18 All Pathways (Part II)

After returning to his house, Ethan rested for three more days, waiting for the wild Beyonder gathering the Hunter and Planter participated in.

In the meantime, he also got in contact with the youngster from the Alchemist's Hut. He had already gotten all of the ingredients requested and was just waiting for him or the people he sent to take them.

Ethan went to the underground market yesterday by himself and got the ingredients he wanted. He was also able to use 400 pounds and the characteristics of Arbiter and Prisoner to buy the necessary ingredients for the Apothecary and Mystery Pryer potions.

At this point, he had a total of 380 pounds. After getting the many ingredients, he quickly concocted the potions using another cauldron he bought for 9 pounds.

Drinking the potions, he got their many mental imprints and strange memories from indescribable worlds.

The Apprentice potion had memories from the same place as the ones from Seer and Marauder. Just that this time, he was a strange slug that could move anywhere it wanted and had multiple different powers. Its mental imprint had the sole desire to go to all places in existence.

It had the power to pass through obstacles easily at the expense of spirituality. The less difficult an obstacle was to bypass, the least spirituality needed. It also gave him the power to open all locks that weren't sealed by Beyonder powers, and it could work on a few that were.

The Bard and Sailor weren't even creatures, but mere points of light that existed traversing in a chaotic sea of pure darkness that had all colors in existence. They were among other points of light too. The mental imprints of these potions had the desire to tell great tales about the many legends of the world, and to sail in all waters on the planet, respectively.

The Bard's powers were different kinds of buffs. As long as he singed, Ethan could give himself more courage, strength, agility, among others.

While the Sailor gave him an even greater enhancement to his bodily strength, to the point of him now being able to easily bend steel with his bare hands; A great level of ability in being able to balance his body, keeping his center of gravity; An illusory scaled armor below his skin that could protect him from the shot of a double barreled shotgun in the expense of his spirituality; Great swimming ability and breath holding while underwater; And Night Vision.

The Lawyer potion's mental imprint existed in the same place as the Arbiter's one, with the difference being that it didn't bring any order to that chaotic place, but pure and unrestrained chaos and disorder. It had the desire to sow eternal chaos in everything that existed.

Its powers were very similar to the Arbiter's, but opposite. Ethan could now more easily find loopholes within the rules and laws, being able to easily find the mistakes an opponent committed to strike against him. He was also able to directly influence a person's thoughts, emotions, and mental state using his words and reasoning. Being able to distort and guide a target's thinking to a certain degree.

The Apothecary was the strangest of them all. It existed in a filthy and disgusting place full of sexually insane creatures made from genitals, having been one of them. It had the desire to concoct medicine capable of curing all diseases in existence.

Its powers were all related to the concoction of different kinds of medicine, having some enhancement when it comes to the resistance against poisons.

The Mystery Pryer was the most impossible to describe. The mental imprint itself was from an information lifeform that existed in an infinite moor made from knowledge and information. It even brought him strange and complicated knowledge from different mystical matters and simple magic spells that required extensive preparation

The desire it had was for the acquisition of infinite knowledge and information, no matter how futile.

Ethan received different kinds of ritualistic spells and strange magic, all of which required some level of preparation to be useful. His spirituality increased by a huge margin, and he also received the 'Eyes of Mystery Prying'. They would be a passive and constant change to his sight that would allow him to see things that normally shouldn't be visible.

…

These were all the powers and mental imprints Ethan got yesterday. And today, he would be going after the Hunter and Planter ones.

It didn't take too long for him to find his targets. As he already knew the gathering in which they participated in, the only thing he did was wait some distance away and observe the different people that would come.

And he quickly saw them. They were a man and a woman, both hooded with brownish robes. They entered a small house at the side of a park in the middle of the night.

He could recognize them from James' memories, even when concealed by the robes. After all, with the powers of a Savant, he perfectly recalled the way these people walked, and the gestures they made.

Taking into consideration his strong spiritual perception after all of that, finding them was as easy as finding black dots on a white surface.

After the gathering came to an end, Ethan, still concealed in the shadows, used his nimble fingers to put one strand of his hair in each of their robes while they were leaving the place.

The Hunter seemed to sense something and quickly left, but he didn't notice the strand of hair inside in his robe.

He then followed the Planter woman to a concealed place, and when she was about to remove her robe and follow her own path-

*Pah

A pale white hand pierced her skull. Her body quickly went limp before she could react at all. Quickly after that, dark-green flames consumed her entire body, burning and corroding it to ashes.

