"Who are you?"

Cillian's voice was wary as he faced the glowing figure. The being radiated light, yet it carried no soul fluctuations, nor trace of divine fire, it had no hint of life. It wasn't a god, a spirit, or even a construct he knew. Still, when it looked at him, he felt its mind, clear and aware.

That alone made his skin prickle.

If It wasn't a creature, nor a machine. Then what is it?

"Some kind of construct? An illusion? A false mind?" he muttered.

The figure spoke, its voice female.

"You passed the fourth assessment?"

Cillian nodded slightly. "I did, but that doesn't answer my question. Who are you?"

The light flickered. "Who am I…? I've forgotten. My name, my past, all of it. Only one thing remains, I was left here to guard what matters, and to pass on memories to the one who reached this place."

Her gaze turned toward the great library behind her.

"Now that you're here, I can finally be free."

Cillian exhaled. "Of course, the forgotten guide with one last duty, is the final reward just memories?"

The figure shattered into motes of light which then swirled around him as they forced their way into his body.

"What—?" Cillian tried to resist, but nothing stopped them. The light pierced through every barrier and merged with him, flooding his core.

"…these are?"

His eyes turned cold as strange visions pressed into his mind.

⸻———x——————

Gasps filled the observation room.

"look at the divine fire registry!"

On the screen, Cillian's divine fire count was rising at a speed none had ever seen.

From less than ten thousand, it surged past twenty thousand, then thirty thousand, forty… and it was still climbing.

"This isn't possible!"

"What did he find in there?!"

Principal Elara Everheart didn't answer. Her expression was calm, but her eyes stayed fixed on Cillian's name as it blazed brighter and brighter.

⸻———x——————

"Failed!"

Cillian suddenly stood inside a vast laboratory.

A woman's furious voice rang out. She scrawled across a blackboard covered in half-finished symbols. Her presence was immense, but her face was hidden in shadow.

"Damn it! This should have worked!" she shouted.

On the board, a crude sketch of a Wheel of Virtue stood half-finished.

Cillian's mind stilled, 'the origin of angels…?'

The woman paced, muttering as she dragged chalk across the board.

"By all measures, they should be able to ignite divine fire. Their souls are the same, their structures are the same. They can even cross into our world. But no matter what I do, they can't ignite the spark!"

Her voice cracked with rage. "It not the science, not the magic, it makes no use Qi. Then what is it? What am I missing?"

Her divine world opened, and the scene shifted.

Now Cillian floated over a realm of countless planets. The woman's power pulled a colossal monster from the void, a being as strong as a demigod. Its suprised roar shook the stars.

"Don't be afraid," she said softly. "You're only an experiment."

Cillian stood in silence as she forced her rules into the creature's body.

"If my design is correct, you'll ignite divine fire just as we do."

She poured divine power into it.

For a moment, the beast's soul flared. Divine fire lit up within it, burning bright.

Her voice rang out. "What?! It works!"

But the triumph died instantly.

The monster screamed as its body collapsed, not from corruption, but complete erasure. Its form shrank, its soul and flesh folding inward, as it was pulled into a point of nothing.

"No!" the woman cried.

The giant shriveled into a single black dot, then vanished completely, leaving no asjes or even soul fragments.

Cillian stared, he had seen corruption, decay, and even explosions from endless mutation, but nothing like complete annihilation.

The woman stood frozen, her voice trembling.

"Why? Why does this happen? Why do they vanish into nothingness?"

The vision shifted again. The lab was in ruins, experiments scattered everywhere. The woman worked with wild intensity, her movements sharp and impatient.

On the blackboard, she wrote a new equation. A formula for rules unlike anything Cillian had ever seen.

A new formula glowed faintly across its surface, the lines of symbols flowing like veins of light. It wasn't just numbers or glyphs. It was a skeleton of the rules themselves, the kind of script that could shape entire worlds.

The woman who had written it collapsed against the floor, her strength spent. Her hand trembled, chalk still between her fingers.

"This formula…" Cillian murmured, seeing something he was finally familiar with, he stepped closer, his shadow falling over her, and studied the board in silence.

Finally, both voices overlapped, hers from years ago, and his in the present.

"It's wrong."

They had spoken the same truth, separated only by time.

The formula was flawed.

