I push my way through the door of Palmz Premier Purchases, falling down in the alley outside the door.

I empty the contents of my stomach on the dirty paved stones, my head spinning. The bile burns my throat, and when I’m done, I shakily stand, wiping my mouth.

I stumble down the alley, trying to make sense of what just happened.

The ground is swaying and I am forced to sit down, resting against a wall. My focus returns to the two books in my lap. I… didn’t pay for them.

The image of that thing and it’s bloody maw appears in my head. Then the sea of corpses, streams of blood forming from their bodies.

I turn and dry heave, my stomach already empty of its contents.

Sitting back up, I stare at the wall across from me. What… what did I just see?

An army of dead, some kind of monster coming out of a mountain. A creature feasting on the corpse of a woman. The sea of corpses, one man still alive.

His gray eyes are burned into my mind.

Those… looked like my eyes.

I can’t get the vision of the man’s gore splatter helm out of my head, gray eyes glowing dimly.

Calm down.

Closing my eyes, I focus inwards. I startup my cycling technique, but it is shaky for the first few minutes. I calmly help speed up the process, mind going blank.

My faculties return a while later and I stop cycling. I am far calmer now, no longer feeling like barfing.

What was that orb? I definitely wasn’t like the one Cereus gave me.

Whatever the sphere was, it showed me something that I still can’t understand. Whatever the visions were, I am sure of one thing.

They haven’t happened yet.

I can only assume that the first one was the raid. The thing Cereus had interrogated the gith about. It looked big, whatever that thing coming out of the gash was.

And the… blood creature. Whatever it was. I remember it’s predatory gaze, assessing me. It had been humanoid, but those claws. They looked like constructs made of katra.

Or could they have been a Sign?

It is entirely possible that those claws had been some type of Sign. Which would mean that whatever that thing was would be higher or at Low Diamond.

Finally, there was the macabre landscape. Bodies piled high, blood flowing in streams, dark clouds over head. The man kneeling there, splashed in blood and gore.

His armor had been completely painted in blood, and now that I look back, I don’t think it was entirely steel. Parts of it were, and other parts something else.

The words he spoke, ‘Don’t follow my Path.’

They chilled me, because I knew it was a warning. One that I will hav to keep in mind. I think back to when this all started.

Amia being burnt down, the tulnar. My wandering, running and hiding in the jungle. And Inik.

He had warned me about losing my humanity. Of walking a path of bloodshed. And I don’t regret taking saying no.

I will have vengeance for Amia. I will kill the Tulnar who murdered and ate Karla.

Whatever happens, I refuse to die. I will become strong, and I will use that strength to enact vengeance for Amia and its people.

I come out of my thoughts, looking at the crust of my core. It is now covered in a thin layer of brown and grayish Earth imprinted katra. Large ponds dot it’s surface, forming where I smoothed out large basins to hold the Water imprinted katra. A thin membrane of Air imprinted katra covers it all.

Deep under the surface, surrounding my core, is the Fire imprinted katra and the Life katra.

I wonder what other kinds of gray katra I can imprint. I know I can make gray ice katra, but it is far harder than making gray water katra.

Looking at the jagged layer surrounding my core for some reason brings me peace.

My thoughts wander to the strange fox man I saw. I still can’t tell if that was me just seeing things, or if that was actually the shopkeeper. Maybe it was another vision? But I wasn’t looking into the orb.

I think back to when I first saw Cereus, and then him turning briefly into a skeleton. Then the Gith and it’s appearance changing. Now this fox man. It’s strange, could the shopkeeper have been hiding his real form?

There is really no way for me to know. I’m not going back to that shop, and he made it clear I was to not come back.

I look back at my core, and it is only now that I realize that it is vibrating slightly. It’s not noticeable on the surface, but when I look in I can see it. I can rank up again.

I am excited by the thought. My cycling has gotten me up to Truebronze, and normally I would have already ranked up. Because portions of the vital arua I absorb is transferred into my body, it has taken more time.

I focus on my core, and draw out all of the Gray katra inside it. I surround my core in it, just under the jagged crust covering it. Then I start squeezing.

Pain blossoms in my chest, but I push through it as my core slowly shrinks. After what feel likes an eternity, I am done.

I can feel the snap and the pain fades away.

Now my core is smaller, but I can feel that my capacity has deepened. I’m Truebronze!

The excitement and pride inside me is palpable.

After everything that has happened to me, I have gained far more strength than I have a right to. And I will get stronger.

I inspect my core. During my cycling, the core had grown back to its original size, the surrounding layer moving to allow this. Now it was back to the same size as when I reached Highbronze, the crust moving with it.

I inspect my core, and I get the familiar feeling that it has deepened. The idle spire of Gray katra strands sits there, waiting for me to start up the cycling technique.

