[Greyson – 10 years]

"What kind of stuff are you interested in?" Cody asks. "You said magitech, right?"

We've confirmed with the office that Cody is supposed to be the one guiding me around the academy during the testing and he's been given permission to show me around. Dad doesn't have to come with me and while I want him to, he's staying in the office to talk with one of the staff members about something.

"Basically anything magic or magitech," Dad tells him. "Though he does like cooking as well."

Baking. I like baking. Cooking is for eating, baking is for deliciousness.

"Cool," Cody says. "Come on, Greyson. Lemme show you the magitech labs! I don't really do magitech stuff, but I know where they are."

Cody starts walking and I pop another peach star candy into my mouth before following him. As we walk he points out a few different rooms and tells me what they are. This building is apparently the main academics building and teaches more of the standard subjects like Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science. A few others, too.

For magitech, we have to go into another building, which has most of the labs. Most, not all. The labs for Chemistry and Biology are in the main academics building.

There are multiple magitech labs, and the very first one Cody takes me to has a teacher in it.

"Hi, Mr. Miller!" Cody greets him. "This is Greyson, I'm showing him around before the testing tomorrow. He really likes magitech so I thought I'd show him it first."

"Hello, Greyson," Mr. Miller greets me. I'm all out of the star candies. "Do you want to take a look at our equipment? The academy has the latest in pretty much all for magitech engineering."

As if anything they have could be more advanced than what I've built.

"You have tables already set up?" Cody asks, and I peek up to see that several of the worktables in here have magitech equipment already set up. "How come?"

"There are a lot of incoming students receiving tours today," Mr. Miller tells him. "So we have stuff set up in the different classrooms in case they want to take a look, or even make something to test our tools."

We're allowed to test the tools out? The table does have more than just tools on it, it has some basic materials used in crafting magitech.

"Oh, cool," Cody doesn't actually think that's cool. "What are those big machines on that wall?" He leans uncomfortably close. "I don't really know much about magitech and this isn't a class I take."

Everyone should know the basics of magitech. How else can they make magitech bombs and remote-controlled vehicles?

"Heavy-duty equipment," Mr. Miller tells him. "This one here is used for forging alloys. It's a magitech machine which can perform the process many times faster than a standard forge could."

He continues explaining things to Cody while I test out the tells on the table, but also the machines. These really are the best that's on the market… and some of them are even the best that's not on the market, but which isn't mine. I want to take apart the metal-smith machine and see how it differs from mine because it's actually even faster.

Yet just as precise.

Maybe I can ask Grandfather Adrian to get me one?

"What'd you make?" Cody asks when I finish testing out the tools and producing something. "A robot griffin?"

I shake my head, then nod, then tap the griffin's head. The six-inch-tall magitech griffin starts walking across the desk, then turns and chirps at Cody. It chirps at him a few times before opening its mouth one more time and keeping it open, this time playing the local weather forecast.

"It's… oh! It's an alarm griffin?" He asks, and I nod. "That's so cool! And you made it so fast, like, in twenty minutes! You kept blurring around, too! Super-speed!"

"Were you using a form of temporal acceleration?" Mr. Miller asks, and I nod as I pick up the griffin and examine its underside. "Adrian King told us you sometimes did that while you worked on magitech. I take it you extend the spell to the materials and tools you're working on and with?"

I nod. Doing it that way is the only way to ensure the materials and tools aren't damaged by their use. I wasn't able to do that with the bigger machines since they don't have isolated power sources, but they only took a few minutes to perform their processes so it wasn't too much of a hindrance for me.

"You can keep that if you want," Mr. Miller tells me, and I pull off my backpack and slip the griffin alarm clock inside before pulling my bag back on. "It was nice meeting you, Greyson."

I give him a nod, then leave. Cody shows me a few more of the labs here, including the photography lab. That's his favorite one and he demonstrates some of their equipment to me, including the development process to turn taken pictures into printed photos. There are printers which print them up, but also magitech development machines for higher-quality ones.

