Secrets

The Ashton family had a long-standing history in the country and specialized in spatial abilities. It had brought forth many skilled spatial ability users who established themselves in government, military, and commercial sectors. The family was not only highly skilled but also very rich since they were able to monopolize varying product niches related to transport in the early days, which allowed them to accumulate significant wealth. Their Ashton Corporation was the first to bring teleportation devices on the market, a technology that was developed through the groundbreaking engineering innovations developed in the family laboratories and workshops. Nowadays, every economically strong nation on the planet had teleportation manufacturing capabilities, but it was the Ashton family that launched the entire industry.

Due to the ban on trading advanced technologies, the planet's economic systems have become more fragmented, but it can still be assumed that the Ashton family is one of the world's top 3 teleportation device manufacturers. But the company has been able to continually innovate and has developed varying detection products and mapping systems in addition to weapons that use spatial abilities for propulsion and bring large objects to high speeds or even allow them to shoot through walls by teleporting Sym energy weapon fire. Their large castle that stood close to the center of the city looked beautiful on the outside thanks to its extravagant architecture, but was designed to be a fortress on the inside due to its retrofitted security apparatus. It had detection systems in every room of the area and varying communication networks to immediately warn the security team of intruders.

Jack found himself in the middle of a large banquet hall as he noticed strong Sym energy waves resonating through the air.

"That is the silent alarm which has detected your intrusion. If you had waited for me to finish my explanation, then I would have told you that the family is well-known for its security systems. Being 'secure as an Ashton' is a well-known expression all over the continent," the assistant said, and Jack noted a slightly sarcastic tone.

"Too late, help me find their data room," Jack said as he scanned the entire mansion for any large Sym crystal servers. Jack knew that he was alone in the mansion since he could not detect any living thing in the area. He assumed that the family members had fled as the creatures stormed the city, which worked in his favor. It might have been better for him to ignore the creatures and raid the Ashton's data first, but he could not help himself if so many creatures were just waiting for him on a silver platter. All he needed to do was copy the data and be out again.

"Right below us in the basement," the assistant said as it highlighted the location in Jack's visual field.

Jack opened a window portal and screened the area through the portal's visual field. He looked for a good spot to land and also cross-referenced his visual assessment with his detection ability to make sure he could jump into the room without destroying any sensitive devices. He fixed on a location and jumped. He stood before 4 large Sym crystal devices that seemed to have a complex system of different abilities infused in them. "What now?" he asked.

"Put your hand on the central Sym display," the assistant said. Jack did as he was told and held his hand on the screen. He was still wearing his rabbit mask and he felt like a thief from a movie, wondering if he should leave a taunting note to his victims.

"Done," the assistant said.

"Wow, you got it all already?" Jack asked, truly surprised.

"Yes, all the available data is stored. Allow me about 5 minutes to break through the encryption and to structure the data. Since this planet does not use computer technology, their encryption is extremely poor. Without the risk of brute force attacks or quantum computing capabilities, the encryption here is more of an intelligence test rather than an actual technical barrier," the assistant said.

"Alright, awesome," Jack said.

"What is awesome?" a voice from behind said, causing Jack to quickly turn around. Jack had noticed a fluctuation in the Sym energy field just a moment ago, but he ignored it since it seemed like random noise. But he was wrong.

"Interesting, how did you hide your presence from being detected?" Jack said with a genuinely curious tone. He had to be more careful from now on since even mild fluctuations can contain threats that might have him lose his life someday. The woman looked like she was in her mid-twenties and must be one of the Ashton family members or maybe she was from the security team. Since she was wearing a lot of makeup, an elegant dress, and had quite the flamboyant haircut, Jack assumed that it was the former.

She stood still and looked at Jack with a fierce stare. "You have broken into our most secured systems. Reinforcements will be here any second, so you better drop anything you have stolen and surrender. And take off that mask."

Jack looked back at her with a broad smile. To him, her demeanor was cute. Like a small puppy that was pretending to be angry. "Well, you got me," he said as he raised his hands. Jack had been continually practicing his spatial abilities and had developed a way to use them near instantly. He managed to tune his portals in a way where they would suck in anything that was before them in the blink of an eye, which allowed him to just disappear the moment he opened it. He did not bother learning the regular teleportation skill since he already managed to get better performance from his portal variations. As he stared down the Ashton member standing in front of him, he opened a portal and disappeared to the roof of the building through a window portal.

