The cool morning breeze blew softly, carrying the scent of the Nile River mixed with the aroma of the flowers from the St. Regis Cairo garden. The sky was still tinged with the soft hues of dawn, and the world seemed calm - at least for now.
Ikki let out a long sigh as he emerged from his meditation. His body relaxed as he stretched, his muscles loosening after hours in complete silence. He opened his eyes slowly and stood up, walking out of the resort.
The place was still empty, just him and the tranquil sound of running water. He stopped near the bank, watching the distorted reflection of the city in the river. He wasn't exactly thinking about anything specific, but his mind wandered between the past few days and what was to come.
Until...
"You were leaving without saying goodbye?"
The voice came from behind him, laced with accusation and a touch of indignation.
Ikki turned and found Sadie, Zia, Walt, and Carter standing there, arms crossed – well, Sadie and Zia were arms crossed, Carter seemed more resigned, and Walt just sighed.
Ikki arched an eyebrow. "I wasn't leaving without saying goodbye."
Sadie narrowed her eyes.
"Oh, sure. Just, by coincidence, I saw you sneaking out." She pointed a finger at him. "And before you say anything, I wasn't watching you, okay? I just… woke up early and saw you leaving."
Ikki suppressed a smile. "Hm. How convenient."
Sadie blushed slightly and huffed. "Don't change the subject!"
Zia stepped forward, her brown eyes fixed on him. "Did you really think you could get rid of us that easily?"
Ikki shrugged. "I thought last night was a sufficient goodbye."
Walt shook his head. "You know it doesn't work that way."
Carter sighed. "Exactly. You should have expected this from us."
Ikki observed them for a moment and then smiled slightly.
"You really insist on making things sentimental, huh?"
Sadie rolled her eyes. "Just accept that you're not getting away that easy."
Ikki took a deep breath and then, without warning, pulled Sadie and Zia into a hug at the same time, which caught them completely off guard.
"Hey-!" Sadie started, but stopped when she felt the comforting warmth of the hug.
Zia didn't say anything, just closed her eyes for a brief moment, enjoying the moment.
After a second, Ikki released them and looked at Walt and Carter, who pretended not to be touched by the scene.
"Alright, you two come here too." He opened his arms.
Walt laughed and accepted the hug without hesitation. Carter hesitated for a second before sighing and giving in.
For a moment, it was just that – a silent moment of farewell between friends.
When they separated, Ikki looked at them with a playful glint in his eyes. "Now, I can leave without regrets."
Zia sighed. "Take care, Ikki."
Sadie pointed at him with a mischievous look. "And be prepared. When we meet again, I'm going to beat you at the arcade."
Ikki smiled. "I'm looking forward to seeing you try."
They stood there for a few more minutes before Ikki finally turned to go. With a final wave, he disappeared into the morning breeze, leaving behind friends who, despite everything, knew this wasn't goodbye.
After all, the world still had many adventures waiting.
...
..
.
When he materialized again, he let out a long sigh.
He found himself inside a vast ice cave, where crystalline stalactites hung from the ceiling, reflecting the little light that entered through cracks at the top. The floor was polished stone, but covered by a thin layer of ice, shimmering under a light blue hue.
The place was silent, almost mystical. Small underground streams ran between the cracks in the ice, creating a soft sound of moving water.
He was in Alaska.
The land outside the influence of the gods.
It was here that he took refuge when he realized that no Egyptian magic could bring his mother back. Two months of silence, meditation, and a desperate search for answers that never came.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
The silence around him was comforting, but his mind was far from at peace.
He had tried. Tried to be honest. But when the time came… he just couldn't.
The conversation with his father still echoed in his mind, about being honest with them or building a harem; he wanted to throw himself off a cliff right then. But now, standing in that icy cave, he almost wished his biggest problem was dealing with Zeus's delusions.
Honesty.
He should have said something to Sadie. Something to Zia. He knew they both felt something for him, knew he'd been dodging the issue for too long. But the moment he stood before them, any speech he'd planned evaporated.
Saying nothing was cruel. But telling the truth, that he couldn't reciprocate their feelings, would be worse.
His heart beat faster, a suffocating mix of guilt, uncertainty, and a weight he couldn't name.
He sat cross-legged on the frozen cave floor.
Ikki took a deep breath, emptying his mind.
The whirlwind of emotions still swirled within him, but he pushed it away, sinking into a state of apathy. It wasn't the first time he'd done this, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
The cave around him disappeared. The cold, the sound of water running under the ice, even the very sensation of being there, all dissolved as he sank into the silent immensity of his own existence.
The world around him ceased to be ice and stone, transforming into something more abstract, a constant flow of invisible forces, subtle patterns and rhythms that sustained all existence.
He realized again that everything, absolutely everything, was governed by principles.
Gravity didn't need to be seen to pull celestial bodies towards each other. Time didn't need permission to move forward. Water would always find a way to flow, fire would always seek to consume.
Existence was sustained by balance. The sky above the earth, day following night, life inevitably finding its way to death. It was a cycle, not a ladder. Evolution wasn't about climbing steps, but about becoming part of the very mechanism that moved the world...
As he lost himself in this process, time passed in the blink of an eye.
Ikki opened his eyes.
The silence of the cave remained unchanged, but something within him had shifted.
Two months. Sixty days immersed in a constant flow of understanding, absorbing every concept and law he could touch. His divinity was now refined to a level that previously seemed impossible without absorbing other gods.
Eighty-four percent.
He felt the difference. It was as if he saw the world with absolute clarity, every force, every principle, every pattern flowing around him with unbreakable logic.
