-Radiant-
I arrived back in my room after my meeting with Radix, feeling extremely pleased with myself. It wasn’t often that I had such a perfect opportunity to mislead and deceive my captors. Over the years I had carefully cultivated the view that others had of me, and diverted their attention away from the truth. Now, after my meeting with Radix, everything was in place for my plans to succeed, but it would still be about a week until I could get my hands on the Tier 0 Talent orb.
If it weren’t for the orb I could’ve escaped from here already, or even gone home with my parents, but I didn’t regret my decisions. Looking back on my time here in prison, I decided that it actually wasn’t that bad. I mean if I successfully escaped from here, then I would’ve just spent 17 years training really. Compared to some people, I actually had it pretty good.
Not that there hadn’t been miscalculations and undesirable developments, but with my careful planning and many backup plans, I had managed to avoid any catastrophic failures.
Now that it was drawing so close to action time, I was starting to get a bit nervous. If I failed then there would be no second chances, it was all or nothing and I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes or have any distractions. So today I needed to head to The Archives and let Genesis know that I wouldn’t be able to meet her for quite a while, and also get her to deliver a message to Mystdell for me.
Like I had done thousands of times before, I layed down on my bed and sunk my consciousness into The Archives. When I arrived, as always, I put on an outfit that fit my mood. This time I wore a leather trench coat that had a hood that hid my face. This time I wasn’t going to be wearing the usual eye coverings to hide my identity. Today I planned on showing Genesis my face, but I still needed to somewhat conceal my face just in case, I didn’t want her to be implicated with me after my escape from prison.
With my outfit chosen, I stepped through the doors and entered into the grand hall of The Archives. This time I didn’t look up at the ceiling like I usually did, I had a goal this time, and the less time I spent in here without a face covering the better.
Looking around me I quickly located Genesis where I had previously told her to meet me today. I quickly walked towards her, not wanting to waste any of her probably limited time.
“Genesis. Nice to see you.” I stopped a couple meters away from her.
She looked towards my face which was covered in shadows, “It’s good to see you as well, Radiant. So why’d you set up such a formal meeting, is it some special occasion? And what’s with the hood?”
“The hood is actually part of the reason for meeting.” I lifted up the hood so that Genesis would be able to see my face while still partially covering it from everyone else. “Surprise!”
Genesis was stunned for almost 10 seconds before she came back to her senses, “Wow, I thought that you didn’t want to show others your face. What’s changed?”
“What’s changed is that I’ll be finishing up my isolation soon.” I smiled, “I figured that I should show you my face just in case you end up seeing me somewhere.” Like on a wanted poster. I smiled even wider.
“Are you finally getting that Tier zero Talent orb you talked about? I can’t wait for you to tell me what Unique Talent you awaken, after all I told you mine, so you should tell me yours.”
I laughed lightly, “Of course I’d tell my best friend. Especially when that best friend is rich.”
“Hey, most of that wealth is yours not mine.”
“Sure, but you’re still the one with the money. That means I have to stay on your good side if I want to ever see any of that money. It’s like a hostage situation.”
“Well I guess that’s true.” She lightly shook her head while she rolled her eyes, “But I would still give it to you even if you didn’t tell me what your Unique Talent is. After all you once told me ‘business is business, and friendship is a completely separate matter.’” She mimicked my voice.
“You still remember that? That’s crazy.” I waved my hand, “Moving on though. There’s a more important reason that I wanted to meet with you today.”
“OK, what is it?”
“I needed to inform you that I’m not going to be able to come to The Archives for a while, so you won’t be able to contact me.” I put my hands into my pockets, “Also I need you to deliver a message to my sister for me.”
“Well alright then. How long will you be gone for though?”
“I can’t say for certain, but anywhere between a month and a year depending on the circumstances.”
“A year? Why so long?”
“Well that's just the worst case scenario. It’s much more likely to be closer to a month or two, so don’t worry about it.”
“Hmm.” She nodded her head, “So what message did you want me to deliver to your sister?”
“It’s a long message, more like a letter really. If you allow me, I can send everything directly to your mind, that way you won’t forget anything.”
“Alright.” She started to go through the permission process.
“Great.” I interrupted her, “But before that, there was one more thing I wanted to talk to you about.” I took a breath before continuing, “In the near future, if you hear any news about me, try not to take anything at face value.”
She raised one eyebrow, “What are you going to do that’s going to get you in the news? The kind of news that I would have to not take at face value at that.”
“You’ll know if you hear about it.” I avoided answering her, “There is a good chance that you won’t even hear anything. I’m just saying this in case you actually do hear something. Don’t worry too much about it.”
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“OK I guess?” She squinted with one eyebrow still raised, “I’ll try to keep that in mind. Any other weird things you wanted to talk about?”
“No, that’s all. You can give me permission and I’ll give you the letter for my sister. Then you can get back to whatever else you had planned for today.”
She nodded and proceeded to give me permission. With that, I sent her the letter I had written to my sister, directly to her mind.
Dear, Mystdell.
It’s me Radiant! I know that it’s been a long time since we’ve last talked to each other, and I know that’s not your fault with you exploring different places, but I decided that I should let you know about some things before events that will happen in the near future.
First off, try not to be too worried about any news you might hear about me. I’ll be completely fine since I’ve been preparing for this since I was a kid. I know that won’t prevent you from worrying about me, but there’s not much I can do about that.
Second, if anybody comes to you asking about me, just tell them the truth. There’s no need for you to protect me, and nothing you could tell them will make a difference to my plans anyways.
Third, I’ll try and get in touch with you in person, as soon as I can, after things settle down. It might take a while though, so don’t worry if you don’t get any word from me.
