(Colt)

Dying was a lot less painful than I thought it would be.

Now to deal with these annoying messages in my vision.

Congratulations!

You have successfully Advanced to Tier 3!

Your Level has been reset to 0, and each Level will require more effort to gain

+3 LIF!

Select 1 (one) Acquired Class

Every time you gain a Level for the Third Tier, you will acquire an amount of Stat Points equivalent to how many this Class granted upon acquisition

Choose Wisely! This cannot be undone, and you will be stuck with this decision until you reach the Fourth Tier!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut up. Tyler probably went with Ice Rogue, because of our promise, so I take on Flame Rogue.

Looking around, I'm in a cabin of some sort, with walls made of wooden logs. I'm on a very, very comfortable bed, a fur blanket covering me. There's a small table and a couple of chairs against one wall, under a window, some clothes folded up on the table and a pair of boots on the floor.

I stand up and look out the window. I'm still on the mountain, it looks like, and there's snow in the distance. We're high up. There's no snow outside the window, though, but there is grass and some flowers.

I pull on the violet tunic with red trim, and the black pants, then sit down and slip my feet into the boots. They're so comfortable.

I leave the room, and find myself in a family room, a kitchen off to the side, and a dining room against the back. There's no one in here, though there's a fire roaring in the fireplace.

Making my way outside, I notice that it's only slightly chilly. There are three things that catch my attention, in the garden-slash-lawn that I stepped out into.

The first are gnomes between six inches and a foot tall in height, all of them wearing crimson clothes with only slight black touches to them. They each have a force of fire magic within them.

The second is the boy around twelve years old lounging next to a small pond, probably big enough to swim in. He's dressed in reds and golds and blacks, his crimson – not orange, but actual crimson – hair styled awesomely, his golden eyes gleaming brightly. He grins at me.

There's something about him that feels off, and I realize that I can sense it – his Divine Aura. This is a god, but though he's got a fiery magic, he's not Torgi.

The third is the man sitting at the picnic table, looking at me with a smile on his face. The fact that he's filled with magic far stronger than mine is only secondary to the shock of seeing him.

"Grandpa!"

I run over and hug him.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, stepping back. "Whoa! You have magic! That's so cool! How are you here? Where are we? What-"

"So many questions!" Grandpa laughs, putting a finger to my lips, and I stop. "It's been so long since I've seen you, Colt, I figured I'd learn magic, traverse worlds, and come to see my grandson."

"Grandpa!" I put my hands on my hips and give him a stern glare. "You and I both know you couldn't have gotten that strong, that fast! Are you the Gravity Mage the Frost Giants were talking about?"

"Yes!" He laughs. "I am."

"Whoa!" I exclaim in surprise. "I knew you were old, but now, you're ancient!"

The god starts laughing.

"You're right!" The god says. "I do like him!"

"So you're a wizard, then!" I say. "No – a Mage!"

"Indeed," Grandpa says, and I sit down next to him. "I wanted to teach you magic for so long, when I realized your parents weren't including you, but-"

"Mom and Dad know magic?" I ask.

"They do," he nods. "It's the secret they've been keeping from you, the one they won't let you in on. When you vanished without a trace, they tried to find you. I was visiting them, determined to give them the ultimatum in that you need to be taught magic, or I would take custody of you for myself, and found that you had vanished. They were going to ask me to seek you out, knowing I was powerful, but not how powerful. When I realized you were here, I came, though have been concealing myself. I've been watching you grow into the warrior and mage that you'll become."

"You've been watching me?" I ask, feeling really happy at that. Grandpa was always nice to me. "I've missed you so much, Grandpa!"

"I missed you, too, Colt," he ruffles my hair. "Though you've been within my sights, I haven't been able to approach you. When your ashes scattered, I traced them all with my magic, to wait for where you'd revive. I missed some, but knew I'd sense you, when you did restore. I just didn't expect to find him," he jerks a thumb in the direction of the god. "To be living where the fleck of ash that you restored from traveled to. That was a mighty wind."

