Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

The barrage of messages, combined with the terrible pain Uhtred had just endured, left him a little bit dazed, and frankly out of it.

In a normal scenario, like every other normal person, he probably would’ve been surprised at his new surroundings, and might’ve asked questions or yelled into the void, wanting to know where he was at least.

But all Uhtred did was take in the white space cursorily, before looking back at the screen in front of him as if this was just another everyday occurence. Perhaps it was simply his body and mind’s way of coping with the series of absurd events.

Uhtred focused his attention on the 10,000+ available class options on the screen, and immediately, a whole sprawling list expanded before his view, filled with classes upon classes like some sort of video game.

Not only that. In the moment between when he focused on the list and when it expanded, that 10,000+ figure jumped to 50,000+ right before his eyes, causing him to raise a brow slightly.

What’s this? It keeps increasing?

Uhtred mentally willed the list to scroll, and it complied accordingly, revealing a vast array of various classes.

[Triple Element Mage {Rare}]

[Dual Element Mage {Uncommon}]

[Fire Swordsman {Uncommon}]

[Berserker {Common}]

[Swordsman {Common}]...

This really looks like a game, Uhtred thought, though he knew it definitely wasn’t.

According to the System, the class he chose here would decide what sort of "cosmic essence" he would be able to absorb going forward.

And based on what he was seeing, the tags after each of the classes were like grades. A higher grade class was generally good, wasn’t it?

Right now, Triple Element Mage, the single rare grade class available to him, seemed like the only logical choice. His eyes looked to the bottom, where common grade classes continued to get added to the list in thousands, bringing the total number of available classes now to 100,000+

Those are all useless anyway. Who’d choose a common grade class when a rare grade is available?

Just as Uhtred had this thought, among the many classes being added, he noticed a new one slot in at the top, sitting right above the rare grade Triple Element Mage class.

[Four Element Mage {Epic}]

Huh?

He was just about to finalize his choice and select the Triple Element Mage class, and now a better one appeared?

Shit. There was still a grade above Rare?

Yet that wasn’t the end of it. Within seconds, another class slotted in right above the Epic Grade class.

[Void Walker {Unique}]

There’s even more?! Better just wait it out at this point, Uhtred thought, calming down and waiting patiently for a higher grade class to appear...

But despite his patience, aside from the thousands of common, and a few hundreds of uncommon and rare grade classes, nothing else appeared again.

Is that it? Is Unique the highest grade?

Uhtred could imagine nothing worse than picking Unique now and finding out later that there were even more grades above that. So, even though nothing had appeared for several minutes, he still waited.

Finally, after what felt like an hour, the class Uhtred had been waiting for appeared among the now 5,000,000+ options, seated firmly above the Unique grade:

[Electromagnetic Sovereign {Legendary}]

This is it. This has to be the highest grade. Controlling electromagnetism? How broken is that?!

As a bright student of science himself, he knew that electromagnetism was one of the fundamental forces of the universe. To control it meant he would have access to all the branches and offshoots that fell under its broad umbrella.

He reached for it.

[Warning: Selecting {Electromagnetic Sovereign} will attune your core to the electromagnetic aspects of cosmic essence only. All other cosmic essence aspects will be filtered and discarded. This choice is permane—

Suddenly, the message before him glitched and scrambled, becoming a mess of garbled noise.

What’s going on again?

[Critical Error!]

[System Conflict Detected!]

Uhtred watched as the millions of classes he’d just been scrolling through vanished in an instant. The common ones, the uncommon, the epic... even the [Electromagnetic Sovereign] class he was about to select disappeared along with the others.

What the hell happened? Did I waste too much time? He stared at the empty space, feeling a bitter sense of loss.

Was there a time limit that he’d crossed? He’d spent all that time waiting for the best option, and now it was all gone?

Right as he was wondering what was next, the scrambled text on the screen changed.

[Core attuning process: Interrupted]

[Reason: Incompatibility detected between Subject Core and Class Templates]

[Action: Searching Multiversal Registry for compatible class... 0 matches found]

[Action: Searching Akashic Archive... 0 matches found]

[Warning: No precedent found for Current Core Signature]

[Emergency Override Procedure: Initiate Primordial Template Protocol]

[Primordial Template Protocol: Initiated]

Uhtred felt a strange, heavy vibration in his chest. It was right where the orb had merged with him. It felt like a lead weight was sitting on his heart, pulsing in time with his breathing.

Then, a new prompt appeared. This one didn’t look like the others. The text was a deep black, bordered by a weird gold light that seemed to glow brighter than anything else he’d ever seen.

[Primordial Template Protocol: Complete]

[Class created: Formless]

[Grade: Primordial]

[Description: A class without limits. Your core does not filter cosmic essence, it absorbs all aspects equally. You are not bound to any single affinity, element or discipline. You are free. You are... Formless]

Uhtred stared at the words. His heart was pounding heavily in his chest. He could feel his hair stand on end in a tense anticipation and excitement. Without needing to be told, he knew he’d just hit the jackpot.

His mind flashed briefly to that orb that had seared into his body earlier. Was that linked to why the system wasn’t able to classify his core?

But a part of that orb had come from a fusion of his pendant and the asteroid stuff. That pendant had been from his father.

Uhtred’s thoughts spiraled at breakneck pace. Assumptions. Theories. Questions. But most of all, a general feeling of excitement. Everything was a jumble in his head now.

With a final prompt, the System jarred him back to attention:

[Subject Integration complete]

[Synchronizing timeflow...]

[Timeflow synchronized]

[Congratulations, inhabitants of planet {Earth}, all qualified lifeforms have successfully been integrated and evolved appropriately]

[Planetary expansion, successful]

[Planet {Earth} buffer-period registration, successful]

[T-4 years : 365 days : 23 hours : 59 minutes until full Multiversal Integration]

[Make use of this buffer-period wisely]

[Welcome to the Path of Ascension]

Just as the text faded, the white space around Uhtred shattered like glass.

He didn’t even have time to think before the floor beneath his feet vanished, and he was suddenly in a total freefall.