I’d been out of my room for almost a full minute by the time I realized that I was still wearing my pajamas and flip-flops. I came to a stop and stood there in the middle of the corridor for a couple of seconds before shrugging and taking off again while using [Modern Makeover] to make myself presentable.

Considering how thin my clothing was, I didn’t have much material to work with, but by painting it all a deep, dark black, I robbed it of all sense of depth, thereby making it hard to see how whispy and insubstantial the end result was, as well as removing the silky sheen that might have otherwise made me look like a gigolo.

The simple shirt and pants I was now wearing brought to mind a ninja, but honestly, “cringy fashion don’t” was superior to “pajamas” in my mind.

I reached Dietrich’s door a few seconds later and knocked, then knocked again after thirty seconds, harder this time. No answer.

Sighing, I turned around and decided to go look in the dining room, which I considered to be his most likely location. If he’d left, he’d have let me know or written a note. Of course, I promptly got lost for a few minutes before finally deciding to start using [Ambassador’s Instinct] to search for him. See if I could use it for that purpose, at any rate.

The Capstone Skill for my previous [Global Ambassador of Myth] Class let me know whenever I was needed in a location, any location, within an ever-expanding radius of myself and even use that to target my portals.

Of course, his location wasn’t the site of a diplomatic disaster, well, it shouldn’t be, at any rate, but Dietrich was a former monarch with diplomatic gravitas and wherever he was, that was the location I needed to be right now, because I wanted to be there, because I had information I needed to share.

So come on, System … it took a little while, but after a few seconds, slowly, achingly so, the information trickled in. Like internet search results on a computer so ancient it might as well be a brick, and with about as much clarity.

I got a sense that an actual emergency would have gotten me something more useful and informative, but what I’d gotten now was enough nevertheless.

Soon enough, I reached the dining room and found not only Dietrich but also Mia there, digging into what I’d have called an English Breakfast though considering where we were, it seemed like it was something found all across the British Isles.

Eggs, bacon, mushrooms, sausages, a couple of tomato halves, and what seemed like blood pudding, all fried to perfection, served alongside toast and tea.

“Good morning,” I said cheerfully and sat down in the chair that was already pulled out, as if waiting for me.

Mia immediately responded by protectively pulling her plate out of my reach, as I would have done in her place, but that trick was slightly … outdated.

A simple [Lesser Telekinetic Pull] stole a crispy strip of bacon with ease, but I was a little too slow pulling my leg back, and Mia’s kick to my shin landed. Thankfully, we could both be adults about this and call it a draw right then and there.

“I think I know how to find Merlin,” I announced, turning to face Dietrich. “How exactly does your [Nose for Treasure] work?”

“It lets me find treasures that are valuable or unique, preferably both. But Merlin isn’t a treasure, so I couldn’t find him,” Dietrich said.

I grinned.

Mindset could affect Skills. For example, I was able to use [Ambassadorial Authority’s] ability to contact the person I was an ambassador to via scrying to prove my authority, but I’d also managed to use it free-hand, calling any time I wanted to. I still preferred to use my phone, but I could use it. And I’d used [Ambassador’s Instinct] in an unintended way to find my way here.

“But can’t people be valuable too?” I asked.

“Are you suggesting slavery?” Mia gave me a side-eye.

“I’m suggesting that awareness of the fact that a monetary value could be attached to a person might make it easier for the Skill to latch on,” I said.

Dietrich stopped eating, stared into the distance for a few seconds, then looked back at me. “It was a good idea, but it’s not enough.”

“But what if he weren’t just valuable, but also unique?” I suggested. “A baptized Cambion, the child of a mortal woman and a demon, his infernal heritage removed while the power remains, making him a wizard of unparalleled potential.”

I mean, that was only one version of the myth, this trick would fall flat if any other versions were correct; let’s see what happens before self-flagellating, right?

Once again, Dietrich stared off into the distance until he finally broke out into a large grin.

“I think searching for a Cambion would have been enough on its own. Why didn’t Arthur tell us about that?”

“I … I don’t think he knew,” I carefully said. “He didn’t know about the tree either. A lot of that only became public knowledge centuries after his death.”

“We should be very careful about telling him how we found his wizard, then,” Dietrich replied. “Let’s eat breakfast first, then fetch him and go find Merlin.”

***

It had been a long time since he’d paid attention to the outside. Since he’d tried to see anything beyond that wall of roots and later dirt, tried to do anything in the mere handful of seconds at a time that he was awake in between long naps … he had no idea. He didn’t know how long.

Nor did he know how long each nap lasted, or how long he’d been down here at all.

It had to be decades at the very least, but deep down, he knew it was likely centuries.

He’d been forgotten, hadn’t he?

Had Arthur and his knights truly forgotten him, or had Camelot fallen in its entirety? Just how badly had things gotten?

Merlin sighed as he stared at the ceiling, some of the thick layers of dust lying atop him swirling into the air. He knew he’d be asleep again when it landed, Nimue’s curses wouldn’t allow him to stay awake for even that long.