"Who are you?" I look at the god. "I can sense your Divine Aura, even though I shouldn't be able to, and you're fire, yet-"

"I'm an Old One," he answers. "A god older than the ones you know. We don't interact much with others, and right now, this area is one of the few places in the universe that Tyr can't sense me, which is why I made my home here. My name is Kielra, and I am the God of Fire and Rebirth. I'm also known as the Father of the Phoenix."

The flaming bird of rebirth. I can see that.

"I like your grandson," Kielra tells Grandpa. "Not only does he have a couple of Phoenix Instinct Magics, but his sense of nobility, his love of fun, and his desire to better himself is worthy of the power of my prides and joys."

Instinct Magic: Ashes of the Phoenix. That's the Skill that allowed me to live.

Ashes of the Phoenix: Must be triggered within a set timeframe before death – 1 minute per Level of this Skill. If death does not come, lose 1 LIF, but gain 50 Mana and Aura. If you die, however, your body will turn to ash, and after seven days, you will be reborn anew. If death is from your natural lifespan expiring, you will have either five more years of life, or however many more you gain from LIF, whichever is less.

In other words, if someone with 10 LIF hit fifty, and used this, then died as a result of their age, they would have another five years. The only case that someone could be affected by the 'shorter' thing would be in a case like mine, where they burned through their LIF, then gained just enough to take them to the next five after being reborn.

So for me, I won't live another five years, but another two.

It is almost like an ultimate spell, and it took a lot of Mana to use. I was able to draw on the ambient Mana in the chamber to fuel my gravity field, so I still had plenty of Mana left – enough to let me use Ashes of the Phoneix. I only realized I had the spell right before I used it, and that told me I was going to die shortly. So I used it, confident that Tyler would survive.

"Colt has that charm about him," Grandpa nods. "Now that he isn't bound by the depression his parents all but forced upon him."

"Are these Fire Gnomes?" I ask, looking at one of them swimming in the pond.

"Yeah," Kielra nods. "My own creation, much like the Flame Giants I have on their way to the battlefield."

"I should go down-"

"No," Grandpa says. "We'll fight from here. You'll be able to train safely here. There are multiple ways to increase your Mana Pool. You know the version where you expend it, but still hold it, also increasing your control. Another way is to eat certain things that interact with Mana of your nature. For you, that would be fire and perception."

Grandpa turns around and faces the table, and I do the same, looking at the fruits, vegetables, and meats on the table. He moves a bowl of red and orange berries in front of me.

"Try one," he says, and I do.

It tastes like fire, and is warm to eat. It's really delicious, and as I swallow it, I feel it start to do something to me. I look at Grandpa, hoping for an explanation.

"As your body processes it," he explains. "It'll purify and increase your Mana. It works best when you're drained of Mana, though also works well when full. If you use Shroud and hold it for as long as you can, then again when you're filled again, consuming berries and fruits that have this effect, you'll likely be able to double your Mana Pool by the time the battle begins. However, it won't be enough to kill the demons, not alone. Your skill and precision with magic is immense, so you'd be able to launch magic from here, if you had the Mana reserves for it, though you'd only manage a dozen weaker spells or so, even at double your current Mana Pool. So, we'll work on your Manipulations as well, to decrease how much is needed."

"You're teasing him," Kielra snorts. "We can work on just his Manipulations, and you know that. Though I do say that increasing his Mana Pool is an excellent idea. His friend's been doing both Mana and Aura, switching to the latter when the former runs out."

"Tyler's here?" I ask.

"He's with the Frost Giants," Grandpa shakes his head. "Hunting Frost Ogres to get as strong as he can before the battle. Five hundred thousand demons, along with a few dozen Demon Generals and five Demon Lords. Only with that can we win."

"That?" I ask.

