Chapter 041

Joram: Hmm, I should probably get you back into a psicrystal, eh Kinkade?

Kinkade: That would be appreciated.

Joram nodded, then concentrated to speed up the formation of a psicrystal. Normally, it would take about a day for one to reform, but these were more… pseudo psicrystals than anything.

A few minutes later, he’d created Kinkade’s psicrystal. It would take him a few hours to re-enchant his psicrystal just the way he liked it, so Joram just shifted him back to his realm, though into the lab that he’d been using for his research.

No need to scare anyone after all.

With that done, he stood up and made his way through the now huge doors that matched the epic-looking torii in front of the Library. No more would this place be kept a secret, forever suffering from anonymity.

No, he’d make this the go-to place for Waeryn Continent to learn of history, browse an unparalleled selection of literature. Work on genealogy.

Yes, it would take a while, and it would take him recreating the teleportation network that had been lost with the Clan Home. But he would build it up again. He would make this place glorious!

*Grumble-grrrrr-squeeee*

With a blushing face, Joram touched his stomach and realized that a good deal of his “inherent” abilities were “turned off”.

He closed his eyes and quickly turned them back on again. Even if [Sustenance] was running, he could still eat food. And food sounded like just what he needed right then.

Though, before he left, he stopped at the landing where the portal had been and sighed. He’d not been able to restore that particular portal.

He’d get to it after dinner.

* * * * *

Even with her “helpers”, Avi was having a time of it.

The people that she’d managed to rescue were all in shock, but almost everyone was showing it in different ways.

Some sat, staring at a wall, or their teacup, or at the ceiling. It didn’t matter where their eyes were directed, they all had the same vacant look of a person who’s world had shattered.

Others took to mundane chores and to helping serve others… not unlike the various droids who’d normally be doing those tasks. She’d had to hide them away for fear of causing a stir. No way to know if someone would react poorly to a “golem” that they couldn’t sense magic from.

And then there were the few who thought their conversations and planning was “quiet enough” to not be overheard.

She’d had to erect a privacy barrier, this one designed to negate sound, to keep them from disturbing the other survivors. Their talk of rebuilding and then gathering enough power to take revenge wasn’t going to help anyone right now. On the contrary, it would likely cause much harm. People needed to heal, not plan out revenge.

Sure, that was how some people coped, but it wasn’t for everyone.

Avi looked around the food court in the Villa, not quite sure how to start. Yes, Altaea had left her many memories, but most of them revolved around knowledge of technology, magic, and psionics. There was very little that involved people management.

Well, if popular culture was correct, then starting with food had been a good choice. Then accommodations for everyone.

She really needed to find some sort of war/grief counsellors to help these people through this tragedy.

Avi watched as Sulia mechanically brought Zaleria to her exposed breast to suckle, not even trying to cover herself up. What was more shocking was that no one batted an eyelash, or even noticed.

As for right now, she had people packed into whatever space she could find, many rooms with eight people crammed into them. She had her production facilities running at capacity producing textiles that would then be made into sheets, blankets, mattresses, and anything else they might need. Probably a lot of clothing, as those present only had what they were wearing.

Then she sensed Joram’s arrival and heaved a sigh of relief as he walked through the patio door attached to the food court. Well, it was really more of a large cafeteria given that there wasn’t a variety of restaurants available.

Avi shrugged the thought away as she approached Joram as he in turn made his way to his mother, having spotted her almost immediately upon entering.

Sulia looked up in confusion for a moment before her eyes registered Joram’s approach. Avi guessed that he’d sent her an invitation to the Network, then got confirmation as she sensed Sulia’s presence appear.

She couldn’t hear what was said, but she also felt Zaleria’s presence in the Network a moment later.

Joram hugged Sulia after a moment of staring into her glassy eyes, then helped her to her feet while Zaleria continued to suckle. He then produced what looked like a plaid covering done in light tans and earth tones and draped it over Sulia’s shoulder, and over Zaleria, before taking her free hand and leading her back outside.

Avi itched to be there for Joram, but knew that Sulia needed the time with her son.