A few moments after Jack arrived outside, he noticed another Sym energy fluctuation and saw the woman appearing right next to him. He smiled and jumped again, but this time to a nearby tower, outside the family castle. Expectantly, the woman followed him again. Jack could have disappeared immediately and could have just picked any of his other portals as the exit point, but he wanted to test her abilities. After all, these were the people who knew a thing or two about spatial abilities. So far, she had surprised him by being harder to detect than others, but he wondered what else she could show him. Maybe it was another symptom of the Sym energy getting to his brain and making him more aggressive, but he wanted to test her. She was a guinea pig and he was a scientist. Or maybe she was Alice and he was the rabbit leading her deep into the rabbit hole.

"Are you sure you want to follow me? I look like a rabbit but I'm actually quite dangerous. And I have a really bad temper," Jack said with a grin on his face. He had noticed the Castle filling with guards, some using spatial abilities and others arriving with cars or through teleportation devices. "Your reinforcements are here, so you better fall back now while I'm being nice."

Jack jumped again, but this time slightly further away to the roof of a large department store. He gave her more than enough warnings, so he would not feel bad for her now if she still decided to follow him. She and her family have abandoned the people of this city and tried to leave. They only returned because he cleaned up all of the creatures. They are in no position to be mad at him if they could have used their teleportation devices to help the citizens evacuate. But they didn't. They only tried to survive by themselves.

He waited a few moments and then saw the woman appear before him again. Jack smiled. "Well, I warned you." He then opened a portal right behind her and tuned the pulling ability to the maximum, which sucked her in before she could even respond. The portal propelled her into the rocky desert between Jalk and Gosi City where he traveled with the merchants and the family not too long ago. He himself jumped to a nearby rock and observed her from a kilometer away. He had been using the assistant to help him map all of the portals he had dropped since they were difficult to navigate otherwise. With the assistant, he was able to see a map in his visual field and could easily set the next travel location. He could even just tell the assistant where he wanted to go and let it tune the Sym energy to the right location if he had forgotten where exactly it was, especially if multiple portals were in close proximity.

"One kilometer is too much, huh?" Jack said as he was observing her, crouching on a rock while snacking on some fruit he found during his creature hunting efforts. The woman's detection ability was clearly much weaker than his, he thought. He stood up and jumped through a window portal in her direction, but in small steps to identify what her range was. This was an experiment, after all.

At a distance of about 650 meters, she quickly turned around and faced him. Then she jumped about 400 meters in his direction. "Seriously?" Jack said as he observed her, taking a bite from his apple-like fruit. Then she jumped again and stood two meters in front of him.

"Where did you bring me?!" the woman said, clearly flustered. She was walking through her pretty castle with her fancy dress just a moment ago, and now she had to walk through a desert with high heels, which are the least comfortable thing to wear around these parts. Jack could see a mix of fear and anger in her eyes. Her teleportation skill clearly did not go any further than 400 meters, so this must have been why she did not appear immediately when he broke into the castle. But if she does not know where she is, then her teleportation ability is useless. As Seneca wrote, if a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.

"This is where the creatures come to party, so I thought you would like it since you were following me so vehemently," Jack said with a smile.

The woman kept silent. She looked at Jack more closely and seemed to calm down. Jack noticed her hand slowly reaching into her bag and he was able to detect that she had some type of Sym weapon hidden there. It seemed to be the equivalent of a small pistol, but it shot an energy beam instead. But Jack's skin had been hardened to such a degree that no weapon that he had seen could really be a threat. The large energy cannons on the border walls would probably hurt quite a bit, but he would not have to fear for his life. For someone who has accumulated that much energy in his body, any common sense goes out the window.

"Calm down," he finally said with a softer but still strict voice, "I only brought you here since you annoyed me. You left the people alone and tried to flee. Do you have any idea how many died? You could have at least provided access to your teleportation devices before you left."

"The long-range teleportation takes at least three hours to warm up. We had no time to help," the woman said, still reaching for her gun.

"That gun won't work on me. If you annoy me more then I will just leave you here. And yes, there are creatures in the area," Jack said with a stern tone. The woman stopped reaching for her gun and relaxed her arm. He continued, "You could have opened the doors and turned the device on anyway so that police could escort entire groups into safety. But you didn't."

"You're just a thief who got caught in the act. What gives you the right to condemn us for saving our lives?" she said with an angry tone.

"Who do you think took out all the creatures?" Jack said while staring at her with a calm expression.

She paused for a moment. Her gaze jumped between his pupils as if to search for a hint of irony or any sign that he was joking, but she found nothing.

"That is impossible," she said vehemently.

"That's what I would say if I were as weak as you," Jack said as he started walking towards her.

She wanted to flinch, but she kept calm to not give him any power over her reactions. He stopped right in front of her. Then he said, "I just brought you here because I was curious. I am quite interested in spatial abilities so I thought you had some interesting things to show me."

