The Misadventures of the Man Formerly Known as Victor Heart

The shadow jinn charged us with a guttural roar. Judging by the sheer power and brutality that radiated off it, a single strike would probably take either one of us out of the fight. To our fortune though, evolution caused it to not need physical speed due to being able to travel through the shadows.

That’s my guess at least. But who needed physical speed when you had the ability to both sneak up on people and move around the battlefield unimpeded using shadow travel.

Turns out someone facing an opponent that could cut off access to other dimensions using their abilities did. It turns out being connected to unreality allowed me to bring forth a sliver of its power and distance other dimensions from the one that I am in thus cutting access. Without that access, it was just a lumbering brute and thus it struggled to even touch either of us. For Olivia that was a combination of chi imbuement and skill, while for me it was more a matter of distance. I know cowardly, but I knew when I was beaten.

I shot holy water bullets at it while Olivia was slicing and dicing the brute’s chest and arms. After a brief intermission in the fight, each party took stock.

There was not even a single scratch on its hide. While we were already getting a bit winded.

When we reengaged, I was paying attention to Olivia’s strikes to see what was going on. The shadow jinn was strong, no doubt, but it couldn’t just shrug off blows from her.

When she next struck, I saw why. The demon could still shift parts of its body to shadow, turns out I could weaken its connection not completely sever it.

My bright idea was to use my new artifact, Petrifying Ring. It wouldn’t do much to such a strong creature except turn a small to medium section to stonelike substance for a brief time. This would usually be of middling use as it also strengthens the defense of the area, but when you want to hit shadow, harder helps not hurts.

Now it was just a matter of aim and timing, I just had to set the stage for Olivia’s strikes.

I called out to my friend, “Hey Olivia, ever play whac-a-mole?”

“Sure. Why is now the time to discuss our pastimes?”

“We’re gonna play ourselves a game!” I yelled before launching a beam of orange energy at the jinn’s side. Olivia followed with a blow to the affected area.

We proceeded to dismantle the lumbering jinn. We missed the timing a few times, but since Olivia was careful to avoid completely relying on a new strategy, she avoided any reprisal.

When the creature was good and gone, we started to laugh in relief.

“Well, that was fun.” I got out after finishing laughing.

After finishing chuckling, my friend replied, “I have a confession to make, I hate whac-a-mole.”

“Me too. Skee-ball fan myself.”

I created yet another ring from the corpse before we left, [REDACTED]. It was a simple band made of an obsidian-like material.

_

[REDACTED]

“[REDACTED]”

Tier Four

A ring containing a shadow authority

_

Too bad I missed out on the abilities of the jinn and basilisk hybrids due to the missing hearts containing most of the essences.

***

On our way back I arranged a stop off at Milan where there was supposedly a black market for magic of all kinds.

When I arrived at the warehouse housing the market, I knew it was worth the stop.

The first table that caught my eye was run by a white guy with dreadlocks and reeked of patchouli oil. He was selling a variety of crystals, herbs, and dreamcatchers. I bought some of his herbs and crystals as they had some use as supplementary materials for my various artifacts. None were particularly conceptually powerful though.

The next table of interest was selling Slavery Cotton. It was a nasty material created in the American south during some of its darkest days. It was heavily imbued with the concepts of chains, oppression, misery, pain, death, and many other dark concepts.

It had some interesting uses and was a viable material for some clothes. The concept of chains would make the resulting clothing have the durability of iron. It could also make very good restraining cloth material. Hell, it’s probably one of the best low level cloth restraining artifacts.

The material just gave me the ick though. I know that it would not benefit anyone involved, I could purify it of the negative aspects, and that it would do a lot of good in this world, but I just wanted nothing to do with it.

Off in a corner I found a person selling a bunch of weak prayer shrouds, beads, and crosses for cheap. I bought the person out and fed everything to Matthew’s Water, empowering it. not enough to jump tier, but every bit counts.

In a prime spot at the center of the warehouse, I found a guy selling Nemean Lion leather. Well, a distant descendant of the Nemean Lion at least. I was tempted as it was great material, but the guy was asking a price usually reserved for a much closer relation.

After wandering around for a while something else caught my eye, a wardrobe packed to the gills with clothing. After asking the seller, it turns out that his aunt was a collector of clothing from throughout the ages. They had collector’s value, and they contained some weak concepts that would contribute to some magical endeavors.

It was a tough sell though. The mundanes would pay for only the mundane value and the magicals would only pay the magical value. He thought he would give it a shot here to see if he could get both from someone. If he did not, then he would settle for the higher mundane value.

I just so happened to be the perfect customer. The clothes would provide me with appropriate attire no matter the situation, which will pay dividends when traveling the various worlds out there. They were also the perfect base for empowerment as they already were strongly imbued with concepts that I would just have to proverbially feed. The wardrobe was worth every single cent, hell I would pay ten times that amount.

Extracting precious metals from the ground and making medallions of them was worth the time and effort. They were hard to transform into currency, but magicals were willing to take them.

After throwing the wardrobe into my storage, my partner and I left for home as we were referred a case from the mundane police there. If only I knew then what I know now.

Current Equipment:

Head:

[The Black Wasp Jackal’s Face]

Earrings:

[]

Necklace:

[The Energy Baron’s Stomach]

Clothes:

[]

Rings:

[The Mentalism Ring]

[Succubus’ Kiss]

[Mena’s Book]

[Matthew’s Water]

[Orpheus’ Melody]

[Moses’ Trek]

[Petrifying Ring]

[[Redacted]]

Bracelets:

[]

Shoes:

[]

Armaments:

[Sacrificial Scarf]

[Beastly Heart]

Storage:

[Various Essences]

[Chi Organ]

[Spirit Shards]

[Various Murder Weapons]

[Green Thumb]

[Glass Eye]

[Various Articles Of Clothing]