The Astral soul system-Chapter 200: Codex Moirai

Theia chuckled nervously

"Hehe. So..."

"What happened?"

Zen asked looking through his stats. First of all there were a lot of notifications that he quickly glanced over.

[Congratulations!]

[Successfully created Royal codex]

[Please name codex to complete --#Error#]

[Codex successfully named]

Zen was curious when he looked at that. Try as he could, he couldn’t remember picking a name for the codex. In fact, he couldn’t remember anything after... they became whole again.

He ran it by Theia but she said that she didn’t know. She had seen it through the system interface when he named Jade, but hadn’t been able to trace it with the codex.

Forgetting about it he looked at the codex and the moment he saw it he hummed slightly, meanwhile the other two had much more visible reactions.

[Codex Moirai: 2(infantile)]

"Moirai..."

He muttered under his breath.

"Why that name?"

"Is that name something special to you,boy?"

Zephyr asked.

"It was my...our...It was supposed to be my name"

"What do you mean?"

"Hecate wasn’t the first choice. Moirai was. I don’t know why they changed their minds but I didn’t ask questions,it was the same either way"

"That’s...odd"

Freya sighed before explaining.

"Children in the Arcade aren’t born with names. They earn them by rite of passage. The ones who succeed get a name. The ones who don’t..."

Theia looked up at Zen.

"So you passed?"

"Yes and no. We don’t remember it but after passing the trial something happened to Azrael. He broke mind shattered. The problem was that Azrael was the first this had happened to. Usually failures break and die during the test, but he survived. Held on till the end and he came out on top. But..."

"It was too late"

Zaine finished.

"Then..."

Zyro continued

"The leader,Q was our... mentor,leader..."

"Father?"

Theia asked

"We don’t call him that "

Zen’s voice cut through

"Oh"

"For some reason, he decided that someone with the talent to pass the trial and excel without an ability deserved a second chance rather than a quick death. That’s our working theory at least"

"..."

"We don’t remember how he did it. We don’t even remember when. One day we were just... like this , and we had been for a while. Like it was always like that"

"..."

"We still remember bits and pieces of our old laugh, and simultaneously we don’t. There’s no way to explain it. We are him, but he is not us. Zen Zaine and Zyro are just aliases. Our real name is Hecate. Of course Azrael already had a name,so maybe that was part of the confusion "

Theia’s head dropped low as she started to think of all the possible ways something like this could have been achieved. Even Zephyr and Lilith were stumped.

"That’s not the point "

Zen said, cutting story time short

"Moirai. We remember them mentioning it about us. Saying "The boy is not the one" and "His destiny is split ". It’s interesting to see that here now. It seemed like nothing at the time.

He looked at his hand and mused

"Could he be responsible for this?"

Theia shook her head, trying to get rid of those thoughts.

"Forget about that for now. Try summoning the codex"

"Summon?"

"Just use the system. You’ll figure out how to do it yourself later"

Using the system interface, Zen hit summon on the codex, noticing that it didn’t cost any energy.

As soon as he did,a bright flash of light suddenly shot out of his chest and before he could react, he felt like something was moving inside him

A glowing object slowly pulled itself out of his chest before hovering in the air in front of him. Despite having never seen it before, Zen couldn’t help a feeling of familiarity when looking at it which suprised him. He shouldn’t have been capable of such emotions. That wasn’t his function.

"This is a codex?"

He asked looking at the floating black orb a little bit bigger than a bowling ball.

Looking deeply he felt he could see a hint of purple in its depths but he wasn’t entirely sure.

"Hold out your hands"

Doing as she said, he held his hands out together and watched as the codex slowly lowered into his hands, glowing faintly.

"What...is it?"

"It’s your codex"

"A codex is a book"

Theia shrugged.

"What does it do?"

"Check it’s stats first"

[Name: Moirai]

[Status: Awakened]

[Cycle: Infantile]

[Rating: Royal]

[Kin:2]

[Available souls: 2]

[Soul Avatar: Locked]

[Primordial cultivation technique (locked)]

[Soul form: Cards]

[Fate rating: Forbidden]

"Moirai. Your name is Moirai"

He muttered, not expecting a response but suprised when it faintly glowed, causing a strange feeling in his chest.