“Excuse me, miss…?” Someone interrupted her thoughts from behind.

She turned and saw an older woman. Well, someone who looked like she was in her mid thirties. Avi then placed her, realizing that it was Annalee, accompanied by Thuridan, Tillia’s parents.

“Just call me Avi,” she replied, a smile replacing her previous expression.

“Miss Avi,” Annalee started, looked to her husband, then continued after getting the briefest of nods. “We were wondering if we could help with anything…?”

Avi continued to smile as she noticed several other people paying attention to their conversation, especially when she realized that most were interested in also helping.

With one last glance towards the patio door Joram had slipped out of, she turned and began to develop her people management skills.

* * * * *

“Are you OK?” His mother asked, still sounding a million miles away.

Joram took in her appearance, noting a hole in her blowse near her heart. She’d taken off the small blanket once they’d seated themselves at the edge of the gardens under the shade of a flowering tree with petals similar to cherry blossoms, except these were a pale yellow with vibrant blue streaks running down their length.

He knew shock when he saw it as he’d seen it in the mirror every day for almost a year after his daughters’ passing. This wouldn’t be easy, nor would it be fast. For either of them.

“As well as can be expected,” he said, reaching out a hand to take hers.

She just blinked as she looked down at his hand, now larger than hers as she held a now sleeping Zaleria with her other arm.

Sulia looked up and stared at the vast orchards, fields, and gardens laid out before them. Slowly, ever so slowly, a spark of life could be seen in her eyes. Slowly growing and shrinking, but suddenly blazed brightly and tears began to flow.

Joram quickly used [Create Object], shaping it into a crib with a comfortable mattress and linens. He then took Zaleria as Sulia covered her face with both hands and began to weep, then sob, then outright cry.

He quickly used [Sleep] through the Network to make sure that Zaleria wouldn’t wake, placed her gently into the crib, and embraced his crying mother.

He probably could have said exactly how long he held his mourning mother, but he too lost himself not long into the hug as his own emotions caught up with him.

The Realm was long dark by the time they separated, their tears and mucus having finally run dry. Sulia gazed up at the night sky, devoid of any moons, but filled with the stars Joram had grown up with. Well, not real stars, but still points of light in the otherwise dark sky.

“We’re not on Dovaynia, are we?” She finally asked as she looked at him.

“No, we’re in my personal Realm,” he replied simply.

Sulia snorted a laugh then. “Said so casually,” she said, shaking her head. “From anyone else, I’d call them a braggart or a liar.”

Joram let out his old chuckle/grunt, then turned red as his voice broke while doing that, causing Sulia to also laugh.

*aHEm*

“Well, it was the safest place for everyone, so I figured that it wouldn’t matter if the cat came out of the bag, as it were.”

“I’m glad you didn’t hesitate to share this place,” she said with a soft smile.

“Well, it was actually Avi that started bringing people here first,” he said, embarrassed. “I was a bit… unconscious at the time.”

Sulia smiled a sad smile. “She’s a good… helper?”

“Yeah, she is,” he said, ignoring the question. “There’s still a lot to do, and I’m told that Avi has already retrieved… who she could.” He had to stop then to swallow a rather large lump in his throat.

“Ah,” was all his mother said to that.

“Yeah. Well, there’s plenty of time to take care of all that,” he started, wishing that his voice was more stable. “Let’s get everyone resettled first, though. I’ll be busy in the next couple of days, but please talk to me when you need,” he said, once again taking her hand while staring intently into her eyes, trying to get through to her the utmost sincerity of his words.

“Don’t worry, Joram, I will,” she said with a smile and a squeeze of his hand. “We’ll need to take stock of who is left… and what we have, then go from there.”

“Rest assured, mum, I’ll get things sorted.”

“I’m sure you will,” she said, then pinched his cheek. Or tried to but couldn’t quite get a grip on his unnaturally tough skin. “Let us adults take care of getting everyone set up and sorted.”

“You realize that I’m actually older than you, right?” He asked, a deadpan expression on his face.

