When considering your spells, remember that diversity is good, but power trumps it. You won’t need five defensive techniques if one of them is superior. You will only use the superior option. Everything else is a waste of time and mana. The same applies for movement, attacks, healing, and any utility spells granted by your element.

  Remember, keep your spell count low, preferably six or less, to achieve maximum proficiency. A spell you haven’t mastered is a waste of time on a battlefield. Worse, it might be a liability.

  — Excerpt from the Basics of Spellcasting

  Day 95, 10:00 AM

  I was munching on pastries similar to meat pies, if meat pies came in bite-sized chunks and very, very oily paper bags. I was taking a break from smithing, heading towards the rumor-house, to see if anything interesting had happened when suddenly the steam rising from my lunch grew more visible.

  Two hundred feet away a crowd fled in all directions from a woman wearing a pale blue shirt, tight, white pants, and a sword hanging from her black belt. The scowling woman had just left the rumor-house and turned straight towards me.

  Droplets of water formed out of thin air around her, freezing before clattering against the ground like tiny pellets of hail. Fern frost formed where her shoes touched the cobblestones, spreading even after she lifted her foot off the ground. She was closing the distance fast. It took her a split second to cover over a hundred and sixty feet, the street between us empty of passersby, and my hands started shaking from the unnatural chill emanating from her. I was certain she would trample or freeze me when a green and gold blot blocked my line of sight.

  “Valiant of the Everfrost Order, control your mana output or we will be forced to take action.” A man and a woman wearing golden armor with green clothes underneath appeared between us. They either teleported or moved so fast I failed to spot their movement, let alone anything else.

  “Five bandits murdered my granddaughter within your city four days ago. Where were you to prevent that crime?” The woman’s tone was icy, her gaze colder, both so frigid they made the frigid air pinching my cheeks seem like a breath of spring in the dead of winter.

  A part of me wanted to escape immediately, another, more bizarre, more insane portion of my psyche wanted to see what would happen. Redo existed for a reason. Everfrost Order was a major organization from the other side of the empire, bordering Wintersweald while her title of valiant meant the icy woman was at the sixth realm.

  “As you well know,” the man of the golden pair said, “we are here to enforce the imperial law amongst higher realmed mageknights, not amongst the younglings. If you have any questions, we can forward them to the city guards.”

  “I have all the answers I need,” the valiant scowled taking a step forward. “I’m going to retrieve scum who slew my kin and make sure they live long, unforgettable lives.”

  The guards reached for their swords, and for a moment I thought that was it. They would fight and I would have to redo, but then the icy aura withdrew. She wasn’t stupid, fighting the imperials was a death sentence, but I had a feeling five certain somebodies would disappear that night.

  A woman after my own taste. I eyed her face and figure. She seemed thirty-five, possibly forty years old, firm, yet slender body. She pressed her thin lips tightly in bottled up anger, while rage twisted her pale features

  “I have calmed down,” she said. I couldn’t quite see the guards’ faces from where I stood, but their hands remained on the pommels of their swords for a long second before letting go. Battles between high realm combatants could start and end in the space of time normal people took to blink, while destroying huge swaths of land, or at least so claimed the books I read.

  The icy valiant disappeared, followed by the guards, and suddenly the street was like nothing had ever happened. The frozen pavement remained the only clue to the narrowly avoided devastation.

  My heart thundered in my chest, the soft sound turned loud by the abrupt and absolute silence as the world started breathing again, and I rushed to the rumor-house to learn everything there was to know.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  An hour later, I walked out of the place with a plan. In nine days, I was killing myself, then going to rescue a young lady who took a shortcut through a dark alley to reach her friends faster. She was attacked by five third realm mages, which just went to show how perverse this world was, possibly every world.

  People gathered information, monitored dark alleys, even watching murder without intervening, seeking potential profit, when guards should be doing it to save lives. And yet, I was saving Flake Frostgrave because I wanted her rich, powerful granny to owe me a favor when she learned of what had happened. Was I a hypocrite?

