Silence filled the conference room that the three figures were sitting inside. The one sitting at the left side of the table was an old man, with grey hair and bushy brows that scrunched downwards. He was looking back and forth from the screen and his phone. On the right was a brown haired youth with lighting flowing through his eyes: Connor. He looked up at the television screen with a bit of a smirk. The final person, sitting at the top of the table, was The Hammer herself, Marianne. Her brow twitched and right fist clenched in frustration and confusion, there was even an agap smile of disbelief plastered on her face.

“What… just happened?” She muttered under her breath.

The three were staring at a screen which showed Leoric holding a sleeping beagle in his hands. They had watched the entire assessment, but didn’t expect this last minute victory to occur.

“I wasn’t expecting that.” Connor smiled, “He beat a Blue, and not just beat, overwhelmed. That’s the only way he could’ve used Transmutation on an opponent that rapidly.”

“Well isn’t that just great.” Marie spat, looking back at Connor. “What aptitudes was he using in that fight?”

Connor folded his arms and paused for a moment. “Well Transmutation and Emission for sure, but I’m trying to figure out if he used Conveyance or not.”

“How so?” The older man questioned, looking up from his phone.

“When the chains wrapped into a ball at the end. He definitely turned invisible then, but I don’t think he had enough time to leap out normally. So he either: a. used Conveyance magic to propel or teleport forward before the chains converged, or b. Transmuted himself again while invisible into another amorphous shape or just something small. My guess is the latter, since there was a pause before he attacked Thomas again. Plus, he’s already shown he’s a master in Transmutation.”

“Let’s assume both.” Marie instructed, “Let’s assume that he is a master in Transmutation, and that he has access to Conveyance magic. It would support his claim he made yesterday that he knows all the aptitudes.”

“Does he though?” Connor questioned.

“Marcus reviewed the footage from the room, and he wasn’t lying.” The old man interjected.

“What if he just thinks he does?” Marie asked. “We’ve had plenty of Heroes from plenty of worlds, and some didn’t have names or even knowledge of certain attributes.”

“It would make sense, I haven’t seen him use anything remotely similar to Entropy and Restoration, and those are the two attributes most frequently unknown to Heroes. Who knows, he might not even know about Absolutions.”

“This seems to be the best known case, but we’ll keep an eye out in case he shows any signs of knowledge of the two. Moving on, how did he do with the questions? Did Marcus figure out his purpose?”

The old man looked at his phone and reviewed the recent text chain he had with Marcus. There were quite a few emojis used on both ends of the conversation.

“Looks like for now, he just wants to see his family.” The old man explained. “Problem is, it appears he’s willing to do anything for it, possibly even becoming hostile to us.”

“He seems calm now,” Connor interjected. “And the hostility only seems plausible if we stand in his way. I say we give him Indigo.”

“Indigo is way too high!” Marie blurted out. “There’s still too much we don’t know yet. He earned some privileges, but I don’t think he should leave yet. My vote is for Green.”

The old man sat silent for a while, moving up and down the text chain, even smiling a little. After a minute, he realized that the two were looking at him to settle this disagreement. Afterall, he was in charge of assessments and assigning lanyard colors. That was one of his primary roles as the head of HR: Hero’s Resources.

“Ahem.” He released an awkward cough to cut the tension. “Although Base Commander Marianne is right, and that we don’t know enough about him, he still earned his right to leave. So I suggest a compromise, he split the difference and give him Blue. That way he can leave, but only with an Indigo or Violet as an escort.”

“Works for me.” Connor raised his hands in submission, before looking towards Marie. “Base Commander?”

Marie paused for a moment before clicking her tongue. “Fine, I trust your judgement. But I get to pick his escort.”

With a nod of approval from the old man, Marianne waved her hand to dismiss the two. Without missing a beat, they sat up and took their leave.

“They forgot to salute.” Marianne muttered.

She’s been in charge of this base for around four months now, yet she couldn’t get past the lack of order here. She was given the promotion, and was looking forward to everyone saluting her and being treated with respect, but these cocky children would barely give her any respect. Even the ones who joined this upstart branch of the military wouldn’t even salute, and it was hard enough for them to call her base commander.

It wasn’t fair. Just because they went to another world and became blessed with magic and other supernatural gifts, didn’t mean that they could walk all over my years of training. I was a colonel for god’s sake.

She took a breath before looking back up to the screen. At the moment, Leoric was sitting down, scratching the head of the sleeping puppy in his lap. It was hard to pick up the audio from that far, but it seemed like he was congratulating and complimenting the dog on a job well done.

And to think, my new problematic Hero is an old fart.

Pinching her nose in frustration, she sat up, and went to return to her other duties for the day.

Leoric laid down on the vast training field to catch his breath and relax. Marcus had left to go finish the evaluation a short time ago, and asked for him to wait here. It had been a while since he had to get kind of serious, but it was a nice turn of events. Also, he always found it funny when he could turn his opponent into an animal, reminded him of the good old days with him and his friend.

