Shishya had seen many things in his lifetime.
The affair of his neighbour’s wife with her husband’s driver.
Fake godmen who made money by pretending to “materialise” mantras, secretly copying scripture text onto their tongues and then getting caught red?handed in a brothel and beaten in public.
A priest who openly cursed his own job at a tea stall, admitting he only stayed a priest because, “Puja se paisa aa jaata hai, bas,” even as he mechanically tied mauli on devotees’ wrists.
A rich woman who refused to raise her maid’s salary by even a few hundred rupees—only to later discover that the ring she had bought for a lakh from a local jeweller actually cost a thousand, and the jeweller had vanished to gods?know?where.
Even after all that, the current situation made his previous experiences feel like playground drama before a cosmic courtroom.
He stood in a white void. No sky, no ground, just an endless blankness that was neither cold nor warm, neither dark nor bright, as if reality had been put on pause. In front of him floated a single luminous window, like a system notification that had eaten the whole universe.
> Reincarnation protocol will resume in 10 seconds
> Causality in possession: INDEFINITE (Repair in progress)
“Wait… is this what I think it is?” I blurted out, my voice echoing strangely in the void. I, the lifelong reader of isekai and reincarnation stories, was now smack in the middle of a cosmic bug report.
But the universe didn’t care about his dramatic timing.
Time remaining: 9 seconds
The story?lover Shishya suddenly found himself living the scenario he had prayed for countless nights while doom?scrolling fanfics under his blanket.
“Okay, first things first—I want to keep my memories intact,” he said quickly, forcing his voice to remain steady.
A clear chime rang in his skull, as if someone had flicked the spine of reality.
‘Request acknowledged.
Condition: Shishya will retain his memories after reincarnation.’
Below that line, new text scrolled into existence.
Causality spent: 0.0000000001% of total reserve.
“…Oh.” A grin tugged at his lips. “Pocket change.”
The number looked so tiny it felt fake. Somewhere deep inside, a dangerous kind of confidence stretched its limbs.
Time remaining: 8 seconds.
His mind, trained by years of reading cheat?skill novels, went into overdrive.
“Second wish,” he said, straightening unconsciously as if addressing a divine clerk. “Give me a skill that lets me copy anything. Talents, abilities, habits—if it exists, I can make it mine.”
Another chime.
‘Skill granted: ARCHETYPE MIRROR (Prototype tier).’
A description appeared beneath:
- You can mirror superficial traits from beings around you for a short duration (mannerisms, posture, basic habits).
- Effect is unstable and fades quickly.
Causality spent: 0.0005% of total reserve.
Remaining reserve: Practically infinite (for now).
A warm current ran through the deepest part of his soul, like a string being added to the instrument of his existence. For a fleeting second, he felt as if he could “taste” the outline of other lives.
“Prototype tier?” Shishya muttered. “Bhai, mein side character nahi hoon.”
Time remaining: 7 seconds.
“Upgrade it,” he said immediately. “I want a proper version, not this demo trial.”
The window flickered.
‘Archetype Mirror (Prototype tier) → Archetype Mirror (Apprentice tier).’
Updated description:
- You can copy basic skills, habits, and minor talents from a target with repeated exposure.
- Copy quality: Incomplete. Latent potential not fully reproduced.
Causality spent: 0.05% of total reserve.
Causality remaining: 99.95%+ (stabilising…).
Shishya felt something click inside his mind, like additional shelves being installed in an already crowded library.
“Better,” he admitted, then immediately leaned closer to the window. “But not enough. I don’t want ‘basic’ anything. Take it up.”
Time remaining: 6 seconds.
The system did not sigh, but if a window could look exasperated, it would have.
‘Upgrade request registered.
Archetype Mirror (Apprentice tier) → Archetype Mirror (Ascendant tier).’
New description:
- You can copy advanced skills, combat styles, and complex talents from a target with sufficient observation and contact.
- Copy quality: High. Most limitations removed.
Causality spent: 3% of total reserve.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Causality remaining: 97%.
This time the surge in his being was violent. It felt as though invisible veins were being drawn through his soul, branching networks designed solely to store foreign talent.
A rational part of his brain whispered, Enough is enough.
The reader in him, however, stood up on a table and yelled, GO BIG OR GO HOME.
“Take it higher,” he said, voice cracking slightly. “I want the ultimate version. No ceiling.”
Time remaining: 5 seconds.
There was a pause. For the first time, the window hesitated, text hanging mid?air as if some higher protocol was arguing in the back?end.
Then:
‘WARNING: Further upgrades will incur catastrophic causality expenditure.
Proceed? (Yes/No)’
Shishya stared at the text. Somewhere a lifetime of boring prudence and middle?class survival instincts tried to pull the brakes.
He thought of how many protagonists had regretted being cowards at the moment of wish?making.
“Yes.”
The void shuddered.
‘Archetype Mirror (Ascendant tier) → ARCHETYPE MIRROR (SOVEREIGN TIER).’
The description reorganised itself with an almost smug flourish:
- You can perfectly mirror the entire archetypal pattern of a single being: talents, instincts, affinities, mental structures, and karmic imprints.
- Copies are not temporary; they are integrated as if they were always yours.
- Targets up to overmental and lower planes can be mirrored.
Then, in angry red:
Causality spent: 99.999…% of total reserve.
Status of reserve: NEGATIVE.
Deficit incurred: ASTRONOMICAL.
For an instant, he felt everything. Not just the skill—but the backlash: cosmic ledgers rearranging, balances shattering, probabilities screaming as they rerouted around the black hole he had just punched into cause and effect.
Pain licked at the edges of his consciousness like a holy fire.
“Now that’s more like it,” Shishya grinned through clenched teeth, half?drunk on his own recklessness.
