Chapter 184. Gifted

There were two main reasons Adom, despite knowing the way to [True Archmage], had seldom practiced anything close to divination—both in this life and the other.

First of all, ironically enough, was time.

He didn't have it. In this life because he was busy avoiding the end of the world, and in the other because he was busy surviving it.

Now, those were very reasonable excuses. Most people would accept them without question. But Adom being Adom, he would have found a way to learn the thing anyway. Would have carved out hours from sleep or meals or whatever else needed carving. Would have at least acquired enough knowledge to discuss it with an expert in the field.

He could do that with most other paths of magic. Could hold his own in conversations about enchantment theory, debate the finer points of combat spellwork, argue about optimal mana circulation patterns. He wasn't a master of everything, but he knew enough to be dangerous. Enough to learn more.

Not divination, though.

This led to the other reason Adom didn't really practice that art.

He simply wasn't talented at it.

Not that this was a sad thing. Or even something to get worked up about. He was just among the—and this was according to a study he'd read a year ago in his attempt to better grasp the scale—ninety-six percent of mages in Sundar and its allies who did not have "the Gift" of divination.

Magic was a complex thing. Some fields were more complex than others.

Healing, for instance, took longer than most paths even at the academy. It required thorough knowledge of anatomy, physiology, the interaction between different organ systems. Plus very specialized fine motor skills and mana manipulation techniques. A good healer had to know exactly how much power to use, exactly where to apply it, exactly when to stop before you made things worse instead of better.

Runicology required constantly reading, researching, testing. Basically dedicating your entire life to it. The field evolved constantly. Changed. You could discover things about a rune that had existed for a hundred years that even its creators hadn't thought of when they made it. New applications. New combinations. New failures that taught you what not to do.

All this to say: all paths of magic were hard.

But all of them could be learned.

With enough patience. Enough passion. A bit of talent helped—made you faster, maybe let you skip some of the grinding intermediate steps—but all in all, you only needed to persevere. Put in the hours. Do the work.

Divination wasn't like that.

It was the only path of magic that required the practitioner to have a sort of sixth sense. Something innate. Something you either had or you didn't. It allowed them to see things from the past and future with acceptable accuracy—and "acceptable" was doing a lot of work in that sentence, because even the best diviners were wrong plenty of times.

There were very few diviners in the world. Even fewer good ones.

Forecasting weather wasn't one hundred percent accurate. Military applications—planning troop movements, predicting enemy strategy—were even less reliable. People treated divination like it was some kind of perfect oracle, but it wasn't. It was more like... educated guessing with magical assistance. Sometimes the magic helped a lot. Sometimes it didn't.

Sadly, Adom wasn't gifted.

He'd have liked to be. Would have been useful. Would have saved him considerable trouble in both lives. But he wasn't, and that was that.

Most people, when they saw someone like Beth doing the things she did, would simply say she was a genius. The most gifted person in the empire. Leave it at that as an explanation and move on with their day.

Adom had done the same thing.

Until he became that genius's disciple twenty minutes ago.

And for a curious mind like his, that explanation no longer sufficed.

There had to be a reason Law, Beth, and so many other legendary diviners were this powerful in their field. Had to be more than just "they were born special." A technique. A method. A way to enter that closed circle.

And Adom wanted in.

He watched Beth sew for a while. She worked with steady, practiced movements, her needle pulling thread through fabric in smooth, even stitches. Ada had gotten bored and wandered off to examine a nearby flower bed. Bennu was still turning his copper coin over and over, looking at it like it might suddenly reveal its entire history if he stared hard enough.

"You're thinking very loudly," Beth said without looking up.

Adom blinked. "What?"

"You have questions. I can practically hear them." She tied off a thread and snipped it with small scissors. "Might as well ask."

Oh. Well, if she insisted.

"How did you know about my fight with Nox?" Adom said. "Specifically. Merlin said you told him exactly how I'd end it. That's more than five minutes."

Beth smiled. Set down her sewing in her lap. Looked at him with those sharp, knowing eyes.

"Good question," she said. "What do you think the answer is?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

"No, you have theories. You've been building them since I told you the five-minute limit." She tilted her head. "So. What are they?"

Adom hesitated. Then decided there was no point being coy about it.

"You're hiding something," he said. "Some technique or method that lets you see further than you're saying. Maybe the same thing the Farmer Mage knew, since he was known to be an excellent diviner. Something you've kept secret because it gives you an advantage."

Beth's smile widened. "And what makes you think I'd tell you, even if that were true?"

"Because you offered to teach me. And if you're going to teach me, you'll have to tell me eventually."

"Will I?"

"Yes," Adom said. "Because I'm not interested in learning the basics of divination. I already know I'm terrible at them. I want to learn what you actually do. The real techniques. Not the sanitized academy version."

Beth laughed—that warm, delighted sound again.

