Now that Felix was the head of A-SAM, he was able to see the list of members and whether or not anyone was occupying the headquarters at the moment. For a short while after the duel, there were a number of members inside, likely waiting to speak with him.

He didn’t go anywhere near the building though and so, over the next few hours those people slowly trickled out, returning it to its standard state of being completely empty.

The first time Felix had visited the building he had had the foresight to memorize the portal coordinates of the A-SAM headquarters. That meant he could now minimize his face time with anyone else.

Felix knew there was a chance someone was waiting outside the building but luckily, found that not to be the case. Heading inside, he immediately veered right, into the show room. Ayred had already mentioned that many of the books inside were trapped, encrypted or in some kind of unknown code. He wasn’t expecting to be able to read all of them, he wasn’t even prepared to touch any of them, yet.

He was however, willing and now capable of opening the display cases. Walking around the room stopping at each display one by one, Felix opened the display case, scanned what he could, then closed it back up.

It actually took him a couple hours to scan everything, not that he got much from them. None of them were completely readable, some had forwards that weren’t in code usually containing a warning. Others were written with creeping ink or had their own soul. None of them seemed to be sentient though.

Grim was pretty confident he could decipher most, if not all, of the books were he allowed to consume them as that was what he was designed to do. Felix just wasn’t comfortable with that though, not unless it was a guarantee. He also didn’t actually own the books and he wasn’t sure who would come after him if he stole and destroyed them.

In the future, if they managed to decipher one or two of them and found them to be particularly unique and useful, Felix thought he might reconsider.

With that done, Felix opened a portal right back into his dorm room-to avoid everyone-where he spent the rest of the day in his Soul Garden trying to decipher the code in one of the books. It was written such that the entire book appeared to be a complete novel. Felix could read it, as could Grim, and they both concurred it was a decent story.

Their collective worry though, was that the code would be indecipherable unless they turned off The System’s translations. If that were the case, they might have a lot of languages to learn first, a worry that multiplied with the number of books in the display room.

Learning a language wasn’t difficult, Grim could do it trivially and he was confident he could somehow teach Felix a language through some soul and library fuckery. The issue, was that a lot of these languages seemed to be dead languages, secret languages, made up languages or something just as difficult to find references to.

Mana Structures wasn’t a class Felix had to attend as he was provided memory crystals. He was missing out on around half of the class-as he was in all of his classes-as they often had demonstrations or simple projects like Ked had had in his first class. Otherwise everyone would have just been allowed to use memory crystals.

He was more than happy to have some time though where most people were in a class. It meant he was far less likely to be approached by other students looking to make friends, or get something out of the guy that defeated Tanryel.

His plan with his free time was to head to the library where he was hoping to scan some books on various codes and previous attempts at decoding the books in the A-SAM building. He also had a much better idea of what books and knowledge he was looking for in terms of mana, enchantments, rituals, spell forms and more now that he had baseline knowledge from class and other books.

Flying out of the dorm and across campus, Felix was happy to see just a handful of students and Adepts wandering around instead of the usual crowds he had been trying to avoid. By flying fairly high up he was able to avoid interacting with anyone all the way to the library where there was one other individual on their way out who didn’t seem interested in him in the slightest.

Felix sighed in relief as he walked over to one of shelves and began speaking to the library itself. He started with past attempts and research into deciphering the books in the A-SAM building.

As expected, the carpet re-weaved itself and led Felix over to the back of the library. Instead of a specific shelf just lighting up though, he was led to a black wall where, after a moment, a shelf rose out of the floor in front of him.

Maybe this library isn’t as small as it looks.

Felix quickly scanned everything on the shelf then moved onto his next query. He found that almost everything he asked this time resulted in the library, or more accurately the planet, summoning a new shelf from some unknown location. A couple queries of his led him to standard shelves but it seemed this time, what he was looking for was generally too advanced or rare to be constantly displayed.

Once he had scanned all the books he was planning on scanning, he started diving into other random topics, whatever came to mind. Mostly he was just interested in what the limit was and what the library would do if he came up with a question it had no answers for. He wasn’t willing to ask it anything dangerous though so he avoided everything to do with The Endless Hunger for example.

He never found out what would happen though as he was interrupted by a familiar melodic female voice, “Told you he’d be here.”

Turning around, Felix caught sight of Melody and Ayred approaching from the entrance of the library.

Walking right up to him, Ayred pulled Felix into a very excited hand shake, “Congratulations. I still can’t believe you won that. That fight was one of the most surprising, exciting and also boring fights I’ve ever watched.”

Felix frowned a little.

“Don’t get me wrong it was super impressive. Just, most duels you can break down and examine the intricate back and forth. Your duel was just… two people banging their heads against each-other a lot. Fun to watch, not much to examine.”

Felix shrugged, “Can’t argue with that.”

Looking over at her, Felix tried to figure out Melody’s emotional state after seeming so perturbed during the fight. She seemed to have completely returned to her normal self though.

“Fighting in your hat with no top was a little odd but… Does it have any particular significance or… ?” Ayred looked into Felix’s eyes expectantly as he released his hand from his grip.

Felix was confused for a few seconds before he sighed and reached up. He found the hat on his head, having completely forgotten it was there. Sighing, he replaced it on his head, “No. I just… forgot. I would have taken it off just to make sure it didn’t lose me a point, guess I’m just lucky it didn’t.”

Ayred frowned and looked at Melody. She shrugged then Ayred turned back to Felix, “It almost did. Or looked like it was going to but then it… dodged the bolt? The tip just swerved out of the way. Happened a few times actually and it even disappeared once for just a moment. I thought that was just you showing off.”

Finding a whole new appreciation for the hat he had no particular reason for wearing, Felix just shrugged, “Didn’t know it could do that.”

Ayred shrugged as well, “So… now that you won…”

“I guess I have a Sky-Slicer to pick up at some point.”

Melody nodded, “I have it.”

Ayred cut in excitedly, “Right but… you’re also now the head of A-SAM.”

Felix nodded, “Yeah I guess.”

Ayred looked at him expectantly, “So?”

Felix looked at him then Melody for any indication at to what he wanted, “So what?”

Melody helpfully chimed in, leaning forwards and clearly talking to Ayred, “He probably hasn’t even looked at the rules. Felix is pretty… focused.”

Ayred made a face of realization then nodded quickly as he explained, “Tanryel instituted some… annoying rules over the epochs that kind of forced us to create ARM.”

Felix shrugged, “Oh sure I can change all those too. Or I can just make you the head if you want or if you have someone better in mind?”

Ayred looked at him in shock, “What!? No, not me I…”

Felix snapped his fingers, “Oh, one condition. I’m keeping the books locked up for now.”

Ayred’s shoulders dropped prompting Felix to explain a bit more, “I don’t want any of the traps triggering and destroying the contents or anything.”

Ayred nodded in excited relief then quickly shook his head and waved him off, “Oh. The traps aren’t those kinds of traps. If they were, the books would be long gone by now and we would never have been allowed access to them. It used to be a fun side project for students to try and decipher them, not that anyone has ever succeeded as far as I know.”

“Wait… so what do the traps do then?” Felix furrowed his brow.

“Some could injure you but mostly they’re annoying stuff. Some soul manipulation stuff but the rumours of them making you go mad are just… rumours. Likely a myth. Probably. These books were all gifts from Alumni not their personal journals or anything. They’re designed to be stupid tests, fun with a potentially great reward.”

“So there’s no danger of them… being damaged or anything?”

Ayred shook his head, “Nah.”

“Well in that case, I have to go back and actually open them up. Also I guess I’ll change the rule with those to just be ‘you can’t take them out of the room’ or something.”

Ayred nodded quickly, “That seems reasonable. Is that what you were doing here, trying to find information on them?”

“Sort of. I have a skill that can scan books and stuff so I scanned them all then I came here to try and find any previous work on deciphering the books.”

Ayred’s eyes lit up, “Oh cool. What have you found? What was in them? Were any of them even readable?”

Felix nodded, “One was written as a novel, likely a code or something.”

Ayred nodded excitedly, “I wonder if you could borrow some time on a computer during the recruitment. Assuming you get into Edras or Rhonan’s.”

“Mana computer?”

“Both of them have some decent mana computers, not sure those would be powerful enough. There are also traditional computers but, those are kept in tightly controlled environmental chambers and you need to get permission to run anything. It’s also involved, you need to learn a language basically to communicate with the computer and write out what you want it to do.”

