Clasping his hands in his lap, Kaius eagerly awaited for their lesson to begin.
Shortly after revealing the nature of cycling, Xenanra had shared that the realm they were in now was one where essence naturally accumulated — that, for the entire time they had been in this final trial, she had been holding it back with her own authority. It was the source of the strange reinforcement he had felt — the quiet wind, and the overly strong soil.
Apparently, by her standards, it was thin. Yet even those wisps had empowered the world far beyond what would have happened with a comparable volume of mana. He couldn’t wait to grapple with that potential himself.
He saw the burgeoning excitement that he felt crawling up the back of his neck reflected in his team. He grinned, and got beaming smiles in return.
"What do you think it’s going to be like?" Porkchop asked, nudging him through their bond. "Everyone has always wondered what essence is, now all of a sudden we’re going to be manipulating it directly — it’s exciting, isn’t it?"
"Of course it is," Kaius replied. "But whatever comes next, it sounds like it will take a lot of our focus. So gather yourself, and let us be ready. We need to seize this opportunity to the fullest extent we can."
"I was born ready," Porkchop agreed as he bared his fangs—but he fell silent nonetheless, his breathing heavy and slow as he watched the Ascendant at the head of their circle with eager eyes.
Kaius decided to focus on the flickering flames of the brazier in front of them, mirroring the fire of his aspects.
As he stared into their depths, he felt the limits of his Authority as best he could—the way body, mind, and soul came into tune to fortify his existence and push back on the world around him. Asserting his place, and his sovereignty.
"Center yourselves," Xenanra said, cutting through Kaius’s thoughts.
"We begin now. We’ll start slow, so that you may adjust to the feeling of essence before we reach the point where it feels suffocating."
Kaius couldn’t help but grin. He felt the world flex in a way that was hard to describe. It was at once a physical, palpable thing — like a hand on his back — and in some ways visible, as if a shiver cut through the very air.
It happened everywhere at once, as far as he could see — affecting even the most distant trees through the two missing walls of the strange stone temple.
Xenanra’s authority was immense. Though perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised by that — nor the scalpel-fine control with which she warped it to her ends.
Not when she burned to his Truesight. She was almost painful to look at — both he and Kenva stared at the god with rapt awe. A woman-shaped torch of pure power, tightly constrained to by skin. Essence - under such tension that if her grip slipped for even a heartbeat, he knew it would obliterate them all.
Yet he felt no fear, for her influence and control was palpable. It was everywhere, noticeable only in the shifting change as she relaxed her grip on this realm. This entire trial, they’d been wading through her Authority, and they’d never even noticed it.
As she withdrew her touch, a wave of power mirroring that bound within the Ascendant seeped through the very fabric of existence.
It crashed through the air like thunder.
Kaius gasped.
It was like mana, but somehow more potent; more pure; more individualised. It covered everything, welling up from every temple stone and every tree in sight. It was broadly categorisable, but each wellspring had its own flavour. A unique fingerprint that seemed to dissipate once it left its source, leaving only power shaped in something analogous to mana affinities.
Unfortunately, with how unfamiliar the energy was, he couldn’t identify any of them.
From what he could see, it was identical to the glimmers of light seen when the System had forged his Pillars - and to the faint pinpricks appearing in his friends' souls after they had ignited their Aspects.
To his eyes, each flavour was coloured differently — a thin field overlaying his entire sight, separate from his mana vision, just as his mana vision was separate from what his mundane eyes.
Xenanra flexed her will, crushing the world in her grasp. The growing essence density halted in its tracks and slowly receded, leaving only the thinnest smears everywhere he could see.
The remaining essence still thrummed with potency. It was electric — needling his skin like the charged air before a storm, or the looming threat of a blade in motion.
Looking around, Kaius saw his entire team staring at the empty air with the same fascinated wonder he felt. Even Porkchop, he realised to his surprise.
From what his brother had told him long ago, greater meles naturally possessed the ability to see mana, although their acuity was poor compared to even the most common ocular skills at any given tier. There had been no guarantee he would be able to see essence.
"You can see it?" he asked.
Porkchop nodded. "I wasn’t sure if I would be able to. I doubt I could, if there wasn’t so much. It’s faint, hazy — barely an impression — but it’s there. I can feel it though… It's sparking against my Authority.”
