Chương 1: Omnimancer 1: On Top of The World

"Only one of us is walking off this mountain, Marc, and we both know it can't be me." At the top of the world, in the middle of the worst snowstorm of his life, Jackson William Collins ignored the floating eldritch horrors and their millions of writhing tentacles, and made the last decision of his life.

"You think I can just accept that?" Marcus shouted to be heard above the gale-force winds.

"That I'll just leave you up here to die?"" Ohhh, look Cups, the humies are fighting now! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

"You have a family. Do I have to say more?" His best friend had no reply to that, as Jax knew he wouldn't. No words he said would stop Marcus from living the rest of his days in regret. Regretting that they'd ever taken on the world's tallest peak during the offseason when not a single soul was around to help them.

That they'd nearly succeeded, only for a freak quake to hit them just before the summit, wiping out their oxygen caches along the way and leaving them stranded above 8, 000 meters with a single spare tank between them. To say nothing of the storm that had suddenly manifested despite a perfect forecast and blue skies only moments prior. Now, a single misplaced step meant they'd plunge off the treacherous ridge to their deaths some thousands of feet below, never to be found again.

A multitude of factors had conspired to end them, and yet, there was still hope. After all, to regret, you had to be alive, and Jax would be damned if he let the man he considered a brother die here.

"Live on, Marc," Jax shouted into his buddy's ear.

"Make it the best life in the whole fucking world. For the both of us!" Marc stared at him blankly, and Jax knew that under that oxygen mask and the frozen-over ski goggles, his friend was shedding tears for him. He, apparently, wasn't the only one. Sniffle sniffle.

"It's so sad! I'm crying! Why do mortals die, Misu? I don't like it!" Jax once again ignored the voices and gave Marc a shove. His friend stumbled back, cradling the oxygen tank like a newborn.

"I'll never forget this!" Marc shouted through his mask.

"The world will know! I'll tell everyone what you did for me!" Jax laughed, realizing this would be the last time he'd ever see his friend.

"As if a blabbermouth like you could ever keep a secret this big."" Huh? They're laughing now? I think these humies are broken, Misu!"" That's, um... That's the mating ritual!" said a smug voice.

"It's how the humies get it on, Cups."" Ooooh. Get it on! Get it on!" Jax's eyebrow twitched. Extreme altitude did strange things to the mind. He knew climbers who claimed to see God up here. Divine visions telling them to stay and not descend.

"Reina's dream. You still intend to see it through?" Marc muttered in a mix of awe and disbelief.

"I came here to carry a torch, Marc," Jax said.

"Last I checked, it was still lit." Jax turned to the majestic peak soaring behind him.

"I'm gonna summit Mount Everest. For me. And for her."" C'mon, let's gank him already! I like him!"" Yank, Cups! Not Gank! And he's gotta do that himself! We just watch." Jax was out of oxygen just minutes from the summit, which was a problem, but the eldritch hallucinations arguing above him were quickly becoming the bigger one. At least they weren't telling him to walk off a cliff… yet." You literally just picked the first humie you saw! Didn't Daddy say you'd do exactly that?"" Nuh uh.

He literally just saved his friend, dum dum!"" Who're you calling dum dum, you dum dum?" The bickering in his head continued unabated as Jax trudged through shin-deep snow, braving the billowing wind, navigating the treacherous ridgeline that had claimed so many lives across the years. Real dangers, yes, but it was so much more than that. Months of preparation and years of training had led him to this vaunted place. In the footsteps of those legendary figures who preceded him.

And yet, by the time he'd navigated his way past the Hillary Step, he was genuinely worried for his sanity. It might've been the hypoxia. It might've been his body coping with the prospect of his life ending. Sure, he was going to die up here, but was wanting to be sane when he fulfilled the greatest accomplishment of his life too much to ask?" Ohh look how he uses his paws!"" Those ain't paws! The humies call them hands! I think. Or was it feets?" Only a few steps lay between him and the summit now.

