Adamant Blood

Humans help other humans. That is how we survive the monsters.

- Glorious Man, and many other heroes

Honor is just as important as knowledge and power.

- a common saying of the Settlement of Xerkona

If violence isn’t solving your problems then you aren’t using enough of it.

- popularized during the Reveal

- - - -

Prologue:

- -

Dan Clover held onto the edge of the cliff over an open abyss. Searchlight golems prowled the plateau above. The patrol was active, accidentally, and now he had to wait for them to settle down, or else they’d rip him apart.

His arms were already tired but he had trained for situations… sort of like this. He could hang from a cliff all day.

Or at least for 20 minutes.

It had been 10 minutes so far.

Archmage Sloane Addashield floated ahead, wrapped in magics that shielded him from the eyes of the Tutorial. He was actually here, inside the Tutorial, but only Dan could see him. Only Dan could hear him. If the man unshielded himself then he would invalidate Dan’s Tutorial, and then Dan would Awaken some terrible, baseline power. He’d probably be a fucking brawny, like almost everyone else. And then both he and his master would get kicked out. It was a bad outcome. The worst outcome was death, but that wasn’t going to happen. None of the bad outcomes would happen today.

Dan had trained too hard, ever since he was 8, to just become some fucking brawny.

Dan didn’t want to be a brawny.

He wanted to be an adamantium mage.

Archmage Addashield could make that happen.

And so, Dan endured, holding onto the edge of the cliff, out of sight of the patrol, sweat dripping in his clothes and his sword weighing upon his hip—

The archmage said, “The golems are still there. You have to hang on for another few minutes.”

Dan’s arms were tired.

He tried not to think about it.

Grunts and scrapes clanged across the air, like rocks striking rocks. Feet stomped. The searchlight golems were moving all over the place. Lights glanced out across the cliffside onto Dan’s fingers, and then the lights kept going. They had ‘seen’ his fingers a few times, but not really.

The golems searched, and they failed to find.

Dan endured.

The archmage didn’t need to tell him that the golems were still there. This far into the Tutorial the monsters got smart. Not too smart, though. Not too powerful, either. Baselines were meant to clear this ordeal.

Another full minute later and Dan was still hanging out on the edge of the cliff. It was mostly a sheer cliff, without any sort of handholds or otherwise on it, but it did have an angled ridge that Dan was able to wedge against, but Dan didn’t trust that rock that well. It wasn’t an actual step, but it alleviated some of the—

“They’re gone. Get up.”

Dan whispered thanks to Freyala and started the horrible ordeal of climbing up. His arms were more tired than he thought—

He slipped.

He caught himself on that angled rock even as his stomach felt like it dropped out of his chest. Breathing hard, and then breathing securely, Dan persevered, rising above the edge of the cliff on sore muscles that were just about to give out.

Dan silently crawled, dirty and tired, onto the plateau.

Quietly, Dan lay there for a minute, catching his breath and stretching his arms, all the while eyeing the golems in the middle of the field. This room was a simple room, in theory. A crowd of 5 golems, each the size of an Awakened brawny at 2 meters tall, stood all jumbled on each other in the center of the circular platform, their eyes not really looking in front of them at all.

Their eyes were twinned spotlights; dual circles of illumination that lit up the world in 5 different pillars here and there across the platform. Those patches of vertical light shows slowly moved back and forth across the grassy clifftop. If you stepped into one of them you activated the golems. All of them.

This was not a fighting challenge; all of that lay behind Dan now.

The only way to win was to get past them.

Their searching pattern was still a bit frantic, still jittery, with the spotlights zipping around sometimes before slowing down, resuming normal operations. Dan watched as their searchlight pattern went from frantic to methodical. The beams of light began to circle the platform, and Dan was in a relative safe zone in the pattern. The safe zone would vanish in 20 seconds, though, as that pair of spotlights over there entered this area.

Dan got up and got moving.

This time, Dan managed to step through the shadows properly, though he did have to finger his way across the cliff face yet again, in order to avoid the last few golem lights. That part of the puzzle had something of a ledge below that part of the cliff, so it was expected for a person to cross the final distance over the side of the cliff.

Once he was back up on land, beyond the golem search lights, Dan easily made it through a portal of light, into the next room.

Archmage Addashield was already waiting for him on the other side.

In the relative safety of the hallway between rooms Dan almost wondered if Addashield was going to apologize for setting off the golems. He had been the one to get spotted, after all; not Dan. His sight-shielding wasn’t perfect; it was just good enough to evade Malaqua’s sight, and to allow Dan to complete his Tutorial unaided.

