"Weeeeeee," Delta spun in her white dress, blue ribbons and blue gemstone earrings fluttering in the wind.

By twelve she had become more like a carefree teenager and less like a secluded, terrified, fractured soul that I met 11 years ago. Over the years, her original soul had fully absorbed, diluted the remnants of memories and various soul shards within her.

Mom really went all out dressing Delta for the first day of school and walked us all the way from the house to the path leading to the church, hanging several cleaning and tracking spells on my sister as a precaution.

As we walked down the path marked with hex lanterns, I flew my Infoscope across the landscape noting the network of wards beneath the ground and in every house we passed by. From my assessment of things, the current barriers holding back Astral Phantoms would last a few more generations at best.

Enormous, rune-covered obelisks sat beneath each house in Skyisle - the silent remnants of legacy of the Alanian Magocracy.

From what I observed - the runes on them were an entirely separate, symbol-like language, one which specifically harnessed and utilized the currents of the Astral Ocean. The central keystone ward right beneath our cottage was an upside-down black basalt obelisk buried deep in the ground. The obelisk existed not only in our world, but also in the Astral ocean - it harnessed the magical differential between various Astral planes converting it into mana that was used by the ward. It was kind of like a magical Stirling engine.

An elaborate rune spiral woven from gold-like metal circled the obelisk. Bits of it had decayed, broken off over the centuries, so the ward was currently much weaker than it was originally designed - the obelisk was failing to send power to the house. That’s why my parents and everyone in Skyisle had to pay coppers to the local kids to bring charged runestones from the windmills every morning. Everyone’s Astral-engines had decayed beyond use and the locals clearly lacked the skills to repair them.

Skyisle village stood on the shoulders of ancient giants of magic and thanks to the war, over the passing centuries knowledge had been forgotten and lost. From what I knew this was a normal occurrence in cycles of civilization. Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev was the first to define the sociological cycle theory based on cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economies.

Many Soviet economists who studied Kondratiev’s theory of K-waves tried to predict the timing of recessions, stock market peaks and stock market crashes. All of these analytics had failed to stop the fall of the USSR - since all of their mathematical models lacked the necessary data to predict the future.

As an appreciator of probability math, I firmly believed in the reality of Psychohistory. I really enjoyed the aforementioned fictional science in Isaac Asimov's 'Foundation' book series. Asimov’s psychohistory combined history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people. It was the epitome of statistical analysis sci-fi that realistically portrayed the K-wave cycles of civilization.

Alas, the Soviet analysts had never succeeded at making Psychohistory real. Reality was harsher than science fiction. In the 1950's Soviet mathematician Mikhail Lavrentyev tried to make a Soviet foundation, a city of science hidden in the forests of central Siberia, far away from the politics of Moscow. He called his project Akademgorodok. I doubted that the people of Akademgorodok would succeed at restoring the Soviet legacy - when things got tough in the 90’s, a lot of the scientists simply chose to flee to USA rather than to try to preserve and protect the knowledge base built by USSR.

My hope was that with my knowledge I could eventually push the local civilization out of its stagnation back to the tip of the rising K-wave in terms of economic and technological growth.

Perhaps, with my deep understanding of Omnicode I could create “Technomagica”, a scientific theory of magic that would help restore all of the obelisks buried beneath the village.

“What do you think is the best build?” Delta asked in Russian, distracting me from my ruminations of the future of Skyisle.

"If you understand fractal mathematics and are able to design spells with them - intelligence," I said. "It's how I arrived at the 6th level before even being born, by... farming intelligence, designing identification tools with the increased computational capacity and then investing more points into intelligence to make even better identification tools."

"Mmmyeh," Delta nodded. "I only got three levels out of flinging spores randomly the Astral Phantoms before I was born. But, what kind of cool perks does each build max at? Did you happen to figure that out?"

"I have some fairly decent theories," I nodded. "I've been monitoring the people of Skyisle in the fields for the past twelve years just for this reason."

"Give me the deets!" Delta demanded. "What can a Charisma Maxer do?"

“I’ve scanned the Omnicode word [Charisma] in my System menu as far down as I could go and extrapolated the term itself. It’s defined, composed of growth in: [persuasion], [leadership], [attractiveness], [charm], [devotion] and [Control]," I explained. “The foundation of [Charisma] is [Persuasion]. Charisma is basically a permanently active mind-control spell, a magical standing wave that’s affixed to its wielder, gradually building in complexity and power. So if someone invests a ton of points into Charisma they become more persuasive and can brainwash others, bend them to their will. Our local charisma maxer is the hidden Priestess of Ishira - Giovashi Incandictia Skyisle, a LV 89 mage."

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"She's scary," Delta nodded. "I don't like her."

"Thankfully, she isn't permanently in Skyisle," I nodded. "After Equality took over, Ishira priests only show up occasionally to collect Vows whenever there's a disaster-event and they can bribe the Equality Overseer to not be here."

"Charisma build is bad news if they can just order us around," Delta commented.

“Yes,” I muttered. “I've attached a general anti-charisma Ward to Battie, but the problem is that there are an infinite amount of Charisma types."

"Infinite? How come?" Delta asked.

"Well, the standing wave producing Charisma pulse is like a musical tone," I said. "So while I can definitely bounce off a single direct order or two, the insidious nature of Charisma is the slow kind of mental pressure that's very hard to block."

"Unless we had a huge battery, right?" Delta said.

