Eternal Saṃsāra: The Wanderer of Worlds

Chapter 58: The Conceptual Power of…

—

I walked out of the kitchen, threw my dirty apron to the floor, and carefully carried a cup of steaming hot tea.

“Mom, where are you?” I called, and she arrived, rubbing her eyes and looking at me with a sleepy gaze.

Her lethargy vanished when she noticed the smoke covering the entire room and stared at me with a stupefied face. Behind her, Ruby, Tsubasa, and Asia gathered too. They all stared at the mess, at my bandana that I took off, and my sweaty figure as a whole.

“Haah. I just woke up from my nap, and this is the first thing I see?” Mother dearest sighed and said, as a 12 hour nap was normal. “What are you up to now, brat?”

“Drink this,” I patted her head, pushed her into the chair, and placed the cup in front of her. “It’s herbal tea. Good for headaches.”

“Yeah, sure it is— black smoke is rising from the kitchen!” She pointed at the kitchen. I let out a gust of wind Qi from my body that blasted the smoke out through the windows.

The room cleared enough to be healthy. I smiled down at her. "You said?"

“...Ugh, fine. I’ll beat you up if this upsets my stomach,” she said with a defeated expression.

The three girls gathered beside me and looked at her worriedly as if looking at a zoo animal trying packaged food for the first time.

"Why are you here, Tsubasa?"

"...?" Tsubasa turned to me, looking hurt.

"No, no, I meant, like, you have your own house and…"

"..." she continued looking hurt as I sighed. Dammit, I need sleep, I am talking weird. "Ahem, I'm joking. Of course, you can stay here all day long." I'd have kissed her if we weren't surrounded by gazes.

"What is this in the middle of the night, Onii-chan?" Ruby yawned out a question.

I reached out a hand and pulled her to a side hug, patting her head. "Did I wake you up? My bad," I kissed her on the head. She deserved to be treated with care after the heroic thing she did. "Trust me, you'd have been mad if I didn't wake you up and you missed this."

"Mhm?" Ruby gave herself up within my embrace as I pointed my chin at Ai, who was looking at the tea with hesitation.

"Ah, be careful, I can heal wounds but not an upset stomach…" Asia chimed from beside us, also looking at Ai.

Everyone focused their attention on Ai, who ran her eyes through us and shook her head. The former super-idol gave in to peer pressure and lifted the cup to her lips. The yellow tea shifted as she took a sip—and leaped inside her mouth.

No, it actually leaped inside her mouth. She took a small sip, but the entire liquid rushed inside as if it were a Slime monster.

"Aug-!" Ai gagged, coughing, but it was too late, the liquid was inside her. "No way, what weird thing did you cook!"

"Not weird, judging from its movements it was perfect. It's an Elixir." I said as I met her glare.

"Explain," she wiped her lips and demanded.

"Let's see," I let go of Ruby, who was fully awake after seeing the scene, and reached her.

She flinched a little as her expression went red seeing me so close and I felt a little bad. She subconsciously didn't trust me to touch her without being weird now.

Ignoring the odd feeling, I reached out a finger and placed it on her forehead.

"Materialize: Reverse Soul Reflection."

A white box prompted in front of her eyes, with text written on it. I designed this technique after a game window, so it looked like one. As expected, the tea worked its charm and an ability was loaded in her soul information.

The Psyker Elixirs gave random powers based on a class that depended on the color of the elixir. Since I fed her a yellow elixir, she'd gain Conceptual and/or Metaphysical powers.

I was very curious about what power she received.

= = =

Ability Type: Bloodline-Psyker Power

Grade: Yellow | Metaphysical

Name: Wardrobe

Details: The ability to conjure the power of anybody she wears the clothes of. As in, if she wears the clothes of a Witch, she'd be able to use magic on instinct. If she wears the armor of a Samurai, she'd know how to wield a sword right away. If she wears the outfit of an angel, she'd gain the ability of one as well.

In fact, she can wear the outfits of fictional characters and gain their powers.

The ability does have limits, however. Namely, it's Time Limit. The user can only access the borrowed abilities for a limited duration, precisely as long as they are wearing the outfit. Once they remove the clothing, the powers gradually fade away, leaving the user with their own abilities.

