The Path of Ascension

Matt’s copy shot out a [Mana Slash] immediately upon seeing them, while Aster’s cast [Ice Spear] at the same time.

It might have been threatening, but the two spells were half-formed at best; they were so weak, they only fizzled out in their flight.

The copies Minkalla started with were bad; Matt knew that from all the reports they had seen. But this was beyond his expectations.

As the first two spells crossed the halfway mark, the copies of Susanne and Liz made their moves, with Susanne’s casting a sloppy [Wind Cutter] while Liz’s attempted control over a stream of blood was so bad that the glob of fluid wobbled.

Despite that, they all took the fights seriously, and split off to deal with their copies.

The deeper they were on this floor, the better the copies would be, which meant they needed to learn to fight themselves while there was a smaller risk of death, rather than rushing headlong into danger.

Fighting an exact copy of yourself would, in theory, result in a fifty-fifty chance of victory or death, but Minkalla wasn’t so evil. Instead, the copies it created were based on the version of you that had entered the floor, giving you time to get used to fighting yourself, along with many chances to grow stronger.

After a whole floor without being able to truly use his skills, Matt brought his blade down with all the force he could muster. His copy was weaker, and it almost immediately gave way, just barely surviving by blocking his attack with [Cracked Phantom Armor]. Just for fun, he flexed his boon as he called up his own suit of armor, manifesting it as an icy blue and giving it a few winter-themed features. It didn’t affect the skill beyond making it look cool, but it was a new toy for him to play with, and quite a fun one at that.

The copy’s skill flickered, but he didn’t press his advantage, pulling back instead and allowing his copy to recover. The experience he’d get fighting himself would be invaluable for the end of the floor, after all.

His copy tapped into his own boosts, and Matt echoed in kind. Each of their reflections, until the final boss on the floor, were lesser in some way. Some only had a fragment of their total skills, some lacked Concepts, and very few had a full grasp of strategy and were capable of improvisation. This one, however, seemed like it was slightly weaker overall in every way, but it was an excellent introduction to the floor..

As Matt blocked a thrust and a point blank [Mana Slash], he learned about his own combat style, and tried to dissect it like an opponent would.

He was fast, nimble, and defensive, never overcommitting while also trying to bait opponents into overextending themselves. If that failed, he would just wear them down into dust. Compared to the opponents that Matt was used to fighting, his initial copy was laughably slow and weak, more like a turtle than a predator.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Matt was substantially more than just a defense-specialized melee fighter, and that apparently carried over to his reflection as well, since it unleashed a barrage of [Fireball]s at him. Matt dodged most of them, but cut one in half as he closed the distance between them once again.

It was really fortunate that the copies would be lesser versions of him until the end of the floor, and that Minkalla didn’t raise them to Tier 14. The additional speed and strength alone would be a pain, but mostly, the idea of fighting himself after he got a couple more tier-ups and doubled his mana a few more times filled him with a bit of dread.

Matt had no confidence in fighting a version of himself that had 20,480 mana, versus his current 2,560 mana. It might not technically be suicide, but it would only be one step removed from it.

Even with no more than his current spell arsenal, being able to spend eight times more mana on every spell would mean his [Cracked Phantom Armor] was impossible to break through, while his physical buffing spells would be substantially more potent.

Still, it did give him a relatively easy way to be assured of a win against his reflections for the entire floor. If he broke through to Tier 12, his mana generation would double, and his copies just wouldn’t be able to keep up.

He and this current copy traded a few more blows, with Matt steadily gaining an advantage before it tried to turn the tables with a blast of [Hail], shooting it at him sideways rather than raining down from above. That proved to be a mistake, as Matt reached out with [Ice Manipulation], seizing control of the icy deluge around him. His copy fruitlessly tried to reclaim command of the spell, but Matt’s grip was absolute in comparison to this first reflection.

Matt could feel his Winter boon blossom into full effect. Thanks to the limits on skill usage on floor five, it had taken a while to fully piece together, but he’d eventually nailed down two main effects. The first was a substantial boost to his precision and control when using winter-related elements. It was most obvious with the corresponding Manipulation skills, but was present even in [Hail], as evidenced by his reflection turning it into a headlong ranged attack instead of mere hailstones falling from the sky. Secondly, any ice skills he used grew in power the longer he controlled them, and the more mana he put into them.