"Is it alive?".

"Technically? It was created with a piece of your soul so on some level it’s just another you. Just...a little bit less sapient"

"What’s it for?"

"I feel like a better question is what doesn’t it do? It’s basically a medium for you to channel souls and their skills "

"Wait. You mean I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time?"

Theia shrugged

"Technically.... but it didn’t hurt"

Zaine’s harsh voice cut through

"Yes it did you stupid AI. We almost died because we couldn’t handle it, multiple times!"

Laughing awkwardly, Theia avoided looking at their face, continuing her explanation.

"Basically it’s like a wizard’s orb used to cast spells in games. It channels your energy more efficiently and can be used to cast soul skills and a few others. Plus it learns. Anything you can do with Astra,so can Moirai. There are also more uses but you don’t really need those yet."

Zen didn’t bother asking about the locked ones and insted clicked on the kin icon, already having expectations on what it might be. After all the quest notice was right in front of him 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

[Quest: Save an ally and keep a promise]

[Quest succeeded]

Jade was alive, and seeing the number two on the codex, he just wanted to check.

[Kin]

[Hecate??? Moirai(Rank2 Astral)]

Was Moira considered his last name? Like some sort of clan name.

He didn’t think about it and looked at the second name

[Jynx Moirai(Rank1 Astral)]

Moirai did seem to be some sort of clan name now. And yes he’d used Jade’s mother’s name for her. He couldn’t even remember what he was thinking but it still felt like an understandable choice.

"Jade is alive, and... she’s like me... Did i-"

Theia nodded

"It was the only way"

"So she’s like me now "

Zen started thinking. Jade wasn’t like him. She had a life,a family,or at least a father. How would she react the first time she transforms.

This was going to flip her life upside down

"Does she even still have her ability?"

Theia nodded with a bright smile

"Yep, and a little something extra too"

Theia clicked Jade’s profile and her status came up

[Name: Jade Kitty Callisto]

[True name/Soul name: Jynx Moirai]

[Species: (Rank1 Astral)]

[Class: Soul sage]

[Profession: Ranger(Arcane)]

[HP : 200]

[Astra: 100]

[Strength:20]

[Agility: 15]

[Endurance: 15]

[Intelligence: 15]

[Charm: 30]

[ Wisdom: 10]

[Codex: Moirai]

[Souls: 0/5]

[Mutation: Innate Kindle (prefrontal cortex)]

[Gifts: Dimensional gate]

[Astral gift:???(Unawakened)]

And the proof was right here.

Jade was no longer human

"What’s with the second gift"

That seemed to be what Theia was most excited about

"I told you she’d get something good. That’s from the sprite and the ritual. Unfortunately I can’t see what it is. We probably need to wait until jade uses it"

Closing Jade’s or was it Jynx now?

Whatever

He closed her status and focused back on Moira.

"Soul form?"

He activated it and Moira began to glow brightly before shrinking, transforming into three playing cards.

They flew into his hands and he caught them. There were pretty plain white cards on the back, but when he flipped one over he saw a stunning portrait of Freya sitting on a rock, smiling gently,her hair flowing in the wind and a huge storm behind her

He looked lower and saw written in glittering golden letters

[Indra: Storm Deva(fate:locked)]

"Indra."

The name Freya had earned" after passing her trial.

He looked at the second card and saw an equally stunning portrait of Lilith. A vibrant red dress adorned her pale skin,her eyes shining like rubies. She looked like she was in some sort of castle,seated at a throne but for some reason the floor was pooled with blood that trailed from her hands.

[Void usurper]

Zen didn’t see anything about fate this time so he just assumed it was an Arcade thing.

He looked at the last one and was surprised to see it completely black.

He assumed this one was for Sylphie,so perhaps it was because she hadn’t fully been assimilated.

He looked at the cards and suddenly threw one of them as hard as he could.

The card spun in the air in a straight line, confusing Zen before he suddenly realized.

"There’s no wind here"

Still, he opened his hand and held it out, attempting to pull it back with the mental link and the card immediately stopped before spinning back into his hand.

"I can control them. Just like..."

Zen suddenly looked down, realizing he was still in his Arcade uniform.

