Edge decided to relax for a while before returning to his body.

  Thanks to the time dilation inside his core, he would only be away for a handful of heartbeats, and Foebinder was guarding his body. If something dangerous appeared, the living links would let him know, making this visit far safer than it would otherwise have been.

  He wanted to check in with his avatars and strengthen their bonds. But first, he needed to spend some time with Rue. The golden fox had been worried about him and needed some reassurance now that the battle was over.

  Edge took a seat in his father’s armchair while the young beast leapt into his lap, licking his face while nuzzling his neck. He laughed as the pup’s exquisitely soft fur tickled his skin.

  “Don’t worry, Rue. I’m all right. Our friends are watching my back, and I promise to run from anything that’s too strong to fight. I won’t ever leave you alone.” He knew that was what the little guy was worried about, since he’d bonded with his Companion shortly after Rue’s mother had been killed while protecting her child from predators.

  As he stroked the fox’s fur and made comforting noises, he cast his gaze across his inner world, which had grown considerably after evolving to stage two. It was composed of an area known as a central chamber, as well as the adjoining skill village where his avatars lived, trained, and played.

  The interior of a creature’s core, also known as an inner world, featured a scene that was special to them—a place where they felt happy and safe. He was no exception, and his central chamber took the form of his father’s workshop, where Edge and his brother had spent many carefree days while the man tinkered with one invention or another.

  His childhood had been shattered after his father and brother died in a freak transport accident, leaving Edge and his mother reeling from the loss. He had coped with his grief by living vicariously through the hunters of Ord, spending most waking moments glued to the Prison World feeds. She had developed an addiction to simulations of the past, and both of them were in a dark place when he had purchased his puppet and sent his mind to another world.

  He wiped away tears while Rue offered moral support. He had locked his feelings in a box and buried them for years, but now he was ready to cherish the good times despite the pain of the bad. Maybe that’s why this place became an exact replica of Dad’s workshop after I evolved, when before it was just an abstraction that vaguely resembled it.

  While he waited for the wave of nostalgia to run its course, he turned his attention to the three components every core shared—his reactor, reservoir, and skill slots.

  The magitech devices had undergone considerable changes with each evolution, growing in both size and sophistication. His reservoir was a sprawling tank made of brass and blue metal that was covered in components that compressed the contents to increase its capacity. Early on, it had resembled a crude steampunk contraption, but now the receptacle would blend in with the machines filling any modern industrial facility.

  In addition to the main tank, which held raw magicytes until they were ready to be refined by his reactor to power his skills, the reservoir had a series of conduits sprouting from the top that permeated the boundary of his core. They led to the mana pores the System had carved into his skin, which absorbed the planet’s magic at a rapid rate.

  His eyes traced the network of pipes and wires that connected his reservoir to his reactor, an imposing amalgamation of jet-black steel that reminded him of a gigantic oven. The contents, however, were something else entirely.

  When Edge peered through the gaps in the bulbous black grill, which was big enough that Blue could have pulled the crew’s wagon through it, he beheld something beyond his comprehension. An infinite realm of inferno and blaze stretched out toward a distant horizon, as if he were looking through a portal leading to the surface of the sun.

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  Like every aspect of Skill-Eater, his reactor was Unique. By this point, he had come to believe that its unusual architecture had something to do with Overdrive—the great engine summoned by his ultimate ability that infused his reactor with an infinite tide of ultra-dense magic.

  He followed the warren of tubes and ducts that linked his reactor to the eighteen skill slots he had at present, which took the form of elegant marble pillars arranged in two rows. Each had a groove on top that was covered in circuitry and crystals, which changed the frequency of the mana passing through to form the specific manifestations conjured by each skill.

  While each of his powers was bonded to its socket in a fundamental way, his avatars were free to roam as they pleased, which brought Edge to the next component of his core—the village where his skills spent the majority of their time.

  On that note, now that Rue had calmed down, he was ready to hang out with his avatars and work on their bonds. He set the fox on the floor, rose from the armchair, and made his way toward the village. On the way, he stopped to inspect his vault, the representation of the Spatial Storage Rune engraved into the surface of his core.

  The rune looked like a reinforced vault. It had a heavy round door with two hinges on one side. The interior was spacious and contained a replica of everything the storage rune held. He could interact with the contents, letting him sort, manipulate, and rearrange the items inside while taking advantage of the time distortion inside his inner world.

  For reasons he didn’t even begin to understand, Rue could physically enter Edge’s core. That meant the fox could help himself to a snack whenever he wanted, forcing Edge to close the vault’s door when he wasn’t here to supervise.

  Most unusual of all, he had learned that his avatars could interact with the rune’s contents too. He had used Elemental Blade to freeze perishable objects and increase their shelf life and hoped to find more ways to take advantage of the vault’s magic before long.

  After passing by his storage rune, Edge paused to contemplate the black door that led to Skill-Eater’s realm.

  Technically, everything in his core was inside the ravenous lord, and the door led to the storm-swept stretch of shoreline where the slumbering giant was bound by endless black chains. The door had only opened twice thus far, allowing them to converse for a brief moment after each evolution.

  Skill-Eater’s sleep was growing shallower over time, and when Edge evolved to stage three, he believed the ravenous lord would awaken more often. At first, he had found that prospect exciting. However, everything had changed after his core tried to take over his body during the war with the Crimson Claws. It was a serious situation, but ultimately a matter for another day. He needed to deal with the kaiju and its horde before focusing on his conflict with the insatiable lord of Ord.

  He shook his head to clear his mind and then stepped into his skill village, where his powers were in the middle of an intense mock battle. He watched from the sidelines until it was over. His avatars enjoyed these contests, and he wasn’t about to get in their way. Not when every sparring session generated a small amount of skill experience, which added up fast when boosting all eighteen skills at once.

  As usual, his powers had divided themselves into two teams, each of which was led by one of his Epic skills. Edge had two Epic powers, and they were the most intelligent and expressive avatars in his collection—to the point where they felt more like people than anything else.

  The first was Intimidating Roar, the aural attack skill he’d stolen from the behemoth garax during the early days of his adventures. After claiming a new skill and slotting it in a socket, most avatars transformed into a representation that was a match for him in some way.

  In the case of Roar—who had taken a liking to the name Chibime—the avatar had become a miniature version of himself that came up to his knees. Chibime had cute, cartoonish features and an outgoing personality that made him well-suited to leading the other skills living in the village.

  The other team leader was Fear the Seasons, who went by Sea. The enigmatic alien known as the Gardener had given him the Epic skill after purging an ethereal Ancient from her core—the first monsters to make their way to Ord after the dimensions touched and the portals opened.

  Sea looked a great deal like the Gardener, only smaller. Her limbs were long and thinner than a human’s, and her features were angular and elongated. She wore a patchwork dress that changed colors to match whichever season suited her mood. Sea could manifest miniature versions of Fear’s domains, her favorite being a little black rain cloud that followed her everywhere. Sea’s personality reminded Edge of a cat, and she usually flew over to perch on his shoulder while he was visiting his inner world.

  Each Epic skill led a team of seven other avatars that were in the middle of a battle game with complex rules he only partially understood. Fortunately, his avatars couldn’t hurt each other, so they could engage in the vigorous competition with no risk of things getting out of hand.

  He leaned against the wall, considering each of his powers in turn as he waited for their contest to end.