Aster squints at the menu like it has personally offended him.
There are no prices.
Well, not normal prices. No currency signs, no numbers that make sense. Just strange glyphs beside each item—glowing numbers labeled blue, yellow, or red.
He stares harder. One particularly smug-looking sandwich is marked “10 [??].” He has no idea what the symbol means, but something in its design suggests “spiritually unaffordable.”
“Uh,” Aster says, turning to Lena, “how exactly do I… buy anything here?”
“Oh,” she says brightly, like she’s been waiting for the question. “You’ll need the Veneration-Link.”
“The what now?”
Before he can object, Lena reaches across the table and taps his forehead with two fingers—light, precise, like she’s double-clicking his soul.
A flicker.
A soft chime echoes inside his skull.
Then—
Compatible Glyph Detected. Install “VENERATION” Module?
[YES]??[NO]
The words float in his vision, crisp as glass and glowing with faint metaphysical smugness.
Aster blinks. “...Am I being spiritually prompted?”
“Click yes,” Lena says, sipping her tea like this is a normal Tuesday.
He hesitates—because obviously—but curiosity (and hunger) win.
He mentally clicks YES.
The world tilts.
Not physically—inwardly. Like a set of weights has been rebalanced behind his sternum.
His breath catches as something opens inside him.
Not a spell, but a link. Like a power cable plugging into an invisible socket he hadn’t known existed. The sense of connection is immediate and intimate—like he’s just been added to a very exclusive mailing list that could ruin his life.
He jolts back. “Why do I feel like I just signed a lease on my soul?”
“I Venerated you,” she says sweetly. “Now try thinking your name.”
“I—what?”
“Just do it.”
Still rubbing the bridge of his nose, Aster focuses on the phrase Aster Elchen the way one might recite their name to airport security. The air in front of him shivers.
The luminous panel of his Stat Screen unfolds in his vision.
He sees a new tab listed under Veneration that hadn’t been there before.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════
[ ASTRAL VESSEL: NOOTROPIC DISPLAY ]
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════
NAME: Aster Elchen
SPECIES: Human
TYPING: Spirit (Sahasrara)
CULTIVATION: Initiate - Veiled Moon
CULTIVATION TYPE: Symbiocultivator
PROGRESSION TIER: 1 - Aware
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
?? CORE STATS [+]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
?? GATE ALIGNMENT [+]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
?? GLYPHS [+]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
?? SCRIPTURES [+]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
?? ARTEFACTS [+]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
?? VENERATION [-]
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
FAITH BALANCE:
Blue — 750
Yellow — 2,100
Red — 137
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════
His stomach makes a noise somewhere between a protest and a whimper.
“What... is this? Why does it feel like a tax audit?”
“It’s your Faith Profile,” Lena says.
She leans over, pointing at each glowing number in turn. “Veneration connects your Spirit’s karmic threads to the Cosmic Scale. Think of it as your metaphysical credit score.”
“That is the worst sentence I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s actually very convenient.”
“Stop saying that.”
She smiles. “I mean it—our entire Society is built around it.”
“Sure,” he mutters. “So is the real world around debt consolidation.”
She ignores him and points at the numbers. “Blue is liquid Faith. Instantly spendable. It comes from your real-world cash—stocks, savings, liquid assets. The Scale handles conversion when you enter the Astral Plane.”
Aster frowns. “So… my R150,000 in stock transfers turned into 750 Faith?”
“Exactly,” Lena says. “Exchange rate isn’t fixed, but for our currency, it’s roughly 200 real-world Rand to one Faith.”
“And the yellow?” he asks.
“Fixed assets. Property. Businesses. Vehicles. It’s wealth, but harder to liquefy. If you need it, the Scale can draw on it, but it compensates with real-world consequences—unexpected car trouble, surprise taxes, property damage... That sort of thing.”
Aster stares at the yellow number and mentally says goodbye to his future apartment.
