You are Exalted!

Disclaimer: I own nothing in this story.

Arc 1: Exaltation.

Chapter 8: Drops of Water.

"I love you Hakkõ Anbã. Please marry me." I blushed. I was sure I was red as a fire-engine when Miyuki knelt and "proposed" to me.

"Doh... Please, get up Miyuki-san! You're embarrassing me." Of course the rest of the class was laughing at me. The traitors.

Since my revelation as a parahuman to Japan, my schedule had been modified a little. I was still receiving military-based lessons from the JSDF at their facility and tutors were still coming to the Senaga Institute to teach me civilian skills not taught in a normal children school.

I was also maintaining my very early morning jogging and using that time to meet with Verdant Wind in her Sanctum and training for my future confrontation with the Five-Fold Spiritual Court of Asia.

However, I was exploiting as much as I could the fact that I no longer had to hide my powers from the children of the institute. What I was doing? I was launching a revolution...

I was pushing my skills and my Essence towards teaching and training all those who would follow me, whatever by personal interest, duty or plain friendship. In brief, I was using my impact as a Solar Exalt and a few charms to elevate the mortals around me.

In Creation they reached a level high enough to forge a golden age under the Aegis of the Solars. You combined their actual Science level, their thirst of knowledge, their sheer potential with the guidance of a Solar possessing the knowledge of Essence and the Universe should tremble.

The staff was allowing and even participating in the experimentation. I exposed the fact that my power boosted the skills I possessed and teaching was a skill. Professor Sakura Mayuta and her team were now a permanent addition to the institute to repertory and test this aspect of my power. Money and resources from the JSDF was beginning to converge around me and what I was doing.

And what I was doing? I was demonstrating AND teaching Thaumaturgy... Of course, not under that name. I didn't want to receive the same label of an eccentric as the parahuman Myrddin.

What pushed Miyuki to her silly act, was a class opened to my comrades and oriented towards the practical and civilian applications of some of my Alchemical formula. More specifically for Miyuki, the capacity to produce luxury items cheaply.

It was simple and basic and it was NOT Tinker-tech. Once someone acquired the knowledge, she could reproduce it without needing a parahuman power. It could be analysed and understood by normal people: It was a SCIENCE... Although my charms could only allow me to teach single Procedure by rote memorizing for now.

I presented Thaumaturgy as something gifted by the many memories inside of me after my amnesia. A repository of human knowledge lost to time. Occultism that was a required skill was simply about the superstition built around a scientific fact and how to excavate it. The only default was it couldn't be automated easily: It needed the willpower of the crafter to properly create something. I could design a process that enabled automatic systems to do it just right, but the Thaumaturgic aspect must be included in it.

I also obtained the help of a lawyer and I was painstakingly patenting everything I revealed, down to the minute aspects. The only flaw was that the government could access my patents until my coming of age or until I gained my emancipation. Oh well, I had already seeded the means to riposte.

And I was only teaching the Apprentice and Initiate levels of the various Arts of Thaumaturgy... Well, not the Summoning, Warding and Death aspects... Much too dangerous or esoteric for now.

For a least time of 5 hours a week, I could teach and train people as if they received an intensive education of one month in one week. That blew them off. Especially since I was tested that I wasn't like Teacher. This infamous parahuman could instantly grant almost Tinker-level skills but also induced a Master effect on the recipient.

And now AT LAST. I had a workshop and resources. I was under observation, but it wasn't a problem for now. I. Could. Create. And. Build. And, especially, I could help personally my classmates...


I bumped into her as she was slowly exiting her classroom. Kagura Michinobe was one of the minority of children within the institute with serious permanent medical problems. I caught her before she could fall down.

"Thank you, Hakkõ-san. I apologize. I wasn't looking forwards..." I didn't answered, I was too focused on her missing right leg and her crutches. It had been in front of me since the very beginning and I what..? Blinded myself to the human misery around me? Being so arrogant that as a Solar, I was here to save the world? Something snapped in me.

"Michinobe-san... Do you trust me?" She blinked and looked at my eyes. She frowned and became worried at what my face was showing.

"Yes..?" I lifted her in my arms. She was light like a doll, a doll broken by fate. My Caste mark glittered in the dimness of the hallway and silenced those around watching me.

I transported her to my workshop with a countenance that warned that no interference would be even tolerated. My workshop was simply an empty classroom with everything I could have recycled and recuperated from the refuse of the institute and the neighbourhood and whatever the JSDF could spare me in the form of obsolete and broken equipment.

