Chapter 389: Soul obsolescence

Lvl Up: [Pyro Champion Physique] lvl 2
CONST +9
VIT +3
META (Endurance) +6
META (Authority) +9

From the Legendary rank onward, skills became a nightmare to level up—a fact Priam had already noted with [Free Will], [Ciphered Record], and [Virus Resistance]. In fact, he should soon be able to downgrade the latter; only one prerequisite remained before he could unlock its ideal Epic variant.

This steep curve in progression was likely what kept a so-called Tier 2 like Gold Fangs from mopping the floor with him. Even after decades of effort, the man had failed to max out his Legendary skills. Without a single Mythic ability to his name, he was a paper Tier 2 who thoroughly deserved to get bullied by the Juggernaut.

If each Legendary level-up demanded either an epiphany or a feat, then devouring the equivalent of a miniature star certainly qualified. Priam’s new ultimate was so destructive it had leveled up one of his resistances all by itself. And yet, what ought to have brought pride now filled him with irritation.

[Tribulation]: One attribute above 2 100 were detected in Tier 0.
A Tribulation is coming.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 1 200 / 3 attributes > 1 800 / 1 attribute > 2 400

[Tribulation]: Five Tribulations pending.
Future Tribulations delayed until:
Time: 2 months 11 days 7 hours 48 minutes 17 seconds.

“This is starting to piss me off...”

There was no world in which Priam would face another quintuple Tribulation as a Tier 0. He refused even to entertain the thought. Even a double was more risk than he cared to accept right now. Still, he wasn’t overly worried, as he had at least two ways to sidestep the quintuple and keep moving forward.

The first was to raise the Tier of his race. The second was to buy one of his last Merits.

[Jack of All Trades - Legendary] - Tier 0: Allows you to redistribute your attributes, once.

With that, Priam could slide his stats back under the thresholds that triggered a System trial. A shame to burn a Merit point for a temporary reprieve, but if it meant staying alive, he wouldn’t hesitate.

“What’re you gonna name it?”

Pulled from his thoughts, Priam turned toward Osiris.

“What?”

“Your ultimate. The blood orb that turns into a star, and then collapses into a disintegration beam. By the end, there were so few cells left of Gold Fangs that even the Demiurge had trouble bringing him back!” The teen tried to mimic Priam’s exhale but ended up spitting instead. “Ahem. I was thinking: Dragon Bloodfire Sacrifice.”

“Sounds violent,” Rose commented.

“That’s the point! It’s evocative.”

Priam remained unconvinced. “Do I really need to name it?”

“If you don’t want to spend five minutes describing every single fight, then yeah, you’ll need to start naming your techniques.” Seeing Priam raise an eyebrow, Osiris grinned. “Plus, let’s be honest, it’s cool.”

Rose rolled her eyes and walked off, muttering, “Boys…”

Priam watched her join Blueberry for a snack, then leaned toward Osiris. “... Blood Phoenix’s Breath?”

“Not bad!”

The Champion smiled—until he noticed Osiris fidgeting, wringing his hands.

“You’ve got something on your mind.”

“No?”

“Spit it out.”

The teenager opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked off into the distance.

“Your lifespan.”

Priam raised a brow.

“Got a medical opinion to share?”

“Yes, but… this might not be the best place for it.”

Priam glanced around. In the center of the arena, the Demiurge’s portal to Elysium stood open. Every few seconds, two or three people crossed through, returning to the tribal camp. Thousands still waited their turn, and the Oasis team wasn’t even in the first half of the queue.

“We’ve got another fifteen minutes or so. Plenty of time.”

“That’s not what I meant. There are ears listening.”

“Mmh.”

The elves hadn’t set up any sort of fast-track for VIPs, so Priam stood in line with the rest of the rabble. Unlike the leader of the Aelbes, he had no attendant to queue for him. And unlike Braato or Arnold, he wasn’t about to cut in front of thousands of people. Not that anyone would have dared to stop him after his last fight, but he was too polite to abuse his strength for something so petty.

As a result, he and his team were hemmed in by tribespeople. He didn’t mind—in fact, he had just spent half an hour shaking hands with a hundred admirers. Apparently, neither the tournament’s chaos nor last night’s necro-massacre had cooled the fervor of some fans.

Having never idolized anyone himself, Priam found it all rather baffling.

He turned—and blinked in surprise as he caught sight of Jasmine signing a Gaesert woman’s left breast. Despite losing to Rohan, the assassin remained wildly popular.

“If these folks are spies, they’re doing an excellent job…” he muttered.

“You’re less paranoid than I expected,” said Osiris.