Multiversal programming language. Wonder what that looks like. Is it a quantum computer or an actual regular computer? Maybe it’s even more advanced than that with an even larger range of bit values. I don’t even need those computers, I have my own I’m just curious at this point… Speaking of, I should get Mark to try and decipher this code. I wonder if he’s big enough.

“Hasn’t anyone tried that before?”

Ayred shrugged, “Not on Edras’ computer at least.”

“How do you know that?”

“Edras is big on freedom of information. Everything everyone does or learns with his tools and stuff is published and provided free of charge.-”

Looking over Ayred’s shoulder, Felix saw Melody’s eye twitch, which meant she wanted him to see her eye twitch. She seemed to slightly disagree with that statement, but not fully. Either way, he didn’t bother pointing it out because she would have spoken up if she had wanted to. He just kept it in mind that maybe it was possible to get through Edras’ freedom of information policy somehow.

Ayred scratched his chin and continued, “-It is possible someone hid the work within other work… Anyways, I’m pretty sure someone has deciphered them, they just don’t talk about it with anyone.”

“Of course, you have to get selected for their recruitments or somehow have contacts which… you’re an integrated.” Ayred shrugged, “I’m sure you’ll get selected though so long as your grades aren’t abysmal. You’re a part of The Cycle of Prodigies after all and with the massively increased recruitment slots…”

Felix, with his confusion displayed openly on his face, looked to both of them, “The what?”

“The Cycle of Prodigies? That’s what they’re calling our cycle.” Ayred smiled, “Lot’s of people who are exceeding the expected all wrapped up into one age.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.” Melody chimed in for the first time in a while, “It’s not just the Prodigious Cycle, the inner circles of the gods have been calling it The Ascendant Cycle.”

Huh. Ascendant… Prodigy…

Ayred frowned this time, “You mean…”

“You know about Romar and Zeraxes.” Melody nodded.

Ayred gasped as he caught on, “Then there’s you and Adaline who are dominating Group Combat, there’s also Elias and now Felix.”

Melody sighed, “Felix is still an unknown but now much higher on everyone’s radars. There’s more though. They aren’t really expecting Felix, you or Elias to ascend any time soon necessarily but, having The Deraav’n Shadow Dealer and one of the greatest thieves of the last 100 epochs in the same cycle…”

Ayred gasped in realization, “They’re expecting us to join up with one of you guys.”

Melody nodded and crossed her arms, “Exactly. We’ve got a bunch of the most promising ascendants in a long time alongside some students that even current gods would love to have as part of their support network all at the same time in the same place, during an integration cycle. This cycle is expected to produce some of the most powerful, well backed gods in a long time. And fast.”

Felix furrowed his brow, “Zeraxes and Romar didn’t seem that… impressive?”

Melody nodded, “That’s because they’re both heavily restricted here. During the first epoch at least, Romar hasn’t hit his evolution yet and can’t use half of his skills while Zeraxes is missing his Divine Bolt. Once item restrictions are lifted a bit, Zeraxes will be unbeatable and once he hits B grade, Romar will be… well, a star.”

Felix shook his head, “Like… a burning ball of gas? A literal star?”

“Yup, though not as big. That’s his parents race and he’s shown the most promise of any Starling so far. Also his suitability score is through the roof and his foundations are… kind of unbelievable. They’re expecting him to become one of the strongest right out of the gate and it’s just a short path to the throne from there. Rumour is he might take over for his Mother once he does.”

Felix shook his head, “Going back a minute, Divine Bolt? Like a Divine level item?”

Melody nodded, “It was crafted specifically for him and he’s also shown to be one of the most proficient so far. He’s already trained with it his whole life, this is likely the first time he’s ever been without it. His dad Zerathus has also publicly stated he wants Zeraxes to take over his throne.”

Ze-rath-us, even pronounced Zerathoos… like Zeus. Hmm.

“So when Tanryel was talking about war coming…”

Melody sighed, “It might. Probably won’t, this is a big coincidence. There will be death and upheaval but not war. Not with Rhonan still kicking at least.”

Ayred nodded, “Even without him, Edras would probably take over pretty quickly. Not sure who can contest him.”

Melody tilted her head slightly, “The question isn’t who would contest him, the question is who would support him. If he can’t get enough of the other gods standing behind him, then there actually will be a war.” Melody shook her head, “That’s not happening though, as I said, Rhonan is fine.”

Uh… Knowing something Melody doesn’t is fun and all but…

“Anyways, I have to get to class now. Let me know if you make any progress deciphering any of the books. Oh but don’t spend too much time on them, you also need to prepare for evaluations.” Ayred nodded to both of them then waved and left.

Felix turned to Melody, his confusion apparent on his face, “Evaluations?”

“8th dekad, one fifth of the way through the first epoch, professors will have everyone evaluated. At the end of the epoch, exams, measure your progress from the evaluation.”

“So your grade is based on progress?”

“Oh, right.” Melody nodded remembering Felix knew basically nothing, “Every class gives you three letters that make up a grade. You have Current Skill, Growth, Potential. Growth is measured from the evaluation to the exam. Current Skill is based on the exam and Potential is more esoteric and different for every professor.”

Felix nodded in understanding, “I should prepare for Evaluations then?”

Melody scoffed, “Nah. You can but… don’t worry about it too much.”

“So about what happened in the duel…”

Melody shook her head then grew uncharacteristically very serious, “Now’s not the time.”

“Just one question. Your expression… same reason you were…. wary of Peace?”

She nodded, “Talk about it later.”

“You have my Sky-Slicer?”

Her usual smile returned to her face as she nodded, “Not here. Want me to bring you to it right now? It’s not… close.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Some other time. Was there another reason you found me? How did you find me by the way?”

She chuckled, “Asked the planet.”

“I see.”

“I just came to congratulate you plus Ayred has been incessantly asking me if I knew where you were.”

“Gotcha.”

“You seem to already be aware but… I should warn you, now that you beat Tanryel, there’s a lot more attention on you.”

Felix sighed, “That’s what I was worried about. Anything I can do to… get rid of it?”

“Fly under the radar for a while and it’ll die down naturally. Also… I had never really thought of it but… ask Peace maybe?”

“Speaking of, any idea where I can find him?”

She grinned, “You’ll see him in Group Combat soon enough. If you need to see him before that… I’m sure you’ll see him around.”

Felix was a little lost as to why she was grinning but just a moment after she finished speaking, Peace just appeared next to them, “You were looking for me?”

Melody’s grin grew.

Felix frowned, “Were you here the whole time?”

Peace shook his head, “Nope. Just heard my name and headed over.”

“I take it now isn’t the time to talk about… what happened in the duel?”

Peace shrugged, “If you want to.”

Looking at Melody, she seemed a lot warier of the subject than Peace did. Looking at both of them for confirmation, Peace nodded then placed one hand on each of their shoulders.

As soon as he made contact, Felix’s consciousness was drawn into another constructed memory where he saw Peace and Melody.

Melody’s eyes immediately went wide as she looked around and explored. Peace looked to be straining himself though as he turned to Felix, “Could you… be… less?”

Felix looked at him both confused and a little worried for him, “What? Are you okay?”

“No. Having you in here… is like… trying to host… The Reaper.”

Suddenly, Felix’s consciousness was ejected back into his body along with an exhausted looking Peace and a confused looking Melody.

Melody looked at Peace with wide eyes, “Was that a constructed memory?”

“Yeah… I can hold… normal people for a while… Felix… is not.”

Melody looked at Felix apologetically then turned back to Peace, “Can you teach me how to do that?”

He nodded, “Yeah… It might take some doing… you need a constructed space in your soul first.”

Like… a garden?

Felix leaned forwards a little, “Then what?”

“Same way a memory crystal works but in reverse. You lead the souls into the space but you need to be gentle.”

Felix nodded, “Any danger of just trying it?”

“Some. Don’t pull too hard on the other souls and you’ll be fine.”

You think I could potentially kill their soul by doing this?

Grim shook his head, an action Felix could sense because his consciousness was inside of Felix at the moment, No chance. If that were the case, you’d have exploded a lot more memory crystals in the library, right? Also, being able to kill people by removing their soul with a touch… What a horrifying thought. Though, you might be able to knock them out if you pulled really hard…

Right. Thanks.