"Hum... Hakkõ-san..? What are you going to do with me..?"

I was already putting her on an old but clean bed and grasping a small white board and a marker. "First, I'm going to examine you and then I'm going to forge your new leg."

She spluttered but stayed silent as I analysed her missing limb. The Art of Bio-Enhancement enabled me to create functional prostheses. In 5 minutes, I had assessed the initial damage and determined precisely what prosthesis was required. I then went to a work station and under her awed eyes, I let my Essence flowed out and sculpted what my mind had engineered.

Within one hour, from recuperated materials, a functional leg prosthesis sprung. I gently put it in place and then helped Kagura out of the bed. She wobbled a little, using me as a crutch for the next few steps and then she looked amazed at my creation and slowly take a step without my help. And another.

"I... I... can... walk..? I can walk..? There's no pain... It bends when I want... It's..." She was crying and I took her in my arms. "Thank you..." Nothing more was needed.

I turned to the teacher and the classmates that followed us during this whole thing. "Please, call Uehara-sama and our resident doctor. It is time for me to properly act. It is time for me to atone for my blindness."

For the rest of the week, I turned into a Sun Blazing machine. I didn't listen to anybody trying to stop me or more exactly to slow down and explained myself. I was only focused on the suffering around me. Small talks and trivial things like eating were of no interest. I had changed my clothes to the most utilitarian outfit possible: A sack would have been more in fashion. My own comfort registered so low, I barely took care of my basic needs.

I went to and look at all the people having medical problems and used my charms to cure them. My crafting abilities enabled me to outfit all the crippled children with adapted prostheses in a few hours. The infirmary had now a full complement of the medical products I could make.

I then proceeded to repaint and repaired all the damaged and not properly maintained sections of the institute, using products from the Art of Alchemy. The grounds themselves were examined, repaired and upgraded if needed. I looked at and maintained all the equipment and infra-structures of our buildings, replacing and repairing what was missing or broken.

With the same Art from Thaumaturgy, I built hand-powered simple and crude machines that could produce synthetic leather and synthetic silk from cheap and common chemicals. The children will never have a problem to clothe themselves again. They never should have to circulate the few outfits they could buy around again to reduce costs.

I planted a garden of edible vegetables on our roof and warded it against vermin, birds and plagues. I used Geomancy to put them in a specific pattern that would call upon the Blessing of the Sun for a plentiful growth.

And then... I collapsed...

I woke up in the infirmary after one full day of slumber. There was an intravenous in my arm and I felt the after-effect of sedatives in the back of my mouth. And I remembered...

I groaned, putting my free arm over my eyes. Ah shit! Another Geas!

"Ha. You're awake." I turned to the voice and cringed at the disappointed visage of Director Uehara. "Yes, young Lady, you're in trouble. Our doctor and Mayuta-sensei are going to examine you and give you a clean bill of health. Then you will proceed to my office and we will discuss of your past week and what punishment you'll do and especially what things you will NOT do in the future."

I nodded meekly. "Yes, Uehara-sama."

She smiled a little. "Your room-mates are here and will see you after the examination."

The girls entered after a lengthy and full of pointed questions examination by both a frowning Sakura Mayuta and a scowling institute doctor. They swarmed me into a giant hug full of tears and happiness. Then Ranka slapped me.

With my resilience, it didn't hurt, but I touched my cheek and looked at her a little flabbergasted. "That was for worrying us like that. Never do that again. Promise?"

I sighed. My word was very important to me. "It was probably the nervous breakdown I was due to after my trigger event. That could happen again, so I can't really promise that. But I can promise that I will make all the efforts I can do to prevent it, all right?"

They laughed in emotional relief and proceeded to tease me about my "robot" episode. They accompanied me to the Director office because there was something I should really see on the way.

I looked utterly baffled at the... thing: During my "Limit Break", I had apparently repaired a wall fire hydrant in one of our stairs and then repaired the handrail of said stair... by putting it around the fire hydrant. You couldn't open the damned thing without needing to cut off the handrail.

"Doh..!"


"So now that's you're fully cognitive, what is going to be your first creation, Hakkõ-san?"

I smiled to Professor Mayuta and pointed to the many notebooks and terminals of her staff. "A computer."

