Chapter 4: The Worthy, Part 1

In all honesty, I probably would have blacked out by now if Doomsday hadn't been holding onto my shoulder. Both my stamina and magic had been drained to critical levels but I was alive, which, in hindsight, was the best kind of result for a matchup that had seen me die twice before.

"Straighten your back, Will," Doomsday whispered. "Show your fellow novices that you belong among them."

"Right," I smiled wearily. "The show never ends, huh."

Doomsday gave me a knowing, sympathetic grin before he raised my arm in triumph. "This is Will Wisdom… He is a true 'drengr', one worthy to stand among future adventurers!"

I let myself be paraded around to the thundering applause of an audience whom no doubt viewed me as a new rival to crush once they got the chance to do so. Bring it on, I say.

Suddenly, the world around me tilted slightly. Then a red-haired, red-bearded man materialized in front of me as if he'd been spat out of space and time. Well, calling him a man might have been a stretch as there were rarely any dudes on Earth who had the height of a ten-year-old boy while also boasting the beer belly of a male adult.

The appearance of this dwarf—for what else could he be—had the remarkable effect of shutting up an entire stadium of rowdy ruffians, and I guessed it wasn't just because of the fancy threads of his bright blue robes. No, there was an aura of power around him that dwarfed even Doomsday's presence.

Even I could sense the powerful magical energy leaking off him. There was so much of it that I had to suppress the shudder that threatened to overwhelm me while in his presence.

"Were you entertained by this Crucible, Grandmaster?" Doomsday asked in a reverent tone.

The dwarf tilted his head up in annoyance.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're too tall, Doomsday," he complained in a low, scratchy voice that, strangely enough, carried with it a hint of a Scottish accent.

"You have," Doomsday replied casually. "Every single day for the last hundred-and-twenty-two years."

"Ugh... Speaking to you gives me neck cramps." The grandmaster glowered at the half-giant. It was a glower he quickly turned on me. "So, this is him, huh... Will Wisdom, the Academy's newest cannon fodder."

"I'm not a—"

"Don't think too highly about winning the Crucible. This fool of an instructor was pulling his punches." The grandmaster patted Doomsday on his leg which was about as high as his hand could go. "He may look like a god of war on the outside, but he's just a big marshmallow deep down."

My eyebrow twitched up slightly as my gaze switched from the dwarf to the half-giant. "That was him going easy on me...?"

Doomsday just shrugged. As if to admit that he'd been caught in the act.

Nope, uh-uh. I refused to believe I'd been given an easy time because I could still feel the stabbing pain in my chest that came from him killing me—twice! There was nothing easy about the Crucible!

"Come along, Mr. Wisdom." The grandmaster turned his back to me. "I haven't got all—"

Doomsday cleared his throat.

"You have yet to address the students or conclude the ceremony, Grandmaster," Doomsday reminded him.

I watched the dwarf roll his eyes at the half-giant, a feat even I—the teenager without fear of death—couldn't do so offhandedly.

With a great big showing of exasperation, the grandmaster pointed a glowing finger at me and recited, "I, Dwalinn, twelfth of my name, Sorcerer Extraordinaire, Eight-Degree Necromancer, Orichalcum-ranked Adventurer, Master of the Drakestone Mead and Lover of Fine-Tasting Fire Wine, Tamer of the Wildest Females in all the Realmsverse—"

Doomsday cleared his throat once more.

"Perhaps sticking only to your official titles would be best, Grandmaster," he suggested.

"As I was saying..." It was Dwalinn's turn to clear his throat in annoyance. "...Keeper of the Norn Well, and Grandmaster of the Academy," then he added, "of wunderkinder and fools alike," in an undertone before continuing with, "declare that this human—ugh—is now a 'novice' of our most esteemed institution with all its benefits and responsibilities given to him henceforth and so on and so on..." That last bit ended rather lazily.

I sensed it then, a change in the surrounding atmosphere much like the moment after one crosses through a metal detector at an airport terminal without issue. It was as if I'd passed an invisible security check and it was now safe to move on without fear of punishment.

"What are you lazy bums still doing here?" Dwalinn was addressing the audience now. "Show's over! Disperse already, you reprobates! Get back to cracking those books and sharpening those blades!"

He pointed a stubby finger at one of the audience members sitting underneath the green banners of the Rogues Gallery. "That means you, Mr. Jenkins!"

His words were met with a spattering of laughter and someone's cry of, "Leeroy~~y!" before the novices began filing out of the arena like excited fans after a memorable playoff game. Interestingly enough, there were quite a few of them eyeing me as they left—and it wasn't the welcoming kind of look. It was the kind of look a lion sends the antelope right before it pounced.

'I am going to enjoy it here,' I grinned.

"Come with me, Mr. Wisdom." Dwalinn wrapped his pudgy fingers around my wrist. "I've got a few questions that need answering."