The picture he demonstrates with is one he takes of me, and I manage to look at him properly for the first time today. Same brown hair, blue eyes, and splash of freckles on his cheeks as before, and same athletic build from light fitness as he had when I met him last week. Today, he's dressed in blue shorts and a yellow sleeveless, his sneakers blue with yellow accents. His camera's hung around his neck, and he's wearing a backpack.

Why did he bring his backpack? It's not like he's gone to the park or something. We're in a school and I doubt that's a school backpack.

Cody snaps the picture and demonstrates the process and when it's done, he presents me with the photo. I put it into my backpack once he says I can, then he leads me back to the main academics building. There, he leads me to a classroom near the front.

"And this is where most of the testing will be," he tells me. "Anything which can be done on a computer, it'll be done on one of the ones in here. I don't really get how they work, but it asks you a bunch of questions and keeps changing."

"It asks enough to determine your knowledge on a subject," the teacher in here tells him. "Then moves on to the next. If it starts hitting a lot of subjects you don't know anything about it'll cycle through faster. It's an adaptive assessment test designed to quickly go through more than a decade's worth of knowledge, mostly in multiple-choice, true-false, and matching with only short written segments. I take it you're Greyson?"

I nod.

"Nice to meet you, Greyson," the teacher says. "I'm Mr. Mallory, the physics professor here. "Do you want to see how the tests work for yourself? We have some short tests set up, designed to take around ten to thirty minutes depending on which one you select. They aren't a part of the assessment you'll be going through for the next two weeks, just things we have so the ones coming in for a tour today can take a look and get a feel for them before tomorrow."

I nod.

"You can sit at any computer," he tells me.

I sit at the closest one. The desks turn out to be the computers… sort of. They have a glass square in the center of them, and that's the screen. However, the way it's designed makes it look like the screen is below and at an angle for easier viewing. The keyboard is the bottom portion of the screen, but I can tap on different spots in place of a mouse, or I can use a small square section of the screen to the right of the keyboard as a mouse.

Cody sits at the computer next to me, probably so he can take the fake test for some reason. He does something while I'm taking the fake test. It's not on academics at all but random things, like my favorite color, which circle is bigger, whether or not the sky is blue, what comes next in the sequence, and the current season. Did they put together a bunch of random questions for this?

Also, this computer is surprisingly fast. It can keep up with me moving really fast even if not at a speed achieved via temporal acceleration. My mind works a hundred times as fast as a normal person's mind due to my being a dreamsage who actively uses both those powers and temporal magics on a high level. Never before have I encountered a computer I didn't build which could keep up with my mind.

Whoa.

My grandfather has really been holding out on releasing technology to the public. I'm going to have to ask him for one of these so I can take a look at how it works and see if there's anything in it I can use to improve my own. It might even help me with the mega-computer. That thing needs high speed and while I can achieve it on my own…

There's no harm in improving it.

"That was fun!" Cody says when he finishes his. I've been done for a few minutes already, and I took all three tests it had ready while he only took the shortest one. "I didn't get to do that when I applied here. I didn't do the early tour. Kind of forgot they did them, just showed up that evening 'cause I slept here the full two weeks. Oh! By the way, Greyson, the computers have calculators on them. You can't see it now since they aren't giving you access to it but you'll be able to use one during the portions of the assessment where it's needed. But not on the math questions it doesn't want you to use a calculator for. Mental math is something else it checks."

"Can I use the calculator right here for that?" I point.

"Um… that's the air," Cody whispers to me.

"But there's a calculator there in the HUD."

"What HUD?"

Oh, right. I've calmed down a lot more and can talk again, but I got dumb and forgot that others don't have the HUD.

"The one in my mind."

"I… there's a HUD in your mind?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I think it appeared when I was five. Or maybe I made it? New features appear from time to time so I probably didn't make it. I don't remember, I was a lot dumber back then. It's a calculator, but it's in my mind. So does that mean I can use it, or should I avoid using it?"