Dan looked to Addashield.

Addashield frowned at him. And then he sighed, and said, “Sorry.”

Dan felt a little bit of joy at that. He couldn't actually say anything to Addashield, for Malaqua was absolutely looking at Dan, but he could grin a little, and nod.

“Yeah yeah,” Addashield said, “If you ever tell anyone I apologized for anything then I’m denying your apprenticeship.”

Dan said nothing. Addashield was a prickly sort of bastard, but he was a Hero of Humanity, too.

Dan stood before an archway that led into a sandpit of a room, with stage seating all around. A gladiatorial space, then.

Addashield said, “Three enemies. Two initial, one stealth surprise.”

Dan readied his sword and advanced.

Three more boss rooms later and Dan was done.

He was bloodied and bruised and he needed some healing for a bite wound he had taken in the wolf pack back there, but he was done.

He had completed his Tutorial.

Archmage Addashield hadn’t needed to help him at all! Dan was proud of that.

Both of them were grinning wildly in the last room, where a pedestal stood in the center of a platform, and all the silver surface of the moon shimmered beyond. The sky was filled with stars, and with Earth, hanging up there, all blue/white/green and lit like a crescent by the sun. Here on the moon, the Demon City of Arakino was invisible beyond the platform, but it would reveal itself soon. Once Dan took his prize; his Ascension.

A shining, bright beacon of crystal held upon the pedestal.

The crystal was the size of a fist, and it was pure, prismatic mana.

The pure value of it simply overwhelmed Dan. Dan had been born to a relatively powerful family on Crytalis, so he knew the value of that hunk of prismatic mana in many different ways. It was the cost of an archmage’s services, or the cost of a city wall. It was the reward for the largest of Quests issued by the kingdoms of Daihoon, for killing a dragon, or a leviathan, which were both equally impossible tasks. It was the cost of a nuclear bomb, or a twisted faith.

It was near impossible to get prismatic mana anywhere, except for here, in the Tutorial, where it was always the reward at the end. Dan almost wanted to take it with him into the real world, back to Daihoon, but that was just his father’s want of money speaking. Becoming Addashield’s real apprentice was worth more than that. A whole lot more.

But if Dan touched it now he’d be rolling the dice and probably end up with brawny.

And Archmage Addashield was already fixing that problem.

Addashield hovered around the pure mana, doing some sort of resonance, or something to it. Dan didn’t really know. This particular lesson was beyond Dan, for now. All he knew was that the prismatic mana turned bright, burnished silver.

It was no longer pure mana. It was now attuned to what Addashield could do; adamantiumkinesis.

The Archmage backed away from the silver hunk of beauty, saying, “Hurry. Before Malaqua sees the change.”

Dan eagerly stepped forward and grabbed the hunk of pure metal mana—

Power flooded into Dan’s body, twisting what was already there into something better. Something Dan chose for himself. It hurt. Dan endured—

All feeling vanished at once except for a headache. He couldn’t feel his body, but he was moving. His eyes shot open and—

Dan watched as the world went sideways.

He knew what had happened even before his head struck the ground.

Archmage Sloane Addashield’s swords were out, looking like sweeping curves of liquid black.

Dan’s vision turned away as his head rolled away.

Betrayal.

Dan had never considered the possibility that Addashield could ever do this to him, but he knew betrayal long before now. He wasn’t some idiot child. And yet, Dan had never thought that Addashield would have been a betrayer. Never!

Rage and impending death narrowed Dan’s vision.

He watched from the ground, his head rolled into view of his still-standing body, as Archmage Sloane turned bright red.

Demonic power veined up those floating swords and also Addashield’s face, and then Addashield’s metals ripped into the stump of Dan’s severed neck, up there, on his body. Sloane shoved power into that neck. Metal began to form a head, a face, upon Dan’s body, and it looked like him—

Demonic light laughed as it shouted, “Nope! Don’t like him!”

Addashield’s metal exploded out of Dan’s body, ripping it apart.

Addashield looked furious.

Dan was furious, too, but seeing that Addashield didn’t get what he wanted was a good enough memory for him to let go. To fade away.

Dan died.

- - - -

Chapter 1:

- -

Being a normal human was tiring, and Mark was exhausted.

Mark Careed twisted his grip on his rusted sword, angling the broken weapon to deflect the goblin’s cleaver. It was a risk to use rusted shit-steel. It was a risk Mark had needed to take. Cleaver met rusted sword in a clang that rang down Mark’s arm, and the sword held. The cleaver went to the side by fractions and the goblin did not recover fast enough. Mark ignored the stinging sweat in his eyes as he slipped forward, into the opening he had made. Rusted metal met thick green neck and the beast flinched away, almost ruining the strike. But Mark had hit. The sword’s tip broke off in the goblin’s neck.

