Nova slept on the floor, as he didn't have a mattress to sleep on. He was fine with it, since all the furniture was arriving today anyway. The kittens, as well, were surviving, and as soon as he started his job hunt, he knew who to prioritize first.
Then, as Nova sat, his back against the wall, playing with the kittens, he realized, looking at his hand, the Circle of Pillars sigil.
Nova remembered what the Circle of Pillars was, and all the further extensions to it, for mortals to feel as if they could reach Godhood, but they could never, not even after training for a billion years.
It was a very important sigil that governed the mortal realm. All mortals were bound by this system till the day that they died. Immortals, on the other hand, weren't bound by the system, but also had one innate ability that they conjured the day they were born.
An immortal could have an ability that could be the final evolution of an ability that the mortal awakened. Or, it could just be a simple ability that mortals were born with, without any evolution. They were all on a spectrum.
The awakened individuals, however, have two concentric circles connected by vertical pillars. The outer circle represented their core energy, and the inner circle represented their control or mastery. The pillars symbolize the rank and stability of their magical powers. As people grow stronger, the two circles get closer together until they become one.
Starting from no pillars, up to ten pillars, was the hierarchy, with no pillars being not awakened, and then one pillar meaning F-rank, and the hierarchy keeps on going up and up, until you reach ten pillars and are now EX-rank.
I need to awaken my ability fast, he thought, reaching up at the sealing, to live his life, while also reaching for Freya. I have a chance at living my dream. Though, of course, I could just always awaken with divinity. Giving it just a slight nudge.
He nodded in disagreement; he didn't want any shortcuts, especially since it was his idea to reincarnate in the mortal realm. He decided to somehow use the guild to awaken and land a job there, as an Adventurer. Even F-rank Adventurers could get paid a hefty amount.
Another thing I need to watch out for is the ability that I get. If I somehow get a bad ability, like a really basic one, that could put me in trouble. Since, even after evolution, some abilities are just so shitty that evolution doesn't even apply to them, they just suck.
The magic system was somewhat random. Each mortal had a chance to get lucky and obtain a powerful ability or receive a more common one, like water manipulation. Which can then evolve into something greater.
The pillars only appear if a human has both awakened and gained an ability. Normal humans, although they still have the two circles, will never form pillars because they lack the ability.
Ability evolution resets your progress. For example, if someone starts with water manipulation and reaches 6 pillars, they may then evolve their power into either Water II, an advanced form of water manipulation, or the basics of blood manipulation (Blood I). Each time you evolve, your pillar count resets to one, and you must build up to six pillars again before evolving further.
As you evolve, you can begin to combine external powers with your inborn ability. For example, Storm Weaver was a cross-dominion ability that merges air and water to create storms, generate lightning, and control rain patterns, all while enhancing your original water-based power.
People who have never had a diagonal cross on their Circle of Pillars were the ones who never evolved. One cross on the circle meant one evolution, and a higher version of the inborn ability. A second cross meant a second evolution, and cross-dominion, combining different abilities. Then a third cross meant a third evolution, which was the higher version of the cross-dominion ability.
There was a much bigger world than just this, much more to explore, so much adventure and action, and even the Unified Rings and Transcendence Pillars¸, which would take even longer for him to obtain, as each transcendence was such a bigger jump that the Circle of Pillars looked like a child's toy.
Nova closed his hand slowly, letting the sigil fade under his skill like a memory buried beneath years of dust. The Circle of Pillars was a system designed to mimic divinity, but it never truly reached it. No mortal had ever passed the threshold, only imitated the shape of power.
He leaned back again, the cold floor unforgiving beneath his back, but his mind didn't care. His thoughts were louder than his body.
Even if ascent defies the climb, even if the odds are never kind, still the right to strive is mine. As it is for every mortal beneath the sky.
He was surprised that he was able to craft a decent poem. He thought of becoming a poet and using it as a side hustle, but then rejected the idea, since the life of a poet was just writing a poem and speaking, and that was boring.
The kittens moved beside him. One of them climbed up onto his chest and curled up into a ball. The others nestled into his arm and other parts of his body, purring softly. It was strange, he thought, how these little creatures could be so content without knowing anything about ranks, systems, or evolution. They only knew warmth. Hunger. Safety.
Then, as the silence was deafening, Nova understood something deeper than any doctrine or system could offer: that power without purpose was hollow, and purpose without a heart was directionless. These kittens, these warm breaths pressed against him, were not just creatures he saved; they were symbols of the life he chose.
A life without shortcuts, without divine entitlement, without the sterile coldness of omnipotence. Here, he would bleed. He would fail. He would hunger. He would rise. But he would do it all as a mortal, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. For the first time in countless lifetimes, he wasn't a god watching from above. He was Nova, a man at the bottom, looking up, ready to climb, not to dominate the world, but to find a reason worth living in it.
And as the sun carved its way across the ceiling through the windows, spilling warm light over the floor, Nova closed his eyes, not to rest, but to dream. Because tomorrow, he would begin again. And this time, it would all be real.