WIEDERGEBURT Act VI: Chapter 18

Half the Absorption Stone. I didn’t know if that was a good thing, but the people around me looked like they’d been struck stupid. Since I wanted to know more, I manipulated the wind to block out certain sonic vibrations so I could focus only on the conversations I wanted to.

“Holy… I can’t believe there’s someone who has that high of an understanding for the Concept of Space!”

“Not even some of the teachers have an understanding as comprehensive as this woman.”

“She’s amazing! No wonder she’s called the greatest prodigy of our generation!”

So this was really good then. And Tora was considered a prodigy. Good to know.

Tora walked back to me with a confident smirk on her face--confident. Not arrogant. Her bearing was far different from Skude’s arrogant swagger.

She stopped next to me. “What do you think?”

“Not bad,” I acknowledged.

Tora snorted. “Think you can do better?”

“Won’t know until I give it a try.”

More people came and tried, but none of them did as well as Tora. There was one man named Tyrfing Vacht who came close, but that was all relative. Close in this case meant he managed to fill three-fourths of the Absorption Stone with the color purple. On that note, time was a pretty high level concept, about the same level as space.

“Eryk Vanir.”

Whispers broke out as my name was called, and even Birger looked interested as I stepped out from the crowd and walked over to the Absorption Stone. It appeared much larger now that I was standing before it.

Taking a deep breath, I thought about everything I knew about the Concepts of Life and Death, then channeled that understanding into my palm, which I placed upon the stone. Two colors appeared instantly. Green and Red. Life and Death. The two concepts swirled around each other, touching but never mixing as they expanded inside of the stone. They stopped after filling up one-third of the Absorption Stone.

That was the same as having filled one-sixth of the stone with a single concept. Not as good as Tora, but not bad either.

I walked back to Tora, who was giving me an inscrutable gaze that I met with my own. She smirked after a moment and pounded me on the back.

“Not bad! Not bad. Your understanding of concepts is a little lacking, but you also know two concepts. That’s pretty good.”

“I’m glad you think so,” I said dryly, grunting every time she struck me in the back.

There were several more people who came after me, and none of them did as well as myself, Tora, or Hendral--until the last person.

“Hendral Jura!”

Hendral Jura was an average-looking man. Of course, I was talking from the perspective of the Guddomelig. If I were to use human standards, he’d be ridiculously handsome. Dark black cropped short. Skin like obsidian. A body covered in lithe muscles. He wore brown armor over that didn’t cover his physique. I was sure lots of women would go gaga over him.

He placed his hand on the stone and channeled his Spiritual Power, which exploded from him in a manner that was controlled. None of it leaked out and went right to his hand. Infusing into the Absorption Stone, the stone quickly became white. White. The color representing the Concept of Creation.

That alone was enough to stun most of the crowd, but as if to make matters even more astounding, the Absorption Stone quickly filled up halfway, then filled about two-thirds before stopping. His understanding of the most advanced of the high level concepts was even greater than Tora’s.

I looked over to see the woman beside me glaring at Hendral. I could practically sense her competitive spirit surging like an afternoon tide.

Birger and several other teachers conferred with each other before he turned back to our group.

“That marks the ending of the first initiation testing,” he began. “When I call your name, please walk through the door on the other side to begin the second test. If I do not call your name, then it means you failed and are free to try again next year. Alexander Becker!”

One by one, peoples names were called. Those who were named swelled their chests with pride as they walked toward the door on the other side of the room, many of them swaggering like they knew they were hot shit. I thought it was too early to celebrate.

“Tora Tiwaz. Eryk Vanir. Hendral Vacht.”

It didn’t surprise me when myself, Tora, and Hendral were called. The three of us walked through the door… and stopped to stare at what lay before us.

“This is…?” I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing.

“This is definitely an artificial dimension,” Tora announced with her hands on her hips.

What greeted us was a massive mountain covered in trees. A soft breeze drifted across the ground, causing leaves to billow and sway. Meters up ahead was a mountainous trail that led deeper into the mountain.

We were not the only people present. The two hundred or so people who passed were standing before the mountain trail just like us. No one seemed to know whether they should continue up the trail or remain there and await further instructions.

“What do you think?” asked Tora.

“You mean do I think we should keep going or wait here?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“We should definitely wait here,” Hendral said before I could. “Instructor Birger did not tell us to begin climbing this mountain. He merely told us to travel through the other side, which means this mountain is the next test, and we must await further instructions in order to know what is required to pass.”

“Um, was I talking to you?” asked Tora, who didn’t give Hendral a chance to respond. “No, I wasn’t, so shut the fuck up.”

Hendral’s brow furrowed at her harsh words, but he did not say anything, remaining silent just as Tora demanded. Perhaps he saw the wisdom in not getting into an argument, or maybe he didn’t care.

