Two hours of meditating was supposed to be a way for Randidly to refocus himself on the problems of Kaan Swacc. It would also create a buffer of time so that if Randidly acted, the Xyrt Brigade wouldn’t catch anything that they shouldn’t see. But as he was sitting still and calming his mind on his island, he almost reflexively spread his Grim Intuition to cover the surrounding area. He saw the moonlight spirits, the ground below, Kharon’s hundreds of legs, the pulsing buzz of life from the moss spirits, and every individual within the surrounding several miles.

Kharon had hit the edge of the world and was now making a long loop back, clearing out a path of safety for any refugees from bubble cities that wanted a new home. Platforms covered in hastily scrawled Engravings carried individuals too weak to run. With Randidly’s sense of impending danger, Kharon moved quickly. The combination of these factors made the Wandering City look more like a swarm of locusts than any real civilization.

But that sense of urgency meant they were traveling quickly; after twelve hours, they had almost returned to the established Zones. In essence, Randidly wanted to keep his mind from drifting back to Kharon Academy so he looked out to the surrounding New Earth. With Grim Intuition, all of the ‘developed’ areas were within Randidly’s view.

But before his gaze wandered, it first went to his very own Kharon. Not the refugees being used for cheap labor, but the citizens. The city he had tried to make a place of dreams. Of course, thinking of dreams brought his mind back around to the Kharon Academy. And as he expected, when he looked to the education of children, the truth was… rather more disappointing than his fantasy for the city.

One of the stances of Kharon, and one that Randidly was fully behind, was that basically all children under the age of 16 would be offered a place on Kharon from their liberated bubble city. These orphans had accepted by the droves. Which was why, despite Tatiana being worried about the long term consequences, she had turned a blind eye to Delilah’s shenanigans.

Despite her young age, she at least stood as a central figure that gave some shape to the youth gangs that were slowly forming. If the current state of affairs was anything of a guide, her influence would only grow as she aged. Yet when Randidly had asked whether a girl that age could really lead so many other people, Tatiana had grimaced.

“Randidly… she is to those kids what you were to us. A monster that they don’t understand. Someone who looks like them but can accomplish the impossible. As long as she maintains her Skill advantage… I have no doubt that she will remain the top dog among your city’s youth.

In a way, Randidly couldn’t avoid culpability for the rise of Delilah. Without the Aether connection she had inherited from her mother, she wouldn’t be able to support her rapid growth. And Randidly didn’t mind the fact that she held such high esteem amongst kids. He also wasn’t worried about the long term consequences of that action.

But when Randidly looked at Kharon’s youth, they were lazing around. Delilah obviously had no desire to make additional work for her fellow children. For almost an hour Randidly watched as several teachers tried to control several hundred children. The younger children seemed to cooperate, but the older kids were much more worried about gossiping, reading, and goofing off than learning the skills they would need to survive.

Not that children should completely lose their childhood just because the System is here… Randidly pressed his eyes tightly shut. But this isn’t enough.

Plus, it was something of a double gut punch for Randidly to see that what little teaching the adults managed to accomplish was seemingly random. Memorization exercises and the ability to learn a trade were what was emphasized in the few classes he could see. Both had their place, but as soon as he watched the teaching occur, Randidly knew that it was not the correct method.

So he started thinking about what sort of method should be used to teach. And Randidly knew that he was veering toward an area very close to Kharon Academy, but he tried his best to approach it from a philosophical standpoint. In a world governed by the System, how should children be instructed?

It was, perhaps, a slightly different question than what was the best way to train. But Randidly believed similar principles should govern. Effort, exertion, and challenge were the critical components to produce growth.

Memorization and learning a hobby wouldn’t be enough. A trade would be an easy way to mine Skill Levels, and that was useful. But ultimately, a person’s strength would be determined by the power they could muster with their image. Skill Levels would eventually even out; even the strongest individuals would meet with diminishing returns past Skill Level 250. But the way they utilized their images would be an edge someone could always have.

So Randidly started looking about the way people used images. If he could identify common habits, he could reverse engineer a method to teach children those habits. Grim Intuition soaked into the stone, steel, and flesh of Kharon to find the images that were hiding there. And what he found surprised him.

Or at least, Randidly’s first impression surprised him. And the result he found caused Randidly to doubt himself and spread his perception further afield to check. He dipped into nearby bubble cities, but mostly Randidly looked back toward Donnyton and Zone 1.

But the same truth Randidly found in his city held true in those other places: most people weren’t very good at images. Perhaps it was a lack of practice or talent, but there was a stark dividing line between individuals who possessed powerful images and didn’t.