A travelling circus filled with animals had appeared to perform in front of the King, and it turned out that they were all polymorphed assassins. It's hilarious to think about, but it's all fun and games till a bear takes out a knife and stabs you in the gut.

“Wh-what happened?” A groggy voice mumbled from the side.

Sitting up, Leoric turned to address the once sleeping Thomas.

“Morning, did you sleep well?” He asked, with a mischievous grin plastered on his face.

“Uh, yeah I guess. What’s with that look?” Thomas questioned, looking up at the shockingly huge Elf before him.

“Oh nothing. I just heard your new form sleeps a lot better, so I had to ask.”

Thomas looked confused, before he attempted to stand to find the lack of strength and size unable to allow him to stand on two legs. Checking his body, he yelped in surprise to see a much smaller, and fluffier body. Leoric chuckled again, he never got old of seeing how people reacted, especially his students. The cocky ones would come from across the country to train with him, only to end up as an animal for half a day.

“Don’t you worry, I’ll go ahead and stop the Transmutation.” And with a flick of his hand, the ambient magic pulled out, returning him to his tall, orcish self.

“That must’ve been what you used at the end of our fight.” Thomas complimented, “But why didn’t you dismiss it after I went out cold?”

“Oh, I just wanted to see the look on your face when you woke up.” Leoric laughed, causing Thomas to frown a bit in frustration.

“Plus, I thought it would’ve just dissipated over time. We used a lot of ambient magic in our fight, but it quickly started to regenerate. Why is that?”

Thomas chuckled, before cracking his back and standing up. He started walking over to one of the walls, so Leoric followed shortly. The Orc pointed upwards towards a small black stone embedded into the ceiling. It was hard to make out at first, but Leoric instantly recognized the gem.

“A Density Stone? They exist on Earth?” Leoric muttered in disbelief. To him, Density Stones could only be found in places with amassed ambient arcana and enough heat and pressure. And to his current knowledge, Earth didn’t have enough ambience magic to create a stone of this degree.

“Don’t know. But this one came with one of the Heroes. They donated one to the base.” Thomas explained.

“They’re lucky then. To have had one in their possession when they were brought back.” Leoric was a little jealous. He wished that he had brought one of his Density Stones or even his staff. But no, he was brought here with no long lasting sources of ambient magic like those. He rubbed his ear once more.

“Yeah, I wish I had their luck. They caught me with my pants down. Literally. I just killed the enemy’s general and was bathing the blood and sweat off in a nearby stream.” Thomas smiled, still blushing just remembering the whole incident.

“Well, either way, you definitely earned it after taking on a general. You certainly have the skills to do it.” Leoric remarked.

“Thanks, I was only there for a few years, but my teacher said I was a natural.” Thomas boasted.

Leoric paused for a moment. If he was gone for only a few years, why was he a fully grown Orc? To his knowledge, Orcs aged at a pace similar to humans. There really were some inconsistencies between each Hero.

“Well I’m one to talk, you totally whopped me at the end there. How long were you gone for?”

“Around three hundred years.”

“What!” Thomas screamed. “I thought you were younger than me, but you’re just an old fossil!”

Leoric looked away, he really didn’t like people talking about his age. He enjoyed the experiences he got, but hated the nicknames and such. But “old fossil” wasn’t so bad. The one he hated the most was-

“So gramps,”

Damn it.

“Got any pointers? Cuz I thought I didn’t need any til I fought you.”

Leoric paused for a moment, once more thinking back to his time as a teacher. “Have you ever considered making the spears smaller after throwing them? The way you fight, you’d benefit if they were smaller, like rapiers or daggers.”

“You can do that? I thought you’d have to dismiss the entire spear.” Thomas questioned, looking at Leoric with disbelief.

“Yeah, it's a technique called Dissociative Dismissal. You have to treat your Emission like two separate objects, but only when you’re trying to remove a portion. Otherwise, you may create a spear that can easily snap in half.”

Thomas listened intently to the short lecture, but before Leoric could continue, Marcus opened up the glass door. He had a huge grin plastered across his face, and held something in his right hand.

“Hope I’m not interrupting something.” Marcus called out, “But I have a surprise for Leoric.”

Leoric apologized to Thomas for the interruption, and then went over to the half lizard human. When he got close enough, Marcus instructed him to open out a hand. And a Leoric did so, he placed a blue lanyard onto the slightly tanned palm. He quickly took off his red lanyard, and began to place his ID card on the new one. He didn’t know what blue meant, but he could only assume it was better than being untested.

“Thank you Marcus, but what does the blue lanyard mean?” Leoric asked, looking up at the smiling man.

“You better thank me for this. Blue is the minimum requirement to leave the base. They’re contacting your family tomorrow.”