Essential Essence
Ascendants are remarkably varied beings and each one of them quickly develops their own styles and ways of going about things. The young ascendant who is simultaneously on Earth and in deep-space is unconsciously beginning this process himself.
One of his physical bodies is seated in the classroom of Ronald Matthews, an English teacher who is remarkably young at only 23. The teacher is starting class, but he is not oblivious to the fact that the star of the show is the mysterious ascendant, whose human form is affected by potent perks.
The manifold ascendant is innately attuned to both all eight deadly sins and all of the various domains that cosmic gods can wield influence over. This causes him to be both distracting and powerful, as perks such as "Beauty" from the lust domain and "Irrestible allure" from the lust sin affect his physical form and tremendously bolster his attractiveness. Their compounded effects grant him an immensely potent conceptual level of attractiveness that in the case of his current form gives him a sort of "Boy-Next-Door" level of subtle, natural-feeling, disarming appeal.
His fellow classmates look at him and are partially distracted by an array of thoughts. In the worst cases people want to befriend him, but still remain a tad bit envious of his clear and natural charm, while in the best cases people are idly daydreaming about romantically entangling themselves with him. All of these idle thoughts count as instances of domains, and in some cases sins, and thus the figure is potently energized by this.
The mind of an ascendant is a powerful tool in their arsenal. In the case of the ascendant known as "Gregory Gardener", his mind is undeniably his most terrifying possession.
Even as the young man's classmates try to strike a balance between listening to their teacher and engaging in normal classroom shenanigans, the student himself is already making potent use of his secret weapon. Not only has he already done things as trivial as memorizing the syllabus, he is in the process of skillfully creating trains of thought to masterfully mentally multitask.
The first thing one of his newly created trains of thought does is focus on his true body; that of the distant extraterrestrial spaceship. The terrifyingly powerful vessel is floating listlessly in the cold space of interstellar space, seemingly aimless and abandoned.
For the moment the spaceship remains still but it does immediately change in one potent way. The ship goes from visible and detectable to invisible and undetectable to anyone but another ascendant in an instant, as the train of thought that is controlling it activates a "Major sanguine power" known as "Shadowblank" to protect it.
"Shadowblank" is a mighty power that cloaks those who are capable of using it from nearly all forms of detection short of another ascendant of equal or greater power then the sanguinarch using their mightiest sensory and divination abilities to search for it and even then finding the cloaked sanguinarch is not guaranteed. The powerful ability hides the ship, granting it the closest thing possible to true undetectability. In addition to its mightiness, the ability is also remarkably easy for the manifold ascendant to use, as it requires no expenditure of energy or even focus, short of the momentary burst of intent needed to activate it in the first place.
This is, however, only the beginning of the secondary train of thought's schemes. The train of thought continues to focus the full weight of its intellect and willpower on the vast vessel, and activates another potent ability.
This time it is activating a "Mobility" "Transystem", utilizing the powers it possesses as a "Transynth". The "Transystem" in question is named "Quantum Simultaneity Nodes", and as it begins its activation process Gregory glances directly upward and utilizes his ability to see through solid objects until he is looking at the early morning sky. He studies the beautiful morning sky for several moments.
Gregory's human body picks a distant location in the sky and when he makes this choice the full power of the transynth ability reveals itself. Gregory smiles when he senses his true form warp from the distant reaches of interstellar space to a spot far outside of Earth but still in this solar system. For a brief moment the vessel is in two places at once thanks to the way that the "Quantum Simultaneity Nodes" transystem works, but a split second later the vessel is firmly in one place: the solar system that houses Earth.
The train of thought that is steadily sliding into an unofficial role as the pilot of the vessel immediately and protectively applies another potent major sanguine power to the ship. The clever train of thought selects another protective power to apply to the titanic body of the ascendant and utilizes "Spectral form" a defensive sanguine power that renders the vessel intangible. This power is handy because it allows objects to harmlessly pass through the vessel with no harm to themselves or the actual vessel, and given the vessel's immense size this is quite helpful.
The vast object floats in interplanetary space, situated right between Earth and Mars. The multifaceted mind of the ascendant is able to take advantage of this and devotes spare trains of thought to the task of making observations about the region of interplanetary space it is in. Each observation it makes counts as an instance of the knowledge domain, and thus subtly empowers the manifold ascendant.
