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arc-Nebula, Chapter - 1

arc-Nebula, Chapter - 1

Beep, Beep, Beep!

I was startled awake by my alarm clock and after an intense stare down, I swiftly knocked it off the dresser for daring to disturb my sleep. I then, of course, had to unplug the offending device to keep it from continuing its offensive beeping. After the whole fiasco of my happiness being so violently torn from me, I was trying to figure out why exactly I was awake before the sun could greet me and my glorious presence. It was at that moment when I realized that today was the day he started the experimental treatment. I was born small, and have had numerous health problems since birth, Because the universe knows it can’t handle my supreme presence without needing to nerf me.

I slowly get out of bed, moving slowly and carefully (A habit I’ve gained after dislocating my hands twice pushing a blanket off of me). I grab my cane and gingerly get out of bed and start to get dressed. You may be wondering why I must be so careful with every movement, and the answer is simple: I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. what’s that? It can be loosely summed up as the connective tissue on my joints are super weak, so my bones tend to dislocate easily. Now to get back on track I after some (only mild I promise) struggle I get dressed and head to the kitchen.

There I met my mom who was busy making herself coffee, and she smiled as she saw me. “Morning champ, ready for your appointment today,” she asked in a rehearsed fashion as we’ve had this morning routine down for years for the different procedures I’ve been to throughout the years.

“Ughhh, it’s too early,” I say, fulfilling my end of our morning banter, to which she just chuckles. Normally she’d make blueberry muffins, my favorite, for these days, but alas the sweet ambrosia in breaded form is denied to me due to needing to fast for the treatment.

After half an hour of cozy silence, as my mom drinks her coffee, and I groggily go from a zombie to someone who at least has partial cognizance, we go to the car and head to the appointment. There I meet with my doctor, and am led to a room where I change into a nightgown, and am told to lie on a hospital bed. After I get comfy, a nurse comes and administers an I.V. drip into my arm, as the doctor goes over everything one last time with my mom.

“Ready?” The doctor asks me as==before I’m put under anesthesia for the treatment, to which I only nod, as they change out my I.V. bag.

A few hours later, I woke up groggily, and still in the haze of anesthesia, to my mom’s smiling face. A laugh a little at her, because for some reason it’s hilarious. She chuckles slightly too, before saying “come on, let's get you home and to bed so you can sleep off the effects.” I only laugh as she leads me to the door and lets the wide world embrace my presence once again.

As we are driving home, I am startled out of my half lucid state by a blaring horn, a loud sound, and a sudden silence, as I fade away into unconsciousness.

I wake up in a strange state as my hand gives off a pure white light, in a seemingly void like space. “Whoa, am I lucid dreaming? This is so cool! I want my room to appear then!” I say slightly excited at the prospect of doing whatever I want, even if I’m dreaming. I try to imagine what my room looks like. I kept picturing it, but nothing happened, so I tried to take a different approach. If I am dreaming then why should I have to think of my room to make it appear? Shouldn’t I just make it appear if I want it? I thought, before picturing the carpet between my toes, the light filtering from the window, the feel of my blankets wrapped around me, and told myself that I was already in my room, and when I opened his eyes, I was in my room, and looked like a human, not the glowing outline I looked like before..

A disembodied voice suddenly appeared, from everywhere and nowhere at once. It was as if it was echoing, but it only came to me once, causing a disorienting sensation to appear “What is this interesting domain, very peculiar” I felt the voice more than I heard it, it seemed as if the origin of the sound was from somewhere deep inside of me.

“Who are you?” I ask unto the air, looking for the source of the voice, slightly nervous at this unknown variable in my “dream.” Suddenly without warning, as if it was always here, a glowing figure appeared. The figure was radiating the idea of holiness, something that was greatly disorienting me, due to feeling a conceptual idea with my seemingly physical senses.

“I am that which I am, yet a being with a soul as weak as yours would collapse upon learning my truth.” It said as if that explained it, but surprisingly it did, I could feel on a fundamental level that there was something beyond the reach of not my mind, but my very soul. I suddenly seized as I was made aware of the very essence of my existence, achieving what many sought years to do, otherwise known as enlightenment. I gasped despite not having any air in my lungs at the shock of knowing a fundamental truth of my existence and yet not understanding any of it.

