When they got home, Dei took a quick nap despite having woken up perhaps two hours ago. Once he was up, he spent more time with his family, but there was this itch in his head to test his new spell, Cycle of Sealing.

He needn't have worried though, because as soon as his family heard that he'd gained some unknown, incredibly powerful spell, they wanted to see it. None of his other spells were very "flashy," so asking him to show those off would be silly. After all, how are you going to show off a really hard workout session?

The only other visible spell he had was Roving Gate, and he'd told them he didn't want to waste his, very limited, Void mana on a quick demonstration.

With Cycle of Sealing though, he would gladly waste mana to see it in action. Normally, it would be a bit weird for him to "test" out a mana storage spell, but he'd watched it be created. It became so much more than just a simple storage.

Its new shape in his soul, a heavily chained form, wasn't the only difference. He also knew that it'd inherited his echo's ability to exist without a physical form- without his body; meaning that it didn't actually need to stay within his soul.

What, exactly, would this do? He wasn't sure. Though he'd watched the formation of the spell, it was in the upper echelon of rarities, despite only being a confluence of two affinities.

When he first spoke to his affinities, they said there were two ways to up the rarity of a spell: through complexity, or through number of affinities. The more affinities, the more innately complex the spell, just because of how complicated it had to be to make all the moving parts work. Cycle of Sealing did not fall into this category.

It only had three affinities, Kindness, Wrath, and Void while being a tier seven or eight spell, so he was confident it would be strange and esoteric, more so than even Meditation- until Meditation inevitably consumed another spell.

Point being, Cycle of Sealing was going to be crazy and he only had a surface level idea of how it worked. When he told the story of what'd happened at Taj's house to his family, they were the first to ask what the spell did, and propose he use it now rather than later.

Shrugging, he said sure- but where? His family lived in the suburbs, and while they had a fenced-in backyard, he couldn't test it out there because someone might peek onto their property.

"Is it going to be massively damaging?" his mom asked.

"I don't think so? I'm pretty sure this isn't really a… attack spell. Maybe I could use it to trap something but that's about it."

"Why not cast it here in the living room?"

"Well… it is still a powerful spell that I barely understand. So while I think it won't destroy anything, who can really say?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine," his mother said with barely contained excitement. "Let's just see it."

Dei would've argued more, but he really didn't think it would be too bad and he wanted to see the spell in action too.

'Okay, so how does this work…?' he thought, looking at the shape of his new spell. 'Maybe if I… use this? It will… hmm, split a part of my soul off. Yea! I think this is how I launch it out of my body.'

Standing up from the chair, he told his family to take a few steps back and focused in front of him, the space over the coffee table in the middle of the room. Mentally prompting the spell, he felt the uncomfortable sensation of a portion of his soul detaching, then saw as Cycle of Sealing disappeared.

The four of them went silent as a distant clinking of chains echoed through the room, quickly getting louder until two chains- one of red, one of pink- burst forth from his chest. His skin was unharmed, the construct intangible until both chains suddenly turned around. Rather than simply shoot forth and grab hold of something in the world, they wrapped themselves around his arms and pulled. He had to strain his muscles to not have his limbs crushed into his chest, feeling something swim through his soul, gently pushing certain things aside as it made its way to the surface.

The chains tied to his arms started to shake as the main portion of the spell reeled itself in, using Dei's main body as an anchor to find its way out.

Three or four seconds later, Cycle of Sealing finally flew out from his chest, unbinding his arms and settling into its position floating above the coffee table. It looked exactly as it had within his soul, but he still took a moment to study it with the naked eye.

It was the size and general shape of his regular body when he wasn't compressing it, a bit less than eight feet tall with thicker arms, but he couldn't actually see the body itself. It was humanoid, yes, but it was covered, head to toe, in metallic red and pink chains. Normally, constructs made of pure affinity were partially see-through, but these chains were not. The spell looked as physical as anything else in the room.

Aside from the chains imprisoning whatever or whoever was inside, there were also two loose chains floating around it, one of each color. These were what it'd used to grab Dei moments ago, but they now just floated aimlessly around Cycle of Sealing.

"What does it do?" Sophie asked.

"I just said I have no idea."

"Ok, so you've got a Stand. What's it called?"

"I don't… ok, I might have one. The spell is called Cycle of Sealing."

"That's an awful name for a Stand, it has to be a reference to a song I think."

"Ok well it's a spell, not a Stand."

"What's a Stand?" his mom asked but he and Sophie were already arguing and didn't hear her.

"Just call it Chained Man or something."

"Is that a song? Also, I'll call the… person… thing… avatar something else but the spell is going to stay named Cycle of Sealing. Chained Man sucks as a name though."

"I've never heard the song Chained Man, but I'd be shocked if there wasn't one. That is such a song-like name. Jack, look it up."

They waited for a few seconds as Jack pulled out his phone and typed on it. "Yea, that's a song name."

"See?" Sophie told him smugly.

"That's not even the point! Chained Man is so basic."

