So you’ve died and are moving on to a new Realm. This should not be a sad occasion, but a cause for joy! For instead of fading into the void, or passing into a staid afterlife, you have the chance to reinvent yourself in a world where what is possible is limited only by your drive and imagination, no longer to waste away life in a mundane Restricted Realm.

Let’s get into it then, as you have things to do and places to see.

In the beginning, before all things, there was only Ylem. Disordered and discordant, it is a frequency of pure and infinite potential. From its plumbless depths rose an echo of itself, if in another form. Still boundless and filled with infinitude, Aurum became the mutable structure to Ylem’s ever changing permutations. Together they flowed around each other, crashing like two utterly vast tones from which the impossible-made-real was born.

From this taijitu of Ylem’s disordered possibility and Aurum’s ordered patterns came the force of life. A harmony of actualized potentials known as the Metanoic Resonance. This is the structural force of reality and it is this primordial framework that enables a cosmos to come into being.

When enough of the patterns of the Aurumic Stream clash with the Meta, as it is colloquially called, they conglomerate and from their melding comes the Grand Resonances.These are the Empirical Spectrum of Resonance, which make up physical existence, and the Ephemeral Spectrum of Resonance, which make up the non-physical. These two often intermingling categories contain everything a non-Apotheotic person can understand or perceive at any level of power.

It is not until these Resonances degrade from the Meta that a Realm is truly birthed. This infantile Realm could be as small as the room you are now in, or as large or larger than the universe in which you came from. Generally a Realm comes in two forms, Planetoid where celestial objects revolve around each other, or Planar where everything exists on a finite or sometimes infinite plane.

Regardless of makeup, a Restricted Realm is set apart from the majority of other Realms in that while some form of both Grand Resonances exist, one is locked out from being accessed by whatever inhabitants may arise from, or migrate to, it.

On Earth, or other planets within that Realm, you were restricted mostly to the Empirical. You could alter reality, but had to do so via a medium such as machines or otherwise manipulating natural processes. You could conceive of things such as the soul, time, dark energy and matter, but concrete evidence, and certainly control, of these Ephemeral forces would be limited if ever achieved.

There are even Restricted Realms where the opposite exists. Places that are of the mind and soul, versus the body. Where physical existence can be conceived of, but not enjoyed and all beings exist as a soul or mind construct of some kind.

Now, onto what is arguably the most important thing to you, knowing your past habits. Magic!

Firstly, magic is not real. With practice and the right Method, you will however be able to modulate the Resonances that exist around you in order to achieve things that would have either required technologies as a medium - such as flying, creating fire, etc. - or have been flat out impossible for you to have achieved such as stopping time around you, moving faster than the speed of light, or punching a mountain with your fist and watching it crumble while you remain unmoved.

So how do you accomplish these miraculous feats, you may be wondering. While not simple, and with many differences in how it is achieved, there are some things that do not change for those who would defy nature, even as the names for them vary.

To alter reality on a personal level, one must make use of a metaphysical force known as Pneuma. This is the by product of the Ephemeral and Empirical clashing in a poignant echo of the original duality which produced the Meta. Pneuma permeates all Realms, to varying degrees, on a quantum level and acts as a controlling force to allow one who commands it to change the state and position of a thing. Think of it like this:

You want to start a fire. You could do so by creating friction from rubbing sticks together, raising the energy level of its atoms until they cannot be contained and they combust. Or you can use Pneuma to tell those same atoms they are excited, causing combustion without friction. This seems like it may be limited in that one would have to know how the universe operates on that level in order to affect a change, however it isn’t. You simply have to know the outcome that you want and with enough willpower and Pneuma will make it so.

Potentially you could even teleport from one end of a Realm to the other, without knowing of Einstein-Rosen bridges or any other advanced physics, it would just take a mountain’s worth of Pneuma instead of the cups worth it would if you had said knowledge.

The goal of most beings is to reach Apotheosis, or oneness with the Meta, and the way that state of being is achieved is through Pneumatics. Not to be confused with pneumatics, Pneumatics is the process of collecting ever increasing amounts of Pneuma and using it to affect change within oneself and the world around them and advance along the path to Apotheosis.

This path is broken down into several stages, called Oscillations. The first Oscillation occurs when our souls, floating through the Stream, come into contact with a Realm and merge with, or more rarely create, a burgeoning psyche and/or physical body. The first is natural for almost all sapient beings, with few exceptions, while the number of ensuing Oscillations, if any, that happen naturally and without conscious effort varies between types of beings and even species within their genus. In this stage one’s Pneuma brings in a little bit of the Meta when the connection from the soul is first made.

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From there most beings, again humans included, will have to actively work towards their next Oscillation via Pneumatics, and there are a total of five Oscillations to undergo before one is on the cusp of Apotheosis.

The Second Oscillation occurs when one has created a connection between themselves and one of the Lesser Resonances. These Lesser Resonances are called such as they are the constituent pieces of the Ephemeral and Empirical. This allows them a connection to that part of the Meta, giving their Pneuma greater control over its aspects in reality. One who attunes themselves to one of the Phasic Resonances for instance, could more easily and with less Pneuma create and/or control fire, physical matter such as earth and metals, or to fly. And this is only on the Empirical Side of things. Someone who attunes to one of the Psychic Resonances might be able to change the way they, or others, see reality by creating illusions, speeding up their perception of time or even enhancing their cognitive abilities.

