(Earth Habitat 1, January 3rd, 2047)

The next 10 days went by in a blur. While Adam was busy catching up on the many changes that had taken place on Earth, he also accessed the Cosmic Interface and figured out the tabs that concerned bringing magic back. It seemed that the actual mechanism that removed magic from the Universe was a little more insidious than he first thought. The black holes were mana sinks, and they weren’t. They were more like collection points where mana was pooled on its way out of the Universe through one of the negative conduits that led elsewhere. Modifying the black holes all at once wouldn’t have done what he wanted. Instead, he had to get into the nitty-gritty of the Universal code until he was looking at how the Universe was set up at a quantum level. This meant math. Lots, and lots of Math. Luckily he had Thor to help him work his way through it.

In layman’s terms, any ambient magic that was detected was shunted through quantum tunnels into the black holes from everywhere. This was both a good and bad thing. Good, because this meant that he could set the filter, for want of a better word to describe the mechanism, to remove all the mana and save a very tiny bit. Sort of like opening up the water flow on a spigot or faucet. Bad because when the setting was changed the ambient magic would increase across the breadth of the Universe evenly and immediately. he didn’t know what any level of Ambient magic was going to do but when the ambient level hit 20 – 25% everyone’s Personal Interface would activate. Which meant that his original nanites would start to degrade a lot faster than he had originally thought. Still, even if it was only 100 weeks that should give humanity enough time to adapt to being free again.

Adam made the changes and executed the program. he watched as the counter for Ambient Magic Density went to .1% +/- 5% regionally. he double-checked definitions and noted that it was 5% of 1% or +/-.05 Not up to 6% immediately. That meant that at 100% the ambient magic could be between 95 – 105% though. Adam wondered what the ambient mana being over 100% would be like and then it hit him. It would probably be something like sitting in a positive energy area. Maybe not as good but definitely better than normal and not as harmful to normal people. An area of negative magic must be like the negative zone he’d visited. This meant that it would probably be a very good place for the undead to hang out and get extremely powerful.

Adam switched every other setting concerning magic in that section of the interface from “OFF” to “Default.” If he was going to promote natural selection, he was going to promote Natural selection.

One error did pop up.

ERROR Settings concerning time or temporal magic have been locked by an Avatar of Time. These settings will remain locked and cannot be unlocked by any being other than an Avatar of Time or Time.

Well, he knew that was true, nice to see that the changes were hard-coded so even the owner of the Universe or Cosmos couldn’t change it. Of course, he was looking at the Cosmic Interface. Just to be sure, Adam minimized it and pulled up the Universal Interface. He compared it to the Cosmic Interface and realized that unlike his previous uses of the Universal and the Cosmic Interface, before he came back to this Cosmos, these interfaces were identical here. Adam modified one of the magic settings to “Owner Only” in the Universal Setting. The Cosmic Setting changed as well. he changed the setting back to Default in the Cosmic Interface, The Universal Interface changed to “Default” as well. It seemed that in this Cosmos, the Universal and Cosmic Interfaces were linked completely. It made sense since it was placed outside of everything.

With that done, he sent a message to everyone he cared about.

Adam: Hey everyone, I’m heading out.

Mom: Be careful

Dad: Honey, he’s effectively a God here, he’ll be fine

Abi: Take pictures.

Adam: Thanks Mom and Dad. Abi it’s a group of Black Holes, those pictures aren’t going to show much.

Amanda: Stop picking on Abi, take pictures of what you find hidden by the Black Holes

Adam: Oh, that’s what you meant.

Desirae: Such a smart ass. See you when you get back. I’ll make sure everyone here stays healthy.

Adam: Thanks Ray, see you all later.

Adam closed the messages and formed a portal to a location one light year out from the system he was going to investigate. he stepped through the energy curtain that held the atmosphere back as he stepped through and found himself in an area of complete darkness. After a few moments, his eyes adjusted, and his Adaptable ability kicked in allowing him to see what his normal eyes couldn’t.