"Um…" he looks at the teacher.

"You can use it," Mr. Mallory says. "It counts as being in your mind."

"Having a HUD in your mind is so weird," Cody tells him. "You're just gonna accept it?"

"I've taught thousands of gifted children," Mr. Mallory says. "That is far from being the strangest thing I've heard come out of a kid's mouth."

"Okay," Cody says. "So like, what's in the HUD? There's just a calculator floating there at all times?"

"No," I answer. "I have to open it. Before then, it's just an icon. And they're all transparent so they don't interfere with my vision. I also have an icon for when I have messages, a gauge for how much mana I currently have – in my own scale, not the standard one – indicators for the mana levels of those within my view… well, when I turn that one on. It's off right now. The current temperature outside, weather, visibility, pollen count, wind speed and direction, wind chill or heat index factor are all included in another icon, which I can expand at any time to actually get the details. Well, the temperature is always visible, right below the time, and it shows the temperature for where I'm at. There's also a small window right here for my current body temperature, blood oxygen level, iron level, pulse, and a few other things… hm… here."

I weave together a spell and create an illusory imitation of what I'm seeing for the HUD.

"That's so cool!" Cody exclaims. "That's light magic, right? I love light magic! Whoa! You really do have a HUD like in games! Aw, touching things doesn't do anything!"

He was trying to open the calculator, so I access the one in the actual HUD. My illusion is designed to update as the HUD does, because why only give a snapshot of it? That seems half-assed.

Cody giggles as he realizes what I'm doing and starts tapping stuff on the calculator while Mr. Mallory watches closely. Dad, Cody's parents, and another staff member show up while Cody's playing with the HUD illusion, so I ignore them in favor of opening up the weather app in my HUD because that's what Cody wanted to look at.

"This only displays what's around you, right?" He asks. "Not what's outside?"

"Yeah."

"That's lame," he says. "How come it doesn't talk about what's outside?"

"I'm not sure," I shrug.

"Okay," he pokes at the mana meter and gets a pop-up with the option to turn on viewing the mana meters for others or minimizing mine. He pokes the one for seeing others' and giggles when two appear in his vision. "Wait! That's mine and Mr. Mallory's, right? Since this is an illusion of what you're seeing, that means that's where I'm standing in your vision?"

"Not just an illusion, right?" Mr. Mallory asks. "I'm not an expert in mind magics, but I'm guessing there's that aspect as well so that you can update it more easily as you navigate it?"

"Yeah," I answer.

"What's going on?" Dad asks.

"Greyson's showing me his HUD!" Cody answers.

"His HUD?"

"Heads-up display," the unknown staff member explains. "A user interface commonly seen in a lot of things, including video games. Greyson has a HUD?"

"In his vision, yeah!" Cody nods. "He says he's had it since he was five! This is so cool! So I have 318 mana? And Mr. Mallory has 492 and… oh, well, they're not in your vision. How accurate is this?"

"Extremely," I answer. "The expanded function where it can display mana meters for others only appeared recently, but its numbers match up with what I can sense in someone when I directly attempt to."

"Yours says you have over 3,000,000, though."

"That would be correct."

Cody gives me a bewildered look.

"I am a Lumarikang who regularly uses some of the highest magic types in existence," I tell him. "With the amount of use of them I perform, I would easily have ten times this much were I a member of the main family. Sadly, I am limited to the body and blood of a branch member."

Aw… that just made me realize something. Now that Xander's not constantly burning through his mana pool but will be recovering and using and recovering and using, his mana pool is going to sky rocket. At least, as long as he keeps up using higher magics, such as the temporal acceleration and teleportation spells he's used.

I'll never catch up.

I mean, I sort of always knew that since he's a god, but still. I was hoping I could at least get close for a little bit.

"You're a Lumaria King?" Cody asks.