After a few minutes, the pale hand, still concealed in the shadows, picked the bloody fingers that appeared. They swirled with green energies around them, having suddenly coalesced from points of light.

After eating the characteristic, Ethan knew the woman's name was Lavanda. She was a small businesswoman who had her own flower shop.

She became a Beyonder after her husband died from illness. He also seemed to be a wild Beyonder from what he could tell.

Her mental imprint's twisted desire was to become the most successful florist in Trier, no matter what price she had to pay for it.

The powers of a Planter was to know about many different kinds of plants and seeds, being able to plant supernatural ingredients to use later on. They also had the power to instinctively feel any plants they might desire in the nearby vicinity. His body also received another small enhancement.

Understanding his new powers, he used his cane to track the Hunter down, just before he could find anything out of the ordinary.

He made use of his bardic powers to give himself greater speed, "Swift as wind, with each verse spoken. Boundless speed, a world unbroken."

His speed greatly increased and he quickly came to an intersection of an alley in South Borough.

The Hunter was just removing his brownish robes when he once again sensed someone's presence. Looking in all directions, as he couldn't find his assailant, he decided to start running for his life.

Just before he could leave the alley, though, "In twilight's gleam, arrows find their mark. With bardic verse, aim true, hit the heart."

Then, a dart of flames came crashing in his direction. It seemed to be augmented with Beyonder powers as it directly hit him in his heart, even when he tried to evade.

When the dark-green flaming dart hit the Hunter, it was like he had been hit by a powerful curse. His whole body burst into flames and he soon turned to corroded ashes.

The man couldn't even scream before his body was completely consumed by the flames.

As Ethan picked his formed Beyonder characteristic, a bloody red nose, he quickly ate it. The Hunter was called Jack, he was a weak member of the Iron and Blood Cross Order that was looking for the next ingredients of his potion, as his organization didn't want to waste resources on him.

The mental imprint's corrupted desire was to destroy the entire Iron and Blood Cross Order.

'Aren't we very ambitious, huh?' He couldn't help but think so when he felt the mental imprint's desire.

He then felt his current powers. His body got a small enhancement once again, but nothing major; His senses got heightened to an insane level. To the point of being able to distinguish each smell, sound, touch, objects from a distance, and tastes to an unprecedented degree as long as he focused on it; He now had a greater understanding of traps, and survival/hunting techniques; He had a certain level of danger intuition, but nothing compared to a Monster's premonition.

As he was already in South Borough, he decided to use divination to know if there would be any danger if he went to kill the Reader old man that lived alone in his house.

This old man was one of the informants that James contacted when he was looking for gatherings to participate in.

Seeing the divination result, Ethan went to the old man's house and directly passed through the main door with his Apprentice powers.

Concealing himself in the shadows of the old house made from wood, he came to the living room where there was a source of light.

The old information broker was huddled on his sofa in front of the fireplace, reading a book about the current modern medicine. Looking at him, he silently approached and extended his pale hand from the shadows.

The old man didn't notice anything at all, he was far too engaged in his book to do so. As Ethan's palm hung above his head, it suddenly burst with dark-green flames.

The fire completely engulfed the old man's head, and before he could do anything, his life was seized.

After that, he brought him to his private yard and burned the rest of his body. He quickly ate the Beyonder characteristic that formed- some grayish brain matter- and got the man's memories, powers, and mental imprint.

The man was called Jacob. He became a Beyonder after a fight between the Church of Knowledge and Wisdom with some gangs in Lenburg. He ate the Beyonder characteristic after seeing the fight and became a Beyonder, quickly running to Backlund after that.

The mental imprint's desire was to earn the most money ever possible.

The powers of a Reader were not very strong in terms of combat, but it gave him an even more enhanced mind and a few rituals. He could now instantly think about all the different details of his many lives, not even taking a second.

He also acquired a supernatural learning ability. As long as he saw it happen one time in front of him, he could directly learn how to do it. His reasoning also reached an even higher degree.

The rituals he could cast were mostly related to different gods, so they were useless to him for now.

After getting a thorough understanding of his new powers and the vast knowledge reserve about different fields of study he received, he went back inside the house.

He walked into a small room on the side of the bedroom and opened the door.

Going inside, he looked at an inconspicuous painting on the side of a bed and walked up to it.

Using his Apprentice Beyonder powers on the painting, it soon opened with a clack.

This painting was a sealed safe Jacob locked with a ritualistic spell after many tries, it had all his stored money in it.

Looking inside, Ethan quickly found a total amount of 2000 pounds.

'If this idiot wasn't so afraid of the Church of The God of Knowledge and Wisdom, he could have potentially become a Sequence 7 Beyonder with this money. Well, it can also be because he was far too stingy and lazy.'

Putting all the money inside his big suitcase, he used his Curse of Interference like always and left the house, going in the direction of West Borough.

At this point, he didn't need to fear killing the two brothers that lived there anymore, as he had enough powers to do so stealthily.

…

In a nice residence in West Borough, Ethan walked up to the front door and used his supernatural instincts, spiritual vision, divination, and keen senses to determine if there was anyone in the house.

He realized that there were at least twenty people inside, but the ones he was looking for were likely below the ground, seemingly in some kind of basement.

After divining the danger of entering and killing the brothers, he used his Apprentice powers to pass through the door and quickly concealed himself in any of the shadows he could find.

Following the direction his spiritual intuition gave him, Ethan quickly found the door to the basement of the house.

Passing through the door without even opening it, he briskly descended the stairs.

What he found surprised him a little. The two brothers were sleeping in a big bed with four different women hugging them.

'If the me from before saw this scene, I might have become nauseous.' Walking up to the bed, Ehan conjured his cursed fire upon the bed while saying, "Embers dance, their fury awakened. Through this chant, infernos are fast taken."

The fire rapidly consumed the six people on the bed before any of them could wake up. The fire now seemed to have an amplified force and speed, as it quickly killed them all.

There was no smoke to this fire, as its corrosive power was far too strong for any smoke to be released.

After the bed and the people that lay on it turned to corroded ashes, he waited for a few minutes to pick the Beyonder characteristics: a fully black eyeball and a piece of finger bone.

After eating them, he soon received the brothers' respective memories, mental imprints, and powers.

He already knew their names, Marquis and Marques. They were the children of a deceased Sequence 7 Nightmare that retired after working as a member of the Nighthawks for the Church of Evernight.

After their father passed away, the Church of Evernight claimed his characteristic and didn't interact with the brothers too much after that.

However, their father left them one Sequence 9 Beyonder characteristic from the Sleepless and Corpse Collector Pathways each, along with the respective formulas up to Sequence 7.

After becoming Beyonders, they didn't choose to become members of the Church of Evernight or anything like that. Using the huge sums of money their father left them behind, they lived their lives in comfort and luxury, not even trying to advance in Sequence.

'I'm far too lucky to have found them sleeping like this… Are there any powers involved in this matter…?' Using his divination to confirm there was no danger in killing the two brothers once again, Ethan analyzed the mental imprints.

Their mental imprints didn't have too many desires. One of them wanted to just live life in pure luxury, while the other desired to have sexual relations with its own brother.

'Thankfully, I took the Prisoner potion before coming here. Otherwise, I would have become a strange lunatic that was full of secret feelings for his own brother. Well, I don't really have a brother so it wouldn't change things too much… I think…'

The scene from before shocked him to the point where his apathy got tainted with some feelings of poignancy and strangeness, but he quickly came back to normal and started understanding his own powers.

As a Sleepless, his spirituality received another boon, he could now cast his cursed fire thirty to forty times; His body and mind would become stronger the closer to the night it was; And he also didn't need much sleep, only half an hour was enough.

'My powers as a Sleepless also got incredibly amplified… Commonly, a Sleepless would still need to sleep for three or four hours. I can now ascertain this is another one of my sins.' Up to this point, all powers he received were more powerful, like being amplified, than those from other Beyonders of the same Pathways.

Thinking about his peculiarities once again, he started to understand his Corpse Collector's powers.

His body got slightly enhanced, allowing him to be resistant against cold, decay, and the corrosion of cadaveric auras; He could easily see different spirit bodies and wraiths even without activating his Spirit Vision; And he would probably not be attacked by many undead creatures anymore, as his body now produced the gloomy and cold aura of a corpse.

After completely understanding his new powers, Ethan used his Apprentice and Assassin abilities to easily leave the house.

Leaving, he opened his suitcase and saw the multitude of different Beyonder characteristics inside of it.

There were the characteristics of a Bard, Sailor, Lawyer, Apprentice, Secrets Supplicant, Monster, Apothecary, Planter, Reader, Hunter, Sleepless, Corpse Collector, Unwinged Angel, Melee Scholar, and a Listener potion.

'This is a fortune of more than 5400 pounds. Killing others is a really effective way to amass wealth.' Returning to his residence in North Borough, he phased through the door and sat at the sofa in the living room.

*Snap

Using his spirituality to ignite some of the firewood in the fireplace, he couldn't help but feel some amusement as he said:

"I am now a Beyonder of all Pathways."