Where to begin? If you are reading this, you already know some of my secrets, so I won’t commit them to paper, just in case the impossible happens and the forces I don’t wish to know them somehow get their hands on this book. Remember, being extra careful always, ALWAYS pays off.

  — Excerpt from Notes For Newstar

  Day 463, 7:30 PM

  The library naturally offered little insight into how to deal with someone who could one day potentially fall under the sway of apocalyptic beings trying to devour the world. What it did offer were insights on how to treat patients suffering from the trauma of meeting impossibly strong foes, because that’s what fighting someone two realms above you usually meant.

  Apparently, sometimes, heroes survived the wiping out of their clan, witnessing the ultimate power of the fifth or fourth realm as a child, and unsurprisingly, those events left their fair share of scars. More often than not, they became demons of vengeance, faltering once they achieved it.

  As for my task, it was difficult to perform, but not impossible. What made it impossible was the fact I didn’t dare complete it before reaching the eighth realm, or preferably the ninth. Then the princess wouldn’t dare make an enemy out of me just for knowing her secret. Still, I believed I had learned enough to give her hope and inspire confidence without accidentally healing her.

  As for what would happen once I reached the eighth or ninth realm, that was a matter a thousand years older me would have to consider. Quite possibly more than one thousand years older.

  I closed my eyes, drew a breath, and centered myself in the present. The future fallout one thousand years away was irrelevant for now. The loops clouding my mind weren’t bad. Mostly reading and default conversations with a very professional librarian.

  Yes, I know who I am and where I am. Now, time for two weeks without redo’s shield.

  I went to the scribes’ guild, worked a bit - more to improve my proficiency than to earn bread, and then went to the prohibitively expensive meditation room.

  “Master Dandelion,” Gem, the desk clerk, said in a more formal voice than usual, “I have a letter for you.”

  She handed me an envelope sealed with the crest of the Helmsworths.

  “Thank you.” I opened it right there, in case it was an emergency, only to find an invitation to a ball.

  Huh? I missed a ball when I locked myself up in the library.

  Naturally, I knew how to dance. I’ve greatly enjoyed the activity with Manny once upon a time. As for the Eternal Light Empire’s dances, I haven’t had the pleasure.

  “Gem,” I asked the woman after scanning the invitation. “I have a strange question, but do you know where I can find a dance instructor? I don’t need anything overly fancy, just the basics, so I don’t make a buffoon of myself.”

  The peak second realm mage looked at me and fluttered her eyelashes.

  “Sorry, not interested in that,” I said. “I really need someone who can dance, just to dance.”

  She cleared her throat, and her face went back to neutral with a hint of disappointment in her eyes. “I am a good dancer, and I can help if you’re interested in not making a buffoon of yourself, Master Dandelion. As for a master of dance, I don’t even know if there is such a thing. Check the rumor house if you’re looking for someone special.”

  I considered it, but I was an outsider invited to a noble social event. Even if I had a reputation for some level of mastery in just about anything anyone asked, overshadowing young, prideful nobles in their own game sounded like a recipe for making enemies and losing friends.

  “Just the basics are fine,” I told her with a smile. “And, as I said, just dancing. I can treat you to lunch to compensate you.”

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  “How about you answer my questions about runes and seals for the length of one lunch? Including travel time and waiting for food.” She stared at me hopefully.

  The trade was nowhere near balanced, my instruction time and the topic countless times more valuable, but I chuckled.

  “Sure. You know you’re robbing me, right?”

  She straightened behind her desk. “We’re exchanging knowledge, and since you have agreed, it can’t be too bad of a bargain for you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “When are you available?”

  “My shift ends in two hours, and there’s nobody in the guild classrooms at this time of night.”

  “Sounds fine.” It also sounded like a great way to start rumors, but even if the dance lessons could be held in a public space, I couldn’t answer her questions in such a place for a variety of reasons.