This truth was especially masked in Kharon, where everyone was baptized repeatedly by the Eidolon Crucible. Yet these individuals did not possess powerful images… they simply mimicked the powerful images that they had seen while confronting Randidly. Looking directly at the usage of their images, the difference was clear. Even the people of Kharon basically relied on a few movers and shakers in the city to set the tone and the rest simply adjusted to that image and mimicked it.

When they utilized that image, it was inorganic and clumsy. The power was severely reduced from the original. Better than having nothing or mimicking someone weaker, but it was not exactly what Randidly had in mind for the city..

Once Randidly knew what he was looking for, Randidly found the same image mimicking phenomenon running rampant in Donnyton. With the Squad system present in the Village, there was usually one or two dominant images in a squad and most of the other members followed that. It gave the squads an inner harmony that allowed each individual to empower everyone else’s image.

But it was one person’s power that made the squad what it was. That individual became the pillar that held the entire house up.

And if the squad lost that one individual… would it still be as powerful…?

Or to think about it in another way… how much value do the other individuals around that powerful person add?

Randidly’s focus shifted to the way that the various Zones were training their military forces. When he looked at the way they handled this issue, Randidly realized that no one else had yet come to the same realization that he did. They certainly scaled-down the average size of deployed forces from pre-System Earth, but they still had large groups moving together.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Not that Randidly would criticize them for this method. Because when two groups of equal power, numbers made a difference. But the secret of elevating oneself to the next tier of power had nothing to do with the group. From looking at the military might of the surrounding Zones, Randidly saw how individuals made the difference.

...shouldn’t jump to conclusions just from these few examples...

When Randidly broadened his search, he found several things that surprised him. He heard, as though she was whispering in his ear, as Theodora gave the order to Richter to betray and kill King Phirun and his elite soldiers. He felt the poisonous Nether that had taken up residence in the bodies of her subordinates. He watched as their Aether was corrupted and turned to useless sludge in their Soulspace.

As he looked at them, especially, Richter, Randidly felt pity. It was one thing for him to manage his harmonious Nether. But what they were doing was the equivalent of carrying acid in their hands in order to throw it on the faces of their enemies.

Toward Theodora Greyman, Randidly felt anger.

They might have a bit of power in the short term… but do you understand the cost they will be paying, President Greyman…? Randidly chewed on his lip hard. Normally, Randidly wouldn’t intervene in a situation like this. Because they had allowed the Nether to corrupt their bodies, their potential was being set on fire for heat right now. The situation would work itself out without his intervention.

That was Randidly’s resolve; to let Earth solve Earth’s problem. Still, Randidly had a sudden idea about how he could use these bumbling users of Nether. One that would be immensely more satisfying for the fury he felt upon witnessing their actions. Besides… it is my fault if the people of Zone 1 have an advantage because I warned everyone else away from the deviant Paths…

Releasing a breath, he forced that anger down. Randidly looked at the world more fully. The Order Valorem, predictable bumblers that they were, also had some dabbling in Nether, but it was nowhere near as sophisticated as Zone 1’s attempt, likely due to the individuals standing at the center of that squad. Richter, despite the damage to his body, was clearly able to channel the Nether in a slightly less damaging method than the people of the Order Valorem.

Those miserable wretches were essentially drowning their Soulspace without even knowing it.

After making a mental note and sending a message to King Phirun, Randidly set the issue of these Nether users to the side; he did want to think a little bit further about how to teach children to be powerful.

But even after throwing all of his brainpower into the issue for another fifteen minutes, he came up against the same roadblocks that teachers had been railing against for generations: how do you encourage creativity? How do you nurture determination? With what lessons can you cultivate confidence and resolve?

Part of what formed the basis of images were the stories, to Randidly’s mind. So much of his early growth was only due to imagery that he had heard from old mythologies. So it was somewhat important that children have exposure to the stories that gave meaning to the images surrounding them. But how does a child learn to differentiate between what matters and what doesn’t? How could they learn to identify the key thread? That was a sense that came with experience.

Experience was not an easy subject to teach.

Randidly would readily admit that it had taken him until recently to identify the core desires that animated his images. Getting here had not been an easy path.

Although I might have had more time to think if fewer forces were trying to kill me or take control of my body...

With those thoughts swirling around in his head, Randidly began to plot and plan. What he needed was a draw on unaffiliated individuals to the Kharon Academy, one that pulled people with the stories and experience, as well as the social clout to hold the attention of youths, into the city. Housing wouldn’t work for that caliber of individuals, not the least of which because Randidly specifically wanted not just the people of Kharon.

