The sound of clapping grabbed brought me around. I lifted my head from the pillow of my bed. My bed? Which bed? The last thing I remembered was falling to Earth as I mentally destroyed a monster that had been working for, or with, a demon. How could I be in a bed? Was I dreaming?

“Yes, you are dreaming,” a voice I recognized called from the foot of my bed, drawing my attention. I looked down my body and above my feet to find Ptah standing there smiling, “You did good kiddo, really good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I honestly can’t say. I’m only here to set your mind at ease on two issues. Adaline and Pandora..

I sat up quickly as everything rushed back and rapidly fired questions at him, “Are they okay? Did they survive? Where are they?” I asked as tried to rise from the bed, only to find that I could only move from the waist up. My lower body had been locked down somehow.

“As I said, my time is limited. There are rules, and sooner than you’d like, you will know what they are as well. For now, know that Adaline and Pandora survived,” he said.

“And you can say nothing more on the subject?” I asked.

“I cannot. I can tell you this, the state of this Realm within this layer, as you call it, was not as it should have been. Long ago someone decided to allow fractioning, it’s not the right word because we’re not talking about a liquid, but the word conveys the idea. Simply put, in a normal realm, the realm must survive or fall based on the actions of those within it. To prevent the worst from happening someone changed a fundamental rule to try things as you knew them with the following adjustment. Extremely bad decisions that would destroy the Cosmos instead led to the creation of a new Cosmos within this realm. Those mirror Cosmos also had a safety mechanism that allowed alternate Universes to be created within each Cosmos.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“The true divines, gods, whatever you wish to refer to them tried to guide the Cosmos. They soon learned that any time they meddled a new Cosmos almost always popped up, creating a copy of themselves within that Cosmos and dividing their power. That was unacceptable and most withdrew from this Realm altogether. A few of us remained and waited for an opportunity to try to bring this Realm and the souls within back into a state of unity. Then you came along.” Ptah explained.

“Let me guess when people died their souls were not moving on, they were also fragmenting. Then those that remained tried over and over to fix the problem which only made it worse. I’m guessing that The Ancient Enemy made it impossible for any souls to move on if it had destroyed even one fragment of a soul?” I said as various pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

“Not just a pretty face after all,” Ptah said with a smile. “Some of the information concerning the way things work and how things are were less than ideal attempts at fixing the issues such a system entails. During the early days, some had access to and changed Realm-level settings that limited growth but allowed for advancement to the point where individuals could become divine, They created a system to handle it all. A few made it outside of this Realm in the beginning but once a soul was fractioned they couldn’t leave the Realm until their soul was whole once again. That’s where the idea of “The System” came from, at least within this Realm. Not to say that there aren’t rules to how everything works and interacts outside of this Realm, just that the rules within this Realm were modified. Do not be surprised if the way some of your soul abilities function or your understanding of what they do changes. My time is almost up…” Ptah started to say before I interrupted him.

“Before you go, who are you, why are you helping me?” I asked.

“I take the names I need when I need them. Today I am Ptah. We will meet again Johnathan, Bennard now Adamantadine. As for why I am helping you or giving you this information now? You are mistaken, you are the one that helped everyone in this Realm. They can once again move on. The Gods may even return once they know their meddling won’t carbon copy the cosmos or fracture a soul. You are being told what you are as a way of saying thank you from some very influential entities. I will close with this. Remember, what you do now matters, then again hasn’t it always…” Ptah said as his voice and body faded away.

My lower body was released, and I could move freely again. I checked myself over and realized very quickly that I was in my Mind Space. I shifted my perception to my Soul Space and found the mess that the explosion of Karmic Luck had wrought. The copy of the solar system within myself was in pieces as nanites floated throughout the region. Everything was mixing again. I issued orders for the nanites to reset the solar system and repair everything, but nothing happened. I sent a mental ping to Odin, but nothing happened. I sent a mental ping to Thor.

There you are. To answer your first question, everyone is fine in your Place of Power. They hadn’t even made it into your soul space before Odin sent the command to lock down. -Thor

Good, could you reconnect me with Odin, please? -Adam

Done. -Thor

Adam, what happened? -Odin

Reconnect, I need you over here to get things underway in my Soul Space. -Adam

Reconnecting now…

“Argh, that hurt,” I thought as I felt Odin’s reintegration force my mind to remember something I’d figured out while I was unconscious. The information flowed into my thoughts and I hesitated for a moment as the warning I’d seen flashed into my mind.

