“Welcome to my castle!” Amity shouted as she jumped from me and landed in front of me, arms wide. I looked around.

  The room was massive, in all directions. There was a pair of massive doors in one of the walls, while the others were filled to the top with small crystals that would fit in my hand if I were to take some off. Floating in the air were yellow crystals that emitted light, casting the room in a warm, bright light that caused the least amount of shadows as possible, other than that, the room was completely empty.

  “It’s… interesting?” I said, not really knowing what this room was about.

  “I know, right?” She said, nodding. “I keep the coordinates for a lot of places here. I only know the coordinates to my castle and to Athor’s from the top of my head, so I had it made!”

  She then started rummaging through the crystals, poking each one with a finger before moving to the next one. “Now, I just need to find it.”

  I looked at her, then at the rest of the room. We would be there for a least five days, judging by the speed she was going and the sheer size of the room.

  Before I could do anything, though, the doors to the room opened. I looked at them and saw two tiny green-skinned creatures wearing a suit pushing the doors. Behind them, there was a woman with pale cyan skin and a purplish cyan dress. She had long hair that seemed to float through the air.

  “Lady Amity,” the woman said, her voice barely louder than a whisper that seemed to echo through the room. Se floated towards Amity, her feet never once touching the ground as she slid through the air with elegance.

  The two green-skinned creatures rushed behind her, tumbling on their own feet, in a complete opposite image of the elegance shown by the woman.

  “Iridia!” Amity shouted and rushed to her, hugging her and giving her a spin. Iridia was not amused.

  “I thought you said you had a mission from Athorisnamor. It’s been just three days, have you forgotten about it already?” She asked Amity once she was placed back on the ground, or rather, floating off the ground.

  “Besides, Lady Amity.” She started, looking at me before looking back at Amity. “I ask you to stop bringing in strays, no matter how cute or adorable you may find them. The castle is already full at the moment.”

  Should I be embarrassed, angry, or what? What was happening, exactly?

  “No, no, no, Iridia. You got it all wrong!” Amity shook her head vigorously. “You see, I finished the favor. He is what I was looking for!”

  Amity pointed her finger at me, then Iridia looked at me and studied me with her eyes, looking me from the tip of my horns to the end of my tail.

  “I wouldn’t understand what the Dragon King would want with such a whelp,” she said, turning back towards Amity. “Are you certain they are the one Athorisnamor is looking for? The last time you were certain of something, you came back crying because it wasn’t it.”

  “No, no, no. It’s nothing like that time. This one I’m sure. Tell her, Denaru.” Amity looked at me with pleading eyes. Iridia then turned her gaze back at me.

  “Uhmm. Yes, she was looking for something I accidentally did.” I scratched the side of my snout as I averted my gaze a little.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Iridia said, ignoring me again. “When you come back crying because you were deceived again, I will tell you that I warned you.”

  While the two of them were speaking, the two green-skinned creatures came to me and were poking me. I looked at them and used a skill I hadn’t used in a long, long time.

  [Goblin - Level 35]

  [Goblin - Level 21]

  Figured. I was sure they were goblins, but couldn’t be certain. The goblins for sure felt my [Appraisal], as each of them stiffened when I used it, before making some weird sounds and hitting me on my leg. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt. I wasn’t sure if it was because they weren’t being serious, they were higher level than me, or because they were just that weak.

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  I was about to do the same with Iridia, but something in the back of my mind told me not to try it, and I decided to follow it. It has been a very long time, but if my memory is correct, when I tried to use [Appraisal] on Farahio, it didn’t work. From what I was feeling from Iridia’s presence alone, she was stronger than Farahio.

  “Very well,” Iridia said after talking with Amity for a while. “While you search for the location crystal you wish, I shall take care of the whelp.”

  “Thank you, Iridia!” Amity smiled at her. Iridia gave me one glance more, and I felt chills running down my spine.

  Amity went back to the crystals, and Iridia floated her way to me.

  “Hi,” I said. I wasn’t sure what to say, her face showed no emotions whatsoever.

