Skill-Grinder 17-20

Based on his reputation in this loop, he could be considered famous. But fame was inspiring to some and intimidating to others.

And the accompanying griffin rider - an Elite retainer of House Firesword who hadn’t tagged along on the expedition in Jerestir - hadn’t met Orodan and gotten to know him firsthand. To the man, Orodan was a distant and awe-inspiring figure who was rumored to be a Favored and host to an Avatar. Consequently, his escort was rather subdued and elected to spend the ride in silence as his and Orodan’s griffins soared through the skies towards Karilsgard.

Which suited Orodan just fine as he spent the time meditating on Eternal Soul Reactor.

In a few minutes, he saw glimpses of it.

There was another massive mountain that stood between Volarbury county and the Capital. This meant that wherever Orodan went within the county in his loops, he never quite got to see the spires of Karilsgard in the distance as the mountain would be in the way.

But now that their flight had gotten past the tall mountain for the first time?

He saw it.

And it was the biggest city Orodan had ever seen. Easily ten times the size of Vorskard in the northern continent.

Massive spires and towers the size of smaller mountains, glowing lights and so, so many people. The city was surrounded by walls which were almost as tall as some of the smaller towers, and many of the towers and buildings had walkways connecting them to other tall buildings and at some points even to the walls themselves.

It was incredible.

And in the center of the city, he could see it looming over everything, almost as tall as Mount Castarian. It was the High Spire of Karilsgard, the tallest building in the Republic of Aden and one of the tallest in the world. It rose from the Palace of the Council, where the Republic’s rulers convened. On Inuan, it was dwarfed only by the imperial citadel in Novarria.

He saw various other famous landmarks and buildings.

The utterly massive Cathedral of the Prime Five. The largest building of worship in the Republic and the priesthood’s base of power. It was surrounded by five massive statues of the Gods the size of castles. The High Forges of Karilsgard where the greatest craftsmen of the Republic worked to outfit the military, the Capital Guard and had certain powerful pieces of gear for sale. And the commercial section, which glowed with such bright lights even as the sun shined. And had such crowds of people flitting through that Orodan thought it alone held more people than the entirety of Volarbury county. Frankly, he thought the city itself likely outnumbered the surrounding few counties in terms of total population.

A few million people in Volarbury county? That was nothing before the likely tens of millions Karilsgard held.

Orodan now understood why House Firesword would want to hold some influence here. This place was a population center and base of power of titanic proportions.

As the griffins flew past the walls, Orodan noticed tall towers with mages on them who were performing the task of monitoring air traffic in and out of the city. There were also various anti-air defenses and lethal looking siege weaponry atop these towers. With a tower being present every half mile of the walls. Archers, peltasts and mages were present in force, ready send missile and spell fire upon intruders.

Any assault upon Karilsgard would face heavy resistance. The city’s defenses were prepared diligently and honed over a long period of time. Orodan felt that even an Avatar attempting to assail it would find a formidable amount of firepower sent their way, and who knew what other esoteric defense systems the Capital had in place?

Finally, as the griffins passed the High Spire of Karilsgard, Orodan was able to see the ethereal blue flame atop a tower behind the Palace.

This was the main tower of the Bluefire Academy. It was situated behind the Palace of the Council and located right in the center of Karilsgard.

The academy itself was at least half the size of Trumbetton, with a ludicrous number of buildings and people frolicking about between them. Near the tower, was a truly spacious open area with multiple pillars of blue fire surrounding it. This was the landing zone for all aerial traffic, and it looked large enough to accommodate even Cyvrosdyr if the mountain-sized dragon ever decided to land here.

They were directed to land, and before they did his escorting rider spoke. “Sir, it’s been an honor to escort you this far. It would be improper for someone like me to land, so I must turn back. The academy’s staff will look after you from here,” the retainer spoke, and then then gave Orodan a formal salute and turned his griffin in the opposite direction and flew off.

The pomp and social customs felt strange to Orodan, but who was he to argue?

His griffin touched down onto the ground, and now that they were within the bounds of the academy proper Orodan noticed the academy itself had an air traffic control tower which was subtly helping guide griffins to the ground.

But there was another flying creature on the landing zone as well… a pegasus! Two of them to be precise.

Pegasi! Orodan had never seen them before! He’d grown up hearing about the famous Pegasus knights of the Eastern Kingdoms. They were more common in the Eastern Kingdoms and down south in the peaks of the Dokuhan mountains where the dwarves had their mountain holds. But actually seeing the lustrous white winged horses was quite something compared to simply hearing stories about them and their famed riders.

The owner of the two pegasi - a dark skinned girl with curly hair - looked at Orodan’s enraptured gaze and approached him with a smile.

“Is this your first time seeing a Pegasus?” she asked with a friendly tone and Orodan nodded. “They’re rather shy and take time to warm up to any potential riders, but I dare say they have far more personality and intelligence than the griffins in these lands do!”

“Personality? How so?” Orodan asked as he dismounted his griffin, and it then promptly flew off back towards Trumbetton. “I’ve only ever ridden griffins a handful of times so far, so I don’t have much to compare with.”

“Not to say the griffins you ride in the Empire and Republic aren’t cute creatures, but a pegasus is akin to a dragon and gains intelligence once it reaches the Adept-level. Compared to griffins which gain intelligence at the Master-level like any other creature, the difference is quite stark,” she explained. “Olsinius here for example, can talk to you… if he cares to.”

“And I do not care to, at this time,” the pegasus remarked with a grunt that the System translated to the universal tongue. It caught Orodan entirely off guard as he was unused to a talking mount.

“You can talk?” he asked.

“You… have you never met an intelligent being that wasn’t human before?” the pegasus asked with a grunt of indignation. “Of course I can speak!”

“I’ve met a dragon that could talk. A worm too, although it wasn’t very friendly… and centipedes,” Orodan began listing off. “I’m aware that intelligent creatures exist, I just wasn’t aware that pegasi were a species of advanced intelligence akin to dragons.”

“Well consider this a lesson then, I’m not one of those mindless griffins you people ride around like slaves,” the pegasus, Olsinius replied with neighs and whinnies. “Us pegasi gain intelligence around the Adept-level. My younger brother here will soon become capable of speaking in a few months as well. Although he’ll be akin to a child for some time initially.”

It was quite interesting Orodan thought. While he knew monsters - which non-mortal species such as pegasi were technically classified as - gained intelligence at differing points depending on their species; Orodan learned today that this intelligence went through a process of growth like how human children would learn to talk.

“What arrangement do you have with your riders then? Do they ask for permission? Do you have designated work hours?” Orodan bluntly asked.

“How do you function at a job? Does your employer order you about like a slave?” the mouthy pegasus fired back with a grunt.

“Well… sometimes, yes? At my old job, I was often expected to follow orders without being given a choice in the matter,” Orodan replied, thinking of his militia days in Volarbury county. “My sergeant wouldn’t exactly ask for my permission before giving me the order to deal with something or someone.”

“While it’s not quite like what you military and guardsman types are used to, it’s more like a civilian job that you would be at liberty to leave,” the winged steed explained. “She’s managed to sweet talk my younger brother into becoming her companion… so I begrudgingly accompany them and ensure his training is proceeding well.”

“Pegasi engage in training? That’s quite familial of you to aid your younger brother.”

“Do you humans not engage in training? Is it shocking to consider that other intelligent beings would also hone their abilities?” Olsinius remarked with a tone of annoyance. “While I would have accompanied this heavy-hooved sibling of mine regardless, the elder of my clan bade me go as well, if only to ensure this girl remains safe during her education at this academy.”

“Speaking of! I don’t think we’ve been introduced! I apologize on behalf of Olsinius, he’s grumpy but he cares about his brother and I,” the girl interjected. “Mahari Ilya Vedharna at your service! I hail from the Kingdom of Ravastaran in the East, and I’m here to study alongside my older brother.”

“Orodan Wainwright,” he replied while extending his hand, which the girl shook with vigor. “I’m here to get an education, House Firesword is sponsoring me.”

“Wainwright… Wainwright…” Mahari muttered to herself. “Sounds familiar, I feel like I heard a bunch of the older students saying something about that name. But I don’t keep up with the rumors and gossip much, so I’m sorry I can’t be of more help!”

“That’s more than fine by me,” Orodan replied. “I prefer to keep my head down and focus on my work as well. Say… why are you waiting at the landing zone anyways?”

“Ah, I’m waiting for my older brother to return with his pegasus. He went to grab some harder to find ingredients to mix into the feed. He says it’ll make them stronger,” Mahari explained. “I don’t want to keep you if you’ve got somewhere to be though! He’ll take a while to get back, especially if he’s getting into arguments over the quality as he always does…”

With that Orodan nodded and bade her and the grumpy Olsinius farewell as he began walking towards the academy proper.

He was told he’d have a personal academy guide, but since he’d landed Orodan hadn’t seen anyone waiting for him specifically. There were groups of students and staff scattered about on the large and straight path to the academy tower, but nobody appeared to be keeping an eye out for him.

He kept walking until a small and unassuming voice interrupted him.

“M-mister Wainwright?” a female voice spoke.

Orodan looked to his right to see a woman he would almost mistake for a child based on her stature. Short, wearing glasses that covered nearly her entire face and a comically oversized book in her hands.

“Yes?”

“I apologize sir… I wasn’t aware of what you looked like, and this is my first time being an academy guide. I-I’m Lucille Carrotfoot, I’ll be helping you get situated today,” she introduced herself and spoke in a shy and nervous voice that had Orodan feeling somewhat bad for her.

Her words were quiet, but not quiet enough. His conversation with Mahari was in an area of the landing zone where nobody was within earshot. But now that they were on the path to the tower there were plenty of groups walking to and from or simply hanging out waiting for people. And at the mention of the name Wainwright many pairs of eyes suddenly flocked to him.

“Wainwright? I heard he’s the one who-”

“This is the guy who-”

“-grandfather says he discovered the energy well-”

“-monstrously strong!”

Were among the brief snippets of gossip and chatter Orodan suddenly began hearing about himself. Fame could be useful for some, but given Orodan’s experience with it in his last long loop, he preferred being away from the center of attention.

Which he was doing a poor job at this loop given how everyone was now looking at him. Some faces in the crowd had calculating gazes, some awed, some stand-offish as though he threatened their own sense of self-importance by existing. And poor Lucille looked mortified at all the attention she was getting for walking around with him.

“Perhaps we can walk a little faster and make way for wherever I need to register?” Orodan asked, as much as for his own sake as for Lucille’s.

She gladly complied and they walked as fast as her little legs would allow. Orodan hoped to avoid too many people coming up to talk to him. It sounded profoundly exhausting and he would rather get to training and learning.

Thirty seconds later however, the inevitable happened.

“Excuse me, are you Orodan Wainwright?” asked a young man, who looked the same physical age as Orodan. Red hair, green eyes and a confidently assertive demeanor. “I must say it’s an honor to meet someone like you. I’m Elucian Arslan, of noble House Arslan. You may have heard of my uncle, the High-Burgher who leads the Republic’s council? I believe he responded to Jerestir when the fight between you and that fearsome monster caused tremors felt all the way in Tooksten county.”

Elucian and his group of followers confidently approached Orodan, like hawks swooping for their prey. The Arslan’s tagalongs seemed almost mindless in their following of him, and Orodan would admit he felt a magnetic pull of charisma from the young man, likely a social skill. One Orodan easily ignored.

“Yes, that would be me. And I’ve seen your uncle and that big hammer he carries. Can I help you?” Orodan asked. “I’m in a bit of a rush to get the administrative parts of my arrival settled.”

“Ah, but that’s simply no problem at all. How about I show you around to where you need to go?” Elucian asked confidently and likely flared his social skill as he saw even Lucille begin to seriously consider the idea.

“That won’t be necessary, I have a guide already and I’m more than happy with her,” Orodan replied, and he saw the inklings of frustration on the Arslan’s face, something which he immediately schooled thereafter. “We really should be going, no?”

Lucille looked almost dazed as Orodan spoke to her, finally snapping out of whatever impact Elucian’s social skill had. “I-if you insist m-mister Wainwright…” she meekly replied.

“I do.”

“Before you go, Orodan, hope you don’t mind the informality by the way,” the man remarked in a self-confident manner that implied he had every right to call Orodan by his first name. “You really should stop by the Helmward Hall on the academy grounds sometime. It’s the most popular spot on campus to grab a drink and a bite to eat. I think you’ll come to find that making friends is an important part of the experience here at the Bluefire Academy, and it’s important to make the right sort.”

Orodan didn’t push the almost cocky man on what ‘the right sort’ was, but he did nod and quickly made his exit.

With some distance made between them, Orodan spoke. “Who even is Elucian Arslan? He gave me a slimy feeling.”

“H-he’s not slimy!” Lucille defended suddenly. “He’s one of the best leaders seen in generations! He’ll definitely become High-Burgher one day himself.”

“Oh? He wants to become High-Burgher like his uncle?” Orodan asked. “A lofty goal, but social skills alone won’t make him powerful enough to lead a nation and step in when the Republic’s enemies need to be reminded of its strength. How strong is he?”

“He reached Elite-level by the time he was a second year!” she passionately exclaimed. Perhaps she fancied the man? Or maybe it was the effect of his social skill, but her defense of him was the most spine he’d seen her show thus far.

But being an Elite really wasn’t as impressive as she made it sound. At least by Orodan’s standards. What was Elucian's battle-power? Could he fight at least a tier above? These were the factors that separated the greats from the average, and Elucian had a long way to go if he wanted to step into the boots of Sarvaan Ilsuan Arslan, who was on the high end of power even by the standards of Masters.

That being said, Orodan could understand why Lucille emphasized Elite as though it was so important. Unlike other academies, the Bluefire Academy did in fact teach its students at higher levels that the Master rank existed and gave them a slightly more comprehensive rundown of society’s power structure. But reaching the rank of Elite was still considered impressive and likely the height of what many students at the academy would ever achieve. To them, the Master-level was what they would dream of. Unlike any other academy where reaching the Elite-level was considered an incredible success story. In Bluefire, some monstrous talents entered the institution at the Elite-level, such as Orodan himself.

Therefore, to say Elucian was an Elite, was to say he was a real talent among the student body.

Orodan decided not to press the issue any further and simply continued the trip towards the tower in silence. Apparently the first floor of the massive building was where new arrivals would register.

Thankfully, no more people decided to interrupt them. Either they were too intimidated by Orodan’s reputation, or they saw him talking to Elucian Arslan and thought they weren’t of the requisite stature to speak to someone like that. Whatever the reason, Orodan was thankful.

Up close, the tower was truly massive. It was the second tallest building in Karilsgard after all. The massive double doors leading inside were open at all hours and they had two golden armored Capital Guard captains standing guard around the clock on either side of the doors.

They entered the gargantuan structure, and within Orodan saw thousands of students and staff on just the first floor alone. There were actual teleporters with signs saying they lead to different floors of the tower and campus, and there were plenty of administrative desks, and the walls were adorned with flyers for various products, services and even programs and activities organized by the academy or students themselves.

The administrative desks had a small line leading to them and there was a Capital Guardsman managing the queue as people walked up and directed them to various lines depending on what they needed.

“G-greetings, I have Mister Orodan Wainwright here, for registration,” Lucille thankfully whispered to the guard.

The guard’s reaction to hearing the name wasn’t subtle. His eyes snapped to Orodan, and his posture suddenly became a bit straighter.

“Right this way sir,” the man ushered, and Orodan was directed to the back and made to bypass the line entirely. Something which caused a few angry mutters and looks of curiosity as to who he might be.

“I’ll be waiting for you outside Mister Wainwright,” Lucille said as they separated. Orodan wondered if she didn’t have her own classes to attend.

He was then directed to a desk at the back where an older man sat, the placard on the desk noted him as a supervisor.

“Mister Wainwright! It’s good to have you with us,” the older man spoke. “I’m Karthic Bushnell, day shift supervisor for the academy’s administrative department. We’ve heard a lot about you in the past two weeks, the Bluefire Academy is glad to accept a talent like you as one of our students.”

“Thank you, I hope to get to learning as soon as I can,” Orodan replied.

“Then I shan’t delay you sir, this will be quick,” the man spoke.

And then Orodan was treated to a unique display of telekinetic magic where papers and pens animated themselves magically into filling out forms, all while the man didn’t move a muscle. Various papers floated right in front of his face as he read them, and the only thing Orodan saw was a glowing tattoo on the man’s hand light up as the magic occurred.

“Curious about the body enchantment Mister Wainwright?” Karthic asked. “While I wish I could say I was skilled in Telekinesis, the truth is the enchantment does all the magical work while I direct it with my mind. It’s a common mana-based body enchantment given to our administrative staff, both in the academy and throughout the Republic.”

The man was rather forthcoming with his explanation, correctly assuming that Orodan had never seen it before. Which was appreciated.

“Does it drain your mana pool when you use it?”

“Quite, but the drain is negligible when the items lifted are of such light weight,” the man replied. “I also have a mana battery in my drawer that I can lay my hand upon to slowly recharge my reserves. Lasts me the entire workday.”

“I see… how skilled would someone have to be in order to carry out body enchantments? Is it still the Enchanting skill involved?” Orodan asked.

“Good question and one that speaks to your inquisitiveness and thirst for knowledge,” the man praised. “The answer is it depends on the enchanter. As you’ll learn here, there are often multiple skills which can achieve the same result. The enchanter who worked on my telekinetic body enchantment is Master Gormir Eltros, he teaches many of the higher-level Enchanting courses at Bluefire and also services important clientele outside of the academy. He’s rather famed for being one of the few to have unlocked the Living Enchanting skill and his work on body enchantments is therefore a touch superior to any regular enchanter you’d find who uses merely the Enchanting skill.”

“Fascinating…” Orodan muttered, but he meant it. He hadn’t even registered and yet had already learned about a field he didn’t even know existed. “How common are body enchantments?”

“They’re more common than you would think, plenty of craftspeople use them for convenience in their trades much like how I use mine to aid in managing paperwork.”

“Yes, but how common are they among warriors and mages? Among combat specialists that is,” Orodan clarified.

“Ah, you’ll often see some people capable of limited flight, or their body becoming tougher mid-battle even though they aren’t mages. While I’m not as knowledgeable on the affairs of battle as you are Mister Wainwright, I assure you that they’re used extensively in combat, even if their use isn’t broadcasted often since clothing tends to cover the enchantment up.”

“No wonder I never saw any glowing marks on all the Elites and Masters I’ve killed so far… I don’t know if what they used was a skill or an enchantment. Although I did kill a Master with a glowing fiery sword once…” Orodan muttered. And perhaps it was a bit too loud as he saw Karthic visibly gulp, and the man’s face took on a more nervous and subservient look.

“You must have quite the decorated record as a warrior, Mister Wainwright!” the man nervously praised a little too quickly. And Orodan had to remind himself that not everyone was a combat specialist. Going around casually talking about how he’d killed Elites and Masters would probably make any non-combatants nervous, as casual as the act was to Orodan himself.

“Erm… thank you. On a different note, do you know if it’s possible to create enchantments and body enchantments that are powered not by mana… but perhaps vitality or soul energy?” Orodan asked. It was a question he had ever since he spoke to an enchanter for the first time at the Burgher’s welcoming party.

“That I’m afraid, is something I wouldn’t know much about. I’ve heard the topic bandied about occasionally and know that we follow the Imperial tradition of mana-based enchanting here in the Republic. But aside from telling you that blood magic is heavily regulated I’m afraid I can’t be of much help. Perhaps you can choose to sit in on the classes offered by a Master? At Bluefire anyone can sit in on any class as a spectator, or even participate at the discretion of the teacher.”

“I see… I might just do that,” Orodan replied.

Soon, the conversation turned to silence as papers were shuffled and written upon by magically animated pens. He was asked some brief questions about his background and asked to put down a signature which magically copied onto every document.

Finally, he was handed a schedule.

His classes would mainly be during the daytime, and included such things as ‘Soul Defense 100’, ‘Applied Skill Combinations 410’, ‘Warrior Skills 100’, ‘Mental Defense 100’ and ‘Monster Studies 210’. Of course, the ‘Politics 100’ and ‘World History 100’ were rather pointless additions Orodan felt.

The number denoted the course code, with numbers in the 100s meaning they were first year courses, and 400s meaning fourth year for example.

“Who even decided on this schedule? I can’t say I look forward to studying politics and world history…” Orodan complained.

“It’s usually decided by your benefactor, but let’s see here… signed by…” the man drawled, and his face then went paler and Orodan could see the beginnings of sweat upon his forehead. “…Arvayne Firesword.”

“That old man. I suppose I can’t complain. He does have some good advice, and this is a direction I also agree with but, do I have the option to add more courses at least?” Orodan asked.

“Of course! Your benefactor graciously left quite a few free periods for you to slot courses into,” Karthic answered. “You can choose up to four more courses, although this might leave your days rather packed.”

Which wasn’t a problem for Orodan. He didn’t need to sleep or do anything else unless House Firesword called upon him, so frankly, he could even pick overnight courses and cram up to eight more if he truly wanted. But for now, he would leave the overnight free for personal training and experimentation after the day of classes.

