He woke up as usual, to the looming threat of the Andromeda galaxy above. It had been visible from earth for ages now, but during times like this, which others called, The Apocalypse, the stakes were much higher.
The beautiful galaxy past civilizations had marveled at in the sky and some even worshipped its beauty, that same galaxy, was now on a collision course with theirs.
Its dust swirled around beautifully, but it was just a prelude to the collision that'd shred everything.
Yes. This collision was not as simple as a common, peaceful merger. For some reasons only a handful of people understood, Haki included, this galaxy merger, long theorized to combine into Milkdromeda had turned into a 'galaxy destroyer'.
*BUZZ*
Haki's mind whispered;
[Time until collision: 1 year, 3 days, 17 hours.]
He rose with his robe swishing. "Prep the lab."
'Did you really sleep with your robe?' Kevide sneered from within.
"Prep the lab" Haki said, ignoring the snarky comment.
[I heard you the first time.]
[Preparing Lab…]
The lights dimmed as the room hummed with a low sound, he had answers, but unfortunately for humanity, he wasn't here to save.
'If we were in a story… we'd definitely be Villains.' Kevide mused, sounding almost pleased.
'I know,' Haki replied silently. 'But we're not in one. So, for now, there's only one thing to do.'
Agreement settled between them like a pact.
'Continue.' They said together.
***
…Gurgle… …Gurgle…
"Continue."
His eyes snapped open as they now shined, not with a color, but something deeper. It felt like a raw and unfiltered desire for something, and he knew what it was.
The desire had always been there, but now, it seemed to manifest stronger than before, especially in his eyes.
'The reason', he thought, as he 'looked' at his mind;
[Spirit: 100]
"Shit."
*Bubble*
A tiny stream of air slipped from between his lips and twisted upward, racing toward the pale shimmer of the surface.
That was the third sound he'd made in this world.
This world… he looked around him.
The basin around him was exactly as it had been before, same with the pale slice of sky high above and also the waterfall mauling the rock and turning its surface into ragged foam. None of that changed, it had remained the same.
But the way he received it had changed.
Everything seemed clearer to him now, the difference was huge compared to before. It was like the difference between, watching a movie in 360 pixels and then in 4K.
To describe this feeling, now, the water wasn't just "greenish" anymore; he could see the layers of color and density in the water, he could even see the faint gradients where colder flows intercepted warmer ones, he could see the tiny trails bubbles left as they spiraled upward.
'No, it's not just my sight.' He thought.
It felt like all of his senses had been enhanced significantly, creating a sense of satisfaction greater than his previous mortal binds.
His hearing, taste, and sense of touch… everything, which had been calibrated under Spirit, all hummed at a pitch that would have pulped the brain of a normal 3 year old child.
Now, the way he experienced the world had changed, completely. And not just the world, but also, his body.
He could feel his spirit subtly enhancing his agility even while it hadn't increased by a micrometer.
HISSS—
He emptied the last stale air from his lungs and his face smoothed into total calm. His eyelids drooped slightly as his limbs slowly unfolded from the cross-legged posture he'd held at the bottom.
Then he moved.
SWISH—
His movement was swift and efficient, his new perception had made him understand new ways to interact with his immediate environment for the best possible effect.
His observed as his hands sliced out, fingers loosely spread, wrists angling just-so to catch and redirect water instead of fighting it.
His spine, as flexible as a snake, oscillated in a low wave that turned downward force into forward motion. His legs followed, drawing measured arcs that slid him through the basin gracefully.
The water couldn't feel any more different from his nervous system now and he spent more time getting familiar with this new feeling, but, something kept feeling… off.
'I need to consolidate my new abilities as soon as possible, although, I feel, no. I'm sure there will be repercussions for this. '
He couldn't pinpoint the feeling so he paused mid-glide and simply 'listened' more attentively, with his skin.
He understood the [Spirit: 100], simply translated to a potential state he could exist in if he tried and not necessarily his present state.
So, to enter that 'potential state', accessing the full effect of [Spirit: 100], he had to flex that particular 'muscle'.
And the moment he did…
CRASH
He heard a loud crashing sound from the waterfall's throat above. It appeared a single grain of silt had broken loose.
A single grain that would have gone unnoticed to him before, now sounded as if a massive rock had been thrown into the water.
He watched the grain descend slowly into the water, then did something strange;
He rolled onto his back and let his eyes close and then covered his ears with his hands.
