ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.

  The red text pulsed before both of them.

  Liora’s eyes widened, and she took in a sharp breath as the pleasant light of the liminal space—the one their platforms floated in—began to shift.

  It reddened.

  Cracks began to spread through the space, like fractures in porcelain or splinters in time.

  The text shifted again. And even before the words had finished assembling, dread settled in Adarin’s gut like a parasite dragging sickness with it.

  ACTIVATING ERROR CORRECTION MECHANISM.

  PURGING ANOMALY.

  A web of cracks began spreading around them at an indeterminate distance, approaching steadily.

  Liora grabbed Adarin’s hand, squeezing his wrist and staring at him wide-eyed. “What do we do now?” she whispered.

  He took a deep breath. “We have to get out of here.”

  “But we haven’t even met our mentors.”

  Adarin’s thoughts ran as fast as he could force his mind to move. Something’s rejecting me. But this… this must have been anticipated.

  And yet… there is no assistance coming. That means…

  He ran through the walls of his memories, searching for the weapons he knew had to be there. He dove into sealed archives, tried one authorization code after another—nothing.

  The cracks closed in. Liora nearly squeezed the blood from his hand.

  He tuned out her panicked murmurs. Tuned out the angrily pulsing red text and the system’s cold, condemning presence.

  Then he found them. Low-level data weapons.

  He mentally reached into the trove.

  And—Swirling constructs, fractal patterns of wire shifting in and out of higher dimensions, shot out from him.

  They met the cracks, and blue light began spreading.

  The system text froze as one of the constructs latched onto it.

  Liora stumbled back from him, wide-eyed. “What are you doing? You can’t—the System is—”

  She took a sharp breath, then folded her hands over her heart and began to pray:

  “Mother Ishna, preserve me from evil. Preserve my soul through integration. I’ve sworn my life to you, and I will hold to my oath. Oh, Holy Mother, please let us—”

  Adarin tuned it out again.

  He focused on the data weapon latched onto the System text—an interface point.

  He jumped to a familiar access layer and threw out a dozen data hounds.

  They dove into the cracks his weapons had forced open. With rapid gestures, Adarin constructed a model of the hostile environment. Two interface points. The system’s immune reaction was closing in fast.

  But—there. A third interface. A hidden one.

  And suddenly, he understood why he was together with Liora here.

  With sharp flicks of his wrist, he hurled data weapons at her interface.

  She gasped and her body shuddered.

  But he just released more data hounds into her interface.

  He spun and grabbed both her shoulders with his hands.

  I have to make this convincing. If she doesn’t cooperate—

  “Leora! Priestess—I need your power! Focus on your… Focus your will. Focus your energy. Focus on your intent.”

  He stared into her panicked eyes.

  “Believe that we will survive this. Believe it with all your heart—”He gestured behind him, at the struggle between the writhing constructs and the closing wall of system purge.“—and push that belief outward!”

  Adarin looked into Liora’s eyes. She’s hesitating.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  He squeezed her shoulders harder until she yelped. He leaned in, his voice sharp and cold.

  “Do it, or both of us will die. You don’t want to die, do you?”

  “You’ve always fought when threatened. That’s how you killed the orc warchief. That’s how you won against the goblins.”

  “Fight, girl. Fight for your life.”

  She stared at him—eyes wide, uncertain—then slowly nodded.

  Ripples of purple and green energy surged outward from her core, expanding like a heartbeat into the crumbling space. They met the raging struggle between his data weapons and the incoming red cracks.

  She closed her eyes. Focused.

  And Adarin felt it—the balance forming. Her will wrapping around the clash, halting the retreat of his data constructs.

  He smirked. My tech base is inferior to the System. But I can use the System’s own tools against it. Good.

  Then he focused on the data hounds burrowing through the interfaces.

  The third one. The hidden one.

  There it was. What he had been expecting all along—A packet. A sealed container, buried deep. Left behind for him.

