The cafeteria was, unsurprisingly, fitted personally by Sirius. He was the only chef inside the space station for the time being. While Herta knew how to cook, why would she?
There’s a reason she left her curio factory of a boyfriend cook.
“I thought it’s better to go with something light.”
A simple scrambled egg with tomatoes was presented on the table, along with two stacks of honey-glazed pancakes. To balance the sweetness, there were strips of crisp bacon, not too toasted nor too soft. Placed beside them all
His green trait hasn't been activated on cooking yet. Inevitably, it falls a bit short on culinary masters, but there was something he had that they did not.
The blue trait.
It imbued his cooking with ‘special effects’, or in other terms, buffs. Sirius explored it a lot and discovered that as long as he had a specific thought in mind, his cooking would end up giving ‘buffs’ that matched it.
Unbeknownst to him, Herta beat Sirius to it.
She knew more about his curios than he ever did.
Her right hand picked up the fork, pieced a portion of the scrambled eggs, and put it onto her mouth. Her tongue immediately received its taste. As Sirius had expected, it wasn’t anything mind-blowing. The scrambled eggs took like five minutes to cook. There was, however, a ‘unique’ taste to it.
Beyond the gradually increasing relief her body felt, Herta ‘tasted’ something else.
‘Thoughts… He served them on a platter.’
Memories.
The blue trait was shaped by Sirius’ thoughts, in turn carrying them.
In the past, Sirius’ cooking was partly out of curiosity, to see the real Herta. Another was out of obligation, as an employee who took Herta’s money. Finally, there was that bitter obsession over gaining her validation. Sirius’ thoughts were so complex most would find it taxing to eat his dish. But not Herta. She was interested in dissecting him at that time, not in a literal sense, but psychological. A game of cat and mouse, if she may.
When she stopped viewing him as an experimental subject, the last emotion changed. Though the first two remained, nonetheless.
Today, it was different.
There was only one thought within his dishes.
Concern.
Sirius only thought about how to make her body recover. Their tossing and turning did, after all, take two entire days. If they hadn’t called for ‘room service’ and asked for water, they wouldn’t have pulled it off at all.
It was this sincerity that filled the otherwise normal dishes.
Herta did not say anything, though Sirius sensed that her mood got better. It was rare to see her express ‘joy’ outwardly, unless it was during their most private time. Just like her, Sirius felt that ‘sweet’ feeling that went far beyond mere satisfaction.
His eyes never left Herta once. The latter noticed it and reciprocated her gaze.
“The food will get cold, you know?” She said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Or do you fancy it cold?”
Her usual semi-sarcastic remarks seemed a lot cuter this time. Sirius did not evade her gaze, nor did he back down. Their first time gave him backbone—and by that, he meant a lot.
“Both are fine.”
Though he did not say anything else, his smile told Herta everything. He meant something by that. She merely rolled his eyes at him, with her leather boots lightly kicking his leg, before letting out a scoff.
It was this action that made Sirius feel weak, however. Herta saw her victory and flashed a smile. She continued eating their breakfast with more relish, savoring the ‘emotions’ brewing inside her.
He, on the other hand, had his weakness bar broken. He was stunned on his turn, incapable of making another move. Sirius’ right hand touched his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeats.
‘Why haven’t I noticed her cute side until now…?’
*****
The Blue fell into a peaceful, rapidly progressing era. The existence of the IPC connected this world to countless others, bringing forth countless opportunities. There were people who left The Blue to establish themselves on other worlds, while there were also people who joined the IPC in hopes of furthering their career.
The damages from the cataclysmic earthquake had long since disappeared. Its only proof of existence were the words written on history books and websites. The one who made the biggest stir was, undoubtedly, the newest Emanator of Erudition.
Madam Herta.
The first thing she did was to publish her study that made her an Emanator, the Solitary Waves Theory, to the Intelligentsia Guild’s database. It spread faster than the Anti-Organic Equation, making countless scholars’ jaws drop in shock. Her study proved that the future was predetermined. That state of predetermination was broken by the Aeons’ interference, however.
In terms of significance, it was akin to Paul Dirac’s paper on the principles of Quantum Mechanics, at least on Sirius’ past life!
When everyone thought she would stop there, she did not. In collaboration with the Planet Screwllum, the IPC, and a dozen other organizations, she released a ‘health product’ targeted to short-lived lifeforms.
Although Paths existed, there were still numerous of them. A single The Blue housed billions in population. In the span of eight years, she paid back her debt to the IPC and was left with so much more. Herta did not stop releasing newer products and research papers, thoroughly earning her prestige in the vast cosmos.
Nonetheless, there were still a lot of things around her that remained a mystery.
For once…
One person had been by her side since the beginning.
‘What kind of difficulty did she ramp it up on?’
Sirius looked around his surroundings, feeling a bit speechless. His feet sank on the golden sand. The scorching heat of the sun above penetrated his black windbreaker, making him sweat. Particles of sand were swept by the gusts of wind, some flying right on his eyes. The pair of sunglasses he got before the entire simulation started became his saving grace.
It is right.
This entire desert was nothing but a simulation!
He was clearly accustomed to this kind of harsh environment. Several times, he went on trips to other worlds with Herta. It was either for her ‘research’, to get ‘something’, or to taunt Aeons into gazing upon her. Unfortunately, the last one hasn’t happened once. Nanook’s gaze was the most recent out of all her attempts, and that was an inadvertent one.