Only a few steps to the moment he'd dreamed of so many times he'd lost count. The pain he'd endured, the life he'd sacrificed. All to make this singular dream a reality. And then, just like that, he was there. Standing on the top of the world, the whole mountain to himself. The years-long dream finally fulfilled. Jax tried to soak it all in. To bask in this precious moment and to etch the ocean of emotions he was feeling into his mind before it all ended. The pride. The longing. The exhaustion. The sadness…

Unzipping his suit's pocket, he pulled out the washed-out Polaroid photo he'd carried all the way up, clutching it tightly between his heavy mitts lest the priceless memento blow away. On it was a guy with a trim black beard and messy hair next to a blonde woman, her arms wrapped around his neck, tongues stuck out and cross-eyed like idiots.

"I hope you're seeing this, Rei," Jax muttered.

"Because I sure can't." Not through the gale-force storm and half-frozen goggles, anyway.

"I summited Everest, and all I got in return was this shitty view and voices in my head," he chuckled. On the back of the photo in Reina's scrawled handwriting was a note he'd read a thousand times. See ya at the top, Jackie! I'll kill you if you don't get yer ass up here!

"Looks like I beat you to it," he mumbled, smiling warmly at the old photo.

"It's so beautiful, Misu. He gave up his life for one friend and climbed to the top for another!" Knowing her, she'd be laughing her ass off from heaven, asking what took him so damned long. It was Reina's infectious energy that had gotten him into mountaineering in their college days, and thank God that she had. Climbing was the only escape he'd had. The only reason he'd slogged through those soul-crushing years working in tech. Now he joined the seven thousand other souls to have reached the roof of the world.

All thanks to her. Jax knew he should've been terrified over his impending death. Or depressed. But it was a weird sort of joy that filled him instead. He couldn't ever once recall feeling this… fulfilled. As at peace as he was now, alone at the summit of Mount Everest." Heheh, he's pretending we don't exist."" Really? Maybe… maybe he can't see us! Misu, what if he can't see us?" Well, no. Jax did have one annoyance. The hallucinations hadn't let up even once." Naw, he just thinks he's hallucibating!"

the other eldritch horror interrupted, making a wiggly motion with a few thousand tentacles. Jax ripped off his oxygen mask and took a seat on the snow, suddenly feeling dizzy." Oi! You can't just ignore us like that!" one of them shouted.

"That's not allowed!" Jax ignored it. Right up until a tentacle slapped his head, jerking his neck. He felt that. Except one did not feel hallucinations. That was ridiculous. Which meant…

"They're… real?"

"Obviously, mister!" In the face of this reality-breaking realization, Jax did what all hardened veteran mountaineers would do when faced with such insanity. He stared the two terrors down, his face a chiseled mask of stone-cold composure. Then he screamed like a little girl, scrambling back on all fours, and screamed again for good measure. Once his throat was hoarse, Jax fell silent, unable to wrench his eyes away from those things, now that he'd started staring.

Their inky black forms seemed to contain entire universes within them, entirely beyond the realm of understanding. Just looking gave him the mother of all headaches. Not just that—time seemed to lose its meaning. Sounds became muffled as his mind was drawn in, never to return. Danger senses honed on countless peaks blared, and through sheer willpower alone, Jax forced himself back from the brink, pulling himself out one sense at a time.

After what felt like forever, he finally managed to wrench his eyes away from that all-encompassing void… only to find an even greater horror waiting at their center. A grapefruit-sized yellow glowing eye that stared right back at him.

"Hi!" It said, waving a tentacle.

"Oi! You're scaring him! Cut it out!" one of them said, slapping away the appendage the other one was extending at Jax.

"That's why Daddy said we should use a form they're comfy with!"

"Oopsie poopsie! Forgot, hehe." Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. The two horrors vanished in a puff, and in their place floated a pair of… fluffy teddy bears? A happy-faced white bear and a smug-looking brown bear.

"Oh no," Jax muttered.

"You've got to be shitting me."

"Ooo! Much better," the brown teddy bear said, nodding happily as it inspected its stubby arms. Tiramisu and… Cupcake? Reina's bears. The ones that used to sit on their bed.

"See how comfy he is already?" the brown one, Tiramisu, said. Comfy!? What am I, five? And why would they even care?

"So this is it, then?" he asked, resigning himself to his fate.

