Kyrion was mentally stretched to the limit. His body was reacting slower than it should, causing cognitive vertigo as he set a command to his legs to walk. Each stuttered movement had a half-second delay, making him seem awkward as he walked down to the athletics wing.

He stopped walking altogether and sent a wave of cleansing mental mana that washed away the effect on his mind, confirming that he was under some sleep spell or ability. It hadn’t quite clicked while he was there. When the feeling started, he’d been reading through the following few hundred numbers in the library.

As he arrived outside the meetup room, he noticed that the coach and the athletes were missing. A passing peer stopped to speak to the obviously confused Kyrion.

“An emergency. Practice was canceled today.”

“What do you mean?” Kyrion asked, immediately suspicious.

“You didn’t hear?”

“Not a player.”

“Apparently someone set the nearby fields on fire and threatened to bomb the stadiums, and local athletics wings.”

“But why though?”

“No idea. Hey can you hold this for me?” The strange youth handed Kyrion a duffle bag.

“What’s this?” Kyrion squinted as he noticed something odd about the man’s face. As he turned, Kyrion noticed an oddity: His neck’s skin seemed too low.

“Just some equipment. Just stand there and hold it for like ten minutes.”

Kyrion slowly blinked and watched as the unfamiliar person left.

After waiting about two minutes, Kyrion slipped the bag into his domain. He had not had all day.

“Warning High Yield explosive placed next to food in Kyrion’s domain.” Karl warned through their connection.

“High yield? A bomb in my domain. Karl, can you move it away from the food?”

“I’ll need permisions to errect a containment barrier around the explosives.”

“Don’t you already have those?”

“Jala delegated permissions and territory back home. Part of the logistics she took care of for you. Technically, you are capable of overriding her commands, but I wouldn’t recommend doing that back home. As it is currently working. This place is an extension of said domain withouth the usual spirit in charge of moderation. Therefore I wish that you grant me those abilliies.”

“Is this a pollitical move?”

“No, a pragmatic one. I will transfer said permisions to Jala without a fuss should we make it back.”

Kyrion sighed as he willed his domain to obey his spirit and watched as the item was wrapped in layers of earth and sealed. Before, Karl may have borrowed a few cars from a used car dealership using the shells as a secondary barrier. The engines and tanks were removed.

The coach arrived ten minutes later with a confused look on his face. “Practice was canceled. Right, you didn’t have a phone then. Did you notice anyone suspicious?”

“There was this one dude with a black long coat. He gave me a gift and walked away. Said something about a bomb threat.”

The coach was listening until he scowled. “What did you do with the thing he gave you?”

“I put it up in my domain.”

“What is that?”

“A rice bag containing.” Kyrion used a term he read about in a game book: B&B 2E. It was an odd fantasy cooking Tabletop RPG in which people and their allies run a Bed and Breakfast.

“So it will just cause a tear in space time somewhere else?”

“I doubt it would.”

Kyrion felt minor indigestion as something expanded rapidly before fading as mana seeped from his skin.

“You ok kid?” The dwarf eyed him.

“I felt a sudden pull in my core, but I suspect that had more to do with my own magic than the high yield explosive.”

「 It has been successfully replicated a hundred times. Oddly enough, one exploded, setting off a series of explosions.]

“My bag was forcibly expanded but it’ll be fine.” Smoke left Kyrion’s mouth as he spoke.

“Do you have any more of those bags?”

Kyrion pulled out a cloth pouch, bit his finger, and drew his personal spatial rune with his blood. Anyone with that could put things in but not take them out.

“You can put things in, but taking things out will be impossible.”

“So you created half a storage bag?”

“No, think of itt as one way teleportation. It’s so that I don’t have people digging through my items while unaware.”

“So, did that explosion inside pass or?”

“Oh that? It was condensed inside of a barrier… I’ll need to dump it out eventually.”

“But not soon?”

“Only thing I have in there are my snacks. As I have a room where I’m supposed to keep my trinkets. When I finish those I’ll gladly let it run its course…”

“So… Don’t use missiles or explosive weapons on you. Should I inform those who keep records or is this a secret?”

Kyrion thought for a long moment as his prosthetic eye glowed briefly. “You can tell them that missiles would be a major inconvenience and may fail to work, but if I’m caught off guard they might hit, and they might do some damage.”

The dwarf eyed him. “If I were a betting dwarf, I’d think you were doing this to gain access to international secrets.”

“I am. I also doubt anyone here would launch a nuclear warhead at me. Unless they were total idiots. They are well aware that I can teleport things to places I’ve been. They wouldn’t risk it.”

