I purchased the Feat and watched Karma churn. VIII was the highest Valence I could recall Aelryinth Burning, so this was not unfamiliar. The additional Ring of Valences popped in around my shells of five Valences and +2 Core, and then promptly ignited.

Magic flowed into me from all around as I dropped to the ground in Meditation. The Elemental nature of it didn’t matter, igniting as it came inside into Arcane energy, and incidentally totally concealing my presence otherwise, since none escaped.

My Core and five Valences increased in size, potency, strength, and flexibility as they grew to +3. I made a mental note that I needed to take those two post-Ten Classes I’d been informed of in that Sending, the Archmage and Hierophants, for the Spell Power and Spell Potency advantages, because my Valences were about to become very strong!

It took a full hour for the incoming Mana and upgrading to finish, which was about par for the course. It helped that I could Concentrate with a lot of thoughtstreams, and had the Spellcraft to make it a trivial task. Additional VIII bonus Slots from my Stats were dumped into my Spell Pool now that the Ring had been opened and Burned, available for use as basically Spell Points.

But now I had another bonus Feat to use, as Burning a Ring earned a Feat.

Improved Spell Capacity to IX! BURN IT!

A cultivator might say I was blowing up my foundation and making it unstable. My foundation was so damn solid it was severely behind my potential at this point. What I was doing was basically trivial, finally playing catch-up to my own ability.

---

Improved Spell Capacity to X! BURN IT!

I didn’t know what was going to happen here. The IX Burn had gone exactly as I’d expected, and now my Valences were all at +4, with four Levels of free Metas to be applied... which was incredibly powerful from a real standpoint.

However, at this point the real power was not in the extra Raising, it was in having ever more spells on hand. Raising my Valences didn’t grant me any more Spells Known or Spell Engrams ‘on hand’. It gave me a ton of bonus points into my Spell Pool as bonuses for high Stats materialized, the main use of the Mana coming in being to expand that Spell Pool into the hundreds now, the benefits of three post-30 Stats on both the Prepared and Spontaneous side being made manifest.

But... did that really mean I was going to have +5 Valences, rising all the way to +8? Eternal-class magic should be a step different from mortal, even with the wonky Manafield here...

I watched and waited as the newest Ring, which would have been the first post-Twenty Ring on a normal Caster, Burned... but it didn’t vanish, and it didn’t pour into my Core and Matrix, instead refining itself down and around my other five Rings, and thus establishing a new sixth Ring.

The new Eternal Ring had exactly one default Spell Engram, and one default Spell Slot. Everything else was bonuses from Stats.

Would this actually take a Valence VI spell? I didn’t know, because I didn’t know any VI spells... but Exemplar Surge meant I would know the answer very shortly. I knew OF a lot of VI spells, many of which were merely improved versions of lower Valence spells, basically Raised, made more complex, and stuffed into a higher Slot.

Either it would fit VI’s +4, or it would fit true Efficient Metamagicked versions of lower-Valence spells. Either was fine, although the former included the latter, so it was the better choice.

My Spell Pool seemed tied to the lower Valences, not the new one. So, I wouldn’t be able to spend from it to Cast these new Valences... which was fine.

I watched the energies swirl, but they didn’t permeate into the Raised Shell of Valences there, instead coalescing into a completely new one capable of holding higher-order energies, and something clicking off to the side, which I understood to be some Epic Masteries opening up for me to start using.

Starpoints and helices of a Matrix swirled into view, one default empty Spell Engram Slot, and five bonus ones, all filling up with energy waiting to be allocated, while six bonus Spell Slots with no Rune Engrams to go with them wheeled in arcs and spirals through all of them.

No automatic Spells Known at this level was part of the Feat, I could just Raise lower Valences into them if needed... but nothing said I couldn’t take Legendary Extra Spell Known and start dropping some permanent spells into those Slots!

I would never have as many Slots as someone with actual Valences up to Nine, but I didn’t care. Now I just needed to test something.

Exemplar Surge to the new VI+4 Valence! Surge for Legendary Extra Spells Known Feat! Look for Move Earth and Disintegrate!

I waited calmly as the magic swirled out, touched the Akasha here... and the one I was connected to, where, because of Celestial contacts, those spells were definitely present...

My breath hissed out as the spells materialized as Rune Engrams, and Zeben gleefully Wrote them into himself.

Okay, they would take new and different spells! That was going to be exceptionally useful, vs. just extra Meta’d spells...

I had new Favored Class spells I could assign for all Classes as I took them. That was absolutely perfect, broadening my repertoire. More Spells Known, too...

Good, good, so good...

