Serenity was once again surrounded by blackness. It felt like a long time since he’d last Evolved or increased his Path, but he was once again here. He vaguely wondered what was happening to him in the real world, but there wasn’t anyone who could check on him and see so he’d simply have to find out for himself when he went back. It hadn’t seemed that extreme after the first time, but he also hadn’t ever had anyone watch.

Maybe next time he should. Then he’d know if he was out for seconds or hours and if he needed to beware of it happening in public. Serenity hadn’t expected one spell to be enough; perhaps it was because he’d taken the spell apart and rewritten it to use both essence and mana?

[Attributes assigned]

[Core expansion successful]

[Origin Point location added to secondary Core storage]

[External Sovereign links found. Merge with external links?]

External links - did it mean Rissa and maybe Moira? Was that the same as his Merge ability?

Voice? What does that mean?

There was no reply. That made the answer a hard No; he wasn’t going to risk it.

No!

[Refusal to Merge with all known Links upon full Evolution will damage the Evolution and may alter the result. Merge with external Links?]

No!

[Merge rejected. Proceeding with Evolution]

[Infusing additional Potential]

Serenity waited, but there didn’t seem to be a next message. He was simply waiting in the dark. Voice? Are you there? What’s happening?

It felt like hours before there was a reply, but it could have been as short a time as a few minutes; it wasn’t possible to tell in the darkness and Serenity’s phone wasn’t available.

[Infusing additional Potential]

How long is that going to take?

This time, Serenity expected the long pause. It seemed shorter, but that was probably only because he wasn’t wondering if he’d been abandoned.

He still felt better when the reply came, because it was definitely a reply to his question.

[Estimated time already exceeded]

He’d have felt even happier if he didn’t have the feeling that something was wrong. His previous Evolutions had been strange, but they’d been similar to the Paths he’d taken in one distinct way that wasn’t true now: he’d never had to wait. They’d also all allowed him to choose something, but this time it seemed like it was acting as though he’d already chosen.

On top of that, this felt like the mechanical Voice he’d heard the first time he Evolved, rather than the one he was used to. Was he in the hands, such as they were, of the wrong Voice?

Voice? Is something wrong?

There was no answer.

Serenity waited. He was good at that, normally. At least, he had been before. Not that he wanted to think about before.

So instead of waiting, he decided to try to see what he could see. He’d always assumed that the space used for Pathing wasn’t real; after all, there was no reason it should be. Why would the Voice transport everyone to another location simply to increase their Path?

That would only be worth the cost if there was a reason, and Serenity didn’t know of one.

Serenity tried to use his senses. No matter which he used, they all returned nothing; there was no material near him for Eyeless Sight, no mana, no essence, not even any raw mana. Nothing. When he looked with Time’s Eye, his surroundings shimmered but nothing moved or changed.

Eventually, he tried reaching out with his Affinities. If he was in the real world, something would be reachable; if he wasn’t, there ought to be residue from his travel.

The strongest trace he found was Time magic. Some sort of time compression was going on; it wasn’t as strong as the compression the Voice used in the Tutorial, but it was definitely there. Serenity did his best to adjust for it; as he did, he saw how it was put together. It was clear that he hadn’t been moved.

In fact, just on the other side of the time distortion was his actual body. When he realized that, he reached out with his Magitech Affinity. He wanted to know what time it was - and more importantly, how long he’d been stuck trying to evolve.

The answer was hopeful and terrifying at the same time. It had been less than half an hour.

His body seemed to be sleeping, slumped a little in the chair. That had to be uncomfortable, but he couldn’t feel any sensations from his body at all; he could only see - well, feel really - the magic and Affinities that flowed through his body. They seemed a little fuzzy at the edges, but he could tell where his body had to be.

Voice, are you there?

What’s taking so long?

Serenity found that only his Affinities seemed to be able to reach beyond the Time distortion. In an effort to distract himself from his inability to do anything, Serenity explored what he could see with those Affinities. Most of it was things he’d tried before, but it was a good opportunity to expand his familiarity with his new Affinities.

When he could convince himself of that, he was relatively content. It was an exercise he’d done many times before. Every time he thought about the situation, his concentration slipped and he started to worry. What if he stayed stuck like this?

About an hour after it all started, Serenity started to feel a strain that hadn’t been there before. If he’d been able to feel his body at all, he’d have said that it was something physical. Since he couldn’t, it had to be something mental. It felt like a strain or pressure of some sort.

It slowly grew worse; Serenity tried to ignore it. He couldn’t even tell what it was, much less do anything about it.

Moments after the timer ticked over to two hours spent waiting, the Voice finally responded again.

[Maximum time for Evolution enhancement exceeded]

[Minimum enhancement requirement not met]

[Error condition requires additional assistance]

[Serenity! How are you feeling?]

