Master of the Loop

Chapter 47

  Shard of Ascindium

Sylas’ head hurt—and it wasn’t for any of the normal, everyday reasons for why a head would hurt, such as a lack of sleep(or too much of it), stressful day, or any other number of things that could cause one to grab his head and wonder why is the brain beating itself like a masochist. No, his head hurt for a very simple reason—he tried to stuff too much information into it too quickly. Though, before today, Sylas would have laughed it off as a stupid superstition, he had no choice but to bandwagon the ‘my head hurts ‘cause too much math’ group.

He sat in his room, leaning against the wall, while Ryne’s voice continued to echo inside his mind as she went in great detail to describe to him the means and ways of a talisman. He had hoped to start slow and work his way up, but Ryne was relentless—no doubt a remnant of how she was taught, to begin with, never having been given the gentle and encouraging hand—shooting a thousand words per minute into his brain and scrambling whatever little knowledge lay there.

Talismans were, Sylas learned, kind of like circuits back on Earth—they weren’t sources in as much as conduits for other forms of energy. While circuits used electricity, talismans used this world’s natural energy. As far as Sylas heard, Ryne simply referred to it as ‘energy’ rather than using any unique name, such as Mana. Nonetheless, talismans were conduits for that natural energy—means for people without intrinsic knowledge on how to channel that energy to use it, to a certain extent at least.

However, talismans could only be created by the people who had that intrinsic knowledge as they required the ‘Inscriber’ as they were called to fuse at least an iota of natural energy into the talisman so that it can connect with the outside forces through it.

There were, however, major limitations on how strong a talisman could be. In fact, Sylas learned that the talisman Valen used to blow up the hole in the wall was actually one of the genuinely strongest ones that could be made. After all, the stronger the talisman, the more lines—and usually more parchments and complicated connections—it required.

Ryne demonstrated the simplest of talismans—one that simply burned itself at the command by igniting the tiniest of sparks at the center of the talisman—and even that required nearly a thousand intricately woven lines. What shocked him even more than the number of lines was her speed—she rammed through each line within a second, clearly a well-practiced hand.

Roughly an hour into the lesson, Sylas had to remove himself—his head hurt too much, after all. They didn’t even get to the point of how he’d go about controlling the natural energy as she was still running him through the rudimentary basics, such as how the pattern of lines defines what kind of reaction it would cause, or how an external talisman could be an amendment to the original one and overwrite it, possibly confusing people in the process.

“I need to clear my head…” he mumbled aloud and stood up, walking out of the room and down the winding corridors of the castle.

He occasionally ran into maids and other servants who all greeted him, with him absentmindedly nodding back. It seemed like death to focus on both swordsmanship and talismans, or magic, effectively. However, he had an added advantage of immortality—one that was perfectly paired with the fact that he could recall everything. As such, unlike his swordsmanship, his knowledge of talismans would stay and could be expanded upon through the same loop, over and over again. In fact, as long as he wanted, he’d be able to learn everything Ryne knew in a single loop. That was, of course, barring the fact that the magic, like his body for swordsmanship, put on a wall he couldn’t cross without learning it.

Nonetheless, opportunities were now abundant—even the headache couldn’t dull the joy derived from that. After all, there was an avenue, at least, for him to grab ahold of some agency over his own fate. While a sly tongue and a witty mind were clearly able to take him far, seeing his current position, there was a limit—especially with people like Dyn or even his opposite, Derrek. For them, and for the future itself where he’d possibly have to face the impossibilities like the figure in the sky, he couldn’t rely on others to be his safeguard. He’d have to become his own protector. In the end, though he concluded that there likely wasn’t a limit on how many times he could die… there was still a distinct possibility that there was. And he had to be prepared for it.

On his mindless journey through a castle, he stumbled upon a barely familiar room—the abandoned storage room where Dyn and his coconspirator led him on the night of the invasion. Walking inside, he realized that he never truly questioned that, having been overtaken by the fact that Dyn was one of the ‘traitors’. But the question was actually really important—why did they come here? Of all the places in the castle they could have gone to, why here?

If their plan was to distract the castle with the invasion so they could sneak in here… no, that’s moronic. Dyn could have just walked in, Sylas concluded quickly. The young man had no trouble sneaking into the castle and since this room was abandoned, nobody would have spared him a second look even if he walked into here. Furthermore, there was the fact that he distinctly told Sylas somebody on the inside would open the gates, practically guaranteeing that he’d follow the two of them.

