I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 432: Herald of Fate

“Lesser Temporal Origin…” Aurus repeated the words Torvas said to him, rummaging through the memories that both he and the actual Aurus had access to. However, even after going through all of it for quite some time, the only conclusion he came to was the fact that he was familiar with the word ‘Temporal.’

“I’ve heard of the word somewhere before, but I don’t really know what it means,” he said not long after, to which Torvas lightly smiled in response, telling him, “It’s fine, it’s fine. The word temporal is something you wouldn’t hear that often anyway. However, what if I told you that the word was related to time?”

“Time?” Hearing that, it seemed as if everything had finally clicked in Aurus’s mind. “Lesser Temporal Origin… so that means you have control over the element of Fire, Wind, Water, Earth… and Time. Did you get those prophecies you gave me through this?”

“Yeah.” Torvas nodded. “As it’s a type of element related to the Origin, it’s way better than controlling the element of Time alone. After all, tackling Time as a whole is quite complicated, especially when it involves seeing the multiple futures that a being has.”

“Multiple futures? Isn’t there only one future?” Although Aurus believed that the future was up to the actions and deeds he did right now, making it uncertain, he was sure that the future only had one possibility, the one forged by his own actions. However, from how Torvas phrased it to him, there seemed to be more.

Fortunately, Torvas explained everything to Aurus, nodding in response to his question as he replied, “On one hand, it’s correct to say that there’s only one future… but on the other, it’s also wrong to say that there’s only one. To be more specific, there is only one future that you have access to. However, there exists multiple futures alongside it that branch off, with each new future being made once you make a decision. These other futures are called false futures. After all, if you didn’t make a certain decision, wouldn’t it be wrong to say that one of the false futures is your actual future?”

As Aurus listened to his explanation, he could not help but feel like he understood it, yet at the same not. With that, he could not help but ask, “Could you give me an example so I could better wrap my head around it?”

“Alright.” Torvas nodded, becoming silent for a bit. “Think of it this way. You’re walking down the street until you see a gold coin all of a sudden. At that moment, you think to yourself whether to grab that gold coin or not. However, that thought also formed two possible futures: one where you take the gold coin and continue walking, and one where you don’t and continue walking. If you chose to take the gold coin, the future where you take the gold coin is your real future and the future where you don’t take it is the false future.”

“Of course, the same applies vice versa. If you don’t take the gold coin, then the real future becomes the future where you don’t take the gold coin, while the false future is the future where you do take it.” Taking in a quick breath, he then asked Aurus, “Does that clear things up?”

“Yeah, it does.” Aurus nodded, only to bring up another question. “Then… doesn’t that mean that you had to look at a great number of false futures to make the prophecies you gave me?”

“Unfortunately, that is indeed the case,” Torvas replied, slightly shuddering at the thought. “To form those prophecies in the first place, not only did I look into your future, I also looked into the future of your original body. I think I looked into over 30,000 futures in total between you two to arrive at those prophecies I gave you.”

“However, that’s not the important part here,” he continued, sporting a solemn expression as he told Argentum, “The important part here is the fact that your original body had the same end in all of those 30,000 futures. In fact, up to that point, your futures also all had the same end, where you would come to the Origin Pantheon and look for me.”

“Eh?” Aurus could not help but lean back in surprise after hearing that. After all, Torvas just explained to him that all of the other futures were what-if scenarios wherein he took a different choice. For all of those futures to have the same end seemed incredibly weird and bizarre to him. “Surely not all of them show the same end, right?”

“Indeed, not all of them did show the same end.” Torvas nodded in response. “However, compared to 30,000 futures, only about 200 to 300 showed a different future, which was actually not that different from the end all the other futures had. At most, the only difference was the time it happened.”

Hearing that, Aurus could not help but fall silent as he tried to process this new piece of information he had just received. If even the false futures Torvas mentioned showed that the actual Aurus would be taken away by Kurohana at the very end, then didn’t that just prove the point that his original body was being led on by Kurohana all along?

Of course, Torvas didn’t know that at all. Instead, he perceived his silence as a type of sadness after realizing. With that, he could not help but try to comfort Aurus by saying, “I’m sorry. The element of Time is a hard element to manipulate, so I can only see through so many futures at once. If I had control over the element of Space and form the element of Lesser Spatiotemporal Origin, I would have probably been able to look at not just a hundred thousand futures, perhaps a million futures wouldn’t be far-fetched.”

“Unfortunately, it has already happened, so there’s no point in me saying this.” Soon after, Torvas could not help but become sad as well, letting out a sigh before drinking about half of the strawberry juice in his glass.

At that moment, Aurus thought that there was no point mulling over it, lest he wanted to end up like himself last night. With that, he placed the thought at the back of his head and changed the topic into something that also had something to do with Torvas.

Clearing his throat to catch Torvas’s attention, Aurus said to him, “There’s no point feeling bad about it. After all, it has already happened. However, now that I think about it, there’s something I should have asked you far before you gave me the prophecies.”

“Surely, someone in my shoes would have been suspicious at first, but I wasn’t. With that in mind…”

“Why did you give me those prophecies in the first place?”

Hearing that, Torvas could not help but smile, making Aurus feel like he was already expecting a question like this to be asked. Thinking that way, Aurus could not help but mutter inwardly, ‘It feels weird to have your every move be predicted beforehand by another person.’

“Do you want the short answer, or the long answer?” Torvas asked in response, to which Aurus replied, “Give me the long answer.”

Nodding, Torvas took in a deep breath before asking Aurus, “Have you ever thought for a bit as to why someone like me would dabble in the art of divination, even going so far as to comprehend the Origin just to see a bit more of the future?”

Fortunately, Aurus quickly caught on to what he was hinting, saying in response, “Is it because of your class?”

“Correct. It is indeed because of my class.” Torvas nodded, a satisfied smile appearing on his face. “However, if you were to think that my class is related to divination, then you would be wrong. It would be more correct to say that divination is just a small part of my class.”

“As we have a sort of special relationship, let me tell you right now that my class is Herald of Fate,” he continued, to which Aurus lightly nodded in response, a solemn expression appearing on his face. From how the class sounded, it did not take long for Aurus to come to the conclusion that Torvas was probably more important than he initially thought.

“Herald of Fate, Harbinger of Destiny, Seer of the Futures, this class may be known by many names, yet its purpose is one and the same,” Torvas said. “To guide those blessed by fate, as well as give fate to those who are shunned. Though, it’s not impossible for people with my class to become the voice of fate as well.”

“And what does that have to do with giving me those prophecies?” Aurus could not help but say in response, subconsciously feeling that he was going to hear something that he wouldn’t like.

“I’m just getting to that point,” Torvas said with a smile. “As I’ve mentioned before, we have a sort of special relationship.”

“Is it because I took over your position as an Origin Sage?” Aurus asked in response.

“That has nothing to do with this special relationship.” Torvas shook his head. “Instead, the fact that almost all of your false futures show the same end is enough proof that we have a special relationship.”

“After all, only a select few people would have that kind of false future. They’re called…”

“The Gatherers of Fate.”

“…”

“…I knew my gut instincts were right. I already hate hearing it.”