Childish, yes. Satisfying? Also yes.
Unlike the concoctions Rory had told him about previously, the draught's effect wasn't to help break apart his Skills. He still had to do that manually and endure the blistering torment. Instead, it made his broken Skills glow intermittently along their severed edges, where the patterns were disrupted. The glow was supposed to intensify as his other Skills neared, outlining the potential places where they could bind. Whereas previously Felix had worked by sound and feeling alone, now he had something like training wheels. So after a deep breath, he'd chosen his seed Skill and got started.
With the draught it was far easier to sound their patterns and link the broken Skills together. Long Sword Mastery hooked into Small Blade Mastery, which intersected with Thrown Weapons Mastery and Axe Mastery. Staff and Blunt Weapon Mastery fused together easily, both of which used Parry as an intermediary to fuse to the Sword Skills. Blunt Weapon Mastery also had enough commonalities to link it to Unarmed Mastery, and the particular permutations of his own hand to hand combat let Small Blade Mastery tag along easily enough.
The hardest to fuse was Intimidation, but Felix had no desire to lose a Skill when he could fold it into a new form of weapons combat; this is when the draught really proved itself. Fighting against the pain, strong despite the thrum of his Song of Absolution, Felix could barely see the flaring pattern of his new amalgamated Skill. Cool magenta light sparked along six of its edges, like a contrail of fireworks, before shifting and focusing on a single looping portion of the etched pattern. Felix thought he was seeing things at first, because the sparking was happening almost dead center in the pattern, and how could he affix something there? It all made a ton more sense as Felix realized for the first time that his Skills weren't flat etchings.
They were 3D.
The join was along the edge of Unarmed Mastery in the very center, and Felix could sense, as if from the outside of himself, that the raw force of his unarmed attacks could inspire terror in those who watched him. That was his way in. Once his view had rotating, securing Intimidation to it was relatively painless. Aside from the all the pain.
But then it was done.
Without the existential crises of a Primordial threat, it was all almost too easy. It was just him and the will to carry on. And Felix had plenty of Will.
But the thing about the process, about touching any of his Skills and sounding their patterns, is that the Grand Harmony was never far away. His Skills, as he perceived them, were visual representations of musical vibrations. Literal waveforms of light and sound that echoed with a unique and powerful melody. There were few other places that Felix felt as close to it as he did within his core space.
In stitching together so many of his Skills, it was a cacophony of reverberations that slowly resolved into a strident pattern. A song, more distinct than any person, and new. Felix felt the swell of chords lift him up, a wave that was cresting within the Skill he was holding together. Something was there, just at the edge of his Perception, twinging upon his Affinity like a half-heard whisper. So Felix reached for it.
For a moment, his Affinity snagged on an alien stretch of notes, a faint glimmer of sound so profound it felt like falling into a deep, dark pool. Chords like colossal footsteps shook him, while a million throats took up a call to glory. Music so wild it felt like his soul was trying to dance free of his body, and Felix's heartbeat was subsumed by the tempo of it all. It was...it was both sublime and utterly wretched.
It thundered through him.
In its wake, his Skills burst alight. Patterns that once only glimmered ignited into infernos as the rarefied vibrations filled his core space with golden-blue light. System energy. Without a single ounce of his Intent, a notification shook through him.
SYNERGY DETECTED!
The Skills Axe Mastery, Blunt Weapon Mastery, Long Blade Mastery, Parry, Small Blade Mastery, Staff Mastery, Thrown Weapon Mastery, And Intimidation Have Synergy With Unarmed Mastery!
Do You Wish To Evolve Them?
Warning! Evolution May Result In Death And Cannot Be Stopped Once Begun.
All Choices Have Consequences.
Continue? Y/N
The notification was hard to parse with the flare of power resonating through all three of his Aspects. The Essence within him rioted as golden-blue light surged into his core ring, but Felix directed it down into the flames as well, in an attempt to balance the influx. As he did so, tides of heated emotion wafted through him, hitching a ride along with the flood of power. There was nothing he could do about it, though, except endure.
Felix didn't need to read the notification, not really. He'd seen it before.
Continue! Yes!
Evolution In Process...
This better work!
It felt like pushing lead through a hose. Felix's Body felt heavy, his Mind dulled, and his Spirit dimmed beneath the onslaught of savage energies. System power hit his core in wave after wave of illumination, cascading from all of his ignited Skills, while the Essence of fifty Revenants was siphoned into those congealing flames. Discordant, atonal humming gave a cruel counterpoint to the symphonic majesty of the System, and the Skill bucked beneath Felix's Will.
