Over the next few days I split my time between meeting with fans from the community I have accidentally formed around me, planning and practicing the performance, and going around the city for sightseeing and meeting people. Random people, that is.

After my realization about different communities having different magic cultures, I go out of my way to find different people and groups of people and ask about what kinds of magic they know and use, how they use it, and if they have anything else to say.

One thing I find interesting is that the asian communities, chinatown and such, seem to have a much higher incidence of qi users than mana users, and after being practically dragged into a restaurant I get to try (for free but not entirely voluntarily) a dish which appears to be infused with qi while cooking.

The man who dragged me here says something about qi being a way of life, and if you put your all into all you do, qi flows naturally. It all sounds a bit… stereotypical wise man, but the dish is pretty good, even though I don’t generally like that type of food. Gives a warm and comfortable feeling, but sadly I can only slow my mana from homing in on and destroying it.

That reminds me that I want to try to magical cooking and proper alchemy, beyond simply testing various plants for their effects like I have so far. But that’ll have to be later. Well, if I find some interesting plants under (or over) the snow I might want to take a sample.

When new years eve finally comes I’ve prepared as well as I could, though I expect the short time spent practicing will lead to some mistakes, which will probably reflect itself in bruises tomorrow. I can’t believe they got someone to make the musical track on such a short notice, though. I mean, I knew exactly what I wanted and had example to point to, but still…

They’ve brought in, as is apparently tradition, a bunch of artists for this, and I’m up somewhere in the middle. The crowd seems to be in high spirits, or it sound like it from here at least, but I’m more concerned about meditating to calm my mind and mentally ready the various spells I’m going to use.

A lot of them are the same, but the sheer number I will use means that I need the seven thumb-sized mana crystals I have. At least they helped me set up a huge collector, on the condition that they could keep it after I leave. I will (ab)use it to the fullest until then, though.

Oh, sounds like it’s my turn after this performance. Wow, the crowd loves this one. And now it’s my turn? No? Yes? Ahh, now the announcer is introducing me. Ugh, couldn’t they’ve come up with something better than ‘the norwegian birdman?’ I know the [System] has recognized it as a world-wide title, but uuuugh!

I get up on the stage and do the little things I’m supposed to, having made sure to ask so that I can do this as close to the standard as possible. With the need-to-do stuff done, it’s time to give a little speech.

“Hi everyone! First off, I have a few short things to say. I've been traveling around, and the diversity in culture around here is amazing.” I pause for a moment, then take a few steps to the right. “I guess it makes sense. This city, -all- of what I'd call one city, literally spans not only county, but state borders. And beyond that, as far as eye can see, is sub-urban hell.”

“And let me tell you,” I say, taking a few more steps, putting me solidly on the right side (from my perspective) of the scene. “I can see really damn far. Especially when kilometers into the air.”

At this point a light-blue magic circle forms on the left side of the stage, in the corner of my eye. “By the way, that’s a bit less in miles, for any of you still stubbornly refusing to adopt a sane-”

“Uhh,” I say, taking a few steps back to look at the circles, as there are now three, hovering over each other with a meter or so in between each. “Is that…?”

I look to the rear of the scene, then shrug and turn back to the crowd. “Where was I? Oh yeah, I was trying to make a joke about americans refusing to use the international standard units and-”

“Ibi est, capere eum!” A high-pitched, hoarse voice, like a boy in puberty, shouts.

Naturally I turn to the source, seeing a white and black cat drop out of the circles. “Oookay?” I mumble, intentionally far away from the mic I let it approach me, not raising my guard, and then it leaps at me, and I reflexively swing the mic, hitting it in the ribs.

Owww, I hit a bit harder than I meant to. At least I didn’t wince at the pain. The cat gets up (as planned, of course), and two more drops form the circles. Then they all grin, revealing a row of horrible, horrible teeth (thanks Shark Aspect).

I conjure a shield which stops one, knocking another away, but the original one bites onto my arm and I blast it off with magic. Or rather, I unsummon the puppet just as I create a flash of light, replacing it with a shadow-like illusion of the same cat. The shadow disperses in the ‘hit’, and reforms on the scene next to the other two, and that’s when the music starts ramping up.

In the ensuing fight I soon ‘kill’ the other two cats, and the three that follow, but the shadows keep getting in hits until I ‘realize’ I can remove them from existence with a powerful flash of light. The music ramps up, and a panther spawns in, and while it’s tougher, the procedure is the same.

Four panthers I manage to get over to the summoning circles and close them, but as I do, a young man clad in wyvern scales appear behind me and surprise me with a magical spike. It is only because he took the time to charge it up I have time to react, conjuring a shield which is instantly broken through, but disperses enough energy that I only get the air whipped out of my lungs.

I whip around with a simple blast of mana, which misses. The stray attack hits a shield surrounding the scene, causing it to ripple and revealing that it is a lidless cylinder, open above the scene.

My opponent laughs at my poor attack and lifts off the ground, raining small bolts of mana at me. I defend easily enough, and employing movements from [Water Bending] I send some of the right back, the others blocked or dispersed.

As we rise into the air we get into a sort of dodge-and-charge flow of combat, with most shots going wide or harmlessly defended against. At first all the attacks are fairly limited in size and variation, but eventually small lightning discharges, discs of light, and fireballs fly all over the place, one even hitting the main screen and leaving a scorch mark.