"Yeah," I nod. "A great-grandson of Adrian King himself. I attempted to evade his notice for years, but then when I finally went to him because a god told me to acquire things legitimately instead of illegally, it turns out that he'd already been monitoring me to make sure I didn't cross any lines too severe. Is it time for the rest of the tour of the academy?"

"Oh!" Cody nods. "Yeah! I got distracted 'cause you mentioned the HUD! Come on! So they do the testing in here in the mornings. After that is lunch."

He shows me to the cafeteria and explains that lunch during the testing is from 11:30 AM to 12:20 PM. Starting at 12:30 PM is the final batch of testing for the day, which takes place in different rooms depending on the day. He doesn't know them off of the top of his head, but he was given a paper when we were sent off to explore the academy that listed them all, and the staff member with our parents helps a little as well.

Mostly; he lets Cody lead.

The afternoon testing is largely the same for everyone on some days, with standard non-core subjects covered. Culinary arts, art, music, health, typing, personal finance, fitness, and magic are those ones. They're either the full afternoon of testing or only half of it with something else for the second half.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

For the other days, it's various subjects they know we're interest in or which we might be interested in. Magitech is on my list, and culinary is split into normal cooking, baking, and candy making for me so I get three tests for that rather than just one. Alchemy and enchanting are both also in my list.

Since the standard academics testing doesn't take ten total half-days even with as in-depth it goes, whatever days are left once those tests have determined I don't know anything about those subjects will be used for other subjects. That enables them to cover as wide of a variety of subjects in two weeks as possible, and is one of the reasons why they're able to determine our course for the coming school year so well.

"Want to try the cafeteria's food?" The staff member walking with us asks. "It's lunch time now, and they're serving something that's pretty typical for during the school year. Adrian King makes sure that while it's cafeteria food, we have the best chefs preparing it."

"Sure," I answer. "I could smell pizza when we were near and in it earlier!"

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[Luke – 13 years] → starts toward the end of Greyson's PoV

"Jeez," Gabe gasps for breath. "When does your stamina run out?"

"Come on!" I hop from side to side. "You can't be getting bested by someone three years your junior, Gabe!"

"Of course I can," he gives an exhausted snort. "You're several times as powerful as me, Luke, and have the stamina to match that. Give me… just a minute… to catch my breath."

Once he's ready for our next round of sparring, I dash toward him. I'm wearing just the leotard I wear under my normal outfits since it's safer for my magics. Gabe's dressed in just a pair of shorts, but they're the sort with a metallic look which results from the material and treatment which enables them to resist lightning magics.

Gabe charges his body with lightning a little and dashes toward me while I don't bolster my speed with it. I'm still able to block his attack, feeling his sparks dance across my arm as I twist into a kick that he ducks. With my strength, I'm able to kick up off the ground at the same time, allowing me to defy gravity and physics in a flip over his arm.

As I land, I spin and kick at Gabe, but he blocks the attack and pushes it away, using bursts of lightning at his elbow and shoulder to give him an added strength boost. He needs to use his magic in order to keep up with my natural speed.

We continue sparring, with me holding back while Gabe does his best to take me on. The difference in our bodies' natural states is extremely high due to just how much mana I have and the fact that my body's base has adjusted as a result of that.

The sparring match comes to an end, however, when Mom enters the training room with someone I've never met in person but only seen in pictures. Even Gabe comes to a stop when he spots the suit-wearing man with platinum-blond hair and piercing blue-green eyes who looks to be somewhere in his fifties.

Adrian King himself is here. In the mansion. I knew we had a guest who showed up after Gabe and I began sparring, I just didn't know who it was.

Is this because I know about Xander being his great-grandson now and need to die? Well, I don't know if someone told me this past week and I just forgot it, but it's pretty obvious with how much mana Xander really has…

Which is in stark contrast to his own strength, now that I think about it. Not because he's weak or anything, that's actually understandable. He might have a massive capacity, but he's basically been lower than a normal person most of his life. His mana hasn't caused his body's base to increase as a result.

