Chapter 201: Odd World

  “Let’s spare ourselves the pleasantries and get to work, ladies and gentlemen,” Graham said. He stood at the front of a large, polished auditorium, lined in modern wood and rows of staggered, stepped arc seats. The projector flashed on to the front of the auditorium. “As you all know, Mr. Aurelius and Ms. Ambrose have made claims of their temporary residence in another world. We’ve verified these claims—yes, I know how it sounds—and this particular meeting will not address any objections. Proceed as if their claims are verified and true, regardless of your personal feelings about them. Senior Agent Greer has compiled an information document detailing our findings, and they will be available after the presentation. Greer.”

  “Yes, sir.” She stepped up to the podium, replacing Graham. She hadn’t managed as much sleep as she would’ve liked last night, putting together this godawful presentation, but Lucas had imbued her with as much caffeine as possible at bronze rank without outright killing her.

  “Our researchers have been tracking the status of the ether realm. There have been rumors of increased frequency and EQ of proto zone manifestations.” She paused. She was capable of dramatic presentation as well. “These rumors are true. Our researchers have no clear answer for this phenomenon yet. More importantly—” Jessica clicked for a new slide, “—the duration of proto zones has been decreasing.”

  Hushed murmurs bounced around the auditorium, made audible by Jessica’s bronze rank hearing.

  “This is a pressing problem. As you all well know, all EIs are limited to EQ 3. Experimentation with EQ 4 have demonstrated that the etheric density and quotient of Earth is too low to sustain long term EQ 4. EQ 4 can be permanently stationed within the ether realm, however, should any proto zones spill into reality, we would have no ability to utilize them. Hence, any ascensions into EQ 4 have been halted. If we cannot ascend to EQ 4 to keep up with the etheric escalation, we must turn to quality instead.

  “Continuing, we have verified claims that…”

  *****

  Jessica stretched, cracking the bones along her spine and shoulders as agents shuffled out of the auditorium. Good God, she needed another coffee, but at least this hullabaloo of a presentation of over and done with. Who knew why Graham wanted her of all people to present. She suspected torture.

  She had a sneaking suspicion it was revenge for shunting the whole ‘other world’ matter up the chain of command to land unceremoniously in his lap.

  “That went well,” said Nora, joining her leaning on the wall. John pulled up beside them, sitting on a recently vacated seat, still butt warmed. Graham was present as well, trying to be discretely interested in what could pass between now the two most important sources of information on the planet. He was

  “It did,” said Lucas, looking on the bright side. “The other branches representatives barely complained.”

  “Russia branch made a bit of a fuss. As did the USA,” grumbled Jessica. “Had the audacity to try to ‘claim’ your allegiance.”

  “The whole EU has granted the two of you citizenship, unilaterally,” Graham added, the sneaky bastard. “And America won’t revoke yours, so feel free to enjoy all of them.”

  “I hardly think I’ll be acting in any capacity as a citizen of any one country,” said Nora. “Odd question, do you think I can get a legal name change to Nara?”

  “The one in the recordings?” Lucas chimed in. “Our analysts couldn’t figure out if it was a mistranslation or intentional.”

  “Yeah. That’s what they call me there. I prefer it now.”

  “I’ll see what we can do,” said Graham. Jessica knows that bastard was looking for some easy ways to ingratiate their branch. They’ve gotten a lucky streak—she couldn’t help glance at Lucas ‘Lucky’ Rose—that Nora, or rather Nara, was more willing to stay with her teammate John in London than stay in Copenhagen with part of her family. Her cross-country and cross-cultural family made her ties and loyalty to any nation rather weak, which meant the USA had little opportunity to try to monopolize her information. China may try something with the mother, but what she knew wasn’t so important as what her daughter knew. In that avenue, the potential gains were low, and the risks were high.

  Regardless, it was an intelligent move to freely share so much information, right off of the bat, and sharing it to the largest and closest collaborative branches of The Agency, the EU. Jessica eyed Nara. How much of it was an intentional move to disperse attention and reduce her value to less dangerous levels? Her fingers drummed on her arms. In fact, that may have been why she let The Agency do as they wanted to verify her claims of otherworldly information on their own time, rather than insisting. The Agency had kept it mum while they investigated, and no dark EIs had been dispatched to make a move. It demonstrated their willingness to share and cooperate, with no need for drastic action from any nation.

  Jessica couldn’t tell, however. She knew Graham well enough that he couldn’t either.

  “We’ll be enacting the first stages of the non-core EI program,” said Graham. “Your family could be placed within it?” He inquired, an offer.

  “If they want to and put in the effort, sure,” said Nara. “I wouldn’t give them any special treatment in that regard. Non-core progression isn’t for anyone that can’t carry it through, although you can always switch to cores later.”

