Chapter 150—Communication Difficulties

They all stared at Kang with mixed degrees of horror. They could all remember how his organs had been splayed out everywhere. The body lay motionless apart from the chest that went up and down in an almost hypnotic fashion.

Corrine shook his shoulder. “Kang, can you hear. Move an arm. Blink, do something.”

To Tom’s senses Kang felt like someone in their system room, a person turned into a lifeless doll with the chest rising and falling rhythmically..

He was unresponsive, comatose, and that was not something of them had seen before here in the Divine Champions Trial. It was not like someone could sleep here. When that happened, you were rejected back to your body.

“Squeeze my fingers.”

“Corrine stop.” Tom placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s been ten minutes.”

Her head snapped up, fury making her face briefly scrunch up. “I fucking know that.”

“It’s soul damage.” He continued reasonably. “Mr Cricket can you please consult.”

Corrine’s eyes looked panicked. “No, don’t fucking call…”

The ambience in the room changed, and Mr Cricket was standing there at the head of the bed.

“It…” she finished softly.

Silence filled the room.

“How can I help?”

Tom gestured helplessly at his friend. “What can we expect to happen?”

“The soul is damaged, but not to the point of his destruction. It’s still wounded. At this point, he will awaken in the next few days or die.”

“When you say awaken,” Tom said carefully. “What do you mean?”

Once more power gathered around Mr Cricket and then descended on Kang and as Tom watched it, he could see that it was probing the outside of what he recognised as the boy’s soul. The probes were surprisingly gentle.  “It’ll be hours… maybe even days. But you three shouldn’t keep holding out hope of a positive resolution. As my note says, there’s a good chance he’ll die.”

“We’re aware.” Tom said flatly.

“You can go now.” Corrine snapped.

The ball of arms vanished.

“You hate him don’t you?” Briana asked curiously.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because the fucker enjoys torturing Tom.”

“Language,” Tom reminded her quietly.

She glanced at him and then at Briana, and deflated slightly. “He’s not a nice person.”

“You might call him a fucking loser bitch.”

“Briana!” they both snapped at her.

“What? Stop being so protective. I’m almost ten. A couple of swear words aren’t going to hurt me.”

“Briana,” Tom repeated, but he wasn’t sure what to say. She had killed people to get into this trial. What were words versus that?

Corrine sighed helplessly. “Fuck…” she glanced at him with an apologetic expression. “Sorry. It just slips out. Bri, I swear a lot, but I’m careful who I swear around. Try to make sure you don’t use curse words in front of the wrong audience.”

Briana smiled. “It’s not a problem. I don’t swear.”

“You just did,” Corrine argued .

“That was just a once off. Because I thought it would be fu…” She trailed off and glanced at Kang. On her young face, the roadmaps of emotions that she went through were obvious. For a moment she had forgotten about the almost dead person in the room with them and then she had remembered. “Appropriate,” she corrected. “If he’s going to be like that for hours what do we do in the real world?”

“We stay here.” Tom said firmly. “Not necessarily keeping vigil next to the bedside, but here in the trial. It’ll allow our avatars to act perfectly.”

“I’m not a reincarnator.”

“Us acting appropriately protects Kang as well.” Tom said seriously.

Briana accepted the advice, and they stayed together in the same room as Kang with Tom working on his ritual disks with three screens set up to watch what their avatars were doing. Corrine and Briana left regularly to relieve the tension with some duels. 

He had been expecting his avatar to make an immediate fuss, but that didn’t happen. Non reincarnator him tried to wake Kang up by shaking his shoulder for forty seconds before abandoning the attempt and going to breakfast. Reincarnator Tom was horrified and then at breakfast the alternative younger him just said when asked that Kang was sleeping in.

It was not until an hour before lunch when they were being taught Aspect Theory that everything changed. Dimitri came and collected the three of them and brought them straight to the Infirmity. It was not a place that was used regularly and was little more than a couple of rooms with very specialised magical equipment within it.

The three of them watched with interest what was happening on the screens.

