An internal memo within the Market of Sol Invictus

Management Memo! Let all merchants, brokers, banks, and buyers know that a new civilization has joined the Market. They are the planet Earth, hereby designated as ERTH, and will be granted full rights within 100 Market Days. All who are interested in opportunities on ERTH must first contact the Home Market and make a formal inquiry.

The next week passes by in a flash. With so much to do and so little time to prepare, everyone spends their every waking minute dedicated to our mission.

Hakim takes a battalion of the strongest guards and subjects them to a brutal training regime. Up at five in the morning, exercising or sparring for hours, a short break for tactical study, and then training until midnight. I find myself wincing in sympathy the few times that I manage to make it down to the training grounds; his guards look as if they are growing stronger but the price they have to pay for it is … intense.

Julian holes himself up in the Management Bureau with Alejandro, the two of them tinkering away with something they refuse to let me see. A little sound manipulation lets me hear a few things, however, and I manage to build a rough idea of their obsession. If I’m correct, they are working on some sort of long-distance communication device. I’m not entirely sure how it works but, knowing the two of them, it will be a complicated engineering marvel.

Elias disappears entirely, ingratiating himself with the Merchants of Sol Invictus. Even after I reach into his mind and go through his memories, I’m not entirely sure how he makes his wild mental leaps. It is as if sees things on a deeper level, a place where a single shrug can represent any number of things. While the Merchants aren’t exactly forthcoming with their information, Elias is able to extract out more than he needs. As long as he remains ‘loyal’, I’m not worried about the state of our economy.

My mother begins preparing the people of Everwall for the change that are going to come. Being a unified city is hard enough; making it the capital of a planet-wide government only adds further complications. She goes from neighborhood to neighborhood, giving speeches on the importance of unity and the potential of humanity. The power of what Everwall represents. It doesn’t take very long for the people to come around. Within the week they are congratulating each other and showing off their pride as being the ‘first city’ of the human empire.

I spend the rest of the week holed up in my little room within the Genesis Academy. The students, probably recognizing my desire for extreme focus, seem to have cleared out of the building. A few of the braver ones come back now and again, hoping to catch sight of me working with some strange mana from which they can draw inspiration, but leave after they realize I never leave the room.

Apart from my brief excursions to check on the rest of the preparations, I spend the entire week within those four walls. The quaint and comfortable bed, the shoddily built desk, the squeaky chair, and the dense blackout curtains become the only consistent of my existence for a brief span of time.

Most of my time is spent within my mind, probing a few different concepts and marveling at the information that appears from seemingly out of nowhere. An understanding of complex mechanics, theoretical applications of protons, and the nature of gravity come to me at a depth that would have taken me months, possibly even years.

It is on the seventh day, the last day before my departure from Everwall, that things begin to change. Time slows down to a crawl, each second becoming like thick molasses. Strange shapes and lights flash into my vision, seeming to move without any regard to time or space, and I crane my neck to try and follow them, losing each one as my motions become achingly slow.

I don’t know how long this continues for, but the shapes and lights begin to disappear after some amount of time. What happens afterwards is … almost impossible to describe.

An unsettling but invigorating feeling spreads throughout me and I feel my mind begin to … unwind. It is as if I’ve spent my entire life under an immense amount of weight, compressed by this unrelenting pressure, and it finally disappears, allowing me to stretch out in ways that I never even imagined possible.

The room opens itself up to me. Upon looking at the bed, I can see its creation, its life in this room, and its eventual decomposition. I see the particles that comprised it descend deep into the earth and then shoot back out into the world. A few manage to break free of the boundaries of the planet and carry off into space, beginning a journey that only ends with the heat-death of the universe.

This and a dozen other new sensations begin flowing into my mind, but I can only understand them on an infantile level. Just as a child knows when words are being spoken, so too do I understand that these sensations are the building blocks of a language just out of my reach.

Without warning, I snap back into my mind and that familiar pressure reasserts itself on my mind. Only now I know its there and I am able to push back against it slightly, just barely able to peer over the seemingly insurmountable wall that holds me back from that almost divine understanding of the universe.

Before I can give it any more thought, a notification blooms into my vision. Unlike the gold tinged screen of the Primus Screen and the simple blue and black screen of the regular notifications, this one appears as if it is made of aged parchment. Beautiful script appears on the script as I stare at it, each letter appearing as if written by a spectral master of calligraphy.

Congratulations! You have peered behind the Veil of Reality and seen the inner workings of the Universe. While you are a far, far ways from comprehending what you have seen, you have still managed to accomplish a feat of intelligence, wisdom, and determination that usually takes decades of study.

You have discovered the Universal Constant – Time (R-?) Lvl 1! The immutable concept of time is universal; no matter the culture, species, or object, time will eventually lay its claim. This is a Skill beyond the comprehension of all but the most powerful. Be warned; the power of time is not to be trifled with. Improper use carry’s consequences. The universe will remember.

