The Secret

Except for the occasional rustling of the trees and the rustling of the shrubbery underneath the feet, there was nothing else. For a moment at that time, Midas' feet were the only ones creating any sound, while Julio and Aydin stood still in their previous places after receiving a shock.

"WHAT?!?!" said Julio, with an unbelieving smile on his face. The [Memory of the World] Skill is super strong.

"Wait. Are you an A Ranker like me?" asked Aydin, still not understanding what any of it meant.

"Yeah, I am. I showed Julio my Index this morning and he showed me his in exchange. That's partly how we grew to trust each other."

"Yeah, it makes sense. I was late to the party," said Aydin.

"It's fine, the party is still happening," said Julio.

"Julio's right. Although we just met a few hours ago, I think you're a cool guy. So I'll just show you my Index now."

"Eh? Fine. Fuck it. I'll also share mine." Said Aydin. It was kind of too late for him anyway, since he had already demonstrated his Skill.

Although Aydin couldn't tell how much Midas previously saw, he figured that since they were showing each other anyway, then he might as well go the whole way.

They then spent some time showing and sharing their understandings of their Skills. Midas also found this a good opportunity to communicate his understandings of their Skills to them as a way of possibly enlightening them to any different use-cases of their Skills.

"Aydin, have you ever tried to [Mimic] the Trees? They are kind of living existences…"

"Julio, what if you could use [Berserk] at select parts of your body instead of your whole body? Can you control it to that extent?"

As they walked and talked, the others also came to some understanding of Midas' skills and started praising and asking him questions. Midas detailed to them generally his thoughts about his Skills and they nodded in understanding while being wowed in their hearts. Midas' skills had so many use-cases.

Midas even went on to demonstrate how he secretly hid a tree right next to them, causing Julio to walk straight into it and bump his head.

If only they knew that what they were seeing was only half the story… They would never have guessed that Midas had a Second Gift or Authority.

Of course, their first assumption would never be the existence of a second Gift or anything. People have a tendency of rationalising the world based on their own standards. Since they had only one Gift, then it was obvious that everyone else should have one too. They did not even question it. 

Midas saw all this and was pleased with his performance. 'Nailed it.'

It was like a magic trick. In Magic tricks, there are three levels of performance that make the audience be blown out of their minds, asking themselves how that was possible, and later on, how unbelievable that whole experience was.

First comes the Pledge: A Magician showing something relatively ordinary, understandable and relatable. This would be like a deck of cards, with very normal, randomly shuffled cards.

Then comes the Turn: The magician then takes the ordinary thing and does something extraordinary with it, wowing the audience. This would be like asking the target to pick a card, remember that card and then shuffle the deck only to find that the card had disappeared from the entire deck.

Then finally comes the Prestige: The magician then tops that extraordinariness with even more extraordinariness thus making it seem impossible. This would be like pointing at the Target's pocket and saying "Actually, the card is in your right pocket", only to have the target find that card in there thinking to themselves 'how??'

In the same way, Midas first made himself seem like a normal person, the Pledge. Then it was discovered that Midas was not normal, but he was extremely competent with an A Rank Gift, the Turn. Then it was discovered that he wasn't a normal A Rank, but an A ranker with an overpowered Skill with almost infinite use-cases instead, the Prestige. 

In a way, this meant that there was a hidden fourth level to this trick that Midas would rather not reveal, even if he found others that had Authorities. This would be his secret, that he would keep for as long as possible.

After analysing Midas' Skills and their descriptions, Julio and Aydin felt like they honestly knew so much more about this guy. And after the analysis and suggestions from Midas, they felt like they knew so much more about their own capabilities too.

"Sorry, Aydin. I previously checked it without your permission previously. That was super rude of me," said Midas apologetically, to which Aydin merely shook his head and said:

"Well, I actually came forward with some less than friendly intentions. I was going to steal your Skills for myself and then leave. But now, things have changed. We're all friends here anyway. Let's try to do our best together from now on."

"It's okay, I totally get it. I hope you can steal our enemies' Skills from now on hehe," said Midas with an evil smile.

"That was just what I was planning, hehe" said Aydin with an equally evil smile.

"What did you think about mine?" said Julio to Aydin.

"Julio you're super strong bro." said Aydin.

"Yeah. Julio's stats are actually the stats of an A Rank person. He has no idea how strong he is," said Midas.

"Of course, I'm very strong. And I'm very fast now. Did you see me back then in the North? I was like 'zwoosh', and then bam!"

"Yep. And then you went boom and then bang!" said Midas while nodding with a serious expression on his face. Aydin, seeing this, started laughing, remembering that these were his exact words whenever he reminisced about his performance. Julio on the other hand, did not understand what was funny.

"Let's add Aydin to our Networks, Julio."

"Yeah!"

And so they each shared their Index Identification and added each other on their Networks. 

After testing out the capabilities of the Network some more, Midas found it to be incredibly overpowered. He decided to test something out.

"Actually, this Networking page is super overpowered. I think we can send images through it," said Aydin.

"Really? I thought it was only text and voices," said Julio to which Aydin shook his head and said:

"Well, no. Apparently, you can will the Index to take an Image. Whatever is projected in front of your view would be whatever is sent through. I heard this in the morning from a bunch of guys who were hanging out at the Shrine."

"Interesting… Let's try it," said Midas. But Aydin was already one step ahead. Midas saw him pose and then suddenly, he received an Image in his Network under Aydin. The image was Aydin standing in the forest while striking the pose he was in a moment ago. Midas was impressed. This is very cool, and very useful...

