David Alvarez floated in the air over a fallen skyscraper. Coming home for the first time since the Fall had been painful. Sitting with his legs crossed as he hovered over what remained of the city of Chicago, he was reminded that for all of the achievements and rewards the Trialbringer offered him, none of them could turn back the flow of the river of time.
He had gained power beyond his imagination in the past centuries. Just living for centuries was incredible, compared to his expectations before the Arrival. He had grown into the type of being that stories would be written about, in his old world. In his new one, too.
Compared to what he had failed to protect, his power felt so very hollow. The city was a reminder of this, and that was important.
David needed the grounding, these days. It was too easy for his mind to wander and his mana to push him a step too far if he let it. Sitting here, in the skyline of a city he had failed, he was able to hold back the inspiration that sought to push him where he was not yet ready to go. The broken city reminded him that he still had a city to protect, nearly ninety million people who would need him in the years to come. He couldn’t take the risk, no matter how tempting it was.
A presence entered David’s Domain from the North, a monstrous raven. This monster had decided to brave the foray into his power, unable to feel the certainty of its death as David had relaxed the menacing feeling of his Domain. It was likely a scout sent by the monsters building their forces beyond the edges of his power, preparing for a frontal assault with thousands of monsters.
They would fall, almost as easily as this raven. It plummeted from the sky with a squawk as David’s Domain stripped the mana from its body. Without that mana, the rudimentary Enhancements it had been given by the Trialbringer were left unpowered. The ability to support its weight left with those Enhancements. It hit the ground at a ridiculous speed after free-falling from nearly a quarter of a mile in the sky. The mana David took was brought to him and added to the sphere surrounding him without any problems.
The mana around him was already agitated nearly to the point of a storm, so any disruption caused by the meager reserves of a weak Attuned beast wouldn’t be noticeable for most. For David, whose focus was almost entirely on the sphere as he attempted to control it, he could tell that the mana had simply been drowned out without issue.
The sphere of mana didn’t want to accept his authority. Instead of turning docile, it would routinely flare up, attempting to unify with an environment that couldn’t hold Tier 4 mana. Just improving the atmospheric mana to this extent was already nearing the limits of his capabilities, and it was all he could manage to prevent a storm that would consume the ruins of his city.
Plato looked over at him from his perch, “Adding the mana of monsters like that won’t make a difference,” The golden retriever noted. The dog was lying down on a couch with his glasses on, reading a book that floated in front of him.
“I’m aware,” David’s voice wouldn’t be heard over the ferocious storm that surrounded him, so he spoke with his Domain instead. The mana in the air outside his sphere vibrated at his command, and sound was produced next to his friend, “it’s just a way to dispose of the excess.”
“Your control is impressive,” The golden retriever sighed, “But you still have a way to go before you reach the next step. I think I might head to New Chicago soon.”
“Oh?” David asked, feeling slightly hurt by the declaration. He and Plato had been together since the Arrival, and the dog had never expressed an interest in leaving him before.
“I can easily return if you ever get lonely or close in on the breakthrough,” the dog chuckled, “I have appreciated your company and your help all these years, but I feel that I will make more progress myself if I work with students and study in the Dean's library.”
“Technically, it’s my library.” David said, “I’m the Academy’s President.”
“Yes, and I’m sure that you have a reason to maintain that title other than finding it funny that the Dean of Studies is named Dean.” Plato scoffed, he stood up and shook himself. The glasses stayed attached to his head during the violent shaking. The book turned a page, showing that the dog hadn’t stopped reading just because he felt like moving.
David grinned at his friend’s antics, “You’re right, working with the students at the academy would be good for you. Good for them as well. I will hold the line here until I have improved my control enough.”
David’s current problem was the same as it had been for years. While on his fifty-year journey across the continent, he’d managed to improve his mana type. Pushing Inspire to Legendary was an incredible feat that had given him a Legendary achievement to match the mana type.
The problem was that the mana was too powerful, and he hadn’t yet managed to get a full handle on it. Plato had been forced to spend some of his accumulated Scholar Points, which David still considered a stupid name centuries later, to create an Enhancement capable of resisting the effect David now had on his surroundings.
He was just too Inspiring, and that wasn’t always a good thing.
In small doses, it worked wonderfully. Alice Stirling had formed her final aperture and joined him at the peak of Tier 3 after only an hour of pondering her Mana Body in his presence. The other Imprinted had received similar gains in the past month, and they now frequently came out to keep him company and enjoy the benefits, alongside several of the Attuned.
