The morning light was gentle.
Too gentle, Shane thought, for the way the room felt.
It slipped through the drawn curtains in pale strips and settled across the floor in a way that should have felt calm, ordinary, almost soft. But it did nothing to quiet the pressure he had woken with. The sensation sat just beyond sight—a low, constant awareness that he was being observed.
Not hunted.
Not exactly threatened.
Observed.
It was the same feeling he had known in the woods long before any of this had language. Long before Celestial Blueprints, Apex Negativa, Odin, or Veritas Alpha. Long before he understood that the world had layers to it.
Back then, it had just been him and Duke under the trees, with the hairs on the back of his neck rising for reasons he could not explain.
Duke was not here now.
But the pressure was.
Shane lay still for a few seconds under the sheets, staring at the ceiling.
"Morning to you too," he muttered.
No answer came.
Of course not.
If Olaf was right—and Shane was starting to believe Olaf was right about far too many things—then this was one of the Norns. Or at least the attention of one. Not hostile. Not warm either. Just the cold scrutiny of something that existed outside ordinary emotional framing.
Since Olaf's explanation of the Norns and time itself, Shane had not been able to shake the idea that they knew everything he had asked, everything he had feared, and every direction his path might take from here.
If they governed time, then the conversation he and Olaf had the day before—about the quest, about time travel, about who controlled it—would already be old news to them before he even finished speaking it.
That thought should have been unsettling.
Instead, it felt almost practical.
Like realizing your boss had already read the report before the meeting.
He exhaled through his nose and rolled out of bed.
His morning rituals helped.
Not because they made the pressure go away.
But because they reminded him he was still Shane.
Still a man who measured coffee grounds carefully because too much ruined the taste.
Still a man who preferred coconut in the morning because it cut the bitterness.
Still a man who put his boots on the same way every day and checked his truck before he drove.
He made the coffee.
Measured it exactly.
Poured the first cup.
Drank half standing at the counter while looking out at the early light.
By the time the second cup went into the thermos, he had settled enough to think clearly again.
The pressure remained.
Watching.
Shane picked up the thermos and headed out.
⸻
The cab of the Albright Roofing truck felt like home.
The seat had the familiar give. The dashboard had a faint dusting of dry grit from jobsite traffic. The wheel carried a small groove under his right palm where his hand naturally settled.
For a second, he just sat there.
Breathing.
The world outside was waking up. People walking to cars. Somebody jogging with headphones in. A woman dragging a trash bin toward the curb. Completely normal.
Which made the other stuff feel more surreal.
He started the engine and took a sip from the thermos.
Then, because paranoia had become a survival skill and not a pathology, he toggled the system.
The interface shimmered into view.
Immediately he noticed the change.
The familiar HP bar was still there.
So was the mana structure, though it felt… secondary now. Less central. Almost old-fashioned. Running beside the HP bar was something new, glowing with more gravity than anything else on the display:
Celestial Power: 5/100
Shane stared at it.
"Well," he said quietly, "that's new."
He clicked deeper.
The structure of the interface had changed again.
The familiar Skills tab remained where it had always been. But now there was another designation overarching the whole thing.
Master Tab
That sounded important enough to be annoying.
He tapped it.
The first entry appeared.
Celestial Magic #1
Access Denied.
Not a high enough knowledge level.
"Good," Shane muttered. "Love mystery boxes."
He clicked the next.
Celestial Magic #2
Access Denied.
Then three.
Then four.
Then five.
All denied.
When he reached the sixth, however, the tab finally opened.
Celestial Power - Time Travel
He tapped it.
The description updated into a much cleaner, clearer format than before.
Level 2 – Manipulate time forward or backward 2 minutes.
Limited to 1 use every 3 days.
He let that sit in his mind for a moment.
Two minutes.
That was not a little thing.
That was the difference between a near miss and a death.
The difference between seeing something happen and being able to stop it.
He swallowed.
Then he checked the other skills.
Super Speed.
Super Strength.
Foresight.
Copy.
