Stripped of everything extraneous like the different kinds of beasts and plants, if one drilled down to the very core of things, what made one thing living and another dead? Zoom in close enough, and there was no difference between an ant and the pebble it was crawling on. It's all just atoms and molecules. So what makes one set of atoms living and the other dead? What exactly animates a flower and fails to do the same to a piece of metal or glass? Is it simply an issue of getting the right chemical reactions going and off it goes? Or did an extra factor have to be in place for things to work? Was this extra factor the soul? Or was the soul just another piece of the puzzle that he couldn't understand and so was conveniently trying to fit it where it didn't belong?
"Alright, I think that's enough."
Greg felt a sudden clarity wash over his mind as if some external force was suppressing the effect of the mid-purity life order promotion elixir. He couldn't help but blink a few times as his mind caught up to the fact that he had been lying on his back on the ground staring up at the sky for almost three weeks... or was it four weeks? His mind had been like a computer given a puzzle it couldn't solve and asked to do just that, solve it. A human given such a task would eventually grow frustrated with it and just give up. Unless directed otherwise, however, a computer would just keep trying to pursue the task till the end of time. Having his eyes opened to a new layer of reality made it impossible for his mind to stop trying to parse out the world around him.
When Greg first heard of laws, he'd been thinking of it in scientific terms, something like Newton's first law of motion. He'd been thinking of it like a rule book that defined the world around them. And while he hadn't been entirely wrong, it was just barely scratching the surface of the realm he was stepping into. As a mortal, when he looked at a rock on the ground, all he saw was just that, a stone. After taking the mid-purity life order promotion elixir, it was as if he'd discovered new layers to the stone. The stone was no longer just rock, it was infused with all manner of meanings.
To begin with, it was a home. From little bugs hiding under rocks to human beings that have taken rocks, and carved them into blocks that made their houses out of it, to races like dwarves who carve out whole empires inside mountains, to even dragons that made their homes on the peaks of the tallest mountains. Stone, for as long as living beings have existed, has been a home to them. Stone was also a keeper of the record of the passage of time. With enough time, all stone will eventually be ground down into dust. Still, as things come and go, stone tends to remain defiant in the face of time, weathering the coming of one age and the end of another. Dig through it and you will see traces of the things that have been before. It will tell you the story of what was, and eventually, even you and your civilization will be buried in stone for another to come along and find. Stone was also the anchor of civilization. Be it roads, bridges, houses, sculptures, the tools that peasants used, or the precious stones on the crown of a king, stone permeated every facet of society so thoroughly that, in many ways, people had even grown blind to it.
These were just three of hundreds of layers that opened up to Greg whenever his head turned to the side and he caught sight of a rock, to say nothing of everything else in his sight. Space, air, grass, buildings, people. What before had been singular entities as far as his perception was concerned, were now revealed to be packed full of an almost endless amount of layers. To make the picture even more complex, the deeper nature of items didn't just involve what it looked like under a microscope. With the prejudice of his former life, for example, he'd assumed that the deeper nature of a stone would require one to know what elements it was made up of. Was it composed more of carbonates, oxides, sulfates, and the like? This, however, couldn't have been further from the truth. In this world of magic, stone was far more than just the particular elements it was made up of. Barely any of what went through his mind when he saw a rock, however, had anything to do with its chemical makeup. The closest approximation that Greg could come up with as to what anything truly was in the world as he now saw it, was a debate between a scientist, a philosopher, a poet, and a stoner.
The wind would blow and the poet would close their eyes, feel it against their face, and say that freedom is the true essence of the wind, wherever it wishes, it blows. The scientist would snort and adjust their glasses before calmly replying that wind is just the movement of air from high-pressure regions to low-pressure regions, there is no freedom in it whatsoever. If anything, wind is the perfect example of inevitability. The philosopher would listen to the two, think for some time while stroking their beard, and then say something like, the wind perfectly encapsulates human life. Most of the time, it's a fleeting phenomenon that is only felt for a short while before it is gone and forgotten. Every once in a while, however, there is a gale strong enough to leave a lasting mark. The stoner would look between all three of them, take another pull of whatever they are smoking, and ask, how do any of you know that it's the wind and not something else that is blowing?
