Edan shifted forms, his speed changing as he did. Sometimes he blurred, his body pushed to the limit of what his stats could provide, other times he slowed, his movements becoming minute as the muscles along his arms and back bunched. With explosive force he'd twist, his arm swaying through the air as he released all the stored energy.
The world around him faded as Edan focused only on his body. He felt the energy coursing through his limbs and when he slowed down he felt it recoil, returning to his center, preparing to be used again. It never settled and it never calmed.
Stepping forward, Edan spun on the ball of his foot, his body shifting parallel to the ground. Edan felt the breath in his lungs and exhaled.
Using his torso like a counterweight, Edan twisted and flipped, landing lightly he sunk low and dove back, catching his weight on his shoulders and neck. His arms drove down on either side of his head and he kicked into the air. He felt the energy within him rock back and forth and finally it clicked.
It’s body cultivation! Edan realized. The revelation pulled him from his training so abruptly he tripped. Catching himself, Edan turned it into a cartwheel before folding into a seated position on the ground.
[New Passive Unlocked: Dance of Titans]
The notification made Edan smile. Pulling it up he had a look at what it said.
Dance of Titans [Rare]
There is expression in dance and freedom in movement. Each step you take leaves its mark, each movement an improvement.
Fear not the Titan who sings, fear the Titan who dances alone.
Modifier: +.1 Strength, +.1 Constitution, +.1 Endurance, +.1 Dexterity,
+.1 Charisma, +.1 Willpower
“Holy shit!” Edan exclaimed out loud.
“What has happened?” Tali said, her large form looming over him. She was so big she actually blocked out the late afternoon sun, throwing Edan into deep shadow.
“I got a passive, Dance of Titans,” Edan explained what it said and the modifiers he had received. Tali listened a small smile on her face.
“That is good news.” She said, motioning for Edan to move with her so they could continue talking. She walked over to the pool and began to clean the blood off her hands. “It means you are one step closer to taking the ink.”
“The description...I have to ask, are there Titans who actually sing?” Edan asked, scratching his cheek.
Tali laughed as she rolled up her sleeves, exposing muscular forearms, and splashed water over them.
“There are some who call what they do singing.” Tali looked at Edan and smiled. “It is more of a battle cry, in truth.”
“And it’s a passive?”
“You can get three passives. Body, of which the Dance of the Titan is, the mind” Tali tapped her chest and then her head, before finally tapping her sternum. “And the soul. The battle cry is a passive of the soul and they use it to bolster their willpower before battle.”
Edan whistled at the implication. Willpower added to Constitution and Endurance to affect total health and stamina. Edan imagined someone like Tali with a massive health pool rampaging across a battlefield, tireless and unkillable.
“Do you sing?” Edan asked half curious and half joking.
Tali shook her head but refused to elaborate. It also signaled the end of their discussion so Edan hopped up on one of the smooth rocks and looked out over the pond and waterfall. He allowed his consciousness to fade. He had someone else he needed to annoy.
“I have a body passive!” Edan said, as soon as he appeared in his SoulScape.
Kiba was standing at the bottom of the slope, his hands clasped behind his back, as he stared out at the light flickering between the slowly moving sea of cloud-shaped Vitalis.
“From the Titan?” Kiba asked, turning his head just enough so he could see Edan. “That is impressive. They are known for their physical passives.”
“I also leveled up!”
“I know, kid, I felt it.” Kiba jerked his chin towards the clouds as Edan came to stand next to him. “Bet you a thousand tokens you can't run across that.”
“Hard pass. You’re broke and I don’t like the look of those clouds.”
“Fine. Be boring.” Kiba said in exaggerated defeat.
“I have my question.”
“Of course, you do, kid, but first I want you to tell me what you remember about Legacies from our last post-level chat.”
“There are three types of legacies. Origin, which mine looks like, even if it is all broken and crappy. This is when you do something, or the system judges you capable of doing something, that will be so monumental it will be remembered always. A legacy.”
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Kiba looked sideways at Edan. “Feel like you're destined for greatness, kid?”
“Yeah, I’mma greatness my boot up the Four Star Sects ass,” Edan said, flashing a smile that was all teeth, before saying more seriously. “I don’t really care, to be honest. I don’t need greatness. It’s not the goal.”
“A good mentality to have. Those who seek it and don't obtain it often go mad…or desperate.” Kiba gestured for Edan to continue.
“The second legacy is a Found Legacy. These are legacies left behind by lost masters with unique classes or professions.” Edan started walking since it helped him think. Kiba matched his pace. “These aren’t always the greatest since they may not resonate with your own class or path. And the last is an inherited legacy, where the legacy is passed down from one cultivator to the next.”
“And it's the biggest pain in the ass. Several of the strongest factions in the Wider Realms are only up there thanks to their Legacy. Like the Legion of Trip.”
“The legion of Trip?” Edan laughed.
“Yup. The story goes, old man Trip wasn’t much of a cultivator, but he was a bit of a gambler. He owed debts to just about everyone on every planet in his cluster. You can’t get money from the dead, so people began to target his family. You know, hurt them and threaten the rest and Trip would have to pay up.”
Edan nodded.
