Chapter 52: On the subject of superpowers and stars

  “The recent attack was found to have been a coordinated effort from numerous criminal guilds, groups and individuals, in an attempt to access high level information in the restricted sections of the academy library. Thanks in no small part to the efforts of our staff and a portion of our students, we were able to buy enough time for allied forces to arrive, resulting in the complete decimation of enemy forces.” Kleio stands at the front of the auditorium, recounting the details of recent events for those who weren’t involved as much of the student body stands and listens.

  “In addition, infiltrating forces managed to temporarily disable some of the academy’s defences. We have since located those responsible and dealt with them accordingly. As there may still be some infiltrators remaining within the academy, we are investigating thoroughly, and to those people I recommend you turn yourself in, and we may be more lenient. Though the attackers represent the majority of the high level power of the aforementioned groups, much of their lower structure and contacts still remain…” Kleio continues, talking about this and that which honestly doesn’t interest me all that much.

  Long story short, it’s over.

  I reach out telepathically to one of the boys nearby. ‘Hey Auden, it’s Gerald. Chat after this?’

  Now, it should come as no surprise that we had communicated in this manner previously. Think about it – there’s no better way to talk right in front of the teacher and still look perfectly studious. Provided he doesn’t start making faces because of something we’re talking about.

  So, Auden doesn’t flinch, much. ‘Gerald, socialising outside of class? Is the sky falling?’

  ‘It already did, but thankfully some people held it up and put it back in its place.’ I joke lightly. ‘Wanted to chat about the fight with someone. You’re the person I know best out of the people who were involved.’

  ‘You heard I was there?’ He asks uneasily.

  ‘I was there too. Didn’t play quite as pivotal a role, but I did what little I could. Happened to be on the section of the battlefield you showed up at.’ I reply simply.

  ‘Ah. So, you saw?’ Auden asks, visibly wincing.

  ‘Yeah. Seriously though, I just want to chat, no pressure if you don’t want to. It’s just my best alternatives are a fairy who wouldn’t know serious if it hit him in the face, a halfling who I’d rather not hit with serious if I can help it, an elf who’s about as vocal as I am, and an old man who may or may not be slightly insane.’ I tell him.

  ‘Why is an insane old man even on your list of options? Never mind. Fine.’ He rolls his eyes.

  Once the assembly finishes, the two of us make our way out of the academy and go a short way off the road, where Auden sits on the side of a small hill, and I set myself down in the grass.

  “So, the fight. It was a bloody mess, wasn’t it? Don’t know about you, but I’ve never been involved in something of this scale, certainly not directly. It made me realise again just how dangerous it is to fight a mage more powerful than yourself.” I sigh aloud, something I can do, or at least imitate with my voice magic tool. “You fight a warrior, you know you’ve got to watch out for their weapon, their hands, feet… You fight a mage using magic you don’t understand, you might not even know how you died.”

  “I wasn’t there for most of it, but from what I saw, we were lucky it didn’t end up worse than it did. Things looked crazy when I left. Amazing that there’s barely a trace that anything happened now.” Auden marvels, shaking his head.

  “The thing is, I don’t believe luck played any part in it at all. As you say, you weren’t there for long, so I’ll give you a bit of a rundown. The academy’s barriers were sabotaged before the battle began, and most summoning and communication methods were blocked, hence you having to travel mundanely. The dark mages had prepared, and every one of them had stocks of fully charged mana crystals to draw from. And with all of that, do you know what our death toll was?” I ask, briefly summing up the odds.

  Auden thinks for a moment, then frowns, scratching his head. “Now that you mention it, they never mentioned that. Don’t think I’ve heard anything about it, actually.”

  “That’s because there’s nothing to talk about. Our death toll was a big fat zero.” I say slowly.

  “What? Not even one? Are you kidding?” Auden gapes. “No, you wouldn’t kid about this. Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I went around the battlefield myself as soon as things ended and checked things out. I’ve got a perfect memory, and I can tell you with complete confidence that not a single dead body on the fields that day were one of ours.” I state seriously.

  “None… I mean, I know the teachers at the academy are world leaders in their fields, but still, in that situation…” Auden shakes his head slightly in confusion.

  “Now, I said I’ve got perfect memory. I’ve also got mana sight, basically lets me see mana, omnidirectional in a sphere around me, with pretty decent detail and range. So I’ve got a good chunk of the battle sitting in my head, so to speak, and I’ve been looking over those memories again and again since it all ended, trying to figure out what exactly was happening.” I explain.

  Auden nods slightly. “So, did you?”

  “Yeah. Think so at least. Now, this is going to sound insane, but believe me, it’s true.” I preface before stating: “It was the grass.”