Which got him a not-so-gentle flick right between the eyes, then she started sucking on her now bruised finger.

“You’re still my son, Reincarnator or not,” she said in her stern mother voice. Then her tone softened as she spoke, “You should organize what children there are…. I’m told that the invaders took away most of the children with them.”

That sobered Joram’s mood quite handily while also reminding him of Tillia.

“I think they also took Tillia,” he said seriously, then recounted what had happened.

Sulia paled at that, making Joram’s stomach sink further towards his feet.

“Do you know what that means?”

“That they’ll try to use her for nefarious purposes?”

His mother gave him a blank look, but nodded slightly. “That too. But more importantly, it means that there was, or is, a traitor in the clan that leaked that information.”

It was Joram’s turn to turn pale, but not in fright or dread. But in fury.

Sulia again flicked him right between the eyes, once again wincing.

“None of that now,” she said sternly. “Do you know if anyone can communicate with anyone else outside of your realm?”

Joram took a few breaths before replying. “I haven’t ever tried. The only communications that go in or out of here are through my Network. Are trans-dimensional communications a thing?”

“Not that I know of,” Sulia said, shaking her head. “So, this really is another dimension.”

“Sort of?” He said, looking for an easy way to explain it. “It is part of my soul, but also exists in the Astral Plane. You see, the Astral Plane is kind of the glue that binds all realities, dimensions, and realms together. Everything is connected through the Astral Plane, and nourished by it.”

Sulia blinked at him. “Huh.”

“Anyway, we should be safe enough here. It took Grammy, someone gifted in their understanding of the Law of Space, to peek into here. And since then, we’ve strengthened the realm further so not just anyone can poke a hole in the side and hop in.”

Sulia took that all in for a moment before responding. “Is your realm able to support the Clan members here?”

“Hmm,” he hmm’d. “I’ll have to make some adjustments, not to mention finishing my work on [Genesis]…. Not right now, no. Well, yes. ‘No’ for anyone wanting to cultivate, but ‘yes’ to support everyone here.”

Him mother just raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well, when I finish my work on [Genesis], I’ll be able to incorporate a few things that should make my Realm more that suitable for cultivation. As-is, this place is really a glorified garden, only able to support the growth of the various plants here.”

At the mention of plants, Sulia’s eyes lit up once again.

“So, I noticed more than a few rare medicinal herbs here!”

- - - - -

By the time he’d managed to satiate his mother’s curiosity regarding his rather unusual collection of magical plants, the sky was starting to brighten and Zaleria was waking for another meal.

He dropped his mother off to get a bite to eat, then shifted back to the mountainside (after stopping and picking up a few things from the lab) that had hosted the Clan for thousands of years. He looked down to the valley below, taking note of the massive trees that made up a forest that spanned hundreds of kilometres in each direction.

He looked over to where he’d been shot into a cliff a few miles, er, many kilometres away and shook his head. It wasn’t exactly “across” the valley. More just the next mountain over on the edge of the valley.

This world really was ridiculously huge to the point that it looked flat, even to his ridiculously overpowered eyes.

Well, at least a few hundred trees taken wouldn’t put a noticeable dent in the forest.

He looked down at his arms and wondered how hard it would be to install the omni-tools. With a shrug, he slipped on the glove they’d used for the prototypes and inserted the omni-tool into it. After [Fabricate]’ing a second glove, he inserted the second omni-tool into it and rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he [Teleport]ed down to the edge of the forest.

Then frowned.

“I’m pretty sure these omni-blades won’t make it all the way through you,” he muttered to the tree in front of him that would put most Redwoods from his world to shame.

The thing was over sixty feet in diameter. And it was one of the “small” ones at the edge of the forest. If one of those fell, it would cause an earthquake.

After much deliberation, Joram finally nodded to himself as he sat on his heels facing the tree. He reached out an arm, then pointed a finger at the tree.

“[Sever],” he said, activating a Power that wasn’t quite intended for logging, but worked just fine with enough psionic power pumped through it.

