Rory floated in darkness; a dull thud was heard far away in the background.

  “Huh,” Rory mumbled. Pinching himself, Rory nodded once. “Not awake.”

  “Still, it’s a bit odd. I think I’m asleep. Sort of? But it’s not like anything I’ve experienced before.”

  Rory continued to float, confused as to what was happening. There was no Eon, Ascension table, nada, just a dark void.

  “I wonder. I was knocked out of my Mind Palace from overuse, but I never actually ended the skill. If I’m currently unconscious, could it be that the skill is still active? Does that mean I can use it while asleep?”

  “Well, lesson learned,” Rory mumbled, waving his arms like he was making a snow angel as he floated in darkness. “I now know what happens when you accumulate too much cognitive strain from overuse of mental skills. A headache like the devil itself decided to beat my skull in with a brick.”

  It was something Rory could say he’d never bothered to test before. After all, who would purposely test such a thing? Hell, even if he wanted to, he hadn’t skills advanced enough to accumulate that much stress that quickly.

  Between Architect’s Reality and his Eye skill, he could cause it now; that much was certain.

  “Going to have to be more considerate of that in the future,” Rory mumbled.

  Still floating, Rory began to feel bored. He attempted to deactivate the skill, yet nothing happened. He couldn’t deactivate it while unconscious, or he was already too ‘deep’ that turning the skill off did nothing. Unable to escape the clutches of the skill, Rory floated in endless boredom. Hours passed until those hours turned into days. Even the days began to fade as Rory fidgeted in the dark.

  “All right, the lesson is learned.”

  Had it not been for the changes to both his mind and body derived from each Ascension, the days, turning into weeks, of floating in the dark would have gradually bled him of his sanity. His sanity protected, Rory instead floated in boredom, toying with different ideas.

  “It sucks that I can’t use any skills right now,” Rory said after his second week of floating. “This would have been perfect for coming up with ideas.”

  Not that he couldn’t think, plan, and formulate ideas. It just so happened that when he could utilize other skills in conjunction with regular, old-fashioned thinking, things were far more straightforward. Still, Rory wasn’t planning to use it as an excuse to waste perfectly good planning time in the endless darkness. Thinking about his most recent problem, that of his Stellar Forge, Rory pondered his best solution.

  “Inscription won’t be enough; that much is obvious. I could probably try to beat my head against a wall for as long as I want to find the perfect base, but I’m missing too much critical knowledge. I don’t know how much old universe physics applies to my current understanding of general fusion. Not that I knew that much about fusion in the first place. Plus, matter in this universe isn’t the same as in the old universe; you can’t smash two hydrogen atoms together if hydrogen itself no longer exists.”

  With nothing else to do but float in the darkness, Rory spent three days thinking about it before an answer clicked.

  “Oh. Duh. I’ve only considered using them in armor and weapons, but nothing says I can’t extrapolate them to other things. Why don’t I add Gem Crafting into the mix?”

  One of the core points of the gems made through Gem Crafting was that they could massively amplify the power of a specific ‘effect’ or magic. He’d managed to withstand the concentrated blast from a tier-six monster with the barrier effect of several gems working in tandem. Even if he had used all the energy in his armor together, if he had tried to erect a barrier directly, it wouldn’t have even slowed the attack.

  “Also,” Rory said, lecturing to an imagined classroom filled with copies of himself. “My most practiced gem is a barrier gem. How difficult would it be to adapt that concept to work in tandem with an inscription base meant to create a containing magnetic field?”

  Without being awake, he had no way of knowing if the idea had merit, something he could usually determine through how much his eye twitched in response to whatever he’d come up with.

  Still, it seemed like a strong start.

  “Man, if only I were-”

  “-awake.” Rory suddenly said, his eyes snapping open.

  “Huh.” Rory slowly sat upright. The duo-suns shone brightly overhead, and a bird chirped in the distance.

  How long was I out?

  Yawning and stretching his arms overhead, Rory was surprised at how good he felt.

  You know, I’ve been pushing myself hard for the last… while. I’m always building, planning, or fighting something.

  Clambering out of his freakishly soft moss bed, Rory meandered the camp. Apostolos was out, with Rory no wiser about where the young man had gone. Still, he was now a tier-five and could take care of himself, especially since he had all the benefits of Phoenix Rebirth.

  While part of Rory wished to leap straight back into the fray of planning and thinking, he sat next to their now eternally blazing campfire instead. It had been wired into their energy grid shortly before integrating with the rest of the settlement.

  Thankfully, a small campfire barely takes any energy to maintain.

  Taking time to do nothing but lounge and relax, Rory enjoyed the relative peace and quietness of the moment. If you ignored the duo-suns or the trees that looked like the Amazon rainforest had taken an obscenely liking to the color orange, you could almost think of yourself in the middle of an Earth Forest, out for a camping trip rather than building the foundations of a future world.

  “God, what I would do for a cup of coffee about now,” Rory sighed. “Or a good cup of tea.”

  Hmm. I wonder. I’ve managed to create an entirely new type of tree. What’s to say I couldn’t whip up some coco trees or tea plants? Are tea plants a thing? Wait, no; mint is its own type of plant… Considerations for later.

  Letting his mind wander to useless ideas, Rory enjoyed the unurgency of such thoughts, little more than hobby crafts or creations.

  But, like all good things, they eventually had to pass. Ten minutes later, his peace ended when Rory heard Apostolos pushing open the front gate and entering a moment later.

  Five... Four… Three… Two… One.

  Right on cue, Apostolos appeared in front of him.

  “Master, you’re awake!”

  “Yeah, obviously.”

  “I was beginning to worry.”

  “Only just beginning to? Ouch.”

  “I’m serious, master.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand. Alright, give it to me straight. How long was I out?”

  “Five days.”

  Letting out a slow whistle, Rory half frowned. “Guess the skill wasn’t lying about the perception of time being different within a mind palace.”

  “What do you mean?” Apostolos questioned, eyebrows creasing.

  “Oh, I was floating around in a dark void, not unlike the ascension space, for weeks. No skills usable, nada.”

  “How is that possible?” Apostolos questioned, an urgency in his voice that Rory did not share.

  “Probably because I went unconscious while being dragged out of the skill, so I never actually turned the skill off. Asleep, I recovered my mental stress faster than it could accumulate, but it still dragged out the recovery. Otherwise, I probably would have been fine in a day or two.”

  “Oh.” That was all Apostolos had to say.

  “Yeah, it was quite the experience. A bit novel, but not one I’m a major fan of. On the plus side, I had lots of time to think.”

  “About?”

  “My next project, of course,” Rory said. “I know how to get the Stellar Forge working.”

  “Stellar Forge? Is that what you’re calling it now?”

  “Yes, yes, I am. Do not criticize my naming scheme; I had weeks to consider it.”

  “It’s passable, I guess,” Apostolos said with a shrug.

  “Good. Now, what have you been up to?”

  “Not much. I was trying to stay nearby because of the uncertainty of what happened to you. Went and collected some materials, but that’s about it.”

  “By materials, you mean-”

  “Yeah, another bushel of tier-two monsters has been fed to the growth ritual.”

  “Always appreciate a blood sacrifice in the morning,” Rory mumbled jokingly. “Alright. Well, you’re free from your caretaker duties.”

  “Alright…. So, what do you want me to do instead?”

  “What do you mean?” Rory said, frowning.

  “Like… plans. What do you want me to prepare?”

  “Uh, nothing? Do what you want to do.”

  “Are you serious?” Apostolos seemed shocked. “No errands, no lessons, nothing?”

  “Apostolos, you’re officially tier-five, the same tier I was when you first appeared. You’re following your own path as well. From now on, consider this the end of your formal apprenticeship under me. You’re an adult now, kid. Okay, maybe not an adult-adult, but you can fend for yourself and have a good head on your shoulders. There will still be times when I need your help, of course, but it’s time I let you off the leash. Go wild.”

  “For real?”

  “For real,” Rory said, crossing his arms. “Though, basic chores will still hold. If you use something-”

  “Replace it, start the replacement process, or otherwise let you know.” Apostolos said with a sigh, familiar with the spiel.”

