Wish upon the Stars (Original Superhero cultivation sci fi litrpg)

[Malcolm Tent]

The water treatment plant wasn't too far away, and the courier ran me over there pretty quickly. Once I arrived he filled me in on exactly what I needed to do, and once that was done, he turned and immediately left, abandoning me to face the large, grim looking building that housed the water filtration mechanisms for Moment City.

Despite wanting to assess what these tasks were like before committing to a large scale operation, I wasn't stupid enough to insist on doing this on my own when I had help. I reached out for a few demons, namely Zagan, Azazel, Brad, and Sammael.

Sam glowered at me. "Really?" said my prideful angelic form. "Cleaning water filters? You couldn't have picked something more…interesting?"

"I'll be sure to find you something exciting when we're done," I said mildly. "Now come on, I want to see what the water treatment here is actually like. I admit I'm pretty curious. Do fragments even NEED treated water? I mean it probably helps with the taste. But I kind of figured they'd use like purification enchantments or something, not filters."

Azazel chimed in with interest. "It's certainly a fascinating bit of infrastructure. I imagine the trace elements in water at this rank would be…unique."

"Speaking of unique elements," I said as I turned to Brad. "Its come to my attention that there are in fact, unique attributes, somewhat like elements themselves, present in some unusual abilities, skills, or items. Things like my Cosmic Flame. I figured you must have one to explain how you were able to make a pit in the Void road, but I can't think of what it is. Any ideas?"

"An element I specialize in?" Brad said casually. "If I specialized in one element, I suppose I would have to say it's the element of SURPRISE!" He whirled and lashed out at Sam with a punch, the angelic demon rolling his eyes and ducking the blow before punching him in the throat. Brad went down gagging, clutching his windpipe, and the rest of us had to hold back our snickers.

"Nope, don't think that's it," I said dryly. "But I'm glad to see you're taking your training seriously. That punch was almost competent."

Sam snorted at me. "Like you're much better. You can barely throw a proper punch. And even that's only because you've incarnated so many of us and we've all spent our lives in combat. Plus Heavy Hands boosts you a little bit passively."

"I don't need to punch people," I sniffed loftily. "I'm a man of sophistication. I hit them with my big stick."

That got a collective eyeroll from the others as we arrived at the door to the treatment plant. "So, everyone remember the plan?" I said grimly. "We find the filters, cleanse them, and most importantly, don't die."

Oz snorted at that. "I still can't believe that the filtered refuse condenses into actual monsters."

"Muck Ghouls," I said with a grin. "They apparently bite, and they're extremely venomous. So watch your asses. I'll be fine inside the seal, but all of you are much more exposed. Zagan can heal you but it'll still HURT, so watch out."

Grinning, I stepped through the door, staff up and at the ready. The inside of the building was large and empty. It was also creepy. Unlike most Ascendant buildings though, the treatment plant wasn't INTENTIONALLY creepy. The disturbing vibe I was getting wasn't because of macabre furniture or special design choices. Instead, it was more…intrinsic. This was a dank, rotting place, and it FELT like one.

It was like we were talking through the hollowed out corpse of some great beast, long since rotted away to hard bone and tough leathery hide. "Zagan," I said quietly as I looked around for threats. "I think maybe you should start early."

With a slight flex of will I imbued the skill boost ability from my staff into the purifying demon, watching him climb into A-rank smoothly from one breath to the next. His flickering green hair cast eerie shadows across the wall as he grinned fiercely, raising his hands and sending bursts of emerald fire shooting out like geysers at the nearest wall.

Rather than catch fire, or at least physical fire, the flames hit the wall like water in a pan full of hot oil. There was a loud hiss, somewhere between steam and scream, and the strange sensation seemed to attempt to pull away from us.

Unfortunately for it, that wasn't really possible, and Zagan didn't give it time to try to adapt. He hosed down the walls and floors with purifying flame, burning away grime both spiritual and physical and leaving nothing but sparkly clean stone behind. "Well, we know it works on the walls at least. Sam, Oz, if you could guard Zagan as he scours this place, Brad and I have our own business to attend to here. I want to test his abilities a bit."

They all nodded, and Brad and I split off to head in the opposite direction from where they were making their way deeper into the building. "So, what is this test you want to do?" he asked as he jogged to keep pace. "Because this doesn't seem like the kind of place where I'd come in handy."

"You'd be surprised," I grinned. "While this has been an active task for a long time, purification powers are pretty rare. For the most part, the people who take this job muck the filters by hand and transport the filth to specially prepared holes dug in the back. Apparently THOSE are a totally separate task, and one that hasn't been done in centuries. There's a standing bounty for anyone who manages to clear the impacted sediment, which at this point is basically stone. A-rank stone. Very DENSE A-rank stone."

His eyes lit up. "So you're hoping I can use my powers to clean out the pits? Did you take the bounty?"

"I didn't," I said easily. "I considered it, but I don't know how easy this will be for you. Might not even be possible. Plus its been available for hundreds of years. I'm sure it'll still be on the table when we're done."

I'd actually only had the idea as the courier was leaving. I hadn't known about the deposits when I originally took the task, because I'd specifically asked for ones that were accomplishable, and that one wasn't supposed to be. Luckily, Brad was a cheating cheater who cheated, and I was PRETTY sure he would be able to cleanse the sediment, even if it might take him a while. At the very least, he should be able to open it up a bit to give Zagan some leverage on the problem when he finished with the others.

When we reached the smaller tunnel leading out into the outbuilding where the sediment pits were stored, I winced a bit as we entered. The grimy aura from inside was MUCH stronger here. I glanced around cautiously, trying to spot any Muck Ghouls, but it appeared even they didn't like being back here. I wasn't shocked, this place was unpleasant even for me. I activated Leviathan just to be safe, because the rot here was affecting me on a spiritual level.

Surprisingly, Brad seemed fine. He didn't look like he even noticed. In fact, he seemed to be drawing in the aura subconsciously, the dark energy flowing into him like…well, like a pit.

A pit like the ones we came here for. Though pit was something of a misnomer in this case. Rather, they looked like huge stone pools for swimming, only deeper and full of dark material. The top layer was liquid, though thick and disgusting, but I could see beneath it as the shifting grey black substance allowed light to pass through, and beneath it was just…rock. Dark rock that seemed to almost suck up the light.

"Alright Brad," I said as I accessed my staff and pushed him up a tier. Sadly, Brad was only at tier 7, having ranked up fairly recently from his training, so I could only push him to B-rank. Still, given his unusual effectiveness, B-rank Brad vs A-rank pit was a bet I was willing to take. "See what you can do. Make a hole."

He frowned down at the nearest pool. "I don't think that's necessary," He said slowly. "Let me try something." He focused hard, eyes narrowing, and there was a sort of…shimmer along the top of the pool. The liquid vanished, and I knelt down to get a closer look at the dark stone. I had to do a little calculation but sure enough. "An inch," I said with a grin. "You took an inch off the top. I take it you used the current pool as a frame or something?"

He nodded eagerly. "I did. It was less that I created a pit and more that I sort of…imbued this one with my nature. Pits are empty and consume, and so this one does the same. An inch isn't much, but I bet I can do more next time. I just need to practice."

I was fascinated, and gestured back to the pool. "Alright, give it a shot. See what you can do."

Closing his eyes, he furrowed his brow, looking more serious than I think I'd ever seen him. Gritting his teeth, he spat out a breath like he was lifting something indescribably heavy, and that same ripple came over the pool again. This time, without the liquid, I was able to actually observe the stone being consumed, sinking into the depths of the pool…from the bottom.

"Huh," I said slowly. "When the liquid vanished I assumed you were taking it off the top. I wonder where it went if it's sinking in?"

"I skimmed a bit off the top to start," he said with a shrug. "But having it sink in is more natural. That's why there's more like four or five inches missing this time. It's more in tune with what a pit actually is. Hold on, I think I can do better. Let me just…"

With a groan that ripped from his throat like a wounded water buffalo, he shoved all his will against the pit, and I watched in shock as the dark stone sank another FOOT, exposing the clean sides of the pool. Gasping, Brad staggered, only remaining upright because I had caught him before he fell. "Whoa there, you ok?" He nodded tiredly, and I decided to help, calling on my Life Nova. Burning the life nova bloodline to increase the power, I flooded him with energizing fire. He gasped as the power filled him back up, his eyes blazing green.

"I'm good," he answered my question. "I'm amazing! I feel like I could punch out the sun."

I raised an eyebrow. "I mean…you shouldn't. Even if you could. We use that. Don't say shit like that, it makes me not want to help you get stronger."

He pouted at me childishly. "Its a figure of speech. I wouldn't do that."

I just laughed at his sulky expression before gesturing back to the pit. "Ok, so how many more of those do you have in you before you need another refill? Because at this rate we might manage to finish all the pools in an hour or two."

Cracking his neck, he glared down at the pool below us, a steely look on his face. "I can do it another three or four times. I know I can. There's about fifteen feet left in the pool, so I'll need five refills at this rate…but I won't stay at this rate. I can get better at this. I know I can. I just need more practice."

"Then get to it," I told him with a laugh. "We have plenty here for you to practice on. Let's see how good you can get at this." Based on his wolfish grin, he was just as excited to see that as I was. The kid was really coming along.

 

[Hyperion47]

Brad vanishing stuff sounds like destruction or annihilation.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We finished the job in the next few hours, as expected. On top of the twenty credits for the original task, we'd earned an extra hundred once we turned in the bounty. In one afternoon I had gone from out of credits to twenty percent richer than I had been when I first started, and it made it clear that my Domain had SERIOUS potential in terms of credit gain.

Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to double down on some good old fashioned moneymaking, I had other things to worry about at the moment. After a good night's sleep (and stockpiling my scrolls in the morning), I realized that I had reached the third day of my stay, which meant it was finally time for me to head out to Common City and meet up with everyone.

It was honestly…nice. Leaving my friends and family before to go to the Chasm had been kind of depressing after a while. I was able to handle it, of course, but I'd missed them. I kind of assumed the same thing would happen here, but I'd barely had TIME to miss anyone, and more than that, I'd been kept so intellectually engaged by this place in the time I did have I wasn't even thinking about them.

This was what I imagine being at an actual academy would have been like back on Callus, if we hadn't completely blown off all the academic portions of the experience.

To my complete lack of surprise, I wasn't alone on this little trip. Sorwen had arrived in the morning with coffee and a spring in her step, excited to follow along to common city to meet with all my friends. She was so cheerful and upbeat about it I couldn't bring myself to say no, so after an awkward conversation, I just agreed and headed off in the direction everyone was going to find the exit.

It wasn't too hard to find, since apparently they'd decided to label the place. At the end of the city cavern there was a small chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Set into the cavern floor was some kind of ivory mosaic set with gemstone portraits of people I mostly didn't recognize, but who were probably the deans based on the two that I did.

When we stepped onto the platform, a cage of lightning leapt up to surround it, sealing us in, and the mosaic lifted off the ground, revealing itself to be a sort of elevator, albeit not one on any sort of cable.

We drifted through the air, the outside of the cage mostly obscured by the lightning, for about ten minutes. Eventually, there was a slight shudder and the cage dissolved into sparks, leaving us standing on a flat hilltop overlooking a small walled off town. From the base of the platform, a path led off toward the city. One of the teachers I didn't know stepped out. "This platform will remain open for three days. Should you go past your allotted time, a penalty will be applied to future visitations. Should you go past the three allotted days, you will no longer have access to Moment City. This is a one time courtesy, any lateness in the future will not be tolerated."

Everyone nodded. Given the strict terms we were informed of at the beginning, I wasn't surprised that we'd be left behind if we waited too long. I was more surprised by the grace period, honestly. This place struck me as more of a sink or swim kind of school.

Once he dismissed us, we headed down the path towards town, and I couldn't help a bubbling excitement. Common City…didn't look like much. It was a large rounded city on a cliff made of yellow stones. It could have come out of any generic fantasy movie, but despite the relatively innocuous appearance, I could tell this place was a treasure trove.

All the majors dealing with artifacts and enchantments were based on their own cities, but this place was where all that melted together. Common City was the land of opportunity where we could best exploit the resources of this academy.

Sadly, my ability to actually DO that was pretty limited. I was stuck at a hundred and twenty credits. Nothing to sneeze at, but not enough to be considered a sizable windfall. I thought about Callie's excitement at so many new artifacts to potentially add to her vault and couldn't stop a wince. There was no way I would have enough.

Given she was still at C-rank I was worried about my wife, and there was nothing I'd like more than to help her arm herself. Of course she'd never ask, but I felt bad I couldn't help her prepare before her rank up.

I was so lost in thought I almost missed the slight twinge of Danger Sense. Luckily almost was still enough to step aside and avoid the dark haired blur screaming "Surprise ATTACK!" at the top of her lungs. UNluckily, I was so distracted by the obvious bait that was Bethy that I missed the secondary and tertiary assaults.

Chelsea hit me in the chest like a cannonball, knocking me backwards a step, shaking my footing JUST enough for Gabe's absurdly low charge to slam into the back of my legs and dump me on my ass. My sister stood atop my chest, fist in the air, triumphantly screaming "VICTORY!"...right up until I triggered a combination of Double Trouble and Pit of Despair.

My twin yelped as she plummeted into the frictionless dust, Gabe diving to catch her hand as I cackled madly. "Fools!" I crowed in smug satisfaction. "You thought your pathetic attempts at subterfuge coul- oh shit!" I sensed a razor sharp wave of energy coming towards me, barely activating Mornax in time to tank the slash from Fade. Gritting my teeth, I turned to glare at my bodyguard, preparing to engage him too when a familiar voice cut off my momentum.

"Will you idiots quit it," my wife demanded archly as she arrived, standing nearby with arms crossed. "We are in PUBLIC you know? And we're representing our whole plane of existence." Despite her acidic tone, I could tell she was amused, but she really did think it was a bad idea to fool around here, so I sighed and put away my staff.

"Sorry, hon," I said sheepishly. "But they started it."

Benny stalked up to glare at everyone. "They started it EARLY," he snarled. "You said you would wait for me!"

"Bethy got bored," Chelsea said with a shrug. "She gets bored easily."

Bethy hung her head in shame. "It's true. I've recently been informed that my attention span is- oooh butterfly!" she trailed off, turning to sprint away from the clearing, and Benny rolled his eyes at her obvious attempt to use the new trick she'd learned from Chloe to dodge his ire. I rolled my eyes, turning to Sorwen with an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about them, they're really very nice when you get to know them." Then I paused. "Ok, only some of them. Sometimes. When they feel like it."

Callie arched an eyebrow at me expectantly and I chuckled. "Except Callie, of course," I corrected immediately, gesturing to her grandly. "My beautiful wife is perfect in every way and could never fail to be the life of any party."

"Overdoing it there a bit, kid," Abel snorted derisively.

I just smirked at him from behind my mask. "And this is my old mentor, Alex. Or is it Amber? Or maybe Aardvark today?"

"I will snap your neck like dry kindling!" he hissed menacingly, stepping forward to loom as best he could. Which wasn't very well since I was much taller and a rank above him. When he saw my lack of fear he deflated, pouting sulkily. "What is this nonsense? I can't even bully my own student anymore? What is this world coming to." He turned to Sorwen, bowing with a flourish. "My NAME, dear lady, is Abel Castleton, also known as Appolyon, Spruce Bunny, and to my closest friends 'hey you'."

"Now who's overcompensating," I snickered. "You hoping if you give her enough names she might slip and use the right one by accident?"

He pointed at me threateningly. "Don't YOU start. It's bad enough when Bethy does it. I won't have you ruin the opinions of total strangers and turn me into some kind of laughinstock! I demand respect damn it! Or at least fear. Even pity would be fine, just please don't show everyone how to bully me."

I chuckled at the feigned despair in his tone, but I could tell he was a little bothered for real, so I changed the subject. "Anyway, everyone this is Sorwen. She's in the Department of Temporal Studies with me. Sorwen, these are my friends."

As I spoke, the others started to show up. All my cabinet members, my guards, Jessie and her girlfriend, the other teams from the Lady and the lodge. We drew a crowd pretty quickly.

Sorwen, for her part, looked…a bit shell shocked. "There are…certainly a lot of you," she said weakly. "I feel like I didn't see this many of you before when we were negotiating. Where did they all come from?"

I just laughed. "I ask myself the same thing pretty much every day, things are getting pretty crowded, but everyone here has earned my trust." Well, most of them. The newcomers not so much, but I wasn't going to bring down the mood by backpedaling. Everyone seemed touched so the speech had done its job anyway.

"Now, I believe we have a city to explore?" I said with a grin. "I figure we should find out who didn't make it to Beginner and let them pick what we do first. The rest of us can figure out what's happening around here once they're gone, since we have so much more time here."

A few of the faces looked relieved, clearly having been worried about the ticking clock. Once we had that simple plan though, I turned to my wife and opened my arms. She all but tackled me, kissing me fiercely (possibly a little TOO fiercely, I was starting to doubt her claim about not being just a LITTLE jealous). I laughed as I pulled back. "Love you too Cal, and I missed you."

