A cathedral of mercury rose up around Nic. It created an octagonal room within the darkness, and each wall formed an arch that was filled with colored glass. Eight windows. Eight paths to choose from.

“A Fallen Kingdom is generally the best choice for developing an already strong position.” Sofia explained. “As this is our secondary we’ll receive only a single cultivator and a few mortals from whatever ancient heritage we revive, but they’ll retain some of their lineage’s techniques…”

The windows were taking form. From vague blurs of color, they solidified into tapestries of stained glass.

The first one held an image of a rat-like being, holding a golden coin in its hands. While the creature had pure white fur and an expression that seemed upright and noble, its tail turned into a vibrant green serpent, curling around its body.

“Ah. Skurrifex. A lineage of alchemists, who specialized in the modification of their own bodies. Their art was the creation of concentrated, mutated bloodlines that could be passed from body to body. But those bloodlines gained sapience of their own - and consumed their makers.”

Sofia seemed fairly impressed, but Nic knew by now that the System didn’t offer clear right choices. Especially not up front.

The next window depicted a tall, red-skinned man. No. Not red-skinned, but skinless, the muscles and organs on bare display. His hair was wild and he held a night-black sword up to eclipse the sun, his body held like a dancer.

“Flesher Dervish. Unpleasant. They followed a path similar to your Internal Sacrifice Cauldron Technique, and like you, they used their incredible regeneration to escape the consequences. At least until the damage added up over time and they became skinless, entering a permanently enraged state where they would fight until they died.”

Nic gave the window a disgusted look. “Am I going to have to worry about that?”

“You? No. The Internal Sacrifice Cauldrons Technique is far less strenuous.”

She waved a hand, guiding him to the next choice. The creature depicted was a golem made of blazing crystal shards, its body a light gold, as if it had been made from the sun. Its actual body resembled a sphinx, a man from the waist up but with the hindquarters of a lion.

“Solarus Constructs. Preeminent formation builders and runesmiths. Hmm.” She frowned. “There’s not much here, actually. They seem fairly mysterious, except that their arts were based in religious fervor. And, I’ll quote, ‘constructing the body of god’.”

Nic pulled a face. They were even less suitable than the Flesher Dervishes. The last thing he needed was a raging beserker or a religious zealot butting heads with him.

“I think what we’re looking for is a fighter.” Nic said, pondering. “Someone who can back me up while I’m away. As for alchemy and the like, I guess these kinds of heritages are pretty impressive, but it’ll be a long way before we can really make them shine.”

“I disagree explicitly. A fighter might be able to protect the community, but a more supporting role will make you stronger, Nicolas. Make the right choice for yourself.”

They had come to the fourth wall, where the window showed an image of a shadowy, miniature creature perched atop a sleeping man’s skull. It had wings longer than its body and a strange nose that Nic, turning his head slightly, realized wasn’t a nose at all. It was a stinger-mouth like a mosquito.

“Nematoceran Sprites. Blood-drinkers. Capable of spreading madness with their infectious bite, and drinking knowledge from sleeping minds. Excellent for spying, espionage, and other midnight work. This one has promise…”

Nic considered. Truth be told, he was pretty fond of his own skills wriggling in and out of scrapes. The crows also served as excellent messengers and eyes, so why would he need to waste his choice on one more?

In a different world the ability to steal knowledge might really serve him well…

But this wasn’t that world.

The next window displayed a beautiful maiden with snow-white wings for arms, curled demurely around her body like a robe of clouds. Tall, crested feathers extended from each eyebrow, full of dawn-colored pinks and oranges.

“Hmm. This one has an interesting ability. She’s a living blessing. A Heavenly Swan-Maiden, and an Aberration.” Sofia was clearly quite taken with the idea. “Instead of cultivating Essence like normal, she can cultivate good fortune itself, gathering it via formations and rituals. How much use that will be in the end, its hard to say...”

“They did get wiped out...”

“Exactly, and my resources don’t say why.”

“That sounds like something that’s useful to me and to Winterhome…” Nic considered but…

He didn’t like her eyes. She had cold, callous eyes, like she was laughing at the world, even as she stared out through the glass. Even after her entire empire had fallen around her…

No, he didn’t get any good impressions at all.

The next creature was a strange, hunched beetle, its spines covered by long black spikes. Impaled on those spikes was corpse after corpse, forming a great walking grave under which the creature could barely stand.

"Cadaverine Lampterran. A cultivator of deadly poisons and murderous spirits, both drawn from the bodies of the freshly dead. I don't think we really need to bother with this one..."

Too evil.

The sixth window held an even stranger sight. A beast with an outer shell of ice, thin and skeletal, being puppeteered by a spirit of fire that poured like a living cloud out of every pore and break in the ice's surface.

"A Cocytian. A rare breed of true-born demon that has a split nature. The body is ice, while the soul is fire, and the two each have a mind of their own, forever locked in struggle. Usually they're completely insane by the time they mature, but it can't be denied they're masterful demonic cultivators. Or were. Not seen for millenia, so this is assumed to be the last one..."