The Third Oscillation is where most people get stuck and is the farthest that over 70% of beings ever reach. Here you must widen that connection to the Meta that was made during your Second Oscillation, and bring in an opposing side. If you had attuned to an Empirical Resonance before, you must now attune to a Ephemeral one as well, and vice versa. The reason people get stuck here is they do not choose Resonances which compliment each other as well as their own personal Resonance. Most people simply don't know themselves and how natural forces interact enough to make a stable connection at this point. When successful, not only does one gain new abilities and grow the ones already obtained, but the complementing harmony creates a feedback loop between the Ephemeral and Empirical Resonances chosen and their soul. It is this loop that begins to generate Pneuma inside of oneself, instead of it having to be drawn from the world around them. For example, a person with ultimate control and willpower past their Second Oscillation may be able to control an existing fire, or mold metal hot from the forge with their mind, but someone who has undergone their Third can create that fire with a thought or use their will to extract all pieces of iron from a wall of rock and instantly form it into a perfect sword.

The Fourth Oscillation is rarely passed. Under 10% of beings in most Realms make it to this level. Here one must take the Lesser Ephemeral and Empirical Resonances they have attuned to and meld them together into their soul. This completely alters your personal Resonance along the lines of what you have attuned to and with that change creates a stable connection to the Stream itself. You are no longer bound by the amount of Pneuma you can gather or generate, and thus these few are called the Unbound. This may sound simple, though it is anything but. A person at the Third can create fire, yes, but they cannot do so without end. Someone after their Fourth utilizing that direct connection to the Stream could create a stream of fire indefinitely. The could also, by way of their changed soul Resonance, literally embody one or both of their attuned Resonances. From example those attuned to fire could lose their physical form and become a pillar of fire without losing their mental faculties. This state cannot be maintained for a long time, however, even with their enhanced connection to the Stream and the Meta within.

The Fifth Oscillation is achieved even less than the Fourth, with around 1-2% of people who have reached the Fourth passing it. Here, the Resonances one has attuned to have a much greater role, as the closer they are to the Metanoic Resonance, the more likely they will live through the Oscillation. Those who fail almost always die in some spectacular fashion or if they are lucky, only lose their connection to the Stream and their Resonances, no longer even able to do simple cantrips that one can do after their Second Oscillation. If they pass it though, they become the most powerful beings that can exist before Apotheosis. They no longer have to convert the Metanoice Resonance from the Stream, and are able to wield it directly as it melds with their soul, taking the place of the Resonances previously attuned. Aside from the vast power increase this allows, it opens one to being able to control all attunements, only inhibited by their knowledge and understanding of them. A side effect of having a direct connection to the Stream and one of the main reasons a lot of beings strive for this stage is that they are no longer affected by the ravages of time and even if their physical form is destroyed, they can continue to exist as a mental construct, eventually rebuilding their body or possessing another form, and due to this effect are known as the Timeless.

There is no Sixth Oscillation, even though some ignorant refer to Apotheosis as that. You are no longer changing the Resonance of your soul as the Meta already exists within it, and thus are no longer needing to Oscillate your soul. To reach Apotheosis is simple, if not easy. One must subsume their soul into the Meta directly, and while all this takes is a force of will, if you are not able to do soul your soul is destroyed forever. Normally when a person of the Fifth or prior Oscillations dies physically, their soul returns to the Stream of its own accord, to eventually be reborn. When you manually initiate this transfer to reach Apotheosis you are keeping your psyche intact while shedding your physical form and must contain it within the Stream itself. This is immeasurably difficult and even those who know what must be done usually shy away from it, preferring to live basically as a god in their Realm. Between fear of failure stopping them and those who attempt it and are eradicated, less than 1% of 1% of people ever reach Apotheosis.

Apotheosis itself has varying degrees. Those who first reach it are able to control the Meta entirely, altering reality to their whims but still restricted by the laws of the Realm they currently reside within. While one of the Fifth could level a mountain range given some time with little effort, an Apoth could blink and destroy one as if it never existed, or create land where there was nothing but ocean.

Past this, those Apoths who are not destroyed by others, eventually learn how to manipulate the Aurum of the Stream directly, and can create their own Realms with any of the patterns within it or even add or remove these laws of nature to/from an existing Realm.

Only a handful of Apoths throughout existence have made the final step, and are able to control Ylem to some extent. They are dubbed Impossibilities as they can make real what has never existed before. When they are able to be destroyed, it is only by those of the same level. They are omniscient and inviolate beings.

With this you have a basic grasp of the path to true power. You may be upset as there are no concrete steps listed on how to achieve these things, but believe me when I tell you that there isn’t one single Method. Develop your own, and disbelieve anyone who says that it can only be accomplished via a certain way. They are the ones who will languish in the Third or Fourth. Those with determination, resilience, dedication and not a small amount of luck may find the stars are easily within their grasp.