Kalagar S. Sully stared at the heavy, bolted door of his cabin. He was a prisoner. A self-imposed prisoner, but a prisoner nonetheless. Outside his home, on his mountain, three super-powered, deity-worshipping fanatics were, at this very moment, building a "shed."
He shuddered. He'd seen Boro's eyes. An Orc artificer who could build sentient life... "shed" was not the word. Kalagar fully expected to walk out and find a small, rune-scribed fortress.
He resumed pacing the small room, his mind racing. His "rules" were a failure. He had created more rules, but the core problem remained.
His. Entire. Education. Was. A. Weapon.
He couldn't use physics (Forbidden-Rank Annihilation).
He couldn't use biology (Top-Tier Miracles).
He couldn't use analogies (Void-Ripping Swords and Sentient Golems).
He picked up his new, amended list from the desk.
RULES FOR NOT ACCIDENTALLY ENDING THE WORLD (v2.0):
MORE. THEORETICAL. PHYSICS. (Re-underlined. In anger.) No advanced mathematics.No abstract philosophy. (He'd almost forgotten this one. Almost.) MORE. ANALOGIES. (No zippers. No machines. No "mountain snoring." Nothing.) Do not show emotion. (Panic is mistaken for 'divine test.' Anger is mistaken for 'cosmic judgment.') Do not teach. (This was the most important one. He would just be... a silent Yes. That was it. A mute, profound master. Gods were often silent, weren't they?)
He felt a small measure of calm return. He just had to be quiet. He would sit, read, and ignore them. They would get bored and... do... whatever it is overpowered disciples do. Tend his magic garden? Good. Sweep his porch? Excellent.
He needed to de-stress. His predecessor had owned a small, surprisingly well-made lute. Kalagar, in his old life, had been a passable folk musician. It was his one, non-academic hobby. He picked it up from its stand by the unlit fireplace, the smooth, dark wood cool in his hands.
He sat in his rocking chair, closed his eyes, and began to play. Just a simple, melancholic, E-minor tune. A sea shanty from a world now dead. He let his mind drift, the simple notes a balm on his frayed, terrified nerves.
He was a philosopher at heart. He couldn't stop his brain. As he played, he began to hum, and as he hummed, he began to muse.
"What a ridiculous mess," he muttered quietly to the empty room. "Trapped by my own students. What would Descartes say?"
He plucked a chord, letting it ring out.
"Cogito ergo sum..." he whispered, then half-sung the phrase, fitting it to the tune. "I think... therefore I am..."
It was his favorite philosophical axiom. The bedrock of all self-awareness. The one, inescapable truth in a universe of doubt. Even if everything was a lie, the act of doubting proved the existence of the doubter.
"I think... therefore I am..."
He sang it again, a little louder, losing himself in the simple, profound beauty of the concept. It was just a song. Just a thought. Just a man in a locked cabin, trying to find his center.
He was, blissfully and entirely, unaware of the true nature of his new world. He did not know that his cabin, now infused with the residue of three world-changing spells, was no longer just wood. It was a focal point. A divine conduit. His "Level 0" voice, spoken within its walls, no longer came out as a whisper.
It broadcast.
Outside, the atmosphere was one of electric, sacred purpose.
"The Master has tasked us with our foundation!" Boro declared, his voice booming. He had unrolled a massive sheet of cured leather and was sketching with a piece of glowing, rune-scribed charcoal. "This... 'shed'... shall be our 'Sect Hall'! It must be worthy!"
"It must be precise," Lila corrected, taking on her role as senior disciple. "The Master despises waste."
"Indeed." Valerius, his rapier sheathed, was staring at a massive, hundred-foot-tall pine tree. "You need lumber, Artificer Boro?"
"I do, Swordsman Valerius!" Boro grinned, his tusks glinting. "I need six-by-six beams, twenty feet long. Forty of them. And eight-by-eight beams... ten of them. And four hundred planks, precisely one-inch thick."
"A crude task," Valerius sighed. He approached the tree. He closed his eyes, his hand on his rapier's hilt. He wasn't seeing a tree. He was seeing a garment. A complex pattern of seams. He saw the 'zipper' for a 20-foot beam. He saw the 'zipper' for a one-inch plank.
