*Slap!*

Time seemed to crawl to a standstill in that moment. Yijun, myself, and the stranger all stood frozen as if we’d been turned into stone. The sound of flesh striking flesh was followed by the sound of a porcelain sculpture hitting the tile floor. A masterwork that had taken more than two weeks for my mother to finish, shattered into pieces.

My life until now had been an easy one. A happy one. My family was loving. I had friends. Okay, I had ‘a’ friend, but I’m not some social media influencer, I didn’t need to be followed by millions. My neighbors were agreeable. My responsibilities were few. Life was peaceful. There was no need to constantly train. There was no constant politicking to have to consider. There were no torturous treatments to increase my strength. The Endless Red Empire might have much richer, and much more advanced, than the core-worlds of Tesson. Yet, I would trade ever having been the empire’s “Lost Prince” in a heartbeat, if it meant never having to leave my new homeworld.

I’d just about settled on a small sect. They were the Milkmen. A group whose pristine white uniforms, laid-back operating style, and simplistic motto appealed to me. The milkmen were made up of former traders and farmers that had lucked into finding enough minor magical and martial inheritences to become a sect. They might not have been an especially powerful, or especially ambitious, sect, but they were good enough for the humble future that I found myself desiring.

This and many other, foolishly happy-go-lucky, thoughts were going through my head during that final semester in school. Then I met my dear Great-Uncle Jared. He walked into my mother’s studio, and then in a single moment, and with a single act, he shattered my delusions of living peacefully. Reminding me of the reason my mother had gone so far in her pedagogical pursuits. The ordinary happiness of ordinary men was something easily shattered. That was the price of being ordinary.

*Bang!*

I felt so foolish in that moment. So embarrassed of myself. Part of it, was because my own reaction to this moment was probably a gross overreaction. My mother was fine. The man had just slapped Yijun. She hadn’t been killed, or seriously injured, she was even still standing. The assault was upsetting for sure, but not one that should have triggered me as bad as it clearly had. I’d tried to stay calm and rational, but in that moment, my fear and outrage had already overwhelmed me. Creating a sense of dissonance, as my mind stayed five steps behind, while my body was already blurring into motion, moving to eliminate the threat.

The second reason for my embarrassment came from the fact that I ultimately wasn’t able to eliminate that threat. My mother moved faster than I’d ever seen her move in her life. Stepping in between me and the target. Stopping me cold with a surprising amount of strength, though admittedly part of it was simply the fact that I wasn’t so out of sorts that I was willing to go “through” her to reach the non-burnable garbage on the other side.

“Shh, shh…It’s okay, baby…It’s okay. I’m fine. Everything is fine…Just…Just do me a favor and uh, help me grab a broom to clean up this mess,” said Yijun. Pulling me into a tight embrace and whispering soothingly into my ears.

When Yijun released me, I took a step back, and whilst breathing ragged breaths, I considered making another go at the fellow behind her, before robotically turning around and tottering further into my mother’s new art studio, in search of cleaning supplies.

This was my first introduction to the Blackcrest family. I’d already known that my mother Yijun “Schwarz” had been fleeing a troublesome past before making her way over to Grand Basin. I just hadn’t expected that trouble to ever find us again. I can only say that I’d gotten complacent. The Blackcrests were a prominent family on the continent’s western coast, and their influence didn’t stop there. If it weren’t for the sheer size of the core-worlds of Tesson as a whole, and the fact that their power was mostly concentrated in the opposite direction of where GBC lay, they probably would have found my mother and her new family already.

Later that night, I lay in my bed listening to my parents anxiously talking amongst themselves. My mother and father naturally had also known about Yijun’s past. Yet, Yijun apologized regardless for bringing this potential danger to their doorstep. A lot of ideas were kicked around. There was a question of whether Yijun would have to leave, or the entire family would attempt to flee. Ultimately, nothing was done right then, because Yijun felt her family wouldn’t make any moves in the immediate future.

I listen to all these discussions and felt a thoroughly mortifying, and largely unfamiliar, sense of helplessness. I was supposed to be nigh-omnipotent, but since my rebirth, I was much reduced even after regaining the full potency of my fractal blood. I had strength, but I was still powerless to act, because I’d quickly been able to surmise that anything that I could do on my own would be something that my family wouldn’t want me doing. My stomach, heart, and head churned and twisted, feeling like they were all on the verge of melting down. Then I found myself rethinking some things and making a few decisions.

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*Knock* Knock*

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“Hm, who’s there…?” said a low lilting, almost musical voice.

“Ah, it’s me, Edward Dunkel. Sorry for interrupting, Ser Clown…”

“Ah, the Dunkel boy….In that case, feel free to come in, dear. Mind the bear trap on the floor…I’ve had a small rodent problem lately and I was hoping to see if I’d catch something,” said the person inside the room.

