Chapter 78

Will Made Manifest

Talia woke with the first rays of sunlight peeking through her window.

Glancing down at the injection site, she frowned. She’d expected more from the serum. Some dramatic transformation, vivid sensations, or her mind exploding with new understanding. Instead, the injection had felt like nothing. A pinprick, a slight warmth, then… silence.

She’d meditated for hours afterward, making sure to keep her intent focused just in case it took some time for the process to complete. And to fight the urge to immediately test for results, to learn if she’d failed or succeeded.

Discipline meant sticking to the schedule. Rest before combat. So she’d forced herself to sleep, even with uncertainty gnawing at her.

Now it was morning. Time to maintain her routine, and only then would she find out the answer.

The gym was empty when she arrived. She moved through her forms, each strike and block precise despite the distraction of wondering if something had changed. Her body felt the same. Her mind felt the same. Maybe the serum had failed.

Focus.

After her workout and shower, she found Augustus at the stove making eggs while Annie sat at the table, working through a stack of toast. Three of the aliens sat around the holo with their own meals. The blue-gilled one had something that looked like fermented kelp, while the crystalline being was dissolving mineral cubes in acid. The smell from both made Talia’s stomach turn slightly, but she also knew their own human foods didn’t exactly sit right with them, either. That’s why they’d established this routine over the past few days, using separate spaces to eat and not cause anyone distress.

“How’d it go?” Annie asked through a mouthful of toast, spraying crumbs.

Augustus turned from the stove, spatula in hand, waiting for the answer.

“Haven’t tried it yet.” Talia poured herself coffee. “I meditated after the injection, then slept. I’ll test it soon.”

Annie nodded, shoving more toast in her mouth. Augustus returned to his eggs.

“Where’s Alex?” she asked.

“Still sleeping.” Augustus plated his eggs. “He probably needs it after the past few days.”

“I checked in on him earlier,” Annie added. “Cracked open his door to peek in, and his drone woke up. Thing floated over and shut the door on me! Totally weird.”

Talia raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah. Like it was guarding him or something.” Annie shrugged. “Probably something new he programmed. I bet it’s because of the time I doodled on his face.”

They ate in companionable silence, the aliens having their own conversation at the holo. The blue-gilled one had learned enough English to occasionally comment on the weather. Today it mentioned the “bright water-light” outside.

After breakfast, Talia returned to her room.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, considering how to test what might have changed. Her Cognitive Resonance let her understand patterns and connections instantly, while her Mind Palace gave her a space to process, investigate, and build understanding. If the serum had worked, had given her what she wanted, then combining all three should create something unprecedented.

The possibilities spiraled outward in her mind. She could theoretically manifest her understanding as physical reality. Make weaknesses real, strengths tangible. It might require an entirely new power classification. And if she succeeded in gaining Faith Enchanting from the combat challenge, she imagined shaping enchantments within her Mind Palace, then manifesting them instantly through touch.

She’d need to expand her Mind Palace’s boundaries. Work on holding more complex concepts simultaneously. The current limits were—

She stopped herself. This was avoidance dressed as planning. Fear of failure making her overthink instead of act.

Start small. Test first. Theorize later.

She reached for the empty water glass on her nightstand. Silicon dioxide molecules in an amorphous solid structure. Not ordered like crystal, but random, which paradoxically made it stronger in some ways and weaker in others. The rim was thinner than the base, making it a more vulnerable point for the test.

She understood its nature completely, comprehended the material’s properties, its structural vulnerabilities, the physics of how and why glass breaks.

She imagined a hairline fracture at the rim. The weakest point, where daily use would create the most stress. Her Mind Palace expanded slightly, just enough to encompass the glass. She could hold the concept of the fracture perfectly in that space, every detail of how it would propagate.

She tapped the glass with her finger.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, pressing harder.

Still nothing.

