Tree of Aeons

Year 120

I gave away a [Grand Knight] class to a promising young student. She was fit, but with the Grand Knight class, she became fit and unnaturally strong. She had a skill that strengthened all the armor that she wore, and she turned into quite a monster to fight. 

“These upgraded classes, Aeon, how did you get them?” Yvon was extremely curious. At the same level, an upgraded class is at least 30% stronger. Perhaps this was the comparison between a Lord and a King, or a King and an Emperor?

“I collected them.” Which is partly true. Through all the souls of the dead, I’ve been accumulating so much class seeds that I’ve lost track of all of them. I’ve also been growing ‘class-tree-plants’, that produces more class seeds of the rarer classes, like [Dark Knight].

I mean, would 30 Dark Knights give me a Dark Paladin? 

“You know, this news spreads out, many are going to come calling. Fruits that are able to grant an upgraded class are unheard of in the world. Even Kings may grant Royal variants, but those are nothing like true upgraded classes.”

“And?”

“Well. Theft, for one. We’ll need to prepare for that, as there will be thieves who want to steal your stockpile of upgraded class seeds.”

Let them try. It’s all inside me. How would they steal? Perhaps these thieves have some kind of skill, then?

Wait. That does sound possible. A thief with a skill able to take from one’s presumed safe pockets sounds exactly like what a high-tier thief should have. 

“Jasmine, can you increase your surveillance for thieves?”

“Master, we’ve located many thieves.” 

Already? Oh. It has been a year since I gave away my [Great Druid] Class.

“Most are petty criminals, but some appear highly skilled.”

Thieves. Should I just kill them?

-

Meanwhile, the captured blood ritualists were forced to do my bidding. Mainly, to conduct more blood rituals, using criminals that are on death row. 

I had to learn a bit more about blood magic. There’s some fundamental similarities between my soul forge and blood magic, and I intended to learn more of it.

The blood ritualists cooperated, and used the criminals to cast all sorts of blood rituals. Strengthening rituals, summoning rituals. 

Of course, after 50ish rituals, they leveled up, and I think they were close to level 60. Then they got overconfident and started to attack me with the summoned creatures. Each ritual made them stronger, but I too, gained a deeper understanding of blood magic. 

I have a large army, and now, more elites. 

I deployed my new [Grand Knight] and [Great Druid], together with an army of beetles. The two ritualists didn’t stand much of a chance. They honestly should’ve used blood magic to cast some kind of warped teleportation, but perhaps that had too much risk.

Blood magic is inherently unstable, it’s power derived from the stitching of the outer souls together in accordance with ancient writings. Those writings guide the ritualists, bind the fragments of the soul together into a shape, and each shape then creates a specific effect. Some of these shapes are actually benign, and hence they empower their hosts. Still, they are inherently unstable soul fragments, so over time they decay and they create problems for the host.

It’s like cancer, really.

The two overconfident ritualists were captured again. This time, their punishment was death, and I gave them a punishment that I gave a long time ago. Death by deconstruction in a biolab.

I received [Blood Mage] class seeds.

I wonder whether I could somehow get [Hero] Class seeds.

“Mirei.” 

“Yes, Aeon?”

“Would you ever be willing to give away your hero class?” I asked her one day as she rested in one of the courtyards of Freshka. She had slowly dismantled her business, and sold them to various merchants eager to take over her clothing chain. 

“Yes.” She had a headache after she said it. “The hero class is pretty much the god’s remote control button. It’s a trojan horse in our body.” It was quite predictable, and to some extent, Mirei got better at figuring out what triggers the headache. It was always something about heroes and gods. 

She took about a while to collect herself, and she continued.

“I mean, I would give it away, but I can’t. The system doesn’t let me do it. I just tried to do it just now.”

“Really. Yet it allows you to trade your hero levels for other levels.”

“Yeah. I could theoretically trade away all my hero levels for something else, and then give you all those levels, but it sounds like you are interested in the hero class itself, Aeon?”

“Well, that’s right.” I mean, the [hero] class itself is what’s incredibly fascinating, like... is there a way I can trace it backwards to the source, ie the gods. Do the gods actually have a physical location in this world? Like, there’s a magical heaven somewhere, where they gaze on this world. Perhaps they are like players, looking at us through the screen. “Have you not considered it, giving away all your hero levels so that you can remove their influence?”

“I did think about it. But I didn’t do it because I wanted to still help Harris and Gerrard. I doubt the gods would just let all 3 of us trade all our hero classes away. Pretty sure there’s like a limit or something.”

Makes sense that the gods would put a failsafe like that. They already went ahead to actively ‘mind-control’ and ‘mind-wipe’ these heroes, why wouldn’t they put restrictions.

