The Ascender's Legacy [A CHAOTIC STORM LITRPG]

Aodhán stepped out of the hospital a few minutes later, leaving Daruk and Aldric to talk while he went to Professor Jorendil's office. Deciding against a floating platform, he began to trek on foot, eyes flicking to the notifications blinking at the edge of his vision.

There weren't as many as he'd expected—just three—but their contents were enough to stop him in his tracks.

Congratulations, you have gained a new title!

[Harbinger of Aberration]: You have facilitated the birth of a deviant skill. Through your actions, a skill that should not exist now does. You gain:

· Slight resistance to mental interference

· Insights into the creation of anomalous skills and techniques.

System notification: Deviant Accord Achieved.

"You have forged a connection beyond the norm with the Tyrant of Boundless Empathy. His power is now linked to yours, and his path is marked by your presence. Though you may not wield his abilities, their weight presses upon your spirit, strengthening it."

System notification: You have been imprinted.

"Your spirit has been marked with an imprint, making it vastly difficult for other Empaths to manipulate your emotions without breaking the imprint first."

***

Aodhán read through the notifications in stunned silence. This was the first time he'd ever received a title with more than two words—and it was ominous as fuck. Harbinger of Aberration. What did that even mean? Up until a few minutes ago, he hadn't even known deviant skills were a thing. Now, suddenly, he was their harbinger?

Granted, what he'd just done had completely altered the trajectory of Aldric's life and advancement. Maybe it could be stretched far enough to say he'd changed fate itself—but Aodhán doubted that. Surely fate would've accounted for his actions before he even took them.

Still, the title made him uneasy. It felt prophetic in a way—like a shadow hanging over him, heavy with implications he couldn't shake. But mostly, he hated how sharply it clashed with the image of the person he wanted to become. So much for not ending up like Az'marthon Ranok. It was as if fate itself was working against him.

Sighing, Aodhán took a look at the effect of the title and allowed himself a smile. Any resistance to mental interference was welcome—especially with the secret he was carrying. He'd been in this world for seven months already. It was only a matter of time before his luck ran dry and he ran into a telepath strong enough to slice through the bars of willpower he'd built around his mind.

The second effect of the title, however, made him grimace. Didn't he have enough anomalous and weird skills already? The Sylvael Lightning and Eye of the Storm were good examples of that. Why in all the realms would he need insight into creating more?

Aodhán glanced at the title once again, and his grimace deepened. Something about it felt very wrong, and he didn't like what his instincts were telling him at all.

Putting the matter aside for now, Aodhán turned his attention to the second notification, which was some sort of accord. Wasn't an accord some sort of agreement? How had he achieved that without signing anything?

Unlike the previous notification, however, this one wasn't a skill or a title, just... an accord that he'd apparently agreed to without knowing. Aodhán wasn't sure which was worse—the title or this silent pact, because this one also came with benefits. His actions had tethered him spiritually to Aldric, and somehow, that link was bolstering his spirit. Not the worst outcome.

He made a mental note to research accords the next time he was in the library, though he doubted he'd find anything concrete.

The third notification was a welcome one. It hadn't mentioned who imprinted him, but Aodhán knew it was Aldric. He could feel it, and he was perfectly fine with it.

Still ruminating over the notifications, he continued his walk to Professor Jorendil's office, weaving through clusters of students without truly seeing them, navigating the crowd solely through core sense.

He arrived at Professor Jorendil's office a few minutes later and, after knocking, let himself in, raising an eyebrow in surprise as he took in the bizarre space.

The office was a large rectangular room divided into two distinct sections. The first—the one he currently stood in—was a plush workspace, complete with warm brown rugs and a beautifully carved wooden table. Sunlight streamed in through a half-open window, bathing both rug and desk in a golden glow that gave the room a welcoming air.

"Professor Jorendil?" he called out, and when he received no response, he moved towards the second part of the office, where he could sense Professor Jorendil's core blazing. Peeking past a wooden barricade, Aodhán's eyes widened at the sheer chaos that greeted him.

Unlike the warm and inviting first half, this part was anything but. Its only illumination came from the doorway he stood in and the runic glow of various pieces of equipment arranged haphazardly on black marble counters.

On one side of the room, a mountain of cores—both conceptual and elemental—was stacked high, ringed by a lattice of obscuring runes that made it impossible to sense them from afar. Just beside the cores was another mountain—but of books this time. Even the floor was a cluttered mess. Runic instruments lay scattered like fallen leaves, piles of research papers had been shoved haphazardly against a wall, and everything was covered in a truly absurd amount of core dust.

Shadows rippled around the room, not quite as densely as they had in sector 3, but enough to make Aodhán feel a little uncomfortable.