  “Good. So, now that you’re free, what are you thinking of doing?”

  “Honestly?” Apostolos said, looking upward at the sky with a frown. “I need to develop some form of combat skill. Being a free-form mage battlemage isn’t as easy as I thought it might be.”

  “Oh, were you testing yourself out against some monsters?”

  “Yeah, and even against low-tier monsters, trying to fight purely with magic when you’ve got no specific combat skills is slow. I need to spend seconds per attack shaping my intent.”

  “Hmm, do you now?” Rory took the complaint and safely placed it in his back pocket, something to hold onto for the future. “Well, you have fun with that.”

  “What about you, master?”

  “As I said, I’ve got work to do on the Stellar Forge. I think I’ve handled the heaviest lifting of mental stressing skills, so I doubt I’ll have an episode like the last one, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

  What Rory was really getting at was that he felt no desire to utilize his Eye skill in tandem with an outward projection of Architect’s Reality, which was how the bulk of the cognitive stress had accumulated last time. A few minutes of maintaining both simultaneously equaled hours, if not days, of either skill being used individually.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Alright, if you say so,” Apostolos said, giving Rory an uncertain look.

  “Look at you, reaching tier-five, and suddenly, you’re acting like I’m an old man with one foot in the grave. I may not have any blood weave on me anymore, but I’m still tier-six; I could give you a hell of a thrashing.”

  “Sure,” Apostolos said smugly, flexing his arms. “Says the old man with half his attributes focused on brain power.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I think the one getting the big head on their shoulders is you, Mr.’ I’ve been combat-focused for exactly one tier now.’”

  Rory chuckled, enjoying the casual banter. He had tried to raise Apostolos so the young man could feel safe joking around Rory. While working as a trainer at a nearby high school, Rory had met several kids who’d grown up in rough homes, and the last thing Rory wanted was to give that same experience back to Apostolos. While he wasn’t his father or brother, Rory still felt his responsibility was to look out for the young man as his quasi-guardian figure.

  “Right… Well, I’m going to go now,” Apostolos said, jerking his thumb toward the gate. “The best way to learn is through practical effort, after all.”

  “Now, who taught you that?” Rory said smugly before nodding. “Go, do what you need to. Just try to report back every two or three days at the latest. Also, do not enter the third level of the Maw. If you must, I’d appreciate it if you went and worked on fully clearing the second level, but again, do not enter the third level.”

  “Don’t have to tell me that twice,” Apostolos said with his hands raised. “Even with my Radiant Ember, I don’t want to push my luck that far.”

  Satisfied, Rory gave him one last nod before smiling like a proud parent. “Go on then, you’re dismissed.”

  Without another word, Rory watched Apostolos turn around, heading out the gate. Within, Rory felt a deep ache.

  Ugh. Why does that feel like a sucker punch? It’s not like he’s moving from the camp. But still… Damn, is this what my parents felt like when I went to college?

  Between reaching tier-five and eighteen years of age, Rory had meant what he had said about believing in Apostolos: to begin to forge his path without always walking in Rory’s shadow. In Rory’s eyes, perhaps the most significant reason for letting Apostolos’ off the leash’ was the young man’s Radiant Ember; knowing Apostolos had what was effectively a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card was quite the stress reliever.

  Thus, the next generation takes flight. Rory thought introspectively, letting the moment drag on for a few extra minutes before shaking himself out of the reverie.

  “Well, that’s enough of that. No rest for the wicked.”

  Days began to pass in a blur as Rory saw little of Apostolos afterward. The young man would show up and wave, which had been the extent of their interaction.

  Which was okay with Rory. He was deep in thought and focus as he slowly began to execute his most recent project. Whenever he wasn’t physically in the real world constructing a mock version of the Stellar Forge to model it within his mind palace more accurately, he was otherwise in said mind palace, conceptualizing and ‘testing’ inscription bases, now utilizing differing gems in his models.

  It was surprisingly complex and simple at the same time. The simple part was the star itself. With the innate understanding granted via the Forge of the Cosmos skill, he soon had a working idea of how exactly to form a newborn star.

