“So, to summarize our current talking points… Firstly, House Verena is both the representation of House Walker in Dorchester, and also a house on the rise with power and prestige of its own. Secondly, after acquiring all of the assets Lord Walker had in the city, House Verena is looking forward to the new ladder rankings and is expected to earn an impressive placement despite its recent founding. Thirdly, House Verena’s trading houses are to be highlighted through all of our promotional channels. We’ll focus on the great deals for essence crystal trades and affordable gear for hunting and combat,” pausing what she was saying, Mallorie checked her notes before asking, “Are you sure we should continue to push the narrative of Lord Walker’s impressive rise to nobility? Now that he’s officially a unique with his own house, it might be time to begin distancing House Verena’s public image.”

  Tapping her chin in thought, Vera Salvatore-Verena replied, “You’re right, of course. However, we can’t just stop talking about Lord Walker. Everyone in the city is too interested in watching him. At least right now, that is. His growing legend is writing itself at this point. What we need to do is borrow on that interest to push House Verena forward in the public’s consciousness. At first, we wanted everyone talking about him, now we want everyone talking about US. When he eventually leaves Dorchester, that will be the time to push House Verena forward.”

  Everyone at the conference table nodded in understanding, furiously taking notes while thinking how to best adjust each of their departments’ marching orders.

  “For now, we’ll continue to take advantage of the city’s war footing and continue building our forces. No noble wars can be declared until the end of the current emergency, so we should have plenty of time to grow. However, that shouldn’t stop us from pushing hard on the recruitment front. Every house is looking to expand, and the army is practically begging people to join them. We need to give people a reason to sign up with us,” she said with some heat in her tone.

  Looking around the room with her fierce glare, she stated, “Prestige, Money, and Future Power. Those are the three pillars of a successful recruitment campaign. People naturally want to follow a house on the rise. We need to ensure that everyone in this city knows that is us… House Verena.”

  Seeing them all straightening their shoulders with renewed purpose, Vera offered them a proud nod before ending the meeting. “You all have your assignments, be sure to keep Mallorie informed as to your progress. For now, you’re dismissed.”

  Everyone filed out. Even Mallorie, the director of House Verena’s public relations, headed out to go see to her duties after seeing Vera wave her off.

  Watching them leave, Vera waited until the door to the conference room finally closed before relaxing her gaze. The moment she was alone, she let her stoic expression fall as her shoulders sagged in exhaustion.

  While managing a noble house had always been her goal, she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. Yet, the situation with the density shift and the kobald war, along with the offer from House Walker was too tempting an opportunity to pass up. Acquiring Nero’s local assets while being officially tied to a Unique House had saved her years of development. The tax benefits alone, along with the ability for her entire House to fall under the legal exemption concerning the exploit he’d discovered made the choice to put all her plans into motion now obvious.

  Yet, she couldn’t help but wonder once again if she should have waited and just stuck to her plan. If it weren’t for the protection of the emergency protocols, half the houses in Dorchester would be coming together to destroy her. House Verena was simply too economically powerful for how small it was.

  But, she had time. And just as importantly, she had money. With the new trading houses, the preferred contracts with House Blackwood, and Precision Shipping doubling in size, not to mention partial ownership of the city’s arena, the influx of valens allowed her a great deal of room to maneuver. The density shift was expected to last at least 5 years at the minimum, and if she were careful, she could use that time to raise House Verena to one of the most powerful houses in Dorchester.

  Mentally reviewing her numerous business plans, recruitment efforts, counterplots, and schemes… she couldn’t stop herself from smiling evilly as she looked out the conference room window over Dorchester’s Gate 11 trade district.

  —--

  Nero started diving into the spell forms that Merrick and Peter knew right away. He wanted to know everything they’d learned in their magic schools as soon as possible. So, he first started by having them give him an overview of how they’d been taught.

  Merrick spoke up first, discussing how he had begun his path to becoming a mage while still in school at one of the Centers here in Dorchester before going off to study in Catherton. He talked about the standard suite of classes that every beginner mage had to take. Introduction to Essence. Beginner Spell Form Creation. Essence Focus and Manipulation. Also, the more theoretical and historical classes which covered things like regional flow rate analysis and essence crystal economics.

  While he summarized the various beginner topics, Peter occasionally chimed in with examples of where his educational background had differed. Specifically how he’d taken the same classes at the Center near him, but focused more exclusively on the application of magic than the broader aspects of magical education.