Another limit is that the user can't gain the power of a character that is Copyrighted. For example, if they wear the clothes of a fictional character who is copyrighted, they wouldn't gain that power. If not copyrighted, however, it is possible.

Lastly, the borrowed abilities' know-how and usage experience rely on the user's understanding of the original owner of the outfit. If she knows about the original owner very well, she can use the ability with high proficiency. The better the user knows about the original owner, the more effective the power becomes. For instance, if she knows the person's fears, motivations, and quirks, they can utilize their abilities more effectively.

= = =

"Yes!" I cheered a little.

This was the power I had in mind when I was cooking. Given Ai's background, I was mostly sure this was what she'd get.

"Incredible." Tsubasa's hair changed as her mother, Black Hanekawa stared at the text in awe.

"Is this real?" Ruby muttered while Asia just gawked, unsure how it all worked.

"Wait, is this really real?" Ai repeated after her daughter when she registered what she just read. "It sounds like bullshit. Uh, erm." She cleared her throat. "No, but really, how does this make sense? How can copyright be a weakness?"

"How does wearing clothes and gaining superpowers make sense?" I fired back. "It's a conceptual power, so the weakness is like that too. Otherwise, it’d have been broken, you could have cosplayed as Kefla from Dragon Ball Super and destroy the universe. Anyways, let's test it out since we have our doubts."

I said and Ruby jumped. "Oh, oh, wait, I'll go grab my witch dress."

"Don't bother with that, go check Mom's special closet, there are some clothes that she wore in her movies," I said. "I think the copyright won't be a problem if she wears the clothes of a character she acted as, even if she doesn't own the character on paper."

"Actually, according to the law, I-"

"I didn't ask," I quickly shut Ai up while Ruby ran to do as ordered.

"I swear, if you interrupt me again I'll beat you up." She said with a scowl. "I'll buy Chun Li’s copyrights and wear her outfit to beat your ass."

"Oh," I turned to her. "That sounds… hot."

"..." she opened her mouth and sighed. By then, Ruby was back. How was she that fast?

"Here! Here! Try this, mama!" She yelled. "I grabbed this one from the new Mummy franchise where you acted as a mummy." She has brought white rags.

Both Ai and I shot her a dry look. "Bring something else, that'll take too long to wear. Plus, I don't want to accidentally turn the house into a Pyramid if the power actually works. Being the one from Avatar 5 where I was the Goddess of Light–"

Avatar 5, the 5th movie of Cameroon's Avatar Franchise. Ai played a small but lore-wise important role in that movie. She was a Queen and Goddess of that world, one who represented light. She was powerful. She was mentally odd too, and since I knew that Wardrobe sometimes affected the personality of the user, I had to be careful.

So, I interrupted her. "What if you end up nuking the whole neighborhood in that form?" I pointed out, only realizing halfway through that I had once again interrupted her. I bit my tongue and took two steps back as she stood up to glare at me. "Sorry, sorry, habit. Ruby, bring something less intense. Err, the Snake Princess outfit from the new Cult of Cobra movie should work."

The clothes in that movie were simple, just a white shoulderless dress. So if this worked, it would work with just that much.

Ruby rushed inside, while Ai crossed her arms and looked at me. "You are worried about me nuking the place, but not me accidentally biting your neck off? Brat."

"You can bite me anytime," I said, blinking as I realized there were people around. "Ah, oops. Anyways, I said what I said."

"..."

"..."

Ai and Hanekawa stared at me in silence and Asia cutely tilted her head in confusion.

"Here!" Ruby returned. "Mama, get naked, let's test this out!"

"Ruby, word it better!" Ai yelled back with a blush and yanked the white dress off her daughter's hand. Then she rushed out of the room, behind a door, and began to change.

A minute later, we heard a yell. "K-kyah!"

"Mama, what happened?!" Ruby jumped in worry, but I held her back from rushing inside. She was fine.

"It's alright," I said as the door opened and horrified the mom in question walked in. I felt my jaw almost drop at the chance; her skin was pale blue, and her hair was tied behind her as if it were a snake. She wore a white-gold shoulderless gown, with a large cleavage, and a split on her left side that showed her creamy left leg.

