Country of Champions 4

Two hours later, in his room, Orison felt frustrated. He just didn't have any talent in 'manipulating' faith essence. Attempts to see if faith essence could be used to track people and objects was a complete bust. For his friends, they wouldn't drift out at all but followed vestigial connections from his soul. For things and people he didn't have much of any kind of connection to, they would drift out lazily before being attracted towards where he assumed the girl's room was.

Another revealed facet that made faith essence not that appealing was the vague sense of stress and fatigue that came from the core of his soul as he played around with forming the little motes. Considering that Orison's soul core was already 'stressed' from being the inner part of the ring around the white hole, it felt like pushing his experiments beyond the bit of dabbling he did would be dangerous. Dropping his experiments, the young mage thought it was interesting that as basic as they seemed, soul cores had diversity as well.

From everything that he understood, Soul cores were a static thing that the greater laws actively protected from being tampered with. Yet, his soul core was probably about twenty times the spiritual 'mass' of others and was the inner part of a portal ring. The girl from the common room had a regular looking soul and core but was capable of producing motes of faith essence many times stronger and more frequently than he'd ever seen before. Towards the end of her life, Zoe had seemed to form a large, decompressed version of a soul core that became more substantial the more she contemplated existential thoughts and practically prayed to what she believed to be the ruler of her afterlife.

The more he learned about faith and the nature of the soul, the more he found that logic couldn't contain it. Even the laws of existence that included it only seemed to define what couldn't be done with it or to it and that was about it. Faith essence defied and occasionally temporarily redefined the structure of existence but wasn't invalidated or rejected the same way low dimensional nonsense would be. There were important observations and discoveries hidden in it that were useful to Orison or he wouldn't bother with it.

Outside of fringe assistance, faith essence wasn't something people 'used', per say. It was more something that they made and gave to something/someone else. He may bump against the borders of faith during ritual magic but that was actually where the line between what he was capable of doing and what a shaman did. Orison knew that there was an even further line between a shaman and a priest.

Through round about ways, Orison was finally starting to see the borders of his capabilities. On one side, magic ran into the ceiling of faith, the mysteries of the soul and its journey. Beyond it was the stomping ground of celestial entities, demons and devils. It was the power of miracles and the secrets of the afterlife.

On the other side, there was the floor of science. Beyond it was the burial ground of mysteries and miracles. It was the poison of faith and the slaughterhouse of magic that creeped too close to its domain. Reaching too far past the wall of science is what kept him from mastering teleportation when he could use it.

The more he had focused on the math, the more limited in ability his magic had become to translate it into a spell. Gerrald had long ago pointed out to Orison, who arrogantly claimed to have already known, that the key to becoming a master mage lied in mysticism. Despite 'knowing', he had focused on the math, the science behind it and failed. The border of what was useful to magic had become clearer but the knowledge of what wasn't, displayed how shallow of an understating of magic he had.

He was surrounded by walls of ignorance, fear and morality. The constraints of ability, potential and time were also there. He was finding his limits but he was also finding his own personal definition. Once done, pushing the limits and redefining would be much easier. It may seem contradictory to be relieved by the sight of limits but he had grasped at so much in the beginning that he had fumbled around, lost in what he had claimed. To finally find that what he had claimed was actually very small meant he had grown into it and would soon be prepared to grow beyond.

He had plenty of time to drift into such thoughts over the next two days as the therapist he had before rehashed over the same material while being a little more low key about justifications under the silent but watchful eye of her col-League. Orison wondered why the League woman was even there until the end of the second session when she suddenly looked up sharply. Standing up with a fluid grace, the overly pale, silver haired woman made her way to Orison.

Under the shocked eyes of the UTF sponsored therapist, she said, "Do you, Orison Cantrip, accept the protection of the League of Extraordinaries?"

"I do," Orison said.

"Do you accept the privileges and corresponding duties associated with probational citizenship of Avalon?" she added.

The young mage said gravely, "I do."

She gave a faint smile and said, "Then by the power invested in me by the Triumvirate and the global constitution, I hereby swear you in as provisional junior League member and probationary citizen."

Turning to the UTF therapist, she said, "Under the by laws of disenfranchised supernaturals and in compliance with all known current statutes and codes, this is a witnessed and legally binding verbal agreement."

As a reddish orange dome of light cascaded around the dormitory, Orison felt the silver haired woman's aura slide over him a split second before everything stilled. In what had felt like a moment but was apparently early the next morning, he stood in the rocky field outside the dorm with an array of fully armored figures surrounding him. By his side was the silver haired woman and gray eyed man.

