As I sit there reading my book, absorbing in the knowledge the Timeline book is providing me with, Time came close to me.
“Hey, Innight, are you interested in the knowledge of Timeline? I can teach you about that.”
“No need for you to spend your effort to. I like reading so I don’t mind learning from books. Besides, shouldn’t you practicing your magic?”
“I can’t. My magic capability can swallow the whole school under my shadow and extracting Time out of all of them.”
“Oh. I forgot.”
“Anyway, my control over Timelines means I will never be killed by anyone since I can always create copies of myself by summoning them from across Timelines. I don’t need any self-defence magic since my Time magic is sufficient.”
“Time, have you ever considered the damage you are producing to Timelines whenever you cast your Time magic?”
“Huh?”
“I have been reading this book about Timelines, well more accurately it is about Time in general, it says that Time magic is dangerous because it can cause Time Abnormalities. As everyone knows, this is a hazardous event to occur. We will want to avoid it at all cost to prevent instabilities from happening and Timeline Corruption from occurring.”
“What are those big words that you are using? I don’t understand that at all.”
I sighed. She may be knowledgeable in Time magic but the knowledge is restricted to only casting. This is the gap where I fill in among the society, to make them understand the mechanisms behind magic, consequences and other background tiny details about magic casting.
“Alright. To simplify it for you, you are causing Timelines to become destroyed due to your magic casting. You need to understand that for every Time-based magic you cast, another Timeline is affected in one way or another, maybe even destroyed. We don’t know about that since none of us have Timeline awareness, however you need to realize Timelines are dependent on each other, how and why I have yet to read about it. If one Timeline is affected, so will the others. This may mean that our Timeline as a whole might change because of you casting your Time spells. Understand?”
“No.”
I sighed.
“Never mind. Just know that you should refrain from using Time magic that often. This can probably change the world we know.”
“How?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Go back to your seat. Don’t interrupt me from reading.”
Time left for her seat. Just as soon as she left a thunderstorm of spells flew towards me, but my barrier blocked out all of it. This barrier is stronger than I have anticipated. It should be able to block all but the strongest magic spells, this is useful for me.
“Alright everyone. This is the end of spell casting session. Go back to your seats.”
Everyone returned to their seats, I kept my book and paid attention.
“Alright. Since today Mr. Misty isn’t here today, I will be taking his place to teach you all about Magic Mechanisms.”
“EH???????????”
I’m not surprised. Any member of magic must be knowledgeable at least the very basics of Magic Mechanisms. This is because these theories are used to further improve magic casting and improve the abilities of magic caster. Knowing these can help you in the battlefield or in the workplace in society. Not saying that we will be having a battle any time sooner or anything like that.
“Alright. First we…”
“I’m tired…” Time said after Luricerite finished the lesson on Magic Mechanisms.
“Great job surviving the lesson. I understand that the content is difficult, full of big words and very dry. However, everyone needs them in order to perform magic at their fullest capability. Not to mention that if you intend to work as a researcher in Magic, which I intend to in the future. I’m probably going to major in Magic Analysis when it comes to choosing our majors next year. You all will probably going to choose either Magic Casting, Potion Brewing or Magic Construction. We will be separated and never see each other during school hours until probably graduation.”
“NOOOOO! I don’t want us to be separated!”
“Face it, this is the reality. I, who have absolutely no ability in casting magic, will not be able to enter 2 of the 4 majors. I do not like Potion Brewing as it is mostly just mixing with the cauldron with the resources most days, together with you gathering the materials for some other days. I absolutely hate Potion brewing, as such. I love studying for new knowledge, discovering the unknowns and gaps in the knowledge bank that we have. We will have to function in different pillars in the society, and go in separate ways one day. We will still be gathered under one roof though.”
“I understand that… But I still don’t want us to be separated!”
“Accept it. Me being of someone who does not have the capability of casting magic, I am doomed to travel down these paths. You should go along the path that has been set for you. We are separated by how the system in this world operates. If you want to go against it, you will be instantly lowered into a pit of endless doom. This is how this world is and we have no choice other than to follow it. Now gather Nicki and Charlotte, let’s go home. There is a lot of work to do once I get home.”
