I believe this was the eleventh time I had awakened from death, and my Anima Depth had grown from thirty-four to fifty.

Arc Lightning was one rank from the threshold that would shape its next evolution. For me to see growth in this spell, I would have to begin using it more consciously; I could not just shoot and forget, but directly manipulate the lightning bolt.

Surge was close behind, and it was relatively easier for me to develop this spell. Threadwork was growing more quickly than I thought.

Endurance was up by four; my body had absorbed punishment that would have killed a normal Acolyte three times over, and the body had returned the work as growth.

Marksman at thirty-eight, sliding toward forty. Concentration at forty-four.

Some of my other skills, like Anima Sensitivity and Meditation, had not grown as much, but there was little I could do about this.

The key, I believe, was to live longer, and if I could not, make sure I pushed myself to the brink every time.

I paused at this thought. The prospect of suffering pain and torture for the chance to grow stronger almost made me flinch, but I really had no option... I could sit in my tent and die, or I could go out and fight for the chance to kill all those bastards.

The chitin demons, Rex, Commander Rel, the horned demon, and I suspect, Scholar Orath, plus others I may not know about.

All of these dangers were in front of me, and I could see them as a source of pain and death, or I could see them as a grindstone for my growth.

I think I would pick the second option.

Besides, I made a promise to a woman who would kill my friends and me without blinking, and I am not an Acolyte who fails to keep his promise.

I closed my status screen and let my senses sink into my body. I was whole, the loop always made sure of that.

The hand that had exploded with the final soul-cast was where it was supposed to be. The chest that had opened up under Rel’s bolt was closed. The fingers I had lost when the staff exploded were attached, and the blood that had soaked the lower half of my robe was not on me.

But everything about me from that past loop was gone, and a new, stronger body was rising from the remnants.

Power was nice, but I needed to survive to go back to those who were important to me.

I closed my eyes and remembered the sound my mother made when she was sewing, the small humming she did when she was concentrating, the indeterminate melody that was not a song so much as a habit.

I searched for Mel’s laughter when she had fumbled on the word "intellectual."

She had used the word at me three weeks before I left for the Academy, and she had used it with three extra syllables, somewhere in the middle, the way she always used new vocabulary, stretching it, almost as if she was daring me to laugh.

I remembered an afternoon in the leather workshop with my father. I could remember the smell of oils. I could remember the sound of the cutter on the hide and his voice as he patiently taught me.

I sat with this memory, and the fear of pain and death slowly faded away.

Then I began to think. I had been killed by Commander Rel after she had killed Bari and Dara.

Rex had ordered the killings and then walked toward the eastern face of the pyramid, where Scholar Orath had been working.

From the sound of the battle, there must be other Adepts in league with Rex and the Commander, so I needed to find them to know my enemy.

The chaos in the camp had been the chaos of a coup, not the chaos of an attack; instead of dying at the hands of the demons, my action had brought this forward.

The phrase Rex had used was Ascension Ritual.

He had used it as a reason. Kill them, they are aware of the Ascension Ritual. The order had presumed that knowledge of the ritual was a capital offense, and just awareness was the threshold for execution.

Which meant the ritual was the center of everything, and the camp was a cover for it, and the demon eruptions and the pyramid and the suppression of Adepts and Orath’s research were all elements of a structure I had not yet seen the shape of.

Rex was involved in it in a way I did not understand, and I wondered if the person with us was still Rex or someone else just wearing his skin.

For him to command an Adept with such authority and his mastery over spells that just sat below the level of an Adept was all indicative that Rex was not a minor player in this so-called ritual.

The expedition had not been an expedition. It had been a ceremony with thirty-one participants, of which only some had been informed.

I had been in the uninformed group.

So had Bari. So had Dara. So had every porter, every junior researcher, every militia escort, every person whose name I had been learning at the cookfire across eleven loops.

They were the cattle for whatever the ritual required.

I let myself feel the rage of that, briefly. Rage was clean and useful, but I did not let it run unchecked.

I had spent the previous loop on rage, and the rage had killed my friends and not killed Commander Rel.

Rage was therefore not the path forward; that path was information.

I needed to know what the ritual was and understand what role each of them played in it. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Was the eruption a part of the ritual or coincidental to it?

Could I find a way to disrupt the ritual without confronting the participants directly?

And something that was at the back of my mind... I needed to know whether the loop itself was part of the ritual or whether it was a side-effect of standing too close to whatever was happening here, or was it related to the buried golden pyramid at my village?