In one of the private conference rooms in the keep, City Lord Cosgrave sat at the head of the table with her fingers steepled in thought in front of her chin. Around her sat the assembled advisors and aides of House Cosgrave, each one in charge of the various assets and pursuits of her house.

  When the memory engram she and the rest of the attendants had been watching finished playing, she broke the silence by ordering coldly, “Play it again…”

  As requested, the memory engram restarted from the beginning. Natalie Keening, the public face of House Walker, came into focus hovering over the center of the table for all to see. She began by declaring House Walker’s intention to set the standard for adventuring in Oglivarch and making it clear that its ‘Wackos’ needed to step up their training or be left behind.

  The memory engram went on to show Lord Walker absolutely decimating a squad of these so-called Wackos before quickly bringing them back from the dead in an intimidating display of magical skill and power. It also included his speech, urging the barely recovered squad to take their training more seriously.

  Witnessing someone so young, and so low-leveled, mercilessly butchering fully trained soldiers before they could even use their abilities was just as chilling as it had been for City Lord Cosgrave as the first time she’d watched it. While she’d seen the reports concerning Lord Walker’s uncanny speed at learning the blade, seeing their truth displayed in such stark reality was something she hadn’t truly been prepared for.

  ‘Had he really only picked up the blade a few months ago? Hadn’t he been primarily focusing on his magic?’ she wondered uncomfortably at his progress.

  Cutting to Cathleen Averett, the memory engram then showed a brief explanation of what kind of training Lord Walker had been putting himself through, equating it to the fabled Warblade training of the Northern provinces. She made it clear that she’d been the one who had been training him… personally. The woman’s tone was both proud and challenging, practically daring anyone to go through what Lord Walker had.

  ‘Center household manager or not, that woman is definitely an Averett,’ the city lord remarked to herself.

  Individual statements were then provided in sequence by each of the squad who’d been killed before being resuscitated by Lord Walker. Each one of them proudly declaring their intention to wholeheartedly adhere to their Wacko training, making it abundantly clear that they were even looking forward to it.

  As a finale, Natalie Keening reappeared to give a brief propaganda-filled speech about House Walker’s potential and reiterating how the hard work and dedication of its members would, in the future, set the standard for what it meant to be an Adventurer of Oglivarch.

  When the memory engram finally shut off, and the room returned to silence, the city lord asked sternly, “How did you manage to get this?”

  The aide who’d brought this to her attention replied, “It was put up for everyone to watch. It’s on the public-facing side of House Walker’s Thought Hub profile. They weren’t trying to hide it. It appears that they want everyone in the city to see what they’re planning.”

  Sighing heavily, City Lord Cosgrave said quietly, almost to herself, “It seems that the term ‘adventurer’ will become commonplace in the coming days.”

  Raising her voice to address the rest of the room, she continued, “If none of the members of House Walker who are being subjected to this type of training are willing to file a complaint with the Tower of Law, then I don’t believe there is anything we can legally do about it. However, we must consider what this will mean in the long term. If House Verena’s forces follow along with House Walker in this ill-conceived training plan, then even after House Walker moves on from Dorchester, we’ll still have a disproportionally powerful force of soldiers acting as a singular household army. And considering how fervently Vera Salvatore-Verena is recruiting, that force might turn out to be not just powerful, but quite large as well. Any house that is unable to find people willing to suffer through similar such training will fall further and further behind… ours included.”

  Stern faces of her advisors stared back at her, every one of them knowing that finding such people would be difficult, if not outright impossible. After all, there wasn’t a single Lord in the city who could serve as an inspirational equivalent to Lord Walker in the eyes of the commoners.

  “Contact Commander Dahl, we’ll need to update the army’s training program for our recently re-instituted elites. Also, let Head Guard Dalton know that House Cosgrave will need to find our own soldiers willing to die for our house indefinitely,” she ordered, knowing full well the difficult time the man would have finding anyone willing to agree to such an insane request.

