Jack was still invisible. He moved to a nearby house. Absent-mindedly, he touched its glass window. [Bloody Mary's Mirror World] was activated.
Jack entered his Mirror Room once more. He did it all automatically. His mind was still somewhere else.
"Jolly… nah. Raging… possible." Eerie whisperings echoed in the chamber as he muttered those words. Jack didn't control his [Banshee's Requiem]. "Weeping… gods, no. Amorous... not in the form of specter. Crazy… too risky. Mysterious… Hmm."
He paused, hovering in the middle of the room. "Mysterious… That could work."
Jack closed his eyes, picturing the potential. He didn't need sheer power for his ghost form. He could use draugr form for that. So, what was the greatest feature of his ghost form?
Stealth. That was it. Among the six choices, the one with the greatest potential for enhancing stealth would be the Mysterious Specter. Being mysterious should make him even harder to detect, shouldn't it?
What else could it do? Maybe it would enhance his manipulation of nightmares. Or perhaps, it would grant him access to strange incomprehensible abilities. Anything would be fine.
Jack continued contemplating.
The other evolution options seemed limiting. Putting him into a risky and obvious placement. Mysterious Specter, on the other hand, left the door open. It promised possibilities he might not have even considered.
But that was just his assumption from the names. He only had those to work after all. The system wouldn't tell him more about the choices.
'Let's just choose Mysterious Scepter. Besides,' he thought. A flicker of his old, sarcastic self returned. 'I'm already pretty damn mysterious, if I do say so myself. Might as well leap into it.'
He looked at the notification, still floating on air in front of his vision. He mentally selected: [MYSTERIOUS SPECTER].
Jack look in the mirror. The blue glow appeared from his now-visible body. It gradually intensified. Before finally it engulfed him in a swirling vortex of spectral energy.
He felt a strange sensation. It was like his very essence was being re-woven. He had become… something more.
The process was quite long. But it was not painful like in the stories. Well, he didn't have nerve sensor to feel pain in the first place.
Anyway. It was almost two hours later that the light subsided. Leaving him floating in the bright Mirror Room.
He looked at his reflection in the only mirror in the room. It was a pale spectral ghost of... a young man with stage-magician outfit? A top hat, plain full-faced mask, wing-collared shirt, tailcoat, gloves...
Despite still being spectral, Jack felt that his form seemed… sharper. More defined. Yet, more secretive at the same time.
Jack also noticed the difference in the spectral glow. Previously, his ghost form emitted faint pale blue glow. Now, the glow was purplish and a little stronger in intensity.
Suddenly, his internal system chimed again. System Notification appeared once more before his eyes.
[RACIAL EVOLUTION DETECTED!]
[ADJUSTING POWER. EVOLVING THREE SUITABLE TRAITS!]
[NIGHTMARE SHAPESHIFT] INTO [MYSTERIOUS DREAM]
[BANSHEE'S REQUIEMS] INTO [MYSTERIOUS LULLABY]
[POLTERGEIST'S TELEKINESIS] INTO [MYSTERIOUS CONTROL]
"No! My precious skills!" Jack let out an unwilling shout. But then...
He paused. He realized something incredible. He could talk now. Without using [Banshee's Requiems]. Wait! He didn't have that skill anymore.
Jack activated his Information Panel. His current status immediately appeared before his eyes.
[CHARACTER STATUS]
[Name: Jack Night]
[Incarnation Type: Spirit]
[Persona: Faceless Jack]
[Race: Mysterious Specter]
[Archetype: Supernatural Entity]
[Attributes: Physique (00) Mysticism (78) Passion (60) Essence (99)]
[Karma: Neutral]
[System Sight Modes: Information Panel; Fear Detection; Aura Detection]
[Supernatural Traits: Mysterious Dream; Mysterious Lullaby; Mysterious Control; Bloody Mary's Mirror World; Incarnation Shift]
[Permanent Traits: Draugr's Combat Instinct; Mysterious Nature]
[Personal Artifact: Grim Reaper Scythe, Artifact Seeds (6)]
Jack immediately checked his evolved skills.
[Mysterious Dream: The ability to generate any type of enhanced visual illusion. It includes good dreams or nightmares.]
Jack grinned behind his mask. Great! He could still create nightmares. And now... he could also create dreams, and other types of illusion. And they were enhanced. That should mean that they were more powerful. Harder to resist.
Next...
[Mysterious Lullaby: The ability to generate any type of sounds imaginable by the host. It ranges from music, impersonated voices, to sound effects. The generated sound can be imbued with magic power that easily takes the listeners to dreaming state.]
This one was also enhanced. Impersonating others' voice? Damn. That would be a great way to create chaos. Jack again wished he had chosen Domain of Anarchy as his power source.
What made Jack extremely happy was that this {Mysterious Lullaby] could take the targets to a dreaming state. It was practically a heavenly match for the previous [Mysterious Dream].
Then...
[Mysterious Control: The ability to move and control objects through sheer willpower. The host's focus and willpower affect the result of the control attempt. Objects that can be controlled no longer limited to solid objects, but can include liquid, gas, and plasma.]