Visually, nothing much happened except a microscopic line appearing at the base of the tree. Joram smiled, placed his hand fully on the tree, then shifted it to an empty section of his Realm.

* 5 hours later *

“Well, thanks for the help,” Avi said, patting Joram on the shoulder.

Joram could only nod, so drained was he. Not only had he used up much of his psionic reserves last evening, but he’d done so again this morning.

But it had been worth it.

“Do you think they’ll enjoy it?” He asked, staring up at the new building on their… farm? Acreage? Shrug.

“It certainly is fancy enough,” Avi replied, admiring the structure.

“You can send the droids and stuff in to do the wiring and finish the plumbing,” Joram said through a yawn. “I’m sure you’ve got some for that.”

“I will, and I do, but you’ll have to close everything up once they’re done.”

“Yeah, but time enough for a nap in between.”

Avi nodded, then [Teleport]ed Joram to his room in the Villa.

*1345.04.15*

‘I’ve arranged for a tree farm, so don’t worry about resources like that in the future,’ Avi sent to him the next day as they sat in one of the gardens sipping some sort of fruity tea/juice/thingy that was wonderfully cool.

‘Well, M3 has made good progress with [Genesis], so I’ll be busy for the next bit.’

‘I’ll only call if it’s important.’

Joram sent a mental nod and retreated into his mind.

The next several hours proved fruitful. Not that he managed to complete the new [Genesis], but he made great progress, in his opinion. It was his understanding of space and gravity that wasn’t quite there that was holding him up a bit. Maybe a few more insights would allow for progress.

Maybe Avi has some more information that Altaea left with her that could help…

With a mental shrug, he went on to review the progress with [Schism] and was pleasantly surprised at how well the simulations went. A few more tweaks, then he was sure to get an M4 up and going. Which would be awesome! Kinkade could be out and about with Asura (Avi’s A2, according to his rather unimaginative naming system) making them money elsewhere, or even picking up valuable resources and such.

More mental nodding occurred before he slipped further into himself to observe his cultivation.

It was still hard moving about without some discomfort, but it was indeed getting better at a noticeable rate. And with the orbits of his Cores and Stars stabilized, he was pretty sure that his cultivation would finally be able to stabilize enough so that he could get properly used to the psijic energy in his body.

The other problem that he’d been putting off was this: he’d likely have to make alterations to every spell and power that he knew to accommodate such… exotic energy. The best comparison he could come up with was trying to run DC current through a phone. Or maybe run a gasoline engine on diesel…?

Bah.

Then there were all of his Metacreation Powers to think of. They were very sensitive Powers that took a lot of fine-tuning to get working properly. It wasn’t like mana, where it could easily be transformed into something. Mana… wanted to be something, if that made sense. Psionic energy was very… there.

Bah.

How to explain? It took what you knew and did that. It was very good at following instructions. Almost like a coding language for the Universe….

Bah.

Anyway, having the two energies fused as they were gave untold possibilities for how it could be used. And from what he could feel of the potency of the energy, it was on a whole other level. He’d need to pay attention to it as he cultivated and go from there. Well, maybe the newly formed M4 would be on observation duty for the next… while. After he finished with his latest iteration of [Schism], that is.

Joram came out of his mind and looked around. He was still in the garden, though it looked to be early evening. His gaze stopped on the building he’d made yesterday and grinned. It looked like an old Japanese castle. He was very proud of that, as it had taken quite a while to get the layout just how he wanted it.

Sure, it wasn’t quite the same architecture style that the region was used to, but it wasn’t that far off either. Its roof tiles were even modular so that he could later convert them to disguised solar panels, taking a page out of old Elon’s book. Fortunately, however, the efficiency would be significantly higher and the storage batteries downright superior to anything Earth could have produced in the next couple hundred years.

Or maybe not. There was a large push for energy storage capacity and longevity in the years before he’d… left. Anyways, storage cells were some of the tech that Altaea had left Avi, so they didn’t need to worry all that much about setting up power plants or anything….

