In the previous chapter, you read the statement: 'Not all Skill Evolutions are equal.' Now, you're going to read a new statement—one that complements and surpasses the previous.

  No High-Tier Skill is equal to another.

  Though it sounds simple, the nuance behind these words is extremely complicated. When you're an Adept, gaining something like Stone Skin is inferior to Diamond Shell. It is simply a matter of hardness. But there is a reason why some people gain Stone Skin. Part of it is related to your race, to your Path, to your experiences, yes; but another part is due to your trajectory. Diamond Shell will allow you to advance and become Adamantine, or potentially another material that is focused on raw durability. However, it will not allow you to gain something like Shattered Form, which prevents you from dying upon being destroyed physically. Indeed, when you obtain Shattered Form, you wish to be destroyed physically, as it gives you boosts and adjustments to all your other attributes while remaining shattered.

  And herein you can see the complexity and truth behind High-Tier Skills: once you reach a certain threshold, the sheer amount of things you can do with an advanced skill is staggering. The Evolution possibilities are so broad and so specific that they cannot be compared meaningfully on a linear graph anymore.

  In terms of pure durability, a Pathbearer possessing the Heroic-Tier Dome of the Adamant Tortoise Skill is far superior to someone who owns Guise of the Glasswalker. The latter, in fact, is even more brittle than a great many Adept-Tier Toughness Skill Evolutions. But pure durability loses its meaning when you can wield your pieces upon being shattered and reform yourself simply by looking at a reflection, while also being able to step into reflective surfaces and emerge whole.

  These are the nuances you will face as a Pathbearer as you go along. Keep this in mind: A lacking skill evolution at present does not damn your future. It will affect it, but who you become eventually is not determined entirely by who you are now. Strive. Strive and step. Do not worry. Do not be consumed by doubt or held back by regret. For eventually, the place you end up will be a precipice. It may not be the precipice you expected, but might and mastery are things that cannot be captured by a few simple statements and easily imagined scenarios.

  A warg-lion is far stronger than a hawk, but place both in the sky, and one shall soar, while the other can but splatter.

  -Paths of Ascension

  265 (I)

  Beyond [II]

  The fire that consumed the group of thugs was glorious and lively. The flickers danced, and as their bodies burned, their skin didn't char, their muscles didn't fry, their fat didn't pop. And their screams lasted only a second before they turned to something else—a chorus of song.

  The song sent a rush of energy through Shiv. Not as much as Plague-Fueled or Shape of Monstrosity did, but it felt like something inside him was healing, something inside him was being kept at peak capacity.

  "Should you sustain any wounds at present, your heart blood will be nourished," Toasty declared. "Feeling yourself healing, enjoying a certain kind of ineffable pleasure, such is the enchantment taking shape.”

  A second effect came into play then. The Story Thus Far revealed itself as each string connecting him to the thugs vibrated. They were strummed as if by an unseen hand, as if by the Composer herself, but the vibrations were more than mere noise. They injected Shiv with faint visions of knowing and awareness. These were murkier and more confusing than what Non-Sequitur or its prior versions offered him, but he still caught glimpses.

  Each of the thugs was fully consumed by the flames now. They burned, but the flames were also a screen, a perspective into their past. Shiv saw them as children. Shiv saw them as adolescents. Shiv saw them as adults. Shiv saw the formative moments of their lives, what was recorded by their skills, what they clung to in their darkest hours. The drugs they took, the people they hurt, the people they loved, the times they wept, the traumas they endured—their innermost secrets, ones none of their companions knew of—all spilled within the bosom of dancing fires.

  The longer he focused on a specific fire, the more he sank into a specific vision. It wasn't a total overview of someone's personal history, but it did give Shiv insight into their character and personality.

  The goblin who had been begging him before was a rat, through and through. He believed in nothing. He understood no boundaries. He cared only for his own pleasure, more bestial than individual. And the moment Shiv offered him mercy, he would plan his revenge.

  In the end, even still, even now, even as he burned, he refused to believe this was his final fate. He begged Longinus, he begged the System, he hoped, and he knew. Despite all odds, he knew he would be saved. Despite all odds, despite who he was, the squalor he lived in, he imagined himself to become the ultimate Pathbearer someday. That delusion had allowed him to secure control over his squatter gang. But past that point, he was merely prey—prey in an uncaring world. He would never learn that lesson.

  But Shiv glimpsed it. Shiv understood it in the thug’s stead.

  "I see you," Shiv whispered. "I see you for what you are."

  And as soon as those words left him, a following enchantment took shape. Enchain the Transgressors turned the thread connecting him to the deceptive goblin into a rope, a thing that began to siphon the flames of the gang leader. Yet there was a pull, a struggle. Shiv found himself gritting his teeth as he tried to rip the vitality free from the goblin. The goblin reached out. With what of his body hadn't been taken by the blaze, he reached out. His fingers wrapped around the tightening cord.

