I moved to the next option, my mind still reeling from the seductive prison of the Terraformer.

  Riftwalker-

  Trait Requirements: Endurance, Quad Flux, Multidimensional Trig, Biomedical or shapeshifting, convert energy, enchanting.

  Affinity Requirements: Physical, spiritual or sorcery, technology or channeling, forces.

  Riftwalkers are able to affect the basic structure of rifts, altering their location within the system’s power rank, basic theme, size, and even potentially the forms chaos beasts are forced to inhabit or the types of resources offered. You can interface directly with the system in the form of a subsapient rift core. In addition, expended cores may be used to create more advanced structures such as subspace gateways, guided dimensional pockets, and subspace habitations.

  Offers the following traits as you advance:

  Core access

  Basic formation

  Rift relocation

  Rift link

  Oppressive Aura

  2 affinity ranks per level

  Another golden ticket, but this one felt less like a tool and more like a nuclear hand grenade. ‘Core Access’ was unique, terrifying, and utterly fascinating—to directly interface with the subsentient consciousness of a rift? It was like bargaining with a hurricane. ‘Rift Relocation’ and ‘Rift Link’ were abilities that belonged in the toolbox of archmages and fleet admirals, strategic weapons on a stellar scale.

  I had no idea what ‘Oppressive Aura’ was, but I could guess. A way to make the chaos spawn in a rift bow down, to kneel while you rewrote the fundamental rules of their existence. The class was monstrously powerful, the ultimate expression of imposing order on chaos. It fell pretty far outside the bounds of my personal goals of ship-hunting and vengeance, but as a stepping stone… it was undeniable. ‘Formation Magic’ could be the key to building or upgrading my own ship one day, creating fortified sanctuaries, or even crafting personalized pocket dimensions.

  A stray, dangerous thought flickered through my mind: What would it be like to be bonded with Kushiel, standing back-to-back in the heart of a custom-designed rift, him with his sword and shield holding the line while I rewrote reality around us?

  A hot flush crept up my neck. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Head out of the clouds, Roisin. This is serious. I shoved the romantic—and frankly, suicidal—image away. The last thing a Riftwalker needed was a distraction, and Wasserman was the most magnificent distraction ever created. I took a steadying breath and looked at the final rare offering.

  Force Sage-

  Trait Requirements: Endurance, Cross-discipline Sorcery, Triage, Convert energy, Force Screen, Healing or Regeneration, Enchantment

  Affinity Requirements: Physical, Technological, Spiritual, Force

  Force sages are the first step on the path of force mastery. They utilize their spiritual link and force control to turn themselves and their surroundings against enemies, to protect their allies, and to create protections and manipulate force spirits themselves.

  Offers the following traits as you advance:

  Energy expansion

  Stasis

  Matter conversion

  Field control

  3 affinity ranks per level

  This one didn’t feel like a golden ticket to a new life. It felt like a whetstone for the weapon I already was.

  It only offered four traits, compared to the others’ five, but by the gods, what traits they were. ‘Energy Expansion’ would solve my most pressing limitation: raw power. ‘Stasis’… I shivered. That was potentially better than ‘Life Support’ for saving lives, and terrifyingly effective offensively. ‘Matter Conversion’ was here too, the same endgame-tier ability offered to the Terraformer, but without the peaceful connotations. And ‘Field Control’… I could barely imagine the applications. Controlling gravity, inertia, energy fields.

  Call me a little bloodthirsty—okay, call me a lot bloodthirsty—but my mind immediately conjured a vision. A slaver ship, its hull scarred and predatory. I reach out with my will, my Forces affinity humming, and simply… strip away their nullification field. Then I paint a ‘Stasis’ effect on their port-side engine nacelle. The starboard engine continues to burn at full thrust. The port side is frozen in a single moment of time.

  At best, the entire ship enters an uncontrolled, catastrophic spin, turning the inside into a churn of liquefied organics as inertial dampeners fail. At worst, the ship just… tears itself in half, a clean, brutal amputation performed across light-years of empty space.

  It was a hunter’s dream. A way to strike from the void itself, with a weapon they couldn’t see, couldn’t armor against, and likely couldn’t even comprehend. Totally impossible at my current affinity ranks, of course. A fantasy. But just the idea of hunting the hunters in such an absolute, indefensible way was a siren’s song I couldn’t ignore.

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  The class, with its weirdly specific prerequisites—a blend of healing, endurance, tech, and raw force—felt like it had been custom-designed for me. It wasn’t an escape. It wasn’t a strategic weapon for a faction. It was my weapon. For my war.

  The decision crystallized in my soul, cold and sharp and final.

  “I choose the Force Sage.”

  The System’s response was immediate and devoid of ceremony, a simple statement of fact in the vault of my mind.

  Congratulations! You have chosen the rare class Force Sage. You have gained the trait Energy Expansion and Stasis, and as a copper stage cultivator you have gained 3 affinity points that you can assign as you wish! At Bronze stage, please choose to advance this class or choose a new class.

  A wave of energy, vaster and deeper than anything I’d ever felt, flooded my core. It was like my spiritual veins had been tiny, choked capillaries, and were suddenly expanded into great rivers. The sensation was dizzying, euphoric. I clutched at the rocky ground, my fingers scraping against stone, grounding myself in the physical as my spirit soared.

