The secret den of a magical fox that transcended the powers of a mere mortal did not, surprisingly, have a lot to eat. Nym had used magic to stave off the needs of his body, but for the time being, he was still a human. Eventually, he would need food, and that time was drawing close.

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to go on a supply run?” he asked Rizin.

The fox’s ear flicked in annoyance and he cracked an eye open from where he was napping on his enormous cushion. “Humans,” he said with disgust. “Fine. Make it quick.”

The pair teleported to a small town, one that Nym had never seen before, and a quick scrying spell later, he located a general store to pick up some supplies and an inn to serve a hot meal. Rizin took on the appearance of the boy with the yellow jacket again, and together they sat at a table to wait for their food.

“I didn’t think you ate human food,” Nym remarked.

“Just because I don’t need it doesn’t mean I can’t eat it. If beings at my level still needed to eat meat, humans would have been hunted to extinction a long, long time ago.”

“Charming thought,” Nym said. He knew Rizin could hunt with impunity, but it seemed a bit far-fetched to think that he’d need to eat that many people. Then he remembered how big Rizin had appeared in the fourth layer, and how big the cushion was. Maybe he would need to eat more than Nym was giving him credit for. It was a good thing Rizin actually survived on arcana then.

The server swung by to drop off their meals, enough food easily for five people. They split it roughly evenly, though Rizin definitely favored the meat dishes and Nym took the entire pot of stew for himself. Neither had a taste for greens when other foods were right in front of them, but Nym was too hungry to leave even a scrap behind. He’d gone at least a week without food, and his magic could only carry him so far.

“How long do you think you’ll need to prepare for your ascension?” Rizin asked.

“Hard to say. At least a few more weeks to finish integrating my fourth and fifth echo.” Doing them both at the same time was proving uniquely challenging. He’d gotten lucky in finding an outlet for the sense of lethargy his fourth echo had highlighted in his personality. Channeling that into ruthless efficiency in battle was not something he thought he’d have come up with on his own.

Once the fight was over, it had become a struggle to keep himself moving. He was trying to focus it into parsing his fragmented knowledge of the ascendance process into a semi-coherent and useful chunk of information, but it was slow going. Doing that while keeping his highly competitive and volatile fifth echo from overriding his conscious decisions challenged him daily. More than once, he’d caught himself trying to plot out the best way to take out Rizin, a suicidal course of action if he’d ever seen one.

“And after, you will attempt your ascension?”

“I guess,” Nym said. “I just… I don’t know what to do.”

“Break through to the sixth layer, of course.”

“That’s it? Just make a conduit strong enough to reach that far? Why did I spend so much time finding my alternate versions then?”

“If you can’t figure out how to leverage that to your advantage, you’re going to die when you try to take the final step.”

“Thanks, that’s helpful.”

“Best I can do,” he said. “Everyone’s ascendance is different. Only way to prepare is to just get better at everything. There’s no telling what you’ll go through. There’s a theory that gets kicked around a lot, that something higher than us exists, that the trials aren’t random, that they’re deliberately designed to test us.”

“Do you believe that?” Nym asked.

“Not at all. I think it’s just the nature of the sixth layer to take who you are, twist it, and reflect that back at you. It’s just worse the very first time because you’ve got no experience, and no amount of talking and teaching can prepare you for it.”

“Okay, well… for the next week or two I’m just going to work on getting myself accustomed to existing in six different realities at the same time, as long as you don’t mind me taking up a bit of space.”

Rizin made a show of heaving a giant sigh before saying, “I suppose if it’s only for a week. Oh, that reminds me though, did you know you’ve got an ascendant looking for you?”

“Oh? Do you know which one?”

“I’m not exactly on a first name basis with them, but she matches your description of the one who shoved you into the fifth layer.”

“Ah, and do you know which faction she’s part of?”

“Not a clue,” the fox said cheerily.

“Do you think you could find out?”

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“Not likely. Ascendants don’t exactly like people spying on them, and they’re better than humans at realizing something’s lurking around.”

Nym snorted. “What kind of fox are you?”

“The kind that survives by keeping his nose out of other god-like beings’ business.”

Nym thought about that for a second. “Okay, that’s fair. But it does still leave me with the problem of not knowing who I can trust.”

“That’s not your problem. Your problem is that you shouldn’t trust anyone.”

There was some truth to that. Myzalik’s group would kill him out of hand, but Niramyn only kept him around because he wanted to use Nym. If the two factions were already fighting, then the whole plan of being bait to draw out ascendants and ambush them was probably worthless now. Maybe Niramyn would have some other use for him, or maybe he’d be killed.

“You know what I don’t get? Why are they even still looking for me at all? Myzalik knows Niramyn is back. They’re fighting again. What’s the point of hunting me down? It’s not like I can make a big difference either way.”

