I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1305: The Forgehouse

Northern stood in the dark lands of the Soul Forge, his gaze lifting to the grey sky that pressed down like a second ceiling above the volcanic terrain.

He had spoken to his classmates. He had spoken to everyone else who mattered. Now he waited for the King’s summons—the moment that would set everything in motion. But before that moment arrived, there were things he needed to do.

He had to pass a command to Bairan. He also wanted to build his palace here in the Soul Forge, though he refused to rush the design. Whatever he built now needed to serve him even when he became an Emperor. Not just serve—it needed to grow with him. A mobile palace. Not a mobile nation, necessarily. That was excessive even by his standards.

But a palace that could settle anywhere within his future domain? That was reasonable. That was practical. Northern simply wanted to be at home wherever he was, and this was entirely possible now that the Soul Forge had become a metaphysical world rather than merely a mental one.

When he entered the Soul Forge now, his physical body didn’t remain behind in reality—it crossed over, unless he specifically chose to leave a vessel there. The distinction mattered more than most would realize.

And the way the Soul Forge worked, aside from having a complete map of the place thanks to Aoi, he also maintained a mental catalog of everything occurring within its boundaries. The information arrived passively, like awareness of his own heartbeat.

For example: his echoes currently numbered around thirteen thousand, including the newly spawned generations. Recursive Generation ran perpetually in the background, though it took time to create new generations from existing stock. The process was slow, methodical, and utterly reliable.

This meant his forms and echoes were constantly evolving. He could absorb echoes to take on their capabilities as forms, but the reverse wasn’t true—echoes couldn’t become him. With Recursive Generation, however, they didn’t need to. They simply became more.

’Never would I have thought I’d go from evolving talents to evolving echoes. And doing it this easily.’

Talent evolution, of course, remained the core of his abilities. That and the copying of talents. Everything else was built on those foundations.

’I wonder if Endless will affect that too. If one day I’ll be able to evolve my talents without limit.’

Northern considered the possibility as he began walking. Nothing seemed impossible anymore. After all, he never would have believed he’d command a legion of thirteen thousand echoes. Yet here he was, and the number kept climbing.

He vanished from where he stood and reappeared at the vast caldera of the volcanic mountain.

The ground beneath his feet glowed a dull, angry red. Heat radiated upward in waves that would have killed an ordinary man in seconds. Steam erupted from fissures at irregular intervals—violent bursts hot enough to reduce flesh to ash. Northern walked through it without concern, pausing occasionally to let a geyser of superheated vapor finish its eruption before continuing past.

He had pulled off his suit jacket before entering the Soul Forge, leaving himself in just the white shirt beneath. The fabric should have been burning. It wasn’t. The Soul Forge recognized him as its master in ways that defied conventional physics.

He rounded the structure of the Forge House and stopped.

The outward construction was complete—no workers remained on the exterior anymore. What rose before him now was something that looked carved from the bones of the world itself.

Northern allowed his gaze to travel upward along the hexagonal structure. Each of the six walls stretched impossibly high, angling inward as they climbed toward a central apex that disappeared into the grey haze above. The material was something between obsidian and solidified void—dark, but without reflection. It absorbed light rather than rejecting it, making the edges blur into the atmosphere at certain angles. The structure seemed less built than grown, as if the volcano had simply decided to produce it.

The scale of it was difficult to process even for him.

And he had designed the damned thing.

From where he stood, the nearest wall alone could have housed the entire Mystique Manor within its shadow. The six corners of the hexagon were marked by towering pillars that plunged directly into the caldera floor, anchoring the structure against the volcanic instability beneath. Between those pillars, the walls had been etched with flowing channels—conduits that would eventually carry molten essence from the volcano’s heart directly into the forge chambers within.

’This is what it looks like to build something meant to last beyond a single lifetime.’

Northern walked closer, close enough to press his palm against the wall’s surface.

It was warm. Not uncomfortably so, but warm in the way a living thing might be. The structure was drawing heat from the caldera, feeding on it. He could feel the faintest pulse beneath his fingers—a rhythm that matched the volcanic pressure below. As if the building had a heartbeat.

