Kaelan drifts down from the sky and lands on a jagged rock, his claws sinking deep into stone.
He flaps once, shaking off the air, then settles.
The crow's body has reached its limit.
No matter how he refines, the mortal cells can no longer evolve.
He considers the next step.
If he used his original cells, he could push further, but doing so would release his true breath into the world.
That would betray his disguise and defeat the purpose of occupying this vessel.
Two paths remain.
One is to multiply the number of cells in his body.
The other is to reshape the crow, evolving its flesh into something that can absorb energy like the great trees rooted in this world.
He chooses the first path for now.
For seven months, he circles the forests, mountains hemming three sides and a wide river flowing along the fourth.
While hunting and feeding, he steadily increases the number of cells within himself.
One thought takes hold.
Another pair of wings.
He closes his eyes and channels energy into his back.
A mound rises beneath his existing wings, swelling with new cells.
From it sprouts a smaller set, feathered and weak at first, but steadily growing as he continues to channel power.
Day by day, the wings lengthen until they match his first pair in size and strength.
The process drains him, but it is worth the cost.
Two pairs of wings double his reserves and sharpen his flight.
He spreads them wide, dark and gleaming in the sun.
With a single flap, he soars upward, cutting through the sky.
Now fully awake with hunger, he begins to hunt and feed again, regaining what was spent.
Only then does he turn north, toward the mountains.
One day, while flying high above the forest, Kaelan feels a ripple.
Energy fluctuates in the distance, rising and falling like waves clashing against stone.
He tilts his wings and veers toward it.
The closer he flies, the stronger the fluctuation grows, raw power leaking into the air.
Soon, he reaches the edge of a wide clearing.
From above, he sees two beasts locked in battle.
A bear, massive and thick with muscle, swings its claws.
Each strike burns with fire, sparks trailing through the air.
Facing it is a wolf, lean and swift, its claws wrapped in blades of wind that cut the ground with every swipe.
Kaelan's crow eyes narrow.
His pupils contract, and his vision sharpens until every detail becomes clear.
The flicker of fire, the tearing edge of wind, the raw clash of forces colliding.
He watches in silence, spirit stretching outward, measuring both creatures.
These are not ordinary beasts.
They carry the breath of the world's energy within them.
Kaelan stays in the sky, wings spread wide, watching.
He waits for the beasts to decide the outcome, patience his weapon.
Under the noon sun, the clash drags on until fire burns brighter than wind.
The bear, torn and bleeding, lands a final strike.
The wolf crumples, body split open, its breath fading into silence.
In that instant, Kaelan dives.
Before the bear can react, his claw pierces its skull, ending the fight in a heartbeat.
He releases the corpse, letting it crash to the ground, and lands beside the two fallen beasts.
His spirit flows into them, probing deep.
Inside, he finds markings etched across their bodies—lines and symbols absent from ordinary beasts.
The bear and wolf bear mostly different markings, yet three are the same.
It must be these patterns that allow them to drink the world's energy like trees.
Kaelan memorises them, then devours both corpses, leaving nothing behind.
Strength flows into him, heavy and wild.
He flies away.
Days pass, then months, then years.
He hunts, kills, and consumes.
Again and again, he finds beasts infused with energy, and inside them, more markings.
Some are unique, some repeat.
But across them all, he uncovers a pattern—nine markings in total, each appearing again and again.
Kaelan does not carve the nine markings into his flesh.
Instead, he sketches them across the void of his spirit space, each stroke drawn with precision.
Once etched, the markings pulse with a strange rhythm.
A meaning seeps into him, elusive yet profound.
He halts his wandering, digs deep into stone, and makes a cave his refuge.
There he sits, wings folded, and lets his spirit turn endlessly around the nine signs.
Seasons shift.
A year passes in silence.
At last, clarity strikes—these markings are fragments of principles, shards of the world's law itself.
He arranges them in a sequence, and the symbols align.
From the fragments, a matrix blooms inside his spirit space, intricate and alive.
His spirit is pulled inward, drawn into the matrix.
At the same time, the world's energy roars into his body, violent and unrestrained.
Agony rips through him as if his flesh and bones are splitting apart.
He realises the danger too late—forming the nine-marking matrix at once is reckless.
The safe path would have been gradual: a three-marking matrix first, then step by step to nine.
But Kaelan is beyond retreat.
With his spirit, he wrestles the flood of energy, forcing it away from his breaking body.
He diverts the torrent into his bioenergy, compressing it, refining it, and condensing it.
A new essence takes shape, violet and luminous, supple like flowing mist yet fierce like fire.
It bends where his bioenergy is rigid, yet holds no weakness.
It carries every advantage of his old energy—and more.
For this power can not only dwell within his body, but leave it, stretching into the world beyond.
The violet energy settles in his veins, alive yet restless.
