Tower of God: Sequence Strength

Winston Heath. See the child like state of a grown man, one that would propel his species to the stars, a gift that he himself could never hope to get.

He lights the fire in the scullery, shedding light onto the outside fields, torn and covered with rags of snow and dirt beyond which stand tall redwood trees that harbor a last few wolves.

His eyes travel to the sorry figure of his father, a man supposed to be a teacher, yet one that failed to teach his son anything. He cannot read and he cannot write, everyday he carries farming tools to the fields to plow incessantly the ground, through which the final grain could land onto his plate.

12 years ago, his mother had passed. The Virtuous woman who had spent 9 months, protecting in her own bosom the one that would chase her off was reduced to nothing more than a spectral figure in his mind.

The father does not say her name, the child does not know it. He has an older brother to name, one that ran off with a rich old lass that whispered seductive promises of glory and money into his ears.

His own figure is thin and malnourished, his cheek bones protrude out and the ribs are visible. The father does nothing.

At 13 he runs away, his mind harboring a taste of violence that will get him through. He boards a boat that travels at night with bulbs alight, seemingly entire cities afloat on an insurmountable body of water, carrying lost souls to their final rest.

He sits among the people, all diffident in their own respects. He gets into a fist fight at the back of the deck and leaves his opponent in a pool of blood. For the first time in a long while, his pockets are not yet empty.

The ship break off the float and he gets to the ground. The money and power he holds in the weight of his fist is intoxicating. Cheap whores call him out. He gives in.

At 13, he gets the first touch of a woman, one he paid more, to do just that, than what he would earn working for an entire month. He drinks a bottle of beer and lies at the edge of the street.

A year goes by. The child has grown into a dangerous boy, his fists are big and the arms have picked up meat. His reputation precedes him in these parts as does the fear of his name. The authorities deal with him, he goes away. Then again they do, he moves. A vicious cycle.

Travelling at the ships earns him greatly. In the day he sings and rests, trying to learn the languages and the art of reading and writing. At night, he descends like a fairytale beast, fists swinging, ready to take life for the money or have his taken.

The boy becomes 15. And an old man meets him at the docks. His face is a mosaic of wrinkles that run from everywhere to everywhere. Just yesterday, the boy had been shot in the back by a sailor.

The old man takes him in.

On the cot, Winston lays. The old man speaks.

"Your name?"

"Winston."

"No last name?"

"None that I'm aware of."

"Then you got a problem taking mine?"

Winston stares at him expressionlessly.

"Heath. Call yourself Winston Heath from now on."

The old man piches his nose slightly. His face was a blend of the warmest colours Winston had ever encountered.

"Why are you wandering around like this?"

"I have nothing else to do."

"Have any experience of study?"

"I do."

"You do?"

"...Sometimes. I know how to read now." Winston smiles.

The old man smiles back. "Then I guess you'll be under my care from now on."

That was the instance that changed Winston's fate, that would otherwise have him prowling like a deranged beast in the shipping docks like a starved tiger would in the woods; had been changed to something far more.

However, as much as he despised the past of his, it taught him an important lesson.

