Victor of Tucson-Chapter 25Book 12: : Veil Walker
25 – Veil Walker
As Victor placed the final thread, tying the twelfth pattern into his central one, he stepped back and looked at his new—and complete, he hoped—mantle. At the center was the first pattern he’d made for this latest version—the one that featured his core memory of the loss of his parents, and his abuelita’s comforting words. It featured all of his affinities with great sharpness: fear, rage, and hope. He’d built a wide pattern around it with twelve more memories that he thought formed the core of who he was—who he wanted to be.
There were rage-filled moments; the time he first went berserk, for instance, or the time he’d broken free of Prince Hector’s trap and embraced the heat of the volcano’s ire. Then there were several fear-filled memories, but he’d been careful to include only those in which he’d won through and taken control of that fear. A prime example was the time he’d first allowed his nightmarish alter ego loose, when he’d almost attacked Valla, but had desperately asserted control.
His favorites, though, were the golden patterns, the ones in which hope, or its little brother, inspiration, dominated. The one near the top was a simple memory, but it was one he thought of often, even to that day: when he’d been a slave in Great Bone Mine, about to be overwhelmed by monstrous insects, only for Lam to fly in and smash the horde with her golden hammer.
Just as important as his choice of threads were the patterns he’d made. They mimicked elder magic spell patterns to a degree, and Victor had been intentional with their design. They spoke of strength, honesty, defiance in the face of fear, justice, and, of course, compassion and love. Overall, the patterns fit the framework more completely than his old, jumbled mess of over a hundred patterns. They didn’t overlap or mix, but they all tied in to the central, original, golden one.
With a thought, Victor dissolved his twelve artificial frames, leaving only the real one there, glowing with lustrous, shimmering, metallic threads of deep blues, golds, and crimson. Where they met at the center and their threads intertwined, a new pattern emerged, joining their colors in shades of emerald, amaranth, silver, and vermillion. Victor had known they would do that; he’d seen it when he tied the second pattern into the first, and he’d been careful to organize the remaining patterns to produce this secondary effect in a way that spoke to his spirit.
As he looked upon that shimmering, shifting display of exotic colors, he saw the beauty of a sunset reflected on the wind-blown waves of the Silver Sea, and he thought of home and the people he cared about. “Perfect,” he said, his words almost a sigh. Without any further doubt or hesitation, he reached into the framework to pull the threadlock.
As the lever thunked into place, the mantle frame shuddered, brilliant Energy surged from the center of the complicated pattern out through its extremities, and then it continued to pulse with that Energy as Victor felt, for the first time, a profound change in his very being. He reconsidered the word: it wasn’t that things were changing, so much as shifting inside him—his body, his mind, his very spirit. It wasn’t a bad feeling. In fact, he felt good—euphoric, almost—as he might if he had received a large influx of Energy.
Before he could examine it further, the System—that small part of it that existed to inform him of the things he’d done on his own—took note of his actions and sent him a message:
***Congratulations! You’ve formed a new mantle: Monarch of the Mountain’s Wrath, Titan of Dread and Grace – Mythic. Your wrath no longer consumes but protects. Your fear no longer binds but guides. Through loss, you found compassion; through pain, purpose. This mantle is born of acceptance, not denial: the truth that courage is not the absence of fear, but its quiet mastery. As the mountain stands between storm and sky, so too do you stand between dread and grace; either is yours to wield.***
As he read the proclamation, Victor didn’t whoop or holler. He didn’t jump up and down with excitement or pride. He simply stood there, soaking in the deep, almost heart-wrenching satisfaction of what he’d done. He’d crafted a mythic-tier mantle, something he hadn’t even been sure was possible. More importantly, he’d come to a profound understanding of his own nature—his history, his emotions, his dreams and fears.
Beyond that satisfaction, beyond the changes in his very being, there was something else. Where before he’d felt a slight pull—the hint of something vast awaiting him—he now heard the rush of a waterfall, the tug of a vortex, the undeniable presence of the veil. The feeling came from outside, though, not in his spirit space. Somewhere deep in his gut, Victor knew he’d made it. He knew that when his consciousness returned to his body, he’d be able to see the veil. He’d be ready to go through it.