“Alright then. I want classes on Alchemy, Enchanting, Blacksmithing and Woodworking.”

And the administrator’s jaw hung agape.

“A-are you sure Mister Wainwright? For a martial student to take so many crafting related courses… not that I would presume to know better… but would your benefactor approve and not perhaps say you’re spreading yourself a bit thin?” Karthic asked. “For example, given your talent, why not take ‘Combat & Sparring 434’? Surely there is much to be learned?”

“I won’t gain much by beating up the students and instructors,” Orodan casually replied, which caused the man’s face to pale even further at the casual remark.

“U-understood… I’ll have the 100-level introductory courses for all of those slotted into your free periods as well.”

After that, the registration didn’t last much longer and Orodan was handed his new schedule. He was also handed a sealed letter which his benefactor had left for him, to be given to him upon registration.

He opened the envelope to find a written list from Arvayne Firesword detailing all the potential places and people that would be of use to him, and a comprehensive list of skills, professions and fields that he could dabble in. There was a small note at the bottom to take his reading seriously and to not approach things stupidly.

Orodan mentally cursed the old man for the insult and emerged from the back offices to find people were now staring at him and muttering. Word apparently reached the tower about who he was. Fantastic.

Before he could leave the tower and meet up with Lucille just outside, a big and burly man stood in his path.

People had always said Orodan was big. So, for someone to be bigger and taller than him? It was noteworthy.

“You must be the mighty Orodan Wainwright of House Firesword!” the man bellowed. “I’m Claridin Rockwood, how about we have a friendly duel?”

To be bullied so openly, and so soon? How was one supposed to react to such cornering?

With a manic smile of course.

“Certainly! Want to fight right here?” Orodan asked, his teeth showing in a feral grin. All too happy for a fight. Avoiding a duel was unfathomable to him. He loved fighting.

Even Claridin seemed taken aback by his casual and instant willingness to fight, and the man now had his guard up.

“Well… a duel right here would be impolite to everyone around, wouldn’t it? How about we settle this here with a different sort of competition if you’re so eager to compete,” the man suddenly backtracked a bit. Who knew if he was wary of Orodan now that he’d shown no concern? “We each take turns delivering a blow to the other, whoever quails first is the loser. Rules are simple, no divine assistance.”

Claridin had likely heard the false rumors of him possibly being host to an Avatar and of course felt he had no chance if a God came down. Additionally, given the man’s confidence, Orodan suspected he had several defensive skills.

“I agree, let’s step just outside the tower, that way if I send you flying you don’t smash into the walls,” Orodan remarked and while Claridin’s face turned red, he had a vicious grin on his face.

Orodan had an inkling of why exactly. The armor Claridin wore was the finest Orodan had ever seen, perhaps this unrivaled craftsmanship was what allowed him to have such confidence?

They stepped outside and Orodan saw Lucille’s ashen face looking on in horror as she realized what was going on. Poor girl must have been embarrassed.

Finally, the two stood before one another and Claridin drew his mace and great shield, taking a stance.

“I’ll be gracious and allow you to go first!” the man barked.

Orodan complied and tested the man with a half-strength power cross delivered directly onto his great shield. Drawing his sword would be excessive. The fist was empowered by nothing, just Physical Fitness and Unarmed Combat Mastery.

The shield dented with a groan, and Claridin’s eyes widened as he saw this. However, despite the dent the man seemed to have some sort of rebounding or damage absorption skill, as the shield and Claridin began glowing, and were filled with power.

Claridin roared and returned Orodan’s blow, with double the power Orodan had delivered.

It was a solid blow, and Orodan felt the wind get knocked out of him as he was hit across the chest by double the power of his own unarmed strike. But he held onto the solid ground and refused to be sent flying, even if one was allowed to get back up and continue as per the rules of this impromptu competition.

Seeing this Claridin began to tremble and looked downwards at his own neck at the amulet he was wearing. What even was that?

Orodan decided to now up the ante, and launched a full strength blow. Still unempowered, but this time it ripped right through the man’s great shield and struck him hard on the breastplate, which dented inwards. But then Claridin’s amulet glowed a deep red, and Orodan felt a repulsive force prevent his fist from reaching the man’s body.

Claridin looked incredibly nervous now that his shield had essentially been ripped through. As Orodan pulled his hand out, the man couldn’t help but yell.

“What kind of freakish strength is that?! You… you must be using divine assistance! Or an item!”

“Which is rather ironic considering that amulet around your neck glowed and caused a shield to block my fist,” Orodan quipped back.

Claridin roared as his body and weapon glowed brightly with raw power. And then he swung, returning Orodan’s full strength blow with twice as much power.

It struck Orodan’s chest, but this time he felt a few cracks in his sternum and was actually sent backwards a decent distance. But even as he slid along the ground he still remained on his feet. The very minor damage healed almost instantaneously.

His defensive and vitality skills far outpaced his offense. So, for Orodan to be hit by his own power twofold, wasn’t all that bad.

“Alright, you hit pretty decently for an Elite. Hells, you could even jump a tier I reckon. It’s been a while since someone of this level managed to injure me, so you’re quite talented,” Orodan praised as he began walking towards Claridin, whose face was now ashen. “I’m not going to kill you, but this next hit will hurt. And it might overtax that amulet you’re using to shield yourself.”

Death Rage came on, and Orodan’s knuckles popped with such strength that light shockwaves erupted from his hands as he clenched his fist. He delivered the blow at half-power, as Death Rage was just too strong of a multiplier at its high level now.

Claridin’s mace which launched a full power attack - thereby breaking the rules of their competition - desperately tried to meet Orodan’s fist in a bid to stop it and slow down its power.

It was pointless.

The mace was obliterated, Claridin's breastplate shattered, and the amulet glowed a dangerous color of bright red. The magical shield protecting the Rockwood barely held for a moment before it strained and shattered with a massive explosion. Orodan stopped his fist at the last instant before it would have torn right through the man.

The force of the shield’s explosion sent Claridin flying away like a ragdoll all the same.

He took an entire ten seconds before he decided to get back up.

“Your turn again,” Orodan said as he deactivated Death Rage.

Claridin forfeited.

***

Casually trouncing Claridin Rockwood while making it look easy was apparently a bigger deal than he thought it would be.

For starters, nobody had told him that Claridin was the third strongest student at Bluefire, and that he could fight a Master evenly and even defeat a weaker one on a good day. The two students stronger than Claridin also couldn’t have made it look as easy and casual as Orodan had.

In Orodan’s opinion the praise and acclaim were somewhat embarrassing to even consider. He had trounced an Elite-level warrior, one who could beat a Master, true… but still a mere Elite! For Orodan to be praised for beating up a student was shameful.

His battle power was such where he fought Grandmasters and was hoping to eventually fight Avatars. This was just disgraceful, and he didn’t know why he had expected any better from Claridin in the first place.

Orodan quietly resolved to avoid fighting students from then on. It just felt low.

Burgher Ignatius had contacted him via communication amulet to praise him for embarrassing House Rockwood and showing the strength of Firesword of course, but Orodan did not want to be reminded of the situation any longer.

Lucille looked both in awe and fearful of him at the same time, and her mannerisms became a lot quieter. Which was about the best he could expect.

He was led to his lodgings and from then on Orodan informed her that he would be able to make his own way around.

As for his lodgings…

…excessive, was how Orodan would describe it.

It was a personal manor on the edge of the campus, far larger than the guest manor the Burgher had housed him within in Trumbetton. It had a staff of maids and butlers, and Orodan made it clear to them that he would likely not be within the manor much, if at all, which they graciously accepted with relief and disappointment in equal measure.

Orodan didn’t have anything in the way of belongings that he had to bring along, and so there was nothing to drop off at his personal manor. In other words, he left without even bothering to enter the manor proper.

Rather, the day was still young and classes had yet to start.

Technically, his official start date for classes was tomorrow. But the classes ran on the same schedule every workday, so Orodan decided he would simply begin attending classes today. And the first one on the list, was ‘Warrior Skills 100’. Which began in less than ten minutes according to the schedule.

Of course, when one could Sprint at speeds fast enough to tear terrain apart… that deadline wasn’t an issue.

He kept his speed reasonable, not wanting to cause undue property damage, but students around him were still somewhat surprised even if he made sure to avoid running into anyone. Which at his speed might be fatal for them depending on their strength.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly unprecedented. Orodan saw at least a few other martial students rushing to classes and moving about in the same way. Some even flew, displaying skills which allowed them flight. They were a rarity and likely talented fourth years, but still present all the same. Physical Fitness and Sprinting was just a convenient combo.

He arrived at the Agathor’s Sanctum building with time to spare. It was where most lower year martial lessons were held, which included the 100 and 200-level courses for warriors. It was a decently large building with a massive, reinforced training yard behind it which carried a wide variety of equipment, most of which Orodan had never seen.

Inside, were lecture halls where the actual speaking and theory work would occur. But unlike the typical classroom he had heard of, even the indoor lecture halls had an arena style arrangement. With the seats up high surrounding a large stage where the instructor would speak from. He imagined that bringing equipment in and arranging duels and demonstrations on this stage would be a simple matter.

Most students had settled in by the time Orodan had arrived and there were a few minutes to spare. He thus took a seat at the very back, and it seemed nobody noticed him, or his appearance wasn’t too well known yet, for he wasn’t bothered.

Then, it began.

“Good morning, today we’ll be picking up where we left off yesterday. More demonstrations of the various movement skills in the hopes that you lot can pick some up,” the man spoke, with magic amplifying his voice to reach the entire hall. He had a fierce looking demeanor and a spear was strapped across his back.

“Now let’s review, what are movement skills? Can anyone tell me?” the man asked, and a student near the front raised their hand to whom he gave the floor. “Mister Vastoros.”

“Skills meant to traverse distances or change positions. Even something like Teleportation would be considered a movement skill,” the student answered.

“Correct. Movement is not only done in straight lines but can also consist of traveling through space. As long as your position changes, that is the important part,” the man explained. “Some even subscribe to the somewhat radical view that time magic is also a form of movement skill, as you change position in time itself. Personally, I’m a warrior and prefer to keep things simple and consider movement within three-dimensions, which is what we’ll go with for the purposes of this class.”

The man then gestured and nearly a dozen more instructors came out and onto the stage. He explained that they would be demonstrating various movement skills.

“Given how difficult it can be to obtain a skill for the average warrior, I have my fellow instructors up here with me. Somebody possessing multiple skills, while not too rare, is still quite difficult to manage. Can anyone explain why?” he asked, and the same student raised their hand. “Mister Vastoros once again.”

“Because obtaining new skills is a very difficult process and the limitation of Calledro's Average.”

“Correct. And that’s why most of you are in this class. Calledro’s Average is a hundred hours. Which is the number of hours the average person needs to obtain a new skill with constant and guided training in the environment of an academy. And that’s simply for a common skill. A lot of active combat skills are at the Uncommon-rarity, so to that end acquiring them can take even more work. And Exquisite… unless you’re a truly hard worker or have great talent… forget about it. Even I only have one Exquisite-rarity skill, and I’m a Master.”

“But…” Orodan interrupted from the back. “Would the stress of life and death battle not improve the growth rate of skills?”

“Ah, decided to sit in on the class, have you? I don’t recognize you mister…?”

“Orodan Wainwright.”

The class fell silent and devolved into hushed whispers. Orodan almost wished he hadn’t said his name as the effects of fame were starting to become a little annoying.

“Mister Wainwright! Your reputation precedes you. I was told you would be starting from tomorrow, but it speaks to your diligence that you’ve decided to come in today,” the man spoke and even his demeanor changed. “To answer your question, yes, life and death battles would in fact lead to tremendous gains despite their risks. Some of the greatest heroes oft have stories of surviving hellish battles and coming out with skill gains that changed their lives. Of course, this requires surviving the battle in the first place, and we can’t all tussle with a deadly monster deep underground like you can.”

Orodan brushed off the attempts at flattery.

“I gained the Perfect Parry and Evasiveness skills after maybe… a few hours of continuous battle in which my life was on the line?” Orodan remarked after a quick calculation of how much actual time he spent fighting the archer in Scarmorrow. “Definitely didn’t take me a hundred hours.”

Mutters filled the room. Some of indignation and outrage, some of quiet awe and envy and a few of disbelief. The instructor himself simply had an approving look on his face and a calculating glint in his eye.

“Yes, and it’s called Calledro’s Average for a reason, Mister Wainwright. I don’t think the famous scholar had a monstrous talent like yourself in mind when he postulated his theory,” the man said with a smirk. “How about we have the class come down to the stage now? I feel some hands-on practice and attempts at acquiring some skills by watching our instructors is called for.”

The class was then ushered down from the seats and onto the stage, which was large enough to accommodate the entire class of a thousand students. It was a decent crowd and Orodan assumed he would be near the back given his initial seating, but the crowd of students parted as the instructor approached him directly.

“Mister Wainwright, I’m Astiphus Marlston, the instructor for most of the lower year courses at the academy. It’s not often we get someone of your stature taking a mere first-year course,” the man introduced himself and spoke. “I’ve spoken to the venerable Arvayne Firesword, and he’s told me about your desire to acquire a formal education and shore up the gaps in your knowledge, to that end, we’ll do our best to support you and acquire what you seek. That being said, I don’t see you remaining in this class for long given your talent.”

Orodan thanked the man and soon enough the support took a form Orodan wasn’t expecting.

The rest of the class was on the massive stage, however Orodan and three other instructors, including Astiphus, were to the side and had taken a space of their own. Having three instructors move to tutor him personally was a bit excessive, but Orodan appreciated the potential for guidance and acquiring a new skill.

Naturally, some of the other students weren’t overly happy about it. Whether they felt slighted and less important or because they were ardent defenders of equality and fairness, Orodan did not know. But at least some of them were giving him jealous looks, even if they didn’t dare say anything about it.

Astiphus gave a few more introductory words to the class about movement skills, and that they’d be working on the Sprinting skill first today, followed by demonstrations of the Charge skill afterwards. The final skill demonstrated would be the Lunge skill, which was of Uncommon-rarity simply so that the students could see what the difference between the two Common skills and an Uncommon skill were. Obtaining an Uncommon skill was difficult, and the students weren't expected to actually acquire it unless they were lucky or talented.

Orodan came to learn that the building, alongside every other classroom in the academy, was enchanted with powerful time dilation effects. It turned an hour-long class in real time, into what was effectively a six-hour block of training. It was Orodan’s first time in a time dilation chamber altogether.

Bluefire truly spared no expense if they could afford to have time dilation on all their classrooms. He had never heard of such a thing anywhere else, likely due to the tremendous costs involved. No wonder Bluefire graduates were head and shoulders above the other academies in the Republic. Their students all had access to six times the amount of training hours.

“Mister Wainwright, as we’re focusing on movement skills today, we’ll be helping you by showing three movement skills at first. Sprinting, Charge and Lunge. Have you encountered any of these before?” Astiphus asked after he was done lecturing the rest of the class and now moved to assist Orodan personally as the other instructors took over his spot in walking among the class and giving pointers and demonstrations.

“I already have Sprinting, it’s at 31 currently. And I’ve fought and forced a man using Lunge to retreat before, it was a dangerous skill, and I can see how it’d be useful. Haven’t heard of or encountered the Charge skill however,” Orodan explained.

“Your Sprinting level is quite high! Most people, even at the Master-level don’t train the fundamental techniques of that skill, instead using raw Physical Fitness to get around. But of course, you must be quite fast at getting around with that and your Physical Fitness working in concert,” Astiphus praised. “As for Charge, it’s essentially an inferior version of Lunge, without much of the same distance traversal ability. Which is understandable given that Charge is of common rarity and Lunge is uncommon.”

“I’d like to see both, if possible,” Orodan said.

So, the training began. As the rest of the students were getting demonstrations on Sprinting and some of the more advanced ones were being shown Charge, Orodan was watching demonstrations of both Charge and Lunge.

“For the Charge skill, one must immerse themselves in the very mindset of crossing the distance and crushing enemy ranks. It’s a slightly limited skill in that it only works when moving towards an enemy or target you intend on destroying, but it can be a powerful multiplier for someone who is already strong,” Astiphus explained as he watched over Orodan attempting the skill.

Over the course of almost two hours Orodan experimented with getting the Charge skill down correctly and engaging himself in the proper mindset for it. It was a common rarity skill, but without the pressure and adrenaline of a life and death fight, it wasn’t easy to acquire. He had to put genuine thought and focus into the form of what he was attempting and direct his physical energy towards it.

But try as he might, he felt dissatisfied, as though he was missing something critical.

Charge involved almost empowering yourself in preparation for the inevitable collision with the enemy, the bracing for impact, the energy buildup within, and the execution of the attack. It was a movement skill in name only as the ability to traverse some distance with it was merely a byproduct of the increased empowerment in the body meant to be used upon arrival.

Lunge on the other hand focused more on a burst of distance traversal, meant to reach the target as swiftly as possible in the shortest amount of time. To that end, all the physical power of a warrior’s body should be dedicated to the movement itself. The attack upon arrival was merely a consequence empowered by the movement. This was a true movement skill, as the attack itself wasn’t as empowered by the skill as he thought it was.

But… Orodan felt discontent at the thought of acquiring something that did one or the other. Furthermore, he felt as though he had more energy in him than just the physical power of his body. What if he were to fuel mana into the attempt as well? He could even try adding soul energy to the mix, although that was best done in the private training chambers the academy had.

Five hours of the six passed, and Orodan kept experimenting. And halfway into the fifth hour, he had results.

Mana and physical power synergized together. His body was empowered for a furious attack, but it simultaneously was empowered for a bursting movement of titanic proportions.

Orodan’s eyes widened as he tore through the air like a shot from a magic siege cannon. He was going almost too fast to stop his own momentum.

He crossed the entire length of the large lecture hall and continued through the walls. Going through one classroom after another. Thankfully he aimed upwards and didn’t hit anyone. The energy buildup within him was begging for release, and he obliged by releasing the empowered strike as well, which tore completely through the ceiling… and caused the clouds above to part.

[New Skill (Exquisite) → Flash Strike 1]

He landed on the roof of the Agathor’s Sanctum building and looked down at the path he tore through multiple classrooms all the way to the ceiling.

It was a decent distance, but Orodan thought he saw a happy smile on Astiphus’s face.

And he hoped the tuition House Firesword paid covered the damages.

Because he had just disrupted the time dilation on multiple classrooms.

Orodan hopped down to the classroom, the hole leading skyward still awkwardly present. The atmosphere was silent for a moment but was soon broken by whispers and muttering which slowly grew louder.

“The walls should be able to take Master-level-”

“So, him beating Claridin wasn’t a fluke?”

“-will want to hear of this.”

The chatter continued for a bit as Orodan simply gave Astiphus an uncomfortable and apologetic smile at having destroyed what was undoubtedly an expensive setup.

The head-instructor didn’t appear too bothered however and still had a smile on his face. Soon, Orodan found out why.

It was a weird sixth sense he was starting to develop, but he could somehow instinctively tell when someone was dangerous. And it was a feeling he uniquely got from Grandmasters nowadays.

A rather grumpy looking ancient woman made her presence known with a loud grunt, walking out to stand near Orodan.

“Sigh… prodigies and their damned destructive habits. Always interrupting my meditations…” she muttered. “You, boy. From now on restrict your destructive experiments to the private training chambers at the top of the Bluefire Tower. They’re capable of taking the full power strikes of a level beyond Masters.”

The training chambers at the top of the Bluefire Tower?

“The rest of the private chambers aren’t similarly reinforced?” Orodan asked. “I thought they were all the same?”

“No, they aren’t. The overwhelming majority of students aren’t ever going to reach the Master-level, so most private training chambers across the academy are reinforced only to that level,” she explained. “Of course, in the rare case that we get a prodigy among prodigies like yourself, we have specific training chambers at the very top of the Bluefire tower.”

“Wouldn’t they be in use by important people?”

“When someone at your level of power shows up, they are the important people. Just walk in and tell someone that Yallista sent you, and if they hassle you just beat them up,” the old woman casually explained. “After all, given what I’ve heard, you certainly like fighting don’t you, Orodan Wainwright?”

“Does everyone know about me now? I haven’t even been here a day…”

“Blame yourself for brawling a worm in the wild depths for two weeks straight. Did you think the earthquakes you caused wouldn’t be felt?” she asked pointedly. “Young men, no thought for the consequences of their actions,” she muttered and sighed.

“Alright, I understand. I’ll use the training chambers at the top of the tower from now on… but how am I supposed to experiment in class then? I don’t want to just sit around and wait till nighttime to train in the chambers.”

“You aren’t even supposed to be frolicking about in a first-year course with these regular people. I bet that old codger Arvayne put you in here so he could have some entertainment. He’s probably watching through the scrying eyes as we speak,” she said, and then promptly shot a glare towards the nearest glowing scrying eye orb in the room. “What rarity is the skill you just acquired?”

Orodan didn’t think the old general was apt to get his kicks in such a manner, but when you were two-thousand years old, who knew how one entertained themselves?

“Doesn’t the old man have Grandmaster things to do?” Orodan asked.

