Prime System Champion [A Multi-System Apocalypse LitRPG]

Three subjective years folded into dust within the deepest containment layer of Syntheia's temporal estate. Outside, back in the sprawling, heavily armed corridors of the cities on Ferra, barely ten days had passed.

For three uninterrupted, grueling years, I mostly ignored physical training other than basics like swinging a blade or working on stamina and endurance.

Instead, I sat in the center of the null-crystal arena, mentally bleeding. I used my internal landscape as a literal canvas, dragging the abstract mechanics of my Soul through the absolute wringer. With the [Symphony of the Animus Arch] finally taking root, the previously violent war inside my chest between the entropic white-gold Flame and the absolute emptiness of the Void began to fundamentally alter its behavior. They stopped fighting for dominance. Under the direction of the Zeroth-Tier connective tissue, they formed an orbit.

And within that stable orbit, I laid the foundation.

"The way you seem to just ignore systemic limits borders on the profane, Eren," Crysanthe noted. "I have never seen anything like it."

She hovered nearby, floating in a meditative lotus position a few inches off the floor. Her dark-violet aura practically purred, having spent the last three years consolidating her own massive reservoir of mana in preparation for her final hurdle.

"I'm just utilizing empty real estate," I replied. "Might as well make use of it."

I wasn't boasting. Sitting deep within my own core was no longer an endless, chaotic void-bag. Over three years, I had rigorously imposed shape onto the nothingness. I utilized my mastery over [Apex Mana Authority] to draft a physical floor plan. I dragged massive chunks of inert spatial-tempered stone inside, compressed them, and anchored them with the life-giving nature of my Phoenix domain. I effectively engineered a sterile, hyper-dense, gravity-locked island entirely within the boundary of my ribs.

I essentially possessed a highly condensed, dormant pocket dimension explicitly tied to my blood. A personal pocket kingdom.

But real estate wasn't the final objective. The grand blueprint required the merging of five deeply ingrained Legendary skills — [Harmonic Void-Catalyst], [Vault of the Void], [Void Walk], [Void Perception] and [Apex Mana Authority] — into a singular, flawless Mythic framework.

It was an equation that constantly threatened to spontaneously delete my spine.

I exhaled, opening my eyes, dismissing the intricate, rotating holographic mandala of spell-weaves I was actively organizing between my palms.

"The theoretical framework holds," I announced, leaning back against the cool crystal. "If I feed all four active nodes directly through the [Harmonic Catalyst], the resonance shifts perfectly. I just need a ridiculous influx of pristine conceptual material to cushion the explosion, otherwise, it might shatter the internal container."

I reached out, opening a mental tether to my primary Echo left behind on Ferra after leaving the Dilation chambers.

"Jeeves," I broadcasted the ping through the dimensional static.

"Signal locked, Master," the polite, crisp response resonated instantly inside my mind. "Ten days have passed here. Have you made any progress?"

"The architecture blueprint for the evolution toward Ascension is almost complete. I just need the stabilizing materials to go for a trial run. How's the collection going?"

"Working entirely to specifications," Jeeves reported smoothly.

I viewed the localized memory packet through the Echo's eyes. Back in Bastion's designated hunting grounds, Zareth was completely soaked in esoteric soot. He was utilizing 'The Bell' continuously, standing before an open, ragged dimensional tear. The Anima Caller wasn't fighting; he was practically operating a cosmic trawler net. He forcefully summoned high Tier 7 Void Beasts into an overlapping containment array designed by Leoric, immediately trapping them so they couldn't fight back, and harvested their hyper-condensed spatial cores intact.

On the other side of the compound, an alarming series of controlled explosions echoed from the primary laboratories.

"Leoric and Eliza have effectively forgone sleep," Jeeves continued dryly. "Leoric mapped a containment furnace out of localized starlight from Zenith schematics, while Madam Eliza managed to cultivate three [Ascendant Reflux] pills without atomizing the facility. They condensed the harvested Beast cores into pure, swallowable kinetic anchors designed explicitly to protect your pathways when you initiate the merger."

"I'll have one of the clones courier the pills through the primary Spire tunnel directly to Crystal City tomorrow," I said. "Try to have it ready for then. And prep the localized medical pods on your end. If my body shuts down inside the chamber, you might receive some tether backlash. Make sure to warn everyone and have them ready next to you in case of emergencies."

I severed the connection and looked across the training field toward Syntheia.

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The ancient goddess was carefully inspecting the edge of my work. Despite the immense theological weight she originally burdened me with, these three years of constant, analytical exposure had softened her fanaticism into something closely resembling profound academic respect. She no longer worshipped the idea of my existence; she worshipped the math I was proving.

"I have finalized the merger parameters for my fifth Mythic," I informed her. "However, I still don't know if hitting five Mythic skills, forcing the systemic criteria required to generate the "Summoning Call" for the Mythic Five is the path forward. I have been thinking about it and I believe the best choice is to proceed before the Integration Crucible. My only question is, if I hit the switch here and now, in this state, will the Prime System try to eject me from your Time Chamber back into Ferra's physical timeline?"

