At night in Glamorne, Dorothy sat rocking in the armchair of her hotel room, organizing the newly acquired powers she had obtained following her advancement—especially those from her newly chosen Bewitching Dreams Path. At White Ash-rank, the Bewitching Dreams Path was titled Dream Voyager. Upon reaching this stage, not only would a Dream Interpreter’s original abilities be enhanced, but new dream-realm-related abilities would also emerge. The first of these was the ability to transfer mental damage into dreams, allowing it to be absorbed by the user’s dream mimicry body. The stronger the mimicry in the Dreamscape, the more damage it could absorb. Dorothy had relied on this very ability, in tandem with her Moon Crown Fragment, to endure Gossmore’s pain-transfer attacks—without it, the divinity-infused strikes would have instantly knocked her unconscious. Another major power was Dreamscape Travel. A Dream Voyager could form a minor soul pact ritual with a fully consenting ally. Afterward, that ally would be marked, and the Dream Voyager’s mimicry could open a dream portal within the Dreamscape to any marked ally’s dream cocoon, instantly teleporting their mimicry there. Additionally, the Dream Voyager could manifest a dream-form duplicate at the physical location of herself or any marked ally. These dream duplicates had no physical form—more like phantoms that could pass through matter. They couldn’t possess others, but could inflict mental damage through contact. At the Dream Voyager stage, the duplicates retained only their hypnosis function and were primarily useful for scouting and support. With ample spirituality, a Dream Voyager could create multiple duplicates, but their individual strength scaled inversely with quantity—the fewer created, the stronger each one. Upon reaching Crimson-rank, Dorothy’s dream-form duplicates gained additional capabilities. Some could now use skills from her other branches. These dream bodies could also freely change form. While not invisible to the naked eye, they could easily meld into shadows and darkness, avoiding detection by ordinary people. Additionally, the Dream Voyager stage enhanced the mystical charm of the Dream Interpreter. When speaking in public, a Dream Voyager’s words gained a strong affinity and persuasive force, allowing large groups to easily believe her—especially the stories she told. Upon advancing to Bizarre Author, a Beyonder of the Bewitching Dreams Path could manifest urban legends and popular tales to serve them. The strength of these myth-forms depended on three factors: the widespread nature of the tale, the conditions of the summoning, and the amount and types of spirituality paid. Manifested myth-forms each possessed different abilities based on their source lore. Crucially, the spirituality cost of these manifestations was not limited to just Revelation and Shadow. Instead, the cost reflected the traits and powers of the myth-form—Revelation and Shadow were merely the baseline. For example, when Dorothy previously manifested the Moonlit Water Hag, she used spirituality of Revelation, Shadow, and Chalice. The first two were the base cost, while Chalice was needed to give the Water Demon a corporeal form for action. However, since the Moonlit Water Hag wasn’t known for physical prowess or strength in the legend, very little Chalice was used—just a point or two. The Water Demon’s primary ability was to generate illusions, which mainly consumed Revelation and Shadow. But if Dorothy were to create a myth-form renowned for great physical power, then the Chalice cost would rise. If the myth-form were ghostly and came with ghost-like traits, it would also cost additional Silence spirituality. In short, if the Bizarre Author wanted the myth-form to use powers outside the Revelation/Shadow scope, she had to pay the relevant spiritual cost—Revelation and Shadow alone didn’t cover everything. Though these manifestations had a high and diverse spirituality cost, they could be ritualized—like how Silence-path rituals worked with summoning or channeling. A ritualized ability meant the caster could use spiritual storage items instead of their own spirituality, reducing burden and allowing for enhancements through ritual tools or ritual sites. Across the four grades of ritual sites, using higher-grade ritual implements at more advanced ritual sites could both reduce spirituality cost and amplify the power and range of the summoned myth-form. However, rituals required significant preparation. During the ritual, the user typically couldn’t move or use other abilities. The larger the ritual, the longer the prep time—and the higher the requirements on tools and location. But with that also came greater power. The downside? Large rituals were hard