B5 Chapter 63 – Ascension

When the Unseen smiled a final time and flicked a finger towards him, Tyron felt knowledge slam into his mind as it never had before. In an instant, his head felt like it would burst out of his skull. Runes and sigils engraved themselves into his brain, as if seared there with a branding iron. Through the blinding pain, he parsed what he could, even as he felt his teeth would crack from the force he had clenched them.

As it turned out, he had known a little of how magick could be destroyed. The Unseen, perhaps unsurprisingly, knew quite a bit more. Tyron had worked out how to destroy the magick coming through a gate, to siphon it off and use it against itself. That was a neat trick, but the Unseen had grander designs. Dragging the energy from an entire world and crushing it in hyper-efficient engines of absurd complexity and power.

Sigils and images flashed through his mind, letting him see exactly what the Unseen had in mind, yet he knew what a monstrous undertaking it would be to build something of this magnitude.

When he opened his eyes again, his temples still throbbing from the onslaught of information, the Unseen remained in place, resting with his chin propped in one hand, looking bored.

“Is this enough time?” he said, seemingly talking to someone close to him that Tyron couldn’t see. “How am I supposed to know? I could be talking to a weird spider-thing, or ant. You expect me to know how fast they can process information?”

Tyron sat, blinking as the strange creature in front of him continued to stare blankly, tapping a finger against one leg. It was fascinating in a way. The Necromancer could see the patience draining out of the being who, to him, may as well have been a god of magick.

“Surely that’s enough. I’m just going to keep going. Well, I’ve got good news for you, level eighty entity. With sufficient power invested in you, we no longer need to put as many guard rails in place, so your experience is going to change going forward. Just keep in mind, if you mess up, our magick won’t be there to save you anymore.”

Tyron blinked. Had it been there to save him in the past? He didn’t think so…

“The next stage of this ritual is going to ask you to choose three Ascension Abilities that will form the foundation of your new Class. These are going to be an amalgamation of those you have chosen before, rolling your skills and spells and sub-classes together to create… areas of expertise, I suppose. Within each of these, your capacity to develop and create your own skills will be greatly enhanced.”

Was this why his father had been so adept at creating his own unique swordsmanship abilities? Even more than Beory, Magnin had been an impossibly fast study, creating and discarding techniques almost with the turn of the season. In the face of this evidence, Tyron now had to accept that the status sheets he’d seen from his parents had been, at least in part, falsified. No doubt they had been bound to all sorts of secrecy at the cost of being allowed to exist at the platinum rank.

Not for the first time, he wondered as to the circumstances that had led to his parents being in the position they had. Platinum ranked Slayers were beyond rare, they almost never existed. Yet Magnin and Beory had the freedom to live where they wanted, go where they wanted, so long as they were fighting to contain the rifts. He knew the two of them had hated every restriction placed on them with a burning passion, yet he still found it remarkable they’d enjoyed as much freedom as they had.

It was a sign of just how remarkable they had been at what they did.

Still, Tyron was intrigued by what he was hearing. Three Ascensions? Combining his abilities to form new specialities? Already he was beginning to mentally comb through the list, wondering at different combinations and possibilities.

“Make your choices wisely,” the Unseen continued. “You have a great task ahead of you, the fate of your world, and all of the… whatever you are… living happy lives there. More than that, think of the next realm, the one the kin spawned in the wreckage of your home will attack, and contaminate. It has to end somewhere. You can end the cycle, or at least play a part.”

Once more, the Unseen stroked his beard, a faint smile on his face.

“If you’re a selfish so and so with no intentions of listening to my advice, then I hope your Ascension goes poorly and you develop a rash on your privates.”

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With another flick of his fingers, the Unseen was gone.

In his place, Tyron became surrounded by floating glyphs, each one with a different sigil engraved on the front. Brows raised, Tyron turned to look at each, realising that they hovered all around him. It took him a moment to recognise that each one represented a different ability that he had. Every skill and spell was there, including the simple ones like ‘Light’ and ‘Sleep’.

In addition, on the blank white floor in front of him, he saw three wooden crests, each with five slots, clearly designed to fit the glyphs inside.

“Really?” Tyron murmured.

He hadn’t expected the remainder of the ritual to be quite so… literal. Taking the glyphs, he needed to create his three specialities by combining them, with a limit of five abilities per speciality. Accepting what he was confronted with, Tyron immediately began to ponder.