All around him, the ice crystals produced by [Hail] grew larger and sharper with each passing second, swirling around the pair of them like they were in the eye of a hurricane. His copy never stopped trying to break his control, until, with a passing thought, Matt directed the entire storm at his reflection. A stream of razor-sharp ice and wind punched through a subpar [Bulwark] and [Cracked Phantom Armor], bursting out the far side of his reflection’s chest and shattering it into a thousand rapidly-dissolving pieces.

Minkalla might recreate their items for their copies to use, but all their equipment, items, and even consumables were fundamentally tied to the copy, and couldn’t be extracted through any means.

Though, he paused to see if his copy would drop any of his skills.

While it was only a remote possibility, getting a second [Cracked Phantom Armor] would be fantastic, so he could modify the second skill for different threats.

He was disappointed when his copy simply dropped an essence stone, but he still picked it up and put it away.

He joined Susanne off to the side, who had already finished her own fight, while he watched Liz and Aster testing their copies. Like him, neither seemed terribly concerned about killing their opponents quickly, instead getting used to the idea of fighting themselves. Liz was testing out the limits of overpowering someone’s control of their own blood, mirroring his own bouts of clashing against her with [Blood Manipulation], but it was clear that she was dominating the entire time.

As Aster killed her copy with a quick [Chomp] to rip out its throat, Liz turned the tendrils of blood swirling around her into spears, skewering her copy a dozen times over. The body and a substantial amount of the surrounding blood soon dissolved into nothing.

There weren’t any terribly notable landmarks around them, with the ruin being a simple forest-type. After a quick survey of their surroundings, Liz stashed a small amount of her blood in a spatially-expanded canteen, brushed off her hands, and consulted her compass to get a heading.

It continued to point to the right as they followed it to a small scattering of other delvers' copies.

They took their time to fight them, as it was important intel on their possible opponents, but it had its complications.

Or at least, it was in theory. Minkalla didn’t always use reflections of delvers on the current floor as templates. Anyone who had ever entered its depths could appear, so far as anyone knew, but it preferred those who had entered the planet this cycle. Particularly those who had reached the floor. Frankly, the sheer breadth of possible people who could appear was good for Matt, since it would help obscure his own identity and trump cards. So long as whoever fought one of his reflections didn’t see an attack that was uniquely and identifiably his, no matter how much mana it used, it wouldn’t be a concern.

He had carefully hidden [Cracked Mana Spear], and from his single encounter with his copy, he assumed that the spell would be hidden until the last moment as well. It was an assumption, yes, but he felt that it was a good one. If the copy had used it immediately, it would have fared much better in their battle.

And while the spell might be incredibly strong, if anyone got attacked with it and survived, they would know one of his most important hidden trump cards, which was less than ideal.

It also meant that anyone who fought his copy would get a good look at his sword, which was one of the things he tried to avoid, as it was the single piece of equipment that could link Quill with his real identity of Matt. He had already failed on that front when fighting Young Master Blood Hand on the previous floor, and it was one reason of many that he so desperately wanted to tie up that loose end.

Knowing there was nothing he could do about that, he just hoped that anyone who fought a copy of himself got blasted to bits by a beam of pure mana.

When they reached the edge of the ruin, they all paused.

The forest ended like it normally did, in a sharp line, but the ruin next to them was out of Matt’s expectation.

It was space.

Or at least, what looked like empty space was sitting next to their standard forest. Vast and devoid of any and everything, it looked like it went on forever, but their compass pointed in that direction without fail.

Liz shrugged. “So, do we follow the compass and enter… space? Seems kinda risky.”

Matt extended [Air Manipulation] into the next rift and confirmed. “Yeah, no actual air in there. I can bring in a lot of air, but I don't have [Create Air], so it will eventually run out.” They did have the skill somewhere in their numerous bags, but they had barely even spared it a thought, given how niche of a skill it was.