Corrine’s one showed her being tutored in class. She was doing her usual daily routine because as far as the wider world knew there were no links between her and Kang. She was in the Divine’s trial because this was the only way she’d be informed if his condition improved. Younger Tom on the screen wandered over to something that looked a lot like a ray gun.

Dimitri noticed and moved to stand next to him. “Most injuries and ailments can get fixed with normal healing spells. This equipment in these rooms is for stuff outside the norms. Curses and soul stuff.” Their headmaster patted the barrel of the item that Tom had been examining. “This beauty is for understanding and burning away structured curses that have taken root in someone. Kang’s here because he is very sick.” Dmitri waved at the boy who was surrounded by three people they’d never seen before. “He’s suffered severe soul damage, and I need to know if you know what might have caused that.” There was a pause. “If we know the cause, we’ll be able to heal it easier.”

“What’s a soul?” Tom’s avatar asked.

Dimitri recoiled slightly, and Tom only noticed because he was looking. After that, Dimitri’s acting ability kicked in and it meant that he didn’t give away the fact that he knew he was chatting with an avatar. Instead Dimitri fell into the wise professor role and took a moment to consider how to respond. “A soul is what we are, the core of everything, where your skills, memories, and everything important resides. And Kang has damaged his. We need to know if he was doing anything unusual. Was he speaking too adults that he shouldn’t have been or was he practising strange magic maybe even summoning?”

“How long until he’s better?” Eloise interjected.

“I don’t know,” Dmitri admitted. “I’ve never seen this level of damage before.”

“I have,” a thin man with a permanently worried expression on his face said. “It was in the field and we were fighting a creature called a soul destroyer. It did physical and soul damage simultaneously. Our main tank got used as a chew toy. We got the body out. Our healers did their thing, but it wasn’t enough. Fixing the body didn’t save his soul”

A look of alarm crossed Eloise’s face. “Is one of them loose in the orphanage?”

“No,” Dimitri said definitively.

The healer also shook his head. “No, the monster we fought was leviathan sized. Our working theory is that this is something he did to himself.”

“Because there were no external wounds.” Dimitri clarified. “Self-inflicted seems to be the most likely explanation.”

Eloise leaned forward. “Could it be assassins?”

“No, this is not how they do things.” Dmitri told them. “It won’t be an outside source. I can almost guarantee that this is something Kang did to himself.”

“But Kang wasn’t doing anything naughty.”

“Are you sure, Eloise?” Dimitri asked gently.

They were interrogated for less than ten minutes, but at the doctor’s urgings they spent the remaining time until lunch next to the bedside. The experts thought that their presence might help Kang fix himself.

Eventually, they left for lunch. During the short walk to the lunch gymnasium, which was the centre of the building, physically and spiritually it became clear that even though Dimitri had rejected the idea of assassins when asked his actions suggested that he was entertaining it as a possibility. Adventurers in full battle array filled the hallway and giving away their high rank when they occasionally moved faster than Tom’s eyes could track.

Tom, in the divine champion trial looked up at the two people keeping him company. “We have to set up a meeting.”

“No,” Corrine said immediately.

“They’re wasting all these resources on something we know is a false alarm.”

“No, we say nothing. A student has suffered soul damage. It’s not something we can sweep under the carpet. We have to let this play out. Anything else will be a giveaway that Kang is special.”

“But our future.” Tom objected. “These people could be out there adventuring and getting ranking points.”

Corrine laughed. “Nope, nope. Use your eyes, logic whatever. There’s no active adventurers here all of them are still in the field. They can’t respond with one day’s notice and everyone here looks rusty. They’ve all lost their nerve.”

“So I say nothing?”

“Yes, unless Dimitri engineers an opportunity to talk to you. He’s not stupid. He knows the Divine Champion’s Trial caused this. So if he summons you spill but otherwise keep your head down. But there’s no way he’s risking drawing you into this.”

Tom could see her point, but he still half expected Dmitri to call him into his office, but it didn’t happen.

The three of them, him and the girls, spent their time split between staying bedside with Kang and maintaining their physical exercise regime.

Three days passed, and Kang showed no signs of getting better.

