One With The Abyss

"Strange little thing isn't it?" I said, shaking the small jar in my hand around. Watching how the black goo struggled to remain stationary before flopping around inside.

"Nothing like anything I know of..." Abby responded, she was also intrigued by the parasite I had gotten as a reward. Her knowledge was vast but in some instances was useless, like when relating to this dungeon.

"Since it's alive, technically I should be able to absorb it, no?" I said wanting to see what kind of talent this thing had, I had thought when I said this Abby would shoot me down, but apparently she thought it would be a good idea.

"Since you know it causes you harm you can just remove it as you wish." She made an excellent point, so I took the cap off of the vial and as expected the little creature jumped up on me.

The slimy material crawled along my cheek towards my mouth, I could more or less see where this was going. I activated my talent and managed to copy its talent faster than any other creature I had faced, after that I used magic to incinerate it. The parasite became nothing but ash as I wiped it off of my face and checked the talent.

[Symbiotic (0/7)]

[Able to latch yourself onto a host and drain their excess nutrients while offering them increased power]

"That's not really something I need." I muttered, why bother finding myself a host when I could just make myself stronger, the talent was redundant.

"Guess I'll see if I can fuse the talent..." I said activating shapeshifting, I found that it was suitable for multiple talents. Of course [Shapeshifting] was available as it was a biological ability; it could fuse with [Exalted Physique], likely due to it somewhat augmenting the body; but the most abnormal of the possibilities was [Soul Weapon]. I didn't understand the correlation and [Soul Weapon] had been nothing but useless up until this point, so fusing the 2 would most likely result in something I couldn't use for a while.

But... It was so enticing. My curiosity got the better of me and I found that the [Symbiotic] talent ended up inside [Soul Weapon]. 

For a moment nothing happened and I was disappointed, but then I felt my soul vibrating. It shook and shuddered just like when I had broken past my limit in magic, my ability had reached its limit and was about to burst, but then it stopped.

"Not quite ready yet?" I sighed, feeling like I had been teased slightly, "Whatever, onto the next floor. Though, is there anything else I should know about my magic talent?"

I just wanted to ensure that I was making the most of it, thankfully my inquiry was fruitful.

"Yes actually, it's in regards to manipulation skill -" Abby said, going off on a lecture on manipulation talents as I descended the stairs to the next floor.

The gist was that manipulation talents and magic talents had major overlap, so much so that some people can be confused about the differences. The primary one being that manipulation talents also include higher elements, but in return their ability to generate the element is much lower than elemental magic talents, low ranked ones do not have any generation function at all.

For most people this doesn't really matter since normal people can only usually have 1 talent, but for me it's different.

"If you were to get a manipulation talent, you can fuse it to your magic and gain insight into whatever it manipulates." Abby explained.

With it I could improve the rate at which my magic improved, it would not automatically allow me to manipulate higher elements but it would allow me to better understand how they form. For example if I were to gain wind manipulation my wind magic would massively improve, on the other hand if I gained smoke magic I wouldn't be able to immediately use smoke, instead I would gain improvements over my fire and wind magic.

"So, you're saying my talent won't directly increase, instead my knowledge will?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around her explanation as I felt a growing cold approach me.

"Pretty much." Abby responded. It seemed that [One With The Abyss] made my growth potential even higher than I had thought.

As I reached the bottom of the staircase I found what had been causing the chilling cold: A giant mountain, covered in snow, sitting in the centre of a snow filled forest. It was unbelievably cold and as I stepped further into the area I felt the effect rushing over me even more.

*Crash*

I spun around, hearing a loud sound behind me, only to see that the door was gone. A slight indentation where a door should be was there but it had now become a wall.

"Fuck..." That was all I could manage without hearing my teeth chatter in the cold temperature.

I was now stuck in a snowy mountain with no way home, slowly freezing to death. 

"This definitely isn't a dungeon." Abby muttered, I asked what she meant, "The base of it may be, but only the very core components. Someone has taken a dungeon and turned it into something else; actually, it looks like they've taken multiple dungeons."

"How can you tell?" I had grown to trust Abby and her knowledge so now, I only wished to learn how she realised this instead of questioning whether or not it was true.

"The time flow is different here." Her words sounded cautious, she was worried about something.

"I thought you said that was common in dungeons." I responded, but that wasn't what she meant.

