The drive back had much the same surreal quality as the trip home had, but Kryss had mostly adjusted and paid closer attention when it was time to make turns, so nothing of note happened. As soon as he parked, he could feel "aura-like" pulses from the direction of the warehouse. Aside from the lights and computer, he had left everything in place around the ritual, and it appeared that some kind of energy flow had continued. Even before turning on the lights, he felt a strong sense of flow throughout the building. But nothing actually visible.

As the place lit up and he saw his arrangement fully once more, he could feel strong positive and negative feelings about each part of the setup, on a "feng shui" level. He HAD incorporated touches for feng shui in the design, but it hadn't been a priority, as that paradigm didn't resonate well with him. And what he felt now didn't match what he had read - it seemed to have more to do with the meanings of the objects, rather than their colors, shapes, or design.

Kryss quickly decided to "go with the flow", and start moving things around according to what "felt right". It seemed that certain things attracted other things, and wanted to be near them. The Keys of Enoch wanted to be close to origami, wave physics, and musical instruments, for example, while The Nature of Personal Reality wanted to be "balanced" with Illusions. In a similar manner "hard" SF wanted to be balanced by LitRPG, and gaming and randomization materials wanted their own circle, where few other materials were to be allowed. AI references, of course, grouped near the computers and wi-fi. Fantasy wanted to be spread out, interacting with all kinds of input.

After nearly 2 hours of modifications, Kryss returned to the center, relaxed, and opened his mind. Immediately, he felt pain as something unbalanced ruined the flow - he followed the feeling and removed the offending article (a rainbow flag), and tried again - with much the same result (another flag this time). Checking further, it seemed nearly anything to do with pride or loyalty were disruptive items, no matter what the cause or statement they represented. Even dollar bills were disruptive - though most coins were not.

Kryss FINALLY managed a stable meditative condition hours later, again with the help of a hemi-synch tape. This time was different - he was fully aware, and was standing on the edge of a vast abyss. The invitation was obvious - he had to choose to cast himself into the void, with his goals firmly in mind.

That stopped him for a while - what WERE his goals, really? He came here via obsessive curiosity and a need to uncover secrets. Thinking about it, he knew that such delving into secrets both brought power and disrupted power structures, and that one needed power of some kind to deal with the consequences of prying into secrets. But he also knew that power was a trap, like wealth, and that too much of it was even more harmful than none at all. What he had here represented vast power - if it could be harnessed for practical purpose.

For himself, he wanted the ability to investigate the universe and to avoid the attention of those who would want to deter him. He also wanted TIME - far more than a normal human lifespan would allow, and that alone would represent another power trap when it was noticed - unless it became common...

So his FIRST INTENTION became "Health and Longevity via Awareness and Learning". It wouldn't matter WHAT people learned, or how - simply learning and becoming aware of more of the universe would promote health and youthful vitality.

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His second great need was to maintain and expand the fruits of his learning - especially those he had just gained. Letting them slip away was just not an option.

So the SECOND INTENTION was the "Preservation of Enlightenment", which would help "lock in" gains of awareness, but could be released at will, in case one found oneself too far along a dead-end path. He could feel that this was possible even beyond physical death, though the mechanism of the effect was currently far beyond his grasp.

And his THIRD INTENTION arose from his gaming background - the creation of an interface upon which to chart his progress. He didn't dare define it more closely than that, because he didn't have enough understanding of how the universe worked to make presumption about what defined an entity or its abilities, but he wanted/NEEDED a guide. He was feeling very lost.

He could feel that he was already straining the limits of intent, and quickly cast himself into the void before second-guessing could erode his choices.

And thus he heard a Voice from Beyond "Requests heard. Evolution in progress" as everything vanished in a blur of mental and physical pain.

Many hours later, he woke up feeling fine, but needing a quick run to the bathroom. As he moved, he felt his entire body was covered in a thin coat of repulsive slime, which has saturated his clothes. Sadly, his warehouse had no shower, only a sink, but there were a couple towels in the bathroom. Since no one else was present, he just stripped down and coated himself in hand soap, removing the grime with the first towel and drying off with the second, then soaking each article of clothing, washing then laying them out to dry near the main radiant heater.

Once halfway clean and relaxed, he closed his eyes and sought to access the requested interface.

A jumbled flux appeared in his mind's eye, slowly refining itself as he relaxed. Eventually, a picture formed of a small red bubble enveloped in a flow of cool plasma, with occasional sparks and lightning being given off. Later, words appeared near the image:

Basic awareness

Origin

Imbue

Just 3 lines, 4 words, but it worked! Basic awareness was fairly obvious - it was what he had been using, after all, but he felt it had grown quite a lot since yesterday.

Origin felt confusing, but mostly seemed like a Title or Achievement, but also held overtones of growing ability (maybe an evolving Passive?).

Imbue was a straight-out castable ability, his first "magic" spell, and he was VERY excited to try it out.

The red bubble was his "mana", and it was somehow maintained or fed by the plasma. The sparks and lightning were mysterious, but he got the impression they were at least partly involved with communication or transmission.

As the visuals cleared further, he could make out a faint red haze constantly spreading outwards from his red bubble into the world at large, maintaining it at a constant size as it continually brought in energy from the plasma.

Waiting for the clothes to dry, he ate his lunch - trying out "Imbue" for the first time on his food. Results were quick, several tiny areas on his food suddenly stood out as "rot" - bad things to eat. He could "power" the effect for about 10 seconds before it faded, and he could feel that his red mana pool was nearly gone. It took about 3 minutes to re-fill to 90% (diminishing returns were obvious as it filled). He picked the worst offending spots off the food before eating. He didn't have any dire feeling about them, but felt better avoiding them.

He went back into the bathroom to check the mirror and look for any obvious changes - and found them immediately. Most of his old skin flaws had their progress reversed, or had vanished entirely. He quickly guessed that the "slime" had been toxic drainage from all the many tiny infections common in the skin of all humans. That quickly brought up the question to mind - was this happening to others? To everyone?

Kryss fired up his favorite networking research computer and started the online searches.