Zortex went back to his room in an isolated inn downtown, silent enough to sleep well if he covered a lot his ears and not too expensive for his finances. He always needed to sleep a lot otherwise he would get strong headaches because of his heightened senses, hence whenever he had some free time he would find his way back to his bed. Napping and eating were indeed the only hobbies he conceded himself lately; a few times he disconnected from AoL and went back to his room in Endless, but movies, books, games or other entertainments he had appreciated in the past now looked useless and boring. Sleeping a few hours restored his mental energy, so after a few more hours procrastinating with some skills, the evening arrived and he went back to the Inevera’s place to get his reward. Once again he met the beautiful maid at the door, who looked again scared by his presence, but at least this time she didn’t slam the door on his face. Zortex had gotten a bit more used to the presence of females around him, so he had gotten better at controlling himself, but he had to admit that the arousal he got from looking at her was hard to handle. He had to avoid eye contact to avoid getting an erection, and even doing so he failed miserably. Luckily for him he was wearing plenty of clothes, so he was able to hide it and avoid an awkward situation. Not that he would do anything to her…rape was out of discussion and even if he could seduce her in a normal way he didn’t want to actually losing his virginity to a NPC, he still had some sort of pride. Of course that mental barrier was becoming thinner with the passage of time….there was a small inner voice telling him that it was no different than masturbating, so there were no reasons to wait.

Zortex was brought again to the same hall as the previous time and they made him wait for Lady Inevera to come. The same steward as before was keeping an eye on him. Unlike in the morning he was kept waiting for a full hour without being offered even some refreshments. The more he waited the angrier he got, thus he started to walk around the room as if he needed to move a bit his legs. Truthfully he was eyeing around to check possible ways to move in between rooms and what was worthy to steal. He would not rob them right away, to avoid suspicions, but before taking the other quest he would pass by for sure. At last the old hag arrived to meet him.

“Already here? I thought you would resist a bit longer before quitting. You don’t even smell like the sewers, so I bet you didn’t even try at all. Give me back the key so someone else can take over the job in the future”

Stupid bitch. Too bad I cannot punch you right here right now.

“Mylady, I am also surprised of being here so soon, but the mission resulted to be easier than we all expected and I was very lucky. I found out the location of the aforementioned hideout and it was indeed the right place to find the Count. Unluckily the Sir was dead”

The Countess raised an eyebrow suspicious and argued:

“If so, where is the proof that you found him? For sure you don’t think that I would believe you on trust”

“Mylady, I wouldn’t dare to do so. The Count was dead, but a spell was cast on him to cause his rising as an undead. I had a vicious fight with such creature, and I was victorious. Of course I had to prove to you my success so I looked into his possessions searching for some proof. Here is what I found: this is the ring which your friend gave to the Count and that sealed their connection”

Zortex took out the ring from his storage pouch and he gave it to the steward who then brought it to the lady. The old hag observed it for a while and then put it in a pocket. She raised her eyes and looked at Zortex for a few seconds as if he had something on his face. Of course he had something on his face: his Shadow Mask.

“This is indeed the ring of the Count, but I cannot believe you solved the mission so easily. Onara (name of the city) used to be a much bigger place in the past, so its sewers are quite big. It would take many days to explore everywhere, if you didn’t get lost and fell down a hole. How did you do it?”

“In the past I did a few missions for the city guards, hunting rats and slimes. There were many places with closed doors that I could not pass by. I just guessed one of them and I was very lucky to get it right at my first try, the rest is easy to guess”

It isn’t far from the truth. I went rat hunting and that door was the first one I found. The only difference is that I did all that before receiving the mission. Oh, and also I didn’t use the key.

“Luck eh. Whatever. You completed the mission so you will get your reward” She made a gesture to the stewards and he took out from his clothes a small pouch, he counted the silver coins and then handed them to Zortex.

“What was your name again? Considering your….luck…..I may decide to give you other jobs in the future”

“My name is Shad mylady. If I will be present in the city it would be my honor to serve you again”

Lol, believe it. Zortex thought containing a laugh.

“Good. Now you can all go. I want to stay alone for a while”

Zortex left the house trying to memorize as much as possible the structure for his future robbery. It was late in the evening and the sky was turning dark, hence Zortex lowered the intensity of his Shadow Mask. These were the moments he preferred: the deepest dark in the night, when he could walk around with his eyes uncovered, it reminded him of the time before his downfall to his disabled condition. He didn’t know if the Adventurer Guild would stay open during the night, so he postponed his visit there for the next day. Six more days until the start of that mission were a long period of time to stay inactive, thus he thought of something to do meanwhile.

Two days later

Zortex was standing in a gym like room in the wizard tower. In front of him there was Nertain, his first teacher, ready to fight him. To pass to the secondary level of the tower a test must be taken, so here he was ready to fight. The test consisted in proving that he had mastered more than three spells to an acceptable degree. He should be able to use them in a fight, hence his casting speed and power must be at a good level. Most noobs during their trial cannot reach such a level of mastery, they stopped at one or two spells, however in some rare cases there were geniuses that could pass through. These people were the ones getting the best Classes out of the bunch at the end of the trial and they received special treatment by the teachers who competed to become their personal tutor. Zortex was way past his trial and he had been training his spells for months already, so he knew he was perfectly capable to handle the trouble, but he would have liked to know if he was one of those geniuses. After all he went through his self-confidence was pretty low now, so he didn’t think himself to be at the top, and anyway in the past he had wanted to be half physical half magical Class, so without focus he would have been slower than pure magicians.