Felix reached out and placed a hand on Peace’s shoulder then, as carefully as he possibly could, followed his instructions.

After a moment, Peace laughed, “You’ll need a much more solid construct. You can’t just imagine something and have it be a soul construct. It’ll take a while. You also need to pull a little harder than that.”

Felix ignored the first part of what Peace had said then gradually pulled harder until suddenly, he felt something give way.

Quickly checking to make sure he hadn’t torn Peace’s soul from his body and killed him, Felix placed his hand on Melody’s shoulder, ignoring her suggestive look, and pulling her in as well.

Following their consciousness with his own, Felix arrived in his Soul Garden finding both of them standing there, stunned.

Compared to Peace’s constructed memory, Felix’s was actually clear. It felt real, at least to him. He could also see them clearly rather than as fuzzy specter puppets.

Felix turned to the two of them, “I take it what happened in the duel is too sensitive to talk about out in the open?”

“What… is this?” Peace’s eyes and head darted around taking in everything around him.

Felix gestured around him with both arms, “Soul Garden. It’s technically an evolution of the meditation skill I got way back. Since then, things have gotten a little more… complicated.”

“Wait… this is a constructed memory too?” Melody looked at both of them for confirmation.

“Ye-” Felix was cut off by Peace, “No. This is a true construct. Yours feels just as… real and solid as…”

Peace didn’t finish his sentence and once Felix realized he didn’t intend to, he changed the subject, “So. What happened in the duel? Or maybe we should start with why Melody was so scared of you.”

“This place is… huge. Also, what’s over there?” Peace pointed towards the city way off in the distance.

Felix, without looking, knew exactly where he was pointing because it was his Soul Garden, so he shook his head, “Another time.” With a thought, he obscured their vision by adding a fog between the two locations.

Melody tried to run off into the Garden a few times but Felix moved her back in front of them in an instant. After trying a few dozen times, the later tries because she found it fun, she finally turned to Felix, “Okay, I wasn’t scared… okay, maybe a little but not that scared I just… I didn’t know much- I still don’t… I thought I knew more than the rumours but… apparently not-” Melody took a deep breath and cleared her thoughts, “-I had a suspicion that Peace might be a Reaper cultist.”

Felix looked at her with confusion, “And… now?”

“Now, I know he is. I’m just not… deluded about what that means? I had a lot of misconceptions about the cult that Peace helped clear up.”

Felix looked at Peace, “Did you know about… my class, before the duel?”

Peace nodded, “Of course.”

“Wait, you’ve been… following or watching me, haven’t you?”

“Yup.”

Felix’s brow furrowed slightly, “For the cult?”

Peace shrugged, “Sort of? Not… exactly? Because of it definitely but I wasn’t ordered to do so or anything like that. Kind of though… It was more like a curiosity… I guess…”

Felix nodded seriously for all of a second before he shrugged as he realized he didn’t care so long as Peace didn’t hinder his progress, “Can you teach me how to use this class and its skills?”

Peace smiled, “If you’d like.”

“I didn’t even realize I wasn’t using the skills until the duel. I… suspected they weren’t doing anything but I wasn’t sure. I don’t want to keep wasting time like that.”

“Fair enough. How about this, which day of the dekad do you have recorded classes?”

“First, third, sixth, eighth.”

“Well, we can train once or twice a dekad on one of those days.”

Felix nodded with a smile, “Perfect.” Turning to Melody, “What did you recognize? What are the rumors? Do I need to be worried?”

Peace chuckled a little and Melody looked slightly embarrassed, “I wouldn’t worry. I just got a little too fixated on some books I read when I was… much younger.”

“Most people don’t even think we exist actually.” Peace smirked.

Melody looked at the floor, “Yeah…”

Felix looked to both of them in turn, “What’s the myth?”

Melody sighed, “The Cult of The Reaper is a deadly cult of assassins that work outside of The System making them effectively unstoppable. They can get to you anywhere and there’s nothing you can do to protect yourself.”

Peace smirked and teased her, “She read a book about two lovers trying to escape their rich parents. The families eventually contracted the cult and the book ends in tragedy.”

She stomped one foot and pouted, “That traumatized me for a long time. I just… never really forgot.”

Felix nodded slowly, “So none of that is true?”

Peace shook his head, “No, most of it is. Except for maybe the most important part, we aren’t assassins. I don’t think we’ve ever carried out an assassination… ever.”

“Then what do you do?”

Peace winced, “That’s… a conversation for another time.”

Felix looked at Melody but it was clear she didn’t have an answer either.

“Ok fine. The Reaper?”

Peace nodded, “Primordial.”

“They’re the progenitor of my class?”

“Yes.”

“What does it mean? My having this class? How many others have it as well?”

“That’s… also a conversation for another time.”

Felix sighed, “Anything else you can tell me?”

Peace smirked, “Probably lots. Less than you’d like though.”

Felix nodded, “Is there anything else that’s sensitive or can we go back to the real world?”

Melody leapt forwards, “Wait, hold on… What’s the rush?”

Frowning, Felix looked at her, “We are literally standing in the middle of the library, unconscious.”

Melody threw her hands into the air, “So? Who cares? I want to explore.”

Felix shook his head in confusion, “There’s nothing else here. You can literally see everything.”

Melody stuck her tongue out at him, “Yeah but you haven’t let me leave this one spot yet.”

Felix shook his head, “Too bad.”

Ejecting both of their consciousnesses from his Soul Garden, Felix returned to his body to find Melody pouting and Peace shaking his head.

“I’m going to go try and decipher these books now. Peace, let’s train on the 6th then we’ll go from there.”

Peace nodded, “Sure thing. See you tomorrow.”

Felix nodded to him and ignored Melody’s pouting as he flew off back to his dorm.

He spent the rest of the day pouring through the-incredibly repetitive-documented attempts at deciphering the books in the A-SAM building. It seemed that there were a total of a dozen or so methods everyone came up with and they were all convinced they could do it better than their predecessors.

As Felix walked into the designated classroom for Group Combat, Peace appeared next to him, something that was starting to become a regular occurrence.

Peace addressed Felix without looking over at him, “Ready to finally move up a class again?”

“Should be pretty easy at this point, right? Now that I’ve got those skills.”

“If you can actually use them then, yeah probably. To be honest though, your spells kind of suck. You’re also still very fragile.”

Felix nodded, “Yeah, I know. I’m working on the spells thing. Hopefully what I’ve got is enough for now. What do you mean if I can use them?”

“You’ll see and lets hope so.”

Felix sighed, “I’ve got a couple other things I need to handle before I get to use better spells. Like I said though, I’m working on it.”

Peace nodded and they walked through the portal in the middle of the class.

Group Combat was, as Peace had predicted, a bit of a joke. They were still in the phase of fighting each-other on teams which would apparently only last another couple dekads so they could sort the classes. After that, they would start fighting monsters on expeditions and other less simulated combat scenarios.

Felix had quickly realized what Peace meant though as he couldn’t just turn Reaper’s Movement or Sense on. He managed to get sputterings out of it occasionally and once, in a dire fight, he managed to activate it but otherwise, they remained dormant and largely useless.

That left him with his normal speed which wasn’t awful but, all his training for the duel, specifically his instinct casts, casting speed and focus limit had paid off.

Given how trivial it was for Felix to win, and now knowing that Peace had been holding back so he would remain in the same class as Felix, they both dedicated themselves to working with the team. Their abilities made the win almost a guarantee, the trick was to showcase the best teamwork in the class so they could move up another class.

Their efforts luckily paid off and both of them were instructed to attend next class up, 7th out of 10, on the second of the next dekad.

The hardest part of the whole class though was avoiding all the other students trying to either challenge him to a duel or befriend him. Also, having everyone focus entirely on him during the fights was annoying but made the wins even easier.

The next day, Felix headed over to Ked’s lab where a couple of the Adepts were a little annoying but much less so than the other students in his cycle. While they were curious, they also dropped the subject after just a couple minutes.

They had all started thinking about what projects they wanted to work on for the cycle and Felix had become known for his ability to quickly prototype things. He was dragged over to each Adept in turn so he could help them prototype their ideas as quickly as possible.

He didn’t mind it though because the work itself was excellent practice and he got to see for himself what they were all thinking about. All of their ideas began fuelling his own ambitions though he figured he would be helping the others with their projects this epoch then maybe work on his own the next epoch.