“I’m not paranoid—I know my enemies are willing to do whatever it takes to harm me. My caution is earned,” Priam replied with a grin, then a shrug. “I'm not afraid to talk lifespan, because I know they won’t wait for me to die of old age.”

Seeing Osiris wince, he smoothly switched to Duatian. “On second thought, let’s use your native tongue. Let them think we’re talking about something important.”

“You just want to mess with them,” grinned the teen. “Fine by me. It’ll make this easier to explain.”

Priam chuckled. “So, am I dying soon?”

“Well… depends on what you mean by ‘soon.’ But yes.”

“…You really need to work on your bedside manner.”

“You really need to stop burning your lifespan like kindling.”

“Touché. So how much time do I have?”

“I don’t know exactly. Tier 0s don’t all have the same lifespan.”

“Ah. I assume it depends on one’s race?”

On Earth, some jellyfish were functionally immortal. Among vertebrates, the Greenland shark held the record, living anywhere from three to five centuries. Then again, most opossums barely made it past three years. Nature could be cruel.

“Once you reach racial Tier 4, most species have more or less conquered senescence—the biological process behind aging,” Osiris explained. “Practically speaking, their cells divide with almost no loss of information or degeneration. The first two vitality milestones have a similar effect. Other races use different tricks—rejuvenation, genetic error correction, etc.—to extend their lifespan. Of course, nothing’s perfect. But for low and mid-Tier beings, the soul is often the weakest link. When it deteriorates—naturally or through spiritual illness—only one thing can delay the process that leads to death...”

“A High Tribulation,” guessed Priam. “The main reason people seek to Tier up.”

“It’s the soul’s baptism at the end of the High Tribulation that fortifies it—not the trial itself. But yes, that’s the gist,” Osiris conceded.

“I suppose I’ll find out for myself soon.” The second Reunion was drawing near, and Priam had been advised to reach Tier 1 beforehand to reap the full benefit. “So, what’s the verdict? How long do I have?”

Given his monstrous vitality, he expected to have centuries ahead.

“Well, how long would you guess a Tier 0 can live?”

“I dunno... Five hundred years?”

Osiris held up two fingers. “Most Tier 0s top out at two hundred. Give or take a century, but not much more.”

“That’s it?! Some sharks can live twice that long!”

“And olive trees can live over a thousand.” The teen shrugged. “Our researchers found that extreme longevity tends to show up in animals that hibernate or run their consciousness at low power. What matters is wakeful time. Experiences lived. Decisions made. Aether spent. Probably why monks who spend years meditating tend to push back the Reaper’s visit. Same goes for ancient trees.”

“Still—two centuries—”

“Hey up front—are you moving, or do we need to shove you forward?!”

Priam blinked and realized they had stopped moving. The conversation had been so engrossing they had let the people ahead of them walk on, leaving a gap in the line. He flipped off the heckler and caught up with the queue.

“Two centuries isn’t much…” Priam trailed off, his mind drifting to one of his great-grandmothers. She had celebrated her centennial in such a state of decay and loneliness that it had shattered his youthful dreams of a long life. Then again, he himself had lived several lifetimes in the span of a few months. “…and yet, it can be a lot. I suppose if one lives like Achilles, it’s more than enough.”

“Achilles?”

“A Greek who chose a short, glorious life over a long and dull one. A Hero.” Priam felt his Aura stir and wrestled it back down before their neighbors panicked. “In the end, what happens? How do you die when the body remains healthy—when the heart and brain still function?”

Osiris winced. “Mom’s patients used to talk about a calling. Like—”

“Like a force that beckons the soul more and more insistently,” Priam finished. “A request that becomes a summons.”

Most would only hear that call once. For Priam, it came almost daily.

[He Who Eludes Death], huh? More like [He Who Ignores Death]. She calls, and I ghost her.

“Exactly. When the soul nears its limit, the Wheels of Reincarnation exert a pull with dreadful consequences. Spiritual illness, weariness with life, accidents… In the end, the individual lets go.”

“The Wheels recycle a soul before it nears its limit,” Priam repeated, narrowing his eyes. “Before it becomes... apocryphal? So lifespan’s a safeguard. A failsafe to prevent bugs in the system. Shit. Death is soul obsolescence.”

“Could be,” Osiris replied. “There are other theories. Some of our biomancers believed that if a soul couldn’t withstand a High Tribulation within two centuries, it had no chance of ascending further. So it gets sent back to start over.”

“That’s a cold, elitist view.”

Osiris offered a faint smile. “Half our people didn’t buy into it. Among necromancers, the more common belief was that the soul suffers because life is hard. If it doesn’t seek immortality, then the world shows mercy by granting it rest. Seth used to say: ‘Death is to life what restful sleep is to an exhausting day.’”