"Good. You’ve all gotten your first glimpse," Xenanra said from her position at the head of the circle.
"Most realms simply do not have the capacity to sustain essence for this long without the influence of authority. Even for those that do, essence without intent loses much of its…magic. Thankfully, that matters little when you have enough volume. Prepare yourselves."
Kaius braced, but it wasn’t enough.
Xenanra flexed her rule over the world, and the essence surrounding them roared to life until it burnt like the sun.
It fell upon him like a warhammer, driving the air from his lungs. Boiling potential settled on his skin to scour him raw. Falling onto his hands, Kaius felt his pillars surge within him. Deep within his soul, the trio of fires roared tall and high until he could almost physically hear their crackling might.
His Authority, once placid, now marshalled into an adamant defence. It pushed back against the essence. Fueled by his Aspects, it pushed back against the foreign essence. Authority and Aspects moved as a single force — none acted alone — conjoining until their powers became one: one Authority, one unity of body, mind and soul.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
He could feel the strain as a new sense of fatigue flooding his body. It was dissimilar to anything he had felt before, except perhaps those rare moments when he had strained himself to the utmost trying to contain and control VOS.
Yet, for all his instinctive fight and struggle, the nascent influence he held over himself and the world was pushed to the brink. His aspects flared higher, a desperate struggle to gain ground.
In that rising potency, Kaius felt his teammates in a way he had never felt before. Where the surging edges of their Authorities intersected, they crackled—sparking and fizzing in a visceral way he did not see or hear so much as feel. A magnetic repulsion.
Only with Porkchop did their authorities overlap without complaint — a facet, he assumed, of the connection between their very souls.
Yet the essence around them grew greater, brighter, and heavier. Step by step, Kaius’s authority was squashed close to his skin.
His aspects rebelled, flaring bright and burning hot — but it wasn’t enough. No matter how much they raged, they were forced back by the overwhelming deluge seeping from the very pores of reality.
As his aura of Authority retracted, he lost his sense of his team; was steeped only in the pressure that surrounded him.
"Seek within yourselves," Xenanra called, her voice cutting through his focus. "Ignore the essence around you. Look to your aspects — the unified fire. Seek the spark."
Kaius did as she willed.
It was bright, like the blaze was scalding him from the inside out. Steeling his will, Kaius pushed past the discomfort — it was unified, as she had said. Where the lights atop his pillars had once been separate, now there was only a single licking tongue of flame, soaring high and bright — a twin to his soul that sat beneath.
It burned to peel back the conflagration and look within, but look within he did.
There he found a mote — a counterpart to the force that surrounded him: essence. It was the barest scrap, not much of anything really. Transient, and in a constant state of flux — regenerating and dissipating at an equal rate.
Fixed in place, Kaius watched that spark of essence until the all-consuming pressure surrounding him cut out in a blink. He slumped forwards, gasping at the sudden change as Xenanra drove all essence from the world.
Mopping his sweat-slicked face, Kaius looked up to see Xenanra grinning at them knowingly.
"Shattered fucking axles, that sure is quite something," Kenva whispered.
"It certainly was," Ianmus replied. "I’ve never seen anything like it. It was much more than anything I’d possibly expected. So similar, yet so different from mana — health and stamina too, I suppose."
"That is to be expected," Xenanra confirmed. "Essence is something of a progenitor or ancestor for all three. Not in the sense that all sources of those energies come from a degradation of essence, but it carries the potential to become any one of them.
"Now we repeat. This time, once we reach the peak, I will slowly draw back on the pressure, and your goal will be to flex your intent and authority to amplify your natural response until you can maintain the flaring of your aspects alone."
"I’m sorry, What?" Kenva asked. “How are we supposed to do that?"
Kaius also wanted to know. He hadn’t really thought of authority as something that could be wielded. Not at his current level at least — both Ascendants he’d met seemed to wield it like a scalpel.
He didn’t even know where to begin. Up until minutes ago, he had perceived it as just a simple spiritual weight — a fullness of being that had come with embodying his aspects. Not a limb. Not something he could consciously control.
Xenanra tilted her head towards the ranger, giving her a fanged smile—revealing triangular teeth. It was still odd to see them on her. He knew carnivorous peoples existed, and that all of them were just as civilised as humans, elves, dwarves, or more. But there was an atavistic unease about it — an undeniable quality of predation.
