An excerpt from the journal of a Jar'ax'ian Clerk

I sit at this counter all day. I sit at it all day and nothing interesting ever happens. Please, Genesis, just once let me live an interesting day. No news about the Primus trading barbs with the Nomocracy, no casts of financial information of different substances, no more of the same. I swear, I'd do anything to trade places with those lucky 11th Wavers. At least they are getting to live a life of action.

It’s been a week since I made my choice. At first it was difficult to wrap my head around using the different energies together. A few, like Electricity and Plasma, work well together, while others are incredibly difficult to combine. Plasma and Sound are a prime example of the latter. Although I’d hoped to combine the two to create a silent attack, upon experimentation I realized that Plasma is the more powerful Energy. Unless I consciously infuse the Sound with a much higher percentage of Mana, the Plasma cuts through any barrier I’m able to make with Sound.

That interesting interaction, though, has led to an equally interesting discovery. It’s hard to test out while I’m in the wilderness but I believe that Plasma energy has the ability to cut through Mana constructs. At the very least, it is able to cut through my own conjured barriers with ease.

I look at the land around me, the testing ground at which I’ve gained a deeper understanding of what I’m capable of. It looks hellish to say the least. The soft grass has been burnt away, leaving behind charred earth and hundreds of burn marks. The sand on the other side has been crystallized through intense heat. Small pieces of superheated glass hide themselves amongst the shifting dunes.

I spend each morning on the platform, casting out Sound Mana as far as I can.Using the same principle as my Echolocation skill, but infusing far more Mana into the process, I create millions upon millions of tiny sounds that erupt out of me to help me create a mental map of the region that dwarfs what the old skill was capable of.

An enormous cliff looms to the south, rising up hundreds of feet into the air. I have no idea what is on the top but large beasts occasionally fall off the edge and somehow survive, climbing back up the cliff to rejoin whatever else is up there.

The even divide between plains and desert continues to the north for a little while but, after a few days march, it slowly turns into an icy tundra. Heavy snow coats this region and are almost impossible to perceive without being much closer.

To the west, in the direction of Everwall, lies the plains and forests that I travelled through. To the east is the vast desert, hundreds of dunes that continue on past the range of what I can see. And it is from this direction that Marc’s killer will eventually arrive.

But unless he has the ability to move at a speed far faster than I can, he won’t be arriving today. I close off my Mana Well and the awareness of the surrounding region slowly fades away as the Sound Mana stops feeding me information.

Another day of training it is.

Two days later I finally notice what I’ve been waiting for. A figure moving at great speed through the dunes. Faster than I would have assumed but not at a rate that makes me reevaluate what I think he’s capable off.

He reaches me a few hours later and I get my first real look at him. Not particularly tall, muscular, or attractive, there is still something about him that hints at power. He has a lean frame and stands as if he has a casual disregard for everything around him. His face is lean and angular, with a strong jaw line, and a thick tussle of matted black hair atop his head. He is probably the same age I am, perhaps even a few years younger.

What stand out the most, however, are his eyes. They rest within sunken pits and are completely dead, as if all emotion and life has been burned out of them. The sheer intensity of his dead stare causes me to shiver slightly.

“You are the Candidate of Everwall?” he asks. His voice grates on my ears. It lacks emotion in an almost horrifying way. To think that this was the voice Marc heard before he was killed … the thought causes my hands to clench.

Knuckles turning white, I respond. “I am. And you’re the monster who killed my cousin.”

His head cocks to the side. “Your cousin? I don’t know who you mean.” His head lowers back and, for the first time, he smiles. “Regardless, he served his purpose. Your anger made you strong.”

My vision tunnels, focusing on him. The surroundings fade away until all I can see are his dead eyes. Those were the last things Marc saw. “He was a person you monster!”

The smile disappears. “Does that matter?”

“What?”

He repeats himself, in the same flat voice that lacks and all sense of emotion. “Does that matter?”

I have to restrain myself from throwing a lightning strike at him. I snarl, “Of course it matters! The whole point of becoming Primus is to protect humanity!”

His head cocks to the side again. “Was I not doing that? I culled one small part in order to strengthen the rest of the herd.”

“We aren’t animals, we’re humans!”

“Ah, you believe the Great Lie. Tell me Candidate, what is it that separates you or I from an animal? From a monster? The answer is nothing. Nothing at all. Society is just a thin veneer that we use to justify our animal instincts. At its core it is weak. Humanity will only realize its potential when it realizes that we are all animals. The only thing that matters is strength.”

I grit my teeth. “Is that how you justify your killings? You tell yourself that each one makes humanity stronger?”

“I do not need to justify anything. Morality is irrelevant. All that matters is strength. I had the strength to kill those who stood in my way. They did not have the strength to resist. All those who desire to live must gain the strength to fight back and resist me.”

