IMPORTANT NOTE
There's an auxiliary chapter, 0th chapter, with Caster's runes now, you can check it out anytime you're curious about them. I took too long to make that haha, my apologies.
Also, some of you may have forgotten where we are in the story, so let me give a quick recap.
After FS, Caster went to Ravenheart for a few weeks where he trained and practiced weaving. After Sky Tide cooperated with Clan Song to allow Caster to go to Chained Isles, Caster immediately went to kill the Mirror Beast. His reasoning for that was it could allow Sunny's true name to be leaked to Mordret.
After killing the mirror beast, he was ambushed by five high tier masters of the sword domain, the reason for that being that Caster was a divine aspect holder and they don't want someone like that to remain alive, at least from Caster's POV. More about it in the chapter later.
Caster was injured, severely, after the fight with the mirror beast, yet he killed 4 of the 5 masters, while injured and low on essence and almost out of time in his hourglass charm. He is now, planning on using the 5th master, the Tracker, for something. It will also be discussed later.
There might also be confusion regarding Caster's aspect and all, since I kept changing them. Sorry about that, I hadn't really thought about his powers at the start, since I basically just winged it, as I was really inexperienced.
I should have just kept it as an ascended aspect and not do the "Two souls in 1 body" bullshit. But alas, what's done is done. No use crying over spilled milk.
I'll get transparent and tell what I plan to do about it now. This will be the final decision regarding his powers. I did actually explain it already, but it was slowly and across chapters, which I doubt was very clearly done.
I apologize as an inexperienced writer. I promise I have things planned properly from now on.
Getting back to the aspect.
At first, I had decided to give Caster two aspects, due to two souls being their, and in that, I made the fourth wall as the dormant ability. However, I realised that the fourth wall is not exactly something that could have worked as an 'ability' purely. It was then, like around chapter 25, that I decided I should make it an aspect legacy, giving Caster more walls are a power up of sorts.
I thought it fit well with the theme of ORV I gave. And, I plan to keep it that way.
But because I made that change, it suddenly didn't make any sense. I gave the explanation that "Fourth wall wished to develop itself as fast as it could, to save Caster from corruption and external gazes, hence it awakened as an ability at the start."
Yes, I realise it doesn't make all that much sense, but bear with me.
I decided to make it so that, Caster and Keiron's soul implantation didn't happen properly, and thus, his souls is a mess right now. Meaning, he is supposed to have two aspects but only has one aspect, despite him having two flaws. So until Caster figures out about the soul mess and fixes it, he won't get a second aspect.
And yes, Caster will eventually get it fixed, I have the things planned this time. I have all the aspect abilities, until supreme ones planned now, and the entire progression until then. So there should be no plot holes from now.
I again apologize for the inconvinience, as I end this note. Let's get into the chapter.
Also, there's only 10 reviews even after all this time, I would really appreciate if more people review the fanfic! And I would appreciate criticism.
Damnation. I took a break, now I don't even know how to start the chapter (Do not expect me to upload much still, the updates will be slow due to personal reasons). Let's see, maybe this should work.
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"This fight cleared something for me... my basics are too weak. I was able to come out of this fight alive due to the numerous advantages I had. The terrain, destructive power due to nameless sun and unpredictability due to Evermelt, all played well for me. Without even one of them, I would have likely died."
He sighed.
"All of them were advantages due to equipment, not skill... it doesn't feel the best to win like that. I can't be satisfied with that."
His flaw was still acting up, as one would expect a flaw to.
However, at this point, Caster had forgotten it was his flaw. It was in his nature to be unsatisfied now, with or without the flaw.
Caster slowly walked back towards where Tracker was sleeping, noticing the surroundings a bit more.
The cave wasn't as tall as it was wide, a few people could easily walk side by side, but Caster was barely a half a meter below the roof of the cave.
Stretching his hands up, his hands scrapped the rough ceiling of the cave, spreading a little dust around him.
Looking around, he saw that there was no vegetation in the cave either, apart from some strange, almost aetheric moss.
Without thinking for long, Caster decided to talk with Moonveil. He had informed his situation to her at the start of the fight, so he should update her on it.
With a deep breath he began the coversation.
[Hey Moon...]
A few seconds later he recieved a reply from her. Caster's tone was a bit hesitant but not at all rushed, which had confused Moonveil for a bit, delaying her reply.
[Yes, are you okay?]
Caster nodded, even though Moon couldn't see him nod, she could only hear his voice due to his wall of impossible communication.
[Yes, of course...]
With a pause, he continued, his voice was a bit deeper this time.
[...I won.]
It invoked an almost awkward pause between the two of them.
Moonveil was truly anticipating bad news, and despite the relief she got from Caster being safe and sound, she had no way to anticipate the fact that he won against the masters.
[What?]
With a simple, single word questions that encompassed all her relief and confusion into one, she sent the message to Caster.
Upon hearing that, Caster simply chuckled.
