“You want me to train you in everything?” Liana spluttered. She’d jumped up from her comfortable armchair in the small salt-cavern when he’d asked the question. “That is not what I agreed to, Xavier Collins. You saved my life, and I’m grateful. Honour requires that I’m in your debt, and teaching you how to properly utilise your Time Alteration spell more than covers that debt, I should say.”

Xavier smiled. Considering how Liana had first reacted to him asking her to teach him, he’d expected something like this.

Perhaps he was pushing her too far—she was not the roaming master he was looking for, nor he the bright-eyed, young apprentice.

Still, she was currently his best option. “I agree. That does more than cover the debt. But perhaps you might wish me to be in your debt?”

“I don’t need your money,” the woman said, though she sounded less sure than she had a mere moment ago.

“Well, that’s good.” Xavier opened his hands. “I don’t really have any money.”

“Then what exactly are you offering?”

Xavier looked out of the cave’s mouth, back into the depths of the forest climbing up the Dark Mountains. “I will owe you a favour.”

Liana returned to her armchair, though she didn’t relax and lean back like she had the first time she’d sat in it. “You make that sound as though it’s worth a great deal more than I can currently ascertain. Are you from a particularly powerful family?”

Xavier shook his head. “I come from a newly integrated world.”

Liana suddenly broke out into laughter. It was the most relaxed Xavier had seen the woman since they’d met. She wiped a tear from her eye. “You’re from a newly integrated world? A baby world? Really? You must know little of the Greater Universe if you think a favour from you is worth something, let alone something as valuable as my time.” The humour in her words slowly turned to frustration, until finally she’d said the last words in anger. “I will teach you what we bargained, and no more.”

“We have signed a contract of secrecy.” Xavier took his eyes away from the dark forest beyond their cave and looked at the woman. He could see her through his Farscope ability, wherever his head was turned—that’s how he knew she was the most relaxed she’d ever been a moment ago—but there was something impactful about looking someone in the eye. “And so I will share with you who I am, and why a favour from me might mean something to you if not today, then in the future.” He raised his chin. “I am Level 162.”

Liana laughed again. Then she froze, staring at him. Xavier’s face was blank, and there was no hint of mirth in her eyes. “Wait, you’re serious? You honestly think I could believe that you are E Grade? And not even the peak of E Grade?” She shook her head. “Did that damned barkeep back at Hunter’s Home tell you I was some sort of fool?”

Xavier did something he wasn’t sure he should do—he shared his status window with the woman. While it was something he’d heard one could do, before today he wouldn’t have thought to do it with someone not in his party, or otherwise under his influence.

The woman’s eyes glazed over. And—though Xavier hadn’t thought such a thing would be possible—her face became even more pale than it already was, almost corpselike in its pallor.

“Level 162…” Liana breathed. “You are an E Grade on the hundredth floor of the Tower of Champions, and you’re still alive. These stats…” She motioned frantically outside the cave in an expansive gesture. “T-t-the Nightmare,” she stuttered. “You controlled The Nightmare!”

“I am more than I seem, Liana,” Xavier said. He wasn’t intending to sound ominous, but it was hard not to given the situation. “The System has chosen me for something, and I feel as though I have much to learn if I am going to accomplish it.”

“T-t-truth contract. Binding and private. Now,” Liana sputtered.

Xavier obliged.

“Repeat what you said, about the System,” Liana said.

Xavier did so.

Liana sunk as far back into her armchair as she could. “Chosen by the System. I have heard myths of such things, but to know it for truth?” She spoke as though in awe. “I don’t know what it is you’ve gotten me caught up in, Xavier Collins, but if this is how powerful you are now, and you’re truly chosen—not that you could have lied—then… Perhaps a favour from you is worth something to me.”

The woman glanced around the cave. “First thing’s first, we cannot train here. The Dark Mountains are not suitable for what we need.”

“Why were you here?” Xavier asked, remembering his first sight of the woman—the dark ooze crawling over her skin, almost having taken her over to its fullest. There had been no salt around her to ward off The Nightmare.

“I have my reasons.” Liana’s head dropped. Her black hair fell over her eyes, and she had a dark look about her. “And they are not for you to know.”

~

At first, Xavier was hesitant to leave the Dark Mountains. He had barely explored the control he had over the creature there—The Nightmare, as Liana had told him it was called—but he realised the wisdom in it.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

As much as he didn’t wish it to be so, his control over the C Grade entity was slipping the more of his Willpower Energy he lost. From what he could ascertain, the beast—if it could truly be called a beast—didn’t have a mind, but if it did, and it knew what he had done… he may not be able to repeat the feat he had just managed if his Willpower Energy reserve was depleted.

In fact, he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it. He replenished his reserve through cultivation and the use of potions, but it drained faster and faster the longer his mind expanded into that of The Nightmare.

It’s too powerful—too large to hold onto for long.

Perhaps he might be able to use his control over it to his advantage in killing the entity, but now was not the time for him to face a C Grade being, let alone one he barely understood.

The two Champions did not return to Hunter’s Home. Instead, Liana led Xavier through the forest at a sprint. The woman moved faster than him. It felt strange, struggling to keep up—even stranger when the woman waited for him to catch up to her.