"You're gonna eat me now?" Somehow, despite already having accepted his death, the thought of filling some monster's belly really pissed him off.

"Pew! Pew!" Misu spat.

"Eat you? Yuck! We're just here for fun!" Both bears pointed their stubby arms towards the summit. Jax followed their paws to the prayer flags dotting the peak and the oval tear in the world that floated above it. Wait, what!? Jax strained his eyes to see it better, but the storm was nearly blinding. Heaving with exertion against the too-thin air, Jax rose to his feet and braved the wind and the snow, curiosity overpowering his fatigue. What he found when he arrived was a portal.

A portal leading to blue skies, vistas for days, and not a cloud in sight. Snowy peaks on scales Jax could scarcely comprehend. Forests and alpine lakes in the distance, and was that a miniature sun on the other side floating inches off the snow!? Like a fabric rip in reality, its jagged edges beckoned to another world. A doorway to someplace else. Jax took a hasty ten steps back.

"Yay! You found the Shimmer-shimmer!"

"And what the fuck is a Shimmer-shimmer?" Jax asked, heart pounding, and it wasn't just on account of oxygen.

"Shimmer-shimmer's a Shimmer-shimmer," Cups replied.

"It goes whoosh and poof and pow!" The bear bent and dove through the air as it talked, giving Jax the most animated description he'd ever seen that explained nothing at all.

"Ah yes," Jax replied wryly.

"It all makes sense now." Not the hardest decision, this one. If he stayed, he suffocated to death. Might as well take his chances and see what happened. With failing legs that threatened to buckle any second, he slowly made his way back to the portal.

"He's going in, Misu!" Cups whispered, having suddenly appeared on his shoulder.

"No way! For real?" its companion muttered in awe from his other shoulder, somehow audible despite the howling wind. Their whispers grew louder and louder until they were outright cheering, zooming around his head like oversized flies. Jax arrived at the shimmering portal and hesitantly extended a hand. To the world that lay on the other side and that blinding sun. He froze an inch away, paralyzed by fear as some part of him realized what he was about to do.

It lasted only a moment as his legs gave out and Jax fell through. He expected to be sucked into it, or for the world to spin dramatically around him. Instead, he tripped on the edge, face-planting into the snow on the other side. To a n equally cold patch of snow, just of a different peak. A different peak with entirely different air. Jax sucked in a breathful of thick, rich oxygen—the first he'd had in days—feeling the life flood back into him.

He greedily took in a second and a third, the fog lifting from his mind and energy returning to his legs. Energy enough to stand without any effort at all.

"What is this place?" he muttered in awe. The portal had vanished without a trace. Something that didn't bother Jax nearly as much as it ought to have, because in its place were hundreds upon hundreds of incredible peaks Jax had never once seen. That, he suspected, no one had ever seen. No one from Earth, anyway. Jax's thoughts were interrupted when the brown bear flew up to him, bonking its soft nose against his.

"Hmm, let's see… yup! You've got the [Arch Mountaineer] Gift, alright!" The white bear, for his part, looked about as excited as a kid in a candy store.

"But why does it say you have the [Greater Wage Slave] Gift, too?" asked Misu, narrowing its eyes.

"Are you a slave?" Cups gasped, pressing his soft nose against his goggles, trying and failing to peer through its reflective coating.

"What? No! I work because I choose to!" He lied.

"Yeaaaah." The brown bear nodded to itself, as though having come to some profound conclusion.

"Keep telling yourself that, mister."

"So… should we be quiet now?" Cups asked.

"So he can deliberbate?"

"So he can deliberbate," Misu nodded smugly with closed eyes, and then the teddies vanished from sight.

"Let's call that an improvement," Jax muttered, massaging his temples, just trying to process all he'd just seen.

"Nope. Impossible." Thinking about the insanity of it all would probably bring him to his knees, so he locked that away for now. As for the decision they were talking about, he had a hunch it had something to do with that house-sized sun floating nearby, radiating a level of heat that should have vaporized him by now. Instead, it felt a lot like standing outside on a sunny day. Rejuvenating, even. Jax tentatively approached the strange phenomenon, the effect growing stronger as he did.