Still… two things remained incomplete.
Fate - 70%.
Fate was a labyrinth. It couldn't be broken like a chain or mastered like a river. It wasn't a straight road, but an infinite tapestry, where each thread was intertwined with thousands of others.
Ikki had progressed more than he expected, but the essence of Fate still eluded his complete understanding. The more he tried to grasp it, the more it seemed to unravel between his fingers.
And then there was the 'Source'.
Sixty-four percent.
It was… different.
Ikki didn't know exactly what the 'Source' represented.
All the other concepts, time, space, causality, balance, followed rules he could comprehend.
But the 'Source' was something beyond that.
Not a force. Not a principle.
It simply was.
And as much as he had progressed, he still couldn't fully define it.
Setting that aside, with a single thought, he made the ice around him unravel, transforming into vapor and then reconstructing itself into stalagmites sharp as blades. It wasn't magic. It was something deeper, more natural. The absolute control of the principles that governed the world.
He reached out and felt the flow of time around him. He could slow it down, speed it up, even reverse it within a limited area. But that wasn't what worried him. He realized he didn't need a "limit" for such a feat. He could reverse everything if he wanted, go back to that day, change everything-
But no.
His expression hardened, and he closed his eyes. The temptation to fix the past was great, but the consequences would be incalculable. He had already interfered too much in the natural order of things, and fate always exacted its price. His mother wouldn't want him to lose himself that way.
Still, the thought lingered, like a nagging whisper in the back of his mind.
To divert his attention, he focused on something else. He tried his new authority over gravity, erasing it completely with a single thought. The ice around him began to float, small stones rose from the ground, and even the water from the underground streams spread into bubbles in the air. It was a surreal sight, as if the very concept of weight had ceased to exist.
But gravity was only one piece of the puzzle.
He raised his hand and felt the weak nuclear force, the one responsible for the decay of subatomic particles. He could accelerate or decelerate this process, disintegrate matter or stabilize it indefinitely. A single interference could alter the composition of reality at the most basic level, but as always, he refrained.
Then came the strong nuclear force. What kept protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei. He could reinforce it, making materials virtually indestructible, or weaken it, undoing structures at a level that not even the gods could comprehend.
And finally, electromagnetism. What allowed the existence of light, electricity, chemical interactions. He felt the magnetic field around him, the way it affected everything. A mere thought and he could interrupt the communication of any technology, generate electromagnetic storms, or even manipulate light itself, becoming invisible.
After testing his authority over this, he decided to move on to a more absurd level.
His gaze scanned the environment before settling on his own outstretched hand.
Quarks.
He delved beyond matter, beyond atoms and molecules. The strong nuclear force held them together, but quarks... they were the true foundation of material existence. Small entities divided into flavors and color charges, oscillating between states that only physicists tried to comprehend.
Ikki felt the top of an ice stalagmite in his palm. A slight thought, and the molecular structure shattered at a fundamental level. He didn't just break the atoms – he disassembled them.
The ice didn't turn into water. It didn't turn into gas. It simply ceased to exist.
He reversed the process, reassembling the quarks and combining them in a different way. The result? A small black crystal, reflecting a light that didn't exist. He had created a new material, one that didn't belong to any chemical catalog on Earth.
But this was only the beginning.
Dark matter.
Ikki closed his eyes, expanding his perception. Ordinary matter represented less than 16% of the universe. The rest? Invisible, untouchable to most beings. But he felt it. He reached out and pulled it towards him. The air around him vibrated. Dark matter didn't interact with light or known electromagnetic forces. But now, under his will, it manifested.
The space around him seemed to bend.
If he wanted, he could condense it, make it an invisible armor, a fortress impossible to penetrate by conventional attacks. Or… he could use it to distort gravity, reshape the perception of space, and make a single step a journey between galaxies.
But not now.
He let out a long sigh, dispersing the accumulated energy. The cave returned to its original state – at least, to a common observer.
Now, vectors.
Ikki raised his hand and focused on a single concept: direction and magnitude.
Everything in the universe moved in patterns, in predictable trajectories. But who said he needed to follow those rules?
He picked up a piece of ice and threw it upwards. Before it fell, he altered its vector to the right. The ice bent in the air, completely ignoring inertia and gravity.
Ikki twirled his finger in the air, and the ice began to orbit around him, following impossible paths, as if controlled by invisible strings.
He could nullify the impact of any blow, redirect forces, create unpredictable attacks. He could even do something more extreme, reverse vectors completely.
With a thought, he pointed to a small rock on the floor.
The vector of gravity around it was inverted.
The rock didn't just float, it shot upwards as if launched from a cannon, disappearing from the cave.
Ikki didn't smile. He simply absorbed the experience.
Antimatter.
He hesitated for a brief moment. Unlike the other forces he manipulated, this one was… delicate. A single mistake, and the resulting explosion could wipe an entire country off the map.
He extended his hand. Creating antimatter wasn't complicated for him now; it was enough to reverse the charge of the particles.
But the real challenge? Containing it.
The instant a single antiproton touched ordinary matter… well, he didn't want to test that in such a closed environment. He exhaled, and a small black sphere appeared in his palm. Unlike dark matter, this radiated an absurdly intense energy.
One small mistake and all of Alaska would be wiped off the map. He closed his hand and the sphere vanished, converted back into pure energy before it could cause any damage.
He closed his eyes again, sinking into meditation.
Time had no meaning there. Minutes or hours could have passed, but Ikki didn't care. He was determined to revive his mother and for that, he would train as long as he needed...