"It's done."
The words escaped me before I could stop them.
Hours of stillness, hours of circulating until my body felt like a machine—then the reserves finally clicked back into place. Full. Stable. Mine again.
I rolled my shoulders, felt the faint ache in my back, and grabbed my phone.
Still no reply from Maya.
Today was the day.
Her first activation.
I pulled up my status out of habit—half reassurance, half 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—enough to run two skills at once without collapsing.
A few weeks ago, the old me wouldn't have reached half of this.
And Maya…
Maya was the reason the pace had started feeling unreal.
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 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. Ruthless clarity. A kind of brutal focus 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 cut through my thoughts.
The door opened without waiting.
Maya stepped in and shut it behind her like she was sealing the room into a bubble.
"Have you really evolved your core?" she asked, eyes sharp.
"I did." I lifted my arm.
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 catch it.
"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 trying to hide behind control. "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 current in the room suddenly visible.
Maya inhaled—and began circulating.
At first it looked normal.
Then it didn't.
She wasn't sinking into that rigid, locked concentration everyone needed for stable loops.
She was doing it while sitting casually across from me, shoulders loose, 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 traced the channels with my eyes. 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.
Circulation demanded full focus. One stray thought and your rhythm stuttered—that was why my training always turned me quiet. Talking felt like juggling while sprinting.
Maya had just removed that limitation.
She'd made control multitask.
I canceled Eyes of Truth and rubbed my forehead like it could 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 drained from her tone. "Now I'm going to restore the last bit."
I nodded, grin tugging at 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 shifted from passive circulation into full-speed control.
Her 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, fingers twitching like they wanted to escape her nerves.
"Honestly?" she said. "No."
Then she swallowed and looked straight at me anyway.
"But I'm doing it."
Something tightened in her expression. 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 carried 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 hit different.
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 whose strings had been cut.
Her eyes widened.
A thin red thread emerged from the top of her head, stretching upward into empty space like it pierced the ceiling and kept going.
She looked at me—
and froze.
Because a red thread rose from my head too.
The bedroom didn't break.
It peeled.
Panels of reality folded outward like stage walls being removed.
My body didn't collapse.
It fragmented—countless red shards of light—each one pulled upward into my thread like I was being harvested.
And the world—our room, the dorm, the Triangle—vanished.
Darkness remained.
Darkness—
and red threads.
Countless threads, stretching across the void like a spiderweb laid over infinity.
Maya floated there, tethered by her own thread. A dull ache formed at the top of her skull, like a pressure point being twisted.
She looked up.
Her thread trembled.
Then it began to lash, violently, as if searching.
Swoosh. Swoosh.
The end tore free and shot away, weaving through the forest of threads, slipping between lives like it was following scent.
Time stopped meaning anything.
Maya didn't know if seconds passed or hours.
Only sensation remained—
if she reached with 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.
That should've felt like victory.
Instead, it felt like standing before a locked gate the size of the sky.
She couldn't open it.
She strained, tried to grasp more, tried to force understanding—
and it slipped through her like water.
Frustration burned in her chest.
So much power.
So close.
Completely out of reach.
Her consciousness wavered.
The void blurred.
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.
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 tidal wave through a cracked dam.
"AAAAAARGH!"
She screamed.
The pain wasn't 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—bed, furniture, clothes—like she was checking if reality matched something in her mind.
Then she snapped back to me.
Her expression twisted.
"W–who are you?!" she demanded. "You don't exist—"
Her voice broke. 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 threw over her shoulder 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.