He reached a hand to it before recoiling instinctively. Who knew what touching this thing would do? What if it melted him? Dying right after getting a second chance in a new world would be pretty pathetic." What happens if he gets it, Misu?" Cups whispered." Dunno, but I hope it's funny!" Misu whispered back. Jax's eyebrow twitched. Whatever happened to letting me concentrate? Jax closed his eyes and steeled himself. Fuck it. He'd never been one to temper his curiosity, and he wasn't about to start now.

"So exciting!" the bears cooed, reappearing on his shoulders as his heavy mitt finally made contact. The first sign that he'd made a terrible mistake was the onrush of energy that pulsed from the core, penetrating his body. The second was that the bears on his shoulders flew away, letting out scandalized yelps. Cosmic energy flowed into his every pore, as profound as it was deep. Then into his heart and his mind, touching something deeper. Something he'd never known existed at the very center of who he was.

And it didn't stop there. It expanded everything it came into contact with. Reshaping him in ways he couldn't begin to understand. But he did understand one thing. The process wasn't just changing him. It was making him something… more. More than he'd ever been. More than human.

"Aww, he's gonna croak!"

"Bad humie! Don't croak!" Jax barely heard them. The weight of all the world's mountains crushed his body, forcing him to his hands and knees, dripping with sweat. For a moment that stretched into eternity, it was all he could do to breathe. All he could do to fight back against this overwhelming torrent of power that sought to bury him. He resisted. He did more than just resist.

Because what use was pitting his mind and body against the elements and against hardship in all those peaks if he couldn't even resist this? The mountains had tempered him, and that tsunami of cosmic power met a dam that would not be bent or broken or bypassed. Again and again, each new wave crashed into him, and each time, he persevered. When the deluge abated, only Jax was left behind. Reforged. Victorious… and utterly wiped.

"Don't you worry, mister," Cups said, patting his back.

"That was the biggest shiny-shiny I've ever seen! Wouldn't be surprised if you just took in more power than some gods got. Even I'd be feeling the doozies if I did that!"

"I don't believe it," Misu said, shaking his tiny head.

"The vegslave actually did it."

"Hmm," Cups said, frowning in thought.

"Misu, aren't we forgetting something?"

"Er, is it that Aunty doesn't like it when people give her bad presents?" Misu asked, bringing a paw to his chin. Jax, who'd been too focused on waging a war against the cosmos to pay attention to the banter taking place atop his back, finally came back to himself. He stood up, causing the bears to tumble off his back before they took to the air. He expected the brown one, Misu, to be especially miffed about that. Instead of indignation, however, what Jax saw was fear. Abject fear.

The very same expression of a kid being caught stealing from the candy jar… and that terrified him to no end.

"Uh, what's wrong?" Jax asked, suddenly wondering if he should start regretting his recent life decisions.

"Not presents, Cups," Misu said, trembling." Gifts. Specifically, the Highest Gift. Aunty told us she doesn't let anyone have it!"

"Because it's way better than hers, right?" Cups replied, covering its mouth with both paws, looking visibly distraught.

"Misu, you know how Aunty gets! She'll be really angy if she finds out anyone got it. This is really bad!"

"But… but someone should get it, right? So, uh, why not him? He saved his friend, right? And he made it to the top of that big mountain! Yeah!" Misu said, flexing his stubby arm. Not liking where any of this was going, Jax began backing away. Distracted as they were, he was hoping the eldritch horrors-in-disguise wouldn't see him.

"Aunty's busy, Cups! She won't even notice! Probably. Maybe…"

"Hey, you!" the white bear said, putting its nose against his, thereby foiling his grand escape plan.

"Don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Uh, okay?" Jax said. After seeing their reaction, only an idiot would blab about this.

"W-we should give him that other stuff," Cups said, looking very nervous.

"For the in…incon…inconvenies!" The brown bear nodded, sounding equally worried now.

"Right. Oh, and Aunty said humies need to eat and drink and stuff. Hey you, whatdya eat? And, uh, any keschuns?"

"Finally!" Jax said.

"Jesus Christ, yes, I have questions. About a million. First off—""Eeep! Aunty's coming! Gotta go!"

"Oh, no, not her! Gotta go! Bye!"

