Chapter 62: Chapter 62 : Birth Of Silver

Fusion.

The two’s ability to fuse wasn’t something that they purposely created, but something they stumbled upon.

It happened on their second day in the Orchard District. The duo was in the Mental Space, experimenting.

The experiment’s focus was on the Mental Link, more specifically, its limits. It had already shown the ability to transfer visual and audio information, sensory information, and even emotions. This feat alone put the telepathic link at High Telepath-level. However, there was still one level of information above these, memories.

Could they transfer memories?

Curious, they gave it a shot.

But how would one even give it a shot?

To answer this, it was important to understand some basic facts about the Mental Link.

The Mental Link was the term for the telepathic transfer of information between Ralf and Rei.

This form of communication was only possible due to their Soul Cores’ arrangement. The two Soul Cores being in direct contact is what allowed the two to exchange information back and forth.

The Mental Link’s establishment depended on both parties ‘agreement’. The spheres were always in contact after all. If the information could flow freely, Ralf or Rei’s thoughts or other types of information would be constantly shared. The fact that it wasn’t the case made it clear that there were mental barriers in place that prevented it. Conscious of this fact, the two became adept at strengthening and weakening them.

Finally, the quality of information that could be transferred between the two depended on how much the two spheres were overlapping. The more they overlapped, the greater the quality of information that could be transferred.

The matter of shifting their Soul Core’s positions wasn’t something they could clearly perceive. Instead, it was something they understood to be happening on an intuitive level.

They felt a clear shift happening when they went from trading thoughts to when they shared sensory data.

The two had the ability to shift the position of their Soul Cores. But this ability was very limited. They couldn’t move in whatever direction they wanted to. The duo was stuck on a horizontal axis and could only move forth and back. Forth as in, towards the other Soul Core, and back as in, back to their original positions. The two couldn’t move their Soul Cores further back than that.

With this understood, Ralf and Rei dropped all mental barriers and directed their Soul Cores towards each other.

True to their expectations, memories, both short and long term could indeed be transferred between the two.

Memories of a book Rei had read only an hour earlier were transmitted perfectly into Ralf’s mind.

This was a cause for great jubilation, but the two didn’t go into celebration mode over the fact. Instead, their attention was drawn to the fact that they could still shift closer to each other after transferring memories.

This was strange.

Memory was the highest quality of information that could be transferred according to the books, so what lay beyond that? Wanting to find out, the two shifted their Soul Cores closer.

Being in totally unexplored territory, the two moved cautiously. They inched forward then pulled back quickly. They repeated this dance over and over, staying sharp for any signs of danger. However, these never came, in fact, it was the opposite.

The two experienced an increasing sense of bliss, pleasure and fulfilment, the further they overlapped. After a few minutes of dipping their feet and experiencing no obvious negative effects, the two decided to go for it. Rei’s tiny Soul Core plunged into the ocean that was Ralf’s Soul Core until it disappeared entirely.

And then it happened.

Once fully overlapped, the two’s Soul Cores were visited by a great vibration. They felt the fabric of their Soul Cores being torn up and split into countless fragments.

It was frightening to describe, and yet when the two thought back on those passing moments, they were perfectly calm, as if everything that was happening was as it should be.

They were justified in their thinking as after both Soul Cores were split into countless fragments, those countless fragments immediately began forming up and constructing a new sphere.

The planetary size of the Soul Core made for a lengthy construction process, still, they couldn’t complain. It was strange; instead of two individuals fusing to become something new, they felt as though they were simply returning to their original form. The more of the Soul Core that formed, the greater their feelings of bliss, comfort and completeness rose.

Once all the pieces of this gigantic puzzle fell in place, Rei and Ralf’s fused form, Silver was born.

Their memories, personality traits, viewpoints, abilities, skills, etc. He was a product of the entirety of the duo’s experiences and more. He was a being who identified as both Ralf and Rei, and also himself, simultaneously. One would expect such a paradoxical state of existence to be jarring, but Silver slipped into this identity comfortably, as though it were a tailor-made suit.

Silver?

About the name, it wasn’t chosen by either Ralf or Rei, but Silver himself. After constructing a third couch, noticeably larger than the other two, he took a seat, reclined back, and spoke the following words.

I stand above all, with only myself to compete against. I walk a path unknown to fate nor myself, I am...Silver.

With these words spoken, their fused form was officially recognized as ‘Silver’.

After a minute of appreciating his existence, Silver wondered whether this fusion was permanent. It turned out it wasn’t. With a simple thought, the fused Soul Core came undone and the two returned to being Ralf and Rei.

The aftermath of fusion was one of emotional upheaval. The new memories they had gained from the experience left them with a lot to process.

Ralf learned of the thirteen years of Rei’s life he had been ignorant about; Roger’s abandoning of Rei, the treatment Rei faced at the orphanage, the helplessness, anger, and frustration he felt as he clenched the thin bed sheets at night…

His heart bled at his other self’s plight and a fit of incomparable anger surged in him at those responsible. It wasn’t all negative though. Rei’s feelings and thoughts since coming to his world were relayed as well. The gratitude, happiness, and sense of fulfilment that Rei experienced while here, as well as Rei’s feeling of affection for him, filled Ralf with positive emotions.