At the center of it all stood Professor Jorendil, hands steady and eyes narrowed in deep focus, every ounce of his attention locked onto the suspended mass of swirling shadows hovering around a blazing tier 50 water core.

The shadows must have alerted Professor Jorendil to his presence because a moment later, he jerked back into the present and looked up. "Oh, Aodhán. You've arrived. Give me a moment; I'll be with you shortly."

"Okay," Aodhán replied quietly, wondering how Professor Jorendil got anything done in this mess.

While he waited, he began to wander slowly around the room, instinctively picking up the scattered instruments. He didn't recognize every rune etched into them, but he knew enough about awakened items and runes to be certain they weren't supposed to be shoved together like that.

With his perception, he had no trouble identifying similar instruments and grouping them accordingly. In just a few minutes, he'd created five organized piles on a mostly empty counter. Pushing a stack of research papers aside, he cleared more space for a sixth—this one a pile of bizarre-looking, fork-like instruments with curved teeth.

But just as he moved to place the instruments on the counter, the title on the first research paper caught his eye, and he leaned forward to read it clearly. The Creation of Dual-Affinity Cores: Possibility or Myth?

Aodhán frowned.

Suddenly, the entire room made sense—the mountains of cores, the towers of texts, and the eclectic collection of instruments and machines. It all pointed to one obsessive pursuit. He glanced back at Professor Jorendil, whose brow now glistened with sweat as he coaxed a thread of shadow essence into the water core.

The core vibrated, seemingly accepting the foreign energy—until, with a sudden crack, it shattered, unleashing a wave of water essence into the air. Blue core dust rained down, joining the thick layer already coating the floor.

Professor Jorendil cursed and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve, seemingly forgetting Aodhán's presence as he reached for another core—a fire core this time—and began infusing it with a thread of shadow essence.

Too curious to remain silent, Aodhán asked, "Are you trying to create dual-affinity cores, sir?"

Professor Jorendil jolted again, blinking as if suddenly remembering he wasn't alone. Clearing his throat awkwardly, he set the fire core into a rune-inscribed bowl and sighed. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Aodhán. I know I'm the one who invited you, but I'm really in the zone at the moment, if you know what I mean. You could go and come back in—"

"I want to stay," Aodhán cut in gently, curiosity winning over courtesy. "I don't have anything else to do at the moment."

That was a lie. He had a mountain of other things waiting for him, but this was just too fascinating to walk away from.

Professor Jorendil narrowed his eyes, skeptical, but eventually nodded. "As long as you do not disturb me. My experiments require a lot of concentration and precision."

"You won't even know I'm here," Aodhán replied.

With a grunt, Professor Jorendil returned to his work, and Aodhán turned back to the research papers, settling into a quiet rhythm as he read.

The concept of dual-affinity—or even tri-affinity—cores was widely considered impossible. At least, according to the most prominent scholars. Aodhán hadn't really delved into the topic before, but he had once read a book on the matter during his many jaunts into the library.

Apparently. The creation of one had been all the rage a few hundred years ago, and scholars from all over Lutia had jumped on the train, eager to be the first to create the impossible. They had tried many methods—alchemy, runic engraving, elemental subjugation, genetic fusion, and many others—but these methods had all failed.

Eventually, after decades of failure, consensus settled around the idea that creating a dual-affinity core was practically impossible. Some researchers, however, believed that if it worked in theory, then it could most certainly work in reality. They simply had to find a way to do so.

The paper Aodhán was reading was of the latter opinion, stating in the opening paragraph that the methods used before weren't exactly wrong and that they were simply missing a key ingredient to help balance the core structure and keep it from exploding. Unfortunately, that ingredient remained elusive.

The problem, it seemed, wasn't just that the cores exploded—it was that getting a single core to generate two distinct energies at the same time, especially when one was conceptual and the other elemental, was considered fundamentally impossible. To make things worse, the connection between the origin planes and the cores of awakened and magical creatures made it exponentially harder to infuse a foreign energy without risking destruction.

Disconnected cores, like the ones Professor Jorendil was using, could temporarily absorb foreign essence without immediately exploding. But they couldn't generate or maintain the foreign energy on their own. Eventually, the energy would bleed out, and the core would either revert to its original affinity—or shatter.

For nearly an hour, Aodhán read research work after research work, only looking up once in a while to watch Professor Jorendil battle with the cores in fascination. Despite how fruitless it all seemed, Aodhán couldn't help but imagine the possibility that it worked. He imagined an ice-fire awakened who could create both energies simultaneously or a water-shadow awakened who could simply drown the world in water while simultaneously casting it in darkness.

