But what if we befriended the beast? What if we made them feel like our friend or a member of our family? Wouldn’t they willingly do what we otherwise coax them with resources?

  — Excerpt from The Innovative Approach To Beasttaming

  Day 413, 1:50 PM

  For three weeks, a lingering feeling kept nagging at me, telling me I had become a fad amongst the wealthy of Glory City. Whoever needed a soother needed Dandelion, and no one else would do for their fragile scion. That was until my second satisfied client came to see me.

  “Master Dandelion,” the butler bowed low, presenting a small, bulging pouch. “Young Mistress sends her regards. Your services have helped her gain insight into her realm, and she has advanced to the third realm this morning.”

  Young Mistress, in this case, really was young, merely eighteen years old, and carrying lingering trauma of her childhood she had failed to resolve before advancing into the second realm. Not that unusual, but very dangerous when not handled by the peak layers of the second realm.

  “Nonsense,” I said. “Your young mistress handled most of it alone; a statue could have done the same job as me.”

  The butler smiled, knowing more than one soother had failed to help her, and handed me my reward before taking his leave.

  My words weren’t empty flattery, but more or less true - most awakened handled their childhood nonsense sooner rather than later. Even the young miss in question was only more stubborn and a little deaf when hearing out others, not incurable. As for true trauma, it came from the battlefield, from near-death experiences bearing our souls before us, or a gruesome end of someone we loved.

  Or, in my case, from obsession.

  I checked the reward and confirmed that while I was perhaps a fad amongst noble circles, I was a well-paid fad. One that did good work to help others, so I didn’t mind.

  What I did mind was the sheer number of senior household members listening in on our conversations. While I was at the third realm, my senses, mana sensitivity included, were well into the fifth, and those spying didn’t bother hiding from senses beyond my perceived realm.

  As such, I had spent some time coming up with a new spell seal. It needed to be simple and quick to set up but able to protect my and my patient’s privacy. Trying to overpower those trying to spy was pointless - such seals existed and were both expensive and complex to scribe. So I decided on a completely different approach. I made the seal as simple and frail as possible.

  The point was to make the conversation private, so I wanted to make something to blur our faces and distort our words beyond recognition. Unfortunately, a seal like that quickly became more complex than I intended. Too dynamic. Too expensive.

  I mulled on the idea further while heading for the scribes’ guild. Since my day had cleared up, I could spend extra time in the meditation chamber.

  I entered the main hall, and noticed something different.

  “Why isn’t the wind rustling the leaves in that painting?” I asked, noticing the weirdness.

  “The seal’s busted, Master Dandelion,” Gem said. “They are all normal paintings, but with illusion seals to move the scene within in a natural way.”

  I blinked, looking at the woman. “Gem, you’re a genius.”

  I could make a snapshot of us before the conversation started, and the audio illusion could just repeat a second of what it had received at the start until the illusion dissipates. Since there’s nothing too complicated, the fragility will work as intended, bursting the illusion and letting us know we should stop talking.

  “Naturally, I work for the scribes’ guild,” Gem said, not knowing how much she had just helped me. “The usual?”

  I nodded, paid the woman, and went into the guild where someone had jokingly stuck a piece of paper saying “Dandelion’s room” on the door of the meditation chamber.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Smartass.” I tore off the note, smiling to myself.

  I really had been spending a lot of time in that chamber, rushing through the sculpting of my realm. On the other hand, I found little room for improvement in terms of magical techniques. As for mastering my own body and weapon proficiencies, the notion was preposterous. My natural strength and agility were equal to that granted to me by my realm, and until the enchantment overshadowed them, I had near-perfect control of my body.

  Time passed, and two days later, my self-invented seal was ready.

  “Evening, Master Dandelion,” Gem greeted. “The usual?”

  “Yes, but first, I would like to submit a new seal design.”