'I can still feel it'
He could still feel the slow fall of the grain, the way it tugged at the flow around it, tumbled through the chaotic plunge, slowed even further as it hit calmer water, and then kissed the basin floor ten body-lengths away with a soft "puff" that sent faint ripples across.
He felt those ripples crawl over him like spider silk.
He could now do multiple things at a time if he focused hard enough, he could close his eyes and realize obstacles in front of him, even roughly tell their shape and size due to the way it depressed the water in front of him.
The waves rippling on his skin, as before, was not just background noise anymore, but a sort of… informant, although it also fed him unnecessary information. It would be totally unnecessary to keep the full potential of his spirit active at all times.
It would be like using a strength of 10 to lift a speck of dust, or using a chainsaw to cut off the head of a chicken.
'Let's experience it first. Continue.'
Like this, he did various experiments, testing the capabilities and limits of this new threshold.
He flexed his Spirit to the max and the basin became loud in its silence.
Each droplet against his skin was like a bass drum in his ears.
The grain of rock under his fingertip, he could sense the pattern of its pits and ridges.
'What am I to do with all this?' he thought.
Holding Spirit at this pitch constantly would cook his nerves eventually, and it happened not too long after;
*CRACK*
The architecture of his brain flexed and creaked under the load of countless information; he felt a tight, bright ache lanced at the back of his skull and for a fraction of a moment, the world degraded back into a lower resolution.
'There you are,' he thought, almost amused.
'My Spirit is vast, but my flesh is still just flesh,' He shook his head, 'I will only be able to use the full potential of my spirit for a limited amount of time before my body gives up.'
This was the consequence of having a massive imbalance in his stats especially at an early age. He loosened his grip on the spirit sense, the way one relaxes a clenched fist and his awareness immediately shrank from "omniscient basin god" to "ruler of this pond."
He proceeded to let his body rise until his face broke the surface, and as per usual, he tried calculating the time it would take for his body to fully reach the surface and… he was off.
Still with a calm expression, he thought, 'Huh? What's wrong?'
'Did my weight change without my knowledge?' he thought.
He floated in a proper position and observed his body closely. His weight, with the way it displaced the water more overbearingly, he hadn't noticed it before, even in his spirit enhanced state, but now he saw it more clearly.
And it was not just his weight; his height, the length of his limbs, more teeth had grown, his muscles were denser, his whole physique had lost a lot of baby fat, and most noticeably, his hair.
He reached up and grabbed a handful of it.
Before, it had merely been a soft fuzz that never really got in the way, but now, his fingers sank into a thicker mass that drifted around his face in slow, dark strands. It floated in the water like ink smoke, longer than his hand span. It brushed past his jaw and the back of his neck.
'Tch, what a drag,' he thought, mildly irritated.
He tugged at it experimentally, as if to rip it off but his scalp protested and the roots held firm. It was no more infant fluff but real hair now. It moved when he moved, trailing behind his head whenever he twisted, adding a faint, noticeable pull to his turns.
'Another variable to account for, though minor. Whatever, I'll just leave it.' he mused.
He let the hair slip through his fingers and looked down the rest of the line, at other parts of his body.
His neck had lengthened, his shoulders had broadened, they were no longer the narrow, fragile slope of a toddler but the beginnings of a proper frame.
He flexed his fingers into a fist and the tendons stood out clearly under his skin. He noticed his forearms, now corded with thin, wiry strands of defined muscle.
His chest was flatter and his ribs were more defined beneath his skin.
His touched his abdomen, no longer slightly bulged with baby fat; it drew in clean abdominal lines from his ribs toward his hips.
His legs, now stretched further, with his knees sitting higher.
He looked downwards; his calves and thighs. Both showed the kind of lean build that only thousands of underwater sprints could carve into such a young bone.
He had replayed dozens of his old iterations in accelerated recall; how many kicks it had taken to cross from 'Soft-Slope's first rise to the lip of 'Dark-Pocket.'
How far his fingertips had reached along the wall of 'Hammer-Throat' when he stretched.
How many heartbeats he'd needed to push from 'Crack-Deep' to the central hump.
He observed many other variables and also the way his new body reacted to external constants he had previously recorded, he compared his previous abilities to his new ones; then, he came to a conclusion.
'My vertical length increased by about… thirty to forty percent.'
He looked down at his hands again, and flexed them, sending small currents rippling through the water.
'When I was three years old, I had the physical appearance of a 4-5 year old kid'
"I'm seven years old now." He ended.