As the slew of requests for Felix’s attention died down though, Professor Ked found him, “Have you thought about what you want to work on this epoch? Or maybe something more ambitious spanning multiple epochs?”

Felix’s jaw hung a little, “I didn’t think… I’m allowed to work on my own project here too?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Of course. You don’t have to if you would rather assist us. Though, if you do take on your own project I suspect you will need assistance or advice anyways and I expect you to offer the same to others, to a reasonable degree. Sal and I have already had multiple discussions about what we want to create while you’re still here and can offer your unique talents.”

Felix nodded, “Of course. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“If you need ideas, a good challenge is to turn your ring into a construct. Alternatively, think about something that will help you in the long run. Depending on how complex it is, Sal and I will grade you based on it. Try not to pick something you want to keep secret.”

“I don’t entirely get the ring thing. Why bother?”

Ked shrugged, “It’s just to show off really. Think about what would benefit you the most in your life right now.”

“Yeah. I’ll think about it.”

Ked smiled, “While you do, would you mind helping me with a construct I’m working on?”

Felix smirked, “Of course.”

Ked had Felix help him with soul binding a particularly complex construct in a small mechanical spider. The body was cool but not particularly impressive. The brain was more impressive but still, just an organically grown brain that was carefully fit into the body. The brain then necessitated other biological organs and systems within the shell. The impressive part was the soul Ked had carefully engineered for the body.

The soul was meticulously crafted not only to hold firm in its convictions and with a complex web of purpose woven throughout it but also physically shaped to fit the body. It was almost like a network of souls or a hive mind in a way. Each fragment and component had its own structure and purpose, all of them interconnected to form a whole. It would, once bound, suffuse the mechanical body just as Felix’s soul did his own.

While Ked could have bound the soul to the body himself, it was much faster to have Felix do it. Nevertheless, Ked observed and guided Felix through the whole process once he had removed it from the gem.

Felix had to shape the soul a little bit and he was careful with every step to make sure he didn’t damage the soul Ked had spent epochs creating.

While he could bind the soul to the body, Felix had no experience with creating souls like this and simply working with it, he was fascinated. It was complex and intricate in ways he never realized a soul could be. It reminded him of long ago during the tutorial when Grim had briefly shown Felix his soul.

The spider’s soul wasn’t nearly as complex but he had somewhat forgotten about Grim’s soul since then.

While all the Adept’s project ideas had sparked his ambitions for constructs, Ked’s spider’s soul and the memory of Grim’s soul it surfaced had Felix thinking about his own soul.

He spent some time that night testing and tinkering with new constructs in his mind though Felix didn’t end up finalizing any of them, finding what he was trying to do much more complicated than he had expected.

Luckily, he had Soul Manipulation the next day and considering his intention was for this to apply to his own soul eventually, he figured it was the perfect time to ask.

During the lecture, Professor Fen mostly discussed more methods of soul cultivation and the intricacies that went along with them. She was continuing on the topic of defensive layers from her previous lectures, something which Felix had little to no interest in. He just didn’t see the applicability when his soul was seemingly invincible.

What mattered more to him was to find ways of using that and building up his methods of retaliating. For now, he was like an invincible rock. Unbreakable and completely stationary, unable to act whatsoever.

As the class was wrapping up, Felix asked a question, “We’ve been talking about defensive layers on our souls but what about other layers? Other forms of structure?”

Professor Fen looked up with a curious gaze, “How do you mean?”

“Everything we’ve talked about involves stacking spherical layers. What if they weren’t just spherical? What if each layer had it’s own convictions and purpose?”

“You mean like an advanced construct soul?”

“That’s actually where I got the idea from. Could we do that with our own souls?”

Professor Fen shook her head quickly, “It doesn’t seem impossible but messing with your own soul to that degree is not only likely impossible but also incredibly dangerous. That’s not to say it hasn’t been done though.”

“You’re saying I might be able to find research or books on the subject in the library?”

“Possible, unlikely. Cultivation techniques and the subject of the Soul are unfortunately often left out of academic records and tomes. There are some but most seem to prefer to keep their secrets, when it comes to the soul especially.”

Felix nodded, “I see. I’ll see what I can find.”

“It is likely the gods have done something along the lines of what you are talking about with their own souls as they host afterlives within their inner worlds. Revealing such things though would be tantamount to inviting a soul attack though so there are no records I am aware of of such modifications.”

Felix nodded along, “Speaking from the standpoint of a construct then, how much does and can the structure of its soul benefit the construct in terms of strength and function?”

“While a little off topic for this course, it is not completely unrelated. One common structure modification made is using many bind points which allow the soul to effectively stretch itself throughout the construct’s body. This often lightens the burden placed on the brain to control the body.”

Turning to her podium and drawing descriptive diagrams on the board behind her, Fen continued, “Having a soul concentrated in the same location as a constructs brain can also often improve the stability of the brain and improve communication between it, the soul and the body.”

“Furthermore, having layers dedicated to specific functions suffusing specific parts of the body, such as a piece of the construct suffusing its eyes that has its own convictions, can vastly improve a constructs capabilities. At this point though, it is common to split the soul into chunks, each with their own section to control then have the section with the brain coordinate the entire body. The trick, is interconnecting the chunks seamlessly, ensuring adjacent chunks synergize with each-other.”

“As for how you could implement something similar within your own body, many have tried taking soul gems and suffusing individual parts of their body after imposing convictions and purpose within them. The issue that has always arisen however, is interoperability. Either, the host soul and the implanted soul end up fighting each-other for control or, more devastatingly, the imposed convictions leak out into the host soul. Instead of the eyes having the convictions to see above all else, the entire host soul becomes consumed with a pointless conviction that simply hinders it. As an outside force, the conviction often transforms into an insatiable desire instead of a point of strength.”

While that wouldn’t ever be an issue for me, I’m not sure I want to do that anyways.

“I am certain some of you in the class will attempt this at some point, as it is your nature to seek every advantage you can find. I will warn you though, in order to fix you after performing something like this, we will need to sever a large chunk of your soul. Worst case, it is inoperable. This is also something that The System may not even touch as it often refuses to do with souls.”

After that, Felix left the lecture slightly early to avoid being harassed by students challenging him to duels, which was becoming increasingly annoying and insistent. He didn’t manage to avoid everyone though as both Melody and Peace appeared next to him just as he made it outside.

Turning to Felix, Melody actually looked rather concerned, “About what you asked… in class, be careful.”

Felix brushed off her concern, “I’ll be fine.”

“Your soul is the core of who you are. Screw with it too much and… there are many things far worse than death.”

Peace chimed in as well, “I say go for it. You’ve gotten this far so, you must have a good idea of your own limits already. I know of some who have done similar things.”

Felix stopped and turned to Peace, “Wait, you know people who have done something like this to their own souls? Can you introduce me?”

Peace winced, “Not… anytime soon.”

“I see. Fine. Was that all, or are you two just following me for the view?”

Melody’s face lit up as Felix teased her back for the first time since they had met, “Of course. Well, also I was wondering if wanted to go on a date. I was thinking a picnic to… a garden maybe?”

Felix sighed as he caught onto what she was asking, “Why?”

Melody shrugged as mouth slowly formed into a grin, “It’s interesting.”

“Is that why you’re here too?” Felix turned to Peace.

Peace shrugged, “No but… I’d love to join, since you’re offering.”

Felix sighed, “Alright but I’ve got shit to do so I’m not giving you a tour or anything.”

Neither of them objected as they followed him back to his dorm.

As soon as she arrived in his Soul Garden, Melody began running around examining everything. Peace was much calmer but Felix could sense he was equally as fascinated but from a different perspective.

For Melody, everything was novel and blowing her mind. She hadn’t ever considered what was happening here and so everything was a sight to behold for her.

For Peace, he knew this was possible, had visited similar constructions before but he was impressed by the quality. He was fascinated by the detail, the solidity, the realness and the scale. He understood what it took to construct something like this and so he appreciated it from a different perspective.

Wait till he sees the city. Not that I actually plan on showing it to them anytime soon, just that it would probably blow his mind.

Grim chuckled lightly, Think it would be too much for them if I introduced myself?

I don’t know but, go for it. It’s not that far of a stretch for me to be hosting my own familiar in here.

It took them both a few moments to realize someone, or something, had joined them, Melody realizing a few moments before Peace.