"Bold," she said. "Most students would be content with whatever scraps I threw them. Would spend years proving themselves before daring to ask for secrets." She picked up her sewing again. "But you're not most students, are you?"

"No," Adom said simply.

"No," Beth agreed. "You're not."

She was quiet for a moment. Stitching. Thinking.

Then she said: "Tell me, Adom. Why do you think divination requires a gift?"

"Because that's what everyone says. What all the research shows."

"Everyone says a lot of things. Research shows what researchers look for." Another stitch. Another pull of thread. "Why do you think it requires a gift?"

Adom frowned. "Because... people who don't have the talent can't do it. I've tried. It doesn't work."

"Doesn't work how?"

"I can't see anything. Can't feel anything. When I try to look forward or backward, there's just... nothing. And everything at the same time. It's overwhelming."

"And you think that's because you lack some innate ability."

"Yes."

Beth shook her head. "That is your first mistake."

She set down her sewing completely now. Folded her hands in her lap and looked at him with an expression that was suddenly very serious.

"When I peer into the future, Adom, it becomes overwhelming. Just like you described. Nothing but noise and chaos and infinite possibility branching out in every direction." She paused. "The difference between us isn't that I have some special gift and you don't. It's that I learned how to navigate that chaos. How to make sense of it."

Adom leaned forward. "How?"

"I'll show you," Beth said. "But you have to trust me for a moment. This might feel strange."

Before Adom could ask what she meant, Beth reached out and pressed two fingers to his forehead.

The world inverted.

That was the only way Adom could describe it. Like someone had taken reality and turned it inside out. He felt a lurch—not physical, but something deeper. His awareness shifting. Separating.

And then he was... somewhere else.

Still in the park. But not.

He could see his body on the bench. Beth's too. They sat perfectly still, frozen mid-breath. Ada was caught in the middle of reaching for a flower. Bennu's coin hung in the air between his fingers, suspended.

Time had stopped.

"What—" Adom started, and his voice sounded strange. Distant. Like he was speaking through water.

"The Halls of Time," Beth said. She stood beside him—or her consciousness did. Her form was translucent, shimmering slightly at the edges. "This is quite hard to enter by yourself. Doing so is what marks someone as a true diviner. But for now, you'll need my help to get here."

Adom looked down at himself. He was the same—translucent, shimmering. Like he'd been the first time he'd died. When he'd been a soul, floating above his body, waiting for Death to collect him.

"This is..." He couldn't finish the sentence.

"Your mind," Beth said. "Separated from your body. Not completely—we're still tethered. Still alive. But free enough to perceive things differently." She gestured around them. "Advanced divination theory mentions this place. Most divinators never actually reach it. They work from their bodies, trying to peer through the veil. But here, in the Halls, you can see the structure of time itself."

Adom wanted to ask a thousand questions. Wanted to understand the mechanics, the theory, the exact mana manipulation required to achieve this state. But Beth was already moving.

She extended her hand into the air.

And pinched something.

A thread appeared between her fingers. Thin. Glowing faintly. It stretched out into the distance, branching and splitting like a river delta viewed from above.

"This," Beth said, "is a future. One possible future. Watch."

She pulled gently on the thread.

It multiplied.

One became two. Two became four. Four became eight. The branching accelerated, fractal-like, until there were hundreds of threads spreading out from Beth's hand like a spider's web made of light.

"In our world," Beth said, her voice taking on a lecturer's cadence, "with as many variables as we have, the possibilities are exponential. Every choice creates ripples. Those ripples spawn new timelines. New variations. A single change—someone turning left instead of right, saying yes instead of no—branches reality into different paths."

The threads kept multiplying in her hand. Hundreds became thousands.

"Look at one," Beth said. "Don't touch. You can't yet. But look."

Adom leaned closer. Focused on a single thread.

The world around him shifted.

He saw the park. Saw himself and Beth on the bench. Saw it from above, like watching through a window. In this thread, Bennu was still examining his coin. Ada had moved to a different flower. Nothing remarkable.

But then Beth did something—he couldn't see what exactly—and the thread in her hand split again. Multiplied further.

Now there were variations.

In one thread, Bennu looked up suddenly. "What could this buy?" he asked, holding up the coin.

In another, Ada tripped and scraped her knee. Started crying.

In another, a bird landed on the bench between them.

In another, Adom himself stood up and stretched.

Small changes. Tiny variations. But each one spawned more threads. More possibilities. The web growing denser and more complex with each passing moment.

"Now," Beth said. Her voice cut through his fascination. "These are one hundred possibilities you just looked at. And they keep multiplying. There are billions and billions of futures branching out from this exact moment. Which one do you think will happen? And why?"

Adom looked at her.

Was she serious?

"I can't possibly—"

"Think about what I told you earlier," Beth interrupted. "About observation. About reading what's already there. Now answer the question."

Adom looked back at the threads.

Tried to think.