[Image Here]

"My skin is blue!"

"It's working."

Ai yelled and I rejoiced. The character she played had blue skin, which took hours of makeup to achieve. But now she just wore the dress and immediately her skin changed.

And holy shit, she looked hot. Why did she have to be my mother? Haah.

"Quit staring, kids," Ai reprimanded not just me but all; even Asia was gawking at the sight, the enormous mountains ahead were new for a nun like her. "Asia, close your jaw."

"Erm…" Asia quickly did as advised and nodded, while Ai looked at me.

"It is working," she said. "I somehow know how to use Maya's powers." Lisa Maya was the character she was playing right now. "I am… speechless. This is unbelievable." She inspected her hands as if awe-struck.

"Attack me," I said. "Just a punch works. Don't give your all, just light–"

Ai rushed forward, blurring to the normal eyes, and appeared before me. Before I could finish my words, her hand curled into a fist and struck the top of my head. The sound of a bell ringing spread around.

"Oww-!" She jumped back, holding her wrist with her other hand. "You tricked me! Why aren't you hurt?!"

"Uh, I am strong…" I looked at her, trying not to laugh at her face. "But I got the proof. You are strong, and superhumanly fast too. I'm more durable than you though, so don't hit me with full force next time."

"Is this why you told me not to bring the Goddess outfit? Because you knew I'd hit you." She squinted her eyes while her hand healed itself off the light fracture. "Are you saying all these years, none of my hits hurt you?"

I shrugged, "Well."

"Ruby, bring the Goddess outfit."

"Hey, that's cheating! You can't just use the power I gave you to attack me!" I pointed my fingers at the wench. "How can you be so ungrateful?!"

"What ungrateful?! I gave birth to you!" AI yelled the forbidden magic words, her lips shaking. Not in anger though. "Ruby go- goh being- ha-" she took in a deep breath but even after her hard try, she failed to hold back her laughter. "Ahaha!"

The snake lady burst out laughing just as I did, laughing together with her as she came near me and laughed while holding me.

"This is nice," she blurted in between her laugh. "But it'd have been nice if I could use powers in any kind of cloth though."

"I'll do something about it," I wrapped my arms around her, standing behind her, as I said. "Also, we can create a super persona for you that requires you to not wear much. We don't need to make a movie, just beach photos should work if we edit them to make it look like you're using magic. This kind of Conceptual power can be cheated like that."

"You know a lot about this, do you know someone else with this power?" Ai asked and my smile paused.

I forced myself to smile again right away, and despite the speed at which I did that, the acting genius noticed the little change. She raised her eyebrow, while I just laughed it off. Someone else noticed it too, Ruby, who knew I was reincarnated. And from her expression, she must have realized I indeed knew someone who had this power.

The Empress of Humanity, my wife, used this power to dress up as me from my other lives to access its powers. She knew enough about those lives to accurately call forth all of the powers I once had.

Now, that ability has been passed down to another person. I wonder how she'd react if she saw this… then again, I could clearly picture her giggling at this sight.

Hah, dammit.

"In any case," I stopped fake laughing and stepped away from Ai. "Since we confirmed that it's working, all of us should go and sleep. It's late, we have school tomorrow. And Mom, I'll give you a heads up. After returning from school, I'll train you in some defensive magic. We will do the beach plan too, but that's for later after LoveMy ends. I think if you wear a witch outfit and I teach you magic in that state, you will remember the spells even after you take off the outfit. We'll test it out tomorrow."

Conceptual powers had odd blockages, so while I saw my Empress do exactly what I said, Ai's case might be different. So we'd test it out tomorrow.

"Aqua, is anything wrong?" She asked, for some reason, instead of being excited about the next day.

"No? Everything's fine," I waved at her and walked away. "See you tomorrow."

Hanekawa, then Tsubasa, and Asia waved goodbye. Ruby yelled goodbye to me as well, while Ai stood in silence.

"Hm? Let's go to sleep, mama." Ruby yawned and hugged her blue-skinned mom, whose silent gaze stayed at my back until I walked out of sight.

What a dangerously observant woman. It'd have been bad if she had indeed dressed up as Avatar's God Empress of Light.

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