“Sigh… you have no sense of tact or manners. You can’t just go around openly blabbering about the fact that Grandmasters exist. These common students will feel inferior and have their sense of self-importance shattered knowing that they’ll never reach it, and then they’ll go crying to their sponsors about how they can reach such a level, and then their benefactors come to us whining about how we're hurting their feelings,” Yallista remarked in a tone that implied she didn’t care a whit about it. “The headmasters and headmistresses will then give you a stern lecture about it. Anyways, rarity.”

Of course, the fact that she was lecturing him about it in conversational volume in front of a room full of a thousand students was a bit ironic.

“Exquisite.”

“And you acquired this in… six hours of experimentation and training?” the old woman asked with a serious tone.

“…yes? It just clicked and came naturally to me. I instinctively attempted to combine what I saw of two separate skills, and this was the result,” Orodan explained.

“So, you didn’t even acquire the two skills… you just ‘saw’ them and somehow experimented and came to a combination which granted you an Exquisite-rarity skill?” she asked, a bit of incredulity in her tone.

“Yes, precisely so.”

“Boy, give me your schedule, let me see what other stupid junior classes that old fogey tried to have you attend,” she demanded, and Orodan handed it over. “Trying to squander the potential of a little monster like you. Has he truly gone so senile?”

“Erm… headmistress, perhaps we should dismiss class before you have such a conversation with Mister Wainwright?” Astiphus interjected and asked deferentially all while Headmistress Yallista looked over Orodan’s schedule.

“Hmm? Yes, go ahead and disperse the rabble,” she said with an utterly dismissive and disrespectful gesture which the student body looked quite offended by, but wouldn’t dare to do anything about. “Now let’s see here, soul and mental defense classes? All these crafting courses that you elected to take yourself? Were you perhaps dropped as a child? Hmm… Arvayne did say you were stupid. Perhaps such is the price of talent?”

Orodan did his best to remain quiet in the face of her casual remarks about his mental capacity. Concurrently, Astiphus ordered the students out of the classroom saying class was dismissed for the day.

“Hmph. Well we might as well get this farce out of the way before classes officially start for you tomorrow,” Yallista said. “Go ahead and attend all these classes you have today. If you exceed all expectations in a class, it’ll be changed moving forward. Who knows? Perhaps we’ll find a weakness somewhere. I expect the mental defense and soul defense classes will likely challenge you at least a bit.”

Orodan didn’t think they’d challenge him at all. Not the first-year courses on the topic at least.

“Alright… now how is this damage going to get fixed? Do I need to compensate the academy?”

***

Turns out he didn’t need to compensate the academy. Damages were expected during the course of the students’ education. And the exorbitant tuition fees covered everything. Especially in the case of people who displayed ridiculous talent like Orodan did.

Orodan had never encountered chronomancers before, but this was one of the rare moments he found himself somewhat wary and thankful for his Mana Resistance.

Because Yallista was a scarily powerful dual-Grandmaster in chronomancy and telekinesis.

As she worked, she explained the rules and limitations of the chronomancy she used. Using chronomancy to affect local areas was possible, and it could be selectively applied to certain objects, with the mana cost increasing depending on what was being restored.

Things such as restoring lives and priceless artifacts was impossible even for her as the mana cost would be near-godlike. Something which gave Orodan ideas for far later down the line.

But when it came to repairing a building and the enchantments placed upon it? It was well within her purview. Additionally, she used telekinesis to ensure all the destroyed pieces of the building were within the local area before she began using chronomancy to revert time for the building itself.

Within moments, the damaged Agathor’s Sanctum building was completely restored. Time dilation wards included.

“So is the mana cost higher because you’re also restoring the wards to before they were destroyed?” Orodan asked.

“Yes, without a doubt. If I was just restoring material, it wouldn’t be so tiresome. The more mana something had, the costlier it is for me to revert time and restore it.” she explained. “It’ll also be a severe cost and likely push me to my limits if I try to bring all the students back to the building as well, as the cost increases if I extend my chronomancy to them since they’re farther away.”

“That’s… incredibly powerful. But if you’re saying you have to pay the mana cost to restore something in time to when it was whole, depending on how much mana it had… can you then gain mana by reverting something to when it was destroyed or lesser? Let’s say someone you’re fighting decides to empower themselves or restore their own mana or vitality with a potion… could you revert that and just… pocket the difference?” Orodan asked.

Yallista looked at him strangely for a moment and then just smirked. “Well, turns out there is a brain in there after all. Yes, I suppose that might be an apt way of looking at it, and why a chronomancer would be feared.”

“How does anyone beat a chronomancer without the Mana Resistance skill then?”

“How do you even know about that skill? Wait… don’t tell me…” she muttered and then sighed. “And here I was looking forward to bullying you a bit. Go ahead and ruin a woman’s fun why don’t you?”

Orodan preferred not to be subject to whatever bullying or pranks this old hag had in mind, so he was grateful for his Mana Resistance.

“Your unprofessional fondness for pranking a student aside, how would someone beat you? Surprise attacks?” Orodan asked once more.

“Well, roguery and ambushes aside, chronomancers are often countered by skills that can drain mana or counter and reflect spells and magic. Additionally, having a massive pool of energy or being a tier above the chronomancer tends to help,” she explained. “An Elite-level chronomancer isn’t taking control of and winding a dragon back in time.”

“Even still, the ability to counter you seems… limited,” Orodan remarked.

“We chronomancers aren’t all-powerful, boy. If we could act with impunity, you would see a society ruled by nothing but chronomancers,” she said. “Plenty of places are warded heavily against time manipulation, and anyone worth their salt has at least one item that protects against chronomancers directly manipulating them. Plus, mana costs are always a limitation we face. Even half an hour of rewinding time is quite mana expensive, and the cost only goes up if souls are involved.”

Orodan nodded in understanding, having learned more about these fearsome mages. Well, fearsome for anyone but people like him who had a high-level Mana Resistance skill and could just act like mages were casting imaginary play-spells on him.

“But don’t let my self-denigration fool you, chronomancy is probably one of the most powerful magical schools in existence. But it’s also one of the hardest to learn given the extreme mana costs for even the simpler acts. This school has one other student, an Adept in chronomancy, and she’s the second strongest student at Bluefire,” Yallista spoke. “Across the world… I maybe know of a hundred other chronomancers, and this includes the fledglings who are in the early levels. Besides, there are plenty of dangerous things out there. Have you ever tried fighting a soul mage? Or worse, a psionic? And Gods forbid you run into an Eldritch creature… the very nature of those things is a vile corruption.”

“I’ve faced psionic attacks before, and I’ve fought the Eldritch. But I haven’t faced a soul mage yet, are they rare as well?”

“You… how have you even faced the Eldritch without standing before me as a ravening and corrupted abomination?” she asked honestly. “I can see why Arvayne himself stepped in as your benefactor. Caused a rather big stir among us. A Chosen hasn’t directly acted as benefactor for someone in hundreds of years. I won’t pry into your story much then. But to answer your question, soul mages are second only to chronomancers in rarity, mainly because training the soul is incredibly dangerous and requires tremendous amounts of willpower and focus to avoid irreparable harm.”

Orodan continued questioning the woman for a while longer, and despite her brusque attitude, she answered every question earnestly.

He asked about where he might find soul mages to study under at Bluefire, where he might find a good psionic to train his defenses against and where he might look into researching the depths of Weapon Aura and soul energy-based enchantments. He basically gave a whole list of his priorities and learning targets to the woman, and while she had jabs and retorts here and there, she took it seriously the entire time and actually seemed to prioritize his education and growth.

“You are seeking to learn too much all at once. You realize that graduates of this academy continue to return and hone themselves in their free time, yes? We have former students who have been going back and forth for hundreds of years,” Yallista spoke. “The heights you have in mind… Masters and above take decades, and even centuries to reach. That you’ve come even this far at your age is utterly unfathomable and makes me suspect you’re the most monstrous reincarnator I’ve ever seen, but perhaps your expectations of yourself need to be a bit more realistic?”

Orodan didn’t entirely agree with the sentiment. Whether it was the Blessing of Agathor or just the talent of hard work and indomitable willpower, he was certain he could achieve all of these targets. Definitely in less than a century too.

It just wouldn’t be in one loop at the academy. He knew that, but the reason for asking for so much was so that he could hit the ground running in future loops.

“Fair enough. I don’t completely disagree with you, but I wish to learn this all the same. Even if you think my attempts at learning alchemy, enchanting and the blacksmithing crafts are a waste of my time and talent… I still think they’ll be useful.”

“And why exactly do you think it will be useful? What’s your end goal in all this?”

Aside from getting out of the time loops some day? Aside from seeking the strongest foes he could? Orodan had another goal he was slowly coming to develop.

“I have a goal, it’s a very long-term one, but something I’ve come to want over time, and especially now that I’ve been broadening my horizons at this academy,” Orodan spoke. “There are Grandmasters, and even those who’ve reached level 100 in three skills, triple-Grandmasters. But what if… what if I could achieve that level in every skill and craft?”

He spoke epically, a grandiose desire that had been slowly growing within his heart for quite some time!

And Yallista laughed in outrage and mockery.

Entirely understandable given nobody had ever achieved it and might not even be close to achieving it. He still had a long way to go.

But he had time.

He had all the time he could ever need to reach his goal.

***

The other first year courses he took went similarly.

Yallista was wrong to think that the soul defense class would challenge him.

He embarrassed the instructors in the class when they tried gently prodding his soul and gradually escalated things from there. The head-instructor for the first-year course - a Master-level soul mage - called upon the headmaster for the school of soul magic to tutor Orodan.

The man, Arlin Colton, was a Grandmaster soul mage who sent furious assaults towards Orodan’s soul. But it was no contest at all.

Orodan had honed his Mythical skill - Eternal Soul Reactor - through training against the Avatar of a Goddess. It was now at level 59 given all the combat he had engaged in.

His Soul Strengthening - a legendary rarity skill - was at level 14. Which lead to the very quality of his soul energy being denser and more powerful than the Grandmaster’s. Finally, his Soul Manipulation was at level 58, which was from manipulating the utterly massive amounts of soul energy produced by Eternal Soul Reactor. It was a self-feeding loop of progress, and Orodan’s endless willpower which fueled it and kept his soul intact, was the driving force behind it all.

It was a shame to say, but he legitimately had not been able to acquire a soul defense skill, because no assault the headmaster of soul magic sent his way had ever taxed him. Initially he thought it was because of his Mana Resistance, perhaps the man’s attacks were mana-based?

Some of the attacks were mana based, but Arlin wasn’t a Grandmaster in the art without reason. He then swiftly switched to empowering his soul attacks using soul energy, which finally did get through… only to still have no effect at all.

The man’s offensive soul magic ability was at the Grandmaster-level and he was world renowned, but even he was utterly flummoxed at how Orodan simply wasn’t effected by any of his assaults.

Frankly, even Orodan himself was surprised. The man’s strongest attacks weren’t mana-based, and Orodan consequently had no resistance skill for them. Ordinarily, a Grandmaster would be an even foe which would require his full effort to best in combat. That was the mental benchmark he had from fighting Adeltaj Simarji. He certainly couldn’t just no-sell a martial specializing Grandmaster’s attacks for example.

He felt something try to affect his soul, but it just didn’t seem to be capable of doing any harm.

It appeared the strength of his soul might be one of the strongest things about him. Even stronger than his martial prowess by a large margin.

Arlin declared that Orodan’s soul was like a mountain. It was technically vulnerable to assault, but it was open to assault the same way a mountain range was. Trying to assault it wouldn’t do much, and he explained that Orodan had far too much soul energy constantly being expelled from his soul to even allow attacks to get through.

Arlin looked rather concerned as he told Orodan about what he saw of his soul. The man had a Blessing from a God he didn’t name that allowed him to look directly at someone’s soul, which of course allowed him to bypass the Blessing of Ozgaric as the two essentially cancelled each other out. The man then simply sensed Orodan’s soul the regular way and questioned Orodan about why his soul looked as though it was in a constant state of ignition as though a soul mage was launching a suicide attack.

Orodan didn’t deign to reveal too much about his skill or its rarity but did say that intense willpower and disciplined focus were key factors in ensuring his soul didn’t decide to explode and kill him, causing mass devastation.

The lesson ended there and Arlin told Orodan to come seek him out directly for tutelage from then on. Wasting time with even the fourth-year soul magic courses would be pointless for him. The headmaster of soul magic promised to bring some rather interesting equipment and assistance for him in tomorrow’s lesson.

Thus, Orodan went on to the mental defense class, where he encountered psionics for the first time.

Most other academies didn’t even have psionic teachers and consequently couldn’t offer courses for mental defense or psionics. And those that did have a psionic tended to offer a fourth-year course only.

Of course, Bluefire was world renowned and had plenty of psionic instructors. Thus, even first year mental defense courses were offered, particularly because the benefactors of noble children all agreed that some form of defense against mental attacks was important to have.

Much like the first-year soul defense class, the regular instructors had a difficult time getting past his defenses. His Psionic Resistance was at level 58. Even a tier above, the Elite-level psionics couldn’t get past a Resistance of such high level, and the head-instructor, a Master psionic while taxing Orodan’s resistance, couldn’t quite break past it either.

Finally, the headmistress of the school of psionics decided to pay a visit, and unlike with his soul… he was put to work for the first time.

But even she was looking disconcerted as Orodan was kneeling in pain while clutching his head, but still appeared functional.

“I’ve broken past your untrained attempts at defending your mind… you’re entirely vulnerable to my attacks now… and yet I still can’t put your mind to sleep,” she remarked. “Child… is it a Bloodline or a Blessing which grants you such unfathomable willpower? I’m pouring tidal amounts of psionic power into my assaults, but they still have a hard time finding purchase… how did you get your Psionic Resistance this high?”

Ilevida Balmento was the headmistress of the school of psionics and a dual-Grandmaster at the art. But even she, who had battered Orodan hard enough that he felt it even through Psionic Resistance, still wasn’t able to make any headway in actually putting him to sleep.

Her psionic attacks weren’t mana-based, they were instead psionic, which Orodan thankfully had a resistance skill for. But having a resistance wasn’t all-encompassing, and enough power could still go through.

“I’ve been told… I’m rather stubborn…” Orodan muttered in-between heavy breaths as the pain of her psionic assault was tremendous once his defenses were broken past. Unlike the Eldritch Avatar who attempted to slither into Orodan’s mind insidiously, her psionic assaults were like a battering ram, meant to pummel someone straight into unconsciousness.

It was like his mind was being struck by a repeating barrage of artillery. Each hit was like an overwhelming sledgehammer, and they came as frequently as raindrops in a storm.

But… he would not allow himself to fall into the sweet embrace of sleep that the psionic assaults were commanding him to allow.

His willpower was not so weak.

“Perhaps we should stop here? This can’t be good for your mind,” Ilevida suggested, and Orodan raised a hand to stop her and almost demand she keep going. “…if you insist. I’ll be going all-out till you’re knocked out then. This staff I have here is a converter for psionic power to soul energy. I had it made specifically to deal with annoying creatures and people with a high level of Psionic Resistance. My next assaults… will be empowered by soul energy.”

Her eyes began glowing pink, and she looked quite serious as colossal amounts of her psionic power began entering the staff, which creaked dangerously. And then the assaults renewed.

And Orodan knew nothing but pure pain.

Pure, horrifying pain that invaded each and every part of his mind.

The Eldritch Avatar’s attempts at mental assault were more subtle, insidious… but this? This was what a straightforward psionic assault looked like. And he didn’t have any Psionic Resistance skill to help him here as it was empowered by her soul energy thanks to that damned staff.

The woman must have been saying something, but Orodan couldn’t hear it. He simply knew pain, and the ever-demanding tsunami of raw mental might that demanded he obey. That he sleep.

His head felt as though it would explode. Blood leaked from all throughout his body at the sheer strain of him exerting his endless willpower to its maximal extent.

He vaguely noticed various messages for Pain Resistance leveling up.

He was like a toddler weathering an attack he had no clue how to deal with. Prior to this he had focused on resisting psionic energy itself, but not on the techniques to stop mental assaults. Now, with no resistance skill, he would be forced to learn.

But learn he would.

He gestured at her through the haze of the all-encompassing pain to continue, and it kept coming.

Orodan wasn’t sure how long it had been, but as Pain Resistance kept rising he was able to think more clearly. And he began experimenting, even as most of his focus and willpower went towards holding on against the mountainous mental attacks that were slamming into his mind at the rate of hundreds a second.

Who was Orodan Wainwright?

He forgot who he was under the assaults, which rendered him nearly comatose.

But the name didn’t matter.

The spirit did. And whoever he was… he liked to fight. He would never quit.

He was a warrior.

And a warrior… weathered every blow they were struck by and returned it.

The mountains continued to fall upon his mind… but he persisted. Like a zombie, groaning and screaming in pain… but not falling. And slowly but surely, he began to come to an understanding.

In a sense, being hit by something so utterly different to what he was used to… was useful. It was a mental attack yes… but at the end of the day it was an attack.

And the warrior found himself meditating on what exactly an attack was. Metaphysically what was an attack.

An attack was any sort of offense, or harm directed at the warrior. Then an attack delivered by the warrior himself was also of the same nature, just sent by him to the target and not the other way around.

Vaguely, a small part of the warrior’s mind noticed that other people had entered the room at some point, but that was not his concern. Meditations and reflecting on exactly what an attack was… this was what mattered. His senses leading to the outside world had largely been shunted off elsewhere and ignored in favor of internal meditation. The pain? It was no longer a concern.

Ruminating on the subject was all the mattered.

To attack… to be attacked.

What was an attack?

The word began to sound strange as it was repeated in the warrior’s mind.

But he meditated.

Vaguely, the warrior understood that three days had passed. The small part of his mind that insisted on calling itself by some stupid name was keeping track of such things. This annoying part told him that new people had arrived, and that the source of the mountains falling upon the warrior’s mind had begun drinking strangely colored potions and that someone else had come in and was periodically inspecting and making adjustments to the weapon the source of the attacks was using.

But the warrior cared not. The warrior simply meditated on what an attack was.

Two days passed, and then five more. A week went by, and people periodically went back and forth as the named part of his mind informed him. But the attacks never stopped.

And neither would the warrior.

Who was finally beginning to understand what an attack was.

To attack, to direct harm against a target. This was fundamentally what an attack was, no matter what form it took. It involved targeted harm no matter what the target was.

To the warrior however, receiving an attack was acceptable… but not returning this attack… was unacceptable.

A warrior took every blow and returned it. Even if the warrior didn’t understand the nature of the attack. An attack was an attack. Thus, the warrior willed, and this was the demand he made of the world.

The warrior recalled a battle it had against an inferior foe and took inspiration to complete the final part.

All attacks would be returned, with double the power.

This was the warrior’s way… this was…

… the Warrior’s Reciprocity.

[New Skill (Mythical) → Warrior’s Reciprocity 1]

The warrior weathered the barrage of attacks upon his mind, which had grown even stronger since it first began.

And the warrior returned every attack.

The attacker’s eyes widened. She struggled to hold on against her own attacks, returned twofold. Her eyes glowed with raw power and the staff shattered. But she could not hold on against the Warrior’s Reciprocity.

An amulet around her neck glowed and shattered, and the woman collapsed to the ground and began screaming.

The small part of the warrior’s mind that insisted on a name protested at this, and the warrior smiled, and finally returned to deep within. Forever a part of the soul.

For this was who he was, a warrior.

And Orodan Wainwright remembered who he was.

The people in the room around him looked on in shocked silence. And the old man Arvayne Firesword who definitely wasn’t here to begin with, had a smile on his face.

Orodan’s first reaction however was to immediately rush over to the woman who had helped him for so long, giving up so much of her own time for it.

Only to see her with a content smile on her face as her screams subsided.

“Sorry… I may have gone too far…” Orodan muttered in embarrassment and shame. “Are you alright?”

“Why… I’ve never been better…” she muttered with a pleased look on her face. “Come here child.”

She then wrapped Orodan into a hug.

“Eh?”

“Thank you… I was at the bottleneck for so long in my Psionic Mastery, it had been at level 99 for decades… but then you come along and give me the perfect target to practice endlessly on in one uninterrupted session,” Ilevida explained. “So, thank you… truly. If this old woman can ever help you in any way, all you need to do is ask.”

She had achieved the Grandmaster-level in another skill thanks to him?

“Shall I break out the Novarrian vintage I have? It’s at least three-thousand years aged,” spoke the ancient Arvayne Firesword. “Rather apt for celebrating a new triple-Grandmaster in our little Republic.”

Triple-Grandmaster?

“You’re a triple-Grandmaster now? With only a few days of practice on a hapless student?” Orodan asked.

“Ah yes… the hapless student who can best a Grandmaster. Not quite as hapless as you want us to believe. And it’s been over a week,” Arvayne quipped back. “Ilevida here is a friend of mine, so I’m quite happy to see her join our little club. At only twelve-hundred years old too. Quite the talent you are, Ilevida.”

“It’s all thanks to Mister Wainwright here,” she praised with genuine gratitude in her voice, which was something unexpected coming from a Grandmaster. People who were notoriously reticent. “I might have struggled for another few hundred years if not for the insights I acquired from weathering that incredibly powerful mental attack you sent at me. What even was that? There’s no way you’ve suddenly become a psionic capable of launching an attack of that caliber.”

