Wulf spun to face the figure at the door. He held his hands up, ready to react to an attack, and ready to run. It was dark, with the sun having nearly entirely set, and whoever was there might not have seen his face.

  Then she lit a candle and held it out, and light flooded out into the lab.

  “You’re jumpy. Don’t worry, I won’t snitch on you.”

  “...Kalee?” Wulf whispered. He squinted. It was unmistakably her, even in the flickering light. She had the same face, same hair, everything—except that now, she was wearing a regular academy uniform.

  “Wulf?” she whispered.

  Wulf stepped back and rubbed his forehead. “What are you doing here?” he hissed.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You first.”

  “I caught you, so you first,” she whispered.

  Wulf narrowed his eyes. “Fine.” He held up the spatial storage pendant. “Stealing some lab waste. Now you.”

  She tilted her head toward the cabinets on the other side of the room. “Materials.”

  “You’re a Mage.” Wulf stared at her blankly.

  “And you’re a Pilot, no?”

  He squinted. “I never said that.”

  “Well, I guessed it, and you haven’t argued. Am I wrong?”

  “Depends.” He lowered his arms, then stepped closer and blew out her candle. “You’re gonna get us caught.”

  “Could’ve just told me to blow out the candle.”

  He ignored the comment. “What sort of Mage are you, then?”

  There was something off about her. She could’ve just been weird, but…she wasn’t weird in the way that’d make him think she was just crazy. But just…not quite right. More experienced than she let on, and more experienced than a nineteen-year-old Academy student ought to be. Perhaps she had a rough life before this, but she was a martial artist, not just a scrappy street fighter.

  “If I tell you my class, and you swear on the Field to keep it secret, then will you tell me yours? A Field pact,” Wulf said. He held up his arm and showed her his Bracer. They weren’t told this so early on in their degrees, but an Ascendant could use the Field to make binding promises, and it’d force them to keep them.

  If she agreed, or understood what he meant…what would that say about a farmgirl? She shouldn’t have had any knowledge of the Field.

  She raised her own bracer, and angling her sheet of enchanted parchment out, said, “I swear on the Field to tell you my Class if you tell me yours.”

  Wulf grasped her hand, then said, “I swear on the Field to tell you my Class.” He pushed intent through it, into the Field, and resonated it with his will. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that, and it came easily.

  Both of their sheets of enchanted parchment swirled with ink, and a message scrawled across both of their sheets:

  [Field Pact detected.]

  [Field Pact sealed.]

  As an experiment, to see if it worked, Wulf contemplated not saying anything, but a compulsion overcame him, and he said, “My Class is unique. Fate Alchemist.”

  “Consumption Mage,” Kalee said. “Unique as well.”

  Wulf narrowed his eyes. “When’d you get that Class? And how’d you know how to form a Field Pact?”

  She hesitated, then said, “When I was…eighteen?”

  Wulf immediately rolled his eyes. “This is going to sound insane, but…” Oh, to the hells with it. This was already shaping up to be a crazy day, and to think that he’d just met her only this morning. But mincing words was for the unconfident and meek. “How does a farmgirl know that, hm?”

  “How does a farmboy from the middle of nowhere end up with an alchemist class?” She crossed her arms. “How does a farmboy like you know how to fight at all?”

  “There were some absolute demons of fighters back home.”

  At that word, her eyes widened. But…there was something else. Confusion, sorrow, rage. Everything Wulf felt.

  “Demons mean something to you?” he asked.

  “Back at you.”

  They were dancing in circles, but he was starting to suspect…

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Next insane thing, then,” Wulf began. “And properly insane. You wouldn’t happen to be from the future, would you?”

  Kalee swallowed, then set her unlit candle down on the lab table and hunched over. “Ah, out with it, then. The Field sent you back in time, too? You fought the demons?”

  “Yeah. I saw a Messenger. Right before the end of the world.” He crossed his arms. “I thought I was the only one.”

  “So did I.” She rose up on the claws of her feet, then dropped back down. “You saw it, then? The world…destroyed?” Her lower lip began quivering, but she wrenched it under control quickly.

  “Yeah.”

  Just saying that brought back memories of the end. His hands shuddered, and an image of the columns of magma bursting through the crust flashed in his mind. He purged it immediately. He was here to stop that.

  “You think it’s just us?” Wulf whispered.

  “Eighty two years, in total,” Kalee said. “That’s how much time it rewinded for us both. And that’s the same time the Golden Tome says the Fieldfather spent questing around the world, supposedly creating the Field.”

  “Coincidence?”

  “You know the Field doesn’t work in coincidences. Numbers and rankings are its most important structures.”

  “So we’re the only ones, then.”

  Kalee nodded, then turned her back. “Look, I have my charge. You probably have something for yourself. Let’s not cause each other problems.”

  “Agreed,” Wulf said. “You agree to keep this quiet?”

  “I agree.”

  He doubted they’d need a Field Pact for that one. Whatever her Class was, it didn’t sound like a pure Mage, either, and she’d want to keep it quiet. They had leverage on each other, and they had to keep their mouths shut.

