The moon was high in the sky, illuminating the enormous dormitory at Williams University for Research and Innovation; tonight was a full moon, so it was much brighter than on ordinary nights.
Heavy rain fell from the illuminated night sky, creating a pleasant, relaxing sound as it hit the dormitory building. It was past two in the morning and everyone was asleep at this hour, but one of the windows on the second floor of the dormitory stood out, gleaming in the rainy darkness.
The room was quite simple, with two beds on opposite sides, each with its own wardrobe and study desk. A standard room in the university dormitory, with small posters and a picture frame lightly decorating the space.
Inside the room, a lonely young man sat in front of a table full of open books. His brown eyes moved along with the lines of the thick textbook, his dark brown hair falling over his eyes, hindering his vision and forcing him to tie his hair back.
His face was tired and weary; it was clear he hadn't slept well in a while due to the deep dark circles under his eyes, but beyond his tired expression, a faint gleam of determination could be seen burning in his eyes.
Occasionally he would stop reading and begin writing in his notebooks, which lay beside the book, taking as many notes as possible on the subject matter.
Crank!
The rusty hinges of the door creaked as someone opened it. It was a young man with blond hair and green eyes, his appearance a mess, his clothes all wrinkled with lipstick stains on the collar, he reeked of cheap beer, and carried a slight bitterness of cigarette smoke.
The young man stumbled into the room, unsuccessfully trying to be quiet. Then he saw his roommate in the right corner, sitting at the desk, engrossed in his studies.
The blond boy frowned and said, "You're studying late again."Julian"You're going to kill yourself like that."
Julian, who had been concentrating, raised his head and smiled weakly at his roommate, saying, "I have no choice, Guilherme, time is short and I have to hand in my final project before the end of the semester."
Guilherme put his hand to his forehead and sighed. "This is also your fault, because you procrastinated until now?"
Shrugging, Julian said, "Games, movies, series, anime, manga, and webtoons!"
A vein throbbed on Guilherme's forehead when he heard that. "You're a real irresponsible person, why didn't you finish your work first and then relax like me?"
"I like doing things at the last minute; the tension makes me sharper and more creative," Julian commented as he returned to his book.
"Sigh…" Guilherme sighed and asked. "Do you need help?"
Julian waved his hand without turning his head and refused. "No, you're already tired. Go to sleep."
Guilherme yawned and threw himself onto the bed. "Okay, try not to stay up all night studying too."
"Heh," Julian saw Guilherme curl up in his bed and start snoring, and he let out a laugh.
Time passed quickly, Julian stayed up all night studying, it was almost five in the morning, but the rain showed no signs of stopping, not only that, but even the moonlight was blocked by the dense rain clouds.
"Hmm… Finally." Julian stretched in his chair at his desk and murmured with satisfaction. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was 4:45 in the morning.
Julian got up from the table, put away his books and notebooks, then looked out the window for a moment to appreciate the view before going to sleep.
Taking a deep breath, Julian said, "Rainy weather is really the best for sleeping."
…
High in the dark sky, above the clouds and the heavens, a tiny but fast-moving red comet sped across a vast, starry expanse. As it traveled, the small red comet created distortions around it and leaped across space, advancing even faster, as if teleporting.
The comet had a spherical shape, about the size of a tennis ball, and was dark gray in color. It was traveling so fast that it created a red tail behind it; every few moments the sphere would disappear and then...reappearedmuch further ahead.
The sphere continued its journey indefinitely, until it passed by a small blue planet. It did not change direction and continued towards the planet, in moments it traversed the layers of the atmosphere. Its path seemed to be defined.
…
The silence of the early morning was suddenly shattered. Julian, who had been watching the rain with a vacant stare, felt an instinctive chill run down his spine. On the dark horizon, a crimson dot appeared, growing at an alarming rate.
It clearly wasn't a meteor; it was too small. There was no smoke trail, just a crimson tail with a spatial distortion that made the air vibrate around it.
In less than an instant the sphere approached; he didn't even have time to scream.
The sphere passed through the window glass without breaking it, plunging directly into Julian's chest. Contradicting logic, the impact did not throw him backward; on the contrary, the vacuum generated by the sphere pulled him forward, attaching the object to his chest.
The dark gray sphereliquefyMetallic, incandescent tentacles pierced Julian's skin. The sound was of flesh being torn and bones being ground. Julian opened his mouth to scream, but his lungs were filled with a viscous, cold substance that rushed down his throat like living mercury.
