The city on the hills, famous for its many well-known landmarks, greeted me with good weather.
There was a light frost, no snow, and countless stars in the sky. Living in a huge metropolis, you forget what these cold and indifferent to human sorrows specks of plasma, flying in the cosmic void, look like.
Somewhere far away, around those stars, their planets are spinning in various orbits, on which, perhaps, another intelligent being stands, looking into the sky and thinking about similar things.
While waiting for us to be let out of the plane, I thought about the eternal. In our galaxy alone, there are an estimated four hundred billion stars, most of them with their own star systems. Even if you only spent one second exploring a single system, it would take more than twelve and a half thousand years to explore just our galaxy.
And in the observable universe, according to the latest data, there are an estimated several hundred billion galaxies, with our Milky Way not being that big compared to the rest. Supergiant galaxies can contain up to a hundred trillion stars, and my head was already spinning trying to comprehend such scales.
Our significance and our problems mean absolutely nothing on such a scale. Is there even a chance for humanity to break out of its cradle and become conquerors of space, and will I live to see the days when one can go on their own spaceship to explore the vastness of the galaxy?
And what is the probability of meeting fellow intelligent beings there? Of course, considering the incredible number of stars, the chance of meeting a sentient life form is quite high. It's more a matter of the huge distances that must be taken into account. And that's where I realized progress was being made.
Quantum portals, in principle, don't depend on distance, and the only question is accurate targeting of the exit point. As recently as ten years ago, experiments on teleportation based on quantum effects were conducted, and Japanese scientists were able to prove the possibility of transmitting energy regardless of distance using a quantum computer. And if you go deeper into the matter, absolutely everything around us is made of energy.
Descending to the level of the macro-world, at the atomic level, you can see that it mostly consists of emptiness: a tiny nucleus containing protons and neutrons is surrounded by electrons, which are described by probabilistic orbitals. The size of the region occupied by this electron cloud is tens of thousands of times larger than the size of the nucleus itself. If you were to imagine the nucleus the size of a city, the electrons would be thousands of kilometers away from it. And then it turns out that everything is made of emptiness.
But if you descend to the micro-level even further, it turns out that quarks, which atoms are made of, are not particles at all but are one-dimensional oscillating strings made of energy. And our solid state is actually an illusion. Essentially, it's a macroscopic manifestation of complex electromagnetic interactions between atoms and electrons, governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. At the most fundamental level, matter is structured differently than our senses perceive it. But if that's the case, and we're made of energy, then can it be transferred?
I cut short my abstruse reasoning and laughed shortly.
The portal!
It already teleports you to an unknown area, which means everything already exists, and the only question is whether I'll live to see that moment. I remembered the Biokinesis skill, which I planned to learn soon, and thought that at a certain skill level, it might be possible to extend my own life. And a high Constitution would at least improve my health. And if I thought about it in the context of interplanetary travel, it would also be possible to modify my body to exist in other conditions.
In short, maybe I'll live to see the moment when I won't have to sit as a passenger on a plane, but can fly in my own vehicle. And not to the other side of the continent, overcoming distances that are laughable by cosmic standards, but to other planets.
I remembered that I planned to put a skill point into Thermokinesis upon arrival, and seeing that Pangeokinesis had finally been studied, I started the second level.
The pilot's voice on the intercom congratulated us on our arrival and finally allowed us to exit the cabin. As I got out, I passed the passengers dragging huge duffel bags, mistakenly called carry-on luggage, and went straight to the exit, leaving them to wait for their baggage. My brother was already waiting for me in the airport parking lot, and as I stepped outside, I inhaled the frosty air, found him with my eyes, and walked over to him.
"Max! Wow, you look a little more mature and buffed up," my relative greeted me with a firm hug. "Did you start going to the gym? And where's your luggage? Did they lose it at the airport?"
I wondered what he would say when I leveled up my physical attributes to that of an Olympic champion in a couple of weeks. By the way, this brought up another topic for thought. How would my appearance change, and how would I explain it to my relatives? Another point in Strength, of course, didn't add much change to my body, but what would happen when my Strength and Constitution became significantly higher? And the moment my Strength went beyond human limits? When I could lift a ton of live weight with one hand and throw it away, just like in superhero movies.
"Hey, Dimka! Yeah, I've been working out a bit," I avoided the answer. "I'll show you the secret technique sometime," I promised my brother, thinking that I would have to tell him sooner or later and help him in the beginning. And again, what to do with my parents? If communicators were to be freely sold in stores and retain their functionality, at a certain point, they would also get involved in the bloody meat grinder of portals, with consequences that were difficult to predict.