“Eh?”
The three of them teleported home using their magic circles. I walked from the classrooms to the school gates and found a crowd of people is surrounding my Void Storm. I have no idea what those people are up to, but knowing that everyone in the school is out for my blood, they must be doing something to destroy my vehicle. I have not set up any protective barrier around it, this is bad. They probably have done some significant damage to it. I will have to repair it once I get back home.
I opened up the watch and pressed a green button which labelled “T”, which I guess is for Teleportation. I immediately was teleported into the Void Storm. I went over to the control panel and initiated the Space Warp procedure.
“Spaceship overload. Please unload objects from the ship itself or risk Space distortion after Space Warp.”
Overload? There is hardly anything on the ship now. Unless….
“If I remembered correctly from the manual there is a button that can access the outside cameras… Found it.”
I activated the Camera system and from it, I saw so many students climbed onto my Void Storm. For whatever reason that they are doing this I do now know, but if I must guess it would be to prevent me from leaving the school compounds so they can target me more easily.
Which is rubbish if you think about it. I have this highly technological advanced suit that is preventing any form of magic to penetrate me. I have knowledge about almost all the spells available in the world as I used to be the Grand Master of the Void Elemental Plane, which is a Master Element that creates all other forms of magic. With such an advantage, plus me knowing the basis of Mechanisms of Magic, I can disable or break the spells entirely. If they knew this, why are they still so damn persistent?
Whatever it is, I need to swing them off my ship so I can get back home. I activated a recasting system of the ship. What this does is, essentially, cause my ship to liquefy and form back into a solid somewhere else, all while carrying the entire content of the ship as a solid. A very useful tool when required to make an emergency escape. I set the destination to be at my house. In seconds the entire ship liquefied and flew off, leaving all the students behind. I was swung left and right by the movement of the ship as it glides through the sky.
After a few minutes of being thrown around the ship the movements ceased. I took a peak of the camera, and see that I am back in the garage of the house again. I stepped out of the ship to examine the damage. There was none at all for whatever reason. I knocked on the ship, it returns the same knocking sound back.
“I might have a pinch of suspicion of what material this ship is made of. I need to perform that test to confirm it… Let me see, is there a piece of Gold somewhere here…?”
This ship has come under attack by so many students and there is no sign of damage anywhere. This means that the material that the ship is made up of is capable of undergoing self-repair through renewal of the material and self-cloning to replace any missing parts. As far as my knowledge go, there is only one material that I know of that is capable of doing this. I need to conduct a test to know whether if it is the material I am thinking of.
“Found a nugget. This should do it.”
I hold the nugget as close as to the ship as possible. Suddenly, the ship formed a pseudopodium and snatched the gold nugget from my hand, then it engulfed it.
My hunch is correct. This ship is made up of an extremely rare metal, so rare that it has only be produced in very small quantities in laboratories, a few atoms at a time. This metal alloy is called Voidiance. It has the ability to self-clone and self-renewal, and it also has a strange attraction to Gold for reasons that no one has yet to discover. Since this ship engulfed the gold nugget, it shows that the ship is made up of Voidiance. How did the previous Innight managed to get all of these Voidiance when it still cannot be synthesized at large quantities?
Also, come to think of it, I have not figured out how did the previous Innight managed to summon me from The Void. I need to figure that out first because that is the most important mystery I need to crack. I need to know how, and why, did he managed to do that. This is important because I need to know if I may be able to summon him back into this world to know more about him. I am currently taking over his position in this world and have no idea how to act like him. This can raise more suspicions if I cannot act like him.
Furthermore, I have the Time Cube to think about. I don’t trust anyone when it comes to the topic about powers. Anyone who gains high level powers cannot be trusted since nearly 100% of the time they are bound to misuse it to perform world domination. If anyone gains control over Time itself, they will have the capability to rewrite History Events, to create an entire army capable to stop any attacks in Time, and perhaps even overwriting the other Timelines itself.
