Unlike the last time, Kyrion awoke in the care of rabbits. These Lapora had almost no intention of fattening him up and eating him. For that reason alone, he allowed them to feed him bittersweet orange grapes as he lay on a sizable gaudy couch that he had no memory of creating said luxury. As Kyrion stretched and sat up, he looked about some more and noticed a box before him.

“What’s this?” Kyrion asked one of the seven arms at his side before shivering.

“That is the box of wishes. Since you fell asleep in my territory, we decided to charge you rent per se.”

“I own the tower and you want me to charge you rent?”

“We also fed you and provided luxury. Would you think of gaining these benefits for free?”

Kyrion observed the shrewd expression and sighed.

“How does it work?” Kyrion asked as he didn’t bother giving in. They were his subjects, technically.

“Our people attribute luck as a cultural focus. So games of chance are seen as sacred. All you have to do is pull out a slip from this box and grant the wish listed. If it is not within your power then you need to…”

“Stop… If it’s not within my power then why should I bother? No, I’m going to come up with a set rotation of items that can be purchased from the divine pad. Or built by one of my facilities. I will not make any personal wishes. Also, the cost will be with a separate currency.” Kyrion interrupted before thinking for a moment. “I’ll have it all ready soon.”

“And you won’t compensate us for the sun olives?”

“Olives? The weird tasting grapes?” Kyrion examined the orange grape and noticed a tiny hole in the bottom where a seed had been removed.

“Have you not had olives before?” The Lapora boss looked at him with a piteous expression.

A figure appeared behind Kyrion, grabbed him by the stomach, and held onto him in an underarm carry like a troublesome toddler. A nostalgic position when he thought back at it, and resisting would be idiotic.

“Imala hates olives so much that she purges them from her planet whenever they begin to grow. She also hates geese and roaches. Sadly, the former always find a way onto her surface. The latter have been hunted to extinction by some of her favored spiders and zealots.”

“Huh. Is the goddess of your planet a kid or something?” The Lapora asked.

Kyrion shrugged. “I’m sure your world had issues too.”

The Lapora looked about and sighed. “I don’t doubt that.”

“Why are you moving around so much? Your teacher has informed me that you tend to cause trouble when out of sight for too long. So I’m bringing you back to the others where you won’t draw much more attention.”

“Fair enough.” Kyrion went limp as he was carried down a few staircases he hadn’t known about earlier.

“You seem confused.I built a pathway for natives and administration.That way we don’t need to worry about going through an entire floor to get down.”

“And my teleporters only go down ten.”

“Convient for visitors but inconvenient for us.”

“Why do you even need stairs. Aren’t you supposed to be omnipotent or something?”

“Not how it works here. If I were in my own divine domain then I would be omnipotent, but not completely omnipresent. We can’t see everything but we do see alot. Anything done outside or in the presence of living natives.”

“A little privacy wouldn’t kill you.” The ancestor spoke from behind Kyrion’s eye with a flippant tone.

“What about those summoned from other worlds?” Kyrion eyed the goddess innocently.

“They are naturally immune to our direct gaze. We can see them through others but not out of their eyes.”

“See through their eyes. Domain… Curious.” Kyrion felt something gather in his head before it was whisked from directly out his head and out a window.

“What did you do?” Almira asked.

“I thought it was you!” Kyrion directed towards Almira despite being unable to look at her from his position.

“It wasn’t, and if you don’t know, then I guess you should continue your training.” Kyrion was unceremoniously tossed onto the sand of floor six.

Volain wasn’t used to being the weakest person in a group. He hadn’t been in such a position since he was found by a traveling orcish trade caravan. He hadn’t been old enough to remember his parents, and he was confident that they were either dead or he was abandoned in the frigid Volarnarian mountain range at the eastern Valvnorim border. From there, he had been fed and raised as an orc. He had gained strength to the point where he had become the leader of a hunting party.

And yet some blond-haired twig proved stronger than him in every way. Strength, skill, tactics, perception, and power. It was like fighting a mountain that was falling from the sky. You do not fight a mountain coming out of the sky. You run and jump, hoping not to be crushed by its weight. The gap wasn’t that big when he fought him last time; the twig may have been going easy on him.

Volain jumped to the side to avoid a punch aimed at his gut. The shockwave from the blow sent him flying through a sand dune. His body was cut by shards that seemed much sharper than they should have been.

“Is that all the mighty Volain can muster?”

“Uggh.” Volain groaned a response as he struggled to his feet.

“Seems so. He hasn’t formed any protection for his body yet. Did you have to push him that far?” Asked the armored Mike.

“This isn’t anything near what I put my previous student through, and he was just a healer with very few direct offensive potential options at the time. If he doesn’t have the resolve, he should just quit now.” Gamodren stated flippantly.

“Every student is different. Not everyone can grow from such direct methods.”

Volain’s expression sharpened as rage filled him. His body rose from the sand as he looked straight at Gamodren. “Shut up! I’m not giving up now! You just knocked me for a loop. I’ll return the favor soon, so I hope you more than just talk.”