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Such an awakened would probably suffer from a smaller pool of energy and an aching spirit whenever they opened themselves up to their origin plane (if that would still be possible), but on the upside, they would enjoy such a wide array of skills that it would more than make up for it. Perhaps, they could even create merged skills. An ice spear that burned. A swirling river of abyssal shadows. A storm that…what?

"What affinity could possibly go with a storm?" He asked himself in a whisper, frowning in thought as his imagination ran haywire. There were a lot of affinities that went well with Storm aside from its aspects, but only a few of them really intrigued him. The first was void. He could already picture it. A storm of void essence—utter destruction. Another was time, although he wasn't quite sure how well that would work out for him.

More affinities came to mind: glass, illusions, gravity, ash, and blood, but none of them sent his heart racing, and Aodhán wondered if perhaps he wasn't thinking wide enough. Before he could do so, though, his thoughts were interrupted by an explosion of black flames as the fire core Professor Jorendil was working on exploded, violently interacting with the shadow essence he had infused into it. The explosion spread, rocketing outward to engulf the entire office in black flames.

Aodhán ducked, hands already rising to summon a storm cloud, but before the explosion could do any damage, Professor Jorendil arrested it with a ball of swirling shadows and condensed it into a ball the size of a pea before simply crushing it.

Cursing, his shoulders sagged in frustration, but he didn't crash out. Instead, he exhaled deeply and turned his gaze to Aodhán. "It seems I might need your help far more than I realized."

"What do you need?" Aodhán asked immediately, hands still raised as the smell of ozone and flames soon took over the entire office.

"I need to branch into alchemy, and I need a lot of awakened plants to do so." Professor Jorendil sighed and dusted a smattering of core dust from his robes. His gaze darted to the stack of research papers Aodhán had already read through, and he smiled lightly. "You must think me crazy after all that you've read."

"Not at all." Aodhán shook his head and finally stood to his feet. "I find it fascinating, truly. Do you think it's possible?"

Professor Jorendil shrugged. "I think anything is possible if you try hard enough or if you look far enough. You are living proof of this. Gaining a familiar at the evolved tier should have been impossible, and yet. Here you stand."

"That's a valid argument." Aodhán nodded. "Still, it takes a special kind of courage to believe you can succeed where others have failed."

"Oh, I don't believe I can succeed." Professor Jorendil chuckled and dusted his coat again. "I don't even know what I believe. I just can't stop until I know without a shadow of a doubt that it truly is impossible." He glanced at the mountain of cores and whispered. "Sometimes, I'm so sure this is all a waste of time. Other times, I can almost feel something calling to me, beckoning me to continue."

Aodhán frowned, mulling over his words for a moment before asking. "Do you think the other continents know if it's possible? Attilan? Gordon? and the others?"

Professor Jorendil looked at him sharply and then tsked. "Zatya tells you too much. I want to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. What else has she told you about the other continents?"

Aodhán shrugged. "Enough to know that we are but a very small section of a very vast world. A speck even."

Professor Jorendil's gaze softened. "That wasn't always the case, you know. Once, we were considered great. A threat to smaller continents, until Sárán Beithir and his cultists weakened us, and then the Attilans scattered what was left." His gaze hardened, but after a moment, he exhaled again. "Anyway, the answer to your question is no. As far as I know, the creation of dual-affinity cores is a myth everywhere."

"Then we have to be the ones to create it." Aodhán frowned in determination, feeling a surge of patriotism bubble in his chest. "If we are the weakest continent, then we need this edge lest we fall prey to the Attilans again."

"We are far from the weakest continent." Professor Jorendil chuckled. "Not anymore. But I understand your eagerness. If this works, it would give us a much-needed edge to stand up to larger continents and reclaim our position at the top."

Sighing, Professor Jorendil dusted core dust out of his hair and gestured for Aodhán to follow. "Come on, I've wasted enough of your time. Let's talk business."

They moved back to the office, and Professor Jorendil gestured for Aodhán to take a seat opposite him. When he did, Professor Jorendil spoke. "To create a dual-affinity core has been a dream of mine for decades now. I've worked diligently on it, trying different methods and experiments, but unfortunately, I have not succeeded. It sounds depressing, doesn't it?"

"It does," Aodhán admitted.

Professor Jorendil let out a dramatic sigh, rubbing his chest as if physically wounded by the response, before flashing a rueful smile. "Well, at least you're honest. However, I think I've been going about it all wrong."