No, it's that Xander's actually too strong. I realized the other day that when I said that Xander had enhanced himself when he was struggling in the pool that first time, he hadn't. Xander didn't cast a self-enhancement spell at all and yet I still needed to use a lot of strength to hold him.

Despite being so low on mana at all times, he has the strength of someone roughly as powerful as I am.

Maybe he's actually some sort of secret, twisted experiment and Xander realized I know who he is and now Adrian King has come to kill me?

It's probably a good thing they showed up after I was sparring for more than an hour as I'm not as hyper right now, being a little out of breath.

"I'm going to die, aren't I?" I ask.

"Lucas!" Mom exclaims.

"Well, I can't think of any other reason for Adrian King to personally show himself at our home."

"I'm not here to kill you," Adrian King chuckles. "The world is changing and part of it affects and includes you."

"That sounds more and more like I'm dying today."

Adrian King's gaze flicks to Gabe for a moment, then returns to me.

"I would like to speak with you in private about something," he says. "If you're willing to discuss it, of course."

As scary as that sounds, it's also an incredible opportunity. Adrian King has personally come to talk with me about something. He clearly spoke with Mom first because our guest – now known to me to be him – did that for almost an hour before they came to the training room.

At least, it's an incredible opportunity as long as he's not really going to kill me.

"Of course!" I say.

"Go get cleaned up first," Mom tells me.

"I'll be speedy quick!" I lightning-charge myself and dash to the changing room attached to the training room.

Ten minutes later, I'm showered and dressed in the shorts and a sleeveless I was wearing before now, along with my sneakers.

"Should I go put on a suit for the talk first?" I ask. "Also, how come Gabe left?"

"This is a discussion between just the two of us," Adrian King tells me. "Though I did already share some with your mother and she has given permission for me to take you elsewhere."

"Elsewhere?"

Before I even finish that word, our location has changed. We're now on a cliff overlooking a valley with a river cutting through it, the air here surprisingly cool. A mountain range stretches out behind us and a forest rests on the other side of the valley.

Something about the air and the mana here is… different. Far away from anywhere I've ever been before, that's for sure.

"Where are we?" I ask. "Er… is that allowed to be asked?"

"It is," he says. "But whether or not an answer will be given is different. It's not important to our discussion."

"Oh."

"For us to have the full discussion I wish," he says. "I ask that you refrain from sharing most of it with others. It includes details which are not and which many never be made public. In fact, it includes information only a handful of people on Earth have ever learned."

That sounds like "or you'll die".

"I can agree to that," I say. "I know I'm only thirteen, but I'm a mage and a magitech genius who works on secret stuff. I don't talk about stuff that's not supposed to be. My parents made sure I know how to not do that."

"I'm sure," he says. "I want your confirmation first."

"I won't share any of your secrets," I tell him. "Anything which I don't know for certain is allowed to be said, I won't even mention I know."

"Good," he casts his gaze out across the valley. "You know the history of how I was met, yes?"

"Yeah," I nod. "The descendants of those who crossed the Bering Strait eventually met you while dealing with monsters some thousands of years ago. It was the first time anyone ever went that far south. No one knows your origins, just that you were there, knew their language, and resembled some of the tribes but were clearly not of them. You then taught them magic, turning them into the first mages of North American and Earth itself. Aside from you, of course."

"Indeed," he says. "And I had lived there for hundreds of thousands of years, in total isolation."

"Hundreds of-" I cut off.

There's no reason for Adrian King to lie to me and his tone is serious. He's hundreds of thousands of years old?

"Even older than what you're thinking," he says. "I am quite the ancient being, and my power level is great enough that I can shape entire worlds, should I so wish. This form you see before me isn't my real self."

His body morphs into that of someone in his late teens, maybe early twenties.

"This is my real self," he tells me. "Though even this isn't quite accurate. Rather than shapeshifting like I do when I take on a more elderly form, I alter my body's very biology with magic to ensure I keep an appearance that's similar to what the people of the time look like."

That… honestly sounds insane, but this is the man who taught humanity magic.

