When Tybalt blinked his eyes open, he was back in the dark space where the challenge had taken place, lying on his back in the powdery gray soil, staring up at a black sky.

  “What the fuck?” he muttered. The words were partially in reference to him suddenly waking up back here again—but mostly, he felt like that dream had been strangely powerful. A yearning to see the beastgirl again—logically, probably a figment of his imagination—overpowered him for a moment.

  And what about the crying kid? Was that real…?

  Then the sensation was broken.

  “Perhaps I should have warned you,” sounded the angel’s voice from a location Tybalt could not identify, dispelling the events of the dream from the forefront of his mind.

  “Warned me about what?” he asked warily. Something to do with the fox girl?

  “It is not such a terrible problem, if you think about it. But when you acquire a new class, it is set to level zero. You were a classless human at level twenty-five, and you had used up most of your hard-won health, mana, and stamina points over the course of the challenge. Even though I refreshed you and healed your wounds, the numbers had not all recovered to completely full. They would have in a few minutes, but… Anyway, when you gain levels, your increase in health, mana, and stamina is added into your existing pool. Therefore, when you regressed in level, you lost more of your health, mana, and stamina than you had left. Those critical values all dropped to exactly zero instantly, so you passed out until they recovered.”

  What?! Fuck me. Really?

  “Yes, a warning would have been good, then,” Tybalt said curtly.

  He already knew that a person lost consciousness when health or stamina hit zero—sometimes when mana hit zero, too, though not consistently. That usually only meant a headache. Going into the negative in health or stamina without medical treatment was how a person died.

  But he had never heard of anyone so reckless that they saw all three critical values drop to zero at once. Then again, he also had very little information about the other people who had discovered magic towers in the past. He made a note to listen more carefully to these supposed old wives’ tales in the future.

  At least I didn’t die. What a joke that would have been.

  He opened his status.

  I’m back where I was at thirteen years old! was his first thought.

  Wait, I got two classes? was the second.

  He had never thought to hope for that. He had heard of it, in a story he read once about the legendary Dragon Slayer, but that was quasi-mythological. A real life occurrence of double classes was something like a one in a million event, to the point that he didn’t even know what having a second one would mean.

  “I assume you are checking your status,” the very perceptive disembodied voice said. “I hope you are pleased with your bonus class. That was your primary reward for offering a blood sacrifice and achieving above and beyond the norm in the challenge. You will find your study texts on the new classes on the ground beside you, along with the sword from the keep and a storage ring—though it only allows the storage of inorganic matter, I am afraid. Those are bonus prizes.”

  “Well, the first class already makes me an enemy of humanity,” Tybalt said. “Might as well double down with the second class. I think I’m pleased with it. Just need to figure out what being a pestilence mage entails—I’m guessing making people sick.”

  He pushed himself to a sitting position and—ignoring the door leading back to Abadd that had reappeared in the distance—he winced at the unfamiliar feeling of weakness in his arms. He grabbed his bicep and noted that his muscle mass was still there, just very weak as a direct result of the loss of levels.

  All those years of farming, wasted. That was how he had gained his earliest levels as a human. Kur, all those years of killing wasted… and I guess I’ll have to stop using “Kur” as a curse, since the angel all but confirmed that it didn’t exist. Well, it was a dumb idea anyway. On some level, I knew that. If I really believed bad people were tortured for all eternity, would I have lived the life I have?

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  Tybalt sat still for a moment and just reached out with his senses, wiggling his toes, cracking his neck, and checking all parts of his body to see what sort of condition he was in.

  He confirmed that now that he was level zero of “Defiant Necromancer” and “Pestilence Mage,” his body really did feel almost as feeble as that of a thirteen-year-old classless boy, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him. Thankfully, he had not actually regressed in age.

  It’s fine, he told himself. Just need to level up.

  People with classes typically gained significantly more power from each level than the classless, so receding to level zero might actually have been a blessing in disguise. Instead of needing two hundred sixty experience to reach a new level and improve his stats, he only had to gain ten points in each class.

  A thought struck him.

  “Hey, um, angel? How do I gain experience with my classes?”

  “An excellent question. I recommend reading the books for more detail… but I will answer this one, considering it is a question that anyone with a class should know the answer to. Part of the common sense of your world to which you were apparently never exposed. As is the case for anyone with a class, you can gain experience by study, practice, or violent application.” She spoke the second to last word with such relish that Tybalt couldn’t help but be swept along a little in her excitement.

