[Dorm Floor]
"It's done."
The words burst out of me before I could stop them.
After hours of sitting still, circulating until my body felt like a machine, my reserves finally clicked back into place—full, stable, mine again.
I rolled my shoulders, felt the faint ache in my back, then grabbed my phone.
Still no reply from Maya.
Today was the day.
The first time she would activate her ability.
I pulled up my status out of habit—part reassurance, part obsession.
===== Status =====
Name: Dreyden Stella
Race: Human
Strength: 22
Toughness: 27
Agility: 25
Intelligence: 32
Perception: 37
Magic Energy: 233
===== Skills =====
Celestial Library {0}
A vast metaphysical library that stores skill books. The user can assimilate and reproduce any skill book copied from other individuals, gaining their abilities.
Stored Books:
Eyes of Truth {1}
Fire Fists {7}
Action and Reaction {0}
Improved Intelligence {7}
=================
Not bad.
I hadn't pushed my new core to the ceiling yet, but this was enough to fight for a while—even while running two skills at once. A few weeks ago, the old me wouldn't have reached half of this without collapsing.
And Maya… Maya was the reason the pace had become ridiculous.
Because the moment she activated her skill, the whole game changed.
Xia Qinqiu.
The first identity she ever assimilated.
A cultivator from the Upper Heavens. A Realm of Saints existence. Qi so dense it turned the air around her into pressure.
In the novel, Xia Qinqiu wasn't just a power source—she was a turning point. Maya didn't only gain techniques like Ice Fairy Palm. She gained direction. A kind of ruthless clarity that forced her to stop surviving and start climbing.
If that happened early…
My transfer to S-Class wouldn't feel like a suicidal fantasy anymore.
A knock interrupted my spiral.
The door opened without waiting.
Maya stepped inside and shut it behind her like she was sealing us into a bubble.
"Have you really evolved your core?" she asked, eyes sharp.
"I did." I lifted my hand.
Metaphysical energy flared around my forearm, a thin sheen of force that shimmered like heat haze.
"Not as fast as you," I admitted, "but I got there."
Maya's expression softened. "Congratulations."
Then she hesitated—just long enough for me to notice.
"I still need a little more magic energy before I can activate," she said, "but… I have something to show you first."
"Oh?" I leaned forward slightly. "Show me."
"Activate Eyes of Truth," she said. There was a spark in her voice. Excitement she was trying to keep contained. "I made changes to my circulation."
I raised an eyebrow and did it.
Blue light washed over my vision. The world sharpened into flow and density, every breath in the room suddenly visible as faint currents.
Maya inhaled—and began circulating.
At first it looked normal.
Then it didn't.
She wasn't sinking into that deep, rigid concentration everyone needed to maintain a stable loop. She was doing it while sitting casually across from me, shoulders relaxed, gaze present.
Like she wasn't balancing a blade on her fingertip.
"…Oh," I muttered before I could stop myself.
Maya's smile widened. "Right?"
I watched the paths. The channels. The timing. The stabilization.
"It's stable," I said slowly, "but the efficiency drops. You're losing quantity."
"Yes," she admitted, completely unbothered. "There are adjustments to make."
She leaned forward slightly, eyes shining. "But it's still a big achievement, right?"
"Big" was an understatement.
Normally, circulation demanded full focus. One stray thought and the rhythm stuttered. That was why when I trained, I turned quiet—not because I wanted to ignore people, but because talking felt like juggling while sprinting.
Maya had just removed that limitation.
She'd made her control multitask.
I canceled Eyes of Truth and rubbed my forehead like it would reset my brain.
"This is starting to get unfair," I muttered.
Maya laughed softly. Not smug. Just… pleased.
Then she straightened, as if remembering why she came.
"Okay," she said, and the lightness in her tone faded into something steadier. "Now I'm going to restore the last bit."
I nodded, grin pulling at the corner of my mouth. "Good. I'm looking forward to seeing your skill."
"Yes, sir," she replied—too playful for the words to be serious—then closed her eyes and switched from passive circulation to full-speed control.
Her energy flow accelerated.
My lips parted slightly.
Ridiculous.
I wanted to see it. I wanted to see the domain behind her ability.
And I wanted to know something I hadn't said aloud since I got Celestial Library.
Could I copy an Original skill?
If I could copy Maya's…
It wasn't just strength. It was possibility. Identity across universes. Skills across worlds.
A god.
A primordial.
A concept made flesh.
I forced the thought down.
Not now.
I sat across from her and waited.
Quiet.
Until—
She opened her eyes.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
Maya's hands flexed on the blanket as if her fingers were trying to escape her own nerves.
"Honestly?" she said. "No."
Then she swallowed and looked straight at me anyway.
"But I'm doing it."
Something in her expression tightened. Not fear of pain—fear of failing.
And I understood it too well.
She'd started trusting me.
Which meant she'd started depending on me.
