“Mn…”
Sirius lifted his heavy eyelids. The light from the room briefly blinded his eyes, causing his eyes to squint. His vision cleared up after several blinks. The faint scent of disinfectant greeted his nose. The atmosphere unique to a hospital made Sirius feel dizzy.
“That was quite the story you have, assistant.”
“..?”
He turned his head around, stopping to his right. The large brimmed conical hat blocked a good portion of the light coming from the ceiling. It cast a shadow over Herta’s face, though it did nothing to hide her beauty.
Upon meeting her teasing gaze, Sirius’ heart skipped a beat. His brain recollected everything he experienced before stopping in his absurd dream. There, he dreamt of Herta as a Witch, her puppets as the seven dwarves, and a familiar character as the Prince.
Laughably, he took on the role of Snow White!
Confoundment appeared on his face, followed by sky-high embarrassment. Sirius shifted his gaze away from Herta while covering his face with both hands. Underneath it, his face looked like it was crying, and at the same time, laughing.
‘Fuck this. I won’t be able to mentally recover from it!’
He tried to regain his composure with a deep sigh, but to no avail. The back of his neck felt chilly as he imagined Herta’s contemptuous gaze.
“I also did not expect you would think too highly of me. Otherwise, I would not have been able to act as quickly, defeating that thieving woman.”
“...”
Her words served as a critical strike to his heart. Sirius was thoroughly, absolutely, and completely defeated. Having resigned to his fate, his mind went to what Herta said just now.
‘That was Black Swan, wasn’t it?’
Sirius was familiar with that mysterious woman. Before his death, she contributed a lot to the plot of the main characters. She was one of the earliest to hint on Trailblaze’s secrets. Her identity remained a mystery even before he died. All he knew was that she was a ‘rebel’ of the Garden of Recollection—the “official” organization for the Pathstriders of Remembrance.
Notably, those guys are also known as ‘Memokeepers’. They deal with ‘memories’ in all sorts of ways.
‘Memories… How much did I spill?’
Sirius’ heart turned cold at that thought. His mind went into an unprecedented calm. The memories of his past life was one thing; the ‘secret’ behind his reincarnation was another.
Herta saw through his nervousness with a glance.
“You don’t have to worry much. I acted first before she could dig up your childhood memories.”
‘...Shit.’
Although Sirius felt somewhat relieved, the thought of Herta seeing his own childhood memories slapped another layer of shame to his face. And as he had expected, she did not deny seeing them.
‘Can’t it get any worse?’
Unfortunately for him…
It did.
“Guess how I woke you up?”
Sirius’ brain crashed.
*****
Snow White ate a poisoned apple, falling into eternal slumber. She danced between the state of life and death. Only the sincerest kiss of a charming prince is capable of waking her up. Thus, they held a wedding and made the evil stepmother dance in hot iron shoes, leading to her death.
“So it’s like that…”
Sirius wanted to slap himself for feeling a little bit disappointed. Herta clarified it right after; she did not follow the fairy tale’s development. Then again, he didn’t know how to handle such a thing if it had truly happened.
After playing that prank, Herta left, satisfied. Sirius felt suffocated being inside the hospital room, hence he went to the tower's stargazing platform. The midday sun briefly blinded his eyes. Faint heatwaves brushed on his cheek. Thick clouds of dust were swept away by the wind. The aftermath of the disaster’s devastation was clearly presented in his eyes. Only the tower he stayed at remained unaffected, as if it was cut off from the rest of the world.
Sirius stared at the outside world in a daze.
‘I slept for an entire night.’
He woke up yesterday with the mindset of it being like any other day. He was prepared to do his daily tasks with Herta when an earthquake shook the entire world. He experienced a multitude of major events that left him breathless. Nobody told him another ‘end of the world calamity’ was going to strike.
The data presented at the large, theater-like screen flashed in his mind.
‘Solitary Waves Theory.’
It is said that ‘time’ existed in the fourth dimension. The addition of another vector made things a lot more complicated. At first, time was said to be linear. Later discoveries showed it is relative to one’s position at a point in space. Then came a question. Light has its constant, and so does gravity, temperature, and so on.
Why wouldn’t time have one?
With that line of thought, she began searching for the ‘constant’ of time. It was an extremely huge undertaking. Something that hasn’t been discovered by anyone else in the universe, given their highly advanced technology and access to knowledge, was destined to be a ‘problem’ that plagued the cosmos for eons.
It has been millions of years since the first sign of civilization arose. Yet nobody hasn’t found this imaginary constant. It is something befitting of being in the ‘Fourth Cosmic Conundrum’.
The one who pushed the first step was Patavia Adler Sommerville. She detected a mysterious signal on the imaginary background every thirteen minutes. She wasn’t able to complete it, though she managed to inscribe the prototype of the Solitary Waves Theory. This knowledge was recorded by the Path of Erudition.
Finally, it landed on Herta’s grasp. Intrigued by its sheer difficulty and intricacy, she took on the challenge of solving it.
She managed to pull it off in the end.
The mysterious signal was a temporal constant that appeared every thirteen minutes. It is split into stable and unstable states. The former occurs when the future remains stable. The latter takes place when a ‘disturbance’ exceeds the constant’s limits, turning the future into a chaotic mess. The main cause of these disturbances are none other than the Paths.
In short, the future becomes pre-destined or chaotic depending on the situation, much like the wave-particle theory of quantum mechanics.
‘Judging from her appearance, she’s definitely an Emanator now.’
