The next day, I woke early. If I was going to lead the prayers, might as well start it early on.

Sreketh, Santoire, and Guille, were ready. They looked eager, which wasn’t helping my nerves. I wasn’t even sure where my nervousness was coming from. I had already helped them become actual cult members, hadn’t I? This couldn’t be that different.

If I inspected my feelings, it was because I realized I was invested in it. I didn’t want to come off as fake, like I didn’t know what I was doing, a pretender who was only a cultist by name. And at the same time, I didn’t feel like a devotee. The idea of praying to anyone, no matter how powerful, and hoping for some stroke of good fortune, wasn’t something I gelled with.

My life, my destiny, was in my hands. Now, in this world, even more so than on Earth. It was odd to think of it that way, considering the presence of magic and all-powerful beings and even the likelihood of the existence of things like Fate and whatnot.

But I had power too. Real power. Abilities that were evolving and growing, connections that were shaping into solid relationships, a sound footing that I had greater and greater confidence in as the days went by.

Greater and greater confidence…

Faith.

I breathed out. Maybe I was thinking this whole thing with too much bias and assumptions I had from growing up on Earth and the way I had seen religion being conducted there. Of course, there were various kinds I hadn’t experienced, so blanket judging every single style of worship with a broad negative brush would be dumb. But my personal experiences had been too… controlling. Too demanding. Too taking.

“We’re the Cult of the Sun,” I said finally, looking into each of their eyes. “What does that mean to you? What are you here for, really?”

It was probably a highly unorthodox way of leading a prayer, but I was curious. I couldn’t lead anyone in anything until I knew what they were here to be led about.

Sreketh, unsurprisingly, stepped forward first. “I’m here to become a strong cultist! I—I don’t know how exactly, but I want to be like you, Ross! Someone who can tear apart stupid Thralls like they’re made of wool.” She hesitated for a second. “And—and that’s what the cult means to me too. A way to grow strong, to be strong enough to defend everyone!”

I blinked. Then laughed. “What about you guys?”

Santoire swallowed and cleared his throat. “I want to be a part of something. Something bigger than me. Something meaningful. That’s what the cult means to me.”

“Yeah,” said Guille. “I’m sick and tired of not finding any real work anywhere. So here I am, trying to be useful somehow.”

I nodded. Honestly, I got that. It was just what Escinca had said a while back. To a lot of people, the cult represented more than just some sort of place of worship. It was more than an institution of faith meant to lead the flock to the embrace of a god or whatever crap people believed in.

On Ring Four, there weren’t that many ways people could find purpose. Those who were lucky were able to gain some sort of employment on Ring Three, and by extension, a Path related to said employment would manifest and provide some reassurance that they had their life in hand.

Paths, I realized, were kind of like degrees back on Earth. A testament of the skills and abilities one had supposedly gained and could reliably use.

Even if they weren’t unique ones like mine, any Path was better than none.

But in lieu of Paths—or in Sreketh’s case, in the hope of getting a Path—something purposeful like the cult was a good choice.

It made me wonder if there were others like that. People who were disillusioned or were looking for something to do instead of waste themselves away. Maybe some of them had found other things. Surely the orphanage and the school and the hospital all needed help to run. I imagined there were people who had volunteered to assist there as well.

I nodded at them all. “Thanks,” I said. “So then, for today’s prayers, we’re going to mostly just remind ourselves what the cult is all about. Not just to us, but to everybody who seeks it out.”

Escinca’s prayers were always short affairs. I had attended a few as part of my cultist duties, and they revolved around chanting a short set of prayers to Arl, the sun god. But it wasn’t a devotion kind of prayer. Instead, now that I thought about it more, it was more like a reminder of what the sun god was supposed to represent to us, in the same way what the cult represented to the people of Ring Four.

I closed my eyes and began.

“O Power Centred In The Beyond.”

“Flame That Crowned Sky and Light That Brought Life.”

“To You We Come On This Hallowed Dawn.”

“And Offer Unto You This Sacrifice.”

It was the same basic chant that we had used during initiation. Also one of those we used during prayers too, usually accompanied by an actual ritual sacrifice at the altar. We skipped that this time because that wasn’t the main point of the prayers anyway.

Instead, as the others echoed my chant, what I really—

[ Path Interaction

Your Paths of Newborn Star and Acolyte have discovered an interaction.

Transporting…]

What?