"Violence Endures." He speaks.

~~~

Winston jolts awake, his entire upper body naked while his underside is covered by nothing but an underwear. His built body lies along the stone cold ground, the dirt getting into his hair and dyeing his fair skin.

He gets up and looks around. All around him is a large cave, there is nothing else that could be described.

It was dark, yet somehow he was able to see.

Suddenly, a stream of information flooded into his brain.

It was the three Sequence 9 potions, working their magic!

Sequence 9 of the Fool Pathway: Seer; providing enhanced memory, spiritual intuition, divination abilities, enhanced spirituality and finally, access of ritualistic magics.

Sequence 9 of the Error Pathway: Marauder; providing enhanced dexterity, strength and agility, night vision, mastery of theft, superior observation on the border of mystical and finally, agile hands which provides mastery over combat.

Sequence 9 of the Door Pathway: Apprentice; providing mastery over spirit vision, ability to open 'doors' inside of walls and other objects, effectively allowing a person to go through them and finally, ability to lock pick any non mystical and some mystical doors.

All three combined, although did not offer an instant powerup, made way for an increasingly annoying combo.

It could be said that even at sequence 9, the beyond of the cowardly trio Pathway were particularly harder to kill than any other Pathway.

Again, he looks around. Nothing but the dirt, the stone and the darkened walls of a godforsaken land. He did not where he had ended up at, but he knew everything was very much real.

As someone that had mastered lucid dreaming, he knew the feeling of a dream. The clear distinction between a dream and reality was the difference between night and day for him. If he couldn't tell, he wouldn't expect anyone to.

He did not know how, but the contents of the dream had not only been contents. They had somehow turned real and transported him to this... place. It was surreal more than anything. Stranger than the black nights of the darkened hell he lived and thrived in, and more eerie than anything his transcendent imagination could ever hope to come up with.

Getting up, he felt his body. It was strong. The strength he felt coursing through him was unlike anything he had ever felt when he was still back 'home'.

He balled his fists up and punched the air. A slight whistling sound gave out as the punch fell on empty air. Winston turned back and punched again. Then with his right fist, and again with the left.

Each punch left a whistling sound hanging in the air, the slightest of humm buzz that would normally be hard to pick up on.

Hooooo~

He breathed. Then, with a tremendous effort of the legs, he began running. His legs carried him faster than he had ever run before, a speed which he felt was equivalent to about 36 kilometers per hour, or 10 meters per second.

Stopping just before a wall, he punched the solid stone.

Bam!

A crisp sound ran out, with a depression appearing at the spot of impact. He pulled his arm back, his fist bruised from the impact. The wall before him had a large prominent crack running down from the place he had just punched, with various secondary cracks running along like the tributaries of a river or the branches and roots of a tree.

Winston nodded to himself.

Physicals have been enhanced tremendously. I'm quicker on my feet and strength is above human terms. My observation skills have also been tested. Winston looked back.

The slightest footprints that would normally be invisible, the little rocks he had kicked up while running, the strange layout of the cave, the way the wind moved in the space, everything was visible to him. His entire body became an observational machine, perfectly optimised to notice any changes, ticks and things he would find advantageous in the environment.

Now, the only thing left to find out is the spirit vision and the door openings. I can't check ritualistic magic about now due to lack of materials. Winston mused.

Without wasting any time, he sat cross legged on the ground and began to concentrate.

Winston roughly remembered the concepts of cogitation and how it helped concentrate and utilize spirituality. And being an Apprentice and Seer, he had the instinctive advantage while trying out such things.

Turning his mindscape blank, he imagined a perfectly round ball. A black sphere of unimaginable mass that strangely enough, curved inwards the the top, yet it didn't.

A non euclidean geometrical shape.

The first step of cogitation was to focus the mind and direct the energy seepage to a single point.

As he did so, a plethora of colours unfolded before his eyes. The staggering mosaic of unimaginably high colours that twisted and turned within his mind, like sardines in a school rendered him unable to think for a moment.

Focusing his spirituality, Winston overtook the task of a trigger. He smacked his left thumb and ring finger together over and over again, associating it with the activation and deactivation of spirit vision.

Then, finally, he opened his eyes like the Enlightened Buddha.

The stream of colours were swept in his eyes, drawn towards a gigantic figure that dwarfed any mega structure of the modern age by far. The large behemoth, the tremendously gigantic figure of a billion different colours blended together into the surroundings, making way for a dazzling sight unlike none other. The colours, like a million will o wisps rendered free to roam centered around, cuddled and bellowed to form a large "Door".

Winston's eyes shone with curiosity, however, he soon squashed the curiosity.

In such matters, curiosity was fatal. He had not yet judged, known or theorized about the things that might lie behind the large door. He could not yet hold the luxury of being reckless.

Forcibly tearing away his eyes from the door, he looked at his own figure. More specifically, the colors displayed by his astral projection and the ether body.

The ether body, the part of the soul most connected with the physical body exuded a deep white colour, almost making his entire body invisible. A sign of great health.

As for the astral projection, it exhibited the colors of green and blue, a sign of calm and peace and one of thought respectively.

Winston could not help but morph a small smile on his face.

This is... interesting.

For the moment, he decided to familiarize himself with the new skillset he had been provided.

~~~

A/N: I've been reading Cormac Mcarthy's Blood Meridian, so the vocabulary is somewhat in line with it's first chapter, along with the main character's backstory.