The Shattered Spire was a physical insult to the concept of logic. It was located three miles north of the Academy, hidden behind a permanent veil of low-hanging and electrically charged clouds.
It was a place where the Universal Engine’s gravity sub-routine had clearly crashed and never been rebooted. Huge chunks of white marble and black obsidian hung suspended in the air.
Some were as small as pebbles while others were the size of mansions. All of them were motionless and defiant of the abyss below. Water from a nearby stream flowed upward and vanished into the mist above.
David Silver stood at the base of the gorge and looked up at a landscape that made his head spin. "Relatable humor, David," he whispered. He watched a stray leaf drift past his face and then suddenly rocket toward the clouds.
"You survived a Tier 7 death-curse, evolved into a biological furnace, and now you are going to die because you forgot which way was down. The irony is almost as thick as the air out here. My parents would be so confused by my funeral arrangements."
— [Infinite Regeneration System] —
[Host Information]
↳ Name: David Silver
↳ Life-form: Human / Engine-Bearer / Phoenix Hybrid
↳ Disability: Pain Nullification
[System Note: My sensors indicate that your inner ear is currently 42 percent confused. I suggest you do not look at the floating water for too long, or your stomach might decide to follow it. It would be very messy for your uniform.]
"Too late for that," David muttered. He ignored the blue screen and tried to steady his feet.
Old Man Barnaby sat on a boulder that was hovering six inches off the ground. He looked perfectly at home and was nursing a fresh flask of water.
His bleary eyes were fixed on the swirling mists of the Spire, but the Drunken Master veil was thin today. The air around the old man was still, creating a pocket of absolute stability in a chaotic world.
"Gravity is a law, David," Barnaby said. His voice echoed through the gorge. "But like any law, it is only as strong as the person enforcing it. The Council thinks gravity is a constant.
They think it is the ground pulling you down. They are wrong. It is the Engine pushing you from the other side. You just need to learn how to push back."
Barnaby stood up and his boots made a soft clack against the floating rock. He did not walk forward like a normal person. He walked up. He stepped into the air as if he were climbing an invisible staircase.
His body was perfectly perpendicular to the ground. He stood ten feet above David and looked down with sharp clarity.
"If you want to fight Liora Greyjoy, you cannot just be strong," Barnaby warned. "She moves through the shadow-realms. She is not bound by the floor. If you stay on the ground, you are just a target waiting for the bullseye to be painted. You need to learn how to edit your own weight."
David looked at a floating obsidian shard about twenty feet up. It was the size of a dinner table and was slowly rotating. "And how do I do that? I am a Static Core user, remember? My mana does not like to move, let alone push against the world. It is very stubborn."
"That is exactly why you are perfect for this," Barnaby said. He drifted back down to the ground. "A normal mage tries to use wind magic to fly. They fight the air. They waste energy. But you have the Catalyst. You do not fight the rules. You rewrite them. You are the Architect now."
Even if one were to ignore the strange gravity of the Spire, David noticed someone watching them from a nearby ledge. It was Instructor Aria. She was the specialist assigned to the Spire training zone.
Instructor Aria looked at David with a bored expression. "Mr. Silver, I see you are attempting the Spire today. Try not to fall. The medical team is very busy with the power grid repairs and we do not have time to scrape you off the rocks."
"I will do my best, Ma’am," David replied.
Barnaby pointed to a vertical pillar of white stone that rose out of the mist. Its surface was smooth and slick with moisture. "Run up that. Do not use your hands. Do not use Flash-Step.
Just run. Find the point where your mana meets the stone and tell the stone that it is the floor. Convince the world that down is now sideways."
David took a deep breath. He felt the Phoenix Pulse humming in his chest like a warm engine. He looked at the pillar. It was nearly eighty feet tall. He started to run.
His boots hit the vertical surface. For two steps, he felt like a god. On the third step, gravity remembered its job. David’s feet slipped and his momentum vanished. He went falling fast toward the rocks of the gorge floor.
"Oh no!" he yelled.
He did not hit the ground. A huge blur with black fur caught him in the air. Grim grabbed David by the back of his tunic. The Void Stalker dug its claws into the stone wall and stopped their fall. Grim let out a huff of air that smelled like starlight and fresh mountain air.
Master, Grim’s mental voice rumbled through the link. The floor is not that way. You are looking at it the wrong way.
"I noticed, Grim. Thanks," David wheezed.
Grim set him back on his feet. He tried again. And again. For three hours, David Silver became a professional at falling. He fell sideways, he fell up into the branches of a floating tree, and he once fell so hard he did a three-point landing that cracked the ground. He looked like a total mess. His face was pale and drawn, and his muscles were screaming in protest.
[Warning! Vestibular System reaching fatigue threshold.]
[Detection: You are currently attempting to use Balance (Tier 1) to counteract a Conceptual Law. It is like using a spoon to dig a hole through the planet.]
"I know it is a Tier 1 skill, System. I am trying to build a foundation!" David barked.
He wiped sweat and mud from his face. "I just need a little more time."
[Suggestion: Use the 100,000x Multiplier on the Equilibrium and Surface Tension sub-routines. You do not need to practice falling. You need to practice being the center of your own universe.]
David stood in front of the vertical pillar once more. He closed his eyes. He did not focus on his feet. He focused on the Aeon Catalyst. He visualized the rotating golden gears of the Universal Engine. He saw the vector of gravity as a series of thin and glowing blue lines pushing down from the sky.
"System," David thought. He was set with determination. "Initialize the Gravity Overclock. I want to spend fifty years standing on a wall. Give me all of it."
