Chapter 27 Settled Decision

Chapter 27 Settled Decision
Jorren was a little unhappy with what he found out, but it helped him with his decision. By the time he makes his third ascent, he would become unstoppable, and if his enemies learns of it, they would make it their life mission to eliminate him.

He knew now that he had to risk the connection he had with his family to keep moving on. It wasn’t something he thought was possible. His heart ached from the decision, but now he knew the risks and teh weight involved. He’s not just cutting the ties with his sister because the codex said so. He was cutting the ties because he had to keep his sister safe.

When he got to the house, he pulled out the letter and the codex as he approached the bench at the center of the room. He dropped the Codex on the table, then opened the envelope and took a quick glance through the letter. Then he poured out the coins in the envelope into his palm, before crumpling the envelope and the letter and hurled it into the before him by a few feet.

His mind went back to what Davan Rell told him. He knew he wasn’t lying. He could see it in his face. Davan Rell didn’t know what to make of him yet, and he didn’t know what to make of him. 

The light from the Codex snapped his attention back. It was humming with a soft rumble, before the cover flipped open to the page containing his architecture. Below the soul architecture, the text rearranged itself. 

Third Ascension Requirement: Completed.

Moral Status: Strong. Defined. Excellent. Proceeding to preparation for Ascension.

It became clear to Jorren. As the codex required him to go higher, it wanted him to be more protected. More power meant he needed more protection, and more protection started from a place of self responsibility.

Jorren covered the book and pushed it back within his coat, then turned off the dim, yellow lights of the room before heading to his thin pallet to get his much deserved rest.

As he lay down, he closed his eyes, but his mind wouldn’t settle. He turned this way and that way, hoping that exhaustion would do it’s work, but nothing happened. After a moment of fighting to sleep off, he sat up, looking around the dark room.

His tactical intelligence fared, and then he sensed it. A lock in of a strange signature onto his own soul. 

Someone was tracking him. 

His entrance into tier five made it easy for them to get him. He stood up and glanced around the room. He could rip the seal off, but the essence outburst would be so large that it would alert everybody in the district. His mind spun, thinking of how to get rid of the seal before morning, when he’d be ready to give the Keeper his decision  to go for the Third Ascension.

Then it hit him. The dead zones.

It was a place where intact signatures struggled to exist. The burial ground for inconsistencies and the burning hell for waste. The aura of power there was so negative that it will cause a fracture in the soul architecture of practitioners whose soul architecture was intact. 

Jorren knew he must go there, if he must rip the seal away from his soul. His soul would resist, and the energy of the dead zone will press down on his altered, fractured architecture. But that pressure would be necessary to cushion the effect of the explosion of the essence within him, pushing it back into his soul and preserving his essence and the architecture of his soul.

As he shrugged on his coat and left the house, he could feel the eye of the seal following him. He felt the push and pull as the seal held onto his soul, and he walkd faster. It was dead in the night. Everyone was asleep.

The walk to the deadzone was long, but Jorren kept walking. The Seal pulled at his soul to go back, but his tactical intelligence let him know that the pull he was experiencing was not from his will but from the Seal. 

When he arrived at the deadzone, a cliff that had dagged steps running down into thick darkness, the stretch pull from his soul tightened. The seal was adamant to make sure he doesn’t walk into the deadzone, but he knew better. The wind was softer now, but was cold. Jorren could feel the power of the cold reaching his bones, and he gritted his teeth.

He started descending, and as he did, he could feel the agitation of the seal against his soul. It felt like struggling. It felt like trashing against chains holding you against a cold wall, but unwilling to pull away. He kept walking.

The seal kept weaking and he kept walking. When the seal grew too weak, it felt like a loosed lock waiting to be pulled. He could feel the darkness of the dead zone pressing against his soul as if it would blow him into splinters, but he held on, reaching for his core, hands open and turned upwards.

What rushed out of his palm wasn’t light. It was a rush of dark wind. The phantom weight anchored against his soul broke loose, and for a moment, he felt as if he was standing in the midst of a whirlwind.

His coat rippled with frevor, and his hair was rustled violently, but he stood still, eyes closed. The weight broke off, and for a moment, all he could feel was the darkness of the dead zone within him.

He started back up, walking up to the cliff. He was invisible, but people were quite aware of that. Now, he must find a way to not just not just be invisible but to become a ghost. If he was invisible, he could be tracked. If he becomes a ghost, he’d become dangerous and unstoppable.

When he got to the top, the air around was too cold, but for him, it was comfort. He stood for a moment, looking down the dark, lonely street. It dawned on him how far he’d come, and he had barely started. 

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he headed back to the Keeper’s place.