-

“Tending to flowers, Great Druid?” The young lady said. She was in full armor, had two large swords on each side, and a long wooden anti-demon spear at the back. Edna, the [Grand Knight], and she’s only 16.  

“As I am often compelled to do, yes.” 

“Has Aeon summoned you recently?” 

“No, why?” 

“It’s... well. I have had offers from nearby kingdoms to defect to serve them.”

Faris paused. “If it’s a good offer, it is worth considering. Though the term... defection is a bit too strong.”

“Oh?” Edna sat on a rock in the flower garden. “Explain.” 

“I believe Aeon may be open to us acting as his mercenaries.”

“Mercenaries?” Edna frowned. “That’s quite against the very nature of my class as a Grand Knight.”

“I spoke to some observers, Principal Yvon and Master Jura, and they agreed that Aeon may be willing to consider stationing us in those other kingdoms.”

“Willing to consider, doesn’t mean he will.”

“Aeon’s willingness, of course, has a price. A good enough reward, he would definitely consider it. I believe if the kingdoms may offer something rare and unique from the ancient pasts, Aeon may well be swayed into it. At least, Principal Yvon strongly thinks so.”

“I highly doubt he is willing to give any of us away.”

“Not give. Stationed. We are still loyal to him, and we act as his agents. Our services to those other kingdoms are similar to those of an adventurer. We would obviously abstain if those conflicts meant we would end up fighting each other.”

“So you have been similarly approached.” Edna smirked.

“Of course.” Faris said. “When the kingdoms, or even the Hutan Council first gave me the offers, I quickly notified Valthorn leadership. Master Jura’s advice then, was to ignore it, as if these kingdoms truly are desperate, they would offer far greater rewards than what they offered now.”

Edna shook her head. “That really makes it sound like... mercenarial. I wouldn’t do so.”

Faris’s turn to laugh. “If so, it’s best you stay put. I doubt the principles of these other kingdoms would be better than ours.”

“But a part of my class is enhanced by serving a [King]. There are knight-specific abilities for people like myself...”

“...if there’s anyone who can ‘make’ a King, it’s probably our great Aeon.” 

I don’t have a [King] class, though. Wait... does Roma have the [Prince] class?

-

“Yes. But it’s still level 2.” Roma said quietly, when Jura approached him. “Why do you ask, Master Jura?” 

“Aeon asked, not me.”

“Ah.” Roma’s an adult, like Lausanne. Unlike Lausanne, his focus has always been more academic and magical in nature, and now, having survived, he’s mostly an administrator for  merchant companies. It’s almost like someone who’s a prince relegated to an office boy, though he certainly doesn’t seem any bit bothered by that sort of reality. “Well, if anyone’s asking, I’m honestly not interested in the whole Prince thing. I’d even give the class away, if I could. I’m honestly not sure why I even still have the class.”

“Salah’s still around, in some form, so the title remains.” Well, I wanted the [Prince] class, and so Jura asked. “So, since you do not want the class, would you consider giving it away?”

“That is.. Possible?”

“Aeon may have the ability to take it away from you.”

Yvon objected strongly. “It’s your heritage!”

“The hell with it, mom. I’m not interested in being caught in stupid political games that this faraway kingdom of Salah would probably have. I have no relationship with Salah, I never lived there, I don’t know anyone there, and honestly, I may well be a lifetime citizen of Freshka! I don’t know my father either, and honestly, this [class] isn’t worth it.”

Well, turns out, I couldn’t take it away. Simply because his level as a [Prince] was far too low. He needed to have at least 10-20 levels in Prince for me to actually ‘take’ it away from him. 

Help, on this matter, came from a very odd party.

“I’m a King.” Harris said, back from his many peacekeeping duties. He had to come back frequently, but still, the ‘civil’ war went on. His wives, now all Queen Mothers in their own right, squabbled over territory.

There were days he felt sad. His wives truly adored and loved him, and that part wasn’t a lie. But his harem was held together by him, and him alone. WIth him giving up his right over the entire kingdom, each Queen had to protect her own children. Some of his children are more ambitious, and so, fighting broke out. He had no right to imprison his children, now that they are legally King and Prince Regents of their own country. He could only reprimand them as a father. 

“If you want my class, you honestly can take it. It’s useless now. I’m probably going to declare my capital city independent, and let what’s left of the council of ministers decide where to go.”

“You just sound incredibly sad.” Mirei tapped him. “What say, you know, let’s go out with a bang. Let’s end this farce with the next demon king.” 

The two heroes plotted their plans for the next demon king. Indeed, they intended to win, but they also intended to die. 

Harris was able to give me a few levels of his [King] class, but no more than 20% of it. But strangely, in my hands, the [King] class was unusable.