The central stream of consciousness directing the vessel turns its cosmic focus inward for the first time in the minutes since it has begun directing the potent machine. In doing this it glimpses the interior of the vessel for the first time, gaining a keen awareness of the machine's interior and the planet-sized lifeless space within itself.
The machine is larger on the inside then it is on the outside. Within the supernatural alloy that constitutes the machine's hull is an empty space the size of a truly vast planet, divided up between areas that resemble auditoriums, office spaces, and other interior environments, and gigantic, technologically illuminated expanses that seem primed to house natural life but are eerily empty of things other then masterfully made facsimiles of plant-life.
The stream of thought is momentarily stunned as it comes to grips with the fact that within the manifold ascendant's true form is a space larger than the planets he can see when he turns his attentions outward and glances at the solar system that surrounds him. This realization is curious, and he wonders what he could do with all of this space for a moment before refocusing on the present.
Gregory's potent mind focuses on what he knows as "Power Sources". These are fonts of energy and power that when collected by him energize and empower him.
Instances of domains and sins are two types of power sources, though they are far from alone, and there are a total of six power sources for archdemons; artifacts, souls, worship, fear, corruption, and sins, a total of eleven power sources for cosmic gods; innate, worship, invocation, sacrifice, souls, artifacts, a cosmic god's chosen species, their pantheon, their domains, rituals enacted in their name, and temples consecrated to them. Dragon lords also have their fonts of power; worship, treasure, artifacts, souls, dragon heartscales, and vaults.
Sanguinarchs also have a font of power they can attain, though theirs is a consumable resource named "Essence" that they gather and use to buff themselves, empower their abilities, and emulate abilities they cannot use freely. They acquire essence from blood they shed, souls they consume, pleasure they inflict on consenting, sapient adults, oaths sworn to them and debts owed to them, and their "Dominions" regions they transformed into essence farms under their control. They are even capable of controlling such areas through the usage of powerful "Dominion perks".
Even a transynth has a rough equivalent to "Power" in an ascendant context. For a creature like Gregory the key to expanding his influence as a transynth is for him to build infrastructure, buildings and facilities which would generate extra power, resources, and even space for him to build any experimental technology he might dream up.
While the true body of the transynth hovers in interplanetary space, the being's avatar soaks up new information and curiously contemplates the implications of everything it learns. The class the being is in is filled with conversation, both natural audible and artificial and technological, and the figure absorbs it all. It subtly uses potent transystems like "Technosupremacy array" and major sanguine powers like "Mind link" to invasively but subtly learn all sorts of new things both about and from its classmates, the world around it, and even make inferences about how to wisely use its own powers.
Gregory has already experienced what it feels like when he acquires new energy and miniscule amounts of power through instances of sins and domains. The curious being decides to experiment with its powers and what it can do to generate power sources for itself within the vast expanses of its mechanical form.
The being curiously uses the "Existential Inducer" it has previously used to create a cellphone to create dollar bills inside of one of the vast chambers within its spacefaring body. This is an instantaneous process and in moments it has successfully created thousands of authentic American dollars, for the sake of attempting to generate an instance of the "Treasure" power source as a dragon lord. The mental consciousness sighs when this doesn't happen, but it is not a complete failure as this counts as instances of the "Science" and "Creation" domains, which energizes the being's deific nature.
"How strange…" The creature utters, its mechanical voice filling the chamber, being projected by vocal projectors which are built into the walls of the metal body of the being. A second later the creature decides to try and create something else; something altogether more potent.
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My bifurcated mind is a handy thing. It allows me to be present in school, a place that is handy for me in the context of it allows me to greedily absorb knowledge for free, and also allows me to mentally observe the vast chamber inside of my starship body that is now filled with American dollars.
I listen to the teacher go over the class's syllabus as a bright light fills the chamber inside of my other body. I can imagine that a human who witnessed such a bright light would be incapable of perceiving what is going on inside of it but I am not a human and I have no such weaknesses.
I watch as the transystem assembles a human, atom by atom, skin cell by skin cell, muscle by muscle, organ by organ, and bone by bone. This also counts as instances of the "Science" domain as well as the "Life" domain. In a matter of moments the human is fully constructed, complete with a mind and a soul, and the light begins to dim until even a human would be able to see the man I have just made utilizing the potent, reality-warping technology that I am made of.
