Jack very slowly took stock of his body. He had been bombarded with bits of broken metal and other debris. He felt bruises all over his arms and legs and a few cuts here and there but overall he was fine. Other than the potentially deadly metal needle next to his head there was no cause for concern following the explosion.

  “You guys ok out there?” Jack coughed.

  “Wow, even expecting it. That was a little shocking, a much larger reaction than I expected” Jack heard Turrel’s voice say.

  “Damn it, I’m fine, it's just a flesh wound.” Monty grunted. Jack heard a loud grunt followed by the sound of a large piece of metal hitting the ground. He felt like a slight breeze brushed past him in the direction he heard Monty speak from. It took him a second to realise it was the feeling of mana flowing and not air as he reasoned Monty was healing himself.

  Jack sighed as he tried to slowly sit up while avoiding parts of the broken machine above him as he heard someone approaching. He looked up as he ducked under a fallen section of the device that Turrel had started to hold up for him. Extracting himself from the table he shook himself off and glanced in the direction he had heard Monty.

  There, a few meters away stood Monty, on the ground in front of him was a meter long fragment of the machine. Part of it was covered in blood and when Jack looked at Monty he could see a large cut in his pants and a stain on the fabric. Monty saw Jack looking in his direction and dusted off his shoulders and the cut in his pants and walked towards him, showing no sign of any injury.

  “As I said Jack, no problem at all. What use is an abundance of life mana and the ability to heal if you don’t have reason to use it?”

  “Weren’t you the one talking to me about enduring pain and the impact of healing on the mind. Like just yesterday?” Jack replied, looking at the size of the metal on the ground and the lack of injury on Monty.

  “So part one is all done now right? On to Jack mastering his amplification control right?” Jack asked enthusiastically.

  Turrel looked between Jack and the destroyed machine and shook his head slightly. “Yes Jack, part one can be considered completed I think. As for your training, that is up to Montarg. I now have some paperwork and excuses to work through.” Glancing at Monty, he continued.

  “We should have at least a week before another device arrives, it is probably best you are not here when that happens. After it arrives we could probably postpone another week or two before it would be suspicious for us to not finalise your test.” Turrel seemed to be thinking through something and as he pondered Monty jumped in.

  “That sounds perfect, I have been thinking about what Jack said last night. I think some perspective might be useful for him and as enthralling as the lectures about our world are, maybe a more practical experience might sit better” Monty asked as he looked at Jack.

  Jack always did enjoy practical demonstrations more than classroom learning. While he felt he was being guided into a decision it was something he agreed with. He decided to reserve his judgement and simply nodded.

  “How about I have Jack back here in two days, while you sort all of this out. I can show him a little bit of the new world he is part of and hopefully help with setting some goals and motivations. We can get started on some training while we are at it.” He looked towards Turrel the way a child looked at their parents as they were laying out a detailed explanation on why ice cream was the best choice for dinner.

  “Montarg, you know it’s against the rules for him to leave…” Turrel sighed as he realised he had no counter-argument that would make sense. “None of that really matters at this point does it.” With pursed lips he looked at Monty and shook his head.

  “Fine, do what you want. He is in your care and he has to be back here in two days. Do not lose track of time. All of this is pointless if they send someone out and he is gone, Montarg.”

  Jack feeling like he was just told he could have a sleepover with the fun uncle was starting to feel a little excited. He had no idea at all what was happening or why Monty wanted to take him away or why that was a big deal. Still he had a lot of questions and while Turrel was great at answering his questions, he felt he had learned more from Monty already.

  “Haha, thank you Master Turrel. I promise to take good care of Jack and have him home before his bed time.” Monty bowed with a flourish in Turrel’s direction, then he turned to Jack. “Go pack your things Jack and I can show you my base of operations”

  “I feel that is a little mean, I literally have no things. Anyway lets go” Jack said feeling a rush of excitement at the thought of leaving the strange facility that had been his home for the last few days.

  As Jack followed Monty through the buildings they came to a room he had not been near before, unlike the other blocky buildings this one was circular and only had one entrance.

  “So what are we actually going to be doing? I agreed because Turrel looked busy and I really do think I learn better hands on” Jack commented.

  “I will keep some of it a surprise, but we are going to my base of operations. I want to show you a little of the world outside here. Hopefully ground you a little with a sense of scale and understanding of what comes next for you.” Monty said as he opened the doors and motioned for Jack to go through.

  As Jack went in, he immediately felt a charge in the air. This room felt dense, he felt a hum in the air and it ran across his mana sense. The room had an outer ring that he and Monty were standing in, glass and metal panels with strange etchings separated them from the inner ring. There was a raised platform inside and in the ceiling above hung a massive black gem. As he stared at the gem the hum in the air seemed to strengthen and he felt disorientated, the surface of it seemed to pulse and undulate . The black colour seemed to ripple with differing shades. Monty noticing his stare shook him a little.