Aster yipped a question. “Can we use a spatial ring to bring in more air? It's compressible, so it should be possible, no?”

While they talked and discussed possibilities, Susanne squinted and watched something in the distance before speaking up. “Is that an asteroid?”

Everyone peered into the distance until Liz brought out a pair of binoculars. “Yup, that's an asteroid, and it definitely has air.”

After she handed off the binoculars to Matt, he saw what she meant.

The asteroid had plants and water on its surface, despite not being much larger than their house.

After helping Aster see the asteroid, Matt started doing the math on how much air he could control, and whether or not it would be enough to get them to their next destination.

The answer came out as a confident yes, even without accounting for his Boon.

With half of his mana generation, he would be able to grab and hold enough air for them to breathe confidently.

With that settled, they tied themselves together with a bit of rope and jumped into the void.

Entering the empty space was… odd.

Matt could feel the strain of having to simulate the natural air pressure around his bubble of air, ensuring that it didn’t escape into the surrounding vacuum. Without gravity warping their trajectory, all they did was wait as they floated towards the asteroid.

All of them seemed to have the same thought at the same time, and they twisted to get a look at the ruin behind them.

Like a strip of light in the darkness, there was a band of reality that seemed starkly out of place as light leaked out of the adjoining ruin into the empty space. Oddly enough, it seemed like the ruin they were currently in stretched out beyond their previous ruin as well.

As they drifted out into the distance, Matt started to ponder.

He had a space related Concept, but he had never actually been to space, as odd as that seemed.

Oh, he had traveled through space, but he had never experienced it directly.

That seemed weird to him.

He hadn’t thought about it at all, and even Luna hadn’t suggested anything of the sort. She might have been waiting until he was Tier 15, and didn’t have pesky needs like breathing, but Matt felt connected to the new ruin around him in a way.

Through their bond, he knew Aster felt the same way.

She had aspirations of making space ice, and he could feel her fascination with the surroundings as they drifted through the emptiness.

After a few seconds of drifting, Liz started pushing herself along with [Blood Manipulation], dragging the rest of them to the asteroid that was floating along ahead of them.

As they neared the asteroid, they were attracted to the small oval of rock to a degree that was unnatural, but they didn’t complain, as it gave them fresh air and a place to stand.

Once they landed, Matt looked to his bond, who felt what he wanted to do, and she immediately jumped into his arms. Together, they lept back off the asteroid and into the vacuum.

Holding their breath, they relied on their high Tier bodies to prevent their lungs from exploding in the vacuum.

They both wanted to experience the true vacuum of space.

Instantaneously, Matt’s eyes went dry, so he shut them and experienced the emptiness with his spiritual sense and body.

There was nothing… and everything around him.

Space was the home of everything in reality.

Empty, but not.

He could feel the small random bits of rock and debris drifting along, but he treated them as the inconsequential bits they were.

Matt followed his instincts and flexed his Concept, discovering that his repulsion powers were a touch more responsive.

A white hole might not be real, but it was a celestial body. Space was its home, and he had been remiss in not experiencing this before now.

Next to him, Aster’s manifestation of the dead star appeared and flickered as it started to grow colder. Even though she wasn’t targeting him, Matt felt a chill enter his body and spirit, as her connection to the cold became stronger and stronger with each passing moment.

Eventually, she also stopped and looked up at him, and he flew with his Concept back to the ground, where they took grateful breaths of air together.

Liz was glaring at them when they landed. “What if your eyes had exploded? Then what would you two do?”

Aster rolled said eyes. “We aren’t mortals. We’re stronger than that. And I got a lot out of our experiment.”

Matt nodded along. “I feel a… well, a sort of connection to my Concept I’m not quite used to. It didn’t do much, but it feels like… a door was just cracked open, ever so slightly. It’s hard to describe, but… Hmm. No, I don’t think I can explain it, but that little test was definitely worth it. Once I’m Tier 15, I’ll see about doing it more, I think.”

Liz didn’t complain anymore, and the four of them explored their little island in space.

It was small, but the gravity was a planetary normal, giving them a good foothold despite the asteroid being smaller than a large house.