Scrape.

What had that been? A new sound?

He’d memorized every single source of noise he could possibly notice, and that wasn’t one of them.

Scrape.

There it was again! Suddenly, the siren song of the spells ensnaring him was pushed away. He could still “hear” it and knew he could not keep this up, but for now, he was able to keep … sleep … away …

From one moment to the next, he was wide awake again.

Was someone trying to dig out the tree? Would they be able to break the enchantments as well? Or …

SCRAPE!

It was louder, this time, much louder, and a blade suddenly punched through the nearest root wall.

A strangely familiar blade. Reminiscent of Excalibur, but far slimmer and infinitely sharper, carving through the wood as though it were barely more than air. It even felt like it was derived from the blade he’d known before his imprisonment.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The weapons were decidedly different, both in their form and magic, but there was a connection between them.

Suddenly, his magic surged back to life, an arcane star igniting in his heart, a flood of power flowing from him for the first time in what felt like forever.

A blade of force, potent but controlled burst from him, attempting to help the blade carve open the tree.

And then, everything went to absolute hell as a voice started practically yelling in his ears, and his power leaped well beyond what he’d ever known, or expected to have to control when he’d started casting.

[Class gained: Legendary Courtmage of Foresight]

[Legendary Courtmage of Foresight Lv. 1]

[Legendary Courtmage of Foresight Lv. 1 -> Legendary Courtmage of Foresight Lv. 50]

[Skill gained: Warmage]

[Skill gained: National Precognition]

[Skill gained: Judge of Righteousness]

[Skill gained: Font of Arcana]

[Skill gained: Writer of History]

[Skill gained: Seer of Disasters]

…

[Ascendant Capstone gained: Arcane Soul]

[Spell Awarded: Force Blade]

[Spell Awarded: Spectacle of Lights]

[Spell Awarded: Illusionary Theatre]

[Spell Awarded: Lighting Bolt]

…

The wood shrapnel that used to constitute his prison rapidly settled down but the dust that had covered him like a blanket continued to billow through the air, causing a bout of coughing on the part of not only the people outside but also him, for the first time ever. He’d always been immune before.

He briefly considered trying to clear it up with a spell but ruthlessly squashed that idea in the face of the clear and present evidence of how his last attempt to “help” had gone.

The sound of someone snapping their fingers rang out from deep within the clouds and instantly, the billowing plumes were sucked into a single point, a marble lying in the palm of a young man with blond hair staring at him with wide eyes.

There was a second youngster present, looking to be the first’s sister, potentially even a twin. Unlike her brother, she was wearing cloth armor rather than what seemed to be formal clothing.

But they practically faded into the background compared to the others.

There was a tall man with hair that was palest blond he’d ever seen, the one who seemed to have wielded the sword, except it was nowhere to be seen, instead, a second man, silver-haired and quite old, was holding a slim, sharp, blade, and Excalibur, well … it lay in the hands of the only familiar face.

Merlin practically fainted right then and there.

Arthur was still alive. Alive and … honestly, far too young. He might not have known how long he’d been trapped, but it had to have been longer than a few years and his king looked practically unchanged.

“I …” Merlin tried to say something, then trailed off, swallowing several times in an utterly futile attempt to moisten his dry-as-a-desert throat.

“I’m using an ability to teach you all the information you need,” the bo- … no, the young man announced. “It’ll ask you to send information back, just ignore that.”

Merlin was about to respond, to say something, torn between agreeing, asking about what this ability was or even unleashing an entire stream of consciousness about the unnatural power that had flooded him, when the young man already did what he’d proposed.

It was, well, exactly what had been promised. All the information he’d need. He could feel it. Not the full information that hung there, tantalizing, but the basic ideas behind it. The length of his sleep, the state of the world, potentially even the reason his ability to predict the future was failing so badly, but above all, knowledge of the threat that was about to annihilate humanity.

It also contained the information on what the weird voice was doing.

However, the mental “tether” was practically holding out a hand, almost like a merchant awaiting payment. He had been told to ignore that, but then again, it was abundantly obvious that he would not lose any information he sent in return.

And not only did paying the young man back feel right, he also seemed like a good person. Arthur had certainly accepted him.

So Merlin decided to send him back some basic information on the world he used to live in, that should remain useful even millennia in the future.

Knowledge on politics, advice on guiding rulers, and general, non-specific etiquette on how to be a courtly mage, since that was what he seemed to be …

It worked, but even as Merlin felt a fleeting ghost of a headache, the young man fainted.

… Oh dear.

***

Carving open the tree had been incredibly difficult, for a number of reasons. Enchanted to the nines, but with enough “vulnerabilities” that Excalibur’s ability to annihilate absolutes would fail against it.

It had also been warded against scrying, which not only explained why Fionn had been unable to locate it, but also meant that he couldn’t simply analyze the spell and pick it apart in no time flat.

