Planning a heist was less interesting in practice than most people would imagine, but Jair silently resolved to do his best to make things as interesting and fun as possible. Even if that required a bit of… creative restructuring.

Was it strictly necessary to travel three different regions collecting a variety of eccentric masters and powerful mages in order to steal a single blank sword from a school? No. Would it be far more entertaining than simply taking the easy way out? Absolutely.

But, as much as he wanted to stretch this out into an exciting adventure, Jair also couldn’t deny that Maelstrom’s demands to be let out were growing ever more insistent. There had to be a balance of haste and style.

“The easiest way to get our hands on Maelstrom would probably be to bribe Firdon. He’s honorable to a point, but everyone has their price. The problem with that plan is he’d be unlikely to keep it secret. He might be persuaded to let us in to look, as long as we approach him the right way, but there’s no way he’d let us take anything out. If we did try to take it with us, he’d absolutely go to Larenok and start a whole manhunt again.”

The two of them sat on the roof of their apartment as the sun began to rise. An unfamiliar sunrise, one Jair had not seen a thousand times, one he couldn’t predict to the second. It surprised him how pleasant he found that unknown.

“But it’s fast, right?” Ran asked. “Even if indiscreet, it’d get your hands on Maelstrom sooner.”

“It wouldn’t be a permanent solution. I’d feel much better having it safely in my soul for good, rather than just a temporary reprieve, but… yeah, it’d buy us some time. Right now it feels unstable, like it could crack any moment. I’m not sure how much longer it’ll last outside its body.”

“Then let’s start with Firdon. It sounds like speed is the most important thing first, then we can deal with finding a more permanent solution once we have more time.”

Jair feigned shock, though he couldn’t hide his happy grin. “Are you… eager to go on a grand infiltration against this very powerful and important institution?”

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt, I’m not vengeful or anything,” Ran said hastily, “but… I have to admit they’ve kind of lost my respect. If we’d had more help with the dragon, I could have survived long ago. Knowing how much you had to go through just for what should be the bare minimum of duty and honor? Yeah. I’m not going to be bothered if we smash up some infrastructure.”

Jair grinned. “That’s my boy! I knew I put all this work in to save you for good reason. Boring options aside, the two main sticking points will be the alarms on the top door, and the vault wall. Especially the wall. There’s no construct that can move that much stone, at least not one we could carry around with us. Major construction constructs could do it, but at that point it’d be easier to demolish the whole Institute.”

“Could we come at it from the outside? From below the cliff?”

“Any part of the vault not aligned with the official ‘entrance’ is warded. More alarms, more chaos.” Jair’s smile turned sly. “Not that I’m opposed to a bit of chaos, if you’re in the mood.”

Ran blanched. “We’ll keep that option as a backup.”

“The outer lock, given enough time, I can create a construct to bypass its alarms. I’ve studied constructs sufficiently in the past, with your sponsorship to obtain the tools and ingredients, it should be simple enough.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster and easier to hire someone?”

“Sure, but where are you going to find someone? Veor isn’t exactly known for its specialist adepts, outside of mageblades.”

“Terluna’s in two weeks. We do the Firdon thing first to buy time, then we should have plenty of time to do the next one properly. Right?”

“True. Once we’re sure Maelstrom won’t dissolve on the spot, we can take our time.” Jair chuckled softly. “Y’know, having a Terluna, two Dark Nights and a Nuprima passage all available between now and the first crisis… it feels incredibly luxurious. We may not have quite the entire world open to us, but we can get anywhere important. You want experts? We can find them. Want this to be a proper heist? No worries, we can make it happen.”

An even simpler solution would be to simply buy Maelstrom from Larenok - he may hate Jair personally, but if Ran Serin offered to buy a specific unimprinted blank soulblade for a high enough amount, the headmaster wouldn’t be above stealing from the Institute to line his own pockets.

Jair discarded the thought immediately. Where would be the fun in that?

Ran was already the sort who’d far rather throw money at a problem than anything else. If they were going to have proper adventures together it would be best for Ran to get used to acting in less traditionally acceptable ways. A little bribery could be readily justified as normal. Planning and undertaking a heist, though… that was just the right kind of ‘intro to time traveling’ that Ran needed.

Jair was used to making do with what was available to hand in a given day, but for this they could go all out. Assemble a true infiltration team, figure out ways to fully avoid being caught.

Phase One - ‘bribe Firdon’ - went very simply. Ran put on his eager student excitement act, coupled with enough disdainful confidence that of course he’d get what he wanted, and refused to take no for an answer. Firdon made plenty of excuses about the vault being inaccessible, it being disallowed for uninitiated students to step inside, and other such reasonable sounding excuses. Ran increased his number. Firdon tried to reason with them. Ran increased his number.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Firdon ran out of real excuses and started making things up, and Ran slowed down on his number. Firdon started blustering, and Ran settled on an amount firmly.

Firdon argued, Ran insisted, then shrugged. “Sorry Jair, it looks like you were right, there’s no point even talking to these people.”

“Five minutes,” Firdon said, before they could leave. “And if you touch anything I’m reporting it to the headmaster.”

Ran turned back to him, beaming. “I’d expect nothing less.”