To his surprise, Xenanra’s eyes flicked to him.
"You asked me why I do this, despite my power. I told you that I enjoy guiding those new to the Path. This? Cycling? It is where the Path truly begins. Taking each step to the utmost degree possible, and accruing every advantage you can to make the later journey just a little easier.
She turned back to Kenva. “I will guide you directly through the process of learning to wield your authority and learning to cycle."
"You do not mean through oral pedagogy, do you?" Ianmus said.
"I do not. My capability and the strength of my authority are so far beyond your own that mine will overwhelm, prod, and guide yours — force it to move in the ways it must, so that you have direct, first-hand experience. Once you grasp it for yourself, I will steadily give you more control over the process.
Kaius couldn’t help but frown. What she said sounded uncomfortable on an instinctive level. His authority? It felt like it was a direct representation of his will and his sovereignty over himself. To have it taken away — even willingly, by someone with good intentions — made his bones itch.
Xenanra nodded slowly.
"You all think the same thing, as is normal. It is an instinctive reaction to shy away from having such a deep part of you torn from your control. And I will not lie — it is distinctly unpleasant.”
“If it is so viscerally unpleasant, why not take a slower route — watch us, and guide us?” Ianmus asked.
"Because it is effective. With the way the System has designed the pillars that underlie your Aspects, it would take far too much effort and time for you to learn by a normal method of teaching. There is insight required, and personal experience. The pitfalls would be great, and many who would otherwise rise to ascension would fail simply because of an early mistake they could no longer correct.”
Kaius winced, if it was truly so easy for a minor mistake now to have such catastrophic consequences, he could handle a little discomfort.
"Even if I’m confident that you are among the rare number who could do it, this is the way that the System decrees it must be done. Marshal yourselves — we continue at once.”
Xenanra gave them a heartbeat to prepare — a mere fraction of a second. More than enough, with how quick his thoughts now were.
There was little he could do to prepare. He tensed, steeling himself as essence returned — bright and violent.
It flooded the ancient and forgotten temple as Xenanra led them through an even older rite. Kaius watched the stone glow with primaeval power. In many ways, he expected the space to brighten; yet it was not mortal light — it was an intensity all its own.
Once again, his aspects flared.
Once again, his Authority bound tightly to his skin as it bolstered him against the external pressure. Almost instinctively, he fell inwards and saw the spark that floated atop his aspects’ triumvirate.
An instant later, a foreign grip violated his innermost sanctum.
It was at once similar to the way the System had reached in with every new skill, with the ignition of his aspects, and with the creation of his class. Yet at the same time, it was lesser — if no less superior to his own.
He couldn’t stop himself from rebelling against the claws of iron that sliced and squeezed as the grip settled in.
Xenanra paid his rebellion no mind, brushing aside every instinctual flare of panic that he made with his will and intent.
It was only by the grit he had found in battle that he held himself back from reaching for the payloads locked within his glyphs.
For one, it would be utterly pointless. No doubt it wouldn’t even tickle the Ascendant.
For another, it would be incredibly rude.
Once Xenanra had a grip on him, she stilled — giving Kaius the time he needed to come to terms with the sense of foreign invasion that suffused his everything.
Then she yanked.
His authority snapped outwards in a strange way — like somebody had grabbed his hands and was bending them, curling his fingers one by one inwards, then flexing them to full extension.
A full range of motion.
It wasn’t painful, but it did feel alien, both in his lack of control over the motion and in the simple newness of the sensation.
He stiffened, his eyes opening in shock, and saw his team sitting with their backs ramrod straight as well.
Ianmus had a grimace stretched across his angular jaw.
"Unpleasant indeed," he said.
"You can say that again," Porkchop replied. "Feels worse than the time I had a botfly when I was a kit."
Kaius chuckled, the analogy cracking his shell.
The entire time during their exchange, Xenanra simply fixed them with a knowing smile and continued to flex their authorities within them, making them grow used to the sensation of movement.
Every now and then, she would prod deep into his soul and mind — drawing instinctive reactions to each jab. Little by little, he noticed his Authority twisting and curling as it danced to the Ascendant’s tune.
"Talk, if it makes you more comfortable. Once we have grasped movement, we will grapple with the flare," Xenanra said.