The scroll unfurled. A list was carved out on the foil in bright blocky letters.

“First,” said the Sage. "Achieve Full Fusion of Stormfire—and receive a Chaos Fruit. This fruit comes from the Chaos Tree, which bears fruit twice per Chaos Cycle. It blesses the body and soul with heavenly energies, priming them for Ascension. It grants over thirty Nascent Levels as well.”

A fruit emerged beneath the letters, wreathed in a golden laurel. To Zane it looked like a very juicy pear turned upside-down.

A pitch-black bead rotated beneath the letters, steaming purple light.

“Second,” said Sage Noughtfire, "Complete the Ten-Man Challenge within three months of your arrival—and your reward will be a Plasma Phoenix Core! A drop with a one-in-thousands chance which only comes from the corpse of the Godbeast Plasma Phoenix. It would grant your channels a supreme affinity to Stormfire. Permanently boosting you to a level equivalent to the Plasma Phoenix itself!"

A pitch-black bead rotated beneath the letters, steaming purple light.

"Third—defeat Kakorax, the Third Prince of Dragons, #1-Ranked Outer Faction disciple..."

"Fourth—reach Planet Prime on the Killing Field of Ragnos, and hit #1 on the kill counts of all recorded Ascendants..."A pitch-black bead rotated beneath the letters, steaming purple light.

On and on they went.

"These rewards will mean much more to you later on," said Noughtfire, closing the scroll. “Should you achieve them all, you’ll be a true hegemon. Not merely in the younger generation, but in all the Dragonspire Galaxy.”

Zane was quite liking the sound of all this.

“It takes a certain kind of man to master Stormfire," Noughtfire continued. "You are that kind of man, Zane. In body and soul. You have the most latent talent in Stormfire of any prospect I have seen in a Chaos Cycle. That talent can be taken to extreme heights. Heights even I could not achieve, in time… I have designed this ladder to be very difficult to achieve even for you—but it is achievable. It is meant to push you to become all you could be.”

Noughtfire clenched his fist.

"You have five days," he said. "Send your soul into this letter and your message will reach me. I await your response.”

With that, he vanished.

The world faded back in. A night sky splashed with stars, the chirping of crickets.

Zane’s head swam.

That old man had put a lot of thought into Zane’s future. It’d be hard not to get a whole lot stronger with all those treasures behind him.

“So?” said Reina, a little breathless.

“…I don’t know,” said Zane honestly. He scratched his head. They both sounded quite good to him.

He thought about it some more. Did he like stars or steel more? Heat or strength?

…This didn’t feel like the right question. He looked down at his fists, thought about how he fought…

He didn't want to give either of them up, he told Reina. He felt he’d need both to get as strong as he wanted. After he said it aloud, he was even more sure of it. He nodded.

Reina thought about it a bit too, frowning.

“Is there some other way?” she said at last.

They blinked at each other.

They ended up chatting it over long into the night.

By the morning, they’d settled on an idea.

“I don't know if it'll work,” said Reina. She bit her lip. “And it might ruffle some feathers at first—but if it does…”

He kissed her. “You’ll do great,” he told her. He was sure of it. “Go ahead.”

She nodded, and went for it.

***

Omega Star Core

Lightning Constellation

Noughtfire sat in a lotus pose, eyes closed. Meditating. He sat atop a scalding plate of molten rock, shot through with rivers of seething plasma. They joined to make a circle with Noughtfire at its center. Incense candles flickered all around him, burning with extremely high-grade Stormfire, linking wispy astral lines, concentrating the Law, the heat…

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The air warbled so intensely there were no straight lines in that cavern. Everything was distended, vaguely psychedelic.

The pressures Noughtfire experienced then were some of the most extreme in the Dragonspire galaxy. Only his knowledge of Law kept him from spontaneous combustion.

His eyes flickered open. The candles flickered out all at once.

He reached down into his robe pocket, took out a scroll, and unrolled it, one brow cocked.

A vision emerged in front of him. But not of the person he was expecting. A beautiful woman in a formal dress, the green of a forest canopy.

“Greetings, Sage Noughtfire,” said Reina. She gave a little curtsy. “I’m here on behalf of Zane. I have a proposal to make.”

***

Zane and friends were sitting in the fifth-floor living room, playing three-on-one monopoly—it was Evan, Avery, and Zane against Reina, and they were losing quite badly—when Reina got the letter back. She pulled it out and read it—for a few seconds, her eyes glowed, glazed over. When she set it down, she looked a little conflicted.

“The good news is,” she told Zane, “Noughtfire will assign you an estate to live on in his constellation—that’s true. But it's possible to portal back to Earth. It'll just be expensive in terms of spirit stones, but if we’re willing to foot the bill, then yes—we can use Earth as a home base.”

This came as quite a relief to Zane. He would want to come back pretty often—and Reina was happy to pay. It was a good thing she'd soon come into quite a bit of money.

“The bad news is...” she said. “About the offer—his exact words were ‘absolutely not. Out of the question.’”