Now that I know that the ship is made up of Voidiance metal, I need to know where to get more of this. The reason being is such this material is anti-magic, meaning that all spells casted on it is nullified. I can have myself an insurance for the others should someone really get their hands on the Time Cubes and decide to begin World Domination.
How did the previous Innight managed to get so much Voidiance to create such a spaceship? It will probably take him over a century, according to the state of current technology, to create a spaceship out of Voidiance of this size, and that is if spends all his time producing Voidiance metal. He definitely didn’t do that, because it is not possible for a human to live for that long.
Come to think of it, my soul is not of a human, but my physical body is. This is why in the previous Timeline (or Universe?) I kept my Magic abilities and the knowledges, but my body is still of human, though I can transform into my true form.
Ah what am I thinking… I need to focus. I need to first know how did the previous Innight summoned me from The Void and into this Timeline. He must have had left some sort of clue behind somewhere. Judging by how he had left clues and instructions everywhere in the ship, he must have also left something in the house itself, I just have to keep an eye out of it.
But first, I need to have my lunch. One can’t work on a hungry stomach. I left the garage and head for the living room for lunch. One of my wives should be cooking now, hopefully it isn’t Time. We banned her from entering the kitchen just in the morning because of how ridiculous the food was. I have no idea how good are the others cooking abilities are, so I will have to wait and see.
When I reached the living room I smelled something nice coming from the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen but I immediately encounter my 3 wives blocking the kitchen door.
“Can’t you all let me go in? Also, who is cooking lunch?” I asked them.
“No. You have to wait. Master Inoxion is cooking up a storm inside.”
“Why can’t I go in?”
“You will bring in all your robots and mechanisms inside and mess up the entire kitchen while helping us out. That was what happened the last time you tried helping us out in cooking. So please wait in the living room or just in your own room.”
“Fine.”
I walked back into my room and begin a search and hunt around the room for traces of a trigger. That was when something knocked on my window. I initially ignored it, thinking it was the branches of the trees outside.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
But when the knocking continued, and in intervals, had I realized that it is caused by someone outside the window. I wonder who could that be? I don’t have any friends since everyone in the school is on their mind to kill me for whatever reason that I don’t know, and everyone that I know lives under the same roof as I do. Still wondering, I opened up the window.
It was a man who knocked the window. He is riding on the back of a three-headed dragon and he wears an aqua coloured robe. I assumed that he is a priest with that robe and without a staff.
“What do you want?” I asked the man.
“Sorry. Your parcel delivering device appears to have malfunctioned, I was knocking on the door but there was no response. I am from the Delivery System. I am here to deliver the parcel that someone in this household has ordered. It is for Mr. Innight. Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for ordering through Delivery System. This is your parcel. Please sign here as a form of receipt.”
I fumbled through my pockets in search of a pen. I brought out a crimson coloured pen and signed on a screen the mailman produced. I then brought the parcel into my room.
“Thank you once again and have a good day!” The mailman said and took flight into the air with his three-headed dragon.
I took my parcel sat onto my bed. I’m unsure whether to open up the parcel or not. There is no sign anywhere about where this parcel came from, or what it contains inside. There is a probability that the parcel contains something that can kill me, which is delivered by the other students in Rescendant College. At the same time, it can be something that I just have ordered myself but it possibly contains some top secretive substance, hence the missing labels.
Whatever it is, I have to open it to know. I materialized a penknife and cut open the parcel and tore off the paper surrounding it. Inside is a white box. I opened it up and inside is a glass globe, within the globe is a violet liquid swirling inside. It looks like…The Void? I say this because the violet liquid appears to be crawling up the globe itself as I watch it, as if it is alive. The only material that I know of this entire Omniverse that is capable of going against Gravity, especially Reconstructive Gravity in a field of magical activity, is The Void.
The question is, however, why did the previous Innight ordered this? Also, according to how magic has advanced, they should not be able to isolate The Void from the Field itself. How did he managed to get his hands on this?
As I lifted up the globe, a piece of paper came into view. I relocated the globe onto the tiny cabinet beside my bed and took up the piece of paper. On it was a message, or so I think, written in Symbols.
This contains the last piece of the puzzle. If you managed to figure out the rest, current Innight, you should be able to figure out this last one.