He circled toward the eastern face where the main entrance gaped open, a triangular threshold tall enough to admit something far larger than any human. No doors yet. The frame stood empty, waiting for whatever would eventually seal it.

Through that opening, he could see his echoes moving with purpose inside the hollow interior—hundreds of them visible from this vantage alone. Some carried materials, blocks of condensed soul matter that glowed faintly as they were transported from station to station. Others worked in coordinated teams, shaping the internal architecture with tools that seemed to manifest directly from their hands. The sound of their labor reached him as a constant, low hum. Not hammering. Not grinding. Something closer to resonance, as if the structure itself was being sung into existence.

Northern stepped through the threshold.

The interior dwarfed the exterior’s implications. The hexagonal walls created a central chamber so vast that the echoes working on the far side appeared as distant figures, their movements barely discernible even to his enhanced perception. The floor had been laid with interlocking tiles that formed geometric patterns—channels for essence flow, he recognized. Above, scaffolding of crystallized shadow clung to the walls at multiple levels, with echoes climbing and descending between them like ants on a colony’s framework.

At the chamber’s center, still incomplete, rose the heart of it all.

The Forge Core.

It was a circular platform surrounded by six curved arms that would eventually connect to each wall. When finished, those arms would draw volcanic essence from the caldera, channel it through the wall conduits, and concentrate it at the platform’s center. The temperatures achievable there would exceed anything natural. Hot enough to reshape talent itself, if his theories proved correct.

Knight Chrysler had spotted him the moment he entered. The echo reached him now, crossing the distance with measured steps.

”Lord Northern, you’re here.” Knight Chrysler greeted him with a soft chuckle, then straightened into his report. ”The structural foundation is complete. Interior segmentation is forty-three percent finished. The Core’s framework is in place, although we’re waiting for your specifications for the channeling matrices.”

Northern nodded, still studying the distant platform. ”How long until the interior is ready for the matrices?”

”At current pace, eleven days. We could accelerate if you committed more echoes to construction.”

’Eleven days.’

That was faster than he had expected. Not that he was unwilling to commit more echoes—but the ones Aoi had assigned to construction were humanoid types, specifically selected because Aoi was training them to understand their function. In the long run, they would be designated to building other structures until the Soul Forge became a metaphysical metropolis. Specialists, not laborers.

There were other uses for other echoes. The pace wasn’t bad. In fact, it had moved considerably faster than before, all thanks to Aoi’s management. Soon the Forge House would be complete, and Northern could begin his real work: crafting weapons that would elevate common drifters in the coming Empire war.

That prospect genuinely excited him.

”Maintain current allocation,” Northern said. ”I’d rather have reserves available than rush the foundation and regret it later.”

Knight Chrysler bowed his head and stepped away to relay the order.

Northern walked deeper into the chamber, passing clusters of working echoes who paused briefly to acknowledge him before resuming their labor. Some were reinforcing wall segments. Others were installing what appeared to be observation alcoves at regular intervals along the upper levels—places where he could oversee operations without descending to the floor. They had anticipated his preferences without being told.

He stopped near the base of the incomplete Forge Core and looked up at its skeletal framework.

This was the first permanent structure he was building in the Soul Forge. Not a palace—that would come later. This came first because without the Forge, everything else was just architecture. The Forge was function. The Forge was capability. Every weapon he would craft, every piece of equipment he would enhance, every experiment in talent manipulation he would conduct—all of it would happen here, on this platform, at temperatures that could unmake reality.

’And when I become an Emperor, this will still be here. Still functioning. Still mine.’

The thought settled something in him. The Soul Forge was no longer just an internal world he carried. It was becoming a place. His place. And this structure would be its industrial heart, pumping molten potential through conduits of his own design.

He turned and began walking toward one of the side passages that branched off from the main chamber. According to his mental catalog, that passage led to what would eventually become the storage vaults—spaces designed to hold completed creations until he needed them. Armories waiting to be filled.

There was still much to inspect. And after that, he needed to find Bairan.

The command he had to pass couldn’t wait much longer.

”Revant,” Northern summoned.