It was late when I finally finished everything I needed to write. My hand ached, my fingers stiff and sore from hours of work, but I forced myself to go back over it all one last time. I left a notebook for each of my companions and one for Randall, along with carefully written letters to my parents explaining what was about to happen. I chose my words as gently as I could, even knowing they would be upset. I did not really have a choice. I also did not particularly want to die at the hands of a very large, very mean man.

  Greta promised she would take care of distributing the notebooks and making sure the letters reached my parents. Once that was settled, she escorted me through the quieter corridors of the guild and into the medical wing. She stopped outside an isolation chamber and told me she would wait until the process had fully taken me before leaving.

  The medical staff had already been informed that I would be undergoing an upgrade. They acknowledged me with nods and calm professionalism. Night work was routine for them. Most serious injuries and most upgrades happened late, when adventurers dragged themselves back from jobs half-dead and bleeding, so my timing barely registered as unusual.

  I sat on the cot and removed everything I was wearing. I did not want to ruin my clothes or deal with replacing them later. When I was ready, I swallowed the seven cores one after another, forcing myself not to hesitate.

  It did not take long before the pain and heat overwhelmed me.

  I passed out.

  The world shifted as I died again.

  The Heaven of Iron greeted me with familiar sensations. The smell hit first. Sweat. Hard work. Effort. It was a heavy, honest scent, sharp and grounding, even if it was a little pungent. The soundscape followed. Iron rang endlessly. Metal struck metal in layered rhythms as figures worked, lifted, forged, and trained without pause.

  I hesitated to call them angels. They were massive, scarred people whose entire existence seemed devoted to labor and exertion. If these were angels, then they were angels of effort and endurance, not grace.

  The God of Iron stood among them, curling golden oxen as if they weighed nothing at all. One in each hand. Up and down. Perfect control. Perfect form. He was larger than the last time I had seen him, his ivory body etched with deeper definition, every motion deliberate and precise.

  “Hello, Azolo,” he said, continuing his repetitions as though the oxen were nothing more than light weights.

  I waved up at him. I felt different this time. More defined. More present. As though I occupied my own shape more fully than before.

  “This is a little earlier than I expected,” he said. “Not by much, but still early. It’s good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you too, my god,” I replied.

  “So,” he said casually, still lifting. “The bronze core. Exciting, isn’t it?”

  “Honestly,” I said, “I’m not so sure. The idea behind my ability scares me.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said brightly. “The one where you make people soil themselves. Truly awful. Horrible thing.”

  My face went pale as he spoke, every word confirming my worst fears.

  “It would have been disastrous if I had let that progression continue,” he went on. “I mostly wanted to see your expression when I told you. Worth it.”

  He laughed, then shrugged. “But instead of doing that to you, we’ll do something better. We’ll go through a list of options and let you choose your ability instead of having it assigned automatically.”

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  I stared at him, my mind struggling to catch up.

  “I pulled in a few favors,” he continued. “From someone who designs these systems. Let’s call him a friend. He owed me. He’s discreet, but you should be aware that someone might now know you exist because of this.”

  He nodded once, firmly. “Still worth it.”

  He set the oxen down. They lowered their massive heads toward me and wandered closer, curious. I raised both hands and patted them, feeling absurdly small next to their bulk, my palms barely covering a fraction of their heads.

  That was when I noticed Squishy.

  The tortoise sat atop one of the oxen, wearing a tiny tricorn hat. He nodded at me with solemn dignity, tapped the ox with one padded foot, and the pair wandered off together as if they had pressing matters to attend to.

  “You know,” the God of Iron said, watching them go, “I really like that turtle. If you ever receive a spirit companion, I would send him to you. He’s funny. He makes excellent cakes. I have no idea how. He’s becoming more divine the longer he stays here.”

  He waved the thought away and knelt down, placing one hand on the ground. With the other, he reached behind himself and produced a massive scroll. He unfurled it in one smooth motion. It rolled across the floor, rattling and unfurling until it disappeared into the distance.

  “We have time,” he said. “As much as you need. Look through everything. Think carefully.”

  He smiled. “They’re all good. Even the unpleasant one. In fact, that particular ability would have been catastrophically effective. For your body and for the world.”

  I shuddered at the thought.

  I began to read.

  Every entry described an ability bound directly to my body. Some altered what it could do. Some changed how I perceived the world. Others reshaped how my body interacted with reality itself.

  I saw parallels everywhere. Clarice treating air as an extension of herself. Winnie altering size and mass as easily as breathing. Each ability was a physical philosophy made manifest.

  The list was overwhelming.

  By the fourth entry, my thoughts were already beginning to tangle. The sheer number of viable paths laid out before me was staggering, and the weight of choice pressed down hard.

  I understood one thing with absolute certainty.

  I could only choose one and that choice would dictate my whole life going forward.

  I began to read.

  The list was so extensive that it felt like an eternity before I finished even my first pass through it. Each entry was stripped down to its most basic expression. There was no explanation of how the ability would grow, no hints about later stages, only the initial manifestation and the body part it was bound to. I did not even fully understand how abilities evolved in this life. I only knew that they did, and that the direction mattered.

  A few of them caught my eye more than the others, although every single option on the list was terrifyingly powerful if taken to the extremes my imagination kept drifting toward. I could have chosen the same ability as Winnie and become a giant. Even at my current rank, that would have let me fight on par with, or above, people stronger than me. It was practical. It was obvious. It did nothing for me.

  There was an ability like Clarice’s that drew my attention far more. The way she called the wind as part of her body felt closer to magic than anything else on the list. Magic was something I lacked in this life, and something I missed deeply. I could see, even from the description, how tightly her ability was bound to her hands. There were others like it, similar concepts tied to different parts of the body.

  One ability involved water manipulation in a similar manner. It was not a breath attack exactly. It described drawing water directly into the mouth and expelling it in controlled torrents.

  There were abilities that focused purely on reinforcement. Ones that hardened flesh into something closer to stone, not permanently, but in response to intent. A punch that landed would land heavier, bones braced from within, skin briefly unyielding. It was easy to imagine how that kind of ability could grow into something terrifying with enough time and refinement.

  Another option centered on elasticity. Muscles and tendons that could stretch far beyond normal limits and snap back with controlled violence. Longer reaches. Impossible angles. A body that refused to move the way an enemy expected it to.

  Speed appeared in several variations. Not just running faster, but acceleration itself becoming a weapon. Sudden bursts. Brutal changes in momentum. Crossing distance before an opponent realized a decision had been made. It promised survival as much as lethality, a way to dictate when and where a fight actually happened.

  Then there was the one that made my pulse quicken.

  It was simple. Almost disappointingly so at first glance. And yet it made me giddy in a way none of the others had.

  My feet had become more important to me. The loincloth’s tremor sense had changed how I understood the ground beneath me. I still did not fully understand what it was telling me fully, only that it spoke in vibrations and direction. Meka had said it would take time to interpret it properly.

  It almost felt like there were a few abilities on the list that were made for me.

  And as I read the next, I smiled.