Paragon of Skills

The moment Jacob touches the Skill Crystal, everything goes dark.

His heartbeat suddenly spikes as the darkness fully envelops him. The embrace of the cold and pitch black that surrounds him reminds him of his master. He might be, by blood, by destiny, Rafnov’s inheritor. But there’s only one man he truly considers his master.

“King Baalrek?” Jacob mutters.

For a moment, he’s hopeful that his master will reply. But then he actually smiles when nothing happens. It means that his master is truly at peace. There’s no fragment of his soul still wandering this world.

Jacob doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like not having someone to guide him. But if he had to choose, he would still choose the peace his master really needed.

“I always wanted to study soul spaces more. They’re actually outside of my realm of expertise. Sorry for bringing you here.”

Jacob suddenly turns and sees the Headmaster with his gold spectacles staring right at him as if he could see his very soul.

“Headmaster?” Jacob asks. “What are you doing here?”

“I have to explain my gift. I do not want to leave you with questions that you will not manage to answer. What you see here is a little projection.” He points at himself. “Well, I am beaming this projection live, so it’s not recorded. So if you have any questions… um. I just handled the Dark Champions. They are on a little mission, and if they survive the mission, we give them amnesty. That’s the resolution I came to.”

“Oh,” Jacob frowns. “Okay, I guess that’s good.”

“Nimirea is not happy with how things ended between you two. She asked me if she can challenge you after they complete the mission to take your spot. I said that that’s the, um, right of any person in the Academy.”

Jacob thinks for a moment and puts two and two together.

“Headmaster, are you saying that the Dark Champions agreed to join the Academy?”

“Well, it was either that or death, so…” The Headmaster shrugs. “They chose the Academy.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Jacob replies, and then looks around the dark space where they’re both standing. “So, about this — and King Baalrek’s Skill.”

“Yeah, about that. So you know how you asked me why your sword didn’t actually release the second seal back then?”

“Yeah,” Jacob frowns. “I thought that it had absorbed enough Mithril, but it never fully materialized the power that should have come with the second seal. Even the Grimoire says that the seal is still unbroken, but it doesn’t say why.”

“The reason why is that it’s not literally unbroken. It is in a half-open state. You are benefiting from some of the Primordial Magic amplifying power of this insane weapon that Baalrek lost his mind over. But there is divine interference with it, and… the only way to unlock it is to, well, get the blood of a god on it.”

“What does that have to do with the Skill?” Jacob frowns. “I’m not following.”

“Yeah, right. Sorry. I’m sort of speaking out of order.” The Headmaster scratches his head. “I was deciphering a very ancient scroll. It kind of gave me a headache. But the Skill is a catalyst. It’s actually inert right now. You will not be able to absorb it. It is a very interesting thing that I have done with it. I was helping Baalrek back then with the sword — before he lost his mind. He carried that blade for a very long time. What he was looking for was something else entirely: a relic capable of killing Gods. A relic that would finally seal the revenge for his family. The Mad God, too, was after the same relic. So I told him that if he truly meant to go after that, he would need to condense one of his Skills to use as a catalyst to…” The Headmaster scratches his chin. “How can I put this? The Skill actually goes into the sword, and once it’s in the sword, it’s not really yours. It’s the sword’s Skill, and that Skill absorbs the blood of a god you have slain and then unlocks the second seal. But for the Primordial Magic to work, that’s the ritual. The seal — again, not exactly not working, but to actually unlock its potential, that’s what you gotta do.”

“Okay. Wow. That’s a lot of information.” Jacob frowns. “And I have to kill a god, you just said? Did I get that wrong?”

“Not necessarily kill a god.” The Headmaster shakes his head. “It’s more like you have to kill the incarnation of a god — an Evil God. I guess that a Primordial God’s incarnation would count as well, but I don’t think we’re gonna see one. Well, maybe after you destroyed Lyra, the Dungeon, there is a chance you might be hounded by Apocalypse. So that is one opportunity you could have to unlock the Skill.”

“Okay,” Jacob frowns. “So this means the Skill is not going to be unlocked for a while, because I don’t see how I’m gonna kill an Evil God’s incarnation anytime soon.”

“Uh, yeah. About that…” The Headmaster cringes. “The reason why I’m giving you this now is because the Skill is sort of expiring.”

“Expiring? Like milk?” Jacob doesn’t understand. “Skills expire? Like, the crystal is what?”

“Well, this is an artificial Skill Crystal. It can be cultivated. It can grow in power. But when Baalrek was focused, you know, on his mad quest to avenge his family, he didn’t really put that much effort into this,” the Headmaster points at the Skill Crystal. “I personally took it upon myself to make sure it would last as long as possible, but the potency of the Primordial Magic that Baalrek used is sort of unraveling.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Jacob thinks of himself as a rather smart and intuitive person, but he is really frustrated with the way the Headmaster is speaking. And so he just says, “Headmaster, I would not want to offend you, but could you just tell me what’s happening?”

“Well, this isn’t a gift in the way that somebody would call it a gift. It’s more like the Skill is expiring. You have roughly a week before you lose it forever. And in a week, you will also lose the sword.”

Jacob blinks multiple times.

“What do you mean, lose the sword? If this unlocks the second seal of the sword, doesn’t that mean that by not unlocking the second seal fully, I would just, I don’t know, have a sword that is not fully unlocked? And wouldn’t I be able to find a better way to unlock the sword anyway?”

“Yeah.” The Headmaster makes a few faces and then joins his hands together. “See, that’s not how this works. Your master gave you an artifact which has Karmic ties that will unmake it. The sword will, for lack of better words, explode in a million pieces — which, by the way, if you run the clock to the end, toss it to the bottom of the ocean, because the explosion will erase a small kingdom when it happens. Or if it happens, I guess. You are hated enough by Evil Gods that I don’t put it past them to try and hunt you down right now in your family’s home. But yeah, there’s a good chance that you’re losing the sword.”

