Adrien blinked, his brain taking a moment to process the information. Lord Oak however did not appear like he wanted to wait.

“Are you listening, Lord Adrien?” he demanded, his voice seeming to thunder across the space. The rest of the crowd was silent, and there was a crowd. Not just the army and Adrien’s guards, but even the common folk of the city had come out to see what was happening.

“Of course.” he replied, his words sounding meek and silent even to himself. For a second his mind blanked, unable to come with a coherent reply as he struggled to remember what this relative of his had said.

Then it came to him. Adrien took a deep breath as he framed the words, suddenly very glad that he had somehow heard the old lord’s words.

A choice stands before you

Then the notifications came, trying to annoy him. ‘Not now’ he thought furiously, trying to remember what he wanted to say. For some reason it felt like the notification had heard him as it disappeared.

“I do have a reason for my actions. There is reason to believe that an Awakened goblin is in the city’s vicinity. The King asked me to do this when I spoke to him.” he replied glad that his voice did not wobble as much as his eyes.

A murmur went up in the crowd at his words, some of the common folk hurrying back, likely to spread the news. The crowd just seemed to get thicker anyway.

“I see.” Lord Oak said, his great sword disappearing as if it hadn’t been there at all. “Come, we should speak inside.”

The old lord turned around and marched into the city, and it was a march. The guard surrounded him, walking in a manner that Adrien found unnaturally synchronized. As if they were a single entity instead of almost a hundred.

Another smaller gate stood before them, opening to let them, leading to a road that led straight to the palace. The guard split into two and climbed staircases that seemed to lead up the wall, leaving Lord Oak with only a paltry guard. Not that it mattered much. The old lord seemed fit and ready to fight an army by himself.

A choice stands before you

The notifications had to be listening somehow because they had pounced at him the second he was free. Not the notifications, the Questing Book. The things informing him might be notifications, but they didn’t come from the System. No, they came from a book he had pulled over with his Bloodline Power.

And he did not know what the Questing Book wanted. What did the Quests lead to? What was this choice it was speaking about?

A Flame shall be presented to you. The Flame represents that you have stepped upon the Wannabe Path. A Path that you have not yet earned.

That was…ominous. Adrien tilted his head, unable to understand what was the point of telling him this and then stopping there. There was a bit hanging in there, some cost it was going to take from him.

A Quest was necessary to earn this reward. A Quest shall be given to earn this reward.

If you take this reward before you have earned it, then you shall no longer have the choice to reject the Quest.

Adrien narrowed his eyes, reading the words carefully. Now, he wasn’t the best at reading between the lines, but he had been raised in a ducal household. This much he could read and interpret.

The Questing Book was going to hand him some unknown Quest, and he would not have the ability to reject it. That was to say he was going to have to do it. What would the Quest be? The Questing was deliberately not saying.

No, this would not do. Adrien wasn’t sure if the Questing Book could actually force him to do something, but he did not want to take a chance against an entity that clearly had powers reminiscent of the System. That bet was too much for him.

This offer has been presented because mana believes that you will not survive the challenges before you.

Mana believes. Adrien gulped, thinking it over again. The Questing Book communicating with mana was believable. Mana knowing about a threat was believable too, there were few places mana could not reach.

What he doubted was whether the Questing Book was telling the truth. Still, this was difficult. What if he was wrong to refuse the option here? What if the Questing Book was right, and he died because he refused?

What if the Questing Book was tricking him and forced him to do something he didn’t want to? What if it made him kill someone he cared about, like Aunt Veena? What if it made him betray the Kingdom?

Could he take that chance? Could he risk becoming like his father?

sc

In a universe far, far away, a young man sat looking at an image with a confused expression on his face. A nine colored nebula rolled out around him, the colors swirling around him as if he was sitting on a throne.

Perhaps he was.

The man looked up, his brown eyes narrowing as a wave of power crashed into the nebula. A Pink and blue flared before him, the colors of the nebula dispersing as if they were fleeing its approach. From within the colors emerged a woman appearing as if the colors had just thrown her out. A creature of shifting colors herself, she lit up the entire nebula with her glow.

“Stop tickling me!” she demanded, her body emitting light that would probably have disintegrated any human foolish enough to come close.

“I am not tickling you.” the man replied in a matter of fact manner, seeming unbothered by her appearance.

The woman simply stared at him. “Well I still demand justice! This is annoying, and I want it to stop.”

The man stared at her. The woman stared back. Then they turned away, turning to look at the image. The two stared at it for a couple of seconds, the colors of the nebula slowly being pushed back by the pink and blue as they kept silent.

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“Are you out of excuses?” the man asked, his face morphing in annoyance as he broke the silence. “Is that why you have come here with such an idiotic reason?”

The woman did not answer, merely pouting as she stared into space. The man turned his attention back to the image, his brows furrowing as he looked at it.

“I really am getting tickled.” the woman said finally.

The man raised his head, looking at her in confusion. “Are you trying to make a joke?”

The woman simply stared at him.

“No really. Do you expect me to believe that the Fae Queen, Monarch of Stories is being tickled?”