The woman laughed bitterly, as though she had expected this. "Of course. Still wrong, I will always be wrong, and maybe I should be."

She had abandoned her earlier experiments of igniting divine fire within mortal creatures, and now poured everything into the rules of the world itself. Her chalk scratched endlessly across the board, refining, breaking, and then rewriting.

The vision blurred. Scenes began to jump like shards of a shattered mirror. Memories that once stretched on for hours now lasted only moments.

Each time, she stood at the board. Each time, she rewrote the formula. Each time, she stopped and stared at it with an expression hidden in shadow.

Cillian couldn't see her face, but he could feel it: despair. Her aura thickened with every failed attempt, steeped in bitterness.

The formula improved, yet it was never completed. The flaws remained, as if mocking her.

The jumps came faster, until even Cillian grew restless.

Then, the fragments shifted.

"Master!" A cheerful voice broke through the gloom. A young woman in white robes with bright golden hair rushed into the chamber, eyes shining. She embraced the woman at the board with pure joy.

"I did it! I graduated! I designed my own divine world, and I'm ranked number one among the extraordinary! My divine fire value reached 7,800! Isn't that amazing?"

For the first time, the woman set down her chalk and reached out to pat the girl's head.

"Amazing. My Elara is so very clever."

Cillian's eyes narrowed. Elara? As in Elara Everheart? Principal of Grimstone? Was he seeing her now as a young graduate? And was this woman…her teacher?

Before the thought could settle, the memories shifted again.

Back to the blackboard. Back to the endless revisions. Only this time, Elara appeared more often, her visits were a rare light in the woman's bleak world.

"Master, I've become a lower god!"

"Master, I found resources in a secret realm. I'll use them to test new rules!"

"Master…"

The girl's words filled the chamber with warmth that cut through the suffocating air. For the woman, Elara was the only sun in her darkness. She would smile, speak gently, and for a time forget the crushing weight of her research.

Then came the day when Elara, older now and radiant with divine fire, entered with bright eyes.

"Master, I can finally help you perfect your formula! I've obtained a fragment of a Star God's divine power. Only one percent, but enough for me to accompany you into the greater realms, and together we can gather the answers you seek."

The woman's hand stilled, and her fingers trembled, almost imperceptibly. But Cillian saw it.

"That's wonderful, Elara," she said softly. "But no… I don't want you following me into those places."

The scene went dark.

Time passed—how long, Cillian could not tell. Then came the final memory.

The woman now worked outside the shattered husk of a world. She refined its abandoned core into something new. Cillian recognized the shape instantly, it was the Assessment World itself, built long ago.

When it was finished, she turned once more to the blackboard. This time, she wrote the formula not in fragments, but in half-completion.

What lay on the board was correct, but it was still incomplete.

Then, her voice rang out.

"Are you watching?"

Cillian froze. d though he was sure she could not see him, she spoke straight toward his presence.

"Don't worry. I can't see you. I'm only speaking to whoever inherits these memories. You and I are not in the same time, not even the same space."

She sat on a stool, posture calm now, her tone no longer desperate but firm with purpose.

"I will use my divine incarnation to seal these memories inside this world's core. I will help Elara found a place of learning and to its trials, I will bind these memories as the ultimate reward."

She chuckled darkly.

"I don't know who you are, man or woman, god or beast. But I can guess. You must be ambitious, reckless. Someone willing to risk the ruin of entire divine realms, just to chase the so-called highest rewards."

Her smile dripped with contempt.

"Only such a fool would reach this far."

The arrogance in her voice was fully evident, gone were the broken mutters of despair Cillian had seen before, and what lay was the scorn of one who stood at the summit, mocking all below.

Cillian remained silent.

"You're wondering, aren't you?" she continued. "What is the true purpose of my formula? What do I seek with all these failures?"

She crossed her legs, voice sharp and proud.

"I'll tell you."

Her words fell like hammer strikes.

"The formula exists to perfect every divine world. To tear away their ceilings, erase their limits, and make them into…"

Her eyes burned.

"…a truly infinite world."

Her chalk tapped against the board one final time.

"This is the rule formula that removes every restriction of the divine."

He had been able to read the formula, and even understood large parts of it, but put together he hadn't been able to put together what it might've been meant to accomplish.

Now looking at it Cillian's breath slowed and his gaze locked on the half-complete symbols etched in light.

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