Either way, Hendral’s words proved correct when someone came flying down from the mountain. This man was a lot older than Birger--or at least looked older. His bald head was covered in scars, he had penetrating blue eyes, and a bushy white mustache sat underneath his nose. Like Birger, he was wearing golden robes, but his were opened in the front to reveal a thick chest covered in muscles.

“Welcome, young initiates!” the man boomed. He reminded me of Tor. “My name is Bragdi. You may call me Instructor Bragdi. Here lies the second test you must undergo if you wish to become a disciple of our institute.”

Everyone straightened up. The man snapped his fingers and created a vortex of swirling energy. It was another dimension, which he reached his hand into and pulled out… a box. There was nothing suspicious about it. It was just a box. Plain. Unadorned. The only interesting aspect was the hole on the top.

“Everyone will reach into this box and take one emblem.” Instructor Bragdi gestured toward the box, which floated over until it was hovering before someone. The man looked confused, but he nevertheless stuck his hand inside of the box and pulled out an emblem.

The emblem he pulled out looked like a giant tree, beautifully detailed and outlined in gold. I thought there was something familiar about it. But I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I’d seen it before.

More people pulled emblems from the box. There were two emblems that could be found; the emblem of the tree and one of wings enfolding around a circle. I didn’t know what either emblem represented.

“It looks like I got the heaven emblem.” Tora showed me the emblem of the wings folding around the circle. “Which one did you get?”

I quickly made the connection from her words and showed her mine. “Looks like I got the earth emblem.”

Tora and I looked at Hendral, who noticed us looking his way and showed off his heaven emblem. It looked like I was the odd man out here.

“You’ll notice that there are two different emblems one of you could have got: the heaven and earth emblems.” Instructor Bragdi waved his hand at the box and disappeared back into a swirling vortex. “Your goal now is to make it all the way to the top of the mountain with both emblems. You must acquire the emblem you are missing from one of the other initiates. Those who do not have both emblems when they reach the top fail. You have until the end of today to complete this test.”

Bragdi did not offer anymore words. He exploded off the ground and vanished into the distance, his intense passage kicking up wind that forced everyone to shield their eyes.

“So… basically, everyone who has an opposing emblem is our enemy.” Tora gave me the meanest grin I’d ever seen. “Guess that means you’re shit out of luck. I could fucking steal your emblem right now.”

“But you’re not going to,” I said confidently.

“Oh?” Tora’s eyes were gleaming. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I?”

“Because it would be more interesting if you didn’t?”

“Ha ha ha! That’s true!” Tora’s peels of laughter were oddly pleasant despite how loud they were. “You’re right. I wouldn’t want such an interesting person to lose right now. I have a feeling life will be much more fun with you around. All right. I’m going on ahead. See ya the fuck later.”

Like the instructor, Tora’s feet left the ground and she flew off. Unlike our instructor, she flew into the forest rather than over it, disappearing into the thicket of trees.

Hendral also began moving, though unlike Tora, he walked instead of flew. Guess he didn’t like being flashy.

Their sudden movement caused the other initiates to begin walking into the forest. I noticed that some gathered in groups of two or three, making me realize this wasn’t just about getting an emblem and making it to the top. It was also about cunning. Spiritualists were stronger together than alone. A group had a better chance of getting the emblems needed than someone who was by themselves.

Unlike everyone else, who either walked or flew into the forest, I merged into the earth and began traveling that way. It was easy for me to sense everything around me like this. Well, provided they were walking instead of flying.

I could sense well over a thousand individuals on this mountain. That made me pause. I knew for a fact that there weren’t more than two hundred initiates, meaning there were more people on this mountain than just those of us attempting to reach the top. My guess was they were here to hinder our advancement, make things harder.

That was just fine.

***

Finding people who were wandering up the mountain was easy. Determining which emblem they had was not.

Most of the people appeared to be hiding their emblems, making it difficult for other people to decide whether or not they should attack. Nobody wanted to attack someone if they didn’t have to. Doing so would use up Spiritual Power, and if you got it wrong, then it meant you were in a worse position now than before you fought. Better to conserve your strength and attack only when you needed to.

I think an hour must have passed before I felt the sounds of battle. Intense vibrations caused the earth to rumble. I recognized this feeling as something that happened when multiple explosions were going off at once. While I could have gone and checked out to see who was fighting who, I decided not to. Instead, I traveled in the opposite direction and popped out of the ground when I sensed a group of people coming my way.

There were five of them.

“Looks like this guy is alone. Pretty bold of him.”

“Hey, isn’t this guy Eryk Vanir.”

“Dude, he is! Maybe we shouldn’t mess with him and just move on.”

There were three men and two women in this group. All of them were handsome. I didn’t focus much on their features and instead decided to call them by the color of their hair. There was Red, Blue, Silver, Blonde, and Brown.