The scientists watched and filmed with awe as I harmonized Essence with second-hand parts off the shelf and assemble a working computer under one hour without any tools. A good thing because we discovered that being exposed too long to my Anima Banner damaged civilian-grade computers or more exactly their semi-conductor components. That baffled me and the JSDF team because none of the sun-bleached equipment I repaired during my episode were damaged. I thought about my lessons on the various equipments at the JSDF facility and concluded that only military-grade items could endure my Anima for a lengthy time. I could also easily designed a sun-proofed substance with Alchemy and in fact discovered I did incorporated it in the paint I used lately, but it was still a pain in the ass.

"Well, don't be too disappointed, it's only a temporary setback, Hakkõ-san." I grumbled and nodded at Sakura. Nevertheless, me, a Solar, thwarted at the beginning by my very power. Of course, they didn't have semi-conductor technology in Creation instead they used... Wait a minute...

I blinked and looked closely at the various electronic equipment in the workshop. They were almost all second-hand, repaired and recycled items minus the few high-tech ones from Sakura team. They were born from Human ingenuity, from the Spark of a Primordial... A Spark that focused on Oil, Lightning, Steam, Metal and... Crystal. "Could it be that simple..?"

Mayuta and her co-workers watched a whirlwind of activity: I was working with a microscope and forming miniature metal structures and putting them into very small glass tubes before using an improvised mini vacuum system. "What... are you doing, Hakkõ-san?"

"I am giving life to an old creation from sci-fi, Sensei." I was already assembling circuit boards and soldering them. An old television set recuperated in the attic of the institute was already in place in a frame with a military electric generator nearby and improvised batteries. The low tension of external power wasn't enough for my creation. "In homage to the writer E.E. "Doc" Smith, I'm naming it the "Lens First Generation Computator". It is based on a simple item: The very predecessor of the semi-conductor."

"The pred..." Her eyes widened. "You mean... Vacuum Tubes!?" I nodded and verified if all the connections were proper, well-ventilated and isolated. The necessity of medium voltage produced a large amount of heat compared to a standard computer. "But... It's completely obsolete... Much too big to be practical to what we have now..."

"Which is how "Ultra-Miniature Vacuum Tube technology" was born under the pen of a writer. I will be limited and I can bypass my damaging aura by using military-grade equipment plus a sun-proofed concoction of mine, but..." I paused and my finger hovered over the switch button. "This is something that will help my capacities on the long term." I switched it on and my hands began to fly across the electro-mechanical keyboard, modules and references appearing on the screen almost too fast for the Computator to render before the next one came. An entire new Operating System based on the Old Realm language and symbolism was being created from my mind.

Mayuta was perplexed. "And after that?"

"I will use this Computator to design a new and better one and then use it to go into the one thing we all need at first." I turned smiling to her, the Caste mark blazing on my forehead heralding my revelation. "Energy production."


I could have revealed Essence Power Arrays but... We weren't ready for such an energy source and I needed access to Magic Materials to build it and a Geomantic infra-structure to make it viable. Discovering so suddenly the hidden knowledge behind the reality of Existence would have been more dangerous than Nuclear theory for Humanity. Almost everyone think first about the potential for war for any discovery and Essence Weaponry was more terrifying than Nuclear Weapons or even Anti-Matter. After all, our science could only destroyed our bodies, not our souls.

So I did what I have always done in my past lives in case of a big problem: I turned to the Sun.

Sakura Mayuta observed me as I removed gold from plated jewellery. I had already prepared silver, quick-silver and copper samples. I made an alloy with the gold, silver and quick-silver using a prepared Alchemical process and then carefully extruded a string of copper doped by a very precise lattice of the alloy. I cut and hammered it and placed it within a standard photo-voltaic panel.

I smiled, exposed the panel to the sun and let the JSDF scientists tested it. Sakura was goggling at her voltmeter and rechecking the results of her co-workers. "That's... If I calculated right, you could... power a standard building with... only 400 square feet!?"

I let them continue testing and analysing the solar panel which could power any current home device with less than one square meter and continued to work on the doped thread. It was a more useful material than they thought: It was a room temperature electrical superconductor. And since it was able to store electricity without losses due to resistance, it was the ideal basis for a new generation of Power Cells. Able to stock indefinitely power, rechargeable at will and with and indefinite shelf life, those power cells will help greatly in the future. They didn't need fancy exotic materials and weren't more costly than most of the actual designs.