  Graham nodded. “We expect as much.”

  “If you wait about a month, I may be able to call one of my acquaintances over to help with training. The training of essence users is a matter of national importance in that world, and quite a few families make it their business to be experts in the field.”

  “Could you send some of our agents over?”

  Sneaky. Jessica hadn’t thought of that yet.

  She arched an eye. “Potentially.” She didn’t elaborate on the method, which is what Graham was fishing for. Both John and Nara had been tight lipped about exactly how John specifically crossed over. “I suppose it may speed up the training of trainers, so to speak. You’d want to send someone who can adapt the authority structure there.”

  “We’ve analyzed the culture shown in the recordings,” said Graham. “We’re confident that we have the right personnel.”

  It was an odd hierarchical structure. In some ways stricter, in other ways not. Character, in many ways, seemed more important than obedience. If your character was trustworthy, those in positions of power were more inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, or to entrust authority. It was, however, difficult; In the same vein, whoever they sent had to be just as good a judge of character themselves.

  Their researchers had theorized that since higher EQs such as 4 and 5 existed on the regular and were essentially ungovernable (or the government themselves), they placed a higher value on good character. Laws would not restrict those with power, so moral accountability and ethics must.

  “If you say so. I’ll have to discuss it with my contacts. People from other worlds aren’t particularly unusual there, so they’ll likely accept the exchange. The issue is, what if they want to send an equivalent number of representatives over?”

  “What side are you working for?” Jessica couldn’t help but ask.

  Nara gave her an amused look, as if the question was childish. Perhaps it was. Their own politicians had little loyalty, who was she to make an accusation of the same? Jessica sighed internally; the caffeine was finally getting to her.

  She did, however, answer. “Both sides, Ms. Greer. My team is in one and my family is in another. There is no enemy here, and these two worlds are barely connected. You can hardly expect them to initiate expensive dimensional crossing with no gain?”

  Queen on high. That’d be another headache. Nations would be clamoring over who they’d be allowed to send over, each one fighting for a representative slot. Jessica didn’t like the way Graham was eyeing her. Find someone else to do it! She yelled with her eyes. The bastard pretended he didn’t know what she was saying, innocently breaking eye contact. She didn’t buy his bullshit for a second.

  “Probably only 3 each too,” she noted offhandedly.

  Jessica groaned.

  *****

  There were two programs that the EU branches were spearheading, although the initial trial runs were being conducted in London. The first Graham had already explained: a non-core training program. The second was a core user re-training program, although it was hardly phrased as such.

  Wording, after all, was critical in this modern day and age. As such, it was named the Core Advancement Program. Or, CAP, so lovingly dubbed.

  Nara, in equal measures of reluctance and willingness, was placed as an instructor for a dual non-core and CAP program. The reason, mainly, for the mix of EQ 1 and EQ2 participants, was to spread as many best practices as possible, and to encourage intra-rank cooperation. Higher rank oversight was common on Erras, although mainly in the higher magic zones, and The Agency wanted to favor that approach, at least for the time being. It wasn’t uncommon for bronze rank teams to recruit from iron rankers either, as the latter quickly caught up to the former, consolidating and reforming teams for silver and the long push to gold.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Nara’s unwillingness to lead was a vestige of her previous life, just an employee, never wanting to be management for the poorly disguised shit show it usually was. She had to admit, she held some bias—she wasn’t a part of the bootlickers, of management (derogatory). Although, in the end, everyone in middle management was just as equally proletariat as she was. In Erras, she’s witnessed her own mixed bag of management and higher officials, and most of her experiences were positive, or at least neutral.

  Well. Then there was Erin, and Knowledge, and Oswald who was neither here nor there, and some of the counselors in the Queen’s court, and she’s seen some shit “nobles” in Sanshi, and the entirely of The Advent’s leadership elicited mixed feelings, in terms of the competency of their leadership and management (Raina and Orchis had both been a bit fanatical, in her opinion).

  Regardless, part of her was excited, not for the position of leadership, but for the position of mentorship. Many of the people Nara looked up to had been mentors: Amara, Mona, Aliyah, Laius, Sezan, and Wisteria. (Wisteria, of course, as her mentor in gambling. A few good bottles of alcohol and some of Laius’ treats could barter some reciprocal less-than-fair gambling tricks form Wisteria. With her dexterity and aura control, nowadays, Nara could actually pull some of them off.)

