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Chapter 1: Invito

Professor Saxemillian Merlinius Von Vaporblaster / Credit: Pexels

While working in his laboratory on an analysis of Protostone Technology’s Novel Fluxflower - a revolutionary type of experimental hybrid cannabis, not the everyday cultivar, but a strain of super-potent cannabis grown to heal and restore vision to the blind, a mild-mannered and socially anxious scientist harnessed genetics that somehow became mystically infused with ethereal properties. Then something even more extraordinary actualized.

As the legend goes, in the year 2070, Professor Saxemillian Merlinius Von Vaporblaster: Doctor of Science in Dematerialization, or “Dr. Merl,” for simplicity's sake… which is about the only aspect of this story coining that description, is alleged to have achieved the unimaginable. Dr. Merl so precisely dissipated the Protostone Fluxflower in a futuristic hyper-sensitive Volcano vaporizer apparatus with a custom cannabis capacitor, at exactly 420 degrees fahrenheit, testing the limits of conversion equation:

Formula 

(215.556°C × 9/5) + 32 = 420°F

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At 11:11 AM, in the flash of a moment altering the very fabric of the spacetime continuum itself. Instantaneously, Dr. Merl exhaled a spark and was granted temporary powers, although unaware of them at first. Gifts like ultra-intelligence, clairvoyance, telepathy, psychokinesis, supernatural deduction, hyperluminal dematerialization, metaphysical chakra harmonization, lucid dreaming, and transmutation were harnessed through the Fluxflower. Plus, a plethora of undiscovered abilities yet to be uncovered and unlocked, such as realm skipping to provocative landscapes enchanted with stoney elves, high hobbits, wondrous wizards, plus a supreme entity “The Lord of the Weeds.”

Combined these fantastical concepts are dwarfed in comparison to the underlying mystery: Where is the Protostone Flowerflux phenomena drawing its magical energy from?

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Other than noticing a 120-page Ph.D. level dissertation on Artificial Intelligence typed and printed out by someone named ‘Zephyr' laying on his desk - with the printer in another office building, and twelve hours of time elapsing in what felt like ten seconds… nothing else seemed out of place in the lab.

In “high-sight,” things should have seemed far more radical than perceived at the time. Or quite possibly, Dr. Merl did partially understand the depths of the discovery momentarily, yet he was still shell shocked from a transformation.

Did Dr. Merl author a paper in that short amount of time and was so engrossed he had forgotten?

Perchance he just got really baked and this was all a dream that wasn’t making sense… or a joke - yes maybe, like the time his colleagues poured vodka in his orange juice at the Christmas party and drew unspeakably hideous and offensive stenciling in permanent marker on his face whilst he was slumbering? Was this new hybrid cannabis successful in giving sight to the blind, and beyond?

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Suddenly, a draft of air was coming from the direction of a bookshelf though no windows open in the lab. The draft puffed out a tiny square of parchment, revealing a source of unknown data from another metaverse.

Barely legible in faded ink, etched on a note that spontaneously combusted when Dr. Merl picked it up from the floor with his mind alone, read the words: 

VENIO ZONA RAVEO


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An astute Psychonaut, Dr. Merl knew this was no ordinary trip. Dr. Merl was stupefied by the realization of what he discovered. After a few hours, he returned to baseline, enjoyed a quick snack, and fed his pet plant, never forgetting to water his beloved Growzies. It was then that Dr. Merl decided it was time for a secondary trial. 

As he precariously picked up a pinch of Fluxflower and loaded the volcano-vape, using his supplementary cannabis capacitor to dial in the 420 degree fundamental frequency, there was no conceivable way that Dr. Merl could have grasped the notion of what he was about to unleash on his own psyche and the multiverse at large. 

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A wave of white light washed over his vision and filled his synapses with this new product of Ethereality. Dr. Merl realized this wasn’t the same psychedelic effect ever witnessed before… This time he was physically being pulled, actually drifting upwards as if gravity didn’t exist, into a vortex outside his window. Shockingly a nimbus cloud started transforming into a portal to another dimension. 

Grasping to hold onto the windowpane, the force of the whirlpool was too strong and each one of his fingers started to slip one by one. As his pinky failed to anchor to the wall and the sky turned starry, Dr. Merl meekly managed to yell: “Yowsers!!!”

Thus begins the Odyssey of  Professor Saxemillian Merlinius Von Vaporblaster: Doctor of Science in Dematerialization - Infamously Dubbed:: Dr. Merl: The Astonishing Metaphysician.

Grant Mitchell

Grant Mitchell is a highly decorated Captain and U.S. Army Airborne Ranger commissioned from The United States Military Academy at West Point - Class of 9/11. After an early medical retirement, Grant became an Oxford University alumni for international politics graduate school, then earned a Post Graduate Diploma in Law from the United Kingdom. Currently, he is finishing a Doctor of Philosophy degree while traveling internationally as a journalist and cannabis advocate.

https://aetherarcade.com/
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