Invincible Earth! : Volume 1

Seeing the puzzled look in Lance’s face, the Castellan sighed.

“I know. It is as puzzling to you as it is to us. The typical method of explaining INs just doesn’t apply to you wishers. You slowed the bullet down either using the aspect of closed area time deceleration or closed area barrier formation. That is impossible to do without proper training. But, the golden ball in your dantian enables it. Give it energy, and it will do anything you want it to. Be warned though. From studies, it has been shown that the ball always requires much more energy than you have, for some reason. This is actually the good news.

The bad news is that you have no strong connection with any aspect or any concept. You are equally connected to all of them. The ball is the mechanism that you use to forcefully control an aspect, but the outcome is almost always disastrous.

How much ever we study, we have no idea what the ball is. Even if a wisher figured it out, they have not shared that information.

It will require an enormous amount of dedication and luck to build a strong connection with any aspect. But, the only way to build that connection is by constantly testing your connection. But when you test it, the ball activates and an enormous amount of energy is sapped causing your body and mind damage. You see this cycle? This is why it is so hard to proceed in cultivation to become a legend.

I can summarize it like this:

Unlike others whose INs pave the path for them to connect with an aspect or concept, your IN has given you all of the paths but paved none of them. You will have to pave it yourself.

In times of desperate need, you can activate any IN’s aspect but it will cause enormous harm to you.

This is your case. You have infinite potential, but only an infinitesimal chance to reach that potential. The strongest being we know of can reach assimilation by full connection with only one concept. A being who can do so with multiple will be the most powerful being in the known universe, at least to us.”

Lance felt his head reeling. This was just too much information to take in at once.

“What happened in the test then? What energy did the ball absorb?“, asked Lance.

“Your fat and half of your muscle. Along with most of your energy construct. You almost dropped down in level. The instant absorption is like an explosion under your skin. You almost died from it.”

Lance shivered remembering what had happened. He had really had too close of a brush with death.

For 5 minutes, all Lance could do was sit and think. He tried to absorb all of the information he had been presented with. He first discarded the negative parts and focused on the positive one:he had infinite potential.

So what if it required a little work and pain? Nothing could be obtained in the world without effort, he thought.

A “little”. Lance didn’t know just how wrong he was by using this word to describe it.

The Castellan sat silently sipping his wine which seemed to automatically refill whenever it became empty.

After a few more minutes, Lance asked:“So what should I do now? I have some understanding of everything you have told me, but I have no idea what to do next. I just know that I want to become like those 3. And not like the rest.”

“Good.“, said the Castellan with a smile on his face. “The first major challenge for any Wisher is that each step will be much harder for you than for almost anyone else. The only conviction you must hold is that step by step you will cross the rest of them as long as you persevere. It is completely up to your will.”

“First, you need to understand something before we can decide what to do next. Each and every Wisher is a vital asset of the IE station. Their potential alone can drive any outsider race to sacrifice hordes of elite units just to find out a single identity of a wisher. Thus, all information on wishers is classified to be top secret. From the moment you walk out of this room, only a select group of people will know your actual IN. For the rest, we will invent an IN which will match you.”

“That’s fine, but who are these outsiders? All I know is that they kill a lot of humans. Other than that, I haven’t heard a thing about them from any official sources.“, asked Lance. This question had been gnawing at him since the mission.

The Castellan blinked before replying,“Oh. This was supposed to be explained at the mission debriefing but I guess you missed it due to your special condition. Let me give you a short explanation. The outsiders are one of the major threats that the Earth faces. Typically, those who are called outsiders have nefarious purposes. Human experimentation, DNA analysis, behavior analysis and many other such ongoing clandestine operations of theirs cause them to abduct a horrific number of humans every year. This is all of the information that you initiates are cleared to know right now. The rest will be declassified as you continue succeeding in your missions.”

“Another thing that is covered in the debriefing is how missions are scored. Each mission is actually a series of scenarios of increasingly easier settings. In your mission, the only way to enter the vault was to make the Pentagon evacuate. As you might have guessed, this is something that cannot be done by just any group of initiates. If all of them were tested with this scenario, wouldn’t most of them fail?”