The problem came in larger doses, as increasingly grandiose ideas and convoluted plans would start to arise. David knew about this problem because it was happening to him, he was constantly struggling to resist the influence of the power he’d seized.
Would he really try to push his mana control even further, without his mana type egging him on? He may never know. All he could do was work to improve himself until he caught up with the mana attuning his soul and regained full control over his power. Ascension… he was close.
Instead of setting out, Plato laid back down, “Might as well finish this book first. It’s pretty late, so I’ll consider heading out in the morning.” The dog said.
“Sounds good, buddy,” David replied, turning his attention back to the sphere of mana that surrounded him.
An hour or so passed in silence, as David failed to make any real improvements. Suddenly another presence entered his Domain, and his eyes opened in surprise, “Alice?” She wasn’t meant to be here for a few days. What could’ve brought her here early?
Plato stood up as the sphere around David slowly fell apart, the mana seeped back into the surroundings without him forcing it into a greater form. Even this required careful control, if it was all unleashed at once the result would be seen from the walls of New Chicago. David slowly descended to the ground, where he stood next to his companion.
Alice wasn’t flying, the fine control required to use your Domain to control the air around you remained beyond her even after all this time. It was a level of control well beyond the beginnings of the Ascender standard, so it was hardly a surprise she still struggled.
Instead, she created panes of force under her feet, jumping off of them even as they pushed against her. The combination gave her speed well beyond what her Attributes alone could accomplish.
“Welcome,” David spoke through his domain as the woman approached.
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“You know I hate when you speak from behind my ear!” The woman shouted back.
“My apologies,” David didn’t bother to hide the grin that crept up on his face, “What brings you here?”
“One of my son’s friends had an idea, I want to run it by Plato.”
“Oh?” Plato replied, “What is it?”
“Well let me get to you first,” The woman griped, jumping the last several hundred feet in one leap.
She alighted on the ground before them in a superhero landing, grinning up at David from her position. “How have you two been?”
“We spoke only a few days ago. Nothing has changed.” David replied, projecting his voice to behind her other ear this time.
“The horde continues to grow?”
“It is not a cause for any concern, the leaders will be handled.”
“It’s good to have you back,” Alice pulled David into a hug as she spoke. She released him after a second and took a step back. Her face grew serious, “One of the students got access to your Day 1 video, and he realized something we all missed.”
“Go on.” Plato prompted, his voice tinged with doubt.
“I think he found one of the loopholes.” Alice continued, “A big one.” David took in a breath at the news.
They had first learned of the loopholes from Plato. And they had managed to find a few unimportant ones over the years. They were helpful, but ultimately nothing too massive. He gestured for Alice to continue.
Alice turned to Plato at this, “The Trialbringer gave David the full achievement for clearing the trial where he found you, overruling the consideration of the weak monsters. While that’s understandable with the normal rules, it doesn’t make sense for him to have received the full achievement with the boss completely gone. Your mother unwittingly assisted him by replacing the boss with you. That should be considered outside assistance.”
“Yes,” David muttered, “Why didn’t I ever think of that?”
“It was already odd that the Trialbringer granted the achievement when the trial was so easy,” Plato replied, “We never had a reason to look any deeper.”
“Still,” David sighed, “Something is wrong with that. Continue, Alice.”
“The kid thinks that outside assistance doesn’t interfere with the achievement upgrade for accomplishing something before Tier 0.” Alice stated, “Dylan and I agree that it makes sense.”
Plato’s eyes widened slightly as the statement was finished, “Wow, that one was worth a lot of Scholar Points!”
“So it’s confirmed?” Alice asked.
“Yes,” Plato replied, his eyes glazing over slightly as he read the confirmation from his mother, “Outside assistance improving the power of a soon-to-be Aspirant does not count against their achievements. That’s an incredible discovery.”
“It’s no wonder all of the other loopholes the Trialbringer gave us were so minor.” David slapped his thigh in frustration, “It gave us the one massive boost and then filled in the gaps with a few increased trial rewards.”
Loopholes were a lifeline given by the Trialbringer to new worlds when they arrived. They gave the people of the new planet opportunities to achieve greater heights and reach further than they would under the normal rules. A finger on the scales to improve their chances of survival. On most worlds, this was effective. On Earth, they had failed to find the chances they needed. Plato had known that they would exist, but not what they were, and one of their tasks over the last centuries had been searching.
David had accepted that the missing loophole was related to Tier 4 by this point and had assumed he would receive some great boon at some point after tiering up. This was even more major than that. Rare achievements were the last tier that could be achieved through hard work alone, going beyond that required ridiculous luck, extraordinary talent, or some combination of the two. The ability to manufacture strong achievements for the youth using their advanced powers would push New Chicago’s power forward by leaps and bounds.