The last message somehow sounded different from the others, even though it was still flat and emotionless. It sounded like the Voice he’d gotten used to.

Bored and … under pressure? But I’m fine, more or less. What’s going on?

There was a slight pause, just long enough for Serenity to get worried.

[According to the logs, you triggered a mandated Evolution by having already completed a partial Evolution outside the standard system. Attempting to complete the Evolution appears to have failed due to your oddities and the source of the initial partial evolution; evolution into a Sovereign of any sort is a significant change, and any of the more conceptual Sovereigns require completing your alignment with the concept. Since you are already aligned to both Death and Magic, attempting to re-align you to Potential should have removed both existing alignments or failed due to overloading you with Potential. It looks like you were able to accommodate the additional Potential, so only the Evolution time trigger stopped it]

That was a more detailed explanation than he’d gotten from the Voice in the past. Unfortunately, all it really told him was that something went wrong because the evolution system wasn’t set up for someone like him.

So what does that mean for me?

[Starting Guided Evolution process]

[Existing Sovereign Skills: Merge, Take Shape, Amorphous Restoration]

[Associated Skill: Shard of the River of Souls]

[Sovereign Links found]

[Linked Merge rejected. Applying excess Potential to junction of Merge and Shard of the River of Souls]

[Merge Skill lost; Down to the River Skill gained]

[Applying excess Potential to Amorphous Restoration]

[Amorphous Restoration combined with Take Shape]

[Amorphous Restoration Skill lost; Take Shape Skill lost. Armor Another Skill lost. Formshift Skill gained]

[Excess Potential available. No specific locations related to Sovereign of Potential found. Activating excess Potential]

[Link Core Skill gained]

[Formshift Skill overloaded. Realigning Formshift to Multiform]

Serenity watched the notices flash by. They didn’t make much sense without the Skill descriptions; he’d have to read those when it finished.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain. He couldn’t identify where it was, and the pain vanished almost immediately, followed by the lingering, uncomfortable sense of pressure.

[Rift of Potential Skill gained]

[Remaining excess Potential has drained through the Rift]

Down to the River

When you physically envelop a being with a soul, you may choose to send their soul to the River of Souls. The soulless body will remain if applicable. Success rate depends on Ambit. When you do this, you will gain some of their knowledge but not personality. Decreased chance of success in any form other than Sovereign of Potential.

Link Core

While touching an Essence Core, you can attempt to create a Sovereign Link. Enhanced by Ambit.

Multiform

You may assume the shape of any Form you know. All Forms reflect yourself and all Forms are reflected in some manner in your Chimera Form. Detailed control of Forms increases with familiarity. Any Forms above the minimum require a continual maintenance cost of both Mana and Essence. Minimum number of Forms: 2. Maximum number of Forms: 4. Forms may be repeated.

Forms passively return to their normal condition.

Current known forms: Chimera, Hatchling Essence Dragon, Sovereign of Potential (Kernel), Human(?), Crystal Hilt, Armor, Sterath(?)

Rift of Potential

You can manifest a small rift between your location and the Origin Point.

[Evolution Complete]

Down to the River seemed like a simple combination of what he already had; he hoped it would be faster than his current method. The main difference he saw was that it would leave the body behind; that could be good or bad depending on circumstances.

Serenity wasn’t certain what having Link Core as an ability did that he couldn’t already do, so chances were that it was an improvement of his ability to link and talk to dungeons. Not particularly important unless it did more than he realized.

Serenity’s eyes settled on “Forms passively return to their normal condition” in the Multiform description. If he was reading that correctly, it would be even better than Amorphous Healing, because it would help him recover from things other than ordinary damage. He might not have been knocked out by those darts back at Liam’s house - or at least he’d have recovered faster. That would have helped.

Rift of Potential made Serenity stop and think. Was this something that could help Rube? It definitely wasn’t healing, but if part of the problem was that his arms had been stripped of Potential …

It would probably help, but Serenity doubted it would be enough. Simply having the potential to heal wasn’t healing; something like this might be necessary, but he still needed a healer.

[Would you like some recovery time before starting your Path selection?]

Serenity hadn’t been offered that last time, but he had to admit he felt the need for it far more this time. If nothing else, he’d like to leave the workroom and get somewhere more comfortable than a chair.

Yes, please.

Serenity was seeing two images at the same time. One of them was the back of his head where he sat on the floor; the other appeared to be the wall of the workroom. He tried to stand up, feeling like everything was slightly off; he was getting up from the floor and from a chair at the same time. He felt himself fall over and hit the floor.

Twice.

The two points of view tracked with the dizzying feelings of motion.

This must be what Multiform meant by “Minimum number of Forms: 2”. Serenity didn’t like it at all.