The final design that I showed them stayed on the screen of my second generation computator, which had the power of a standard personal computer for only a 25 lbs weight. I couldn't built it yet, but I could demonstrate its feasibility in theory: The first practical Fusion Generator. It would be heavy due to the radiation and heat shielding required, but I could build a semi-portable system that could be fitted in a truck bed and provided external power for 5 years before maintenance and refuelling. The fuel, however was still Heavy Water. I would need at least two upgrade generations before my designs could use normal water as fuel.

And everything was reproducible and accessible to Science. I was probably only a few decades in advance compared to the actual technological level.


I was jogging in the institute wood when the other shoe fell.

He was an average looking Japanese man in his thirties and dressed in a business suit. It was however the look in his eyes that raised alarms: The eyes of a cold-blood killer.

He bowed to me as I slowed down and stopped a few steps from him. He then carefully extracted an envelope from his vest. I discretely flushed my senses with the warm golden light of the Sun and I could detect the presence of two other people nearby. The characteristic odour of cordite and gun-oil floated to my nose. There was also an almost cloying cloud of dried blood oozing around this average-looking man.

"Matsu-sama send his regards, Hakkõ-san, and hope he will enjoy your company at a small meeting this end of the week."

Polite and direct. He was here to evaluate me and to suggest a hidden threat. Shades of Lord Seiryu here. But this Matsu used a proxy... No. His main hit-man and enforcer... I was suddenly reminded of "The Godfather"...

I slowly reached for the white stark envelope and bowed to him as the child I looked like. I caught a twist of his lips into a sneer as I managed to give him a false impression of weakness. Gotcha: Not so unemotional as you appeared.

There was no need to reply. My taking of the message implied that I would come or at least send a written excuse. He bowed again and turned back, disappearing into the wood. I waited until his two shadows retreated with him before examining the message.

I frowned as I looked at the lone Mon (Japanese symbol specific to clans) on the envelope: Three black tomoe swirls inside a black circle.

Well, I did think that I would met with them sooner or later. "Yakuza..."


Notes: I hope it wasn't too much of an info-dump.

Thank you to all my readers for their helpful comments.

It is strange to see that so many of the prodigies of the Solars needed the 5 Magical Materials or Wyld Cauldron Technology.

However, Thaumaturgy is a huge boon to any Mad Scientist.

I project to not advance current technology by more than a few decades, except for some super-science, pseudo-gibberish techno-babble and when I will take on building Manses, Sky-ships and Warstriders!

Prostheses came from Autochtonia and are clockwork designs with only a loss of dexterity and no sensation. I will be able to do organs and better prostheses later.

Alchemy is ridiculously useful to someone with few resources and one or two crafting charms.

The little joke about the fire hydrant is something that happened: Look for "World's Funniest Engineering Fails" on Youtube.

The bit about the radio-tubes based electronic is just a flavouring: It will enable me to bring a few things from the Exalted setting, like AI and robots. The inspiration was the "Lensman" series of novels by E.E. "Doc" Smith.

Most of the inspiration for the technology that I will use come from GURPS, RIFTS, Dream Pod 9, Battletech and Robotech.

Luminous Amber

Essence 3, Willpower 8, Compassion 3, Conviction 3, Temperance 3, Valour 3, Personal Essence 17, Peripheral Essence 41(5 are committed).

Abilities known: Guns 1, Martial Arts 4, Melee 1, Thrown 1, Integrity 3, Resistance 3, Survival 3, Craft 5, Lore 5, Medicine 3, Occult 3, Athletics 3, Dodge 4, Stealth 1, Linguistics 2, Drive 1 & Socialize 3.

Charms known: Ox-Body Technique, Body-Mending Meditation, Friendship With Animals Approach, Spirit-Tied Pet, Second Craft Excellency, Crack-Mending Technique, Craftsman Needs No Tools, First Lore Excellency, Second Lore Excellency, Harmonious Academic Methodology, Solar Parser Efficacy, Software Firm Fingertips, Touch of Blissful Release, Second Medicine Excellency, Wound-Mending Care Technique, Flawless Diagnosis Technique, Spirit-Detecting Glance, Mastery of Small Manners, Shadow Over Water & Seven Shadow Evasion.

Background: Artefact 8(Infinite Resplendence Amulet, Wondrous Belt of Perfected Tools), Allies 1(Verdant Wind), Backing 1 (Member of the JSDF), Contact 1(Okinawan government), Familiar 1(First tier of bonding with Iriomote Cat) & Resources 1.

Next time: Confrontation at OK Corral.