Rise of the Devourer

Chapter 22: Still Testing

It took about half an hour for Noah to recover from his nausea, and after some settling down, he returned to the chamber with Aurelia to continue his testing with the abilities.

“Okay, so Blink can teleport people and living things, but big people, or magically strong people are very hard to Blink and leave me gagging on the floor,” Noah said aloud, noting to try Blink on a person below his level to see if it was Aurelia’s higher level that was affecting his ability, or just her size.

Noah knelt before his giant pile of collected items and pressed his hand against one of the items, trying to put it inside his Inventory through just his mind.

Nothing happened. He picked up some pebbles and started to insert them one by one.

1 x pebble obtained.

2 x pebbles obtained.

3 x pebbles obtained.

…

27 x pebbles obtained.

The process was painstaking and slow, and he wondered if he could just shove a bunch of them in at once. Willing to test, he picked up a pile, and pushed them against his Inventory. Noah felt some resistance, before mana was drawn from him, and the pebbles vanished into his inventory menu.

48 x pebbles obtained.

Noah hummed in thought. He grabbed onto the Inventory menu itself to see if he could move it around. The action didn’t do anything, and so Noah tried again, but this time mentally willing the Inventory menu to move so that it was facing upward.

There was a pressure against his mind, like something was holding him back from doing that, but Noah pushed harder. Like passing through a thick layer of viscous goop, he felt something break past, as his Inventory menu moved, now facing upward. If Noah let his concentration go, the Inventory would slip back. It felt a lot like extending a rubber band and holding it still at maximum extension.

Noah’s eyes widened in surprised, before he smiled. Taking a big pile of pebbles, he let it drop over the menu, and all of them began to be absorbed.

78 x pebbles obtained.

99 x pebbles obtained.

17 x pebbles obtained.

Noah watched his menu, noting that a single slot could only keep up to 99 pebbles before automatically moving to a different slot.

“It’s so strange to watch you drop pebbles, only to have them disappear into nothingness,” Aurelia commented from where she sat.

“And awesome,” Noah replied. He willed his Inventory to turn over to face downward. The pressure in his mind rose once again, but he pushed through, then willed his pebbles to fall out.

A shower of little stones fell on the ground, clattering all over the floor as his Inventory emptied itself. Noah then attempted to will his Inventory away from him and go next to Aurelia. As the Inventory floated away, Noah felt a sharp spike of pain assault his head, making him almost fall. He let the Inventory go, and it snapped back into place and the pain receded.

“God, that was… awful…” Noah said, clutching his head.

“What did you do?” Aurelia asked, not looking particularly concerned.

“Tried to change my system menu and move it away from me,” Noah said.

“You’re an idiot,” she spat back. “You cannot move your Astral Script beyond your soul’s range, which is your aura. Trying to push it outside can cause your soul to be permanently damaged. Honestly, I’m surprised you aren’t on the floor, crying yourself to unconsciousness. Soul backlash hurts quite a bit, even seasoned adventurers struggle with the pain.”

“I have some resistance to both,” Noah said, clutching his head as the throbbing pain started to fade.

Moving on from that test, Noah took up his bottle of sand, and picked out a single grain. Taking it, he put it inside his Inventory.

1 x grain of sand obtained.

Noah continued to put grains of sand, watching them settle in one after the other, before being capped out when he reached ninety-nine. Taking the rest of the bottle, which had a lot more than ninety-nine grains, he put it in the Inventory as well.

1 x bottle of sand obtained.

The bottle had taken more mana than each grain of sand, which hadn’t even registered, but the difference in storage capacity was incomparable. That means it takes containers and categorisation into account. It’s better to store armour as 1x set of armour, instead of individually, but doing so also costs a lot more mana.

Satisfied with his tests, he returned the individual grains to the bottle and retrieved his bottle of blood. When he’d put his arm in his Inventory, the poison seemed to have stopped damaging it, allowing Noah time to find a solution without his arm completely decaying. But he wasn’t sure if that was merely because it was his arm, or something that applied universally.

There was a brief moment of resistance when he pushed the bottle inside his Inventory.

1 x bottle of pig blood obtained.

Blood can go in. Not quite alive, but definitely close to it.

Next, he went back to the rabbit, gently picking it up and scratching his head. “I’m sorry, buddy, but this is for science. I’ll give you something nice after it’s done,” Noah said, and put the creature in his Inventory.

