Chereads / The Price of Ignorance / Chapter 2 - Authority

Chapter 2 - Authority

"What emotions?" my sister responded. I answered her, then posed a question "Ones about dad. Anyways, do you know why mother thinks our family will never have an authority?"

She looked at me, awestruck, then her face took up a giddy yet somewhat apprehensive expression "You, you asking me about authorities?" Her expression stiffened "It's a bit too good to be true, what are you playing at? she said with a frown.

I answered honestly "I'm not playing about this sister, I just want to know the origin of mother's hopelessness." 'Though that's not the whole truth, I just want to know what authorities are.' She looked at me skeptically "Ughh, fine. I have nothing better to do."

She started explaining half-heartedly, "Authorities are in a sense, power over a concept." Her tone became more excitable, "An example of this is Therasia Republic's Leonard Caelum, a first-generation fallen who has the authority of stasis, and has the apparent ability to put people, items, air, space and even time in stasis!"

'This excites her, she seems to forget her cautious demeanour towards her brother's "Bullshit" when discussing authorities. I also have to keep in mind that I'm getting an uneducated obsessed fangirl's version of authorities, and about Caelum, he seems broken.

Actually, on the contrary, that might be the standard powerscale for these authorities. I need to ask for more examples to confirm this. I also need to know what "fallen" and "First-generation" mean in regards to authorities, but I have some guesses. 

"Fallen refers to authority wielders, am I right, and first-gen refers to people who have an authority without a family lineage of authorities?" I asked "Close, but not quite" she responded with a tsk, tsk and finger wag combo "You're mostly right on the fallen aspect, but as I said, mostly. You're right that, it's what authority wielders are called, but you don't seem to know why they're called that, do you."

"No" I answered curtly, not wanting to spoil my sister's moment of actually wanting to tell me things.

My sister continued "Well, they're called that because it is said that they have fallen from a higher realm, which is why they have their powers. Which ties in to the meaning of first-generation, which you have more wrong. Yes, first-gens don't have authorities in their lineage, but the thing you're missing is that first-gens have actual MEMORIES of the sought-after higher realm! While 2nd-gen and above only have the lineage and authority but not the experience of the higher realm."

'wait so transmigration is being fallen and having authorities? If so, what's my authority? How would I know? How do I find out? What if I don't have one? How do I get her to tell me?

She seems gleeful about authorities right now, but how long will that last? I don't know. So I have to be swift.'

I asked my formulated question, "If Leonard Caelum was a first-generation fallen, how did he figure out his authority?" 'It's perfect, she's essentially a fangirl for him so she'll answer my question without hesitation as she takes me mentioning him as an excuse to glaze him!

Although the answer I receive may be far-fetched, for as long as it isn't complete bullshit, I should be able to gain some insight from it.'

Her face lit up, followed by some inward contemplation "In the interviews, I believe he metioned something about using some sort of medium to help him with his authority, but it's vague and I can't recall. Sorry about that."

'She doesn't seem to be sorry for not fully answering my question, but sorry because she didn't know information on Caelum, my hypothesis was right, although she didn't glaze him as much as I expected, she's true fangirl.

Nonetheless, it's enough to go off of. I need a medium. What does that mean? What is a medium? Well, a medium is typically an action, place, item, or person that helps some work get done, so in other words, a catalyst. From what I've learned, authorities seem personal, so I need a personal catalyst to catalyze mine.

A person? I don't know anyone here and I don't have a deep enough connection with this family either, it seems insufficient, it's unlikely to be strong enough.

A place? The same argument applies. There's just not enough of a personal connection.

An action? It seems plausible, but I can't think of any action that would really tie to me to my authority, especially since I have no idea what my authority is, or if I even have one.

Which brings us to our final option, an item. The one thing that comes to my mind when I think of an item is the monocle sitting on my left eye.

It has always perplexed me, why does this thing look more expensive than the entire house?

