—Celia—

  Celia felt like she had aged a hundred years during her interview with Kalas Valayan. If she had known what that kid was hiding, she wouldn’t have pacted with him. After all, she knew an endless series of brutal interrogations was sure to follow, and her life would be at risk during each and every one of them.

  Celia kept thinking about his class ranks in choppy intervals.

  (Elemental Magic: Obsidian)

  Obsidian. She had never even seen the color obsidian. No one had—because no one had reached it!

  As an orichalcum rank mage, she had traveled the world, met countless powerful mages, read many historical texts, and spoken to mages who were alive during the age of Great Mages, and the consensus was the same: there were eleven ranks for magical classes, artifacts, and alchemical creations:

  Citrine, peridot, emerald, teal, aquamarine, cerulean, sapphire, periwinkle, amethyst, garnet, and scarlet.

  Scarlet was the requirement to become an “adamantine” requia without the exam. The legendary rank required two scarlet categories, or one scarlet and two garnets, and the mythic rank was a loose vanity title given to the “Great Mages” who disappeared about two hundred years ago.

  Not only did Kalas have two “obsidian” rank classes, but he also had two scarlets, and a slew of garnets, amethysts, and periwinkles. She pulled them up on her Codex.

  Elemental Magic: Obsidian

  Alchemy: Obsidian

  Sigils: Scarlet

  Summoning: Scarlet

  Physical Magic: Garnet

  Inscription: Garnet

  Arraycraft: Garnet

  Divination: Garnet

  …

  Dark Arts: Sapphire.

  And so it went.

  Celia had only seen a few “sigils”—and they were critical to the world. And Kalas had a scarlet rank in them? It was baffling—but she couldn’t even focus on that. Kalas was a scarlet rank summoner! Scarlet rank battle mages could trigger hurricanes and leave two-hundred-meter craters with meteor spells—what the hell could a scarlet rank summoner pull from the gate? A legendary monster? It wasn’t a laughing matter. The possibility was so real and terrifying that she would’ve been within her soul pact’s limitations to subjugate him on behalf of Amia’s safety (assuming she could) if summoning wasn’t just one of his many powerful classes.

  It was just so absurd. So comical. So hilariously disturbing.

  Kalas was a walking calamity of unknown proportions. The only reason that she hadn’t panicked was because of how their interview had ended.

  Forgive me for remaining suspicious, Kalas, but… surely you know you can destroy this city, right?

  He winced. Yeah. There’s not even a ward on this city. This place feels… fragile.

  Fragile… Kalas… Please. Please… before my conscience regrets setting you loose in our city… Who taught you magic? I honestly need to know.

  To her surprise, Kalas extended her soul pact and told her. After he did, she almost wished he hadn't.

  Sleya Gramley.

  Celia sat before a leather-bound tome, staring at a picture of a beautiful redhead standing on a clifftop, overlooking a battlefield. The skies were dark in the background, lightning striking as a hurricane raged in the distance—growing ever closer to the soldiers fighting her.

  Sleya Gramley: The Walking Storm.

  Celia stared at the vibrant white-and-green cloak Sleya wore in the picture and thought of the one Kalas wore. They were almost identical, albeit with different colors.

  “There’s no way…” she muttered.

  Without thinking, she lifted her telephone receiver and slid her finger in the rotary dialer, spinning and releasing it ten times to enter a phone number. It was an automatic action—muscle memory more than anything. Then, she listened to the rolling ring in a far-off trance.

  Her business partner and guildmaster, Manta Groken, answered the phone.

  “This better be good,” he said. “Tarin’s been ripping me a new asshole over the meat shipments.”

  “It is,” Celia muttered, as if to herself. “We need to shut down the gym for a few hours tomorrow. I just scheduled a kid for the ranking test, and we'll need a mythril and a soul pact to test him.”

  “A mythril? Who the hell you testin’?”

  “A requia candidate. When the Governor calls, tell her that Kalas Valayan is under our care.”

  Manta’s voice shifted. “Oh no. One’s bad enough—we’re not doing two.”

  “That’s what I’d say, too, but… Manta. I need you to trust me on this. We need to protect this kid—at any cost.”

