Beep! Beep! Beep!
In a pure white room, laid down on a clean white bed and connected to tubes and other things, Robin lay unconscious since the time incident.
Next to him, Ruth sat trying to stimulate their unique twin telepathy she had with her brother. Even when she tried, it was impossible because between the connection was a powerful barrier in his mind.
It was supported by the divine force produced by Robin’s rotating world core in his body. Even Esper had not been able to pierce it with the technique of Mind Diving, where he projected his mind into the depth of the target's mind.
Since then Ruth had watched out for her brother, except for the times she had to get tested by the heroes for her and everyone’s safety.
She sat there, a sadness and depressive aura covering her as she held her brother's hand. She constantly thought about the reaction they both had towards the stretch company bravemen. It was one of the few things that helped her heart warm up because Robin did not even hesitate a moment for him to see red.
Her anger had not influenced him one bit, he had exploded with it himself and it showed that he genuinely cared for her.
“Come on Robin… It's been two weeks already.” She muttered and tightened her grip but he just laid there.
Her head dropped on the bed.
Behind the current of Divine force, Robin laid while floating in a misty world.
Randomly he would hear voices and other times he would see visions through his closed eyes.
After a bit, something stirred in him, pushing him upright and his foot landed on some sort of ground. Instantly his eyes open within this place.
He was confused but slowly tiny ember nodes started to form. He instantly noticed them, because they felt like his divine spark, and they gathered in front of him until it turned into a man-like figure that looked at him. The details were few but it still had a semi sculpted face and it smiled at him.
“It’s time to wake up… you’ve healed up and the world needs you now. That said… let me leave you a bit of important information that you will need decades in advance compared to me.” the figure said.
The figure broke down and the flames were absorbed into Robin. He felt the white barrier vanish and he found himself in a familiar place. It was his side of his psychic link and he knew where he was now.
“What was that…?” he muttered to himself. Moments later he felt his mind reconnect to his body but then he felt something strange. As his divine spark began to gather and form tiny crystals in his mind. When they finished forming they would burst and he would suddenly learn about a strange event.
Then he felt a strong reaction from the link with Ruth and her mind was trying to enter as she felt his mind awaken. He scratched his head in his mind before his mental figure shined and scattered.
Outside his mind, his eye slowly opened to find Ruth calling out because she had felt the barrier go down.
“I hear you… stop the banging.” He groaned and coughed because his throat felt very dry.
Ruth saw he finally woke up and nearly started crying before jumping on his chest, “You’ve been asleep for two weeks!” He cried out and burst out in tears.
Robin groaned at the pressure making his breathing a bit harder but he then started to examine his body. Immediately, his almost stagnant psychic energy, life essence and divine force began to surge out through his body with a much more natural speed.
The two weeks had allowed his body to store a bit more divine force but it wasn’t running. As it started running, his body started to radiate a strong heat and his empty cells began to suck up traces of divine force while his life essence and psychic energy began to refill and rebalance the distribution of biological energies in his body, that had been drained during the making of the star.
The dull colored skin and darkened lips regained a natural color while his body regained strength that had otherwise been stored in their storage until now.
When he regained some strength, he looked around. After he finished checking his body with psychic energy and reaching a stable flow that didn’t stress his mind.
“Where is this?” He asked and noticed a button to lift the bed.
He did not wait and reached it to raise the bed so he was in a sitting position.
Ruth stood up with tearfilled red eyes and started to rub them, “We’re in the digital world that Techno, Oliver, Tristan and Zack had worked to build.” She said.
“So this is the digital world… why do I feel the gamer space energy…” Robin asked.
“Because this world is technically still on earth. With Kevin here, it’s expanded inside and outside into the real world making it convenient. Also it’s been watching your health and keeping us updated, thankfully.” Ruth said.
“What actually happened… I remember feeling something pulling my psychic energy into a dome and overloading it with gravity like something guiding my hand and then… nothing.” He said.
“I don’t know… but I was told that if you woke up I needed to call Mr Might and the other heroes because they can explain.” She said.
“Yeah… I feel like they would.” He said.
“Do you want me to call?” Ruth asked.
“Yeah… it’s better to get it out of the way.” He said with a forced smile.
She looked sad that he didn’t say no but knew he needed to know whatever happened first. She walked outside for about a minute before coming back in. “They will take a while because they are busy outside.”
“Then can you tell me how it is outside?” Robin asked.
“I guess, only what I know.” She said and sat back down and started from the exact start right after the time rift.
The official story was that Bookkeeper had unveiled a new form he had crafted to fight and protect against time manipulators. Several heroes gathered together, even leaving the supervillains because of the bigger threat, and attacked the rift with every ounce of strength to cause the rift to collapse on itself.
The details of this were not explained because no one and nothing could actually see into it and everything was being warped by the time energy.