  “Greetings,” She said, bowing a little. “I am Iridia, headmaster and overseer of Lady Amity’s castle. Lady Amity has informed me of your… ‘situation’. While you’re here, you shall be treated as a guest. If you follow me, I will show you to your room.”

  I followed her as she glided through the air. The goblins rushed ahead, opening the enormous doors once more for us to pass through. Outside the room was a corridor filled with potted plants, paintings, and sofas on the right side. The left side of the corridor was a wall entirely made out of glass, allowing me to see outside of the castle.

  I could see hundreds of colorful flowers making beautiful patterns on the ground. There was also a small stream that cut through the landscape, and little bridges were built on top of it. It was a beautiful sight, one that almost made me not notice it wasn’t a random pattern of flowers. It was a massive rune system. Even the bridges and the stream were part of it.

  “Amazing,” I said absentmindedly. The sheer amount of care that went into designing and building it was enormous, just by the size of the pattern itself. The whole thing was bigger than several football fields combined, and every part of it was just as detailed.

  “I see you have the mind to notice it,” Iridia said, gliding more slowly as she looked out the windows to the same place where I was looking at. “Many of the strays Lady Amity brings don’t know how to appreciate it.”

  “How long did it take to build?” I asked.

  “It was a personal project of mine, only working on it when I wasn’t busy with other matters of the castle. It took one thousand, five hundred and seventy-two years to finish everything and make sure the magic worked as intended.”

  I looked at her. Now that I was closer to her, I could note her pointed ears and black sclera with cyan iris.

  “If it isn’t disrespectful, what species are you?” I ask. I was curious since she entered the room, I was teleported into.

  “I am a Sylph, a greater wind spirit,” Iridia answered, then went back gliding her way through the corridor.

  [Sylphs are greater elemental spirits, creatures born from the unbound flow of wind charged magicules and spiritual particles from the Spiritual Ream. Sylphs often manifest as feminine humanoid figures wrapped in radiant cyan hues. Sylphs are fully sentient and independent, but often choose to act as natural guardians of powerful wind-aligned locations]

  The rest of the way passed in silence, with me just admiring the plants and the architecture of Amity’s castle. At first glance, it felt like a maze, but after walking through it a bit more, I noticed that it wasn’t that. It was more like the structure of wind itself. The corridors never had a sharp angle, only smooth curves and pathways. There was even a gentle breeze flowing through the corridors that left the castle just a bit cold, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable.

  We arrived at a larger-than-normal door, which one of the goblins who were still following us stumbled forward to open it. Iridia entered first, with me following a second after her.

  The moment I looked at my surroundings, I stopped. Forget every place I had ever slept in since my reincarnation, this place beat all of them combined and still would have a large margin left.

  The bed itself was at least five meters by five meters, and it was directly built into the ground. The ceiling was entirely made out of some form of crystal that flowed gently. There was an entire wall made out of mirrors with a table in front of it. Another wall was made out of plants, and had five streams of falling water that came out of a hole in the ceiling and gathered in a marble bowl attached to the wall. There were two more doors and a giant window to another part of the castle. It looked like some sort of training ground, with more goblins there punching, kicking, biting, and throwing themselves at one another.

  “The doors lead to a bathroom and to a closet,” Iridia pointed to each of the doors as she said it, then glided to the entrance door. “Dinner will be served in five hours. One of the goblin attendants will come get you.”

  With that, they exit the room and close the door, leaving me alone. The first thing I did was check the bathroom and, oh boy, what a bathroom. It was just as big as the room itself, and instead of a shower or anything of the sort, they had a freaking pool inside it.

  A small waterfall in the middle of the room fell right in the middle of the pool. Looking near the door, I saw some colored crystals and the runes for fire and ice on top of them. Touching the crystal for fire, the waterfall in the middle started releasing steam as it fell into the pool.

  “...I think I got spoiled. I want to live in this room.”

  There wasn’t much to do as Amity was taking her sweet time looking for the teleportation coordinates, so I let myself be guided by my instincts and entered the water. It was cold, but I could feel it warming up as the waterfall heated the pool up. The water itself felt magical as I could feel all my anxiety, stress, and fatigue melt away into the water.

  Eventually, I fell asleep inside the pool.