Opening my eyes was hard.

Getting up from the bed was harder. I was sluggish and disoriented. The pastel walls spinning in place for several seconds while my eyes adjusted.

My muscles felt....

Good?

Huh. Yeah.

They didn't feel sore for some reason.

I even went ahead and touched them to make sure.

Also, holy cow. They were big. Like, they'd grown steadily over the past month, but now they were humongous. Even going so far as to approach the same lofty heights as Marco or the two coaches.

I moved my legs to the side of the bed and found that... yes. I was also taller. Quite a bit taller in fact.

I made my way over to a nearby mirror and took a long look at the reflection.

'It would seem that I'm also more handsome. Like, wow. Just wow.'

Now, I didn't think I was particularly vain or anything. Sure, aunt Cheryl called me handsome, but she was my aunt. She was obviously biased. I would have said that I was about average before coming here. Slightly above average once the muscles started showing.

This... this face and this body were both on a whole other level.

I looked like an eighties action star. Or maybe it would be more correct to say that I looked like I'd recently eaten an eighties action star.

My eyes went to my Analyzer. My heart beating furiously within the confines of my chest.

Name:

Cecil Fowler

Core:

[Life] (7th Stage) / Gains skills from: [Adaptation] / [Constitution] / [Healing] / [Hunger] / [Effort] / [Animal] / [Plant]

Level:

1

Vitality:

6.9

Endurance:

6.2

Potency:

4.5

Precision:

4.2

Fortitude:

6.1

Skills:

[Drain] / [Perseverance] / [Heal] / [Transform] / [Spawn]

Holy cow.

That....

That was a lot of high numbers.

How?

Coach Homer had said that the first level didn't result in extra stats, while coach Russell only said you could train up stats faster right before a level.

How could it have increased this much in so little time?

Belatedly, my eyes went over to the eight lesser cores that made up my own. Taking special note of [Constitution] and [Effort].

'Those two... both coaches have them. They make a combination. The same one Marco said increased your stat gains.'

That would explain why Potency and Precision were lagging behind too. My core didn't get skills from the [Strength] or [Dexterity] cores like the coaches' did.

And that's not all. There's also the skills. Things like [Drain] and [Transform].'

While I didn't know their exact purpose, they'd be nothing short of impressive if their names were anything to go by.

A brilliant smile crept onto my face.

'I did it! Ha! I busted my ass for a whole month! Tore every muscle in my body ten times over and hunted like a crazed maniac! All for this! Oh man. It was worth it! It was so worth it!'

Heck, even the healing skill alone looked more than valuable enough to justify all I'd gone through.

'I wonder what its limits are? I mean, I did receive healing before, but that guy couldn't have been this strong. There was just no way that...'

I stopped. Looking back to the screen on my wrist and then thinking about all the extremely suspicious things coach Russell had said. About my talent. About why my family was invited. About the core they thought I was going to get.

'They knew. They knew from the beginning.'

"Not quite." Said a faint voice.

I whirled, bringing my fists up and ready to give whomever was there a piece of my mind.

I only stopped when I realized how old and frail this visitor was.

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His head was bald and spotted, save for a few errant puffs of white hair growing out the sides. His frame was skinny and lanky. His limbs resembling dried twigs that were seconds away from snapping under the weight of a stiff breeze. Indeed, it looked as if the only thing tethering this man to the earth was the weight of his suit and shoes. Otherwise, the wind might have carried him off like a balloon.

His face was narrow and gaunt. His nose was long and straight so that it resembled a beak. His pale green eyes were so sunken-in that it gave him an almost bird-like countenance. Indeed, the man in front of me resembled nothing less than an elegant, pale crow.

The suit itself was a curiosity. Covered as it was in patterns of checkered red squares. It made him look like a runaway clown, or like some girl's favourite great-grandfather.

I stared at him for a few more seconds. Until recognition flashed in my eyes.

"You're Carlyle Robertson."

"That I am." He squawked. "Good to see you up and about Cecil. I knew you were tough, of course. But Russell has always been a rambunctious lad. He does tend to overuse his own strength every now and again."

I breathed in and out. Rhythmically moving air through my system as I considered what to say. I had so many questions for this man. So many mysteries to dispel that it was hard to pick any specific one.

I gulped. Finally settling on the one that had been bothering me the most.

"How?"

"How?" he repeated jovially. "How what? How do I keep the suit so fresh in summertime? Easy. Its of very fine quality and I tend to move veeeeery slowly so that I don't sweat as much. When I bother to move at all that is. Hehe."

"That wasn't what I was asking."

He quirked an eyebrow.

"Well? Out with it. I won't live forever you know."

I sucked in a breath to keep myself focused. Ignoring his snarky attempts at misdirection.

"How did you travel back in time?"

He sighed.

"Oh, that's what you want to ask me? Not how magic works or how to make the best of your skills? You don't care about how I built the Analyzers or how I got so filthy rich so quickly?"

"Those all seem like interesting topics. Perhaps we'll have time for them. After you tell me about time-travelling."

"Then I guess we'll never get to those discussions." He said, as if resigned to silence. "Pity. You used to make for such stimulating conversation."

I narrowed my eyes despite myself.

"You won't tell me how you did it?"

"Of course not you silly boy! Why would I divulge this secret to you of all people ? Especially after keeping my mouth shut for the past 5 decades? Do you suppose you're that special? Hmn?"

I felt a sudden blush overtaking me. Embarrassment being quickly replaced by anger.

I wanted to snap back, but regained control at the last second.

'If he doesn't want to tell me, its because he's afraid of what I could do with the information. Me or someone else. There has to be a reason he's so cagey.'