  First, his most vital ingredient was the feathers he’d plucked from the body of the Gator of the Feathered Depths. Solar energy made manifest; they were perfect to act as the ‘catalyst’ of the star. Without it, the entire project would take magnitudes longer to enact, as that much concentrated solar affinity would take months -if not years- to gather otherwise.

  Moving past the feathers was the ‘pit’ of the star. It would be a finely crafted gem of his highest caliber; if his mental calculations were correct, it would need to be a gem with at least five hundred convergence points, nearly twice as many as his next most complex gem.

  As for what the gem would be ‘magnifying,’ it would be a gem Rory had already made, a much lesser version that he hadn’t expected to be perfect for birthing a star.

  That gem? None other than his ‘room’ gem. At first glance, they seemed entirely unrelated, but the core basis of the ‘room’ gem had nothing to do with actual physical rooms such as a bedroom, but in controlling a ‘space’ and making it yours, your ‘room’ if you would.

  Magnifying that concept far beyond any other gem he’d ever made would allow for the lockdown of space, enabling the solar energy of the feathers to ‘claim’ said space and freely propagate.

  Still, it wouldn’t be that easy. Even beginning the self-propagation of solar energy would require feeding in a large amount of almost entirely neutral Pneuma of a significantly high density. While the refined Pneuma contained within their energy grid was a good start, as it was, it was still too ‘dilute to fuel the birth of a star.

  Thus, he’d need to construct even more advanced versions of the pneuma crushers specifically for the Stellar Forge, taking already refined Pneuma and advancing it further. At that point, so much refined and dense Pneuma would likely begin taking physical form, like a gas cooled to freezing temperatures.

  Such gaseous Pneuma was perfect, as a natural star was made of cosmic dust and gas. Having gaseous, high-grade Pneuma contained and fed into the Stellar Forge would make the entire process more efficient, as it ‘mimicked’ the natural process of creating a star.

  Which finally left the final piece of the star itself, its ‘bones’ if you would. Taking Pneuma Iron, Rory would slowly enrich it with a large amount of a neutral catalyst, all while blasting it with his lattice affinity. He hoped to make a form of metal with a high degree of integrity and shape it into a matrix in the shape of a geodesic polyhedron.

  How did he know what a geodesic polyhedron was? Pure skill bullshit.

  Eat your heart out, Mr. Renolds. I told you a C- in Geometry didn’t matter. Now I’ve got the universe itself beaming that shit into my brain.

  A rather complex design, the ‘matrix’ would house both the feathers and the actual room gem and would be where the gaseous Pneuma would be pumped into.

  And that was all the simple parts of his Stellar Forge planning.

  The complicated part was still a matter of magical math and material science. Containing the star and the pre-star ingredients would need to be a magnetic field, but maintaining such a field was rather tricky and very costly. Using just inscriptions, it would have been damn near impossible with what they had on hand; Rory simply lacked too much direct knowledge of the actual math behind stellar fusion and stars, meaning the inscription bases would never be detailed enough to operate efficiently.

  Thus, he’d add in several barrier gems. In tandem with a relatively precise inscription base -subjectively speaking- Rory hoped the ‘math’ would work out, and they wouldn’t burn through their settlement’s stockpiled energy in only a few days.

  With that said, he still hadn’t developed a proper inscription order or base that would perform to the desired level. Sure, it would use less energy, but that meant the forge could be sustained for weeks instead of days until it ran out, which was still a failure in the long run.

  Rory wanted it to be power neutral at worst, the settlement generating as much energy as the Stellar Forge needed.

  Hence, Rory needed to physically construct mock Stellar Forges, which allowed him to properly gauge what sort of space he was working with, how large or small he needed to go on specific parts, and other general benefits that could only be gleaned through physical observation.

  It also meant he didn’t have to rely on the outward projection of his mind palace with Architect’s Reality nearly as much.

  That was the ‘math’ part of his issue. The material science problem was that Rory didn’t know what to make the orbital rings of the Stellar Forge of. Anything utilizing affecting affinities would cause the entire thing to eventually fail as they screwed with the rest of the forge, even if only to the tiniest of degrees.

