Afterwards, Cyril remained in the lotus position, reflecting on the bizarre nature of the vision. Unlike his brief mental dips into the sea of knowledge upon ascending to the Second Spheres, he retained vivid details of the memory once it ended.

He kept his eyes closed mostly to ward off the disorientation. He had lived as the tree longer than he had as Cyril, experiencing reality through a much different set of senses. The sensation passed mercifully quickly, his sense of self re-establishing itself. Returning to consciousness after bonding with Behemoth had caused a similar dissolution of his ego that he had adjusted to over time.

Cyril still wasn’t sure whether he had actually returned to his normal self, or if he had simply grown used to the changes in his personality. No doubt his behavior and actions would have shocked those back at home who viewed him as nothing more than a spoiled prince, but he had never before been forced through such a gauntlet of violence and struggle. Sometimes, the bravest-looking warrior turned into a coward once they stepped foot on the battlefield, and the most pathetic hanger-on proved their mettle.

Once the vertigo faded, Cyril let his sphere-room dissipate into motes of earth qi and stood up. He wanted to visit the Library and do some research, but the vision had made him think of the gardener-djinn.

Lost in thought, Cyril wandered over to the atrium. The spirit was once more tending to its yield. One of the horse-like monsters had been added onto a fresh plot; vines weaved through its exposed ribcage and bloodflowers poked through the deep lacerations throughout its body. The other monster corpses had advanced in their decay, so overgrown with carpets of scarlet flowers that their original forms were unrecognizable.

The sight no longer struck him as particularly morbid. It was gruesome to his mortal sensibilities, but there was a purpose to the display. Monsters took from the earth over the course of their existence, and in death, they returned to the soil. Even humans and cultivators followed this cycle, the earthly mirror of Samsara. Flesh and blood invigorated the material world in a constant give-and-take, while the spiritual world handled matters of karma and reincarnation.

The gardener-djinn noticed Cyril’s presence and began its circuitous route in his direction. He stood there, patiently, hands clasped behind his back, contemplating the mysteries of the world. Once the spirit reached him, it extended a pair of its vines in what he assumed was a greeting. More likely, a demand for additional repairs, but it didn’t hurt to be optimistic.

“I’m going to try something different,” he warned the gardener-djinn.

It withdrew its vines, then shoved them forward once more with redoubled vigor.

Sighing, Cyril reread the directions to form the Purify Cantrip. As expected, the cycling rhythm was even more difficult than the Gravity domain. It actually required him to weave earth and sun qi together. He sensed he could have brute forced the Cantrip with a colossal expenditure of a single aspect, but the synergy drastically reduced the cost.

Reaching Middle Condensation helped. While the process mostly refined his qi output, his core already being aspected toward earth meant that it took less focus to intertwine the two. Even better, he had already merged them once in the heat of battle to form volcanic qi. The process was much different, but followed the same initial steps.

He trickled energy toward the pathways in his forehead and left hand, forcing the earth qi to eddy like tiny maelstroms, while transforming random whorls into bright orange expressions of sun qi. The first few attempts failed after he lost control of the complex pattern. He could maintain a few maelstroms with ease, but the Cantrip required constant repetition. Once a maelstrom reached its intended destination, it left his body in a small pulse, and had to be replaced in a continuous loop.

On the fifth try, he was able to emit the technique long enough to see it take hold on the gardener-djinn. The outlines of the ivy tentacles brightened, the light spreading like a plague until it reached the spirit’s main body. The affected areas froze in place until the entire figure was petrified.

As he waited for the process to finish, Cyril poured his excess qi into his spear, transmuting more of it into rusted iron and rotten wood. His refined energy again displayed around a threefold increase in efficiency.

An hour passed. Nothing happened. No obvious changes had occurred to the gardener-djinn’s broken pathways either, only that strange brightness. Was that what sanctification looked like? The concept was unfamiliar outside of vague records he’d heard of high-level Sun techniques. Purity, catharsis, cleansing through fire, all existed in the lofty intersection between the Dominions of Holy and the Sun. The details of such secrets tended to be closely guarded by priests and other members of the clergy.

Cyril shrugged and departed the palace. His curiosity wasn’t worth standing around all day.

On the way to the Library, he wiped out any monsters in sight. After his demonstration with the bronze dome, most of the path had cleared out. The metal hemisphere stood out as an auspicious landmark, a polished geometric expanse clashing with the rest of the ancient ruins. Enough monsters still lingered about to add another sixty points to his Dominion of Gravity. If he couldn’t find an exit out of the Underdark, his hope was that the Third Sphere technique would solve the problem for him.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

He reviewed his soul as he walked.

Dominions:

Sun, Second Sphere 595/1000

Knowledge, Second Sphere 870/1000

Earth, Third Sphere 0/10000

Gravity, Second Sphere 587/1000

Mass, Second Sphere 252/1000

He had been somewhat disappointed that his breakthrough in the Dominion of Earth had zero synergy with Gravity or Mass. Even Knowledge had only increased a bit more than it had with his Second Sphere breakthroughs. Sun, on the other hand, had risen by over a hundred points.