All still there.
Still under the old structure, but clearly affected by the broader evolution. Time Travel, though, had moved categories entirely. It no longer felt like a borrowed trick. It felt like part of a deeper architecture the system had only just begun revealing to him.
He leaned back in the seat and stared at the screen for another moment.
He wasn't just leveling anymore.
He was crossing thresholds.
And that was either very good or very bad.
Probably both.
He shut the interface down as he turned into HQ.
⸻
Ben's office looked like two parts media lab, one part construction logistics center, and one part controlled disaster.
Shane stood in the doorway and watched Ben juggle a camera battery, a laptop, two memory cards, and a piece of paper covered in notes. He was muttering under his breath in the way he always did when his brain was moving faster than his hands.
"Morning," Shane said.
Ben looked up immediately.
"Oh. Hey."
Shane leaned against the doorframe.
"How's fantasy football going?"
Ben paused, then pointed a battery at him.
"That is such a weird sentence to hear from a guy who just became half-divine or whatever."
Shane shrugged.
"Still matters."
Ben grinned and set the battery down.
"Last week we finished in the top fifty."
Shane raised an eyebrow.
"That's good."
"Won twenty-five hundred."
Ben leaned back in his chair.
"I'm starting to think maybe not getting first is actually better."
Shane laughed once.
"Too much attention?"
Ben nodded.
"Exactly. A nice win is one thing. A giant win starts making people ask questions."
Shane took a sip of coffee.
"It's fine either way. This isn't guaranteed money. It's more about helping you see the flow."
Ben nodded.
"I get that now."
He tapped the side of his head.
"The system actually helps. Not in a cheat-code way. More like… I see trends cleaner. Group movement. Risk clusters. Where people are overconfident."
Shane smiled.
"That's the point."
Ben narrowed his eyes.
"You say that like you planned all this."
"I absolutely did not."
That got a laugh.
Shane's expression softened a little.
"How are Saul and Emma adjusting?"
Ben's face brightened.
"Pretty well, actually."
He turned the laptop slightly and clicked into a scheduling document.
"Saul is doing Saul things. Which means he's already organizing everybody else's life whether they asked him to or not."
Shane snorted.
"That tracks."
"And Emma," Ben continued, "is doing a children's reading and drawing hour at one of the nearby orphanages."
Shane straightened a little.
"Already?"
"Yeah," Ben said. "Books, drawing supplies, all of it. Company funded."
He smiled.
"She was excited. Saul tried to act like he wasn't emotional about it, but he definitely was."
Shane nodded.
"Good."
Ben looked up at him.
"I think they're happy they came here."
"That helps."
Shane pushed away from the doorframe.
"Have you seen Silas?"
Ben pointed toward the annex offices.
"With Cory. Trying to solve immigration paperwork and the downfall of civilization at the same time."
"Sounds right."
"Hey, Shane?"
Shane paused.
"Yeah?"
Ben hesitated.
Then smiled slightly.
"You're doing good."
The statement caught him off guard enough that he just nodded once.
"Thanks, Ben."
⸻
Silas looked grim when Shane found him.
Not panicked.
Not overwhelmed.
Just grim in the way a man looked when reality kept confirming his worst suspicions.
He sat with a tablet in front of him, elbows on knees, one hand over his mouth.
Cory was nearby on the phone, speaking in a measured professional tone that somehow made every problem sound both urgent and manageable at the same time.
Shane stepped in.
"Silas."
Silas looked up immediately.
"Boss."
Shane nodded toward the tablet.
"What are you seeing?"
Silas exhaled and set the tablet down.
"The immigrant communities are changing."
"How?"
Silas leaned back and looked tired in a way he usually hid well.
"There's a dark element moving through them."
Shane didn't interrupt.
Silas continued.
"Not everybody. But enough. Men coming in with no intention of building anything. They don't want work. They don't want legal footing. They want chaos."
Shane's jaw tightened.
Silas looked him directly in the eye.
"Some of the people we could've reached already got to them first."
