Chapter 3: Chapter 3 – Powerless

The Spirit Snake cackled with delight at the fresh meal put in front of him. Fear made even a dull meal taste better. What a lucky snake he was to find a meal delivered right into his nest!

Slithering onto Theseus, it covered his body and coiled around him. The old snake wanted to enjoy the human thoroughly. Starting with his right arm, the snake bit off a single finger.

Theseus shrieked but couldn’t move. With disgusting delight, the snake took another bite, and then, another. Before long, Theseus’s entire arm was consumed. The spirit of Theseus would dissipate before long; the blood essence left was devoured maliciously yet leisurely. All Theseus could see was red, and the pain was unbearable.

As his consciousness drifted once again, he heard the booming noises of the monstrous fish returning to the crevice, slamming incessantly while the snake ate him alive.

***

Heaven – Floor Two

A powerful aura gathered near Alvaro. The elite earth mage Hama apparated to Alvaro’s side. After clearing the first floor, his vigilance heightened. Theseus stood behind the two of them as they climbed.

“Alvaro, it’s time we address the elephant in the room.” Hama said bluntly.

“Now, now Hama, I don’t think there’s any issues,” Alvaro responded nonchalantly.

“The kid,” Hama signaled at Theseus. “Everyone here knows he is not cut out for this expedition,” Hama whispered, but Theseus could still hear. “His knowledge as a navigator is helpful, but why did you take him? He will just be a burden later on. We would’ve been better off delaying the trip to research the navigation ourselves…”

“That’s enough. You should know very well our composition works just fine. Theseus and Lydia are supports, you, me, and Astrid do the damage, Berringer scouts ahead the dangerous areas, and Ju Long takes the damage.”

“That’s not what I mean Al. We’ve all known each other a long time, but Theseus is the only veteran of the guild still at the C Rank. He’s just a researcher with little field experience. He’s a nice guy who I like just as much as you, but he is a burden to our party.”

Theseus’s face was downcast. No one in the party wanted him there except Alvaro, and most of them had no qualms showing it. Ju Long and Berringer openly insulted Theseus while Hama, Lydia, and Astrid occasionally gave Theseus condemning looks. This was the first time Hama had spoken up, most likely because this was the last point in their journey where Theseus could return safely alone. Realistically, all Theseus had to do was write down the instructions for the party’s navigation.

“Enough!” Alvaro shouted. He stopped and turned to the entire party.

“Theseus is here to stay! I’ve heard your grumbling, your whispering, and your nonsensical rumors. I’m sorry if this is embarrassing for you Theseus, but I must continue.” Everyone looked at each other, then to Theseus, and then to Alvaro awkwardly.

“Although Theseus is weak compared to us aura wise, he is greater than most of you personality wise! I didn’t choose Theseus because of his aura potential but because of his knowledge and ability to make logical decisions in planning this expedition.”

Berringer scoffed, “In that case, you should’ve just had him write up an instruction manual for us or brought a phone.”

Aura irradiated off of Alvaro, and he threw Berringer onto the ground with his aura.

“When I set up this expedition, I selected each of you to fulfill specific roles. Questioning Theseus is questioning my decision making. If I need help making a decision, I’ll consult Theseus or take a vote.” Alvaro spat on the ground in disgust.

“From now on, anyone who even looks at Theseus the wrong way will end up like him,” Alvaro motioned over to the crumpled Berringer on the ground. “A support role doesn’t need to be strong to be powerful. With adventurers of our caliber, shouldn’t that be common knowledge?” He released Berringer and continued walking, leaving Hama and Theseus both speechless.

In the end, Theseus knew they were right. Alvaro chose Theseus because they were long time friends. If they wanted to, Theseus could’ve used technology or magic to see where they were through a phone device; it would’ve been just as expensive as having him on the trip. Theseus had trouble keeping up with the group and didn’t fit in. Logically, he should’ve never gone with the party. The whispering and rumors would stop, but the thoughts of everyone except Alvaro remained:

Theseus was a liability and a burden.

***

Wasn’t it all over? Why was there life after death? To be eaten and maimed by the Three Great Dungeons? Theseus had these thoughts as he thought he would die for the second time, but his death never came. Unfiltered pain washed over Theseus as he awoke again from his torture.

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Instead of the snake or the fish, the leopard stood above him as he opened his eyes. The striking brown eye of the leopard stared into his green eyes. Theseus still couldn’t move, but the bleeding had stopped. Confused, Theseus wanted to ask the leopard what happened but couldn’t.

The leopard sat down a few feet from him and brought over a corpse from the shadows. Limp, the snake was killed by the leopard, but that was not all. Around the small cavern were fish bones. Incredibly, the leopard had killed both the snake and the fish. Scars were scattered across the leopard, but there was no blood. Its right eye was completely destroyed from the previous battle. On its body, small gills were seen.

The logical explanation Theseus could come up with was that he had been in a coma for a long time. While he was asleep, the leopard slayed the snake and defeated the fish monster. Even if it hadn’t killed the monstrosity that drove him into the crevice, the leopard had scared it away and hunted lesser fish beasts. Maybe the leopard took pity and nursed him back from the brink of death solely because of his foolish actions ‘defending’ it during the previous battle.

With great difficulty, Theseus turned his head to examine his body. By the looks of it, the leopard had used fire magic to burn his wounds together meticulously. Obviously, the leopard had been feeding him lesser fishes in his sleep or used magic to heal him. Was using fire magic even possible underwater? Were they even in water?

