The joys of Ascension. For Rory, it was his fifth -sixth in technicality- ascension, and he’d come to value them far more now that they were events that occurred once every few years at the best of times.

  “So where to start?” Rory contemplated. “Attributes or skills?”

  It was a question he mulled over only briefly. One should permanently save the best for last, after all.

  “Attributes it is.”

  Unlike his first few Ascensions, Rory had a strategic approach to his attributes. He made sure to dump just enough in physical attributes to keep himself treading water, and the rest was split between Cognition and Growth. His bell-curve ranking confirmed he was at the forefront of Cognition investment, and the rest of his attributes were maintained at a steady average, thanks to the raw returns on Growth attributes from prior ascensions.

  Done with attributes, Rory frowned.

  “In the past, that was so much more exciting,” Rory said, speaking to himself. “Now it's just a matter of business.”

  It was the reality that even the most novel things would grow mundane if you removed the exciting aspects, treating them as business as usual, precisely what attributes had become. They hadn’t become any less important; it was just that Rory had broken them down into something closer to a science or a math formula than some voodoo universe-altering magic.

  Well, I shouldn’t get too sentimental. It was bound to happen eventually.

  Not needing to spend more time on his attributes, Rory quickly got to the good part.

  Skills.

  Ordinarily, this was the point in which he’d spend however long it took to decide on a single skill from three or five listed skills.

  This time was different.

  The first and most apparent was that he had two selections, which was nifty in Rory’s own words.

  The second was that rather than the usual number of skill offerings, the longer list instantly caught Rory’s attention.

  There were nine skills up for grabs.

  “Cripes,” Rory muttered. Indecision was already a bitch to deal with, and now he had even more skills to choose from.

  Well, there is no better place to start than at the beginning.

  Starting from the beginning of the list, Rory quickly read off the skill.

  Great Teacher

  The role of the teacher has been admired and respected since time immemorial. A bad teacher can send aspiring pupils to obscurity, never rising to their heights. A good teacher can uplift a student to reach their potential. A great teacher goes even further, helping apprentices and pupils achieve their potential, shatter it, and claw past even their heights, the stars the limit. Grants the ability to inspire skill acquisition more readily among those who learn from you. Furthermore, grants instinctual comprehension of foundational teaching concepts, philosophies, and practices.

  “I guess that’s interesting,” Rory said, thinking about the skill. It wasn’t an active skill based on the wording, but it was one of those ‘skills’ that were closer to passive effects, which Rory already had several of. It wasn’t a bad offering, and it didn’t take much introspection to guess why he’d been offered a skill revolving around teaching, but it wasn’t for Rory. He wasn’t against teaching, but there was a reason he’d never actually wanted to be a teacher back on Earth.

  Next.

  Inspecting the next option, Rory felt his eyebrows inching upward. Already, he was offered an interesting choice, and it was only the second listing.

  Mind Palace

  The mind is like a palace of knowledge, memories, and thoughts. For you, that becomes more literal. Through significant investment in Cognition and practice in mental diversification, you gain the ability to form a Mental Space in which time is perceived as slower, and the world around you can be freely adjusted and manipulated. Within your Mental Space, all skills and gear may be freely utilized and modeled against whatever you have perceived in the past. Mental Spaces do not contribute to direct growth. The rate of cognitive stress accrued is tied to Cognition, and the length of time skill activation is maintained.

  Now, that was an interesting skill. If his understanding was correct, it was the ability to construct a ‘virtual reality’ in which he could interact and model skills, or anything for that matter. The only ‘real’ ‘downside,’ for example, was he couldn’t do push-ups in a Mental Space and expect it to translate to actual effects on his body, and much like his Eye skill, it caused mental stress to build the longer it was kept active.

  Rory really wanted to select the skill already; it was perhaps one of the most fascinating skills he’d seen to date. Still, Rory wasn’t entirely without discipline, so he mentally earmarked it before moving further down the list.

  Guide of Society

  Much like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a society to elevate a person to success. Understanding the importance of a prosperous society, you’ve dedicated yourself to uplifting and serving your society. Serving a greater purpose, you may share the burdens you face so long as it serves the greater whole.

