Mark woke up and made a decision.
He was going to kill Addashield.
Half an hour later, after sending a text through the system they had here at the Citadel, Mark answered the door to his room. Paladin David and the woman who had rescued him from the kaiju fight, after the Tutorial, stood there. The woman’s name was Paladin Orissa. Both Orissa and David were something like 38, or 45; Mark wasn’t sure. David was pale and blonde with red highlights, while Orissa was very Indian, with thick black hair and dark skin.
“Hi,” Mark said, and then he said what he had already said in the text, “I want to kill Addashield. What do I have to do in order to do that?”
Orissa gave it to him straight, “You’re 20 years away from even attempting that.”
David asked, “You do understand that, right Mark? You couldn’t do shit against him right now. You go anywhere near him and he doesn’t like it, he’ll kill you. He’s not Addashield anymore, either. He’s a High Dragon.”
“Well what the fuck else am I supposed to call him? Asshole? Murderer?” Mark tried not to raise his voice too much, but it was raised, and that was that. He calmed some and got back on track. “Where do I star— Wait. ‘Anywhere near him?’ You know where he is?”
Orissa glanced down the hallway of rooms, some of which were open, and some of which had people standing outside of them stopped in their tracks once they realized what was being discussed. Orissa told Mark and David, “This is where we need to either go into the room to talk, or go to an office.”
Mark stepped inside his room. David and Orissa followed, with Orissa shutting the door behind her.
Orissa said to the door, “And don’t you listen in, either!” She told Mark and David, “They’re going to listen in.”
Mark ignored that, focusing on The Problem. “You know where Addashield is?”
“A lot of people do,” Orissa said, “Because he’s not hiding like a normal High Dragon. He’s probably more like 99% Addashield, as well. We think he inscribed some power into his body that his demon somehow didn’t recognize, and so he maintained most of his mind.”
“Which is the problem,” David said. “This is no longer just a dragon hunt situation. This is a diplomatic situation with Addashield’s dragon acting as a foreign power trying to make inroads with nations, like Orange City. He gifted them one of his spines out of several hundred. Nearly 380 kilos of pure adamantium. And then he regrew that spine instantly.”
Orissa said, “All the world is debating how to write off the nuking of lower Orange City and the 10,000 lives Addashield took before his desecration. Not ‘if’! But ‘how’.”
Mark’s rage was too big to handle.
He sat down on his bed, and said, “Ah. Okay.” He pivoted. “So. What do I have to do in order to be there when this goes belly up and Addashield proves to be just like any other dragon?”
Orissa went from concerned, to looking upon Mark fondly.
David said, “You have many options. We’d like you to become a Paladin of Freyala, but you don’t have to do that, and we won’t accept you as a paladin if you don’t believe in Freyala’s message anyway. We’ll still help you become everything you can be, though, because it is the right thing to do, because you are still our prisoner for at least 6 months and we don’t want to impact your future unduly. Smaller, more immediate goals, aside from your vengeance against Addashield’s Dragon, include helping you begin to understand your power, and the world.”
Orissa happily asked, “Where do you want to start? On yourself, or the world around you?
Mark said, “The dragon.”
Orissa happily said, “We’re not letting you kill yourself! Pick another~”
Mark almost screamed… But he did not. He looked at both of them, stood off the bed, and asked, “I want… I want to know the path. What is the path that gets me within evisceration distance of Addashield?”
“So many,” Orissa said. “Pick a starting direction.”
Mark felt lost again. Was there a best direction?
“Actually,” David spoke up. “Every week we have new people coming in off of Tutorial or choosing to exit childhood on their own terms, to make decisions knowing more about magic and whatnot. There is a course called Introduction. The course is pretty much a rotating instructor giving the same set of lectures on a multi-day schedule. Introduction usually lasts anywhere from 3 days to a week. It’s a neutral introduction to the world at large, but most of the people deciding to take the course are acolytes, so there is a religious bent to it. You’re going to take the next Introduction. Power classes come later, once you know the basics and can actually use your Power.”
Somehow, having that decision taken from him made everything better.
