Chapter 33 An Avoidable Mistake

Chapter 33 An Avoidable Mistake
The boy stared at the two boys as if they had committed a grave atrocity. Jorren stood behind the workbench in the small room, his face bowed, hands shoved into his coat. Devan Rell had his hands clasped before him, standing meters away from Jorren as if he had a viral disease, and had his face turned to the side.

The Keeper tapped his staff against the floorboards hard. The sound was enough to make anyone flinch, but the boys in the room weren’t just ‘anyone’.

“What have you done?” He growled.

Jorren didn’t speak. Davan was trying to keep up with the silence, but it grew unbearable for him to hold on. It felt like staying in the presence of the Keeper much longer in silence would make him explode.

“He made me do it,” Davan Rell said.

Jorren slowly turned to look at him. Davan met his gaze and shrugged, adding. “Didn’t you?” 

Jorren looked away, his gaze going back to the floorboards.

“Did you?” The Keeper growled his follow-up question.

Jorren didn’t look up. He didn’t have to. In the SoulWell, he did what he thought was right. They were not supposed to die in the hands of that minotaur monster. Destroying it was what they thought they had to do.

“I did what I thought was right,” Jorren said quietly.

“What you did has created a void in the system. It’s something you could have avoided if you…” The Keeper trailed off.

Jorren knew that the Keeper wasn’t the kind to trail off during statements, so it was clear what he was referring to. He was referring to the Codex. But Jorren knew well enough that no one, not even Davan, was supposed to know that he had the book. He believed that the Keeper would understand the need for his actions and why he acted the way he did. 

“You were not supposed to destroy it,” the Keeper added. “You were supposed to overwrite it.”

“Overwrite?” Davan’s eyes widened. “How was he supposed to do that?”

“Jorren might be negative resonance, but there is something specifically different about him. You will be surprised if you understand the capabilities of his soul.”

Davan turned to Jorren in a flash, the destruction of the monster in the Soulwell coming back to mind. He still remembered. Jorren didn’t unleash essence on it, yet he could feel the intense energy. It was so tight and heavy that he nearly forgot how to breathe.

Yet he didn’t understand how he did it. It was something his brain couldn’t comprehend. For the first time, Davan looked at Jorren with a new perspective. It dawned on him that Jorren wasn’t the loser he thought he was.

“Now, what do we have to do?” Jorren asked quietly.

The Keeper leaned against the wall, folding his arms, his staff leaning on the space beside him. 

“The destruction in the dormant Soulwell wasn’t the goal. The goal was to make sure that you absorb the essence from the Soulwell, and the only way to do that is to overwrite the Drakna—”

“The what now?” Davan cut the Keeper mid-speech.

The Keeper sent him a glare before turning back to Jorren. “The Drakna is an ancient beast produced by the corruption affecting the Soulwell. The system, if they had welcomed the negative resonance that came to the system, would have eliminated it. Your destruction of the Drakna only propagated the work of the system and stalled your own progress.”

Jorren didn’t look up. The Keeper hadn’t answered his question. 

“So, we are to just move on, I guess,” Davan said. “I mean, the system is still in my favor.”

“You are supposed to exist independent of the system, given your exceptional architecture and abilities.” The Keeper shot back at Davan.

In that moment, everything made sense to Jorren. The Keeper wasn’t just looking for everyone. He was looking for those whose Soul architecture beat the requirements of the System. He was sure the Keeper wasn’t trying to build an army against the system, but whatever his underlying motivation was, he didn’t know it yet.

“Your mission now,” the Keeper continued. “Is to head back to the Soulwell and by whatever means possible, find a way to consume the abandoned essence in the soulwell. You will need it for your third Ascension.”

“And if I don’t,” Jorren asked. 

“Then you can remain a tier two negative,” the Keeper said. “You’d only be able to avoid the system’s detection for so long. But when the system comes after you, you’ll be found. You’re still invisible. You’re not a ghost yet.”

Jorren agreed with the Keeper. He intended to become a ghost. A variable undetected by the system, yet in the midst of it. It had been his goal after his hand broke the stone.

“Well,” Devan took a step back, his experience in the scattered field still fresh in his mind. “I’m sure Jorren could handle himself. I’m just going to… find something to do with my life.”

He backed away for a moment before spinning around and walking off. Jorren still had his head bowed, hearing the door close quietly behind him. The Keeper let the silence that took over the room linger before he broke it.

“I know you didn’t do it because you’d have revealed the Codex,” the Keeper said softly.

Jorren lifted his head, but didn’t speak. Then he pulled out the Codex from his suit. 

“I made a makeshift ether,” the Keeper continued. “It’s an invisible storage where you can keep the Codex, and retrieve it whenever you want, anywhere you are.”

“An invisible storage,” Jorren repeated.

“Think of it as a kind of airspace,” the Keeper continued. “Only your soul architecture and the book’s system would be able to recognize it. That way, you wouldn’t be in a constant fear of how to preserve the book, and you’d be free from the literal burden of carrying it about.”

“So, how can I access the ether?”

The Keeper gestured to his desk.