Seed

It had been three months since I arrived in Irnoma's world. Never once did I go back to that boar marsh again, and I had pushed that incident to the back of my head.

To be honest, I wasn't sure why I even decided to stay at that forest, pushing through days and days of repetitive training and unpleasant wilderness. I knew part of it was the presumption that I could simply return to normal life if Irnoma sent me back home.

But did I really want to go back? After spending months in the forest, nature had become surprisingly appealing to me. I felt no longing to return to a computer to waste my time away browsing the internet. I liked it here, where it was just so...peaceful.

Well, it's not like I had anything going for me as a student anyways. What did I want to be when I grew up? I dunno. Here, though? The curiosity for the possibility of time travel was luring me in. So each day, with my head trapped in the future, I continued to do as my master told: sets upon sets of weight training.

Today started no differently from the rest. I woke up in the grass field at dawn for my daily 10-kilometer run, took a short wash in the river, and had a large breakfast of three fried eggs, berries, and bread, all as usual. After my morning routine, I was expecting an upper body workout, but instead of meeting up with another drill sergeant, I was greeted by a plump, round squirrel with antlers and fangs.

I immediately froze when I saw the kirrel crouching at the edge of the forest. Then it started walking towards me, making me stand up and prepare to run. Had I done something to the kirrel? Why was it coming for me?

That was when I realized something off about this particular creature. I straightened my stance, then bowed slightly and yelled, "GOOD MORNING, MASTER!"

The kirrel didn't move. Instead, it kept itself facing to the side, one eye directed at me. We stood like that for an entire five minutes until the kirrel chuckled in a high-pitched but human-like voice.

"Well done, Damien! I really didn't expect you to advance this quickly."

"THANK YO–" I started, but stopped after realizing Irnoma wasn't using the usual drill sergeant tone today. "Thank you, master," I continued in a softer, more formal tone.

The kirrel chuckled again. "No need to thank me. I see you're good at hiding it now, but I can tell you have many questions about my appearance today, do you not?"

I loosened my stance. "Well… if I may say it, then yes, master."

"Normal creatures aren't able to shift between different species, you see. And humans themselves can only alter their hairstyles, makeup, nail length, and other traits not determined by genetics. That's why it's quite rare for a human to be able to tell a kirrel isn't a normal kirrel."

I nodded and remained emotionless, but inside I felt proud of myself.

In front of my eyes, Irnoma slowly morphed from the kirrel to an ape and then to a person. He was tall and lean, and instead of wearing another camouflage outfit, he had on a long, white lab coat.

"It is sort of like recognizing a face or a fingerprint," he started, now with a deeper voice. "I have been shifting through many different people in the past few months to help you get used to it, but it is definitely a surprise that you can notice my kirrel counterpart."

Irnoma paused in deep thought. As I waited for him to continue, I thought about what had happened again. Why exactly did I greet the kirrel as Irnoma? It's not that it looked any different from the many others I've seen.

"Today, I have something special prepared for you," Irnoma continued, pushing on the bridge of his glasses with large, round frames.

He led me into the forest, walking further and further away from the clearing. Irnoma was looking around, searching for something. After a few minutes of wandering about, we finally arrived at a small sapling. The trees around the sapling seemed to make way for it to grow, letting a beam of sunlight hit the little tree. It was as if the sapling was in the spotlight at the center of a stage.

"In order for you to learn how to tap into your chronal strength, you'll need to know a bit about how this all works," Irnoma told me. "First, is something you're more used to: a single timeline."

Wait, my chronal strength? Was he finally going to teach me to time walk? After three entire months, I can finally start to learn something new?

Before he let me finish thinking, Irnoma raised his hand to the sapling, and an aura appeared around it. The sapling suddenly started to grow. Its trunk got thicker and darker, and a layer of bark formed over it. More branches shot out at the top from multiple directions. On them, newer and larger leaves grew, blocking the sunlight. And finally, small white and pink flowers budded, bloomed, and wilted. In their place were small, green fruits. The fruits grew, turning into large, plump, bright-red apples.

I was speechless. Was this the same trick Irnoma had used to remove the tea from the cup?

He smiled and continued. "But the past, present, and future is all but one dimension of the two that time has. Multiple timelines connect to form what is known as the time-plane."

