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SoK Chapter 129
🕑 Added 2025-04-25 15:00:19 +0000 UTCAfter taking his time to treat the pelt, TJ walked back into his house. He looked around the ruined kitchen and felt his anger rising again. In his heart of hearts, TJ knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto this little piece of history throughout this apocalypse. It was obvious that people had swept through here, desperate for anything to help them to survive their Tutorial. That they’d only taken food and necessities, not destroying everything and instead leaving everything other than what they obviously desperately needed helped. A little.
While he slowly walked through his home, TJ twirled Mari’s ring around his finger. He wasn’t used to the protrusions on the ring, and it had caught on the pelt multiple times as he’d prepared it for the tanning slurry. The diamond actually glowed faintly as he walked through the dark hallway in the house. It made him smile, but as he turned and looked at the office, devoid of light and life, his stomach sank once again. Junior’s blocks were out. TJ could remember snapping at his son a little the night before this all had happened. Something about him not listening, which was unfair, given how young Junior was.
TJ knuckled his forehead, the emotion of having left his son in the System’s care settling back over him. Would Junior understand? How long would it be? The System hadn’t provided a typical baseline of when Participants typically would reach Silver tier when he’d asked it in the Tutorial. He pulled himself from his grumpy self-remonstrations and instead decided to ask the System questions.
“Maybe it’s changed since I left?” He mused to himself. “When does someone reach the Silver tier of Divinity?”
Any Participant who reaches the Silver (II) tier of Divinity will have done so before they reach level 100 in Race.
Though it wasn’t a true answer, not one that provided the exact level that the System considered a benchmark for evolutionary requirements, it was something. TJ figured he’d be able to get more information once he crossed one of the requirements for evolution to Silver tier. As far as he could tell, his two best options were to bump his Fixation higher and higher, or to get a Silver tier Divine Authority. Something in him thought that, once he taught himself Lightning Manipulation, he’d be most of the way there to progressing his Divine Authority. Then, there was the option of going through a Tribulation and somehow progressing in his Divine Trials.
“John!” a screamed name pulled TJ from his wondering about evolution. He couldn’t help but laugh at himself, less than a week into the Copper tier and already thinking of Silver. Looking for the source of the shouting, TJ left the hallway and looked out the front windows. The door was still open, and as he got there, a man with wild eyes bulldozed into his home.
“Whoa there.” TJ said, pushing the man back. “What’s going on?”
“My son, John. Have you seen him?” the intruder demanded. “He was home from school, he hasn’t come back. Where is he?”
TJ’s heart sank, but he still pushed the man out of his home. Now that he looked at the man, he recognized his next-door neighbor. A middle-aged man TJ hadn’t really spoken with in the few years they’d both lived in the neighborhood. His thinning gray hair was unkempt, and the man was only barely holding onto his last shreds of sanity.
“I’m the only person in here. At least, for the last couple of hours. I haven’t seen your son. Wasn’t he about my height, curly dark hair?” TJ asked.
“Yeah. You sure you haven’t seen him?”
“No, I’m sorry. I can keep an eye out for him. Was he 15 already?”
“16.” was the reply as the man ran a shaky hand over his head. He was fighting off hyperventilation as best as he could, and TJ reached a hand out to shake.
“I’m sorry, I can’t believe I neer introduced myself. I’m TJ.”
“Ted.” The older man replied, shaking TJ’s hand distractedly. “Yell for me if you see him, would you.”
It was more of a command than a request, which Kukulkan’s blood revolted at. TJ punched that pride in the nose and wrestled it down.
“Of course, Ted. Let me know if you find him.”
Ted ran off, and TJ couldn’t help but feel like, miserable and terrible as it was, John was probably dead. The kid had been living in the house for what, four years? And TJ had never gotten to know him. Unknowing of who it would go to, TJ stepped into his home and offered a little prayer to whoever and whatever would listen.
“All these parents and children, brothers and sisters and friends and family… help them.”
He couldn’t think of anything else to say or do, but TJ needed to say at least that much. The feeling of if Junior had been put into a Tutorial away from TJ himself… TJ felt his stomach clench. He would be in a worse state than Ted was if that was the case. TJ hoped he was strong, and turned his attention to making sure he would be ready for whatever was coming. Just tomorrow, the monsters would be back, and TJ had no idea of what he’d be required to do. For now, he needed something to cook food with, any more food or water he could find, and maybe something to fortify parts of the house to make it a better place for him to sleep. For now, something to burn, because the two propane tanks he had wouldn’t last for too long.
With that in mind, he looked at the three ten-foot-tall Chinese Elm trees in the front yard. They’d grown markedly in the past two weeks, getting up to almost fifteen feet tall. More and more, nature was reclaiming what was once its own, and the weeds pushing through the gravel in the front yard were another testament to that. Though he’d kept them sprayed to keep the weeds from growing in the first place, it was obvious that the apocalypse was stronger than whatever brand of weedkiller he’d been using. With that in mind, TJ pruned a dozen finger-thick branches from each tree with quick gestures of his hands. Wind Manipulation cut each branch easily, and TJ carried the firewood-to-be around the house to the back porch to begin drying out.
Then, with a frown, TJ spread his mind and awareness to feel each of the weeds filling the gravel front yard. As the wind surrounded each stem, he, instead of cutting, tried to carefully pull each free from the roots. Just as soon as he gave the mental command for the wind to begin pulling up, though, TJ felt the excited and excitable wind tear through half of the stalks that existed. Shredded weeds filled the air, and TJ couldn’t help but scoff at himself. He’d spent the last two weeks honing his ability to kill and destroy things with his Wind Manipulation, and he expected to do such a large thing without problem right on his first try? The closest thing to that that he’d even attempted was probably making a wall of wind.
