68 - Revelations

<AUTHOR'S NOTE>

I will be asleep by the time this chapter goes live. I sure hope there are no egregious typos.

<END AUTHOR'S NOTE>

“The main goal is compatibility, of course,” says Sam. “Regardless of any other factors, if you want to inherit the legacy, you need to be compatible with it.”

“Compatible how?” I ask

“Skill, affinity, temperament.” Sam counts on his finger for each one. “If you’re going to inherit the Legacy of the Phoenix, you don’t need to be talented, but you do need to be skilled. If you’re not skilled enough, you can’t inherit the legacy, so we needed to filter out people like that. And then, of course, if you are skilled, but you don’t have the affinities, there’s not a whole lot you can gain, so it needs to filter for that too. And then finally, the inheritors need to have the proper temperament. It wouldn’t do to hand out power to those undeserving of it.”

“So the three methods to pass the test deal with these three criteria?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Did you discuss arranging something like that before the Legacy was placed and finalized?”

“Clever, but I’m afraid I can’t answer that either.”

“What affinities did the Phoenix have?”

“Life and Transmutation. Same as you. But that’s not all there is to affinity.”

“You mean like the type of transmutation? So the inheritor needs to use fire?”

“I can’t answer that.”

I’m getting a little annoyed at hearing that line over and over again. I think I’m on the right track though here. I just wish I could get clearer answers, because with the way he says “I can’t answer that,” I genuinely can’t tell if it’s a yes or a no. I’m going to go with my gut and continue to assume that fire is the key to one of the methods to pass the first challenge. I’m not sure exactly how, but if I keep trying to prove my “affinity” by imitating her techniques, I’m bound to find something.

That will have to wait a bit though, because while I have Sam here, there’s a lot I can get out of him.

“What was the Phoenix like?” I ask.

“What was she like, or what is she like?” he responds.

“Both. What was she like when she made these challenges, and what is she like now?”

“When she made these challenges, she had just finished Climbing the Tower, and wanted to leave her Legacy behind as soon as possible. She was very similar to how you see her in the first challenge. More mature and experienced, of course, but still fiery and prideful. About 100,000 years later, she returned to update her Legacy after no one had been able to claim it.”

“It was more difficult before?”

“Technically. Though it was less about difficulty and more about how selective she was. At not much older than 400, she was very idealistic when she first made her Legacy, and did not think it through all that well. She was more or less looking for someone exactly like her to carry on her Legacy and walk roughly the same path as her. Her attitude when she returned was to find someone who was similar, but different. Able to use her Legacy, but not depend on it. To shape it into their own path.”

“I see,” I say. “And what exactly is her Legacy?”

“It’s a record left by her of her path, her techniques, and her insights.”

“And what is that path, what are those techniques and insights?”

“I’m afraid you already know what I’m going to say to that question.”

“Then what techniques was, or is, she known for?”

“During her Climb, she was known for her overwhelming firepower,” he says with an amused-looking smile. “She almost completely neglected her Life Affinity, focusing solely on fire and making as much of it as possible and making it as hot as possible. She named herself after the legendary firebird and wanted to embody it as much as possible. It was only on the later Floors that she decided to properly utilize her Life affinity, and by then, her reputation was more or less set in stone.”

“And what about her Life affinity?”

“Self healing, mostly, though she could heal others decently well, as most high level Life affinity users can. She had no notable Life affinity abilities, as far as the public is aware.”

“What about as far as you are aware?”

“I can’t answer that.”

So she has some notable Life affinity abilities, just not ones known to the public, and because they’re not known to the public, he won’t tell me about them. That’s a bit strange, since he was telling me about her temperament as he knew her earlier, but I suppose that was probably public information too.

“Hmmm,” I say. “There’s one thing that doesn’t quite make sense. Why did she go into hiding?”

“Hiding?” he says. “She’s not hiding.”

“But I heard she basically hasn’t been seen since she Ascended. Just based on the version of her in that challenge room, I don’t imagine she’d want to fade quietly into the background like she has now. Did something happen?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

He raises an eyebrow and gives me a look. I guess he can’t answer that. That’s somehow more frustrating than him not answering the questions about the challenges. The challenges are important, but only because I want to complete the Legacy to learn more about the Phoenix. And right now, Sam is my best source of information about her. If I could get answers about her from him, I wouldn’t even need the Legacy. Of course, I’d still want it, but I would be a little less desperate for it.

I’ve been dancing around the subject for a bit, since I wanted to figure out the challenges, but I guess since he’s being so accommodating, I might as well take advantage of it.

“Is the Phoenix still in the Tower?”

“Yes.”

“Are you certain?”