  No! the goblin howled, his thoughts echoing inside Shiv through the Chained Heart of Lifegiving. I have to remain! I have to! I need to become the strongest! I will, I will, I will!

  His delusion, though pathetic and paltry when pitted against Shiv in battle, now found true purpose. It defied Shiv. No, not Shiv himself, but the heart. It allowed the goblin to stand his ground. His mind refused to move, but the longer it went on, slowly, the Deathless felt his victim break. Bits of his sanity shattered, and the first fragments of translucent mana spilled across the burning length.

  No! The goblin choked, but that was all he could do now. Bit by bit, his prodigious delusion turned desperate willpower was eroded down to nothing, and all that was then fed into the crystal-chained heart.

  Shiv took an involuntary step back, as if the existential presence he was struggling against had suddenly vanished.

  The goblin gang leader was. And now he wasn’t.

  "You alright?" Adam called out. "What was that? How was he resisting you? Wasn't he supposed to be just an Adept? ”

  "He was," Shiv breathed. He stared down at the heart in his hands, and it pulsated with both translucence and incandescent fire. An incandescence that almost resembled the hue of divinity.

  "Now you see," Toasty declared. He let out a boisterous chuckle. "Now you understand what has been claimed. The mind must be broken, the body ruined, before they can truly be consumed. This is no easy gift. It is not something of force, but rather something of hunger."

  The Deathless examined the now rapidly beating heart once more before he turned toward the fae. "So, how do I put him inside a piece of ingredient, exactly?

  “Through the final enchantment that truly matters: Life for Loreflame. What you have now can be spent, can be drawn into you to restore what has been taken from your life force, or can be gifted to another should they have suffered damage to their existential essence." The Faebread leaned back in his cage and barely resisted scoffing. "Existential essence for those who constantly bleed and lose it to the world, anyhow. How you Patternists manage to suffer this winnowing, withering cage of existence is beyond me."

  "Well, it's pretty easy," Shiv replied. "Usually, we just make cages for other people and teach them to sympathize with us that way.”

  Shiv's words and mocking smile caused the fae to sputter, but he managed to regain his composure before suffering any more humiliation. "Pah, enough of this. Find something—something you understand to be food, something you believe to be of great significance. Life for Loreflame needs to tap into one of your skills. It needs to tap into a skill that infuses animation and purpose into another thing."

  "Would it work with Golemancy as well?"

  "Perhaps," Toasty said. "But I understand little of your Golemancy. I only know the meaning of bringing purpose to food. To offering Princess Plum Blossom delights. You have come to me to learn this, yes? Then do not deviate. I am not a Golemancer; I am simply a Knight of the Summer Court, compelled to give purpose to that which is delectable and splendorous."

  Toasty’s declaration made Shiv center his focus. He couldn't afford to experiment too much right now; he didn't have the time to get creative with his looming threats. Best to steal a technique that he'd seen someone else use.

  "I want you to show me how to animate breadcrumbs. I want to use them like you did against me and the chefs at Monster Mystery Meat."

  "Wait, what happened to Monster Mystery Meat?" Jessica asked, staring at Shiv and then looking toward the fae. "Are they still open? The hells did you clowns do?”

  Adam coughed awkwardly. “There was a… tragic accident. The chefs were Cursed while walking the Fairwoods, and they offered themselves as food to the guests after being baked into bread. Then a fire destroyed the entire restaurant after everyone left.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The Giantsbane did a double-take. She shot another look at Toasty, another look at Shiv, another look at Adam, and then she stared down and sniffled. "You guys felling suck!” Jessica whined, kicking a can lying on the ground. “Everything you touch turns to chaos and blood! Monster Mystery Meat is dead? Where am I going to go get Ogre Ass Pie now?”

  "Oh wow, you finally noticed," Shiv muttered sardonically. "Wait, Ogre Ass Pie?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds like it tastes shitty, and if you make it poorly, it does. But if you cook it just right, and you manage to deal with the regeneration..." Jessica smacked her lips. "It really hits. It really, really hits."

  Be sure to keep that in mind, Shiv said to himself. He needed to expand his repertoire, and that reminded him he probably needed to look through that book of recipes as well. Even if Monster Mystery Meat was demolished, and things there weren't turning out so well, he still had a full kitchen stored inside the Coliseum. A full kitchen he intended to put to purpose one way or another.

  Shiv was about to ask Toasty for a donation of a few breadcrumbs when he paused. He held up a finger and pulled out his Last Morsel. He cut a piece of shadow away from a nearby crate and began the process of adding a bit of spice to this experiment.