Jack, still looking at his phone, said "It's telling me there's a few songs with the word 'Chain' in the name. What about Wild Chains?"

"Is that a song?" Dei asked.

"I mean, not directly, but it's a reference to one,"

"Alright yea that works. It's not a bad name either. I'll call the spell Cycle of Sealing, and when I summon it outside of my body it'll be the Wild Chains form."

"Okay that's all nice, what's a Stand?" His mother asked, irritated at being ignored.

"A thing off a TV show" Dei clarified. "It's like a representation of fighting spirit or something. That's not what this is, but a floating person I can call forth is close enough."

"Thank you. Alright, what's the plan now? Are you going to test it on something?"

"You know? I'm not sure. I don't want to test it on anything or anyone in the house, so this is probably as far as I'm gonna go for now. I just wanted to see the process of summoning it I suppose, so I can plan for it later. Good thing too, as I now know it'll need to restrain me in order to pull itself from my soul in the future, so it's not going to be very viable in combat. Not only that, but this thing has no connection to my soul, as far as I can detect, which is actually really bad. If I lose it somehow, I'm afraid I might actually lose my entire mana storage spell, so I'll have to be careful with it. That comes with bonuses of course, such as me being able to send it super far away, but if it ends up dying somehow… yea, I might actually permanently cripple myself. That is assuming it doesn't have some other form of connection to me that I just can't detect, but that's not something I'll worry about for now."

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"What about the cost? Does it cost anything? And if it's independent, what if it rebels?" his mom raised.

"I don't know about cost, and I don't think it'll rebel as it's simply a subset of my own personality… right?" he looked at the spell nervously.

Taking just a beat too long for him to be comfortable, it nodded where its head should be if it was actually a chained person.

"Okay, that's enough playing with this thing. Wanna return to your comfortable, lovely spot in my soul?"

Wordlessly, Wild Chains plunged the red and pink tendrils into Dei's chest, extending far past how long they looked normally, unraveling its main body to make more, yet never shrinking at all.

After a second, Dei felt something grab onto the spot in his soul where Cycle of Sealing was previously, and Wild Chains disappeared in a flash, diving back into where it was supposed to be.

He sighed in relief at it having not rebelled and quickly checked the storage, noting that nothing had really changed. The concentration of every mana type was the same, and there was the same amount of mana as before- meaning that Wild Chains didn't actually have a cost to use at all. Same as Pandora's Box.

Still, he couldn't see himself using its external form often nor in combat. If his spell was destroyed… well, it was his greatest strength. He wouldn't be himself anymore. Sure, he might be able to absorb the destroyed spell and repair it, but that wasn't something he wanted to risk.

Immediately after considering the worst-case scenario though, he wanted to facepalm.

'Yea, this thing holds no tangible connection to me, I sure wish I had a spell SPECIALIZED in connecting things. Specifically, connecting things to my soul. Perhaps something called Connection? God, I'm an idiot.'

When Pandora's Box merged with his echo, it became incredibly fluid for a short period before reforming itself- like a caterpillar emerging as something new. In that time, the Skill rejected the line of Connection within it, pushing it out as it rebuilt itself. He hadn't really thought much of it because he was just going to repair it soon anyway, but that was the best solution to his current predicament. If he linked it back to the main string of Connection, it would become limited in how far it could go from him, yes, but that string of Connection was miles long. Truly, Soul had given him a massive boon when it provided such an exorbitant amount of mana, decades worth of meditation and insights of himself.

Tomorrow, it would be time for him to meet with Loretta, the government agent his mom had called to take him to dads secure location, but there were still many things he needed to accomplish before then. Tethering Cycle of Sealing was only the first, he also had to figure out how to use his spells on Earth.

Perumah said it wasn't difficult, but he'd still prefer to test it now rather than later. Apparently, it took some getting used to.

The last thing on his agenda was something he hadn't had a chance to do just yet- testing out Commune with the Universe.

It was clear that there was something fundamentally flawed with Earth's laws of physics that were based around mana, and Commune with the Universe would let him look into that more. The little MP he came to Earth with was rapidly pulled away to somewhere else, but affinity mana couldn't even leave his body. He'd avoided using MP completely since coming here because he wanted to keep some saturation within his body. Now that he had a body infused with MP, he was afraid it might hurt to exist without it.

For now though, he would spend the rest of the day with his family. It might be the last day they had without being under surveillance after his existence came to the attention of those higher up in the government.

* * *

Meanwhile, at an undisclosed government facility.

Elliot leafed through his monthly report of the various potential Elite candidates, those who were known to have powers yet hadn't yet been contracted into the military.

It was an easy process, inducting one. They simply had to wait until the person got themselves in a shitload of legal trouble by abusing their powers, swoop in, blackmail them into thinking that joining the Elite was the only way to avoid execution, and boom, loyal soldiers.

Some were able to resist the temptation of using their abilities in every day life, but not many. By nature of how the abilities manifested themselves, each category forced its users to take advantage of it. Depending on the category, the user's behavior would grow to match the category's purpose.