Shit, that was not supposed to happen… Well, it didn’t break, so should be fine. I wouldn’t be using fire magic if it was actually dangerous. As we clear the roof streaks of light are pulled towards my opponent, causing them to glow, until, in a small explosion of pressure and warmth, the demon king (puberty version) is revealed.

Since he’s hulking out, so should I, and I cover myself in dull metallic scales during the next clash, going in for an aerial melee once I’m all armored up. The demon teen quickly overcomes his surprise and starts chanting something, accompanied by ominous disembodied voices.

After breaking through several layers of defence and managing to break off a part of his horn, my mana-infused strike finally hits his real body. The punch sends dark shards and particles of a deep blue out the other side.

Man I hope they don’t get too hissy that I improvised this part, to include actually landing a punch. The knockout mana sphere would be boring… Also fuck that hurts!

The demon’s face distorts in pain and he grasps my arm, but turns into a pained smirk as his chant finishes. He vanishes in smoke as four complex magic circles form around me in a storm of mana, and then everything becomes fire.

The blaze soon starts falling, and as it hits the floor it explodes outwards, most of it fading. The last smoldering remains are soon extinguished by a crew member with a fire extinguisher, and I am nowhere to be seen.

People clap and cheer, if somewhat confused, and they better be, because not even the organizers knew I was gonna do that. They seem to handle it well enough, and the show goes on. Behind the scenes, though, they seem worried.

They are unable to find me, and my bag still lies where it should be, so eventually they seems to settle back as if everything was going according to plan. Thye have more important things to focus on now that midnight is closing in, anyway.

And at the same time, the final part of my performance, the one I didn’t tell anyone about, starts to click into place as the crowd is concentrating on the countdown, and anyone near the scene is helpfully ignoring the little seed, the focus, I left behind on the scene.

20…

15…

10… The seed starts to smolder, but under misdirection no one notices.

5… It starts to glow, faintly among the neon lights.

4…

3… It ignites with a small spark.

2…

1… It burns like a candle.

As the clock hits midnight and we enter a new year, the flame covers the seed, still ignored by nearby people thanks to misdirection. A second pass, and then another, as the flame turns into a blaze.

It is only when the seed lifts into the air, hovering for a moment, the misdirection is pulled thin and useless. And after that moment, I let the spell fade as the blaze shoots upwards, my focus better used on other magic, namely making me near-invisible as I leap into the blaze.

No longer having to hid I slowly disperse those spells while I form the wings of my birdkin form. With no more buildings in range to use for lift, I soon slow down and reach the peak of my trajectory, where I reveal my glorious (budget) phoenix wings in a fiery explosion against the night sky.

I seem to stay still in the air for a moment, but the call of gravity can not be denied. I fall backwards, holding my wings close for a second before opening them with a powerful, sharp bird cry, evening out my flight and streaking a blazing trails across the sky, over the celebrations.

I let the flames slowly dwindle to nothing, and eventually I ‘m in an area with few enough people to disappear from sight. After catching my breath and calming down a bit I sneakily make my way to ground level, from where I make my way back to Times Square.

I wonder what Aleks is doing right now? Probably sleeping, actually, given the time zone difference. She doesn’t seem like the type of person who’d go out and do anything for new year’s. Wait, stupid brain, don’t make me think of her and that again. No! Think of white! Clear mind!

Understandably, I get a few… complaints when I return to grab my bag, but I point out no damage was done (except for maybe a few stary attack, but they were intentionally weak) and it probably looked really cool, neither of which they deny. Doesn’t stop them from chewing me out, though.

When I browse the net the day after, it’s not hard to find some video, clip, or image of my video, and while most of them are just ‘wow, this happened’, there are already two layers of analysis about what happened.

The first layer links the two parts of my performance (no shit) and compares the spells shown there with the ones I’m known to have, as well as speculating about others.

The second, more interesting layer, goes in detail about one or more key points or spells, particularly my phoenix revival and the fighting. For the latter people can’t agree on how much was illusions, and how much was physical, causing a lot of speculation.

What people think of the former is more interesting, with some believing I have a way to actually die and revive, other rightly guessing there was some trick. One particular video with surprisingly few views actually do frame-by-frame analysis of the phoenix ascent from various angles and cameras, and note a distortion of light in the general area where I should be. They even suggest a few possible ways to achieve that.

For this eagle-eyed person, I leave a comment simply saying ‘Good analysis!’ with a thumbs up emoji from my official account. That oughta rile people up. But then again, I leave similar comments on other videos, sometimes pointing out logical flaws or poor assumptions.

I spend most of the day semi-lazily travelling around. Most people I meet up close recognize me, with somewhat varying reactions, but damn, I’m actually famous now. Not just locally internet famous, not just the ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ I expected the record to give, but a combination of all of those which I suspect will make people know of me far and wide, and not forget any time soon. I’m not sure if that is a good thing…

I also get in contact with the man who wants youthful rejuvenation, and he tells he has already fixed all the paperwork needed. Taking into account when he wants it done, as well as other customers and fans on the way there and in the area, I set up a plan and verify appointment times, first with him (because he will pay the most), then with others.

I also have a number of requests for interviews, as well as invitations to talk shows, including some even I have heard of. I might do one here and there if it works out that way, but there is no way I can handle all of them, and also I am so glad I set up a separate job email. Now I’ll have to set up filters, too. Anything mentioning interviews, into that folder, all invitations that says nothing about interviews to that folder, and a few others.

The second day of the new year I set out to new customers, fans, and -if I get lucky- seeing a pod of sky whales.