When Ah-Riam Akh’Braiden was but a child, he became the first member of his family in generations to fail to bind a legacy weapon to his soul. He did not know why then. They did not why. They froze him out, threw him out of the running to take over Arrabion.

  He was staying in his aunt's house when he had the dream. There he was, among the ranks of the common footsoldiers. He was old and bitter now, all unkempt hair and days old stubble and stained breeches and holey livery. He could see - and he hated it - that Ae’lena, his cousin, had positioned herself so she protected his side of the formation more than the other.

  His auntie Ae’va and his cousin had been blessings in his life early on, after the incident, after his mother tried to take his head. A few months later though, Ah’Riam had to admit staying with them, looking at their soul-bound weapons…it drove him mad with envy and brought the truth of his fall from grace too close for comfort.

  So this old and bitter version of himself had left their home and bought one as a fourteen-year-old boy. He was only a few months from fifteen then, so it was no problem. They had never given up on him though. He was sure his mother would rather he just died and spared her the shame. His father was quiet and stoic as ever. His siblings…well he'd been beating them up and down the sparring circle since they had started training. And he wasn't even the oldest. He had been a genius, never once losing against his brother who was two years older than him.

  He'd once almost lost against some older peasant boy but he'd still managed to win. He was the undisputed best in Arrabion until he wasn't. He should have been there with them at the front, with his family, leading their city, their people to greatness. His siblings were there, his mother and father, his aunt, his cousin. Even some of the locals who'd gained power the alternative way, by focused training, reaching the status of mythical warriors through their efforts. Ah-Riam had given up.

  He'd known how to use every weapon, had eyes behind his head (according to most everyone including his trainer Ed’Lars) but he'd given up. Now he stood behind with the chaff as the elites raced ahead.

  There was no place for chaff on the field of battle that day though. Ae’Lena’s shield broke not even hours into the fight with a single beast.

  It opened its mouth, and a beam of violet had the sky exploding, bolts of arcane lightning taking down mythical warriors with pinpoint precision. The city they'd tried to protect? The scaly beast hadn't needed to reach it to torch half of it to the ground. It hadn't even aimed at it. Only sent a few bolts of arcane lightning as part of its opening salvo.

  It was massive, scaly. It had violet and yellow membraneous eyes, and it had two sets of wings. One set had been moving since it arrived, throwing out currents of wind to keep the warriors fighting it off balance. He screamed as the command was given, and he and his archery contingent released their alchemically enhanced arrows.

  Elements of all kinds exploded into life on the city-sized beast's body. It roared and fell back an inch. They celebrated. It lowered its head and puffed, showing that yes, it could aim if it desired. Ah-Riam survived because Ae’Lena was there, protecting his side of the formation. His sister - his little sister who'd bonded her fans two years after he'd failed - wasn't so lucky.

  She was just the first. With three-quarters of the regulars devastated, and about half the mythic warriors gone as well, the battle was all but decided. It was Ara-Tha, that peasant he'd once proudly defeated after a hectic duel, who charged first. He was a brave one. That was why he'd plowed on, advanced and become a mythic warrior when Ah-Riam could not. His bravery aside, he was the youngest elite without a mythical legacy weapon. His death was quick.

  Ae’Lena watched him as Ah-Riam knew she would. She released such a gut-wrenching cry, he felt it in his very soul. He started to run, knowing what would come next. She would charge. He broke from his formation and chased after her.

  Ah-Lita Akh’Braiden - his mother, the strongest most talented mythic warrior born to Arrabion in ages - flew towards the monster's head with a savage war cry, her gauntlets gleaming. With the force of a crushing meteor - so fast, so unstoppable - she landed a double blow right to the center of its skull. The clang of her mythical weapons hitting something rock hard shocked the whole battlefield quiet. Ah-Lita bounced off with all her accumulated force and flew so far into the broken sky it would be a miracle if she came back before the fight was over.

  Ae’Lena did not react to this. She continued to charge, crying her soul out. Where was Ae’Va? Couldn't she see her daughter was going to commit suicide? Did she not care? Ae’Lena and her strongest shield projection bumped into one of the creature's legs and…bounced back with no effort. She stood up and prepared to charge again.

  Ah-Riam had known she loved Ara-Tha, but to give up her life.

  “Ae’Lena, wait!”

  The creature heard him, heard his tiny voice which should have sounded like an ant’s.

  It fixed all its attention on him, and Ah-Riam was transfixed. The large violet eye, a membrane flicking over it in lieu of blinking. The broken sky, the scattered clouds above it. It was such a scene. A scene of annihilation, of destruction unfathomable. The beast noticed Ae’Lena's attacks then. It flexed a talon, not even fully lifting it. It flicked Ae’Lena like a gnat, and the unbreakable shield fell to pieces. The beast looked away.

  Ah-Riam let out a cry even as the vision collapsed and he woke up in his new bed, panting and sweating.

