The silence in the opulent room was absolute—not merely quiet, but the kind of silence that precedes revelation, heavy as a held breath before the plunge.
Nyx's words materialized in the theater of his mind, each syllable crystallizing like frost on glass.
«The Grand Bazaar is a cosmic instrument that oversees Universal Balance. It accompanies the meta-title Grand Sovereign of Cosmic Balance—the ultimate tool of such a sovereign, bound by soul to its bearer. Its purpose is singular: to forge you into what you are not yet, to elevate patron into sovereign, mortal into architect of equilibrium. It bears its own potential and comes with the means to shepherd you toward divinity within the Heavenly Array.»
A pause. Not empty, but pregnant—like the space between lightning and thunder.
«The Grand Bazaar did not choose you. You found it. And now, through fusion, you are bound as its patron. With the Bazaar's guidance and your solitary aide, you will become a Grand Sovereign of Cosmic Balance and break the cosmic bala—»
The stream severed. Clean. Surgical. As if reality itself had censored the next word, as if a door had been slammed shut on a revealing light.
«The Bazaar did not choose you. You were merely fortunate enough to acquire the dimensional storage coin.»
The romantic notion of destiny shattered like dropped porcelain. No chosen one. No prophesied hero. Just a lucky fool who'd stumbled upon a cosmic artifact in a moment of desperate browsing. And yet—that abrupt silence, that severed sentence. 'Break the cosmic balance.' The words Nyx had almost spoken hung in the negative space, more present for their absence.
"What balance am I supposed to break?" Zane's voice emerged low, controlled. "Why did you stop?"
«My apologies, Eternal Patron. That information currently exceeds your privilege threshold. Increase your clearance level to access restricted knowledge.»
Privilege level. Of course. The Bazaar was a museum with locked wings, and he'd only just purchased admission to the lobby.
«Is the information dangerous to me? If not, why the restriction? What determines privilege, and how do I advance it?»
Frustration bled into the questions—not the hot anger of the impulsive, but the cold insistence of someone who'd spent too long accepting doors slammed in his face.
«The Grand Bazaar is a celestial instrument whose full capabilities can only be wielded by one who bears the meta-title. You are currently too weak to sustain such a mantle. The weight of that knowledge would crush you as surely as exchanges beyond your soul's capacity would shatter it. The privilege system exists as a safeguard, metering access according to capability. Information can be as lethal as power misapplied.»
'Too weak.'
The words should have stung. Instead, they settled with the cold clarity of diagnosis. He thought of his endless walk through Flemuer Forest, hours without fatigue. That was merely the foundation—baseline adjustments to his vessel, cosmetic modifications to house what he might become. His mind remained fundamentally human, straining against the weight of a single skill orb like muscles unaccustomed to load.
He was a teacup being asked to contain an ocean. To hold what the Bazaar offered, he would need to become something larger.
Action, then. Not contemplation.
The Inventory Grimoire manifested at his summons, its presence subtly warping the space around it—a localized gravity of contained infinities. He opened to the first page, where the Realm Traveler skill orb gleamed in golden depiction, its illustrated mists swirling with hypnotic patience.
He reached with his consciousness and pulled the orb into physical space. The grimoire vanished at his dismissal, along with Nyx, leaving him alone with concentrated potential.
The knowledge within pressed against the orb's surface like water against dam walls. He focused, willing the transfer—
Nothing.
The golden tendrils continued their dance, but no ribbons of light sought him out. His mind, already holding the foundational laws of spatial travel, had reached capacity. A hard drive with no remaining storage.
He needed expansion before he could deepen mastery.
The second orb, then. Perhaps it required less volume, different architecture.
The grimoire reappeared. He guided the Realm Traveler orb back to its page and turned to the second. Another golden sphere rendered in perfect detail—but as his gaze settled upon it, the image transcended mere illustration. It bloomed behind his eyes as revelation rather than picture, a new sense awakening. Where the first orb's runes had glowed cerulean, this one pulsed with scintillating vermillion script dancing through silken mists. Each pulse was a flare, flooding the room with unspoken information.
Zane extracted the orb from the pristine page and dismissed the grimoire.
This one felt different. Where the first had been a map of 'where', this was a treatise on 'what'—a dense lattice of understanding waiting to be grafted onto consciousness. Not travel, but mastery. Specific. Potent.