“Hold up,” said Red. “We can’t just pass him by because of who he is. Besides, even if he understands two concepts, he’s still just one man. Let’s see if he has an emblem we need on him first.”

“I’m not so sure that is a good idea,” Blue mumbled. She seemed like a sensible sort.

Red ignored her. “Hey, what kind of emblem do you have on you?” I showed him my earth emblem, which caused the man to smirk. “Looks like it’s your unlucky day. All of us have heaven emblems.”

“Is that so?” I smiled. “If you ask me, the unlucky ones are you for picking a fight with me.”

“Such bravado. Let’s show this man what bravado gets him,” Red said with a sneer.

While Blue seemed reluctant to attack, the others had no issues with it and leapt at me. Too bad for them.

The first thing I did was create my sword. I used the earth element to form it, the fire element to harden it, and created a thin overlay of death energy.

My first action was to swing my sword at Red. He smirked at me like I was an idiot as he blocked my weapon with a sword he pulled from his hip. It was a simple broadsword with basic runes covering the surface. The runes flared up as he channeled Spiritual Power into his weapon, which allowed it to withstand the strike, but that didn’t stop the force of my swing.

A surprised scream tore from Red’s lips as he flew backward, slammed into a tree that cracked in half, and disappeared into some foliage. Continuing with the swing, I struck Brown in the torso. He must not have been expecting my attack. Maybe he thought Red would be able to block. That was too bad for him.

I heard a loud crunch as my swing no doubt broke several of his ribs. He gasped as bile flew from his mouth seconds before he himself was blown away. I didn’t see what happened to him, but that was because the other two who unhesitantly attacked me were now on me. Silver struck me with a punch that was infused with death energy. Blonde landed a drop kick on my shoulder, her attack containing an explosive spatial energy.

Neither of their attacks did any damage to me.

Because the Eryk they hit was not me at all.

It was just a mud clone.

“W-what the heck?!”

“What is this?!”

Silver gaped when his fist became stuck inside of “my” body. Likewise, Blonde’s foot stopped after slicing through about half of my clone’s torso, then became lodged inside as if trapped within a quagmire. Neither of them seemed to see me descending from above.

“Look out!” shouted Blue, the only one who hadn’t attacked. “He’s above you!”

Silver looked up just in time to see the flat of my massive ruler meeting his face. An explosion went up as my attack struck him dead on, the ground collapsing and cracks spreading from the point of impact. I lifted my ruler after crushing the man to find his twitching body embedded into the earth.

I looked up. Blonde backed away the moment our eyes locked. She turned around as if ready to bolt, but then I appeared in front of her within a Light Flash Step, which was just a Flash Step combined with the light element to let me move at the speed of light. Blonde shrieked in shock. Then she gasped when I rammed the butt of my ruler into her solar plexus. As she stumbled and gasped, I spun around and smacked her across the face with my ruler.

She was out like a light.

Blue was the only one among those who attacked me left, but I ignored her in favor of walking over to where Red disappeared. He was down for the count. I searched his pockets and found the emblem hidden inside of a jacket pocket. Pocketing it inside of a new storage ring I created, I walked back into the clearing, where Blue was sitting on her rump and staring in horror at the bodies of her companions.

“The only reason I’m not knocking you out like the rest is because you were hesitant to attack me,” I told her. “You can do what you want with the rest of these emblems. Let these people keep them, use them as bargaining chips to get an earth emblem. Whatever.”

I did not give the woman time to respond before merging back into the earth and traveling toward the mountain top. I had accomplished my goal, so there was no more reason to stay.

***

While I was not the first one who entered the forest, it seemed I was the first one to arrive on the mountaintop, probably because I’d simply traveled through the ground. None of the Guddomelig were very good at using the seven elements. They believed the elements weaker than concepts, and that was true, but I had learned that underestimating the elements was a foolish notion.

Instructor Bragdi jumped back when I appeared just a few meters from him. “Wōtan’s scraggly testacles! Don’t jump out at me like that!”

“Scraggly what now?” I asked.

“You scared the shit out of me!” Iunstructor Bragdi continued, placing a hand against his chest in emphasis.

“Uh, sorry?”

“Ahem. It’s fine. Just don’t do it again.” Instructor Bragdi eyed me like I was a Sekbeist. “I’m guessing you have both a heaven and earth emblem? If not, I’m afraid to say you failed.”

“Relax. I have both.” I summoned the heaven and earth emblems from storage and presented them to him.

“Good. Then you can wait until the end of the day up here with me.”

So now I was just gonna sit around and do nothing? Oh joy.

Sitting down, I crossed my legs and adopted a meditative posture as I closed my eyes. Since it looked like I’d be stuck waiting, I might as well use that time productively to contemplate the Concepts of Life and Death.

