Warlocks gambit an urban.., p.20
Warlock's Gambit: An Urban Fantasy LitRPG Adventure, page 20
Veil Glimpsing Enhanced - Level 4 Range: 45m (Previously 30m).
Control: 47% (Improved stability).
New Capability: Historical Resonance Detection.
“I can see... so many echoes,” Trevor said wonderingly. “Places where significant events happened, even decades ago. There’s a village about three kilometers ahead where something important occurred during the Cultural Revolution.”
Pemba glanced at him with interest. “What kind of important?”
Trevor concentrated, trying to interpret the spiritual impressions. “Someone made a choice there. A difficult one, but the right one. The resonance feels... noble, somehow. Self-sacrificing.”
“That would be Xiaohe Village,” Yangchen said quietly. “An old teacher there hid banned books during the worst years, risking execution to preserve knowledge. He was never discovered, but the effort cost him everything.”
“How do you know that?” Trevor asked.
“Because the Temple of Hollow Light has been quietly honoring such people for decades. We maintain records of those who choose wisdom over safety, knowledge over conformity.” Her voice carried deep respect. “In some ways, they were Warlocks without awakening. Those were true guardians of important truths. I see them as more noble and courageous than anything we could ever do, because they didn’t have the system powers and yet still stood firm in their belief.”
The conversation entered a lull as they drove through the countryside, each lost in their own thoughts. Trevor found himself studying Yangchen in the rearview mirror, noting how the afternoon light caught her hair and how her expressions reflected the deep thoughtfulness that had first attracted him to her.
“Penny for your thoughts?” she said, catching his gaze in the mirror.
Trevor felt heat rise in his cheeks. “Just... processing everything. Six months ago, the most complex thing I worried about was whether a museum’s security system had been upgraded. Now I’m thinking about cosmic responsibility and people who risked their lives to preserve books.”
“Do you regret it?” Pemba asked bluntly. “The awakening, the responsibilities, all of it?”
Trevor considered the question seriously. “Ask me again after we deal with Wudang. But... no, I don’t think so. Whatever I was before, I wasn’t really living. I was just... surviving with style.” He threw out a self-conscious smile that fell flat before it was formed.
“And now?”
“Now I’m part of something that matters.” Trevor looked at both his companions. “I have people who depend on me, and people I can depend on. That’s worth the complications.”
Yangchen’s smile in the mirror was radiant, and Trevor felt something shift in his chest that had nothing to do with the Buddha’s Tooth.
They stopped for the night at a small inn in a farming village whose name didn’t appear on any map. The proprietor, a weathered woman in her sixties, greeted them with the resigned hospitality of someone who had learned not to ask too many questions about unusual travelers.
“Two rooms,” Trevor requested in Mandarin.
“Three,” Pemba corrected Trevor quietly, not meeting his eye.
“I mean... three is fine.” Trevor corrected hastily. He was letting his attraction to Yangchen get ahead of itself.
Color rose to his cheeks. He was mildly amused at both the frown Pemba threw his way and the raised brow on Yangchen’s face. She did not look displeased, yet he did notice the subtle shake of her head.
She looked away and thankfully didn’t comment. The rooms were simple but clean, with paper windows that showed the village’s handful of streetlights and the stars beyond.
After dinner, which consisted of a nourishing blend of local noodles and vegetables that tasted better than they had any right to, Trevor found himself unable to sleep. The double-level advancement had left him energized in a way that rest couldn’t satisfy. He slipped out of his room and found Yangchen sitting on the inn’s small porch, wrapped in a blanket and looking up at the stars.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” she asked without looking at him.
“Too much energy,” Trevor admitted, settling beside her on the wooden bench. “Like my entire system got upgraded, and I need to run diagnostics.”
“That’s actually not a bad analogy.” Yangchen shifted the blanket to cover both of them, and Trevor caught her scent. A jasmine fragrance and something uniquely her that made his pulse quicken. “The Level five threshold is significant. Your resonance capacity has expanded significantly since awakening. Both Pemba and I—” she looked meaningfully at Trevor, to show her improvement in grammar, and upon seeing his appreciative smile, made to continue…
Trevor interjected, “Speaking of which, there’s something I need to ask you.” Trevor turned to face her fully, noting how the starlight reflected in her dark eyes. “During our interactions at Kailash, and sometimes since then, have you been influencing how I feel? About you, I mean?”
The question hung in the air between them. Yangchen was quiet for a long moment before answering.
“I could,” she said finally. “Whispers abilities make it possible to enhance attraction, to strengthen emotional connections artificially. Some practitioners do it unconsciously when they care about someone.”
“That’s not an answer.” The accusation in Trevor’s words hung like a guillotine.
Yangchen looked at him then. Really looked at him. Her face was placid, languid even. Despite Trevor’s unease at being manipulated, he knew he felt something for her. His heart was racing.
She then spoke earnestly. “The honest answer is that I don’t know.” She met his gaze directly. “When I’m around you, my emotional state becomes... heightened. It’s possible my abilities are amplifying what I feel and reflecting it back to you. But Trevor...” She reached for his hand. “What you feel when we’re apart, when my abilities aren’t active. Is that artificial, too?”
