The phenomenon dissipated as soon as it came without leaving anything lasting behind besides the awe in the guards nearby.

Shira’s mouth soon creeped up into a grin and said, “Well, well, you’re worth something after all. My sister can sometimes overreact to these sorts of things. I’ll call her over, she should be in the building soon. But first you should probably change.”

Shira pointed to a shower room and Hale happily indulged. He was still in the streetwear he was wearing when he went walking at midnight at his college campus. He washed himself and found a set of casual clothes that were reminiscent of techwear but less flashy waiting for him in the nearby changing rooms. Hale marveled that this office building also had cells and locker rooms. It was definitely strange.

After he came out he saw Shira waiting for him with a big grin, but he immediately noticed that her clothes were different. ‘It must be Aila!’ Hale thought. He was soon proven right when she dashed up and took him by the arm to pull him away.

“I knew you were special. I heard your concept is Hidden Knowledge. Hehe. You’re lucky that you have a higher order concept like me.” Aila said while she was just a bit too close to his ear which sent a chill down Hale’s back. He took note that he definitely had to be wary of this girl. Why? Because when something seems too good to be true it usually is. And Hale had confidence in his looks but this was overboard, this didn’t even have anything to do with his strange new powers. Hale just knew that there was something he was missing in this situation or it wouldn’t make any sense.

After being led around and going up a few floors, the two had passed many people walking the halls. He found that most were in business casual clothing and truly worked in cubicles like a normal office building, but there were others that walked around wearing similar techwear like clothes. They looked like civilian versions of military combat clothing and they all had a symbol on their right shoulder of a heater shield with gold and marble colors crisscrossing on it. Hale figured it was fair to assume that that was the symbol for the Crest family given that this whole building seems to be theirs.

Aila led him to a room that was much cozier than the previous room where he was questioned. This was a small carpeted room with two couches and a coffee table splitting them with a tv off to the side against a wall. After sitting across from each other Aila had a rare moment of seriousness as she grabbed his attention.

“Now that you have found your concept it will be much safer to explain things. Sometimes if you find things out too fast it can only stagnate you in your current realm.” She gave a sigh and began to collect her thoughts before continuing, “I’m going to explain a few things but not all of it may make sense. Have you ever read Plato?”

Hale was taken off guard by the question, but knowing that some of his questions might be answered he didn’t take anything as a joke. “Not any more than what I was taught in philosophy 101.”

Aila lightly nodded her head, “That's pretty usual. Have you heard of his theory of forms?”

“That sounds familiar. Honestly, it’s been a while since then.”

Aila again nodded but had no change in her face, “Look into it. Anyways, here’s the explanation. You have currently stepped onto the path to godhood. You are currently in the first stage, or realm as we call it. It is called the touched realm, as you’ve now been touched by your concept. Self explanatory. Are you with me so far?”

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Hale massaged his temples as he listened, not willing to miss a word. “Yes I’m with you.”

“At your stage there are one of two ways you can use your concept besides for some passive things, it's called channeling. There is an external use and an internal use. Find the one that is easier to use for yourself, I can’t help you with that since it’s mostly random. To use the external ability you must reach out to your concept and forcefully change it and in that way changing the real world. The internal way is to open yourself up to have your concept change you. They both look different for every person, but your concept will let you know how to use it. Using this connection to your concept uses conceptual energy, which you need.”

“Ok, I think I understand.” Hale said before falling quiet again as he began planning how to approach these two things.

“I must warn you before you try. You have to be careful. If you let in too much of your concept it may take you over. And if you control too much of it it may reject you. Both end in you becoming an abomination… and there is no coming back from that.”

Hale’s eyes dilated slightly at that. Besides for the unspoken threats of violence from this Crest family this was the first time he had heard of something from these people that could actually take his life. Shira’s comments about why he couldn’t go back to the normal world makes more sense. He still didn’t like it though. He may not have family or had any drive towards the future in general but he reveled in his freedom to choose if he wanted to.

But, with all that time he spent in that padded cell he got a grasp on the situation so he took all of this in stride. As he ruminated on this new information Hale had to admit to himself, he has never been so excited in his life. Maybe this was what he was always waiting for. Something interesting. A mystery. Real power.

With renewed motivation his eyes were beaming with excitement. He had already forgotten the possible consequences of these powers and only had his eyes on his concept. Now that he thought about it, he did feel like he was looking at himself when he saw the glowing place during meditation. Were his concept and himself so similar in motivation? It was urging him to rule everything underfoot, to seep everything into a fog of unknowability.

Hale was later shown to a small room that was what you’d expect from a dorm room and Aila eventually left after some conversing that Hale tried to brush as he still wasn’t sure how to take her blatant flirting. He fell on the small twin bed that was still miles better than the padded room that didn’t even have a bed so Hale was rather happy when he compared the two environments.

Hale was woken up by some banging on his door and someone yelled through the door that he was to report to the receptionist in 30 minutes. He had no idea what time it was since he hadn’t seen any windows since before he went into confinement and he didn’t pay attention to any clocks before he was sent to this room. Hale found a pair of clothes left for him that were similar to yesterday’s. He left and met the receptionist and she quickly led him to the second floor that was labeled “combat units”. Hale had a strange facial expression when he heard the name of the floor.

The elevator doors opened and a thin man with black hair and a sharp jawline reached in and grabbed Hale by the shoulder. “Hale, right? Very good! I heard your concept is practically handcrafted for the scout unit. I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”

Hale quickly played along, looking back he saw the receptionist flashing him a face of empathy as she shook her head and hit the button to go back to her floor. He was soon pushed into a room full of gear lining the walls, walkie talkies, bulletproof vests, guns, all sorts of maps, and even stranger things. The walls were lined with TVs that showed different maps of Boston while others showed security cam footage around the city. There were three other people here. And one was Aila. Hale had mixed feelings of seeing her here. Glad to see someone he was already familiar with, on the other hand his instincts told him she was dangerous.

The thin man that still had Hale by the shoulder pulling him into the room turned to him and said, “Welcome to the scout unit of the Crest family.”