“WARNING Chaos Identity contained in your Soul Space and infested within your being is not compatible with this Cosmos. As a creature of Chaos, you may continue to harbor those identities, but they will not be permitted to contaminate this Cosmos.”

Chaos Identity? My thoughts reformed and the truth I had come to know just before I lost consciousness became known to me again. I did not have Chaotic Nanites. I had Chaos, which I shaped into nanites and that was the identity the chaos took to do my bidding. That confusion was still running through me in this place as I hadn’t woken up to solidify my will on the subject. This wasn’t something I needed to think about too hard. If I was right, there was an easy test I could perform right now.

My will became my intent, and my intent was to treat the chaos within my soul space as nanites and have them repair the Solar System I’d created there. I felt the damaged areas morph and change back to the configuration I’d wanted as I also realized something else. The reason I was having such a hard time contacting Odin was that he didn’t exist. The Thor running in the place of power was a technological construct that I’d created and downloaded into physical nanites then uploaded back into myself. The version that had been my nanite controller and information processor that had just been an aspect of my will. In layman’s terms, I’d been talking to myself or creating a truly split personality. Upon learning the truth my mentality had melded back together and I was thinking normally again. Why had I referenced Odin as my increased processing power repeatedly then? After a little self-reflection, I realized I had tried to humanize or quantify the changes my mind had gone through with an explainable medium. The nanites acting as additional memory in a computer was a simple idea to hold onto and not easily dismissed. Thor, who became Odin within my mind was just another aspect of my mentality.

When had I started separating myself like that? Had that been a subconscious recognition of the fractioning of my soul as more and more versions of myself were found? Had part of me recognized that they truly were part of me, but no message was going to pop up when they returned to me.? With that realization, I also realized that I felt more like myself than I had in a very long time. I organized my mind space, checked on the family, and then pulled up my personal interface. I had Warnings, Prompts, and Messages to go through. I started with the only alert I’d ever seen.

Alert: This Realm has gone through a significant adjustment. All entities in this Realm will be amalgamized. After amalgamation, entities that find themselves without a physical form will be removed from this Realm layer after being Scrutinized. All other entities will find themselves in the Primal Cosmos of this Realm.

NOTE: Temporal Travel into the past is prohibited, violators will be Scrutinized.

NOTE: Realm Law 32.23.6 is rescinded. New Cosmos will not be created to prevent Cosmic Cascade failure.

Something to think about later, or ask about if I ever had the chance, what did it mean to be Scrutinized in the sense the alert described? The next thing I needed to do, check the warnings. I started with the warnings that had happened just before my advancement to a Transcendent level soul.

WARNING: Two entities with parts of the same soul with opposing karmic energies have come into contact.

WARNING: The amalgamation of Johnathan Bennard has commenced.

NOTE: 9.99E +99 ERROR Karmic energy damage has been taken due to unequal amounts of positive and negative Karmic luck being combined during Amalgamation.

NOTE: Damage to Soul Space: ERROR

NOTE: Negative Karmic Damage destruction is being negated by Positive Karmic Healing.

WARNING: Amalgamation not complete, Fight for Dominance not complete

WARNING: Foreign objects Ejected from Realm Space.

WARNING: Returned to the last location of Johnathan Bennard within this Cosmos

ERROR: Explosion of Karmic Luck has halted transfer to last known location

Amalgamation Complete

You have impacted the Earth at Terminal Velocity, damage negligible.

Soul Strain has caused you to become unconscious.

So that’s why I couldn’t slow myself down while I fell out of the sky. To me, it felt a lot like a one-sided fight. Instead, he’d been fighting to the bitter end, probably to have me plow into the Earth and die with him. He never knew exactly how outclassed he was. Having come to know him, If I’d been him in that situation, I’d have done the same thing.

WARNING: Karmic Luck has modified your soul during enhancement to a Transcendent soul.

WARNING: Due to extreme Karmic backlash during your amalgamation Karmic Luck has been reduced to -1,150,000 due to a rupture that occurred within the Realm. The realm sealed immediately, there will be no further loss of Karmic Luck or Karmic Backlash due to this event.

Negative Karmic Luck, what in the hell, I just brought this Realm back together. Where’s the appreciation? Sighing to myself I looked through the rest of the prompts but didn’t find any more warnings. I accessed the Congratulation messages next, I needed some good news.

