“To attempt the race of the Pinnacle of Evolution, Dreams were the key.”

“To Journey for the Pinnacle of Evolution, Talent is key.”

“To reach the Pinnacle of Evolution, Effort is the key.”

#1 Quote of the Book of Races and Species

*

Dream Realm - ???

How long the Dream of Remembrance lasted, I knew not. Nor do I care.

When I came to myself and desired to open my eyes, I was surprised by how much Intent and Emotion I had to levy in order to actually open my eyes.

The eyelids were not fused to each other or anything like that. No, there was nothing wrong with them, but sluggishness was the thing that came to my attention. It was the same feeling you feel after having a good and long Dream, and your dreaming self desires not to wake.

You put all your attention on resisting the waking process. Even when you wake up and open your eyes, you just close them again in hopes of continuing your Dream.

That was how I felt. Only in my case, my biology wasn't fighting my waking desire but the long-standing indulgence of a deep stasis.

For how long I slept, I knew not, but one thing I knew with certainty. It was not for a short while. Otherwise, my body, where every single cell was part of me, would not have resisted my commands.

It would have been like a puppy. A puppy that had been orderly trained to follow commands from a young age.

Notwithstanding how I felt, I shoved away everything else and pushed my whole agenda onto my body.

WAKE UP

The bold and loud command rippled over my Honey Badger body and kickstarted the process of waking my body. It came in both the physical sense of chemical processing and spiritual sense, as the rest of myself shook awake with Intent and Emotion fueling my waking.

As this was ongoing, I examined myself thoroughly, to my current knowledge, and saw no apparent problems. I ignored the wonder of how my body could even hibernate for such a long time without repercussions.

Moments passed, and I felt my muscles twitch here and there and then everywhere.

Moments later, I opened my eyes and got welcomed by Darkness.

The darkness wasn't the true Darkness I experienced in that Dream of Remembrance. This one contained far less Nothingness and more of Reality, even if it was of my own making.

Moments later, I extended my awareness outside my physical body and got welcomed with a small deluge of information possessed by the Core of my Dream Realm. It wasn't much, but it was enough to point my attention to one tiny little point in the Core.

With Intent, I examined it and executed a mental sigh at the relief that Alexander was fine.

Still, while he may have been fine, he was also shining slightly. As if his sleeping self was interrupted, or maybe his dreaming self.

He should not be Dreaming anything in that state, yet his Consciousness is behaving as it is.

What is going on?

Attempting to understand this conundrum, I examined him in more detail. In truth, I probed what he was dreaming.

The results were easy to understand, yet it did not mean they did not puzzle me.

The Pain that had flooded me as I experienced what it meant to be in the Void, where there were no stimuli of anything, came from the Bond I had with Alexander.

Examining it all, I began to extrapolate everything with the new knowledge I gained from my… Original, and came to one conclusion.

Alexander, having slept in the Core with no physical insulator, had deepened his Bond with me and the Dream Realm. Then something got infused into him due to that increased synchronicity.

Whatever it was, it contained enough energy and emotional trauma to wake Alexander slightly, to process the memories. The memories in question were full of Pain and Anguish.

The memories came from a simple mind that did not understand, at least not thoroughly, why it was undergoing what it was experiencing.

More mysteries thrown my way, I cast another Sleeping cycle for Alexander. His Consciousness dimmed to my awareness, but now it felt closer than ever before.

Done with him, I returned my awareness to my waking body. One examination later, I began to stretch it all over before fully standing and moving it.

Once I noticed no problems, I knew it was time to seek some answers. With one thought, I projected my awareness to the whole Dream Realm.

Woe and behold, I was stunned and stupefied by what I was seeing and feeling because there was no buffer between me and the Dream Realm.

I felt it all.

Its form.

Its meanings.

Its purpose.

Ultimately, once my stupefaction ended from the deluge of information, I just had to curse slightly.

“Grrr” Came out of my mouth.

Oh? At that realization, I shook my head. Stupid me, I can't speak right now.

Still… There is no way in Hell that this can be called A Little Gift.

It’s enormous.

Shaking my H. Badger head, I re-examined it all from the beginning.

The whole design was based on a Snow Globe or Sphere of sorts, where everything starts with the White Flame at the bottom of the Realm. After that, every significant phenomenon was a layer above the one below.

After the bottom, tiny white bubbles rose out of the flame and gathered into slim streams. Then streams turned into rivers. Then the rivers of white bubbles flowed around the Core, where I resided, and created a Galaxy formation of sorts.

