Chapter 17: Scrutiny

Unsurprisingly, Markus passed out in exhaustion.

"The poor boy was holding in a lot," Al commented as he carefully inspected the sleeping Markus' condition.

Al and Guy were now back at Markus' dormitory.

"I can imagine. I've seen kids like this before. He had nearly lost all hope. His soul was burnt-out and lifeless," Guy spoke morosely.

"By the way, where did you find that spell? I've never seen anything like this before," Al asked inquisitively.

"Umm," Guy searched for a decent response. He didn't want to tell him that he made it himself. While it would be the truth, Al wouldn't believe him, and in the end, it would only alienate their relationship as Al would think Guy was trying to be disingenuous.

Al thought he stepped on some forbidden ground. There were always secrets when it came to cultivating. "If it's a secret, you don't have to say anything," he said while trying to smooth things out.

Guy shook his head in reply, "It's not that I don't want to tell you. I'm just apprehensive because I worry that you won't believe it..."

Al tilted his head in contemplation, and smiled, "You can try me."

Guy wore a shy expression and replied, "Back when I was at the orphanage, a travelling merchant once passed by and sold a large stack of books that talked about strange ideas and inventions. At first, I read it for fun. But over time some things started to make sense. However once I grew up, I kind of threw them away at the back of my mind. When I was struggling to come up with a solution for Markus, my mind just recollected all that information and I felt it wouldn't hurt to try it out."

Of course, that was all a lie. If the old Guy had such an encounter, he wouldn't have been stuck in such a dead-end position.

Actually, Guy formulated this backstory based on a whim. He didn't want to leave any loose ends that Al could later catch onto, and so he thought that it would be best to chuck all of it to a fortunate encounter in his past. Nearly all successful mages had such encounters, so Guy figured that Al wouldn't pursue it any further.

Al nodded and then shrugged, "I guess you had a fortuitous encounter. Those things are few and far between. Surprisingly it was more helpful for your student than yourself," he commented as he turned to face the sleeping Markus.

Al tapped his thighs as he stood up, "Alright then. It's getting pretty late. Why don't we discuss this again tomorrow? I'm really interested to know more about it!"

And with that Al departed from the dorm.

Watching Al's departing figure, Guy exhaled in relief. He had his fingers crossed and his breath held the entire time. He worried Al wouldn't be convinced and would push him to reveal more. Seeing as his gambit worked, Guy was relieved.

He then turned to face the unconscious figure in bed and smiled bitterly. On one hand, Guy was happy that Markus had such an emotional catharsis. But on the other, he was worried by the sheer magnitude of the release. It was extremely unhealthy for an adolescent to hold in so much. And so, Guy decided to stay back until Markus woke up and smooth things out through a meaningful heart-to-heart conversation.

____

[There's a discontinuity here!] #**$#@, or Tron for the lower-dimensional peasant-folk, exclaimed as he rewatched the sequence of events leading up to a sudden surge in progress.

Through past experience, he had a general idea of how sentient beings in a world developed.

There were usually one of two trajectories. The first, and the one he hated the most, was the sequence based on non-secular reasoning. In his old world, one of the more advanced sentient species saw a tree fall in the forest. Unlike its brethren, the being decided to ponder on why the tree fell. Who was pulling the tree down?

The being looked around but didn't find anyone. Considering itself to be smart, it decided to recruit a few of its kind and started to dig under the fallen tree. Maybe there was someone below pulling it down.

After an unsuccessful excavation, all it was left with were a few bruises after its brethren vented their anger for wasting their time, a massive hole in the ground, and a lingering question.

Who pulled the tree down? Who pulled me down? Who's pulling everyone down? Give me answers damn it!

Screaming into the high heavens, it still didn't receive any answers. At the point of giving up, the being had an epiphany.

'Of course!' it exclaimed. 'It has to be the almighty Earth Spirit,' it concluded. And thus the lore of how the Earth Spirit was holding down the world was born.

Tron hated these. The conclusion was never built on facts, and it always irked him when the sentient beings attributed his designs to an artificial construct.

[It's not the Earth Spirit damn it!] He would scream. Alas, no one would hear it.

He didn't have a god complex per se. It's just that he preferred it when the discovery was properly supported and disputable. Because it was only then that society would advance, and new creative juices would flow. And creativity was how the world builders thrived.

