Waking up this time was a different experience from what I was used to.
The first thing I noticed was my body.
Not the dull awareness of aging joints, not the background hum of stiffness and fatigue that had once followed me like an old acquaintance. No — this body was in its prime. Balanced. Powerful. Every breath filled my lungs cleanly. Every muscle responded without hesitation. My mind felt sharp, rested, awake in a way I had not felt in decades.
Then I noticed the room.
Polished stone walls with subtle silver inlays. A ceiling high enough to feel dignified without being cavernous. Soft golden light diffused from no visible source. It was luxurious — not ostentatious — but deliberate. Designed.
I sat up slowly.
Before I could fully gather my thoughts, a soft crystalline chime echoed through the air.
A translucent screen materialized before me.
<
I blinked.
A system.
Of course. If this was real, then it would not be mundane.
After the initial shock faded, I considered the question seriously. A name was not just a label — it was identity, power, presence. If I was stepping into a new universe, I would do so properly.
Magnus Alexander Greywald.
Strong. Noble. Slightly archaic.
And then the small indulgence: I. C.
A quiet homage to a previous life. Hidden. Not spoken in full. In certain stories, names carried weight. Power. Vulnerability. I would not make that mistake.
And if one looked carefully — M. A. G. I. C.
Yes.
If I was being honest with myself, I had always wanted to be a mage.
<
"Yes," I said without hesitation. "And I hope it's magic."
The screen shifted.
'You have gained the Helion Nebula, with its two solar systems that you designed in the game Starsector, together with all improvements, ships, industries, population, and megastructures. Upon acceptance, you will gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities of your main character. A maxed out LVL 40 character with all the skills unlocked.'
I froze.
The Helion Nebula.
My Helion Nebula.
A carefully optimized industrial core system inside a nebula for defensive depth.
"What does that mean exactly?" I asked cautiously. "How does a game translate into reality?"
The System responded calmly.
'A parallel universe existed where a figure matching your designed character operated within the Helion Nebula. At the moment of catastrophic weapon detonation — a device capable of annihilating the entire nebula — System intervention extracted the nebula from its original cosmological layer. The weapon was removed. All traces of its existence erased. The original operator perished. His memories, experience, and developed capabilities are transferred to you. Emotional dominance is suppressed to preserve host identity.'
So.
I was inheriting a fallen empire-builder.
And an entire nebula.
I took a breath.
"List the contents."
The Helion System
At the centre burned Helios, a stable yellow star wrapped in nebular gases that diffused hyperspace signatures and masked the system from long-range scans.
First orbit: Droskar.
Once a world rich with organic life, now a scorched, atmosphere-less mining titan. Ultrahigh ore density. Rare ore veins so dense they made independent prospectors weep.
Size six.
Its surface crawled with automated strip-mining platforms and shielded refinery complexes. Vast orbital rings processed ore into metals and transplutonic alloys. It also housed the empire's primary fuel production — refining volatiles shipped from Tyralon into antimatter fuel.
The heat was extreme. The hazard rating high.
But efficiency overcame hostility.
Second orbit: Thalora.
A terran world.
Mild climate, stabilized through Eridani-Utopia stellar shades and orbital mirror arrays — relic megastructures retrofitted into functional climate control systems.
This was the heart of the Helion Dominion.
Farming districts spanning continents. Commercial hubs. Light industry complexes. Cultural centres.
Thalora was not merely productive — it was liveable.
Its moon, Selara, was habitable as well. Lower gravity. Scarred by ruins. Once used as a penal colony in the previous timeline. Now partially restored, though its decivilized settlements remained isolated in scattered enclaves.
Third major body: Tyralon.
Gas giant.
Vast orbital habitats clung to its magnetosphere, extracting plentiful volatiles. These fed Droskar's refineries.
But Tyralon was more than an extraction site.
It housed the High Industry and Orbital Works of the Dominion — shipyards capable of producing capital-class warships. It also contained the Cryosanctum and Cryorevival facilities connected to a Domain-era cryosleeper.
The cryosleeper itself still orbited the system.
A relic from humanity's golden age.
Most inhabitants had already been awakened. Some remained voluntarily asleep.
Helion also possessed:
A coronal hypershunt near Helios, channelling stellar energy to power planetary grids. An inert gate — currently unusable without a network. A derelict orbital dockyard near the asteroid belt. A functional Comm Relay.A Sensor Array.A Navigation Buoy.
Infrastructure.
Control.
Self-sufficiency.
Four size-six colonies.
Four million citizens.
And all the ship blueprints that the 'game' allowed. Even the faction specific and AI powered ships.
The Solane System
Then there was Solane.
An orange star deeper in the nebula.
Uncolonized.
Waiting.
Scorvane — toxic world rich in ore and rare ore.
Elura — terran world of strange abundance, holding ore, rare ore, organics, even diffuse volatiles in atmospheric anomalies.
Nimbara — gas giant with abundant volatiles.
Pyraxis — volcanic moon with extreme tectonics, abundant ore and transplutonics.
Verdantia — jungle moon with rich farmland.
A water world.
Makeshift relay, sensor, nav buoy already installed.
A complete economic chain.
Untouched.
Potential.
I accepted.
And the memories came.
The Skills
They did not feel like downloads. Like someone shoved a movie in my head.
They felt remembered. Like memories that I forgot, but I am now rembering.
I understood fleet logistics instinctively — how to reduce supply consumption, extend operational range, maintain peak performance longer.
I grasped colony management at a structural level — industrial planning, alpha-level optimization, supply chain balancing.
I understood AI integration risks and tolerances.
I knew how to command fleets personally — how to anticipate flux thresholds, weapon arcs, shield collapse timings.
Leadership.
Industry.
Technology.
Combat.
All maximized.
I was not a mage.
But I was something just as dangerous.
A person that made his own empire in a corner of a war riddled galaxy.
And now my empire was free to grow without any other factions disagreeing with my decisions.
Well, the growth was not really all that possible since the universe was empty beside my two solar systems, but at least there was no pressure and need for constant patrols against greedy opponents.
Hmm, I see that these memories really feel like mine.
I mean I am still me, same thought process, just more sharp and have more experience.
And even if I am the whole universe manager and I will have to bring other civilization to it. At least I will reserve a corner for me. I think that living in physical plane will allow me to still feel human, and not similar to a god.