"Oh, but take this! So you don't die."

"So you don't die!" The bears waved their paws… and poofed out of existence.

"Uh, hello?" Jax asked into the still air. Nothing. Jax looked up at the sky, wondering if 'Aunty' would emerge from the heavens. She didn't. What he found instead was a blue sky… and a single cloud. An oddly shaped cloud with an odd projection hovering above its head that just said: [??,???]. Whatever the bears had shoved into him apparently gave him the ability to see question marks now. And a HUD, without the cybernetics to power it. Odd. That was when the cloud moved. Except, not in any normal cloud-like way.

No, this resembled something oddly familiar. It struck Jax as weirdly… serpentine? Oh, Jax realized with dawning horror. Oh shit… Yep. The cloud was actually not a cloud at all, but a serpent so large it defied comprehension, just lazily circling the summit. Entire miles in length, and God knew how massive. Patrolling a peak that, unknown to Jax at the time, countless brave souls had attempted to scale and died trying. All for the power he had just obtained. System Initializing…

Unique Gift Bestowed: Omnimancer [Transcendent] Master of All Magic. Jack of None. The Omnimancer stands at the pinnacle of possibility—a testament to the superhuman grit and resolve required to obtain it. This is a Unique Gift, bestowed upon the first person in history to reach the highest font of power in the mortal plane. Unlike all other Gifts, the [Omnimancer] is unlimited in the number of Magic Schools that can be learned. This Gift grants limitless multi-school synergy.

"Wow," Jax whistled, reading the message that seemed to be projected right into his eyeballs. But after everything else, a little HUD magic wasn't about to faze him.

"Sure sounds impressive—" ERROR: This Gift is locked and unavailable to bestow without express permission of Administrator Entity [The Goddess Luxor]. Administrator Note: The Gift that resides on Wakanya's highest peak bears far too much potential to be wielded by a mere mortal, and as such has been made impossible to earn. Oh, you have got to be shitting me, Jax thought, clutching his hair, reeling. He was just about to panic when another message appeared.

[̴̼͚̯̬͎̍́̈́]̵̼̬̳͚̭͌̽̊͑[̶̨̗̐]̴̹̬̺̃͝[̶̯̜͝]̷͈̥̲̬̮͒̽[̷̢̡̛̦̪̫̑̓͘]̸̱̖̲̌̇͆[̴̭͖̑]̸̭̥̭͓͕̑͒̕ Entity [Tiramisu] has initiated a transdimensional override… [̴̼͚̯̬͎̍́̈́]̵̼̬̳͚̭͌̽̊͑[̶̨̗̐]̴̹̬̺̃͝[̶̯̜͝]̷͈̥̲̬̮͒̽[̷̢̡̛̦̪̫̑̓͘]̸̱̖̲̌̇͆[̴̭͖̑]̸̭̥̭͓͕̑͒̕ Entity [Cupcake] has initiated a transdimensional override… [Administrator] restrictions bypassed… Tier I Magic School Shards Consumed [4]: Fire, Land, Water, Wind Tier II Magic School Shards Consumed [3]: Force, Life, Lightning Commencing System Initialization.

Time to Initialization: 2 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds. The surge of Soulfire that originated from the Omnimancer did not stop at the summit, nor even at its base. Crossing oceans, it swept through cities, propagating to the farthest reaches of the mortal plane, touching every life within. An Ungifted man felt it as vague discomfort quickly forgotten. Too blind to the ways of magic to know better. The Second Tier Pyromancer beside him, however, froze as the wave of Lux passed through her.

Rejuvenating her magic channels, filling her with energy. A good omen from the Goddess, she concluded, and carried on with her meal. In a pitch-black chamber deep beneath Takora, an ancient soul fell to his knees in cold sweat, praying despite not having prayed in centuries. Begging the Goddess to shield him from that unknowable terror. And yet, the pulse's final effect was both more subtle and profound than the rest. Every Undying Flame in every Temple across Wakanya flickered.

Just for a moment, and only slightly at that. Observed by few and understood by none. For never once in history had the flames faltered. Never once in history had the Goddess' might been thwarted so. And never once had her foremost guardian felt its domain so violated.