Benny groaned as he arrived next to us. "Still? How are you STILL this stupidly in love with each other. I hope Celine and I are this nauseatingly happy after we get married."

Laughing, Jessie joined us. "You will be. And we'll all mock you for it mercilessly. Just you though. We actually like Celine. Besides, having to be married to you is already a thousand times worse than any mockery we could devise. The poor girl will have been through enough suffering."

Benny flipped her off sourly and we all laughed. I grinned and started filling them in on my time in the department, and enjoyed their own stories as they told me all about the other majors and what they were like. Sorwen, to my surprise, fit in shockingly well, quickly adapting to the tempo of shit talking and genuine fondness that my friends and I tended to use when talking (at least my closer ones).

I was pretty sure that was partly because we were a fairly eclectic grouping and were used to adding new people, but even so, it was impressive. We continued down the path together, eventually reaching the city gates and being admitted directly. Once we stepped inside though, we all went silent, staring at the bustling metropolis inside the tower with awe and fascination.

It was…beautiful. So many kinds of people doing so many things. I didn't think I'd ever seen such a bizarre grouping of Ascendants in my life, and the fact that so many were gods and S-rankers didn't make it any better. Putting an arm over Callie's shoulder, I looked back at my friends. "Alright, like I said, anyone who is below Beginner picks first. So…what are we doing?"

 

[Ranan]

Does Shane have any plans for his loot detector powers? The ones for like plants animals and stone/metal?

 

[Malcolm Tent]

We sat down to eat together first thing. Apparently, everyone was hungry above everything else, and I couldn't fault them. Common City had some amazing smelling food stalls and restaurants, and well wanted a taste. Inevitably, we decided to pool our funds to pay for a big banquet. I dropped twenty as leader, and several of my friends and cabinet members put up ten, scraping together enough for a hundred point dinner.

Once we were all seated and eating, the real talk began. "So," I said looking around at the others. "Anyone bother to check how expensive the actual legacy information is? Like the path to Overgod? Because I think we all know that's what we're here for."

"It's called an advancement thesis," said Callie with a sigh. "And it's a hundred thousand credits."

I hissed in shock. I mean, I'd seen a few things around that price, and it was a big deal, so I shouldn't be too surprised, but having seen exactly how hard it was to GET those credits, I knew what a monumental task that was. "Can we pool our credits to buy it?" I asked hopefully. "There doesn't seem to be a rule against that even if we can't transfer them directly."

"Only within the same major," she said with a grimace. "Which means we need a LOT of points. There are a few we can cross off. I don't think there are any crafting gods around, so that's three gone off the bat. And trade is obviously not going to be a big one. So that leaves us with eight that we need to get. There's no way to know how they're different or which ones our gods need, so we kind of have to get most of them."

I sucked my teeth. "I don't know if that'll be POSSIBLE for us, Cal. Sorwen and I are the only ones in temporal studies, so even if she agrees to help with the cost we would need fifty thousand credit points each. Maybe we have a few C-rankers in the lower levels of the major, but even then… I need to get a new material to even get started on learning time manipulation, and that'll cost me nine thousand."

"So we just place high in the midterms and finals," Jessie chirped happily. "The incentives for the top rankers are huge. If a few of us place well we should be able to cover it easily." We all just stared at her blankly. She rolled her eyes. "Was I the ONLY one who went to the introductory seminar?"

"Probably," Benny shrugged. "I was going to, but I got distracted by all the cool stuff."

I shrugged apologetically. "Same. Well, not the cool stuff part because I'm a responsible adult, but Callie and I were catching up on some important information I learned. The mythcrafting thing."

My best friend rolled his eyes. "Responsible adult my ass, you were just flirting with your wife. That doesn't make you better than me."

"No, my height makes me better than you," I said smugly. "Shorty."

Callie slammed a hand down on the table. "Do NOT," she said menacingly. "Ruin my dinner with your height sniping. You've had this argument five hundred times. You'll probably have it five hundred more, but this will not be one of those times."

"Yes dear," I said quickly. Benny snickered, but then I heard a thump and saw him wince as Celine kicked him in the shin, so I felt a little better.

"Seriously though," I said, bringing us back to the matter at hand. "How are we doing this? What's this about midterms and finals? Because if it'll help us gather credits, it'll definitely be worth doing, but how do they actually measure that?"

Jessie rolled her eyes. "Skill in your major, obviously. They have a basic skills assessment for the various elements of working with your attributes. They didn't give us a lot of details, but we should find out more during midterms. Anyway, each assessment has rankings, and ranking high or surpassing certain milestones means you're eligible for incentives. I think it's a reward for those of us who actually bother to go to classes instead of treating this place like a marketplace and social networking hub."

I nodded slowly. "I can swing that, I think," I said slowly. "When are midterms?"

"A few months," she said immediately. "Probably three or four. They didn't give us an exact date, why?"

"Just doing some math," I said slowly. I needed to get that Ruin Phoenix candle to create a template, then condense my next bloodline. I suspected something would happen with my third, given that nine was three sets of three, but I had no way to be sure. Regardless, if I pushed I was convinced I could manage that within a month. Once I had the candle I was planning to use it to upgrade one of my demons. That would help with condensing a template ahead of time like I had with Life Nova through Archie.

A month was cutting it close for that, but once I had a time attribute integrated with my body my learning speed would massively increase. The following three months I could use my demons to continue doing tasks, and then spend the credits I earned on classes to hone my abilities. With Wisdom of Solomon, the Pillar, and all my other advantages, I refused to believe I wouldn't be able to master those skills faster than the other students.

But all of that would require me to buckle down and get this done. I needed those credits as fast as possible so I could integrate the candle and hopefully convert one of my demons. I was thinking of using Mephistopheles for this one. I would need to talk to him, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't need a full reincarnation. His destruction flame was already pretty close to the right attribute, we just needed to find a way to nudge it a bit.

"Well you'll have to keep us updated," Callie said with a nod. "But there are more than a few of us in some of the majors who can pool their credits. Jessie, how many of us are in the applied biology department?"

"Twenty," my friend said happily. "Alyssa and I have a bunch of Lodge members with us, and a few representatives from the church. Not as many as I'd have expected though."

"My grandmother sent a big chunk of her people," I explained. "She's all about stars, so a lot of the church faction are in that major." I glanced around at the packed room full of people. Our forces were pretty diverse, but it was still kind of jarring just how many people were here, between all six of the realspace gods, our three Void allies, and the new friends from the higher realm, we had a seriously impressive crowd.

Of course, not all of them were really under my command. The WCP and Church crews, the vampires, the Asura, and the Lady's delegation were willing to listen to me. The others were mostly playing along for the sake of the alliance, not that I minded.

More than that, we had some new friends too. Bethy had brought along a new buddy of hers from the trait major, Casiina Flutterheart, a sort of butterfly elf who used some kind of strange butterfly based origami ability I didn't really get. She seemed unusually strong though, and her wings were kind of cool. It figured Bethy would be the one to find someone like that. The girl seemed as overwhelmed by Bethy as everyone else was, sitting with my friend and her two siblings as Bethy talked animatedly.

Speaking of the siblings, I grimaced as I looked them over. William and Tamsin Lark were…not ideal companions. Bethy had been keeping them under control, in the sense that they hadn't EATEN anyone, but the pair were deeply unsettling, and they watched all of us with hungry eyes that gleamed with malice.

I trusted Bethy to ride herd on them, but I worried they might get up to something behind her back. At the very least, the three of them were all in the trait based major, and there weren't many of our people there. It was just them, Dayna, and the Asura. I trusted the multi armed war machines to keep themselves safe, and Bethy would look out for Dayna. It would have to be enough for now.

Speaking of the Asura, they had proven surprisingly amicable. Abel had been getting along well with them, to literally no one's surprise. They were very straightforward and often brutal people, but they respected strength and tenacity, and my mentor had that in spades. It was nice to have them here representing Atlas's interests, since he was the only god aside from the old man we could REALLY confirm was on our side.

I trusted my grandparents, and through them the revenant, and I trusted the Lady well enough, but when it came down to it, their interests were similar but not the same as ours. Atlas was our real backing here, and having the Asura on hand to help out was certainly useful.

Unfortunately they were almost all in the weapon major. Martial Excellence apparently included unarmed combat styles, and Abel and the Asura were all shoe ins for that one. Fade was obviously there with them as well, as was Alanna. Crell, to my surprise, had chosen the trade department, which seemed like an interesting potential learning opportunity for my Master of Contracts.

We had someone in basically every major, though not all from my direct faction. The only ones missing were the rune and alchemy departments. Benny was in the crafting major, so we had someone there, and I made a note to see if I could help him gather the credits to pay for the thesis. While we might not have a crafting god around, that didn't mean we never would. Having a method for my best friend to reach Overgod seemed useful for future endeavors.

Unfortunately, this whole thing only brought home how little time I had. I wanted to spend time with Callie, and I would before I left, but I doubted I'd bother staying for the full two days. The sooner I got back, the sooner I could begin grinding out those tasks to stockpile my credit points.

I glanced over at my wife guiltily, but I found her smiling back at me fondly. "What?" I asked defensively.

"Just cute you think I don't know you well enough to see that you're already climbing the walls to get back," she said dryly. "I know you won't be staying the whole weekend. It's fine. Just promise me you'll come back next time. I want you to spend at LEAST one day a week here with me. You need rest too, and I don't trust that you'll take it without me. Just because you CAN ignore pain and stress doesn't mean you SHOULD."

I opened my mouth to argue, but…she was right. I sighed, leaning over to put an arm around her. "I promise," I told her softly. "And thank you. Both for knowing I need to do this and not letting me take it too far."

"Well, it's kind of my job," she grinned. "Keeping you from being stupid is a full time commitment, but one I made knowingly and feel compelled to honor. At the very least, you always make it a challenge." Her teasing smirk softened at the edges as she leaned up, letting my mask retreat at the bottom so she could kiss me. "Just…remember that we have the rest of our lives together. I need you intact and SANE. Pace yourself, love. There will be time for everything later if we need it." I nodded, and she smiled, resting her head on my shoulder as I dug into the nearest dinner dishes with more gusto. I wanted to enjoy this time while I had it. Tomorrow it would be back to the grind.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next two weeks passed in a blur of activity. So much activity. Like…more activity than I had ever experienced before. Micromanaging fifty or so demons (only the ones strong enough to be useful need apply) for fourteen days was a feat of organization not even Piece of Mind could make easy. I had so many tasks to attend to, some of them repeating because I was taking all the lowest paying jobs.

I was averaging about six or seven hundred credits a day, with a few extra here and there for higher paying tasks. Cleaning gutters, hunting giant rats, getting rid of some kind of fungus infected wolf creature that had been trying to claim one of the teachers gardens as its territory, the list went on and on.

Combined with what I had, and the two days off I'd taken to keep my promise to Callie (counting today), I was sitting at a cool eight thousand credits, with only two more days of work or so until I could finally get my hands on that candle. There was only one problem.

"I'm dead," I groaned, forehead plastered to the table. "Leave me, find a new leader. Tell him my tale of woe."

Callie giggled. "Am I supposed to find a new husband, too?"

"Sorry, no," I told her with a cheesy grin. "Til death do us part. You're stuck with me. The rest of them are the only ones who have a way out."

"It's like prison," Benny said brightly. "But stupider."

I shot him a glare. "You're stupider than prison," I said childishly. "And you hair looks like an ocelot."

"I…don't know what that means," he said slowly. "I can't tell if I should be offended."

"Shut up, I'm tired," I snapped. "You have no idea what kind of strain I've been under. But I'm SO close."

Sorwen chuckled at my pain. "You aren't," she informed me. "You're there. I talked to Callie while you were passed out. I'm going to go in on the candle with you so you can get it immediately."

I perked up. "Wait, seriously? You're not screwing with me right now? I'm done?"

"Not quite," my wife said with a wolfish grin. "There's a catch. She'll spot you for it…but you have to take your second day off this weekend. No training, no learning, no tasks. Just rest and relaxation and possibly spoiling your amazing wife if you're feeling up to it."

Rolling my eyes, I gave her an adoring smile. "Fine. I can take a break. I was going to be off today anyway, and taking off tomorrow to save two days of hard work is a good deal." I raised an eyebrow at Sorwen. "What did she give YOU to agree to this, anyway? I know how hard it must have been to gather those credits."

"Less than you'd think," she snickered. "Since I wasn't taking the lowest paying jobs. I could only do one or two a day, but I was netting more per task. Still, it WAS pretty tight. I barely made it in time. In exchange, your wife promised to help me out designing a commission for a weapon I'm having made."

That was interesting. "What does Callie know about designing weapons?"

"Literally nothing," my wife said cheerfully. "But she happens to have a weapon on hand that is exactly the OPPOSITE of what she's looking for so-"

"The Vault, got it," I said in understanding. "Clever use of your Domain, hon."

She puffed up proudly, before shifting her attention back to me. "Speaking of Domains, how is yours going? And how are your stats coming along. You've been stockpiling scrolls for a few weeks right?"

"Yeah, I'm at two hundred but I haven't used them," I shrugged. "I probably have another million or two points coming when I finally check them, but I've been swamped. As for my Domain though…here, I'll just show you."

Court of Gehenna:

1.Doom Sovereign- Tier 8

2.Valtek- Tier 2

3.Cooking- Tier 8

4.Inventing- Tier 2

5.Balam- Tier 3

6.Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art- Tier 4

7.Piano- Tier 1

8.Guitar- Tier 1

9.First Aid- Tier 1

10.Angelic Bond- Tier 8

11.Dust Construction- Tier 6

12. Stone Limb- Tier 7

13.Moonlit Night- Tier 4

14.Consecration of Flame- Tier 7

15.Ripple Running- Tier 3

16.State of Grace- Tier 4

17.Steam Arrow- Tier 4

18.Afterburner- Tier 7

19.Pit of Despair/ Brad- Tier 8

20.Mountain Stance- Tier 7

21.Heart over Body- Tier 8

22.Mercy Kill- Tier 6

23.Double Trouble- Tier 7

24.Touch of Tears- Tier 5

25.Flurry of Blows- Tier 3

26.Heavy Hands- Tier 2

27.Marked for Death- Tier 4

28.False Fatality- Tier 3

29.Blood Curse- Tier 4

30.Creeping Darkness- Tier 2

31.Final Strike- Tier 7

32.Overlay- Tier 6

33.Song of the Soil- Tier 3

34.Rhythm of the Wild- Tier 2

35.Eye of Revelation- Tier 6

36.Danger Sense- Tier 6

37.Piece of Mind- Tier 6

38.Empty Spirit- Tier 6

39.Belial- Tier 8

40.Abomination Engine- Tier 7

41.Mephistopheles- Tier 8

42.Cosmic Collapse- Tier 6

43.Circle of Damnation- Tier 6

44.Mephisto's Waltz- Tier 6

45.Mornax- Tier 7

46.Zagan- Tier 7

47.Life Nova- Tier 8

48.Genesis Burst- Tier 6

49.Bael- Tier 8

50.Beelzebub- Tier 8

51.Agares- Tier 7

52.Dantalion- Tier 7

53.Sammael- Tier 8

54.Limbo- Tier 8

55.Gluttony- Tier 7

56.Wrath- Tier 7

57.Pride- Tier 7

58.Retribution- Tier 7

59.Murmur- Tier 7

60.Leviathan- Tier 7

61.Behemoth- Tier 7

62.Glory- Tier 7

63.Abaddon -Tier 8

64.Wisdom of Solomon- Tier 8

65.Promethean Fire Soul Body- Tier 6

66.Fate Sense- Tier 7

67.Scent of Truth- Tier 7

68.Damnatio Memoriae- Tier 6

69.Dark Reflection- Tier 6

70. Asmodeus- Tier 8

71. Astaroth- Tier 7

72. Azazel- Tier 8

The list was long and comprehensive, of course, as always. Callie, though, knew what it had looked like before. I'd gotten ten or fifteen demons up to tier eight now, and another ten or so up to tier seven. I'd even gotten a few of them to tier six who had been much lower. Overlay (aka Owen), was up two tiers to six, having officially reached the Master rank after half a month of training.

After we'd learned more about Mythcrafting and I had started considering potential ways to upgrade Mephistopheles without reincarnation, I'd realized that letting so many of my demons waste away at the same rank was NOT cost effective.

While I did let a few keep up their waiting, I had started pushing the mid range demons to accept tasks along with the higher rankers. Constant practice and use of their abilities had allowed them to start growing, bringing forth the true utility of my Domain for the first time since I'd unlocked it.

It was kind of surreal, honestly. That was what had drained me so much. While the Pillar offset the processing, it still needed to happen. Their growth was an invisible pressure on me, and the more I summoned them out the more they grew. When they were inside the Domain training it was one thing, but once they emerged, when they came back they brought all those experiences and all that growth with them.

Basically I was dumping huge amounts of new data into the Pillar every time the demons returned, and I was dispatching fifty plus per day. The higher ranks were less extreme, because they were just on the edge of tier eight and getting pushed over, but the earlier ones, paradoxically, despite having so much less to gain to rank up, were leveling quickly and the cumulative tax was wearing me down.