"Like I said," Kielra laughs. "You're a tease, Nathaniel. Colt – I have something called a Mana Reserve. It has over twenty trillion Mana stored within it, drawing it in over the millennia from the ambient Mana in the mountain and the universe. When the battle comes, my gnomes will rain Firebolts, Fire Arrows, Firebombs, and Fireballs from the sky, drawing on the Mana in the Mana Reserve to do so. If you would like, I can grant you access as well. Your grandfather has already agreed to do it. The two of you will probably be able to focus on the stronger demons, while my guys take out the regular troops."

"Understood," I say, then look at Grandpa. "I'm going to fall behind Tyler in Level here, so I better not fall behind him in magic."

Grandpa laughs, then tells me to eat lunch. I do, and after, he has me use Mana Shroud until I'm exhausted, then feeds me more of the berries.

Once I recover to full, instead of having me use Mana Shroud again, he trains me with magics, both Fire Magics and Gravity Magics. With the latter, he works with me on spells I already know, also adding to my spells Blazing Barrier, a stronger, burning version of Heat Barrier.

As time passes, I learn a lot from Grandpa, and my Manipulations increase massively, as does the sheer size of my Mana Pool. Not only that, but as my Mana is 'purified', I start to need less Mana than I'd think just from Mana Manipulation and my other Manipulations.

On the fourth day, I decide to ask Grandpa about that.

"Mana," he says. "Isn't raw and pure when we form it. It quickly becomes contaminated by other things within us, and within our Mana Pools. You can purify it through meditation, or through eating things that purify it. Meditation does it faster, though eating things is easier. You'll have not noticed much of a difference.

"Because of the impurity," he says. "It takes more Mana to cast magic. As your Mana becomes more pure, it'll take you less. Though you won't achieve very much in way of purity, you'll notice that magic does, indeed, cost a little bit less Mana, on top of what it should from Skill Levels and Manipulations alone.

"Both of the people," he continues. "Who have achieved Divine Human status have also achieved entirely-pure Mana and Aura – it's one of the requirements to have that much power."

"Two?" I say. "I thought there was only one?"

"Tyr tell you that?" He chuckles, and I nod. "Figures. He said I don't count, and pouted when he did, too. Reaching the level beyond Divine Human is one of the requirements to get through Tyr's barriers and into his Kingdom. In my eight hundred years of life, I've yet to make it past the second layer, and he set thirteen."

"The furthest any god has gotten," Kielra adds, leaving the cabin. "Is the fourth layer. I might be able to make it into the seventh, but none of us Old Ones have bothered. As far as we're aware, Tyr isn't even aware we're around. We are, essentially, playing hide-and-seek, without him knowing that he's got people hiding."

"How many Old Ones are there?" I ask.

"Five," he answers. "And before you ask – Tyr is older than we are. We don't know his origins, nor where we came from. The one thing we do know is this: the five of us, combined, giving our all, would not be able to strike Tyr once in a fight. In that same fight, Tyr would never use his full power. Tyr is looking for someone or a group of people who he can fight with his all, people who can force him to fight with his all."

"Whoever makes it through all thirteen layers," Grandpa tells me. "Will be the one – or ones – who can hold their own against Tyr, as he uses his full power."

And an Old One would likely only manage to make it into the seventh layer. In other words – whoever makes it through all thirteen layers would be more powerful than the Old Ones, more powerful than the oldest and most powerful of the gods.

Well, except for Tyr, but he's apparently even older.

"So how come you're always in kid form?" I ask, and Kielra looks down at his body, then at me. "I know that the gods other than Tyr are more like in their late teens, but they can take on kid forms, but you've been-"

"This is my natural form," he gestures to his body. "I can't take on an older body than this. My range goes from six to twelve. It matches the youth of whatever species I've taken the form of, with a natural form of human."

"Oh," I say. "So does that depend on what type of god you are, then?"

