"Well?"
Eli also retracted the spell that had obscured the glass, and a faint skylight filtered through the window, dim enough for Eli to get a good look at Middendorffi; he finally let go of Middendorffi's waist and turned to his front, sweeping the other man's entire body carefully, "How's it feel?"
"Full of energy, almost doubled." Middendorffi also looked down at her hands, "Still have that feeling of wanting to explode and swell, but can hold it in."
"Congratulations." Eli smiled slightly, "Did you absorb any of its power?"
"Very little." Middendorffi said, "But I felt a fluctuation somewhat similar to that of the spatial rift, and if I come across it again, I may be able to try and take control of it and not be pulled away from it so easily."
Eli asks again, "What about time?"
"Precognition, you say? Didn't feel it." Middendorffi said, "I had a clear perception of a vast... energy field when I was going through those timelines?" He couldn't clearly describe what he felt; he could only try to pick known words and explain it, "But after absorbing this, I wasn't able to unfold that energy field on my own; I don't think I inherited the ability. Perhaps I'll have a more pronounced perception of space and time in the future."
"Well, there's no rush, take your time. And time is supposed to be a difficult power to control; it's not inherently established, and I'm afraid acquiring it from elsewhere is challenging." Eli said, "In all the worlds I've travelled, I've never seen this kind of existence, and it's attached to an ordinary person."
"Go ask him where he got it?" Middendorffi said, "If it's been held since birth, he shouldn't be alive today."
"Screw the 'should'; it's not life." Eli said, "Humanity's self-control becomes extremely weak in the face of the great temptation to see the future. Even 34-year-old Mike is like that; it's even more unlikely that ten-year-old him won't be able to use it at all."
"Then let's go ask him. If there's a specific location, we can visit." Middendorffi thought momentarily, "I could lie to him and say I can see his future. He's afraid to look too long and must not know his future yet."
Eli laughed, "You can lie now? Energy up, IQ up, huh?"
"Earlier, Henry said that when you come across a party that doesn't tell the truth, you can blackmail them by saying, 'I don't need you to tell me, I know'." Middendorffi returned honestly, "But I don't know how to lie. What kind of future am I going to make up for him?"
"Just say, 'You're dying, guess how you're going to live'." Eli does give him ideas and speaks even more coldly, "In the end, whether he says it or not, you tell him, 'Not long to live, old as he is and impoverished, doomed to die a horrible death on the streets'."
Middendorffi took note of each one, "Good."
He then looked back at Eli, "You said earlier that you saw the future ..."
"Want to hear it now?" Eli looked back at him, his tone a little mildly low, "You would ask that. Is it because you see your future as well?"
"I see a million of them, and I'm unsure which one will come true. I do know, however, that they are all likely to come true." Middendorffi answered, "In some of them, you pushed me out of those worlds."
"Me?" Eli seemed to chuckle, "How did I push you out?"
"The scenes weren't quite the same, and your actions and words weren't the same, but you said similar things." Middendorffi recalled, "You should have known I would see that moment through this plunge into the world line. So you reminded me to stop looking and pull out right then and there. You'd also make a point of releasing energy to shake me out."
"That's pretty much the same part I saw." Eli smiles softly, "I drew myself out after I reminded you to get out."
Middendorffi asked, "And what were you doing before you reminded me, doing the same thing I saw?"
"..." Eli looks like he's about to cough softly but eventually inclines his head and raises a fist in front of his mouth for a moment before lowering his hand and turning it back around, "I don't know if you're seeing the same thing I am. But I ... don't want to go into detail about what I saw for now, so I'll be sure to tell you when the time is right, okay?"
"Of course." Middendorffi said, "That's your future; if you don't want to talk about it, don't."
Eli was going to hide it for the time being, but hearing him say that and feeling as if he didn't care about what might happen to him in the future, his heart inexplicably fell a little.
Eli was curious about what Middendorffi had seen, but he wasn't going to say anything himself first, and there was no way he could ask Middendorffi to open up. Though he also knew that if he suggested he wanted to know, nine times out of ten, Middendorffi would answer truthfully.
--But let's not bully him so much.
Eli had mentally built himself up when he heard Middendorffi say, "So if I want to ask you about what I saw in the Worldline, would you be willing to answer?"
With a feeling of "what's said is done", Eli was stunned and immediately replied, "Of course."
Middendorffi said, "You won't mind if I ask you about things that haven't even happened yet? I don't quite understand some of it, but at the end of the day, that's not a decision you make now. I'm not sure you would find those later things inexplicable or even impossible. If you mind if I ask you with something inexplicable ..."
