“Treisha? What are you talking about?” Chel asked, confused by the words of the assistant. She wasn’t aware of the Keeper’s plan for the controlled evolution of the races, and so she found the explanation entirely lacking in details.

“Let’s head inside.” Treisha gestured, holding the door open for them. “You can bring the relics with you. We’ve compiled all the information that we can in the time you were gone. I know you said for us to go fully dark, but this was a top-priority assignment straight from the L.A.W. council.”

“No, if it’s as big as you said, you did the right thing.” Chel shook her head, pushing the container through the doorway and into the main building of the facility. “Now, explanations, please?”

“Right.” Treisha nodded, taking a deep breath. “Two days ago, at exactly 7:34 in the morning, a pulse of mana rippled throughout the entire planet Earth. This pulse was barely discernible to those with skilled senses, and showed no effect on anyone with an energy body.”

“However, every sapient being with an organic body received a prompt from the system, congratulating them on a successful evolution. Everyone affected by this ability seemed to get a new power, determined by their race. For instance, kitsune gained the ability to calm others with their presence. Halflings gained the power to turn invisible without the use of a spell. Elves could look into the past of an object that they were touching, and so on.”

“At first, this sudden growth was isolated to Earth. So, while it threw many regions into chaos, it was not as bad as it could have been. However, as soon as someone from Earth used the Fairy Ring to travel to Deckan, and came into contact with someone here… the pulse was recorded again. This happened barely three hours after the initial pulse, and covered the entirety of Deckan.”

“According to our reports, even our interstellar expeditions have been affected by this change, with every known colony saying that they were hit at the same time.” Treisha shook her head as she said that. “We haven’t been able to determine the exact nature of this pulse, but we believe that we have found its source.”

Chel nodded, soon arriving in the main lab with Treisha and the twins. “How far has it spread by now?”

Treisha hesitated at that, before shaking her head again. “Every world in the league. Fyor hasn’t had it spread to every floor, but it is only a matter of time at this point. Anyone entering or leaving a floor increases the spread, and the only thing we can be thankful for is that the effects are largely harmless to their host.”

“Largely?” Chel questioned with a raised brow, causing the elf to let out a resigned sigh.

“There are races within the Metong Network that have shown abilities that overtax their own minds. There is one race within their Network that is quickly dying out, according to the reports that they’ve sent. Apparently, the ‘power’ that this race gained was self-poisoning. Without regularly administered medicines, members of this race die after simply twenty-four hours.”

Chel’s eyes went wide when she heard that. However, her brow soon furrowed in thought. “I see… you said that you traced the possible source of the pulse?” It was no wonder why Chel and the others didn’t notice this effect, as they were within the Travel Domain at the time, a place that technically exists outside of any universe. Furthermore, they were all three energy beings, so they would not have received the prompt even if it hit them.

“That’s right.” Treisha nodded, walking over to her desk and grabbing a file. “We ran through a list of any potentially related event that was recorded at the same time, or just preceding the pulse. Immediately after the incident occured, there was a hospital on Earth that reported that they may have been the source.”

“At 7:33 in the morning, just before the incident, a patient by the name of Kris Fredric passed away from heart complications. Following standard procedure for those on their deathbed, he was given the option to test his luck with the Perfection Chamber. One final hope for those otherwise doomed to perish. However, unlike most patients, he rejected this offer.”

“The reason that he gave the nurse was that he had ‘one final mission’ that he needed to accomplish. The nurse, at the time, did not understand what he meant. She thought that it was merely his mind failing him, or the weary thoughts of an old halfling. At 7:32, his two children were standing next to his bed, and he told them that ‘this was a world worth helping’. Finally, at 7:33, his heart stopped.”

“Almost immediately afterwards, the pulse of mana covered the world. Given the timing and strange nature of the events, the attending nurse reported it to her superiors, who filed a report to the league itself. Naturally, we can’t be certain that this was the real cause, as it could have been as strange as a special spell being cast. However, the timing was quite the coincidence if that was the case.”

Chel gave a small nod at that. “Have you found any details regarding this man?”

“I’ve got Three-Fifty running a deeper search now. What we could immediately discern was that Mister Fredric was an alchemist. There was one recorded incident of note involving him. After being chased by a malevolent spirit, he sought shelter in the Church of Irena. The church helped him banish this spirit, believed to be the man’s own mother, coming to steal his body.”

“The priestess overseeing the incident noted that Mister Fredric briefly turned invisible after the spirit was exorcised, though he seemed confused by the situation. As it did not cause him any harm, she did not press for information.”

Chel quickly understood what Treisha was getting at. “You said that the ability halflings gained was to turn invisible, right?” The fact that an alchemist had displayed a similar ability, one that appeared outside of his control, definitely did not seem to be a coincidence.