The temple had disappeared, as had the other cultists. I was in total darkness, unable to see anything or hear anything or—actually, I was pretty sure every single sensation I had was no longer available. All I had to call my own was an intense awareness of my own self, like I knew I existed but that was it.

My mind couldn’t even begin to wonder what in the world was going on. Did I even have a proper mind anymore? I certainly couldn’t feel my body.

And then I was drowning. The sensations returned as suddenly as they had disappeared. A heavy pressure enfolding me, crushing a body I possessed once again, a liquid weight pressing in from every side.

I struggled to free myself. Panic claimed me as I desperately tried to rise, as I instinctively closed my mouth—wait, I had none. No real mouth or nose or any pore that the liquid could pour through inside of me. All I had was this strange body that definitely didn’t even feel human in the brief moments my panicked mind could focus on it.

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It was getting to be too much. I needed to be free, needed to not be crushed anymore. Needed to not be dragged down to whatever dark, fathomless depth that awaited far under me.

I needed to ascend.

And so, I did. My body surged. It was only then I became aware of just how oversized my current body was. Just how massive in scale my figure had become in… in whatever this was. I rose out of the liquid murk into nothingness A pure void. A vacuum devoid of anything.

It felt cold, though. Unbearably, incredibly cold. I was petrifying. I was sure of it. So cold that every single atom in my body was failing to vibrate in place, losing all sense of motion, turning impossibly still. Even though I still couldn’t get the faintest of grasp of where I was or what was going on, I knew I didn’t want to freeze to absolutely zero.

Which was when the warmth bloomed.

A tiny spark. Borne from the same will that had made me rise out of the cloying, crushing darkness, the same intent that allowed me to ascend to this void. The spark grew from within, twinkled and turned sharper. Hotter.

Similar ones answered around me, like they were responding to some sort of distress call. But no. They weren’t around me. The void wasn’t nothing now. Well, it was. Still a vacuum of absolute chill, but in the great, immeasurable distance, there were more and more sparks blinking to life, answering my innate call to ward off this unbearable winter.

And I answered them back. The spark within me grew, roared to life, condensed into an atom bomb and then burgeoned into a star. Heat and light and pure energy filled the vacuum now, the sheer power and amount obliterating any other sensation, any other thought even.

For a second, I stood witness to what I was. It was like my consciousness had somehow gained a new position.

A position from where I could see the gargantuan titan before me.

With a body as black as night, the being rose from an ocean of depthless darkness. But besides the scale, besides the sheer size of the being, it was the god’s head that had dragged my sight. A sun. Where there should have been a head was a star burning brighter, hotter, more incandescent, dragging in and burning away everything with unfathomable fury and power. Just looking it was immolating my consciousness away, consuming me—

I staggered, back in the temple with my fellow cultists again.

[ Rank Up!

Your Fervour and Spirit Attributes have risen by one Rank.

Your Paths of the Acolyte and the Newborn Star have risen by one Rank.

Fervour: Iron X

Spirit: Iron VIII

Path of the Newborn Star: Iron IX

Path of the Acolyte: Iron IX ]

Sreketh blinked open an eye as her and the other two cultist’s chants came to an end. “You alright, Ross?”

I had thankfully managed to straighten myself, and at her question, quickly mollified my expression. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I smiled. “Good chanting. Pretty good, yeah.”

“Really?”

The others finished and looked at me like they were legitimately being tested or something. My mind was so scrambled, I almost laughed at it.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Real good. Might want to work on the register in some places. Like, it’s Offer Unto You, not Offer Unto You, you know? Small things like that. But I think that’s enough for today. You guys did great.”

It was a bit of an abrupt ending, but I managed to make my praise sound genuine enough that none of them complained when I excused myself. I still couldn’t stop a part of me from being just a little bit freaked out by what had happened.

Aspects, Attributes, Affixes, and Augmentations I could all accept. But what in the world had been that interaction thing between my Paths?

More importantly, why had it teleported my consciousness into some sort of vision I could make neither heads nor tails of?

“Uh, are you busy, Elder?” I asked, knocking on his office door.

He invited me in. “No trouble with the prayer leading, I hope? You remembered all the chants?” He asked the last bit jokingly, though his expression turned more serious when he saw mine.

“No, no real trouble with that.” I took the free seat in front of his desk and explained what had happened. Or tried to. It was all such a mess, and even my memory of everything I had seen, of everything I had experienced

, was too fragmented. “It was very disorienting. There’s pieces I remember and some I don’t. I can’t—I’m not even sure if all that was real.”

