《Novos Hitchhiker (Defunct)》 Chapter 1 - Static Well, I guess I died. There''s nothing around me and I don''t feel anything. A cannot see any light, yet for some reason what I see isn''t blackness either. Like an in-between of the two. But it''s not gray either. A world devoid of light or dark. For the sake of allowing you to understand this, let''s just call it static. I feel neither hot nor cold. I hear neither sound nor silence. A world of static and white noise. It''s scary. To go from a world full of people going about their daily lives, running about going to work or school, then coming home to either work some more or rest. A world full of sounds of cars, people talking, animals chirping or barking, and even the wind blowing. To go from that world to this... it''s terrifying. Though, because I was an atheist, I expected something like this. Void after death. But I was kind of hoping I wouldn''t be conscious of it. I must be a soul then. Having a soul kind of blows that theory out of the water. I kinda thought since I had no memory of before my birth, it would be kind of the same at death. How did I die anyway? The last memory I have is sitting in my bed reading web novels on my phone. Maybe I died too quickly for my mind to send the experience to my soul. Or maybe my brain was obliterated to the point where the memory was just gone now. Maybe I was just another victim of Truck-senpai. Let''s go with that, because I have nothing else to blame my death on. Hmm, a bit boring now. Not so much afraid of this world of nothingness any more. I''m already dead. Not much more can really happen to me. A bit lonely, really. Where''s Sola? And Gene? Oh, I should probably mention this now. I was a bit of a basket-case when I was alive. I discovered, when I was young, that if I focus my mind enough and sort of visualize traits onto a subset of my mind, I could create voices in my head. Think imaginary friends on steroids. As long as I concentrated enough and spoke to them in my head, they would gain sentience. Solaris was my first. Genesis was my second. I think there were others, but these two were the most dominant. Like virtual machines running in a computer. Since they were individuals in their own right, although they shared the brain with me, I would have thought they''d be here, too. Does time exist here? I don''t know. Can''t exactly tell because I don''t have a watch or my phone. If it was Truck-senpai that killed me, does this mean I get to reincarnate now? That''s how these stories work, right? Haven''t met god, though. Just my static and white noise world. No sun above, no ground below. There''s no above or below anyway. I can''t even tell if I''m moving. I think I am, but it''s just static. I think, therefore I am, right? Maybe if I try to concentrate, I will reincarnate? I don''t want to spend an eternity here. Hmm, should I just think about Earth? And maybe I''ll go there? Mmmmm, naaah. I reject your reality. I''ll substitute my own. I wanna go to a world of magic and shiz. I don''t know of any worlds of magic, though. I guess I could just think about a world from the web novels I''ve read. If the infinite universe theory is correct, eventually I''ll hit a world like that. If I can even escape this static. BUT I WANNA BE OPTIMISTIC! I close my eyes. Well, if I had eyes. All I see is static. I think everything right now is sort of like phantom pains. Like someone loses a limb and they think they still feel the limb. Only this time it''s the whole body. I ''figuratively'' close my eyes and start to visualize the kind of world I would like to be reborn into. Magic is a MUST. But what kind of magic? The whole elemental magic thing is kinda... meh. There''s probably a lot of worlds like that, but I think I could do better. Spirit magic is scary and could lead to OP villains. Imagine a monster that could rip your soul out. Don''t want that, so that''s off the table. Maybe a magic world based on nodes and ley lines of the planet. Nnnnnoooo... If that happens then the likelihood of powerful nations monopolizing them is high. Wouldn''t be very fun if I was reborn into a world as a peasant and never saw the magic I so desperately want to see. Then there would be no reason for that world to desire space travel, either. How about celestial magic, then? That way as long as they live in space, it should be available to everyone, even if they''re underground. Call on the power of the planets and the stars for magic! Sailor Moon, Activate! Forgive me, I''ve never watched a single episode of Sailor Moon. Don''t hate me! Should give the people a reason to strive for space travel, too, since their magic should still work. Though I still want to live in a world without space travel. Maybe I could develop it myself when I am reborn. Gives me something to do. Ahh, who am I kidding. I know nothing about space travel. I sucked in physics class. I could never remember all the formulas. I know E=MC^2 though. That might give me a head start... Or I could end up blowing myself up. Baaahh, I don''t care any more. Any thing''s better than this static. I wanna go to a medieval world with celestial-based magic! And with humans... and elves. And beast people too! I want to pet a shota puppyboy! Mmmmm. And demon people, too! Horns are cool! Oh, and dungeons! And floating islands! And enormous castles with granite floors and surrounded by walls of magic metal and full of people of all races commingling! And magic beasts! Can''t forget magic beasts, otherwise there would be no reason to develop magic. And sword fighting too! Need to make sword fighting work in this world. Maybe imbuing the swords and armor with meteorite gems to give them celestial powers or something. And two moons just like in Skyrim! Though... maybe not so close. Tides would be a pain if they were that close. And seven continents just like Earth! Got to have plenty of places to explore and loads of islands! I wanna go there right now! Let me go there! Please please please please! Opening my figurative eyes, I already knew nothing worked. I was still in the static world. Nothing changed. Ahhhhhhh, so bored! I knew it was too much to ask to go to that world! I was even thinking up names for it and everything! I was even hoping Sola and Gene would be my childhood buddies! Sola would have been the head-stong tsundere tomboy, Gene would have been the shy boy who just went along with everything, and I would have been the one to tie us all together! Of course I would never get lucky enough to actually design my own world, let alone be reincarnated! Damn it. Damn it. Damn it! Damn. It. Damn... ---- How much time have I spent looking for patterns in this lightless, darkless void? I guess time doesn''t exist unless you can measure it. And I have no way of doing that. Maybe I should try to recreate Sola so I have someone to talk to for eternity. I don''t know if I can even do that though, not having a brain and all. I have started visualizing a body though. Rather easy in this world of nothing. I can even make myself have more than 2 arms. I can turn myself into a tentacle monster, too! 2D Japanese girls beware! This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. I think I''m going insane. ---- Day... fudge if I know. Still static. See you in an eternity. ---- Thing about eternity, it''s timeless. An eternity can be 1 quadrillion years or 5 seconds. Since I never bothered to count seconds, though, I have no idea how long I''ve been in this nothingness. 1 Mississippi. There. Longer than 1 second. Maybe I should count to 9000. Then I will have been here for over 9000 seconds... I''m sorry. ---- Tried to recreate Sola. Nothing. I can''t even visualize her face any more. She''s gone. Same with Gene. I can''t even remember how they talked any more. It''s so boring here. I think, therefore I am, but nothing else exists, so can I stop thinking and disappear like I was supposed to? I died. Why can''t I just go to sleep and never wake up? I can''t even sleep in this world. No brain, no need to sleep. Though I am thinking. How the heck does that work? ---- Trying to think about Earth, now. I might not be able to be reborn in my world of magic because magic might be a fundamental impossibility in all universes. So maybe if I focus on Earth, I will at least be reborn on it and maybe escape this nothingness. Or if I can''t be reborn on Earth, I can maybe at least see it. I would like to see Earth develop like a TV show. Even if it was watching an ant colony for a few years or just watching paint dry, it would be preferable to this nothingness. I miss having an up and a down. I miss seeing stars and the sun. I miss the boring grind that is life. Wake up, go to school, come home, play games, go to bed, repeat for 18 years. Wake up, go to work, come home, play games, go to bed, repeat till death. At the end of the day, it''s preferable to nothing. Errm, I''m still hoping for a magic world. Maybe I should stop thinking about that. It''s distracting me. ---- Trying to hack the Matrix, now. Maybe I''m not dead. Maybe I''m just in storage in the Matrix and I got caught up in some debug system. It''s always been a philosophy problem to prove we aren''t in the Matrix. It''s impossible to prove or disprove, though I have heard some odd attempts to prove it. Like how when you look up close to an object, it gets all blurry just like zooming in on a photo on your computer. I forget the other reasons, though. It was a really outlandish documentary. I think Morgan Freeman narrated it. Guy will narrate anything as long as there''s a pay check, I guess. Pornography, narrated by Morgan Freeman! "I can smell you." So bored. Now I''m replaying old Youtube videos in my head. ---- I''m Rudeous Greyrat! Die Orsted! I have to protect my family! Amazing what your imagination can do when there''s LITERALLY NOTHING AROUND YOU! Must have been the fourth or fifth time I reimagined Mushoku Tensei in my head. I put a bookmark in the story and switched over to Skyrim. Freaking Delphine, give me that horn back! How the heck did you even get into that tomb, you needed to use shouts! Freakin plot holes. ---- Maybe I should just make up my own story. You''re probably getting tired of my ramblings. I''m sitting in a nothingness right now, so this might be how the universe was before God created the Earth. Not that I believe in this silly story. But right now, if you told me the sky was made of pudding, the only thing that would surprise me is someone else telling me something. I would cry right now if I had a face... "Mmmmhmm" What was that. I heard something. I HEARD SOMETHING! I''M FINALLY LOSING MY MIND! Insanity, take me! Hahahahaha! "Mmhrmmmhmm" Noise! Something besides nothing. Something that isn''t static, I can hear it. Am I being reborn? Is this the sound of my mother''s pleasure as I''m conceived? Actually, never mind. I don''t want to remember that. I don''t want this to be the first voice of my mother''s if this is her voice in ecstasy. Lalalala, I don''t hear anything! "Mmmhmmummmhmm..." Lalalalalalala. I''m not here right now! Wait, if I can hear something, does that mean I can see something, too? I never really paid attention to my surroundings much after the first dozen play-throughs of Mass Effect. I figuratively opened my eyes and... darkness. DARKNESS! There''s darkness! That means there must be light somewhere, too! With darkness, there''s light! Was I in the womb? Did my soul connect to Earth again? Oh please tell me I''m human... I wait a few minutes in my darkness. I love this darkness. I still don''t feel anything, but I see dark. Oh joyous world of dark. I will live forever in this world of dark if it means I can escape my static world. Sola, are you here? Gene! Are you conceived, too? If you can hear me, let''s meet up when we''re older! I''m so happy! *Sniff* I figuratively close my eyes, then I open my eyes again, well literally this time. I see a room. Four walls, a ceiling, and floor. UP AND DOWN! I see physical things. I''M ALIVE! Wait, wasn''t I in the womb? Why am I in a room now? A scream erupts from myself. I didn''t tell my body to scream. My head is looking around frantically. I am not controlling this... A voice shouts from my new body and I can''t control it, nor can I understand it. It''s talking frantically in a language I don''t know. Though, not surprising, since I only could speak English fluently on Earth. I knew a bit of German, though. And this language is definitely not German. The weeaboo in me determined it wasn''t Japanese either. Possibilities now, I am in another country on Earth... or I am in another world. Please be my world of celestial magic! The screaming and crying continued until I saw an adult enter the room. I am very small. I must be at least 1 meter tall if this person was comparable to humans on Earth. The adult was a woman with jet-black hair down to her shoulders. The darkness of that hair, just like the first darkness I saw in this world. It fills me with joy. Of course, the crying voice from my body doesn''t stop. Can I control this somehow? Actually, maybe I shouldn''t. I wasn''t born like I would have liked to be. Possession? I was possessing someone, this I figured in my mind. And now that I am looking through this child''s eyes, she is blind. Crap. And since I can hear, she''s probably deaf now, too. I pull my focus away from the eyes and ears, away from the visual and return to the darkness. I can''t just take control of the body like that. Last thing I need is to be exorcised. Craaaaaaaaap. I wanted my own body. I didn''t want to be a parasite on someone else''s. *Sigh* Beggars can''t be choosers. Maybe I should focus on looking at the world through this child''s memory instead. Chapter 2 - Erde Of course a child doesn''t know much. They absorb the world around them like a sponge, though. Although I don''t know the language just yet, and to be honest she doesn''t know it much either, her mind puts meaning to everything. I am able to completely access her memories like they were files on a computer. Problem is, they are all over the place and not in chronological order. So I have been sifting through them for a while now. I hope me going through her memories doesn''t separate them from her mind. I don''t need to declare my existence here any more than I have to. Now to answer a question that''s probably been bugging you. Magic does exist on this world. That''s what I gathered by interpreting her memories with my experiences from Earth. The fundamentals of this magic, though, are completely beyond her grasp. And because I''ve never experienced magic beyond magic in fiction, it''s beyond mine, too. Earliest memory I could find is her birth. After calming down and opening her eyes to her beautiful black-haired, emerald-eyed mother''s face, she saw figures dressed in black and blue robes casting some sort of magic on herself and her mother. Healing magic for her mother, most likely, and identification magic on her. Her eyes were still not quite developed at this time, though, so everything is kinda blurred. Like her eyes were covered in Vaseline. The only reason I could make out figures was due to her later experiences with her mother and the black and blue cloaked figures. Let''s get this out of the way right now. Unless there''s more to it that she doesn''t understand or wasn''t told yet, this girl is completely human, even if their word for human isn''t the same. 2 round ears, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 1 head, 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes, 1 nose, 1 mouth, etcetera. There is nothing special about this girl I am possessing, physically, from what I can tell. From her occasional glances at mirrors, her hair is the same as her mother''s. Jet black. Not a hint of brown or any other color. Her eyes are brown, though. Probably what she inherited from her father. She has no memories concerning her father, so he must be out of the picture somehow. Bit disappointing because now I can''t tell if she''s part demon or something. That would be cool if she started to grow horns. Though, maybe not if this world is at war with demons like the trope demands. She''s probably completely human, though. Her memory is nothing but sleep, eat, play with Mother and occasional playmates, and more sleep. She occasionally watches her mother use some kind of light magic to illuminate rooms or cast light on books for reading, but other than that there''s nothing else of note... Aside from the blindness and deafness scare I caused. I went through her entire life-story in five nights. Having limited control of her mind while she was unconscious allowed me to boost her mental processing power for me to slow time enough to focus on her memories in record time. I''m getting good at this. All I could do when I was alive was make egos and interact with them. Egos are what Sola and Gene were, by the way. Different personalities in one head. Self-induced dissociative identity disorder. Like I said, I was a basket-case. So if these parties I found in her memory are birthday parties, then she is three. Three what, I don''t know. Can''t be years because this isn''t Earth. Or it isn''t the Earth I know. And because her memory is so scattered, I can''t count the days between each party. The house she and her mother live in is nothing special. It''s not a dirt shack and neither is it a mansion. It''s a very standard ranch-styled house with one floor, a basement that she has never gone down into before, a kitchen, a living room, three rooms, and a bathroom. It''s a bit cramped, so this might be some standard housing. This world, or at least this country, might practise some kind of socialism since her mother rarely leaves the house with her except to get food and clothing, which she pays for with different colored metal domino-shaped things. The sky is blue. No pudding up there. Though there are two moons, so I am VERY optimistic. Well, since I can slow time for myself, maybe I should speed it up to a point where she is old enough to be in school and to understand the world in which she, and I, live. Actually, maybe I shouldn''t try that. I could end up making her comatose for a while if I screw up. I will just stick myself in her short-term memory and passively watch as she grows up. I was in a world of static for who-knows how long. I can finally hitch a ride with this girl and watch her grow up for a while. Just like TV! Well, not so much. This should be fun, though. Hope I don''t mess with her mind too much while I watch. ---- Two more birthday parties and she is finally starting to take an interest in the world around her. I finally understand most of their language now. It is VERY different from English. With English you have to worry about grammar and memorizing words and spelling. As with most languages on Earth, it is all about words. Even calligraphic languages like Japanese and Chinese are all about words and tone of voice. With this language, though, the language is heavily reliant on emotion. While body language played a secondary part in English conversation, it is full frontal in this one. Maybe that''s why it took her so long to grasp it. Although it still uses words, each word can have very different meaning when spoken a certain way or when making certain facial gestures. This is even evident in writings. Very sharp script can indicate anger or desperation while soft curves and light pressure with the writing utensil can express gentleness or happiness. This is going to be very difficult if they try to invent computers, which rely solely on logic. I don''t see this world advancing to space travel any time soon. If we gain some political standing, I should probably convince her people to throw away this language. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Onto the world. Their name for the world is Earth. Or at least it translates to Earth in the same way. Earth in English means dirt or ground. Same in their language. So to differentiate the two, I''m going to call this world Erde, which is German for Earth. I don''t know any other name for Earth and I don''t want to be all chuuni and call it Tera or Gaia. So Erde it is. The location she lives in doesn''t experience much of a seasonal change, but it gets very hot in some parts of the year/cycle, so either this world has a minor axial tilt or it has a slightly elliptical orbit. She has been wondering about the seasons, so I know this much. This is all her mother knows, so we probably won''t be told much until she''s much older. I kind of overestimated her mother at some point. She is just as unremarkable as her daughter. The girl''s name is Celestine, or at least that''s how I''m going to translate it because of how difficult it is to translate their language to English. She prefers the nickname equivalent of ''Tina''. When I gather enough courage to try to communicate with her, I should probably use this nickname. She or her mother don''t have a surname. Surnames are probably restricted to people like royalty or nobility. I would have liked to avoid a classist world like this, but it can''t be helped sometimes. Even in a socialist society, there''s going to be the elites who''s family have distinguished themselves. I''ve been playing around with Celestine''s subconscious more as she gets older. I''ve managed to instil in her a love of books. So at least now I can get my fill of this world''s fiction and knowledge. I don''t want to mess with her too much, though. I don''t want her to turn into a puppet. I want her to stay independent while I hang around for the ride. Hopefully this will make her have a bit of a head start as she comes of age for education, though. ---- We saw our first humanoid species that wasn''t human today! Oh joy, this really is a dream come true! The species was a beast-man of some kind. He was a serpent-looking man with the upper body of a human with needle thin pupils set in orange irises, sharp teeth, and a long tail like a snake. He must have stretched at least 15 meters long from head to tail. He wore heavy plate metal armor and a plated kilt dyed bright green, which contrasted against his brown skin and black-brown patched scales. He was bald, but had three spines laying against the back of his head. I surmised that he could freely raise those up as if to threaten opponents like some triple mohawk of scaly skin. Many gave him as much room to move through the village as they could and Celestine''s mother, Sylvianna, held her very tightly like she greatly feared the snake man. Celestine''s eyes were wide open in amazement, though. Can''t beat the innocent curiosity of a child''s gaze. The man was probably some kind of traveller. Do I dare say ''adventurer''? In his left hand grasped a tower-shield and under it was a longsword sheathed on his left hip. His slithering was hypnotic as his hips swayed back and forth with his powerful snake body muscles hefting his human body half upright along with the armor. He made his way to, what I assume is, the village bar/inn. I won''t call that building the ''adventurers'' guild'' unless I know for certain. All I knew is that it served food and had beds for rent. Celestine has never been inside, though. So who''s to say what it is. ---- The more Celestine''s love of books grew, the more the second room in her house changed from a play room to a miniature library. Seemed like every other day Sylvianna was buying the girl more and more books and even tutored her on how to read the more difficult script found in the books. This helped me greatly because she was taking an interest in the non-fiction books, too. Books about the fauna of this world is what really interested her. I, of course, am still along for the ride. I figured out how to somewhat defragment her mind. Instead of hitching a ride on her short-term memory, I became her librarian. I sorted everything she absorbed and shelved it in the library that was her long-term memory. This girl is going to have a photographic memory whether she likes it or not! I also did something I probably shouldn''t have done. You know how these kind of magic worlds sometimes have a "voice of the system" kinda thing that tells you when you''ve levelled up or shows your skills in light/web novels? Yeaaah, I kinda made an ego in her mind that does that. By golly did she freak the hell out when she first gained +Proficiency in Housework. In hindsight I probably should have added this to her mind as soon as I was self-aware inside her mind at 3 birthdays old. She would have been more used to it by the time she started getting older. Whuppsies, I guess we''re taking a trip to the church to get her mind checked out by the priests. Please don''t exorcise me, please don''t exorcise me. I don''t want to go back to the static world! Chapter 3 - English Since this might be the last day I have on Erde, let me describe the ego I made in a bit more detail. To be more specific, it''s called a servitor. It''s like a proto-ego. Not quite fully sentient, but just enough to be useful. I gave it specific instructions to help guide Celestine to better herself. Since this world has no system like in some of the novels written on fantasy world reincarnation that I read in my life that tell you about your skills and stats, I created this ego as a judge on Celestine to motivate her to better herself. So if she learns a skill of any kind, it becomes a skill judged by the ego. Since she was helping Sylvianna clean house and was learning like the sponge that she is, she became slightly more proficient in housework, which the ego judged to be a skill. Maybe I should have limited it to combat skills... I really just created this as a test. I wanted to see if I could make egos in her mind and it turns out I can. If I tried harder, I could probably make a fully sentient one, too. Not that I''ll have that chance now. Celestine is in her mother''s arms and rushing to the church clutching her terrified daughter''s head crying on her shoulder. I can''t hear much aside from her light sobbing. I''m sorry if I traumatised you, young Celestine. You''re kinda stuck with the servitor now. Maybe I deserve to be exorcised... The center of religion in the village is a tall gothic-looking tower. Huge buttresses jutted out around the octagonal building to assist in holding it up. It probably had enough room for 10 stories inside. Though keeping with gothic design, it was really just a very tall roof. A balcony circled around just above a circle of pews. Imagine a normal church where the altar is up front and all the church benches lines up neatly to the entrance. The layout of this building was somewhat similar, except the altar up front was circular and the pews radiated around it in a circle. There were 8 pillars around the outside holding up the balcony above that held more seats. You''re probably wondering how I could see all this with Celestine''s face currently buried in her mother''s arm. Well, we''ve been to the church service before many times. We''ve toured this building with the folks in black and blue robes with other children. Celestine''s understanding of religion is still poor, but she loved looking at the pretty murals of stars and galaxies painted on the walls. Girl''s got her priorities straight in my opinion. But that doesn''t help me. The religion is polytheistic. They worship seven major gods and allow for the worship of hundreds more, named and unknown. According to the head of the church, there are as many gods in the heavens as there are stars in the sky. Starting to think this is my celestial magic world. But with no practical schooling in magic, there''s no way to know for certain. "Please help! My daughter is hearing voices in her head!" Sylvianna, oh Sylvianna. So worried about your daughter. She was begging the acolytes currently tending the church during down time. This is a medieval world after all. Religion and medicine are kinda one in the same right now. I''m actually surprised Sylvianna didn''t rush Celestine here after the blindness scare. Guess this is more important. "Sylvianna, keep your voice down." A male voice spoke sharply. I didn''t actually know how large the village was yet to know if it was small enough for everyone to know your name. Or maybe this acolyte just knew Sylvianna. This church was definitely magnificent enough to be the center of a small city. So who can say how large Celestine''s hometown is. She hasn''t been to the outskirts yet. "S-sorry." Her voice was a whisper now. "Come, follow me downstairs. We''ll give her a check over now." The jostling feeling of being carried down a long flight of stairs against Celestine''s mother calmed her enough to make her stop crying. She still rested her head against her mother''s shoulder, but her gaze was on the numerous light-emitting crystals that dotted the stone passageway. A very thin wire could be seen connecting the crystals. Thin like a spider''s web. Only visible by a tiny glare that it gave off as light passed over it. The church was full of these crystals, but this is the first time I saw that wire. This is the first time since we''ve been this close to the crystals from what she remembers. I wanted to know what those wires did. How these crystals worked. I didn''t want to be exorcised even more now. We entered a square room with marble walls and brightly blue-colored tiled floors. The ceiling was pitch black, which heavily contrasted with the rest of the room''s contents. I could see no light source anywhere in the room, but it was illuminated nonetheless. This was the room Celestine was born in. The church''s hospital ward. Flimsy walls stood to separate the various rooms. They were temporary barriers so that they could be moved and rearranged depending on the need. Probably during wartime they could be all pushed against the wall to be able to line the room with several hundred cots. Right now there were only five large rooms on each side of a hallway. At the end of the hallway was a heavy wooden door that probably separated into offices and storage. The stairs we came down on continued downward, but this was our destination. The acolytes motioned Sylvianna into the first room on the right and she carefully laid Celestine on a standard flat operating table. There was a small amount of padding that separated her from the hard surface of the table, but it did little to make it comfortable. "Okay, little Celestine. Tell us about the voice you heard." The acolyte that spoke was the same one that hushed Sylvianna upstairs earlier. He was probably a head figure for the healers. Or he was just the only one working at the time. The man was covered in the black blue robes. This is the first time she got close enough to properly get a look at them. The cloth itself was completely black with tiny spots of white all over it. A dark blue cloud pattern stretched from his left shoulder to his right waist. Celestine would have no knowledge of what this pattern was. But me being a sci-fi nut when I was alive knew exactly what it was. A bright blue representation of a spiral galaxy, very heavily detailed to the point it shamed the murals upstairs. And at his chest would be the bright white ball of the galactic core, but his robe stopped before there and just a black tunic covered his chest under the robe. The man''s charcoal-black eyes looked Celestine up and down as if to strip her completely and bore right into her very soul. That''s probably exactly what he was doing, looking at her soul right now. Or it could have been what he was doing. I have no idea. All I''ve been doing is playing about in her head. I have no clue how my soul and hers cohabit this body. "Uhm, i-it was the voice of a woman. While momma and I were tidying the house, it spoke to me with words I''ve never heard before." Celestine''s voice was like crystal. One slip and she''d shatter into pieces. The voice she spoke of was the voice I assigned to the ego. But what did she mean words she''d never heard befo... fuck. I forgot to force the ego to speak in her native tongue. The fucking thing spoke to her in English. God. DAMN IT. "Do you remember exactly what it said or how it sounded?" The man said, his eyes narrowing, inspecting her head. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. "It said, " Photographic memory. She recited the message perfectly. In fluent English. She even kept the monotone voice of the ego. Regretting giving her photographic memory about now. She will have no idea what it means, but she could repeat it exactly how it was said. The eyes of everyone in the room shot open wide from hearing the tongue of a language that should not exist in this world, let alone spoken by a girl who''d just had her 5th birthday. Well, they wouldn''t know it was from another world, hopefully. I hope this world isn''t one where English is like some ancient language or something. I hate stories like that. So lazy... "That''s fascinating." The man placed his hand onto Celestine''s head and forced some kind of magic into her mind. Me having no understanding of magic yet had no way to defend against it. Luckily all it did was put her to sleep. Her consciousness left her and her eyes closed. I escaped her short term memory and listened to the conversation of those in the room with her subconscious. "Bring me the inspection results of her birth. I want to compare them with what I am sensing in her now." "Yes sir." There was no way to tell what''s exactly going on in the room with sound alone. But there was one set of footprints walking away. I could also hear breathing very close to her ears, so whoever was inspecting her had their head within inches of Celestine''s face. "Is she all right?" Sylvianna, ever the worrying Sylvianna. Sorry for possessing your daughter. Please forgive me. "Here you are, sir." That was fast. They must not have many records if it was found that fast. The fluttering of papers exchanging hand and some light jingling of crystals echoed slightly. "Ahh, this makes no sense. Her mental activity was perfectly normal right out of the womb. Now it''s off the charts. Her mind is interpreting information even now. Actually..." He was silent for a moment, then spoke again. "She''s listening to us speak even as she''s unconscious. That''s a scary ability. Remarkable. Remarkable." Is this man some kind of living EEG or something? "Tell me, Sylvianna, have there been any incidents since her birth that might explain this? What is her diet like, what does she do at home, has she had any contact with anyone aside immediate family and friends?" He spoke several questions at once. That last one was oddly specific. What was he expecting, some random encounter to boost her brain into overdrive? "Ah, well, when she was three..." crap, "there was a bit of a scare." Understatement. I made her blind and deaf for a least a minute. "She was in her bed asleep and woke up screaming that she went blind and couldn''t hear anything. She regained her ability to see and hear, so I didn''t think it was anything but a nightmare. Her diet has been the same as mine, though she eats more. Two meals of vegetables, bread, and the occasional meat stew and fruit for snacks. Nothing different." "And in her free time, what does she do?" "She sits in the play room and reads. I''ve started to buy slightly less food, and eating less myself, and saved up to buy her various books. She loves to read. She can even recite passages from books she hasn''t read in weeks perfectly." *Sniff* Momma, sacrificing your own health for the sake of your daughter''s curiosity... caused by the parasite soul in her head. I hate myself even more now. "That contrasts with the results of her inspection at birth. She shouldn''t be capable of that. She has become incredibly gifted in just her short life. There''s also the addition of the voice in her head she mentioned. I''ve never heard a language like that. It was incredibly monotone. There was no emotion at all and it spoke to her at great length." Because of their language being part spoken word, emotion, and facial gestures, they can say more than the few words they speak. I am extending what they say for translation''s sake, but that 8 word string of English Celestine recited would have sounded like a paragraph to them. Of course, being unable to see them makes this translation difficult, too. I am kinda fluffing it here and there. "Isn''t it good that she''s gifted? Well, there''s the voice, but maybe she can learn to talk to it? She might be being assisted by a god!" Sylvianna, you are my savior! I love you, mamma! If worse comes to worse, I can possess Celestine completely and pretend to be a god. Why did atheist me never think of that? Actually, I should think on this a bit more. Celestine being assisted by a god, even if it''s a false god hitchhiking on her body for the hell of it, will definitely change her life. But, then again, is that a bad thing? No offence to Sylvianna, but if Celestine were to be born and live her life normally, she would be no better off than her mother, another completely normal existence. I bear no ill-will toward Sylvianna. I love her like my own mother right now. But I want little Celestine to see the world, not live her life entirely inside this village. And by me wanting Celestine to see the world, I mean I want to see the world. I am a selfish false god. Ahh, this is going to hurt, Celestine. What I''m about to do might take you away from your mother. Please don''t curse the false god in your head. I took full control of Celestine''s body through her subconscious. I opened her eyes and looked directly into the black eyes of the head acolyte. He jumped back. "Impossible! She should still be asleep! That spell should last an hour!" "" I shouted in English. Psh, I always wanted to say that. Not that they would understand it. I sit Celestine up like a robot and looked at the eyes of everyone in the room. I wonder what they see right now. Just a child who overcame a sleep spell? I cleared her throat with a rough cough, then spoke in their language for the first time. "I... The Mother is correct. I have taken a liking to this young child. I have given her my blessing so that one day her future will lead to great things." Am I a good actor? Is this something a god in this world would say? There are so many gods it''s hard to know. Even if they are real. (I have an inkling that they are not.) "Oh great deity, please humble us believers!" Every single person in the room fell to their knees to prostrate themselves to the false god in the child''s body. I shouldn''t milk this. "Please rise. I am but a minor and young god. I do not deserve such ." I spoke the last word in English for lack of an alternative. Celestine''s vocabulary is still limited. They won''t understand the word, but maybe they will understand the context. This also proves I am the source of the unknown language. "Please, grace us with your name!" An elder woman behind everyone was the first and only one to rise, eyeing the child. Unlike the others, her robes were black and yellow. "I am..." I completely forgot my name. I don''t even remember if I was a man or a woman on Earth. How the hell did I forget these important details! Too much time in the static. I will blame that. Now I need to name myself. Something neutral. Something new. Something kinda spacy. "I am... Novos." I can live with this name. Chapter 4 - Why? "Why have you come here, exalted Novos?" The woman in the black and yellow robes asked. Her manner of speaking the language was far more formal than Celestine was used to. If not for her mannerisms, I wouldn''t have understood what she was saying. Why am I here? That was a question I didn''t quite know myself. I wasn''t sent here by God. I am not some great hero brought here to slay some great evil as far as I know. I woke up in Celestine''s head two of this planet''s years ago and just kinda sat back while improving her memory. And what a memory she has now! I was living in my own personal library and could recall any bit of information she soaked up, even if she didn''t understand it entirely herself. Time for a refresher. From my ramblings early on in my time in the static void, I gave a brief description of the world I wanted to travel to and be reborn on. Erde fits all of the criteria for my ramblings so far... except the number of continents part. Instead of 7 continents, there are at least 5. If this world is really like what I was hoping for, there should be 2 more continents hiding in the vast oceans somewhere. Celestine, when you get older, we''re going to turn you into a sailor after we''ve thoroughly explored the known 5 continents! Going through what Celestine knows from what she''s read might help find an answer to the woman''s question. Rather, help me come up with an excuse for why a god would help a normal young girl. Let''s start with the continents. Humans exist on all five known continents, but are the most dominant species on the continent Sirius. Sirius experiences bitter cold winters and mild summers with the occasional light snow shower even on the longest day of the year. It is very far north, in other words. We are not on Sirius. The reason why humans are the most dominant on Sirius is simply due to no other species wanting it. Vast meadows of ground frozen year-long. It survives solely on importation of produce from other continents, hunting of magical beasts, and fishing. According to the books she''s read, the humans who live here are constantly trying to teraform it to be able to grow crops. She was mostly wanting to go there to see the snow. The central leading government is an oligarchy with several independent tribes and city-states scattered around. The continent we''re currently on is a continent controlled by several different species of beast-men called Izaibis. Unlike what you would usually think of when you hear the word continent, Izaibis is just an incredibly long stretch of land. It stretches from one side of the world, starting at the equator, and arches in a crescent to the south pole before extending even further back north to end right at the south-east corner of the Elf continent Eldwen, which I will talk about in a bit. Even at its widest you could walk from the west coast to the east coast in ten days. But it would take you well over half an Earth year to walk from one tip to the other provided the most favorable conditions. And there is no such thing as favorable conditions on this continent. At the equator it starts off as a desert and then as you move south, it becomes slightly more temperate. This is the area we live in. The climate is like Earth''s California or West Spain and Portugal. Very hot summers, not so cold winters, hardly ever rains. It''s covered in grass land but the soil is very dry. It''s difficult to grow anything here without being able to collect large amounts of freshwater for irrigation. Further south you go, the more mountainous it gets with thick forests. After that you get terrain similar to Sirius. Then it transitions to enormous ice plateaus as glaciers migrate from the south pole of the planet. Coming back up, more permafrost, then a volcano separates the frozen land from the tropical minor tip of the long continent of Izaibis before the continent connects to Eldwen through a briny swamp. Throughout the whole journey not only will you end up fighting magical beasts, you will also fight the many beast-men species as they fight amongst themselves for territory. The continent is too expansive for any central government. Humans are allowed to govern very minor city-states provided they offer various services to the beast-men tribe in control of the territory. These range from providing free maintenance on equipment to providing unpaid labor. All depends on the culture of the tribe and what they need. As for what Celestine''s hometown provides, I do not know. But the snake beast-man she saw that one day makes it obvious what species controls this area. The continent is starving for natural resources, further fuelling the warring between the beast-men species. The main exports of the continent are weapons and prisoners of war to be sold as slaves. Main imports are metal for making more weapons and magical stones for improving weapons and equipment. Okay. Onto the elf continent, Eldwen! Eldwen is the largest continent for surface area. And the entire continent is an enormous forest. The tree species and the climates change, but the fact that it is all forest does not change. Rather disappointing, really. Elves and trees, a stereotype that will never go away, huh. Anyway, the whole continent is one big forest. Because of the richness of the soil caused by millennia of dead things piling up and turning to mulch, the soil is incredibly rich and is one of the minor exports of the continent, mostly bought by humans in attempts to grow crops on their cold continent. The elves are also skilled woodworkers and carpenters. So wood products and tree fruit are the leading products they export. What they import the most is stone and metal for masonry projects. Yes, go against the stereotype! The major port cities are just like human cities with only a fringe minority of elves living like their ancestors in the trees deeper within the continent. The continent is controlled by the religious leaders of the elves, a theocracy. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Going west we come back around near to home. Off the major tip of Izaibis is the mostly desert continent that the demon-kind have claimed. Saddath is a land devoid of all but the most hardy vegetation. And it is a land absolutely teeming with natural resources. Mines have been dug in this continent that have existed for thousands of years. The demon-kind are the leading supplier of stone and metal in the world. They are also the major importer of freshwater and food. Living in this land is harsh. Travel through it is almost impossible. There is no central government in Saddath. It is just city-states near central trading hubs between Eldwen, Izaibis, and the next continent I will talk about. Connecting to Saddath from the west, similar to how Europe connects to Asia by being separated by mountains, is the common ground continent of... Hope. The continent literally translates to Hope. Would you be surprised if I said this continent houses the only true democratic country in the world? It is a peaceful continent with almost zero magical beast attacks and it is the home continent of the human race. Being humans and vying for control of the farmlands of the continent, the human nations on the continent fought each other for centuries. Then on another part of the world, several peace-loving beast-men species from Izaibis got tired of the pointless bloodshed of their own continent and sailed to find a new land. They found Hope and forcefully confiscated it from the warring human nations and unified them under their banner. I said peace-loving, doesn''t mean they were weak or weren''t prepared to do what they needed to do to make peace. They banished many human noble families and seats of royalty to Sirius for their role in the bloodshed, which is why only humans dominate that frozen hell. The beast-men instituted no-discrimination laws, renamed the continent to Hope, scrubbed the old name from history, and opened all the ports for immigration and refugees. After the population was suffused with many different species, they implemented a very simple democratic system for deciding leadership. They are the leading provider of food for regions on the planet that cannot self-sustain themselves. The majority of the bread Celestine has eaten was baked from grain grown here. Now, why am I here? Why would I, a false god, help this insignificant human existence with the name Celestine? Hmph, why else? "I was bored." I said plainly. The old woman clearly wasn''t expecting this answer. What, were you hoping for some prophecy of a great evil on the horizon? Or a natural disaster that only this child could avoid? Nope, I will not lie, but I will not tell the truth either. "B-bored?" Her mouth was agape, astonished! Yeah! The great (false) god Novos was bored! "Yes. I was bored. Ahh, I want to see the world but it''s no fun to just watch from above, so I took a liking to this child here and blessed her. I plan to guard over the child throughout her life and push her toward greatness!" "Y-you did say you were a young god." The old woman in black and yellow robes chuckled softly. I''m starting to like her. I turned Celestine''s head toward Sylvianna, who was just staring at her own daughter while still on her knees. "I hope you won''t mind my in your daughter''s life. There''s so much more she can do with her life than just read books." "Y-y-yes..." Her reply was like a whisper. "Time for Celestine to go back to sleep now. I''ll leave you folks for now." I said through Celestine''s mouth and laid her body back down against the table and closed her eyes. Then I moved myself back to where I was in her subconscious before to where I can only hear. "Reemaaaarkable! I never thought I would live to hear the will of a god!" The man who had inspected Celestine before shouted with emotion I had yet to hear from him. He chastised Sylvianna earlier for speaking loudly and now here he is. "Indeed. And quite the character this young god Novos is. I''ll alert the head priest to visit and give his own thoughts on the matter. Interesting times ahead. Sylvianna?" I could hear scrambling, probably Sylvianna hurriedly rushing to her feet. "Yesh-" Did she just bite her tongue? "You should speak with her father concerning this. Maybe with the blessing of a god he might be willing to increase the support to fuel her development and so you no longer have to starve yourself. If he puts up resistance, I will intervene." What''s this about Celestine''s father now? This is the only time I have ever heard him mentioned and Celestine has no memory of a father-figure. Please don''t be what I think it is... Chapter 5 - Dream After introducing myself to the adults, it''s about time I introduced myself to my host. The main character in this story! The ordinary in every way little girl I happened to get attached to. I focussed myself onto Celestine''s conscious and pried into her dream. It was an interesting dream. There she was standing in the middle of a little world that she shouldn''t have known about. So a few of my memories leaked into her dream, huh? She was standing in the middle of an elevated road of concrete and asphalt. Blurs of cars were buzzing by her left and right at great speed. On one side of the road there were the tops of houses. Very narrow houses that were built right next to each other like you would expect in a city. On the other, a great big building made of brick that rose five stories and was covered in windows evenly spaced. There was no cityscape further out, though. The world was just a disk of a few buildings and this elevated road. The blurs of cars would be enough to make this scene a nightmare for a child who had never been on Earth. I materialize myself to the best of my ability in front of her and snap my fingers to pause the dream. I''ve never been good at figuring out if I''m dreaming in my own dreams. I always relied on Gene for that. When you are the host of many egos, eventually one will figure out how to determine dream from reality and initiate a lucid dream. That is what I''m doing for Celestine now. Does this make me an ego now, too? With the dream paused, the cars themselves didn''t sharpen or anything. They are just blurs. Celestine was just looking at the one right next to her, not noticing my presence in front of her. Her form in this dream was actually smaller than her real self by about half a foot. She was wearing a pale pink pair of pajamas, they didn''t suit her so I snapped my fingers again and replaced the pajamas with a dark purple nightgown that went down to her ankles. That got her attention and she turned to look up at me. Actually, how did I look to her? I looked down at my arms and they were human, but the skin was nothing but static. White and black dots danced over my skin rapidly. All over my body. I wasn''t wearing clothes, but I had nothing to cover up either. I had no genitals, I had no secondary sexual traits. My body was that of an adult, but lacked any distinguishing features that would make me male or female. I waved my hand to materialize a floating mirror and looked at my face. Featureless. Nothing but static. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, only bumps on the side of my head where ears would be, no hair on my head. I guess this is what happens when you''re in the static world for too long. Your own sense of self becomes blurred. I pushed the mirror away and looked back toward Celestine, who was still just starring at me. "Interesting dream you''ve been having here, little Tina." I waved my hand a bit toward her and called her by her nickname. She was probably 5 meters from me, but my voice would carry to her as if I spoke right in front of her. My voice was something else odd. Instead of an obviously male or female voice, my voice sounded as if two people spoke at the exact same time, one man and one woman. "Ah, this is new." I put my hand to where my mouth would be, but my mouth didn''t move when I spoke. "Who are you? And where is this place?" Her voice was strong, but her body betrayed her and gave off fear as she spoke with the gestures to convey the language of her people. "I have given myself the name Novos. And this place is your dream, though the is something that must have slipped in from my memories. Although I have never been to this particular location before, this is a location that could be on my home world, . I apologise if it frightened you." She looked at me completely confused. Did I not say something right? I put my hand to my face again. Ahh, that''s right. I have no face, so I cannot fully communicate with her using her native tongue. Probably abut half of what I said was understood and the rest could be misinterpreted any number of different ways. This is going to be a pain. I need to teach her English now. I pull out a white square and use my finger to write the script of her language on it. At least I can still communicate this way. On it I write as little as I can to get the meaning across. "I am Novos. This is a dream. May I approach?" I snap my fingers and the board disappeared from in front of me and appeared in front of her. "What are you, Novos?" She asked, not answering whether I can approach or not. I pull the white square back to me, erase what I wrote, and then wrote, "A spirit from another world." I was not going to lie to her like I did with the acolytes and her mother. I need her to trust me. I let the square float to her to give her my answer. "Are you here to hurt me?" Her voice was shaking, but the words were strong again. Keep up that brave face, little Celestine. This much could be said without gestures. "Never." She understood my reply and the heartfelt feeling I conveyed. Her fear dwindled and she started to approach me of her own accord. When she was in front of me, I knelt on my right knee to face her. This was still a dream. She and I had complete control of it, though she didn''t realize this yet. I held my right hand out and manifested a teddy bear. It had more distinguishable features than me, which was a bit sad. It was nothing special. Just a stuffed animal to give her to help her calm down a bit more. The bear is an animal that doesn''t exist in this world, so she would have no reason to fear a caricature of one. I held it out to her and she just looked at it suspiciously. Her tiny hands lightly touched the fluffy exterior of the plush and she gripped it. She hugged it tightly and forced her face into the fluff. I brought back the white square and wrote a new message for her. "I would like to teach you my tongue, so that we may speak ." "Is that the words that voice used today?" She spoke when she raised her head to read the message. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. I''m going to change things up a bit. I am going to speak to her in English while translating it to her language with the white square. "" I stood back up, stepped back a bit, and manifested a wooden table between us with cushions for seats. It''s a Japanese-style table that I saw many times in anime. Seemed appropriate to bring this here for us to sit and speak. Though this is just the weeaboo in me, too. I sat on my cushion in a seiza style. If I still had a human body, this would probably be uncomfortable. This is a dream world, though, so there is no pain. I move the white square to the table. "" This girl has a photographic memory because of me. I wonder how long it will take before she picks up English in this manner? "." Yes! She said yes! Making progress! She sat on her cushion with her legs out in front of her and under the table. Her eyes were glued to me until she heard my voice. "" "What did that voice say to me today? What is that voice?" Of course this would be the first question. It scared the hell out of her. Anyone would be afraid. "" It might seem like I''m saying a lot, but there are very few words appearing on the white square as it translates. That''s just how different the languages are. "Thank you!" She was smiling now. This girl was fated to be a housekeeper with how excited she is with being told she did well with cleaning. If I had a face, it would be a pokerface. "" As she read that, her face gave a weird expression. She combed her fingers through the soft fur of the teddy bear resting on her lap. "C-can you leave?" Was the question she asked. This was going to be hard to answer. I simply don''t know. I never tried. Probably can''t. If I tried, though, I don''t know if I could return. I decided a visual representation of what my afterlife was like before coming here would be best. I manipulated the dream world, cast away the buildings, car blurs, and the road we sat on, and replaced it all with static. My static world. Needless to say, this upset her. It upset me when I was first here, too. "" I cast away the static before she would think this another nightmare and replaced it with darkness. I lit a few light crystals on the table. "" The white square turned into a little video player and replayed my first glimpse of the world through her eyes. I replaced it with white again and spoke, "" "It''s... scary." She murmured, clutching the table and the teddy bear like her life depended on it. "" So far there is nothing for her to gain by accepting me, though. I already gave her the system ego I made. I already gave her photographic memories. There has to be more I can do! Think... What did my own egos do? What did we do together? Lucid dreaming, yes. That was one thing and was probably the one thing that kept me from taking my own life. But there was more than just that. "I..." She started, I interrupted her. "" She didn''t answer. She just leaned forward, squishing the teddy bear against the table and herself. She repositioned her legs and just laid against the table, lost in thought, head against the white square and the wood. "Hmmmmmmmmmmm..." She hummed against the table before rocketing up to her feet. She dropped the teddy bear, climbed onto the table, then looked down at me from above. Then she pointed her finger at me and declared, "I want to paint!" "Huh?" If I had a mouth, it would be open. "You heard me! I want to paint!" "." She jumped off the table and landed head first into my chest. This is the quiet, completely normal in every way little girl named Celestine? She had her little dream-self arms wrapped around my waist and was rubbing her head against my chest like a cat. "" All I could do is pet her head a bit in this out of nowhere display of affection. Does this mean I can stay? Wasn''t planning on leaving even if she said to, but still... Hope she isn''t like this when she''s older, she''ll win the heart of every man who gives her what she wants. This isn''t supposed to be a reverse harem story... Chapter 6 - Wonderland How am I supposed to respond to this? I wasn''t a painter in my life. I don''t know the simplest thing about painting aside from ''put paint on paper and make art.'' I might not remember if I was a man or a woman, but I know damn sure I was not an artist. When did she suddenly get it in her head that she wanted to be an artist anyway? Sylvianna never bought her any paint supplies and Celestine never doodles with the writing utensils she''s given. She doesn''t know any more about art than I do, so why? Actually, this could work out in my favor. If she wants to paint, there should be an art school somewhere in this world. And a travelling artist would be an excellent way to see the world. I just had a different vision of exploring the world in my mind. Like a mage that travels the world with a party of friends as they adventure forth slaying monsters and seeing sights you couldn''t even dream of. Exploring dangerous dungeons and old crypts full of undead. Sailing the oceans looking for lands and new cultures! All of these are perfectly within the scope of painting, but she can''t do these things and still be the weak little girl she was going to be before I showed up. "" I attempt to pry her off my body, but she''s got a vice-grip on my torso. "" "I don''t know what you''re saying, and I don''t care!" "" I said and snapped my fingers, signalling that I am manipulating the dream again. She wants to be a painter, I will give her something to paint. First thing I did was separate her from me, then I manipulated the ground and sky. I remade the world from the darkness I had left it in the dream world. The table was tossed aside, the cushions, I got rid of those. I left the bear where it was, though. First thing I willed into existence was the ground. A rocky soil mixture with sparse and thin patches of grass. It would all get covered up anyway, so