Many years ago, Jon had an idea when he was in the orphanage, an idea so dangerous and brilliant that it put him on a path of power like no other.
If Magic exists in a world, simply making it a resource to spam the phenomenon known as Spells seems wasteful and inefficient. Magic is a tool that must be used to harness other resources and make new inventions.
For example, if a certain village produces lumber, selling it directly may make some income, selling it as blanks would make that income better, selling the blanks as furniture and woodwork, however, is the best way to maximize the economic benefit of lumber production.
The same goes for Magicka, if you are talented in Magic, you can simply cast it into spells, if you are smarter, you can fortify yourself with auxiliary enchantments that increase your efficiency in combat, if you are the smartest, however, you make that increase in efficiency permanent.
Jon wasn't the pioneer of such an idea, of course, Mages have used enchantments all the time to make such useful effects last longer and to increase their efficiency as spellcasters.
But is that enough? Jon asked himself.
Enchanted gear can be stolen and powerful artifacts attract greedy and maleficent people. So, what was the solution?
Young Jon remembered the game he was playing, TESV Skyrim, and especially the Active Effects sub-menu in the Magic menu, which displayed the player character's passive effects, whether permanent or temporary. Jon was always interested in the permanent ones and spent the latter part of his life collecting them.
These permanent powers came as Racial Powers, Divine Blessings, and Special Boons.
Jon's grand idea at the time was not to only gather these effects but to find a way to artificially synthesize them and to be able to master them without outside influences be it Daedra or Aedra.
Such powers and effects could only be gained due to opportunities and good fortune, still, someone with Jon's understanding of the world has a firm belief that there are no such things as accidents or coincidences. And if his belief was to stand, he had to figure out the science behind powers.
It took a little while but the word Young Jon was looking for was "Refinement". The story of how he came to the concepts day as Jon was in Riften's market when he and the boys were lollygagging near Balimund's forge in the cold of winter and Jon had an enlightening conversation with the Blacksmith.
Balimund said that a blacksmith, like all sorts of craftsmen, must undergo certain steps to be adept in his craft. First, he must start as a miner and harvest ore to gain insights about metal, second, he must learn to refine his ore and make it into proper crafting material, third, he must learn how to plan his idea to make a product with the materials thus designing and planning before crafting, fourth, he must know how to reshape every piece of his work whether it is by casting or by forging, finally, he must be able to assemble all those pieces together in one single product with the right quantities and design. Doing so, and understanding each of these steps, can lead to the mastery of each step.
Young Jon adopted that philosophy and analyzed it in the following steps: Harvesting, Refining, Designing, Reshaping, and Assembling. These five steps were fit for the ideology of Balimund as a blacksmith but Jon soon added two more steps to it, Cultivating before Harvesting, and Trading after Assembling but that, of course, was a general philosophy of crafting.
When Jon wanted to apply this philosophy to Magic, he understood that he must know how to Cultivate Magic. This was the easy part since if one has the basics of Magicka drilled down from a young age, he or she can eventually grow the amount of the Magicka they can muster by constant training.
After Cultivating, comes Harvesting and Jon struggled to apply that concept. A Mortal Soul has the affinity to store Magicka within as the Anuic Essence needed to control other Magicka. At first, Jon thought that by directly absorbing Magicka from nature, he could eventually force his soul's Magicka to increase, giving him the ability to harness more outside Magicka.
His methods were still rudimentary at best and he ended up wounding his soul. His astral body was damaged for a while, giving him a hard time until he learned that he couldn't blindly Harvest Magicka before Refining what he absorbed and thus began his healing process.
Once that was out of the way, Jon could see a path in front of him and see how it proceeded, thus he unknowingly Designed a Magicka Training methodology which he called Magicka Meditation which had many similarities to the well-established Old Ways of the Psijics and the Velothi Wizards.
This way was composed of major four realms, the Magicka Gathering, the Frame Building, the Heart (or Spark) Formation, and finally the Oblivion Separation.
The Magicka Gathering realm was the first and it was composed of 9 minor levels. Each of them wasn't different from the others but had a tougher bottleneck than the one before it. Upon completion of this major realm, Jon gained an ability called the Astral Access, a state of being in which he can create an equilibrium between both his Vitality and Magicka without the need to cast any spell or even concentrate that hard. By allocating all his energy on either side, he can grow in power as a warrior or as a mage whenever needed but Jon has already gathered a lot of Magicka in his early stages to the point where he could do both at the same time without using the Astral Access only for emergencies.