He locked eyes with it.
Liquid gold flowed toward him like sentient honey, wrapping his body in luminous threads. Vermillion runes flared. The mist penetrated his skin, and with it came—
Not words. Not sentences. Knowledge arrived as awakening potential, blueprint consciousness unfolding in dimensions his mind had never accessed.
It brought understanding of another plane entirely—separate from the physical reality that housed Earth, distinct even from the realm of Eryndor. This plane was not physical in nature. It was a vast expanse of pure awareness, a celestial ocean of pristine consciousness without form or boundary. A state of being that simply 'was', eternally aware of its own awareness.
The Astral Plane.
As the golden mist dissolved into him and vermillion runes wrote themselves across his perception, Zane's awareness expanded beyond the confines of flesh and opulent room. He was no longer merely a body occupying space. He was a node in luminous fabric, a point in infinitely recurring pattern. For the first time, he perceived the dual-layered nature of existence: the dense, material physical plane, and the vast, resonant Astral Plane—two realities interwoven like breath in lungs, inseparable and interdependent.
And within that astral ocean, he saw himself.
Not his body. His essence. His consciousness rendered visible—a single wisp of concentrated awareness floating in an infinite sea.
He was a spark in the cosmic dark.
Understanding deepened. In the astral realm, golden streams of mystical energy flowed toward his wisp from all directions, absorbed and integrated, causing gradual expansion. And he was not alone—countless other wisps dotted the astral expanse alongside him. But these others were different. They were not solitary. Threads of awareness connected them, forming shapes both alien and intimately familiar.
Human shapes.
These beings were clustered; connected by threads of shared nature, forming vast, luminous constellations in the astral sea. And all these connected wisps together formed something larger still, also having human form—a colossal, serene, slumbering astral form woven from every interconnected human consciousness.
Humanity.
Not a species. An entity. A dormant celestial giant dreaming in the Astral Plane, and he was a single cell within its cosmic body.
Zane, too, was connected to this vast form despite his isolation—linked by invisible threads even as he remained distinctly separate. In every direction his expanding awareness could reach, he perceived these clustered beings. They all possessed multiple wisps—some thousands, others millions. All followed the same pattern.
All except one.
Zane was singular. Alone. A solitary wisp where others were multitudes.
The revelation was not intellectual abstraction. It was experiential totality, immediate and devastating. The scale crashed against his mind like tsunami against shore. He tried to comprehend the connections, the flow of consciousness between individual wisp and collective giant, between cell and corpus—
Pain detonated behind his eyes.
Not physical pain. Psychic rupture. The sensation of awareness stretched beyond breaking point, pulled across dimensions it was never designed to traverse. Wave after wave, a relentless assault on the fragile architecture of his sanity. Reality fragmented into blinding light and deafening silence—
…
Consciousness returned in fragments, pieces of a shattered mirror slowly reassembling.
He was on his back. The intricate weave of carpet pressed against his cheek. The vaulted ceiling of his Eryndor chamber swam into focus through tears he didn't remember shedding. High above, the skill orb hung suspended, golden tendrils still seeking, waiting patiently for his gaze to re-engage.
He jerked his eyes away—reflex born of searing memory.
'Not again.'
His breathing was ragged, his heartbeat a war drum against his ribs. But as the echoes of psychic trauma faded, understanding solidified. Terrible. Beautiful. Undeniable.
He was not merely a body. He was a wisp—a spark of awareness projecting into physical reality through the exquisite receiver of his human brain. Consciousness was not produced by neurons; the brain was anchor and translator for an astral self that existed elsewhere, elsewhen.
And that astral self was part of something immeasurably vast.
But Zane was different. Incomplete. Where other humans consisted of countless billions of wisps forming coherent wholes, he was singular—isolated in a way that bordered on existential amputation.
It had to be the fusion. Either the Bazaar had reduced him to this single wisp, or it had claimed all others, leaving only his central conscious self. Which meant—
His breath caught.
Nyx.
He'd initially assumed the Bazaar had used a small portion of his soul to construct his aide. But what if the reverse were true? What if he was the smaller disposable portion, and Nyx embodied the vast majority of his cosmic self?
'No. That can't be right.'
The word 'eternal' suggested permanence, unbreakable connection. He couldn't simply be... disposable. Could he?