A few beats of silence passed.
Then Shane asked, "Do you think they're AN-touched?"
Silas nodded slowly.
"Yes."
He spoke more quietly after that.
"These people are spreading self-destruction. Drugs. Crime. Fear. They prey on the ones who are scared or isolated. Convince them there's no point trying to become legal, no point trying to build anything, no point trusting people like us."
Shane rubbed his jaw.
"Any ideas?"
Silas gave a humorless laugh.
"Yeah. Scale."
Shane raised an eyebrow.
Silas gestured toward the broader office, toward all of HQ, toward the whole damn company.
"What we're doing helps. Jobs help. Legal pathways help. Training helps. But we need it bigger. We need enough infrastructure that people run into us before they run into them."
That was the answer Shane expected.
And hated.
Because it was true.
Silas added, quieter now, "We are helping. I want you to know that."
Shane nodded.
"I do."
"It's just…" Silas trailed off, then shook his head. "I wish it moved faster."
Shane looked at him for a long second.
"So do I."
That was all he could honestly say.
⸻
Across the administrative side of HQ, the atmosphere inside the conference room had shifted from hopeful to exhausted.
Gary was leaning forward in his chair trying very hard not to say something rude.
Amanda looked like she was one bad answer away from walking out.
Three political strategists sat across from them with the brittle confidence of people who had spent too long believing the two-party system was not just normal but mathematically inevitable.
Cory had invited them.
He was already regretting it.
Gary was in the middle of explaining Shane's position.
"He doesn't think one side is always right," Gary said, trying to keep his voice even. "Actually he thinks both sides get a lot wrong. He thinks there are a few good points from each, but most of the noise is just people yelling at each other while regular folks get ignored."
One of the consultants, a woman in an expensive navy blazer, made a thin smile.
"Mr. Albright will need to understand that idealism polls terribly."
Amanda's eyes narrowed.
"It's not idealism," she said. "It's honesty."
A second strategist, older and smug in the way men got when they mistook cynicism for wisdom, folded his hands.
"With respect, voters need a frame they already understand."
Gary looked at him.
"That frame is the problem."
The man smiled like Gary had said something charming and unsophisticated.
Shane walked in just then.
"Gary," he said, "nicely said."
Every head turned.
Shane stepped into the room and took in the entire situation in one glance.
Amanda's irritation.
Gary's restraint.
Cory's regret.
The consultants' polished dismissal.
Shane folded his arms.
"I think we need help from outside the political world," he said.
One of the strategists blinked.
"Excuse me?"
Shane looked at him calmly.
"You're too far gone."
The room went quiet.
Cory coughed into his hand to hide a laugh.
The woman in navy straightened in her chair.
"We are professionals."
"I'm sure you are," Shane replied. "You're also trapped."
He pointed between them.
"All three of you keep trying to figure out whether I should run red or blue. You can't even imagine a structure outside of that."
The older man stiffened.
"That's not how politics works."
Shane smiled slightly.
"No. That's how your politics works."
Amanda leaned back in her chair with visible satisfaction.
Gary muttered, "Here we go," under his breath.
Shane addressed the room.
"I'm not running to fit your machine. I'm running because the machine is broken."
He looked toward Cory.
"We need agents, promoters, campaign managers, media people—folks who aren't hardwired into red-blue survival logic."
Cory nodded immediately.
"That I can do."
The consultants looked offended.
Amanda stood.
"I think we're done here."
They were.
⸻
At Olaf's training facility, the energy was entirely different.
No fluorescent fatigue. No bureaucracy. No trapped frustration.
Just motion.
Controlled violence.
Preparation.
Olaf stood across from Hugo in the practice area, hands on hips, watching the former fighter work combinations with mechanical precision.
Hugo was different now.
Less inflated. Less performative. Still dangerous, but grounded in a way he had not been as El Toro. The borrowed bravado was gone. What remained was work ethic, skill, and a very real awareness of what happened to men who sold pieces of themselves for power.
Olaf tossed him a towel.
