The Extra's Rise - Chapter 978

978: Two Halves of a Truth 978: Two Halves of a Truth The door opened into a room divided.

The left half was fashioned from a stone so black it seemed to drink the light, while the right half was made of a pale, white material that emitted a soft, internal glow.

The air itself felt bisected-the left side was cool and carried a scent of deep earth and quiet, while the right was warm and smelled of ozone and possibility.

There was no visible barrier, just a clean, sharp line down the exact center of the chamber where the two halves met.

“Well,” Valeria said from the quiet of my mind, “this is unsubtle.” I stepped inside, and the door closed behind me.

The room was filled with a slow, drifting galaxy of tiny lights.

Motes of energy, thousands of them, floated in the air like lazy dust.

Half were points of brilliant, pure white light.

The other half were motes of absolute, hungry darkness.

They drifted on invisible currents, a chaotic, beautiful dance of opposites.

I took another step, and my own movement displaced the air.

A single white mote drifted a fraction too close to a black one.

They touched.

There was no explosion.

Just a sharp snap and a flash of violet light.

A wave of dissonant energy washed over me, making my teeth ache and the hairs on my arm stand on end.

My concentration wavered for a second, and the ribcage-sized bubble of Lucent Harmony I was maintaining flickered.

“Right,” I said, holding still.

“I see the lesson.” ‘Annihilation,’ Erebus noted, his voice a dry observation.

‘The consequence of improperly balanced opposition.’ The tower wasn’t going to test my reflexes anymore.

It was going to test my control.

The goal was simple: get to the door on the far side of the room.

The problem was the thousands of tiny, mutually destructive mines floating between here and there.

My first thought was to use Harmony as a shield.

I focused my will, letting the calm field push outward from my body like the bow wave of a ship.

I took a slow, deliberate step.

The motes parted before me, the white ones drifting away from the white side of the room, the black from the black.

It worked, but it was agonizingly slow.

The field was clumsy, a blunt instrument.

Every few feet, a stray mote would get pushed into the wrong current and another violet snap would ring out, a tiny, irritating punishment for my lack of finesse.

“This will take a week,” I muttered, sweat beading on my brow.

“We could try a gentle breeze,” Valeria suggested.

I tried.

I wove the smallest, most precise nine-circle wind construct I could manage, a simple spell from the Bahamut Method.

The tower immediately taxed the effort, making the spell feel heavy and sluggish.

The clumsy gust of air I managed to create was a disaster, shoving dozens of light and dark motes together.

A rapid series of violet snaps echoed through the room, a stinging barrage of dissonant energy that made my head spin.

“Okay, no wind,” I gritted out, dismissing the spell.

“The tower doesn’t want me using tools.

It wants me to use my hands.” But how?

I couldn’t touch them.

I couldn’t push them with generic magic.

I had to… I stopped.

The room was divided.

White and black.

Light and dark.

Not just any light and dark.

Purelight and Deepdark.

The two halves of a truth I carried inside me.

The two elements that, when combined, created The Grey.

The tower had taken my most powerful and nuanced ability and broken it down into its constituent parts.

It wanted me to go back to kindergarten.

I stood still for a full minute, breathing.

Four in, six out.

I ignored the drifting motes and focused inward, on the sources of my own power.

I reached for the part of me that understood Purelight, not as a spell or a tool, but as a concept.

As itself.

Then, I extended that understanding outward, not as a wave of force, but as a single, quiet thread of my own light.

I aimed the thread at a single white mote floating a few feet away.

I didn’t try to push it.

I tried to invite it.

‘You and I are the same,’ I thought.

‘Move with me.’ The mote wobbled, then drifted a single, grudging inch to the left, away from a neighboring dark mote.

It was a start.

I tried the same with Deepdark, extending a thread of shadow, a sliver of my will.

A black mote responded, shifting a fraction to the right.

It was harder.

Deepdark was less social.

It didn’t want to be asked.

It wanted to be told, but telling it anything was an expensive act of will.

“So that’s the drill,” I whispered.

I had to become a shepherd for a flock of angry, mutually destructive sheep.

‘Control of constituent elements is a prerequisite for advanced synthesis,’ Erebus commented.

‘This is logical.’ “Logical and tedious,” Valeria sighed.

“At least try to make a pretty pattern.” For the next hour, I did nothing but stand in place and practice.

I learned how to move a single mote without disturbing its neighbors.

I learned that Purelight responded to gentle, harmonious requests, while Deepdark respected a firm, undeniable command.

I learned to weave dozens of threads of will at once, one for each element, a complex and mentally exhausting act of multitasking.

Slowly, a clear lane began to form in front of me.

I wasn’t just pushing the motes away; I was choreographing them, asking the white ones to drift in a slow, clockwise spiral on their side of the room, and commanding the black ones to form a counter-clockwise spiral on theirs.

The space between the two spirals was a clean, empty path.

I took my first step into the lane.

No snaps.

No flashes.

I took another.

The silence held.

My concentration was absolute.

I was juggling a thousand tiny threads of will, conducting a silent orchestra of light and shadow.

Halfway across the room, the tower changed the rules.

The invisible currents in the air shifted.

My neat spirals began to fray at the edges, the motes drifting back toward the center lane.

I had to work faster, my mind racing to send out hundreds of tiny corrections, reinforcing the patterns, keeping the path clear just long enough for my next step.

This was a new kind of swordsmanship.

Not with a blade, but with pure will, cutting lanes of safety through a field of chaos.

Every step was a victory.

Every silent moment was an achievement.

My muscles weren’t tired, but my mind was screaming with the effort.

Finally, my foot touched the stone on the far side of the chamber.

I stood before the closed door and let all the threads of will dissolve.

Behind me, the two spirals collapsed.

The room returned to its beautiful, chaotic dance.

A few motes collided, but the dissonant snaps felt distant now, a problem I had already solved.

I had crossed the room.

I had mastered the fundamentals.

The tower, in its own impersonal way, seemed to agree.

The door before me slid open without a sound.

I stood there for a moment longer, looking back at the swirling field of light and dark.

I had entered the room seeing a trap.

I left it understanding a grammar.

The Grey wasn’t just one thing.

It was two things, held in a perfect, impossible balance.

A balance I had just learned how to conduct.

Valeria’s voice was softer now, tinged with something like respect.

“Okay.

That was almost pretty.” I allowed myself a small smile.

“Just the basics.” Then I stepped through the door, ready for the next lesson.