“Huh?” Kailan looked dumbfounded as he looked around the room. Gaia’s alert didn’t even faze him, it was normal for her to alert the local population and even the entire realm of the descent of a God.

“What happened? Did I return to Earth?” He wondered. There were doctors and nurses, as well as several other people he didn’t recognize. They appeared human, but human was a relative appearance among the various realms. There are a lot of species that have a human-like form.

“Midgard! It really is home…” Kailan was happily surprised at first but was soon startled.

“Wait, my power is overloading the realm’s module functions? If this continues…” Gods are very powerful beings and not all realms can handle their power and authority immediately. Especially not so soon after the realm’s Merger. Lower realms, like Midgard, were notorious for being difficult for Gods to enter with their power intact.

“I’ve got to act fast... I accept the primary option. Initiate temporary seal of power.” Kailan spoke out to Gaia.

Everyone in the room looked confused. Only Kailan could see the alerts Gaia had displayed as they were system errors and not notifications meant for mortals. They were curious as to what he was talking about and even more so about who he was and why he had come to Earth.

“We really did rescue a God.” Douglas couldn’t wipe the silly expression of surprise off of his face. He had only been joking around when he asked Eva what the chances were that their Returnee was the God-Level being Gaia spoke of.

Eva knew exactly what Douglas was talking about of course, she on the other hand didn’t know what to say. She also took it as nothing more than a joke.

“How is this possible? If he’s a Returnee he should be human, but Gaia just called him a God. This doesn’t make sense.” Director Morris analysed the facts over and over in his mind but no matter how he analysed he couldn’t find a clear answer. A Returnee was of the same species as the world they were returned to, it was that simple.

As soon as Gaia notified Kailan, he felt as if his body was being wrapped in chains and his power was being drained.

“Ugh… This feels gross.”

It didn’t feel right at all having his power sealed away like this, but he had no choice. It was either accept the seal or the entire realm could break down at a subatomic level, that’s what it meant for the system modules to overload. Gaia was a law of nature, if her systems broke down it would affect all of the other laws causing total chaos. It would mean the end of Midgard along with everyone and everything in it.

“Ugh… Heh, heh, heh.” Kailan collapsed to the floor, barely supporting himself with one hand and knee. His breathing became heavy as it felt like a giant weight was crushing him. His vision blurred and he soon passed out, falling completely flat.

No one moved. They were afraid of being shocked but they were also afraid of what other consequences might arise. After all, this was a God. A real living God here in their world. Who knows what rules apply. A simple act of kindness might be misconstrued as an act of blasphemy by Gaia.

“What… just happened?” One of the nurses eked out. But no one knew the answer.

“Someone help me get him back on the bed.” One of the doctors finally built up the courage to approach Kailan and grabbed one of his shoulders. The others however were not so brave.

“Come on. What’s wrong with you? As long as we don’t try to treat him it should be fine.” The doctor exclaimed. But no one dared go near the boy in his hands.

“I’ll help.” Eva wasn’t as afraid as the others. She was a very grounded person.

Approaching Kailan from his right side she grabbed his other shoulder. Douglas gathered his courage seeing Eva taking the lead and grabbed Kailan’s legs. The three of them lifted him back onto the hospital bed.

“Now what?” Eva asked in all seriousness as she turned to the doctor.

The doctor turned to look at her as if she was crazy. “What do you mean now what? Don’t look at me.” He thought. Silence once again filled the room.

“Everyone, single file over here next to the window. No one is to leave the room until I say so. This ward is now under lockdown. No one is to speak a word about what has happened here. Now!” Director Morris quickly commanded. He knew that he needed to control the flow of information. This incident was far too serious with far reaching consequences.

“Eva, call the monitoring line and have them dispatch agents to quarantine the ward and lock down the flow of information from the outside. Douglas, collect any communication devices on the people here and keep an eye on them. No one is to leave.”

“Yes sir!” Eva and Douglas exclaimed together. Both of them could at least realise the severity of the situation. After confirming their orders, they immediately went to work in completing them. Meanwhile, Director Morris started making phone calls.

It was two weeks later when Kailan finally awoke.

He stared at the plain ceiling in front of him as he focused his mind. He had a headache and felt very heavy. No doubt the side effects of having his powers sealed.

“Now where am I?” He wondered. There was a gentle breeze blowing on him from his side. It was cool and refreshing. Kailan turned his head towards where the breeze was coming from. It was an open window. And outside there were buildings and he could hear the sounds of cars and people.

These senses were familiar to him.

“It really is Earth. I actually made it back here after such a long time.”

As he lay there reminiscing of the Earth he once knew, he noticed a small icon flashing in front of his eyes. It was a small yellow alert icon and below it was the text “Confirm Status”.

“Ah, my power was sealed. This must be from that. Whatever, I’ll check it later.” Kailan wasn’t in the mood to see how bad his situation had become. There would be time for that later on. Right now he just wanted to enjoy this peaceful moment. He was both sad and joyful. Sad at what he had left behind and joyful at having returned.