"Yes," he nods. "Regular gods can go from ten to nineteen, natural at nineteen. We Old Ones can go from six to twelve, natural at twelve. Tyr uses human form, and is always in child form, though we think he can go older. We're not sure, as we've never seen him older than twelve, even before…

"He ranges from six to twelve," he doesn't elaborate on whatever it was, making me curious. "But he's in a form other than his native, when in human. His real form is more akin to a small, blue-furred creature with four legs, a thick, long, bushy tail, and a round head with two tall ears. He's really cute."

He sounds cute, and I'm wondering what people worshiped a being that looked like that. Especially since he's older than the Old Ones, and both they and the gods of now have human forms for their native forms.

Where does he come from?

"How many worlds are there?" I ask. "With life, I mean."

"Thirteen," he answers. "And before you ask, yes, we've considered that he may have linked each one to one of the layers. It's highly likely he did, though he may have only linked the first few layers to worlds. With Tyr, you never know what is going through his head when he does stuff. It's possible he started linking the first few layers to worlds, then forgot he was doing that and stopped as he created the layers."

So I'll need to go to other worlds, in order to make my way through his challenges, puzzles, and games, to make it into his Kingdom. That's good to know.

Grandpa goes back to training me, and on the day we're to begin the battle, he and Kielra take me to an overlook, hundreds of the Fire Gnomes joining us. There's a massive magic circle on the ground, glowing crimson with power.

Each of the gnomes, I noticed over the last week, wear a crimson stone on a gold chain around their neck, and Grandpa has one, too. Kielra hands me one now, telling me to put it on, and I do. He pricks my finger, then tells me to press it to the stone before it heals, so I do.

The moment I do, I feel the force of Mana underneath me flex and flow. The amount of Mana in there..

It's vast. Twenty trillion Mana is a lot of Mana. I can feel it ebb and flow as if it's my own Mana, and feeling this sheer force of it, I start to understand what pure Mana feels like, and how it flows, and works. I understand Mana more.

"Here we go," Kielra says, and suddenly, I can see the armies lower down the mountains. "All you need to do is aim at one of them from where you can see, and the spell will connect. I'll cancel this spell when the battle's over."

"Those are huge demons," I say.

"Demon Lords," Grandpa says. "You and I will focus on distracting them and the Demon Generals – the other larger ones – while the gnomes assault the regular demons. We'll also cast defensive magics when needed."

"Yes, sir," I say.

"Ready!" Kielra yells, and the Fire Gnomes echo it. "FIRE!"

And they do, their magics bursting from their hands and flying into the force of demons. It takes only seconds to reach them, one of the Demon Lords creating a shimmering crimson barrier.

The number of Fire Arrows and Firebolts alone was enough to weaken, then destroy the barrier, which lasted less than a second before shattering.

Grandpa creates a Fire Lance stronger than any I've ever seen before. He's probably using more Mana than he normally would, because he's not using his own.

I draw on the Mana Reserve, and create several Fire Lances, able to draw on up to my current Mana Pool count per spell.

Then I fire them, aiming at Demon Lords and Demon Generals.

We continue to rain hell upon the demonic forces, and after a bit, the Fire Giants arrive from the side, after Tyler used Rising Frost on the other end of the army.

The Frost Giants and Frost Wolves charge into battle, and humans follow shortly after.

Tyler is a total badass, and I can't wait to spar him again. I'm going to gain so many Levels from this, it won't matter that he got to train. We'll both likely hit Level 50.

Tyler kills so many Demon Generals in the fight, it's awesome! He keeps cutting off their heads. He's so fast!

I can keep up with my eyes, though. I'm getting faster, too, because of the kills I'm gaining with my hits against the Demon Generals. Grandpa and I are both focusing on the Demon Lords mostly, though. Grandpa's devoted entirely to them, especially after that black energy.

Whatever it was, it began to disconnect people from their Mana and Aura. It's whatever causes it to weaken in those caves.