“I don’t know!” the woman replied, raising her hands in a far too human gesture of surrender. “I just know what I feel.”

The man looked at her once more, and then turned his gaze back to the image. The woman turned to look with him.

“What are you looking at?”

“A spell.”

“Yes, I can see that. But what does it do?”

The man looked at the woman. “This is a seeking spell. The spell was seeking a book on how to become more powerful.”

The woman scoffed. “Yes, yes, and?”

“What and? I just told you what it does.”

The woman now looked like she had swallowed something sour. “Oh come now Verlinaus, you are the Prince of Magic. Do not play with me, a simple spell like that would not have caught your attention.”

Verlinaus rolled his eyes, shaking his head in exasperation as he replied. “The spell traveled through one hundred and fifty-seven world, twenty-two universes and my own personal defenses to copy one of my books.”

The Fae Queen walked towards the image, her now human face showing interest. “That is quite a distance. What manner of shielding did it use?”

“That’s the thing, there isn’t any.” the man replied, staring at his fellow Monarch’s face.

“What?”

“There isn’t any shielding on the spell.”

The Fae Queen turned her gaze outward, tracking the spell’s trajectory back to its home world. “That…is improbable. There are several magic-less worlds around it, the spell should not have survived without shielding. What stage was the caster?”

“Just a beginner at magic. The result of one of Clan Manevorus’ old experiments.”

The Fae Queen frowned.

“The spell should not have made it outside its own world, let alone all the way here. And yet it did.” the man pronounced.

“How curious. What type of magic was it?”

“Moment magic.” a smile graced the man’s face as he spoke those words, sending a rush of gold throughout the nebula, lighting up his surroundings in that color. “What’s more, he cloned a spell onto it through basic resonance, and get this, the spell he used was a standard mana based spell.”

The Fae Queen brought her face closer to the image, peering into it with great intensity. “Cloned a standard mana based spell onto Moment magic? How?”

“For some reason, mana decided to consider the spell as a Moment.” the man replied, his grin turning even wider.

“That is not how Moments works, not with this type of magic, not…oh I get it now. Mana did a funny.” the Fae Queen’s lips morphed into a grin as the pink and blue colors spread across the nebula. In less than a second they had taken over most of the nebula.

The young man clicked his tongue, the nebula turning black as color itself seemed to from the nebula for a second. Then it returned, once again in its natural coloring, bereft of the Fae Queen’s influence. Pink and blue colors appeared around the Fae Queen once again, but they did not spread through the nebula so quickly anymore.

“Please do not call it that.” Verlinaus said, ignoring the events of the past few minutes. “Mana ignoring its own rules in favor of executing an improbable spell does not constitute a funny.”

“Whatever, but these sorts of things happen. Mana decides to do things like this from time to time, you know how random it is. I can’t find a reason for half the things it does.” the Fae Queen said, visibly losing interest.

“Yes, I do.” the man replied, his eyes squinting as he looked at the image and turned to look somewhere far away.

“That boy has a power that conjures books, he somehow cloned a seeking spell onto it.” he continued. “Now he is reading one of my books and is about to get a power from it.”

The Fae Queen narrowed her eyes at him and then followed his gaze, looking at space but seeing something else. Then she froze, blue and pink colors receding into her body as she held herself very still.

“That is not a normal book.”

“I wrote it.”

“How strange. I thought you gave up writing books.”

“I wrote this before I gave it up.”

“And I suppose he stole it from you? Are you trying to get it back?”

“No.” he replied, his eyes narrowing as if he were focusing. “That book is made of my power.”

“What? No it is-”

“That book is made of my power.” the man pronounced. “And where my power is, so am I.”

The Fae Queen closed her eyes, pursing her lips as she still looked far into the distance.

“Did you just alter reality hundreds of worlds away?” she asked. “Why would you do such a thing? The risk to the worlds alone -”

“I think you know why.”

There was a silence as the man turned to stare at her, and the woman stared back.

The Fae Queen seemed to be plotting.

The man just stared at her. “There are three Monarchs in this universe really known for breaking rules. There is me, there is you and there is my mother.”

The Fae Queen stared at him, her face scrunching up in puzzlement.

“I am simply saying she could do it.” the man said without any prompting. Even the Fae Queen could not understand what he was trying to say.

“What are you -”

“I am simply saying that my mother might be able to tickle you.”

“Verlinaus, your mother is the Monarch of Magic, Death, and Destruction. The woman has no sense of humor.”

“Yes, but she has been talking about getting one.”

The Fae Queen’s face morphed into an expression far too similar to horror as a portal of blue and pink appeared behind her.

“Wait for me, I will be back.” she said, stepping through a portal.

The Monarch of Justice sighed looking at the image again. “Like I would believe that.”

Then he looked up, space twisting in front of him to show blue and pink colors combining to green and then transforming into purple before disappearing.

In a world far, far away, a woman appeared in an Elven forest, stepping out of what looked like a tree and looking at the sky as if it puzzled her. A little mana coalesced into a tiny version of the Monarch of Justice right above a certain young duke’s head, invisible to all but a few.

“I don’t know what is going on, but there appears to be a good show going on. And I intend on watching it.”