The dream started the same way it always did.
I was back in the hallway. The linoleum floor was scuffed with the black rubber marks of a thousand sneakers, and the air smelled of floor wax and teenage desperation. Above me, the long fluorescent tubes buzzed with the sound of an angry hornet trapped in a glass jar.
High School. Purgatory with lockers.
I adjusted the strap of my backpack and started walking. I knew the route by heart. Past the cafeteria that smelled of square pizza, left at the trophy case filled with dust instead of gold, and straight down the math wing.
My destination was Room 304. The Computer Lab.
In previous dreams, I had spent hours in there, frantically reading textbooks while a shadow monster tried to hunt me down. I needed to get back. I had left the manual on Inheritance on the desk, which I hadn't finished memorising yet.
"Just a quick supply run," I muttered, ignoring the lockers that seemed to stretch out into infinity. "Get the book, memorise the syntax, get executed by the shadow, wake up. Easy."
I reached the door to Room 304. I reached for the handle.
The wall beside the door rippled. It didn't crack; it just turned into liquid shadow.
A figure stepped out, blocking my path.
It was the Reaper. The Shadow Executioner. He was seven feet of absolute void, wrapped in a tattered cloak that seemed to absorb the flickering light of the hallway. He held a scythe that looked less like a farming tool and more like a tear in the fabric of reality.
I stopped, sighing loud enough to echo down the empty corridor. I dropped my arms to my sides.
"You're early," I complained. "I haven't even opened the book yet. Can't we do the chase scene? I need at least five minutes to read the glossary."
The Reaper didn't move. He didn't swing the scythe.
"Come on," I goaded him. "Chop-chop. Wake me up. I have a headache."
The Reaper lowered the scythe, resting the blade against the lockers with a metallic clang. He reached up with a hand made of darkness and pulled back his hood.
There was no skull underneath. There was a face I recognised.
"Ludo?" I blinked.
The God of Games looked terrible. He was wearing a suit that shifted patterns constantly—plaid, then paisley, then pinstripe—like a kaleidoscope having a panic attack. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he was checking a pocket watch that ran backwards.
"You're loud," Ludo muttered, snapping the watch shut. "Do you have to be so loud in the dreamscape? The Architects are listening."
"You..." I pointed at the scythe, then at him. "You're the Curse? You're the one who has been chasing me through my nightmares for the last month?"
"I prefer the term 'Aggressive Tutor'," Ludo corrected, leaning against the lockers. "If I just gave you the manual on Magic Theory, the System would have flagged it as a divine intervention. I had to disguise it. Fear is a great encryption key, kid. You learned faster because you were terrified."
He waved a hand at the door to Room 304. The window on the door went black. A padlock made of burning gold chains appeared on the handle.
"Wait," I said, stepping forward. "What are you doing? I need that book. I haven't figured out how to write complex loops yet."
"School's out," Ludo said, his voice tight. "The Classroom is closed. Forever."
"Why?"
"Because you're too good at it," Ludo hissed. He looked up at the ceiling tiles as if expecting them to explode. "The other Gods—the Architects who built this reality—they're onto us. You aren't just casting spells, Murphy. You're dismantling their proprietary script. You're stripping down the flowery prayers and exposing the raw logic underneath. They call it 'Unsportsmanlike Hacking'."
He looked back at me, his expression serious.
"They lodged a formal complaint. If I give you one more lesson, or let you read one more page of that manual, they're going to Smite us. And not the fun kind of Smite. The 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete your existence' kind."
My stomach dropped. "So... that's it? I'm on my own?"
"You have the basics," Ludo said, straightening his tie, which was currently shifting into a pattern of little crying clowns. "You know that magic follows logic, not faith. You know about the inputs and the outputs. The rest? You'll have to figure it out in the field. No more cheat sheets. No more safety net."
He snapped his fingers.
The air in the hallway began to vibrate. A guitar riff—sharp, electric, and iconic—started playing from the floorboards.
Ding... ding-ding-ding...
"That's my cue," Ludo said, a grin finally breaking through his stress. He started to fade back into the shadows of the wall. "Time to wake up, Champion. I picked a classic to play you out. Chuck Berry. The King of Rock and Roll."
"Actually," I yelled over the music, fighting the sudden pull of wakefulness. "That's Marty McFly! It's the Prom Scene from Back to the Future!"
Ludo paused, half-dissolved into the darkness. He rolled his eyes.
"Everyone's a critic," he muttered.