They both turned and cautiously approached, Melody seemingly confused, scared and curious while Peace was holding back his amusement.

Grim bowed slightly to the two of them in turn, “Peace. Melody. It is nice to finally speak with you both.”

Peace looked at Grim, examining his face, “Is that… a book?”

“This is Grim. My… One of my familiars? in the real world who does… work, inside my head”

Melody looked at him with confusion, “Your head? Aren’t we in your soul?”

Felix shrugged, “Sure, he comes and goes between the two.”

Grim turned to Peace, “You’ve mentioned The Reaper before and I take it you’ve seen them. I was wondering how Felix’s planet’s depiction of them compares to the real thing?”

Peace gasped in realization, “So this is based on The Reaper. Is that why you called them ‘Grim’?”

“Yeah, among other… reasons.” Felix nodded, unwilling to admit to their shared childlike enjoyment of wordplay.

Peace nodded in realization, “It’s definitely recognizable to one of his forms. That one isn’t his favorite or most common form though.”

Melody shook her head as she caught on, “Wait, this is… you have two familiars?”

Felix nodded, “Sort of. He’s more like a… soul bound companion?”

Grim shrugged, “Either way.”

“I have other things to take care of now. If you need anything, call out and I or Grim will see what we can do.” Vanishing from sight, the two of them reappeared in the library.

They began by organizing all the previous research as well as Felix’s own knowledge to try and work backwards with deciphering the tomes. They suspected there were either spell forms or knowledge about mana in the books so they tried to find any part of the texts that would map to anything in those domains.

If they didn’t find anything, they would hand everything off to Mark and possibly some of the constructs in his own mind. Felix was hoping that he’d be able to crack it himself solely because he loved the challenge and the puzzle but that was seeming increasingly unlikely.

While they did this, Grim projected himself both in the garden and in the city at the same time. In the city, they worked together on the tomes. In the Garden, Grim hosted Felix’s guests.

Melody spent the time wandering around until Grim offered her a book, a romantic fiction novel and she gleefully began reading. Peace on the other hand, began practicing some kind of martial art in very slow motion that looked more like a dance or tai-chi. Grim watched the first rotation then asked a few questions about it once he was no longer interrupting.

After a short back and forth, they ended up sparring which was interesting in its own right. Grim used The Dragon’s Dance of Death forms and Peace deftly avoided every attack.

As they fought-their speed made equal in the Soul Garden-Peace twisted Grim’s strike harmlessly aside, “These forms are incredibly lethal.”

“They were considered unstoppable where I come from and yet, you are not strained whatsoever. Mentally I mean.”

Peace shrugged, “I’ve dealt with a lot of lethal, unstoppable skills. To be honest, these are some of the most impressive ones I’ve seen outside of the cult. Could you show me the whole set of forms?”

Grim nodded then ran Peace through the steps. Even just passively watching through his Garden, Felix was jealous.

Peace picked up on the steps immediately and executed them near flawlessly. By the time they ran through them a second time, Peace was already altering the steps slightly, improving upon and perfecting them.

After that, they fought once again, Peace using The Dragon’s Dance this time and Felix was momentarily distracted from his work.

The Dragon’s Dance looked completely different when Peace performed it. It looked like an actual dance and the way he moved made him actually look like a deadly serpent. The movements and steps were slithering and connected with no harsh movements. The strikes used the entire body like a spring and were fast and lethal.

He used them in a way where the fight had ebb and flow. He moved slowly and gracefully with the occasional strike then saw an opening and suddenly released a burst of rapid strikes. He then fell back after his combo and returned to graceful movements.

It reminded Felix of a song that was mostly calm then suddenly dropped into edm for a few moments before returning to calm.

It was obvious that Peace actually understood the forms, the Dance as a whole, what it meant and how it all fit together. Grim and Felix simply knew the forms. It was the difference between truly grasping something versus having the requisite knowledge.

Peace bowed with both hands pressed together, “I’ll have to show this to some of the other martials in the cult. I think they’d enjoy this.”

Felix felt Grim’s reluctance towards letting the information he was tasked with protecting loose. Almost immediately that thought was overridden by the fact that Peace had completely neutralized the Dance, nullifying the entire reason they were forbidden.

They continued sparring, Peace showing Grim other steps, forms and dances. It quickly became obvious Peace had long since achieved mastery over a countless array of martial arts as he continued to pull out new forms each and every minute.

After a few hours of Soul Garden time passed, Melody gradually became too exhausted to remain awake and so, she fell asleep. Felix immediately appeared next to her and was about to release her, worried something was wrong but Peace stopped him with a word.

Speaking out loud at a perfectly normal volume from hundreds of meters away, completely aware that Felix could hear everything he said no matter what, “Don’t.”

Felix appeared next to Peace as he and Grim backed up a step, “Is she okay?”

Peace nodded, “What’s the time dilation in here?”

“Around 0.28% right now.”

Peace frowned and cocked his head, “Seriously?”

“Yes. It’s based on my Intelligence.”

Peace shook his head, “You’re a monster, you know that? It will take time to acclimatize her mind and soul to functioning at this speed. I have some experience of my own in time dilated soul constructs so I won’t need to sleep for a while longer but it will hit me too.”

“I see. So I’m not… harming her?”

Peace chuckled, “Nope, not at all. Actually, this is like a workout for her Intelligence, Perception, Dexterity, Agility and Vitality.”

Felix looked at Peace wide eyed and astonished, “Really?”

“Yup. First her mind and soul will become faster. After which point, her other stats will start to adjust themselves and catch up.”

Eyes wide, Felix leaned forwards, “Where can I find a constructed memory with more dilation than this?”

Peace chuckled, “You won’t. I’ve visited a few but… Maybe some day.”

Felix sighed, “Alright. I think it’s time I handed off the deciphering of the tomes.”

Peace didn’t bother responding as he knew Felix wasn’t talking to him.

Reappearing next to Grim’s other projection, in the library, they quickly assembled all the materials they had on the tome and made copies.

“Problem I hadn’t thought of until now… how do I send this information to Mark?”

Grim nodded, “Good question. You should probably find a better way of communicating with him in general. Just talking isn’t going to cut it.”

“Yeah. We need to create a better communication protocol. Theoretically, I could send it a memory directly but I don’t think it’s… complex enough to understand and decipher one.”

Grim nodded and scratched his chin-the bottom of his book face, “Might need to beef up the cable connecting you two as well.”

“Yeah. I think I want to improve Mark too though. My hope, or dream, is that he can become the super powerful central server that I and all my constructs communicate with.”

Grim smiled, “I know. How do we get there though?”

“Great question. First things first, I want Mark to be more creature and less computer. Ideally, I want them to grow and evolve over time. Most importantly though, I need them to understand and have perspective on the world as a whole.”

“How are you going to do that without literally giving them a body?”

“While I could… I could also give them access to all my memories and experiences. Then… give them a whole lot of bodies.”

“Sure, question is how to transfer memories?”

Felix sighed, “You know what probably would have helped with this? The crown.”

Grim chuckled, “Yeah.”

“Okay, starting from what we know… the ideal is memory crystals. Worst case, we fall back on some earth cable standard we could probably replicate and adapt without too much difficulty, just a lot more wires.”

“Right so that’s plan B. Memory Crystals then, it’s the stability of the crystalline structure that makes them stable.”

Felix nodded once with more confidence than he felt, “Exactly. So, I make mana crystals, bind a memory to them then send those down the wire. I don’t want to physically move them though so… I make the whole wire a crystal? Like a fiber optic cable…”

Neither Felix nor Grim were entirely sure what he was saying was possible, both of them however agreed with the theory.

It took them almost the entire night to figure it out, Grim’s expertise with memories and storing them, or at least how he stored them, proving essential. The hard part was figuring out how to move the anima along the cable. Grim did something similar with his pages and binding so Felix applied the concept and-with some tinkering-managed to create a system he was happy with.

It came down to solidity. Memory crystals and soul gems, batteries too for that matter, worked on the principle that crystalline structures were extraordinarily solid and stable. He essentially had to replicate that with his own mana but, his mana control was more than up to the task. He couldn’t focus on everything at all times though so he imbued the necessary will into the anima suffusing the cables so they maintained a crystalline structure at all times.