Zzzzzzzip. Zzzzzip. Zip. Zip. Zip.
He didn't swing his sword. He just pulled. The air tore with that sickening, soundless rip.
The massive pine tree did not fall. It simply... disassembled.
It collapsed into a perfect, neat stack of lumber. Beams here. Planks there. Sawdust... nowhere. Not a single particle was wasted.
Lila, not to be outdone, placed her hands on the stack. "The wood is 'hungry.' Master taught me..." She began to hum, channeling the [Anthem of Life]. A faint, green light infused the lumber, making it stronger, more durable, and sealing the grain with pure, living energy.
"Magnificent!" Boro roared. He pointed at the stack. "If log-present, then assemble-frame!"
At his command, his tiny brass golem (which they'd dubbed 'Cogsworth') whirred into action. But Boro, too, was working. He was engraving his new [True Creation Runes] onto the foundation stones.
And that... was when the music began.
A faint, haunting melody drifted from the locked cabin. The three disciples froze.
"Shhh!" Lila hissed. "Listen! The Master... he is... is he singing?"
They fell silent.
The wind died.
The birds stopped chirping.
Then, they heard it. A single, clear, baritone voice, woven into the lute's melody, singing a divine, alien chant.
"I... think... therefore... I... AM..."
The words were simple. But they were his words. They struck the three disciples like a physical blow. It was not a lesson. It was not a test.
It was a Declaration.
It was their Master, in his divine solitude, reminding the universe of his own existence.
Lila, the comprehension-genius, understood it first. "He... he is defining... Self... The root of all thought... The first truth..."
Valerius, the void-cutter, gripped his head. "The 'I'... the 'self'... it is the ultimate 'seam'! The 'zipper' between the soul and the void!"
Boro, the artificer, dropped his charcoal. "The 'logic'... it's... it's absolute! The ultimate 'IF-THEN' statement! IF I (think), THEN I (am)! It is the source-code of sentience!"
All three, as one, fell to their knees. They didn't just hear the song. They learned it.
[System: DISSONANCE DETECTED. Host is performing a [Conceptual Mus-ing (Subconscious)].]
[...Disciples 'Lila', 'Valerius', and 'Boro' are attempting to comprehend [Conceptual Song: Cogito Ergo Sum]...]
[...Comprehension: UNIVERSAL SUCCESS!]
[...WARNING! WARNING! A SECOND FORBIDDEN CONCEPT HAS BEEN DETECTED!]
[...THE FOUNDATIONS OF 'SELF' AND 'SOUL' ARE BEING CHALLENGED!]
[All Disciples have comprehended: [Mandate of Self (Absolute Mind Defense)] (FORBIDDEN-RANK SPELL #2).]
As the new, conceptual law settled into their minds, the three disciples felt... complete.
An iron-clad, absolute certainty of their own existence settled over them. They felt their souls, their minds, their very "I," become encased in an unbreachable, unknowable fortress of pure, conceptual identity. They were themselves. And no power in the 12 moons—no spell, no Demigod, no psychic-assault—could ever take that away.
Simultaneously, across Gaia and the 12 Moons...
In the capital city, the remaining 33 Archmages were gathered in their "Mental Conclave"—a shared psychic space where they governed the empire.
Archmage Theron, the Conclave's leader, was speaking. "We must find the source of the first 'Forbidden Law.' The 'Law of Unmaking' is a threat to-"
He was cut off. Not by a sound, but by a reverberation.
A new, absolute truth washed over the Mental Conclave.
The truth of Self.
The Conclave, a psychic-construct built on shared and dominated minds, imploded.
All 33 Archmages were violently, agonizingly ejected from the shared space, thrown back into the solitude of their own skulls. In towers across the empire, 33 of the most powerful mortals in the world screamed as one, clutching their heads.
"The Conclave!" Theron roared, his physical voice raw. "It's gone! He... he severed me!"
In another tower, Archmage Elara, the head of Psychic Investigations, staggered. "My... my Mind-Reading spells... My Domination arts... they... they're gone!" She cast a simple Level 4 Mind-Probe on a nearby acolyte. The spell struck the acolyte's mind... and shattered. The acolyte just blinked.
