Published at 19th of July 2026 7:40 am

Chapter 366: All Out

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The doora large, steel, circular affairhinged slowly open, and Nicolai looked out into the room in which he would be attaining Tier 2.

It was as though Heaven itself had reached down and scooped out an orb of rock and earth from deep below the ground, leaving behind a perfect sphere of empty space, several metres from side to side and top to bottom, which Nicolais industrious bots had then colonised. The walls were of dull steel, traced and carved with lines that formed whorls and channels, a great spreading pattern. The foundation of this pattern were lines of silver set into the steel. These silver lines formed their own larger structure of patterns, circles, dots, triangles, all connected, like cursiveonly this cursive moved in all directions.

Metal struts jutted from the walls, converging on the centre. There they joined to a second sphere, an orb of suspended metal. This one, too, was covered in dense engravings and its own lines of silver. If one were to look carefully, they might notice that the engravings on this sphere were matched by those on the inside of the larger sphere.

Nicolai floated toward it. He was stripped bare, not even wearing any of his Imbued, and was thus using his flight Symbiotes rather than a Pegasi Ring. He held only a small plastic bag. The door closed behind him. He knew if he looked back he would see that it was now lost in the wall, its surface melding with the endless patterns.

A kind of pressure began to bear down on him as he approached the orb. Something that set his Soul to itching. A sense of wrongness, as though there was something out of place. Something not right.

The feeling grew hand in hand with his approach. By the time he reached the sphere and landed atop it, his Soul felt as though it were tying up in knots. With a clunk, the circular top of the sphere opened. He looked down and dark, placid water met his gaze. He lifted silently into the air, then dipped slowly downwards. The tips of his toes touched the water. It was neither cold nor hot, and it swallowed him inch by inch as he lowered himself gradually into it.

The water swallowed him whole and soon it was coming up over his mouth. He took a moment to breathe out through his nose, his exhalation forming a stream of bubbles that rose in his wake. The lid closed and all went dark, his entombment complete.

The moment it closed he felt something odd, something different. A sense of cutting away. The link between him and the Interior, where the Dark Spirit lingered, was severed. This smaller ball was as protected and separated from that other world as he was capable of making it.

Meanwhile, the spiritual pressure was stronger and more unpleasant than ever. He did his best to ignore it as he crossed his legs and, continuing to breathe out, drifted downwards. His body, containing rather more metal than was natural, had little problem sinking through the water, even were he to keep his lungs full.

Nicolai did not need his eyes to see. His Soul Sense filled the sphere, and he knew everything that was within it. He reached out and grasped the mask floating off to one side, connected to a tube. He pulled it over his nose and mouth, pressed it tight to ensure a seal as he hooked the tie around the back of his head.

The water within the mask was sucked out with a grumbling sound, but air swiftly filled it, and he breathed in. The pressure on his Soul was reaching a horrible peak.

Then his body touched down on a platform positioned slightly below the midpoint of the sphere. He settled himself properly into position, legs crossed, body symmetrical, in the typical Cultivating pose, and all at once the pressure on his Soul transformed.

The sense of wrongness, the pain, the certainty that something was out of place smoothly shifted into the complete opposite. With a dizzying, euphoric rush as the unease of the past moments was brushed aside, his Soul was suddenly stronger than ever, perfectly firm and supported from all sides.

He knew, in a deep manner that needed no words, that he was in exactly the right place. But he understood the reason behind that feeling, too. He was now sitting in the precise centre of something he and the Modules had put a fair bit of thought into.

During research on the best way to go about attaining Tier 2, they had found many references suggesting that the Cultivator should place themselves within a magic circle, one that would enhance their spirit. The gains from this were said to be minimal, but during any stationary act of Cultivation, especially one as important as ascending to Tier 2, anything that could help should be embraced.

Nicolai and the Modules had naturally decided to take their magic circle to the ultimate conclusion. They had run a few experiments to check whether a circle really was limited to being something two-dimensional, or if one could go a little further, and been delighted to discover that one could.

Thus, he was at that moment in the centre of two three-dimensional magic circles, both reinforcing one another, with the entire goal of magnifying the spiritual capabilities of whoever positioned their Soul at the very centre. The subsidiary function of this was to cut him away from the Interior. This process would be difficult enough without worrying that the Dark Spirit might see the Ascension as a fantastic opportunity for redress. Hed thought of going even further with the enhancementwhy not dozens of sphere-circles?but theyd determined the gains became marginal after two.

Through this he hoped to rectify his template deviation. He only had a low level of it, and perhaps many would have been happy to go ahead and push to Tier 2 despite that, even though it was placing a small amount of strain on his Soul. But this process would be difficult enough without that strain, let alone with it.