Escinca offered me a kind, reassuring smile then poured me a small drink. “I’m glad you came to me, Ross, but what I think you should do first is relax.”

I accepted the goblet though I didn’t drink. “But you agree it’s crazy, right? Like, what even is a Path Interaction? Why are they interacting? And why—”

“Ross.”

He looked pointedly at the drink. Fine. He had a point.

I took a deep breath to calm down and took some slow sips. The taste was familiar. This was the same wine-like substance Escinca had made me drink during my initiation.

“Is this wine?” I asked.

“It’s a draught made through a fermentation process, so it tastes similar,” Escinca said. “But it isn’t wine, no. I don’t think we can actually afford wine…”

That did make me laugh a bit. “Fair enough.”

We sat in companionable silence for a while, but it didn’t feel awkward. It helped me calm down after the weirdness of my vision and I was able to think about it with a clearer head.

“Paths do interact, yes,” Elder Escinca said. “The nature of the interaction differs greatly and depends entirely on the Paths undergoing said interaction. It’s one of the more esoteric sides of the Weave, and not a lot of knowledge exists though many theories abound. Most I’m not privy to. What I do know is that it happens more when two Paths are close to hitting Silver.”

“Only Silver?”

“Well, next rank tier, I should say. Silver was just for your case.”

I slowly nodded, trying to absorb that. “I’m guessing the conditions necessary for them to interact also depend on what kind of Paths they are?”

Escinca nodded. “A commonly held theory is that they are like lightning strikes. Figuring out the conditions of the first one can help you predict the next, but repeating them with the exact same conditions is highly unlikely to recreate another interaction.”

I grumbled to myself, somewhat wishing the Weave was a little clearer about some things.

“We can still investigate the conditions that led to your particular interaction and act accordingly,” Escinca said. “Although, I wouldn’t suggest doing so immediately. Think about it. Write down what you know. It’s unlikely to occur again anytime soon.”

He wasn’t wrong in a sense. Considering how cryptic the Weave was about a lot of stuff it allowed, and how the knowledge about those things was something that I had to actually seek out and learn, I figured it would be the same for this Path Interaction thing.

“Conditions and patterns…” I mused. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Don’t think too hard.” Escinca patted me gently on the shoulder. “Go get some rest. Try not to obsess about it. Jarring as it was, I doubt it’s something that can be replicated so easily that it could be harmful.”

I agreed to an extent. What if it occurred during a more urgent moment than me leading a simple prayer?

There was another reason I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Apart from the disorienting vision, I had also gained a rank in a couple of Attributes and both Paths. That was a great return. Sadly, Escinca had just said that replicating the same scenario—and thus, the same rewards wasn’t going to happen so easily.

“That vision,” I said as I got up to leave. “That was Arl, wasn’t it? The sun god?”

Escinca nodded. “I believe so, yes. We can discuss the myths one day. I believe one of them is what you saw.”

That would make sense, I figured. For now, I thanked Escinca and left for the time being.

Of course, I didn’t actually rest. The day had just started. I was supposed to be getting on with other things, which was what I started focusing on. That mostly revolved around scrutinizing stuff that weren’t random incidents with conditional variables I had yet to figure out. Such as my delightful new Augmentation, Mana Injection.

I had already tested that I didn’t necessarily need direct physical contact to activate it, unlike using Infusion and Siphon. That was a relief. I had seen the threads buzzing in the air when I used sufficient force to move any part of me.

What I needed to test was the duration of the threads in free air, and more specifically, if I could extend that somehow.

I never got to test it out because the cult got a surprising visitor.

“Ross,” Sreketh called out as she arrived at the rear of the temple where I was training. “There’s someone here to see you. He says it’s urgent.”

“Someone here to see me?” I asked. “Who is it?”

“Um, I didn’t get this name. But he says he went on an adventure with you?”

I blinked. Then I followed Sreketh to the temple’s main hall where Ugnash was looking around with mild curiosity. His expression brightened a smidge when he saw me approaching.

“Ross,” he said. “Greetings. Are you ready?”

“For what?” I asked.

“The guild has finally started retrieving the majority of the Brillwyrm. The Greater one that you killed.”

Sreketh’s eyes widened as Ugnash talked, and she began looking at me with awe. I wasn’t sure why. Hadn’t I already mentioned it? Hmm, maybe I’d forgotten to add the Greater modifier.

“And now,” Ugnash said. “The guild needs you to decide what your reward is going to be.”