Blood started to flow.

It might have been enough.

The goblin grabbed its neck and red flowed from between its fingers, its roars turning crazed as it lifted its cleaver and tried to kill.

Mark retreated, letting the flowing blood do the rest of the work for him.

Fighting was tiring work.

This was the final boss monster of the False Tutorial, here in this open, sandy arena, where empty stands viewed a trial that was not real, but which still felt damned legitimate. The goblin was a lightshow projection, but it still fought and bled like a real monster. Mark was a baseline human, and he was certainly bleeding from all the trials thus far, but his wounds were all superficial. Maybe in 6 months, when Mark turned 18, Mark could complete the real Tutorial and he would be more than a simple human, faltering and fading after just a few hours of—

Mark tripped on a larger-than-average drift of sand. A wild swing by the goblin almost ended his trial right then and there. But Mark rolled with the fall. Another strike came for him and Mark raised his broken weapon enough to parry, sending the goblin’s cleaver out of the monster’s grip, spinning wide. The cleaver sailed three meters away and suddenly Mark was the only one with a weapon in this confrontation.

If that would have been enough then Mark would have won this fight already.

The goblin should have needed to actually go and get the weapon, but the cleaver vanished from the sand and appeared in the goblin’s hand. Mark only had enough time to get up off the ground and prepare for another round. He wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking he had actually disarmed his opponent. Not a second time.

Blood still flowed down the beast’s chest, thin yet pumping.

How much blood did a single damned goblin have!

Mark kicked sand at the monster and the goblin roared and swiped, pinching its eyes shut as it swiped again, completely missing Mark. The goblin boss wasn’t even in the same vicinity as Mark. It could still hear, though, so Mark was careful to walk slowly and quietly.

The goblin took another swipe at empty air, but that one was slower. More of a fending swipe, and not an attacking swipe. It was slowing down. It was dying.

Mark didn’t let the near-victory go to his head. Not yet. He controlled his breathing. He made no sudden sounds upon the sand.

The goblin was still alive.

It stepped forward—

The cleaver dropped.

The goblin roared. Fury. Hate. Death. It wanted to kill Mark. But…

The goblin’s roar died.

And just like that, the final boss fell to the ground and broke into a splash of mana, spilling out into the sands of the False Tutorial like so much broken spellwork.

Mark had won?

He took a moment to make sure it wasn’t a trick.

… Mark had won!

The entire False Tutorial began to unravel. Sands whipped away from the ground. The empty stands vanished into light shows and broken magic. Mark smiled wide, letting his broken, rusted sword fall to the ground. The sword struck the solid stone under the arena floor, bounced once, and then dissolved like all the other fakery of the False Tutorial. The straps of Mark’s broken shield vanished from around his forearm, alongside the boiled leather armor that he wore, that he had found just a few hours ago, as a reward for solving a waterflow puzzle.

Blood still matted Mark’s face. Cuts pained his left arm, where his shield had broken taking a blow from the goblin boss in the other arena. That other goblin had used a mace with a nail in it, and that weapon had gotten through Mark’s wooden shield and broken the damned thing. The goblin with the cleaver had been worse.

But Mark was confident, now.

He was confident that he could pass the real Tutorial, when he finally turned 18. And he still had 6 more months to prepare! So much time to get even better!

He smiled.

He read the words overhead.

Congratulations!

False Tutorial Complete

Please see for the assessment of your innate mana signature, to see which power, talent, knack, or otherwise, you might unlock in the real Tutorial.

Mark smiled. He 90% knew what his assessment was going to say, but he hoped, desperately, that it said something other than what it told almost every human living on Earth. The Veil was great about keeping most of the monsters away, but it made most people turn out as basic brawnies.

Mark did not want to be a brawny.

A stone door at the side of the arena opened, leading to a bright hall beyond. The lights of the assessment room began to dim from the outside in, subtly telling Mark to get a move on. He got the message. Mark walked across the stone, holding his head high, and the light closed off behind him as he left the room. When he stood in the hallway beyond, the room behind him was fully dark. And then the dark shifted, and became stone. There was no door; there was simply the wall.

That’s how these stone temples were; places of manifested magic, where nothing was as it was, because everything changed at the needs of the people inside.