'She's confused... and maybe relieved as well?'
Just then a visual message popped up in the back of his eyes, that gave him chills.
[Your understanding of the character "Moonveil" has increased by a bit.]
'I'm sorry?'
Caster wasn't expecting that.
It wasn't the usual runes of the spell, nor the sweet and feminine voice he heard from it... it was a bright blue screen that popped up.
A message.
But by who?
Caster had some guesses but no way to verify them.
And it scared him.
There was someone, or something, apart from the nightmare spell, constantly keeping tabs on him... in a different way from the fourth wall.
The message was also more ominous than he liked it to be.
It made a difference between Moonveil and Caster. A difference of reality.
It was as if everyone else is a "lesser being" with Caster as the only "real person", someone who was not a character.
He knew that, of course.
But at the back of his mind, there was this thought that maybe his past life was just a misdirection, that it was non existent. After all, there was no proof of its existence apart from his memories. And those could be easily manipulated in this strange world.
But...
Now, it was different.
There was something that was separating him from this world.
'The fourth wall.'
"There's a wall between me and the world... damn it."
He wondered what the conditions for "increasing understanding" of a "character" was. He assumed it was guessing what the person feels like, since that is what lead to him figuring this out.
'Why didn't I get this pop up before though?'
He was about to get lost in his thoguhts again, trying to figure out the answer to the above question, but then he was snapped back to the conversation.
[Hello? You hear me? Why have you gone silent!? Answer me.]
It was Moon again.
[Sorry, I got distracted. So... uhhh... as I was saying, I defeated the five masters so you do not need to worry now.]
Without a second of waiting, Moonveil asked:
[But how? You're an awakened! Do divine aspect holders have that much strength?]
Before Caster could speak up again, she continued.
[I judged you to be weaker than most top tier masters. How is it possible that you defeated five of them?]
[Well, you judged wrong. Purely based off of my physical stats, I am already stronger than most high tier masters, unless they have strong physical enhancement aspects. More than that, I also have incredible memories, and an incredible echo. It was a close fight, but I won in the end.]
Moonveil seemed slightly stunned. She didn't speak anything for a few seconds, almost a minute, before she spoke again.
[What a Monster.]
Caster chuckled, not that Moonveil could hear that, since he didn't activate the wall of impossible communications.
[A titan you mean.]
The joke was so bad that it created an awkward silence for a few minutes. Neither of them bothering to break it.
Mostly because, talking like this, over distances, dumbs down the awkwardness of situations a lot. But also because Moon was likely busy doing her work.
But eventually, after following the silence for around five or so minutes, she asked Caster something again.
[Are you coming back to ravenheart than? I'm assuming your work over there is done.]
Caster had never told Moon that he had some work on the Chained Isles. He had simply made excuses to go over there.
However, it looks like Moon wasn't fooled in the slightest.
Unfortunately for her, Caster wasn't done with his work.
[No, not yet. I've something left to do. And now that I killed four Valor Masters... I don't think I have a lot of time left to complete my 'task'.]
Confused, Moonveil asked something again.
[Four? Didn't you say five? Also how long will you take exactly?]
[Ah, I am holding one as a hostage basically. She still has uses.]
Moon, once again, was silent for a while.
'Does she not like what I am doing?'
[Your understanding of "Moonveil" has increased.]
'Oh wow... it really works like that. I guess I should try guessing the feelings of others from now on. I wonder what benefits this has.'
[I see. She still has uses. Well, I certainly hope that is the case.]
She sounded somewhat bitter, almost jealous.
'I guess no one, arranged or not, would like their fiancé to be around another woman.'
[As for how long it might take me... I'm not sure. At least a week or two. But it can take longer.]
With that, Caster stopped using the wall.
He was done talking with her. It made him slightly uncomfortable, since she is a saint, and Caster is practically a bug to her at the moment.
'I wonder if she worries about me getting uncomparably stronger than her for when I become a saint, now that she knows I am multiple times stronger than those of my rank, and even those above my rank.'
He shook his head to himself.
'No, that isn't exactly true, since the last part won't remain true for long, as... no matter how strong of a master I become, I will likely never even compare to even the weaker saints.'
Which seems true. As even Sunny and Nephis were barely able to take down the saint, together, and even then, only because of the shadow bond they shared.
Caster, on the other hand, has nothing like that and also lacks the physical enhancement that Sunny and Nephis have.
'Though, that I will have to see as it unfolds later on. I can't be sure of anything at the moment.'
For now, Caster had to wait for tracker to get up. The fight had caused her to go into essence exhaustion, so as soon as she healed up, she fell unconscious.
It annoyed him a bit, since it was going to delay him, but he couldn't just leave without her now.
Since her influence as a top Valor master would come in handy for him at the night temple.
Time seemed to have been passing slowly. With nothing to do, he began practising his weaving again.