The woman’s confidence seemed to grow at finding out that he was slower than her. She seemed to take pride in her Speed. That shouldn’t have been too surprising, given her supposed mastery over time—his Speed Core was what had gotten him his Time Alteration spell, after all.

They encountered a few beasts on their way, but Liana breezed past them. Any that got too close and seemed to pose a threat, she somehow froze with a swish of her staff—they appeared to be stuck within bubbles of time dilation.

Just like the bubble that he used.

Only she was able to use this multiple times. Her cooldown was minimal, especially compared with what Xavier had to work with.

Liana eventually stopped in a small forest grove that was open to the night sky. The grove seemed peaceful. A breeze rolling in, swaying branches, rustling leaves. There wasn’t a single beast in sight.

Though Xavier knew the peace was simply an illusion—danger could strike at any moment on the hundredth floor.

The woman summoned her armchair from her Storage Ring for a second time and sat down on it. She didn’t lean back, as she had before. This time, she was perched on its edge, her hands folded in her lap—she’d deposited her staff into her Storage Ring for the time being.

“Show me what it is you can do.”

And so Xavier did.

He cast Time Alteration. He contemplated the two options for the spell at his disposal—he could slow down time in the bubble, meaning time would move faster outside of it, but he’d never seen the utility in that.

Or he could speed up time in the bubble—which was the only thing he’d used it for so far.

Xavier did the latter.

Liana stood. She walked directly to the edge of the time bubble, then stopped.

Xavier blinked. “How are you able to discern the edge? I’ve used it with others inside it before, and they were not able to.”

Liana looked over her shoulder at him. “Were they D Grades?”

Xavier smiled. “No. They were not.”

“Then there’s your answer.”

Xavier walked over to the edge of the bubble. He folded his hands behind his back. He had questions—many of them—but he wanted to see what this woman would do first.

“How long have you had this spell?” Liana asked.

He told her.

“How long does it last?”

“I haven’t tested—I feel as though it could last a very long time, however.”

“Hmm.”

Liana asked him several more questions—what rank the spell was, did his cooldowns work while it was up, how long did it take to cool down, could he slow down time within the bubble if he wished. Could he switch how the bubble functioned once it had been summoned—speed up time if it had been slowed, expand or contract the bubble.

Xavier answered these questions patiently.

Liana nodded. Once she seemed satisfied he’d answered everything she wanted to know, she sat back down on the armchair she’d summoned. She was silent for an entire minute before Xavier cleared his throat.

“Should I end the spell?”

Liana shook her head. “We will wait.”

“For what?”

“For the spell to end on its own.”

Xavier was taken aback. “But we have no idea how long that might take. We could be inside the bubble for hours, maybe days.”

Liana examined him with a tilt of her head. Her hair fell back over her face, covering her left eye. She didn’t bother brushing it out of the way. “Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

Xavier frowned. “No.” He considered arguing with the woman. Wasn’t it a waste of time, keeping the spell up for the entire duration? There were other things they could be doing, weren’t there? “Should I try and contract or expand the bubble?”

Liana smiled. “You are not familiar with patience, are you?”

Xavier blinked, looked away. He thought of how he had gotten to where he was in the first place. Then he smirked. “No. I suppose I’m not.”

Liana nodded. She sunk back in her armchair and summoned a book to her hand.

“Is that book about time magic?” Xavier asked.

Liana looked at the book, then showed him the cover. Xavier blanched. It was a shirtless, muscular male elf with long, flowing silver hair.

“No, but it sure does help pass the time.” She gave him a wink and flipped the book open. “If there’s one thing I can teach you first about being a time mage, it’s that things work rather differently for us than they do for other Denizens. You feel a sense of urgency—I can see it in the way it seems impossible for you to relax. That urgency never leaves you, does it?”

“There are reasons I feel this way. Responsibilities I have, to my world, to my sector…” He trailed off, thinking, to the Greater Universe.

“Yes, I did gather something to that effect, considering you told me you were chosen by the System. But think about where you are right now.” She raised her index finger and motioned in a circle. “A bubble of time, with everything outside of it moving so slow it looks frozen. Then, think about the floor you are on. The hundredth floor, notorious for its manipulation of time. An hour here, a mere minute back in our own universe.

Liana leant forward. “So tell me, right now, where you are, what exactly is so urgent?” She sunk back in her armchair and turned her gaze to her book. “Patience—you must cultivate it as though it were any other energy you bring into yourself.”

Xavier contemplated the woman’s words and found no fault in them. It made perfect sense that they could remain within this bubble for as long as it took to test his limits—but he still chafed at the idea, and the execution of it.

He found it difficult to sit still. He thought about practising his meditation—at least he would be doing something useful—but when he closed his eyes to do so, Liana clicked her fingers.

“Meditating might throw off the results. Find something else to do.”

Xavier glared at her. Was she telling the truth? Could his Meditation skill really throw off the results, or with this simply a lesson in patience she was trying to teach him?

He sighed—inwardly—and tried to think of something to do while he waited.

Liana seemed more than content to continue reading her book, every now and then letting out a flutter of giggles.

Xavier stared at the woman he’d chosen to be his teacher, and wondered if he had made the right decision.