The hell? Jack opened his mouth wide behind his mask. This one was now overpowered as hell.
Able to control liquid? Didn't that mean he could control the target's blood? And gas? Oxygen was gas. He could suffocate the target? And plasma? Fire was plasma right?
He knew that it would not be easy to master this skill. But its potential power when it had been fully developed would be... incredible.
Jack checked the other new information in the status.
[Race: Mysterious Specter. It is an entity woven from mysteries and secrets, a phantom veiled in enigma. It is a master of deception and misdirection. Its existence is a paradox, a presence defined by its absence, a power amplified by its unseen hand. It is a spirit that has mastered the art of avoidance, slipping between realities and evading even mystical senses and divination.]
His guess was correct. This race was especially powerful in stealth. The art of avoidance. Ability to evade mystical senses. And divination. Jackpot!
He looked at the attributes. Those of the formless ghost used to be...
[Attributes: Physique (00) Mysticism (42) Passion (56) Essence (99)]
But, now, as a Mysterious Specter, his attributes were...
[Attributes: Physique (00) Mysticism (78) Passion (60) Essence (99)]
There was a drastic increase of [Attribute: Mysticism]. He knew that the average attributes would be between 30 to 39. It had already above average previously. Now, it had rocketed into extremely strong.
He needed to find a way to learn Mystic Arts. It would be a waste of his mysticism attribute otherwise.
His [Attribute: Passion] also increased. But it was not that much. Still lower compared to the one possessed by his draugr form.
Jack looked at the other change in his status panel. There was a new category. Permanent Traits. This should be similar to passive skills.
His [Draugr's Combat Instinct] was now in this category. And he had new entry...
[Permanent Trait: Mysterious Nature]. He quickly checked its description.
[Permanent Trait: Mysterious Nature. An enigmatic attribute that cloaks the host in an aura of complete unknowability. This trait enhances stealth and renders the host undetectable by any form of divination, scrying, or magical analysis.]
It was the thing that made him able to evade mystical senses and divination. Great!
Jack looked at his status panel again. He was looking for anything that needed to be checked. His sight quickly locked on: [Persona: Faceless Jack].
He was no longer faceless ghost. Well, he was masked now, but the persona didn't seem to fit anymore. Could he changed it?
Suddenly, a different panel appeared in Jack's vision:
[The Persona automatically assigned for the Mysterious Specter Incarnation is: Faceless Jack. Does the host want to change it?]
Yes. Jack decisively replied. 'Jack Mystery! That will be the identity of this specter,' he commanded. The information panel shifted. It now showed:
[Persona: Jack Mystery]
He checked his status panel once more and found no more concern. Now, what should he do?
The answer immediately came to his mind. Library. His first priority should be trying to find a library. He needed more knowledge about transcendence. And he needed to learn mystic arts.
...
Ironpile Town was a damned miserable smog-choked mining town. But it had one redeeming quality: the library. Its library was, surprisingly, much bigger than that of Highcliff Town.
It was pretty unexpected. Highcliff looked much more civilized and educated. Ironpile, on the other hand, seemed too 'industrial' to be associated with books and library.
It was a great thing for Jack though. He haunted the place every night after the last gas lamp flickered out.
He wasn't exactly browsing in human way. It was more like phasing through shelves, pulling books, and devouring the text with his spectral eyes. He didn't need to breathe. He didn't need to sleep. He just needed answers.
He was looking for anything that could explain the Highcliff Town debacle. The girl called as the Incomplete Incarnation of the Goddess. The angel from the Church of Justice. The Duchess. The Cardinal...
He needed to understand power in this twisted world. He needed to know the rules of the game, before he got squashed like a bug.
Days bled into nights. He sifted through dusty tomes on folklore, half-assed alchemical recipes, and the ramblings of lunatic cultists. They were mostly crap.
Then, he found them. Tucked away behind a shelf of local mining regulations. A set of seven leather-bound books. Their titles were embossed in faded silver lettering. Encyclopedia of Mystic Arts.
Jack felt a tug of something mystical from the book. It seemed like a vibration in the air around them. This was it.
He spent the next week locked in the library after hours. A ghostly scholar immersed in forbidden knowledge. He learned things. Many things.
Deities were categorized like baseball cards in the encyclopedia. The orthodox three. The fallen deities. The primordial ones... The book mentioned their origin myths, preferred sacrifices, and known powers.
Rituals were explained in excruciating detail. It mentioned the mundane luck blessing, by lighting candles in a specific order. To the horrifying sacrifice, involving… things that sane people didn't want to know.
He learned about cantrips. Useful low-powered spells that only required intense focus and determination.
It was something that anyone in this world could use. Had they been willing to practice for tens of hours just to lit up tiny spark of fire, or blow a puff of air with their mind.
He learned that runes were more than just pretty symbols in this world. They carried power. They were keys to manipulating reality. He even learned how to use runes to make his own grimoire. A prospect he found morbidly fascinating.
But the real gold was in the section on power ranking. Apparently, the transcendent entities in this world had a goddamn power scale.