to hide and could easily be detected by other mystical means. “The Bewitching Dreams Path… definitely favors planning and scheming,” Dorothy thought as she rocked gently in her chair. “The Dream Interpreter’s profile-building is powerful—as long as I collect intel early and construct a strategy, I can secure mental leverage over my targets. It works excellently for luring or dominating in combat. Other Beyonders of equal or lower rank will find it hard to resist." “But the downside’s obvious—it’s slow. You need prep time. Profiling a same-rank target takes ages, and for higher ranks it’s almost impossible. In sudden encounters—especially ambushes—there’s just no time to set anything up. With prep, it’s strong. Without it, it’s average. Not flexible enough…” “As for Dream Voyager—it covers for the Interpreter’s lack of frontal strength thanks to those dream-form duplicates. Plus, the teleportation through the Dreamscape gives me long-range strategic mobility. At Crimson-rank, these duplicates are kind of like what Boade used with his Blood Avatar or what the antlered guy did with his Bone Avatar—they all let you extend your influence across allies at great distances.” “And then… the Bizarre Author. If used properly, the impact is huge. Honestly, the skill ceiling might be the highest I’ve seen among all Crimson-rank powers—not just for Revelation Path, but for all Beyonder paths I know of. Its creative potential is enormous.” “But its flaws are like the Interpreter’s—it’s extremely reliant on prep and intel. And the spirituality cost… hoo boy. You’re burning through all kinds of spirituality across all domains, unlike most paths that just draw from their inherent spirituality. Fortunately, this can be ritualized—meaning I can use spiritual storage items and divine artifacts to reduce the cost and boost the effects. All those items I’ve hoarded aren’t useless after all…” Reclining in the armchair, Dorothy swayed gently as these thoughts swirled through her mind. She then shifted her attention to the final path: the Roaring Fury Path. After acquiring the power of the Heaven Decree Envoy, Dorothy’s original thunder-based abilities had significantly improved. But due to the straightforward nature of the Elementalist class, these improvements were mainly expressed in raw damage output—without much need for fancy mechanics. The increase was plain to see: stronger attacks, wider area-of-effect, and enhanced chaining. Now Dorothy could emit powerful lightning arcs from her body that leapt between nearby enemies, creating a chain lightning effect for crowd control. And that wasn’t all—there were new tricks as well. The area for thunder strikes had expanded from a 7-kilometer radius to a massive 20 kilometers. Within that zone, Dorothy could now target any enemy she detected and call down a precise lightning strike at will. Even more devastating was the enhanced version of this strike—Judgment Thunder—a long charge-up ability that unleashed a catastrophic thunder with destructive force on par with the Heavenly Flame Meteor cast by Heavenly Flame Saint. The only drawback remained the same: weather dependency. Fortunately, the Heaven Decree Envoy now possessed the ability to alter weather conditions, mitigating that limitation. Weather Ritual—this was a ritual included as part of the advancement knowledge for a Heaven Decree Envoy. It was not one of their abilities per se, but rather a kind of ritual knowledge automatically granted upon advancement. Every Beyonder, upon a successful rank advancement, would instinctively receive general knowledge about their new abilities through the ritual itself—this was why Beyonders could roughly understand their new powers without needing to test them directly. In the case of the Heaven Decree Envoy, the advancement knowledge came with a fully-formed ritual included. The purpose of the Weather Ritual was simple: altering the weather within a specific region. For example, sunny weather corresponded to Lantern, rain to Chalice, and strong winds to Shadow, and so on. Since it was a ritual, it followed the same rules as others: it could use spiritual storage items, and required both a ritual site and ritual tools. The higher the quality of both, the better the ritual outcome and the more spiritually efficient the process—more effect per point of spirituality. Because lightning strikes require thick clouds and stormy weather, Dorothy would need to consume both Chalice and Shadow spirituality to generate a thunderstorm. Finally, the new ability that came with becoming a Heaven Decree Envoy was something all elemental Crimsons possessed: Elementalization. Due to spiritual scarcity, Dorothy hadn’t tested her own Lightning Elementalization yet, but based on the advancement info, it