1 x Rabbit obtained.

Noah waited for a minute, and then another just for good measure. He would feel really bad if the rabbit died, but better it than a person he tried to save and killed accidentally.

After enough time had passed Noah took the rabbit out. The animal seemed unphased, merely confused.

“Okay, so either there’s air inside my Inventory, or this rabbit got frozen in time,” Noah said. After a moment’s thought, he put the rabbit back in. He’d check in an hour again. Better be safe than sorry.

Done with that test, Noah looked up at Aurelia. “Hey, do you want to go inside my Inventory?”

“Inside your what?” Aurelia asked, looking up in surprise from the book she was reading.

“My Inventory. I want to see if I can put people in it. I put the rabbit inside and it worked just fine,” Noah said.

“No,” Aurelia replied.

“Oh, come on! It’ll be a great test,” Noah pleaded.

“No. I don’t want to,” Aurelia replied, looking to her book again.

“I won’t put you in for long, I promise. Just in and out,” Noah said.

“Stop annoying me. I don’t want to,” Aurelia said, snapping her book shut and glaring at him.

Noah paused, seeing genuine anger in her expression. “Alright, my bad. But can I ask why?”

Aurelia hesitated. “Because… it’s probably dark in there.”

Noah stared at Aurelia, unsure of what to make of it. “You’re afraid of the dark?”

Aurelia didn’t reply.

“Is… that why you have fire powers,” Noah asked, as some things began to make sense.

“Stop asking me stuff,” Aurelia said, getting up to leave.

“Okay, alright, I’m sorry. Just hold on. The reason I wanted to try is because I think time is stopped inside my Inventory, so if you were ever lethally injured, I could put you inside and save your life. If you still don’t want to try, that’s completely fine, but I thought it was worth knowing, since it could be a matter of life or death. You’d told me no more dumb risks, right? For that, I need to know what my powers are, and how exactly they work,” Noah said.

Aurelia stopped at his words, and after several tense seconds, she gave him a small nod.

“But take me out instantly or I’ll punch you, and for real this time,” Aurelia said.

“Of course,” Noah replied.

Grabbing her hand, Noah pressed it against the Inventory panel and felt Aurelia being pulled.

A large amount of mana began to be sapped from him, similar to Blink, and he pulled her away.

Could not store item. Capacity exceeded.

Noah stumbled back, slightly dizzy. It took a moment before he reoriented and read the notification.

“Capacity exceeded it says,” Noah murmured. “But it did activate. So I think it’s possible.”

“Good. I hope we never have to use it,” Aurelia said, going back to her chair and opened her book.

Noah shrugged. He took a pebble in each hand, moving on to the next test he had in mind.

Obliterate hummed in both hands, as the stones began to rapidly dissipate. Noah counted the seconds for each hand, watching as the pebbles disappeared entirely.

Left hand: four seconds.

Right hand: seven seconds.

Noah nodded, satisfied, taking up two more pebbles. This time, he tried to layer Obliterate on top of the pebbles, like he did with his blades. It took some effort, but the spell formed a shell around the pebble, making them look a deep dark colour. Noah threw the rock, watching it eat through the floor, before the Obliterate spell he’d put on the pebble dissipated. Noah fished the pebble out of the hole and found it mostly unharmed this time.

Taking a larger rock this time, Noah tried to layer on it and found the mana requirements far higher. Trying to eat through the rock took the same amount of mana, but the process was slower, and to hasten it, Noah would have to spend more mana.

“Do abilities not have a fixed cost?” Noah asked.

“There’s a minimum activation cost, but even that can be circumvented with a partial activation. So no, not really,” Aurelia replied.

“I see,” Noah said. He tried a few more experiments with shaping Obliterate, but found he could only layer it on top of things he was holding. No distant manifestations, but he could form orbs of Obliterate above his hand and throw them.

After going through Obliterate, he took the rabbit out. The creature looked just the same and did not seem to realise what had happened at all.

“I guess that confirms it. Time does stop inside,” Noah said. He put the rabbit down, letting it walk around for a while, and went to pick up one of his blades.

He noticed the rabbit sniffing at Aurelia’s hands, before it began to snuggle up to her.

“Wow, it loves you,” Noah said.