  “Of course, the grass!” Auden agrees sarcastically. “And how exactly did the grass save all our lives?”

  “Well, not just the grass. Every plant on the battlefield, on or under the ground, were moving unnaturally. Just slightly, in practically unnoticeable ways.” I say, having difficulty accurately explaining it all. “Like, the grass would push against the bottom of someone’s feet with strange resistance at a critical moment, moving them ever so slightly out of harm’s way. A plant moves against the wind to brush against one of the enemy mages, distracting them for a moment. Little things like that, constantly, all over the battlefield. At one point, no less than three people tripped over roots simultaneously while a spell sailed over their heads.”

  “That sounds… Strange. If it was some sort of spell from our side, why be so covert? And if it was a spell… damn, the scale of it, and the precision required, not to mention the mana cost, it seems impossible.” He muses.

  “Impossible for us mere mortals, most probably.” I agree wryly. “To be honest, hear me out, I reckon there were two battlefields that day. Down here, where us and those evil mages fought it out. But the real battle was somewhere else, somewhere none of us could see, somewhere where two honest to goodness gods were duking it out. I reckon that the one on our side was a nature god or something, and he was trouncing whichever god he was fighting so badly he even had the breathing room to sneakily help all us out down here on the side without his opponent noticing.”

  Auden chuckles. “Never figured you to be so devout, Gerald. I mean, sure, theoretically that could make sense. Assuming what you saw is correct, I mean. It could also just be some esoteric defence that the academy has hidden away, and unbeknownst to us burnt away whole stocks of reserve mana crystals somewhere.”

  “True. I mean, it seems improbable to my knowledge of magic, but I’ve not really meddled with anything that large scale or that type of magic to really know for sure. There are other things that, to me, point towards godly influences, but in the end there’s no way to actually prove it. Short of trying to ask around the priesthood, I mean.” I chuckle at the thought. “I guess it’s just the thought of it, you know? The gods seem so far away. Who knows what they’re doing behind the scenes, wherever they are, good or bad? It’s my first time seeing what seems to me like direct evidence of gods at work.”

  “It would certainly be something, alright. The local clergy of whatever god it was would have a field day, imagine it, ‘our god fended off an evil god and protected the academy’, people would love it.” Auden lies back in the grass, looking up at the sky.

  “Yeah. On another impossibility, I gotta ask, you broke the sound barrier, on foot. The fuck was that?” I voice incredulously.

  Auden winces. “I had hoped you weren’t going to ask about that. I… Prefer to keep that secret.”

  “I get that. I’m a pretty private person myself, well, you know that.” I say wryly. “Look, if you want, I can drop it. I’ll definitely still be curious, but I can hold that in. But if you do talk about it, I swear I’ll never tell anyone about it. I can trade some of my own secrets, too – I’m sure you realise most of the stuff floating around about me is baseless rumours.”

  Auden goes silent for a few minutes, thinking it through. Finally, he says hesitantly, “You better have some juicy secrets.”

  “Believe me, I have the craziest life story of any two year old you’ve ever met.” I laugh, causing him to jolt up and look at me in shock. “Yeah, technically, I’m two. Long story. Shorter story first?”

  “The fuck, dude. You can’t just drop that and expect me to hold off asking about it.” Auden curses, rolling his shoulders in irritation. “Fine, fine. Let’s see… So, you might’ve heard about my parents. The speed demons, they got called. Back in their academy days, they were both focused on magic that made them faster in one way or another, were always competing against each other in every speed event in all the athletics carnivals and such.”

  “Eventually, the two rivals hit it off, and much later down the line, I was born.” He continues. “I’m telling you all this because I’ve always believed my parents’ nature somehow got passed down to me, combined, and one day, awakened in a way that none of us expected. Seriously, you better not tell anyone about this. I awoke a superpower.”

  “Seriously? I mean, I had wondered, but I know practically nothing about them. They’re like, incredibly rare, right?” I ask in surprise.

  “Incredibly. My parents did some researching after I got it, and there’s really not much info out there, but as far as I know, every superpower is completely unique. Like, it’s listed on its own section in the status, doesn’t have proficiency or rarity listed, and I even got to name it.” He smiles slightly. “I named mine ‘the tortoise and the hare’, the story was a favourite of mine growing up, and it seemed to fit.”

  He looks up at the clouds again. “It’s a pretty simple ability, in some ways. When activated, it has two modes, tortoise, and hare. When I’m the tortoise, the world seems to zoom around me, and every movement takes effort. But it also accumulates energy for the other mode, the hare. As the hare, the more of the stored energy I spend, the more the world slows down around me and the faster I go, and as far as I know there’s no limit to that. My parents have always told me to save up as much energy as possible whenever I can, for emergencies.”

