As for blacksmithing, artificing, and even medicine preparation, I have failed to find an arcane connection with deeper truths of the universe. It could be it’s because they are a purely human inventions, or perhaps because mana had little to do with them. Or I’m simply too limited in my knowledge to notice the connection.

  — Excerpt from Notes For Newstar

  Day 6372, 5:00 PM

  Sage’s City was one weird place. The entire thing was made of intricately sculpted bones. Wide streets and boulevards accented the very futuristic building design compared to other architecture I had seen around the empire.

  I arrived five weeks before the qualifiers, giving myself enough time to check out the sights, see whether there was anything interesting in the libraries, and get the general lay of the land. My realm was almost fully sculpted, and considering I had spent fifteen years pushing all my professions where I wanted them to be, I believed I had earned myself the right to play a tourist.

  As for my power, I knew I could wipe the floor with even whatever geniuses the royal families brought to attend the final tournament, so all in all, not much excitement there. My goal for the next handful of months was to establish myself as a genius the royal families would fight over, one talented enough to negotiate terms of contract, and pick a proper new home for myself.

  Since Maelstrom would fight on Newstar’s side in the final battle, the Tidebreakers weren’t an option, since my actions wouldn’t help with the anti-cultist movement. My two likeliest candidates were the Swordpeaks and the Diamonsouls, the two most prominent royal families.

  My plan seemed straightforward - creating a situation where everyone desired to recruit me and having them go through a bidding war while keeping each other in check. What could possibly go wrong, right?

  The first weeks, I spent the way I wanted - as a tourist, exploring the city, applying for the tournament, and checking out any local or regional knowledge and lore. As I went through the books and understood the historical importance of the city, a very clear picture came to form.

  Allegedly, and very nonsensically, the official history stated that the imperials ruled over everything, with royals beneath them, and many orders and similar organizations beneath the royals. This hierarchy had existed since the dawn of time.

  Then, a certain order rose above the ducal house that was supposed to keep them in check, above the royal family that was supposed to keep them in check, reaching the level of power where they believed they could rival the imperial faction.

  That made no sense at all. Perhaps one cog in the machine could’ve failed, letting them rise to power pass unnoticed, but for none of the others to notice it… to not notice that an order serving beneath a royal house had more than four publicly known exalts was the height of idiocy, or a coverup.

  I mean, the imperials should’ve noticed that a group that was supposed to have one or two peak powers suddenly had four, and some text let slip that they had quite a bit more than four.

  Why cover it up? I wondered as I replaced a book on a shelf. Did they want the narrative of some sort of divine mandate or innate right to rule? But the emperor could’ve painted a position no weaker than that by presenting himself as a savior.

  No. I could tell something else was buried there. Not to mention that no texts at all mentioned which powers the leaders of the Sages’ Association wielded or even their elements.

  I wandered the library, letting my intuition guide me, but I got nothing. Whatever the truth was, the imperials had burned and buried it.

  The Sages’ Association was annihilated, sparing no one. Only a handful escaped, among whom were supposedly four ninth realms, each preserving a core part of the association’s heritage.

  I froze. Coincidence?

  No, I knew it wasn’t. Four distinct cults, four distinct legacies, an organization hounded by the imperial forces. Cultists weren’t heretics back then, they were the prominent power, and someone crushed them, becoming the imperials.

  But why not be the heroes who overthrew the evil overlord?

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  Because they already had some power, and they had held it for a long time. It wasn’t the cultists who grew their power in secret, it was the imperials.

  With that thought, it clicked into place. Since I’ve done it before, I could see how the propaganda machine would work. How it would twist the truth, and wash the imperials’ hands of everything that had happened before while establishing their legitimacy.

  The detective work was the most interesting part of my stay in the Sage’s City. They had even titled the emperor a sage, just to more easily distort history.

  As for the qualifiers tournament, it was trivial, single matches, which had lasted for months. I was polite, gentle, and very firm against whoever came against me. The rule of five losses before getting eliminated worked pretty well to only allow the strongest to reach the end, even if some were possibly unlucky and encountered a few truly powerful enemies.