They met once more in the divine champion’s trial.

“What do we do?” Corinne asked.

“Pray,” Briana said simply.

They looked at her in surprise.

“What? It’s the only thing that can save him now. Mr Cricket was clear. The more time it took him to wake the worse off he would be. It’s been three days. Praying is the only chance we have.”

“We can’t do anything.” Corrine stated. “Dimitri already has priests rotating through his room.”

Tom lowered his head. Corrine was wrong. There was an item in his inventory that could help. It was just when getting it he had imagined using it in a critical moment in battle. Making use of it when fate had deserted them and there was no hope for the party, not consuming it in a situation like this.

He switched location to his own pseudo system room not really caring what the other two thought.

With a simple flick of his mind, the token, a trapped prayer, appeared in his hand. It was more elaborate than the original version he had been given. Nominally, it was tier seven, but what that meant in terms of power wasn’t known.

He remembered how it had been explained to him. The tier six version would greatly lower the cost DEUS would suffer when making an intervention. The Tier nine version would guarantee a greater intervention, but he didn’t know what this would do. There was a significant gap between those two outcomes.

Holding it in his hand, even in his system room was sufficient to partially trigger it. Almost instantly, the steps to activate it were downloaded into his mind.

He made his choice. A small sliver of mana and a touch of his soul were channelled into it.

The moment he did so it crumbled to dust.

He stood there wondering if that meant his attempt had been successful or not. It was hard to tell as there were no other outward signs of activation. Maybe, just maybe, there might have been a slight acknowledgement from outside of him. The slightest flutter of thought and emotion that was not his own. If it existed, it came with a warning that there was only so much, even with a tier seven prayer that DEUS could do to help. Possibly the confirmation happened, but it was so subtle it could have been a figment of his overly active imagination.

He hoped not, but he could not say definitively either way. 

He returned to his bedside vigil in the trial where Kang’s soul still rested to find the other two gone, and Kang remaining as comatose as ever.

“I hope you get better mate.” He whispered and held onto the limp hand.

A small part of him felt like crying. What would it mean if he had wasted the prayer and Kang still died? From the glimpses and DEUS had gifted him into the negotiations of the GODs, he could see a world where there was nothing she could do to bring him back to life.

An hour passed and as he sat on the chair manipulating his magic next to the unconscious boy, time abruptly ground to a halt.

Tom stared in disbelief at the invitation hanging in front of him.

Hope and confusion flared with in him.

He was in the divine champion’s trial. This wasn’t supposed to work here.

Excitedly, he accepted it.

A moment later, he found himself in Kang’s system room, but it had changed. The pictures had gone and the homely relaxing space had been replaced by a sterile hospital arrangement. His friend was lying on the bed, one of the fancy hospital ones, which bent in the middle so that his upper body was at a forty-five degree angle.

“Kang, what’s happening?”

There was no response, and it was clear that even though they were in his soul space something was off. Kang’s mouth was a little crooked, like one side of his face wasn’t responding normally.

“Kang, are you OK?”.

His friend nodded and raised his arm. The fingers were tense and clamped together until they were almost claw like. He tilted the arm like he was trying to give a thumbs up, but the thumb itself wasn’t moving.

A bit of Tom died inside him as the reality of the situation hit. This was his friend’s soul, not his actual body. Temporary ailments couldn’t find purchase here. Which meant…

Be positive, he told himself. Kang needs you to be positive.

“Was that a thumbs up?” He said brightly.

Kang smiled, showing teeth, or at least half of his face did, while the other side barely changed. A cherry expression ruined by mis-coordinating muscles.

He swallowed. “How are you feeling mate?”

“ood.”

“That’s great,” Tom responded as he brushed away the still forming tears, cursing himself for the weakness that had let them slip out. For the benefit of his friend, he should be showing better control. He could always grieve later, in private. “Do you know what’s happening?

Kang’s head jerkily went up and down.

“Can you talk?”

“Ot ood.”

He swallowed heavily again. There was no doubt about what Kang was trying to say. It was good but bad. “Will it get better?”