Another swell of matched powers hit him, again, and again. Each time the evolving Skill was nearly rattled from Felix's grasp. Each time he nearly lost it all, as if it was refusing to fuse together.
"The further along your advancement moves, the more set in stone your existence becomes." Zara's words echoed through his Mind as he held on. "Significance....A consequence of power. The more you attain, the more...weight you have in the three Realms."
Reign of Vellus!
The Skill responded instantly, hurtling from the far side of his core to besiege the stitched Skills with blue lightning. Kinetic force pressed them together, leveraging his Willpower from another angle. More importantly was the Tempered Feature effecting Reign of Vellus.
Gravity - The Pull of Significance
With every ounce of his Mana and Will, Felix held his resisting Skill together, even as his Essence slowly ran dry.
C'mon! You joined so easily! Fuse! Evolve!
A great distance away, Felix heard the sound of a single raindrop falling into a pool.
From nowhere, an irresistible fury welled up in his core, a film of blinding red that flash-soaked his entire core. His emotions, so carefully bottled up, overturned like a can of gasoline, igniting the fires all around him into an uncontrolled inferno. System power swept through him unchecked, and his nebula of Essence unspooled wildly into his core.
The Wild Song faded, the red only thickened, and all Felix could hear was screaming before his senses were inundated with sanguine radiance.
Felix woke on his own bed, fully nude, with a giant tenku on his chest.
"Ouuuufff, Pit!" He croaked. "Get off!"
With a confused warble, Pit shifted his immense weight to the side, which had the unfortunately consequence of tilting his straw-filled mattress. Felix's face mushed right back into the chimera, this time getting a mouthful of feathers.
"Pthaw pthaw!" Felix spat out a unique mix of fur and down, and pushed himself up. "What the heck?"
Sick. Hurt. I am helping. Pit's sending was infused with such a surety and warmth that Felix felt his anger melt away. You were angry. Mad. After ritual.
Felix only remembered snatches since he had chosen to evolve his Skills. Flashes of light and impressions of sound that didn't really make sense. He'd gotten so used to his perfect recall that it was disorienting. "What happened?"
Pit's grasp of language was increasing rapidly, but many things were beyond him. Instead, the tenku sent a series of sense images that showed Felix bursting from the small room in a fit of rage. He'd staggered around the warehouse, smashing through a set of water barrels and shoving...shoving Rory into a wall before Pit had tackled him to the ground. The images were hazier after that, but it was clear he'd been taken to his room.
I did all that? It had felt like watching a stranger with his face. Why? I don't--I don't remember doing that. Is Rory...I didn't hurt him did I?
No. Images of the Dwarf back on his feet flitted through their bond. You were angry. Hurt. Sick.
That anger again. It had never affected him this much before, though. Was this because of the draught? Felix remembered a surge of fury clearly at the end of his ritual.
"The ritual!"
Felix hastily brought up his notifications...and sighed in relief.
"It worked."
New Skill!
Wild Threnody, Epic, Level 35!
You have embraced the Untamed Chords, and the Songs of War have come to call. Mana, the lifeblood of all, is yours to command even unto death; any weapon you hold, whether it is an axe or your fist, can be imbued with the Mana of your core. Scope of imbuement increases moderately per level, mastery of chosen weapons increases moderately per level, Mana cost decreases slightly per level.
Untamed Chords? Songs of War? Felix frowned. He'd lost ten levels of his Unarmed Mastery, but gained ten with everything else. All things considered, it was a rousing success. More importantly...
Formation:
Body: Seed of the Unchained Mountain (Apprentice)
Mind: Godeater (Apprentice)
Spirit: Rising Sovereign (Journeyman)
My Body is unchanged since the last time. Felix slide around the bulk of his Companion, clambering to his feet. The draught worked. It had somehow left his Body alone despite the fact that Unarmed Mastery technically no longer existed. How, though?
He had questions, and he wasn't gonna sit on them anymore. I could have hurt someone because of that potion. Aenea has some explaining to do.
Felix had barely grabbed his clothes before a violent, painful gurgle ripped through his midsection. Swallowing, he reconsidered his options. He'd have time for Aenea in a little bit.
*GURGLE*
Maybe longer.