Mark was sitting cross-legged on the forecastle of the deck when the prismatic light on Andria’s skin finally fully soaked into her soul, and she woke up, her vector unfolding softly into the world once again. And then her vector went absolutely everywhere, separating from her body and shifting into the atmosphere, the ground, the rocks, the trees; everywhere. Mark knew what had happened, somewhat, long before he could do anything about it. Not only had Andria possibly Awakened into a Manipulation Power, but she had also become the rarest of Talents.

  A Seer.

  Mark went on high alert, saying, “Scan her now, Eliot.”

  Eliot jerked down in the bowels of the ship, where he was doing things with Tartu and machinery. He called out, “Okay! Uh… Scanner up and ready—”

  “Ahhh?” Andria said, sitting upright, her eyes fully open but blind for her concentration was far, far away. “What the fuck is happening right now?”

  Mark went to her and felt as her attention locked to him, little pockets of vectors crawling out of the sky and latching on to Mark like Nobody Important’s slimes could do. If it was just her vector, her mana, then that would be fine. But Andria was a Mithrilkinetic, and she kept her mithril inside of her astral body until she used it.

  She used her mithril unconsciously and brightest silver spilled out of her vectors, feeling like fingers and sometimes knives and nails. Mithril scratched at Mark, carving into him. It was not violent on purpose, but it was violent anyway.

  Mark said, “Andria. Focus on my voice. Do not search out anyone else. I think you’re a Seer now and you’re touching things with mithril, instinctively.”

  Andria’s fingers/knives/nails pulled away from Mark as she said, “Ah! Okay, uh. Sorry! Uh… How do I stop.”

  “You don’t. I do,” Mark said, and then he hit her with a small bit of Entropy, drawing away her Energy, collapsing her Power down a bit. Not fully. But enough. Everywhere in the ship that Mark felt her Power began to wink out, leaving spots of mithril buried across the ship. And then her vector was only in her body. “You okay, now?”

  Andria grunted a little, saying, “That’s… very uncomfortable.”

  “Focus on the here and now. Stay here. Look at me. Nowhere else. Do you know how to handle Seers?”

  “That’s what this is, isn’t it… No.” Andria looked like she was holding back a headache. “I’ve read about them… Not really.”

  “I know some theoretical stuff,” Mark said, “Focus on being here. Condense all of your mithril out of your body, too. Put it in front of you and then focus on that. Eliot? How is the scan coming along?”

  Eliot was currently dealing with a whole bunch of issues across the ship. Eliot said, “She ripped through a lot, including the scanner. Probably trying to access it and see what she is, now. We have to rebuild it… Oh wow. Her entire workshop is shredded.”

  “Everyone sound off, please,” Lola said, a bit of pain in her voice. She had been hurt, and that fact sent a spike of worry through Mark’s everything, but she was healed, now.

  Everyone sounded off, while Andria’s face turned bright red and she focused on a mithril orb gathering in front of her body.

  And then Lola spoke up, “Miss Metallicmore. Mark has the correct stance to take with your newfound Seer capabilities, but he needs to give you back your Power and you need to learn to control it. Mark. Please take her a hundred kilometers away until she can get the handle of it all. It’s not far enough; it will never be far enough. But it will be good enough for now. Do a Union of Focus with her; drain from the world and give her Focus more than you give yourself.”

  Andria nodded, still desperately trying to focus on the mithril sphere in front of her body, sitting on the bed. It was already a meter across, and it was still growing, surprising even herself. Her production capabilities had gone way, way up.

  Mark scooped her up into a bunch of shredded fabric and then zoomed off away from the Dreadnought.

  Several minutes later Mark landed on the top of a flat-ish rock, well out of visual range of the Dreadnought. He unfurled his adamantium, setting Andria onto her blankets. Her mithril flowed into a ball 2 meters wide, and it kept coming. She was focused as could be, and she was fraying.

  Mark asked, “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Mark granted her back full power and a Union of Focus.

  Andria’s vectors slammed into every direction, once again, the ball of mithril flowing like droplets of rain, burrowing curved lines through the rock, through the water, and attempting to go through Mark, too. Mark was fine, but a layer of silver collected on his skin anyway. He brushed most of it off while only some fell away on its own. Andria’s face went bright red again and more mithril slammed into Mark, touching him… according to Andria’s attention.