On that thought, Joram realized that Avi had already likely done just that. He had a decent sense of his Realm, so he could feel that she had more facilities made than she was willing to admit to.

Had she gone a bit manic during his convalescence?

Probably.

Would he chew her out for finding coping mechanisms that weren’t likely to be a problem?

Nope.

On the contrary, he was ridiculously excited to see all the toys-

*Cough*

The many things she was able to accomplish in his absence. Which reminded him of the work he’d need to do to make a replicator for her. Well, the first of likely many replicators, anyways.

So, off he went to his workspace, finding Kinkade up and about. He was getting very good with the design of his [Holographic Projection]. So, he took a few minutes to admire the work, then face-palmed.

Joram: Kinkade?

Kinkade: Yes, Joram?

Joram: Just how good are you getting at keeping your thoughts to yourself?

Kinkade gave him the side-eye, not quite sure he liked where this was going.

Kinkade: I’m still you, you know.

Joram: Yeah, but the whole point of the revised [Schism] was that we’d all know the same things but able to work on multiple things at once.

Kinkade: Yeah, but I didn’t want to distract you with anything while you were busy.

Joram: Did I just get a dissociative identity disorder?

Kinkade balled up a paper and threw it at him.

Kinkade: Seriously?! We’re the same being! Same person! Me and M3 don’t even count towards the occupancy limit of the Network!

Joram: Well, I’m pretty sure psicrystals don’t either, but they’re pretty unique entities….

Kinkade: Are you having a midlife crisis or something?

It was Joram’s turn to give Kinkade a weird look.

Joram: Oh my word. I’m going through the damned teenaged existential crisis phase!!

Kinkade nodded sagely to that.

Kinkade: Just let me know if there’s an emo phase coming. I’ll definitely double-down on the thought-blocking then.

Joram stood there in a daze, jaw slack.

*The next day*

“So, he’s been like this since yesterday?” Sulia asked as she also glanced around her son’s… unusual workspace.

Avi merely nodded as she, too, stared at Joram. It was weird seeing him on his feet while in a vegetative state, but it could well have just been M3 pulling his weight in the background.

Sulia shook her head. “Should we get him to the infirmary?” She wanted to spend more time at her grandmother’s side, but didn’t want to leave Joram in such a state.

“From what Kinkade reported, Joram seemed to have realized something… profound, then went into that state.”

Sulia gave Avi another Look, but wound up just shaking her head. “Well, if there was no physical trauma, then I’m sure he’ll come out of it,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Unless this was another accident with his cultivation?”

Avi immediately shook her head. “No,” she said, then hesitated before continuing. “He seemed to have realized that his body’s development had reached a certain stage.”

Sulia spotted the peach fuzz on Joram’s face, then laughed. “Is he concerned about puberty?”

Avi laughed a bit with her, then sighed. “No. From what Kinkade told me, he seemed to have realized that he’d reached the part off teenage development where one begins to question their mind, reality, and their place in the universe.”

“So… puberty.”

“Yeah.”

Sulia sighed, then sighed again. This was the part of Joram’s life that she’d hoped that Ivaryn would have taken care of. Sure, she’d read a few books on the psychological growth of children, but she was in no way an expert on boys. Or their weirdness during puberty.

“Wait,” she said, remembering something. “Shouldn’t all those questions already be answered for him? Wasn’t he in his forties before he… passed?”

“Yes, but don’t underestimate the hormones rushing through a teenager,” Avi replied, squinting at Joram. “Heck, for a seven-and-a-half year-old boy, his physiology is rather advanced.”

“He looks like he could be twice that age…” Sulia said morosely, her mind now running through all the things she would miss out on as he grew. One of the things she was going to miss was easy cuddles with her little boy.

Then her eyes began to well up with tears, then overflow as she realized that she wouldn’t have the chance to have another little boy. Or another child at all.

Ivaryn was dead.

Her eyes popped open at she felt someone embrace her and was surprised to see that it was Joram, his head held high as his left hand went to the back of her head and guided it to rest on his shoulder even though he was still a bit shorter than her.

And that broke the floodgates.