I examined the interaction of the Core… the Galaxy Core, and the tiny white bubbles that constantly collapsed inside it, only to be squashed into particles. After I understood the significance of the Galaxy Core, my attention left the Galaxy Core and focused on the triple helix particle stream emerging from the Galaxy Core.

It traveled upstream into the Nebulas made up of those particle streams.

At the top of the globe of the Dream Realm, the Nebulas began to lose their colors and returned to being white. Like liquid on a glass surface, the droplets of white tears traveled down the inner side of the sphere of the First Layer.

If one looked from far enough away, they appeared like stars vanishing in the dark sky.

Once they reached the bottom, they became the fuel of the White Fire, and the cycle began anew.

Such complexity in such a simple design, yet, he called it an outdated design.

Bah, Whatever, I still have one mystery to solve.

Once more, I focused and examined the white bubbles swirling in the accretion disk of the Galaxy Core in the center.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

My goal was to examine the numbers.

After moments of parsing through everything, I found them.

Four bubbles swirled the Galaxy Core. Each of them was a distance away from the other. But in the grand scheme of things, they were relatively close.

With a thought, I was beside one of those bubbles.

For a moment, I wondered about the size of the bubble. As far as I was aware, it did not appear as big as it was now that I was beside it.

It took a moment more, but I realized that Space was wonky in my Dream Realm.

Ignoring it, I focused on the slightly colored bubble.

With focus came clarity of what it was and represented for this individual bubble. And for a moment, my awareness told me of the individual attached to this slightly colored bubble.

Or should it be the other way? The bubble attached to the individual?

Ignoring the philosophical question, I truly understood what the bubble meant and symbolized, for this male specimen of the Honey Badger species.

Momentum.

The Potential Momentum of one Individual, and his actions in Reality.

Every thought and every action generated a tiny amount of Potential Momentum.

This Potential Momentum gets altered by the reactions of Reality into a different phenomenon.

A phenomenon usually called Destiny/Fate/Karma or similar stuff.

The more Potential Momentum one built with their thoughts and actions, the stronger the Destiny/Fate/Karma of said individuals.

However, Destiny/Fate/Karma are cruel mistresses. They have no desire to share all this Potential Momentum. Nor could they, as the only way to do so was to shatter the current Destiny/Fate/Karma to harvest said Potential.

And that was what the First Layer of my Dream Realm had become.

A production facility to Farm/Concentrate and Refine the Potential Momentum into Potential Chaos.

The White Flame represented the Beginning of this momentum, as it was the point where the Desire/Dream of the Individual got established. The white bubbles represented the Individual and their consequent Journey into the upper parts of the First Layer.

The more Potential Momentum accrued, the higher they traveled.

The streams represented the similarity of the Dreams/Goals of the Individuals, and the Rivers represented the Paths they all undertake, while the Galaxy represented the end of the Dreams/Goals of said Individuals.

How long they stayed in the accretion disk of the Galaxy Core represented the amount of accrued Potential Momentum. And no matter if the Dream/Goal was accomplished or failed, the Potential Momentum is sent to the Galaxy Core to be shattered/concentrated.

The triple helix stream of particles exiting the Galaxy core was the refined Potential Momentum. Once it enters the diverse colored Nebulas at the top of the First Layer, it is refined into Potential Chaos.

Looks like I will need to figure out a reward system for my Honey Badgers.

The rewards would free up the slot for new Dreams/Goals. In turn, the Individual will create a new stronger Potential Momentum to be accrued, only for all this to become an endless positive feedback cycle until the Individual in question meets his or her End.

When comprehending all that, once more, two particular feelings built inside me.

Wonder and Responsibility.

I better lay down some stringent Rules and Laws to not become an Eternal Parasyte on the Honey Badger species.

That aside. Since something happened in the Galaxy core, where Alexander and I resided, it should mean somebody lost his momentum. If so, it would explain why Alexander reacted the way he did.

Being the progenitor meant he was far closer to his descendants than I. And that connection reflected itself in the last memories of the Honey Badger.

Nodding my head, I looked at the triple helix stream and the Nebulas at the top before shaking my head in denial.

Nothing is left there to be traced back to the origin. It seems I need to investigate the other four individuals.

Following my thoughts, I examined each of the four individuals and immediately noticed the distinctions between them.

Three of the Honey Badgers exhibited a similar Potential Momentum. It was as if they undertook the same Path to reach where they were now. But the fourth and final examination was different.

This male's bubble felt more uncertain, which became my best guess. It was as if there was no set Path at this moment, but there was a lot of room for the directions it could take.

Ignoring the feeling but making a note to examine the differences in more detail later, I focus on one specific bubble of the three similar individuals.

