They say that images are better than words. What could be better than images, then?

Wisdom, directly to the brain!

Soon, concepts invaded my mind. Oblivion, Genesis, a war of supremacy to create rulers for the new beginning.

From the wretches to the most magnanimous king, anyone had a chance to reach it.

Their "words." Not mine.

Anyone who accepted the chance, though, was sentenced to death by the competition.

It seemed that now I was one of them. Not entirely by my own volition. But Houonas didn’t lie. The process, at least by the knowledge crammed into my mind, synchronized me with this reality, though I doubted it was the only way.

It seemed I needed to see what the creature wanted out of me.

New concepts began forming in my mind, concepts that found sustenance in the information already stored in my brain.

Magic, technology, biology, and divinity.

If I remember correctly, a greater grouping than constellations is called clusters. What will it be useful for? Who knows? That’s probably my small knowledge of sci-fi talking. Whatever.

Soon, everything changed. My vision narrowed to only one thing: a magnificent starry sky, unlike anything I had ever seen, even in the occasional astronomy documentaries.

Now, the concepts hold real meaning.

Each cluster of power sustained existence itself. A tapestry of them spawning endlessly.

Concepts ingrained in me resonated like a starred sky within the tapestry, and soon the thought invaded my mind—it soon became true.

Concepts like the mutation in my adrenal glands resonated with biology’s cluster: a gigantic amalgam of life—trees, animals, prey, predators, fungi, and bacteria.

Technology, an inherent aspect of my way of life, resonated in a cluster of war machines, sprawling cities, pyramids, and planet-sized futuristic dreams that surpassed even the cyberpunk realm.

Why not witness divinity in its glory and its maze-like creation? Looking at the cluster, it sprawled across everything I’d ever known: the old sagas of the Vikings, the pantheons of Greece and Rome, even the belief in one true God with His army of angels.

This cluster demanded only one thing: devotion to its sprawling infinity, ever-changing, ever-doubted, and ever-believed.

Even the stubborn part of my beliefs lay there.

I gazed at the remaining cluster. Magic, unbridled and wild: flames, tornadoes, titans born from magic, the genesis of planets from stardust, and their destruction by a purple gravitational force that compressed a colossal orb into a dense, mega-compressed sphere.

So much magic unfolded before me, like imagination itself—chimeras born from will and magic. I stopped looking as a snake-like bird spawned, its corpse made of glass.

Each of these pillars resonated with me, but which would define my new being?

Wait. Define my new… what?

I tried to look at my body, but there was nothing—just the void of space, not even a trace of it.

That wasn’t entirely true. Not just the void. I was above a derelict throne, its color scheme matching the red palace.

Soon, the throne began emitting a red light, launching a beam at the four sections of space—the four clusters.

Almost all the infinite stars dimmed, fading away.

The four remaining ones began approaching my view. Like an astrology documentary, my vision was sucked in, racing toward them at light speed.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The only strange thing was that it seemed the opposite—it wasn’t me approaching them, but them approaching me.

Soon, I realized they weren’t single stars. Each looked like a constellation.

As I gazed at them, lifelike projections appeared, much like the ones in the magic constellation.

First, sprawling veins of fire, like molten lava, shifted into a body engulfed in flames, ending with arms where blood flowed like lava, flames erupting from cuts as if the blood itself were fire.

Each constellation followed suit, solidifying into a single image.

It was as if they were trying to create a concept I could understand—its origin, its purpose, why it existed.

I felt their core concepts forced into my mind. _Blood._ The liquid essence of life. The carrier of a being’s DNA.

I didn’t know if this insight was meant for anyone in my situation or crafted solely for me. I’d have to ask Houonas about it.

If the blood-fire constellation symbolized magic, the others spun their own variations.

Divinity showed an arm in the same position, blood endlessly flowing from its palm. Some of the blood pooled, almost taking on new forms, as if hinting at something greater.

In technology, the arm changed. No blood flowed freely; instead, with each pump, the arm mutated in a controlled manner, growing stronger—like someone transforming into a steroid-fueled powerhouse in an instant. If anything, it promised controlled improvement.

Lastly, but not least, as they say, there was biology. Here, blood erupted from the hand like a bud blossoming into a flower. The hand transformed—sometimes into a bright red reptile claw, other times into a gorilla-like arm.

Some changes were even more absurd: flowers blossoming with a pinkish-white hue, eerily similar to those outside my house and around the palace.

They looked fragile, but I sensed something vile and pestilential lurking within. Deep down, I knew this wasn’t a coincidence.

Each pillar resonated with me, each offering a different promise of power. But each demanded something in return:

Faith for divinity. Energy for magic. Vitality for biology. Mind for technology.

Suddenly, something halted the constellations and made itself known.

New stars appeared, the cluster taking my form. Each star resonated with one of the pillars, promising improvement: strength, dexterity, speed, regeneration—the enhancement of my very existence.

Its concepts flooded my mind like a torrent of knowledge.

This was the path each synchronized being would follow—normally.

From the first constellation choice, other pillars would connect. In my case, the maximum was a constellation binding me to technology and biology.

Maybe I wasn’t religious enough, and sadly, the cut-finger trick didn’t count as magic.

This demanded introspection. Let’s assess my situation: I’m in a temple, part of some mumbo-jumbo ritual led by a human-insect hybrid. Villagers were captured by supernatural black-robed figures, and revolver shots did nothing for the creeps.

And let’s not forget the oozing rat that nearly gave me Rabies 2.0, or the swarm of weird creatures outside the temple.

I didn’t see the appeal of becoming a “better me” right now. Sure, I had the adrenal gland mutation, but even that wasn’t enough to put me on the frontline.

Maybe some of my war buddies would thrive here. Carlos, for example, had three mutations: enhanced vision (God knows how)—which he used to cheat while playing cards—carbon-like skin that required special needles to pierce, and a brain that could process information faster for a few seconds.

Like everyone else, he didn’t like sharing the details of what made him a mutant. We all took the shot for a new life—a richer one, in my case—though it didn’t work out so well.

Simply put, it didn’t interest me. Especially since it felt so restrictive. Enough about me.

I could feel the chance to select any part of the clusters as my starting point, rather than being forced to expand from what already composed me.

I wouldn’t become a better version of myself, as some villagers might.

Hmm. Is it possible to choose more than one starting point?

As I focused on the magic constellation, a new connection formed between us. The four pillars’ myriad of constellations shone again, obscuring the ones that defined my current existence.

After a moment, more than three-quarters of the stars blinked out of existence. Still, a quarter of near-infinity was a significant sum.

Each connection to a different cluster diminished the number of stars until I could almost count them in each pillar… almost infinity, still impossible.

It seemed the more clusters I chose, the more limited my path within each became.