  I naturally placed first, but that wasn’t the most important thing. What was important was the giant portrait of me on the colosseum and the mannequin I was looking at.

  “How does it work?” I asked the puppeteer, a very rare type of craftsman, whose craft I’ve never had the pleasure of studying.

  “It’s a trade secret.”

  I nodded. Of course it was, otherwise, I would’ve learned it already.

  “And what does it take to start learning puppeteering?”

  The old woman looked at me. “You’re telling me you want to become an apprentice?”

  I nodded, completely honest. “Yes, I would like to learn, and I would like to know what I need to do to study under you or one of your guildmates.”

  “We don’t have a guild. Nobody ever wanted to make one ever. They are too restrictive, and let too many strangers learn our craft. Besides,” she continued in a friendlier tone. “It’s too complicated and takes years to learn.”

  “What if I’m a grandmaster scribe and artificer? Does that help?”

  She squinted at me, not because she couldn’t see. “I guess that means you have some foundation, but it would still take moons before you could make even the simplest of puppets.”

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have months to indulge in an exotic art I had no real use for except broadening my horizons.

  “Well, thank you for your time.” I was about to leave when a boyish part of me had to ask. “Have you ever considered making a giant one and piloting it from inside? You could use it to fight huge manabeasts?”

  She stared at me, her jaw slack from the awesomeness of my idea.

  “No,” she said flatly. “It would take too much mana to control properly and animate.”

  “What about making one that can turn into a self-driving coach?”

  She blinked.

  “Never mind, I think I see some friends over there, and I’m gonna go say hi. Thank you for your time.”

  I wouldn’t have joked like that if I had had a chance at learning from her, but over the years, I had learned to sometimes indulge myself with jokes only I understood if they didn’t harm anyone.

  I rushed over to a group of people wearing familiar robes, Newstar in their center staring at my giant portrait with a genuine smile that looked a bit too much like he’d just suffered a stroke.

  “A decent artist, but failed to catch the teeth right,” I said, and his eye twitched, but he remained silent.

  “My little brother is ignoring me. I feel like someone plunged a sword in my gut, and trust me, I know how that feels.”

  Finally, Newstar turned towards me. His pained smile became a happy one. He strode towards me, then didn’t know what to do with himself.

  “Big Brother! Thank you for saving my life. If not for you, Gatemaster never would have found me in time.”

  “Relax.” I grinned. “Why so stiff? I told you I would help with anything as long as the matter is within my power.”

  “So, you’re the champion?” he asked, then his chaperone approached.

  “Is this a friend of yours, Newstar?”

  “This is Dandelion. My big brother, friend, and benefactor. Dandelion, meet Lady Woodhopper.”

  I gave an appropriate bow.

  “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Woodhopper. I just wanted to greet my little brother and check how he is doing. Good luck to you and your students. The competition will be fierce tomorrow. After all, you are competing against me.” I winked at Newt.

  “Big Brother Dandelion,” a familiar feminine voice called. The only one who would call me that besides Newstar.

  “Maelstrom, fancy meeting you here. Come, let me introduce you to my brother. Newstar, this is Maelstrom. She is from the Tidebreaker kingdom, greatly interested in smithing, artificing, and breaking manabeast necks; Maelstrom, this is Newstar of the Explorer’s Gate, a master seal scribe and a gentle soul, unlike you.”

  She scowled at me. “That’s no way to introduce a lady.”

  “But it is a perfectly acceptable manner of introducing you.” I smiled, and she giggled before facing Newstar.

  “You must be very talented for Big Brother to call you a master of anything. Did you hear him saying I was interested in smithing and artificing? I’m the best amongst all questors in my kingdom. Even at the fifth realm, few can match my talent,” she lied with a straight face and without an ounce of shame, then dragged him away, for a round of drinks and gossip.

  I watched them go, arms locked, and a strange thought hit me before Newstar’s guardian looked at me.

  “Was that the Tidebreaker kingdom’s princess?”

  I nodded. “The king’s granddaughter and heir apparent, there is a very public prophecy about her.”

  “For her, the heavens shall fall, the ocean shall break, and the sun’s tears will be shed,” the woman said the words, unaware of how well I knew them.