  —Kalas—

  Emilia issued me a room in the Wild Boar Adventurer’s Guild, which was generally divided into a tavern, business section, and gym on the first floor, and an inn on the second and third. The keyword was “issued.” Celia gave me a special golden medallion that allowed me to obtain food, board, gym time, and any other service the guild offered for free. The name “Sleya Gramley” changed the way she spoke to me. It was a bit uncomfortable, but my chest also swelled with pride when people revered my master. So I strutted around my room like a proud king, looking around.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The suite dwarfed my cabin bedroom, and the bed was soft as a feather. The most interesting part was the tub near the sink. I twisted the faucet knob left and right to turn the water on and off, fascinated to see the tub fill with water without an array.

  What is this? I wondered. A cauldron?

  I called [inspect] on the tub, and my Codex popped up.

  Name: Bathtub

  Description: Self-filling and draining tub for washing.

  Wait, this is a “bathtub”? I mused. But it’s so tiny…

  I heard about baths from books and stories, but I had never bathed. My aura barrier and purification magic made bathing unnecessary, and my dirt phobia made enjoying hot springs… a process. Otherwise, my skin never became wet—even during a rainstorm. Bathing wasn’t necessary. But I was interested in trying it—

  —at least until I saw how tiny the bath was.

  I suppose Sleya could fit into it… I thought. My eyes traced the interior, and my arm hairs bristled. So much for “cleaning.” It’s disgusting.

  I drew a purification sigil on the tub’s floor, and the yellowing grime on the porcelain and the rust around the drain disappeared in an ambient wave, revealing a pristine white tub with a shiny brass ring at the edge. I felt so much better once it was immaculate. There was just one problem:

  Right… I should avoid the purification spell… I rubbed my head. I need another coin.

  If someone interrogated me about my purification practices, I needed to fall back on an artifact, but I had given mine away. With that in mind, I activated my storage crystal and opened my metalwork chest in search of silver and iron. I expected the chest to have a few extra ingots of gold and silver, but I was grossly mistaken.

  “I snuck some other things in there, too,” huh? I thought, mocking Sleya’s casual remark. There were twelve gold delivery bars (27 pounds a piece), with twelve silver and six platinum bars as well. The addition of copper, iron, tin, and other practical bullion made it both a forge and a treasury—but that was only the beginning. Twelve dark, purplish-gray bars of mythril took up half the chest—more when combined with the four bars of orichalcum, and two five-pound ingots of adamantine bullion. Mythril was famously light, so the twenty-pound bars were the size of large loaves of bread. As for orichalcum, the ten-pound bars were the size of tiny gold ingots—but that was okay. A single drop of it could turn a steel billet into a turquoise equivalent of mythril. Then, there was adamantine. The crimson-silver bars were smaller still, but it wasn’t meant for mass production—it was made for legendary weapons. A thin layer on a blade’s edge would keep any sword sharp—forever.

  I was truly staring at a mythical treasury.

  The grand irony was that selling these metals would probably attract tax officials and criminal investigations (to ensure I didn’t steal them). So while I had an extravagant amount of money, I couldn’t use it—at least without going through ridiculous hoops to sell it. That said, Sleya told me that guilds provided her all the funds she ever needed, so I figured I’d be fine without it.

  But I did like having it. The thought of dropping a twenty pound brick of mythril on someone’s desk mid-argument was the exact type of hubris that kicked off tragedies—

  —I was all about it.

  It made me wonder what other type of palm-rubbing goodies Sleya left in my ward and alchemy chests, but I’d explore those later.

  I quickly retrieved my iron and silver and closed the storage crystal, deciding to return to explore it at a later date. Then, I set to work.

  Melting off a layer of iron, I created a coin with [telekinesis] and cooled it with the [dynamic cooling (metal)] spell. Once my Codex confirmed the coin was room temperature, I let it clank onto the bathroom sink’s counter. Next came the inscription. Using a fountain pen, I scrawled a beautiful runic inscription in a notebook. Then I used [copy blueprint] and [line transposition] to lift the inscription from the page, hovering in the air in pink, glowing lines. Finally, I shrunk the inscription and burned it into the iron coin with a custom burning spell. Inscriptions captured and stored enchantments, so I cast the [golden ripple] enchantment into the coin, making the letters light blue before fading. Lastly, I sealed it with a sealing spell, storing the enchantment. Now, as long as the coin was charged with mana, it would automatically trigger the enchantment when it touched water.

