PATRIARCH FOWL
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Casual Heroing, Chapter 178
🕑 Added 2023-09-02 19:54:54 +0000 UTCNext chapter comes out Monday, September 4th!
*golden = would be gold in a normal format (patreon doesn't allow colors)
LIGHTING NEVER STRIKES TWICE!!! 🌩🌩🌩
3/3 chapters this week!
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Chapter 178 – Visions
~11 Days Prior
“Are you sure, young Luciani? You seem to have an awful lot of confidence in your brain.”
“More than I have in my deadlifts, that’s for sure,” I say, massaging my sore back. “Old man, listen. There’s no way in hell I can lift that thing and keep it lifted and swing it without some genius idea. But if I want a genius idea, I need to power up my brain to the level at which it was before… well, before whatever happened to it that crippled it.”
“Crippled it?” I see a smile on the old man’s face. “You know, young Luciani, I have not heard you use such a word since I brought you to Epretos. Not even in your memories have I ever heard you referring to your cripplingthat way.”
I look at the old [Archmage] and sigh.
“Listen, I know, ok? It’s just that… I didn’t need it. I never thought that losing it was something bad. Now that I’m about to die because of what I lost… You know what they say, right? You only value something after you lose it? Wait, that doesn’t make much sense. Can’t we just get started?”
“You might die, Joey Luciani,” Magister Mulligan warns me again. “Are you sure that isn’t deterring you? Maybe you want to try something else first?”
“No, old man. And why are you so resistant? I’m going to die anyway, aren’t I? So, give me the brain shock—if I was as smart as I remember, maybe I’d survive the skill. If not, a lobotomy isn’t the worst way to go. It would have certainly helped getting through some dates with my exes back on Earth, I’ll tell you that!”
Magister Mulligan just stares at me for a while before nodding.
“[Threading Mind]*golden is a terribly powerful skill. It will cause you a lot of suffering, especially considering the runes all over your body. The permanent damage it could cause—”
“Yo, old man, are you getting soft on me? What’s up? Come on, let’s get going; we are burning daylight.”
Magister Mulligan doesn’t say another word and simply extends his hands along the sides of my head. Suddenly, a gigantic Mana pressure envelopes me, feeling like all the Mana here has suddenly been compressed between the old man’s hands and placed my head in some gelatin.
[Threading Mind]*golden
I see the golden skill flash in my head before a rupturing bout of pain tries to split my psyche apart. It feels like I’m about to die at any moment, and I can already feel blood dripping from my nose.
“Mother of f—”
“Focus, young Luciani! The clock is ticking!”
I do.
It is insanely painful, but it also made my head go in the kind of overdrive I haven’t experienced since I was twelve. Closing my eyes and trying to ignore the head-splitting pain, I suddenly visualize the problem I have been running into.
Runes. All over my body. Training. I cannot stack them together with other runes. Incompatibility. Training incompatibility. I cannot use potions because they would interfere with the runes—they are unnatural. Unnatural. What is natural? Natural and nourishing. Nourishing.
Barely twenty seconds in, I see the answer materialize in front of me.
Food! I can place the runes inside food! I could ask the old man to grant me a rune capable of nourishing my body! Food is the most natural process in the world! I can just strengthen the already nutritious property of my goddamn food in!
I am ecstatic even as I feel more blood running from my nose, wetting the sides of my neck from my ears down.
It is then that something even more marvelous happens.
Wait. Blood. Runes. Haven’t I seen them somewhere…
Suddenly, I feel something like a thread being linked to my mind. It’s a sensation I’ve never had before. Instinctively, I try to follow it, but it’s as if it’s empty. There’s nothing, but it still feels reactive. I feel something click in the back of my mind, and again, prompted by nothing but an intuitive understanding of what’s going on, I try to push my own intent through this link.
“WHAT THE—”
I inhale sharply and open my eyes, finding myself suspended mid-air. Suddenly, my senses are catapulted into a scene of a colossal scale. The biggest tempest I’ve ever seen on and off-screen roars around me, its wrath unmatched by any natural disaster I've thought possible. Gusts of wind howl like mad beasts, churning the sky and ripping it apart. Furious bolts of lightning cleave the darkness, painting eerie, stroboscopic pictures across the heavens. Fat, cold drops of rain sting my skin, each one like a miniature whip lashing out from the heavens.
