PenguinKills
patreon
Chapter 108 - I'm Still Here
🕑 Added 2024-08-14 20:03:26 +0000 UTCWith my newly upgraded Law, there wasn't a lot I had to do before the wave arrived. I could have scrambled around putting last-minute preparations up but I didn't feel the need.
I was stronger now than ever and the wave wouldn't be that hard compared to yesterday's fight. The only one I really had to be wary of was the last wave. This wave, the 27th, would have the first E-Ranked boss but even that wouldn't be a first for me.
It would be different in that it was an E-Ranked beast this time instead of a human, but I didn't think it would be that different of an outcome.
This wave would have lesser monsters at level 44 and 45, with the four mini-bosses at level 47, all topped off with a boss at level 50. Only one E-rank didn't seem that bad.
It was when every monster was in the E-rank that would be a problem, but I had just over a week to figure out how to deal with that. I hoped to have my Spirit Anchor by then.
Speaking of Spirit Anchors, that was how I spent my time before the wave arrived.
Meditation had never come easily to me and doing it in the cold only marginally made it better. It was easier to relax and get into the right state of mind for the process. My meditation skill upgrading also helped.
It had a more pronounced effect now that it was upgraded which I hadn't noticed before. I had always used the skill as a self-heal to speed up my recovery but it was so much more than that.
It helped keep me in the right state of mind without letting outside things distract me. It did nothing for my chaotic thoughts but I would take every bit of help I could get.
After trading for, and buying, all the information about Spirit Anchors that I could get, it revealed that they were most commonly formed during meditative bursts of insight.
It was one such meditative burst of insight I was trying, and failing, to induce. They typically formed from deep dives of introspection and were caused by insights gained during meditation.
A concept that was completely foreign to me and wasn't going so well. My bouts of meditation before didn't go well either but this was something that I would have to get better at.
Meditation was how people broke through into higher-tiered Laws and gained insights into their Spirits and a bunch of other things. It was the basis on which most people built their power base.
Meditation wasn't a necessary part of the process of enlightenment but it was by far the most common. It was also the safest. Attempting to gain insights during battle was a good way to die young.
A lot of things could go wrong during a battle that could cause your early demise, especially when it was a particularly difficult battle, where most breakthroughs occurred.
The fact that Jonathan got lucky during his wasn't lost on me. It was something that I desperately wanted for myself yet also was something that I couldn't rush. Every time I tried to push it, it felt like it edged further from my grasp.
My musings weren't aimless, but they also weren't concrete. I was trying to feel out different Anchors that I could possibly use. The options were near endless, though, which made everything harder.
They could be an object, an idea, a phrase, or pretty much anything. Phrases were the most common but that didn't mean that mine would be one.
I tried using a bunch of things as my Anchor but nothing felt right. Ice, my hammer, the armor I made. Everything that was currently in my possession.
Nothing felt right.
I also didn't really know what I was looking for and was mostly going with the idea I would know when I felt it. Another thing that I was assuming about this whole process.
The only thing I had to go off of was the only two times I felt anything close to forming one. It happened once after the fight with the Vine Bears and it happened again during the fight with the Mindbreaker.
Neither time was clear enough to gain a better picture of what I was supposed to do. It made me jealous that Jonathan had already formed his. Jealous that he knew who he was while I was left to grasp at straws in the dark.
Frustration was easy when it didn't feel like I was making progress and it was hard to keep the feeling at bay. Juggling trying to make progress without trying to rush it was a thin line that I was attempting to walk down like a tightrope.
I was lucky that a chime signaled my stress relief would be arriving soon. If anyone told the monsters that they had been relegated to such a role they would surely spit blood.
Not like any of that mattered in the long run. They wouldn't live long enough to figure it out.
While the fight was cathartic and a much-needed reprieve from the hours spent fumbling about, it didn't work to get me any closer to my goal. The only thing it did was cover me in blood that I had to wash off. It certainly raked in the points, but wasn't the inspiration I was hoping for.
It seemed this would take longer than I thought.
~~
I was about ready to throw a fit after two days passed. I knew this was supposed to be hard but this was borderline obscene.
After the days of meditation, I had gotten better at feeling it out. My sense of what was the right track versus the wrong one grew the longer I spent contemplating it.
I had narrowed it down somewhat but that was about it. For the Anchor itself, it felt like a phrase was the best bet. No object or concept had the same feeling that a phrase gave off.
Narrowing it down further than that was what had taken so long. There were countless phrases and millions of combinations of words that I could use. While it helped to know the direction to go in, knowing it was a Phrase helped little.
Still, I got better. At first, if you don't succeed, try, try again, or some shit like that.
The information from the store said you could force a Spirit to accept an Anchor, but doing so was a good way to cripple your potential. Phrases or objects that were close enough, could be forced into submission. It resulted in a weaker Spirit Anchor than forming one naturally but some were content with good enough.
The Anchor was the base that all future Spirt powers were built on top of. If the Anchor wasn't the best it could be, the future powers wouldn't be the best they could be either. Permanently weakening myself wasn't something I was after.
It was building on a faulty foundation and it could lead to catastrophic effects. Still, people who clawed for more power and were stuck at their Rank because they didn't have an Anchor would gladly force one if given the chance.
