"Okay."
"Holy shit." I grinned at my Doppelganger.
"It's been a while." My clone chuckled in our voice. "Almost forgot the sound of Jonet's voice."
"Yeah right!" I snorted. Turned and lit a smoke. "But I'm glad they're all doing okay. More so. This mutation is amazing."
"Eh." My clone shrugged. "My workload is still the same."
"You were getting lazy anyways." I laughed.
"At any rate, it sure is hilarious. Especially for the ones from Corvus." My clone snickered. "Most of them didn't even recognize our voice. But they're all headed home."
"Good." I grinned wide. Not only from that but from the fact that Silas and the others in Hill Base were doing better than I anticipated, though the news from him wasn't all good.
Regardless, it was an entire realm away and I didn't have the time to catch up just yet. So I sent my clone back to work and cast an anti-gravity spell on myself before I stepped off the rim of the ringed dais.
Like a diver pulling themselves along the seafloor, I grabbed hold of the rails and roots to pull myself through the unbroken walls of my floor. Where, beyond the polished, my Doppelganger toiled without end.
Beyond that and the few floors past were virtually empty. Save a few troops of the Menagerie scurrying or prowling through the brush, searching for prey that wasn't there.
The recreational floor was where all the noise was. Like the floors above, it contained oversized annexes dedicated to a particular type of leisure. The 'pool' for example, contained both an Olympic-sized pool and a dive tank. As well as water slides, spas, and a lazy river that meandered around the entire floor.
That concept extended to the game room-where indoor courts and even a mini-golf course had been installed-and all the other areas as well. Though, nearly everyone was huddled inside the lounge. Drinking, eating, wandering, and mostly conversing with Toril and the others.
Seemingly anticipating my arrival, they all turned with raised brows and lurched towards me the moment I entered.
Being the social butterfly she was, it was Scarlett who stole the show and approached me to ask the questions burning in everyone's minds. "So, what happens next?" She excitedly asked. "You said training. Training in what? And why's this place so big?"
I could only help but chuckle and pat her head as I stepped around her to take a seat. Then leaned forward to birth a few lines of light from my fingers and form them into a hologram of the tower. "In short, we're graduating at the end of the year," I explained. "Once we evolve, we can choose to leave or stay. If we stay we can power level our classes here."
I raised my other hand to create an annotated hologram of the southern peninsula and gave them a moment to read upon the kingdoms and the subguilds they housed. "I would advise you all to stay, both next year and the year after. But the choice is ultimately yours. In either case, we will receive a wise rock pebble as a reward for evolving. At that time." I paused to play the hologram like I would a video and watched their faces as the tower split apart.
It separated first by floors, then by their pie-shaped rooms before distancing themselves from the lower and lower levels.
The storage facilities and industrial kitchen were the first floors to condense into a hollow sphere, containing floors for each type of industry. A relatively thick skin of material fell atop the small body before my room, lab, and study wrapped around it like a shell. Then the training floor, the lounge, observation deck, and grove fell around it in the same fashion.
In the end, it was capped with regolith and left with a rectangular cave opening along the equator. Giving it the strong appearance of a goat's eye when stared at directly.
Or a dragon's eye, if turned to the side.
"This is what will become of the moon I created," I said, looking around all of them as they stared at their wedge-shaped compounds taking on similar forms to my moon, albeit smaller and in shapes that ranged from crescent moons to floating platforms.
"These will be your moons. Your company headquarters. Your homes. Your foundations." I declared. "Recruiting will be your mission post-evolution. When we aren't training, we'll be free to roam the south." I gestured to the map. Bring your friends, allies, or subordinates to your moons and train them. My only rule is that we don't own slaves."
"You don't have to tell me that!" Scarlett smiled.
"Um. What about training?" The half-orc, Hogaz, stepped forward to ask.
