The Astral soul system-Chapter 223: Hopeless

Looking at the skills, Zyro only had one thought for GK

’Nice looking out ’

[Astra is depleted]

[Transformation cancelled]

The lights all suddenly stopped and Zyro was left standing at the edge in his human form.

"Not bad"

"I can only keep it up for about ten seconds so I’m loosing about ten every second?"

"Something like that "

Syl was still watching him closely

"Your energy is weird."

"Huh? Why?"

"I should be able to vaguely sense your affinity when looking at it but none of the elements reacted to you. In fact it was almost like your energy was destroying the residual elemental energy in your surroundings "

"That’s..."

Zyro wasn’t sure what to say.

"Quickly recharge. You still have a lot to learn "

He nodded and walked back into the cave, using the accelerated absorption speed to fill up in a few minutes.

"Good, now do it again. Open your domain "

Zyro nodding and closed his eyes, trying to get into the same mental state as before.

After a few minutes, he suddenly noticed something

[Host has indirectly triggered transformation]

He quickly transformed back into his Astral form despite not having meant to. He looked to Theia for an explanation about she just shrugged.

"Your ’Essence’ as she put it is the most pure form of your very being,body and soul. Perhaps you can only use it in your true form. The human disguise probably makes it harder.

It didn’t change anything,at least for now. He just closed his eyes and continued.

It took him a few minutes to once again reach that state and when he opened his eyes, he saw the same sight he saw a few minutes ago . The surroundings a few feet around him were surrounded with little bits of mostly black glowing dust being emitted by his body.

"Good, now try to create a mental link with it"

"How?"

Syl sighed

"Everything within this space is under your control. Try to.... move the glowing bits of energy,or whatever"

That wasn’t very encouraging but Zyro took it to heart anyway.

He closed his eyes again and just like they said, he could still "see" perfectly well within the domain

’okay, just like meditating. Just bring them all together.’

He let out a breath that resembled steam at this point and in front of him,a single speck of energy stopped in front of him,then another, and and. It was a pitiful amount compared to the ones he was loosing but he didn’t focus on that. He brought all the ones he could control together in front of him, slamming them into each other and steadily increasing their size

"Good, now -"

"Done"

Zyro said. Ten seconds were up and everything stopped immediately, disappearing into thin air.

Syl sighed

"Again"

Zyro repeated the process, again, and again, and again and again but he never got past that point. It was getting dark now and Zyro stopped meditating and looked up at her

"What’s the point of all this. I’ll never be able to control all of them and even if i do, the amount of energy I’m loosing won’t be able to justify the power I’ll be able to put out.

"That’s not the point "

Zephyr suddenly interrupted.

He hadn’t spoken this whole time and now that he did, his voice sounded choked... nostalgic.

"You’re close but you’re missing something "

Syl sighed.

"It seems this world really is different from mine. I was trying to help you understand magic in its most basic and pure form"

"Well what is it?"

"Intention. Will. The power of your soul"

"My soul is in three different pieces. Is that what could be wrong?"

"I don’t think so. It’s almost like you have no willpower at all, not even a catalyst "

"That’s it"

A skill suddenly showed up on the system screen

[Astral tongue]

[The world listens to your voice]

That’s right, he’d forgotten about this one. It costed no energy and didn’t do anything no matter how many times he tested it. Not to mention the ridiculous skill description.

"What’s this supposed to do"

"Magic in its beginner stages has need of a catalyst, speech "

"You mean chanting?"

"I...think so. Will itself is not enough in the early stages. You need to voice your intentions to the natural forces"

"Natural forces?"

"I’m... not sure but I think that is what you call Astra "

He sighed and stood up, intending to try again.

Ten minutes of meditation later, he’d entered that state again and his energy was draining fast.

’What do i even say?’

He opened his mouth and was about to speak when his energy suddenly bottomed out. Before he could react, he was sent flying back, slamming into a wall and then into the pool.

When he stood up out, he gripped his hair, screaming out. His red eye glowed with fury.