"Who made these?" Nic asked suddenly. "The windows?"

"I... would have to assume they were made by..." Sofia paused for a long moment. "Interesting. That information isn't in our consciousness."

"Someone had to. They don't really look like something the System would do." There was too much art to them. Light fell through a thousand shards of color and divided into beams of rich, pastel tones, casting a many-rainbowed shadow on the ground below. The cathedral space around them was beautiful and strange, the ripples running down the archways and through the ceiling creating patterns of wavy shadow on the silver surfaces.

It gave Nic a strangely melancholic feel.

"It's an interesting question, Nicolas, but I'm unsure why it would matter. Some delegate of Pathos or Logos. Either would have the authority to change how the System presents its many doors..." She paused. "Logos, most likely. Seeing as it’s not in my records."

Nic nodded, satisfied for now.

"As for him-" He nodded towards the window bearing the Cocytian's image. "I've barely used my demonic heritage."

"True. You've been extremely cautious about that one aspect of your power, for better or for worse. The Cocytian, then, may be a poor choice for you until you're ready to change that.”

The seventh window...

Contained a massive, barely humanoid lump of fungal tissue. Luminous mushroom shelves blossomed from its back, and small, stringy wisps of stalk obscured its body like thin hairs, ending in delicate glowing caps. Huge puffballs blossomed across its belly, and around its head was a lace of frilly, snow-white webbing, covering a face that came to a crude beak.

"Rotwood Grovewalker. Mm. Think of a dryad, but their equivalent of the undead. Animated by the cycle of life and death within the colonies of mushrooms that sprout from their bodies. Annihilated, hundreds of years ago, by a religious purge..." She ticked off the list. "Their chief technique is the creation of unliving puppets."

Nic thought about that. Animating an army of undead puppets was a little sinister, to put it mildly. It was also a damn good way to keep your living people living.

"One thing I will say, is that your Totemic Petroglyphs and your Mire-Caller Shards both show some affinity for death. It’s not a bad choice.”

Not a bad choice…

High praise coming from Sofia.

The final window bore the three images instead of one. They were strange, totemic beings, filling up the entirety of the stained glass pain in three colors. Blue, purple, and red. Each of them was a creature of swirling mist, but they gave off very different feelings, their presence almost feeling like a contradiction.

The left-most had weeping, downcast eyes and an air of sorrow. The middle, who gazed upwards and bore a spiked crown, had an imperious nature. The final one clutched a sword and glared out directly at the world.

"Muses of Lethe. Very, very interesting. Not so much a 'fallen' empire as one that never rose…" Sofia's lips pursed with what might be amusement. "Dreamed into existence by a powerful draconic cultivator over a hundred years. Then, in an attempt to gain true existence, they woke the dragon."

Nic winced. Sounded like something he'd do.

"Purely intellectual existences that live within others, and coming in threes. These are closer to a technique than a lifeform, honestly; they can unleash very powerful mental attacks, guard the mind, and impose your will on others."

"But less useful if you need someone who can pick up a spoon." Nic pointed out.

"Much less…”

She took two more steps, reaching where they'd begun, and turned back to Nic. "Well Nicolas. These are our choices."

"Let's rule some out, then. The Flesher, no, I'm not choosing an ally I'll have to kill when they go mad. The beetle, just a little too evil. The religious golem-people…"

Nic did hesitate. They had some connection to rune-scribing that he was reluctant to give up. "We'll see…”

"Hmm. I expected you'd rule them out at once."

“I don’t trust the Swan. I don’t know why, but she gives me a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.”

“Likely worth listening to. Matters of supposed luck and instinct are bound together.” Sofia agreed, giving a dismissive glance to the Swan Maiden.

“The mosquito faerie…” Nic paused. “I’m probably not even valuing it right, really.”

“Probably not.”

“But I think we can cut it out. That leaves four…”

And four was still a heavy decision. One by one, he turned the options over in his mind. The rat-like Scurrifex had lost control of their own magics and been consumed. The Muses couldn’t affect the physical world at all…

He scratched them off the list mentally, and stepped to the center of the room, looking between the two that remained.

The Grovekeeper…

Rot and unlife, but also the power to raise an army. There were no real downsides. Their powers even resonated well with Nic’s own path.

But on the other hand, the Solarus were surprisingly tempting. The main thing he worried about was dealing with a zealot but…

Everyone on the path of cultivation needed to go a little bit crazy. As for its powers, they were vague, but Nic saw potential in formations and runes. His own strength was largely built on his assembly of tools and tricks, not on raw might.

If he was choosing for Winterhome, it had to be the Grovekeeper…

But Sofia had asked him to choose for himself.

“The Solarus.” Nic said.

The cathedral of mercury began to fall around them, droplets of moonsilver toppling from above as seven of the eight windows faded to black, leaving only a single luminous archway.