It obviously has some history in this world, which, of course ties it to this world. In my previous world, I also wore a monocle of similar weight and porportions, which ties me to the concept of monocles.

This body also wore this monocle, in particular, which ties this exact monocle to this body.

Therefore wearing monocles is a heavy part of the history of this body, and ever since I transmigrated, I've been part of this body's history as well, and I also personally have a history of wearing monocles.

With all this being said, one can say, that, monocles, and this monocle in particular, due to it's connecting history, is most likely the medium I should use to express my authority the most with. 

Now that I've established the monocle as the medium of my authority, a question appears: if monocles, and this monocle particularly, is the medium I should use for my authority, or at least for viewing my authority, why didn't anything happen when I originally put it on?

It is most likely because, even with the strength of the connection, something more is needed. An action, perhaps?

That could be it, but what action could possibly signify activating my authority? Let's think, if this monocle is equal to my authority, could viewing only through the monocle reveal my authority?

I commenced my experiment. I closed my right eye, and nothing happened.

Alright, that didn't work. Why didn't that work. Could I be on the wrong train of thought here, it's possible, but I find it unlikely, after all, I'm thinking in terms of mediums just like Caelum did.

Wait, that might be a problem, how Caelum views mediums might be inherently different than my own interpretation, but even if that's the case, it's still salvageable. 

Even if I can never truly understand Caelum's interpretation, I can take away a few details: Caelum believed it to be similar to that of a medium, authorities are personalized, and the reason it worked for Caelum might only be because he believed in psychics, so a medium has a place in his heart.

Therefore I need to think and imagine how an authority that I can't touch or feel, emotionally or physically, that might as well not exist until I accessed it, should be accessed.

I really get why Caelum chose mediums now, it's a very similar concept, but that just won't work for me. I don't believe in psychics, and it's not like I can just start believing in them now, it has to genuine and from the heart. I must remember that accessing an authority is not about believing in mediums, but using personalization to access something that normally is, for all intents and purposes, hidden.

Personalization. Access. Soul. Heart-felt. Belief. Logic. Philosophy. Someone's natural philosophy. This makes me recall a thought, earlier I believed that seeing only through the monocle would allow me to view my authority because I thought the monocle to represent my authority. That logic is also reminiscent of my successful transmigration experiment, and the transmigration experiment was from my own philosophy, a philosophy different than Caelum's, a philosophy based in symbols instead of mediums.

When I was in my eye closing experiment, I thought of the monocle as a medium, while using actions that treated it as a symbol. I believe this mismatch is were I went wrong.

I commenced eye closing experiment version 2.

I took a deep breath and closed my right eye to symbolize only looking at my authority, then closed my left eye, symbolizing me forgetting my current sight of the outside world.

I flipped my monocle around, thereby inverting the lens, which symbolizes the ability to view my interior world. I then opened my left eye, symbolizing me actually viewing that world.

The scene changed.

I saw a series of words etched into a marble monolith of shifting dust, in a field of never-ending bright green grass that slowing gets blacker as the distance passes, with not a flower in sight.

I looked up to see a circle of daytime above me.

It couldn't be wider than a mile, with a bright sun at it's center and fluffy white clouds circling it as if they were in orbit. The circle was so small, in fact, that I could see it's spatial curvature at the edges.

Beyond the circle of daytime was a void of nighttime and one could see planets and moons in that night sky, their closeness impossible, to the point of making an astronomer go mad.

You could see the detailed markings of those celestial bodies and through that, you could tell that they weren't moving, sitting there, just stationary, observing all the wasn't the day.

I originally thought of venturing farther than the seemingly eternal day, just to check it out.

I was under of thinking of: this is my mind, it can't hurt me, but then I thought this might not just be my mind, but my authority of unknown power as well and quickly scrapped that thought.

I instead approached the marble monolith, my excitement palpable and my aprehension suppressed. I gazed upon the shifting sand runes, which almost as if responding to my observation, rearranged their grains from a astranged runic language to my native language, and I stepped closer to read them.