45th of Season of Fire, 187th year of the 32nd cycle

  Twenty-six years had passed with Newt hardly leaving the Explorer’s Island. He spent his time in training, sculpting his realm, and socializing with his fellow champions. The students had become something that happened in another world.

  In fact, just about everything had become something that happened to others, in another world, until he had received a letter from his clan.

  Newt stared at the piece of paper, unable to believe what he was reading. A drop hit the paper, smearing ink, followed by another.

  Lord Patriarch,

  I regret to inform you that the acting patriarch, Stronggrow Salamandra has passed away. Death found him in his sleep…

  Newt read the whole thing, but forgot the contents as soon as his eyes slipped free of the paper. The letter burned to ash as a pillar of Newt’s life crumbled.

  And what was I expecting? That Teacher would live eternally just because I was alive? My parents are next. Fourth realm, that’s what? Four-five hundred years at most? They are already close to the half-way mark. Should I spend more time with them?

  What are they even doing right now?

  Newt tried to think, but thoughts slipped his grasp like fog. He sat down on the ground, back against the wall, and leaned his head against the cool stone.

  Father is teaching at the gladiators’ school, mother is still in her order, but a humble overseer. Should I invite them to Explorer’s Gate?

  Newt listened to his heart and nodded. I should.

  He stood, went to the desk and penned the letters. That helped.

  And what will they do? Mother can teach people about music, and Father… He can teach people how to fight with oversized, unwieldy swords in a way that gets the crowd cheering?

  That day, Newt didn’t feel like training, nor like sculpting his realm. He kindly informed his master and his sparring partners about taking a day off, and went over to a small river, its burbling sound soothing and hypnotizing.

  “You wanna talk?” Magmin whispered in the back of Newt’s mind, their years of experimenting finally letting them repeat the shadow of what Magmin’s daughter had achieved with a thought.

  “No. Not really. Have you ever experienced loss?”

  “I’m experiencing it now. Through you. It’s not a pleasant sensation.”

  Newt nodded.

  “My master is probably watching me right now.”

  “He does seem overly interested in you. Are you sure he doesn’t want to eat you?”

  Newt suppressed a smile. “Fairly certain.”

  “All right. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when the time comes.”

  “What’s on your mind, Newstar?” Gatemaster Greenthorn appeared beside Newt.

  A moment later, Newt’s vision came true, and his master was standing next to him. The fright he would have gotten from the exalt’s sudden appearance had triggered Newt’s danger sense, letting him remain perfectly calm.

  “My first teacher has passed away, Master. It left me in a strange mood. I’ve written to my parents…” Newt explained everything, and Gatemaster Greenthorn listened with the patience of a rock. Unfortunately, he showed just as much empathy.

  “People will die around Newstar. That’s what happens when you become an exalt. They will become brief flashes in your life, with only those with similarly long lives even worth an emotional investment. As for bringing over your parents, I don’t mind, if that’s what you believe you need to lead a more fulfilling life.”

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

  Gatemaster Greenthorn went silent for a moment, recalling everything he knew about Newstar’s parents.

  “They have reached the end of their paths at the fourth realm. Even if they haven’t, resources for their realm are nothing to either of us, so that’s not a problem either. Who knows, you might even get a younger brother or sister. Probably several, since your parents have one or two centuries left to live.”

  Even Magmin could tell the gatemaster lacked tact, but the man seemed oblivious, saying the words without balking at what he had said.

  “Thank you, Master,” Newt said after finally gathering his wits and pushing away disconcerting mental images brought by the gatemaster’s words.

  Younger siblings, while obviously wonderful, were definitely not something he wanted to think about for a multitude of reasons.

  “How is your sculpting going? Are you going to manage a perfect advancement in twenty-nine years?”

  “Yes, Master. I will have years to spare for practice and reading.”

  “Then take a week or two off. Go around the island, explore a danger zone, visit a commoner city, see how they are living, what they are doing. It should put things into perspective.”

