Deep west I flew, above the thick forests and mountains that bordered Virai land and human land. I’d gone to see an old friend, or enemy. What are we now, anyway? I wondered, using Life Perception to find Moken the Wanderer, or Moken the Savage – whichever you fancy. I found the burly orc asleep on a riverbank. He was fishing.

“Hey there, buddy,” I greeted, and he woke up by punching me straight in the face. I flew a bit, landing on my neck a couple metres away. Well, that was unexpected.

“Who goes there?” he questioned warily.

“I think,” my body finally recovered from its awkward position, “you’re supposed to ask that before punching the daylights out of me, man.” I Levitated toward him.

“Mage…” he finally recognised me. His dreadlocks had grown even longer.

“Got a present for you,” I said, showing him the last mana wolf.

He grunted. “A dog?” he said disappointedly.

“A wolf,” I corrected. “A mana-wolf.” I went on to explain the do’s and don’ts of its diet, and a silent moment interrupted. He sat quietly, looking at the calm and sparkling river. I took a seat next to him. “I’m sorry, about your tribe. Had I the strength I have now, things wouldn’t have gone the way they did. I apologise.”

“Hmph,” he reeled his line in, “you’ve felt the pain of loss, as I have. There is no need to apologise.”

“This, may be weird,” I stood up, “but have you never thought about living on Ingen lands? I’m certain they’d welcome you.”

His piercing eyes shot me looks of contempt, but they closed soon after. “Of course, I’ve thought about it. Being alone breeds haunting thought. But I worry…”

“About what? You’re Moken the Wanderer. Go wander for a while and see what it’s like. I bet some Ingen girl is gonna like those big guns you got.”

Moken smirked, somewhat transforming into a little laugh. Never thought I’d see the day. “Mayhap what you say is right. I’ve grieved enough,” he said, gently petting the playful mana wolf.

“Exactly, dude. Live life. Of course, you’re welcome at my place anytime. Humans are pretty chill with orcs now.” A sly and malicious smirk crept over my face, “There are even elven women now, and let me tell you man, they got some curves you’re gonna appreciate.”

After a long period of silence, Moken picked up the pup and threw the fishing rod over his shoulder, “You’re a good man at heart, but that side of you is, unsettling.”

I shrugged. Nothing new there. “If you think I’m unsettling, you should meet Donna.”

After that, I bade Moken the Wanderer farewell and took my leave.

~

For the next three months, my only concerns were spending time with family and friends, raising my daughter, and practising light manipulation.

I was having such a nice time, but then Anjali had to go and jinx it. She was drying her hair with a towel after taking a shower, “I’m surprised you’re not off on another adventure already. I like Eric the family man.”

“Hey, my wife and children are here. What do you expect?” I grinned forcefully, flossing some stuff out my teeth.

“Huh? ‘Children’?”

“Of course. Celosia is just as much my kid as is Aviana. Ain’t that right?” I asked the living fire on my hand, and it turned the blaze up for a second, answering in kind.

“Are you even qualified to babysit? Because I feel like you can’t even take care of yourself. I always feel troubled when you go to other worlds without August.”

“Sheesh, what am I, five years old?” I asked rhetorically. “Besides, other worlds aren’t going to see me for quite a while.”

“Good,” she sexily walked over and hugged me from behind, “that means I can have you to myse–”

My guts suddenly felt like they were twisting like a whirlpool, and that twisting feeling expanded throughout my entire body in the blink of an eye, until I ended up in a dark room, with bookshelves covering the walls and candles offering the only light.

A huge diagram was drawn on the ground, and I was in the middle of it, the only thing on me being my enchanted rings. I was naked, in front of around twelve people clothed in dark robes. They were all seated around the dark diagram, in a spot designated for each of them. On the outskirts, two other robed people stood, arguing.

Well, it was more like a tongue-lashing than anything else. I couldn’t understand their language, but that soon changed when I heard, “You damned worthless apprentice! I gave you a vial of my blood,” the old decrepit voice fumed, “yet you use your own?! Whose blood do you think I meant what I said ‘the blood’?! The summoning has failed because of you!”

He sat down, wheezing a little, as if out of breath from arguing. He palmed his face, becoming saddened, “Just thinking of preparing all those materials again is giving me heart failure already…”

Hmm, I thought, looking at the place, this is a temple of some sort? Hope these guys aren’t fanatics. Then again, they drew up a circle and summoned me here with blood. Hydra’s ass! I tried using Voidwalk, but it failed. I felt a collar around me banish the spell the minute an ounce of my mana was used. Interesting. Not good, but interesting. If spells aren’t working, should I try talking my way out of this? What happens if talking doesn’t work? I could still somewhat fist-fight my way out with the enhanced attributes from the rings, but who knows how powerful these guys are? I’ll let this play out for now.

