In this shattered world, every human soul can bind to exactly one element at the Awakening. The element is not random; it is the resonance of your soul with the primal lattice that holds the multiverse together. The higher the atomic number, the denser the lattice knot, the more "weight" the element carries in reality.
Power is not measured by atomic number alone. True strength is measured by how completely you master the Nine Phases of Elemental Ascension. Every element, from Hydrogen to Oganesson, can reach the same final phase: Cosmic Singularity. The difference is only in flavor, difficulty, and the shape of the miracles you perform.
The Nine Phases of Elemental Ascension
1. Mortal Manifestation (Awakening)
You can summon and shape your element in its common Earth-like state.
Hydrogen → gas flames, water splitting
Iron → living metal armor
Uranium → radioactive fire
2. Exotic State Compression
You force your element into states that normally require stellar or planetary extremes.
Hydrogen → metallic hydrogen (superconductive, denser than osmium)
Helium → superfluid helium-4 (zero viscosity, perpetual motion)
Carbon → diamondoid lattices or exotic fullerene cages
3. Quantum Resonance
You begin to manipulate the quantum properties directly.
Hydrogen → control over individual electron orbitals and proton spin
Gold → surface plasmon resonance that bends light itself
Oganesson → probabilistic existence (you half-exist in adjacent realities)
4. Stellar Forging
Your body and soul become a miniature star of your element. You can now survive and fight inside suns, black holes, or rift voids.
Hydrogen → walking fusion reactor, unlimited clean energy or city-leveling bomb
Iron → core of a neutron star made flesh, gravity armor
Uranium → living criticality, chain-reaction embodiment
5. Periodic Dominion
You gain authority over every isotope and excitation state of your element across all timelines in this universe. You can rewrite nuclear decay rates, induce or suppress fission/fusion at will.
6. Transmutation Gate (The Wall)
The phase that breaks 99.999% of awakeners.
You learn to borrow properties from neighboring elements on the periodic table by temporarily sacrificing stability.
A Hydrogen master can "steal" a single proton and become momentary Deuterium, Tritium, or even Helium for one attack.
An Iron master can shed protons and become Manganese, Chromium, or even Titanium for an instant.
The higher your atomic number, the harder this phase is; Oganesson masters often die trying to become something lighter.
7. Lattice Sovereign
You are no longer a person wielding an element. You are the living embodiment of that position on the periodic table. Space-time near you begins to adopt the physical constants of your element's dominance.
Near a Phase-7 Hydrogen user, everything becomes explosively reactive.
Near a Phase-7 Gold user, value, desire, and greed become tangible forces that can be weaponized.
8. Cosmic Filament
Your soul-thread links every atom of your element across the entire observable universe and into the bulk beyond the branes. You can teleport by "riding" your element's cosmic abundance, summon supernova-scale masses, or erase your element from local reality (creating perfect vacuums or absolute zero zones light-years wide).
9. Singularity of One
The final phase. There is no more "you" and "the element." There is only the Law.
You become one of the 118 pillars that hold existence together. Reality edits itself to accommodate your nature.
A Hydrogen Singularity can rewrite the universe to run on different nuclear forces.
An Iron Singularity can enforce a cosmos where iron is the endpoint of all fusion; stars die early, the universe goes dark, just so Iron reigns supreme.
An Oganesson Singularity simply chooses which physical laws are allowed to exist this picosecond.
The Hidden Truth: The Zero Element and the 119th Path
There is one forbidden awakening that has appeared only three times in recorded history.
Atomic Number 0: The Void Between.
Those who awaken to "nothing" are erased from the ceremony records. They have no symbol, no density, no bonds at all.
Their path is the inverse of the 118.
Where others compress and dominate, the Zero walker learns to unmake every bond, every force, every element they touch. At the final phase, they do not become a cosmic pillar.
They become the space between the pillars.
And when the 118 Singularities finally clash to decide the next shape of reality, the one who mastered absolute absence is the only one who can end the fight by making the concept of "elements" itself cease to exist for a while.
Ace, the boy who was mocked for Hydrogen and Helium, is currently Phase 6 and rising faster than anyone in history.
Because Hydrogen is not just the lightest element.
It is the most abundant.
There are more atoms of Hydrogen in the observable universe than there are atoms of everything else combined.
When he reaches Phase 8, there will be no battlefield large enough to contain him.
There will only be the cosmic background glow of a boy who was told he was nothing, finally becoming everything.