  —--

  When Nero finally crashed for the night, he found himself debating whether or not it was worth dealing with his identity instead of just going straight to sleep. He could tell by how his soul felt that he’d not gained much experience, and even thinking back on what he’d accomplished, he couldn’t find a justifiable reason to complain about how little progress he’d made. All he’d really done was screw around with some training and play with his magic.

  Not that he hadn’t been somewhat productive. Because he had.

  He’d worked on speeding up his carving times for some of the infrequently used spell forms he knew and even spent some time learning a few more which he might not ever bother with. After all, what’s the likelihood of him needing a spell that conjured multicolored, sticky paint that barely lasted 10 minutes? Though not particularly useful, it was just one of the many spells that the people of Dorchester had provided him.

  While the rest of his team had been recovering from their training, Nero had been scouring the Thought Hub for interesting blogs to watch. Of particular interest was his delve into the more esoteric and inventive household magics that he’d found being taught by average folks on the Thought Hub.

  He found the entire concept of everyone just posting whatever they wanted up on the Thought Hub for everyone to see charmingly reminiscent of his old life, and somehow comforting for his soul. In many ways, people here were just as self-centered, delusional, and pointlessly stupid as they were back on Earth.

  Aside from the two young aspiring mages who spent their time fiddling with magic at the expense of whoever their targets were for their pranks, Nero enjoyed watching a particularly enjoyable blog by a woman named Mandy Finnegan. She was what could be considered a housewife here, as her husband worked as an accountant for a company called ‘Mathis’ Needs And Wants’. Which, of course, was an up-and-coming business sponsored by House Vicene and a direct competitor of ‘Oslo’s Odds And Ends’ which had been co-founded by House Neeman, whoever the hell they were. Meanwhile, she stayed at home to raise their three children. To pass the time, she made little videos about all the little spells she’d learned and adapted from her time at the Gate 4 preparatory academy for magic which she’d gone to in her youth.

  While not the best mage, or even one that was that talented, Nero thought she was brilliant. Her blog chronicled her efforts to alter magical spells for any number of reasons while demonstrating splendidly just how poorly that had worked out for her. From the very first memory engram/video he’d seen, he’d been hooked.

  Having attempted to create a variation of the ‘cleaning’ spell that was commonly considered simple and basic, she’d blown up her kitchen when she’d tried to make it work as an area of effect. The blog ended with her explaining in great detail where and how she’d believed she’d gone wrong, and how she’d only showed the improper spell form as a means to show what NOT to do.

  The very next episode had her attempting to combine a water-creation spell with a wind attack. Her intention being to create a simple and easy way to clean her roof. Which, of course, hadn’t worked out nearly as well in practice as it had in theory. The ending of the episode had a wonderful surprise guest appearance by the local guardsman who’d taken the opportunity to caution people not to attempt spell creation outside of authorized laboratories, while also urging people to leave spell creation to the professionals.

  Honestly, she may end up being Nero’s new favorite person to watch.

  But she wasn’t the only interesting person he’d found. Despite only knowing about this aspect of the Thought Hub for less than a day, he’d already found multiple hidden gems to enjoy.

  Some guy in Gate 18 was giving weekly updates on his attempts to master the groundbreaking art of enchanting his houseplants, some of whom had ended up acquiring identities and running away in fear. Nero was eagerly looking forward to the promised episodes where he tracked them down.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Another budding home scientist was working on his application for Gate 11’s Research Center. His thesis application hinging on his attempt to create a teleporter that ran on ambient essence flows instead of crystals, thereby earning his position along with a hefty reward for his genius. His memory engrams were intended to act as meticulous records allowing everyone to witness his progress. Incidentally, they also served as proof for Nero that people here in this new world were just as capable of earning themselves a Darwin award as those idiots he used to watch on YouTube back home.

  The poor guy’s most successful attempt had him teleporting a rat across the room, albeit at the expense of its molecular integrity. When the now-deceased animal arrived at its location more or less intact, but unfortunately inside out, on fire, and producing what looked like multi-colored sparks. The man had ended that particular video by assuring his viewers that he was, at worst, merely weeks away from human trials.

