I Can Assimilate Everything

There exists a peculiar intoxication that comes not from substance but from substance improvement…the high of getting higher, the rush of becoming more.

Consider the gym enthusiast who begins lifting weights to become stronger, but soon finds themselves addicted not to strength but to the feeling of gaining strength!

The number on the bar matters less than the fact that it's bigger than yesterday's number.

They chase the sensation of progress itself, that dopamine hit of achievement that makes all other pleasures seem pale by comparison.

This phenomenon scales remarkably well. The merchant who makes their first profit soon cares less about money than about making more money than last quarter.

The scholar who learns their first language immediately begins studying a second, not from need but from need to feel that expansion of capability.

Existence, it seems, has programmed consciousness to crave not just improvement but the sensation of improving.

Some philosophers argue this is evolution's cruel joke…making beings addicted to advancement in existence where advancement is infinite, ensuring they'll never be satisfied.

Others suggest it's nature's kindness, giving conscious beings a source of joy that can never be exhausted.

Achilles…was currently enjoying this sense of advancement in a way that others could not even imagine- not because his gains were greater (though they were), but because he could experience them on multiple levels simultaneously, each feeding into the others in a recursive loop of improvement that would have short-circuited a normal consciousness!

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After sending multiple Constellation Dream Bodies down into the Star Seas like seeds of narrative revolution, Achilles remained in that unique state where existence had revealed its true nature to him.

His form as the Liberating Assimilator, a massive stellar humanoid butterfly entity, floated in the space between spaces, observing the vast Star Seas with perception that transcended mere sight.

In this form, with eyes closed to better feel the universe's fundamental structures, the Weavings of Quantum, Inevitable Entropy, and Spatial Tension continued flowing into his body from all surrounding existence.

The sensation was like drinking wonder, eating physics, breathing the very laws that held reality together.

Each particle of assimilated Regulation brought power and understanding, capability and communion with forces that predated matter itself!

The euphoria he felt transcended physical pleasure or emotional satisfaction. This was existential euphoria…the joy of becoming more fundamentally real, more essentially connected to the architecture of existence.

With each passing moment, he could feel himself advancing through stages that should have taken millennia, his unique nature allowing him to digest concepts that would have destroyed lesser beings.

In all three Regulations, he had now attained the Fifth Echelon of Assimilation.

The power he already wielded felt grander with each advancement, and with this new Echelon came new capabilities:

|Quantum Regulation - New Ability Unlocked: Probability Cascade|

|You can now initiate chain reactions in quantum probability that ripple outward from any point you choose. A single quantum event- an electron's spin, a photon's path, becomes the first domino in a sequence you design. Each subsequent probability collapse influences the next, creating cascading effects that can reshape reality at the macro scale through accumulated micro changes. A butterfly's wing that actually does cause hurricanes, but only the hurricanes you intend.|

|Spatial Tension Regulation - New Ability Unlocked: Dimensional Folding|

|Space is not merely distance but dimension itself. You can now fold higher dimensions through lower ones, creating pockets where different physical laws apply. Hide armies in the space between heartbeats, store energy in dimensions that don't technically exist, or create zones where cause and effect operate on different timelines. The universe becomes foldable paper, and you know where all the creases should go.|

|Inevitable Entropy Regulation - New Ability Unlocked: Entropy Reversal Pools|

|While entropy must always increase in the total system, you can now create localized pools where entropy flows backward. Designate areas where things become more ordered over time, where energy concentrates rather than disperses, where the broken spontaneously repairs. These pools must be balanced by increased entropy elsewhere, but you choose where that elsewhere is…perhaps in your enemies' defensive structures, perhaps in their very atoms.|

…!

Oh!

Achilles absorbed the details of these abilities with the satisfaction of a collector completing particularly rare sets.

Each one built upon previous capabilities, creating synergies that multiplied rather than merely added to his power.

Probability Cascade could direct the outcomes of previous abilities. Entropy Reversal Pools could preserve the integrity of folded space indefinitely. The combination of all could create effects that would seem like pure magic even to beings who commanded stellar forces.

His contemplation was interrupted by movement in his vast perception.

He blinked- an action that took place across dimensions, and turned his gaze downward toward the Sea of Thalassara.

Multiple Constellation Dream Bodies were proceeding smoothly with their various missions.

The Body with his father and Rose was currently gazing toward the far distance where a vessel could be seen crossing toward the Sea of Thalassara.

Its design was distinctive…not the infinity symbol of General Lydia's previous ship but something more traditional, a sphere of crystallized authority that proclaimed its passenger's importance without need for ostentation.

On it should be General Lydia and a Chancellor of the Infinite Radiance Sovereignty.

Achilles felt no sense of threat from them. His evolved perception read their narrative weights like scanning identification cards. The Chancellor registered as a Tier 5 Existence in the Null Scale of Existence…powerful by conventional standards, peer to what Vel'Khari'Zan commanded, but no more threatening to current Achilles than a candle flame to an ocean.

The meeting that was about to occur would be interesting not because of power dynamics but because of narrative potential.

A Chancellor meeting a supposedly dead Emperor King, all while the Ninth Emperor King existed in states that transcended their understanding…the story wrote itself, and Achilles could already feel the Existential Authority of Fables beginning to accumulate from the dramatic tension.

He was becoming what he had assimilated, the Existential Authority of Fables itself as this sensation he felt was truly intoxicating!

The addiction to ascension…had found its perfect host!