“Sure. I’ll do that,” Mark said, feeling better, now that he didn’t have to think. And then he thought about the last few days… A week now? Ah. Shit. It had been a whole, like, 9 days since the Tutorial?
… Maybe it had been 15 days.
David asked, “Have you had a power activation yet?”
Mark shook his head. “I haven’t felt anything… magical? Not sure how it’s supposed to feel. I went through that scanner when I got here, I think… Was my readout bad? Should I be feeling something?” Mark felt the blood drain from his face. “Everyone knows what I can do now, don’t they? Addashield warned me that I might be a tri-Talent.”
It was taboo to talk about exact capabilities outside of very personal relationships, like war parties and families, but a scanner maybe showed everything anyway, right? And Mark needed to be open about his powers in a general sort of way, or he’d never get help developing them, and he would surely need to tell teammates about what he could do… right?
Mark was kinda lost.
David said, “Once you Awaken properly, a scanner can’t do anything but detect an influence along a general direction. We have specialized ones that can detect tier but...” David seemed like he wanted to continue, but he stopped. “There’s a lot to know. A whole lot of people were involved in getting you your capabilities, so they’re not exactly hidden. Even the general public knows what you can do; it’s part of the news.”
Mark felt lost. “There’s news.”
Of course there was news.
Mark could have looked at the news for some information. Maybe he had? And he turned it off? Probably not.
Orissa cheerfully said, “You’ll develop hidden strengths eventually! You’ll be ripping through monsters in no time at all, too! You’ve got a strong path paved for you all the way to at least tier 7, so when you get there be sure to hold a hand out behind yourself, to pull up all the ones behind you, yeah?”
Mark realized something important at that moment. He stood straight, and then bowed to both David and Orissa. At 90 degrees to the floor, Mark announced, “Thank you for rescuing me from the kaiju fight.” He stood straight.
Orissa smiled a little. “We almost didn’t make it, but we did.”
David grinned. “You’re welcome, Mark. So how about that starter class?”
“Yes, please—” Mark thought of his parents, and their final message to not be consumed by vengeance. He said, “If this Addashield dragon thing happens and the world accepts him, then I want to sue him into oblivion. I want… I don’t know what I want. I want— the world-class lawsuit! Whoever does it, I want to be a part of it.”
David and Orissa let Mark finish, and then David said, “Let’s not go that far, yet. We’re still trying to kill him if we can. It’s just looking less and less likely.”
Mark nodded, or maybe he shook his head. Maybe he just didn’t want to continue talking about that right now.
- - - -
David and Orissa escorted Mark through the dorms, down a few flights of stairs, and outside. It was the first time that Mark had been outside since he came here… Maybe. He wasn’t too sure about that. The Citadel had a normal city wall far in the distance. Aside from the coliseum and an airstrip way over there, with cars constantly taking off and landing, most of the place was castle-like churches. Or at least most of this part of Citadel was castle-like.
There were people of all ages everywhere, though most of them were acolytes in short shoulder capes and white or grey clothes. This was a working city, too; every Citadel was. There was an entertainment district, kids walking around, iconography of Freyala everywhere with her healing the masses during the Reveal, and even some farms over there with greenhouses and probably greenmages. Trams connected every place to everywhere.
It is a non-Curtain Protocol land, so all of those kids were probably going to develop knacks or whatever…
Ah.
And the Chosen System was there, so yeah. They probably planned on that power, actually.
Mark’s escorts took him to a great big university-like building, where the hallways were filled with a bunch of art of bodies dissected and labeled. This was a place of healing magic. Mark briefly saw that the sign outside that read ‘Healing Hall.’ Orissa said something about this place being the place where most classes happened.
Mark ended up entering a normal-sized college-like classroom meant for 100 people, with amphitheater seating and a stage up front for a professor. He was one of 10 people. He had also been the last to arrive, and he hadn’t sat down yet. Everyone in the classroom was maybe 18 or 17, except for Mark’s escorts and the guy up front.
The guy standing up front and going over chalk drawings on the board was a younger guy, maybe 24. He was still in acolyte clothes, and his eyes went wide as he looked at David and Orissa coming in behind Mark. “Ah! Finally! A professor shows up!”
David frowned instantly. “You don’t have a professor?”
Orissa already had her phone out, tapping away at it, saying, “On it.”
David asked the guy up front, “Why are you up there?”
Mark sat down because that’s what he felt like doing, and he wasn’t sure what else he could have done right now.
The guy up front shrugged. “I don’t know. I got a notification from COFR. An extra credit to teach the course. So I’m here. I just started.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Mark’s escorts and the guy up front didn’t look worried. Everyone else did. What was going on?
One of the kids in the front row spoke up, “We’ve been sitting here for an hour and we asked Citadel of Freyala Resources to help. That’s what they told us on intake? To ask COFR for help? Was that incorrect?”
Orissa was on the phone now, and the other side picked up. She happily, sweetly, said, “Hello Francis! Yes, good morning to you, too. Do I need to drag you out of bed? Oh? What for?” Less sweetly, “Introduction duty, fucker.” Pause. “No I will not do it for yo… Okay. Sure. I’ll do it. You owe me a Big Favo— Yes I do get to dictate that you owe me a Big Favor because I’m the one picking up your shit.” She hung up and then smiled to everyone. “Sorry everyone! I’ll start the class myself.” She told David. “I got this.”
David asked, “I can take day 2?”
“No no,” Orissa said, “You got that thing with that girl. I got this, and tomorrow, too.” She turned to the class, but she was still telling David, “I bet we can do this in 2 days instead of 3, and certainly before the full 5 days that it sometimes takes.”
David smiled. “I’ll catch you later then.” He told Mark. “We’re just a call to COFR away. Call me or Orissa anytime you want.”
Mark nodded. “Thanks.”
David put a solid hand on his shoulder, saying, “See you later.”
And then David left—
Orissa smacked a meter stick onto the podium up front, for she was already standing up there with a sparkle in her eye that spoke of cram sessions and too much soda. Mark instantly thought of his time studying for the GED, while he was recovering from the coma. Everyone’s attention ripped toward her and she grinned to see all those eyes focused her way.
“I am Paladin Orissa Turner!” Some students gasped. One girl shot her gaze toward Mark— The meter stick came back down on the podium and all attention went back to her. “My record at getting through Introduction is 1 day of lecture. That was with 3 people, so that ain’t happening. We can still do this in 2! Everyone! Pay the fuck attention!
“I’m gonna show you the world.”
Orissa didn’t deign to ask for questions, or anything like that. Orissa erased the circles and wavy lines that the older kid had drawn in chalk and then, with an easy arm, she sketched out a rather quick and beautiful image of Earth on one side of the chalkboard, and then a comparatively thin, almost wispy model of Earth on the other side. The second one was obviously Daihoon.
She pointed to her drawings. “Earth, and Daihoon. Simple enough. But do you know what makes Earth, Earth, and Daihoon, Daihoon? NO! You do not! It’s not two worlds. We just call it that. It’s not some sort of dimensional magics either! The only dimensions we know of are the physical, and the astral, and that’s what is happening here. Popular culture says stuff like ‘dimensional magic’ to obfuscate what is truly happening, because to know the truth is to have your future magic capability harmed in that truth. This is a part of Curtain Protocol, because the very first thing to know about Curtain Protocol, is that it is very easy to break once you start learning real knowledge about the world.
“When you Awaken your body to magic, to Talents, you awaken your astral body.
“That is the true nature of Talents, Powers, etcetera. They are all just your astral body.
“You have your physical self, and your astral self.
“Now I know many of you are probably of the opinion that peoples’ Talents have limits, and this is kinda true, but not the full truth. The full truth is that we humans are physical beings with astral bodies, and our astral muscles are weak, comparatively. So when a person’s power fails, that’s their astral body failing to keep up with the person’s demands on it. And just like any muscle, you can strengthen your astral body through use! That’s known as power growing.
“We’ll get to power growth later.
“For now. Let’s look at these maps of Daihoon and Earth I have drawn! I drew them pretty good, I think. I drew them with Earth solid and Daihoon all line-art because Earth is the physical body and Daihoon is the astral body, which is... You with me so far? You know what this means? Yes!