After all, why can’t mana have a crystalline structure, or at least exhibit similar properties of stability. It doesn’t seem to have fundamental particles or atomic structure but it can perfectly simulate the physical states of matter… I’m starting to think mana is whatever you will it to be, need to test that further though later on.

There was still however, the problem of Mark not having the prerequisite context for understanding memories though.

The best idea either of them had to fix that was for Felix to manually modify Mark’s soul. Neither of them had any idea how that would work or whether or not it would be painful. Morally, it helped that Felix had actually created the soul, not that they were overly hung up on the morals.

He spent the next day carefully dissecting and experimenting with Mark and their soul until he had a much better understanding of why it worked the way it did and how it could work. From there, he carefully began comparing his own soul to Mark’s, adding components where they were missing and carefully making it increasingly complex.

He also tuned the filter and ended up removing the majority of it because he wanted Mark to essentially be him just with slightly emphasized personality traits. All of that was easy.

Modifying Mark’s soul as he compared it to Grim’s soul however, that was much more complex.

He started by mapping out as much of Grim’s soul as he could which was much closer to a complex construct than any living creature’s soul he had seen. The layers were rarely spherical and shell like. Many of the components had individual convictions binding them like parts of an engine with different purposes. Some of them resembled ropes or chains and others various shapes, nets and shells.

Due to its sheer complexity, Felix didn’t completely map Grim’s soul, he was pretty sure he wasn’t even close but, he did improve his understanding of what he wanted to do. With that knowledge, he only did one thing with Mark’s soul, improve the access control layer.

If he was going to give Mark access to many of his experiences, he wanted access to them to be tightly controlled. Only with Felix’s permission, would Mark share anything about him with anyone or anything.

Okay, with all that done… Grim, do you think it’s possible for me to make Mark… a creature?

You mean give it its own core soul?

Yeah.

Of course. What creature are you going to harvest one from?

Actually… I was thinking of separating out a small chunk of my own core soul, same way I would take a soul seed.

That… sounds incredibly dangerous. What if you accidentally take something necessary? What if you damage it? How can yo-

Okay, I get it. I don’t want to just have it based on a wolf or a computer sprite or something… Maybe in the future then. I was just thinking about what would happen if Mark was able to level…

Grim gasped in understanding, Oh… more importantly, skills.

Exactly. Something to think about later on then.

With everything in place, Felix took the final step and gave Mark access to his memories and experiences. Felix could still specifically restrict things if he had to, it was his soul after all, and even completely sever the connection if necessary. For the time being though, he let the information flow freely as Mark processed everything for themselves.

Felix had also manually grown Mark’s soul using excess anima he was carrying around so that he could copy over some of the experiences he deemed necessary. Once he was done with all that, Felix would task Mark with deciphering the tomes from the A-SAM building.

Both Melody and Peace had spent the entirety of their break day in his Soul Garden. Melody because it was actively improving her stats and Peace for some reason unbeknownst to Felix.

Mentally reviewing the prioritized todo list, Felix was reminded of something he had almost forgotten about.

I still haven’t gotten that shipment of corpses from Tekrag, have I? Damn, I really thought they’d be here by now.

Maybe it takes longer than we thought to… collect them?

Yeah or the shipment itself. I wonder how that will arrive…

With his mind still somewhat focused on souls, Felix took a peek at his own and started experimenting to try and increase his focus limit.

He had expected a larger increase when he had finally connected the computer to his brain but when that didn’t happen, he was left wondering if he was taking the right approach. The only other aspect that he figured would have an impact on his focus level, was his soul.

His soul was what dictated his mana control while his brain was what allowed him to hold specific shapes, namely spell forms, solid. They worked in tandem and he was fairly certain he could hold the shape of many spell forms solid with just his mind which only left his soul.

The problem, was that he had no idea how.

As he had done previously when trying to manually force his matter senses to improve, Felix began controlling mana in the most strenuous way he could, holding it near The Endless Hunger. Once he could feel the strain within his soul, Felix lightened up just enough so that he didn’t lose control and shifted his consciousness to observe.

Staring inwards, Felix could see his entire soul being effectively engaged towards controlling the mana. He couldn’t do anything with that though so he tried something else entirely.

This time, instead of just controlling some mana near The Endless Hunger, Felix created two spell forms. One of them was a simple Fire Bolt, one of the simplest spell forms he knew while the other, was the most complicated one he could cast with his remaining focus. It wasn’t actually anything useful, just an amalgamation that perfectly used up the remaining focus.

Now when he looked inwards, with quite a bit of effort, he tried to isolate which parts of his soul were contributing to which spell form.

It took him much longer than he would have liked to admit for him to realize, there was no separation.

His soul, the part of him actually controlling the mana, saw it all as one controlled entity. Even at his limit though, his soul could cast other spells. He instinct cast multiple Force Bursts just to prove the point to himself.

If it’s not my soul and it’s not my brain… I’m pretty sure it’s not my body… All that leaves is the connection between my soul and my brain… right?

Grim shrugged, I have no idea. Sounds logical… I guess? There could also be something else entirely at play here that neither of us know anything about.

You’re saying I should ask Fin?

I wasn’t but… not a bad idea. I’m just not sure he’ll know anymore than we do. In fact, he will probably know less…

It’s worth a try.

Making himself busy for the rest of the day until Peace and Melody had to leave, Felix mostly read and experimented with various spell forms in the hopes that he would soon be able to use them.

Walking into Professor Fin’s office, which was actually the room attached to his classroom where Felix had first revealed his abilities, Felix found Fin practicing his mana control on the board.

“Ah, the impossible prodigy. What can I do for you?”

“I’m trying to increase my… well I’ve been calling it a focus limit but basically the number and complexity of the spells I can cast simultaneously.”

Fin chuckled a little, “No one else would ever bother raw casting multiple spells at once. Here you are hoping you can cast more than 30.”

Felix shrugged lightly, “Well, I can only cast 30 at once if they’re identical and as simple as possible.”

“Right, of course. From my experience-which may or may not be applicable to you at all-increasing the maximum complexity of my raw casts usually involves a lot of practice. I take it that’s not the answer you were hoping for though?”

Felix shook his head, “I’ve gotten large increases before. I… attached a mana computer to my brain, that resulted in a decent jump. I also encountered some… challenging situations where controlling mana felt impossible. Training there resulted in another jump.”

Fin frowned, “I’m going to ignore the computer thing for the moment. What if we just simulate that challenging place?”

“I’ve been doing that as much as I can, unfortunately it hasn’t been as effective recently.”

“I see. Well, let’s see if we can’t figure out where the actual limit is.”

Felix nodded and walked over to the board, already having tried this himself. He immediately drew out and held the most complicated spell form image he could within the board, the portal spell form.

On Fin’s signal, he then tried to draw out another spell form. Looking back at the portal spell form, the intricate details had grown fuzzy and unclear. The ring around the outside and the larger lines though, remained solid.

Felix turned his head towards Fin, “Any ideas?”

Fin smirked, “You’re a smart kid. Look at the portal spell form.”

Felix looked at it.

Fin’s voice carried his building enthusiasm, “It didn’t just… fall apart entirely.”

“No, it just became unusable.”

Fin, with even more enthusiasm, “Right but, how? How specifically did it fail?”

“The details… got fuzzy?”

“Right. Why those intricate details though? The first part you drew was the outer ring. Why didn’t it fall apart first? The nodes are the most intricate, why are some of those still solid?”

Felix frowned as he examined the spell form, hearing what Fin was saying and isolating the individual components that were failing.

Felix gasped, “It’s my brain…”

Fin chuckled, “I find it ironic, given your Mana Visualization Skill.”

Felix nodded understanding. The irony was that his problem was visualization and Fin had invented the skill name visualization, “I was wrong then. It has nothing to do with the connection between my brain and soul.”

Fin shrugged, “Could be a factor too but if that were the case, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out.”

Felix nodded, “Thanks.”

“Before you go… you mentioned you ‘attached a mana computer to your brain?’ How exactly does that work?”

“Long story but my mana control lets me… make more intricate mana computers. I made one then carefully connected it directly to my neurons. It hasn’t been as useful as I had hoped but… I’m hoping to fix that in the future.”

Fin nodded slowly, “I see. Well, if you need help in the future, don’t… hesitate to ask.”

Felix nodded, “Thanks.”

Okay so… I assumed I could actively hold the mental image for almost infinite spell forms but… I’m starting to doubt that now.

