Arson opened his eyes and vomited. His head spun and it didn’t seem to matter how hard he tried to concentrate, he could not.
He felt like his mind was full of mud, or that it lacked something vital, maybe? Even his attempts to stay upright failed after another moment, and before he knew it he’d passed out in the middle of a sandstone city, atop a roof.
Arson slept there for days, unbothered as his mind worked through the eternal energies that he’d experienced when he’d seen the runic design of his families crest.
He was unaware of exactly everything he’d seen, and his mind needed to work through the massive packet of information his photographic mind tried to capture all at once and consume.
For this to happen safely, his body began to hibernate which had two incredible effects on Arson’s body.
First, he’d left the entirety of his mind dedicated to a breathing technique that was more natural to Arson than even a normal inhalation or exhalation. The maintained exercise, expanded his mana pool with every breath, even without Arson’s knowledge.
The second effect, was aided by the first. While the amount of mana his body, mind, and soul had access to grew, the more of the Uni-Vare's image he was able to process. He hadn’t seen a large portion of creation by any means, but it was still much more than any 12 season cycles old child should encounter.
While the sight as a whole had been magnificent, there were darker aspects of the image, as there are darker aspects to anything that shines brightly, which included the lives of those he glimpsed.
Unfortunately for Arson, his mind wasn’t yet powerful enough to handle some of the atrocities he’d witnessed. Performed by gods and man alike, horrific instances of crimes were filed away into the depths of his mind like the bodies of battlefields after war.
Yet, this unlucky occurrence may have been a true treasure in disguise. Passed out in a semi pile of his own vomit for days, and surprisingly still unbothered, Arson received a prompt from his Overlay that wasn’t regarding his current trial, nor something he was completely informed about in his life.
Cleansing Ritual of The Ancients Triggered: Curses of the soul will be purged under the weight of Heaven’s Manna.
For the second time in Arson’s life, the sky was ripped open. Angels from the realm of Purity, grabbed the edges of the hole ripped into the sky by the coming Tribulation. The land in which he lay, had never been touched by heaven’s glory until that very moment.
Arson stirred while the effects of gravity around him were distorted. He was lifted bodily off the ground in the moment that heaven’s portal took a deep breath.
The beam that was sent toward Arson was far larger than the first in his life. With its arrival came true devastation of the city he was teleported too.
A wave of energy washed over Arson and the surrounding area in a flash of illumination that could not be fathomed by the mortal mind, or witnessed by non-tempered eyes.
Curse of the Dragon, has been transformed.
Curse of the Phoenix, has been transformed through a direct bloodline synergy.
Blessing of The Closed Eye Dominion & Curse of Karma’s Creation have replaced the former energies.
Dozens of further prompts were displayed, but Arson was still being flooded with Heaven’s Manna to the point that he experienced a seizure within the bath of light.
His body shook violently as he was lifted further into the air, his entire life a mere touch away from its end.
The gate closed, and the land shook at the very sound of its exit. Only a single being heard the gods shut the door that had been opened into the land, but it had no intention to investigate.
The being watched as the young man fell like a falling star, and wondered if the child would truly survive. Arson was once again left to rest, now cocooned in the rubble of the Tribulations wrath.
His body drank in energy greedily. The opportunistic moment came in a place where little to no entities were. Thus there was much more mana left in the environment for his body to pull from.
Arson, who still hadn’t leveled nor gained more of his soul’s armor or weapons, was about to skip a few vital steps in his cultivation, and gain access to abilities, that may cause him more pain than push him forward.
Luckily, he was used to pain. His mother hadn’t taught him a mana pool expansion based breathing technique for a reason.
She knew that his almost unparalleled regeneration would allow him to exceed normal expansion rates by leaps and bounds. She wanted to prevent him from being forced to push his body’s strength and endurance to high enough levels that would make for larger mana infusions to be painless.
Her own mother had done that to her for good reasons, one of which Arson would now either endure, or succumb to.
An entire season’s worth of time passed, and Arson slept. How much mana he’d taken in by that point was far beyond dangerous. Yet when Arson woke up he felt fine. Better than fine, he felt as if he could fold his mind a dozen times easily, maybe more?
He came to his feet slowly in the destroyed city and was forced to read a prompt that would not move.
Overlay, Override: Due to near system collapse, user's ability to ignore important system warnings & prompts has been disabled for… calculating time:
“Permanent, what the sparks,” said Arson to himself. He read through another dozen prompts and was both annoyed that he was forced to read them, and glad that he did.
He’d undergone a cleansing ritual, that apparently both gave him a boon, a new curse, and somehow failed entirely, as both the curses of the Dragon and Phoenix still remained in his Overlay, right alongside the new entries.
Over the next day he was forced to catch up on things he’d pushed so far into the back of his mind that it made him laugh to see them once more. Then he heard his watch chime for the first time in season cycles, followed by the angered voice of Anastasia.
