Lowly Ascent

"Master... is that you, or is my form starting to dissipate?"

'The mist ghosts don't have souls, they refer to their bodies as forms....that means...this voice is...'

Cain turned around, "Leon?!"

A middle-aged man was sprawled on the ground, his figure was a pale red and almost translucent, far different than the blood-red condensed ghosts in which light could not pass through unless they allowed it.

"My lord....you suddenly became silent, you didn't speak nor did your soul fluctuate, I feared the worst! T-Then the world started to collapse and the cores stopped giving us energy, we feared the worst of the worst! How happy I am, I can almost cry if it didn't waste away my form! I'm filled with joy!"

'The cores stopped giving power? Then no wonder my soul is in such a shabby state, it won't collapse but much of my soul was enforced by the cores, without their energy the form cannot keep and it will erode...'

Cain walked over to Leon and helped him up.

"I lost my body, before I knew it I was in another. The place I'm in now is foreign, somewhere below the Landfill. I only returned now since I require the cores and strength."

Leon's eyes shined, "I see. I've had those new recruits watching the cores, well, where they should be, but they are shadows now, we cannot touch them. Could you bring me with you Lord?"

"Of course." Cain holstered Leon's arm around his shoulder and they walked into the horizon, heading to the nexus of where Cain's cores reside.

When they made it to their destination, Cain saw two figures, but he didn't pay them any mind and sat Leon down as he got closer. As he came close, he could feel something in his soul react.

'So they need the origin, but I still don't know if I can restore the connection. This is all too strange, the cores melded with my physical body but they should exist in my soul, the Dream Core definitely should be here...or am I, not my soul? But that wouldn't make sense, no, it should be interference of some kind....but what? Although where I fell was strange, and I'm in a separate world, nothing should be able to interfere.'

Cain racked his brains but couldn't think of a solution.

'To hell with it, as long as I can recover I don't care. I'll find out later.' He reached out his hand.

The world flickered. The images of the cores seemed to come to life and like the world, they flickered too.

'It's like pushing a wheelbarrow filled with gold! What the hell!' Cain's eyes burst from his soul, it was very comical but the situation was too serious for that.

"Aaaagh!"

Energy flowed from the cores and combined into one stream, flowing up.

The entire time Cain exerted himself. The stream became smaller and smaller as it reached for the sky. By the time it touched the tip of the mindscape, it was smaller than a threat, thousands of times smaller than it should be.

"Work damn it! Aargh!"

The entire realm exploded as an ocean of blood descended from the sky and flushed the soulscape in pure energy.

"Haaaah. How nice." Leon could finally breathe properly again, his form regaining vitality.

Many of the other mist ghosts resurfaced from the patches of blood that were still left to celebrate. Even so, Cain wasn't happy.

'This amount is too little. It translates to a little above a false ruler in power... but I can't use it all either because the stream won't be able to replenish it... so less than a false ruler is my current strength. Why is the stream so small, is there no specialized energy to intake? Isn't the place I'm currently in have multiple paths? This is all too strange.'

Gatherers take in specialized energy and turn it back into pure energy. They are also susceptible to pure energy and can absorb it but to do that is far more inefficient.

Gatherers switched the nature of the core when they absorbed it, removing the System from it.

If a core is to be removed from the system, it can only absorb specialized energy properly, this was a secret trap for the System to have another reason for the Rulers and Gatherers to fight each other.

Until this point, Cain had large stores of energy since his mist could store it along with his large number of cores compared to other gatherers. But when he lost connection to his cores, that energy evaporated like smoke. It might have been used to save Cain's life in some way, or something else may have happened.

Ultimately, Cain was now weak, he would have to focus on gathering energy before he made any big moves, unlike before, when he held back to have more fun. Now, it was serious. 

'At least I have my mist, it should make gathering energy faster.'

He turned to Leon, "I'm going back, now that I have my abilities there is much to do here."

Leon bowed, "Safe journeys lord, I hope to be able to join you soon."

A throne grew beneath Cain and he sat down. He then closed his eyes as his consciousness left the mindscape.

...

When he opened his eyes, Darla was the first thing he saw. She was staring at him.

'I'll start with you!'

Cain's eyes glinted red as he used his mist!

'Uh? What? Why isn't it working!'

No matter how hard Cain tried, no mist would come out.

'Do ravens not have enough blood? But I've used birds for food before, so why won't the mist activate? I can't even feel the mist...what's wrong with this place?!'

Cain felt something was terribly wrong, but to find out the reason was above his ability. His powers were instinctual and he only gained understanding through experience. The mist was the ability he used the longest but all he knew afar from it using blood as a medium was that it could devour souls as well. He never had a reason to pry further. 

'Shit...I have to use something else...but which of my abilities are low cost?!'

"Birdie?" Darla noticed Cain was acting weird.

'Fine, let's do this.'

Cain turned towards Darla, a blood-red image of a willow branch forming in front of his forehead.

"Birdie?"

Darla had never seen such a thing come from the bird. She could feel the branch call for her. As a young child, she reached out and touched it with curiosity, but when she did the image disappeared in a blink.

"Birdie did a magic trick?" She was oblivious.

'Hah...this is a gamble, I should use weak treatments of distortion to make her smarter. In the meantime, I have to wait for the mark to take root so I can control her...damn it all. Why do I always end up in scenarios like this? At least I'm being challenged, a constant need to adapt is a good environment to be in I suppose.'

All Cain could do was wait. 

...

"So you're sub-path will be Magi? Are you sure, although your arm comes from the Path of Magi, we don't know much about the path, we only have a few records and a training manual or two." Laimir explained to Isaac one last time.

The Path of the Magi was not a well-known sub-path, it was like the many forgotten paths, with few records and fewer ways to get started. Isaac may have gotten an arm made for the path of magi, but it meant nothing if he couldn't use it.

Even so, Isaac wasn't worried.

"You worry too much, Laimir. Didn't the scientists say my arm should increase my abilities in the soul and magi paths by over a hundred percent? With my main path Soul and Sub-path Magi, I won't have anything to worry about, worst case scenario, I just focus on the Soul Path for a little bit."

"Sigh. I guessed you would say as much. I already sent the files we have to your terminal in your quarters."

"Oh, I forgot the Bureau gave me quarters. I'm an Agent now!"