Rem rose within his merge domain and broke the lake’s surface. Water streamed off his armored core and fell back in thin lines.
He continued upward.
Slow.
The domain answered with delay. Faster than before. Not by much. He marked it anyway.
Why?
His essence control had improved. He’d worked at that. Leveling might also be pushing things forward behind the scenes.
He tried to think of a way to test it. Hold one constant. Adjust the other. Time the response.
Nothing clean came to mind.
He kept rising.
Still slow.
He cleared the water and drifted higher. The lake spread beneath him in layered bands of color and elevation. Edges sharpened. Gradients separated. His sight favored structure over surface now.
Leaves crossed his path.
No brush against skin. No shift in air. No temperature change.
He stopped climbing for a moment and focused on that.
There was nothing but sight.
The quiet made his thoughts louder. Not in sound — in presence. They ran without interruption. No breath to manage. No pulse in his ears. No weight in his joints. No itch. No ache.
Thought moved cleanly from one line to the next.
That was the real difference.
Not power. Not vision.
Silence.
The sun flared in his perception, a dense knot of brightness. He reduced it with a thought. The glare faded.
Death was a very different kind of life.
A raven cut across his ascent. It faltered mid-flight when it saw him. One sharp correction. A circle back. One long look. Then it fled.
He angled toward the cabin.
Why?
He didn’t need shelter. Didn’t need warmth. Didn’t need sleep.
The cabin still existed in his map of the world. That seemed to be enough.
He slowed.
He searched for sensation.
Found none.
He felt nothing.
— That’s not true.
No?
— From our observation, every action since the loss of your body has centered on exposure to new things. You test. You observe. You retain. Is curiosity a feeling? Do you experience it?
Rem hovered, high above the ground, the lake and trees reduced to ordered fields beneath him.
Curiosity.
He examined it the way he examined speed or distance.
There was no tightness in his chest. No quickened breath. No heat behind the eyes.
But there was direction.
A pull toward the unknown. A resistance to stagnation.
Was that a feeling?
Boredom existed. He could identify that state cleanly. The flat stretch when nothing changed. He had already encountered it.
Sadness. Happiness. Those still registered when prompted by memory or outcome. They lacked the physical surge they once carried, but the structure remained.
So yes. Something remained.
Curiosity counted.
Boring.
The thought arrived without weight, but it shifted his course.
Let’s learn something new.
He slid to the inner wall of the domain and pressed against it. The boundary resisted. Held.
He rotated until the second path arch sat dead ahead.
No countdown.
He drove forward.
The domain released.
He tore free and shot upward. The ground dropped fast. The lake flattened. The trees collapsed into dark scatter.
The domain vanished.
He kept rising.
No wind struck him. No pressure built. No strain registered.
Just ascent.
The world withdrew in widening circles. Detail thinned. Landmarks blurred into pattern. He tracked altitude by loss of resolution alone.
Still rising.
He began estimating peak height. Velocity sustained. No observable deceleration.
Then upward motion stalled.
Transition point.
He tipped and began to fall.
The ground expanded. Pattern regained structure. Forest separated into crowns. Crowns into individual trees.
Acceleration increased. No drag. No resistance curve. Speed compounded cleanly.
He ran the projection.
Impact imminent.
He waited.
Closer.
Now.
He called the merge field.
It snapped into place around him — a cube sealing on all sides.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Velocity dropped to zero in a single event.
The field flared once, light rippling along its interior planes as force dissipated across the structure.
Then stillness.
He hung at the exact center of the cube, suspended above the treetops. No sway. No drift. Position locked.
System messages bombarded him in rapid succession.
Congratulations! Movement threshold exceeded. Titles awarded.
Fleet-Footed
You have reached the documented upper limits of human locomotion under unaided biological power.
While moving at high velocity, +2 Perception.
Velocity Anomaly
Your recorded speed exceeds predictive biological models.
Multiple historical movement records invalidated.
+3 Perception while moving at high velocity.
+5% movement speed.
Unconstrained by Flesh
You have surpassed the safe biomechanical constraints of your species without structural failure.
Human classification status: provisional.