there''s no reason to work on this in too much detail. Next, on one side I would raise two mountains. Not great big mountains like Everest, but mountains of a scale that would take a day or so to properly climb. I put them right next to each other and overlapped them a bit. Next, rolling hills. I tore up the ground, lowered it in some spots, raised it higher in others. The only spot of level ground left was right where we stood. From the ground, I grew pine trees. Thousands of pine trees grew in the matter of seconds, covering the faces of the mountains and growing on top of the hills I sculpted all around. I made special care to randomize them such that they didn''t appear artificial, like they have been growing wild for hundreds of years. I left several bare patches, including on the flat ground we stood. A clearing was important to marvel at the beauty I was creating. On the clear and level ground, I built a wooden cabin. Two stories tall with a chimney rising out the front. The cabin was an L shape turned onto its side if you looked at it from above. Top top everything off, everything gets a blanket of snow about three inches deep. And finally, a clear night sky full of stars with the Milky Way spanning from one horizon to the other; with Earth''s moon hung in the sky. Not quite full, but visible enough for the world I created to bask in its cool white glow. The countless trees covered in snow glowed brilliantly in the distance. The mountains dominated the distant landscape, dwarfed only by the immensity of the galaxy of stars above. Aaand time resume. "Wha- WOOOOOOOOOOOOW! Woooooo-brbrbrbrbbbrrr..." That got her attention. This is a girl, who has never seen snow before, has been suddenly dropped into a snowy winter wonderland like this. If she was older she would have had a heart attack. I even gave this land the feeling of cold you would expect this place to have. Celestine, being in the nightgown I changed her in to and wearing no shoes at all, was instantly cold. Meanwhile I stood there after covering myself in a heavy overcoat, heavy boots, and a thick wool cap. "" I mockingly said, bringing the white translation square back to her vision. "NO F-F-F-F-F-FAIR!" She whined. "" "Th-this is s-s-still a dream?" "" "Nnnn-no, I cc-c-c-can walk myself!" "" I said. No finger snapping. It wasn''t needed. Instantly, a brisk wind blasted against both of our faces, picking up snow and completing the atmosphere of this place. Lovely wisps of snow in the distance were disturbed off their resting places by the abrupt wind. Huge swaths of powdered snow blasted off the caps of the mountains. "D-d-d-d-don''t do that! F-f-f-f-f-fine, carry me!" "" I walked to her and lifted her up into my arms in a princess carry. Not that this was necessary. The way she was now, she was barely the size of a four year old in her dream. I just want her to look up at the stars. I manifested a blanket on top of her, then I picked the teddy bear and put it in her arms. She stayed silent on the walk to the cabin, eyes glued to the unfamiliar sky, the mountains in the distance, the snow underneath us, the bright white ball that is the Moon in the sky, and the blue hue of everything around us. "" I asked, the white translation square appearing in her vision. "N-n-n-no. I don''t want to share this with anyone. Amazing..." I walked up the wooden steps outside of the cabin and casually opened the door. No need for locks, because who else is going to enter? Once we''re inside, I pause for a bit to finish the interior. To the right is the staircase to the floor above. No need to work on the second story just yet. Behind the staircase is a door to the bathroom. We''re currently in the front entry way, which doesn''t immediately open up into a living room like you''d expect. There are a couple desks on the opposite side of this entry way to the door and an empty bookcase between them. The living area is to the left. I carry Celestine through the house and pass an archway into the living room. It combines the two stories into one great big room. The fireplace is made of rounded stones and mortar all the way up the wall. On the far wall, large windows span to allow for a full view of the mountains silhouetted against the starry sky. For furnishings, we have two full couches, one against the far wall and one facing directly at the fireplace; two recliners, one opposite of the first couch and the other between the two couches; and a rocking chair sitting beside the fireplace, back to the wall. In between all of the chairs and couches, a knee-high rectangular coffee table sat. Behind the second couch, an elaborately decorated dark wooden dining table with six matching wooden chairs pressed against the sides of it. Against the near wall, a small table with a chess set and two metal chairs sat, ready for anyone to play. The floor is wood panelling with two large red rugs to add more color to it. There are many pictures hung on the wall. One of a tornado in a thunderstorm. Another of a quiet rainforest scene with a stream flowing over rocks in the middle of the day. To the right of the dining area, a bar separates everything from the kitchen, complete with a stove/range, refrigerator, sink with a window above it, plenty of counter space, and a door to a walk-in pantry. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The only sources of light in this room were the fireplace and what little light leaked in from the windows. Everything is just how I left it. And I like it that way. I carry Celestine over to the couch in the middle of the fireplace area and lay her down on it. I then move to the recliner to the left and sit. As I sit, the overcoat, hat, and boots I wore disappeared. The translation square still floating in her vision, I spoke. "" "Is this where you lived when you were alive?" She asked, her attention on the paintings on the wall. "" Wonderland doesn''t have a direct translation for her language or if it does, she doesn''t know it yet. So I just wrote ''wonderland'' in English on the translation square. "" Meditate doesn''t have a direct translation either, so I went with ''praying'' for lack of a better word. "It''s beautiful..." She said, sighing and resting her head against the cushions of the couch. The warm light of the fireplace danced shadows over her face as she stared over at me with awe. Her brown eyes sparkled, watching this being she just met with a level of admiration that should only be given to one''s parents. Did I make a mistake in introducing myself to her? Did I make a mistake in showing this place to her? Her mother and the acolytes of the church already believe me to be a god. I don''t need Celestine thinking of me as one now either. That''s not what I want. But how can I change the image of myself from one of reverence to one of friendship and trust? What do I say next, now? What do I do? I want to see the world and she wants to paint. There are stories of wandering bards in fiction from Earth. Men and women who go from place to place singing songs of their journey, using their beautiful voices and lovely instruments to rouse the hearts of their comrades with song and magic. But there aren''t many stories of wandering painters doing the same in my memory. There might be stories like that in this world, but none of the stories Celestine has read gave any mention of them. Ahhhhhh, I wish Gene was here. He was good with words, although he spoke little. "Um, Novos?" Celestine broke the silence first. "" "It''s fine." She giggled at my random question, as if I should already know the answer. "I prefer it. Anyway, can you help me?" "" "To become a painter. What else?" She said that so matter-of-factly. I had forgotten the reason she suddenly hugged me before, despite just thinking about painting. I am way too scatterbrained right now. "" "What did you do when you were alive, Novos?" I did fuck all, but I don''t want to tell her that. I wasn''t even employed, according to what''s left of my memory. I never even left the house much. I didn''t travel anywhere on Earth. My only window to the world was through a computer screen and what little I read when I was in school. "" I lied. I didn''t want to lie to her, but I didn''t want to disappoint her either. "Nnnhnn," she responded by waving her head back and forth with a hum, "No reason to say you''re sorry. I''m sure you were a great writer. You could make places just like this in your mind and you can control dreams! You could play the stories in your head and put them on paper, I''m sure!" She started waving the teddy bear in her hands. "Hmmmmm, I don''t want to leave this place! It''s so comfy! And the smell of the fireplace... even in a dream. It feels so real. Am I still alive? I didn''t die did I?" "" I responded with a light chuckle. "Oopp, sorry." "" "Oh, I have another question!" "" "What are you, Novos?" "" "No, I mean, are you a boy or a girl? Your voice is weird. You don''t have boobs like momma, but you have wide hips like her..." "" I looked out the window to eye the lights of a billion suns dancing across the sky. I will never see these stars the same way again as from Earth. Even now they probably aren''t in the right spots. But the feeling is the same. The Earth sky as a feeling to it. You can''t really understand it until you''ve been to another world and looked up. I wonder what Erde''s galaxy looks like. Celestine never really paid too much attention to the sky in great detail. "That''s no good! You have to be either a man or a woman!" She sat up on the couch, stood up on the cushions and pointed at me. Is this going to be a running theme with her? "" "What''s ?" Damn it. She''s five years old! I don''t want to have THAT discussion with her right now. That''s her mother''s job! Good thing she doesn''t know the word in her language for sex, otherwise things would have been really awkward with her mother. I can imagine the conversation now. ''How did you learn about that?'' ''Novos told me!'' Don''t hate me, Momma! And with perfect timing, Celestine disappeared in front of me. Phew. She woke up. There''s that bombshell avoided. I hope she forgets about that little bit at the end of our conversation. Who am I kidding, she won''t. That photographic memory of hers is a doubled-edged sword for me right now... Wait, did I tell her to pretend I''m a god to the adults? She''s five years old, does she know how to lie? Chapter 7 - Black Crystals Time to wake up. Shouldn''t be hard to make this dream area again after she''s seen it, so I abandon the remnants of the dream world and bring myself to her short term memory like I usually do. Home sweet home. I plug myself into her senses and an unexpected scene surrounded her. The area was black all around with tiny dots of light piercing the dark like stars. Floating in the darkness above, seven small blue light crystals bobbed up and down unnaturally. And right above Celestine''s body, an enormous black crystal could be seen reflecting the light off the small light crystals. It was dead silent. The only thing that could be heard was Celestine''s breathing. She reached for whatever it was she was laying on, and felt nothing. She moved her hands behind her back and there was no surface for her to be laying on. Genuinely freaked out now, she twisted her body around and started spinning. She was not tied up, she was not laying on anything, she was floating. With her spinning, we saw what was below her. More black with star-like dots and a gray metallic disk embedded into the floor below. "U-um, Novos? Is this still part of the dream?" She asked aloud, waving her arms to try to stop her spin. Sounds of talking could be heard a distance away mumbling something, but it was too far away to make out. How do I respond to her now? I could just speak to her in the same way the system voice I made did, but I can''t make the gestures to convey meaning. And she still doesn''t know English. Guess this is time to try another old trick of mine. Basket-case powers, activate! I manipulated her perception of the real world and overlaid the white translation square in front of her. This was another thing I used to do with my time on Earth. If you were to give an ego enough of a personality and a visual representation, it was possible for them to manifest themselves in your vision when awake. They would be like holograms, but they could interact with the environment how they saw fit. Things like sit on your bed or walk around beside you. Made long drives more entertaining when you had an ego sitting in the passenger seat to talk to. With this ability, I could manifest the translation square. Also, sorry if it seems like I am just pulling these abilities out my ass. There was really no reason before to mention them sooner. There''s no more of my random abilities, I swear. There''s no magic on Earth, after all. All I used to do is play with my head enough to where this stuff just sort of happened. And because I know the basics on how they work, I can make it work now. There were even online communities that focussed on this kind of mental reprogramming back on Earth. I''m sure you could find them if you looked hard enough. Anyway, to communicate with Celestine. I would speak with my voice in English and translate on the square to her language. "Huh? Where''s momma?" There was just enough light to make out what she wore. She was wearing something similar to what the acolytes were wearing. The difference was the color. It was a pure white robe tailored to her size. Also, at some point when she was asleep someone, "Hey! Who stole my underwear!" I took control of her mouth and shouted at the source of the voices, "Hey! Which one of you changed her clothes?! Where the hell is Sylvianna? Hey! Answer me, " The voice I spoke with was her own, but I hoped my use of words from another language and my sudden angry tone would make it clear it was me speaking. The wall opened up to a group of people dressed in their acolyte robes. Most were blue and black. One was solid black, one black and yellow, and the one leading was black and white. Do the robes signify some kind of ranking? "We are sorry, Lord Novos. We were hoping to finish the ceremony before she had awakened." The voice of the woman in black and yellow spoke, but it was hard to tell with how dark it was in here if it was the same woman. "Ceremony?" I asked with Celestine''s mouth. "Normally the ceremony to connect the heart to the gods is done at the age of twelve. But because little Celestine has been given your blessing, the head priest has been called and decided to have her ceremony early, so that she may be of more use to you." Let me have my mouth back! What do they mean "Lord Novos"? What did you tell them? The thoughts of Celestine were echoing in her head, directed at me. The words were even appearing on the translation square. This girl is scary. I erased the words and wrote my own. Not my problem! Let me talk! So hurtful. Where did the awe-inspired little girl in the dream go? Fine! I''ll lie. Now let me talk! That''s still lying. LET. ME. TALK! I relinquished control of the mouth and she barked out angrily, "Where are my clothes!?" "Don''t worry, dear. Everything''s in the other room. I''m the one who changed you." The one who spoke was Sylvianna. She was the one wearing the fully black robe. Relief flowed over Celestine like cold water at hearing her mother''s voice. "Couldn''t you have left me with my underwear?" "Any article of clothing except for the robe is only a hindrance. Don''t worry, after the ceremony you will be able to wear whatever you want under it." Seven people in black and blue robes entered the room and each stood under one of the floating light crystals. They each held black crystals wrapped in chains, like miniature versions of the giant one above Celestine. "W-what''s this ceremony thing?" Celestine asked. "You would know if you paid attention during church services." Sylvianna said plainly. Ah, if Celestine doesn''t know, then I won''t know either. But from what they''ve said, this is probably some kind of ceremony that allows you to use magic... maybe? Is that what the robes represent? Their magic ability? Is that why Sylvianna''s is black? Because she has very poor magical ability? The most I''ve ever seen her do is magic to make things light up. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The man in black and white robes stood at the entrance of the room beside Sylvianna and didn''t say a word. He closed the wall behind him and the starry scene of this room and the illuminating floating crystals were all that gave the room illumination. The woman in the black and yellow robes approached Celestine''s head. She lightly touched her shoulders to stop her spinning and made her look up to the great big black crystal. Then every acolyte began chanting at once, each other speaking a unique phrase. Then the woman in black and yellow began to talk over them, hovering her hand above Celestine''s forehead. "We call to the great gods to bestow your gifts upon this child who has been gifted prematurely by your kin, young god Lord Novos." Hey, Novos, is it bad if this goes on when you''re not a god? Celestine asked in her head, the words appearing on the translation square to give them their full meaning. Mastering silent communication when awake, check. She''s probably worried because of the ceremony/ritual thing. There''s probably a reason children only go through this when they are older. There''s also the addition of Me being in her head. How does this ceremony change when one or more souls inhabit the body? Three things could happen. The ceremony works, nothing happens, or we die. If I die, I will hate you forever. <*Sniff* Please forgive me.> No. "God of light, Lumos! We call on your wisdom to guide her path in darkest night!" A beam of white light shot from the black crystal the acolyte to the right of the woman in yellow was holding. It was like a laser beam and entered the big black crystal above. "God of fertility, Aphrodite! We call on your creations to test her life and bless her descendants for eons to come!" Another beam of light, this one bright green, emanated from the next acolyte''s black crystal. "God of sustenance, Fames! We call on your energy to nourish and to empower this child''s body until her dying breath!" Which may be soon if my existence screws this up. A red beam of light entered the black crystal from the next acolyte. "God of the cosmos, Sagan!" You might be recognizing some of these names. Well, the names they are actually saying are really stupid sounding when translated, so I am using a little creative licence here. Like how I called the god of the cosmos Sagan? Ehh? Ehhh? Crap, what did she say about the god of the cosmos? I wasn''t paying attention. A blue beam of light entered the crystal from the next acolyte. "God of decay, Mortuus! May you reclaim this form when her spirit no longer has use for it and protect her as she enters the next life." A black beam of light entered the black crystal. Black light? How does that work? "God of earth, Messer! May your world support her and be her foundation as she continues this life with the machinations of your kin." A brown light entered the crystal. "And God of flame, Iroh! Warm her soul in the cold of night and in the trying times ahead." And an orange beam of light entered the crystal. Not so much a rainbow, these beams of light. But somehow they, all together, made the black crystal above turn bright white. The acolytes continued their individual chants and the lights grew brighter. Celestine was crying right now, eyes wide open with nothing she could do. Depending on the will of the gods, she will either survive this, or she will be killed as far as she knew. How does this ceremony thing work anyway? They can''t actually be calling on the power of gods, so does this crystal do something to the magic? Do the black crystals in the acolytes hands gather some kind of celestial energy and then sending up to the black crystal? Then what does the black crystal do with it? Unlock Celestine''s ability to use magic? Or does it bestow magic onto her? I''m going to have to force her to read some of the religions books her mom bought for her so that I can try to understand this stuff... And then came the pain. Oh god the pain. A beam of light shot from the big crystal and blasted right into Celestine''s chest. Her eyes clamped shut and all I could hear is her screaming. The pain was so great I couldn''t shut it off if I tried, and I tried because I could feel it myself. It felt like every bone in the body was being broken at once. Every inch of skin was being ripped open. Every muscle was being pulled apart at the joints. And everything else was on fire. In between her gasps for breath, in between screams, we could hear the frantic shouting of acolytes as they tried to understand what was happening. This was not normal, obviously. A splitting headache, like someone took an axe to het head, made her clutch her head, and more screams of agony. Then, silence. And the pain was gone. Did she pass out? I could still feel about in her head, so she didn''t die... Nothing was out of place. I entered her unconsciousness and listened in to what was being discussed. "LET ME HOLD HER! GIVE HER BACK!" I could hear Sylvianna''s cries as, I suspect, someone was holding her back. "Sylvianna! Quiet! We don''t know what happened. We must examine her!" The voice of the charcoal-eyed man shouted at her. Was he one of the acolytes that chanted? "I don''t care! CELESTINE! TINA! BABY! OPEN YOUR EYES!" "Jorald, hold her still!" "I''ve never seen a robe like this before." The sound of an elderly old man spoke and everyone in the room went silent. "Head Priest, something clearly went wrong, this is just a malfunction of some sort." "If something had gone wrong, then the robe would still be pure white. It succeeded. This must be the work of Novos." "CELESTINE!" "Young Sylvianna, hush. The child is fine. She is merely asleep. Dianne, carry her to the medical ward, same room as before. Let her rest there. Jorald can examine her then. I need to write a few letters. When she wakes up, Sylvianna can take her home." Well, that''s good. Guess I need to return to the dream world and face Celestine now. Chapter 8 - Waking up I move myself from the unconscious and into the dream world. I should probably make an ego that listens in the unconscious whenever she''s asleep so I don''t miss anything important. I''ll ask her later. Right now I need to make sure she''s all right. The surroundings didn''t change much. She dreamed back up my wonderland. I sat in the same recliner I did earlier. The fire was still roaring with its ever-burning flame. The room looked just as I left it aside from Celestine missing, the blanket I manifested on top of her sitting alone on the couch. Well, she''s here somewhere. I might as well work on improving the cabin a little. First thing I did was create a chain coming from the ceiling over top the dining table. The chain looked like the chain that the acolytes were holding earlier to hold their mini giant black crystals. Well, regular sized black crystals? I liked the design, so I enlarged the chains, gave them a black color like wrought iron to match well with the color of the wood, then created four floating light crystals. I connected four branching chains off the main chain and connected the light crystals to it. The crystals bobbed up and down like they did in that chamber. I created four more, positioned them under the first four and offset them so when looking at the chains from the bottom, they would appear like an eight-pointed star with the chains. From the side, they looked like a decent chandelier. If I didn''t know about these light crystals, I probably would have used candles, but this looked much better. I wonder if there''s a magic alternative for a fireplace in this world? Wasn''t really much of a need for heating in the climate Celestine lives. Satisfied with my work, I move to the hallway. There is some room for improving here, too. The two desks were fine, though they could use some lighting too. There were no windows against the wall there, so there could be something behind them since the outside wall stretched a little further back. I decided to make a secret library room accessible from the bookshelf. Pull a book out, the bookshelf between the desks swings open to reveal a room with several more books. No idea what to put in the books, though. Maybe I should make this an art gallery for Celestine instead. I''ll give her a tour of the renovations later. Closing the bookshelf secret door, I turned to the stairs to the right of the front door and walked up them. I hadn''t done anything to the top floor, so imagine my surprise when I saw it fully furnished. The walls were slanted up at a 45 degree angle in accordance with the roof above, though the wall/ceiling facing the rear of the cabin, to my right, had two huge panes of glass windows, facing up to the starry night sky. Under the closest pane of glass was a mess of art supplies like easels, sketchbooks, some empty portfolios, brushes, a coat rack with some aprons on it, and a white tarp on the floor. This girl had put a lot of thought into this career choice she was demanding we go down. The painting area she created was separated by the movable walls like those that were in the medical ward earlier. This whole upstairs was completely open floor. No bedrooms, no hallways. The stairs just opened up into a blank space. So the walls were put there probably because she wasn''t sure how to dream up proper walls. I''ll leave it like this for now. It fits well. On the other side of the space, under the second pane of glass, were two full-sized beds with the heads against the wall, with room for one more bed toward the far wall. Laying on the bed with peach-colored covers and white blankets stained blue by the light leaking in from the sky above, was a little girl with black hair in a purple nightgown looking about five years old. In her arms, she gripped the teddy bear I had given her tight enough that if it was alive, she''d have strangled it. I walked over, walked between the beds, and sat down on the other bed. I just looked down at her tear-stained eyes. She was probably crying while I was screwing with that chandelier and making that secret room. I manifested a white handkerchief, leaned over, and gently cleaned her face. After that was done, I sat back on the bed and just waited. I looked up at the stars again. They weren''t moving. So she didn''t manage to recreate this cabin perfectly when she started to dream. It wasn''t a big deal. I hoped we wouldn''t be here for too much longer. Just to break the silence, I said simply, "" I put the translation square into her field of vision. She still didn''t know English, after all. Might take a year or two for her to fully grasp it even with her memory. "I hate you." were the only words out of her mouth. Needles in my heart. Ouch. If I had eyes, I''d cry. "" I said, trying to cast blame, but in the end I only put it back onto myself. If I hadn''t claimed I was a god to them, they wouldn''t have done that ceremony. Whether it hurt like hell because she was underage or because I was here, I don''t think anyone can quite say. Probably the later, though. I had no idea what that ritual thing did to her. "" "It''s not that." She said plainly. Was there something else I did? "" "No. It''s that... When I went to sleep... you weren''t here. I came up here to lay on a bed, but it was all empty. So I tried to make things like you did. And even after making all of this, you weren''t here. I thought... The ceremony maybe..." She was starting to cry again, speaking a few words between gasps. I cleaned the handkerchief with a flick and handed it to her. "It hurt so much... I thought... you disappeared... when you weren''t here. After... what you showed... me..." "" I said with a chuckle. "" I shrugged, still looking down at her. She didn''t respond, just laid there wiping her face with the white cloth I gave her. I looked around the room to get a better picture of everything. She really just piled a bunch of stuff into the corner right by the stairs. Everything else up here is rather empty. Not as fully furnished as I first though. I looked up at the ceiling. The angle was perpendicular to the other half of the cabin. That''s going to look weird from above. How do I merge those roofs so they don''t look awkward when they connect to each other? I looked over at the far wall. Actually, there really didn''t need to be a wall there. A balcony above the doorway below would look nice overlooking the living area. And I could lower the ceiling above the kitchen and turn that into a storage area on this floor. I stood up to go over there to get a good look while I changed things when something gripped me before I could take two steps. I look down at my waist and I see Celestine, arms wrapped around my waist, her body both half on and off the bed. "" was all I could say. I was never good with talking to others, why do you think I made split personalities in my head to talk to?! What do I say now? "" I pat her head to try to get her to let me go. No use. I sigh, then turned and sat on her bed so at least she wouldn''t fall over onto the floor. "" "I unno." She said, half muffled against my stomach. "" Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. "Okay... How do I wake up?" "" Huh? I looked down and she was was gone. Scary child. Though, I don''t think I did much mental reprogramming my own head until I was 20, so perhaps she being young, this stuff just kinda comes naturally. Yeah, let''s go with that. I bring myself out of the dream world and back into her short term memory to process what is happening. Aaaand Celestine is in a very tight hug with Sylvianna now. "Momma, I''m fiiine. Unh, I can''t breathe..." Celestine''s voice trailed into a whisper before Sylvianna released her. Then we got a good look around while Sylvianna was voicing her worries. Won''t go into that in too much detail. Though I think the ceremony traumatized Sylvianna more than it did Celestine... The surroundings were exactly like the medical ward. Celestine laid on the same table with the same thin padding as before. She had been changed back into her regular clothes. The robe that I assume she wore earlier was hung up by a hook on a movable wall right next to the black one Sylvianna had worn. The robe was... What the hell, I should have expected this. The robe''s base color was black now, but where there should be a galaxy of a certain color, there was a great big X. Not a solid X, though. It was shaped like two galaxies were overlapping each other across the chest. And the color? Static. And the static was actually moving. Like the robe was a television with an X shaped screen and there was just multicolored static. "Huh." Celestine''s voice said plainly, looking at the robe. "I don''t have to wear that thing, do I?" Sylvianna took the time to wipe her eyes and looked at the robe too. "Nnno, well, during certain times of the year maybe. But otherwise it will just hang in the closet next to mine." "I don''t wanna wear it! It looks stupid! And that buzzing colors gives me a headache!" HEY! That was a stab at me wasn''t it? She knows I''m listening in. The static looks just like my skin. You were hugging me and crying not five minutes ago! "Sounds like someone is awake." The man in the black and white robes walked in. This was the first time seeing him this close up. Usually he''s seen loitering during church services near the altar while the acolytes spoke passages from some book. He was your typical old man wizard looking guy. Face all wrinkles. Long white beard that ended at his robe collar, straggly white hair on his head making it look like he hadn''t combed in years. A permanent case of bed head. Sky blue eyes behind half-crescent glasses. The old woman in black and yellow, who didn''t look so old compared to the old man, came in behind him with a book in her arms against her chest. The old man spoke again, "You sound healthy. I just wanted to speak with you and your mother for a moment." "Sh-Sure." Celestine was suddenly shy. Actually, now that I think of it, this girl is rarely around men. Raised to the age of five with no father figure in her life. She gets shy whenever there are men around. She will hug her mother''s shadow like her life depended on it in public. She was even very skittish when charcoal-eyed man was speaking to her earlier when she was first brought in. Does she have androphobia? Sylvianna moved from the chair she had been sitting in beside the table for the old man to sit. "Well, first of all, I want to apologize profusely for any pain the ceremony might have caused. We''ve never performed it on someone so young, let alone someone with the blessing of a god. We should have made better precautions." "I-it''s okay. Novos was comforting me in my dream..." She said, turning quiet and looking down. Wait, that was comforting? I barely said anything and told her to wake up shortly after. The old man coughed at hearing the new information about the capabilities of this new ''god'' and continued, a smile on his face after he processed the information, "Well, he must have taken a liking to you to produce results like these." He said, motioning to the woman. She pulled out a sheet of parchment from the book she was holding. "He?" Celestine asked. "Lord Novos is male, correct?" The man asked. "I-I don''t know. I don''t think he-they know either. It''s strange. Whenever they speak in my dream, their voice is like two people speaking at once. One man, one woman." "So Novos is neither male or female. Or perhaps both?" Can we stop talking about me now? Please? I''m self-conscious enough about my lack of genitalia as it is... "Anyway, from what Jorald said when he examined you after the ceremony, we can only come to one conclusion. The gods have blessed you with three >#&%#%!