The heat hit first—liquid ambition sliding down my throat, all molten promises of power. Metamorphosis. Me-shaped destiny. Exactly what I'd craved, distilled into one glittering, definitely non-narcissistic smoothie.

As the last drop passed, the space around me began to shift. Fold. Wrap inward like collapsing glass.

My doppelganger stood in front of me, watching. Her hair shimmered—silver turning gold. Eyes violet, irises rimmed with stardust. A shape both divine and eerily familiar.

Just before the world folded away completely, she grinned and opened her mouth. "Oh yeah, almost forgot! Rainbow rank evolutions are a little different from the usual ones. So, uh, don't freak out no matter what happens!"

Wait, what the fuck did she mean by that—!?

"Hey—!" The word caught in my throat.

The lab vanished.

The last thing I saw was my own smug face smirking back at me.

Darkness. Then light. Bleeding in from the edges of my vision.

But something was wrong.

Normally, when I evolved, I'd wake up buried in a cocoon of stone and soil. Stretch out a new body. Flex new limbs. Feel the changes physically.

This time… I didn't even have a body.

There was a table in front of me. Papers. And eyes—definitely not mine—were reading them.

I felt like I had a body, but couldn't move it. Couldn't blink. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't scream.

A hallucination? A vision?

I would've panicked—should've panicked—but thanks to my doppelganger's cryptic "warning," I was at least partially braced for something weird. Didn't make it better, though.

Especially when I remembered where I actually was.

Suspended in the skies above Varkaigrad. In my dragon form. And now I was out of the evolution pocket, which meant…

Time dilation was probably gone.

Perfect. Just perfect.

I tried to pinch my eyes in frustration and immediately remembered: no body. So I mentally winced instead.

Right. Well. If I couldn't do anything else, I might as well try to understand whatever the hell this was. I focused on the surroundings, soaking in the details, trying to figure out where I was—and more importantly, who I was seeing through.

The light settled as I looked around.

There was a rectangular window at the far end, streaked with rain. Still raining—gentle, persistent. Outside, I caught glimpses of slate rooftops and the slow crawl of a red double-decker past slick cobblestones.

It felt… clean. Too organized. Too precise. Nothing like the wild, uneven chaos I was used to. I had never seen architecture this… refined.

No glyphs etched into the windowpanes. No floating sigils humming with mana. No mana at all.

That was the weird part.

Though I wasn't breathing, the man whose eyes I was looking through was. I could feel it—his slow, measured breath—and even taste the strangeness of the air. Manaless. Empty.

Weird.

The desk in front of me was massive, a slab of dark, polished wood. Too clean to be hand-carved, too precise to be old. A brass lamp curved overhead like a vine frozen mid-reach, glowing with a soft, unwavering warmth.

No flicker. No mana thread. Just… light.

I frowned.

Where the hell was I?

Why the fuck was there no mana?

Almost like the thought triggered it, 'my' eyes glanced up.

To the left, a bookshelf ran floor to ceiling. Automatically, I scanned the titles—books never lied.

Rows of thick, leather-bound spines with gold lettering:

Legal Precedent: UK Civil Property Disputes, Volumes I through V.

UK.

The word stuck. Familiar. Too familiar. It tugged at something buried. Some dream, some echo.

My thoughts spun. The architecture. The manaless air. The strange sense that it didn't feel wrong—if anything, it felt known.

Because this was the same world I slipped into during my dreams. The same one where I visited Lotte.

It hit like a jolt through the chest.

This place… this room… was real. And somehow, it was part of me.

Excitement flared in my gut. Was this it? A glimpse of my past? The source of all the weird knowledge I'd always had but never questioned?

With new resolve, I turned my attention to the details.

A ceramic mug smugly declared Keep Calm and Litigate. Litigate? Even their mugs were passive-aggressive here. The tea stain circling its rim looked like a failed summoning circle. Scents ambushed me—dusty paper, ink's bitter bite, bergamot's citrus smirk. The whole room smelled like existential dread and breakfast tea.

'My' hands—pale, ringless, definitely a man's—flipped pages with robotic precision. A silver watch clung to his wrist, its ticking louder than my internal screaming. I zeroed in on the document beneath those fingers:

Plaintiff: Mrs. Agatha Poole.

The page read like some kind of strange biography spell.

Age: 78. Widow. Maintains a heritage rose garden. Winner of multiple regional horticulture awards. Resident of Pevensey Row since 1962.

I didn't know what "horticulture" meant exactly, but somehow… I did. No surprises there. Prize roses, huh? The old kind. The kind that would cry if you cut them wrong.

I kept reading.

Defendant: Lucas Crane. Founder of SolarNova Ltd.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Age: 34. Entrepreneur. Self-funded developer of modular privacy energy systems. Installed 12-foot solar privacy barrier on shared boundary line without mutual consent or council notification.

I squinted—well, I tried to. Still no real body.