+4 Perception while in motion.
+10% acceleration.
Rem studied the messages and titles.
A final pane slid into place.
You have achieved first-order biological velocity among terrestrial humans through unaided biological power.
All lower movement titles consolidated.
Prime Locomotor
Highest recorded terrestrial human self-propelled velocity.
+5 Perception while in motion.
+7% movement speed.
+12% acceleration.
Momentum builds gradually while maintaining uninterrupted forward movement.
Human classification status provisional. What am I if not human? There are other options? Rem dismissed the messages and fixed on his next heading.
He aligned with the arch and drove forward.
Release.
Launch.
Each boundary strike came cleaner than the last. Angle corrected mid-flight. Timing tightened. The delay between decision and execution shrank.
He crossed in eighteen hops what had taken him nearly a week on foot.
He descended and let the merge domain settle around him as he passed through the arch carved with balanced scales.
He waited.
You have discovered The Path of Iundara.
One who walks the Path of Iundara claims: I render what is deserved.
While upon the Path of Iundara, you gain the passive trait Weight of Judgement.
Weight of Judgement
When you act against the unjust, you are empowered in proportion to the injustice committed.
Would you like to walk the Path of Iundara?
Rem read it twice.
“Empowered in proportion.”
Who determined injustice. The system? Him? Both?
No clarification followed.
He left the prompt unanswered.
There were other arches.
He angled away, acquired a new heading, and struck the boundary again.
He tore forward. A sharp crack followed a heartbeat later.
Rem entered his cabin through the chimney, lowering himself down the narrow shaft. The hearth was cold. The room below sat dark and undisturbed.
He crossed the space and settled above the table.
For the first time, he pushed essence into the ring.
The storage window opened.
He passed through.
The locker space formed around him — broken jars, scattered supplies, the aftermath of his rushed escape.
He began assessing damage.
Then pain struck.
It arrived without warning. Not physical — there was no body to seize — but sharp and immediate all the same. His thoughts fractured. The clean line of analysis broke apart.
He wavered in place.
For a moment he considered retreat.
He held instead.
He forced his focus back onto the shelves. Inventory first. Emotion later.
The pain pressed hard, then steadied into a constant weight. He endured it and moved.
He located the satchel, slid his domain around it, and anchored it within his field.
He withdrew through the window.
The instant he crossed the threshold back into the cabin, the pain cut off.
Not faded. Ended.
He lowered the satchel onto the table.
Then he went to work.
He opened it carefully with the merge domain, separating fabric, loosening ties, drawing out its contents one piece at a time.
Tuesday, Challenge Four, Day 8 ?
I don’t know how long I’ve been inside anymore. I lost track. Time doesn’t pass cleanly for me in this state. No hunger to mark meals. No fatigue to divide the hours. No dark I need to sleep through. Events replace time.
Took a few hours to visit all the paths available in challenge four. Here’s the list:
Path of Styx
Symbol: Mask
One who walks the Path of Styx cannot truthfully declare: I am honest.
Detect Deception:
You sense when another intends to deceive you. This sense sharpens as you progress along the path.
Path of Iudara
Symbol: Balanced Scales
One who walks the Path of Iundara claims: I render what is deserved.
Weight of Judgement:
When you act against the unjust, you are empowered in proportion to the injustice committed.
Path of Thrynn
Symbol: Flame
One who walks the Path of Thrynn does as they desire.
Living Fire:
Indulging your desires strengthens you. Denying your desires weakens you.
Path of Malthyr
Symbol: Treasure Chest
One who walks the Path of Malthyr does not willingly suffer loss.
Malthyr’s Market:
You gain access to Malthyr’s Market interface.
Path of Io
Symbol: Eye Inside Circle
One who walks the Path of Io may declare: I am honest.
True Knowing:
You know with certainty when an assertion corresponds to reality.
Path of Elethra
Symbol: Open Hand
One who walks the Path of Elethra gives favor without merit.
Mantle of Grace:
A zone surrounds you in which curses, karmic debts, and other earned negative effects are negated. The radius of this zone expands as you embody Elethra.