$<" "What''s a >#&%#%!$#&%#%!$< is a direct line to the gods. It allows you to borrow their power to perform feats of magic. You''ll get a more detailed explanation when you''re in school, but I will explain it as best as I can now. The ceremony calls to the gods to build a line between them and you. Once it is complete, the ceremony ends and you can use their power." Ooo-kay, that still doesn''t explain what the word means very well. Is it mana or mana regen? Or magic power in general? "I-I''m confused." "Think of it this way. There is a pipe from the gods to you. They are constantly sending water to you, enough to fill the pipe. And at the end, there is a faucet. The amount of water you can get depends on how wide the pipe is and how much you''ve turned the faucet. You can bring the faucet to full to draw as much water as you want, but you are limited by how wide the pipe is. That is how magic works. The wider the pipe, the more powerful spells you can perform. It all depends on how much magic power the gods have allowed you to take." Sooo, it''s a conduit. A magic conduit. This is quite a bit different than traditional magic systems in Earth fiction and games where you have a pool of mana to draw on for spells then you have to wait for it to refill or drink a mana pot... The magic is always flowing into the body, it''s always there and you can use it freely. You''re only limited by how much magic the gods have given you. "So, back to your results. Jorald was getting mixed results when trying to look at the size of your magic conduit, so we have determined that you have three separate conduits." The old man said, bringing the topic back to where we were. "Is that normal?" Celestine asked. I get the feeling it is anything but. "NnnNooo, no no." He said with a chuckle. "Everyone only has one. But you have three. That could explain the pain that the ceremony caused and the strange robe." So she''s OP right out the gate, then? Sounds like they''re going to force her into a magic school of some sort, which might be against her wishes. This got complicated fast. But why three? I would be fine if he said she had two. There''s her soul and mine after all. But why three? Where does the need for a third conduit come from? OF. FUCKING. COURSE. YOU! YOOOOOOOU! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! Why am I yelling at a servitor I created? I give up. Chapter 9 - Sullivans Father Well, this happened. Right now Celestine and Sylvianna are sitting next to each other on a couch that probably cost more than their house. The entire room they were in looked like it was ripped straight out of the Titanic. The wall was solid wood. The banisters up the staircase to the second floor and around the balcony on the upper floor were decorated with patterns in wrought iron and gold leaf set in the wood. The stairs were a combination of probably brass and a white stone tile. The floor of every room we''ve seen was marble with regal rugs to decorate the floor. The architecture was... poor. I hate this building. It''s supposed to be a mansion, and it''s certainly big like one, but from the outside it looked like just one giant rectangle house and the inside was just as uninspired. The various furniture and decorations were just a distraction. Oh, about the events of the other day? Nothing really big happened after the old man spoke to Celestine and Sylvianna. He explained that because of the mixed results from having three conduits, there was no way to figure out her magic affinity until she starts practising magic. Affinity is the branch of magic most suitable for the individual. There are apparently several types, light being one of the most common, but he didn''t go into too much detail. Sylvianna and the old man talked a bit about her future and then she took Celestine home. That actually would have been a good time for her to tell her mother about what she wanted to do, but perhaps she wanted to keep it a secret considering the results of the ceremony. First person in the world with three conduits and she wants to be a painter. That''s like someone with the knowledge to cure cancer and world hunger at the same time wanting to perform on Broadway instead. After returning home, her mother made dinner. After eating, Celestine saw her mother writing a letter and sealed it with a wax seal that she''s never seen her mother use before. At least it looked like wax. It was black as tar, though. The next few days, Sylvianna was finally telling Celestine more about the city they lived in. The name of the city/town/village, whatever you want to call it, is Arture. There are about ten thousand humans living in the town with a few snake beast-men mixed in just to experience human life. It isn''t a socialist city-state like I initially thought. People do have to work for a living or they go hungry. There is a thriving economy. The reason Sylvianna doesn''t need to work is because of a certain arrangement with Celestine''s father. I''ll get to him in just a bit because all I have is speculation. Sylvianna wouldn''t go into too much detail because Celestine is just five years old. Anyway, Arture is a few centuries old and has been independent because of the relationship with the local controlling beast-men tribe. They are lamia, or at least that''s how I am going to translate it. Lamia are snake people. Top half human, lower half snake. And they are extremely territorial. They''ve maintained their control of this temperate-desert region of Izaibis for longer than Arture has been here. Arture has been allowed to develop because of a certain product a single family can produce. Anti-venom. A lamia''s greatest attack is it''s venomous bite. Unfortunately, you can''t exactly sell dead prisoners of war into slavery and they aren''t well developed in the field of alchemy. So in exchange for being allowed to develop the city and the lamia''s protection, the head family provides the lamia tribes with anti-venom with the guarantee to the recipe''s secrecy. Why is this relevant? Well, Celestine''s father is the current head of that family. I was hoping for her father to be an adventurer or a soldier or something. Nope. Now I have to figure out the game of nobles and their politics. Sylvianna said to Celestine that her father didn''t want her, her being Sylvianna, so he does the minimum by giving her support. A house, a monthly allowance. It was partly lies from what I gather and even Celestine figured that much. Whenever her mother was trying to bend the truth, she never looks her in the eyes. Frankly, I don''t blame the man. Celestine is the epitome of a meaningless existence. Whether Sylvianna was his wife, a maid, a concubine, or whatever she did before she was knocked up was irrelevant as soon as the results from Celestine''s birth were known to him. Probably inheriting none of the potential he had hoped for, he disowned them, and not to raise a stink with the populous, he still supported them quietly. I still don''t know quite how culture works in this world. For all I know, Sylvianna could have been a mistress and she blackmailed him so she wouldn''t tell his wife. Though that sounds unlikely considering it would have just been easier to kill her and Celestine in that circumstance. This is the only human city for miles. Actually, does Sylvianna have any living parents? She''s never taken Celestine to go meet them. Maybe no one would miss Sylvianna or her bastard child? Okay, I''m getting a bit dark here. Obviously that didn''t happen, so there''s no reason to fret over it. What is happening, however, is we are currently sitting across the coffee table to a man in very expensive looking clothes. Serpentine green coat that looked like it was woven from leather of a snake. That was a bit morbid considering the snake people are currently supposed to be your allies. But I suppose it''s like how humans see monkeys. Why would a lamia care if a human wore the skin of its lesser kin? Why would we care if a snake man suddenly started wearing gorilla-hide? Anyway, the snake coat was double breasted with two lines of golden brass buttons, though he didn''t have them buttoned up. He had a black vest on under the coat with a white undershirt. He wore a pair of green pants that were probably dyed to match the coat. Overall, this man did not match the interior of the house at all. Maybe that was intentional. Give him a green zebra-patterned fedora and a gold cane and he''d look like a pimp. His brown hair was cut short enough that it stuck up wildly. He was clean-shaven. His brown eyes looked between the letters he was reading and Celestine. He looked young. Maybe five years older than Sylvianna? Sylvianna looks roughly 20, by the way. Still haven''t figured out the length of a year in this world. I wanted to keep looking at the room we were in, but Celestine''s gaze keeps going back to a boy eyeing us from the second floor through the railings of the banister. A sibling maybe? She has no memory of him. No memory of her father either, so that makes sense. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. The man made Celestine incredibly nervous, so she didn''t speak a word and just let her mother do the talking. From her inner thoughts, she just kept going on about how she wanted to go home. I wanted to reassure her, but I promised myself after finding out the system voice I made was probably the cause for the third conduit that I wouldn''t interfere in her waking life any more unless she specifically called for me. And I made that clear to her in the dream she had the night after the ceremony. When Sylvianna had first entered the house with Celestine, there wasn''t much of anything to say, really. Both adults knew the circumstances. They just greeted each other coldly by saying their names. His name was Daemon, by the way. No translation, that''s how it is said. They use a different word for the demon-kind species, so there''s no relation there. He tossed the papers onto the coffee table, making Celestine jump. "Well''p I''ve decided!" The man declared. He turned to look toward the banister and shouted, "Hey! Sullivan! Get your >#@$< down here and greet your older sister and her mother!" He had a booming voice when he shouted at the boy, who''s name was Sullivan. He immediately ran away as soon as attention was on him. "Ahh, >%$&##< it boy! Sorry ladies, one minute!" He leapt to his feet and ran up the stairs, skipping every other step. This man was a noble? His stride up the stairs looked ridiculous. Actually, no, would noble be the right word? There was no kingdom here. No one to grant nobility. Just a few rich folks who did work that warranted their pay check. This man was not a noble, he was rich. And he was eccentric. Celestine looked up at her mother, who was wearing a silly looking grin. What was that about? The sound of screaming could be heard echoing upstairs before the man reappeared with the boy over his shoulder limp in defeat. I don''t think I want to know what happened up there. The boy''s outfit was rather plain compared to his father''s. Just a tan vest, white shirt, and tan shorts. Celestine''s outfit was just as plain. A blue corduroy one-piece dress that stopped at her ankles over top an off-white shirt with sleeves that ended at her elbows. This was actually the best outfit she owned. Her mother was wearing a burgundy gown that went below her knees underneath a white tunic with sleeves cut just above her elbows. I don''t think they have skirts in this world, or at least in this area of the world. When the man got back to the couch, he lifted the boy off his shoulder by his collar and stood him up in front of Celestine about a meter from the end of the couch. The man got down on his knee next to the boy, put his hand on top of his blonde hair and spoke, "Now, introduce yourself." "I-I-I-I''M S-S-SULLIVAN TANENTT!" The boy hollered with his father bearing down on him. "Now now, Daemon. He''s about to wet himself. Is this Kari''s boy?" Sylvianna said, her silly smile never wavered. "Aye. She disappeared right after he was born. As soon as her legs could carry her, she left me with him." "I guess she wasn''t as >$#^#!*#@< as she thought she was, huh? Ahh he looks just like her. Even has her blue eyes~ Are you sure he''s your son?" ">@^&%$&#< if I know. Guess we won''t know till he''s 12 and they do that ceremony on him. He sure as >@^%#%< doesn''t have my personality!" "What a loss." She said sarcastically. "Well, pleasure to meet you, Sullivan. I''m Sylvianna and this here is my daughter and your half-sister, Celestine." Sylvianna said, placing her hand on top of Celestine''s head. This boy was incredibly shy. He was shaking with all eyes on him. It was pitiful to watch. "Well, with the introductions out of the way, let''s get down to the main topic!" He brought his foot up to the coffee table and forced it out from between the two couches. He let go of the boy, then crawled over to Sylvianna''s lap. "PLEASE MOVE BACK IN WITH ME! SYLVY! I BEG YOU!" "Huh?" Celetine''s voice sounded when this scene erupted and I couldn''t let my thoughts go silent either, though only Celestine would hear that. The man was grovelling and crying at Sylvianna''s feet. I have no idea what kind of past they had, now. All previous theories are out the window. I think most of the words he spoke before that Celestine didn''t understand were profanity, and the word Sylvianna spoke might have been something like ''infertile''. Sooo, did this guy have a two-girl harem at some point and Sylvianna was a member of it? Then she left to take care of Celestine only for the other member of his harem to take off after the birth of their son? I don''t think Celestine is going to get the whole story until she''s older, if at all. Sullivan''s mouth had dropped at the sight of his father acting like this. "Hmmm, Celestine, dear, why don''t you go with Sullivan and play somewhere?" She was ignoring the man and focussed on the two children in the room. "O-okay..." Celestine uttered, scooting herself off the couch and walking over to the boy. She grabbed his hand and pulled him aside. "Um, do you have a library in this big house?" "Uh- Uhm ah, y-yes, u-upstairs." Super shy. He responded in a whisper "Show me!" Celestine said excitedly, grabbing his hand into both of hers and looking into his sky blue eyes. Celestine spent the rest of the day in the library reading books and reading to this new sibling she got while the sounds of a grown man screaming and crying echoed downstairs. Lalalala, that''s none of my business... During the next couple days, Sylvianna and Celestine moved into the mansion. There were plenty of empty rooms. Celestine took two, one for sleeping and changing and the other for her own personal library. She still wanted to keep her books separate from that man''s books. Sylvianna slept in her own room to the dismay of her daughter''s father. Also, Celestine became Celestine Tanett. It seems this series of events would have happened regardless if she was gifted or not. From what Sullivan told her, their father was prepared to beg her mother to live with them and part with any sum of money to do it even without the letters from the church and Sylvianna. Sylvianna only had her daughter''s future in mind. She had refused to take the name Tanett, though. I won''t ask. Chapter 10 - Puppy Boy? "Cely! My beautiful daughter! I have a surprise for you!" "Don''t call me Cely." "Tina!" "I will not allow you to call me that, either." "Celes!" "Do I need to call momma in here?" "Buuuh, the world is so cruel. Such treatment from my own flesh and blood." A grown man was on his knees crying at the door of his own private library while the cause for his distress was sitting quietly on a leather armchair reading his books. The now six year old Celestine. I''ll fill you in on the situation in the mansion now. It''s really a bit disgraceful. The reason Daemon was begging Sylvianna and Celestine to move in before was because some rumor circulated around the city and now no female help wanted to be hired to help take care of his mansion. The only help that stayed was his cook. No idea what that was about, Sullivan wasn''t told specifics. And he was really short of words when telling Celestine, too. I have my own theories, but I will keep them to myself because they aren''t relevant. Basically, even without my existence, like I said before, Sylvianna and Celestine would have moved here. Something like fate does exist a guess? The situation was kind of reversed, though. If I hadn''t ''gifted'' Celestine, Sylvianna would have most likely ended up begging Daemon to allow them to move in. But because the ball was given to Sylvianna, it was Daemon who had to beg. And with that, the dominant force in the household became Sylvianna. Though you wouldn''t know it if you compared dress. Sylvianna took the role of a maid willingly, wearing a very plain looking black and white gown outfit. Looks nothing like the maid outfits you see in anime on Earth, it''s like it was made to blend the wearer into the background of the house. If not for me, Celestine probably would be in that role, too. So fate strayed a bit. Sylvianna has taught her daughter how to treat her father, to his misfortune. Right now, Celestine spends most of her days pouring over the contents of the books in the library. Still nothing really relevant for magic, though she did find a few more of the different schools of magic from fiction. There''s light, which I mentioned before; elementalism, which allows you to control elements to a certain extent; and spacial, which is like telekinesis. The book she got this from was about a city full of mages who practice their power daily almost as easy as breathing. It was like the book came from some other culture and somehow ended up on this shelf for Celestine to one day read. The setting of the story was very long ago, though. So who knows just how old it might be or if the city even existed. Oh, I also figured out the time system this world uses and I think I have a little bit of the solar system figured out thanks to the books Celestine has read and casual observations. The sun is much larger than Earth''s sun and given the fact that it is bright white in the sky and not yellow, might mean it is much hotter, too. Under those circumstances, it''s no wonder a year on this world is over 500 days long. Still no idea how well an Erde day translates to an Earth day, though, since their time keeping system can''t exactly be the same as ours. There really isn''t some universal system in place that guarantees a second is the same on all worlds. The year is 528 days long. The years are separated into 4 "months" to correspond to the seasons. Each month is 130 days long. That leaves 8 days at the end of each year for new year festivals. Now then, next question is if a year is 528 days long, doesn''t that make 6 Erde year old Celestine actually 8 and a half Earth years old? Well, yeah. But conveniently, humans on this planet age slower than humans on Earth. At least that''s the conclusion I''ve come to. Celestine was born on the 115th day of the Winter month, which is the first month of the year. Year 1568. Still haven''t figured out the significance of this year counter. Probably based on some event in the past we will learn about when she gets a formal education somewhere. Won''t get much more information here because the majority of the library''s nonfiction is on plants and mixing plants into drugs. Sort of expected from the house of the family that mixes anti-venom for lamias. Now, while she acted cold toward her father, Celestine actually grew to love Sullivan really quickly. Sullivan is half a year younger than her, so I think she just loves being the big sister. Not like Sullivan really has the willpower to reject her either. When she gets a hold of him, she usually forces him down and teaches him how to read, something their father casually neglected. His shyness around her never stopped, though. He doesn''t speak for himself unless asked a specific question and he also avoids Sylvianna like the plague for some reason. Gynophobia? If that''s the case, maybe him being around Celestine is a good thing. No, I''m just looking into things too deep, just like when I thought Celestine had androphobia. She is just shy around strangers. Maybe Sullivan''s shell is just a little harder to crack. But, he''s not here right now. He should be downstairs somewhere in Daemon''s workroom making simple medicines, since he''s going to be the one to inherit the family legacy. And instead of supervising him, Daemon came up here to pester Celestine. "Cely!" He stood up like that little exchange never happened. "What do you need, Daemon?" Was the only response Celestine gave. Another dagger to his ego. He dropped to the floor whimpering about wanting to be called ''daddy''. I think Celestine is enjoying this. Don''t pick up bad habits from your mother, girl! He crawled up to the chair she was sitting in, sat down there on the floor and just looked up at her like a dog waiting for their master''s attention. "What is the sur-" "I got you a tutor!" He interrupted her. "One of my old friends from Eldwen. He needs a place to stay while some heat dies down. So in the last letter I sent I told him if he tutors you he can live in the house for a while!" "What would he teach me?" Celestine''s eyes lit up at her father''s surprise, which healed his soul completely. He stood back up and continued. "Man''s a master of Restructuring magic, as well as the more common schools. Since we can''t ship you off to a university at your age, a tutor will give you a great head start!" "What''s Restructuring magic?" Celestine asked. Despite wanting to be a painter, during the last year during our conversations in her dreams I convinced her to seek out magic first and foremost. Once she can live up to the expectations of the church and her family, she should be free to pursue whatever her heart desires and she will be able to protect herself in the harsh world. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. "It''s magic that lets people heal wounds and repair broken objects. But since he''s a master, he can do all kinds of other things! I''ll let him show you when he gets here! Shouldn''t be long now since his last letter just arrived." "Did you ask momma about this first?" Celestine asked her father, suspecting any friend of her father''s to have just as much of a history with her mother, too. "Uhhhmm, uhhh, noooot yet, but don''t tell her yourself! Please! I want to surprise her!" The man in the green suit held his hands together in a sort of prayer, begging his daughter''s cooperation. "Oookay... as long as he isn''t someone momma would hate..." "Then it''s settled! I''ll tell the dock workers in the east to expect him! Bahahaha! I''m going to make my daughter into a great magician!" He ran out of the library before she could say anything else to him. Such exchanges were the norm for them. But now we have a proper teacher on the way. This should be good. ---- "Sylvianna! You finally mastered restructuring!" Shouted a boy about the same age as Celestine, who is now gripping Celestine in a tight hug. Celestine is standing stiff as a stick right now. This sudden strange boy hugging her and thinking she''s her mother? Did she look that much like her mother? The boy looked normal enough except his clothes were odd. Not what you would normally see worn around here. He had black overalls on over a sweater and over top all of that was a thick wool robe with the sleeves not quite allowing for his hands to escape them. That wasn''t the weirdest part though. On top of his head, along with his brown hair, a pair of droopy brown dog ears fell off the side of his head and drooped down over where human ears would be. Is this the shota puppy boy I asked for? I didn''t want one that was part bloodhound... "No, wait. Your eyes, why did you change your eyes?! Or, is this Daemon! How did you learn my magic?" "Daemon, what did you do!" Sylvianna, the real Sylvianna stormed out of a side room she was cleaning after hearing the commotion at the front door and was shouting for Daemon to get an explanation. "Sylvianna! Two Sylviannas? Oh! A daughter!" The boy separated himself from Celestine and casually brushed off her shoulders a bit. "Where''s Daemon? He sent me a letter about teaching his daughter?" "Uhhm, I''m his daughter?" Celestine said quietly. The dog boy looked between Celestine and Sylvianna for a bit before looking up at Sylvianna and pointing to Celestine, "How did that happen?" "You ask any more questions, old man, and I am going to kick you out that door. And get away from my daughter!" Sylvianna tugged on Celestine''s arm and pulled her behind her. "Aww, this isn''t the kind of reception I thought I would get." The dog boy lurched forward and started to grow in height and body, his joints and bones popping as he grew. His clothes adjusted as well before he stood taller than Sylvianna, but he was much older. Probably in his 60s? Ah, but the pointy ears betrayed that. His dog ears changed into that of an elf''s. And his hair changed from a youthful brown to an ageing brown-gray combination. If elves are long-lived in this world, this man could be a couple thousand years old. There really wasn''t much information on them in the books aside from geography on their homeland. Restructuring magic indeed. I wasn''t expecting that. But then again, we haven''t seen much magic used aside from light magic. Unfortunately Sylvianna had refused to teach Celestine that and also forbid Daemon from teaching her as well. "Daemon promised asylum if I taught his runt magic. Did your church finally get rid of that silly 12 year old policy on your ceremonies?" The old man spoke, pulling a suitcase from the front porch inside and closing the door behind him. "Daemon had not told me about this." She said, turning her head and shouting toward Daemon''s work room, "DAEMON GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE!" "YES, MOTHER OF MY PRINCESS!" Daemon shouted before ripping the door open and tripping on the door frame, falling face first into the marble floor. Sullivan was right behind him, though hid as soon as he saw the strange man at the door. "Looks like he hasn''t changed much at least. Wish I could say the same for you, Sylvianna..." The old man said. Ignoring him, Sylvianna spoke to Daemon, "Why wasn''t I told of this?" "I did tell you." He spoke, getting up and holding his bloody nose. "I told half of you at least. That counts, right? You''re looking healthy, Warran!" Celestine tugged on her mother''s uniform to get her attention. "Daemon told me about a tutor six days ago..." She started crying now. Uh oh, feeling sorry for Daemon now. "He said it wouldn''t be someone you''d hate though... and not... to tell you..." "Now look at what you did, Daemon, you made a little girl cry and you didn''t even get her to bed yet." The old man said before Sylvianna''s foot was planted right between his legs. And then he went down to the ground holding a different body part than Daemon. "Watch your tongue around my daughter, scum." "Yeee, yes ma''am..." I chimed in. I don''t know if I was male of female in my past life, but I at least know how that kind of attack can hurt a man. I feel like I need to intervene so Sylvianna doesn''t turn Celestine into some kind of abusive wife in the future... No, those less-than/greater-than signs aren''t a mistake. Celestine as figured out how to speak English enough to where we can hold small conversations without the translation square. Big words mess her up, though and she has an accent that''s hard to place. It''s like there''s waaaay too much emotion in her speech. "Momma. Novos says for me to go upstairs. Sullivan, come on!" "Wh---who''s Novos?" The old man asked between groans. Celestine ignored the question, went to grab Sullivan and ran upstairs. And that was the first meeting with Celestine''s new magic tutor, Warran.