"Ronan prefers the McFly version!" I shouted as the world began to dissolve into white static. "And I tend to agree."
"Then tell Ronan he has no taste!" Ludo called back.
The scythe vanished. The hallway vanished. Ludo was gone.
Go, Johnny, go, go...
I jolted awake.
My eyes snapped open, staring at the rough wooden beams of the House Argent ceiling. I sat up, gasping for air, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I looked around the room. It was empty. There were no clones meditating on the floor. No golden ghosts. The room was silent, bathed in the soft grey light of dawn.
But inside my head, the guitar solo was still blasting at full volume.
I ran a hand through my sweat-soaked hair, feeling the cold reality of the morning. The connection was severed. The dream library was locked.
I was a Light Green Core with half a manual, a playlist in my head, and a Patron God who had just hung up the phone.
"Well," I whispered to the empty room. "Guess the tutorial is over."
I swung my legs out of bed and stood up.
Usually, the morning after a breakthrough felt like a hangover. My joints would ache, my head would throb, and my mana channels would feel like they had been scrubbed with sandpaper.
Not today.
Today, I felt... optimised.
The Light Green Core in my chest didn't hum; it roared. It felt like a nuclear reactor idling behind my ribs. I flexed my hand, and the air around my fingers distorted slightly, reacting to the sheer density of the aura leaking from my pores.
I walked over to the cracked mirror bolted to the back of the wardrobe door.
"What the hell?" I whispered.
The reflection staring back at me wasn't the scrawny, malnourished kid I had woken up as a month ago. The Green Core hadn't just expanded my magic; it had remodelled the house. My shoulders were broader, the muscle definition sharp and corded like steel wire. I looked healthier than I had in a thousand years.
But then I saw the face.
I leaned in closer, touching my left cheek. The skin was smooth. Flawless.
The scar was gone.
The jagged silver line—the souvenir from a knife fight in a previous life, the mark that made me look like I belonged in the gutter—had been erased. My skin looked polished. My jawline was sharper. I looked like a statue carved from marble.
"I look like a choir boy," I spat, turning my face side to side. "I lost my edge. I look soft."
'You look like a Sunstrider,' Ronan corrected, his voice sounding irritatingly pleased. 'The Green Core purifies the vessel. It repairs the damage of the past. You finally look like you belong in a throne room, not a tavern.'
"I liked that scar," I grumbled, rubbing the spot where it used to be. "It added character. It told people, 'Don't mug me, I've been stabbed before.' Now I look like I'm about to ask someone to prom."
'Stop complaining about perfection,' Ronan chided. 'Check the capacity.'
I closed my eyes and reached inward. I pushed against the mental ceiling that usually capped my Clones.
It wasn't there.
The limit had smashed through the roof. I did a quick mental headcount. Twelve was easy. Eighteen felt light. I pushed it to twenty-four.
Twenty-four concurrent consciousness threads. An entire platoon.
'And the packet,' Ronan prompted. 'Every evolution comes with a new sub-evolution. Check the manual.'
I searched for the connection to the Art. Sure enough, buried under the raw power increase, there was a new knot of knowledge. A new technique unlocked by the higher density of the Green mana.
I untied the knot. The information flooded my mind.
I blinked.
"Oh," I whispered, a slow grin spreading across my too-perfect face. "That... that changes everything."
"We need a lab," I said, grabbing my boots. "We need to see if this actually works."
'Elrend,' Ronan agreed. 'The Obsidian Hall.'
I dressed quickly, throwing on my cloak to hide the sudden muscle gain, and headed out into the Common Room.
The House Argent's main hall looked like a battlefield. The Braai had clearly descended into chaos after I went to bed. Students were passed out on benches, slumped over tables, or curled up under the new heavy curtains. The air smelled of stale ale and woodsmoke.
I stepped over a snoring second-year student and paused near the fireplace.
Curled up on the bear-skin rug were Grace and Finn.
They were asleep. And they were spooning. Aggressively.
Grace was the big spoon, her arm draped protectively over Finn, who was tucked into her chest, snoring softly with his mouth open.
I stopped, staring at them. A wicked smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth.
"Oh," I murmured. "They are going to wake up, realise where their hands are, and neither of them is ever going to make eye contact again. I would pay good money to watch that panic attack."
'Leave them,' Ronan said, though I could feel his amusement. 'We have work to do.'
'Aww, you're no fun!!' I said overdramatically as I stepped over them carefully and slipped out the heavy oak door.
