Standing outside in the sunlight, I gave a pleasant sigh as I let the warmth soak into me. As I debated which of my powers I should use to toy with the Mortals behind me, they were arranging several robots that were under Cypher Sage's control. Three large robots designed to be vanguards, Psionica and Mesmer were suited for restricting my movements, and then Overdrive, in his suit, had an array of heavy explosives, making them a very rounded out team, unsurprisingly.
"Are you ready?" one of the robots asked with Morgan's voice.
I stepped onto the low lip of the fountain that was not too far away and reached my fingers into the flowing water. Streams of water lifted from its surface like serpents, hovering around me in coils.
"Alright, let's see just how strong the strongest Super Family really is," I mocked while taking a casual martial arts stance that had both my hands up in front of me, yet staggered.
Unsurprisingly, the first thing to charge at me were the three robots that were under Cypher Sage's control. Two of them were nearly identical to each other with only their sword arms being different between them. Both dark blue in color, they had a rough humanoid shape as they stood over two meters tall and carried a heavy tower shield that was bigger than their own bodies, and a meter-long sword with a plasma edge on one side of the blade. The third robot stood half a meter taller than the other two and was bright, cherry red. It had no shield, but rather two dangerous looking weapons, a motorized sawblade and a halberd, both sized to match the oversized robot.
All three of the robots activated the rocket thrusters that were built into their bodies to rush me from three different angles, but that did not mean the other three did not move. Overdrive blasted into the air with the thrusters in his suit while Psionica and Mesmer floated up and away from each other. Within a matter of seconds, I was surrounded on all sides with three disposable vanguards to handle close combat and three more with powerful ranged abilities.
Using rockets to further increase the speed of their attacks, the two sword-wielding robots thrusted their swords at my sides while the last one sought to chop me in half from head to groin. Both Psionica and Mesmer reached out with their telekinesis like a net to pin me down and several laser dots from Overdrive's suit landed on my body before he fired half a dozen missiles. Few Villains would have any chance of escaping such a powerful formation, but sadly for them, I was their opponent.
The two streams of water rushed outward and expanded into semi-circular shields which rippled when the telekinetic forces hit them, but for all their strength, the water just swallowed it up with a simple ripple. As the two swords sought to skewer me on either side, I twisted so that they passed by me, not even scratching my jacket, and continued on, striking each other. As for the axe coming down at my head, I reached up and blocked it with my palm before I grabbed it and flipped the entire robot over my head to intercept the missiles from Overdrive. The two sword-wielding robots stumbled back with scratches across their chests, but I launched them ten feet backwards with a palm strike to both of their chest plates, denting them.
"I think that's one for me, Lexington family zero," I chuckled, cracking my knuckles.
Overdrive pointed his arms at me, revealing a small cannon from each, and started firing thermite bullets at me, which exploded with a superhot chemical reaction. At the same time, the large robot that I had used as a fly swatter lunged at my back with the giant chainsaw. I jumped up, flipped, and gracefully landed on the head of the robot... before I stomped it into the ground.
The mother-daughter pair had changed their tactics and used more of a telekinetic 'arrow' to pierce through my water curtain. Abandoning defense, I redirected the water back into two streams and sent them crashing into the sword-wielding robotic pair. It crashed harmlessly into their chests, but unnoticed, the water did not splash off and, instead, seeped into every crack in the metal plates. The telekinetic arrows hit me at the same time as I snapped my fingers, freezing the water inside the two robots, so I reflected the impact outward around me, shattering the chests of the two robots.
I whistled, "Those two blasts had quite the punch. Could you imagine if they had actually hit me?"
"You're an annoying brat," Psionica growled as she landed on the ground, along with her daughter.
(Bitch, please, my entire Mortal bloodline died out long before your world was even formed.) I complained internally while rolling my eyes. My phone started ringing with Victor's ringtone, so I pulled it out of my pocket and answered it. "What's up, Victor?"
"My realtor has several options for houses up in the mountains that I'm sure you would like. All of them have at least one hot spring and varying levels of outdoor and indoor kitchens. When can I have a few min..." Victor spoke excitedly.
Having destroyed two of the robots and Psionica and Mesmer landing, I assumed that our sparring match was over, so I answered my phone. Unfortunately, not everyone shared my thoughts, and Overdrive fired a special missile at me, though I did not know it was special at the time. Still listening to Victor, I turned around and launched a chunk of ice towards the incoming missile, but it was a different type of explosion that rippled outwards. Instead of the normal orange-reddish flames, the fireball that accompanied the explosion was emerald green and ate away at the natural mana in the air anywhere it passed.
A single explosion had disrupted all of the mana within a hundred-foot radius, engulfing me, Psionica, and Mesmer. Sadly, the anti-mana explosion had taken me off-guard, so my bubble of telekinesis to keep the flames away popped. My clothes were fine as they were extensions of my Divinity, but the phone was reduced to a puddle of plastic and metal in my hand.
"Fucking hell!" I yelled, fully annoyed by the destroyed phone, and my eyes locked on Overdrive.
Proving that he had some inkling of a survival instinct, he immediately sought to flee as he cursed, "Oh, fuck!"
Of course, I did not give him the chance to run away. A simple kick off the ground left an afterimage and a crater as I launched myself into the air, straight at Overdrive. I grabbed him by the ankle as I flew past him and spun in the air, whipping him around several times, before I threw him into the ground. Psionica tried to stop me, which was useless, but Mesmer was smart and tried to cushion Overdrive's crash into the ground which I did not prevent.
"Mana-consuming fire? Really? That was your trump card?!? It doesn't even create an anti-mana field; just disrupts any active spells. Anyone with internal mana reserves would immediately be able to cast another spell right after the flames passed them. Seriously, are you just ignorant or an idiot?" I complained at the stupidity as I landed on the ground, next to the crater where Overdrive was laying, and Psionica, Mesmer, and the remaining robots approached as well.
