Greg and Tessa stepped out of the office, leaving Narita to wait while they discussed what they were going to do. "So… do we tell the Generals, or…" Greg began.

"Absolutely not!" Tessa snapped. "This- this doesn't concern them. All they need to know is that Narita defected and we're keeping an eye on her. We'll say she figured out the truth and decided that mana is the better option for the universe. The rest… the rest isn't something they can do anything about. It'd be more of a distraction than anything."

Greg nodded. "That's fair, I suppose. Then what are we going to do with her? Help her awaken like she wants? Let her study me?"

Tessa nodded. "No matter her attitude, the fact is she knows way more than we do. If she wants to help you figure out how all this-" She waved her hand at Greg. "-is possible, then I say we let her. Who knows? Maybe you'll both figure out something that will help us get out of this stupid war, instead of forcing us to work with people who'd rather see us dead."

Greg nodded back slowly. "She does seem like a useful resource… I just wish we could be sure she wouldn't turn around and betray us at some point."

Tessa shook her head. "I don't think that's going to be a problem, because you are going to be the most unique and interesting thing this World has to offer."

Greg froze. "What?"

"Greg… you heard what she said. The only way to fix all this is to connect with the Core of this World. And the only way to do that is by being unique and special enough to get the Core to notice you. To make yourself so significant, the Core has no choice but to connect with you! I can't do it. I'm not special or unique. I'm decent at magic, but not great, and that's it. It has to be you. With your smoke- with everything you can do… you can do it. I know you can." Tessa explained, a fervent look in her eye as she grabbed Greg's hand.

"Tessa… I- I'm not- I'm too-" Greg's expression twisted before he spat out a frustrated sigh. "Tessa, I'm evil!"

"No, you aren't." Tessa stated firmly.

"I am!" Greg protested. "The thing's I want to do, the things I would do if-"

"If you weren't you." Tessa interjected. "Greg… I know you struggle. I know you have issues. But every time- every time, you find a way to do the right thing. That's who you are. Despite all the crap that goes on in your head… you're a good person."

"But that's because I try!" Greg countered. "I try and try and try, but… what if I reach a point where I can't try anymore? Narita gave up and look what that made her like. If I give up… I don't do apathetic. I don't sit back and say meh. People will suffer because of me. Because I enjoy it." He muttered darkly.

"Then don't give up." Tessa insisted, raising a hand to cup his cheek. "Greg… I know what the risks are, but… I also know you can do it. You find purpose wherever you go. Look at what you did in the transmutation chamber! You didn't just give up, you did something to try to make things better. Even at your darkest moment, you had your eyes focused on the light… you may make mistakes. You may even hurt people. But you'll never give up. It's- it's not who you are."

"I was going to do horrible things-" Greg began.

"To people who'd done horrible things to you." Tessa stopped him. "Greg, can you honestly tell me, even in your darkest moment, you weren't thinking of making things better for someone? That even when you're the most tempted to give in to your darker urges, there isn't a focus on correcting some wrong?"

"I-" Greg started, before pausing. She- had a point? Even when he was tempted to do terrible things, he always needed to have a reason. It was a 'he got to do this because they did this' sort of thing. A balancing of the scales if you will. Just doing things to do them… while tempting, he just couldn't do it. He needed to be able to justify it, at least in some way. "You may have a point." He muttered with a cough. "But what if I lose that? I mean, I'm good now, but… what about a hundred years from now? A thousand? A million? People change, and… it'll only take a little change for me to go really bad."

Tessa shook her head. "Greg, anyone can change. With time, temptation, and hardship. But you already deal with temptation, you've been through hardship, and you're still you. Maybe you'll change, that's always a risk, but compared to people who've never faced any of that… you've already proven you can keep a hold of yourself through a lot. For others, who knows where their breaking point lies? They seem good now, but since they've never been tested… who knows what will happen."