  Nice.

  Inscription complete, I melted silver and layered the coin. Once it cooled, I received a chime from my Codex.

  A transparent screen popped up before my eyes.

  You have successfully created artifact: Golden Ripple Purification Disc.

  Grade: Teal

  I teetered the coin back and forth with my thumb and forefinger. Maybe I should leave one of these at the Governor’s fountain or something…

  I didn’t care how people purified the water—I just wanted them to purify it. With any luck, the coin would be confiscated by corrupt government officials and used for political gain.

  I flicked and caught the coin. I should get something to eat.

  Grabbing my nifty Wild Boar medallion, I meandered downstairs for my free food in the tavern. One flash of the necklace was all it took to get respect from the staff, but the adventurers were too hammered to notice or care.

  I ended up at a long table between two groups of adventurers. The plastered woman on my left was using my shoulder as a pillow, and the man to my right was a human troll who wouldn’t stop laughing and slapping the table after everything anyone said.

  I didn’t mind it, though. I was immersed in the culture, soaking it all in.

  There seemed to be two types of adventurers, the hopefuls and the haggards—and both sat at my table. Directly across from me was a handsome swordsman who had his arm around a flushed archer. The trollish man sat beside me, and the party’s mage was flirting with a woman at another table. This was a hopeful team—youthful and vibrant like me. To my left was another group. They were drunk, tired, and serious—all mumbling attack plans between long swigs of ale. The contrast between the groups was striking, and yet, I also got the impression that they were the same—that the only difference between them was ten years of experience.

  I wondered if Sleya was like that—once upon a time—cheeks flushed with drink, shaking out her ponytail as she recounted tales of killing this beast or that—feeling triumphant and indestructible before hard life experiences drove her to lock herself away, living cask to cask in that cabin above Riaka. That thought stuck with me, gnawing at my brain until my food came—

  And then the trouble began.

  I took one bite of the stew, and it sparked an instant fiasco. I moaned and started shoveling it into my mouth, and hopefuls and haggards alike broke out in a riot.

  “He likes it! Oi! Hand ‘em a beer! See if he likes that, too!”

  Someone thrust a beer in front of me, and I didn’t think twice. The stew was so delicious that I imagined that ale would be the same. I was wrong. Very wrong. I took one gulp before spitting it out, coughing loudly in choking wheezes. I sprayed the swordsman (the one with his arm around the archer), and he yelled, releasing his arm to touch his wet face. He flicked his wrist, foam shooting off his fingers as he scoffed. He was pissed, but the bearish man beside me slapped the table yet again, escalating his obnoxious laugh to a loud guffaw. That laugh was contagious, drawing everyone in as the swordsman’s face purpled with rage. Suddenly, the simple mistake had become a humiliation ritual—

  —and the swordsman wasn't having it.

  “Hey!” He slapped the table and stood. “Do you think this is funny?”

  I didn't, but my wheezing and coughing weren't much different from the man beside me, and there was no way to stop it. Sleya was a master vintner and distiller, an artisan who had (apparently) transformed her profound alcohol addiction into something positive over her long three centuries. I didn't even know how blessed I was until I drank that, whatever that was.

  The swordsman didn't like my pondering silence. “Look at me!” he yelled. “I'm asking you a question.”

  “Ah, come on,” the archer said, looping her arm around his waist. “Let it go.”

  “No!” He shook her off. “You can't just spit on someone and then…” He abruptly trailed off, looking behind me. “Wait. Is that…?”

  The atmosphere shifted. The house was, at one moment, a frenzied cesspool. Loud roaring. Talks of fights. Slapped tables—rattling mugs and cutlery. Then, the whole tavern quieted as their eyes trailed toward someone behind me, someone with an intense and radiating aura I could feel without the slightest bit of mana.

  Adventurers who had gathered around our table to watch the impending fight stepped aside, making way for an adventurer about my age, an athletic woman with golden hair and a nasty scowl.

  It was Sara—and she was pissed.