  Nero listened closely, trying to gauge how ‘average’ an experience they might have had compared to most of the mages he’d run into. After all, he needed to know if their level of spellcasting was indicative of what most mages like them were capable of. Because having seen them casting a few spells, he’d come to understand that he’d been wildly overestimating what most mages could do.

  After having them both cast a few of their favorite spells, he had to physically stop himself from wincing at how slowly they carved into the ether. Not only that, but they absolutely SUCKED at recovering their center from the spell forms they’d cast. It was no wonder mages were always running out of center if that’s how they did it.

  When Nick had bragged about how skilled he was, Nero honestly hadn’t taken him all that seriously. Although he probably should have, considering the guy had been the damned Director of Research for an entire Gate’s Center. In this world, people who sucked wouldn’t have scored a fancy-ass job like that.

  Whether it was just due to luck or talent, or maybe just because he hadn’t known any better, Nero had been using Nick and Archmage Jennings as the standard he measured himself by. Their casting speed was quick and precise, and their control over their center was top-notch. He’d mistakenly thought that all casters would have been casting low-level spells just as easily as they did.

  “No! Just… stop for a second and listen,” Nero snapped while pinching his nose in frustration.

  “When you carve your spell form into the ether, you have to keep the visualization of what you’re doing steady in your mind. If you waver for a moment, the center you’re using will become inefficient and begin to leak. It’s not only a matter of knowing what you’re doing, but it’s about paying attention to what you’re doing. Don’t get distracted! Now, do it again!” he ordered firmly.

  Peter, who was currently attempting to work on the ‘acid ball’ spell he’d been having trouble with, nodded uncomfortably before trying again.

  Nero watched closely as Peter’s center stretched out from his hand in a small tendril of essence and began using it to carve a spell form into the ether. The man’s center clung weakly to the ether as if it weren’t sure it should be intruding on the essence flows moving around it. The spell form took over 10 seconds to stabilize, and Nero winced every time some of the center escaped as wasted mist. Finally… miraculously… the spell form solidified and began to divert the essence flowing around it to charge itself.

  After watching the tennis ball sized globe of acid launch itself at the pillar he’d erected, Nero said grudgingly, “Good. Better. Now do it again.”

  Nero wasn’t sure how, but he was beginning to sense Peter’s center levels. It was like the man’s presence in the ether was weakening. From a certain perspective, the less center the man had, the less ‘real’ he was. Nero had read about how center worked, but he’d never seen it so clearly exemplified until the man slowly began to fade from his senses like a ghost.

  Merrick who was nearby was already sitting down meditating to regain his center, Nero having already spent some time ‘teaching’ him the correct way to recover what he’d put into his spell forms.

  Nero wasn’t exactly sure why, but both Peter and Merrick kept trying to just ‘grab’ whatever center they’d put into their spell forms and shove it back into their bodies like their center was an object. He’d tried to explain to them that center was just essence, and it therefore had its own flow that they needed to control. Yet, no matter what he said, or how he said it, they simply didn’t get it.

  It was like watching an idiot trying and failing to smash a round peg into a square hole over and over again.

  Sighing in frustration, Nero told Peter to stop for a second before pulling Merrick out of his meditation so he could talk to them both.

  “Alright, listen. I know you guys can’t see essence like I do, but you do still ‘see’ it, right?” he asked hesitantly, trying to figure out what they were missing.

  While Peter nodded, Merrick explained, “Every mage can see essence. But we don’t see the flows that you keep talking about. It’s more like waves of mist that solidify into indistinct shapes of essence for spell forms.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Peter added, “It’s really colorful. Does that help?”

  Nero, choosing to ignore Peter, replied, “I think I’m beginning to understand what you’re saying. You guys all rely on the science to understand what it is that you can’t see. To you, it’s just blobs and balls of shapes that don’t mean anything. You’re stuck having to imagine how what you’re doing with it while interacting with the ether. You’re like blind people trying to memorize how to walk through a room while some asshole keeps moving the furniture.”

  Sounding as if he were trying to sound profound, Peter replied, “Yes, but blind people can be healed, right?”

  Nero, this time taking the time to glare at the man, replied, “Peter. Stop talking. Now.”

  Merrick, too caught up with what Nero was saying to notice Peter’s shoulders slumping, replied, “So, what we need to do is work on our visualization and understanding of the process. Isn’t that what we’ve always been doing though?”