While becoming Silver had greatly affected Ralf, its effect on Rei was far greater. Ralf’s experience occupying Rei’s body made it much easier for him to digest. But for Rei, he was forced to swallow a food unknown and had a tough time with it.

Ralf’s entire life, from birth to the present day became known to him. It was a life far more pleasant than his own, but it still had its bitter moments. The frequent travels had brought him many relationships, but all were shallow and short-lived.

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Rei learned of Ralf’s resentment towards his father for his decision to prioritize strangers’ happiness over his family’s and came to firsthand experience the enormity of Ralf’s love for his mother. The love rubbed off on him and lead to the event that would happen a few days later. Similarly massive in scale was Ralf’s love for him. Coming to truly understand how his other self viewed him was an eye-opener and a heart warmer.

Overwhelmed with emotion, Rei did what he had never done, and that was, initiate a hug.

The sudden embrace was enough to blow all Ralf’s thoughts and concerns away. He returned it, and the two remained like that for quite some time.

After separating, the two entered their private domes and spent a few hours trying to recoil from the experience and think about where they would go from there.

Five hours later, they met up at the couches and discussed their thoughts. As usual, they were in parallel.

While their fused form hadn’t changed their Unique or Telekinetic Psi Rank, they could sense a noticeable stat difference between Silver and themselves as individuals, just from their short stint as him.

They were curious about the areas in which Silver exceeded them and the extent to which he did. If it was just because of the additional memories, then there should be no difference, as Ralf and Rei came to possess all the same memories in the aftermath.

Was the feeling of superiority an illusion akin to a mirage in the desert or was it something more concrete?

The two were curious to find out.

After mentally preparing themselves, the two attempted fusion once again. Things went off without a hitch. The fusing process was significantly faster, taking less than a blink of an eye to complete.

After creating and registering an avatar for himself, Silver began running the tests.

The first thing that stood out when becoming Silver was the absurd speeds they felt his mental cogs spinning at.

The duo, especially Rei, had been called genius throughout their lives and understood that their mental cogs spun at uncommon speeds. However, compared to Silver’s, even their genius-level mental cogs came off as sluggish and rusty.

Still, this was only a feeling. To confirm it, they needed tests. And so, they constructed a few simple intelligence tests. The Randomizer was instrumental in them.

Solving a hundred simple equations created using random values; solving a hundred randomly created Rubik’s Cubes consecutively; a chimp test, number sequence memory, visual memory using blocks…

Silver did them all. Then, defusing, Ralf and Rei did the same. When the numbers were in, their internal feelings were validated. While Ralf and Rei’s scores were very close to each other, there was a significant gap between them and Silver’s.

But as nifty as these were, these higher mental capabilities didn’t make much of a difference in combat…at least, this was the case during the Consolidation Phase.

Silver’s superiority became very apparent after their Telekinetic powers became usable.

The intense information-dense Telekinetic battles were where his increased intelligence showed its true worth. His ability to calculate possibilities bordered on precognition.

Rei and Ralf could ‘peek into the future’ as well, but nowhere as clearly or as far as Silver could.

The advantages didn’t end there.

Silver’s slightly higher Psi Capacity wasn’t worth mentioning, but the same couldn’t be said of his more abundant and higher quality Mental Energy. It allowed Silver’s Psi to move at speeds nearly fifty percent quicker than either Ralf or Rei could.

This, when combined with his incredible processing ability, put Silver’s combat prowess far above the two.

As a testament to this prowess, Silver went on to shatter every Mental Space record there was. Hoodlum Paradise’s third level for example, which had been impossible for either Ralf or Rei to clear, had been cleared effortlessly by him.

The question of who would fight their important life and death battles wasn’t up in the air or a coin flip any longer, it would undoubtedly be Silver.

A monster made of monsters.

Now, this monster was summoned to deal with real monsters.

His eyelids slowly opened, revealing an aloof gaze; in it, a light believing itself to be the brightest in all of creation, shone.

His arrival was immediately felt.

An invisible wave rippled out from him, silencing and petrifying all it touched. The previously frenzied goblins froze in place as they sensed the stark change. The soul before them had somehow managed to before even more delectable.

“Krrrrrrr!”

Their instincts went ballistic, and a second later, they collectively exploded into action. Shrieking at ear-shattering volumes, they rushed forward.

On the other end of this mad rush, Silver blinked slowly, disdain bleeding from his eyes as he did.

‘Summoning me to deal with these lowly creatures, haa, we’ll have to talk about this later, for now…’

Swoosh!

Leaping high in the sky, Silver avoided getting dogpiled on. Doing a nonchalant backflip, he drew out his pistol and machine and aimed downward.

‘...let’s end this quickly.’

Following the thought, the sound of gunshots rang out loudly.

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