The Arrow slipped free of the hook and landed cleanly in Anthony's palm.
He turned it over in his hand, studying its intricately wrought structure — and at the same moment, the chat group panel floating before him helpfully displayed its full stat entry.
[Arrow · The Second]
[Effect: When pierced into a suitable host, this Arrow will awaken a Stand within the target, transforming them into a Stand User.]
[Description: Among the six Arrows in existence, this one is comparatively ordinary. Precisely because of that ordinariness, however, the criteria for Stand User selection may be somewhat more lenient, and the results of the awakening are generally safer.]
[Recycle Value: 10,900 Points.]
Anthony skimmed the description with a quick glance, then picked up the Arrow — and let out a quiet, heartfelt sigh of relief.
He'd been right all along. Metaphysical chumming works.
No skunking. Not today.
Fishing up something with a base drop rate of 0.2% this quickly was, by any honest measure, something worth being genuinely grateful for. And as for what came next — well, there wasn't any question about that at all.
In that same instant, Anthony picked up the Arrow without a moment's hesitation and jabbed it into his own soul-state arm.
Soul energy immediately began bleeding outward, leaking into the air around him. Anthony, unperturbed, settled back and waited with patient calm.
He still needed to confirm one thing: whether or not he even qualified to become a Stand User. Not that it worried him overmuch — if the answer turned out to be no, he could always recycle the Arrow and pocket ten thousand Points for his trouble.
That said, Anthony was fairly confident that of all the people in the world who might fail to qualify, he was the single least likely candidate.
Yes, his identity had caused him no shortage of headaches over the years. But in moments like this, it was exactly that identity he could fall back on — because he was a geist of the Primordial River.
Geist might sound like a minor title. But location mattered enormously, didn't it?
This was the Primordial River — the original river that linked all worlds together, a region of extraordinarily high metaphysical standing. Being a geist here was roughly analogous to landing a civil service position in one of the country's top-tier cities. The kind of appointment that carried genuine weight.
If a geist of this caliber couldn't awaken a Stand, Anthony genuinely could not imagine who could.
And sure enough — after the Arrow pierced him, accompanied by that faint, leaking sensation of soul energy, Anthony felt something else rise within him. Something welling up from the depths of his own consciousness, unbidden and unmistakable.
It was the same feeling as when [The Angler] had first awakened. Like reaching out a hand and finding a power already waiting there. An extension of himself, as natural as a limb.
He followed the feeling. He called out to it.
And then he stared, completely baffled, at the fishing rod that had just materialized in his hand.
...Bro.
Why is it you again?
Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
Anthony looked at the fishing rod in his hand and felt his brain go momentarily offline. Setting aside the color — this one was violet — the thing looked absolutely identical to the rod The Angler had originally given him. Down to the last detail.
Wait. Hold on.
Identical?
Anthony blinked — and then, as though something had clicked, quickly reopened the Ability Enhancement panel.
He navigated to The Angler's ability tree — and found an upgrade he vaguely remembered seeing once before.
[The Angler's Tolerance]
[Effect: Reinforces your fishing rod, raising the limit of physical fishing rods that can be fused into it, allowing your rod to additionally absorb one more physical fishing rod into your soul.]
[Enhancement Cost: 1,000 Points.]
Hm.
The thought arrived slowly, then all at once: would his Stand count as something within the fusion range?
Anthony gave the back of his head a thoughtful pat — and then, with a broad sweep of his hand and barely any deliberation at all, spent the Points.
[1,000 Points consumed. Ability · The Angler's Tolerance has been unlocked.]
[A fishing rod with exceptionally high compatibility with this ability has been detected... This fishing rod is an unnamed Stand. Do you wish to fuse it with The Angler ability?]
Holy — it actually works!
Anthony's eyes lit up. His rational mind offered a simple verdict: he'd spent 1,000 Points, so those 1,000 Points had better have a reason behind them. And fusing a Stand into The Angler would almost certainly boost the Stand's power to some degree.
He hit confirm without a second thought.
The fully silver-white fishing rod shimmered into existence before him. A flash of light swept across it — and the two instinct-like sensations that had coexisted within him blended seamlessly into one. The two rods merged back into a single rod, though this time, faint violet markings traced themselves along its surface.
[Unnamed Stand has been fused with The Angler.]
[Pre-existing sub-ability: The Angler's Glass Rod has been enhanced.]
[Effect change: The Angler's Glass Rod will now grant +2 Affinity Bond levels.]
[New sub-ability added: Dimensional Fishing.]
[Dimensional Fishing]
[Effect: You may engage in Dimensional Fishing. During Dimensional Fishing, an Angler Individual will be generated and treated as a Stand derivative under your command. The Angler Individual is capable of free movement, and will act according to your directives.]
[Current Angler Individual cap: 1.]
Seeing his existing ability receive an upgrade, Anthony's face broke into a grin. The 1,000 Points had absolutely been worth it.
Then he turned his attention to Dimensional Fishing — and immediately understood. This had to be the Stand's original ability.
After a brief study of the skill description, he got the general picture.
Put simply: he could generate a remote-controlled unit — an Angler Individual — and dispatch it to another world by casting a line. Once there, the Individual could carry out operations on his behalf: gathering resources, engaging enemies, whatever the situation called for.
The reason he mentally labelled it a 'remote-controlled unit' was simple: the thing had no independent cognition. It could only execute relatively straightforward instructions.
Even so, Anthony's mind was already blazing through a dozen possible combinations and applications for [Dimensional Fishing]...
He was just about to open his panel and start mapping out exactly how many tricks he could squeeze out of this ability — when the chat group lit up with a new notification, stopping him cold.
[A newly acquired ability has been detected with extremely high compatibility with your Soul Ability Tree.]
[Due to this new ability, your Soul Ability Tree has undergone a qualitative transformation.]
[A number of enhancements along the 'Spirituality Path' have been unlocked. You may now review the prerequisites and upgrade requirements for 'Spirituality Path' abilities.]
So the Stand awakening had elevated his soul by a full tier — and cleared a significant number of prerequisite conditions in the process. Enough that the chat group had judged him ready to begin investing in Spirituality Path abilities.
Anthony nodded slowly, turning that over in his mind — and then his eyes dropped to the line below, and he felt them go slightly wide.
[A Personal Main Storyline Mission is now being issued to you.]
[Personal Main Storyline Mission · Confirm the Path]
[Mission Requirement: Unlock and commit to a Spirituality Path ability. No restrictions on which Spirituality Path is chosen.]
[Mission Reward: 5,000 Points.]
The moment he read it, every alarm bell Anthony possessed went off at once.
Something is wrong.
In all his time with the chat group, he had never once seen it issue a Main Storyline Mission for something as trivial as unlocking an ability. That simply did not happen.
Which meant something was buried in here. Something the chat group very much wanted him to walk into.
The realization made Anthony's expression go carefully, deliberately serious.
Just what exactly is this Spirituality Path ability?
____
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