“This is fine. Even gods are lonely.” This was Sphinx’s icebreaker as soon as tea was served. Lark still had a hard time believing he was inside the Cyan Cottage serving tea to Sphinx. He couldn’t decide which was crazier: his home appearing in the middle of the desert or serving tea to someone who looked like him.

The kitchen, he was in before, was organized to Wangshi’s taste, the tea packets were in the same order, and as if he were in his actual home, his hands routinely prepared the tea for the two of them. The last time he went through an existentialism crisis was when he had to read novels exploring the meaning of life and death during Junior year. Toilet plunger aliens were beginning to look preferable to whatever situation he was in now. Feeling the precursor to another panic attack, Lark cradled the warmth emanating from the teacup and Sphinx spoke again.

“It’s what I told myself when I waited alone in this white expanse, for my sake and the person who created me,” Sphinx said as he inhaled the steam rising out of the teacup. “And because of the Blood Rite you performed, my physical form manifested to match yours. I’m sure you have many questions and this was the easiest way for us to communicate without you having to yell at the watch. By the way, if you keep doing that in the future, people will eventually notice and try to steal me away. That’s how much you should value me.”

Sphinx ran his pink tongue over his pale lips and hummed. “Wangshi is correct, you do know how to prepare good tea.”

The tea scalded Lark’s palate as he saw the red and white contrast and Sphinx looked at him with amusement in his cheeks up to the silvery eyes where Lark had trouble confronting.

“Are you blind?” The question came out in a choked whisper.

“Yes.”

It was a simple and direct reply, yet it did not uncomplicate things for him for Sphinx was no longer a figment of his imagination, but an unavoidable future.

“Why?” He blurted, unable to hide the hurt in his intonation.

Sphinx’s expression remained unchanged. Though his silence seemed to confirm Lark’s fears.

“Don’t you have better questions to ask me like what can I do or how can I help you resolve Wangshi’s crisis?”

“No, not yet!” The table quaked from slamming his cup down. Looking away from the table, Lark resumed in a low voice. “Please, I just need to know.”

“Teenage angst is never in short supply.” Sphinx took another sip, before replying. “My answer won’t change what your doctors already told you. You’re losing pigmentation in your both your eyes and you’ve been on enough WebMD sites to know that what’s happening to your eyes isn’t normal…”

“Here’s an idea, if you want to know what’s happening to your body, why don’t you scan yourself?”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

“Why should I?” Sphinx inquired, resting a palm under his chin. Unlike Lark’s stiff, leaned in position, Sphinx sat on the dining chair like a frog resting on a lily pad.

“Because that’s your power— you know things— all the floating boxes have information that I certainly wouldn’t know about. And it’s game-like interface…” Lark said slowly. “…You inspired Runesteam, Grandpa’s latest invention.”

“Are you sure about that? Have you not considered the way you perceive the world as an extension of yourself? You, who always resigned to place in second, pretending this is all a casual game sounds like a coping mechanism you would use.” Sphinx gave a little sigh and continued. “The way I am and the way this world appears is affected by all your worries. I’d only be able to tell you what you already know, Lark, since it’s about yourself and not I. In order to obtain more information, you got to use the ‘scan’ skill. That’s how I’m able to gain knowledge. If you’re too scared to do it, shall I?”

Lark held up a hand, having enough of the bullshit talk over tea. The pot ran dry by the time Sphinx spoke again.

“Since you don’t want to talk about yourself anymore, I’ll talk about myself then. Starting from the obvious, Earth is not where I originate. I was developed in a place called Pantheon. Judging from my own creation, you can tell the level of sophistication between here and there are worlds apart. And when that world was undergoing a type of apocalypse, I randomly ended up in Sierra Desert. The last thing I remembered after the sky went up in flames was being discovered by your father in the scorching summer of 2088.”

That was around the same time as when dad found Wangshi, Lark thought. It appeared that the Sierra Desert held several pieces of the puzzle: What was Wangshi doing there? How did the pyramid arrive? Where exactly is his father? And how can he leave Earth?

With a wry grin, Sphinx walked up to the partially curtained windows in the living room.

“I hope you know that the Sierra Desert is not the same place as the Sahara Desert in Africa. It’s actually in our backyard of California to Nevada, as in the Sierra Nevada. You’ve been imagining the wrong place where your father went missing.”

“I knew that.”

“Sure you did,” Sphinx hummed, and in the reflection of his eyes appeared a mountainous, snowy terrain.

