The world is filled with all kinds of families, from a normal suburban family, to one living on a farm surrounded by nature, there are also of course those that are filled with money, what differs from one another is what they have what we call an ethos, a legend, a promise by which they stand.

The most popular among them are ancient and noble houses, of course, the Saintsworths.

-We are the light that shines civilization upon the world.

A saying that while their current Scion doesn't quite say as much as those that came before him, he still strives to increase the culture and development of the world, there are other less popular houses and sayings of course.

-The Singh family who originally was a house of medicine: We will heal the world.

-The Hamilton family: Merchants are what makes the world spin.

-The Blackthorn family: The money of the mind are good intentions.

-The Harmonia family: A healthy soul will only reside in a healthy body.

Other less famous sayings whose families are lost to the annals of history are such as:

-Science is the gear that makes the world spin.

-The body is the ultimate frontier.

-I'm the bone of my weapon.

-Steel is my body, ice is within my blood.

-Darkest than the abyss of the ocean.

And so on, and so on. What matters right now would be my own house, the not quite ancient, but even so, noble house of the Harmonia. In ancient times we also were a family dedicated of apothecaries, not quite the medicine focused house, but not totally unaware of what we should do to be healthy.

A house focused on making sure you didn't need to go and see the doctors and one that could remedy some ills. A saying that embodies our existence, our traditions, our beliefs….

A healthy soul will only reside in a healthy body.

This was born from the belief that so long we took care of our bodies, we would be healthy, it would be ridiculous if a family of apothecaries fell sick right? But what does this mean in a broader aspect?

Simple, if we took care of our body, then we would be healthy, but would merely taking care of our body be enough? No, no matter how much one takes care of their body, if their mind is degraded, it will be merely a meat pile. So with that in mind the Harmonia also took care of their mind.

A simple saying evolved in a rigorous need to take care of both the body and the mind. We trained the body, but could we do that from childhood? Before in the older times, yes. But with the advent of civilization, we, the Harmonia, found out that training from a young age was detrimental to the body. So instead, the elders moved the education to the younger ages and the physical training to the older ages.

It did wonders, it was thanks to that type of training that I was able to stand at the top of those near my age, the only one that was able to stand up to my standards was my fiance…

Gloria Blackthorn, or how she liked to go by most of the time, Glory.

We were quite lucky in some aspects; while we bickered and fought, there weren't that many people in our age bracket that stood up to our standards, even with the accelerated education, physical training (We did receive some degree of light training, and stretching) and physiological monitoring. There wasn't a Saintswoth in our age bracket, so we stood at the top.

A golden couple.

But how? How was a child like this? Capable of standing at the same level as some grown-ups? Easy, like most ancient houses, we cheated.

With the advent of civilization came great things; among them was the gene therapy that the Saintsworths brought forth; gone was the age of insecurity, of having less-than-optimal sons and daughters. Did you want a girl? With perfect proportions? Intelligent? You could get it.

It was a nightmare on the first iterations, of course, unless you were a Saintsworths; they reserved some of the best techniques to them…or so they said, I didn't believe such a thing before; it was pointless, even with gene therapy you couldn't get all the things you wanted.

I was proof of that, my family had wanted to get one particular gene lost from the Harmonia tree back with me, our original hair color was supposed to be blue, but since our grandparent generation we hadn't had someone with blue hair.

Very few families still had that gene, most had ended with black or brown hair. Bright colors were a sign of status for some reason, my personal belief is that it had to do with the blonde hair of a saintsworths...

But I digress, the reason I used to believe that and no longer believe it is…a transfer student.

Alexandra Saintsworths, five years old.

She moved from one of the worst classes straight to the Classroom of the Elite; of course, Glory couldn't stand that, even though she saw her blonde hair; who would believe she was a true Saintsworths?

The girl had the face of a bimbo, no thoughts, only air.

She was kind of cute, of course, and somehow made you want to pamper her with how she moved, but that was it. Our teacher of course made an example out of Glory, and showed us her true worth.

The girl was smart, way smarter than she looked; she had a complete dominion over the topics we spoke about and asked the right questions; she even proved her own heritage as a Saintsworths, more so when the local AI bowed to her, answered her queries and gave her enough privileges.

Privileges that she shouldn't have access to unless she was a scion of the Saintsworths. But that was impossible, there were very few scions within the Saintsworths. The most famous one being Alexanders Saintsworths of course, but there were others, new generations came and so, other people were worthy of the title.

No one lived up to the current Scion, so rarely anyone introduced himself like that, if Alexanders Saintsworths didn't introduce himself as such, who was the random inheritor to claim the title.

But Alexandra, or well, Alexa was different. She didn't wield the title either, but held the intelligence and charisma of one, and more importantly, she wielded a Core Power too. She claimed to be a type of shapeshifter, but neither myself nor Glory believed that.

Her powers seemed to be more of the esoteric type, more so with the mysterious allure she wielded, and that wasn't the only thing, the girl adapted fast, faster than anyone Glory or myself had seen.