But he’d been able to do something else. He’d leveled after Abhartach and gained a Skill called [Arcane Superimposition], which let him slap together two similar artifacts to create something that had the abilities of both, either separate or in some sort of combination. Temporarily or permanently.

So, what happened if you combined the abilities of a blade that could cut through functionally anything physical and a blade that could cut through conceptual impossibilities?

Apparently, it was a blade that could cut magic itself.

A very brute-force technique, but I was a big believer in the principle of “it ain’t stupid if it works.”

… Of course, no one had expected the tree to explode like that. Ironically, I’d handled it the best, [Diplomatic Immunity] having tanked the blast in its entirety, though at the same time, that meant that the blow would have been lethal otherwise. After all, only lethal “attacks” were met with such a level of magical power.

Two quick steps placed me behind Fionn, who didn’t seem anxious in the least which, in turn, made me calm down too while he split the swords back into two and gave them back to their owners.

I mean, this was a heavily warded tree that Dietrich’s Skill had led us to, it had to be the right one, but all this dust wasn’t letting us see anything. So I snapped my fingers and used [Restoration of the Old] to clean everything.

As the clouds were swept away, we all saw an elderly man, younger than Dietrich visually but still far more frail, stumble out, looking utterly lost.

“I …” he started to say something before trailing off, looking confused and torn.

“I’m using an ability to teach you all the information you need,” I announced. “It’ll ask you to send information back, just ignore that.”

The worst that could happen was that he refused, wasn’t it?

… Yeah, turns out, I was very wrong about that.

***

Tristan

I woke up with a pounding headache and a realization that apparently, a sufficiently powerful and capable mage could still send an overwhelming amount of information through [Knowledge Trade] and that, well, if the information was too much by a sufficient margin, it could actually fully knock me on my ass.

“How …” I was about to say but Mia was already speaking.

“You okay? I mean, you got right back up but I didn’t expect you to faint like that …”

“I’m fine,” I grunted, trying to sort through everything I’d just learned.

One, Merlin apparently believed me to be his modern equivalent.

Two, he had a lot of knowledge locked away in that head of his, not only did I know what he’d sent me but I could also see echoes of what he hadn’t.

And three, the world was complicated, had always been complicated and would eternally continue to be so.

I gave him a slight bow, something that [Innate Etiquette] would have let me know to do even if Merlin’s “teachings” hadn’t also taught me it.

“I believe you and the king have a lot to talk about. Afterwards, can teleport you to any place you wish, as long as it is known to me.”

And with that, I retreated a few steps back, giving them their space. I’d already been enough of a disruption to that long-awaited reunification, what with me fainting and all. Those two needed time, and I’d obviously give it to them.

“Think you’d be okay on your own if we went treasure hunting?” Mia asked.

If it had just been the two of us, I’d have likely made a big deal of her “abandoning me,” but I liked to think I still had at least a few shreds of dignity in the eyes of Fionn and Dietrich.

“Sure,” I nodded. “Have fun; I’ll just wait here ‘till I can play taxi.”

And while those three started walking over to where the army truck that had transported us here was waiting, I sat down on the forest floor, leaned against a tree, and started properly digging through the information I’d learned.

Hints of what was possible with magic, some vague idea of what Merlin could teach me if only I could convince him, and true knowledge of what he brought to the table if Arthur stayed allied with us.

It might be selfish, but the idea of learning from him was what appealed to me the most. I’d learned some basics from Fionn; he’d taught me so that I could eventually “trade” that knowledge to magically endowed individuals he was gathering, but this, this seemed like something so far beyond that …

***

Merlin

That … that had perhaps not been his best idea, in hindsight. Which was not something he normally had to deal with. Hindsight, that was. Ordinarily, his ability to observe the future was sufficiently broad to avoid such gaffes. That wasn’t to say he didn’t make mistakes, but with the exception of a handful of truly disastrous decisions, usually made the right choice in a given situation.

But then again, it seemed like no one’s ability to see with more than just their eyes was working quite right. Not his, and not Fionn MacCumail’s. He’d heard of the man, of course, he’d been a famous warrior a handful of centuries before his lifetime, and even he was restrained.

And the modern world was strange beyond belief. Leadership by the masses in many parts of the world, the collected knowledge of humanity at the fingertips of almost everyone, and magic had transformed in a truly ridiculous way. Though now, at the very least, it was clear what had happened with the tree.

Yet none of that was what he was concerned with right at that moment, not really. No, that dubious honor went to the man currently standing before him.

Outwardly, Arthur Pendragon was the same as he’d always been: confident and regal. But Merlin had watched him grow up, knew him almost better than he did himself. His king was untethered, directionless, lost.

And his behavior, the things Merlin had learned from his modern counterpart, demonstrated his current inner turmoil far more definitively than his mannerisms ever could. Not to mention the countless disasters that had unfolded in the wake of Merlin’s own departure … but how to heal a wounded soul?