“And the red?” he asks, already dreading the answer.
“Karmic reserves,” Lena says, her voice more serious now. “Good karma. Luck. Spiritual momentum. You can spend it, but the Scale always collects. You get sick. You lose out on a raise, etc. Use it, and the universe makes change somewhere.”
Aster leans back, the weight of it all pressing down. “So if I spend red, I might get hit by a bus?”
Lena shrugs. “Maybe not a bus. But probably not a rainbow either.”
He looks back at the menu. The sandwich still costs 10 blue. R2,000 for a hotdog.
He hesitates.
His stomach growls.
He hadn’t eaten for over two weeks, he was basically starving.
And for R2,000, he reasons, it had to be one of those double dogs in a bun, drenched in onions, cheese, and tomato relish.
He’s already drooling.
He presses his thumb to the bottom of the menu.
A soft pulse of energy passes through him. His display flickers—Blue: 740.
Moments later, a dry gas station bun arrives with a pink vienna sausage inside. No butter, no ketchup, nothing.
“Great,” he grumbles, “instead of going broke from cheap viennas in the real world, I can now do it on the Astral Plane.”
Lena leads Aster through Galamad’s winding halls toward a heavy, iron-bound door with Musa lounging by it like a bouncer with a side gig in poetry. The stone walls around him look like they haven’t heard a joke since the Second Age, and the lighting doesn’t help—it’s less mystical ambiance and more this is where we store the orphans when they disobey.
“I’ll meet you in the Market District after you’re done,” Lena says, flicking a glance toward Musa. “Shouldn’t take more than two hours. Let’s say… four a.m.?”
Aster blinks. “Four?”
He does some math. Badly.
Wait. Matter started the ritual yesterday. Early morning. Around five? That means he’s been asleep in the Material Plane for over twenty-four hours. Just out, like some celestial unplugging yanked his spirit sideways and forgot to set an alarm.
He turns to Lena, frowning. “Do I have time to… I don’t know. Not die of sleep starvation. I have been fasting for the past fourteen days you know!”
“You’ll be fine,” she says, all sunshine and doom. “Back by eight at the latest. You’ve got time.”
Reassuring.
He mutters a thanks and makes his way toward Musa, who’s in the middle of chatting up a guard. Judging by the tone, he’s either just finished making a joke or threatening the man’s bloodline.
“Enjoy your lunch?” Musa asks without turning, voice thick with mischief.
Aster wrinkles his nose. “You mean the sad vienna hotdog masquerading as food? Yeah, culinary excellence. A spiritual experience.”
Musa barks a laugh. “Viennas? Oh, no. They really served you the distilled essence of regret.”
Aster gives him a wary look.
“I’m serious,” Musa says, smirking. “What you ate wasn’t food. It was the spiritual footprint of a sandwich. Astral-born food companies contract people in the Material Plane to extract flavor memory from actual lunches—childhood nostalgia, cafeteria trauma, whatever. Then they compress it, print it, and charge a couple of grand for it.”
“That’s the most horrifying sentence I’ve heard since Matter said, ‘don’t move during the surgery,’” Aster mutters. “Why not just make real food?”
Musa doesn’t answer.
Instead, he reaches into what might be thin air—or a dimensional pocket, or maybe just his shirt—and pulls out a steaming King Steer burger.
It looks perfect. Unreasonably so.
Aster gapes. “You made that?”
“I know someone,” Musa says smugly, taking a slow, theatrical bite as the gate behind him groans open.
Aster steps through and immediately forgets the hotdog.
The Weapon Depository doesn’t feel like a room. It feels like a war museum and a library had a kid and then allowed it to be raised by a cathedral. Rows of weapon racks stretch so far they blur into fog. Blades and shields share shelf space like uneasy neighbors. The air buzzes—not with noise, but with presence. Old steel and older magic.
Aster stares. Then stares harder. “I’m supposed to get through this in two hours?”