“I wonder where this is…”

~ Click ~

The sound of the door opening dragged Kailan back from his blissful daydream. He pulled himself up into a sitting position on the bed. As he did so, he noticed he was dressed in a plain blue night shirt and matching pants. “My clothes must not have survived the trip.” He thought to himself before focusing on the three people that had walked in. They looked familiar. Kailan remembered them from the hospital room he was in before.

“I’m Director Morris of the Indiana Hunters Bureau. This is Agent Eva and Agent Douglas of the rescue division. Can you tell me your name?”

Kailan wasn’t sure what the Hunters Bureau was but he assumed it must be the government organization that handles dungeons and those who are connected. This was common on most worlds. “Kailan Jones.” He responded softly.

“Mr. Jones…”

“Kailan is fine. My father’s name was Mr. Jones.” Kailan quickly cut him off. He didn’t like being called Mr. anything.

Director Morris was a bit surprised but he knew that Hunters tended to have their own excentrices. It was normal for them to be informal as well so he adapted quickly.

“Kailan then. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Restrained. But otherwise fine.” Kailan looked at his body momentarily before turning back as he answered.

“I see.” Director Morris honestly didn’t know what to expect from the boy in front of him. This boy is a God and a God implies a certain level of haughtiness. But instead he seemed quite friendly and amicable.

“How much do you know about the situation you’re currently in?” He asked, smoothly following his previous comment.

“Well I’m a Returnee, I assume. And this is Earth right?” Kailan responded as he turned to look out of the open window.

“Yes, it is. I take it that means you are aware of Gaia, the other realms and Hunters?” Director Morris was rather surprised. Most Returnees would be flustered at first with only a little knowledge. Gaia wasn’t known for explaining everything, and she had never explained the Returnee status to any of the others. So it was understandable that they would be confused and disorientated.

“Gaia and the realms, I understand. But I’m not familiar with the term Hunters. Do you mean the Connected?” Kailan had made a guess that when they spoke of Hunters what they meant were the people who were connected to Gaia and had access to the system modules.

“That’s correct, I believe that’s what Gaia called them in the beginning. We call them Hunters and Gaia also uses this terminology now.” Director Morris immediately understood the comparison.

“Heh. You’re pretty smart for a kid that just got back. Did you get dumped into some frilly realm where they gave classes on Gaia?” Douglas jumped in with his usual snark. He was a bit annoyed so he decided to take a little bit of it out on Kailan.

“Kid?” Kailan looked at Douglas doubtfully.

“Yeah, that’s what we Earthlings call people way younger than us. You haven’t been gone that long. I don’t think the slang has changed that much in 10 years has it?” Douglas responded sarcastically

“Douglas, stop messing with him. He isn’t that much younger than you, you know that.” Eva interjected.

“Wait! 10 years? It’s only been 10 years since what?” Kailan exclaimed suddenly, he was confused. What did they mean by 10 years?

“Since the Merger. Duh! You know, that thing where the big hole opened up and sucked you in. That was the Merger where the dimensional barrier around our realm collapsed and opened us up to attacks from other realms. You fell through a rift and Gaia returned you. That’s why you’re a Returnee. I thought you said you knew this stuff?” Douglas began to doubt Kailan’s words. Maybe he was just pretending to act cool, he thought. Either way it gave him a chance to show off and talk.

“10 years…” Kailan’s head lowered and he repeated this phrase a couple times until it sunk in.

“Hey kid, what’s wrong with you?” Douglas pressed.

“Douglas, I think it would be best if you don’t talk unless you are spoken to…” Eva chastised him again. Douglas’ face scrunched in annoyance but he stopped talking. He was afraid Eva might say something that would embarrass him.

“Is something the matter Kailan?” Director Morris had a suspicion but wasn’t quite sure.

“Only 10 years have passed, but it was different for me…” Kailan trailed off in his thoughts as he explained.

“Were you perhaps in the other realm longer than 10 years?” Director Morris inquired. His suspicion was proving right.

Douglas turned to Director Morris with a confused look. “What’s that supposed to mean? Obviously it was 10 years. How can it be longer?”

Eva on the other hand seemed to recall something. “Ah! I’ve heard of that. Another Returnee came back and he was much older than he should have been. He said he was in the other realm for a longer time than the amount of time that had passed here, right?”

“Indeed. It was in China, a Returnee came back but he was twice as old as he should have been when he returned. In fact, it was the last Returnee from 5 years ago. While we experienced 5 years, he had aged by 10.” Directory Morris explained.

“Huh?” Douglas was really confused now.

“It’s called Temporal Differential.” Kailan interjected, drawing everyone’s attention back to him.

“While the realms may be connected that doesn’t mean that time flows the same in every one. In fact, realms that are relatively close to each other have a relatively similar flow of time. But realms that are further apart can have a large variance in their flows of time.” Kailan continued.

Director Morris seemed contemplative of Kailan’s words.

“A realm where the flow of time is twice as fast as Midgard’s… It was probably Realm 7 - Hylan.”

Eva and Director Morris were stunned once again.