Crys stopped meditating, opening her bright amethyst eyes and dropping her boots softly onto the floor. "The Mythic Five," she muttered, visibly thrilled. "The barrier of Ascendancy. The great crossing. We can go together then from here before you need to go back! It should work right, mom?"

Syntheia walked over, tracing her fingers over a geometric pillar. She considered my question.

"The architects of the System designed the Ascendancy trials not only as physical locations, Eren, but also as localized conceptual audits," Syntheia explained patiently. "It is an inspection of your sovereign right to defy local physics. When you finally align your final Mythic parameter and trigger your Evolution, you do not travel anywhere. The universe simply pauses."

I frowned, crossing my arms. "A pause?"

"You step fully outside the flow of sequential causality," the goddess confirmed. "The trial unfolds entirely inside the static breath separating two heartbeats. Whether you spend an hour facing their judgment or a hundred years struggling within the trial boundary... you will emerge from the challenge inside the precise microsecond you departed. Your world will not lose a fraction of time, nor will you be forcefully relocated to their battlefields. You enter the trial here. You return here."

The sheer logistical relief of that statement was like unfastening an iron corset. My primary fear regarding this soul-surgery was abandoning Ferra's defense directly as the Crucible timer struck ten.

"Instantaneous resolution," I noted with a sharp, approving grin. "I should have asked that first thing, would've made things a lot simpler. The administrators actually got one quality-of-life feature right."

"Have you decided what happens afterward?" Crys asked, pacing around my position, sizing up my physical output. "Five skills merging into one Mythic node creates a colossal vacuum. You're opening up four empty System skill slots, assuming you survive."

"Exactly. It gives me four more open slots to fill," I answered, bringing up my projected System window and looking at the interface that had driven my entire reality for over three years. "I'm intentionally leaving them blank for now. Committing to a rigid path limits reaction. The Cinder Throne acts as a vanguard. When the Crucible kicks off, we face whatever empire hides behind the quarantine veils. Empty slots represent infinite versatility. If I require a hyper-specialized mass manipulation skill during the event, I learn it then. Assuming I don't need the slots to survive the Mythic Five."

I pulled a canteen of processed mountain water from my inner void and drank heavily. My confidence was actively crystalizing, burying the unease that lingered when I first gazed upon Malacor's war-camp.

A Tier 8 like Malacor of the Cinder Throne ruled by throwing colossal, planet-cracking spells fueled by an oceanic reservoir. It was terrifying but blunt.

But with this blueprint? With five core foundational skills weaving tightly with the terrifying concept of Rebirth and absolute deletion, culminating under the guidance of my inner domain? I realized the Cinder Throne wasn't looking at a stubborn, defensive Tier 7 Lord waiting to be ground into dust by their military industry.

They were about to fight someone who inherently manipulated the rulebook of their existence.

"If the trial is successful, and I forge my path upward," I murmured, staring at the raw slate floor, "A Tier 8 like Malacor goes from an apocalyptic threat to just... another loud target." I let the dangerous calculation solidify in my head. "In fact, if the true master of that Demonic empire somehow finds a loophole and sneaks past the systemic barriers protecting the lower-level Integration zones... an actual Godling entering Ferra's territory… with the proper prep-time and a newly synthesized Domain, I'm genuinely positive I could dissect the Ascendant."

Crys blinked. Syntheia offered a tight, acknowledging nod. I wasn't being arrogant. I had completely analyzed the architecture of standard physics, found its load-bearing walls, and wired my soul to break them cleanly.

The quiet stillness of the ancient chamber hung between us, the final plateau reached. I had squeezed every possible theoretical drop of value out of my temporal exile.

"Prepare the medical pod matrices," I commanded evenly.

Syntheia smoothly manifested a heavily glowing, stasis-oriented slab designed to stabilize temporal feedback loops, acting as a physical cradle.

The next day, a package materialized near the Spire link. Three heavily inscribed metal canisters arrived via covert relay, containing Leoric's painstakingly engineered anti-collapse array tools and Eliza's impossibly volatile [Ascendant Reflux] pills glowing with toxic, spatial blues.

I spent six agonizing hours inscribing the stone floor entirely around the pod with physical locking seals mirroring the conceptual locks built into my mind. I couldn't afford my physical body tearing itself apart if the skill synthesis forcefully rebelled during the execution.

"I have fortified the boundary of this entire facility, my Lord," Syntheia spoke from a safe, reinforced observation deck hovering thirty yards away, alongside an intently silent, watchful Crysanthe. "Nothing born of physical force will escape this perimeter."

"I appreciate it, thank you."

I walked into the center of the heavy runes, pulling my heavy outer armor off and leaving just the flexible void-weave undersuit to prevent restriction. I grabbed one of the pills, a heavy, jagged marble of concentrated Void Beast quintessence smelling entirely of burning vacuum.

I rolled it between my fingers, letting my Domain completely retract into an ultra-dense pinpoint inside my ribcage, feeling unnervingly exposed without my protective flame buffering reality.

"We stand at the edge," I whispered to the hungry dark within my chest.

I swallowed the elixir dry.

I immediately brought my palms together, triggering the [Harmonic Catalyst], and brutally forced my five Legendary skills to shatter.