"No." Eli interrupted as he heard him hesitate, seemingly despite himself, "I don't mind; go ahead and ask."
"Good." Middendorffi nodded once but didn't follow up with the question right away. Instead, he pulled out his phone and glanced at the time, "Don't say anything now, though, do you? It seems like it's been a long time. Shouldn't we get out of here?"
Eli felt the breath he'd just lifted let out again and a slightly amused feeling.
"... Let's go then."
***
The two exited the conference room, and the assistant sitting outside napping immediately woke up.
He took the two out of the hospital and straight to the hotel above the casino. Middendorffi wanted to go directly to see Mike. Still, the assistant said that even though he wasn't much of a problem after the first aid, he was so disengaged that he had passed out, so he probably wouldn't have been able to answer the questions if he had barely woken up. In that case, Middendorffi and Eli could only rest at the hotel.
Their rooms were next to each other, and the assistant said she would arrange for them to have some breakfast and leave. Both of them don't need to eat, but given that they are still disguising themselves as normal human beings, they don't stop the assistant. Eli's end just entered the room and received a message from Middendorffi: [What are these?
Eli then turned around and went back to Middendorffi's room.
Middendorffi was working on a panel with many touch buttons and a simple pattern of markings, and Eli looked at it funny, so he walked over to work on it with him shoulder-to-shoulder.
Then Eli, who had seen a lot of things, needed clarification. After all, as good as he was, he needed to become more familiar with the world, especially this abstract sketch. Lighting, curtains and so on, but the glass fogging this is pressed out to know, Middendorffi and Eli also tried several times in a row. Middendorffi even went into the bathroom, touched the glass, and said: "It's not fog."
"It's supposed to be just a technique to obscure your vision when it's energised." Eli returned, "It's not fog."
Middendorffi asked, "But if you're going to block it on, why don't you just make the wall with something else to cover it up?"
Eli glanced at the large bathtub against the glass wall, then looked up to see the queen-sized bed not far beyond the glass wall, and a ridiculous but plausible thought popped into his mind.
But he didn't say it out loud, just said, "Design it; I don't understand the human aesthetics of this world either."
Middendorffi didn't ask.
He continued to wander around the room, and Eli, with the attitude that he had come all this way, followed him. The room had quite a bit of equipment, and the fridge and shelves were full of costly items. But Adonis's assistant had told them they could use all this stuff for free, call for room service if needed and that it wouldn't cost them anything.
Middendorffi went through the fancy-packaged items on the shelves. A bottle of costly water was opened, and both took a few sips, feeling no different from any other water. The city's famous dim sum boxed set was also opened, and one by one, the pouches were unwrapped in half. Then, Eli described to Middendorffi what it tasted like.
Finally, Middendorffi also picked up three boxes and looked at the outer packaging of the same set, puzzled: "Three boxes of the same?"
Eli glanced at them, hesitated for a split second, and tapped the corner of the casing, "Separate models."
"Oh, it's written here." Middendorffi said, "It's written so small, I don't usually scan the full details when I'm not topographing something."
Eli says, "Perhaps the almost identical packaging gives the smaller ones a bit of face time when purchased."
Middendorffi: "Human males, it seems, care about that."
Eli: "..."
Middendorffi's tone is relatively flat, and being an essentially touchy-feely entity with little empathy or mood swings, he probably doesn't mean anything else by saying such things. But it's hard not to feel like he's being conspiratorial when such things are said.
Middendorffi also said: "I did not find many references on the Internet; this country's network management is a bit strict. How big is the L, XL? There don't seem to be any S or M sizes here. Did they not put them in or ..."
Eli, in a rare moment when he couldn't pick up his words, interrupted, "I'm not entirely sure about these rules in this world, so I can't answer if you ask me."
After a pause, he was a little worried that Middendorffi would find a way to look at the "fire map information" and then instructed, "It doesn't matter if you don't know it that well. There must be many other people who don't know it either, so you don't have to read it."
At this time, Eli, who felt that there were many rules in this country, thought that it was better to be strict, and it was fortunate that Middendorffi landed in this country when he came to this world.
Just then, Adonis' assistant knocked on the door, "Mr Brown, breakfast is ready."
Eli, who wanted to get off the subject, instantly walked over to the door and opened it. When the door opened, the assistant saw it was Eli and was momentarily confused, "Erm, Mr Jones ..."
Eli saw the food cart and stepped aside, "Just send it all this way."
This lets the assistant again, still standing in front of the shelves. Middendorffi, holding the assistant at a glance, knows things.
Assistant: Ah, this ...
--I should not come now, ah!