  “Yes, Master.” Newt rose, bowed, and left.

  Perhaps he really needed a bit of time on his own. He spread his perception around, filaments of mana spreading a mile away in all directions. The threads retreated as soon as they touched upon a thicker clump of threads others used to mark their personal space, but students and even some at the fifth realm overseers didn’t receive the courtesy.

  The first time Newt felt a hundred people around him with their clothes off, he had the first hint of how those at the sixth realm and above started losing empathy for those beneath them. There were items, trinkets, which radiated a privacy signal around those weaker, but those were worn only by children and grandchildren of those powerful and wealthy enough to supply them.

  And as much as he didn’t want to, by spreading his sense, he inadvertently had to scan the entire bodies of those who didn’t put up warnings against doing so. It was also the basis of the higher realm mageknights’ ability to detect lies. They monitored everything inside you. There wasn’t clever recognition of marks of liars, it was a full body analysis, not infallible, but incredibly difficult to circumvent.

  And Newt was susceptible to the same thing by those three realms beyond him. Usually, someone at the seventh realm could overpower a sixth realm mageknights’ defenses. Newt was impervious to scans of those beneath the ninth, courtesy to his fiery baptisms and perhaps his other quirks.

  Newt left the island, running across water and thinking. They are sun flames, not a hint of earth, and yet the mana in my body blends to be half-fire, half-earth.

  After reaching the sixth realm, and going through his baptisms multiple times, Newt caught a hint of what was happening. For some reason, when the fire hit, the world nurtured him, feeding him energy to keep him balanced.

  It was weird, irregular, and happened every time. It was a rule, not a coincidence, something Newt had learned to pay attention to. His final talk with Dandelion had told him there were no coincidences. And as such, there was a reason why the world was feeding him earth energy whose purity matched that of the sun’s flame.

  I’m escaping into logic, further distancing myself from Teacher’s death, instead of considering mortality and its implications. Do ancient awakened flee into delusion? Is it possible that the older one gets the more they fear death?

  Newt thought about it, and life certainly seemed more precious now that he had put in so much effort into building up his realm.

  “Magmin?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you fear death?”

  “I don’t want to die, no?” Magmin answered slowly. “Are you thinking about killing yourself?”

  “No, heavens, no. I’m just thinking about death, and it seems the older you get, the scarier the notion becomes.”

  “I can tell you that when you’re a snake, death is scary no matter how old you are. Living inside your realm is different though. I’m more afraid something would consume me, or that I would change and stop being myself. That could be a form of fear of death, though.”

  Newt considered Magmin’s words. He was changing all the time, slowly. It made sense. With each realm, his mind and body drifted further apart from what was a base human. At the sixth realm, he was strong enough to contest the seventh realm, and the seventh realm mageknight could punch hard enough to blow a man-sized hole through the fortified imperial walls with nothing but their body.

  And that was nothing compared to the evolution of his mind. The conversations with his master took place in the space of time normal humans couldn’t even blink in. How was he supposed to empathise with slow-moving, dim-witted creatures he had nothing in common with?

  And yet Dandelion could do it. Why?

  Newt had expected Dandelion would send him all his accumulated wealth, and yet he didn’t even get a note from his will. He was so confused, he actually issued a mission for third realm inner students to go to Glory City and find out what had happened with Dandelion’s legacy.

  Most of it went to a rising star alchemist, Ruby Dewdrop, but the rest went to financing medical facilities and soup kitchens throughout the empire.

  Not in the big imperial cities either, but mostly towns and the smallest imperial footholds.

  The handful of sixth realm manarium crystals he had donated to the cause would keep a lot of non-awakened fed for generations.

  Why can’t I understand why he had done that? Was it a move, hoping that in conjunction with the Reawakening potion he could build an anti-cultist force?

  Newt couldn’t tell why, but he thought his lack of understanding was a problem.