The crowd roared as Jausn twirled between the opposing team’s outstretched hands, effortlessly slipping across the line.
He was untouchable.
And just like that, Jausn an Erduk led his team to their world championship.
He was 14.
His teammates swarmed the field, each a grown man operating at the peak of physical possibility. They lifted him up, surfing him on firm hands, parading him in front of the millions of watching eyes.
Yet in the face of it all, only one thing could be seen on Jausn’s handsome visage.
Disappointment.
—-----------------------------------------
A rain of blows rained down on Jausn, a rain of blow effortlessly deflected and slipped.
Marcus Arelius, Gregor Bringham, and Master Zen circled him slowly, searching for any weakness in his form. Each was a master of the art of war, the champions of dozens of different martial disciplines. They brought to bear the weight of history itself as they lashed out with blows that had once slain kings and warriors alike, and deflected fists with enough power to bend iron.
And they were losing.
Jausn an Erduk seemed to dance in the shadows of his ancestors as he fought the greatest champions of an age.
Two hands against six.
His lean muscular body, merely 15 years old, flexed and extended as the rhythm of the battle consumed him.
He met force with force, speed with speed, and technique with technique. He met the champions of an age in their specialties and he crushed them.
At last, he stood alone among the bodies, not even breathing hard.
The crowd roared around him, the announcer shouting at the top of his lungs.
Jausn didn't care.
He just looked at the three groaning masters, sprawled across the ground.
“Pathetic.” he spat.
Their only answer was more groans.
—----------------------------------------------
The Olympics came and went, a chain of further disappointments.
At the end of it, 16-year-old Jausn stood in front of a literal pile of gold medals.
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“Ladies and gentleman, you are witnessing history! This is the first time a single man, no boy, has claimed every single gold medal in the olympics!” his voice cracked, “A feat never before done, and a feat that will likely never be replicated!”
There was no applause this time, no roar of the crowd. Only a confused silence, one perpetuated by a hint of growing horror.
I remember those days, when they stopped seeing him as human, and started seeing him as something more. The growing realization that they were all lesser to him.
They didn’t know how to react.
Jausn just walked away, leaving behind the pile of gold.
Victory tasted like ash.
—--------------------------------------------------
“What now?” Jausn sobbed, “none of them could keep up either!”
Jausn sobbed even harder, tears pouring out from him in a never-ending waterfall as his parents tried to comfort him.
They exchange concerned looks,
“Son…”
“Don’t ‘Son’, me! I don't need sympathy! I need peers!”
“We,” Erika started hesitantly, “could try… business?”
Jausn looked up, his face a red mess,
“Yeah, business. It's a field that skill can’t completely encompass. It takes a lot of luck. Maybe you’ll have better luck there?”
Erduk Industries was founded the next day.
—------------------------------------------------------
Within a year, it was one of the richest companies in the world, famous for its high tech but affordable innovations.
Jausn an Erduk became the richest person in the world, and was named one of the most influential people on earth.
He was 17.
—--------------------------------------------------------
“Maybe we could try art?” Erika suggested.
—--------------------------------------------------------
It's ironic in a way. The power of Jausn’s ethos had grown to such an extent that it was nearly impossible to fail. Any art made by him would be incredibly successful and valuable simply because it was made by him.
It didn't help that the arts came to him as easily as everything else.
A painting he created had to be locked behind closed doors because the paradoxical geometry it contained nearly drove art critics insane.
A violin solo he performed knocked out half the audience as they struggled to process the perfect blending of sublime harmony and sharp dissonance.
A book he wrote inspired half of the world governments to change their policy.
Art was more interesting than most, because of the sheer possibility it held. It was not as constrained as most fields. Still, by the time he was 20, he reached the point where his art no longer injured viewers, simply because it was beyond them to even catch the narrowest glimpse of its true meaning.
Art is meant to be viewed.
If there is no one capable of viewing it, is it even art?
I sympathized with him. I created life itself for this very purpose. To raise one capable of gazing upon my creation.
How I wished I could go to him and tell him how proud I was.
Alas, each to their own.
His path was his alone to walk.
—------------------------------------------------------
Finally, desperate to lose in something, Jausn sent out a challenge to the world.
If anybody could beat him in anything he would grant them his full fortune.
He was flooded with millions of applicants and upon filtering out the less skilled, he met the most skilled people in the world in their own fields.
And he won.
Over and over and over again.
Cooking, arm wrestling, juggling, shooting, and a thousand other things.
He truly was above them all.
Limitless.