As we walk to the temple on the opposite side of the square I can see that there are a lot more people hanging out today. Did more people enter this square recently?

“Abcier, does it look like there are more people here than before?” “You did just meet with two different gods, word travels fast. And there are other signs when they appear. How did it go with Creature?”

“Pretty good thanks, I need to do some Rank Ups to get everything I need but it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

I think he’s still thinking about that talk with Knowledge, while we walk in silence I pull up the Map Mode, I can just see the town square and each person in the square appears as a dot or groups of dots. I can’t see any notifications that someone from the Institute has appeared but if there is this much hubbub after only visiting two gods then we may need to get a move on.

“We may need to get out of here as soon as possible, you know a quiet way out of here from Worlds temple?”

“There should be an alleyway we can take, loop around and get back to the docks.”

“Ill try to make this quick” I reply as we move into the temple, Powers one is filled with all forms of magic flying about, to magic lights hovering in the air to grand slow motion displays of magic running below the roof.

The massive doors are there, though they do not look physical but more ethereal, like an energy wall rather than a physical one. Another robed priest this time in a blue robe appears and after a short introduction I am directed in while Abcier and the priest wait outside.

Power appears in a lab coat with diagrams and formulas surrounding him, a pair of glasses that I’m guessing are for show are on, as he looks up from his diagrams he sees me. Typical appearance, golden colour with white highlights.

“Michael of Earth, come in.” Instantly it feels like I’m late for school and facing a stern teacher.

“Thank you for seeing me, Power.” “Mm, ask away.”

“If you don’t mind I'll ask some general questions first then move on to the Questions.” A hand wave and he turns back to his diagrams.

“As you know I have several Created Powers, will I get to choose their newest features upon Rank up or will you?” Without looking up he replies “Your Powers are yours, if we feel that it is too limited for its rank I might add an extra feature or two.”

“What Powers are restricted?” “That depends, do you want to know the Powers restricted by us or by the governments of this world?”

“You please, I can look up the government's ones at a later date.” “Mmm, there are not too many but the ones we have restricted are:

Time Travel or Manipulation, Seeing into the future, god creation, god killing, mind control, brainwashing, soul destruction, necromancy, Country destruction, self-destruction, massive disruption of mana, world or domain destruction, physics destruction or rewriting and Infinity Powers”

Looking up from his work Power looks at me with a glare “I know you talked with Creature on your version of a necromancy-like power. You should know that culturally and linguistically necromancy would be something like your Zombies from Earth and other such powers.

But why do you think Creature told you to persuade me as well to allow you to create such a Power?”

Ok that's a lot to take in at once, “Um, I think because you are the one who would directly work with creating the Power?”

“Think harder.” Um what, what does he mean by “think harder”. What am I missing? It's basically just forcing Mana Beasts into existence… “Oh, while living creatures are a part of Creatures domain, Mana Beasts are part of yours?”

“Yes, and it is quite presumptuous of you to offer Creature “his” creatures back to him if they wish to leave your service.” “Theeeen I’ll leave them in both your services. And you have my word that they will be looked after.”

“See if you can create it then, if it shows promise I will grant it. Next question” he asks, turning back to his diagrams. What’s so special about them I wonder? I’m just glad the Shadow Power has the Ok.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“What’s an Infinity Power?” “Quite simply, things that have no end. Asking Knowledge for an example shows the Earth Superman, One Punch Man and other Powers that may be infinite in scale, sheer power, force, etc.”

“Are you giving me a bit of leeway as I’m not from around here? Is that also why I’m ranking up so quickly?”

“Yes to both, but I will tell you now, the bonus you have been granted will be stopped once you complete that Mana Beast Shadow Power and now that you know, you will only receive that boost for that Power”

Well that sucks, I’ll need to do some ranking up the hard way, it might just take me ages before I can rank up to the next rank. Agh why did I ask that!? I think as I facepalm.