“Is that so?” Gamodren smiled arrogantly as his arms shifted into gauntlets covered in rainbow-colored scales.

Voilian charged forward, pumping Divine Essence into his legs and elbows. Barreling forward like an angry bull.

While the fight was reaching its pinnacle, a red-haired figure appeared next to Mike. “Gamodren failed to mention that I have a powerful regeneration ability and used it to push my will and stamina higher than most can handle.”

Mike jumped in surprise as he was snuck up on. “Y-your awake.”

“Of course, did you expect me to sleep all day?”

“You entered the forest of thorns. I didn’t expect you to wake up here.””

“The fight was a bit close as I had burned myself out prior. But….” Kyrion held out his left hand, and it was shrouded in white flames before fading into a ruby-red gauntlet that now stretched past his funny bone.

“Can you armor your whole body yet?” Mike asked.

Kyrion shook his head and raised his right hand. “This was all I managed to figure out so far.Although I did steal these.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Stole what?” Mike looked at the empty hand.

“Thorns, come out.” Kyrion ordered the thorns in his right arm to act. They chose to ignore that command.

“Thorns?”

“They seem to be a bit shy.” Kyrion waved his right hand to the side as a series of sharp triangular blades shot out of his palm and buried themselves in the sand before retreating back into his hand.

“Oh. That’s concerning. Are you going to bother training that?”

“I’m considering holding onto it for a little while longer. It is my right arm until I die or my old one grows back..”

“Move!” Volain yelled as he was launched directly into Kyrion, knocking the other to the ground and trapping him in a sand dune.

“Your talk is distracting my current student from his training. Join in or go away.” Gamodren commanded.

“Alright.” Kyrion poked his head out of the top, excited at the chance to wipe the smug expression off Gamodren’s face.

“Oh. No. I’m sorry Kyrion. I’m not your opponent this time. You need to teach your friend here.”

“He isn’t my friend.” Volain scowled as his eyes focused on Kyrion’s left arm.

“How rude. Wait what are you looking at?” Kyrion hid his hand behind his back.

“You’re arm. Why is it armored now.”

“Oh that. I figured out how to transform an arm. Although I haven’t managed to move it to the rest of my body.”

“I see.” Violain suddenly charged towards Kyrion, using his entire body as a weapon, the force around him spreading out.

Kyrion’s eyes widened as he pushed his left arm out to create a wall of hard wind out of habit. However, wind did not protect him, nor was it water, earth, or fire. What protected his body was a purple wall that consumed Volian whole before shooting him out another purple wall that had appeared right behind Gamodern.

“Ack!” Gamodren yelped as his back was slammed into by a powerful force, and despite the lack of bones being present, there was indeed a crack as the expert was sent flying off his high ground.

Volain looked about, confused. “That was your magic. I knew it.”

Gamodren spat out a rainbow-colored liquid and looked at Kyrion with suspicion. “You should only be able to use magic that has bonded to your soul here, and as far as I can tell your connection to your spirits is blocked. Fire was weird, but space as well. That isn’t normal for a human to learn.”

Kyrion jumped to the side as Volain broke the sound barrier and created a crater of sand that pushed Kyrion further away than he had planned.

Volain turned his body to change again. Power building up in his feet.

Kyrion landed, sent a wave of superheated flame into the sand, and fanned out as it hit Volain, turning the sand into molten earth before rapidly cooling into a very dense glass.

Volain roared as he was trapped by a layer of glass two feet thick and quite dense. His power gathered into his legs more and more as he pushed his Divine Essence further than he had before.

With a loud shattering sound, Volain jumped free from his binds and landed gracefully on the glass as a set of black and white greeves with sharp blades at the bottom. Volain’s balance was perfect, and at that moment, Kyrion knew he was outmatched.

Volain skated forward at high speed, treating the glass-like ice. His fist connected with Kyrion’s body and propelled the boy above and away.

The ancestor spoke slowly, “Are you using my blood affinity at the moment?”

“No!” Kyrion yelled as he moved in the air, attempting to slow his momentum with his fire magic. It was working but not well enough as his body hit the ceiling, albeit not as hard as it could have been without the explosion.

Kyrion looked down at Volain’s legs and yelled from above.” That’s not fair! You have two limbs fixed but I only have one!”

“Just get stronger then.” Volain taunted.

“Why I oughta.” Kyrion pulled up imaginary sleeves and imagined Volain’s neck between his hands. So that he could strangle him. Of course, he was joking. Or, well, he thought he was joking. He didn’t expect or mean for it to actually happen.

Still, Volain had been teleported from the sand dunes and into Kyrion’s hands without a visible portal appearing or disappearing. He was just there and gone. Much to their surprise, it hardly took any D.E. to move him.

Volain struggled at the binds, and Kyrion let go in shock and confusion. Which resulted in Volain plummeting from a few fifty feet up, which didn’t make sense given the size of the stairs Kyrion went down to get to that floor.

