Ryan left his bathroom and dressed, then waited for Tyler to come out of the bathroom. They made their way down to the dining room, where the start of breakfast awaited them. Fresh fruit on the table, along with pitchers of orange juice, milk, and water.

The mage wasn't able to tell a difference between the orange juice and milk through his sense of water yet, but he knew which was which as they always sat in the same spots. He smelled his breakfast just before remembering what they had for his birthday, and a grin spread across his face.

"Waffles!" He exclaimed as he sat down. "Tyler, make sure to eat plenty, too. If you don't, I'll steal them."

"There is plenty for you," Ryan's father told him. "Don't worry, we won't run out."

"We never do!" Ryan told him. "Hey, do you mind if I use my telekinesis to-"

"Please don't," his father quickly interrupted as Ryan felt several gazes fall upon him. "We will have an Appraiser come by later to determine your Tiers. The intention was to have that done after dinner, but we can move it ahead if you wish."

"Nah," Ryan said as a servant drew near, the steam from the waffles quite clear to his water sense. "Are those banana-nut waffles? I can't stand them if so. Now, if they were banana-nut bread, that would be another story. Or muffins."

"Those are chocolate-chip Belgian waffles," his father told him. "We can serve it with ice cream and chocolate sauce, if you wish."

"For the second round!" Ryan said. "Also, I already know my Tiers. I'm Divine in all. That's why my aim with telekinesis is perfect. See?"

He flicked his wrist, and several apples from the basket in the center of the table flew towards his father. The Novar Family head held up a hand, and the apples froze in place in the air.

"Ryan, please avoid using telekinesis around fragile things."

"Got it," Ryan turned his head to his left, where Tyler always sat during meals. "Sorry, Tyler. I'm not allowed to use telekinesis until you've trained a bit more. Father doesn't want me using telekinesis around fragile things."

"Your father is merely concerned about your aim," Tyler informed Ryan. "You have only recently awakened your magic, so it will take some training to perfect it. Next time, aim a little further up."

Ryan sensed the blood rushing to Tyler's cheeks as his servant quickly looked down and away, and the grin returned to the heir's face.

"So I was missing his face?" Ryan asked. "Darn! Father, don't move! Tyler, hand me an apple!"

"Tyler, don't," Ryan's father said in a stern voice. "Ryan, no telekinesis at the breakfast table."

"Got it!"

"Or the lunch and dinner tables."

"Darn!" Ryan mock-pouted, then indicated the plate in front of him. "Ice cream and chocolate syrup sounds delicious! Tyler, if you would be so kind?"

"Yes, sir," Tyler responded.

Ryan stretched out his empathy again, and noticed his servant's fear. It was the first time Tyler had ever broken character when they were not in private, and the servant was terrified he would be fired – or worse – for his comment. He needed to alleviate that fear, as his father would not punish Tyler for giving in to Ryan's provocation. In fact, the older man seemed amused by Tyler's response, if Ryan guessed at the cause of the emotion correctly.

"Father," Ryan said as he began to eat. "Tyler is insistent on remaining firm in his duties to me, including following the rule about servants not being permitted any relationships without permission from the family head. That said, I'm aware that he has interest in someone. So I am requesting that Tyler be permitted to have a relationship, as long as I get to meet her and approve of her first. Also, I would prefer it if he picked who it is he romanced and married, with my condition, of course."

Ryan sensed Tyler turning uncomfortable at that.

"As long as he was okay with it," Ryan added. "Tyler has been a loyal servant to me since you first assigned him to me, and he is the one person I can genuinely call a friend. I know he is willing to sacrifice his own happiness to care for me, and I do not desire that. I want him to be happy as well."

He sensed his father mulling over the request. Ryan was honest with his words, as he did genuinely wish for Tyler to find love and be happy, and while they were young, too. There was some selfish reasoning behind it, as he could never truly find love himself. Not only could he not see, but he was the heir to the Novar Family. Two different things which affected his ability to find someone who would honestly love him.

That didn't mean he wouldn't find people to sleep with, to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh with. Kayla was one such goal of his. She came from a powerful line, and not only would a union between them solidify his reign, but a child between them would be unparalleled in power, except to perhaps its father.

Chronomancers were rare enough, but two of them having a child meant the child would likely be a powerful chronomancer as well. Then add on the fact that Ryan himself was Divine in all elements and as a Specialist, and the child would be exceptionally powerful as well. Almost a guarantee to be in the Ultimate Tier, no doubt. Ryan himself would stand strong as the family head, but his heir would solidify their reign for good.