Jacob looks at the sword at his side and unsheathes it, bringing it to his eyes.

“Headmaster, I am not a sentimental person.”

“I would actually disagree with that.” The Headmaster cuts Jacob off. “This whole Nimirea thing has really stressed me out, Jacob. I would like for you to never do something like this ever again. I like reading about star-crossed lovers, but this whole matter was just a giant headache.”

Jacob is stumped, and then the Headmaster becomes more serious.

“Listen, I know that you care a lot about Baalrek, and I can’t imagine how it feels to lose the one thing you inherited from him. But if it really goes, he still passed Skills and Spells down to you. And I know,” the Headmaster raises his eyebrows, “about your Skill. You know?”

Jacob blinks multiple times.

“The Rainbow Skill that has been forever marked by your master. Divine swords, you know — if you wanna mess with them, you can find another one. But don’t let this ruin the memory of Baalrek for you, Jacob. A sword is not your master. It’s a nice thing, but it was in his hand through every bit of what broke him. If you lose it, you’re not gonna lose that much in power after Ashenmere.”

Jacob would like to argue against this, but he recognizes that the Headmaster is right. This sword is not King Baalrek, and this sword is not gonna bring him back.

“Anyway, um, I added a little spell to the Skill Crystal. I would have waited and enchanted something of yours when you came back to the Academy, given the risks you’re incurring lately. But for now, if an Evil God is about to incarnate anywhere close to you, or an incarnation has already possessed someone and is within roughly a five-mile radius, that Skill Crystal will notify you.”

“I see,” Jacob says. “Good to know.”

“Well, I have to go now. I have more scrolls to decipher. I discovered an entire new civilization that dates back to—”

Jacob raises his hands.

“Headmaster, I would like to go now. I’m sorry, I’m pretty upset about the sword. I don’t wanna listen to this.”

“All right, all right.” The Headmaster rolls his eyes. “Ignorance is a blessing after all.”

- - -

When Jacob’s consciousness comes back to the beach, he looks at the box and then at the Vice Principal, who has a twinkle of understanding in her eyes.

“What just happened?” she asks.

“The moment I touched it, I was summoned into this soul space, and I had a chat with the Headmaster. I…” Jacob puts the Skill Crystal away in his Interspatial Ring. “I don’t wanna talk about it. It’s… let’s just say, as things stand, it’s a thoughtful gift, but…”

Jacob just gets up and leaves the Vice Principal. Lancelot runs after him.

“Boss? Boss?” Lancelot repeats himself, but Jacob’s eyes are unfocused. “What happened?” the Squire insists.

“Either we find a god to kill,” Jacob says, “or I will lose the sword in a week.” He expects the thin, young man to have an over-the-top reaction.

But his Squire just looks at him and says, “Okay, and?”

“What do you mean, and? First, how do you think we’re gonna find the incarnation of an Evil God? Second, how are we gonna kill it? Third — did you even understand what I just said? We just fought an Original Primordial Dungeon, something that hadn’t spawned in I don’t know how many years.”

“And didn’t you tell me you faced an incarnation already, when King Baalrek helped you?”

“Yeah. And without King Baalrek, I could have never survived it.”

“That was back then,” Lancelot shrugs. “I’m sure that we could take an Evil God’s incarnation.”

“Who gave you all this confidence?” Jacob frowns. “And how are we gonna find one, first of all?”

Lancelot shrugs.

“You gave me this confidence, first. And second, Karma. We’ll just wait for Karma to give us the incarnation of an Evil God.”

“Lancelot, that’s not how Karma works.”

“You don’t know how Karma works,” Lancelot replies.

“I know it better than you.”

“That’s what you say,” Lancelot replies smugly. “I will have you know, I’m actually quite the Karma expert.”

“Do you even know what Karma is?” Jacob asks.

“Of course.”

“Explain it to me then.”

Lancelot narrows his eyes and says, “I’m not gonna explain it to you. It’s you who doesn’t know what it is, so you explain it to me.”

“Are you for real?” Jacob asks, and then just keeps walking and says, “You know what? Whatever. Let’s go. We have a banquet to attend tomorrow.”

- - -

The next day, after Jacob has been dressed in the official Academy robes — with Vice Principal Lyanna telling him that she would have beheaded him if he tried dressing as a noble instead, since it would have given a completely wrong political message — he makes his way toward the large hall where the banquet is being held.

He has to wait for all the other guests to enter first, and as the guest of honor of his grandmother, he will enter last and be presented to them.

“I really don’t get these damn traditions,” Jacob mutters to Lancelot. “Are we sure it’s even worth going through all of this for some summer vacation spot?”

Lancelot is also wearing the Academy’s robes, pressed and cleaned professionally by House Valemont. He’s already eating some pastries that Jacob has no idea where he found.

“Of course it is,” Lancelot says. “Free food, free lodging. You’re essentially a prince here.”

“Don’t say that,” Jacob hisses. “Let’s not cause a political incident. If you say that I’m a prince here, people are going to take it very seriously, Lancelot. Even my mother warned me about it.”

“Well, you also have your mother here. Another point for staying here. Come on, let’s go.”

They reach two giant dark wood double doors. However, before they can enter, Jacob feels his Interspatial Ring suddenly vibrating.

“What the hell?” Jacob frowns.

He looks inside it, and before he can even do anything, something comes out of it and falls to the ground. It clinks on the hard floor.

It’s the Skill Crystal he received yesterday from the Headmaster, and it’s shining a bright red light.

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