In the immediate future—the next few seconds—Bennu was just sitting there in most of the threads. Looking at his coin. That seemed to be the default. The path of least resistance.

But in some threads, something changed that. In one, Adom said something that made Bennu look up. In another, Beth moved and Bennu reacted to the movement. In another, Ada came back and asked a question.

Different configurations. Different triggers.

And then it clicked.

"You can't predict which one will happen," Adom said slowly. "Not when there are this many variables. But you can... influence it. Make one more likely than the others."

Beth smiled. "Go on."

"If I do nothing," Adom said, watching the threads shift and multiply, "then one of these billions of possibilities will occur. Essentially at random. But if I want a specific outcome—if I want Bennu to ask what his coin can buy, for example—I need to make sure the me in the future does the action that prompts that response."

"I knew you were smart," Beth said. There was genuine pleasure in her voice. "I didn't even need to explain again."

She let the threads dissolve. The web of light faded back into nothing.

"This," she said, "is why the five-minute rule is important. The longer you look into the future, the more possibilities appear. More variables enter the equation. More chaos compounds on chaos. After a certain point, even for me, it becomes too much."

She turned to face him fully. Her translucent form was sharp in the strange not-light of the Halls.

"Nobody," she said, "can predict the future. Not really. When there are billions upon billions of possibilities, it might as well be guessing—even when you can see those possibilities spread out before you. The best divinators aren't the ones who see furthest. They're the ones who can influence events to reach the outcome they want."

Adom processed that. "So when you told Merlin I'd end the fight with Nox a certain way..."

"Oh, that." Beth waved a hand dismissively. "A little bird told me about it."

Adom frowned. "What do you mean?"

That didn't answer anything. Actually, it raised more questions. Beth had just explained the five-minute rule—said that even she couldn't see beyond five minutes because it became too much, too chaotic. But she'd clearly known about his fight with Nox well before it happened. Again, more than five minutes.

"You're still evading the question," Adom said. "You said even you can't see beyond five minutes. But you knew about the Nox fight. You told Merlin specific details about how it would end."

"I did," Beth agreed.

"So how—"

"Patience," Beth said. She was already gesturing, and the Halls began to fade around them. The frozen park started moving again—slowly at first, then faster. Time resuming its normal flow. "This would require a lot of it. Patience, I mean. If I explain everything now, I'll only confuse you. It would be a disservice rather than help."

The world lurched.

Adom blinked.

He was back on the bench. His body. His normal perspective.

But he still remembered the threads. The variations. He could still see them in his mind—Ada tripping over that root near the flower bed. Bennu looking up to ask about his coin.

"You need to learn how to enter the Halls first," Beth said calmly, as if they'd never left. As if the entire conversation had happened between one breath and the next. "After that, things will get clearer. Then I'll explain my gift to you."

"Did you not say—" Adom started.

"Shh." Beth didn't look up from her sewing. "Patience, child."

Adom opened his mouth to argue. Then closed it.

Ada was moving toward the flower bed. The one with the root.

He stood up.

"Ada," he called. "Come here for a second."

Ada looked up, surprised. Started to turn—

Her foot caught on the root.

Adom's hand shot out. Grabbed her arm. Steadied her before she could fall.

"Careful," Adom said. "There's a root there."

Ada looked down at her feet. At the root she'd nearly tripped over. "Oh. Thanks."

She walked over to him instead, the scrape on her knee that would have happened simply... not happening.

Adom looked at Beth.

Beth was still sewing. But the corner of her mouth twitched.

He walked back to the bench. Sat down beside Bennu, who was still turning the copper coin over in his fingers.

Adom nudged him. "Hey. Bennu."

"Mm?"

"That coin." Adom gestured at it. "You know what it could buy?"

Bennu looked up. Blinked. Then glanced down at the copper piece in his hand like he was seeing it for the first time.

"What could this buy?" he asked, holding it up.

There it was. The exact phrasing from the thread. The exact moment.

Beth's needle paused for just a fraction of a second. Then continued its steady rhythm.

Adom felt something shift in his chest. A mix of exhilaration and unease.

He'd done it. He'd made a specific future happen.

"Not much," Adom said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Maybe a piece of bread."

"Mm. That's what I thought." Bennu pocketed the coin and joined Ada to examine flowers.

"Tomorrow," Beth said quietly, not looking up from her sewing. "Two hours after dawn. Come to my house. I'll teach you the entry technique." She paused. "And Adom? Don't tell anyone about this. The Halls are... let's say they're a closely guarded secret. For good reason."

"Why are you telling me, then?"

Beth smiled. "Why, because you're my student now."

She picked up her sewing again. Resumed her work like nothing extraordinary had just happened.

But something extraordinary had just happened.

Adom had seen the future. Had changed it—or rather, had made a specific version of it real through tiny, deliberate actions.

Like a child discovering a new toy, the old man couldn't stop the small thrill of excitement running through him.