He was overthinking. It was eternal fusion; he couldn't just be disposed of mid-eternity. besides, he was merely speculating. It could also be that the Bazaar fused with the totality of him, leaving only the conscious axiom as part of humanity for him to remain functional. He didn't know. Couldn't know.
Not without asking.
«Why am I only a single wisp in the Astral Plane?»
Silence stretched. Then, with the measured cadence of prepared response:
«You bear a cosmic instrument, Eternal Patron. The majority of your self exists within the Heavenly Array, not the human domain of the Astral Plane.»
Relief crashed through him—profound, overwhelming, a cool balm on psychic burns. He wasn't diminished. He was 'distributed'. The bulk of his existence simply resided elsewhere, in some higher dimensional framework he couldn't yet perceive.
The Heavenly Array.
The phrase hung in his mind like a distant nebula—vast, luminous, fundamentally beyond current comprehension. He could ask. Receive another sealed decree, another locked door. Or he could let it remain mystery, an exhibit to encounter rather than explain.
The frustration dissolved into something unexpected: anticipation.
«What is the Heavenly Array? And what did you mean when you said the Bazaar 'bears its own potential'?»
The questions escaped before wisdom could intercept them. Simultaneously, exhaustion crashed over him—the sudden, soul-deep realization that the questions would never end. There would always be a deeper mystery, a higher gate, a more fundamental truth locked behind privilege walls.
In that moment, the burning curiosity that had defined him threatened to collapse into apathy. He almost didn't want the answer anymore.
Almost.
But his mind held still, waiting. The urgent need had faded, yes, but stubborn requirement remained—the last ember of this particular fire, demanding satisfaction before it died. And as he observed that dying flame, something shifted. The ember didn't extinguish. It transformed, burning now with quieter, more desperate light.
A candle lit for what he swore would be his final question of this nature.
No more inquisitions. No more battering against locked doors. He would embrace the ride the Bazaar promised, savoring each revelation as it came. He wasn't an investigator. He was an adventurer—a wandering merchant along for the journey of his eternal life.
The answer arrived not through ears but through the internal medium of Nyx, reverberating directly in his skull:
«The nature of the Heavenly Array exceeds your current privilege threshold. All substantive information regarding it remains sealed. The Eternal Patron may know only its name. As for the Bazaar's potential: it contains within itself all requisite components to render a Grand Sovereign of Cosmic Balance complete.»
Concise. Expected. Perfectly Nyx.
What manifested next was not expected.
A translucent panel materialized before him, runes etched in ethereal light, displaying a message that stopped his breath:
『A Flaw For Mastery, Supremacy Forged In Loss And New Beginning. A Divine Destiny Calls』
『The Grand Exchange Awaits Your Offer』
『Boon』
✧Orb of Expertise Conquered
『Sacrifice』
✦Curiosity
His understanding of the runic script had definitely improved. But that skill mattered infinitely less than the staggering implication.
The Bazaar responded not just to queries, but to the texture of his emotions, the contours of his resolutions. This exchange had been triggered by his moment of resigned determination—an offer extended in response to intent barely formed.
The terms were clear, terrible, and seductive.
He could gain a skill orb—completely integrated, instantly mastered. But the cost? Surrender the very curiosity that made him who he was.
'All desire to learn. Gone.'
Unthinkable.
He couldn't sacrifice his curiosity. It was the engine of his existence, the fundamental drive that gave meaning to experience. What would life without it even resemble? He couldn't imagine a self devoid of wonder, stripped of the itch to understand, emptied of the compulsion to ask 'why' and 'what if'.
He cared about the future precisely because he was curious about what it would hold. He longed for his father's recovery because he burned to know what that healed life might be. Even the Bazaar itself—he pursued understanding of it because curiosity demanded he explore, that he push boundaries, that he 'know'.
There was too much to experience, too many mysteries beckoning. For a single skill orb, he could not surrender the very thing that made those mysteries matter.
And yet.
Ironically, cruelly, he now found himself desperately curious about what life without curiosity would be like. And what kind of skill could possibly warrant such an exchange? It would have to be transcendent—a mastery so complete it eclipsed the very flaw it replaced.
The flames of curiosity burned hotter now, stoked by the offering itself. The transaction was perfectly, viciously circular: sacrifice the curiosity that made him crave the orb, and gain an orb that would satisfy that craving.