  “Are you okay, Riam?” a worried-looking Ae’Lena - younger than she had been in the vision - asked.

  Ah-Riam stared at his hands. His young callused hands. They bore the signs of his efforts. He could not give up. If it was a prophetic dream, or if it was a construct of his depressed mind, he did not intend to find out. One thing was for sure though, he had only a few years, a decade at most to save Arrabion from a monster even his mother could not slay. The continent had not come to their aid, in his vision. The people of Arrabion had fought alone. He had fought alone. He stared at his cousin for a long time.

  “We will be,” he said, answering her question.

  ****

  “And that was how it started?” Liam finished his little narrative.

  “You had a prophetic dream?” Rafe asked, not bothering to hide his disbelief.

  “Yes, that right there. That disbelief. That's what I want to wipe off your face when you too get these dreams in the future. In truth, I didn't know then. Didn't know why I hadn't bonded a weapon, didn't know why I could see my opponent's moves before they made them in duels, didn't know why I could see - if I put my mind to it - everything around me. I'd been doing it all my life, it was just how I saw the world. I had no idea I was special.”

  “And humble. Don't forget humble. And me get prophetic dreams too? Weren't we speaking of soul damage?”

  “All in good time. Of course, you do know how and why I had my soul damaged.”

  ****

  It slithered into him, the spiritual entity, not alive but not unintelligent either. It wanted to, no, needed to bond with his soul. It was the only way to save itself. There was pain at first, a soul-deep pain, then the thrashing.

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  Liam dropped the glowing glass orb he'd picked up in one of the The Vault's rooms to act as his torch. It fell and shattered, the light inside it pouring out in a torrent. And it was strange too. They were particles, visible particles of different colours and wavelengths. They flailed around for a bit, then the violence of his soul’s torment doubled. The light particles froze. His soul froze too and the entity in it gained a foothold.

  Then the light particles came and his soul welcomed them like the desert sand sucking water. But the entity already present did not accept this new intruder. Liam's soul wanted the light, the entity wanted his soul.

  The battle was long and fierce. In the end, his soul was torn to a million shreds, the biggest remnant had bound the transcendent light. The lost weapon also had managed to grab onto a piece of his soul, A dead shard.

  ****

  “Your soul broke into a million pieces?”

  “Just a rough estimate. It could have been a billion for all I cared to count.”

  “And you survived?” Rafe didn't care to hide his disbelief.

  “I had help. As I said, this was a one hundred percent fateful occurrence. It just so happened that my innate ability let me perceive my soul from a lower level than most people are able to. Sacrificing life force, I was able to weld a lot of pieces of my soul back together to prevent an early death. That was in my transcendent light aspect soul shard, of course.”

  “But you said the piece of your soul the lost weapon bound to was dead?”

  “Ahh, and that is where fate comes in. The lost weapon, a legacy mythic weapon left from a universe long since destroyed - just like the ones my family had in the first story. The lost weapon was different though. It was made by mixing the affinities and realised truths of thousands of the strongest practitioners of a dying world. They hoped one of them could bond the weapon and stop a calamity. In essence, they tried to manufacture a mantle by throwing a quantity of truth together.

  “That kind of shortcut never works though. It could not bond anyone who already had a class, or core skill, or aspect as we liked to call it. It could only bond to clean souls. So they tried to bond a child and raise him to power in a few decades.”

  “And? What happened?” Rafe asked after Liam stopped telling the story only partway through.

  “You must understand that what they built was huge. It looked like an alchemical concoction in the end. It filled vats as large as houses. They were planning to make one warrior in the beginning, but they got greedy. Why not make thousands? Anyway, it might not have been a real mantle, but it was like a mantle. You know how mantles are.”

  “I don't, actually.”

  Liam frowned. “Didn't Noid tell you about the Demon God and his mantle? He asked to show you that vision again when you got your memories back, so we assumed…”

  “That's not important anyway. What is, is that mantles are semi-intelligent. They have instincts if that. Most of the guardians who came after me found their mantles via lucky encounters in dungeons. The only reason they became guardians was because they had truths strong enough to control their mantles. The Demon God…he wasn't fully in control there, at the end. And so my story comes to a head. The lost weapon could not be controlled by weak people, until me.”

  Rafe stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Proceed.”

  “The lost weapon, or a very small part of it bonded to a dead soul shard. It has instincts, survival instincts. I was the only thing alive there. I've come to realise that the only way to destroy fragments of the weapon was to kill their host and leave them hostless for a few minutes. Anyway, the lost weapon panicked, trying to keep that soul shard from dissipating.

  “My living soul couldn't bond the lost weapon. It couldn't bond any weapon which was not light-aspected. That was why the transcendent light was accepted. All the other aspects I got later on, even my sword aspect, had a hint of light mixed in them. My innate ability was that much of a control freak.”