Since then, the two had their ‘exclusive’ trips, and this desert was one of them.
‘We fought a wannabe Antimatter Legion dragon here.’
Sirius reminisced about one of their memories related to this place. Herta stepped in at that time, ultimately severing the dragon’s wings in a single strike. The brutal dismantling job fell to him, ending its pitiful life.
Rumble-!
Not long after he thought of it, the ground quaked. The sand beneath his feet started falling into a newly-opened sinkhole. Its cracks continued to extend towards his direction, forcing Sirius to run. The moment he did so, he kicked up a cloud of dust. His body soon gained enough momentum, running at a speed far surpassing any other cars.
Pzzt-!
A flicker of blue lightning emerged from his left hand, forming a sleek black handgun. The strangest thing on it was its lack of trigger. It had the enclosure for it, yet it did not have one. It also did not have a barrel at the back, nor did it have a slider. It might as well be a gun-shaped wood block, or so many would think.
‘Think, think. A drop of water falling on a calm lake!’
Ripple-!
His mental imagery was met with his mental landscape’s awakening. It was one of the things he practiced on. As long as he attached an extremely clear and vivid imagery to the thought of ‘opening’ his mental landscape, he could access all seven of its abilities without uncontrollably entering inside.
The moment he accessed it, Sirius immediately eyed its seventh ability—partial imaginary control. He called it a ‘discount’ Blade Eminence in the past, which was a move that originated on this world’s Earth. ‘Blade Eminence’ was a finisher built entirely out of “honkai energy”, a derivative form of imaginary energy. It would obliterate anything in its way, essentially a death ray far more potent than antimatter energy cannons.
Currently, it was Sirius’ most lethal move—one he does not hesitate to use.
Click-!
The lines from the gun’s barrel to its handle lit up with bright blue light. On his left eye, a virtual screen only he could see appeared. The screen’s upper right corner indicated the distance of him from the “x” target. Opposite it was a DMS format coordinate system (Degree-Minute-Second), indicating the gun barrel’s angle to the “x” target. Lastly, the bottom left indicator showed the ‘READY’ status of his selected ‘ammunition’.
Rumble-!
Several more sinkholes appeared around Sirius. It started as a shallow hole, but it expanded to the point it could swallow five humans whole.
‘No, something’s there..!’
His keen hearing caught a trace of howling. The next moment, huge white worms emerged from it. They did not possess eyes, with their entire ‘face’ made up entirely of their mouth. Herta’s smile flashed in his mind as he realized he had been misled.
‘If she really spawned five dragons just for fun…’
Sirius was left with no time to contemplate. His legs got to running as far as he could. He wasn’t dumb enough to wait for their attack. If not, he would be the one initiating it.
Before long, the large bodies of the worms emerged on the surface. The virtual screen on his left hand gave an accurate measure of their height and length—thirty meters and a kilometer, respectively.
A chill went up his spine as he read it.
‘This won’t work. I can only fire it a few more times…’’
It has been eight years since he had the mental landscape. Through frequent self-reflection, Sirius managed to trigger his green trait thrice. Although the mental landscape did not visibly change, its ‘Path Energy Utilization’ passive had grown stronger. The brain enhancement Sirius received from the Erudition Path increased due to it.
While there weren’t any ‘rankings’ or ‘levels’ to it, Sirius still felt the effects it brought. His talent might not be able to match Herta’s nor any other Genius Society members, but he found it far easier to complete the tasks he did before. That included firing off the ‘death ray’ in his skillset.
Sirius scanned his surroundings and found not a single cover. He was left with no choice but to bait these worms out. He was lucky that their reaction time was lower than he expected, reducing the risks of baiting them out.
Whenever he came close to them, the worms’ large mouths opened, revealing layers upon layers of sharp white teeth inside. The sight of it made his skin crawl. He fought against it, regained his focus, and continued carrying his plan.
The moment all of the worms aligned in a single straight line, Sirius pointed his gun’s nozzle at them. The coordinate systems on his left eye shifted rapidly, following his thoughts, before calculating a clear shot.
A faint red line extended from the gun barrel, pointing towards the three aligned worms.
‘Think… An arrow whizzing past my ear.’
Sirius conjured another mental image, and in a split second, an invisible ‘ray’ shot out of the gun’s barrel. It had no shape nor form, retaining the characteristics of an ‘energy’. Large gaping holes appeared on the worms’ bodies. They looked like a circle-shaped eraser went through them. Dark green blood spilled out of it as their bodies fell to a thud.
Swooosh-!
A large amount of sand rose in conjunction. Sirius moved away from it. The cloud of dust could block his vision, making him unassuming for the ‘surprises’ to come. His eyes drifted to the sleek black gun he held. A smile uncontrollably rose from him.
‘A gun as a wand…’
The ‘gun’ in his hand wasn’t technically a gun, but rather, a gun-shaped wand. The inspiration came from a novel he had seen in his past life. Its plot was rather simple—widespread magic in an urban setting. They had things called ‘Casting Assistant Device’, which was basically a computer, but for magic. It helps the caster calculate for the coordinates, intensity, and duration of a spell. It was more of a ‘calculator’ rather than an ‘automated’ engine.
Sirius put forth that idea, leading to Herta’s brief interest in it. That was how the gun in his left hand came to be.
Just as he had slightly relaxed, large shadows cast over Sirius. He looked up, and there he saw them: ten dragons each the size of a commercial airplane.
‘She really did it…’