I feel very out of place here. Me and Snowstorm sit with the elven champion of Aftermath, in out human forms, in chairs at a very large, long table. Aftermath is right near us, Miria and Autumn sitting beside him on his left, and a woman I don't recognize sitting on his right. What I do recognize, however, is a tier 5 Aura. Approximately 20 of them I can sense. Over 50 people are in this room, all tier 4 and 5. It confuses me even more why we are here. Me and Snowstorm, to be specific.

  Aftermath stands from his seat, his hands behind his back. All are in human forms, only Aftermath, and 2 others being in a demiform of sorts, not including me or Snowstorm. Both of us look human, even if our aura is clearly draconic. Any identification skills would tell who we are too. I feel the prickling sensation of skills being used on me multiple times as curious eyes land on us. Aftermath places his skeletal hand on the table.

  “At ease.” His voice is without the divinity it normally carries, though it still is clearly other. “Before this meeting begins, I sense questions. You may ask them. however, they must be one at a time. Tier fives may go first, then tier fours. Begin.” Many hands raise, including the woman seated beside him.

  “Hannai, you may go first.” He nods to her, and she stands.

  “First, Lord Aftermath, I must congratulate you for having come back out in the open again. It pleases us all to see your public displays.” Her voice is smooth and ethereal, carrying divinity, though to a lesser extent than Aftermath's. “I must also congratulate you for having chosen a new champion. It is good to see her here. Young miss Miria, correct?” She gives a small bow to Miria, who takes it surprisingly well, nodding back respectfully. most in the room give murmurs of agreement. She's building up to something, I think.

  “I can also understand why her companion, young Autumn, is here, given her connection to the champion. However, what I do not understand, is why these tier 2 individuals are here.” There it is. Me and Snowstorm exchange a helpless glance, not exactly sure either. Aftermath just found us and said “You're coming with me to a meeting” and yanked me out of my essence cultivation. I'd even reached 20,000 essence by now.

  All around the table are murder of agreement. Some look at us with confusion, some with worry, and some with hostility. Some likely are confused why we are here, others are worried that the pressure of tier 5s and 4s will smash us tier 2s into the dirt, and others… clearly see us as inferiors. Not that I blame them. Power is what matters. Tier is what matters. Not personality. Strength. That's fine with me.

  “Lord Aftermath, I had the same question. Why are they here?” A tall man with pointy ears, long blonde hair and what looked like antlers on his head asked politely. He seemed like a chill guy. Part of the worried camp. He looked at me like I was a puppy being hugged too tightly. Aftermath turned to me. And grinned.

  “they're my friends. Also, because the reason I called this meeting concerns them more than anyone else here.” That shut some people up. Most of those looking at me with hostility now look at me like that stuck their hand into a bear trap. Which is fair too. They literally were just glaring at the buddies of their boss. Another person raised their hand. This was a woman with a scholarly vibe to her, all glasses and books and stuff. Hell, she's literally got a book in her hand.

  “Um… Lord aftermath, how are they not being crushed by the pressure? I sense nobody restraining their suppression.” She says hesitantly. She looks more affected by it than I do.

  “you answer that, Abhor. It's more amusing that way.” Aftermath grins at me. I give him a flat look.

  “alright, sure.” I shrug. “I don't feel any pressure right now. Like, at all. I know it's there, but I don't feel anything oppressive.” Silence. Everyone stares. The scholarly girl drops her book and scrambles to catch it. “What?” I look around. Like, I know that it's not normal to feel the pressure, but why get all like this about it? Aftermath starts to laugh. That seems to terrify everyone except me and Snowstorm.

  “Well, that's because it isn't usually even theoretically possible, timeling.” His voice is now infused with every bit of his divinity. God's flinch. Tier 4s nearly faint. Me and Snowstorm just stand there. Miria and Autumn seem less affected than most, likely due to their high level blessings, or because they hear his voice far more often.

  “Really?” I shrug. “It doesn't seem that cool or anything. Why is everyone shocked?” The casual tone that I speak to Aftermath with seems to give everyone a second panic attack. Aftermath just grins.