"The five grams of powder that was used to create the 'mana-consuming fire' in that missile has a price tag of three hundred seventy-eight thousand credits, and my arsenal of them are less than a hundred, so I was not willing to waste more than one," the large red robot said in Morgan's voice.
"Get me a couple hundred grams of that stuff, and I'll show you a much better way to use it," I responded.
"I will see what I can secure," he replied.
While Overdrive slowly climbed out of the crater, I held up what was remaining of my phone in the air with telekinesis. Using nearly three times the amount of mana that I had throughout our sparring match, I conjured a ball of golden light above my hand which I moved to engulf the remains of my phone. Unseen to the naked eye, Time around my phone rewound itself and restored my phone to working condition before dropping into my still outstretched hand. Psionica, Mesmer, and the robot watched my actions with varying levels of shock, much to my amusement.
"So, was that enough of a demonstration, or would you like me to make this more physical?" I asked with a cocky smirk.
The red robot turned its head to Psionica, who sighed with clear annoyance and said, "I'm satisfied."
"Oh, why, thank you, my liege," I mocked.
Hey eyes narrowed, but instead of falling for my goad, she turned around and walked away.
I chuckled, "Well, on that exciting note... I expect to see you tomorrow morning to start your lessons. Morgan, when can you arrange for me to tour your storage areas?"
"I can have it arranged for tomorrow afternoon," the robot stated.
"Sounds... good," I said, hesitating for a moment as my phone started ringing again. "If you'll excuse me."
Not waiting for their response, I answered my phone and started walking away. "Hey, Victor... Sorry about that, I went through a tunnel. You were saying?"
"A tunnel? Are you driving through the Crownstone Mountains?" he asked, mentioning the mountain chain outside of Silverbrook.
"Sure, let's go with that," I chuckled.
"My realtor has several options for houses up in the mountains. If you are already there, I can send you the addresses and have my realtor meet you to show you around," he offered.
"Send me the addresses and I'll text you back where your realtor can meet me," I agreed.
"I will right now. Talk to you later, cousin," he replied.
I hung up the phone and teleported myself high above the Crownstone Mountains. From my bird's eye view on a beautiful sunny day, the Crownstone Mountains looked like a row of jagged teeth cutting across the land. Even in the middle of summer, their highest peaks stayed capped with snow, giving them a crisp, dramatic look that stood out against the clear blue sky. The rocks themselves weren't just gray and dull either as cheap quartz and sunflicker stones caught the sunlight and sparkled like someone had dusted the whole range with glitter. It was the kind of view that made you stop and stare.
Down lower, a thick forest wrapped around the base like a deep green blanket; pine, fir, and old, towering oaks packed in so tightly you could barely see the ground. Here and there, you could spot signs of life and work. Narrow roads twisting through the trees, a few cabins tucked into the woods, and mines dotted all along the mountain's sides.
And then there was the luxury stretch that was tucked along a warmer slope near the center of the range. Dozens of elegant houses, built with stone, wood, and glass, were spaced generously apart, each one perched just right to catch the view. Steam rose lazily from natural hot springs that flowed right into private pools, giving each home a touch of quiet indulgence.
My phone chimed with a notification, so I checked the text message and put the first of the addresses into the map application. Unsurprisingly, all six of the addresses were in the luxury section of homes in the mountains. Although I could use the proper channels and call the realtor to meet me, I did not care about formality, so I simply made myself invisible and checked out the different houses.
Sadly, most of the addresses had the same style, or lack thereof. The mansions were like a monument to vanity, a gaudy testament to someone with far too much money and far too little taste. Every inch of it screamed for attention, from the impossibly large glass walls meant to show off the view, to the sprawling marble patio that framed an infinity pool so sterile it looked more like a showroom prop than a place to swim. Most of the natural hot spring had been 'improved' with glowing tiles and chrome railings, stripping it of any charm or authenticity. Clearly, none of the houses met my standards as they were all so gaudy and tacky, to the point that I did not even want to remodel them.
With a sigh, I jumped back into the air and glanced around the region. Sadly, all of the houses that I flew over were all similar to the ones that I looked at before. You would think that people with so much money would have customized their houses more, but aside from a few pieces and the colors, even the furniture looked similar. I kept looking through the other houses but, as I moved up the mountainside, my hope of finding a proper house in this 'modern' world was quickly vanishing... until I found a road that led up higher in the mountains.
Perched high on a cliffside, where the air was thin and the snow lingered long after summer had claimed the rest of the world, a small stone cottage rested in quiet solitude, far away from any other houses or buildings. Its walls, once sturdy and warm, had been softened by time, cracked in places, with ivy crawling in through broken windows, and moss growing thick between the stones. The roof was sagging slightly under years of weather, but the shape of the home still held, proud in its silence. The door was ajar, and inside, the space was hollow, filled only with dust, brittle leaves, and the tangled roots of plants that have crept through every crack. No furniture remained, just the echo of what once might have been, but I could see what it could be.
Behind the cottage, tucked beside a steaming pond fed by a natural hot spring, was an outdoor kitchen that was buried in a gentle layer of snow. A metal basin leaned against a stone counter, its surface still gleaming beneath the frost. Cabinets, though weather-worn, remained intact, their handles rusted but serviceable. The scent of minerals drifted up from the spring, mixing with the cold air in curling vapors, giving the place a strange kind of warmth despite the snow-dusted ground. The view was breathtaking, allowing everything from the surrounding mountains to Silverbrook below to be seen.
"Absolutely perfect," I praised, my breath a light mist, looking out at the view. "Now, to find out why this place wasn't on the list and what bullshit I need to go through to purchase it properly."