Path of Kereth
Symbol: Sheathed Sword
One who walks the Path of Kareth does not compel others.
Strength in Restraint:
Power accrues when you choose not to impose your will. Imposing your will consumes that stored power.
Path of Althos
Symbol: Overflowing Cup
One who walks the Path of Althos does not hoard wealth.
Fortune’s Favor:
Good fortune bends toward your survival and prosperity in proportion to your generosity.
Eight paths. Roughly divided into opposed pairs. From above the layout makes it obvious. Each one sits directly across from another.
Io across from Styx.
Iudara across from Elethra.
Thrynn across from Kereth.
Malthyr across from Althos.
Looking at the themes, the pattern holds.
Truth vs Lies.
Justice vs Forgiveness.
Indulgence vs Discipline.
Greed vs Generosity.
That means the most I could take is four. One from each pair. Each path cancels its opposite.
God names?
Is this some kind of play for worshipers? Hard to ignore that possibility. I don’t like not knowing what the long game is.
Still, the power on offer is too good to dismiss.
Need to pick the ones that fit.
True Knowing stands out immediately. A truth detector for any assertion. For research alone, that changes everything. No wasted time chasing false leads. Only cost is that I have to be honest.
That part I can manage.
Some of the others are tempting. Strength through indulgence. Access to a marketplace interface.
I don’t like either Iudara or Elethra. I don’t want my strength tied to judging people. I don’t want it tied to absolving them either.
So maybe three.
Rem hovered inside his merge field over the cabin floor. Formation plates lay spaced evenly around him. Seven plates, each pulling essence inward, thickening the air inside the array.
Below him sat a spread of cores at different levels.
He lowered himself and pressed the surface of his core against a level one duplication core.
As a living body, his essence had felt tangled and diffuse. As a core, it was the same substance drawn tight until it held shape.
He pulled.
The duplication core resisted. He increased pressure.
Essence tore free and poured into him. The core fractured along a thin line, then collapsed into powder and dissolved.
Too much of it bled outward into the room before he could capture it. Loose strands drifting beyond the formation.
Wasted.
— So what? You can duplicate more. Keep going.
He continued.
The resistance became familiar. Pull, fracture, collapse. He moved through the remaining level one cores and stepped up to level two. Those took longer. Nearly a full minute each before they cracked and gave way.
Level three cores required focus.
Halfway through the third one, the notification appeared.
Congratulations, you have reached level five!
He paused and inspected himself.
Rembrandt de Vries
Level 5
Living Core
He summoned his merge field. It expanded outward, doubling in span again.
Good. More room.
He considered checking his stat sheet, then dismissed the thought. The plan came first.
He kept draining cores.
Hours passed. Hundreds reduced to fragments and dust. Essence density inside the formation climbed steadily until he judged it sufficient.
First upgrade: the duplication beaker.
He combined four together.
Amber Glass Beaker of Duplication (Level 5)
Grade: Rare
Function: Duplicates contents when agitated
Still limited to controlling two objects inside the merge field. To merge the beakers he had lowered himself to the floor, rolling around until he settled. Inelegant. Effective.
Now for the real test.
He rose inside his merge field and targeted himself and the ring. With a precise pull, he separated the ring from his core.
It dropped into the beaker.
He shook.
One ring became two. Two became four. Four became eight.
He set the beaker down and reached in—
The eight rings shuddered.
They collapsed inward.
Eight to four.
Four to two.
Two to one.
The process completed in less than a second. Had he not been watching through essence sight, he might have missed the intermediate states entirely.
One ring remained.
He lifted it and inspected the ring.
Ring of Panes (Level 5)
Grade: Legendary
Traits: Unique. Paronomastic. Concealed.
Effect: Reach through previously created panes to access the space beyond.
Level five.
Eight level five rings merged should have produced a level six.
He turned the ring slowly inside his field.
— Is that what “Unique” means? Only one instance allowed?
I have no idea. Never seen anything like it.
He considered the outcome.
One ring retaining access to multiple panes was more efficient than eight separate rings.
Still, the system had overridden the expected merge rule.
He set the ring aside.
Next step: duplicating hover cores.
