A month later, Leon sat atop a large structure he'd found inside the Gate he was exploring. The training Auros and Nexus had subjected him to had only lasted a few days, but it raised deeply concerning questions about what he was actually capable of.
The two had openly said that he was stronger than most of what he'd face at the moment, but that wouldn't always be the case. They'd even suggested that trying to level up was probably a waste of time since almost nothing he encountered would 'fill his soul' for now, whatever that meant.
Nexus seemed pretty open to sharing anything he knew about magic, but even with his help, Leon had barely made any progress in casting anything. For reasons neither of them could discern, the mana inside of him simply couldn't form into spells even though he could manifest the strangely ominous energy directly, which would have to do for now.
Auros, however, was unwilling to part with even basic knowledge verbally, forcing Leon to learn his lessons with his body, particularly how durable he was. The man seemed to take full enjoyment from pushing him to his breaking point and then forcing Leon to embrace his natural healing, which admittedly was surprisingly robust.
They were both teaching him, but it seemed they disagreed on what and how he needed to learn. Nexus wanted to take him forward, to improve what he knew and unlock new possibilities, while Auros was clearly trying to reawaken something that was locked away.
Whenever they got closer to that something, Leon felt like he was on the cusp of remembering something important, as though his true capabilities were hard locked to memories something had decided he no longer needed.
If he was being honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to remember.
A bird sang in the distance, followed by a cacophony of similar trills that almost made him drowsy. Whatever was making the noise was probably a predator, though he wasn't positive how he knew that so certainly.
So much of Leon's experience with the world felt like it came from a place of pre-understanding, something he knew in broad strokes but without detail, like looking at a painting from a distance.
Dropping from the building he was on, some kind of public transit station he'd decided, he pulled a sword from his inventory and started looking for the group of Uplifter's he'd accompanied. Despite his strict instructions not to interfere with their work, he was allowed to watch and go off on his own.
What he'd discovered was, in a word, unimpressive.
Whatever world the Gate had led to had previously been occupied by a society that was pretty similar to pre-System Earth, and this discovery bored him to no end. The Uplifters seemed pretty jazzed about it, but their priorities clearly differed from his own.
None of the people he knew were with him since everyone was busy with actual responsibilities.
Chris was working with a different team today and Jennifer was reporting in with Marcus again.
Walking along a path he'd found in the woods, alone and bored, he figured he'd come across the group eventually. The Gate didn't seem so large from his initial look around, but looks could be deceiving.
The word around the Bureau recently was that Gates were getting larger overall as the System worked to amend the way they formed and stabilized. He wasn't sure about all of that, but it couldn't hurt to be cautious…about a world that couldn't hurt him in any meaningful way.
That probably played a role in his malaise, that even if he came across something that the team found dangerous, it was doubtful it would give him much trouble.
As he already knew, Uplifters were powerful Walkers, averaging around level fifty and well traveled and battle tested. The various people he'd met had all struggled in mock combat with him, but cleared Gates as though they were barely worth their time. Supposedly the Bureau employed a great number of normal Walkers, and even some mercenaries, but it wasn't clear what their general power level was.
He knew he could mingle with those other groups, but he felt a strange kinship with the various orphans and people who'd been abandoned by their families at young ages. The fact that there were so many orphans was shocking to him, but unfortunately entire families dying to Gate crashes, or worse Walkers, was common enough that the Bureau had begun mass construction of Uplifter facilities once the initial batch of children had proven successful.
Letting out a sigh as several creatures that seemed to be spheres with clawed arms raced toward him, he swung his sword and his fiery black and purple mana erupted outward, destroying them effortlessly.
The color apparently represented his 'mana affinity', something Nexus had lectured him on for several hours, but refused to explain exactly what his actually was. He'd said that it was up to Leon to discover that for himself, even though he knew and could tell him.
As he walked, he practiced manifesting his mana, pulsing it outward from the place in his soul where it resided and around his hands.
Nexus had, very specifically, told him this wasn't magic and he shouldn't be satisfied with just this, but had deigned to give him a brief rundown of what mana actually was, something he'd been deeply curious about.
Mana was energy.
Simple, right?
Not quite as simply as Leon thought, since Nexus had rewarded that answer with a slap to the top of his head.
Mana came from the soul, and was an energy that one accumulated from multiple sources. It could be found ambiently, generated from some particularly powerful natural sources, and some items even took in enough that they began to emanate it.
As that power filled ones body, it eventually made its way into their soul, forming a core that could take multiple forms depending on how you learned to use it.
Nexus said he'd seen everything from crystalized structures to rotating rings, but no matter what form it took, the only mana a person had access to that mattered was what was in the soul.
Despite coming from a world without the System, which seemed wild to Leon, Nexus had done enough research to align his knowledge with what the System seemed to measure.
Mana in the body was temporary, accumulated primarily from ambient sources, while mana in the soul was permanent.