"The entire school of Psychic Magic," Elara whispered in horror, "...it just died."
Far above, on the 12th Moon...
The obsidian fortress of the Void-Watcher cracked. A fissure, a mile long, split its primary tower.
The amorphous being of shadow inside hissed, a sound of pure, existential rage.
"AGAIN?! A second law! First, he defines Unmaking... now he defines Self?! He... he seals the mind. He locks the soul. All concepts of mental-domination, soul-harvesting, and psychic-slavery... are... obsolete."
The Void-Watcher turned its "gaze" toward the insignificant, green-and-blue world of Gaia.
"Who... WHO IS DOING THIS?!"
And in his crystal chamber, the Demigod Oracle...
The old man coughed, and a spray of golden, divine blood splattered across his divination runes.
"A Mandate... A Mandate of Absolute Self... He has... shielded... everyone. He has freed every enslaved mind... cured every magically-induced madness... defined every sentient soul..."
The Oracle's eyes were wide with a terror that surpassed all reason.
"This is not a spell. This is a declaration. A new God is claiming this world... and he just freed all the sheep."
Back on the mountain, Kalagar S. Sully finished his tune. He let the last chord fade and sighed.
"Ah. That's better." He felt relaxed. Calm. Centered. "A little music. A little philosophy. The soul needs its comforts."
He stood, stretched, and unbolted the door. "Now," he muttered, "I suppose I should see what those lunatics have done to my lumber."
He opened the door.
He blinked.
What was a pile of scrap lumber and a patch of dirt was... not.
In its place stood the framework of a three-story pagoda.
The wood, infused with Lila's life-magic, glowed with a faint, emerald light. The joints, "un-zipped" by Valerius, were so perfect they looked molded, not cut. The foundation stones, engraved by Boro, pulsed with a faint, blue, logical light.
The entire structure hummed, not just with magic, but with purpose.
His tiny brass golem, 'Cogsworth', was diligently, and with terrifying precision, polishing the front steps.
Kalagar's mouth went dry.
His three disciples, who had been kneeling in silent, profound meditation, turned their heads.
Their eyes... their eyes were different.
They were no longer just the eyes of fanatics. They were the eyes of true believers. They burned with a new, terrifying, absolute clarity.
"Master," Lila said, her voice soft, but with an edge of new, indestructible steel.
"Your... song..." Valerius whispered, his hand on his heart.
"It was... foundational," Boro finished, his voice thick with emotion.
Kalagar stared at the pagoda. He stared at them. He had to say something.
"The... the song?" he stammered. "Oh. 'Cogito Ergo Sum.' It's... it's just an old folk tune."
All three disciples visibly flinched, as if he had just slapped them.
Valerius looked like he was going to be physically ill. "A... 'folk... tune'?" he choked out. "You... you call the [Mandate of Absolute Self]... the very definition of all sentience... a... an... 'old folk tune'?"
The casual, profound, cosmic arrogance of this being... It was beyond comprehension. He was implying that this, a spell that had just rewritten the laws of reality, was just a trifle to him. A ditty.
Kalagar, realizing from their expressions that he had, somehow, done it again, immediately went on the defensive.
"Yes," he said, forcing his voice into a cold, hard line. "It is... a simple song. To help one... focus. You have clearly been... focusing."
He gested, his hand trembling slightly, at the three-story masterpiece of magical architecture.
"This... 'shed'... is... a bit much, don't you think?"
Boro scrambled to his feet, his face a mask of shame. "Master! It is unworthy! It is but a dog-kennel compared to your wisdom! The 'True Runes' you taught me made it... simple!" He patted a glowing blue glyph on the wall. "It has self-cleaning, self-repairing, and passive mana-gathering functions, but it is nothing!"
Kalagar S. Sully heard the words: "Self-cleaning." "Self-repairing."
He looked at the pagoda. He looked at his own, small, dusty, one-room cabin.
He looked at his three disciples, who were now immune to all forms of psychic magic in the universe.
He just... gave up.
He turned, walked back into his cabin, and firmly shut the door.
He bolted it.
He sat in his chair.
He picked up the glowing, head-sized magic apple from his desk... and began to eat. He was going to need the energy.