"Aaaagh!!! Damnit,god fucking damnit!!! Nothing works! Nothing fucking works!! And it’s all thanks to this stupid destroyer bloodline!!!"

Just before they’d been sent flying, they’d indeed felt something. But the moment it came in contact with them it was ripped away almost instantly by the mutation.

Both his eyes were glowing with annoyance and rage as he splashed around wildly in the pond.

Syl just sighed. Nobody bothered telling him to calm down. They all understood his annoyance. For most of his life his own body had been fighting against him and the mutation had almost killed him on multiple occasions. They finally got a chance to get stronger and a few days ago all their hard work had been ripped away. Every attempt they made to get stronger in any direction was rewarded with nothing but pain, and more steps back and now the same mutation that denied them an ability was rejecting their use of magic.

Theia shuddered remembering how painful the evolution was when he went through it, and now he was back at the starting line like all that had never mattered

She tried thinking of another way, anything that might help but it was all pointless. That collar on him was suppressing everything, even their growth, and any attempt to take it off would lead to,guess what? More pain.

He collapsed into the water, slowly floating to the top.

"Give us a minute"

He said. They weren’t even sure who exactly was talking but no one bothered him

After exactly a minute, Zen got up out of the water, which was really just pure energy.

He noticed it gave him a few buffs.

Increasing his energy absorption rate and speed and passively recharging him.

"I wonder if I could bottle some of this up and use it in fights"

None of Zaine’s indignation was present in his voice. In situations like this where both Zyro and Zaine’s emotions got out of hand, they’d decided to let Zen deal with things until either calmed down.

"Zen"

He nodded.

"Let’s forget magic for now . Syl"

She perked up, looking at him.

"Right before it failed, I felt something. Like all the energy in the surroundings was gathering into a specific point.

She nodded

"When you cast spells,you don’t use your own magic as fuel. You infuse your will into some of your mana and when it’s released it will attach itself to ambient energy, communicating your intention. The ambient energy is then what fuels the spell"

"Like replicating cells"

Zen mused

His energy was meant to influence the surrounding area to carry out the spell for him. Perhaps that’s why chanting was important.

’i wonder if I can put that concept into my skills ’

"Something felt different this time though. I think your world still functions a little differently from mine. Your weird affliction isn’t helping either"

Zen looked at his hands

"It’s a curse,stuck with me since birth"

"If only it were that easy "

Zephyr replied.

"If it was just a curse we could find a way to cure it, but this... this is part of who you are"

He sat back down, the wind in the dungeon blowing in his hair. The previous energetic air when they started was long gone. Now everyone just felt down.

He could just go back to leveling, though it would probably be ineffective. Right now it would probably take maybe a week to hit the next level, and even then,all his level up stat increases were divided by three. So it’d just be a week worth of effort for a third of what he would have gotten when he was just starting out

"What about you, Zephyr. Any bright ideas?"

"I-"

[Notice]

Hmm?

He opened the system and saw he had an exclamation mark on the inbox.

He tapped on it and a message showed up.

[Received anonymous gift]

Anonymous? Seriously? Who else could it be but GK?

Were they trying to cheer him up?

He tapped on the "Anonymous" gift

[Exp giftpack]

He tapped on it and when it opened...it was the exact amount required for his next level up.

Seriously?

Could GK actually TRY to fit the description of a mysterious system admin?

Right now they seemed more like a helicopter parent, giving him a treat since things weren’t going his way.

[Would you like to level up?]

The increase in strength from a single level up was almost unnoticeable since all of his development had been divided by three. It honestly wouldn’t help much.

"Might as well -"

"Wait!"

Before he could tap it, Zephyr stopped him.

"What is it?"

[System intelligence: Zephyr,is requesting to use exp for personal functions]

"Seriously?"

"Like you said,boy. It’s useless for you right now. But I might get some use out of it"

Thinking about it, this was probably the best way to use the giftpack. If Zephyr remembered something important that could help his current predicament, he might have a way out. It was better than just getting a 1/3 increase.

"Sure. Go ahead"