I scan my body to see if anything changed, but don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Or, atleast, anything new.

Moving back to my core, I notice something funny.

My core is tilted, slowly turning. There is a barely noticeable amount of Vital Arua being pulled in from my surroundings and channeled into my core. Is it… cycling by itself now?

I peer into my core and can see that the cyclone is moving ever so slowly, and that the trickle of Arua is being converting at a glacial pace.

While it might not be much, it is still a bit that I don’t have to do manually.

Moving down to the surface of my core, I project myself onto it. The phantom form of my body seemingly appears, and I look at the desolate landscape.

There are still giant crags in the surface of my core, leading all the way down to my actual core. But now bright light flows up from them, illuminating the surrounding area.

In a way, coupled with the ponds of water, it is kind of beautiful.

It looks so different from when I first started. I remember back to when my core had been a simple sphere, with fuzzy, undefined edges.

Now it is defined and at the Truebronze stage. Granted, it doesn’t look all that pretty, what with the jagged surface.

I walk around the surface of my core, looking at it. I move towards one of the crags of light, which is bordering on the edge of a pool of water I made.

As I approach, I look down the massive ravine. It goes deep, the crust having become very thick. I can see the bright glow of my core and the glow of the Fire imprinted katra in the stones.

It combines all together to make a bright light that flows out of the crag. It baths the surondings in a golden hue, glistening off the giant jagged rocks. It sparkles on the nearby Gray water.

As I approach the edge of the pond, I notice that the water is moving in small waves now. I can only guess that it is from my core turning.

I look around. The entire place has an eerie and alien beauty to it.

Walking along the edge of the water, I look at it. I still don’t understand why this place formed. And why it seems to be such a great place to store the imprinted katra.

I reach a hand of the water, and with a thought, I grab a globe of it. I toss it between my hands, thinking. This place is calming. It’s like my own personal world, where I can do what I want. Away from the horrors of the real world.

I have always been an introverted person, living in my head more than the real world. Fantasizing about adventure and becoming strong.

I am no longer that naive. I seek power for vengeance, and the only places I have gone are ones filled with beauty, pain and death.

When I look back at myself, I can no longer say I am the same person. I might as well be a completely new person.

Taking a deep breath, I extract myself from my quickly spiraling thoughts. I gaze at the world around me, putting the water back.

I walk on, trying to come to terms with the images I saw from the “All Seeing Eye”. I still couldn’t make much sense of them. Like what is a Astral Dreadnought? What are the Gith? Who is Cereus? What are the bandages on my arm?

The questions swirl around my head, but I let them fade into the background. Just going to have to find the answers out for myself.

I blink, my eye being caught by something on the edge of the water. It casts a small shadow, bathing in the light from the crevasse behind me.

Leaning down, I am confused by what I see.

It is a small plant, two leaves shifted in the direction the light is coming from. It is about two inches tall, and is a dark, greyish green. The small plant sits on the edge of the water.

The thing looks dry, and has started to wilt.

In confusion, I touch one of the small leaves with my finger. I stroke it, and I can feel the soft leaf. What… what is this?

I stare at the plant, trying to make sense of what I am seeing. I look around, up and down the bank of the water. I don’t see anymore of them.

How?

This must have something to do with me ranking up. Or maybe this plant has been here the entire time, and I just never noticed. But that doesn’t make sense.

I look down at the small thing, and it’s wilted leaves. It’s clearly slowly dying.

With a flex of my will, I bring a handful of water from the lake. I sprinkle it onto the plant, wetting the leaves and ground.

Almost immediately, the plant seems to perk up. It turns a brighter, healthier green and it’s stem straightens.

That… was quick.

This can’t be a normal plant. First off, it’s growing inside me. Second, it’s growing on my core.

I can’t wrap my head around what this means, it’s to strange. Too abstract. I have never heard of this, or even imagined it. How did it get here?

Looking deep into the crust, I find that the plants is made of a strange Gray katra. It glows a bright green, but I can also see flecks of the Life imprinted gray katra in it.

The small plant’s roots grow far deeper than I would have thought. Most of the roots are shifted over towards the water, but it looks like that portion died due to a shift in the soil.

Has… my katra created life? I can’t help but get images of the chimeras. They had been melded together by the Gray Life katra, other types of katra forming their cores.

This is like that, but only with a plant.

I blink, noticing that the plant is moving. The leaves are slowly dipping down, letting the droplets of water on them splash down onto the ground. Then they return to their original places, tilted towards the light.

This is all so strange. I don’t understand.

There is a sound, and I jump from my trance. Back in the real world.

A shadow looms over me, a mass of angry gorilla. I am picked up off the ground and a deep voice rumbles, “Found you, you bastard!”