Mask of Humanity

The human was doing it again. Kleos observed from the side as it stood, and from how it positioned itself, how it breathed, how its body moved as it struck the Symbiote with its Soul, he knew it had just grasped something that took most months or years of focused training to understand. The human made it look easy, but in truth combining the movements of the body with the Soul, using one to reinforce the other, were amongst some of the hardest skills for fresh Cultivators to learn.

He had told it to use its Oma to grip the Symbiote, but he hadn’t told it to do any of the rest. He hadn’t had to. It was even using its Soul Sense properly, as an extension of those strikes.

It settled back down after its latest Soul strike, and its breathing was in what could only be a recovery cadence. It sat cross-legged, a crystal in either hand, the ubiquitous position of a Cultivator restoring their Soul and Oma to the peak.

Right now, it didn’t look like a weird monkey playing with things it didn’t understand.

The human looked like a Cultivator.

###

‘Ha!’ Nicolai grunted as his palms struck towards the Symbiote. At the same time as his body flexed and moved so did his Soul, tensing, contracting to strike, his Soul Sense squeezing around him, squeezing between his palms and the Blue Hornet. It turned denser and denser, a wave of tight force.

The blow crashed into the weakly struggling Blue Hornet and at long last its shield broke with a pop, one that sent some kind of strange ripple out through the colourless energy in the air around him.

The Hornet stilled, and Nicolai grasped it. His Soul Sense squeezed into it, through it, and there was no resistance. Without any effort or thought from his part, he felt how his Soul Sense was marking the Symbiote, making it his. There was a kind of Soul Sense within the Blue Hornet, its own Soul? But now that he was inside of it this was twisting, changing, until it resembled his Soul and Soul Sense.

The Blue Hornet relaxed, and he felt its state normalise. Now, it reminded him of his Seed. He was connected to it and he felt what it felt. Simple desires. It wasn’t hungry. It was curious.

The Blue Hornet shimmered with electric blue light, then it transformed. Surprised, Nicolai was unable to react in time as it became hazy and mist-like, dissolving and melting into his skin.

He gasped as it moved through his Soul, treating it like a body of water through which it swam. It seemed to know where it was going, seemed to feel its target, and it reached it in short order. The Blue Hornet reappeared within his heart’s Node, and there it seemed to be full size but rendered tiny in the oddly large space held there. It flew into the cloud of Oma in the middle and curved circles around the black twist, Oma swirling in its wake. It seemed happy, and eager to draw on that Oma and act, but it didn’t do so. It required his permission.

Nicolai opened his eyes, moving his awareness away from his Node, a smile on his face. He’d done it.

Hours had passed, and yet he knew that he wasn’t going to sleep, not yet. He had another task this night. A glance around revealed his Mark pulsing, and tapping it he was unsurprised at what he saw.

You have completed a Challenge: Break in a Symbiote.

Claim Reward?

Nicolai accepted the reward. The stone rippled but only a hand rose, which told him this was considered a minor Challenge, not worthy of a proper Reward Shrine. He felt that was a little unbalanced considering the effort it had required for him to get to this point, but Nicolai wasn’t the one who decided these things. He collected two pouches. One of them held a five-hundred points-tag, the other held ten Oma crystals, and he added it all to his store.

He had another task, and part of him wanted to move immediately on, to get started.

But there was a deep and endless curiosity within Nicolai that would not permit him to move on, not just yet. He had taken control of his first ever Symbiote, and he wanted to see what it could do.

Within his Node Oma surged towards the Blue Hornet which drank it in, pausing in its flight to simply float there, the electric-blue glow around it intensifying, spreading through his Node then out of it. The Art, moving through his body.

Nicolai’s skin tingled, but nothing else happened even as the Blue Hornet continued to drink in Oma. He stood there waiting for lightning and saw none. The Examine text had said it would generate the lightning through movement, so he began to move. He broke into an abrupt series of punches and kicks, shadow boxing his way across the room, a method of movement he chose mostly because it was fun.

There was a crackling sound and blue lightning began to zip and zap over his body, and he felt it, dozens of tiny, wonderful little jolts. He felt that they were energising him, and in fact…

As his fists and feet drew him across the room, Nicolai found his movements speeding up, just a little. The Blue Lightning, even as it sucked in Oma and grew around him, was at the same time giving something back. It made him a little faster.

The lightning felt like a part of him, a piece of his Soul Sense given energy and form, wrapping him. It wasn’t quite ready to strike, he needed to move more.

As he did so, the volume of the crackling lightning intensified, blue strands roving over his body, and he felt it drawing close to the required power. The lightning surged and hummed and reached a peak, and Nicolai knew it was ready. The Blue Hornet was pulsing in his Node, half-reaching through his Soul Sense.

He sent his tendril out and touched it on the wooden cabinet on one side of his room, then activated the Blue Hornet. A blue line darted through his Soul Sense, a kind of spiritual targeting device. It hit the cabinet and the moment it did so the Art activated fully. The lightning flowed in a crackling wave over his body, onto his arm, gathered all together and then a thumb-thick bolt of lightning exploded from one of his outstretched fingers.

It lanced through the air with a boom of thunder; Blue Lightning, savage and writhing, and slammed into the unfortunate cabinet, exactly where he’d targeted with Soul Sense.

A few moments later Nicolai stepped over to see the damage done. He had to use his hands to pat out the fire on the cabinet, which left a big black mark with a hole in the centre. There was even a bit of a lichtenburg figure radiating out around it. He considered the damage with a great deal of satisfaction. Significantly more powerful than the version the Symbiote used on me.