Ryan nearly frowned as he thought about his power. Only one mage was ever said to have as much power as him – more, even. But was Ryan really weaker than the Gray Mage? Their devices only went up to Divine, and no one truly knew what it meant to be Transcended.

Could Ryan himself be as powerful as the Gray Mage? Was it possible that, with enough training, he could be the equal of the Gray Mage?

Yes. It certainly was. He was only eighteen, after all, and he could rewind time as much as he wanted, keeping all of his training and its rewards. While training his senses, he had realized the potential for his powers. Things he could do which others couldn't because of limitations to their own senses.

Before his father answered his question, Ryan had come to a decision: he would become the second Gray Mage. He would ascend past the normal limitations of magical abilities and become someone to whom magic was simply a toy. Even dragons would be mere annoyances to him.

He would become a god.

"That sounds good to me," his father spoke as Ryan came to his decision. "I have noticed how you two interact when you think no one is around to notice, and how you do not treat him as your servant at all times. I have also noticed how gloomy you become when he is ill. Someone who can have such a profound effect on my son deserves to be happy. If he wishes to date and marry, he may. I will leave the full decisions of it up to you."

For a moment, Ryan was confused as to how his father could have noticed their interactions. But as he sensed Tyler's relief, he realized how. His father was a mind mage, something he had known for years. The old man had likely spied on them through telepathy and empathy.

That was one hurdle taken care of. Through his various runs, Ryan would also attempt to convince his father to allow him his own lover. Possibly even Kayla, for the aforementioned powerful heir of his own. Doing that would need him to prepare himself better, as he knew it would take a lot of tries to talk his father into it. A lot of tries through a lot of resets. He would need to find the perfect opportunity and wording.

"Thank you," Ryan smiled, pushing those thoughts away for the time. "Now! Let's finish eating! After, you can teach me how to use a geass, then Tyler is going to help me work on my telekinetic aim some more."

They ate breakfast as Ryan sensed his father's amusement and Tyler's much lighter unease. After breakfast, Ryan was taken to a room by a servant as his father remained behind. When the family head finally arrived twenty minutes later, it was with another person.

"A geass," Ryan's father said as Ryan sensed his father sitting on the other armchair through the way the wind and water shifted. He could hear it, too, with the slight groan the chair gave under his father's weight. "Is a mind spell. Mind magics are among the most difficult of spells to perform-"

"It's high magic," Ryan said. "Most of them are difficult if you aren't a natural with that aspect. Mind, time, space, healing, psychokinesis, transmutation and more are all difficult. I already know all this, Father."

"Ryan," his father spoke with a tone of immense patience. "This isn't something like telekinesis. This is actually interfering with another person's mind. It is not an easy thing to do, and it can go wrong much, much more easily than any force magic. When attempting to place a geass, it is very easy to destroy the mind of the target. That is why the Guilds and Orders heavily regulate and restrict the use of the geass spell. I will teach you how to use it, but you must promise to pay attention and focus."

"I will," Ryan told his father. "Being able to focus is something I can do when the circumstances requires it. I've proven that to you before."

He smiled.

"You should know this," he lifted up his right hand, and the flower vase resting on a small table lifted up several inches. "I've shown it to you before."

He began twitching his fingers, and the flowers within the vase began moving up and down in tune with them.

"Your throws weren't misses," his father said in shock. "Wait. How are you doing that, Ryan?"

"Very carefully," Ryan answered, then let the vase return to its spot. "I knew where the vase was already, as it's always there. It was just a matter of reaching out with my telekinesis and raising it up. The flowers was for added flavor, and mostly guessing."

He wanted to avoid alerting his father to the full extent of his ability yet. Only once he had a much greater grasp over his elemental senses would he broach that subject, unless he felt it okay to do so sooner.

"Okay, then," Ryan's father responded. "I will have you practice on Sean. Before that, however, you need to learn how to sense the minds of others. A geass is an advance-level mind spell which requires you to be able to do other mind magics first. Empathy or mind-reading is the first step towards it."

"I can read minds," Ryan told his father. "So long as I am touching the target."

He didn't need to touch his targets at all, as he developed his telepathy by reading the minds of the guards and servants he could sense with his empathy, but he didn't want his father to know that. Keep his true abilities seeming weaker than they were. While he could always reset when things went wrong, he wanted to avoid doing that as long as possible with his next set of training resets.

"Understood," his father said. "Then let us move on to what a geass is. They are magical oaths placed upon others. Nearly all fall into one of two categories: absolute and conditional. Almost every geass placed is conditional.

