You can scribe seals with any medium. Chalk, water, blood or even tea are extremely easy and simple to use materials, but the seals drawn with them might decay even before activation, or shortly after mana starts coursing through them.

  — Excerpt from Comprehensive Introduction to Scribing and Seals

  Day 122, 3:30 PM

  Four days brought me eight levels of hunter, with the ninth permanently out of reach. I had no intention of hunting down the last member of a species just to get a level, not that I had easy access to a near extinct species.

  With hunter finally as leveled up as it can be, I was left with three and a half days before the tournament’s end. My leveling rush netted me thirty-seven attribute points left to distribute, a huge number of skills, and no mandatory classes I planned on taking.

  Three and a half days, huh? I looked at the afternoon sky, slowly sinking towards the horizon. I had Newstar’s realm blueprint to finish. Writing that down would take about two days, and probably several dozen loops, possibly hundreds. That left me with a day and a half, and loops which should end about two weeks from now.

  My pile of money kept dwindling, but I had prepared everything I would need, and the sum I was left with was large enough to kick-start a road to wealth and crafting once I reestablished my realm. It was also more than enough for a loop of decadence in Thunderbluff, in which I would enjoy luxury and waste manarium on pampering myself.

  I went over to the Noble Dragon, the city’s most expensive inn, and ordered a gorgeous, third realm knight to massage me. She wore a mask and nothing else, said not a word to me, but man, could she knead muscles. I didn’t even know my back and shoulders were so knotted from stress, and that was when I realized I really was stressed.

  As days passed, I unwound, my body becoming stronger and more flexible as a result, and I decided I would repeat the experience at some point, in a loop which would stick and in a considerably more decent manner.

  At the end of a fortnight of debauchery, I bashed my own head in, rockstar style, and found myself staring at the sky, sun slowly sinking westward.

  While my body experienced no change, my mind was calmer and more focused. I wanted to take the masseuse class, but it was a fool’s hope, minding not to break those weaker than me would be stressful, and finding those of adequate realm and offering them my services would’ve been weird, if not outright suspicious.

  No, instead of masseuse, I chose the path of a cook, but even that proved difficult. I was already becoming famous. The poor recognized me from the healer work, the wealthy from my arena battles, and most of the craftsmen had seen me around the guilds, and the one thing all those people had in common was that Dandelion shouldn’t be searching for a job as a cook.

  After two days of failing to find work, I returned to Hailstown to witness the end of the tournament and chat with Newstar about his expectations and what he believed his realm should be like.

  “Um, I don’t know.” Much like any kid ever, he had no clue about what he really wanted to achieve. “I want to be stronger.”

  I sighed. That conversation wouldn’t happen. I would redo it, and then what? Would I go crazier? Or could I just treat it like a discussion he had forgotten? Maybe that would help?

  “There are plenty of ways of getting ‘stronger’. You can become faster or heavier or more muscular, each resulting in more powerful blows. You could perfect your weapon techniques, even if dual swords are a poor weapon choice for you.”

  “Why?” he asked, sounding offended.

  “Well, you are using them because they are ancestral weapons, right?”

  Newstar stood there quietly in the middle of the forest, staring into the distance before he nodded.

  “Your weapons are neither here nor there. They are too long and unwieldy for swords, but too short and poorly balanced for combat at medium range. If I had to guess, I would hazard your ancestor wished to use a poleaxe, but did not want to waste all his years of mastering the sword. The spear is also a wrong choice for you, even if it is somewhat better. What you need is something that can both slash and pierce at a range. Anyway, we are straying from the topic. How do you wish to be more powerful? Do you have a specialization in mind, or would you like to make a bunch of smaller improvements, which, when added together, would increase your power considerably?”

  The boy stared blankly. “I don’t have anything special in mind.”

  I held back a sigh and kept pestering him for details about what he wanted out of his realm as we searched for a shelter we could seclude ourselves at near Hailstown.

  I already had all the information before the second loop started, so it was a quiet search, and in the third I found the perfect place. Nobody had followed us for three loops, so using a secret location was an overkill, but maybe someone would pursue me later down the line, and extra caution never hurt anyone.

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  So, with the location settled, and a general idea of what Newstar wanted - balanced growth, it was time to try to become a mageknight. In the fourth loop, I gathered the supplies I found we were lacking, enough for two weeks at least, and got down to business.

  I still kept my interactions with Newstar at the bare minimum, other than follow, stop, and here, I graced him next to no words. Then, once we set our base of operations in the cave, I got to work, settling on a pattern. The first nine days went to developing his realm blueprint, and on the tenth day after the tournament end, I started drawing my suicide seal.

  I needed a certain death in case my mind failed but my body survived, which the books claimed might happen when someone restarted their realm. The injuries involved with losing a core were considerable, so people could have gone mad from pain. I didn’t believe I would succumb to something as basic as pain, but I had no reason to chance it.