He took out a spare shard he had and made the familar weaves on it. The key, central weaves, followed by the weaves that made a memory be stored in the soul sea, followed by him accidentally blowing it up.
Despite him already having succeeded at forming the complete base or core of a memory from a soul shard multiple times, he was still inconsistent with it.
Despite his genius in this area, due to his attribute [Weave Sorcerer], his progress was still pretty slow.
Slow for his liking.
It made him feel dissatisfied.
He took out another soul shard and followed the procedure.
Raising one of his two hands, he stared at it for a while, and then commanded soul essence to stream forward, concentrating at the tips of his fingers.
As soul essence concentrated in the tips of his fingers, he felt a strange, ghostly tingling sensation. It was so real as to almost appear physical…
Tentatively raising another hand, Caster hesitated for a few moments, then pinched the air near one of his tingling fingers and tried to pull essence outward.
In his mind's eye, a strand of blinding, radient light suddenly extended into the air, summoned by his hand.
It didn't look like one of the radiant strings he was used to seeing inside Memories, and neither did it look like the flowing liquid that essence was usually depicted as.
Instead, it looked way more volatile, with sparks of lightning seemingly flying out of it.
Almost as if it was covered by a fog of lightning.
It was simultaneously sharp, beautiful and... insubstantial and elusive.
That was Caster's weave. The weave he had been growing familiar with.
Afterwards, he pulled the volatile strand towards him with one hand while trying to get a hold of it with the other, wishing to draw it taut, and thus more concentrated.
Eventually, he formed it into the desired weave, but if left as is, it would dissipate immediately.
There was one other thing that all Memories contained… not a part of the pattern of ethereal strings, but something different. A bright ember that served as the anchor and nexus for the strings, a point around which the whole pattern was structured. Memories of the first Tier had one, and those of the higher Tiers had several.
Now, looking at the cat's cradle of ethereal blue strings drawn between his fingers, he hesitated for a long time, and then carefully placed the gleaming crystal in its center.
Then, holding his breath, Caster slowly started connecting each of the strings to the shard, moving his fingers with extreme speed and nimbleness. Slowly, a bright blue pattern started shaping around the bright ember, strangely not permeating a different object, but instead looping back on itself.
And after something that felt like an eternity, with drops of blood rolling down his hands, face, neck and basically his entire body really… Caster finally let go of the strings and stared at the soul shard laying on his palm.
A beautiful pattern of tenebrous strings hovered in the air around it, stable, without a single flaw or weakness to cause it to fall apart.
To make the most basic form of memory, that he had done dozens of times, he just needed to connect it to his soul now. But this time, he wished to weave a name.
So that was what he did. He started weaving the name. The ridiculously complex patterns behind it made his head hurt, but he wasn't going to give up that easily.
It took a while, but he was able to weave the name.
He sighed, in relief, and then weaved the last string into the pattern, connecting its other end to the soul core in his chest.
He couldn't do that with the fourth wall in place, but he knew he could stop it for a bit. So he did that.
[The first fragment, 'The Fourth Wall' had been forcibly shut down.]
It felt like it was trying its best to turn itself back on, but Caster resisted it.
Only after it full connected to his core, did he give in and allow the fourth wall to turn back on.
Finally, Caster closed his eyes and gave the mental command.
In front of him, the soul shard disintegrated into a rain of white sparks, and then appeared once again, creating itself out of nothingness.
Caster let out a long, heavy breath.
The world had taken everything: the certainty of the familiar, the comfort of safety, even the memory of rest. In the midst of an unsafe unknown... he had done it.
[You have recieved a memory, 'Caster's Shard']
"Yes!"
It was a very useless memory.
But it served as a checkpoint. Memories without names would end up much weaker than their potential, since names have power.
This was very incredible progress.
After that he finally broke free of the trance he was in. Looking up, he saw Tracker looking at him with confusion and intrigue.
'She didn't attack me when I was distracted?'
It showcased her cowardly nature.
Very different from what Valor preaches.
Tracker seemed curious about what Caster was doing, however she shut her mouth and kept her curiosity to herself.
'At least she's smart enough to not do that.'
Getting up, Caster dismissed the shard and walked towards Tracker. She was simply sitting on the floor of the cave, her back resting on the wall.
She tensed up as he got closer but didn't move back, trying to keep the facade of calmness.
Stopping just a step away from her, looking down to meet her eyes, Caster spoke up:
"Give me that."
As he said that, he pointed to the broken healing charm, that Caster and Tracker had used to heal themselves.
It couldn't heal anymore, but Caster wished to study its runes.
It could come in handy later, if he learns to create it.
Tracker, who was looking into Caster's eyes before, simply looked down, almost in despair, but mostly in powerlessness. After that, she got stood up, took a hold of Caster's hand and immediately gave it up without resistance.
It wasn't much use to her, now, either ways.
Caster immediately accepted her hand to recieve the memory.
[You have recieved the memory, "Triad of Vitalis"].
'Nice!'