“Does he have an intricate knowledge of the various realms? If what he said is true then we’ve just learned more in one day from him than what we’ve learned from Gaia in the past 10 years. At least in regards to the realms.” Director Morris thought.

“What else can you tell us about the other realms?” He thought he would try and glean what he can.

“Sorry, I can’t talk about that.” Kailan immediately realized his mistake. He should know better than to overshare.

Still, it hadn’t occurred to him that time would have flowed much slower here than in the realm he came from. Why didn’t it cross his mind? It was so obvious. There was such a large distance between the two realms so of course there would be a large temporal difference as well.

“Can’t or won’t?” Director Morris wasn’t ready to give up, but Kailan simply stared at him quietly, not providing any explanation. Everyone was silent for a few minutes.

“Woah, wait. Back up a second. So you’re saying that time moves faster in some realms and slower in others? That makes no sense at all. Time’s the same no matter where you are.” Douglas couldn’t wrap his mind around it so he just thought that Kailan was trying to act cool again and brushed it off.

“Seriously? You still don’t get it?” Eva was annoyed but not surprised. Douglas gave her a sideways glare in response.

“Listen, the fact of the matter is we don’t know much about the other realms or how they work. What he said could be true. And it would explain the other case as well. It’s plausible. It’s information that we didn’t have before but do now, so we can confirm it on our own. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense right now.” Eva wasn’t even going to try and explain the physics behind it. She wasn’t even sure she understood it but at least with her explaining things this way he would accept it.

“Kailan, how much faster was time flowing in the realm you went to?” Director Morris redirected the conversation back to Kailan.

“You may have only experienced 10 years here on Earth, but from my perspective over one thousand years have passed since I was pulled through the dimensional rift. The realm I went to moved 100 times faster than this one.” Kailan might as well have dropped a bomb.

“What?!” Eva was shocked as she exclaimed loudly. Her expression couldn’t have been more exaggerated. Director Morris was also shocked by this revelation as his eyes lit up. Douglas was still in denial and couldn’t understand why this kid thought he could get away with lying like this.

“Bulls***! If that were true you’d be nothing but ashes by now. Kids these days sure know how to lie through their teeth.” Douglas cursed. He refused to believe it. It was utter nonsense. Both Eva and Director Morris were also skeptical, after all Douglas hit the nail on the head, but they understood that there was a lot that they couldn’t explain.

Even the mere fact that they are connected to Gaia extends someone’s lifespan every time they level up. So maybe it’s possible to slow down the aging process and extend the lifespan much longer under certain circumstances. Just because it hadn’t been done yet didn’t mean it was impossible. In fact they had both actually heard of a group researching this very possibility.

Kailan looked at Douglas like he was an idiot. “You’re not the brightest person in this room are you?”

“What did you say?” Douglas thought Kailan was trying to pick a fight. But Eva and Director Morris seemed to both come to the same realization in that very moment.

“You’re a God.” Eva lightly stated.

Douglas relaxed his muscles and looked at Eva questioningly. She just rolled her eyes. If he still didn’t get it then he didn’t get it. Whatever.

“Exactly. I’m a God. I’m immortal and ageless. I haven’t aged since I hit my mid-20s.” Kailan responded. It was a bit more complicated than that but it was enough for them to understand so Kailan didn’t explain further.

“Incredible. I’d heard of some skills that have the effect of slowing the aging process or even extending life spans, but not to this extent. If that’s true then you’re older than the three of us combined.” Director Morris was absolutely astonished.

“To be precise it’s not really the skill that causes it so much as Gaia translating a natural fact into a readable context.” Kailan corrected.

“Wait a sec. Hold it. We’re not just going to take this kid’s words at face value right?” Douglas chuckled like it was ridiculous.

Kailan had enough of this bonehead doubting him at every turn. It would be easier if he simply showed them. “Gaia, please state how much of a temporal difference there is between Realm 9, Midgard, and Realm 1, Asgard.” Kailan seemed to command the air as he spoke.

“And now state my age in years only.” Kailan continued.

“Thanks Gaia.”

Douglas couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. This kid who looked to be around 19 at best was way older than him. He could accept the fact that he was really 24 since some people just look younger than they are, but over a thousand years old? That was absurd. He should at least be old and wrinkly with long white hair.

Director Morris and Eva however, noted a different point. In fact they noted several different points. Firstly, the fact that Gaia just confirmed that there is a time difference between the different realms. Secondly, that the realm that Kailan had been transported to was called Asgard. And lastly, that Gaia responded to Kailan without question. This last point was the most important one to note.

Normally in order to communicate with Gaia, one needed an interface. Initially Gaia allowed direct communication but after she introduced the interface devices she would not speak to anyone directly ever again unless it was a standard alert, but this wasn’t true two-way communication like what Kailan had just performed. She would also not always answer even with an interface.

The major scientists of the world that were researching Gaia believed that this is in order to maintain a level of information control. And that Gaia would only provide the minimum necessary information as a form of guidance, since too much information would make a species too reliant.

“Perhaps it only works with known or easily accessible information.” Director Morris contemplated as he made plans to test his theory later.

Things were getting interesting.