The human is a little taller than my human form, with lighter skin and curious eyes. He is naked, all of his external features on full display and I briefly wonder if I should have given him clothes. The man studies his surroundings inquisitively and I chuckle, silently, as he begins to investigate what is around him.
The man's activities are far more fascinating to me then my well-meaning teacher's lecture regarding his syllabus. I let the human stumble around for several minutes and note with delight that, when appropriate, his actions trigger instances of my domains, whether it's him exploring the large room that was his birthplace giving me instances of the "Spacetime" domain, or him examining the seats in the auditorium and gaining knowledge regarding them.
I focus my central train of thought, the one that has primarily focused on controlling my human-like body tasked with guiding my human-like form, away from the chamber wherein the human is busy exploring. I guide it to a vast expanse of grasslands within me, one that is currently lit up by a sun-like construct and is perfectly empty. This gargantuan space could easily become the home of a vast civilization if I opted to utilize my powers here.
For now I instead decide to reactivate the existential inducer and create another human. This time the creation process is faster then before, and the end product is a woman with blonde hair and a lanky build. I note that when I don't specify details about the sort of person I want to make it mashes together features from humans I've physically seen.
Like the other human I made, this one is naked. She immediately opens her eyes and begins to look around, studying the fairly nondescript region she was born in, even as I decide to alternate how I wish to experiment with her. I immediately opt to transform her into a vampire, my very first vampire, and when I do a strange and lengthy mental table appears before me.
The thing is dubbed the "Vampire Spawn Customizer" and it asks me to create a breed of vampires. The menu is asking me to decide on the traits of the kind of vampire I am going to be making this woman! It asks me to determine things like her loyalty to me as her creator, what sort of supernatural abilities she possesses due to her vampiric nature, and even whether or not she has any weaknesses.
I browse the table, eyeing the options before me even as minutes pass. Doing this allows me to realize that if I were to create the most potent kind of vampiric spawn I'd be creating terrifying monsters. Some of the options before me allow me to create creatures that have physiques one hundred times greater than the physiques of peak members of the species a converted vampire hails from, and use powers like shapeshifting and flight even without further alterations. This means that if I were turn to Jonah into a vampire he'd be able to do things like mesmerize people and fly at speeds about a quarter as fast as the speed of sound…
I decide to go all in on the type of vampire I am creating and push each option to its most beneficial possibility. The kind of vampire this woman is going to become will be able to fly, shapeshift, shift into a gaseous form that leaves her immunity to mundane physical attacks, and will even be able to mesmerize people as well as multiple other beneficial things. These vampires will not have any "Tells" or indicators that they are vampires, nor will they suffer from any vampiric weaknesses. As soon as I am done filling in the menu I am asked if I wish to finalize the decision I have made and I inform the text box that that's exactly what I want.
As soon as I do this the human wandering the grasslands falls to her knees as she begins to dramatically transform. I watch her muscles harden in subtle, nearly imperceptible ways, sense her curves widening and rounding in pleasing ways, and I feel her mind expand as my potent power courses through her.
Normally I'd have to touch someone to turn them into a vampire, but this human is inside of my true form. So long as she lives inside of me we will always be in some kind of contact, so I can easily convert her into one of my spawn. As she undergoes her transformation, I elect to see what gaining essence feels like and I make a third human who I position dangerously close to the woman. I can technically use other means to create life but I enjoy the feeling of using the existential inducer transystem.
The human is created quickly enough that he manages to open his eyes and overhear the sounds of the woman nearing the end of her metamorphosis. He lets out an inarticulate but sympathetic grunt and approaches her intending to help somehow just in time for her to open her eyes and spot him.
Her eyes are still the same shade of light green they were before her conversion, due to the fact that she has no tells, but they dilate as she spots on the figure and her potent senses alert her to the mystical fluid coursing through the man's veins. I detect instances of wrath, lust, and gluttony occur within her right before she darts at the man.
The man is not fast enough to keep track of her when she lunges at him, but I am. She is fast, but nowhere near as fast as I am capable of being thanks to my nature as a multi-foci "Savage Sanguinarch", a sanguinarch whose body has been refined and pushed to such an extreme that I can bear the weight of multiple planets and even crisscross the galaxy without issues in my human-like form. Still, she is so fast that even the act of her impacting the man deals significant damage to the worried human, damaging bones and knocking him to the ground.