The primary reason the System had made such wide sweeping changes to the way power ranked on Earth was because of this.
Apparently the majority of Walkers were measuring their power based on the immediately accessible mana in the body, rather than the long term mana in the soul.
The explanation, while useful, stopped there, with Nexus refusing to go into detail about how they functioned differently.
Leon found transitioning his mana outward to be pretty easy, but it was supposed to be pretty difficult, hence the importance of spellwork. Spells, and magic in general, operated as a means to utilize one's soul mana at the utmost efficiency, increasing the power one could use exponentially.
Catching a glimpse of something that looked like a cross between a squirrel and a bear, he struck the creature in the head, knocking it unconscious and down to the ground.
A small crater formed where its head landed, but he wasn't sure if it was because of the power behind his attack or if the thing was just heavy.
Focusing on his finger, he focused his mana into a single point creating a small jet of flame that burned pure black at its core, with purple tinging the edges.
Lifting a paw with his other hand, he ran the fire across and was surprised to see it didn't burn.
His mana didn't seem to actually be fire related, despite its appearance, but as he watched and applied more of it, he was surprised to see that something was happening.
Spells did the necessary conversions for mana types inherently, and would have changed his strange mana into actual fire, had he been able to cast one. The squirrel-bear's paw seemed to…dissipate after several seconds, not changing or something like that, actually disappearing after his mana's application.
He'd been testing like this for a while in active combat, but up until now it had merely applied additional physical force to his power.
That had been within his expectations since Nexus had explained that without a spell's framework to guide it, most mana affinities had the base effect of force.
Tapping at his System menu, he'd hoped to find some kind of explanation about his mana, but it not only gave him no information about his personal mana, it also refused to explain any kind of mana affinities to him.
It was possible that the System couldn't provide that information, but it felt more personal than that, even if that was seemingly impossible.
The System making personal choices like that felt like a dangerous road to tread, so he chose to believe that despite it becoming increasingly obvious there was some level of sapience to it, he didn't have to worry about it actively antagonizing him.
Continuing further on the path didn't really do much for him, even as he started to hear sounds of combat.
The Uplifters weren't in any real danger.
He wasn't in any real danger.
The vast majority of humanity was still in the Tutorial Towers.
What was he left with now?
Exploring Gates had taken a sharp turn from fun to boring and the training he was receiving was essentially just him getting the hell kicked out of him by the only two people he'd met who were actually stronger than him.
Sighing heavily, he turned to leave before even reaching the group, unsure of what he'd do next.
Somewhere in the woods, Matt stood with his two new companions and tried to tune their bickering out while he looked out over a group of low level Walkers that had taken refuge among the branches of the new and much denser branches.
He counted at least fifty of them, but with them moving so much through the little encampment he wasn't positive.
This trip to empower himself had, thus far, been a tremendous waste of time.
The animals and monsters that now occupied the area around New York were either so low level it was a waste fighting them or so high level he had no chance of defeating them, with very little in between.
Adding Tanya to that mix only made things more difficult since she insisted she had to level up if Iris had monsters like Veil wandering around.
The woman herself was a strange anomaly, fairly high level and combat capable despite her strange introduction, but seemingly not as powerful as she should be. The matter seemed to be a sore spot for her, so he didn't ask again after she'd politely tried to use a beam of light to decapitate him.
Then there was Veil.
Where Tanya was an anomaly, Veil was pure enigma.
The man was unbelievably powerful, fifty levels higher than the soul mimic Matt had encountered, but nowhere near as overbearing as that thing had been.
Matt had even asked about it, but Veil simply shrugged and said he had no clue. He'd been sealed away well before the System had come and didn't have much use for it now..
That did make sense, considering how powerful the man had gotten before its arrival, but the interaction made Matt uncomfortable for some reason.
He had the feeling Veil was hiding something and Tanya's pure disdain for the man cemented that idea in his head.
Over the course of a month, they had met several travelers along the way, and by some sheer impossible convenience, met one person who claimed to be a member of a Cult of Chaos.
Tanya, beyond a mild displeasure, didn't display anything close to the malice she had for Veil, and the man they'd met didn't seem to have any knowledge of him either.
It was unclear what that meant, but Veil claimed it made sense considering the circumstances behind his sealing.
Circumstances he continuously insisted were important, but refused to go into detail about.
The primary problem Matt was facing on this matter was there never seemed to be any kind of opportunity to think about all of this information in any detail. They were meeting more and more people, and the last few had looked to be in a pretty bad way.
They claimed they were escapees from an area that had been overrun by Walkers, forced to level up prior to the Tutorial exodus, and were being used for pleasure and forced to provide mana to the people who'd held them hostage.
To his surprise, neither Veil nor Tanya seemed all that interested in helping them, but refused to explain why.
More fuel to the fire in his chest to be rid of the two, preferably to finish their disagreements permanently.
