> Chapter 3 (To The School!)

I finally had Lyon in sight, and I groaned -- my timing could not have been worse. Standing right next to the gate in the distance were three familiar figures. A tall blond woman rocking a very sexy pixie cut, a tall man with honestly rather forgettable features, and a diminutive brunette who was even shorter than I was currently along with a bird formed from living flames sitting on top of her head.

Damn it all, I was supposed to have at least a decade before running into the time displaced Remans. Wait, no, none of them actually knew me yet. I remembered when I finally met Elaine several hundred years from now, she had no clue who I was. I had assumed that meant I’d have little to no interaction with either of them at the school, but she had seemed easily distractable.

Living a life on a nonlinear timeline was fucking confusing at times.

I decided to drop my spoofed level down to 117 so that I'd be even less interesting, and I swapped my [World Walker] class back up to the first position, giving me an [Artisan] tag once again.

People always seemed confused by a spatial artisan for some reason. Who else is going to craft all those dimensional compression storage devices all the [Adventurers] loved so much. I had always found them impractical, at least once I figured out how they were constructed. It was far simpler to spin up a bound liminal space that could be dragged around with you and throw all your equipment in there -- if you put all the mass outside reality, it stopped being a real concern for transportation. Sure, it cost mana to move objects between dimensional barriers, but the convenience factor was unparalleled.

Anyway, before going any closer to the city, I threw some code out that obscured a small area around me in a sphere of invisibility and provided a bit of privacy. That done, I opened the [Gate] to my clothing warehouse and retrieved a few items. I’d need a dress that vaguely matched local customs, a pouch for some coins, and my old robe and wizard hat. The last two I’d save for later.

I quickly changed into my dress and threw the T-shirt and the yoga pants I’d been wearing for the past week back through the gate. I’d have to take a trip over there eventually to cast a cleaning spell on everything. Inorganic bodies don’t actually sweat, so I didn’t really care how long I wore clothing as long as it wasn’t falling to pieces, but things did become filthy from the road dust of travel.

For the pouch, I etched code into the inside in silver runes creating the necessary enchantments to compress the space within it tenfold, and to give off an aura of Somebody Else’s Problem, which would cause most petty thieves and merchants from noticing it until I needed to actually pull from it to pay for things. I attached this to my belt and stuffed the robes and hat inside. Finally, I relocated the [Gate] to my vault, and grabbed out a couple handfuls of the various gem coins that were the current currency.

With my preparations complete, I dropped the invisibility sphere and strode on to the gates of Lyon. The guards didn’t even bat an eye at me, waving me through with a single grunt. Honestly, you’d think a single female “teenager” would get a bit more scrutiny.

I managed to restrain myself from waving when I saw Julius. I was familiar with his fate, and I'd be sad when it happens. I was supposed to be gone by the time that happened, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything to change his fate. Attempts to alter the timeline of important events did not have pleasant outcomes for anyone involved. I had the luxury of foreknowledge for some of my own actions, and I’d have to adhere to them. Failure to do so would be... bad.

As I was leaving the gate area, I saw another two familiar faces approaching -- Amber and Iona. Goddesses, they were both so young. Even so, I’d recognize that mountain of a [Valkyrie] anywhere. Iona had been nearly as old as I felt the last time we met, but Amber really wasn’t all that different. Sure, she was missing all the jewelry she kept braided throughout her hair, but she still had the same enthusiastic look to her face. It took a certain kind of person to travel to the Fae realm on purpose and then also think it would be a good idea to bargain with the fucks. There was a strong reason why, despite the numerous widely available magical metals, that I kept the majority of my core body composed entirely out of iron based alloys.

I hate the Fae.

I don’t use that word often or lightly. I don’t even hate the dragons -- they are what they are, and mostly they just want to be left alone. But I despise the Fae. They are without exception, the cruelest race that I have ever encountered across all of the worlds I’ve lived through across this multiverse. They are liars and cheats, and are both malicious and vindictive about it. There is a set of what seems like arbitrary laws that they are forced to adhere to, but they are all aware of those laws, and they use any ambiguous language interpretation they can to manipulate those laws into their favor.

The Fae were the reason why the five of them were even here in the first place. Sure, Elaine would have made it eventually on her own, and her presence likely would have ended the war with the shimagu a lot faster than what had ended up happening, and yeah, it would have been interesting to see how her presence may have altered the cycle of wars that were constantly happening between top level immortals every time the elven population reached critical mass, but Elaine did end up exactly where she needed to be at exactly the right time for her to be there.

I strongly suspected Selene and Lunaris had a hand in that.

Actually, those two could probably help me out here now.

I wrote up a quick bit of code to split my excess mana regeneration and started sending a flow of mana at a rate of 20 million per second to each of the goddesses

Internally, I prayed.

Hey, Selene, Lunaris, you old hags, what’s up?

What, I’m not a hag. Selene, did you hear what this mortal girl just called us?

I sure did. Who is that down there? We should go and smite her. Where's Iona?

Hmm, I don’t know if we should, she is sending us an awful lot of mana. Are you seeing this?

Oh wow, that is quite a lot. Hey, mortal, how are you keeping this huge flow of mana going?

HA! That’s a good one. I haven’t been mortal in.. actually I can’t remember. Anyway, it’s me, you goofs. I know I haven’t been around for tea or coffee in a while, but I’ve been busy, you know how it is. Pants to wear, universes to craft, really takes up a lot of free time.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Wait, is that Ada? Ada what are you doing down there? You’re supposed to be up here.