And then, there are people. Tens of thousands of them, perhaps even more – a human tide stretching as far as the eye can see. They're struggling, crawling, and clawing their way up an impossibly steep cliff—steeper than goddamn Mount Everest. Hell, way worse. They have no sherpas and no help. But their faces are etched with determination and despair, their bodies coated with layers of dirt and sweat. Every muscle and every sinew is strained to breaking point, and every breath is a labored gasp for survival.
Their eyes, though, tell a different story. The glint of hope in them is as fierce as the storm that rages around them. They climb not because they must but because they choose to. They cling to the sheer cliff face as if it were the edge of existence itself, their very lives hanging in the balance.
Lightning strikes the cliff and the climbers every now and then, but the [Mages] and the [Warriors] use some insane skills to either deflect it or destroy it.
The cliff itself is a monstrosity, a jagged testament to the unforgiving laws of nature. Its sheer face seems to defy gravity, rising like a formidable wall between the earth and the churning storm above.
Even though these people are clearly strong as hell, they fall by the dozens every minute, killing themselves on a jutting rock or falling to their demise through the clouds below them.
Yet, most of the tiny figures pressed against it persevere. Their hands clutch at handholds, feet seek purchase on meager outcroppings, and their bodies pressed as close to the stone as possible. The world around them roars in anger and bellows its defiance, but they continue their arduous climb, inch by painful inch.
Suddenly, I see a figure stand out, somehow running vertically on the wall with impossible dexterity. It's a terrifying spectacle. The man has a huge sword on his back, tinted with all the blood running down from his body. He runs to the mothers and the children on their backs, helping them up and running down again. Sometimes, when the storm coalesces, and a bigger lightning bolt comes, he takes out the sword and strikes the Heavens with all his might, shattering the lightning bolt into fragments of scarlet light.
Zooming in, I start seeing tattoos on the bodies of most people. Wait. No. They’re not tattoos. My point of view gets closer, and I can see black runes all over their bodies, flashing and empowering their climb. They all have them, the same kind that populate my body during the training.
All but the massive guy running vertically on the cliff as if he were Spiderman.
That guy also has runes all over, including his face, and they are a bright scarlet, flashing so brightly that he emits a distinct luminesce in this apocalyptic scenario.
Even from this distance, I can feel the power of those runes – I can feel something pulling me, pulling my blood, my will.
I take a deep breath, and the scene suddenly shifts, with this man carrying up a few remaining dredges, completely exhausted. He takes one last look at the top of the cliff, too far for his tired limbs. He takes the sword, now completely tinted red, off his back for the last time, and, as another huge thunder roars, he throws it against the lightning bolt and over the steep edge of the cliff.
He flies down, spreading his limbs out with a contented smile on his face. He’s at peace.
The last thing I see of him is that his scarlet runes seem to detach from his body and dissipate into the ether.
Then, one thing echoes in my mind.
Well, two, actually.
Idner’s Will
[Fulfilled Conditions for Inheritance - Skill Scarlet Runes, Aegis of the First Hero Acquired]*golden
…
I return to Magister Mulligan with a bewildered gaze. I’m on the ground and covered in my own blood.
“Damn it, Luciani, you almost died! I couldn’t deactivate the skill! What in the name of all my ancestors were you doing?!”
This is the first time I see the old man lose his cool, and I have to say, it takes me a second to process what just happened and recount it to him.
“You—you…” Magister Mulligan looks like he’s seen a ghost. “Luciani, do you understand what you just did?”
“No?” I venture, feeling a splitting headache arising. “I mean, I’ve got a good idea about the food, but that vision. Yeesh, that was crazy! Ouch, I shouldn’t scream. I have a terrible migraine.”
“Luciani, look at me,” the old man says, helping me get up and staring right into my eyes.
“What?”
“You just used the Dreamscape technique in a way I wasn’t even aware it could be used.”