  There was no point in keeping my invention a secret. Not submitting it officially would buy me a few days of people wondering at what and how I was doing, but then someone else might claim my work, since every sixth realm and above mageknight would memorize it to a reasonable degree once I drew it in their courtyard, even if I cleaned up the seal afterwards.

  “A new seal? What does it do?” Gem’s eyes sparkled with interest. She was a geek who chose to work for the guild as it allowed her access to the newest and latest runic seals, as well as a direct line to the greatest geniuses on the subject in Glory City.

  “It obscures your conversation and alerts you when someone is trying to listen in.”

  Her excitement visibly deflated. “I know four of those.”

  “Yes, but not like this. It’s much simpler, cheaper to draw, and nobody can infiltrate it. It does, however, require a certain level of mastery of the craft, with a focus on attuning seals to ambient mana.”

  Her look remained skeptical, but she did her job professionally nonetheless. “Wait here. I’ll go inform the guildmaster.”

  Half an hour later, I had submitted my work, and all that was left was to await approval from the higher-ups at the guild headquarters back at the capital, followed by the reward based on how useful they deemed it.

  Satisfied with a problem well solved, I settled down in the meditation chamber and appeared within my realm. With the patience of a man who had spent decades looping through entire libraries, I started working on an abstract metal statue. The smooth, silvery lines of “suppleness” looked almost flowing, as if made of mercury at the point between freezing and melting, like it would run off at any given moment.

  I stepped away from the finished piece, observing the symmetrical runic work within the seal. The sharp lines made me think more of balance than suppleness, but I guess the latter kind of requires the former if you squint at it the right way.

  Next, I was working on a wood seal, shaping a tree with a split bole, each half of the curved trunk forming a semicircle, with them fusing at the top from which branches and leaves shot upwards.

  I found wood very difficult to work with, since you could form way too many seals once you started working. In theory, each bough, branch, and twig could form a rune, or even a complete seal. For the third realm, I decided to stop myself at the larger branches, where I had experimentally found myself stretching the limit of gain versus investment. I was certain that limit would keep changing with higher realms, once I reached the point where I wished to squeeze out every ounce of utility regardless of the cost.

  “I wonder whether this will be enough to consider my realm beyond human ability to create?” The level-up requirement was insane, hopefully with an appropriately overpowered skill reward. And thinking of leveling up mageknight, I considered Anarchist, my primary path. I had given up on advancing my class, but I had discovered a new lead to follow in Glory City.

  If, if the princess confided in me, and I somehow solved her problem - would the seventeenth prince handle the problem I had with Thunderbluff’s Citylord?

  She had robbed me in broad daylight under the veil of imperial punishment, and the authorities were letting her do it - ignoring her. Would the prince stop ignoring her if I helped his daughter and dropped a not-so-subtle hint about how an imperial official had robbed me?

  It was an avenue worth exploring, but the task seemed impossible at the moment. And another task I had was to find information about the Sage’s City tournament. Over the years of reading in the library, I had found mentions of Sage’s Realm, but little else, other than that it was halfway across the empire.

  When was the last time I ate and properly rested? I asked myself as I left the meditation chamber. Certainly, it had a restorative effect, but such magical restoration couldn’t replace natural sleep.

  My next session is at four. I’ll sleep some six hours, freshen up and grab a meal. Young Master Gorebringer seemed embarrassed about discussing his problem, presumably because of the others listening in.

  I did what I could for my body, and went to Young Master Redcotton’s home.

  “Tell me, Master Dandelion, what do you think of claretino?”

  It’s a clear-sounding, piano-like instrument. But that wasn’t what the young man was asking.

  “Unfortunately, Young Master Redcotton, I don’t play instruments, never tried it.”

  “Really? That’s quite a shame considering what a cultured man you are. I must take you to the opera with me…”

  He kept talking, and I dutifully listened, but he was right. I’ve been alive for nobody-knew-how-long, and I didn’t even know how to play a simple shepherd’s flute.

  What else did I miss of life’s simple things?