Which was part of the reason I'd agreed to the extra day off. The cost of my recent training was cumulative, and now that I didn't have to keep it up, I was excited to just relax a bit.

"So," I said slowly, glancing around. "Anyone seen Bethy? Did she just not come this time? I know after the first week we can take our downtime whenever, but she usually meets us here on our days off."

Chelsea grinned wolfishly. "I talked to her this morning. She's recovering. Apparently she decided to attempt the challenge for advanced C-rank. A hundred thousand C-rank automatons. She barely passed, but she's been promoted. Got a fresh thousand points to play with. THere's been a huge boom in attempts in the trait major, but no one else has managed it."

I let out a low whistle. "Damn, that is impressive. I think I might be up to trying it for B-rank, but a failure would seriously derail my plans, and a thousand credits just isn't worth the downtime. What does she get for pulling it off?"

"They tried to promote her to the B-rank city," she laughed. "But she just told them no. She didn't want to leave Dayna alone with her siblings."

I grimaced. "Yeah, I don't blame her. They're really creepy. Why exactly are they even HERE? Like I know what Harrison said, but I absolutely do not believe those two are considered impressive enough to protect Bethy. Are they just Lark hedging his bets to make sure he gets his hands on the advancement thesis?"

I couldn't remember if Harrison had mentioned what rank those two were supposed to be, but if he had assumed it was B-rank, he was wrong. They were both peak C just like Bethy, and there were probably less than a hundred people in the UNIVERSE I would be on against Bethy at the same rank. They weren't actual guards, which meant they were here for something else, but other than killing the mood whenever they walked into a room I couldn't fathom what.

"He's hoping she can fix them," Chelsea explained sadly. "Lark…he's not a great parent. He knows that. Bethy has told me he's admitted it to her more than once. That's why she's his favorite. She's the one he didn't manage to mess up too bad. Most of his kids are maladjusted psychos. Some of the older ones have grown out of that, but for the most part, Bethy is the most normal child Lark has." She saw me literally flinch and grinned. "Yeah, that's a terrifying thought, right?

"Anyway, she's gotten a lot better since she started traveling with us," she sounded proud and grateful all at the same time. "I know you might not be able to see it because you're not around her as much, but she's shed a lot of guilt and grief because of you. Lark noticed, and he's hoping Tamsin and Will can see similar results."

I blinked at her. "Then why didn't he just ASK for that?"

"Because then he would owe us a FAVOR," she said like it was obvious. "Instead he just made them our problem so we'd have to solve it ourselves and it wouldn't have anything to do with him. Obviously."

"This is why I hate politics," I seethed. "So we just…what? Suppress their bloodlust like we tried to do for Bethy? Purify them with Zagan? What does he expect us to do?"

She shrugged. "If he knew that he would probably have done it himself. I guess we're just supposed to do our best and see what happens. I'd say offer them a wish, but I doubt they'd use it for anything that benevolent."

I glanced at Callie. "What are the chances we could convince your sister to kick the shit out of Lark a little bit. Not BAD, but just like…a black eye and a broken nose." At her arch look, I just sighed. "Yeah, I know, bad idea. Well, I guess that's a project to add to my list. But in two days. For now, I'm going to enjoy my downtime, and I think I'll start by showing off my new LEGENDARY cooking skill. Now, where is the kitchen?"

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I spent the weekend with my wife, relaxing and enjoying our time together. It was wonderful to take a break, especially after two weeks of going so hard. Nothing puts a nice vacation into perspective like weeks of exhausting busywork. My demons seemed pretty relieved as well, and it was a pleasant time had by all. And then it was over.

Which was why I was now back in Moment City, waiting at the desk for Elonwy to be available so I could redeem my credit points for the Ruin Phoenix Candle.

I hadn't been training over the weekend, but I HAD put in some time considering what I needed. I had a basic plan of attack for the upgrade, I just needed to GET the thing. Hence why I was now standing in front of my upperclassman friend, calmly announcing my student number so she could access my account. Sorwen was with me, and she gave hers next, and Elonwy processed the order with barely a raised eyebrow before reaching under the desk and withdrawing a small box made of what looked like literal sun bleached bone.

"Item 4683297," Elonwy said blandly. "Ruin Fragment Black Flame Candle. Nine thousand credit points. Surprising you redeemed this one, it's been in the archives for a LONG time. It's both way too expensive and way too cheap to be worth buying, if you know what I mean."

I did. Without access to my nonsense bag of tricks, the candle wouldn't be able to show its true worth. Phoenix related techniques didn't grow on trees, and the ones that were around were mostly life and Vitality adjacent. The Ruin Phoenix was a very niche entity to need access to, not to mention even if YOU did need access, the candle wouldn't give most people that access, and would therefore be way overpriced. Useless and priceless at the same time, no wonder the thing was still around.

"Do I want to know what this box is made of?" I asked as I carefully lifted it from her hands.

"It's chocolate," Elonwy said sincerely. "You have to leave it out to thaw before you eat it, but once it's ready it's supposed to taste fantastic."

Sorwen lit up with excitement. "Really?" she asked enthusiastically.

"No," Elonwy said gently. "It's old bones." She glanced at me questioningly. "I understand she's paying for this, but is it really worth the cost?"

"Hey!" the elf protested in a hurt voice. "That's mean, you were the one who said it!"

I chuckled. "Elonwy, she doesn't know you, so she's not familiar with your brand of sarcasm, tone it down, Sorwen, she didn't mean anything by it, that's just how her sense of humor is. You're both my friends, I'd appreciate it if you could at least be civil. You're not exactly going to be lunching together, so it'll only be for a few minutes now and then."

"It was a joke," Elonwyn said apologetically, holding her hands up. "I swear, I wasn't trying to be hostile. I've gotten used to bantering with this one, and he tends toward the more acerbic side of humor. I apologize. For real."

Sorwen chuckled, shaking her head. "No, it's my fault. You were just teasing. I'm not used to that kind of interaction, but I've seen Shane and his friends engaging in banter like that and it seems fun. I'd like to have a friend like that." She pointed at Elonwy dramatically. "You have only one brain cell and your nose is shaped like a hatchet."

Elonwy raised an eyebrow, an amused smirk pulling at her lips. "You got me, that's a good one." She nodded for me to go. "Why don't you go do whatever you need to do, I'll teach the princess here about bantering with friends."

Laughing, I nodded and headed out, carrying my ill gotten gains (or whatever the opposite of that is) back to my residence where I could begin the upgrade and the preparation for the template. Once we arrived. I took the whole thing, box and all, into my Domain, carrying it to the room behind my throne where Mephistopheles and a few of the others were waiting.

"Did you get it?" Mephistopheles (also known as Phil and definitely NOT Fist) said eagerly. I raised an eyebrow at my second demon. Phil was one of my oldest in terms of skill development, but my use of his form had fallen by the wayside. Technically he had primacy over several of my other demons, even Sammael, but realistically I didn't spend much time with the normally taciturn warrior.

Now though, he seemed to be almost vibrating with energy. I could tell the idea of changing, of growing like this was important to him. He'd seen what it could mean. Speaking of which, I spotted my helper for this little endeavor with a grin, waving him over. "I did, but now we need to consult the expert. Hey Brad, get over here!"

My youngest demon ran over excitedly. "Is it time? Did you get it?"

I laughed, holding up the box. "Why does everyone keep asking that? Would I be here if I hadn't? Where's Nine? I want him here for this. I trust you to help us get this done, but he's the one who's going to be working with Phil on the template. Well, him and Wisdom."

"I'm here," Nine Phoenix said as he arrived out of breath. "I didn't realize it was happening already, I was contemplating my previous templates and trying to identify commonalities. I figured that might help me refine the process of…well, refining the process, so to speak. I made some preliminary strides."

"Good man," I nodded. "Now, let's quit flapping our gums and light this candle. Literally." I ignored their dramatic and totally unnecessary groans as I set the box on the table, popping the tiny ivory latch and opening it. I was surprised as I did to find minute carvings across the sun bleached bone, micro runes so faint and dense they felt like normal bone texture at first glance, even to MY Perception. When I opened the lid, I was expecting…something. A burst of energy, ominous fog, maybe the cackling of departed souls, instead I just got, well, a candle.

"It looks…waxy," Brad said optimistically.

I rolled my eyes. "It's a candle, it doesn't do anything until we light it. But I have a feeling we should use the right kind of fire for best effect. Phil, if you would do the honors?"

Mephistopheles nodded, extending one finger. The tip of his index flickered to life, a black flame fluttering into existence. Reaching down, he pressed it against the wick of the candle, and we all watched with bated breath, waiting for it to catch.

It was obvious, really, the moment the wick lit. The flame went from fire to FIRE. Where before, the black flame had looked a little ominous and maybe had an aura of danger, now it just looked…terrible. In the old sense of that word. As in it inspired terror. I felt like the light from the flame was trying to destroy my eyes, age them into infirmity. My Impact made it easy enough to shake off, but if anyone under D-rank had been here I was pretty sure the literal light of this candle would have turned them to dust.

Phil, meanwhile, was hypnotized. I saw him staring into the fire like his soul was being drawn in, and I made the executive decision to snap the lid shut, cutting off the effect. Suddenly the shadows in the room, which I hadn't even noticed lengthening, receded to normal levels. We all took deep breaths.

"That," I said with a shaky laugh. "Was not what I was expecting." I looked up at Brad. "What do you think? Can you help?"

He hummed with interest. "I THINK so. It's not the same, obviously. But it's also not as hard."

At Phil's confused look, I decided to finally break down my plan. "Alright, so here's the deal. Brad here used to be Brad the Pit. Brad the Pit was a pit trap that consumed a shard of divine artifact and evolved into a higher form. Then that form was bonded with Pit of Despair, and the combination became Brad, following me so far?"

"I think so," he said slowly. "Keep going."

"Basically, I want to try to recreate the circumstances that let Brad evolve into a sentient pit, only in reverse kind of," I gestured to the box. "Since you're already sentient, I want to try to combine you with the candle the same way he managed it, thereby upgrading you without needing to reincarnate. The candle isn't sentient, so you shouldn't change at all, you'll just become…more. You get me?"

Nine Phoenix frowned. "But what mechanism are you going to use for that? He's a physical entity and so is the candle? Are you going to have him eat it or something?"

I grinned. "Nope. We're going to use the SAME mechanism. Brad has been practicing, and we think it'll work. Brad's power is pits. His original form was able to consume the artifact because he WAS a pit. So we just need him to open a pit in Phil, but not a physical pit. A spiritual pit. A metaphysical hole we can fill with the candle."

In order to accomplish that, I reached for the Pillar of Goetia, triggering the rank up skill. Over the last two weeks of hard work, Brad had reached tier eight, which meant he was at Legendary, and my staff could officially upgrade him to Mythic. He let out a low gasp, eyes fluttering as he felt the power push him higher and higher, reaching a level that only a few of my demons had been at. This wasn't an easy trick, even for the staff, and I tried not to overuse it.

Opening the box again, I nodded to Phil, who relit the candle, and then to Brad. He held out a hand, closing his eyes. "I need you to focus. Feel the candle. Feel its pull. Feel your desire for it. Your need. Your hunger." There was a pulse in the Domain, a sort of…resonance. Like Brad's power was asking permission to alter Mephistopheles. "Feel the hole inside that only the candle can fill. The void. The emptiness."

I acknowledged the attempt, pushing with my Domain, flexing the power granted to me by my armor and weapon to try to push it closer. It was like trying to force together two poles of a magnet. They didn't want to touch. But I was stronger. I could make this work. I grit my teeth and shoved with everything I had. Phil groaned, stumbling forward, catching himself on the table, and in front of him, a hole appeared.

It looked strange, almost wrong. Like someone had torn out a piece of the world. Without hesitating, I took the candle, box and all, and shoved it into the hole. It snapped shut instantly, and Phil dropped to his knees with a strangled scream. The black flame of his hair leapt and sparked, slowly beginning to change, to resemble the candle flame we'd seen earlier.

Sighing, Nine Phoenix knelt down and picked up the bigger demon. "I have a feeling this won't be over soon. Or am I wrong?"

I shook my head. "The Domain can feel him changing. It'll be a while. Look after him for me?"

"Of course," he said with a nod. "Once he's done, we can get started on the template, and you can get started on your body tempering." I thanked him, and once he left I dropped into the chair with a shaky breath.

Azazel stepped into the room, looking us all over, and I noticed a spark of enjoyment in his eyes. "You felt that huh?" I asked him wryly.

"I did," he said with a slowly growing smile. "I did indeed. The winds of fate have been altered by your actions today. You've upset the balance, or perhaps just done something unexpected. Many things just changed. I suspect this is going to be GOOD." I grinned right back. I had a feeling he was going to be right. One more step on my path to the top, and I had no idea where I was going to put my feet next. Honestly, that was probably the best part.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took another week. A week of constant work and experimentation between Wisdom of Solomon, Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art, Life Nova, and Mephistopheles to FINALLY create a working template to use as a guide. Intellectually I knew that it wasn't that long. A week was actually pretty amazing, considering how much time it would save in the long run. I'd managed my first bloodline in maybe a week or two, vs the months it had taken for my second, so a week to lock down that kind of speed was hardly anything to sneeze at.

But it felt slow. I had everything I needed to start, I should be able to get to work on my body tempering, but I couldn't. I was just stuck sitting on my thumbs waiting for them to finish, and when they finally did, I was chomping at the bit to begin.

I STILL hadn't used all my stockpiled scrolls, numbering two hundred seventy at this point, but I knew that even a slight boost to my body tempering would increase the per scroll cap, and multiplied by so many scrolls it would mean a legitimate difference in gains, so I held off.

Since I had nothing better to do, I spent the week hammering out a bunch of tasks, albeit at a much more reasonable pace. I netted myself five credit points to use on daily necessities or potentially on places of power once I condensed my bloodline. I knew that some of the places could increase understanding of attributed energy for Mythcrafting, and that would be on top of the natural affinity I'd get once I condensed my Ruin Phoenix template, it should make the learning process much faster.

Still, when they came to get me to tell me the good news and so we could get started on my body refinement, I had to admit I was actively excited to begin. I'd been waiting for this for a while, and having a third Bloodline (I was curious about what the enhanced attribute would be since I didn't have a specific direction in mind to steer this one), would be a qualitative advantage going forward, even without the affinity.

"So, how does this work?" I asked them as I sat down across the table in the conference room behind my throne. We'd been meeting there semi-regularly for this whole business, given its out of the way location and relative privacy. "Nine probably has the template memorized, so all I need to do is incarnate him, right?"

"Phil and I both," he clarified. "But just the two of us. Zagan and Life Nova should also be on hand. Ruin is…well, ruinously destructive. Your natural regeneration can keep up with short bursts, but given Zagan's synergy with your Life Nova bloodline, you'll be able to dedicate exponentially more time to refinement per session with those two assisting with your recovery. That should speed up your bloodline condensation quite a bit." Despite the relatively formal tone it was clear Nine was excited as the rest of us for this.

I looked around. It wasn't just the innovators here. Owen and Limbo had made their own appearance. My other two time attributed demons were as excited as I was. While I'd be learning the fundamentals of Mythcrafting in general, my main focus in the department was time. I'd be learning to utilize time attributed Mythology more directly in combat, and between Limbo's utility, Phil's destructive potential, and Owen's Perception, I had all three of the major pillars of combat covered with which to express them. With my bloodline granting me extra affinity I was expecting my combat abilities to soar when working with any or all of the three. Once I had learned that, the Pillar and Wisdom would be able to reverse engineer the Mythcrafting to refine all my demons, so I was expecting a power bump across the board, but it seemed likely those three would be my go-to combat options in the near future.

"It's important to note that this template isn't like the others," Nine warned intently. "This is a purely destructive energy. Life Nova and Cosmic Phoenix are both beneficial energies, but Ruin is just…breaking things. And that includes you. Luckily, body refinement is ABOUT breaking things, just in a controlled way. But you need to take it slow to start, work up to it. You can't just go full blast out the gate or you're going to do serious damage and we'll have to stop and wait for you to recover."

That was unfortunate. Honestly, pain had been the main boost to refining speed in my first two templates. Hardship and difficulty seemed to act as fuel to the fire of the phoenix. If I had to guess it was because of the symbolism of rebirth through a crucible, but regardless, I'd been counting on that to help here.

It made sense that there would be different rules for a purely offensive template though. And it wasn't just a subversion. The Ruin Phoenix WAS a phoenix, and its mythology was pretty much the opposite of the ones I'd had access to before. In fact, that was the point. Its whole mechanism was to be the opposite of rebirth, the inevitable end of all things, worn down through the destruction of the ages.

"Anything else I need to know?" I asked them as I prepared. I had considered using the Pillar for this, but it wouldn't help. The Pillar allowed for simulation and multiple attempts to perfect the art, but body refining wasn't mental. I had to ACTUALLY carve the template into my body with the flame, so I might as well get to it.