“Well, Trip gets tired of it so he trains his sons. Apparently, he had a lot of sons, kid, I mean a lot! Apparently, if the guy wasn't gambling he was fu-uhh, well...So he trains them, but because he isn’t very good, the methods he teaches them aren’t very good. They start dying. So Trip trains the rest of his family. All of them. They learn to fight together, to make up for their lack of skills.” Kiba shrugged, brushing hair from his face and tucking it behind his ear. “They seemed to fight better when they were fighting for each other.”
“The power of friendship and family.”
“Which doesn’t work, so don’t expect any boosts of power if something happens to your family. Anyway, shut up, I’m telling a story. Eventually Trip dies, but money is still owed and the debtor collectors are still coming, so the responsibility of protecting the family goes to the eldest. But he dies and the next oldest takes up the mantle. And so on and so forth. Somewhere along the line, someone gained a Legacy. The Legacy of Trip. They fought harder and became stronger, the more family they had around them.”
“That's pretty handy.”
“Sure. Especially when the Legacy evolved every time it passed on. It went from a small boost when around family to a substantial boost, to a boost around anyone you considered an ally, to a boost to the allies too. Now the boost of every person with the legacy fighting together stacks. The Trip Legion used that legacy to grow from a family in debt to one of the largest mercenary factions in the realms.”
“Ok, that's kinda scary.”
“And that's one of the fairly new Legacies. Imagine a faction that has been around for millions of millions of years, their legacy evolving and changing.”
“What about you?” Edan asked, curious. Kiba had talked so dismissively of the Four Star Heavenly Sect gods but showed respect towards the Titans, even mentioning Major gods.
“Is that your question for today?” Kiba shot back.
Edan almost said yes but snapped his mouth closed. Kiba had been right. Curiosity was a dangerous thing.
“No, I wanted to ask you about Paths.”
-
Edan rose back to consciousness slowly. The sun had set, moonlight shone down from overhead, turning the pool into a silver disc. Getting up and stretching, more from habit than need, Edan hopped off the rock.
The smell of roasting meat filled the clearing. An orange glow from the campfire bathed most of the clearing in its warm light. Edan could hear the crackle and hiss of cooking fat. Sparks flew into the air to dance among the rising smoke like fireflies. Tali sat on her hunches close to the flame, turning great slabs of meat over as they cooked on heated rocks.
The firelight made her amber eyes glow and threw a long shadow out behind her.
Edan would have worried about the smell attracting monsters but he knew Tali kept them away. He never felt her aura, but he knew she used it.
Settling down quietly beside her Edan went over his conversation with Kiba in his mind. It had been both frustrating and insightful. Frustrating since the primordial had no idea why he would have locked Paths. Insightful because the knowledge on evolving his Paths had been interesting.
Kiba had theorized that the locked Paths may have been inherited from his parents but Edan didn’t know how to go about investigating that.
Kiba's other theory was when Edan had absorbed the Vitalis in the pool, Vitalis that was from destroyed treasures Kiba had found on his travels all over the Realms, he’d somehow absorbed more than he should have.
When Edan asked if you could absorb a Path that easy, Kiba had gone ‘Ehhh, who knows.’
The rest he had learned was interesting and more applicable and Edan couldn’t wait to apply it to his training.
Tali slid the hot stone over to Edan, the large steak sizzling on top. Kiba had pointed out his increased fire resistance thanks to his Path. The heat didn’t really bother Edan now. Snatching up the steak Edan began to wolf it down. He felt the Vitalis-rich meat hit his stomach and a rush of energy coursed through him.
The pair ate in silence, just listening to the sound of the forest around them as they each unwound.
The occasional roar of an animal would sound out. Often far away. Often accompanied by more roars as some other animal rose to the challenge. Sometimes the sounds of the fight would reach them as distant growls and screeches. Sometimes it faded to nothing.
Today the roars started early and rang out across the entire forest range. Edan looked up, a chunk of meat in his mouth and juice smeared across his face. Even Tali stopped eating to listen.
There was an answering roar, loud and ringing. The answering roars sounded more like howls and Edan felt the hair on his neck stand up.
Tali stood, the steak still in her hand, and looked off into the distance.
“What's wrong?” Edan asked.
“The roar is familiar to me,” She said, frowning.
The howls came again, more distant now. The answering roar was just as loud and equally as defiant.
“Little mother,” Tali muttered before looking at Edan. He thought he saw concern in her eyes. “Remain here. I will return.”
With those final words, Tali moved. Within three steps she'd reached the pool and on the fourth, she jumped over it entirely. She landed on the cliff above. Edan had barely raised his hand by the time she vanished over the lip.
Left to listen to the sounds of the warring animals in the distance, Edan tore a chunk out of his steak and spat a bit of bone into the fire. It popped, sparks flying into the air and smoke shifting towards his face.
There was the sound of leaves rustling behind Edan and he turned, his spirit sense unfurling like fingers. He couldn’t sense anything. The higher branches of the tree shook and Edan glanced up, his perception stat working overtime to let him see through the dark canopy.
Edan saw eyes staring back at him, the pupils like twin discs of silver as they reflected the moonlight. More eyes appeared next to the first. Then more.
“Well, fuck.” Edan muttered, preparing for a fight.
