They looked at each other in shock. Bir duplicating a spell that quickly was beyond impressive.

The girl grinned happily, and the cup of water in her hand rippled.

“It’s so easy to cast now.” She whispered in wonder.

He smiled at her reaction, her joy at the success.

Then his eyes widened.

Her fate pool was empty!

Not just slightly diminished. It had been completely consumed, and he was nearly certain that it had been full when they had entered the room. His brain stuttered as he assessed the implications of such an observation.

She had only just started practicing magic. She was supposed to be learning how to shape mana manually. He hadn’t expected her to succeed for months. But she had… and coincidently expended all of her fate at the same time. Nope, the two events were definitely connected.

Tom had hoped that she would find the link, but he had been expecting to have to lay a trail of breadcrumbs to get her to this point. However, she had done it herself.

He swallowed as he stared at the excited little girl. She didn’t know how monumental her success was.

She didn’t know that this made her a certified genius.

Then he glanced at the other person in the room. Kang was a fellow reincarnator - did he know? Tom wondered about it. Was he using his fate properly? Was Kang exploiting this loophole, or was he just relying on good old-fashioned hard work? He considered all of his memories. Tom checked people’s fate levels as a matter of instinct, and his exceptional memory allowed him to track the other boy’s levels through time. His fellow reincarnator clearly used fate actively, but inconsistently, and, now that he was focusing on the issue, it was clear there were long periods where it had remained full.

It was possible that he didn’t understand what Bir had just discovered, hadn’t worked out the most potent use of fate. He hadn’t discovered yet that it could be applied to gain spells and skills faster and increase the chances of evolutions.

“Check ritual,” Kang told Bir excitedly. He pointed at the artefact, oblivious to the thoughts rushing in Tom’s head.

“Pa,” Tom snapped in frustration even as he grabbed the boy’s wrist and extracted the necklace from his hand.

Unfortunately, Bir noticed what he was doing.

“What’s that? It’s pretty!”

“A toy,” Kang answered and then pointed at the screen. “Ritual now. See outcome.”

Bir refocused, and Kang threw an annoyed look in Tom’s direction. Snatching the necklace like that had been risky. They didn’t want her to be asking too many questions. If she did, they would be forced to build a web of lies, and once they did that, there was a chance of only one being discovered and the whole thing being torn down as a result.

At the current moment, that future problem wasn’t important to Tom. This was an opportunity to get around the geas that restricted him from teaching others about the advanced ways to utilise fate.

It was worth taking risks - even far bigger ones than what he had taken so far.

Tom felt out his mana levels and almost sighed in relief. Thank God for the power of regeneration. He had a single point available, but that would be enough. There wasn’t much the geas would allow, and one sentence was probably the most he could do anyway. He angled the folder, then waited until he was sure Kang was looking right at it.

Bir just used all of her fate.

His lack of mana meant the words failed nearly instantly, and Tom almost sagged in relief when the geas didn’t activate to punish him. Then again, it shouldn’t have. After all, he wasn’t telling Kang anything specific about how to use fate better. All he was doing was sharing an observation about Bir’s fate levels. The simple fact was that the ability to sense fate pools was rare, and Tom had spent decades in the tutorial developing one. Theoretically, there were no restrictions that prevented him from sharing the results of such an observation. If Kang linked the facts together, Tom couldn’t be blamed. That’s what he had hoped for, at least, and apparently the system had accepted his logic. There was a chance that Kang already knew, and he wasn’t sharing a secret because there was no mystery there to be shared. If that was the case, he expected the other boy to respond with confusion.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Tom watched expectantly. If this was a surprise and the other man worked out the hidden truth, it would be obvious.

Shock ran over Kang’s face as he switched between staring at the excited girl and the now-blank paper.

“But that means…” The other boy swallowed heavily. “I’ve been an idiot.”

“Pa, Pa, what, what you talking about.” Bir asked in her singsong voice.

Kang shook himself. “Nothing.” He gulped, looked wide eyed at Tom, then forced himself to take Bir over to the status ritual, to stand next to her and tell her what she had to do.

In the last two months, Tom had not seen the other boy this perturbed before. Kang was always robust, solid, and unflustered, not unsettled to such a degree that even Bir could see that there was a problem. Not that Tom blamed him. He very much understood the reaction. He remembered the time when he had realised this himself, when the true value of fate had clicked for him. Back then he had been similarly overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Bir used the status window. Words appeared immediately. There had been an outside chance she had been mistaken, but her success could no longer be disputed.