“What the sparks have you been doing in here, kid? Twiddling your thumbs and contemplating? That Alarm is like a season cycle late by the way,” started Anastasia and then she stopped, and took in the now six foot Arson. His features changed, and a far more distinguished young man stood in the AI’s presence.
“Hello Anna, I began to believe you were broken,” responded Arson.
“No,” said Anastasia as she gathered the changes to Arson through her link to his Overlay.
“Just can’t be used on planets without the required mana density, thus the society, must be advanced enough, but the density of the mana currently in your body has granted you access to me,” said Anastasia.
“My mana is dense enough to change the system regulation in the realm we are in,” asked Arson confused.
“Kid, you’re a walking generator, if you weren’t regenerating your cells faster than the mana in your body could eat away at you,” said Anastasia with an accompanying pop sound that made Arson’s skin go cold.
“So what does that mean for my trial, did I fail it?”
“No silly, but you are probably going to get new and more challenging teleportation points,” answered Anastasia before she asked a question of her own.
“Are you going to choose me as your runic archive? I have access to all the runes you’ve found thus far, but unless you give me the functionality, I can’t use anything we’ve learned to help you, or test anything you have yet to try?”
“Runic Archive, what is that, and how important is it to my cultivation future? I may be able to bare your antics now, but for the rest of my life, I don’t know Anna, you haven’t given me much of a strong foundation to stand on in this relationship so far.” Arson had a feeling that a Runic Archive was beyond vital for some reason, and knew that Anastasia already gave him enough issues, without being an absolute necessity in the end. He loved his watch, and almost all of its functions, but often wondered if he should have told his mother long ago about Anastasia’s switch being disabled.
“It's just your spell book, kid, no big deal. The only time I’d be important would be if you were to lose your memory, I’d have the only back up of your runic knowledge, which you would have complete access to, of course,” said Anastasia with an awkward laugh that didn’t fill Arson with confidence. Then as if their conversation had inspired the heavens to take action. Arson received another series of prompts he couldn’t ignore.
Legendary Feat Achieved: As a mortal, you have yet to ascend beyond the limits of earthly life, yet you walk the same path that the children of the gods now do, and they themselves once did. Welcome young one. The Godlings extend a hand to you, as you are no longer a stranger, but an equal.
“Godling Title Unlocked: Effects: Currently Unknown.” Arson continued to read prompts.
Some explained how the trials would change since he was being considered a higher life form, and others spoke about the limitations that would be put on his spell book if he chose the inventory item: SunSpire Chronograph of Space Empress Anastasia. A name he laughed at audibly for a long time before he made his choice.
He chose his AI, for two reasons. He had no other options, and his mind may not be as limitless as the runic language was, a fact that brought Arson shame to consider.
He wanted to think of his mind as a fathomless vault with no end, but from what he read and learned, his wish may be exactly that. Nothing but a wish.
“Ooow, yeah, we bout to start some spell formulation in this sparking piece, well as soon as you stop putting all those mental limits on your mind and finish your core, I guess we are still stuck with making the basics look like advanced magics,” said Anastasia with a cackle that made Arson roll his eyes.
“I’m not putting on any mental blocks that I know of,” said Arson. Which only set Anastasia into a fit of laughter.
“What’s so sparking funny,” cursed Arson, his nerves easily frayed after season cycles inside the Runic Skyscraper.
“You don’t remember this, I guess, don’t see how that is possible with your memory, but you just received some trumped up version of an ability you’ve already displayed. It's like shooting a fireball and the gods giving you a bigger fireball,” said Anastasia with a laugh.
“What are you talking about?” Arson was truly confused and began to look through his Overlay for more details.
“When we first met, I’d actually been on for days, but I didn’t want to risk you shutting me off, so I stayed silent while I worked on the coding. I actually finished it during your conversation with Xani after your mom adopted you, during your fall, you used not only one, but two other grand scale magics on top of your more favored slowed perception, but since then, it’s like you blocked them out entirely.” Arson began to think back and shook his head with a slow recognition. He mentally lived through his fall that day, and remembered what the AI hinted at.
As he’d fallen, he’d sensed his environment not with his aura as the closed eyed dominion would if triggered, but with mana.
Not only that, he’d triggered some sort of scenario based ability, that had shown him what was most likely to get him down safely, in dozens of different ways, with even more outcomes. As if he watched slow motion holograms of himself perform actions in accelerated speeds that could give him foresight into potential advantages or disadvantages. An ability he’d not even thought of since.
“Yeah, that is what we call a realization face right there,” said Anastasia.
“So how do I take off these limitations, I don’t even know how I put them there in the first place?”