The being radiated a slight sense of surprise as it sensed the change from within me. “It would seem that you are no longer qualified to be returned to your world, you have gained awareness of your soul, which is forbidden in your home dimension, for that world runs off of the concept of science and invention. Hmmm that is partly my fault so I shall provide you a chance. A chance to enter a world, you shall choose to enter a world of mysticism, where everything runs purely off of magic, or I could send you to the origin plane, where all concepts align, yes that will do. If you are to enter the original plain, you shall receive a boon, for my Truth is restricted from mysticism, but your soul awareness will allow you to go far on the path of mysticism, which you seem attuned to.”

I felt overwhelmed by the news that I couldn’t return to my world, and then forced to make a rapid choice to decide his future, I started to panic, and unfortunately my defense mechanism honed from years of pretending I was fine reared its ugly head, blustering “Of course I want to enter the supreme plane, for only that place can hold my sheer amazingness”

The entity radiates slight amusement,sensing the inner turmoil, occurring in my soul “you may choose one boon to have on top of my blessing, and awareness of your soul”

Thomas thinks for a second and asks “can I be talented at magic? I want to be super strong”

“That is included in the other two boons, for your soul is the basis of all mana based magic, and being the presence of one such as me has strengthened it, along with my boon. Not to mention that you were able to conjure a domain easily, it shows you are naturally talented in the field of mysticism. But I will throw in an enhancement to your ability to comprehend, use, and understand magic formulae for the more defined branch of mysticism, wizardry.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Then can I have space magic or at least an affinity for space magic?” I ask, salivating at the thought of making portals and being able to teleport, One of the coolest abilities I know of.

“I can indeed enhance your affinity to space to the supreme level for your boon, Now it is time to begin your new life, you will gain awareness once your brain can handle your consciousness, I estimate that to be 3-4 years. I shall grant two beings who have a bloodline matching your soul the gift of life.” The entity declares with a wave of ikt’s hand

Alarmed by the sudden changes, I asked them, “Wait when are we doing th-,“ before I was abruptly cut off as my consciousness shut down.

Somewhere in the prime plane (I like this one the most, but I’m going to leave the others in case I slip up :P), The divine entity divined the most suitable race for the soul she decided to take care of on a whim, and to her surprise she found the boy was most suitable to be reincarnated into a ruby high human. The entity determined that the race would significantly alter the boon, and as she had given her word she determined that compensation must be granted, “No good deed goes unpunished,” she says with a slight sigh as she thinks about the compensation required.

A thought passes through her mind that she settles on. A fae with a matching elemental affinity would work, and if I gave it rudimentary knowledge of space it would suitably strengthen his affinity towards pure space, as well as be able to teach him how to train it.

With the sound of a regular fabric ripping, a tear appeared in the space between the Fae plane and the prime plane, the fae empress immediately signaled alarm, as the Fairy monarchs underneath them assembled preparing for the unknown threat capable of tearing into the reality between planes. Suddenly pressure descended upon every single fae within the realm barring them from movement, besides the monarchs and empress.

“Who goes there!” Shouted the fae empress, expertly hiding any reluctance and worry in her voice, “You have trespassed upon the domain of the fae, state your intentions or face annihilation.”

A soft feminine laugh emerged as a glowing figure of perfection appeared, not a single flaw found on her glowing body. “I have come here for a contract.” She said with mirth before lowering the pressure she released. The fae finally able to move after the pressure was released murmured amongst themselves, reacting in shock and outrage at the audacity to tell the fae empress to contract them.

“Insolence!” Exclaimed the fairy empress, falsely assuming that she meant to claim a contract with him along with the rest of the fae. A contract with a fae is highly dependent on the position of both parties, and the queen would not be able to make an equals contract under the current conditions.

“Relax, I need a fledgling fairy to bind with a mortal, I am above needing a mere contract with a lesser divinity.” She stated with an aura and arrogance denoting the pride she has for being even more powerful than most of the recognized strongest divinities.