  “Huh?” Rory frowned. It was one of those esoteric-ass skills, barely explaining anything. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t understand where the skill came from; he’d spent the last few years working toward the addition of their energy grid into their settlement, which could be viewed as a ‘dedication to society’ but Rory had done it to pursue what was beyond that hill. Still, Eon seemed to recognize the effort enough to offer the glorified civil servant skill.

  As for what the skill did? Rory had absolutely no idea. ‘Sharing Burdens’ could mean any number of things. A part of Rory was tempted, but only because he was curious what the hell ‘sharing burdens’ meant. Once he pushed that curiosity aside, Rory found no real draw toward the skill.

  Moving on.

  Societal Renaissance

  “Another society skill?” Rory blurted. It wasn’t often -if ever- that Rory found himself offered more than one skill of the same ‘family’ within the same ascension.

  Societal Renaissance

  Much like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a society to elevate a person to success. Understanding that you look to promote your growth through the growth of society around you. Gain an Ascension multiplier effect while actively uplifting a nearby friendly settlement.

  Notice: Ascension Multiplier scales with Settlement Grade.

  “Okay, that’s more interesting,” Rory said. Rory couldn’t honestly remember if he’d ever been offered a skill that potentially modified his rate of Ascension Energy gain. The closest to that was that he’d been almost entirely prevented from receiving Ascension Energy while using his railguns. The only reason he could receive any energy was that, as long as he was the direct craftsman of the railguns, that effort would at least be ‘rewarded’ even if it was nothing more than a consolation prize.

  The skill was another passive skill, but at the very least, it was far more interesting than the last Social-Class skill.

  I hope they aren’t all some form of society-type skills, though.

  His fears were only reinforced as he read the next skill name.

  Shining City on a Hill

  “That’s just an America reference,” Rory pointed out. He could directly remember hearing that some politician or whatever had referenced America as a “Shining City on a Hill” in some history class or another. Waiting a second or two, Rory shrugged as Eon made no effort to defend itself for the blatant plagiarism.

  Shining City on a Hill

  A civilization is only as great as the leader who directs it. With you at the helm, any city can be made into a shining city on a hill. Grants access to the Sovereign System.

  Notice: Due to already leading a high-ranked city, skill offering grants access to a higher-tier Sovereign System baseline.

  “That reminds me,” Rory suddenly remembered. “Don’t I have growth pathways or whatever they were called for my settlement? I haven’t thought about that in a few years.”

  Unexpectedly, an answer appeared as a notification appeared.

  Notice: Growth Pathways feature has been scrapped and replaced with Sovereign System.

  “Seriously?” Rory said, wishing Eon were still here. “You made a feature just to remove it?”

  Notice: Some features and systems may be altered due to the evolving nature of the growing universe.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Alright, fair enough,” Rory muttered.

  My fault. I created Eon with video games in mind, and that’s what I got. It’s in line with a video game developer to remove a feature if they found it didn’t get the player engagement they hoped for.

  Sighing, Rory could only shrug. It's not like he’d made much use of the Growth Pathways anyway.

  If that's the case, I’ll eventually have to acquire a skill that grants access to the Sovereign system.

  If today would be that day, Rory wasn’t sure yet. He still had quite a few more skills to review.

  At the very least, it wasn’t actually a Society-class skill.

  Moving further down the list, relief flooded Rory, finally a skill unrelated to city building.

  Core Modifier

  Few can claim skill with manipulating Monster Cores, if only due to their rarity. As one of the leading few, you’ve gained an understanding of the secrets of core modification. Grants the ability to visualize the properties of a Monster core and enables further possibilities with skill advancement.

  “Interesting.” Rory drummed his fingers on the table, considering the skill. Monster Cores were the second-rarest thing he’d encountered while on Aelia. The absolute rarest object had been the confounding Den Mother Nuclei, of which he’d only ever obtained one.

  Which, by the way, was still sitting in his hovel and collecting dust.

