The Trials and Tribulations of Victor Heart

"Just tell me what I want to know, and the pain will stop." Said a beautiful Indian woman wearing white suit coat and slacks.

"…" apparently her conversation partner was not in the mood to talk to her.

It could be his shaggy brown hair that kept getting in his mouth and eyes. Or that they took his glasses making him near blind. Or the dirty rat-infested dungeon he found himself in. Or the chains that did not allow him to do anything but stand on his toes. or a several days of torture. Suffice to say the man had many reasons not to converse with the woman he found himself in the company of.

"While I have enjoyed our little chats, tomorrow they will sadly come to an end. I wanted to keep that genius mind of yours intact, but the needs must I'm sure you understand. Any who tomorrow you get to be our first 'drowning' in months" the woman said while walking out of his cell.

The man's face paled then hardened when he heard that tomorrow he 'drowned'. He knew that his last resort was his only one.

He spent the last few weeks between his torture sessions preparing for the perfect moment, this was achieved by slowly weakening his anti-magic shackles with his mana. While near impossible to do normally, his mana control that was virtually unmatched allowed him to chip away at them slowly. While this was because most didn't put in the work to reach his level as the gains petered off as you continue, but it was impressive nonetheless.

The man proceeded to mumble to himself which caused the woman to turn around and lean closer to hear what he had to say. She thought she had finally broken the man as no sane individual want to 'drown'. She felt how close she was to her ultimate triumph now that the last insignificant hurdle was out of her way.

When she got close enough to the man, he utilized the mechanism hidden in his fake wisdom tooth. After he activated it with his available mana, it first sliced open his cheek, then it sliced open the woman's face leaving a huge gash in his cheek and several across the woman's face and neck. However, that was not the ultimate purpose of the magic artifact disguised as a tooth. It's true purpose was revealed when it tore through his chains dropping him to the ground and releasing his mana pool. He then further powered the wire and tore open a hole in reality. He proceeded to throw himself into the newly opened hole.

Traveling through the space between worlds was like putting yourself inside a giant running blender then throwing yourself into a riptide off the coast of Alaska and hoping to end up in Hawaii. If the void didn't kill you, you would end up lost in the infinite space. That was fine by Victor though as anything was better than 'drowning'. It had the side benefit that no matter the outcome, Eesha would be denied her prize.

So, into the portal Victor went before Eesha or one of the guards could stop him.

When Victor finally got his bearings inside the space between worlds all he knew was pain. The place between the myriad worlds was tearing him apart molecule by molecule, cell by bloody cell. His only choice was to incorporate his surroundings into his being using his innate magic, concept weaving.

Since he had concept weaving, he also had its child magics: material weaving, mana weaving, and soul weaving.

Of course, he kept the true heights of his magic secret and only used it on materials and mana, as what he revealed of his comprehension of certain types of magic that were not even his own got him brutally tortured. He didn't want to imagine what they would do to him if they found out what he could do. Something, that some would call common sense, told him that they would have started with 'drowning' to access his soul and turn him to a puppet. Even if it would cost them his "genius" mind. As that would be the only way they would be able to access his soul, as anything less than that would result in him saying no. The good thing about his home plane was their special souls, they were impossible to reach the core without someone's permission.

Another advantage of his people's souls was that they generated mana and as a result they were not dependent on their environment to utilize magic. Which will come in handy while exploring the myriad worlds.

So, he had no choice but to say his innate magic was soul weaving as that was the only other way to have both material and mana weaving.

Soul weaving allowed him to weave souls, both his and others. It was considered dark magic in his home reality just due to the fact that it could be used to affect human souls. Never mind the fact that anything he could do to a person utilizing this fact "light" magic could do as well. There was also the fact that utilizing his magic to mess with human souls was like making a sculpture out of flesh and bone. You could do it, but it was tedious, imperfect, impermanent, and quite frankly messy and disgusting.

As a result of his world's archaic views on magic, he has only mastered mana and material weaving. Concept and soul weaving were out as the second would get him executed and the other made into a puppet.

He only got his limited experience using soul weaving due to his previous job. Since he was only at it for a limited time, he only had a year's experience with it. Also, he didn't want to expose all that he could do, so he was limited in the types of soul weaving he had done.

His talent in magic and experience in the other types of weaving allowed him to succeed in his first soul tattoo even in such harsh conditions. The fact that soul tattoos also involved concept weaving, his innate magic, were a factor.

Soul tattoos were dangerous as if they don't match your soul, they force it to match. His surroundings were fundamentally different from his state of being, so the soul tattoo made from them was about to permanently alter his being. However, it was his only choice.

If he thought being torn apart by the place between worlds was painful, it tickled compared to letting it into his very being. It felt like acid was touching every single part of his bone down to his bone marrow.

***

Hearth's Lament

'A tattoo symbolizing the loss of the user's home'

Immunity to field effects

Near immunity to reality, time, space, void magic

Increased resistance to all other sources

Easier to banish from a particular plane of reality

***

A series of small black star tattoos appeared on the sides and back of his neck, the top of his back, and his shoulders. When it finally stabilized in its new location threads suddenly appeared coming out of his body and snapped one by one.

Each time he lost his connection to some aspect of his being.

The fist of the thread was time. With its severance he would never age and would never experience time the same way again. He could slow and speed up his perception of time. While this would not speed him up any, it had some uses.

The next thread was space. With its severance he was adrift in the sea of space, he could walk through space like few others. One step could take him around the world, and he could enter and leave almost any space.

The next thread was fate. He would never again be restricted by fate, never again have his actions foretold. This had a small disadvantage of never being able to use divination magic, but seeing as he never truly believed and thus never used it before this fact had little impact on his life.

The last thread was the one that connected him to his home reality. Now, while he could live in any world without ever feeling rejection, no plane of existence would ever feel like home again and unless he got lucky, he would never be able to rediscover his home reality.

The tattoo also granted him a segment of the place between realties to use as a limitless timeless storage space. He only needed to create a portal to it. the biggest advantage of this was a place that was inaccessible to any other being to store all his artifacts. It was also impossible to block his access to it.

His new state of being allowed him to see reality in an entirely new way thus granting him a new sense. This new sense allowed him to see the building blocks of reality, concepts. Where before he had a sort of sixth sense when it came to concepts, he now could physically see them.

***

Outsider's Gaze

'See the world as it is. No more. No less.'

Grants the ability to see concepts

***

The downside of this new sense is that there was a conflict between his light-based eyes. The light blocks the concepts, and the concepts blinds his eyes.

Even with his new nature courtesy of Hearth's Lament, His body was still damaged beyond repair. This situation was especially bad as he lacked any materials to help heal him. All he had was his life force and the "death" force created from the parts dying. He was left with no choice but to use the first and only idea, he constructed threads out of both the forces available and stitched his body and soul together. This made his body a paradoxical existence, sustained by both life and death. He now has traits belonging to both the living and the undead.

***

Mortality Outsider Physique

'One foot in the land of the living, One foot in the land of the dead'

Allows the being to survive for longer in the case of injuries, adverse environments, and lack of resources

No healing spells work on the being, either those meant for the living or the dead

Physical Damage does not naturally heal

***

The main advantage of this situation was that his body turned seconds into minutes when it came to survival. Injuries that would kill most in seconds, now took minutes. He could survive hours without oxygen, days in harsh environmental conditions, weeks without water, and months without food. The downside of his new physique was that only he could heal himself and if he was ever in a condition where he couldn't. Well then, his goose was cooked.