From an aura standpoint, Theseus had risen from an F Rank Mortal to a C Rank Mortal. In-between each realm, aura is ranked from F Rank to S Rank, and only by breaking through the peak S Rank would one be able to ascend to the next realm.

The leopard laid down next to Theseus patiently. One-armed and decrepit, Theseus lived another day because of the pity of the spirit beast. Minutes turned into hours, and then days passed. Theseus named the leopard Leo, and it took care of him by bringing fish. Slowly, Theseus recovered.

A weakling like him had to rely on a beast to survive. Ironically, he was a burden while he lived and had to rely on others to survive in the afterlife as well. After a month, Theseus could move around the crevice with ease, and he prepared to leave the hole.

Leo breathed fire onto a raw spirit fish and tossed the food to Theseus. After seeing how Theseus used rudimentary fire magic to cook, the beast grew attached to Theseus. In the beginning, the beast helped the human out of pity, but after learning the joys of cooking, Leo didn’t want to leave Theseus’s side. Theseus’s magic and cooking experiments led to the realization that they weren’t in water but another unknown substance.

Using the corpse of the snake, Theseus crafted a backpack, dagger using the teeth of the snake, and a scaly cloak. As a researcher, Theseus knew how to create and enchant magical equipment, but even as a veteran, using the raw materials of spirit beasts was exceedingly difficult.

Back on his world, corpses of this quality were hard to come by, and the equipment was around the level of a D Rank Sage, the realm above mortal. Equipment of this quality would go for hundreds of Aura Credits, but here, it cost him his arm. As equipment was ranked by the material it was crafted by, equipment could be categorized into the same realms as humans.

Leaving the crevice was hard for Theseus. Without Leo, it would’ve been easy to give up. Spirit Beasts like the leopard and the fish that battled Leo were likely around the level of an A Rank Sage. Wallowing in his sorrows, Leo would rub his head against Theseus to console him. Even in a place like Purgatory or Hell, Theseus made a new friend. For Leo, Theseus had to survive. If they could find civilization or something that resembled it, Theseus decided he would live peacefully with Leo until his spirit dissipated naturally.

Away from the spirit beasts of the forest, the problems of his past life, and his many regrets, he would take Leo and live a new life. Leo was strong, but there would surely be stronger beasts lurking about. To secure their future, Theseus vowed to repay Leo for saving him. For now, that meant giving him all the cooked fish he wanted.

At the present, Theseus’s aura was capped at B Rank Mortal. No matter how many fish Leo brought Theseus, he could no longer get stronger from eating the weak fishes. Even with the snake equipment, Theseus needed to find a way to temper his ‘body’ like in his past life. The nourishment of the spirit beasts was powerful yet risky. Out of desperation, Theseus ate the spirit beasts, but the danger was real. His spiritual body could become tainted by stronger beasts if he wasn’t careful.

If one ate too many Spirit Beasts above their aura capacity, mutating into a spirit beast would not be out of the question. Although Theseus knew a plethora of methods to increase his aura, the only one he had physical experience in doing was body tempering. Eating spirit beasts was an example of spirit tempering to increase the strength of the spirit.

Strangely enough, he was a ghost, but the rules of tempering stayed the same. His ghostly body remained destroyed from his experiences, but his inner spirit was strengthened from the spirit meals. The forceful consumption of the fish and subsequent increase in aura was likely what kept Theseus alive after his injuries.

The theory Theseus came up with was that the spirit of the afterlife was tied to the soul but distinct from it. As a ghost, his spirit manifested a new spiritual body to hold his consciousness, but his soul remained ethereal and intangible, which would explain how he had a body to be hurt while retaining a spirit to be strengthened apart from it.

In other words, to remain consciousness, the soul created a temporary vessel using another part of the soul as the conduit. Because of the fracturing of the soul, the ghostly vessel didn’t retain the aura of his previous life, which reset Theseus’s aura realm back to zero. This theory lined up with current knowledge on spiritually based aura skills, and it explained the current situation.

The implications of becoming a ghost meant that the dungeon itself likely stimulated his soul at random and fractured his soul unknowingly. He happened to wake up in the midst of an ocean and was thus a ghost stuck underwater at the bottom of either the first floor of Purgatory or Hell. Regardless of his location, the process of turning into a ghost meant that the damage to his ghostly vessel would likely be permanent unless healed by a Deity Realm individual.

In the most likely case, the fracturing of his soul to become a ghost was a one-time event. If his ghostly body died, his soul could not fracture again. If losing his previous aura base brought him to zero, it was likely splitting his soul again would dissipate his soul completely. Where he would go next after his soul dissipated was unknown to even the Authorities.

Thinking over his entire situation with a calm mind and analyzing the nature of his predicament for days, Theseus pondered his next move. For over a month, he had been paralyzed was more or less rehabilitated enough to walk. Mentally, he fought with his past demons but was not consumed. His biggest obstacle at his current state was not his past, his body, nor his weak aura. His biggest obstacle was leaving the crevice and into the undead world that awaited him.

With his scaly backpack, dagger, cloak, and Leo, Theseus mustered the courage to face his present situation. As powerless as he was in the past, once he left the crevice, he would live a new life with a new goal. He would find a new home for himself and Leo and live peacefully. No longer would he be weak, powerless. Inching closer to the top of the crevice, Theseus lifted himself closer to the entrance. Each movement was jarring and aching for him.

In the crevice, he would leave behind his haunting past and move forwards. In the crevice, he would leave his uselessness, his powerlessness, and his old self behind. Pushing himself forward, he would never be brought this low again. Together with the beast that saved him on a whim, Theseus crawled out of the hole slowly, with painful determination.

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