Well, that's odd.
[Soul Manifest]
[Do you want to accept individuals [Vir] and [Mark] as your disciples]
[Yes / No]
A disciple function? What? How? Is this related to [Soul Link]?
Realising that I've been staring at the runes I address Vir and Mark. "Very well."
[Soul Manifest]
[Disciples accepted]
…
Reading the runes I can see Vir and Mark in my periphery. They're putting on a front to hide their excitement, but they aren't doing very well.
Understandable. From what they've told me I may well be the strongest human by a long shot, and I just offered to train the two.
"Rey, than…", I cut Mark off by raising my hand. I'm reading the runes, and it is… interesting.
"Mark. Can you read your runes out loud again for me.
He was confused but he obliged. Barely a few words in he exclaimed, "What the fuck?".
My thoughts exactly.
Reading the runes in [Soul Manifest] some unusual things have come of this disciple thing.
[Disciples]
[Name: Mark]
[Job Class: Leader (Innate)]
[Martial Affinity: True General]
[Abilities: Survive]
[Survivor: You have survived. You must've survived. No matter what you survived. He needed you to survive.
Killing you is a task not easily done. The crucible has trained you. The crucible has risen you. Now rise further and take hold of your true self.]
[Name: Vir]
[Job Class: Sniper]
[Martial Affinity: Marksman]
[???: Death is sudden. Death is silent. Death is intended.]
[Abilities: Hellfire]
[Hellfire: you craft bullets from mana. If your bullet is true, you recover mana. Your hubris will make or break you.]
So, it appears my [Soul Manifest] has a disciple function, and you both have become as such. That is a new one for me so don't blame me for that. I can also see your runes now just so you know.
That shocked them a little but overall, they weren't too concerned. They were going to have to tell me all about there skills and developments anyway, so this just skips that step.
"Mark… any idea what the fuck that description is about?"
…
He continued to stare at the runes, utterly dumbfounded before speaking slowly. "Rey… you spoke about gods a lot, didn't you? Well… and this sounds fucking stupid to me but… is it possible fate is real? Or destiny or some shit? Because it appears to me that the 'he' in my ability's description is referring to you."
…
"Shit… It does seem like that doesn't it."
What the hell do I make of this? Fate? Is that a thing? I mean probably, right? If I can discover the existence of souls, gods and monsters then a little something like fate isn't that farfetched. But this is pretty intricate none the less.
"Errrr… good job surviving?"
…
The three of us just stared at each other in silence for a while before moving on from that peculiarity.
"Forgetting that part for the time being, we now know what some of the question marks are. Next problem is that I don't understand what [Martial Affinity] is either. I didn't show mine to you two earlier because I don't actually know what it does. Mine is called [Reaper's Harvest] but the description is a few question marks."
I'm not telling them about [Eternity Spire]. Taking that to the grave with me after what Snow told me.
Vir was the first to speak, "Right… well… [Marksman] is rather obvious. Although if it has a specific effect then I don't know what its purpose would be."
"Then we should focus on other things. What should we do Rey? Errr… I mean… Master?"
Vir and I both looked at Mark with deadpan expressions. "Don't call me that."
"Right."
…
"What we'll start with is trying to get you two to learn some new spells and abilities. I know for a fact that spells can be created by developing them yourself. But there are also some existing spells that you might be able to use."
"First, I want you to try [Incarnat].
[Incarnat (Mastery 2): allows the user to produce a crimson flame at will. This spell costs 500 mana to use. The flame can be empowered with additional mana at 25 % the cost]
"It's the basis of my fire abilities. It's a spell that became a part of my [Domain] at some stage. Although my understanding of [Domain]s is lacking."
For the next few hours, I tried to teach the two how to use [Incarnat]. It was pretty difficult because I learnt it by watching the reapers use it and then copying it. I don't actually know how to teach someone a spell.
We tried to get something happening for hours into the night before concluding it was going to take more experiments over time to get somewhere.
In the morning, we continued our journey, practicing constantly and talking about theories on how to learn spells and such. Now that the two are my disciples they are a lot more talkative and open to me. Much better than the initial circumstances.
As our journey progressed and we got further from the Giant corpse, the corrupt creatures around us got stronger and bolder. Enough so that they were willing to attack me again. It seems that after absorbing the orb my immunity to getting attacked has been rescinded. Although weaker creatures are against fighting me. A survival instinct, I guess.
Mark and Vir predicted that we were about three weeks from Wesker when the change became noticeable. The first creature we came across that was raving for a fight was a corrupted deer creature similar to the one I watched Snow kill a while back.
It was the size of a normal deer but rotting so badly its entrails were dragging behind it. The thing looked like a diseased mess. Before I could even do anything about the creature Mark and Vir were on it.
"Type zero. Vir, take it."
"Roger", she flipped her rifle off her back, assuming stance and BANG! She shot almost as soon as she drew her weapon. Frankly I was impressed. That was the first time I saw Vir shoot since I was on the receiving end. Thank the gods I'm fast.
The deer was left with a hole in it that ran from front to back. It barely took a few steps in our direction after noticing us before it was dead.
Looking to Mark I asked, "What's a type zero?".
Mark seemed shocked by my question but then realised I would know anything about the naming schemes they had come up with.
A type zero corrupted deer is one that resembles a normal deer in size but looks diseased. They are highly aggressive and extremely fast but lack many defences or intelligence. If it bites you, your dead. The infection is incurable as far as we know.
[Soul Archive]
[Blighted Deer Type Zero: an animal from before the corruption came. It's blight harms it and drives it mad. The blight is infectious.]
"Ah. Your description triggered [Soul Archive]. That infection is called blight. That's a normal deer that got blighted. It drives it mad. Doesn't say anything about where the blight came from though."
I had already told the two about how [Soul Archive] works. Apparently, I messed up with my explanation though because I could've already had them explain monster details to me. What an oversight.
"Later can you tell me about more creatures you've come across. I've seen a big deer before that was similar to that one but much stronger."
The two nodded before we continued on, avoiding the deer corpse with a wide berth. None of us want that blighted stuff to get on us.
As we travelled, we came across more creatures that tried to kill us. For the most part I let Mark and Vir handle it so that I could assess how they use their powers in combat. It's hard to say what I can offer them as their teacher apart from spell guidance, so I need to work on some ideas for later.
I've also been working on my own progress and sharing ideas with the two. I think I'm close to having a breakthrough with reading heat signatures. Vir had a pair of heat signature goggles with her that she let me borrow. Being able to actually see the contrast of heat compared to normal vision gave me a lot of insight into how it works. Although seeing heat with my eyes isn't quite my goal, it's the closest reference I've got to use. Apart from that I haven't made any real progress with my spells.
Eventually I came to ask the two at camp, "Since we are getting close can you start telling me about Wesker. What's the layout like? The people? The do's and don'ts?"
The two took a moment to think about how best to explain. Eventually Mark opened the story up.
"In Wesker, the main and biggest rule is survival of the fittest."