“That’s right. Do you have any ideas what might have caused that?” Treisha asked hopefully. With James still out of commission, that left Chel as the most knowledgeable person within their research team. If anyone were to have insights on this matter, it would be her.

“Cross-species transmission, infection caused by the simple interaction of two races… It’s possible that this Mister Fredric concocted an unknown potion that connected to the system itself. However, if he were able to do that, then I could think of a hundred different uses for such potions than to give everyone a psionic ability. Just to be clear, all of the abilities manifested so far have mana as their origin, yes?”

When Treisha nodded her head, Chel let out a relieved sigh. “Good. Technically speaking, any mana ability can be replicated with precise enough control. Given that this pulse only affected organic beings, and only sapient ones at that, it can be seen that it infected them through their mana. Through that, the mana itself altered the brain chemistry of the host.”

“With this altered brain chemistry, the mana that they release gains an additional characteristic. For instance, it may subtly infuse elements of spiritual energy in order to view the past of an object. This ability then becomes natural for the person with the altered brain chemistry, while others can only replicate it through extremely precise control of mana, or a spell designed to copy the effects.”

“Tell the Metong to use brain scans of the endangered race from before the pulse, and produce a treatment that would allow them to correct the chemical imbalance in their brain. Given the resources of the Metong, they should be able to come up with a solution from that. As for what the original cause was… Mister Fredric either created something special, or he was chosen to carry a special power that was released upon his death.”

“The former possibility is incredibly unlikely, but we should still try and ask his family for his research notes. Even if there is nothing about the creation of some strange power, there is likely to be a mention of any strange encounter he had that would have left him like this.”

“In the meantime…” Chel hopped over to her desk, pulling up a web browser and writing an email to a blank recipient. Did they take the bait?

After she hit send, she waited with the email still open, the error message still on the screen. Roughly thirty seconds later, the error message closed itself, a new chat window appearing.

Five days ago, I intercepted a message stating that the research staff of the lab had all left. Prior to the release of the Evolution Pulse, there were many organizations conspiring to infiltrate in your absence. However, I was unable to trace the source of the original message.

Chel shook her head, typing into the chat window. You wouldn’t have found anything, even if you did. These people are experts at manipulating information. They would have used a full-body disguise, and accessed a public terminal to send the message.

With that, Chel closed the chat window. Even without the trace, it confirmed her suspicions that this was the action of the ninja clan. In fact, the inability of Blank to trace them only made her more sure. Sadly… with the pulse disrupting matters, it was no longer suitable for her to make her way to their headquarters.

“For now, let’s work on this pulse business.” Chel said with a faint sigh, clapping her hands together. “Treisha… go get some rest. You look like you’ve been overworking yourself looking at papers. We’ll take over.”

Treisha hesitated, but soon offered a weary smile. After she left, Chel looked at the twins. “Nora, I want you to catalog the abilities of each known race, classifying them by hazard level. This level should be both the danger that the ability represents to the wielder as well as those around them.”

“Thea, while she’s doing that, I want you to find the logs from every Mana Tower on Earth within a thousand kilometers of the hospital where Kris Fredric died. Look for any details on the specific frequency of mana that was spread during that pulse.”

“Finally… has anyone seen Syris?” Chel looked around, the lycan researcher nowhere to be seen.

Treisha, having not made it very far down the hall when she heard Chel, rushed back to report. “Syris is escorting Three-Fifty on his background check. His spatial ki makes travel more convenient.”

Chel gave a sigh, nodding her head. “Thanks. Now, really, to bed with you. With him gone... I’ll take care of contacting different heads of state to arrange countermeasures against power misuse. If there’s one silver lining here, it’s that this effect was only triggered on organic bodies…”

The fact that energy beings weren’t hit with the pulse meant that the vast majority of the true powerhouses of the world were unaffected. At most, the national police forces and armies may receive the power of the pulse, but not any gods or those who have reached Perfection.

“Okay… so that got a little out of hand.” I chuckled weakly, looking at the different readouts on the screen. I had only determined the effect of this evolution for the races that I had purchased. Naturally, I thought that this meant that it would not target other races, as they were not included in my world’s system.

What I didn’t realize was that the synergy of the changes had triggered the creation of the Psychic Song, not only to evolve the races I selected, but all races. Perhaps it was because I chose to grant powers to every race under my control, so the system filled in the gaps on its own. Either way…

“What’s the deal with this one? Flavor Distortion? What does that even mean?” I asked incredulously, pointing to one of the powers given to an alien race.

Accalia cleared her throat, doing her best not to laugh. “It means that they can alter the flavor of anything they eat. If they mix in their saliva as an ingredient, they can even change the flavor of food that they are preparing. It’s… quite the delicious irony.”

“No. None of that.” I pointed an accusing finger at Accalia. “Shame on you for that pun. That was bad.”