{Emperor’s Diary}
After checking the wounds from where the arrows pierced her, I unintentionally started looking at the tattoo on her chest. She watched me out of curiosity as I examined it. As I gently put my hand on it, I sadly closed my eyes. If I could take this from her, she may have a chance. There may be a land where she can go and live freely. I wouldn’t mind supporting her in that cause. Mainly because she was hot, but partially, so I can be even further away from the people that summoned me. As I thought about her circumstances, I felt a pain my chest as a menu appeared in my vision. Talent, ‘Slave Mark Tolerance’ has been created. Skill, ‘Curse Resistance’ has been created. Ability, ‘Curse Absorption’ has been created. I opened my eyes, surprised to see that her tattoo was gone. That only lasted a moment, before I held my own chest in pain a moment later. The last thing I remembered was writhing in pain as she picked me up and put me on the bed.
I woke up several days later at dawn. In that time, my ‘Curse Resistance’ skill level went up twice. I was still in pain, but not as much as before. I barely managed to sit up straight before placing my feet on the cold hard rock of the cave. She came back, and as soon as she saw me sitting up straight, she said something that I didn’t understand. I smiled while thinking. ‘There’s that nice voice again. Perhaps, it might be better if I don’t understand her. It’ll make being talked down to a little easier.’
As I was thinking about that, I saw her expression change again from being glad to a little annoyed. I pushed myself up to have my bare back against the stone, before raising my hand to see why it was hurting so much. There was another slave tattoo on my forearm. I then checked the information again on the new skills that I learned.
As I said earlier, the tattoo is my greatest asset. However, it’s also my greatest burden. Curse resistance is an obvious skill. It’s about ten percent over the level bar, and has no indication of growing anymore, so I assume that I’m now able to resist up to level three curses6cursesstory mechanic. Next is my slave mark tolerance. A slave mark, in essence, is a curse put on someone’s body. Lower level curses, by my understanding, range from bad luck spurts such as karma, to full fledged d***ation of a soul. Normally, a curse can be removed with holy magic5magicstory mechanic, but that’s expensive and requires someone having god’s favor. It has been nearly fifteen years since I was last inside a church, and I wasn’t going to start again now.
So, the alternative is to build a tolerance of it. I mean, it’s obvious that if you inflict something onto your body over and over, you build a resistance to it, but curses are tricky things and never vanish completely on their own. Now, what I was most curious about was the curse absorption skill. It’s why I assumed my new lady friend looked at me so happily, even though she also looked annoyed. It’s not like I peeked under her loincloth again. As soon as my thoughts strayed over to that, she came over to me and and hit me on the crown of my head, hard. It was so powerful, that I went limp, and blood started coming out from where she hit. I deserved it, but I still only looked to wash her belongings. I did nothing more than that….
{Narrator}
Magic and miasma. Two different elements of supernatural phenomenon. Magic is an energy that is non-living. It often comes from ether and the elements. This is most commonly applied to non-living matter and practices, but magic can affect the living and previously living.
Miasma is very unlike magic. While some confuse it at times, miasma stems from living matter. It’s also a form of life energy. Every living being has miasma inside them. Most can’t discern the types of miasma as easily as magic since it’s separated into its own elements. Miasma has three categories; world, neutral, and demon. The most easiest way to tell if a spell is miasma or magic is how it reacts to a metal object. However, the easiest way to tell the type of miasma is the characteristics of the user. If a user seems full of life and everything around them seems to glow, then it’s world miasma. Neutral doesn’t have any special characteristics, but the users are often weaker and more elderly looking than they actually are. As for demon, it’s the opposite of world miasma. Instead of releasing energy from their person, they absorb it. You can often see signs of death and decay around the users that have it too.