It was a strange sensation—that certainty. All of his stress, his doubts, his worries—they felt distant and almost quaint from that new perspective. He sat down and contemplated the many implications, most pressing among them, his upcoming battle with Vesavo. The Death Caster, a man who had terrorized Arona for decades, was ready to battle Victor, a man whom he thought was a steel seeker—possibly powerful, but still someone to be dismissed by a man of Vesavo’s stature. He’d have a rude awakening.
Victor didn’t feel boastful as the thought crossed his mind. To him, it was simply a matter of fact. He didn’t even know what awaited him beyond the veil, but he knew by the clues he’d snatched from people like Dar and Chantico that it would, quite literally, elevate him to a new tier. If Victor felt confident about besting Vesavo before… He let the line of thinking fall away; no need to dwell on that which would unfold in a matter of days, regardless.
Instead, Victor contemplated his status, first looking at his new mantle title, soaking in the “mythic” label. Then he focused on his attributes:
Strength:
2176
Vitality:
1402
Dexterity:
380 (625)
Agility:
403 (648)
Intelligence:
612
Will:
2215
His eyes drifted down to his available points: 1220. Some instinct told him to spend those points before he attempted to breach the veil. He wasn’t sure why, or why he’d even been saving them; he supposed it had to do with his ignorance. He simply hadn’t known what he might need in order to find and pass through the veil. Now that he felt it so clearly, now that he was so sure he could breach it, he knew he was wasting potential by keeping those points unspent.
He thought about putting them into dexterity and agility, but the numbers in parentheses reminded him of his Peerless Warborn Mind feat, and how enhancing his intelligence would also boost those attributes. Additionally, more intelligence meant fast reactions, quicker understanding, and more overall Energy. He looked at his Energy total: 411548. It was an almost absurd number to him, and yet he knew great veil walkers who had an ocean of Energy beside his…lake. Would passing into the veil awaken more potential? Would it make a difference what his baseline was before doing so?
Before he made a decision, he let his gaze drift over his other attributes. Of course, putting points into will was never a mistake, but he had such a mighty will already that even when faced with thousand-year-old vampires, he’d never felt even a hint of any loss of agency. He looked at his strength and vitality, and similar thoughts crossed his mind. Victor shook his head and went with his first instinct. He poured all 1220 available points into his intelligence attribute.
Warmth seeped through his skull and down his spine back in the physical world. Gradually, the heat increased to something almost scalding before it very slowly cooled, and he was left with a tingling sensation. Had he ever raised an attribute so much, so quickly? He wondered if he’d have been able to maintain his consciousness if his mind hadn’t already been outside his body. Chuckling at the strange notion, he looked at his attributes again:
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Strength:
2176
Vitality:
1402
Dexterity:
380 (1113)
Agility:
403 (1136)
Intelligence:
1832
Will:
2215
Smiling at the new totals, he shifted his gaze to his Energy total and caught his breath with shock: 978896. He’d more than doubled his total Energy. He’d known intelligence was a massive factor in total Energy, but he hadn’t quite realized what that would mean when he’d dumped in more than a thousand points, nearly tripling his old value.
Satisfied, Victor stood. He looked around his spirit space, taking in the mantle that represented so much hard work, inhaling deeply as he steeled himself for what was next. It wasn’t that he was afraid of confronting the veil; it was more that he knew a chapter in his life was ending. He still had things to do, loose threads to collect and tie off, but it seemed to him that he’d just reached a turning point, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about the things he’d be leaving behind.
“Don’t cry about it, pendejo.” Victor laughed. He was hard on himself, but he was right; there wasn’t anything to cry about. If he were moving into a new phase of his life, he’d just need to make sure he left room for the things and people he loved. More to the point, he had fights to win, and one of them was a huge unknown: Chantico’s son, Xelhuan, wouldn’t be like Vesavo. He was an ancient being, a full-blooded titan, and he’d reached the height of his power without the System’s crutches.