The apprentice kneeled before the old man, “I’m sorry! Please! Give me another chance! I’ll gather all the materials again for you!”

“Forget it!” the man snapped, “You can never hope to attain another ogre heart! Did you forget we needed a team of forty men just to kill one?!” He groaned in mental pain, “Imbecile…”

By then, the other summoners who did this began waking up. A huge commotion ensued, which I didn’t really bother with, until one of them suggested killing the host and the summoned creature.

And that’s where we stop. “Gentlemen,” I said, which they didn’t hear at all. The arguments continued. The apprentice however, heard me very clearly, since he was the closest to me. “Gentlemen!” I yelled, effectively shutting them up. “Good, I have your attention.”

“Y-you, understand our tongue?” one asked.

I nodded, “I can understand any language.” Thanks for the world magic, Jynnak. “Earlier, one of you suggested offing this young man, and subsequently, me. I’d rather that not happen. So, perhaps we can work something out.”

The group went quiet, and huddled into a corner of the room, leaving the apprentice and I out of it. Looking at him, he was probably around thirteen. Very quietly, I spoke to him, “Can you get this collar off? I can’t help you otherwise.”

He backstepped a little, utterly frightened of doing a single thing without his teacher’s permission.

Looks like I’m on my own here. Think, buddy, think. Dark-ass temple, a world I don’t know, mages whose power I can’t yet measure, collar I don’t know how to take off. Hmm, now let’s see, I squatted down in thought, there’s no way they’d summon something and place a collar that cancels mana-usage for nothing. There’s gotta be an exception, there’s gotta be a reason for me to use my mana. Otherwise, why summon me?

“How do we know you’re capable?” one of the men asked and they all gathered around me.

Bingo! I saw my shot. “I’m not capable,” I said, earning some bad reactions, “at least not with this collar. I’m a mage, just like you gentlemen, and that means I rely on mana. I can’t prove my capabilities if I can’t use mana.”

They stared at me fiercely, but eventually gave in. “Allow him to use minimal mana,” the master summoner instructed his jumpy apprentice. I felt just a little release on my constraints.

“Thank you. Now, please allow me,” I said, stacking Purist five times just to be sure – it didn’t need mana after all, so why not abuse it? Then, I cast Enthral on the apprentice. “Break all my bindings to you,” I instructed the boy, and he happily let me go with but a thought. The collar fell apart, earning the appalled faces of everyone else. “Good, I’m totally free now.”

“You fool!” the master’s voice hit a high note I didn’t know it was capable of. “Why in blazes would you break the connection?!”

Right then, I chose to release the young man from Enthral. “Easy there, I just cast a mind spell on him so he would do what I wanted. I’m not hostile, you don’t have to worry. Besides, it’s your fault for giving me a chance to use mana. Now,” I took a seat on a nearby table, “anyone wants to explain why I’m here?”

Instead of an explanation, I got a white translucent containment barrier around me. Immediately, I inspected it with Mana Perception, then used Magnet just in case. Hmm, nothing special. I stood up, and used Retrace to teleport back to where I was, outside the encasing of arcane. “I just told you I’m not hostile, stop worrying. Again, can you explain why I’m here?”

They looked very much uncomfortable, “To, fulfil the prophecy. To cause the great nova. The Star of Fahzul must be destroyed.”

“Hmm. Prophecy. Great nova. Destroying a star. Sounds like bad guy stuff, and I’m a good guy. So, who wants to tell me the prophecy?” I walked a bit closer, and they backed off, maintaining a certain distance in silence.

“Alright, well, guess I’ll leave. Best of luck, guys.” I cast Banish on the kid and Voidwalked into the plane I sent him to. With void manipulation, I pulled him along with me as I flew directly upward, going through several floors until finally appearing in a large hall with dozens of rows of benches. Yup, it was a temple.

Up on the altar, was a large statue of a farmhand. His back was bent and he had a hoe in his hands. After one minute, the boy was kicked back out in the physical plane by Banish, so I decided to cloth myself then return to the physical plane as well. “So, how much trouble would you still be in?”

That question was answered by his nonstop shivering. Hell, he could barely stand. Ugh, I bemoaned mentally, not at all wanting the guilt that would carry over if I just left him there. I hit him with Renew to calm him and rested a gentle palm on his head, “It’s okay, I’ll protect you. Just stick with me, alright?”