The campus was bright and painfully sunny. The morning mist was burning off, revealing the pristine stone towers of the Academy. I walked with a new rhythm, the Johnny B. Goode riff still playing on a loop in the back of my mind.
As I passed the Great Library, I spotted a flash of white hair.
Vespera Winter-Moon was walking down the stone path. She looked immaculate, her Academy robes perfectly pressed, her posture rigid and regal. She looked like the Ice Queen of House Aurelius, untouched by the madness of the night before.
I jogged up to her.
"Hey! Winter-Moon!"
She froze. She turned slowly, her expression cool and distant. "Sunstrider. Can I help you?"
"Just a reminder," I said, checking the sun. "Team meeting at the Angel Statue. Fifteen minutes before the announcement ceremony."
Vespera blinked. Her perfect mask slipped for a fraction of a second. Her eyes widened as she replayed our conversation from the previous day in her mind. Finally, she put two and two together as she realised what she had actually agreed to. She had joined the Argent house team. My team.
The horror washed over her face, her pale skin flushing a faint pink. She looked like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole.
But she was a noble. She clamped the mask back down instantly.
"I..." She cleared her throat, straightening her spine. "I will be there."
"Great," I grinned. "Bring your A-game. We have a reputation to uphold, you know." I laughed at my own joke.
She gave a stiff nod and walked away, her pace just a little too fast to be casual.
I watched her go, shaking my head. "She's going to be fun."
Tingle.
The sensation hit the base of my skull like a cold needle. My Danger Sense flared.
There was no countdown. The heavy thud of boots tearing up the grass was already right on top of me. It was a shoulder-check, fast and malicious, designed to break ribs and send me face-first into the mud.
I didn't turn. I didn't dodge. Dodging would look weak.
I acted on pure, wired instinct.
Phase.
The portal snapped open on the back of my cloak. In the same microsecond, I opened a second portal on my chest, ejecting a gallon of stored river water into the void left by my missing flesh.
Garrick slammed into me.
Or rather, he slammed into the ghost of where I used to be.
WHOOSH. SPLASH.
His shoulder passed harmlessly through the empty air of the portal. The ejected water exploded outward, soaking him instantly.
Momentum did the rest.
Garrick stumbled forward, thrown off balance by hitting air instead of meat. He flailed, his boots slipping on the wet cobblestones, and went down hard.
SPLAT.
He faceplanted spectacularly into the mud bordering the path.
I closed the portal and kept walking, stopping only when I heard the wet sucking sound of him pulling his face out of the dirt.
I turned around slowly, looking down at him.
Garrick scrambled up, wiping mud from his eyes. He looked at me, then at the puddle of water, then back at me. His eyes were wide with confusion.
"You..." he sputtered. "You slippery rat."
He was convinced I was somehow a Water Clone. In his mind, he had hit a decoy that burst into water.
"How..." he muttered to himself. "You don't look like a…." his muttering cut off as he said,"...the coward has been keeping secrets, I see."
He clenched his fists, taking a step forward, his face twisting into a snarl. He wanted to punch me. I could see the violence coiling in his shoulders.
But he hesitated as he realised another punch would just go straight through me.
The doubt stopped him.
Garrick wiped a streak of mud from his mouth, spitting on the ground. He lowered his hands, settling for a glare.
"Lysander has a message," Garrick growled, his voice low and threatening. "Stay away from the Nobility. Stick to the gutter, or we will bury you in it."
I looked at him. I felt the Green Core humming in my chest, a boundless ocean of power waiting to be unleashed.
I didn't look scared. I didn't look angry.
I smiled.
"Noted," I said.
I gave him a lazy two-finger salute, turned on my heel, and walked away.
I pursed my lips and started whistling. Go, Johnny, go, go...
Behind me, I heard a roar of frustration.
CRACK.
The sound of a fist hitting a brick echoed across the courtyard.
"Mr Stone-Hollow!" a Teacher's Assistant shouted from the library steps. "That is Academy property! Detention!"
I didn't look back. I just kept whistling, feeling absolutely untouchable.
I found Master Elrend in his office deep within the administrative wing of the Combat Hall.
He wasn't sleeping. He was sitting behind a heavy oak desk, methodically oiling the blade of a dagger with a rag. The air in the room smelled of steel and beeswax, not the cheap wine that had haunted him for the last century.
He looked like a man who hadn't blinked in four hours. His eyes were clear, sharp, and focused as they snapped up to meet mine.
