Chapter 101: eting with other geniuses
The twelve people had noticed him before he noticed them.
That much beca clear as Alex approached. Their postures shifted subtly. So straightened. Others tilted their heads, evaluating. A few exchanged glances that carried aning too quick to fully decipher from a distance.
Twelve individuals.
Each carried themselves with the ease of people who had already adapted to this environnt. They wore no uniforms, displayed no common markings, yet they moved with a cohesion that suggested they had learned to operate together. Or at least, they had learned to coexist.
Alex studied them as he drew closer.
The tallest among them stood nearly eight feet high, his fra carrying the dense solidity of soone whose biology had been forged for endurance rather than agility. His skin held a faint tallic sheen, and his arms hung with the loose readiness of a combatant who trusted his physicality above all else.
Beside him stood a woman with sharp features and eyes that moved constantly, cataloging details. Her hair was pulled back severely, and her posture suggested soone accustod to making rapid assessnts.
The others varied widely. An elf with arrogant bearing and fine features. A figure wrapped in flowing robes that obscured most distinguishing characteristics. A young man who appeared almost painfully ordinary except for the way his fingers twitched, as if constantly manipulating sothing invisible.
Alex noted them all, but his attention remained diffuse. In this environnt, focusing too narrowly on any single individual was a vulnerability.
He was twenty feet away when the elf, Ares, spoke first.
"Hey, he has the aura of rlin the Sage." Ares’s voice carried across the remaining distance, pitched for his companions but clearly audible to Alex. "Looks like he is the thirteenth participant. But he doesn’t look very powerful. His aura is too restrained."
The words were not ant as a greeting. They were an assessnt delivered openly, designed to establish a dynamic before Alex could set his own terms.
Alex continued walking, his pace unchanged.
A woman, Sarah, confirming the identification, responded without lowering her voice. "But he is chosen by a Sage. And not the weakest one at that. Of course he should be sowhat special, right?"
Her tone suggested genuine curiosity rather than skepticism. She was leaving room for possibility, unlike the elf.
The tall one, Jaros, spoke next. His voice carried weight, the kind that ca from soone accustod to being heard.
"Let’s et him. We will know soon enough." His expression was unreadable, but his next words carried a grim certainty. "Without peak planetary strength, no one can survive here. And those monsters already reached the star realm within five hundred years."
The ntion of star realm within such a compressed tifra caused the group’s mood to shift. The casual assessnt of Alex’s arrival faded as the reminder of their true environnt settled over them.
Alex saw it clearly. The twelve had been here long enough to understand the scale of what they faced. They had seen what happened to those who arrived unprepared. Their skepticism toward a new participant was not malice. It was the caution of survivors evaluating whether a newcor would be an asset or a liability.
He closed the remaining distance and stopped at the edge of their formation.
"Hello," Alex said. His voice was calm, unhurried. "Are you from my universe?"
The question was formal, almost unnecessary, but it established the interaction as a eting between equals rather than a supplicant approaching a established group.
Sarah stepped forward slightly. Her eyes moved across his face, his posture, his hands, cataloging with the efficiency of soone who had learned to read threats quickly.
"Yes, we are." She paused, then asked directly, "Are you the thirteenth chosen one?"
Her tone carried no mockery. She was clearly interested. Alex was human, and humanity was not an eternal race. Not even a god-tier race. At best, they ranked at the top of normal races. For a human to be selected by a sage, there had to be sothing exceptional beneath the surface. She wanted to know what.
"Yes, I am." Alex inclined his head slightly. "My na is Alex Moriarty. I am a human."
The introduction was simple. No embellishnts. No attempt to justify his presence or explain his qualifications. He stated the facts and let them draw their own conclusions.
For a mont, silence held.
Then a voice cut through from the back of the group. One of the figures Alex had noted earlier, a man with sharp, angular features and the refined bearing of the elf race, stepped forward. His expression twisted with disdain as he looked Alex up and down.
"Kid, did we ask for your biodata or sothing?" Ares’s voice dripped with contempt. "A brat like you has no chance on this battlefield. Go back."
The words landed with deliberate weight. Ares was establishing hierarchy. He was also testing, watching to see how the newcor would react to direct hostility.
Alex did not react imdiately. Instead, he let the silence stretch for a breath, two breaths. Long enough for the others to register the exchange. Long enough for the dynamic to beco clear.
