Apocalypse Redux - Chapter 299: Hidden Aspects

As per usual, Isaac had pitted the twins against the most basic monster possible. The Slate Golems were almost perfect punching bags, especially for people who could fly.

Of course, Isaac also made sure to throw in plenty of impossible foes at them, the kind that they’d asked to face and then had to be rescued from to ensure they didn’t get any dumb ideas about punching too far above their weight class.

And looking deeply into the [System’s] instructions, he’d finally found the bloody line about how changing one’s race wasn’t a problem if it happened during the starter [Class] selection. But it hadn’t been there before, he knew that for 100% certain.

In fact, he’d been fairly sure that the part about racial sidegrades being painful hadn’t been in there at first, in the other timeline, but he hadn’t been quite sure. Plenty of people remembered it having been there the whole time.

As it turned out, that whole mess was a perfect example of the Mandela effect, and it hadn’t been there before.

And once Isaac had become fully certain that that line was new, that there was no way he’d missed it, another tab appeared in the instruction manual.

One describing the function of the freaking instruction manual.

More specifically, it explained how the situation went overall. If you found a hidden mechanic, a full explanation would appear in your manual. And if you caught the [System], well, the damn machine apparently came clean, explaining how all that worked.

So yeah, switching races via a starter [Class] would be fine, anything else would probably be just as painful as his ascension to Einherjar.

Still, that was one big worry with regards to potential future children out of the way.

Watching the twins was giving him a strange combination of emotions.

On one hand, he was very proud of what they’d achieved. It was damn impressive what they were capable of. Healing spells at Level 0, Resurrection Spells potentially as early as the first Evolution, and more besides.

On the other, it was worrying. And sure, part of it was that the breadth of mischief they could get up to had just vastly increased, but to be honest, that was only a tiny part of the puzzle.

But honestly, he was worried about what the whole thing represented.

Firstly, Isaac really didn’t want his sisters to fight this fight. It was his fight, not something for the next generation. Obviously, being siblings, they were technically in the same generation, but with a fourteen-year age gap, that definition got a little fuzzy.

And he was feeling a little protective of them, especially once they started dating properly. A few years ago, Tanja had met the first boy she didn’t want to absolutely murder after five seconds of being in the same room together, so it haaaad to be true love. But on the first playdate, Isaac had been home, and the poor kid had only then realized just whose sister he was standing next to.

Hopefully, he could achieve the same effect with real boyfriends. Provided they deserved it, of course.

And secondly, them having epic [Classes] right out of the gate was, well, everything wrong with society today. The combination of the family bloodline and his training had given them an advantage that would be damn hard to match. Almost as much of a cheat as future knowledge.

Hell, Isaac hadn’t been able to get an epic starter [Class], and wouldn’t be able to change that now. The advantage of his generation was that not only did they have first crack at Heir-[Classes], but they’d also been in a position to leverage their power to change the world before that power became commonplace.

The constantly changing world of the last seven years had been chaotic as hell, powers rising from nowhere and on more than one occasion, falling back into obscurity in the same day as they were erased from the face of the Earth.

But as the next generation showed up, individuals starting out with bloodlines, and so on, that rapid shift would slow down and potentially, in time, even stop. Social ossification had been a thing before, obviously, but there were some advantages that were almost impossible to overcome.

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Trainers, gifted Aspects that could be mastered, safe summoning spaces, and more could rocket someone up through both Levels and rarity tiers and unless some idiot decided to raise greenhouse flowers, those people would create the next generation of powerhouses. And at that point, the title of “strongest of one’s generation” might no longer fall on the most talented individual.

Of course, it was still possible to fail due to a lack of hard work or having too much of an easy path forward, but still … Isaac sighed. He was mentally writing a draft of how one could help one’s children get good starter [Classes] while creating a plan for fighting social ossification.

“Let’s keep going,” Isaac called out as he summoned another Golem for the twins to fight, Tier 3 this time. A Lesser Rock Golem erupted from the ground, only to catch a force bolt from Viktoria, toppling it onto its back.

And then, Tanja let herself fall out of the sky, her full weight resting on Legacy’s pommel, sword poised to pierce the monster’s core. For fuck’s sake …

It was a maneuver that could work, under the right circumstances, but required a hell of a lot more Stats and practice to pull off. The blade’s tip glanced off the monster’s chest, which left its wielder sprawled on top of a very angry pile of rock.

… Wonderful.

Which left him rescuing her, lecturing everyone about not trying dumb stunts even with him being around and watching over them.

The mess was somewhat understandable overall, they were a tad on the young side for their [System] to be unlocked. But it was still a mess he had to correct.

He didn’t even have to draw his sword, [Far Strike] worked against a monster this weak, and with [Absolute Blade Mastery’s] Level 20 bonus, he could project them from his hands and even fingers. So all it took to tear the golem apart was the merest twitch of his fingers.

***

After almost an hour of training, Isaac was sitting with Tanja on top of the [System] research faculty’s building, their legs dangling over the side. Viktoria had unfortunately had a prior engagement and flown back home.

Technically, sitting like that was a violation of every safety regulation in existence.

Practically, who the hell cared?

“You know, school has been crazy lately. Michelle saw our wings and decided that she absolutely had to be able to fly too and tried to make her [System] activate by jumping out of the window,” Tanja said.

“It … doesn’t work like that,” Isaac winced, “How high up were you?”

“Oh, it was one of those ‘in case of an emergency, evacuate through the window’ deals,” Tanja said, “Unfortunately, she didn’t realize that there was a half-rotten pile of leaves no one bothered to remove right underneath and fell in face-first.”

Isaac chuckled, “I bet she looked pretty silly.”

“Not as silly as she did when trying to convince the teacher that she wasn’t a danger to herself while still looking like she made out with a garbage dump,” Tanja sniggered.

Funny as the image of a girl diving face-first into a pile of mulch was, if teenagers were putting themselves in dangerous situations to trigger their “superpowers” that was a problem.

He’d put together a set of PSAs about the subject, but these were teenagers. Telling them not to do something was likely to make them want to do it all the more, and providing an explanation just gave them something to disprove.

“Oh, and did I tell you about what happened on the last field trip? There were these drunk frat assholes and Mrs. Feldmann kicked the loudest one so hard he flew!”

“Wait, what?” Isaac asked, utterly perplexed. Feldmann was the government agent currently assigned to make sure the twins were safe at school, why would she do something so flashy?

“Well, he grabbed her ass,” Tanja said, “He was drunk, and she defended herself.”

Ok, that made more sense. Someone who could still get drunk was likely low Level, and field trips almost exclusively happened in the morning. A guy who ran around drunk as a skunk that early, hitting on a female teacher currently watching over young students and getting physical with said teacher … definitely deserved the kick, legally and morally.

And quite frankly, Feldmann was not only Level 89 in actuality, but also under her cover identity. She had an excuse for her Strength, as having the occasional point squirreled away into physical stats was normal, as was knowing how to do a simple karate kick, which could have come from self-defense training. Simple as can be.

“You know what to do if someone tries that with you, right?” Isaac growled.

“Not tell you,” Tanja smirked.

He glowered at her.

“I don’t want you to get arrested for murder,” she added, still smirking.

“Okay, fair point,” Isaac sighed, then darkly added, “But you’ll still tell me, I’ll handle it. I’ll be fine.”

“You can be pretty scary when you want to be,” Tanja noted.

“I’ll be whatever I need to be,” Isaac said, forcing a grin onto his face as he ruffled his sister’s hair, completely messing up her hairdo.

“Hey, stop that!” Tanja yelped.

“Catch me, if you want to do something about that,” Isaac grinned as he kicked himself off the rooftop, flames igniting under his feet to send himself rocketing off, with Tanja in hot pursuit, wings beating furiously.

Oh, this was fun. No impactful things, no threats, just siblings horsing around in their spare time.

And in a few days, it was time to break into the tenth Tier of monsters, properly. Something to look forward to as well.