Congratulations! Your soul has now achieved Transcendent rank. A Transcendent Soul is well on its way to true divinity. The rank disparity settings for the Realm have been weighed, measured, and modified. As a Transcendent being, your Rank Disparity to a Nascent Soul is 8. All skill, ability, and magic spells that are cast by you are 8 times more powerful than a Nascent Souls. Rank disparity is also used to modify Defense again attacks.

Congratulations! You are directly responsible for the reintegration and release of all beings within this realm. You immediately receive one Karmic Luck for every soul that is released from the moment of the event forward.

Wait, what? I opened up my personal information and checked my Karmic Luck. Sure enough, my Karmic Luck was already over 9 billion and climbing like the United States Deficit found on the website usdebtclock.org. The only difference was that this clock was increasing much faster than the debt clock ever had. I sighed with a bit of relief. I did not want my Karmic Luck to be negative, even if I didn’t know what it did. It just seemed important.

I quickly reviewed the rest of the message and found that they were just simple indicators of how much damage I’d taken and that kind of thing. The more important information I was interested in was the type of world I was in and my dopple…no, MY, place in it. Before I went to work figuring this out I tried to release nanites into the surrounding area to get a feel for it. My field expanded out to 8 feet and ended.

WARNING: Magic is permitted at this location provided one has the mana and skill to wield it. Prohibited magics include Time Travel to the Past and Persistent Chaotic identities that are maintained away from the caster. Chaos Identity Nanite is prohibited anywhere not touching a creature of chaos. Nanite Links are permissible out to one foot per soul rank.

Well, that sucked, that sucked a lot. From the field I’d just created I found myself lying in the center of a crater in the middle of a cornfield. Also, I could hear a truck in the distance coming this way. Eight feet up didn’t put me above the corn stocks. needed information and I needed it now. More importantly, I needed to get somewhere where I could be safe and figure out what kind of mess I’d dropped into this time. There were two ways I could play this, but if as had been hinted some power players came along at a later date I didn’t want to make myself a target again, so the quiet way it would be.

I willed myself to float a few feet off the ground and used my nanite field to scrub the area I’d hit of any evidence that I’d been there. Then formed a spell that would keep me invisible from everything, including all magical and technological devices, just in case. I double-checked through the nanite field around me to make sure I was visually invisible then drew the nanites back into myself. When that was done I gained altitude up to about 1,000 feet above the ground and flew west. I wanted to get a look at the lay of the land before I trusted the memories I’d received from Johnathan Prime. If things concerning myself had changed, things on this Earth could have changed as well.

While I flew along I had the nanites create everything I’d need to interact with this society, including driver’s licenses, credit cards, and Johnathan Primes’ affordable clothing. As I reviewed snippets of his life It was becoming very apparent that this version of the United States was going down a very socialist track. The United States was already up to 150 trillion dollars in debt and instead of wars and the like, China had exerted its monetary might and taken over just about everything. Politicians were political hacks. America was “free” by claim only. From what I learned from Johnathan Prime’s memories everyone just went to work, played with whatever toys the government permitted them to play with, and went home. On the plus side, indentured service had been reinstituted and those that were found to be homeless or dregs in society were forced to work the farm fields and industries that drove America and paid all the bills. No one received a free ride in this society.

This version of the United States had followed the least violent path it could. Unfortunately, it couldn’t last. Was I going to be the instrument to change this or was I going to go looking for my love and Pandora? If Ptah could be believed they were safe. My mind was all over the place, I needed to focus.

I flew over the Rockies when something caught my attention. I looked down and focused on a cave mouth that something man-sized was flying out of. He looked around for a bit, searching for something then flew back inside. I memorized the location, I was near Pike’s Peak, finding this location again would be child’s play. I continued west until I was in silicon valley and found my apartment., I landed on the balcony of my apartment and phased through the wall. It was minimalist eggshell white. There was a bed, a stove, a refrigerator, a desk and chair, and a computer on the desk. The screen saver was on and as I wiggled the mouse I entered his pin number and found myself looking at the load screen for the latest MMOG “Ashes.” As I reviewed his information one last time He went to work, came home, and played this game. That was it.

I touched the laptop, allowed my nanites to infiltrate it, and quickly determined that this laptop was indeed connected to an artificial intelligence that hadn’t become sentient yet.

