Max’s fingers trembled slightly around the mug.
He had not heard the na of his world for so long, not from another person’s mouth, not from anyone who should have known it existed, and now, here it was again, spoken so casually over tea as if Earth was so neighboring village this strange man had visited once or twice when he was bored.
He did not understand how this person knew.
"Don’t be so shocked," the man said, taking another calm sip from his mug. "You are in my realm. All of your mories, desires, fears, and even parts of your potential future are open for to read as I wish."
He said it so casually that Max felt flabbergasted for a mont.
The man spoke as if invading soone’s entire existence was no different from checking the weather.
"You’re scary in a way," Max chuckled, shaking his head as he looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Since you know so much about , how about you finally explain what you really are?"
"I have no na."
The mug stopped right before the man’s lips.
"At least, I have not had one in a very long ti."
He placed the mug back on the table so hard that the wooden table split in half from the middle, the crack running straight between them like lightning carved into wood. Yet sohow, the tea inside both mugs did not even ripple in the slightest, as if the liquid had decided it was far too refined to participate in such violence.
Max looked at the broken table. Then at the perfectly calm tea. Then back at the man. The man smiled as if nothing strange had happened.
"You can call John," he said, lifting his chin slightly with a weird amount of pride. "I quite fancy that human na. It has a certain charm to it."
Then he burst into laughter.
It was not a dignified laugh either. It was loud, pleased, almost childish, completely unfitting for an ancient being who sat in a realm of spirits and spoke about reading mories like they were pages from a book.
Max stared at him in silence.
For the first ti since arriving in this place, he was not sure if he was dealing with a god, a ghost, a madman, or so bored immortal being who had spent too much ti alone and decided that "John" was the peak of human culture.
"John..." Max repeated the na slowly, as if tasting how ridiculous it sounded in his mouth after everything this man had shown him. "What exactly are you? And why am I here with you? I refuse to believe you were so bored for who knows how many years that you suddenly decided it was ti to kidnap sobody into your realm just to drink tea with you."
Max asked while watching his own tea spill from the cracked mug and drip onto the grass below. His eyes followed the warm liquid for a mont longer than they should have, and for so reason, he felt slightly sad. It had been delicious, ridiculously so, and a small part of him had already been preparing to ask for a second cup before this strange man casually ntioned Earth and ruined the peaceful mood.
John looked at the broken table, then at the tea soaking into the grass, and for a brief mont, there was genuine sorrow on his face, as if the destroyed table ant nothing to him, but the wasted tea had wounded his soul.
"I am a Spirit Sovereign," he finally said, straightening his back with a strange amount of dignity.
"The ruler of all spirits and beyond. Well, there is a lot of fancy history attached to that title, a few wars, a few betrayals, a few songs, several monunts that probably no longer exist, and so people who worshiped far too seriously, but you do not need to know all of that just yet. Your hands are already full with the task given to you by soone very, very ancient, far beyond my own existence."
Max’s eyes widened.
"You know of the system creator?"
He stood up so quickly that the grass beneath him trembled, and only then did he realize that the restriction over his body was gone. He could move again. His hand twitched slightly, instinctively searching for the familiar feeling of his magic, but even that thought barely reached the surface of his mind before his attention snapped back to John.
"You could say that," John replied, turning his head to the side as if he suddenly found the tree beside them more interesting than Max’s glare. His fingers scratched lightly against his cheek, and for the first ti since Max had t him, the calm, mysterious air around him cracked just a little. "I have so history with that person..."
He let out an awkward cough.
It was such a human sound that Max almost forgot he was sitting across from a dead ancient sovereign who had just read his mories like an open book.
"How about I just show you what you can do with the power to command the spirits?" John added quickly, lifting one finger as if trying to change the topic before Max could bite into it any deeper.
But Max did not blink.
He stared at John so intently that the smile on the man’s face slowly stiffened.
"Seriously?" John sighed, lowering his hand. "Why do all of you young ones look at like that? Forget it, it is my own fault for looking so plain. I should have manifested with more horns, perhaps wings, perhaps a floating crown behind my head. Maybe then you would be more interested in my grand and ancient existence."
He stood up, or rather, floated up to his feet without his legs doing any work at all, his white silk garnt swaying around him as if gravity had politely decided not to bother him.
Max’s eyes narrowed.
John noticed the look and cleared his throat again, a little too loudly this ti.
"I cannot tell you much about the one you call the system’s creator," John said, and his tone finally lost so of its playfulness.
"That person has enemies so strong that even a single breath from them could blast you into pieces, and despite being dead for a very long ti, I still do not wish to make enemies of them. I have plans, you know. Peaceful plans. I want to build a family one day, maybe raise children, maybe drink tea in a house that does not collapse under my hand."
He paused and looked away slightly. "Even if all of that is just imaginary for soone like ."
His fingers scratched his cheek again, and the awkward smile that followed made him look less like an all-powerful being and more like a lonely man who had been trapped too long with only his own thoughts for company.
"But if you inherit my power," John continued, his voice growing steadier as he looked back at Max, "those answers you seek will one day co to you without you even trying. You will not need to beg . You will not need to chase shadows. The path will open on its own, because the spirits rember far more than the living ever could, and if they accept you, then even forgotten truths will eventually crawl out from whatever grave they were buried in."
Max remained silent.
His eyes moved over John’s face, trying to understand how much of this was honesty and how much was another test, another joke, another layer of sothing he was not yet able to see through.
John smiled softly, spreading both hands as the world around them began to shimr, the grass, the tree, the broken table, even the spilled tea slowly glowing with faint spirit light.
"So, tell , Max," he said, his voice carrying that ancient weight again beneath the ridiculous human na he had chosen for himself. "Are you ready to inherit my power and beco the new Spirit Sovereign?"
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