  "What are you doing?" the Faebread asked.

  Jessica leaned in, curious. Shiv simply held up a hand, brushing them off for now. He shoved the shadow inside his frying pan and then gestured at Toasty.

  "Give me a few crumbs from your body,” Shiv said. The fae brought his hands in front of his chest protectively and hissed with offense. "Just a few pieces! Look, I'm gonna try something, alright? Might be interesting. Might make sure we're able to return you to your woods properly."

  Begrudgingly, Toasty did as the Deathless requested. A few chunks of bread-like particulates broke away from his kettle helmet and spilled over toward Shiv. He let it fall into his frying pan and channeled a burst of Pyromancy inside thereafter.

  "What are you even doing?" Jessica asked, squinting into the pan. "Actually, I got another question for you. Why a frying pan?"

  "Because the System thinks that it's really funny and uses me as a punchline for its jokes.”

  The Last Morsel's lid manifested in a puff of black smoke, and for a few seconds, Shiv cooked a helping of shadows alongside a smattering of breadcrumbs. When the lid vanished, dissipating into black motes, what remained there were a few small grains of black-crusted clumps.

  "Hmm," Shiv said. He pinched a few of the crumbs and held them up before his eyes. They all glowed with a strange, dark hue. But instead of putting them in his mouth, he placed the crumbs on the ground and pulled out the heart again.

  "So, how's this Life for Loreflame thing work?" Shiv asked.

  "Simply direct the organ to whatever you wish to infuse. Use that which you have taken, and focus. The threads will emerge once more."

  Shiv did as the fae instructed. However, this time he wasn't just using the Enchained Heart of Life-Giving. He was also using his new Narrative Skill.

  Lord Commander of the Slumbering Uneaten triggered immediately as he stared at the black-crusted crumbs. He heard faint whispering, notes of confusion. A sense of dissonance with itself. The crumbs were something that was, yet were something that shouldn't be. They were something that could have only been born at the hands of the System. At the hands of a Legendary-Tier skill or item.

  What am I? the skill seemed to ask him, conveying a question nested within the crumbs.

  I don't know, Shiv answered honestly. Let's find out.

  As he pointed the Enchained Heart of Life-Giving at the crumbs, it flared with a crimson flame. A weight left Shiv. A weight of vitality. A weight of thought. The silvery veins coiled around the heart flared bright, and once more, Shiv felt himself pulled into the organ, just like back in the kitchen of Monster Mystery Meat.

  Within an endless-appearing realm of mist and fire, Shiv stood across from the goblin he'd just consumed. The thug looked around, lost, confused.

  "What just happened to me? Who are you?" The goblin blinked rapidly, looking through his still-simmering hands. He looked the same as he did before. The tattoos remained. Even a few of his injuries still lingered. But more than anything, it was his psyche that was split asunder. And Shiv exploited that to its fullest extent.

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: Remember how Velly confused you for one of the Ascendants. You know what to do.

  "I am Longinus," Shiv said, trying to hide the awkwardness in his voice. "You called out to me, so I came to save you."

  "What? This doesn't feel right…" The goblin vibrated slightly. He doubted. He suspected Shiv was lying. He was not as scattered as Velly and Nornsong had been. "If you are the Wanderer, why do you look like the one who slew me? What is this?"

  Shiv used the goblin’s doubt and his delusions of grandeur that The Story Thus Far had revealed to him to his full advantage. "Of course I look like him. The moment you were about to be struck down, I reached into the guy who was trying to kill you and... and I stole his body from him. I destroyed his soul. I heard you. You're going to be the greatest Pathbearer of all time, man. I couldn't just let him kill you, could I?"

  "Oh, yes!" the goblin suddenly exclaimed. He smiled. His mind-broken joy was infectious, overwhelming. It burned brighter than the flames that now composed him. "Yes! I knew! I knew you would finally hear me! I knew you would save me, my lord! I knew!"

  Gardener of Doubt 62 > 65

  Sage of the Enkindled Heart: We really should talk to delusional people more. It's very easy to exploit their emotions. It's like there are pillars they must bend to, pillars that compel their thoughts. Psychological predictability is slavery. To the self, and to the others who master you.

  "Oh, I thank you, Longinus. I fucking thank you so much! You have done everything I asked. Finally, finally someone knows who I am. Someone knows what I'm worth." The gang leader was crying now, and it took Shiv practically every ounce of willpower not to let his incredulity show on his face.

  The Deathless cleared his throat. "Now that you've been saved, I need to instruct you in the ways of true power."

  "True power?" the goblin asked. His eyes were alight with greed. "You wish to bestow upon me true power?"

  "No, no, no, no! You can't just skip ahead like that, oh follower of mine. I need you to build a skill that is truly powerful, and to do that, I need you to become a bunch of shadowy breadcrumbs and do what I tell you to.”

  The goblin stared at him, unable to process that last sentence.

  "Look, it's simple, alright? I'm gonna put your soul into a series of shadowy breadcrumbs that were blessed by my good friend Harlock." Shiv suddenly wheezed violently, trying to stifle his own laughter.

  "Longinus? My lord? Are you alright?" the goblin asked.

  "Yeah, yeah. It's just, this body I took is really bad. He was a really bad guy. Anyway, Harlock blessed those crumbs, and he wants someone with the willpower and the strength to wield them. So you're going to have to do exactly as I say, alright? Exactly as I say."

  "Anything, my lord, anything to be the strongest! I dedicate myself to you. To all the taverns we will sack, and to all the holes we will plough!"

  Broken Moon, I couldn't have done this to a better guy if I tried, Shiv thought to himself.

  With the goblin convinced to do Shiv's bidding, the vision ended, and they surfaced once more. The Deathless finished channeling his power into the ingredients, and with that, they flickered in the air, glinting with vitality. A small cloud of darkened crumbs danced around him, and Shiv watched as it spilled into the shadows and emerged thereafter without difficulty.

  "I feel very strange, my lord." The goblin's outlined form was manifested as each of the crumbs took a spot equidistant from each other. It was like someone had traced an outline of the goblin right before Shiv. Adam gawked.

  Jessica's eyes grew wider and wider. "Songbringer’s sweet bulbous breasts, you weren't shitting me at all when you said you can bring food to life." Her astonishment turned to amused laughter, but that quickly died down as the implication of Shiv's actions fully hit her. "Wait, did you just jam a guy's soul into the bread?"

  "What remains of his soul," Shiv said flatly, "and fragments left over from his mind."

  "A thing you Patternists make more convenient for us," Toasty said with a scoff. "If you weren't so brittle, it would be far harder for us to harness your lacking potential to something beautiful toward the end of the Eternal Cycle."

  "I must say again how much this skill disturbs me," Adam said. "This is effectively imprisonment, if not temporary enslavement."

  And that brought Shiv down a little as well. "Shit, you're probably right. I was thinking that earlier. Trying not to think about that, actually. Something I could try is draining the life out of one of my golems and then seeing if I can get it to work that way, but there would be no bits of thought. I don't think it works without broken pieces from the mind."

  "It does not," Toasty confirmed. "The life force must understand itself, must have a lens to shape itself. It's like water without a cup. It simply spills, dissipates. The sun claims it, turns it to vapor. And then it is no one's until once more it falls like rain with the turning of the wheel."

  But the Gate Lord had a different idea. "Shiv, the eldritch monsters and orcs... they have vitality too, don't they?"

  “Yeah? Oh, oh, okay, yeah.” Shiv liked where this was going. “Yeah, we might be able to make this work. Well—Wait, no, the eldritch don't respond very well to fairies. Not sure if this skill will work on them right.”

  "But we can try, right? And failing that, we can try using this on the gray monsters. I can put up with their damnation easier than the others, at least..."

  "Alright then, go team," Jessica said sarcastically. "Finding ways to technically dodge the fact that we're becoming soul enslavers."

  Adam groaned. "Please don't call this skill that."

  "That's what it is," Jessica said, grinning. "You're literally jamming some poor bastard's soul into pieces of food." She chuckled again. "Not that he doesn't deserve it, but still. Really creatively messed up. You know, I didn't expect to be surprised. I thought I'd seen practically everything, but you know what? This tickles me. This really does."

  "I thought it might," Shiv said, holding back a grin of his own. "Alright, Toasty, tell me how to get this inside someone and pop them."

  The Faebread pressed his lips together. "It will not be as easy for you. You will need to attain a critical mass of breadcrumbs, and you are missing the other skills. Skills that let you teleport foodstuff from foodstuff."

  The Deathless paused at that. "Hey, I got a question for you, right? Another one. Are all your skills food-related?"

  "Of course!" Toasty stomped his foot in indignation. "For it is my great purpose to see Princess Plum Blossom fed and nourished, to her heart and soul's content. Now, heed my words. If you wish to direct the crumbs, you must simply order them. Tell them what to do. They will obey you now that you have taken their mind and claimed them for your own."

  "Really not beating the food slaver allegations," Jessica said with her hands on her hips.

  Adam's face contorted in a series of agonized expressions. "I thought of confessing my sins to the Ascendants for my part in this, but I realized they probably do far worse."

  "Don't worry, Adam, I'm doing this for a good cause. I'm going to use it to blow people up from the inside."

  You can read the entirety of Volume 5 and the first half of Volume 6 over on ! (Over 400,000 Words ahead of Royal Road for $10)

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