Chapter 8: Supreme Council

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One man would see a very long and silent hallway; a more capable man would see a deathtrap, every inch of it engraved with magic.

It is up to the imagination what the woman walking through it at the moment saw it as—if she even saw it at all, as her eyes stayed locked on the end of the hallway.

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Her long purple hair, just short of touching the ground, swayed despite the lack of wind. One should be cautious about looking at her too long, especially as a mortal, lest they lose themselves.

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After a suspiciously low number of steps taken, the beautiful woman arrived in front of closed gates. She did not stop nor slow down, almost as if she knew what would happen next.

Just as she was about to collide with the gate, it disappeared, as if it were deleted from reality that instant.

Only to reappear once she walked past its threshold.

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POV: Queloris Yarvenak

I would describe myself as a confident person. But even my confidence faltered for a second as fourteen pairs of eyes landed on me, though it returned instantly; all fourteen of their gazes showed me nothing but kindness at the moment.

Maybe the term pairs of eyes was not entirely appropriate here. Some of my newfound colleagues had rather peculiar appearances or hid their bodies altogether.

Most of them I knew, if only by appearance—I had seen them once or twice from afar or on the internet. But four of them were completely foreign to me.

The same went for the room I was currently in.

It was not big, at least not considering its significance—circular, with only a twenty-meter radius. The roof was made entirely out of glass and maybe a bit of magic, showing us the deep and dark ocean of Eozapter above.

While I only suspected the glass dome above had magical properties, I was sure about the floor. I could feel it reacting to myself and the others, glowing in bright magical colors.

There were only five of them: silver, red, purple, green, and yellow. It was not hard to guess their meaning either; the colors represented our classes. The man that I knew to be the only mechanic colored the floor around him silver.

My mentor from my time in the Psycher Academy and I colored the floor purple. Meanwhile, the majority of Espers and Mages colored the floor yellow and green, respectively. This left only two people surrounded by red flooring, marking them as pugilists.

Much more interesting than the color of the floor next to them was the intensity of the color, which seemed to represent strength in general. I could tell this mainly from the much higher intensity of my mentor's purple in comparison to mine, but once I noticed it, it was obvious in the Mages' and Espers' colors as well.

Anyone on our level could easily gauge the strength of a person, of course, but that did not take into account those not physically present.

The government's top level had chosen the day after tomorrow for my first public appearance, mainly to give the Republic's most important members time to travel here.

That being said, there is not one civilization in the vast universe that would publicly assemble all their top supers in one place. So only eight of them were sitting in front of me in person, with the others being projected by magic.

"Congratulations on reaching Grade A. Please, have a seat," the strongest in the room, an Esper, said. He was one of the more normal-looking ones, with the appearance of an Eozarithian male—just with pale yellow eyes and a frail body type.

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One of the Mages snapped his fingers, and a new seat appeared out of nowhere near me at the half-crescent-shaped table.

After I sat down, the Esper began to talk again, a big smile on his face.

"Hmmm... Yes, let us start with this council.

"We meet once every two weeks or whenever urgent matters arise. You may attend in person or remotely, like most of us do, depending on your own wishes."

"Apart from that, you will only have the obligations you wish to take on," he said, absolutely shocking me.

I think I let that shock show on my face as well because he continued explaining.

"I said it's only the ones you wish to take on, but that is not entirely true. In case of a defense or war scenario, all of us will be expected to fight." Some of the others in attendance started smiling at that, as if they had the same reaction when first hearing about this.

"The lack of obligations is there to ensure that Grade-A supers of our race do not leave because they get assigned a role. There are some who value their freedom above all, and we have decided that it is more crucial to retain them as a deterrent or for wartime than to have complete control." Some of the others nodded at this.

"Are you interested in hearing about the tasks some of us take upon ourselves, or do you have your own thoughts on the future?" To which I simply nodded.

"There are some, let's say, full-time positions. These mainly involve guarding—be it the virtual realm, the civilization's governor, or important planets and resources." I could guess that these were probably taken up by the supers who had received more help and resources from the civilization. There was just no way they were so laissez-faire with every super.

"Then there are more part-time tasks, mainly involving opening an academy or teaching students. Or, in a looser sense, anything that benefits the civilization in the long run. The prime example of this would be gathering new knowledge or treasures."

"Lastly, there would be something best called asking for help. As a Psycher, this might mean helping to read the mind of a prisoner or restraining or killing an enemy—really, anything a civilization usually uses supers for," he said, still looking very calm.

"You will, of course, be compensated for this," he added, a small smile creeping onto his face.

"What kind of compensation?" I interjected for the first time.

"Anything, basically, though proportional to your contribution. The most popular ones are Enas, Ships, Land, Slaves, Knowledge, and by far the most requested—planets and Hereditary Planetary Governor positions. We will update your communicator with access to the internal rewards system," he explained.

I was shocked at the last two. Probably something I could have avoided if I had shown more interest in politics, but whatever.

"The last two are for the full-time positions, I assume?" I asked playfully.

"Yes, but not exclusively. In the past, they were awarded to the first people to contribute Knowledge and even for the recruitment of some... special external talents," he said, looking at one of the mages, who just smiled back.

"You can basically get rewarded for anything that benefits the civilization. So, did any of these catch your attention?" he asked.

Catch my attention, they did indeed...

I don't have a use for the planetary governor positions at the moment, but they might be something for my future children.

Enas are always useful, but what I should focus on right now is Psycher Knowledge and especially solidifying my strength in A-Grade.

I just don't want or need these 'full-time' positions at the moment. But outright refusal of all responsibility might send them the wrong signals.

"Among those you mentioned, I am most interested in teaching the younger generation," I answered, keeping it short.

"Great, I will have a new Psycher academy built on Eozapter 1," another mage said nonchalantly. It seemed very comical, as he looked to be just seven or eight years old, with a high-pitched voice. But none of the others showed any signs of amusement or even surprise, and I also assumed that my new academy was as good as built—we were all Grade-A supers, after all.

"I can chip in some of the instructors," came the distorted voice of my former teacher from under its hood.

"Very well, then it seems that everything is settled," the leader of the council spoke up again.

"Please wait a moment," I interjected politely.

"You mentioned the hereditary positions—what about societal rank?" I asked.

"Oh right, I forgot. From now on, you are a rank 9 Crowned, with one line of your descendants becoming hereditary rank 8 Sanctified. What I mean by your line of descendants is that this title will not degrade beyond rank 8 but will only be held by one person at a time," he explained.

"The other descendants will be subject to regular class regression, of course. With that, you naturally have the regular privileges of a Crowned, as soon as you choose your family's insignia and tattoo it. Did that answer your question?" he asked softly. I do not blame him—I might very well be the first to ask these things, as usually Supers would ascend the ranks of society as they advanced.

I am unusual in that regard, as I never considered my class before today, letting my strength speak for itself. And it was not like being a rank 5 Burgher restricted me too much.

"It did, thank you," I answered him.

"The public celebrations will be held two weeks from now. Your assistant is already informed."

"With this, the meeting is officially over. You may leave or stay to socialize, as always."

"Bye."

"See you next time!"

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Yarvenak."

Instantly, four of the remotely attending ones disconnected. Three of them, at least, had the decency to say goodbye first.

That left 11, including myself, but none of the remaining ones seemed eager to leave.

A great chance for me to make some connections. Surely, the others thought exactly the same.