The ride back to her house turned out to be surprisingly eventful. The moment Tessie realized Elizabeth had a true name, she latched onto the topic and kept prodding, trying again and again to coax the truth of that nightmare out of her. Elizabeth refused every time, content instead to smugly flaunt the fact that she, an ordinary sleeper, possessed a true name while Tessie, a saint, did not. In the end, Tessie could only sigh and let the matter drop.
Later, Elizabeth lay stretched out on her bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Her things were already packed for the trip to NQSC; the ship was leaving in the morning, and there was nothing left to prepare. Tessie had gone off to deal with her own responsibilities, leaving her alone with nothing to do but rest. Physically, she wasn't tired, and with her newly steadied vast mind, she didn't feel mentally drained either, so to her resting felt more like waiting for a large amount of time to pass. No matter how long she kept her eyes closed or how carefully she regulated her breathing, sleep refused to come.
Before noon, she had folded away the clothes Tessie had bought for her and changed back into her own. On her current frame, they hung loose and awkward, bagging at her shoulders and pooling at her wrists.
'Any second now…'
A moment later, the familiar shift rolled through her. Her body lengthened, bones and muscles subtly stretching, until the clothes that had been comically oversized settled perfectly against her skin. She stayed lying down through it all, unwilling to risk yet another graceless tumble to the floor.
'So I really do return to my original height and age at noon...'
She rose and stood, bracing herself for the usual moment of disorientation. However, it never came. Her body accepted the change as if it had never left this size from the start, her balance settling with effortless ease.
'…Another effect of the memory, then.'
Hours before, she had felt that her hand to eye coordination had improved significantly, and now her balance seemed better as well. At least that small nuisance was gone. If her flaw acted up in the middle of a real battle, she would need every bit of coordination she could get.
"Why don't you train?" A voice said.
The voice was familiar. She turned and saw her brother standing there, hands in his pockets, his usual smile gracing his lips. Maybe it was because her mind felt like it had two perfectly synchronized brains now, but imagining him had become disturbingly easy. His presence was so vivid that, for an instant, she could almost swear she felt him at her back, the same uncanny sensation she'd experienced during the appraisal, like he had truly stood beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
'Maybe I really should talk to a therapist.'
"You could use the time to test your aspect," he said mildly. "Figure out its limits. Better than just lying around doing nothing."
Elizabeth sighed. "I'm not doing nothing. I'm resting, much-needed rest actually, even if I'm not tired… but you're not wrong. It's not like me to remain still. I should test it."
She took a step toward the door, intent on heading to the training ground located underground, then paused. That room was meant for basic drills, with standard practice dummies and unreinforced walls. They were good enough for ordinary combat practice, but not for pushing an aspect to its limit. Hers wasn't exactly destructive, but she had no desire to find out where the structural weak points of the house were by accident.
'Oh… right.'
"If I remember correctly," she murmured, glancing at her brother, "you had a dreamscape pod, didn't you?"
Cain visibly flinched. "That old thing… yeah. I did."
She smiled. "Then I'll use it."
He paled, turning as white as the ghost he truly was. "Uh… listen, sis. Didn't you smash your own in a fit of rage not that long ago? Maybe don't use mine...Please.....We can just train together! That would be much better than using that old relic."
Elizabeth ignored him and crossed the house toward a wing she had avoided for a long time. Her brother's room. She pushed the door open and paused on the threshold.
'Why don't I just move in here? After all, I am kind of the only one still living here..…'
The room was spacious, more so than any other room in the house and despite being untouched for at least two years, it was immaculate. The maintenance droids had kept everything in order, continuing the routine her brother had imposed when he'd been alive. He had always been a clean freak, and even in death, his room obeyed that old obsession; there wasn't a single speck of dust to be seen.
In the far corner stood the pod. It resembled a sleek, obsidian bud, a closed flower resting on its side. The shell curved inward around a central seam, its surface was smooth and dark, traced with faint silver circuits that pulsed slowly, like a measured heartbeat. A wide glass canopy formed the front, reinforced and transparent, etched with delicate geometric runes that shimmered when the light struck them at certain angles. A few cables protruded from the base and snaked into the floor, hinting at the intricate systems hidden beneath.
For all its beauty, it was not a model she recognized from the market. Five years had passed since she last took a serious look at dreamscape tech; in that time, newer models had rolled out, and older ones had vanished into the darker corners of the web. Even among those discontinued models, however, there had never been anything quite like this one. Her brother's pod had never been for sale. It had been a limited edition, created by none other than Saint Thane himself.
"Please be careful," Cain said quietly. "It was a gift from a friend."
Elizabeth's lips curled. "Oh, you mean your best friend. The one who made this exact dreamscape unit."
He straightened, pride pushing through his unease. "Yeah. He designed this one just for me. Please don't even leave a scratch on it."
