The Last Dainv-Chapter 56

The Last Dainv-Chapter 56

Gale walked towards the 2nd corridor to the east. His steps became in sync with the rhythmic heartbeat of the call, guiding his feet. When the heartbeat slowed, so did his steps. The feeling wasn't like the enthrallment he felt before during his search for Dmitry. This was more of an urge that told him 'this was the right way.'
While his whole body was phased, his fingers brushed along the foreign metallic walls that didn't belong in this medieval world. He was so used to seeing dirt, trees, and the weathered stone walls of Blue Haven and this stone tower.
But a ship? None of this belonged in this fantasy setting that this forsakened world lived in. Not even horror fantasy.
Circuitry lined the walls, creating intricate machined patterns similar to that of a circuit board. Light flowed through them along with the rhythm of the heartbeat.
Moving through the corridor, a door showed up on his right. He stopped, examining what it was. It looked like a sliding door that slid to the side on both sides, probably even hissed while it opened. It didn't have a knob. Instead, an in-wall panel placed right beside it on the right side.
Wait, he'd been fully phased for a couple of minutes now.
[Essence: 70/100]
He had willed the essence meter to show just at the side of his view. The essence drain was noticeable. Back in the throne room, it was at 76. Just a few minutes caused it to drop to 70. Usually, it was good to have reserves above 50. It was draining too fast.
Releasing Phase Touch, the whole surrounding changed from sleek machined metal to weathered stone. He gulped as vomit dared to go up from his stomach from the sudden reality change.
[Essence: 69/100]
"Waste of essence," he muttered.
Looking back at where the door was, he reached out to touch it, but his fingers only met solid rock. The door was definitely there. He reached out to where the panel was. Nothing. Just rough rock.
The throbbing heartbeat still called to him. However, that could wait. Now he was curious. The door existed in his phased state, but not in the other. Maintaining the full body Phase Touch would be wasteful and too draining. He might not even reach the place this thing was calling him to.
He needed to focus on maintaining the minimal amount the skill could do. Use the skill only on his head or maybe even just his eyes.
Gale closed his eyes, focusing on the power the familiar flowed through him. He'd never really studied it before, had never tried to understand its nature. All he understood about the skill was that it made his weapons seem to pierce or slice through material easier. It was what he needed to survive.
He started small, trying to redirect Phase Touch to just his right hand. The power responded, familiar as he had already used it a lot on his weapons. Then what about only the fingertips?
Concentrating the flow of energy only to his fingertips, the essence wanted to flow through the practiced parts, wanted to apply the skill onto the whole hand. It kept resisting, moving back and forth to the areas already optimized. He gritted his teeth, forcing it to concentrate on his fingers.
After a few minutes, it worked. Sweat drenched his forehead. His eyes must be bloodshot if he had a mirror. But it worked, and he saw the familiar otherworldly see-through effect of Phase Touch on just his fingers. The essence drain was less, but still not precise enough. It was unstable.
Minutes passed as Gale practised. The power fought him at first, trying to spread as it always had, but gradually he learned to channel it.
The status screen displayed the effect immediately. Essence drained at a rapid rate now to just a meagre 1 per five minutes as he only held Phase Touch on his fingers.
Now, he focused on pushing the Phased state from his fingers to around his body. Specifically, he moved it to his head.
Sweat dripped across his face even through the cold of the stone tower's basement. Tens of minutes passed. It was incredibly more difficult compared to just focusing on his hand.
[Essence Control Lv.1 unlocked.]
Finally, he managed to concentrate Phase Touch on his head alone. It probably would've looked funny, but it didn't matter. Now with only his head phased, the world shifted once more, changing back to the sleek metal walls with circuitry patterns.
The skill unlocked, and knowledge of passing through Phase Touch to different parts came in easier. The pathways he needed to focus on revealed themselves in his body, telling him to use this, this, and this if he wanted to move the Phase into places he thought of.
He experimented with moving the Phase, sliding it from his eyes to his ears, then his nose. Each sense revealed different aspects of the ship hidden beneath the stone. His ears caught whispers of ancient machinery. His nose detected traces of oxidizing metal and energy that shouldn't exist.