  It was with that logic she arrived in her current position, a group of around 20—10 iron ranks and 20 bronze rankers. Lieutenant Diya Patel and her squad of 6 were included in the bronze rankers, and thankfully their obedience helped with her overall authority, which she could tell was already going to be contested by some, and met with neutrality by others. After all, when a company promotes somebody from the outside of the company, many squint their eyes and waits to see if the new management hire was a complete waste of a salary or not, no matter how upper management congratulated on their ‘well-deserved’ hiring or promotion.

  The iron rankers were all non-core, mostly those who had by circumstance, luck, or lack of opportunity, had not yet used cores. The bronze rankers, aside from Diya and her squad, were a mix of long-time veterans and recent bronze rankers. The long-time veterans would be challenging her on the basis of experience and age, and the new bronze rankers out of the fear that they’d lost an opportunity to be non-core before it was ever a real chance for them. If they proved her wrong, then there was never an opportunity to be lost.

  Nara was really questioning the Powers That Be why her sister had to be there. (Although she didn’t mind the presence of Oskar, Aaron, and Eva.)

  Since Earth itself was almost completely barren of mana, The Agency made use of the ether realm, building their most mana hungry facilities within the astral space rather than within reality. Nara knew enough about ritual magic and read enough about Aliyah’s own research on overlapping and optimizing arrays, that Earth’s mastery over overlapping rituals was actually impressive. Earth, if nothing else, were at least experts in efficiency. It just depended on what they were optimizing for, be it profits or something else.

  They did not have mirage chamber technology, the technology of which was actually related to soul magic. Since it just read the soul and did not otherwise affect anything, the research was unrestricted. They did, however, have a training array.

  Bracelets worn linked to the training array, nullifying all damage until the damage limit was reached. At that moment, activated bracelets would activate a brief suppression, preventing any further damage and stopping the match. The training facility drew on the ambient magic of the ether realm, and a lack of mana would pull from the user in emergencies: Better to be passed out than dead. It seemed like it would be convenient for defensive purposes, but the array ate up a lot of mana just to protect a few people at a time, and when the ambient magic was depleted below operating levels for the rest of the facilities, use of training bracelets had to be stopped until ambient magic recovered. Mirage Chambers shared a similar costliness, although that was due to the expensive array magics and facility costs, rather than the nullification of damage.

  Nara wore one such bracelet and stood in the center of the wide expanse of a training facility. She looked upon her 30 participants, ages and statures varying, from those with greying strands to ones nearly as fresh faced as she. Only a few trainees iron rankers were younger than her.

  *****

  “You are all here to participate in a new core and non-core training program with the objective of improving yourselves to better protect the people.” Instructor Ambrose began. She was an odd woman, taller than average—most metas were, that was not the odd aspect. She was, however, for whatever reason, wearing dark aviators, a white tank top, and black cargo pants.

  The rest of them were, of course, dressed in their own BDU. She looked, however, like a caricature of an officer, and Jean was not sure whether that was intentional or not. Intended to provoke? Intended for them to underestimate? He glanced at some of his fellow officers: Victor was hawk-eyed and watching, for now, but Jakob was distinctly unimpressed.

  Ambrose continued. “I have seen the condition of which you were all selected—some of you, proven by your valor and loyal service, others by your ingenuity and quick thinking, others still by circumstance and luck.” The instructor’s grin was wry. “I am much a child a luck, so do not discount luck. Of course,” she said absently twirling a dark sword as she paced across their line, looking them simultaneously with focus and without care, “that will not stop you from dismissing me.”

  She stopped in front of Jakob. Jean did not think it was coincidence. Jakob was not overly muscular, but his biceps still strained against his grey shirt, and his stature still dwarfed Instructor Ambrose. His height advantage still allowed him to look down at her, and he made it known he was.

  “I will assume that your presence here is entirely by choice, Jakob Vogel,” Ambrose said, “but why you would attend while scorning the opportunity is lost to me. I will, however, acknowledge this as what is is—a test for me, although I’ve had quite enough of it, and a test for you. You are, undoubtedly, a man of experience and valor. Traditional, perhaps, but lasting this long is not without value. There is reason for your selection.”

  Jakob was still quiet. He was displeased, but as Ambrose said, traditional. She was still his superior, and he said nothing unless invited.

  “That is why we meet here, in this training facility. For what I must teach you in the next two weeks, I need your cooperation. I do not have the rank to demand it, so I will earn it.”

  Her smile was somewhat predatory.

  “What better way is there to earn it than besting you all in a fight? This is the army—well, something like it. Ladies and gentlemen, let us talk with our fists.”

  What followed next was perhaps the most humbling display of one-on-one combat Jean had ever seen and been on the receiving end of. Jakob was thoroughly schooled; Ambrose had begun pointing out instances where he could’ve used an ability to gain an advantage, or how he wasn’t making the best use of his superhuman reflexes and flexibility. Mobility, it seemed, was a common failing among all the agents. Whether or not they had movement abilities hardly mattered to her, they still were not using what they had effectively.

