Zeke stood outside the jail cell, only a foot away from the door, as he stared through the tiny slit into the small room. He didn’t need to look. Because of his bond with the tower, he knew precisely what was happening in all twenty-six cells. He knew the condition of the prisoners, and with a thought, he could cross all sorts of lines with their treatment.

“Does it frighten you?” asked Eveline. “All that control, it can be terrifying.”

“I’m not afraid,” he answered. It was a lie. The cells, he’d learned, were multi-faceted in their function. The most obvious attribute was that it weakened the prisoners to mortal levels while blocking their skills. It was far more effective than the slave brands or the various bindings he’d seen that were intended to do the same. However, the cells also had the ability to negate any need for sustenance. If Zeke chose, he could deny the prisoners food or water, and no matter how thirsty or hungry they became, they would not perish. It was torture of the most insidious sort because it was as much psychological as it was physical.

And, of course, he could engage in more conventional torture via the cell’s ability to cause all kinds of pain. The moment Zeke had put one of the prisoners inside, a breadth of possibilities opened up in his mind. Even Eveline was struck dumb by the sheer variety of pain on offer.

“I wasn’t dumb struck. That was admiration.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Zeke said. Despite Eveline’s insistence otherwise, she was horrified by the possibilities. She was a demon, and even she wanted nothing to do with that part of the Jail’s functionality.

Neither did Zeke. Yet, he could imagine situations where the ability to torture a prisoner would become useful. He wasn’t so naïve as to believe it was an effective method of interrogation, but in terms of punishment, it had some merit. Plus, there were some people that deserved whatever pain Zeke could dish out.

Case in point, the Knights of Adontis held in those jail cells. They were monsters in human skin, and they were as bad – or worse – than any demons Zeke had encountered.

“That’s because you haven’t met enough demons. I’m serious, Ezekiel. These people are amateurs compared to the denizens of Hell.”

Zeke had difficulty believing that. The Knights made a habit of killing or enslaving anyone who was even remotely different than them. That included other races as well as any humans who chose to follow a different religion or adhered to another culture. They weren’t just bigots. They were zealots who were wholly convinced that they were better than everyone else. In that way, they believed that treating others they way they did was their right as the superior people.

It was ridiculous, disgusting, and terrifying.

And yet, Zeke had chosen not to kill them. Not because he wanted to show them mercy. Instead, he expected that having a few hostages may one day prove useful. He wouldn’t think twice about exchanging his prisoners for a few innocent lives that might otherwise be taken by the Knights of Adontis.

Eveline asked, “What will you do?”

“Nothing,” Zeke said, he answered as he stared at the prisoner inside. None of them had even given their names, so Zeke had difficulty telling them apart. Certainly, they all looked different, and yet, they still blended together in his mind. In any case, the man inside the cell was all but naked – save for his underwear – and staring at a wall. The final punishment he could levy was to alter the perception of time. If Zeke so chose, he could make a single day feel like a year. Or a year could feel like a day for the cells’ occupants.

Yet he had already decided not to implement that particular feature. In fact, he’d refrained from doing anything aside from confining them. Perhaps that would change, but for now, he would not stoop to those levels.

“How noble of you,” Eveline remarked.

Zeke didn’t respond. Instead, he turned and left the prisoners behind as he made his way to the teleporter. Once he reached the dais, he took it to the Lord’s Manor. After the most recent battle, the remainder of the Knights of Adontis – and their civilian population – had retreated to the labyrinth that divided the kingdom in half. Some would remain in the keeps that protected the entrance, but most would be led through the labyrinth to the other side, where they would almost assuredly set up a rigid defense.

That would be where the war was won or lost. Already, they were so entrenched that an assault with anything but the full brunt of his forces would guarantee almost certain defeat. So, they needed to find another way, which was one of the reasons some of the kobolds and former slaves were currently working on getting the airship they’d commandeered up and running.

“More like learning to sail it,” Eveline reminded him.

Indeed, that was precisely what they were doing, and it was slow going. It didn’t require any special skills, but it did require experience – especially considering that sailing over the labyrinth was well known to be perilous as well as difficult. However, even knowing the dangers, it was a preferable to fighting a series of battles against an entrenched opponent.

In the meantime, though, Zeke had some time to kill, so when he reached the Lord’s Manor, he wasted no time before heading to the room he had set aside for meditation. One day, he hoped that the Hall of Affinities would obviate the need for such a room in his home, but he was still a good deal short of completing the quest that would award such an evolution of the tower. So, for now, he was stuck with what he had.

“Poor baby,” Eveline cooed. “You have to meditate in your luxurious mansion.”

Once again, Zeke ignored his resident mind parasite, which left her even more annoyed than usual. She retreated to the back of his mind where he could only barely sense her presence. That freed his mind to focus on the task at hand:

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He intended to implement his plans to upgrade one of his oldest skills, [Weight of Two Worlds]. He’d had the skill for quite some time, having acquired it back in the Radiant Isles, and since then, it had served him quite well. However, recently, it had become increasingly obvious that it was not powerful enough to affect his strongest enemies. Certainly, it still slowed them down marginally, but it wasn’t nearly as noticeable as it once had been. So, over the past couple of months, Zeke had spent the majority of his spare time working on the well-worn skill. And in that time, he’d managed to create a viable plan for upgrading it. Now, he intended to implement those plans.

The only issue was that it would almost assuredly take weeks to do so, during which time he wouldn’t dare cut the process short for fear of corrupting the skill as he’d done when he’d created [Armor of the Colossus]. He had no desire to repeat that mistake, so he’d already made arrangements for Pudge to take care of any issues that might arise.

