Reincarnated Hero System

“This is troublesome…”

Arthur muttered with a sigh, then suddenly his left eye lit up with a dull glow.

The room grew heavy as the ambient energy concentration rapidly spiked to a level that made Danger Sense go off, but it only lasted an instant before receding.

Everyone else felt an invisible pressure that made them feel as if their body weights had been doubled, but surprisingly, Evan was unaffected.

Whatever Arthur had just done, it allowed him to bypass the interference and stabilize the time law projections.

He rewound by nearly three hours, only stopping when the figure of the culprit they had been chasing appeared.

“You finally took off your mask…”

As Arthur said, the culprit had removed their gas mask, likely as this was a ‘safe location’ and they had taken measures to prevent being tracked by psychometrics.

Unfortunately, Arthur was no psychometric, he was even better.

The Inspector rushed and took a picture of the appearance of the culprit who had taken off their gas mask.

It was a woman with a few grey strands in her black hair, wrinkles on her cheeks, and reddish-brown eyes with noticeable eye bags.

“We’d run it through databases to find out if we have any information about this woman.

Thank you for the help, General Vaughn.”

“…”

Arthur didn’t respond to the Inspector’s words as his attention was fixated on the woman as she removed her coverall and incinerated it, scattering the ashes out of the window.

To be precise, Arthur’s gaze was lingering on the woman’s arm tattoo and he muttered something about finding it familiar.

As for Evan, he looked around at other things and then he noticed something that looked like it could be used to identify her.

“Isn’t that a dog tag?”

Evan’s sudden question redirected Arthur’s attention to the tag hanging from the woman’s waist. Instantly, Arthur’s eyes widened with recognition and he exclaimed.

“Rachel’s New Uniform!”

“Huh?”

Arthur ignored the gazes they gave him and took pictures of the tag and the tattoo on the woman’s hand.

It was obvious to everyone that he had seen this symbol before, and just before Evan could ask where he saw it, Arthur uttered words that made him doubletake.

“Hey, Evan. We’re going to the North.”

“North? Isn’t that Aramisian territory?”

Evan reflexively asked this and the Inspector, as well as the other Demons who just returned from canvassing the area also looked towards Arthur with questioning gazes, wanting to know the reason for his sudden desire to enter enemy territory.

“I didn’t spend time in Duskhand doing nothing, you know?

I know someone who might be able to help us find who this woman is.”

Arthur mentioned the city Evan had just been informed he had destroyed, before turning to the Inspector and speaking.

“Tell Alvey that I’m going to Sloklens and I’m taking ‘my new Aide’ with me. It’s related to this case.”

After saying this, Arthur used ice magic to create a mirror, then pulled out a pair of black contact lenses from his subspace.

Before their eyes, he used them to conceal his heterochromatic eyes, turning them black just like they were when Evan first saw them.

‘Is that all he’s doing for a disguise?’

Evan thought this when Arthur turned to him and spoke.

“Let’s go.”

Arthur flicked his fingers, and in an instant, a four-ringed spatial circle materialized before them.

At first glance, it seemed like a simple projection of light. But when it flashed and enveloped them in its power, Evan felt the world around them shift, and before he could react, they were kilometres away from where they’d just been.

“Again, how?”

Evan was befuddled. Twice, Arthur had teleported them without using magic power to power the spell circle and he was curious how the boy achieved this.

“What? Never been teleported before?”

“Of course, I have! I can even teleport myself.”

Evan snapped back reflexively, still reeling a bit from the sudden change in scenery. Then, the reason for his shock hit him.

“How did you activate that magic circle without any magic?”

“That was a ‘Spell’ Circle, not a ‘Magic Spell’ circle. If you want to give it a name, you could call it a ‘Cosmic Spell’.”

Question marks floated around Evan’s head, showing his utter confusion at what Arthur had just spoken about. He couldn’t sense any energy coming from it, and that bothered him.

“You couldn’t sense the energy because it wasn’t magic—it was cosmic energy.

Only those who possess Cosmic Superiority can perceive and use it.”

Hearing Arthur’s explanation, Evan arched a brow and asked.

“Is that some Deity Level power?”

“Deity Level? Pfftt!! Cosmic Superiority would be a joke if every deity had it.

There are people who live for hundreds of millions of years and never attain Cosmic Superiority. Then there are those like me, who aren’t even twenty yet and already have it.”

“Then ‘What’ is this ‘Cosmic Energy’?”

Evan asked, also curious about how to acquire it, but he decided to first know what it was. The idea of manipulating an energy that others couldn’t perceive was incredibly appealing.

“Am I really about to give you a Cosmic Energy lesson right now?”

Arthur sighed, a mix of exasperation and resignation in his expression and Evan nodded repeatedly in reply.