Apart from a stable world, a world builder aimed for a world that could output a lot of creativity. It was an abstract concept, but for the inherently insipid world builders, the machinations of the sentients in their worlds were equivalent to giving colourblind glasses to a colourblind person. Once a sentient being in their world expired, their soul, or the core of their being, is absorbed by the builders and gets recycled. During absorption, the builders get to experience everything the being went through in its life cycle.

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A few world builders would simply create a basic world that could sustain itself for eternity. But that was never enjoyable. How fun would it be to observe balls of gases or rocks floating in a void? Sure the world builders would live, but their life would be devoid of any colour.

And while most world builders usually registered creative progression once they received feedback from deceased souls, Tron was an experienced veteran. He already had another world that was in its mid to late stages of development. He had formulated a method to gauge progression in its early stages. It was an arcane process - not something lower-dimensional beings could fathom.

[How did he come up with this idea? He didn't read any books about it. There shouldn't be any books about it yet. This progress doesn't follow the proper sequence,] Tron murmured as he metaphorically scratched his head.

He was currently observing the series of events leading up to when Guy first cast the modified firestarter spell.

[Let's see here…] Tron scrolled through the timeline. [He spent three weeks without making any progress, and then a massive leap within 2 hours!]

[Who is this guy? How did I miss him?] Tron went further back.

[Wait a minute, I remember this one!] Tron recollected the time when a particular mismatch in the sentient soul balance sheet had occurred.

[He was ready to commit suicide here. But then not a minute later he changed his mind?]

Tron scratched his head as he tried to decipher what was happening. For a logical being such as himself, it made absolutely no sense.

[And what the heck?! He lied over here,] Tron exclaimed as he saw how seamlessly Guy stitched together some bullshit about a fortuitous encounter. [He's hiding something!]

[I can't take this! I need to check this out myself!] Tron declared and zoomed into Guy, who was currently sleeping while seated on a chair in Markus' dorm.

Guy was sound asleep on the chair next to Markus' bed. He was initially waiting for Markus to wake up, but in the process, his drowsiness got the best of him and he nodded to sleep.

All of a sudden, an immense pressure descended on him, which jolted him awake. It the same feeling he experienced when he first entered this world. Mast's brother was observing him in person.

Struggling to catch his breath, Guy slid limply from his seat and started to crawl towards the window. As he fell with a thud, he caused Markus to wake up. Noticing that his teacher was struggling on the floor, Markus quickly got up from his bed and rushed towards Guy.

"Teacher Larks!" he exclaimed as he grabbed Guy under his shoulders and supported him to stand up.

"Teacher Larks…. I…." Markus started to panic! He was just a 12-year-old boy. It looked as if his teacher was drowning. He didn't know what to do.

Just as Markus was about to break down, the pressure lifted from Guy. He wheezed as he tried to catch his breath. The experience was much worse than before, at least back then the observation was only cursory. This felt as if someone was digging into his soul and putting it under a microscope. He definitely did not want to experience this ever again.

'Mast! What happened?' Guy interrogated.

(My brother got suspicious. The spell you made was a massive leap in advancement in this world. It caught my brother's attention. And well, your history doesn't offer a genuine sequence to support it,) Mast replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

'You should have told me to be careful! I nearly died!' Guy cursed.

Mast shook his head and replied, (He can't kill you. If he does it would cause this world to collapse.)

'But still… I felt as if I was drowning,' Guy mumbled

(Don't worry. You've set a precedent, so anything you do from now on shouldn't raise his suspicion. Besides, as long as I'm inside you, he won't know a thing!)

Markus interrupted Guy's internal conversation with a worried probe, "Sir, are you alright?"

This caused Guy to turn ad face the panicking boy close to tears. Guy's heart softened and he gently patted Markus' shoulders, while he stood up shakily.

"Don't worry about it. It's a persistent health issue. Happens from time to time. I'm sorry for causing you to worry."

Markus sighed in relief. He quickly rushed to his study desk and poured out a glass of water. He carefully handed the glass to Guy and sat down obediently on his bed.

Guy downed the entire glass and placed it on the bedside table next to him.

Markus broke the lingering silence first by saying, "Teacher Larks… I…" he quickly stood up and bowed at a complete ninety degrees. This was a sign of respect in this world.

"I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart! I don't have much to offer as a token of gratitude, and I know that I'm being presumptuous with this request, but I implore you that you please accept me as your disciple!" Markus exclaimed without stop.

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