He was confused but the Gray eyed man filled him in. "The facility went into lock down and there was an extrication carried out before you and my sister were released from it. It was a predictable reaction but you must be cautious. There are several factors that have you in a legal limbo of rights and citizenship at the moment."

One of the armored men stepped forward and said, "Enough council. It's a simple procedure. This boy claims that more life force was extracted from him than what is allowed. We will give him a recall device. All that was taken from him will be returned and we can measure from that whether his claim is true or not. Truth reader testimony is not permissible as proof for clearly documented reasons."

The man handed Orison a metal ball that didn't look much different to the one that had taken his life force to begin with but under the scrutiny of spirit sight, he could tell it was a reverse operation and even had significantly boosted radius. There was some kind of odd magic model connected to a touch of his life force that was already in it before he touched it.

The armored man said, "This will sample your life force and since you are a mystic type, you can use it to return that life force to yourself."

The silver haired woman said, "It can also take life force from others if that person has been exposed to his."

The armored man replied, "Only if he is an essence eater. If that is so, he was mislabeled in his S-bars and requires verification and evaluation procedures to be administered a second time."

Shaking the cobwebs out of his head, Orison said, "This device's boosted range can't possibly cover the whole world, which is as far as my harvested resources could potentially be, so that's bullsh- er, invalid. It also has a secondary reserve with unrelated magic to its main purpose. I may not be able to tell what it is but I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that it's a piece of evidence now."

Orison finished by handing it to the gray eyed man.

The silver haired woman shared a look with her brother and told Orison, "This will escalate. If you aren't sure, this could end up being very bad for you."

The young mage said, "If a portion of my life force wasn't already in the device before it was handed to me, I wouldn't have known."

A magnetically pleasant older man's voice, both calming and authoritative, echoed out from above them, "That's quite enough using the situation to test our young little magician I think."

Dr. Odd, known by all and the Triumvir of Mystics within the Triumvirate, landed with artistic flare.

Orison thought, "Well, it's not every day that you get to see a sophisticated gentleman wear an expensive three piece suit and a Vegas magician's cape at the same time."

Orison's eyes suddenly went blurry a several shadowy versions of himself performed different actions for a couple of seconds and then dissipated.

He muttered, "Fifty-two other 'me's. What the hell just happened?"

After having handed over the device to one of the most politically if not supernaturally powerful men in the world, the gray eyed man pulled Orison back in a flicker of movement that sent them to the edge of the field and said, "Due to being sensitive, you saw the echoes of Dr. Odd using his primary ability that allows him to manipulate time. For him to use it fifty-two times meant that some interesting things must have happened."

The silver haired woman said, "For him to be here at all means something interesting happened. All we can do at this point is wait to see HOW interesting."

AS they stood at a good, safe distance, an impromptu meeting occurred between the continental president and Dr. Odd via satellite phone. The gray eyed man lip read Odd's half of the conversation and related it to his sister. Orison wasn't shocked to find out that it became an issue of damage control where each side was more concerned about status quo than the issue that threatened it.

Perhaps they felt like they had no choice but the exchange did earn a UTF budget for cracking down on institution resource trading and several arrests would be made. Tangible evidence of restitution would be expected and in return, the League wouldn't do a public PDA about it, letting the UTF handle public relations. Both sides were aware that it wasn't a story that could be covered up which actually helped Dr. Odd back out gracefully with some assurance that the issue would actually be addressed.

Orison said, "I don't really understand. Life force can't be directly taken from one person and given to another in any way that's useful outside of healing or maybe postponing death. Left outside of it host body, it won't even be that useful for the person it came from after a few days. Are there secret preservation or purification methods capable of even making it a viable method for increasing someone else's life?"

The silver haired woman said, "Don't underestimate its value as medicine but yes. Current best on record conversion is three to one but an average easy enough standard to obtain for the powerful and wealthy is ten to one... Forget stealing half of a child's life for a handful of of years. Some of the people in this world would murder hundreds for a few extra days.

"The 'acceptable' margin for error during capacity testing is ten percent on a device capable of delivering accurate results with a margin of a tenth of a percent. A degree of exploitation is built right into the system. And no one's going to do anything about that because the demand for the high grade medicine and life extensions that come from it are pretty much desired by everyone.

"If it weren't for a few key factors, the problem would be an immeasurably terrifying one: The device is expensive to make and the materials needed to make it are rare. Almost everyone builds up a tolerance to any particular external source of life extension quickly, sometimes after one use. To top it all off, the person who does the stealing and everyone who knowingly participates along the way will show it in their auras."

Orison said, "It's just a sad fact that every mystic class who walks through an evaluation dorm is going to lose years of their life? That issue aside, that f***ing ball harvests more than just life force! There is a girl in the dorm right now whose supernatural gift was crippled because it ripped her familiar's core out!