"Yes, but the altered flow is constant within the dungeon, this floor's time flows differently to the other floors." She said, "I can only tell since the change is so obvious, just be cautious."

Right as she said that, a pack of pure white wolves surrounded me. I just scoffed at their pack and killed the lot of them, after absorbing their talents. The real danger here was the temperature. Or perhaps I had grown arrogant, who could tell.

[Cold Resistance (0/3)]

[Have more resistance to the cold]

The talent shot up, instantly to the 3rd rank and I still felt quite cold, though it was a little less. 

"This fucking sucks." I complained, realising I would have to clear this floor in order to get out of the cold, "I wish I had some damn tailoring talents or something to make clothes."

"You just need to get this over with, I can pretty clearly tell the exit is: At the top of that mountain." Abby was probably right, so I began making my way through the alpine trees killing different snowy variants of monsters I have already killed.

All of them just gave me Cold resistance, some pushing it up to new levels that were then promptly filled, becoming [Cold Resistance (5/5)]

Soon I made it to a clearing in front of a path that led up the mountain, I was thankful as I was currently freezing my ass off, but of course it wasn't that easy

Guarding the entrance to the path was a giant white bear:

[Blizzard Bear]

[Savage and powerful, ruler of the snowy forest]

"Damn." I said, getting ready to fight it, "This is going to be more annoying."

Previously I had been using fire magic to take out the monsters, seeing as they all had some kind of weakness to heat. That made the journey easy as it was as simple as launching a few fire arrows then trodding over their corpses; this bear however, looked much more sturdy. I doubted I could take it out in such a mundane way.

The bear roared and charged straight at me like a truck, I managed to dodge the charge and the bear crashed into a tree behind me

"Or maybe it won't be." I laughed, the bear seemed to be much dumber than I had anticipated. Again it charged at me, but as I moved to dodge it rose to its hindlegs and slashed at me with its large paws.

Although I hadn't expected this I could dodge it, getting sent backwards slightly from the force. The bear also experienced pain as I had coated my carapace shield with fire, even if it resisted better it still clearly hurt it.

A grin spread across my face as I regained my balance, fire began gathering around me as I prepared to attack; the bear lowered itself in a predatory stance, much more cautious as it witnessed me commanding fire to float above me.

Remember, I coached myself, Don't focus on just killing. Do something different, push your limits and succeed.

Our standoff ended as 3 lances of fire launched themselves forward, the bear jumping sideways in a display of agility I had not expected from such a large creature. I had the upper hand as my attacks could cover much ground and the bear's fur singed as it just barely escaped the range of my attacks.

Fire becomes lightning, lightning is fast and powerful, focus on that. That mantra repeated within my head as mana began to form under my command as fire element mana; I carefully observed how it occurred, the means of producing it and how it acted when it was fully formed. 

I had the upper hand in the fight for now as the Blizzard Bear's natural instincts prevented it from getting closer; though this could easily change so I made sure some of my attention was on the monster as I bombarded it with magic.

Watching how the mana particles acted as fire was quite interesting, something I would have to study further with other elements as well, but as fire each particle of mana in the air began vibrating, as particles on Earth did when they had high energy. From this, the vibration would become so intense that the mana ignited to become a fire element attack, this led me to believe that the amount of energy was indicative of the type of attack (in regards to fire).

So, to test this theory I began infusing even more energy into the particles. In doing so I didn't create electricity, but a change did occur: Like when I had fought the werewolf the fire began burning blue, the intensity of the vibration was so high it caused the mana to burn with complete combustion, only now it wasn’t due to the excess oxygen thanks to the wind magic, but instead the fire was so hot it could completely combust in average oxygen conditions.

"Looks Like I'm on the right track." I said, feeling my soul shake slightly as the barrier between me and the next proficiency level was beginning to weaken, the attack was much stronger but the energy drain was much higher as well, I would have to fix that.

Unfortunately, despite my attacks getting stronger, my happiness caused a lapse in judgement and the bear rammed into me at full force, sending me crashing into a tree behind me. I coughed up blood and felt a little annoyed that my celebration and study had been ruined, the bear looked ready to fight again so I prepared.

