Minutes after the awakening of Technos in their new body we found ourselves a bit deeper in the bowels of the armory and stared at a shimmering mass of cosmic energy in a shape somewhat like a door fit for humans. The portal was seemingly attached to a stone wall meant to mark where the building itself came to an end, on the surface of The Sanctuary.

Olivia, Technos, and I stared at it curiously, as my enhanced eyes carefully analyzed the portal, studying the energy the thing radiated. As it did I began to see various facts about the portal, including its type, the thing was a "natural portal", and its destination.

"Incredible... So this is a natural portal?" I asked, mostly just repeating the charts on display in my mind's eye, as I allowed my eyes to carefully study the cosmic link to another world. Technos nodded, their head still quite large as they hadn't yet shapeshifted into a more mundane form, and Olivia noted the nod with an intrigued smile on her face. 

"Yep. A natural magical reaction to an act filled with the intent to do something magical but not the know-how. In this case, it appears to have been generated by a ritual performed by novice magicians who oversaturated themselves with magic but didn't know how to actually create a portal. So their intent and magic-filled a place, and the world itself did the rest, sensing their earnestness and deciding to reward their attempt." Olivia revealed, sharing some of the knowledge she had gained by studying the portal and possessing "Minor arcanescience", a power that I knew about but didn't possess myself.

"This is linked to the world of Terra. Every once in a while the portal will shimmer and show a small village with technology matching... I wanna say what your people would probably call the very early iron age. Most Earths use the three-age system, so I'm hoping yours does as well." She explained, and thankfully for me my Earth did in fact use the three-age system, which was itself a fact that I knew due to the knowledge I had absorbed from the faculty and staff of the American Academy of Tegucigalpa. Upon hearing her explanation I glanced back at the portal and considered what to do next. 

"Hmm... I suppose for now we should do a minor inspection of the area right around the portal. " I suggested, glancing at my home's "Commander" and our technologically advanced ally. 

"Why do you only want to do a minor inspection of the area around the portal?" Olivia asked, turning to look at me curiously. I sensed Technos beginning to crunch some numbers in their head. 

"I don't want us to overextend during these vital first few days. I've already spent much more time here than I imagined I would, since I am still a high school student and have a life on Earth." I pointed out, reminding Olivia of the vast age difference between us. That made her blush uncomfortably and glance at the portal in an effort to hide her face from me. The age difference between the two of us was so great that she was over twice my age. 

"I... hadn't considered that. I guess you want to spend time with your family and stuff huh?" She asked, still looking away from me. 

"I mean... It's not just that. Because if it were I could just use my clone, since even now I am mentally linked to it. Earth, my Earth, is already undergoing permanent changes that will leave it a vastly different world. It needs guardians, protectors, heroes, who wish to keep it safe from the tyranny of literal super villains. If I am not going to be one, how can I expect anyone else to be?" I explained, keenly aware that even now Alexandria Drakos and her sisters were certainly either actively up to mischief or plotting arcane shenanigans, and that they were almost certainly weaker than some of the other beings who'd be returning to Earth in the days to come.

"I want to help and protect people indiscriminately, but even I can overextend and be overextended. And if I am overly ambitious in my scale then everyone and everything I care about could become victims of those who are not as altruistic as I am." I cautioned, speaking as much to myself as I was to Olivia.  

"I am already beginning to see the sort of leader you'll be..." Olivia uttered, a few moments after I spoke. I could hear a real note of respect in her voice, which brought a smile to my face. 

"I only hope I can match your expectations." I replied, still studying the portal. I carefully took note of what my enhanced brain was revealing to me.

In my mind's eye the longer I focused on the portal the more I could learn about it. I could see various tables and charts surrounding the thing that I knew were visible to myself and perhaps to Technos, though if they were it was to a different extent than it was for me, but were surely not visible to Olivia. 

The charts and tables were readings of the portal, revealing things such as the amount of radiation the portal radiated, temperature readings of both the portal and the area it transported those who passed through it, and the time of day on the other side of natural manifestation of magic.

As I watched the portal I began to see it shimmer and suddenly, instead of showing a mess of cosmic energy, I got to see a momentary glimpse of the actual place waiting for us. I saw the top of a hill overlooking a number of houses, a few fields of slowly growing crops, and the time of day was only a few minutes ahead of the time it was within The Sanctuary. 

"If we're gonna step through the portal... I suppose we might as well go ahead and get on with it." I remarked, as my game-like head-up display began to stop showing me new tables and charts from the portal. I could sense, subconsciously, that I was probably done getting new kinds of information transmitted to me through my enhanced, cyborg senses. 

Olivia tensed but nodded at me. Technos also nodded at me and readied themself for the process of stepping through the portal. I stepped forward and sighed quietly before reaching the portal itself. When I did I felt the boundaries of The Sanctuary begin to thin right as I reached the area where the lines between dimensions were the thinnest. I continued to walk, and suddenly I felt the world bend, blur, and eventually disappear behind me. And I found myself somewhere else.

