When Cal showed up, I was talking to myself about the plan to tackle the Bloodwood Dungeon. Definitely not snooping around in the flayen’s study and certainly not creating messes. My splits, acting counter to our plan, vanished. Cowards. My cover was blown.

  ”Did you see that?” Cal asked. The hint of excitement in his voice shook me from my plan. He sat down across from me where Fender once sat just a moment before.

  “See what? I saw nothing.” I shook off his attempts to crack my defense and clung to my innocence. Cal’s deflated expression, though slight, delivered a decisive enough blow to weaken my walls.

  ”The message I sent you. You had to have seen it. I made sure the text was large, and I added emphasis to it. It should have blared across your mind’s eye.”

  ”Oh, that. Yeah, I saw that.” The flayen perked up, causing me to choose my following words carefully. It wouldn’t be right to play games with his heart. “You send me words all the time…”

  “This was a message.” Seeing that I wasn’t picking up on the differences between our regular conversations and his new message, Cal massaged his temples and cleared his throat. “This message that was sent to your mindscape is different because it was not just me sending it, it was your mind creating it and sending it… with the help of a little bit of prodding.”

  ”A bit of prodding? Sounds like tampering.”

  ”Only for your benefit, I assure you. My pact promises so.”

  ”So you fumbled around in my head so that it would send me a message to myself… about something I already knew.”

  ”I knew I needed to add a small bell to it.” Cal paused for a moment, scratched his beard, and stood up, knocking his chair over. “Give me one moment.”

  As I waited, I created a small feast. I’d neglected my diet these last few rounds, and food was creeping into my thoughts. I made a promise that I would eat some real food once I returned to the material plane.

  

  A soft bell chimed once. I looked all around for the source, only to be interrupted.

  

  It was absolutely uncanny for the message to blast through my mind’s eye while I was in my mindscape. It was like being flashed by an enthusiastic creeper battling a sleeper. The strobe effect cleared just in time for another offense.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  The notifications rang on capturing the achievements of my progression, tracking skills, cultivation, and a host of other information that I’d stored away in the vaults of my memory.

  At first, the messages running through my mind’s eye were disruptive, bordering on annoyance. I cast them off as a distractive nuisance, especially with how frequently they were blaring in my head.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  As the notifications poured in, a small rush of excitement accompanied each time I heard a chime and saw a past accomplishment. It didn’t escape my attention that my responses could’ve been manufactured by Cal as well.

  “So?” Cal asked, appearing back in his seat at the table, grinning widely. He’d been working hard on these messages, and I wanted to support him. At the same time, I didn’t see the benefit to them.

  “It’s cool, Cal. Seems a little… superficial… that’s not the right word,” I said, stumbling on words.

  Cal didn’t seem bothered one bit… or he didn’t notice. He was next to me, yet his focus was elsewhere. He didn’t even grab a roll from the table, which was one of his favorite foods; they were fresh and perfectly baked.

  ”It is arbitrary,” he said, nodding his head. Maybe Cal did care. Language mattered.

  ”That’s the one.”

  ”Right. Like the gear score.”

  ”You know about the gear score?” The scoring system was popular, but for Calypso to know about it… “Wait, does that mean it's universal?”

  “What?” Cal squinted his eyes, giving me a look of concern. “No. You went on a wild tangent about it, talking to the guards in Cyanne.”

  “That was only a passing thought. I was merely reflecting on the past.”

  “You lingered.” Cal finally gave into the allure of the rolls, unable to deny their fresh scents wafting brazenly, grabbing one and taking a small bite.

  “Reminiscing,” I said, correcting Cal. “Still, it was only a thought—all contained in my head.”

  “I’m in your head!” The flayen tipped his roll toward me. Check.

  Cal’s response gave me pause. He got me on that one. I should’ve seen it coming. Technically, though, it wasn’t my fault. It would be like me sitting down in a diner and complaining that they were serving food. Fortunately, with Cal’s bounty of knowledge he shared with me, I could now protect my thoughts from all diners, including residential ones.

  “So you wanna send me a notification when I learn a new skill and gain a level?”

  “There’s much more to it than that,” Cal said. He snapped his finger, and a board covered in parchment paper appeared. The board and paper stretched five feet by feet in length and width and were held off the ground by pegs. What struck me the most about the display was the parchment was filled with detailed scribbles on the system.

  “As we all know,” Cal said, taking up a position next to the board. “The current system is a hot mess. Even with your world’s efforts to modernize it and simplify it, it is still convoluted.”

  “That’s just the way of cultivation.” I agreed with Cal, and he knew it. We’d had plenty of talks about the system during our time together. In those conversations, we compared and complained about what was in place.

  “Progression is already hard enough as it is. Why not simplify the path?”

  “Strength is gained through perseverance…” I slandered one of the tenets of AO’s religion. At least, I thought it was AO’s. A lot of the religions shared similar ideals.

  “There is no lack of struggle in your path ahead. Or in any cultivator’s path, for that matter.” Cal looked away from the board. “Look, if you don’t want me to change things up, I will leave this alone and walk away.” He gave the board another look. He had so many notes, cross-references, and even entire system parts crossed out. I didn’t notice it before, but under the parchment were several other papers. I didn’t doubt they were all filled with his notes.

  “So you want to change the system?”

  “I want to improve it… simplify it as much as possible. Whoever decided three was a good number to build the system around should be wrung out.

  I nodded in agreement. “Ae, the creator was a real prick.”

  “Look, I know this is new and looks ridiculous. If I had not thought it could help, I would not have spent so much time on it. Can you give it a chance?”

  “I’ll give it a chance.” With how much effort Cal put into this notification system, there was no way I was going to say no. I couldn’t do that to him. There was still one more reservation. “Does this mean you’ll be exiled to some dark corner of my mind, sending me notes occasionally?

  “I could do that, or we could send one of you new clones to do the task. I noticed you have three unnamed and not working.”

  AO’s pits. I forgot to assign work details to my new splits. How were they ever going to earn a name? And all the time they wasted being idle. That was my idle time, not theirs. I cooled my thoughts, letting the small misstep pass.

  “Alright, take one of the new clones and teach them how to administer your new system. We can let this play out over a few loops and see if we like it.”

  Cal fist-pumped and whispered something that sounded a lot like being a boss. I let him have his moment. The flayen and a split disappeared a moment later, sinking into some strange part of my mind—perhaps my mind’s eye. The place between my mindscape and reality.

  After Cal left, I assigned the last two splits to new tasks. One was going to practice sword slashing, the other firing a bow. I didn’t know if I could repeat the same success with my bow as I did with the sword. It was worth a shot.

  With Icy in tow, I returned to the material plane and went to find Tom. There was plenty of time left in this loop to conquer a dungeon.