His best guess was that it came from existing for countless years within the environment in his vision. Improvement to his Dominion of the Sun was tangential to the real boon; it was a shadow of something he could not yet perceive properly. He sensed it, just beyond his grasp--an echo of the agony from his missing lower arm, the taste of ash on his tongue and his nonexistent roots.

The Dominion of Volcanoes.

By the time he approached the Library, he had finished transmuting the majority of his weapon's spearhead into rusted iron. He traced a finger along the broad flat of the blade, satisfied with his work. Eventually, he wanted to convert the entire weapon into darksteel, but he sensed that attempting to create even a speck of the high-grade material would drain multiple cores worth of his qi.

He smiled faintly to himself. Such was the path of cultivation. Until one reached the absolute pinnacle of existence, there was always another realm or rank or grade just out of reach. It was beautiful and frustrating in equal measure.

Cyril shouldered his spear and strolled into the Library. Immediately, Barnabas the imp burst into existence atop its papyrus scroll, cloven hooves dancing, tail whipping side to side in excitement.

“Your attitude has improved,” Cyril remarked.

“Finally! You’ve returned!” Barnabas capered in a tight circle, eyes burning with glee. “I knew it! I won the bet!”

Cyril lifted an eyebrow. “The bet? With who?”

Barnabas froze in place, as still as if it had been Purified. After a couple seconds, the imp straightened its back and flung out its shoulders. “Nobod--”

“Greetings, young master!” a feminine voice piped out.

Cyril’s gaze flicked up to the second floor. Among the tilted bookshelves, he could make out the tiny face of an imp, near-identical to pre-evolution Barnabas. The entire spiritual figure revealed itself, floating up into the air without the assistance of a papyrus scroll. Something about its form struck him as softer, more feminine than Barnabas--the blue-green lines of its hips were rounder, and the vibrant flames of its eyes were welcoming, like a cozy hearth.

“Ah,” said Cyril, the corner of his mouth tilted up at Barnabas. “You little devil.”

Barnabas lifted its chin in defiance. “It’s not what it looks like!”

“What do you think it looks like?”

“Like I harvested the residual Knowledge from your last visit to summon a companion, and that we’re down to our last dregs of energy before dematerializing?” guessed Barnabas.

“Right.” Cyril watched intently as the feminine imp drifted over. “Your name?”

“Arna,” it replied, curtsying; the faintest lines of a turquoise ball-gown appeared around its waist and vanished at the end of the movement.

Cyril shook his head in silent dismay and stretched out one of his fingers. A strand of Knowledge qi coalesced at the tip, draining a full quarter of his core despite the advancement since last time he created one. He had deliberately infused a packet of information into the energy for them to absorb; some things were easier to show than explain.

The strand forked, heading toward each of the imps. Upon contact, both of them trembled and began to glow like lanterns. Sighing, Cyril took a seat on a stone stool. He crossed his legs and waited while they underwent their respective evolutions.

Arna sprouted a third horn, and its tail bifurcated before rejoining at the ends to form a ring at the tip. Barnabas sprouted an additional eye across its chest, and its silhouette filled in until it was almost a solid blue-green. They recovered quickly, but before anything else, they turned their focus toward absorbing the information Cyril had imparted onto them.

His entire Destiny, including a few notes on topics he wished to explore or felt suited his path.

Barnabas gathered its wits first. “This is…quite a bit to take in. The Purify Cantrip is essentially a divine technique. As in, the kind of blessing bestowed upon a saint after a century of contemplating holy mysteries.”

Cyril shrugged as if it was of no importance. “I don’t see the use so far, personally.”

Barnabas started forward as if it was about to strike him in the face, then managed to restrain itself. It glanced over at Arna as if seeking serenity. “The ability to purify your own body alone is something most cultivators would kill for. Accumulated impurities are the single largest causes of bottlenecks in your cultivation, and too many of them will create devastating flaws in your foundations. To be able to do this to yourself is unbelievable. Being able to do it to others? That is a miracle.”

Cyril smiled. “You know more than you let on, don’t you, friend?”

Barnabas crossed its arms, as if it felt the noose closing in around its throat. “Perhaps.”

“The reason I gave you both this information is because I want all the relevant knowledge in this Library brought to me,” said Cyril. Barnabas looked like it wanted to speak up, so he held up a finger to silence it. “In addition, I want the two of you to prepare a training regime with a focus on my growth and developing mastery over my existing techniques. One I can do anywhere.”

Barnabas took a step forward. “With all due respect to Lord Behemoth, you--”

Arna held up a hand, silencing the other imp. “An arrangement can be made.”

“A voice of reason,” said Cyril. He leaned back. His thoughts wandered to a consideration that had been itching away in the back of his mind for a while. “Say, Barnabas, how long has it been since my last visit?”

Barnabas blinked in surprise. “Do you not know? A little under two months, by my reckoning.”

Cyril closed his eyes and sighed.