Kaelan soon learns its gift is not only resilience and strength but release—elemental force, like the fire and wind he once saw wielded by beasts.
Yet his path is different.
Their markings are carved into flesh and bone, but his are etched across the vastness of his spirit space.
To summon elements, he must grasp the rest of the markings beyond the nine.
But hunger gnaws at him.
For a year, he has endured on nothing but the world's energy, thin sustenance compared to the taste of blood and flesh.
His body longs for real food.
He spreads his wings and hunts.
The chase rekindles something primal, and for a week, he feasts until his hunger quiets.
Strength restored, he returns to his cave.
This time, he does not repeat his old mistake.
He studies the unfamiliar markings in intervals, month by month, breaking his meditation with hunts to keep his body from weakening.
The cycle of hunger, hunt, and comprehension stretches across years.
Five years drift by like shadows over the mountains.
Kaelan's wings carve the skies, his claws tear through countless beasts, and with each kill, new fragments of law etch themselves into his spirit space.
Now the nine-marking matrix stands firm at the core, a radiant heart of violet energy.
Around it, nine spell matrices orbit like burning stars—Fire Claw, Wind Blade, Stone Body, and six more born from beasts he hunted.
Each spell sharpens his edge, each matrix compresses his spirit further, yet the end he seeks remains distant.
He halts not for lack of will, but because the spirit space itself trembles at its threshold.
The fabric of it strains; more matrices cannot take root.
It is not his spirit that has failed—it is the vessel of space itself.
Kaelan sits unmoving on the cliff, the storm curling around him like a living thing.
His spirit dives deep, piercing into the violet-lit chamber of his spirit space.
The nine-marking core glows steadily at the centre, a perfect balance that channels the world's energy into his being.
But balance alone is not enough.
If he cannot condense further, then stagnation will rot him.
He tests his thought—layering stone body's dense markings into the core.
The glow flickers, the matrix dulls, its rhythm sluggish, its grip on the world's energy weaker.
He tears it apart before it collapses.
Next, he threads iron feathers' sharp lines through the structure.
The result is no better.
The once-perfect flow of law becomes tangled, the core's condensing effect diminished, like clear water muddied with sand.
Kaelan does not stop.
He dismantles, rearranges, rebuilds—again and again, burning months within his spirit space.
Every failed attempt teaches him something, even if it is only what must never be done.
The storm breaks around him, lightning carving the mountains, and still he sits, eyes shut, wings folded tight.
"Somewhere," he thinks, "there must be a shape… a pattern… that allows the core to swallow all, yet lose nothing."
And so Kaelan forges on, chasing the single perfect arrangement that will push his spirit beyond the limits of space.
He hovers in the sky, wings beating slowly, his mind fixed inward as he twists the matrix into countless patterns.
Days pass.
Then, without warning, he feels it—sublimation, a rising clarity from the core.
The nine core markings now circle his spirit like a crown, while the spell markings spiral outward, linked to the core and to each other by threads of his will.
His spirit condenses further, the light within it brightening until it gleams like polished crystal.
For a month, the glow sharpens.
Then the progress halts.
Kaelan feels it keenly—his spirit balanced on the edge of change, one step short of evolution.
But no matter how he reshapes the core, the limit does not break.
While drifting above the forests, he broods on the problem.
If the spirit alone cannot cross, then perhaps the body must feed it the final push.
His body's energy lies untouched, waiting to be spent.
He descends to a cliff once ruled by an energy eagle, its bones now inside his belly.
Perching, he folds his wings and shuts his eyes.
Guiding his body's energy upward, he channels it to the point between his brows and forces it into the spirit space.
Violet streams flood into the core matrix.
The markings hum, vibrating like an awakened engine, and the core drinks the energy greedily—like parched earth swallowing rain.
The core matrix condenses his spirit as it devours the violet energy.
When the last trace vanishes, it turns on his body.
Energy bleeds from his cells, shrinking them one by one.
His feathers dull, his flesh weakens, and his frame begins to wither with age.
Kaelan tries to halt it, but the matrix ignores him, consuming everything.
Death looms.
Then, at the final edge, the drain stops.
His spirit shatters the invisible barrier and bursts forth, radiant.
Light floods his spirit space, pushing its walls outward until they stretch vast and boundless.
Pleasure ripples through his soul, almost intoxicating.
The core matrix responds, releasing energy back into his body, threading strength through bone, blood, and feather.
But it is not enough.
He is hollow, his reserves near spent.
Desperation drives him to pull at the world's energy.
Mist rises around the cliff, thick and rolling, as the air bends to his hunger.
Streams of power pour into him, feeding the newborn brilliance in his spirit.
Miles away, at the foot of a mountain beside his perch, a camp sits nestled in stone and shadow.
Tents cluster around a central fire, its smoke curling into the night sky.
The people gathered there stiffened.
Every head turns toward the cliff, eyes narrowing as the mist swells and the world's energy churns.