  “Because I am the only one in this room with immunity like yours, which doesn't much matter given nobody in this universe would stand a chance at suppressing me in any way, shape or form. You two are special. And it's about to become three.” I blink in surprise. special huh? That sounds nice. Wait, three? “what do you mean three?” I ask curiously.

  “Approximately 2 days and 14 hours ago I felt a pulse of energy. Most in this room with high intelligence likely did too. It came from the steel Badlands. The pulse of energy was one that only comes from an otherworlder. That pulse had that same immune affect as your souls do.”

  “An otherworlder? How could an otherworlder, who would be only level 1 when he appeared, have a presence strong enough to pulse outwards so powerfully?” Snowstorm asks, curious.

  “That I can't say. But I believe we need to find this otherworlder. He can't fall into Camica's hands. Someone with the potential you two have with them would not be advantageous for us in the slightest.”

  “How so?” The woman beside him asks. “What about these two is so special, my lord?”

  “They have essence.” A third silence.

  “oh. OH.” The woman, who I had felt was almost condescending to me before, looks at me in a very different way now. First she looked at me like a bug. Then like a… something. Now she looks at me and Snowstorm like nuclear bombs, and she's sitting on the detonator.

  “I believe this person has it as well.”

  “How do you have essence?” The scholarly woman asks, turning to Snowstorm for once instead of me. He sighs and shrugs.

  “I do wish I knew. It's so interesting, though. But I'm only 16, and haven't lived with the full access to the tier 2 system long enough to understand it.” He speaks in a similar way to how she does. I would say great minds think alike, but… Actually, these two are geniuses, that would be exactly right.

  “Yes, yes, now back to the topic of… wait, 16?” The man with the Antlers stares at Snowstorm, then at me.

  “Don't question it.” I advise. “I think we are freaks of nature.”

  “Got that right.” Aftermath comments. “Anyway, let's focus back on this other individual.”

  “So do we go there to convince this person not come back with us? That's over 2 billion kilometers.” I point out. a few of the tier 5s and fours chuckle at the distance. Not too far for them I guess, but 2 billion is still quote a bit for me, even if I can move at over 16 million miles per hour(and yes, I did the math(or more accurately, Snowstorm did)).

  “Teleportation, Abhor. The problem isn't getting there, it's BEING there.” Aftermath explains, and I nod sheepishly. Makes sense. That's how we got there so quickly in the first place.

  “Why not just send humanoids then? they seemed… less racist towards bipeds.” Snowstorm commented. A few Tier 4s seemed to want the job as well, and perked up at his words.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “That could be done, but nobody tier 3 or over can go.” Aftermath said simply. “And not today. In 3 days, and no dragons can go.” Every hand fell. Everyone turned to look at us.

  “Does nobody have masking skills or anything?” I ask, confused.

  “Of course we do.” The woman to Aftermath's right said. “But making skills make us appear as nothing. It's good for intimidation, but a dot of nothingness in a crowd full of people is highly suspicious.”

  “Oh. Makes sense.” I say. Snowstorm slaps me o n the back of the head.

  “Idiot.” he mutters. Aftermath speaks up next.

  “We will send 5 tier 2 individuals. That's it. Let's talk some more on logistics.”

  <{(0)}>

  After that was a lot of boring talking. The meeting went back to being an actual meeting. Me and Snowstorm being there kind of knocked it out of whack a bit, so we both left to cultivate our essence for a bit. Darkness kisses my scales as I lie curled up in the center of the cavern. You see, my body takes in dark mana and converts it into raw matter into my body. So, what happens to the part of it that makes it dark mana? Well, for most it just gets expelled out of their bodies like waste out of pores, floating away invisibly. However, for me, it is taken into my soul core as essence. You may wonder why that is important. That's because my body doesn't take in as much essence if my mana pool is full. So on the ground are 2 arrays carven into the stone. One is a mana gathering array. It focuses all the generated darkness in the room to the center, where I'm currently lying. The second array is a mana absorption array. I attach it on to the back of my soul core, sucking in an equal amount of mana to the amount my body pulls in. Now, here is where the cultivation part comes in. If I focus on keeping myself calm and controlling my breathing, the flow of essence into myself speeds up. It's like a rigid tube that water flows through. Water all tries to flood in, but only so much can fit in. Relaxing the tube lets more water flow through more easily into my soul and soul core.