“I don’t know… I just returned the attack. I’m not even sure of the exact specifics of it. All I know is that you sent attacks my way, and I returned them,” Orodan explained. “It’s a Mythical-rarity skill.”

Ilevida and Arvayne both went silent for a moment at that revelation.

“Gods damn it Orodan, you can’t just say such things so casually…” Arvayne muttered while giving Ilevida a probing look out of the side of his eyes. “While Ilevida here can be trusted to keep such things secret, you really shouldn’t go around broadcasting the fact that you have a Mythical skill.”

“Don’t Grandmasters have Mythical skills? I recall old man Adeltaj telling me he knew of people with them.”

“Orodan… Adeltaj likely didn’t tell you out of respect for my wishes… but I also have a Mythical skill. But I only have one,” Arvayne explained. “There are only two other wielders of a Mythical skill in the Republic, and they also have one each. But you… this would make it-”

Arvayne suddenly cut off mid-sentence as he went silent and had a pondering look on his face.

Then his eyes began glowing orange.

“That would make it three Mythical skills you possess now, Orodan Wainwright. For someone who is such a phenomenal warrior… this meeting between us is long overdue.”

The voice utterly boomed in a way Ilyatana’s never had. It sang to his heart, to his blood. It made him stand taller and desire battle, it made him want to conquer the heavens themselves and participate in eternal battle and glory forever.

This… was Agathor, God of War. Descended unto his Chosen One.

Around Orodan, everything had completely frozen, unnaturally. Ilevida Balmento included. This was… time magic?

“I thought you’re the God of War? How can you freeze time?” Orodan asked.

“A trifling matter once you wrestle time into submission,” the God of War casually explained. “It’s a far more advanced application of a realm of power that you are just beginning to explore with that new skill of yours. How did it feel? The oneness with the warrior within? Feeling reality itself bend to allow things which should be impossible?”

“It felt… dissociative. As though I was there and wasn’t. It was still me doing the meditations, but a part of me I didn’t even realize was there all along,” Orodan spoke.

“The warrior itself. Even I do not fully understand what it is or where it comes from. Some say you must be born with it; others say you develop it over time. But what holds true is that only those with a truly warrior-like disposition are the ones to have it,” Agathor explained. “Arvayne is my strongest Chosen upon this world, but even he isn’t in touch with the warrior within. Nobody on this world was… until I saw you.”

“Surely I’m not that unique?”

“From what you spoke of regarding the time loops, who else would valorously commit to dying like a dog to perform the feats of legend you have? Ask yourself if rushing to death against impossible odds on your first life was a normal course of action.”

Orodan found himself seeing the point Agathor was making. “What’s the next step then? How can I push this ability even further?” Orodan asked.

“Continue to focus on training it… focus on demanding reality bends to your will with naught but your warrior spirit. In time you may find that there is a level beyond even the Mythical rarity.”

Beyond Mythical rarity? It sounded utterly ludicrous given how much of a target he became with just a Mythical skill. If he achieved something even greater, would the entire world begin hunting after him in every single loop? Perhaps consolidating his own power and getting stronger before doing that was a good idea.

“Is it similar to how the second Blessing you gave me works?”

“Very much so. That Blessing of mine which prevents cravenly foes from escaping their honorable fate, it bends reality itself. Continue honing your skill, and in time you may be capable of similar things. Now then… descending unto him is still somewhat uncomfortable for Arvayne, no matter how gentle I make it, so I will leave you in his care with one final decree. Strengthen your soul before the eve of the year, I wish to grant you another Blessing and make you a Chosen of mine.”

Arvayne’s eyes stopped glowing and the presence of the God of War left the old Firesword Grandmaster.

“Ahh… always leaves me a little sore whenever he does that,” the old man said while stretching. “To think he would descend just to talk to a rockhead like you.”

Rockhead? That was an insult, a verbal attack.

The warrior returned all attacks.

Without thinking about it, Orodan instinctively activated the skill… and Arvayne grunted, and his eyes narrowed.

“What was that? It felt as though you deeply offended me. Was that some sort of social skill?” the old man pointedly asked.

“No… it’s my Mythical skill… apparently it can return all attacks… even if they’re verbal.”

“We’re testing this immediately.”

***

The private training chambers at the top of the Bluefire tower were quite durable. Which was a good thing because they’d caused enough destruction in their experimentation with Orodan’s new Mythical skill that even the walls of that absurdly tough chamber were left with cracks and tears.

Old man Arvayne had brought along all manner of experts to test Orodan.

Arlin Colton’s soul magic assaults were rebounded with twice the power whether he empowered them with mana or soul energy. Yallista Arthurius’s chronomancy was peculiarly reflected back causing her to revert herself back in time and even hostile tracking magic, insults, curses and the like were all rebounded back to the caster.

The attacks still hit Orodan. He still had to experience their negative effects. The headmistress of the school of curses was particularly painful once she started using soul energy to fire curses at Orodan.

The warrior just insisted on sending them right back twofold to the sender, even at level 1 of the skill.

It was now level 2 from all the experimentation, and Orodan felt that the skill’s ability to return any and all damage was absolute even at level 1, but level 2 increased the amount of damage rebounded.

Orodan could see his enemies essentially killing themselves by hitting him at higher levels.

It sounded utterly unfair.

“Thank you all for assisting Mister Wainwright,” Arvayne spoke. “For now, that will be all.”

The assortment of headmasters and headmistresses from differing schools then left with pleasantries, and Orodan and Arvayne were left alone.

“That was informative, this skill of yours is powerful,” the old man muttered. “I’ve been thinking about this for a little bit… but near the end of the year when that Eldritch Avatar descends, I’d like you to join the battle against it. Your new skill might prove more useful than you think if you can stay alive to receive some of its damage.”

“I was planning on fighting it regardless, how else will I grow if I don’t struggle against the strongest enemy I’ve ever encountered to date?”

“Fair enough, I shouldn’t have been concerned about your willingness to fight it seems,” Arvayne replied. “Anyhow, as I’m sure you’ve heard, your classes will be different moving forward. I may have decided to entertain myself by seeing you run roughshod through the first-year classes.”

“Does that mean I can skip the politics and world history classes as well?” Orodan asked excitedly.

“No. You’ll sit down and read your books, or I’ll have personal tutors sent to hound you. You’ve missed more than another week of classes, which is fine given that the academy expects this and the value of obtaining a Mythical skill outweighs some mere book learning,” he explained. “But it’s time for you to take your education seriously.”

Orodan sighed but nodded. There was no getting out of reading it seemed.

How horrible.

“What’s this?” Orodan asked as Arvayne handed him a metallic badge with the logo of a blue fire emblazoned on it.

“What you should’ve gotten initially if I wasn’t interested in watching those first-year rabble get humbled a little,” Arvayne explained. “It’s a pass which marks you as being in a mentorship, under myself. You won’t attend regular classes anymore except for your crafting and educational ones. Your lessons in things related to fighting will now be given by personal tutors which I’ve requested.”

“Isn’t this a bit-”

“Look, I know you’re not used to this sort of treatment, but this is just how it is in our society,” the old man interrupted. “A talent like you can’t be wasting time in regular classes, it’d cause too much disruption for the rest. You’re also operating on a deadline till the end of the year, and if we fail… then it will all rely on you. You have a rather large responsibility to shoulder, so get used to special treatment because you’re in special circumstances.”

Fair enough. Orodan wouldn’t complain or bring up that line of thought again.

“Now then, your crafting classes start next. I’ll also be waiting for you in this chamber once classes have ended for the day. Then, we’ll train your Combat Mastery throughout the night until the sun rises and you need to head to class once more. You’ll also report any breakthroughs you’ve made in class to me so we can focus on how best we can accelerate your growth,” Arvayne said. “You don’t need to rest anymore so we’ll make every single second of your time count. Only on the two rest days of the week are you allowed to leave Bluefire and do as you wish, be it visiting that predatory widow or helping little Ignatius and his people with whatever they need. I might also ask you to accompany me to fight some rather dangerous creatures from time to time, it’ll be good experience for you and broaden your horizons.”

It sounded utterly insane and demanding beyond reason, but Orodan loved it! He wholeheartedly agreed with every bit of this educational plan.

This was exactly the sort of training he needed.

Continuous and endless grinding and growth.

For once, it was nice not to be stared at and have people mutter about him within earshot without any care for subtlety.

There were still some mutters about a big and mean looking martial student carrying weapons and waltzing into the ‘Alchemy Basics 100’ class, but these students were for the most part the milquetoast scholar types who wouldn’t dare say anything to his face.

Unsurprisingly, the crafting classes at the academy were filled with mostly crafters. And while the drama and gossip between the two groups still overlapped quite often, the topics of prime interest were quite different.

For example, instead of gossiping about who the strongest student was, the crafters would understandably care more about which student was the greatest crafter of their generation in specific fields. Unlike combat specialists, there was no unanimous title of strongest student when it came to crafting, only who the best was within the specific field, and even then, some were good at certain aspects of a craft.

When it came to combat specialists, fields overlapped, and students of differing martial schools and fields of magic could still fight one another to answer the question of who the strongest was.

Among the non-combatant crafters however their discussions were more focused on the field itself. The alchemy students’ gossip involved talking about who the best alchemist was. There was no cross-comparison between the best alchemist at Bluefire and the best enchanter for example, nor were there any urgings or desires to see the two fight. It would make no sense.

There were still monstrous geniuses of crafting of course, who excelled at multiple fields. But even these crafting prodigies still had a particular field they focused on primarily, and the gossip surrounding them was mainly about their chosen specialty.

But, removed as the crafting students might be from the gossip of the combat specialists, they didn’t live under a rock. And given that the beginner’s alchemy course had at least some combat-specialist students who took it, they could still tell that Orodan was perhaps someone of decent fame given how these few combat specialists looked at him.

Nobody quite wanted to sit next to him, which was just fine by him.

Until a familiar face came along.

“Orodan! You’re here?! I didn’t know you liked alchemy!” spoke a very enthusiastic dark-skinned girl whose hair looked disheveled as though she’d spent far too long riding through the skies on a pegasus.

“Well, I can’t spend all my time hitting things, so this is a rather good distraction,” Orodan spoke. “I’m actually quite looking forward to this if I’m being honest.”

He really was looking forward to it. Growing up he had always looked at the alchemical concoctions for sale at the stalls of Eversong Plaza with wonder. The glowing colors of the bottles, the magical auras surrounding the products, the things he had heard they were capable of. He truly wanted to learn how to make potions himself… and perhaps delve even deeper into the arts.

“That’s right, I heard everyone talking about you beating someone up or something, I wasn’t paying much attention to be honest,” she remarked. “But me too, learning alchemy is quite important for an aspiring pegasus knight. We have to feed our companions and ensure they stay in good health, and mixing growth enhancing concoctions into their feed is an important part of supporting the pegasi.”

“That sounds quite interesting,” Orodan remarked. “For me, growing up I’ve always seen these fancy glowing bottles, so I want to learn how to make some myself.”

And Mahari looked at him and giggled.

“You really are as simple as just wanting to make ‘glowy’ potions of your own huh?”

“Well, there’s more to it than just that,” Orodan replied while feeling a small bit of embarrassment. “I have certain… exigent circumstances that require me to get my hands on potions that will strengthen my soul and thereby indirectly strengthen my physique or other attributes. Potions that simply affect the body won’t do.”

“Must be quite the set of circumstances, sounds complicated, so I won’t pry!” she happily exclaimed with a grin. “I also want to make potions to help my pegasus grow and get stronger.”

“What’s his name anyways?”

“Oh, he’ll choose for himself once he reaches the Adept-level and can start talking,” Mahari explained. “Choosing one’s own name is a big deal in pegasus society, and I’d offend his clan and the elder pegasi back home if I dared to take that away from him.”

That sounded quite fascinating to Orodan. He never really heard of creatures having their own societal customs like these pegasi seemed to have. A pegasus clan and elders? Perhaps Orodan would have to pay them a visit in one of the loops when he decided to venture into the Eastern Kingdoms.

“Perhaps I’ll visit one day when I have the time,” Orodan said, knowing full well that he had time, but other priorities took his attention currently. “Why’re you and your brother here at Bluefire anyways? Surely there’s an equivalent academy in the east?”

“Oh, we’re a border house in Ravastaran, and given our close ties and friendship with the Republic our house decided to send us here for our education,” Mahari explained. “Plus… we can’t all be the talented golden children of the main line of House Vedharna who get to go to Rubywater Academy at home.”

Orodan sensed a bit of bitterness in the young woman’s tone as she uttered the last part, but he decided not to pry.

Soon, the assortment of instructors arrived amid their chatting, and class was officially in session. Much like the first-year martial classes there were at least a thousand students, thus the instructors were a dozen.

Even though one hour was officially allotted, thanks to time dilation wards on the building the class would be six hours in practice.

The head-instructor was a Master-level alchemist, and Orodan would be sure to thoroughly pick the man’s brain today. Unlike the martial class where a Master-level instructor was perhaps a bit unqualified to teach him, here he was but a complete beginner. Who had not a single level in Alchemy whatsoever.

Orodan sat near the front alongside Mahari, which wasn’t too hard to get a spot in as crafter students tended to be a notoriously anti-social lot and many preferred sitting farther back. This of course meant the head-instructor could see him just fine.

“Ah… Mister Wainwright! We are glad to have you with us today. When I heard of your interest in our class from the administrative department, I was pleasantly surprised,” the man spoke. “I’m Castillius Van Estrados, Master-level alchemist at your service. Might we help catch you up on the curriculum with an instructor of your own?”

Orodan gladly agreed, by now used to and accepting of special treatment. Alongside him, Mahari was also invited to have a personal tutor and she happily accepted.

Alchemy was not what Orodan was expecting. Initially, it required reading books… and Orodan hadn’t read a single book since he started the time loops. Frankly, he had gone so long without reading anything besides the morning paper that he was almost certain to have developed a level of rust.

Thankfully, Orodan wasn’t illiterate. He would sometimes read the morning paper in the barracks in Ogdenborough before shift start. But this textbook was decently technical. However, the textbook did explain everything in great depth, which was critical for Orodan’s basic understanding.

Frankly, what actually intimidated the instructor… was Orodan’s reading speed once he put his endless willpower and focus into reading the text.

Most scholarly students, even fast readers, could read quite fast. Taking in and comprehending information was their bread and butter after all. And while Orodan wasn’t as smart as them, what he did have was the reaction time and permanent action increase.

Thus, began the ludicrous sight of a man reading a book, multiple pages at a time, at inhuman speed.

It was utter insanity.

His minds were quadrupled, and they read four pages at a time in the same instant of time. There was a slight delay as his brain made sense of the information, as reading pages ahead was a little confusing. But he adapted soon enough. Furthermore, this was amplified by his Combat Mastery and Physical Fitness that allowed him to think and react faster than any crafter in the Republic ever could. If he could launch hundreds of attacks a second, then why could that speed not be applied to reading?

This book, it was nothing more than an opponent. And Orodan would demolish it.

In less than ten minutes the fifteen-hundred page thick textbook was finished. And Orodan spent another five minutes pondering on everything he had read and committed it to memory.

Orodan didn’t even know he could do this! Were books truly so easy? Had he been so utterly intimidated by the prospect of learning from them due to his poor experiences in the orphanage that he was held back from trying a book all this time?

It really was as everyone said…

…Orodan was stupid.

But he wouldn’t be for much longer!

“That was it? Is this the only book you have? Bring me another and I’ll destroy it too!” Orodan almost demanded like a madman, and the instructor who watched his frankly insane reading speed and strange magic that made it look as though there were four books and four sets of him in the same space, was utterly intimidated but complied.

“M-mister Wainwright… what you just read was a theory textbook for beginners on the fundamentals of alchemy. Here is the next book which details the introduction to applied alchemy, and another book after that on a glossary of herbs and common ingredients used in Initiate and Apprentice-level potions and concoctions,” the man explained while handing Orodan two more textbooks.

Orodan happily got to work, once again treating these two thick books as though they were foes that he would outlast. How could the thickness of a textbook compare to the willpower of a man who held on against the corruption of an Eldritch Avatar for a whole year?

His speed of comprehension wasn’t anything special, rather it might even be below average. But when one could think at speeds far surpassing the untrained scholar, a low level of comprehension speed wasn’t as hindering as one would expect. Plus, he took to what Adeltaj had suggested in their first meeting.

To strain and struggle like a dog and apply maximal effort in every waking moment.

And as his four minds read and focused and comprehended, he learned. He learned, so very much.

It was as though his eyes were opened to a whole new world. Alchemy was such a complicated subject even from just the introductory textbook he had read. The book described all kinds of fundamental theories, assumptions and terminology which one needed to know in the Imperial tradition of alchemy.

It spoke of measurements, of equipment, techniques and recipes. It even gave economic breakdowns of the standard values of potions dependent on their purity and potency. This section must have been a draw for those from poor backgrounds who were looking to better their lots in life.

Orodan wasn’t too economically knowledgeable himself, so hearing that a perfect Apprentice-level health potion was worth a full gold piece, was quite eye opening. He could have a whole year’s salary in the militia if he made just one of those. Although making a perfect potion of anything was incredibly difficult.

The key take-aways Orodan had learned from the textbook, was that the Imperial tradition of alchemy used standardized equipment at the lower levels. The Eastern system however was more focused on cauldrons and made different products. Higher levels of alchemy in both systems started to look similar, however.

Furthermore, alchemy was a magical craft. Mana was used to synthesize even the most basic potion, whether the mana came from the alchemist, or an item or aid didn’t matter. It could get rather intricate at higher levels where mana was used to purify ingredients, emrich them, and potentially even empower a finished potion itself right before imbibement.

Potions were differentiated on two factors, the purity of the potion, and the power of its effect. Sometimes, a potion could even drastically increase in value if the alchemist managed to add secondary or even the incredibly difficult tertiary effects. As an example, a healing potion that also gave one improved regeneration for a duration of time would be highly valued compared to a regular healing potion.

Orodan however, was reading books which dealt merely with the Initiate and Apprentice level of alchemy. At this level, Initiate and Apprentice-level potions used mainly herbal ingredients, with the exception of a few rarer recipes. This was a good thing for beginners as it meant the quality of the ingredients would always remain consistent, as the majority of the Republic’s supply of alchemical herbs came from standardized herbal gardens and preserves where the quality was strictly controlled.

Wandering alchemists who sourced their ingredients from the wild for instance, were often subject to inconsistent potion power as the ingredients could either be very good, or rather subpar. Which made potions trickier to make sometimes as certain recipes required ingredients to have similar levels of power.

There was much in the textbook that Orodan had perused.

However, prodigious as his reading speed might have been, his ability to retain information and comprehend had its limits currently. Which would be something he’d have to rectify later once he moved deeper into alchemy as the textbook mentioned that higher-level recipes involved a lot of memorization, hence high-level alchemists used memory skills.

Another twenty minutes passed, and he finished the glossary of herbs he was handed. It was a good source of knowledge on what each herb was, the relative rarity, the types of effects it had and the common potions it was used in. Given that it was a Republic textbook, the glossary also listed where in the Republic one might find such herbs, and for the herbs that came from elsewhere, where the Republic sourced them from.

Finally, Orodan started on the textbook which dealt with the introduction to practical alchemy, which was a guided textbook meant to walk the reader through their first steps and acquiring the alchemy skill.

Upon seeing Orodan open this book the instructor who was assigned to him interjected. “Mister Wainwright, I can help guide you through this textbook personally, as every page involves practice experiments and guides you towards creating a potion for the first time and hopefully acquiring the alchemy skill.”

Orodan accepted the aid, and soon basic alchemical equipment was laid out before him. Beakers, flasks, tubes and a mixing container. Alongside a neat package of abundant basic ingredients for concocting the very basic healing potion of Initiate-level.

These potions were mainly used by civilians, non-combatants and occasionally mages with weak bodies. The bodies of combat specialists on average were too powerful to be healed by mere Initiate-level healing potions, as the energy required was much higher. For patching up the cuts and scrapes of a civilian or non-combatant however, these were more than sufficient. At high power and purity, a healing potion at the Initiate-level could perfectly heal all wounds and maybe even ease the wounds suffered by an Apprentice-level combatant with a strong body.

Thus, under the guidance of the instructor, Orodan began his attempts at carefully preparing the ingredients. His Tool Mastery skill genuinely helped him in this endeavor as the process of finely chopping up an astragon plant into small pieces and grinding the stem of a hogginsmere flower into a powder were things the book expected people to struggle with if they were doing them for the first time.

Which he was, but Tool Mastery helped ease this first-time process.

The prepared ingredients were poured into a water-filled mixing container and the heater was turned up for a solid five minutes. Finally, came the important step, which was pouring one’s mana into the mixing container, which was designed to accept mana easily and assist in mixing it into the contents. The mixing container was meant to assist beginner. And even people with no talent in mana could use a device to feed mana into it.

The Initiate-level healing potion was quite popular as a result for its accessibility.

Orodan however, had the Mana Manipulation skill. So, he managed to direct a steady flow of mana into the mixing container. Frankly, he almost felt as though his Mana Manipulation might allow him to forgo an artificer-constructed mixing container entirely and instead freely manipulate mana himself into whatever he was concocting.