Smart, thought Lance. He had had this hunch but didn’t have the time to think about it.

“Hence the multiple settings. Even in a setting, multiple criteria are analyzed such as the body count, time to solution, effectiveness of each team member, etc. We take our initiates very seriously. Each scenario is checked on a case by case basis both by a human and an AI. Another crucial thing that is tested is the reaction of an initiate when they hear the words said by the men and women ready to sacrifice themselves. This helps us to decide where an initiate can be posted. Of course, it is not just your visual responses that are evaluated. The pod lets us analyze your brain waves in real time so that we know exactly what it is that you are thinking. Thus, the analysis is fairly accurate.”

“Normally, the results take a few days to come out. Your team though, has accomplished something so far above the others that I can tell you your result right now. There is a percentile associated with each scenario, with the 100th being the hardest. Your team is the only one to have passed the mission in the 100th percentile! Such a result hasn’t been seen in decades. Its certainly going to create a buzz when it gets out.”

Lance beamed with pride hearing this. He was proud of both himself and his team for their perfect cooperation.

He just couldn’t wait to rub this in Apollo’s smug face.

…

The Castellan continued speaking, oblivious to Lance’s scheming joy. His face suddenly turned dead serious. His whole body suddenly emanated waves of authority replacing the casual look that he had had till now.

“I have a very important question to ask of you. You do not need to give me an answer now, you can take as much time as you want to think about it. There is one last thing about wishers that you need to know: all wishers are not alike. All wishers can use the energy they absorb through cultivation, but some wishers can also use energy from other sources. In your case, at this stage you can also use the energy stored in your fat cells and muscles although it places an immense load on your body. The ability to use these special sources are called ‘Quirks’. Quirks come in many shapes. Some can use the elements to some degree basing on their cultivation. Some can even use the gravitational energy in a location. Although these quirks may seem overpowered, the key lies in the fact that only energy in proportion to their cultivation level can be accessed. This can also be done by regular people who have connections with those aspects. Thus, they do not offer a very significant advantage.

Over all my years, your quirk is something that I have not seen or even heard of. If carefully nourished, I believe you will reach the level of those 3 paragons. I cannot yet tell you more details as they would only serve to muddle your path of cultivation.

What I am reaching for is the fact that I would very much like to accept you as my disciple. If you do, I will immediately give you the resources of a personal disciple. You just need to know that this is the highest level that an initiate can reach on this station. Also,-”

“Please accept me as your disciple, master.“, said Lance, bowing. He did not need to hear more. The man in front of him had not hesitated to save him at any cost. His manner of speech and his sheer depth of wisdom had impressed Lance since the beginning. He was someone who trusted his gut, and his gut was telling him that this man would truly use all means at his disposal to nurture him. Thus, he accepted in a heartbeat without needing to hear the rest.

The Castellan was a bit startled. Mostly in such situations, initiates with high potential would wait for him to finish and and ask about other options. They knew that he was not the only one at his level on the station. Others who had average or below average INs would be the very picture of gratitude.

Such an image of grace and self-confidence was rarely seen.

“Are you sure? You are new to the station, so you might not know that there are others on the station who are at my level. Some are even more skilled than me in some areas. Some might even offer you more resources. Don’t you want to take some time and evaluate your options? As you are a wisher, all of them would be eager to accept you.“, said the Castellan after raising Lance up by his shoulders. He still held him as he asked this question.

“Yes, I am sure. All of that might be true, but my gut tells me that you are my best choice. So, please accept me, master. I am aware of the traditional custom of kowtowing to ones master, so please let me give my first kowtow to you, master.”

Lance tried to move back and kneel but he was held fast by the Castellan.

An ecstatic smile spread across his face as he said, “I did away with kowtows centuries ago. This is my way to accept a disciple.”

Saying so, he pulled Lance and hugged him tight.

Lance was bewildered by the sudden gesture. They were the very image of an awkward hug: one man holding the other tight, the other man just standing, arms dangling with no idea what to do.