I should’ve taken some me-time like this sooner. Now I knew. Now...

It was going to take me days to fill all the new Slots waiting open there, gleaming with readiness. All I could do for today was fill them with extra Meta’d, Raised Spells, and have fun with that.

I had a bunch of Classes to get to Seven and Eight yet. I had a bunch of Masteries to fill, now at the level of Eternals. I started spinning out the spreadsheet on what I wanted and needed to take.

Unlike the lower Valence Burns, the Legendary version didn’t give itself a Feat and so was not ‘free’. I could go all the way up to XIII or (IX+4) right now, plus there were a bunch of other Feats for me to take. I definitely was not going to be left with nothing to do.

My /7’s and /8’s were going to be a major power-up time.

Damn, this world was so broken.

I looked inside at my Galaxy, and the cracks running through all around it, seething and trembling at my Sixth Valence, now resonating with post-Sage power.

I could probably push it, and it would probably break.

Another time.

I slotted Move Earth and Disintegration into my new Wizard Slots. Compared to Magery effects, they were perfect, rigid templates, idealized versions of spells tasked to do things. Any Earth Mage could move the ground around, but it was just a side-effect of their Earth Magic. They didn’t actually have spells whose sole purpose was just to move the ground around!

Disintegration, now, there were no spells that literally took something apart at the molecular level. It was really going to surprise someone if I ever had to use it.

Or, you know, dispose of toxic waste or something. A disintegrator waste dump would be a decent money maker, maybe...

-------------

The massive paw, nearly as tall as I was, came down right in front of me, folding out of the icy wall in this canyon.

No accident. A whoosh of icy Mana swept over me and coated me in magic, effectively stripping my Invisibility away.

I imagined the Great Ruler of a Cold Drake was a little surprised when the icefires puffed up, and it felt the Aura of an Elemental Cold creature.

I drifted back, Wraithform active and making me only partially solid at the moment. Snow and ice filtered right through and around me, and I definitely didn’t exude anything so crass as a Human Aura. Perish the thought!

However, Archmage-tier Cold I definitely had, making me a lesser peer of this Drake, in a completely separate direction.

The massive draconian head, frill tight, only stubs of horns that were more like spikes, white half-crystalline plates for skin, lowered down to get a better look at me point-blank, noting the way the wind and blowing snow went right through me, and I looked like I was wearing a white cloak over almost emptiness.

I drifted back and forth, spinning around in a circle or two under the Ice Drake’s inspection, as if confused and not knowing what to do.

Then I held out robed sleeves, the shadows of hands glimmering, and Ice Magic glittered as a big crystalline bowl rose up out of the ground.

With a hissing poof, a Cold Vivic Eternal Flame of pure whiteness popped up in the bowl.

The sapphire-eyed Drake blinked in surprise as I bent forward, looking like I was inhaling, and then drifted all the way around the bowl twice, before flitting off to the side and past the Drake, making no sound or even acknowledgement it was there, literally blowing around and past it.

It turned its head to follow me, inhaling once as it almost moved its tail to stop me, and paused.

It turned its head back and looked down at the icy bowl in front of it. Lowering its muzzle, it stuck it just above the icy white fires and inhaled slowly and carefully.

Pure, absolutely pure. Not a single hint of Dark Mana at all...

The Ice Drake looked after the Elemental creature flitting away on the wind once, before putting its head back down to inhale again, then moving to seat itself there in the canyon. It breathed in once, twice, laying its head down on its claws to rest.

A wandering Elemental like that, no threat. Getting a lungful of the cleanest Mana it had tasted since the Dark Mana first manifested here, much more important!

---

With that watchdog out of the way, I followed the wind up to the high mountain valley where Ice Phoenix Emperor had Her nest.

It wasn’t hard to find, as the entire mountainside above it was carved into a two-thousand-foot-high statue of a Phoenix. I paused to regard it, and smiled despite myself.

It was made of Elemental Ice, but that was Fire Phoenix Emperor! I knew the lines and lay of His feathers, and I was absolutely sure that during the summer, when the sunlight ran through the ice there, that the statue would be swimming in all the hues of Fire, letting all who gazed upon it know where Her loyalties lay!

Fire Phoenix had a similar statue near His nest, wrought of stone of whites and pale blues and greens, melded together into an image of His mate, gathered from who knew where and displaying to all that He had not forgotten His mate, either, and never would!

Getting up to Her nest would be somewhat more difficult, but that was fine. It was why I was here.

There was a watcher under the ice here, seemingly sleeping, but quiet Awareness blanketed the valley, watching over anything that might seek to visit Her.

An Emperor of some kind. Probably a Glacial Wurm...