"Heeeeeeey, everyone! There's someone I want you to meet—!" shouted Yugo, running across Oma Island's pristine sandy beach to where a large pier had appeared to accommodate the Album Diaboli—the ship designed by Lilith. Along the shore itself was a villa-sized capsule home, but it was currently unoccupied as everyone was gathered along the beach, where Vahn was processing a four-meter-tall, eight-meter-long Barbecue Pig for lunch.
"Oh? It's Yugo. And there's something other than Az flying behind him," noted Amalia, her brows rising slightly as she sat up on the beach chair Vahn had provided her. She had decided to work on her tan, so she had donned a thong-like, leaf-green string bikini and a white top to soak up the sun while waiting for Vahn to finish cooking.
"Hmmm...?"
Sitting up atop her own beach chair, Eva, sporting a black, gold-trimmed bikini, glanced in the direction Yugo's voice had originated to find a small creature with the proportions of a toddler flying behind him. It had ivory-white skin, pointed ears that split into two, and blue markings around its eyes, mouth, and along its belly. With her enhanced Cra vision, she also noticed that it had three-clawed hands and toes, a stubby tail, branch-like horns, minute, blue-tinted wings with white webbing, and a short, conical horn protruding from its forehead.
"Hmn...it's not a creature I've ever seen before..." noted Eva, rising to her feet as Yugo reached the cozy encampment.
"Amalia...Eva...those swimsuits..." muttered Yugo, his dark brown eyes as round as saucers as he stopped to stare slack-jawed at the two girls, his throat suddenly feeling a lot drier than it had been moments prior.
"They suit us, right~?" asked Amalia, beaming with vanity as she hooked her thumbs through the band of her bikini bottoms and allowed it to snap back into place with a crisp pap.
Swallowing hard, Yugo wanted to respond but found himself at a loss for words. Instead, it was the creature at his side who asked, "These are your friends, Yugo? They look kind of...suspicious..."
Contrasting his words, the tiny creature's cheeks gained a faint blue flush as he carved the image of Amalia's and Eva's figures into his slitted black eyes.
"Oh, right...allow me to introduce you. This is Adamai. And despite how he looks, he's a Dragon as well as my twin brother," revealed Yugo, causing the miniature Dragon, Adamai, to puff his chest and hover proudly with his hands on his hips.
"Behold, mortals! For you stand in the presence of the Great Primordial Dragon, Adamai~!"
"Hahaha. He's a little odd, but please be nice to him," said Yugo, causing Adamai to nearly fall out of the air. It didn't help that Yugo then shifted to introducing those present, gesturing to Amalia, Eva, and Vahn—wearing a pink apron gifted to him by Bulma.
"And these are Princess Amalia of the Sadida, Evangelyne, an amazing Cra archer, and Vahn, the Dragon God of Infinite Possibilities. There are two others, but I don't know where they're at right now," revealed Yugo, causing Adamai to become increasingly shocked. Yugo had explained to him and Grougaloragran who and what Vahn was, but he didn't expect a being who called himself a Dragon God to appear so...human. Yet, at the same time, his instincts were telling him that Vahn was a monster that he couldn't hope to defeat as he was...
"That Iop-brained Percedal ran off on his own, shouting something about exploring the island for adventure..." explained Eva, crossing her arms and exhaling huffily as she appended, "And since this is a hidden island where a Dragon lives, that greedy Ruel wasn't far behind him."
"Wait, your friend is planning to steal from Grougaloragran? Aren't they supposed to be good people?" asked Adamai, confusion clear across his face as he directed the question at Yugo.
"Ruel definitely has a nose for Kamas, but I don't believe he'd steal them from someone," argued Yugo. "He's probably looking around the island for lost treasure. As for Dally—he'll return when he gets hungry."
"Well, it's not really them I'm worried about..." admitted Adamai, focusing his attention on Vahn.
"Do you have questions for me...?" asked Vahn, raising his right brow and smiling.
"I do," confirmed Adamai, getting straight to the point by stating, "As far as I know, there are two Dragon Gods. There's the father of all Dragons, the Great Dragon, and the God Enutrof. I've never heard of a Dragon God of Infinite Possibilities, so are you a new God or a really old one?"
"It might surprise you to hear, but I'm actually both," answered Vahn, his smile broadening as he segued into an explanation of Invirtua's structure and the concepts of retroactive history and time. It was difficult for most people to conceptualize that their reality could be just a few decades old yet have tens of thousands or even billions of years of history, but he did his best to help them understand that time didn't exist in the conventional sense. It could be measured and perceived, but those were ultimately the byproducts of observing causality, which, while difficult, could be made to flow in reverse to the time of a universe's creation...
...
..
.
"Ugh...I feel like my brain is melting..." groaned Yugo, seated at the large picnic table Vahn had pulled out to facilitate his explanation while two of his clones continued to prepare lunch.
"Yeah, I was also confused the first time I heard it. But, after a while, I realized it didn't really matter since the past is now set in stone and the only things we can really affect are our present and futures~" hummed Amalia, earning a sidelong stare from Eva as she was basically repeating Vahn's assurances as her own.
"More importantly, Yugo, were you able to reunite with your people? I'm happy you were able to reunite with your brother, but what about the rest of your family?" asked Eva.