  Nero had no response to such a logical reply, so he instead opted for some ‘the magic has always been inside you’ bullshit, replying, “Is it? Because it looks to me like you’re spending too much time focusing on the image you have in your head rather than the image of what your spell form is projecting into the ether. It’s a matter of belief and mastering yourself. Always remember, you ARE your center, and your center IS you.”

  Both Peter and Merrick nodded seriously as if Nero had given them a lot to think about.

  While they both returned to their training, and Nero was about to begin on his own, he ended up for the first time looking around at how everyone else was doing.

  Whatever good mood he’d had going by pretending to be a wise and all-knowing magic teacher vanished like a fart in the wind when he saw what his Wackos were up to.

  They were all paired off like he’d asked, and they were technically all sparing with each other. However, that’s all they were doing… sparring. It was painfully clear that they had no intention of actually hurting each other, or even remotely pushing themselves. With how little effort they were putting into their training, he seriously doubted they were getting anything of it.

  Muttering to himself, he said, “I should have realized something was wrong when no one bothered to ask me for healing or to resuscitate anybody.”

  Raising his voice in anger, he shouted, “Everyone! Get your asses over here now!”

  Like children being called in from the playground, they all gathered around in a circle with smiles on their faces. Could they not sense how pissed he was?

  “What the hell are you doing? Do you think we’re here for a picnic?” he shouted.

  Seeing their smiles fade, he took a perverse pleasure in watching their faces pale. It reminded him of when he’d get to catch some of his employees at the cell phone store smoking behind the dumpster. Why they couldn’t sneak a few puffs on a vape like a professional, he’d never understand.

  “If you don’t want to take this seriously, there is no reason for you to be here. This was supposed to be voluntary. I’m not going to make you train, or watch over you like some kind of asshole forcing you to kill each other. If you don’t WANT to kill each other during training, then there really isn’t any point in you being here,” he said firmly.

  Seeing the confusion on their faces, he said, “This world has healing magic that can regrow limbs and bring you back from the dead. Anything you do to each other is temporary at best, and nothing you should be worrying about. Training is an opportunity for you to go all out on each other and push yourselves to your limits while knowing that you will survive. If you’re not going to push yourselves, then it is not training… it’s just a waste of time.”

  While some of them were obviously getting it, others still still looked a little confused.

  Turning to Peter and Merrick, Nero asked, “Can either of you heal or resuscitate people?”

  Both men looked at each other before Merrick replied, “No, my lord… I mean Lord Walker… I mean-”

  Waving off the rest of Merrick’s rambling, Nero said, “That’s fine, don’t worry about it. We’ll work on it later.”

  Turning to the rest of the group, he said, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll handle the healing myself. Just none of you aim for the head. I haven’t figured out how to come back from that on my own yet.”

  Claire, both Helens, Victor, Sam, Peter, and Merrick all stared at each other in confusion, not understanding what Nero was getting at.

  Drawing his sword, Nero said menacingly, “I’m going to attack you all now. You can do whatever you can to stop me. If on the off chance you end up killing me, I’m sure there’s at least a few healers nearby that can bring me back. Although, I doubt I’m the one who’s going to be needing healing based on how scared you all are of hurting each other.”

  Without another word, he launched himself forward at the closest person who happened to be Sam, one of the scouts. While Sam did have a dagger and a shortsword out, he obviously hadn’t been expecting one hundred and fifty pounds of crazy Nero to come flying at him like a missile. He’d barely managed to get his sword up in defense before Nero slammed into him.

  Having not bothered to put up a mage shield, or any sort of protection, Nero’s entire focus was on the fight. Even being multiple levels lower than him, Nero still managed to stab deeply into his chest with his sword. While not consciously empowering his blade with essence, Nero was using an essence blade technique on instinct at this point.

  Screaming in pain, Sam folded like a chair, dropping his sword and falling to the ground.

  Rather than pursuing him to finish him off, Nero let the man bleed out on his own and spun on the balls of his feet the moment he hit the ground. Victor, who’d been watching in shock just stood there like an idiot as he felt Nero’s blade lash out, basically eviscerating him.

  While Victor fell to his knees in pain, trying and failing to stop his intestines from falling out, Nero had already moved on.

  Peter died from a throat slash, while Merrick was struck down by a vicious slash across his entire back as he’d instinctively turned away.

  The Helens were quick enough to mount something of a defense. However, they didn’t have the presence of mind to really put any thought into what they were doing. The only thing that saved them from being taken out in a single move was the fact that they both had shields.

