"See you in a few," Dad says, then hangs up and pockets his phone. "Hey, Reid. How's it going?"

"Utter confusion," I answer. "Absolutely utter confusion."

"Well," he says. "It looks like you weren't Level 300 yet, you'd need around 6,000 Magic or so to harm that thing. Or I guess around 6,000 Strength or so, but seeing as you were casting spells when I arrived, you went full mage."

"You know you just added to the confusion, don't you?" I ask.

"I know," he grins at me. "Let's wait for the people approaching us to arrive, shall we?"

I look over and spot some of the defenders approaching, including Silvia, Terrence, his family, and Sera. There are only a couple of others walking over, while the rest are either injured or tending to the wounded. Confusion is clear on their faces as well.

As they approach, I examine the tower that's standing in the spot I was told was the location of the tower of the previous [Archon]s. It's around a hundred and fifty feet in diameter and roughly three hundred feet in height. The entire building was constructed out of black stones, though the mortar between them is a bold violet. I don't see any windows on it, but I do spot the wooden doorway.

Which swings open about fifteen seconds after Dad tells me to wait. Mom strides out of it wearing a lilac dress and black flats, a pair of black metal earrings hanging from her ears, amethysts set into them. She's wearing a necklace to match the earrings and a bracelet identical to Dad's.

Since I'm just standing here confused, I decide to appraise the bracelets just to see if the System says anything about them. My parents have always had them for as long as I can remember, and I'm curious if the System will say stuff about items from other worlds.

Experience Lock Band Grade: 9 This bracelet prevents the wearer from gaining any Experience, and can be removed or worn at will. It is automatically granted to anyone who reaches 12,000 Points in a single Attribute. *This bracelet has been modified by its original owner and can be turned on and off by the wearer at will. It is currently off.

…maybe I shouldn't have done that. Now I'm even more confused.

"Reid!" Mom gives me a hug when she reaches me. "I'm glad we found you. It feels like there's a Slip going on. Was there a massive battle?"

"Yes," Dad tells her. "I showed up right in time to see a giga titan attacking him. Put up a [Barrier] around Reid, but forgot to lock it in place, so he got sent flying a bit."

"Well, then it's a good thing we showed up in time," Mom ruffles my hair before stepping back. "Did you have fun while here?"

"I have about a thousand questions," I say. "And Dad said we had to wait until they showed up."

I indicate the approaching beastkin, who reach us a few seconds later.

"Hello," Dad says. "I'm Jason Krezvil, and this is my wife, Victoria. Thank you for taking care of our son."

"Krezvil?" Silvia asks.

"You know that name?" Terrence asks.

"Yes!" Silvia stares at my parents with wide eyes. "You're the [Archon]s who were here until three hundred years ago!"

"Okay," I hold up my hands. "Mom, Dad, some explanations please before everyone starts peppering you with questions. You're both [Archon]s? And you were here for two centuries?"

"We were actually born here," Dad tells me. "In a small village not far from this area. We built our tower to study magic – it's bigger on the inside than the outside, by the way. We also created permanent [World Gate]s in it, and after we grew tired of being asked to deal with the smallest of issues, we simply took the tower and left Yggril. We picked out a world that was outside of the range for the draw of the world, as even if we're powerful enough to resist it, we didn't want to have to focus our energies on doing so."

"As for you," Mom says. "We had planned on telling you the truth once you graduated high school. That way, you didn't have to worry about both school and learning magic. Also so that you'd be a little bit more mature before learning how to tap into the forces of magic."

"The last thing we needed was a five-year-old who could teleport," Dad says. "Though you'd have probably needed more time than that to actually learn the spell. We weren't sure of how easily you would learn magic, but we learn it rather fast and so suspect you would. Earth didn't have the System, so it would take you longer to build up your Mana Core and strengthen your Mana Gate."

"So once you turned eighteen and learned a few spells," Mom said. "We'd planned on taking you to a world near Earth and introducing you to the System. It happens automatically at the same point and is the same everywhere."