"Unfortunately, there's just me, Yugo, and Grougle right now," answered Adamai, preempting follow-up questions by explaining, "Our people, the Eliatropes, disappeared more than a thousand years ago. They should still be alive somewhere, but Grougle's memories were fragmented during the Great Cataclysm. To find out what happened, he says we need to recover something called the Eliacube and the six Eliatrope Dofus. With them, we should be able to open a portal to wherever they've been hiding all these years."
"Do you have any idea where to begin searching for them?" asked Amalia, her brows perking. She was prepared to return to her Kingdom and begin making preparations for her people's rise, but if Yugo's journey wasn't yet finished, she didn't mind exploring even more of the world before she and Eva returned with Vahn.
"It's Nox," answered Yugo, frowning deeply as he revealed, "According to Grougle, Nox discovered the Eliacube many years ago and has since been using it to power his inventions. It won't be easy, but if we can find where he's been hiding, we should be able to take it back from him."
"But doesn't Nox have an army of Grambos? Even if we can find him, we'd presumably need an army of our own to take back the Eliacube," reasoned Eva, shifting her gaze to Vahn, seated between her and Amalia.
Noticing Eva's stare, Vahn smiled and affirmed, "I can definitely help you locate him, but I wouldn't be able to participate in the battle without what we discussed previously. This ultimately isn't my world to intervene in, so I would need a proxy to shoulder the karmic burden."
"Proxy? Karmic burden...?" repeated Yugo, visibly confused. Vahn had explained to them how karma worked during their very first meeting, but with everything that had happened since, he had forgotten most of what was said.
"To explain it simply, the more help I offer someone beyond their natural ability, the greater the karmic deficit I accrue. As that value increases, so too does my significance to the world I'm influencing," stated Vahn. "And while that isn't a bad thing, per se, the greater my significance to a world, the more I am obligated to keep influencing it to compensate for my past actions. Repeat that enough times, and I basically become the sole thing holding a reality together—which isn't ideal."
"In other words, a Proxy is someone who willfully shoulders that burden, increasing their significance to the world at the cost of inviting trouble to themself," appended Eva, having paid close attention to each thing Vahn had said since their meeting.
"That's correct," affirmed Vahn, nodding in approval and using a hand he proliferated from his lower back to give Eva's right butt cheek an affirming squeeze.
"Then, could I become this Proxy?" asked Yugo, his expression serious as he reasoned, "I have to defeat Nox to reunite with my family, so no matter what, I'm going to accrue a karmic deficit, right? I'm prepared to shoulder whatever burden I must to prevent him from harming even more people in the future."
"Then, rather than becoming my Proxy, you should spend a few years in a place known as the Room of Spirit and Time," countered Vahn. "In there, a full year passes for each day outside. Right now, the only thing preventing you from defeating Nox outright is your youth and inexperience. With time and training, you could gain the power to best him outright."
"Do I have to enter it alone?" asked Yugo, looking uncertain as he smiled wryly and noted, "Because it would be kind of lonely to spend years all by myself..."
"I'll go with you, Yugo. After all, we're brothers, right? And it's not just you who wants to see our people," reassured Adamai, placing his left hand on Yugo's forearm.
"Thanks, Adamai...I really appreciate it..." expressed Yugo, his expression softening into a look of genuine appreciation.
"What about us? Should we enter this Room of Spirit and Time place...?" asked Amalia, directing the question at Vahn. The thought of becoming older wasn't the most appealing to her, but if she were going to take over for her brother as the Queen of the Sadida peoples, being older than him wasn't the worst place to start.
"It's not the worst idea," affirmed Vahn, nodding. "But since you have a family and a Kingdom you're hoping to one day rule, spending too much time away from them is detrimental. People's priorities change over time, and without sufficient pressure like what Yugo and Adamai are under, it's easy to become detached from things you realized were never important to you in the first place."
"I guess that makes sense...?" responded Amalia, the confusion on her face telling a different story.
"There's also this as an option," appended Vahn, extending his right hand toward Yugo and emitting a syrupy-looking pink energy from his hand that flowed toward the young Eliatrope and enveloped him. Then, as everyone watched in awe, his previously childlike figure expanded rapidly, maturing into a sandy-haired young man who visually appeared to be in his early to mid twenties, despite Vahn having aged him considerably.
"W-What is this? I feel incredible power surging within me..." noted Yugo, staring down at the upturned palms of his hands, radiating greenish-blue as his body pulsed with several times the amount of Wakfu he previously possessed.
"It's the byproduct of using something called the Age Age Fruit, which has the power to increase or decrease a person's age to actualize past and future versions of themselves," explained Vahn. "In this instance, I actualized a future version of yourself that's reached the pinnacle of its natural growth. In other words, this is your prime without any additional training or supplements."
"It feels...incredible..." muttered Yugo, his palms crackling with Wakfu-formed electricity. Meanwhile, Amalia and Eva had expressions of mild astonishment as, while he had never been unattractive, the version of Yugo before them was nearly as handsome as Vahn.
"Wow! This is awesome! Can you use that same power on me...!?" asked Adamai, no longer even a little suspicious regarding Vahn's origins or his status as a God. Vahn, of course, obliged, allowing him to grow from a tiny Dragonoid that was barely 60cm tall to a hill-sized quadruped more than twelve meters tall, thirty meters long, and sixty meters wide with its wing span...
...
..
.
(A/N: If you're interested in Pokemon, Constellations, and litRPG settings, please check out Blessed Otherworld Odyssey: Boundless Ascension(BOOBA) here on webnovel o3o...)