When they all confirmed there wasn't, I nodded to Mephistopheles and Nine Phoenix, incarnating them both with a long, slow breath. With all my reinforcement, it was easy to hold two, even two who had recently grown quite a bit. My mind was flooded with information from Nine Phoenix, symbolism and imagery of a pitch black bird that heralded the apocalypse, the death of all things, and the winking out of all the stars in the sky. Ruin. The final end of every living being.

Time is the fire in which we burn. A phrase and a concept that I had never really pondered. In some ways, it was very true. Old age blazed away, refining and destroying us. At first it melted away the weakness, purifying and strengthening, but eventually once the growth ended, the descent began. The fires of creation banked and the flames of ruin ravaged our flesh, devoured our minds, and eventually consumed us utterly, leaving nothing but dust, the ashes of history.

My vision was complex and layered, and I was shocked at how detailed they'd gotten it in just this one week. It wasn't as impressive as the Cosmic Phoenix revelation, but that had come from an ACTUAL cosmic phoenix feather. Doing this much with just the candle was impressive.

I began the process. First came the pattern. I knew it well by now, the Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art was a complicated and powerful construct that carried the energy through my body, refining and improving it. With more knowledge of attributes I was able to mostly work out what I was doing now. Rebirth. The inherent power of the phoenix was baked into the art. It was a process, slow and steady, one step at a time as I forged out the impurities of my body, reforging myself in the crucible of the nine flames.

Mephistopheles had been training as well. Learning to control the power he'd gained when he integrated the Ruin. And those lessons served me well, allowing me to call forth just a trickle of that strength to roll through the channels the art had made. It was slow and almost gentle. Like a trickle of water flowing down a dry riverbed, most of it seeping into the cracked, broken dirt. My instinct was to flood it, but I knew that was the wrong move. I continued as I'd been told, slow and steady.

It didn't make it any less painful. It felt like my veins were full of battery acid, but only a very small amount of it. I honestly wished that I had more of the stuff in my system, because the very finite amount of pain surrounded by the pop and flicker of splattering corrosion along the length of the channels was actually WORSE than just being flooded with the shit.

Ruin SUCKED. It wasn't just painful. I could deal with painful. Ruin felt like death. Like I was approaching my end, and there was nothing I could do about it. The finite approach of mortality heralding the twilight of my life.

I was so engrossed in it that I barely noticed the flood of life energy as Zagan and Life Nova poured it into me. It washed away the pain, but that just meant I needed more, so I couldn't find it in myself to be grateful. I just focused, increasing the flow of Ruin through my body. Inside me, the nine drops of Life Nova ignited one by one, and for each new wave of power I had to increase the flow to offset the regeneration.

By the time all nine were lit, I was pouring a pretty steady stream of Ruin into the art, and I could feel it beginning to change me. Slowly. Inexorably. Ruin wore down all things, and here it was wearing down the resistance to change. Of course, it was also wearing ME down alongside it, but with my regeneration, my helpers, and my bloodline, I was barely keeping up, and I'd managed to find a perfect balance between creation and destruction.

Unfortunately, while balance sounded nice and peaceful, it really wasn't. I was in agony. Not my usual agony either. Ruin seemed to carry some sort of conceptual fear of death that added an almost corrosive sting to the mental toll it took as it hurt you. It was the mental version of poison, and it was building up. The regeneration was healing the physical wounds, but the mental toll was mounting, and I could see why Nine had mentioned a limit to how much of this I could take per session.

But I wasn't there. I was a chosen of a goddess of torment, a descendant of the lady of the Enshrining Darkness, and the master of the Wish Curse Palace. Pain wasn't just an old friend, it was my BROTHER. My companion and constant faithful hound. Pain served me in all things. It drove me. Broke me. Made me.

And that was when I realized why this particular art had called to me so heavily back in the library. Not for the fire, or for the ease of incorporating the skill.

Because I WAS the phoenix. I always had been. I was a creature forged in flames, reborn in pain, again and again I rebuilt myself stronger than I had been before. I stood in the center of a mental inferno, and as I had that realization, I just…let go. I let it take me. Consume me utterly. My mind went blank as the agony ate away my vision from the edges, darkness taking my sight from me even with my eyes wide open.

I felt a shift inside me, a riotous spark kindling to life, and my blood caught fire, the Ruin riding my veins across every surface of my flesh, tearing at my sanity with maddeningly welcome claws as it shredded every thought in my head, devouring my sense of self as fuel for my evolution.

And then it was done. It ended, and I dropped to my hands and knees, panting, throat hoarse from screaming. But I wasn't upset. Not even close, because deep inside me, in a place that had previously only been occupied by the two sets of nine blood drops of my existing bloodlines, blazed something new. A single drop of blood the black of an endless abyss. I looked inside, the ravaged tatters of my mind fluttering in the breeze of victory…and I started to laugh. One down, eight to go.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

It took another three weeks (and two days) to complete the template. Considering the very different nature of the power source and the work I'd put in to get it done, I wasn't too unhappy with that timeline, even if it was beyond the rather optimistic projections I'd made when we came up with the plan. Six weeks total, or half of my lead time up to the midterm, but I knew for a fact it would be worth it.

Beyond that, I had gotten a new modifier, times three to might, and I had officially hit five hundred stockpiled scrolls. With the new template filled out, I had officially hit a third of the way through the nine phoenix art, and I could feel a qualitative shift in the capabilities of my body, even beyond what I'd been expecting or what showed on my sheet. I'd even bound another page in for the Nine Demons Reincarnation Art, bringing that total up to nine with the achievement of finishing my third template. I was excited to see exactly what I could do with a single scroll, so the extra two days had been a wait to meet everyone at Common City and officially get the ball rolling on my next influx of points, for which I had high hopes.

When I arrived at the inn where we were all meeting, I was in a good mood. I was all but bouncing on the soles of my feet as I dumped the pile of scrolls on the table for all my friends to see.

"Alright people, here's the deal," I told my followers. "These are wish scrolls. They grant wishes. Some of you know this, some of you don't. For the ones that don't, there are rules. I can't tell you what to wish for mostly, though I can ask for a specific payment. Payment is required to be fair and balanced, at least from both our perspectives. As such, the one exception to the "can't suggest wishes" rule is that I CAN suggest a one for one stat trade, as it is inherently balanced."

Sorwen, who had been sitting nearby, stared at the scrolls with interest. "But if those scrolls can do anything, why would we wish for stats, especially with stats as payment?"

"Because the scrolls are limited by my power and your ability to pay," I explained. "And because contrary to what anyone else will tell you, the most beneficial thing you can wish for is more power of your own. Now a one for one stat trade may not sound like a big deal, but that's because you're not considering the possibilities. Jessie, tell them what they've won."

My friend grinned, popping to her feet energetically. "Yes boss," she said, snapping off a sloppy salute. I rolled my eyes but let her have her jokes, and she huffed a bit at the lack of reaction. Bethy was a terrible influence on everyone around her. Turning to the others, she gestured to herself. "Now, you all know about my racial trait, mostly because I've got bear ears and I don't hide them. But I was powerful long before that, and it's mostly because of wishes.

"Not because I wished for MORE power, though I did that too once in a while, but because of what kind of power I wished for when I did." Her eyes were bright and emphatic as she spoke. "Ascendants are creatures of reputation," she said bluntly. "We're all about showing off. And nothing makes more an impression than being able to do something that someone at your rank shouldn't be able to. I funnelled all of my points into Vitality, and I have a three times Vitality modifier from my trait. I technically have more effective Vitality than the cap of my entire rank, and while I am Vitality heavy, I still have plenty of points in other stats."

Sorwen got it first. "Your Vitality abilities, your healing and other tricks, they work like you're a B-ranker."

Jessie waggled a hand. "Depends on the situation, but they can. The point is they work WAY better than a C-ranker should be able to manage. And that gets me noticed. Gets me attention. You want to know why you would pay for stats with stats? Because you can drain your most useless stat and dump it all into your best. You can focus your whole build in a way that's completely impossible naturally."

"But there's no pressure," I informed them easily. "There's only five hundred of these, and all of you have a LOT of stats. Even just a few of you interested in a large overhaul could manage to use them all. So take your time, figure out who want-" I didn't even finish talking, the crowd mobbed the table, snatching up scrolls and scattering, and I just laughed wryly as they vanished from the room, off to find a private place to make wishes.

Callie clicked her tongue. "Animals," she said loftily.

"You sure you don't want any?" I asked her worriedly. "I know you're worried about pushing past B-rank, but you could still rearrange stats like they are."

She shook her head. "No. I spiked up too high too fast. Between my time on the war front and your help I went through C-rank much too quickly. I've been working on stabilizing, but I set myself a goal and I'm sticking to it. I'm going to do the C-rank advanced student trial, just like Bethy did. I'd never be able to pull off the B-rank trial at the bottom of the rank. Better to perfect my abilities now where I have an advantage."

I nodded in acknowledgement. "Well, yeah, fair. Just be careful not to let any stats in."

"I know," she sighed. "I liked it better when we thought the inside of this place was time locked. Though I'm guessing you feel differently."

As it turned out the Frozen Moment Academy wasn't really outside of time. The stasis chambers were just a party trick to keep students fresh until they were needed, but time WAS still passing outside, and we knew this because people were still getting renown from external sources.

"I do," I admitted. "Based on my guesses, I should be able to do about twenty five hundred points per scroll now. One point two five million is an INSANE amount of stats for a C-ranker, but for me? It's barely a drop in the bucket. I need to ride the Wishmaster wave alongside the rest of my training if I have any shot at hitting A-rank anytime soon."

She snorted. "If you hit A-rank before I hit B I'm going to be SO pissed. I feel like I'll never catch up at this rate."

"Atlas will be finished recovering not too long from now," I said with a laugh. "And the Asura are making waves here already. Soon everyone is going to know who the heretic god is, as well as BOTH his daughters. Sharing your face with a powerful murder goddess doesn't hurt either. I wouldn't be surprised if Alara is still terrorizing the battle front just to muddy the waters and build your rep while we're in here."

That seemed to cheer her up a bit, but I wasn't able to focus on that too much, because I felt a huge influx of points of my own coming. I couldn't help but grin. It had been a few MONTHS since my last boost, and that was after I'd both managed an alliance with a higher dimensional force and led my people into the tower. I was expecting quite the haul. Sure enough, as I closed my eyes and relaxed my soul, both the influx of wish stats and pure renown from my office rolled over me like a tidal wave.

Wishmaster status. B-rank. Ability: Legendary Wish- Ten times a day grant a Legendary wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with current statistics.

Legendary Path of the Demonbinder- The Domain of a Great King.

Might-6,125,421()

Impact-215

Fantasy-3,433,568

Vitality-5,221,871 ()

Focus-2,624,853

Perception-3,641,640

Creation-4,343,143

Progress to next rank: 25,390,711/100,000,000

Soul strength- Obsidian Soul Body

Body Forging: Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art- 27/81 drops- First Layer (Life Nova) 9/9, Second Layer ( Cosmic Phoenix) 9/9, (Ruin Phoenix) 9/9

Chronicle: Myriad Demons Manual (pages bound:6- 4 Zagan, 1 Leviathan, 9 Nine Phoenix Reincarnation Art)

wish scrolls stockpiled: 0 (5 in the possession of friends to be used over time)

Domain size: 34 miles

I was glad I was sitting down for this. It was…a lot. More than I'd gotten at once relative to my stat pool possibly ever. I'd gotten more stats in this one sitting than I had in total, and I fucking FELT it.

Granted, my body and soul were qualitatively different, and my Domain helped, but it still kicked my teeth in. I breathed through the pain, more than used to it after three weeks of grueling template training, and then focused in on my gains. It was the result of months of effort and buildup, on top of years of striving to reach this point in terms of reputation and resources, and I had never been so fully convinced I'd made the right choice.

Twenty five million. A quarter of the way through B-rank. Granted, I knew a bit chunk of that probably came from the renown I'd gained among the faculty here. Renown was qualitatively weighted, and if an S-ranker could bump me up, I imagined an Overgod could do even more. Not to mention the gods outside and their impressions of my capabilities getting this whole alliance together.

Still, even if I had burned through quite a bit of my renown potential within the academy, I was sure I still had plenty coming from outside, and the more powerful my body got, the more wishes became an actual practical choice to rank up again.

At my current level, I could hit A-rank with just a few years of focused income. It was intoxicating, knowing I was growing so much faster than any other Wishmaster before me and that it was by virtue of my own effort. Not to mention I'd gained another mile of Domain space from the constant grinding of the Cosmic Phoenix, which I'd had a parallel running for me through Beelzebub clones even while Nine was working on the template.

I looked over my stats again with pride. Might and Vitality had EXPLODED, but that was no surprise. With my recent modifiers to the latter it was bound to be attention grabbing, and Might was always one of the easier stats to raise, since any sufficiently impressive attack was attributed to the stat. Creation and Fantasy were rising fast, presumably because of the demons, which was interesting, and I'd dropped that one point two five mil into Focus to try to keep it as even as possible with the others.

My biggest gain though, was the ability to pump out more stats because of the nine phoenix reincarnation art. That was going to let me not only hit A-rank relatively fast, but continue bringing my friends with me as I went, and that alone was priceless to me.

I shared everything with Callie as I processed, writing out my stats, and I could feel the genuine joy through the bond as she hugged me tightly. I'd expected some kind of lingering annoyance at me for outpacing her, but I was ashamed that even now, after so long together, I could still misjudge her. All I felt was happiness and relief. The stronger I got the safer I'd be, and she was all for that.

Settling in to enjoy my day off now that business was taken care of, I prepared for my next big adventure, at least as well as I could. With the template condensed and my stats raised, I was officially ready to begin my education in temporal mechanics. This time tomorrow, I'd be in class, learning how to Mythcraft properly for the first time. I really couldn't wait.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

The next day (after stockpiling my scrolls), I headed to talk to Elonwy about classes. I had been doing tasks (well, the demons had) during my training, but the efficiency had been low. I was up to about seven thousand credits total, which I figured would be enough for most classes I would need soon, not to mention the ones I would actually ACCRUE credits taking, which should be most of the earliest.

To my surprise, when I arrived she seemed to immediately sense…something about me. Her lips peeled back in a wolfish smile. "Well, look who went and grew up overnight. I can feel your temporal affinity. It's strong now. Some kind of physique?"

"I ate my vegetables," I said wryly. "But I'm impressed you could tell."

She snorted at that. "I'm a postgraduate student in the department of temporal studies. If I couldn't tell some B-ranker's affinity I might as well transfer to the business department." The way she said that made it clear that she found the idea ridiculous and offensive, and I decided not to ask about it.

"Fair enough," I chuckled. "Well, since you can see that, oh all knowing clerk. Can you tell what I'm going to ask you next?"

She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Obviously. You're going to ask me what classes to take."

"Am I?" I said archly. "You don't know. I could be here to ask you what terrifying time based technique book to buy."

"Are you here to ask me that?" she said mildly.

I sighed. "No, I'm here to ask you what classes to take. I'm pretty torn on whether I should take the ones that reward a bunch of credits or the ones that COST a bunch of credits. I feel like the former should be necessary but will be too basic. But then I remember that I NEED basic, so I don't know what to do."

Blowing out a long breath, I took out a tattered list. It had a series of courses written on it, all the ones that looked useful or interesting. Some, like Professor Pettigrew's 'Temporal Fold Resonance' class cost credits out the wazoo, and some, like 'Fundamentals of Temporal Duality' with Professor Dana Fleming, rewarded twenty plus credits just for attending. I'd written down every possible class I had access to with my current credit balance, but I'd had no luck narrowing it down.

She read over the list, nodding with interest, making low humming noises as she ticked them off in her head. "Ok, well, my advice is…take none of these."

I blinked at her. "What do you mean take none of them? Those are the classes that are-"

"The most expensive," she finished. "And the ones that have the biggest rewards. Two radically different approaches that should have covered your bases, but ultimately, you fell for the same trap every student does. The first class you take should be THIS." She scrawled a title on the list, pushing it back to me.

Principles of Time with Professor A.D Hawkins- rewards 1 credit.

I blinked. "That's…why that one? It only rewards one credit, and it doesn't cost anything either. Plus it sounds…I'll be honest it sounds boring."

"Are you here to learn or are you hoping to attend sweet rave parties?" she asked acidly. "It only rewards a credit for the exact reason you assumed it was worthless. Professor Hawkins doesn't want attention seekers and credit chasers in his class. He's a serious academic, and one of the most brilliant theoretical minds on the staff. He was the Dean's personal disciple in his youth, and in terms of pure theoretical knowledge is considered to have surpassed his mentor. You will learn more in that class than a hundred higher level lectures about the mechanics of the timestream. It is, without a doubt, the single best foundational course in the catalog."

I blinked at her in surprise. That was a lot of enthusiasm. She coughed, looking away with an embarrassed wince. "He might also be my academic advisor. But I promise I'm not just being biased. If you trust anything I've ever said it should be this. Take the class."

Nodding, I gave her my identification number. She didn't need it, I was sure, I'd been here enough and talked with her enough that she must have memorized it. Hell, even if she hadn't been an S-ranker (or a piece of one I guess) she would have remembered it by now. But she insisted I give it every time. Elonwy took her job very seriously, and she had a lot of respect for the academy and its principles, despite being open to a bit of light bantering during working hours.