Other not-doors held beside the testing hall, only visible because they were in use. All of them had screens on those doors, showing the person and the trial inside. Mark only knew one of the people here right now. Sally Wuthers. They had come here together today and they were best friends. They were in the same high school in Orange City, and both of them took all the combat elective classes they could get. They had toyed with being girlfriend and boyfriend twice before, because they were both interested in the same things of saving people and killing monsters. Everyone had always assumed that they were together because they usually were together. They had toyed with the idea of dating once, in a sort of ‘might as well try it?’ kinda way.

Neither of them liked each other that way.

Mark smiled as he watched Sally spear a mutant otter through the heart, and he was kinda jealous.

“You actually managed to get a spear, eh?”

Mark wished that he could have found a spear. All he had found in his trial were swords and shields. All that was random, so not finding your preferred weapon was always a risk. He looked to the ‘percentage done’ column of Sally’s False Tutorial and rapidly decided he wasn’t going to wait around for Sally to finish. She was only 85% done. She had another hour to go, at least. She wouldn’t wait for him, and he wasn’t about to wait for her; they would talk later. Mark had been too fast; he usually was.

He knocked on the stone wall beside her door, saying, “Good luck.”

It wouldn’t disturb her combat; it was more for the spirit of the gesture.

And then Mark walked down the hall. He was still bruised and bloodied, but the gentle calming of the Stone Temple of Malaqua was already healing his wounds, using whatever magic it used to do that. By the time Mark made it out of the hallway the only indication that he had been fighting for his ‘life’ were the rips and tears in his clothing.

He stepped into the main, massive room of the cathedral.

The Stone Temple could change at the whim of the priests. Right now the main room was an empty space with Priest Andrews sitting behind a desk at the back of the cathedral. A floating monitor held above the desk, and Andrews intently watched a show. There was no one else here besides Andrews.

And now Mark was here, too.

Mark waited beside the desk.

Andrews didn’t notice him. He was focused on his show. It looked to be at an exciting part with spells flying and people proclaiming their undying love for each other on a battlefield.

Mark waited. He watched with Andrews for a moment—

Andrews glanced his way, his eyes going wide—

“MALAQUA FU—” Andrews cut himself off and collected his words and thoughts, taking a deep breath. He glared at Mark.

Mark tried a little grin.

Andrews sighed, and then he put on a smile. “You scared me.”

“Sorry about interrupting your show. It looked neat.”

Andrews chuckled. “Ohhh. Yes. I’ll get back to it— Wait.” And then Andrews realized what was happening. “Oh! You finished so fast!” He paused. Then he paused his show. “Did you…” He left the question unasked.

Mark had tried the False Tutorial twice now, and this time he had passed.

He didn’t like to think about the previous time.

“I passed, yes,” Mark said, practically beaming, delighted that he could say that.

“Congratulations!” Andrews got up out of his chair, happily smiling, saying, “I know you worked so hard to get there. You and your friend Sally. You’re absolutely going to make it in the real Tutorial, for sure!”

“That’s the hope!” Mark said, and then he stopped there. Andrews was a great guy, but he was kinda discombobulated. Mark decided to add, “I hope that my readout is a good one.”

“OH! Yes yes. Of course.” Andrews began fumbling around under the desk— “Ah ha!” He pulled out a paper and held it against his chest, making sure that neither of them could read what it said right now. And then he entered lecturer mode. “You were very fast in there. I hope when you take the normal Tutorial that you decide to go slower. Promise me this.”

Mark nodded. “I know I went fast. I saw opportunities and I took them. I took no more risk than what was expected, though.”

… Andrews frowned a little. “Perhaps.” He continued, “The False Tutorial will not end in your death, no matter what happens. The real Tutorial has no safeties on it at all, for the dangers of mana are unending. Mana is not safe. When the Veil broke in 1969, hundreds of millions died to monsters, but just as many died to mana exposure. When you take the Tutorial, you are stepping out of the safety of Earth’s Veil. It is not safe.”

Mark listened to the condensed sermon, and nodded at the end of it like he needed to nod. “Thank you for your concern, Priest Andrews.”

Andrews continued to hold Mark’s readout hostage as he spoke, “What happened here today was a False Tutorial, gifted to us by the New Pantheon so that people can test themselves and decide to opt out of the real Tutorial, or to plow ahead and Awaken their true selves. For several years after the Reveal, people didn’t get the choice. An entire generation of children died. You should go slower.”

Mark nodded, trying to be respectful but all he wanted was that paper and he had heard all of that before. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

“And you understand that what is on this paper is not the whole truth? Even brawnies are useful. They’re the most useful classification of people, in fact. Easily able to stand up against any basic monster, they’re always the ones who survive the most.”

Mark’s hopes for something good on that paper fell drastically.

Priest Andrews noticed.

