“How exactly do you wish for my people to contribute to this coalition?” Beaumont started the morning off with something that required a very tricky answer.
“High Elder Beaumont, I can answer this question, but I’m afraid doing so will reveal the general strength and weakness of elves. As we have not yet reached day four, I recommend being discreet about certain things in your world. Will you still permit me to answer the question?”
His subordinates and himself quickly discussed something amongst themselves. “Is there anyone else here capable of world-travel, like you are?” one of the elves asked.
“I must decline answering that question. It is not my place to disclose what other groups are capable of before the fourth day.”
Beaumont’s expression remained unchanged, but it was obvious he didn’t like being denied. His group seemed uneasy, and my allies from the five big families just seemed embarrassed to be lugged into the same race as them. Beaumont was clearly of a much more conservative frame of mind, unlike the more trusting and liberal younglings.
“I’m of the same mind as the elven leader, host, especially considering recent, events,” Geon, the strong-necked paladin explained. I couldn’t blame him nor Beaumont for their prudence. After all, my appearance in Tyrr brought along an enraged Phoenix and Hyzek just came out of a war with Pargat, which they were very aware of the presence of. “Lending you military strength can weaken our defences.”
“I understand you both,” I said, “and you’re right to think that way. All of you here have a choice to make. Join us, and grow stronger, or don’t, and stay stagnant. Should Apollyon appear in your world first, your people will be the least prepared out of everyone here.”
Phil interjected, “I’m no person in high position, I’ve simply had the pleasure of working together with our host here. In my world, I was one of the weakest, ranked the lowest possible rank. After very little guidance from this man, I’m now the strongest. You’ve no reason to trust my words, but each member of the First Flight guild saw massive gains in power after he helped us. I’ve no doubt he can do the same for each of you as well.”
Ah, thanks, dude. They have no idea how ridiculous of a world magic Yunaris has. Everyone’s gonna be unbelievably stronger.
Geon leaned back, somewhat accepting that explanation from Phil. Holy warriors were rather proud about their strength after all. A chance for them to get stronger was like tempting a man left for dead in the scorching desert with a refreshing cup of water. Besides, they certainly owed me one after helping them against the warlocks and demons. Geon still shot Pargat nasty looks though.
Tuvos raised her hand, “Yesterday, you mentioned you could transport supplies,” she said, changing the topic, “how will we keep them from rotting?”
“Well, ice can work, but it’s not efficient mana-wise. Instead, the better alternative would be a spell us Methelians use called Crystalline Slumber. We use it to stop our dead from decomposing, and despite how one may feel about using something like that for consumables, its competency is unmatched.”
She nodded, scribbling something down. Rizt then raised her hand to voice her question. “What of the training? Can you explain in more detail how you’re going to train so many people efficiently?”
I smiled, “Hmm, whilst training is important to get better, the right knowledge is even more important. In fact, it’s needed for the training to work in the first place. There is a place with unending enemies of predicable levels of power. Once a person’s strength is determined, they will be placed in a group mixed with different types of people. This means different types of combatants and people who aren’t combatants at all. It includes different races and cultures. There will be a roster assigned each day so that everyone gets as many chances as possible to improve themselves. The first year of training will have everyone mix and match. At the end of the first year, everyone will be assigned to a unit responsible for doing a specific thing. So, mages will be grouped with mages, medics with medics, and so on.”
“You, didn’t answer my question,” she said. “I want to know if this training regimen you have is effective enough to prepare us in time.”
“There’s no way to answer that, as there’s no way to gauge Apollyon’s power.” I cleared my throat, “However, from my travels to different worlds thus far, I can say the method I have in mind is extremely efficient compared to the practices I’ve seen.”
She nodded, a little disappointed. She must’ve wanted concrete assurance.
“What happens to those of us who are separated by countries in the same continent?” Reylin, the empress of the Baruum Empire questioned.
“Should the coalition be too weak to help you after dealing with Apollyon, then you still won’t need to worry. We wouldn’t need to protect you, anyway. One-tenth of your current army would be more than enough to defend yourselves after the training, and while I ask for all of your forces to undergo the training, I won’t ask for all of them to actually face Apollyon. There will be soldiers left back just to keep citizens safe. If a civil war occurs in the interim, then you will be protected.”
