The Medallion

10 chapters in my pat.reon. Pat.reon.com/Saintbarbido.

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(Brian's P.O.V)

The door opened without assistance, reminding me of typical horror movies. I stepped through and felt a formation scan my body. A feeling of haziness almost overcame my senses but I easily pushed through. Although the temple was small on the outside, it looked spacious on the inside. That must have been because of how bare it actually was. 

There was a shrine at the far end and banners of yellow paper on the sides most likely telling the story of the Medallions. I didn't pay that any heed or attention. I was running on borrowed time. 

Only two people were present. A monk who had a stern look on his face, looking as if he wanted to curse me and my next 10 generations and a young boy, barely 8 who was meditating before the shrine. We stared at each other for a minute before I got tired of the silence.

"I expected a larger welcoming party."

"Leave this place. You're trying to mess with forces you cannot understand!"

The adult monk begun and I surpressed the urge to roll my eyes.

I turned my attention to Jai, the kid chosen on this thousand year mark to be the keeper of the medallion.

"Hey there. I'm sorry for barging in like this but I have a question."

He looked confused for a bit before he hesitantly nodded.

"The medallion. It activates every thousand years, correct? Why? Does it do it for laughs? Is it perhaps bored and wants some excitement? Why does it choose someone every single millennia without fail or consideration of the blood spilled due to people fighting over it? Here's what I think…it wants to be used."

I said that as I walked closer. A spot on the boy's chest was glowing with untold power.

"I've gone through ancient texts and here's what I understood. The medallion is one of the last remaining artefacts from the era of cultivators, probably trillions of years ago. It was meant as a way for the ordinary man to ascend but due to the decline of qi in the air, the conditions to activate it became stringent. A thousand years for it to replenish it's total energy in order to be used again. Now my question is this…can you activate it now?"

I knelt before the young boy. The monk was surprisingly silent through out the conversation. My heart was hammering in my chest however and depending on the boy's answer, Peter's revival would either become as easy as ABC or I would have to go for plan b. Plan b was scary. The boy looked into my eyes and despite the fact that I was intruding, hostile and demanding, I saw pity in his eyes. He shook his head.

A draw of breath. 

"Damn."

The word escaped my mouth. There's got a be a way. 

"It's…my brother. I swear to you, I'm not trying to use the medallion for myself. Can you at least revive one person with it. I'll… I'll do anything."

I stammered out, my head was bowed and my eyes ernest. He shook his head again then I felt his little hand pat my head and I felt like laughing. Here I was, Valiant, hero of New York and I was being comforted by a boy not even in his teens.

"Thanks."

I said softly.

He smiled a bit and reached into his chest. His small fingers grasped the string holding the medallion and he pulled it out. The huge coin like artefact appeared on his palm and he grabbed my hand and placed the medallion on it. I was surprised. Plan b just became easier. I had thought it would take a whole lot more to convince them to let me borrow the medallion but he he was handing it over without me even asking.

"Why?"

I asked him and the monk watching our interaction was the one who answered.

"Despite your many faults, you're yet to hurt an innocent. The order of the medallion are keepers put in place not to refuse those who seek the medallion's power but to refuse those who would use that power to bring about world domination. Jai, he trusts you. Go and do what you need to do but return the Medallion once you're done. He…believes you have a plan to use it even if it's yet to be activated."

I looked at the kid in amazement. This boy…

I closed my palm on the medallion and felt it's unnatural warmth. This favor…I wouldn't refuse it. Or forget it.

"Thank you. Truly. I'll be back once I'm done."

I turned on my heels still surprised at the turn of events. I'd come here expecting a fight just to get my hands on the medallion but instead they had added it to me with barely any effort from my side. Only telling me to return it once I was done!

Of course there was the little problem of the medallion not being fully activated due to the thousand years not being over. The medallion was supposed to activate next year where Jackie Chan would fight the villain of the story over possession of the medallion. This meant I couldn't use it to revive Peter and by the time it activated he would already be gone forever. 

