I picked up my license, turning it over in my hands, my eyes scanning the embossed lettering, the official seal, the weight of the thing. It was real.

  Just to make sure, I read the ID again.

  Alexander Juliut Duarte

  Walker #SSS-Z-5939

  Insignia: Books, Origami Birds, Quill, Coin with an Arrow.

  Spirit Beast: Fractal [Please Contact B3 to update any name records.]

  I stared at the classification. Triple Sierra class.

  This is real.

  I blinked, the letters burning themselves into my mind. Triple-S status wasn’t just rare—it was almost mythical.

  Cordelia didn’t even wait for me to ask before confirming the weight of it.

  "You are classified as an asset of the highest order," she said, her tone neutral but firm. "You are literally considered an international asset. The last Triple-S class Walker on application day was William Constant."

  My breath hitched.

  William Constant.

  The Time Twister.

  I swallowed, trying to push down the instinctive shudder that ran through me. The name alone was legendary, but the man himself? A monster, a machine of flesh and bone, built for the horrors of war.

  He could summon tornados from nowhere, manipulate time itself—stopping it, speeding up his own perception, slowing down the subjective time of an entire battlefield. Some said he couldn’t be killed, because he simply wouldn’t let himself die.

  I exhaled sharply.

  "I’m nothing like Constant."

  Cordelia nodded. "Correct. The fourth digit even says so. Z-class. Z is reserved for those who are Manifesters."

  I frowned. "Second time I’ve heard that. What does that even mean?"

  She let out a long-suffering sigh, as if she had just realized she was about to have to explain something obvious to someone who should have already known.

  "I didn’t think I’d have to give you a crash course on Artes."**

  She crossed her arms, her voice shifting into lecture mode.

  "Alright. So, there are four primary classifications of Artes. Shapers, Creators, Bioweavers, and Manifesters."

  She held up a finger for each category as she listed them.

  "Shapers manipulate existing material. Creators generate new material. Bioweavers manipulate their own biology—or sometimes others'—at a fundamental level. And Manifesters?"

  She let that last word hang in the air for a second before continuing.

  "Manifesters create items. Not their registered material, not something directly tied to their Arte, but any item."

  I blinked, letting that sink in.

  "Oh. Like Tristania."

  Cordelia tilted her head, looking at me like I had just started speaking a different language.

  "Who?"

  "My sister. The one closest in age to me. The shut-in." I hesitated. "She’s scared of crowds. Of people. Therapists blame Mom for that one."

  Cordelia gave a slow nod, her expression unreadable.

  "Well, she probably doesn’t get this royal treatment because, one: she’s not a Walker. And two: she doesn’t have the absurd ability to create skillcubes."

  Her words hit with the force of cold reality.

  I had been so focused on trying to wrap my head around this whole Manifestation thing that I hadn’t fully grasped why they were treating me this way.

  It wasn’t just about power. It wasn’t just about being useful.

  "One of the literal laws of Manifesters," Cordelia began, her tone shifting into something almost academic, "is known as Pote’s Paradox. They cannot create power. But they can create an item of power."

  She paused, letting the weight of those words settle.

  "Many do so unknowingly. But your value?" She shook her head slightly, exhaling. "Your value is incomprehensible in comparison."

  I frowned. "Why?"

  "Did you know," she continued, ignoring my question for the moment, "that most people are unable to progress because they’re stuck without filling their Skillcube slots?"

  I blinked. That… made sense, but I hadn’t thought of it before. Skillcubes weren’t easy to come by. They weren’t just handed out. You had to earn them, whether through exploration, discovery, or defeating something strong enough to justify their existence.

  "Case in point," she added, tilting her head slightly, "I’m one of them."

  That caught me off guard.

  "Wait, what?"

  She crossed her arms, her voice calm but firm. "My Aspects are Life, Mind, and Death. Do you know how hard it is to find Death-aspected skillcubes that won’t turn me into a monster?"

  She wasn’t joking.

  I had never even considered that before. Finding skillcubes wasn’t just about getting stronger—it was about finding the right ones. And if you had an Aspect that was rare, dangerous, or taboo, you were effectively locked out of progression.

  I swallowed. That was a terrifying thought.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Still, something she said stuck in my mind.

  "Pote’s Paradox?" I asked.

  Cordelia shook her head. "Not important."

  But I could tell it was important. She just wasn’t going to explain it yet.

  "Either way," she continued, shifting the conversation back on track, "you cannot Manifest skillcubes."

  I narrowed my eyes. "But I—"

  "No. You didn’t Manifest a Skillcube. You broke a law to create one."

  My breath hitched.

  "Skillcubes require a Decree to be made. You are being treated like a Dominus because—whether you intended to or not—you violated a Dominus’s Decree."

  I felt a cold chill settle into my bones.

  "You broke the fundamental law of known Para-Physics."

  I clenched my fists. "Which is?"

  She looked me dead in the eyes. "You cannot bring things back from the Higher Realm. They must be made whole from the Miasma Storm."

  I felt the weight of her words crush down on me.

  I had done something impossible.

  And now?

  Now, the world would never see me the same way again.

  ***

  I left the barracks, dressed in the black-and-gold Walker’s robe, insignia stitched in silver and gold, the fabric flowing with a weight that wasn’t just material—it was expectation.

  I was ready for my first assignment.

  Or at least, I was as ready as I could be.

  Conscripting a convict into my team. Permanently.

  The weight of it sat wrong in my stomach. I wasn’t na?ve—I understood that Walkers weren’t granted the luxury of clean choices. But this? This felt like I was taking someone who had been condemned to life—or even death—in prison, and giving them a supervised parole for life.

  A permanent leash.

