Kang exhaled sharply. “Fuck, I can’t believe I missed that. Thank you for sharing, Tom. Is there a reason you waited until now?”

He chuckled bitterly at the question.

“You saw it with Bir, yes. It’s not something I wish to talk about.” He answered, being very careful with the sentiments he chose to express.

Kang nodded then frowned immediately.

“But what you wrote?”

“Didn’t tell you anything.” Tom reminded him. Kang was quick, and understanding instantly blossomed on the other boy’s face. It wasn’t necessary, but Tom finished the sentence anyway. “I only informed you of the state of Bir’s fate. You did the rest.”

“Thank you for taking the risk. Do you have any idea how much changes things?” He asked in a rush. “Of course you do. My god. You’re a hero of humanity, you probably could all do this. I can’t believe I overlooked it. Twenty years in the tutorial slaving away blind. What a waste.”

“It didn’t work there.” Tom told the very excitable man.

Kang seemed surprised at that, but moved on immediately. The tutorial never promised to be identical to Existentia - just something to prepare them for integration.

“It doesn’t matter, it worked in Existentia from day one, and I didn’t figure it out.”

Tom nodded to confirm that assumption.

“You only had, what, a third? A sixth? Of the time I had in Existentia, and you had figured it out. I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”

Tom shrugged:

“I’m talented at this stuff.”

Kang stared at him suspiciously.

“You weren’t told. You worked this out.”

“It wouldn’t be wrong to say I was considered to be the fate expert. As I said, it came easy to me.”

“The expert from the heroes of humanity. No wonder you were reincarnated. But this… I need to redo my plan. I can get three times as much stuff done.”

“Something like that,” Tom agreed neutrally.

“This is amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Kang glanced at the door and winced slightly. It was perfectly soundproof, so they couldn’t hear anything, but they could imagine Bir outside beating her fists and yelling for it to open. “We can’t stay here any longer. Bir, potential observers, all that.” As he was saying, that he retrieved a Cam figurine from the scattered toys and smiled apologetically. “It’s a prepared pretence that I thought of if I ever needed to get private time with you. Today, I decided it was worth it. Thank you for helping. I wasn’t sure how I was going to beat Corrine, but this… this will get me closer.”

He went to the door and struck the magic handle. It reacted to his wishes, and the doors swung open.

Bir stood there, hands on hips, glowering at them.

Abashed Kang showed her the Cam sculpture.

“Sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed:

“No play figurines. Fly.” She insisted. “Leave. It. Here.”

Feigning reluctance, the other boy put it away, and together they left for the low-gravity room filled with trampolines and rushing air currents. They had only discovered it two days ago, and it was fun as well as useful.

It was excellent training. As Tom pushed his weak body to its extremes, he considered everything that had just occurred. Bir seemed to be as adept at magic as she had been at fate. She was going to be a terror when she graduated. Kang, armed with the new technique, would grow faster and, hopefully, they would be able to push each other to greater and greater heights.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Thirty-five years wasn’t long, but as beginnings went, this was a good one.

The next day, Tom walked toward the trial in the orderly queue. His mind was still spinning at the revelations of the previous day. Hours of time had been wasted constructing pointless power fantasies. It hadn’t got in the way of his magic training, but that didn’t mean they weren’t silly. He had repeatedly imagined the day he and his friends and other champions of humanity could challenge the dragon and defeat it not with tricks, but with sheer power. The potential opportunities he imagined were endless. While he hadn’t earned an underage-specific title yet, it had only been a couple of months. He was almost certain that they existed. The careful way titles were never mentioned and the structuring of resources told him they were there - he just hadn’t managed to hit the prerequisites to receive one. Once he got the first one, he was confident he would be able to extrapolate to find the other available ones.

The funniest bit was that it didn’t matter. Even without that bonus, Tom could appreciate the strength of the base he was constructing. Even if underage titles didn’t exist, by the time he reached fifteen, he was destined to be fundamentally better than he was when he had first arrived in Existentia. The sideways evolutions by themselves were going to ensure that his spells would end up twice as strong as everyone else’s - adjusted for levels and tier, of course.

It hurt not to be killing stuff for experience, and he missed possessing the flexibility to buy class levels, skills, spells, or traits. But he appreciated the setup he had to leverage his strength. The investment in the community’s children was truly impressive. He had access to dozens of rooms devoted to push physical movement and evasions skills as much as possible, and just as many for sparring against both dedicated trainers and combat dummies. On Earth, the upkeep for each child would have probably been a million dollars per year.

The cost here might not be as punitive. The lack of heavy machinery was made up by most adults being superheroes. They could do stuff ten, twenty times faster than humans on earth, and they didn’t need mechanical aids because they could all lift a ton of rock by themselves, and that without taking into account what magic could contribute.

But, even factoring in attribute and magic benefits, the investment was immense. It was a true community effort.

Dimitri touched his arm. A spark passed between them, and, because he wanted to know, Tom extended the energy from the core of his soul. Then, a moment later, he was within the trial.

“You can review the notification,” April told him happily.

He glanced around surprised to discover that he was in the café.

“What’s this? You’re not launching me straight into combat or having me chase those devil constructs?”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ll get to that soon. Now check. I know you’re curious.”

You have positively identified Dimitri Gleb Vasilievich as a fellow reincarnated.

Dimitri is strong enough to defend himself, and you are under no compulsion to protect his identity as a reincarnator.

On the flip side, Dimitri has identified you as reincarnated and you are weak. As such, Dimitri will be incapable of deliberately or accidentally revealing your reincarnated status to anyone else.

Tom raised an eyebrow at that message. It was different to the others he had read, but that was clearly caused by how strong Dimitri was. Powerful enough to defend himself from rank seventy native assassins meant terrifyingly powerful.

The casual way Corrine had referred to him suddenly made a lot more sense. He guessed he should have figured out that a mechanism like this was at play, or else Corrine wouldn’t have been able to mention him.

April smiled at him.

“A surprise, but not a surprise.” She summarised.

Tom wasn’t sure if she could see the notification, or if she was experienced enough from chatting with other reincarnators to know what it said.

She clicked her fingers:

“Tell me, do you feel like fighting or playing today?”

“Fighting.” He growled immediately. “And can’t you do something about the bloody butterflies? They are impossible to catch! I feel like I’m wasting my time chasing them around.”

She laughed:

“But the way you trip over and curse continuously… Would you deny me that pleasure? A trial spirit has to get their amusement somehow.”

Tom didn’t bite. He knew she was teasing him, trying to provoke a response. While spending what felt like most of his time running after the bloody things felt useless, it probably served a deeper purpose.

And he reminded himself that, thanks to his title, he was receiving a seven times longer period of time in here than everyone else probably were. He doubted anyone else had the speedster title, and, if so, it would only be the first level, not the seventh he had acquired. Relatively speaking, he would still be progressing faster than everybody else.

“Did you say butterflies?”

He glared at her smirking face:

“No, I want to fight. Battle. Kill.” He snapped, pronouncing each word sharply.

She winked at him:

“How about I combine them?”

He found himself on the lake’s shore. The two different butterfly types were flittering around as always, and on the other side of the lake one of the lizard dogs was drinking.

His senses went on full alert, and he spun quickly to ensure that he wasn't in imminent danger.

"How can I hunt butterflies when there are monsters everywhere? " He whispered it, because he was in hostile territory, and he knew April would hear every word.

"Do your best not to die."

Then there was silence, and he knew he was alone.