  I learned a bit more about my soul core too. You see, those with a soul core are theoretically able to have essence. However, you need to have a powerful affinity, or a connection to a god, to have essence. All gods have essence, but almost no mortals have it. Not even a lick of it.

  The other way to get essence is a powerful blessing from a god. It gives you a powerful connection between the outside worlds energies and your own soul. That's why it usually appears where a soul core would be. Now, there's a problem. Those with a soul core can't obtain a gods blessing. Ever. Period. Aftermath couldn't give me a blessing if he wanted. my soul core is already latched onto the spot on my soul that a blessing is. The slot is filled already. Usually the slot could be emptied by renouncing the blessing you already have, but my soul core isn't a blessing. The outer shell of the soul core is what is physically visible. It contains my actual soul within. If it breaks, I die. So, that's nice. Big weak spot on my hand.

  Taking essence into my body feels like breathing. But, like, a different kind of breathing. Its as if I suddenly have a new pair of lungs I can breathe something else through. I bet that if I were in total darkness, I likely wouldn't even need to breathe to survive.

  Thinking back on the meeting, I sigh. I don't understand that sort of stuff. I feel making friends isn't that hard. I enjoy hanging out with friends. But politics, social hierarchies, all that stuff… Not for me. It's so difficult to wrap my head around. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, I know that, and I don't fuss over it one bit. Sometimes I wish I were smarter, though. Maybe then I wouldn't have had to sneak out of the meeting.

  I raise one arm up. Despite being in pick blackness, I can see it perfectly fine as if it were a summer day. Before, my night vision made everything black and white. Now, it has colors, thanks to my shiny eye mutation. I clench my talon into a fist. Darkness pools around my arm like a whirlpool of void making me smile slightly. dThere's so much dark mana in here, it's absurd. Where even is here, anyways? Aftermath gave me this pocket watch thingy that points to whatever I'm looking for. I don't use it as much, though, as I'm trying to train my mana sense. Correctly guessing which of the canopy holes leads to where I want to go is good training. Speaking of which, seems it's at D rank. I only solidified it into a skill today, and I'm satisfied with the rank as of now. There is a problem with having so many skills though. You see, there is no barrier between tier 1 and tier 2 besides having enough karma to reach that point. But really hing tier 3 is a different story. all my techniques need to be C grade and above, all me Skills need to be Rare and above, and all my mutations need to be C grade and above. Luckily my mutations aren't a problem, as both are absurdly high graded for my tier. perhaps I should get a new skill or something… no, I'll wait. There's some things I need to practice. For example, I want to increase my time manipulation rank. But the thing is… I don't know any time spells. All of them are absurdly powerful and take an absurdly long time to activate. do I'm winging this… how do I go about using time mana?

  Demishift.

  I stretch my arms, standing up. I look down at my hands, look over my wings, then summon an illusion mirror to look into my eyes. perhaps… maybe if I move it into a part of my body? I can make a man's bolt, an earthquake mana bolt, and a water mana bolt… so why not a time mana bolt?

  I raise my arm and point my palm towards a rock. I start with the classic.

  Dark mana bolt

  Dark mana shoots out in a spiral of blackness, slamming into the rock and cracking it. It has the affect of eating away at it slightly before dispersing. Different man's types have different affects. Fire burns, earth is blunt, light blinds, and dark consumes. Time… ages? I don't know. Perhaps one bolt will… I might as well test my theory.