In a sick way, I can understand what he’s saying. It reminds me of Faul. It reminds me of Peter. They both believed the intoxicating idea that power frees one from consequences. But I can’t ever let myself believe that. With great power comes great responsibility, especially in this new world. The responsibility may be something morally grey, but that is the price we pay for power.

And I know what my responsibility is. To enact justice and punish this man for his deeds.

“Did you know that we were both randomly selected?”

His face lights up and it almost seems for a moment as if his dead eyes had a spark of emotion flow through them. “Did you also spend time with the saviors? Did they give you the holy mission?”

“No. I don’t know who the saviors are. I … I just brought it up so you could understand that there was another path. You could have done so much more.” Iron enters into my voice. “But you chose poorly. And I won’t let it go on any longer.”

His mouth turns downward and his brows furrow. “You didn’t receive the holy mission? The saviors?” His voice trails off and he begins muttering to himself. After a few moments he looks at me, the spark having left his gaze and returned them to their dead state “You are a blasphemer and will die.”

Knives appear in his hand but I’ve already made my move.

Reigning in my emotions and activating Effortless Presence, my right hand raises to the side and Plasma cracks out of my flat palm. It crackles as it flies between us, almost instantaneously ripping open a channel through which I flood Electricity. A bolt of lightning shoots out of my hand and the flash of light temporarily blinds me. A booming crack echoes from my hand, the hair on my arms rising from the burst of ionized air.

The dots fade from my vision after a split second and I see the man a few feet back, his knives raised to the exact point that the lightning strike would have hit. His arms shake slightly as the diffused Electricity flows through them but he shakes it off in a second. The fact that he was able to survive a strike like that with little to no consequences is incredible.

Cocking his head to the side, he says, “That is the first pain I have felt since I returned. Congratulations. You will witness my real strength.”

And with that final word, he disappears.

I infuse my body with Mana and launch myself upwards. He appears right behind where I was a moment ago and stabs forward with those glistening knives, each one of them sharp enough to rip through my body.

The fact that he crossed nearly a hundred feet in a split second is … intimidating. I could only match that speed with a very delicate, and incredibly costly, combination of Energies. When his knives hit empty air, he looks around for a split second before thinking to look upwards.

I haven’t wasted the time, however. With both of my hands in front of me, I conjure a giant ball of Fire, Motion, and Plasma energies to throw directly at him. The enormous, nearly fifteen feet in diameter, ball of flame crashes down upon the platform like a meteor and then explodes, releasing a torrent of fire in every direction. The plasma mixes with the flames to massively increase their damage potential. It doesn’t harm me, however, as I manipulate the air around me to slow my descent and keep the flames away. I land on a sand dune nearly a hundred feet away and watch at the fiery platform.

Eventually the flames dissipate and I see the man in the center of a strange translucent metallic shell. A few moments pass before it cracks and crashes into the ground. From within, the man draws himself to full height and his eyes dart around, locating me within a second.

He seems to have changed within that shell. His messy black hair has become a metallic silver and his skin has adopted a similar, if somewhat lesser, appearance. It also looks as if one of his daggers has disappeared.

“You are strong. But let us test just how far your strength can take you.”

He raises his open palm fingers pointed towards and it begins to violently vibrate as he slices downward. A faint shimmering line erupts from the swing and rushes toward me, growing in size the further it travels. Crossing my arms in an X pattern, I visualize a shell of Mana in front of me and instantly infuse my mental image with Mana. A blue dome of interlocking squares forms in front of me.

My focus on blocking the approaching attack, however, leaves me open and I am barely able to react in time as I feel his presence slip into my Field. He moves with an alarming speed and his left hand, holding the intricate dagger, stabs toward my hands.

Grabbing a full five percent of my Mana Well, I convert it all into Motion and infuse it within my body. Pain wracks through but I’m able to roll to the side and barely avoid his attack. The long distance attack finally makes contact with my barrier and rips through it like paper, causing the shell to dissipate into nothingness. Unbeknownst to him, the man probably just saved my life. If he hadn’t attacked, I would have incorrectly assumed my shell would have blocked his projective and would’ve been gravely injured by it.

Acting more on instinct at this point, I conjure a dozen Mana bullets and infuse them with Motion for extra power. All twelve fire off at the same instant and, despite his swift and flexible dodging, he gets hit by four of them. I see them pierce through his skin and then the explosion sends him flying twenty feet back.

I take a gasping breath during the quick reprieve and take account of my Mana reserves. I’ve gotten a lot better at understanding the cost of my new attacks but, even with that, I’ve already used a little under half of my entire Well. The increased regeneration of Effortless Presence, nearly 3% of my total amount every minute, is helpful but it won’t make a tangible difference with my current pace of Mana consumption.

The man gets to his feet and I see blood dripping down his face and body. It is a metallic red color that shimmers when hit by light. He wipes away the blood dripping down into his eyes, as he begins to slowly circle around me.

For the first time since I have returned to Earth, I’ve met an opponent I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle.