2 Chapter 2

As soon as the young mother sat down on the bench a previously invisible circle revealed itself. She let a few of her blood droplets hit the ground, which created a clear crystal bubble to appear around her. At the same time, the sun at the top of the giant circle started to glow.

The sun continued to get brighter, so Adair chose to look elsewhere. She observed the words in between her and the sun light up and then slowly start to move. They were no longer strewn every which way, instead they had started to form big circles of their own that were slightly smaller than the original. As more words continued to light up, they came together and arranged themselves into lines.

Adair shifted her gaze towards the two moons at the bottom of the circle, where she noticed that the moon that contained the black blood also started to get brighter as more circles started to appear. On the other hand, the moon that had her own blood continued to stay dark.

When Adair first saw the diagram on the ground, she had assumed that the words would act like pipes and their purpose would have been to transfer one thing to another. In this case, something from the sun to the two moons, but after everything that she had witnessed so far, she had no idea what really was going on.

The Galactic Empire had not had rituals and even religions had been more of a local thing in certain cities. In fact, the capital where she had grown up in had not had any. What little Adair actually knew about religion and rituals had all stemmed from the introduction she had received before the start of the civilization test.

Her attention was brought back to the creation of the circles because they were finally approaching the middle of the room. Adair desperately hoped that this whole thing looked scarier than it actually was. Surely she couldn't have been unlucky enough to be born into a society which would harm a baby?

Unfortunately she was aware that there was nothing she could do to stop whatever was happening. Her only choice was to believe in her new mother. As she waited for everything to be over, she could not help but regret accepting the deal of the Reincarnation Machine.

At least she had been alive in the void, and apart from her loneliness there had been nothing there which had been able to hurt her. But here in this new world, she was forced to place her hope on others, expecting them to care for her until she would reach adulthood. The Reincarnation Machine had seemingly 'forgotten' to warn her about this important little detail.

The final space for the last circle was small, the created lines started to connect each circle to the others, and then finally, the sun and two moons were all connected. The moon with Adair's blood in it began to light up.

Suddenly, the moons started to move around the outer circle until they reached the sun. When all three celestial bodies met, the two moons began to merge into the sun. This process continued for what felt like years, although realistically it must have taken a couple of minutes at most. Still, it was hard to tell since Adair had been unable to directly look at it.

Eventually, the two moons and the sun combined into one and a blue glow filled the room. That new light flew towards Adair at a quick pace. When it reached the baby, she involuntarily opened her mouth, and the blue sun went down her throat.

Adair got scared for a moment, but instead of burning up, as she had expected, all she felt was the taste of warm honey. Then all of a sudden a black and gold mist began to escape the pores of Adair's skin. Adair recognized them as not some ordinary colors, but as onyx black and titanium yellow, in other words the exact colors making up the Galactic Empires' flag.

'These colors have to be a coincidence, right? There is no way that this ritual could be able to expose that I got reincarnated, right? Shouldn't being reincarnated be a special privilege? Just how could this civilization make a particular machine to determine if their child was reincarnated or not? Unless… Could it be that a lot of people get reincarnated in this era?'

Whatever the reason was, the mist began to fly in the air and form a blob. When all of the mist left Adair the blob began to break apart in the air. It then turned into words that floated in the air. Adair had no idea if that was the same language her mother had been speaking or if that was something else, but she was somehow able to read her own name out of everything listed.

"Reinkarnations Methode entdeckt: Föderation der Reinkarnation - Verantwortlicher Agent: X Æ A-12" ("Reincarnation method discovered: Federation of Reincarnation - Responsible Agent: X Æ A-12")

"Ehemaliger Name: Adair Lula Fox." (Former Name: Adair Lula Fox.)

"Ehemalige Rasse: Homo-sapiens mit der Basis eines Gottes "_________". ("Former Race: Homo-sapiens with the base of a God "_________"".)

"FEHLER (Gott ist nicht in der Datenbank)" ("ERROR (God is not in the database")).

"FEHLER (Rasse ist nicht in der Datenbank)" ERROR (Race is not in database))"

"Ehemalige Zivilisationsstufe: Stufe 3 Weltraum." (Former Civilization level: Level 3 Space.)

"Ehemalige Reputationsstufe: Nicht zutreffend." (Former Reputation level: Not Applicable.)

"Ehemaliger Gottes Rang: Tochter eines Gottes, FEHLER (Gott ist nicht in der Datenbank)." ("Former God Rank: Daughter of a God, ERROR (God is not in the database))."

"Potenzial Rang: 9." ("Potential Rank: 9.)

When the words started to dissipate, the crystal bubble above her mother also disappeared. With nothing blocking Adair's view she saw the look of shock on her mother's face. She assumed that whatever the words in the air had told her, it had to have been something amazing or terrible.

Based on her experiences towards the end of her life she automatically assumed the worst. If that process had indeed revealed that she was a reincarnated being, then perhaps her new mother might think Adair had backstabbed her empire and was intending to do the same to this one. Maybe she assumed that Adair had committed mass genocide, planetary destruction or something similarly devastating and had chosen to reincarnate to flee responsibility. Whatever the case, her mother continued to stand like that for two minutes before picking up baby Adair.

She held her even more carefully than before, as if Adair was the most precious thing that had ever existed in the world. She continued to hug her daughter for what felt like forever until the young Queen finally let go of her a bit, which allowed Adair to easily breathe again.

Adair then noticed that her mom's mood had shifted from shock to sadness. That hug had made her think that everything would be fine, but now she was not so sure anymore. Adair sincerely wished to know what exactly those words had told her mother that had made her experience such a roller coaster of emotions.

It took awhile for the young woman to calm down once more, but once she did, Adair heard her absentmindedly murmur something to herself, before they started to head out of the room. As they left the room, Adair again paid attention to the reflecting images heading in every direction.

They kept on traveling until they left the black pyramid. When they did Adair felt the blue light wash over her again and afterwards the two black slabs softly closed behind them. Surprisingly her mother did not immediately head back the stairway to the stone castle. Instead she left the main path and headed to a smaller building off to the side that Adair had overlooked.

The young woman placed her slightly bloodied hand on a circle on the door and the door opened to reveal the whole room with a blue three dimensional map of the whole underground area. Based on the diagram Adair learned that the black pyramid in the middle had four entrances, one on each side.

Furthermore she saw that there were four entrances to the underground area. One from each side. 'So is the castle above really big enough to cover this whole area? Or does it mean that there are entrances outside?'

Whatever the answer was Adair soon became fascinated with what her mom was doing. Her hand pointed at the black pyramid in the middle on the map and she spread out her fingers as if to enlarge it. She was busy scrolling around on the map until she found a specific spot in the pyramid, which appeared to be the room with the circle they had just been in.

She clicked on it, which summoned a keyboard on which she began typing.

"Zugriff auf die interne Datenbank für den Testraum 47 - 65 - 6e - 65 - 74 - 69 - 63 - 20 - 52 - 6f - 6f - 6d." ("Access internal database for testing room 47 - 65 - 6e - 65 - 74 - 69 - 63 - 20 - 52 - 6f - 6f - 6d.")

"Datenbank gefunden, Junior-Zugriff gewährt." ("Database found, Junior access granted.")

"Datei über Adair Lula Fox löschen?" ("Delete file on Adair Lula Fox?")