What did I used to be?
A shadow flitting through broken alleys. A barefoot child with laughter louder than hunger, quicker than pain. He remembered stealing peaches and freedom in the same breath, remembered racing the wind with no destination—only the thrill of movement, of being alive.
He remembered fire.
Not warmth, but the kind that cracks the sky and ends things. An apocalypse, a tearing of the world, and then—
Silence.
---
What am I?
A student? Perhaps. A mortal with a cracked shell, now sheathed in layers not meant for mortals—Resonant echoes, Luminous shields, Infernal flame, the lattice of stars.
A being who had cast down a fragment of something that should not exist, and who had been seen by something that should not look.
He was not sure what that made him.
But he knew what he wasn't anymore.
---
What do I want to be?
Not king.
Not god.
Not symbol.
He wanted to be vast.
To be the sky that watched over every storm but belonged to none.
To hold every breath, every cry, every silence—and never be full.
That desire rang like a bell through the infinite stillness of the Hall.
---
It was artificial, the Hall. Constructed by ancient hands. Not sentient, not divine.
But not inert either.
The Hall was built to serve a single purpose: to guide students to their Celestial Mark. It offered patterns drawn from reality and history, from legend and legacy. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands.
But this time, it hesitated.
Not from confusion.
From computation.
From consideration.
The desire that rang from Dawn was not something the Hall could map onto any one path. No existing form, no known convergence of energy and will, matched what he sought.
And so the Hall began to do something it rarely did—it began to synthesize.
---
The chamber was silent, but light roared around him.
Threads emerged—filaments that shimmered not with color but with meaning. Not dozens. Not thousands.
Innumerable.
Each one pulsed with potential. Some were sharp like blades, others fluid like water, boundless like flame, structured like machines.
He saw the Material Path, where fists broke mountains and bodies defied death.
He saw the Abstract, where thoughts became blades and dreams wove destiny.
He saw the nergy Path, where energies change endlessly.
Each one shimmered with mastery, with purpose.
He did not step toward any of them.
He watched.
The light shifted.
Not dividing—merging.
Not forming—unforming.
And from that chaos, a silence formed.
A silence waiting to be shaped.
---
Time fractured. Dawn stood still, yet moved.
He lived a thousand lives in a single breath—each one a fragment of a Mark, a pattern of power. His mind was flooded with the memory of things he'd never lived: the forging of celestial spears, the sculpting of healing arrays, the birth of suns, the silence of voids.
He understood.
Not individually—but the pattern behind them. The idea of pattern itself.
And so he wove his desire into that blankness.
Not a command.
A canvas.
And the Hall, ancient and perfect in its craft, obeyed.
It forged one Mark.
A single mark.
---
It did not shimmer. It did not glow. It simply was.
Like a horizon given shape.
Like a void collapsing into elegance.
A canvas of endless possibility.
And into his Origin, the Hall engraved it.
There was no resistance.
Only the echo of acceptance.
---
Celestial Mark: Vast Sky
Type: Transcended
Effect: Abstract – Possibility without limitation
Nature: Expansive. All-encompassing. Silent.
A Mark of infinite potential, yet no defined form.
It holds the patterns of all things, yet none are bound to it.
It doesn't become, but it can reflect.
It is not a weapon, yet it can wield one.
It is not energy, yet it can shape it.
His Void Radiance—his unseen light—illuminates this blank canvas.
And that canvas is the Mark.
And that Mark is the world.
Where others draw from the world to forge power, he projects his will upon it.
If he understands a weapon, and paints it with his Radiance—then the world responds. It becomes that weapon. Briefly. Truly. Temporarily—but with the authority of a crafted Mark.
If he understands energy—lightning, fire, entropy, silence—he may paint with those too. Stroke by stroke, concept by concept.
But understanding is the gate.
Knowledge is the key.
And his will, the brush.
He is not bound by what is. Only by what he does not yet know.
And so his world is one of learning, mastery, and endless invention.
---
The Hall dissolved around him.
The space that held eternity now gave way to the simple truth of time.
Dawn's eyes opened.
He stood alone in the quiet.
And yet, not alone.
He contained everything.
He exhaled, and the breath seemed to carry the weight of storms and skies.
"Let my heart be vast—as Vast as the Sky," he whispered.
And somewhere far away, the Hall's gates stirred.
---
End of Chapter 78