  “Ahh I forgot you have the prism thing as well. Most people can’t feel the space frequency but I have heard it can be confusing. Eyes down and we should be ok.” Monty said as he walked a half circle and interacted with a panel. Jack followed the advice and kept his eyes away from the gem and tried to zone the hypnotic hum out. A section of the separating panel parted and they walked through to the inner platform.

  “This is a transporter, pretty cool stuff but where we are going next is cooler. It might feel a little strange the first time so brace yourself, in three … two …”

  Jack felt as if the floor dropped out from underneath him, he felt weightless for a moment and then a rushing sensation as if he had been flung into the air.

  “And one.” Monty finished with a twinkle in his eye as he stared at Jack hunched over on the floor.

  “Rude… ahhhh” Jack shivered as he tried to shake it off and take in his surroundings. He was in a room very similar to the one they had just come from. The main difference being the design and colour of the metal. While the facility they left felt clinical and new, this one felt used. Not in a dirty ‘Monty never cleans his room’ used, more of a lovingly appreciated but well used way. Looking around with open eyes he followed Monty who had straightened his shoulders a little and seemed a little more put together all of a sudden.

  “Ok, as fun as it has been, I have to put on the Lord Montarg persona a little more now. I am the captain of this ship after all. Try to follow my lead for a little bit, at least call me Montarg in public. I know the lord part might be hard” He winked as he led Jack out of the room and into a long industrial looking metal hallway.

  Jack tried to keep his cool, but from everything he had been picking up he was pretty sure he was somehow on a spaceship right now. The hallway looked straight out of a sci-fi story, he could almost hear the airlock sound of opening doors. He kind of expected his first time in space to feel different, like he should smell or taste something unique. It made sense if he just stepped out of a teleporter that shot him, who knows how far away in seconds that they had managed to sort out the gravity problem he supposed.

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  He turned to Monty as a thought flashed to the front of his mind. “Is it only humans that get affected by the mana wave? Turrel said something strange like ‘Compatible Life’ but you two both look human, or human adjacent I guess?”

  Monty laughed and turned to him. “Either Turrel has been slacking in his lectures or you zoned out a lot didn't you? No, it’s not just humans, you are about to meet a few other races in a moment. The guys that run the center control a lot of this. You got sent to Turrel because you are human. Turrel did my induction for the same reason and he reached out to me. It's a big world as I hope I can show you soon.”

  He straightened his shoulders again and walked off again, Jack hurried to follow.

  He had to admit, he had zoned a lot of Turrel’s earlier lectures out. In his defence it was a lot of information and he thought he was dreaming for a large part of it. If he had just been direct like Monty then Jack would have remembered much more.

  They approached the end of the hallway and it seemed to reach a junction. There were hallways to the left and right and directly in front of them was the air lock door he had been hoping for this entire walk. As Monty approached the heavy doors hissed open, sliding into the walls with a satisfying smoothness that Jack appreciated. Jack stepped through not knowing what to expect but he was met with silence and a view that stole the breath from his lungs.

  They had entered a semi-circular room where the outer wall was nothing but floor-to-ceiling glass. Jack wasn't even sure it was glass, it looked like there was nothing separating him from the void of space outside. There was a set of spiral stairs in the center of the room leading up to a floor above. He could hear the faint hum of activity and immediately pictured the star trek control room.

  Directly ahead, was a massive planet. It swirled with violent shades of violet and deep blues, storms shifting slowly across its surface. Beyond it, the star field stretched out infinitely, brighter and deeper than anything he had ever seen from in all of his hours of star gazing back home.

  Jack walked toward the edge, his feet moving on their own. He felt small, irrelevant. The sheer scale of it washed over him, making the stress of the last few days feel suddenly insignificant. He pressed his hand against the transparent material, half-expecting to feel the cold of space, but it was room temperature.

  “It tends to have that effect the first time,” a gravelly voice sounded from the corner of the room.

  Jack jumped, spinning around. He had been so captivated by the planet that he hadn’t even noticed the figure standing at a lone console near the wall.

  Standing there was a man—or at least, someone humanoid. He was tall, lanky, and his skin had a faint, granite-like texture to it, grey and rough. His eyes were a smokelike grey that almost seemed to swirl as he looked at Jack. He wore a uniform similar to the one Monty had when he first met him.

  “Jack, I want you to meet Riven. He is my Navigator and the one responsible for making sure we don’t teleport inside a star,” Monty said, walking over and clasping the man on the shoulder.

  “Nice to meet you, Riven. Sorry this is just alot.” Jack managed, trying not to stare at the man's stone-like skin.

  Riven nodded, it was hard for Jack to read his facial expressions but he sensed some confusion. “The pleasure is mine. Welcome back Lord Montarg, are we setting off again?”

  “No Riven, This will be a short stay before we return. Do you mind giving us the room for a while? I need to have a chat with our guest,” Monty asked, his tone shifting from friendly to authoritative effortlessly.

  “Of course Lord Montarg. I’ll be in the control room.” Riven nodded once more to Jack before walking up the spiral staircase to the level above them. Jack smirked internally, having picked the control room correctly.

