Designed secret realms are quite rare, and I have little information regarding them. What is known is that at the expense of their life, and awakened can shatter their core and if done inside a proper seal, with proper amount of manarium or other magical reagents, it might create a stable secret realm following the awakened’s intent.

  — Excerpt from The Secrets of the Secret Realms

  Day 243, 3:50 PM

  Since I didn’t dare request a specific reward, all I got out of my meeting with Lady Frostgrave was a favor token and a warning about being too greedy with the eight elements. She was naturally right; mastering eight elements instead of one would increase the time wasted on techniques by dozens of times, especially because some good habits for one element would amount to bad habits for another if not stunt it altogether.

  Fortunately for me, I had already sunk some time into basic proficiency of all the elements I wielded. As for full mastery, I was merely two to three weeks away from achieving it.

  As for the favor token, it had its uses, should I travel to the winter kingdoms where the Everfrost Order held influence. This far south, it was a nice, shiny trinket, possibly of some value when dealing with members of other orders, but probably not.

  All in all, a very disappointing ending to a very stressful encounter. One that I would need to change. Even the private discussion with Lady Frostgrave about the circumstances regarding how I restarted my realm was a bust. Explaining what kind of life and sanity risk it entailed assured her I was a freak or an extremely lucky gambler.

  Acting like a humble joker gets me nowhere, I thought, leaving the Noble Dragon late in the afternoon. If I wanted anything of value from Iceflow Frostgrave, I would have to present myself as a genius, a man worth befriending. That would mean appearing on someone’s radar.

  The choice was the same one everyone had - take it slow and steady, building for the best possible future or risk it all on a high-risk, high-reward gamble. The former approach actually frightened me more because I saw it as a greater risk. If the outer gods were looking for me, looping over and over just to earn extra crystals by optimizing my actions equated risking my life for money.

  On the other hand, garnering too much attention meant I would have to choose a side, especially since Lady Frostgrave’s trust and favor would back my story far better than I ever could. After all, anyone inquiring about me would go through her, and she would neither lie nor bend the truth. She would just parrot my half-truths.

  Worst-case scenario, multiple factions would fight over snaring me in a slave contract. And as the saying went, better a slave than dead. After all, I could always kill myself while a slave, but dead came with few alternatives, and even those only because of my curse.

  I was nearly at the adventurers’ guild, thinking about how I could provide value, considering what little I knew about Lady Frostgrave. She had brought four wards with her. What would happen if I played matchmaker between one of them and Newstar? That might count as a favor, but better to do something more direct and more practical.

  Lady Frostgrave’s students needed tempering, and I was an adventurer, with access to guild missions, and one of them stood out as something potentially useful for frost-wielding awakened.

  I walked in; the few patrons had already changed from the one in the morning, with only Newstar a familiar face. He sat in the corner, nursing a mug of water. The poor sod had probably ordered it because it was free.

  “Come on, let us get you to the scribes’ guild so you can take the test and annoy Barb.” I smiled at him as he stood.

  “Who’s Barb?” The cheer and excitement were gone from his voice.

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  “What troubles you?”

  “Nothing. A bunch of things. I don’t know.” He sighed, and I motioned him to sit back down. “I checked out the available missions, and going into the jungle to collect fruit pays better than what my family earned while running the mines in the same amount of time. And that’s been going on for at least a decade. Why didn’t anyone look for proper work instead of insisting on being backwater lords? And even then, it’s not like the third-realm family members dug in the mines themselves. Completing missions was a better use of their time and would have gotten them to a higher realm.”

  Well, there were several problems with his logic, but he did have some points. Nobles and those born rich often didn’t know how to adapt to misfortune and bankruptcy. In fact, instead of working, I recall multiple stories of nobles marrying off their daughters to rich merchants in exchange for money. And those were the honorable ones, not resorting to murder of their rich citizens and appropriating their wealth.

  I smiled, not because of Newt’s words, but because I couldn’t remember whether the memory was from Earth or Arborea.

  “You know, completing that mission for second realm crystals takes about a week. And while the mission is perpetually available, after you harvest everything from a single region, you would have to move deeper into the Summersweald and wander. So, it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

  Not to mention, those restaurants wouldn’t offer such rewards if they could send a common serf to do the job. Even if teams of non-awakened took months to get the job done, it would be more profitable.

  The problem was, protecting those people would cost more than just having the guards do the fruit-picking.

  Newstar looked at me with doubt in his eyes.

  “No, really, funding your progress just by being an adventurer is next to impossible. That is why most awakened learn a craft and look at the guild’s boards when they need supplemental income. But that comes with its own problems. Sometimes you have work lined up and deadlines looming, so you miss profitable missions.”

  I continued to explain the dynamics of making money to the young man, certain this conversation wouldn’t happen. Still, after I redo, this version of him will live on for a hundred and sixty years, so hopefully he leads a happier life thanks to what I told him.

  After we had a beer, which I paid for, I took a glance at the job board to memorize them, and we headed for the scribes guild. In truth, the talk about supporting professions was a double-edged sword.

  On one hand, you had a steady source of income; on the other, you wasted moons or years learning a craft, and then even more time practicing it and earning money through it. And that wasted time meant you had less time to advance your realm, making things harder and death closer.

  Ironically, the best professions were the violent ones - assassins, bandits, bodyguards, bounty hunters, gladiators, and similar professionals. While not as well paid as master artisans, they didn’t waste time on learning skills they didn’t need to ascend to the next realm.

  Perhaps I should’ve told Newstar about the benefits of those careers, but for some reason, telling a kid to become a professional mugger or murderer didn’t sit well with me.

  “You know, joining an order or entering the imperial family’s service is also an honorable path,” I said instead, and greeted a passing acquaintance. “Greetings Smallstead.”

  And given Newstar’s talent, they would pay him a premium allowance and support his growth while sending him out on contests and such. He could even remain debt-free despite the resources they granted him.

  That just supported an old idea - push Newstar and one of Lady Frostgrave’s wards together. He could join their order—the problem was his element. It conflicted with the Everfrost Order’s and they almost certainly lacked spells and techniques for fire-attributed awakened.

  Still, it was a line of thought worth considering. As we walked towards the guild, I reviewed the available missions, and the one that stood out - the frostworm culling. It was in an appropriate environment, the frostworm carcasses would almost certainly hold something of value for the members of an ice-focused order, and it was rated at the fourth realm, which a team of four third realm awakened was allowed to take.

  “Dolorna,” I greeted the desk clerk of the scribes’ guild as soon as we entered the building. “Nice to see you. That grumpy old slavedriver is keeping you here this late in the day?”

  The woman beamed a smile and fluttered her eyelashes. “Dandelion, nice to see you. Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Newstar, and he would like to take the test to join the guild. I’ll vouch for him and even pay for his entrance exam.”

  I placed a piece of first realm manarium on the counter.

  “Guildmaster Barb will have your hide if you are wasting his time.” There was genuine concern in her eyes, as if her guildmaster could do anything to me.

  I shrugged, and we waited for the guildmaster to arrive. I ignored his provocations and decided to wait for his exam results.

  “Dandelion!” The youth practically jumped with joy after taking well over two hours to complete the test. “I made it! I made it! I’m an independent, and I got a job as the guildmasters’ assistant.”

  Oh boy, I need to warn him about that from now on.