The Frame Building realm was the second major realm and it had 3 phases each with its own 9 minor levels. The three phases were the Ironbone, the Stoneskin, and the Ebonblood. This stage marked the beginning of Refining the body into a greater state of being and Jon immersed himself in training during that period to build the perfect physique. Unlike the previous realm where he had to energize his body and soul with Magicka, this realm was about making his body the strongest possible thing to house that immense Magicka and become a force to be reckoned with in a body refined by Magicka to the extreme. Upon the completion of this major realm, Jon gained an ability called the Eternal Flesh, a state of becoming a superhuman whose body can no longer be harmed easily by weapons, maintains his most optimal state of youth for his remaining natural life, which was at that time boosted to almost 500 years, and he became immune to disease.
This was something that Jon strived for, a passive power that gave him benefits and was embedded into his very being without outside intervention. Still, it was merely the first of many he had to synthesize along his journey to the pinnacle of power.
The Heart Formation realm was the third major realm and the one Jon was still currently in. It had 3 major phases like before but their levels were loose and would get longer and shorter depending on how Jon was able to navigate. This stage marked the end of Refining and the start of Reshaping one's entire being. The three phases of this realm were the Flame Heart, the Frost Heart, and the Thunder Heart, as their levels were loose, there was a catch to each and every one of them and that was the Aetherial Tribulations.
Aetherius, who holds the authority of Heaven over Nirn –the earth–, has set many boundaries around Mortalkind, who willingly –albeit deceived– descended from Aetherius to Mundus, sacrificing the restraints of immortality to the freedom of mortality. These boundaries entailed many paths back to Immortality and becoming CHIM, a noble being, in Ehlnofex, the language of the Elhonfey, the first semi-mortals to reside in Mundus. The thing is that to attain CHIM, one must die and thus be judged based on their hearts and either get their souls to ascend to Aetherius and become immortal once again an Afterlife of its choosing such as Sovngarde, or be damned to Oblivion or any other unfortunate Afterlife that may end with the soul being devoured by the Daedra, the Ideal Masters, or anything that lurks in the darkness of the unknown.
Jon, however, wasn't keen on dying, and many other people already walked that path without dying, exploiting all that their hands could get. Divayth Fyr, the ALMSIVI, the Psijic Order, and many more individuals walked this path. The difference between them and Jon was how power-hungry he was and how he intended to ascend to the peak in less time than they did. Thus the tribulations began by smiting Jon with the ire of Aetherius to stop him from breaking the restraints of the world.
First, during the Flame Heart phase, the heavenly fire would descend from the heavens and rain down on him. Jon would go to the safe wastelands of Winterhold and rest in the snow as these fire envelopes try to eat him alive but each time he emerged victorious over the will of the heavens, his power would grow expeditiously.
Second came the Frost Heart phase; it was the one Jon hated the most. He was encased in so many frost storms to the point where his advantage as a Nord against frost was rendered obsolete, however, he spent the second half of that state in Hammerfell and Elsweyr so it wasn't all bad.
Finally came the Thunder Heart phase and this one lasted longer than anything before. The heavenly lightning and thunder were faster and harder to predict than any other and thus Jon spent most of his time up in his tower so that the other could be safer especially with Thor and Idun starting to run around wildly all over the house. In the latter stages of this phase, Jon became better at predicting when the Tribulations of Thunderstrike would come so that he could flee to the mountaintops before it started.
In fact, he became so good at predicting them to the point where he was able to delay his training for some time in order to bring the Tribulations at a desired time when he was ready and today was a glorious day, not just because he took the final step in the final phase in the third realm of his training, but also for the sake that he has just unleashed the final and the strongest Heavenly Tribulation that ever descended on Nirn, a Lightning bolt so large in split the Skyborn mountain in half and struck its belly.
Ten Dragons, Hundreds of Cultists, and the entire supplies and logistical power of the War Dragons of the Dragon Cult were smitten under lightning.
The Heavens were wrathful, Aethereaus was finally done giving Jon warnings and now sought to eliminate him with all its might.
One strike shook the entire Skyborn mountain range, the next shook the entire hold of Hjaalmarch, and the third was felt in the northern bones of Skyrim itself, extending from Solitude's shaking docks to Windhelm's powerful stone dockyard, all the way to the meadows of Whiterun where the giants started fleeing south along with their mammoth herds.
The fourth strike of heaven woke Skyrim up and no soul living or undead haven't felt the might of that strike. The Greybeard on the Snow-Throat Tower had already heard it from the beginning but this time was clearer than ever and needed no supernatural sense to hear it even beyond the storm curtain around the lair of Paarthurnax.
The fifth strike was much like the fourth and it caused the Orc Shamans in the Dragontail mountains to drop to their knees and seek shielding from Malacath, and the Dunmer were groveling over the idols of the Good Daedra, seeking forgiveness for transgressions and unfaithfulness.
