Chapter 19

Much to my disappointment, Inspect told me almost nothing about my skills. The only one it had any info on was Essence Drain, one that I was already somewhat familiar with.

Essence Drain: Absorbs Life and Magic essence from a creature. Drained essences recover over time. Combos with Seduction to increase arousal in target. Combos with Quickened Recovery to further enhance recovery. 0/72

On the plus side, I found out that it was Seduction that was responsible for the previous incident with Marian, and while I wasn't sure, I thought that with practice I might be able learn to separate the two effects, not that I knew how I would practice it, seeing as the the side effect would spell trouble for whoever I used it on. I was almost certain that the 0/72 was the needed experience to advance the skill to the next level, as Inspect listed similar, though smaller, numbers for the rest of my Skills.

While Inspect gave me at least text for my Gifts, most of it was vague, with the exception of Mynoghra's Shadow, which was a garbled mess of letters and symbols with little discernable meaning, on the brighter side, it did show which Gift was responsible for which Skill, and that my Gifts had Skills or perhaps other abilities that they would be granting later, or perhaps after I met the requirements for them.

Mynoghra's Shadow: ꒐!ꋖꁲꏳꀷ'ꈜꈵꊯꁅ@ ꁲꈜꑀꊯꁅ꒦* ꈜꁲ꒑ꐔꑀꅐꀷꏳꏳꅐꏳꌅꅐꀷꊯꑀ꒑ꈵꋖꈜꁲꀷꊯ, ꊿꋖꁝ꒑ꈵꃔꁲꉤꁲꈜꊯꁝꐔꈜꁲꊯ? Grants Seduction, Essence Drain.

Power of Pleasure: Increases effectiveness based on current arousal and satisfaction. Grants Masochism, LOCKED.

Lives of the Past: Your soul's past gives you boons. Grants Artifice, LOCKED.

Heretic: A transgressor fated to defy the Divine. Grants LOCKED, LOCKED.

Phoenix Blood. An inheritor of the power of a phoenix. Grants Quickened Recovery, LOCKED.

To my surprise, the entry that gave me the most information about myself was actually my race, not only did it come with a description of the race, but also what I assumed was my genetic makeup or at least something similar, and it was whole other ordeal that I wasn't equipped to deal with.

Ashborn: A creature born from the corpse of an immortal and undying Phoenix. 47% Phoenix, 31% Arachne, 19% Ghoul, 3% Womb Slime.

The description itself was a contradictive, how can there be a corpse of an immortal and undying creature, I was pretty sure they were mutually exclusive. As for the four percentiles, I didn't know if they represented my heritage, or what. Both Phoenix and Arachne were to be expected, but Ghoul and Womb Slime didn't really sound like creatures I wanted to be associated with. When I Inspected them, hoping for some information on how they got there, all I got instead was a general description of them.

Ghoul: An type of undead that grow and use carapace-like bone protrusions for offense and defense. In rare circumstances, a Ghoul may retain its intelligence. Threat C.

Womb Slime: An extremely rare evolution of Slimes, created by a Slime sitting in a creatures womb for extended period of time. Highly valuable as allows two creatures to sexually reproduce with each other even if the offspring would usually be non-viable. Threat F

In the end Inspect had left me with far more questions than answers, though it had certainly illuminated some of the circumstances around my birth. When I told Marian, she seemed troubled by information and told me to keep it a secret, something I had planned to do anyway. It felt like my life was only going to become more difficult if anyone were to find out.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful, and I soon fell into the routine of my new life. Seasons began to pass as I threw myself into my lessons. Over time the awkwardness of me being an outsider faded, replaced with both the camaraderie and rivalry of siblings. Much to everyone's surprise Gabriel and Kalista's Awakening  became a large event as two pillars of flame created a pair of phoenixes in the sky, one red-orange, the other, golden. The twins also had the Gift of Phoenix Blood an auspicious event for the Eldur family. Despite the fact that neither the twins nor I had made a social debut as of yet, the fact that three members of the Eldur family had the Gift of Phoenix blood was something that made its way around, making our names known to all the influential people.

As for what the twins inherited, it seemed Kalista had gotten a Skill called Purifying Flames, while Gabriel had gotten Flames of the Lifebringer. I felt a little jealous as they seemed to both have inherited not only a high Flame and Life Affinity, but had gotten skills that seemed much cooler than my Quickened Recovery.