I mean, I have a [King] class seed, but I cannot give it or use it on anyone. [The class [King] cannot be used]

Huh. Can I change it such that I can use it?

So, with my [Soul Forge : Yellow], I tried to experiment on the [king] Class seed... and well, after injecting my own energy into it... it changed. 

The King class seed transformed into a unique class seed [The Anointed King, Aeon’s Executor].  

Uh... that’s quite corny, isn’t it. But that’s so Starcraft. Executor. Maybe can I create a Hierarch, like uh.. Artanis? 

I had a dilemma now. I have a special class seed, and I wasn’t quite sure who to give it to. I didn’t want to give it to the heroes, because they had no ties with the valley and me. Ultimately, they are under the influence of the gods, and I wouldn’t want them to be ‘King’. 

The first person I had in mind was Jura. He served me loyally over the years, and has demonstrated all the necessary skills of war. 

He shot it down. “No, Aeon. Me, a King? There’s no way I can do it. I prefer to just teach.”

Lausanne, perhaps? But she’s happily travelling with her husband. Laufen? She shook her head, she was happy tending to young children at Eriz’s childcare centers, and didn’t want the stress or the duties of a King.”

So, I reluctantly put this class aside. But, I had my fellow artificial souls pay attention to the young Valthorns. Perhaps of these young ones, some of them will show promise, and of them, one than I can elevate to a ‘King’.

-

“6 more years to the demon king.” 

“If we’re lucky, 7.”

“6. I want it to come sooner.” Mirei said. 

She was really quite eager to return home, and so, when I told her about the entire [Soul Contract], and how it works with Yvon, she immediately rejected it. To her, a Soul Contract extends her misery in this world by 1,000 years. She didn’t want any of that. She missed home, and she wanted to go home. 

The idea of ‘suicide’ didn’t quite work for her, so she’s in this odd situation, perhaps quite like a Norse warrior seeking Valhalla through glorious battle with the demon king. Because little else can kill her. 

Her curse had remained relatively stable since my last operation, and I still continued my experiments. I suspect there must be something that binds the curse to the demons, because I didn’t understand why it fluctuated at odd times. 

A fluctuation may be internal or external, and after all my abilities, I’m rather certain I ruled out the internal factors. So, that leaves the fluctuations in the curse down to two possible external factors. 

The gods, or the demons. The curse is a matter of the soul, and something I wondered was... what if a hero was sacrificed in a blood ritual? Or could blood magic’s ability to interact with the outer soul be used to fix the curse? 

Harris, of course, hated the idea. “Blood magic should be outlawed. It’s a gruesome ability that shouldn’t even exist in this world.”

Ngeh. The world’s pretty gruesome. I mean, you gain experience by killing stuff, isn’t that gruesome? How’s blood magic different, it’s just the way of killing, isn’t it? 

I’d concede that the only thing different is that blood magic reached into a person’s soul and ripped it out, and perhaps that is a kind of ‘desecration’ of the sanctity of the soul. Again, only if one believes that the soul is ‘sacred’. 

A mortal belief, really. For someone like myself who now has a good understanding of the soul, it certainly doesn’t feel sacred. 

In fact, I feel a bit of desensitization that comes from knowledge. Knowing that a person’s inner soul can always reincarnate, and death is but the departure of the inner soul from a physical vessel. If so, in this cycle of death and reincarnation, it’s just a convoluted version of swapping one car for another, or stopping one game and starting another new game. 

So... why should outer souls or lives be sacred? If anything should be sacred, it’s that moment in space and time. Spacetime is sacred, because death takes it away, and each period of time is unique, and what happens in that space is unique. So, death robs away one’s ability to experience each unique segment of space-time. 

Anyway, back to the blood magic. I certainly want to use my [blood mage] class seeds, and I want to use it differently. 

All the previous [blood mages] have quite warped perspectives and were up to no good, so, I’m going to try to train a ‘good’ blood mage. There must be something in their magic that’s worth learning. 

Jura, Laufen and Yvon were horrified at the idea of training young blood mages. “No. No. No.” 

“Our existing trainees generally gain their levels and experience against monsters and hybrids. Blood mages require blood sacrifice, and that means people! No.” 

Something like that. Doesn’t make much sense, though. What’s wrong using those about to die anyway?

-

Spaizzer

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I must confess that it's getting harder to write this fic. The setting, the environment are like a cage, and I must work around and with the cage. There are days when I just sit down and write other stuff, hoping for an idea to pop into my head. I think I have an ending, though. Maybe it's 1-2years away. Maybe less. Not sure. The roadmap's hazy, I'm trying to find the dotted lines that lead to that ending.  

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