Adam had stepped into a gulf of darkness. As he reviewed the information Thor had gathered he realized that he was in an area of space where light didn’t exist. Not to say this area was like the region of Nothing he’d explored just that visible light didn’t penetrate this area. The other thing that surprised him was the number of black holes that were orbiting the triangle that he could make out. He couldn’t see the black hole but his eyes had adjusted so that he could see gravity as if it were magnetic lines of force. Those waves swirled and knotted all around him. This made pinpointing the black holes really easy.

Adam willed himself towards the lines of force where the triangle was and noted that on all four sides of the pyramid, there were tunnels to the center approximately a mile wide where ships could travel to the object at the center. Compared to the distances between the black holes these paths of safety were quite small. His sight allowed him to note how much weaker the source of gravity in the center of that zone was but he still couldn’t see what “it” was.

He altered his trajectory and headed toward the tunnel through the severe gravity wells of the Black Hole. Adam examined the lines of force and noticed something odd. It looked as if something at the quantum level was holding the barrier that created this tunnel. He slowed and moved over to the edge and placed his hand against it. Adam allowed his nanites to examine the barrier at the quantum level and sure enough, they found different alien nanites there. Alien nanites that could withstand the gravity of a black hole and also alter how gravity affected space in the local area? As his nanites came into contact with them the technological nanites attacked them and tried to break them down. His nanites, created from the raw stuff of chaos easily thwarted all the physical attacks. Next, a quantum-level scan commenced against his nanites which included malware designed to overcome and control the nanites. He had no doubt that if they’d come into contact with his old normal nanites they’d have had little problem doing so until Thor or he actively engaged in stopping the hostile takeover. Since the Alien Nanites were trying to work against something he consciously controlled, they were far outclassed and easily defeated.

Stolen novel; please report.

Adam wasn’t here for this, though he’d need to investigate it later. He withdrew his hand and willed himself back to the middle of the gravity tunnel and continued down the tunnel of normal gravity. No light made it into this area past the black holes so he allowed the lines of Gravity he could see to guide him. As he drew closer to the bubble at the center, he noted the light of a star shining into the tunnel. Any light that hit the edges of the tunnel was absorbed and redirected but the light shining into the tunnel could reach quite a ways before the tunnel curved and the light ended.

Adam analyzed the light, magnified his vision, and cataloged a star and a single planet orbiting that star in the Goldilocks zone, the area around a star where liquid water could exist which could also mean that life could exist as well.

As he moved out of the artificial tunnel and entered the star system he noted that the star was M-Class. As he moved into the system he ran into a swarm of alien nanites that immediately started trying to scan him. The scans were easily deflected. As he considered this, he contemplated the reason for the scan, then the Thor aspect part of his mind warned him that the failure of the scan could cause a defense response which was exactly what happened.

One moment he was floating toward the planet and the next he was enveloped by an energy/gravity field as a brilliant light flashed around him.

Warning: You have entered a region of the Universe at a temperature of absolute Zero and an artificial field to temporal curtailment. Time has been brought to a rate of 0% of the normal flow of time in this Universe. As this is a technological effect and not magic your Ability “I Have Always Been, I Will Always Be” does not prevent this field from affecting you.

NOTE: Your ability Adaptable makes you immune to any environment found inside the cosmos. As such, absolute zero and technological modifications to the flow rate of time do not affect you unless you wish them to.

Would you like to allow the temporal field surrounding you to affect you?

Yes or No?

Adam chose “No” and froze. If whoever had used this technology on him was actively scanning him they’d see that he still had electrons moving and firing but they’d expect that for at least a few seconds as the temperature where electrons ceased moving took hold. Side note, it was really nice that his Adaptability ability still worked because even his chaotic nanites should have been affected by such cold temperatures.

