I froze as I thought about this, and my intuition fully believed that I had just arrived at the truth.

It was after arriving at the Academy and leaving my small village that I realized that for many mages, there was nothing in this world that compelled them more than power and a long life to wield that power.

Sure, mages pursued knowledge and the mysteries of Anima and the endless powers of creation, but just as a man who was blind and could now see, reaching higher levels as a mage would reveal more of the world to you, and it was torture to know that there were so many mysteries out there, but you were too small to see them.

I could understand this reason very clearly. My Anima Sensitivity crossed the Acolyte threshold, and I was able to easily perceive the Essence in the air without even trying.

What would this one sense show me at the Adept level, or at the Arcanist level?

I did not really think about this, because for me as an Acolyte, everything was new, and advancement was not truly difficult, there were a million paths for me to explore, and even if I reach the Adept Stage at one hundred years, and did not exceed that stage for the rest of my life, I would be very satisfied with what I had... but my mindset was not the same as others, and everything happening around me was proof of this.

Some people would willingly burn the world just to progress their personal power.

I sighed and rubbed my face... where did that leave me, the Acolyte who was now stuck inside a world he did not understand?

The red sky from my previous death entered my memories, alongside the rage, and I found myself squeezing my fist tight.

"Damn you, Orath... Damn whoever or whatever is behind this damned Ascension Ritual. I don’t care how long it will take, but I will see all your plans come to nothing!"

I closed my eyes and allowed the rage to settle, and my mind took over. All of my progress through the loops washed through me, and I finally settled on Lightning Cascade.

In the last loop, after I cut off Rex’s arm, there had been a moment when the connection between Orath and his body had nearly fizzled out, and it took a while for it to be repaired.

The Lightning Cascade Discipline was the new variable; even at the Initiate level, it nearly tore Orath out of Rex’s body. What would happen if I pushed this spell to the Acolyte level, while increasing my Resonance and my other attributes?

I felt for this spell again. The blueprint was clearer now that I was paying attention. The Discipline wanted to be cast as a sustained discharge, branching, multi-targeting, the channel held open for as long as the body could bear it.

At rank one, the spread would be small, a handful of arcs, probably less than ten meters of total reach, sustained for two or three seconds before the channel demanded rest. At higher ranks, the Discipline would grow. More arcs. Longer reach. Sustained longer.

What would this discipline look like at the Adept rank? Lightning Cascade in a mage of my path could be a horizon-clearing Discipline. It could light up an entire battlefield with sustained branching discharge.

I could sweep across tens of thousands as an Adept Mage with this spell alone!

Lightning had always been one of the most offensive elemental disciplines, and I was seeing one of the reasons why this was the case.

I had a tool I could use against the chitin demons when they came through the cracks. A single Cascade across the ground at the moment of emergence could deliver a discharge to four or five demons simultaneously, killing or stunning them all before they cleared the lip of the fissure. The Stored Essence count, which had been frozen at one hundred and five since the hunt loop, would begin to climb again. The First Earth Gate evolution might trigger.

If I encountered Rex again, then I would have a tool I could use against him, and if I were strong enough, then I would not need to destroy my arm to do it.

The plan was forming.

This loop. Practice the Cascade in solitude. Use the eruption to stress-test it against the demons. Build the kill count. Test whether the First Earth Gate would evolve.

Avoid Orath’s body, let Rex and Orath move through the loop’s normal pattern. Do not engage.

The encounter from the previous loop had taught me that Orath at full connection was beyond what I could survive, even with maximum commitment, and the survival cost had been steep. This loop was for growth, not for confrontation.

The next loop, or the loop after, or even tens of loops later, would be the loop I tested Lightning Cascade against Orath’s vessel deliberately.

If the test succeeded, if the Cascade could disrupt the tether without destroying me, then I would have a tool the conspiracy had not anticipated. The shape of what I could do to Orath would change.

I let the plan settle inside me, then I rose.

My body felt different. Mortal Shell at forty-seven was a body the previous bodies had not been, denser at the joints, more bound at the soul.

My left arm, the arm that had shattered at the end of the previous loop, was whole, and the channel through the forearm felt new.

These were not the channel I had grown up with, these new channels have been rebuilt with the lessons of the shredding still encoded in it. The good thing was that I would not have to relearn how to push Anima through the new architecture, since each growth in my abilities brought instinctive knowledge, but I needed practice to thoroughly encode this knowledge inside me.

Lightning Resonance was creating new pathways in my flesh, following the same way new pathways were being created in my staff every time I touched it.

I was Elric Voss. I had died twelve times. I had a new Discipline, a new sense and a body I did not yet entirely recognize, and I had work to do.

I want to wake up to a new morning, not this one.