The strange thing is that, as far as magic and the laws that governed it, all those perspectives, including the stoner's question, are valid. Greg had found himself wandering down thought trails that equated the dark depth of the sea with the human desire to lie with no intervening steps of logic to justify this equation. The worst part was that Greg had been paralyzed in this cycle. Try as he would, he couldn't keep his mind from going over everything in this way. He couldn't stop trying to peel off one layer after the other futilely trying to get to the core truth of it. Had Morpheus not intervened, Greg could easily see himself pointlessly spending the entire year in this one spot, endlessly questioning if it was rocks or fire that was the cornerstone of civilization.
An old monk in loose robes appeared from the side and came to stand over him, his nebulous eyes looking down at him with some interest. "As expected. The mortal mind is not well-suited to seeing the deeper truths of the universe. It gets lost in a maze of its own making trying to chase down an ultimate truth that it thinks is hiding just behind the next discovery," the monk stated. Greg couldn't tell if Morpheus was trying to mock him or just stating an obvious truth that he had observed many times before. Whichever it was, he wasn't given long to consider as the old monk held out a hand to him. "Come on, there's still a long road ahead of us...
***
Calyn once again found herself seated on the deck of the airship instead of meditating. The past few months hadn't at all gone the way she'd been expecting it to go. Calyn could remember how she'd felt the moment the deity passed his judgment that she would be his slave for the next hundred cycles. The image that had dominated her mind was standing in between a dragon's open jaws. At any time and for any reason, they could snap shut and that would have been the end of her. She had been fully prepared to live on the edge of a knife for the next hundred cycles. The truth, however, turned out to be almost comically the opposite of what she'd been expecting. Not only was the dragon not interested in her, it wasn't even present. Other than at the Governor's castle, she hadn't encountered the deity again. Even more unexpectedly, the one that the deity was linked to, wasn't interested in having her as a slave.
When Roka had her sign the tier-seven mana contract, she'd pointed out to him that there was nothing in it that required her to obey him. With little more than a shrug, he'd reiterated his position, she wasn't his slave. Despite his words, Calyn had expected to play the role of a servant. Yes, he wouldn't lord over her or try to force her to do things she didn't want to, but at least she'd do menial tasks for him. True to his word, however, Roka asked nothing of her. While he, his teacher, and his guard Olivia were busy trying to get the airship up off the ground, she had been left to her own devices, to do as she pleased. At first, she'd felt odd and unsettled by the fact that, for all intents and purposes, she was a free woman so long as the Deity didn't take Roka over. That feeling, however, was soon replaced by a feeling of ecstatic relief. She was free to continue pursuing ascension through the tiers as had always been her goal, and that's what she did. With what resources she still had on hand, Calyn had thrown herself into meditation and pursuit of more power.
The more time passed, however, the more a new feeling of unease started to grow in her. At first, she wasn't sure why. But as time went on and she thought on it more, the answer slowly became clear to her. Unfortunately for her, it was one of those answers that didn't leave you with an obvious path forward. As the weeks went by and Roka didn't call on her for anything, it occurred to her that, while he may not wish to enslave her, it didn't mean that she was now a part of his inner circle. Yes, she was tagging along with them, but that was only because she had declined Roka's offer of freedom. If he'd gotten his way, she would have been free and back at her clan while he went on with his life. This led to a question of how she wished to proceed.
On the one hand, she could remain neutral as she currently was. Stay true to the contract between them, protect him and his family whenever it was called for, and keep his secrets if she came across any, but other than that, maintain the current status quo. The main advantage of this approach was freedom. Calyn was the proud scion of a powerful clan. The only people she'd ever had to lower her head to were her father and the clan head. With her father being the clan head's brother, not even other elders in the clan had tried to wield their authority over her. This isn't to say that she disrespected any of them, she just didn't have to bow and scrape around them as most others in the clan would have to in their presence. With Greg, that would change.
Looking at his group casually, one would be almost tempted to think that Roka wasn't in charge. With how open and willing he was to listen to others and take their advice, it'd be all too easy to think this a band of equals. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. To begin with, his family was under his complete authority. A short while of interacting with them and this would become all too clear. They looked to him as the head of their family and deferred to his authority whenever there was any issue that required his input. With Olivia, Roka's authority was even more pronounced. He was always seeking advice from her guard on many things. But when Greg gave an order, however, Olivia carried it out without fail. As for Lothar, there wasn't even a question of whether he'd follow Roka's lead or not. Like her, the fire mage knew that a deity watched from behind Roka's eyes. He had zero desire to draw the attention, let alone the ire of such a being.