It was quite difficult for me to imagine my mom, with an ax in her hands, chopping up rat-people. Of course, she's not a homebody and has been going on hiking trips with my dad all her life around our region, and she even works as a forensic medical examiner, but still.
In any case, I decided to put the question off until later, focusing on my own development so that I could help them if necessary.
"What about your things?" he repeated.
"I'm traveling light; everything I need is in my pockets," I patted my winter jacket. "You better tell me what's new in the city since I've been gone for a couple of years?" I asked my brother as we drove home.
"Nothing much, what do you expect from a provincial town? The construction continues, the city is expanding, and in a few years, they'll be building high-rises near the airport, adding a headache for the pilots. Remember when there was nothing here but the road to the airport and industrial enterprises around? Now look," he nodded toward the car window.
The highway that once connected the nearby cities had been rebuilt and was now a six-lane road squeezed between apartment buildings. The city, located in the south of the peninsula, had historically tended to expand north on low ground due to the huge number of hills, and over the past twenty years, it had grown, absorbing nearby settlements.
My communicator received a call from Alexey, but I rejected it and put him on the blacklist.
"Any problems?" my brother asked, noticing my actions. "You look pretty tense. Will you tell me what happened with that girl?"
"It's a common story, really. She needed someone rich and successful, and I just happened to be around at a convenient time, and she could blow off some steam with me. And I had already imagined six children and a happy life together," I smiled wryly. "But she was perfectly honest with me, though only after I saw her with someone else."
"Oh well, to hell with her. You're still young. I'm already thirty, and I'm not in a hurry to get married. Once was enough; one failed attempt in my youth was plenty."
I remembered his first unsuccessful marriage to a frankly strange girl who had gotten into magical rituals and dragged grave dirt home.
"Ugh... You reminded me of that crazy woman. What about your personal life?"
"Nothing worth mentioning, and certainly not worth introducing to our parents," my brother said flatly. "But I've known you since childhood; that's not all that's bothering you. Come on, tell me."
For a moment, I felt like I was back in childhood when I could tell my older brother about my problems at school, and he would solve them with the authority of his age. When you're in eleventh grade, it's not hard to deal with sixth-graders, of course. But could he handle my current problems? And what would he say if I told him that his younger brother had killed a man? And a whole bunch of strange creatures in a particularly painful and brutal way.
"Well..." I stretched the word out. "I have a little problem. Tell me, how do you feel about magic?"
"Are you talking about the kind of magic my ex-wife was into? Sacrificing cockroaches, ritual circles in the apartment, and reading spells in Latin?"
"Well, almost. Pull over here for a couple of minutes."
Dima looked at me skeptically but pulled over to the side of the road in front of a low-water bridge leading to the old part of the city.
"Are you okay?" my relative asked, genuinely worried. "Do you have a fever?"
"Oh, for God's sake! Just watch," I opened the communicator menu, brought up the Inventory, and took out the rat-person's staff.
"Go on," my brother's intrigued voice said.
"I found this thing in a rat lair a few hours before the flight, where I ended up hiding the body of a mugger who attacked me," I decided to share the burden of my sins with the person I had trusted since childhood. "To make a long story short, the bracelet," I pointed to the communicator, "gives me the ability to level up, just like in games, and magic skills." I didn't go into detail that my skills were more like constructing algorithms for manipulating substances since everyone else just received abilities they considered magic. "And here's what else I can do."
I pointed my finger toward the sea and launched several Ice Blades.
"I also have freezing and I can pull water from the surrounding space, but it would be reckless to show that here. And I have the Inventory that I showed you," I dramatically pulled out the crossbow, aimed it at the sea, fired a shot, and put it back. "Well, and I leveled up my brain pretty well, and now Strength and Dexterity are next, so I'll be like a bodybuilder soon," I finished my brief lecture and closed my stunned brother's open mouth. "Let's get back in the car, or you'll freeze."
It was a good thing I didn't perform the tricks in the car; otherwise, due to the extreme level of shock and loss of concentration, we would have definitely driven off the road.
"Wait a minute. You killed a man?" he immediately seized on the main point.
I winced and answered reluctantly:
"Yes. There were problems. Three idiots dragged me into an alley and just started kicking me without a word. So I shot out of fear. Now, of course, I realize I should have just used 'Dehydration,'" I looked at my confused brother and explained. "Well, I can create a sphere with a three-meter diameter around me from which twenty percent of the water is pulled out. A person is 100% likely to lose consciousness; coma and death are possible. Although, then I would have had to hide three corpses, but at least there would be no blood."
"Tell me you're joking..." he still couldn't believe, accept, or comprehend it.
"What jokes? One was dead, and the others ran away when they saw the blood. I had to quickly throw him into the portal. In Russia, you know... No body, no crime."
