Bright white light flashed in front of Jace’s eyes. A strong gust of wind blew past. Sparks swirled in it. Energy—Aes—snaked away from his core and blasted in swirls out to the extremes of his body. It tugged on him, and he moved.

He tucked his head down and raised his arms. Something pounded against his forearms—a collision so fast and powerful it rattled his bones and scoured away the upper layer of skin on his arms.

The light lasted for barely the blink of an eye. A boom rolled across the hills, deeper than thunder and more piercing than a gunshot.

Jace stood in the inn’s garden, and a trail of scorched earth and burning soil extended behind him.

“Oh, great!” Lessa groaned. She still stood in the inn’s doorway, watching with her hands on her hips. “Now you’ve gone and ripped up half of the carratoes. I’m sure that one will get blamed on me, too!” She scrunched her eyebrows. “Wait. Was that a hyperspace jump?” A crowd of tavern patrons had gathered behind her, and they were all watching.

Jace shook out his arms, shedding off a layer of golden dust. He spun around, searching for the darkling he had been fighting.

He found it right behind him. It had been right in his path, and most of it was gone. Both halves of its body fell to the ground and disintegrated.

Jace gulped. He didn’t know if he should revel in his victory or be amazed that he survived plowing through a creature at all. The technique card must have helped.

But Kinfild was still duelling with the last darkling, and Jace wouldn’t just stand around.

The man had commanded him to stay put, and something inside Jace wanted to rebel—to do the opposite.

Jace took a step and sprinted toward the beast. But Kinfild wedged his staff into the darkling’s jaw, then thrust upward, snapping the beast’s head and neck with inhuman strength. It collapsed and faded away into dust.

“And there we go!” Kinfild exclaimed, marching back towards Jace and Lessa. “It all worked out in the end, didn’t it? That was without even having to use a technique card of my own…”

Jace lowered his arms and exhaled.

“So next time, you don’t worry about me,” Kinfild said. He tapped his staff down and sighed. “If you were wondering, I didn’t learn anything. Nothing, nothing at all—which is more disturbing.”

“All that was for nothing, then?” Lessa asked. She stepped outside and began sweeping the scattered mud off the path with her foot. “Typical wizard, I guess.”

“Not for nothing,” Kinfild asserted. “But the implications…” He trailed off. “It means that the situation is far more dire than we ever thought. In the morning, we will discuss more.”

“We’re…resting?” Jace exhaled. “But if the situation is so dire, shouldn’t we act as soon as we can?” His veins were filled with adrenaline, and he doubted he could rest. He rose up onto his tip-toes and looked over Kinfild’s shoulder, searching for his rifle in the field. But, a second later, he shrunk down again. The darkling’s claws had ripped the barrel, and it was as good as useless now. “Shouldn’t we be heading offworld and hunting some creatures? Or seeking more information somehow?”

“We won’t think clearly with tired minds, and we might make everything worse,” Kinfild said. “We will head to our room. That is not negotiable.”

Jace opened his mouth to argue, but he stopped. He wasn’t here to save anything or unravel complex mysteries, or worse, get involved in a deadly intergalactic conflict. He just needed the power to stay alive.

And maybe something more.

Besides, blood was trickling down his arms. His own blood. None of his wounds were life-threatening, but he’d still need to patch them up sooner than later.

“That’s it?” Lessa asked, stepping in front of Kinfild. “You’re just done here? Not even gonna explain why the darklings are leaving the forest at night, or why a worldjumper has showed up—don’t think that I don’t know what a Core Hunter looks like—or what—”

“I cannot explain,” Kinfild stated. He stepped around her and continued towards the inn. “I don’t know the answers, except that Jace’s presence is going to spell a great deal of trouble for us all. Hyperspace Wielders are light Wielders, and that’s going to be tricky to work around.”

image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_796dc4ba52ca470e87e727995bf487fb~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_400,h_332,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/hyperh%20logo.png]

The innkeeper granted Jace and Kinfild a room on the second floor of the inn. It was a cramped room with a pair of beds. In one corner, there was an ever smaller washroom—furnished with a sink, shower, and holographic mirror.

Jace laid a hand on the edge of a bed. It was soft, far softer than the ground he would’ve had to sleep on otherwise, and it beckoned him to lie down.

But not right now. Instead, he stepped into the washroom, but didn’t close the door. “Hyperspace Wielder? Light Wielder?” he asked.

Kinfild sat on the second bed, wiping his walking stick clean. “Hyperspace, Splitspace, Lightbreaking…faster-than-light travel has many names.”

It wasn’t the explanation Jace was looking for. “What’s wrong with it?”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“There was a purge of light-aspect Wielders,” Kinfild said softly. “Light Paths are illegal to cultivate, now, and hyperspace is a subset of light.”

“Illegal?” Jace grabbed a handful of hair in his hand. “Why—why didn’t you say so? Is some secret space police going to track me down and—”

“Keep your wits,” Kinfild said. “As long as you don’t show your aspect off, you aren’t in danger. None of these Candlefolk care—half of them probably don’t know what happened to the light Wielders.”

“What are all the aspects?”

“All Wielders and worldjumpers absorb pure-aspect Aes then bend it to an elemental alignment. There are five main branches: earth, water, and fire, then light and dark. Earth is strong against water, water is strong against fire, and fire is strong against earth, but light and dark are outside the alignment. They have no strengths or weaknesses, and are the most versatile.”

Jace took a deep breath. “So…hyperspace wielder, huh? Why could I plow through a darkling at lightspeed—or faster—without killing myself?”

“Your Resistance attribute, the strength of your stance and your ability to resist external Curses, was higher than the darkling’s. If you tried to blast through a wooden wall or a set of iron bars, you would fail; their Resistance is higher than yours. Thus, a Resistance-focussed Path would be wise for your current abilities.”

“Alright…this Path thing. What is it?”

“Usually, Wielders have an alignment and affinity to certain abilities—a Path, it’s called. It takes into account your Class and abilities. Mine is the Path of the Empty Flame, a flame-based Path that can use flame-aspect technique cards. Hyperspace abilities are light-aspected. As for your Path, I cannot say.”

“How do I…get a Path?” Jace asked.

“You will develop a deeper elemental alignment as you gather Aes,” Kinfild stated. “Between Foundation One and Foundation Two, around level fifteen, you will set a Path for yourself.”

“Foundation One is gathering Aes, and Foundation Two is…?”

“Forming Foundation Pillars. For each pillar you form, the more cards you will be able to socket and use in battle—with a core-cloud alone, you can only hold one technique card at a time.”

The explanation was satisfying enough for now. Jace peeled off his coat, gaiters, and boots. He always wore an extra two shirts under his coat, which kept him warmer, but he unbuttoned them too. He laid them on the sink and spread them out, then brushed the folds flat with his hand. He ripped one into thin strips for bandages.

“So, do you get a Class?” he asked as he worked. “As a Wielder? Not a worldjumper or anything?”

“The Split still assigns Classes to mortals and Wielders based on our soul-inclinations, though we cannot see them. We do not choose; the Split assigns it based on our propensities and what it sees for us in Fate. Sometimes, when our Class and our soul-inclination align so closely—like yours with the Core Hunter Class—you obtain an extra passive benefit. You’re able to harvest Aes from defeated enemies.”

Jace nodded, then turned his shoulder to the mirror. He could bandage it right now, but it was dirty. He was dirty, and there was a shower right there.

He dipped into the shower for a few minutes, washing off the debris and grime of the day, and using the lukewarm (at best) water to clean his cuts and scrapes out, no matter how badly it stung. He washed crimson blood down the rusting drain until he at least felt clean.

Only once he emerged from the little shower stall did he start bandaging the wounds. Kinfild slid a small metal tin under the washroom door and said, “Courtesy of the innkeeper. Paid an extra Solar, and he provided a honey-salve. Should do a little bit for the pain and help your skin knit together, though you’re no candlefolk.”

“Thanks,” Jace whispered. He cringed a little at the thought of having someone else buy something for him like that.

“It was the least I could do, considering you tried to help me,” Kinfild muttered. “Unnecessary as it was.”

Unnecessary from a certain point of view, Jace thought, but he kept that to himself.

He looked in the mirror as he spread the smooth, beeswax-smelling balm on his arm and wrapped the bandages around the shallow slashes and burns.

If only being a worldjumper gave him faster healing.

Once he’d bandaged his wounds, he stuffed the spare strips of fabric back into his backpack. Then he pulled his second shirt and jacket back on and buttoned them up. The sleeves were still charred from where he’d plowed through the leopard-goat, and from where the plasma had burned through it before then.

He sat down on the bed closest to the door and set his backpack down right beside it. Before he laid down, he held his hand out. With a push of concentration, he made his technique card appear.

The sheet of golden dust appeared in front of him, too, delivering a simple notice: [Alert: Unassigned Attribute Shards: Four (4)]

If the Reader could show him his ratings by interfacing with the Split, then he figured that, being a worldjumper, he could do it directly. He applied the same concentration as before, trying to get the sheet to appear.

As requested, the dust shifted, rearranging into the same categories that the Reader had given. Indeed, killing the darklings had boosted his ‘Advancement Progress’—now it read six percent.

“We can examine those in the morning,” said Kinfild, rubbing his eyes. “It’s time to sleep.”

Jace dipped his head in agreement. The last dregs of adrenaline faded from his body, and he was more tired than ever. He lifted his feet up onto the bed and laid down. It shouldn’t have been so easy for anyone to sleep after such a chaotic day, but Jace had practice wrangling wild animals. He’d slept fine after scaring off wolves or bears

He shut his eyes and thought of boring things, like walking and waiting, or numbers and…and Paths. Core-clouds. Magic…

Seconds, or maybe minutes later, he was asleep.

Well, sort of.

Memories surged through his mind, passing quickly. He played with other children, his mother taught him to ride horses, his father taught him to herd cattle and to shoot, and his brother brought him into town every week to buy groceries from the convenience store.

Then the memories faded. They all evaporated into the furthest reaches of Jace’s mind, and a vast plane replaced them. The ground was tilled dirt, perfectly brown, uniform and flat. The sky was a musty shade of yellow, with floating stony debris and distant rings of unintelligible runes.

Definitely a vision.

Jace expected something to happen. Maybe another glowing golden guy would show up and hit him. He didn’t move for a few minutes. But nothing happened.

When he finally tried taking a step, it was easy. He was in control of his body, no matter how asleep he was.

There was nothing to do but wander. He walked in a straight line—as best as he could tell. When he looked down, he still wore his coat and pants. His boots and gaiters were nowhere to be seen. With each step, the mud squished between his toes.

Before long, a faint silhouette appeared on the horizon. It was…a sapling? A small, spindly tree with budding leaves, a young oak tree, or maybe an ash. It only had green buds, and the bark was a pale brown. Once he was close enough, he walked a circle around it, staring at every inch.

At the base, wrapped into its roots, was his technique card.

But there was nothing else around. He took a step back from the tree, and as he did, the ground shifted. The sapling’s thin, white roots breached the surface of the mud.

They raced towards him.