That wasn’t only Sirius’ thoughts. He also does not know how much of his memories Herta had seen. As much as he wanted to ask her upfront, shame filled his being earlier. He wasn’t able to think properly.
All of it coalesced into a deep sigh.
‘It’s strange… It didn’t bother me.’
Herta’s ascension to Emanatorhood removed his chances of earning that ‘validation’. He desperately raced against time in the past, hopping from one field onto another, only to end up in failure. Yet he did not feel as burdened as he thought. The weight of his failure seemed rather trivial. The realizations he had yesterday changed him in unseen ways. Even Sirius doesn’t know what changed in him.
One thing was certain, still.
‘I am no longer that wreck.’
Sirius bid farewell to his pathetic self—to the version of himself whose self-hatred and self-loathing reached an extreme point. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he became a Pathstrider of Nihility or Destruction because of it. He seemed to have lucked it out this time. The activation of [Heaven Sometimes Rewards Hard Work] caused him to become a Pathstrider of Erudition.
“...Right. I almost forgot about this.”
Sirius closed his eyes. The hot temperature around him disappeared in a flash. When he opened his eyes, he was in a pitch-black space. He stood on its crystal-like surface that reflected his entire body.
‘A mental landscape that isn’t a part of Blade Mantra.’
Earlier on, he planned to expound on Fu Hua’s Blade Mantra. He wanted to use his green trait to obtain its full version, or at least a part of it. Part of its abilities is to regulate one’s emotion, forcing it into a calm state. It also allows someone to enter their mental landscape, whether it was to face enemies or to check on memories.
Because of his green trait’s ‘activation’, he gained this ability without Blade Mantra. Sirius felt very certain it was because of his trait despite not having any proof. This ‘certainty’ felt strange to him, hence he decided to uncover its truth first.
“It should be here.”
A white cloud appeared in front of him. His memories appeared on its surface like a virtual projection. The memories went beyond his childhood, heading straight to his memories prior to his death.
At that time, Sirius felt nothing but extreme pain. He was delirious, hallucinations overtaking his sight. Time felt very slow to his eyes at that time. Then, a piece of paper emerged out of nowhere. A blink later and he found himself floating in a starry sky. Strangely, the Sirius in this memory had blank irises.
“So this is what happened.”
He didn’t have any recollection of it at all. The first thing he remembered was being pulled out of his mother’s womb—a cesarean section. Memories about the talent ranks and the three traits he drew were engraved in his mind. How he knew it remained a mystery up until now.
Swoosh-!
He expanded the cloud’s size. It overlapped with the space he stood on. Sirius strolled to his place in this memory and looked at the piece of paper made of white light. Its contents changed rapidly, showing all sorts of colors, before stopping.
From above, it was written:
Traits: White, Blue, Green, Purple, Orange, Red, Gold, Prismatic
Heaven Sometimes Reward Hard Work · Green
Some effort will yield success and divine favor, skipping the process of a thousand steps to achieve a result. Heaven’s grace is limited, still.
Chef · Blue
Every meal you create will spawn unknown, beneficial effects. People will find it hard to extricate themselves from it.
Ordinary · White
Born to be mundane, death as mundane. Nobody will remember your appearance in the sea of crowds, forgotten in the passing wind.
Sirius’ eyes became glued to that piece of paper. To his surprise, it disappeared in a blink. There were no signs whatsoever.
‘My head felt cooler?’
He was determined to dig up the secrets of his reincarnation, hence he went through his memories again. Unexpectedly, he found something. Every time the bell rang, it signified the activation of his [Heaven Sometimes Rewards Hard Work] trait. There was nothing else aside from its sharp and grating sound.
It was different now.
‘Physical constitution enhanced.’
Something akin to a ‘translator’ popped up inside Sirius’ head. He understood the bell sounds weren’t simply bell sounds, but rather, information transmitted directly to him. He was too weak before, which prevented him from thoroughly understanding them.
‘Physical constitution enhanced.’
‘Physical constitution enhanced.’
‘Related knowledge imparted.’
‘Muscle reflex ingrained.’
The first few activations were all related to physical actions. Only after he used it on studying that another prompt popped up. Then came the third one, which resulted from playing pickleball. It was also the same prompt when he learned baji and dancing, amidst everything else.
The subsequent prompts were between the three, up until Sirius triggered it yesterday.
‘Mental landscape unlocked.’
He double checked it on his memories for the third time and ended up with the same results. When he looked for the memory of that piece of paper, it was nowhere to be found. Still, he remembered it vividly.
Satisfied, Sirius exited his mental landscape. Though he did not have much gain, he solved the ‘mystery’ of his reincarnation—the piece of paper he once forgot.
‘The first three are relatively easy to trigger. The last one is the hardest.’
He thought of what he did at that time. Sirius did not do complex mental gymnastics. The time of his trait’s activation coincided with his realizations—his self-reflection, per se. That was what allowed him to unlock his mental landscape. The direction of his development became a bit clearer now.
‘Self-reflection. I need to add this to my schedule.’
Sirius decided to come back inside. The outside world wasn’t pleasant with all the dirt, smoke, and dust flying around. The harsh sunlight was blocked by these particles, appearing dim by the time they touched his skin. Compared to the scent of disinfectant and staleness inside the medical room, it is more suffocating.
‘I should cut down my research on other fields. It is better if I will focus on simpler, undiscovered things. Blade Mantra is a good entry point…’
Though the world felt suffocating, Sirius felt liberated more than ever.