I’d made up my mind, deciding to settle the matter of what group I would join, before all the callers and recruiters finally made me lose my mind. After doing some research, and using my enhanced senses to observe the various groups both in the GBC, and in their various bases abroad, I changed my mind regarding which group to join.

The group I chose was a slightly more muddled, slightly more mysterious, but highly influential magus order. This Magus Order was known as the Irreverant, Fantastical, and Illustrious Twenty-Two Wandering Circuses of Arcadia. Generally, simply known as “the” Wandering Circus.

In Tesson, wandering performers were a well-known thing, but for Tesson there was only one “Wandering Circus”. If a child could run away to them, parents were more likely to be proud rather than distressed. Yet, most children would be more likely to run away from the circus than to them, because the organization's reputation was quite fearsome.

The Wandering Circus’ roots seemed to predate the extradimensional meteor shower that led to Tesson’s transformation into its current state, and from what I could find about them using my probes it seemed that they had been getting into some pretty heavy things even back then. However, it was only after the meteor shower that they moved up from being spies and smugglers, and occasional robin-hood-like figures, to becoming one of the hidden pillars of the current age.

It is said that the days of chaos that proceeded after the meteor shower wouldn’t have ended as quickly as they had without the Wandering Circus clearing beasts and raiders from the roads, carrying important packages and messages, and escorting caravans. In the modern age, they were one of the three secret backers for the freelancer guild that was the main source of income for those rogue mages who couldn’t find work with one of the factions. The Freelancer guild also served as a potential source of revenue for pretty much anyone else who had a hard time finding stable work in this unstable world.

Most relevant to me, the Wandering Circus was an organization that had enough presence throughout all of the core-worlds of Tesson to act as a deterring factor for groups like the Blackcrest family. It also helped that they were a collection of free spirits, meaning that I likely wasn’t going end up trading one potential threat to my family, for another.

Founded by exactly the kind of people you’d imagine would take circus life and Arthurian legend and marry the two concepts together to form their group’s identity. Of course, they did have their own hierarchy, rules, and protocols, and in some ways those rules could be considered even stricter than the rules of other groups I’d assessed since it was partially based on a modified and enhanced chivalric code for knights, lords, and kings.

A code that seemed to be something the organization’s founders and current leadership seemed to take seriously. However, for the most part the organization ran in a largely loose and laissez-faire fashion.

“So, what can I do for you, young man?” said the green-masked, green-haired, Clown in front of me.

I didn’t know his name. He didn’t give his name, and fascinatingly enough, the magic of the mask he wore was able to hide his name from my data-extraction utilities.

“Ah, yes. Ser Clown…Well, there was something I wanted to show you…and something I wished to discuss,” I said.

“Oh, what was it you wanted to show me, young man?” said the Green Clown.

First, I sealed off the room, to keep what I was about to do from making waves in the outside world. Then I closed my eyes and felt my mind touch the mental seal that I used to hold back my fractal blood and the great collection of powers that were dissolved within it. I admit that I’ve maybe been shying away from tapping into all those powers a little more than I should.

But, is it so wrong to value normalcy? Living a little more normally in this life had given me an unexpected amount of happiness. Being exceptional got me tortured on end for the sake of bringing out my “full potential” and then thrown away because of that same potential…Yet, if I didn’t show my true colors a little, I could easily see my normal happiness being taken away.

In truth, the Blackcrest family might not have necessarily been an actual threat. However, their appearance was a wake-up call for me. I mean, what would I have done, if it was an enemy of that family that came in, or some other random threat? It was good that I was physically “strong” but I’d need a different kind of strength to defend the things I cared about.

Still, I have always been taught that fear was something to master, not be mastered by…and that was one of the lessons I felt worth keeping. So, I couldn’t help making a mental note to be a little less meek in regards to getting in touch with the “real me”. Especially, since my life was about to enter into a dangerous new chapter. With those thoughts in mind, I delved within myself and pulled on the countless cords of power that floated within my bloodsea.

Aether surged from within my body, creating violent, powerful, winds that would have blown the room apart, and shattered the windows had I not set those seals in place. The space at my back broke and fractured. Myriad crimson eyes appeared there, each with a burning flame that shined a different color inside the eye’s pupil.

I retrieved a soul-glimmer stone from my inventory. I retrieved multiple soul-glimmer stones from within my inventory. Then I proceeded to show the Green Clown a show of blindingly bright lights and countless shifting colors that left the floor of his room at the inner covered in Soul-Glimmer crystal dust. The eyes disappeared as the space at my back healed over. I opened my actual eyes, distantly aware that they were probably more “red” than they’d been before. Ditto for my hair.

I met the Clown’s gaze.

“So…Uh, now that you’ve seen that…I would like to discuss the possibility of my joining your Wandering Circus…” I said. Feeling incredibly awkward, and incredibly exposed, but absolutely sure of my decision.