Could his curiosity ever truly be satisfied? Some deep instinct whispered that this specific orb might achieve it. That this knowledge might be so fundamentally complete it could finally satiate the endless hunger.
But what use was possessing something that satisfied curiosity if, in gaining it, you no longer possessed curiosity to be satisfied?
The logic ate itself.
Still—why had the Bazaar labeled curiosity a 'flaw'? Was his humanity itself the defect? Did attaining sovereignty over cosmic balance require shedding everything that made him human, becoming pure function devoid of messy, mortal drives?
A dry chuckle escaped him. Then, a pragmatic thought: with the Bazaar, couldn't he theoretically exchange it all back later? He'd just need something of equivalent value. Or a staggering accumulation of Exchange Echoes. Especially if he achieved completion—became sovereign, perhaps broke the balance, whatever that entailed.
For now, he would bear the so-called flaw. He would keep his curiosity.
The panel vanished as decision crystallized. The deal was too dangerous, too fundamentally self-erasing. He didn't need to deliberate. His curiosity remained, honed now and burning brighter than before.
His gaze drifted to the corner of the room, admiring patterns in the carved wood that suddenly seemed more beautiful than the skill orb he was carefully avoiding.
As this resolution took root, another realization bloomed:
It was connected. Simple, really.
His curiosity had been the problem with the second orb. He was innately, profoundly curious about the nature of humanity, so when his expanding awareness encountered the revelation of the astral deity, he'd drunk it in greedily. That information—the scale, the connection, the existential weight—had overwhelmed his untempered mind, forcing system shutdown. Which meant the skill remained incompletely assimilated.
But this created dissonance. He'd thought the Curiosity Exchange was triggered purely by his internal decision to stop asking questions. The message seemed to support that interpretation.
So why did the offer feel like an eerily perfect solution to his assimilation problem?
Unless—
'Ah.'
He was overthinking. Again.
What mattered was practical solution: how to avoid unconsciousness during the next attempt without trading away his core self.
He was also still on the floor.
Zane sat up slowly, the room tilting before stabilizing. The skill wasn't fully integrated. He'd grasped its existential essence—the truth of the Astral Plane—but the practical ability remained locked behind the overwhelming psychic wall labeled 'Humanity'.
He summoned the grimoire and carefully returned the orb to its page. The book vanished. His limit had been reached. His mind felt stretched, sensitized, raw—like muscle tissue strained by impossible weight.
The implications cascaded through him in waves.
His entire understanding of reality had been upended, not as theory but as lived experience. His old life—the stress of unpaid bills, the grind of gym routines, the quiet despair at his father's bedside—now seemed like a distant, pale dream played out on a shallow stage. He was living inside a fantasy that was revealing itself truer than the "reality" he'd always known.
He thought of the Bazaar. 'Grand Sovereign of Cosmic Balance.' A tool to forge him into a being capable of bearing cosmic title. To... break a balance.
The thought was no longer merely frightening. It felt inevitable—the inescapable trajectory of a path a random coin had set him upon.
Slowly, beneath the fading waves of confusion and shock, determined calm began to rise. Razor-sharp clarity.
His life had changed irrevocably. He was no longer Zane Ling, struggling student. He was Zane Ling, Eternal Patron of the Grand Bazaar—a solitary wisp of humanity who could now perceive the seams of creation. His father's cure was no longer desperate hope but future transaction, a milestone on this new road. Ashburn wasn't a prison to escape but a home to return to, transformed.
He would play the merchant. Build this fiction of the Ashburn Kingdom into something substantial enough to trade with memory-weavers. Learn their secrets, earn their trust, accumulate the privileges needed to ascend.
And he would grow. Expand his capacity—mental, physical, spiritual—until he could hold oceans of cosmic knowledge without drowning. Until he could walk between realms not as fugitive but as sovereign traveler. Until he could look upon the slumbering astral form of his own species without his mind buckling beneath its weight.
The world was geometry. Life was pattern.
And he had just been handed the tools to redraw his own.
A soft, genuine smile touched his lips there in the alien splendor of his Eryndor chamber. The fear remained, but it was spice now, not poison. The uncertainty was vast blank canvas, not prison wall.
He was too weak to bear the title now.
But he would not be weak forever.