"We need to finalize fight plans," he said.
Hugo caught it and draped it around his neck.
Olaf studied him.
"Will you fight as El Toro?"
Hugo gave a short laugh.
"No."
He wiped his face.
"The bull is dead."
The words sat between them for a moment.
Then Hugo looked up and said it again, more firmly.
"I'm just Hugo Fernandez now."
Olaf grinned.
"Good."
There was real approval in his voice.
Hugo sat down on the edge of the cage platform and drank from a water bottle.
"So who am I getting?"
"Jason Bowen," Olaf said. "Third-ranked heavyweight. Wrestler."
Hugo made a face.
"Could be worse."
"It often is," Olaf replied.
That got a laugh.
Then Hugo asked the question he had clearly been waiting to ask.
"And Shane?"
Olaf's expression shifted slightly.
"Zabit Askarov."
Hugo whistled.
"Dagestani?"
Olaf nodded.
"Up-and-coming light heavyweight. Third professional fight."
Hugo leaned back.
"That's not an easy tune-up."
"It is not meant to be."
Hugo smiled a little.
"Why him?"
Olaf crossed his arms.
"His circle is mostly family. That makes it harder for AN to infiltrate."
"Harder," Hugo repeated. "Not impossible."
"No," Olaf said. "Not impossible."
He let that sit there.
"This event will be large. Outside. At the capital city. Public. Symbolic."
Hugo nodded.
"And Shane announces after."
"Yes."
Hugo stared at the mat for a second, then laughed softly.
"I still don't see him losing."
Olaf looked over at him.
"No?"
Hugo shook his head.
"Even when he doesn't use his system stuff, he's unreal. In sparring with him, it's like the guy already knows what style you're in before you settle into it."
He smiled.
"It's like he downloaded every martial art ever invented."
Olaf's eyes warmed with amusement.
"Shane is… special."
That answer was too measured to be casual.
Hugo caught it.
But did not press.
Instead he said, "I'm more interested in Jessalyn."
Olaf chuckled.
"Of course you are."
Hugo grinned shamelessly.
"No, I mean it. I hope she's Freya. We could use her."
Olaf's expression turned thoughtful.
"So do I."
Then, more quietly:
"I have a feeling Apex Negativa is preparing to hit us either just before, during, or after the event."
Hugo's smile faded.
"Not street thugs this time."
"No," Olaf said. "Not this time."
He looked toward the far end of the gym as if watching a storm no one else could yet see.
"We need to be ready."
⸻
Veritas Alpha, under the skin of Johnny John, had no time for rest.
He moved through digital reports, flagged identities, location lists, and emotional pattern scans with relentless patience. Reservations. Orphanages. Foster homes. Community centers. Quiet women with impossible emotional steadiness. Mothers who weren't mothers. Teachers whose presence calmed rooms too thoroughly. Volunteers who somehow drew broken children toward them.
Nothing definite.
Only echoes.
He had been searching for Frigg for too long to trust easy instincts now.
Ben's "Woman of the Year" campaign had helped. It was clever enough to seem ordinary and generous enough to draw broad participation. Albright Roofing and Berserker Fighting Club sponsoring a new SUV and a vacation package had given the campaign enough visibility to spread.
But the second move mattered more.
He had Ben post the message.
Simple.
Strange.
Achingly personal.
To my Beloved Dear,
Please meet me on Friday
and bring Eski.
— Hrafnáss
The internet had done what it always did.
It took the message and mythologized it.
Some thought it was marketing.
Some thought it was a lost-lovers campaign.
Some thought it was art.
Some thought it was heartbreaking.
VA didn't care what they called it.
He cared whether the right woman would feel it.
Somewhere.
And whether the old ache of a name and a request might cut through the noise long enough to stir memory.
He reviewed another set of responses.
Nothing definitive yet.
But the lines were moving.
He could feel it.
And that, in this kind of search, was sometimes enough.
********************
"If you enjoyed Shane's journey, please drop a Power Stone! It helps the Common Sense Party grow!"