“Ascendants aren’t so numerous that any of them would be willing to let a single new one that they’ve already got their hooks into just walk away,” Rizin said. “Niramyn will want you because he believes he owns you. Myzalik will kill you because he also believes Niramyn owns you, and he’d rather deny his enemy a new soldier before you have time to grow into a threat.”

“No matter what I do, I’m always going to have a target on my back, aren’t I?”

“It certainly seems that way.”

The plan remained unchanged then. The more Nym learned about these people, the more certain he became that there was no reasoning with them. They expected the world to bend to their whims, and anything that didn’t bend would be broken. There were only two ways to survive: avoid their notice, or be so strong that they couldn’t make him bend. It was too late for the first option. Honestly, it had never been a real option anyway.

“Food’s gone,” Rizin said, leaning back in his seat. “Anything else you want to do?”

“No.” Nym’s mouth was set into a grim line. “Time to get back to work.”

* * *

It wasn’t until a month later when he felt he had fully integrated himself into each layer of reality that Nym finally started to notice what had changed. When he forged a conduit, he could feel it move through each layer. The part of him that existed in that layer reinforced it, even going so far as to draw arcana directly from that layer without a conduit.

That arcana couldn’t come back to Nym without some work, but he did some experimenting and figured out how to forge a sort of internal conduit. It was like storing arcana in his hand, then making a bridge to ferry it over to his soul well for use, except his hand was in another world. Once he got that technique down, it opened up a whole new type of conduit for him to experiment with.

The conduits formed faster, they were stronger, could pull more arcana to him, and were infinitely more flexible. It was easier to form more of them, and he even managed to form a single conduit that pulled arcana from multiple layers at the same time without breaking or mixing them together in his soul well.

“I think I’m ready to try to ascend,” Nym said one day. “I… probably shouldn’t do that here.”

“I would appreciate if you didn’t. It’s noisy the first time.”

“Any advice for me?”

The fox cocked his head to the side and thought about it. “When you reach the membrane between the fifth and sixth layer, it’s going to feel completely different than anything else. Don’t lose your concentration when it reaches back out to you. And, whatever happens after that, try not to let it kill you.”

That wasn’t all that reassuring, but he supposed Rizin hadn’t meant it to be. Nym figured what he was about to do was probably the most dangerous part of the whole ascendant deal. Supposedly they were functionally immortal once they crossed this threshold, so presumably any future missteps would be reversible. This was the universe’s last chance to kill him before he stepped past the rules mortals had to play by.

But he had spent months, or hell, years, locked away in a box full of books, learning and practicing spells. He was as powerful as a mortal mage could be, enhanced and augmented by dozens of spells and rituals. His soul well practically filled his entire body now in addition to having five other soul wells connected to it, his conduits resonated through other layers of existence, and he was literally six different versions of himself all mixed together into one being.

“I don’t think I can get any more prepared for this than I already am, and I’m sure you’re anxious to have your privacy back.”

“Something like that,” Rizin agreed. “If you survive this, we’ll discuss forming a pact.”

“I always wondered why you helped me without making the pact first.”

“Curiosity, I suppose. I’ve never seen a mortal attempt to ascend. And you’re not a bad sort, as far as mortals go. It’s rather like having my very own pet human.”

Nym snorted. “It is kind of like that, huh? That’s… a bit disturbing.”

“The comparison is apt, I believe.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had a pet. Never had the time.”

Rizin laughed and hopped down from his cushion. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” Nym eyed the cushion. “What do you do up there all day? You can’t possibly be sleeping.”

“Maybe, when your brain won’t explode from the knowledge, I’ll show you. But that’s a worry for another day.”

The pair of them teleported into the air above the Garden of Winter. “Our last outing together,” the fox said. “Is there anywhere in particular you wish to make this attempt?”

Nym thought about that. There were a few places that were relevant to him. The beach where he’d washed ashore was perhaps the place he had the strongest connection to, but too many ascendants had found it. He’d met Analia in Abilanth, though if he was going to consider whole cities, Thrakus, where he’d met the Earth Shapers, had more sentimental value. The potential for collateral damage made them unappealing.

Archmage Veran’s sanctum was the closest thing he’d ever had to a long-term home, and the mausoleum where the Veil had been torn had probably shaped his life more significantly than anywhere else, at least insofar as it was the source of so many problems he’d been personally involved with. Shu-Ain had never been a home to him, just a place he visited his friends at.

The more Nym considered the question, the less he felt any of those places were appropriate. Ascending wasn’t about a place where he felt safe or comfortable. It was a step into the unknown, beyond the world, beyond limits. For the last place he’d ever stand on mortal feet, he had a better idea.

Nym teleported to the far north, where the land turned to ice that stretched out for miles and miles over an endless dark sea. He spared the frozen ship below him a glance, then flew north. Finally, he reached an edge where it turned to water. Slowly, he floated down until his feet touched the ice. It gave way under his weight, sinking a few inches and letting frigid, life-stealing water swirl past his shoes.

“Here?” Rizin said, appearing next to Nym.

“Here.”