The effects were especially exacerbated when falling within the Founding category- those fourteen that seemed to take up the majority of the population, Love, Wrath, Patience, etc. etc.

When someone was born with category Founding, subcategory Abstinence abilities, they couldn't help but cut off major parts of their lives to grant themselves power boosts, then use that strength for other purposes. Power corrupted most, especially when it demanded to be used. What's wrong with abstaining from meat and saying you're going "Vegetarian" when it quadruples your speed on demand? What's wrong with abstaining from forming connections to those who do not share your diet, when it grants you the ability to become invisible at will? Ah, but you have two incredible powers… might as well slip into highly secure areas to steal large quantities of money, get caught, and boom, new agent.

Those of the Founding category were always drawn in eventually, as those fourteen were the only sub-categories able to rapidly grow in strength with each use, affecting the user more over time. External category abilities, such as subcategory Patchwork, took immense effort to strengthen, and could not happen accidentally.

The strength of the category's effect on the user was further broken down, from class 1 to class 10. Class one was a regular agent, supernaturally enhanced, stable, and reliable. Class 2 meant the agent was approaching the danger zone of ability strength, with a shaky grasp on their human perspective that could slip away at any moment- they were the strongest field-ready agents, but frequently held solely in retirement.

Class 3 meant they'd gone too far, leaned too deeply into their category and lost their mind. Each subsequent class was reserved for threats alone. There was no such thing as a class 4 human, simply a monster to be put down. Class 3 could be brought back from the edge through great effort… 4 would be stamped as KIA, and bombed from a distance if possible, except for very particular cases where they might be contained and studied.

There were, of course, exceptions to the rule. The Champion was the only known class 10 entity in the solar system, and he was a rather tame existence, content to watch over the humans and smite any other class 8 or above that appeared on Earth, thankfully. Only six times in recorded human history had the Champion stepped in, but each time he'd saved Earth from extinction. There were times when class 8 entities appeared and the Champion scared them off, but those encounters were far more numerous and far less destructive.

None of that was relevant to his current report. It was rather boring, nothing standing out and the normal amount of people marked to cause trouble in the coming days. He enjoyed his job as director of the NSA, lax as it was most of the time. He could sit in his office, read papers, and rarely do anything of import. Go home, sleep, repeat it all the next day, then spend weekends or holidays where he wanted.

He stretched, getting ready to take his break, when a panicked knock came at his door.

"Come i-"

Before he'd finished his sentence, his secretary opened the door with a thick packet in hand "Sir! Urgent file from the surveillance division, supposedly your eyes only."

Quickly placing the sealed packet on Elliot's desk, the man was quickly dismissed and fled the room as Elliot opened and read the file's title.

"Visitor found, Multi-category, Class 5, Luciferian signature…"

He wanted to sigh at the beginning summary alone, but read on.

The report came from the bottom, one of the agents watching a family in Georgia who'd lost one of the children last year, resulting in the father turning class 3, both briefly summarized.

What was then mentioned was that the son had supposedly returned from the dead as a new person, and seeked to help the father return from class 3 down to class 2, or potentially 1. Done with the summarized version, the rest of the packet was the transcribed conversation picked up by the wire tap in their house.

Not wasting any time, Elliot quickly jumped into the meat of it, speed reading the entire thing in around thirty minutes.

From what he could see, the danger level was low and potential reward was high. Formerly Leven, this person was now called Dei after his death and resurrection.

'It's likely he took major Identity damage when crossing this… void. Which makes sense, considering the monsters within it. All of this is incredible information, but what to do now… what to do now…"

It would doubtlessly be a massive headache to deal with once it was leaked, but the silver lining was that, so far, only one agent and Elliot himself knew of Dei's existence.

'Aha! I know just what to do!'

Paging his secretary, he quickly called the agent in question up, taking on an official look when the man entered. He explained to the man that he would be tasked with continuing to watch Dei, and report any dangerous developments directly to Elliot, even going as far as to give the man an office squirreled away from his coworkers and a direct line to the Director's office. The man was to not tell anyone about his findings, under threat of jail time.

Elliot made sure to hammer home that he was to allow Dei to simply pretend to be the alibi he claimed and not call him out on it or give anyone tips that anything was odd. If asked, the man was to even back up Dei's alibi, saying it was true according to the taps.

Elliot explained that he would do this because Dei was a dangerous character, who was going to leave the universe soon enough anyway if left alone. It was better to let the problem resolve itself than unnecessarily risk the lives of innocents.

The man nodded in understanding, then left.

'Alright, that should do it. Now, I can go through the proper bureaucratic channels to get this information to the right people. That will take years to go through, and hopefully Dei is gone by then, because I don't want to deal with this.'

Could anyone blame him? Dei wasn't even that big of a threat to the country at large and seemed peaceful. Who cared if he swept this under the rug for a few more years? With any luck, the files would get lost in transit and blah blah blah.

Job well done, he stood up and went on his break.

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