Next chapter is going to be a bit longer than the others. I''m going to take an extra day to write it, so don''t worry if Sunday rolls around without a chapter. Chapter 11 - Mr. Warran "Okay, missy, listen up! This is going to be a crash course. Most human children your age are already practising throwing water balls at each other!" Said Warran, walking about in his dogboy form. After he had gotten settled into an empty room on the opposite side of the mansion from where Sylvianna and Celestine sleep, he had gotten changed into clothes more appropriate for the climate. He was wearing a thin brown sleeveless robe with a hood laid on his back, tan t-shirt, and red shorts. Occasionally a bump could be seen rising up from the back of the robe. I think the transformation spell thing not only made him a shorty with dog ears, but also gave him a dog tail. Celestine, who had seen his true form, was not interested in verifying that. "If that''s true then why is the ceremony only done at 12 years old?" Celestine asked, actually paying attention to what he was saying and not why he was standing there as a dog beast-man. I would be a hard person to teach, wouldn''t I? "This ceremony thing is unique to Arture and its religion. Despite what you may have been told, you were not born closed off from your magic conduit, or conduits in your case. At birth, the church puts a bind spell on newborns. I was actually around during the early days of this city. Back before the practise became a religious ceremony. You shortlived humans have a habit of getting ideas lost in the transition of generations. The idea to plug the magic conduit was meant as an attempt to artificially widen it. But then it became tradition and finally religion. The ceremony is nothing but a light show. The real magic happens when the person at your head releases the bind." He was pacing around the courtyard around the back side of the mansion with Celestine standing still. Some of the bushes that have been left on their own back here without a gardener have recently been brought back to life with the coming of spring thanks to Sylivanna''s patience. Though everything was still an odd brown-green and most of the grass was dead brown, too. I would have liked to see this mansion at its prime, despite the terrible building design. "By they way, good job convincing the church to release your bind early. Pretending to be blessed by a god, huh? I wouldn''t have it in me." He clapped his hands, "So, let''s see what a mage who possesses three conduits can do. This is a first for the both of us." "Um, Mr. Warran, why are you in your beast-men form right now?" She asked the question I wanted to ask. It was going to bug me if she left it go. "To maintain this form requires a lot of energy. With this, I am at a fraction of my total conduit''s capability. It should be easier to teach simple spells like this. Also, there''s another reason." He leaned forward and poked Celestine in the nose before jumping back, "YOU are more easy-going when I am like this. Not as nervous. I can see it in your eyes. It would be hard to train you if I was my old old self. If you were older, I would train you in my old old form. Teenagers tend to prefer the wisdom-look of the elderly in their teachers, they disrespect the young teachers. Children want someone to play with. Now then, basics! Tell me what you know of magic so far." "W-well, I only know what I''ve seen and what I''ve read in books. I''ve seen momma use light magic a lot and I saw your transformation magic. Then there was the magic in books. Elementalism and spacial magics. To change the elements and to make objects float. I don''t know any more than that." "So you don''t know anything then. ALRIGHT! Might as well start with light because it''s the safest. I''ll talk about each common school of magic as you gain an understanding of each one. Then we will try for the rare schools. Since the idiots at the church couldn''t figure out your affinity, we will have to discover it through trial and error. First thing''s first, though, you need to learn how to channel your magic energy out of your conduit and through your body." He stopped pacing at a large bag, opened it up and pulled out a few light crystals. I really didn''t go into too much detail on these did I? They look like smoky quartz with a brass band of metal around the base. The cheapest kind of magic crystal money can buy. When lit up, they emit light of the same intensity as a light bulb, with the more expensive ones emitting even brighter light. Celestine has seen Sylvianna light these small crystals many times in their previous home. They usually last an hour or so. The lighting in the mansion works on some different method that hasn''t been explained to her yet. But I guess it''s similar to the church''s lighting crystals. Warran held one up to Celestine''s face, then lit it up as a demonstration. "Now," he said as he placed one that was unpowered in Celestine''s hand. "These things are super simple. Just direct your magic energy from your conduit, any one of the three, into your hand and into the crystals." "Umm, how do I..." "Alight, listen closely. Forget everything you know about magic. You might think it has something to do with imagination or shit like that. It doesn''t. It''s like moving your finger. It just works. The people of this city have the disadvantage of being locked away from their conduit for most of their childhood, so they come up with all kinds of theories on how to make magic work. Your mother is the proof that the binding only hinders growth, it doesn''t force it to grow. It stunts the conduit. You were lucky enough to get around it before any damage was done. So now you have to figure out how to move a limb you didn''t know you had for most of your life. Not just one, though, three, you lucky devil you." "But what do I..." "All right, class dismissed. We''ll resume lessons after you bring me back that crystal lit. I''ll be in my room reading. Managed to swipe a rather interesting novel series from a library before I left Eldwen. Hoo hoo." He dropped the lit light crystal into the bag, picked it up, and trotted back inside the mansion, leaving Celestine standing in the middle of the courtyard trying to figure out what just happened. She didn''t have any luck getting it to light for the rest of the day, leaving us to discuss it in her dream that night. ---- "NOVOS! HELP ME!!!" Celestine was on the couch in front of the fireplace in my wonderland crying into the fur of the teddy bear. I was laying on the other couch playing Pokemon Y on my 2DS. We were speaking English to each other, no reason to use the less-than/greater-than signs here. "I don''t know what you want me to do about it. I told you before that magic didn''t exist on my world. We used electricity like this, yoo hoo." I waved the 2DS up so she could see it. "Well then what is that? Maybe it will help me!" "I was no electrical engineer. All I know is that if you take a coil of copper and spin it around a magnet fast enough, you get electricity. How that energy is then utilized it beyond me." "Buuuhwaaaaaaaa!" She bawled. "Actually. Hmm. Celestine, have you read any anatomy books at all?" "No, it''s gross." "You''ve eaten meat before, girl. Where do you think that comes from?" "Uhhhh, umm, I dunno." "Well you''re in for a surprise when you figure that out. Anyway, I have a thought." I put the 2DS down and it vanished. I stayed laid down on the couch, just looking over at Celestine, over top of the coffee table, laying on the other couch. "Magic in my world has always been a supernatural phenomenon. An impossibility. Something that many would wish to exist, but just couldn''t. When I was floating in the Void, I was wishing up a world I wanted to live on. I think Erde is that world." She already knew what I mean by Erde, even though it''s in German. And she knew my story about the Void of static I came from. "How does that help me?" "My wish was for a world that used celestial magic. Very vague and open to a lot of interpretations." "Interpre-?" "Points of view. Ideas. Theories." "Ah." "Celestial magic could mean that it is powered by the stars or uses constellations to work or something. Now, since magic was a fundamental impossibility on my world, there must be something simple here that allows the creatures of this world to use magic. Now... what if that something replaced a fundamental law of nature from my world? Like I said, I was not an expert of everything. I only know general knowledge, but what if something significant was changed to where in one world, magic exists and the other, it doesn''t?" "I don''t understand." "Celestine, what is lightning?" "You said it was a spark of electricity between the clouds and ground in your world. It makes a bright flash and a boom. You showed me it once in a dream." "No matter how hard it rains here on Erde, no matter how hard the wind howls in the rainy season, what have you never seen?" "Lightning?" "Exactly." "What does that have to do with anything?" "Whatever allows electricity to be created and utilized in my world was changed so that it is a physical impossibility here. Something like that is huge. It means the human brain cannot work at all without electricity. It means atoms cannot interact correctly. I think it would mean the entire universe couldn''t exist at all unless something replaced it. If that something did in this universe, then all life evolved around that change. And this is what magic is." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. "Ohhhhhh." "I think." "I hate you." "I know." Everything is just bullshitting right now. "Actually, it makes sense now. The reason why you have three conduits. If the brain is based on whatever replaces electricity, then you, me, and the system voice are the three conduits. We''re like three different channels being picked up by the same antenna." "What''s an antenna?" "It''s a metal rod people in my world used to use to pick up messages from each other. If every being on this world is like an antenna, then a conduit is just the mind of the being decoding and putting to use the radio waves. But what does he mean by magic is as easy as moving a finger? Well, I suppose any being in this world should be able to use this magic if that''s the very basis on how their brain works. Then again, humans on Earth weren''t shooting lightning bolts out of their fingertips... But something here might allow that..." "I hate you..." "Celestine, I think I know the solution." "I LOVE YOU!" She leapt off the couch, ran across the coffee table, and jumped into my stomach, wrapping her arms around my static-covered body and rubbing her head into my chest. "There there, I haven''t told you anything yet." I said, patting her head. She stopped her show of affect and just looked up at me, arms still wrapped around my waist. "Just a theory, but when you try to make the crystal light up, just don''t think about it. I think magic in this world is like a 6th sense. You don''t think when you smell something, you just smell it. You don''t think about tasting something, you just taste it. When you try to put your magic power into something, you don''t think about it, you just do it. The light is off, I want it on, so now it is on. Aiiiii''m not helping am I?" She unwrapped her arms from around me, then just sat on my gut like some entitled princess. Lifting her leg over the other, crossing her arms, and ''hmph''ing. She actually ''hmph''ed! "Well, let me try. We''ll switch places when you wake up and I''ll try to light the crystal. Then you can just use the memory to figure it out if I actually succeed?" "Wait, you can do that? You can take control of my body? When have you done that?" "I haven''t since that day at the church during your ceremony, I swear." She looked off into space for a bit, trying to remember. I could see her brain looking into her memories, too, then she just nodded. Photographic memory. Scary. The memory of that day, including my little interaction with the acolytes, is in her long term memory neatly filed in chronological order with the rest of her memories. Okay, it isn''t that simple. I like to use metaphors when describing things in here. "All right, do you want to get off of me?" "No, you make a good seat." "Yes hime-sama." "What''s that?" "Forget it. Actually, let me try it out now. Let''s wake you up. Should be in the middle of the night. If I succeed, the light crystal should go out before morning and you can try then. Sound good?" "Okay." She disappeared from on top of me and I moved to her short-term memory like usual. ---- She was already up and holding the light crystal. All right, ready to switch? "I guess?" She said aloud in English. Guess she''s still in the habit of speaking in English even though we aren''t in the dream any more. I begin to take control of her body. The eyes and ears are the most basic to take control of. Then the motor skills, senses, and finally breathing. I position Celestine''s conscious where I was in the short term memory so she can still see what I''m doing. This is... different. "What the hell, girl." I was in complete control of her body. I could feel every sense and move every limb. There was something else, though. Something I didn''t feel the first time I took control of her body, and that was before the ceremony. It''s hard to describe, but it''s like there''s a tube that spans the whole skeleton. Like an esophagus... maybe? It''s hard to describe. But for a human that was on Earth to be in the body of a human on Erde, the difference is night and day. This kind of difference should have been apparent to her. She should have noticed this as soon as the ceremony was finished. But there isn''t a single mention in her memory. Like it was too insignificant to mention. I can feel her entire skeleton beneath the flesh like worms crawling under the muscles. I try to take a step forward in her body, clothed in just a pair of pink pajamas. I stumble and fall onto the knee. Every bone in the body echoed in pain at that. Some kind of hypersensitivity. Was my antenna analogy correct? What the heck is this feeling? Celestine was incredulous. This was new to her, too. "Damned if I know. It''s your body, Tina. Why didn''t you notice this sooner?" I''ve never felt this before! I lift up the light crystal in her hand and force the convulsions in the bones into the hand and into the crystal. It lit up immediately, then fractured, the crystal bits held together only by the brass band at the base. Small bolts of black lightning shot out of the fingertips before I could force the energy to stop flowing. "Damn!" You broke it! "Yeah, I did. Guess I put too much into it. Let''s switch back and tell Warran what happened in the morning." Okay. I could feel control of the body being relinquished back to Celestine faster than I took control. The convulsions in the skeleton ended and she stood up like nothing happened. Be careful with that crystal. It might be sharp. "Okay." She said, lightly placing it back onto her dresser before crawling back into bed. The rest of the night was uneventful. ---- "Theory: the skeletons of creatures of this world can collect the background of the and it into the phenomenon known as magic. Their ability to this energy depends on their affinity, which is dependant on the make up of their skeletons. A trait. Whatever Celestine''s skeleton is made of might have been what allowed me to her in the first place. A sort of hidden talent. And by me taking full control of her body, the connection between the background of the and her body''s ability to channel it was . And my inability to control that energy is what led to the crystal to shatter. Am I correct, Mr. Warran?" We were sitting in Warran''s room, sitting on a chair by the door while he was sitting at a desk just staring at the crystal. He was in his old elf form right now. He already guessed that Celestine was not blessed by a god, since he thought the religion of the city was just superstition gone awry. But he also thought that Novos didn''t exist at all, which led to this exchange now. I was taking control of Celestine''s head to speak to him in their language. Of course, I was forced to say the words I didn''t know the translation to in English, but that just leant credibility to the whole possession story. We can''t be dishonest to our teacher, now. Thing was, though, even with just controlling the head I could feel the ache in the skull. "Well..." He swallowed before speaking, "anyone with a significantly large conduit can cause a simple light crystal to fracture by putting too much energy into it too quickly... What concerns me is the black energy bolts you mentioned. We''ll put aside the whole ''other world'' business for now. I was not brought here to deal with that. Only to teach Celestine magic. And although I don''t understand some of the words you said, I think your theory might have some credibility. The black bolts might be a clue to her magic affinity. I need to do a bit of research. I need to write a letter to the Hope World Studies Library for materials." "Well, Celestine still needs to pass your test, so that gives us plenty of time regardless. If you could supply her with another crystal, it''d be appreciated. Still treat her like you did before, now. I found your teaching method amusing. I''ll return control of her mouth to her now." "O-of course." He sifted through his bag and handed Celestine a new light crystal. "" She whined as soon as she got control of her mouth again. The abrupt change in attitude made the old man jump back a bit before his head registered what happened. She was also speaking in English, so that was probably part of it. "Now, Missy, you have your assignment. Now get to it." He clapped his hands, she jumped and ran out of the room. As she was leaving, the faint words of, "what the hell..." could be heard as Warran slumped over on his desk. Chapter 12 - Learning Magic It took Celestine several tens of days to figure out how to light the crystal. I felt bad for her and she whined at me every day. Eventually I got tired of her complaining and taught her how to meditate. Back on Earth, the only reason I would meditate was to practise screwing around with my brain. Part of the process of making a sentient ego is to put yourself into a total state of relaxation and meditation while focussing on the traits you want that ego to possess. It''s like creating an imaginary friend at first, then your brain starts putting meaning to the act. They slowly begin to respond through means such as puppetry, or leading by example. After several months of meditation, consciousness gives birth to an ego. I didn''t go so far as teach Celestine this, though. It was unnecessary. I''ve already mastered creating egos to the point where I could do it in my sleep, and often did when I was alive. So if the need arises to where we need more egos, I can make them myself. No, the reason I taught her meditation was to get her to feel for her magic conduit. The act of sitting in once place of complete silence, mind empty, and feeling every sensation your body reacts to should be enough for her to find it. It was hard to get her to fucking sit still, though. Six year old, attention span of a squirrel. I had to forcibly take control of her body movements to get her to sit still. Day one of this was nothing but bawling because she couldn''t move. I still relinquished control so she could eat, do her business, and sleep. I''m not a monster. Day two she finally figured out that this will continue until she does what I tell her, and she shut up. Still no progress. On day three, she could put her mind into the meditative state and relax. It was going well until the system voice chimed in with " " and all progress was lost. Day four, I didn''t take control of her body, she meditated on her own and finally started feeling about in her bones for the writhing of the conduit. The same feeling I felt when I took full control of her body. It was much weaker, though. But she found it. When she found it, she could control it easily. And when she could control it, she made the crystal light up. So this is where we''re at now. Back in the courtyard with dog boy Warran pacing by a bag. "All right missy, took you long enough. Still, the research material I requested from the library hasn''t arrived yet, so we''ll put that off for now. First, a test." He pulled out three unpowered light crystals. Seems he won''t be satisfied until he sees her activate them himself. "Hold out your hands, palms up." He placed one light crystal in her right hand. "Light." And she lit it a second after he commanded her. Satisfied with that, he did the same for her left hand. "Light." It took her a few seconds longer, but then the light crystal placed in her left hand lit up. Finally, he placed a light crystal against her forehead. "Light." This one took her the longest to figure out, a good ten seconds, then the crystal lit up. "It''s important to learn how to channel magic energy to any part of your body at will. The more you practise, the easier it will come. Now then, let''s move on to spell casting." Her eyes lit up like the light crystals when she passed his test and with the promise of being taught spells. He placed the lit light crystals back into his bag and stood a meter in front of Celestine. "Now then. Simplest magic there is, light magic." He held his right hand out, finger pointed toward Celestine, and then his finger started to glow ET-style. "Simple spells can be achieved just by willing the magic energy to enact it. You want a light at the tip of your finger while you''re reading in the dark, you direct your magic power into your finger and think ''light.'' With this spell, you are constantly channelling magic power into your finger to keep up the light, so you must continuously will it to work." The glow from his finger dimmed, but then a ball of light grew in his palm. He lifted it up above him and let go of it like placing something on a shelf. The ball of light just sat there, unmoving. Like a mini-sun. "Freeform balls of light are independent of their caster. You charge them with a bit of magic power like the light crystal and they have a life period. There''s a bit more too it, of course. You have to have a basic understanding of light as well. Since you weren''t born blind, though, you already have this. But when you get to the more complex light spells, things get difficult, fast. Most people stop at creating a simple floating ball of light, so it''s considered the easiest, safest, and most >utilitarian?< school to practise." "How do you make it work? I don''t get it." Celestine asked. I want to know too, since it might just be a repeat of last time and he''ll tell her to just do it while trotting back to do whatever the heck he does in his room. I know I said I found his teaching method amusing, but half an Erde month to figure out how to channel magic energy kind of made the method lose its charm. "Not the right question. The right question to ask is... why does it work?" "B-because I want it to?" Celestine said, trying to please him by parroting a summary of what he said earlier, interpreted by her mind. "Right. You want light in your hand, be it finger light or a ball of light, so you move magic power from your conduit into your hand and you demand light. Simple." Celestine brings her hand up and tries to do as he said. She forced magic energy through her bones and into her hand, then kept repeating ''light'' in her mind, over and over again. Nothing happened, though. She strained her face and just kept focussing on trying to make light. She got so focussed that she started just repeating out loud, "light light light light light light!" Then she started getting angry. For several minutes she commanded the energy running to her hand to light, but nothing happened. She got furious and eventually decided to try the idea he mentioned on elementalism instead, to personify her anger. After around an hour of trying to light a light in her hand, she changed the command and shouted, "FIRE!" That was a bad idea. An explosion of fire blasted out of the palm of her hand, singed her eyebrows, burned through the shoulder-strap and the bottom part of the dress she was wearing, and caught a decent amount of her hair on fire. It was a good thing Warran didn''t leave her to her own devices like last time, because he immediately dropped a ball of water right on top of her. Huh, I just noticed that by the bag he had a bucket of water for some reason. "I SAID LIGHT, NOT FIRE!" Warran shouted at her. "Elementalism is too unpredictable for you to even try right now, girl!" He reverted himself to his old old elf form and began casting some spell on her to reverse the damage to her clothes, the burns on her hand, and regrew her eyebrows. "Don''t do that again." He said sternly, knocking his knuckle on her head. "We''ll end this for today. Go tell your mother what you did and have her fix your hair. Needing to regrow your hair back for a few years should be decent enough punishment for not listening!" Celestine had just been staring at her hand before the attack on her noggin. Did she even feel the burns? She looked up at him, nodded softly, and took off into the mansion. Didn''t take long to find Sylvianna because she was watching them the whole time from a window. She chopped her daughter over the head enough to hurt her, but not do damage. No explanation needed. Sylvianna drug her daughter into the dining hall by gripping her hair, sat her on a tall chair, and started snipping away at her hair. By the end of the day, Celestine''s long black hair was replaced with hair that only reached to her shoulders with side-part bangs. It wasn''t anything fancy because losing her butt-length long hair was supposed to be punishment. Actually, I haven''t really seen many women in this world do anything fancy with their hair. Most we''ve seen is some braids and ponytails. Perhaps they have more to worry about than looking fancy here? I hope Celestine gets some more freedom in the future so we can look through Arture some more. ---- It took Celestine four days with three hour classes with Warran to finally get her finger to light. She could make fire, but she had problems with light magic. All the while, Warran, in his dog boy form, was either reading or writing in a journal. At most, she could just get the tip of her finger to light up. And nowhere near as bright as Warran could. "So light clearly isn''t your affinity. In fact, it might be your weakest. Like mother, like daughter I suppose. Next up, elementalism. You''ve already proven to me that you can make fire. I was never planning on teaching you that anyway until you''re older, so we''ll avoid it. Elementalism is the largest school because it has several subsets. The most used, of course, are fire, air, water, and earth. That''s earth and in rock, dirt, not our planet." Reminder: they call their world Earth similar to how we call ours Earth. It''s the same word as ground and dirt. He''s explaining this to a child, so it might be needed in his eyes. I had high hopes for this school because it is the most similar to traditional magic in Earth fiction. Throw magic around and crap like that. Fire balls, ice spikes, rock bullets, etcetera. I didn''t quite know how it tied into celestial magic, but I was glad it existed. "Okay, first thing''s first, air." Warran said, clapping. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Celestine had been changed into a pair of overalls and one of her brother''s old t-shirts so she wouldn''t damage her clothes. So she was safe to get dirty from earth magic or wet from water magic. Fire was to be avoided. The courtyard had been set up like a little practice arena. There were some straw dummies set up close by, some wood stakes holding glass bottles in the distance for range practice, a barrel of water was placed by Warran''s bag, and some boulders had been supplied so they don''t tear up the ground with earth magic. "There''s more to the other elements than just thinking them up like fire. Fire is simple, it can be conjured up immediately, like you know." Dog boy Warran walked up to her and patted her short-haired head now to emphasize this. "Air is also simple, but requires a bit more precision. Air is already all around us. So what we need is wind!" He held his left hand out and a gust of wind blasted one of the straw dummies. The air was moving so fast that it caused distortions enough to where you could actually see it. Now that I think of it, the overalls might have been Sylvianna''s choice for another reason now that I see this air magic. There was a back draft caused by using air magic. Warran''s sleeveless robe rose up behind him, revealing a fluffy brown dog tail. "Now then, you try. Like with light, you need an understanding of wind in order to force your magic energy to manipulate it. Unlike light, though, your magic energy doesn''t create the wind, it moves the air and that creates the wind. Like breathing, you push air out of your lungs. Your magic pushes the air around you into an attack. Watch me again." He held out his left hand and like before, an almost visible wind attack assailed the straw dummy. Celestine''s gaze was on Warran, though. His robe was first forced forward, against his back, with the first rush of wind. Then the back draft rushed in to replaced the displaced air. This could be seriously dangerous. A strong enough air mage could create a vacuum. Celestine stood upright, held her right hand in front of her, forced magic energy into her hand, and shouted, "wind!" Following this, a gust of wind blasted against her back and pushed her over forward. She caught herself on the ground with both hands in front of her. "Not bad! As I thought, you have a deficiency with light magic. But all that practice might have widened the conduit you''re using right now. Keep practising light magic in your spare time, nothing else. Now, try to knock one of those bottles off the posts over there. Footing is key with air magic, so plant your feet on the ground. If you keep falling over, I might have to have your father hire a physical trainer to strengthen your body." She threw a few more gusts of wind, falling down each time. She was aiming for the bottles, which were a good distance away, perhaps 20 meters. All she could make them do is wiggle a bit. A female monotone voice chimed in, speaking English. *Sigh* She didn''t respond, but her emotions were the opposite of my own annoyance. She was beaming after being told she''d gotten better at magic, even if it was from some stupid servitor I made on a whim a year ago and that threw her life into disarray. She stood back up, spread her legs wide to try to give herself a wider foundation so she wouldn''t fall over again, and shot out another blast of wind to try to knock over a bottle. She just barely managed to stay on her feet this time. "Keep experimenting! All you''re doing right now is pushing the wind. Try to shape it." Warran said, casting another wind spell, this time the air was more visible, the effect of the spell sharper, and it twisted around a bottle in the distance, making it spin in place, but not fall over. Show off. Celestine planted her feet to the ground and focussed magic energy into her hand again. She commanded the energy to manipulate the wind like she had been doing, but she also compressed it. By pulling in air around the area that the wind would pass and forcing it to halt, she tried to make a pipe of air. This backfired and instead of forcing her forward, the back blow threw her a meter behind her right onto her butt. "Keep it up. Simple manipulation requires practice. We''ll continue on to water after you knock all those bottles down with air magic." Her idea to create a pipe of air failed. But she kept experimenting. The next attempt, she tried to collect and compress the air in her hand and throw it out like a ball. That one failed because as soon as it left her hand, it expanded and blew her all the way back into a bush. After she returned to her standing spot, she tried to create a whip of air, but her control of the air only extended about six meters in front of her. She then tried just throwing more wind at the bottles like before, but nothing. After the extended attempts at casting spells, she was breathing heavily. Controlling the magic power through her body put a big strain on her physically and mentally. Also, trying to just keep standing up was also tiresome. The lesson continued on for several hours. Warran occasionally demonstrated some simple air manipulation. Simple to him maybe. Celestine was left guessing at how he did what he did. I was getting bored of her many failed attempts and I wanted to try it myself. We switched control of the body like the last time in her bedroom with the light crystal. Warran noticed Celestine acting differently and chimed in. "Hey, don''t tell me you''re giving up!" "Hey Warran. It''s Novos. I was getting bored and I want to give it ago myself." I waved at him with her hand. "Huh, uh, I... guess?" He was extremely wary now because of me. He probably should be. I was from another world. I probably have a greater understanding of air than any being on this planet. "" Silence. "Also, don''t tell Celestine what I''m about to do. She needs to figure it out herself." I say to Warran and he nodded. I had full access to her memories, I could pull on her own experience of manipulating the air, so I am not starting from square one. Step one, compression. I started pulling all of the O2 out of the air and compressing it. Atomic theory still exists here at least. It was beginning to form into an incredibly cold ball of liquid oxygen in my hand. I forced magic energy into the other hand to suspend the ball so the hands wouldn''t get too cold. "How did you make water? The air around here is too dry." Warran said, watching me carefully to stop me if anything were to happen to Celestine. He even reverted to his old old elf self to have full access to his magic conduit, preparing for the worst. "This... isn''t... water." All of my concentration was on forcing the ball of liquid oxygen to compress further. The worms of magic energy burned through the bones as more and more magic power was being utilized to suspend the ball with air currents and to compress it. I don''t know how long it took, but eventually I could force the atoms to a state where they were tightly packed together and stopped moving as frequently as regular air does. It was stable enough for use as a projectile now. A blue shard of solid oxygen held suspended in front of me. I forced the energy to keep it suspended in the left hand and controlled the propelling force with the right hand. I tried creating a mini-cyclone by spinning air in a circle in front of me. It was starting to pick up too much dust though, so I let it dissipate slowly. How to propel the solid oxygen... It was slowly losing mass as it evaporated back to gas just like dry ice. I''ve heard of tornadoes throwing objects right through concrete, but I can''t go making a tornado in the middle of the city like this. "Well''p, I give up. I made a projectile, but I can''t figure out how to fire it accurately." I shrugged. I let the solid oxygen shard drop to the ground and I step on it to break it up and let it evaporate quicker. Warran was just staring at the ice-like shards. "I''m going to give control back to Celestine. Good day." I wave to him and relinquish control to her suspended consciousness. "<-IR!>" Celestine shouted, without realizing she had control of the body again. She looked around, saw Warran wide-eyed, then looked at the bottles, none of which moved. "What did Novos do?" The bits of solid oxygen were already evaporated and only whiffs of still not fully evaporated oxygen vapor remained. It was a good experiment. Perhaps I shouldn''t call this elementalism any more. It''s not elementalism, you''re not limited to just the elements. It''s atomic manipulation, at least when I''m in control. In hindsight, maybe I should have tried to just command the solid oxygen shard to fly at the bottle at mach speed? That probably would have hit a bottle. My Earth human experience distracted me and made me think I needed something to propel it... Hmm... Chapter 13 - Girls Day Out The exhaustion after what I did hit Celestine like a truck and she could barely stand. Warran decided to end the lesson for that day to let her rest. Celestine was sent to bed well before the sun was even close to setting. We spent most of her dream arguing. She tried to force me to tell her what I did and I refused to tell her. Nothing really interesting happened until she woke up in the middle of the night fully rested. With nothing to do, she decided to walk about the mansion to see if anyone else was awake. The light at the end of her finger was barely brighter than a night light, but it was enough to illuminate the dark building enough for her to walk through the halls. Down the hall her room, the libraries, and her mother''s room were in was decorated with many golden or brass fixtures on the wall like sconces with light crystals in them and wall panelling. There were a few huge paintings of people she didn''t recognize, I''m thinking they might be her father''s ancestors. She took a good while staring at them, admiring the detail and the colors. Many other paintings also existed like this on the other side of the mansion in the hall with her father''s room, Sullivan''s room, and Warran''s room. Sylvianna didn''t want her going down that hall at night though, for some reason. She had a weird distrust of Warran. The man didn''t seem so bad, though. But she will still follow her mother''s orders. She walked downstairs and close to the front of the mansion, to the left of the stairs, she noticed her father''s work room was lit up, the door half opened. She tip-toed to the door to peek in, but before she could see anything, the sound of crashing glass and the roar of an angry man echoed out, startling Celestine back. The sounds quieted down and she slowly approached again, inside she saw the figure of Daemon, laying against a table with his head in his arms. His hair was a sweaty mess, his clothes were in disarray. Something was wrong. This wasn''t her father''s normal demeanor. She was about to open the door when something caught her by the shoulder. She turned around to see her mother with her left hand finger over her lips, "shh." She pulled Celestine back away from the door, grabbed her non-lit hand, and brought her back upstairs. Sylvianna guided Celestine into her room and entered behind her. Celestine hopped onto the edge of her bed and sat while her mother pulled a chair out from against the wall and sat in it. Celestine stopped lighting her finger and Sylvianna lit up a ball of light and set it up above and between them. "Momma, what''s wrong with Daemon?" Celestine asked, breaking the silence in a half-voice/half-whisper. "Oh, there''s a lot wrong with him. But right now he''s just depressed." She sighed and waited for her daughter''s next question. "Is it because of me?" she asked, head turned down. "Noo no. If anything, you being here has helped that man. Or it just delayed his inevitable breakdown. Brought it on himself." "What do you mean?" "Not a single drop of Tanett blood runs through his or your veins. He was born on Sirius. The idiot married into the family. One elderly mother, five adult daughters, biggest mistake of his life." Celestine was confused by how she said what she said, adult me understood perfectly. He let his dick do the thinking and now... "He promised the old woman that if he learned how to make the anti-venom, he could become the head of the house and take care of her daughters. The promise was a bit more than that, but that''s all you need to know. As soon as he moved in and learned the secret, she died a few days later. And then her daughters, no longer bound to anything in the house and not knowing the recipe themselves, left on their own, leaving the city to go who-knows-where. With Sullivan''s mother being the last. The trap was sprung. He thought he was getting a >harem?<. What he got was a city full of people who depended on him and an infant son. If he leaves, the lamias have no reason to allow Arture to continue existing. Could mean slavery or >genocide?<." She looked up as if realizing something, sighed, and looked back down at her daughter swinging her legs on the edge of the bed. "What am I doing telling my six year old daughter something like this..." "So that''s why he''s so upset?" Celestine asked, tilting her head to the side a bit. She was still lost, but pieced together enough to get a brief summary with her child-like understanding. "Yes. Just stress. You don''t need to worry about him. It''s been a long time coming. He''s needed something in his life to plant his feet and make him sit still. Says a lot for his character that it took six women to do it, though." "Why did he do it?" "Ahh, well, uhm, well," I can see it in Sylvianna''s eyes. She''s skirting on the precipice. Is this ''the talk'' about to happen? "Well, when boys and girls get older, they start to like each other a lot. In Daemon''s case... it hurt him in the end. And poor Sullivan is the end result of that. As soon as Sullivan is old enough, Daemon is probably going to teach him the recipe for the anti-venom and finally take off." Nice job diverting the topic, woman. But you can''t keep the secret of sex from your daughter forever. Fufufu~ Ahh, but she raised a good topic. I had suspicions about how into Sullivan''s training Daemon seemed. He probably sees the boy as his only way out of this trap. His own father is condemning his son to his own mistake and the selfishness of his aunts and mother. Things are more complex than I could have imagined. The only down-to-erde adult in this entire mansion is probably Sylvianna. I want to get Sullivan out of this mess, he''s only five and his future is decided. Two scenarios. One, Sullivan gets older and is taught the anti-venom recipe. Then his father leaves to who-the-hell-knows where. Now Sullivan is bound to the city until he has a child. Two, someone, or Celestine, takes Sullivan before that happens. In this case, Daemon could either break down and just take off anyway, condemning the city to ruin, or he tries for another child with another woman to try to have another way out. Actually, I don''t know much about Daemon except his random outbursts of slapstick and this sudden depression stunt. So it''s anyone''s guess what could happen. Maybe he''ll grow up more before the time comes for Sullivan to be taught the recipe and inherit the household. In any case, just taking Sullivan out of the house opens the door for the worst ending, so that''s to be avoided at all costs. "Is there any way to keep Daemon here? It''s not fair to Sullivan... Maybe if I called him daddy and acted kinder?" Celestine asked. Sylvianna just shook her head, leaned forward and patted her daughter''s head. "Keep acting like I told you to. He might whine, but he secretly loves it. You don''t need to change a thing. But if he starts acting any different, let me know, okay?" Daemon''s got a thing for tsunderes huh? "Okay, momma." She said, leaning her head into her mother''s hand like a dog. Sylvianna sat back and changed the topic, lifting her right leg over her left. "So, how goes your magic training?" Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. "Mr. Warran was teaching how to control air yesterday!" Her voice was louder than before with the topic change. No one was asleep in this part of the mansion anyway, so there was no need to whisper. "I was trying to knock over some bottles, then Novos asked to try, but he wouldn''t let me see what he did and Mr. Warran wouldn''t tell me!" She got frustrated real fast. I think... did Sylvianna''s eyebrow just twitch? What''s going on in her head, I wonder. "Well, keep working hard! My beautiful blessed child, you." She patted her leg, then stood up, putting the chair back in its place by the wall. "You get back to sleep, okay?" "Okay, momma!" Celestine jumped under the covers and planted her head on her pillow to satisfy her mother. When the door closed behind her, she sat back up. I responded in her head. She looked out of her window, one of the two moons was lit up bright in the sky in all its brown-red glory. Back to this topic, huh? It was probably a mistake to even try that. She turned to look at the fading light ball her mother had cast a little bit ago. Celestine felt she still had a long way to go and even the second soul inside of her was leagues ahead in terms of magic power. She scooted off the bed, sat cross-legged on the floor, straightened her back, and started to clear her mind for the meditation. ---- Today wasn''t classes. It was a rest day. Sylvianna had taken Celestine and told her to get dressed in one of her old dresses. Old dresses as in a dress that she wore often when they lived at their old house. Celestine wore a simple blue sundress because of the heat. Spring was already in full force and both Sylvianna and Celestine already had healthy light tans on their bodies. Daemon and Sullivan were pale because they usually spent most of their time inside. Warran could change his appearance with magic, so I didn''t think he even tanned. Simple dress for what I guess is going to be a day of errands. We left the mansion with Celestine''s hand in her mother''s, trotting along beside her. The mansion wasn''t far from the tower-like church building. It''s hard to describe the distance in blocks because the infrastructure of this city is an absolute mess. It''s like the mansion was the oldest building in the city, then the church was build a distance away, then some older buildings were build nearby, then everything just filled in the empty places and expanded out. The roads were narrow to the point where I can''t imagine horses could travel easily through them with carts. Cobbled stone paved in some spots, tiled with brick in the more rich parts, then just straight up dirt in the poorer parts. First Sylvianna visited the church. She and Celestine sat and did some silent praying. Well, Sylvianna did. Celestine was too distracted by the murals, like normal. Sylvianna would knock her knuckle into her head when she caught her not praying. Then she briefly visited the blue-robed acolytes in the main floor on cleaning duties. Charcoal-eyed man was nowhere to be seen. After the church visit, they visited some shops further out from the center of the city. This was the furthest Sylvianna had ever taken Celestine. It was slums, to put it bluntly. Houses were barely standing and were made with mediocre materials. The shop she visited was just a stall that sold, what I guess are, magic stones for different uses that Celestine wasn''t familiar with. Celestine did meet an old friend out here, but nothing really interesting happened. Bit of catching up, then they left back toward the interior of the city. We passed a lamia on the way, but she looked like a resident of the town, due to her clothes, and not a soldier. If lamias age similar to how humans age, the female lamia was roughly 15 years old. Her snake half was a solid dull gray color over top and a dull yellow on front that was maybe ten meters long. Her human-half''s skin was very brown, like she was heavily tanned. She wore a cheap, patchy dress that covered her from her shoulders to a foot below where the snake-half would have started. Unlike the male warrior she saw years ago, this girl had brown hair on her head to her shoulder blades, and green eyes. If she wasn''t a lamia, she would be just as insignificant of a person here in this city as Celetine was before the thing with her having three conduits was discovered and being ''blessed by a god.'' After leaving the slums, I grew to appreciate the better looking buildings inside the city, even if they are just gray stone and dirty mortar. Those were probably the older buildings because I specifically remember Sylvianna and Celestine''s old house being made of wood. If this city wasn''t such a mess infrastructure-wise, I would have probably figured out more about it before now. But I was glad Sylvianna was bringing Celestine with her to do whatever she needed, even if it didn''t seem like much. Sylvianna took Celestine into an old-looking building that turned out to be a book store. She had her pick out a few books she wanted and paid the cashier in the city''s domino-shaped currency. She picked out a book detailing the different races of humanoids in the world, good on you girl; a book on art and painting, that was snuck in sorta and Sylvianna didn''t notice (or if she did, she didn''t mind); and the last book was going to be about the world''s religions, but Sylvianna didn''t let her get it and instead picked out a random fictional book for her. Next stop was a clothes store. Sylvianna picked out a few new styles of dress with different fabrics for both herself and Celestine. They didn''t bring anything home, though, because the material would need to be imported and the clothes would need to be tailored to fit properly. So they just left afterwards. I think they''ll just deliver the clothes when they''re done and Daemon will foot the bill. Actually, scratch that, they did bring home something from that shop. Sylvianna bought a straw sunhat for both herself and her daughter because the sun was beating down hard and they were both covered in a thin layer of sweat. There wasn''t much in the way of errands to run. This was just a girls day out. Probably just trying to get Celestine to forget her father''s outburst that night. A child shouldn''t have to concern herself with the affairs of adults. Chapter 14 - Great Big Unknown Nothing really interesting happened over the next few days. Okay, I lied. More magic with dog boy Warran! Warran decided the distance to the bottles was too great for Celestine to hit with air magic and he told her that what she has been doing was enough to continue on. I was a little disappointed because I wanted to see her figure out something to complete the task. But, I guess she''s still a child who just learned how to use magic recently. Not fair to compare her to children her age from other places in the world. Next was earth magic! It''s always amazing to see some more elementalism. When tearing bits off the boulders for earth magic, it''s like the rock becomes alive, pulsing around the fracture until it settles down and becomes solid again. And the chunk that was torn off flows like liquid in the caster''s control. It might be fun to pull a Rudeus Greyrat here and start firing hollow-point rock bullets. Warran''s task for Celestine didn''t change. Use earth magic to knock down the bottles. The trick was that he moved the stakes with the bottles much further away. This was still far easier than using air because you could just rip the rock out of the boulder and send it flying toward the bottles. And that''s all Celestine was doing. The rocks she first used rarely flew straight. Then she started to shape them into the shape of spear points and fired them. Those flew straighter, but she had no good way to aim. It''s not as easy as just commanding the rock to hit the bottles. I didn''t trust my own ability to aim, that''s why I didn''t ask to try my hand at this magic. Last thing we needed was a stray hollow-point bullet-shaped rock firing into the back of someone''s house at mach speed. That''s actually something I learned watching Warran. You can only cast magic if you have a full understanding of the principles. The rocks Celestine were shooting off weren''t going any faster than an arrow being fired. I don''t think she had actually seen an arrow being fired at any point in her life, though. She understood the principles of it because she read about them in a book. If that''s the fastest thing you think exists, then perhaps you can''t fire magic any faster? Warran''s examples were much faster, though, use his magic as a reference! Still nowhere near mach speed, though. Maybe a side-effect of using magic in his dog boy form. She started to make corrections for drop off and wind, then finally managed to knock a bottle off a stake. The last five didn''t last much longer. Satisfied, they moved on to water. The stakes were arranged differently this time. Evenly spaced around the dead grass areas of the courtyard. She finally got to use the water in the barrels. This was a bit more difficult for her to get a grasp on because it was a fluid. Many times she pulled a ball of water out of the barrel, only to lose concentration and let it drop out of her hands. The goal of this exercise was to just get the furthest wood stakes wet in each patch of grass. She couldn''t figure out how to throw the ball of water the first day, but figured it out the next and started throwing around water like is was air. She had gotten everything wet in the courtyard, including herself. Good thing she was still in her overalls and shirt. Actually, there was a reason he moved the stakes to the grass... she just watered the dead grass. Was this a request by Sylvianna? I''m sure there''s more to elementalism known to scholars in this world. Everything so far has just been the bare basics. By the way, the damn voice servitor gave her novice ratings in both water and earth manipulation. I need to figure out how to make that thing more useful... Okay, new day, new school of magic now. "Spacial magic! A more utilitarian school like light magic, but controls similarly to elementalism." Warran started his spiel on magic. Celestine''s attention was on the many inanimate objects set up on the tables around them. A few empty tables. Most of the objects looked like trash. More bottles, a few old books, a plate with some stale bread on it, rusted eating utensils, some magic crystals, those domino-shaped metal coins, a few round coins she''d never seen before, a couple rocks, and a pair of torn shorts. "Now, it might look similar to elementalism, but it works on an entirely different premise. Instead of using your magic to lift objects, you use the space around the object to lift it." "Like using the air?" Celestine asked, probably not understanding what he meant by space. "Nope. I mean the fabric of space. Every object occupies space. And there is space around us. Spacial magic makes use of the very fabric of being itself to manipulate objects. The larger your conduit, the heavier the object you can manipulate and the faster you can move it." Warran moved his hand toward the table with the rocks on it and lifted one up with the magic he was teaching to Celestine. Unlike with earth magic, there were no ripples on the rock itself, it was completely still while it was floating in the air. "This school is difficult for children to grasp. So it will be a bit of a barrier for you. What I want you to do is lift each object from one table to the others using spacial magic. Then, switch the tables around without spilling anything off of them. If you complete this, then we will move on to the rare schools of magic." "How do I control the space?" She asked. "To control space, you need to have an understanding of it, just like with light and elementalism. Best way to explain it is to imagine everything surrounded by threads. Threads all around, under, and inside objects. Objects exist as >obstructions?