"Uh, hello?"

"Hi, hi! Welcome, welcome! Oh!" The tiny man stumbled back after rounding the corner with maddening waves of his arms. "Amun! Good to see you! Good to see you! What can I do for you? Here to talk?"

"Not today, Zook. I'm here to register a piece of equipment."

"Oh?" He took an unconscious step back to eye me, reaching into my coat to pull out the skeletal half-mask that came with my fighting robes. "Oh!" He jumped forward onto his desk. "But this ain't the complete set? No, it's not. Want to register the rest?"

"May as well." I shrugged, then proceeded to hand them over. "I'd also like to customize the arena for my upcoming duel."

Reaching his small arms wide, Zook scooped my equipment up to settle it on a nearby shelf behind him, shouting all the while. "Ah! Yes! Yes! Against Zohnos? Yes, I've heard! I've heard!"

"I want the arena to be like the open sea in the dead of night. A pit of deep water with a pillar in the middle, breaching the surface to grant space large enough for the two of us."

"Easy enough!" He beamed with a shake of his head. "Anything else?"

"Nope." I turned with a wave. "Gotta get to class. See you later."

"Alright, alright! I'll see ya!"

Gotta get to class. While true, I had over twenty minutes before that happened. That called for a detour and a smoke while I made my way to the mines. With the games played during our last outing, the mundane days that followed skated by at a breakneck pace. In Doyle's class, we trained, and in Zeff's class, we trained some more. Olga's class was the same as it'd been last week and today was scheduled to be no different. Having gained a veritable deposit of materials already, however, I decided to go against the grain and make my own schedule for the day. So while everyone gathered around the crystals to claim their gear and descend, I approached Olga on her ostentatious workstation.

"Amun." She turned to me with a smile. "That was quite the show last weekend."

"Thank you." I lowered my head. Then pointed to the forges. "I was wondering if I could refine some materials before lunch."

"If you want to." She waved. "Just remember that you'll still need to make something in class to get the grade when the time comes."

"Of course."

"Then have at it."

After waving me off, she moved her stool to an auspicious place behind her workstation and started meddling with various things while I pulled a ton or two of each ore from my shadow and suspended them before me. Using air manipulation, I created a vacuum around the five spheres. Then formed spatial domains around each of them to keep the air out and the heat in. With my concentration now free, I created high-frequency magnetic fields within each vacuum and started raising the frequency even higher. And in a flash of violet light, the sparks began flying.

Olga shot up at once, her hands cupped around her ears in preparation for the shockwave. But there was only silence to befall her. Embarrassed and caught red-handed, she stormed up to me at once. Eyes wide and mouth agape.

"W- what is this?"

"It's an induction furnace," I nonchalantly said. "It uses magnetism to smelt and refine metals. As you can see." I motioned to the miniature suns. "It's highly efficient."

"And you've kept the air away to retain the heat and mute the sound." She muttered. "Ingenious. You have the potential to be a Grandmaster Artificer, you know?" She smiled at me. "I'll be surprised if you're not already."

"I hope so." I chuckled. "It's precisely what I aspire to be."

"Every Artificer does!" She proudly threw her fist into her chest. "I may be a Grandmaster Alchemist, but I can always choose to walk down that path instead."

"How does that work?" I turned to her. "I know you can Multi-Class, but you can just change Classes too?"

"Not quite." She shook her head. "And Multi-Classing is a bit more complicated than what you're familiar with. Any two Classes can merge, but their abilities may oppose each other. A Monk who needs to remain calm would be hindered if they took up the Barbarian Class, for instance. But raging monks do exist. I'm a Ranger and an Alchemist. The former helps me find materials for the latter."

"In other words, it's all about synergy."

"Y- yes." She lowered her head. "I'm still in the mindset of a lecturer, it seems. Forgive me, insulting your intelligence was not my intent."

"No worries. Apology accepted." While smiling at her, I produced Artificial Wells within the domains to start withdrawing the slag and impurities. "Anyway." I continued while working. "I plan to be a Monk and an Artificer. And whatever Prestige Class I may or may not get."

"You are a Sorcerer, Amun. You getting a Prestige Class is a certainty." She smiled. Then turned her wide eyes back to the glowing masses before her. "That aside, I'm eager to see your growth as an Artificer. Now, don't let me disturb you." With another wave, she trotted back to her seat to watch the process from afar.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Unluckily for her, however, the process was all but over. The slag and impurities had been separated from the refined metal. And those had been separated from each other. The domains had been canceled and scattered to the weave around us. Leaving nothing but five glowing orbs that were quickly losing their luster. From yellow to orange, to red they faded until eventually, five spherical ingots were left floating in front of me.

And with a wave of my hand, they plummeted into the aggregations of darkness below them. Then, I started the process over again.

While there was much I wanted to make, making those things to my standard required a time investment that wasn't yet feasible. Besides, as Olga said, we'd have an entire quarter dedicated to that in a few months. That said, the sheer amount of material I needed to process meant I needed to start now. And not just for half a day in class, but on my days off and during our outings as well. I needed fuck tons on fuck tons of material for myself, ten times that amount for the guild, and ten times that amount for the kingdoms, cities, townships, and commonwealths that would one day become a part of my empire.