Doomsday offered me a hearty grin before I was spirited away in the strangest manner. The world tilted around us, bringing with it a slight sensation of vertigo, and then we were somewhere else entirely.

"Did we just"—I had to lean against the comfy high-back chair I found myself in—"teleport into your office?"

We were in a high-ceilinged room made entirely of polished gray stone. Even the furniture—from the comfy upholstered chairs to the table-like slab that lay between me and Dwalinn—was cut from stone, intricately carved in the geometric shapes and symbols indicative of dwarven design.

"Sure, if you care to dumb down such an amazing feat of magic," Dwalinn replied coolly. "In actuality, I slid us from one moment in time to another in which we were already seated in my office... Saves me from walking around this ridiculously huge tree house we're in."

My gaze—which had been focused on a western wall made entirely of a carved dwarven tapestry depicting a scene from a long-ago battle I'd never heard of—snapped back to zone in on the red-haired dwarf sitting comfortably on the stone chair that had been made to perfectly fit his four-foot height.

"Time magic..." My eyes widened slightly at this realization. "You know Chronomancy...?"

"I imagine you do too, boy," Dwalinn said in a knowing tone.

"I—"

He raised a pudgy hand up to cut me off. "There's no point in lying. I'm a Sorcerer Extraordinaire, one knowledgeable enough to also sense the trace amounts of tachyon energy surrounding you."

Dwalinn raised a bushy eyebrow my way.

"You do know what tachyons are, don't you?"

"Theoretical faster than light particles said to appear during instances of unnatural chronal phenomena," I answered like I'd read it word for word in a textbook, which I did.

Divah had once explained to me that tachyon particles appeared around me after 'Extra Life' activated. That's how she could tell whenever I resurrected, although Divah could never remember the moment of my death. To her credit, she never asked me to recount them.

"Tachyon energy isn't so theoretical in our case," Dwalinn chuckled. "Can I offer you a drink? Tea, milk, carbonated beverage?"

"I wouldn't say no to chili mead," I answered.

I felt that slight tilting sensation once more before a mug filled with a frothy reddish liquid appeared in my hand. Dwalinn had a silver wine chalice in his hand now, too.

"That's useful," I whistled.

Feeling thirsty from the Crucible, I downed my mug and enjoyed the extra-fiery taste of elf-grown chili pepper that was infused with a mixture of honey and Múspell water. It was a real treat to feel that chili mead traveling down my throat too, bringing that familiar tingling warmth of daring into my gut.

No, the grandmaster wasn't trying to get me drunk. Chili mead was a non-alcoholic beverage that had become every teen's favorite drink. It was the real-world equivalent of liquid courage which made it the strongest armor against difficulties like bullies and high school cliques. Not that I've ever experienced either of those concepts beyond the 'Realmflix' shows my master let me binge once in a while.

"That's the stuff—"

The world tilted around us once more, and I found my mug had refilled itself.

"You're pretty cavalier about breaking the fundamental laws of time, aren't you, sir?" I mused.

"There's no harm in a little indulgence." Dwalinn sipped from his chalice, burped, and then smacked his lips before continuing. "So, I've shown you mine. Now show me yours."

I could have lied. No, I wanted to lie as there didn't seem to be any benefit to admitting my secret to the grandmaster of the Academy. Unfortunately, I'd been caught in his gaze. Staring into his eyes and the fount of knowledge twinkling in those emerald irises, well, let's just say I was intimidated enough to admit to a partial truth.

So, I moved my hand over to the half-eaten loaf of bread on his desk and willed what little of my magic I'd replenished into the tips of my fingers. A cool, bluish light flared out of my palm and reordered itself into a circular arcane array that blazed to life in the space between me and my target. Then, before our very eyes, the half-eaten loaf of bread regrew the parts of it that had already been consumed so that it was whole once more.

"Reversion," Dwalinn deduced. "Impressive."

He'd guessed right. The magic I'd just cast was a rare but low-level spell from the School of Chronomancy called 'Reversion' which could return an object of predetermined size to a previous state of my choosing.

"Are you powerful enough to restore a lost limb?"

"Nope. I'm too low-level for a reversion that big."

"Any other chronal spells in your repertoire?"

Once again, I faced a challenge that a straight-up lie couldn't conquer. Another half-truth was necessary here. Thankfully, Divah had armed me with enough bullets to fire for moments just like this one.

"I can use Haste," I admitted. "Only for a few seconds though... I don't have the magic for that full minute of awesomeness that Haste offers more experienced mages."

"That's all?" he confirmed.

I nodded.

Dwalinn's face, which was just as chubby as the rest of him, turned contemplative. He studied me for a long moment before he let this line of questioning go.

"Let's see it then," he said.

"See what?" I asked worriedly.

I was afraid he'd caught me in my half-truths. That I'd used 'Reversion' to cover up the fact that I was cursed with the repeated reincarnation of 'Extra Life', but my fears were unfounded.

"Your status bar," Dwalinn huffed.

One of my eyebrows hitched upward. "My... what?"