  “Then…I’ll be on my way,” he said. “If you don’t mess with me, I won’t mess with you.”

  She nodded, and he nodded back. Curiosity gnawed at him, but he didn’t want to push his luck. He didn’t know her, he hadn’t met her in his past life, and he didn’t need to cause any problems—he already had one of the most powerful guilds in Istalis pissed at him.

  Clutching his storage pendant tight, he walked out of the lab and turned out into the hallway. To keep suspicions low, he tucked the pendant into his shirt before he reached the stairs, and when he reached the bottom, he fastened his rank pin to his shirt again.

  When he stepped out of the Artificers’ lab complex, his bracer tingled with the telltale feeling of the Field interacting with it—interacting without his express intent.

  He leaned against a post with a hanging lantern at the side of the path, and held his bracer up to the light. The ink shifted into position on the page, altering its position to read:

  [Mark unlocked: Spatial Awareness and Repurposing.]

  Wulf chuckled. The academy scholars liked to make gaining Marks sound more difficult than it was. For them, it was a process that could be codified, manipulated, and exploited. And to a certain extent, it was. But, as Master Arnau had explained to him, it didn’t work as well as just doing things. Testing yourself, pushing your limits, and trying new things. Slaying monsters well above your tier, for one thing. Or making things you weren’t supposed to.

  Wulf concentrated on the feeling of the Mark and pushed mana into his bracer, willing the Field to show him the Mark.

  [Spatial Awareness and Repurposing] You have repurposed a magic device at least one tier higher than yours. Your awareness of nearby alchemical herbs has increased, and you can seek them out better.

  Awareness of herbs? Wulf tilted his head. He didn’t feel any smarter, and he certainly hadn’t just learned anything more about botany, but something felt slightly different in his mind. He tapped the side of his head and rubbed his eyes.

  In the distance, across the rolling fields between the buildings of the campus, was a faint green glow. It’d be barely noticeable in the daytime, but at night, it was unmistakable.

  He lowered his arm and set off toward it, disregarding the path. The grass scratched his ankles, but it was well-kept, and he didn’t have to worry about any thorns.

  As he walked, he reached for his spatial pendant and clasped it with his hand. In the excitement of making it, and the confusion of realizing what Kalee was, he hadn’t even thought to examine how strong the pendant was—not until the Field had awarded him a Mark for finishing it.

  Inactive Arcane Construct: Spatial Storage Pendant (High-Coal Quality)

  A pendant whose maker couldn’t see its potential. Opens a 5-foot by 10-foot rift in space, and stores objects inside. Objects can be removed at any time.

  High-Coal. Not as high as he was hoping, but he still couldn’t complain. Besides, if he found an actual Artificer for his team, he could have them redo the runes or upgrade it—if he ever got that far.

  When he reached the top of the hill, the glowing patch of grass was right in front of him. It barely glowed anymore, and even with his Mark, he doubted he’d have been able to tell the difference up close.

  He bent down and wrapped his hand around the stems of the grass. It was just a regular patch, like the other grasses across the campus, except—for some reason—the Field had taken a liking to it.

  Wulf assessed it with his enchanted paper:

  Dr. Jerrol’s Fescue Grass (Middle-Wood Quality)

  A failed experiment by an eccentric professor of ages past. No effect.

  But ‘no effect’ only meant it didn’t have an effect on its own. In a potion…well, he didn’t know what exactly it would do, but he needed some more ingredients, anyway. A grass potion might not have been powerful in the hands of a regular alchemist, but he could make it work, and there was enough grass here to make many more potions.

  If anyone had been watching, he’d probably have looked like a madman, just ripping up grass in the middle of a field and stuffing it into his pockets, but no one was watching.

  Once he’d ripped up most of the grass and pocketed it, he stood up, wiped his hands on his pants, and returned to the dorms. On his way upstairs, he filled his canteen and empty flask with more water.

  He entered his room as soon as Ján was leaving it, and for a second, they both stopped and stared at each other. Finally, Ján said, “Why’s there grass in your pockets?”

  Wulf cleared his throat. “Uh…n—no reason.”

  Ján sighed. “I changed my mind. You’re weirder than I thought. But Brin, Irmond and I will still be hanging out in the common room. You can join us—as long as you don’t start any more fights.”

  Wulf nodded. He was too tired to work on potions for the night, and he needed to rest. But first, he took a small sip of the sleep potion, then used his aura to trigger the pendant and open it.

  He only had a few seconds, but he shovelled his stolen equipment into the pocket realm, then dumped the ripped-up grass in a heap at the center. He hadn’t provided the pendant much fuel, and a moment later, the runes sputtered out. He pulled his arms back before they got caught in the middle of interdimensional space.

  For now, he had a good start. He had enough of the sleep potion left to open the storage pendant again if he needed, he had enough materials to make at least fifteen more potions, maybe twenty if he spread it out, and he knew how to make basic potions.

  Kalee was a wildcard, for sure, but he could worry about that later.

  For now, he was on the right track, and that was all that mattered.