  With a wry smile, Auden admits, “It’s always been a bit of a pain, but honestly, considering how things went the other day, I couldn’t be happier I did. The biggest limitation on my speed is the weakness of my own body rather than the superpower itself, really. At those speeds, running into a bug can hit like an arrow, and at some point the air itself becomes a problem. Ironically, my parents had worked on solutions to the same problems once their speed had reached a certain point. Speed as their focus, with defence to supplement. But for me, it’s never an issue to go faster. Almost all my focus has been on defensive magic. It’s definitely gotten me some strange looks from teachers who knew my parents.”

  “That’s honestly incredible. I kinda wish I had that ability, with my body being as it is I wouldn’t have as much issue at high speeds… Although I don’t really move in a normal manner, so I’m not sure the energy accumulation would work.” I muse. “Hey, you mentioned you awakened the superpower? Like, you weren’t born with it?”

  “Yeah. I was running a race one time as a kid, and all of a sudden, the other kids started zooming past me. No matter how hard I tried I only seemed to get slower and slower, like I was in a dream and I was moving in slow motion, except it was reality.” Auden reminisces. “There isn’t much info, as I said, but I know similar things have happened with other people awakening a superpower. It’s hard to say whether only a tiny few have that possibility that eventually gets realised, or maybe there are people out there with the potential that somehow never gets triggered. Hey, maybe everyone could theoretically unlock their own superpower, but only a tiny percent coincidentally do it. Who knows?”

  He shrugs. “It’s impossible to do any sort of study on superpowers as a whole. Chances are you might not even meet one in a lifetime, let alone enough to compare their experiences and formulate any sort of theory.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. I might’ve briefly met another person with a superpower before, but I don’t know for sure.” I muse, expanding on the event at his disbelieving expression. “Look, I didn’t even get a chance to talk to them at the time, so I’ve got no way to be sure. But I once encountered a kid that should’ve been dead, but wasn’t. Like, I’m talking holes through multiple vital organs, plenty of broken bones, probably lethal levels of blood loss as well. Then he just got up and walked away. Wasn’t undead or anything else I know about. Just alive when he shouldn’t be.”

  Auden shudders. “Could be a superpower, but certainly not one I’d envy. That sounds incredibly painful. But enough about that. You promised me your story, and it better not just be a tall tale. The hell do you mean, you’re two?”

  I chuckle and share my age with him through the system. “It will sound like a tall tale, but luckily I’ve got the titles and means to prove it. So, I’ll start at the start of my life, and explain how I’m capable of what I am at the ripe old age of two.”

  With that, I share my second life title with Auden. “I used to be human, living a fairly ordinary life on a world called Earth. One day, I saw a flash of light out the window, and the next thing I know… Fork.”

  “So, like, necromancer? Your soul was put in a fork?” Auden scratches his cheek, his eyes a little unfocused as he reads the title.

  “Nah. I am actually, properly, literally, a living fork.” I say, sharing my race with him. “Best guess I’ve been able to put together is that a god was involved. Who else can just create an entirely new race and reincarnate someone as it? Thing is, the person who was originally carrying me when I was ‘born’, as far as I can figure was killed by goblins. Anyone capable of creating a new species would surely be able to fend off goblins, unless he was completely unrelated and I was somehow placed on his person or the like by a god.”

  “Anyway. When I started out, I was basically a normal fork. No senses, nothing. The only thing I really had going for me was a single skill. Absorb. It’s quite frankly an overpowered skill that lets me absorb things and have a chance of gaining traits and skills from what I absorb. Very, very slowly I accumulated abilities that allowed me to interact with the world around me. Mana sight, telepathy, telekinesis… Well, those are still basically all I’ve got in terms of movement and senses, not including these magic tools.” I chuckle self-deprecatingly. “It’s not easy to cope with, in various ways. Much better than it used to be, though, believe me.”

  He’s silent as I send him the clinically sane title. “I can’t imagine. So… You advanced so rapidly due to this absorb skill?”

  “Eh, partially. Absorb is a powerful skill, don’t get me wrong, but it’s very random. Not even mentioning how near impossible it is to tell what monster might have useful skills or traits, even when I absorb one with useful skills it’s entirely possible I get something else or nothing at all. I’ve got plenty of useless skills at this point that I never use, or can’t use.” I explain with a mix of amusement and frustration. “And generally I rarely or never get repeats to increase proficiency of skills I’ve already got. But being a fork does have its perks. No need to eat, no need to sleep, I don’t get sick. I can, to some degree, work on advancing my skills and knowledge 24/7. I can take more classes than other people, I can study longer than other people. I don’t know that I’d consider myself a genius or anything, maybe a bit above average, I just have more time in my days.”