  As the door above them shut, Monty walked over to stand next to Jack at the window. He didn't look at the planet but he looked at Jack’s reflection in the glass.

  “Jack, you mentioned something last night that we kind of passed over at the time. I’m not really the motivational or emotional kind of person so I’m not great at this ok.” He looked around and he motioned out into the vast expanse of space outside the glass.

  “I can’t give you a goal or tell you what to do to feel like you are in control again, you have to work that out yourself. What I can do is give you some of my experiences and try to give you some perspective and scale to everything.” He took a second and pointed at a few stars there in the distance.

  “There are thousands of planets out there that have the Origin Wave has already washed over, just like it will do to yours soon. One of those was my home planet, hundreds of years ago. Yes I am that old, a benefit that comes with all of this. I was an inductee just like you, which means I was alive before my world was affected.” Monty stared for a second, gathering his thoughts.

  “I was young, about 20. Married with a little daughter. My life was great. The induction came and we were all shocked, but they have done this thousands of times. It all went smoothly. We learned and trained and got sent back home.”

  “I was a healer before it all, so when I found out I had the life frequency and learned what it could do. I was amazed it was the best thing I could think of. All the people I could help, the things I could fix that we couldn't do anything for. Now I could fix it. Everything else changed as well, technology advanced magic was everywhere and our wildest dreams were coming through.” Jack stared intently as Monty took a deep breath.

  “It wasn't all perfect though, how do you keep people safe from violence when the people themselves become the weapon? They appoint an overseer to make sure things don't get too out of hand. A powerful Shardlord that is there to keep peace as the planet adapts and learns to deal with a society where magic is everyday. They step in if people start going down the genocide route but they don’t help the day to day person.” As he talked about the overseer Jack could see there was a hint of anger.

  “Sorry Jack, getting off track as I said, not great at this. This will all happen to your planet in the future too. For now, just know that they are there to make sure your planet can adjust and start to implement their own rules and laws for the future. Me, I didn’t care about that at the time. My wife and daughter were happy and healthy, I could heal almost any illness people had and life was great for the first few years.” His eyes took on another light.

  “Then the rifts started to spawn, we don't know why, there are lots of theories but they occur everywhere once the Origin wave has passed. Turrel can go into detail if you want to know, for now a rift is basically a little pocket dimension. They get formed around a ‘Core’ and are linked to the space frequency somehow. Cores generate mana and feed that into the pocket dimension, normally creatures then summoned, created morphed I don't know but they appear in the rifts and want to protect the core.”

  “People are encouraged to go to these rifts and to get to the core, whether by killing the creatures inside or not it doesn't matter. The goal is always to get to and destroy the core, the core breaks down into pieces that are called rift shards. That is what everyone wants, you absorb the shard and you connect to the Origin again. Get enough and you undergo another modification” Monty's face scrunched up distaste as he continued.

  “The center has some very specific rules about rifts and newly inducted planets. Any rift that spawns in the entire system of a planet that has been inducted is off limits for the first century following the induction. They have their reasons, which for the record I strongly disagree with, If you want to know more again pester Turrel. Basically it is up to people from that system to deal with the rifts that spawn, they in turn are guaranteed to have some people who reach higher level modification and can then potentially serve to protect and nurture others.”

  “If a rift is not destroyed quickly enough, the mana it generates causes the rift to do one of two things. It either intensifies and the creatures inside become stronger as the rift produces more mana. Or the rift “Breaks” in which case the rift entrance is no longer a one way entrance, the creatures inside can leave.” Monty looked at Jack for a moment, his expression hard.

  “I am sure you can guess where the story goes from there. My tragedy is a story that is told a million times on thousands of worlds. I lost my family. I lost everything, my motivation and will to go on. Most of my planet was overrun while the Overseer watched. The rules of the center meant that he was not allowed to get involved unless the conflict was between inhabitants of the planet.”

  “I was lost for a long time, torn between sorrow and anger. I pulled people from the rubble of our greatest monuments as I healed everyone I could with the little mana I had. Another rift spawned a few months later. I would love to tell you I was brave and had some heroic reason to risk my life to try to help close that rift. The truth is I had given up, the world sucked and I couldn’t help anymore. I went to that rift because I didn’t care if I died or not. I found my resolve in there as we cleared it and I was given a shard. After I got my Tier one modification I found my goal and my motivation.” He laughed to himself.

  “It was simple, I wanted power. I wanted power to help those that couldn't do it themselves. I wanted the power to heal those in need. I wanted power for another selfish reason too.” He winked at Jack.

  “But it gave me a goal, something to work towards and a sense of purpose. Now I am not trying to influence you in any way shape or form. As I said, just experiences and perspective. In two years time your planet will start its induction. You have a very unique opportunity to be very powerful before they have even started. Your world might not need a protector and you might not want to do it even if it did. I however would be failing a promise to myself if I didn’t help you be able to make that choice yourself.”