  Monster Cores were valuable because they were containers and vessels for massive amounts of power, Pneuma, Essence, or even Ascension Energy. At least, that was what Rory had learned up to this point. The reality was they were so damn rare that it was hard to study them and form actual concrete hypotheses. Perhaps they would become more common as monsters became more powerful, but even then, the skill made it a point of stating just how rare they were.

  So, is it wise to acquire a skill like this when it is effectively a dead option for the foreseeable future?

  The answer was obviously no. Thankfully for Rory, he didn’t have to make his choice quite yet.

  Onward and… hot damn, what the hell?

  Forge of the Cosmos- Young Stellar Heart

  The forge of the cosmos is none other than the stars in which nearly all matter is born. Compiling an insight into the very heart of the creation of the universe, alongside an advanced knowledge of forging, gain the ability to give life to a Forge Star.

  Notice: Requires a sufficiently advanced forge to withstand the power of the Forge Star.

  Notice: Forge Stars gradually grow more potent with time as they mature.

  “No way… is there?” Rory pondered aloud. If what he was reading was correct, and it wasn’t somehow embellishing itself far more than the truth of the skill…

  “Is this suggesting I can make a star inside our forge?”

  It seemed too far-fetched to Rory, but at the same time, that was precisely up the alley of Eon.

  I’m assuming the Young Stellar Heart refers to the basic version of the Forge Star, and with time, you can skip straight to making matured Forge Stars.

  That was an exciting thought, but Rory forced his eyes onward before he could get too carried away. There were still two options on the list, after all.

  Stabilized Chaos

  Where you tread, order follows. Your very presence brings stability to chaos without ever losing the inspiration of chaos itself. Gain the ability to lock down instability, scaling based on durability and pneuma.

  “Lock down instability? What does that even mean?” Rory found himself staring at the skill in confusion.

  I’m assuming the entire thing about bringing order has to do with, well, making shit. It's not a combat skill if that’s the case; it's not like I could be offered one in the first place.

  It was intriguing and definitely in the better half of the skills offered.

  But there is always a but.

  But the issue was that it clearly laid out that the attributes the skill relied upon most were durability and pneuma. His durability wasn’t terrible; it was average, thanks to the extra attribute density Growth afforded him, but his Pneuma attribute was in the dumpster, entirely relegated to oblivion.

  “Going to have to veto this one immediately if that’s the case.”

  Which left him with one last skill. Metaphorically holding his breath, given that he couldn’t physically hold his breath in the weird mind space he was in, Rory took the plunge as his eyes trailed down to the final option.

  “Not sure what I was expecting,” Rory said after a moment of thought.

  Essence Projection

  Having practiced utilizing your essence with all things mundane and tasting the beginnings of further possibilities, you can now evolve your potential. Gain the ability to project your essence into the world around you and shape reality to your vision.

  Notice: This skill acts as a direct upgrade to (1) of your already acquired skills. Therefore, greater innate knowledge will be gained as compensation if acquired.

  “So, you can be offered direct skill upgrades,” Rory muttered. “And I’m assuming the skill in question is Essence Spark.”

  If that’s the case, the question remains: what does it mean by ‘tasting the beginnings’ of further possibilities?

  Rory could only frown as he considered the mystery of where and how he’d done so.

  Well, it probably must be from something recent, given I can’t think of any other time I’d have done or seen something out of the norm… So, what could it be?

  For what felt like hours, Rory sat there, thinking. It was a good thing he was in a mental space-

  “Wait a second, Mental Space?” Rory suddenly stood up, his thoughts instantly sidetracked.

  Is that what this entire place is called? A mental space? So, Mind Palace would operate something like this place?

  That was an interesting realization, but not the one Rory had set out to make. Sitting back down, Rory forced his thoughts back to sleuthing out what incident Essence Projection referenced until, finally, a lightbulb lit up.

  “The impromptu whip, maybe? I tried to use my new affinity with it, and it seemed to behave a little differently than normal.”

  It was the only thing he could think of, but that shouldn’t have been enough to spark an entire skill offering.

  Unless?