Elizabeth stepped closer and rapped her knuckles lightly against the glass canopy. "Relax. I'm only going to use it once. I just need a place to get a feel for my abilities, and there's nowhere better than here." With each tap of her knuckles, Cain's expression grew a shade paler.
"Okay…"he muttered. "It's not like I can stop you anyway."
Then he faded, leaving her alone with the silent pod. Elizabeth blinked and shook her head in amusement, then exhaled, and opened the canopy. She undressed, folded her clothes with automatic care, and set them aside before climbing into the cradle. The pod responded at once, the lid descending with a soft hiss, a low hum rising around her as the spell-tech systems woke. A prompt appeared in the air before her eyes, letters made of pale, shimmering light.
"Enter Dreamscape?"
"Yes" / "No"
She stared at the words. She had followed Dreamscape content for years; after all, when one had as much free time as she did, when she wasn't training, sleeping, or occasionally attending the academy, she had spent it watching her favorite content creators. She watched duels, had memorized elite dualist names, and stayed up late one time to catch a live tournaments. Part of her had always wanted to step into that world herself, to fight in those luminous arenas and feel the roar of a distant crowd. But the un-awakened version avalable for the mundane had never offered such battles. Now that she was a sleeper the dreamscape was available to her. sadly she didn't feel like trying it out now.
"No," she said. "Activate training mode."
"Understood. Proceeding…"
The words around her dissolved. A few seconds later, the edges of her vision dimmed, sliding inward until the world went black.
'Gods… now that I've actually been in a nightmare, it really is almost the same.'
When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in a featureless white expanse that stretched in every direction. The ground was smooth, and the horizon had become hazy as it filled with fog.
"Background selection," she said.
At once, countless images bloomed into existence around her, form volcanic calderas filled with magma, frozen tundras under stormy skies, dense jungles choking with mist, ruined cities half-swallowed by sand. She studied them in silence before reaching out toward one.
"Background selected: Beach."
The white void rippled like disturbed water as color flooded in. The ground under her feet shifted, grains of sand rising from nothing until she was standing on a sunlit shore. Waves rolled in and broke with a rhythmic roar, their foam glinting under a soft blue sky, while a few birds wheeled overhead, crying as they passed. Warmth, a salty scent, and a gentle breeze wrapped around her or the closest facsimile the dreamscape system could provide.
She drew in a deep breath as a surge of power flooded her limbs, her aspect reacting to the sky and sea, enhancing her physical state.
'No wonder everyone loves this background.'
The beaches in the real world no longer looked like this. The birds she heard now were mostly gone, and the shorelines she knew were scarred, and guarded, they no longer felt as welcoming as the scene before her. This scene was a preserved memory, an idealized echo of something the world had largely lost long before the spell. When the rush of strength finally settled, she forced her attention back to the task at hand.
'Okay. Training.'
She summoned her runes. Translucent symbols appeared in the air before her, orbiting slowly as she absently stretched her shoulders and rolled her neck. Then she froze.
"Huh… since when do I have an extra attribute?" She narrowed her eyes. "Two, actually…"
She didn't remember the spell announcing any changes. Focusing on the unfamiliar runes, she called up their details.
[Star Lighter]
Attribute Description: "You have inherited the True Lineage of Storm God. Your soul, flesh, blood, bone, spirit, mind, and shadow have all been remade."
'I… inherited the lineage of the Storm God?'
She stared at the runes, genuinely taken aback. So that's what the memory she'd consumed had done. It hadn't just empowered her, it had rewritten her from the inside out, reshaping her very being to make room for that divine lineage.
'No wonder it hurt like hell.'
Still the House of Night were supposed to be the sole inheritors of that line, everyone knew that. She was not related to any of them, and before consuming the memory, she certainly hadn't carried this attribute.
'It has to be the memory I consumed. Just how many more surprised could it show me in a single day?'
It was a tremendous boon, an unexpected gift dropped into her lap. She had heard that the great clans were powerful because of the lineage they had received from the Spell. She wasn't exactly sure how that lineage worked or what it did, since they kept it a secret from outsiders.
However, this gift put her in a troublesome position. If anyone discovered that she bore a lineage reserved for one of the great Houses, she had no idea what sort of reaction it would provoke. She really did not want to offend her future sponsor anytime soon.
'Great, Another secret to keep.'
She let out a slow breath. There was no point in complaining now. She had chosen to consume that memory; whatever came next, she would live with it.
She turned her attention to the final new Attribute.
[Flame of Divinity]
Attribute Description: "Your soul is a flame with the light of divinity."
'…That's a good thing. Right?'
It sounded impressive, at least. She had no idea what "divinity" actually did when it was lodged in a soul, but if her essence really burned with it and nothing bad was happening to her, she was willing to assume it was better than having nothing.
She dismissed the runes, feeling the luminous symbols dissolve into the warm beach air. Then she set her feet in the sand, squared her shoulders, and prepared to train.