“Or you could just teleport away from it. Letting it fall where it will..Resulting in.”

“There is a reason you gave up on nuclear energy and instead focused on plasma condensers which you marketed as nuclear but are much safer and not as radioactive.”

“Not me. I’m just a football coach.”

Kyrion squinted. “Ok, Mr.Coach. Well then, fell free to pass that along for cleanup. I have a club meeting to get to.”

Moca was typing something on a laptop in the clubroom while Jin was busy drawing up blueprints at a desk beside her.

“Working together? No, I’m playing devil’s advocate with my designs while she’s working on a scholarship essay. I’m supposed to tell her if it’s good enough to win.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Uh huh. I was going to say that practice was canceled and that we were supposed to all leave the school due to a threat but…”

“It’s been taken care of.”

“Where’s the prez?”

“You catch on to slang fast?”

“I can process alot of information quickly. Just cost me a nap or two.”

“Lucky you. I heard you tested out of quite a few subjects. How?”

“I have a really smart friend who needed me to help him build stuff back home. I learned a bit everything I know involving math and engineering from him, as well physics. What you all call biology and chemistry, were learned in classes that focused on one or the other. We just don’t have stoichiometry back home. Maybe now I can practice alchemy.”

“How do you make potions without math? Don’t you need exact measurements?”

“Alchemy is as much an art as it is a science. For example, I can transmute this wooden pencil into gold, as it is no longer alive. Just by altering the tiny circles with magic. Moca you didn’t hear that.”

“Right right.” Moca started to roll her eyes before she turned and saw a strange symbol carved into the desk.

“Yes?”

“Why is there a pentagram on that desk?”

“Magic I saw on some T.V. show. I mean I learned from a dusty tome!” Kyrion lied twice, making the first one sound believable.

Kyrion waited for her to look away before he put the pencil onto the circle and chanted a word in his home tongue.

“Transmute.” Kyrion said in his home tongue.

“Al-fom-cael?” Moca looked at the scene and scowled as the circle was gone, but in its place was a shiny pencil with lead in its center. Probably one of those cheap foil pencils.

“So this is how you planned to get materials?”

“Yeah, I can purify steel and clean off rust. Which would be necessary for growth also, this material is known as goldwood, in your tongue. Wood that shares may properties with gold and for all intents and purposes are the same thing. Were this a table it would keep its old pattern.”

“I think I get it. You have a way to get infinite money.”

“Hmm?” Moca picked up the pencil, surprised by its heft.”

“Hey!” Jin yelped.

“This is actual gold. What magic show did you learn that from?”

“I don’t know, came on at around 11:30 and I was already half asleep.”

“I see. So we have an actual mage now. Not just a few people with sleight of hand?”

Kyrion yoinked the pencil out of her hand and smoothly hid it behind his hand as he dropped it through his domain. He rolled his arms around and adjusted his sleeves, but nothing fell out.

From Jin’s angle, he saw the pencil fall through a hole in space.

Moca, however, assumed it was sleight of hand.

Kyrion smiled as he placed a regular pencil back on the desk.

“Maybe we don’t have an actual mage. Was that a prop?”

“Who knows? My hyperactive cohort.”

“I had an older brother who could do something similar, with knives, cards and darts. Before he died that is.”

“How much older?”

“About eight years older. I’m eighteen this year so Jac would have been twenty six. He died in 2001 during the hospital bombings.”

Jin stopped drawing his blueprints when he heard that name. “Why does that sound familiar?”

“Because there was a repeat of the hospital bombing a month back. One sec.” Moca’s phone started to buzz, and she was called to open it.

Kyrion ordered his eye not to tap into the conversation. Sadly, Kyrion was outvoted due to the thorn’s curious nature and Karl’s curious nature.

“Is that my little Moca swirl?”

“Dad, I told you to stop calling me that.”

“Fine, fine, I get it. How’s your mother doing?”

“Yeah, on tuesday. She still doesn’t want to see you.”

“I understand.”

“Dad? She wanted you to stop. What are you doing?”

“Work has been busy, I may be able to tell you one day but today isn’t that. Not on the phone at least. Hey, did you hear anything about a dragon or some other mythical creature in that club of yours?”

Jin looked at Kyrion and pointed at the diagram. “What type of weapons are we giving it?”

“Does it need weapons?”

“Listen, it’s going to need something to use to attack. Even if it’s just decoration.”

“Hmmm… How about a sword made of condensed.”

“A plasma blade? That’s a bit futuristic.”

“We’ll call it the Photon Blade, or Phoblade.”