“Say, why does the recipe mention not to put too much mana into the mixer?” Orodan asked. “I know the book mentioned that it ruins the potion with an oversaturation of mana… but what actually occurs?”

“That is a good question Mister Wainwright, one not written in the book. But I can answer that,” spoke the head-instructor - Castillius Van Estrados - who was watching Orodan’s progress out of the corner of his eye as though he was an honored guest. “Oversaturation of mana can cause unwanted growths in the ingredients and can even change the very nature of the potion itself. The chopped astragon plant inside can mutate to possess poisonous properties for instance. While very rarely a mutation from excess mana can enhance a potion, it’s still quite random and most of the time leads to undesirable changes.”

“I see, but what if there was a way to prevent the unwanted growths from the mana? Perhaps if the ingredients were forced to remain in their natural states while still receiving only the benefits of increased mana?”

“That… sounds impractical if I’m being honest,” Castillius replied. “At least without higher-level alchemical aids and a warded and enchanted workshop to assist in such a thing. At which point you have equipment and a workshop of very high expense, and you’d be wasting time and money by not concocting high-level profitable potions instead.”

“So, what if… I used a skill like Weapon Aura on the contents of my potion? To force it to maintain its natural properties even as my mana flows through it?” Orodan asked.

The Master-Alchemist had a pondering look on his face. But he didn’t outright deny it.

“Hmm… in truth, we so rarely get martial students of your caliber in classes such as this, Mister Wainwright. Despite this academy’s structure encouraging such cross-experimentation, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone trying such a thing. Or if they have, I haven’t heard of any successful result,” the man answered. “Additionally, from what I know from my colleagues in the martial disciplines, Weapon Aura is incredibly difficult to wrap around things that are not weapons.”

This, Orodan thought, was blatantly untrue. Unless he had been doing something completely different and outside the norm with his own Weapon Aura, it was definitely possible and not too hard to extend it to things that weren’t conventional weapons. He had extended it to trees, saplings, bushes and grass. How hard could extending it to a liquid within a container be?

The answer, was very, very hard.

Castillius was on-board with this cross-training experiment and Orodan tried wrapping his Weapon Aura skill around the entire liquid solution that was in the mixing container.

And it was incredibly difficult, like attempting to hold onto sand without letting it slip through your fingers. The amount of focus and concentration this would require, was unfathomable.

Unfathomable for anyone who wasn’t Orodan.

Sweat dripped down his brow as he made the attempt.

He had to use his action increase and actually have another mind working in concert to succeed. The liquid solution was so difficult to wrap Weapon Aura around, because not only was it a liquid, but it also had finely chopped pieces of astragon plant and a powder of the hogginsmere flower within it. Mentally, Orodan had to wrap his Weapon Aura around everything in the potion. Every single piece of the astragon plant, every single grain of the hogginsmere flower’s stem powder. It was a truly ridiculous feat of assiduousness and mental capacity.

But eventually with enough titanic willpower and two straight minutes of raw concentration, it worked!

Mentally conceiving of the liquid solution as a weapon in his own mind was the final step to succeeding.

[Weapon Aura 64 → Weapon Aura 68]

And the mixing container shattered and exploded due to the insane amount of mana Orodan was pouring into Weapon Aura to make it work in a manner so outside the bounds of the skill. And the liquid splattered onto the desk.

It was a tremendous gain of four skill levels in two minutes.

“I think this can work, the only issue was that the mixing container took my mana and converted it subtly while pouring it into the mixing container. Of course, when my mana from Weapon Aura and the slightly altered mana of the mixing container combined, my Mana Resistance skill didn’t agree with it,” Orodan explained. “Can we try one more time?”

“Mana Resistance? T-that’s quite the skill,” Castillius remarked nervously. Orodan had lost himself and said that a bit too casually. “But of course! Let us attempt this again, as many times as you like.”

The next attempt was made in a very reinforced container. One meant for the concoction of Master-level poisons of a dangerous nature. That it held the ingredients for an Initiate-level potion would have undoubtedly offended its creator if they ever knew.

The process of preparing the ingredients was done the same way. This was the easy part.

Now came the hard part, as the heat ran for five minutes and reached the critical point. It was time to pour mana into the liquid concoction.

Despite having done it once, it was still a chore to wrap his Weapon Aura around the entire liquid contents perfectly. But it was done all the same, netting him one more level in Weapon Aura due to the incredibly difficult nature of the feat.

If anything, this experiment was surprisingly good training for Weapon Aura.

Finally, he began generating soul energy and rapidly converting it into mana. And this was then poured into the solution. It was his own mana poured in this time, and not by using the mixing container as a medium.

He almost instantly reached the level of mana where the recipe warned one to stop at, and then soared right past that threshold.

Immediately, the ingredients within sought to rebel, to change into something else. The astragon plant pieces roared at his control, outraged that he would dare to prevent their ascension to a higher form. The powder of the hogginsmere flower trembled in fury, almost violently shaking as it sought the freedom to change and use the mana to grow in a way it desired.

The very nature of the ingredients was desperately leaning towards changing. Towards growing in their own way as the amount of mana was so high.

But Orodan’s iron willpower kept the vice grip of Weapon Aura tight around it all.

Weapon Aura was essentially meant to strengthen his weapons, to toughen them up and prevent any damage. Or prevent any change of a manner he didn’t like.

If he didn’t have experience with Wood Communion, he would’ve also prevented the positive growth that he did want from occurring, but Orodan allowed for it, even as it truly taxed his mental willpower.

He had to activate his two other minds in addition to the two he was already using and bring himself to his current limit of a quadruple action increase.

Thirty seconds passed as mana continued to flow into the concoction, and no unwanted changes were allowed by Orodan’s imperious command. The entire classroom had gone dead silent.

Finally, even this container began to creak in a concerning manner.

“The container can’t take it! It’s best if you wound it down now Mister Wainwright!” Castillius exclaimed, and Orodan begrudgingly complied, if only to see what he had achieved.

He stopped pouring mana into the concoction, and once all the mana was absorbed, he cut off Weapon Aura. The skill was now at level 72, it had crossed into Elite purely from some extreme experimentation.

[New Skill → Alchemy 11]

What a high-level gain at the acquisition of this new skill. The potion he created must have been better than he thought.

The liquid within the container was glowing a brilliant color of green and almost seemed to crackle with arcs of green mana across the surface. From what the textbook had written as a fun fact, glowing potions were often a sign of the power of the concoction as it meant they had a high amount of energy coursing through them.

He took out a ladle and was about to put it in to scoop a portion out to place into a potion flask, but Castillius stopped him.

“That ladle will melt, and an ordinary flask won’t do. Use this,” he said as he handed Orodan a ladle made of a strange black material similar to the cauldron.

He took it and gingerly scooped up a portion to pour it down the mouth of a gold tinged glass bottle which seemed to be of superior make. A fancy stopper was shoved into the mouth after, sealing it in.

“Master… what does Identify show it as?” asked one of the other instructors.

The man peered closely at the ornate looking glowing green potion…

…and his eyes widened.

“T-this is…!” Castillius exclaimed while grabbing it furiously and looking it over like a man who was sure a trick was being played on him. “This is an Elite-level healing potion… how? How did you make an Initiate-level potion jump three whole tiers? How did you do this Mister Wainwright?!”

“What else? I used Weapon Aura to demand the potion not change except how I wanted as I poured mana in,” Orodan answered. “Want to try drinking it to test?”

“If a non-combatant like me drank such a thing I might need a trip to the healer or even die due to the excessive power in this potion!” Castillius replied. “The purity isn’t even all that high, yet for such raw power… from Initiate to Elite. What if you had an even higher ceiling of ingredients to work with? Would you mind helping me test something?”

“I don’t mind, this is legitimately good practice for Weapon Aura. I crossed the Elite-level in the skill just from this,” Orodan remarked, shocking Castillius silent once more.

To the side, Mahari who was watching all this time finally spoke up.

“Well at least you got to make a ‘glowy’ potion of your own, Orodan!”

Orodan had a beaming smile on his face in response.

***

The rest of the concoction turned out to about nineteen more potions, which Orodan had little use for, so he had a staff member send them back to the Burgher. He was sure the man would appreciate them as a gift.

Orodan was brought to a back room which had an elaborate alchemical workshop. He was accompanied by Master Castillius and two other instructors who were Elite-alchemists.

“Mister Wainwright, we’ll handle the preparation of ingredients for this potion. All I ask is that you attempt your unique method and perform the infusion of mana into the potion at the critical juncture,” Castillius spoke. “Not only is your method unlike anything I’ve seen done before, but the sheer reserves of mana you possess are… well I won’t pry into how you managed to create that potion. You combat specialists are a different breed when it comes to certain things.”

The average alchemist would need to chug mana potions of their own or have pre-prepared a mana battery to feed mana into the concoction, particularly for higher level potions.

“Alright, but before we do this, might I know what the potion is, what the ingredients are and in what form they’ll go into the liquid mix? Extending Weapon Aura over a liquid is harder than I thought it would be, and I have to account for everything within it. Each individual piece and grain of powder.”

“The amount of mental power that would take is ridiculous,” Castillius muttered as he shook his head in disbelief. “But to answer your question, we’ll be making an Elite-level concoction, a potion of overflowing mana. It’s meant to give the imbiber a temporary boost of incredible mana reserves, and unlike many other potions at the Elite-level, this one has a rather simple mana empowerment phase much like the potion you made earlier. Unlike the water base of your last potion, this potion uses dragon tears as a liquid base. A hydra’s heart which will be boiled in the concoction during the heating phase to have its essence spread. A unicorn’s horn which will be ground down into powder and a crushed estrigus mushroom sourced from the depths of the energy well at Anthus.”

If they were the source of ingredients used in Elite-level potions, then Orodan could see why energy wells were treasured commodities now. The one at Anthus must’ve been quite heavily guarded.

“I see, we can begin whenever you’re ready,” Orodan said and watched the process closely.

A Master-level alchemist operated quite efficiently. His two Elite-level assistants were there to assist in handing him things, feeding him mana potions as he magically prepared the ingredients, and in helping move and prepare some of the alchemical equipment which Orodan hadn’t read about in the textbook. High level alchemy was quite the art.

Within fifteen minutes the ingredients were prepared and carefully mixed into the liquid. The three alchemists worked very well together as a team, as certain equipment pieces were almost designed to be operated by two people. Even the cauldron that held the concoction looked incredibly expensive, with numerous glowing enchantment lines etched across it.

The heating began and one of the assistant alchemists was in charge of managing the fire, which changed color and temperature constantly. He was reading a sheet of paper with sequential directions for temperature changes, almost as though he was conducting music. It was a constant job which he couldn’t step away from.

Another was in charge of monitoring the concoction itself, and this woman almost acted as a spotter for Castillius, who she was periodically muttering changes and directions to while she peered into the concoction with a magical monocle. Castillius’s ladle moved in different directions, and he occasionally squeezed a drop of what Orodan knew was a single-use catalyst, making the reactions within the container speed up as needed.

Castillius himself took charge of what looked to be the hardest part, which was mixing the ingredients correctly and giving directions to the temperature controller as needed.

Finally, as the heat reached a critical level, it was time.

“Mister Wainwright, in ten seconds the mana will completely disappear from every other source in this concoction, then the stage is yours,” Castillius explained, and Orodan got ready.

As warned, over ten seconds all the mana from within the concoction disappeared, and the three alchemists backed away. It was now Orodan’s turn to direct this creation.

He put all four minds to immediate work in furiously getting Weapon Aura around the liquid as quickly as he could.

It was difficult, far harder than when he was doing this with the other potion.

The heart held vitality which also needed to be wrapped around, and the unicorn horn powder held traces of soul energy. He had to account for and somehow wrap Weapon Aura around the energies themselves as well as the ingredients.

A full minute passed, and his four minds worked so intensely that he bled a little from his eyes as the sweat dripped off his brow.

Weapon Aura levelled to 74 over the course of that minute, but he finally got a proper wrap around the concoction.

And then he began pouring his own mana into it.

To call it a titanic rebellion would be an understatement.

Once he passed the threshold of mana empowerment where the recipe told alchemists to stop, the sheer volatility of the ingredients was nearly overwhelming. Orodan’s Weapon Aura almost lost control.

The estrigus mushroom from the depths of the energy well was the most well-behaved ingredient. It was the other two that were not.

Orodan came to learn that ingredients from living creatures were far more volatile and hungrier for change in a mana oversaturated environment than plants and herbs were. The hydra heart and the powder grains of the unicorn horn waged a true war against his Weapon Aura.

It was some of the most concentration Orodan had ever had to exert. His head hurt in a way comparable to his mental bludgeoning at the hands of Ilevida Balmento. Blood leaked from his eyes as he activated Death Rage to give himself improved reaction time which translated to even more focus crammed into each instant of time. And he had to flare Eternal Soul Reactor to feed the greedy demands of this mana-hungry potion.

This was devouring energy comparable to a Grandmaster’s mana pool if Orodan had to make a guess.

The mental war raged on for ten whole minutes as more and more mana was poured in, but his Weapon Aura retained its grip and levelled up to 75.

Finally, a built-in enchantment within the container gave off an alarm, and Castillius bade Orodan to stop lest the very expensive cauldron be damaged.

He stopped supplying mana into the concoction, and the sheer amount of mana coursing through the liquid still took a while to die down even after he cut the supply off.

Finally, once the mana within completely ran dry, he dispersed Weapon Aura from the alchemical concoction.

[Alchemy 11 → Alchemy 16]

The liquid was almost blindingly bright, a beacon of pure cyan radiance which lit up the entire workshop. The three alchemists in the room couldn’t even look at it, but Castillius immediately marched up to the cauldron almost desperately, not even waiting for the concoction to be bottled.

And he used Identify.

The man began to tremble and nearly fell onto his behind if not for Orodan steadying him.

“Well? I think it achieved at least something right?” Orodan asked.

“It… it’s a Grandmaster-level potion… what even are you?!”

***

Old Arvayne Firesword had come by shortly after accompanied by an old woman who was the headmistress for the school of alchemy. This woman took half of the potions from the batch for herself, and the remaining half was split between Orodan and the three alchemists who had worked on the concoction.

Orodan had no issue with this given that the ingredients were provided by the man, and it was his recipe and formula. Plus, while he could sense a tremendous amount of mana within the potion… he really had no use for potions of the sort. Given his Eternal Soul Reactor, mana wasn't an issue for him.

So, he gave his share to Arvayne, which made the old man’s eyes shine with covetousness for once at the ludicrous gift fit for a Grandmaster.

The woman was Elona Bursimi, a Grandmaster-Alchemist who informed Orodan that he would be learning alchemy directly underneath her moving forward.

Orodan thought this was becoming something of a trend but decided to keep his thoughts to himself on the matter.

They dispersed shortly after with Arvayne lecturing Orodan a bit and simply sighing and looking disappointed at Orodan’s utter inability to lay low.

The other crafting classes thankfully weren’t anything crazy.

Enchanting went decently, and Orodan discovered he had an average talent for the craft but still managed to gain a few levels in the skill raising it up to level 12.

His ability to maintain concentration for an endless period of time, alongside his bottomless energy allowed for him to enchant without interruption and the breaks that other students needed to take. He wasn’t a prodigy by any means and performed no ground-breaking achievements like he did in alchemy… but he still progressed a decent amount over the span of just six hours of a class. His endless reserves and concentration, however, did impress the instructor who was personally assigned to him.

For now, he was practicing in the Imperial tradition of mana-based enchanting, but the head-instructor who was a Master-Enchanter assured him that once he reached a certain level, the man would introduce him to Gormir Eltros. The Master-level enchanter who Orodan had heard of prior, who was capable of such things like body enchantments and enchantments using soul energy instead of mana.

Orodan could have used his reputation to ask for it right away, but he felt that getting a deeper understanding of Enchanting and pushing its levels up the standard way first was better than jumping ahead too quickly.

Blacksmithing, however, was an interesting class.

The class probably had the highest number of combat-specialist students who were cross-training that he had seen. The idea of forging one’s own equipment was a popular sentiment among warriors. Even many enchanters were participating in the hopes of learning how to create a superior product to enchant upon. After all, the better the initial base, the greater the enchanted item that could be made.

He also made the interesting discovery that natural fires, which weren’t mana based, did in fact burn. Even if all his defensive and vitality skills gave him a body sturdy and healthy enough to ignore the burns from the forge, it still raised a good point that Orodan would probably get burnt when he encountered enemies using natural fires or non-mana empowered flames in the future. Still, it was fun sticking his hand directly into the forges to pull things out or adjust the things he was smithing. Perhaps he would obtain the Fire Resistance skill if he did it enough?

His talents in blacksmithing weren’t bad. His Physical Fitness allowed him to do some unfair things such as simply pounding metal with his bare hands and bending it into shape. He quickly gained the Blacksmithing skill and raised it all the way to 14, aided by his existing Tool Mastery and Laboring. Additionally, cleaning up the forge and workstation actually gave him two levels in Cleaning! Cleaning up a different environment for once must have spurred the level gain.

Woodworking went quite well.

The class also held a high number of combat specialists looking to make their own weapons. Mages wanted to make wands and staves, archers wanted to make bows, and warriors wanted to make weapon hafts and shields.

He was marked as a decent talent upon entry as the instructors were content with his existing Apprentice-level Woodworking skill. Tool Mastery aided him as per usual, and he actually managed to level Woodworking to 44 and Tool Mastery to 49.

His Wood Communion skill was looked upon with incredible favor and the headmaster of the school of Woodworking came down near the end of class to meet with him and spoke for a bit revealing that he too possessed the Legendary skill and offered to give Orodan personal lessons in cultivating it. Apparently, the Exquisite-rarity Wood Whispering skill was common among prodigies, but Orodan was the first student he had seen with the Legendary Wood Communion skill aside from himself.

Headmaster Osolon Velrayn was a man of half-elven descent. He openly claimed this, for otherwise Orodan would not have known as half-elves didn’t have any uniquely elven features that made them stand out. Only in very rare circumstances did the elven blood dominate and the pointed ears appeared in half-elven folk. A fact that allowed them to blend in rather seamlessly within human society.

The man was quite happy to have a martial student of Orodan’s caliber in his school who took Woodworking so seriously and invited him to come by his parlor in the Bluefire tower for tea sometime.

Finally came the Politics and World History classes that Orodan had dreaded. He was assigned personal tutors in each of these classes, but as he had come to learn, the reading wasn’t as bad as he’d feared.

He’d learned some interesting things about politics.

For starters, although he heard it from Cyvrosdyr in a prior loop, dragons had their own society and groups known as dragon flights.

They had cordial relations with humanity but had tense relations with the dwarves who were a race notorious for dragon slaying. Hence the lack of dragon flights near the Dokuhan mountains to the south.

The dragons’ one point of contention with the humans of Inuan was the insistence on worshiping Ilyatana, the Goddess of Fate. The dragon race viewed her as a historical mass genocider of their kind. The politics textbooks noticeably did not mention the fact that Ilyatana was once a mortal many millennia ago, but he recalled Cyvrosdyr saying this to him during his loop on Guzuhar.

Orodan felt he would get along well with the dragons due to their mutual hatred of that conniving Goddess.

Additionally, the Republic had pretty good relations with the local Time Wind dragon flight which flew between Karilsgard and the Eastern Kingdoms. In fact, the two dragons he saw flying about many loops ago in the aftermath of the war machine’s destruction of Volarbury County, were actually the famed Master-level dragons Ulrusdun and Arkulnir, who were honoring an old pact between the Republic and the Time Wind dragon flight to render mutual aid to the other in times of need.

There were friendly dragon flights throughout the Eastern Kingdoms and elven continent as well, however the Novarrians were infamous for enslaving dragons, and thus there were constant tensions on that front. The only thing stopping outright war was the fact that the ‘dragon flights’ of Novarria were willing to defend the Empire’s practices. The textbook painted Novarrian aligned dragons quite negatively.

As for Cyvrosdyr… the World Guardian was quite famous indeed!

Orodan could now finally tell the dragon that he had read books about him, even if they were very old legends. The Eternal Winter was quite revered as a guardian of the world and was respected for descending onto the elven continent fifteen-thousand years ago and slaying a terrifying Eldritch invader from the stars after the hero of the elves had failed.

There were at least two other known World Guardians like him.

Sarastuga the Blazing Light, a beloved lion of epic proportions which prowled the Eastern Kingdoms and kept humanity safe. And Elydia the Returning Fire, a phoenix that flew above the Dokuhan mountains and the arid badlands to the south where no civilized life could thrive.

Orodan recalled both of these World Guardians bravely fighting to the bitter end against the Eldritch Avatar.

Aside from the humans on Inuan and the elves on their own south-eastern continent of Eldiron, were the dwarves. The stout race had a better relationship with the Novarrians than they did the Republic or Eastern Kingdoms, thanks to their shared greed and dragon slaying tendencies. But the under-mountain dwelling race was at frequent odds with the drow who they were steadily beating back in a cold war that had been going on for a few years now.

The dwarves were gaining ground on the drow thanks to the intervention of the Novarrians on the dwarven side. The unfortunately isolated drow were losing a slow struggle as they were without allies nearby.