Yet money and influence were always the draws that worked. Or if not money, the objects that even those with a lot of money couldn’t buy. Randidly’s mind drifted to the very valuable and strange materials Kharon had begun to collect as it traversed the newly opened borderlands.

A little cliche… but what better location for a grand auction than a wandering city…?

Sitting on his island, Randidly unleashed a grin. He stood and stretched, working the kinks out of his body. It was almost time; his joints seemed to ache with the inaction that had afflicted him for the past several days. He was ready to face his problems and crush them.

Yet there were a few more loose ends that had cropped up. In his examination of the area, Randidly had also found a few other things of note.

First, he had found Acri assembling a veritable dragon’s horde of bones, seemingly completely obvious to the need to bring them back to Randidly. At least Acri seemed to be shrinking back toward a more reasonable size, which was a blessing.

Second, his Grim Intuition stumbled across Ace earlier, entirely on accident. Had he followed the scent of Yystrix’s memories, Randidly had no idea how long it would have taken him to find Ace. The man had taken to disguising his energy like no one else Randidly had seen thus far. But when Randidly looked at the Refuge to see the way they trained their soldiers, he found Ace there, bold as brass, talking to the head of the guard.

Seeing him let Randidly confirm that he possessed the memories, but his condition made Randidly snort involuntarily. From just looking at Ace, it was clear that Yystrix’s memories rejected him. He was suffering from extremely apparent mental fatigue from repeatedly trying to access them and just being rewarded with agony. And it seemed that Ace considered it some sort of training because Randidly sensed himself periodically subjecting himself to the baptism of the memories’ rejection.

Randidly also followed Ace to the weapon that he had slowly been creating. He found his father there, an uneasy participant for the diabolical undertaking. Yet even Randidly was taken aback by the ominous tingling in his spine as he looked at that fleshy egg. It had grown to the size of a minivan, a pulsating ovoid of blood and agony. All of Randidly’s humor was wiped away as he saw the negative emotions that his former best friend fed into this egg.

Just what the hell are you trying to hatch, Ace?!

The third thing Randidly saw in his earlier scan was Sydney. He didn’t mean to spy on her, not truly, but after seeing how far Ace had fallen, Randidly couldn’t help but turn his attention to Sydney. He found her sitting at the bedside of her subordinate Drake, the man still bedridden by agonizing pain due to the strange mutation that had occurred in his Soulspace.

Sydney’s back was to the open window and her face was in shadow. Randidly could only see her expression due to Grim Intuition. He couldn’t help but feel his mood soften as he saw her there, alone in that hospital room with the unconscious Drake.

It reminded Randidly of old expressions he had seen from Sydney. When he had seen her standing up at her bedroom window, looking out at night into darkness.

Randidly wrote Sydney a message. For a bit, he hesitated before sending it. Because as Randidly looked down at the words he had sent to Sydney, there was no way that he could miss that this message, while certainly a genuine expression of how he felt, would be toeing the line of Randidly’s thoughts on noninterference with Earthly problems. This was him taking action and pushing toward a safe resolution.

Still, the point of that interference had always been keeping his image free. This would, in no way, spread his image and endanger the planet for the Second Calamity. Or perhaps, more importantly, Randidly was finding that he wasn’t sure how he felt about remaining completely aloof after seeing Sydney’s expression.

“I’m not a god. I’m just a man. And after seeing her like that. Even if we haven’t spoken in so long…” Randidly whispered to himself. Yet still, he hesitated.

What this action would do was involve Randidly in a rift that he had helped to create. And staring that fact in the face made his heart ache.

“Stories might be told about individuals…” Randidly chewed on his lip for a second and then shook his head. With a firm nod, he sent the message. He hefted the Philosopher’s Key and felt through the air to create a karmic connection to Acri’s trove. He spoke softly to himself while stepping through the portal. “But it’s the societies that bring those stories to life. I hope that Kharon… can someday hold some lovely stories. Stories… with a little bit more generosity and heart than mine.”

If he was going to break his non-interference policy, there was no reason to flinch. As long as his image didn't spread...

What does it say about me that I could look sixteen thousand deaths in the face, but one expression of an old friend has me stepping forward to help...?

After sweeping Acri’s bones clean, Randidly contacted Neveah. The wheels in his mind began to quickly turn. Bit by bit, Randidly worked out the shape of what he wanted. It was time for them to kill Kaan Swacc. And throw out all the trash in the process.