He sat back, fingers tapping against the desk in thought. "I've been trying to force two opposing energies into a single core, but the moment they clash, instability sets in. I thought a buffer—a stabilizing layer—would allow the core to adjust, but the problem runs deeper than that. Some affinities simply cannot coexist, buffer or not. No matter how I try to force it, certain combinations always result in catastrophic failure."

A frown crossed his features, and after a moment, he stood up and began pacing in tight, restless circles, hands twitching as if trying to grasp the very thoughts racing through his mind.

As he paced, words spilled from his lips in a hurried, unfiltered stream—half-formed theories, discarded ideas, and equations muttered under his breath. At first, Aodhán thought he was witnessing a strange bout of inspiration, but it soon turned out that this was simply the way Professor Jorendil processed his thoughts.

His fingers twitched, tracing invisible diagrams in the air as he debated the intricacies of a dual-affinity core, sometimes pausing mid-sentence to shake his head, dismissing his own conclusions before diving back in with renewed fervor.

Aodhán did his best to follow the professor's scattered reasoning, catching fragments of insight between the tangents and self-corrections. Minutes passed like this with Aodhán absorbing what he could from the flurry of words. Then, with a snap of his fingers, Professor Jorendil asked. "Do you know that the origin planes overlap?"

"Yes," Aodhán replied with a frown, still unsure where this was going—or what any of it had to do with awakened plants. "It's called the Convergent Origin Theory, theory, I think."

"Exactly. That's what I've been missing. My past failures all had something in common. I was trying to merge affinities that came from completely separate origin planes. No bridge. No natural link or overlap. Like fire and shadow. I was trying to force them together. But if two affinities already share an origin plane—if they naturally exist in the same primordial space—then there's no inherent conflict. The core wouldn't need to reconcile two opposing forces because, at its foundation, they aren't truly separate."

He glanced at Aodhán, eyes wide, and asked. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Erm… I'm not quite sure." Aodhán sputtered, but Professor Jorendil plowed forward regardless.

"I need to merge affinities whose origin planes truly overlap. Not just aspects—actual overlapping structures. Like space and time. They must intersect somewhere."

"Or gravity and space," Aodhán suggested, his excitement growing despite being completely lost.

Professor Jorendil nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, just like that. Ice and water. Fire and light. Space and shadow…"

While Professor Jorendil listed out pairs of affinity that went well with each other, Aodhán turned his mind to what he knew about the origin planes themselves.

The theory of overlapping origin planes stemmed from the belief that the planes were remnants of the reality that preceded their own. Not everyone subscribed to that idea, but among scholars, it was the most structured and widely accepted explanation.

In essence, the origin planes of affinities such as time, space, gravity, and even void had sections of each other that overlapped due to their fundamental nature. This was very obvious in how time awakeneds could sometimes create space, gravity, or void abilities depending on how far they stretched their understanding.

It was like a Venn diagram—each plane existing within its domain, yet sharing intersections. Void was the farthest removed, yet still tethered by its relationship to the others.

If that was the case, then theoretically, a time core could be fused with spatial essence. And if it adapted to the foreign essence for long enough, perhaps it could even begin to produce it.

"They would still require a buffer." Professor Jorendil reasoned loudly, cutting seamlessly into his thoughts almost as if he'd heard them.

Muttering under his breath, he grabbed a pen and began jotting things down "A buffer is a must, but not in the way I originally thought. Rather than forcing a seamless fusion, I need to layer them so that the affinities exist in structured strata within the core, preventing immediate collapse while allowing gradual adaptation." He paused, then looked up, his expression alight with excitement. "I need to use Chaos."

Aodhán's eyes widened, and he stuttered. "Even on live subjects? Isn't that dangerous?"

Professor Jorendil frowned and then shrugged. "I guess. But that's a problem to worry about later. I still need to get it right within the normal cores yet before testing this out on any living creature."

Letting out a chuckle, he continued without waiting for Aodhán's response. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before, or why no one has connected this dot yet. But think about this. We've always assumed that the origin planes were tainted by chaos. What if they aren't? What if chaos isn't something that disturbs the planes but something that binds them? What if they couldn't possibly exist without it to hold them together?"

He leaned forward, his voice growing more animated. "Think of the storm. All those aspects—wind, lightning, water, sound, light, and shadow—all in one place, working seamlessly with each other to form a perfectly imperfect whole."

Aodhán did think of it, and he couldn't deny that it made sense. What if chaos wasn't a taint at all, but a kind of natural buffer? The origin of both creation and destruction, ensuring that all affinities could coexist, interlock, and balance each other.

Excitement stirred in his gut, and he wondered. What if Professor Jorendil was right? What if right here in this office, they had simply found out the answer to an age-long puzzle? It seemed impossible to believe that they would be the first ones to think about this, to come to this conclusion, but Professor Jorendil's excitement was so infectious that Aodhán couldn't bring himself to bring that up.