"There are newly awakened who are bound to be fragile and that device can outright steal the spiritual materials that make them special if not just plain kill them! That's insane! What are they even doing with that stuff? Are they sacrificing it … for...

"It's another thing that's allowed, isn't it? Some supernatural somewhere is not only slurping up some kid's life juice, they're eating the kid's very future for a tiny power-up. What's the justification?"

Visibly upset because Orison's words were something that very much resonated with her, The silver haired woman looked out silently into the darkness that sunrise was slowly banishing.

The gray eyed man said, "Survival. The justification that's used is survival. Most of the time it's a thinly veiled lie but those who earn distinction in the UTF and Avalon are sometimes given something, in secret, to aid them in growing their gifts. Avalon gets theirs from battling on grounds where such things can be the spoils of war but the UTF needs to find a way to balance everything that Avalon can do. Their answer is a challenge to the youngest generation. For those whose gifts are too weak and fragile for them to hold on to, that potential becomes a supplement to those whose gifts were stronger and loyally serves the one who can give it to them."

Orison felt disgust. "Dark horses beat sure bets all the time. Who knows how many great legends they choked to death in the cradle to give a gold star lapdog a little treat. It's idiocy beyond words...

"Let me guess the unnaturally high rate of death penalty for independents who die by lethal metal ball. Let me guess how many actually got a fair trial and a proper appeals hearing. If they'll kill innocent children then their bottom line for serving the 'greater good' must make devils and demons shiver in anticipation of the bountiful harvest of nasty stains this world produces."

The gray eyed man looked at Orison piercingly and said, "You have no idea how close to the truth you come."

Orison gave him the best 'WAT!?' face he could but didn't get anymore out of the man?

Dr Odd walked over to them, "It's handled as best as can be... Young man, as long as you cooperate, I'll give you a personal induction that will be less than five minutes and save you a good month or more. I pretty much know all your secrets and can tell you mine are far more profound... Just so you know I'm not bluffing; Gold ring, ring shaped soul a, er, little place that's all your own... Are you game?"

Keeping his face from going pale, Orison dryly swallowed and slowly nodded his head. After muttering some arcane gibberish, the man touched the young mage's chest with a tremor in it that suggested Dr. Odd would rather pet a scorpion's back. A sudden flash of understanding on how the old magician had discovered so much about him made Orison smile a little.

While little orbs of floating light and ethereal scrolls filled with ghostly writing, Dr. Odd said, "Justice, take notes. Liberty, act as witness."

The sibling duo nodded and the old magician spilled his findings. "Astral age... let's just say fifteen. Physical age, it's a hot mess because of how much they took from him but let's say seventeen on a two year room for error... Chronometric age, 274. Emotional age... psychologist, I am not but I can abuse a little triumvirate power to declare him mature enough to give consent and provisionally to drink... Your welcome.

The old magician acknowledged then overruled Liberty's protest and continued, "C-class polymath sorcerer, magic focus dependent and let's say novice level training to be on the safe side. D-class augmentation... I'd say C but it's equipment dependent and I don't think that's accurate enough... The rest can stay how it is. He's an overall non-standard C-class with no hard cap. Give him B privilege and after two years, make him earn it to keep it.

"Start him in secondary education with two years worth of 'juice box' spread over three months... Don't look at me like that, Liberty. He could take more but I don't want to scare anybody... Declare your suit, robe, ring focus and any other precious possession you plan on using in the next year with Liberty, Mr. Cantrip. Old fossils in the ranks probably won't outright steal something from you but they might force a trade.

Orison nodded and went to speak before Dr Odd added, "I'm pulling rank to enforce top security clearance now... Do not nuke Avalon if you feel threatened. At least try to rely on the system for justice first. And I know, some of those old fossils could use a three second vacation in your private getaway but please refrain. It's too hard to replace qualified educators and trainers when the best of us prefer to retire from active service AFTER we're dead."

Orison said. "Define polymath sor-"

Dr. Odd bulldozed on, "Sorry but we have things to get through and I have other places to be. Liberty can answer your questions later... I'm going to chant out a line for you. Touch my amulet when I say to and it will draw lost things back to you, within reason. Don't worry about any people traps. If they set you up to kill someone, the intended victim will be drawn here instead."

The old magician started chanting again and then motioned for Orison to touch the amulet that hung around his neck. Doing as instructed, he didn't feel a rush of returned essence as he expected. Instead, four people and a pile of children's bodies appeared before them as broken pieces of a wooden ring and wand pelted Orison in the chest lightly.