Volt and I floated above a wide-open meadow, where the new Order of Magic was to be transported to. When I asked him about the change of name, he reminded me of Methelia’s image of what a mage was, and he was right. Before the orcs’ integration, and even after, the vast majority of people felt like the word ‘mage’ was something that could only be described as a human whose occupation was primarily the advancement of his own magic prowess. That was a mage.

But now, there were other humans who hadn’t dabbled in magic like the holy warriors of Hyzek. There were those who did, but never viewed themselves as ‘mages’, like the warlocks of Pargat’s Baruum Empire. There were orcs, who very much dabbled in magic, but weren’t humans. Elves were much the same.

Dragonkin as well; the half-breeds decided to refer to themselves as dragonkin in this new world, as a way to lay the bad connotation that ‘half-breed’ had to rest, and to also name themselves something closer to the half of themselves that they thought were better beings. If only they knew the dragons were just as disgusting as the humans, they would’ve chosen another name.

So, in attempts to make the organisation more welcoming, we gave it a more general name, The Order of Magic. And our new Order would be on open land, instead of a walled city. This allowed for easy expansion, should we gain new allies. At that point, the king simply gave Volt and I permission to allow any outsiders we deemed trustworthy and beneficial into Methelia. With such a mishmash of cultures, I was surprised that no big issues ever popped up. I hoped that the Order wasn’t sweeping things under the carpet if there were actual worrying issues.

After working with the civil engineers, I understood how to make the roads needed. Once I got certain things out of the way, I proceeded to prepare the land with earth magic, building bunkers underground should an emergency arise. And then finally, Volt, along with all the Order’s councilmen, closed the Order for the day. That was probably the first time that the Order ever closed. Many came from far and wide to witness it, which didn’t help my anxiety, but ever since becoming a mind avatar, I was a lot more open to accepting and facing my failures.

After a pill and potion to boost my magical fortitude, I looked at the Order, and found the centre of it by tracing along the edges with void manipulation. A pylon of rock pushed up from the ground to form a nice little seat for me. I knew the area; I knew how much land to travel with. Slowly, I began splitting the earth so that the entire Order of Magic could be lifted. It was a slow and arduous process to make sure that any underground plumbing was immediately sealed up. After about half hour of doing this, I was finally ready to lift the entire thing up.

“Volt!” I yelled out, not able to see directly below me from my elevated seat. “It’s time!”

Volt notified a team on the outskirts of the Order to start sounding an alarm, just so the crowds gathered would know that we would now try to move the Order of Magic.

The pill and potion had taken effect already. Hmm, base mana power is two tho– I took a second look and opened my eyes wide. Over two thousand?! How in Hydra’s ass is it that high?! Not that I’m complaining… Was mind magic so potent? Hmm…

“Well, if you think about it, you have two consciousnesses. They have both expanded. It literally feels roomier and more breathable in your mind right now.” Donna pointed out.

“Yeah! I’ve noticed that too!” Dawn agreed.

Hmm, well, we do use our minds to visualise a cast. So now with the pill and potion boosts, I’m sitting at twenty-five hundred mana power. Man, that’s sick! I began stacking Purist, and easily went past my previous maximum of 35 stacks. Purist now stacked 62 times! That pushed my mana power up to 8,700! And if I could use Purist 62 times, it meant I could have 62 clones summoned at the same time. My brain was melting with the possibilities! Wow!

Instead of taking a risk with space magic, which was the best thing to use, I entered the void and chose to use void magic instead. With the amount of mana power that I had right now, moving something weighing more than just a few tons was much easier than I expected. The 40 clones on standby ensured no one got hurt in case anything went wrong. The Order of Magic was slowly being raised higher and higher into the air, until it was well past the city walls. In the blink of an eye, Voidport placed us above the allotted area. My clones followed me, they prepared the ground to suit the bottom of the Order of Magic, which looked like an upside-down iceberg.

I put even more care into resting the place down, and with my clones’ help, it was a smooth transition. All that was left now was to ensure the Kynhall Bridges and magical constructs in the Order still worked, and to clean up the huge space left in Aquan. I guess Aquan wasn’t the city of mages anymore. Well, most mages still resided in Aquan.

For the next few days, I constructed more Kynhall Bridges so that people in cities and towns, even some villages, would have access to go to the Order of Magic. The next immediate thing on my list of responsibilities, was to have less responsibilities. I let all my coalition clones know to send me their memories, which they did. Yeah, there were some disputes, which were taken care of.