"Okay. If you won't answer how, then why?"

He made a rude noise.

"Because the world had ended you silly Billy! Honestly! Did Russell hit you upside the head one too many times? I don't recall you being this dim when last we spoke."

"We've never spoken." I said, flatly.

"Not in this timeline." He corrected.

There it was. Confirmation.

"So you did know. You knew I'd get the Life core. That's why you brought us here. Its important to you for some reason."

He laughed in my face. Bending over so much that, for a moment, I feared the motion might snap his thin frame in two.

"Of course its important to me Cecil! Its a seventh stage core! Do you have any idea how many there are on the planet? Five. Five in the whole wide world. And only one of those five existed in the original timeline. My very own. I've literally quintupled the number of overpowered bloodlines humanity can rely on. And that's not even counting all the people I've recruited and raised over the years."

He pointed a bony finger in my direction.

"Your original core was supposed to be [Chimera]. A fourth stage core that combined skills from [Adaptation], [Constitution], [Hunger] and [Animal]. Impressive, to say the least. Especially when you take the original timeline's circumstances into account."

I nodded in understanding.

"No one to train me up. No one to teach me how magic worked and how to get a good core."

I paused. Suddenly struck by a series of realizations.

"Coach Russell always said hard work made up most of a core's formation. He said that talent played a role, but a secondary one. No amount of it would suffice if I didn't keep pushing myself. He said that, struggle. Pain. Fighting monsters. Was absolutely necessary. What... what was my life like? Back then, I mean."

He shrugged.

"Particularly terrible. Even by the standards at the time."

My fists clenched.

"My uncle and aunt...."

"Trampled to death during a food riot. As far as I could tell from the investigations I conducted. I don't know what happened to your cousin, but she wasn't part of your life when you got your core."

I blinked. Several times in quick succession. Unable to process the bombshell he'd just dropped.

"Food riot? Wha... how? Did we move to Venezuela or something?"

"Oh no. The food riots have been going on for a couple of weeks now in Venezuela. They won't hit the US, Mexico and Canada for another six months."

My blinking got faster.

He only chuckled at my reaction.

"Were you not paying attention to the news before you came here? The world's in a really rough spot. Even if the governments haven't figured out the reason yet. A carton of eggs was seven dollars when you and your folks moved in. The same carton of eggs is currently going for fourteen dollars. Canadian. Less feed to go around for the animals you see. Ranchers are going out of business left right and center and poultry farmers are barely hanging on. Its a shitshow, to say the least."

My mouth opened, but no words came out.

"The soil is changing, Cecil. Slowly enough, but it is changing. Its getting a whole lot harder to grow mundane things. Even in top-of-the-line super-expensive greenhouses. The plants will adapt to the higher magic levels ... eventually. But everyone out there is going to have to tighten their belts until then. And most people are not taking too kindly to that reality."

My eyes widened.

"That was your other reason! My core! One of the first-stage cores that it can access is called [Plant] and one of my skills is called [Spawn]. You want me to feed the people of the town!"

"No you dummy! We have the dungeon for that. All the greens we farm up here on the surface are already used to magic because they've had to grow around the entrance. Taking in all the power that's constantly pouring out. As for meat, all the cattle we keep are more than sufficient. Not that we eat much of it anyway. A good deal of us prefer monster meat and dungeon-grown veggies to the regular stuff."

He placed a bony hand on my shoulder.

"Still, you're on the right track. I figured you'd be able to surpass your previous core by getting some expert training in. My own skills allowed me to make a good enough guesstimate as to what you'd be making too, so I had every incentive to support your education. That was the first reason. To add you and by extension, your magic, to our ranks."

His face grew uncharacteristically serious after that.

"The second reason, was to keep you from becoming a..." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "An inconvenience. Later down the line."

I gulped.

"I don't think I like where this is going."

"Neither do I Cecil. But you deserve to know. The old you, was a menace."

"Harsh."

"No, Cecil. I am not being harsh. In fact, I'm being rather generous by sparing you the details. Suffice to say that I am eternally thankful that you have a stable home this time around. I've been keeping an eye on you using my skills and that future will not come to be. Not as long as you have loved ones to keep you anchored to your humanity."

That was, ominous. I allowed my mind to wander. Thinking back to what I'd felt down on the sixth floor. The pain. The hunger. The blinding, overpowering rage.

Yeah. It was bad, but surely it couldn't have been that bad. Right?

Mr. Robertson must have noticed my turmoil. He sighed and ushered me over to a sitting position on the bed. Sitting right beside me.

"Don't fret too much about it kid. Those were dark days for everybody. The important thing to note is that you're doing better now. That the future I lived through won't come to pass. I need you to realize that it was possible and that you have the power to make it impossible. Its all up to you and how you decide to deal with your anger from now on. Try to make friends. More friends, I mean. Go fishing more often. It'll be fine if you have an escort. Keep your head on your shoulders and try to stay focused on productive endeavors."

He smiled warmly.

"And speaking of productive endeavors. Let's talk about the third reason I brought you and your family here."

"Okay?" I said offhandedly.

My mind swimming with all this new information. With the implications of what he'd just divulged.

"What would you say if I told you that feeding the rest of the country wasn't just possible, but downright simple? What if I told you we could give cores to tens of thousands without compromising our own security and risking interference from the world's governments?"

"I would ask why you haven't done it already."

"Why, that's because I was missing the last piece of the puzzle my dear lad." His jovial grin returned.

Dispelling the previous somber mood.

"Tell me, Cecil. How would you like to be a Dungeon Master?"