He handed over the paper.

All thoughts of caution went out the window as Mark greedily took the paper—

And then realized that he should be a bit more professional about it, so he calmed himself. He breathed. He closed his eyes and prayed to the New Pantheon for a good readout.

Back when the world used to be normal, 78 years ago, people didn’t get Powers, or Talents, or Knacks, or even Whispers. They certainly didn’t get mana and the ability to make magic. But then Neil Armstrong had stepped onto the surface of the moon and broken the Veil between Earth and Other Earth, the world of Daihoon.

The moon revealed itself as a lie.

What was once a grey, airless land of dust and rock and craters became a grey, airless land of rock and craters and deep cracks that showed through to the True Demon City underneath it all. The Demon City of Arakino stood revealed in those cracks, like lightning scars upon the moon, and mana from Other Earth, on the other side of the Veil, began to pour through onto Earth.

Magic returned to Earth, bringing with it horrific monsters that should have killed all of humanity...

Or at least that’s what the historians say should have happened.

But humanity was in the middle of the cold war at the time and there were lots of worldly tensions that were easy enough to aim at the dragon trying to make Moscow into a new nest, the leviathan trying to turn the Grand Canyon into an abyssal well, and a whole bunch of other major monsters trying to eat cities all over the Earth.

Some cities did get eaten.

Half the world died in three years. Nuclear weapons and some unlikely archmage allies from Other Earth were a match for most of those monsters, either making short work of the smallest threats or sending the biggest threats back to Endless Daihoon.

In the aftermath of the Reveal, Earth was not stable, and Daihoon wasn’t any better off. The people of Daihoon had expended much of their power trying to save the people of Earth, in the brief hope that Earth could help them in turn. Everything could have crashed. One or two dead archmages in those early years would have sent both worlds spiraling into True Apocalypse. It wasn’t till the New Gods and the City AIs came along in the decades following The Reveal that things started to truly turn around.

But not really.

The ocean rose 23 meters, too.

And now Earth needed real heroes. Superheroes, if it could get them.

Mark wanted to be a hero.

More than that, he didn’t want to be a civilian.

Mark breathed in and out, clutching his readout to his chest, hoping for the best. If this False Tutorial showed that he would get anything close to what he wanted then when he turned 18 in 6 months he would choose to accept the Awakening, to take the Tutorial for real, and unlock whatever innate power lay dormant within his soul.

Mark didn’t know what it meant to be special, but he imagined it would be working with friends to better all worlds. But even in the small ways, life would be different. He’d be allowed out of the city walls, into the real world. He could visit the Hero Quarters of the world, where they hid all of the secrets of magic and mana, and where people flew from one building to the other, or they ate ice cream made from ice magic, and where they planned the defenses of the world with fellow like-minded individuals with powers that would compliment their own.

Mark wanted to be a part of a hero team, killing monsters and saving the world.

Could he stop hurricanes like Mistress Storm? Could he kill an entire monster horde with a swing of a sword like the Gladiator? Punch out a kaiju like Glorious Man?

Or maybe he could be a simple kind of hero; the mundane, everyday kind of hero like his own Uncle Alexandro, with his True Healing magic. Healing magic was great! Being a healer would be wonderful. Maybe, if Mark didn’t unlock a healing power, he might go to the Temple of Freyala and sign up for the basic Chosen system to get some divine healing on tap, like a lot of warriors did.

Most people born on Earth were brawnies, though. 90% of people.

A brawny with healing magic was still a good option, though, right?

… No.

Mark wanted more than that.

He wanted more than what his parents got, too.

Dad and Mom never went through the Tutorial because they both knew who they wanted to be at young ages and you didn’t need to be a brawny or brawny variant in order to raise fish on the family farm, like Dad, or to be a writer, like Mom. Most people were discouraged from taking the Tutorial, too, because it was damned dangerous. It was much easier to go to arcanaeum for a year and learn a spell you choose to learn, instead of the one that Awakening awakened. Mom and Dad both choose their power, and—

Andrews asked, “Are you going to read it?”

“… I’m scared.”

“That won’t change what’s on the paper.”

“… Yup.”

Anything but brawny, Mark thought.

And then he looked down at the paper.

Superpower, unknown type, not detectable. .00001% chance.

Talent: Brawn, standard strength growth expected. ~2.35 times stronger than baseline. 95% chance.

Talent: Brawn, variant, speedster, 4% chance.

Knack: unknown type, not detectable, 1%

Whisper: 0%

Mana chance: 0%

Ah.

Yeah.

An average spread.

A terrible normality.