Frustration flared. Three days of meditation, perfect visualization, and now—

She steadied her breathing. She was trying to force it. They’d all learned by now that it was Willpower that made reality bend to their desires.

It was the reason she thought Faith Enchanting would suit her skills perfectly; she did not need to be limited by what was likely a culturally constructed belief system defining what enchantments could achieve, or to what they could be applied.

Not when she could shape that belief with her own Will.

Their equipment showed their cultural rigidity. Why were the swords and armor of the knights enchanted, but not the bows and arrows of the soldiers? The shields? The mounts?

Why not the knights themselves? Magic that could reinforce steel, repair it over time, could surely be shaped to do the same for people. And if their magic could reinforce, why couldn’t it do the inverse?

Augustus had suggested the knights they faced were merely a probing force. Perhaps he was right, but their castle and the people had also appeared wealthy. Which meant resources could not be the only reason they failed to give their warriors every edge possible, even if their losses were part of a calculated opening move.

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She stopped again, realizing once more that she was still avoiding what needed to come next.

Closing her eyes, she returned her thoughts to the glass. To the image of the structural weakness she’d envisioned. Not imagined.

Real.

Focus and intent channeled through words. “Manifestation.”

She tapped the glass again. This time she felt the fracture spreading from her touch, invisible but perfectly mapped to the one in her mind.

She flicked the rim with her fingernail.

The glass shattered, splitting cleanly along the fracture line before crumbling into precise fragments.

“Perfect,” she murmured, studying the remains. Each piece had broken exactly as intended. Controlled failure at predetermined points.

She could work with that. Pulling up her status, she saw the new power sitting there neatly as if it had always belonged.

Manifest Resonance.

Augustus had found his training spot a ten-minute walk from the house, where scrub gave way to older growth. Evidence of his morning sessions littered the area. Scorch marks blackened tree trunks. Others lay toppled, cut clean through as if by an impossibly sharp blade. One oak had been split vertically, its halves pushed apart by some tremendous force.

His drone hovered nearby, following a programmed patrol pattern until needed.

Augustus pointed his wand at a fresh target, an olive tree with a trunk as thick as his thigh. “Designate.”

The drone chirped acknowledgment and zipped between him and the tree, weaving erratically. Ready to intercept any counterattack from an opponent that would never come. But muscle memory didn’t care that trees couldn’t fight back. Practice was practice.

Alexander had assured them the drones would learn, not with true intelligence but something like it. Basic pattern recognition that would analyze successes and failures, gradually optimizing responses. Even after just three days of training, Augustus had noticed minor improvements. The drone’s defensive positioning had grown more efficient, wasting less time on unnecessary movements.

“Attack.”

The drone shot forward, wings snapping horizontal to become spinning blades. It carved through the bark in a smooth arc before pulling back.

Augustus flicked his wand. A concentrated force blast struck where the drone had weakened the trunk. The tree groaned and toppled, crashing through the underbrush.

“Defend.”

The drone returned to position, now slowly rotating around him, scanning for threats that weren’t there.

He’d run this sequence dozens of times over the past three days. Each iteration smoother as the coordination grew more natural. Alexander’s design was brilliant in its simplicity. The drone responded to simple commands but executed them with tactical intelligence he hadn’t expected.

Augustus aimed his wand at the drone itself, channeling his Will through the focus. A bubble of blue energy traced around its form, conforming to its shape.

“Retract.”

The drone’s wings snapped inward, reducing its profile. The shield contracted with it, maintaining coverage while presenting a smaller target.

“Extend.”

Wings spread wide again, the energy field expanding to match. A mobile barrier he could position wherever needed.

“Reposition,” he said, finally, aiming the wand to his left.

The drone swiftly shifted its defensive pattern, prioritizing his left flank.

Ten hours until the quest timer was up. He was as ready as three days could make him.

Augustus lowered his wand, looking at the devastation around him. Two dozen trees destroyed in various ways. If a wizard from another world fought anything like Earth’s fiction suggested, he’d need every trick.