  The Reaping Ash Coscinocera had exuded a powerful field that had felt like sand and ash. Rory had thought it was perhaps some form of magic -and in a fashion, it was- but now, as he considered it more, it was likely that the aura around it was quite literally the projection of its essence. It seemed like semantics, but Rory tapped his fingers on the metal table, shaking his head.

  No, it’s not semantics.

  “If I had to guess, it's like this,” Rory said, responding to his inner monologue. “Normally, to use magic, you utilize pneuma and shape it with intent. That takes a mental effort and a degree of talent with pneuma. With essence projection, couldn’t you shortcut that? Rather than actively shaping your intent, your essence would automatically handle some of that, aligning pneuma to behave based on your essence.”

  There was most definitely more to it than that. Yet, Rory felt as if it made sense. Using your essence to shape your magic rather than active mental focus would explain why the aura around the killer moth had been an incredibly uninspired albeit deadly form of magic.

  I won't lie; it’s rather intriguing. It may even provide a way to grow stronger without actively gaining a combat skill.

  Based on how Rory understood it, it sounded like a combat skill, but he wasn’t about to nitpick with Eon.

  That said…

  Rory wasn’t about to automatically pick the final option, as if the list went from least valuable to most valuable. He still wanted to really consider his choices.

  Man, I am glad I at least have two choices.

  A few options were thrown from the list instantly, mostly the society-focused skills and Stabilized Chaos for being damn near unusable to him. After that Core Modifier was tossed; sure, it sounded interesting as hell, but Monster Cores were rare enough that the skill could potentially go years, if not decades, without usage. Shining Hill followed; it was yet another attempt at getting Rory to buy into the Sovereign System. He would get around to that eventually, but running a settlement of two left the option feeling… Excessive for the time.

  With its constant push for the Sovereign System, I can’t tell if Eon is some grand overarching existence or a door-to-door salesman.

  Which left Great Teacher, Mind Palace, Forge of the Cosmos, and Essence Projection.

  Fingers tapping away at the desk, Rory tossed his fifth option, Great Teacher binned.

  It’s interesting, but I’m not a teacher by trade.

  “Mind Palace, Forge of the Cosmos, and Essence Projection,” Rory voiced his thoughts out loud, trying to find another point to dial in on.

  Well, how about this? There is one option here that I’m certainly not tossing.

  “Skill Selection One,” Rory spoke, knowing fully that Eon would have responded to his thoughts just as easily as his actual verbal selection. “Forge of the Cosmos.”

  I mean, how can I not select the option that’s all about making a goddamn star? Even if it did nothing but look cool, that’s still an auto-take.

  With the easy option handled, Rory was left with his final two.

  Mind Palace or Essence Projection?

  They both had their pros. Mind Palace, assuming it worked at all like the space he was currently in, would be exceptionally useful for planning things out if he could summon things into existence and time was dilated.

  Essence Projection, meanwhile, was a direct promise of power. It wasn’t technically a combat skill, but it definitely skirted the line. Assuming it could be used to the same effect as the Reaping Ash Coscinocera, he’d instantly level up his capabilities. And if he could use it for crafting as well?

  Even better.

  Mulling the two competing camps one against the other once more for what felt like hours, Rory finally decided.

  Mind Palace it is.

  The decision ultimately came down to two factors. First, Essence Projection was the direct upgrade over Essence Spark, implying that he could get the upgrade himself with ordinary practice.

  The second factor was the time Rory spent mulling over his choices. He felt like he’d spent hours thinking when the reality was probably closer to minutes in the real world.

  Could he do that whenever he chose and not just upon ascension?

  That question alone made the choice obvious.

  Before he could even announce his decision, Rory suddenly found himself lying in the sand, naked, save for a pair of shorts he’d worn beneath his blood-weaved legs.

  “Wow, that took you a while.” A voice spoke up, grabbing his attention. Turning his head awkwardly --his entire body felt sore and stiff- Rory saw Apostolos seated with his butt on the ground, juggling debris from the destroyed temple.

  “How long was I out?”

  “Half an hour, give or take,” Apostolos said with a shrug, dropping the stones. “Beat my record for the longest ascension,”

  “Must have been a hell of a lot of repairs needed for my body,” Rory said thoughtfully.