Greg nodded. "The difference between doing good because it's right and doing good because you feel like it. What do you do when there's no pressure to do anything other than what you want?" He frowned. "Shit… but I don't want to be the most important person in the World! I just want to live, be happy, raise a family… you know, normal stuff… Why do I have to fix everything?"

Tessa smiled. "Because you can. At least you have a chance. Could you really live with yourself if you didn't try?"

Greg sighed. "No." He gave her a look. "You know, I never realized you knew me so well…"

Tessa rolled her eyes. "Greg, you're not that hard to figure out. You're weird, but I've been paying attention… Plus, you are almost disturbingly honest and willing to explain how you think. I'd have to be blind to not understand you by now."

Greg smiled, pulling her close. "I love you."

"I love you too." Tessa smiled back, pulling him in for a kiss.

*

They finished figuring out what they were going to do with Narita, which was pretty much just have Greg watch her while she did her thing, before heading back into the office. "Okay, so the first step is getting you awakened." Tessa announced.

"Might want to awaken a few more of me as well." Greg added. "If we're going for this, I'm going to need more practice with spells."

"You can awaken?" Narita asked, raising an eyebrow at him. "Interesting… so your ability isn't mana related?"

"Supposedly, but who knows?" Greg shrugged. "I mean, obviously I'm not normal. You can't really explain what I can do with physics, so there has to be something fucky going on, right?"

"Possibly… though it could be some sort of weird, quantum entanglement type thing. That sort of bullshit can get weird in certain Worlds. Anything that isn't easily observable gives the World free reign to do pretty much whatever they want, since no one has any concrete ideas on it." Narita commented. "But don't worry, we can figure it out once my ability is activated."

"What is your ability?" Tessa asked.

"I have a few, but the one that I'm referring to is my narrative vision." Narita replied. "I can see the stories of people and objects, everything they've experienced up to this point."

"And you get that as soon as you awaken?" Greg asked skeptically.

Narita nodded. "It's an activated absolute ability."

"A what?" Greg asked, confused.

"Basically there are four types of abilities based on two spectrums. Absolute abilities are abilities that just let you do something, while cultivated abilities are abilities that grow more powerful as you gain more energy. Innate abilities are abilities you simply have, while activated abilities are abilities that need to be, well, activated. My narrative vision is absolute in that I can either see someone's story or I can't, but I need to be awakened for it to actually work, hence activated absolute ability." Narita explained.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"Huh… so my ability would be activated absolute as well?" Greg replied. "And mages would have activated cultivated abilities."

"Exactly." Narita nodded with a smile.

Greg nodded before frowning. "Okay, that's neat, but why make the distinction?"

Narita shrugged. "Why not? The distinction is already there, we just noticed it. It's sort of a dick measuring thing between Immortals. Innate abilities are obviously better than activated abilities, and cultivated abilities are usually better than absolute abilities, though some absolute abilities are just bullshit, like 'everything I touch dies' type crap, though usually there's an 'if' tacked onto them or some kind of flaw, because the Multiverse doesn't like OP bullshit."

"Oh, so I've got the worst. Joy." Greg sighed.

"Eh, your absolute ability is middling and most abilities are activated." Narita replied. "Plus, if you ever do get connected to the Core, you can mess with your core a little and give yourself the abilities of anyone else in the World. Just be careful with that because cultivated abilities share, so if you have ten of them, you need to do ten times the work to grow them. Also, if your abilities are too ridiculous, the World will just kick you out."

"The World will what?" Greg asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It will eject you." Narita explained. "Worlds want everything to work the way they believe it should. If someone brings in an ability that disrupts that too much, they'll kick them out and send their core back to their World. That is, unless your World is strong enough to keep you there despite the other World's protest."

Greg frowned. "How does that work?"

"Worlds are formed from thoughts, from Soul, remember?" Narita replied. "The more Soul a World has, the stronger it is, and the more say it has. If you're connected to a strong World, you can do pretty much whatever you want. If your World is weak, you have to watch your step. But in general, Worlds don't mind different abilities. It's only stuff like 'I have this ability, so now I'm a god' type crap they kick people out for."

"Interesting." Greg muttered.

"Yes, yes, fascinating." Tessa rolled her eyes. "Shall we get the both of you awakened now, or should I keep holding this mana for no reason?"

"I'd like to observe the process for his Awakening, if I could?" Narita replied.

"Doesn't matter to me." Greg shrugged.

"Right, then we'll do you first." Tessa nodded, taking a portion of the pure mana and pushing it into Narita, before releasing it.

Narita closed her eyes and took a deep breath before slowly releasing it. "Like slipping into a nice warm bath." She sighed, opening her eyes with a grin, turning to look at Greg. "Now let's-" She paused, frowning as she stepped closer.

"Is there something wrong?" Greg asked, giving her a weird look as she stared at him intently.

"Your story… according to my vision, you don't have a story." Narita muttered a strange inflection creeping into her tone.

Greg frowned. "How would that happen?"

"That's the thing: it doesn't." Narita replied. "Everything has a story! Even individual particles have a story! Yet no matter what part of you I focus on… there's nothing! I'm not sure how that's even possible. It's like you've never actually lived in this World!"

Greg blinked. "Does this mean you can't find my core?" He asked hesitantly.

Narita shook her head. "No, I should still be able to. Awakening requires your core to form a connection with the World. No matter how you're hiding it, I should be able to see when it happens."

Greg nodded. "Okay, let's do it then." He froze his body in preparation as he turned to Tessa.

"Wait!" Narita stopped him, her eyes wide. "What did you just do!?!"

Greg frowned at her. "I froze my body? Made it real so it can actually awaken. Smoke and mana don't really get along otherwise. Why?"

"Because you just showed up in my narrative vision as if you'd been newly created at just that moment." Narita explained, narrowing her eyes at him. "A completely fresh existence… Can you bring in another body made of smoke?" Greg nodded, bringing in some smoke and making a new Greg. Narita looked between the two, her frown deepening. "Okay, now make that one real too." Greg raised an eyebrow at her, before shrugging and doing as she asked. Narita's eyes widened as before she frowned again. "Strange. Very strange."

"What? What happened?" Greg asked, frowning.

"There are a few ways multiple selves can work." Narita began with a frown. "I thought you were one core, multiple bodies, which usually involves a 'prime' self that oversees the others. They're all connected in some way, so they're all essentially the same person, just in multiple places at once. Another way is essentially cloning, where you split into two distinct individuals with all the same memories. That gets you multiple cores, multiple bodies, but the connections between the clones are looser, or possibly even non-existent, since after they split, they're no longer really the same person, because they have different souls. The core anchors the soul to a body, so if you have two cores, that means you have two different souls. If you have two cores, but you're still connected as if you have the same soul…" Narita's frown deepened.

The Gregs shared a look. "Could we be two different souls telepathically synced or something?" One suggested.

Narita hesitated. "It's possible but… there's another issue here. You see, your 'copies' aren't true duplicates. You're both different."

"Different how?" Greg asked.

"In your cores. You see, even in cloning, the new core is a copy of the old one. Otherwise the two wouldn't actually be the same. Though sometimes the split separates out different parts of a person, like a dark side and a light side. But this… it's like you're two completely different people! I don't see any connection between the two cores at all, yet… you're both still the same person, right?" She asked.

Both Gregs nodded. ""Yup. Still me."" They answered in unison.

"How very strange…" Narita commented. It wasn't completely unprecedented, she supposed. Duplication abilities were some of the stranger abilities out there, due to their decentralized nature. The true strangeness was in the fact that this wasn't even his primary ability! It was a byproduct of his manipulation of the 'smoke'. It made her curious. What was the smoke? How did it do what it did? And why could her narrative vision not see through it? Narita licked her lips. In all her dealings with unique individuals, this one was proving to be quite unique indeed. "Let's see what happens when you awaken." She gestured to Tessa.

Tessa grimaced slightly, not liking the way Narita seemed to just expect her to do things, but she was planning on awakening Greg anyways, so arguing about it seemed petty. She brought the pure mana towards him, before pausing. "You got all your smoke out, right?" She asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Uh…" A small black ball popped out. "Yes."

Tessa rolled her eyes, before pushing the mana into him and letting it go. She then glanced at the other Greg. "Him too?"

"Please." Narita nodded, narrowing her eyes.

Greg gave her a weird look, before turning to Tessa. "Yeah, and probably a few more besides. Since the amount of smoke I can have unfrozen is limited, I might as well get a bunch of me practicing spells, right?"

Tessa began to nod before pausing as she remembered what he'd said about too many selves causing him issues. "That isn't going to bother you? Having so many of you?"

Greg hesitated. "It… isn't ideal, but my sense of time is so messed up at the moment it isn't even funny. Between the transmutation chamber and all the fairies I've had running around… I've learned to focus on appreciating the moment. As long as I'm doing something worthwhile, it doesn't matter how many of me are out there, because they're all doing something that matters."

Tessa frowned. "Are you sure? You don't have to do this… just because you can be multiple people, doesn't mean you need to force yourself to do something that will make you miserable."

Greg shook his head. "Don't worry, I won't. If things get bad, I can just get rid of them, right? But I'm pretty sure I can handle it, and this isn't the time to take things slow… I have a lot of catching up to do magic wise."

"Just don't push yourself too hard, alright?" Tessa sighed, before pushing the mana into the new Greg, awakening him as well.

Greg smiled. "Don't worry, I'm pretty good at taking care of myself." He paused, glancing at Narita. "Hey, if I have two cores, how much do I need to worry about that spiritual attack thing?"

Narita frowned. "That depends on how deeply connected the cores are and what defenses they have. If an attack only affects one core, then as long as you have a core somewhere, you should be fine. However, with how intertwined your sense of self is between your forms… it's possible an attack on one core will affect all your cores, making you even more vulnerable. Though there's a chance all those cores working together could grant you a better resistance to attacks as well… we'd need to experiment, I suppose."

Greg frowned at her. "Yeah, experimenting with attacks that could potentially kill me doesn't seem like a great idea to me."

Narita rolled her eyes. "There are ways to test that don't risk your life. Spiritual attacks that simply influence rather than damage. I have access to a few, but I'll need to increase my cultivation before I can use them to any noticeable effect."

"Oh… well, then yeah, we should do that." Greg nodded.

"Yes." Narita muttered, still staring at him with a thoughtful look. "Those are some interesting abilities… I wonder how you'll use them."

Greg blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Your new abilities, the ones you just awakened." Narita elaborated. "The ability to project sensations to others and the ability to bind someone to their word, or face a punishment."

"They're different?!?" Tessa asked incredulously, turning on Greg. "You have four abilities now!?!"

"What did you think I meant when I said he had different cores?" Narita asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "Different cores mean different abilities. Part of the reason his duplication is so strange."

"Shit, that means my mana is different!" Greg cursed. "All my practice is going to be pointless!"

"What do you mean?" Narita asked, cocking her head.

Greg sighed. "The way mana works here is that everyone's innate mana is different, so spells need to be adjusted to increase their effectiveness. A spell formed in a way that lets one person shoot a lance of fire that could melt through steel might barely let another person light a candle."

"Is that so?" Narita asked, raising an eyebrow. "That is rather disappointing for you. Though, experience working with mana should still help you. The more you practice optimizing spells, the better you'll be at it, right?"

"Not likely." Greg grumbled. "Mana is freaking bullshit. There's no pattern to it, no rules."

"There are rules to everything." Narita insisted. "Some are just harder to understand than others. If there were truly no rules to how it operates, it wouldn't work at all. Even chaos has an order to it, if you study it long enough."

Greg frowned, before letting out a sigh. "Well, then I should probably get to work, huh?"