Back in his dorm, Felix began imagining spell forms surrounding him without actually creating them out of mana. He found his limit, was exactly the same as his actual focus limit.

My long term memory is effectively infinite, for my purposes at the moment, but my… active memory? seems to be holding me back. Unfortunately… how the fuck do I improve that?

You’ve already got a computer attached to your brain.

Felix scoffed, Yeah not looking to add another.

No but, maybe you can repurpose some of it.

Oh… that’s an interesting thought.

At first, Felix thought about rewiring one of the servers in the server room building within his mind but then changed his mind. Instead, he walked out into the city and created a new building, this one a dome made of small triangles.

Walking inside, he imagined the inside of the dome being a mesh of screens with projectors at the points. Within the chamber itself, the projectors would then work together to form holograms. They didn’t display anything at the moment though because he had purposefully left everything disconnected and he wasn’t currently picturing anything.

Once it was complete, he ran cables to connect the new building to the server room.

From there, Felix created a construct to manage the server room where he rewired and changed some things so that they were all connected to a central terminal. From there, the new construct, dubbed Ned, would control which servers were allocated to which portion of his brain.

Instead of rewiring servers directly to buildings, this had the advantage of being dynamic. He could change the allocation on the fly, in theory.

With all of his preparations complete, Felix returned to his body and had Ned allocate 50% of the computers to his focus.

Immediately, Felix noticed the difference. His perception suffered and his brain felt slower but, every spell form he imagined felt incredibly clear. The visualizations themselves more solid than he had ever experienced. Almost like they were actually inscribed into his mind.

Testing with as many spells as he could come up with, Felix couldn’t help but laugh out loud as he surpassed 40 spell levels worth of focus. He ended up finding his limit just over 50, which was more than double his previous amount.

Well… that was… awesome.

Yeah small problem though… some of your library was… lost.

Felix coughed as he choked on his own spit, Wait… What?

Nothing important. We structured it so you lost only filler information and nothing you couldn’t get back but… you’re going to need to head to the library again to rescan some of those books.

Shit. Okay, that’s a problem. I can’t go losing half my memories every time I need to cast a complex spell.

Right. Now that you have Mark though…

He’s not big enough to hold all my memories though.

No, but he could be.

Felix sighed, Alright. Adding it to the todo list, highest priority, memory backups. Once I figure that out, we can designate different modes. Everything dedicated to speed, perception and focus can be battle mode. Wait, I won’t have problems with having my memories outside of my head right? Like falling into the same trap twice?

I don’t think so… most of that should be experience that falls into your soul’s domain but… let’s make a new building for that stuff anyways then just move the library to Mark. Just in case. Also, maybe make number two increasing your brain’s capacity.

Felix immediately harvested everything he could from the computer growth farms he had created and began expanding them as the cells regrew. If he was going to have Mark hold a backup of his entire mind, Mark was going to have to be a lot bigger.

Luckily, even though he had restricted Mark’s size by fitting him into a shell, there were more than 3 spatial dimensions Felix had access to. Making Mark incredibly long in the 4th spatial dimension wasn’t a good idea because it would be like making a really tall and skinny tower, it wouldn’t be stable.

Once he got to that point though, Felix would either make a second Mark and connect them in a network or compress his transistors to be even smaller. That wasn’t a problem for any time in the near future though so, Felix didn’t bother trying to solve it.

He still didn’t have enough for Mark to exceed the size of his own brain in terms of physical size or storage size but he used what he could so Grim could start backing up the most important memories. As his mana computer growing green-house produced more computer, he would harvest and within about a dozen dekads, he estimated Mark would be big enough.

That accounted both for maintaining its current function of offloading processing from constructs and backing up all his current memories. He wouldn’t stop there but that was his current goal for the time being.

He also wanted to increase the size of the computer connected to his brain but that was problematic. Briefly, he experimented with changing things but stopped before changing anything permanently because the computer itself had changed and adapted. It wasn’t as simple as increasing its size anymore.

Once he was done with that, it was time for his first training session with Peace so Felix flew out to the open field they had chosen.

The field was similar to the one they had used for Group Combat a few dekads back, large, flat, open and grassy. They wanted to be far enough away that they weren’t interrupted but what they were doing wasn’t a secret so they didn’t portal to another planet or anything.

Surprising Felix though, as he landed in the field, he saw Peace and Melody waiting for him.

Melody waved and smiled her with her usual gleeful demeanor as he approached, “Hey Felix!”

Felix nodded in acknowledgement.

Peace answered the unasked question, “She asked if I could teach her too. I told her it would take hundreds of epochs to build the soul strength, awareness and control but she insisted.”

Felix shrugged, “She seems fairly talented with soul shit, maybe it doesn’t take her that long.”

Melody smiled wildly at Felix.

“Maybe. We’ll see-” Peace turned to Melody, “-as we already discussed, your first task is to be able to morph and shape your soul within your body.”

Melody nodded then skipped over to the edge of the field and fell into a meditation.

Peace turned to Felix and nodded, “Okay. I’ll be honest, I don’t know that much about you. Can you share with me the skills you’re using and the class?”

Felix suddenly grew incredibly wary about trusting Peace.

Peace closed his eyes and released a long drawn out sigh as he shook his head, “I don’t actually have a class or anything. I’m not a leveler technically. You may have noticed my level change randomly? The System is guessing as to my strength. Due to… other abilities I have, it’s difficult to estimate. I know you have a Legendary class called Reaper. I also know you have a movement skill and a Perception skill. I just need to know the specifics so I can figure out how to teach you.”

His worries abated, Felix shared the descriptions of his class and all his class skills with Peace who quickly read them through.

Peace nodded, “Okay, first things first. You probably want to drop Dragon’s Dance unless you want to become a martial artist. Even if you do though, I can teach you an equivalent Mythical skill to replace it fairly quickly.”

Felix shook his head, “Wait… Yes?”

Peace cocked his head in confusion, “You want to become a martial artist?”

Felix scoffed, “No. I want a Mythical skill.”

Peace shook his head, “Not worth it for you. Drop that skill and I’ll teach you something more fitting right now.”

Felix nodded and dropped the skill, mostly because he had already been planning on dropping it anyways. It wasn’t doing much for him and he lost very little from dropping it.

Peace nodded, “Alright first things first, what do you know about the Reaper skills? The class? What have you figured out so far?”

Felix shrugged, “Not much. I’m pretty sure the skills all have to do with my soul…”

“Yes, sort of. I told you I don’t level. Long ago there was time when The System didn’t exist. During this time, people trained to grow stronger and did amazing things through the use of mana, enchantments and their souls. This is how all of my abilities work.”

“So the class avoids The System?”

“No. It wasn’t designed to avoid The System at all. It was designed to house a number of skills that were deemed… useful. Those skills also happen to be skills that are nearly impossible for The System to replicate, at least in the same way. It could just move you faster but it cannot do it the same way we are. This is just because the most powerful skills are the most useful and the hardest to use. Instead, it guides your own capabilities… sort of, it’s complicated.”

“Okay, so it’s not intentional. Why are they skills at all? Why should I keep them on my status sheet?”

“Because having The System automate things for us is incredibly valuable. You can totally drop all the skills though and just do them yourself. Just make sure you don’t get distracted.”

Felix sighed in understanding, “Or fall unconscious or into an illusion or get soul manipulated into dropping them.”

“Yeah, basically.”

Felix nodded, “Alright. Maybe one day. For now, how do I use them properly?”

“First things first, Movement is the most visible and easiest for me to show you so, watch carefully.”

Felix nodded to Peace, indicating he was watching then Peace performed a series of martial arts steps in slow motion, just as he had in Felix’s Soul Garden. This time though, every movement, even though they were slow, was trailed by a long trail of black.

With Peace moving in slow motion and Felix specifically looking for it, Felix realized the trails weren’t just trails of empty blackness. Trailing behind Peace’s body as he moved was a twisting cloud of shadow outlined with hints of color on the edges. The colors were muted and close to black so Felix only really noticed them because he was paying close attention but he was certain they were there.

Felix frowned, “How are you doing that while moving slowly?”

Peace stopped and nodded to Felix, “Good question. You have Reaper’s Movement which affects mostly your Agility and Dexterity. My stats are estimated-again, not really part of The System-but that’s what my similar skill affects. The premise though, carries over into Reaper’s Sense, and Reaper’s Body.”