My arm changed into the blade of the mantis and I prepared to slice it to pieces, pumping energy through myself to induce a higher strength I charged forward. The bear had not expected such speed and so could not react as a large gash appeared along its side. The bear roared in agony and cuts began forming all over its body; it swiped around randomly but could do nothing to stop my assault, each slash contributed to the copying of its talent and pushed it closer to death.

The bear, unaccustomed to pain, stood on its hind legs and roared deeper than it had previously. I decided to slow myself slightly to see what was going on, from the mana it was gathering I could tell I was in no real danger, ice began growing along its claws, teeth and from its back like spines. It looked much more intimidating than before but I only scoffed and finished the beast off, its eyes flashing in disbelief as its head flew far above its body.

"I just wanted to see what my new talent did." I smirked as the eyes of the blizzard bear went dull and its head fell to the ground.

[Elemental Enhancement (0/5)]

[Increase all abilities by coating yourself to the element you are most attuned to]

I wondered how this ability would work to me, having a talent that covered 4 elements, but nonetheless I was excited and prepared to fuse it into my magic talent but paused as another compatibility showed itself: [Abyssal Heart (6/7)]. My aura talent.

I had been neglecting pushing myself further to awaken my aura, finding my fascination towards magic just too much, but perhaps they didn't necessarily have to be too far separated.

"Okay then." I said, resolving myself as [Elemental Enhancement] became part of [Abyssal Heart]. However, something I hadn't expected occurred:

[Error: Anomalous components detected within talent <Abyssal Heart>]

[Attempting to eliminate abnormalities]

My heart stopped for a moment as I saw that I may lose something important. At that point I got down and prayed to a God I hadn't believed in for years for that not to happen, and thankfully I was granted such amnesty.

[Error: Attempt failure]

[Error: Attempt failure]

[Error: Attempt failure]

[Elimination failed: Searching for alternative remedy]

After this, 2 more of the proposed remedies failed, I didn't understand why the talents were compatible if this was the result; just from looking at this it seemed the 2 abilities were not at all compatible.

"It's fine, your body is abnormal. The abyss doesn't play by the rules of the system." Abby explained, calming me down as yet another remedy failed, it was taking much longer between proposed remedies now, "The abyss, just as it warps existence around it, warps the powers of the system. Having multiple talents and fusing them is a perfect example of this as normally this should be almost impossible, the system can do nothing but attempt to rationalise and display information that has already been decided. There is nothing to worry about."

Abby's words eased my heart as I continued watching even more system messages pass me by, my alert screen became flooded with the messages of failure. I remembered even [Abyss Vein] was a difficult ability for the system to give me in the first place, that was the first time I had even seen the system fail, now, with the same talent, it was happening again:

[Restoration failed: Searching for alternative remedy]

[Attempting to force talent awakening]

[Error: Attempt failure]

[Error: Attempt failure]

[Attempt Success]

[Talent: <Abyssal Heart (6/7)>, has become talent: <Abyssal Soul (0/9)>]

"Wait, zero. Why did it dro- AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" I fell to the ground, writhing in pain as blood flooded from every orifice. I saw as first red blood covered the ground, then I watched as the red snow was replaced by black snow. My body felt as if every cell within it was being ripped to pieces and mashed back together by a toddler, I had screamed so much my voice became hoarse and eventually silent; I was left to thrash in anguish, as all of my senses shut down, yet I remained distinctly awake.

Soon the pain subsided, for a moment I thought the process had come to an end, but no: That was only the beginning.

Everything began hurting. My body, my brain, even my thoughts hurt. I could see with my ears and taste with my eyes; the entire world was bathed in madness and I sat upon its throne as the God of insanity. Every traumatising moment flashed before my eyes, the bullying and abuse disappearing and reforming. Nothing was real but it was. Contradictory existences came one after the other: A lie, then a trick, yet both were the truth and reality.

My mind was shattered, but even that wasn't enough for my pain to subside as something much deeper began. A pain in my very existence occurred; I saw my memories change, they no longer existed as they once were but instead there was only pain.

Every moment of my existence I writhed in suffering and despair, my entire life written over by a pain that I was feeling for all eternity. Then it all came crashing down, like panes of glass they fell and shattered and I found myself laid in the tainted snow.

Tears, black blood, my own waste. All laid beneath me as all that remained of my suffering was the memory of it. 