“Shit, now that I think about it… his actions make no fucking sense, right?” he mumbled, looking around the room. Since they came here, there was probably something they were after. There wasn’t much to see, however—decrepit, wet-seeming walls, a hole in the corner, and a bunch of strewn rocks lying across the ground. Rocks…?

Something caught his eye—amidst the pile of rocks sitting in the rightmost corner, he saw a spark, a tiny trace of light. Walking over, he bent forward and scavenged through the pile, eventually finding a tiny rock that didn’t look like a rock. It was a broken piece of something, feeling a lot like crystal, though lacking any of the spectacular hue and distortion of one. It was extremely dull, ashen-colored, which was how it blended in with the rocks, and clearly lifeless. Nonetheless, it certainly wasn’t a rock. Just as Sylas was about to put it away and ask the Prince if he knew what it was, a notification popped up in front of him.

You have discovered… ‘Shard of Ascindium’

Quest: discover the Shard’s nature and purpose

Reward: follow-up Quest

“Shard of… Ascindium?" Sylas mumbled, inspecting the tiny 'rock' yet again. The name was important-sounding, he mused, though, for all he knew, it could have been a piece of the toilet for some ancient race. Nonetheless, he's gotten a quest related to it, so it was unlikely. "Tsk, what do you mean follow-up quest? Shit, this system is awful. I haven't even gotten the rewards I was promised yet, and now it's stiffing me again… fuck…"

Following his short rant, he put the shard into his pocket and decided to ask around. This piece was the likely reason why Dyn came into this room. That still, however, didn’t answer any of the other questions—if he wanted the shard, he, again, could have just walked into the room and took it, no issues. Why, then, did he warn Sylas? Why the invasion? Why effectively invite Sylas to follow him?

“Unless he was expecting somebody else to follow him?” Sylas paused for a moment, stroking his chin. “There’s a chance of that. If I told Valen, he’d likely send someone else instead of me. Who? Tenner? No, he’d want him at the wall, with the rest of the captains. No, wait—Derrek! Yes, on the night Dyn told me, Valen made the fuck-face a Captain. There’s a chance he would have sent him as the first ‘test’ of sorts. Was that it? Was Dyn after Derrek? Still… why the shit would he complicate that? There were easier ways…”

While still talking to himself, Sylas beelined for Derrek’s chambers in the Captain Quarters of the Castle. If anyone knew what the Shard was, it was likely him—or, at least, according to Sylas’ quickly-concocted theory, it was him. Once there, he knocked several times—quite loudly—before a disgruntled voice yelled back at him from the inside and opened the room.

“What the hell do you want?!!” temporarily confused, Sylas recalled that it was actually quite late—likely at least one hour after midnight—and that he’d woken the man up from his sleep. Oops… “You—”

“Look, your dubious suspicions of my messianic nature notwithstanding,” Sylas quickly cut to the chase—he’d simply reset the loop anyway, he just needed to figure out whether it was connected to Derrek. “I’ve a very simple question for you.”

“H-huh…? W-what?”

“Have you ever heard of the Shard of Ascindium?”

“… w-what… what did you just say?” the man seemed to awake that instant, his eyes widening into saucers, stuttering out the words. Bingo!

“Shard of Ascindium,” he replied, reaching into his pocket. “This thing.”

“NOOOOO!!!!” Derrek suddenly screeched like a wailing ghost—just at that moment, Sylas felt an abundant blast of energy cruise through his arm and into the shard. His insides immediately grew weak, hunger overtaking him, as the shard lit up in faint, dim, emerald hue. Within that split second, it also projected a ray of light forward that washed over Derrek. And then… and then, well, there was no Derrek.

"……" Sylas stared, dumbfounded. The man who was just standing there… was gone. Not even clothes remained, let alone him. He was… gone. But then, Sylas heard something. A voice, of sorts. It was dulled and muffled, but he heard it. Almost by instinct, he brought the shard next to his ear, and, well, he found Derrek.

“HOW DARE YOU, YOU IMBECILE?! YOU PUNY CREATURE?!! HOW DARE YOU TRAP ME IN THIS PLACE?! RELEASE ME, I ORDER YOU!! RELEASE ME, AT ONCE, YOU MONGREL!!!”

“…” WHAT IN THE GOD’S HELL IS HAPPENING?!!!!!