Instead of getting frustrated, TJ walked to the center of a patch of weeds before he sat down and closed his eyes. He felt each stem around him, felt them sway and tremble with the winds dancing around them. The wind giggled, wanting to whip the small but hardy plants in every direction, to test their strength, to spread their seeds. TJ reined that in, instead focusing on getting a firm visualization and hold of the stems in four feet in every direction around him. There were… fourteen that were large enough to be considered. TJ felt the wind grasp each one, and instead of ripping up, he instead slowly pulled. Three immediately snapped, but he didn’t pay attention to that. Instead, he continued to try to force each one to release its hold on the dirt. Five more broke as he pulled a little harder, and again, TJ disregarded the failed attempts. Six were left, and TJ adjusted his “grip” on them as they pulled the faintest amount out of the ground. With a final yank, three were pulled from the ground, roots and all. TJ chuckled to himself with a genuinely excited smile.
With a thought, TJ gathered up all the weeds that’d been ripped from the ground, whole or otherwise. As the wind held the fragile greens aloft, TJ rolled his shoulders and carried them to the backyard, again making a pile for the future tinder to dry out. Once it was there, he saw the pile of things he’d just throw away in the past, and he laughed to himself. There wasn’t anything in the house intended for him to throw firewood into, he didn’t even have a fireplace in the first place. Then, looking at the barrel prepared for just these same things, TJ laughed.
After pulling the yard waste barrel from the corner of the yard where he always kept it, pulled out his Wendigo Blade and cut it open to keep the plants from decomposing, and instead drying. He could feel that there were some other things that he was missing that would allow the tinder to be truly dried, but experimentation would help with that. TJ realized that random weeds wouldn’t be something sold in stores, but that’s not what he needed. Instead, he went back out to the front yard where more weeds awaited to serve as practice for delicate use of Wind Manipulation.
—-
As noon passed and TJ munched on a thin strip of steak he’d carelessly grilled and overcooked, he decided it was time to have a real conversation with Roger. After all, the man’s pool would serve as the best nearby source of water, especially after TJ started using Stormcaller to keep it full. He walked through his small backyard, the painfully long grass catching his ankles as he raised both hands over the wall.
“Hey, Roger!” TJ called. There was no immediate response, but he didn’t mind waiting for a little while. After about a minute, the other man responded.
“What?”
“I just wanted to talk for a minute. So long as nothing like the Tutorial comes along again, we’ll probably be neighbors just like we’ve been for a long while. Sorry I never got to know you. I enjoyed listening to your karaoke nights, though!” That last bit was a blatant lie. Maybe once a month, Roger and his wife would have a dozen people over and sing obscenely loud Vietnamese songs in the backyard. At least, that’s the language a quick Google search turned up for him when he searched for the lyrics that were keeping him from sleeping. That the singing started at 9:30 pm was enough for TJ to consider it a sin, especially since the shortest session was well over two hours long.
“You like it? Bạn có nói tiếng việt không?”
“Not sure what language you’re speaking, sorry.” TJ hopped up and sat on the wall, one of his legs on each side of the cinderblock wall. Roger and his wife were inside their house, though Roger had stuck his head out the back door. “I think it’s Vietnamese? I remember looking up a couple of the frequent songs you sang.”
“Ah, yes. We are Vietnamese.” Roger nodded his head and TJ returned the much more hospitable reaction he received from the older man this time around.
“I just wanted to get a better relationship with you two, especially since I was going to ask you for a small favor.” TJ didn’t miss the way Roger’s face tightened at the word favor. He continued saying, “I think I might be able to help make sure that your pool stays filled with water, I just wanted to have occasional access to it. How does that sound?”
“What do you mean?” Roger’s squint showed just how disbelieving he was.
“What about this,” TJ offered, “does it look like it’s gonna rain any time soon?”
Roger poked his head out the window and looked up. The skies were clear, and there was no smell of rain on the air. “No.”
“I can make it rain in four minutes. If I can do that, could I come by twice a day and fill a five-gallon bucket with water from your pool?” Seeing the question that was about to come, TJ spoke preemptively. “I’ll make sure that it rains enough to keep your pool basically full, but the ease of access that’ll come from me being able to fill a bucket whenever would make my life easier.”
Roger nodded disbelievingly.
“So, if I can make it rain in the next five minutes, do we have a deal?” TJ offered a hand from afar off in a shake. Roger looked at him in distrust and TJ needed to fight to keep himself from reacting. “I don’t need a physical shake of the hand. Do you agree though?”
“Sure.”
“Great!” TJ said and hopped down on Roger’s side of the wall. As soon as he did so, he sat down beside the wall and leaned against it. Consulting his resources, TJ figured he could throw 140 of each resource into it without much hardship, which would make a storm that lasted for about 17 minutes, and should make the storm more potent than otherwise, with four minutes channeling the Skill. He threw his consciousness into the heavens, calling moisture from wherever he could find it.
The winds laughed, feeling the prank for what it was. They pulled moisture from the ground, from plants, from places nearly as high as the stratosphere. With only four minutes, the water couldn’t come from many places, though TJ felt his soul and body demand that a storm grow into being. As his consciousness returned, lighting pealed overhead and the heavens poured down on them.
“We have a deal?” TJ shouted to a completely confused Roger who nodded dumbly as he looked at the torrential downpour.