After several steps into the portal and feeling myself crossing dimensional boundaries I found myself atop a grassy hill. I was accompanied by Olivia and Technos, as the two of them appeared merely a second after I did. I felt a slight breeze and the warmth of an early autumnal day, during the time of year when the heat of summer had not faded away.

While I took my first steps past the portal, feeling the thin crack in reality fade from my vision as it became transparent, I noticed my minimap freeze for a split second before effectively restarting. The reset minimap showed me a surprisingly detailed representation of the area around me and revealed the presence of things like nearby corpses, which it hadn't done in The Sanctuary since no such corpses existed to be shown. 

I could smell the assorted scents of life in something analogous to western human civilization during the days when such civilizations were still fairly young. Such scents were largely unpleasant, but there were a number of pleasant scents mixed in with the bad, creating a strange, only somewhat unpleasant combined odor. I also knew that only I could sense such things due to the incredible potency of my senses. 

I could hear things for thousands of kilometers in every direction. I could hear sounds one might hear in nature, such as the stealthy steps of a potent predator stalking prey in a distant forest, and sounds that were unique to more civilized lifestyles such as the sound of bartering in distant shops.

I could also hear conversations that I had no way of understanding until I began my usual process of selecting a few minds and beginning to mentally copy their memories. As I did so I froze and sighed, finding the exhilarating rush of copying entire minds and adding their thoughts, knowledge, memories, and more, almost pleasurable. My companions stopped and looked at me curiously, causing me to chuckle.

"I can learn languages by copying knowledge from the brains of those who speak them. I also tend to go ahead and copy everything else stored in those brains. I did that here and my mind is processing the knowledge." I explained, as my head filled with memories of entire centuries of life lived by several people from the civilization of the would-be-summoners and their neighbors. My mind finished doing that as I spoke. 

"I'm... already done processing their knowledge. That was definitely the right move." I remarked, my voice filled with awe for my own capabilities. 

"This is a fascinating place. We should go meet the local azer. That's their term for leader." I explained, before closing my eyes and filling the minds of both Technos and Olivia with the same understanding of the language of the locals as a native, local speaker of the tongue would possess, causing both of them to look at me in surprise.

"Whoa... That's an incredible power." Olivia uttered, speaking at first in her native language, which was one that I already knew thanks to us having linked minds in the past. I smiled eagerly at her and nodded.

"It is! With it all I need if I want to learn an entire language is to be within range of an unprotected speaker of that language and a few nanoseconds to target them." I said, truly loving my own powers. 

We began to make our way towards the nearby village, casually conversing as we did so. That said, armed with the knowledge of a few separate individuals I already knew what we were walking into. Powers over minds, memories, and knowledge, came in quite handy for preparing for surprises.

As we walked towards the edge of the hill and the village, I mentally inspected the strange micro-machines that now dwelt inside of me. The assorted devices, each of which was so tiny that they were functionally invisible to the naked eyes of humans from my world, had incredible power.

My enhanced mind was keenly aware of a few vital facts with regards to the nanites, picomites, organites, and femtomites inside of me. The first fact was that in my current state I was only capable of doing so much with them, meaning that I needed to become smarter and to upgrade my current abilities before I could push the machines in me to their actual limit, a limit that largely depended on one's creativity.

The second fact was that my awareness of my machines was not as intimate as my awareness of myself, meaning I didn't understand the exact processes by which my machines did what they could do. That said, I did know what I could do with them which expanded my capabilities in a number of intriguing ways. 

I was primarily able to manipulate matter through my current ability to make use of my newest companions, especially here far away from things like computers and the internet, where I'd have a bit more freedom thanks to my technopathic abilities, but that ability alone was so incredibly adaptive that it more than made up for the fact that it was effectively a "Starter-level" ability. My newfound matter manipulation ability far exceeded anything I could have done through even the most clever usages of my other kinetic abilities at my current level of strength and skill.

With my machines I could almost instantly create weapons for myself and legions of followers provided I devoted enough of my machines to the task of forging weapons. I could also do things like create towns or buildings with this power, and of course, I could create different forms of technology, which was a thought that excited me tremendously. 

As I made my way closer and closer to the village I mentally ordered my machines to alter my clothes and transform them into a set of clothes and armor fit for a powerful hero. While doing that I also activated another new ability of mine and spent a small amount of magical energy to fashion a sword out of my own energy. 

I sensed my outfit being touched, tailored, and altered by my machines even while the magic in me momentarily gathered in my hand and began to solidify. As my arcane sword came into being my outfit was transformed into the heavy armor of a powerful general one might expect to see on the frontlines of a medieval battle, a warrior equally unafraid of death or of any of his personal enemies.

It was only after the sword generated in my hand that my companions and I reached the bottom of the hill, and came close enough to the distant village to be spotted by a guard tasked with protecting the town who promptly blew on a horn in her possession, letting out a loud, sorrowful note. In doing so she alerted the town to our existence and proximity to the settlement, causing the sleepy community's inhabitants to awaken, and the few people who were up to begin to dash towards the borders of the settlement to greet the strangers, us, and clash with us if need be.