  Andria was embarrassed as fuck.

  Mark told her, “Don’t worry about it. Just focus on what matters.” Mark sat down across from her, saying, “Try to figure out your new proprioception; your sense of physical self and body.”

  Spirals of mithril gathered on the edge of rocks, touched leaves gently and killed roots on accident, and caressed Mark’s chin and… Mmm.

  Andria looked away, and that helped a little, but now the rock she was looking at over there got disintegrated by inquisitive trails of mithril and she muttered, “It’s like my hands have minds of their own… fuck.”

  Mark cleared his throat. “We’ll stay out here as long as you need. Quark? Do you have any helpful tips?”

  Quark said, “Seers are a difficult subsection of Talents to learn and control, because unlike the vast majority of people, who are known as Nears by most, Seers are not limited to a localized, contiguous astral body. Seers can operate at extremely long distances, based on the quality of their astral body located in those split-off pieces. Extrapolating from known sources and based on the density of Andria’s astral body, as measured before she destroyed the sensors—”

  Andria winced. A wide middle section of the next pillar disintegrated due to moving dots of mithril punching through where Andria viewed.

  “—I can safely estimate that Andria’s effective range would be unlimited. Or rather, she would (likely) be limited to the plane she was currently on, and limited versus the density of opposing astral bodies she might encounter. Considering that her mana is mithril, and her PL with Mithrilkinesis seems to be in the 90s, now, very few would be able to resist her at all.”

  … That was good to understand the danger, but not what Mark asked.

  Mark asked, “Any helpful tips on how to control it?”

  Quark said, “Ah! Yes, sir. Dematerialize your mithril and focus on that, first, Miss Metallicmore.”

  Andria took a breath, and said, “As good a suggestion as any.”

  It took Andria 8 hours of disintegrating the world, bringing her mithril out and then putting it back into her astral body, and then exploring far, far away and coming back to herself, until she felt somewhat safe enough to return to the ship.

  They decided to stay away longer, anyway.

  Mark watched over her the whole time. It was the only time Mark had ever really spent with her, and it was kinda nice. They spoke about nothing in particular, and about a few important topics. Mark asked about how Andria was able to remain stable in locality even though she was pushing with her mithril on a whole lot of things out there, which caused Andria to suddenly realize she was pushing on her mithril and then she went crashing into the rocky ground and then whipping up into the sky, but Mark caught her and held her semi-firmly until she understood what she had just done.

  “I was pushing on the mithril when I wanted to, and then… not pushing on it when I didn’t think about it?” Andria frowned and then began pushing herself up and around, but only against Mark’s adamantium grasp, and then she cut it off and settled down. She did that a few times before she seemed to understand it and settle down. “Yeah. I think that’s it? I can selectively choose to let the mithril be an anchor… or not? Huh.”

  Mark went, “Huh.” And then he had a flash of inspiration. “That must be how some people fly without actually appearing to fly! They must be Seers!” Mark scoffed. “That’s how Goofy Goblin was doing it.”

  Andria arched an eyebrow. “Goofy Goblin is a seer?”

  “Oh yeah. A lot of things just fell into place about him. He’s able to see things at a distance. Able to fly without a noticeable vector…” Mark’s thoughts kinda spiraled into questions about godly domains and their being able to be accessed from anywhere, to much more easily asked and answered questions. “How are your little mithril dots able to burrow through anything at all without a counterforce?”

  Andria looked embarrassed, and then she brought a mithril orb in front of her face and began to ripple the surface from one pole to the other. Another flex of Shaping made the mithril orb twist. “One of the things I figured out first was how to make mithril punch through things because I needed to kill some monsters without harming the corpse; for reclamation processes.” Andria then swiped the mithril ‘driller orb’ into the ground and then right back up and out. “Like that… Lost a bunch of it to enclosed astral bodies breaking me off from my mithril, but things tended to die fast when I punched into brains, so I got it back.”