By lunch, I managed to process dozens of tons of materials and, as an added bonus, boosted my proficiency in multi-casting. After lunch, however, I stuck to my word and descended into the lowest level of the mine. Not just to gather more materials, but for some long-awaited experimentation.

And conversation as well.

"Alright, boy." I kneeled before Skoll. "Fetch me a head."

With a low yip, the umbral dire wolf wheeled about to skip off into the darkness and returned a few moments later with a dusty gold-toothed skull clenched in his maw.

Smiling, I reached into my shadow to pull a piece of carrion from Skoll's stash and threw it to him in exchange for the prize. "Good boy!"

Somewhat begrudgingly, he took his prize which was technically his to begin with, and disappeared, growling what I was sure was obscenities over his shoulder.

'Oh well. He'll be alright.' I turned to the skull in my hand with a shrug.

It was one of the few I've seen scattered across the mines. No doubt a victim of the venomous creatures prowling the place. Even now they lashed out at me, only to fall to the ground a moment later, where they writhed and shuddered and screeched until they fell into the reaching hands of darkness. This skull in particular was of human origin. An invaluable source of information, I was sure. But first, there was something I needed to test.

After I broke off a tooth, I tossed the skull aside to drop it into a lazy orbit around me. Then, with it held between my fingers, I channeled a bit of Nuclear Mana into it. In a bright flash of solar light, my mana cascaded into the tooth. Vaporizing into ashes before my eyes and leaving the energy with nowhere to go except back into my fingers and dissipate- or rather, transform into something else entirely.

Information.

"Ah!" After rocking back in pleasant surprise, I reached forward to catch the skull as it came around and brought it up to my face. "You were hardly older than I am. But you lived so long ago. Let's see what you have to say. Speak!" Palming the skull, I coursed Death Magic through my fingers and the skull responded at once with a bone-chilling rattle. Clouds of darkness began to form around the fissures in its crown and fell inwards to coagulate into a sort of umbral brain. As the seconds passed, the rattling continued, eventually rising to a crescendo that shook my arm up to the shoulder. Then it fell to a soft shudder.

The darkness- once pooling from my hand into its skull, began to leech from his eyes like a dense fog until a bright flash signaled their opening. Jerking my hand strongly, the skull turned the blue-green embers that were its eyes towards me. Then, the thrashing started.

"-ster! Go on without me! I've been bitten! I've been poi- huh?" The now-animated skull snapped its eyes to the left. Then right. Then to me, and recoiled back in my hand as if it wanted to sprint away. "And the Nox! The Nox is here! Run for your lives lest you be consumed by the abyss!"

Being utterly shocked, I could only listen and stare in wonder at the screaming skull in my hand until I heard a shuffling come from further down the cave.

"Be quiet!" I whispered. And the skull ceased its ramblings instantly.

The heaves and huffs of breath. The scraping of a hard, but fleshy material against stone. Soft grunts and mutters permeating the darkness around me. They all implied one thing. One individual. And right before he turned the corner, I canceled my spell and turned to see the winged, scaled figure storming around the corner.

"Fancy meeting you here, Urshure."

"Who did that voice belong to?" He snarled, albeit in a friendly way.

Wordlessly, I tossed him the skull and in one smooth motion, he caught and crushed it with a loud growl.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I splayed my hands in confused frustration. Then waded through the smoke pouring from his nostrils to encase the pile of shards in a Chrono Domain. As the shards began to revert and fall back into place, Urshure's offended grunts and growls turned into hums and interested mutters. His interest culminated in him reaching for the skull once it had reformed, but I was quicker. And before he could reel back, I infused my palm with death magic and held it out towards Urshure as it rattled to life.

"Monster!" The skull began thrashing in my hand at once. "Run-"

"Stop yelling!" I snapped the skull to face me. "Inside voices. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir!" Somehow- somehow, I could only see the image of him holding up a salute in tandem with his over-enthusiastic shout.

'This one may be a handful.' I groaned. "Who are you, when were you born, and what did you do for a living?"

"My name is Simion Lumbarde! I was born in the year five twenty-six, in the bustling city of Lumiere, northern Ulai. I am both a scholar and a bard of the Tempest Guild. But I am first, a gentleman."

"Then why are you here?" Urshure asked. To which Simion stayed silent until I relayed the order.

"Well…" He somehow shrugged in my hand. "I wasn't exactly a part of the guild yet. I was raised in it though!" He flicked himself towards Urshure. "I was sent to the Bodhi Tree for my evolution and met an... untimely demise before my return. But… my gods, how unlucky am I! Or lucky, rather. Oh, I don't know." He sunk in my hand, then flicked his ethereal eyes back up to me. "To be raised by the Nox." He chuckled in despair. "My soul! My poor soul!"

"I can let you go back to the Under if you like." I shrugged.

"No!" He spun to face me. "Please no! That place is… wait. How long was I there?"

"The year is fourteen ninety-one," I said.

"Oh, gods!" He gasped.

"Yeahhh." I nodded slowly. "Welp." I shrugged. "See ya later."

"What!? No-"

As the spell faded, the blue-green embers in his eyes died out. Carrying with it the fading echoes of his scream before he fell into my Shade Pocket for safekeeping.

With Simion gone, I turned to Urshure and his unreadable visage to stare and try to get some information until he said something. But, much to my dismay, he simply turned down the cave with a snort and stepped off.