“So let me get this straight. While you were in the pod and completely incommunicado, you weren’t undergoing a genetic enhancement, but receiving an upgrade in your ‘blessing’?” Rina asked. “And because I was close to you when you were finishing, it triggered a blessing in me even though I finished puberty awhile ago? And not just me, but 3% of everyone from the ages of 14 to 22—kids, basically—are still unconscious as we speak?”
Aron had explained everything to Rina, leaving out only the system. The system’s existence would be kept solely between him and Nova, and he wouldn’t even tell his parents or little brother, let alone his girlfriend. Some secrets were dangerous, and the less those around him knew, the safer they would be and the less stress they would be under trying to keep his secrets.
The only person he could trust to keep his secrets, especially now that humanity had begun awakening to mana and would be rapidly developing special abilities that may include methods to read minds or force people to speak, was Nova.
“That’s the gist of it, yeah. There’s a longer explanation, but you can take your time to digest it,” he flicked a file with the explanation of the hows and whys behind the awakening process to her, “since there’s no point in overwhelming you with a massive infodump when you’ve just woken up.”
“So what’s with the golden letters? And you said you were ‘upgrading’ yourself, meaning you could use them even before. How’d you manage that?” she asked.
“One of the things I invented was a sort of... adapter that converts electricity to those particles and can force the blessing to happen in people near it. So I got mine much earlier than everyone who’s just now getting theirs and didn’t have to wait for the density to reach a certain level,” he said, not technically lying. “After that, I had plenty of time to experiment with it and figure out what my blessing can do. I mean, I’m still learning more every day, but I’m pretty handy with it.” He snapped his fingers and a large runic pattern appeared in the air behind him. It did nothing in particular, but definitely looked intricate and beautiful; it was one of the training exercises that he did every day to increase the speed at which he could condense runes, a necessary skill for someone who was unable to manipulate mana without using a runic intermediary.
That was all Rina needed to hear as her eyes flashed with wonder when she saw the gorgeous runic construct floating in the air behind Aron. She knew there must be more to it, but she’d never been one to demand that Aron share everything about him and had always been content with the things he did choose to share with her. That, to her, was an expression of one of the pillars of a healthy relationship: trust.
“Does that mean you’re actually able to do everything you were doing during your spar with Nova in the simulation, but in the real world instead?” she finally asked as Aron’s explanation sank in. And if that was the case, didn’t it mean that Aron was a walking weapon of mass destruction? The attacks he had been dishing out in his fight against Nova were capable of wiping out entire mountain ranges, much less cities!
For the first time, Rina felt a twinge of uneasiness around her boyfriend. He was much, much scarier than people already thought he was. Not only was he staggeringly wealthy and a mad genius when it came to inventing advanced technology, but he could wipe out entire cities with the wave of a hand without even breaking a sweat at all. She didn’t love him any less, but the realization of the actual power he had at his fingertips was sobering, to say the least.
“Yes,” he said. “Now, let’s see what you can do with your blessing. Begin by closing your eyes and resting in a comfortable position.”
“I don’t have to sit in some strange position and breathe weird?” Rina asked.
“This isn’t a cultivation novel,” Aron laughed. He wondered when she had found the time to read those strange lightsnovels.
Rina blushed, then awkwardly sat on the soft grass, arranging her limbs until she looked like a boneless rag doll. “I can’t get much more comfortable than this,” she said, her head on Aron’s thigh.
“Now close your eyes and feel the area around you with your heart.” He waved his hand and increased the mana density in the surrounding area tenfold, to better allow her to sense it. “In your mind’s eye, picture your surroundings. Look for the glowing gold particles floating around you in all directions,” he said, his voice low and hypnotic.
“I see them... this... this is amazing,” she said, subconsciously lifting her arm and trying to grab a handful of the mana surrounding her.
“Now imagine you’re a black hole, or a magnet... whatever image works for you that draws them into your body.”
Rina pictured herself as a blooming flower, and the mana particles around her were bees and photons of light. They began flowing toward her in an orderly fashion, almost like they were dancing in a long, winding conga line. As they began entering her body, she felt a warmth in her chest, radiating out along her limbs to the tips of her fingers and toes, then back to her chest and up to the top of her head, forming a racetrack-like circuit within her.
“I feel it,” she said. “It’s warm and tingly. Is it supposed to tingle like this?” It was so pleasant she almost moaned in satisfaction.
“Yes, you’re doing great. Now pull them back into your heart and keep them there.”
She nodded and pictured the blooming flower again, but this time it was inside her, where her heart was. The tingling warmth faded from her extremities first, then her head, and finally her torso. All that was left of the pleasant sensation was a warmth in her chest that was almost uncomfortable, like her heart had turned into a burning coal.
“Okay, now what?”
“Now you open your eyes and stand up,” Aron said, a grin obvious in his voice.