He nodded slowly, very much untrusting of someone who used a mind spell to trick him. We simply walked out the temple and beheld the group of summoners just coming out of some kind of stairwell. Wow, did they run upstairs? That’s a lot of stamina. I applauded them, which turned their attention to me. With quick thinking, I pulled both me and the boy into a void plane, and let Skyer handle the situation whilst I sat and watched on.

I made sure and told the arcane dragon not to kill anyone, but even the snow-scaled reptilian lacked a sense of how powerful these mages were. The first blast of arcane – as weak as it was – severed an arm off one of them. They replied with a bright flare, meant to blind us, then extracted the injured fellow. From there, a formation was taken and a big and fiery group spell was being cast.

Do they expect him to just stand there and take it? I wondered, watching the group of human catapults ready their attack. A boulder, probably a couple metres in diameter, was launched right at Skyer. Mid-air, it burst into flames, and a huge Earth Wall then rose behind my dragon, blocking off a lot of its exits and subsequently protecting the grandiose temple behind from taking any damage. Skyer released an Arcane Sphere – a spell first observed when fighting the witch – that shattered the flaming boulder and went on to make a frightening fissure in the middle of the mages.

Seeing the power, they retreated immediately. Did he forget I said to go easy? We finally came out of the void. “What’s your name anyway?”

His mind was elsewhere, until I asked a bit louder after clearing my throat.

“Dillon!” the little apprentice jumped.

“Well, Dillon, mind telling me who you guys were trying to summon if not me?” I gestured him to lead the way out of the temple’s grounds.

“It’s, taboo to speak of that in public,” he advised, heading down quite a busy street.

“Well then,” I ushered him along to what looked like an inn, “let’s speak in private.” Before we could reach there though, a horse-drawn carriage was passing by, with soldiers manning all around it. People cleared the way for it, in obvious fear; and so did I. There’s always an asshole in each world, huh? Just when I was about to turn my face back to the inn, something in my peripheral vision moved. A hooded figure zoomed past, using a nearby barrel as a vault to launch herself into the air and right into the carriage. A short scream was heard, all too fast for the guards to do anything about it. The figure appeared again with a simple sword in hand.

“Hold right th–” a guard’s shouting was snuffed out by an arrow’s piercing shot. Everyone was running away, whilst I simply stayed there and watched on in amusement. Two archers and a fellow with a spiked mace joined the sword-wielder to quickly dispatch the soldiers’ lives. The soldiers were tough, of course, but it seemed like these people were trained specifically to counter the usual techniques of those soldiers.

The woman with the sword pulled her cowl back over her head and covered her body once again with her cloak. It covered her entire body like a robe, totally blocking the sword from your line of sight. “So, is this like a much-deserved-assassination type of murder, or a murder-murder type of murder?” I asked Dillon, not letting the four killers out my sight.

“How should I know?” the boy answered.

“Well, you aren’t too fazed, so I assume whatever happening here is a common thing,” I pointed out with my amazing skills of deduction.

“They’re most likely part of the Red Stars, which is a resistance group,” Dillon explained.

“Red Stars, eh? Do the people like them?”

Dillon shrugged, “I’d say half-half. Some people think they’re ruthless barbarians, others think they’re saviours.”

The woman who did in the VIP in the carriage finally stopped, all too irked by our conversation to continue ignoring us. “You know we can hear you, right?” she asked, most of her face masked by the cowl.

Dillon moved behind me, fearing her eyes would be set on him. Hmm… “Yeah, but, if you’re a resistance group, then you gotta be prepared to take on leadership when you fulfil your ultimate goal. And if you become leaders, you must be able to handle criticism, no?”

Her elbow poked the cloak, so I knew she was drawing her sword. Because I wasn’t sure how strong people really were yet, I stacked Timedial three times, used Magnet, and prepared to unleash the full power of the void and draconic manipulation upon her. But she suddenly stopped her advancement.

The man with the spiked mace questioned her, “What’s the problem?” He brought his mace up to my neck, even whilst seeing what I can only assume to be a strange purple bubble to them formed around me. He knew no fear.

“Stop!” the swordswoman placed her hand on his forearm to bring the weapon down. “He, is not to be trifled with.”

Damn. I wanted them to actually fight me. A little skirmish would be good. Something told me I should follow them. I’d bet that summoner group at the temple and Red Stars had some hatred in common for the current rule of this country, so I’d likely get some information out of them. This kid probably knows more about the summoners than they do though. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

The burly man scoffed, putting his weapon away and giving me a nasty look before walking off. I decided to send a clone to do recon in Voidwalk, and also send a clone to get my best friend here.

Dillon and I sat at a corner table in an inn. August suddenly appeared, wearing casual clothing. Thankfully, no one realised but Dillon. He pulled a chair, then pulled a fork. “So, what’s this world called?” he asked.