Yunaris’ emperor gave the okay for the rotation training with different worlds and all was proceeding exceedingly well. The worlds were all sharing their knowledge on skills, abilities, magics, and everything else, whilst using Yunaris’ dungeons as an immensely helpful training ground. For the next two years, all the coalition members would rotate teams in these dungeons. People like the big five families in Tyrr would receive a lot of help in order to broaden their workspaces. They had an all-access pass to all the worlds in the coalition in order to provide healthcare, potions, basic education on magic, and magical constructs.

I summoned over all my coalition clones, so that they’d have the upgraded mana power, then doubled them, providing thirty Erics to the coalition. This meant, I had the freedom to continue exploring worlds and conduct my own training. I squatted down in thought of my next move. I’ve the entirety of Jynnak to explore still. There are other races there. I should also get the draconic spirit lords to help me become avatars of their elements. Hmm…

After thinking about it, I found that the latter option was the better thing to tackle. The boost would be almost instant, and it would also draw me closer to mastering nature manipulation. It would also give me more mana power, and who knows what physiological benefits I’d get. I could become draconic avatars in thirty minutes by abusing Clone and Timedial, since I’d long since mastered draconic manipulation. I should start with Celosia though. I don’t think I’m finished with fire.

So, the not-so-little bird took form. Standing normally, she was my height. When did this growth spurt happen? Hydra’s ass! I held her by the cheeks, “You’re a big girl now, huh?” I felt so proud. “Turn to your human form let me see.”

She looked to be around the age of twelve or thirteen. It shocked me, because she’d always be stuck to my hand like glue.

“Daddy,” she said groggily and rubbed her eyes. She really loved sleeping. “What’s up?”

“I wanna become a fire avatar!”

She looked at me sideways, a little confused. “You’re already a fire avatar. Now,” she yawned wearily, “time to sleep,” and returned to her little fire form around my hand.

Word? Well then, I guess that’s that. I entered the spirit world, and located Kor’zha.

The scorpion shimmied out of the cool desert sands, “Old master,” he greeted.

“More like old friend. I need a favour, dude.”

“Hmm?”

I explained what I was doing, and he gave me the okay. So, I did my thing with Purist and Timedial, and began merging. After it was completed, I gained the ability to summon a stinger, just like I could summon the tendrils from Madam Jelly. Interesting. But again, that was something I didn’t see the use of.

Next on my list was Gale. Oh Gale! Little did I know my entire outlook on nature magic would change after merging with her. “So, will you help me?” I asked, after explaining my intentions.

“What do I have to do?” she asked, perched atop her mountain with the other zephyrs.

I laughed, “Well, nothing, really. I just have to be physically connected with you for five minutes. So, lemme see those sexy feathers,” I walked closer and sat next to her. When I awoke, because for some reason I was asleep, I found that everything, and I mean everything, felt different.

“You look good,” Gale complimented. I looked at her and wondered why in the fuck I was the same height as her. In fact, I was feathery. In goddamn fact, I was basically her now! I was an owl! I was an actual owl! I fully transformed into a bird! The movements didn’t feel weird because I probably inherited her coordination. It felt, natural – I guess that’s nature magic for you.

“My god,” I used the same magic for speech that Gale did. “Gale! Do you realise what this means?!”

“Yes. It means you’re an owl,” she said sarcastically.

“Yes, yes, very funny! But seriously, I can transform into all the life forms that I merged with before! Dragons! Dragonkin! Scorpions! I could literally be Phoenix right now, Gale!” That was obviously an exaggeration. I couldn’t do full transformations for everything I merged with.

Her feathers suddenly flared up. She didn’t appreciate that last part.

“I see. Then, out of respect for Phoenix, I won’t use Celosia’s cells to transform. To be honest, I actually said that because I thought you’d like it, so, sorry.”

She stared at me for a while, “No, magic is meant to be used, and it is not the real Phoenix anyway. I should apologise for getting riled up like that.”

“You’re right, but I still won’t use it. I don’t exactly feel comfortable doing it, at least not for battle. Maybe if I need to help Celosia, I’ll do it.”

“Have you gone to Hydra, yet? I recommend leaving her for last, because, well. If you transform into her without knowing, the landscape…”

“Oh!” I guffawed, “Makes sense.”

So, my next target was Tarit, who lorded over my favourite element, lightning. The guy couldn’t give a rat’s ass about me merging with him, all he cared about was not having his sleep disturbed again. I rested my hand on one of his paws and began.

