Fate Shift - Chapter 14

Xumnuh Nofistello, a two-winged female angel, looked around in interest. She’d been separated from the rest of her group after entering the portal and now stood in what appeared to be an armory. Torches bracketed to nearby walls illuminated an expansive room filled with weapon racks. Glancing around Xumnuh saw that most of the weapons were swords of various types. She also saw other types of weapons, like spears and halberds; those weapons were rather rare though. Xumnuh estimated that maybe only 10% of the weapons in the room weren’t swords.

Xumnuh wasn’t the only person transported to a room stocked with weaponry; each person who’d stepped through a portal had arrived in an identical room. In Radsidan’s room, the fat youth had chosen to ignore the weapons, instead patrolling the room. Once he confirmed there were no obvious exits he began a more thorough check of the walls, floor, and ceiling.

While Radsidan examined the room he was in, Sabsreck of the Dark Earth Tribe was performing a simpler test. He’d pick up a weapon and clench his fist. Weapons that crumbled into pieces from his great strength would be dumped into one of the several junk piles he’d already created. The few weapons that didn’t break under his powerful grasp would be replaced where he’d found them originally. In this manner Sabsreck patiently attempted to test every weapon in his room.

As the many people who’d entered the Soul Realm explored their individual rooms using their various methods, the third member of the Fate’s Own was making great use of the System of Fate.

Gazeen of the Sand Wraith Tribe, the third member of the Fate’s Own, had a much deeper understanding of the System of Fate than the others. He’d unlocked many features D’Gedda and Peter hadn’t.

The very first of those features and one of the most important was System Customization. He’d discovered this feature while trying to interact with his Status screen on his very first day as a member of the Fate’s Own.

System Customization allowed Gazeen to alter the way other features of the system functioned to a degree. It was largely due to this feature that Gazeen had unlocked so many features too. After gaining Appraisal and testing it some, Gazeen had used System Customization to modify it. One of the simpler modifications he’d made was to integrate the two different aspects of Appraisal. Rather than having to actively record what one knew about an object when using Appraisal, Gazeen’s Appraisal would automatically record any information he knew about any target of Appraisal.

Using Appraisal with this modification just once had been enough to unlock the Passive Record, Memory, and Archive features. That was the result of just one modification too. As Gazeen continued gathering more features he was able to continually enhance his ability to gather and understand information via the System of Fate.

With Archive, any information ever listed by Appraisal was stored. Memory allowed Gazeen to store his memories in the Archive and Passive Record allowed him to constantly add new knowledge to the Archive. This was an especially effective feature after he modified Appraisal to automatically be cast on anything and everything detectable at all times. Of course when he’d first applied auto-cast he’d been blinded by walls of text but he’d sorted that issue out rather easily using System Customization. Following that incident, Gazeen used the System Customization feature to make it so that only information he actively desired would appear in his field of view

Eventually Gazeen unlocked Analyze and Categorization. Analyze allowed Gazeen to interpret the information stored in the Archive; Categorization offered the ability to organize the information. Using Categorization made it surprisingly easy for Gazeen to access specific information in the Archive and also enhanced his ability to apply Analyze.

The more Gazeen used the System of Fate the more features he unlocked. The more features he unlocked the more data he began to gather. By the time he entered the Soul Realm his perception of the world had already been drastically changed by the System of Fate. His ability to gather, access, and understand information had grown so much he felt like an entirely different being.

Before he was selected as the third member of the Fate’s Own Gazeen had been an average member of the Sand Wraith Tribe. He wasn’t particularly talented and didn’t stand out in any area. Even though the Soul Realm hadn’t specifically restricted anyone above the novice rank from entering, Gazeen was still nearly prevented from entering the Soul Realm. He was that lackluster in comparison to the other sand wraiths. Now, in this place, he finally had a chance to change his fate!

Although he’d only been using the System of Fate for about a week, Gazeen had already picked up a few tricks on how to go about maximizing the effectiveness of many features he’d unlocked. When he appeared inside the Soul Realm, the very first feature Gazeen made use of was Threat Detection. Threat Detection combined the data from Archive with Analyze to scan Gazeen’s environment for danger. As it was reliant on his senses, Gazeen did a full 360 degree spin after materializing in the room.