Luckily, I had planned ahead. I settled in a park somewhere, surrounded by trees and nature. The city was further away so I was free of disturbance. The energy contained in the medallion was immense. Enough to advance me no less than 3 realms if I still had my cultivation. That briefly stung. 

Anyway, it would have been a huge help towards becoming stronger. But I still don't regret doing what I did. I got ahold of that energy and started consuming it. Although I had lost the little cultivation I'd had, my essence of a cultivator still remained and I used that to refine that energy and sent it all to my mind. 

My eyes gained a glow and I started seeing the energy pathways in my body. I got a better sense of how ki was being produced and how my cells were channeling that energy in a plethora of ways. With enough practice I could get to the point where I used ki for reinforcement, further increasing my already scary strong physical strength and speed. 

The energy from the medallion was funnelled into the psionic ball of mental energy in my mind. I felt my awareness expand crazily. My vision was opened even further now and I understood what Lex Luthor meant in All star Superman when he said, we're all we've got. I saw connections. Gravity interacting with everything. My sight pierced into the visual spectrum and I brought my hand up…ki left my hands and nudged the atoms and particles making up the world. 

The space at my front was twisted as I shortened the spatial distance between my fingers and a leaf that was dropping from the tree branches above me. The leaf fell to my palm. I enlarged the space the leaf was occupying and it increased in size.

If I just press on this...twist a little...before my eyes the leaf caught on fire instantly and burned to ash. The ash drifted in the air around me. A simple application of the power I had. Psionics were incredibly powerful but it would probably never be my main focus. It wouldn't be smart not to be an expert though. I had the potential. A little bit of time spent and I could cover my mental protection and become pretty versatile. 

Plus who doesn't wanna crush things with pure mental strength like Tatsumaki?

I felt like I could do anything but I stopped. If I had gone for a general enhancement to my psionic power then I could open up the road to psychokinesis and other powers but that wouldn't help me in bringing Peter back. 

I sent my will towards my mental energy and actualized the ability that I wanted. Instantly I felt a slot get filled in my mind. There wasn't any other spectacle but I knew that the ability had taken hold. I then became judicious in my efforts to siphon the remaining energy from the medallion. 

The Psionic ball started started rotating in place, picking up speed the more energy I sent to it. The energy was then sent to the ability I had just created, evolving it from its basic skill to something else. 

I entered a trance. Using every speck of energy at my disposal and ensuring that none of that energy spilled out. 1 hour later and I was done.

'Interface.'

[Name: Brian Parker]

Cultivation level: N/A

Life force energy: 90

Body strength: Superhuman.

Soul strength: N/A

Mental strength: High Psionic.

Special skills: Echo.

                         Danger Sense.

                         Life force manipulation.

                         True Reveal - Illusions become useless to your gaze and disguises even of the divine and cosmic origin are completely nullified. Higher level entities may detect your sight and retaliate.

I finally had it. True Reveal. It was going to be crucial to my next step. Despite how powerful of a skill it was, I wasn't gonna use it a lot though. The saying stare into the void long enough and it stares back never rang truer than now. I didn't want to get zapped out of existence for seeing Zeus bang Hera in mount Olympus.

But first, I returned the medallion which was devoid of It's energy to the temple and I was now standing on a hill overlooking a rice farm. The view was really beautiful. I had been in Asia before but it had mostly been during my tournaments. Rarely had I found time to just tour the place.

I stopped my train of thought, knowing I was trying to distract myself from what I was about to do. Already in a meditative position, I calmed my racing heart and worries that this wasn't going to work then looked up at the sky. True Reveal activated and this time, I gasped as the world turned gray. 

Criss - crossing lines of power were running through the world, the esoteric energy of possibility I hadn't seen before but felt was now visible to my sight. I was shocked at just how connected the energy was to everything. In particular, I was a hub for the energy, pulsing with it with every breath I took. It was beautiful. 

I then looked up at the sky, ignoring the blank spots in reality that I was sure were ghosts, horrifying creatures and mystical phenomenal searching for what or rather who I wanted to see. I made contact with his eyes and he drew back in shock.

"Watcher Uatu... I've come to bargain."