Couldn't this be used to spy on people…

Julio tried it too, and he managed to send and image of all three of them fiddling with nothing in the air between them. They laughed at that picture, as Julio caught them off guard.

"What about videos?" said Midas right now. If this concept could be expanded appropriately, Midas could even do some really interesting stuff. Like having a video call with them from a long distance.

Was that possible? It felt way too Magical.

He immediately willed it and boom, it actually worked. Midas could send a video of a few seconds long. They became excited now. Could they actually call each other?

Midas willed the idea of video calling Julio, and then Julio exclaimed saying that he saw a notification asking if he would accept the Information Transmission from Midas.

He immediately accepted and just like that they were calling each other. With no technology in sight they were able to communicate in long distance. 

This was an incredible discovery.

Midas realised that the latency of this system was zero and he became even more impressed. The image quality was incredible, sound was phenomenal as if it pierced right into the ear. If applied ingeniously, this type of system could be used to gather information without other parties knowing about it.

Midas decided to take things a step further. He willed the idea of sending a memory image to Aydin, it was the image of the Stone Tablet from his memories. When he willed the image sending, he saw that an image popped up in the panel displayed in front of him in his chat screen with Aydin.

"Wait, Midas. Is this…"

"Yeah. This is the Stone Tablet. Since you couldn't see it, I figured I might as well send you an image."

"How… You sent me an image from your memories?"

"You guys can't send me pictures from your memories?" asked Midas dubiously. Could it be that his [Divine Database] was displaying its supremacy again…

"Let me try…"

"Send me an image of a girl you know. Like a girlfriend or something. You should try it too, Julio," said Midas. And so they tried. But after a few more seconds, Midas realised that his expectations were way too high. What he received were jumbled images with some blurry parts in them.

This Julio even dared to send to Midas what seemed to be a blurry image of the little girl Maria. This guy is already thinking of her as his girlfriend?

"Well…" Midas honestly did not know what to say.

"Yeah. It's probably because of your skill that is basically giving you photographic memory," said Julio with some envy tinged in his voice. If he had such a skill he would take so many pictures of so many beautiful things and people…

"Yeah, it's probably that," affirmed Aydin.

"Okay, I guess I'll be the human Kodak camera from now on," said Midas self-deprecatingly.

"Hehehe" laughed Aydin.

"Midas, I have a favour to ask you, my friend." Said Julio tentatively.

"Eh… Julio, what's up?"

"Please send me a picture of Maria, my brother."

"OH MY GOD… Julio… What are you trying to do with it? You know what, don't tell me…"

"Wait no, I can explain…" said Julio, but Midas had already sent it and was looking at Julio with some mock doubt while shaking his head. Aydin on the other hand, could not hold back and began laughing his face off at this display.

Everyone continued walking and talking in this way until they walked into a wall.

"Midas. Where did you take us?" said Aydin while rubbing his nose. He had felt the brunt of that as he was walking further ahead than everyone else. Julio giggled at his predicament, while saying that his red nose makes him look like a clown.

Midas shook his head and said, "Yeah, we should be somewhere along the perfect West."

"Perfect West?"

"Yeah. That should be the direction of the Shrine and over there in that direction should be the river while over there would  be the direction of the Stone Tablet. They form a straight line over there, and we are the right base of the pyramid if you view it from that perspective, in which case the Shrine would be the top."

"Aahhh" said Aydin. How could he be sure though? Aydin had no idea that Midas was subconsciously mapping this place while walking and looking around. 

Midas' mind and [Divine Database] had already come up with a representation for the dimensions of this place, thus allowing him to accurately calculate how much walking he needed to do and in what direction he needed to do it, before he reached the boundary.

"Let's settle down close to here, just slightly northwards. We will create a pyramid with the river and the Shrine as the base of the equilateral triangle, and the position as the peak of the triangle instead.

That way it would take us approximately 1 hour to make the trips to and from all three places. Also, I estimate that position will be the least trod upon by people from now on, at least statistically speaking," said Midas. 

Aydin and Julio both had no objections to this arrangement so they started firing off their own suggestions. After reaching the position, they engaged in their own conversation while surveying the area.

"We should come up with a name for our group!" said Julio.

"Oh? Do you have any ideas?" asked Aydin.

"Yeah. The Incredibles."

"No. That already exists," said Midas with a shake of his head.

"Okay. What about The Invincibles?" Julio said, causing Midas and Aydin to shake their heads. This guy. What would he say next? The Incorrigibles? The Incalculables?.. Actually, that last one wasn't that bad.

"No way. How about Hidden Leaf?" said Aydin.

"You mean like in Naruto?" asked Midas in confusion. Aydin is a Weeb?

"You watch it too?" said Aydin, visibly excited. Midas felt himself cringe inside imagining Aydin in Naruto cosplay. This guy, it's not possible right…

"We already said no stealing, so No," said Julio.

"Aww… What about Straw Hatters?"

"Now you're stealing from One Piece?" said Midas with a chuckle.

And like that they spent several minutes until Julio spoke up again.

"I've got it. 'The Secret'. Since we're going to be hiding and keeping ourselves under wraps."

"..."

"Not bad…" said Midas.

"What? No! I still think We can do better."

"Nah, I think we should take a vote. All in favour of 'The Secret', raise your hands." said Midas while raising his hand. Julio, seeing this, raised his own hand up too, causing Aydin to want to die. These guys are not fair at all.