There was a period of silence, and before I could give the go for a recess, Drak’ka raised her pale hand. “Most of us here are people sitting in high places in their own world or faction. Yet you bring many of us together, under your power. Who are you to take command of ones such as us? Just how powerful are you really?”
Ah, this type of question. She knows I’m powerful; so, she doesn’t need confirmation. However, not everyone here is on the same page. She’s helping me establish the pecking order while painting herself as the unbeliever. She really wants to save her world from Apollyon, huh?
“It’s difficult to explain quantitatively without first imparting the knowledge I spoke to Ms Rizt about earlier. Hmm,” I thought about the best way to bring it across, “to put it simply, if I really try, I can destroy all your worlds within a day’s time.”
There were many doubtful reactions. Some people who saw much of my power, like people in First Flight, believed me wholly. Some who didn’t know much thought I was just a boastful dummy.
“How can we be sure this Apollyon isn’t figurative for anyone with the ability and motive to destroy our worlds?” Emperor Wharton posed to me. “How are we sure you aren’t the demon?”
“We can’t,” I answered. “We can’t be sure. If one day, I do develop the motive to do something like that, I have a contingency plan.”
“And that is?” Yula, the young paladin of Yularel, leaned forward and paid particular attention to me, as did everyone else.
“Him,” I pointed to the invisible August, who then removed Invisibility.
“Hi,” he greeted.
“Ah,” Yula leaned back, “that makes sense.” The paladins all agreed readily, not at all doubting August’s ridiculous power after hearing the reports of his fight against Ren Fahzul the first time we met the half-demon in Hyzek. I’d imagine seeing the reshaped landscape further solidified how scary of a man August King was.
“Are we supposed to be impressed?” one of Beaumont’s entourage was not convinced. “At the end of the day, words are just words. How can any of us be sure that a stronger group won’t cause trouble? How can we be sure you can stop them? How can any of us guarantee our own safety in this?”
Before I could say anything, August raised his hand, “May I?”
I smirked, and nodded. He stood up, and walked towards the centre, standing aside me. “For those who are afraid of us misusing our power, I’m sorry to say that you’ve no choice but to be afraid. Neither of us can convince you to not fear us if that is what you wish to do. In the first place, this summit was started to save others, not wrong others. For those of you who doubt my capability to keep strong people or groups in check, I invite you to try using magic. Something harmless please, I mean for a simple demonstration.”
Beaumont conjured a mana sword, but it suddenly vanished. “Phoenix’s feathers!” he muttered. “My magic, is gone!”
Even I had a raised brow at exactly what happened. Unable to calm my curiosity, I peeked upon High Elder Beaumont with Mana Perception. What the fuck? I ogled the elven leader even more, trying to make sense of the dizzying sight. Did I have bad mushrooms for breakfast? I asked myself. His mana was waving about uncontrollably, no pattern or order to its movements. It was basically disorganised and unusable. Wow! He can stop people from casting now on top of having unfairly high magic resistance? What a cheater! I wonder if–
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
My train of thought was derailed by a tugging on Saeryn’s Light Link. This was the student-healer in Dawn’s classes who had a seal placed on him to suppress his magic. He sent another, and another. I summoned a clone and sent it to his location. In about thirty seconds, my clone came back with a frantic Saeryn. He was confused by the sudden shift in scenery, sweaty, breathing heavily and very scared. Hmm, now what have we here?
“A-a dragon!” he said, trembling in fear. From the looks of it, he barely saved himself. He was tattered, dirty, and bloody. The kid was clearly out of his mind at the moment, so I did him a favour and hit him with Renew.
“As this is not the time nor place, please wait patiently outside,” I asked of him. I knew nothing had really happened because of the memories my clone pushed to me – there was no dragon in the Order, no threat to be seen. That being said, I didn’t believe the lad was lying although I forgot to use Mana Perception. “I’ll be with you shortly. One of my clones will take care of you, okay?”