“Can you ever be certain about anything in life?”

“To the best of your knowledge, is she in this Tower at this very second.”

“To the best of my knowledge, yes. Where else would she be?”

“Has she ever left the Tower?”

“Left the Tower? Now why would she do that?”

“Is that a no?”

“Yes, that’s a no.”

I frown. That doesn’t make sense. I don’t know for certain, but I feel very strongly that I am connected with her somehow. But if she hasn’t left the Tower… that means my connection must have come from a time when I was in the Tower.

“Is it possible to leave the Tower?”

“Of course.”

“How?”

“I can’t answer that.”

Of course.

“But I can say that it isn’t possible until you’ve reached the top.”

Then that means that I reached the top in my first life. And then I chose to leave. Why? Who was I? And when? I remember a hundred thousand years or so of lives… but what if there were more before that? I do have flashes from my first life, but none of them felt like the Tower. Was the life I’ve been thinking of as my “first life” not actually my first life? How long have I been reincarnating?

“Which Ascendants have left the Tower?”

“I can’t answer that.”

Even without him, it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a list of Ascendants who haven’t been seen or heard from in many years. That Ascendant couple that Ganyu talked about on the first day would be two of them. What if I was one of them? What if I was the man…?

Or I’m none of them. Maybe a bored Ascendant left the Tower and decided to curse me. But why? How? When? Who? So many questions, and no answers. My only clue is the Phoenix, but she’s seeming less and less connected to me by the second. Unless…

“What about the Great Sage?”

“I don’t know,” says Sam. “What about the Great Sage?”

“Is he still within the Tower?”

“I can’t answer that. Your questions are straying further and further away from these challenges.”

“Am I not allowed to ask these things?”

“You are. I just find it intriguing. Why are you so interested in Ascendants leaving the Tower? Have you met one outside?”

“...Maybe.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t remember.”

“And you believed it to be the Phoenix?”

“...Something like that.”

“Well, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, as they say on your world, but I am quite close with the Phoenix and I can say with reasonable confidence that she has not left the Tower.”

“I see…” I say.

Well, that route was a bit of a bust, but I still learned a lot. I am now 100% certain that I am somehow connected to at least one Ascendant. Whether I am that Ascendant, or I merely interacted with them, I don’t know, but it’s clear that I have some connection. I also know that I am not the Phoenix, and that if I am related to her, it was because I was an Ascendant, and I knew her before I left the Tower.

“Is that all the questions you have?” asks Sam.

“No,” I say. 

It was most of them, or at least most of the ones worth asking right now while I’m in a time crunch. There’s still one last thing I’d like to know.

“How do you know the Phoenix?”

He puts a hand to his chin and takes on a contemplative look for a few seconds.

“It’s not something I am at liberty to share freely…” he starts. “But she calls me ‘Uncle.’”

“...You’re Uncle Sam?”

“Only to her.”

“I see. That’s all I had for now then.”

“Great!” he says. “If you have anything else, feel free to call for me again. See ya!”

I stand still, thinking about myself and my past for a few seconds before I shake my head to clear it. I can think about all that more later. After I clear the challenges and find out more about the Phoenix through her Legacy. For now, I just need to focus on passing this first challenge.

The information I got from Sam about the compatibility is useful, but I think the most important tidbit was when he mentioned how the Phoenix came back and updated the challenges. He said that she had changed how they worked so that rather than looking for a perfect replica of herself, the challenges would look for someone who could take her Legacy and build upon it and make it their own. While I don’t think my approach of imitating her techniques was necessarily wrong, I also think that this new information adds some new nuance.

Rather than a perfect imitation, I should be aiming for a perfect integration. Copy her, but in a way that fits my own style, and that I can continue using on my own after this. That should be much easier than imitation, at least for the normal attacks. For that absorption though… I’ll need to think more about that. I had some vague suspicions before, but after interacting with this construct and confirming with Sam, I’m almost 100% certain that the Phoenix was not reincarnated, meaning that at most, she got some insight from her father, the Great Sage. However, even if she did, as a mere 2 star, her understanding wouldn’t be that deep, so it should still be within my grasp.

I start going through some motions, using fire-attributed oum for attacks as I think deeply about how her absorption would work. She said that all fire was under her command, and Sam reiterated that, making me think it’s a hint, but I’m still not sure how. And it’s hard to really practice that, since the construct is too powerful, and I have no one else to throw fire oum at me. Though she did say “all fire,” not “all fire oum.” 

Hmmm…

“Sam,” I call.

“Present!” he says, popping into existence right beside me.

“This suite has air filtration, right?”

“The best. Why?”

“Can I have the bed back?”