The woman calmed herself down and said with a sarcastic voice, "And did you get what you wanted?"

Jack looked at her for a moment, then turned to the side and took a few steps around her. "No, it was quite disappointing. Evading detection was not bad, but a detection area of only 650 meters and a teleportation distance of only 400 meters. Please tell me that you are the worst in your family in these skills."

The woman blushed since she was the most promising talent in her generation, but she did not want to tell him that. She remained silent as Jack kept walking around her with his hands scratching his chin.

Then the assistant interrupted their conversation, "Jack, I have structured all the data. There is information of 35 different spatial abilities including teleportation, portals, and propulsion. I have also gathered research data from the Ashton laboratory, which has been developing devices and new spatial abilities that are not functional yet. About 50 different abilities have been postulated and are in development. But since the difficulty of creating new abilities is high, many of them are in development for decades already with little progress. All of the family members who can accumulate Sym energy in their brain are involved in research and try to develop new abilities based on their genetic constitution. I have not discovered any reference to interdimensional portals, but one research area was particularly fascinating. There was research conducted on storage dimensions where the hypothesis was that it should be possible not only to create a storage dimension but also to break into an existing storage dimension, which would allow theft of valuable goods. While this is not described as being dimensional travel, connecting to an existing dimension comes very close to what our goal is."

"What is the status of this research?" Jack thought, addressing the assistant. He had been ignoring the woman and had been walking slowly away from her while appearing to be deep in thought as he listened to the assistant. With his detection, he noticed her slowly following him since he had become her lifeline in this foreign desert.

The assistant continued, "The research is still ongoing. It has been conducted for three years and is mainly relying on one particular family member who has a storage ability but has also shown signs of connecting to existing storages when certain conditions are met. As of the latest data available to me, the ability is still unstable, and it does not yet deliver results. The girl called Fey is 15 years old and part of the main Ashton family. In fact, she is the younger sister of Viva, who is with you right now. I have been able to access all of the family's records."

"Viva," Jack said out loud while noticing her startled expression through his detection. "Let's go home." He turned around and looked at her with a gentle smile. Then he opened a portal behind her that sucked her in before she could even react, and stepped into the portal he created behind himself. Both found themselves on the roof of the Ashton family's castle and Jack disappeared through another portal before Viva could utter a word.

The main banquet hall in the castle was filled with people. Jack had noticed a familiar presence the moment he arrived on the roof and decided to meet the man of the house as soon as possible. He had never been a very patient man, but the recent changes in his body had made him even more proactive than he already was. Jack appeared in a corner of the banquet hall and slowly walked towards the center. Due to him still wearing the rabbit mask, he immediately caught the attention of everyone in the room as well as the security team. Jack detected nearly 200 people in the hall and most of them were facing an elevated seating area where the more important men seemed to be having a heated discussion.

Then Viva appeared behind Jack as he could sense through the slight anomaly in the Sym energy field, and shouted across the room to her father. "Dad, he is the intruder!"

Her father stood up and immediately ordered the guards to apprehend Jack, and the crowd parted around him to get away from the potentially dangerous man. As the security team closed in on Jack and was just about to reach him, he made eye contact with a familiar face that was standing right next to the Ashton patriarch. In just the split of a second, Jack jumped through a portal and stood right next to the table, entirely evading all the security team members.

"Hello General Zage, long time no see," Jack said with a smile on his face.

General Zage was shocked and perplexed at the sight of this man in the rabbit mask. He was grateful to him, but also weary since the power he had portrayed was unfathomable. He could turn this entire castle and everyone in it into dust in a matter of seconds. This man was a natural disaster and more dangerous than a horde of creatures could ever be. Even the humanoid creatures were fleeing from him. He put on his best diplomatic smile and was just about to extend his hand to the mysterious man in gratitude, as he heard the Ashton patriarch shout, "What are you waiting for? Arrest this man right now!"

With a shocked and tense expression, General Zage turned to his soldiers and the Ashton's security team and screamed, "Nobody move. Nobody is to touch this man." He then looked back at Jack and extended his hand to him as a sign of gratitude. "We are grateful for everything you have done for this city and the citizens." Then he turned to address the mayor, who was still sitting at the table, observing the tumultuous scene, and said, "This is the man I was talking about earlier."

Both the mayor and the Ashton patriarch turned white. This was the man he had described? If that was the truth, then they were standing on the edge of an active volcano. He single-handedly saved this city and his powers were uncanny. But the mayor had not reached a high office through sheer luck. His ability to think on his feet and build relationships was unmatched in this city. He stood up with his overweight body and walked towards Jack, saying, "I am so happy that I get to thank you in person. General Zage has told me everything about your magnificent deeds and we are forever in your debt."