On the eve of the school festival, she came as the klutz girl she was, but in the middle of the match against one of our greatest foes, she not only mimicked the martial arts, but she started moving and reacting as if she had trained all her life like that.

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Glory and I could see the anger and despair in the face of Beatrice Starcroft, another member of the ancient clans within Terra Nova, and while I wasn't sure how I would react if my house's specialty was stolen like that, for sure seeing a Core trigger event was a new one.

Seeing one of the most powerful supervillains was another thing I hadn't expected to see, and the fact that Alexa stood there as if nothing while everyone else was struck in fear…. Even if it was for a fraction of a second, Alexa had stood as if nothing.

And the fact that after all of that, all of that! The girl had the gall of asking for Beatrice to be removed from the game since she had left the playing area, it was ridiculous, so I laughed. For the first time in my life I laughed as if I was mad, Glory giggled at the side while covering her mouth too.

I wasn't sure if Glory had seen [The Theater Master] or not, but this was stupid. Alexa was too much of a genius, I wasn't sure if this was how Alexanders peers felt, but I knew at that moment that we would never be able to match her.

And that more likely than not, her Core wasn't something as mundane as Shapeshifting, the Harmonia had some studies and theories about the Core formation too, but no way of proving them.

That was part of what they had seeded within my body, the same as the Blackthorn seeded within Glory.

Two ways of increasing the probability of having a Core. Two ways in which our lives would be shorter, we were expected to peak at 25, start degenerating at 30, and die at 35 or 40 if lucky.

It was the way of the most ancient and noble houses…

So when Alexa offered a way to fix us…I didn't believe it, Glory did, she clung to the hope of what she called Humanity. She was the most emotional of us, while the modifications to her should have curbed that, she still cared too much. My personal theory is that they left most of the emotional development free while she was little, and that would start going away as we grew older.

I would miss this side of her if it was the case.

But I digress yet again, Alexa made a promise that it was impossible to fulfill, and Glory believed it, even after Alexa showed the full…or what I thought was close to her full mastery over her own Core Power. I still didn't believe it was achievable.

Not even myself who looked at Glory every day could see the difference between Alexa transformed into Glory and the real one…well not physically, her demeanor hadn't changed, seeing a child-like Glory and the normal regal one side by side was a treat for sore eyes.

Nonetheless, Alexa seemed to believe her statement, and her attempt at explaining did hold some degree of truth; if she indeed could manipulate the DNA and read-understand it, then it should be…possible.

There was a time in which I believed it, I of course believed that it would be more than likely that Alexa was attempting to merely quench Glory's fear by making an spectacle, even if her Core Power allowed her to interface and affect other people, the chances of her being able to fix the DNA of another being were close to nill.

There was simply no way that a human being, a child at that, no matter how genius it was, that they could do something at this level.

And yet…

Well, people say that when one experiments great amounts of pain enough to kill you, you start seeing your life. I did see my whole life, but that wasn't a long life, so thanks to that, I spent all this time thinking and reasoning about how I got here.

My body? What is it doing, well…

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" My throat is quite sore at the moment, and it feels as if something hot is growing in the middle of my chest; my whole body feels on fire, and my veins feel as if there is sludge going through it.

Actually, it feels as if every pore in my body is attempting to open wide to expel said sludge too. It is quite uncomfortable.

"State your wish." And then there is that, the voice at the back of my head. The voice that is sweet and yet sounds as if several people is speaking at the same time.

We don't have many Core Users within the Harmonia, but we are an ancient house with allegiance to many others, and we all want to crack the way to make new Core Users. So the few Core Users that have been born within high society have spoken about how their Core triggering event went.

Subject number one said: 'Before I knew it I was able to wield fire.'

Not helpful.

Subject number two said: 'I was hurting and wished for nothing else but to be away from there, before I knew it I had teleported away.'

Not as helpful as one would expect, but more so, they claimed that a wish had been the reason why they could teleport away after all.

Subject number three: 'I was rescued by a Beast Core user, and while in danger I wished to help them.'

It either goes against the theory of the wish event or works as a way to cement the idea that having another type of Core near affects what you awake.

"State your wish."

But no one said anything about this, what was even this? Could I speak to it? Not with my voice since I was still screaming my lungs out. Couldn't be with that, perhaps thoughts?

"Hello? Can you hear me?" Projecting my thoughts was weird; we did some practice for when we needed to speak using a Mind Core as an intermediary, so the theory was there.

"Is your wish to be heard?" The voice latched into that, and I felt something in my chest start to move.

"No!" So I screamed that into the void.

"State your wish," The voice stopped whatever it was doing and asked again.

Wish….this thing…moved the lava-like energy within my chest…and asked for a wish…I would need to be very dense to not know what this was at this point; no one ever said anything about triggering a Core outside of dangerous circumstances, the type that was life-threatening, and we had given up in the way that the gene therapy provided.

My early life was full of exciting experiences, though.

But this demanded of me an answer, and I could feel the energy raging within my body, but…could it be that the Core Users all went through this, and no one said anything? Why?

"What are the limits? Why are you asking? Who are you?" The questions left one after the other, and before I could even feel the energy in my chest moving, "None of this are my wish, I need this information to make my wish."