"You're not really human, are you?"

"I am," he answers. "But not many people have ever seen this form of mine."

"Because people would have a harder time believing you as an ancient mage if you looked young?" I ask. "I promise I won't tell anyone."

The potential punishments for sharing his secrets is far too frightening.

"I'm sure you've heard of the rumors that I secretly run the world from the shadows," he suddenly says.

"Well, yeah," I say. "But those are just rumors, right?"

He gives me an amused look.

"They're… not?"

"Talent comes partly from one's body and inheritance," he looks back out across the valley. "And partly from one's soul. If their soul is not strong enough or talented enough for the body, it causes problems and the person ends up destroying themselves completely. On the opposite side, if the soul is too strong, their body adapts to it, allowing it to harness its real talent.

"When I settled in the area," he says. "The soul cycle didn't filter souls to match the relative strength of the body it was in. It could be too strong or too weak, and on extreme levels. It would even dump souls into the wrong species type. There were souls millions of times stronger than others being born into the same species."

"An immense power disparity."

"Indeed," he says. "And that leads to chaos without a proper way to manage it. I therefore created a filter for the world's soul cycle. It prevents any soul too strong from being entered into a body not meant for it, and also ensures that souls are entered into bodies of the right species type. So dragon souls aren't born into human bodies and vice versa, for example. That ensures things progress at a more steady pace. If a soul which is too strong for its species type on Earth comes here from the soul plane, it bounces off the filter and looks for another world.

"This keeps people around the same relative power level," I say. "With some exceptions based on bloodlines, right?"

"Indeed," he says. "All it takes is one powerful soul to create ripples, and the filter prevents those ripples from being too severe. This allows mankind adjust to power levels more easily while preventing sudden jumps which can cause problems.

"That filter," he looks at me again. "Should not have allowed your soul to enter Earth. Your body should have received a soul roughly as great as Gabriel's."

That's… seriously?

"My soul isn't supposed to be here?" I frown. "You waited until I exhausted myself a bit so I wouldn't freak out, didn't you?"

"That did factor into it, yes," he says. "Your soul should have gone to another world, been born elsewhere, in a place where such genius and raw magical talent wouldn't be outside the norm."

"So some souls can make it through the filter?"

"No," he answers. "Around twenty years ago, the filter broke. To be more precise, a soul of such great potential and talent crashed into it as it attempted to find a suitable host and caused cracks all along it. I thought I rooted out all of the powerful souls which made it through, but some managed to escape my notice."

"And mine was one," I say. "What about that other one? Is it Greyson?"

"No," he chuckles. "If it was Greyson's soul, he'd even even more of a bundle of talent than he currently is. That soul hit the filter and bounced off like it should have, just with enough force it broke the filter."

"So my soul managed to slip through when it shouldn't have been here," I say. "And that's… causing ripples?"

"Yours is outside the norm," he says. "And the ripples you create are large enough to impact society. That's why I monitor you – because your soul is greater than the norm for this world and shouldn't be here. The portable generator you're working on will provide power to people in disasters across the continent. The magitech you invented for it? Shouldn't have been invented for another forty or fifty years without a soul like yours getting involved"

"So I was born fifty years too early?"

"More like two hundred," he says. "And as I said, your soul wasn't the only one which slipped through the cracks. You were right in that Greyson's is one of them, and there are three more souls even more powerful than his which made it through. Two were born into the main branch of my family, and the third was born to an unrelated bloodline in the eastern Midwest. Ones not as powerful as those four but still far above the norm include the fire mage from Boston and Matt King, both born far ahead of their time."

"Xander," I realize. "He's one of them – and there was an article about him riding a hoverboard, which he confirmed to me that he made. That's why you're here. It's too early, isn't it?"

"Based on my analysis of other worlds," Adrian says. "We're still around a century and a half too early to construct a proper hoverboard without an issue in power, distance, or other mechanics. The magitech Xander invented for his? A thousand years ahead, and he's currently fixing some issues with that tech."