“To be honest, that… I don’t know, wish I did, but it's more than likely a matter personal to you, you hold yourself back to the point that it seems your crown may finish itself despite you,” said Anastasia to Arson’s disappointment. He’d wanted to finish his crown for a long time, and felt it was one of many things that held him back from his true potential.
The two went silent, and Arson moved. He needed to be free of this place. He wanted to go home.
He wanted to cook with his friends, and eat his mother’s food. He wanted to work on his business, and train with the members of BHC. He wanted to fly through Maelstrom city with the sun on his face.
It's time to take this seriously, Arson. You don’t have the time to play around anymore!
He’d lost season cycles to this place, and knew he more likely than not had many more years to come before he escaped the clutches of the skyscraper.
The two roamed in silence for days. The massive city revealed many runes Arson had never seen. So now as he memorized them, Anastasia scanned them into her database.
The change filled Arson with an odd relief, but he pushed the sensation aside quickly. It only took him a moment of thought to recognize that his current line of thinking could result in a lax in his resolve. If he relied too much on external sources, those same aids could become weaknesses.
So he made himself a promise. He would memorize every rune he could before that either became impossible for his mind to handle, or he held every possible rune creation had to offer. There was no reason to believe that he couldn’t accomplish his goal, when he’d been given no internal or external indications that he couldn’t.
After an entire season's worth of travel. Arson found a palace with the same sizing proportions as the Runic Skyscraper. He took in the building that could support giants with ease, and decided to fly up the building sized steps rather than walk. The area was so vastly different than the rest of what Arson had experienced in this land that he hadn’t realized the city abroad had also been built for giant species of various types.
The higher he got on the air. The more apparent it became. Arson nearly flew into the palace, but then his eyes took in an odd pattern when he glanced back toward the streets around him.
“What’s going on,” asked Anastasia. Arson simply shook his head and flew far above the city.
“It's nothing, just need to check something out,” said Arson.
The higher he flew the more the image of the runic pattern came into view. The weave of streets and alleyways, formed a giant hand, with giant runes for fingertips, and a fusion of two karmically opposed runes at the center of its palm.
It was then that Arson noticed that the surrounding city itself was built within the impression of what must have been the largest hand print Arson had ever seen. Arson cursed in wonderment. Both in the intricate nature of what he saw, and the potential threat of an encounter with anything that could be massive enough to leave a mark of this magnitude.
“Well spark me up and take flight, that is one of the most refined runes I’ve ever seen,” said Anastasia. An incredibly large flash of light encompassed the design below for the instant that Anastasia took to scan almost the entire area.
“What am I looking at?”
“Beyond it being one of the largest runes I’ve ever encountered, I can truly only understand the individual pieces of the rune, but not what it does as a whole,” stated Anastasia.
“Ok then, what can you tell me?”
“Ummm, the fingertip runes seem to be Runic Dominions, or runes powerful enough to embody the power they originate from,” started Anastasia, but Arson’s scrunched facial features made her break things down further.
“I don’t think that I should be telling you these things so soon Arson, but I’ll start small and we will expand slowly,” said Anastasia while Arson lowered himself through the clouds.
“So far you have only collected basic runes, or what could be seen as the smallest measurement of an elements power, beyond that are Runic Arrays, Runic Formations, and finally, Runic Dominions.” Arson nodded as he believed he started to understand the scale of what Anastasia explained.
“All of these runes should be thought of as a language, Runes, for letters, Arrays should be seen as syllables, formations, are the equivalent to words, and Runic Dominions are like a perfectly structured sentence,” stated Anastasia simply. Arson examined the handprint mentally as he landed, and took in the details of the Runic Dominions. He still didn’t know exactly how they worked, but had a feeling that the more he learned, the easier it would be for him to use and understand.
“Calm child, you have much to learn still, but you look like you’re about to drool on yourself with excitement,” said Anastasia with a laugh.
“You have to understand, I didn’t know that there would be anything beyond runes themselves, I mean Arrays, and Formations, just seemed like complicated versions of simple runes I already had access to, but if I can create entire Dominions made out of runes, what else can I do with them, create skills, or maybe even my own realm. I don’t know anymore, originally runes were only supposed to be a minor interest of mine to enjoy when I wasn’t training, but now I feel like runes are a key to everything I want, both for my internal powers growth, and to advance my businesses,” responded Arson with a smirk. He rambled as his thoughts rushed with the customization that the higher elements of runes offered potentially. Anastasia seemed hesitant to give him more information which he found odd until Arson began to look through his Runic Archive.
“Hey Anna?”
“Yes, my favorite little demon?” Arson floated into the palace as he looked further and further into the archive he now had access to. Shocked by what was there, he remained silent and distracted momentarily as he drifted along.
"What is it? Did your brain break? I knew I shouldn’t have—,” attempted Anastasia before Arson cut in.
“Anna, why are there more runes in my archive than I have found or learned personally?”