He nodded meekly, and followed the clone outside the meeting room. My attention shifted back to the task at hand, “Please, pardon the interruption. Let’s get back on tra–”
There it was again, that ripping feeling of being skinned alive, of my body being distorted in all ways imaginable. Strange tongues bombarded my ears with confusing phonetics and I felt the slight chill of my birthday suit. Oh boy, another world…
Usually, I’d be more excited about it, but to do it at a time like this was inconvenient. However, I’d be damn stupid to pass up on the opportunity to seize yet another ally. However, it’d undoubtedly take time to gather the information I needed like what their specialty was, if they were at war, if I was even strong enough to leverage help in such a short space of time. There was a humdrum of back and forth thoughts bumbling about my mind. What to do? I wondered.
“Quiet! Settle down!” someone instructed with some arcane magic to boost their voice over the others, and eventually there was silence. An auditorium, or amphitheatre? It was quite obvious that a class of sorts was going on when I noticed a bunch of young mages in the seats spread around me and a small stage at the centre, where I was, where my summoner was, and where the instructor was.
This felt like a mix of Jynnak and Pargat all over again. There was nothing I hadn’t already seen from another world, the only way I knew it was a new world was because I didn’t immediately understand their language. They looked human, just like me, used arcane magic for sound, just like me. So, what was different about these guys on the surface? Ah, right, of course. Multiple scaly eggs and multiple hatchlings of dragons. I started to slowly believe Saeryn’s ranting now.
The creatures were quite small, perhaps no bigger than a person’s head when coiled up to sleep. Hawk Eye gave me a better look at one of the student’s dragon, and I noticed there was a collar around it. So, they’re like pets then. Well that seems fun. What would they say if I summoned Skyer here? You know what? I’ll let a clone handle the summit.
I focused my attention back on what – or perhaps who – caused the commotion. It was a young girl, the splitting image of Saeryn. Why does she resemble him? This is getting a little weird. Well, these seem like scholarly people, let me just ask a few basic questions first and feel them out. First, I transmuted some ice back into the robe I was wearing and cleared my throat.
Everyone stopped what they were doing, like I was some celebrity passing by. “Greetings, everyone. My name is Eric Archibald. I hail from another world, and it appears I’ve been summoned here,” I looked down to the very similar magic circle Dillon and his warlock buddies used to summon me to Pargat, “in error. Can someone tell me the name of this world?” My eyes bounced between the students, my summoner, and the instructor. Someone, please answer me! I don’t wanna start mapping your mi–
“Et Draco,” my summoner, possibly feeling responsible for me, opened her mouth and let her tiny voice out.
I turned my body toward her a little, “I see. And this place we reside in, is it a country or state of its own? Or does the entirety of Et Draco fall under one ruling body?”
She, thought hard about it, but her inexperience probably hampered her from giving an answer. So instead, the instructor opted to tell me. His limp was quite pronounced. “Et Draco has one ruling body. However, if one travels far enough in any direction, one would find that there are slight changes in policy to comply with the changes in culture. It’s really nothing major. And if it’s large-scale ‘disputes’ you’re worried about, there is none of that here. That was centuries ago. We’ve now entered an era of peace and prosperity.” He stated that quite proudly.
Being slightly on the older side, I’d imagined he must’ve heard stories about the lingering hatreds and crimes committed because of those hatreds, or perhaps he even felt it. He wobbled toward my summoner, and smacked her in the face; an amazing backhand. Her lip got busted and she almost fell, but she held her hurt inside, only giving me – the object of her apparent failure of summoning – a death-stare.
“Wow! ‘Peace and prosperity’ eh? I can’t see much peace in that,” I said. Maybe I got a little defensive for her, but I felt something was off in the class. Matter of fact, the students farther out had a weird vibe to them, and my summoner had that same vibe. I wanted to ask if she knew Saeryn.
The instructor slammed his cane to the ground after I made that comment, and also gave me a death-stare. He was smart. He knew not the unknown creature which was Eric, and chose to hold his power and his tongue, somewhat. “You are responsible for him! Off you go!” the instructor shooed her off the stage.
“Was she supposed to summon a dragon or dragon’s egg like the others have?” I questioned.
“Yes,” the frail man said with contempt, “but I expected nothing of the sort from a worthless half-breed.”
Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa! Half-breed you say? I peered even harder at my summoner as she gestured me to follow her. “Hold up, I’m even more curious now about that ‘half-breed’ comment, but why don’t you just let her try again?”
“Try again?” he scoffed. “With what mana?” a malicious but almost unnoticeable grin appeared after.