"I will ensure each of you meets the requirements for our studies. That said, we'll train together every other day. On those days, physical training starts at seven in the morning and lasts for two hours." I turned a wicked grin towards Toril and the others. "It's without rest. As is the two hours of combat training that follows.
"For the most part at least." I snorted in response to Hogaz's. "After that is two hours of lunch and rest. Classroom study begins at one and lasts until two, with labs and exercise for those lessons from two to three. After that is two hours of practicing your magic or manipulation. Followed by two hours of working down your paths.
"Our day ends at sundown." I generously grinned. "And then the festivities begin."
"Work hard play hard." Zarzok beamed widely. "I like it."
"Indeed." I grinned. "You all will most likely have met the prerequisites to obtain a Master Class come the end of this quarter. To facilitate that, I've read and memorized the Paths section in the library. Since then, it's been summarized and copied into our library for your use. More so, there are facilities in and around the tower dedicated to each Class."
"Like the grove up top for Druids?" Scarlett accurately guessed.
"Exactly."
"What will you teach us?" One of the Epethian royals, Matthew Reid asked.
"Everything I know about the world." I grinned. "First comes survival lessons. I'll teach you a way to prepare food in such a way that it won't spoil. I'll teach you how to brew healing potions for yourselves along with a few other basic things. Then, we'll learn about surviving in the wild without magic before we move on to the more… complicated endeavors."
"Like what?"
"Science," I said. Then played a hologram of ships and drones and spacecraft and cybernetic implants. Of the things I soft often saw in my past life. "It is a method to inquire about the natural world," I explained before they could ask. "When you learn to understand the nature of reality, you can create technology- tools that allow us to exploit nature, up to its limits.
"Today, we can create ships of steel that float seamlessly over the water or cannons that can fire across fields. Tomorrow, we will create replacement limbs made of ceramics and steel. And-"
"Pardon my interruption. But allow me to make the proper use of our deal." Zarzok paused to stand before me, a half-apologetic half-prideful grin stamped across his face. "You are now compelled to tell us the truth no matter what, yes?"
"Essentially." I nodded.
"How are you aware of these things?" He asked. "Science and technology? How did you become to be so knowledgeable and fortunate in life?"
I paused before answering. Not out of hesitation, but to expand my consciousness towards those in the tower who had yet made the pledges and filled my voice with abyssal darkness. "Though you have yet to make your pledge I share this information with you. It will be shared with no one outside this circle.
"Naturally," I said normally, though still with shadows to connect myself to those spread throughout the tower. Then paused again, rueful to the fact that Silas, Jonet, and the others weren't here in my face to hear the truth.
Such things weren't to be said over the radio. But that was the way some things went.
"Reincarnation is real," I finally said, turning my eyes over the lot of them. "Though, in most cases, it only happens once the universe comes to an end.
"I was reincarnated." I continued after a pause. "Though the universe I came from has not ended, my body is no longer a part of it. It was a realm without magic. Filled only with humans and the machinations we created."
"That sounds horrible."
"It was. I hated my existence there." I created a hologram of old Earth with a long sigh. "But it was also glorious. Though we had no magic, we used science and technology to overcome our weaknesses as humans. By the time I was born, death and disease were nearly under our control. We could travel across our realm within a day and communicate across our worlds as easily as I speak to you now. We possessed the power to end societies. To end ourselves in a single instant. There were many times throughout our history when we almost had.
"We would have if it weren't for us being saved." I continued the montage with the scenes I saw long ago. Of fleets of shuttles descending from the sky to take the misfortunate and the educated off-world for good. "He could easily be described as a Sorcerer, as we understand things. His body was infused with technology far beyond our reach. A technology we were incapable of comprehending.
"In that way, he was the first being with magic. He descended upon our world and coerced humanity to comply with his plans. Benevolent and magnificent though those plans were." I sighed nostalgically. "He gave us his knowledge and technology. He taught us to make things that could take us off of our world and allow us to not only explore the ones beyond. But thrive on them."