That was when he heard the panicked yelling, and his Mask informed him that throwing lightning around while people were trying to sleep was not the kind of thing that would be gaining him any friends. He deactivated the Blue Hornet which relaxed within his Node, its blue glow fading as it flew to the inside of the shell of his Node where it landed to rest.

After dealing with the others—‘sorry, accident, nothing to worry about,’—Nicolai returned to his business.

He’d worried that by this point he would be drained and sleepy, and he did feel a little drained, the result of focusing for hours, but far less than he’d expected and there was no need to sleep. Perhaps a change resulting from integrating his Seed, becoming a Cultivator?

Nicolai rose and left his room, knocking on Jo and Beth’s door.

Jo was asleep but Beth greeted him. It was lit in their room, as they had a little lamp. He spent some time going through everything he’d learned about breaking in Symbiotes, and handed her more Oma crystals than should be necessary for her to do the same. She seemed smart and capable enough, and in his opinion the breaking process wasn’t overly difficult, just time consuming. He believed that with the information he’d shared from his own experience, she should be capable of doing it without wasting too many crystals. That done, he returned to his own room.

‘So,’ he began, turning toward Kleos who he felt blinking at him where his Soul Sense brushed the head. ‘Building a Node. We talked on this earlier. You said my heart’s Node is considered a Major Node, and works as a kind of hub. From it, I can work to grow Minor Nodes, right?’

‘That’s it. Look for the places of potential, see what’s available.’

‘Wait a sec,’ Nicolai tapped his Mark, and the menu popped out.

User Interface 376 | User #53,217

- Cultivation

Total Nodes: 1 Major, 0 Minor

Available unconstructed Nodes: 0 Major, 5 Minor

- Nodes in progress;

n/a (0%)

Completed Nodes;

Heart (Flawless) (Oma: 100/100)

The details on the left were of no interest to him, being unchanged since he’d last checked. But on the right there was the diagram of his body, which showed little specks of light, five of them through his upper body. The places of Potential. He took note of their exact positions then dismissed his Mark.

Nicolai closed his eyes and shifted his Soul Sense from its standard, passive mode, focusing it tightly on himself. He pressed inward, angling in towards the places where his Mark’s Cultivation tab had shown specks of light. He examined one of his kidneys first. It was small and Kleos had said the points of Potential should be within the organs, something that Cultivation tab had reinforced, so he figured it should be easier to find in his kidney than one of his significantly larger lungs. He was not disappointed. Where the major artery and vein entered and exited his kidney, he found a place where his Soul Sense caught, as though he were running a gloved hand over a wall and the glove was catching on a splinter and being gently tugged.

He moved on, and found an identical little rough spot in the same place on his other kidney. They were easier to detect than he’d expected. In his lungs, he found the places of potential located with a similar logic, where the major blood vessels, thick veins and arteries bridging from his heart met his lungs. The one in his airway was simply halfway down his throat.

Nicolai opened his eyes, looking to Kleos. ‘I can make five Minor Nodes. One in my airway, one in each of my lungs, and one in each of my kidneys. Where do you think would be best to start?’

‘What are kidneys?’ asked Kleos.

‘They filter blood.’

‘Lungs?’

‘We breathe with them.’

‘Ah. Go for the lungs. It sounds like with your biology, your first focus will be in the harvesting and refinement of Oma. Typically, Nodes take on purposes similar to the body parts they are created in. Creating Nodes in your lungs will allow you to draw more Aura from the air, to create Oma in your heart faster. Creating Nodes in your kidneys will allow you to support your heart’s Node in its refinement process, transforming Aura into Oma faster.’

‘Aura?’

‘The natural energies in the world that we transform into Oma. You will feel it, all around you.’

‘What about the airway, then?’

‘I’d suspect that will aid again with the collection of Oma, but will also be a good place to put certain types of Symbiote. For example, a Symbiote allowing you to breathe water might go there, or one allowing you to breathe out poisonous vapours. Depends on one’s biology.’

Nicolai nodded. The things Kleos said were entirely disconnected from the reality he knew, but there was logic in how the head described things. ‘I’ll try a lung first. Can you explain the method?’

‘Push Oma into the area around the place of potential. Form the Oma into a dense string, layer it on top of itself, the goal being to form something the same shape as your other Node, gradually growing a crystalline, spherical shell from the bottom up. As you build it, you blanket the forming sphere with Oma. This Oma supports the shell from both sides, keeping the construction steady as you build.’

‘Will it take long?’

Kleos snorted. ‘Depends how good you are at it, but it will typically take hours at a minimum to form the structure of the Node. Then days or even weeks for it to be completed and stabilised. The better a job you do, the faster you’ll be able to finish and stabilise it. I suspect your first successful attempt could take all night and even the next day. It will take time for you to grow used to the process.’ It’s gaze flicked to his bags of Oma crystals. ‘It’s good you have so many. You’ll need them. It’s expensive, building Nodes, and mistakes are costly.’

‘Best get started then.’ Nicolai grinned, a thrum of excitement and eagerness moving through him, his Mask grinning with him. He felt like a child let loose in a sweet shop without any minders, the idea of being able to simply sit there and improve himself in real, quantifiable terms appealing to him on a fundamental level.

However, before he did so, he wanted to check on the others. Mostly to sate his paranoia, partly out of simple curiosity to see what they would be up to.