She got me registered for the class quickly and efficiently, then glanced down at the counter. Biting her lip uncertainly, she hesitated for a moment, then scribbled down something and passed it to me.

Introduction to Divination Principles- 10,000 credits

"I can't afford-" I started, but she waved me off.

"It's covered," she said quickly. "Just…consider it an investment. That class taught me quite a bit. If Professor Hawkins is the most brilliant theoretical mind in the department, Professor Saunders is the most talented teacher. She has a way of making the material come alive in a way that's truly rare among instructors. Between the two of them, you should have a solid foundation to take the class you ACTUALLY need. Which is this." She scrawled another note on my list.

Quantum Resonance Dynamics and Temporal Diffusion Substrates with Professor Samuel P. Gibbons-25,000 credits

I knew what literally none of these meant, but I trusted Elonwy to know her business. "I appreciate the help," I told her. "I guess I'll be seeing you plenty, because I'm going to need to make some serious credits to afford that one. Here's hoping the stuff I learn in those two courses is enough to take on some bigger tasks, because I want at least a month in that one before the midterms, which means I only have two weeks."

"Your timeline isn't bad," she allowed. "Though I will say that it might be a little ambitious. Not that you shouldn't try to pack in as much as you can before the exam, but you're underestimating the classes you picked. You'll have more than enough foundation to attempt the midterms just taking those two. FINALS, however, you'll need that third class for. No need to rush too much, but you'll definitely want to keep up a decent pace. Luckily the midterms themselves will help with that, assuming you do well."

"And what if I'm planning to buy the ascension thesis?" I asked bluntly.

She shrugged. "Then you buy it. There's more ways to accrue credits than tasks and exams. Once you've gotten a class ranking some of the more difficult competitions will open up. They've usually got pretty impressive prizes if you can place."

"I thought the competitions were all already on the board?" I asked in surprise.

"There are prerequisites for everything here," she clarified. "The stuff on the board is the stuff you're eligible for. It looks different to everyone. You're intermediate B-rank, so you have a decent selection. Advanced would open up more, and having a high class ranking will do the same. Ideally you'd want to do both, but passing the advancement trial for that phase at only a quarter of the way into B-rank will be…challenging."

That didn't bode well for me. Elonwy was S-rank, and based on her work here at the academy I was pretty sure she was a strong one. This place was run by Overgods, there was no way their S-rank standards weren't exacting. I was betting people like Lark and Alara were elites at best here, maybe even middle of the pack, though I had enough pride in my hometown to stubbornly insist to myself that they would be top tier, even in this place, especially considering how well Bethy was doing.

"Any advice about that?" I asked with a grimace. "Because as I am right now, I really don't think I can manage it. But especially knowing that advanced unlocks more tasks and competitions I'll probably need to do it at some point. Is there a trick to it or something?"

She just shook her head. "No trick, just…power. But it's not as insurmountable a goal as you'd think. This is a combat specialization. You'll be doing academic research to learn your foundations, but the point of this place is to learn to apply temporal mechanics to a fight. They can do more for you than you might expect. Not saying it'll be enough, I don't know much about your capabilities in battle, but you might be surprised what you can accomplish with a bit of training from an expert."

That…was a good point. I mean, academically I knew I would be getting stronger would let me fight better, but I had kind of fallen into the trap of thinking about my advancement here as being for the PURPOSE of advancing here. Not that I didn't plan to use my abilities in the real world, but I'd just kind of gotten into the mindset of considering all of this to be a long term investment without any real short term applications.

It was something to think about, but I was getting ahead of myself. For now, my most important job was to check out these classes and learn more about how to use my abilities. I gave Elonwy a grateful smile. "Thank you," I told her sincerely. "I know you have your own reasons for helping me. Boredom, friendship, altruism, extra credit, maybe all of the above, but whatever your reasons I appreciate it more than I can say. I would have been lost without your help and I definitely owe you one."

"Hardly," she said with a casual wave. "It's my duty as an upperclassman to help lost little freshmen lambs. I just couldn't bear to watch you stumble around, helpless and stupid-"

"I was doing fine!" I protested in an offended tone, but she just talked right over me.

Her grin was positively vulpine as she continued to expound at length about my helplessness and idiocy. "Ultimately, mercy and compassion are my two best qualities, so I had to step in and save you from your dumb little brain." She winked, and I knew that she was deflecting because she didn't like taking compliments. I'd been around people like that before, and I had the good sense to stop trying and let her have her way.

Waving my goodbyes I turned and headed out of the exchange. It was still rare for me to see many people there, because without Leviathan's defensive abilities sticking around was tough for students, so despite it being relatively early in the day it wasn't too busy.

I headed back to my room, deciding to stop in and tell Sorwen what I had learned about the classes and which ones were useful. I figured my ally would appreciate the chance to learn something real instead of falling victim to some kind of psychological test aimed at people who like to take shortcuts. Sadly she wasn't there, so I scrawled a quick note and slid it under her door before returning to my own residence.

Once I was there, I dug out a map I'd been working on of the local area. I had a lot of demons running around here and it had become something of a pet project to make one that was functional. I could have bought one for credits, but this had seemed more fun, and I was doing pretty well filling it in. Comparing the buildings to the classroom designation on the page that Elonwy had given me, I found the place I needed to go and checked the time. There was a bit more info on the back of the sheet (I hadn't even noticed her adding it) and I had some time left before class started. I supposed I might as well check this place out today. Guess it was time for my first day of class.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Principles of Time with Professor A.D Hawkins was, to put not too fine a point on it, located in a shithole. It was strange, because I hadn't known Moment City HAD shitholes, everything looked so nice and well maintained, but Hawkins managed it. His lawn was overgrown, his house had boards hanging off of it, there was a rusty sign hanging above his door that squeaked annoyingly every time a strong gust of wind came by.

Which is to say, it LOOKED like every abandoned house I'd ever seen…but without any actual damage. The boards were askew, but a tap made it clear they were solidly anchored, the lawn was overgrown, but it appeared to be JUST overgrown enough to look bad, and the sign…well, it was just a really annoying sign that someone had installed badly, but it was also obviously intentional. It made everything Elonwy had hinted at about tests for finding real knowledge seem a lot more reasonable, not that I'd doubted her before.

So when I knocked on the door and it swung open a crack to reveal a bloodshot eye behind a scratched glasses lens, I was less than surprised. "What?" barked the voice.

"Elonwy sent me," I said bluntly, not wanting to do the song and dance. "I'm signed up for the class. It hasn't started yet, right?" I shoved against the door, and the figure backed up, letting me pass as I bulldozed through the conversation. Elonwy had been very clear that this was the best way to get his attention in her instructions. "And how does that work? I'm sure I missed sessions, will I need to be caught up? Is there a textbook? Will you do a recap? And if so how often are those necessary?"

I entered the room at the end of the hall, assuming if the god behind me wanted me to stop he'd stop me, and then…froze. "Um…did I come at the wrong time?"

"No," he said with a sigh as he followed behind me. "You came at the perfect time. It's always the perfect time. Because no one ever takes this class. The ones who decide to give it a try usually see the outside of the house and turn back. It's not really worth the effort for just one credit." He grimaced. "Elonwy. That girl never could mind her business. Always picking up strays."

I chuckled, not that he seemed amused. "Well I'm registered to be here so…I'm ready to learn. Also I have a friend who signed up but she won't show up until tomorrow."

He grumbled. "Interrupting my damned research. Lousy kids. Fine. If you're signed up I guess I'm obligated." Walking over, he flopped onto the couch. "So. What exactly do you know about time?" I opened my mouth to answer but was cut off by a wooden duck the professor had snatched from a table and hurled at my skull. It bounced off my mask harmlessly, but it stunned me into silence. "Wrong," he snapped.

I blinked. "But I didn't say anything?"

"You were about to," he told me bluntly. "Which is wrong. The correct answer was silence, because you know NOTHING about time. Its warps, its wefts, its ups and downs. Time is complex, variable, unusual thing. I've been studying it for longer than the CONCEPT of your family has existed, and I've barely scratched its surface."
I held up both hands. "Noted, I don't know shit about time. That's why I'm here. So…educate me."

He rolled his eyes. "Educate me, he says. Like that's so easy. Fine, I'll try to dumb this down for you, brat. Telling you what I know about time would take centuries, so I find it is easier to begin not with what time is, but with what it is not, and more importantly, what it does not do. First lesson. Time doesn't pass."

"I'm…not sure what you mean by that," I said slowly. "Can you clarify?"

Contrary to my expectation, that seemed to please him rather than annoy him. "Good," he complimented. "Admitting ignorance is a sign of wisdom. What I just said is simple in concept, but difficult to grasp in scope. It is, however, exactly as I said. Time does not pass. Moments are not moving by, there is no STREAM of time, despite the use of that term in certain treatises. Rather, time is a stationary construct, through which we, as beings, journey."

I took a moment to digest that, considering the idea. "Alright," I said slowly. "What are the ramifications of that? For us, I mean."

"Manifold," he replied instantly. "Literally too many to count, but for the purposes of this discussion, the most impactful is the concept of compound energy drain and directionality. Most people who work with time will tell you that altering the flow of temporal energy gets more difficult the more you do it, the further you go. It does not. At least, not if you do it properly. Time is, in fact, a dimension of space, and movement through it is the traversal of imaginary distance."

"Wait, but time attribute energy and space attribute energy are totally different," I said in confusion. "I have an affinity for the latter and had to develop one for the former. The Dean said I'd need it."

He waved a hand dismissively. "Yes and no. Perception is reality for Ascendants. Time and space are treated as different disciplines, so the attributes are separate. The mechanics are…disparate. Time as a dimension of space is less structured at a physical level. It's in a complicated theoretical state. Regardless, many spatial manipulation techniques can have impressive effects when applied to temporal mechanisms."

I nodded along. "Ok. But mostly I'm here because I need to know how to use time attribute energy. Mythcrafting isn't a thing here, so I have no foundational basis for creating techniques or effects."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "You must have SOME temporal abilities, otherwise you wouldn't have been admitted. What can you do?"
"My Domain is…complicated, but I've manifested some of my techniques and abilities as entities," I did my best to explain. "I can access the powers of these demons at will, and they're all able to grow on their own. I have three with temporal capabilities."

I listed off the abilities of Mephistopheles, Overlay, and Limbo, and he listened patiently.

"Well," he said with interest. "I can see why my teacher admitted you. You certainly are an anomaly. What you've done is…quite frankly astonishing. It's a miracle-" he began, looking at me intently. My chest puffed out before he finished. "That you haven't killed yourself by accident."

I blinked at that. "What? I mean…my demons are stable. I've never had a problem with techniques or forms backfiring on me."

"Which would be the miracle I mentioned," he said dryly. "I assume you're some kind of natural Mythcrafting savant. But like most savants, that makes you a complete idiot. People with natural talent are the WORST students. They can't systematically describe their process in any way, they just do what FEELS right, and none of it is repeatable. They develop deplorable habits that take years to correct. I imagine my teacher arranged for you to end up here where I would need to repair the shattered remnants of your nonexistent foundation so he didn't have to."

"But, the Dean didn't send me here," I said weakly. "Elonwy did. You think she did it on his orders?"

He rolled his eyes. "My teacher is a temporal Overgod. He does not TELL people to do things. He simply arranges causality in such a way as to encourage them to do them of their own will. You should be more than aware of such a technique, given your own abilities."

It took me a second to make the connection, just because of the sheer scale of what he was talking about. "Wait…you mean he's using an ability like Limbo? Pruning potential futures until he finds one where she decides to direct me to you?"

"Possibly," he shrugged. "Or possibly it was more subtle. Perhaps he arranged for her to get a glimpse of a syllabus with my name on it before going to work, or perhaps the light caught your eyes in a specific way that reminded her of a fellow student who she cared for. There are as many potential futures as there are stars in the sky."

I swallowed hard. "But that's so much to sort through. The amount of power and effort it would take to prune those. Destroying what must be trillions of timelines."

Another duck hit me in the head. "What did I JUST finish telling you?" he demanded. "Think."

I did, and it came to me pretty quickly. "Space," I said after a moment. "Time is a dimension in space, so you traverse it rather than forcing it to bend. So he isn't destroying the timelines to select for the one he wants, he's…what, wandering through them? How does he anchor the specific timeline without getting rid of the others? It IS called pruning, so he must be culling some."

"An assumption," he said disdainfully. "Timelines branch. Culling a specific line in a specific way can move up a whole branch of temporal possibilities. But there are other ways. Anchoring is a skill you won't need for quite some time."

I nodded along, but I was actually getting excited. I knew what he was talking about now, understood the dynamics on a fundamental level. Limbo worked on the exact principle he'd mentioned. I physically moved through space and destroyed possible futures. This concept could potentially help me massively improve my demon.

"So…what do I need to learn?" I asked eagerly. "Tell me what kind of techniques or skills I need and I'll get them. I can do this."

He rolled his eyes, reaching into a pocket and tossing me something. I caught it on reflex, opening my hand to reveal a gold timepiece. A pocket watch with no chain, and a winding crown at the top. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he grinned. "Oh no," he told me maliciously. "You have no foundation at all. Working with Mythcrafting attributes requires some kind of strong mental construct. Since you don't have an existing one, I get to build yours from scratch."

I held up the watch in confusion. "I don't…get it," I said slowly. "You want me to use this to what? Keep time?"

His wicked smile got wider. "Not at all. I want you to take it apart. Nothing teaches you more about time than understanding the devices that keep it, and watch construction is a fantastic mechanism for Mythcrafting visualization when it comes to time."

I went pale, staring down at the complicated device. "I'm not…but I already have a visualization right? I use books."

He shrugged. "You can still use books. Just draw the designs into the pages. It's the best of both worlds. Regardless, this will be exponentially less complicated if we build your mental construct to fit temporal mechanics before you start actually applying them. I assure you, this will aid you in your quest to learn to Mythcraft better than any other method I could convey. Or you could simply leave me to my research. I don't have any particular preference one way or the other."

Unfortunately, I could tell he meant that. It didn't matter to him if I stayed or went. In fact, I suspect he'd have preferred the latter. Which of course meant I HAD to say. Because I wasn't giving him the satisfaction.

Grimacing, I set the watch on the table and glanced up at him. "So what am I supposed to do?"

He grinned and passed me a small case with a series of VERY tiny tools in it. "First, you need to take this watch apart entirely…and then put it back together. One hundred times." I closed my eyes, taking a long, deep breath to shore up my inner strength. Then I got to work.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was being very careful. Slow. Steady. My hands were rock solid, my concentration honed to a razor's edge, everything was riding on this moment…and then my finger slipped and the gear I was tightening popped off and hit me in the face. "Godsdamnit!" I snarled, all but flipping the table I was working at.

Professor Hawkins chuckled at me, and I glared at him. "Having trouble?" He asked wryly.

"Why am I even DOING this?" I demanded. "I'm here to learn Mythcrafting, not tinkering. How is this helping me?"

He snorted, then pointed to the piece I was working on. "What is that?"

"It's a lever pivot," I answered reflexively. He pointed to another spot. "Regulator." Another. "Gear Train. I know the parts. I'm not stupid. I memorized your annoying diagrams. I'm just not sure how this helps me."

He rolled his eyes. "This is the problem with naturals. You don't know how to BUILD. You just 'do the thing' and stuff happens. That's not crafting, it's improv. I don't DO improv. If you're learning basics from me, I'm teaching you right, which means you're going to need to go through the process. Watchmaking is soothing and teaches patience, but more accurately, it teaches PROCESS. That's why the tools you're using seal your stats."

Which was my least favorite part of this damned training. Obstacle courses with no stats, sucked, but they were doable. Delicate machining with no stats was a nightmare the likes of which I could never have imagined.

"I get the concept," I grimaced. "It just feels so…arbitrary. Mental constructs can be whatever I want, right? Why pick something so…rigid?"

"I picked it BECAUSE it's rigid," he snapped. "You NEED rigid. Your thinking is too flexible. Creativity is useful, but it begins to become a liability when you run into problems remaining consistent. Mythcrafting isn't just myths, it's also crafting. It's a science as well as an art, and science needs to be repeatable. Creating a decent worldforce is iterative. You need to experiment, and that means tracking your progress. Creating techniques and Domains is how you learn."

I grimaced, but nodded anyway. "Fine. But what is my goal here? Aside from obviously making a watch. Like what's my first step?"

"Simple," he said with a shrug. "I want you to rebuild those demons of yours from scratch. Not improve, mind. Rebuild. Exactly as they are. You need to understand them and how they work before you can improve them. Learn to improve your Mythcrafting by learning your current limits and then pushing them. If you go by watchmaking terminology, you'll be learning to create watches with more movements. But first you need to figure out how many movements the current constructs have. And before THAT-" he hurled a small wooden duck (that he hadn't been holding before) at my head, bouncing it off my mask. "You need to BUILD THAT DAMNED WATCH!"