[Na: Ares Noar (Elf)
Talent: Space God (Eternal)
Rank: Level 9 Planetary
Note: He is a prodigy from the elf clan, which is a god-tier race. He possesses an eternal-grade space talent and is also a spirit master.]
Alex absorbed the information quickly. Level 9 Planetary. Eternal-grade talent. Space manipulation. The elf was not rely arrogant; he had legitimate grounds for confidence.
But confidence and arrogance were different things. And Ares had made the mistake of assuming that visible power was the only power that mattered.
"Rafael,"Alex thought, maintaining his external composure. "The Tower of Ascension, is it for every race, or only for specific ones?"
The Ai’s response ca imdiately.
[The Tower of Ascension is exclusively for races below the god-tier threshold. God-tier races possess at least one god-tier talent by birthright and thus do not require the Tower’s blessings.]
[Then I am not actually that special, am I?" Alex’s internal tone was contemplative. Eternal races might have individuals with more than five talents.
[That is correct.]
Alex lifted his gaze and t Ares’s eyes.
He stepped forward.
The movent was unhurried, almost casual. But sothing in the way he closed the distance caused the elf’s posture to stiffen. The other eleven participants watched in silence, none intervening. This was a test, and they wanted to see the result.
Alex stopped within arm’s reach of Ares and placed his hand on the elf’s shoulder.
The contact was light, almost friendly. The gesture of an elder addressing a junior.
"Listen, Ares my boy." Alex’s voice was calm, carrying no anger or aggression. That made it more cutting than any shout could have been. "When elders talk, children should keep quiet. Or do you want Uncle Alex to teach you how to behave properly?" He smiled, and the expression carried no warmth. "My teaching would be very hard."
For a mont, no one moved.
Then Ares’s face cycled through several expressions, disbelief, fury, and the particular kind of humiliation that ca from being publicly treated as a child by soone who had no right to do so.
[Ding! You have copied the eternal-level space manipulation talent.]
He smiled internally. This place was not rely a battlefield. It was a hunting ground for him. Every participant here carried talents worth acquiring. The only question was how quickly he could collect them.
"Pfft!" Sarah laughed out loudly.
Sarah’s laughter broke through the tension, though she tried to disguise it as a cough.
"Ares," she said, her voice bright with barely suppressed amusent, "he even knows your secret. Perhaps you shouldn’t open your mouth everywhere."
The elf’s face turned crimson. His hands clenched at his sides, and his aura flared with sudden, violent intensity.
He raised his hand.
Spatial force gathered around Alex, the pressure of reality being bent, compressed, shaped into a weapon. The elf intended to crush him, to demonstrate the gap between a Level 9 Planetary eternal talent user and a newly arrived human who had not even proved his rank.
Alex felt the force press against him.
And held.
The spatial pressure attempted to fold the space around him, to compress his body into a space that could not contain it. It was an attack designed to demonstrate overwhelming superiority without causing permanent damage, a lesson, not a killing blow.
But Alex’s newly acquired talent recognized the attack before it fully ford. The understanding was instinctive now, woven into his perception. He reached out with the sa principles Ares was using and simply negated.
The spatial force unraveled.
Ares’s eyes widened.
He pushed harder, drawing on deeper reserves. The spatial pressure intensified, becoming visible as the air around Alex seed to shimr and distort.
Alex did not move.
He considered using Existential Nullity. The ability would suppress Ares’s talent entirely, demonstrating a level of power that the elf could not hope to overco. But that would reveal too much. Existential Nullity was one of his ultimate trump cards. Using it now, against a provocateur in a public space, would announce his capabilities to every participant watching.
Instead, he simply maintained his nullification. Equal talent against equal talent. Ares pushed; Alex held. Neither advanced, neither retreated.
After five seconds, Ares let his hand fall.
The spatial pressure vanished.
The elf’s face had gone from red to pale. He stared at Alex with an expression that mixed confusion, disbelief, and sothing that might have been the first stirrings of fear. He had just committed significant force against soone who had arrived monts ago, and that soone had not even seed to try.
Alex removed his hand from Ares’s shoulder and stepped back.
The smile he wore was pleasant, almost gentle.
"Good boy," he said. "Learning already."
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