The Good Teacher

"I will warn you, this is not going to be a pleasant feeling," Krish reminded Marie. "We will be forcefully changing your body to accommodate phenomena it should naturally be incapable of. Also, if you do not repeat the phrase exactly as I say it, the result may deviate drastically, which in turn will cause you greater discomfort. So, once again, repeat the phrases exactly as I say them."

"I'm having second thoughts," Marie blurted out with a twitching smile.

"You either do it now or at a later date," Krish reminded her.

"I choose a later date!" Marie exclaimed.

Krish snorted playfully and said, "Stop putting it off. You're well-prepared for this."

"Am I?" Marie responded, displaying a rare instance of her vulnerability. Krish often forgot the girl was only sixteen-years-old.

'My goodness! We've only been together for a year?' Krish shuddered upon recollecting their unfathomable progress. Even in his youth, it took him three years to reach this point, and his Master praised him as a prodigy who broke many records amongst the ancestors of the Heavenly Eye. Nonetheless, the tinge of jealousy that flashed in his thoughts was immediately drowned by an overwhelming sense of pride. 'This is my Disciple!'

"Nothing's going to go wrong as long as I am with you," Krish said with a low, reassuring voice. He then revealed a sly smile and added, "Do you realise just how difficult it was for me to find a Disciple? 1000 years - it took me an entire millennium to find you. So, do you think I will just let you slip through my fingers because of something so trivial?"

His words brought some levity and raised the wavering girl's confidence.

"Shall we begin?" Krish reiterated. The girl exhaled loudly to clear her indecisiveness and nodded slightly in affirmation.

Without a moment of dalliance, Krish reactivated the formation embedded into his cottage walls and plunged himself and his Disciple into the upper dimension.

"As you've seen already, the effects of Ancient Tongue are immediate," Krish prefaced. "The moment they leave your mouth, and are spoken with the right pronunciation, the world itself will bend to reflect the implications of those words. It is a powerful tool, but can also be dangerous if not properly applied."

"Till now, we've primarily been working with simple, singular phrases. Sentences that stand alone and imply one thing. 'The sky is clear', 'The wind blows northwards', 'It is raining heavily', to name a few examples. However, we are yet to touch upon proses that can portray complex thoughts and ideas. These may contain a myriad of declarations and assertions that can conflict with each other. For example, 'The river water flows erratically all the time. During winter, the river freezes over.' These two sentences, to us, can be logically deciphered to imply that while the river water flows erratically on a regular day, during winter it does not as the water is frozen. Ancient Tongue is an explicit language, thus we need to use the correct words and syntax to imply exactly what we want. The earlier logical trap can result in conflicting assertions which in turn lead to instability."

"Another thing you should have noticed by now is that I did not teach you the past tense in Ancient Tongue. Actually, the past tense is the only tense in Ancient Tongue that implies opinion or perspective as opposed to objective assertion. Ancient Tongue can do many things, but it cannot change the past. Even if you assert that 'the trees in the forest had all fallen over two weeks back,' it won't just transpire as such in the past. If translated to Ancient Tongue, the closest alternative would be: 'It is believed that the trees in the forest had all fallen over two weeks back'. As a result, what happens is that the memories and recollections of everyone who observed or saw the forest two weeks prior will automatically be changed to reflect this assertion. When they revisit the forest at a later date and see the trees healthy and erect, they will inevitably experience a mental crisis."

"To bring this all together, what I will have you chanting will be a series of assertions about your body, including exceptions that will negate any overlaps or conflicts," Krish confirmed. "Ready?"

"I'm ready!" Marie responded as she sat cross-legged facing her Master.

"Repeat after me, |I am an apostle of Fate, one of the fundamental forces that drive this world.|"

"|I am an apostle of Fate, one of the fundamental forces that drive this world.|" Marie repeated. As she did so, she started to feel a gushing heat originating from her abdomen. She ignored this development and kept her attention trained on her Master's next words.

"|Fate flows through me and around me, and I have the power to tap into Fate's waves and move them to my will.|"

Marie droned the words precisely, and she could now feel her body vibrating as a foreign pulse began to collide against her core region vehemently.