Mark’s breath stilled. He remained standing as though carved from stone, but every single thought and feeling in his body had fallen out and landed at his feet somewhere. A house of dreams imploded. Hot tears flowed.

And then Mark breathed out.

He chuckled.

He said, “I suppose this is normal.” He breathed again. “Not sure why I was hoping for something different.”

With a kind voice, Priest Andrews said, “Most people are brawnies, if they choose to Ascend at all. It’s great if you’re a soldier or going into any regimented sort of situation… But that’s not what you wanted to hear. I’m very sorry, Mark.” He adopted a happy tone, saying, “You could always try learning magic the hard way! Lots of people forgo the real Tutorial and learn magic the hard way.” He could tell Mark didn’t care about that, so he tried, “And then there’s the Chosen system.”

The Chosen system. It wasn’t nearly as bad as making deals with demons for power, but it was close, according to some people. Mark was mostly ambivalent about Choosing a god, and he had even decided that talking to Freyala was a good idea, long before he got here, to this moment in his life.

But he was too furious with life to think about that.

Mark spat at the hated readout, “I don’t want to devote my life to a god.”

“It’s not… hmm.” Andrews paused. “This brawny thing is hitting you a lot harder than I thought it would. I thought we had spoken about the Chosen system before, and you liked Freyala. I’m partial to Malaqua, obviously, but Freyala is pretty good. They all are!”

Mark crumpled the paper. With hateful sarcasm, Mark said, “Not like you need power to travel the world, eh?”

If you didn’t have power, then you were a civilian.

If you were a civilian, then you could only ever live inside the walls of the cities, or travel from city to city in armored convoys. You could never explore the world, or get a real job, and if there was ever an emergency then you had to listen to the rescuers. You could never be the one calling the shots.

Civilians could never hop in a hovercar and go visit the beach. The beach had to be cleared by the city before any civilian was allowed to visit and the beach was only open to civilians for 3 months out of the year.

And even if you were a brawny you were still ordered around!

Dammit!

Even brawnies were weaklings—

“Mark. Look at me.” Andrews stared into Mark’s eyes, and said, “Brawny is a great option. Most people are brawnies. Construction workers, farmers, wall gunners, soldiers; anything physical in your entire life is made easier by being a brawny. You can do a lot with brawny. Brawnies are still firmly human, but simply stronger in every possible way. Do not denigrate brawnies, Mark, for brawnies are the backbone of every anti-monster team and a whole lot more besides. They survive the hits and keep on living. All other inclinations cannot boast that sort of staying power. Once you pass Curtain Protocol, you’ll find out why.”

Curtain Protocol. Mark kinda hated that he couldn’t just get answers to how magic worked, or how powers worked; not as a ‘child’. It would ruin his Awakening. Everyone knew someone who got too curious and who developed a knack instead of an actual power. ‘The ability to taste sound’ was pretty shit compared to even the most basic brawny with 2-times human strength.

Mark swallowed fury and injustice and said, “… I guess brawny is better than some things.” Mark looked at the paper, and pretended to feel better. He nodded. “You’re absolutely right. I’m not sure what came over me.”

Aside from the fact that brawnies were not special at all. Sure, they were the bulk of the world’s might against the magic, but they couldn’t do shit against the real threats and...

Mark had hoped that he was special.

Andrews softly said, “This same thing happens to most people when they find out they’re brawny. Everyone wants something better, but you were born on Earth, and the Veil does many things to keep us away from the horrors of Endless Daihoon. A side effect is that most people are naturally brawnies. You knew this. You know this. I had thought you were okay with this. Your reaction has taken me by surprise. With how fast you cleared the False Tutorial I would have thought you would have loved being a brawny.”

Mark shook as he sighed.

He had almost said something like ‘Yeah! Who doesn’t love slogging in the mud and shit their whole life!’ or ‘I love taking wounds all the time!’ or ‘I’m a masochist who likes being at the bottom of the power scale!’.

But that would have been petulant.

And yet…

Back when Mark was 8, he saw Glorious Man on the television for the first time. Glorious Man was a brawny with times-250 strength. If that’s the kind of brawny that Mark had been, then he would have been truly happy. But by 9, Mark knew that Glorious Man was an outlier.

Mark’s own estimated 2.35-times brawny was almost exactly the average multiplier for a brawny. Most people were somewhere between 2.25 to 2.5.

“Maybe I will love being a brawny,” Mark said, lying to himself as he looked at the crumpled paper in his hands. He unfolded the readout and properly folded it back together. He held it for a while. Softly, he told himself, “Maybe this is for the best.”