  Mark smirked. “I used to put adamantium onto the tips of spears so I could just punch into something deeper and better.” Mark held up an orb of adamantium and started to wiggle it from front to back, and then he twisted it… it did not flow nearly as well as Andria’s mithril orb, but Mark got it done well enough. And then he pushed it into the ground. Mark had to give it some actual direction to get it to ‘automatically’ burrow, but he got it done. It kinda crunched into the dirt and then came back up and out. “Not nearly as well as yours.”

  Andria was smiling, though, saying, “That’s pretty good! Adamantium is different from mithril, of course; they do different things. You’re kinda forcing it through the ground but…” Andria’s mithril flowed into Mark’s adamantium digger. “Ah. Uh. My mistake.”

  Mark chuckled as he ‘held’ Andria’s ‘hand’ in his own ‘hand’, guiding the digger into the air once again, saying, “No worries… ah, look at that. Neat.”

  The combined digger-orb was maybe fist-sized and mostly black, but with bright platinum spaces holding the black apart, like lubrication in an engine. The adamantium flowed a lot easier with mithril parts to it, but only when Andria was focused on it, when she was helping Mark move at the same time. It was weird for Mark, but kinda nice.

  And then Andria’s face went bright red and she dematerialized all of the mithril all around her, including the parts that she was holding around Mark’s adamantium. When the silver vanished, all that was left were black knife-like adamantium pieces held in a rough cutting-orb-shape.

  Mark ignored the various confused and happy feelings flowing off of Andria and literally collecting on his own face, and chest, and arms, and the adamantium clothes he had made himself to give himself some dignity back, though that only barely helped those inquisitive silver orbs.

  Eventually Andria got those under control.

  Andria needed to sleep again, and so she did.

  Mark watched over her while she slept, again, and as she slept this time her vectors finally calmed down, turning inward. This action somehow brought back the little pieces of mithril that had gone exploring all on their own. Those little pieces of her astral body rained onto her like she was a silver-gathering lodestone, whereupon they vanished into her main astral body.

  Eventually, when the silver rain had stopped for a while, one of Eliot’s drones came by with Tartu on top of it, moving near-silently. Mark nodded to him, and Tartu nodded back, casting his System Call Domain to get a proper scan of Andria. The drone interpreted that scan. Andria didn’t wake at all.

  Soon, numbers appeared in the air, on a hologram.

  Body: 84

  Shaper, Mithril: 095

  Mind: 85

  Natural, Prosperity: 095

  Soul: 84

  Arch, Mindless Manipulation: 093

  Estimated astral body strength: 99%

  Seer Detected.

  Tartu nodded, left a care package of clothes and cookies, and then he took off.

  Mark continued to watch over Andria for the next few hours. It was a short nap, and when she awoke she had much better control. The sugarsnap cookies were just what she wanted, too.

  Andria put on some new clothes, her face was a little red as she said, “Thanks for watching over me.”

  “I would do the same for anyone, and especially my friends. Ready to see your scanner readout, now?”

  Andria couldn’t contain herself, quite literally. But only a little bit. Mithril spilled out of her arms and feet, but then she instantly dematerialized it. That action almost reminded Mark of the silver waves that Isoko emanated sometimes. Andria said, “I’m ready. What’d I get?”

  Mark put the numbers in the air., in adamantium, for her to see for herself. Her eyes instantly went to the 0s in front of 3 different readouts, her vector going temporarily still, almost in shock.

  “… ‘Mindless Manipulation’?” Andria whispered.

  Mark said, “The general consensus among the team is that one is a gift/curse from the sun kaiju and the reason you went Seer. We’ll find you some slimes to test it out on; those don’t have any minds, and they’re also what Nobody Important was using to enact his will upon the world.”

  Andria stared, feeling so very fulfilled. Happy. But also wary. “A Manipulation Skill… Wow.”

  Mark smirked. “Those are pretty good! Ready to go back? They rebuilt your quarters at the front of the ship, by the way.”

  Andria’s emotions crashed and little drops of mithril poked out of the air around her. “Fuuuck. I destroyed my workshop.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Yup!”

  Andria sighed. She asked, “Now for a reading for Tartu, right? About Verdago and Farmer?”

