It’s surprisingly easy to book a spot on a local order’s airship. Every order that accepts outsiders into their territory also offers very expensive services, such as alchemical aids, overpriced equipment, and airship transportation.

  — Excerpt from Around the Empire in Two Years

  Day 293, 9:45 AM

  I left Thunderbluff after spending what felt like centuries in the damn place. And that statement wasn’t that far from reality. Less than a year had passed since I had assumed the name Dandelion, and yet, I had spent well over a thousand years reading, practicing, and perfecting my realm.

  I stopped outside the walls and drew a deep, purifying breath. While there were some fine people living in Thunderbluff, I wouldn’t mind never crossing its gates ever again.

  I patted my concealed money sack, not interested in registering it with the adventurers’ guild despite the convenience. Lady Frostgrave had secretly given me a hundred fourth realm crystals before she left. She joked it was her dowry.

  She also promised she would host me once I found my way to the winter kingdoms. Whether she was joking about me entering her harem or not, I couldn’t figure out. I could tell she was interested, but even if it was a joke, it had grown stale quickly, let alone after five hundred-odd repetitions.

  Frankly, I was tired of living. Years passed and nothing happened, while I sacrificed my sanity to optimize my learning.

  I really don’t need to do this. I thought and looked up into the clear blue sky of spring, the weight of Batsy III turned bindle pressing on my shoulder along with the rest of the world. Why do I torment myself like this? Even if I die, I will just start another life - my accumulated knowledge will eventually get me what I want.

  But a cold claw of fear raked at my soul - who said I would keep living life after life for an eternity? It was possible I was living my last chance.

  I burst into laughter.

  “Everyone can say the exact same thing about their one and only life!” I ignored a startled merchant and his nonplussed trudgers and started my long trek towards Glory City.

  Just as I had already learned, repetition was killing me. Killing my mind. I wondered whether it was a personal flaw. Would another human endure what I perceived as mental torture?

  I had reached the point where I had to ask myself something - was it worth it?

  Lady Frostgrave’s answers were valuable, without a doubt, but… But… Were they worth the damage I had suffered? The answer was no. I had grown, even if one didn’t take into account the loop’s other week, during which I practiced runecrafting until I reached the point of enchanting Swiftbeak’s sword with my eyes closed and actively using two opposing spells at the same time instead of simply maintaining them.

  No more redos. I made the decisions for who knew which time and immediately came up with an exception, Unless Newstar needs help.

  He had broken the bloody laws of time and space to help me, the least I could do was take a hit to my sanity to pay him back. And while I had already helped him a bit, it was far from paying back his grace.

  I walked until sunset. It felt like a normal, relaxed stroll, but I had covered over three hundred miles in the ten hours that had passed.

  Nine more days ‘till Glory City, I thought as I stopped by a bubbling stream and soaked my feet in it. An unlucky trout swam past and found itself gutted, rubbed in salt, and skewered above a jolly fire not five minutes later.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The flame crackled and frolicked when rustles came in a half-circle behind me. I counted twelve sets of feet converging on me from various directions.

  “Do we really have to do this?” I asked without turning around. “It’s a nice night. Look, even the fire is happy.”

  “Get ‘im!” The gruff voice issued a suicidal order, leaving me in a pickle as blades scraped against their sheaths.

  I wanted to somersault and get in the middle of them, but that would’ve gotten my half-baked fish dirty, so I twisted left, then jumped, spraying soil next to the fire. The brigands were first and second realm awakened, a gang similar to the one Dandelion Blackfist had led once upon a time, if a bit smaller and humbler.

  Armed with swords and sabers they didn’t really know how to use, three bandits stood before me, then embraced earth with wide arms, their necks broken.

  The bandit leader’s eyes went wide as he realized just how fucked he was, and he turned to run. He was at the third realm, a knight most likely, given his speed, but it meant little. It took all of two minutes for me to snatch them all and kill them without spilling blood.

  I turned my skewered dinner, then cleaned up the surroundings, dumping the trash a hundred yards downwind. The bodies wouldn’t start smelling for a while, but they had ruined the zen moment I was having.

  I ate my fish and hit the road.

  Day 298, 5:00 PM

  Over the course of four lives, I had seen some impressive fortifications, conquered a few, but I had never seen city walls turned into a massive, miles-wide and a hundred yard tall relief. Glory City’s walls were art as much as a marvel of engineering.

  Instead of joining the line of awakened waiting to enter, I strolled around to take in the sight. Left of the gate, a twenty-foot-tall woman was depicted punching a gargantuan terrorwing in the face in what I could freely describe as one of the manliest acts I had ever seen.

  Next to her, two men worked a giant saw to topple a tree, followed by a peasant plowing a field behind a pair of trudgers. The majority were scenes of daily life, including children playing or merchants haggling with customers. After half an hour, I returned to the gate. On the right side of the wide arch, the carving depicted a man hurling what was presumably a bolt of lightning at a roaring dreadwalker.

  I joined the line and waited my turn patiently.

  “The art on the walls is majestic,” I told the guard when I finally arrived before him.

  “Thanks,” he said with a smile that failed to reach his eyes. “First time? You need to go there and wait for them to issue you a permit. Next.”

  He turned to the rest of the line, dismissing my existence. Instead of fooling around and trying to smuggle myself into the city, I followed his directions and sorted out the paperwork in a cramped office built straight into the wall.

  Fifteen minutes and a second realm crystal lighter, I was about to leave the office with a copper card with my name stamped into it and a booklet on the city laws. I paused at the doorstep and looked at the withered old clerk.

  “Do you have the map of the city by any chance?”

  The man squinted at me, probably stunned a third realm mageknight would speak with a commoner more than necessary. “Do you know how big Glory City is, Sir?”

  I had no idea why he asked that. The city had twenty million residents, well over a million of which were awakened, congregating to seek their fortune.

  “Big enough you need a map to find your way around?” I grinned, and the clerk raised a finger to say something else, but he paused.

  “Well, yes, Sir, but we don’t have any. Probably too much work to map it all. Sir may ask in their inn. The innkeeper can provide a guide who knows his way around the city.”

  I could hire a guide, then redo—. The thought came naturally, uninvited, something practiced time and time again. Even if the guide asks for a chest full of gold, it’s not worth a redo.

  The thought of wasting a day or two to familiarize myself with my surroundings hurt, but I wasn’t in a race against time. I repeated the words several times to make myself believe them, despite them most likely being the truth.

  Awakened measured time in decades and centuries not hours.

  “Care to recommend an inn?” I asked not really expecting anything.

  “What is Sir looking for?”

  “Clean, good food, safe.” I considered the matter as I spoke, but that was about it. If I had said some place where everyone minded their own business, I would’ve drawn attention. “Close to the alchemists’ and scribes’ guilds.”

  “I don’t travel that far; haven’t left the gate district in years. But if Sir is looking for something in the district, Sir should visit the Fortunate Son, two blocks over towards the center, just follow the main street. They are a bit pricy, but Marigold’s cooking is worth it.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, I’ll treat you to a meal if we see each other at the inn.”

  “That’s not necessary, Sir,” he said as I left his tiny office. I wanted to give him a tip, but had no idea how much things were worth in the city. Thunderbluff was much more expensive than Hailstown, and Glory City dwarfed them both by a huge margin. For all I knew, the man was paid in manarium. It was unlikely, but not entirely impossible.