Faintly annoyed by Sphinx’s overbearing attitude, Lark walked up to the curtains and looked out the window.

“If you’re blind, how can you tell what’s around you?”

“While we rely heavily on sight to see the world, when we become sightless it doesn’t mean the world disappears like how we know the stars are still there even in the morning sky. Blindness isn’t an end-all when you understand there’s more to the universe than reveling in its colors.”

“A sixth sense?” Lark guessed, not able to follow Sphinx’s train of thought.

“I am your sixth sense, Lark Rune, but I can’t see for you. For better or for worse, if you’re so scared of change, why don’t you try to stop it?” Sphinx turned his head to face Lark.

He couldn’t get over Sphinx’s uncanny ability to see through him. Now, that magic existed, there was a real possibility of fixing his eyesight without needing to buy more expensive contacts. So what was holding him back?

Lark flexed his left wrist and hesitated.

“Come, it appears that you’re still not ready,” Sphinx said, walking towards the entrance to Grandpa Rune’s secret laboratory. There wasn’t a hint of disappointment or rush in his voice, but Lark walked at a pace slower than normal.

The two stood in front of the U-shaped desk, when an image of Grandpa Rune greeted them, “Lark, how was your day at school?”

It’s always the same question. Come to think of it, did he still need to go to school after what happened to him? Everything in his life came to a halt after everyone got kidnapped. Subsequently, living an ordinary life with college applications and Runetech did not seem like an option. Though before, he could return the greeting with his usual terse response, Sphinx answered for him.

“Grandpa Rune, how did really you die?”

“Oh, I think we decided on heart failure,” Grandpa Rune said.

We? Lark raised a brow at his grandfather, then at Sphinx.

“Wangshi and I made a contingency plan in my old age that if I ever passed away it would be due to heart failure. But the truth is probably over-work and looking for your father.”

Of course, his grandfather and Sphinx would get along with their misleading comments. Lark frowned feeling both relief and agitation as he eliminated further conspiracy theories. He flexed his wrist again.

“What about your will to cut your body in half, leaving the side of your brain in a cryogenics lab, and the other in an urn?”

“Ah, well. I hoped one day in the future with my preserved brain, I would be revived. Or as a ghost, I wouldn’t have to use my feet to move around.” Grandpa Rune released a hearty laugh.

Several loud pops let off from Lark’s wrist sought Sphinx’s attention as he waved Grandpa Rune merrily away.

Lark stared at Sphinx then at his numb wrist. He really couldn’t feel any pain in this world. Chewing his bottom lip, the Trinity Watch weighed down on his arm.

“Now that you know about your grandfather, what about your grandmother and mother? I know you haven’t been in their rooms since their deaths. You should see to it before you leave. But, what else is holding you back?” Sphinx asked, sitting on the cleared workbench. He lifted out Mishka’s and Sky’s backpacks from a drawer.

“Surely, it’s not these two, because they’re ahead of you,” Sphinx spoke, unzipping the leathery, brown backpack and pulled out the weighty dictionary Sky borrowed from the school library. “Is it uncertainty?”

Lark’s eyes widened as Sphinx’s Trinity Watch emitted a white light over the book.

A landslide of the English vocabulary bulldozed through his stored memory, unbidden. Uninvited punctuations to the party of A’s to Z’s up an inclination. If words were made of sand, he saw a beautiful construction of un-bid-den grains overflowed like water cresting over each other, depositing layers atop layers.

“A practical test,” Sphinx announced, opening to a random page in the dictionary. “Page 108, what’s the first word on the page?”

On the spot, Lark answered, “Ataraxy.”

“Definition?”

“Noun. A state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety; tranquility,” Lark recited flawlessly. It was as if he pinched the precise amount of sand from the sandbox by eye measurement, and he couldn’t help but smile from his good fortune. Even if it was only sand and not pearls.

Snapping the dictionary shut, Sphinx lectured, “You seem happy, but textbooks can only guide you so far. During an open book test, not everyone can find it in themselves to go beyond the words or read in between the lines. That’s where your intuition comes in.”

The eerie look in Sphinx’s gaze returned when he tossed the book over to Lark and asked, “What else can you learn from the dictionary?”

All the words in this volume, he could say he knew by heart after Sphinx’s display, so what would happen if he were to use that skill? Lark bit his lip as he held the thick spine and before the word could leave his mouth, a black box opened before him.