  “That’s what he’s hoping for. I want to know if we should stay on the layer and go to some elven ruins that Derek has been exploring for the last day, about 1,500 kilometers that way,” Mark pointed, saying, “And continuing on for at least another thousand kilometers. Derek didn’t get far. The place is kinda falling apart in a lot of places. I want to know if there is Resurrection magic here, and if we should stay and explore as a team. Can you tell that with Prosperity?”

  Andria’s eyebrows went up. “I’m… I’m certainly going to try!” She stared at nothing, and then she looked away, eyes full of silver flickers that became a swarm of silver dots that went zooming off toward the ruins, fast as little dots could fly, and then faster. Andria stared into other places, into Prosperity, and then she stopped. She pulled back, blinking, saying, “I’m not getting anything in that direction— Well… Not ‘nothing’. There is ‘stuff’. Nothing that would be a great boon to anyone in particular, though. What’s more interesting is this entire layer.” Andria looked up at the sky, which was like a river of golden light, shining down on the world down here. Somehow that golden light became white light down here, and Mark didn’t understand that at all, but he understood Andria as she said, “This land is special. Deeply special. You could build a society here. Peaceful and prosperous. Sorry, Mark.”

  Mark was disappointed. There was no way, or need, to hide that. Mark contented himself with moving on to the discussion about the land, and saying, “You think you might want to come back, to build a society in Endless Daihoon here, like the sun kaiju said?”

  Andria shimmered with a rising tide of joyful emotions as she looked outward once again, seeing things in a different light. “It would make a really nice civilization, wouldn’t it… this Softer Land.”

  Mark nodded. “Haven’t heard a single kaiju Call since we got here, nor seen a single monster at all. Lots of birds and fish and flying squirrels and flying snakes, though.”

  Andria took that in, and then set it aside. “Meet you back there?”

  Mark smirked and hovered into the air. “Sure. You got it?”

  Andria hovered into the air, using unseen caltrops far, far out of sight, saying, “This is soooo much easier than making rotors and air shields, goddess damn.”

  Mark laughed. “She contacted you yet?”

  A soft golden glint touched Andria’s vector, then faded away.

  Andria smiled like someone had put a warm blanket around her, saying, “Yeah. Pluta is here. She approves… Though she wants me to go into seclusion and talk to her for a while.”

  Mark nodded.

  Soon, Andria and Mark were back on the Dreadnought, which was fully repaired, and with a hut on the deck, near the forecastle where Mark usually hung out. Andria would be sleeping in that hut for the next few days, just like how it had gone with Isoko. Soon, Eliot and Tartu would help Andria make a ‘Seer Containment Bracelet’, and they already had most of the parts assembled, but she needed to be there for the final steps. It would allow her a lot more control over her newly Awakened self, but it would only be a stopgap measure. Real control would come with time and practice.

  For now, while Andria was awake and in control, Andria sat down with Tartu in the Pantheonic Garden at the back of the Dreadnought’s castle.

  Mark and everyone else watched from afar.

  Tartu and Andria sat on a small rise of dirt, contained in one of the larger growing plots. Small flowers grew around Tartu like spiraling vines, while he sat cross-legged with palms up and mind centered.

  Andria sat 3 meters away, focused, mithril contained and eyes locked.

  Her vector shifted, angled in a weird way. Like it was poking into a place that Mark couldn’t see. Mark had literally never seen such a thing before, and yet, he realized he had. When people prayed their vectors went in weird, internal angles. When they slept their vectors went internal and angled as well. This, here, was the same thing, but Andria was fully present in the moment even though she was reaching out through a different angle, into a different dimension.

  A slightly golden dimension.

  Andria was in communion with Pluta, and Pluta came forward, into Andria.

  The flowers around Tartu glowed golden, the land gained a shimmery hue, and Andria’s voice was not her own.

  As the Goddess of all business, Pluta was all business. She instantly said, “Ask your question.”

  Tartu asked, “What are the best Skills for me to transform into Powers through a Second Awakening, and is Verdago the best option?”

  Pluta wasted no time at all saying, “Verdago is not the best option, but it is among the better ones, and he’ll help you solidify Farmer without issue. Anything else is a risk. If you choose him, Verdago will extract promises from you and your bloodline in various ways, which you would be a smart man to remain bound by even after you graduate from the Chosen System.