Xander built a piece of magietech a century and a half before its earliest properly-functional versions, but a millennium ahead of the magitech he created for it. No wonder Adrian King put such a filter on the soul cycle of Earth, if it prevents people from being that far ahead.

"Small leaps ahead are fine," he says. "They happen all the time, after all. Even bringing something a century early is fine. Souls within the standard can do that if the circumstances are right."

"But not a thousand years ahead," I say.

"Not a thousand years ahead," he says. "If it were just Xander, things would be fine. But as you know, Greyson is also a soul beyond what this world should have right now."

"With two such people," I say. "And the others on their level, and those of us above the norm but not at theirs… things are going to change a lot soon, aren't they?"

"Quite a lot," he says. "People believe me to be controlling the world from the shadows – and they're right, to a degree. I'm slowing Earth's progress to avoid such a power disparity which could destroy society. At the same time, however, I've been helping it to thrive with what it has. Nudging things here and there, making sure the right technology is out when others are released, and so on."

"Your academy for gifted children," I say. "That's one of them, isn't it? Everyone there learns at least the basics of magic, but it's also there to help them thrive in the areas they're gifted in."

There was an offer made for me to attend since I'm pretty gifted with lightning magics and magitech, but I declined. My parents can offer me the resources I need to flourish.

"That's one of them, yes," he says. "The free internet for all of North America is another, and some other things. Things which might seem minor but add up to bigger things. I released the basics for the designs behind magitech cars to make traveling easier when I noticed certain types of expansions were happening.

"In the era that's coming," he says. "Another magitech item is necessary. With what those two, you, and several others are inventing or which I expect to be invented, it's time for scientech to fade to the background and switch into magitech."

"That's not that easy to do," I say. "Magic crystals and mana crystals are a little on the expensive side since mining them can be difficult and it takes skill for a mage to make them on their own."

Ordinary materials can be turned into magic ones with the use of mana crystals and is one of the ways ordinary iron becomes steel usable in magitech. The only way for us to move scientech into the background and let magitech take over is to either increase our supply of other materials or increase our supply of magical crystals. Pure mana crystals will be especially important since they're the origin of the main fuel for magitech as well.

Most mages won't want to craft the crystals themselves too often since it requires them using up a lot of mana at once and there's a lot of waste.

"Indeed," he holds a hand out to me and a device appears in it. "Or they can channel their mana into the handle of this and a magic crystal will form. All you need to know is how to manipulate your mana and you can use it. Not only that, but it's far more efficient than nearly anyone can manage with crafting. The loss rate is only ten percent."

The device he's handing me doesn't look all that special, just a rod-like handle which fits into my hand pretty well and a box-like top to it with a sort of screen on it.

"So lesser mages can use it easily," I say. "They can earn some cash while increase the mana crystal supply."

"Not just lesser mages," he says. "My academy teaches everyone magic even if they don't already know it as a condition of studying there. The purpose of that was to try and spread the use of magic more throughout the continent and while it works, it's slow. The technique for sensing and manipulating one's mana which is taught there isn't spread very wide outside, either, but with it, it generally only takes a few months at the most."

"Wait," I say. "That means even ordinary people could learn to use one of these within a few months."

"And I'll be setting up stations in various places across the US and Canada to grant access to these," he says. "Places which will teach you how to sense and manipulate your mana for free. Depending on how things go, the base for Earth will increase within a generation."

Therefore allowing stronger souls to show up. Just using one's mana like that won't really affect their pool, but if ordinary people learn to manipulate their mana to earn extra cash with these, then they might learn magic as well. Casting spells will then help them boost their reserves and talents, which can get passed down to their children once they have some.

"And if someone's bloodline is tuned to an element," Adrian King says. "That device will create magic crystals of the related element. So for you, it would be lightning mana crystals rather than plain ones."

"Really?" I ask.

