Chapter 188 (1/2)

Randidly’s hands tightened into fists. This fucking…!

But then something distracted Randidly, something that helped defuse some of the aggression he had in his chest. Even though his Soul Skill, or the strange image Randidly produced of it, was locked to his view, zooming around his inward world, stopping to examine all of his skills, was that strange wisp of green energy.

When Randidly re-entered his inward world, it noticed and flew over to him, to fly around him excitedly. It was much easier to let go of the tight ball of anger with an adorable, seemingly alive energy creature flitting about. But that didn’t really stop the gears in Randidly’s head from spinning wildly.

How was this possible? Who was doing this? And why didn’t they want him to be doing this…?

More interesting though, was that the skills weren’t just an outside phenomena. Randidly could use them in a meta fashion, like within his Soul Skill. This…. There were definitely implications, but Randidly couldn’t really think of anything. Most of his skills were combat related. He sincerely doubted it would be a good idea to use them upon his visualization.

But on the other hand… now that he had been effectively forbidden from doing it, he wanted to try it. And he knew academically that it was probably a bad idea, but then the impression of foolishness was quickly overridden by the overriding anger that the strange being that was interfering in his body was taking away options from him. Randidly valued independence highly. He wanted his decisions to be his own.

And lately, in regards to paths… they hadn’t really been.

Randidly held out his hand and the wisp of emerald energy landed on it calmly, hopping back and forth. It was a combination of a christmas light and a wisp of smoke, and it felt strangely warm on his palm.

Randidly briefly opened his eyes, and could no longer feel it, sitting in the inn, but closed them again and visualized his inner world where his skills sat, and it was there, warm and real. Frowning at it, Randidly noticed for the first time that there were very dim notifications floating in front of him.

Randidly’s frown deepened. He hadn’t taken the black potion in a while, why were they-

Narrowing his eyes, Randidly considered the black potion. It somehow interfered with his perception of the system. Also… he couldn’t remember being influenced in quite the same way as he was now before he was taking he potion. Were perhaps those same annoying locks with bells hiding away his notifications? Was he perhaps allowing some other creature’s skill to act on him by taking the potion…? It was a chilling thought, and one that made a weird amount of sense.

But it was also possible that the forces were acting on him now because he was a much more powerful individual than he had been in the past, and because of the Aether Spring he held inside of himself. Those were likely not unrelated details. A series of strange coincidences that led to an individual that desired power and had an Aether battery inside of himself that could do it. An Aether much more pure than the Aether that others had access to.

Which didn't make sense to Randidly. Why should his Aether be more pure, when villages also had Aether springs? What was different?

Also, Randidly had his doubts that his strength was on the level that the entity that could manipulate Aether in his chest would want to control him too directly-

The emerald energy vibrated furiously against Randidly’s hand and he blinked. Palpable in the air around it was annoyance that he was so distracted from it. Laughing and shaking his head, Randidly proceeded to grab at the strange emerald energy which flitted happily from side to side, dodging his attempts.

The energy itself was extremely strange. There seemed to be some actual substance to it, but Randidly was unable to get his hands, well, imagined hands, on it. It was a slippery creature, full of glee and animal cunning. It also seemed extremely well disposed towards him, although perhaps that was just because he was the only one here.

After a time of playing, the energy seemed content, and Randidly opened his eyes and returned to the small room. This was… a strange development. It seemed that the energy possessed its own life independent of him. It was a basic life form of some sort. Well, Randidly wasn't really sure about the details, but if his soul skill was somehow refining life…

Which seemed slightly ridiculous a proposition, but Randidly suspected that there was some complication to the whole Aether Spring situation that he had missed. What was Aether? Some form of energy? The language and hardware of the system, perhaps?

Stretching slowly, Randidly set this most recent issue to the side and tried to rid himself of his smoldering anger. He made a mental note to ask Claptrap to purchase him some meat from high level monsters. Then he also reminded himself to ask Claptrap what exactly the Regional Tournament comprised. Was it going to be a strange sort of tournament like the qualifier? Or a more typical 1 on 1 single elimination tournament?