The farther away the Anchor was from what it naturally would have been, the weaker it would be and the more it would affect your future.
To reach higher ranks, more than one path of power was needed and if someone crippled their Spiritual futures with a forced Anchor, they would be forced to rely on the other two and be forever barred from godhood.
It wasn't clear what the requirements were for godhood but the information said a forced spirit anchor would forever bar you from it.
Forcing it wasn't my intended goal anyway so I paid that information little heed. I still had time to figure it out without resorting to such lengths, but I did plan on using it as a guiding light.
If it felt like it could be forced, then I was on the right track and I was close.
With it being a phrase, I parsed out things I thought it could be. I knew what Jonathan's was and I was basing my thoughts on that. His was pretty cool honestly.
'You have to go through me first' was a dope line to be your Anchor.
If mine turned out to be something stupid I would never tell anyone what it was. Especially Austin.
Trying to feel out different phrases was both annoying and fruitless. It literally could have been anything and I had no idea where to start other than random ideas that came to mind.
I tried using hammer in the phrase, something about my family, even something about Honor even though I knew it wouldn't work. Honor wasn't who I was, it was an ideal I wanted to uphold.
Jonathan was a protector, so his phrase was related to that.
Finding out who I was still hadn't revealed anything noteworthy. I was a warrior, a leader, somewhat. Even trying to use something about my bloodline didn't work.
I fought like a Frost Giant in theory, but nothing about them felt right. It wasn't who I was.
To mix it up and spend some time meditating in a new environment to get ideas, something finally hit close to the mark.
I mostly stayed in the camp where it was coldest during my meditations, up on the Crow's Nest for the best view. It was both relaxing from the cold and scenic from the height.
Not knowing what would spark inspiration, I went where it felt right and that was overlooking the area at the top of the Crow's Nest.
Still, it got old sitting there for a few days and I had ventured out to a few different spots. I ran over to the mountain for a bit and a few other places.
I even tried meditating on it while fighting a fallen pylon nearby. It wasn't a dangerous fight and I had tried to use the relatively safe battle to spark something.
Most of my enlightenments had come from battle and that was an idea I tried to pursue.
The place that had brought me closest to the answer was the cemetery on the hill adjacent to the camp we had built. I didn't visit it much before now because I had been too busy trying to gain strength.
Now that I was spending time outside of combat, I visited a lot more. Also because it was where my father was. He was the one I would usually turn to with something like this.
He always knew the right thing to say to get me on the right track. If he was still here, he would have been able to point me in the right direction.
Trying to talk it out with the headstones was what I had turned to. Obviously, they wouldn't answer, but it helped to voice my thoughts out loud to hear them verbalized.
It was slightly depressing to do for long periods of time, but it was also a way to grieve.
As I looked over the 13 headstones, a sense of sadness was hard to ignore.
It was hard to not feel defeated looking at them. To feel that I had failed somehow. I knew that it wasn't my fault and those feelings were baseless, but that didn't mean they didn't exist.
It was hard to get the rational side of my mind to get rid of the pesky emotional side's thoughts.
It was in one of my darker thoughts that something sparked. Playing with different phrases led me down a rabbit hole. Starting with one would lead to another, leading to another, and soon, you were nowhere close to the phrase you started with.
Sitting in front of the people who were no longer here with us a new phrase came about.
'I'm still here.'
Saying it brought about the feeling I was aiming for. At the core of my being, power reacted to the phrase I had muttered. It wasn't perfect, and I could have forced it, but I didn't want to do that.
Saying it over and over wasn't helpful. I knew it wasn't the phrase I was going for but it was close to the real one.
Still, I couldn't get it out of my head. 'I'm still here.'
Was it some twisted sense of survivor's guilt that made it close or was I focusing on the wrong thing?
The feeling said it was close, but it didn't specify what about the phrase was close. For all I knew, it could have been the number of words or something else silly like that.
I doubted it, but I also didn't have enough to go on to say any differently.
It certainly didn't feel like it was how I viewed myself. It sounded too... defeatist for my tastes. Like someone who had given up.
I knew for a fact that wasn't who I was.
It was a clue, though, and one I would use. It was coming up on three days of trying to figure it out and it finally felt like I was making progress.
'I'm still here.'
~~AN~~
We're getting close! I'm curious to hear what you guys think it will be in the comments below. To give you guys a clue, I've hinted at it before.
Comments
Demonlord
I think the phrase will be something like "I'm not dead yet"
Demonlord
Thanks for the nice chapter 😊
Oladipupo Oluwasile
Make me
Haran
The phrase is clearly «I’m still standing»
Baconwargod
Despite everything I’m still here.
James Faulkner
Awesome introspection, Tftc!
Wolven
I didn’t hear no bell
Blake
Well he usually fights alone on his side, I was referring to just the enemy. But I do agree that there are definitely better options
TheLazerCat
Though that also feals a little "defeatist" as well. Like he is accepting that all his family is going to die and it will just be him left lol
Dylan Phillips
Cold to the heart I think you said in that one chapter in bold?
Christian Roberts
I am everlasting
Blake
Last one standing would be nice