I decided to contemplate life first. There was a lot of life within this mountain. The verdant forest was full of it, and if I extended my perceptions and focused, I could feel the sensation of individual trees. It was a bit odd. Trees were not sentient. They had no sense of self. Yet they were still alive, still possessed feelings, which I could sense if I focused.

Time passed quickly as I lost myself in meditation, absorbed in comprehending high level concepts. I only stopped meditating when I sensed someone right in front of me. I opened my eyes… to find another pair of eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked Tora.

“I should be asking the same fucking thing,” Tora fired back. “How the fuck did you get here so fast? I fought through ten disciples and still beat everyone but you and that blasted Hendral. I was certain I’d get here before you.”

“So the other people I sensed on this mountain were students?” They must have been gathered to give us a greater challenge on this test. I shrugged. “I merged with the earth and bypassed them completely.”

“You… bypassed… so you just fucking passed them all without them even realizing it?”

“Yes,”

“Fuck me.”

“No thanks.”

More people began showing up with each passing second. I wasn’t sure how many would pass, but I realized that at the very least, only half the people who began this test would pass it. I wondered why they would have a test like this. It seemed foolish to limit the number of disciples you could have, even if your intent was to choose only the cream of the crop. In fact, I felt like this test did not necessarily gather the best of the best. If a bunch of ants gathered together, they might be able to topple an elephant, but it didn’t change the fact that they were still ants.

By the time the competition ended, there were ninety people left over. I guess several of the initiates were defeated by the disciples.

“So ninety people survived the second test, eh?” Instructor Bragdi nodded his head, looking pleased as he crossed his arms. “Congratulations to those of you who survived. You only have one more test left.”

The moment he finished speaking, the mountain and forest vanished, and in its place was a barren stone room with only two doors.

“This is where I will leave you,” Instructor Bragdi continued. “Your next instructor will arrive shortly. I highly recommend you all be as patient as possible. You are almost there, and it would be a shame of any of you failed because you didn’t undestand the nature of your last test.”

With those parting words, Instructor Bragdi turned on his heel and walked through the door on the far end, thus leaving us initiates alone.

“Guess there’s nothing to do now but wait,” Tora said with a sigh, scratching the back of her head. “I fucking hate waiting.”

“Do you ever not swear when speaking?” I asked.

“Fuck no. I always fucking swear.”

“Why?”

“Because I fucking like it.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.”

***

One hour passed by as we waited. Then two hours passed. When we hit the three hour mark, everyone began growing restless, including Tora, who swore up a storm. By four hours, everyone was livid.

“Who does this instructor think he is?!”

“The nerve of this man for making me wait! Just wait until my father hears about this!”

“Your father won’t be able to do shit. Every instructor here is an existence far beyond most nobles. These people can do whatever you want, and even if you complain, nothing will happen to them.”

While everyone else complained, bitched, and moaned, I used that time to contemplate the Concept of Death. It wasn’t as easy as contemplating life.

“Fucking damn it. This fucking mother fucker better get his fucking ass out here!”

I would have had a much easier time meditating if it wasn’t for Ms. Fuck, who was sitting next to me.

I wasn’t the only one who was meditating. A few of the smarter people also seemed to realize what was happening and decided to spend their time productively instead of swearing up a storm like a certain someone.

Hendral was meditating not from away. The man struck me as a hard worker. He certainly worked much harder than Tora.

Speaking off…

“MOTHER FUCKING DAMN IT! IF THIS FUCKER DOESN’T GET HIS FUCKING ASS OUT HERE THIS INSTANT, I AM GOING TO CUT HIS FUCKING BALLS OFF!”

I released a sigh as the woman leapt to her feet and began shouting like a madwoman. I almost expected fire to begin spewing from her mouth.

“Sit down,” I said.

Tora growled at me. “Don’t fucking tell me what to do!”

“I’m telling you what to do because you are wasting your time. The instructor has been here since before Instructor Bragdi even left.”

“WHAT?!”

Not only did Tora look shocked, but all the people except for Hendral were gawking at me. It seemed no one had noticed his presence.

I pointed the ceiling. “She’s been sitting up there this whole time.”

Everyone looked up, and lo and behold, a woman was indeed sitting up there. She had sparkling purple hair that looked like it was at least two meters long. The lustrous quality of her hair made me think it might be made of metal. She was very pretty, but her prettiness was sharp, like a blade. Her chin was pointed, she had pointy ears that made me think she was of mixed blood, and her chest was pretty small. At the very least, I could not see her breasts within her modified golden robes.

“It looks like one of you is pretty perceptive. I could have sworn I masked my presence completely,” the woman said.

I looked up. “You might have been able to mask your presence from anyone using a concept to sense you, but you didn’t bother to hide your breathing.” I tapped a finger to my ear and smiled. “You were breathing so heavily I could hear it even over Instructor Bragdi’s booming voice.”