The Fairy empress both relieved, and insulted looks at her with confusion, “If you merely wanted a fledgling, you could have summoned one easily, why ever did you feel the need to trespass upon my realm?”

The Goddess smiled, looking the empress of the fairies in the eyes, “So you happen to have a stellar affinity fledgling fairy with perfect potential right now?” All the fae in the room gasped, shocked at not only the incredibly rare advanced element, and the fact she wanted a fae with the potential to become a fae monarch, or even the next emperor.

“You know just as well as I do that such a thing is close to impossible to be born, so what do you really want?” The empress stated with resignation.

“There’s a simple answer to that,” The goddess told them, “all that needs to be done is to create one.” The empress was about to jump out of their throne from the absurdity of the entity’s request when she held up her hand, “I will provide the necessary materials, I just need your blessing to catalyze the birth of the fairy.”

Slightly relieved that the whole thing was about to end for the expenditure of a mere century of accumulation, they acquiesced to the goddess’s request. “Then so shall it be,” they said, the resignation in their voice not stopping the bit of Truth in her words to go to the entity, who then promptly vanished.

The fairy empress dismisses the fae that have yet to become monarchs, for the round of questions that was sure to begin.

“Why would you give in to her, that set you back by a century of cultivation, for what, some mortal that will die in a few decades?” The fae monarch of summer asked, confused as to his reaction.

The fairy empress looked at the monarch, before saying “And what of the fairy then, when the mortal dies they will return to our realm, and we shall have a fae, naturally of the stellar element with perfect potential. I would grant my blessing to them if I found such a fae regardless, so doing it now does not change much at all. We have greatly profited from her actions, and she knows it. It’s why she was so confident about getting my blessing to begin with.”

The summer monarch’s flame becomes a deeper red, this time not of rage but embarrassment, as the winter monarch snickers in the background. “Besides,” continued the emperor, “It should prove entertaining.” The rest of the monarchs silently agreed with the statement, knowing of the boredom that comes with immortality.

In the settlement of the ruby high humans, a newlywed couple were at the healer because the wife was feeling constantly sick. The healer, after much deliberation, finally told them the cause of the sickness, “you’re pregnant.” She stated with little to no fanfare, taking the couple completely off guard.

An interesting fact about high humans is that they have an extremely hard time having children, so they have designed an elixir, which by using the gem their subspecies was artificially fused with, they were able to vastly increase their chances of having an offspring. This has led to the common,, and false, belief that high humans need the elixir in order to have children. “That’s impossible, we haven’t gotten the ancient ruby awakening elixir of divine might (a name which has nothing to do with its effects, but hey at least it’s “cool”) so how could we possibly be having a child.”

The old woman looked at them with slight surprise at finding out it was a rare natural birth and told them, “It’s rare, but it happens, in fact those born from natural births usually have affinities with combination elements 100 times more often than ones using the elixir, so you might get lucky and have a powerful child,” she stated, used to her races strange disposition, and using it to shift the focus to a more positive route. After all, the probability of a non-pure fire element was normally 1 in 4 thousand, but this brought it up to 1 in 40.

The parents, hearing they might have a powerful child, instantly became cocky, “well of course, our child will be the best. He must naturally take after my supreme power.” The wife also puffed up her chest in pride saying,

“It’s no wonder I got pregnant, the magnificence of our child can’t be held back by a low birth rate, hmph, I can’t wait to brag, I mean inform the other parents about how my child is the most supreme child of the entire tribe, past and present, told directly from the grand healer” Now some may wonder what would happen if they were born with regular fire affinity or even no affinity at all, the answer is nothing. The ruby people will just find something else to be insufferable about, completely ignoring the fact they were wrong, for it wouldn’t be cool to linger on something you were wrong about, and coolness was the most important, of course.

The healer (a completely average, if even slightly below average healer) sighed, long used to the personality of the ruby tribe whom she has been working for for years. She shooed off the young couple, knowing how they could boast for hours about nothing if you let them talk longer than they had to. “Get goin you brats”

The couple just laughed and started to head out the door and to their manor nearby.

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