His adversary was a very proficient mage who could beat him for sure, however Zortex intention was to at least dumbfound Nertain with his proficiency. There were also a couple of other judges, but in the end the teacher had the last word. Zortex had to wait a couple of days because these tests didn’t happen daily, and at least a certain amount of student had to be prepared to undertake it, unless there were special cases, like the geniuses aforementioned.

“Are you ready Shad?” Nertain said.

The two of them were ten meters apart, looking at each other. Zortex was wearing only bandages and no Shadow Mask, to save as much mana as possible for the other spells. Anyway he expected he would need to activate it later, or just in case he needed to show off one more spells. Zortex nodded with his head and bolted in the direction of the teacher, who looked pretty relaxed and in no rush to defend himself. The room was quite dark, so usually the first spell used by the other noobs was to start with a Light spell, the first magic learned at the very beginning. Instead Zortex was perfectly fine with it, or he would feel even better if it was completely dark. Nertain seeing that Zortex was not using Light decided to use it himself. Maybe because he remembered of what happened on the first lesson the teacher casted a very strong Light using more mana that it should be required to illuminate the whole hall.

That fucker is testing if I have found a solution to that problem.

Luckily Zortex had really solved that problem, instantly activating his Shadow Mask nullifying the effect of the light. People in the wizard tower had seen him always going around with the spell on, so nobody was really stupefied by his move. When he was at five meter of distance he casted three blind spells consecutively, expecting his enemy to dodge them, however Nertain simply stood in place and somehow erected a barrier in front of himself without doing any noticeable move. Zortex didn’t know the higher tier spells, so he could only try with what he had learned until now. He picked one of his daggers and he casted poison on it, releasing a transparent liquid dripping from the blade. With the other hand he casted entangle hoping for some roots to block the teacher. Apparently Nertain had decided to dispel his shield, because Entangle passed through and blocked the teacher in place. At this point Shad threw his dagger with all his strength aiming at his adversary chest. Rather than shielding himself Nertain raised an hand a casted a wind blade colliding with Zortex’s dagger and blocking its momentum.

There is nothing at my level that could work against him. I have already shown the four spells necessary to pass, but I want to finish my display pouring all my mana to the end. Maybe I will make him worry a little bit.

Zortex distanced himself again throwing two blind spells more to cover his retreat than to actually work on his enemy. When he was back from his starting point he activated his Acidic Shot. It was his main attack spell, and it was fast to cast and to power up. Still to pour so much mana in it required him to focus for a couple of seconds, so it could not be used too much unless he had someone covering for him, for example Pravin. On the other hand Nertain was not on the offensive and he left him continue until the end. The ball of acid grew bigger and bigger and then shot at full speed against his teacher. Zortex was expectant to at least see some change in expression, but his adversary was not affected at all and this time he casted another wind spell which collided with the Acidic Shot. The acid splashed of the floor and started sizzling showing high corrosion and low pH. Hitting a person with it would certainly be death for the unlucky guy, but in this case it became useless. Shad still had a bit of mana left, enough to use tentacle one time or completely slimify for a few seconds, however he decided to stop it here, keeping safe his personal attacks obtained from his Class as Shadow Slime Warrior. He relaxed standing up and walking to the judge with a neutral expression, and just before reaching him he shot a small Blind to the enemy’s foot. After all nobody had called for the end of the battle and Zortex wanted the satisfaction to land at least one small attack. Unluckily for him, the teacher simply kicked the dark shot which bounced back an stuck Shad in the stomach. Blind has the characteristic that it would spread reaching for the face of the enemy and stopping there to obscure the vision, but in this case it was so feeble that it simply dissipated as soon as it stuck.

“Ok. I’m done. Nothing else to show you. I’m out of mana and ideas”

Zortex could have tried a couple more things, but he didn’t want to show his full potential in such a marginal test.

“Quite impressive for a tier one student. Considering the strength of your spells you could have taken the test months ago. Why the delay?”

“I was in no hurry”

It was true that Zortex didn’t want to rush through the beginning of his magic, but the real reason it took him so long was that most of his time was spent perfecting the Shadow Mask, while the rest of spells came to him quite easily and he could have used them from the beginning to pass the test.

“Where did you find the crystals for the spell that covers your face? I have never seen it or heard about it. It must be quite expensive to buy”

Zortex just shrugged. He didn’t want to say that he had made it himself modifying the Blind spell. He didn’t want to attract any attention.

“Hmm, okay. You have obviously passed this exam. Now you are allowed to get to the second level of any wizard tower. Go get your badge”

Zortex went to the other judges getting his new permission and left while Nertain was calling for the next participant.