I sighed, getting back to work on my project. It was slow, and hard, and frustrating. I messed up a bunch of times. And even when I did it right he sometimes made me do it over because it wasn't good enough. I was so excited when I made my first working watch…until he dropped it from four inches above the desk and it all but exploded on contact. Apparently they weren't supposed to do that, so he made me do it again.

Finally, after HOURS of repetition, we stopped. I let out a long sigh of relief. "Finally. Am I done now?"

"Done?" he asked scathingly. "For the day maybe. If you mean have you learned all there is to learn about the delicate art of horology, then not even close. This is just the most basic practice. Next we move to disassembly and reconstruction, then to repair. You have quite a bit to learn before you're ready to Mythcraft."

I grimaced, sighing deeply. "How will this help, exactly? I get needing to understand the constructs, but how will THIS part help?"

He sighed. "Because Mythcrafting is about intent. The more ingrained the imagery, the more durable the construct. You've accomplished similar things with visualization, but this is a more stable method of taking advantage. You learn the parts, the mechanics, the feel of the metal, the process. You burn it into your brain over and over, and then when it's time to construct, it's more stable. The construct, much like your books, is mostly immaterial, save that it provides you with context."

That made sense. Still, for the moment I was past the worst of it, and I put the tools away with great relish. Then I flexed my fingers, because they fucking hurt. With no stats, the delicate manipulation of tiny objects had been a pretty unusual activity for my hands to undertake. Beyond the finger pain from overuse, the sides and backs of my hands hurt from twisting in ways they weren't used to.

Still, it was kind of satisfying, in a way. Even more than the obstacle course was. It felt good to learn to do something the old fashioned way. I was honestly kind of surprised I didn't get a skill for it, though I supposed I'd have had to reincarnate a demon for that. I wondered if I'd get an offer or if I'd need to go out of my way to do that directly.

Regardless, I was learning, and it felt good to have some kind of measurable control over my growth. The only downside was that the horology lessons weren't actually Mythcrafting related, so my talent wasn't doing much to help with them.

After saying my goodbyes to professor Hawkins (whose first name was apparently Alden), then headed out to return to my quarters. Once I arrived, I climbed into my bed, closed my eyes, and stepped from my Domain into the Stygian Vault via the connection I had with my wife. She was already there when I arrived, but she hopped up, excited to see me, and ran over to wrap me in a tight hug.

I laughed at the enthusiasm. "Someone is excited," I said with a grin. "I take it you had a more interesting first day of class than I did?"

"Yes!" she squealed excitedly. "Professor Strauss took us out of the cities into the tower proper and we got to watch her fight some kind of S-ranked titan monster. It was HUGE and she absolutely demolished it. Suppressed her power to the same rank and then mopped the floor with it using only portals."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "Sounds intense. I kind of want to see that."

She grinned, grabbing my hand and escorting me over to a small bowl nearby. "Luckily, I've got you covered. THIS is my record of memory. It's a new toy I've been testing out. It's an inversion of a stealth artifact I got my hands on in Common City, and I've been using it to learn to steer the result of the Vault's manifestations a bit. I'm still new at it, but this was close enough to the exact opposite of stealth that I got away with it."

I picked the bowl up, turning it over with interest. "It's a bowl. Doesn't the Vault make exact inversions. What kind of stealth artifact is a bowl?"

"A VERY hard to find one," she huffed. "It works by pouring a film of imperceptibility over your head. Coats you in the stuff so no one notices you. I figure the opposite of pouring a bunch of not notice out onto someone would be pouring a bunch of things you DID notice into the bowl. Apparently the Vault agreed, because here it is."

Grinning proudly, she opened her mouth and exhaled over the bowl. As I watched, her breath coalesced into a thick mist before condensing into a liquid. In the bowl, an image began to form, like I was looking at a screen.

I leaned forward for a better look, intrigued about what this battle had entailed that had Callie so excited. In the image, a tall, red haired woman with high cheekbones stood in front of a group of people. Callie wasn't IN the group that I could see, but that was because I was seeing from her point of view.

"Greetings," said the woman calmly. "My name is Professor Sarah Strauss, and I teach Combat Application of Spatial Distortion. Now, can someone tell me the simplest method of distorting space?"

One of the students raised a hand. "Um, teleporting?"

She shook her head. "It is, in fact, spatial lubrication. In fact, that particular power is so ubiquitous that it is considered the most common spatial ability it is possible to be born with. That is not to say that it is weak, however, all manipulation of space can be efficacious if applied properly. Above lubrication is condensation, which the layman may consider teleportation, though it is not, and above that is tearing, which some prefer to term 'portals'. These are the basic tools of a spatial ascendant's trade. And the ones I will be educating you on today."

Turning, she gestured behind her. In the distance, something rose over the skyline. Something huge and terrifying with three eyes and a crown of dark horns. "First, lubrication," she said calmly, swiping a hand over the horizon. The monster, which had been moving forward, simply…flowed across the intervening space to appear a mile or so away from the class, towering over the students. "Second, condensation," she intoned, vanishing to appear in the air across from the monster.

The creature snarled at her darkly, rage and hate writ plain on its demonic features as it lashed out with a fist the size of a small building. "Third," she said placidly. "Tearing."

She waved a hand again, and like she was pulling aside a curtain, the space in front of her rippled, revealing a different viewpoint from before hanging translucently in front of her. I almost didn't realize what she had done until the fist hit the distortion and passed right through….emerging from under the monster's chin and smashing its head back in a truly brutal uppercut.

It started to fall, but with another flick, the portal closed, cutting off the arm entirely and leaving the monster stumbling back dazedly, one arm missing and the stump bleeding profusely. She flicked her fingers again, pulling that same spatial curtain over the arm and making it vanish like a magician at a stage show.

The monster roared and hissed, snarling with rage, and seemed to shake off the damage, raising its other arm to strike her down…and then its head VANISHED.

It took me a second to process what had happened, because the damage was so catastrophic it was almost impossible to piece together without going back over it from the beginning. The arm. The one she'd vanished. She'd teleported it high into the air, fist down. She'd dropped it from miles up and waited for the monster to walk into its own orbital punch. Now I knew what people meant when they described powerful blows as being "like the fist of an angry god".

The liquid dissolved, and I looked up to see Callie grinning at me wolfishly. "She's AMAZING, isn't she?" she asked eagerly. "I'm planning to ask her to be my academic advisor. Can you imagine how much I'll learn?"

Thinking about Professor Hawkins, who was pretty much filling that role for me, I was kind of jealous, but I wasn't too upset. Callie deserved a good mentor, and I was excited to see her catch up to me. This Professor Strauss seemed pretty amazing. But I knew there was more to this than just her showing off.

I grinned as I stood up, calling my staff to my hand as I started to limber up. "Let me guess, you want to see how much of that nonsense you can do on your own?" I asked her with an excited laugh. "It has been a while since we had a proper sparring match. Go ahead then, show me what you can do." I triggered Mornax, pushing it to A-rank with the staff's effects. "Defense only. I want to see what you're really capable of." Without having to worry about hurting me, I saw her start to get really amped up. This was going to be so much fun.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Sparring with my wife was always a lot of fun. We'd been together for years now, and we knew each other in a way I didn't think would be possible without our bond. My combat instincts, my thought processes, my moods, she knew everything about me and vice versa. Which meant that despite being a rank weaker, she was able to find and exploit weaknesses in my combat style that might be impossible for anyone else.

Which was why I was only playing defense this time. I knew Callie well enough to know she'd be concerned about hurting me. Her blades were both B-rank themselves, and with her Adherent fire playing with space, she had a decent shot at doing damage. The best possible option had been making myself literally invulnerable to her attack so she could really cut loose.

Taking up a firm stance, I dropped my knees a bit, lowering my center of gravity and planting my staff behind me to increase my stability.

Callie grinned at me, Oblique and Gossamer drawn and ready for the battle. I honestly wasn't sure about sparring inside her Domain, but considering all the other nonsense I did in Domains, it was hardly the most absurd use of time I could think of. "You ready?" I asked her with a grin. "This isn't going to be easy. I went all out on defense so you didn't have to hold back, but you won't be able to do any damage when I'm like this. Might be a bit discouraging."

She rolled her eyes, then her shoulders, loosening up her arms as she swept her blades in a figure eight. "You talk too much," she laughed, teeth bared as she stepped forward, her blades flicking out.

Adherent flame blazed up inside Gossamer, even as Oblique filled with the black flames of Heretic Fire. I watched carefully as she stepped forward and…vanished. A blaze of black fire consumed her, and for a moment I thought it was something similar to my Waltz. I quickly realized though that she hadn't exactly teleported, she'd more folded the space. Condensation, as her teacher had called it.

With my current stats, I was more than up to the task of matching her speed, but with a three times modifier on her Might, Callie's physical ability was actually higher than my Perception. Combined with her spatial movement, she'd actually managed to appear in my blind spot, and I only noticed her attack as it came within a hairs breadth from my throat. I ducked my chin, letting the attack clang off my mask, my staff coming around to parry Oblique as Gossamer rebounded from my face.

Callie vanished in a blur, another flicker of black flame. Apparently the Heretic Fire was more suited to condensation, whereas I already knew her Adherent Fire could tear space easily. Callie seemed to notice my slip earlier with the blind spot, and I saw her back off, eyes narrowing as she studied me. I watched, waiting patiently, and she vanished again. When she appeared again, her blades lashed out in a dizzying storm of strikes. I deflected them easily, but the few clangs off my armor and mask made it clear I'd underestimated her.

She was using her spatial condensation to create some kind of weird multi attack that allowed her blade to take multiple paths simultaneously. It was an unfinished technique, and clearly a spur of the moment idea. Only one in five of the visible attacks was actually a real blow, but still, it showed an absurd amount of adaptability. Sadly it wasn't enough, and my stats won out. My Might was just too damned high when I was able to see her coming. Lower Perception or not, I currently had more than two and a half times as much Might as Callie had POINTS. It wasn't a gap she could close.

I eased up as I realized I was getting too into the battle and ignoring my defense only premise. Callie, luckily, was just as excited as I was, and just as uncaring about holding back. She flicked out Gossamer, blue flames rolling, and I blinked in shock as I felt the world shift around me, inverting as I fell out of the sky from about a hundred feet up.

Callie appeared behind me again, but her advantage was negated by the spinning of the room, and I calmly deflected her attacks as I reoriented midair, landing in a crouch with a low boom. The room warped again, and suddenly, I was inside a storm of change. Appearing across the Vault, manifesting in the air, on the ground, and even halfway up the walls, Callie appeared from fire each time to attack, hammering at my weakest points as she became more and more skilled at moving me.

"Stop," I finally called, holding up a hand. She did, and I cracked my neck and looked her over. She looked tired, but not "moved a B-ranker with A-rank defense" tired. "What the hell was that? How were you able to teleport me, my Impact is way higher than yours. You shouldn't be capable of moving me an inch."

She grinned at me. "I know," she said proudly. "That's why I didn't. I couldn't move you at all. So I moved the space around you. I used Tearing to rip a hole from your location to another and let you fall through it. Impact can't protect you from the absence of space."

I blinked. "That…holy shit I didn't even consider that. That makes perfect sense." It reminded me of the void cloaking that Anna had shown us back during our army training. Using space to seal off Perception by literally removing the source to another spatial dimension. Except this was an attack that allowed her to bypass even my footing.

In fact, I was lucky I was so much stronger than she was, because the teleport had cut my connection with the ground, and without my wings out, that effectively severed my defensive form. Luckily I was still in the Seal and my mask, not to mention all the Impact I had on her, so I was able to make up the difference, but taking a closer look, I did find a few small knicks on exposed parts of my body with blood smeared over them, even if my regeneration had long since closed the minor injuries.

Still, it made me smile. "That was fantastic," I said enthusiastically. "With those crazy weapons of yours and your new skills, you could probably kill a B-ranker. The question is, will that be enough to get through the advanced student trial? A hundred thousand enemies is nothing to sneeze at. Even if you have the raw power, you might not be able to keep it going for long enough."

She snorted. "Did you forget where we are? My manifestations inside the Domain are a bit limited, but if we were outside, I could manifest both any item in here AND its exact opposite. And it barely takes any energy. I'll drown those robots in weapons. Here, come take a look at my collection. I've been working hard to fill it out every chance I get. The Asura have been contributing quite a bit of manpower to it, actually. Doing jobs for credits and to earn me weapons directly."

I laughed at that, because I'd kind of forgotten that the Asura served Atlas, and that made her basically their princess. She proudly dragged me over to one wall of the vault, where I could see a huge collection of hanging weapons of various designs. Swords, maces, axes, spears, arrows, flails, and even some farming tools all hung carefully from the walls of the Vault, placed gently on subtle brackets to show them off in the most favorable light.

"So how many of these are…y'know, useful?" I asked her as I scanned them slowly. "Because I can tell they're all C-rank items, but I can't tell what they do, and with this kind of quantity, I'm somehow doubting they're all super dangerous elite weaponry."

She shrugged. "Depends what you mean. Part of the reason for getting them was to test the inversion effects of the vault. Like that hammer over there has a minor repair enchantment on it. But the inverted version has a minor DESTRUCTION enchantment on it, which is a lot more useful to me. Some of them are functionally worthless in their base state. Like that spear is cursed to inflict a fear effect on the wielder. But when I invert it, it actually grants courage when used, which is pretty great. A lot of that stuff is cursed, actually. Cursed items are dirt cheap and they work perfectly with the vault."

I blinked. I hadn't seen a cursed item in ages. I remembered finding some on Callus, and Zeke had been excited to explore the curses, to the point of trading me for one that he said was a little bit odd. I hadn't really bothered looking into them again since then because…well, curses were bad. My gear was always custom made, and I wasn't a loot goblin like my wife, so I mostly didn't pay attention to items we found when we were out and about.

But now that I thought about it, curses were exactly the kind of thing Callie could make use of now. "You don't get affected by the curses anyway?" I asked curiously. "Having them in here?"

She shook her head. "Nope. This is the vault. Vaults are for collecting and isolating. Part of the nature of my Domain is keeping negative effects off of me. Still, even with the Asura helping, I'm bumping up against the limits of what I can do within the time I have left, especially given my need to train. I think this ought to be enough to deal with the advanced trial, but I want to polish my skills a bit more before I made the attempt. I'm also considering waiting to take it until after mid terms. I have to look into the benefits at the different ranks. If advanced will get me a higher score I'll hurry my attempt."

"Good point," I nodded. "I get you there. I feel like it should help. I really want to try it out myself, but it's not even close to time yet. The B-rank trial is a lot harder to get through, especially since I'm only a quarter of the way in."

I frowned at myself. I had been repeating that a lot lately. In my head, out loud, I kept making that same excuse. Honestly it was starting to grate. I knew I wouldn't die in the attempt, was it really such a wise move to avoid it. Given how much stronger my demons had gotten, and how much stronger I'd gotten myself, I could probably do a lot better.

Of course, I still needed to train. I made a promise to myself. Once I finished rebuilding my three time demons, I would give it a try. I wanted to find out what I was capable of BEFORE learning the skills I was sure would propel me to the peak of my rank in terms of combat power.

Callie, feeling my decision through the bond, beamed at me. "Seems like I'm not the only one who's getting all fired up." She winked, letting the black Heretic flame blaze up for a second on her sword as she said it.

Rolling my eyes, I scoffed fondly. "That was a bad pun and you should feel bad for making it. Now, why don't you show me where you keep the food in this place. I know you wouldn't have a vault with no ingredients. I want to see if I can cook for you inside your Domain." Given my experiments with cooking in my own Domain I was betting I could. She lit up like a sunrise, grabbing my hand and dragging me deeper into the vault and I laughed. Guess she was hungry.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Today was my first day of class. Again. Introduction to Divination Principles with Professor Allegra Saunders was the secondary recommendation from Elonwy. I was still kind of on the fence about the first one, but I trusted my friend not to steer me wrong, so I packed up and headed for my first class (after stocking my scrolls for the day).

Unlike Prof Hawkins, Professor Saunders was NOT understated in terms of her living situation. In fact, even from the outside her house was a sprawling palatial estate that dwarfed most of the ones I'd ever seen. When I arrived at the gate, there was an attendant waiting for me there, ready to escort me off to the side entrance where the class was supposed to enter.

"You were expected," said the servant who met me at the gate. "Please, come this way. Lady Allegra has been eagerly awaiting your presence."

I blinked at that, for several reasons, but tagged along as the gaunt man in the robe led me around the side of the house. "So…what do you mean expected?" I asked slowly. "Like, she knew I was coming because I signed up? Because if this is another 'only one person in the class' situation I'm going to be so pissed."

He laughed at that. "Of course not. The lady deals in fate. In chance and happenstance. Some beings hold greater sway in the rivers of time than others, and those stones, when dropped into the current, produce ripples that even the most amateurish diviners can perceive. With our Lady's skill, your nature was as a sun in an empty sky, obvious and shining with a light that could not be denied."

That brought me up short. "Wait, you mean she can tell I have fate manipulation abilities?" I asked in surprise. My class in Doom Sovereign had been the Fate Walker, and even beyond that, I had always had an…interesting destiny. Even for an Ascendant I attracted strange and unique events at a rate that beggared belief. From conversations with my family and even other candidates, my advancement had been far faster than it should have been, and I had experienced far more than most.