Thor, need a quick copy of yourself, packaged and ready for delivery. It would seem that we’re in the thick of it again. The first task, find any data sent in the last six hours and scrub it from the system you’ll be downloading into. -Adam

What level of animosity if I’m detected? -Thor

Eventually, I want you to take over their semi-sentient A.I. My money is that the Chinese are running it. If you’re detected wipe the floor with them, extreme prejudice. I’m going to create physical nanites that will create a support structure for this laptop. My chaotic nanites don’t work here. You’ll need to meet their energy requirements but they will answer to you. -Adam

Sounds good, Ready when you are. -Thor

I accepted Thor’s download through our quantum link then downloaded it directly into the laptop and through the chaotic nanites that were linking me to the computer and the connection into the network beyond. Bypassing the security measures was beyond easy.

Through the Speakers on the Laptop Thor said, “I’m in, this Laptop and all Bluetooth surveillance devices in this apartment are now under my control. One second. All video uploads have been intercepted and faked. I’ve even started playing the game utilizing old footage to show Johnathan playing the game he’d become addicted to. That’s not by accident, by the way, this game was deliberately set up to keep people addicted.”

“No surprise there. Replicate and infest every network on this planet. Let me know if you run into anything that feels like nanite technology. It’s going to take time for normal nanites to spread throughout the globe. Unfortunately, I can’t use the version that is smaller than an atom so they will be detectable with an electron microscope. We’ll need them though so I’m probably going to travel around the globe and drop them off in key areas, so they can spread faster. I have a feeling that some of the tricks I did in the past aren’t going to work very well if the nanites are only technologically based and not just a side effect of my Creature of Chaos ability,” I said.

“Not to worry, I’m on it. You can trust me when I say that even though it’s May 5th2039 on this Earth, their comparable technology is no better than our Earth’s 2015 operating systems. We have every workaround, bios, and motherboard hack in our memories from multiple universes and races, this is not going to be a problem. There will be problems, but hijacking their computers is not one of them.”

“Good luck, I have a couple more things to check,” I said as I went over to the bed and lay down. I closed my eyes and rested as I pulled up my personal interface and checked my soul abilities. “Perfect Memory,” check. “Pansophical,” had changed and increased my skill level from Rare to Epic. Skills now worked as if they were level 1,000. Wow! Moving on “Temporally Inviolate” had been modified to:

“Permanent Addition” – Your soul has become Transcendent. Your body has become an extension of your soul. If your body is destroyed you may still move your soul around if able. Multiple copies of yourself are permissible, though all bodies must draw their attributes from one pool. Your soul can only be destroyed if certain prerequisite conditions are met. Your body can be destroyed and will be recreated in your soul space as you desire based on your normal health regeneration. You are not subject to Grand Father Paradoxes or harmful magic that utilized the manipulation of time. Additionally, you may now place items into your Soul Storage or Soul Space from your body.

I went back to check the other soul abilities. “Chaos Forged,” check. “Chaos Tempered,” check. After Chaos Tempered there was a new soul ability listed, “Chaos Incarnate”

“Chaos Incarnate” – Your soul has been exposed to an unknowable amount of Order. You weathered the barrage of order and came out the other side one with the Chaos within you. Chaos is everything and nothing. Chaos can be everything or it can be nothing. You may shape chaos to your will and create real physical objects with it that may be handed to others and will exist as if it was the object in question until destroyed by natural means. You may also utilize chaos in your soul space to create and maintain anything you can dream of. The only limitations you are bound by are the limitations you set upon yourself. Should another Incarnate of Chaos interact with the Chaos you control a contest of wills will determine who remains in control of the chaos.

That almost looked like an evolution of my “One” ability. Or an ability that had self-actualized based on the intent that I placed on the chaos within my system to be chaotic nanites. Now that I knew it was chaos and could be fed by my “Convergence” ability, I had a never-ending supply of chaos. Damn.

I started reviewing the list again, “Adaptable,” check, “Willed-Movement,” check. “Incessant” was gone but that made sense with the addition of “Permanent Addition.” “Resistant,” Check. “Open to New Ideas” was missing. It didn’t really do anything that I couldn’t do myself so no great loss. “Convergence,” check. “Spellweaver,” check, ”Soul Storage,” check. “Affluent,” check. “Allegiance” was gone. Had that ability only been made available because of the setup of this Realm? It sure seemed like it.

Those were the only changes I could see. My current level was 279,201,353 Ascendant Human and with the ring on I’d reach another level in 3 more days and a couple of minutes. Did I still have the ring? I looked into my soul space and found the 10 rings still on the one large ring and felt my right hand with my left. Yes, I still had the ring on.