Up above, the canopy slowly darkened as the sun began setting, casting the area into a gloomy shadow.
Matt stood from his hiding place and took a ready position, mentally drawing a line from where he was to the outskirts of the encampment.
Pushing as hard as he could, he shot like a rocket from the branch he had been hiding on across the space leading to where he'd planned out.
Halfway there, an alarm rang out.
Looking for the source, he saw Veil waving at him with an excited smile on his face while a dozen Walkers ran like ants to get ready for his attack.
Closing his eyes briefly to try and force the rage down, he pulled his sword from his inventory and began charging his only spell.
Concussive Blast was a pretty simple spell, and one he'd not had a chance to use thus far, functioning by channeling his mana into a momentum based explosion. The faster he moved the harder the spell would hit, something he was banking on given the abrupt change in strategy he'd have to adopt.
He'd initially planned on landing silently and working from stealth, but Veil, for whatever reason, had decided that needed alteration.
Now how Veil had even known he was planning this, Matt didn't know, but he'd be sure to extract that information from the man as soon as possible.
For now, he focused on the task at hand and counted down the seconds as his spell filled his body with power.
One second passed, fifteen percent.
Two seconds passed, thirty five percent.
Three seconds passed, seventy five percent.
Four seconds passed, one hundred percent.
Five seconds passed, two hundred percent.
That wasn't great.
Matt had planned the distance and timing around taking his time, but also he hadn't known the spell could be overcharged that way and resented that ignorance. His body felt like it was on fire as mana continued to empty from his pool into and out of his muscles, surrounding him with an aura of pure energy.
Just when he felt like he couldn't take anymore, he reached the branch network the Walkers had hidden out on.
Slamming his sword into the ground just in front of the first of the defenders, Matt was almost knocked right off the platform by the recoil of the attack which turned the Walkers into a fine mist as the force surrounding him was abruptly transferred to the ground and air in front of him.
Even as he watched, shocked, at the near instant vaporization of his opponents, he felt something inside of him stir.
Rubbing his face clean of the blood mist he'd created, he tried to shake the feeling off as he leapt into the air and kicked off a tree to continue his assault.
This.
This was what he'd been looking for.
Taking an active role in helping people.
It had been his preference that this took the form of clearing Gates, but killing corrupt Walkers wasn't outside of either his tolerance or expectations.
Whatever form helping took, he was more than willing to do it.
Landing on one of the small huts, he quickly identified all the visible Walkers and, moving as fast as he could reasonably control, leapt between them, striking them down with a single strike whenever possible.
The vast majority of these people seemed to be low level, but even with that a few of them put up a surprising fight.
When he came across someone strong enough to dodge or deflect his attack, he kicked off the hut or a branch to realign himself and go for another strike. Very few survived longer than three attempts, but as he reached the final few Walkers, that feeling built up inside of him again, stronger now than before.
A pressure built up within, almost overwhelming his body as he struggled to keep moving forward.
Trying to take advantage of him visibly faltering, the Walker furthest from him drew a bow and took a shot.
The arrow split into three, then nine, then twenty seven, all flying directly at him.
The pressure built even further, eclipsing as pain as he felt like time stopped.
A vision of himself, dressed in some kind of white combat robe filled his mind, deflecting arrows and spells as he moved faster than he'd ever moved before, hopping between buildings in a city he didn't recognize.
It left an impression on him as, without realizing it, he moved his arm to mimic the deflections.
All around him the arrows flew outward, hitting hidden creatures in the trees and even managing to hit one of the closer Walkers through the eye, killing him instantly.
Then, as quickly as it came, the pressure disappeared and he got a notification that he forcefully ignored.
The archer, a look of blank terror on his face now, tried to pull back on his bow once again as Matt flew past him, his sword swinging at a downward angle and bisecting the man so quickly he didn't have a chance to respond before Matt landed, skidding almost to the edge of the platform opposite from where he'd arrived.
The sound of silence filled the platform for a full minute before it broke as the captives who had survived their ordeal began sobbing.
Cries filled the air with increasing volume as more and more women realized they were free and, to Matt's mild surprise, more than a few men's voices joined them soon after.
Refusing to be ignored, the notification from earlier filled his vision as he forced himself to calm down.
Class Change: N/A > Stream Skipper.
Stream Skipper
A man clad in humility once decided to undo the evils in his city, murderers and thieves and worse. Despite his increasing success, the villains found a weakness they could exploit in the city itself. A river separated one side of the city from the other, and it was the bridge connecting the two halves that they destroyed since they could not stop him. The man, unfazed by this act of destruction, decided that not even the raging river would hinder his justice. The day he made this decision, he took his first step onto the river's surface and the river replied with acceptance. His second step was met with encouragement. His third was given power to cross any body of water within his sight.
The river has accepted your plea.
Lay them low.