“Item: English Wordbook (Used)

A collection of English words arranged alphabetically. This edition was found in the Dubois High School library.”

Sphinx offered another piece of advice. “What if you thought of it as a weapon?”

Another black box appeared.

“Item: Heavy Tome (Used)

Durability: 12/15

Bore your enemies with the English language. Can cause a short period of confusion if thrown correctly.”

Lark squinted at the two different pieces of information used to describe the same item.

“You see Lark, there are many possibilities in this world. You’re not limited to choose one path when you have me acting on your intuition like a needle on a compass.” Sphinx sold himself well but complimented Lark’s ability to handle himself. “How we’ve come so far is based on your own intuition. Like letting Gushi eat the monster crystals or how you defeated the refrigerator slime by aiming at its nucleus. That was all you.”

Sphinx gave a cat-like grin.

“Intuition seeks out the answers not given. So will we climb forward or despair?”

Lark shook his head and settled the dictionary on the U-shaped desk. Ready, he stood before Sphinx and flexed his wrist to face himself. Closing his eyes, he said, “Scan!”

He felt the white light wash over him; the feeling significantly different from undergoing a transfer. Somehow his body warmed and a fresh feeling perfused him like the time when he shaved most of his hair during soccer season, light and airy.

“Lark Rune

Titles: [Survivor][Trickster]

Happiness Level: 70%

STR: 18

DEX: 20

INT: 18

MG: 0

SPT: 0

LUK: 15

Skills - None”

Lark flushed. Despair chose him. No wonder Sphinx said he was weaker than Gushi. At this rate, his slime would definitely eat him for as a snack rather than for nourishment.

“Body conditions:

Deteriorating vision caused by ??? genetic condition.

Blisters on hands and knees. Bruised ribs. Injuries caused by the previous battle with the Wishes of the People.”

“You’re indeed capable of surprising people, Lark Rune.” A flash of amazement fluttered through Sphinx as he raised a hand up to his chin. “Even my database from Pantheon doesn’t have enough information to discern what’s causing your eyesight to go bad.”

Lark didn’t say anything. Not only bothered by the fact that it looked like he still needed to wear expensive contacts, but he’d also sooner die in the process of rescue with these trash stats. It was clear that the Wishes of the People didn’t aim to kill, using slimes to capture them rather than shooting them dead. But maybe that goal would change in the future.

“You’ll be fine if you keep treating your body like a temple.” A hand patted his shoulder, and Lark turned his head at a cunning Sphinx. His sudden appearance chilled Lark. Although he was distracted by his trash stats, he couldn’t have been so blind to let Sphinx sneak up next to him.

“The reason for your low stats is due to you providing a low amount of feedback to the SIM and also leaving me inside your stupid spatial ring during your battles. So, once you get into action in the real world, these numbers and skills will explode. As for MG and SPT, that’s another story. Having not learned magic or spirit energy, how could you even have a point in them?” Sphinx laughed without care, dispiriting Lark further.

But then Lark raised a point. “So without magic, how do you explain the ‘scan’ skill and this place?”

Sphinx nodded. “Good. This is your intuition speaking correctly. Of course, all this is not possible without magic or spirit energy. But you are not the source. Rather the energies come from SIM or the thing you’ve been referring to as the pyramid, which is an infinite duality tool that was created in hopes of developing a type of simulator for training purposes. To bring in another item you’ve scanned just imagine it or if that’s too difficult, you could say ‘print said item.’”

“Print Gushi,” Lark said and his favorite silver slime materialized. He picked up the slime, and just as he remembered, the coat felt cool and gel-like.

Being picked up by his owner like a small puppy made Gushi happy, and he wiggled his body, tickling the nerves on Lark’s fingers.

Chuckling, Lark placed Gushi down and the black box containing Gushi’s status and skills appeared in front of him. Nothing changed except for a 5% increase in Happiness.

“Ask him to eat the dictionary and see what happens,” Sphinx offered as he wandered about the laboratory.

Lark nodded and repeated the order to Gushi while placing the dictionary in front of the slime.

Gushi automatically ate the book and absorbed the browned pages into nothing. There were no noticeable changes.

Lark hanged his head when Sphinx said, “Success comes from failure,” as it were a well-timed saying.

Then Lark said, “Print dictionary,” and the same dictionary that Gushi had engulfed before reappeared in its normal slime-free state. This time, he told Gushi to contain the dictionary without absorbing it yet. Looking at the floating book inside Gushi’s stomach, he recalled one of the options to learn the skill, Propel, and looked for somewhere in the room to aim.

