’d learned from the sovereign just now was that if he wanted to become a sovereign himself, he needed to vastly increase the power he had available.

One of the reasons that the sovereign had managed it was because of his race as an Astral Titan, and he was still the only one of his people.

He had also said that the key moment was at the Sixth Evolution, not the Seventh, like Kelin had imagined. It was something that had probably tripped up most of those who tried to reach that height.

Those were secrets of the universe that people would kill to know.

Besides the few points he could get from training or stressing his attributes in a fight, he only had one route to raise his power independently, and that was with Wildfire.

He was going to need to gather a lot more Aura.

Once he finished this dungeon with the others, he would have to take on some solo ones and wipe them out in a massive burn. It would go hand in hand with rising swiftly through the First Evolution.

As for the targets of choice, there were a few more undead dungeons around that would do the trick.

The sovereign had called killing undead his “current hobby.” Perhaps he would make it one for real. 

He chuckled at the thought, but it was a cold sound. 

It would be a small amount of revenge. 

Now that he knew who had killed him, he couldn’t allow himself to be beaten down so easily. 

It might bring him more attention, but the sovereign had already said he would block the highest levels. There might be some high-Evolution undead or followers of Undeath who would notice, but he would deal with it when they came.

Even doing that, however, he couldn’t focus just on undead dungeons. There simply weren’t enough of them.

He sorted out his plans and when he was comfortable, he checked on Gaius. What he saw made him smile.

Like him, the elemental had also Evolved, but in his case it was more straightforward.

Gaius. Earth Elemental (Adult). Level 101.

The elemental had been Young before. Now he’d matured. 

He’d undergone the same type of mana density enhancement and improvements as Kelin, and his abilities had also grown. 

His presence was three times as strong.

At this level, elementals didn’t have classes, but once he reached a higher Evolution, there was a chance he could get a unique Earth-based one.

Along with his age, his thoughts were more fully formed and complex, the same as a human’s, but he still had the abbreviated speech that was common to elementals. 

You’ve grown stronger. Good. 

The words rumbled in Kelin’s mind like boulders colliding. They were full of amusement and curiosity, accompanied by a mild impatience.

It’s been hard on you, Kelin replied. I’m glad you’re stronger too.

Together, we rise...like the mountains, Gaius replied. His words were accompanied by a sense of the entire earth rising upward and blotting out the sky, until there was only stone covering everything.

Yes, Kelin agreed. Let’s get back to it. We have a dungeon to clear.

Gaius rumbled in approval.

Kelin glanced up at the sky.

“Path,” he asked, “what is my current authority?”

Kelin of Highmist. Lord of Wildfire.

Former Archduke of the Path and Star Rank Adventurer.

Your base authority has been raised to that of a Knight, equivalent to a Gold-Ranked Guild Adventurer.  

It will continue to rise with each Evolution until you regain your former rank. 

“Are you able to answer my questions now?” he asked. “Beyond the default notifications about levels?”

Of course. The Sovereign has approved it.

Kelin smiled at that.

It seemed like the Path was talking to him again.

A Knight Rank was lower than the Platinum-ranked Commander who was in charge of Lareth, but it was equivalent to the Gold ranks right below her, which should include Hugo Whitestar.

It didn’t matter for most things, but at the very least, he would be able to get answers to some basic questions and more information about dungeons and politics, including what was happening on other worlds.

He could also start to use some authority with the Seal of Silver Stars, if it came up.

At his gesture, the starry sky around him dissolved into streams of golden flame.

Then he was standing back where he’d been before the Evolution, beside the pool where the remnant aura of the Lord of Fear had been.

He looked down at himself and saw that the damage from the revenant’s dark Wildfire was gone. He had fully healed, probably from drinking from the sovereign’s mead more than from the Evolution. 

Explosive strength crackled through his bones and his body radiated a stronger and more dangerous mana density.

He nodded in approval and then he saw motion ahead of him. 

Maro, Galin, and Serai were walking back out of the mist above the pool. They were covered in blood, but they were alive.