"Yes," I nodded. "If I had a huge, functional battery I could do a lot more. The problem is that I don't. The Alanian Obelisks beneath Skyisle are either broken beyond use or covered in defenses. I've been looking for something usable, but there's a lot of ground to cover and the Infoscope doesn't scan very well in solid rock."

"Explain the infinite waves thing," Delta asked.

"Each standing wave is like a repeating order and there are an infinite number of possible orders. It could be an order to love the Charisma maxer or to hate everyone who is not the charisma maxer or even not to be able to observe the Charisma maxer," I said.

"So a Charisma maxer can be invisible?"

"Invisible, extra visible or even look like someone else entirely," I nodded. "There are no limits. Giovashi appeared like Goddess Ishira, a perfect being, when she elevated her Charisma thanks to the Skill sacrifices."

"Dang," Delta frowned. "Aight, tell me what you've figured out about other skills."

"[Strength] - [Physical Attack Multiplier] [Hardened skin] [Musculature improvement]," I said. "It’s another permanently active matrix. Dad’s body is constantly pouring mana into the one he has for example. It reinforces his muscles and hardens his skin. It causes permanent changes on a genetic level. Improved mitochondria, stronger musculature.” I explained. “Also, it doesn't simply make the Strength-build stronger."

"Oh?"

"The [Strength] standing wave focused inward makes your body stronger," I explained. "One focused outward makes your opponent weaker and the objects it's focused on more... malleable."

"Hah," Delta laughed. "Wait, so then dad isn't simply stronger... wood is weaker when he touches it?"

"Yes," I affirmed. "Wood is lighter and softer for him because he's a Strength build specialized in Wood. A Strength build that specializes in metal can lift more metal. Our local blacksmith can carry 2 tons of scrap metal in his arms without breaking a sweat, for example. Similarly to Charisma, the Strength build standing wave has limitless possibilities of focus specialization. Any material can be made more malleable or lightweight using the [Strength] skill."

"I don't know what's a better hack here, to make something like air more malleable or black holes," Delta mulled.

"Air is kind of hard to grasp," I laughed. "While black holes would be hard to find."

"But it's still possible, right?"

"Oh yes," I nodded. "I very much doubt that anyone specializes in making air lighter or heavier since the locals don't understand that the Strength build has no limits whatsoever except for one's imagination."

"Hrmmmm, what about Agility?"

"[Agility] - [Gravity Control] [Acrobatics] [Leap]," I extrapolated.

"Gravity control?" Delta blinked.

"Yes," I nodded. "I suspect that near-flying, or at the very least running across water should be possible with Agility Maxing."

"Damn," Delta's eyes lit up. "I like that and I do have lots of Agility."

"[Dexterity] - [Steady hands] [Assembler] [Focus]," I resumed my lecture.

"Dad has some of this one for sure, he can do some pretty precise carvings,” Delta commented.

"Yep," I nodded. "The Assembler bit is a permanently affixed spell, another type of a magical standing wave. Basically, it drifts partway into Focus. Dexterity maxers are able to build very intricate machines or carve microscopic runes into stones. The Obelisks beneath Skyisle were likely made by incredibly high level Dexterity maxers."

"The next one, is my favorite," I smiled. "[Vitality] - [Autohealing] [Cellular regeneration] [Temporal rewind]."

"What?" Delta nearly tripped over her feet.

"The base Vitality is a permanently affixed healing spell," I explained. "But... I suspect that the extrapolated, more complex, standing-wave version is capable of rewinding time. I managed to spy on Tamara healing a cut in the garden."

"Damn," my twin sister's silver-blue eyes grew wide. "That's... nuts."

"Yes," I nodded. "I've been contemplating whether outward-projected Vitality could be used on a mass scale."

"To rewind time?"

"Yes," I said. "To rewind time in damaged objects or people in a specific, static location with runes."

"How far can Vitality rewind a person or an object?" Delta asked.

"By default, not very far," I said. "The problem with Vitality-based Rewind is that it's getting it's information from the Astral Ocean and specific structural information decays there pretty quickly. Because of this, an object cannot be easily rewound more than a few seconds backwards in time."

"And here I was hoping for time travel," Delta frowned. "Boo."

"Don't boo me yet," I said. "The Infoscope and my Neurovista can scan and preserve information about an object. If I figure out how to store Intelligence within artifacts on a mass-produced scale or at the very least in a single battery, I think I would be able to create conceptual, Astral imprints of objects or even people, sort of like a camera flash that captures data for [Rewind] to use."

"How much Intelligence would that take?" Delta asked.

"A lot," I sighed. "Far more than I have now."

"Then my 'boo' stands," she jabbed me in the side. "You have grand plans but no way to execute them."

"For now," I shrugged.

We reached the island upon which the Church of Equality stood. The building was bathed in morning light, blue stained glass twinkling with reflections of distant glaciers.

"Are you nervous?" Delta asked.

"Not really," I shrugged. "I'm too old to be scared of school."

"You are nervous," she gave me a knowing look.

"The Overseer could give us trouble if I try to spy on them," I muttered. "Giovashi Incandictia nearly killed me with a clap of her hands. I don't know what the new Equality Acolyte is like. The old one left a few weeks ago and I haven't seen the new one yet."

"It'll probably be fine," Delta waved off my concerns. "I bet they already gave up on this mess of a town."

"Maybe," I muttered, looking at the massive, ominous triskelion, pyramidal banner hanging above the gate to the church representing the symbol of Goddess Equality.