  It felt… wrong.

  Cordelia walked beside me, ever silent, ever attuned to the way my thoughts bled out despite my attempts to mask them.

  "It’s common enough," she said, breaking the silence. Her voice was calm, neutral, like she had already anticipated my discomfort. "You are an important asset to the state, so they want you to have the responsibility."

  I let out a slow breath, but before I could respond, she continued.

  "Likelihood? You’ll be given a small border territory eventually in the continent as your own independent city."

  I almost stopped walking.

  "What?"

  Cordelia didn’t even glance at me. Instead, she looked to the left, her eyes briefly unfocused—the telltale sign of her viewing the Gloss-feed through her neural link.

  "There are… thirty-seven known baronies of that type in the Free Cities Alliance alone," she said, almost as if reading off a report. "The other countries I don’t have access to, but yeah..."

  A barony?

  Wait…

  "I’m going to be a Baron?"

  Cordelia didn’t even blink.

  "No. You are likely to be an Earl."

  I felt something in my stomach twist.

  That… that didn’t make me feel any better.

  I had been so focused on becoming a Walker, on passing the trials, on surviving, that I hadn’t even begun to process what came after. I thought I’d be getting a team, a role, an assignment—but now I was being told I’d have a territory?

  Land. Governance. Rule.

  The idea made my pensiveness deepen, and I tried to shake it off.

  Not now. One problem at a time.

  I inhaled, trying to ground myself, and immediately noticed something wrong.

  I felt empty.

  I turned to Cordelia, concern rising in my chest. "Where is Fractal?"

  The small Spirit Beast was always near me, always present—her shimmering feathers, her curious chirps, the faint weight of her on my shoulder or wrist. She always calmed me, and now she was gone.

  Cordelia, still looking unbothered, answered smoothly.

  "School."

  I blinked. "What?"

  "She’s in the Walker’s Academy for Beasts and Spirits. Once your Machina gains sapience, it’ll be there too."

  My brain short-circuited for a moment.

  "Excuse me?"

  She finally turned her head toward me, and her expression carried just the faintest hint of amusement.

  "You… you really are cold, throwing bombs left and right today."

  Cordelia shrugged. "I prefer efficient. But if it helps, yes. I am completely heartless today."

  I groaned, rubbing my temples. Fractal was at a school for Spirit Beasts. My Machina was apparently going to gain sapience. I was somehow getting a criminal on my team. And at some point in the future, I was going to be an Earl? I sighed deeply.

  One. Problem. At a time.

  The first problem?

  Waiting on the damned carriage.

  It was late.

  Not by much—maybe a few minutes—but when you were about to be thrown into a den of convicted killers, time mattered.

  Thankfully, as soon as the carriage pulled into view and the driver caught sight of my robe, he nearly tripped over himself in his rush to apologize.

  "Walker sir! Please forgive the tardiness, sir! Had to get the carriage cleaned from the prior voyage, sir!"

  He kept adding 'sir' to the end of every sentence, and it was already grating. But I let it slide. I had bigger things to deal with.

  I boarded the carriage, and within minutes, we were on the road, speeding toward my destination.

  ***

  The air was thick the moment we arrived—heavy, oppressive.

  I checked my Gloss, scrolling through the dossiers of the thirty prisoners I was meant to choose from.

  Murder. Murder. Terrorism. Murder. Serial Murder. Murder. Patricide. Fratricide. Infanticide. Ritual Murder. Serial Arson…And Murder.

  I sighed, the sheer weight of death pressing down on me even harder now that I had names, faces, and details to go with the list.

  These weren’t petty thieves. They weren’t criminals who got caught in unfortunate circumstances.

  These were monsters.

  People who had chosen their paths, who had willingly embraced destruction.

  One was a mother who had methodically drowned her own children.

  Another was a father who had used his Arte to detonate entire temples, reducing places of worship and those inside them to nothing but ash.

  I felt a wave of nausea churn in my gut.

  How are these people allowed outside?

  Cordelia’s voice cut through my thoughts, her familiar Bias Field wrapping around me like a thin, invisible veil.

  "They aren’t."

  I turned to her. "Then what the hell am I doing here?"

  Her expression didn’t change, but the weight in her voice was enough to pin me in place.

  "You really need to stay inside my bubble here," she said. "You will get hit by some nightmares. Sure, they're weakened heavily by the restraints, but... inhibition cuffs aren’t foolproof."

  I swallowed hard.

  I had heard about that before—inhibition cuffs, magical restraints designed to suppress Artes and make criminals harmless.

  But "harmless" was subjective.

  These people had done unspeakable things. Just being in their presence could be enough to leave a scar.

  I nodded slowly, acknowledging the warning, but something still didn’t sit right.

  "Could you explain what you meant, though?"

  Cordelia didn’t answer immediately. She took a moment, her gaze distant, as if recalling something from her past.

  Then she spoke, her tone matter-of-fact.

  "My prior Walker had this test," she said. "To choose a conscripted criminal, as a permanent member of their team. Binding for life."

  I felt my hands clench into fists. Binding for life. I wasn’t just recruiting someone. I was shackling them to me forever.

  "And why do I have to do this?" I asked, my voice quieter now, but no less sharp.

  Cordelia finally turned to face me fully.

  "Because, Alexander," she said, "you will become our judge, our jury, our executioner of all criminals we encounter on the roads."

  The weight of those words settled into my bones. I wasn’t here to save anyone. I was here to decide who was the least irredeemable. Who was fit to walk beside me.

  And who was beyond forgiveness.

  You possibly do considering my character uses a puppet, paper magic, and a whole lot of book nonsense. Wanna be more mech focused?

  Read this.