“The best Awakening is the one that is true to yourself,” Priest Andrews said.

“… This is what Malaqua sees in me, eh?” Mark asked, “Is this really my true nature?”

Andrews smiled. “Malaqua’s power Awakens within people what they are; yes. If you want to Awaken in a specific way, then I suggest you try the Chosen system, or you look into arcanaeum. Mages can be whoever they want to be; the rest of us have to muddle along.” He held Mark’s shoulder for a moment, eyes meeting eyes, as he said, “You will love being a brawny. Most every brawny does.”

“… Yeah.”

Mark stared at the ground for a moment longer, Andrews’ hand an uncomfortable weight upon his shoulder.

And then he walked out of Andrews’ touch and walked out of the Stone Temple, into the afternoon sun. It was a balmy summer day in Orange City, in the Floridas, and Mark felt too hot. He was still angry. He had not wanted to be a brawny for… for many reasons.

There was one big reason he didn’t want to be a brawny, though, and that was because—

- - - -

“—Brawnies are required to enlist in the army for a year,” Mark said, over dinner. “A whole year. I got no problem with that, but I… I wanted to go to a hero school. Maybe even the Endless Academy. I think I’d even take arcanaeum and forge my own mana pathways instead of this brawny shi— stuff.”

Mom spooned potatoes onto her plate, saying, “It’s not ideal, I know, but arcanaeum is expensive, and you’ve been preparing for the Tutorial. There’s no way you won’t pass the real Tutorial. I can at least be safe in knowing that much, even if I don’t like the idea of you Ascending at all.”

Mark had no idea why Mom was talking like that. Like it was some sort of small thing that just happened, and not like the horror that it was. Like this wasn’t the end of Mark’s dreams.

Mom didn’t understand. That was her problem.

Mark didn’t know how to explain it properly. That was his problem.

“I just wanted to be… special,” Mark tried.

Dad took the potatoes next, saying, “You don’t have to Awaken. There’s nothing wrong with working for a living, but the government payout for defense of the city does pay a lot more than most other jobs. The money I pay Devon and Trace for helping with the fishing is just a side-gig to them. You’d be set if you wanted to work for the city, though you do have to drop everything for them when they ask you to. I can’t tell you how many times I needed to pull up early when either of them got called in for whatever.”

Mark’s stomach dropped.

Oh gods.

Mark had known life would be different as a brawny. But he didn’t expect… his whole life, devoted to the city? No. That was the opposite of the freedom of being Awakened. Awakened were supposed to be able to go anywhere and everywhere they wanted. Not be tied to the city!

Dad was exaggerating, for sure.

… Mark had taken classes on what was expected of him.

“It’s not that bad?” Mark asked, unsure and praying in the same sentence.

Dad hummed, waggled his head, and said, “It’s kinda that bad.”

“Your father is exaggerating a little,” Mom said, “But! If you don’t want to Awaken as a brawny…” She paused. She looked to Dad. Dad got a quizzical look to him, as Mom said, “We could move.”

“What?” Dad asked, dumbfounded.

Mark was dumbfounded, too. Move? From home? From this house? What a weird thing to say!

Mom told Dad, “Your brother and his husband moved to Memphi last year. It’s a tier 4 city so it’s a lot bigger than Orange City, and it’s a lot more lax around simple brawnies. Mark wouldn’t have to sign up with the city if we moved to Memphi.”

Mark’s eyes went wide. She was serious. Mark asked, “Move? I didn’t think… Uh.”

He didn’t expect to start a conversation like that.

Dad frowned a little, asking Mom, “You don’t like the Floridas?”

“I like the Floridas,” Mark said.

“I love the Floridas,” Mom said. “I like Orange City. I don’t like the East Coast Union, and the ECU is what will force Mark to become a soldier in the collected army.” Mom said to Mark, “I know what you want out of life, honey. You want to run all over the place, getting into all sorts of trouble, and that’s fine, because I know you’re a good man. But the ECU has these restrictive laws about all supers and you’re going to run into those laws, no matter what you manage to get in the real Tutorial. You want to go to the Hero Quarter, yes? Well if you Awaken you’ll be restricted from coming home, here to Gladegrove. And so, maybe we should move.”

Dad said, “That restriction about living here is not a real one. We can do the paperwork, and Mark is literally grandfathered in.”

“Yeah?” Mark said, and maybe asked at the same time. “I thought there wouldn’t be a problem?”

Mom said, “I’m just saying that Mark will need to watch himself around everyone once he passes the Tutorial—” She looked to Mark. “And you might not want to live here at home anymore, too.” She said to both of them, “And so, now is when we talk about moving.”