[Passive Multiplier Activated: 100,000x!]
The world froze. The humming of the rifts died away. David’s consciousness was pulled into the Engine-Space.
In the first microsecond, which felt like an entire year, David stood on the side of the pillar. He fell. The multiplier reset his position instantly. He fell again. He began to sense the push of the vectors. He learned how the mana in his core interacted with the weight of the world.
By the fifth microsecond, which was like the fifth year, he realized that balance was not about his ears. It was about his mana-pressure. He began to vibrate his Static core at the exact frequency of the stone’s resistance. He was no longer a person on a pillar. He was part of the pillar.
By the twentieth microsecond, or twenty years of subjective time, he stopped falling. He stood horizontally on the pillar with his body perfectly straight.
He spent the next decade walking across the vertical surfaces of the simulations. He learned to jump from a ceiling to a wall without losing his orientation. He was becoming a creature of three dimensions.
By the fiftieth microsecond, he mastered the Anchor. He realized he did not even need a surface anymore. He could tell the air itself that it had a density of ten thousand atmospheres beneath his boots. He was the one who decided where the ground was.
[Proficiency: Balance ➔ 100.00% (MAX)]
[Skill Evolution: Balance ➔ Gravity Inversion (Divine Mastery)]
David snapped his eyes open. The Static Core in his chest was not cold lead anymore. It was a spinning gyro of pure and refined weight! He did not feel the pull of the earth. He felt nothing. He was his own anchor.
He looked at the eighty-foot pillar. He did not run this time. He just walked.
David stepped onto the vertical face of the stone. His boots did not slip. He did not feel the blood rushing to his head. From his perspective, he was simply walking across a flat sidewalk. He climbed sixty feet up and stopped. He turned around to look at the gorge.
From his perspective, the world was sideways. Barnaby was standing on a wall to the left. The forest was a vertical green curtain to the right. It was a wonderful sight.
"Look at me," David shouted. A shaky and ecstatic grin spread across his face. "I am an architect of my own orientation. I am the one who decides what is down."
He did not stop at the wall. He looked at the empty air between the pillar and a floating island fifty feet away. He took a step forward into the void.
His boot landed on nothingness, but it made a sharp thud sound! It was as if he had stepped on solid ground. A ripple of golden mana expanded from his foot. He took another step. Then another. David Silver was walking on the air.
"Relatable humor, David," he laughed. His voice echoed through the Spire. "You have officially broken the physics engine. I hope the developers do not release a patch before the Imperial Games. I would hate to fall in front of the Emperor."
Barnaby looked up and his eyes were wide with a rare and genuine shock. He watched as David walked in a perfect circle through the sky. His head was toward the ground and his feet were toward the clouds.
"Gravity Inversion," Barnaby murmured. His voice was thick with awe. "He did not just learn to balance. He mastered the Vector. He is not walking on air. He is editing the air’s relationship with his mass. He is a monster."
Grim let out a high-pitched and excited howl! The Void-Stalker leaped from rock to rock to follow David’s path. The beast felt the shift in the soul-link. It was a new and dizzying sense of freedom that made the rifts of the Maw feel like a playground.
David reached the underside of the floating island and landed on it. To him, he was standing on a ceiling and looking down at the clouds. He saw the Academy in the distance.
It was a miniature model of white stone and dark shadows. He saw the Imperial Wing where Liora Greyjoy was likely planning his next accident.
"She thinks she can trap me in the shadows," David said. His voice was cold and resonant. "But how do you trap someone who can stand on the moonlight? I am going to be the one hunting her."
He jumped!
He did not fall. He vector-glided through the air. His body was a blur of silver-grey as he navigated the floating debris of the Spire. He was no longer a terrestrial being.
He was a creature of the Engine. He was a master of the three-dimensional battlefield.
[Ability Mastery: Gravity Inversion.]
[Status: You can now treat any surface—or the air itself—as a solid platform. Mana cost: 5 points per minute sustained.]
[Note: Your inner ear has finally given up on understanding your life. It has officially gone on strike. You are on your own now.]
"It will get over it," David thought.
He landed softly back on the ground beside Barnaby. He felt a surge of confidence that was different from the Phoenix Pulse. This was not just vitality. This was total control.
Barnaby stood up and his drunk mask slipped back into place. He took a swig from his flask. "You have grown, kid. In more ways than one. But mastery of gravity is just the beginning. The Spire was a test of your body. The next step is a test of your history. You need to know where you came from."
Barnaby looked toward the horizon where the storm clouds were beginning to gather. "Count Greyjoy is moving. He has heard about the defective armor in the duel. He knows you are more than a fluke. He is calling in the Pale Hand’s superiors. They are not as easy to delete."
David looked at his hands which were still humming with the Gravity Inversion energy. "Let them come, Barnaby. I am tired of being the one on the ground. I am ready to fly."
As they headed back toward the Academy, David Silver walked an inch off the muddy path. His boots never touched the dirt. He was a Walker of the Void and a Phoenix of the Static. He was a Sovereign of the Vector.
The Imperial Games were coming. The Prince of Mirrors was coming. But for the first time, David realized he was not just a contestant in their game. He was the one who was going to flip the board!
"High Noon was just a warm-up," David whispered. He looked up at the sky he now owned. "The real show starts when I decide which way is down. And I think the Council is going to hate the view."
The Spire faded into the mist behind them, but the Gravity Inversion remained as a new law written into David’s soul. The boy who could not cast a spark was now a man who could walk on the stars.
Aethelgard was about to find out that when you push a Silver, they do not just push back. They fall up and they take the whole world with them.