"|In gaining the power to tap into Fate, I become transformed. I rely on my ability to interpret Fate. The Heavenly Eye shines in my eye-sockets, illuminating Fate's far-reaching threads.|"

A burning sensation started to assault her pupils. Her core was vibrating even more maniacally and her mana was growing increasingly agitated.

"|I am an observer of Fate's machinations. I exist outside its domain, though my actions are governed by its ebb and flow. My aberrance shifts the trajectory of Fate at the cost of my existence, and my compliance moves it in its current trajectory. The cost of my aberrance is exempted if I am ignorant, for my actions unforeseen by the Heavenly Eye are by definition predetermined by Fate.|"

Marie nearly doubled over at the stabbing pain radiating all over her body. However, she grit her teeth and held herself together - she could feel herself nearing the cusp of something great and could not afford a mistake at this stage.

"|Now, as I gain the power to change my Fate, my Fate is forever sealed. I can now see the future of everything around me, but my future ceases to exist, for now, I am an apostle of Fate itself - a servant to its treacherous whims. I am an observer and an influencer of Fate's trajectory. And finally, I am the bearer of the Heavenly Eye.|"

Marie's body was on the verge of breaking at this point. This was because her body was begging for mana, but her surroundings were completely starved of it. Krish knew this would happen and immediately after Marie spoke the final word, he dissipated the formation and pulled them back out of the upper dimension. As the surrounding mana became replenished, it was immediately siphoned towards Marie hurriedly.

The phenomenon known as perfected resonance manifested in her, bringing a satisfied and relieved smile to Krish's face. He would be lying if he said he wasn't nervous about how the procedure would turn out. Entangling oneself with Ancient Tongue was risky business - there was a reason why it was now extinct. If anyone could do anything they wanted by simply speaking their minds, imagine the chaos that would ensue!

Krish watched as Marie indulged in the surge of power coursing through her mana channels after the previous discomfort vanished. He revealed a tranquil smile as the agitating mana in and around her started to settle. It was always a pleasant feeling when one's hard work was rewarded and one grew stronger. It was even more pleasant to see one's pupils achieve successes - one could revel in the same uplifting emotion by proxy!

"D-Did I just-" Marie mumbled, unable to complete her sentences due to her bubbling excitement.

"Congratulations!" Krish answered with a proud smile. "You have achieved perfected resonance. Although it was a foregone conclusion, your pace is unprecedented within our lineage."

As the final words left his mouth, he immediately recognised his folly. He had let an intimate detail slip in his haste.

"Did I beat you?" Marie blurted in disbelief.

"Let's not get too conceited," Krish reminded as he tried to temper the girl's overconfidence. He knew that nothing was more dangerous for a practitioner of the Heavenly Eye than their own unbridled ego.

"Just let me have this moment," she shot back with an exaggerated, scandalous look. "So... Do I have the Heavenly Eye now?"

Krish pursed his lips and nodded with an intense gaze. "You are burdened with its power now. That's right, burden. Do not rely on it extensively, for doing so will make you grow dependent - addicted. But do not take what is shown to you lightly either."

"How do I activate it?" Marie redirected.

"Weren't you listening?" Krish exclaimed with an increased pitch. "I just told you to not use it casually."

"But I just got this power! Come on, show me. Please? Please," Marie urged eagerly.

Krish groaned loudly and said, "Fine, but please don't make me regret teaching you how to do it. You must ONLY use the Heavenly Eye in my presence, got it?!"

Marie nodded hurriedly in response.

"Pull the mana from your core towards your eyes. You should feel that they are different. The process should be intuitive from that point onwards," Krish instructed.

His Disciple did as told and proceeded calmly. Although she was ecstatic after the recent events, she had the maturity and state of mind to not let it affect her technique. Krish kept his attention trained on his Disciple, looking out for any faults that may have remained after the forceful body restructuring session earlier. Sometimes the issue may not be evident at the time of implementation and would only show up later down the line. This was the perfect opportunity to pinpoint those issues.

Thankfully, his Disciple's transformation was without any flaw as her mana started to congregate at her eyeballs. He noticed a brazen smile splitting her face, which he rightly deciphered as her properly activating the Heavenly Eye. With a quick motion, her lids parted and two pairs of golden-coloured pupils gazed towards him.

Marie started to cackle exuberantly and jolted her head to different places in the room, absorbing everything her new eyes could see.

"It works!" She shouted amidst her laughter.