Looking back up and removing the palm I ask “Why is there a limit to the number of Powers available for a person, and are there other types?”

As a quick reminder, it's set so that at D rank I can only gain 1x Power, but at C I can get 4x and at CC and CCC I can get 1x more each until I get up to B where I can 4x more again, etc.

Right now I am at the cusp of C Rank and still stuck on D rank till this Shadow Power is created.

“25 Powers are the maximum amount that a body can handle, any more and the body would start to die from mana overdose.”

“What would happen if two people create the same Power at the same time but without knowing about each other or the Power they are creating?”

“If two people create the same power in the same way but they did not know the power existed, both people are able to create the same power with no drawbacks. However if one tries when they already know the power or method for the sole purpose of copping it is treated as a Stolen Power.

Stolen Powers are not enabled for OutWorlders as they either have Powers from their world that are similar or have no concept of Powers. Stolen Powers however, do not relate to abilities.” Ok now that last bit was interesting.

“What happens if a side effect of a Power breaks a governmental law or one of your laws on Powers by accident?”

“If it is a side effect of the Power then it may be limited by us if it is breaking one of our laws. However, for the governments they have their own laws and legislation.”

“Speaking of Mana, what exactly is it?” “That would be a Rule of Three Question, do you want to ask that?” he replied with a raised eyebrow.

“Sure, let's do it. Question one: What exactly is Mana?”

“Granted. I will not be telling you of how it came to be but think of it as an energy field of extremely high radiation, the Wells and Network allow a living thing to collect and use this energy within their biological systems.

The energy field is what you feel right now, however what is causing the energy field is out of phase with reality by a small amount and spread throughout the domains in different densities, we gods are able to see that phase thanks to World and as such are able to ensure living things are able to survive.

However, as the body gets older or is trained to take in more Mana this can cause mana overdose in some of the population and as such Powers were invented as a release which then leads us to today where Powers are commonplace. This energy field will not dissipate and is in a constant state of renewal.”

“Its physical state is similar to your worlds Gamma Rays, with a Wavelength of 1 picometer, Frequency of 300 Ehz, Energy per photon of 1.24 MeV”

Gamma Waves, that's mad. I’ll need to brush up on my Radiation knowledge.

“Not a main question but are there Powers to see the raw mana in the out of phase state or is that restricted?” “Restricted, without care it could damage large areas of the world and as such the living.”

Ok then, “Second question in the form of a request, as you know I have that System Interface Power” “Yes” he interrupts, “quite unique actually.”

“Huh, cool. Well as you may know, Creature fulfilled my request for biological information on Monsters and Animals that I may come across, I would like a similar ability except for the Powers a Monster or Animal may possess.”

“Granted, next.”

“Alright, third request. I want to know how these work” I say pulling out the memory crystal “not just the memory crystal in general but how crystals and Powered devices work. Sure I may need to study for it like the Power information for monsters but that I feel would be interesting to know.”

“Granted, any other questions?”

“Am I bothering you, want me to come back later or something?”

“No”, a handwave appears, as if asking for more questions. “I didn’t get to ask Knowledge but what is up with the Institute?”

“While there are divisions of the Institute that hunts and searches for OutWorlders it is only a small percentage. Think of them as a country, one neighbourhood might be bad but that does not mean the entirety of the country's populace is.”

Seems I may have overestimated and stereotyped the Institute a bit, “One final question then, similar to what I had asked Creature. Now that you have access to the memories of everyone from Earth and the descriptions of the Powers we have in Fiction, are you going to create them?”

“Some maybe, others maybe not. That is for me to decide, but like Creature said. If I need you to kill off a wizard or necromancer I'll let you know.” he adds with a smile.

Ok I’m getting a bit worried with Power and Creature, are they going to release a Dragon Litch on the world or is that just my imagination.

“Thanks for seeing me, I'll head out now.” “Go ahead, farewell.” I think he only looked up at me once or twice in that whole convo.