“You idiot! When I wake up I’ll get you!”

Kyrion blinked rapidly as he imagined himself on the sand below.

Kyrion’s body moved from one place to another instantly. Only his lower body had been fused with the sand below, doing quite a bit of damage to him. Still from there, he imagined Volain a foot above the sand, and it worked.

Volain, who had been falling downwards, flew upwards a few inches before landing on his feet.

“You good? Seems you need to fall asleep before you can wake up.” Kyrion asked from his compromised position.

“Yes. Now crawl out so we can see about getting more than just my legs transformed.”

“Legs… Now that you mention it, I can’t seem to feel my own.” Kyrion pushed himself out of the sand with ease. Almost as if he didn’t have to lift his lower body.

In this strange world, Kyrion had become half a man in more ways than one.

Some words he recalled Jala mentioning a while back. “I didn’t teach you then because you’d likely hurt yourself one way or another. Teleporting your body can be tricky and I needed some contingencies.”

“The portal was something to visualize forming for my entire body so that I could safely move from one spot to another without losing my limbs and Jala was capable of restricting this aspect of my power. And if spirits can restrict powers, does that mean…” His train of thought ended as Volain grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and carried him towards a healing pond.

“Guess I win.” Was all Volain added.

Almira scowled. “How can a mortal have that level of potential with dimensional manipulation?.”

Mike scowled. “I don’t know.”

Gamodren popped his back as he hid behind Mike to fix his armor. Then, his eyes began to glow an eerie green as something spoke through him. “We are the youngest of a Siegfried with some other things mixed in. Someone on high has plans for us, it seems.”

“Is Imala trying to start a revolution?”

“I don’t know. Although I do believe, He who Plays the Hymn of Time, has a bit more than a finger on the scale. If time were a railway, we have gone so far off the rails that we are headed into space.”

“I don’t recall anyone with that epithet…Did you casually mention space trains? Those things are improbable without a dimensional conductor.”

“Of course you haven’t. He’s made sure not to go back to before you were imprisoned. You’d be able to alter the circumstances that led you here, which would have been moderately inconvenient and butterfly out.” Answered a possessed Gamodren.

“So the Throne of Time, has been replaced by someone else. And you are working with him.”

“We are working parallel. They have a goal, and we have a goal, sadly I doubt my other half will let me retain any memory of my knowledge relating to the truths I know when we fuse. Alright Gamodren, I’m done.” Gamodren’s face fell slack as he shivered. The creature that hijacked his form left.

“What did you learn?” Gamodren asked.

“That we’re in the palm of some great monster’s hand for reasons I don’t understand.” Mike sighed.

“The reason is simple. Someone wants to use my student for some Fornshit. And I am not strong enough to resist being a pawn, not unless I obtain temporal immunity.”

“You’d need to become a deity for that. Sadly I’m near certain that there are no openings. Not unless you attempt to kill usurp one of us.” Almira gave Gamodren a warning look.

“I mean, I’d love it if there was a spot open for a god of trade, gamblers, and money.”

Almira slowly blinked as she seemed to be going through a list. “We have a god of courses made of cards yet we don’t have one for trade…Why do we? Ah right, he’s how I ended up here.”

“Who is?”

“The Nadir, merchant of souls, was the previous deity but it seems he left the universe a while back. Jumping in every now and again to cause trouble.”

“So…”

“You are nowhere near powerful enough yet. While your soul may bring you close, I can sense that you were skimping on your own training so that your student could surpass you quickly, should he need to kill you. Foolish, as that monster doesn’t need the handicap. I’m sure you noticed the difference between when he’s playing with his opponent to give them hope when ending them would have been easy if he let loose with his mana. Range doesn’t effect most people like it seems to work on him. Yes it’s a doubling effect, even so, the effect is usually miniscule. The baseline is set by one’s natural capacity. Humans shouldn’t have that much capacity, you, I understand, given your species, but…”

“His soul has been through the fire, molded and beaten into shape by his experiences. He was allowed to cool for a few years before going back in to be refined into a rough blade. While I was away someone sharpened him and shaped him into a sharp blade. All that’s left is polishing. He’s going to need more than fire to accomplish that.”

“You think he has more than space and fire at his disposal?”

“I believe he’s learning them in reverse order. Fire was his most recent addition and he’d been using it frequently. Space gained a lot of power and control recently and before he could hardly do anything save open up his storage. Earth and order should be next, as he mastered those quickly and has been using them here without knowing he’d been doing it. His mental abilities and water should follow, leading up to his healing abilities. Finally he’ll have to master wind all over again. That’s my prediction anyways.”

“That is a dangerously diverse skill set.”

“Adaptation and misdirection. If your opponent doesn’t know how you can do something they can’t counter, therefore have at least two ways to do something and don’t give your opponent the time to figure out they were beaten. In my honest opinion, that’s what makes my old student a dangerous mage.”