This is a lot to take in. So my parents are five hundred-year-old [Archon]s from Yggril, and they just casually have a tower that they somehow took with them when they left Yggril, but was able to bring back when they wanted to return here.

"The tower?" I point at it

"It possesses its own dimension," Dad explains. "So we can move it wherever we want without issue. You know that door in the basement that you believe just has a wall on the other side, but never opened after we told you not to do?"

"Yeah," I answer.

I never did try opening it because I actually listen to my parents and I didn't see a reason to suspect a lie or secret. As it made no sense for there to be another room there, I didn't care much about seeing why there was a door there.

"That's actually a gate that leads into the tower," Dad informs me. "We had the door magically locked so that only your mother and I could open it. It surprised us to find that the lock never told us you'd tried to open it, we expected you to attempt it at least once."

I shrug.

"So how did I end up here?" I ask. "And how did you find me?"

"Because we're from this world," Mom tells me. "You're recognized as part of it. The Slip must have enhanced Yggril's reach much more than normal, especially considering how potent this one feels. As soon as he sensed you, the tether was connected. This Slip must be quite severe to have extended his reach that much. The poor kid probably freaked out over realizing you'd been connected and pulled over."

"What poor kid?"

"I'm sorry!" A boy's voice cries out. "It wasn't on purpose! It happened on its own!"

Looking over, I find a boy who looks maybe five or six years old standing there, his hair the dark brown of rich soil, his left eye the dark green of healthy grass, his right eye the bright blue of a clear sky. He's dressed only in a pair of pants that are mix of whites and greys, creating a cloud-like appearance for them.

Tears are filling his eyes, and I realize that his voice matches the mysterious boy deity's.

"It's okay, Yggril," Mom picks up him, cuddling the boy close. "We know it was an accident. You can't help but have the tether connect on anyone you sense as of this world, it happens on its own."

"I tried sending him back!" The boy cries. "But I wasn't able to! I'm sorry!"

"Sh," Mom bounces him a little as she rubs his back in an effort to calm him down, something she used to do with me when I was that young. "It's okay, Yggy. No need to cry."

"Meet Yggril," Dad indicates the boy. "The manifestation of the world itself. He's only a young child by world standards, and so that is the form his avatars take when he manifests them. We're fortunate this time. Back when we knew him before, he kept forgetting that people are supposed to wear clothes when he manifested a humanoid form."

The world itself doesn't have any clothes, so I can understand why he'd not think about it when making an avatar. His pants probably resemble clouds like that because he was convinced that clouds are a form of clothing.

"Normally," Dad says. "Intelligent life doesn't develop on a planet until they're about the equivalent of a ten-year-old for us. It takes another two or three of their aging years for magic to appear, and they're the equivalent of a fifteen-year-old when the System links in. Yggril developed everything much faster. People ascended to godhood here before the System showed up, which is exceptionally rare."

So gods were former mortals? Does the 12,000 Points in an Attribute have anything to do with that?

"Because of that," Mom says, still trying to calm the crying and apologizing world avatar. "Yggril is much too immature to handle everything properly. We stuck around long enough to help him with a few things, though his gods have largely been guiding him on stuff. There are cosmic laws that prevent them from acting against him, so he's at least safe from that."

"He also," Dad says. "Has these unfortunate rules he gave himself. His young age and inexperience have caused him to view things 'as the way they should be', such as how much he's allowed to interfere. Otherwise, he'd have likely approached you directly and told you everything, himself."

I'm not going to blame a kid for that.

"So in summary," I say. "The world is a bit too young for everything, and when his draw connected to me on its own, it pulled me here despite him not wanting it to. Scared, he kept the other gods from finding out about me initially, but also failed to tell me what was going on. That about sums it up?"

"Yeah," Dad answers.

"And you and Mom spent sixteen and a half years not telling me that I'm the son of two powerful mages from another world," I say. "Do you have any idea the amount of grief you're going to get for that?"

"We're expecting it," Dad snorts.

"So," I say. "How did you figure out I was on Yggril? And what did you think had happened to me?"

