"Hello me." Said the me in the chair. "It's so nice to see you again. You could be a bit more polite you know. Our mama didn't raise us to be rude." He paused. "Although, I guess she didn't raise us at all, so maybe bad manners were inevitable." He grinned at me, face unadorned with the mask I wore constantly.

I sighed. This was the version of me from the end of the maze. The one I'd spoken to before breaking my mind shackle. "How are you here?" I asked in annoyance. "The maze was before we became real. Now we are and this isn't an illusion anymore. That's why the whole second ability thing is even possible. You don't exist, so how is it possible for you to be in a real place?"

"Real-ish." He said, waggling his hand. "We're still not fully in the physical world. Sort of an in between. Like that big squirrel you met was a real being interfacing with this place, just like you are. Well not JUST like you are, he's been here much longer."

I blinked. "Interfacing from WHERE, exactly?" I said hesitantly. "What IS this place? What is the stove? What's the point of all this."

He rolled his eyes. "It's a trial, moron. What do you think it's for. It's to pick candidates." At my shocked look he huffed out a laugh. "Not candidates like you. This place far predates the Wishmaster. THIS is the stove." He said gesturing around us. "The Soul Simmering Stove. The last of a hundred such locations where people came from all over the Aetherbright Empire to compete to enter the Royal Academy."

"Ok..." I said suspiciously. "And I feel like if it was this easy to figure that out someone would know it by now. So why the hell are you telling me this?"

"Because the stove is in danger." He said grimly. "That bottle the Bloodspawn brought in here can damage it. He's hoping to use it to trigger the matriculation function of the trial. One of the reasons for the transfer of consciousness to reality is a partial step to mass transport. If he triggers the matriculation you'll all be sent to the Academy directly. That isn't supposed to happen, but the Liquid Lamentation will corrupt the stove and force the transfer."

That explained Billy's plan. I was still confused though. If the temple could transport people to the Empire, why did the Imperials take part. Why didn't the other factions know about it? "Why is he trying to teleport us all to the Empire? What does that have to do with the Blood Murder Palace?"

The other me sighed. "Not THE Empire. I told you most of these are gone. The Soul Simmering Stove is a relic from a time before the current factions. The Aetherbright Empire has fallen, the capital and the rest of the cities have fallen, they're all lost. But the Royal Academy is still accessible. There are things there that shouldn't fall into mortal hands. Especially not murderous hands like those."

"So don't let him through." I said in exasperation. "You've got me here and you're talking to me. You clearly have some sort of influence. Also what even are you?"

He shrugged. "You could call me a fragment of the stove's consciousness. Or yours. Or both. The point is that I'm talking to you because I CAN'T stop him. The purpose of the stove is to test. He passed, which means he's eligible to move on. Most people who come here have no idea the stove exists, so they never continue to the final room. If they DO know however, they're free to enter."

"So you need me to take care of him. Stop him from dumping that stuff into the stove?" I looked around worriedly. "What if he's already there? What if Callie is? I have to get going!"

He waved me down. "There are final tests and opportunities in each temple. Yours was the most straightforward, seeing as this is the prime temple. The other two will take some time. Enough for me to offer you your reward. You'll need to be as strong as possible to beat him. If you force his hand he might use that...abominable substance."

I'd been so sucked in by all this craziness that I'd almost forgotten the reward. "Ah, right. So...I have options I take it?"

"A few." He said with a nod. "The trials were meant to prepare students of the Academy for acceptance. The victors were given powerful gifts to help them excel in their studies. Weapons, medicines, armor. These are all available to you as the champion of the trial."

"I heard I can get a second ability?" I asked eagerly. Aiden, the current Wishmaster, had crushed my dad and taken the WCP by storm with his second ability. My sister had one as well, and it was so powerful it had split my family in two. My mother had one, and she was the strongest A-ranker in service to one of the popes of the Red Revenant Church. A second ability meant an unassailable advantage.

"The Dual Soul Talent." Said the other me. "That is one of the options. I see you have a Solid Path already. A Dual Soul Talent would indeed prepare you for the next step in advance. In order to prepare to advance to B-rank you need your Path fully attuned to your soul. Under normal circumstances that would require you to relinquish your Wish ability and synergize it with you Doom Sovereign Path."

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That was the next step? But he said prepare to break through to B-rank, not actually do it. It seemed like this was just a half step. It was fine though, he was right. If I did that I'd lose my Wish ability, it would become something new and I'd have my candidacy stripped. "But if I get a second ability I can have both unaltered right? That's what I want!"