Liz checked the compass, and it pointed slightly to their left and up, which forced them to use their combined Concepts to change the direction of their asteroid base.

It was hard, but they had just succeeded in steering the rock in the proper direction when they saw another asteroid traveling on a near collision course with their own.

Seeing that it was so similar to the one they were standing on, Liz said, “Anyone want to test why these asteroids have air and such?”

Susanne shook her head. “Not on my asteroid. I’m quite good, thank you.”

Matt smirked, but prepared with Aster to catch their next passerby and crack it open.

It took nearly an hour, but eventually, another asteroid drifted past, and the two of them sprung into action.

Behind Aster, a dead star appeared, and the asteroid slowed noticeably while Matt grabbed it with [Earth Manipulation], pulling it into an orbit with their own.

When it was close, they flexed their powers and shattered the rock, and even Liz whistled as the center of the asteroid was revealed.

Heavy Iron wasn’t named for its properties upon Tiering up. No, while metals almost always got heavier as they tiered up, Heavy Iron was a natural treasure that could increase the weight and durability of any item it was merged with. And the chunk they just got was big enough to be split into at least two portions.

Susanne whistled as they brought the fist sized rock down to their own asteroid. “Okay, I take back what I said. Let's crack open every asteroid we see like pinatas. I could use the increase in durability for my armor.”

Liz shamelessly added, “I’m so glad I told you two to break that asteroid.”

That started their great collecting expedition, and over the next six hours, they harvested a dozen fist-sized chunks of the natural treasure. Some of the asteroids had copies of delvers on them, but they were easily dealt with, as Matt shattered the ground under their feet and left them floating in the emptiness of space, where they were easy pickings for the rest of his team.

Matt used the largest one on his sword, at the insistence of the others, as he had no issue with its weight, even with one of its growth aspects being higher than normal weight and the item being Tier 14.

After his weapon absorbed the Heavy Iron, he nodded at the greater heft and took a while to practice with the weapon, so he could get used to its increased weight. It ended up being heavy enough that Matt needed to run [Mage’s Retreat] at a low level to comfortably use it, but he could still swing the blade without the skill, it just took a lot out of him.

Susanne used it for her armor, and Liz absorbed the Heavy Iron with her Blood Iron, giving her body and blood some additional weight and durability. The added momentum would help with breaking through armor, and additional body weight helped with melee weapon fighting to a degree, as everyone past Tier 6 or so had the strength to spare.

After seeing that Liz had no major side effects from the absorption, and she wasn’t slowed down too much, Susanne did the same, and the two women started practicing and sharing tips on how they were each dealing with the additional weight. Liz mostly utilized her internal hemokinesis, while Susanne relied on her Concept more for the time being. While they did so, Matt stashed the eight remaining chunks of Heavy Iron in their storage, idly wondering if he could get his house to absorb any of them.

While scouting for more loot, Matt saw five strangely symmetrical asteroids, roughly arranged in a ‘K’-shape around a barely noticeable, distorted ring of light. He might not have even noticed them if his Concept didn’t increasingly signal that the world was wrong in that direction. What started as an equivalent to slight white noise became a rather insistent spiritual tinnitus, before finally turning into someone raking their nails on a chalkboard as they got closer.

He was forced to look away and think about it for a few seconds, but then it clicked. The lensing effect was familiar to Matt, and he would have recognized it earlier, but the bright accretion disk usually associated with this object was missing.

“Is that a black hole?”

Aster jumped onto his shoulder, and after some inspecting, nodded. “Sure is.”

“And we’re drifting directly at it?”

“Yup!”

Matt and everyone else panicked. It also explained why they had to push their asteroid so hard to go to the most valuable thing in the ruin. They had been effectively stalling their rotational momentum, which sent them plummeting right towards the black hole.

Liz immediately suggested, “We need to change our direction and slingshot around this thing.”

Matt and Aster both shook their heads, and he responded, “Nope, can't do that. That’s the prize, I'm sure of it. Haven't you heard of the Heart of a Black Hole?”