And dependence, even when it felt warm, always came with fear.
If she broke…
If she disappointed…
Would I still stay?
I didn't let that thought live long in her eyes.
I reached across the space and squeezed her hand once.
"Whatever happens," I said quietly, "I'm here."
Maya stared at our hands like she didn't believe it, then nodded.
She stood.
"Status."
===== Status =====
Name: Maya Serenity
Race: Human
Strength: 17
Toughness: 19
Agility: 13
Intelligence: 30
Perception: 87
Magic Energy: 751
===== Skills =====
Reality Manipulation: Identity {10}
An offshoot of the Original Reality skill. Allows the user to assimilate the identity of any individual in any universe. The user acquires the memories and abilities of the assimilated identity.
Current ID: None
=================
My stomach dipped.
Even knowing she was abnormal, seeing it in numbers felt unreal.
Maya stared at the screen as if she was trying to memorize her last moment of certainty.
Then she whispered, almost to herself, "It's okay."
She turned to me.
"I'm ready."
I watched her like I was watching a door open to something I'd only read about.
"Here I go."
She started circulating.
And something changed in the room that had nothing to do with heat or pressure.
Her power thickened—like the air was becoming syrup.
Then—
Her feet lifted.
Slowly.
Gravity simply… forgot.
Maya rose into the air, suspended like a puppet that had lost its strings.
Her eyes widened.
A thin red thread emerged from the top of her head, stretching upward into empty space like it had pierced the ceiling and kept going.
She looked at me—
And froze.
Because the same red thread rose from my head too.
The bedroom walls peeled away.
Not breaking—unfolding, segment by segment, collapsing outward like panels being removed from a stage.
My body didn't fall apart.
It fragmented into countless red shards of light, all of them pulled upward into my thread.
And the world—our room, the dorm, the Triangle—vanished.
Darkness remained.
Darkness—
And red threads.
Countless of them, stretching across the void like a spiderweb laid over infinity.
Maya floated there, tethered by her own thread. She could feel a dull ache forming at the top of her skull, like a pressure point being twisted.
She looked up.
Her thread trembled.
Then it began lashing violently—as if searching.
Swoosh. Swoosh.
The end tore free from her head and shot away, weaving through the forest of threads, slipping between lives like it was sniffing for a scent.
Time stopped meaning anything.
Maya didn't know if seconds passed or hours.
All she knew was the sensation—
If she reached out with her will, she could touch other threads.
Not only identities.
Reality.
This place wasn't just part of her skill.
It was her skill's domain.
And that realization should've felt like victory.
Instead, it felt like standing before a locked gate the size of the sky.
She couldn't unlock it.
She strained, tried to grasp more, tried to force understanding—
But it was like trying to hold water with bare hands.
Frustration burned in her chest.
So much power.
So close.
Completely out of reach.
Her consciousness wavered.
The void blurred.
The darkness began reconstructing itself into shapes, lines folding back into a room she couldn't recognize yet.
Her eyes started to close—
Then she saw it.
A thread that wasn't red.
White.
Intertwined with faint pink.
It tore across the void toward her at terrifying speed.
And then—
Black.
The numbness returned first.
That same helpless emptiness she'd felt the first time she entered the Triangle.
Then sound trickled in.
A voice.
"Maya… are you okay?"
And then the flood hit.
Memories.
Not hers.
A life.
A name.
An existence forced into her mind like a tide wave through a cracked dam.
"AAAAAARGH!"
She screamed.
The pain was too big to be physical. It felt like her skull was splitting so something else could crawl inside.
From my perspective, nothing had happened.
She had stood there.
A few seconds passed.
Then she screamed like she was dying.
"Maya!" I lunged forward, panic spiking. "Maya—what's going on?!"
She collapsed, tears pouring down her face. I grabbed her shoulders.
She slapped my hands away like my touch burned.
Her pupils shook.
She stared at me like she'd never seen me before.
Like I was wrong.
Like I wasn't supposed to exist.
"That's a lie…" she whispered, clutching her head. "That's a lie… that's a lie…"
Her gaze dragged across the room—furniture, bed, clothes—like she was checking if the world matched something in her mind.
Then she locked onto me again.
Her expression twisted.
"W–who are you?!" she demanded. "You don't exist—"
Her voice broke mid-sentence. She shook her head hard, like she could physically shake the chaos into order.
Then she spun, yanked open the door, and bolted into the hallway.
"Maya—!"
I reached out, but she was already gone.
I stayed on the floor, staring at the open doorway.
The air felt too empty without her.
And in my head, one line repeated with sick certainty—because I understood immediately.
Because only one thing made someone react like that.
The last thing she'd said, as she ran:
"Isn't this world not real?! I have to find Lucas and confirm!"
I didn't move.
For a long moment, I couldn't.
Because I knew exactly what it meant.
Somehow—
Maya had found out.