  I didn’t think so, but I was biased. What I knew for certain was that I would help a victim if I came across them when the crime happened, so I could still claim moral high ground.

  I should redo in four days instead. Knowing what I do, I can speed up leveling blacksmith, and it’s not like I spent time socializing.

  I was a third level blacksmith, but I was certain I could at least hit the fourth by this time next loop. Since I knew the rest of the loop would make little difference, I spent it in a random tavern I would never enter again to wind down.

  Like a rambling madman, I poured my heart out to the bartender, who certainly thought me delusional. But having someone insignificant to talk to and tell them you die and move between worlds, piling up regrets and experiences from each, really helped relieve some of my pressure.

  Just before I would kill myself, I visited the rumor-house to check what new developments have happened during the last four days.

  Valiant Iceflow Frostgrave failed to get her revenge. The killers were found dead in an alley stabbed dozens of times, probably by their superiors trying to remove links between themselves and an enraged and irrational sixth realm mageknight.

  I approved. Sacrificing a tail to save the head was a smart move, probably extremely popular in a world dominated by saurians.

  With no further clues, I walked out, found an empty space where my explosion wouldn’t harm anyone and traveled back to the past.

  Up to the fateful night, I decided to spend my time outwardly doing much the same things, tinkering in the blacksmiths’ guild. As expected, knowing the proper tempering technique saved me a whole lot of time. Unfortunately, there was little I could do to speed up the process of repairing fifteen sets of damaged equipment needed to hit level three. I only saved two hours there, knowing that bending and fixing horseshoes didn’t count.

  The skill choices for blacksmiths were weird. I had a choice between Initial Haggle and Advanced Appraisal, picking the latter. Level three options were Initial Find Structural Weakness and Initial Metal Mending. Fourth was even stranger, Initial Rhythm and Initial Sketching.

  Mending metal and sketching seemed useless, so I didn’t take those, and it was already day ninety, Flake Frostgrave’s murder less than twenty hours away.

  The requirement to reach the fifth level was to work at the forge for forty-eight hours without stopping, so I picked up my horseshoes and a long steel python, heading to talk with the guildmaster.

  “Good evening.” I knocked on the open door of his private workstation.

  The man sat, staring murder at a melon-sized lump of black metal, at half past two in the morning. He shifted his glare from the innocent hunk of ore to me then to the gear I brought.

  “What do you want?” he growled in his normal, “friendly” tone.

  I hefted the horseshoes. “Sometimes changing the line of thought can get you out of the proverbial mud you got stuck in. How about relaxing a bit and trying these out with me? Who knows, it might help.”

  His scowl heralded a torrent of curses, but charisma and Amicable exerted themselves over him, and he sighed. “Fine. Let’s go play with your little metal trinkets. How do you play that game?”

  Normal horseshoe throwing plays at forty, maybe fifty feet if you’re good. For the two of us, I set the target at two hundred feet.

  “The goal is to land more of these horseshoes around the stake than I do.” I simplified the rules. “Now, watch me, you keep the horseshoe parallel to the ground, a full arm’s length away…”

  We played a game, I hit the target twice, while the guildmaster banged the stake thrice, but his shoes just bounced off. Then we played another and another, as the man got a hang of it.

  Two hundred feet was possibly overly ambitious, but given enhanced bodies, minds, mana, and everything else, I don’t think it was much harder than a regular game for normal, non-awakened people.

  “Thanks.” The guildmaster clapped me on the shoulder, surprised I didn’t just topple over. “You’re stronger than you look, and this game of yours isn’t half bad.”

  I was about to cock an eyebrow and tell him he doesn’t have to play if he doesn’t want to, but he kept talking. “You can leave the pieces on that shelf over there. I’ll give you credit for the steel you used on them.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you, sir. Do you know whether there’s a place that has good wine or beer? I’m not into stronger stuff.”

  He snorted, but that was easy for him to do. I drank poisons which would make his guts churn less than two hundred years ago, which completely killed any lingering sentiment towards more potent liquor.

  “There’s the Prancing Boney on Elm street, I grab a pint there from time to time, then there’s…”