was a transformation that would turn her body into a conscious mass of plasma. The exact nature of this state, and how it differed from the elemental forms of other elementalists, would have to be explored later through her own experimentation. “As expected, the Elementalist path really is simple and direct. Nothing complicated—just blast and be done with it. Even within the most scheming of the Revelation-family branches, the Thunder Elementalist stays true to this nature. If anything, I’d say the Thunder Summoner is the most ostentatious among them. It doesn’t fit the tempo of the Revelation lineage at all.” “Spiritual Threads? Bewitching Dreams? All sneaky paths. Even Foresight is probably that type too. Only Roaring Fury is loud and blunt. I guess the name really did give it away.” “What’s actually interesting is this Weather Ritual. It’s the first time I’ve seen a general-use ritual directly included in advancement info. With this, I can proactively create weather conditions for lightning strikes. Definitely more flexible than how it was at White Ash rank. Since it’s general-use, I imagine all Elementalists gain access to it upon reaching Crimson. But unlike Thunder Elementalists, other Elementalists don’t rely on weather as much, so it’s probably not a big deal for them. The downside is that other Beyonders might recognize the ritual’s nature pretty easily, so I’ll need to be careful when using it.” “Also, the information I received about Heaven Decree Envoy abilities came solely from the rank advancement. It doesn’t include any of the new influences from the superpower mathematical model of Misaka Mikoto. That part, as well as any potential developments around this so-called Elemental Body, will need to be explored by myself in future trials.” So thought Dorothy as she gently stilled her rocking chair and began reflecting on the final portion of her new powers. This Crimson-rank advancement hadn’t just granted her new powers from the Bewitching Dreams Path. To her surprise, it turned out the Pure-Color Revelation Path itself—specifically, the Omni-Law Mentor stage—also came with a small innate ability of its own. The name of that ability was Spirituality Mastery. The Omni-Law Mentor had achieved a new understanding of the essence of spirituality, attaining insights into its mystical nature far deeper than other Beyonders of the same rank. With this, they could optimize the structure of their abilities, improving efficiency, reducing systemic spiritual waste during use, and ultimately enabling greater effects with less cost. Put simply: all of Dorothy’s Beyonder abilities now consumed less spirituality than before—and the lower-rank the ability, the greater the reduction. This reduction was quite significant. Although the consumption drop for her Crimson-rank skills was minimal, at White Ash-rank, the savings became apparent—roughly a 50% reduction. For Black Earth-rank and below, the reduction became even more pronounced, going from two-thirds less to nearly negligible. However, this reduction was calculated based on the output level. It only applied when the power remained within its original rank. If a lower-rank ability was overcharged with spirituality to exceed its intended power ceiling, then the cost would spike accordingly. For example, if Dorothy used her White Ash-rank lightning arc ability and flooded it with more spirituality to increase its power, then once it passed a certain threshold and reached Crimson-rank output, the cost would surge dramatically, because the technique would now be operating at a higher rank. “Spirituality Mastery… I didn’t expect even a single spirituality path to have its own internal abilities. This one’s great though—reduces the spiritual cost of all abilities, with smaller ones getting the biggest cut. Sure, it doesn’t help much with high-cost, high-power skills, but for all the little things I cast constantly, this is a blessing.” Dorothy looked at her very first personal ability tied purely to Revelation spirituality, and couldn’t help feeling genuinely pleased. Things like Living Marionette Control or Flowing Current Form—small abilities she used constantly—added up over time. Their cumulative cost wasn’t negligible and had always placed pressure on her spiritual reserves. But now, under Spirituality Mastery, these Black Earth-rank minor abilities would barely consume anything. Even her White Ash-rank powers would cost significantly less. This would greatly ease her burden when accumulating spirituality for Gold-rank advancement, and would allow her to respond more calmly in battle. At the same time, Spirituality Mastery made Dorothy begin to wonder—once she reached Gold-rank, would the Pure Reason Path offer even greater personal abilities?