The response was immediate and overwhelming.
Verdant gold light erupted from his form, not merely surrounding him but seeming to emerge from every cell, every particle of his being!
Above him, clouds that had no business existing in the controlled atmosphere of the Early Veiled Shore began to form…green-gold cumulus that roiled with internal light, as if someone had captured the essence of harvest season and given it meteorological form.
A pillar of light descended from these impossible clouds, connecting heaven to earth…if such terms even applied in a space that existed outside normal dimensional constraints.
The light embraced him, welcomed him, celebrated him!
HUUM!
The sensation was indescribable in its completeness. It was like sinking into a hot spring after eons of travel through frozen wastes, every tension dissolving, every accumulated stress washing away in waves of pure possibility.
It was being recognized by existence itself for efforts that others might not even notice, being rewarded for trying when trying seemed pointless, being told that yes, what you did mattered, what you endured had meaning, what you attempted had value beyond measure!
The prompts began their cascade, each one a note in a symphony of acknowledgment.
|Harvest Festival Endowment activated|
|Target: Self|
|Measuring accumulated efforts since last harvest...|
|Note: Effort to stand against Early Creatures recognized|
|Note: Effort to form new existences recognized|
|Note: Effort of Quintessence recognized|
And then the number that made everything else fade into background noise:
|Complexity gained: +4,100,000,000,000 (+4.1 Trillion)|
|Purity gained: +4,100,000,000,000 (+4.1 Trillion)|
The waves of light gradually calmed, drawing back into his form like an ocean returning to its depths, but his eyes... his eyes continued to radiate with verdant fire that suggested he had looked upon something that mortal minds weren't meant to comprehend and had decided to comprehend it anyway!
Four point one trillion.
From a single Glyph.
This… was a complete rewriting of what advancement meant! At ten percent maturation of a Principle, he had unlocked the ability to effectively grant nearly half the power of a Duke with a wave of his hand. To himself. To others. To anyone he deemed worthy of such impossible elevation.
This was balance-breaking on a scale that made previous violations of fairness look like minor infractions! This was the kind of power that shouldn't exist, that couldn't exist, that absolutely did exist because he had made it so!
A smile crossed his face…not the gentle smile of satisfaction, not the cruel smile of superiority.
If existence wanted to be unfair, if it wanted to stack the deck, manipulate the odds, change the rules mid-game... then he would be even more unfair in return.
He would be tyrannically unfair.
With that thought crystallizing into decision, he turned his head toward a figure who stood among the others on his Shore, distinct in her bearing, unique in her nature, irreplaceable in her significance.
Sigrid.
"Come!" The single word carried across the space between them with the weight of command and invitation combined.
—
The word hit Sigrid like a physical force, though she would never admit it.
Her heart…that organ that was supposed to be ordered, controlled, perfectly regulated by her nature as THE Living Order, skipped a beat.
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