People walked about. They moved like a herd of chaotic animals, going here and there, occupying whatever spaces they were allowed to and queueing up in interminable, long lines whenever a new gate opened. Albert had never been to an airport before, but he didn’t find it confusing. He thought he would. But he didn’t.
Not as much as he would have if he had been there without the various magical tools at his disposal, tools which not only served an actual purpose in helping him around but also gave him the psychological reassurance that he had the situation under control, and that no mundane problem could ever arise that he couldn’t deal with.
He arrived to the airport early. Very early. There were at least three hours he needed to pass, after having completed all the procedures he needed to be allowed to board the plane, before the final check-in.
He sat on one of the cold, metal benches in the large lobby of the terminal, bathed in the sterile neon light that came from high above, watching the people and the billboards he could see in the distance, on the other side of the large space. Occasionally, the smell of croissants from a nearby French patisserie caressed his nose, and stimulated his appetite.
More than that, however, the sight of so many people crammed in such a tiny space, moving and walking and talking and living their lives without noticing him… all of it contributed to put him in a state of trance.
Barely a month ago a situation like this would have been a source of great discomfort for him, unused as he was to public spaces and to large gatherings of people. Back then, the thought of having to board a plane alone, going through the security checkups and passing under the x-ray machine, checking the luggage and having to retrieve it afterwards would have put him in a state of latent panic.
None of that happened.
He felt like a new person, now that it was laid bare just how much he had changed. Surely, having access to magic and knowing that he could overpower any normal threat that could come his way helped tremendously. Not even the plane falling out of the sky would be a problem, provided he could gather mana to teleport to safety. Which he could, thanks to the second level of the skill.
But it was not all. He was growing used to doing things, grown-up things, and, after all, what even was boarding a plane compared to the still vivid memory of gutting a person with his bare hands?
That was one of the reasons he couldn’t sleep at night. That’s what kept him up even last night, and not the thought of having to board a plane for Singapore all on his lonesome.
The mission was simple. Board the plane, land in Singapore, figure out how to move around in a foreign country he never even saw in photo, find an address (the words were written in Chinese characters and numbers), go there, improvise something and then leave. Piece of cake.
All things considered, it could be worse.
While he had time to waste, Albert also went to Elvenhome to ask Eurus if he was okay with him deploying the Quadrangle on their planet. He promised he would do it on the other side of the valley as not to disrupt nature and whatnot, but the elf had been tough to sell the idea to.
Only when Albert mentioned that as a dungeon core, the Quadrangle would most certainly be able to provide their valley with a new shield to replace their failing shield did the elf begin to crack.
Was it a lie? Perhaps. Surely Albert was promising more than he was sure he could deliver, but if he decided to set camp there he would have to figure the shield out anyway so he might as well use it as an incentive.
“The last time HDF technology was used on Erebus, it triggered… what did they call it? Ah, a Dark Forest event.”
Albert had frowned and asked for clarification, but Eurus explained that fifty years ago, when the HDF first arrived on the planet he had been nothing more than a child and all he knew was the knowledge his parents passed onto to him when he was little. Nothing more than bedtime stories.
This begged the obvious question and Eurus was happy to answer.
“We used to live for thousands of years in the past. Elves would be considered children until they turned 1000 years of age. Can you imagine?” He had said enthusiastically, with a hint of melancholy. “But no more. After the war decimated our population, we decided to give up our immortality in hopes that our young could survive, growing into adults and not being doomed to be forever children in a world hostile to them. I was the first. I am barely 55 years of age, yet I am near the midpoint of my life span. Just like a human would be.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Actually, 55 is a bit more than half for us.” Albert had replied, lightening the mood a little.
The war, it turned out, had not been between the HDF and the Elves for its whole duration. Eurus didn’t know much, but he offered what knowledge he could.
“By the time I was old enough to understand things, humans were no longer the enemy. Another one had come to lay waste to our lands, one so powerful it forced us to unite, and eventually the humans unleashed their weapon and left. We don’t blame them for it. Not anymore. We understand, and now… you have brought us hope for the first time in decades. You understand what this means for us, don’t you? You have seen it in Elle’s eyes, you have seen it in all of us.”
