I had a dream.
In my dream I heard an unrecognizable yet somewhat familiar voice. It told me:
[The Second Seal is broken.]
[Awakening Aspect Abilities…]
[Aspect Ability Name: Death penalty.]
[Your Attribute has evolved.]
[Wake up, Regretful Pathology!]
My eyes slowly open to the sight of a normal ceiling. No light, no dark cave, no unfamiliar sky.
Looking around, I find myself back in the Academy. The place looks empty, full of capsules with my classmates in them. Some are already empty.
Standing up, I look over myself. No injury, no scar, no fatigue remained. As if it all was a bad dream. A nightmare.
However, it was not. It was a simple trial, to return alive. And I managed, if just barely.
A look at my runes confirmed my suspicions.
Name: --
True Name: Regret Pathology.
Rank: Awakened.
Class: Dormant.
Aspect: [Wasteful Regrets].
Flaw: [A New Page].
Aspect abilities: [The Price of Freedom], [Death Penalty].
Attributes: [Gifted Present], [Craving Beliefs], [Faint of Nothing].
Memories: [Withered Flower], [Oblivious Cravings], [Prideful Sin].
Echoes: --
After Awakening some of the runes changed accordingly.
For instance, one of my attributes evolved, the regrets I can hold increased to double the amount, reaching the three digits, and of course, a new skill.
[Craving Beliefs: Standing above, the spirits of regrets look up to you. Beyond the realm of sorrows even the death comes to hear your salvation.]
[Death Penalty: The dying spirits of the dead have little time to fulfil their dying wishes; he who wields the power can shape their will as they see fit for the sake of repentance.]
The descriptions don't seem to explain lots of things, but they seem to connect to the deceased.
A person who gets to die with regrets is not uncommon sight, so those regrets seem to join my arsenal, as well.
Having tested them out, I found out I can now perceive a new perspective.
By using some soul essence onto my eyes, I can activate a new part of my attribute. The red taint in my eyes grows and paints them full red, the world around me seems to blur out of focus and instead a new perception is revealed before me.
The color of the normal world darkens until it vanishes and instead, myriads of colors appear in my field of view. Red, blue, purple, green. Numerous colors in shape of people roam around so casually.
Something tells me these were the deceased who died in vain, and in the space of the dormant trials, there were a lot.
'Touching those spirits might not be a good idea.'
Next, I tried using my awakened skill.
Pouring more essence towards one of the spirits, I can reshape them to my liking.
A weapon, a tool, different figure, the only limit was my imagination… and essence.
The dead did not seem of much use, however, the recently deceased still carry burden. Shaping them to coat my hand, I could feel an increase in my strength.
Just like Gerard's strength was abnormal thanks to the burden of his Regret Spirit, I could also use them the same way and not just carry their burden.
Deactivating both my new skill and attribute, I let out an exhausted sigh. Using them both made me spend quite bit of essence, yet, nowhere near depletion.
I also checked out the memory I got. I summoned it before passing out in hope I could do something useful; however, my bad state did not improve.
That's being said, after realizing what it does it's probably the reason I stayed alive.
The charm Memory had two enchantments. The first one caused every living plant in five meters radius around me to wither and die. The swarm would stay away from my body as long as it was on me.
The second enchantment let the memory remained equipped on the user until the essence depleted, remained summoned even after the user loses consciousness.
Thankfully, the memory had really changed the tides. It explains how I am still alive, but not how I'm back at the waking world.
Thinking back, I remember the colossal fight I've seen before I passed out.
Two mythical beings fought each other; however, it does bring a thought in me...
'Didn't someone say in class Saints can transform into all sorts of creatures?'