WARNING: Due to your lower than average Intelligence, Wisdom, and Willpower, the full range of uses have been restricted. In order to unlock full usage, raise these three Attributes to a minimum of: 200

My eyes widen. Filling my hand with Mana, I focus on that fleeting memory of understanding and conjure forth my first Universal Constant.

Golden energy, bursting to the seems with a brilliance that almost forces me to look away, appears within my hand. It hovers with a perfection that all other forms of energy lacked. Somehow, it seems as if each movement, each beam of light that it casts out, is part of a grander sequence.

The room becomes illuminated with that brilliant light and I just sit there for a few seconds, appreciating the majesty of the power that I can now wield.

I then dissipate the Time energy and watch as the light seems to flow backwards in increasing speed, pulling away from the room and back into itself as if sucked in by some massive vortex. With a slight pop, all the light flows back into the dissipating ball and disappears, as if it had never existed in the first place.

A wave of exhaustion falls over me and I collapse onto the wooden floor of my tiny room. Never in my wildest imagination had I thought I’d be able to break through to a Universal Constant. I’d been hoping to get a weak form of gravitational manipulation or electromagnetic manipulation. Evidently, peeking behind the Veil of Reality had thrown a wrench into that idea.

It isn’t that I’m frustrated or upset by the discovery of the Universal Constant, far from it, but the sheer overwhelming power that I had held within my palm was … intoxicating. Frighteningly so.

The rough hard grain of the wood underneath scratches at me and, strangely enough, that annoyingly familiar sensation brings me back to my center. No matter what powers I discover, no matter what other forms of energy or space that I am able to manipulate, I am still a version of the same person that set out from Helldarvin so long ago.

Time, I chuckle ironically, may change me but I will always be grounded by the things that I have been through.

Taking a breath, I begin to climb back onto my feet when a rush of understanding floods over me. Time. If I have the ability to manipulate time itself, perhaps I have the ability to rewind it.

Raising my stump up to eyesight, I look at it with mild frustration. Despite nearly ten healing sessions with Joselin, it still hasn’t managed to recover to any significant degree. The shards of living metal apparently fight her every move, inflicting damage to my arm at the same rate that she is able to heal. It is the age-old dilemma: the unstoppable force and the immovable object.

But what if that immovable object never existed, or at least never existed within my arm?

I conjure up an orb of Time energy and that brilliant light fills the room once more, driving away the shadows with its enveloping warmth. I barely notice, however, as I will the orb towards my stump.

I watch as it slowly drifts through the air and then envelops my wrist, expanding slightly to cover the entire thing. Nothing seems to happen for a few moments, so I focus on the concept of time rewinding, back to the day of the fight. I fill my mind with the feeling of clenching a fist, of wind and grass caressing through my fingers, and, in a flash of memory, of dexterous movements from the games that I used to play.

The orb of Time begins to change in front of me. The brilliant warm light retracts into itself and becomes a dark red, almost blood-like in color and consistency. It begins to pulsate violently, thin strands flying away before their motion is reversed and they fly backwards upon the same path.

A guttural scream fills the room, echoing in my ears. It is easily the most painful scream I’ve ever heard in my life. Filled with pain beyond comprehension, it bellows into my ears and I can’t seem to stop it. I try to raise my hand to cover my ears but I’m unable to as I realize; the scream is my own.

The realization rips away the wall of disillusion that my mind had created to protect itself and I feel pain like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Even the pain of losing the hand is nothing compared to what I experience. It feels as if fiery pokers plunge into my skin, ripping out my innards and filling them with molten lava. My own scream echoes in my mind, causing my temples to pulsate and throb with intensity.

At some point I feel myself fall onto my side, continuing to scream, but I’m unable to do anything to stop. All I can do is suffer and suffer and suffer and suffer and –

I wake up. The rough grain of the wooden floor beneath me scrapes into my cheek and I seem to be on my side, splayed uncontrollably out onto the ground. Faint memories of pain beyond anything I’d ever experienced play out in my mind, but time has already blunted their intensity. Even so, I shudder at the recollection.

Groaning to myself, I place my hand on the floor and push myself upwards, instinctually brushing off the dust that has gotten on my pants. Both of the legs are an absolute mess and I swipe at both of them.

Wait. Both of them?

I raise my right hand in front of my and my eyes widen. The stump, my painful price for the life of Marc’s killer, is gone, replaced with a full hand. It isn’t exactly as I remember, as two long strips of silver-like metal seem to run down my palm in parallel lines, but that doesn’t matter.

All that matters is the fact that I have my hand back.

Tears falling down my eyes, I stare at it for a few moments before a bell rings in the distance. Seventeen rings later, I know that I’ll have to appreciate what has happened on the road.

The time to leave Everwall has come.