Name: Alexander Mortimer.
Authority: Hades.
Epithet: The Hidden One.
Rank: Initiate.
Domain: Underworld.
Deck: —
Insignia: [Helm of darkness.], [???], …
Divine Essence: [0/1000]
***
Alex blinked.
'Okay, now this is interesting.'
He began reading the words on the smoky tablet and when his eyes landed on the epithet, even he had to admit that it sounded cool.
'The Hidden One.'
He nodded in approval.
'Mm… I like that.'
Moving on to the rank, he could remember that the voices had said that he was now an initiate on the path to apotheosis. So he could tell that this was probably the first rank on that path. But now his first question was…
'How many ranks are there?'
He didn't think about it for long before he shrugged and moved on.
'I'll find out about it tomorrow, anyway.' he thought.
But when his eyes landed on the underworld, he arched a brow and paused, because to him, that sounded a bit uh… morbid, to say the least.
'Isn't that where the dead go to?'
Admittedly, Alex wasn't one who cared about myths and stuff like that when he was back on Earth, but he had definitely heard the word underworld quite a few times in passing from different sources. In fact, everyone has probably heard about the underworld, and the vibes associated with it whenever it came up were quite creepy.
'Hmm… I'll figure the domain out later,' he thought. 'I have no idea what the deck and essence are either, so I'll set those aside for now as well.'
As for insignia…
Alex looked to the side where the second card was floating in the air. He reached for it and as he took it in between his fingers, the card dissolved into wisps of black smoke that slowly coalesced into what looked like a black blindfold.
'Huh?'
It was made of a material that seemed to swallow the light around it, leaving a faint, hazy trail of shadow as it settled into his open palm. Despite its thin appearance, it felt surprisingly heavy.
Alex studied it for a brief moment. Then, slowly, he instinctively put it over his eyes. The moment he did, the blindfold tied itself behind his head and the world around him suddenly changed.
It wasn't that he had gone blind. Usually, when you put on a blindfold, you expect a wall of fabric and darkness, but this was different. The moment the material touched his skin, instead of total darkness, a strange, monochrome landscape began to bleed into his vision.
He could still see, just not with his eyes.
'Wait... I can still see?'
With a quickening pulse, he looked around the grayscale room. Then he noticed something else. The air seemed to have grown several degrees colder, and his senses felt really heightened.
'…see the unseen.'
For some reason, that thought suddenly entered his head. He turned to the light switch on the wall, then stood up, went to it, and turned off the lights.
The entire room went dark, but surprisingly…
'I can still see.'
In fact, the moment he turned off the lights, he could see even better and clearer than before. It was as if the black and white filter had finally settled fully, sharpening the edges of every object
"Ha…"
Alex was brimming with excitement and the corners of lips were tugged up.
"Fascinating…"
Since his hands were still on the light switch, he turned the lights back on. The monochrome world dimmed a bit and for some reason he felt just a tiny bit uncomfortable.
'The darkness feels much more comfortable…'
He was just about to turn the light back off when he noticed something. With the light on, he could see the shadows cast by things in the room, but they didn't look like ordinary shadows anymore. Through the blindfold, the dark patches on the floor and walls were thick, and looked like swirling pools of dark mist.
He looked at the one cast by the night lamp on the bedside table. Then for some reason, the second thought suddenly entered his mind.
'…touch the unseen.'
Slowly, he reached down and touched the shadow cast by the lamp, then his eyes widened a bit.
'What the…'
It had texture and it was as if he was dipping his hand into a pool of cool, heavy ink.
'Whoa… I think my powers have to do with intangibility,' he thought as he slowly pulled his hand back and looked away from the shadow.
Even though he had pulled away, a few stray wisps of the dark substance trailed from his fingertips before evaporating back into the shallow shadow.
'That means… I can see everything that's invisible and touch everything that's intangible.'
He rubbed his fingers, then muttered to himself this time.
"How do I become the unseen, then?"
He thought about it for a bit, and then, as he stared as his fingers, it finally clicked and his eyes widened slightly.
'Intention.'
Suddenly, his fingers began to dissolve into wisps of dark mist, followed by his arm, and then his entire body. Within seconds, a shroud of thick black smoke swirled where he had just been standing, hovering in the air like a living darkness.
'Holy shit!'
He tried to move and just like that, the smoke surged around the entire room.
'This is amazing!'
Indeed, it really was amazing because he felt free and completely weightless. He decided to test the limits of the intangibility, so he turned to the door, and in a blurred rush of movement, he drifted toward the door.
The smoke hit the door and the next thing he knew, he was outside in the corridor.
'Whoa…'
He turned back, then rushed through the wall back into his room and after a few seconds of zipping and spiraling around the room like someone who had just found a new toy, he finally stopped near his bed.
'This is insane! …And why do I feel like this is not even all?'
Instinctively, he felt like this was not all he could do. He could feel some kind of energy leaving his soul card to power this state of intangibility, so he decided to expend more.
To his utter bewilderment, the black smoke began to slowly dissipate. Some of it bled into the shadows in the corners of the room, while the rest simply vanished into thin air.
'Damn… Okay, now this one tops the charts.'
It felt like he was everywhere all at once. But more than that, he was completely… unseen.
To say that Alex was satisfied with this development would be a bit of an understatement.
He was still reeling from the thrill of his new form when suddenly, he felt a pang in his soul and then, a hazy, disorienting sensation suddenly washed over his mind.
'What's happening?'
Confused, he slowly returned to the smoky, intangible form. When the thick darkness coalesced in the room again, he could feel the haziness recede just a bit. But after only a few seconds, he felt that sharp pang and the haziness returned again.
'Ack!'
Immediately, he released the ability and the darkness solidified until he was back to his solid, physical self.
He was sweating heavily and gasping like someone who had just run a marathon. He wobbled to his bed, then slumped on it with both hands outstretched.
'Ah… I guess there's a limit to how long I can stay unseen.'