  Next, the affinity points. I was intimately familiar with my own abilities. My Technology affinity was my workhorse, sitting at a solid rank 7, which was frankly excellent for a fresh Copper. My other affinities, however, were lagging embarrassingly behind. They should have been solid 5’s by now with regular practice, but my obsessive focus on tech and the frantic pace of the last few months had left them at a pathetic 4. I couldn’t afford to be a one-trick pony, especially not with a class that demanded mastery of all four.

  I placed one point into Forces, a deliberate act of defiance. I won’t be scared of you anymore. You’re a part of me. My weapon. I placed one into Physical, to strengthen the body that housed this newfound power. The last point went into Spiritual, to deepen the well from which I drew it all. Technology would continue to rise on its own through my work. It was time to shore up my weaknesses.

  Curiosity, that ancient and deadly killer, got the better of me. I called up my full node attributes, a detailed listing provided by the System itself, far more comprehensive than the simple format of the identification bands.

  Name: Roisin Gabrielle Reynard

  Class: Force Sage (Rare) [Support Pilot]

  Rank: Copper

  Affinities: Technology [7], Spiritual [5↑], Physical [5↑], Forces [5↑]

  Traits: Drone Control, Micro-Swarm Control, Technomancer’s Touch, Triage, Convert Energy, Force Screen, Enchanting, Endurance, Cross-Discipline Sorcery, Energy Expansion, Stasis

  *Core Energy: 190/190*

  Attributes: Body [12↑], Speed [11↑], Stamina [13↑], Mind [15↑], Willpower [16↑]

  The little brackets were a trick my father had shown me, a way to track progress since the last time I’d done a deep dive into my status. Most people checked constantly, addicted to the dopamine hit of seeing numbers go up. But refusing to look, improving through sheer effort and focus, granted a hidden bonus to Willpower. My physical improvements were from my body’s rapid, unnatural maturation and brutal training. The Mind boost was from J-School and constant learning. That Willpower jump, though… that was from resisting Wasserman’s aura, from surviving the 132nd, from hiding my true self every single day, and from the secret bonus of not peeking. It was mine. Earned.

  But the energy. Sweet weeping ancestors, the energy. A hundred and ninety points. It was staggering. ‘Energy Expansion’ lived up to its name. I did the math on ‘Force Screen,’ my most expensive defensive ability. It created a rank-five defensive shield for one minute per energy point spent, multiplied by my Forces rank. Before, it was a pricey last resort. Now? At Forces 5, I could dump my entire pool and maintain a shield that could deflect small-arms fire for… almost sixteen hours. If I meditated, I could regenerate enough even in the void to keep it running indefinitely. I could sleep under my own personal shield. The thought brought a wave of visceral relief so profound it almost felt like safety.

  Almost.

  Instinct, honed by what felt like a lifetime of being prey, took over. I quickly doctored my identification band’s output. It now read “Support Pilot,” a safe, respectable Uncommon class for which I already possessed all the matching traits. It was bland. Forgettable. Despite Taera’s assurances, I wasn’t about to bet my life on the continued goodwill of the Crow OR the Fleet. ‘Force Sage’ would be my secret, one more card held close to my chest.

  One part of the class description nagged at me, though. “The first step on the path of force mastery.” You usually found that language on common classes—‘Atmospheric Pilot’ leading to ‘Void Jockey,’ or ‘Brawler’ evolving into ‘Pugilist.’ Finding a “starter path” on a rare class was… unnerving. What did the path lead to? What epic or mythic class was waiting at the end of it? What terrifying new traits and obscene affinity ranks would it demand?

  The shriek of a nearby railgun round shook me from my thoughts. I was still in an active combat zone, for crap’s sake. I had been lost in the cosmic supermarket of destiny while my fellow crewmates were fighting and dying.

  I surged to my feet, the world tilting slightly as my body adjusted to the new power thrumming in my veins. I slammed my consciousness back into my drone controls, the familiar interface a comfort. The battlefield schematic unfolded in my mind. The perimeter was holding, but just barely. I quickly ran diagnostics, repowering two defense turrets that had overheated, and directing a repair drone to patch a breach in the western barricade.

  This was the reality. I was far from the godlike multitasker I could be in a simulation. In the sims, you had ‘command pauses,’ moments of frozen time to issue complex orders. Automation handled the finicky stuff, like building new drone controllers from scratch—a task that required my full, undivided attention in the real world. That’s why I’d brought so many spares. For me, even rebuilding an advanced drone body from scrap was a piece of cake compared to the delicate spiritual and technical ballet of running my micro-swarm to fabricate a new control node. My Tech affinity was a roaring furnace. My Spiritual affinity was still a sputtering candle by comparison. Drones were just… easier. A problem of wires and code, not of soul and will.

  The choice was made. The path was set. I was a Force Sage, a master of the unseen, masquerading as a Support Pilot. I had the power to freeze time and shred reality, and I was using it to make sure a bunch of orcs, humans and dwarves didn’t get their heads blown off.

  It was, I decided, a surprisingly honest way to start.