  “Anyhow, the lost weapon lost its chance to control me. It gave me the boost to save myself. It also gave me the idea in the first place, as it rushed to kill and add pieces of my soul to its fading shard. I did the same thing. I sacrificed life force, it sacrificed its instincts. I later had to take the time to heal my soul properly. I made seven soul shards large enough they could pass for souls, then grew them, cultivated them until they were as strong as normal souls. Each had its own core.”

  “You had seven souls?”

  “Exactly. And sure, it was rare then, but the universe remembers. Not clearly, but the case of the enchantress having six core slots in one soul should be a good example. Essence remembers. It always did, even before the system. Precedent. What once was will be again?”

  “So there are people out there with seven classes?” Rafe groaned.

  “Of course. As your soul grows via leveling, you'll also get a few more slots.”

  “You're a soul doctor, right? How many more class slots do you reckon I'll get?”

  Liam looked unsure for a moment. “Maybe one class and one profession slot,” he said with a shrug.

  “But that's not important. Let us recap a few things. I went into a dungeon, The Vaults - which you'll have to visit as a requirement, by the way- which had monsters infested with the lost weapon. I killed one of these monsters, barely. The lost weapon tried to latch onto me, my soul resisted, and the rest is history. I was lucky. I was fated. So were you.”

  ****

  Rafe wanted his questions answered as soon as possible. He decided to be patient. He needed to think. Liam had told him way too much. A lot. Still, he had to find out. He had to know.

  “So, what's the prognosis, doc. Will I be able to live?”

  “Treat the matter with the levity it requires,” Liam lectured.

  “Man, is it just me, or were you and Noid both nobles spurned by your families in one way or another? Curious one turned into a blonde knockout while the other joined us scar faces.”

  “Are you trying to deflect?”

  “Is it working?”

  “Not even a little. What's there to be nervous about anyway?”

  “You don't understand the language of scars.”

  “Do you like your scar that much?” Liam asked with raised brows.

  “I think it makes me look more manly, you know. Like a warrior. Your smooth girl-like face on the other hand…” He shrugged.

  “Hahahaha,” Liam said blandly, “very funny. Now, let us get onto the crux of the matter. You were a weird entry into the challenge on all metrics, the only person below level ten to be honest. Not many such would survive in a dungeon of any level. What's worse, you are from an unintegrated Essence Desert. If your planet had at least had some Essence prior to the integration process starting… well then your planet would have been integrated hundreds of years ago I think, but we are not here for that so don't ask.”

  Liam glared at him, making sure Rafe understood. Inwardly, Rafe was confused and apprehensive (a little). Hundreds of years. The system had become aware of Earth hundreds of years ago but couldn't integrate it because of the Essence Desert. So then, did that mean the tutorial might not even be in his generation?

  “Of course, now that the system started marking people, the tutorial must be in a little under two months.”

  All his hopes were crashed and rekindled at once.

  “Anyway, being marked for a tutorial. It just means the system is strategically showering your soul with essence, strengthening your soul, and preparing you to start leveling once the essence comes flooding in. It takes about three months of this bathing process for at least two-thirds of the population to be ready to start leveling. There are reasons the system does things slowly like this, but you should explore those yourself,” he said with a hint of command when Rafe went to open his mouth.

  “Anyway, into our trial sauntered a soul from an Essence Desert, not ready to gain even a single level, but getting a skill in their first seconds in the void. With your brain on the decline, your subconscious did what it could to protect you. And the Essence responded to your plea, granting you the indomitable mind, which later turned into Adamance of the blade. A truly strong skill. One we believe modelled on an achievement of the Enchantress herself. Of course, its only use is to boost your willpower so you can survive more time dilation than someone of your level normally would.

  “You with me so far. All random occurrences, all luck. There is also the matter that we were so close to you when you almost died. You were not even a second away from death's door when we arrived. Fate. And then you enter a trial and start killing things. Your soul is shocked, especially since it is too busy trying to incorporate my lost weapon and heal your body at the time. You are getting essence, which has to travel to your core. Your core shatters, and the essence goes to your skill. And at the moment, you had two, having gained the second one the moment you spoke with Noid that time you asked him to teach you.”

  “...”

  “It just so happens though, that your body and soul are in the care of the best soul architect in the multiverse. Fate. Do you see where I'm going? It was impossible to heal your soul immediately though, because your body was in worse shape, critical shape. The lost weapon was still bonding as well, so —”

  “Wait, you just said I was bonding to the lost weapon?! Twice! Is that my class now?!”

  “No. I found ways to make the bond…less dependent on the core spirit. That is why this trial saves even people with classes. Should I proceed?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I couldn't heal your core spirit until your body was fully healed. Not that I wanted to. It wasn't immediately lethal anyway, so I waited. Once your body was stable, I started to work on you, but it was too late.”

  That sounded ominous.