Trevor felt conflicted. Everything inside of him screamed to just kiss her. Instead, he took a moment to consider her words, recalling the moments when he’d been alone and found himself thinking about her smile, her laugh, the way she threw herself completely into whatever she was doing, and the way she looked now.
Something inside of him shifted.
“No,” he said at last, his chest breathing again. “If anything, those moments feel more real.”
“Then perhaps what matters isn’t the source of the feelings, but what we choose to do with them,” Yangchen suggested. “After all, every emotion has external influences.” She was edging closer, leaning against him. Trevor could feel his pulse throbbing somewhere behind his eyes. She continued her train of thought, and he could feel her breath on his face; she was that close.
“Biochemistry, circumstances, past experiences. The only thing that’s truly ours is how we respond.”
Before Trevor could capture the moment, before he could immortalize it with a perfect kiss, his enhanced perception detected movement in the village. Not threatening, exactly, but... wrong somehow. He stood, shaking his head to clear it, pressing her firmly, but gently away as his hand instinctively moved toward the dao sabers concealed in his jacket.
“What is it?” Yangchen asked, immediately alert. Her own eyes had glazed over, and it took a moment for her to gather herself. She hid the awkwardness by gathering the blanket like a shawl.
“Something’s not right. There are people moving around the village, but their energy signatures are...” Trevor struggled for words. “Hollow. Like they’re sleepwalking.”
Fully alert and aware, Trevor grasped at his skills. Through his Veil Glimpsing, Trevor could see figures moving between the houses with mechanical precision. Villagers, but walking in perfect synchronization, their auras dim and uniform in a way that human energy never was naturally.
“Possession?” Yangchen suggested, her staff materializing in her hands with a soft chime.
“More subtle than that. They’re still themselves, but something is... editing their behavior.” Trevor activated his enhanced perception fully, tracing the source of the influence. “It’s coming from there. The old temple at the village center. Something there is broadcasting a control signal.”
They woke Pemba and approached the temple cautiously. The building was ancient even by Chinese standards, predating Buddhism in the region. But where it should have felt peaceful, Trevor’s enhanced senses recoiled from waves of artificial contentment and enforced compliance.
Environmental Analysis: Corrupted Temple.
Corruption Type: Spiritual Pacification.
Field Effect: Suppresses individual will, enforces community compliance.
Source: Artifact of unknown origin.
Threat Level: Moderate (Non-violent but insidious).
“It’s not attacking them,” Trevor realized. “It’s making them perfectly content. No desires, no individual thoughts, just... peaceful satisfaction with whatever they’re doing.”
“That’s worse than aggression in some ways,” Pemba said grimly. “At least aggression leaves room for resistance. This removes the desire to resist.”
They entered the temple to find a small artifact on the altar. It was a smooth stone disc covered with symbols that seemed to shift when observed directly. The disc pulsed with soft light that made Trevor feel drowsy just looking at it.
Artifact Detected: Stone of Eternal Contentment.
Classification: Spiritual Manipulation Device (Rare).
Effect: Broadcasts pacification field, removes anxiety and ambition.
Warning: Extended exposure may cause permanent personality changes.
“Someone placed this here deliberately,” Yangchen observed. “But recently. The spiritual contamination hasn’t had time to set deep roots.”
“Why would someone want to pacify an entire village?” Trevor wondered, approaching the stone carefully.
“Control,” Pemba said simply. “A population that never questions, never desires change, never challenges authority. Perfect for someone who wants to establish a power base without resistance.”
Trevor extended his Boundary Definition abilities toward the artifact, trying to understand its mechanism without triggering its effects. What he found surprised him.
“It’s not actually malevolent,” he reported. “The artifact is designed to remove suffering by eliminating the desires that cause it. In some philosophical frameworks, that could be considered benevolent.”
“But it also eliminates growth, change, and the possibility of genuine happiness,” Yangchen pointed out. “Contentment without choice isn’t peace. That’s just spiritual death.”
Trevor nodded, beginning to understand what needed to be done. Instead of destroying the artifact, which might traumatize the villagers when their suppressed emotions returned all at once, he would need a careful process of defining boundaries around its influence.
With his deep understanding of Sanskrit, he might be able to modify what he knew about Boundary definition. The skill that he would use would be a derivation of an old favorite. But first, he had to make himself more capable. “Yangchen, do you still have those Path Tokens?”
Startled, she took a moment to think, then as comprehension dawned, she made an open-handed gesture that implied they should wait. She then ran off back to their abode, her blanket sweeping after her like a superhero cape.
Trevor couldn’t help but notice her fine physique and alluring curves. He heard Pemba grunt in disapproval, but he paid it no mind, a sheepish smile now plastered upon his face.
After reaching the threshold of level five, Trevor had seen the notification that he was able to advance in his path. It had taken him a while to understand that he could now choose an additional path, provided he had the Path Token.
Of the two remaining tokens Yancheng had, only one of them made sense. He trusted Yangchen would know that intuitively. He also took that moment to assign his five free Core attribute points. He was sure he would need them to shore up some of his stats that were flagging.