Albert had nodded then, not knowing what to say. The weight of responsibility was a hard burden to bear.
“The new enemy,” Eurus went on to explain, “you have seen it already here. And from what you tell me of your Earth, it’s once again stretching its malicious stony wings to destroy yet another planet. You need to stop it, before it’s too late.”
***
At the airport terminal, people came and went.
Albert’s mind wandered.
He thought about what the skill video said about knowledge. About how all that mattered was how he spent the finite resource that was his attention on the things that he cared about.
Funny how, in brief moments of peace, not thinking about PsyOps meant that PsyOps did not exist, for him, in that particular moment. And when he thought about him, it was only then that all the bad things and memories came back to haunt his sleep.
Time was the same. Oh, how obsessing over the time he needs to wait before doing something makes it feel like it’s an eternity. And yet, should he focus his attention on something else, time becomes slippery and strange.
People walked by.
Albert stared at them pass, not focusing on anyone in particular. What he did instead was observe himself as he looked around, paying attention at what was going on inside his mind as the signals from his retina reached his brain and were processed in the visual cortex, eventually reaching his awareness and populating consciousness with the visual field. Then he followed the sounds. Then smells. Then sensations. Thoughts themselves even.
He didn’t know whether the realization that sometimes things come to you when you least worry about them arrived first, or the notification. What mattered was that his Zen state was suddenly disturbed by the latter, and he found himself staring at the words.
[New Skill Acquired: Analysis Mode I.]
* I: Pronouncing the activation phrase will put you in a state of hyperfocus. While in hyperfocus, you will be able to recall the object of your attention perfectly at any time in the future. Cost to activate: 20FU. Can be used once per day.
Albert must have stared at the air, as seen from the outside, for a whole minute before he managed to get his mind under control. Holy shit.
He wanted to just get up and jump around with how happy he was. He could barely contain it! And the system, this time it was the one providing a description for the skill, and it wasn’t something Albert had to come up with himself! This was crazy stuff. Not only did he unlock the new skill he was obsessing over for weeks, but the system seemed to be growing in power!
In an ironic twist, the buzz of a silenced message on his phone diverted his attention. It was Mother.
>You should be about to board the plane. Do not get lost.
Albert sighed. Then he looked at the time, noticing that indeed he should be about to board instead of being sitting on the metal chairs.
“Shit.” He muttered, and bolted up and towards the gate. Fortunately he wasn’t carrying any heavy luggage for the trip.
***
He was in the air. Not only that, but it looked like his mother also bought him a window ticket so that he could enjoy the scenery of Earth seen from above. What a sweet thought. Too bad that after the first hours or so, the excitement died down, replaced by the almost obsessive need to experiment more with the system and with the newly developed skill. Only one use per day? No problem. There was a lot that could be done with one use.
For instance, Albert had a tablet on which he had downloaded Pleco, a dictionary app for Mandarin. What better way to test the limits of his new skill than to use it to learn a language he was going to need soon? This way he could see how long he could maintain the hyperfocus state, how tiring it was, and how good the recall was afterwards. Launching the app, he inhaled deeply and readied 20FUs from his mana pool.
Of course, he also knew that using Appraisal on the characters revealed their meaning. Still, he wanted to see how long he could study before he needed to rest.
“Analysis mode.” He said under his breath. The world faded away, and all he could recall of the next few hours of his life were the Hanzi characters and a faint sense that he needed to pee.
***
It wasn’t the call of the toilet that pulled him away from the hyperfocused state. Rather, he found himself inside what – hadn’t he known any better – felt like a blender. There were alarms blaring, people yelling, signals to fasten his seatbelt and even an oxygen mask dangling in front of him.
Right as his mind thought about how strange it was that this particular plane had to suffer through some complications, when air travel was among the safest forms of travel, instinctively Albert also activated Bullet time.
The blaring alarms and voices grew five times lower, as a slowed perception of time stretched their waveforms until some sounds became too low to even hear, while the shrill blares became powerful yells.
Albert looked around and out the window, activating [Perception] tuned to all he could see. It was when he focused on seeing magic that his jaw dropped, and adrenaline flooded his system.
Suddenly the plane was nothing more than a flying prison.