“So let me be clear here, you wanna be imprisoned again? Out of your own volition?”

  “Yes. The previous experience has given me valuable enlightenment, and I would like to try it once again. Please, for my peace of mind,” Jarad pleads innocently, a small smile tugging at his face, and yet Adrian cannot let go of this feeling that something is very wrong with this request.

  He cannot place a finger on this feeling, but it feels like something very bad will happen right now, should he let Jarad in.

  Adrian decides to trust the feeling.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do it. It takes a huge toll on my mental health and mana, and I’m low on both of them. And please don’t make these requests. I’d rather not imprison my friends without a very solid reason,” Adrian pretends to smile helplessly as he answers, while all of his senses focus on Jarad’s reaction.

  Jarad stays quiet for a moment, the smile never disappearing or twitching from his face, but he says nothing either. He just looks at Adrian, those brown eyes hiding something deep within them.

  Finally he speaks, “It’s alright. I understand. Sorry for disturbing your night. I’m gonna go now, I’ll be leaving the group as of this moment. The church has given me some missions which I must complete.”

  “I wish you the best in your journey,” Adrian nods.

  “You too Adrian. Let’s meet again soon,” Jarad leaves with those words. An awkwardness still hangs in the room though, a leaking balloon which had been at the edge of bursting under the pressure.

  Adrian trails the man with his senses as far as he can, looking at him walking away from his window, until he could do so no more.

  What was he planning?

  An urge to follow the man and interrogate him wells up, but Adrian quickly squishes it down. Nothing good will come from picking a fight with a church member so near to the church. Not to mention, as much as Adrian knows about the man, it would be almost impossible for him to extract any information out of the man.

  Planning to discuss it later with others, Adrian begins to go through his cores for a possible pair.

  #

  Jarad makes his way through the city. His face grave, giving away his emotions. The plan has failed.

  Kermon, his assistant, walks up to him. He is a young fellow who joined the church only a few years ago, and yet has reached to his position through pure merit and hardwood.

  He has a communication amulet tied around his wrist, and a wand in his hand. He leans in and whispers, “What should we do now sir?”

  “Tell the others to stand back. The target has refused to show his abilities, and without being inside the prison, it will be almost impossible to analyze it.”

  “Are we gonna let him go, sir? Should we inform the upper branches to keep an eye on him?”

  “Don’t. His senses are very high, and he is already distrusting of me. If we poke anymore, things might get bad very fast before we have him where we want to. Let’s wait and see. Finding the fragment is more important right now, understood?”

  “Yes sir! Will we be taking station here then? Or going to the upper branches?”

  “None. I’m going out for a while on a personal investigation. I might go up for a while to get some documents though,” Jarad answers, the market around him disassembling for the dawning night.

  “If I may ask sir, but why are you so focused on him?” Kermon asks, his face betraying his curiosity.

  “Do you know who the most dangerous people are, Kermon?” Jarad asks, looking at his assistant for the first time.

  “The one with the strongest connections? High levels? Strong application of powers?” Kermon answers.

  “Those are all valid answers, but you are forgetting something important. It’s the ability to be at the right place at the right time. That kid… ever since I’ve met him, he seems to carry a tornado around him, and he’s in the middle of all of it. He’s strong, he’s resourceful, he has strong allies, and he is right where he needs to be.

  “Someone like him, if he’s not on our side, should not exist.”

  Kermon silently nods his head and walks away, his own expression uncertain, doubtful. Jarad too walks in his office, one much smaller than the one he had on the second floor.

  Running through his skills, he quickly finds Adrian’s file.

  “Okrug huh. I need to pay a visit,” Jarad mutters, going through the file and noting things down meticulously.

  #

  The first two cores that Adrian tries are Attraction and Fate Glimpse. Both of the cores from the Silent Stalkers in an attempt to see if he can reverse engineer their skill of deflecting blows using fate.

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  The concept in itself is simple. It’s simply using the power of fate to repel any attacks which can cause mortal damage to you. It’s just that the repulsion becomes increasingly weaker the more the opponent is near their fated death.

  And without being able to tell your own fated death, one will always have to fear relying on this kind of power too much. Adrian has heard stories from locals about how many people have fallen into anxiety or depression at even the smallest decrease in power to similar skills.

  Many even hallucinate the decrease in power, convinced of their own doom. Low morale, depression, increased anxiety, paranoia are the common symptoms in those who gaze at fate.

  Should I really do it?

  Adrian cannot help but wonder.

  Would I be strong enough to not fall in the cycle?

  He cannot answer at all. For all of his strength, arrogance, and ego, he cannot say convincingly that he won’t fall into a cycle that many before him have already fallen into. Even his talent would not help him here.

  The real question is, do I have the strength to not go for it? Am I strong enough that I don’t need to rely on such tricks to survive and destroy the Tower?

  The answer comes from deep within him. No. He’s way too weak. Way too weak to do anything. To protect himself. The very catastrophe on the 2nd floor will forever be a great reminder for him, that no matter how strong he becomes, there will always be someone stronger. Much much stronger.

