"Adam, do you love mommy" I was reading a book when my mother Martha appeared out of nowhere with that wide smile of hers. My mother is such a beautiful woman that even such a creepy smile appears beautiful on her.
I ponder her question a little and reply "sure."
My mother's smile widened at my answer.
She picks me up and swings me around while laughing. She then hugs me tightly and says, "happy birthday, my love."
"Thanks," I reply to her.
Today I finally turned five years old. Just this morning all my abilities have completely integrated into me. And the sense of completeness that I have is fantastic.
And I guess the chemistry that happened when I acquired these different abilities along with mastery over them has led to a few surprises. For instance, I can now enter the spirit world and travel through it.
"Alright honey, I'm gonna go out to buy your cake. Be good and don't go out of the house."
"Okay." As soon as she hears my baby voice, her eyes light up and she almost rushes to me again to give me another hug. She almost always takes me out with her, but I guess she doesn't want me to see the cake before my birthday party, which has only the two of us participating in it.
Anyway, I'm happy she is going out because I finally have some alone time to check out my abilities.
I wait a bit after she gets out to make sure she is not coming back.
I will my abilities to enter the spirit world. The colors in the room grow heavy and bright, like wet paint. Then the room peels away and I'm standing in a place that overlaps with reality but isn't the same. The air hums. The ground feels close and far at the same time.
The spirit world has layers that sit on top of each other. The present layer is the most solid: streets, walls, and sky are there, but simplified, like someone sketched them with clean lines. The past layer flickers behind it in faded tones—scenes that already happened play for a moment and then rewind or blur out. The future layer is faint and glassy, like reflections in a window; you can see possible scenes if you focus, but they're unstable and can vanish or shift if you move your attention. Sometimes the layers leak into each other. A door that was closed a minute ago looks half-open in the past, and slightly cracked in one possible future. Paths run through the world like pale roads—shortcuts that can take you somewhere fast if you know how to follow them.
Threads run through everything living here. From people and animals, thin spirit threads stretch out into the distance, tie to their bodies, and hook to things that matter to them. Some threads pass through objects made from things that were once alive—wood, leather, paper. But dead metal and stone don't have threads of their own.
The place isn't empty. Strange things drift by: a coat walking without a person inside it, a shadow moving on a floor with no owner, a parade of toys rolling uphill in silence. Far away, a city block from the present looks normal, but in the future layer stacked above it the same block is covered in dust and broken glass. I can take a step along a pale road and the scene around me jumps with me, like skipping frames in a video.
After looking around for a while, I try the first thing I intended to try. I will it—and my body starts to expand and change. I turn into a big vortex made of tentacles and spirit worms. The tentacles are like thick cords braided from countless spirit threads, and from the center of me, translucent worms stream out and curl back in, flowing without end. The sensation is great. Each worm can hold a separate thought, so I can think in many directions at once. Parallel thinking comes naturally. Honestly, I could already do that in my human form for some time now, but here it's clearer and faster.
Now that I'm fully integrated, I go through what I can do—already at the Miracle Invoker stage, so every earlier ability is the stronger, leveled-up version:
Seer (Sequence 9): My memory is sharp. I can use spirit vision to see souls, auras, and hidden influences. I can perform divination and ritualistic magic properly—coin tosses, dream hints, number and star methods—and my danger sense pings before trouble lands.
Clown (Sequence 8): I have precise control over my body and face. Balance, coordination, and agility are top-tier. I can harden paper into blades and throw them cleanly. My danger premonition is stronger; sometimes I catch the next move someone will make and react early.
Magician (Sequence 7): I can use nine quick tricks without chanting:
Damage Transfer (shift a wound's location to turn fatal into manageable),
Flaming Jump (blink through flames or sparks I left behind),
Air Bullet (snap or mimic a gunshot and fire compressed air like a round),
Paper Figurine Substitute (swap with a paper double to dodge death or weaken curses),
Flame Controlling (ignite and shape fire at range),
Underwater Breathing (form an invisible air pipe to breathe),
Bone Softening (slip restraints),
Draw Paper as Weapons (bats, bricks, canes—whatever I fold),
Illusion Creation (sound, light, and smell illusions that pass as real).
Faceless (Sequence 6): Full shapeshifting within size limits—body, voice, even scent. I can move facial features, erase them, or create fakes. Tracking and anti-tracking get easier. All earlier spells hit harder and last longer.
Marionettist (Sequence 5): I can see and manipulate spirit body threads from range. With focus, I can slow and then take full control, turning a target into a marionette and even "ride along" through them. I can follow threads to find hidden or invisible things and notice parasitism. Reading surface thoughts from a bound puppet is simple.
Bizarro Sorcerer (Sequence 4): I hide my level well. Illusions scale up a lot—I can cover a ship or plant thoughts. Flaming Jump's range jumps, air bullets become cannon-level, and I can push wounds onto paper stand-ins. I can gift my worms to marionettes so they can use parts of my power, and swap places with them in an instant inside my range.
Scholar of Yore (Sequence 3): I reach into History. I can borrow from my past self, project historical items, people, or scenes, or hide inside the historical void. I can listen to prayers in range, send my spirit out to the spirit world, and my divination and danger sense show me multiple future outcomes more clearly.
Miracle Invoker (Sequence 2): This is the core right now. I can grant wishes and stack them—small ones add up to bigger effects. I can jam fate to push probabilities up or down. I can summon scenes, items, or people from History in limited numbers. If I'm killed, I can resurrect a few times within a short window if I trigger it right. My thread control scales to a city—thousands of marionettes if I want.
And all the weaker abilities are leveled up to their miracle invoker version.
Like I can now transfer injury to a paper figurine not just to another part of the body. Not that I need it since I have immortality from the potion of life, but I can use it to heal other people.
I let the tentacles unwind and pull the worms back. I return to my small body and step off the pale road. The heavy colors fade. My room comes back with normal light and normal air.
Mom should be home soon with the cake. I sit down on the couch and wait, feeling steady and complete.