Adam opened his Universal Interface and checked his location. The coordinate system was relatively easy to follow as all points in the Universe were mapped out on an X, Y, and Z access. The numbers were nonsensical from a human point of view, the 0,0,0 point being the location where the Big Bang happened. The Milky Way was roughly 7 billion light-years from that point and speeding away from it at roughly half the speed of light, though how that all worked was due to space compression and expansion while a body was moving through that space. Relatively, the galaxy wasn’t moving at even a quarter of half the speed of light. For his purposes, he’d reset the X, Y, and Z access to put Earth at his new 0,0,0 axis points and reviewed his location. Wow was the only word he could use to describe the numbers he saw. If Earth was at a 7 along the X access and a positive 7 on the Z axis he was now at the opposite end of that location in the Cosmos. He had traveled billions of light-years in a second. He might be able to teleport that far but that would be a huge expenditure of mana. Using a portal would have been impossible.

Adam contacted Thor through our quantum link,

Adam: Thor, bit of a problem here. I am now more than 28 billion light-years from Earth.

Thor: Understood, I’ll prepare contingencies and a secondary body if needed…You can still resurrect?”

Adam: Yes, I still have the ability Undying. Just set up the body and reduce this link to minimum access just in case whatever this is tries to piggyback to you. Isolate and monitor with extreme prejudice.

Thor: Understood.

Adam felt the link between them revert to the most limited functioning they had.

Without moving he analyzed his environment and realized that his nanites couldn’t leave his body without giving away that he was still active. Even so, he visually analyzed his surroundings and found himself to be in a tube with some kind of clear window that he could look out of and that could look in on him. He’d bet anything the scientist or whatever they were that would view him in a moment wouldn’t have thought that they might want to utilize one-way mirrors. Of course, in a zero-energy/time environment who’d expect the creature inside that zone to be moving or thinking at all? Adam made a mental note to himself that should he ever do something like this he was going to tint the observation glass. Unfortunately, the bubble he was in didn’t allow sound to propagate so he couldn’t hear anything, but he did notice when two shadows fell across the glass and watched through his nanites as two creatures in white coats looked in on him. Adam saw their mouths moving but he still couldn’t hear them.

Next, he saw an arm extending from the ceiling down to his neck with a small needle. As the needle came into contact with his skin he detected a temporal nullifying field with a very small radius around the needle. As the needle was pushed into his skin he surrounded it with his nanites and prevented it from releasing or contaminating him with anything from it. He felt the suction from the tip as it tried to take a very minute sample of his blood. He allowed this so that his nanites could get out of this environment and check on his surroundings. Adam wanted more information before he acted.

The mechanical arm and needle were withdrawn, and the two beings stepped away. His nanites outside the chamber detected speech but it wasn’t a language that he’d come across before. Once he reviewed their speech he recognized it through his That was Easy ability. Adam guessed that he really did have a skill level of 100 in every skill that existed. While he thought about how useful that ability had become as the nanites from his blood sample started to replicate and spread. he also listened in,”

“The Subject appears to be Homosapien from a planet called Earth. We visited them approximately 8,000 years ago and found them primitive. Not capable of what this individual was seen doing.” A male voice said.

“What exactly was this one doing?” A second male voice said.

“Our outpost in this human’s galaxy detected him approaching the contact site without a ship or any visible means of propulsion.”

“No Ship, no technology? “

“Exactly! A decision was made by the Overmined to study him and see what was different about him.”

“Why hasn’t he been analyzed yet?”

Adam decided he’d played his charade long enough and moved to the window. The field he was in was very powerful. He doubted that he could break out without causing a catastrophic accident that the two individuals right outside this window would not survive so he stepped up to the glass and looked out on two humanoids, roughly six feet tall, both bald with an athletic build. The first speaker had golden Irises while the second had light blue eyes. Adam knocked lightly on the inside of the glass which caused both aliens to be startled. Adam placed his hand in front of the glass and displayed the following as a scrolling message across the skin of his palm in their language.

“Hello, my name is Adam. I would prefer to exit this containment zone without destroying your facility and you two with it. Could you please turn it off so we can speak face-to-face?”