  It unfolded before him like a mechanical flower.

  He was engulfed in a stream of protocol data—Imperial code, but warped, altered.

  An interface layer. Software built to bridge his systems and the System. Yes.

  He drank it in. Rewrote his access hooks. Rebuilt the upper layers of his mental OS.

  For a moment, the entire liminal space dimmed. The red glow faded—briefly.

  Then: FLASH.

  Red lightning arced in the distance, and engulfed them.

  Splitting headaches tore into him as he pushed one data packet after another through his neural buffer.

  He broke apart structures in his mind. Reassembled. Reformatted.

  It hurt.

  And then, all of it—

  The pain

  His body

  The outside world—

  —drifted into meaninglessness.

  The world thinned to nothing but the data stream. Then—snap—the last shard settled, and the red cracks vanished.

  The system’s will hit him like a tidal wave. He gritted his teeth. Bureaucracy never changes.

  He stumbled back, chest heaving. Taking a shuddering breath, he opened his eyes.

  Liora was kneeling before him. Arms outstretched as if she were holding up the heavens.

  She was chanting.

  A wordless prayer.

  A song of pure intent.

  He tried to take a step toward her but was pushed back by the energy radiating from her body.

  He screamed her name, but couldn’t hear his own voice.

  Yet—she blinked.

  And slowly, the cadence of her energy slowed.

  Like the heartbeat of a mortally wounded man whose body still pushed on.

  Her prayer ended.

  Adarin stepped toward her again. He felt prickling, static energy crawl over his skin—it was as if she were charged with lightning. What is this girl?

  Rüdiger mentioned she has exceptional talent. Yara chose her body wisely.

  For a moment, Yara’s face flickered over Liora’s—one ghost laid atop another. Yara… why do I still see you?

  As Liora took a deep breath, her thoughts drifting somewhere far off, Adarin stepped closer.

  “How are you?” he began—

  But she didn’t answer.

  She was staring past him.

  “I am fine,” she whispered absently.

  Adarin turned around.

  Behind him floated glowing light blue text—not the hostile red the system favored, but a color more familiar. The same tone as his data weapons.

  But it wasn’t just blue.

  Purple streaks—traces of red corruption—rippled through the script.

  He smiled.

  So we figured out how to interface with that technology after all. Good.

  He stepped toward it and studied the text before him.

  Implants selected.

  Cognitive implant — patched.

  Limited protocol database [virtual machine].

  You have access to a limited set of Imperial Mindware, including data hounds, data weapons, and various tactical analysis protocols.

  [Grow in power to unlock more capabilities and attempt interface with the hidden point again at each tier.]

  Movement implant — patched.

  Control shard generator [virtual machine].

  Generate illusion core tier × 10 control shards you can detach from your core sphere.

  The more shards you imbue into a construct of living wood, the more sophisticated is your control over it.

  Resistance implant — patched.

  Groveheart [virtual machine].

  Select alteration core tier2 + 2 woody plant species. Their traits echo within you, growing stronger as your grove does.

  Perception implant — patched.

  Noospheric Link [virtual machine].

  Linked to minds chosen by Entity [REFERENCE ERROR]. Range scales with entity power.

  Adarin soaked in the information like a man who had been left alone in the desert. So these are my weapons now. Good enough.

  As soon as he committed the text to memory, it blurred.

  A quick glance at Liora’s interface confirmed the same—her text was resetting.

  New words appeared, simultaneously on both of their displays:

  Initiating…

  Mentor selection assessment complete.

  Proceed? (Y/N)

  Adarin inclined his head slightly and threw a glance at Liora.

  The girl was bouncing on the balls of her feet, giddy with excitement.

  “So this is it… mentors. Training. Real power.” Her voice trembled between fear and excitement.

  She smiled faintly. “What quest will the Holy Mother set me on?” she whispered, more prayer than daydream.

  Thanks for reading — let me know in the comments what you thought about the chapter!

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