  I completed the seal which would explode an hour after being drawn, believing that was enough time for a successful surgery.

  Thank the heavens I don’t have a mindcore. I only had a heartcore, and I needed to separate it from the rest of my body. And cracking my skull open was undoubtedly much more difficult to achieve than simply cracking my ribcage open.

  Redo’s cooldown hit zero, and I slashed my chest, howling in agony before exploding as my controlled incisions went to hell from my twitching arms.

  In the second attempt, I drank a sedative I brewed for myself in the extra days. Once the potion took hold, I opened my chest. Searching for the walnut-sized marble above my heart was the most perverse thing I did in many lives, I think, but I found it. Unfortunately, I had lost too much blood and had to try again.

  A painkiller, plus a potion which reduced my heart rate down to ten beats per minute, plus a blood refresher potion kept me alive for the procedure. I severed the tiny lump, watching myself in a mirror, thankful for my levels of healing, steady hand, and precise hand.

  Still, the scalpel nicked the core, and the fragile orb shattered, so I plunged the scalpel all the way into my heart.

  Next time, the scalpel moved steadily, parting flesh around the core. It was better to give it more space than nick it again, and after an agonizing operation, I did it. I made it on the fourth attempt and held a piece of myself while closing my ribcage back together and drinking a healing potion.

  The core was invisible under the flesh, and after I carefully parted it, I realized it was gone. I cursed and tried again, and again, and again. Failing each time, despite carefully extracting the flesh from my body.

  On the eighth attempt, I scraped a part of flesh so I could see what was happening. My core glowed with a deep metallic light. It mesmerized me as I parted the surrounding tissue, and then I severed the final bit linking me with my core when it shook, then, a moment later, it burst like a bubble.

  I stabbed myself in the heart and returned to Thunderbluff.

  So, it can only exist for a second after I detach it from my body.

  With that hypothesis, I tried again. This time severing my muscles in such a way that I could grasp my heartcore and yank it out once I was done. Even as I pulled, I could feel the heartcore disappearing. I was about to curse and finish myself off when a trickle of red light glowed from my heart.

  I gasped for breath, patched myself up, and tried to meditate. My mind slipped into my realm easily, but instead of the strange world of iron, I found myself in a tiny patch of dust merely a hundred yards across.

  I roared in laughter. “I did it!”

  The euphoria got me, and after torturing myself more than half a dozen times, I achieved my goal, but there was so much more to do. I had to reproduce the feat and make sure it wasn’t a fluke.

  [Name - Dandelion Blackfist

  Class - hunter level 8

  Health 25/25, Strength - 25, Agility - 25, Physique - 25, Wisdom - 25, Intellect - 25, Willpower - 25, Presence - 25, Charisma - 25, Composure - 25

  Abilities - See Abilities for more information.

  Attribute points remaining - 37

  To level up, hunt the final member of a species.

  Statuses - none]

  [Abilities - Expert Appraisal, Initial Forest Ambush, Advanced Looting, Literate, Flawless Heartcore, Initial Mana Gathering, Initial Mana Circulation, Initial Black Fist Arts, Advanced Body Reinforcement, Master Rider, Initial Fast Reader, Initial Reference Checker, Master Calligraphy, Initial Arithmetics, Initial Persuasion, Initial Photographic Memory, Initial Time Optimization, Initial Logical Deduction, Advanced Steady Hand, Initial Eye For Detail, Initial Seal Deconstruction, Initial Seal Prototyping, Expert Staffmanship, Expert Swordsmanship, Expert Spearmanship, Initial Clubmanship, Initial Flailmanship, Advanced Knifemanship, Initial Axmanship, Initial Macemanship, Initial Slingmanship, Advanced Bowmanship, Piercing Weapons Master, Battlefield Mastery, Always Ready, Initial Sense of Danger, Initial Hammer Proficiency, Initial Find Structural Weakness, Initial Rhythm, Initial Endurance, Advanced Herbalism, Expert Healing, Initial Focus, Advanced Woodland Sense, Initial Poison Lore, Initial Precise Hand, Advanced Poison Tolerance, Initial Infer Recipe, Initial Infuse Admixture, Initial Quick Brewer, Initial Bedside Manner, Initial First Aid, Initial Bloodletting, Initial Emergent Care, Initial Lingering Injury Detection, Initial Wilderness Survival, Advanced Tracking, Initial Camouflage, Initial Skinning and Butchering, Initial Trap Detection, Swift Tracking]

  [Anarchist Level 7

  Abilities - Rage, Redo, Blunt, Heavy Handed, Direct, Insightful, Precise, Amicable, Visionary, Godly ??, Gate Sealer ??, Vengeful ?, Grandmaster Rider ?

  To level up, force the authorities to impose justice upon a party they had previously ignored.]