Zane blinked.

“Don’t worry,” she said, taking his hand, looking intently at him. “That’s to be expected. This is just the first round of negotiations. Once we get going—”

She was interrupted by a silver flash. The Barbarian Sage’s letter had come back too.

She read it—and came back with an even more awkward look on her face.

“What is it?” said Zane.

“He sounds a little... upset. A little heartbroken, even?” She winced. “I’m sure we can get to a good place, though. Just give me some time.”

She put her hands on the letter and closed her eyes.

Zane let her work.

They knew neither of the Elders would take well to the plan, at least at first. It was probably a little out there. But he felt they could all come out happy after they got the kinks out. Reina just had to work her magic.

Halfway through the next day the next round of responses came back.

He and Evan and Avery were on the seventh floor, watching the news on the wall-to-wall screen.

“Earth’s gotten a slew of massive offers these last few days!” said the reporter, one ‘Toby Silverman’. His little tuft of gray hair went up in a neat swirl. He sounded he’d make a good living narrating audiobooks. He was a World Ranker himself, but a newsman first—the World Ranker Network’s staple anchorman.

“Let’s head over to Siberia…”

The scene changed to show great ice castles atop endless sheets of ice; cliff-like glaciers loomed large in the background. Auroras streamed overhead, kaleidoscopic rivers.

Then a flash of bright blue lit up the night right atop the highest balcony—striking deep into the sky…

“There it is. Vanessa Volkova has accepted her offer!” said the anchorman. “We don't know all the details. But leaks say she’ll at least be an Outer Faction Chosen of the Cult of Eternal Ice—and she’ll get 7,000 Sky-Grade Spirit Stones to boot as a signing bonus. Quite a haul! That explains the massive upgrade their Beacon got—it’s suddenly Earth-grade, the second in the world after the Luminous Faction’s. When the time comes, she’ll use it to teleport to the Cult of Eternal Ice’s territory.”

The scene faded.

"Our sources say two other Top Rankers have accepted their offers,” said the anchorman. “Cristina Dos Santos and the Spitfire Monk. More are still in progress! Emeka Eze, for instance, is deep in negotiations, and I’m told he's close to a deal. Stay tuned, folks—we'll update you as the latest comes in!"

One deal the news hadn’t gotten to yet was Evan. Maybe because he’d accepted pretty quickly. Evan got a gift basket from the Light people. It was full of strange sweets, all quite massive—cakes and cookies, and there was a nice welcome card too, hand-written from the Constellation King. Zane, Evan, and Avery were all munching on giant cookies as they watched. The Light people made wheat and yeast and chocolate-like sweets in strange colors; their cookies were blue or purple. They also tasted about twice as good as any cookie Zane had ever had. Evan had been on the verge of tears after his first.

"But the big one, of course—the pride of Earth—" Here the anchorman stood up a little straighter. "Zane Walker! He’s yet to make any decision, though I’m told that he’s getting close…”

“I am?” said Zane, blinking.

"Let's go to our live panel.”

There were two spiffy-looking people on a split screen. A tall bald man and a short big-mustached man.

"So—according to many eyewitness reports, it's down to the Azure Flame Faction and the Steelheart Conclave! Which do you think he’ll go with?”

"It’s obviously got to be the Steelheart Conclave," said Tall Baldy, snorting. "He’s such a physical force, there's no better option!"

"Oh, that’s just ridiculous," said Big Mustache. "Knowing Zane, he’d choose the Azure Flame in a heartbeat! That's the true source of his firepower. Flesh is cheap. There’s tons of ways to strengthen that. But Stormfire’s one of one!"

It was a rather surreal experience for Zane. Zane had no clue what Zane would do.

“Do you think they have insider knowledge?” Evan asked him through a mouthful of cookie crumb, all wide-eyed.

"…"

He turned off the screen.

Just then, Reina came pattering down the staircase, dark bags under her eyes. But she was flushed with excitement.

“I’m making good progress,” she said. “The Barbarian Sage is close—but Noughtfire still needs to come around a little… I’m confident we can get this done.”

“Hey, how’re you even doing that?” said Avery through a lollipop. “Getting them to take you seriously and stuff. I know negotiating’s your thing and all, but still…”

Reina puffed up her chest. “Well, I was quick to remind them I’m not just Zane’s representative. I’m also the future head of one of the other Nine Great Factions. The World Tree’s got a near monopoly on all elixir-making in the galaxy—including those supplied to their Factions…it’s in their best interest to hear me out.”

It was Reina's idea to negotiate like this for Zane. She was much better at it, for one. But she also had much better leverage.

He felt a little bad sitting there munching on his cookie while she tirelessly went back and forth. It was also kind of nice, in a way—he knew she would take care of him.

He tried to get her to take a rest, but she brushed him off. “I’m close,” she said. “Just a little more…”

Sure enough—later that night Reina came back to bed looking a little woozy, a little exhausted, but very satisfied. She held up two letters.

“I’ve got our final offers!” she said. “I think you’ll like it.”

She started to read.