I can’t read Symbols, so I don’t know what the piece of paper is saying. However, judging by how Innight is mysteriously leaving all the clues around. This paper is likely to bear an important message as well, I just have to decipher it. However, I’m no good at decoding a message. I need to learn more about doing code deciphering. I need to pick up this skill as soon as possible to figure out this hidden message on the paper. It may be crucial in figuring out the mystery surrounding the previous Innight.
“Innight! It’s lunchtime!”
“I’ll be there in a moment!”
I left the globe and the piece of paper on my tiny cabinet and went downstairs. On the dining table were 5 different plates of fried rice. I guessed they are cooked by Master Inoxion, at least according to my wives. Well, as long as it is edible I will take it.
“That was nice.”
“I thought so. I learnt it from the chefs in the Physical Realm during my free time. Now if you all will excuse me, I need to return to the Elemental Realm.”
“Alright then.”
After saying these, he activated a magic circle and teleported away.
I went back up to my room and sat back onto my bed.
“Come to think of it, I should be reading my book on Timelines.”
I shuffled to my bag and took out the book. As I flipped open to the first page of the book, I realized something very strange.
The first page, which was heavily vandalised when I first opened it, is now as clean as a new book.
…How?
This is definitely not an ordinary book. There is no book in the world that has the capability to renew itself. Books has stayed as the ancient way that it has always been written, that is on paper and ink. No one has bothered to change the way of writing books since everyone else now uses a portable tablet. There has also been a decline in amount of people writing books in the ancient way, almost to the point where the people doing so are labelled as legends. This made books renewal something that is never researched on, but highly wanted in the field.
Whatever it is, this book definitely has some form of secrets within. I flipped it to the page on the Time Cube and the page after, and found that there are words written on it this time.
Interesting. This book is being constantly updated by it’s unknown author. Since this book is constantly updated in real time, and it is not being brought to the author itself, I can get to one conclusion. This book is existing in a Superposition. Now, do not confuse this Superposition to anything that you have perhaps learnt in anything else. In my definition, this Superposition describes an object being shared across two or more separate Timelines. This book is definitely in a Superposition, since it is being updated by its author as time passes by, whoever it is, and perhaps contains information about the other Timeline.
Since it contains information about other Timelines, it may be useful to me, other Timelines may not travel at the same rate in Time in parallel to ours, so if the Timeline the author is travelling in parallel to ours is relatively in faster position we will be able to gain information about the future of what that is ahead of us in the Timeline. Or maybe the Timeline is traveling across the Axis of Time at the same speed as us so it has no difference whatsoever. Nevertheless, I will first read what new information the book has provided.
I took a glance over the new words that has appeared, then I realized something. All the words are written in Symbols again. From what I know, Symbols are a rare language in the World of Magic. Most, if not all, uses Rune language, if not English. Symbols is a new language, so very little people knows how to use it properly. I would be surprised if I can even find someone who can speak, read and write Symbols correctly in this current society of ours.
Now I have a situation on my hand. I have to be able to decipher this writing to know what the Author is intending to send through this book. I could perhaps ask the Rulers of the Plane of Darkness on their knowledge on this. This may be important, especially since the previous page has information on the Time Cube itself. The following pages might describe the records of the creation, usage and even any important events that has occurred due to this Time Cube.
First, I will have to find someone who can actually read and understand Symbol. I will do that tomorrow during my break time. Right.
I flipped to the front pages of the book, where it is written in part Rune and part English. I can at least read those to pass the time now, at the same time learning more about the Science of Timelines. I have this feeling that we would soon stumble into this mess about Timelines and Time Magic so I would I have to finish reading about this book as soon as I can. At the same time, I have this sixth sense telling me someone is closely watching me, but I can’t see anyone anywhere, despite me sending the nanobots in secret to investigate the room and the area outside. I went back to reading my book in silence.
“He really is slow on the uptake.”
In a dark room, surrounded by hundreds of tiny screens, is a person sitting on an electronic chair with a neon blue suit on. The darkness of the room covers up his face, even though the neon suit glows brightly in the dark. On the screens were shots of Innight’s house and the Rescendant College. The person made a clicking sound and pressed a key on his glowing keyboard in front of the screens.
