Chapter 13: Cavern secrets continued

  His personal discovery of the connection between the usage of mana and qi was the catalyst for unlocking the secrets of the cavern. Though he now knew that the soul was the common denominator, he continued to cycle between the two different energies. The goal was to be able to observe the part of him that was exerting his will on his surroundings. It was a steady process, not filled with sudden improvements. Rather, it was slow and required deliberate practice. It was as though he had been given eyesight for the first time and was in the process of acclimating to the sudden change in the perception of the reality around him. Every now and then, to cut up the monotony Sam would activate his trait to view his archive; not to actually view its contents but rather to observe the process of his consciousness moving to his soulspace. He was aware that his trait interacted with his soul, it even specifically mentioned a “soulspace” and he used that connection to try and find inspiration for his attempts at observing his soul. A big part of the struggle was that a lot of the things that accompanied the system were somewhat automated in a sense. The process he was going through right now was to peel back the layers in order to be able to see the method behind it all. In this case he was concerned with the intricacies regarding interactions with the soul. He wasn’t too ambitious with his goals, at least Sam didn’t think so. He wasn’t trying to figure out how, he just wanted to see things as they happened. Although, “see” in this case was the wrong term, it would be more appropriate to say "perceive.”

  Many days passed, possibly even weeks. Sam did nothing but try to perceive his own soul. When he grew weary, he rested, if he hungered he ate and if he grew thirsty he drank. All other time was spent in silent and internal contemplation. This project of perception was all consuming to him. He would later on realize that he had not needed to use the toilet at all, not since the day he finished forming his core and reaching the limits of this tier’s physical reinforcement. In the moment though, he errant thoughts had no space to carve from his focus. For a while now, Sam had kept his eyes closed; it was easier for him and felt more natural even if there wasn’t any light in the cavern in the first place. In the beginning he could scarcely see a thing, it was like seeing the smallest pinprick of light in a different color amidst the backdrop of a sunny day. His eyes being closed and the lack of any other stimulus in here helped a lot in allowing him to focus on the small details without losing confidence that it was both real and that he was making progress. Now Sam saw much more, he perceived his soul as another body, his body, and it was superimposed over the space where he was. It was like it had its own different parts just as a living body has its own organs. Everything he did was mirrored by his soul, or more aptly every time he did anything he was doing so alongside his soul. It was a vital component to his existence. If one threw a punch for example, every part of the body was involved in the process from the skin to the nervous system to the muscle fibers and the lungs. No single organ was removed from that process as they were all prerequisites for the movement to take place at all. The soul, he knew now, was another one of those things that were necessary. That initial pinprick that started as seeing a small part of his soul where his sternum was now grew to an awareness over his entire self, an awareness of the part of him that contained who he was and that interacted with the esoteric new forces he was exposed to in this reality. It was like a colored haze in the same space as him and in the exact shape of his living self. After going over all that he could “see” he finally opened his eyes after quite some time. Instead of the darkness that he was expecting to greet him he saw a vibrant world. A world glowing with possibility. He saw the stone walls of the hallway that lead to the cavern, he saw the stalagmites and stalactites, he even saw what looked like a dome of tangled roots forming the central part of the cavern’s ceiling. And yet, he didn’t really see these things, there was still no light in here. He was seeing the souls of everything around him. The implications of the idea that even inanimate things had some kind of soul was staggering and something that he would think about later.

  [Congratulations you have gained the trait] [Soul Sight (A, rare)]

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  [Stand proud Samson, to be is to have a soul and to have a soul means containing what it means to be. You have taken the first step, of many more, to seeing all that there is.] [You have once again been awarded Special experience that will be held for you until such time comes that receiving it wouldn’t cause your immediate dissolution of being.]

  [You have completed the Tutorial trial Cavern of Souls]

  It was odd that opening his eyes allowed him to see the souls of everything around him when he knew that it wasn’t technically sight regardless of the name of the trait. He chalked it up to being some kind of synesthesia tying the ability to perceive souls to his eyesight in order to make it more palatable to him. He wondered if he could technically smell, feel, hear, or even taste souls if he tried hard enough to switch which sense the trait was tied to. As much wanted to know what souls smelled like though, he would keep it to his eyesight for now. The interesting thing about the trait was that it made everything sort of be outlined and see through. He could at this very moment see the souls comprising his pack, its contents, and the ground beneath it. With all these thoughts swimming around his mind he blinked and suddenly he was sitting in front of the Ancient Spiritual Narra tree once more. Being able to see the world alongside the souls within everything was a breathtaking sight. Now that there was light in his surroundings again, the effects of soulsight were no longer so extreme. It mostly took the form of everything having some kind of outline and there being greater detail in his point of view. It wasn’t until he chose to focus on something and willed it that he began to once again see the components of the souls that he could casually observe when he was in an environment depriving his other senses. It was nice to know that he could still more closely observe things if he so wished and he was relieved to not have to deal with the sensory overload that could have been had the entirety of the trait’s effects been overlaid onto his regular eyesight. While it wasn’t what he was expecting when he went looking for a cave to practice in, truly nothing beat some good old closed door cultivation.

  A lot of the things that Sam gained in the tutorial so far were truly incredibly interesting to him and much of it was a small view into the nature of experience but he was getting worried that he wasn’t gaining anything combat related. He assumed that there was a tutorial boss somewhere around and even though he had been the first to gain a class, surely others had more than caught up by now. Likely many have surpassed him. Of the things that gave him experience toward leveling up, he wasn’t sure how big a contribution combat made. Sure he had leveled up to level ten, but he also did quite a bit that wasn’t simply fighting goblins. Well with his current abilities Sam was at least confident in being able to get away from danger. He didn’t have a legendary walking skill for nothing after all.

  Now that he was back outside he decided to take a break for a little while. In the cavern all he did was work nonstop so he felt like he deserved some relaxation. He climbed up the Narra tree, even more imposing now that all the cherry blossoms were gone, and found a nice spot to sit and lay against its substantial trunk. He then took out the stick that kept a slot in his personal inventory as well was his spear. While he didn’t have a knife the spearhead was sharp so he thought he would try and carve the wood into a walking stick using the spear. The main issue was how hard it was to do that with the awkward length and balance of holding a spear near its tip as though it were a knife but he made it work for him as best he could. The superhuman strength from his stats certainly helped with the balance being all off. There was also another reason he wanted to carve this wood. He had a core now, and qi. He had just spent weeks interacting with his qi and he wanted to see if he would be able to coat the spear head in a thin layer of qi to make it sharper. Hopefully he would gain some insights into using qi for combat and get a fancy new walking stick out of the effort. Sure he was relaxing, but what’s more relaxing than playing with magic. Chuckling to himself maniacally like a cartoon villain, Sam got to work bringing the wood into shape, first without the qi and then eventually he’d try with qi to see the difference in effectiveness. Of course, it was no true break unless accompanied by a snack so he ate from his thermos before going all in on stick making.