The sixth strike echoed all the way to the elders of the Direnni Clan on top of the Adamantine Tower, the Ash Priests of Vvardenfell near the remains of the ghost fence on the Red Tower, the Elder Council of the Empire held under the White-Gold tower.
The seventh strike devastated all under it and many dragon souls rose from their shattered vessels and entered that of Jon. He was engulfed in the light of those souls to the point where he was no longer a man but an aura of light floating in the middle of the ruined mountain.
The eighth strike stretched far and wide, almost making King Abbas of Hammerfell chock on his drink, Prince Kareem of Stros M'kai lost his footing while walking down the stairs, and even the worm cultists at the northern marshlands of Argonia started hiding in their sunken crypts.
The ninth strike was by far the strongest and its light darkened took the light of the sky away as if it was all blinking from a power outage. The echo of that strike struck far to the ruins of the Crystal-Like-Law tower in Summerset and the Green-Sap tower in Valenwood, it echoed across space and time even reaching the unknown and upsetting the rust that settled for thousands of years in the sunken Orchalic tower or maybe resonating with the metallic and sonorous bones of the Walk-Brass.
Nine strikes!
As the strikes were over, the final path opened.
The path to CHIM.
Jon's glow didn't fade, it couldn't actually, it turned him into a statue of gold that would strike the hearts of any Altmer or Tsaesci that would look at it and fill them with envy. It even rivaled the beauty of the Aldmer and the Ehlonfey.
Jon moved at last.
He knew how to harness that power and where to store it.
He placed his right hand over his heart and pushed all that power there. If one were to look at him, one would see a golden heart beating in his chest with radiance.
The Golden Heart, after the torturous and agonizing journey on the path of the Heart Formation realm, Jon formed the Golden Heart at last, his Divine Spark, which makes him no longer a mortal.
Jon's first goal was to attain powers and effects to be his own without the influence of any Daedra or Aedra, and so it was.
As a Divine Being, he can no longer be influenced by the rules of other Divine Beings. He makes his own rules, establishes his own CHIM, and makes his own way.
« Absorbing All The Blessings of Foreign Entities! »
« The Blessing of Shor [Heartbreaker] has been removed and transformed into a new Effect! »
« The Blessing of the All-Maker [Root of Power] has been removed and transformed into a new Effect! »
« The Blessings of Talos [Stormcrown] and [Old Man's Luck] have been removed and transformed into new Effects! »
« The Blessing of Kyne [Storm Child] has been removed and transformed into a new Effect! »
« The Blessing of Sheogorath [Mad Champion] has been removed and transformed into a new Effect! »
« The Blessing of Azura [Dawn's Beauty] has been removed and transformed into a new Effect! »
« The Blessing of Boethiah [Berserk] has been removed and transformed into a new Effect! »
« The Blessing of Mephala [Golden Tongue] has been removed and transformed into a new Effect! »
« The Blessing of Nocturnal [Shadowkey] has been removed and transformed into a new Effect! »
« The Blessing of Shadow Stone has been removed permanently! »
« ERROR! »
« The Blessings of Akatosh… Unable to Resolve! »
« Please Choose what course of Action to take! »
Jon watched all those powers as they transformed from boons to personal abilities. He smiled and focused on the last message.
"It seems that the Fate given to me by the Dragon of Time is yet to be resolved. I can't dilly dally any longer." Jon said and stood up, hiding the golden heart beating in his chest with a well-made illusion, "Leave the Blessings of Akatosh for now. I am sworn to the fate he bestowed. We have more important matters to attend to."
Jon no longer concerned himself with that minor problem with him still being a Dragonborn. Funny enough, he gave a little heed to the main quest just like how a true Skyrim Player should, and now has to finish it for the purpose of completion.
He now has taken his first step into the fourth realm, a place where no mortals walk, the realm of Oblivion Separation, a realm that makes a being free from all influences and bounds. A being that reaches that level can see things and know things other beings can't even fathom but still haven't passed all the gates to reach the final phase of CHIM.
Eight Gates in total are waiting for him in this realm and he can choose which to cross without any particular order. They are the Gate of Craft, the Gate of Mercy, the Gate of Pleasure, the Gate of Joy, the Gate of Love, the Gate of Heaven, the Gate of Death, and finally the Gate of Dragon.
"Once I am ready, I'll choose a gate. But for now…"
Jon looked at the rubble that piled around him and could see a hand twitching from under the heavy rocks. He walked to it and with a smile, he lifted the giant rocks with telekinesis.
"Hey, Kendov." Jon called for the only survivor of this massacre, the immortal Dragon Priest of the War Dragons Cult, "Someone whom you kidnapped his children would like to have a word with you."