< to these threads. Objects bend space by merely existing. Spacial magic is the control of these threads to become >obstructions?< on the objects instead." "I don''t understand..." "I didn''t expect you to immediately." The rock he was lifting with spacial magic floated toward Celestine. She lifted her hand up to pick it up. She felt something like a glass barrier around the bottom of the rock before the magic ceased and its full weight dropped into her hand. "Can this be used to make a barrier to protect people?" Huh, I didn''t even think of that myself. "Good question. Barrier magic is the step up above just moving things around. A strong enough mage can encompass their whole body in a spacial barrier that keeps out the attacks of other mages or warriors, but it''s also dangerous at that level because you can end up >suffocating?< from lack of air. I won''t teach you something like that for a long time." "Can it be used to fly!?" Her eyes lit up at the thought of flying. But since there was a lack of flying people here, I doubt it. "Nope. See, if you sit on a chair and try to pick up the chair with your hands, do you start floating? Same concept. The magic command is coming from you, so you cannot move your own body with spacial magic. Now there is a god-level magic school that allows the mage to fly, but I highly doubt your affinity is gravity magic. God-level magic can only be learned by those who are born with the affinity for those schools." "Gravity magic?" "Gravity magic is similar to spacial magic where the mage doesn''t just manipulate space, but also the gravity that affects the onjects that interact with space. It''s a very powerful school, but not the strongest." "What''s the strongest?" "Well, there are two known god-level magic schools. The second one is >temporal?<, or time. A mage with a firm grasp of their affinity of time can speed it up and slow it down relative to objects or even themselves. As you can imagine, an adversary doesn''t have much of a chance if their opponent can slow down time to the point where they cannot possibly react. That''s why it''s so powerful. There''s even a case of time manipulation where a time mage has appeared out of nowhere after travelling from hundreds of years ago in the past. Though that itself might just be a myth." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. "Whoooah." "Wait, you''ve distracted me! Get to work. Practice your spacial magic, missy!" Seems spacial magic is going to prove just as difficult for Celestine to learn as light magic. Does this mean her affinity is elementalism? Well, what ever. She''ll learn it eventually. I need to go back to working on how to make this servitor useful. ---- Okay, so far the servitor, which I will now call Voice, has listed Celestine as having six skills, all novice level. There''s Housework, Magic Comprehension, Meditation, Air Manipulation, Earth Manipulation, and Water Manipulation. I feel like there should be more. She''s a pretty good reader, too. And she learned English just by listening to me and me translating it. Actually, she doesn''t know a lick of written English. Maybe that should be next on my agenda... I kind of half-assed this thing just to see if I could make it the last time. Now I needed to improve it. Here I sat in the darkness of Celestine''s mind while she is off in dreamland. I sit here thinking of nothing while focussing on what I to improve in Voice. It doesn''t need to do more than keep track of skills, I don''t think. And instead of using something arbitrary like numbers, I used a simple scale. Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, and Master. Yes, these are from Skyrim. It would be nice if she could pull up her skill list, too. Like a VRMMO skill window. I could repurpose the translation square for that. So when Celestine, or I, think the word ''skills'' and want to see her skill list, Voice should interpret that and manifest the list in her vision. It needs to be able to be interacted with, too. So if she presses something with her finger, it might display more information. Maybe a bit of flavor text, too. Voice''s judgement needs work, too. Magic Comprehension shouldn''t be a skill. It should be Magic Control. Skills with language should be judged, too. And... damn it would be amazing if she could pull up stats on others just by looking at them. No... wait... There''s charcoal-eyes man. He was using a type of magic to look over Celestine that day in the church''s medical basement level. Since I already know the first three common schools of magic, and Warran told me about the god-level schools, then the rare schools would be... Well Warran displays his restructuring magic often. Did he also say this can be used for healing? He used magic to heal Celestine''s burns when she played with fire, so that might be part of restructuring. So charcoal-eyes was using another type of magic. Was the name ever mentioned in Celestine''s memory... Oh, I remember. Charcoal-eyes was also there when Celestine was born. He was looking at her and writing stuff down on a clipboard and paper. Well, the only name this kind of magic could have is identification magic. If it has another name, Warran will teach us later on down the line. I wonder if I can teach Voice how to use a magic I have only seen used and never properly been introduced to. Celestine has three conduits after all. One probably corresponds to Voice. Okay... Voice will take control of Celestine''s left eye. The visual feed will run by Voice first and it will use the eye to practice identification magic, channelling magic with its conduit to the eye to do so. Control of the muscles and eyelids will remain with Celestine so she can still control her vision. The vision feed will then be sent to Celestine''s short-term memory like normal. With luck, this shouldn''t cause any noticeable lag. Now... I have no idea how to practice identification magic, Voice should just demand the magic to identify what is seen. A female voice spoke shortly after that last thought. Well... that was easy enough. Celestine is asleep after all. But that would get annoying fast. Voice should only speak identities when either Celestine or I think ''identify'' and are wanting a response from Voice. It would also help if Voice could identify anything hostile to Celestine immediately, so judge that and make it happen. The identification skill should have some ability to identify creatures'' magic conduits and their magic affinity. Magic conduit size should be scaled to Celestine''s largest conduit and displayed numerically. That should be helpful. Okay, Voice, identify Celestine. There was a long silence. Time was hard to judge in this space right now because the body''s consciousness is currently dreaming. But I think it was a long time. Eventually, a window popped up in front of me.
Name:Celestine TanettRace:Human
Age:6Sex:Female
Conduit Strength:40Magic Affinity:Elementalism
What surprised me the most was the conduit strength. The conduit corresponding to Celestine wasn''t the strongest. Wait, how did Voice figure out what the church could not? Was it just because they were looking at the body and not distinguishing between individual egos like I am now? Identify Voice. This didn''t take too long before another window appeared before me in the darkness.
Name:Voice of the SystemRace:Servitor
Age:1Sex:Female
Conduit Strength:15Magic Affinity:Identification
That name is never going away, is it? Well this narrowed it down to me now. I almost don''t want to know. Identify Novos. This one took far longer than Celestine''s did. Maybe I should have put a fail-safe on Voice to where if it can''t identify something, it just gives up? Then a window popped up in front of me.
Name:NovosRace:Unknown
Age:UnknownSex:Unknown
Conduit Strength:100Magic Affinity:Unknown
One great big unknown. But I guess it means my conduit is the strongest in this little girl''s body. Don''t know how I should feel about that. Things seem to be working fine with Voice, though. Perhaps it will be a little more useful from now on. Wait, it has its own magic affinity? How the heck? Does this mean if I tried really hard, I could make a servitor with the temporal affinity and start time travelling? I want to try it... but I have no idea how Voice got that. I shouldn''t start making egos willy-nilly in here. I need to learn my lesson after what making Voice caused. Chapter 15 - Day With Bubby So that''s how the voice works now. "Oooo-kay. That doesn''t quiet explain one thing, though." What''s that? "Why is my left eye black?!" Oh. Um. What? Looking through her short term memory and looking at what she sees, sure enough, Celestine''s normally brown left eye is now a black as Charcoal-eye''s eyes are. Is this some side effect to the identification magic school? "How should I know? You''re the one who did this!" I only wanted to make Voice useful and I did! I didn''t know this would happen. Why are you so upset? It''s only noticeable if someone is close to your head anyway because your right eye is dark brown. Besides, men from my world seemed to have a thing for heterochromia anyway. Bumps up your sex appeal. "I''m seven!" That doesn''t mean you can''t start thinking about your future. "Stop changing the subject! I hate that about you! ...what''s heterochromia?" Okay. So I know what I said before when I was making the improvements to Voice might have made it seem like I did all of that in one night. That isn''t correct. Little literary trick. It took over half a year to iron out most of the kinks. I just condensed it like that because that was all that was relevant. It''s not hard to manipulate existing egos, it just takes time and repetition. Nothing important really happened between then and now anyway. Celestine is still struggling with spacial magic and light magic, Daemon''s outbursts at night have become more frequent, Sylvianna is still cleaning up the messes, Warran is still Celestine''s tutor, and Sullivan is still learning how to be an apothecary from their father. Oh, and at some point Sylvianna finally had ''the talk'' with Celestine. It went about as well as you''d think. Sylvianna had attempted to explain little things here and there every other couple of weeks so that Celestine would understand that, one, there are physical differences between men and women that weren''t apparent. Then she''d explain where babies came from, but not how they were made. And at some point before her 7th birthday, Sylvianna explained to Celestine what sex was. If Celestine had any questions, I would fill in the blanks, but I didn''t overstep my bounds. Rather uneventful, really. No great big surprises, really. In fact, Celestine was starting to connect the dots herself. I wonder if my own ''talk'' was any different? I can''t remember. If I could, it might have given me a clue as to what sex I was. So that brings us to today. Celestine has a day off of magic training and Sullivan had a rare day off of apothecary training since Daemon was sick (and Sylvianna forced him to stay in bed). So what does that mean they do? Run through the city, that''s what! Celestine grabbed her little brother''s hand and drug him outside. It has been a long time since Celestine had been allowed to wander outside without her mother. She hasn''t since she was living with her mother in their first house. And that was just with friends. Can''t really call those friends any more since it''s been so long since she''s played with them. Former childhood playmates. That works. "Stop dragging your feet, bubby!" Celestine shouted, forcing her little brother to keep up at her pace. They were wandering through stone-brick streets, the more expensive looking streets in the city. The more I see this city, the more I begin to hate it. It''s a mess. If Celestine didn''t have a photographic memory map of the city, it would be impossible to find anything here. I feel sorry for everyone else. And that means ''bubby'' is completely dependent on his big sister for navigation. Oh that''s so adorable. The first time she called him that his face lit redder than a tomato. Okay, she didn''t actually call him ''bubby'', that''s just the best translation of their word for it I could think of. Basically a silly name for ''brother''. "Slow down, sis! I can''t walk as fast as you!" Sullivan''s nickname for her is very uninspired. "It''s going to be crowded if we don''t hurry up!" Celestine picked up her pace, to Sullivan''s dismay. You could collapse and she''d still drag you, bubby. Celestine is growing faster than her little brother, so her legs are longer and she''s stronger than he is. They rounded a corner and walked through a plaza full of wooden shop stalls before ducking through an alley and emerging in front of a huge building. It wasn''t tall, just wide and long. Two floors tall to match with the surrounding buildings, but it took up 6 of the regular buildings in area. The city''s library, gallery, and pretty much cultural center that wasn''t the church. This building houses a lot of historical records, references, fictional books, and biographies in one section, then a gallery of art in another section. Then there are several empty rooms on the second floor for parties, diplomatic meetings, and various other functions that didn''t concern Celestine. She was here for one thing today. They were having an art show. She wanted to burn the pictures into her mind for inspiration or something. Sometimes it''s hard to understand what goes through her head. Myself included. Oh well. Art might not really be my thing, but since she wants to do this then I can''t really say no. I have no right to say no. What made her want to become a painter anyway? It''s so random. The gallery entry was free for children, so there was no reason not to go. They were guided to one of the, normally empty, large rooms upstairs. There were paintings on the walls, easels standing up with more paintings, tables with pottery and small sculptures, and a few large sculptures of stone in the middle of the room. The sunlight from the windows lit up the white room with its white light, which made everything so bright that it was hard for Celestine to keep her eyes open fully. We might need to go to a shop later and buy some sunglasses if they exist in this world. This world''s sun is unforgiving. I can''t imagine the UV rays from it being too healthy. There were a few people in the room still setting up their displays. Were these all locals? Ah, no, one is a thin lamia boy in a decorated burlap gown setting up a display of carved teeth and bone. Celestine''s eyes wandered everywhere. From the portraits, which seemed to be the most abundant works, to the few landscapes. She eyed a painting of a nude man a little too long before she noticed Sullivan''s dirty look. Then the opposite happened when Sullivan was about to reach out and grope a statue of a woman from the waist up wearing nothing but a thin cloth draped over her shoulder. Wait, that cloth is part of the statue? It''s stone, I could have sworn it was just cloth draped over the statue. That''s some great work. Oh, Celestine punched Sullivan. Moving on~ A few of the landscapes were of cities. Only a couple were paintings from within Arture. The ones of Arture were prettier than the reality counterparts. There were a few fantasy works like a floating city. A few of some monsters. Many different pictures of the stars. Some metal work was on display, too. A few brass utensils, some decoration swords, and a golden telescope. Ooooo. Okay, I''m enjoying myself more than I thought I would. A huge tapestry hung on the wall featuring giant beings of legend atop a pantheon with a backdrop of stars and nebulae. There were seven beings. I guess these are representations of Arture''s seven great gods with the stars meant to represent the many more? Regardless of the origins of their religion, their imaginations are on point. There was a poster by the entrance asking visitors to speak to staff before they leave to say which piece of the gallery they liked the most. Apparently the city was going to pay the artists for their work and put them on permanent display in the main gallery downstairs if enough people liked them. That poster was just placed there so they must have written it up after we walked in. The thought of deciding the fate of the pieces of art lit something up in Celestine and she went back to scour through the whole gallery with Sullivan right beside her. She never let go of his hand. Super protective of her little bro. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. They spent a great deal of time going over everything at least three times. The sunlight through the window waned as the sun rose higher. With less light, it gave a lot of the sculptures different appearances, so she eyed them the most, even ignoring Sullivan''s wandering eyes as they looked around near the nude woman with realistic thin cloth bust. There were many visitors, but never many at one time. So Celestine''s worry of a crowd was for naught. At the end of their visit, when Celestine was finally satisfied (and hungry) they visited the staff member by the room''s entrance, who was holding a board with a notebook attached to it. In the end, Celestine''s favorite was a painting I overlooked. One of the many galaxy paintings. What was so special about that painting? She''ll probably want to add it to the cabin in my wonderland, so I''ll get an earful of it tonight. Sullivan''s was... want to take a guess? Like father like son I suppose. Outside, everything was a bit quieter than usual. They ducked back through the alley again, back into the plaza. Everyone was silent. Heads upturned staring into space. Celestine looked at what was so interesting and saw it. An enormous rock. Not either of the moons, but an asteroid. And it was about to become a meteor. Oop, just did. Now it''s on fire. Cue the screaming. "IT''S HEADING FOR US!" Shouted a man. Hey, that was Charcoal-eyes. Haven''t seen him in a while! "GODS SAVE US!" Everybody started to panic. Stalls were upturned, goods and produce scattered, people crying and tripping over each other. Not good. Celestine! Grab Sullivan. Don''t let him go. She did as I said without response. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and pulled him against the wall of the building next to the alley. There''s no possible way that this meteor won''t destroy the entire city. Celestine, switch with me. I might be able to slow it down. "Okay!" She shouted, but no one could hear it except me. Control of the body was being relinquished and I gained control. Senses, feeling, motor control. Damn it, Celestine, you pissed yourself! Oh, wait, that''s Sullivan. I guess we were in the gallery a while. "SULLIVAN!" I shouted into his ear. "GET BEHIND ME. WRAP YOUR ARMS AROUND MY WAIST AND DON''T LET GO!" I quickly repositioned him so he was at my back, Celestine''s back. It''s so weird having to think in third person when you''re in control. Sullivan''s arms wrapped tightly around Celestine''s waist. I looked up at the ball of fire. It was getting closer. No time. Just no time. Every second counts! I have no idea if I can do anything, but if I do nothing then we die anyway. I feel the ripple of the worms in the bones coiling around the body, every movement, every pulse. I force every ounce of magical energy at my disposal to my arms. I sure as hell hope asteroids aren''t made of anything different in this universe. I begin to call on elementalism, atomic manipulation in my hands, and reach for the meteor. Iron is what meteors are made of in the Earth''s solar system. Iron and trace heavy metals like titanium and platinum. But predominantly iron. Please work! I command any and all atoms of iron in the sky above. And I hit something! I heard something crunch beneath my feet. Shit, I hit something heavy. The meteor hopefully. It sent my feet through the brick road. Wasn''t the only thing that broke, though. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH, SULIVAN, HOLD ME UP!" Both legs broke with that grip on the iron in the meteor. Sharp pain. Oh god the pain. "SIS! STOP, YOUR LEGS!" His voice was shouting and crying. "WE''RE BOTH DEAD IF THAT THING HITS US! HOLD ME UP!" Sullivan''s grip changed, now he held Celestine''s body up from under her arms, his arms wrapped over her chest and with her back against his chest. This is a quirk about magic that I don''t quite understand. When a mage attempts to move something heavy, their body takes the force of the weight. But someone can still pick up the mage with the weight on their body as if they were just standing there. It''s very bizarre. Must be something about the law of nature that stops mages from using spacial magic to fly. And if we survive this, I have an idea for a mage outfit. Exoskeleton! More power than I have ever called upon is now coursing through Celestine''s bones. I continue to hold the arms up and command the iron to slow. Pushing it up as hard as possible without making the same mistake twice. At first I was trying to stop it. That''s why I went through the road. If I didn''t let go the instant I felt pain, the force of the meteor falling would have transferred through to Celestine and it wouldn''t have been the meteor that destroyed the city, it would have been Celestine''s body as she was vaporized and her atoms would have blasted through the ground. That''s a very scary thought. With great power comes great THINK BEFORE YOU ACT. The meteor was slowly losing speed. The ball of fire was still a ball of fire, but it was now a slightly colder ball of fire. Pieces of it were breaking off. I did my best to send those flying outside of the city, but a few houses might not be so lucky with the tiny bits. A few more seconds and the fire around the ball was out. Good. If it hits at this speed, maybe a tiny bit of the city might survive. We won''t, though. Keep working! Ten seconds later, the meteor crashed into the ground inside the plaza. Most people vacated the plaza, but there were still some nearby. The crash kicked up dirt, dust, and rocks everywhere. But luckily I managed to slow it down enough to where the city could be spared. All of that in the space of 20 seconds. Oh, I want to sleep. But I can''t do that yet, we need to get Sullivan home.
Enemy Identified
Name:NullSpecies:Armored Tiger
Age:27,525 Erde YearsGender:Male
Conduit Strength:80Magic Affinity:Atomic Manipulation: Metal (Major) Spacial Manipulation (Minor)
Hostility:Attacks on sightClass:Continental Disaster
The meteor cracked and groaned. Um... Identify... Voice spoke in my head as I looked at the meteorite, which was bubbling and churning like you would expect with something exhibiting atomic manipulation magic on it. Is it too late to let it hit the town at full speed? That might kill it... Of course it is. Oh gods, if you really do exist, I''m sorry for pretending to be one of you. If you have to smite me, can you at least leave the rest of the continent alone, please? Oh gods...