It was only possible because the rift was newly opened and still not stable like the rift in mexico.
Obviously Robin didn’t believe this, it was too convenient. Especially considering that it took 5 heroes plus Robin’s world core to push Time Tempest to retreat only a year prior, even if they started preparing to fight it, a single year is not enough time.
He voiced this opinion.
“Well… apparently this year Chasm Might was actually able to fight Time Tempest one on one. Because of what Yuri discovered with the Soul power and Blood power. That said, even when Mephesto joined, Time Tempest already possessed a disgustingly powerful new regeneration ability and wouldn't die. That said, both of them were throwing him all over and he had to retreat. Until the time rift was breached, his power had stopped working on them.” Ruth explained.
Robin’s face brightened because this was huge progress.
“What happened to the other villains? Did they really all escape?” Robin asked.
“Everyone except Disaster. The time rift caused massive damage to him as well and once it was closed, all the heroes and bravemen have detained him.” She said.
“Detained?” Robin frowned.
She forced a smile, “Mr Might said that they were waiting for you. Until now they have never had an ability that could so effectively pressure Disaster like your gravity and Heatwave’s plasma combined. Grinding him down with just the two of you with pure pressure and solar fire.” she said.
Robin nodded because it made sense. Compared to the impromptu usage, his body was clearly more adapted now after sleeping and the weak but natural flow of divine force.
At that moment, the door opened and walking in was not just Chasm Might but Bookkeeper and Mephesto.
It shocked Robin that three heroes, especially two who had little relations to him, would appear.
Chasm Might looked at Ruth and smiled, “Can you give us some privacy, it’s a very serious topic with national level security information about Robin.” He said.
“She can stay, Ruth knows better.” Robin said.
“Sadly… Ruth has gone through 4 years of hypnotic brainwashing. Even if the parasite is out of her brain, after the surgery to remove it and healing with the system, we are still determining if the hypnosis is still active and can be used with secret triggers.” Chasm Might had to unfortunately explain.
Robin was shocked and Ruth’s face dropped and it was clear this wasn’t something new to her. She didn’t fight it and left.
Robin frowned but the three men sighed, “Sorry Robin… after you discovered that conspiracy, we checked the entire school’s population from top to bottom based on those coming from braveman academies…” Chasm Might said. Their demeanor turned frigid, “At least 50% of the school’s student’s had those parasites. We’ve already checked their academies under the guise of ‘expanding’ the academy.” He said.
Robin’s face dropped and looked in shock.
“The Necromancers have already begun to move and cleared out the parasites inside the academy and we’ve begun to check adults for developed parasites through psychic mind diving.” Chasm Might said.
Robin scowled but he took a deep breath, “What happened after the rift opened… I only had time to react and make some kind of gravity barrier that I made on the spur of the moment before… I don’t remember what happened after.”
“So you really were unconscious for it all.” Bookkeeper muttered, “Sorry, we’ve never met. I’m Bookkeeper, I was there for what happened.” He said.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
“You were possessed.” Mephesto said, not sugar coating it.
“Possessed? Like a ghost?” Robin asked.
“Yes but instead of a ghost, you were possessed by yourself, a future counterpart.” Mephesto said.
Robin looked at them like they were crazy but he didn’t know what to say.
“It’s real… you and Heatwave were both possessed by your future counterparts of yourselves and were the ones to close the rift.” Chasm Might finally said.
“Ruth said Bookkeeper had contained the rift and the rest of the heroes had worked together to make it implode. Even if that sounds like a lie but…”
“I do have a book which allows me a form which controls time but it is unpublished and is only limited to the first book of the series. I was only able to contain the constant growth of the time warp for 5 minutes. During that time, you and Heatwave condensed an ungodly amount of Divine force and Solar Fire, which is Heatwave’s current energy at this stage, under so much gravitational pressure that you actually created a micro star.” Bookkeeper said.
“Star… like the sun?” Robin said, looking at them as if they were crazy.
“Yes, also known as a gravity well. Both of you, two braveman, condensed energy so dense that you created a literal star that was thrown into the rift and caused it to collapse because of the supernova explosion it gave off.” Bookkeeper said.
“H-how would I even do that! I only just added Chasm Might’s traits to obtain the physical capacity to produce divine force!” He exclaimed.
“We know… but that is your potential, it's what you can learn to do. Also the future version of yourself was not simply a demigod, in title, like you are. We confirmed it with Grace’s deity but a true immortal god, born from mortals, each possesses a unique color eye that constantly glows. Your eye was glowing silver and Heatwave possessed golden eyes. It was very clearly a true god controlling your current capacity, with decades of training, to do what we saw and save the world.” Chasm Might said.
Robin looked at his own hands.
“What is going to happen now? How is Richmond…?” he asked.