After having a full transformation, the merging process didn’t take as long as before. I tried it out, being a tiger. Wasn’t my thing, so I reverted to human form.

Next, I tried that dragon. It was certainly easier to walk around with, unlike just two legs from being an owl, however, dragons were much heavier, so their muscles that controlled the wings were like steel. So far, the dragon transformation was my favourite because of how balanced it was.

Next was Hydra, who was all too happy to help me. She wrapped me up in her arms and took me deep into the sea. After all, I’d need the space. First, she transformed into her full form, and I began merging soon after. Even with Timedial, that merge took an hour instead of the three to five minutes it usually took. So, size plays a role.

I controlled the transformation so that I wouldn’t do it automatically; we needed some space between us – a lot of space. Finally, I did it. I transformed into Hydra, and it was by far the weirdest transformation ever, not even considering the size. To have five heads and therefore five simultaneous perspectives at all times was almost too much for me. It all felt like they had their own pieces of my personality as well. There was one feeling though, a feeling of overwhelming power. I wasn’t sure how to describe it, and I wasn’t sure if it was the size, or the absolutely massive muscle groups that led me to feel so. It felt like I towered over the world. I began to have an inkling of understanding to how Hydra must’ve felt, to how lonely it must’ve been to be this big and powerful.

I slowly transformed back to humanoid form, and so did she. “Hydra, do you love me?” I asked her, out of the blue.

She was about to reply whimsically, but eventually mirrored my seriousness. “More than I love the ocean, more than I love the water spirits, more than I love myself.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “for not seeing that sooner. But, I already have so many.”

“Leave that worry for other humanoid females. That doesn’t bother me. But, why do you suddenly bring this up?”

I shook my head, “It’s nothing. Let’s go have lunch. I’m famished!”

We small-talked for a while, then, before going off to the other lands of Jynnak, I decided to visit Yunaris. A random young man was leaned onto a tree, looking a bit dismal. There were a few parties here gathered up, and everyone was entering the dungeon, but it looked like he was by himself.

“Wanna go in?” I asked him.

He looked up, and gave me a look of pity. “Are you stupid? It’s just two of us. We’ll be killed or be forced to recall out. Better to wait for a full team.”

“What’s the rank of this dungeon?”

Again, I earned his irritation, “B-rank. It’s a B-rank dungeon, newbie.”

“Why are you so angry?”

“Why?! You wanna know why?!” he snapped. “Because–” then stopped when he turned around and recognised who I was. A mixture of emotions swelled within him, until he couldn’t even look me in the eye. His jaw tightened and his hands clenched, “I am sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” I stopped him. “Something’s clearly bothering you. Tell me what it is.” I pulled him into the void; the slight hue of violet surprised him. “There’s no one but me here, so tell me, what’s really going on?”

Again, he welcomed silence into the conversation; his mind did backflips by the expressions that rearranged his face. “You! Because of you, my family was attacked and slaughtered! Because of First Flight! And now the emperor places his allegiance with you!” The young man was trying desperately to keep his tears back, and his urge to choke the living daylights out of me was itself, choked. “Not only was nothing done, not only was my life ruined, but now I have to work for you of all people! You want to know why I’m pissed?!” He walked towards me. “I’m fuckin’ pissed because assholes like you get to do what you want at other people’s expense! I’m pissed because I’m not strong enough to do anything about it! I’m pissed because I’m too weak to kill you!”

The tears finally paraded down his face, but only from one eye. It almost felt like it represented that half his emotions were turmoil and the other half was hatred and anger. “Wow! That’s a lot to take in! I hadn’t even known! Well, let’s see,” I squatted down. “So, in the end, you’re just a weakling that can’t do anything about the hand he was dealt. You may say you hate me, but you hate yourself even more, don’t you? I’d hate myself too if I was in your position.” I rubbed my chin, “I’m going to be frank with you. There’s absolutely nothing you can do. You can’t take revenge because I’m simply too strong, and you’re too weak. So, how’s about we get you stronger?”

He looked at me, quite untrustingly. “Why should I trust you?”

I finally stood up, “Well, you don’t have to. But you are getting the personal help of the real Eric Archibald, not a clone. Not to brag, but I don’t think it’s something you want to pass up.”

“F-fine…”

~

So, here we were, at the Floating Horsemen, an A-rank dungeon. Looked like he was a D-rank dungeoneer, with no equipment except one very shabby sword. Sure, I could’ve made him an entire set, but I chose to see where he was mentally whilst in the face of danger.