“There had to have been something holding us back from figuring it out.” David muttered, “Maybe a restriction on the loophole since it’s so powerful?”
Plato’s eyes glazed over again as he spent Scholar Points to receive an answer directly from his mother. Normally, those were saved up, but this was important and the golden retriever was likely more fascinated than the rest of them.
“Yes.” Plato stated, “The specifics were too expensive, but I can confirm that the loophole had a restriction to prevent learning it easily.”
“Probably prevented us from figuring it out because we were already tiered.” Alice opined, “Something as ridiculous as manufacturing Epic achievements for the most talented students we train must have restrictions to even the scales.”
David nodded, “That seems likely. Thanks for spending the Scholar Points, Plato.”
“That’s what they’re there for,” Plato replied, although his tail wagged slightly in response to the praise. Centuries of age and magic couldn’t make a dog something other than a dog, not yet. At least he’d managed to get rid of the tail-wagging requirement for his speed boost ability. That had caused him to start running fast for no reason several times before he’d figured it out.
Naturally, the solution had been a rather easy fix that taught him an important lesson about mana control. David often wished that he could’ve been the one born to a Tier 7, it really did make things easier.
“He wants assistance with creating a Mana Body before Tier 0?” David asked, shaking thoughts of how convenient a high-tiered parent would be from his head.
Alice detailed the kid’s plan. Adding how her Domain, and Dylan’s, made the idea significantly more feasible. David understood all of this already, but he let her talk through it anyway, “There are three, including my son, who can form their mana bodies in the twenty minutes I can offer them with the assistance of my domain.” She finished.
“Ah,” David replied. The last time they had attempted an untiered emplacement ritual, Alice had been one of those who lost the most. They stood in silence for a minute, while David searched for the right words.
“You are aware of the problem, I assume?” David asked, forcing through the moment.
“What problem?” Alice asked, “I’ve never studied emplacement rituals or untiered mana rejection enough to understand the specifics.” The reason for her focus never turning to something so foundational wasn’t mentioned.
“The emplacement rituals are designed for Aspirants. The reason we’re able to handle things with such precision is because they already have their first point of Connection. We’re able to temporarily give them the full effects of that first point of Connection, and they do the rest. For untiered, we can’t do things so precisely, there will be a chance of attributes soaring too high, absorbing mana too quickly, and limiting their time further.”
“What happened to Monica,” Alice realized, her face carefully blank, “She had less time than she should have.”
“We have already created a modified version, which was used for Monica,” David nodded, “The outcome was unacceptable, and I refuse to use the same idea. I will work on an alternative, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
There was a lull in conversation at this as Alice contemplated the new information, “How confident are you in the kids’ safety?”
“It depends on which of my ideas I use,” David replied, his mind moving quickly through potential problems and solutions, “A modified emplacement ritual would give me significantly more control of the mana being funneled into them. That would be useful, but it comes with problems. Chief among those problems is that I don’t have a design, I’d have to create a new one. Using an untested ritual on a teenager isn’t ideal.”
Alice nodded in agreement at this statement, and David continued, “The alternative is a standard condensation array backed by my mana type. This is less safe but has its own bonuses. I am nearly certain that I can entirely mitigate the chance of death, which makes this option attractive.”
Alice had a relieved look on her face at the news that David would handle things personally. David had not been present when Monica attempted the emplacement, instead defending the walls. His presence at the walls had proven unnecessary, and they all regretted the decision caused by overconfidence in their modified ritual design.
They had thought that Monica would only need someone to start the ritual, a level of assistance the Trialbringer did not hold against Aspirants, and she would handle the rest. When the mana was absorbed too quickly, boosting her stats but limiting her time, they offered additional assistance that proved to still be too little. They all knew that David would’ve been able to extend the time enough for her to survive if he had been present.
“So we can move forward with the plan?” Alice asked. Her trust in David was absolute, after all these years. If he said he could prevent any deaths, then no student who attempted the ritual would die.
“We’ll have to discuss things with Dean. I’ll want to do some research, and I’m sure he will too, to guarantee that we don’t make any mistakes.”
They talked a little more about specifics, David explaining things to Alice so that she and Plato could explain things to Dean. They agreed to meet again every night until they were confident in a plan. The Dean wouldn’t leave the city, so Alice would have to act as a messenger.
When Plato and Alice left a few hours later, David started to recreate the sphere of Tier 4 mana with a sigh. The next few weeks would be interesting, and potentially revolutionary, but his most important task was still improving his control.