  While none of what Nero had watched had been all that helpful for his own magical training, he had learned a few things about how the locals viewed spell form manipulation. So, in a way, he felt that his time had not been wasted in the least.

  He ended up falling asleep while recalling all the humorous videos he’d seen, and planning how to apply what he’d learned to his own attempts at mastering magic in its entirety, while also temporarily focusing on the art of combat magic. His resulting dreams were full of scenes of him massacring hordes of kobalds with cleaning spells, all the while a voice-over narrated its recommendations on how to get rid of the ‘tough-to-reach stains on difficult parts of your mountain’.

  Regrettably, as all good things must come to an end, Nero was awoken by someone alerting him to the arrival of breakfast.

  Awkwardly climbing out of his tent, Nero half-heartedly cast the self-cleaning spell he’d practically mastered at this point. Looking around, he could see that everyone was back to sitting around in a circle, staring at an open area of stone that realistically should have included a firepit… if only because its absence in the heart of their camp was so blatantly obvious. While they were underground and had absolutely no need for one, he still found it weird for them to circle up around nothing.

  Walking up to them, he did his best to sound happy and enthusiastic. “Good morning boys and girls. Everyone excited for another day of training while we wait for the mages to do their thing?”

  Everyone seemed impervious to his sarcasm, or more likely they missed it, as all he heard in reply was variations of ‘Of course, my lord’, or ‘Looking forward to it’. Even Natalie offered him a smile worthy of a toothpaste commercial as she handed him a bowl filled with some sort of chunky gruel.

  “Great,” he muttered to himself as he pulled out his favorite stump of wood out of his personal space and took a seat.

  Not having noticed Natalie urging the team to say something, Nero was surprised when Claire spoke up a little louder than necessary. “My lord, we wanted to thank you for your training yesterday. While we may not have been able to live up to your expectations, I assure you we will all work hard to be better Wackos in the future.”

  Natalie, barely having waited for Claire to finish added, “I’ve spoken with the forward operating bases command, and they’ve agreed to loan us a few healers for each of our teams in the field while we are here. While they’ll have to remain available for any teams that return with casualties, we’ll be able to use them to push our training forward like you instructed.”

  Somewhat confused as to what she was talking about, Nero listened as she continued to babble about what she’d organized. He barely remembered talking to her yesterday. He had said something about healers, hadn’t he…

  Apparently, after having learned from his team about his required training standards, she’d sent out a house-wide announcement with a memory engram of the little speech he’d given. Cathleen had even willingly participated by telling them all about the training she put Nero through while they’d been with the elites. From there, everything had sort of snowballed.

  As they were a new house, and no one really knew what they were doing, doctrine as to what it meant to be a Wacko was still rather up in the air. As a result, a somewhat misguided belief developed that Nero expected them to train until they dropped.

  The more Natalie talked, the more he could see everyone’s expression taking on a crazy yet prideful intensity. They all looked like they were willing to kill themselves for the honor of being considered a true Wacko. The scouts, the melee fighters, and even the mages were looking a little too intense for his liking. Nero could see it in their eyes, they’d all gone somewhat mental.

  Considering that only a few of their teams would be being sent out today to escort survey teams, the majority of House Walker was looking like they’d have nothing better to do than to train. And to help live up to the standards that he’d unintentionally set, she’d arranged for healers from the army to be on hand in case anyone ended up killing each other. So, it wouldn’t just be his team, but everyone associated with House Walker would be training their asses off today.

  While Nero was mindlessly eating his breakfast, trying to wrap his head around what Natalie was telling him, Peter spoke up as if he was unable to contain himself. “The magical contingent of the Wackos have all agreed to work on our healing and resuscitation spells today! We intend for everyone who can cast a spell form to be able to at least carve a basic healing spell form by the end of the day!”

  Natalie, nodding in agreement, continued, “That’s right, everyone capable of magic will be working on mastering a healing spell. You were absolutely right when you said a person should be able to heal themselves. The fact that we’re relying on anyone else for our healing is a failing we intend to correct.”