Ada? Are you sure, Lunaris? Wasn’t she a goddess just last week?

Eh, yeah, it’s me, I decided to take another run at being one of the lesser beings. I got some pretty good intel on where and when to find Alex, and I intend on bringing her with me this time. Anyway, the reason for my call is I’m here in Lyon and your favorite paladin is here as well. I was hoping you could ask her to not spill the beans to her new tiny healer friend about who or what I am, since that blessing you gave her will just punch right through all my protections.

Haha, yeah, it’s a pretty good one. I’m rather proud that we figured out how to get it to work. OK, don’t worry, we’ll ask her to pretend you’re just a regular person and not whatever it is you turned yourself into this time.

It's good you gave her that blessing. Reverse engineering how it hooks into the system was how I was able to clone most of the functions into my own skill. It does run into some issues when someone’s using stronger skills to override information, but I haven’t run into anyone with that kind of ability in an exceptionally long time. That scaled illusionist was one of them, in fact.

I waited a few moments for what I assumed was the pair of goddesses speaking with their [Paladin].

Hey, alright so we just spoke to Iona and after explaining that you’re a friend of ours, she’s agreed not to say anything about you to Elaine. I have a good feeling about her and Iona. I bet they’re going to have some real wild times together.

Well, I refuse to spoil anything.

Oh, poo. You’re no fun.

Don't worry about it, the two of you are going to do what you did, and what happened is what’s going to happen. If I try to interfere with any of that, you know that You-Know-Who will send her minions after me. They wouldn't actually have a prayer of taking me out, but the collateral would be problematic. Anyway, I need to go see Mormerilhawn before Elaine coats his entire tent in blood.

Wait, what? Selene, we have to watch that. I bet it’ll be hilarious.

Feel free to watch me if you want. The look on his face when he figures out who I am is going to be priceless.

Hey, weren’t you his mentor when he was learning all of that spatial magic and stuff?

For a bit, though I was an elf at the time. I never quite got used to the whole horns thing. Did you know that this is the only world I’ve ever lived on where elves have horns?

Really? That’s wacky. Why wouldn’t they have horns? That’s like 90% of what makes them elves.

Oh hey, I’m going to wave at Iona.

I waved and waggled my eyebrows at Iona as she and Amber passed me on the street. I saw her eyes widen slightly, and I assumed that she had just looked over my full status.

I heard Amber ask if Iona knew me. Iona replied that she did not, but that she received that kind of reaction a lot. I chuckled a bit to myself when I heard that, because I was well aware of the sort of attention the tall blond woman received.

Alright, it seems that Iona is on board. My thanks to both of you. I’m going to need to cut off the mana stream in a bit here, but here's my full pool.

Ooh, nice. Thanks, Ada! Have fun messing with Mormerilhawn!

I heard giggles from two distinct sources at that, and I dumped my entire mana pool, sending half to each of the goddesses. I'd regenerate it in a bit less than 21 seconds, anyway.

I really did like those two. They had helped me a lot when I had been ascended and had no clue how I was supposed to find Alex so that we could be together again. They were real goofballs, but the love they had for each other was incredible. They really seemed to care about helping their followers find true happiness as they had. The revelation that Elaine and Iona were each the reincarnated souls of the other’s dead childhood best friend was astonishing to me, and had very much opened my mind to the possibilities for how I could send myself through time and other worlds to track down my own love.

Ah, but I’m drifting away on a tangent again. Right. To the school grounds.

I have some elves to annoy into questioning their life choices.

[Name: Ada]

[Race: Katabasian (Elemental)]

[Age: #OVERFLOW#]

[Mana: 987,580,150/987,580,150]

[Mana Regeneration: 834,275,223 (171,652,127,132)]

Stats

[Free Stats: ]

[Strength: 25,164,416]

[Dexterity: 25,279,163]

[Vitality: 31,243,862 (47,420,371,551)]

[Speed: 39,555,229]

[Mana: 98,758,015]

[Mana Regeneration: 99,193,588 (20,409,080,731)]

[Magic Power: 116,596,084 (23,989,644,283)]

[Magic Control: 117,855,745 (24,248,819,534)]

[Class 1: [The Bladesinger - Mantle: Lv 4095 ]]

[Mantle Spirit: 4095]

[Bladesong: 4095]

[Anathema: 4095]

[Imbue Arsenal: 4095]

[Black Steel Juggernaut: 4095]

[Reflow: 4095]

[Transmute: 4095]

[The World Is As You Will It: 4095]

[Class 2: [The Desolation - Sand: Lv 4095 ]]

[Sand Spirit: 4095]

[Scour: 4095]

[Shatter: 4095]

[Wings of Desolation: 4095]

[Dessicate: 4095]

[Entropy Inversion: 4095]

[Dust in the Wind: 4095]

[The Only Thing They Fear is You: 4095]

[Class 3: [Worldwalker - Space: Lv 4095 ]]

[Spatial Spirit: 4095]

[Warptime: 4095]

[Displacement: 4095]

[Hammerspace: 4095]

[Gaze Into The Abyss: 4095]

[Stardust: 4095]

[Gate: 4095]

[--Rift-- #LOCKED#: 0]

General Skills

[Soul Bonded: 4095]

[Debug Mode: 4095]

[Hyperthreading: 4095]

[Overclock: 4095]

[Cunning Linguist: 4095]

[Data Dump: 4095]

[Remnant Superiority: 4095]

[Ada's Vow of Eternity to Alex: 4095]