The other boy tilted his claw-like hands, so the thumbs pointed down.

“That’s a no. So you’re saying that you won’t improve, that this is permanent?”

The hands rotated back to their original direction. “Es.”

“Shit,” Tom whispered to himself, but something wasn’t right. Over two minutes had passed, and the session hadn’t ended. That was more than the ability should have allowed. “Kang? How am I here?”

Confusion spread over the boy’s face.

“I mean this session has been going on for too long. Why hasn’t it ended yet.”

Kang gave another thumbs up without the thumbs actually responding. He focused on the TV screen above the bed. Frustration filled his face, but after a handful of seconds of mounting agitation, the screen flickered to life.

Trait: Master Facilitator

Communication abilities, even ones granted by titles will act as if they are a skill and both

1.       Four tiers more advanced.

2.       The level it acts at is as if it was full two threshold abilities higher.

Note: this is a capstone ability and only applies to abilities owned when acquired.

Tom stared at the description, impressed.

It was quite possibly the most overpowered thing he’d ever seen. At least it would have been without the capstone restriction. Nevertheless, any communication ability that kang had would now be eleven times stronger and have gained access to at least two threshold abilities.

Because of when threshold abilities kicked in it was possible the boost was even more significant. Some skills he had seen didn’t have threshold abilities starting until a zero tier equivalent of over one hundred and twenty-eight. If that was the case, an ability could end up being fifty to a hundred times more impactful once this trait acted on them.

One thing troubled him. “Kang. That’s very powerful how did you get it?”

“I in… iveeen. The ch, ch, cha.” The pitch and loudness of the words increased as he attempted to speak as more and more frustration set in.

Tom cursed the stupid phrasing of his question especially since he already knew the answer. “From the Champions trial. Right?”

He got an immediate thumbs up. Tom licked his lips. It was impressive, but not an ability Kang should have been able to afford, at least not without a massive discount. There was something about the situation that didn’t sit right. His bullshit metre was going right off.

“Was this the only option you had given?”

Fate abruptly flooded out of Kang’s body. It was evidence of another powerful ability because just like how Fateful Earth Body worked, the boy’s fate pool didn’t lower. Forty fate created from nothing was incredibly powerful. The released energy interacted with the screen which immediately flickered through a variety of skill, spell and attribute descriptions which Tom suspected covered every ability description that Kang had ever seen in this life and possibly his last. The screen was refreshing to something new four times every second, so he could barely read it before the information vanished.

Suddenly it stopped on a wall of texts.

Unfortunately, you no longer meet the requirements to participate in the Divine Champion Trial due to the extensive soul damage that has occurred.

As a courtesy, DEUS’s blessing is currently restoring you to full functionality. This will expire in ten minutes or when you leave here, whichever is sooner.

Any of your 334 coins left unspent at that point will be forfeited.

Tom’s throat caught at the matter-of-fact delivery of that information. Kang had been kicked out, but before doing so, she had restored him to his original state. For those ten minutes, Kang would have been cognisant of what had happened. Tom wished he had been there to comfort him. It was unfair for him to have faced such a moment alone. 

He kept reading.

Curated List

Option 1.

Blessing: Soul Restoration Treasure – Tier 12 - Cost 334 (Discount 99.5%)

This blessing given to a healthy soul will increase the capacity to gain abilities by 50% and lower the cost of evolutions, levels, direct trial gifts or purchases via a God shop by 60%.

In your current state, it will heal your existing soul and your damaged body to soul connection to the condition it was before the attack with a couple of provisos. Your rank will be permanently restricted to below forty. The number of skills and traits you can acquire will be limited to 25% of your previous potential.

This discounted purchase may not be given to another

It was obvious that Kang for whatever reason had decided not to select it.

“Why Kang,” he whispered to softly for Kang to hear.

He didn’t need to ask about his motivations. Tom understood why someone who had reached the top million in the tutorial would be hesitant to buy this option. He, like Tom would have been was driven to make a difference on the ranking ladder and this solution would have permanently prevented that. There was nothing that a rank forty could do to influence anything.