  One of the Helens added, “That goes for us too, my lord. I’d never really thought about it, but you’re right. I mean, if I can learn to cast a cleaning spell, I should be able to learn to cast a simple healing spell. And if the Wacko next to me falls, I better be able to bring them back quickly… if only to ensure that they’re there to do the same for me when I’m in need. Wackos need to look out for each other, right?”

  Everyone nodded in agreement as if she’d declared some irrefutable truth that they’d all inexplicably universally accepted as their credo.

  Standing up from her chair, Natalie declared intensely, “Walker’s Wackos will be filled by mankind’s greatest fighters. We will stand between the citizenry and its doom, facing whatever endangers society so that our civilization shall live on. Together, we will be unstoppable!”

  Utterly baffled by how or why she’d abruptly transitioned into a hero speech, Nero was caught off guard by the resulting cheer that erupted when she was done. Nearly dropping his half-eaten bowl of gruel, Nero looked around in confusion as they all began patting each other on the back and swearing to be there for each other come hell or high-water.

  Even the somewhat reserved Victor and Sam, the scouts, were slightly grinning and promising to do their best to represent the ideals that House Walker stood for.

  For the remainder of the meal, everyone chimed in with what they planned to work on during training. While some of what Nero was hearing sounded interesting, it was mostly a bunch of people declaring that they would push themselves further than they ever had before.

  One thing that stood out to Nero was that every one of them happened to mention how much progress they’d made last night during their meditations. Apparently, having been pushed to the brink of death during their training, their level stress had proven the efficacy of Nero’s training methods. He was being credited as being the one who’d show them a better way to walk their path.

  Unable to formulate coherent responses to their praise, Nero instead fell back on whatever old sayings he could remember. Since Nero’s platitudes and nonsense reserves were endless, it was easy for him to spout them off in rapid-fire returns to their enthusiasm.

  At one point, Claire remarked to him as if it had been a question, “I’m willing to work hard, I am… but sometimes I wonder if I have it in me to be truly powerful?”

  Seeing as everyone paused their conversation to listen to his reply, Nero had simply responded sagely, “Being powerful isn’t the goal. The goal is to be more powerful today than you were the day before. Every day is a new opportunity to set a new standard. So, while you can never be the best, you can be your best.”

  To Peter’s question about whether or not his trouble learning new spells made him a poor mage, Nero replied, “Learning quickly does not mean you’re learning well. The strongest trees are the ones that flourish in the poorest soil. Your potential is decided by no one other than you.”

  Left and right, Nero spouted off every bit of nonsense he’d ever read or heard.

  “Hard work makes hard people.”

  “To be better, you must train better.”

  “You only make it as far as you’re willing to go.”

  By the time they were finished with breakfast and heading over to the training rings, everyone looked like they were chomping at the bit to get started. Luckily, the healers Natalie had requested were already there, or Nero would have worried that he’d have to have been the only one keeping them from killing each other.

  Even luckier was the fact that everyone was more interested in getting lessons from the healers than they were in bothering him with their incessant questioning.

  So, now that everything looked handled, and they were all crowded around the healers begging for instruction, Nero snuck off on his own to continue learning magic all by his lonesome. And while it would have been nice to get some instruction from trained mages like Peter and Merrick, he’d spent most of the day before just arguing with them. Therefore, if he wanted to actually learn anything, he expected that he’d probably have to figure it out himself.

  That wasn’t a problem for him though, as he had plenty of information to work with even without them being around. He had access to the Thought Hub, some books, and time. Honestly, what more did he need?

  And with that, he took over the training ring furthest away from where they were holding their little group healing seminar and got to work… or at least he’d tried to. Instead of working on his own things, he ended up spending most of his time watching their progress through his essence perception. The last thing he needed was for them to think he was some kind of authority figure hovering over their shoulder… judging them.

  ‘Holy shit… do these guys just suck… or am I simply that awesome?’ he wondered to himself.