“Earth is the physical, Daihoon is the astral! Just like people with physical bodies and astral bodies! Just like this, right here!”
Orissa held out her hands to her sides, and the light bent around her entire self, like she was the center of a glittering golden light that haloed her body. It was an overt display of power, and Mark had never actually seen one in person, up close before. Not like this. He wasn’t the only one that gasped to see it.
Mark truly was an adult, then, looking at people, using their powers in public!
Wow.
And then the light around Orissa flickered and turned diffuse, and the dust in the air around the chalkboard began to move, swirling and swishing. When the light went away, softly and then all at once, the chalk picture had changed.
Earth was still Earth.
But Daihoon’s line-art model had been brushed with chalk, the whole thing gaining a large blob of lines, like a nebula or starlight, that radiated from the planet and swirled across the entirety of the chalkboard. Many of the lines came off of the poles of the planet. Some of those lines went to a dense pocket of white at the top of the board, behind Orissa, which was only really visible when Orissa stepped to the side, which is what she did next.
With a small smile, Orissa gestured at the chalkboard with her hand, and with a golden glow around her body that mirrored her gesture.
“This is but a small slice of the true nature of the connection between Earth and Daihoon. Earth is the body, and Daihoon is the astral self, and the astral self is so much larger than the physical. What connects us both is the aura of it all, which is more Daihoon than Earth, and which extends far, far beyond both of our Two Worlds, all the way to Luna, to the Demon City of the Moon, Arakino.
“If you walk up the right way from the poles on either planet, you will step into Endless Daihoon, which is exactly as its name implies; an endless expanse of land that is not really land, but which is still there. Endless Daihoon is a vast topic which I will not be discussing, but you need to know about it so that you understand the nature of our worlds, and why things are the way they are.
“Because with understanding, you can more easily grow your own Talents, Powers, magics, and otherwise.
“And now you know why your powers will fail you in the future, and it’s not because of some resource like ‘mana’. Mana is something mages use. I won’t get into mana. What you have, your Talents, are, at its most basic level, the muscles of your astral body.
“Muscles don’t fade or go away; they just get tired from overwork.
“Those of you with Talents gained from the Tutorial have your musculature and muscles set for you. Work them as they were created and stretch your capabilities in varied directions, and your astral body will grow strong.
“Those of you who have forged your own astral bodies must take care to keep them nourished and maintained, through study, proper thought, and magical causes. You can gain just as much power for yourself as a person who went through the Tutorial, but it will be harder. A lot harder.
“Both paths lead to similar levels of strength, if you do them correctly, though Tutorial-granted strength will reach higher levels of specific strength a lot more easily, and it can’t be corrupted by a failure to keep your astral body healthy.
“I hope you are all satisfied with your choices in life, because now that you know the full truth of many things, some of you are getting messages that you are ineligible for the Tutorial.”
Mark suddenly looked around the room, and he saw two people who were reading the air and looking sick to their stomach—
“You’ll just have to step solidly on the paths you have chosen, kids,” Orissa said, smiling, drawing attention back to her. “There is a lot to be said for small, generalist powers from all of the 6 disciplines, instead of focusing on deeper strength in specific ways.”
Mark had so, so many different questions.
He was not the only one.
Orissa did not ask for questions. Instead, she said, “Some of you might still have the Tutorial option available to you. Do you want to proceed with that, or give it up? Staying in this room means you give it up, because this conversation is going to get deeper. A lot deeper. The actual conversation about all of this goes so, so much wider than I could possibly hope to cover in a day, or even a lifetime, but we’re going deep today, kids.”
Mark looked around the room.
One woman, the one who had glanced hard at Mark when seeing him come in with Paladins, looked quietly at her hands. She made a decision. She looked up at Orissa, and did nothing.
Orissa let a few more moments pass, looking out across the crowd, to make sure everyone was here because they wanted to be here. And then she continued, “Over the rest of today and tomorrow and hopefully that’s it, a lot of things will happen. Primarily, those of you who have gone through Tutorial will start having spontaneous power activation. Depending on the nature of your power, you might not even realize this while we’re in class. But! Most of you will realize when your power activates. It’ll be like a third limb that is waking up for the first time. Maybe you’ll experience tingling. Maybe you’ll accidentally rip off all of your clothes. That’s what I did when I got my first activation, about a month after my Awakening. I had no idea how to make my power actually activate, but then I came and took this Introduction. It enlightened me to what I could do, and how the world worked, and thus, I had my first power activation.”
She flickered golden light into the air around her, and Mark heard the distinctive sound of something sharp whistling across the air in front of Orissa. She was slicing the air with her light. How was she doing that? And then she stopped.
“Those who have chosen to go their own way will need to build their astral body first, before they can activate themselves at all.
“If anyone experiences an activation, then you’ll need to leave and take this course again some other time, after you gain some control over your power, or you can just not. That’s a fine option, too.” Orissa said, “And with that said,” she pointed at a few people in the room that were seated next to each other. “Separate. At least 5 seats between you two, and you three. Everyone else looks to be far enough away from each other.
“Mostly, unless you’re really lucky, your astral body is only about 3 or 5 times the size of your real body, so you’re not going to accidentally hurt someone unless you got a weird Talent or you’re unnaturally good at aura control, which is another thing that this introduction isn’t going over.”
She waited till people moved around.
With a smile, Orissa announced, “And now! Questions?”
Hands shot up.
Orissa picked a guy.
“What do you mean by ‘Daihoon is Earth’s Astral Body’?” asked a guy. “I’ve seen pictures of that place and… it looks normal, to me? There are stars in the sky and everything? A planet, like Earth? It’s not a whole new universe at all? They don’t have, like, astral-based biology, right?”
Orissa replied, “You’re getting deep into the weeds right now and conflating several things I said into improper categories. What you are asking about is a deep discussion about the nature of reality itself, and one that we can’t touch upon. Not here. To practically lie to you, though, due to simplifications: there’s crossovers everywhere, and you don’t have to worry about that yet, or practically ever.”
Mark wanted her to say more.
Everyone did, actually.
The guy who asked the question kinda… scrunched his face, asking, “Is that—”
“Moving on!” Orissa said. She pointed, “You.”
A woman stammered a little, and then asked, “I got some numbers with my Tutorial finish. What do they mean?”
“Tomorrow!” Orissa happily announced. “Not today. Anyone got a question about the nature of reality that isn’t too deep. Something social, perhaps?”
Some guy got to ask, “Why are people from Daihoon eligible for the Tutorial but the least bit of magic told to us gets us kicked out of the running?”
The guy was a bit angry as he finished his question.
Orissa said, “That’s simple! They have astral bodies over there. Naturally. We have none over here. Astral bodies are both your ability to affect the world and your resistance to being affected yourself. Daihoonians start off growing strong and in touch with their magics, and they get Tutorials which reflect that. We have just our humanity, and we get Tutorials which reflect that.
“If an earthling child is exposed to mana or knowledge of mana, then they might absorb that knowledge and change. It is that change that crystallizes the astral body in both a daihoonian and an earthling, which makes us ineligible for a proper Awakening. It’s harder for someone with an already-established astral body to change, so they can be exposed to magic and knowledge and as long as they don’t study it, they’re fine. It doesn’t take much for an earthling to change, though, because we start off with almost no protection at all.
“The Veil, cast from the moon, from the Demon City Arakino, from Malaqua, keeps it that way, because the alternative is populations monsterizing, like in the Reveal. Earth will always be separated from Daihoon, so Earth instituted Curtain Protocol to keep the separation more solid.
“Curtain Protocol prevents the enlightening of knowledge that causes the astral body to awaken. If we didn’t guard against general knowledge spreading, then people would be waking up with random Knacks between age 6 and 12, or somewhere around there, because we have no innate resistance to the changing nature of magic over here.
“Think of Daihoon as ‘humans in Europe sharing diseases’ versus Earth as ‘diseases being taken to the American Indians during colonization’. We earthlings are the American Indians in this case.” Orissa grinned, her brown skin glowing and her braids swishing a little, because she made them do that. “I’m India-Indian, though.”
Mark reeled from that information, so many things in his life making more and more sense by the minute.
Orissa pointed to someone else.
The questions continued for hours upon hours.