Chapter 52: Chapter 47: Path of Ascension
Carman and Ryuzu looked around the room, picking up a few more minerals containing elemental energy. Eventually, the left the storeroom and entered the corridor that lead to the other rooms and the stairwell.
"Judging from the time elapsed since entering this area, it is almost evening, I feel it is best to head back to the city before nightfall." Said Ryuzu.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, with this key card we can lock the entrance so treasure borders don't find their way in." Replied Carman.
While Carman wanted to explore the entire facility, he knew that with the card he could lock the domain and come back another time. There was no rush to explore its depths. It was better to go back and rest rather than charge ahead and risk getting injured. Who knew what other security measures the Khaenri'ahns had put in place.
Carman wanted to get stronger before he would delve deeper, and now that the ascend option in his status menu has been unlocked he could now progress once more.
Navigating to his status, he looked at it for a brief moment, noting the changes that had occured as he had leveled up, and wondered if his physical stats would naturally increase as he grew up.
Clicking the [Ascend] button, Carman was greeted with a pop up.
[Congratulations Host on reaching the first bottleneck, individuals of Teyvat with elemental abilities gain the ability to break through these bottlenecks by absorbing various materials related to their favored element. These absorbed materials are imbued throughout the individual's body mutating it slightly, and allowing them to grow stronger. For you this process has been streamlined and different evolutionary patches have been made for you to choose from. In order to progress in levels, you must select one path, gather the required resources and complete the necessary quests.
Please choose one of the following options:
[Human]
Complete your multi-generational metamorphosis from your Oceanid ancestors to a full human, devoid of your current selves' weakness to Primordial Seawater. However this evolution will come at the cost of lowering your elemental affinity to all elements as the typical human body is not a good conduit for elemental energy.
[Oceanid-degraded]
Embrace your ancestry and discard your human form for mastery over your Hydro element. This will boost your affinity with the Hydro element while lowering your ability to control others, and even preventing your ability to learn new elemental manipulation through the [Descender] title.
Though at first you will not be able to maintain a physical form, the more powerful you become in controlling your element, the more shapes you will be able to take, at the peak of your evolutionary path you will be able to take a humanoid appearance made of condensed Hydro energy.
[Elemental Human]
Start yourself down a lost evolutionary path of human elementalization. While this evolution does not remove your vulnerability to Primordial Seawater, it allows you to keep your Human form while boosting your ability to channel elemental energy, and even eventually being able to produce and store some of your own.]
Reading through the options each of them has their own benefits and downsides. Right now he would be considered a Human-Oceanid hybrid, not fully one or the other, and since he had Primordial Seawater in his blood, keeping him in his human form, enough Primordial Seawater could pull it from him, similar to how being in regular water can pull water from your skin via osmosis, dissolving his current appearance leavimg only the Oceanid part behind.
Both of the first options removed his weakness to Primordial Seawater. But in exchange they lowered his affinity to various elements, Human evolution while it didn't completely null his ability to manipulate elements other than Hydro simply wasn't enough for him. That left the third option, he wasn't sure what kind of evolution Elemental Human would be, but it seemed like it would provide him with the most benefits despite being still vulnerable to Primordial Seawater.
While he contemplated the paths it made him think about his future. What did he want to do? He had a few "Main Quests" from his system, but he refused to let it be the one deciding his path.
He was given a second chance at life, cliche as it seemed. He didn't want it to be spoonfed to him only doing things that gave him rewards like this was a game. He wanted to explore, to learn everything, the rise to the top like some hero in a kid's story and save the day. There were so many tragedies that occured, and many of them were caused by Celestia.
Asmoday was like a mountain weighting on his back, and Carman wanted to be free of it. He wanted to be free to engage with the world and build things without fear that some b!t$h was going to drop a magical rod of god on top of him, or appear out of nowhere and seal him in a red cube, or dissect him and use his parts to make stuff if what Skirk said about the Gnosis were anything to go by.
While it kept him vulnerable to Primordial Seawater, Carman decided to choose the Elemental Human path. Perhaps there were ways ohe would be able to cover this weakness in the future. If they could design a seal under the Fortress of Meropide with steam age technology, what could he do with knowledge of his world and Khaenri'ah?
A smile made its way onto Carman's face as he mentally selected his choice.
-ding-
[Option: "Elemental Human" selected, retrieving quest details...]
[Quest Name: Path of Ascension: Elemental Human
Description: you have embarked on the path of the Elemental Human, a near extinct race in Teyvat. As a Descender born in a native born Teyvatian body, you currently are reliant on the ambient elemental energy around you. Thankfully you were born as a Fontainian at a time when they were still Human-Oceanid hybrids.
This presents you the unique opportunity to pursue the legacy and traits of your ancestry while maintaining a human form created from elemental energy, an excellent conduit for said energy.
There are legends of Oceanids that were unsatisfied with the limitations of their human form after being transformed by Egeria using Primordial Seawater, and that they underwent a ritual to reform the core that their Oceanid forms had in their human bodies, creating a second vascular system for their power.
Unfortunately after the fall of Remuria, all texts containing the process through which this secondary system was formed was lost to the physical plane.
Task: Discover the lost technique of Human Elemental Core Formation and start the process of forming an elemental system within your body.
Rewards: Level 20+ unlocked, 280k exp, 30k system points, Skill: Elementalization.]
Carman read through the quest as he walked with Ryuzu to the entrance of the domain. He didn't know where to start with this at the moment so he decided to put it to the back of his mind until he could focus on it later. On the way up Ryuzu had reminded him that Livre was cooking dinner that evening and Carman was curious to see what his adoptive father could make.
Locking the doors of the domain after they walked through the portal, the doors closed and glowed red.
Carman was then picked up by Ryuzu and they headed back towards the city.
-To be continued
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