For a while I had assumed that was because I was descended from three different gods, but comments had been made in the past that even for a divine descendant, my luck was a little bit absurd when it came to running into strange things.

Part of what had drawn me to this particular class was the knowledge that while it was time related, it would presumably allow me to learn to access the abilities of someone like Azazel more accurately. My first minister was a big fan of divination, and giving him access to an actual teacher who could show him how it worked would make that even more useful.

When we arrived at the closed door in question, the hooded man knocked heavily on the door in a strange, staggered pattern. The door opened and a dark haired girl with pale skin and black painted lips glared at him. "Oh for- Dylan, what the hell did I tell you about the whole 'mysterious envoy' persona. You look ridiculous. Did you give this one the child of destiny speech? I told you to stop doing that."

I froze. Oh. Apparently I had been overthinking things.

Dylan, aka robe boy, pouted at the girl. "Sally!" he hissed in embarrassment. "Don't ruin my reputation in front of the seekers of knowledge. The Lady is expecting this one in particular. Beyond that, my own senses foretold his arrival. The fate of this one is particularly puissant."

"No, she isn't," Sally snapped. "She said she forgot to send directions to the side door to one of the kids and that they would probably show up at the front gate. That's not PROPHECY, it's forgetfulness. And you don't HAVE senses. You've had to borrow credits from me six different times because you lost all yours in the gambling competitions. You are the least prescient human being I've ever met. I'm including Lyle in that assessment, and the other day, he walked into a HOLE because he got distracted by a butterfly."

She turned to shoot me an apologetic grimace. "Look, ignore everything this idiot said to you. He takes this nonsense way too seriously. The Prof is actually a pretty perceptive lady, but she tends to hyperfocus on the future and fail to notice the obvious. My brother has picked up ALL her bad habits and none of her good ones."

"Sally, knock it off!" Dylan whined. "You're making me sound bad to the new kid!"

She jerked her chin at me. "Come on in, class hasn't started yet. Prof said we'd be starting late today, and she's pretty reliable about that kind of stuff." Letting me in, she led me down the hall towards the front of the house. I was pretty sure. Given the obvious spatial warping it was hard to get a bead on where I was.

"Look, contrary to what he said, this isn't some hyper mystical mumbo jumbo. I know divination sounds mysterious, but really it's just like statistics. But backwards. And some of it you do without any information to go off of. The Prof is a good teacher, and if you have a knack for this stuff you'll pick it up lickety split."

"What about the whole fate thing?" I asked as we walked. "He said that some people have stronger fates. Is that real?"

"Oh sure," she nodded. "But singularities are rare as hen's teeth. The Prof says she hasn't had one in her class in a few millennia. The chances of you being one are pretty damned slim. Just…don't worry about Dylan. He's harmless. Focus on learning more about the class and making the most of your time. The Prof knows how to educate people according to their talents, so the better you do the more you actually learn."

That sounded fair enough, so I decided to just wait and talk to her about it in person. Making a bunch of half assed guesses wasn't likely to be helpful to me long term. This was a school, I was obviously here to get knowledge from experts, not to try to come up with my own solutions to problems that had already been studied.

We walked down a long, thin hallway with nothing on the walls except candles. I was pretty sure it was some kind of servant's corridor. After a few turns, we came to a large lecture hall type chamber with descending tiered seating. The hall was set up in sort of a cone, with the thinnest point being a rounded alcove with a single large table set into the floor. The top of the table was some kind of dark granite, the base was wood, and a long figure stood at the side, a placid smile on her mostly blank face.

"Welcome," she said, in a voice that didn't go above a whisper but rode the acoustics of the room to sound like it was coming from right behind my ear. To Introduction to Divination Principles. I am Allegra Saunders, and I believe you've already introduced yourself, Mr. Wyndham."

Sally sighed. "He didn't, Prof. You skipped that part."

The detached woman blinked. "Ah, my mistake. How rude of me. You may proceed, of course, I didn't mean to cut you off."

"I'm…uh, Shane Wyndham," I said slowly. "But I got by Solomon."

She nodded happily. "Of course you do. Please, come sit down, I saved you a spot by the front. You won't have to run as far when the incident occurs."

I glanced at Sally, who winced and shrugged. She did NOT, tellingly, say anything about not worrying about the proclamation. Lovely. I followed the gaze of Professor Saunders down to the front of the room and sat. I was watched by about a dozen people, mostly older. Unlike my initial class, this one was much more crowded, with plenty of people hoping to learn about divination. I could see Dylan the robe guy in the back, sulking, and Sally sat next to him, much to his annoyance. When I took my seat, I smiled up at Professor Saunders, and she nodded blithely before returning her serene gaze to the class.

"Time," she said in a smooth, empty voice. "Is a river. But not a linear one. It's more circular. Like a three dimensional river. In a ring shape. But twisted. Like an upside down eight. Because it starts before it ends, and vice versa. Everything that can happen has already happened, or won't ever happen, and if you can't tell the difference between the two, then nothing you do will ever matter. Except when it does."

I frowned at her. That was…deeply unhelpful. Elonwy had said this teacher was good at what she did. I had to assume I was missing something. Her eyes fixed on me. "You can see the infinite possibilities, can you not?"

"I can," I nodded. "At least sometimes. I have a special ability that opens up that sense. I can prune the potential outcomes. Or at least that's what I was told it's called."

She grimaced. "Sloppy," she said sourly. "Destroying timelines to focus your potential outcomes. As I said, time is a river. Rather than divert the flow, it is wiser to simply swim. Utilize your ability." She gestured for me to come up and stand beside her. "Today, we perform a small exercise." She drew out a coin. "I will flip this coin. I want you to prune the timelines where it lands on tails. Remember. Only heads. Anything else is unacceptable."

I took a deep breath, then nodded. She flipped. I reached for Limbo, incarnating my demon, and the world bloomed into an endless web of possibilities. There were quite a few nearby, but most of them were some offshoot where the coin didn't land or something else happened alongside the flip. In terms of potential outcomes for the toss, there were only a few. I lashed out, shattering a few timelines, focusing the outcome to land on heads. The last viable timeline nearby was locked in, heads was assured, and then, inside that timeline, Professor Saunders winked at me. I saw her do…something, and she reached OUT of the timeline she was in and plucked the coin from another, the motion overlapping with her coin flip as it landed…on tails.

Gaping at her, I stared down at the coin. I saw what she meant. She was saying the same thing as Professor Hawkins, about time being four dimensional. She'd moved between the timestreams seamlessly and then come back, even sidestepping the effects of Limbo entirely.

She passed me the coin, gesturing for me to sit down. I did, still staring at the golden disc as if it help the answers to the universe. Which, to be fair, it very well might. "Time," she repeated. "Is a river. Move within its flow, reverse it, swim upstream. But it doesn't stop. Not really. Not on a grand scale. Which means no matter what your opponent does, you always have a way to move. Always have another path. That is the truth of divination. For it is in divination that we illuminate our truest path. And there is ALWAYS a path to take."

Her voice was no longer serene or flat, now it was sharp, and her eyes glittered like dark chips of obsidian, sharpened to a monomolecular edge. "Welcome to Introduction to Divination Principles. Today, you enter a whole new world." I swallowed hard as I took in the excited gleam in the eyes of the other students. I wasn't the only newbie, from what I could tell, but even the students I knew had been here a while seemed excited. Now I got what Elonwy had meant about Saunders being a good teacher. I had a feeling I'd be learning a lot here.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

Another two weeks passed without much incident. Train, class, train, sleep (with some time for stockpiling scrolls in between). With the demons out doing jobs, I managed to pull in some credits, but it wasn't nearly enough. I was focused mostly on the midterms for income, and I only had a month left to train. Still, I'd made some serious progress, as evidenced by the object currently sitting in front of me.

"So, this is a manifestation of a demon?" Callie asked from where she lay on the table in my conference room. "It looks kind of messy."

"It's…sort of a halfway point," I admitted. I'm trying to recreate Overlay in this form. Once that's done, I can use Brad to insert the timepiece in Owen and anchor him to it the same way I did with Phil and the candle. It's ALMOST done. I just need to have Dantalion scan it to verify."

Overlay was…simplistic. It was a fairly barebones design for a demon, as far as I could tell, albeit surprisingly economical. There were actually a few attributes present. Mostly time, but not just that. One that I was pretty sure was information, one that I suspected was fate (which WAS a different thing), a few more basic ones like light for the representation.

It was fascinating to study it, because I hadn't actually MADE Overlay the way I made a lot of my demons. The DS Mastery skill had essentially designed the subskill spontaneously. It made me so curious about the system as a whole. Where did skills come from? I knew some of them, like my Goetia Staff Art, were created by people and then sort of natural disseminated, but something like DS Mastery, which was only possibly by mashing together the accumulated knowledge of a bunch of die hard players, didn't seem like it had existed before.

Regardless, Overlay wasn't complicated, but it was efficient. Or he was. It was strange to think of the subskill as a person while constructing the timepiece that represented him. I glanced over it. "Twelve movements," I said slowly as I studied it. "Decent balance of attributes."

"Don't you want more time?" Callie asked with interest. "You've got a natural affinity for it now, right?"

"Yes, but that's not how it works," I told her as I studied the device. "Balance is important for function. Attributes are complicated, but also very simple. They do something. You can bully them into doing other things with form, but they mainly serve a specific purpose. In order to make the most of them, you need other attributes to shape that purpose alongside the form. Mythcrafting techniques from just one attribute produces extremely basic techniques."

And that was another tough part of this whole thing. Overlay had been a skill originally, which meant it was constructed from stats. Stats were more stable and discrete portions of mythology, but they were rigid. Remaking the demon into a timepiece was giving me far more flexibility, but it was forcing me to adapt my mythcrafting to fit into the niche of skillmaking. Which I suspect was the whole point of the exercise Professor Hawkins gave me. Showing me how to mythcraft from the ground up, as it were.

My construct wasn't made of stats, but I had to study and learn from the stat aspects of skill construction to make the elements of the timepiece, and that was showing me a bit about how the system combined its mythology. It was making my individual movements more refined and stable as I internalized their construction.

I passed it to Dantalion. "So…what do you think?" I asked the older demon. "Take your time."

He nodded solemnly, picking up the timepiece. Slowly, he lifted it to his eye and began to study it. "I've been keeping up with your lessons of course, my lord," he said as he eyed the timepiece. "And making generous use of the Pillar of Goetia to simulate research. I've needed to confirm quite a few things for myself in realtime, and of course, I'm nowhere close to proficient, but I have at least as firm a grasp on this subject as yourself."

"I figured," I laughed. "I also figure that you're being humble. You probably have a much firmer grasp on this stuff than me. And I don't mind that. After all, your knowledge is my knowledge. Once I incarnate you, everything you've learned will become my own knowledge."

He laughed, not even bothering to look up at me. "This looks functional. And more importantly, it looks ACCURATE."

I shrugged. "It wasn't that hard. I mean, yeah, learning to replicate a skill with mythcrafting was tougher than I expected, but it's kind of basic, and Overlay was the MOST basic subskill I had access to. I've got a long way to go."

"True," Dantalion admitted as he set the timepiece down. "But I think you're underestimating exactly how big an accomplishment this is. While you may be thinking this is a pathetic pace, your only real point of reference for beginner Mythcrafting is Professor Hawkins. What might seem trivial to him is fiendishly complicated to others. Based on context clues, I suspect that this level of progress would take a normal person YEARS of effort."

I blinked at that. "Huh. Not sure how. Constructing the mechanism elements was a bit annoying, but it wasn't that hard. It's all just visualization at the base of it. Anyone can do that. Learning to layer those visualizations on top of each other was tough, but Piece of Mind made it a lot simpler to keep up once I got the hang of it."

"Because visualizations are the area of Mythcrafting where your talent shines the most," he said patiently. "You remember that even your advisor called you a savant. A natural, as it were. The fact that you've continued to improve at this speed proves his words correct. It is also worth noting that he hasn't actually said anything negative about your progress in at least a week, which for someone like him, is its own form of praise."

I…hadn't actually noticed that. He was right though. The Professor hadn't made a single snide crack about my work ethic or productivity in several days. Compared to his previous annoyingly critical manner, it was basically doing a congratulatory dance in my honor, not that I was stupid enough to say that to him. I probably should have noticed that myself, actually, but I'd been so caught up in work and training I hadn't even given it a second thought.

"Alright," I sighed. "If it's ready, we should call Brad in. Are you sure this is going to work? It's not…exactly the same."

He waggled a hand. "It's conceptual, so it should. We can conceive of it working, so there's no reason to expect it won't. Besides, the item in question isn't overly complicated. It's not exactly replacing his current structure, more sort of…melding with it. Then we can remove it when needed for upgrades and it'll act as a sort of talisman. You know this. You came up with the plan."

"Yeah," I grinned. "But it sounds so much more convincing coming from you. It's the extra years. They add gravitas."

He laughed at that, and I sent one of the passing demons to call for Owen and Brad. It didn't take them long to arrive, and as soon as they did, the two of them all but lungs across the table to examine the timepiece. I rolled my eyes, snatching them up. "Stop that, you two," I snapped. "You're grown…demons. Act like it."

Brad and Owen had taken to spending time together, presumably because they were the youngest of my demons, at least in terms of experience and physicality. Brad was proving to be a bad influence on Owen, but honestly I didn't dislike it. The kid might not be any chronologically younger than me, but he seemed so…green. It was nice to see him making friends, and to see Brad bonding with someone.

"Is that it?" he said eagerly, staring at the device in my hands. It was honestly kind of fascinating to look at. Inside the Domain, mental constructs could function to their fullest. Each of the unique elements of the timepiece were a strange, shimmering substance composed of raw attributes. Some of them were interesting colors, and some of them couldn't really be described by a term that pedestrian, but they were all breathtaking to behold.

I nodded, tossing it in the air and catching it. "Of course," I nodded cheerfully. "Take a look. See what you feel."

I tossed him the timepiece, made based on his own construction. My initial schematics had required quite a bit of referencing of the book in the library that represented Owen, and despite being one of the first, trying to unravel the whole thing had been fiendishly difficult. But given the transition, the two items should be VERY similar, if distinct, and since the book WAS Owen for all intents and purposes, the timepiece…

"It feels like me," he said in awe. "I mean. Not me. Because it's a watch. But it is me. It's gorgeous. I feel like it's ticking along to the beat of my heart."

I glanced at Brad. "Heartbeat, huh? Can you use that?"

He squinted between us. "I mean…probably. Where the hole opens is sort of academic. But if he can feel that, then moving it should create a pit where that sensation used to be. I'm not exactly positive how this whole thing works, I'm sort of going off instinct here." He reached out and snatched the timepiece from Owen, who let out a whimper and reached for it.

Brad, not even bothering to ask if it was time, shot his hand forward clutching the watch. Before my eyes, a hole opened in the air over Owen's chest, and Brad shoved his closed fist and the watch both into the gap, before immediately removing his hand. Once it was out, the hold snapped shut with a pop, vanishing as if it had never existed. We all froze, staring at Owen. He stared back, looking shocked, but not hurt or uncertain about anything.

Watching his face closely, Brad nodded slowly, then his hand shot back out and the hold opened. He withdrew the timepiece, then turned and handed it to me.

I took it carefully, staring down at it in awe. It looked…better. Different. Like someone had overhauled it and adjust all the pieces to be just a bit more perfect. Gears were slimmer, movements smoother, it just looked like it was made by a better artificer. More than that though, it felt alive. I could feel the pulse of a pounding heart through the gears, like a being breathed alongside the mechanism, a physical vessel of life contained in a watch.

Turning, I passed it to Dantalion, being very careful not to damage or jar it. He studied it for about a minute before handing it back, and Brad placed it back inside of Owen's chest. "This bears further study," Dantalion said solemnly. "Something…changed. That might seem like a good thing, but it means we don't have enough of a grasp on the mechanics of this process. The Domain altered the timepiece to fit your intent."

I grimaced. "Which means it was a failure. That's not systematic. The Professor is going to be so disappointed. It's fine. I have three chances to get this done. And the changes will help us refine the process, right?"

"They will," he confirmed. "By studying the before and after, we can learn what differences we overlooked between the initial input and the final product. I imagine this experience will advance our Mythcrafting capabilities by quite a bit. Obviously, we won't be tampering with the device until we fully understand its creation and the logic behind it, but until we've completed the analysis, we can learn much from it in preparation for working on the next one."

I nodded. "Sounds good. Well then, if we're done here let's break for the night. Tomorrow, we can get started on studying Limbo." Hopefully my Divination classes would be helpful in deciphering those abilities.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

After finishing the timepiece for Owen, I spent the day with my wife, enjoying my time as Dantalion studied the design to try to figure out where we went wrong. Eventually though, I started getting antsy, and I decided that in order to best grasp the nuances of what had been done, a test was in order.