We entered the huge hallway dimly lit by a few torches. At the end of the hallway was the three portraits of the floating horsemen. I let loose a simple crackle of lightning, and the paint began melting, dripping onto the ground and forming the horsemen.

Their eyes lit up with an eerie aura when they opened it. “What’s your name again?”

“Kalen,” he said, holding up his badly maintained short sword. The warrior horseman with the two-handed sword rushed into him without warning, and he panicked and froze. Just before the warrior’s sword could split him in half, I halted the warrior with void magic.

The mage turned her attention to me and released a Wind Cutter at me, bounding my feet the minute she released the spell. Luckily, Voidport placed me right behind her and my scorpion stinger got her right in the neck; I thanked Kor’zha mentally. She was paralysed and unable to do a thing. What was nice about it, was that I didn’t need to maintain any magic unlike other subjugation spells.

Using the chance that I gave him, Kalen was about to plunge his sword into the warrior’s neck, but his sword was parried by the tank horseman, and that parry was quickly followed up with a kick to the chest, sending Kalen flying a few metres away. With some light manipulation, his damaged sternum was back in order.

I kept my hold on the warrior and observed Kalen for a while. He was a natural at evasion, at least when he wasn’t scared to death. His footwork allowed him to wiggle out of really compromising situations. His eyes constantly scanned for a chink in the armour, and he began making distance more and more easily. While like this, he was the one in control for the most part, but the second he had to get up close and personal, he would lose his edge and end up running away, only to start all over again.

Hmm, I see. The RC should really rework their role assignments. An earthen pike shot out the ground and impaled the tank through his arm. “Hey, come over here for a second,” I called Kalen. “Ever used a bow?”

“A-a little…”

Hmm, I nodded my head, created a strong recurve bow and a quiver with some arrows. Whilst he equipped it, I walked toward the tank. Now, if I remember correctly… My hand touched on the forehead of the towering tank. Subservience bound his will to me, and I was basically asked if I wanted to make the tank my minion by Yunaris’ world magic.

This was just like that time August and I befriended a wolf in a dungeon and we were allowed to make it our pet or minion. Because of Yunaris’ system, people with minions could choose whether they want their minion’s level to match their own, or if they want the minion to keep its current level.

Of course, I chose to have it match mine, which, according to the status window, was now one hundred and fifty-one. I chose not to pay particular attention to it even though I could use Yunaris’ system outside of Yunaris, because it simply wasn’t how I was used to things. So, the tank was now my minion. “Open your window thing and take this pet,” I said. “I can’t enchant the bow to be indestructible or anything like that. Our enchanter is pretty busy. You’d have to get your own arrows when you run out too.”

Kalen was unsure how to react. He simply nodded and prepared to shoot. Surprisingly, he chose to take care of the sorceress first. I summoned a tentacle and transferred my knowledge of Hawk Eye and Invisibility. Although, it was just raw knowledge and not exactly a spell transfer. He’d still have to practise the spells, but he’d but able to master them much quicker.

I released the warrior from my grasp, and the warrior wasted no time gunning after me. Kalen’s tank horseman protected me, using his strength to simply overpower the warrior. Kalen shot a quick arrow through the head of the bound warrior. We exited the dungeon right after viewing the spoils.

By that time, the other parties were finished, and they looked at Kalen with pity, thinking that his entire team died except him. Their pity quickly turned into shock when they saw the tank horseman. Swords were raised, shields prepped, and spells at the ready. Kalen had to quickly calm them down, then pointed at me for reassurance.

“Yes, it’s true. You can take monsters from dungeons as minions. I don’t recommend doing it though. That’s just unneeded danger,” I quickly went to a void plane to avoid conversation after. Yeah, I know, that was horrible, but there was nothing they couldn’t find out by asking one of my clones.

My goal of observing the training regimen wasn’t met, but at least I helped someone. I thought that maybe Yunaris would be a good world to retire to.

I returned home although I was a little worried that there were other people just like Kalen, people who hated me but was forced to join the coalition’s efforts. However, as messed up as I thought it was to ignore such issues, I decided to do just that. My main duties were to grow stronger and discover new worlds to join the cause. So, in efforts to kill two birds with one stone, I tracked down Drak’ka and asked if she’d like to come along with me for a little adventure.

“At a time like this?” She somewhat judged me, “How can you be so carefree?”

I stared at the pale demon, “Is that your true form? Were you born like that?” I asked, totally disregarding her questions.

She glowered, wanting to say something, but eventually sighed. “No, I was not. My true form is hideous and not very mobile. So, what’s this about an adventure?”