  Which meant Crimson Steel and any other derivative were out.

  Leaving Rory with…. Nothing. He’d never made any alloys utilizing means that weren’t blood-essence related.

  Unlike the matrix at the heart of the forge, the orbital rings were expected to last long term, whereas the matrix was only temporary, a structure from which the star was born but not contained.

  Meaning that whatever the actual orbital rings were made of would have to be obscenely resilient.

  Blasting something with his affinity wasn’t enough to make a material strong. Sure, it had benefits, but it wasn’t some direct ‘upgrade.’ With Crimson Steel and Bloodwood, utilizing his Blood Essence affinity through Essence Spark helped to ‘conceptualize’ an underlying aspect, or so he believed. It was a lot like adding carbon to iron. Sure, that would make robust steel, but that didn’t mean you could add carbon to anything and expect it to improve whatever you worked on.

  So, Rory was left to consider how to get his hands on a material strong enough to withstand the force of a Stellar Heart, which also didn’t involve any interfering essences.

  Now, how do I do that?

  Part of the issue was that Rory had few other metallurgic materials available. His only ‘neutral’ material was Pneuma Iron. Bloodwood was the primary catalyst for making Crimson Steel, which caused its own issues. When turned into a coal-like material, the uncommon-grade catalyst improved the common-grade metal to an equal level, but it also happened to ‘taint’ the metal with blood essence.

  And Rory didn’t have any other form of ‘catalyst’ that he could use to improve Pneuma Iron.

  “Sol’s Glory aren’t a bad idea in themselves,” Rory mumbled. “The issue is, they’re mundane grades; while it might change the Pneuma Iron, it won’t necessarily improve it, or at least not by the significant degree I require.”

  While the name implied a Solar affinity within the trees, a positive affinity for the Stellar Forge, they had a neutral base. The only reason they’d been called Sol’s Glory was that Rory had named them, their orange coloration making him think of the sun on Earth.

  So, back to the drawing board Rory went, tinkering with different ideas or approaches, but none of them seemed right. His best idea had been to overcharge the Pneuma Iron beforehand. Still, the entire point of his final product was it needed to be highly durable and stable, and that much Pneuma infusion would only cause the Pneuma Iron, or whatever the resulting material was, to be unstable, entirely at odds with its intended purpose.

  It took several days of muttering to himself, pacing, building, and tearing down mock Stellar Forges before Rory retreated to his mind palace as he began to workshop another new idea.

  Rory returned to pacing inside his mind palace, and green formations appeared as he mentally shaped the world inside it.

  “My main problem,” Rory said as he paced, a green version of the Stellar Forge appearing. “Is not an issue of material strength. No, with some tinkering and tampering, I could probably come up with some derivative of Crimson Steel that would be tough enough for the task. No, the issue is, really, the issue of affinity. It would be one thing if I could ‘make’ a catalyst with either a neutral or synergistic affinity for forging and alloying a strong enough material. The issue is I need a catalyst of an appropriate grade. Bloodwood works in making Crimson Steel because it’s an uncommon grade tree, but its blood affinity screws with things. The only reason I have bloodwood is the ability to manipulate and corrupt trees because blood affinity is a corruptive affinity.”

  These were all things he’d discussed with Apostolos before, but Rory felt it was essential to retread his thoughts as he continued.

  “Lattice affinity is, I’m assuming, a stable affinity. Trying to recreate the method for making bloodwood trees with lattice affinity instead would likely result in nothing happening, the growing nature of a tree at odds with the stable nature of lattice affinity.”

  Rory stopped as a chalkboard appeared behind him, Rory snatching a piece of chalk and scribbling his thoughts away.

  “But! I was thinking about this wrong. I was trying to figure out a way to create a new catalyst for improving Pneuma Iron when I should be using Pneuma Iron itself as the catalyst.”

  Scribbling upon the chalkboard, Rory soon had a half-decent sketch of a hive-like formation circled.

