As darkness gradually enveloped the earth, the trainees gradually returned to their quarters, the servants gradually completed their duties for the day, and the night guards started patrolling according to their duties.

  In a certain room, in the servants' quarters, a young man looked in terror at the glass fragments on the floor. He stood frozen for a while before shrieking in horror.

  “Ahhhh!!! Young Lord Wade is going to kill me!!”

  Attracted by his shriek, the sound of footsteps gradually approached the room door.

  “What’s going on? Who’s screaming?”

  The apprentice was terrified; he quickly squatted and cleaned up the mess while shouting back at the door.

  “Ah! It’s nothing! I just stabbed my little toe!”

  “I see; don’t scream so loudly next time!”

  The man at the door seemed to believe the apprentice’s story, or he just didn’t care, as he soon walked away.

  “Phew! Thankfully, he didn’t press on.”

  The apprentice sighed in relief before continuing to clean up the mess.

  He looked at the broken bottle and spilled liquid with a look of loss. He didn’t know what to do. If he told young Lord Wade that he broke the bottle on the first day, he'd surely kill him.

  “It seems that I can only lie and say that I used the bottle on Levi for now.”

  The apprentice muttered. However, the haze in his heart still didn’t dissipate.

  “No! He’ll find out that I didn’t use it sooner or later, and I’ll suffer an even more tragic fate! I have to find a way to leave the castle!”

  The apprentice had a determined look on his face. He didn’t want to die yet!

  —-------------

  Back at the trainees’ dormitory, Ren slowly folded the parchment paper before burning it with a candle’s fire. Watching the paper slowly burn to ashes, Ren blew on the last bit of paper before throwing it out of the window, intently watching as every last trace of it turned into ashes.

  Closing the window, he slowly walked back to his bed. However, his feet accidentally collided with the bed frame, causing him to stagger. He quickly steadied himself and held onto the bed’s frame to prevent himself from falling.

  ‘Fortunately, manipulating the destiny of a small character like that will only cause such a level of backlash.’

  Ren laid down on his bed and looked up in a daze, thinking of the abilities of the pen and glove.

  ‘Those who play with fate will be played by it.’

  This is a hard lesson he learnt over the past year. Every time he changes fate and manipulates events, he faces a backlash of the same magnitude as his actions.

  If he recklessly uses the pen of destiny to write something like ‘I will become a deity by tomorrow’, then before the threads of fate take action to fulfil his request, he’ll be torn apart by the backlash first.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  His strength, influence, power, etc… are the deciding factors in determining the extent of fate he can safely manipulate. With his current strength and standing, he can safely manipulate the fate of commoners and most of the guards’ trainees, receiving minimal backlash.

  If he tries to carelessly manipulate the fate of a true knight or a powerful noble, the backlash will result in a serious injury at the very least.

  Another determining factor is the extent of his fate manipulation. There’s a huge difference in the backlash received from manipulating someone to not eat breakfast and killing them.

  Finally, there’s the script. The backlash received from a scripted event and an unscripted event is huge.

  For example, if he writes with the pen of destiny that ‘Ron will be late to training tomorrow’, the backlash will be greater than ‘Ron played with his friends until late at night, leading to him sleeping late. Because of that, he will oversleep tomorrow, resulting in him being late for training.’

  Although both causes lead to the same effect, one is ‘scripted’ and one is unscripted, and the difference between the two is huge.

  These are the rules he summarised through trial and error over the past year.

  ‘Only through correctly understanding these artifacts can I use them to the greatest extent.’

  Ron looked at his palm and thought.

  ‘Thinking about it, using the Pen of Destiny without those gloves is indeed much more dangerous.’

  He summoned the dark, thin gloves and looked at them with a thoughtful expression.

  He refers to it as the celestial glove. It has one simple, but amazing ability. To shield him from fate.

  He once tried to write his name with the Pen of Destiny while wearing those gloves, and the pen could hardly move. It would barely write two words before getting stuck, unable to move on.

  That means that with this glove, other manipulators of fate, if they exist, can’t casually manipulate his fate.

  ‘Of course, this ability doesn’t mean much for now. Even wizards shouldn’t be able to casually manipulate fate, especially at lower levels, right?’

  Ren wondered, but then he shook his head and started thinking about the applicability of fate shielding.

  ‘Shielding me from the strings of fate… This ability has an amazing use.’

  A slight smile crept onto Ren’s face as he thought about the uses of the celestial glove.

  ‘It can also shield me from the backlash of fate!’

  Ren thought gleefully. If he wears the celestial glove while manipulating fate, then he will be protected from 99% of the backlash!

  With his current power and influence, manipulating the fate of someone such as the Viscount, a grand knight and the most influential figure in this city, would be perilous.

  He would need to write a reasonable script just to make him stumble and fall. To manipulate his thoughts, actions, and even life and death is very difficult.

  ‘However, with the celestial glove, that is no longer the case.’

  Ren thought with a smile on his face.

  “Ren! I’m back!”

  Ron opened the door and entered, his face filled with joy.

  ‘Is this guy’s energy inexhaustible?’

  Ren thought as he looked at the energetic Ron.

  “Ren! You wouldn’t believe who we saw! We saw the youngest daughter of the Lord! She was so beautiful! James was spellbound! We had to pull his head down or we would be toast!”

  Ron chattered endlessly.

  Ignoring this noisy guy, Ren's thoughts wandered.

  ‘The viscount’s youngest daughter? I remember that Wade is also interested in her.’

  In this middle-ages like world, incestuous relationships aren’t uncommon, especially for half-siblings. Quite a few nobles follow the belief of intermarriage to keep the blood pure. As outrageous as that is, in this world of wizards and knights, ‘keeping the bloodline pure’ does have some merits in breeding talented individuals.

  Wade has been enamoured with her since their first meeting, but she has nothing but scorn and disdain for him.

  ‘Hmm… If I remember correctly, Edith Bloudhound is a very talented and beautiful girl, and she’s very ambitious… Maybe I can use her to further intensify the conflict between Wade and Levi, while providing Levi with a backstage so that he won’t be casually killed by the other nobles.’

  Keeping this thought in mind, Ren talked with Ron for a while before having dinner and then going to sleep.