That was important, getting a Core Power that would allow me to know the limits of others? Know why people asked things? Knowing who people was? It was stupid and useless.

"I am the one who rules over the System set in place to monitor this planet," The voice spoke as the voices overlapped one after the other, but as it spoke, the voice started becoming clearer and clearer, "You have been deemed as a problematic entity, so a more hands-on approach was deemed necessary. Prepare for handshake protocol."

Handshake- HOLY GODDESS OF ALL SACRED THINGS!

"....Alexa?" What stood in front of me was the blonde little girl….Only….different.

"I am the ND0 System, the one set up in place to make sure this planet works as intended till a new order arrives; this form was chosen to help alleviate any doubt and ensure mutual understanding." The little girl spoke…in a mechanical way, now that I was paying attention I could see the differences.

This girl had crimson red eyes, her hair was messy, she was wearing a white sundress filled with rips and bloodstains, and she was barefoot. Unlike how it was with Alexa, I didn't feel the almost compulsion to pamper or help her, with her it was an odd sense of wrongness, as if this girl was wrong. That was another thing; instead of the classroom I was before now, we stood in the middle of a flower meadow with a singular burned-out oak tree in the middle of it.

The sky in the distance seemed…off, like it wasn't really there but was more of a painting or a projection, same as the sky with the clouds that didn't move.

It was…wrong.

"The limits are anything you desire, the reason I am asking is because a Core has been triggered within you. So I ask you again, what is that you desire?" The…girl asked, she raised her left hand and snapped her finger, and an image of myself materialized there, "Do you desire the strength to take what should be yours? A power beyond the understanding of mere mortals?"

The image of myself grew to the height of what I would be older and I could see myself raising mountains and punching away oceans, that was…if I say so myself, cool.

"Do you desire the power to harvest the very power of Reality, to bend it into your service and wield the power to twist this world?" The image shifted away replaced by another version of myself, this one wearing a lab coat working in a laboratory, as my hands moved the things around changed, from a chair into a liquid, into a gas, into plasma… I was toying with the fundamental forces of nature.

"Or perhaps…do you wish to twist the minds of those around you? To make them follow your commands as loyal slaves?" The image faded away and was replaced by a version of myself wearing a black robe, hundreds upon hundreds of people following behind me, their eyes dead. "State your desire, Alan Harmonia. The vaults of the System are open to you right now…all you need is to Wish."

….

It was as if a cold bucket of water was thrown into my face, that…that last one looked like how [The Scrambled] moved with those affected by him…Had…had he Wished for something like that?

"A healthy soul will only reside in a healthy body." The words left my mouth before I could think about it.

"Is that your Wish?" The Alexa look-alike asked.

"I wish for something that will help me stay beside the one who will walk the path of life with me," So I declared, each word resounding within my body, within my mind, within my soul…Within my Core, "I wish to be her Shield, to be with her and remain grounded. To be the better form of who I am."

"....It will be done heir of the Harmonia, you will uphold the standards of Justice that you crave for," The Alexa look-alike smiled with a knowing smile at him, "May you bring hope and light upon those that you desire to protect, may you rise as high as your ancestors in another life… May you be as bright as the last Lawbringer Sentinel. Without the emotional baggage that she carried."

"Wait the Lawbringer what?" I tried to ask, but before I could the cold feeling of water entering into my nose woke me up.

—----------------------------

"See? He was fine! Alexa knew that there was no way that this was her fault, this was all Alan's fault! He did it on his own!" The voice of Alexa made me open my eyes, but instead of the cold, calculating crimson-red eyes of the Alexa look-alike, it was the happy, carefree Alexa standing near the worried fiance that I had.

"Well, he wasn't opening his eyes, and he kept moaning in pain…Besides, I knew you weren't at fault, no way someone could trigger a Core formation." Glory said, waving her hand at Alexa; she was using her poker face mode; I could see the twitch on her neck of how she was forcing herself to remain calm.

"That was awful of you, princess; next time, please say in advance that it will hurt this much…If it was someone else, I don't think they would survive," My own voice sounded…fine? I had half expected a sore throat after how much I had screamed.

But I didn't feel tired, or hurt…or anything really. It was as if I had just woken up.

"So… what's with the hair?" Glory suddenly asked, turning to Alexa, "Will I end up like that too?"

"...Alexa didn't do that, I could fix it if you want?" Alexa said extending her hand my way, before I could even think I was standing five meters away from that spot…

"How…?" Was what I said looking down, I had thought about running away, but…how was I moving that fast?

".....Rude, it wasn't Alexa's fault that Alan removed her wiggles, they were giving anesthesia, so if it hurt it was because Alan removed the wiggles." Alexa said pouting.

The…wiggles?

A thought was all it took to look inward, as in…I was aware of every inch of my body…and there was indeed some… remmant? There was a foreign…

*Poof*

….They disappeared?

"....Alexa knows nothing…"…..Alexa….what did you leave behind? And how did you remove it remotely? Core Powers….Shapeshifters didn't work like that, they needed physical contact…

How….

What the hell did we walk into?

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