  Come morning, I was sufficiently proficient in seven of the most popular local dances, something I definitely didn’t expect when I took a shower a day ago.

  Days passed in making myself busy with work, meditation, and honing my other crafts, since they were falling behind scribing. My blacksmithing especially felt sloppy until I returned to the proper rhythm. It felt like centuries since I’d last fashioned something out of metal, and I was surprised to find no small joy in making a slim throwing dagger for myself.

  To be honest, I could’ve used the time to work at the scribes’ guild and used the earnings to buy several weapons of similar quality. But making something I knew I would eventually use was fulfilling, and I had decided to focus on such actions over profitable for the sake of my mental health, and it worked, if the past several weeks had been any indication.

  Herbalism, which I enjoyed greatly, I could practice the least as intended, since I lacked the time to wander the forests, hunting for herbs. Still, grafting and grooming herbs in the guild’s garden proved just slightly less relaxing. And between my magical senses, wood mana, and past understanding as an archmage of life, I found myself mutating plants.

  “You have an incredible talent for this,” a peak second realm awakened approached me.

  “Thank you, guildmaster,” I told the withered stick of a man.

  “No need for thanks. What you do is practically miraculous. Few mages, let alone mageknights, join our guild. We earn neither as much as the other professions, nor does “glorified gardening” help with anyone’s training. Awakened members are here because they love the craft, or because it soothes their mind, much like those playing musical instruments.”

  I waited patiently to see what he had to say. While the guild wasn’t esteemed as some others, it was still a guild, and the branch’s master shouldn’t have had the time for idle chitchat.

  “Since everyone approaches it as such, we rarely see as innovative approaches as the one you showed. Because of that, I have written to the headquarters, asking them to promote you to a grandmaster.”

  I glanced down at his badge, a master’s badge. He had no right or authority to promote me above his station. The very idea would be offensive to the guild’s grandmasters.

  “I am aware of my station.” He noticed my gaze. “That’s why I documented what you have been doing. I expect the headquarters will send someone over in the next few years to inspect your work.”

  “Is what I’m doing really so novel?”

  “Grafting plants is an ancient art, but the way your plants develop is something I have never seen or read about, and I’m close to two hundred years old and a devoted herbalist. Given my realm and the fact that I’m only a knight, I have reached the limits of my rank, but that limit lets me recognize work realms beyond mine.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Thank you.”

  “Nothing to thank me for. I am fascinated by your methods, yet I lack mana sense, so I can’t even see what you are doing with the herbs.”

  “I’m injecting mana to stimulate growth and regeneration as the plants fuse,” I explained as I got back to my gardening. “I’m also doing something else, but with limited success.”

  Genetic recombination of plants to make not a graft but a mutant was beyond the known science and apparently magic. While such an act wasn’t impossibly difficult on Everrain, mutating plantlife here seemed beyond the scope of magic.

  Shaping them into weapons immediately unleashed on your enemies - sure. Accelerated growth - natural, but if you tried genetic splicing, something pushed back, and it pushed hard.

  I performed three more unsuccessful experiments before the star-eyed guildmaster, who was impressed with the seamlessness of my work.

  I bade the man farewell and headed to the scribes’ guild for another round of meditation. The next morning, I snatched a two-hour nap before seeing a patient and then going to the artificers’ guild.

  Unlike with the herbalists, I was more careful there. Too ingenious a design could summon the heresy hunters, and even if it didn’t, sharing inventions from other worlds just to practice a craft seemed a bad idea.

  So, while I did wonder whether I could make a magical version of thermonuclear weapons, I never succumbed to the temptation. Besides, such a weapon was only a glorified suicide tool for me, with no practical application in normal loops.

  What I focused on were intricate clockwork designs with hydraulic components. It sounded much better than machines for moving around and watering plants in a greenhouse.

  As I played with various hobbies, the week passed, and soon, it was time for my first ball in the Eternal Light empire.