Almost immediately the suit turned into mist, flowing towards his empty hand before forming another card.

This one was pitch black with the Arcade symbol engraved on the back. On the front was an image of him in the same costume.

"This is..."

"Something all players have. One of the gifts given after surviving the trial."

"Think of it like a video game character’s skin. It doesn’t really do much other than look cool...most of the time "

Freya explained.

Suddenly remembering something, Theia suddenly asked

"Right, Zen. That thing you did, with the mark. How did you do it?"

Zen blinked and just shrugged.

"What does that mean?!"

"I don’t know. They never explained it to us"

Facepalming, Theia groaned

"Okay, just... how do you do it?"

"If she allows"

"What?"

"..."

"Okay. Can you continuously do it?"

Zen shook his head

"Why not?"

To that he couldn’t explain. His eyes just blanked and suddenly his left eye glowed, the arcade symbol briefly appearing in it.

Theia’s face fell but a look of understanding also dawned.

"Programming... "

She looked at his wrist where the symbol was still faintly glowing

"That’s how... but...why?"

"What are you talking about?"

Zen asked, his eyes back to normal.

Theia opened her mouth to speak but suddenly closed it, sighing.

"Spoilers?"

She nodded. She wasn’t allowed to tell him something that out of his league.

"There has to be some way"

They went silent for a bit before Zyro suddenly spoke up

"Oh, I’ve got an idea. Give me the body"

Zen shrugged and got up from the throne , allowing Zyro to take it.

As soon as he opened his eyes, Zyro opened the system.

"Let’s just call the administrator"

He said simply, preparing to place the call.

They’d practically given their number to them and had specifically said to call if they needed something.

"Alright,Theia. Do it"

He said, taking his hands off.

A speech to text screen suddenly appeared in front of him like usual

...

...

...

[Heya! How are my favorite little gems doing. Why did it take you so long to call again?(⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)]

They were temporarily shocked. Emoticons? Since when had the administrator started acting cute.

[So,I see everything’s going great. You’ve formed your codex and turned your first. Yay you!(⁠✪⁠㉨⁠✪⁠)]

[So? Are you calling to celebrate?]

"Yeah-"

"Focus!"

"Right, sorry"

Zyro quickly reminded himself what they were calling for

"Actually no... We were wondering if you could tell us something about Aegis"

[Typical, only ever call when you want something(⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)]

Zyro laughed awkwardly. They really hadn’t expected GK to be so... human?

Usually beings like her behind systems in books were usually mysterious and aloof. But right now, Zyro could actually imagine an average man or woman on the other side, texting while pouting.

He also couldn’t believe she’d actually signed a contract with them like a normal person before giving them the system. It all seemed so... mundane

It was quite refreshing.

[Fine. An Aegis you say? My those are rare, especially after the last era ended. You’re talking about that thing on your arm right?]

"Yes! Exactly that"

[Well I’m not exactly supposed to tell you. I made those rules for a reason. But since you asked so nicely...ಠಿ⁠_⁠ಠ]

The messages suddenly stopped and after a few seconds, Zyro suddenly realized what they wanted.

"Please please please please please please"

[Oh,calm down little gold, you’re flattering me(⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡]

[Alright,if you’re going to beg then i guess what I can say is... you’ve gotten close to solving this little mystery before. Remember this?]

An image suddenly appeared on the screen. It was a large room with a floating mass in the center. The mass was constantly shifting and changing but it most constantly resembled a sphere.

"Yes i do. It’s right after river Styx and the mirror lands"

"Where the hell did you grow up?!"

Theia asked exasperated.

[Yep! Your little situation is really closely associated to that. Plus it’s not even an Aegis, not really. It closely resembles one though]

[Oh, and one more thing. Whenever you use it,do you usually get the feeling someone’s watching? Or listening?]

Zyro nodded.

[That’s cuz someone is]

"..."

[Satisfied?]

Zyro nodded. At least now he had a direction.

"Thank you"

[Hmph. You better. And don’t take so long to call next time,or I’ll make you regret it. Bye gold,bye ruby, bye obsidian. I’ll see you little gems soon]

The administrator ended the call there, leaving Zyro standing there.

"So.... Where exactly is this?"

Zyro sighed

Near my old home. The playground