“Yep. You’re about to give me a lesson. Listen up, readers—this is a power I’m definitely going to get in the future.”

Hearing the latter half of Evan’s statement, Arthur deadpanned him.

“…and you say I like to break the Fourth…”

“Leave the piece of paper alone and explain the Cosmic stuff.”

Evan responded, waving off the meta-comment and Arthur shook his head, letting out a soft sigh before beginning his explanation.

◇　◇　◇

Cosmic.

The word had many definitions, however, the one took the cake for being the most popular.

‘Of or relating to the cosmos, the extra-terrestrial vastness, or the universe in contrast to the earth alone.’

The ‘Cosmos’ in this definition referred to All of Existence as a whole. Every possible Universe and its contents are part of the Cosmos.

Now, the strength and vitality required for sustained activities was Energy.

As such, one could say that the strength and vitality required for the sustained activities in the Cosmos was Cosmic Energy.

Cosmic energy was the life force existing any and everywhere. Present in the Cosmos, between galaxies, the molecules, and in space.

Let’s take Evan’s home galaxy, the Orithyia Galaxy, for example. At its core lies a massive orb of highly condensed cosmic energy. This energy is so densely packed that it possesses an immense amount of mass within a relatively small space.

With such high mass comes incredibly strong gravity, powerful enough to bend space-time itself. This bending of space-time is what leads to the formation of a supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s centre, a gravitational force so intense that not even light can escape its pull.

As the energy that sustained the Universe itself, Cosmic Energy naturally held immense power and was superior to other types of energy.

It could also be said that Cosmic Energy was the Origin, while all others were just offshoots of it.

However, high concentrations of Cosmic Energy in an area did more harm than good to a majority of the existences in the Universe.

The concentration of Cosmic Energy in an area was directly proportional to the concentration of other energies like Magic, Aura and the like, as well as Universal Law power.

When Evan was being blasted from the future, if he had succeeded in breaking open the spatial tunnel carrying him, he would have been instantly killed by the enormous cosmic energy concentration in space.

The pressure from the concentrated Cosmic Energy was harmful to many beings, as such filters were necessary to reduce the concentration of the energy to a level that was acceptable.

Examples of these filters included the Galactic barriers and the Atmospheres of planets.

This was why despite there also being Cosmic energy on the planet, everyone was fine since it was filtered to the level where they wouldn’t be harmed by it.

But if you went into space without being strong enough, you’d die. On the other hand, If you were strong enough, then you could move freely without even realising there was cosmic energy around you.

“What’s the minimum requirement to enter space?”

“Transcendence. And even then, your max is less than an hour.”

“I see…”

Evan nodded in understanding, with a lot of things from a cutscene in the game making sense to him.

‘If that’s the case, then ‘The Five’ would be able to help fight the Ancient Demonic Dragon. And here I thought I needed to find space suits.’

Such thoughts crossed his mind, but he put them aside and returned his full focus to Arthur’s explanation.

“The Cosmic energy isn’t removed completely by atmospheres, just filtered to reduce its concentration as the Galaxy itself runs on cosmic energy. The excess energy that is left after this filtering process is then absorbed by the Galaxy and used as a source of power.

Planets further filter the already lowered concentration of cosmic energy to an even lower level. There were disparities in this, however, and this is why some Planets are considered ‘Higher’ and some were ‘Lower’.

Those which have stronger ambient Cosmic energy, which in turn makes them stronger and more durable are the ‘Higher’ ones—High Level, Prime and Apex Worlds, for example.”

Arthur explained how Prime Worlds like Aidos gained this ‘Prime’ Status. Using Aramis that they were on as an example, he explained that Aramis had only just acquired enough cosmic energy to become Prime a few centuries ago, leading to it being considered a ‘New’ Prime World.

“If you are born on a Higher Planet, you’d be naturally capable of withstanding the high energy concentration, so even if you go to a lower world, it would NOT be an issue.”

Evan did not know this, but Earth V in the future was a High-Level World. As such, even without being cognizant of the Supernatural, Evan’s soul was already attuned to high energy concentration, so he didn’t black out from the change in pressure when he came to Aidos.

“The only way someone from a Lower World would not be crushed under the ambient energies of a Higher one is if their Existence Realm is high enough.

When one ascends the Realms of Existence, their bodies and souls grow stronger and depending on how strong they are, they could be either be affected very little by the increased concentration or not affected at all.”

Arthur added this little titbit, and though Evan wanted to ask what was the minimum requirement, he didn’t want to cut Arthur off.

“In space, the concentration of all ambient energies, (Cosmic Energy included) increases, and upon leaving the Galaxy it increases even further.

Due to this, certain precautions need to be taken when leaving a Planet, like having a Space Suit and the like.

If one is not in a sufficient realm of existence, then the action of leaving their Planet would be nothing short of a suicide attempt.”