Liz and Susanne shook their heads while Matt explained. “It's the cultivation core of the black hole, and it’s incredibly valuable, mostly for its use as a crafting material. Even a low Tier core of a normal planet can make Tier 20 items stronger.” Seeing both Liz and Susanne look unimpressed, he added, “We could even absorb its cultivation to speed up our own progress, but that would be a waste. It's better to make an amazing item out of it.”

Liz shook her head. “I also know that only higher Tier people can get the cores of planets and such. On top of that, it happens to be illegal.” She paused for a second before adding, “Well, illegal in the Empire, which we aren't in, but my point still stands. How can we get it out? As far as I know, it takes a Tier 40 to take the core out of a Tier 25 sun because of how hard it is to even reach.”

Matt shrugged. “I have no idea, but it's got to be possible.”

Susanne shook her head. “Not necessarily. The compass points to something valuable, not something valuable that we can get.”

Matt nodded at the distinction, as it was a valid one he had overlooked in his excitement, and the four of them pushed their asteroid into as close an orbit as they deemed safe.

After that, they inspected and thought of a way to destroy the black hole without destroying its cultivation core.

He and Aster chatted about everything they knew about black holes and their cores, but neither of them had an answer beyond throwing the weight of their Concepts against it until it broke.

In real space, that would have been impossible, as even the smallest black hole was far stronger than any Tier 11, but they were in Minkalla, where everything was a challenge to overcome for a Tier 14, and they both had Concepts that were counters to a black hole.

Matt was the inverse of a black hole, while Aster's Concept embodied the true death of the universe, when even black holes had died.

From their little asteroid, they threw their Concepts against the Tier 14 black hole and were immediately rebuffed.

Rubbing his head, Matt said, “Ok, let's try and slowly grind it away. Going up against it directly wasn’t the best decision.”

With that lesson learned, they summoned their Concepts and slowly edged them into the black hole's space.

Aster was manifesting her Concept behind her as she focused on breaking down the black hole. With his spiritual sense, Matt could see his eyes glowing more brightly over time as he focused too, which was decidedly less dramatic.

Almost instantly, Matt understood that they weren’t completing whatever challenge Minkalla had designed for this ruin. It was the same feeling as when he stole the gloves from the first floor, but as they were challenging themselves, Minkalla didn’t deem it necessary to intervene.

It didn’t mean that what they were doing was particularly easy. Not by any means.

If Matt had connected with his Concept during his little excursion into space with Aster, he was now honing and refining his Concept as he held it against the grinding wheel that was the black hole in front of him.

In a battle of pure strength, his Concept was far, far weaker, but his Concept was also alive and growing in a way that the black hole’s wasn't. When his white hole took damage, he was there to repair it and make it grow stronger, while the black hole was slowly whittled away and began dissipating under their combined pressure.

Little by little, Aster and Matt slowly ground the seemingly implacable black hole down, until it was little more than a pinprick of a deeper blackness in the emptiness of space.

During the battle of wills, Matt noticed that when his Concept reformed, it grew stronger with each encounter, as did Aster's. It wasn’t just them attacking a greater entity than themselves, but rather them engaging with and overcoming something that their Concepts didn’t align with.

The back and forth felt as long as weeks and as short as seconds at the same time, but eventually, the black hole collapsed in on itself, and a single, grape-sized orb of darkness floated in the void. All the asteroids started flying off in straight lines once the gravity well holding them in orbit vanished.

Matt fell to his knees, and Aster passed out entirely.

Susanne thankfully reacted in time, and used her Concept to cut space in order to appear next to the orb, grab it, and quickly return to their asteroid.

Aster woke up quickly, and other than a splitting headache, she was fine.

With the core in hand, the four of them inspected it while they drifted towards a small strip of light that more than likely signified an adjoining ruin.

The core was tiny, radiated power like an insanely powerful natural treasure, and was clearly more valuable than that would imply. Matt could tell that it was stuffed with essence from how it felt to his spiritual sense. Considering that the item was literally the essence core of the black hole, it wasn't all that surprising.