He had no idea that what he had just taken was less a blessing and more a predatory loan. And this universe, he was about to discover, was a merciless loan shark.
Time remaining: 4 seconds.
New lines appeared, cold and bureaucratic.
‘Due to the individual overspending an absurd amount of causality, corrective restrictions will be applied.’
One by one, the penalties started listing themselves:
- Individual’s native talents will be reduced to the absolute lowest baseline to compensate.
- Individual will be reborn in an extremely weak physical and social position to compensate.
- Individual will be unable to stably contain the energy of any of Panch tattvas.
- Individual’s use of Archetype Mirror will be restricted to one (1) target only. Non?negotiable.
- Individual will be assigned to anomalous world cluster: @#$%%^.
“W?wait, what is that supposed to mean?!” Shishya yelled, feeling the ground—which didn’t exist—disappear under his feet anyway.
His voice went nowhere.
Time remaining: 3 seconds.
His thoughts froze, his mental processes overclocked past their limit from the shock. While his mind hung, a voice came from behind him, light and amused, as if this was some street performance he had wandered into.
“Hey, I can feel you burning through causality like a drunk rich kid at a casino.”
Shishya’s “software” was too busy crashing to register anything.
Time remaining: 2 seconds.
When he still didn’t respond, the voice complained, stretching the word out.
“Rudeeeeeee.”
A hand dropped onto his shoulder. It was warm, heavy, and felt more real than anything else in this blank cosmos. With effortless strength, the owner of that hand spun him around a clean 180 degrees.
Time remaining: 1 second.
Now, Shishya stood face to face with the figure.
The man was tall and muscular but not bulky, as if a nuclear reactor had been hidden inside a walnut shell. Every line of his body implied explosive potential sheathed in perfect control. His black hair fell down to his shoulders, half?wild, half?regal. But it was his eyes that dominated reality: twin golden suns blazing with layered worlds of meaning, burning yet strangely playful.
He wore only a yellow dhoti, draped with casual divinity, and nothing else. No jewels, no crown—yet his bare presence felt more kingly than any emperor Shishya had ever read about.
Before Shishya could say anything, before he could even bow or scream, Archetype Mirror (Sovereign tier) triggered on its own.
Processing…
Processing…
The system seemed to choke.
‘Error: Target exceeds safe mirroring threshold.
Current tier insufficient to fully register being of this calibre.’
New prompt:
‘Override detected.
Do you wish to burn remaining causality and collateralise future karmic threads to fully register this being?
Warning: Catastrophic, cascading consequences. (Yes/No)’
Time, which was already thin, stretched into filaments. Shishya could feel his brain literally melting; viscous warmth spread from somewhere behind his eyes, and in his mind’s eye he saw blood and brain matter oozing out of his seven orifices as his consciousness tried to process infinity forced into a single second.
‘0.00000567 seconds remaining.’
There was a version of him that would have been satisfied entering the new world with Archetype Mirror (Sovereign). A version that knew when to stop.
That version had been left behind several upgrades ago.
More than anything now, he wanted to screw over the very universe that had dared to act like a loan shark.
“Yes,” he chose, his decision slicing through the last fragment of time.
The void froze. The golden?eyed man’s expression finally changed; a small frown furrowed his brow, like a teacher watching a student choose the most suicidal exam question on purpose.
Before the man could speak, a final window bloomed before Shishya.
‘Archetype Mirror (Sovereign tier) → LINKED AXIS (????? tier).’
Processing...........
LINKED AXIS: (1/1) Used
No description. No explanation. Just a sense of something deep and incomprehensibly vast locking into place between him and that golden gaze.
That was the last thing he remembered before consciousness snapped.
The golden?eyed man watched as Shishya’s presence was erased from the void, unravelled thread by thread until not even dust remained.
“I came as soon as he called,” the man murmured to himself, voice softer now. “But did he foresee even this?”
In his mind, the image of another figure surfaced: a dark?skinned man with a flute, smiling with infuriating calm.
When awareness returned, it did not arrive with trumpets or divine voices. It came with the stubborn ache of a body that had been broken and reassembled, and the heavy perfume of incense and medicine.
Shishya opened his eyes to see a ceiling rich with intricate architecture, curves and symbols he half?recognised from late?night wiki dives about fictional cultures. Shadows danced along the carvings, stirred by the faint glow in the room.
The air smelled of herbs and kapoor—camphor—thick and almost oily on his tongue, like he had woken in the middle of an ancient ritual.
He pushed himself upright, every muscle protesting, as if the act of existing under gravity was something his body had not done for years. His head throbbed in pulses. He surveyed the room: plain, austere, functional. No decorations, no luxury, just stone, wood, and silence.
Except for one thing.
On the wall, a stone hung upside down, gently illuminating the entire room with a steady, almost liquid light. Not fire. Not electricity. Something purer.
His breath hitched.
“Urja patthar?” he whispered, as if saying the name aloud might cause it to vanish.
He stumbled closer, squinting at the faint patterns swirling within the stone. The glow hummed at a frequency his new body could barely handle.
“Iski maa ka…” He grabbed his head in both hands. “Ye toh ek urja patthar hai.”
His voice trembled. Not because he didn’t understand—but because he understood too well.
He knew this world better than anyone on this side of reality had any right to. The terminology, the architecture, the very presence of that hanging stone—all of it aligned with an obsessive fan’s memories.
He had been reincarnated into the world of Seven Doors of Transcendence.
"Iski maa ka..." is a profanity related to mother if taken literally but in a casual sense it is just a normal slang to show frustation with no intention of cursing anyone.
"Ye toh ek urja patthar hai" means "This is a damn energy stone" in a literal meaning sense
"Bhai mein side character nahi hoon" means "Bro, I ain't a side character"