I considered another duel with Callie, but truth be told she wasn't at a level where she could push me yet, even with her new tricks. Luckily, I had someone who definitely was. So I reached out through a messenger service offered by one of the other temporal studies majors to get in touch with the most deadly single combatant at my rank I knew of. Namely, my bodyguard, Fade Genix.

Formerly a major crime boss (for some value of crime) on the Heirworld where my succession war was held, Fade was a swordmaster who ruled over the "Hall of Steel", a weapon focused gathering of combat geniuses who had risen to the top of that absolute mess of a planet.

The Hall of Steel was ALSO the faction partially founded by Donovan Redfellow, the smith who had crafted my armor, and Fade's sword Devlos on top of that. Even among other B-rankers Fade was one of the most deadly, and if anyone would be able to help me test the new and improved Overlay, it would be him.

Since I had the option to take my Common City time whenever I wanted, I arranged to meet him there for one of my two days the following morning and (after stockpiling my scrolls, bringing my total up to one hundred seventy), I headed into town to find a place to spar with my guard.

As I made my way through Common City alone, I couldn't help but reflect on the coming fight. Fade was, without a doubt, the best possible opponent to train the Overlay. He was a technical master of swordplay who far outstripped Callie and had been training for most of his life. His entire combat style relied on pure martial ability, with just a hint of some metal nonsense to add effectiveness.

This would be a perfect chance to polish my Goetia Staff Art some more. Which, come to think of it, was still not represented by a demon. Studying my Domain, I realized that particular skill hadn't been represented, mostly because while I had passed it on to my apprentice, it had been folded into my pseudo Domains until now. I made a note to look into reincarnating Valtek into the Goetia Staff Art, especially given the synergy with the Pillar of Goetia. I wanted to make sure I had boosted that one up to at least Legendary next time I met with my disciple.

I arrived at our arranged meeting spot, paying a few credit points to rent out the space and then headed back to limber up, calling out the Pillar as I prepared for combat. It felt…nice. I was actually going to have a relatively fair fight here.

Well, no, I wasn't. Fade was a master of battle on a level it would be hard for me to even touch, but as long as he didn't dip into his Chronicle or potential Domain, I was actually on the way to being able to keep up with him. Despite being only a quarter of the way into B-rank to his peak, my Might was over six million with a three times modifier. Assuming he wasn't singularly focused on that stat like Jessie did with her Vitality, chances were good he was probably only at around that level, and that wasn't even counting my Vitality, sitting at an effective fifteen thousand plus the regeneration effect from my bloodline.

With Overlay to help bridge the skill gap, I was hopeful I could at least put up a fight, and it should be more than enough to test out my newest demon upgrade. It was exciting, knowing I might be able to keep up with someone at Fade's level, even if he would probably be holding back a bit. He was not only MUCH stronger than me in terms of overall stats, he had a lot more experience.

Fade arrived not too long after I did, looking energized and just us contained as usual. Fade had this sort of…manner about him. When he was in combat, his whole aura was like a drawn sword, but when he wasn't, he had a way of hiding his edge. It was an embodiment of his Path in a way I hadn't seen from many other people manage. He grinned as he took in my attention. "Always be aware of your surroundings," he said with a nod of acknowledgement. "Good man. Are you ready for this?"

I nodded, spinning up my staff, and he whistled at the object. "A-rank," he said in an impressed tone. "Devlos got a bump from Donovan last time he was around, but he didn't make that staff. Surprised you managed to improve it."

"Metaphysical shit," I shrugged. "Hard to explain. He DID upgrade my armor though." I rapped my knuckles on the Seal of Solomon. "So you don't need to worry about cutting me up by accident."

Fade just chuckled darkly. "I promise you, Shane. I never needed to worry about that. When I cut people, it's because I MEAN to."

Nodding slowly, I closed my eyes, reaching into myself for Owen. The Overlay had made the jump from tier 6 to tier 7 when the timepiece upgraded, putting it firmly in Grandmaster territory, and I couldn't wait to see what it could do. Especially since Owen himself had been training with the ability his whole life, and incarnating him would give me full access to those tricks of the trade.

Taking up a purely defensive stance I associated with Mornax, I prepared for the fight. When I opened my eyes, the world seemed…different. Arrows sat atop my field of vision, shifting back and forth consistently with his movement. Every step, every shift, a dozen more were illuminated, showing me exactly what attacks he was going to make.

It was kind of fascinating, because the Overlay KNEW what he would do, but what that was exactly could change depending on the moment of input. I remained calm and still, prepared and waiting for his attack.

When it came, it was almost confusing. It wasn't just speed, that could be offset by Might or Perception. There was an element of…almost inevitability to the attack. He went from standing completely still not moving to just…BEING there, mid strike. The only reason I was able to intercept it at all was the Overlay telling me EXACTLY where he was going to attack, and even with the warning, I almost missed when it actually happened.

The force of the strike when it landed was monstrous too. I was sure he wasn't totally specced into Might, and that he must have had plenty of stats in things like Perception and Focus, but the blow from his sword was every bit as heavy as the one I might have dealt, if not heavier. My knees buckled slightly at the impact, and I felt the ground literally give slightly under my boots.

Then he was just gone, appearing back in his previous spot. I glowered at him, watching for the Overlay to tell me about a followup. "What the hell was THAT?" I demanded. "What is your Might?"

He shrugged. "Twenty million or so. Why?"

"Because mine is basically twenty five," I said waspishly. "And I was barely able to keep up with that attack. I mean, my Perception isn't exactly fantastic in comparison, but I'm not even talking speed, you almost knocked me flying." I paused, thinking back to lessons I'd had when I was just starting out. "Shit," I said with a sigh. "That was utilization. You were able to exert more force because of the amount of control you have over your body."

He tapped his nose with a grin. "Good catch. Yes, although also no. I WAS exerting more force because of my control, but not just of my body. You're a genius, boss, I'll admit it. Being able to grow this far this fast is monstrous, and your Domain is crazy. But you're missing the foundation that a normal Ascendant would have. Your immediate jump to Chronicle and then Domain means you didn't learn to use your Path well enough."

Lifting a boot, he tapped a toe on the stone floor. Except it didn't make the thump I'd have expected, it made a clang. I blinked, staring down at the floor in confusion for a second before it hit. "You're stabilizing your footing with your Path?" I asked him in disbelief.

"Among other things," he agreed. "I'm also reinforcing the ground when I move so I can express my motion more directly. Even appropriately leveled material has some amount of give, and while it might seem like a meaningless fraction of a second, enough of those start to add up. Of course, there's the more meta aspects of stabilizing my balance, like firming my stance and reinforcing my steps, not to mention amplifying my muscles one by one as my attacks travel through them."

I gaped at him. "You're doing all that for a simple sword swing? And you want me to learn it?"

"No," he said bluntly. "I don't. I realize it might be tempting, but the fact is that learning the interplay of Path mechanics with individual abilities is time consuming and difficult. For someone like me, whose whole tool kit is based around my sword, it's a worthwhile cost. I have one trick, so I learn to do it as well as possible. You however, have lots of tricks. I can teach you to polish this particular ability a bit, but you'll never master it to the extent you would need to. No, in my estimation, you shouldn't even try. What are you testing here, exactly? That prediction ability?"

I nodded. "Overlay is one of my demons. I'm learning to rework them more uniformly so I can improve them more." I described the process, the way it was sort of a capstone to my concept of demons, making them more perfect to grow stronger over time. He nodded along, but eventually pointed out something I hadn't considered.

"It seems to me that you're missing that next step you always had before," he told me bluntly. "Always another form, another pseudo Domain, that was a big part of your strength. Now that your Domain has manifested them, you can stack your demons together, but you can't COMBINE them like you used to to make better demons. Except now that you're standardizing their internal design, couldn't you…do that? Not permanently, I know they're unique beings with minds and souls. But like, couldn't you make some mechanism with the watches that would let them merge together to make more powerful forms."

I stared at him. Because I…had genuinely not considered that. I mean, I loved my Domain, but my demons had kind of taken over my growth. I couldn't innovate like I used to, and that had always been some of my most interesting power expression. But he was right. The watches were mechanisms, I could definitely create a way to temporarily merge them together to create more complicated demons.

My hands started to twitch, visions flooding my mind of new combinations and abilities I could make with all the evolving demons I had improved since my Domain was created. I grinned wolfishly. This was it. This was what I needed. My next step. But before I could test it, I'd need to finish the timepieces for Limbo and Mephistopheles. I had to create the base for this new entity I was going to become, this new form I was going to access. First, the creation of the timepieces…then, the creation of my very first Archdemon.

 

[Malcolm Tent]

I was back. It felt good to be me again. Ever since I had created my Domain, I had felt sort of adrift where it concerned my powers. The demons did all the work, and I just kind of…went along. My favorite part of being an Ascendant had always been innovation. Accepting that my Domain had reached its final form had honestly been a bit underwhelming, and while I'd done my best to learn to work with my incarnation abilities, it wasn't until Fade mentioned it that I realized how much I missed making new demons.

Naturally, in order to actually DO such a thing, I would need to adjust my designs for the timepieces, and there was no one I was more certain could help me than Professor Hawkins.

Still, I had come to Common City for a reason, and I really did need to put the Overlay ability through its paces, so I spent the rest of the day working on my combat skills and stress testing Owen's new capabilities before heading back. The next morning I woke up bright and early, and after stocking my new scrolls, headed for my teacher's house with plenty of questions.

When I arrived, I rapped on the door harshly, waiting for Professor Hawkins to respond. And waiting. And waiting. Finally, I rolled my eyes and checked under the mat for the key, letting myself inside.

Despite ostensibly having two students (Sorwen had taken my advice and signed up for this class, but we'd decided to divide our time so we could each get private tutelage), Professor Hawkins was more interested in his research than teaching. That was the reason for his ramshackle house and boring class name. I'd been told the only reason he even offered a single credit for his class was because he had to offer SOMETHING, or charge for it instead. Apparently he had originally tried to make the class as expensive as possible to scare people off, but everyone had assumed it was some kind of secret elite course and he'd been flooded with students.

Eventually, after some trial and error, he'd figured out the best way to make the course effectively invisible was to give it a boring name and offer the lowest possible reward to make it seem like a pointless intro course.

That being said, because of his categorical lack of interest in teaching (despite Elonwy's protestations that he was secretly great at it), Professor Hawkins tended to forget he even HAD students, and would often get lost in research. Because he was so distracted, he rarely answered his door, and would sometimes forget to eat or sleep for long periods of time. Admittedly, as a god, he didn't actually NEED to do those things, but most deities still did from what I was told, because food and sleep are pleasant experiences and can help keep them grounded.

"Hey, Prof!" I called as I let myself in. "You here? I have an interesting research topic to consult you about?"

There was no response, and I rolled my eyes, heading through the dining room. As I stepped inside, I was brought up short as I ran headfirst into a tall, intimidating man in armor wearing an intricate mask. It was so jarring it took me a split second to figure out what I was looking at. "Huh," I said to myself. "That's weird."

The other me groaned. "Not really. I knew this was going to happen. I remember it from your side. The Professor is doing something weird to the local temporal field. I just came from meeting with him, he's through that door over there. You'll run into yourself on the way out and have this exact conversation."

"Well, that seems safe," I said dryly. "I'm sure there will be no horrible consequences to crossing my own timestream."

A voice echoed from the next room over. "Don't be dramatic," called the Professor. "It's a minor paradox. If you have something to talk about get in here. Don't mind the echo, it's from a potential future that I haven't experienced yet."

Future me shrugged, then gave a wave as he walked past me and out the door I'd just come through. I followed the Professor's voice out into the living room where he was sitting at his desk, working on some kind of weird metallic crystal device that was crackling with some kind of sparkly electricity. "What do you want?" he asked without looking up. "I'm busy."

I watched him warily as he worked on the device, noting the strange stuttering of his hands in the air as they blinked and warped. Rather than move smoothly through the space, they would jutter and vanish, only to appear in another spot. It wasn't speed, because he was moving pretty slowly, just a distortion of the space or time around the object. Honestly, it kind of hurt my head just looking at it.

"I wanted to talk to you about a project," I hedged. "I finished my first timepiece, and-"

"You failed?" he said dryly. "I'm assuming you got the attribute ratios wrong and your Domain automatically refined the design to make it functional."

I grimaced. That had been what happened. Dantalion had confirmed it, I had used too much time attribute and not enough information. I'd done the tolerance math about fifty times, so it was frustrating that I hadn't been able to balance the construction, but Dantalion assured me that the changes would make it easier to adjust the formulas during my next construction effort.

He rolled his eyes. "I TOLD you not to adhere too strictly to the initial design. Stat blocks are inherently more stable than Mythcrafted construct elements. There's a higher fault tolerance when crafting with stats."

"I didn't do that," I snapped. "I spent weeks refining my approach. And it was close. There were only a few minor alterations. The next one will be better."

"Maybe," he snorted. "Except the complexity of the other two projects is exponentially higher. The Overlay project was your training wheel design. We'll see if you learned enough to offset the steep jump in difficulty. Now, I'm assuming you didn't come here to beg me to do your homework for you, so what exactly is this project you want help with?"

So I told him. I described the process of making forms and pseudo Domains, which was itself an application of Mythcrafting, and what I was hoping to accomplish. He listened carefully, face betraying nothing, and then eventually nodded. "It's…intriguing. There's no real reason you shouldn't be able to anchor the mechanisms together, but making them recombinant is going to be tricky.

"I have to admit, your Domain opens up certain avenues of exploration that would be difficult to pursue otherwise," he said, setting down the tools he was using. He tapped the surface of the device in front of him and it snapped shut into a perfect sphere, completely devoid of energy as it thunked to the desk.

Turning to regard me directly, he searched my face. "I would be interested to see what you might be capable of creating. And to that end, I would be willing to take a more active role in your construction efforts. Understand that I normally would never interfere in the learning process, but I'm willing to make an exception for two reasons. One, you've brought me a research project worth pursuing, even for someone like myself, and two, your information demon allows you to study and retain action in a way a normal student cannot."

My eyes widened. "So you're going to help me design my next two timepieces?"

He nodded slowly. "I will," he said after a moment's pause. "But I will not design them for you. You will be doing the bulk of the labor and invention, I will simply be correcting mistakes as you make them. It will be frustrating and demoralizing. You will most likely wish to quit before we've gotten very far into the project. Should you do so, you will be removed from my class, and potentially from this major. I do not accept student assistants lightly, nor do I allow anything less than perfection from those I so honor."

Translation, screw and you're gone. It almost sounded like he was trying to get rid of me, but I knew better than that. If he wanted me gone he could have bounced me at any time. I hadn't paid credits for this course, only received them, which changed the calculus a lot in how easy I was to eject. That was another reason he structured the class this way.

No, he wasn't trying to get rid of me, he was expressing his faith in me. If he didn't think I could hack it he wouldn't have allowed me to work with him at all. Swallowing hard, I gave a long, slow nod. "I understand. I'd like your help, Professor. I promise to commit myself entirely to the project." I paused slightly. "Do you think it would be possible to finish the designs, at least preliminarily, before midterms?"

He raised an eyebrow at me. "If you're really prepared to focus entirely on the work, I do. This will be a gruelling process, but you will learn much. Of course, these designs will be basic timepieces. Teaching you how to anchor them together temporarily won't raise their quality. Iteration and experimentation will still be needed to improve them."

I knew what he meant. The complexity of a timepiece was dependent on the number of movements. Overlay, for instance, had twelve movements. I wasn't certain if there was a hard limit to the number of movements, but I suspected the optimal state of each demon was probably about seventy two movements. My Domain tended to respond well to that number, or it had in the past.

This essentially meant that Overlay was operating at sixteen plus percent of it's optimal efficiency, at least as it could be measured by this particular method of construction. Being able to identify that fact was one of the major benefits of the Professor's style of Mythcrafting, even if it was a bit demoralizing to learn that I was quite that inept working with my natural talent.

Which meant that even once I perfected my first Archdemon, I would have plenty of room to improve that design and the designs of any others I managed in the future.

"I understand," I told him, bowing formally at the waist. "I'm ready to begin learning. However long it takes, however much effort I need to put in, I'm not afraid. Pain and hard work are things I'm very familiar with."

He rolled his eyes. "You think I don't know that, boy? If I wasn't aware of your work ethic I wouldn't have made the offer to begin with. Just don't quit on me and disprove my high opinion."

Nodding to him, I straightened, waiting to see what he'd do next. He reached down to open a drawer and scooped the sphere into it before slamming it shut carelessly. "Now, in order to proceed, we need information. Summon your information demon, as well as the demon who represents our next project." He paused for a moment. "Actually, I believe this will require a more personal touch. Call forth your Domain, I shall inspect it myself."

I swallowed hard. I knew I could let more powerful beings into my Domain, but it wasn't something I did often. The Professor was just a fragment of a god, to be fair, but he was still a deity. Still, if he wanted to hurt me he could have done it effortlessly. Taking a long, deep breath, I reached for Gehenna, projecting it into the world around us as I pulled the professor into the throne room. From there, it was time to get to work. I only had a bit less than a month to finish crafting the design for my Archdemon. From there…well, I would just have to hope it would be enough for the midterms.