We returned to the guest residence after roaming the island for half a day. The others dispersed to their rooms, the earlier energy finally settling into something calmer.
I sat alone in my room and pulled up the merit panel, my attention drawn to the numbers that had accumulated after closing two rifts back to back.
[Merit Points: 45130]
[Rank: XXXX69 → XXX07]
That was more than acceptable.
Closing rifts clearly carried far more weight than ordinary combat, which explained the sharp rise in rank. From the System’s perspective, stabilizing reality itself mattered more than how many enemies fell along the way.
Steve and North had benefited as well. Both of them had earned close to 5000 merit points, enough to push them onto the ranking board for the first time. Not high yet, but visible. A starting mark.
Interestingly, my summons had received nothing.
From one angle, that put me at a disadvantage. Five powerful entities acting under my command, and yet nothing. If the System counted effort evenly, I should have received far more.
I chuckled quietly.
I opened the merit shop, the interface unfolding into layered categories. I already knew what I was looking for. I had decided on it long before we reached Feradros.
Something that wouldn’t immediately push me into Saint rank but something that would clear the road toward it, or at least illuminate what lay ahead.
Information, at this stage, was worth more than raw power.
[Runic Inscription - Level 1 : 10,000 MP]
[Runic Inscription - Level 2 : 20,000 MP]
[Runic Inscription - Level 3 : 100,000 MP]
[Runic Inscription - Level 4 : 1,000,000 MP]
[Runic Inscription - Level 5 : ??? MP]
[Transcedent Mastery : 10,000 MP]
[Space Elemental : 5,000 MP]
[Saint Ascension : 30000 MP]
I went through them slowly.
Runic Inscription stared back at me first.
Level 1 at ten thousand. Level 2 at twenty. Then the jump, Level 3 at a hundred thousand. Level 4 leaping straight into the absurd. Level 5 hidden entirely.
That alone told me enough.
Runes weren’t meant to be rushed. The System wasn’t selling power here, it was selling infrastructure. I had already tasted advanced runes through Ash and through my own experimentation. Level 1 would be redundant. Level 3 was unreachable. Level 2 sat exactly where it should, expensive enough to matter, but not so far ahead that it would destabilize everything else I was building.
I filtered Level 1 out without hesitation.
Next came Transcendent Mastery.
10,000 merit points for something that didn’t add a new ability, didn’t grant flashy power, didn’t raise stats directly. Anyone short-sighted would skip it.
That was precisely why I wouldn’t.
I was already operating at the upper edge of Transcendent rank. Laws, domains, Essence flow, Law construct, I was using them, but maybe not perfectly. Mastery meant efficiency. Control. Fewer losses. Less waste. If I intended to challenge Saint-level entities one day, then half-understanding my current rank would be suicide.
That stayed.
Space Elemental followed.
Five thousand points. Cheap, by comparison.
But its value wasn’t in cost. It was in application.
Elemental transformation wasn’t about raw strength. It was about state. Space wasn’t just an element, it was structure, distance, separation. Turning my body into it, even temporarily, would change how I interacted with attacks, seals, and movement itself. Combined with my existing laws, it opened paths I hadn’t explored yet.
That stayed as well.
Then there was Saint Ascension.
Thirty thousand points.
I stared at it longer than the others. I wanted to purchase it but there was still time and I was low on the currency too.
I filtered it out.
When the list was finalized, only three options remained.
Runic Inscription – Level 2. Transcendent Mastery. Space Elemental.
I confirmed the purchase, and the merit points dropped sharply, settling at just ten thousand.
The moment the transaction completed, space in front of me rippled. A small tear opened, no larger than my fist and three memory crystals slipped out, clinking softly as they landed on the table.
I picked them up one by one and crushed them without hesitation.
The infusion began immediately.
Information flooded in. I closed my eyes and let it run its course. My Psynapse engaged instinctively, breaking the knowledge down into usable modules.
I started with the Transcendent Mastery module and it began with the basics of a domain.
A domain was not meant to be treated as a separate battlefield or a final move. It was supposed to be an extension of the self. Most Transcendents made the mistake of activating their domain only during combat, pouring Essence into it like a weapon.
That worked, but it was inefficient. The memory emphasized that a stable Transcendent domain should exist in a dormant state at all times, lightly integrated with the body and soul, ready to expand without strain.
Next came law constructs.
Laws were not meant to float independently of the domain. A proper Transcendent refined their laws into construct first, then anchored the construct inside the domain. Doing so reduced Essence consumption and improved responsiveness. Instead of invoking a law from scratch, the law already existed as a structured presence, waiting to be applied.
Then came integration.
The memory showed how skills were meant to evolve past isolated techniques. At higher Transcendent levels, skills were supposed to merge with both laws and domain behavior.
A blade technique, for example, should not only use a law of sharpness, but also reshape the local domain conditions to favor cutting, momentum, and follow-through. Skills stopped being actions and became expressions of the domain itself.
Only after that did runes appear.
Runes were introduced as stabilizers, not shortcuts. They were meant to be gradually woven into the domain’s internal structure, reinforcing repeated behaviors. Defensive reactions, environmental control, detection, all of these could be partially offloaded to runic frameworks inside the domain.
The memory made it clear that forcing too many runes too early would destabilize the domain, which was why most Transcendents never attempted it.
Finally, the module addressed refinement.
Every advancement at Transcendent rank was about reducing effort. Less Essence lost between transitions. Less delay between intent and effect.
Better alignment between body, soul, law, and domain. Mastery wasn’t about gaining more abilities, it was about making everything already gained work together cleanly.
When the memory finished integrating, I understood the gap clearly.
I wasn’t lacking power.
I was still treating parts of my strength as separate systems.
That was what needed to be fixed before anything like Saint rank could even be considered