It was weird to see it physically there, as living entities didn’t create physical cores, but had them exist entirely in their spirits. It weighed almost nothing, despite being spiritually heavy, as if it was still the black hole it had once inhabited, which explained why it was so useful in crafting. With just that effect, Matt could think of a dozen enchantments he could layer upon the core without actively integrating it, as well as expending it to enhance an existing item to give even stronger effects

That gave him an idea, and he looked down at his gloves.

If they didn’t bind to him as a growth item— which he doubted they would, now that the house had— he thought of a few ways he could increase the gloves' gravity prowess with the Heart of the Black Hole. Or, he could at least take the Heart and the gloves and use them as the core and blueprint to create something stronger.

A Tier 14 core of a black hole would be useful for a dozen Tiers above its own, at a minimum.

Liz hadn’t been wrong about it being illegal to harvest a core of a planet, or some other celestial body, in the Empire and the rest of the Great Powers, but it did happen on occasion. It was legal if the system was being abandoned for some reason, which was beyond rare. The other exception was if someone personally ‘raised’ the celestial body themselves, from Tier 0 to the desired Tier.

That was such an expensive and time-consuming process, it was only done by a single guild, and they only brought the bodies to Tier 10, or possibly Tier 15, upon request. Even then, they only created a single sun to harvest every ten thousand years or so.

Matt hadn’t done much research beyond that, but he had asked Erwin why they didn’t use higher Tier rifts to accelerate the process. The older scientist explained that in rifts, no matter how large the planetary body inside it was, the body would never form a core. Instead, their essence was spread through their material evenly. If brought outside of the rift, that essence could condense and form a core, but it was so inefficient, a moon from a Tier 47 rift would only create a Tier 1 moon when brought out.

As for why that happened, no one was sure. But it was one of the main reasons why any space-themed, galaxy-sized, higher Tier rifts weren't able to be harvested for thousands of higher Tier planets.

While the others had started doing their own thing, Matt made a small wand and created a containing rune that encased the Heart in the wand. Then, with a release function, he was able to make it increase gravity in a small area where he pointed the tip of the wand.

It wasn’t an elegant use of the core, but it was quick, useful, and wasn’t permanent. Considering it only took a trickle of mana to activate the enchantment, it only served to redirect the power of the core, rather than consume it.

They were nearly at the next ruin, which they could see was a desert of some kind, when Liz noticed that the compass was pointing above the ruin, so they shifted their trajectory to avoid it. After a little flying, they found a pitch black asteroid that had been completely hidden from their spiritual perception, and housed a small cave in its side. Inside the cave, they found a large, concealed pillar of crystal.

A challenge room.

Everyone got off, and in a bubble of air, inspected the pillar.

Matt frowned as he tried to get a feeling of the challenge inside. It didn’t feel like combat, but it also wasn’t a puzzle either.

It felt more… testy.

Liz identified it before he did.

“I bet it's Careful What You Wish For.”

Matt wasn’t entirely sure she was right, but it was better than any of his guesses.

The test was simple, if difficult to pass. It usually could be found somewhere in Folded Reflections, Mind over Matter, and Spiritual Journey, if any of them appeared in a cycle.

Minkalla found your deepest desires and then put you in a situation where you got to enjoy them. Whether it be carnal pleasure, food, lavish living, or the power to crush your foes, it gave it all to you, and would keep you there forever if you allowed it.

Beating the test required one to reject the contents of the illusion. In some cases, that came from love slowly turning to hate or apathy, as too much of a good thing became unbearable. In others, that was more straightforwardly resisting your desires and pushing yourself out.

Ultimately, the quality of the reward came down to how quickly they could extract themselves, though some considered the reward to be more so the experience itself.

Of course, if the testee wasn’t able or willing to wake themselves up, they’d stay in the room forever.

Aster immediately perked up and jumped for joy. “Me, me, me. Let me do the challenge. I want ice cream bunnies! I want it soooooo bad. Pleasssssse!? I’ll only say for six hours real time, I promise!”

In the end, they all decided to participate in the test, and were brought into a holding room where Aster immediately vanished.

Unusually, the room allowed them to watch. Matt guessed that part of her desire was explicitly that they could all see as Aster was placed in a psychedelic land of candy, with bunnies made from ice cream that covered the landscape.