“The city is almost completely destroyed. The death toll was limited but… it still reached as many as 30,000 deaths because of the chaos and people still not within the bunkers or digital world.” Mephesto said.
Robin’s face paled when he heard the death toll. It's literally the biggest catastrophe in the last few years.
“We should be thankful it wasn’t more.” Mephesto said. He looked serious at Robin, “If you and Heatwave had not been possessed by your future selves, then the rift would have taken 10 years to seal up. Time anomalies would have become a common occurrence worldwide and… and 99% of the academy would have been whipped out.” Mephesto said.
Robin’s eyes widened in shock before there was a sudden flash in his mind. Countless tiny broken crystals suddenly gathered and condensed into some sort of tree.
“You’re right… besides Lola who fled into the demon world with Milo… Huh.”
The three heroes looked at him confused but he was the one most weirded out.
“What did you say?” Chasm Might asked.
Robin was frozen and frowned and then explained what he saw moments before he woke up. The three heroes looked at one another and asked what he was seeing.
“It’s… a tree. Running my psychic energy through the base says “Time incident" and running it up before the first branch has… about 10 years of blank. After that, the first major event was Lola returning… she returned as a goddess. Her development was equal to an archdemon after she unlocked the next step by being able to summon Mania’s full power.” He said in shock. After that… branches form… one branch has Milo running away into the Netherworld… another has him… dying as he tries to make himself into a lich…” Robin’s face scowled.
“Your future self must have been looking through time for a long time. He must have stored basically every future path…” Chasm might said.
“There is more… It's very slow right now but it is constant, it’s constantly feeding this tree. I can also feel small bits spreading through other things I know now that I’ve noticed…” He said.
“What did he say before you woke up?” Chasm Might asked.
“That I would be needing this information decades in advance probably.” Robin said.
They looked at Bookkeeper for this. As a writer, he has done a lot of books and with a fertile imagination he can make quite a few accurate hypotheses. “If what he said is true then countless events that you are seeing are going to either advance faster or they aren’t going to happen because it would be lacking something.” he said.
“It’s not just that… I can feel it. It’s only starting but in the part about Mr Might’s training technique it is starting to build an expansion. It’s splitting apart and starting to change as it connects to different energies.” He said.
This time everyone looked at him with shock.
“Wait! Are you telling us that you think you’ve gained decades worth of training, knowledge and development into making human cores?” Mephesto exclaimed.
Robin looked at them and pressed his lips together. “What would push me to reveal almost 100 years worth of development.” Robin said.
Everyone looked shocked at his words.
At that moment something appeared out of the blue. It looked like the perfect machine version of Techno, a goddess of technology.
“Demigod who has finally awakened… your words are quite important to the development of all the realms.”
“Who!” Robin exclaimed but Chasm Might held him down, “Don’t worry, this is the AI running the digital world. It would do you well to learn the decency of at least announcing yourself like we did instead of appearing randomly.” Chasm might said.
“Such is a human thing, demigod, what you know now is vital to all growth. This world was not destroyed because your counterpart dealt with the problem. If he had not, the supercomputer this world resides in, the world containing tens of thousands, would have collapsed with the destruction of the supercomputer.” She said. “Furthermore, it would have become impossible for further development due to the death of all the Living Island Hosts that make up the server cores as well as the death of Oliver and Tristan Evans and even myself.” She said.
Robin looked and then something in his body changed as he felt the spark shield his body and his eyes slightly changed as he looked at her.
In his eyes, he saw countless lines connected to her like the network nodes and lines that Tristan could make. That said, nowhere was a divine spark located and despite having life force, her form was only partially physical and she was mostly data.
His mind ran through the tree and just off the base, information gathered showing the collapse of the digital world killing everyone. The towers had not been destroyed because Techno had moved them before the supervillains appeared aiming at them
The facility was also protected by a world power barrier but it wouldn’t stop the time energy after it got too intense.
“Goddess without divinity… before you try and obtain knowledge, you need to get off your high horse. Become a proper mortal or you will never condense the divine spark you need to become a true goddess of the digital realm.” He said.
The three heroes were shocked by Robin’s tone but they could see his eyes had changed a bit like the meeting of two divine forces.
"Robin…” Chasm Might said but Robin cut him off.
“Having a lot of fragments of a divine soul is only good if you have a proper divine body and spark to propel its power… huh.” Robin muttered and suddenly the spark’s glow vanished from his eye and he was left confused.
The AI looked at him with a slightly surprised expression, “What is the path to achieve this?” She asked.
Robin looked at her confused but shook his head, “I… don’t even know what happened… it’s like my spark…”
“Seems Gaia might have been talking through you.” Mephesto said.
“You mean like Kevin?” Robin asked.
They nodded but Robin frowned.
