Emie Ascended (working title) Chapter 1

A/N: And here we go! I'm not totally satisfied with this chapter, but that's probably because starting a project has always been the hardest thing for me. Worldbuilding is fun and everything, but actually sitting down and getting the first several chapters written is always difficult. They never quite seem good enough.

Anyway, I hope you like the start to Emie's next adventure. I'm trying to approach it as a stand-alone series so new readers will be able to enjoy it even if they haven't read PftA. If you have ideas for the title of the book/series, feel free to share them. If I end up going with one of the suggestions, I'll be sure to mention the name of the person who came up with it in the book's acknowledgements.

Until the moment of my ascension, I never felt ready to leave the realm of my birth. Had I been given a choice, I would have opted to linger for a few centuries with my remaining family.

I wasn’t like one of those cultivation protagonists who thought about nothing beyond ascension. From the outside, it might have looked like that was all I cared about, given how swiftly I rose from a mundane human from Earth to an Ascender. But looks were often misleading.

At least I’d gotten to say goodbye.

As I shifted between realms, I could feel something fundamental changing within me. My connection to my affinities suddenly felt tenuous, and I could feel my strength quickly fading.

The space around me seemed to firm, becoming more real as the mana that had empowered me was stripped away. My body disintegrated, only to be rebuilt before my mind could fully process the change.

And it was definitely a change, though it wasn’t one that was totally unexpected.

While the general public might not know much about the upper realm that my home realm was connected to, those likely to ascend were a little different. As ascension approached, future ascenders were granted what knowledge the Council had regarding the next realm. That information was extremely limited, but anything was better than nothing.

I was especially fortunate as a challenger to the Realm Dungeon – an artifact seeded from the very realm to which I now ascended. As reward for completing the last two trials of the dungeon, I’d been given additional information to make the transition smoother – information that the Council in all its wisdom did not have since none had challenged the Realm Dungeon beyond the eighth floor.

The most valuable of my rewards had been fifty simulated years where I got to experience life as a ‘traveler’ within Dia – the name of my new home realm. Apparently, travelers were like transmigrators from other realms, though I wasn’t sure if they were actually real or just something the dungeon created as part of the simulation.

Regardless, that experience had given me a new perspective on my future life as a Dian, which was what the sapient beings living in the realm called themselves. They weren’t quite human, nor were they any other race that I was familiar with from my former realm. Instead, they were like a mix of all of them, while still being distinctly other.

Needless to say, I’d expected the racial change.

“Welcome, Ascender. I am Rho, your guide for the transition.”

The speaker slowly materialized beside me. She appeared to be a tall Dian woman with silvery skin and steel blue hair that trailed in loose curls down her back. The entity wore a gown that appeared to have been constructed out of the void itself, greedily absorbing any light that touched it.

Her eyes were like cut sapphires, but held an inner illumination that marked her as something beyond mortal – a sliver of the goddess who controlled the realm, if I had to guess.

“Your new body has been formed based on your aesthetic preferences and the current standards of beauty within the realm. If you would like to make changes, please do so now,” the maybe-goddess clone said as a mirror manifested in front of me. “Your body is in a malleable state, but the effect will not last long.”

I examined my new appearance, surprised at how much of myself I could recognize within the reflection. I could sense how easy it would be to alter my appearance, but honestly, I didn’t see anything that needed to change.

Though my hair had changed from black to purple, that wasn’t so unusual for me. Several of my disguise personas had purple hair, and my avatar in the simulated life had as well. It was a fairly common hair color in my new realm, after all.

I was much taller than I was used to, but I knew that my new nine-foot height was basically average for women of the realm. The difference didn’t even phase me. It was like something about my brain chemistry had already adapted to the change.

My eyes were probably the most startling thing about my new appearance. Like the woman next to me, my eyes held a faceted gem-like appearance similar to that of the gnomes of my previous realm.

However, where Rho’s eyes appeared like cut sapphires, mine were a little lighter and had a definite purple hue underlying the blue, making them look like my favorite gemstone – tanzanite.

The color contrasted nicely with the slightly darker skin tone I now enjoyed. The change was subtle but noticeable, and gave me a healthy glow that my previous appearance had lacked.

“Everything looks fine,” I said, accepting my new look.

As if waiting for my confirmation, I felt my body solidify, becoming real in a way that I couldn’t quite explain. I still felt far weaker than I had before, but I no longer felt fragile.

“Excellent,” Rho said with a satisfied smile. “I see your former deity marked you as a Contender. The mark increases your new body’s ability to absorb essence by five percent. It might not seem like much, but I assure you, the advantage adds up.”

I wasn’t going to complain about any kind of experience boost, even if it was just one percent. I knew full well how quickly such things could add up over time.

“The mark also comes with a boon, which I assume you’d like applied to your soulbound dimensional space,” Rho continued.

“Yes, please!” I said eagerly.

Though I’d kept an Inventory during my simulated Dian life, it couldn’t compare to the convenience of having access to my own personal dimensional space that I could physically enter.

Retaining that functionality, along with the ability to put parts of the space into stasis, were my two primary goals for the soulbound space. If I could keep additional features as well, I would, but those two aspects were the most important.

The entity grinned at my exuberance. “Physical access and compartmentalized stasis are certainly possible,” Rho said, making it clear that she could hear my thoughts as clearly as if I’d spoken them.