This bubble belonged to a female, but that was not the reason why I focused on it. No, this bubble felt more livid with Pain and Anguish.

It was the same Pain and Anguish that woke Alexander and me.

With my current goal so close, I examined the bubble even closer.

All of this was new to me, so I knew not what I could or could not do, but I was confident of one thing.

The bubble was a link between the Dream Realm and this Individual. In theory, I could use it to examine what this individual was momentarily undergoing.

Still, if my extrapolation is correct, there were two ways of doing this.

Both are mine to use, but there are differences between them.

One was the inherent Power of the Dream Realm, and the other was my own.

The Realm is still new. Best I try with Auril.

Auril is the condensed/solid and advanced form of Life Essence.

It's the form Life Essence gains by undergoing the Transcendence as I have or at least achieved the same result, but not necessarily the Realm Making.

There was quite a lot I learned about its usage from my… Original. But right now, I had no need for anything too advanced.

With the right paw, I touched the big bubble in front of me and poured Auril inside it. Alongside the said action, I organized my Intent as clearly as possible.

I achieved my purpose after a few failures.

What followed was the projection of my awareness to the mind of this Individual female.

Mmm. Should add a nice little transition in between to make it look cooler.

Once I reached the end, light welcomed me. And with light, images flowed into my mind.

The images made little sense to the mind of the female Honey Badger, but I was different.

Still, it took me plenty of seconds to organize what I saw.

Light/Dark vs Color, plus depth for more sharpness of contrast, and much smaller indicators got adjusted, and the authentic event began to play in front of me.

A battle scene was happening in front of the little female Honey Badger's eyes and therefore happened in front of me, as well.

It took me moments to recognize what was going on. Mainly, it had to do with the Individuals in question because too much gold was involved in the fight.

Still, it was easy to notice that one Individual was fighting five others.

All five of the aggressors wielded a sword and shield from solidified Golden Flames. However, while the tools may be Golden in form, they emitted a Black Flame.

Was a bit weird how I knew those facts, but even without examining it closer, I knew the Black Fire would destroy anything it touched, or at least should. It was as such because, while the five fighters fought with vigor and fortitude in their actions, they could not overwhelm the Individual defending himself.

He was simply on another level when one compared them.

Not only in battle strength but in visuals as well.

His Golden Flame had manifested as an armor of plated metal. It covered all the vitals that protected him from the Black Fire and Golden Weapons.

But that was not what made him special. It was the form he had taken.

If the other five looked human with a golden mane on their head, then this Individual was a genuine humanoid Lion. Complete with an authentic Lion head and mane, alongside buffed but defined muscles that put most bodybuilders to shame.

Again, it was weird how I knew that, especially since I could not see under his Golden Plated Armor. Anyway, he looked closer to a WereLion often seen in fiction, at least if my memory serves me right.

Who knew if the… Original, snipped out some for his own convenience.

Anyway, this WereLion had no tools, but his gauntleted paws sported some mean claws that left marks on all the golden tools the others used against him.

Their battle continued without my input, so I ignored them and began to observe the surroundings, but there was only so much that I could see like this.

The female Honey Badger was simply in too much Pain and Anguish to be of sound mind. Much less with the Fear that I sensed deeper inside it.

Her subconscious was soaked with Fear, which could only have seeped that deep if it had occurred over a long enough timeframe.

So, I stocked the Fear a tiny bit in favor of her to look around.

What I found, I did not like one bit. But my main focus remained on the dead Honey Badger found not far away from this female. Only the male was outside his cage, while the female was inside. Its whole body was scarred with massive cuts, and it was easy for me to recognize the origin.

To be honest, I knew far too little about this male, and I had no deep connection to him. Yet, despite all that. I felt resentment because I had personally felt the Pain and Anguish of its captivity and possible escape.

Seeing all this, I knew what I had to do, yet the solution needed a proper understanding of the hows and the whys.

Part of my mind began to ponder upon those, and part of me began to analyze the fight.

Moments passed when I understood a simple thing. While the WereLion defended himself expertly, in my amateurish opinion, the other five could not be underestimated.

With skill under their belt, they led the WereLion in circles as they attacked and defended each other in what could only be defined as a battle formation.

The goal was simple, they wanted to tire the WereLion, and it worked.

The WereLion painted more and more as the fight kept going.

It continued as such when an old and rusty voice reached me. It interrupted the melee instantly, as the five sword/shield individuals retreated slightly and gave the WereLion room to breathe.

“Pa’Li, It won't matter if you're an Ascended one. You are making a mistake here.”