“What will happen to the academy now?” He asked.
The heroes looked at the AI for a moment,
“Because this world is easily moldable, by making programmed models, I have already built an entire model of Richmond within a group of expanded digital farms in the form of the original city. The Academy was removed from the center of the city and rebuilt on its own island for privacy.” She said.
“We are going to move here?” Robin asked.
“Yes, Techno is going to build a secret super security bunker to house a new supercomputer, transfer this world to that one before we move this one to a different location and connect the two computers. Given that Oliver can still develop his data form transformation even more, and is already doing that, we can speed up the transfer through cyberspace and be able to react to events all over America.” Chasm Might said.
“So… the academy is moving here because of that?” He asked.
“Yes and because it’s safer. The fact that the gamer space can interface with both the real world and this world is more convenient as well. Techno will be spreading transport platforms to every city with a population above 300,000. We will also be pulling braveman academies under the arm of the hero academy and expand our capacities until all the american union crime fighters are trained exclusively by the American Union Hero Academy and no other private academy.” Bookkeeper said.
“You want to remove the capacity of the villains from infiltrating further.” Robin said.
They all nodded, “Eventually we will break a deal with other unions and start building supercomputers on their side, linking it world wide in each continent. As many as needed, to cover their requirement and start spreading the tower grid. Eventually we will cover the whole world and gather all the goddess’s fragments to let her become whole.” Chasm Might said.
Robin nodded and looked up, “Am I an invader in this world? Like the evil god?” He asked the goddess.
She looked at him confused and shook her head, “We are both born from Gaia so no. Even if this place becomes a realm of its own, those born or summoned by humans will not have that problem but the enemy will.” She said.
Robin slightly nodded and looked at his hand, “I see… so much changed in such a short time. Is my family alright?” He asked.
“Yes, most Richmond citizens are currently in the digital world where it is safe and everything is under her watch. We had to warn you of your true potential and the future first.” Mephesto said.
“What will happen to me?” He asked.
“The same as always, training. That said… you’ve achieved braveman status already because of your outburst with Ruth.” Chasm Might said.
“Is it going to take long for Ruth’s Mind dive to clear possible dangers?” He asked.
They could not answer that, “We don’t know how far it goes.” Bookkeeper replied and Robin, sadly, nodded that he understood. “How long until I can get out of this.” he asked.
“We will do tests to make sure you're healthy enough and then you will be free to go home.” Chasm Might said.
“Okay… how much do I have to keep from Ruth.” He asked.
They could only force a smile before Chasm Might takes out a list of things they spoke of and add the things he learned from his future self in particular.
Robin nodded but they continued to talk to him about changes and things to await before they finally left and called doctors to examine him.
After a battery of tests, he was cleared and was finally allowed to go home. On a platform to transport, he had his body digitalized and shot through dozens of kilometers towards another point closer to the residential district and appeared.
He looked around and at the convenience it came with but he used the gamer space to find his family. Ruth was already there and they could only hug and his parents cried as they hugged him because they were all safe.
Robin was mentally tired but it was hard to do anything with the constant infusion of information so he went to his room. Ruth looked at him because he had his connection closed.
In his room he laid down but she came in after.
“Your link is blocked.” She said.
“I… Mr Might said to keep information confidential and to keep it closed until you are 100% cleared… I’m sorry but I can’t.” He said, sad.
“Oh… if… if that is what they want. I’m sorry.” She said.
“Don’t be, it’s not your fault, everything is those bastards who did that to you.” He said and didn’t let her leave, thinking it was her fault. “You’ll get through it.” He said.
She forced a smile and was about to leave when something in his mind shined, making his eye flash silver for a moment, catching her eye.
“Is something wrong?” She asked
Robin stared into space before blinking and smiling, “Nothing… it’s something good but nothing serious.” He said and let her leave.
After that he closed his door and turned serious as he thought about what just flashed through his mind.
It was the first step to developing his mind actively, beyond just stretching psychic energy. It was something closer to what you would see in Chinese novels. How was this created… he sat down and examined. He felt a melancholy from this memory because it was designed by his future self specifically to break the chains on the minds of people cured from the parasites, as well as train their minds like never before. It would even unlock a unique capacity for humans to enter their mind space like he does within the link between Ruth.
It was too premature in his mind and the transfer process was snail paced. Even Robin himself couldn’t use it because it was just half of the startup segment and not even the full segment, let alone the entire technique.
The shocking part was that this technique was connected to the development of psychics and the eventual conception of their solid core. It would help start transforming the dantian and organ it connected to in his brain to contain an internal space as massive as the lower dantian.
When he thought about the life essence, it was equally trying to form but it was very clear that it was a long and difficult production process.
Instead, he sat down and began to train as he has always done, especially with his divine force so that his body can stabilize and start to grow.