He nodded. "I understand. But in order to remold your soul to accommodate a second ability you've got to reshape it during sublimation. Not a partial sublimation either. You've broken both shackles, so you're close, but I'll need to forcibly push your soul refinement to the level of the Azure Soul Body to receive your final sublimation. The process will be agonizing, indescribably painful. There are some who go insane from the pain. Death may be a preferable alternative."

I'd been in pain before. Horrible pain, but I knew that pain of the soul was something different. Every soul related pain I'd felt was exponentially worse than their physical counterparts. The soul wasn't restrained by things like nerves and neurons. It wasn't physical. Pain could far surpass the limits the brain could endure and keep going, and there was no passing out to escape it.

Swallowing hard, I tried to focus on something other than the literal soulshattering agony I was about to go through. "How does the Azure Soul Body work anyway? Someone told me that you need to be in here to reach it? Does that mean the rest of my friends are going to be stuck at the peak of green when they get there, even after breaking both shackles?"

Obviously knowing what I was doing, the other me shook his head. "No. A heritage is required to prepare for the final sublimation, but you don't need to be inside to achieve it. The biggest requirement is spirit cleansing. You've all been absorbing Sanctified Soul Matter since you got here. It was considered something of a hidden benefit for attempting the trials."

The trials weren't an everyday thing, so I supposed it was possible no one had noticed, but I figured it was more likely the few people who had broken both shackles here just hadn't mentioned it to anyone. Knowledge was power after all. Still, it was nice to know that everyone would be able to reach that point.

"Of course." Continued the other me. "Sanctified Soul Matter is a bit more...forceful than completing the transition here in a semi spiritual state. It's part of how I'm going to rush you through. I'm going to pour more inside until you approach the peak of green and then combust it. It'll purify and sublimate your soul, and I'll reforge it while it's in a malleable state. The others won't go through quite as much pain, since the Matter will combust on its own when they reach the peak, but it WILL be painful all the same."

I glared at other me. "And how exactly was telling me that fucking helpful, you unbearable sadist?"

He shrugged. "You needed to know so you weren't blindsided. Plus, this way you know you won't suffer alone?" He cocked his head at that, as if curious, and when I didn't respond he shrugged. "Oh well, this was already much closer to human than I can usually pull off. I was bound to lose it at some point. Now take off that mask or this wont work."

I did, and he turned, walking into the hut, and came out with a basin. "Alright, anything else to ask before I do this? Once your reward has been granted I'll be gone. You'll have to exit either the way you came, or into the central manifestation chamber of the stove, the door on the other side of the hut." I opened my mouth to respond, and he grabbed my head and shoved it down into the basin of bright golden liquid. The last thing I heard from him was. "That was rhetorical."

When my face hit the liquid I expected it to be hot. It wasn't, just sort of warm and pleasant, at least against my face. When I inhaled, it poured into my nose, eyes and ears. I started to struggle, but the other me held me down, and as the Sanctified Soul Matter made its way into my body, I felt it ignite.

Explosion. Combustion. Cataclysm. Every single one of these terms implied some sort of earthshattering blast, and every one of them fell short of the sensation. It was like a billion stars going supernova, and every single one of them was a part of me. I was burned, battered, shattered, crushed, put back together and melted down. Every single sensation was pain, indescribable pain.

And it kept getting BIGGER. More agony, more suffering, more than I could imagine or conceive or withstand. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to go crazy just to get away from it, but I couldn't even do that. It was never ending, all encompassing, it was the beginning and the end of my existence, all I'd ever been or ever would be.

Memories, truths, secrets, everything about me was scoured clean, ripped away and burned to ash. And then it got WORSE. After the scouring was a second blast, another sensation stacked on top and I couldn't think or experience anything but pain pain pain. Something reached into me and started to twist, tear, warp everything that I was, everything that was left in the torment was being changed.

Then the stars started to go out. One by one they extinguished, and I realized each one had been pain. A billion unbearable agonies stacked on top of each other, and it was completely outside of my ability to even go mad from the pain. As they went out, I regained my senses, regained my mind and hopes and dreams and senses.

I realized that nothing was holding my head anymore, that the basing was empty, and I stumbled back, toppling into the sand, screaming still as I tried to remember what it felt like not to hurt.

Finally it faded away, and I was alone, lying on the beach, gasping and panting as I stared unseeingly up into the ceiling of the room, which I now realized had become a tapestry of black dotted with lights. Night. Reaching down into myself, I touched my now Azure soul. It stung to the touch, but when I did, I could feel it. In the same place where my Wish usually resided. My Path of the Doom Sovereign. And despite the pain, despite the urgency, despite everything...I started to laugh.