"We initially assumed you were kidnapped," Dad answers. "And so did some spells to try to locate you. We couldn't find you, nor any trace of what happened to you. Following that, we started searching all of the worlds within Earth's range – it's the same range for every world, changing based on how powerful their Slip is. Since we knew the draw of the world wouldn't affect you, we didn't even think about looking here."

"When we noticed a dimensional gate had been opened up into your room," Mom tells me. Yggril seems to have calmed a little, sniffling into her shoulder now instead of crying. "We thought one of the few mages of Earth was trying to do something and so we locked our house down. We didn't think anything of it."

"Not until Lyssa called us," Dad says. "And let us know that she was on a video call with Nick, and while he was getting water, she saw what couldn't be described as anything other than a sort of magical gate with you and a cute wolfkin guy on the other side through the feed."

Lyssa and Nick were on a video call?

"We looked at the video," Dad says. "And confirmed it was and a wolfkin. We started looking at every world that had beastkin we could sense, factoring in ones that would be in Earth's range if they were having a strong Slip. After leaving one of them, I had a thought – what if Yggril was having a particularly nasty Slip and his range was extended much further than normally-possible, thus causing his tether to link to you? So I set our tower back to here and came."

"And… your cellphone works here?"

"Oh, yeah," Dad says. "It's able to get the signal through the tower. We actually modified the tower to work as a cell tower, too. So we can make calls up to a range around it. I think we tested it on another world and found that we could make calls for up to ten miles away, and the phone's signal doesn't need to be that strong."

Magic mixed with technology is pretty neat.

"Yggy," Mom bounce Yggril a little. "Do you still have Reid's clothes and phone stored away?"

"Mn-hn," Yggril sniffles. "But I didn't understand the phone stuff. It's different. So the data is gone."

"What?" I ask. "He has the phone, but not its data?"

"When a summoning occurs," Mom tells me. "Anything you're wearing is actually destroyed, the clothes placed on you formed in that moment. However, its information is copied and stored in the world, and when you're sent back, it's used to recreate everything."

"At least you backed everything up regularly," Dad says. "So you didn't lose any pictures. You'll probably need to get numbers again, though. Yggy, go ahead and delete everything but his wallet, we can replace the rest without issue."

"Okay," Yggril sniffles.

A moment later, a glow forms in front of me. I catch my wallet as it falls out of the air and go through it. Everything is there, as it should be.

"Thanks," I say.

"Sorry, Reid," Yggril tells me.

"It's okay," I reach over and ruffle his hair. "I know you didn't mean to."

Yggril nods, then buries his head back into Mom's shoulder. Just what did they do when they were here before for him to treat them like this? At least now I understand why his description said the gods viewed him as both their father and a little brother. He's both due to his state.

"So," Dad looks at Terrence. "Is this handsome young man standing a tad close to you your boyfriend?"

"Dad!" I feel my face burn as Silvia laughs.

"Please," Dad says. "You know we knew, and you have been gone for a week and a half. I can tell he's handsome and your type, and he is standing close to you."

"As if I'd get a boyfriend when I'm trying to go home!" I say. "I wasn't expecting to be able to stay here, Dad!"

"You're our son," Mom says. "If you take an interest in someone, we know you'd look into a way to be able to visit them."

"He was," Yggril says. "He said that once he can make a [World Gate], he'll use it regularly to come back and visit Terrence. He wants to be friends first, for at least a few months, before trying to be boyfriends. Mazzie cheered when they kissed."

Mazzie? Oh, he probably means Maztlit.

"You little rascal," I say. "Telling my parents my secrets!"

Yggril giggles and vanishes, and Mom just chuckles.

"He hasn't changed much," Mom tells me. "If you do want to spend the next few months hanging out with Terrence and seeing if you two should progress into boyfriends or just remain friends, we can leave the gate open. There won't be any ill results, and cosmic law prevents diseases from a world affecting another world when it's through magic. The same law will also prevent you from getting sick here."

