Trail Pointing Beyond

Sitting down at his desk inside his new quarters, Isaac cracked his hands and began to type on his computer.

"Files...files...where are you?"

Clicking on a folder, Cain found multiple documents inside and began to read them.

The documents were mostly recovered from some bygone cult that believed in a supposedly cosmic deity, but they never got any response from their patron, leaving the cult to have internal strife.

As a last-ditch effort, the founder tried to blow up a city, he was abnormally strong but ultimately failed and was arrested, his audio recordings on the Path of Magi the Bureau's to take.

Cain listened to the logs, clicking on the play buttons one by one:

Heavy panting entered through Cain's headphones before a male voice spoke, "The whispers have started again, damn it! Why did I choose this path?! It may complement the Path of Soul, but no one told me I would subjected to visions! I wake up at night, getting cold sweats and shivers, but I'm not scared! Why am I not scared, but feel fervent?!"

"I know now! I wasn't told how to progress in this path by the old man who sold me the manual, but the dreams showed the way! The orb in my soul is called a moon, the dream seems to be referring to something in the sky but I don't know what. But there were stars in the background which are in the sky at night, this "Moon" must be a rare celestial object or something."

"I have two moons now! Following the Dreams was the right choice! This path is so much better than the Path of Soul! I'm already on the level of those who spend decades of hard work reaching wholeness! With just two moons I have so much power! If I can keep going like this I can become a god!"

"The dreams have become clearer, the whispers showed me the truth! I know now; I am the blessed one of the All-Father! How could humanity forget him? How could we sweep our ancestor under the rug?! I must tell others, I must start praying so that the Ancestor can awaken, then no God would dare say they are almighty!"

"Three Moons! The voices are so clear, I can hear him, I can feel his presence! It's so distant, but my power surges!"

In the next audio file, the voice was jittery, clearly upset.

"Why Why Why! The whispers stopped! Is there no four moons? There has to be! I can feel it, there are four moons and even beyond that! But why can't I find the way? Why can't I go further?!"

"The gathering I made is failing, there are no responses, and they can't hear the whispers like I can. Why? Why can I only hear them?!"

The voice became angry, "I can't take it anymore! These cults, the church! They worship false deities while our Ancestor needs us! I have to stop it, I have to wake us up, then we can revive our father and enter the golden age again!"

The next audio log was pure madness.

"Manus oh great father! All-Father of Humanity, Soul of Perfection! Why cast me under thy shadow! Forgive me not for my insolence but I cannot take it! You create a path to walk only to destroy it from under me! Oh Blessed Order of the World! Divine Lord of the Universe! Why do this to your descendants!? Father....why...."

Bang!

"He's in here! He has the detonator! Get him!"

The voice became increasingly intense, "You will not stop me! I will make you remember him!"

Zzzzzz

The audio logs ended, the white noise playing in Cain's ears over and over.

'Manus....the Ancestor's power is in the Path of Magi?'

Cain's eyes moved around the folder, landing on pictures of the training manual found in the founder's abode, evidence of his powers.

From that moment on, Cain's eyes never left the screen in front of him.

...

In a cage, a Raven rested with its eyes closed as it was thinking.

'I can't use my mist, but the mark works, and my powers of Dream and Distortion are in effect, along with the enhancement. The only issue is that creation and distortion need too much energy, energy I don't have. So then I need to use the Dao core, but my only efficient powers are the Dao's of fire, sword, and deception. Fire can't help, swords either. So I have to rely on webs and trickery? At least the Deception Dao gives me a more charismatic aura...'

Cain gained a few bonuses from the Dao but they weren't substantial. At least one of them could help him somewhat.

Darla came out from the darkness, finishing a cookie. She paused and looked at Cain for a moment.

"Birdie, did you clean your feathers? You look so handsome!"

'At least I know it works. The last thing I need is finding the Dao is suppressed here too.'

Although Cain gained absolution in his Dao abilities, the bonuses of the Dao could be negated easily. Thankfully, he was in an isolated world where the Dao wasn't known. If there was a core suppressing him, his only option would be the offensive.