So, with that, Zeke could fully focus on the job at hand. So, he settled into his familiar position, then closed his eyes. Once he did, he thrust his awareness into the rune that governed [Weight of Two Worlds]. Because it had been built by the Framework, it was entirely perfect. However, that perfection did not come without a cost. As stable as it was, it also lacked the flares he’d come to recognize from the skills he’d built himself. It was as if the skill had been built by a machine.

Which, given his understanding of the nature of the Framework, that wasn’t so far off from the reality. It was a construct. A thing that had been built by a supreme being. It was effectively an advanced artificial intelligence meant for the singular purpose of helping people advance to the height of their own potential.

For a long few minutes, Zeke refamiliarized himself with the skill’s structure. He’d already memorized it, but with what was at stake, he had no intention of cutting corners. He had only to remember what had happened with [Armor of the Colossus] to ensure that he gave it the time and attention it deserved. So, he spent far more time than was absolutely necessary on the task, but eventually, he was satisfied that he knew it backwards, forwards, and diagonally.

That was when the real preparation began.

With his long experience dealing with runes – as well as his well-developed Will – Zeke had cultivated a fantastic memory for the collections of symbols and glyphs. As such, it only took a flick of thought to summon his previous preparations to mind. He already knew what he intended to do, though, like his examination of the current structure, he spent quite a lot of time confirming his plans for the skill’s evolution.

Once he’d finished that, he went to work.

The first thing he noticed was that, with his Will, he was capable of easily destroying even the sturdiest of glyphs or symbols. In fact, he could obliterate whole swaths of the rune without barely a thought. The trick, though, was limiting that destruction. It took quite a lot of fine tuning and skill, but Zeke’s efforts in learning to constrain his Will gave him just enough control to excise the pieces he intended to replace.

Still, it wasn’t the work of minutes. Indeed, Zeke was only vaguely aware of the passage of time, but he knew that days came and went while he pruned the unnecessary bits from the skill’s rune. And then, suddenly, he’d finished. The result was a rune that, under no circumstances, would work. It had holes in all the wrong places, and indeed, it looked like all it would take was pushing a bit of mana through it to bring it all crashing down.

But that had always been how it was going to go. So, Zeke shoved the uneasiness that had come with seeing such a decimated skill aside and started building it back up. That was much more difficult. Despite having been partially made from his Path of Runecrafting, the Path of Arcane Destruction was precisely what its name implied. It was not a force for building, and using it for that task was only possible because of Zeke’s long experience. However, just because it was possible didn’t mean it was easy, and it took the limits of Zeke’s concentration to make even one addition to the rune.

When he’d finished that single alteration, he felt a deep sense of fatigue that had nothing to do with his physical body. Exacerbating that was the fact that he had thousands more changes just like it to make. It was enough to overwhelm even the stoutest of minds, and yet, Zeke was not one to give up on something he had begun. So, he discarded that feeling of unease and bent his mind to the task.

The second rune was no easier, and the third followed suit. Yet, Zeke didn’t hesitate to plunge forward. Partly, this was because he knew precisely what would happen if he left the skill unfinished. At best, it would be unusable. At worst, it would fuse into something unintended, which could have dire consequences. No – now that he had begun, he had no choice but to finish. So, he plunged ahead, completing one rune after another in his quest to force the skill’s evolution.

But it was no easy task, and by the time he estimated he was halfway finished, his mind felt like a fried egg. At the same time, he didn’t even want to look at the damage his constant use of his Will was doing to his body. He kept [Cambion’s Awakening] active, but without his active input, there was no way it could keep up. Still, he had no choice but to forge ahead, so he shouldered those issues and did just that.

Gradually, as time passed, Zeke progressed further and further until, just when he thought he was going to collapse from the accumulated exhaustion and damage of his Will, the final glyph snapped into place. Suddenly, the rune lit up, and a notification flashed before his mind:

Congratulations! You have forcefully evolved the skill, [Weight of Two Worlds] into [Burden of Sovereignty].

Zeke sighed and opened his eyes to a room covered in blood. Looking down, he saw the scars of his previous misadventures glowing with crimson energy. It made his body look like a puzzle that had been pieced together. A second after he saw his surroundings, his muscles seized and he fell over. Barely conscious, he was vaguely aware of a series of scaley hands, though he could hardly make sense of his changing surroundings.

Not until he felt himself plunge into the soothing waters of the Crimson Spring. After that, it only took a few moments for him to slowly regain the full extent of his awareness. When he did, he saw Kianma looking down at him with an expression of distinct disapproval.

“Did you accomplish your goals, Ak-toh?”

Zeke nodded, though when he tried to speak, his voice did not come.

“Good. I would remind you that you have many thousands of my people who are dependent on you to lead them. Please do not take that responsibility lightly.”

After that, she turned on her heel and marched away. In the wake of her departure, he realized just how big of a risk he had taken. If he’d died, what would have happened to everyone else inside the tower? Would they die too? He didn’t think so, but he had no way to be sure.

Next time, he would take more precautions for the sheer damage his Will would inflict upon him.

For now, though, he wanted to look at his new skill. So, he found the appropriate notification and read it:

[Burden of Sovereignty] (D) – Not only do you bear the weight of two worlds on your shoulders, but you have taken on the responsibility of rule. That responsibility comes with power. Use it well. Summon a domain that both weakens your enemies and augments your subjects. Upgradeable.

Even amidst the pain, he couldn’t help but smile. More than that, he was eager to test it out.