Jack looked at the mayor, who he knew had tried to flee the city by himself when the people needed him the most. He was not a righteous person and did not feel like he had a moral obligation to anyone, but that still rubbed him the wrong way. He looked at the mayor and said, "You left the people alone when they needed you most. How will you make it up to them?"

The mayor's smile briefly faded, but then became more pronounced than before. He was an expert at weaseling himself around any obstacle. "It is true that I left because I was of no help here. None of our security protocols worked. You were sent by the gods to help us and we will be eternally grateful for your help. Is there anything we can do for you?"

Jack smirked at the mayor, who displayed all the features of a skilled conman. He then turned to the Ashton patriarch and said, "There is. I want to make a deal with him."

Carl Ashton, the patriarch of the family, looked sternly at Jack. In this city, no one could talk against him, and he enjoyed absolute authority that was only matched by the mayor and the head of the military, General Zage. But even if they cannot tell him what to do, they can only ask him for a favor. But this time was different. The man was too mysterious and too dangerous to offend. Carl Ashton turned to his staff and said, "Follow me, let's go to my office." Jack followed the patriarch, who led him up a broad staircase like he had only seen in movies before, and into a large office. He had told General Zage and the mayor to wait downstairs since they would not be needed. Only Viva, who was still confused at the entire situation, and the family's head butler followed them. The security team had been told to stay down since they could not have made a difference anyway. Carl Ashton sat down behind his desk and looked at Jack, "Please, take a seat." Jack sat down on the comfortable chair in front of the desk while Viva and the butler remained standing in the middle of the room. Then he continued, "What type of deal?"

"Fey," Jack said as he leaned back in the chair.

Carl flinched when he heard the name of his youngest daughter since it was too unexpected. He could think of no reason why such a person would even know about her. She was entirely unordinary. She had no particular talents, was not particularly pretty, and had not made any achievements in the family or elsewhere. She was currently doing an apprenticeship at their family company to learn about the administration and management of the business. He was entirely confused. "What about her?" he asked.

"Give me an hour with her. I want to study her ability. I know about the research and it coincidentally matches my personal area of interest," Jack said.

"That is confidential information. Where did you obtain this?" Carl asked, slightly irritated at his lack of control.

Then Viva leaped forward and interjected, "I caught him in the data room when he broke in. He was doing something at the interface."

Carl looked at Jack with a cold look and tried to gauge how much he knew about his family. "Did you learn it there?" he asked.

"Yes, but don't worry. I don't care about your family affairs. I just care about that particular research. Let's make a deal. As you know, I could just take what I want, but I prefer to have an equal exchange instead. I can help her improve her ability and I will learn how it works in the process," Jack said as he sat up straight in his chair.

The patriarch turned his chair towards the large office windows to his side for a moment and thought deeply while observing the clouds. After a few moments, he turned back to Jack and said, "Ok, I can make that happen."

Then Viva stormed around the desk towards her father and said with an emotional tone, "You can't! Who knows what he wants to do. He might hurt her. When I tried to stop him from stealing from us, he kidnapped me into some desert and threatened me."

"But you returned just fine with his help, isn't that right?" Carl said with a scolding frown on his face. Viva felt embarrassed. Carl continued, "Without his gracious help, there would be no Ashton castle or any of the things we have in this mansion. Never forget to be grateful even if you feel upset. You can never become a leading figure in this family with that childish attitude."

Viva looked on the ground and remained silent. Carl faced Jack again and eyed him carefully.

"Great," Jack said as he leaned back in his chair with a broad smile. "And there is something else I would like you to do." Jack pulled out 2 Sym crystals from his bag and put them on the ground. The Ashtons were shocked at the sight of him touching them with his bare hands. Then he continued, "I don't trust you any more than that weaselly mayor, but you will be easier to hold accountable. I overheard your discussion with Zage and the mayor about the repairs and the lacking budget. Pay for all the repairs with these two crystals. I want you to pay for everything and this should be more than enough. If I return to the city in half a year and see that any of the houses have not been repaired, then I will take my anger out on you. Also, I will ask the people if they had to pay a dime for it and they better not. You three are responsible for the wellbeing of your people so act that way." Jack's eyes had become fierce. His expression was still hidden behind the rabbit mask, but Carl could tell that he was very serious.

"We will do that," Carl said as he motioned his butler to get protective gear in order to secure the two Sym crystals.

"Great. Where's the girl?" Jack said with a smile.