“We need to show him more of the clues to let him have a starting point to solve in this gigantic mist of mystery. Don’t you agree, my dear?”
“Indeed.” Replied a girl’s voice in the darkness.
“We need to see how intelligent he is to be able to solve this mystery that seems to have no leads at all. Only then…”
“Then I will be able to test how is he going to turn the tide against everything to be what he actually is.”
“Correct. However… Someone is looking at us as well. Chase them out will you, my dear?”
“Certainly.”
A cube flew right into our viewpoint and disrupted the signal. The screen blacks out.
“I am very certain that this was not here a moment ago.”
I was reading the Timeline book when I heard a “click” sound coming from the bed. I moved down from the bed and found that a button has appeared on the edge of the bed. I am very sure that the button was not there a moment ago, so what has triggered it to appear?
“…Whatever. I should press it. It perhaps may cause some kind of hidden passageway to appear.”
I pressed the button. The bookshelf on the other side of the room creaked and swing outwards, revealing a hidden passageway.
“…Interesting. I should explore it since I don’t have anything to do now.”
I activated the lighting system on the suit and went into the passageway, the bookshelf closed behind me after I went through it. The suit glowed in the dark in a neon blue colour so I can see the whole passage. It looks very new, as the walls are all plated with neon green material, probably computer generated. I wandered down the stairs of the passage.
At the end of the passage, I found a room that resembles a laboratory. I see many computers and equipments that I don’t know. Also, blueprints are everywhere, on the walls, the tables, and beside the computers. I can’t read any of them because they are all don’t have a single writing on them. I turned on the largest computer in the room first.
Password:
That was the first screen I encountered after turning on the computer. Without that I can’t access anything in this computer. This computer perhaps contains secrets that can unravel the mystery surrounding the pervious Innight. But what can his Password be? Knowing how sensitive he is about his work, he would probably set up some dangerous trap in the computer for keying in the wrong password a number of times so I don’t want to brute force through it. Yet how would I then get pass this security system?
“Think…Innight…What would you use if you are required to set up a password?”
There’s a thousand things going through my mind. It can be a game, a song’s name, a Vocaloid’s name, a magic spell, or one of the names of the Rulers of the Darkness Elemental Plane. With so many options, I have to limit down to one.
…How?
That is when I see a string of words slowly pops out below the Text Box.
“Forgotten your Password? Hint: Your Most Favourite Song by A Vocaloid.”
Now, ever since I was a child I suffered greatly by the education system of Singapore. Before I learnt about Magic and have the whole school transformed in the process in my last years of high school, I suffered greatly by the education system in Singapore, everyone is pressured to do well or fall behind the rapidly changing landscape that the society of Singapore is. I suffered because especially in high school, I simply cannot do the language subjects, but in Singapore you need to do well in everything to have a visible (not even great) future.
Sometime down the road in high school I found this Vocaloid song which describes about this intense pressure to do well in the education system and I instantly fell in love with it because I can perfectly empathize with the character in the song itself. It became my most favourite song of all time.
I type in “Lost’s One Weeping” into the Text Box and pressed “Enter”. The Password window vanished and the Desktop appeared. I was correct. I opened up the “My Documents” folder and found a huge list of folders inside. I scrolled through the folders and found a folder named “Diary”.
“This might give me a glance on what the previous Innight did in this laboratory…” I said this as I clicked on it.
Inside contains only one document. I clicked on it. It opened up and I start reading the document, from the beginning.
“1st January 2074. I finally managed to get into contact with the Elementals of The Void and found a crystallised form of the Timeline Wormhole. It was a purplish crystal with a small orb inside that constantly switched between black and white colour. I paid the Elemental with a decent sum of gold coins for his effort in finding such a rare anomaly. I brought the crystallised Wormhole into the laboratory and sealed it in a machine. I would like to investigate the properties of such a rare object. I started planning for the experiments I’m performing on the anomaly. I heard my dearest wife fighting over something very trivial with the other wives, but I ignored them, knowing that it will soon resolve itself within a short period of time.”