"What that means," his father continued. "Is that it can be broken, but there is a condition for what will happen if it is."

"Like if someone is bound into keeping a secret," Ryan said. "And they reveal the secret, they lose their voice."

"Exactly," his father responded. "Though that is an extreme condition, and one that takes a lot of power to place. As for an absolute geass, that means it cannot be broken. To place an absolute geass is difficult, because to truly make it absolute, you must close off all loopholes. That is nearly impossible to do, but not completely. It also involves redundancies upon redundancies.

"Sean, kneel beside Ryan," Ryan's father said, and Ryan heard the rustling of clothes as someone moved beside him, then knelt. Based on the form of the person in his senses, Ryan knew it was the other servant who had entered the room. "Ryan, you said you can already perform telepathy. The next thing needed before casting a geass is being able to interact with their mind. Place your hand upon Sean and read his mind. As you do that, do more than simply read his mind, but delve into it. You will need to be able to read his thoughts, his emotions, and search through his knowledge and memories. All of these are required to cast a geass."

"Understood," Ryan moved his hand, feeling for Sean until his hand was on the back of the servant's neck.

He entered the servant's mind, then snorted.

"You couldn't," Ryan said. "Have picked a servant who you regularly practiced on? He's too busy panicking about what secrets I might glean. It's become quite easy to discover a few things."

"His panicked mind," his father said. "Can make it more difficult to delve into it beyond just reading what's there and picking through information related to it. Try to search deeply for something unrelated to anything he's thinking. Placing a geass will require something similar."

"Okay," Ryan said, then began delving into the servant's mind.

Most of the secrets Sean panicked about were things Ryan didn't care about, and knew his father likely wouldn't, either. It was even likely the family head already knew them all, even. Ryan knew a handful already, though he was quite interested in the servant's affairs with a young woman from the city.

Reaching for his power, Ryan pushed through the servant's mind, focusing on his thoughts of the woman. When he did, he found that it became easy to follow the trail of thoughts, to encourage them, and to find out everything about her as naturally as if he had learned them himself. Within a minute, he knew her better than Sean did.

He continued delving, not even aware of his full actions as he acted on instinct, pulling out information before shaping a geass into the servant's mind. When he finished, he pulled his hand away, then took a few moments to process what he had done.

Despite having never performed such spells before, he knew he had cast them perfectly. It felt as natural to him as breathing, delving into the man's mind and casting the geass upon him. An absolute geass, even. It would be impossible for Sean to ever touch or handle pink iminil lilies, the favorite flower of the woman he had affairs with, should he ever kiss his secret love again.

Just like with all magics Ryan tried, they had come naturally to him. This time, however, there were several differences. The first was how quickly he managed to perform the spells. Rather than taking hours, it happened immediately. The main difference, Ryan felt, was that he had let himself act on instinct rather than attempting to actually cast the spells. He let his magic guide the way.

Ryan wasn't entirely sure how he did that, but knew that the more he did, the more natural it would become to do so. He also knew that he likely couldn't do that for everything. There were plenty of times his magic would have guided him if it was a guarantee for everything.

"Oh," Ryan realized he had lost himself into his thoughts. "I finished, by the way. I also placed a geass on him."

No response came, and Ryan realized that during the mind delve, he had released his sensing spells and his empathy range. Deciding to just extend the latter back out, he touched upon his father's mind.

"You weren't kidding when you said you were Divine, were you?" His father immediately responded.

"You can sense that?" Ryan asked in surprise.

"I noticed it earlier," his father responded. "When were you Appraised?"

"That's a secret I won't share," Ryan smiled. "And one you'd have to pull from my mind to discover. That, I can promise you. You could tell I was Divine by the speed of that?"

"Yes," his father responded. "Anyone who has reached Divine in a type of magic can learn it quickly and easily. With how soon you were able to perform that, you likely have a Calling for mind magic."

"No, my Calling is something else," Ryan told his father. "That's kind of private, though. Mind if I share it some other time?"

"No," his father responded. "If you wish to train it in secret, then I will not step in your way. I suppose there's no need to appraise you tonight."

"Good," Ryan smiled. "Because if you did, you'd have to put a geass on everyone present to keep the result a secret."

"I'm sure I'll find out how and when you were Appraised," his father told him. "If you couldn't cast a geass now."

"The person who Appraised me," Ryan said. "Doesn't even know she did, and that was done without even the slightest bit of mind magic. Now, about the other part of my birthday present?"

"I'll call," he felt his father's amusement. "And see what I can arrange."

"Thank you," Ryan responded.