  “Cheat. Big cheaty cheater.” He complains lightly, rolling his eyes. “Alright, so that’s cool and all, but you did sorta promise me your life story.”

  “Yeah, kinda did… Alright, so I’m not going to go into exquisite detail, but…”

  “…And that’s how I got to the academy and enrolled.” I finish.

  “No kidding. So, the space magic professor is rarely around because he’s randomly hopping between worlds? That’s gotta lead to some interesting places.” Auden muses. “Though, you never really mentioned much about your past life, just that you had an ordinary life. What were you, a farmer, soldier maybe? Nah that doesn’t mesh, maybe a craftsman? I could see that.”

  “Auden… I didn’t mention my past life because it’s so far removed from everything you know and understand that you would have no choice but to believe it’s fake.” I say soberly.

  Auden raises his eyebrows. “Oh? That sounds interesting, try me.”

  “Alright. I’ll start big picture. The world, the sun, the moon, the stars.” I say slowly. “I’ve recently been looking into all these things. There’s not much. It’s pretty much accepted that up there – it’s the domain of the gods. The what, the why, the how, all pretty much question marks.”

  “Sure. I mean, you can’t exactly get up there to look.” Auden shrugs.

  “Correction. You can’t.” I reply simply.

  Auden stares at me. “You’re kidding.”

  “I went up a couple days ago.” I say quietly. “And up, and up, and up. By my estimations, about fifty kilometres. And then I hit it. There’s a barrier up there – a barrier around the entire world. And a system message, ‘access denied’. Seems the system doesn’t want people going outside.”

  “That’s incredible. Like seriously dude, I don’t know that I’ve heard of anyone that’s managed to go that high.” He shakes his head in amazement. “But at the same time, I don’t get your point.”

  “No point thus far. After coming down, and in the following days, I did some experiments, took some measurements, and roughly speaking, managed to map out how far apart things are. Here, this is what this world looks like, from a macro perspective.” I explain, creating a floating model out of little mana spheres. “Here in the middle, you’ve got this world, Arbadak. Then floating around it you’ve got this little ball, the moon. A bit further out, you’ve got this bigger ball, the sun, orbiting around it as well. Then just beyond that, you’ve got all these little stars orbiting it in a kind of sphere.”

  “Oh, cool. So that’s what it looks like?” He nods. “Alright, that makes sense.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, actually. Here, for comparison. This is what my world in my first life looked like.” I create a second model next to the other one, this one of the solar system.

  Auden observes it for a bit, then shakes his head. “I’m not sure I get the big difference. I mean, it’s mostly on a flat plane but otherwise it’s pretty much the same. Why are there so many moons, though, and do some of them have little things spinning around them? Where are the stars, you didn’t have stars?”

  “The big difference is that my world isn’t the big thing in the middle. It’s the third orb orbiting the middle one. The middle one’s the sun.” I say seriously. “The big difference is that here, the sun revolves around the world. There, the world revolves around the sun. And the big difference is that here, the stars are actual shapes built by gods in the sky, and there, the stars are more suns, so far away they look like nothing but a twinkle in the night sky, if they’re visible at all.”

  “What? What do you mean the stars are suns?” He says, confused.

  “Alright, some more perspective. The sun, this sun above this world, is around five thousand kilometres away, give or take a bit. And it’s roughly fifty kilometres in diameter. The sun of earth – that’s my world’s name, by the by – is roughly one hundred and fifty million kilometres away, and has a diameter of about one point four million kilometres. We had stars pretty well figured out, to some degree, and rather than the sun and stars being different things, they’re just the same thing at different distances. Some stars are bigger, some stars are smaller. And funnily enough, there are actually stars that are in the rough ballpark in size of the star we see up there. They’re called neutron stars.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, how could anything be so… ridiculously huge as what you’re describing?” Auden sputters, shocked.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “That would be a long explanation in and of itself. But, on stars… If it were a neutron star up there, eh… Complicated explanations simplified, neutron stars have an extreme force sucking in anything and everything around them. If it were a neutron star, this world would be sucked into it and compressed endlessly. No, that’s not a neutron star at all. Or rather, it isn’t a star at all.” I say wryly. “No, it’s not a star. The moon isn’t a proper moon either, its orbit doesn’t make sense. So we have a sun that isn’t a star, a moon that isn’t a moon, stars that aren’t stars… As far as I can tell, they’ve all been artificially placed there and maintained by some power, gods probably. Logically, it follows that this entire world is also artificial. It all begs the question… How many worlds did the gods make, and how many are natural?”