Once Threat Detection suggested no obvious threats had been detected, Gazeen started exploring. Appraisal and Passive Record gathered information, which then streamed into the Archive. Once it entered the Archive, Categorization sorted the new data. Once the data was sorted Analyze went to work examining the new information.

Using Analyze, Gazeen was able to judge the quality of the weapons in the room. Although none of the weapons possessed even a trace of Qi, some were still better than others. Some weapons were simply constructed from better materials or had more effective designs.

Once he’d assessed all the available weapons Gazeen decided to grab a spear made from an unfamiliar orange material. The entire spear was made of the same material and, whatever it was, the stuff was light. Despite being longer than he was tall, Gazeen had no issue wielding the spear with one hand. Gazeen found the spear to be both flexible and durable after testing it out some.

He started to move towards another one of the relatively high-quality weapons in the room when a voice spoke “Have you selected your preferred weapon?”

Gazeen swiveled, looking for the voice’s source. He saw nothing new. Threat Detection continued suggesting he wasn’t in immediate danger but Gazeen knew it was limited by his senses. If he couldn’t detect a threat the System of Fate couldn’t either.

When nothing happened for several seconds Gazeen began considering how to answer the question. According to Analyze the spear was one of the best weapons in the room in terms of quality. What interested him was that none of the best weapons were of similar design to one another. Aside from the spear he held, there were several types of swords, an axe, a halberd, and a couple maces to choose from amongst the high-quality weapons available. So what he needed to decide was what type of weapon he wanted to use.

Gazeen eliminated the axe, halberd, and maces straight away. Sand wraiths tended to have less physical strength than even humans on average. Using that information Gazeen was also able to eliminate the larger swords. This left a rapier, katana, saber, scimitar, jian, xiphos, and kopis amongst the remaining choices, excluding the spear Gazeen currently held.

It didn’t take the demon long to make a choice based off of that selection. “Yes, I prefer this spear” he stated. Out of all the weapons he seriously considered, the spear had the greatest reach. This simple fact became the deciding factor for Gazeen.

With his weapon selected a new portal opened in front of the sand wraith. Gazeen stepped through. The portal took him to a new room, this one much smaller. This new room was cubic and mostly empty. Aside from a closed door, Gazeen couldn’t find anything of note in the room.

The same voice from before spoke once more “Now that you have selected a weapon you may begin the Sword Trials. To start the first trial, simply step through the light barrier. After successfully completing a trial you will be returned to this room. Each trial has a time limit that cannot be exceeded; waiting in this room doesn’t affect those time limits. Failure to complete a trial in the given time frame will result in death. Failure to complete a trial will also result in death. If you believe you can’t complete a trial, shout ‘give up’ to be teleported back to your original location before entering the Sword Hall.”

Even as the voice finished speaking, the door to Gazeen’s room swung open. The light barrier the voice mentioned appeared behind the boor, blocking Gazeen’s vision of the first trial. Rather than start the trial straight away, Gazeen decided to pause for a moment to collect himself. Once he felt ready, he stepped through the doorway.

The sand wraith entered a well-lit hallway lined with two rows of columns. A humanoid figure waited near the far end of the hall in front of what Gazeen surmised was the exit. The figure stepped forwards slowly, beginning to walk, run, and finally sprint towards Gazeen.

As the figure neared, Gazeen was able to make out what he was facing. The figure charging towards him was an automaton of some kind, possibly a golem or puppet. The automaton was roughly the same height as Gazeen and coated in blue, stone armor. Based off of the forceful impacts of each step, Gazeen could easily tell that the automaton was quite heavy. The asymmetrical armor offered what seemed to be very thorough protection to the automaton’s legs, torso, and right arm. The left arm and ‘head,’ which was really just a floating sphere of the armor’s blue stone, were barely protected. The automaton held an oversized kukri in its left hand and a behemoth, spiked mace in its right.

Gazeen stooped and planted the butt of his new spear against the floor. Since the automaton was mindlessly charging him, he decided to simply let it destroy itself on his spear.

The automaton kept silently charging towards Gazeen for a few seconds after he prepared to run it through; then it hurled the mace right at him. The sand wraith had just enough time to hear Threat Detection screech before exploding from the impact.

The automaton raised its empty hand in the direction of the mace and released a spell. The mace, now bloody, flew back into the automaton’s grasp. The stone entity then crisply turned and began walking back to its original position.

This chapter took way longer than I expected it to, sorry about that.