“But it’s made out of plasma. Or is it condensed light?”

“In a way both yet neither. I need you to follow my engineering instructions for a smaller model.”

“Umm…have you watched any sci-fi movies yet?”

“No. I do know of the sun war duology. Didn’t research it though.”

“Great. Phoblades, that just may work.”

Kyrion placed an orange crystal on the table. “This is a fire agate, it’s useful for converting ambient life energy into fire mana.”

Kyrion then placed two blue circular stones on the table. “This is a condensing sapphire, it condensed any mana it comes into contact with and focuses it through a channel.”

Kyrion then placed a purple diamond on the table. “Finally this baby determines the bounds of the mana and its intensity linking with the psyche of the wielder.”

“Uh… so what determines the color?”

“Personality?” Kyrion shrugged as he hadn’t input any color-changing effects.

“Where did you even get gems like this?”

“Fine.” Kyrion placed a few thin disks on the table, each in a different color.

“What is that?”

“Put these on at the end to determine the color. Like a flashlight lens.”

“Holding out any more magical gems?”

“No.”

Kyrion felt a tug as Karl sent a few more items into his domain. Informing them of their properties.

“This gem is a replacement for plasma and uses electricity instead. While this one is a special type of fire that is a bit hard to condense. This gem condensed the blade into an edge increasing its cutting capability.”

“Wait…You just have these lying around?”

“Yes and no. Where’s Kilo?”

“On a date.”

“Bros before presidents.” Kyrion crossed his arms.

“Thought you were going to say something else. Although that was not with my precognition.”

“You know, the two of you could open a palm reading booth. Jin can read people like a book, while Kyrion could draw them in.”

“I’ve done one of these before. Tell people what they either need to or want to hear, based on their current state of being. For example I can tell there is some tension when talking about your father and brother. Speaking of them raises your heart rate. Based on what I can tell, you know something happened between the two and it could be why both parents are separated. In this scenario, I say you should fight them both and put them in their place. Then get them to listen to your desire for information. As you have asserted dominance they will obey. Kind of like wolves.”

“I did hear that you were raised in the forest. How did you pick up on that.”

“Body temperature, smell, hearing, mannerisms, and including the way you gripped your phone as though you were going to throw it.”

“You can tell that much just by observing someone? What are you, superhuman?”

“Yes? My senses are much higher than a regular person’s. Also I’ve been doing this for a while subconsciously. Most people I’ve met don’t have that many cues.”

“Jin, is it that obvious?”

“I didn’t pay much attention but even I can tell your pi— Highly irritated. Hence you move the conversation to me.”

“You two could clean out a casino.”

“Not old enough.” Jin sighed.

“It’s only fun the first three times, then the gamblers guild tries to buy you off. If that doesn’t work, assassins.”

“Just where the hell are you from?”

“I met a free spirit when I was around ten ish and they got me out for a bit before they had to leave me.”

“Now then, how will you assert your dominance on this father of yours? Do you people pride yourselves on combat here?”

“No… You’re a bit nosey.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Kyrion spun a pocket knife he’d borrowed from the guy who gave him a bag.

Kyrion scowled as his own phone rang. Answering it, he scowled and hung up.

“What was that about.”

“I had mail…. I’ve been invited to a wedding in Japan.”

“Ah wedding?”

“You had another friend?”

“He’s less perceptive and twice as aggressive.”

“So he’s like a tiger.”

“Exactly like a tiger. They also want me to identify a picture that they sent me. How do I open pictures.” Kyrion handed Moca his flip phone.

After a long series of presses, she sighed and pulled up a picture containing one of the fusion runes Cecil had recently developed.

“Oh. It looks like I’m hunting a bear.”

Jin scowled. “Are you making something else?’

“This will be quick. It’s an item that can catch the soul of a person near death. At least, that’s what I think it does. Allegedly you can communicate with the soul should they prove willing.”

Jin eyed Kyrion in suspicion as Kilo arrived with the president.”

“Kyrion? We have a problem. You may need to miss class tomorrow.

Kyrion rolled his eyes. “What’s the issue?”

Kilo turned to a T.V. monitor sitting on a dresser, and it turned onto a new channel.

The news anchor was surprised and worried. “On an island in the middle of the sea, an island of monsters has appeared.”

As the camera zoomed onto the island, a large, long, light blue dragon appeared out of a tear in space. As it flew to the camera, the news station went off as a movie poster for something called Monster Island, which was said to be in the works, and what we had just seen was a trailer.

“So you want me to investigate a movie set?” Kyrion played dumb.