Lastly, make sure to dispose of this letter in a way that leaves no traces behind. Don’t make any copies or anything either.(I’m saying this because I know you might actually do this, so just don’t. I mean it.)
I love you and wish you well. Thanks for always believing in me.
From your favorite brother, Radiant.
Giving the letter to Genesis, we said our goodbyes and I exited The Archives.
Now that everything was taken care of on that end, I could now prepare myself for what could happen anytime in the next week. In the past I had received the Talent orb a week from now, however I couldn’t be sure that the timeline would play out exactly the same as it had in the past. I knew that it would be within a week though. Because Talent awakening orbs only last for a month before dissolving, and have a timer on them that displays how long they have until their time is up.
The timer on the orb I had received in the past had 23 days remaining on its timer. So I had to be ready for the orb to come to me anytime within the next week. Although the orb probably had to go through the OK’s of many different people before it reached me, so it was unlikely that it would arrive in these first few days, but you never know.
So for the next week I wouldn’t step a foot out of my room. I was no stranger to waiting, so staying here for a week wouldn’t be that hard. I steeled myself and got ready for the wait.
-Break-
Five days later my opportunity finally presented itself. I was meditating in the middle of my room while steadily producing mana crystals with my excess mana regen. While I was doing this I heard my door open and a group of people stepped into my room one by one. I knew some of the faces I saw, including Radix’s, but they weren’t that important compared to what they were delivering. They just stood there silently waiting for Radix to connect to my mind.
When Radix finally nodded his head, a woman with black hair as dark as void stepped forward and opened her hand palm up. Above her hand I felt a rip in space open up and an orb appeared in her hand like it had always been there.
The woman motioned to Radix with her hand. Seeing this, Radix cleared his throat and said, “Radiant Shadow. By higher order it has been decided that you will be given the privilege of receiving this Tier zero Talent awakening orb.”
The woman with the orb handed it over to one of the guards which then proceeded to make their way over to me.
Everything was proceeding exactly the same as it did in the past. Before, I had just accepted the orb without thinking about it, but this time I looked at the orb, without taking it, and then looked towards Radix, “Is there some sort of hidden catch to this? I’m not going to be in massive debt or anything right?”
“You ungrateful little brat. You have no idea how many-” The woman with the void hair started to speak with some heat in her voice before Radix cut her off.
“Stop, stop. There’s no need to get all riled up, he doesn’t know any better.” He looked at me, “There’s no hidden catch Radiant. You were just the one deemed to be the best to give the orb to. It’s completely safe to use and nothing will happen to you.”
“Alright. It’s not like I have much of a choice anyways.” I grabbed the orb out of the guards hands, “So how do I use this? I don’t think I’ll be able to eat this, it doesn’t look all that appetizing anyways.” At this point I was just messing with them, I already knew how to use the orb.
The woman clenched her fists tightly, “This isn’t some foodstuff, it’s a priceless treasure.”
Radix sighed, whether at me or the woman I couldn’t tell, “Run your mana through the orb Radiant. After you do that a screen that asks you if you want to use the orb will pop up. Just click accept and it’ll be used automatically.”
“Alright. Here goes nothing.” I went through the steps just as described, and clicked accept on the System screen that popped up.
The orb turned into motes of light and melted into my hand before traveling up my arm and into my core where it would try to awaken my Unique Talent. Unfortunately my (Trait: Ornate Chains of Talent) prevented my talent from actually awakening until after I went through my first Tribulation, so my Unique Talent wouldn’t actually be awakening until later.
The people in the room didn’t know that though, so I pretended to black out and used my (Skill: Selective Transformation), which I had evolved from (Transformation Resistance), to make my body artificially look like it was going through an awakening.
“Ooh a physical transformation type talent? Those are rare, but it will take a longer time to fully awaken.” One of the men I couldn’t see spoke up.
“Hmm, should we move him to a different place?” Radix asked.
“No, there’s no need for that.” The first person who spoke said, “If he’s able to escape from this room after his Unique Talent awakens then there’s no other place in this prison that will be any different. Even if he does manage to escape, we can always track him down no problem.”
“I see. How long will it take him to awaken?” Radix said.
“Anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours. It’s normally six to twelve, but physical transformation talents take more time to awaken.”
“Well then let’s leave him here for now. There are other things to attend to in the meantime.”
“No complaints here. Everything is being monitored and recorded anyways, so there’s no need to be here in person.”
I heard the sound of shuffling feet and then the sound of the door of my room closing.
I just sat there in the same position for what felt like forever, silently waiting. After a while I fired off one of my divination spell crystals to check if anybody was actively monitoring me. After a moment the answer came back to me that nobody was watching me, and had stopped watching me a while ago.
I had expected to have to wait at least a few hours before I would stop being monitored, but apparently I wasn’t worth keeping an eye on. They were probably too arrogant and confident in the security here. Well that was fine by me as it meant that I could enact my escape sooner and get even more of a head start.
I wasted no more time, I stopped pretending and reached into my Internal World pulling out a very poorly made ‘clone’ of myself. In truth it was more like a mannequin that I made out of my own dead cells that I had gathered over the years. It definitely wouldn’t fool any eyes, but that was where magic came in.
I cut my finger so blood was coming out, then I used the blood to draw a magic circle on the chest of my substitute. Then I drew another one on the back. After the magic circles were completed, I took out two special mana crystals that I had prepared and embedded them into the center of the two magic circles. The two magic circles started to glow from the center outwards until it reached the edge. Both of the circles maintained their soft glow meaning that they were fully functional.
Seeing that the two magic circles were fully functional, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was now time for me to begin my escape. From here on out it would be unknown and hostile territory.