“In fact, I can retain most of the space’s previous functionality, though at a reduced capability to start,” the entity continued. “As the skill grows, so will the space and its features. However, this will require two core skill slots, and two general skill slots to accomplish.

“Before you ask, let me explain why,” Rho said, halting the question that immediately bubbled inside of me. “The dimensional space itself will be a core skill, and requires a general skill to add the ability to split the space into semi-isolated compartments. When the skills advance by a couple of ranks, they will likely combine, freeing the general skill slot.”

So that part was temporary. That made sense.

“Exactly,” Rho said in response to my thought. “The second core skill will allow you to place portions of the dimensional space into stasis. This will not give you the ability to use the ability outside of your demesne right away, but you should gain that capability after the first evolution of the skill.

“The last general skill slot will be what allows you to enter and exit the space. You will only have a single anchor point at first, which will be the location from which you enter the dimensional space. As the skill grows, the number of anchors you can place will grow with it.

“Because I can sense your unspoken curiosity, I’ll add that you will only be able to have a single dungeon anchor at any given moment, no matter how far you evolve the skill. You will not be able to use the space to travel within a dungeon, nor will you be able to use it to move between floors or between dungeons.”

That was good to know, though it wasn’t unexpected after my experience within the Realm Dungeon.

It was also interesting to note that the entity hadn’t said anything about resetting my anchors upon entering the dungeon. That was something I’d struggled with anytime I entered a rift or a dungeon in the previous realm.

If I understood her correctly, that meant that I’d be able to keep an anchor in the dungeon, even when I left it. If so, I should also be able to move in and out of the dungeon using my demesne after I gained a second anchor, which I could definitely see coming in handy in the future.

“You will not be able to open portals to the space like you could before, though you will be able to bring others into the space if you wish,” Rho continued, not commenting on my thoughts this time.

“The boon will be used to make the dimensional space capable of sustaining life. It will also allow you to control the space within much like you could before. This feature is not a skill and will not grow or change over time.”

My heart beat excitedly as she spoke. It was everything I’d hoped for, and more than I’d believed possible. I’d be able to create a secure home once again – something that I had worried would be lost once I ascended.

Honestly, I felt like I was getting a lot out of the boon. If I’d had to use skill slots to make the space inhabitable, it would have probably taken multiple extra slots to manage.

I would have still done it, though. Having a secure place to rest and store my items was that important to me.

“Do you accept the use of the boon as stated, along with the required skill selections?”

“Yes,” I said unhesitatingly. I didn’t need to think over something so clearly in my favor. “I still have two more core skills to choose, right?”

Since I’d ascended with three affinities, I should have three selections plus a bonus from Dia. I was assuming the bonus was wrapped into maintaining my demesne, which should leave me with two.

I wasn’t sure how many general skill slots I’d end up with, but even if I only got eight, which was on the lower end of average for ascenders, it was still easily an exchange worth making.

“Yes. You have two skills remaining. Given your former skills, I recommend you select Restorative Healing, which would combine your previous healing-related skills and spells into one composite skill, and Stealth.”

I’d always wondered why my Restore spell had incorporated aspects of Life magic within the simulation. Now it seemed I had an answer.

“Not Teleport or Haste?” I asked, curious about why the maybe-goddess clone would have recommended Stealth over the other two.

It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the value of Stealth – I certainly did. It was one of my four choices within the simulation, so I already had a pretty good idea already of how it would develop.

Still, I was curious about why the others were overlooked. I knew why she didn’t suggest I use a core skill slot for Enchanting, which would have been my other strongest contender. Doing so would be a little wasteful since it was something I already knew how to do and could easily regain after proving my competence.

While having it as a core skill would likely make the skill stronger, the small improvement likely wasn’t worth losing a free seed skill. The term ‘seed skill’ just meant that it was the first of a particular element, aspect, or type and would allow the user to use the skill as a bridge to create similar skills.

“And that’s the same reason I didn’t suggest either of those other skills,” Rho said, once again responding directly to my thoughts. “You already have time and space-based seed skills. In fact, you technically have three space-based skills, any of which could be leveraged to acquire additional space-related skills.”

I supposed she was right. The dimensional space itself was one, the ability to partition it was another, and the ability to enter and exit the space through anchors was a third.

With so many space-related skills, connecting to the aspect of ‘space’ and figuring out how to teleport or use one of the many other space-based spells I’d be losing shouldn’t be all that hard.

“Conversely, you do not currently have a stealth-based seed skill,” Rho continued, “and you often rely on stealth as part of your fighting style. While you’ll eventually be able to craft something to fill that purpose, no item would ever compare to the effectiveness of a similarly ranked core skill.”

She made some very good points.

“Okay. Let’s go with those, then,” I decided. “Restorative Healing and Stealth.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt something shift inside of me.

“Sleep now,” Rho said as her form faded away. Her voice echoed around me as I collapsed onto the floor. “When you awaken, you will be in the entry room of the first floor of the newest Ascender Dungeon. You will be alone, but you will not be the only Ascender linked to this new dungeon.

“Know that your arrival fueled its development. My clergy will recognize this, though no others will. Share or protect this information as you will. You already know that anonymity can be the strongest armor. Good luck, Ascender.”