  It’s really true. I really have a class now—two classes! I’m going to be a killing machine. Ma, if you could see me now…

  “In your case, because your classes are aligned to darkness and affiliated with Lord Mudo, ‘evil’ acts will give you more experience than ‘good’ acts,” the angel added. “You can gain experience by converting someone to your side, away from the enemy gods and their human pawns. You can damage the faith in the other gods by various means. You can perform mystical rituals. More specifically to your two classes, you will also gain experience by creating undead—or by your undead killing a target or accomplishing an important task—and by spreading contagions you have created. Does that help?”

  Tybalt nodded. All of that made sense.

  “I have another couple of questions, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  “I will consider answering them,” the angel replied. “We have to promote the growth of the Death God’s champion, after all.”

  “Was the skeleton mage I fought earlier a defiant necromancer too?” he asked.

  Meaning, Will I eventually get abilities like that thing I barely managed to kill by sheer surprise and luck?

  “That is correct, although the proper term for that type of monster is actually lich.”

  “Like one of those things that lives in a river and drinks your blood?”

  “No, that is spelled differently—the specific type of undead is named and spelled in your book. Do you have another, more significant question?” She had become a little impatient, Tybalt observed, and he resolved not to waste any more of the busy creature’s time.

  “This is a location outside space and time, right?” Tybalt asked, gesturing at the area around him. “Does that mean that I can study and practice here without time passing by in the outside world?”

  What does that mean with regard to my dream? The girl wasn’t real, then? Because if this place is outside of space and time, it doesn’t make logical sense that anyone from outside of it would be able to communicate with me.

  “That is correct,” the angel said. “Stay and study to your heart’s content. You will likely never find this location again, unless for some reason Lord Mudo has a strong desire to counsel you. So make the most of it now.”

  “Thank you,” he said. His voice rang with the most genuine gratitude it had carried since he was thirteen.

  “We are not doing you any favors,” the angel replied. “Merely rewarding your victory in the Tower with the opportunity to be of service.”

  Well, rewarding hard work is already more than I expect.

  “Angel, do you know anything about a dream I had while I was unconscious?” Tybalt asked.

  “If I did, I could not share it with you,” she replied in a quieter, more subdued tone.

  “Was it a hostile god trying to make contact with me?” Tybalt asked.

  “If it was, that would be a matter for you to figure out and resolve on your own,” the angel said firmly. “I cannot help you directly right now. Not with problems that originate from outside of this place or Lord Mudo’s realm. I know it probably will not make much sense to you, but there are some rules, even for us. To break them, I would have to get Lord Mudo’s permission, and you do not know what that would mean.”

  “Divine intervention?” Tybalt said, shrugging. “Isn’t that what you’re already doing?”

  “Lord Mudo allows me to place a feather on the scales on his behalf, and the other gods respond in kind—subtle, subdued, contained responses. Moves on a game board that our piece, our defiant necromancer, can hopefully handle with his wits and strength. If I begin simply assisting you with tasks or solving mysteries that pertain to your life outside of this Tower, are you prepared for the whirlwind of divine response that could follow? Are you prepared for the game board you exist on to be overturned, and the players to begin trying to smash each other’s pieces directly?”

  Tybalt swallowed. Maybe not.

  He waited a moment and tried to think if he had any other questions, but most of what he wanted to know was just about his new classes. A thought struck him.

  “Forgetting about telling me stuff about the outside world, is there any chance you can just put some of those bones from earlier back down here?” he asked. The landscape had been completely cleared, but before, there had been hundreds of thousands of bones just lying in piles from all the monsters Tybalt slew.

  Those would be great to practice with, I imagine.

  “I am afraid not. We cannot give you material aid beyond what we have already provided at the moment. You may be able to acquire skills later that would give you some form of divine aid, but it truly is incumbent upon us to be careful.”

  Tybalt shrugged. “I figured, but thought I might as well try.”

  The angel had refused a few of his requests, but the truth was, he had all that he needed.

  Everything was unfolding before him. Power. Revenge. The destruction of all that he hated… With careful planning and hard work, it would all fall within his reach.

  “Another question,” he said. “What was up with this sword?”

  He held up the blade that had been gently glowing all throughout his time in the keep—and full of incredible power during his final confrontation with the lich. Now it had turned to the dull gray of an ordinary iron blade, though Tybalt suspected the edge would still be sharp to the touch if he tested it.

  “I would have thought you would recognize it intuitively, considering what it did during your trial,” the angel replied, a slight teasing edge in her voice. “I wonder when we had our last necromancer who did not recognize he was in the presence of a holy sword…”