His veins bulged, becoming black and throbbing beneath his pale skin. Julian's body began to contort at impossible angles; his armscrackedThe collarbones broke through the skin only to be pulled back by red energy fibers that were trying to reshape his body.
The sphere was trying toreformatJulian's body was designed to contain his power, but Julian's human biology was too fragile to withstand such an impact.
His eyes melted into empty sockets of crimson light before his skull began to collapse inward. In a final, agonizing spasm, the very reality around Julian buckled. The space around him became unstable.
Julian's body couldn't withstand the pressure, and with a vacuum-like sucking sound, he was literally swallowed by the sphere.
A black flash devoured the room for a billionth of a second, and then, emptiness. The sphere, carrying the remnants of Julian's consciousness and essence, tore through the fabric of reality and vanished, leaving behind only an intact window and an empty bed.
"Huh?" Guilherme, who had been fast asleep, suddenly woke up, still groggy. He looked around and saw nothing and no one, then went back to sleep. "Julian must have gone to the bathroom…"
…
The sky above that night was cloudless; even the pale, perennial glow of light pollution left a space to reveal the beautiful stars. The suburban silence was broken only by the rhythmic creaking of a wooden swing on the porch.
In the backyard of one of those houses in that suburb, a couple was embracing under the starlight, the man's arm around the woman's shoulders. They were nestled in each other's pleasant silence, the woman's head slightly inclined against the man's chest, allowing her to hear the rhythm of his heartbeat; the steady, vigorous rhythm gave the woman a pleasant feeling of peace.
It even made her forget the exhaustion from the recent move to the new house and the struggle she had to put her three-year-old daughter to sleep. She finally felt she could breathe a sigh of relief; things were starting to go right.
The man, feeling the light weight of her head against his chest, sighed contentedly. "Are you happy here? I know the move was a rush, and with the little one growing up..." he asked in a whisper.
The woman gave a soft smile, feeling his chest flutter at her words. "I am," she interrupted, stepping back just enough to look him in the eye. "For the first time in months, I feel like I'm not racing against the clock. The house is great, the neighborhood is quiet… and now that the boxes are finally gone, I think we can start decorating our way. Maybe paint the guest room?"
"Or turn it into a magic salon?" he suggested with a hopeful smile.
"Absolutely not," she retorted, laughing and snuggling back into his chest.
Before the woman could continue speaking, an uncanny silence began to fill the room. The swing stopped creaking, the buzzing of insects vanished, the sound of the appliances stopped, everything disappeared, even their voices; only pure silence remained.
The air began to feel heavy, charged with static electricity that made the hairs on everyone's body stand on end. Then a high-pitched hum from the starry sky broke the silence. The hum grew louder until it became a static hiss.
The starry sky the couple was observing began to ripple with a vibration. Then, with a *crack!* sound, the space in the sky split open, and from within the crack, an incandescent trail descended vertically toward the couple.
Within that incandescent trail was the same gray sphere that had merged with Julian and absorbed his body and consciousness. As it fell toward the backyard where the couple was, the sphere began to change.
The sphere dissolved into a golden light that then began to transform rapidly; a nervous system began to emerge along with a skeleton, soon flesh and muscles covered everything, and in less than a millisecond a body was formed from the sphere.
In mid-air, the structure of a 3-year-old child was formed, the sphere.recalibrateCompletely transforming Julian's previous body into a new and improved one, the 3-year-old's appearance was the same as Julian's previous 21-year-old college student.
But with a younger and more refined appearance, she seemed more organized, more ideal, with her features in the right places. Her brown hair had changed to wavy black, and her brown eyes had shifted to a light, almost bluish gray.
Julian's new body collided with the lawn of the couple's backyard, but despite the incredible speed at which he was traveling through space, his collision with the lawn did not result in an impact; the most that happened upon hitting the ground was that the lawn around him was burned with a dull thud.
The ground didn't even vibrate; the events seemed almost illusory, so contradictory was the collision. But even so, the couple knew it was real; after all, they could still see and hear the crackling of electricity emanating from the space around Julian.
"Phil! What was that?!" the woman exclaimed, pulling away from his chest and looking horrified toward the center of the lawn.
Small residual lightning bolts danced above the 'impact' site, the lightningthey issuedStatic noises that sounded like breaking glass.
Driven by a mixture of panic and curiosity, Phil stepped forward, keeping his wife slightly behind him, shielding her with his own body. As they approached the point of 'impact', the golden glow began to dissipate, revealing the contents of the impact.
"It's a child, Claire," Phil whispered in shock to his wife.
"What?" Claire looked over Phil's shoulder and saw a small, naked boy who appeared to be no more than 3 years old.
Acting on instinct, Claire stepped out from behind Phil and crouched down to pick up the little boy. As she touched the unconscious child, she felt a final surge of electricity emanate from him and stared at him for a second.
Julian, who had been unconscious, regained consciousness, a flood of thoughts rushing through his head. He opened his eyes slightly, and the first thing he saw were the faces of two enormous strangers.
He saw a couple looking at him with worried and frightened faces. Julian didn't know what to think at that moment; he was still remembering the terrifying pain he felt when his body was destroyed from the inside out.
"Look, he's waking up," Phil said as he saw Julian open his eyes.
Julian realized they were speaking English and tried to open his mouth to speak in their language and perhaps ask for information, but suddenly he felt a wave of information being flooded into his brain; it was so much information that his nose bled and he fell unconscious again.
"Oh my God, he's bleeding from the nose." Claire was shocked to see the little boy suddenly start bleeding and faint.
…
Opening his eyes again, Julian showed not a hint of nervousness or surprise at his condition and location; he already knew everything that was happening.
The sphere, upon merging with him, revealed everything that had happened and why. He knew the sphere had merged with him because it considered him compatible, and unfortunately, his body was brutally erased while trying to adapt to the sphere's abilities.
Because of his frail human body, the sphere had to restructure his entire being, from soul to body; everything changed and improved. This allowed him to accept the sphere's powers.
The power of the sphere is to allow Julian to travel almost freely throughout the omniverse. The 'almost' is because there are still some limitations. Firstly, he can choose any world or dimension of his consciousness; he only needs to imagine the place and time he will appear in that location.
But with one restriction: once he sets foot in the world, he will no longer be able to change his location or time; that is, he will not have the power to teleport to any place again in the same universe using the sphere, nor to travel through time to the future or past.
Of course, this doesn't prevent him from using this world's own methods or treasures to travel through time or space, but the sphere can only be used for omnidimensional travel; once in the world, he becomes part of that world's events.
For example, he falls into the Northern Plains in the world of Reverend Insanity at the time when the Spectral Soul successfully revived and commands the era; once there, he can no longer use the sphere to travel to the Southern Frontier in the Immemorial Antiquity Era.
But he can use the 'Spring Autumn Cicada' to travel through the river of time and regress time at will, and he can also use the 'Fixed Immortal Travel' to travel freely through the Gu world. The point is: Once having chosen and landed in a world, he is inherently part of the world.
The next power, which is actually more of a consequence of the forced adaptation of his body, or the new body that the sphere molded for him. This body has no restrictions whatsoever; it is free from all chains and can follow all paths of power without restriction.
There are no restrictions based on lineage, power, or consciousness. He can learn literally anything; a technique that only works because of a specific lineage would pose no problem for him. A power inherent to the inhabitants of that world would also be accessible to him.
For example, the aperture of a Gu Master is something that awakens only in inhabitants of the Gu world who are native to that world. The inherent Martial Souls of a Soul Master. All types of energies and laws, everything is compatible with their body.
In short, he has the complete package to travel freely through the Omniverse and evolve without any restrictions.
(A/N: I wrote it this way because I don't want a Random Omnipotent Being granting wishes without anything in return, and I didn't want his powers to become an easy plot device, so I added some restrictions. Not to mention that I also want to write about him acquiring these powers, which is why I did it this way.)
Julian felt his consciousness stabilize as his new senses sharpened. He could smell the lavender on the sheets and, most importantly, hear the sound of whispering voices coming from the hallway.
Looking around, Julian realized he was in a spacious room, lying on the sofa with a thick blanket over him. He also noticed the new clothes he was wearing; they were loose and baggy, but at least they served to cover his decency.
He heard whispering voices from the next room, causing him to unconsciously stand up and turn his head towards the voices, where he saw the same faces from when he had just arrived in this world.
They were a man and a woman, both adults, who appeared to be no more than 30 years old each. The man was tall, in good shape, had dark hair and light eyes, and seemed good-humored and kind.
The woman was tall as well, but she didn't seem to be in her best shape; her belly was slightly swollen, suggesting she was a few months pregnant, two at most. Her hair was long and blonde, and she had a worried and stressed expression on her face.
"They're going to take him to Area 51 and experiment on him, Claire, I saw it in the movie," Phil, the tall, good-humored man, argued with his wife.
"He's just a child, Phil, and he needs to go to the doctor," Claire countered.
"Children don't fall from the sky, Claire. The moment he steps into the hospital, they'll find something about his body and turn him into a guinea pig for experiments," Phil replied worriedly, already imagining the worst horrors.