Victor had felt his aura, his dark, miasmic Energy. It had been so dense and volatile that even Victor, titan that he was, couldn’t stand in it for long. Those thoughts ran through his mind as he allowed his consciousness to slip out into his Core space. He paused there, studying the great conflagration of his Core.
It had grown, fueled by the new potency of his intellect, but the pressure in the space was only marginally greater than before. It was as if the expansion of his Energy cap had stretched the boundaries of his Core space, allowing the Core itself to grow without forcing a breakthrough to the next tier. It was yet another example of the many roads toward greatness available to an individual; advancing one’s intelligence increased Core potential, but not the pressure behind it.
He stared for a few minutes, mesmerized by the dance of the flames and the flow of Energy. After a while, he decided to stop procrastinating and open his eyes to the material world. He was alone in the cave beneath the lake house.
He wasn’t sure of the time, but he imagined Tes and the others would be upstairs, either sleeping or swimming. Cora was a fish, used to the rough waters of the Silver Sea, and she found the depths of the placid lake endlessly fascinating. “What time is it?” Victor asked the empty cavern. No answer came, so he stood and stretched. He forgot the question as the pull of the veil touched his Core, drawing on his Energies.
He allowed himself to be turned by the pull, and then he heard it—the rush of water, the whispering of the wind, the sizzle of electricity over a conductive line, the roar of a great inferno, the hiss of steam, and a thousand other sounds, all combined into a deep, unbearable rumbling. A swirling, kaleidoscopic, shimmering sheen appeared in the air before him. He stared, mouth hanging open as he felt the vibrations of reality in his chest, and heard the sounds of creation in his ears.
“Chingado,” he hissed softly, realization striking him dumb. There was no need to find the veil; it was everywhere. Victor stepped toward the shimmering membrane, stretching out a hand, but when he tried to touch it, his fingers passed through… nothing. His mind, sharper perhaps than it used to be, scanned his memories, and he remembered all the little snippets of clues he’d learned about the veil. He recalled the many little hints having to do with the idea that when one was ready, when one had enough Energy, one would find it.
Energy, he thought, grinning. “I can do that.” Victor reached into his Core, dragging out three thick rivers of Energy—all of his affinities—and gathered them in his hand. He held that blazing ball of power in his fist, and with an effort of will, he shaped it into a chisel—a blazing wedge of potent Energy. He stretched out his hand again, and this time, he met resistance when he touched the shimmering aperture. His grin widened as he exposed his teeth, growling as he pushed, driving his wedge into the strange…veil that separated him from—what?
He didn’t know, but he wanted to find out. He felt the veil giving, but it still wasn’t enough. Victor reached into his Core, pulling more Energy forth, driving it into his wedge, a constant stream wide enough to strain even his mighty pathways. Suddenly, he realized why he’d felt the instinctual need to increase his Energy pool. Already, he’d drained his new supply down to a third.
His ears rang, sweat sprang from his every pore, his muscles screamed for mercy, and still he drove on. Both his hands were on his blazing chisel now, and he continued to push, dragging more and more Energy into it. Every inch of him trembled with the effort. His feet shattered the marble tiles, exploding them into a million fragments. Still, he pushed.
The stone of the cavern grew hot; it glowed orange as the Energy of his chisel mounted, and the sight of hot stone gave Victor another idea. His Core was near drained, but he wasn’t done. Inhaling deeply, Victor accessed his Breath Core and added a jet of abyssal magma to the impact point where his Energy chisel was driving into the veil. To his delight, it didn’t pass through, but hit the veil, just as his Spirit Core’s Energy did. It flared like a nuclear reaction; it recoiled in every direction, drenching his cavern and igniting the already super-heated stone.
Just when both his Breath Core and his Spirit Core were nearly drained, Victor felt his hand advancing, and then, with a clap of thunder that shook every molecule in his body, he pierced the veil and was pulled through.