"But we do have ground rules," Dad tells me. "For if you want to come back regularly and hang out with Terrence – and we'll talk about others if you two do start dating. First up, no taking anyone between worlds until after you finish high school."

"You are allowed to tell your friends about magic, though," Dad says. "And this world. We'll even teach them some if they want it. Or you can. Don't expect them to be as talented or gifted as you, though. Despite the Mana Gates not being sealed on Earth yet, they aren't going to be fast learners. That's a hereditary thing. So if a [World Gate] is opened, we'll know it was you and not them."

"Understood!" I say. "And… understood! How do you think Earth would react to me posting videos of this world?"

"I think your fans would wonder about how you get the effects," Dad says. "But otherwise be impressed. No revealing the gate, though. So if you record anything here or take pictures, make sure you do it after you leave the tower. Oh, and know that Earth-style tech doesn't work here. We had to modify our phones. So you'll only be able to once you modify your own. We'll let you figure out how that works."

I had a feeling that was coming as soon as he started telling me it wasn't an issue.

"Want to make any bets on how long that will take me?" I ask.

"No!" Dad laughs. "So, Reid, who is this young man?"

"This is Terrence," I answer. "He's a prince of the kingdom we're in. The third out of four. I met him after arriving in this world. Quite literally crashed into him as soon as I arrived. I'd been trying to run out of the summoning circle."

"Sounds like you," Mom smiles. "A pleasure to meet you, Terrence."

"Hello," Terrence greets her.

"You're a follower of Aizdelin, aren't you?" Mom asks. "Your outfit reminds me of his."

"I am," Terrence nods. "I even have two of his Gifts!"

"You do?" I ask.

"Yeah," he answers. "The gifts of healing and guts. I guess that never came up, did it?"

"No," I say. "It didn't."

"Oh," he grins. "Well, I do! So what is this 'high school', and how long do I have to wait before I can see your world?"

"High school is what we call the school we attend from the end of summer to start of autumn when we're fourteen," I tell him. "And ends toward the end of spring when we're seventeen or eighteen. I'll be eighteen when I finish. The current school year is just about over, and I've got two more to complete."

"Okay," he says. "So I have about two years before I can actually use a computer and see why you were talking about it so much. And TVs. And video games."

"Yeah," I chuckle. "But I'll see about getting you a cellphone so we can talk even when I'm on Earth. You'll need to learn my language to use it, though. And I'll need to figure out how to modify it so that it works here, too."

"I look forward to it," he tells me, his tail wagging happily. "Can you bring me pizza on your next visit?"

"And you'll have fresh pizza at my house once I can take you over," I look at my parents. "But I suppose I can't just have him out with me on Earth, since he's a beastkin."

"You're an [Archon]," Dad says. "Make up your own rules. You're less than a hundred Levels away from being able to blink nukes out of existence. And once you have 12,000 Points in an Attribute, you'll get one of these bracelets," he holds up his wrist to show me his. "Make sure to have it on and active at all times unless you wish to become a god. You'll ascend once your average is 13,000 Points. At that point, you'll become bound to a world."

"Yours and Mom's say they're modified."

"So that we don't have to take them off if we want to ascend to godhood at some point," Mom explains. "We like the way they look."

Yeah… I definitely take after my parents.

"Well," Dad says. "Let's take care of the wounded here, then go on home. We'll let you have tomorrow off, but you're returning to school in two days, Reid. And you will be grounded if you don't make up your homework in a timely manner. Having a boyfriend in another world doesn't give you an excuse for falling behind on your studies."

"We're just friends," I sigh.

At least I don't think Terrence is going to have issues with his family over him being gay. I mean, he's interested in an [Archon] who's been stated to be interested back, and said [Archon]s parents are [Archon]s who are supportive of it.

"Okay," I look at Terrence and the others. "Let's get the cleanup started. After that, I probably won't be able to return until Saturday."

Which will be an agonizing wait for me, but I'll put up with it. This is still a lot to take in, but at least I can have both worlds.

The only thing left for me to do is figure out a way to pay back my parents for keeping something so huge a secret.