Chương 6: Chapter 5: [Divergent Phoenix] Unlocked

Torin ducked into another alley and breathed easily. How long had he been moving? It could have been hours, but it felt like only minutes. With an alarm active after the Raven launched a fireball for support, Torin had to move as far away from that spot as humanly possible. Only after the sound dwindled did he finally feel secure enough to check his status screen.

His heart skipped a beat, but before he could even look at the stats, his eyes fell to a second column that had always been empty, now overflowing with information. Trait: [Divergent Phoenix] (Rarity: Unique. Tier: Unranked) – Your power is uncontained. Grow more efficiently than others. A well containing infinite mana sits below your Domain. [Bulwark] (Rarity: Common. Tier: Unranked) – Your body is reinforced against Martial damage. [Fireborne] (Rarity: Uncommon. Tier: Unranked) – You have a natural Affinity and Resistance with fire manipulation. Skills: [Enigmatic]: You can mimic 2 Natural Traits that you can sense within 10 meters. Mimicked Traits must have a Rarity and Tier equal to or below your current [Divergent Phoenix] Trait. Mimicked Traits will expire in 1 day. Mimicked Traits (2/2): [Bulwark], [Fireborne] Torin stared in awe at the flood of information, not sure where to begin. His Trait was no longer Hidden as promised by the Anomaly. That much was obvious.

He now possessed "[Divergent Phoenix]," but his understanding of how this Trait functioned quickly needed to be reassessed from there. Traits all varied in rarity, with the lowest level of Common, then increasing into Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary, before finally going to what he thought represented the maximum at Mythic. However, that assumption had been based on Cornelius since [Battle-Sighted] was supposed to have a top rarity.

But Torin had never heard of "Unique" before, and he suspected it sat even higher in rarity than Mythic. The next obvious detail came from his second and third Trait. The text had been altered by the System slightly, and each had a small hourglass next to it. As he focused on those hourglasses, they grew to frightening clarity, pebbles falling from the top to the bottom at a speed that would end in a day. That meant the System discriminated against temporary Traits to his permanent [Divergent Phoenix] Trait.

He only had [Bulwark] and [Fireborne] for a day, no doubt from him somehow using his [Enigmatic] skill. But when had that happened? Torin played the battle again in his mind, and details started falling together now that his bloodlust had faded. The System had prompted him when he wanted more power. In that moment, he merely latched onto that power without a second thought, driven solely by killing the men tormenting that woman. The first time this happened, he felt a burst of strength.

The second, his body tightened against damage. The third, fire stopped hurting him. Torin must have absorbed both [Bulwark] and [Fireborne] during the fight, and this gave him an edge when confronting soldiers at a higher power level. He knew that Bronze officials were the weakest on the ladder, barely stronger than non-cultivators. It was not completely surprising that he could beat them with brute force alone.

But to get a better understanding of this would require going through his stats, and he still had other questions to work through first. Immunities: Cannot be [Tracked] or [Identified] by magical means. Hmm, I can't be tracked or identified? Normally, an "Immunity" followed specific elemental types like lightning or cold. Occasionally, someone might inherit an Immunity to disease. All were very powerful and rare. However, Torin had an Immunity tied to the magical Skills of [Identify] and [Track].

Those followed specific conditions. A thought occurred to Torin, and he pulled out his Spirit Tag as a test. He placed his thumb on the runestone as he had a thousand times before, but nothing happened. It wasn't as if he got burned for being the wrong owner. The Spirit Tag no longer registered his existence. Well, that's not good. Not being identifiable would be problematic in a city where everyone was regularly [Identified] at checkpoints. Then again, this would also go the other way.

If no one could [Identify] or [Track] Torin, it would be easier to hide, which no doubt would help him with this current crisis. He looked over his shoulder. Small skyships patrolled the skies about two kilometers away, right above the area where he had fought those men. Yet none drifted outward, focused only on searching the space nearby. Torin let out a breath of relief. He had time to think and plan. For now, anyway. What else can I use? He moved down the list.