“Reset.”

The drone settled into a gentle hover beside him. He reached up and patted its smooth surface.

“Good work,” he said quietly, then headed back toward the house.

Annie floated on her pizza-slice pool inflatable, wearing a new shirt that declared, “I SURVIVED A MULTIVERSAL INVASION AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID QUEST.” The heart-shaped sunglasses from the estate’s questionable basement inventory sat crooked on her face.

She watched two aliens working at the garden’s edge, clearing back overgrowth with careful precision. The rock being pulled weeds with patient, methodical motions while the tentacled one trimmed branches up high.

“We need coconut trees,” she announced to nobody in particular.

Of course, Talia had already explained that coconuts couldn’t grow in the Mediterranean climate. But that just meant they needed someone with plant powers to make it work. Or Alexander could build a special greenhouse. Then they could fix up the tiki bar and serve drinks with little umbrellas.

She was definitely not thinking about fighting a dinosaur in six hours.

The blue-gilled alien appeared from the ocean access path. “Annie-friend! Water here is good today too! Much salt, very pleasant!”

“That’s great, Gilly!” She didn’t move from her float. Moving would mean acknowledging reality.

Her tablet showed a Barkforce compilation playing on loop. She wasn’t watching it. Instead, her mind kept circling back to the same problem.

Metal skin versus teeth backed by a crushing force that could probably break her. Metal spikes versus thick hide that had evolved to withstand spikes and claws and teeth from other dinosaurs. She’d be fighting something perfectly designed to counter everything she could do. All of that before they had been System-ized. And Talia insisted they were probably intelligent, too, because how else could they understand the System and its quests?

Everyone else had clear paths. Alexander would use his new gauntlets to blast the cultivator or something. Augustus had magic. Literal magic. Talia was Talia.

And Annie? Annie was going to punch a T-Rex.

She groaned and pulled off her sunglasses. This was pathetic. She was Annette fucking Sheridan. She’d survived years basically raising herself and Sasha. Survived a prison break. Survived Flashpoint, and taken the asshole’s eye in the process! Survived knights from another dimension.

She sat up so fast she nearly flipped the float.

“You know what?” she said loud enough for the aliens to hear. “How many other people will ever get to say they fought a dinosaur! An actual dinosaur! How cool is that?”

The rock being rumbled something that might have been agreement.

“And when I win,” she continued, building momentum, “I’ll have dinosaur powers. I’ll be taller. Way taller. Like ten feet tall with teeth and claws and scales!”

She stood on the float, wobbling dangerously. “Then we’ll see who the real sidekick is!”

The float flipped. She hit the water with a splash that sent Gilly running to check on her.

Annie surfaced, spitting water, hair plastered to her face. The aliens stared at her with expressions she couldn’t read but chose to interpret as admiration.

“Totally meant to do that,” she said.

She swam to the edge and hauled herself out, water streaming from her clothes. Six hours. In six hours, she’d either be dead or have the coolest power upgrade ever.

No pressure.

Alexander woke to the dipping evening sunlight and the sound of his stomach attempting to digest itself. Every muscle ached from three days of barely sleeping, but his mind felt clear for the first time since starting the workshop marathon.

Droney floated beside the bed, having apparently stood vigil the entire time.

“Hey, buddy,” he muttered, voice rough from sleep.

A single beep.

He checked the time through the System interface and felt his chest tighten.

Four hours until the individual combat quest began.

Four hours to decide if he was really going to fight a cultivator to the death for the power he’d need to keep up with a world gone mad.

His stomach growled again, making the immediate decision for him.

Food first. Existential crisis later.

He swung his legs out of bed, taking in the new room Annie had saved for him. Corner windows looked out over the Mediterranean, the evening sun painting the water in beautiful hues. She’d been right about the view.

Four hours.

The countdown was coming to an end.

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