"Alright, let's put that question aside. A dog's death for a dog. Between an unknown robber and my brother, I would, of course, choose you."
"More like a rat's death. It was a rat lair, and when I went inside, he was already being gnawed on by huge furry creatures," I shivered at the memory.
"Creatures!" he cursed. "And huge rats? Are you okay? You weren't hurt?"
"Oh, yeah! I forgot the most important thing. After you complete a portal, you come out completely healed. Look," I brought up my status and showed it to Dima. "It turns out I had -0.1 in my left eye and slightly enlarged tonsils? Well, now I'm completely, absolutely, 100% healthy! Do you understand?"
My brother whistled, impressed by the opening prospects:
"The possibilities for treating hopelessly ill people are amazing. And how can I get one of those things?"
"Well, a mass release of the communicators to the market was planned for two months from now, but a large batch of five thousand units was recently stolen and sold on the black market. If all this gets out of control, I don't even know if sales will ever launch. Any government would want to get their hands on such functionality and limit it to only the select few. But I don't think the creators of all this will let anyone interfere with their plans. Just imagine their capabilities, that this little thing," I pointed to the communicator, "allows you to open portals, strengthen the user's body by rebuilding it according to a given functionality, and grant dozens of other yet-to-be-studied possibilities."
"Well, yes, you're right. Not even the combined tech giants of the planet could shake Syntech, and their joint budget is several times larger than that of some countries. And I don't think they only operate within the legal framework. Every huge business has the ability to maintain its own mini-army, disguised as a security agency, and push for their interests by force."
"In short, I'll probably take a family leave, lay low here for a while, and come back to Moscow prepared. I don't think I should show up there anytime soon; let everything settle down. Capital city upheavals rarely reach this far, and in the provinces, everything usually flows much more quietly."
I saw that my brother was thinking and even guessed what about. His adventurous nature demanded adventure, and he was already figuring out what channels he could use to get a new version of the communicator. Given that he was in the business of importing cars from nearby countries and delivering any goods on demand, he had contacts among not-so-legal dealers. In short, I decided that if he did get a communicator, I would help him get the hang of it.
The road our car was on emerged from behind a hill, and a magnificent view of the night bay with hundreds of ships at anchor opened up. The sea, dotted with the glowing lights of the vessels, gave the impression of a huge city located on the water.
Dima caught my eye and smirked:
"What, you've gotten used to your Moscow and forgotten the endless open spaces?"
"Yeah. The concrete jungle has its downsides. All the roads are squeezed between buildings, and even having parks doesn't really save the situation. The cost of land is just insane, and everything around is built up," I opened the car window and inhaled the frosty air. "And the air! That's what I really missed. The purest sea air."
My brother put on his turn signal and turned right, starting to go up the hill toward our parents' house.
"Let's be quiet so we don't wake them up. It's almost midnight, and they should have gone to bed. We'll sleep a little and meet up for breakfast," Dima suggested.
The plan was excellent, but it was ruined by Timosha, our parents' dog, who clattered down the stairs, heard us come in, and erupted in a joyful squeal.
"Quiet, quiet, little guy," I tried to calm the hyperactive Shiba. But the dog continued to squeal, yelp, throw himself at my knees, and lick my face, waking up the whole house.
Our parents came out of the room to greet us; my mom, as always, burst into tears when we met and hugged me. Seeing this, Timosha jumped around, begging to be picked up, and when I took him, he started licking everything.
"Well, since no one is sleeping, let's go have some tea," my dad decreed.
The dog lay down at our feet and refused to leave, staying nearby and only occasionally raising his muzzle, begging for pieces of sausage. Neither I nor my parents could refuse that red-haired face looking at you with such a sweet expression. I was surprised he hadn't turned into a fluffy dumpling with such habits. But, apparently, my parents managed to control the little beggar's eating habits.
"So, son, tell us what's new?"
"Mom, Dad... Come on, we talk regularly, and you're up to date on the main and most significant events of my life," my brother kicked me under the table with his foot. "Well, almost all of them," I corrected myself. "My girlfriend and I didn't get along and broke up, so I decided to take a short vacation and live here with you. If you don't mind, of course."
"What are you even talking about! How could we be against our son living with us? If only Dima would come back to the family home, and we would live as a whole family, just like before."
My brother made a face and said:
"Mom, come on, I live less than a kilometer from you. Look," he waved his hand toward the house window where the high-rises were visible. "Just a little further down the slope, and you can even see my window. How much closer could I be?"
"Then why did we build such a big house?" my mom threw up her hands. "So you would be here more often, and you'd bring your grandchildren," she started the old conversation again.
"Mom! It's midnight, and you're already talking about grandchildren! I'm going to go live with Dima now; he definitely won't constantly bring it up."
My brother, to whom I had shifted the attention, choked on his tea, set his cup aside, and held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.
"Alright, alright... Let's all calm down. Why don't you tell us how Timosha is doing?"
It was easy to get my parents to switch to stories about the mischievous dog, whom they jokingly called the "Third Dog-son." The mischievous dog kept them from getting bored and brightened up my parents' daily lives. And in addition, he was an indispensable helper on the hunt, bringing back the ducks my dad had shot.
Speaking of which, he would be the last person I would worry about, especially if he had his Saiga and a solid supply of cartridges. I think a shot of buckshot would easily scatter even the gelatinous body of the Slime that gave me so much trouble, and the only thing is that a huge slime in the sewer could cause a little trouble, but I'm sure my dad would figure out a way to deal with that Slime, too. I guess I'll have to carefully bring them up to speed later and take them into at least one portal to cure their existing ailments. After all, after fifty years, the changes from age were starting to bother them more and more, and a full cure was too valuable a reward to be neglected.
I was already sitting at the table and yawning desperately when my parents noticed my state, and we finally went to our rooms to catch up on sleep. But as soon as I was alone, my sleep immediately disappeared. The covered veranda with panoramic windows overlooking the houses and the sea below offered a stunning view, and I, no longer wanting to sleep, pulled a chair closer to the window and sat down, staring out thoughtfully.
The noisy capital and its problems were behind me, and I didn't think any of the group of nine would fly to the other side of the country for a confrontation. Besides, I hadn't stolen anything from anyone; on the contrary, I had defended my things. In the end, if they did come here, I could solve the problem radically.
Despite the city being the capital of the Far East, there are still a lot of remote and secluded places left here. The hills covered with dense forest, the freely roaming tigers just a couple of hundred kilometers north of the city, and the wild nature would reliably hide a disappearance. And if I threw the body into a portal, they would never find it.
I bared my teeth and decided to defend my property to the last drop of blood, and the freeloaders who decided to get their hands on what was mine were in for a very unpleasant surprise. I opened the status window and admired the round number in my attribute.
[Intelligence: 20]
The Intelligence attribute had finally reached the coveted twenty, and it was time to increase my Dexterity and Strength, bringing each of those attribute up to ten.
To test it, I decided to search for a test online and clicked on the first one I found, where I had to find patterns. The result of one hundred eighty points was a pleasant surprise, and I clicked on the next one. The logic puzzles were solved one after another without the slightest difficulty, despite the long flight and the night without sleep. The visible confirmation of improved cognitive functions lifted my spirits, and I finally flopped onto the bed, grinning foolishly.
I hadn't become many times smarter, because intelligence isn't just about thinking abilities but also about erudition, knowledge of various things, and the ability to build logical connections between them, finding patterns and drawing conclusions. But the foundations of intelligence, consisting of perception, attention, imagination, and thought, had become significantly higher.
For example, I tried to solve a simple quadratic equation in my head and easily held the entire algorithm of its solution in my memory. To make the task more difficult, I tried to mentally sketch out the code to solve it and mentally visualized the whole thing, as if it were on a computer screen. The ability to visualize definitely went beyond human capabilities.
While experimenting with the possibilities of my own mind, I fell into a deep sleep, and throughout the night, I calculated the algorithms for solving various equations, which made me wake up all wet and with a buzzing head. I added one attribute point to Dexterity, bringing it up to six, and went to take a shower.
The whole family had already gathered for breakfast, and the dog who had run out to greet me started licking my legs, which were still wet from the shower.
"Someone, apparently, didn't wash well," my mom greeted me with a smile.
"Max! Sit down quickly," my brother waved his hand, and I saw a communicator just like mine on his arm.
"What is that?" I asked him.
"Oh, you know, I called up my old contacts, and they brought me three of them half an hour ago. You know, a port city opens up amazing opportunities if you know the right people."
"Did you give them to our parents, too?"
My mom and dad showed me the little boxes next to their tea and nodded affirmatively.
"Yes. Though, I don't understand why we need them. The old version was enough to contact you; why chase after new gadgets?" my dad had always used old versions of phones until they completely broke down. And considering how carefully he took care of things, the first version of the communicator would have lasted an indecently long time with him.
"I think what you told me yesterday will change the world. And we need to be prepared in advance. And while we're all here, it's better to do this together."
I thought about it and accepted my brother's point, running through various scenarios in my head. There was a very high probability of riots, and it would be better to meet them as a cohesive team, prepared in advance.
"Alright. Mom, Dad... Put on the communicators and try not to be too surprised."