He chose to add one to Reason and one to Vigor. Being smarter and healthier wouldn’t hurt, so he added one to Presence because it was flagging and the remainder to Will.
He had never mentioned all his advances to either Pemba or Yangchen, like the +1 increase to all his stats he gained from binding with the mountain, because he didn’t want Pemba getting all uppity about the unfairness of life. They already had enough friction between them.
Core Attributes: Will 23, Intuition 18, Presence 14, Agility 19, Vigor 17, Reason 15.
Once Yangchen was out of sight, they stood awkwardly, neither made eye contact, nor did they talk; instead, they just waited in uncomfortable silence, while Trevor contended with the subtle yet noticeable surge in his wellbeing. The sharp spike of pain from each addition to his core attributes was merely an annoyance.
A very short while later, Yangchen returned with one of the tokens in her hand, which she handed to Trevor. Her breathing was fast and labored. She was still catching her breath from the sprint.
The item appeared as it had when she first showed it to him on the boat from Taiwan to Hong Kong. The wooden token, covered in sigils to Trevor’s senses, seemed unchanged. Each sigil glowed with a soft iridescent blue.
Without wasting time, he grasped it and looked at what was available. The sigils, Trevor realized, were actually Sanskrit, and he wondered if his new understanding of the language would help him gain the techniques more fully. He quickly saw a pattern that he would have to turn the Token anticlockwise to follow the logic of the words. He read through them quickly.
सीमा स्वामी : रक्षात्मकक्षमता वर्धिता, क्षेत्रनियन्त्रणम्
He realized something then. There was no word for boundary in Sanskrit, and the direct translation of the original character was ‘border.’ The words encompassing the token, once directly translated into English, showed up slightly different than what he remembered.
Border Master: Increased defensive abilities, zone control.
Yet on a deeper level, he felt the meaning more than gleaned it just from words. Sometimes, the exact meaning couldn’t be directly translated. Releasing the translation skill, he watched the words morph back to what he recalled.
Boundary Master: Enhanced defensive capabilities, area control.
- Unlock: Boundary Definition advancement path.
- Bonus: +15% to all protective techniques.
- Drawback: Slower movement when maintaining boundaries.
This would hopefully give him the additional insight needed to redefine this twisted artifact that had been placed in this temple. He willed the Token to relinquish its knowledge.
Like before, the token flared brightly in his closed palm, then it dissolved into him, the warmth of it sinking into his hand, down his wrist, and into his body.
Unlike before, when the feeling had induced dread, this time he approached it with anticipation. Notifications flashed, and he looked to his Stat sheet to observe what had changed.
Trevor Cross
Level 6 Warlock (Hollows Affinity - Veil Walker Path) (Boundary Master Path) – Apprentice.
Core Attributes: Will 23, Intuition 19, Presence 13, Agility 19, Vigor 17, Reason 16
Resonance Capacity: 54/55.
Then Trevor turned his attention to the offending artifact, hoping he had made the right call. As he looked upon it, a surge of insight filled him.
Boundary Master Path
New options available: Advanced Technique: Graduated Boundary Dissolution.
Effect: Slowly reduces artifact influence to prevent psychological shock.
Control Required: 65% (Current control: 52%) Attempting technique with Buddha’s Tooth enhancement.
Without further delay, Trevor activated the skill.
✵ ✵ ✵
The process took nearly an hour, with Trevor carefully peeling away the layers of the artifact’s influence while monitoring the villagers’ responses through Veil Glimpsing. Pemba had placed his hand upon Trevor’s shoulder, buffing him with a grounded technique. It somehow helped with the clarity of his thoughts. Yangchen would regularly whisper strange words that seemed to lift the fog of compliance generated by the talisman.
Together, they gradually made progress until Trevor noticed the villagers’ auras regain their natural individuality. Some were brighter, some darker, but all had become authentically human again. Free from undue influence.
“Skillfully done,” a new voice said from the temple entrance. No one had heard the man enter; they were all so engrossed with the task of refining the artifact.
The trio spun around to find an elderly Chinese man watching them with approval. Unlike the other villagers, his aura showed no signs of having been affected by the artifact.
Entity Detected: Master Chen Weiming.
Classification: Awakened Human (Roots Affinity).
Threat Level: Negligible Status: Friendly/Grateful.
“You weren’t affected by the stone,” Pemba observed. He had a complicated expression, probably from being caught so off-guard by this intruder.
“My grounding runs too deep,” the old man replied. “Fifty years of Tai chi practice creates roots that such things cannot easily disturb. I’ve been waiting for someone capable of dealing with this... problem.”
“How long has it been here?” Yangchen asked.
“Three weeks. A well-dressed man came through our village, claiming to be a government researcher studying rural happiness levels. He left the stone as a ‘gift for community harmony.’” Master Chen’s expression darkened. “I knew immediately what it was, but I lack the ability to safely remove it.”
“Threshold Institute?” Trevor guessed.
“Almost certainly. This village sits on an old ley line intersection. With the population pacified, it would make an excellent staging point for operations in this region.” Master Chen bowed deeply to Trevor. “You have my gratitude, young man. The village owes you a debt.”