Dad frowned a little, thinking.

Mark silently thought, too. He had read the laws. He had taken the preparatory Tutorial classes. “I heard the laws weren’t that bad? It’s just reserves in the army, isn’t it? I don’t understand what you’re both talking about.”

Dad and Mom went silent.

“… What?” Mark asked, “I really don’t understand? Like. I took the classes. It’s a weekend of service every month for almost everyone?”

Dad eventually said, “It’s a Curtain Protocol thing.”

Bah!

Mark let the point go. There was only so much he could push to get his questions actually answered, and he had edged that line.

Mom changed the subject, “Have you ever considered mage work? Avoid the mana baptism of the Tutorial altogether? Make your own mana baptism?”

No. Mark had never considered that, because that… Uh.

That cost too much money…

Uh.

… Was she saying what Mark thought she was saying?

Dad must have thought so, too. “Honey?”

Mom said, “We could afford a single year of arcanaeum and Mark could avoid brawny entirely. He could make his own mana baptism. Get a spell or three. That’s all you really need to succeed in life. And he’s young! He could do it. I got cleanse. You got fish-yank.”

Dad corrected Mom in a rote sort of way, “Telekinesis.”

“Fish yank,” Mom repeated.

Mark felt a weight descend upon his shoulders. They could not afford to send him to arcanaeum. They were on basic income and even so, Mom and Dad both worked full time, too. College was free, but arcanaeum was not free at all. They had both managed to get a single year of arcanaeum themselves, years ago, but both of them were barely competent with their spells because they weren’t mages. Dad’s telekinesis was pretty much ‘fish only’, since that was how he had grown that power, even if unintentionally, and Mom’s cleanse could only work on water, making the water cleansing.

Dad had a lot of sudden doubts, saying, “We can’t really afford that.”

Mom said, “We could afford it, Markus.”

Dad was having doubts, too. “The fishery is… We’re hauling out as much as we can. We’re already skirting monster attacks with how much we haul out. We’d have to hire another person if we hauled out more, and that would just cost us more.”

The family fishery was a series of metal cages out in the bay that belonged to the family, and which Dad had been in charge of for twenty years so far, ever since grandpa turned it over to him after grandma passed. Dad made good money hauling fish out of the cages and bringing them into market for mass sales, and he kept two other guys in jobs, but it wasn’t a rich sort of life.

Mark was happy with the life he had here but… But he wanted more.

He wasn’t sure what ‘more’ really meant, but he knew he wanted it.

“I know it’ll be tough, honey. But we could try it, right?” Mom said, “Maria has been asking me about helping her clean houses. I can do that and cut back on my editing work.” She looked to Mark, saying, “You might have to go to work with your father at the fishery for some shifts after high school, but you can live here at home, of course. You won’t be able to attend classes on arcanaeum campus, so it’ll have to be tele-class, like your dad and I took, but you can do it. You can make your own magic in life, instead of being satisfied with what your earth-soul says you have.” She said to them both, “Or we can move to a better city, where they have a better basic income, like Memphi at tier 4 instead of Orange City at tier 2. We can ditch the car payment. We can sell this massive house for a nice new start and we can live in public housing for a few years, or maybe we’ll find a nice place by your brother. I can clean houses anywhere and Memphi has fisheries, too. Not ones we own, but these ones here? We can rent those out to other people for good money.

“Those are the options.”

Silence.

Give up the family fishery?

The family house?

Mark loved this house—

Dad said, “Or Mark could become a brawny.”

“Gotta say,” Mark admitted, “Brawny is looking good right now. I… I love this house.”

It was a two story house with 10 rooms and four bathrooms that had been in the family for three generations so far, and Mark was looking forward to making it four. He didn’t know who he was going to find and love, and honestly the entire idea of being with another person just did not interest him, but he knew he wanted to raise kids of his own in this very same house. You know… theoretically.

Today was a big day of decisions, and Mark did not like it at all.

Mom said, “I’m laying out all the options. I want you to be happy, Mark.” She smiled, saying, “I’m already happy as long as I have you two boys with me. That’s all I care about.”

Dad smiled wide.

Mark had nothing else to say about anything.

They ate dinner in silence, and in thought. Mark was fine with the lack of conversation. He had a lot to think about already.

And then Dad leaned over and kissed Mom on the cheek, and Mark looked away, ignoring whatever small words Mom was whispering to Dad.

Mark was glad he had chosen to live on the other side of the house. That was one of the first things he had done once he was old enough to recognize the noises his parents made at night.

Being far away from Mom and Dad’s rooms made it easier to sneak out of the house, too.