Resistances: Psychic (Peak), Martial (Minor), Fire (Middling) Affinities: Martial (Major), Fire (Middling) The Resistances and Affinities were also good, but most seemed temporary and tied to the Traits he mimicked. A Peak Psychic resistance would be close to an immunity, and the text made clear it would be permanent. A Martial Affinity meant he could gain their Skills more efficiently, though Skills were outside his area of understanding since the System rewarded them after Classes unlocked at level 21.

But that led to another question… How could I have a Skill already? Unless there were other ways to unlock Skills he didn't know about, it shouldn't be possible. [Enigmatic] was particularly enigmatic when considering the situation. Footsteps approached, and Torin shifted out of his current hiding spot. He went a few blocks in the opposite direction before finding another place sheltered from prying eyes. Affinities, Resistances, and Immunities, with a mysterious Skill thrown in too.

All things considered, this might be the best day of his life, and not the worst. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. He returned to his main stats. Name: Torin Maximus Level: 4 Class: Locked Strength: 13 Dexterity: 10 Constitution: 10 Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 10 Perception: 10 6 Unspent Points Torin had been confused by the initial burst of power during the fight, but now that he saw the extra Strength, it all made sense.

He must have subconsciously placed the points straight into Strength once he attacked the first Hawk. Yes, the more he remembered, the clearer it became. That means I would have leveled before the fight, though. And as Torin studied his experience and mana jars, he gasped in shock. The experience jar appeared less than one-third full now, the golden liquid swirling around. The mana jar, however, had been filled to the brim.

Cerulean blue liquid boiled like a cauldron about to overflow, white specks flicking like lightning inside. In truth, Torin understood very little about the world of mana. Spiritual cultivation was the most closely guarded secret of the Avinum State. He'd heard about words like "domain," "well," "core," and "conduits" before, but he couldn't get more concrete information from there. Not even Thaddeus dared to speak of such things. But Torin did know that any form of cultivation required mana to be absorbed.

If his [Divergent Phoenix] Trait provided him with an infinite well already, that advantage would be far more important than everything else. The State will never stop hunting you if they know what you possess inside, Sir Galen had said, and he was right. An infinite mana well meant no mana crystals were required for cultivation, which undermined the very foundation upon which the State built itself. Would there be no limit to his potential? Slow down. Torin was getting far, far ahead of himself.

Ducking into an alley offered only temporary protection against his overlords, and he still had six unspent stat points to allocate. That decision was easily within his control, and would be the most consequential in the short term. So, Torin studied the one list he knew intimately, considering each option. Strength did the obvious and increased his physical power. Dexterity increased his coordination and speed. Constitution affected his endurance, durability, and recovery speed from injury.

Those were all straightforward enough. It was the bottom three mental stats that he had taken time to learn. Intelligence increased one's memory and reasoning, but that did not necessarily make them smarter. Torin had lost count of the amount of Herons with high Intelligence builds that still held the most asinine beliefs. Meanwhile, Wisdom allowed people to understand emotions at a deeper level while offering a defense against those who tried to read them back.

Owls often had more Wisdom than Intelligence to study those they investigated. Then there was Perception. Besides enhancing ordinary senses, one could feel the presence of stronger opponents' magical aura with a higher Perception. It might even expand further into detecting nearby treasure or danger well before it arrived. Then again, for all their power, stats did not follow absolutes. They scaled off the base of the body they were infused into.

A small child with 15 Strength might be far stronger than other small children, but they wouldn't be able to overpower an adult with only 10 Strength. They were still a child against an adult. Torin mulled this over. Food had always been difficult to come by, but he went to lengths to waste nothing and exercised when he could. His muscles were proof of his dedication. Defining his mental stats would not be so easy. Not without proper testing to see how well Cornelius's teachings had paid off.

Have to choose something. He considered the options one last time before placing them. Three points went to Dexterity, two went to Perception, and the final fell into Strength. His body instantly absorbed the added power. It wasn't much, and he could have chosen differently, but he had immediate problems to resolve. The Dexterity would help to outrun patrols, and the Perception let him hear them coming sooner. Just with this small boost, his senses felt sharper than ever. Now what?

It was the middle of the afternoon, and Torin had murdered four men in public. Yet, as he stared across the Residential District, he didn't see anyone moving in pursuit. The skyships still spun around the place they had been, and the only Hawks in sight patrolled without care. Had he gotten away with it? It couldn't be that simple. The walls rose fifty meters tall to ensure those on top could see anything that happened in lower Vrisgard. The Raven launched a fireball before his death. Others would have spotted it.

But maybe not everyone did. If the Hawks at ground level were the only ones looking, then those on the wall wouldn't have been tracking his movements. That would have left those who arrived first at the mercy of their own judgment, and today's dust storm made this impossible. There were no footprints to follow once he crossed the main road. And once out of view, his Immunity protected him from magical searching. His heart skipped a beat. It was more possible than he realized to have escaped that scene.

Torin quietly moved to the river, washed the blood off his hammer and burnt clothes, and went back the way he came. A patrol came by before long, but as Torin suspected, they passed him without incident. Not even the burnt clothes would give him away. Half the District wore outfits stitched together from trash. Scorch marks weren't uncommon around these parts. He rounded a bend. A poster of the current Regent-Eagle rose in front, its eyes glaring down in that menacing expression it always had."

Vigilance Ensures Peace" seemed almost like a desperate cry for help. Torin remembered the old Regent. For the first half of his life in Vrisgard, that man's face plagued him on every corner. With dark, brooding eyes and a long grey beard, he looked like a warlock always casting a curse. And with eyes that never looked away, that man truly terrified his younger self. Then one day, the old Regent died, only to be replaced by the next in line.

The posters were all removed overnight, and the new Regent reigned supreme. No one even knew their names—they were just the current Regent-Eagle of the Avinum State. But while the first Regent inspired fear, this one always fell flat for Torin. The eyes pierced deep, and the shadows had been drawn menacingly, but nothing could cover his youthful face. They designed it to be familiar in that way, a dumb version of what anyone's family member could be if they only accepted the State.

Torin could see through the lies easily though. Especially now. Vigilance Ensures Peace, he considered. What a joke. These magical posters had no vigilance, and there was no peace here. They were no more than empty eyes staring over a dying kingdom in the hopes that everyone would do the job for them. Well, what happened now? Torin didn't need to feel that way. Not anymore. He was not free. He'd never be free inside these walls. But he had escaped the prison around his potential.

No one could stop him if he played his cards well. His eyes stared above the poster, into the mountain that sat in the center of Vrisgard, with a fortress towering at its peak. This was High Perch, where the State's top officials maintained its stranglehold over the people of this city and the surrounding country. And somewhere inside those halls, Gaius Maro still held his seat as Marquis-Eagle.

After all this time, Torin had been under the false impression that his body quaked whenever he saw Gaius because of some unconscious sense of fear. But after seeing the memory play again, this couldn't be further from the truth. Torin wasn't scared. He'd never been scared. He'd felt only pure rage. It was an uncontrollable instinct that overtook him whenever he saw the man who put his parents through a fate worse than death. Even if his mind had forgotten, his body remembered every second.

It had been warning him about this reality from the start. There would be no peace with the State. He would not rest until they were all destroyed. Every last one. For now, though, Torin could not see that vision reached. Not in his current state. He peered at High Perch one last time, making a promise to one day break through that wall too. Until then, he would continue to avoid critical mistakes as he had before.

As Torin passed another patrol marching cluelessly by him, he hummed a soft tune, as if nothing else was soon to come. He grinned wide when they vanished again, knowing the truth. Today's kills might have been Torin's first, but there would be many more to come.