Finally, there were the minor races which didn’t hold any significant power on the same level as the major races. Such as the orcish tribes of the Dokuhan mountains who lived above the dwarves and struggled to eke out a living. Wandering goblin tribes who were a constant annoyance throughout the wilder regions of Inuan and were to be killed on sight. And the communities of halflings who had essentially integrated into human society in the Republic and Eastern Kingdoms.

Orodan was embarrassed to admit he did not realize that Lucille Carrotfoot was a halfling when he first met her. Apparently Carrotfoot was a halfling surname. He just thought she was a very small woman in their first meeting. Probably helped them integrate rather smoothly.

There were also some destinations of note he eventually wanted to see.

Energy wells being one of those things. The energy well at Anthus in the Republic was only one of many. And even the one Orodan discovered, while deep, still wasn’t the deepest known in the world. The two deepest ones in the world were unclaimed by humans, but were instead wild and surrounded by some of the largest monster hordes known to man.

The first being the one at Suicide Point in the arid badlands south of the Dokuhan mountains. None of the mortal races dwelled in the badlands. Even the hardy dwarves went no farther south than the mountains.

It was a completely wild and uncivilized area that even dragons didn’t want to fly near due to the presence of some rather ferocious beasts in large numbers. The energy well at Suicide Point was the second deepest one in the world. And there were rumored to be some monsters down at the bottom that even an Avatar empowered World Guardian would be afraid of.

The deepest however, was north of the northern continent, within the Great Zalabian Ocean. It was underwater. The closest spot that any golem exploration attempts had gone, was marked on the map as the Ocean’s Edge.

This energy well was the sole reason any northward exploration of the ocean past Guzuhar was impossible. The hordes of sea and flying monsters surrounding this energy well were simply too numerous and strong.

One day, Orodan wanted to try his hand at delving it. But that day was a long way away.

His World History and Politics classes thus went by without too much suffering. He learned some interesting things about the world, political relations and Republican and Novarrian society that he would no longer be surprised by.

His skill creation and applied skill combination classes had been cancelled. It would be handled during his training period with Arvayne, so the only class he had left for the day was ‘Monster Studies 210’.

“So that hundred headed sea serpent that occupies this section of the Sea of Uxumar, it’s called a hydra?”

“Yes, Mister Wainwright, that is the term for it,” the instructor answered. “Although historical records from a hundred years ago note it as having ninety heads, not a hundred.”

Well, the historical records were historical. He had killed it a while ago in a prior loop and could attest to the fact that it now had a hundred heads.

“And the rumors about them being able to grow new heads once one is cut off?”

“Not at the Master-level at least, but the ocean is quite massive... I’m certain there are stronger hydras out there in the deeper parts that hypothetically could do such a thing,” the woman replied. “Monsters have access to the same System we do and could definitely learn a skill for it.”

Monster Studies was an interesting class. There were textbooks detailing a massive variety of monsters, but the class was focused more on theory and as an information hub for students who aspired to become adventurers upon graduation.

There were provided textbooks which detailed all known monsters, and there was only one instructor, a Master-level swordswoman who was supposedly a famous adventurer who retired a decade prior and was now teaching students at Bluefire. He recalled reading the name Belinda Arwell in his World History books but had never heard of the woman in conversation.

“What about Demonic Berserkers? How strong are they?” Orodan asked, genuinely curious. “If a Master-level necromancer were to have a reanimated one as their pet… how strong would it be in life?”

“Unfathomably powerful, definitely near the high end of the Master-level. You’d need some very heavy ranged or magic firepower to deal with it. Melee combat against a living Demonic Berserker would be suicide for someone on the same level as it, mortals just can’t match that sort of ferocity,” Belinda explained.

Not without a lot of death and an unshakeable drive at least. He had absolutely matched its violent ferocity blow for blow while unarmed and even forced it to quail when he was but an Adept himself. The Demonic Berserker, even as an undead minion, had been a great teacher that taught him the value of true savagery and fury.

“And how about worms that dwell deep underground?”

“You would be a better teacher on the subject than me Mister Wainwright,” Belinda remarked. “My old adventuring friends wouldn’t stop talking about the rumors of someone killing a Dweller Worm in an energy well. And I couldn’t stop hearing about the tremors that lasted for over two weeks.”

Orodan thought the woman was being a bit melodramatic, but he appreciated her slightly snarky answer all the same.

“To be fair, it refused to die easily,” Orodan replied.

“I wouldn’t expect a Dweller Worm - notorious for their cockroach-like survivability - to die easily in any scenario. Two weeks sounds about right for how long it would take a team to kill it while working round the clock. Usually, a rampaging Dweller Worm of sufficient size is the subject of a Quest.”

Belinda continued fielding questions from various students, all of whom kept a healthy distance from Orodan. Either due to being intimidated or just minding their own business.

“Then… in terms of toe-to-toe melee combat, can you recommend which monster you know of that would be utterly suicidal to fight?” Orodan asked.

“You ask some very strange questions that make me concerned for your safety and mental state, Mister Wainwright. I almost suspect you’ve either fought or plan to fight the monsters you’re asking about,” Belinda quipped with an amused smirk on her lips. “But I’ll do my best to answer. Some of the deadliest monsters up close? The Demonic Berserker you’ve asked about is one of them of course, but it can only be summoned nowadays, which is quite difficult given how averse demons are to our world. Or you’d have to join the crusade the Cathedral is organizing into the hells next year. Even then the crusaders are reporting that they’re getting rarer and rarer due to the constant incursions we’re making each year.”

“Alright, but surely that can’t be the deadliest? Is there not something more… ferocious in melee?” Orodan asked.

“A towering muscle-bound freak with eight clawed arms, horns, sharp teeth and a rage that lasts for weeks isn’t ferocious enough for you?” the retired adventurer asked. “Well, let’s see… and I strongly recommend you don’t do this. But given your predilections for delving the depths you should at least be aware of Death Roaches. They aren’t even listed in the textbook, but they’re horrifying.”

“Are they related to Malzim perhaps?” Orodan asked, a bit hesitant to kill something related to his favorite God.

“No, we just named them that for how utterly unkillable they are and how much death and devastation they cause. People talk about regular cockroaches as if they’re tough, but wait till you meet their angry and mutated relative in the deep depths,” Belinda remarked. “It’s a terrifyingly fierce bug that fights with a level of fury beyond even a Demonic Berserker. At least the demon’s big and you know it’s coming. The Death Roach is almost man-sized and even tougher. All that power packed into a small frame means it’s deadlier than a Demonic Berserker in melee. It’ll sneak up on you without you realizing it too.”

“So, are we likely to ever fight one?” a random student interjected and asked.

“No, and I pray to the Gods that you do not. I’m indulging Mister Wainwright’s questions because he’s an outlier that can wrestle Dweller Worms in the wild depths for two weeks straight. He’s apt to make the sort of questionable life choices that might lead to him encountering one,” Belinda spoke. “But as for the rest of you, unless you’re likely to reach the Master-level, don’t get arrogant. Death Roaches and Dweller Worms, outside of unique circumstances such as an energy well, typically begin to occur from the deep depths and below. There are records of hundred-man strong heavily armed expeditions composed of Master-level adventurers and soldiers being wiped out after they ran into a Death Roach while unprepared. Reach the Master-level first and then think about such creatures.”

The rest of the class went on as usual, and at the end as students were filing out Belinda gestured to Orodan to remain behind.

“Mister Wainwright, Arvayne Firesword speaks highly of your ‘determination’,” she remarked. “He also told me to avoid insulting you lest the backlash from a skill of yours makes me regret it.”

Now that was just excessive. He felt as though he acquired a slight bit of control over Warrior’s Reciprocity at level 2. He could maybe tone it down and actually hold back if she decided to make a comment about his intelligence.

But would he?

No.

Therefore, it was good advice the old man gave her.

“As long as you don’t make any comments about my intelligence to my face, I think you’ll be fine,” Orodan clarified.

“That won’t be an issue. Despite my carefree attitude I’m not so stupid as to directly offend someone who fought a Grandmaster-level Dweller Worm in the depths by himself. Avatar assistance or not, you’re a monster and I respect that,” she spoke with a level of sincerity. “I actually wanted to speak to you about your last question.”

“About things that are stronger than a Demonic Berserker in melee? Death Roaches are one of those things, right?”

“Yes, but what I didn’t say in front of the other students is that Death Roaches are particularly powerful Grandmaster-level monsters. Even though they're of the same level, a Death Roach would tear a Dweller Worm in half if they fought, so be careful. With your monstrous talent at your age, I think with at least a few more decades of training and adventure you’ll be ready to face one, maybe even by yourself,” she answered. “But… there’s something even stronger. It’s probably the most dangerous thing we have records of. The only reason I’m telling you is because Arvayne Firesword explicitly told me to not withhold any knowledge from you like we usually do when it comes to overeager youth who might otherwise run into the depths to prove themselves a prodigy.”

“Oh? I’d be interested in fighting such a thing,” Orodan excitedly said, a happy grin on his face.

“I assure you; you will die. Even a Chosen One Avatar is but prey before it… at least give yourself a few centuries before you try your hand against it.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called a Void Horror,” she replied. “The last known sighting of one was maybe… thirty-thousand years ago? It’s what reportedly led to the collapse of civilization on our continent. It’s an old legend that speaks of a tall, gray humanoid with terrifying white eyes. Its savagery was unmatched in the legends.”

Tall, grey humanoid with empty white orbs for eyes? Why did this sound so familiar?

“Where can it be found? What happened to the last one?” Orodan found himself asking, even though he had an inkling he knew exactly where it could be found near the end of the year.

“The legends say the last known Void Horror came crawling out of the abyssal depths and caused the collapse of civilization on the entire continent, the Gods then had to send multiple Avatars down to suppress it, and it was sealed into a rock and thrown out into the vast expanse between worlds.”

Where it must have undoubtedly encountered the Eldritch Gods and mutated into something utterly horrendous which was now being returned to the sender.

What a fantastic show of responsibility and forward thinking by the Gods.

“So, these Void Horrors… there are more of them down there?” Orodan asked. “Also, while I guessed there are depths lower than the deep depths, the books don’t talk about the abyssal depths. Can you tell me about them?”

“I’ve never been there, but I would assume there are more down there, yes. I would be unqualified and likely wouldn’t even make it to that point. The only people that dare to enter are Grandmasters, and even they would only do so in force. The last time such a thing happened was at least a thousand years ago,” Belinda answered. “From what my mentor tells me, the abyssal depths aren’t as densely populated with monsters, but even the weakest one would be a Death Roach or something similar in power. There are some utterly kingdom-shaking treasures to be found… but even Grandmasters don’t want to enter for fear of what horrors lurk down there.”

“You know… you’re awfully forthcoming about such a dangerous topic. Aren’t you supposed to warn me away or something as a teacher?”

“Would it stop you if I did?”

“Not in the slightest,” he answered with a cheery smile.

The depths held some powerful foes. It was an attractive prospect and made his blood boil for combat at hearing about the abyssal depths. But currently he wasn’t sure he could even get through the entirety of the deep depths.

Death Roaches that could tear a Dweller Worm apart like a chew-toy? Void Horrors that caused the collapse of civilization on an entire continent? Orodan was eager to go smash his head against this wall immediately!

But it would be wasteful and inefficient to do so right this instant. It was better to let this loop naturally run its course first and see how the battle against the Eldritch Avatar changed.

Would he spend a series of loops just battering against the horrors of the deep? Absolutely.

But for now, his last class of the day was over and it was time to go training with Arvayne Firesword.

***

“Isn’t this too big of a pile? What am I even supposed to do with all this?” Orodan asked.

“Who else am I going to use these natural treasures on? I’ve been stockpiling these for a thousand years, and now’s the time to see them used on the single most monstrous talent I’ve ever seen,” Arvayne spoke. “So, get to work, pick up that black orb.”

It was an orb of pitch-black color, the size of a palm sized fruit.

“What’s this and what does it do?”

“It’s an endless gravity core, I found it while adventuring in the deep depths when I was younger. The machines warriors use to train their Physical Fitness use artificial ones created by artificers to work. But this one is naturally formed and is the most powerful one in the Republic,” Arvayne explained. “Hold on and channel your mana into it, it’s excellent for training Physical Fitness.”

The most powerful endless gravity core in the entire nation? Arvayne was a wealthy man.

Orodan did as the old man asked, and almost instantly, the gravity upon him grew immensely and even Orodan’s powerful physique was strained.

It felt as though each muscle in his body was bearing the weight of a small mountain.

Arvayne told Orodan to hold onto the endless gravity core and practice as much as he could.

After an hour, his Physical Fitness increased by a level to 66!

But something still felt slow. Something about this sort of training dissatisfied Orodan.

It was too safe.

“Old man, this is nice and all. But it isn’t enough, I need more,” Orodan said.

“What do you mean you need more? You want me to throw another gravity core at you?” Arvayne asked with a raised brow.

“No, as in we could be doing multiple things at the same time,” Orodan answered. “Why don’t we fight?”

“That core requires constant focus, contact and a source of energy to remain active. If we sparred, the gravity effect would just stop, thereby rendering it a waste,” Arvayne explained. “If you’re this eager I’ll add some intense exercises to your training after your session with the orb.”

Orodan did not like this explanation.

So, he pondered and came to a decision.

The orb required constant contact and focus? No problem.

“What… what are you doing?!” Arvayne asked in shock as Orodan’s mouth opened wide and one hand shoved the orb in as far as he could.

It wouldn’t go down comfortably, but it was a good thing Orodan had Pain Resistance.

His other fist slammed the orb into his mouth, and a quadruple action increase session began where multiple hands were pounding the solid orb down Orodan’s throat even as his teeth shattered, and his mouth became bloody.

It settled uncomfortably in his stomach, as though it was grossly unnatural and quite painful. But he had done it. Orodan had successfully swallowed the palm sized endless gravity core.

He flared Eternal Soul Reactor to empower Regeneration, only to make a painful discovery.

The endless gravity core could also be powered by soul energy.

And any activation of Eternal Soul Reactor naturally had soul energy run through his body. Which thereby naturally activated the core.

Orodan nearly fell to the ground as the orb was empowered beyond any levels it had previously been. His soul energy was potent and far stronger than his mana. The core’s gravity increased to the point that it was tearing apart the muscles of his stomach and was on the verge of ripping right out of him.

He flared Eternal Soul Reactor to empower Regeneration further only to realize that it was making the pressure on his body and the weight of the orb even heavier.

He immediately activated Death Rage and the increased strength allowed him to hold on a bit easier even as his life force drained, and blood leaked out of his pores.

Now this… this was real training!

“You! Orodan Wainwright! What are you even doing?!” the old man roared. “No! My lord, do not praise his buffoonery!”

Agathor must have been telling the old man how he approved no doubt.

The pain was quite high, but nothing his Pain Resistance couldn’t handle. Slowly but surely, he continued making minor adjustments.

First, he began thinking economically. How could he empower Regeneration with the least amount of soul energy for the most buck?

Eternal Soul Reactor began to gain levels as this self-mutilating training continued and he began to fine tune the skill. Regeneration improved as well as he learned to do more with less fuel.

All the while, his Physical Fitness gained another level and rose to 67 as he strained each and every muscle to the limit and continued honing himself. It was effective training and Orodan couldn’t forget to train the skill the endless gravity core was meant for.

He wanted more vitality, but he couldn’t get it from soul energy lest it tip the critical balance. So Orodan experimented and drew upon the reserve of Vitality Black Hole and threw all the excess vitality into Death Rage.

Both skills began gaining some very rapid levels at this unique experimentation, and for a moment Death Rage was beginning to get strong enough that the burden of gravity upon him was beginning to feel light.

So, he simply cranked up Eternal Soul Reactor once more to increase the weight even further. There would be no slacking off.

Furthermore, Orodan began to attempt a unique experiment. His muscles were genuinely being destroyed under the fierce pressure of the now deadly gravitational force of the endless gravity core. So why not flood the destroyed muscles with vitality?

He experimented and worked on different methods of acquiring what he wanted.

Even as his destroyed muscle cells were annihilated, any new ones that came to be due to the vitality were still subject to the same pressure. But they needed to adapt, the weak needed to be destroyed to give birth to the new. The pressure on his body wasn’t merely downward, but it felt as though he was being pressured and squeezed into a meatball. Crushed from all directions, every single part of his body was under pressure, even the interior.

He increased the soul energy empowering the core to an almost fatal level.

Ten minutes passed and as he was keeled over, bleeding everywhere and felt as though his innards would explode, he finally achieved the adaptation that he was looking for.

[New Skill (Legendary) → Body Tempering 3]

It started off at level 3, no doubt due to the extreme circumstances in which he acquired the skill.

His muscles which were being constantly destroyed and rebuilt, were finally being regenerated stronger. His physique was improving as he constantly destroyed his own body and tempered it to be stronger. It was forged anew.

Within the next ten minutes of this, Body Tempering reached level 11, and Orodan felt as though each and every point of Physical Fitness went further. He felt as though he had nearly doubled in strength with just this. As though he had a fundamentally superior body like a monster naturally did.

He finally had enough strength to get to his feet. The omnidirectional gravitational pressure from the core was now bearable.

He looked at the old man and drew his sword.

“Old man! Let’s not waste time! Spar me while I continue practicing with this endless gravity core!”

Following his declaration Orodan once more empowered the core to the limit of what he could take. It put him under severe pressure and limited his battle power, but from now on Orodan decided he would keep the endless gravity core at its maximal limits at all times.

It seemed like quite a good training tool.

In all his years, the old Grandmaster had never seen or heard of anyone using a gravity core like this for training.

Arvayne Firesword could only look at Orodan as he finally understood.

It was one thing to hear the boy talk about the time loop and everything he did. But it was another thing to see the madness, the insanity that was Orodan Wainwright.

To witness what the mad fool considered real training.

He now understood how this lunatic had come so far.

Who was Orodan Wainwright?

As a Flash Strike from a desperately straining warrior - bloody grin on his face - approached, Arvayne Firesword now understood the answer.

Orodan Wainwright was a warrior. A madman.

When he got down to it, Arvayne Firesword sure knew how to deliver a good beating.

Perhaps it was Agathor’s encouraging comments that had angered the old man?

Either way, the symphony of pure violence and bodily devastation Orodan was now on the receiving end of was quite intense.

Even without an endless gravity core weighing him down to his maximal physical limits, Orodan would be on the losing end of any melee exchange against old man Arvayne Firesword.

The man was a triple-Grandmaster and the Chosen One of Agathor. He was the second-strongest warrior in the entire Republic after Alcianne Rockwood. Orodan at his current level wasn’t quite there yet.

The old man thankfully had a sense of fairness and accommodated his strength to match the self-imposed training handicaps Orodan was using, but it was still a brutal beating and butchery.

“Are your defensive and vitality skills improving? Give me an update,” the old man calmly demanded as he continued hacking Orodan up. “I can increase the speed of my assault if you need.”

“Iron Body is improving quite fast,” Orodan quickly said as his arm was lopped right off but regrew shortly after. “As is Slashing Resistance, but I could use some more beatings and stabbings to improve Impact Resistance and Piercing Resistance.”

Slashing Resistance had increased to level 45, an insane rate of growth as his limbs were constantly lopped off and he was sliced and diced up like a vegetable at a restaurant. Iron Body had improved to 67, approaching the Elite threshold, and most importantly, Regeneration had made a titanic jump to level 51, crossing into the Adept level. This was due to his experimentation and attempts at making the skill do more while being fuelled by less soul energy.

His wounds patched together at terrifying speeds now. At the Grandmaster-level, combatants could launch hundreds of attacks a second, but even the average Grandmaster would have some minor trouble keeping up with Orodan’s regeneration now even if he stood still and simply allowed them to butcher him.

Arvayne wasn’t the average Grandmaster, however. He was the second strongest warrior in the Republic and happily complied with Orodan’s request for more blunt force impacts and more stabbing.

Piercing Resistance and Impact Resistance also increased, to levels 41 and 43 respectively, which were massive jumps as well.

The real reason this training was so effective, was due to the sheer amount of strain he was under due to the endless gravity core making all his muscles feel as though they were about to explode.

Frankly, they were exploding. Whenever he gained a level in Body Tempering, Physical Fitness or Death Rage, his strength would increase, and the pressure would become just slightly more bearable…

…and then Orodan would immediately increase the soul energy he was feeding the core, and the omnidirectional crushing weight would increase to the point that he could barely hold on once more.

It was constant progressive overload. Orodan survived by the absolute narrowest of margins, and he made sure to always remain right near the cusp of death so that he could simultaneously train Dying Struggle too!

Multi-tasking, Orodan called it.

Arvayne Firesword called it masochism, but still gladly helped.

Throughout the entire ordeal, Arvayne Firesword himself had to keep chugging an exorbitant supply of healing potions. It wasn’t for any attacks Orodan himself launched, or rather directly delivered.

It was Warrior’s Reciprocity, and at its current level of 8… it was strong.

The old man was forced to hold himself back lest he actually hurt himself by hitting Orodan too hard. Furthermore, Orodan hadn’t tested it yet, but he had a feeling that even if a blow came his way that completely killed him, it might still be returned with more than twofold the power.