“If you’re hoping to sneak an initiation in, that’s not going to work,” Firdon warned. “The initiation isn’t just for show. You’re still only first rank, you can’t go bringing a friend in early if that’s what you’re planning.”

Ran drew himself up haughtily. “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. I’m merely going to show him the difference between an active and inactive sword. He is going to behave himself like a gentleman, and then we are going to leave.”

He glowered at Jair while he spoke, and Jair nodded vigorously. Apparently his ‘innocent schoolkid’ act was less believable than Ran’s. But he was perhaps playing it up a bit much. It hadn’t been part of his repertoire for some time.

Jair considered trying to counterfeit the man’s access permission to the top door, but quickly reminded himself that the goal here wasn’t to ‘solve the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible’, but rather ‘show Ran how much fun there is to be had’.

With that in mind, a grand heist with too many people involved, overly complicated subplots that needed to all be pulled off to perfection, and the chance of excess chaos at every step sounded much more appropriate than ‘forge access and walk in’. Sure, it would be a step up from ‘buy the sword from Larenok,’ but only barely.

They entered the access stair, then began to descend. The steps were as pointlessly ornate as ever, each one a slightly different pattern of angled geometry.

Traversing the actual labyrinth took much longer than Jair would have on his own, since Firdon made several wrong turns - probably intentionally, to throw off the students. Jair wouldn't be surprised if the man planned to rearrange the maze the moment they were out.

Finally they reached the wall at the end, where Firdon raised his arms and cast his spells. The stone smoothly morphed from a solid wall into a gateway arch, ornate and highly detailed.

"Impressive." Jair hadn't actually seen Firdon's power in use so close up or to this precision. The stairs were one thing, as a premade and pre-existing construction, but to see it in the moment was something else. "Your skills really aren't meant for combat, are they?"

"I am a perfectly qualified combat mage."

"But this..." Jair ran a hand across the patterned reliefs in the archway. "This detail. You'd be much better suited as a craftsman."

"I am best suited to be a teacher," Firdon said, though his voice sounded almost pleased. Certainly closer to it than Jair had ever heard before. "But your time is running, so if you want to look..." he gestured inward, and Jair hurried inside.

"Any idea which one is yours?" he whispered to Maelstrom's soul, but the sword's spark within him only buzzed and hummed aggressively. If it were trying to communicate anything, Jair couldn't make it out.

"You see?" Ran picked up a random blank and held it in one hand, drawing his own soulsword in the other. "Even though it's been only a day, you can see the distinctive difference between the base blade and my own."

Firdon frowned and stepped forward, but he didn't interrupt.

Jair reached out and just barely touched the blade of the blank sword Ran held up, affecting an awed countenance. "It reflects your soul that quickly? Even before being reforged?"

"Indeed."

"I don't believe it." Jair crossed his arms petulantly. "You just picked one out that's different than yours. I bet they're all different already. You're just tugging my tunic."

"No, truly, they're identical before being claimed. See?" Ran crossed to the storage rack and slid the not-Maelstrom blank back into its place. He drew out a second, identical to the first.

Jair covertly brushed a hand across the hilts of the nearest set of blank soulswords, but none of them satisfied Maelstrom's soul.

"The deal was look but don't touch," Firdon reminded them.

Ran replaced the one he'd begun to pull out hastily. "They're all the same."

Jair walked around the room, trailing his hand over as many of the weapons as he could while pretending to examine them.

Firdon's voice interrupted before he'd circled half the vault. "That's enough, you've seen them, now let's get going."

"I'm sure I've seen some that were different before they were assigned," Jair insisted. He moved faster, touching as many swords as he could, then the floor lurched under him and swept him away.

Firdon had apparently decided he'd indulged their curiosity for long enough.

Jair jumped toward the last rack of swords, reaching out to grasp the nearest one, and held on as the floor continued to try to drag him away.

"What are you playing at?" Firdon demanded. "Hold still."

"No, wait, I’ll prove you wrong!” Jair jumped and hopped his way against the moving floor, grabbing a second then third blank, tossing each aside until–

Maelstrom’s soul jumped and streaked down his arm, silver light flaring vibrantly in all directions. The sudden glow lit up the dim vault brighter than daylight.

Before he could do anything else, power flared out and forced his hand open, burning his palm in a series of harsh curved lines, like a dozen claws had dragged across his hand.

Maelstrom clattered to the floor.

“Gah!” Jair reached for the weapon, but Maelstrom’s silver-green light flared again, physically pushing him away.

“Inspect?”

─ Maelstrom

─ Type: Ascended Soulsword (3rd Form)

─ Rank: Legendary (15%)

Imbued with the pure energy of Mount Sanctum at its ascension, this blade has transcended its humble origins and become a weapon of *****?

Slaying an ancient poison dragon has altered this weapon, empowering it with its venom and flame.

– Class Requirement: Mageblade

─ Bound to Jair Welburne

For a brief moment he stared down at Maelstrom in confused betrayal, then it clicked.

Of course. The one thing he’d never been without since the very beginning of the loop, the one thing that had been part of him for so long he’d stopped even thinking about it as a separate thing.

‘Class requirement: Mageblade.’

Since he’d fallen back to before the beginning, he hadn’t yet received his class.

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