Pausing again, I expanded the hologram to create an orrery of the Earth-Moon system and waited for the habitats to begin popping up as the timetable jumped forward. With time, the image expanded to Mars. Then Venus. And Mercury before my life changed forever and I got on that ship headed for the Saturnian System.
Rather than show the planets or moons or anything of Saturnian origin though, I showed them a montage of the greatest creations within the Sol System.
The fantastical implants that made the Galilean Powers famous. The stations and ships that outclassed planets, constructed only by the finest architects in Gelidia Corp. The residential bridge that connected Pluto with its moon, Charon; aptly named the Barycenter. The arcologies and art that were spread across an abundantly green Earth and radiated off of it. The Venusian Cloud Cities, tethered together in blimps as they drifted in the long daylight. The industrial complexes spread across most of the Martian and Lunar surfaces.
And of course, the famous sub-Mercurial prison. The Mohole.
"Only when our violent tendencies were no longer a threat to ourselves, did this Sorcerer gives us the same technology found within himself. It was glorious." I said after scanning the crowd of awed eyes. Then changed it to the sanctioned war that made the Galilean Powers infamous- Campaign.
I showed them footage of the Saturnian Knights-of a single Saturnian Knight-neutralizing a stronghold in less than a day. I showed them the relativistic kill missiles every nation used to deter the other. The gangs. The pirates.
Everything.
"It was glorious. But humanity refused to change. It was glorious." I repeated. "But as glorious as it was, I decided to die at the age of one hundred thirty-eight. Knowing reincarnation awaited me, I died and soon found myself in limbo. Facing the creator of this universe. An Eternal by the name of Telin.
"He explained to me that he is the source of mana," I explained. "He is the reason why the portals appeared across the Planes. He told me that he and those like him wish to judge me in this life. He told me that I would live as a god so that he could see if I was worthy of staying one after reincarnating. He then blessed me as his champion, his Cleric, but gave me the freedom to live as I please.
"However, I do not want to join him. I love this life. I want to live in this universe for as long as I can, exploring and learning about everything I can."
"So then," Jaimess muttered aloud after the long, piercing silence. " You were born with the mind of an old man? Mentally, you were a hundred forty-three when we met, but in the body of a five-year-old?"
"I knew it!" Toril cackled.
"Yes." I phlegmatically nodded, despite the small surprise. "As Telin's Cleric, I remember every detail of both my past life and this one. Including the knowledge of how to recreate the glorious technology we had access to. Naturally, you all will have access to this technology as well. But it's a long road to make it a reality. Thankfully, I have time and the undead on my side."
"That's a tall story." Elurial chortled.
"You don't understand." Zarzok shook his head. "He's under contract with us. The fact that he's not suffering right now means he's telling the truth. But then, I ask." He turned to me. "Do you wish to emulate this… Sorcerer?"
"No." I quickly shook my head and wound back the hologram to old Earth. "Every human that had ever lived resided on this rock and, as I said, we were on a course that led to self-destruction. He used force to move us off-world, preventing our extinction. There is no need for that here.
"Here." I changed the map to a rendering of the disk on which we resided. "On the vast Mortal Plane, humans are said to have scattered everywhere alongside dozens of other races. My only goal is to see and learn about them all.
"The reason why I'm recreating this technology. The reason why I'm training you all so hard. Is because this privilege and curse that I've been given by Telin will undoubtedly make my life difficult one day. He's influenced the elves in many ways already. Though he gave his word that he would no longer intervene with the universe once I was born, the same isn't the case for the gods within this world already.
"I will receive the last of my blessings in just six months. When we evolve. Sometime after that." I eyed as many faces as I could. "I fully expect the paradigm to shift. It may take years, centuries even. But it will happen. And no matter how powerful I become, I can't protect everyone I care about at once. The only solution is for those I care about to be strong enough to protect themselves.
"From anyone!" I said through clenched teeth.
"Even the gods." Zarzok grinned in excitement. "That's only fair. Considering we work for one."