“Spit the book all the way to the end of the room,” Lark suggested and waved his arm towards the far end of the room cluttered with office boxes.

A moment after Gushi aligned himself in the space between the desk and the wall, the dictionary hurtled into the air from its slime-filled captivity and shot over twenty-five feet, knocking into the opposite wall behind the boxes.

Two black boxes appeared in the air notifying Lark of changes in Gushi and the dictionary.

Propel - Attack Skill - Rank F- User can catapult objects. Effects: Distance of thrown object is dependent on the weight and strength of the user. As STR increases so will the range and damage of thrown objects.

“*Updated Item: Heavy Tome (Used)

Durability: 2/15

No longer readable. Missing pages. Could be used as kindle.”

“Not bad,” Sphinx observed from behind the desk.

“So, you’re like a really sophisticated multi-functional printer that lets me scan items, copy them into here, and experiment without getting hurt. Can I take out the copied items to the real world?” Even Lark could tell how stupid he sounded, but he didn’t know how to phrase it any better.

The enigmatic smile swept over Sphinx’s pale features dampened when Lark minimized SIM’s abilities.

“Unfortunately, not. My current capabilities are like a typewriter compared with a 3D printer. It gets the job done, but could be improved.”

“Do you think we could upgrade SIM in the future?”

“I don’t see why not. The world began with sticks and stones.” Sphinx said and his eyes, as ghostly as they were, reminded Lark of how old men looked at their chess games in the park. “But let’s talk some more before we get into the scheme of things…”

Suspicion dawned on Lark. Beyond Blood Rites and Contract Magic, he had read about instances of slavery through puppet spells and other means he didn’t get the gist of yet.

“I have no thoughts of coveting you, my owner, that’d be like stealing candy from a baby. Wrong and immoral.” While Lark’s face flushed, Sphinx’s hands laced together in a way Lark saw Wangshi do many times with him when he did troublesome things like buying a half-a-million watch or not eating breakfast.

“I’m worried about you having no ambition. You quit the soccer team after Wei made a body feint that you were not capable of. And after you scored lower than Sky and Mishka on the SATs, suddenly college became a no-go—””

“That’s not true,” Lark interrupted, somehow not surprised by Sphinx’s sudden fervor. In the back of his mind, there was an hourglass running out of sand to spill.

“I know you,” Sphinx said evenly, and Lark couldn’t muster the fight to argue. His alter ego was a stick in the mud, he decided warily.

“But because you have the power to answer the prayers of thousands with SIM, I need you to crave desperation. That’s the only way we can move forward from here. To move, even when you can’t! To breathe, even when you’re drowning! To be wracked with desperation until you impose your will upon the world! That’s willpower!” Sphinx imparted sharply, raising his arms, as black boxes full of runes and strange shapes blotted the room in a swirl of white glow and darkness.

Swept in by confusion, Lark shielded his face from the spiraling boxes. But he could feel all the experiments and scans Sphinx had done were being put inside his brain. Overhead, he could hear Sphinx shouting.

“You know you’re okay because you are doing your best and you’re still breathing! Don’t give up!”

“Yeah…I won’t!” Lark agreed in a whisper, realizing their short time together was at an end, for now, as he heard another bell chime. While he was unable to see Sphinx’s broad-sweeping grin, the feeling was still mutual.

When Lark’s body exited the white space, Sphinx settled back down onto the U-shaped desk. His white eyelashes fluttered, moving in a manner similar to a butterfly beating its wings.

A few moments later he reached over the workbench for a toolkit and repeated, “yeah,” while he picked up a hammer and saw.

“I’ll see you soon, Lark.”

This was the first time Lark felt his energy sapped from completing meditation. He awoke groggily in the same room where he left his slime and Wangshi. Gushi didn’t move when he woke up and instead waited patiently for orders.

Lark looked at his Trinity Watch and was surprised to see only a minute had passed after he fell into a trance. It must’ve been at least two hours he spent with Sphinx. The thought of something like a time chamber arose in his mind. Unlike the times before, his new acquaintance didn’t add any input.

He rose to his feet and walked to where his slime and caretaker were. He rubbed the side of Gushi’s slime coat in an affectionate manner.

“I need you to store away Wangshi,” he said, and his grey eyes bored into Wangshi’s limp body similar to how Sphinx gazed upon him for the first time. The feeling of anticipation and yet vast profoundness could be found beyond sight.