Instead of resisting, she dug in and tore the rabbit apart in a spray of ice cream and raspberry syrup while chowing down.

None of them expected anything else, and Matt chuckled at his bond's enthusiasm.

What he didn’t expect was that once she was done eating the first rabbit, she immediately pounced on the second, then third. None of them resisted, and they all seemed unfazed, even as their neighbors were eviscerated in sprays of fudge, caramel, and various fruity syrups.

He had thought she would control herself, but she seemingly had no intention to do so and started going wild, tearing into and devouring each and every rabbit she encountered.

Matt facepalmed as he realized she was going to eat her heart out.

And she did exactly that.

Well, perhaps she had the right idea. It had been a stressful few months- or even years, if the third floor challenge room counted. Perhaps a vacation of sorts was just what he needed as well.

Knowing and trusting his bond to pull herself out of the dream, Matt willed himself into his own test.

***

Matt wasn’t the Emperor. He was beyond him, and every other Tier 50 in the realm. He had somehow ascended to Tier 51, but was still present in their plane of existence. Stronger than everyone else.

Finally free.

He wasn’t just at the peak of power.

He was beyond it, and beyond risk.

No one could challenge him.

No one could shove him in a box.

Matt was finally free.

As the strongest existence in the realm, no one could dream of challenging him, and he had people to turn his simplest desire into a command that could shake the realm. He wasn’t alone, of course. That would be dull, monotonous.

But nor did he have peers, for that implied equality.

He was above all.

He was the lifeblood of the entire realm, giving life with his every whim as his supplicants extolled the virtues of their causes, pleading with him to aid them. They knew he was the Superior One, and others threw grand treasures at him in the hopes he would hear their cause and act to solve it.

Occasionally, he would even listen. He ended wars, terraformed entire planets, funded great libraries, and ushered in a new wave of truly unbound, truly free research for all. It was a paradise, a utopia for those who pleased him. Those who disrespected him or his values, those who sought to prey upon those weaker than themselves, or those who sought to exploit, even in the abundance of all, were harshly dealt with. Erased from existence and history.

None were his equal. Every man, woman, and child, every beast and human, and every mortal and immortal all looked to him for guidance and protection.

He was above all.

He had conquered every foe.

Righted every wrong.

Everything was perfect.

There was nothing for him to do.

No challenge to overcome.

No one stronger than him that posed a threat to either his freedom or his life.

He couldn't even enchant anything over Tier 50, because the instant he made the object, it ascended, unlike him. None dared question him, no one opposed him.

There was nothing new for him to do.

Absolute safety was boring.

It made life… dull.

And the illusion broke around him.

***

Liz walked down the street in perfect anonymity. With the power to change her face and her spirit as she pleased, it was impossible for anyone to recognize her. She had complete and total freedom. No fans staring in shock at Torch, the future Ascender. No sycophants crowding around Elizabeth, the Princess of Fire. No whispers about a quenched phoenix… nothing. Not even stares due to her red hair and sculpted figure, for even those were gone.

Someone crashed into her, a random drunk who wasn’t watching his path, and she shoved him off of her. That would show him, all right. No perfect princess here, and no more thousands of reporters waiting to pounce on the slightest misstep.

He crashed to the ground, and Liz smirked in satisfaction as she stepped over him and carried on her way. She reached home not long after, and Matt greeted her from the kitchen as he whipped up another wonderful meal. He alone knew her, and she loved him all the more for it. He’d even received the same blessing as her, allowing them both to vanish into the distance without a single care, without a single worry of anyone tracking them here, so far from her home. Nobody would know his secret; she was all his and he was all hers.

With a shiver of delight, she cast aside her last face and returned to a much more familiar one, specifically, Matt’s favorite. His little gasp of appreciation always brought a smile to her, and she winked at him, beckoning him to her.

A whispered question and an eager response was all it took for Liz to wake up the next morning arm-in-arm with Matt, surrounded by the evidence of their escapades of the previous night. It would be the scandal of the year- to say nothing of how her mother would preen and make such a tremendous fuss about it all- if Princess Elizabeth were found in such a compromising position, yet she hadn’t been and wouldn’t be.