I rubbed my chin, “Will you let her try again if she had the mana?”
“I don’t see why not,” the instructor commented, full of himself that she wouldn’t even be able to perform the summon again.
This time, I gestured her over, and he seemed to allow it, so she came over, even more furious. I patted her head a bit, which she very much detested. But I did it anyway, then used Transference to give mana to her. She was filled up extremely fast. It basically took nearly nothing from me, at least when compared to my mana pool. What the… I took a look at her with Mana Perception and found that she had the exact same seals that Saeryn had, severely limiting one’s mana pool and usage. I began putting two and two together.
Hydra’s ass man! Half-breed. Emphasis on summoning dragons. The freakin’ world name sounds like it has something to do with dragons. Is she half dragon and half human? Is Saeryn as well? This doesn’t make sense, does it? Technically, when it comes to mana, this half-breed should be better off than a normal human. Hmm, now I’ve got even more questions.
She went, reluctantly, and tried the summoning once more. This time, nothing appeared; the hearty and mocking laughter of the crowd followed. She was even angrier at me now, and stormed off back to her seat. Going back there, I realised I somewhat earned the ridicule that these half-breeds got. Finally, the class was over. The human students were allowed to leave before the half-breeds. Man, it’s so obvious. Dunno where the discrimination came from, but it’s pretty messed up. I mean, every single half-breed has seals in them. It’s a systematic culling without the killing. It really rubbed me wrong. Finally, we were allowed to leave.
My summoner walked briskly, “Why are you following me?”
“You heard the man. You’re responsible for me,” I shrugged.
“How am I supposed to take care of you when I can barely take care of myelf?!” she yelled in a hushed voice so as not to earn even more attention than she was already getting.
Again, I shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. Anyway, I’m hungry. Let’s go get something to eat!” I said, pointing my chin toward a little food establishment.
She paused, and looked down a bit defeatedly. “We’re not really, allowed in there. It’s not like I can afford it anyway. Listen,” she stopped our walk and faced me properly, “you stand a better chance going to the purebreds. You can live better if you stay with them, instead of me. You can probably find a way back to your world or whatever.”
I laughed out, so damn loud that all eyes were plastered towards us. She shrunk from the embarrassment. “You silly bastard,” I ruffled her hair and looked her straight in the eyes. Part of me already wants to destroy the seals on all the half-breeds, but who knows how they’ll react to that. Sure-fire way to incite a war of revenge. Ah, if Dillon knew I was doing this, I’d get an earful, so I’d better not. “Sally,” I called my summoner, “where can I find a grown dragon?”
“Well,” she thought, “you can certainly find them at the barracks or any rich place.”
I see. Guess that’s my homework. For now… “How long until we get to your home?”
“Get comfortable walking because it’s an hour away on feet.”
“Yeah,” I shook my head, “there’s no way I’m walking that.” I used Scour and set her house as the criteria, finding the location in a few seconds. From there, it was a simple matter of using void to fly us over to the place. We took five minutes to get there. It was an old shack outside of town, near the forests. There were other old shacks as well, built really close to each other. Basically, really bad living conditions.
Sally was really disgruntled by the flight, but she appreciated the lessened time. I’d believe the latter if she wasn’t puking her life out. I helped her with some light magic. I was invited inside, and found that it was just as bad as I imagined. Most of the stuff in here looked like junk thrown away that she picked up. “I, I don’t really have, much to offer.”
She said, pouring me some tea made of some weird leaves. It had a really strong aroma. She sat on the fragile chair, giving me the better one to sit on. She watched me drink the really nice tea, whilst she just had water. An awkward silence stepped into our space, and taunted her. She was embarrassed by her living conditions, clearly, but I let her be. I could remove her seal, turn her shack into a mansion, help her people, turn their lives around. But I wanted some information first. “What? Not going to ask me anything?”
“What would I ask?” she shrugged.
“I could think of a million things you’d want to know. But I think it’s more imperative if I’m the one who soaks up information for now. I hope you don’t mind me boring you for a little while.” I used transmutation to fix the table and chairs, used some ice magic to make a large block and transmuted it into really solid meal for us, tableware and everything. “Sally, how and why are you a half-breed? What does it mean and where did it come from?”