Author''s Note: Sorry for the delay, guiz. I kinda burned myself out and needed a break to brainstorm. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, now with added plot! Chapter 16 - Magical Beasts Attack The dust from the impact and the vapor of the meteor as it burned in the air suffused the atmosphere with rock and iron. A halo of dust was around the white sun in the sky. The screams from the people who ran were quiet as they continued their riot in any way they could to get away from the epicenter of the meteor impact. It was in this still calmness that the pain of the broken legs hit me again. I had never broken my legs when I was on Earth, so this pain was new. There was a sharp pain in the muscles whereas the bones themselves had an extremely dull achy pain to them. And then on top of everything else, the broken bones disrupted the body''s magic conductivity, so any attempt to channel magic fired the pain up by about one thousand fold. I''m pretty sure I just felt the combined pain of twenty childbirths at once. I''ll spare you any more specifics, but know that the majority of my concentration is just trying to stave off the pain. Also, the feet were still embedded in the brick road. I grit my teeth and channelled tiny amounts of magic energy into my hands to pull the stone bricks apart. What was stone made out of again? Ahhh, fuck it. There''s probably oxygen in there. I pulled on the oxygen inside the rocks and they fractured and turned to dust enough to remove the feet. Sullivan still held Celestine''s body up like his life depended on it to keep the weight off her legs. I would probably be in much more pain without him. But he''s still only 6. I pulled on the iron atoms in the air that had broken off the meteor as it burned through the atmosphere and recombined them into a pair of simple crutches. Basically just two sticks with a T shaped top in the middle and a handle on each side. Like the letter F, actually. Funny that. I wonder what other letters could be made into useful tools. I won''t live long enough to find out, but it had me thinking at least. I found the strength to at least carry the majority of Celestine''s weight off of Sullivan, but I still relied on him for balance. "Be my legs for a bit, will you Sullivan?" I asked in a pained voice, guiding him to move use out of the crater I had created in my foolishness. He just nodded in my back and carried me where I wanted to go. All right. Back to the matter at hand. A creature with the capability to cause widespread disaster to a continent just landed in front of me. Voice, elaborate on what an armored tiger is for me. Because of the pain, I can''t sift through memories right now. Since Voice was able to identify the creature, it must have been in a book Celestine read at some point in time. There''s no all-encompassing system to provide information in this world like there is in some novels I read on Earth, so Voice is limited to what is inside Celestine''s memory and judgements on objects based on context clues, which is how she was able to identify the chrysalis, i.e. meteorite. A large crack, and the meteorite fractured and fell apart like a hollow egg with its eggshell falling by the wayside. Curled up into a pill-shape was something that reminded me of an armadillo. It slowly moved, separating its head from between its shoulders, curling its rear out from its chest, extending its legs out and stabbing into the dirty metal-laden crater that the meteorite created when it impacted. A long, spindly tail tapered off of its hind, plates of dark gray metallic skin covered its back, while pink fleshy bits were visible at its belly, at the bottom of its neck, and at its waist. It stood, stumbled a bit, then the bits of metal from the meteorite broke off and began to form around the armored tiger. It was recycling its chrysalis to make up for the gaps in its armored skin. This must be the power of instinct. This must be when it is at its most vulnerable. I have to act, even if it causes me pain. I lifted Celestine''s right hand, the metal crutch still under the armpit, and channelled magic energy to the hand, gritting my teeth to bear the pain. I pulled on the iron of the meteorite and whatever was within the creature in front of me. It was pulled off its feet and into the ground closer to me. Both it, and I, let out a pained wail. "AHHHHHHH!" I shouted, the worms eating at the wounds of the legs, how it felt. The armored tiger shouted in agony, its voice sounded like a machine with the tone of scraping knives howling. A split opened in its otherwise completely rounded face and a thick miasma of black dust wretched out of, what I assume was, its mouth. Then it curled over and vomited black goo and stones. This is a continental disaster? Despite being called a tiger, it was more the size of a large dog. A long body, some multicolored segments on its back, and its tail is probably what gave it the name. And what about that ridiculous age? I released my pull on it, and the pain in Celestine''s body subsided. It was too different than what the book described. This creature is pathetic right now. Could... could I tame it? "Hey, Sullivan, would you like a pet environmental disaster?" "Don''t joke, Novos!" He barked. Hey, boy, calm down. This isn''t his usual shy demeanor. Does he hate me? "Hey, when did you figure out it was me?" "Only you call me by my name in Sis''s body." "Humm, I never thought about that." Naivete wins. If I need to pretend to be Celestine in front of him, he is now Bubby from now on. "Now give Sis her body back." "You don''t seem to quite understand the situation, bud. That thing, despite how pathetic it looks right now, is a creature that could tear you both apart right now. Also, the whole city would be ash without me. You''re welcome!" "What do you want me to do? Sooner we kill that thing the sooner you let Sis come back?" "Celestine doesn''t want us to kill it. And to be honest, killing something that pathetic leaves a bad taste in my mouth, too." "No one told you you had to eat it..." "Figure of speech, boy. Also, she wants me to hit you. So do a girl a favor and smack your head against the wall there, please?" "Then you''ll just fall over without me." "Good point. No head smashing." The armored tiger huddled on the ground, taking deep breaths of the air as if it was the first breath it ever took. This thing is over 25 and a half millennia old, why is it acting like all of this is new? I almost don''t want to even look at it, it''s so pathetic. In the end, it''s just an animal... I look elsewhere, the plaza was still full of stalls. Many were full of produce and a couple were meat stalls trying to sell dried and fresh hunted meat from the forests to the south of the city. Many stalls were upturned by the impact of the meteorite. I pulled on her limited knowledge of spacial magic, grit my teeth to bear the pain in the legs, and strummed the strings of the fabric of space to draw a haunch of some large game animal off of the closest fresh meat stall and held it in front of me suspended. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! She repeated in my head as I demonstrated, with perfect ability, the magic school she was trying to utilize in the last year. "Carry. Me. Forward." I said between her teeth as pain coursed through the veins. A hard thing to say without being able to open your jaw in their language, but I hoped he figured it out. His grip on Celestine''s body tightened and I could move the crutches to help keep her weight so it wasn''t completely on him. The armored tiger turned, saw our approach, and shook in fear. Fear of a little girl? Oh, well I am gritting her teeth. I guess that''s a universal aggression act? "Stop. Lower. Slow." I said. Then I bent the crutches with iron atomic manipulation so that Celestine would slowly kneel in front of the animal. Most of the damage was in her lower legs, so this much should be possible, I hope. I release all my magic acts. The metal crutches lock and the haunch of meat drops to the ground between Celestine and the creature. "Let go for a bit." I said to Sullivan, and he did so hesitantly. Under my own power, I slowly inched forward with the help of the crutches and what little strength I was left in the legs. The creature did nothing now. Only stared. Its eyes were a weak point in its head armor. Brilliant white with yellow irises and round pupils. Two round pupils in each eye on top of each other within single irises. Perhaps from a distance it would look like a slit eye. I wonder what abilities he has. I reached to the meat haunch and pushed it forward with Celestine''s child arms. This meat haunch must weigh as much as she does, because it barely moved. I pulled out a chunk of the meat as best as I could, held it in my hand so the creature could see me, I agitated the water molecules and heated it up in the same manner a microwave would so that it was save to eat, atomic manipulation is OP, and put it in my mouth. It tasted awful not being properly cooked, but this was to demonstrate for the creature what this was. It eyed me curiously. I tossed the rest of what I had in its direction. It flinched, but then bent its head down to examine it. After it started to lap at the chunk of poorly cooked meat with its blackened tongue, its mood changed. It started to bite at what I threw at it, its teeth were like small knives of black iron. Within the pink part of its mouth, though, shinier teeth embedded into its jaw ground the meat up with ease. I held my hands out to the haunch and pushed it again to the creature. Again, no success in pushing it far, but it got the hint and started to slowly approach. It lapped at the exterior of the meat, then sunk its double-rowed teeth into it, ripping the flesh from the bone as easy as a knife through butter. The metal skin was not always still like you would think something like a turtle''s shell would be. It was moving as it breathed and ate. It would move like liquid over the surface of its body. More bits of metal from the shell of the meteorite began to separate and move to the creature, covering its pink belly and spaces between the metallic chitin bands on its back and neck. All while it devoured the meat haunch. I could no nothing but stare at this creature. It held an alien beauty that I had never beheld before. I had my own theories about this species now. Especially after the meteorite had been identified as a chrysalis by Voice and the reason for the age. Obviously it''s extraterrestrial. The meteor might act as an egg or suspended animation pod. Then they are ejected from where ever they are from and drift to whatever world will accept them... or kill them. I can''t imagine many of them make it to habitable worlds. Of all the natural magical beasts in this world... I just had to meet the one that has such an astronomically low chance of appearing for the first time. Where was this RNG when I was on Earth playing MMOs? The creature was already tearing meat off the bone, inhaling the meat without tasting it. It must have been starving. Is this why they are considered hostile? Can they be tamed so easily just by giving them food when they emerge from their meteorite? I turned my head back to the meat stall and pull another large chunk of meat over with spacial magic. I was starting to get used to the pain. Damn, that''s not something you want to get used to, though. I slid it over and beside the haunch the creature was already chowing down on. "CELESTINE!" I heard a shout at the entrance to the plaza closest to the mansion. Oh gods, damn it! "SYLVIANNA, STAY BACK!" A low grumbling scraping sound was echoing through the throat of the armored tiger in front of me. It turned its attention to Sylvianna, who was now standing awkwardly on the edge of the plaza. I could see in her feet that it was all she could do to hold herself back at my shout. "Shh shh shh, down." I said to the beast, who was now starting to take a step toward Sylvianna. I couldn''t have that. I forced magic energy into my hand and commanded the metal of the magic beast''s metallic skin to stop and force it to the ground. It howled in pain, but something like this needed to be done while it was still young, well young as in just emerging from the meteorite. "Stay!" I shouted at it. It whimpered and gave up resisting. Its resisting was mostly just muscle resistance. Its ability to control metal must be completely instinctual and involuntary. Like a heartbeat. I wonder if it could be taught greater control. But at least I should be recognized by it as a being that was capable of great compassion... as well as great punishment. I released control of it, and it stayed there as per my command. "You can keep eating now." I said with a smile, pushing the meat a bit further to it. It hesitated before continuing to eat. "Approach slowly, Sylvianna." She said nothing, but just walked slowly toward the group of two children and an alien monster. When she was next to Celestine, she knelt, staring at the creature. "Honey, what did you do?" "It''s Novos." Sullivan chimed in. "It was Celestine''s idea to not kill it. I just stopped the meteor from destroying the city and calmed a beast that is known for causing widespread environmental damage and requires an army to kill." Well, when you put it like that, I might really be a god and just don''t know it yet. The armored tiger was finishing with the first haunch of meat, actually biting into and chewing the bones and marrow. I then slid the new chunk of meat in front of him, this one was a smaller chunk of meat with more bones. Probably a rib or ab muscles of some creature I have yet to see, but have probably already eaten in some cocktail of food mixture. Sometimes I don''t know what the cook at the mansion puts in the meals, but it''s good regardless. "Also, don''t overreact, but Celestine''s going to need to be carried back home. The strain of stopping the meteor was too much... and her legs are broken." "A few broken bones are easily mended with magic and time." Another familiar voice spoke behind me, Warran in his old old man form overlooking everyone. "You''ve made yourself a frightful companion, Missy." I reached over to the head of the armored tiger, happily crunching away at the bones and meat with its grinder-like teeth. I carefully touched the surface of its armored skin. It flinched a bit, but then turned its head into my hand like a dog. The armor gave way like water and my hand sunk into its skin. I could feel its fleshy inside layer. It''s warm and smooth like a human''s skin, but feels far more fragile than a human''s skin. Like if I were to pull on it or stroke it too hard, it would tear. I gently stroke it over its smooth head, over small bumps which I assume are ears, and down its neck before pulling back. A bit of the metal skin lingers on my hand before breaking back off and reforming onto the creature. "Things are going to get far more interesting..." <...far more interesting.> When did Warran start using magic to repair Celestine''s legs? I don''t remember. I''m just lost in this creature''s eyes, now. Chapter 17 - The Lamia Diplomats I should have killed that thing. I should have killed that thing. DAMN IT. I should have killed that thing! What happens when you bring a new pet home and your landlord finds out about it? Probably something similar to this. The lamia artist saw a small girl tame a monster far beyond his tribe''s ability to deal with. So now Celestine and her new pet have become centerpieces in a political game that basically boils down to a pissing contest. While the lamia landlords were told of me four years ago, the false god, that''s all they thought of me. A false god in a little girl, or a girl''s wild imagination, and the silly humans believed her. No reason to be concerned. But when that very same girl just tamed a magical beast known for widespread disruption and its inability to easily die, well now they are paying attention to me. Lamia have a very basic core ideal. The strongest lead the weak and it is by the strong''s good graces that the weak are allowed to survive. Such is the ideal for many beast-men in this world. Humans are one of the beast-men species who don''t fit into this mould. And yes, humans are considered beast-men. Any humanoid that has roots in animals in this world is a beast-men species. Elves and demons are the only two known humanoid races that don''t evolve from animals. Elves being some sort of manifestation of magic and demons being immigrants from another plane or existence. I would like to hear that story someday, the book on species didn''t go into detail on the demons'' origin. Celestine''s magic training has been put on hold while Daemon deals with negotiations with the lamia head. From what we''ve been overhearing, negotiations aren''t going well. Been hearing a lot of demands and little of compromise. And plenty of words Celestine doesn''t understand. They seem to be more afraid of Celestine than they are of the armored tiger. It doesn''t bode well on that front. The last few days have been spent on training Null. Because I didn''t close Celestine away when the meteor fell like I did when I experimented with solid oxygen, she got everything. She easily succeeded in Warran''s challenge for spacial magic and has been using my knowledge of metal atomic manipulation to discipline Null when he misbehaves. Oh, also, she decided to name him Null because she liked the name in the Voice identification pop up. Let''s hope his name doesn''t need to be put into a database any time soon. Going to need to teach Voice to use ''N/A'' instead of ''Null'' from now on for absences of information in the identification box. He''s surprisingly intelligent. When he does something that deserves punishment, like growling at humans without provocation, one act of forcing him down with metal manipulation will set him right. I don''t know if it really hurts him or if he just doesn''t like it. It works regardless. Celestine, with my suggestions, has taught him how to sit, follow, stay, lay down, and roll over. She even uses him as a ride from time to time. His metal armor on his back is solid, so the ride isn''t exactly comfortable. Can''t stop Celestine from doing what she wants, though. I think she''s getting conceited. She''s still young, so her personality hasn''t quite set in stone. I might need to disappear for a while so I don''t influence her any more than I have. That being said, the meteor should have killed her, so perhaps I have a claim on her life now? And everyone in this city for that matter? And even of the local lamia tribes for ridding them of the threat inside the meteor. Who knows how things were meant to play out without me. No, I can''t stay quiet during this pissing contest because it concerns my actions. Tens days after the event, and the third time a group of lamia have arrived at the mansion to discuss the event with Daemon, I decided to make an appearance. There were three lamias that arrived at the mansion. All were wearing something akin to decorated burlap gowns. They look nothing like the regal armored lamia Celestine saw in her youth. He must have been unaffiliated with the tribe. The largest lamia had a snake tail at least 30 meters long. Their bodies filled the lounge on the first floor while their humanoid bodies sat like humans on a couch opposite of Daemon. Two of them had swords on their waists while the third had a book open and was writing quickly. I walked casually into the lounge and was instantly the center of attention. "Sorry for interrupting, but since this concerned me I figured it would be best if I joined." I''m glad I left Null in the courtyard. They were on edge enough with me here. I spied the lamia with the book and looked into his black eyes. An identifier, then? I wonder if there''s any ability to combat this. "No no, it doesn''t concern you, Tina. Just go upstairs and find Sullivan." Daemon spoke quickly. I ignored him and just bowed lightly, "I am Novos. I was the one who slowed the meteor to protect the city and tamed the armored tiger. How does this discussion not concern me, Daemon?" Trying not to act conceited in lieu of just admitting to two impossible feats is hard. Hopefully my inexperience with these sort of discussions helps. "Only one of her eyes is black? Feir, explain." The largest lamia spoke, motioning to the black-eyed lamia. ">Inconclusive.< I''ve never seen a being with an identification affinity and with only one black eye before. The results of the identification are... fuzzy, as well. It''s as if I''m looking at three different individuals." "You identify yourself as Novos, the self-proclaimed god. But you stand in the body of this human''s daughter. Explain." The lead said. Their voices are very monotone. It''s somewhat hard to completely understand them because of the requirements of the language. "Not going to introduce yourselves first? Fine." I walked over to the couch Daemon sat on and sat beside him. He didn''t say a word and just looked back and forth between the lamias and me. "Like I said, I was the one who stopped the meteor. I borrowed control of the body from Celestine and used a special magic skill I developed myself to stop it." "That was not my question. How is a second being inside this body of a human?" His eyes tightened, I think he''s getting annoyed. "I, uh, dunno?" I shrugged. "When Celestine was three I was just kinda... here. The story about me being a god was a lie... I think. If I''m a god, I wasn''t told about it." "We already knew you weren''t a god. We know the truth of this city''s religion and if anything happens that coincided with their faith, it''s either a lie or a coincidence. Novos, you interest me." "Body''s still underage. I''m afraid I cannot accept your..." "And you''re a jokester even given the situation. Very well. I am Diaos, chieftain of the lamia tribe Black Scale to the west and acting representative for the other two main lamia tribes, Gold Sands and Indentured Lamentation." The large lamia said, nodding his head a bit. "That last one is an interesting name." I said. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. "It was a former prison colony to the south that gained independence a hundred years ago. The old fools there refuse to change the name. Something about needing to atone for the sins of their ancestors. Not like we care. My father already >absolved< them." "Unwarranted self-flagellation, then. Are they a tribe of masochists?" "Bahahaha!" Diaos erupted in laughter at that remark. His body sort of bounced a bit as his whole body, tail and all, convulsed until he calmed down. "I never thought of them that way before. Whew, now I have something to poke fun at them at the next meeting. Ahh, let''s get back on subject." "Yes, let''s." The third lamia said, a bit annoyed. "This is Leos, my first-hatched son and next chieftain, and this is Feir my scribe." "The topic at hand, Father." He was getting grumpy. The son was about fifteen meters long and had the body of a teenager. "Calm yourself, Leos. There''s no need to rush things." The lamias weren''t as stoic as they were before, which made me rather happy. They weren''t some alien creatures, they were just people with their own ideals at heart and this Chieftain seemed quite lighthearted. "Anyway, Novos, are you aware of the situation?" "Briefly. Apologies, Celestine eavesdropped a bit on the last couple meetings." "We were aware of her." The scribe said. "Basically the situation is this. In order for Arture to not be a threat of power in the other chieftains'' eyes, Celestine and the armored tiger must be taken out of the picture. Arture exists, and continues to exist, under ourselves. We cannot allow a human city to gain power over us in our own territory. If Celestine remains and word of her power reaches the >$#^$#@< then it might be the spark for igniting our cold war with them." ">$#^$#@$#^$#@<." Feir explained. For lack of a better word for them, I guess I can just call them werewolves. "Selling their kin to human settlements in Hope was rather lucrative for our early ancestors and they aren''t too proud of what became of them after domestication. So they are quite... miffed." Diaos added. "So I''m guessing that''s where the dog beastmen came from. Sounds like their hatred is justified." I said. "The past is the past and we cannot change that. They hate us and that hatred won''t go away without our genocide. And, of course, if they invade and if they were to take our territory up to Arture..." Leos scoffed, then let his father continue after he glared at his son. "... then they would not be so willing to allow a human city to thrive in the territory. They hate your kind just as well as ours." "It''s still a bit far-fetched of a reason. In what way would they get information of my existence?" "A child stopped a meteor from destroying a city and tamed an armored tiger. How could such a story not reach them? Not to mention the meteor falling could be seen easily from the sea. There are plenty of mercenaries and merchants that trade information just as easily as pelts and weapons. All we can do is hope to get that child out of the city as soon as possible so the coming spies can''t confirm her existence. A human with such a >familiar< calls into question the balance of power in the region." Feir spoke next, "At the very least they know a meteor impacted near. With enough earth and fire mages, a fake impact area can be created nearby to change the story. Houses can be repaired or destroyed to lend credibility, but Celestine being here is too much of a risk." "So what are her options?" I asked. "EXECUTION!" The young lamia sprung up, only to meet the fist of his father to his face, sending his whole huge body flying into the stairs and wall. Well that''s a spectacle you don''t see everyday. A lone sword stood stabbed into the table. When did he draw that? I swallowed dry spit at the attempted assassination. "Uhm..." Was all I could say. Wow, he broke the banister. That must have hurt. I looked to Daemon and he was just putting something back into his jacket. What did you just try to pull? HEY! "There''s really no choice but to send her to Sirius to live with my parents." Daemon said, a bit sad at the realization. Did it take this long to come to this conclusion? "I know how much you want to stay with your daughter, Daemon, but with the agreements of our families in place, there is nothing I can do." Diaos said, as a father to a father. "The problem is convincing her mother." "I can have Celestine handle that front. It''s not like this is banishment, correct?" I asked. "Of course. We have no intention of keeping you out of the region, but you just can''t live here for prolonged periods of time." "What of the church? Wouldn''t this seem to them like you''re banishing their or something?" The black-eyed lamia raised his eye at the new word, but didn''t say anything. "The church will be reigned in if they cause trouble. They''ve been getting too conceited lately anyway." Daemon said, more to the lamias than to the fact he was answering my concern. Is this the same man? "So we hop a ship and head to Sirius?" "No. A girl and her pet natural disaster would cause too much of a stir at the populated docks in the region. We''ll have you go by land to Hope at least and take a ship from there." The black-eyed lamia said, writing something down with a quickness. How do you write that fast? "I''ll have my second-hatched son, Jiaz, escort you to the border of our territory, then you will be with your own escort through the desert up north to the >^@%&#$< controlled territory. There you will take a ferry to Saddath and continue from there to Hope. I think you''ve met, or at least seen, Jiaz before, correct? He was at that art show during the day of the meteor impact with his silly bone carvings." "Aww, come now, they looked pretty impressive." "You sound like his sister. Oh well, at least you''ll have something to talk with him about on the way then." "I guess Warran is the escort?" I asked Daemon. "He had business in Hope anyway, so this came at a good time. Something about the library there stiffing him on materials he ordered." "So what was with the last two days of arguing?" "Sylvianna." All three said in unison. The teenage lamia was still passed out on the stairs. "Ahh..." Update As you all have probably figured out if you''re following my story, I stopped posting. I had reached a point where I was no longer satisfied with the quality of what I was putting out. I went into this writing the story for myself more than anything, so I had lost interest. I am writing this long overdue update to bring you some good news, though. I have been rewriting Novos Hitchhiker for NaNoWriMo! I have just hit 30k words and the creative juices just keep on flowing. I will start posting the chapters here to Royal Road Legends after I hit a point where I am satisfied I can keep writing without losing interest, as the goal of NaNoWriMo is what is keeping me going right now.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Know that a significant amount of the story is both the same and different. I am writing the story from memory so I don''t parrot myself. If you have any criticisms of this version of the story, please use the comments box below to address them so I know what to change or improve on in my current draft. I am already trying to avoid info dumps, so you don''t need to remind me. ^-^; I will post another update when I start posting the new chapters here to Royal Road Legends to keep you folks informed. Thank you for reading through my bumbling story thus far and i hope my next attempt is still to your liking. :-) Redux is here Hey guys, just posting here to let the followers know that the rewrite of Novos Hitchhicker is now live here on Royal Road. Click here to go to the page.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.