"You are early," Elrend said, his voice gravelly but steady. He sheathed the dagger. "The sun is barely up. I assumed your squad would be incapacitated by the festivities."
'Let me drive,' Ronan said.
I stepped back. Ronan stepped forward.
My posture shifted instantly. The slouch vanished. My spine straightened, my shoulders squared, and my chin lifted. I stopped three paces from the Elf.
"We need a private room, Lieutenant," Ronan said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of a command that brooked no argument. "Now."
He looked at my eyes—at the cold, blue intensity that didn't belong to a sixteen-year-old boy.
He recognised the Commander.
Elrend didn't ask questions. He simply nodded and led us to the training hall. The portal swirled open, and we quickly walked into the cool, silent void of the private training dimension.
Ronan relinquished the controls, and I stumbled a step as I took the wheel back, shaking out my limbs to get the feeling back.
"Alright," I said, my voice returning to its normal, casual pitch. "Thanks for the lift."
Elrend leaned heavily on his cane, watching me with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. "The Commander seemed... urgent. Is the Swarm here?"
"No," I said, walking to the centre of the room. "But we hit a milestone this morning. The Green Core."
Elrend raised an eyebrow. "You broke through? That explains the muscle mass. And the face."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty now. Don't rub it in." I stopped and turned to face him. "But with the upgrade came a new trick. And instead of explaining it... I think I should just show you."
"Show me what?"
"This."
I closed my eyes. I reached into the Green Core.
It wasn't a trickle anymore; it was a river. I pulled the mana, but I didn't shape it into me. I looked at Elrend. I memorised the way his grey cloak hung off his shoulders. I memorised the silver scar running through his eyebrow. I memorised the scuff marks on his left boot.
I pushed the image into the mana.
The air beside me shimmered. The green light twisted, knitting together not into a blue blob, but into flesh, fabric, and leather.
A second later, Master Elrend was standing next to me.
The real Elrend's jaw dropped to the floor.
He stared. The Clone stared back. It was perfect. It had the same weary eyes, the same five o'clock shadow, the same posture.
"By the Gods..." Elrend whispered.
He walked forward, circling the duplicate. He reached out a trembling hand and poked the clone's shoulder. It didn't ripple. It was solid.
"It has texture," Elrend murmured, touching the clone's cloak. "It feels like wool. It feels like... me."
The Clone turned its head. It looked Elrend in the eye.
"Impressive detail," the Clone said.
I froze. Elrend froze.
The voice wasn't mine. It was Elrend's. It had the same gravelly, ancient timbre, the same slight accent of the High Elves. It was a perfect auditory hallucination.
"You even got the nose right," the Clone continued, rubbing its face.
Elrend looked at me, his eyes wide with shock. "It speaks with my voice?"
Then, the Clone grinned. It wasn't Elrend's tired, cynical smile. It was my grin—sharp, reckless, and full of teeth.
The Clone's posture slumped into my casual slouch.
"Yeah," the Clone said, the voice shifting instantly from Elrend's gravel to my own American drawl. "But seriously, you need a better tailor. This robe is itchy as hell. It rides up in the crotch."
Elrend stared at the doppelgänger speaking in a teenager's slang. He looked physically ill.
"Do you have any idea..." Elrend whispered, looking between me and the copy. "Do you have any idea what this means? You aren't just creating decoys anymore. You can be anyone. You can walk into the Emperor's throne room wearing the face of his guard. You can walk into the bank wearing the face of the owner."
I opened my mouth to agree, but the words died in my throat.
'No,' Ronan's voice cut in, sharp and authoritative. 'Do not let him believe we are invisible. Overconfidence is a slow death.'
He surged forward, seizing control of my vocal cords before I could protest.
"It is not that simple, Lieutenant," my voice said, dropping an octave into Ronan's commanding tone. "Physical mimicry is useful against the eyes, but it is useless against a Soul Tapping. Any checkpoint worth its salt would expose the deception in a heartbeat."
Ronan receded, handing the wheel back to me. I blinked, rubbing my throat.
"Okay," I said, looking at Elrend. "I'll bite. What is a Soul Tapping?"
"It is a standard security protocol in the Upper City," Elrend explained, recovering from the whiplash of the personality swap. "A runic artefact that vibrates against the frequency of a person's spirit. You are not the first mage in history to change their face, Murphy. Illusionists and spies have existed as long as magic has. The Empire has countermeasures."
He tapped his chest.