  So let’s do it, and worry about the consequences when I have the time to breathe.

  Adrian looks at the cores in his hands, and enquiries the Tower.

  “Upgrade detected for Timer:

  “Attract a certain time period in the future, skipping the time in between to arrive at it. The mana cost to operate this skill exceeds user’s current mana pool

  “Ritual for the upgrade:

  “Orchestra a future involving an entire floor that you desire over the time period of 100 years, and make it come true.”

  Yea… I’m not doing that.

  Adrian’s eyes bulge as he looks at the ritual. Orchestra a future? For an entire floor? For 100 years!? And what the heck is up with that mana cost? There’s no way he can do it now!

  Although…

  Knowing that such an upgrade is possible for my skill is a golden egg in itself. It means that if I’m strong enough, and have a 100 years to kill, I can potentially be able to time travel into the future.

  Adrian feels like he owes Timer an apology. For underestimating it till now.

  I’m sorry, I didn’t know you could be this powerful.

  With renewed vigour, Adrian begins combing through his other cores to find other combinations. Some turn out good, some not so much. A few hours pass by and it’s already time for dinner, but Adrian has yet to find the perfect pair.

  He has even tried combining three or more cores to find the one he has in mind, but it just doesn’t appear. The ego and the strength of the beasts in the core always distort the Fate Glimpse into a direction he doesn’t want.

  If the vulture had been higher levelled, then it’d have easily devoured the ego of the beast within, resulting in much less deviation.

  But Adrian hasn’t only been going through the cores for an Upgrade to his Timer.

  In the last fight, he has managed to reach lvl 35, resulting in him having 5 more upgrades possible. Although it is a good indicator of his potential strength, potential strength can remain just the potential if he doesn’t utilise it.

  And knowing that he might die soon, he does need all that strength to evade that coming future.

  Among the cores, he has found two pairs that he likes the most.

  “Upgrade detected for Avatar:

  “Accumulate mana inside of you. The more mana gathered, the faster you will be, until your body cannot take it anymore and explodes.

  “Ritual for the upgrade:

  “Begin to employ your mana to enhance your speed.”

  This one had been a combination of Acceleration core and the salamander’s Fire Pit core. Since humans cannot wield fire or elements as freely as the magical creatures, the upgrade doesn’t have the ‘Fire’ part in it, just an accumulation of mana.

  “This will create a very nice suicide squad!” Adrian thinks gleefuly.

  Although having a suicide squad is nice, there is one more reason why he chooses to take this upgrade over others. Until now, his avatars have been unable to handle mana, even store it in their bodies.

  But now with mana accumulating in them naturally, he believes that within one or two more upgrades, he’ll be able to share his skills with them, making an army of Adrians!

  Very neat!

  Stopping his daydreams about the future, he looks at the other Upgrade he has decided upon.

  “Upgrade detected for Prison:

  “Control the movement of the prison. Also be able to fix an anchor point for your Prison.

  “Ritual for the upgrade:

  “Understand the attraction forces acting upon yourself.”

  He likes the upgrade. As his level increases, and the stronger his opponents become, it feels like his prison just keeps getting thrown around here and there, serving no real value, as creating a big enough Prison for growing magical creatures costs a lot of mana as well.

  But, if he’s understanding it correctly, with this, he’ll be able to not only fix it at a point, but also be able to cancel out the weight inside the prison, giving it more mobility.

  Now he just needs to find an automatic targeting upgrade, and he’ll be able to imprison the smaller and faster targets too. With these two upgrades, he’ll finally have reached a satisfactory level of strength with his Prison.

  The ritual for this one though… is weird. In theory, it seems easy, for all he has to do is just rattle off the knowledge he has gained in school. Gravitational, electromagnetic, and an attraction from the Tower which keeps the world stable.

  The ritual stays, and he knows that he’s missing some things.

  He thinks about it, and an answer pops up. Attraction of fate! Yes, hasn’t he just dealt with it today?

  Adrian gives the Tower his answer, and waits for the completion of the ritual, but the message never arrives.

  Am I missing something else?

  There is a knock on the door, but he’s too engrossed to hear it. He sits on the ground with a few of his avatars, all dedicated to the same question, but somehow he cannot find the answer at all. For all of his understanding of the physical world, and the Tower, the question honestly stumps him.

  The knocks return with more intensity.

  What other attraction forces act on me?

  The door explodes in shrapnels of wood chippings. Adrian dodges behind his Avatars, and looks at the doorway incredulously.

  Ji-a floats inside, travelling on her Hidden Hands. She scowls at the many Adrians across the room, massages her head, and asks, “Where’s the real one?”

  His avatars all turn and look directly at him. Traitors.

  “Dinner.” She doesn’t wait for him to answer before she turns around and walks away. Adrian too sighs, orders his Avatars to continue to think over the topic, and follows behind her.

  #