Victor heaved for breath, leaning forward as he peered out from under his sweat-soaked brow at his new reality. He still stood in the cavern beneath the lake house, but his perspective had changed. He saw currents of Energy everywhere. They flowed in every direction, intertwining and separating with perfect precision. It was a tapestry on a scale that defied logic, that dwarfed worlds and even solar systems. Rivers and tiny trickles, the Energies wrapped around and infused everything.
He reached out and touched one of the currents of energy, and with a spark of intuition, Victor understood Ronkerz’s ability to seemingly be everywhere at once in his lair deep in the Iron Prison. He knew that if he took the time to attune himself to the Energy in this locality, he could build himself a domain in which he’d be nearly omniscient. Even with just that touch, Victor felt the echoes of beings that the current had passed through.
He looked down and saw the currents passing into him, saw how his Core interacted, fueled by the Energy now that he’d passed through the veil. Peering inward, he saw his Core replenishing itself a hundred times faster than it used to. “Hah!” he laughed as more understanding dawned on him. Veil walkers didn’t gain vast pools of Energy; they gained access to more of it.
He wondered how his Core would stack up against other veil walkers. He wondered if his method for breaking through the veil had been sloppy. Did the System grant abilities or spells to make the process easier? He’d certainly acted impulsively, without trying to conceive of a better tool than a brute-force crowbar and a blowtorch! He laughed again at the thought.
Another thought occurred to him, and Victor looked at his status sheet, only to find that nothing had changed. It didn’t say, in bold letters, “Veil Walker.” His attributes and Energy levels were all the same. What had changed was that Victor now walked among the currents of Energy. He was on the same…plane as Energy. An analogy came to him, and he laughed at its perfection: an iron ranker or steel seeker was a person lying on the edge of a lake, reaching into the water with a straw, pulling some of it into their mouth. A veil walker was in the lake, submerged in the water.
The stones around him ticked and hissed as they slowly cooled, and Victor turned, focusing his gaze on the physical world. He found the Energy currents subsided, fading to background noise, almost like his breathing or the distant rush of the ocean back in his home by the Silver Sea. Even so, he could feel the Energy as he walked, tickling his skin, moving with him, shifted by the gravity of his Core.
In a way, everything was aglow. Things were sharper, clearer. His perception wasn’t bound to his body. Almost like when he was using his inner eye and projecting his consciousness onto his aura, Victor could see and hear things that weren’t close enough to his physical eyes or ears for it to be possible. It was as if his consciousness rode the currents of Energy. It was a little disorienting, and he reined himself in, keeping his focus near at hand, but even so, he began to understand the mysterious omniscience of veil walkers even more.
When he climbed up out of the catacombs and saw one of the house staff, he paused and stared with wonder at how Energy coiled and rushed around her. Her Core, small as it was, was beautiful to behold.
“Milord, is all well?”
Victor smiled at her nervous expression and nodded, waving a hand. “My apologies; my mind ran away from me for a moment.” He walked past her, out through the main parlor, and onto the deck where he stared with open-mouthed wonder at the Energy currents in the air, glittering in the sunlight. He moved to the railing and looked down at the water. He laughed aloud, seeing the rich currents of water-attuned Energy, and then his gaze fell upon his companions, Tes among them, and tears sprang to his eyes at their beauty.
Tes climbed out of the water onto the long jetty and looked up at him, shielding her eyes. Her Core swirled at the center of her, a maelstrom of Energy like the heart of a person-sized sun. Energy currents that passed nearby were drawn to her, rushing in, around, and through her Core before righting themselves and flowing away into the wind or the water.
Victor almost couldn’t see her physical form for the brightness of her metaphysical one, but he forced himself to tune out the Energy as he focused on her face. He let his consciousness drift closer to her on the currents of Energy. Her eyes swam before him, big and blue and full of light and happiness. She was still a hundred yards from his body, but when she whispered, it was like her lips were an inch from his ear. “Hello, Veil Walker.”
