Chapter 59: Equivalent Exchange
"Every planet where sentient life thrived heard the order to bring forth seven young representatives, with their age no more than two soul cycles. In our own yearly cycle, that translates to twenty years," Frederick explained. "They were all warped off to what our victors eventually described as an extremely massive, artificially-made planet, formed by origin and universal will. Every world sent their strongest young champions to battle for the fate of their home in a trial that spanned nearly a year. And like you might have guessed, our champions won. Crushingly. They had no competition throughout the trials and rounded up what should have taken at least two years, in less than one."
Zephyr’s eyebrow tilted at that. "No one could even put up a fight?"
"No," Frederick replied. "You have to understand that these worlds were just like us before we were visited by people from your world. They weren’t prepared for it in the least," he explained. "That was why we were able to wipe them out so cleanly and quickly."
"Still, the people back on our planet didn’t know that and could only wait with bated breath for the results of the trials. But when they all felt the sharp rise in origin feedback, they knew our champions had won," Frederick sighed. "But what they didn’t expect was to hear another prompt from the voice of the world, informing them of yet another trial they had qualified for as a result of their quick victory... Though that wasn’t to take place until the next year so as to give people of our world some time to acclimate to their newfound powers."
"So what happened to the others who lost?" Zephyr asked quietly, already knowing the answer.
Frederick paused, then stared Zephyr right in the eye. "Their worlds were slowly seeped of origin as it converged onto ours over the course of the following months, depriving them of access to origin, and therefore magic... forever."
"Hooo..." Zephyr blew a breath, shaking his head. "That’s... messed up."
"I understand where you’re coming from and I agree with you, but you’ll understand the reason why the more I explain." Frederick nodded before he continued his explanation. "By then our world had become a Nexus world—with magical readings that didn’t fit the Tier 9 cluster it inhabited. Therefore, after the siphoning of origin was completed, our world jumped a few levels into a higher energy orbit, skipping Tier 8 and 7 and going directly to join a Tier 6 universe."
"This was where our next trial began—" he said solemnly. "It was nothing like the first. We were now in a real universe, not a cluster of scattered worlds floating in the void, and the worlds here were different. Stronger... Way stronger."
"It was a universe on the brink of convergence, so a trial began not too long after, but the trial this time lasted for nearly four years, and while we came out victorious, it was at great cost. Of the seven champions to leave, only two returned, one injured and the other at the brink of death, dulling the sweet taste of victory."
"Our world bloomed greatly after that as origin from the Tier 6 universe converged onto our planet, throwing us to a higher energy orbit yet again. This time, a Tier 3 energy universe, but a stable one, since we didn’t qualify for another trial," he finished.