But the information made sense. All of it. In simple terms, the dude blocked her sunlight. Cut her garden off from the light.

In the margins, someone had scribbled:

"Obstruction of light." Underlined.

Another note read: "Right to Ancient Light Claim pending."

I got it. All of it. Which only made me more confused. Like, cool story, but WHY AM I EAVESDROPPING ON A GRANDMA VS. TECH BROS FEUD?!

HELLO?? CAN I GO BACK TO MY OWN BODY PLEASE?

Like, I get British grandma court drama is kind of charming, but I'd prefer not to get doxxed mid-air in the middle of Varkaigrad's airspace, thanks. Could I save this progress and load it later when I wasn't about to get exposed to outer world?

But of course, no one heard me.

Just this guy. Calm as anything. Sipping his tea, reading irrelevant profiles while the rain murmured outside.

Honestly, I was starting to get annoyed.

As if on cue, the air around the window shimmered. Two sharp taps echoed from outside.

The guy's eyes narrowed. I looked—nothing was there. Just rain. But the knocks kept coming.

He sighed, shook his head, and finally stood from his seat. He opened the window.

And just like that—like a veil lifted—a draconic head slid into view.

A fucking dragon.

My eyes went wide. Not once had I seen others of my kind—besides Lotte—but this? There was no mistaking it. Dark scales. Slitted emerald eyes. Smooth, deliberate movement.

Definitely a dragon.

"Vesryn," the man deadpanned, "Use. The. Door. And shift forms—you know how she reacted last time. We had to memory-wipe half of Kensington. She'll yeet you back herself."

The dragon—Vesryn—grinned, fangs glinting. "Relax, Xaleth. Upgraded my invisibility spell! Zero humans spotted me. Mana efficiency's up 70%!"

"Still a waste of mana," Xaleth snapped, tone sharp. "You're a walking, glowing HR violation."

"And you're a mana-hoarding magpie," the dragon fired back, unbothered. Then came the glow—familiar, the same shimmer I'd seen when I used my Transformation skill. A blink later, a stunning woman cloaked in black stood where the dragon had been. Olive skin like polished brass, hands laced with golden tattoos, and eyes that gleamed ruby-red.

"That flair was just garnish," she said smoothly. "The main course is a message. We might be getting summoned to the court soon."

Xaleth blinked. "Did something happen?"

"Oh, nothing dramatic," she said airily. "Just a few... unfortunate side effects of our extended vacation here."

"I'm going to need a bit more than vague doom, thanks."

She exhaled. "The integration of this world into the World Tree might be accelerating. Because of us."

Oh, how I wished I could eavesdrop on Xaleth's thoughts. Integration? World Tree? What the hell did that even mean? I needed a glossary and a nap.

"That is... mildly alarming," Xaleth muttered, then glanced out the window. "Though not all bad. Sure, this world might spiral into apocalypse, but better now than when the humans are too busy doomscrolling to notice the cliff. With the System comes mana. Civilization collapses, a new age rises. Gods, what I'd give to watch it unfold."

She crossed her arms. "It's not their fate I'm worried about. It's ours. We're squatting under the System's nose. Once it notices us, it'll boot us out."

Xaleth smirked, bitter as black coffee. "Trials build character. I thought you craved war, Vesryn. Isn't that our homecoming gift?"

"Not if the price is my world's corpse. We're not ready."

"We'll never be ready," he scoffed. "We've been marinating in mediocrity. No mana, no monsters, no stakes. Just… tax law. Decay in a three-piece suit."

"Which is why we stall," she said, staring at the rain. "Right now, the only one who might tip the scales against Them… is Her."

"You can say her name. She won't manifest in the teapot."

"Last time I muttered 'Myriad Dragon' near a backed-up sink, she cited it during a tribunal!" Vesryn hissed. "Imagine an omnipotent busybody roasting your plumbing woes in front of dragon royalty. I'd rather duel a hydra."

Xaleth snorted. "She's already ten steps ahead. If there's a path through this chaos, she's paved it with loopholes. For now? I'll stick to my mortal masquerade. Being a Judge's delightfully… human."

"Liar. You're addicted to their paperwork."

"Law's a game, Vesryn. Humans write the rules, then break them in spectacular ways. Artists, all of them—deranged, brilliant, bored."

She circled the desk, her smirk a blade. "Says the man who'd rather parse by laws than spar tides with me."

"Says the dragon who hides in trenches to avoid her duty."

Vesryn stepped forward, tapping the table. "Then enlighten me," she said, voice smooth as ink. "Tell me about the humans…"

"Well now, let's see. Mrs. Poole's waving around the Rights of Light Act—1959 vintage—saying Crane's shiny new wall is blocking her 'ancient light' entitlement."

"And Crane?" Vesryn asked, clearly amused.

"Oh, he fires back with the Clean Energy Infrastructure Act of 2023, claiming it fast-tracks green installations. He even had the gall to say, 'Roses won't matter when we're all underwater.'" Xaleth rolled his eyes.

