Les Aspects
The aspects in Shadow Slave are ranked from Awakened to Divine, and I had always wondered what the criteria for that ranking actually were. After analyzing the classes and ranks of soul cores, I finally came to understand the defining characteristics of each tier.
-Awakened
Awakened aspects only grant straightforward abilities — physical enhancements or basic aptitudes such as flight and underwater breathing.
-Ascendant
At the Ascendant rank, things shift meaningfully: you gain genuinely supernatural powers.
-Transcendent
When an aspect reaches the Transcendent tier, your power forges a connection with the world itself, influencing it either passively or actively.
-Supreme
A Supreme aspect takes this further, granting you the ability to either dominate something or someone, or to seize what does not belong to you and claim it as your own.
-Sacred
The Sacred tier introduces an even deeper bond — not merely a connection with the environment, but a fusion with it, much like sacred beings who merge with the fabric of the world.
-Divine
The Divine rank: the one thing we know for certain so far is that it allows its bearer to possess multiple soul cores simultaneously.
Beyond raw power, I also believe that an aspect's rank is not simply a measure of ability — it is equally a reflection of one's inherent aptitude to reach the corresponding soul core rank. If you look closely at each tier's abilities, you will notice that they subtly facilitate progression toward the next rank. This is precisely why Jet was already primed to reach Supremacy, and why Sunny, Cassie, Neph, and Mordred — all of whom possess aspects above Supreme — were able to attain that rank with such apparent ease.
This also means that Fate is as much a curse as it is a gift. Beings who ascend to a rank beyond what their aspect reflects are fundamentally ill-suited to their new reality. The effects may not be immediately apparent at lower ranks, but I believe this misalignment is the very reason why spirits born of Fate eventually lose their sanity.
So why exactly are they ill-suited — and more importantly, how does one evolve their aspect? The answer, I think, lies in personal transformation. Specifically, a transformation of mindset.
-Awakened — No particular change required.
-Ascendant — You must know yourself. You must understand who you truly are.
>!Kai was able to evolve his aspect after killing Sevirax precisely because, in that moment, he fully understood that he was a dragon!<.
-Transcendent — You must own who you are. You must be willing to show the world your true self.
-Supreme — You must desire to impose your will upon the world — to control it, or to reshape it entirely.
-Sacred — You must be prepared to surrender your humanity, or simply have none left to give up.
-Divine — I am not entirely certain here, but my theory is that you must obtain the Flame of Divinity.
Which raises another question: how does one obtain the Flame of Divinity? Let's speculate.
First possibility: it is tied to the being you incarnated during your very first nightmare. The issue with this theory, however, is that while Sunny may have incarnated Eurys, Nephis appears to have incarnated a seemingly unremarkable individual.
Second possibility: they were simply born with it. Sunny was born during an eclipse, Mordred was born in Bastion, and Nephis was born into the lineage of the Sun God.