  “You remember a few years back when you accidentally degloved your thumb while showing me some forging techniques?”

  “Yeah?” Rory said with a wince. It hadn’t been a pleasant memory after all.

  “Imagine that, but your whole body, repeated three times, and then you were tossed out to fester in the heat for good measure.”

  “Ahh, so not much of a pleasant sight,” Rory said nonchalantly as if he were talking about the weather or how the Cubs had lost yet another game, not how he’d nearly died a terrible and gruesome death.

  “You aren’t… a little more phased?” Apostolos asked. “After I found out I almost died, it was like-”

  “You know me,” Rory interrupted. “Worry about what’s worth worrying about. If I died and I couldn’t have stopped it? Why worry? And if I survive just barely? Still, why worry? No point fretting what is out of your control, and it's already settled, so again, why worry?”

  “But it was in your control,” Apostolos countered.

  “Au contraire,” Rory said with a pinched voice, doing his best to imitate a French accent, well aware that Apostolos wouldn’t get the reference anyway. “My preparations were within my control, and I already did my fretting over that. I even fretted as I fought. But once I’d decided to toss caution to the wind and go for it? From that point on, there was no point fretting. The dice had been rolled whether I knew what the dice rolls were or not.”

  Rory made it a point of not mentioning how his mind had been very minutely altered at a critical junction; he didn’t want to make the kid freak out should Rory don blood weave again in the future.

  Which I probably will.

  “Well, I guess I’m just glad you survived,” Apostolos said with a sigh of relief. “That battle was insane to watch. Now that you’re tier-six, could you move like that naturally?”

  “Not even fucking close,” Rory laughed, clenching his hand as he got a sense of his strength. While he hadn’t invested any major attributes toward strength, durability, or anything aside from the bare minimum, a level of baseline physical growth came with ascension. As Rory understood it, based on what Eon had said once, one’s race steadily crept toward perfection with each ascension. Be it the perfect human -proto-human in Rory’s case- perfect Anzu, perfect Osferian, it didn’t matter; each race slowly crept toward their own ‘perfection.’

  That said, even between the natural improvement of his race rank and the attribute investment, Rory was beyond certain that the attribute level he’d shown during the battle against the Ashworm was something that would probably only be possible around A7.

  Hmmm. That makes me wonder. Will blood weave start to lose its overall effectiveness soon?

  Rory didn’t have enough data to make any claims with certainty, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have an educated guess.

  If one thought of how much ‘power’ each tier had, one could think of it in terms of magnitudes, ten, one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, etc. Blood weave didn’t boost attributes by boosting by an entire ‘magnitude’; it simply increased them by flat value. A ‘one thousand’ boost could be compared to an entire tier increase in the low levels.

  But as he moved up the food chain, an increase of one thousand would mean far less if your baseline was already sitting at one hundred thousand, a million, a billion, or whatever arbitrary value.

  Unless a more mature bloodwood can retain a larger essence reserve from stronger monsters. Then, it might be possible to see continued usage.

  As interesting a potential conundrum as it was, it was neither here nor there for the time being.

  “So, you won’t be moving like that all the time. Good to know.” Apostolos said, taking in the information with a hint of relief in his voice.

  “What, were you jealous?” Rory teased his young apprentice.

  “What? No.” Apostolos said as Rory saw straight through the young man’s attempt at hiding it. “Anyway, I’ll catch up sooner or later. You’re still mostly focused on crafting, right?”

  “I’m focusing on being an Architect,” Rory said, waving his hands mysteriously.

  “Sure, whatever you say, boss man,”

  “You were such a cute kid once upon a time,” Rory responded, wiping a mock tear from his eye. “Whatever happened to that nice, polite child?”

  “I’ve got a master who does stuff like this, is what happened,” Apostolos sighed before shaking his head. “Soo…. The Maw?”

  “Oh, right.” Rory perked up, understanding what Apostolos was getting at. Pulling up his interface, there was a blinking notification ready to be clicked upon.

  Time for floor completion goodies.