  “The best complements for your current pair of Domain Manipulation and Healthy Body are as follows:

  “Thinker, Mind, in last place.

  “Winner, Natural.

  “Imperialist, Natural.

  “Farmer, Natural.

  “And finally, two Skills are tied for best. Both are Natural, as any Natural Skill would complement your Body and Arch the best, rounding out your PLs across the board.

  “The first of the best options is Dynamo, which is endless power and the capability to evolve your Healthy Body since you will no longer be resource-limited.

  “Then there is Sorcerer, which is an unbound mage, capable of copying the Skills of your fellows in small and large ways and allowing you to Union for power and then Retribution for those who strike your Domains and etcetera etcetera. It’s Copy Magic but for Naturals. You can figure out the rest from there.

  “Dynamo is the easier choice. Simple. Clean. If you pick Dynamo you would do well to expand into witchery.

  “Sorcerer will take a lifetime to master. I suggest you expand into witchery with that one as well.

  “Overall, whatever you pick, you need to study under a witch to make better use of your Domains, because you could do a lot for society if you stopped focusing on violence. And yet, if you want to focus on violence, then Dynamo would be the best choice.” Pluta asked, “Is that enough to help you make your decisions?”

  Tartu kowtowed. “Thank you, Goddess Pluta.” He asked, “Where might I find Dynamo?”

  “… Not Sorcerer?”

  “Dynamo, please.”

  “Very well. You’ll either find the smallest parts of it at the end of Mark’s Second Awakening, in the measure of whatever his evolved Body becomes. I’m unsure if he will go that way, but it is possible. Otherwise you will have to go searching the Two Worlds. One Dynamo is in the HVP, in the Chinese citystates. The other Dynamo is a hermit in low-middle Uzrune. Both will be difficult to locate. Both will be difficult to convince to let you inspect their Bindings, but you will be super rich by then, so maybe that will be enough.” Pluta asked, curious, “Will you actually pick Dynamo?”

  “I am gauging possibilities, and the ability to never run out of mana is a big draw. Bigger than unlimited magic, for I can figure that out on my own. Dynamo is something I cannot replicate through magery, even if I did some Sorcery-thing with Union, and doing such would lock down my Sorcerer to that, which would be the same as picking Dynamo in the first place.”

  “Fair,” Pluta said, “Whatever you choose, know this: There is wisdom in waiting and making the best choice, but don’t let opportunities pass you by. True Farmer is almost as good as Dynamo, and much more varied.” She asked, “Anything else?”

  “No, Goddess Pluta. Thank you, Goddess Pluta.”

  Pluta nodded, and then she took her leave, stepping away from Andria’s body like a CEO walking out of a meeting. Andria remained behind, standing and stumbling, just a little, before she caught herself. Pluta glanced at Mark with golden eyes, hair done up in a tight bun, pantsuit tight on her hips and chest, and said, “Good work.”

  Mark nodded, just a little.

  Pluta turned into golden light that vanished into Elsewhere, her voice fading on the wind, “And now you’ve met at least 3 gods~”

  Mark grinned.

  Andria took a deep breath, blinking a lot, then she said, “Neat! So… What’s your decision, Tartu?”

  Tartu stood up, saying, “After we make your Seer Containment Bracelet I’m going into closed-door seclusion for a day to think. Sally is up next, right— No. Wait. Eliot is next.”

  “Eliot is next?” Mark asked.

  Andria was similarly confused.

  Sally spoke up, “I put in a new drop of mana a few hours ago. I’m after Eliot, now.”

  Mark asked, “What changed?”

  Sally said, “I did some soul searching with Drakarok. I’m going after Titan’s Strength, Retribution, and Size Manipulation.”

  Mark’s eyebrows rose. The only ones who hadn’t heard that yet were him and Andria.

  Isoko joked, “She’s gonna have the biggest tits, but only when she wants.”

  Sally grinned brightly at that.

  Mark laughed and said, “Another Manipulator! Neat! But…” Mark was concerned. “That’s a big risk, right? That’s a big adjustment to the original plan.”