The pulse throbbed again, stronger than before. Gale held his ground, pushing his control further. He managed to Phase just one eye, creating a strange double-vision effect that made his head spin. Nausea set in, yet he didn't relent. He saw the essence cost drop even lower, barely even going down now. Then he split the single phase into two, applying it to both eyes, finally achieving his desired effect.
This was what the knight meant about thinking like a predator. He learned that the power itself could evolve through will and determination, and of course, practice. The way he used it before felt more like he was using a sword as a club. Or maybe even using a spear as a large stick. Its full potential wasn't used.
It wasn't about raw power. It was about precision, control, understanding what could be in order to do more. Each new refinement of his ability would open new possibilities. He grew increasingly excited, anticipating further experimentation with his other skills.
Back to the task at hand, he examined the door, which looked exactly the same as it did before. Symbols curved across its surface in circles, each one distinct yet part of a larger whole. He studied them carefully, committing them to memory while maintaining Phase Touch.
The pulse grew stronger, more insistent, asking him to come over. It pulled at him, urging him onward. But Gale held his position, finding the door's symbols responding to the essence emanating from him. Its patterns shifted slightly as his hands moved closer. His hands touched the sleek monitor on the side of the door, and his Origin System reacted, receiving data from the door itself.
Love this novel? Read it on NovelFire to ensure the author gets credit.
[Level 4 - Armoury]
[Unsigned Guest.]
[Origin Signature Analyzed.]
[Dainv Signature confirmed.]
[Registration complete. Proceed to registrar's office for assignment.]
[Access granted to armoury.]
Registrar's office, huh. So the stupid knight wasn't lying. The terminal reminded him of those movies where people scanned their badges. Office buildings had those too, less cool though.
"What kind of spaceship needs an armory?" he muttered, then looked around. Still, no reply.
Stepping in front of the door, the door slid with a soft hiss. Of course, it would have a hiss. Ships always had that, and this one was a ship.
Moving inside, a long room lined with weapon racks stood at 4 different rows. Most stood empty. Mounting brackets covered in dust. Surprisingly, no webs. The whole place was sterile apart from the dust.
The metallic walls pulsed with the same circuitry patterns as the corridor, casting shadows that flickered across the remaining racked objects. Most looked like they belonged in a museum of the future. There was one shaped like a spiral, greenish and yellow in material. It didn't even look like a weapon. And certainly, this kind of material didn't quite exist back on Earth.
[E-Balista Weber A1L96]
[Description: Essence compressor. Specialized long range sniper.]
Well, that explained it. Though his dad always made fun of him for his range skills, it wasn't as good as his melee. Dad had given him moving targets in their camp ground to practice with the bow, but he would always miss 1 out of the 20 targets.
Another object in the armoury caught his attention. Near the back, mounted alone on a simple rack, hung a blade that made his breath stop. It resembled the dark knight's weapon in design, though smaller. The metal caught the pulsing light, shifting between a dull grey and a deep dark when he moved his head.
[E-Blade Weber S6L96]
[Description: Standard recruit issued mass-produced element blade.]
Although it said it was a standard issue for recruits, it was much better than any of the bone armaments he had.
Gale reached for it, half-expecting his hand to pass through. The grip felt solid. He lifted it from the rack, testing its weight. Perfect balance. Its circuitry pulsed once as if accepting him. The blade measured roughly the length of his arm, double-edged and unadorned. No fancy crossguard or pommel, just clean, efficient lines.
When he dropped Phase Touch from his eyes, the sword's metal seemed to absorb any remaining minuscule light around it. The grey lustre vanished, replaced by something that looked like a slice of night itself.
"Now this," he whistled, "this is different."
He gave it a swing, muscle memory from countless fights guiding his movements. The blade cut through the air with barely a sound. On instinct, he channeled Phase Touch along its edge, the way he'd done countless times with his bone weapons.
The power flowed differently. Where his previous weapons had required focus to maintain the effect, this blade accepted his essence like it was made for it. The connection felt natural, almost as if it were made for it.
He tried a few more strikes, watching essence levels remain steady despite the continuous flow into the weapon. The familiar grey lustre of the sword showed itself through the overlap of its edge and the Phase. As he saw the edge, it felt somehow sharper. The blade didn't just channel the essence, it refined it even further.
The rhythmic pulse that had led him here grew stronger, more insistent, now becoming throbs that planted a dull throbbing headache on him. It pulled at him, now feeling like a force tugging at his arms, demanding attention. Gale took one last look around the armoury, nothing else other than weird looking spirals and slabs of metal that stood on the racks.
Stepping back into the corridor, new weapon in hand, he followed where the heartbeat led him, faster than before. The pulse quickened, and so did his feet. The lights that flowed through the circuitry along the walls flowed faster as waves of dotted lights went in the same direction as his path.
New symbols appeared all over the walls as he moved deeper into the corridor, different from those on the armoury door. Ritualistic circles connected to one another with multiple shapes that overlapped one another. They shifted and changed as if responding to the essence that passed by.
The beat grew stronger, urging him to run to the end of the corridor. And soon enough, he arrived at the end where a blank wall laid.
A door slowly materialized, larger than others that he'd passed. Symbols crawled across its surface, moving into position and overlaying thousands of symbols and shapes. The circuitry patterns in the walls converged here, to the single dot point where all the ritual symbols originated from.
The same in-wall panel was embedded beside the door. Gale quickly put his hand on it, and text scrolled across its surface.
[Bridge Access Clearance Required.]
[Origin Signature Detected.]
[You are the last Dainv on board.]
[Access Granted.]
The door split from the middle with a hiss, panels sliding apart to reveal something even more foreign to him. He saw a curved wall of what looked like glass stretching from floor to ceiling. Rows of seats lined up before it, each with its own collection of displays and controls that reminded him of starship cockpits he'd seen in movies.
But it was the centre of the room that drew his eye. A raised platform dominated the space, and atop it sat a translucent orb that seemed to both exist and not exist at the same time. The sphere pulsed deep blues and dark greens with the same beat from the hallway. Every circuit line in the room and the entire corridor led to this platform, creating a web of lights that centred just below the orb.
There were two seats on each side of the platform, each with its own array of instruments and displays. Their surfaces were covered in symbols similar to those on the door outside, yet more overlaps of polygonal shapes made it more complex.
Gale stepped into the room, and the door sealed behind him with another soft hiss. The orb's pulse matched his heartbeat now, creating a resonance that was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable.
The displays came to life as he moved deeper into the room, screens flickering with data he couldn't begin to comprehend. Symbols flashed across them, some matching those he'd seen in the corridor, others entirely new.
He could see how the entire room connected to that central platform. It wasn't just the visible circuits. There were layers upon layers of connections, some physical, others seeming to be of otherworldly nature, or at least something he didn't understand yet.
Displays tracked his movement, data streaming across their surfaces as he passed. One particular display caught his attention. He went to that display, tolerating the physical pull of the orb. It looked like something his dad had shown him once, a picture of the stars.
Billions of dots littered the screen. As he focused on one of the dots, the display zoomed in. As soon as it zoomed enough, the screen froze. He tried touching it, but there was no response.
Suddenly, as if an impatient child, the orb shouted to him. There was no sound, yet it forced him to cover his ears.
[Mission: Take Vianne's Origin Fragment]
The orb's pulse quickened. The entirety of the room seemed to grow brighter as more of the light pulsed into the circuits. Each beat caused the pull to be stronger until he could no longer resist.
He reached the base of the platform, looking up at the orb. From this close, he could see patterns moving beneath its surface. They were the very same shapes that had littered the room, all compacted into one. His hand reached towards it, almost eager to make contact.
As his hand hovered over the orb, he noticed the orb wasn't just sitting on the platform. Essence connected it to the entire ship through the circuits. An invisible pull forced his hand to touch the orb.
[Acquired Vianne's Origin Fragment]
[Mission Complete.]
[Reward: 1 skill point.]
[Origin Synchronization in Progress…]
The world turned black. Billions of stars dotting his view surrounded Gale. The scenery around him turned into the familiar map that his dad had given him. Dad always said it was fictional. Yet here it was, right before him.
"Welcome, Gale Hathie," a woman's voice behind him said.

Chapter 56