  She had been given a full portfolio of all their abilities, and with much glee pointed out how inefficiently they were using all of them. After the third time Jakob was bested—and that time, Ambrose hadn’t even used her sword—Jakob fell in line and took her suggestions more seriously, and Ambrose seemed to stop intentionally riling him so much.

  “An act then,” Victor concluded with his clipped, foreign accent. “To be underestimated and to gain the advantage.”

  Jean had the feeling his assessment wasn’t quite right.

  Over the next few days, a few notable members of the group of thirty began to stand out. Jakob, reversed course from being stubborn to being stubbornly curious, often brooding at the side to stare at a fight then slink in afterwards to question Ambrose.

  Oskar Str?m, one of the Ones, was notable for his competency in combat. It had its roots in skill book usage, but it was a quick way to be selected for this opportunity. Few methods could compete with the instantaneous knowledge a skill book granted. However, it was his unconventional weapons that stood out: a sword and shield, like a classic knight, expect his sword was pitch black, like the hub cap of a black hole. His sword, conversely, was aglow with a corona of light, almost a lightsaber, if Jean couldn’t still see the metal core.

  Eva Drost, another One, had an interesting powerset that made Jean’s head simultaneously hurt and intrigued. She created hard light constructs similar to holograms with technological projectors, but whether the projection was a construct or an illusion was known by smacking into it face first or missing your step and plunging through. She perhaps suffered most at Instructor Ambrose’s emphasis on mobility and was often caught by the instructor after she fell through the air.

  Elizabeth Ambrose-Sharp did not go unnoticed: she was the instructor’s sibling, odd in that she was less skilled compared to the rest of the group. It was difficult to find Ones with zero core usage, so she had made a spot. Her dynamic with the Instructor was odd; Instructor Ambrose was ill-at-ease with her and treated her just as distantly as the rest of her students. Elizabeth did get along with the rest of the trainees, save Jakob, who disliked everyone less experienced than he as a matter of principle. She and Eva were the most charismatic of the group, both friendly and talkative, both easily remembering personal details with startling efficiency. Jean thought both were better off climbing the Agency’s political ladder than climbing the EQ ladder, but there was sense in doing the latter before the former.

  Jean had had his doubts on whether or not Instructor Ambrose could’ve wrangled so many agents, many previously military…any further dissent was settled with trial by combat.

  Not that Ambrose did not explain what she was teaching.

  The first lesson was about the adventurer’s cycle of training from the other world. Training, Combat, Meditation. It was these three aspects which consolidated experience into progress.

  “You may have already used cores,” she explained, “but this cycle can still help you progress. It’s not unusual for crafters and professions not entirely focused on combat to use a combination of both methods, allowing for lower overall core usage. In that world, that translates to lowered expenses. On Earth, it means more advancement for a greater number of people.”

  Once they reestablished the basics, the instructor took them out into the field. First, she ordered them to fight as they normally would, although that was already altered by her initial training.

  “I can see why there is a problem,” she said, conjuring the glass board she often used for explanations. While she wanted cooperation for their own safety, she never treated the 30 like they were ignorant. “It’s related to the main usage of guns. Based on what we’ve learned so far, do any of you have an idea of what I’m referring to?”

  There were some mummers of theories, but it was Sofia who struck upon the answer. She was observant, like Victor, but in a more academic way, although she certainly did not lack a sense of combat or street smarts.

  “Is it inherent superiority of our firearms, Instructor?”

  Ambrose gestured for her to go on.

  “The cycle of training developed by the other world necessitates full usage of all abilities. With guns, while a technologically superior weapon in range, power, and ease of use, is conversely, too powerful to naturally complete this cycle. The gun is favored over all else for its efficiency, and all other abilities are neglected. Consequently, our culture struggled to develop advancement without the use of monster cores.”

  “That’s my theory too,” said Ambrose. “On Erras, iron rankers have to prioritize progress over efficient killing. Even someone like me, who uses a sword.”

  “Even a sword requires more engagement than a gun.”

  “The question is: when did this world discover magic?” Ambrose said, ruminating over the mess of a glass board. “Civilizations have existed before the use of guns.”

  That ponderous question hung over the group for the rest of the day. Jean found himself thinking upon it: what had caused their world to miss the discovery of non-core progression? How had they discovered the ritual needed to absorb monster cores before natural progression, which needed no external resources?

  Jean liked to puzzle things out. He noticed what was odd. How had he not noticed it before?

  To Jean, something about his world was very odd.