36

Before he could more than blink, she stepped back and brushed herself off briskly. A smile spread across her face, unfamiliar in its movement. “Finally,” she said, the foreign tone and accent fully in force again. “I thought you two would be making love and nattering on for a decade. But, no. It ends in a promise kept, after all.”

She stretched out her arms and rolled her neck, power building around her with an audible hum as the world around them whited out to nothing.

“Almost time, my dear, just give me a few minutes here to acclimate.”

“Who are you?” Vander demanded.

“She didn’t tell you? I’m surprised. Then again, you probably only wanted to talk about yourself, hm?”

Vander suppressed the urge to punch in her smug face.

“I’ve been known by many names, but right now I’m your benefactor, and if you’ll give me a moment, I can introduce myself properly in juuuust...” The power building around her hissed and sparked, the shape of her body beginning to change. Where once she embodied Maddie’s visage, she now took the form of something foreign but familiar. Pops echoed in the white expanse as she stretched, groaning happily. “That’s nice.”

“Don’t make me ask again.”

“Your threats mean nothing to me, Vander.” She sighed and rubbed her temples. “Listen carefully, because I won’t say this twice. I’ve been manipulating your class assessment from the beginning.”

“I don’t care. Just tell me,” he said, feeling entirely far too done with her. He never liked know-it-alls, and she seemed to get a kick out of knowing more than he did. About what? He didn’t care and just wanted to get back to Ainos and out of this assessment that felt more like a prison every second that ticked by. “Tell me, or get lost. I can’t stress the amount of fucks I don’t give about this,” he waved his hand at her, the white void, and her again, “thing you’re doing.”

“It’s not a thing, Vander,” she grumbled and crossed her arms. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment. It’s been at least two, maybe three thousand years since I felt Madison’s traces across the Arcane Planes. That’s two or three millenia. For someone who’s lived so briefly as you, I understand that amount of time is hard to perceive, but this is a plan that’s been in action for a long time. Bear with me.”

“No.”

“Please?” She grinned as her eyes flashed violet. “Enough of that then. Let’s get to important matters. You met Emir in the first part and found my cauldron.”

“Summarize,” he muttered, looking for a portal to get out of there. “I don’t want to hear you go on and on about how great you are.”

She flicked the air, and the force of an elephant slammed into him. Appropriately, he flew backwards, head over heels. When he came to a stop, the nausea in his stomach was the only sensation he felt.

Odd. After he got his spinning head under control, he rose and checked his body. No signs of injury. He double, triple-checked. The lack of injury or pain made him think that the whole thing didn’t even happen, but he was sure it had.

“You’re really annoying,” he concluded, clenching his fists and thinking hard about how he wouldn’t be satisfied even if he hit her, since he hadn’t felt pain. Likely she wouldn’t either. A shame, really. He’d ache a bit to wipe the frustrating smugness clean off her face. “I don’t know what your problem is—”

“It’s you!” She flicked the air, but this time, he was prepared and saw the barely perceivable wall of mana blasting towards him. When he didn’t go flying, she huffed, “Fine. I’ll keep things short.”

“About time.”

“Madison was an echo, so loud it could be heard across the cosmos, and you were bound up in it by the weight of her regard. Anyone who looked could, would, and did find you. I needed her power, and to do that, I used you.” She shrugged. “Is what it is. As for who I am,” she said, holding up a hand to stop him from speaking, “you already met my dad, Emir. The Devil Lords captured and held me, killing everyone from the Findelsons, and kept both of us enslaved for thousands of years.”

“What does any of that have to do with me?” Vander asked, seeing how the dots were starting to connect, but it was as if he had two puzzle pieces out of a ten thousand piece puzzle. Too many parts he wasn’t aware of, and not many people with answers were very forthcoming—much like… “Wait, Emir’s daughter? Huh. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, though you seem far more out of your mind than him.”

“Growing up in the Chaos Realm has the tendency to do that, I figure. Anywho,” she waved her hand, and violet energy replayed the sequence of events Vander had experienced. “I needed Madison’s power, even a small bit. She’s the most gifted Arcanist I’ve ever seen or heard of, and that includes myself and daddy dearest. She had a power I needed, and the only way I could get it was through—you don’t need to know the specifics. I used you to attach Madison to this vessel and made a deal with her.”

“You mentioned a deal.” Intrigued, he listened. A lot of information, much of it seeming important, to process in a short amount of time, but he started to see the “why” behind what he’d experienced since coming to Gaia.

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She flicked the violet mirage and prompted it to continue. “Your attachment to her was too strong. She couldn’t let go because of you, so I promised I’d get you to move on. A peaceful afterlife and the like. You’ve been keeping her soul from letting go. She wasn’t kidding. You may not be like her, but you shine in a way I’ve never seen before. It’s a tad overwhelming at times, even.”