So, if Arvayne Firesword hit Orodan hard enough, the old man might actually manage to kill himself.

Orodan thought it was an unfair victory that wouldn’t necessarily last or have any impact since the time loop would just send him right back in time.

Furthermore, enemies with healing or resurrection abilities such as a phoenix might be able to afford the damage trade. But it still made Orodan feel at least a little proud, knowing that if he got the skill strong enough, he might even be able to kill the Eldritch Avatar if he goaded it into launching the most powerful attack it had.

Not that he’d be alive to see the results of course.

The two of them continued their spar, as Orodan continued gaining levels in various skills. Death Rage, Pain Resistance, Physical Fitness and Shield Mastery. All four of these skills crossed the threshold into the Elite-level, and Orodan now had eight skills that were Elite. This gave him a monstrous amount of battle power as even monstrously talented Elites maybe had five skills at that level at most. He also had other skills soon to cross that threshold.

As his skills improved, Orodan’s battle power continued to steadily increase in the middle of fighting, forcing old man Arvayne to have to ramp up his own level of power in response.

“That Death Rage skill of yours is quite savage, very close to the level of ferocity a Death Roach fights with,” Arvayne spoke as the two continued fighting. “But while your temperament is quite suited for being a warrior, your tactics in combat are somewhat lacking.”

His tactics were lacking?

“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t say you were a bad fighter nor that you’re unskilled. In fact, your level of unpredictable and savage aggression synergizes well with your existing skills,” Arvayne amended while he drank another healing potion to patch up the damage from his own blows returned stronger. “Rather, you simply attack and attack and press forwards like a raging avalanche rolling down a steep mountain. While this isn’t bad… you could try looking at the fight in a broader lens and perhaps using your attacks in a more strategically advantageous manner?”

“What do you mean? Show me.”

And Arvayne did show him.

A furious blitz of attacks from Orodan came the old man’s way, and the Grandmaster simply waited and bided his time, acting defensively.

Then, when Orodan finished with an All-Strike and was at the end of the combo, the Grandmaster suddenly began his.

Furious and aggressive attacks with the great sword that slammed onto him like comets even when he managed to defend, unarmed blows that shattered his bones and pulped entire limbs, and when the great sword connected, Orodan would be dismembered entirely and forced to regenerate as rapidly as he could to stay in the fight.

Just as Orodan got his bearings and was about to mount a defense however, the old man quickly evaded to the side and began launching wind blades of lethal air from a distance, refusing to allow Orodan the time to adapt.

When Orodan thought he was getting a grasp on this new form of assault, Arvayne Firesword then immediately closed the distance, wrestled him to the ground and then began savagely pounding his face into a pulp from a mounted position.

Despite his Wrestling skill, Orodan was forced to tear his own torso in half to get out from underneath the man and then regenerated from one half.

The room looked like a scene out of a poorly regulated butcher’s shop. Orodan’s body parts and blood were strewn everywhere. It was starting to feel somewhat similar to his early loops against that undead Demonic Berserker… and Orodan loved it.

Arvayne drank another healing potion as mutilating Orodan in such a grisly manner had done some decent damage to the old man as well.

“I see what you mean now… it’s not about just using my skills and being aggressive, but also about how I use them,” he said as he used Flash Strike to close the distance and engage Arvayne once more.

“Now you understand. Your Combat Mastery is near the Elite-level yes? Why is it that despite having such incredible combat instincts, reflexes and intuition that you aren’t advancing in it as quickly?” Arvayne asked. “Did you know that career tournament fighters, even at the Adept-level, will often study scrying eye recordings of their opponents and even of their own fights? They’ll sit down and examine openings, observe the patterns in their own fighting styles and sometimes change their approach to a fight in the middle of battle. You already do this instinctively sometimes, which speaks well of your natural combat genius. But it’s time to adopt a more focused approach and truly concentrate on the tactics and patterns of your own style and contrast them against your opponent’s.”

Orodan was grateful for this insight.

While he grew up fighting and would say the act came naturally to him, the thought of closely examining patterns and trends in battle like some sort of tactician never really occurred to him. He might’ve done it instinctively, but not with the focused ardor of a scholar of combat.

But how could he possibly improve his current style of combat? He was a raging volcano, one that would keep attacking and take whatever came his way. But it was difficult to contend with an opponent that was superior in terms of power, skill and durability. Maybe one of the few things Orodan could say he was better in was survivability, but he was otherwise outmatched. And of course, the man hadn’t even tapped into his Avatar form.

“How can I work on improving my combat style?” Orodan found himself asking.

“Well for starters, excuse my crass language, but you blow your load almost immediately when you get a chance,” the Chosen of Agathor explained. “All you’re focused on is attacking. You’re a maniac that fights like he has a death wish. The sheer violence and ferocity of your vicious assault is impressive no doubt. Nothing at the Master-level or below could ever hope to stand up to you… but if you want to improve your combat style, how about reserving your aggression and constant desire for attack? Right now, I can see moments after you launch an All-Strike or a particularly barbaric assault where I can begin my own and cause some serious damage.”

“Are you suggesting… that I fight more conservatively?” Orodan asked, the thought of doing so almost felt antithetical to his very nature.

“Yes. While my lord fights similarly to you, he also guides his godly rage and aggression along the ebbs and flows of combat with divinely perfected skill,” Arvayne explained. “Tactically choosing the best moments to deliver your brutal aggression isn’t cowardice.”

Orodan decided to actually try what the old Firesword suggested.

While he was getting utterly demolished, he attempted to mix his skills in a creative way for once.

Evasiveness was used to avoid a blow, and Orodan stepped to the side and backwards. Arvayne followed with a Lunge… but the rapidly approaching Grandmaster was met with a Shield Throw.

This Shield Throw masked an All-Strike which was summarily blocked, but the sword that carried the All-Strike was simply let go of. And as old Arvayne Firesword’s guard was up high…

…Orodan creatively used Surprise Attack in the middle of a fight to catch his opponent off-guard by going low. As long as the opponent didn’t see an attack coming, it triggered the skill.

His Surprise Attack empowered his movement, and he dashed in low for a double-leg takedown and employed his Wrestling skill to try and bring the old man to the ground.

Arvayne was taking the fight easy and thus was caught by surprise. A titanic boom echoed across the training chamber as Orodan took the old Firesword to the floor with a tremendous slam.

He got on top and began launching a furious barrage of unarmed blows upon the old man. Fingers went for eye gouges, he tried to grab the Grandmaster’s hair, and all the while a quadrupled action increase allowed for multiple arms to rain fists down on him in the same instant of time.

He covered his fists with Weapon Aura and any return blows from the old man underneath were countered by one of his action increase selves using Impregnable Bladewall and applying it to his fists to defend while simultaneously mixing in Perfect Parry at opportune moments.

He ignored the skill level messages and simply kept fighting.

A War Cry roared out from his mouth as he focused like a dog and flared the Eternal Soul Reactor as hard as he could, empowering the endless gravity core and making his body weight quite heavy, adding to the weight which had Arvayne pinned below.

His muscles felt like they would explode, and he felt as though they were being obliterated and reforged to be stronger constantly. Arvayne Firesword’s eyes widened at the assault that took place within the span of a tenth of a second.

And then the old man acted.

A headbutt coming his way was the only thing Orodan saw before he lost vision.

His head utterly destroyed by the force and thanks to his incredible vitality skills he keenly felt his own headless body be thrown like a ragdoll and splatter in an explosion of meat and blood against the reinforced walls of the training chamber… which actually cracked from the force.

Over the course of a full second Orodan completely reformed from the puddle that he was and back into his own body.

Just in time to see Arvayne drop the empty Grandmaster-level healing potion he chugged. The backlash of hitting Orodan so hard had actually wounded the man decently.

“Congratulations, you forced me to get serious,” the old warrior said. “The only person to take me to the ground was Alcianne Rockwood, I guess this makes you the second, even if I was taking it a bit too easy.”

Orodan’s resulting grin of triumph didn’t last for long.

Arvayne could hold quite the grudge.

Moving forward, the training was finally just as harsh and real as Orodan wanted it to be.

His days off on the non-workdays were also cancelled in favor of more training.Like that, an entire month of classes and training had passed.

If a single day of extreme hardship backed by training aids and personal tutelage could lead to such heavy gains, then an entire month allowed him to advance meteorically.

The old man admitted that Orodan now forced him to fight seriously from the get-go.

And while Arvayne could kill Orodan if he went all out, he said that the resulting backlash from killing Orodan might be fatal for him as well thanks to the Warrior’s Reciprocity. He outright admitted he’d have to tap into his Avatar abilities from Agathor to a slight extent if he wanted to kill Orodan without dying himself.

But there were still limits and bottlenecks.

For starters, while he now had a lot of Elite-level skills, the combination of which actually forced old Arvayne Firesword to get serious right away while training him… the slow-down point seemed to be at level 75. Each level past 75 was incredibly slow and took days or sometimes even a week of training.

It came as no surprise to Orodan, but there was no way he could grow meteorically forever. Not within a single loop lasting six months.

Even monstrously talented Master-level individuals took decades to reach the threshold of level 90 in a single skill. An example being Yarostov Iron-Bear up in Guzuhar, who was a Master of the axe by his eighties. The man was considered a prodigy just for that.

Orodan couldn’t just become a Master in a month. Especially not when he was focusing on so many skills all at once.

That he had crossed the Elite threshold and had nineteen Elite-level skills was utterly monstrous and without a doubt made him the single most powerful Elite to have ever walked the world according to Arvayne.

The more skills one had past a certain level, the more they synergized and granted power. A dual-Grandmaster was much stronger than a regular Grandmaster for example. Similarly, a monstrously talented Elite with five skills past level 70, would be much stronger than any regular Elite as the skills synergized if they were combat related.

So, for Orodan who had nineteen skills past 70? Many of which had high rarities? He was an anomaly that could fight two tiers above his own. Who knew how powerful he would become once he crossed 90 in all these skills.

He had grown unfathomably powerful in just a month of guided and focused training of an extreme nature.

Arvayne had then taken him aside and explained to him where he currently stood within the power structure of society.

There was a hierarchy of power even among Grandmasters.

The weakest could be considered the average Grandmaster, such as Kuonthus Vexelthun, the jovial shield-Grandmaster Orodan had met a while ago. Newly advanced and a Grandmaster in a single skill. Orodan had handily surpassed this level by defeating Adeltaj Simarji, who was considered a high-end Grandmaster on the cusp of becoming a dual-Grandmaster.

Then there were dual-Grandmasters, who Arvayne said Orodan was currently on par with. Ilevida Balmento who Orodan helped advance, was formerly one of these. They were incredibly powerful and included the likes of Yallista Arthurius, the headmistress of the schools of chronomancy and telekinesis, and Varna Altamari, one of the old Grandmasters that had aggressively questioned him after his fight with the Dweller Worm and was a part of the Chosen of Ilyatana’s faction.

Above that were Avatars which possessed Master-level Favored. Arvayne cautioned Orodan that while he could survive and defensively fight against one of these weaker Avatars currently, it was still incredibly risky and opened him up to the potential for permanent soul damage. Still, Arvayne looked at Orodan in a complicated manner and admitted that given his outrageous survivability he should now be able to outlast one until the host burned out completely.

Beyond the weaker Avatars, however, were triple-Grandmasters. These exceptionally powerful individuals had lived for many millennia and were often the Chosen Ones of a God, with three Blessings. They included the likes of Arvayne Firesword and Alcianne Rockwood.

A step above them were Chosen One Avatars. Monstrous beings who Arvayne cautioned Orodan to be wary of until he had gotten strong enough. A God descending unto their Chosen was a mighty force indeed.

And beyond that… were World Guardians such as Cyvrosdyr the Eternal Winter and monsters who had reached the triple-Grandmaster level. Even if they didn’t have Blessings or Avatar empowerment, they were utterly fearsome. Monsters who were triple-Grandmasters were far more powerful than their mortal counterparts. These triple-Grandmaster monsters could typically best a Chosen One Avatar in a one-on-one.

That wintry dragon he’d met in the northern continent was far stronger than he appeared. Perhaps the surprise attack of the Eldritch Avatar wasn’t indicative of Cyvrosdyr’s full strength.

Mortal Chosen One Avatars were fearsome enough… but what was truly fearsome was an Avatar that possessed a World Guardian. Currently Sarastuga the Blazing Light – the majestic lion he saw fighting near the end of his loop on Guzuhar – was the only known World Guardian capable of this arrangement. Nobody quite knew which God empowered the lion either.

And of course, there were stronger things in the stars and deep in the Abyssal Depths, one of which Orodan knew was coming near the end of the year. But that was much farther away for the warrior.

Pecking order and his place in it aside, he’d made tremendous gains.

While level 75 was hard to get past, it didn’t stop his existing monstrous talent and ability to pick up new skills and experiment. Arvayne had pressured him incredibly hard, and the result was two skills of excellent rarity.

[New Skill (Exquisite) → Whirlpool Whirlwind 1]

Was one he had acquired after a day of experimentation. It was now at level 38 after the month.

It was a wide area attack that caused lethal force blades to erupt in all directions, even downwards, as he spun continuously while also pulling everything in his vicinity towards him.

He was sure it would be great for pulling enemies inwards to their deaths or dealing with crowds and causing a large area of devastation.

But the other skill was a real difference maker.

[New Skill (Legendary) → Endless Blitz 1]

He’d gained it after a week of experimentation and trying to acquire a skill that allowed for him to chain his attacks endlessly.

The old man’s ability to exploit an opening in Orodan’s attack patterns offended him, so he decided to acquire a skill that would make it so there were no openings to exploit. Energy consumption wasn’t an issue, so he wanted to be able to launch an endless chain of attacks, the momentum of one instantly leading into the other.

He refused to settle for the pathetic Multi-Strike skill, which was of mere Uncommon-rarity, and even the Furious Barrage skill known for being exquisite rarity didn’t appeal to him. He needed something endless. The momentum of one leading into another, an endless blitz.

His desire bore fruit and he created the skill after a week.

It was now level 26 and seriously amplified his battle power.

While it could be used with regular attacks, the real power multiplier was the fact that it could be combined with any other active combat skill.

And Orodan tried combining it with All-Strike.

He tried using it to launch terrifying torrents of the skill towards Arvayne. Unfortunately, the balancing act was the utterly disgusting amount of energy this consumed even with just a tenth of a second of constant usage. And while Orodan’s ability to produce soul energy and fuel the consumption wasn’t an issue, his body’s ability to conduct all that energy was.

He nearly killed himself the first time he unlocked it by trying to continuously launch hundreds of All-Strikes in the span of a second.

Arvayne turned him into a paste of red on the floor to stop him and save Orodan’s life.

But in that second where the action hadn’t even been quadrupled… the old man had actually looked as though he was being pushed back.

But new skills in combat aside, his training with the Grandmaster soul mage Arlin Colton took an interesting turn. On their personal tutoring sessions, the man had brought in a rather dangerous looking spear and decided to stab him with it.

The spear was apparently a divine artifact which Arlin had requested to borrow from the vaults of the Palace of the Council. It was empowered by a small amount of actual divine energy, and it was potent at causing soul damage.

So, for the first time Orodan felt what it was like to have his soul harmed. And it was not comfortable. Not at all.

His vision went blurry, his emotions flew all over the place, and he felt Eternal Soul Reactor’s performance become inconsistent and unstable.

It took an absolutely titanic feat of willpower to rein things back in order, and Orodan made the discovery that Soul Manipulation aided in quickly repairing and recovering from any damage to his soul. So, this was Orodan’s training in the soul, to be continually stabbed in the chest by a strange and dangerous looking spear which didn’t even get past his physical flesh due to his tough body… but it did cause him plenty of harm all the same.

He actually was causing damage to the soul of Arlin Colton every time the man stabbed him with the spear due to Warrior’s Reciprocity, which again proved just how broken the mythical skill was. He offered to hold the skill back from reacting, but the headmaster of soul magic insisted that being poked in return by twofold the power of a soul assaulting divine spear was helping train his own Soul Defense skill.

Eventually, after a few days of suffering he got the message.

[New Skill (Rare) → Soul Defense 1]

It thankfully greatly eased any soul damage he received. Furthermore, he found he could essentially empower it with his soul energy. And given that the amount of soul energy wasn’t any issue for him, the skill quickly gained levels and was now at level 33 after a month of training. It was also far stronger than the skill should be at its current level thanks to his higher quality soul energy.

He also trained with Ilevida Balmento in continuously improving his Psionic Resistance, which was also good training for her as the backlash from assaulting Orodan psionically helped hone her defensive mental skills. Psionic Resistance was now at level 70, an Elite-level skill.

He was confident no Psionic attack would get through to him when fighting the Eldritch Avatar this time.

Combat aside, he also made gains in his crafting skills.

He was notorious across Bluefire now for being a madman who never once slept and simply kept working continuously throughout the night. Students didn’t really approach him anymore, thinking he was either crazy, dangerous or both. Even figures like Elucian Arslan kept their distance after he’d beat up Claridin Rockwood.

Frankly, students were beneath his notice at this point. At some point he might do a loop where he pretended to be a normal student in order to devote more time to the crafts, but even then, socializing with most of them seemed rather tiresome. He was happy to occasionally run into Mahari and have her talk his ear off like the annoying younger sibling he never had.

Additionally, walking around with a constantly empowered endless gravity core in his stomach made situations awkward as he destroyed the floors and caused tremors with each step.

It took receiving an enchanted amulet from the headmistress of the school of gravity to sort the issue and let him go about without destroying the environment, even if the pressure on his own body never lessened. He basically walked around with the weight on at all hours of the day. Which was great training for Physical Fitness, which was now his highest-level skill.

Not being able to eat at all for a whole month due to the gravity core wasn’t as bad as it sounded. He subsisted off of the energies produced by Eternal Soul Reactor. And a few adjustments of his internal musculature each day ensured the gravity core didn’t fall out without his express desire.

His Politics class taught him the Observe skill at last, and Orodan finally understood why people made such a big deal about titles. It was eye-opening to see people’s titles and how they preferred to show off. He didn’t think he would be using it very much, but it was still good to have.

As for his crafting classes.

Blacksmithing went steadily.

Orodan was forced to admit that of all his crafting pursuits, he had the least talent in Blacksmithing. It was only at level 28 after a full month of hammering away. Not that his work ethic and quadruple action increases were lacking, but he wouldn’t be participating in any magical smithing or higher-level crafting in this loop. It would likely take a few loops worth of the academy to get his skill levels up to anything worthwhile. He wasn’t going to be acquiring any Metal Communion skill just yet.

His instructors told him that he was still quite the prodigy for gaining 28 levels in the skill over a mere month, but Orodan felt dissatisfied at the slow progress compared to everything else.

Woodworking went well.

His Woodworking had crossed the Adept-threshold and risen to 51, and his legendary Wood Communion skill was at 44 thanks to the personal tutoring from headmaster Osolon Velrayn of the school of woodworking. He was told he was a decent talent at the craft and to keep at it. With his work ethic he was projected to reach high into the Elite-level over the course of his four years. Additionally, his ability to empower wood near-endlessly using Wood Communion was somewhat unbalancing the economy, and Arvayne told him to cut it out as it was causing him a headache and drawing far too much attention.

He was told to stop assisting Osolon in empowering various hig–level wood products where the only limitation was mana amount. The headmaster of the school of woodworking became a very wealthy man thanks to Orodan and was quite indebted to him even with just the two days of work Orodan had done before he was told to tone it down.

Enchanting was going rather decently too.

The skill now sat at level 34, and the instructors were quite enthralled to see someone with virtually endless mana reserves work on the craft and go from Initiate to Apprentice in only one month. Of course, unlike Alchemy and Woodcrafting this wasn’t something he could just pour mana into endlessly and break ground in. Enchanting was somewhat delicate work which involved etching mana into an object in certain patterns. Whatever he was enchanting could explode if he just wantonly tried to flood it with mana.

He had reached the skill level where a meeting with Master Gormir Eltros was coming up, and Orodan would then ask the man about enchantments that worked using soul energy.

Alchemy, however, was a big one. It increased to level 48 over the month of personal tutelage from headmistress Elona Bursimi! The Grandmaster-Alchemist often dragged Orodan along to help ‘assist’ in making some absurdly powerful potions. He also picked up the Identify skill during his lessons here.

Whatever he helped Master Castillius make was merely scratching the surface. The headmistress of alchemy made potions that were at the Master-level to begin with, and then with Orodan’s help she empowered the potion even further.

Elixirs of youth, potions of time freeze, alchemical poisons which could chew right through the flesh of a Grandmaster monster. These were some of the products he helped the woman create. And even just working on the mana empowerment phase of these potions lead to some massive skill level gains for Orodan. Not to say it was easy, as unlike lower-level potions these often led to Orodan failing to wrap Weapon Aura around the potion in time thereby causing failure. But despite an initial failure here and there the headmistress saw the potential in Orodan’s ludicrous method, which was essentially a ticket to free gold given his endless mana and ability to empower a potion well beyond its intended tier.

It got to a point where Arvayne had to step in and bully the woman when she tried keeping Orodan in her workshop past his allotted alchemy time.