"The artefact ignores the flesh and reads the True Name written on the core. It bypasses the mask entirely."
"So if I walked into the Emperor's court looking like a guard..." I asked.
"If they used the artefact on you, it would verify the soul, not the face," Elrend said. He looked at me meaningfully. "And in your case, it would likely look past the boy and only recognise Ronan. It would identify you as Ronan Sunstrider. A man who is supposed to be dead."
I dispelled the clone with a quiet POP.
I watched the mist fade, a cold, silent question forming in my gut.
If the artefact reads the soul... what happens if it scans a Murphy clone?
My clones aren't just puppets; they have my memories. My personality. My soul. What name would it come up with?
I decided not to ask that one out loud.
"Right," I said, pushing the thought away. "So, no banks and no throne rooms. Got it."
"Don't worry, soul tapping is not common. Mostly used for legal and high security matters," Elrend finally noted. "More importantly, what are the limits?" Elrend asked, his mind already racing through tactical scenarios.
"We haven't tested it," I said. "I'm thinking we should see what the size limit is."
"Show me."
I focused and visualised an Ogre—eight feet tall, massive gut, arms like tree trunks.
The clone burst into existence. It towered over us, looking terrifying, but I could already tell something was off.
"Push it," I said.
Elrend reached out and shoved the Ogre's chest.
He expected resistance. Instead, the massive creature stumbled back like it was made of papier-mâché.
"It's light," Elrend noted, frowning.
"It has the volume of an Ogre," I explained. "But it only has the mass of... well, me. It's hollow. If I make anything bigger than my own body weight, the density drops. It's like a balloon. One solid hit, and it would crumple."
"So you can look big," Elrend surmised. "But you can't hit big."
"Exactly. It's a bluff."
Elrend nodded slowly. "Still. A bluff is a weapon if used correctly, but if you made a heavy sword on your clone's back, its body would likely be very light."
"That could have its own advantages?" I added.
"In speed…" Elrend was following what I was getting at.
'Move,' Ronan interrupted.
I felt the pull in my mind. He was impatient.
'I need to see,' Ronan said.
"Alright," I said aloud. "One last test. Ronan wants a turn."
Elrend straightened up. "The Commander?"
I nodded. I relaxed my mental grip.
I felt the shift. I became the passenger. Ronan took the wheel.
He didn't look at Elrend. He looked into the middle distance, his eyes unfocused. He wasn't looking at the room; he was looking at a memory. He was pulling up a file that hadn't been opened in a thousand years.
I realised what he was doing. He wasn't just casting a spell; he was resurrecting a legacy. A moment like this deserved a soundtrack.
I rifled through the mental crates and found the perfect track: To The Stars by Randy Edelman. I skipped the slow intro and dropped the needle right at the one-minute mark, just as the horns swell into that soaring, heroic crescendo. (This is the part where you, as the reader, put the song at full volume and read the rest, skipping to around one minute in.)
The music flooded our shared mind, rushing to meet the mana.
He didn't visualise a stranger. He visualised himself.
Not the boy Murphy. Not the scarred survivor.
He visualised the Legend.
He raised his hand. The Green mana flooded the room, brighter and more intense than before. It swirled like a cyclone, gold and emerald light dancing together in time with the orchestral swell in my head.
Construct.
The light solidified.
Standing in the centre of the room was a man.
He was tall—easily six foot four. He had broad, powerful shoulders encased in burnished golden plate armour that gleamed under the magelights. A heavy crimson cape hung from his shoulders, motionless in the still air.
His hair was long and white, cascading down his back like a waterfall of silk. His face was sharp, noble, and commanding, with eyes that burned with blue fire.
In his gauntleted hands, he held a massive two-handed greatsword, the blade etched with runes of the sun.
It was Ronan Sunstrider. The Paladin of the Dawn Guard. As he had been on the day he died.
The room went silent.
Elrend stared. His hands shook. His cane clattered to the floor, but he didn't notice. He took a stumbling step forward, his eyes filling with tears.
He wasn't looking at a magic trick. He was looking at his King.
The Ronan-Clone looked down at his own hands. He flexed the golden gauntlets. Clink. Clink.
He looked up at Elrend. He didn't speak with my voice. He spoke with the deep, resonant baritone of the memory.
"It has been a long time, Lieutenant," the Clone said.
Elrend fell to his knees.
"Commander," he choked out.
Inside our shared mind, I felt Ronan's emotion. It was a mix of profound grief and a fierce, burning triumph.
He was back.