"Messy," Vesryn hummed. "I'm mildly fluent in human law. Enough time with nothing but their legal drama and textbooks, you pick things up. So, what's your play?"

"Well, they're both technically right. A beautiful little legal stalemate. But of course…" Xaleth grinned. "There's always a twist, isn't there? Even in the tamest-looking disputes, humans never fail to deliver a rabbit hole or three."

He leaned in. "So I went digging—in my own subtle way. Turns out, Crane's solar panels are not even connected to the grid. Total sham. He's siphoning fifty grand in green subsidies for an eco-project that doesn't even exist."

"And Mrs. Poole's precious roses..." he continued. "Are just a flowery front. She's secretly cultivating an ultra-rare orchid hybrid in that garden of hers. She's farming black-market orchids worth £200k. Late husband's 'hobby,' my scaly tail."

Xaleth's laugh was a blade on velvet. "Never. Dull."

Cool, cool, but WHY AM I TAKING A MASTERCLASS IN HUMAN GREED? Every 'reveal' here sprouted ten new headaches. I'd trade a kidney for a straightforward monologue right now!

I was increasingly convinced I was in some kind of induced vision. It felt real—but the rules didn't behave like normal space. And what did this have to do with my evolution? I swore on Thalador's beard, my doppelganger definitely knew this would happen—and chose not to give me the courtesy of a damn hint.

As if on cue, time stopped. Not like a pause. Frozen. The air stiffened. Then I felt it—a presence, ghostly and familiar. A silhouette materialized in front of me, glitching at the edges like a corrupted projection. It was… me. Or the body I was currently riding, at least. But rendered in some strange flickering echo.

"Hoh! So someone finally made it here?" the figure said, voice echoing directly into my skull like a forgotten memory. "Apologies for the wait—never figured anyone would actually be mad enough to walk this path. Made this whole trail as a formality, really. And yet… here you are. Colour me intrigued."

I could feel the connection, like I could speak to him directly. "Uh… where exactly am I?"

"Oh, the System's probably filed that under 'irrelevant,' but if you must know—you're inside a trial."

"A trial?" My stomach dropped. "What kind of trial?"

"The kind where you get a mission, maybe a puzzle, maybe a little game," the ghost said with a lazy shrug. "Think of it like a pop quiz. No pressure."

I blinked. "How is any of this tied to my evolution? Am I gonna fail this and not evolve or something?" Horror curled in my gut.

The hologram laughed—a warm, rumbling sound. "Oh, no no no. You'll evolve just fine. This isn't a requirement. Think of it as... a bonus level. Completely optional. But highly rewarding."

"…Such as?"

The echo of a smile played on his half-formed face. With a flick of his hand, a massive tome unfurled into existence before him, ancient yet aglow with power. Pages turned themselves, revealing sprawling spell matrices, symbols stitched from light and runes I'd never even seen before.

"Like this," he said. "A spellbook. Written by the dragon who once reached the apex of the very path you've just stepped onto."

It might sound small on paper—but anyone with half a neuron in the magical arts knows just how monumental this was. Spells, in this world, are more locked up than royal vaults. Every single pathway, every affinity, is sealed tight behind layers of gatekeeping thicker than my scales. Even with both Lightning and Dark affinities under my claws, I only had access to a handful of beginner spells.

Just finding new ones to learn? That was an expedition all on its own.

So the idea of getting spells for something like Quantum mana—which, might I add, I'd never even heard of before this evolution—wasn't just unlikely. It was ludicrous.

And I'd made peace with that. Truly. I figured, fine, no fancy spell list—this evolution was already so disgustingly overpowered that I wouldn't need flashy magic. I was a one-dragon wrecking crew.

But now, standing in front of that tome, watching the pages shift on their own like they were alive and eager to share secrets? My fragile acceptance? Obliterated. Then it vaporized, bowed politely, and yeeted itself into the sun.

"So... what do I need to do here?" I asked, voice tighter than I intended.

The glitchy hologram—my bargain-bin twin—drifted toward the case file. "Ah. Yes. I arrived a bit late because I wanted to give you context first."

He gestured lazily at the paper on the table—the case with Mrs. Rose-Grower and Techbro McTaxDodge.

"I've always found humans fascinating," he said. "Especially these humans. Now, Vesryn? She probably would've given you something dramatic, like slaying three red cored sea monsters while blindfolded and fasting."

He grinned.

"I'm a little different. My trial is much simpler." He jabbed a pixelated finger at Mrs. Poole's legal drama. "You're walking the Arbiter's Path. Trial's simple: Render. One. Judgment."

"That's… it?"

"That's it. Just rule on this case in a way that… delights me."

Not "uphold justice." Not "follow the law." Not even "don't be a prat." Just… "delight."

Sounded easy. Maybe a little too easy.

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