"Really," he says. "Would you like to give it a try? Just turn it on, set it to accept mana, then channel some in. It's designed to create a crystal up to 5,000 mana, but you pick how much goes in."

"Okay," I say.

He shows me how to turn it on and adjust the settings, then I channel some mana into it. The display panel on the box shows how much mana is being stored in a crystal and when I stop pushing mana in, the amount on the screen keeps increasing.

"It's not converting it immediately," I realize as it reaches 1,003 mana for the crystal, just barely over the amount I tried to bring it to. "But at a steady pace while keeping the rest of the mana put in on hold."

"Indeed," Adrian King smiles a little. "And when it says it's completed, you can open up the top and pull out the crystal."

I do that and find myself holding a lightning mana crystal, small sparks running through the 3" sphere. This is insane.

He's just been sitting on this technology, and all because he didn't want Earth to advance too quickly in case it destroyed itself in the process. I'm sure he'll continue to ensure things don't accelerate too fast, but still. This is absolutely insane.

"You can keep the device, by the way," he says. "I know you use a crystal sphere to move your mana into when you want to lower the amount."

"Yeah," I say. "This is way more efficient. We don't need to put a crystal inside?"

"Indeed not," he answers. "Just move your mana within and you're good."

"Alright," I say. "Um… Mr. King? I take it that you wanted to give me context about what's going to happen and that's the secret, and this coming out soon isn't?"

"Correct."

"How come you're telling me all this?" I ask. "Is it okay to ask that? I just feel weird knowing the truth."

This is some pretty major stuff and while I am one of the genius/over-talented souls he wanted to keep from being born on Earth for awhile… I'm still only thirteen.

"You're one of the ones making the changes," he says. "And live in an area with others doing the same. You're also actively working towards it."

There's more to it than that, but he's not going to tell me.

"Okay," I say. "Um… is it okay to ask you about something? Or is that not allowed? I've never been taught the proper protocol for when the literal First Mage of Earth approaches me…"

"Is it about your mana?" He asks.

"How did you-" I shake my head. "Of course you know."

"Your parents mentioned it while we were talking," he says. "When I showed them the device and they used it, it reminded them of what you told them Xander had mentioned. That your mana isn't just tuned to lightning magics, that it has sparks in it."

"Y-yeah," I nod. "I can't tell what he's talking about when I try to sense my own mana, though. But he said it always gets more active when I have more mana, and having more mana just starts making my hyper and talkative and since I'm pretty full on mana right now and have had time to properly catch my breath it's starting to happen again and-"

"And it wasn't coming out because you were too focused on what I was saying to have an opportunity to talk," he chuckles. "But I did notice the signs of you getting hyper again. Your hair's been sparking for about five minutes now."

"What?" I reach up and feel my hair and the sparks dancing through it. "Argh! Not when I'm in front of you! I'm sorry!"

"It's fine," he tells me. "I've raised many children in my time, I'm not as strict or stern about appearances as you might think from my position. In regards to your question… I'll give you a clue and let you figure out the rest."

Even a clue will be massively helpful.

"Okay," I say.

"The law of magical amplification is affected by it as well."

The next thing I know, I'm back in the training room at home with the crystal-making device in one hand, my new lightning mana crystal in the other, and Adrian King is nowhere to be seen. In fact, no one else is in here.

"Wh-hey! Don't leave it at just that!" I exclaim. "How is that even slightly helpful? That makes no sense!"

The law of magical amplification is already at play because of my bloodline's talent with lightning magics. He just gave me no help at all!

But it's Adrian King… if he mentioned that as a clue, then there's got to be something else involved which affects it. What do I know of that can cause the law of magical amplification to activate? No, not activate, to be affected.

Hm… I sit down as I start thinking over the different magical laws and theories I know of which are confirmed to affect or work with that. I set the tool and crystal to the side and conjure some lightning in front of me to give me something to do as I think, as this might take some time and I can't only sit here thinking.

Time to start with the things which are known to be affected by the law of magical amplification the most and work down to the ones affected by it the least.