“They can sense warmth,” she said, picking the rabbit up, and it practically melted in her arms.

“Can you hold it tightly? I have to injure it a little,” Noah said.

Aurelia glared at him.

“Hey, it’s not like I want to do this. But I need to see if my blood can heal other people or not. If it doesn’t work, I’ve got a healing potion,” Noah said.

Aurelia gave the rabbit a comforting pet. “I’ve got him.”

“I’m really sorry, buddy. This will only hurt for a second,” Noah said.

Taking his blade, he made a small cut, and blood began to well. The rabbit kicked, trying to free itself, but Aurelia kept a grip on it, shushing it to calm the creature down.

Noah moved quickly, cutting his own hand, a bit deeper than he’d intended. Taking the blood, he let it drip onto the rabbit’s wounds. He watched in fascination as the rabbit’s wound healed almost instantly, and the creature calmed down.

The rabbit leaned in and began to lick the blood off his palms.

“That’s so strange,” Noah murmured, looking at his palm. The cut was almost completely healed.

Aurelia let the rabbit go, and it jumped over to Noah, continuing to lick the blood left on his palm.

“You shouldn’t tell anyone about that ability,” Aurelia said with a grim voice.

“Why?”

“You’re a walking bundle of regenerative potion. If you don’t want a maniac to enslave you and make you into a potion harvesting machine, keep your mouth shut,” Aurelia said, glancing down at the rabbit. “I’ve heard of legendary abilities of such strength.”

Noah nodded. He’d need to keep quiet about Lifeblood then.

After gently brushing the rabbit, Noah let the creature go. The rabbit pawed at his leg, as if demanding more of his blood. After a while, Aurelia scooped it up and took it outside the village.

Done with most of his work, Noah continued to experiment with the rest of his abilities. Nothing of note was observed with Bleed, Blood Drain and Void Hunter’s Eyes. The abilities worked within their defined scope.

When Aurelia returned, Noah had moved on to messing around with his system interface. He could change the menu locations and displays if he wanted, but the same pressure would remain in his mind when he did.

“Is there a way to hide notifications?” Noah asked. “It can be a little annoying during battle.”

“Well, I just made a box for mine, and everything goes there. When I want to see, I pick it up from the box,” Aurelia replied. “It’s a common practice.”

Noah nodded, making an inbox mail icon at the top. A lot of unread notifications. He felt something press against his mind, but Noah pushed and the resistance collapsed, as the icon manifested.

Noah selected it and every notification he’d ever gotten was listed inside.

“Neat,” he said,

The last major thing he’d wanted to test were his Attributes. There wasn’t much to define how each Attribute worked other than it’s given name. Power, for example. Did it increase his ability power? Or did it increase his strength? How about Agility or Constitution?

Noah tried to focus on the Attributes. A large pressure manifested in his mind, stronger than any other previous resistance. He continued for a while, trying to see how far he could go before the pain began. A light headache began to bud, before something caved in.

You’ve gained the Skill [Soul Modification]!

A wide array of notifications took over Noah’s vision.

Sub-Attributes [Range - F0 to SSS]:

Power:

Ability Damage: D2

Special Damage: F8

Magical Damage: E6

Aura Strength: D7

Agility:

Movement Speed: D4

Casting Speed: D2

Cognitive Speed: F4

Reflex: A0

Constitution:

Vitality: B1

Endurance: D0

Strength: D2

Physical Resistance: D8

Mystic:

Mana Capacity: E9

Mana Regen: D1

Willpower: D0

Magic Resistance: D3

Special Attributes:

Charisma: D3

Luck: B9

Growth: S

A pulsating headache throbbed behind his eyes. He read through the list quickly before looking to Aurelia for verification. “Are there Sub-Attributes?”

“There are, the guild evaluates them for you when you register,” Aurelia replied.

Noah nodded, trying to ignore the headache. Not quite satisfied with the information, he reached out to Strength and expanded it to give more details.

A massive wave of pressure descended on him, but Noah grit his teeth and pushed through. The pressure continued to increase, a sharp pain spiking in his head before the wall collapsed.

Noah’s system menu exploded.

Soul Resistance has reached level 8!

Soul Modification has reached level 2!

Each muscle group, tendon, bone, and part of his body was listed with various numbers rushing past in his mind.

Noah’s mind froze, and he collapsed to the ground, passed out.

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