Still, many of the potions he created went to some powerful people, and some of these people wanted to talk to him.

Hence the current conversation he was having with a woman he was explicitly warned to be cautious of. She had just walked in while he was in the midst of alchemy lessons with Elona Bursimi.

“Orodan Wainwright, you’re old Arvayne Firesword’s little protégé aren’t you?” the tall and burly looking old woman asked. “This potion you helped create, do you know what it did?”

“Lady Alcianne, the young man likely doesn’t kn-”

“Come now Elona, I’m here to speak to Orodan Wainwright,” the severe woman interrupted gently. Gentle as it was, it still sounded quite threatening, and the Grandmaster-Alchemist wisely stayed quiet. Alcianne Rockwood then held the potion in her hand and spoke. “I know you didn’t make this yourself, yet this potion would never have been made without your aid, isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know enough about Alchemy to say for certain that whatever you’re holding couldn’t have been made without me,” Orodan replied. “I think that’s a potion of curse-dispelling, isn’t it?”

“That’s correct, it’s a potion of curse-dispelling. I’ve been looking for one powerful enough for a very, very long time,” the Chosen of Halor slowly said. This woman was the strongest individual in the Republic of Aden. Even his benefactor Arvayne Firesword didn’t think he could defeat her. “Tell me, how did you make this?”

“Well, I simply wrapped Weapon Aura around the concoction, accounted for every single ingredient within and continuously poured mana into it past the point where oversaturation occurs while refusing to allow any changes of a negative nature,” Orodan answered. “Surely it’s not that profound to have a powerful potion of curse-dispelling?”

“Even the famed Ilogaji, a dragon alchemist from the Sapphire Gale dragon flight, could not synthesize a Grandmaster potion of curse-dispelling due to lacking enough mana to complete the empowerment all the way,” Alcianne spoke. “If even a dragon – creatures known for having some of the largest mana pools in the world – could not do this, then how did you? Even if your control with Weapon Aura is incredible, the amount of mana the empowerment would require would be incredible.”

“Well, I have a skill th-”

The door was suddenly thrown open, and in walked Arvayne Firesword with an angered but wary expression on his face.

“Rockwood. Why are you approaching my student directly?” the old Firesword furiously asked.

“Firesword, I merely came by to thank this prodigiously talented young man for an incredible act of service he rendered me,” the woman replied. “You chose your student well, from what I hear he’s quite the little monster.”

“Yes, and he’s my student. Do I go and approach the members of your house without going through you?” Arvayne asked “Unless they overstep their bounds and try to bully Ignatius of course.”

The two stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time. Poor Elona Bursimi who just happened to be in the room tutoring Orodan looked quite afraid as the aura of tension between the two became palpable.

Finally, Arvayne’s eyes went to the potion in Alcianne’s hand.

“A Grandmaster potion of curse-dispelling? Don’t tell me…”

“Yes, your little prodigy made something that finally dispelled the curse I was bearing since the formation of our little Republic. I merely came by to give thanks,” she spoke with a smile on her face. “Must you always be so uptight Arvayne?”

The old Firesword simply grunted and only looked slightly guilty in response.

“Was this potion really the only thing that could have cured you?” Orodan asked. “It’s been a hundred and twenty years since the Liberation War, was there really no other way?”

“The only other way would have involved delving into the abyssal depths to try and find a rare talyotus jewel. I’m not venturing down there alone, and the Grandmasters of the Republic aren’t in any rush to enter in a group since the last delve a thousand years ago,” she answered. “When a Grandmaster hex mage uses his most powerful curse on you, recovering from it can be a little complicated.”

“Who was it? Is he still around?”

“You’ll meet him someday if you’re stupid enough to cause trouble near Novar’s Peak. Just don’t go around trashing the city like I did, you’ll find out the hard way why they call him the greatest curse master in history.”

The greatest curse master in history? Surely she didn’t mean… that reincarnator who served as the Novarrian Emperor’s advisor?

“Well, you’ve come here, and you’ve thanked him Alcianne. Was there anything else you wanted?” Arvayne interjected somewhat rudely.

The burly old woman simply rolled her eyes at him as she rose from the chair and approached Orodan.

She laid a hand on his shoulder.

“If you ever get tired of this old stickler, come find me. I’ve heard you and Ilyatana don’t get along, which is fine. Halor has a lot to offer for a warrior like you,” the old warrior said as she removed her hand before Arvayne could get too offended. “If you ever need anything, let me know.”

With those words she left.

“Old man, she really isn’t as bad as you’ve been telling me all this time,” Orodan spoke, and Arvayne had an annoyed look on his face. “She just came by to say thanks, what’s the issue with that?”

“Feh… her house has been causing trouble for mine for a while now,” Arvayne replied. “Just do yourself a favor and give her a wide berth.”

Perhaps they had some sort of bad blood? Even if Arvayne insisted there was no conflict between them the truth might’ve been otherwise. Either way, Orodan didn’t feel like prying, and he bade farewell to Elona and stepped out of the alchemical workshop alongside Arvayne.

“Alright then, I’ll see you in the training chamber tonight.”

“Actually, I was going to suggest that you take a break over the non-workdays,” old man Arvayne replied, and Orodan actually had to take a moment to process that. Arvayne Firesword, who had cancelled his days off each week… was suggesting he take a break? “Don’t look so surprised. Initially, once you showed me your true unhinged nature, I wanted to push you and see how far you’d go. But now that I see you really are an insane lunatic who gets along a little too well with Agathor and enjoys deranged training methods, I’ve learned my lesson. Take a break and enjoy the non-workdays. We have work to do once the next week starts, we’re going to delve into the deep depths for some hunting and practice.”

“Finally! I was wondering why you’d forced me to stay cooped up for a month straight in the academy,” Orodan remarked. “Wouldn’t doing this from the start have been better?”

“Learning in a structured environment and learning through life and death battle are both important parts of growth. Given that this is your first time in an academy despite all the loops you’ve been in, this was an important first month,” Arvayne explained. “Look how monstrous your growth has been in just one month. All the guided training, time dilation and education was incredibly important. I wasn’t about to interrupt that just so we could go traipsing about the depths without building a proper foundation for you first.”

That explanation made sense, but it was good to know he’d finally get to experience a proper fight again. He felt a month was far too long, and the training he had with the old man while good, lacked the risk of death and that rush of pure adrenaline.

“So, I’ve heard about these things called Death Roaches. They’re pretty strong. Can I fight some?”

Arvayne Firesword simply sighed at his young I’s bull-headed desire for battle.

***

“I’m Altaj Ilo Vedharna, it’s good to meet you Mister Wainwright,” the man spoke. “My sister spoke about you; she says you were in the same alchemy class as her. Until circumstances drew you away anyhow.

Dark skinned like his sister, with curly hair. The man also wore heavy armor and had a spear slung across his back. Altaj looked like the image of a stereotypical pegasus knight of the Eastern Kingdoms, it was quite regal.

Next to him stood an armored pegasus with a gold trim. Orodan suspected it was an Elite-level creature. The man himself was waiting at the landing zone of the academy, likely for his sister. The sun was setting and it was evening time.

“Likewise,” Orodan replied. “I may have caused a bit of commotion in the class.”

“A ‘bit’? The name Orodan Wainwright has quickly become the only thing students talk about nowadays,” Altaj spoke. “I’m in my fourth year, and Elucian Arslan has a standing reward out on any information about you. His lackeys are always asking around about Orodan Wainwright. Everyone says you can beat a Grandmaster once Agathor descends unto you, is this true?”

Orodan had learned some restraint and chose not to correct the falsehood that he needed a God’s Avatar powers to beat a Grandmaster. Hells, he could now likely survive one of the weaker Avatars by himself!

“Hmm, so they say,” Orodan replied in a noncommittal manner neither confirming nor denying and allowing Altaj to make whatever assumptions he wanted in his own head. “I’m more curious about you and your pegasus though. Your sister said his name is Ostronor? Do you two train to fight together?”

“I can answer that question,” the pegasus Ostronor interjected with a whinny. “Altaj and I have been battle-brothers for almost a decade now. We’ve been flying together since I was six and he was twelve years old. He’s one of the youngest squires among the pegasus knights.”

“Ostronor… such an introduction is not necessary,” Altaj protested, but with no real heat and then sighed. “It’s as my battle-brother says, we’ve been together for very long. It’s true that I’m something of a talent, but nowhere near yourself though Mister Wainwright. When I heard of you thoroughly humiliating Claridin Rockwood I was quite elated.”

“Oh? Is he a bully? Has he given you or your sister any problems?” Orodan asked. All too happy to swing by and slap him up if he had annoyed Mahari.

“He’s definitely the brash and arrogant sort. While duels technically are between two people and thus I would lose to him by the rules of an official one; I wouldn’t lose to Claridin if Ostronor and I battled together and he was also allowed a mount,” Altaj answered. “That being said, I’m among the top ten strongest students at Bluefire, so Claridin usually leaves me be and instead focuses on any upcoming newer students who he feels will become a challenge down the line. Typically warriors. My sister is thankfully not among them.”

It partly explained why Claridin Rockwood decided to try and antagonize Orodan on his first day. He’d dealt with the sort during his days at the orphanage. Mean, and always trying to establish dominance in order to bring people into their hierarchy where they were at the top.

Of course, Orodan had terrorized all of those ‘mean’ children by showing them what being mean and vicious actually meant. Just as he had with Claridin.

“That’s good. Embarrassing as it would be to lower myself to that level, I didn’t want to give him another beating,” Orodan said, and Altaj shook his head and smiled.

“I’d run him through with my lance and have Ostronor trample him into pulp if he dared lay a hand on Mahari. But your offer is appreciated,” the aspiring pegasus knight replied.

Orodan nodded, and the two made some more small talk as Orodan waited for his griffin at the landing zone. A few minutes later, a brown feathered griffin approached.

“I believe that’s my ride, I’ll be seeing you, Altaj,” Orodan spoke and offered the man a handshake.

“Be careful down there, I’ve heard you’re going delving into the depths… my uncle died to something in the deep depths back home, so I’ll always caution anyone who dares risk the venture,” the man remarked as he took the handshake.

Orodan heeded Altaj’s words of warning, but he truly did want to test himself against whatever horrors were within the deep depths. Warning or not, nothing would stop him from venturing in there at some point. Better that it was now alongside a Grandmaster.

He got atop the griffin, and it took off.

It was sent by Burgher Ignatius to pick him up for the party at the Firesword manor this evening.

The griffin tore through the skies and made it to Trumbetton in good time. Soon it neared the Burgher’s manor which was in the center of town, surrounded by a decent preserve of fields.

The lights were visible from a decent distance, but it was less apparent than the previous social gathering he’d attended at the Verdant Gardens. This was a smaller gathering and not one that was as public as the last.

The griffin touched down on the landing zone of Firesword manor, and he could see Burgher Ignatius Firesword waiting for him already.

“No speeches to drag me into this time Burgher?” Orodan asked light-heartedly as he approached the man and took his offered hand in greeting. “Am I not notorious enough?”

“I’m afraid not Mister Wainwright. I’ve decided to take pity on you, given how much of the limelight you’ve been under at Bluefire,” the Burgher quipped back. “Have you perchance considered not showing up every other student at the academy? It might help remedy the problem of your own making you find yourself in.”

To that, Orodan couldn’t even say anything. The Burgher wasn’t entirely wrong.

“I never asked, but what’s the purpose of this gathering?” Orodan asked as they walked towards the manor entrance, maids and butlers walking about with varying levels of urgency. “You simply contacted me via communications amulet to say that I was expected this evening.”

“We’re simply celebrating the good fortune of our house once more Mister Wainwright, much of it, thanks to you,” the Burgher Ignatius replied. “Trumbetton, and Volarbury county by proxy, have prospered much in the past month since you’ve been making waves. Do you know how many people now flock to the town for commerce? How often they ask after the name Orodan Wainwright?”

“I wasn’t aware of any of that Burgher,” Orodan replied honestly. “I don’t know if the old man told you, but I’ve been training and studying with his assistance for a month straight. No sleep or days off.”

“Indeed, the venerable ancestor did tell me something along those lines. Your lack of being up to date is more than understandable,” the man replied. “Allow me to fill you in a bit. Since you last left, the mine has been cleared till the opening of the energy well and the valuable ore within that chamber is now being mined by our house. It’s some sort of enhanced Dothril which is at least twice as valuable. Our wealth has spiralled upwards as a result.”

“That does sound nice.”

“Indeed! We’ve also secured the rights to the corpse of that dreadful Dweller Worm you slew down there… my earth mages tell me they’re close enough to sense the corpse now,” the Burgher spoke. “I don’t know how you managed to kill that thing, it’s almost the size of a mountain range.”

“A lot of time and patience,” Orodan answered. And a lot of violence too.

“Fascinating, anyhow there are some more people who want to catch up with you,” the Burgher spoke. “Here we have-”

“Mister Wainwright!”

It was Gideon Fusturus, the Elite-level alchemist of House Firesword.

“Or I suppose you could talk to Gideon first, he does seem almost desperate to meet you,” Burgher Ignatius remarked with a smile, not bothered by the interruption.

“Mister Wainwright, you must tell me how you made those potions!” the Elite-alchemist almost begged. “Some of these potions you sent us… an Initiate-level healing potion with the power of an Elite one? You could revolutionize the entire alchemic industry if you shared your method!”

“It’s really not a method that would be applicable to any other alchemist Mister Fusturus… only someone with Weapon Aura and a massive pool of mana could replicate it,” Orodan answered, and then the two got to talking.

Gideon’s face fell at hearing Orodan’s detailed explanation about how he had managed to empower the potions well beyond their natural capacity. But he did appreciate the explanation all the same and asked if Orodan would be willing to help him empower a few before he left for the depths, which Orodan saw no problem with.

“Truly… to think a mere month at the academy has led to you creating such potions and even assisting in the creation of a Grandmaster potion of curse-dispelling,” Gideon muttered. “Incredible. I’m honored to have met you, my friend.”

“Thank you, but I still have a very long way to go before I can concoct any truly powerful potions myself.”

“Which is natural of course, but I’m certain you will get there one day.”

The two spoke some more before a diminutive woman interjected.

“And this is the daring young hero who’s changed the fortunes of your house, Ignatius? Are mana-based enchantments still not good enough for you Mister Wainwright?” asked Helga Firesword who had walked into the conversation.

“I’ll soon be meeting with Master Gormir Eltros to discuss the possibility of soul energy based enchanting, so I have yet to broach the subject.”

“M-master Eltros?! What level even is your Enchanting skill for you to be meeting with him?” Helga asked in surprise. “I didn’t even know you were taking Enchanting lessons at Bluefire.”

“I’m currently at level thirty-four of Enchanting, it’s not much, but I hope to maybe reach level forty by the time of the Inter-Academy Tournament,” Orodan replied, and Helga’s face twisted in shock.

“How… how are you such a monstrous prodigy in everything…” she muttered to herself. “First Alchemy, and then thirty-four levels of Enchanting in a month? What even are you?”

Orodan found himself being asked that question more and more often lately. Maybe from next loop he would be a little less public about his crafting pursuits. One person being so talented in this many fields was perhaps a bit much.

While there were martial specialists and mages who cross-trained and showed genius aptitudes in crafting, it wasn’t to the extent of multiple fields.

Frankly, some more powerful people already suspected or outright knew that he might have a Mythical skill responsible for it. In this loop it was only Agathor’s protection via his Chosen One that kept Orodan from having that meddling Goddess Ilyatana descend upon him.

Orodan spoke to some more people at the gathering.

Geldric Sunfire, one of the Elite retainers was one of them and Orodan apologized for not being free to help the man with any minor issues he may have had. To which the man vehemently protested and informed Orodan that he and his fellows had received some of Orodan’s Elite-level healing potions, and those alone were absolutely valuable treasures for them at their level of work. They were life savers that could heal wounds in an instant and restore a heavily wounded Elite back to near perfect condition within seconds.

Orodan also heard through the social mill that Lady Katareya Eldragon was busy with assisting in the Cathedral’s preparations for the eventual tunnelling down into the energy well, and thus could not attend. However, he was sure to see her in another month when the tunnelling concluded and a joint force of Grandmasters would descend down the well to secure it.

Orodan would naturally be invited to this descending venture as an accompanying aide to Arvayne Firesword.

The old man himself wasn’t in attendance of course, as Grandmasters almost never attended such parties. He was off doing Grandmaster things. Whatever they were, Orodan didn’t know.

Eventually, the night ended and Orodan returned to the Bluefire Academy. He had one more non-workday to enjoy, but in all honesty?

Even this one day off made Orodan restless.

So, he simply decided to focus on assisting Gideon Fusturus and once that was done, training till the work week started and it was time to delve into the deep depths.

Death Roaches and Dweller Worms were among the Grandmaster-level monsters he could potentially encounter deeper down there. And who knew what else was lying in wait, not happy to be disturbed?

It sounded incredibly dangerous, and even Grandmasters would be cautious when going into the lower parts of the deep depths.

To Orodan however, it just sounded like a fun time.

He was looking forward to it.

He mentally pulled up his Status. It had come very far.

[Name: Orodan Wainwright

Age: 17

Title 1: Grandmaster Slayer

Title 2: One Who Has Experienced Death

Title 3: Sword Elite

Available Titles:

Wielder Of A Mythical Skill
Grandmaster Slayer
One Who Has Experienced Death
Sword Elite
Shield Elite
Physical Elite
Unarmed Combat Elite
Combat Elite
Wrestling Elite
Woodworking Adept
Cleaning Apprentice
Alchemy Apprentice
Enchanting Apprentice
Laboring Apprentice,

Rewards:

Permanent +3 Action Increase

Skills:

Eternal Soul Reactor 70 (Elite – Mythical)
Eldritch Resistance 43 (Apprentice – Mythical)
Warrior’s Reciprocity 20 (Initiate – Mythical)

Mana Black Hole 75 (Elite – Legendary)
All-Strike 65 (Adept – Legendary)
Vitality Black Hole 56 (Adept – Legendary)
Mana Resistance 53 (Adept – Legendary)
Wood Communion 44 (Apprentice – Legendary)
Body Tempering 33 (Apprentice – Legendary)
Endless Blitz 26 (Initiate – Legendary)
Fate Disconnect 24 (Initiate – Legendary)
Soul Strengthening 21 (Initiate – Legendary)

Death Rage 77 (Elite – Exquisite)
Iron Body 72 (Elite – Exquisite)
Regeneration 70 (Elite – Exquisite)
Impregnable Bladewall 70 (Elite – Exquisite)
Psionic Resistance 70 (Elite – Exquisite)
Flash Strike 54 (Adept – Exquisite)
Whirlpool Whirlwind 38 (Apprentice – Exquisite)
Vitality Destruction 21 (Initiate – Exquisite)
Lightning Resistance 14 (Initiate – Exquisite)

Weapon Aura 79 (Elite – Rare)
Unyielding Vitality 78 (Elite – Rare)
Soul Manipulation 71 (Elite – Rare)
Slashing Resistance 60 (Adept – Rare)
Piercing Resistance 54 (Adept – Rare)
War Cry 35 (Apprentice – Rare)
Soul Defense 33 (Apprentice – Rare)

Dying Struggle 72 (Elite – Uncommon)
Perfect Parry 68 (Adept – Uncommon)
Evasiveness 62 (Adept – Uncommon)
Shield Throw 62 (Adept – Uncommon)
Power Strike 61 (Adept – Uncommon)
Mana Manipulation 33 (Apprentice – Uncommon)
Fate Reading 31 (Apprentice – Uncommon)

Physical Fitness 80 (Elite)
Unarmed Combat Mastery 77 (Elite)
Sword Mastery 76 (Elite)
Damage Mitigation 76 (Elite)
Combat Mastery 75 (Elite)
Shield Mastery 75 (Elite)
Bleeding Control 75 (Elite)
Pain Resistance 74 (Elite)
Wrestling 71 (Elite)
Impact Resistance 58 (Adept)
Tool Mastery 56 (Adept)
Woodworking 51 (Adept)
Alchemy 48 (Apprentice)
Surprise Attack 41 (Apprentice)
Cleaning 40 (Apprentice)
Sprinting 39 (Apprentice)
Enchanting 34 (Apprentice)
Laboring 31 (Apprentice)
Blacksmithing 28 (Initiate)
Construction 21 (Initiate)
Maintenance 20 (Initiate)
Repair 19 (Initiate)
Club Mastery 15 (Initiate)
Lumberjacking 11 (Initiate)
Parkour 11 (Initiate)
Intimidation 7 (Initiate)
Thievery 6 (Initiate)
Deception 4 (Initiate)
Pathfinding 4 (Initiate)
Observe 3 (Initiate)
Identify 2 (Initiate)

Blessings:

Warrior’s Heart – Increased talent and learning rate for all warrior related skills as determined by Agathor
Warrior’s Quarry – Once you see your target they cannot flee. Your attacks will land on fleeing or evading foes and destiny will bend to ensure you find your mark
Death’s Call – Whenever you will it, Death takes you
Trickster’s Veil – Your Status, fate and soul are impossible to peer into unless you will it]

It would soon be time to test his gains against the deep depths.