"They wouldn't do that... would they?" Claire's argument faded as she thought for a moment longer.
She then sighed and commented, "So what are we going to do with him? He fell from the sky into our backyard and now we have to take care of him?"
"I don't know either," Phil replied, looking at the child on the sofa and realizing he was awake.
Julian, who was on the sofa and heard everything they said, also got a little nervous. After all, if he were in their place, he wouldn't know how to proceed either. Thinking about it, what do you do with a child that lands in your backyard? Do you simply adopt it as if it were Superman?
Julian knew it wouldn't be that simple, and he really didn't want to become a lab rat in some sterile government room, so he thought fast. If he wanted a safe place to live while he waited for his omniversal travel power to recharge, he had to be adopted by a family.
The sphere was forced to merge with itself and compelled to mold a new body for itself, so it disappeared, and now all that remains for it is the inherent ability to travel through the omniverse.
The good part is that now travel has become an inherent power of his, something that no one can take away from him; the bad part is that now he has to wait for his power to recover enough to be able to travel freely throughout the omniverse.
And now, looking closely at the couple's appearance, noticing the familiar layout of the house and especially the way they called each other by name, he realized what universe he was in. He was in the world of 'Modern Family'.
If there was one family he would accept being adopted from, it was the Dunphy family. But the question is: how? They already have their own problems, why would they want to take care of a child who, as far as they know, came from space?
"Perhaps I should start by asking if they are my 'mommy' and 'daddy' to stir up their paternal and maternal instincts?" Julian thought silently.
But he quickly dismissed that idea, imagining a child who fell from the sky and started calling him 'daddy' – that would be too scary.
Julian watched Phil and Claire out of the corner of his eye. He needed an approach that balanced a child's innocence with a narrative "convenience" that Phil, in his playful optimism, and Claire, in her practical panic, could swallow.
"Where... where am I?" Julian asked in a thin voice.
Phil, who saw that he was awake first, remained silent for a moment, hesitating about how he should respond.
Claire reacted quickly and walked to the side of the sofa, then spoke calmly and softly. "Hi! You're awake. You're in our house, dear. I'm Claire and this is Phil. And you? Could you tell me your name?"
"Name…?" Julian murmured, acting as if trying to remember something, then, as if he remembered something, he answered. "Julian! My name is Julian."
Phil approached, his expression one of fascination on his face, as if contemplating something incredible. "It's like that movie where the boy comes down from the stars to teach about love, but without the glowing finger."
"Phil, less." Claire hissed, then she took Julian's hand and asked, "Julian… do you remember where you came from? Your parents? Any address?"
"Address? I think Claire might still be a little skeptical. How can a child who fell from the sky have an address? How should I answer? Am I from Andromeda?" Julian thought ironically.
Julian lowered his head, letting his wavy black hair fall over his gray eyes, and gave Claire a complicated look as if he didn't know how to answer the question.
In Claire's mind, Phil's idea about "government experiments" was beginning to seem too real a risk for a child who seemed so human and, at the same time, so special.
Silence fell over the room. Claire was thinking about the baby in her belly, about Haley upstairs, and about the fact that the government would probably turn that boy into protein soup if they called the authorities.
She then looked to Phil for help, unsure how to proceed.
"Claire," Phil whispered, pulling her aside, but Julian still heard every syllable. "Look at him. He looks so vulnerable, we can't just leave him to his own devices. What if… what if it's a sign? We just moved. New house, new life… and a special toast?"
Hearing what they were saying, Julian almost crossed his fingers, wishing Phil good luck in convincing Claire.
"Phil, we can't just 'keep' a child that fell from the sky! Like it's a dog we adopted." Claire whispered back, though her hand was protectively clutching her own belly. "How are we going to register him? What are we going to tell my father? He'll have a heart attack!"
"Damn, she has really good survival instincts, I need to give her a little push." Julian decided to intervene before Claire's logic prevailed. "I can help," he said vulnerablely, making them both turn around. "I'm very good at being quiet. And I can clean things up."
Claire felt a pang in her heart. The idea of a three-year-old child.offeringSaying that she was "cleaning things up" so she wouldn't be discarded was the final blow to her defenses. She looked at Phil, who shrugged with a hopeful smile and a thumbs-up.
"All right." Claire sighed, turning to Julian. "You'll stay with us for now. Let's just say you…"It is... aA distant cousin on Phil's side of the family. From a very, very distant part of…"
"Florida!" Phil exclaimed. "Nobody questions the strange things that come from Florida."