Instead of a warm California evening, Harvey found himself floating in the void once again. It was just like when his Veilstrider body had been conjured before his very eyes, regaining his senses one by one as the System rebuilt his body organ by organ. Except this time, he wasn’t just a floating consciousness.

  “Hello?” he called out.

  Congratulations on surviving your assigned integration trial, Harvey.

  “Uh, thanks?” he began before screaming pain began to ravage his body just like when his weave was first carved into his flesh with what felt like a hot knife. However, instead of carving the intricate pathways that carried his essence through his body, the System seemed to be attacking his undead flesh.

  The crystal mirror appeared before him once more, and he saw the chalky gray skin, patches of onyx black hair, and aquamarine eye all burn to ashes. Consumed by divine light. The uneven placement around his body left him looking like human swiss cheese, full of holes that would normally kill him in an instant. Entire organs were missing, including his heart.

  “My Imprint!” he tried to scream, struggling with only half a mouth and severed vocal cords.

  Your legacy remains intact, the System replied, unapologetically.

  He was relieved to see the tattoo still hovering in the void, the intricate veins of his weave holding it in place. The dead flesh gone, his living half began subtly changing. His lightly tanned skin took on a slight tint of gold, and his brown hair became ever so slightly richer. Even more stark was his previously brown eye also turning gold, looking like an ornate crystal atop a white silk pillow.

  Everything about him just got… better.

  Every hole left behind after cutting away the dead was filled with life. It hurt like hell, but his panic eased a little when he saw the System was improving him somehow. Harvey had no idea whether it took a few minutes or a few hours, but when the light finally began to fade, he found his body was a hodge-podge of life and death no more.

  “This is amazing,” he marveled. Flexing his hands, he began testing every muscle. It was like he could count every cell, intimately feeling every fiber of his being in a way he never had before. Channeling essence through his weave, it felt almost exactly the same as before.

  By subverting death, you have earned a body touched by life. Your Race has changed, but you will find your Weave, Skills, and Legacy have not.

  A screen appeared on the mirror the next second, explaining the details of his new body.

  “Does this mean I need to start including nature in all my skills?” he mused.

  Not at all. No path can lay claim to life itself. It is existence. Potential.

  “So are the undead just doing it wrong?”

  Is there not also power in rewriting existence?

  Harvey tried to come up with an answer, but sat in silence when nothing came.

  “What happens next?” he asked.

  That is up to you. As the Guardian of the Gilded Return, you have earned an opportunity offered to no other Veilstrider. You may either return to Earth or join another trial and assist its inhabitants.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Another trial? You mean they’re not all over by now?” he asked.

  Yours, although challenging, was ultimately very simple. Two opposing factions forced to overcome the other to accomplish their goals. There are many others that are far more complex, housing significantly larger chunks of Earth’s population.

  Harvey pondered for a minute before answering, the System seemingly content to let him take as much time as he needed. It made sense that there were larger trials. Based on the vision he’d received, he at least knew of one containing all the armies of old Earth and another with some kind of angelic humanoids. With his 3 Imprints, he’d probably make a huge difference in any trial, but part of him was still hesitant to trap himself in one of the System’s tests again.

  “Will you tell me which trial?” he asked.

  One of the wars between Good and Evil.

  “How do you decide if something is evil or not? Are we talking serial killers or stealing kids' Halloween candy?”

  Evil, as you understand it, has nothing to do with my interpretation. It is self-proclaimed. An ideology.

  “So if I believe I’m Good, but I start acting Evil, I could Stain my legacy. But for them it’s the opposite?” Harvey asked.

  In a sense. Legacy is about living up to your path. I will say no more on the matter, but I will inform you that most of your immediate family is currently participating in this trial.

  “Really? Are they still alive?” Harvey pleaded. If his family were there, he was going. No questions asked.

  Find out for yourself.

  “Fine, I’ll go,” he urged.

  Understood. By entering another trial, you will receive an additional quest as well as a 25% boost to all future merit acquired that may be spent upon your return to Earth. Your rewards for completing the quest Rise or be Remade can be retrieved next to the portal. When you are ready, you may proceed into the portal and enter the War of Good and Evil.

  With that, the mirror disappeared, and he found himself standing on a slate black floor. Gravity returned to the void as the System’s consciousness retreated. A wooden table with 3 small objects appeared between him and a portal of red and silver, fighting an endless war.

  He marveled again at his new body as he took his first steps, but froze when he saw what was on the table.

  Is that… Julian’s Imprint?

  Sprinting to the table, Harvey activated Artificer’s Eyes and confirmed it was, in fact, the Unbroken Sentinel Imprint. The description even mentioned Julian by name, proving it wasn’t just a copy the System had looted from someone else.

  “How do you have this?” He called out, but the unfathomable consciousness didn’t answer.

  “I gave this to John! This was supposed to be buried with him! Honored by his family!” Harvey continued.

  What the hell?

  Lying beside the imprint was an SSD. The very same one he’d loaded the latest backup copy of Aurelia, the Artificial Intelligence he’d spent months working on, onto the day before he died. It even had his initials scribbled onto a piece of tape on the back.

  How did the System get this? It was supposed to be locked inside his desk. Even more importantly, why did it think he wanted it? He hadn’t thought about Aurelia for months, and there were more important concerns now that he lived in a world with magic runes.

  Weren’t these supposed to be the rewards for surviving the most dangerous experience he’d ever had in his life? He’d expected some legendary guide on forging techniques or a compendium of runes that could expand his arrays, not two things he’d already forgotten about or given away.

  The third and final item didn’t really give him any clues. It was a faceted red crystal encased in gold. 6 sharp prongs extended from the bottom of the device like wiry legs, making it look like an incredibly ornate bug. Inspecting it with his skill yielded almost nothing, only calling it a Cognition Matrix.

  That doesn’t tell me much. He complained. Whatever this was and whatever it was made out of were too complicated for his F Grade skill to dissect. Picking up the device, he was surprised to find it come to life. Golden wires stretched into the air like tentacles, half reaching for the SSD and the other half reaching for the Imprint. Harvey knew better than to interfere and simply watched slack-jawed as the metal morphed into a USB-C cable that plugged itself into the drive containing his AI. The charging indicator blinked to life, and he actually saw the data being sucked into the wires like it was drinking electricity through a straw. In seconds, all that was left of the drive was a smoking husk of metal and plastic. Harvey watched in bewilderment as the Imprint dissolved into pure essence, radiant light shooting up the wires and making the gem shine like a tiny star.

  Before he had a second to think, the wires reached out for him. He threw the device onto the table and hurriedly backed away. But the farther he walked, the longer the golden cables stretched. Harvey turned to run, but screamed when he felt a stabbing pain in the back of his neck. Five more quickly followed, and he felt the metal worming around under his skin just like the threads of the Loom when he evolved. Except this time, they didn’t dissolve into essence that merged with his weave. No, they invaded him, stretching down his spine before diverting, four cables digging into each of his limbs while one reached up into his brain and the last nestled into his torso.

  A tormented scream filled the air as Harvey fell to his knees. Not because the pain was unbearable, but because the parasite latching onto him felt so alien. The void began to glow red as the crystal grew brighter and brighter, until Harvey felt the device connect to his brain. Inside, he felt a presence. It was familiar, but somehow wrong. Like seeing a reflection in shattered glass.

  Still kneeling on the ground and gasping for breath, he heard it.

  [Sup Harvey]

  Julian?