  After slashing futility a few times against their shields as they backed away, Nero ducked into a forward roll to disappear from their sight, using their shields against them. He performed the same maneuver Cathleen had caught him with too many times for him to count. From a crouch, he chopped out at their shins with his blade. Unfortunately, the heavy armor they were using was too much for him to just shear through, but he still managed to bring both of them to their knees. By the time he rose to his feet, they were both leaning on their shields, leaving them wide open to what was becoming his patented throat slash.

  Claire, being left for last, had more than enough time to get her head in the game. She’d been a combat instructor for decades, and she was more than capable of handling a life-and-death battle that she hadn’t been expecting. That being said, she wasn’t prepared for an opponent like Nero.

  When he’d turned on her, and lashed out with his sword, she’d parried with her shield and stabbed forward expecting him to dodge. Nero however, used her attack as an opening to skewer himself in the stomach to trap her blade.

  Grinning madly, he watched in delight as her eyes widened in shock. Before she even realized what was happening, she was clutching Nero’s blade which was now halfway into her throat from a stab as her shield fell to the floor with a clang.

  As she dropped to the floor and bled out, Nero stood over his entire team like the wrath of some war god watching over them in judgment. With nothing more than a slight exhalation of pain, Nero pulled out Claire’s sword from his stomach and began stamping his healing spell into the ether.

  His wound lit up like a lantern as part of his mind guided his flesh into reknitting itself. Considering how many times he’d been carved up by Cathleen, he barely had to pay attention to what he was doing. Meanwhile, his eyes were scanning the team to see who’d most likely bleed out first.

  After sheathing his sword, he walked over to Sam and began bringing him back with a healing and resuscitation spell. He first rebuilt the man’s spine which had been chipped by Nero’s sword on its way out, then carefully fixed the more fleshy bits.

  ‘It’s disturbingly easy how simple it is to put a body back together with magic,’ he thought to himself grimly.

  Once done with fixing what he’d done to Sam’s body with his sword, Nero used the resuscitation spell to dive into the man’s soulscape and bring him back. Considering the man had just died, it wasn’t all that difficult. In fact, the man’s soul seemed to leap back into its body while staring at Nero’s mental representation of himself in awe.

  One after another, Nero healed and resuscitated everyone. As they handled being dead about as well as anyone else he’d seen, no one bothered him while he worked. Instead, they all just shivered and tried to regain some semblance of balance in their minds until Merrick, who’d been the last to actually die from blood loss was brought back.

  Now standing over them as they looked up at him in terror, Nero said, “I understand that you might not like what I’m about to tell you. But, you’re just going to have to decide whether or not you’re able to handle it.”

  Taking his time to meet each of their eyes, he kept his voice as steady and supportive as possible. “It’s a fact that this world is filled with wonder and magic. I don’t know half of what’s possible here. There’s probably cool stuff that I haven’t even heard of that will drop my jaw in awe the moment I see it. You’ve probably gotten so used to seeing these amazing things that you’ve begun taking them for granted.

  But, there is another side of the world that you can’t just ignore. It’s the side of the world that has kobalds coming out of the ground trying to eat you. There are walls taller than buildings surrounding this city for a reason. Danger means something entirely different here, and as someone who’s chosen to fight, that’s what you’ll be facing… the darker side of the world.

  You can choose to straddle the line and half-ass your training, taking years to master techniques. Or, you can embrace the madness, and throw yourself into the grind. Push yourself every moment you can to live for one more second so that whoever chooses to be your enemy dies first. Trust that someone will be there to heal you, or even better learn to heal yourself.

  Training rings are places where you bleed and die in a controlled environment, and coming here to play around is wasting that opportunity.”

  Seeing them all staring at him like he was absolutely batshit crazy, Nero grinned and decided to steal some of his favorite cliches.

  “Pain is nothing more than your body's attempt to tell you that something is wrong. You can’t ignore it, but you can simply acknowledge it before moving on. Always remember, pain is just weakness leaving your body.

  I’ve been shown that the world will help you learn to fight if you listen to it, so when you’re here in this ring, make sure the entirety of your being is here with you. There is nothing outside the fight, and… inside it… that’s where you will live and die. That is what it means to truly fight. And those who search for fights so others don’t have to… those are adventurers. And we, the Wackos of House Walker, are nothing if not the best damn adventurers in the world,” he stated grandly as he raised his arms to the side and finished with a smile.

  “Or at least we will be if you bother to get your sorry asses up off the floor and get back to training,” he shouted as they began scurrying to collect their weapons.