Later in the day, Darla left, and in her place, the Counselor came.

"So, time is ticking. We've had some incidents recently, some other groups finding the entrance to our home. We have you to thank, but I digress; I came here to do some prodding, purely research. Before we sacrifice you, we will get as much information as possible."

The man neared Cain's cage, using a key, he opened it up and his hand reached inside.

'Oh no.'

Cain began to caw like a maniac, he pecked the hand to no end as it grabbed him but the Counselor didn't react.

"Silly bird, I am second to the priest, I have sealed much, and pain is one of those things. Now, let us bring you to the lab, many eager youngsters wish to get a closer look at you."

The counselor brought the bird into the dark, the entire time it cawed and tried to escape, tearing the man's skin and even gnawing down one finger to the bone. Yet no matter what Cain did, the Counselor didn't react.

Entering a tunnel, Cain realized he was in some sort of underground structure, murky water dripping from above and a stream of disgusting liquid moving through the middle, leaving room to walk only on elevated platforms on either side.

'It smells like piss and shit. Are these sewers?!'

Cain wasn't used to the way this world's infrastructure. The sewers were small and automated, pipelines gushed water every few feet. In addition, the material used to make the sewers was different.

The sewers Cain knew and explored were in Netherane were made from powerful beings. The sewers he knew were large with gigantic chambers able to hold a miniature city inside.

The sewers he was currently in were small and strange, using many techniques Cain didn't know.

The world he was in now was far more advanced technologically, even more so than the Complex in a sense, seeing as it has the devices the people of that concrete city could only bring out on special occasions.

"We're here. Don't worry, I'll watch the entire time to make sure you don't die."

Handing Cain off, the counselor gave the raven to a young scientist with stitches on their face. The Raven cawed as it was locked into a strange machine.

The scientists started.

"Test one, finding the limit of the raven. The first test, defense. Turn on the laser, 0.3 output."

A laser turned on beside Cain's wing, it buzzed as it moved up.

Caw Caw CAW!

The raven screeched as the laser tore through its wings. The scientists stopped halfway, making sure not to dismember the wing.

"Ravens do not have high resistance to damage, they can't even survive under a laser that can't pierce human skin. This may be in line with why they are oddly intelligent and have abilities related to the occult, balance from nature. For the next test, we'll..."

The prodding continued, Cain was injected with drugs, wounded, took intelligence tests, and was even put in a cage to fight a starved rat to death.

For that test, Cain was bound, the scientists tried to lock onto whatever radiation or energy that misfortune rode on. But misfortune never took for the rat and it got a good chunk of Cain's chest and feathers before the experiment was stopped.

When everything was done, Cain was injected with a recovery serum and was handed back to the counselor.

"If possible, could you bring him back tomorrow, we have more experiments. We hope to communicate with it and unlock how its powers work."

After Cain was brought back to his cage, a few days passed. Each day he would be brought to the scientists and was experimented on to no end. For some reason, the tests hurt far more than Cain thought possible as if his soul was getting injured.

However because of this, he completed the refinement stage, this did not go unnoticed and he was to be brought back the following day to try a device meant to communicate with him.

'At least all this pain was worth something. Now with a refined soul, my soul energy entered a new level and I can use minor telekinesis for a time. My mind is also sharper, I can think and solve multiple equations at once, which makes up for the loss of my body, it's close to my previous processing speed but not quite.

With the loss of his body, the bonuses brought by it also disappeared. Luckily, the soul path helped in the mind department, allowing Cain to slowly go back to his old way of thinking.

Up until this point, Cain could only do one thing at a time without overexerting himself. Now, he could think of ways to escape while simultaneously organizing things he learned and even making plans for his future.

'The mark on the girl deepened a bit, but it will be another week or two until anything substantial comes of it. I can only progress so quickly, for now, I should prepare for tomorrow, but before that, let me go over the next stage in this so-called Path of the Soul. Perhaps I will be able to reach the next level quicker than anyone thinks is possible for a bird.'