She got drunk in bars, walked arm-in-arm with Matt down the street totally naked, joined an underground fighting ring as a pyromancer known for blood-red flames, and did anything else that came to her fancy. And best of all, Matt was side by side with her for it all, his participation and unconditional approval of her every last whim making it all meaningful, in this world of fleeting faces and no consequences.

Anonymity came with its downsides, of course. If she wanted to receive preferential treatment in restaurants, she needed to spend time establishing a persona deserving of the treatment beforehand. People didn’t defer to her in the street, and if she wanted that annoying guy in the bar to stop pawing her, sheneeded to burn him alive.

Wait, what?

Liz came back to herself and looked in horror at the spectacle in front of her. The man, previously a bastion of bravado and charm, was a charred mess. His hair was gone and his skin was black, burning coals where his eyes once had been. Flames licked across what was left of his skin, though it was more charcoal than living flesh. He would be whimpering in pain if his throat would work, but he was kept alive by the nurturing fires running through his veins.

This isn’t who I am, Liz thought, her mind wavering. This isn’t me.

She let her victim drop as the illusion broke around her.

She appeared back in the waiting area and started to shiver.

Liz hadn’t expected the test to be nice, but she hadn’t expected it to show her as some unbridled sociopath either.

She got angry at people, yes. But she didn’t think it was any more than the next person.

She was a nice person. She helped people. She was kind. She was polite, even to the rudest strangers. She never got mad at them, she never would hurt them… unless they outright attacked her.

But do I want to?

That thought frightened her.

Was she only this way because she wanted the approval of others? Was she a monster, deep down, hidden beneath the oceans of blood she had shed, held in check only by the expectations of people around her?

It was a terrifying thought.

To distract herself, she turned to Aster’s test, where she was still eating ice cream bunnies one after another. Matt and Susanne were still gone, but their fantasies, like hers, weren’t visible from the outside, which she was very grateful for.

That isn’t who I am, she told herself. But there was a small corner of her mind that refused to be quiet.

Or is it?

***

Susanne stood in front of the indistinct figure for what felt like both hours and seconds. His offer was genuine, she knew, though she’d only learn of his identity after accepting.

And what an offer it was.

Money? As much as she could ever want. Power? He had more than enough of that. Revenge? Well, all she would need to do was say the word, and her deadbeat father would be left humiliated and broken for the entirety of his smugly immortal life.

There was just one thing causing her to hesitate.

“But… what do you want? What do you get out of it?” she couldn’t help but ask her would-be benefactor.

“Nothing more than to make you happy. I just want what’s best for you. You thriving is reward enough for me.”

He meant it, too. She could tell. Everything she had ever wanted, handed to her on a silver platter. All it would take was accepting, and the world was hers.

The illusion shattered around her.

No. She would never, never be forced to rely on someone so utterly.

She was Susanne Velar.

She was Queen.

And she would never be so reliant on another ever again.

***

Matt appeared and saw Liz and Susanne sitting alone on their own corners of the waiting area, with Aster still in her fantasy.

Liz looked deeply unsettled, but when he approached her, she just shook her head and gently pushed him away, saying, “I’m fine. The challenge just caught me off-guard is all. I’ll be ok soon. I just… need to process it a bit.”

Matt knew her well enough to know that she decidedly wasn’t fine, but he still wanted to respect her wishes. He tried asking a couple more times, but was gently rebuffed each time. Well, he wasn’t about to let his girlfriend work through whatever she’d had to give up, or was repulsed by completely alone, but neither did he want to push too hard about something she clearly didn’t want to discuss.

So, he settled for sitting down next to her, pulling her into his lap, and holding her. She tensed for a while, but eventually relaxed, melting into his arms and occasionally burying her face in his shoulder.

They sat in silence for hours as an accelerated Aster ate ice cream rabbit after ice cream rabbit.

After just under six hours of real time, or something like a year and a half inside the challenge, she finally stopped and broke the illusion with a swish of her tail, exiting the challenge with a plop.

Aster didn’t care at all as she lay there with an extended belly.

One burp later, she promptly fell asleep.