Grandpa starts manipulation Gravity in the Demon Lords, once they're weak enough, telling it to be normal underneath the thin film of it he applied, but to go reverse on the other side. It causes their heads to fly up, and the first one lands behind where Tyler was standing.

The look on his face when he realizes he nearly got crushed by a Demon Lord's head is really, really funny, and made me laugh.

"Grandpa!" I try to give him a stern glare. "Watch where you're aiming those things!"

"I wasn't!" Grandpa laughs. "But your friend managed to avoid it, anyway! Get back to killing!"

"I'm going to kill more than you!"

"I'm going to kill more Demon Lords than you," he sticks his tongue out at me.

He does. He kills three more. But I hit the fifth one before he manages to. Tyler took out most of the Demon Generals, and I think he hit Level 50 as a result of that. Twenty of them, down to my friend.

I was Level 26 when I killed the Demon Lord, and even with only gaining shared Experience with Grandpa for it, I still hit Level 50.

I'm gaining so many cool Titles, too. I bet Tyler is, too. The first two were nicknames the Frost Giants gave us, but I guess Tyr decided to make them into Titles during this battle.

Berserker Mage: A powerful magician who fights not just with their magic, but they're body, going into the thick of the battle to slay their foes without mercy, without caring for his own body

Firebrand: A Title to honor a powerful Fire Mage, those who bear this Title have performed great feats with the power of flames

Demonslayer: One who has slain not just Demons, but leaders of Demons, proving himself capable of powerful feats against the realm's enemies

Slayer of Hordes: One who massacres enemies in groups far surpassing normal limits, the wielders of this Title have fought hordes numbering in tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, and wiped out thousands by himself

Tyr made a Title for me. For me and Tyler. To honor us. I just know Blizzard is a Title now, too.

Now that the Demon Lord is dead – earning me another Title – Grandpa and I can focus on wiping out the rest of the troops, taking out the huge areas that the Giants, Frost Wolves, and humans haven't even bothered yet.

Slayer of Demon Lords: One who has done the incredible feat of not just slaying Enlightened, but one of the most powerful forces of an Enlightened species: a Demon Lord. With powers nearing that of an adult Dragon, a Demon Lord is a foe to be feared. One who has slain one is even more so worthy of being feared

Obliteration Master: One who has does more than fought armies and slain hordes, he has killed more than ten thousand foes in a single battle by himself, cementing his place as a foe to be feared

I feel like I cheated for those two Titles, since it wouldn't have been possible without the Mana Reserve.

Throughout the full battle, we used nearly three trillion of the Mana in the reserve, between the two of us and the Fire Gnomes.

We rest for a bit, because that was still exhausting. I reached Level 50 during that battle, and still haven't picked a single Class. I'll see if Tyler picked any while he was training, since he could pick up to two.

He probably forget, because he was mourning me, but I'm positive he'll be happy to see me again.

Once we've recovered, Grandpa and I return to the necklaces to Kielra, and my connection to the Mana Reserve vanishes. I can understand why a god doesn't want someone having access to that.

Grandpa grabs me and a few of the Fire Gnomes with his Gravity Magic, then flies us to the Frost Giants' camp. The Flame Giants have already left, to return back to the peak.

"Why'd you grab Fire Gnomes?" I ask.

"We're going to talk with Bael!" One of them answers for Grandpa. "We've got lots to talk about!"

A moment later, I receive a notification that the Divine Quest was completed, and smile. So the humans and Frost Giants made up, and are now at peace. That's cool.

Plus, I now have 'massive Experience' waiting for me when I complete the Third Tier Advancement Quest. I wonder how few Levels that will earn me. Probably no more than one or two.

Grandpa lands us outside of the tent Bael, Tyler, and his father are within, and we walk in there. Tyler stares at me with shock on his face as Grandpa talks with Bael for a minute.

"How?" Tyler eventually manages, and I stick my tongue out at him.