  I pull on my soul core. The type less mana within is pulled and twisted by my time mana manipulation skill until time mana spirals out. The mana is a deep purple with streaks of magenta and lilac within. The mana streams through the pathways of my body, changing shape until it forms a simple bolt in front of my hand. I take a deep breath in, then blast it outwards.

  Time mana bolt

  The bolt slams directly into the rock, and… nothing happens. I walk up to the rock, confused. I gently poke it. Nothing. I tap it harder. Still nothing. Strange… Then I notice. The dark mana I shot into it… it's tearing away at the rock so much faster. You might think the dark mana in the room wouldnest away at everything, but no, that's mana with no direction. The dark mana bolt hand a direction. It eroded away at the rock in less than a minute. I watched as the rock turned to dust. I grin.

  I turn and rush out of my cave.

  <{(0)}>

  “Why did you drag me out to the forest?” snowstorm asks skeptically. “I got a chance to speak to Crista and we were talking when you rushed into the library like an idiot shouting nonsense about rock dust.”

  “you'll get it when you see it.” I insist. I land in front of a nice looking tree and nod. “this should be a good example.” I think over how much mana to put in. I tested in a few things. The more man's I put in, the faster the object ages, it seems.

  “what are you going on about?” Snowstorm seems more interested as I point my left talon at the tree.”

  “just watch.”

  Time mana bolt

  The purple bolt slams into the tree and dissolves into it.

  “that kind of mana was… That…” Snowstorm freezes, then rushes over to the tree. Her rests a hand on the bark as he examines it. “that must have been time mana… what is it doing… oh. OH!” He jumps back as the tree grows and grows for just a moment, the resources sucked up in the area too fast for it to sustain itself. Then tree rots away and dies, then collapses to the ground. I grin.

  “Ta-da!” I laugh. “cool, right?”

  “that's what happens when you make a mana bolt out of time magic? That's very impressive for such a beginner magic.”

  “Right? I wanted your help coming up with some more ideas when it comes to spells.”

  “Well that's magic, but not a spell. It's a technique.” snowstorm points out. I frown.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, confused.

  “to do actual magic you need 3 things. Firstly, you need to have the affinity skill. You can't cast spells without the affinity. Secondly, you need to know the words of the spell. Spells require chants, which can be very short, or very long, in order to convey your intent into the real world. Third, you need the magic circle. Think of it like circuitry. The words get inputted into the magic circuit, like a line of code. The magic circuit processes the intent, using the specific mana type to power itself, then it outputs the spell you want. In order to modify a spell toy need to change both the words, and the circuit in order to work with each other. You can't use a toaster like a calculator, just like you can't make a water spell do fire magic.” I blink once. Twice. Then nod.

  “that's… that makes sense.” I say eventually. “The analogy helped. So, I don't actually know any spells, I'm just using basic mana manipulation, and some techniques in order to do magic?”

  “precisely” Snowstorm nods. “Now you need to find a teacher. That bookish woman form the meeting, her name is Crista. She's an exotic magic scholar. She has the fate affinity, which is super out there. However, she knows lots about time magic as it is classified as an exotic magic type, due to how

  few people have it and how little it's seen in the wild.” I nod.

  “So you want me to talk to her about time magic?” I ask, mostly for clarification.

  “better” Snowstorm responds. “You are gonna get a crash course in some basic time magic. If you ask nicely, of course. Crista is probably one of the my smartest people here who isn't a god on this planet. She has the knowledge affinity as a sub-affinity, I think. ”

  “School?” I groan, looking down at my claws and debating whether to plug my ears with them, or to rip them out. “kill me now.”

  “Nope! As your oh so amazing and wise brother, I'm going to literally strap you down to a chair if I have to.” He rests a wing on my shoulder. Her has a look of savage joy in his eyes.

  “Whyyyyyy?”

  “Because I want you to suffer- I mean, I want you to learn to do cool magic. Yeah. That.” He nods.

  “Good save.” I say flatly. “I hope a polar bear eats you. slowly.”

  “I love too. Now let's go.”

  FREEZE, Tier 2 evolution, Humanify

  ...

  DEATH, Other-worlder