The pieces started to come together in Felix’s mind, “I first activated the skill when I actively willed my arm to move. Are you saying it’s about willful actions? Does Body apply to Strength, Vitality and Endurance? Is there one for Intelligence?”

“Yes. Yes, and Yes.”

“Wait… that’s it? It’s that easy?”

Peace chuckled, “It’s that simple, easy it is not.”

Felix looked down at his arm then, using all of the intent he could muster, moved it across his body with as much power and strength as he could muster. He kept the movement slow though.

It took him a few swipes to finally get it and once he did, the movement only created a small, barely visible and sputtering trail instead of a large wake like Peace’s movements. Now that he was looking though, the trail he created visually matched Peace’s, just on a smaller scale. The whole thing was much harder than he remembered though so, Felix tried to move quickly as he had during his duel with Tanryel, just to confirm that was the same.

As he had realized in Group Combat, he found that activating Reaper’s Movement was just as hard as moving his arm slowly with power. Significantly more difficult than it had been during the duel.

“Why is it so… hard… now?”

“During the duel, you were pushed to the edge and likely invoked your conviction, right?”

Felix nodded in confirmation.

“Adrenaline, a similar effect your soul can undergo and many other things compound to bring you into a state where it’s easier. It won’t always be like that in combat though.”

“I see. To do it outside of combat, I need to practice then.”

Peace nodded, “To make it consistent even in combat.”

Felix nodded, “Okay, is there a better way to go about this other than just… moving?”

Peace smiled, “There’s the right question. Yes. The problem is that willfully moving or doing anything with intent requires focus.”

Felix cut in as he understood, “So either I make it instinctual or I’ll accidentally get distracted and trip.”

“Exactly.”

Peace taught Felix a new set of steps just so he had something to distract him while he tried to use his intent to move his body. Ironically, Peace had planned everything ahead of time and Felix didn’t have trouble remembering the steps because he already had memories of Peace performing them in his Soul Garden.

Actually performing them was another story and thoroughly distracting. Felix was never going to be a martial arts grandmaster or even be competitive for his age but it was effective and Felix found it fun.

Felix spent the rest of the day, with Peace’s guidance, practicing the use of his Reaper’s skills. Peace was obviously new at instructing anyone but he was also very knowledgeable about the skills themselves. Felix got the sense he was either very talented or had been working on them his entire life, possibly both.

Though he didn’t increase any of his skill proficiencies, he did acquire a new skill, as Peace had promised.

Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Class Skill: [Reaper’s Body (Legendary - Novice I) This skill amplifies the user’s body in every way. It does not directly affect the body but amplifies its core functions. If the user is injured they will heal faster and with more direction. It will increase the body’s resiliency and assist the user’s muscles when strained. This skill is heavily dependent on and scales with your Strength, Vitality and Endurance.]

Unfortunately, the Reaper’s skill that increased his Intelligence was an evolution of Reaper’s Sense so he was going to have to increase its proficiency until he could evolve it.

Melody didn’t seem to get anywhere with one session, despite her best efforts to move around and create trails like they were. She didn’t overly need the instruction though as all she needed was to dedicate time but still, she promised to attend whenever she could.

They decided on the same meeting day for the next dekad, though Felix would practice more often than that, because he didn’t need instruction more often. He occasionally had questions but they weren’t pressing.

Instead of working on spells at night like he had expected, Felix was excited to start his own project on the 8th and he had already been told Solo Combat the next day was another lecture so, he headed to the lab.

Inside, despite the late hour, Felix found Ked tinkering with an enchantment on a humanoid construct.

Noticing him enter, Ked spoke at a normal volume knowing Felix could hear him from across the lab, “Have you figured out what project you’re going to work on this epoch?”

“I think so. I want to make eyes.”

Ked stopped what he was doing and looked over from across the lab, “Eyes? Like the ones in our heads?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“I take it they’re more complicated than just that. I also take it you have some sort of plan?”

Felix nodded.

“Well, let me know if you need any help or a design review.”

“I will definitely be taking you up on that.”

Felix only had the barest of outlines for what he wanted to attempt in his mind. What he didn’t have, was enough experience to know what he was looking for. Luckily, the lab was filled with half finished constructs and designs scattered about that he could pull from.

For the most complex part, Felix’s inclination was to use an actual biological eyeball that he could create himself using the Blood Ring or his own body. The issue with that was that he definitely wanted the body to be mechanical and trying to fit together just enough biological components to support the eye would likely be a waste of space.

The only constructs that combined the two though were much larger and were creatures.

Photosensitive mechanical cells though, were incredibly complex to make and couldn’t grow or evolve easily. He would likely have to recreate his constructs from scratch instead of simply swapping in a new eye. They were also prohibitively large, much larger than he was aiming for with these constructs.

On earth, the sensor in a camera would work perfectly. In the multiverse though, mana made electrical components unstable and precision on a scale that small was difficult.

An earth human’s eye was less powerful than a camera but here, based on his stats alone, Felix’s eyes were thousands of times better than a standard human’s. He didn’t have the time to iterate and improve upon camera sensors and there was very little work others had done on the subject at all.

There were enchantments and spells but they were almost always inferior to an eye so long as there was a sufficient brain to support the eye. Felix would easily be able to create a sufficient brain and he was too stubborn to use an enchantment when the eye was better so he was left with trying to create the smallest possible heart he could.

Alternatively, he had to find a creature that didn’t use blood or oxygen for their cells. If he could solve that problem, everything else was treaded ground and all he had to do was adapt existing knowledge.

He didn’t go to Ked for a solution yet though and instead, he spent his time perusing the various designs in the workshop, memorizing and dissecting them for anything useful.

Walking into the Mana Control class room for the Adept class, Felix was approached by Fin, “I take it you found a solution to your problem?”

“Yes. Sort of. I can’t… use it now without problems but I’m working on it. I managed to hit 51 spell levels.”

Fin looked at him with confusion so Felix quickly converted to a rough estimate in their more accurate measuring system.

Fin’s eyes grew wide, “That’s a massive improvement.”

Felix shrugged, “It’s much less restrictive.”

“It’s still not… ideal. Withrel has created spells hundreds of times your new limit.”

Felix sighed, “Yeah. At least now I’ve got a clear path to improve it in the future. Other than hard work and practice of course.”

Fin chuckled, “If you can keep increasing without practice, by all means. Some things you just need to put in the work for. Some things though, there are better ways.”

The class as a whole continued to find ways to stress everyone at once, most often against Felix, for the rest of their time slot.

The next dekad was interesting in the sense that the vibe was obviously different, people were tense awaiting the next dekad’s preliminary evaluations. Some of the students were even more annoying about getting Felix to duel them and some gave up on asking him completely.

Other than the vibe of the students though, the classes themselves were boring. He and Peace dominated their group combat class once again despite Reaper’s Movement failing him as soon as he saw an interesting spell form.

Otherwise, Felix spent his time designing enchantments for his construct, researching methods of having constructs see and creating more complex spell forms. He made sure though, as he had been for a while now, to keep the actual work contained in his Soul Garden so he didn’t gain any levels.

So long as he remained below the threshold, he could hold off on his evolution until he was certain he would be offered Soulbinder. Having done some research, despite everything having said it was possible but only barely, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be too difficult for him.

His uniqueness made the hardest part, being proficient with binding souls to constructs, fairly easy. He wanted to build up some experience and accomplish some feats related to the profession just to be certain it was offered.

There was always the chance he was offered something better but he was targeting Soulbinder as his default.

His training with Peace was largely uneventful and rather calm considering Melody was too busy to show up.

Solo Combat was back to a lecture but, they were promised the course would completely shift over to sparring after the evaluation the next dekad. Felix was looking forward to that though he still had a lot of work until he was at the point where he wanted to be training himself in duels.

He was still at least 8 dekads from having Mark be large enough to back up his memories and so he was still wary about dedicating some of the computer to his active memory.

Seeing how far out that still was, Felix dedicated just over a day to increasing the size of his computer growing cells. They were quickly reaching the point where it was pushing against the edges of their Soul Space though so he would have to relocate it soon.

He also spent some time trying to find a way to have his mental constructs self replicate but he wasn’t comfortable with any of what they came up with. All of them involved him giving them access to his soul even just to bind the constructs to their brains.

Maybe one day he would allow them but for now, he trusted no one. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .