Back within the Fire Kingdom, Pain undergoes his life imprisonment deep within the dungeons…
I learned Infinity was unlike most enchanted items and was claimed upon skin contact, granting the passive of Immortality. Then, over the next two years, I discovered what lay beyond the fifth floor—warded dungeons for "powerful criminals". There, I was tortured in an isolated prison cell.
It was more like a square stone box with tiny grated holes that allowed blood to drain through the bottom of the front wall. A giant metal slab for a door that seemed to weigh a ton, for even the guards struggled to open and close it. Pulsing along the walls were hieroglyphs. Symbology, to further keep me imprisoned, though I never felt any impact from them. They pulse either a bright orange, purple, or red hue and would have likely thrown me into an insane rage if not for my Recall Memory. Instead, I knew how many times they pulsed since my imprisonment—including how many times it pulsed a certain color.
To worsen my suffering, I was Sealed by the Fathers with a chant. With Recall Memory, it was easy to remember the chants on me—By the power of Ra, seal the growth of this gent, which hindered my ability to gain more Pain Resistance or any other resistance. The second chant—Never shall this gent ever cast a spell, chant, aura, and summon hindered my ability to use magic. These mantras generated two pairs of radiating golden spears that penetrated my stomach. The spears gave me no discomfort, and as the weeks went by, they would dim and fade away. A Father would come down with a Scholar, and the two would strengthen the Seals and Symbology.
As a guard clubbed my head repeatedly with an iron-studded club, he informed me that divine items would reappear in the world once the previous owner died. Blood and bits of my teeth littered the brown, bloodstained cobblestoned ground, yet, in my daze, I was able to respond,
PAIN
Has it occurred to you that I am immortal?
The guard palmed my skull and pulled me toward his bad breath.
GUARD
Our prospector figured that you could wish to die.
He brought his club just past my eyes.
GUARD
Immortality is a passive, and like all passives, it can be turned off.
PAIN
What idiot wishes to die?
Said I, the one with past suicidal dreams and wishes. I was then beaten by the club, chopped into pieces, and pounded into a meaty mush. I could not stop my passives even if I wanted to. Passives that protect or provide safety were impossible to turn off due to our survival instincts, especially for an untrained pawn like me.
It might have been anger that motivated me to taunt the guards, or it might have been my sadistic nature, wanting to watch them struggle. But I must admit, I kind of liked it. In my opinion, it was preferable to penning meaningless words all day in a blank book.
They tried everything, and the pain was gruesome—acid, cutting, chopping, burning, and poisoning.
They even separated my body parts, which eventually decayed into mana energy. Within two and a half days, I was back to normal, smiling in my cell with the four spears radiating through my stomach. Sometimes they would repeat some tactics, and I would not scream.
The guard would call down a Father to chant something that would make the pain worse, and after the Father left, I would scream and laugh at the pain.
GUARD
Piece of shit.
He held my head still and chopped it off.
GUARD
Die already.
I looked into his infuriated eyes and gave him a wide smile moments before my consciousness faded. There was something that made us stronger, and I could not remember what it was called for my sake. But I knew the more I was tortured, the more I could tolerate it. I was not trying to ignore the pain; rather, I was building up a tolerance. Despite their Seals, I was still gaining Passives. I was confident it was part of nature that made dragons the strongest creatures among the plains, and how pathetic of me to forget what it was called.
Passive Acquired:
Basic Strong Body
Basic Pain Resistance
Petty Seal Resistance
Every seventh year, on the seventh month and the seventh day, luck ran wild. Bad luck or good luck, something of note happened to everyone, whether small or large, something happened. It made events with low odds of happening more likely, and events with higher odds of happening less likely—or stop happening... like breathing.
It was a terrible day, and I remember what Lao Gala once said seven years ago: no matter where you were or where you are, you would hear about the day approaching, and if you did not hear about it, you sure felt it.
And he was spot on. I was overcome by an odd emotion that permeated the prison cell. Even with my Immortality, my heart was beating at my throat as I felt the day of the 7th Luck approached.
I could only prevent or lessen the phenomenon —both good and bad luck —by being undead, being nature, wearing accessories associated with luck, or decorating this piss of a cell with deathly items. Items such as a rabbit's foot, a necklace of rat skulls, or any occult paraphernalia around me may prevent some of the events. I remembered a book mentioned that the greater the number of non-plant-like living things in a given area, the greater the likelihood of experiencing occurrences.
As the 7th Luck approached, the Fire Kingdom suffered a grave misfortune, which I experienced below. The air froze several times, lightning bolts ran back and forth through the prison, killing one of the guards, the ground and walls became rubbery and distorted every few seconds, and then I heard it. Another roar... another dragon was attacking with such passionate hate; I could feel its mana energy this far beneath the ground.
Despite the cruel torture I received from the guards, the thought of being crushed alive had never crossed my mind until I heard the ceiling above me falling apart.
I needed to find a way out. But as luck would play with me, the 7th Luck came while I was in the middle of being tortured by an iron club. I would think guards would reconsider doing their duties during the 7th Luck... one of them would still be alive.
GUARD
You never know! We might just get lucky, and you die!
The guard's parting words echoed in my mind. In hindsight, that guard made a fair point.
My right arm and several ribs were broken, my left eye was bashed in, and I could barely see through my right swollen eye. Breathing was painful, and both my legs refused to budge. I could only rely on my left arm as I slowly lifted it and began to drag myself toward the metal door. The door was left open. This was not the first time, as guards would occasionally leave it open after a session of torture. I never once bothered to escape. Where would I go while mangled and disabled?
Moving proved challenging and uncomfortable at first. Throughout it all, gravity halted once, animals appeared and vanished, tiny balls of fire appeared and hung in the air, and all sorts of bizarre things—yet I was unbothered as luck remained on my side.
Still, my mind was faltering, and my muscles were weakening at the loss of blood, but I made it through the opening. A thin hall? The ground was sloped ever so slightly, and I looked toward the lower end—a giant drain?—No, it was an enchanted grinder. Hmph, I remember a guard explaining it—it would grind up a person whole, and according to that guard's taunts, part of it was dumped out into the river while the meaty bits were fed to the fiends.
Suddenly, I felt it. The hieroglyphs warding the prisons around me all failed, and their glow faded. It was as if a disturbing noise had finally ceased. With the lack of magic protecting the prisons below, the prison walls around behind me swelled, for it spontaneously became cloth-like fabric for a second before exploding, turning into a pool of blood. The tide of blood tossed me around the giant basement.
I caught sight of other prisoners, a few dead, others in body parts, while a few were alive and thrashing around in the sea of blood. The grinder reeled alive with a rumbling roar at the presence of high activity.
But the 7th Luck could not keep things warped forever. As I was pulled into the grinder, the sea of blood behind me gradually returned to its stone state, freezing and entrapping the others forever in stone. But I was glad to be eaten by the grinder and welcome its relentless wheel of jagged blades.
*****
LOCNESS
If you were king—
All I saw was darkness, and all I felt was numbness. The cute giggle of Locness echoed, and I could feel myself smile at the sound of her. But seconds after, her deathly scream tormented my mind.
I bolted upright into the night. My body had washed up on a river coast far from the capital's mountain. My memory returned to me in fragments—I had been dipping in and out of consciousness along the journey, so I had no real clue of how to get back... not that I would ever want to. The gush of soiled, dirty water aided my regenerative abilities, and within a day, I was walking naked away from the river.
I made every effort to keep the moonsun on my right as I walked for days. The moonsun signaled the way north in the sky. As night fell, the sun would dim, replaced by a bright moon that shone to raise the dead. To avoid the masses of the dead, usually where travelers were slain, I kept to the roads during nightfall because they were vacant at night, save for a few travelers.
But even those few made it their goal to avoid my naked presence. Whenever the few bandits lurking off to the side of the road became visible, they would see my nakedness and then snicker back into hiding.
Not all of them, though. Those who traveled in convoys, posing as traders or caravanners, would blame me for poisoning their eyes.
BANDIT
Damned bastard!
I kept walking with my head down, and the bottom of my feet shredded in pain.
BANDIT
Do the plains a favor and die!
One bandit turned and stabbed me in the back, bringing me to my knees. As he and his pals chuckled, he pulled his sword from my back. Tears dripped down my face to water the soft, cold dirt road as I lay feeble on the ground. Sadness...? No—I was angry and became furious because I could not do a thing about it.
I was starving and without food, Infinite Petty Regeneration kept me alive for weeks, slowly healing my wounds. But, once healed, moving became painful, blinking was like rubbing dirt in my eyes, and my bones were almost visible through my skin, causing people to mistake me for the undead... and attack me.
Finally, I decided to get off the road and trudged through a forest. Oh, how I deeply regretted it. From afar, I saw a small thicket and deduced I could make it through quickly, but as I trudged on, my hopes faltered.
Before I knew it, night fell, and the shadow of leaves above me turned the forest into a blanket of darkness. Disquieting sounds accompanied the lack of sight. Was it my footsteps or something else lurking in the dark?
It was definitely something else! I took off to run, but was instantly pinned to the ground and felt the sharp pains of my neck being ripped apart. Sharp teeth dug into my body, ripping off the little flesh and muscle I had. The beast was vigorous and keen to chew deeper into its meal of bones. Its body weight crushed me, and I was helpless like the previous days.
I could not hear or see for some time, but for some damn reason, I felt nothing but numbing pain. Then, as I regenerated, my sense of smell returned, along with the sharp, foul odor of dung and rotten meat. I soon realized I had been eaten whole and recovered while still in the beast's stomach—a wolf or blindinu, judging by its rotting corpse.
The damned beast had broken down my bones, eating me altogether. My body began to recover slowly, gruelingly—my bones would grow in sudden sprouts, and I would scream out in pain. The moment my stomach was renewed, it growled with hunger, and the lack of water made my entire body ache again.
Why was I enduring this torture? I often wondered. Was it because I finally left the fortress and could traverse the plains? Possibly... I can handle this. I can overcome this, I thought as I crawled towards some foliage and munched on a few dried twigs, hoping for relief. But I was not safe out here. The books I have read taught me about the creatures that roamed the plains... and how dangerous they were. So, why would I, an eighteen-year-old gent, think he could roam the plains? Such childish dreams, I figured.
My thoughts were cut short as I got to my knees and was face-to-face with a female bear emitting quick puffs from her mouth—that sound was not at all comforting. It was a fairly young bear with a scar on its right eye. Behind her was a litter of three curious cubs nibbling at the same foliage I had eaten from—shit.
Once again, I felt the pain of my body being ripped apart. Damned it all... but I was grateful! My body was not eaten whole this time. Parts of me were scattered here and there, and bits of me were all the way on the other side of the clearing. The bear was not interested in feasting on my rotting body but sought to protect her cubs.
A repeating cycle, it seemed, for once I regenerated, I swallowed the first few berries I was able to crawl towards. Infinite Petty Regeneration was not an adaptive passive but rather an acquirable passive. Unlike my Basic Pain Resistance, which could become more robust, the prior would not adapt and would not get any better.
A tingling sensation tickled my mouth and throat. I coughed up blood and soon remembered the feeling of a poisonous infection. The berries were toxic, but it was not as horrible as the poison the guards poured onto me and fed to me. I collapsed, my body became numb, and I was paralyzed for a day.
Omnivorous owls came and pecked at my numb skin, and I... I smiled softly as a few fell victim to the toxins in my body. It was hard to believe that such an incident amused me. If I were to gain a little humor, even a twisted sense of humor, it would be helpful if I were to continue on this tortured journey of mine.
Passive Acquired:
Petty Poison Resistance
Days passed, and I finally escaped the forest with a handful of leaves and leafy foliage just before another night came. At the base of a rocky slope, I discovered a little outpost that had been abandoned.
It was not much. It sat within a vast concave within the rocky walls of the hill. I walked up and leaned against one of the decaying wooden beams supporting a small wooden plank of shelter. There was an old campfire in the center; on closer inspection, dried blood around it—how wonderful. I slid down the beam onto my hind and chomped down on the foliage, satisfying my hunger. I breathed a sigh of relief and lay my head against the beam before dozing off.
I had that same dream of being in Limbo within the wall-less halls of the Fire Kingdom. The shadow subjects were nowhere to be found, and before me, a figure stood at the end of the hall. As I squinted, it suddenly turned, revealing Locness's distressed face.
I took off in a mad dash, but when I ran, the hall expanded away. Distress and discomfort distorted Locness's face, and her jaw unhinged into a deafening scream. The ground beneath me gave out, but I was launched into the air. Her screaming stopped suddenly. Her body combusted with raging purple flames and came at me, crashing into me, her flaming hand piercing my chest.
LOCNESS
It hurts!
Locness's scream jolted me awake. I woke to realize a skeleton with a blade arm was stabbing me in the gut. It was still night, and a small party of skeletons was approaching me from the forest.
Due to my undernourishment, I was drained of mana and could not utter a spark of flame, nor did I have the strength to even move out of the way of its slow, repeated stabs. So, I sat there helplessly, my face scrunched up in anger while partially distracted by the recent dream.
Like a lightning bolt, a young knight smashed the skeleton with his shield, dispelling the moon's magic. I blinked as he rapidly reduced the small handful of undead to dust. He swirled around and faced me, his purple cape furling in the soft wind.
He looked about my age—maybe younger, with a round face, blonde hair, pale white skin, and faint yellow stripes upon his cheeks. His eyes were silver and with a faint glow—he was using a Night Vision skill or potion as the glow faded. I eyed his armor in awe; a complete set of iron puri armor and kite shield—his chest piece enchanted (Physical Aptitude) Iron Puri Chest Plate, Petty En Hearing, and so were his (Warrior Aptitude) Steel Plated Leather Gauntlets, Basic Iron Grip.
As he approached, he sheathed his unenchanted metal long sword and smiled at me.
COSMO
Citizen! You will be okay!
He looked down at me.
COSMO
For I, The Hero Cosmo, is here!
Hmm... he seemed to have forgotten I was bleeding out of my stomach as he posed for a moment before forcing a green potion down my throat. The pain ceased, and my stomach healed instantly. Unfortunately, it did not help me recover my stamina or lift my hunger.
COSMO
It's pure, so there are no side effects!
He sang every word he spoke, and I found myself feeling grateful—a kind soul after days—weeks of journeying. He quickly lifted me onto his shoulders and carried me away.
I dozed in and out of sleep before he set me down on the side of the road. I stood weakly. Before us, I made out a small group of carriages, a small campfire, Archers, and a Knight ... assumingly.
KNIGHT
Hey Eldritch, Cosmo is back!
He glanced at me,
KNIGHT
With a freak.
One of the carriage doors smashed open, and from it emerged a beefy lady dressed only in her black undergarments—I nearly thought she was nude. She was bulging with muscles, about forty years old, with dark purple skin and black ring patterns around her limbs. She had auburn-colored, waist-length hair tightly braided and red pupils that glared at Cosmo, then at me—the feeling of safety began to leave me.
ELDRITCH
Damn it, Cosmo! What the hell do you think you're doing?
Cosmo had no idea he was being scolded and smiled with a thumbs-up,
COSMO
I had to take a stroll. I saw a civilian in need.
ELDRITCH
What makes you think that was okay? What exactly did I say?
Cosmo gave her a confused look,
COSMO
Saving people is okay, right?
Eldritch stomped toward me,
ELDRITCH
Let me give you your answer.
She held out her hand, and a gigantic hammer materialized. She swung it once to gain momentum.
ELDRITCH
Ejection!
She shouted as the brute hammer collided with my torso—shit. A devastating explosion emitted from her hammer, and I was sent flailing through the sky like a burning arrow.