Now, sitting at the exact centre and reviewing the state of his Soul, he determined that not only had he wiped out the strain of that deviation, hed actually empowered his Soul by a small but noticeable amount. Rather than having slightly lowered odds of success, he had slightly increased odds.

Though the Golden Soul couldnt be gained at the moment of rising to Tier 2, what could be gainedwhat he needed to gainwas a bright Soul.

Immediately after rising to Tier 2, his Soul would be carrying a certain amount of latent potential, and the amount of potential was judged by the brightness of ones Soul. Afterwards, he should be able to look at his Soul using Soul Sense and see whether it was bright or dim. A dim Soul would mean he would only ever be able to achieve a bronze Soul. A glowing Soul and he might be able to reach silver. Whereas having a bright Soul would ensure he had enough latent potential to push for gold.

There were a number of factors impacting how much latent potential one would have upon rising to Tier 2, amongst them the strength of their Nodes and whether they had any of the gifts. He was not sure whether his black gift would be a good thing or a bad thing in this case. However, his Nodes should be a point in his favour, because one of his tasks immediately following the upgrade to his body had been the destruction and recreation of just about every single one of his Nodes. He had gone through the process surprisingly fast this time, and had discovered that his ability to create a higher-level node had increased slightly. All of his Nodes were at the very maximum he was capable of building them.

However, the other main factor that would impact ones latent potential was the process he was about to embark upon. This was where the Toothbearer Blood Symbiote came in. It was also where having double the number of the required Symbiotes came in, and all that shardache. These would allow him to not only generate a greater amount of latent potential moment-to-moment in the course of his Ascenscion, but also prolong the overall process. hat extra time would further increase the latent potential he could generate, alongside making one of his other goals easier.

During his rise to Tier 2, his Soul would become soft and malleable. This was one of the main difficulties with the rise, and could cause people entirely to lose control of the process. After all, they would be using their Soul to direct what was happening, and as it became softer and more malleable, that control would begin to degrade. However, this soft, malleable state also meant that one could do more than simply rise to Tier 2 and gain latent potential. It was also possible to make fundamental changes to the Soul.

This tied into the Soul template, being a method to alter both. Theoretically, he could have used this to try to adjust his template so he could better handle augments that did not fit with his two templates, and it was common for people to use this phase to do exactly that. But Nicolai had another goal. He could handle his template simply via his planned process of gradual changes.

He wanted to make a different kind of fundamental change, what he considered the more interesting kind. In many ways Souls were strange and mysterious, but in others they worked much as a body did. Changes to ones Soul could alter their spiritual capabilitiesimprove their usage of Symbiotes, strengthen their Soul Sense, and so on. These were changes that would never occur via the gradual alteration of a template in response to the physical form. The only way to gain such boons was to have a Gift, be born or naturally develop some unique twist to ones Soul, alterations via Symbiotes and rituals, or, the most accessible routeby making use of the malleable state of ones Soul during Ascension to enact guided, custom changes. Doing this was known as creating a Soul Engraving.

Inspired by the Governor, which through hardware and programming had held effortless control over him back in Zero-Twelve, he wanted to alter his Souls very relationship to the Dark, creating an Engraving that would give him a higher level of natural resistance and control.

Some of the Modules had said that, considering his Soul was going to grow stronger during this process anyway, what was the point in doing all this when he would already be gaining improved resistance simply from that greater strength? Why not focus on a more interesting change, like boosting his Soul Sense range?

Notably, it was only the most recently arrived Modules whod said this. The others, whod been there during the last Tournament, who remembered how the Dark had gotten not only into him but into them, were entirely supportive of this goal.

The Dark was growing, too. Following his Reckoning, it was calmer and quieter the majority of the time. But the side effect was that during combat, it rose up even stronger than before. He wanted to maintain control even during times like that, and without needing a crutch like the Blade.

The Modules had initially clamoured to him about all the specific little changes they wanted to enact on his Soul. But hed put that to bed when he pointed out that they didnt need him for that.

So far as he could tell, all it took to begin moulding the Soul in this manner was willpower. He possessed his own will, and all of that would be directed to ensuring his rise to Tier 2 went off smoothly enough to finish with a bright Soul, plus pursuing his goal of altering his Soul to better combat the Dark. But the Modules had their own willpower. Whatever changes they wished to make, they were free to do so.

And so the Modules were buzzing about as they thought through the changes each of them had in mind. Cyberwarfare wanted to Engrave the ability to create Soul worms into the piece of his Soul it controlled. These Soul worms were based on those Paxolnaz had once placed into him. It had been fascinated by the technique and had been studying it ever since. With the recent improvements to its hardware, it had come up with some workable ideas for making that ability a realitywith no need for Symbiotes. Threat Analysis was intending to grow tiny feelers all over its own Soul-piece. These feelers would improve its ability to sense ripples.