Regardless of how it might turn out, Aodhán agreed that there was potential here. After all, there was so little known about the origin planes. At the very least, this idea should be tested.

What he didn't understand, however, was what role plants played in all of this—or if they still had a part to play now that Professor Jorendil had his sudden epiphany. He needed them to play a part because, quite frankly, he needed the money.

His question was answered a moment later when Professor Jorendil finally stopped scribbling and sat down. He smiled brightly and said, "I called you here because I thought the answer to my problems lay in alchemy. I don't think so anymore, but I still need it. You see, trying to directly infuse chaos into a core is, well… explosive. I'll need a subtler alternative."

"What's that?"

"I need to create a chaos pill." Professor Jorendil replied casually.

Aodhán blinked, convinced he must have misheard. A chaos pill was a very expensive and very rare alchemical pill, with its hefty price tag tied to the rare materials needed for its creation.

To craft such a pill, Professor Jorendil would require plants with volatile, creative, or destructive energies—plants capable of influencing balance and interacting with multiple elements at once. Gwendolyn had briefly touched on the subject last term, and Aodhán could hardly believe he remembered any of it, considering how many classes he'd missed.

But Professor Jorendil was dead serious. He continued. "I need this pill to be perfect, designed specifically to create balance and possess transformation and fusion properties. It will bridge the gap between the two affinities. I've got a very long list of potential plants in mind." He paused, then eyed Aodhán with a knowing look. "You might want to grab a pen and paper."

"Right." Aodhán pulled out a note from his spatial storage. "I'm ready."

Professor Jorendil nodded and began listing off the plants he needed. "An Ethereal Chaosvine root, an Infernal Emberleaf, a Desert Mirage plant…"

The list continued for several minutes, and as Aodhán jotted it down, he marveled at the sheer number of plants he needed to find. Nearly two dozen, after Professor Jorendil made a few additions and subtractions to the original list. Even so, it was a lot, and Aodhán knew he couldn't do this alone. Not just because of the time it would take, but because of the sheer amount of ground he'd have to cover to find each plant.

This wasn't a class exercise where he could just pick awakened plants at random. Now, he had specific ones to track down, which meant a lot more targeted searching and reading. He needed Andrew for this.

When he finished writing, he asked, "Are we going to find all of these plants in Nilhal?"

"If you search thoroughly, you should. Despite their rarity, they shouldn't be much trouble for someone of your talents."

Aodhán shook his head. "I can't do this alone. I need the help of my friends, and I'll also need a written permission slip to leave the academy."

Professor Jorendil grimaced at the mention of paperwork. "I'll speak to Rahim about it. He's your mentor, isn't he?"

"He is, but you might have to speak to the principal about it, considering..."

Jorendil's grimace deepened. "I'll see what I can do and get back to you."

"Thank you, sir." Aodhán nodded, relieved that he wouldn't have to face the principal after all. Hopefully, she wouldn't summon him until his seals had fully regenerated. "Can I get a map of Nilhal?"

Professor Jorendil handed him a map, and they spent the next few minutes discussing the areas where some of the plants were most commonly found. When they finally wrapped up, the professor leaned back and said, "I suppose this is where we discuss your payment."

His tone was light, but Aodhán could hear the tension beneath it. He didn't blame him. Despite his wealth as an advanced-class Awakened on the verge of the Mythic tier, the plants he was requesting were ridiculously expensive—especially since the least valuable among them was still rare-ranked.

Aodhán wasn't sure of their exact market prices or auction starting bids, but he knew that acquiring all eighteen plants would cost Professor Jorendil thousands of gold coins. Exhaling, he replied, "I need to determine the market prices of each plant before I can give you a final price, sir. But because I'm interested in your experiments—and the experience I'll gain from this—I'll make sure to give you a significant discount."

Jorendil let out a deep chuckle. "Well, that's a relief. It's already evening. Let me know the price by tonight."

"I'll work on it," Aodhán assured him, and a few minutes later, he stood to leave. However, just as he reached the door, Jorendil's voice stopped him.

"One more thing, Aodhán. Despite the constant delving into Nilhal, the forest is still teeming with creatures. You'll likely encounter one in the early advanced class. You'll need to find a way to defend yourself."

Aodhán had already considered that, so he simply nodded. "I'll be careful."

With that, he left the professor's office.

Jorendil grinned as he watched him go, and the moment the door shut behind him, he rushed back to his laboratory and began putting his epiphany to the test—starting with an affinity he strongly suspected overlapped with the origin plane of shadow: poison.