He picked a large, juicy apple from one of the low branches. "There is the timeline we are in now, where I have picked this apple," he said, taking a bite. "But somewhere else, there is a timeline where I had not."

He waved his hand again, and on the branch where he picked the apple from, another one appeared. It was as if the apple had never been removed, except for the fact that there were two identical apples now.

Irnoma gave the apple in his hand a shake, and the bite on it disappeared. "But it gets even more interesting as you expand further into the roots of the tree's history."

The same but slightly different aura appeared around the full-grown tree, and it started to change. The small, soft leaves were replaced with larger, darker, firmer leaves. The fruits changed from dark red to bright orange.

Irnoma picked one of the fruits with his other hand and held both out. "Apples and oranges. Not so different anymore, are they?"

An apple and an orange, from the same tree. I started to catch on to what this all meant. Somewhere else, in another timeline, this apple tree was indeed an orange tree.

Irnoma tossed his two fruits to me, forcing me to frantically reached out to catch them. "I guess it's time we head to the front lines, then," he said, and before a second thought, he raised his hands and snapped his fingers.

All of a sudden, we were in a completely new location. In front of us was a completely flat land devoid of any tree or living creature for that matter. The ground was dried to the point of cracking. And without any shade of trees, the white, dry dirt reflected the intense sunlight into my eyes, making me blink and raise my hand up to block the light.

Where was this new place? For the past few months, all I've seen was just trees and more trees. Were we still in the same world?

"Damien! Why are you just standing there?" Irnoma's voice called out from behind me, breaking me from my confusion. I turned around to see him already in the distance.

But what was more was that behind him was that same familiar forest we were just in. I looked to my left and then my right. In both directions, the edge of the forest ran into the distance and under the horizon. The line between forest and wasteland was so definite, it was like someone had cut the land in half with a sharp knife.

What caught my attention even more, however, was a small white house sitting at the edge of the forest. Was that where I would be living now? Had Irnoma transported me here so I could finally have a more comfortable place to stay?

I ran up to where Irnoma was waiting for me. When he saw me still looking at the house, he shook his head and spoke. "Sorry, Damien. That is where I live. You will still be staying in the forest. I believe you can still survive, though, with how tough you've become."

I cursed to myself in my mind, but I didn't show any of my disappointment on my face. Still, we were going to finally start some time travel training, right? At least I was getting something.

"So, the best method to train one's temporal strength and precision, in my opinion, is through this," Irnoma told me as we arrived at the edge of the forest. He reached up and plucked a small fruit from a tree. Then, splitting the fruit in half, he took out something from something embedded in the meat and raised it up for me to look. "A seed."

Irnoma ignored my confused expression and continued with his demonstration. "Usually, one would have to wait for an entire winter for a seed to germinate," he explained, placing the seed on the center of his palm and putting his hand out for me to watch. "By pushing it through the temporal dimension, we can accelerate that process." Slowly, another aura floated around the seed. After a moment, the seed suddenly cracked open, and a root accompanied by a set of leaves poked its way out.

"With just a bit of careful manipulation, we have a sprout. The next step is the sapling, and then the mature tree." A large shovel appeared in Irnoma free hand, and he dug a small hole in the ground between us. After he placed the seedling into the dirt, he covered it, only leaving the leaves open to the air.

"This would be the same as what I showed you before, so how about I show you something more impressive?"

Irnoma raised his arms up, and all around us, I saw small green sprouts come out of the ground. They spread out in a large enough area to cover an entire stadium. Slowly, the tiny plants grew taller. They shed their first leaves and their stems hardened into trunks. From the trunks grew branches and from the branches grew more leaves. As the new trees grew, color returned to the cracked ground, and grass grew from it. We were soon surrounded by the same familiar forest, with no hint that this place had been a wasteland before.

When he finished the process in less than a minute, Irnoma turned back to me. "Now, want to start your first lesson, Damien?"

***

Author's Note

From here on, I will be using the words "*chronal*" and "*temporal*" interchangeably for things that are related to time. For example, "*chronal muscles*" or "*temporal muscles*" are the muscles you use to move through time-plane. "*Chronal/temporal strength*" is how easy it is for you to move other objects through the time-plane. "*Chronal/temporal flexibility*" is how easy it is for someone to move themselves through time.