Almost all of the Modules had their own little goals, Engravings they hoped to make. Nicolais only request was that as soon as they were done, they join him and assist him in ensuring the overall process went smoothly.

As to the Mask, it said it was simply going to observe and see what happened.

There was another route he could have chosen, one which had come up often in his reading. In fact, it was the route that the majority of Cultivators seemed to go down. It was called the Simple Ascension.

During the rise to Tier 2, he would face numerous internal crises. If he wanted to ensure he ended with a bright Soul, he needed to deal with those crises as smoothly and quickly as possible. The Simple Ascension, in contrast, hinged upon allowing certain crises to arise and leaving them be. A Node starting to twist out of shape needed to be ended immediately, because there was a risk of detonation. But the crises of the Soul, where an area would solidify and grow calm, were gentler. What these crises effectively were was an attempt from the Soul to reach a level of stability.

Allowing a few spiritual crises to stick around would greatly improve stability during the process, preventing any more such crises from appearing. The Cultivator would then make sure to move these hardened parts of Soul aroundso long as they werent left in the same places but continually moved, the Soul would be able to finish the rise to Tier 2 as normal.

This method was easy and very reliable. Naturally, it came with a significant cost. These crises would drink up a large portion of the generated latent potential, and it was thus impossible to gain a bright Soul, putting the Golden Soul forever out of reach.

Instead, the Cultivator using this method would have a small chance of enough latent potential to reach silver, and effectively guarantee themselves enough to reach bronze. In return for lowering their potential, the Cultivator would hugely lower their risk of facing a crisis death spiral.

The crisis death spiral was the major risk one would face, going about it the non-simple, non-safe route. If too many crises occurred, if they werent dealt with swiftly enough, then they might start appearing faster than could be handled. Each crises would reduce the Cultivators control over the process.

From what hed read, at least 50% of those using the All Out method of Ascenscion, as it was known, failed and crippled their Soul. They became someone who was neither Tier 1 nor Tier 2, some ugly halfway state which was extremely difficult to reverse. Of the remaining 50%, less than 10% achieved the bright Soul. The rest failed to deal with the crises fast enough, and ended up bronze or silver. These individuals were viewed with scorn by their peers, who after using the Simple Ascension method to smoothly achieve the same state with far less risk, shook their heads and cited the foolishness of overconfident youths.

Naturally, Nicolai absolutely refused to used the Simple Ascension method. Not only would it put a Golden Soul out of reach, letting hardened Soul parts stick around would also prevent him making any Engravings to his Soul. There was an alternative method, cited as being a step up in difficulty and requiring some additional materials, but allowing one to make Soul Engravings while also retaining some of the stability benefits for an overall easier time, but he had no interest in that, either. It had an even greater loss of latent potential, capping the user at bronze.

He was calm and ready. He told himself his will was iron, his Soul was perfect as a diamond, his mind was if perhaps not single-minded and determined, then at least many-minded and determined, and wasnt that better, in a way?

When youre naked and alone in a pitch-black ball of water, far below the gound, theres no need to close your eyes to find some peace and quiet. Nicolai did so regardless. Like many of the wars of the modern age, it was a matter of habit.

His awareness moved inwards. Reaching into his heart Node, he found them. The Symbiotes which had been so integral to that Cultivators game in the Inheritance formed a little cluster in the surprisingly vast space inside. Four refiners, four collectors, two workers, two defenders, and two scouts. Back in that game, this exact grouping of Symbiotes had been used to create a refinement centre.

Nicolai split the refiners and the collectors from the others and bid them to leave the Node. They appeared as vague misty forms, not truly physical but in the spiritual shape that Symbiotes fell into while moving through his Soul.

Two of the collectors went to his left lung Node, the other two to his right. Similarly, the refiners were split between his kidney Nodes. All of his Nodes were clear in readiness for this, as hed pulled all Symbiotes into his heart Node, excepting those which had been unwilling to tolerate one anothers presence, which hed stored in the Infiltrator. His heart Node would be safe, but all his other Nodes would become unstable and Symbiotes left in them were at risk of being lost.

Within his heart Node, one of the defenders, one of the workers, and one of the scouts separated from the others and moved towards the centre of his Node, where the black twist existed; that strange tubular thing that lived at the centre of all heart Nodes, transmuting Aura into Oma.

They formed a triangle around the twist, equidistant from one another. The defender was a large crab-like symbiote, the worker a small, wiry monkey, and the scout was quick-moving and catlike.

Under Nicolais direction, the Symbiotes began to draw Oma as, for what would be both the first and the last time, he activated them. A ripple ran through his Soul, ringing all of his Nodes like a collection of tiny bells. His breathing sped up slightly, rough and heavy in the mask attached to his face.

He drew open the small bag hed brought, and from within pulled free a small but razor-sharp scalpel. The process was almost begun. All that was needed now was a little bloodletting.

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