He also understood from reading the blessing description why Mr Cricket had rejected the idea of anyone giving a suitable soul treasure to Kang in the future. A blessing powerful enough to restore him to a partially functioning adult would, if applied to a genius effectively double their levelling speed and power.

If you had a choice between Kang or someone else, there was no choice.

Tom’s eyes dropped to the next item that had been offered to him.

Option 2.

Facilitator package cost 334 (Discount 99.2%).

Grants the following

1)       Soul Restoration Treasure – Tier 10

Will heal existing soul wounds to prevent further deterioration. Levelling and further ability acquisition will be impossible. Connection of soul to body and mind will take years to fully occur.

2)       Receive the Trait Master Facilitator

This will allow you to support your friends and maximise the number of ranking points they can gain.

This was what Kang had chosen to buy. “You shouldn’t have Kang.” He whispered. “You could have lived a normal life. Found love and have kids. People might have thought you were nerveless, but who cares. You would have been yourself.”

He could feel his throat choking up and it wasn’t Social Silence.

To understand what he was working with, he re-read it.

The first thing he noted is that the lower percentage discount meant that it was not as valuable as the one that Kang had rejected. The tier twelve blessing looked like it was priced around the mid-level of that tier. This package was still tier twelve, but it was at the very lowest edge of it.

“You idiot.” Tom whispered. How much benefit was that communication trait really worth. Not much, not when compared to Kang’s future. “You could have lived a normal life.”

Kang heard him and clearly did not understand what he was saying. He looked as shocked as a little boy being shouted at by an adult would have been.

“Did you know what this choice was going to do?”

Tom received a thumbs up.

He could talk around the issue forever, but he was not that sort of person. “Did you know you were going to end up retarded?”

His claw-like hands lifted and faced the direction that signified agreement and this time one of the thumbs even pointed up His head also bobbed up and down in almost painful looking jerks. He had definitely known.

Everything was telling him that there was no duplicity here. Kang hadn’t been tricked. He had understood what was going to happen and been happy to sacrifice himself.

“You know I used a prayer to try to help you. It was very costly.”

Kang nodded again happily, and the screen flickered because of the residual of the earlier fate release that was still active. It skipped a number of screens before settling on a new one he had never seen. 

Title: Loved by a Goddess

1)       Your soul is protected from future soul damage, and on death will be restored to peak condition.

2)       You are granted the trait: Happy Fate: For the duration of your life, twice per day, fate equivalent to your maximum pool will be created and expended to maximise your happiness.

3)       In recognition of your personal sacrifice, happy fate is upgraded to Happy Fate (3) which has the same power but triggers hourly instead of twice per day.

Tom stared at his friend. He remembered the fate coming out of him and the screen flickering until it reached the information that he had needed to see. That had been this new trait in play. Letting Tom see the choices he had made would make Kang happy and that is why the fate had done what it had done.

Sometimes it would get him ice cream just when he wanted it, too. Other times it would skewer probabilities to let him communicate through both an uncooperative body and mind.

Tom could see the reasoning behind the decision that the restored Kang had made. Now that he had seen this trait it made a horrible kind of sense. He still hated the choice, but he could see why Kang would do it. “I don’t think I could have made the choice you just did. But if it means you’ll be happy.” His throat choked up with emotion and he couldn’t continue. “I guess… um… I’ll be back,” he told him before fleeing with tears running openly down his face.

He had sacrificed himself to contribute a tiny bit more to save humanity. It was humbling, but at least DEUS had done something to make it more palatable by improving the frequency of Happy Fate's triggering by twelve times. With all that fate he was getting, disabled or not Kang would be happy and that was important.

But he, the boy, the man, the reincarnator he had known was gone. Audible sobs forced themselves out of his mouth. He knew it was unfair, Kang in a way was still there. But this was another person lost, another of his friends dead just like all the others.

They had done what they had to do to try to save humanity and when it was his turn, Tom would do the same. For the billions who were depending on them.

AG. Next Chapter on Wednesday. It was another long chapter so I'm having difficult with the audio file. I'll attach the audio file when the software decides to work.