“I can’t read it.” Bir protested in frustration.

Spell: Disturb Water – Tier 0

This spell can cause a ripple in sources of water within two meters of the caster.

“What it say? What does say?”

It was not much of a spell, but then his first spell Heal Scratch had been a stinker as well. This was no different. However, it represented a massive leap forward in terms of progress, especially in the context of her using fate to advance her magic. Now that she had a taste of success it would become a habit to use it in the future. The next step in her development would be training to chase sideways evolutions, but he was not sure how to communicate that and get around the geas. Perhaps, just making her aware of the benefits of stretching the spell when merging would be sufficient. That, Tom decided, could be easily conveyed when the time was right. Theoretically, if she dedicated the same time as he had to practice, she was well-positioned to grow as fast as he had - potentially faster, if her affinity was higher than his. That seemed likely, as healing was only his fifth strongest one, and water was her most powerful affinity.

Kang was silent, still lost in his own thoughts.

“I can’t read either,” Tom told her. “But words.” He proclaimed and pointed dramatically. “That means spell. You have spell! Bir! You have a spell.”

She smiled shyly. A ripple went through the water in her glass, and her grin grew broader. In this world, it was such a minor, inconsequential spell, but it was a real magic, and now she could cast it at will.

“So easy.”

Tom kept his eyes on Kang, who looked stunned, sick, and disturbed. He seemed to be unable to form words.

“It’s great,” Tom agreed.

“Soon blast monsters with it.”

Another ripple went across the cup. The number of times she had cast it was impressive. She had to be using one-mana increments. Such control felt ridiculous to him, but he couldn’t doubt his eyes.

“Soon,” Tom promised. The difference between what her current spell did and what she was imagining was immense, but with the progress she was making, her eventual success was guaranteed.

Tom glanced at Kang.

His eyes kept flicking between where Tom had written his words and the girl.

“Bir? How? Was it Fate?”

Bir nodded excitedly. “Used…” Her hand touched her throat in confusion as she was suddenly stopped from speaking.

The geas had just activated, but, thankfully, it was not evil, and she was four. Somehow, it stopped her from speaking, but also prevented her from panicking. It was not a blunt instrument it had been created by the GODs. He did not know what it communicated to her, but it was clearly sophisticated enough to take into account her age and naivety. If Tom had tried a similar sentence, he would have been incapacitated by the backlash. Thankfully, she was not punished, and hopefully, Kang had seen the activation and recognised it for what it was. If so, it would be another significant piece of evidence to help him draw the right conclusions.

Tom watched the other boy carefully. Micro-emotions that Bir wouldn’t be able to interpret played across his face. Excitement warred with horror as his brain registered what had happened. Kang hadn’t known, and now a four-year-old had shown him the technique. Given how driven everyone in the competition had been, given their willingness to sacrifice to gain a slight benefit, given the magnitude of the advantage this use of fate gave, Tom understood that horror very well. Not learning it before represented a huge opportunity cost. The other man had to be imagining what his group would have achieved if they had this method. For one, they probably wouldn’t have all died.

Bir was staring at the screen once more. Her finger was tracing the text as she tried to pronounce them. Kang took the opportunity to soundlessly scream curse words. Those opposing emotions had consolidated into anger at himself, in internal condemnation at his failure to discover this trick alone.

Despite Kang’s own annoyance, a thrill of achievement ran through Tom. It wouldn’t show in his personal ranking points, but he had just done something important. That one point of mana that was used to write those six words had made a substantial difference.

“Pa, are you okay?” Bir poked him as she spoke to ensure he heard.

The boy pulled his hands away from his face. He was shaken, but the months of training took over. A smile that looked almost perfectly genuine covered his face.

“Yes. Just Impressed. Amazed. You did magic!”

“You did too.” She pointed out in her usual forthright manner.

“Taught before orphanage.” Kang lied. “I took much longer to get. But I’m very happy for you.” He said that to Bir, but the way he made eye contact with Tom made it clear that the last bit was directed at him. Then he focused back on Bir, who was the unofficial leader of their four-year-old selves. He took the stance of a loyal and hopeful follower. “Should we do fly room?”

“Yes, fly room.” Bir exclaimed. “We go now.” She rushed out the door.

Tom went to follow, but Kang grabbed his arm before he could leave. The doors shut, registered their presence and dinged loudly to indicate they had full privacy.