“What does that even mean? She said that too… before leaving.” The realization that he’d never hold Madison again nagged at the back of his mind, but he focused on what was in front of him. He’d break down later. He’d deal with the emotions he felt. That rawness he wanted to let out wasn’t something he could show this—whoever she was.

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ve evolved into a sorceress with her help and got past the block. That… also doesn’t matter to you.” She tapped the side of her jaw as she watched the events of the mirage Vander catch up to where they are. She held up both hands and lifted a finger for each thing she mentioned. “Amany and her master, they matter. The calamity, Gaia, and the boy Amany’s master wants you to find. They matter. Gaia matters the most.”

Vander rubbed his temples. Those were some big kid names. Not The Mad God, not Ainos. Not even imperial or royal colonists from Varoth. Deities, their quests, and an entire world. What have I been dragged into?

“Don’t look so pathetic. If you follow your heart and let it guide you, you’ll find your path forward.” She muttered to herself as she counted on her fingers again, though she counted to a number far higher than she’d shared with him… like there were things she wasn’t telling him. “Oh! Gotta go now, but I made sure to tell you everything you needed to know! So, uh— See you later, and tada or something!”

Poof.

She disappeared. Just like that, gone.

“What in the world is happening right now?” he asked, scratching his head. Then the world shifted again.

The remnants of his old life faded to another white void with a… goblin leaning across a bar looking bored? After dealing with Emir’s daughter, he didn’t want to deal with the goblin.

And apparently the system could read his thoughts, because the goblin scowled and poofed into a cloud of smoke, leaving behind a desk and magitek hologram interface. He sat, curious.

Class Assessment complete!

You can now access the coin shop.

Nothing came after the notification faded away, but he had a hunch. Looking at the hologram, he found what he expected. A familiar interface to peruse all the things he wanted, needed, didn’t know he needed, and then some. The options appeared before him in all their overwhelming glory, and his balance of 24,106 Coins was bold, gold, and centered at the top next to a search bar.

“That’ll be useful, I’m sure.”

There were several tabs that he sifted through one at a time to get familiar with the basic navigation aspects the shop gave him to use. Once he got comfortable with navigation, he pondered what to start with.

Class was first and kept blinking angrily at him, but he didn’t want to make a critical choice before he looked at the other options and got more familiar with the cost of things and got a reference for how valuable his coins were. Was over twenty thousand a lot, or was he a paltry beggar?

Skills—he didn’t want to even begin thinking about all the skills he had and how many more he’d need to get before he left the shop, though that did raise the question of if he could access the shop after he left the assessment.

He truly hoped he did, but he didn’t know how he could gain more coins either. The whole thing seemed to operate on the fundamental premise of “figure it out as you go”, which he didn’t mind. He’d been doing that the whole time he’d existed in one form or another, so it wasn’t anything new. Just do things and figure out the rest. Easy enough.

“Yeah, riiiiiight,” he grumbled. If he didn’t have access to the system when he left the assessment, he would need to use all the points he currently had access to. On top of that, he didn’t know if the points were retained after he left. Too many questions, not enough answers. “Figure out as you go, Vander, just like you always do. Don’t fuck up though.”

Equipment. That was somewhere he could start and was easier to understand than a nerve-wracking class selection and the long, long list of skills. Though, the list of equipment staring him in the face when he opened the tab to peruse what was available was equally as long…

Excitement welled within his chest as he screened equipment with various effects. They had three-dimensional models, and all the flashy ones that drew his interest the most. There was even a customizer option that allowed him to put in the details of what he’d like to have crafted by the system.

To test it, he put a simple steel knife. It cost a whopping… 5 Coins. Cheap. Very cheap. Deciding to try out a second option, he went through and chose all of the most expensive things he could, resulting in a Godforged Claymore handcrafted by Anonymous. Evaluated at 690,420 Coins, Vander grumbled as he backed out of the request.

It cost more than a couple times more than his total amount. Wouldn’t be happening any time soon, that’s for sure, but it made him think he either could’ve done better or that the currency carried over to the rest of his future class advancements.

Vander promised himself to come back and play with the equipment request once more after he looked through the other things available, curious to see what the extent of what he could afford would be once he got anything else that caught his eye. If he weren’t wrong, Arcana’s Favor, the ring Emir lent him, was crafted through the request system.

It was good, really good. Vander liked good things, too, but he also had patience. First and foremost, he’d noticed that many of the equipment required a class designation. And the system seemed to filter out anything he couldn’t use immediately due to his low tier and classless status.

Upon searching, there was nothing that would allow him to remove the filter and see what would be potential to achieve later once he got further along in his progressive path.

When he selected the class tab, the options stunned him. There were five under a “Recommended” banner, but he dismissed them. They were the stereotypical things he’d anticipated—hunter, warrior, mage, ranger, rogue. None of which interested him even slightly.

The conversation he had with Adrian kept coming back to him. All of the strange summons that bowed down to him to show their respect before fading away. When Vander scrolled through the list, he found what he suspected to be the case—the path he’d started to see himself walking down already.

Tamer.