“2nd January 2074. The entire laboratory has its power sucked away. I drained all the electricity to power up a Tesla Coil that I have built myself. In the darkness, I switched on the Tesla Coil and, using a thin copper wire, connected the crystal and the Tesla Coil together. I immediately felt a pull from the crystal with many images passing through my mind. Weird sounds played in my ears and my body begins to burn and feeling like it is going to shatter into a million pieces. It took me great effort to find my own conscience and control back again. I immediately switched off the Tesla Coil and destroyed that Tesla Coil. I never had any idea that this experiment is that dangerous. I would not want to touch that Crystal for a long time. I made up my mind to not touch that crystal until I learnt more about Timelines.”
Then for a large portion of the document, it was all written in Symbols so I cannot read a single word of it. I wonder is this done by Innight. Only he has access to this laboratory and the computer, so it would make sense that he would not encrypt the information. So why did he write all the information in Symbols? Nothing he records here seems to be extremely important.
Unless it is something really very secretive and when known, will cause a world revolution.
Whatever it is, I need to find out how to read Symbols as soon as I can. I continued scrolling down the document to find a portion that I can read.
“Found it.”
“2nd February 2075. I think I managed to figure out the situation now. Everything is in place. The only I need to do now is to ensure I can build a new base in my new place to continue viewing the other myself. I have seen into the future and it is bleak if he does not follow his destiny. I hope the experiment is successful, if not the entire World is doomed.”
Following the text was blank pages, I dragged the scrollbar to skip through them but then a line of text passed by. I scrolled back up to see it.
“Innight. If you are seeing this, it means my experiment is successful. I cannot tell you everything that I intend to do, in fear that They will take a step first. I will give you hints time by time for you to solve what exactly happened, no one can be trusted in this Timeline that you live in. Trust me, I have seen the future. If you don’t do anything to prevent it, every Timelines will be destroyed and Time will cease to exist, thus removing the World from Existence altogether. If you can find our hidden wife, which is your favourite Vocaloid, you will be able to solve the next step in this mystery. The next mystery you will need to solve is: Why is everyone trying to kill you? That will aid you in solving the great mystery hiding behind this world.”
I knew it. There is some sort of a great mystery hiding behind this world itself. Something was off when I realized that everyone is trying to kill me. There is the mystery of the book, which I suspect the author is the previous Innight as well, and the mystery of the Void in the globe. The book is perhaps the only form communication that the previous Innight have with me. He probably encrypted the message just in case others managed to get their hands on the book itself.
I took a look at my watch.
“Goodness, It’s 7 pm! They should be calling me for dinner now. I need to be in my room, I cannot let them see me appearing from this laboratory. If what the previous Innight said is true, then even my 3 wives and Master Inoxion cannot be trusted as well. That makes it all the more of not letting them to know about myself not as the Innight they know, or the book, or this laboratory, or anything that the previous Innight is hiding in general.
I went up the stairs again and found button at the end of the passageway. I pressed it and the bookshelf swings open again. I walked out of it and the bookshelf swung back. I felt around the bed to see if the button is present, and found that it actually camouflaged itself very well among the bed, that was why I did not see it initially. I laid down on my bed, thinking what the previous Innight wrote.
So I have another wife which is hidden somewhere, which is my favourite Vocaloid. That would be Hatsune Miku. But where should I start to look?
“Well, I can think about that later. Better go for dinner first.”
I left the bed and went downstairs.
“He has made good progress. Do you think he will need a hint to find out where I have hidden you in the other Timeline?”
“I think you will need to, Innight. He will have to decipher your code on the book to be able to find that out. Can’t you give him the key?”
“That is too risky. If They found the key They will take action even sooner, and they will not give enough time to prepare for that flag to occur. I need to monitor him and if he is close, I will give him a clue that only he can read. Someone is listening to us again, Miku, please break their contact so they wouldn’t be spoiled.”
“Understood.”
A cube flew in the direction of out viewpoint and cut out the contact again. Before that happens the Innight can be heard saying these words:
“Time… What is it exactly? What is your connection with Them…?”
The screen is blurred out.