  “Hiveinite,” Rory announced as if lecturing a class. “An organic material that is resistant to erosion. At first, I didn’t even consider the material as it was aspected with ash and sand affinity. That was until I remembered that I’d modified the affinity of things before. Outright replacing an affinity may not be possible, but adjusting an affinity to something similar should work, as occurred with Apostolos and his affinity.”

  Rory went back to sketching on the chalkboard in his mind until he had drawn a new diagram of a bounded circle with a chain of runes surrounding it.

  “Pneuma is the temporary energy of change, growth, and evolution and can be used to fuel many things. While not as potent as Ascension energy, the ‘older cousin’ of the two, it doesn’t change that Pneuma still is an aspect of change. Using a bound circle accompanied by a detailed inscription base, I can devise a system for slowly tweaking the base nature of the Hiveinite. While ash and sand aren’t compatible with my goals, the fact that it’s specifically resistant to erosion means I may be capable of bleeding off the base affinities and isolating that anti-erosion nature, magnifying from nothing more than a particular trait of the material to the primary aspect.”

  Drawing an arrow away from the Hiveinite diagram, Rory encircled a question mark that the arrow pointed toward.

  “The question becomes, while the spoken theory is there, will it bring the result I’m looking for? The purpose isn’t to charge the material with Pneuma but to utilize Pneuma to modify the affinity, a precision scalpel rather than a blunt hammer. To that end, I need to be very accurate with my estimates. I don’t have enough Hiveinite to experiment endlessly,”

  Nodding to himself, Rory suddenly held two green shapes in his hands, a chunk of modified Hiveinite in one hand and a chunk of Pneuma Iron in the other.

  “By itself, that might be what I’m looking for, but I need something beyond the required ‘base’ as a measure of caution and redundancy.”

  The green chunk of Hiveinite crumbled before reforming into a three-dimensional lattice structure, scaffolding to build the orbital rings over.

  “First, break down the Hiveinite before reshaping it into the foundational supports or bones of the orbital rings I need for the Stellar Forge. Then-”

  Within his other hand, the Pneuma-Iron suddenly dissolved into a liquid mass, rushing over to coat the thin lattice structure formed by the deconstructed hiveinite.

  “-utilizing molten Pneuma Iron that has been continuously melted down and removed of impurities, all while being bathed with equal measures of Foundational and Lattice affinity, will be used to infuse the hiveinite bones of the orbital rings.”

  The now metallic hiveinite reformed into the supports of what would be an orbital ring, just miniaturized and floating above his hand.

  “Trying to craft the orbital rings of a single solid mass wouldn’t work, which is the same reason why houses and any architecture have built-in supports throughout. They’ll be exposed to extreme stress due to the proximity to the Stellar Heart.”

  The bones of the orbital ring were soon covered thoroughly, and it was now a solid ring rotating around a miniature star that had popped into existence.

  “Finally, I’ll continuously add more and more layering of a secondary metal, each layer inscribed with runes and even some gems. As long as the structural support of the orbital rings remains strong, I can likely inscribe the following layers with reinforcement runes to gradually galvanize it over time. I’ll still need to develop a rather robust secondary material, but it will be far less demanding than the actual ring innards of the rings themselves.”

  Rory already had a blend of materials in mind to enhance Pneuma Iron, and while on its own, he didn’t believe it would hold up long term, the modified hiveinite within would provide the support it needed until the galvanizing runes had done their job.

  Looking between the model ring floating above his hand and his chalkboard filled with scribbled thoughts and notes, Rory felt a surge of confidence.

  It feels right.

  To double-check, he would transcribe the notes in the real world and then look them over with a second-stage release of his eye skill, boosting his cognition and enabling the original Eye for Potential effect. As long as nothing jumped out at him as being out of place, it would be his plan of attack for constructing the Stellar Forge.

  It wasn’t the only thing he still needed to plan out. Still, between figuring out the material problem of what to make the Stellar Forge of and the ‘math’ problem of his inscription base, they were the two problems that separated the Stellar Forge from a theory or a concept to an actual, executable creation. Everything else was something he knew he could do or how to do.

  Exiting his mind palace, Rory folded his arms, letting the building ache in his head fade.

  “Planning complete. Now, to move on to the construction.”