I sense this register as an instance of the "War" domain, and when the vampire pounces on the human and powerfully bites his neck I let out a quiet gasp as I begin to feel tiny amounts of essence fill me up. The stuff feels warm and lively, reminding me of how humans feel when they drink coffee.
The feeling is… good, if a bit strange and in almost no time at all the human perishes. I internally groan in annoyance at this, and watch as the vampire realizes the man is out of blood and then unceremoniously drops his corpse on the grass. I have to repress a shudder as I process the tiny amount of knowledge I have gained as a result of my vampire feeding on that man. What little knowledge the man possessed is mine due to "Absorption" a potent major sanguine power that gives me the knowledge, skills, and abilities, of those I extract essence from. It amuses me greatly to review what little the man had a chance to learn, most of which revolved around not interacting with creatures that look like my spawn.
I suddenly sense the man's soul beginning to leave his body and I realize that I can stop this from occurring. I am a god of many things, a manifold ascendant, and reality itself is subject to my whims. Death is but one thing I am a conceptual lord of.
I study the corpse. There is something… unsettling about its stillness, and so I finalize my decision to act.
She looks at the man's corpse and huffs in annoyance, and I chuckle as I focus on the corpse and activate a power I possess: "Giver of Life". This "Greater megapower" is an ability that theoretically any ascendant can have, and as I focus on the corpse I envision the wound that the vampire dealt disappearing and the spirit returning to inhabit the steadily recovering corpse. As I do this I perceive the soul, an astral echo of the human, beginning to inarticulately screech out in terror as it is drawn back to the body it was just inside of, and I morbidly note that my instinctual awareness of instances of domains and sins is alerting me to the fact that this is an instance of the sin of despair.
In nanoseconds the spirit is reinhabiting the body, and the body is being repaired by my terrifying powers, as the eyes of the former corpse rocket open. The suddenness of this action causes the vampire to dart back, even as she bares her fangs at the figure in confusion. She is smart, her instinctual intelligence boosted by the conversion she endured that made her my first spawn so she knows that what has just happened shouldn't be possible.
The man, confused and left bereft of all knowledge due to the potency of my "Absorption" major sanguine power, does not understand why the only person he's ever met is so hostile towards him. He attempts to assess the memories he has, which are present in his mind but devoid of context due to my theft, right as my spawn lunges at him and tackles him again.
This plays out exactly how it did before, aside from the more brutal and violent way that my vampire rips into the prey I have prepared for her, and I sense essence flow into me. The process is grim, but the end result is pleasant even if only for me.
"So this is what it feels like to gain essence…" I mentally mutter, safe in the unassailable fortress that is my mind. As I make this observation I hear the bell ring and I get up and go and ask the person seated in front of me if she could guide me to my next class. The girl, a short brunette named Penelope, inspects my schedule and tells me we're heading to the same destination. I grin brightly at her, right as she tells me to follow her.
There is something darkly amusing about the strange juxtaposition of watching an uncivilized vampire murder someone, and then asking someone to guide me to my next class. But as amusing as this, I still haven't made any inroads towards accruing power in a draconic context, or in demonic and divine contexts other then through instances of sins and domains. And of course I doubt I can turn my own insides into a part of my "Dominion" so I still need to select people to turn in my school and elsewhere if I want to begin to acquire a dominion at all.
That said… I do know one way I can acquire one type of power sources; demonic ones. I can construct my own "Hellish lair", a dark citadel of pure sin and one of the things I learned about when I first learned what it meant to be an "Archdemon". Doing so would boldly require me to construct a whole new instance of myself and then force me to project said instance into a sort of "Supreme" Hell dimension but it'd allow me to begin to attract demonic followers, and make it easier for me to grow in power as an overlord of the eight deadly sins.
I consider this, for a split second, before deciding that it's best for me to not leap into something that public so quickly. For now I can content myself with corrupting this high school, and slowly practice using my demonic powers here rather then leaping headfirst into a place crawling with supernatural threats. I have no time limit after all, there's no need for me to rush headlong.
I focus on the present as Penelope guides me out of the classroom and back into the hallway I feel like I was just in. Now we're heading to math class.