The original memories of my suffering under others returned as the glass began to reform as I had once seen them, yet now they seemed unbelievably simple; all that suffering was nothing in the face of what had just passed.

"Ha... Haha... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" I laughed, more tears streaming down my face, it was over and I had survived. Everything that had happened to me up until now was meaningless, life began anew. Sure I still wanted revenge but it was merely for my own satisfaction, rather than sating the burning desire I once felt deep within me.

This really was a second chance for me.

A real second chance at life.

"HAHA... HAha... Haa." I began panting, running out of breath.

"Abby." I said weakly, "What was that?"

It was silent, too silent. Normally she would have spoken by now, perhaps there was something wrong with her. I sat up worried, feeling disgust at the filth I was laying in. Thankfully my shirt was already cleaning itself, considering cleaning a function of repair. The pants, not so much.

"I'm sorry..." That was all she said, I chuckled and told her not to worry about it, I just wanted to know what had happened.

"Your soul changed." She said, "What you felt was pain in your soul."

"Is that why it hurt so bad?" I asked.

"Yes, changing one's soul so drastically is incredibly dangerous, I think the system was trying to eliminate you." Abby's voice was shaky, "I'm sorry Tia, I didn't think about how the system would react to you."

"The abyss is an abnormality, like a virus that has wormed its way inside and is taking advantage of the system. Of course it would try to get rid of you, I'm such an idiot; why didn't I take precautions?” The last part was clearly self-deprecating.

"Everything is fine, see I'm okay now!" I said taking off my pants, immediately feeling the biting cold, but I had to clean them (I used water magic to thoroughly wash them, I got rid of my underwear as they were honestly beyond saving).

"IT'S NOT OKAY!" She yelled, "Putting a soul under stress can cause Ego Death!"

Abby explained to me what had happened, the system couldn't find a way to fix my talent and so resorted to overloading it by forcing it to awaken and fix itself. This caused a major change in my soul, something that should never occur. The soul is the one constant that contains a living being’s essence, it gradually grows and adapts to fit the person it contains, but it can never be forcibly changed. The soul is a constant, that's why my pain reverberated through my memories, the constant was being changed throughout all times when I existed.

Under normal circumstances, I would have awakened my aura and then eventually gained [Abyssal Body], then as my body became more perfect, it would begin transforming my soul until eventually the talent became [Abyssal Soul], the safe and clear way for this to occur.

"No, hang on a second. When my talents upgrade I can feel something within my soul pushing back. If that's true then how can a soul be constant?" I remember the feeling thanks to [Soul Sense] allowing me to properly experience this.

"That change is gradual and on a small scale." Abby said, informing me I was wrong, "What happened to you is a complete restructuring of your entire soul. It's like the difference between moving a cup of sea water to a different location to moving the entire ocean's worth of water: The consequences of the 2 are completely different, even if it is fundamentally the same task of moving sea water from one place to another."

My face dropped slightly as Abby continued to explain what this meant. 

Ultimately, if the soul is put under too much stress it shatters. Since a person's mind stems from the soul this results in them becoming just a slab of meat, no will, no ego. A fate worse than death as you suffer in agony, even after the body rots away as the soul cannot properly pass on, having been shattered. I really should have died.

Although Abby doesn't know why, she believes my soul survived since I had been under intense trauma my entire life and was able to maintain a solid grasp on my existence, but that was just a guess, a shot in the dark.

"Well..." I didn't know how to feel really, but things worked out, surely this was good.

"Yeah... You're right." Abby said, finally calming down slightly, "With this you are much stronger."

"Really? Even though the talent dropped to the bottom again?" I asked, putting my now clean pants back on (it was amazing what you could do with magic).

"Just try it out." This was all she said, so I did; and she was right. The movement of my energy and my control over both abyssal energy and mana was just as, if not more, powerful than before. 

I had gained incredible power; like they say: 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.'

Well, I had always hated that, but now it seemed topical.

"Okay, you should rest for now." Abby said, "But first you can now fuse exalted physique with abyssal soul, and your assimilation of abyssal energy will be even better."

Abby seemed much more excited than me, making me chuckle. I did as she said and began meditating to enter the realm before the abyssal gates; not fearing monsters approaching due to this being the Blizzard Bear's territory, nothing to bother me while I regather my strength.

With a truly new soul I was a new person; and now I was ready.

Now, I can truly start my real second chance.