Turtles, tortoises, snakes, and crocodiles, however, are not bipeds. Strictly speaking they aren’t saurians either, even if the majority of the uneducated masses just lump them all together when you ask for an opinion. Yes these creatures share the saurians’ potential for natural evolution.

  — Excerpt from Notes on Evolution

  Day 245, 3:10 PM

  Newstar stared at me dumbstruck. Then Everlast burst into laughter. She covered her mouth and forcefully stopped herself from laughing, Puresnow staring at her, then glaring at me. I personally was amused. I don’t think the butt joke made Everlast laugh as much as Newstar’s flabbergastedness.

  “Did you arrange all this for the sake of his training?” she asked after clearing her throat.

  “Well, you saw how bad he was. He stabbed the thing in the head, then needed a whole second to remember he should order his flames to burst into the wound and cook the thing. And when the frostworm hit him, he just stared at those teeth, waiting to be devoured—”

  “Wait!” Newstar’s face flushed red. “You were watching the whole time!”

  I nodded.

  “Luring a monster here, dumping it on you, and just running away is irresponsible, and since I am the leader of this group, my job is to make sure we all get out of here alive, preferably in one piece, without wasting my healing potions.”

  I straightened, assuming a dignified pose.

  “Anyway, your skills with the sword are lacking. I could teach you, but you would owe me a favor, of course.”

  “How skilled are you with the long-sword?” Everlast asked, stumping me.

  “I would say I am good enough to show you some tricks, if you are interested. If you find my effort worthwhile, you may reward me however you see fit.”

  The situation was developing in an odd and certainly unexpected manner. I had little hope of actually getting a favor from a member of the Everfrost Order.

  “I would like that.” Everlast smiled, Amicable hitting overdrive as our strained relationship suddenly turned positive.

  Puresnow, on the other hand, was nowhere near as happy.

  “You’re just a hedge third realm wanderer! What could you possibly teach Sister Everlast?”

  Without warning, she drew her sword and jumped at me. Like a muscle, I tugged at my mental acuity, and my perception of time hastened, everyone else moving in slow motion.

  Puresnow was still fairly fast, but the confusion on Newstar’s face and stumped horror on Everlast’s slowly blossomed as realization struck them.

  Frankly, anyone beneath the fifth realm attacking me was plain suicidal, but I had to react with realm-adequate force and speed. Even with that restriction, with my level of expertise at unarmed combat, there was only one outcome.

  In a smooth motion, I snatched Puresnow’s sword, grabbed her wrist, and used her own momentum against her, adding just a tiny bit of force. She smashed into the cave floor like a cannonball, shattering the ice and sending ice-chips flying. I kept hold of her arm, ready to snap it if she did something stupid.

  She didn’t. She just gazed at the ceiling, her brain rattled. Mageknight or not, that fall would’ve killed a non-awakened human, possibly first-realmers too.

  “That was foolish.” I told the prone Puresnow before focusing on something more important - tutoring Newstar. “Disarming her would have been tougher had she used a sword without a guard. I used the guard against her to wrestle the weapon free from her hand.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  A moment of silence stretched into a second before Everlast finally spoke, shock clear in her voice.

  “What? Puresnow, what have you done? Master told us Sir Dandelion is the leader and that we are to obey him as if he were her. Sir Dandelion, please forgive Puresnow’s rudeness. I… I don’t know what came over her.”

  I let go of Puresnow’s hand, but didn’t return her sword.

  “Nothing to forgive. Hotheadedness is normal in youth; just look at Newstar here.”

  Newstar frowned, but I flicked a flake of ice at his head, which evaporated with a hiss.

  “Hot Head,” I explained the joke, but Newstar wasn’t amused. “But such behavior can lead to injuries and even fatalities as we explore this cavern, so I would like to ask you to guard the entrance to the cave, Puresnow, somewhere Lady Frostgrave will be able to see you.”

  She looked at me with hollow eyes, realizing the extent of her failure. As well as the consequences.

  “Unity is more important than numbers, or even strength, and I fear you lack what is needed to play well in this team.” With the lesson delivered, it was time to soften the blow. “That is not to say this is your fault. Our chemistry is conflicting, it causes you to clash with me and Newstar, so it would be best for you to perform a different, no less important role of guarding the entrance and warning us of any potential outsiders or wandering high-realm monsters.”

  I gave her a somewhat honorable way out of the situation, and unless she was dumber than she looked, I knew she would take it. The alternatives weren’t as pleasant. With her sorted, it was time for the rest of the team.

  “The three of us can keep going. You two can tackle the third realm frostworms on your own, while we will work together to bring down the fourth realm ones. And before you complain, Newstar, no, I cannot handle a fourth realm frostworm on my own without paying a significant cost.” Namely outing myself. “And there is no reason to torture or bankrupt myself when I have friends and allies to help me deal with them.”

  I glanced at the monster corpse. It was more or less useless to us, but decorum needed to be observed.

  “Is there anything inside it you wish to harvest?” I asked Everlast.

  “We could sell the carapace plates for a handful of third realm crystals, and we should check whether the core is still intact.” She looked at the corpse with disdain when Newstar spoke up.

  “I’ll work on the carapace.”

  The youth was too enthusiastic about the chore, screaming he was a pauper.

  “All right.” Everlast said as Puresnow departed, doing the walk of shame.

  “Newstar,” I once more took it upon myself to beat a nasty habit out of him. “You need to learn how to use your time wisely. Sculpting your realm will take a lot of your time, more with each passing layer, exponentially more with each realm. Simple constructs you make will take hours, while more complex ones will demand weeks, moons or years to complete, and they will fall apart or decay should you stop before finishing them.”

  Both Newstar and Everlast stopped what they were doing and focused on me.

  “Sometimes, quite often in fact, you must let go of a treasure for those of lower realm, or even for your own, for the sake of greater goals. You need not spend hours carefully dismantling a saurian’s corpse if two minutes of reckless butchery will yield a third or even a tenth of the bounty.”

  I sighed at his blank look. Telling him just to ignore the money that could help his family gain a bit of a footing must have seemed insane.

  “Listen. While it might seem like awakened live extremely long lives, even for us, time is a resource more valuable than manarium. With the right skills, you can convert time into manarium very effectively, but the way of converting manarium into time is well outside our power. Even Lady Frostgrave lacks the resources for such a luxury.”

  “But I need the money now,” he said. “How can I pass the opportunity when it’s right before me?”

  I drew a deep breath. For a regular human, that was enough time to gather their thoughts; for me, it was enough time to form a logical argument.

  “Let us assume that removing all the carapace from this frostworm takes two hours, and there is an average ten percent chance of finding a core in a saurian after a difficult fight, twenty when it dies before using too many abilities. That means you would need twenty hours on average to gather a core, and about a fifth of its worth in carapaces. Alternatively, you could earn a core in one hour, or less once you become more proficient, and use nineteen hours on crafting something useful to you or for selling.”

  Newstar nodded. Slowly.

  “Shouldn’t I stay in the city and just craft if that’s the case?”

  A great question, unfortunately, one difficult to answer.

  “No, because hunting saurians gives you experience and helps you refine your combat abilities. Training, sparring, and dueling others is also important; however, none of those can prepare you for a life or death battle against another man.” I glanced at Everlast. “Or woman.”

  That seemed like a great place to stop talking and let him think about what I had said. Time was passing, and with the changes we had made to the timeline, frostworms could be moving in unexpected ways.

  “If you have any questions, discuss them with Lady Everlast.” I said, heading deeper into the cavern to check out what was happening and possibly bait another third-realm frostworm into chasing after me.