“Funny how necromancers are the optimistic ones,” Priam muttered, ignoring the mention of his corrupted rival. What could you say to a grieving brother?

“Those who walk beside the dying know how heavy a heart can grow.”

Priam considered both Duatian doctrines and eventually shrugged. At their level, the meaning of life was a philosophical quandary. Without reaching at least Tier 7, they would never have a definitive answer.

As they gradually approached the portal, the Champion ruminated on Osiris’ revelations. The teenager might not be right, but his theories didn’t contradict anything Priam currently knew. Until something proved them false, Priam saw no reason to dismiss them.

“So what’s stopping us from studying a bunch of High Tribulations? Figuring out how they strengthen the soul and replicating it?”

“Our own incompetence,” Osiris said bluntly. “Everything I’ve told you comes from the observations of my ancestors. They linked cause and effect. Easy. But studying the impact of High Tribulations? That means examining a soul directly. Even our best necromancers never managed that feat. How could they, when the soul’s nature is still a mystery? Is it the bridge between body and aether? Nope, that’s the spirit, a special meridian. The sum of one's experiences, the seat of the ego? Sounds more like the mind…”

“The breath of aether that animates us, the spark on which everything else is built,” Priam offered. Given his Breath Concept and [He Who Eludes Death], that definition felt right.

“Reasonable,” Osiris said after a thoughtful pause. “But still too vague. What I’m saying is: studying the soul is a challenge way above our heads. Which doesn’t mean there’s no answer to your question about extending lifespan. The Necromoon’s a Tier 9. According to my brother, it can manipulate, rebuild, and reshape souls on a large scale.”

The Juggernaut and the biomancer moved forward again before Priam brought the conversation back.

“Can you measure how much I’ve got left?”

“I’m a biomancer, not a necromancer… but given how tightly your body and soul are linked, I should be able to get a read.”

Seeing Osiris hold out a hand, Priam took it. A wave of aether surged through him, then flowed back into the boy.

“Four hundred kilos at two meters tall.”

“I’m dense,” Priam shrugged.

“That’s one way to put it! Your muscle fibers are unbelievably compact, and the metal in your bones... Rose’s are mostly made of calcium and phosphorus in chemically incorporated ionic form. I couldn’t even begin to identify the atoms in your skeleton!”

Priam just grinned. “Long live my resistances. So, physically, I’m healthy?”

“Exceptionally so. Spiritually, though… With your race and vitality, you could have hit two full centuries. But cannibalizing your lifespan to overclock your regeneration is idiotic. And with your soul so tightly connected with your body, you’re burning it twice as fast. Given your current age… I’d say you’ve got sixty years left. If you stop doing dumb shit.”

Priam winced. The synergy between [Four Headed Hydra] and [Homo Elysian Obsession] definitely had its downsides. Then again, it did double his healing speed…

“Nothing you can do? Maybe with the next evolution of Homo Elysian?”

The portal was only a few meters away now. Osiris stared through it, lost in thought.

“Mmh… I could try introducing a lag between your body and soul. You get hurt, and the damage takes a few minutes to reach the spiritual layer. Would give you a window to heal before it scars your essence. Of course, that won’t give you back what’s already spent.”

“That’d be amazing,” Priam said with a smile. “But if it’s going to delay your work, don’t bother. I’ve got the System breathing down my neck…”

In just over two months, the Tribulations would descend, and Priam had no intention of facing them. His plan was to Tier up his race to raise the attribute thresholds. That way, he could level up freely without triggering a deadly trial. Grind without worrying about attributes… Living the dream!

“With all the samples you gave me, I can bang it out in fifteen days,” Osiris boasted.

“I’d rather you not bang it out. Take your time. Don’t forget your promise: you swore to craft me the finest Tier 3 race in Sector Hope,” Priam smiled before stepping through the portal.

*

Status: 

PHYSICAL:
Strength 1 253
Constitution 2 106 (+13)
Agility 1 652
Vitality 2 099 (+7)
Perception 990 

MENTAL:
Vivacity (D) 666
Dexterity 983 (+89)
Memory 1 152
Willpower 1 298
Charisma 960 

META:
Meta-affinity (O) 1 405
Meta-focus 886 
Meta-endurance 1 596 (+9)
Meta-perception 861
Meta-chance 1 089
Meta-authority 784 (+16) 

Potential: 33 711 (+4)
Tier 0

[Tribulation]: Five Tribulations pending.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 1 200 / 3 attributes > 1 800 / 1 attribute > 2 400

*

Osiris - the last biomancer