  There was a risk to this whole endeavor, and that risk went up when the Second Baptism was so far out of whack with what you already had. Andria had gotten Mindless Manipulation due to a ‘god’, but mainly she had upgraded Prosperity from a grafted Power to a real Power. Isoko upgraded Wind Shaper to Sky Shaper and Union to a real Power. All of that was mostly in-line with expectations. But Sally didn’t have Size Manipulation at all, and the chances that they were going to run into a friendly god who could do that for her were low, especially because Sally was going to be violent with Retribution, to start. Whatever they met that had Size Manipulation was going to get violent.

  Eliot said, “It’ll be awesome if it works, and it should… Right, Sally?”

  Based on the vectors around him, Sally said something that she had probably already said once or twice, but now she told Mark, “Drakarok is with me. I have faith.”

  Mark decided to say, “Okay.”

  And then Eliot told Tartu, “You should pick Verdago because he can help your Binding if it goes bad. If you go outside of divine help… there’s risk.”

  Tartu nodded. “I know. I’m probably picking Verdago. 90% chance. But I had to know all my options and the best options.”

  Andria smiled as she walked beside Tartu, saying, “Pluta is awesome, isn’t she! She just knows stuff. Did you know ‘Imperialist’ was a Skill? I had no idea!”

  Tartu said, “It’s one of the Foundational Skills of Empire. It organizes entire groups of people for war like Union but a lot more one-sided.”

  Isoko said, “I have a cousin in the Grand Guard who works under someone who has that Skill, I think. They clear monsters all the time on the border…”

  Soon, the Dreadnought was moving once again, toward Eliot’s Castellan, and Andria was in her room, sleeping again, but this time with her Seer bracelet on. Her vector was a lot more contained, but it was like a cloud; some parts still floated away, disconnected.

  It was fine.

  Mark felt the wind on his body and his blades as he sat on the forecastle, monitoring Andria and watching the pillar clouds, shaped like sages, flow by. It was a good day.

  Mark chatted up Eliot on the comms, “Everyone else is going Tri-Talent, Eliot. Have you considered a third Power?”

  Eliot didn’t need to think to reply, “Thinker-Something. But that’s just my fear of Mind Powers rearing up. Once Castellan is a real Power and not a graft, my 15 Power Level in Mind will shoot up to the upper 70’s, so I won’t really need a Mind Power at that point. But if I got one, it would be something basic like Knowledgeable, or Multi-mind. But I’m thinking I should not do a Mind Power at all. I should get an AI familiar in place of a Mind Power.”

  Mark smiled. “Quark is the best! You wouldn’t go wrong with that option. What would you call your familiar?”

  “Steward, as in steward for the castle.”

  Far overhead, flying free, Isoko scoffed loudly, the sky shattering just a little and then calming as she realized what she had done. She ignored that shattering and called out in the comms, “No fucking way! ‘Steward’! That’s a terrible name!”

  “I agree,” Sally said, down in the bowels of the Castle, half in prayer, half working her Binding.

  Tartu said, “It’s a bad name.”

  Eliot scoffed from where he was working in his workshop. “When Steward gets here you better not make fun of his name. You’ll give him a complex!”

  Mark chuckled.

  The team shot the shit on the comms.

  Andria was sleeping well. Derek was exploring the elven city and Kabberjaw and a whole lot of other places, while also helping out Lola with the ship’s hydroponics. David was at the controls and rolling his eyes at the ‘kids being kids’. Tartu was at the Pantheonic Garden, half in a prayer of his own.

  And the Dreadnought flew on, through cloudy skies, over a river of floating and wading statues covered in green, under a flowing river of golden light far, far overhead.

  So many people on Earth and Daihoon had no choice in what Powers they got through the System, but here, now, these people on this ship, going on this journey, had choices, and Mark was helping them be able to make those choices. When they got back to the ‘real worlds’, the choices here would have profound, good impacts on the Two Worlds. Isoko and Sally were going to be kaiju killers, right alongside Mark. Sally was probably even going to be better at it for general purposes, and Isoko was absolutely going to be a dragonslayer, if needed. Sky Shapers were some of the best dragonslayers around. And the settlement, and this Dreadnought, too, were going to be indestructible safe houses for humanity. Tartu and Andria were going to do something positive; Mark wasn’t sure what, but it was going to be good.

  This was good.

  Mark felt truly happy.